And what better way to start than by jumping into the action!

"Amelia Pond," the Doctor clapped his hands together, rubbing friction between his warm palms. He broke into a madman's grin, face rent with its maniacal nature. Taking the ramp two twirls at a time, Amy watched as his fingers danced and waved intricate patterns into the air, whirling round and round with a flourish only he possessed; one that found a smile tracing out a fond design against her creamy skin. She shook her head at his antics, crossing her arms over her flannel-clad chest as he made his merry way around his console. Flicking switches and flapping knobs, he asked her, "What shall we do today?"

Before Amy could speak however - finger poised and ready to answer - a sickening smell filled the TARDIS.

A pop crackled and electricity fizzled in the air, a palpably heady mixture of sulfur and ozone smog ghosting across the bright expanse of the blinking console room. The Doctor, caught in the fire of the unknown spark, yelped and coughed, waving his arms wildly about in an effort to diffuse the thin veil of smoke surrounding him. The cloister bell sounded, its mighty gong lost to his racking splutters. The TARDIS chimed fervently again, in an attempt to gather his attention towards the perceived threat to no avail. He hacked into his hand, his eyes tearing from the rotten smell. He gave quick thanks to the evolution of his race for the respiratory bypass, which helped him in this particular scenario, before more of the vile stank filled his nostrils and his suffocated lungs were thrown under the burning sensation of the gas.

From her perch, Amy's eyes widened. Despite the shroud of gray haze covering the mid-level of the ground floor, a stoic shadow caught her crafty eyes as it blinked into existence from the center of the spark. Blinking, her mouth fell agape, bewildered at the image before her. That couldn't be – shouldn't be – possible. Right?

The Doctor sprinted over to her, his arm covering the lower half of his face as he ran like a streaking blur from the noxious fumes.

"Amy, Amy, are you hurt, Amy – Amy!" he cried out with urgency, floundering about her body with the sonic, his arms flapping uselessly by his sides like a flustered mother hen, scrutinizing and clucking around every inch of her.

Clearing her throat, Amy raised a slender finger upwards in an almost lazy gesture, her hand flopping back. Her eyes locked on a target straight ahead, her brow knit as she tried to form a way to begin this.

She went the way she knew best; straightforward.

"Doctor," she said his name in the guttural accent she had never lost – so Scottish, forever and always this Amelia Pond, the little girl in the English village. She licked her lips, extending her hip as she rested a hand atop it. "Who's tha'?"

With a winded chuckle, the Doctor breathed out a, "Who's who?" cracking a smile and pivoting on his heel to look at what held his companion's interest.

His smile faltered, slipping as his hand did, trailing an arc through the air with slow, heavy limbs, the green light of his sonic fading as his finger left the control. The sound of silence buzzed louder than his tool. Standing amidst the dissipating smoke was a man the Doctor thought he would never see again – could never see again. A face he only saw in the mirror on those sleepless weeks when delusions fought for dominance over the rational functions of his brain and won.

Amy watched as a figure swathed in dark hues brushed dust off himself, taking a deep pull of clean air as the TARDIS cleansed itself, dispersing the airborne pathogens and sucking the toxins into special filters and pockets. She appraised him and noted that the man wore leather as worn and rough as his face, dark burgundy v-neck that fit close to his body snugly, accentuating the ridges of muscle beneath the thin fabric, underneath the jacket. Large hands stuck out from the jacket that suited him like a knight to armor. His short-cropped hair clung close to his head, a patch of hair as dark as his brooding eyes were clear. She looked upon his eyes next and was taken aback by the startling quality, as piercing and striking as cut-diamond, they glanced about the TARDIS as a snarl curled his upper lip in obvious discontent. Dark denim covered his lower half and scuffed loafers looking weary from use seemed to mark this man for a runner, and quite a good one at that. With his physique she had no doubt this man could complete a marathon – or twelve. He took another displeased sniff and Amy tried to stifle her giggle as she noticed his big ears and accompanying nose, not given much time to reflect on these when another snap cracked the air.

Coughing and waving a hand in front of his face, a new man stood a distance away from the other, on the opposite side of the room; his eyes squinted against the slighter smoke that enveloped him in a gauzy mist. Amy was pleased that this go-around went much less violently, an easier transition, and was even more pleased upon viewing the unexplained visitor.

