*Hey everyone! Before I launch into this A/N, I need to say an absolutely enormous thank you to my wonderful beta CountingAllTheStars, who has a new fic out today which you all need to read. Without her help, support, guidance and friendship, this fic wouldn't be the fic that it is currently.

So, I'm back! Hello to all my old friends, you know the drill by now. For those of you who are new to this, I'll be posting a chapter every day, between the hours of 3 and 7, usually hugging the 5pm GMT mark depending on my whimsy. So new AU and this is a big one. There's going to be a lot of action and violence, plenty of betrayal and intrigue, my all time favourite OC who I hope you'll love and more than just a dash of everyone's favourite ship: Whouffle! But, fair warning, the kid gloves are off. This is going to be brutal. As ever, thanks in advance to everyone who reads, reviews, follows and favourites, I hope you enjoy it! And I'll see you tomorrow! TPD*

Clara Oswald had heard the stories. Everybody had. There had been a time when they were just stories, drifting from town to town, little more than rumours. Reports were covered up, they always were, but the stories travelled until it became impossible to cover up. Clara had spent most of her adult life listening to the rumours, listening to the whispers. And then, five years ago, rumours became facts, stories became truths, and people were taken seriously. It wasn't a gas leak that had blown up that block of flats, it was him. It wasn't terrorists that set off bombs in the underground, killing hundreds of people, it was him. It wasn't drunken teenagers who had fallen in with the wrong crowd that had gotten their hands on submachine guns that had shot out that shopping centre, it was him.

And it wasn't just England either. You'd hear reports on the news of oil rigs blowing up, or missiles taking out the Chinese military with no confirmed source or an entire American state's power grid being obliterated. It was all him. Whether it was him or not was irrelevant, because that was what people thought now. After the one confirmed sighting. The one public sighting. Hundreds of people claimed to have seen him and his team. The ragtag bunch of strangers that had followed him. But only once had the news been there, captured it, flashed his image across the world. The skinny idiot with hair as black as night, eyes the colour of melted chocolate, dressed in grey, tussling with a giant lizard monster, whilst a spaceship bombed the city. Clara had seen it of course, everyone had. She had been less than ten miles away at the time, cowering under her kitchen table, praying that the world didn't end as the explosions rocked London.

The world didn't end, it began. The spaceship crashed. Nobody knew what was wrong with it, but it had come colliding down, killing thousands and the man had vanished. The spaceship had disappeared, the government had said nothing about it, but everyone knew the truth. He was out there. Everyone who had met him insisted that he was an angel, protecting the world from that which we weren't ready for. But Clara didn't buy it. She didn't buy that one man, dressed like a street punk could change the world.

There were reports of more of them of course. The red head. The mousy one. The crazy one. And the one with the funny dress sense. But he was always there. The one that they all assumed was the leader. After that first sighting, five years previous, Clara's father had asked her to come back to Blackpool and find work as a teacher there. She put on a brave face, but the truth was, she was glad to be out of the capital. She felt safer up in Blackpool. Clara had been a 'woe is me' kind of person, even after her mother had died. She had just got on with life, eventually, because she had no other choice. When their mum had died, Angie and Artie had needed her, and she had been there. Now, the world was changing again and Clara was determined to not let it get to her.

He was seen again, over the next five years. Only a handful of times publically, once with the one that people referred to as the red head, for obvious reasons. Another time with the one they called the funnily dressed one. Clara did have to admit that the purple jacket and bow tie were a bit conspicuous, but she still referred to him as the big-chinned one in her head. But it was the private signings, the ones that didn't go global; that only the people there could claim was real. Clara was inherently sceptical whenever she saw someone on the local or national news, claiming to have seen him; because it was just as likely that there was a sensible explanation or that these people were just after a moment in the Sun. She never considered that it could happen to her. Never her. She didn't live in London, or New York, or some other big city. She lived in a small village on the outskirts of Blackpool, where nothing ever happened and nobody ever considered him. The only time anybody ever talked about him was when someone from Blackpool appeared on the local news, claiming he'd stolen her cat or something.

