So here I am with a new Doctor Who fanfiction! I'm really excited about this! This should get updated at a fairly decent pace because I work at an old folks home now where I don't do anything but sit at the front desk on weekends and occasionally answer the phone and keep the few elderly who aren't allowed outside from escaping. Because we're located in front of a highway. Brilliant idea. Anyway, thanks to TheGirlWhoImagined for being so awesome and fantastic and helping me out enormously with this. Her story, Fate Is Not The Boss Of Me, is absolutely phenomenal and you should go check it out when you're done reviewing mine :D Anyway, I promised myself I wouldn't ramble on here so onto the story!

Oh, and as a note, the first episode I'm using for the story is Army of Ghosts. I'm not too sure on when in the year that episode takes place so I'm going with a best guest scenario.

Disclaimer:I do not own Doctor Who or any of its affiliated characters, unfortunately, but I do own Arianna and Delphine and the plot of this story.

Chapter 1

This Is Not Funny

It was amazing and terrifying all at the same time. Astonishing, stupendous, extraordinary, unbelievable, harrowing, horrifying, daunting, frightening… I couldn't decide what to label it. Could it be labeled? Or was it too great for that?

The Untempered Schism. What every young Time Lord was made to stare into, our initiation.

And I stared into it. Or…maybe it stared into me. The somber colors of the time vortex swirling around inside that ring, boring through my eyes into the deepest recesses of my mind. It was scary. I had heard stories of the ones who went mad after staring into the Untempered Schism, some with their mind so broken from the force of the time vortex that they didn't even know who they were anymore. I had heard of the Master as well, he who claimed to hear drums in his head after this ordeal. Would I end up like one of them? Would I end up like so many others, running away from it for the rest of their lives? I didn't want to be broken.

Suddenly the ground shook, almost breaking me from my schism-induced reverie. I was vaguely aware of the guards on either side of me looking around, wondering what was going on. The planet quaked once more, but this time my balance failed me and, my eyes still locked on the Untempered Schism, I stumbled forward, nearly falling to my knees. I caught myself, managing to stay upright, while the guards behind me, from what I could hear, weren't so lucky. Knocked to the ground, they made no attempt to retrieve me from my new place barely two feet from the face of the vortex.

I couldn't look away. I tried to pull my eyes from it but it had a hold on me. As if it was calling my name, I was drawn to it.

When another tremor hit the planet, I couldn't stop myself. I found myself tumbling into the Untempered Schism. The last thing I was aware of was my voice, screaming in pain as the forces of the time vortex raked through my mind.

I was yanked out of focus by the blaring sound of the catchy "Good Morning" tune playing on my cell phone, alerting me of the time. I blinked, my eyes sore from staring at the computer screen for the last hour, and leaned back. I stretched, cracking my back on the chair. Briefly glancing at my phone, I tapped the dismiss button on my Droid. Almost time for work.

~X~

My name is Arianna Grey and this is my life. At least, it was. It was my name, and it was my life. See what I did there? Past tense. As in not anymore. But, right then and there, I didn't know that. Sometimes I look back and think "What if I hadn't gone to work that day?" and "What if things had stayed the same?" Things might have been different. Sometimes I wish they had been different, that things had stayed the same and I'm not where I am right now. That I could have stayed happy little… Okay, not so happy little Arianna Grey.

But we'll get to that.

~X~

From my bedroom I could hear my Doctor Who DVD playing in the living room. Not that that was any great feat. Our apartment was small so it took all of five steps to move from the living room to my room. I found when I was trying to work on my Doctor Who fanfiction it helped to have Doctor Who playing on the television. It was on our TV most of the time anyway, because Lily, my best friend room mate, was as much of a Whovian as I was.

I turned off the DVD player and the TV, much to my disappointment, once I had finished tying my shoes and collected my bag for work. Shutting off the lights in the apartment, I went to leave. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I walked out the front door.

Crossing my fingers and hoping it was Lily annoying me before work, I checked my phone and frowned. Nope, not Lily; my mother.

Your bills are piling up and it's becoming a bother. Do something about it.

Nice to hear from you too, Mom.

I'm just going to ignore it. If I ignore my problems, then they'll go away. That's how life works. At least that's how it should work.