"Doctor," she trilled excitedly, bobbing her head appreciatively as the man blinked in rapid succession, whirling around with wide eyes, his coat skirting and fanned out around him. "Who's tha'?"

Mouth parched and suddenly dryer than his aching lungs, the Doctor had finally found a moment when he was at a complete and total loss. Thousands of possibilities rushed by in his head – marking the tally up to 1,342 of ways of why this incident could be very not good – none of them able to take shape as they bombarded each other like the crashing of waves against rocky beach.

Ignoring him regardless, never having the intention to listen to his prattle in the first place, Amy drank in an eyeful of this delicious new man before her. Much like the previous man, he wore a coat that seemed to mark him for who he was – an innate feeling Amy knew to be correct. The dusty trench was donned like a fond friend and an even closer ally around the slim shoulders of this newcomer. He wore a form-fitting suit that hugged his features in an intimate embrace, a blue oxford beneath a chestnut brown jacket, a swirly-patterned tie and matching slacks to boot. His trousers were fine pressed and peeking out to say hello from beneath them were the man's dirty old white trainers, off-setting the rest of the ensemble, but complimenting the man all the same. Quite unlike the leathery man beside him, this one had plumes of outrageous hair. Amy's hand reached out from no accord of her own as the fluffy mass called to her, as brown and scrumptious as the Doctor's own hair beside her. But this man, whose spiky hair that hung a fringe over his brow and trailed across the rim of thick-wired spectacles, seemed older than her Doctor.

Staring out around the TARDIS in obvious shock, he wheeled around numerous amount of times before settling on his previous position, legs wide-spread, his Adam's apple bobbing as he tried to grasp the enormous entirety of the situation.

Amy wanted to walk over and – among many things, though to keep her propriety as a married woman, she simply wanted to – console him. She remembered her first time on the TARDIS well.

"At least you're not in your nightie," she wanted to say with a laugh, break the tangible tension in the room.

Swaying in her spot though, she glimpsed the stricken form of the Doctor as he stared with horror at the sight of these two men. Blinking in confusion, Amy leant closer to him and whispered, "So, Doctor, who are these guys?"

He tried to open his mouth to speak, to answer, to do anything besides think of the immense, catastrophicdanger this posed – the collapse of the galaxy, pock-marking a fissure in this solar system double the size of Belgium, what with the additional man on board. It was bad enough when there was only one other to deal with, now he had two and this was so very, very not good. He seemed to have lost motor function in his jaw as his brain refused to send the receptive message to the proper nerve endings, instead having his hand spasm around its hold on his screwdriver. Amy's lips rolled in on themselves, her brow rising to her hairline as he refused to speak. She was about to punctuate a slow, "Okay," but lost the chance as the gruff man spoke up.

"So who are you then?" his thick accent reminded Amy of the rare times government representatives from up in Yorkshire came to trouble the people of Leadworth with tax collections and other useless government trifles she hadn't paid the slightest bit of attention to. The leathery man knocked his head over to the stranger in the long coat.

The man's face contorted, shifting planes of facial musculature reconstructing before her eyes as he tried to articulate a proper sentence, most of his words spilling out in, "Ehms," and "Wells," and multiple, "Uhs," fitted in. His scuttling fingers kept prancing lightly across his brow, never settling on one place and having difficulty talking to this man. From the clear recognition in his voice and stance, Amy knew that long coat knew leather, but that the relationship wasn't mutual. She questioned that from where she stood, glancing over periodically and noting that the Doctor had yet to move anything more than his spasmodic fingers. He ended up placing his scrambling fingers over his right side burn and scratching the patch as if for comfort, or some grip to hold onto.

Amy saw the flicker of realization flash in the cold eyes of the man, softening his features for a moment of vulnerability, before returning with an even harder edge. He snorted, his eyes catching an inner fire that seemed to spit venom as harsh as his words.

"Huh. So this is who I am, then? I turn into a bloody pretty boy," he bit out a self-depreciating laugh, the sound making Amy cringe. It was rough and brutal and completely self-inflicted, probably the worst part to witness. He chuckled in the same demeaning way, shaking his head at the ill fortune of it all. "Oh and I bet Rose just loved that, didn't she? Ate that right up."

