Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who nor any of its characters, nor the characters from any other series that may come along. This is my first story to publish on here, so please read/review!

Chapter 1

In Which we Meet Miss Jones

BANG!

Sean awoke with a start. The loud noise had come from outside. He got out of bed and walked to the window. He peeked through the blinds, but could see nothing unusual except a faint blue light coming from the smoldering wreckage of his neighbor's house.

He sighed. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson must have left some sort of experiment running in their basement when they evacuated after their last experiment had blown out three walls and half the roof.

"Evacuated," Sean muttered to himself. "Yeah, right."

That was the official story. Sean strongly suspected something more sinister. You know, the standard 'taken into custody by government officials' excuse would not have gone over well in the local paper. The Thompsons were highly respected in the community, mostly due to, rather than in spite of, their several eccentricities. Small explosions had been known to be heard in the vicinity of their house, and usually contained in their basement laboratory, which was perfectly safe. The experiment that had obliterated most of their home had been done in the living room, where, as Derek Thompson said, would come closer to real world data than in a laboratory.

Sean had thought that the government officials had taken all of the Thompsons experiments into custody as well. At least, that's what he had assumed from all of the moving trucks and vans that had had things loaded into them the day after the unfortunate living room explosion.

"They must have missed one," Sean said to himself. He shrugged, glancing around the neighborhood through the window to see if anybody else had taken notice. Miss Jones across the street had pulled her front room shades completely open, to Sean's delight. He fancied Miss Jones. She was new in the neighborhood and wasn't accustomed to loud explosions. This one must have startled her out of her sleep as well, but to Sean's pleasure, he could see that she slept in the nude.

She must not have noticed or cared that she was exposing herself. Her mouth was wide open, staring at the blue light, which Sean noticed out of the corner of his eye, was glowing brighter and dimmer at regular intervals.

He licked his lips. He was slightly curious about the blue light, but passed it off as an old experiment. He looked down at himself and noticed that he was fully at attention.

"Shit," he muttered. He glanced back at Miss Jones, shook his head, and then closed the blinds again. He lay back in bed and pleasured himself.

After he finished, he went to the bathroom to take a quick shower to clean himself up.

He went back into his bedroom and looked through the window again. He could see Miss Jones again, clothed this time in blue jeans, a red tank top, and a red leather jacket. She was walking across the street towards the Thompson's house, talking on a cell phone. He wished he could lip-read better. He peered closer, trying to make out what she might have been saying.

As if she could sense him staring, she stopped suddenly and looked over at his house. He quickly stepped away from the window, letting the blinds go back into place quickly. The movement had surely caught her eye.

"Damn it," he said. Now she would think he was a peeping tom. Maybe if he just got into bed and went to sleep, he could wake up in the morning and think it all a dream.

He got into bed again, preparing to start counting sheep, when he heard a sharp knock at his door. Then three more knocks in quick succession.

He sighed. She had caught him. There was no point in denying it by ignoring her, as she would just confront him about it later. Better to get it out in the open right away.

He pulled on his robe and wrapped the sash around himself, hoping it would hide his still stiff erection. He walked downstairs to the front door and looked through the peephole.

He sighed, leaning his head against the door.

"Sean?" he heard her say through the door. Mmm, her voice was one of his favorite things about her. She was from London, and her English accent had turned him on from the moment he had first spoken to her.

"Sean?" she said again. "I know you're in there, probably listening to me on the other side of the door, I expect." He also adored how brilliant she was.

"Just open the door; I need to talk to you."

He sighed again. There was nothing for it now. He opened the door.

She grabbed his hand forcefully. "Come on," she said. "You're coming with me."

"I didn't mean to spy on you," he said pleadingly. "I heard the noise and looked out my window, and there you were."

"I'm not worried about that," she said. "I'm flattered, actually, really." She blushed, which was shocking to see, as she was black. Sean had never seen a black person blush before, and didn't know it was possible to notice.

