Brief aside. Pond Life is sort of brilliant. If you haven't seen it yet, you must. Asylum was very good as well, and although I don't think we'll see Oswin again, Jenna looks like she's up for the job when it comes around for real. In fact I liked Oswin so much that I might have to recalibrate this story and/or LOTTL to fit her in somehow...

Anyway. Time to get started. If you're still wondering why these are being uploaded now when I know I have other things to work on, these chapters have been more or less written since last year. I know, I know...


Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality
Open your eyes,
Look up to the skies and see...

CHAPTER 1. Jacqueline


I.

Deep space.

He hadn't been into this room for years.

Ten of them, in fact.

He'd cleaned out every other single room in the time machine, deleted half of them, remade that half back over, yet not once in a long decade of solitude had he ever bothered to walk into this room.

He wasn't even here on purpose. He'd been intending to grab a thermocoupling from the workshop to stop the old girl wheezing so loudly (she'd been very vocal over the last year or so, assuming of course that it even made sense to talk about a vocal time machine). But the TARDIS was the TARDIS, and he'd suspected for a while that she'd been trying to make a point to him.

Well, he wasn't finished yet, so no, he told his ancient time machine. He would come back for her when he was ready... when she was ready.

That his idea of 'ready' was completely different from hers... well, he didn't think about such things.

Until, of course, the TARDIS decided to switch the doors, and instead of grabbing a thermocoupling, he'd found himself in a bedroom. Her bedroom. The walls were still that deep, familiar shade of blue, the four poster bed was still unmade. There was still those shortcuts to the kitchen and the library-slash-swimming-pool that he'd installed for her so long ago. One wall was still covered in both still and moving images, two happy, joyous faces as the pair of them had cavorted through all of time and space for that breathless, magical time.

Everything was just as he remembered... except for one thing. One parting gift she'd never told him about, that he'd never known about.

Until now.

He folded up the letter and placed it back on the table, his crystal-blue eyes star bright as he gazed at the central, largest picture.

It was time.

"I'm coming for you, Amelia Pond."


II.

June 21, 2015. Australia.

It was Friday.

Friday night, specifically. Usually the time to unwind, relax, take a few hours off – 'get loose', to use the local vernacular. A time to drink, be merry, and drink some more. It definitely wasn't the time to be sitting at a workdesk, staring aimlessly at the twilight sky. Certainly not on a night as calm as this.

But for one twenty-two year old girl, this was exactly how she had chosen to spend the evening. Staring out her window, waiting for the stars. She tried to justify to herself that it wasn't a good time to be walking around outside at night nowadays, given the spate of recent disappearings, but that was a pretty pathetic excuse even by her own admission.

To be fair, it was winter.

She flicked on the radio, hoping to hear something nice and distracting.

"...the University continues to assure parents and the public that every effort is being made to ensure that the students staying at Wattle College are safe, and that they are getting to the bottom of the string of mysterious disappearances. However, the family of Peter Rowland, who disappeared over a month ago now, lashed out today in an..."

She sighed. Great. As if that would help. She clicked off the radio again, having no interest in hearing yet another story about one of the six people who had gone missing in the last month. The police were baffled; there was no rhyme, reason or suspicious circumstances surrounding any of them, they'd simply... vanished. For no apparent reason.

It was both mysterious and really quite unnerving, since Jacqueline had known four of them, and known Peter Rowland quite well. They'd even dated once upon a time. Briefly. Very, very briefly.

Okay, well, at least she hadn't tried to tell the police that they were friends – she'd been dragged in for questioning, on the basis that she had claimed to be the last person to see him before he disappeared into the aether (she'd bumped into him as he was rushing to class).

That hadn't been fun.

Her phone beeped. She half-heartedly picked it up, and without even moving her head read the text message, though secretly quite grateful for the excuse to think about something else. The text was from her sister – well, technically, her adopted sister – Mels.

Hey Jac. Having drinks with Kevin. In? Mels xx

She paused, thought about it for a second, two seconds – then expertly manipulated her thumb across the keypad to send her reply. No, sorry. It was short, sharp, and verging on rude – and so fairly typical of her. Only Mels could get away with calling her 'Jac'. Just as she was the only one who got away with calling her sister 'Mels' – to everyone else, her sister's name was Melody.

And hers was Jacqueline.

She was an odd girl. Always had been. That was the first word that came to mind when people tried to describe her. Enigmatic was a popular description. As were 'bonkers' and 'shit-scary'. And, to be perfectly honest, they were all correct.