The name caught a spark of recognition in the back of Amy's mind, but it was the man in the trench that stole away her thoughts.

Upon hearing the words, the man seemed to have broken, his face dropped of all its carefully crafted and placed guards. The name was like kryptonite, coursing, shooting its poisonous, green venom and injecting it into his veins, coiling around in his blood stream as his empty hearts pumped the poison faster. Only this venom was pink and yellow and bright and luminescent. All the things he missed in the world, in the universe far, far away.

The leathery man turned away in time, grunting low in his throat once more, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway, nothing could school the man in the trench's expression.

For too long, he had been running. Running, always running; running from time, running from punishment, running from songs, and running from that name. For too long and too hard, he had run. Then came the time where he was forced to stop, witness all over the pain of losing those – losing one – dear. It had only been just recently that he had stepped off that beach and away from her, to walk alone and carry out a task that would break his hearts in the end as always. To lose two precious people in one day, after watching the rest saunter away, just as his own fate bespoke of. That was his curse, he knew - his bane and lot in life - to forever carry out the duties and mete out the punishment the universe deemed unto him.

His hearts had shattered so many times because of it; they lay broken and wheezing, barely beating a stifled pulse in his chest. The cavity there was just that. Not a scientific word, but a dense hole that seemed to swallow him whole from the inside and out. Like a black hole on a distant, impossible, planet.

It was like it was only yesterday that he had watched that mirror of himself, the part courageous and human enough to, love her. He couldn't stomach the sight, not when he hadn't the privilege to do it himself. It was selfish, but it felt justified in the face of what he had given up and what he was also about to. He turned and walked away as briskly as he could, ever the coward, even from the days when he donned leather and a sour countenance. Now that face followed him everywhere, haunting him in his sleepless nights, seeing that smile catch light behind every close of his eyelids. Inhaling her intoxicating scent past every jasmine flower shop, seeing that coupled with the flower of her namesake. Taunting him, mocking him, the same way as Time did – just as it always had. And when he had tried to harness Time unto himself, It had betrayed him. Just as he had his people. It only seemed befitting for It to do so, take away his victory.

But there was no victory in the blood of an innocent woman. There was no glory, no honor, in being the last and claiming a self-prophesized victory.

Still though, to hear that name escape so easily, to be scoffed at as it was, sent a razored barb through the remnants of his clamoring hearts. Had life really been so simple back then, where his only troubles were pretty boys named Adam or Ricky - and a Slitheen named Blon Fel-Fotch? Looking at his brooding past, as he grimaced and sneered at the new TARDIS décor, he only wished he could return to those times. Or at least to the time when he was just the New New Doctor on his way to a New New Earth with the same and marvelous, old Rose Tyler.

The haunted look Amy saw in the man's eyes was all too familiar. She saw it in the Doctor's eyes often when he thought no one was around to see him. All those lonely nights where he would sneak into the console room, flip buttons and tweak levers and twiddle with fiddly-bits, carrying the saddest of eyes, eyes that could drown entire planets in his sorrow. A sorrow he had never shared, only ever evaded, with her, despite the constant prodding. She could tell that the man before her was the same. He looked as if he had the weight of countless worlds on his shoulders and his back bowed at the pressure – at the grief. She wanted to walk over to him, to pat his shoulder and try to lift some of that weight, feeling an odd sort of connection with him, the same way she had the moment she had met the Doctor. There was a certain pull about him, like he radiated with a central magnetism that brought people closer.

The leathery man cut her off before she could even begin her first step.

"An' you, baby-face," Amy whipped her head around to see the stock-stilled Doctor snap his eyes over to the man, the fractional movement he still seemed capable of doing. "Wha' gives then, eh - I assume this is your handiwork. An' what's so wrong about lookin' your age? Why is it that you go about gettin' yourself younger?" he hmmphed and crossed his arms over his broad chest, shrugging his shoulders. "I see nothin' wrong with looking your age. Especially seein' as I apparently get stupider with it."

The dusty man in the trench brought himself back from the deadness of his daze, choking on words and suffocating, drowning, in his despair at that comment.