"This is about the noise," she said, and Sean realized that she was pulling him not towards her house, but towards the Thompsons'.

"What about it?" he asked. She was pulling him rather uncomfortably; jerking his arm in a forceful way, as though she were in a very big hurry to get somewhere.

Her phone rang at that point. "Hold on," she said, and stopped. He rubbed his wrist where she had been holding him.

"Hello?" she said when she had opened the phone up. "Yes, Doctor. I've got him with me." She glanced at Sean out of the corner of her eye. "No, I don't think he knows anything about it." There was a pause. "Well, of course he shouldn't, it's still in his future. I only know as much as I do because it's already in my past, and yours." There was another, longer pause, during which Miss Jones looked very uncomfortable. "Are you sure that's safe, Doctor? Giving that to him? No offense," she said, looking at Sean furtively. "It's just, this is powerful stuff we're dealing with, and we don't know how far we can trust you, regardless of what you've done in our past. Your future is still being written, so you could change it at any time."

Sean was dumbfounded. "What are you talking about? What do you mean, your past, my future? Who are you talking to, anyway?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it right now," she said. "You'll find out soon enough, I expect."

She dug in her bag, sticking her hand farther in than he would have expected, considering how small the bag was. It came out with what looked like a large leather bracelet with a large calculator. She fiddled with it for a minute while Sean stood there gaping. He still had no idea what was going on.

She brought her phone back to her ear. "Yes, I've got it. Yes, I know how to program it to follow the evils. Well, most of them. The last one I know you said could only be tracked through history." She looked back at Sean. "I'm sorry about that, but she's the mother of all evils, and you can't get to her any other way." She turned away from him, listening to the voice on the other end of the phone. "Does he really have to open it?" There was a long pause. Her shoulders sagged. "Yeah, fixed points in time, I know. I wish there could be another way though." Her eyes ran over Sean. "He's so cute and innocent, and I'm afraid of what he might turn into if he does this." There was another pause. She nodded. "If you insist," she said. She hung up and turned back to Sean.

"Come on," she said, putting the phone away. "Let's get this over with." She held out her hand and he took it.

He was willing to follow her anywhere now. She had called him cute. Everything that would come later was meaningless.

She led him by the hand into the Thompsons' house, which wasn't difficult, due to the aforementioned living room explosion.

This was the first time he had actually been inside their house. He had never really been afraid of it before, but there had been a certain stigma around entering it. Legend around town had said that those who entered the Thompsons' house, apart from the Thompsons, never came back out.

Sean didn't think about any of these misgivings as they walked towards the giant hole in the middle of the living room floor. He was too focused on the warmth of Miss Jones' hand.

He paused in his thoughts. He only knew her by her last name, and that was only because of the name on her mailbox. He turned to her and was about to ask her what her first name was when she lowered herself down into the hole.

"It's all right," she told him, seeing the look on his face. "It's not that far down; you can just follow after me."

He shrugged and did as he was told. He dropped down into the hole, which, while admittedly not being as far as he had expected, was still farther than he was comfortable with. He landed painfully on the ground below; his right ankle had twisted badly.

He fell down hard at that point. Miss Jones had landed with what appeared to be well-practiced grace and ease, and she came over to look at his injured ankle instantly.

"It's all right," she said kindly. "I'm a doctor." She looked closely at the ankle, testing it gently. He winced.

She nodded. "It's going to be fine, Sean. It's just sprained right now." She reached in her bag and pulled out a roll of bandages. "I'm going to make a splint for it now. Let me know if I wrap it too tightly."

She bound his ankle and foot in the bandages and stood up, wiping her hands on her jeans. "I'm not used to doing my job as a doctor when I'm working for the Doctor," she said cryptically. "It makes for a nice change of pace, and it's good to keep in practice." She reached down to help him up. He stood and gingerly put some weight on the foot. It didn't hurt quite so bad, but it throbbed awfully.

"It'll have to do for now until we can get it X-rayed," she said.

