CHAPTER ONE
A Time and A Place
A man who has never made a woman angry is a failure in life.
Christopher Morley
The console room lurched forward to the soundtrack of a sickening crunch.
Nina heaved an exasperated sigh. "Oh, great, now you've pissed her off!"
"No, excuse me, sorry—I have?"
"Well, who else could it have been?"
"I'll give you a clue—she's mad, annoying, and nosing about where she shouldn't." He paused, taking in the neon green outfit and the black-and-white striped hair. "And has no dress sense."
"Says the alien in the bow tie!"
"Oi, watch it!"
"Don't you 'Oi' me!"
"Er, Doctor?..."
The pair of them wheeled around, Nina clapping her hands enthusiastically at the sight of the two humans.
"No, no, no, wait, I'll get it!" She clamped a hand over the Doctor's mouth and made the universal sign for 'shush' on her own before rushing over to inspect the bewildered companions.
By sniffing them.
"Um, what exactly...?"
"Sol-3?" she asked hopefully, glancing back at the Doctor.
Who was quite busy mouthing 'just a crisis, happens all the time, don't mind her' behind her back, and who quickly turned that into a yawn the moment Nina's head snapped back.
"Tut, tut, tut," she shook her head, not falling for his act. "Hope he doesn't do that all the time," she continued, turning to the Ponds. "Then again, knowing him—"
"Right, then!" the Doctor cut in, looking rather eager to put a muzzle on the new-comer. "Back to business—what have you done to my ship?"
As though in confirmation of his words, a mini earthquake had the lot of them fumbling for purchase.
"No need to get tetchy!" Nina protested, impossibly aloof to the whole thing. "You haven't even introduced me to your friends."
"FINE!" yelled the Doctor, patience worn to a thread. "Nina, the Ponds; Ponds, Nina. Thanks to her interfering with the TARDIS circuits, we are about to crash into a supernova. Any questions?"
And because it was considered something akin to an affront for Amy Pond to remain speechless for more than two minutes—
"...Does you hair grow out of your head that way?"
"No, don't you dare touch that switch!"
"You didn't mind me touching it when I was saving your arse on Kerazen!"
"Oh, rub that in, why don't you?"
At which point, Amy started clearing her throat, perhaps rather more loudly than necessary. "I'm sorry, could we please save that for maybe, I don't know...after we've steered clear of an exploding star?"
"Well, the earthling does have a point..."
"You don't say!"
"Doctor, is that..."
"You know, sometimes, just sometimes, I really do wish I'd never met you!"
"Well, in that case, can I just mention—the feeling is downright mutual!"
"Not meaning to interrupt your little chat or anything..."
"Having managed to get you out of a great number of tight corners, Time Boy, I wouldn't be so quick to get angry if I were you."
"'Tight corners'? I was managing just fine, thank you very much."
"Yes, I imagine it's much easier saying that when you're not about to be sliced to pieces by a rabid horde of Slitheen..."
"OI!"
The Doctor and Nina both seemed to finally, if belatedly, register the presence of Amy and Rory. The Scottish redhead in particular was sporting a rather demonic gleam in her eyes.
"This is actually very entertaining, Doctor, but do you think you could start paying attention to, let's say, other things?"
"Such as the fact that the power seems to have run out," Rory supplied helpfully.
With a final glare in Nina's direction, the Doctor scrambled over to the console screen and started jabbing at buttons—to a casual observer, his maniacal movements might even have seemed completely random. Soon enough, the four of them realised than, for the results his efforts yielded, such a supposition might as well have been true.
In the dimly lit console room of the TARDIS, matters were only just beginning to get serious.
"No, no, no, don't do that! It's a magnetic field, must have disrupted the Artron energy flows, but how? Who's been...ah."
Nina met his eyes in that strangely defiant way of hers. "I had nothing to do with that, if this is what you're thinking."
"You materialise inside the TARDIS while it is in orbit and then, somehow, the whole system shuts down—am I the only one who finds that a tiny bit suspicious?"