Hell, she didn't even really 'get' herself. Her life made zero sense. She had no parents. She'd never had parents – they had died long ago. Or so she assumed. Because she honestly couldn't really remember. In fact she didn't really remember anything before she was seventeen. Oh, there were flashes, brief images – but nothing comprehensible, and nothing that gave any clues to what her life, who she was...


"So, what's your name?"

"Jacqueline."

"Jacqueline..."

She sighs. This is the fifth time she's answered this question today. And, for the fifth time, she says those same three words. The girl who rescued her, the nice one – Melody, was that her name? – had left for school, leaving her alone in the hospital with the nurses.

"I don't know."

The white-suited nurse nods, marking something on his clipboard. He'd seen amnesia before, but rarely this extreme.

"So can you remember... well, anything? Anything other than your name and your age?"

Jacqueline swallows.

"I..."

Images flash through her mind. A deep blue telephone box. A forest full of stone statues. A floppy-haired man in a tweed jacket. A flash of white. A towering block of glittering amethyst. She screws up her eyes, thinking, concentrating, trying to hold on to those wisps of memory, traces of a very different past...

"I can't."


Jacqueline shook herself out of the reverie.

It's not 2010 any more, genius. It's 2015 and your sister is probably having a riot with her boyfriend while you're sitting here staring out your window.

Five years had passed. Gradually, she'd managed to accept that her life, her gifts, her amnesia – they were part of who they were. For all her flaws, she was incurably optimistic – she decided to take it as an opportunity to forge the life that she wanted.

It took a while, buckets of tears, a few shouting matches with her sister – she had a hell of a temper, which Mels joked was her inner Scot coming out – but she had managed to forge an identity for herself. It wasn't much of an identity – smart, hot but very much single girl who just happened to love flirting with every boy in town – but it was who she was. Jacqueline Clarke.

She'd gone through Year 12 along with her sister, to everyone's surprise, gone on a whirlwind gap-year tour of the world, again with her sister, then settled into a double degree at the best university she could find – that her sister could enrol in too, of course. She majored in Astronomy and History – a strange combination, but she didn't care. She had an actual life now. A real, normal, life.

But yet.

For over three years now, a single name had consumed her. Who was that girl? Could it be... her? Was that who she really was? The thought had dug itself into a mind like a parasite and it had infected her, spawning doubts and weaknesses in her defences.

Could the identity she'd fought so hard to define be completely false?

It became an obsession of hers. She scoured the internet for any and all information about the name 'Amelia Pond' she could possibly find. The more she looked, the more her results were fruitless, the higher the panic rose in her chest – could it possibly be her true name?

Then, last year, she'd found what she was looking for. A nondescript news article, in a tiny English village called Leadworth... a story about a girl called Amelia – or, rather, Amy – Pond disappearing. Her heart had been momentarily in her mouth until she saw it was dated June 2010. Months after she'd turned up on the wayside.

Whoever this Amelia Pond was, it surely wasn't her. Despite the fact that she was listed as Scottish. Despite the fact that there was a passing mention to flowing red hair. Despite all the coincidences that lined themselves up – though she had never believed in coincidence – unless Amelia Pond had somehow invented time travel, which seemed a tad unlikely, Jacqueline Clarke was a different person to her. Melody, for her part, had taken one look at the article, laughed at her and called her a moron for worrying so much.

Still...

The simple fact was that the only clue, the only hint about her past life came from this name, this device.

She sighed, swivelled in her chair, flipped up her laptop and opened to the page she'd found those years before. That article from that little English village. She read it absently, lost in her own world once again when a little chime told her she had new mail. A few mouse clicks later, and her email page was open, revealing a new email from John Smith.

Her eyebrows leapt into her hairline. John Smith was the email handle of her mysterious benefactor, who had kindly covered all her school, uni and medical fees (medical mostly meaning therapists) ever since she'd been found. Every now and then he'd drop her a line, usually containing a cryptic message that she couldn't comprehend, and occasionally even bizarre symbols she couldn't read, though not for a lack of trying. She'd sent a few confused and occasionally pissed-off emails in response, but those never got a reply.

She didn't mind – bonkers man or not, he sure as hell had made her life a lot easier than it could have been. She'd briefly considered trying to track him down herself, but John Smith was evidently clever with an email client, and the electronic trail had run dry in short order. She didn't even consider investigating the name – can you get a more generic name than John Smith?

No, whoever this John Smith was, he was taking great pains not to be identified.

She lazily double-clicked the email, expecting to find yet more unreadable gibberish.

Instead, what she found was the shortest email she'd ever received, written in plain English.

Check your mail.

She didn't even bother to close the laptop and shut the door in her rush downstairs.


III.

"So is Jac coming?"

