Six months later
Lissa was on her way home from school- another terrible day, ugh- when her phone rang. She frowned when she saw who it was. Amy.
"Hey, what's up?" She asked in lieu of 'hello'. "I'm on my way home."
"Don't come home!" Amy said, sounding stressed. "Someone broke in. Just, go pick up some food and come here in, like, half an hour."
"Someone broke in?!" Lissa cried. "Are you okay, do you need anything? Have you called the police? What about Aunt Sharon, is she there, is she okay? Are-"
"Lissa, it's fine!" Amy cut her off, voice soothing. "I'm taking care of it. Just go get us some food and wait a little, okay?"
Lissa took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. Pizza sound good?"
"Sure- shit, he's waking up!" Lissa's eyes widened and she was about to say something- "what do you mean 'he's waking up'?!"- but Amy hung up and cut them off. Lissa ran a hand through her hair, not knowing what to do. Did she trust it when Amy said she had it taken care of?
Yes, yes she did. Amy had never let her down before, had she? So, Lissa turned around and headed over to the local pizza joint. Like everything else in Leadworth, it was owned by an elderly couple, and of course they knew her. The curse of a small town.
"Annalise!" Mrs. Matthews exclaimed when the bell brought attention to Lissa's arrival. Lissa shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot; no matter how many times she told Mrs. Matthews that she was Lissa now, she insisted on calling her Annalise. She didn't like it. She quickly made her order- one large pepperoni- and sat in one of the small stools by the window to wait for it to cook.
Lissa was playing on her phone when she heard it. The TV in the corner crackled for a moment, then a menacing voice said, "Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated."
Lissa's blood ran cold. Prisoner Zero. She remembered that from back when she was a kid. That name-it used to be whispered from the crack! She would have the worst nightmares about Prisoner Zero. He- it- used to terrify her. Still did, apparently.
Lissa whipped her head around to look outside, as if she would see Prisoner Zero running down the street, screaming. But, no. She saw something worse. Him. The Raggedy Doctor. He didn't look a day older, and he was being dragged by Amy by his tattered tie. Lissa watched, frozen, as Amy shut his tie in Mr. Henderson's car door. Eyes wide, Lissa ran out the door with a shout over her shoulder, saying she'd be right back for the pizza.
"Amy!" Amy whirled around, eyes a bit crazy. She tried to step in front of the Doctor, to hide him from Lissa. "What the hell is going on?" Lissa walked around her sister, looking at the Raggedy Doctor right in the face. He looked up at her, bent over since his tie was shut in the door, looking at her in almost a sense of wonder.
"Annalise?"
Lissa looked down at her feet, feeling like she was five-years-old again. "It's Lissa now."
"Oh, not you too! Annalise Pond was a brilliant name!" The Doctor protested. Lissa glared at him, taking a step back.
"Well, I didn't fancy being Odd Annalise anymore, so..." She spat. A small piece of her was pleased when he looked shocked and horrified at that. Then, he shook his head.
"Look, we don't have much time! We have less than twenty minutes to save the planet from being incinerated." He said, appealing to her since it was obvious Amy wasn't going to let him go anytime soon. Lissa crossed her arms over her chest.
"What, like you didn't have time for us for the past twelve years?" Just as she said that, an apple was thrown at her. Instinctively, she caught it. Her hands shook when she saw the smiley face bitten out of it, just like the one she had given the Doctor that night, in an attempt to make him like apples.
"For me, it's only been five minutes, Annalise." He promised. "I'm a time traveller and everything I told you twelve years ago is true. I'm real. What's happening in the sky is real, and if you don't let me go right now, everything you've ever known is over." Lissa only tore her gaze away from the apple- there weren't any brown spots at all!- when he mentioned the sky. Automatically, she looked up and saw how strange it looked.
"What, is there some kind of forcefield covering the Earth?" She asked sarcastically, but quieted when she saw the grave look on the Doctor's face.
"I don't believe him," Amy said. "And you shouldn't, either." The Doctor rubbed his eyes with one hand.
"Just twenty minutes. Just believe me for twenty minutes." He begged. He pointed to the apple in Lissa's hand. "Look at it. Fresh as the day she gave it to me. And you know it's the same one. Amy, believe for twenty minutes." Amy looked at the apple for a second before pressing the button to unlock the car. The Doctor gratefully opened the door and released his tie. He twirled around- is his steering still off? Lissa wondered- and laughed a little when he saw the bite taken out of the apple. Lissa shrugged.
