Hello everyone, and welcome! This is my very first Doctor Who fic, and I hope I did the fandom some justice. I would really appreciate any feedback ya'll have, because I really want to continue writing and working with these amazing characters. So I hope you enjoy!

I own nothing. A few lines of dialogue were borrowed from the episode The Eleventh Hour.

Five Minutes

She was dreaming again, she knew it. She always knew she was dreaming when he featured in her dreams. The raggedy Doctor. Her raggedy Doctor. The man who only lived in her dreams and imagination.

Because the raggedy Doctor wasn't real, that is what the shrinks said. Her sensible, logical side wanted to believe them. But the little girl in her still held out hope that the Doctor was real and that he was coming back to take her away in his time machine. Five minutes, he had said. Just five minutes.

Part of her believed he was coming in five minutes. So she dreamed.

She dreamed about him climbing out of that Police Box, dripping wet, but grinning like a mad man. She dreamed about his cravings. Apple, yogurt, bacon, beans (beans are evil!), bread and butter.

Fish fingers and custard.

She dreamed of them sitting at her kitchen table, just talking.

"Amelia Pond. Like a name in a fairytale."

Was he her fairytale? Is that all he –

Something stirred at the edge of Amy's conscience, successfully chasing away her dreams. Something strange, out of place, yet faintly familiar all at the same time. A sound, a memory…

A louder noise at the front door. And then –

Amy shot up in bed. No, she wasn't imagining it. Her front door had just opened.

"Amelia? Amelia!"

Someone was in her house. How did someone get in her house? Who was in her house?

"Are you all right? Are you there?" the intruder called as he clambered up the stairs.

Good Lord he's coming up here, Amy thought to herself in a panic. Deciding on the only logical course of action, she cast about her room for something, anything, to use against her would-be assailant. Eyes landing on an old cricket bat, she grabbed hold of it and stole quietly over to her bedroom door.

Peering around the frame, she caught a brief glimpse of the intruder: male, brown hair, tattered clothes. Shouting something about a prisoner zero. Whatever that was.

Now or never, she thought. With him still unaware of her presence, she darted up right behind him and knocked him over the head. He hit the ground with a satisfying thud.

"I have a stranger in my house," Amy said in a hoarse croak. "What to do, what to do." She glanced down at him…

"No. No, no, no. Can't be. Impossible." The man looked an awful lot like…

"No! You're not him, you can't be him." Amy closed her eyes and tried to focus on reality, on what she knew was real. She needed a plan. She needed to think of what should be done when the Doc – the stranger came to. Mind spinning with ideas, she ran back to her room.

But the part of her self that was still that little girl sitting on her suitcase in front of a shattered shed…that tiny part of her wondered if the five minutes were finally up and it was time to go away in a time machine.