This is for shiggles and to reassure myself that I'm not destroying my writing abilities. Let me know what you think, please, good or bad. I can take it.

I do not own Doctor Who, blah, blah, blah. Also posted on tumblr.

"So tell me—what part are we at?"

John spins on his heel to find a lady standing in the garden, quite plainly where no one had been before. The noise had vanished and the wind died down. Now it was just him and this lady, who wore a smile as sugared as his tea and eyes that laughed with a thousand years.

"Pardon?"

"What part are we at?"

"Do I know you?"

"You mean, you don't remember?"

"Weren't you the neighbor girl when Rory lived on Wisteria? Sat Sixth Form early?"

"No… you really don't remember, do you?"

The woman brushed the palm of her hand over John's cheek as she stared into his eyes. They were no longer laughing, but deep and vast and stretched the ages. She took her hand away and began to check her blush in a compact mirror.

"Then maybe it isn't the right time," she pondered. "Perhaps I should just go solo for the next leg of the trip. Do things for myself, you know. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, some hobnobbing with Romanovs and Alpha Freglitchoris would do me some good."

"Wait… you're alone?"

"Yes. It's not all that bad. Get to go where I want, do what I want, see what I want, be when I want. It's not a bad life, if you look at the bright things."

John stared at the stranger as she began on her lipstick, applying the cosmetic with deliberate precision. He wondered where she had been, where she was going, and what on Earth what an Alpha Freglichori was. A feeling fluttered in the pit of his stomach—it was guilty and embarrassing yet still felt right.

"Miss…"

"Doctor."

"Miss Doctor, can I ask you something?"

"Certainly, love."

"See, I figure, travelling alone, it can't be fun, and I don't want to bother you or anything, but—"

"Yes John, you can come."

"Wait, how did you…?"

"None of that matters. You're here, I'm here, and we're ready for an adventure. You ready?"

"Of course. Where are we going to go first, Doctor?"

She simply smiled and purred: "Spoilers".

She took him by the hand and began to walk through the garden. John had to grab his tophat to keep it from flying off due to the brisk pace this Doctor lady was going.

"Wait, my friends…"

"They'll barely know you've gone."

"…but, I'm the Best Man and the Maid of Honor! Those are my best mates in there having their first dance!"

"I'll return you to five minutes from now, promise."

Before John could question the stranger's logic, they stopped at a hedge. Nestled neatly in the corner, a blue police call box sat, glowing and humming a soft, warm thrum.

"…but, it's a police box."

"It's 2010. When was the last time you saw a police box? Go inside."

John cautiously pushed open the door and gasped. Large and spacious. Oranges and blues. Levers and dials and flippers and whatzits. He turned around to face the Doctor, a sloppy smile on his face.

"You really can bring me back in five minutes, can't you?"

"I most certainly can," the Doctor smiled. She closed the door and bounded up to the control panel and began hitting and turning and flipping little unlabeled things. John came up behind her, and gasped.

"I'm in my rental tux!"

The first time he holds a gun, he doesn't like it.

Well, technically it wasn't the first time he'd held one in his life—he, Amy, and Rory were the best paintball commandos in their neighborhood—but a gun that shoots hot lead and damages more than just clothes is just so jarringly different it leaves a terrible taste in his mouth.

They had met up with a strange man, William Kentarch. He was aiding some soldiers in a geological survey where a ship had crashed into a seaside cliff on a planet whose name the Doctor decided to not divulge. They were attempting to find a way to the ship through the caves situated on the beach; apparently the cargo was important.

Primitive artwork lined the walls. John wanted to stop and study them, learn all William could tell him about the people that once lived there. Who were they? What made them leave? Why did the paintings depict two-headed beings when the statuary were equipped with one? Was that an artifact of spiritual connotation?

Before he knew it, one of the torches went. William cursed—a statue had moved in the darkness before him, forcing him to look it directly in the eyes. The statues weren't really statues at all, apparently, and were actually scavengers. Soldiers were dropping as the Doctor and John led William through the subterranean maze blind.

"Whatever gazes upon the image of an Angel becomes an Angel," the Doctor had said when they reached the dead end. The remaining solders tried shooting the creatures. What they needed to do was look up, John thought. There was the ship, ready to provide them with the light necessary to keep their attackers at bay—if only the hatch would open. A moment of panic gripped John, and he acted out of instinct. He wrenched one of the future-y rifles from a soldier, raised it above his head, and pulled the trigger.

John didn't know why, but the Doctor was being very kind to him. They were going to more fantastic places than normal and every so often John would notice a sad look on the Doctor's face as she looked at him. It was then that she took him to see Lady Ada "Lovelace" King, the world's first computer programmer… well, technically anyways. Sort of. It was close enough for John.