"Oi. Only I get to call her Jac," Melody Clarke reminded her boyfriend, her voice only just audible over the hubbub of the bar.

A double beep suddenly cut through the air, announcing the arrival of a text. Mels retrieved the phone out of her pocket with an expert flick of her wrist, reading Jacqueline's straight-to-the-point reply.

No, sorry. Jac.

She rolled her eyes, completely unsurprised. Her sister had been in one-of-those-moods lately, and when she got into those, it was borderline impossible to get her out. Mels was certainly capable, but it involved a lot of effort and couldn't be done over text message. As much as she loved her sister, she didn't really feel like putting up with her mood swings tonight. She'd just handed in her Honours thesis, the culmination of four years' hard work. With luck, she'd be graduating in just a few weeks' time. She felt she deserved a night off. Hell, even I need a bit of time to myself every now and then. She just wished it could be somewhere... quieter. Less full of the technicolour hubbub that she associated with such public spaces. But the drinks were half price, so that made up for it.

For her part, Jacqueline had been thrilled to hear that Melody had finished her studies – she herself still had a few months to go on her double-degree – but she'd been in a weird mood all week, so had been no surprise when she retreated to her room and cut herself off from the world. Although she couldn't hide from her sister.

"Lemme guess. She's not coming?"

"What a genius you are, Kev."

"Not compared to you, I'm not."

She smiled fondly. "Thanks, sweetie. So who's getting the drinks?"

"Drinks? I think I might be of some assistance there!" Both Mels and Kevin started at the voice. They turned to see a tall, chocolate-brown haired man wearing what Mels could only describe as crimes against fashion. Tweed jacket and a bow-tie? Seriously? He spoke with a crisp English accent, his voice lively and his speech rapid-fire. Mels, however, was most taken by his eyes.

They were crystal-clear and an enigmatic share of blue, like the summer sky on a cloudless day. The closer she looked, however, the more she was struck by the depth of those eyes, the way the pools of colour just seemed to... go forever, holding secrets unimaginable. The man looked in his mid-twenties, but his eyes certainly didn't.

"Um..." Kevin began, utterly taken aback and more than a little suspicious.

"I'll take that as a yes," the man continued. "Back in a mo."

"Wow," Kevin began. "What a weirdo."

"Don't be mean, Kevin, I guess there parts of England that are still stuck in the 1930s," she quipped. Even so, she couldn't help be fascinated by the man.

Less than a minute had passed when he returned with their drinks, laden on a plastic tray. "Mind if I sit? No? Excellent." There wasn't really time to protest before the strange man plonked himself on a chair between Kevin and Mels, passing both their drinks.

"Erm... sorry to be rude-" Mels began.

"Not a problem," the man replied over her.

"Right. Sorry to be rude, but who the hell are you?"

Without warning, the man slapped his own forehead. "Ah, how silly of me, this is the 21st century, not the 31st. Introductions come first, drinks after."

They blinked. What the bloody hell is he on about?

"I apologise. Anyway, my name's the Doctor. Or John Smith. Or Get-Off-This-Planet... although I don't think that's actually a name..." he trailed off, frowning as if the oddness of the title had just occurred to him. A second later, he brightened up again. "But you can just call me the Doctor."

"Doctor who?" Kevin asked, slightly nonplussed by the man's self-introduction.

"Brilliant question."

"Wait – so you're John Smith?"

"Well, actually, I'm the Doctor. But sometimes I go by John Smith, when I feel like it."

"My sister gets emails from John Smith from time to time. He pays all her bills and stuff, she'd really struggle without it."

"How interesting. What's your sister's name?"

"Jacqueline Clarke. Mine is Melody, by the way, and this is my boyfriend, Kevin."

"Pleased to meet you, Melody." Without warning, he grabbed her cheeks and kissed the air about ten centimetres either side of her face, letting go again. He frowned. "Wait – that's not how people greet each other these days, is it? Ah, old age is catching up with me and all..."

Mels and Kevin shared a look.

"Right," Mels began, a bit less confidently than before. Yeah, this man – was he seriously called the Doctor? – was fascinating, but he was also a complete loon. "So are you really John Smith? The same John Smith?"

"There are a lot of John Smiths in the world," the Doctor replied cryptically.

"True, but my sister has a mysterious benefactor called John Smith whom she's almost certain is an alias, and then a random bloke with an alias of John Smith walks up to us one night and buys us drinks."

A smile in return, one that was almost... knowing?

"Your sister sounds like a clever girl."

"You have no idea."

"You'd be surprised."

Cocky too, huh? "Right. Either way, it's a hell of a coincidence. And neither me nor Jacqueline really believe in coincidences."

