Prologue
Time is a difficult thing to explain, even to the most open and brilliant minds. It's almost like a living, breathing thing—constantly moving, constantly changing, like the winding branches of an enormous tree. The fixed points in time are like the roots, and without them the entire tree would collapse and die, and it would be the end of the universe as we know it. And yet there are paradoxes that exist within time, moments that create themselves and contradict sanity. Their existence is jarring, like when you take a step and the drop is further than you expected, but moments later they're all but forgotten and difficult to recall. You remember the feeling, but what caused it?
That's the same question I asked myself the day I met Clara Oswald.
"RORY!"
He suffered a jolt when the Doctor practically screamed his name upon entering the TARDIS. Rory's face was assaulted by tweed when the Doctor pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, only to release him when Amy sternly reminded him to be gentle.
"Oh right! Sorry, sorry. How are you feeling?"
After their last encounter with the Silurians, the Doctor had taken Rory to a hospital in the fifty-third century so he could recover from the wound he'd received from the blaster. After six days of treatment, there was barely even a mark left on his skin, despite it having been a nearly fatal injury. Amy had stayed with Rory in the hospital the entire time while the Doctor went off, coming back every other day with flowers and books and at one point, a strange plant that the nurses had to toss out when it started releasing luminescent spores.
"Tip top shape," Rory replied.
He exchanged a glance with Amy, who stepped to his side and took his hand.
"Doctor, we think it's time to go back home. Not forever!" she added quickly. "We're just…" She smiled. "We're ready to get married."
"Oh," the Doctor replied, visibly deflating. He tried to hide his disappointment with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Right. Well, let's see. Gotta get you back to where I found you. 2010, wasn't it?"
The TARDIS doors closed behind them as the Doctor started flicking switches. Amy left Rory's side and walked over to the Doctor, who wouldn't look up at her. He kept walking around the console, turning dials and pulling levers and all of the other ridiculous things he did to make the TARDIS travel through time and space.
Rory felt a pang of jealousy as Amy touched the Doctor's arm, but not because he felt threatened that Amy would leave him, although he knew he would always feel threatened by the Doctor's presence in her life. It was more that there was this unspoken bond between them that Rory would never understand, a part of Amy's life that he couldn't touch. It was selfish and proprietary of him, but Amy was the kind of girl he never thought would look at him once, let alone long enough to even consider marrying him.
"Doctor…" she said softly.
The TARDIS engines groaned as it settled into a landing pattern. The Doctor stood up straight and frowned.
"Hang on. We shouldn't be landing yet…"
Rory walked across the bridge to the console as the Doctor pulled the scanner in front of him. He didn't like the worry on the Doctor's face, not that he ever did. Scary things happened when the Doctor didn't know what was going on.
"Give us a mo'," the Doctor said before trotting down the bridge to the TARDIS doors.
Rory leaned towards Amy. "What's happening?"
"I dunno," she replied as they watched the Doctor poke his head out the TARDIS doors.
"It looks like Earth," the Doctor called back to them. "Twenty-first century, so we're not too far off. Something's not right, though… this—AARGH!"
He fell forward out of the TARDIS and the doors slammed shut behind him. Amy shouted his name and ran towards the doors, but the engines had already started groaning.
"Amy…" Rory said carefully, his heart thudding in his chest. "Amy! What's happening?"
"It's taking off!"
Rory's eyes widened. "But the Doctor is outside!"
"I realise that!" she replied irritably.
With a great lurch, the TARDIS tossed them both to the left. Rory cried out as he was launched to the other side of the ship, bracing himself against the metal bars so he wouldn't fall to the lower level of the control room.
Back on Earth in 2010, the Doctor sat up from the ground and watched the TARDIS dematerialise, a sight that always filled his heart with dread.
The TARDIS was gone. Amy and Rory were gone. And he was stuck on Earth in the twenty-first century without a clue what to do next.
Despite the dread twisting in his chest, the Doctor laughed at the houses all around him. "Well… isn't this a pickle?"
The phone rang twice before he picked up.
"Hey hey hey," Ollie greeted.
Clara grimaced. "I hate it when you answer the phone like that."
"You're just jealous of my ironic look on life."
"Ironic, yeah. That's it." She sighed. "So…"
She could practically hear his knowing look. "You need a ride to work tomorrow because you're too broke to get your car fixed?"
"Partially… yes. But my car should be fixed sometime this week, I'll have you know."
"Oh, really? With whose money?"
"Mine! I got a new flatmate."
"Already? Didn't you just put the ad up yesterday?"
"Well, let's just say I caught the early bird. An odd bird, actually…"
"What's she like?"
"Well, not a bird—a bloke."
"Your new roommate's a bloke?"
Clara grinned. "Sort of."
"If that's a comment on his sexuality—first of all, how dare you. Second of all, send me pictures if he's cute."
She chuckled. "He's… odd. But nice, I think. Plus he gave me like… three months' rent in advance. In cash, actually…"
Ollie scoffed around a large bite of toast. "Is he a drug dealer?"
"Possibly. He bounces around like a hyperactive puppy and goes by the Doctor, of all things. But no, honestly, I think he's just a bit weird. Can't quite put my finger on it."
"Well, don't put your finger on it is my advice. Bad things always happen when people fool around with their flatmates."