Ada was smart and snarky and lovely and did he mention smart? 'Cause she was, even if she did not fully understand everything she was doing. It was 1852 and John knew she would have passed on by year's end of cancer. It was sad to look at her, to know she had such a short time left.

That did not mean she was fragile though. She was still as feisty as anyone. She took on a Dalek with a comically-oversized wrench and picked out a flaw in their doomsday programming within seconds. Brunel was impressed, and impressing him could be difficult on occasion. Had John mentioned that Isambard Kingdom Brunel was there too? That's because he was—there were meetings he needed to attend in London over the progress of Paddington Station. The adventure literally became something from the history books.

Before John left, Ada asked him to marry her—they'd run away and start a new life together in New York City amongst the most forward-thinking and high-class minds in the world. They would have children and they could figure out this confounded difference engine of Babbage's because it simply fascinated the both of them and they could rule the whole of America with their cunning and wit. Possibly just the social scene, because really what else do Americans care about?

No, he replied, telling her with a heavy heart that he was never in the history books and she belonged in England. It hurt him, really, to let her go like that. He cried and the Doctor let him.

"At least you know," she said, "that you definitely added to her pile of good things."

The Welsh. A drill. The crack in the wall. Lizard people. Humans too… what was their names? Were they even really there? A man and a woman, his age. Possibly?

John never bothered to ask. It was only a bad dream, after all.

A bad dream he had been having for a while.

"My name is Roranicus Pondicus," the centurion said, shaking John's hand. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder and groaned. "That there is my wife, Amelina." John looked over the centurion's shoulder to see a red-haired lady shouting loudly at some soldiers, bossing them about something fierce. "Don't ask why she's here. It's always best to not ask."

John nodded with a grin—he felt like he knew what the centurion was talking about. They then went off and had some manly discussions while Amelina began to tease the Doctor and Marc Antony about being the perfect couple.

Actually, the discussions were not very manly and Marc Antony was actually William in a wig. It just made John feel better, is all.

William knew he was not a good man, so it amused him when the Dalek imagined he would show it mercy simply by being one of the Doctor's friends.

"Check your records again," he ordered, lowering the phaser and taking aim. "William. Kentarch."

The Dalek paused, and then asked for mercy. No, it did not ask… it pleaded. A smile crept on William's face as he fired his phaser directly into the Dalek's eye stalk.

A Kentarch only gives mercy to those not in his way.

One envelope was addressed to the "Ponds". One was for "J. Smith". Another to an elderly American man named Canton who looked so very, very sad. A fourth brought William there. An old spacesuit came out of the lake and killed the Doctor—they burned her body to destroy her DNA. Canton did not stay for long, leaving the rest of them to mourn themselves. The four nearly died themselves when the Doctor popped out of a diner restroom, alive, well, and thoroughly confused.

This was definitely not in the correct order.

Amy and Rory were glad when the Doctor told them John was acting odd, mainly so that they knew they weren't going crazy themselves.

Two weeks prior, John had received a parcel out of the blue. It was filled with so much science-y stuff that it could have only come from the Doctor, or so they thought. He had put a thing on his wrist that made him vanish for a whole weekend. When John came back he landed in the middle of his best friends' coffee table. The pub league he was involved in had a match in an hour, so John borrowed Rory's rarely-used kit and sort of wobbled off without much of a word concerning where he had been all weekend. At the match he even hit his head on the crossbeam of the goal, which was very unlike him. He had been acting so oddly since then that Amy and Rory carved a message in a wheat field for the Doctor to come at once.

When the Doctor came, John held the other three at gunpoint; he wanted to have a bender in Stalin's Kremlin, because why not and all.

No one argued—there was clearly something wrong, if the overpowering stench of vodka was anything to note. It was best to not test him.

John's bender was not the most pleasant thing in the world.

The TARDIS, bless, materialized at the Kremlin just in time for the Yezhovschina… right in the middle of a photo-doctoring darkroom to be precise. They were arrested immediately and brought before Stalin himself. He was in a rather cross mood considering he was missing most of his military staff and he required someone to delegate. He was furious when he saw Amy's short skirt (which he saw as some sort of Capitalist indulgence or something similar; he had been foaming at the mouth at the time), but Rory took care of that.

Well, Rory thought he took care of that. It turned out that none of the guards liked him touching their leader very much, so they began to charge. John, still smelling quite strongly of the soldiers' unofficial drink, put himself between Rory and a trio of burly-looking blokes. They fought, and in the meantime Stalin wriggled free and shot John in the back.