"The universe throws up coincidences from time to time. Doesn't make them particularly meaningful."

"True. But I've got a funny feeling this one ain't mere coincidence." The Doctor's deft dodges only spurred her on, stoked her curiosity. Without warning, he left out a great booming laugh which attracted a few odd looks from nearby patrons.

"You're good, Melody Clarke. You're very, very good. Normally at this stage I'd make a joke about Amy being fired... but she's not here, is she? But she will be, soon... anyway, it was lovely meeting you, Melody. And you, Kevin. I'll see you around." With that, he stood, having not so much as touched his own drink, and disappeared back into the throng of patrons.

"What a headcase," Kevin commented.

Melody didn't reply, her eyes still fixed on the place where the Doctor had vanished into the crowd.

Who the hell is Amy? More the point, who the hell was he?


IV.

Jacqueline didn't know why she was buzzing, but she was. From head to toe, a restless, excited energy had filled her, bursting with life because of the email from John Smith. What had he sent her in the mail? He'd never sent anything in the mail before, it was usually just bank deposits and cryptic emails.

She reached her mailboxes, and quickly located hers. So excited was she that she'd even brought the unlocker out for this, not even bothering with keys. The box slid open without her even touching it, and she peered inside.

There were envelopes, letters from the usual suspects... and a golden fob watch. She picked it up, entranced.

It was beautiful.

The chain was at least two feet long, and coated in the same gleaming gold foil that coated the watch itself. She hung it before her eyes, mesmerized by the way the watch shone and flickered as it slowly rotated it before her. There were markings on the face, ornate and complex. She grabbed the watch in her hand to take a closer look.

She gasped. Oh my god. The markings on the watch, on closer inspection, were astonishingly similar to the strange symbols John Smith sometimes sent in his emails. Could they be the same?

She pocketed the unlocker, sprinted up the staircase and barrelled down the corridors to her room, narrowly avoiding knocking over one or two surprised and indignant people on the way. She slammed the door shut behind her and sat back down at her desk. Just as she'd left it, her email was still open on her laptop. She browsed through, looking for one of the most recent emails from John Smith. Student Services... Mels... Gotcha! John Smith.

She opened the email, revealing an array of ornate but unintelligible symbols plastered across her screen. She held the fob watch against the screen, comparing the two carefully. Her eyes lit up as she moved across.

They were the same. All of them. For each symbol on the watch, there was a perfect match in this email. Excitement flooded through her, and she began to bounce up and down on her chair, giddy with delight. Here, at last, were clues!

A pity, then, that she still had no idea to read the symbols.

It was like someone had poured a bucket of cold water in her head. Her giddiness vanished as she was reminded that this email was still, to her eyes, complete gibberish.

She looked at the fob watch again. Should I open it?

A sudden fear gripped her, and she clasped her fist around the object, determined not to let it open even by accident. She didn't know why she didn't want to open it... she just knew that somehow, it was probably not a good idea. Yet.

Suddenly, a double beep pierced the air. Bemused, she picked her phone off the desk, and was stunned to see a message from her sister. Wasn't she going out? She opened the text.

Hey Jac. Met someone weird. Want to talk to you about it. Meet me in the usual place.

She stuffed the golden watch back in her pocket, and within seconds she was at her dresser, ruffling through her clothes to find a suitable coat. It was winter, after all.


Melody leaned against a tree whilst she waited, staring down the wide, tree-lined grassy strip that was University Avenue. Her gaze drifted upwards to the now pitch-black night sky. Stars twinkled invitingly at her, almost beckoning her to just rise up and join them in a journey of exploration. Like her sister, she'd always been a compulsive stargazer, although she didn't quite have her sister's eidetic memory for names and constellations. Archaeology was much more straightforward. And less noisy, which was a big thing for her - silent, peaceful libraries were very much in her comfort zone.

"So I thought you were going out." She turned to find her sister striding towards her, her fiery locks shining vivdly even in the moonlight.

"Too many people, too much noise, too much colour. Not in the mood for a crowd tonight," Mels replied. "Don't worry, Kev understands."

"Sure? Cutting dates short doesn't strike me as a good plan." Jacqueline plonked herself on the ground, resting against the tree next to her sister.

"Trust me on this, Jac. I know a hell of a lot more about this stuff than you do."

Jacqueline chuckled. "Alright, I'll take your word for it, you being the expert and all. Though what if he's not so fine with it?"

"We'll cross the bridge when we get there. It was my thing after all." Mels paused for a second. "Have you thought about actually finding a boyfriend, sis?"

"Yeah."

"Let me guess. You then decided not to get one."