"I"m hungry." She said simply. He just smiled at her and accepted the apple when she gave it back to him. He took a large bite out of it, and obviously tried very hard not to make a face as he swallowed. Lissa couldn't help but giggle.
"What do we do?" Amy asked, pulling the attention back to her. "Less than twenty minutes, yeah?" The Doctor nodded, serious once more. He dropped the apple into a pocket. Lissa was amazed to see that it didn't make a lump at all.
"Stop that nurse!" He said, pointing to someone on the other side of the park, who was taking pictures of some guy walking a dog. The Doctor took off and Amy and Lissa followed. As they got closer, Lissa recognized the nurse, right as the Doctor snatched the phone out of his hands.
"The sun's going out, and you're photographing a man and a dog. Why?" The Doctor grilled instantly. Rory looked confused, but happy when he saw Amy approach.
"Amy!" He said, reaching for a hug. Amy held a hand out, stopping him.
"Hi!" She said brightly, sounding a little fake to Lissa's ears. "Oh, this is Rory, he's a friend." Lissa shook her head. Poor Rory, Amy was always doing stuff like that.
"Boyfriend." Rory corrected, which seemed to make Amy a little uncomfortable, or upset. She took a small step away from him.
"Kind of boyfriend," she amended. Rory looked hurt.
"]Man and dog. Why?" The Doctor demanded, pulling the conversation away from the domestics it was about to go into. Rory turned to face the Doctor and his mouth fell open as he recognized him. Lissa winced, knowing what was going to happen next.
"Oh my God, it's him," Rory breathed, looking from Amy to Lissa in hopes for an explanation.
"Just answer his question, please," Lissa asked, looking at her feet once more. This was way too awkward for her liking.
"It's him, though. The Doctor. The Raggedy Doctor," Rory went on, pointing at the Doctor's face.
"He came back," Amy and Lissa said together.
"But he was a story!" Rory insisted. "He was a game."
"Man and dog, why? Tell me now!" The Doctor said firmly.
"Sorry," Rory said, shaking his head slightly. "Because he can't be there. Because he's-"
"In a hospital, in a coma." The Doctor said on top of Rory. Rory nodded mutely. The Doctor clapped his hands together. He looked grimly pleased, which was a weird look.
"Knew it. Multiform, you see?" The Doctor's gaze switched between the three of them. "Disguise itself as anything, but it needs a life feed. A psychic link with a living but dormant mind." The man with the dog barked at them. Not the dog, but the man. Lissa jumped and she grabbed the Doctor's arm. He nodded towards the man. "Prisoner Zero."
"What?" Lissa yelped. "That's Prisoner Zero? He's here?" She shook a little, eyeing the man with dislike. He didn't look anything like he did in her dreams. In her dreams, he was a giant snakelike thing that always hung from the ceiling with really long, thin teeth and creepy huge eyes. But, if she was understanding what the Doctor said, this wasn't what Prisoner Zero really looked like. It was a disguise.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was arguing with Prisoner Zero, holding his weird little screwdriver thing in the air, pressing a button so it made noise. Lissa had no clue what was going on and became even more confused when the screwdriver began to melt.
"No, no, no!" The Doctor moaned, cradling the screwdriver like it was something precious. He wasn't looking at Prisoner Zero. He didn't see how Prisoner Zero disappeared before their eyes.
"Doctor!" Amy cried. "He sort of just melted down the drain." The Doctor groaned a bit more
"Okay, okay," he said. "We have to drive Prisoner Zero out into the open. No TARDIS, no screwdriver, and seventeen minutes. Think, think!" He hit his forehead with each 'think'. It took him a minute to come up with a plan.
"Okay, you two," he gestured to Amy and Rory, "go to the hospital. Get everyone out of the ward, clear the whole floor. Phone me when you're done." He looked at Lissa. "You and I are going to find Jeff and his laptop." He grabbed her hand and began dragging her in the direction of the Angelo's house. She struggled a little to keep up with him, and he slowed down to help her out.
They quickly made it to the Angelo's house. The Doctor let them in, and they walked right past Mrs. Angelo, and Lissa gave her a little wave and she was dragged into the back bedroom, where Jeff was sitting on his bed. He was using his laptop.
"Hello. Laptop. Give me." The Doctor grabbed the laptop from Jeff and sat down on the bed. Lissa hurriedly sat next to him. Jeff protested, trying to take the laptop back. "It's fine, just let me use it!" The Doctor got the laptop out of Jeff's grasp and set it on his lap, angling it so he and Lissa could see. Lissa made a disgusted sound when she saw what was on the screen. The Doctor's eyes widened. "Blimey, get a girlfriend, Jeff."