Rory flung Stalin back, but it was too late. John began to glow and his body hissed. Soft specks of light swirled around him as if it was sand. The soldiers all cleared the room, terrified of what evil had been unleashed on them.

John looked at his hands, terrified, and soon afterwards became fully immersed in light.

When everyone could see again, John was not there. Instead there was a different man, William, tousled and blond and the build of a cricketer. He immediately went and tried to kill the Doctor with a stick of celery that was sitting on Stalin's desk. When that did not work, he pinned it to his lapel.

A couple spats, some anti-Lenin slander, and a motorbike chase later, William worked it all out of his system and he explained that he was a Time Lord… or a primitive one anyways. He could not remember his weekend away, but something during that time clicked when he smacked his head on the crossbar. He did not even feel like himself, as if he was ten other people rolled into one and that it was alright because that way he was never going to be boring. He was still John, yes, and that part of him would always be there (particularly since his involuntary switch from Northern English to neutral American made sure to carry over by thunder), but he could never go as John Smith formerly of Florida and Leadworth ever again.

William, after his best mates' surname, and Kentarch, another word for a centurion; it fit, he thought.

…and all the while, Josef did not being shut up in his own cupboard.

Master Kovarian.

When had he kidnapped Amy? It certainly had been a while, considering the time-frame. A copy had been travelling with them up until very recently, when it melted in Rory's arms. Well, that set off a very cross husband and best mate (not to mention the ire of the Doctor). The three set off a path of destruction that plowed through starfleets and raged against the heavens itself. They finally found her on a private military base, her and Rory's son in her arms.

John Pond, she wanted to call him, after their best friend in the entire galaxy. John Williams was already a composer and military man and an actor and a politician and even a footballer. John Pond had a lot less going on, and could be freer than any Williams out there.

Suddenly, William gasped. The words from one of the soldiers echoed in his head. They were loud and clear and unintentionally ominous.

"I came from the Gamma Forest. The only source of water where I came from was a river. This 'Pond'… I don't know how to translate that. You people sure do have odd words."

That was when he told Amy and Rory something he had never told them before in his entire life: the name he had before the Smiths adopted him in Florida… John River.

The only water in the forest is the river.

He went to touch his infant self and it melted away into a blob of doppelganger mess.

No.

The universe was imploding on itself. Again. Since the epicenter was Earth, again, history was converging around it. Again. Daleks and dinosaurs were sparring in the Siberian wastes and American newsanchor Diane Sawyer hosting BBC 1's Breakfast with Emily Brontë as the guest. Again. Everything had gone very wrong indeed.

Again.

The Doctor tried talking things over with Liz Ten, but the supposedly-close friend didn't recognize her. Tic marks begin to appear on their arms, again. They don't remember how the Doctor got her Sonic or how Liz got her blaster. Big Ben rang for tea time. Again.

Someone was behind all of this, and they needed to find out. Liz Ten covered the Doctor, allowing her escape… but what was she escaping from?

Colors and stardust swirled around the Doctor; the epicenter is not Earth, but her. Only one figure braves the vortex.

"Hello there, Sweetie. Let me save you for once."

They kiss and suddenly everything explodes, not in fire and death and destruction but in life and vibrancy and bliss. The universe flings itself back in order. Existence is restored.

The Doctor makes William swear to never do that again. He knows she's serious, because she called him John. Instead he laughs and nips at her ear and reminds her that they are still alive.

Alive and well and having recently uttered strings of words most people would have taken to be vows. A celebration was in order.

She took him to dance with the Romanovs, as she had promised so long ago. Ray Charles was there to spice things up, but what he never knew never killed him.

The Angels were in the cemetery.

The Doctor warned Rory and Amy to not look down. Rory did, and he was instantly flung to some point in time that was not theirs. William gasped—his best mate growing up, his father—vanished. He reached out towards Amy. Mom. So full of life and vigor and still able to travel the galaxies with them.

"Goodbye."

She touched an Angel and also vanished.

William was near inconsolable. He hugged the Doctor tightly and took comfort in her arms. She knew what it was like to lose a family, to lose an entire race. This feeling in the very pit of his stomach… it was a familiar thing to her. Not wanted, but certainly familiar.

He stood on the doorstep of Rory's father's house, unsure of what to say. William had never been good at this sort of thing, and kept wondering what sort of reaction Brian would have to his son and daughter-in-law being already aged and dead.

It was all too much to bear, so William quickly knocked on the door. Best to get it over with. Brian was laughing as he opened the door—was he intruding on a happy time? This was going to ruin everything.

"Oh, there you are Bill!" came a voice from inside. It was female and elderly and most definitely American. Brian rolled his eyes and let William in. Her name was Antoinette Dergachi and she came from New York City. She had just been telling Brian about the wonderful time she had as a child when her parents took her to California to see some monster horror films get made. Her dad said they would be big one day, but her mom just flipped her bright red hair and chuckled at the thought.