The café I worked at was halfway across town but I didn't have a car to get me there so I walked everyday. I was terrible at finding my way around, even in a town I had lived in for forever, so I took the same way there everyday too.

"Damn," I groaned to myself when I was about halfway to the café. I had forgotten they were starting construction on Madison Avenue, which means I was going to have to detour my way to work. Today sucked.

Turning down the next alley, I came out on a street I was familiar with but I hardly ever used. As I walked along down the sidewalk, something across the street caught my eye. A statue, which to a normal person wouldn't be strange at all. Ever since I saw the episode Blink, with the weeping angels, however many years ago that was, I haven't been able to look at a statue the same way.

But this one in particular unnerved me. It looked too much like a weeping angel for my comfort.

Oh, who was I kidding? I didn't live in the Who universe. There was no Doctor to come whisk me away from my terrible life and make things amazing. And, therefore, there were no weeping angels. Hell, it was probably some twisted sculptor man who knew what weeping angels were. For all I knew this demented man had planted a camera inside the statue to watch as Whovians freaked out and ran at the sight of it.

That's something I would probably do. Maybe I should get that guy's number. I could freak Lily the hell out. Did I mention that was the purpose of my entire life basically? What can I say? I'm going to hell.

Deciding to ignore the statue altogether, like I do with most of my problems, I kept walking. But I didn't get very far when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stiffen. Calm down, Arianna, there's no way in hell that a statue is going to come off its stand and kill you. With my luck, it's probably just some crazy axe murderer come to chop off my head because I look like his dead wife. And now I'm realizing that I watch way too much Criminal Minds. Against my better judgment that told me the statue would still be there, I glanced back just to double check.

But it was gone.

Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap, I'm going to die.

No, no, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I won't die. Maybe I'm just going completely and utterly insane and I imagined that there was a statue there. That's gotta be it. Not that I'm rooting for insanity here or anything, but I think it was the better of the two options. I took a deep breath and turned back around, intent on putting it out of my head and going to work.

I found myself face to face with the statue, the weeping angel, baring its teeth and claws at me. I screamed and stepped backwards, half expecting someone to come and see what the fuss was about. Of course, as this was my life, no one came.

I stared at it, refusing to blink. I wasn't looking to die today. What in the hell was a weeping angel doing in my totally non-fiction universe? It didn't belong here.

A thought dawned on me and I found myself chuckling after that moment of sheer panic. "This isn't Doctor Who," I said out loud, though whether I was trying to convince the angel in front of me or myself I wasn't sure. "Weeping angels don't exist here. But you know what we do have? Jackass friends who pull one too many pranks, that's what!" I had convinced myself that Lily was pulling one of her idiotic pranks, intent on making me late for work. "Okay, Lily, jokes over. I get it. Real funny. I'm so gonna get fired for being late." Nothing happened. No one came out of hiding and the so-called weeping angel didn't so much as budge an inch. "Lily, come on… Oh, of course. It's a weeping angel. It can't move if I'm looking at it. Let me just close my eyes and then maybe you'll stop acting like a dipshit."

So I closed my eyes.

~X~

When I reopened my eyes, I was somewhere else. I wasn't outside anymore. There was no weeping angel standing in front of me.

Did that mean I didn't have to go to work?

Wow, Arianna, way to focus on the important things. Now where the hell am I?

I had no idea where I was but I knew I was laying down, since it seemed I was staring at a ceiling. An ugly, stained and slightly cracked ceiling at that. The ceiling in my apartment wasn't the prettiest thing in the world but it wasn't this bad. Which means I wasn't home. And unless they randomly added a new addition to the café within the last twelve hours, I wasn't at work either.

"You awake, Delphy?

I sat up and turned to the left as a girl walked into the room I was in, wherever that was. She looked at me with one of the widest smiles I've ever seen in my life and skipped, seriously skipped, over to the side of the bed. "Delphine?" she questioned again. Was she talking to me? That's not my name. "Earth to Delphine Greentree! Are you in there?"

Delphine Greentree? But that was… No, it couldn't be. That was the name I gave my OC for my Doctor Who fanfiction. But that couldn't be right. My name was Arianna Grey, not Delphine Greentree. And who in tarnation was this girl?