"What are you doing?" Mrs. Angelo asked as she walked into the room. The Doctor was already typing away on the computer.
"The sun's gone wibbly, so right now, somewhere out there, there's going to be a big old video conference call." The Doctor explained without looking up. "All the experts in the world panicking at once, and do you know what they need? Me." He pressed a button finally, and grinned. "Ah, and here they all are. All the big boys. NASA, Jodrell Bank, Tokyo Space Centre, Patrick Moore." Mrs. Angelo sat down next to Lissa.
"I like Patrick Moore." She told them.
"You can't just hack in on a call like that," Lissa said, not believing her eyes when she saw all of them on the screen. The Doctor shot her a wicked grin.
"Can't I?"
"First floor, on the left, fourth from the end." Amy reported from the hospital. Lissa repeated what she said to the Doctor, who was manning a firetruck with surprising ease. Lissa held on to a pole inside, just in case.
"Tell them to duck!" The Doctor shouted as he prepared to ram into the window. Lissa quickly texted Amy, and was relieved when she saw her and Rory duck.
"Right! Hello. Am I late?" The Doctor asked as he led the way, climbing up the ladder. He checked the clock on the wall. "No, three minutes to go. So still time."
Prisoner Zero was now disguised as a woman with two small children holding her hands. The woman sneered at the Doctor.
"Time for what, Time Lord?" She asked. Lissa wondered what a Time Lord was, but figured this wasn't the best time to ask. Besides, she was frozen in fear form Prisoner Zero. He managed to make a kindly mother look extremely intimidating; it was just as bad as the nightmares she used to have.
"Take the disguise off. They'll find you in a heartbeat. Nobody dies." The Doctor suggested. Prisoner Zero scoffed.
"The Atraxi will kill me this time," she stated. "If I am to die, let there be fire." Lissa clenched her fists. No, she thought firmly. She wasn't going to let the monster under her bed terrify her anymore.
"You came to this world by opening a crack in our wall," she said quietly, but determinedly. "Do it again. Just leave." Prisoner Zero tutted softly.
"I did not open the crack."
The Doctor and Prisoner Zero got into a heated discussion about where the crack came from, how Prisoner Zero only used what was already there. There was some childish taunting on Prisoner Zero's end, which was rather odd in Lissa's mind.
Then, the clock turned to 0:00. The Doctor seemed to relish in his victory, though Lissa was having a hard time keeping up with what exactly he did. He knew it had something to do with Jeff's phone and the virus he had created for the space experts.
"The Atraxi are limited. While I'm in this form, they'll still be unable to detect me," Prisoner Zero explained haughtily. "They've tracked a phone, not me."
The Doctor didn't seem phased. "Yeah, but this is the good bit. I mean, this is my favourite bit. Do you know what this phone is full of?" He paused, giving Prisoner Zero a chance to respond. "Pictures of you. Every form you've learned to take, right here. Oooh, and being uploaded about now. And the final score is, no TARDIS, no screwdriver, two minutes to spare. Who da man?" Amy and Lissa shared a look, eyebrows raised, and had to look away from each other for fear of laughing. "Oh, I'm never saying that again."
Prisoner Zero shrugged. "Then I shall take a new form." The Doctor scoffed.
"Oh, stop it. You know you can't. It takes months to form that kind of psychic link." A smile grew on the woman's face, which sent chills down Lissa's spine.
"And I've had years." Lissa's world turned black and she fell to the ground, out cold.
It was one of the worst nightmares Lissa had ever had. Prisoner Zero had taken the form of the Doctor, and was taunting her about how no one loved her, about how everyone had always preferred Amy over her, how even the Doctor had come back for Amy and not her.
"Poor, little Odd Annalise Pond. Still such a child inside, waiting for her magic Doctor to come and take her away from her miserable life." Prisoner Zero-as-the-Doctor cooed, brushing her hair back gently. Tears streamed down Lissa's face, but she couldn't move. She was trapped inside her own subconscious.
"Lissa?" The Doctor's voice came floating in from the blackness, not from Prisoner Zero-as-the-Doctor's mouth. He stood there like a statue, eyes burning into hers. "Lissa, hear me! You've been dreaming of Prisoner Zero your entire life, you know what it looks like! Concentrate on that, Lissa. Think of all those horrifying nightmares that would keep you up at night, the ones so bad you couldn't even leave your bed. Concentrate!"