Clara was twenty-seven when it happened. When the thing she had told herself would never happen, happened. She had an encounter. The encounter, she would go back to refer to it as. She would never forget the date. The date that had changed her life. The 17th of April 2014. The day that her whole life changed. She didn't like to say that that was when her life began, as that would devalue the first twenty-seven and a half years of her life, but that wouldn't be far from the truth. It also wouldn't be far from the truth to say that that was the day when her life ended.

It had begun just like any other day. Clara woke up and made herself a cup of tea. Milk, two sugars, just the way that she always liked it. She made herself some toast and munched on it whilst watching the news. She wasn't looking for anything in particular and nothing of any interest came up. Economy, plane crash, sports, new Jennifer Lawrence film. The epitome of boring. Clara stripped out of her pyjamas and showered, the hot water undoing some of the hard work that her tea had done in waking her up. Then she chose a dress, red and white polka dots. It was her favourite. It felt like that sort of day. She looked in the mirror, applied minimal makeup, begrudged her hair the fact that it was the most boring length and shade of brown as it hung apologetically by her shoulders, checked that she had everything that she needed for work that morning, and then headed out.

And it carried on just like any other day. She reached school ten minutes early, just as she always did, so said hi to her friends Tom and Danny as she made a fresh cup of tea, lamenting the fact that school made tea was vastly inferior to homemade tea and that the bitch from classroom 12b had stolen her favourite mug. Again. They just rolled their eyes at this. They were used to dealing with Clara's Tuesday morning moaning.

Year 8s up first, a playful and irritating, but essentially harmless easy to control class, which couldn't be said for the vile year 11s that she had afterwards. If she could get through the year without one of them successfully exposing her breasts, it would be a miracle, as one of them made a grab when she got too close. Detention seemed like a fairly tame punishment, as they all seemed willing to risk it for a shot at touching her breast. She highly doubted any of them would ever see a girl's breast without paying for it, but she kept her mouth shut and just shot them steely glares when she passed.

After break, she thankfully had her 12s, who over the course of less than a year, had mercifully managed to outgrow their childish and disgustingly sexist habits and were both well-mannered and vaguely interested in the subject. And she had them for a double. Thank heavens for small mercies. After that it was lunch and Clara called her dad to check in, as she did every Tuesday lunchtime. And he was fine, as he was every Tuesday lunchtime and asked her if she'd found a nice boy yet. She informed him that she had more than enough boys making plays at her without inviting them on. She was single and she was happy and that was all that there was to it. She'd slept around a bit when she was in her late teens and early twenties and didn't regret it for a second, as she'd had a lot of fun, but now she was older, she just wanted to find the right person and until they appeared, she was fine the way she was. She didn't even want a cat to look after, let alone a fully functioning human being.

After lunch, she had year 9, which was a mildly annoying but tolerable class, which hadn't yet reached the age of boob-grabbing, so she could appreciate that, followed by year 13. This was Clara's favourite class, as there were only 7 of them and they were so deeply into her subject that three of them were going to do degrees in it. This meant that they were not only intelligent, but willing to share their own views on books, rather than having it spoon fed to them. If there was one part of teaching that Clara loved, it was when she didn't have to spoon feed. If she'd known that this would be the last time that she'd ever be teaching, she might have put a little more effort in, but she was tired and they were tired and so she let them pack up five minutes early, as she almost always did on a Tuesday afternoon, their last lesson of the day.

She stayed until just gone 5, finishing off her work, as with every other Tuesday. Then, she went home, made herself a nice meal for one (spag bol) and showered, changing into a more casual jeans and jacket for drinks, tying her hair up into a bun. Every Tuesday, she would go out for drinks with Danny and Tom, with a varying array of other teachers occasionally joining. It was always a laugh, as Danny and Tom tried to impress her with their dreadful flirting and pool playing and they would claim that if they could beat Clara at pool, she would have to buy them a drink, but of course they both lost consistently and they all had a few jokes about it. So sure enough, as half 6 rolled around, Clara applied her lip gloss, threw it into her handbag and set off. It was ten minute walk to the pub and, as they were every week, Danny and Tom were involved in an intense game of pool when she got there. Tom greeted her with a wave, as Danny scuffed his shot and swore, greeting Clara with a sheepish grin as she giggled at his failed shot.