Antoinette Jessica Dergachi, Annie Dergachi, formerly Annie Williams. She was adopted back in the Fifties by an English-Scotch couple who could not have children. They made sure she grew up different than the other kids, by having her take "boy's subjects" in school and told her stories of the stars as if they had been there, and were even elated when she married a Soviet defector (most other people were scandalized at the idea, even if he was Ukrainian). She had lived an interesting life… that was for sure. She even talked about William as if he had been there as an uncle, cousin, and nephew.

Brian ended up crying unmanly tears—these were his grandchildren, as mental as it seemed. Rory never led him astray before, so his message had to be the truth. Annie did not cry, but William did—must have been genetics.

After a long day of talking, Annie gave William a wristband vortex manipulator set with a date, time, and place. He popped it on and it sent him back to another time and place. He bumped into Rory, of all people. They were in New York City, and Rory was on his way home from work. The fabric of time might have been too fragile for the TARDIS to navigate, but a single-person vortex manipulator did wonders. Excitedly Rory led William back to the apartment, where Amy was watching over a chubby little toddler who slept soundly on a sofa.

It may not have been where he lived, or stayed for very often, but this was his family. This was home.

He looked at her, horrified. Sure she changed faces but that was far from being a problem. Her eyes still glimmered with mischief, her skin—though darker—still radiant, and her sense of humor was still intact. Nearly all the changes about her were artificial, surface-bound, and insignificant.

All but one change, actually: her memory.

The Doctor had no recollection of John. When she looked at him, she did not know he was using the name William as a façade, that he was really John Smith from Florida who lived comfortably in Leadworth, or even Amy and Rory. It was difficult to ever forget Amy and Rory… mostly because Amy would never allow it.

John—or William, since that was the name he gave—knew everything about her. The Doctor, Miss Melanie Malone as she tried to present herself, knew nothing about him. It broke his heart knowing that this was the end of their relationship. This day was coming, he had known so long ago, but now that it was actually happening… there was nothing he could have done to prepare himself for it.

She was still so beautiful, and full of life, but so distant. Her smile was a mask—it had never been that before. Even when she was smiling to push away the pain, she never looked as empty as she did now. Was her past really that dreadful? Even as she talked about this planet, one colonized by people who revered the sub-ancient Aztec way of life, she looked as if she would rather be somewhere else, with someone else, immersed in something else.

Before, seemingly an eon ago now, she had told him that she was the last of the Time Lords. Was this the pain she tried so hard to hide?

A trap sprung, and William Kentarch pushed his future wife to safety. Rods flew in from every which direction, snapping his spine in multiple places and damaging him beyond repair. One was not even a rod, but a knife meant to be the final blow. He watched as Donna, the Impossibly Loud and Very Ginger, dragged the dumbstruck Doctor away as his eyesight dimmed and hearing quieted. He felt a rumbling—the trap sprung the ancient building's self destruct mechanism.

That was alright though. She escapes the ruins… he knows she does… and that is what matters.

All he had done was gone outside for some fresh air.

It was difficult work being both a Best Man and Maid of Honor; his best mates getting married to one another was one of the happiest and most difficult things in his life. He had just needed some space, when suddenly a VWORP-VWORP sound brought the most interesting woman he had met in a long time into his life.

And here she is: a sly smile, and witty laughter and personality-ridden hair, asking if he can accompany her. Rory doesn't deserve a worried bride on his wedding night, so he really must get back by the end of the night.

Off in the spaceship they go, whisked away in a marriage of itself—old and new and borrowed and blue. Bigger on the inside and full of potential. Somehow he knows this and looks over at the lady who is grinning as she pulls levers. There are times when a man knows that this is right, like a memory long-forgotten. She is the one he'd go to the end of the universe for, would cause the end of the universe for, possibly even kill for.

No, wait, not kill. Archaeologists only unearth and study what has already been killed.

She takes him to the most wondrous places, but drops him off two days late. Amy had been worried sick, but Rory thought he had simply gone down to the pub all awkward and giraffe-like to dribble the football with children out past their bedtimes. He always indulged them, the awkward archaeologist who had a side-job in a call centre, and treated them like they were smart enough to know things. Going down to the pub was good. It was okay for him to go to the pub. He's come back, Amy—no need to worry.

Things went boringly well afterwards until she came back, asking about all the marvelous adventures he had no recollection of despite being there. Byzantium, Lake Silencio, Jim the Fish, and New York City.

This was not the correct order, he realized, and things became a whole lot more complicated.