Sean attempted a joke. "You mean you don't have one of those hidden in that bag of yours?"

She smiled. "No, the radiation would have disrupted the temporal dampers on the vortex manipulator."

He laughed, wondering what on earth she had just said and whether or not she had been joking. He had a funny feeling she was serious, whatever it meant.

"Here," she said, offering her arm. "You can lean on me for a bit."

He put his arm around her and together they turned and moved towards the source of the pulsating light. It was coming from around a corner.

They rounded the corner and there it was. Granted, Sean had no idea what it was. All he saw was the light, dim though it was.

Miss Jones stepped forward, forcing him along with her. As they neared the light, Sean began to see that the object was not simply just a light. The light was coming from a small orange box, about the size of a music box. Why an orange box would emit a blue glowing light was beyond Sean's comprehension.

Miss Jones, however, did not seem phased by the colors. There was a look severe apprehension on her face as she gazed at the box. She looked at Sean.

"Well," she said. "Go ahead, take a look at it."

He leaned forward slightly, his brow knotted. "What…what's in it?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you that."

He picked it up gingerly. Or rather, he attempted to pick it up gingerly. It was heavier, much heavier, than it looked. He didn't think a box this small could weigh this much, no matter what was inside it. He used more strength and managed to lift it to his face.

It was a very plain box, except its latch and hinges were a shade of shocking violet. There was nothing else remarkable about it. He set it down and looked at Miss Jones.

"Is that it?" She nodded. "Did the Thompsons make this?" She shook her head.

"This is far beyond the Thompsons," she said. "We're going to need them though." She glanced back at the box, then back at Sean. "This only just fell here."

"So why did you bring me here?" he asked. He felt like he was getting to the bottom of a giant mystery. He didn't know how wrong he was. He was only about to be invited to take scrape the surface of it.

She hesitated, then set her face, as if the information she was about to impart was the gravest of news.

"You have to open it."

Sean raised an eyebrow. "What?" he asked incredulously. "Why?"

"Because you do open it," she said. "I wish you didn't, but I can't change this, no more than you can."

She started to back away.

"Where are you going?" he asked. He was beginning to become angry, not to mention a little bit scared.

She shook her head. "I can't stay," she said. "And I don't know if I'll ever see you again." She stopped, and then dug in her bag one last time. She pulled out the leather calculator bracelet. "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this." She handed it to him and helped him put it on his wrist.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It will help you," she said, starting to move away again. "That's all I can tell you now." She paused. "I don't know if I'll see you," she said again, "but you'll see me." She turned and climbed up the heap of rubble out of the hole.

"Wait!" he called as she had pulled herself up to ground level. She turned.

"Yes?" she said.

"Can you at least tell me your name?"

She smiled. "It's Martha," she said. "Martha Jones."

She turned and walked out of sight.

Sean sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that night. "Martha Jones," he muttered. "What the hell am I supposed to do now?" He looked at his bound-up ankle, which actually didn't even hurt anymore. He put some weight on it and found he could bear it.

He looked at the device on his wrist. It wasn't a calculator, but he could tell why he made that mistake. There was a regular numerical keypad, along with several symbols. At the top of the device there seemed to be kind of radar screen.

"No instruction manual?" he said to himself. "That's really helpful."

He turned back to the orange box, which was now glowing an even brighter blue than before. It seemed to respond to his proximity or his touch, as it glowed brighter the closer he was to it.

He picked it up again and it shone almost as though it was white. He didn't know what it was, but he felt something urging him to open it. It wasn't only what Martha had said about him having to open it. It was like the box itself wanted him to open it.

His hands acted without him telling them to. His hands placed the box down and moved to the latch. They pried open the latch. He began to struggle. He had a very bad feeling now. He didn't want to open the box. His hands wouldn't move away from it. It was as though it had magnetized his hands. They were completely out of his control.

He focused all of his thoughts on taking his hands away from the box, but it was too late. They swiftly opened the box. There was a mighty rush of something like wind, and then nothing.