"I take it Tom's kicking your arse?" she asked smugly, examining the state of play on the table as Tom moved onto the black and then dispatched it with a sigh of relief and Danny hung his head. "Or should I say, kicked your arse, past tense."

Danny had the good grace not to respond, he merely sipped his pint as the bartender served Clara. He knew her well enough to know she'd order a large white wine and a pint each for Danny and Tom. They'd both be buying her drinks that they'd lose on the pool table for the rest of the evening, and she always felt bad that they bought her drinks, whether she'd earned them or not.

And so the evening passed in similar fashion to the way it always did. They drank, Clara won at pool, they all laughed and joked and a couple of teachers joined them for an hour or so. About 9, after four glasses of wine and three successive victories, Clara decided to call it a night. The boys offered to walk her home, she'd snort and tell them that if she needed help fending off a stray cat on the walk back, they'd be the first two people she'd call for help and then she was off, strolling home in the chilly dark of night.

When Clara had told them that she was only in danger from a stray cat, she hadn't been lying. There was no danger in her little village, as she knew almost everyone in town and rarely did anything happen. Blackpool itself was only a few miles away, but it felt like a whole world away. So she had not even a slight sense of apprehension as she walked home in the dark, with only the odd street lamp to illuminate her journey. She passed through the dark alleyway, the same way she always walked home, without even a second thought, until she reached the halfway point of the alley and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. There was something in the shadows.

As she edged nearer to it, her curiosity overtaking her fear, it became clear to her that it wasn't human. It slithered along and as it came into view, she would have screamed if someone hadn't wrapped their arm around her mouth and said in a very masculine and urgent voice: "Don't. Scream. You'll only antagonise it."

The creature was tall and muscular, but slimy. It seemed to ooze slime, as it left a trail behind it, like a snail. It had no head or limbs. Instead of limbs it had tentacles of varying length sprawling out from parts of its giant torso. It seemed to glide on them and Clara thought that it was a miracle that it could walk at all. The top of its torso opened out and it had what appeared to be a small neck, before it opened out into rows and rows of sharp, pointed teeth around the edges of its circular mouth. Clara was equally interested in the arm around her mouth, but she obeyed its owner's urgent warning, because if it was a choice between listening to it and not, when stared down by this monstrosity, then she chose listening. She didn't exactly trust the person gripping her, but neither did she have much choice in the matter.

"Okay," he hissed, for she was fairly sure that it was a male voice. "When I let go of you, run! Run as fast as you can and don't look back." His arm slacked and then dropped Clara completely. And she stumbled, not looking at him but keeping her eyes on the creature as she backed off, past him and towards the end of the alley. But she didn't run. Once again, after that brief flash, curiosity had overtaken fear and she stayed, lingering so that she could watch what happened next unfold.

The creature moved faster than she could have imagined anything that grotesque and tentacled could move, but impossibly, the man moved faster. Two jets of white light, so bright that they momentarily blinded Clara, shot from his wrists, crashing into the creature, one after the other. The creature let out an ungodly shriek, a noise so horrific, that Clara was surprised that everyone in the village wasn't running out of their homes to investigate. Then the creature slumped, the blows it had taken leaving it sprawled in front of the man. She assumed that it was dead and took a few, tentative steps towards him. He swirled to face her and looked confused for an instant before giving her a bright smile. He was skinny, stupidly skinny. And his hair was as black as the creature he had just killed. His eyes were just like Clara's, the colour of chocolate. He was dressed in black, but it was definitely him.

"You're the one," she murmured, approaching cautiously. "The one from the news."

"That's me," he said with a bright smile. "You alright?" It seemed like an insane question to ask, but Clara was absolutely fine. Physically anyway. So she ignored the question and asked the first thing that came into her mind.

"What is that thing?"