Short blonde hair, green eyes, annoyingly bouncy behavior… Holy mother of fudge. If I'm right, and I really hope I'm not, then she would be Delphine's best friend, Lola Greentree.

That was when I started looking around the room I was in. It was a long room, with six beds, three on each side, and small shabby dresses next to each one. An assortment of stuffed animals were strewn across a couple of the beds. A dusty mirror hung on the wall not far from me. I recognized it as the orphanage Delphine was raised in. Greentree Orphanage. Everything was exactly as I had pictured it when I was coming up with my fanfiction.

I was apparently now named Delphine Greentree, living in Greentree Orphanage, with my, or her, best friend, Lola. What did that all mean? Surely I was still Arianna. I still looked like Arianna.

Or did I?

I shot up from the bed I was in and, trying to keep my shaking to a minimum, slowly walked over to the mirror on the wall.

Delphine looked back at me.

No longer was I the ginger girl with strange eyes. Now? Now I was almost the exact opposite of me. My short coppery hair was replaced with long, layered dark brown tresses and bangs that swooped over my forehead to the right. The front section of my new hair had been dyed a vibrant turquoise color. My eyes had originally been two different colors. They were still the same colors, but my left eye was now violet and my right eye a light blue, instead of vice versa. The Arianna version of me had been a bit curvier, with a bit of a baby face. This Delphine version of me was thin, although it did appear that if I put on some weight I might be able to keep the shape I was used to. I still had the same ivory skin and the same beauty mark underneath my right eye. My clothes consisted of holey pale denim jeans, a black t-shirt and blue converse. Turning my back to the mirror, I pulled the collar of my shirt down over my left shoulder, turning my head to see the tattoo I had given Delphine that read Do not go gentle into that dark night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I could feel my heart racing, threatening to beat out of my chest, and my breath was coming in shallow gasps. In essence, I was freaking out.

I remember I was walking to work. I was going to my stupid job at the stupid café and there was a detour. And I saw a weeping angel. Or I thought I did. It was just Lily playing a prank on me. Wasn't it? What if it wasn't? What if that had been a real weeping angel? A real weeping angel and I closed my eyes. I closed my eyes and it touched me and apparently sent me to some parallel universe where I have become my fanfiction character.

Either that or I'm lying in some hospital in a coma having really vivid dreams about being Delphine. Pinching my arm to wake myself up, I winced. Nope. That hurt so definitely not a coma.

Which meant this was real life and a real live weeping angel sent me to a parallel dimension where apparently my fanfiction was reality. Did that mean the Doctor was here?

Did that mean I had to start calling myself Delphine? More than likely. Lola might ship me off to the loony bin if I started referring to myself as Arianna. Even though I am Arianna. Or am I Delphine now?

Fuck, life had become confusing.

"Delphy, are you feeling okay?" I zoned back in as Lola gave me a concerned, questioning look.

Right. Whatever happened, I was Delphine now. Delphine had to act a certain way, and Lola would notice if I did something out of the ordinary. Good thing Delphine was beginning to turn into a Mary Sue and I'm 99% positive she and I are basically the same person, minus the whole appearance thing. "Yeah, Lo. Why wouldn't I be?" I replied, trying not to make a face at my new voice. I was English now. I mean, of course I'm English. I'm in my Doctor Who fanfiction where everyone is English so naturally I made my OC English too. That's going to take some getting used to.

She seemed to accept it well enough and smiled, plopping down on the bed next to mine, her bed. "Because you weren't feeling good earlier and took a nap. I came up to check on you."

"Oh, right, yeah." I sat down on the end Delphine's bed. I suppose I should probably start calling it my bed. I sat down on my bed. Nope, that was still weird. "Sorry, I'm just a little bit out of it. I had a dream that I was living in a different universe, in a different body, and it's got me a little disoriented." Her eyebrow went up at that but she laughed. Good, so she didn't think I was insane. Maybe I could use the opportunity to find out some information. "What's the date?"

Never taking the cheery smile off her face, Lola obliged. "March 17, 2007."

I nodded. Not only did I travel to a parallel universe but I also went back in time. Realistically, I should only be thirteen years old. But I made Delphine nineteen, and that's the age I was as Arianna, so I think I'll stick with that. "And have I gone to work yet?"