"Pretty much."

Mels shook her head. "Sweetie, you're going to have to find someone some day."

"Not today. Besides, I don't need a boyfriend for emotional support. That's your job."

"True." Boyfriends or not, both girls' first priority was each other. It was quite extraordinary, really, given that they'd not even met six years ago.

"So what'd you call me down here for, Mels? Or did you just want to stargaze?"

"Maybe later. But nah, while we were at the bar, we met someone. Well, I say we met him, more he met us..." She related the story of the Doctor, how he'd given his alias as John Smith, how he'd cryptically suggested that he was the same John Smith who'd been helping Jacqueline all these years.

"Weird," Jacqueline commented once she'd finished.

"I know, eh?"

"What did you say his real name was, again?"

"The Doctor. Funny name, right? Barely even counts as a name, for mine. But then he was just a weird bloke all round – he was wearing a tweed jacket and a friggin' bow tie, of all things. A bow tie!"

Both girls laughed, but Jacqueline's mind had drifted. The words seemed to resonate in her head somehow, going round and round as if beating on some wall in her mind... the Doctor... bow tie... the Doctor... bow tie...

She shook her head, clearing it of the distraction. "So you reckon it's the same John Smith?"

"Got a hunch, yeah." Melody's hunches tended to be correct.

"You know, that's funny, because just after you sent me that text, I got an email."

"From John Smith?"

"No, from the Easter bunny. Who'd you think?"

Melody's lip curled. "Well sor-ree. Was it just more symbols?"

"Nope. He told me to go check my mail."

Mels sat up straight, leaning off the tree. "He sent you something in the mail?"

"Yep." She reached into her pocket and retrieved the golden fob watch. Even in the dull moonlight, it was still an entrancing sight.

"Wow," Mels breathed, completely taken in. "What's it for?"

"No clue. Haven't opened it yet."

"You should."

Jacqueline hesitated, then shook her head. "Not yet."

The sisters fell silent, gazing up at the beckoning, twinkling stars.

"He also mentioned someone else, you know," Mels finally said, quietly. Night was now several hours old and it was getting stupidly cold, but neither girl cared. This was when they were happiest, alone but together, gazing at the starry sky.

"Who? John Smith?"

"Yeah. Said something about a girl called Amy... about how he missed her but how she'd be coming back. Sort of rung a bell, but not sure why..."

"Hmm, interesting. Rings a bell for me, too. Wonder why that name seems so... so..." Jacqueline's speech ground to a halt as her mind raced ahead. So familiar.

She had been reading that article not fifteen minutes ago.

"Oh."

"Jac? What is it?" Mels picked herself off the ground, looking over at her sister in concern. Jacqueline's hand was running up the side of her head and through her thick red hair, as if suddenly struck by an important thought. "Sis – hang on – wait!"

But Jacqueline was already off and running.


V.

She barged into her room five minutes later, panting slightly, eyes wide and cheeks flushed.

It can't be. I must have read it wrong. It was unheard of... but the alternative – she didn't know how she would deal with it. How could the only two clues to her identity pop up on the same night at the same time as her benefactor mysteriously gives her a strange gift, and all related to the same man? She sat at her desk, powering up her laptop, impatiently strumming her fingers on the keyboard as the machine whirred into life.

Moments later, her sister came barrelling into her room as well, having struggled to keep up with Jacqueline's long legs.

"Jacqueline, what... what is it?" Mels was panting heavily, sucking in uneven, harsh breaths. Running really wasn't her gig.

The laptop powered up at last. Jacqueline's fingers skated across the keyboard at lightning-speed, bringing up the file she had seen so many times before. An old newspaper article from a little English village named Leadworth.

She read the first line. Read it again. And again.

'Amelia Jessica Pond, more commonly known as Amy, was declared missing last Friday...'

Her voice came in a harsh, shellshocked whisper. "It has to be a coincidence. It has to be."

A chiming noise indicated the arrival of another email. Somehow, she knew the identity of the sender before she'd even switched windows, let alone opened it. Melody rushed over, as to get a proper look at the three lines of text on the screen.

The universe throws up coincidences from time to time, John Smith had written, but this isn't one of them.

Find Amelia Pond, Jacqueline. Find her.

She's waiting for you.


A word on Melody. She was originally slated to be this fic's version of River Song, hence the name and appearance. She still is in some respects, but don't expect her to behave like River (for one thing, she won't be hyper-attracted to the Doctor, in case that isn't obvious already). On that note, I will remind everyone of canon!River and the Silence's absence from this fic, for plotting sanity reasons.

Please review etc etc. Would also really appreciate if someone could beta this story, too.