"Well," he began, wincing as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, you say that now, but trust me when I tell you you do not want to be looking your age. Been there done that, not very fun to be honest, kind of a bore – especially when the whole of humanity rests on 900 years worth of aged shoulders, isn't that right?" he turned to address the Doctor, a brief smile flickering across his features.

Clearing his throat a few times, the Doctor made to answer, but as per recently, was caught off by his brusquer past self.

"And another thing," he glared around, whisking his head this way and that. "What've you done to the TARDIS? It's gone an' changed. Was it you?"

He pointed the finger at the man in the trench coat to Amy's bewilderment who simply raised his hands up quickly by his head, his eyes wide, and mouth a thin line as he sought to placate the angry, leather man. He turned his down-tilted glare towards the Doctor, quirking his lips as if he knew he was the one all along.

"So you're to blame then, I might've known. Goin' an' changin' the theme - look at her! She was great when I had 'er, an' now look," he said scornfully, belying such entreatment with a soft touch against one of the coral ruts, rubbing his fingers into the rough texture like a lover's caress, massaging the machine with expert fingers. His face jumped into an eye-creasing grin as the TARDIS hummed happy and warm beneath his touch, like she missed this stranger man dearly. He gave another fond pat and rounded back on the Doctor, his gaze penetrating and making the man flinch instinctually.

Amy chuckled awkwardly. "Um," two sets of eyes turned to her as if they had just noticed her presence. One pair regarded her curiously, a glimmer of something pressing against the backs of his irises sending shots of electricity right through him to his very core. He whipped his gaze to the Doctor, pain brimming and ringing his eyes red as a realization seemed to dawn on him the moment he looked at Amy, the young ginger full of fire and spunk. So much like the one before her…

The other set seemed to tighten around the piercing blue edges. Amy took a step back, unsettled by the eyes that bore hard and pressing into hers, as if simmering by her presence alone.

"When you say you had her," she took a cautious step forward. "Wha' exactly do you mean by that?"

The gruff man straightened up, his expression shifting as something tugged at the back of his mind.

"But more to the point," he blatantly ignored her question and substituted it for one of his own, looking around and for all the world like a dog that had heard the high pitch of a whistle only he could hear. "Where's Rose gone off to?"

There went that name again. Amy rolled her eyes, this was ridiculous - how many more times would she have to see that poor fluffy-haired man flinch at the name of a flower.

"Who?" Amy bit out sharper than she had intended, aggravated by the unresponsiveness of the Doctor and the surprisingly unusual nature of this scenario.

Time seemed to have stopped, a great feat in an already time-locked ship. The room went deathly silent and Amy could feel the crackling energy lying dormant and in wait just beneath the surface. It was that same energy that brought these men here.

"Who?" the leather man asked with a voice so quiet, it seemed fatal just listening to. "Who?" he repeated, driving deeper the wedge in the slim man's heart who remained solid and impassive despite his quivering heartbeats.

The anger this man contained, the sheer magnitude and force behind each stride he took was astounding; nearly blowing her over with the gushing, crackling aura surrounding him. It was as if his anger had become sentient, raging and roaring like the epicenter of a crashing wave, the effects spilling over and buffeting her in its – his – sheer might. He was like a storm, all rage and fired movements, his body jostling as he tried to remain in control of himself, despite the spinning anger within. But this storm had no calm. And this storm was quickly approaching her. If Amy didn't move, she knew she would be caught up in this torrential gale of the oncoming storm. Tripping on her heels in her haste to backpedal, the man stepped past her, his hulking figure bearing down on the much slimmer Doctor, his original focus, instead.

"Who the hell is Rose – who the hell is this then? Who the hell have you brought onto my TARDIS?" The Doctor, nearly leaping from his skin at the close proximity of his former self, not wanting to touch and create a paradox in the already warring heart of the TARDIS, steadied himself as best he could while keeping as much space as from the man, who seemed uneasily intent on pressing himself as close to himself, as possible. "Now I'll ask again – where – is – Rose!" He all but shouted in the Doctor's face, spittle flying as his body jerked against what he hoped not to be true, trying to deny the possibility that Rose wasn't here because of him.