"Not at all."
The voice, most definitely male, had a foreign quality to it—a blend of what sounded oddly like Italian coupled with a sort of guttural accent which none of them could quite put a finger on. But it so fell out that the voice itself had little to do with the current situation.
The doors of the TARDIS had just burst open, dousing the interior in the kind of effulgent light that blinds one standing directly before a torch.
"Have to say, though," the stranger went on, "it did take you some time to figure it out...or are you still struggling with it?" He laughed. "Shall I offer a little bit of help?"
The stranger took another step towards them, so that the light from outside didn't blur his features as much, and it was then that Nina let out a swear word that would have put the most foul-mouthed Terra sailor to shame.
The stranger, instead of flying into a rage, chuckled.
"Marvellous to see you, too, little sister."
{Now Playing: Doctor Who Opening Theme}
"Oh, come on, do we really have to do the guns again?" complained the Doctor, as a pair of leather-clad soldiers ushered him into a vaulted-ceilinged chamber. "Great big...gun things, why can't you people get a bit more original, eh? Join a salsa club, buy a cottage on Mango—did you know, the natives nearly went to war over naming this planet, had a huge argument with the bamboo plantations, I only just managed to stop them uprooting each other—GAH!"
A resounding thud informed the blindfolded Nina, Amy and Rory of what had happened better than any visual experience. Amy's unuttered "only a matter of time" seemed tp reverberate off the walls. As soon as the piece of fabric was snatched away from her face, Nina's eyes sought the Doctor, who was lying on the floor with a soldier's foot jammed against his back.
"Just shut your mouth, will you?" she hissed at him, at the same time realising it was no use. "These blokes here aren't going to be put off by your rambling."
"Well," growled the Doctor, trying to look dignified and failing spectacularly, "next time we are abducted by the brother I didn't know you had, I'll try harder!"
"I didn't invite Karsten, if that's what you're implying."
"Talking about me?" came Karsten's voice, and now the Doctor knew what it was that made it so distinctive—that underlying hint of derision, of smugness. "Hope my little sister hasn't been boring you with tales of my greatness."
"Better still, she hasn't mentioned you at all."
Karsten's features twisted into the semblance of a smirk. "Sounds like her. You!" He beckoned to the men flanking Rory and Amy. "Take those two down to the vaults."
"What—NO! Get your hands off me! Doctor!"
"Don't hurt them, they're nothing to you, they're—"
"Please," Karsten interrupted, looking close to exasperation, as the soldiers walked off and the Doctor scrambled upright. "Cut down on the melodrama a tad, will you?"
"He has a point. Overdone it with the heroics lately," muttered Nina, much to the Doctor's annoyance. Then, turning to her brother, "All right, come out with it."
"Come out with what?"
"Gosh, that's so childish..."
"Which bit?"
"Feigning ignorance."
"Then why are you playing along?"
SMASH.
"What the—"
The Doctor looked up from where what looked like an antique vase had tumbled to its demise. "Oh, sorry, was that supposed to be left alone?"
You are so dying for attention, thought Nina, smirking to herself.
"Actually..." she said out loud, walking over to the Doctor and registering the absence of any more soldiers in the room. "I think there's quite a wealth of breakable objects around here, don't you?"
"Now who's being childish?"
"Don't you want to play with your little sister, Karsten?"
"Nope..."
"Well, that's just plain rude."
"...I want my little sister to set the seas on fire."
A/N: So here's chapter one, the proper chapter one. I was suddenly consumed by an Eleventh Doctor mania and ended up watching all the episodes I could get my hands on, so you can blame that for this chapter being a bit...strange. Anyway, taking my cue from other fanfiction authors, I'll just take a moment to send out a huge thank-you to everyone who's made it to the end of this chapter despite the horribly amateurish writing, and especially to reviewers MayFairy, QuakQuak, MyElusiveDreams and .Chaos :)
You're all welcome to review with your thoughts, ConCrit, a Jammie Dodger...