"You call pick pocketing people your work?" That only made Lola laugh harder. She had never frowned upon my line of work but always found it funny when I tried to refer to it as my life career. "Nah, you haven't been out yet. You said you were going to head out after your nap if you were feeling up to it."

"Thanks, Lola. That helped a lot," I said, standing up. "I think I'm feeling okay now so I'm going to go do what I do best."

That was a lie of course. Delphine might have been created to know how to pick pocket people for a living but Arianna never stole a thing in her entire life. But I needed the opportunity to get outside and get some air, see what I remembered. That and, if I was going to be stuck here in this body and this universe, I needed to learn how to pick pocket people. Delphine had no creditable skills and was never able to find a real job. As an orphan, she hadn't had much time for education, outside of basic schooling, and had been thieving for as long as she could remember. She was me now but I don't think I was going to be as great at it as she was. Man, all these she's and I's were giving me a headache.

My name is Delphine Greentree. I am a pick pocket living in the Greentree Orphanage in London, England. I am an English girl with a big fancy English accent. I used to live in a different universe until a weeping angel sent me here to…

To a universe where I'm living as an OC from a Doctor Who story.

A Doctor Who story.

Doctor Who.

I stopped walking and looked up, searching the London skyline for something familiar. When my eyes finally settled on it, I burst into a grin. Torchwood London. It was there, meaning that I really was in a parallel universe where Doctor Who was a real thing. And it was still standing, meaning the Battle at Canary Wharf hadn't happened yet.

I could meet the Doctor.

~X~

"I hit the gold mine, Lola," I shot a sly grin at the blonde laying on her bed. "My friend Patrick here was walking around with two hundred buckaroonies in his wallet." I waved the man's ID in the air, and then tossed it in the pile of other IDs on my bed beside me. "All in all, about four hundred pounds yesterday."

Lola snorted and sat up, looking at the wad of cash in my hands. "With that kind of money you could buy me a puppy. Or get yourself a normal hair color."

"Lola, you're lolo." I lifted up the end of my mattress and hid my stash under it, with the rest of my money. "For your information I like my hair the way it is. And what would you do with a puppy? You can hardly take care of yourself."

Pouting, she stood up. "Fine, be that way. I don't want your thief money anyway. I'm gonna go find something to eat. See you later, boo."

I couldn't help but shake my head and laugh as she walked out of the room. I had been living in this universe, in my new body, for two weeks now, and I was finally starting to fit in. I had gotten the hang on pick pocketing finally to the point where I was so good at it I felt guilty. Police here didn't care about pick pockets, especially since people like dear old Patrick were walking around with hundreds of dollars. Or pounds. Whatever. I lived in America for nineteen years of my life. Getting used to this whole pound thing was something that was taking some time. But I made money. I had to if I was going to be living here until I found the Doctor. And I was going to find him, one way or another.

I had also adopted Delphine as who I was going be from then on. Sure, I was still used to being Arianna and sometimes people would call my name, my new name, and I wouldn't realize they were talking to me. But Delphine was the new me. People would find it weird if I were to suddenly insist on being called Arianna. Besides, maybe this was my chance. Too many nights I had lied awake at night, thinking of Doctor Who, and wishing that somehow I could be here instead of in my life. My life sucked. I lived in a shabby apartment I could hardly afford, worked at a café where I had to waitress on roller skates, and my parents hated my existence. This was my chance to start over, to be a new me, and I was going to take it.

Of course, Delphine's life wasn't all that great either. She had no family and had been living in the Greentree Orphanage for as long as she could remember. Delphine was the only name she had ever known and had been given the last name Greentree because she hadn't had one, so, like Lola, she had adopted the name of the orphanage. She was a pick pocket because no one wanted to hire her for a real job and because she had started early on as a way to make money as a kid. Lola was her first and basically only friend.

But as much as Delphine's life sucked, it was still better than what mine had been and so I was more than happy to be here. After all, I was going to become the Doctor's companion. I was determined to. It would be a thing.

I had found out that I was close to the Army of Ghosts episode of the show now. The ghosts had started appearing worldwide about a month before I got here. That meant in about two weeks or so the Doctor would be showing up. I just had to wait.

Pulling my cell phone out of my jeans, I checked the time. 12:30, lunch time. Time to head out.