The Doctor opened his mouth, but another voice filled it. A voice that had once belonged to that same but oh so different mouth, once upon a time.

"She left."

Panting heavily, the leather man glowered into the eyes so old in the face so young of the Doctor's. Keeping his eyes trained on those eyes that had once held his own blue, he spat, "What?" but the fire was lacking, burnt out until charred cinders remained.

Amy felt relieved when she saw the man's shoulders sag, hating herself for taking appreciation out of this man's obvious defeat. Then she remembered that rage he placed on the Doctor and found herself at peace with her indifference. Nobody messed with her best friend. And once the man in the trench did his preaching, she was going to do hers. A woman with nails was a much fiercer opponent than a man with his words when concerning Amelia Pond. Four therapists and seven bite marks were proof of that.

The man in the trench coat took a stabilizing gulp, inhaling and exhaling in measured breaths. "She left," he answered again, thankful his voice remained steady. He released another breath and felt the remainder of his hearts leave him with it, fluttering away as frail as if nothing held them down anymore. He had lost all his connections, what else did he have left? Two broken hearts that beat only because they must.

"Wha' d'you mean, 'she left'?" the stoic man tried to keep his posture strict, but his back bent further as the evidence came to him. If Rose had been here, truly stayed with him – any him - and been here, she would have run out by now. At least come to say hello.

Thoughts of what he must have done to scare her off flittered into his mind like the nagging buzz of a bee, stinging at his already insecure sensibilities regarding a one Rose Tyler. Now the fact of the matter was, the blinding truth that stared him in the face – a ginger girl instead of a blonde - he was going to lose her – and he knew it would be his fault. Was to be his fault. Was always going to be his fault.

Shifting in his place, the man stuffed his hands into the large pockets of his coat. He sniffed, pretending it didn't matter, pretending the hurt didn't take the sting of a thousand sharp needles, puncturing his skin with every false word he spoke. "She's gone. I…I let her go."

This raised a flag. The man's brow quirked above his shock of blue eyes, aware of the distinct change in wording. Amy watched as in those clear blue depths, the reflection of understanding pass through them. There was a definite change in the words the fluffy-headed man had said. Diction was everything and the man in leather wasn't about to let this nuance slide.

"You…" he breathed a laugh out his nose, grinning lopsidedly as he stared at the ground, his hand clapping to his side. "You let her go?"

Straightening up, the man nodded, sticking his chin in the air as he studied the man down the line of his nose in open challenge. "I did."

He gave the appearance of being tall, of feeling a pride he currently did not have. A pride he hadn't had in a long time. A pride that had left him the moment Donna had. Had left him the minute Rose, Jack, Mickey, Martha, Jackie, Sarah Jane, and everyone else did. His pride left with them because they were all the good he wasn't – that he no longer had. They were all the good in the world he sought to be. They were the embodiments of everything that had been taken away from him, all the good, while he was left with the bad. With the crazed mind and the lonely hearts and the bloody hands and the dirty soul of a broken man. So he put up the farce, created the pretense of pride.

Which had been the worst move out of any and really, he should have known that.

Amy gasped as suddenly the man in the trench clattered to the floor in a grunting heap. In a flash too quick for her eye to catch, to even begin to register, the leathery man who had appeared right before her was over by the other man in the blink of an eye. He stood over the other's prone body, his chest heaving and fist throbbing, poised just beside his face where he had used the compressed pressure in his muscles to reel a punch so hard into the man, it knocked him off his feet.

"No!" the Doctor cried out, his hand flying outwards to ward off the impending danger this would cause; but it was too late.

The fight had begun as the Cloister bell rang out, like the starting mark of a beginning boxing match. The damage had been done and now the weight of two Belgiums rested on his shoulders. This was so - very, very not good.

A/N: Don't worry, next chapter will bring some more Eleven. After all, this is his ship now, even if it is currently being re-commandeered.

Oh and, like how I couldn't not incorporate Rose into this story. Yeah. What can I say, she haunts me as surely as she does Ten.

Next chapter: A few new character introductions are made in a completely unconventional - or rather, a very Who-conventional - way and it's time for the Doctor to get a start on this impending doom business. And he may require the service of a very unique friend of his for this.