Chapter 1

"Doctor, we have to do this, I have to be with Rory, I'm sorry, but I have to go!"

After those impassioned words, and a look that spoke a thousand thoughts of thankfulness for their time together, Amelia Pond turned her back on the Weeping Angel and was abruptly gone. The Doctor cried out but, no matter how much he cried, she wasn't coming back. He turned and gasped at the name that was under Rory's on the tombstone. He sat there, wondering how to justify to his wife, River Song, how he'd let her mother and father die. Well, not die, but leave, and be in a fixed time that neither he nor River could ever visit. Yes, he might be a Time Lord, but in this event he couldn't travel back in time to bring them back. And that would mean for the rest of time he would have to live with Rivers nagging him about him being "inconsiderate" and "not caring". Granted, River was not one to nag, for the most part, but the Doctor didn't want to face the reproach he knew he would find in her eyes.

The Doctor swore from that point on that he would never have another companion and that he was going to hide away and give up on saving the world. He'd done it time and time again. He loved this little planet out in the backwater of this spiral Milky Way more than he really ought to, and each time he saved it, it got harder and harder. What was the point of saving it anymore? What was the point of having Companions? Both they and this world slipped from his grasp more times than he wanted to remember. Barbara, Vicki, Jamie, Jo, Sarah Jane (ah, dear friend), Tegan, Melanie, Rose (he did envy his human double sometimes), Jack, Martha, Donna (and his heart ached for the memories he'd had to steal from her), and now Rory and Amy, to name a few, all gone…And those last two, beloved friends and family, hurt more than he could bear. And still his enemies kept coming back to attack this world, again and again and again, and for how long could he stop them. For how long did he want to?

He got in his Tardis and travelled back to 1875 where he stayed for years, with his friends who swore to keep him hidden and find out what was going on in the world. Nothing they could do would make him budge, and finally the Silurian Madame Vastra and her wife, Jenny Flint, and the Doctor's Sontaran manservant Strax, knew they had to take his job on themselves. It was hard work, dangerous work, and more than once Vastra and Strax commiserated on the Doctor's withdrawal. But one day, Christmas Eve in 1892 in fact, the Doctor went out and bumped into a woman named Clara. He recognized her face, but couldn't remember where from. He just stared at her. Her eyes glistened when she saw him.

"Oi, there, did you build that snowman there?" Clara's voice was clear and strong, piercing the cloud in which the Doctor walked almost perpetually these days. He turned back to her and the snowman, his eyes widening as he realized that this was no regular creation of ice. He quickly ran for his carriage.

The Sontaran was steering the Doctor's carriage, and as the Doctor went to get into the carriage Clara jumped in before he could notice.

"Back home, please, Strax, and quickly. There's a girl back there who reminds me of someone but I don't know who," the Doctor shouted, and at that point Clara spoke.

"You know me from somewhere and I know you from somewhere but where I do not know and neither do you. But, I am going to find out." The Doctor sighed and instructed Strax to grab a memory worm. He slipped out of the carriage, and Clara followed.

The Doctor started to speak to Clara, and stopped as more snowmen began to form around them. Clara's eyes widened as they started to move. Their mouths opened in hunger.

"It's you!" the Doctor shouted. "They're responding to your thoughts! You have to make them go away!"

"And how am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to make hungry moving snowmen go away?!"

"Think of them melting!"

Clara stared wildly at the impossible advancing force. She tried concentrating, pushing her fear away, and finally, finally, the snowmen dissolved in a splash of gray slush. She put her hands on her hips and turned to the doctor.

"You know if you use that memory thing I'll forget how to deal with these snowmen?" she said challengingly. The Doctor agreed grudgingly, and started to climb into the carriage and leave.

"My name is Clara, by the way. What is your name?" she called after him.

"The Doctor, just the Doctor, and I would like to be on my own. You're lucky you don't remember me and it should stay that way. So I would really appreciate it if you leave."

Clara grimaced but followed the carriage discreetly as it moved through the streets. She kept her eyes on the doctor and repeated, "I know you and I will figure out how."

The Doctor finally made Strax stop the carriage, and he jumped out and hurried into a park, but Clara was faster than the Doctor was and cornered him.

"There's something you're not telling me and you are going to tell me."

The doctor just ignored her and darted away. Clara, hampered by her long skirt, chased after him, but lost sight of him. She looked around and then up at the low clouds. They were too low. She grinned and jumped, and snagged the bottom of the staircase. She looked up the staircase to where the TARDIS must be hovering, lost in the clouds.

Clara stood at the bottom and took a deep breath. She said to herself, "I know who you are. You are my father. I am your daughter. I've regenerated and my time travel contraption has broken and I need your help but I can't tell you. You have to find out for yourself." Clara took another deep breath and began to run up the staircase to the TARDIS so that she could try and make the Doctor realize who she was.