Clara snorted and glanced to the shared wall between her bedroom and her new flatmate's. "Trust me. That shouldn't be a problem."
"Amy! Rory! Hello, can you hear me!"
Back in the TARDIS, the young couple nearly collapsed in agony at the shrill feedback and overpowering noise coming from the console speaker.
"Jeez, yes! I think even the dead can hear you," Amy retorted. "No need to shout!"
He flopped down on his bed and crossed his legs at the ankles, bouncing lightly to test the buoyancy of the mattress. "Just checking in. How's it going?"
"Oh, great," Rory replied dryly. "Still can't land, still don't know how to fly the TARDIS, still in danger of being lost forever."
Amy glared at him and then at the speaker. "The sooner you can get us out of here, the better."
"Yeah, well, I'm working on it."
She grinned. "Found yourself a place to stay, then?"
"Yes, actually. Lovely little place, right underneath the source of the disturbance that's keeping the TARDIS from landing. Got my own room and everything."
"What's the flatmate like?" Amy asked, pacing around the console while Rory leaned against the railing with his arms crossed.
"Bit short, actually. Had to bend over in half to greet her. Do we seriously not do the air kissing in 2010?"
"Hold on," Amy said with a light laugh, stopping. "Your flatmate's a girl?"
"Yeah?"
"And she hasn't had a lobotomy recently?"
The Doctor hopped up from the bed and frowned at his reflection in the mirror, imagining Amy's face there instead. "No. Why would she?"
She snorted. "It's either that or she's completely mental for letting a weirdo like you within ten feet of her."
"I am not a weirdo!" he replied crossly, pouting. "Besides, I could tell she rather needed the money."
"Oh, great. Exploiting a poor girl in need. Well done, Doctor."
"I'm not exploiting—! Put Rory on."
"What? Why?"
"Because you're not being very helpful and I have some questions I need to ask him."
Amy rolled her eyes and groaned before thrusting the communicator towards her fiancé, who accepted it warily. "Yeah?"
"So, just a few questions, shouldn't take up too much of your time. Now, are you listening carefully?"
"Er, yeah."
"Can Amy hear me?"
Rory glanced over at her. "Yeah."
"Take me off speaker, please."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want her listening; she'll only tease."
Amy bit back a smile. Rory turned his back to her and spoke quietly into the receiver. "You know she'll make me tell her what you said anyway."
"Yes, but without listening to our conversation first hand, there will at least be a healthy degree of doubt."
"You mean she'll think I'm lying?"
"Take me off speaker, please."
Rory sighed and flicked the switch on the comm unit. Amy sighed and walked off towards their bedroom, muttering something about fetching her if the Doctor needed anything. "Go ahead," Rory said.
The Doctor glanced at the shared wall between his and Clara's rooms. He'd puttheir conversation on scramble so that anyone else listening in would only hear gibberish, but still—he was nervous.
"OK, whatever's keeping the TARDIS on a materialisation loop is big—scary big. I've got to lie low for a while until I've figured out what it is upstairs so I can sort it out. Until then, I've got to act like an ordinary bloke."
Rory snorted.
The Doctor frowned. "What was that?"
"It's just—I mean, well… You're the Doctor?"
"And?"
"You're an alien."
"Fair point. So! You're a normal bloke. What do normal bloke's do?"
"Why do I feel like this is a loaded question?" He sighed. "Er, I dunno—go to work, watch telly, go down the pub, play football…"
The Doctor nodded along enthusiastically with each item on the list. "Work, telly, pub, football—got it. I can do that. Yeah. OK."
"Is that all?" Rory asked. He found it rather odd that the Doctor wouldn't want Amy to hear that conversation. Then again, the Doctor was rather odd.
"Er… yeah, that should be all. For now."
"K. Keep in touch… We're sort of just floating about in nowhere and nowhen until you do."
The Doctor grew serious. "Don't worry, Rory—I'll get you and Amy back. I'll fix this."
Rory smiled reluctantly. "You always do."
Clara poked her head out of her bedroom with a frown. She could hear the Doctor's voice carrying through her wall, but it was muffled and unintelligible. She crossed her arms over her chest and padded softly towards his door, where she leaned close and listened to hear his conversation.
"Phosphorescent rhododendron. Calliope Rottweiler in the ten-gauge basement. Pancake Arbuckle on Saturday news."
Grimacing, Clara shook her head and padded back to her bedroom. She didn't know what had compelled her to accept this strange man as a flatmate. Chalk it up to instinct or a feeling, but there was something odd about him—well, other than the obvious—that she couldn't put her finger on. Something she trusted. Whatever it was, she was just glad it had showed up at her door with a bag full of cash right when she needed it. It was almost like he'd dropped from the sky right in time to sort out her life.
Lying down in bed, she couldn't help but smile as she remembered seeing his face when she opened the door. He'd started talking and hasn't stopped since, and it took her a while to get him to slow down long enough to explain how he couldn't just waltz into a girl's flat and expect to move in with her. That, of course, had been when he'd shown her the money. And the references, including one from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I'm his special favourite.
She grinned into her pillow, sighing softly as she fell asleep to the sound of his muffled voice in the room next door.
She had another dream about space that night and woke with that same uneasy feeling that made her never want to leave town again.