Leadworth, England, 1996

It was a quiet, tranquil night in the little town of Leadworth, located in England. The date was the third of September, 1996, and seven-year old Amelia Pond was probably the only person that was still awake in the sleepy little town. The girl in question, currently the only occupant of the big old, drafty house, was kneeling next to her bed with her hands in perfect prayer position.

She was disturbed from this by a loud crash coming from her front yard. She leapt to her feet, and, casting an anxious glance at the crack in her wall, hurried down the stairs and out the front door. There was a tall, blue box, laying sideways among the ruins of where her shed used to be.

Amelia examined the box from a distance, keeping caution around the smoldering ruin.

Then the doors popped open from the side, and a grappling hook clanged into place on the bottom of the box. And, as Amelia backed away, still staring, a man popped out. He was wearing an absolutely shredded suit—he looked downright raggedy. He had floppy brown hair, and a slim bit of metal, about the size of a pen, with a blue light affixed onto the end clutched between his teeth.

His chin was sort of prominent, and he was kind of funny-looking, but okay, she decided. He looked at her for a second before grinning delightedly.

"Amy! I mean, Amelia! There you are. People call you Amelia now, don't they? Brilliant name, Amelia Pond. Glad I get to call you that, at least for now."

She was instantly suspicious. "How do you know my name?"

"Oh, right! We haven't met yet, have we? Hello, Amelia, I'm your Raggedy Doctor! I travel all of time and space in my blue box, and you'll get to come with me! When you're a little but older, of course. But for now, I'm here about... what was I here about? I crashed, I didn't mean to come here. But there's something that I'm supposed to do, isn't there? Oh, right! There's a scary crack in your wall, and I'm here to fix it. But first, can I have an apple? I'm starving, and I love apples!"

"You can fix the crack?" Amelia asked suspiciously. After all, she had just been asking for someone to come and fix the crack in her wall, and she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if his suit was shredded, and he talked a lot more than most people, and it was sort of weird that he knew her name.

"Yep!"

"Okay. I'll get you an apple, then I'll show you the crack," she agreed, leading the way to the front door. She glanced behind her to check that he was following, and stared in shock as he walked straight into a tree and keeled over on his face. He popped back up moments later.

"New controls," he said. "Steering's still off. How about that apple?"

She got him an apple, and dodged when he hurled it across the room, shrieking about how he hated apples. "I thought you loved them?"

"Ehhh. Nope. Hate apples. New mouth, new rules. Yogurt!"

She got him yogurt. "No, nevermind. Hate yougurt, it's just stuff with bits in it!"

"What's wrong with you?" Amelia demanded, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Me? What's wrong with me? I don't know, what's wrong with you? You're Scottish, fry something! Amy!" He whined. "Oooohh. Still rude. Still not ginger. And you think I'm rude, don't you? You'll get used to it."

So she fried him something. Bacon, in fact. He accused her of trying to poison him. She got him bread and butter, and he threw it at the neighbor's cat. She offered carrots, and he called her crazy. Then he dug fish fingers and custard out of the freezer, cooked it all up, and sat down with it contentedly. Amelia helped herself to the ice cream, feeling that she was due something good, and it wasn't like Aunt Sharon would even notice, right?

"So, why haven't your parents woken up yet?"

"Don't have parents," Amelia said, shrugging. "Just an aunt."

"I don't even have an aunt," the Doctor said.

"You're lucky."

"I know," he agreed, leaning forward like he was sharing a secret. "Your aunt, then. Why haven't we woken her with all of the noise we've made?"

"She's not here. She went into London for a few days."

"She left you all alone?"

"I'm not scared," Amelia protested defensively, crossing her arms.

"Oh, I should think not," the Doctor assured her. "Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of the box, man knows your name when you've never seen him before, man eats fish custard, and look at you—just sitting there. You know what I think?"

"What?"

"Must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall."

So, there are several things that you might be thinking right now. First—the summary said that this fic was about Nine and Rose, why are we seeing Amy and Eleven? Did you publish the wrong document? No. It will all be explained—as long as you keep reading. I hope that you'll keep reading. Aside from a couple of changes, this is basically the same as the opening scenes of the Eleventh Hour. But this is basically the only thing that's canon compliant in this entire mess, so I had to establish it good and well first thing. Second thing that's probably running through your mind—how does he know her? Well, if you read the summary, I think that you can guess.

End game pairings for this story are for sure Doctor/Rose, and most likely Amy/Rory, but that one isn't one hundred percent certain right now. As it is, we won't be seeing Rory for awhile, so it'll be a bit complicated.