It was hard, but Lissa did as she was told. She thought of how Prisoner Zero really looked. Prisoner Zero-as-the-Doctor starting flinching and wincing, but kept shape.
"Odd Annalise, still trying to cling to her magic Doctor, though he doesn't care about her at all! Tries to forget how he abandoned her for twelve long years!" It screeched. Its form started to blur, changing from the Doctor to the snakelike form she had known since she was small. "He won't save you, he will never rescue you from the hell you live in!"
With a gasp, Lissa's eyes flew open.
And Prisoner Zero, in its true form, disappeared. Rory ran over and was helping Lissa up as the Doctor ran out of the room, Amy at his heel.
"What happened?" Lissa slurred, holding her head. Rory gave a quick rundown of how Prisoner Zero had taken her five-year-old form, along with the Doctor as she knew him, and how her remembering how it really looked help it get caught by the Atraxi.
"And now, he's brought the aliens back." Rory finished lamely. Lissa stood up and the world spun. "Whoa, wait up. I need to check and make sure you don't have a concussion or something." Lissa shook him off, wobbling as she made to follow the Doctor and Amy.
"Later," she mumbled.
Rory helped her up to the roof, where the Doctor was shouting at the giant eye thing that Rory claimed was the Atraxi.
"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor stated. "Basically, run." The Atraxi listened, zipping off into the sky without a trace.
"Is that it?" Amy asked. "Are they gone for good?" The Doctor didn't answer, just ran past them all. Amy was quick to follow, and Rory help Lissa, whose head was becoming clearer. By the time they made it outside the hospital, the Doctor and Amy were out of sight and Lissa broke into a run.
For the first time in her life, Lissa thanked God that Leadworth was so small. She made it back to her house in no time, stomach sinking as she heard that wheezing noise that had come from the Doctor's box- time machine- when he had left twelve years ago. When she finally made it to her backyard, the Doctor and his box were gone.
And so was Amy.
Two years later
Lissa was fast asleep on the couch in the living room, the TV still on as she slept. It was the night before Amy's wedding, so Lissa had been pulling up with a bunch of crap lately from Amy, including being kicked out of their bedroom because apparently, Lissa snored. According to Amy, it wouldn't help her beauty sleep.
She was woken up by that sound. The one that had been haunting her dreams every night for the past two years, after she had gone inside her house and found Amy sitting at the kitchen table. The Doctor hadn't taken her with him, either. It had been a small consolation.
Lissa sat up on the couch, pushing the blankets off of her as she did every night. Every night, she woke up thinking she heard that sound. Every night, she went to the back door to check the backyard. And every year, she was disappointed.
Except, this time, Amy had woken up, too. She came down in her nightgown and a robe.
"You heard it, too?" She asked, voice quiet. She didn't want to wake Aunt Sharon. Lissa nodded. She grabbed her silk robe from the recliner chair and slipped it on. Amy had heard it, too, and now Lissa's heart was pounding hard in her chest. If Amy had heard it, too, than it must be real, right?
They ran outside, and Lissa's heart jumped into her throat when she saw the box sitting in their backyard. The door opened and orange light spilled out, the Doctor exiting. He grinned sheepishly at the two of them.
"Sorry about running off earlier. Brand new TARDIS. Bit exciting." He wrung his hands together a little nervously. "Just had a quick hop to the moon and back to run her in. She's ready for the big stuff now."
"It's really you," Lissa breathed. She heard Amy's great hitch in her throat.
"You came back," Amy whispered.
The Doctor looked a little surprised. "'Course I came back. I always come back." He looked between the two of them. "Something wrong with that?"
"Are you from another planet?" Lissa asked, voice cracking a little. The Doctor nodded, looking smug.
"Yeah."
Amy nodded as they took in this new information.
"So what do you think?" He asked. They both gave him blank looks. "Other planets. Want to check some out?" Lissa wrapped herself with her arms, trying to fight off the nighttime cold.
"What does that mean?" She asked softly.
"It means. Well, it means come with me. Both of you." He answered, arms swinging.
"Where?" Amy asked.
"Wherever you like."
Lissa took a deep breath. Did he not realize how long it had been? He said he just went to the moon and back... Maybe, once again, he thought he had only been gone five minutes. "All those things that happened- Prisoner Zero, the hospital and all- it, it happened two years ago." The Doctor's grin faltered.
