So this is the first chapter of my new story. Nyla is American…sorry but I'm American and I'd rather have the story be accurate. Also I think this title is temporary. If anyone could think of a better one I'd be happy to replace this one.

I do not own Doctor who, only my characters. Although if anyone could sell it to me I'd gladly accept!

Chapter one: Nyla Mason


"Nyla…. Nyla! NYLA WAKE UP!"

Nyla bolted out of bed and whipped her head around as if looking for danger. Upon finding none, she groaned and let herself fall back onto the covers. "Ugh. Carrie why do you have to do that? I still have 20 minutes before I have to get up for my Modern Experimental Optics class!"

Carrie looked at her as if she were an idiot, which Nyla knew for a fact was not the case. "Nyla you have 5 minutes," she responded slowly, pronouncing each word like Nyla was five years old again.

"What?" Nyla screeched. "No! I needed time!" She began sprinting around the room trying to find the bottle of vinegar she had prepared yesterday. "Crap. Okay Carrie I have to go." Nyla rushed out of the room, only grabbing vinegar, not even bothering to brush her hair.

"You're welcome!" Carrie called after her. "Jeez wake someone up in time for their last class of their junior year and I don't even get a thank you," she mumbled, clearly annoyed.

Nyla ignored Carrie, not wanting to waste time when she barely had any time for what she needed to get done.

Nyla was about five foot five, with wavy dirty blonde hair. Her embarrassingly pale skin and blue eyes emphasized her hair color. At the moment, Nyla was wearing only her flannel bottoms and oversized t-shirt, with her hair completely tangled up.

Sprinting hurt since she had neglected to put some shoes on, but nevertheless she was able to get to the science building with only two minutes to spare. To her relief the professor had yet to arrive, so she could still follow through with the plan if she could finish what she needed to do in time. Nyla looked around to make sure no one was looking, and then slipped over to the podium to find her professor's microelectromechanical airbag sensor that he had been bragging about, when in actuality, her nanoelectromechanical cantilever was much better. Nyla stared at it for a moment, then painfully took a barrette out of her completely destroyed hair and the bottle of vinegar and got to work.


"Okay class, take a seat. Today we're going over diffraction grating spectroscopy. So…." Professor Jameson began lecturing in his deep monotone voice and Nyla found herself staring into space. She knew she should be paying attention seeing as this was a major topic on her final exam, but she couldn't wait to see her professor's reaction to his so called "life changing machine."

He wasn't even the one who invented it! Richard Smally invented it! Nyla shook her head trying to focus on the lecture.

Two hours later, the class was finally drawing to a close, to Nyla's relief. "Ok everyone, before I dismiss you all I was able to bring in the new microelectromechanical airbag sensor! I know you probably can't see it from the back of the room because it's micro but if a force like my hand slams into it, it should blow up into a full sized airbag." Without further ado, Professor Jameson slammed his hand into the sensor, and where the airbag should have exploded came instead a large amount of vinegar. The vinegar spilled all over his papers and notebooks, flooding the podium completely.

Every student in the room stared at Professor Jameson in confusion before a few giggles left some of the girl's mouths. The giggles eventually turned into full on laughs and even Nyla was having a hard time not laughing. Eventually she caved and laughed because the look on his face was priceless.

After a few moments, Professor Jameson apparently regained his ability to move and speak again because his voice carried loudly over the hall of students, "Everyone stop laughing this instant!" The laughter immediately ceased. He was well known for his tough reputation. "Who. Did. This. Well?"

No one responded.

"Listen. You had to pay a lot of money to get into Cornell. You had to work hard to be able to be here, in your junior year. But that doesn't mean I won't fail every single one of you. This class is mandatory for graduation next year, and if you fail I'll be seeing all of you here again while all the other majors graduate. You can spend an extra $43,000 on another school year if the person who committed this act does not step forward."

As much as Nyla hated nearly every kid at this school, she couldn't let Professor Jameson do that to them. Any other teacher and she would have said they were bluffing, but Professor Jameson? No he was serious. He would do it. And since he was best friends with the headmaster, he wouldn't get in trouble for it.

Nyla groaned and stood up. "It was me. Alright I admit it. But come on! You've been bragging about that stupid machine for the past three weeks! I had to! I mean really didn't anyone else find that annoying?" Nyla looked around at the other students but they all looked away, mostly because they all knew that if they agreed with her they'd be facing the same consequences.

Professor Jameson glared at her, "Headmaster's office. Now."

"Alright, alright." She walked out of the building with Professor Jameson nearly pushing her along. As if the whole thing weren't embarrassing enough, Nyla realized she was still dressed in her pjs! I feel like I have a gun to my back the way he's pushing me forward, she thought, beginning to get annoyed when he would tap her back to keep her moving quickly.

When they arrived at the Headmaster's waiting room, Nyla sat down and kicked her feet up on the table. Professor Jameson glared at her, but she ignored him and decided to try and push back the nervous feeling she got in her stomach when the door to the Headmaster's office opened.

"Brian what's the meaning of this?" Headmaster Keller asked, not unkindly.

"Nyla decided to destroy my microelectromechanical airbag sensor using vinegar, which also destroyed all my papers! I spent five years on some of those papers!" Professor Jameson exclaimed.

"What and you don't have backups? What kind of professor doesn't keep backups on papers?" Nyla retorted.

"That's not the point! The point is that you've gotten into more trouble than you're worth! You might be the smartest kid in the class, but that doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want!" Professor Jameson yelled.