~X~

Hair pulled up and thumbs hooked into my belt loops, I walked down the sidewalk slowly, keeping my eye out for easy targets. Not that I couldn't pick pocket from just about anybody, as long as they had a wallet, but I wasn't in the mood for difficult people right now.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I frowned. Taking a quick look around, I half expected another weeping angel to attack me. There was nothing there. I couldn't see anyone watching me either. Shrugging it off as paranoia, I kept on going.

After another minute of walking, I found someone. A man standing on the corner, waiting for the okay to cross the street, more attentive to the cars and the street light than the wallet bulge in his back pocket. Quietly moving so I was by him, I slipped my hand into his pocket as I walked behind him, taking the wallet with me. I dropped it into the messenger bag I kept at my side for my excursions. I waited until I was around the corner to pull it out and glance inside it. I would wait until I was home to count exactly how much money I had pilfered but I liked to have a rough idea so I knew when to stop.

Down the street some, I saw another man. His curly brown hair went to his shoulders and he was dressed like he belonged in Victorian times. He stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at some sort of pocket watch. I wasn't sure why but I got the urge to hit him up. So, inconspicuous as possible, I made my way towards him. The crowd passing by around him was large enough so I blended in, pulling the wallet from his pocket.

I swiftly walked away, keeping with the crowd, but I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching me. I looked back at the man but, to my surprise, he wasn't there anymore. Where did he go? I didn't see him anywhere around me. He must be a fast walker.

I went to take a peek in his wallet, see what treasures waited inside. It was a plain brown leather wallet. Inside of it was a blank piece of paper. Meh. It was probably supposed to hold an ID, but he hadn't put one in there.

Now I was getting goose bumps. I swear someone was staring at me but, for the life of me, I couldn't find anyone. Maybe I'm just being a paranoid freak. Either way, I think I'm done for the day.

Turning around, I started on my way back home. Funny, I had begun thinking of the orphanage as my home. Granted, it was more of one than my own house had been growing up.

I waited for the light to change so I could cross the street. I was only halfway across when, out of nowhere, when a number of black SUVs drove in out of nowhere and parked in a circle around me. What the hell?

A woman emerged from the truck directly in front of me. Her hair was blonde and she wore a black suit with a skirt. I didn't bother to try and hide the disgust on my face. She was the head of Torchwood London. Yvonne, I think she was called in the episode, but I didn't like her. She didn't deserve a nice name. She was responsible for what happened to Rose.

"Delphine Greentree, my name is Yvonne Hartman," she introduced herself. Didn't bother to attempt to shake my hand or anything. Rude bitch. Not that I would have shaken it anyway but so not the point. "I work for Torchwood London. You need to come with us."

I resisted the urge to punch her in the face. Come with them? "Like hell. What do you need me for?" This wasn't going to end well at all. Were they the ones watching me? Somehow that didn't surprise me.

I guess she decided it wasn't important enough to beat around the bush because she got straight to the point. That or I wouldn't be around long enough for it to matter. "Our scanners show that you're giving off some strange readings, similar to a suspicious sphere we've recently acquired. According to our readings, you shouldn't exist."

"Shouldn't exist? What the hell-"

Suddenly there was a severe pain in the back of my neck, shutting me down. The next thing I knew, darkness was encompassing my vision and taking over.

~X~

My eyelids fluttered open slowly, revealing a dark grey ceiling. Holy crap, my head killed. Where was I?

The first thing I became aware of was the hard cot I seemed to be laying on. It was even worse than the beds at the orphanage. Then I noticed that I was holed up inside some sort of cage, square in shape and made of iron bars. It was a few feet taller than me and closed at the top. A padlock held the door shut. As my vision refocused, I saw a dark skinned man standing across the room, watching me. Damn it. I recognized him too. Rajesh, Torchwood's sphere watching man. It was all he seemed to be good for. He died. I remembered that.

That meant… I looked over to the side at the giant black sphere I knew would be there.

"Fuck."

Hope you guys liked it :D I'll try to get the next chapter done as soon as I can but I have finals next week so I'll need to do some studying. But I'll definitely have it done before the end of next week. That's my goal. I'm hoping to have chapter 3 up then before I leave on vacation the 22nd for a week but that's not a promise.

Anyway, I hope you guys really liked it. Review because reviews make me happy!