"O-oh," he didn't seem to know what to do. "Oops." Amy huffed, arms crossed.
"Yeah," she snapped. "'Oops'."
"So thats-?"
"Fourteen years!" Amy and Lissa said together. Amy was fierce and angry, Lissa was soft and scared.
"Fourteen years since fish custard," the Doctor muttered. He smiled once more, stepping back so the door was open to them. "Amy, Lissa, the girls who waited, you've waited long enough, I think." Amy's anger dissipated and she ran for the door. She disappeared inside.
Lissa, on the other hand, hesitated. "When I was a kid, you said there was a swimming pool and a library, and the swimming pool was in the library." She said softly. The Doctor shrugged.
"Yeah, I'm not sure where it's got to now. It'll turn up." He leaned back against the box. "So, coming?"
Lissa took a deep breath and shook her head. "No," she said finally. The Doctor looked surprised.
"You wanted to come fourteen years ago."
"I grew up." Lissa said, squirming a little. She really, really wanted to go. Like, really bad. But she just couldn't. The Doctor, though, seemed to know that she wanted to come. He merely smiled.
"Don't worry," he said. "I'll soon fix that." He turned and walked inside the box, leaving the door open for Lissa. She bit her lip and looked back at her house. It was dark and quiet, but she could see the light from the lamp in her and Amy's room. She looked back at the box.
She ran inside.
She stopped short, mouth dropping at the inside. For one, it was a lot bigger on the inside. Like, enormous. Lissa noticed that she wasn't the only one gawking; Amy looked as if she was two seconds away from passing out. Lissa saw how tight she was gripping the railing.
"Well?" The Doctor clapped his hands together, sliding across the glass floor to the console in the middle. "Anything you want to say? Any passing remarks? I've heard them all." Lissa had the vaguest notion that he was waiting for one of them to comment on the size of the inside.
"I'm in my nightie," Amy breathed, looking down at her white nightgown and robe. Automatically, Lissa grabbed her robe and held it tighter around her. It hadn't occurred to her to grab some real clothes before running into the time machine.
"Oh, don't worry. Plenty of clothes in the wardrobe. And possibly a swimming pool." Lissa giggled. "So, all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will- where do you want to start?" Lissa thought long and hard about where or when she'd like to go.
"Can you get me back for tomorrow morning?" Amy asked suddenly. Lissa's stomach dropped when she realized what tomorrow was. And how Amy was about to run off with their imaginary friend on the night before her wedding. Poor Rory, Lissa thought. The Doctor scoffed.
"It's a time machine," he responded obviously. "I can get you back five minutes ago. Why, what's tomorrow?" Amy opened her mouth and Lissa hurried to slap her hand over her sister's mouth.
"Nothing!" Lissa replied. "Just, you know, stuff." She didn't know what would happen if the Doctor knew about the wedding- would he say they couldn't come with him? She wasn't sure, and she wasn't risking it. She had been dreaming about this day for fourteen years- since she was five- and she wasn't letting anything happen that could jeopardize it.
The Doctor seemed a little suspicious, but didn't say anything. "All right, then. Back in time for stuff." He plucked a screwdriver thing out of the console and started typing on a typewriter that was attached. Lissa noticed how there was a lot of things on it, it was like some sort of weird bricolage art.
She hadn't noticed how Amy had been wandering around the room. "There's a whole world in here, just like you said," she exclaimed, touching the wall lightly. "It's all true. I thought- well, I started to think that maybe you were just like a madman with a box." Lissa silently agreed. She had always harbored a hidden thought in the back of her head, in the farthest corner of her mind that maybe, just maybe, the Doctor had been totally crazy and just really good at illusions.
"Amy Pond," the Doctor started seriously. "Lissa, you listen to this, too, 'cause there's something you'd better understand about me, because it's important, and one day your life may depend on it." He paused dramatically, then broke out into a grin. "I am definitely a madman with a box." He grabbed a gravel and slapped the console with it. "Ha ha! Yeah. Goodbye Leadworth, hello everything."
The whole room shook as they heard the sound the time machine made as it disappeared and took them somewhere new.
A/N: Oh my goodness, thank you guys so much for the love you've shown this story already! I couldn't believe it when, in a matter of days, I got 8 reviews on a single chapter, on the first chapter of a story! You guys are amazing, seriously.
I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter :) it'd be super great if you left a review. Maybe tell me what you think of Lissa? I'm glad that it seems that you all like her so far.
Until next time, sweeties!