"Brian calm down," the Headmaster said coolly. "Nyla will be punished." Turning to Nyla he began, "Nyla you've gotten into amazing amounts of trouble the past few years, and the only reason we haven't let you go is because you bring up the GPA. Even when you were admitted here at 16 years old, you managed to get kicked out of all the dorms but one. I told you a month ago that if you got into trouble again you'd be kicked out. So where does that leave us hm?"

"Headmaster Keller please! I made this great nanoelectromechanical cantilever! I mean it can measure the weight of an individual atom! Please don't kick me out. I only have one year left." Nyla pleaded.

"One year left to destroy the college's reputation?" Professor Jameson remarked sarcastically.

The Headmaster nodded in agreement. "Honestly Nyla, I don't care what you've built any more. Professor Jameson was right. You're more trouble than you're worth. Because of that, you will no longer be attending Cornell. I want all of your items packed and out of the dorm by 6pm tonight. This is actually generous because I'm not making you pay back the money we gave you on scholarships."

"But-" Nyla started.

"But keep arguing and I might. Now leave," Headmaster Keller said calmly.

Nyla sighed and left the office. On the way out she managed to kick Professor Jameson's leg pretty hard, knocking the smirk right off his face.

Okay, Nyla thought, feeling a bit numb as she realized where she would have to go back to. Right pack everything up.

Nyla headed back to the dorms and packed everything into boxes that Carrie had been able to find for her. Carrie was just as eager for Nyla to be gone as Professor Jameson was. Pausing to think about it, Nyla realized that there probably weren't a lot of people that would actually miss her. She had been a bit of an ass to everyone on campus, and since she was younger and smarter than everyone else, the only reason anyone usually talked to her was to see if she could do their homework. With a shrug Nyla resumed packing. It didn't really bother her too much. Her entire life had been like that, but she wasn't looking for pity. They were the facts, and Nyla had learned to live with them long ago.

When Nyla finished she nodded goodbye to Carrie and went back to her foster home in New York City.


Mmm smell that polluted New York City air, Nyla thought with a grin.

As soon as she stepped off the bus, cameras flashed in her face, blinding her.

"Is it true you got expelled from Cornell?"

"What exactly happened?"

"Did you have an accomplice?"

Nyla pushed through the throng of reporters, a little creeped out that this meant so much to people. Sure she was the smartest girl in the country who just got kicked out of an Ivy League school, but who actually cared? Nyla stepped into the foster home and slammed the door shut, sighing in a mixture of relief and disappointment. Relief because she didn't have to see those stupid reporters any more, no matter how temporary, disappointment because she swore to herself when she left this place that she was never going to come back. The old foster home held too many painful memories.


Days later and the reporters still didn't go away.

Jeez why do people want to know about this so badly? She thought exasperatedly. This building is driving me nuts and the reporters make it impossible to get out side. I need to get away. With that thought in mind, Nyla snuck down to the bank in a guise and withdrew all of her savings, or at least the savings she had left. She bought a one way ticket for England and two days later she was in a brand new country.

Nyla took a taxi from Gloucester Airport, telling the driver to drop her off at the smallest town in the area. She didn't have any luggage, she had decided to leave everything in America and start fresh. After a drive that felt like forever to Nyla but in reality was only a half hour, Nyla walked down the silent road. There were a few people milling about, but true to what she asked the taxi driver for, Leadworth was a very small town.

She was just about to go into the library and apply for a job when a man dressed in scrubs biked right into her back. She fell to the ground, but thankfully was able to get her arms out in time to stop herself from landing on her head.

"Ugh even in a small village I manage to get hurt," Nyla muttered to herself with a groan.

"Oh are you alright?" The man tried to help her up, but she waved him off.

"Just peachy," she snapped, rolling her eyes, "because you know after I get hit by a bike I feel a million times better."

"I'm sorry… You're not a very happy one are you?"

Nyla looked the man up and down, "Sorry I'm not in a very happy mood as of late." The man was kind of short, with flat brown hair and green eyes. He was dressed in scrubs and had a light grey jacket on. The man looked a little awkward just standing there though. It was as if he wasn't exactly sure what to do.

"It's fine… You aren't from here though. I know everyone in Leadworth. Plus you have an American accent." This time it was the man's turn to scrutinize her. He noticed that the tactless woman was young, no more than maybe 20 years old. She had dirty blond hair and blue eyes, and was dressed in a navy blue three-quarter sleeve shirt, with black leggings and flat black knee-high suede boots. As Nyla began talking again he moved his attention back to what she was saying.

"Yeah I just moved," Nyla shook her head. "I had some issues back in the US so I moved here."

"Don't most Americans go to London to see the sights or something?"

"Yeah well, didn't want the big city. Asked the taxi driver to give me a lift to the smallest town he knew and here I am."

The nurse stuck out his hand awkwardly, "Well I'm Rory Williams. I'm a nurse down at the hospital…" He looked down at himself then back at her, "although I guess you might have figured that bit out."

Nyla nodded and shook his hand. "My name's Nyla Mason. I used to go to Cornell but- I had some issues there. Before you biked into me, I was gonna go into the library to try and get a job, and then hopefully find a place to stay. You wouldn't happen to know a place nearby would you?"

Rory thought for a moment and shook his head. "There's no tourist season or anything in Leadworth, which means there's also no hotels. My girlfriend- I mean friend- Well…. Yeah…she has a nearly empty house and could use the money."

"Alright let's go find this girlfriend-friend of yours."

Nyla dragged Rory down the road towards where she figured the house was when Rory called out, "Yeah um we're going the wrong way."

Nyla abruptly turned in the opposite direction dragging Rory by his hood down the street.