"No idea," he replied, that same, stupid, breezy smile on his face. "I've been tracking it for the best part of two hours, it moves stupidly fast for such a slippery bastard." She'd noticed. "Lost sight of it about twenty minutes ago, but luckily, I had put a tracker on it. Managed to follow it with this." He flashed her a handheld device which he slipped into his pocket. "Anyway, you'd best forget you ever saw me. Or go on the news and say about how I saved your life. I never care either way," he shrugged and Clara walked over determinedly, examining where he'd shot the thing. There were two small holes where the lights had gone into it.

"Who are you?" she whispered to him, running a hand over the thick, slimy hide of the beast until she found the tracker and discreetly slipped it into her left hand. "What are you?"

"You know I'm not going to tell you anything," he said, that same cocksure grin never wavering. "So why are you bothering to ask?" She shrugged at that and felt a bit faint so collapsed into his arms. He caught her gently, running an eye over her as she clung to his back, sticking the tracer onto his back as her other hand groped for something to latch onto, eventually settling into her back pocket to slide out the handset that he'd used to read the tracer. "You sure you're okay?"

"This is all just a bit much," Clara sighed, putting on her girliest voice as she stood up. "I mean, I'm meeting in the infamous Guardian Angel. How can I ever repay you for saving my life?" Clara was a good flirt when she needed to be and sure enough, as she stepped back from him, he was so encapsulated by her performance that he never doubted it for a second.

"You can pretend that we never met," he answered, turning his back on her and she allowed herself a smile. "Now, I'll be going." He shot the creature with some sort of blue ray and it vanished and then he strolled out of the alleyway. Clara followed him, because that was her route home, but he was already gone.

She didn't know what had possessed her to put the tracker on him. Or at least she pretended not to know. She'd pretended for years that she didn't care about him, wasn't the slightest bit interested. But she was. She, just like everyone else on the planet, wanted to know who he was, where he came from, why he did what he did, and more. She was curious. And now she had a way to find him. She pulled out the handset as she walked home and it beeped at her. She wasn't sure exactly the blips meant, but the tracer was telling her that he was somewhere over the Arctic, if the little map on her screen was to be believed, which was why it was an immense surprise to her when he was sitting in her living room when he got home.

"Okay, Clara Oswald," he said as she entered, flicked on the light and screamed at the sight of him. "I'm impressed. You have my attention."

"How do you know my name?" she asked, trying to sound defiant but her voice quivering. He was sat down on her sofa and still smiling, but his presence filled the room and it was impossible not to be intimidated, no matter how friendly his voice. "How did you know where I live?"

"A little birdy told me," he shrugged, tapping his nose knowingly. "I work on information. You're not exactly a difficult woman to learn things about; you don't try to hide anything from the government. One would be surprised how easy government servers are to access and when you know what you're looking for…" he trailed off. "You know, I was very impressed when you placed that tracer in my pocket and your performance was impeccable. You almost had me convinced with that little trick faint and the overawed flirting act. I like you Clara. You're intelligent, you have a cool head and you're not intimidated by me." She had to disagree with that. "Well not as much as you should be," he acknowledged. "You want answers?" She nodded. "Good well I want you."

"I'm…sorry!" Clara spluttered. "You want me?"

"As it happens, there's a spot open in my organisation. You want to know about me, all you have to do is pledge your undying loyalty to me." Something told her that he wasn't joking. "You probably have even more questions now. You want to know why you, I'd have assumed that was obvious. You tried to follow me, tried to track me down. Well here I am. Like I said, I'm impressed. And I have a sense of people, I can read them. I can read you Clara Oswald. And I like you. And I'm not the only one. My right hand man laughed out loud when I told him you'd put the tracer on me. He wants to meet you very much."

"Who's your right hand man?" she asked sheepishly.

"All in good time," he stuck out a hand. "I'm Jake Hunt."

"Clara Oswald," she replied, shaking his hand and feeling increasingly foolish.

"So," Jake Hunt stood and clasped a firm hand on her shoulder. "Shall we get started?"