A/N: Hey all! Sorry it's been a while! So this chapter consists mostly of flashbacks from Fred's time which we didn't see when she first arrived. I hope you all enjoy them! And thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter:

alyssa love, padmay97, Rwy'n -Y-Blaidd-Drwg, MayFairy, Shifuni, Keely Matthews, Mrs 11th, Simpa007, Brownbug and it's a story. You guys are ace!

2 & 2: Winifred Knight

General Garnett rode the lift with Napier and the other soldiers, eager for information about their missions. The Doctor watched the doors close before rounding on Fred, who was busy attaching the large gun to her back.

"What are you doing?"

She looked at him bewildered as Rory and Amy looked on cautiously.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean!" The Doctor growled, pacing towards her. "How can you be a part of this? All of the murder!"

Far from making her backing down, the Doctor's words only riled her. "How? I've been here for sixteen months! What did you expect me to do?"

This made the Doctor hesitated but not for long. "Why couldn't you have joined the Acadessi...helped them find safety?"

Fred gave him an odd look. "They're not here! No one's here! It's just us and the Malum forces. So I didn't really have a choice did I?"

"They're not here? The Acadessi aren't on their own planet? Why?"

Fred huffed. "It's complicated. General Garnett will explain it all to you when you see him so can you just get off my back? Anyway, Rory's in the war too!"

"But he's a medic! He's trying to help people instead of – of slaughtering them!"

"ENOUGH!" Fred yelled suddenly, making them all jump. "We just saved your life. So maybe you could show some gratitude rather than putting us down!"

With that she made to storm into the lift that had arrived back on the platform but Amy grabbed her arm, halting her.

"Fred, stop. Listen...he doesn't mean it. He's just shocked. We both are." Amy released her arm and looked at her pleadingly. "You said you've been here for sixteen months?"

Fred glanced at the Doctor who wasn't looking at any of them but he was obviously listening. She nodded slowly. "Yes. I was here before Rory...because of the minute between our disappearances from the TARDIS I presume."

"And what happened?"

Fred kissed red dust and spluttered. She struggled to her feet, coughing and assessing her surroundings. A large silver building glinted in the distance and she began to make her way to it, unable to think of anything else to do. The walk was longer than she thought but she didn't mind; all the dust reminded her of her first adventure with the Doctor when they travelled to Parum Terra where everything was mismatched. Panic began to bubble in her stomach; the Doctor wasn't here. Nor was anyone else. Not even a stranger. She couldn't see anyone.

She had almost made it to the huge silver doors before a group of soldiers pounced on her, dressed in sleek helmets and dark purple suits. They seized her without comment and she squealed as they picked her up and covered her eyes. She blindly struggled against their vice-like grips until they finally set her down and pulled off the blindfold. She winced as her eyes adjusted to the harsh artificial light. She scowled at the soldiers who were all stood around her as she perched on a cold, steel chair.

She fixed them all with a falsely sweet smile. "Sorry, boys. Is there a problem?"

The soldier stood directly in front of her removed his helmet and gave her a smirk showing all his teeth. "Take your helmets off boys and untie her. She's a tiny, weak woman. She's not going to hurt us. She couldn't if she tried."

Fred gritted her teeth. As soon as they untied her, she decided to majorly kicked off. She may be tired and shaken from the day's bizarre events but she was certainly not weak. And she would prove it. She screamed and punched and kicked and clawed at everyone she could find. She knew wasn't doing much damage to them, some of the soldiers cried out in pain but it was only bruises and scratches. The fray continued until two of the soldiers managed to grab her beneath her arms and lift her again. She still didn't give up, deciding to kick everything she could find. Suddenly, she felt her foot slam into something solid and there was a cry of pain which wasn't hers.

The man who had called her weak was clutching his nose, his eyes screwed up in pain. Fred's feet touched the floor again at last and she watched one of the other soldiers rush over to the man saying,

"Commander? Are you alright, sir?"

The Commander gave a growl and removed his hand from his nose to reveal blood streaming over his lips and chin. He pointed at Fred and bellowed, "Get that bitch out of here!"

Lieutenant Napier lit a cigarette and puffed out the smoke, fixing Fred with an expression of thinly concealed amusement.

"General Garnett tells me you broke Commander Shaw's nose."

"Apparently." Fred shrugged, unsure if she was in trouble or not. She was tired and she wanted to go home. Home to the TARDIS and the Doctor where everything was warm and comfortable. Not like this cold, high tech base.

Napier let out a gruff laugh and turned to the man who had just entered the room, silver stripes decorating his blue uniform. "Hear this Commander? Says she broke Shaw's nose."

The Commander chuckled and removed his helmet, ruffling his dark hair. "This the girl Garnett sent down?"

Napier nodded. "Yep. Looks like she's got spunk. And we need a new member."

The Commander studied her, his mind whirring. Eventually, he said. "What's your name?"

"Winifred Knight."

"Can you use a gun, Knight?"

"A little. And I'm a quick learner."

The Commander shared a look with Napier who grinned through his cigarette. "Alright. Knight, I'm Commander Bruton and I'm recruiting you to our Elite 2 team as a trial run." He turned to leave but Fred called him back.

"Bruton, why are you recruiting me? You haven't even seen me fight. I haven't even been in training."

"It's Commander Bruton to you, Knight. And I'm happy to work with anyone who breaks Commander Shaw's nose."

"Nice shot, Knight." Bruton acknowledged as the team regrouped after a vicious fire fight with Malum scouts. "You do learn fast."

"Thank you, sir." Even though no one could see it, underneath her helmet Fred was glowing with pleasure. She'd only been working with them a few weeks and it already suited her. She knew that once –no, if – the Doctor found her he'd be angry but she was beginning to not care. This was fun.

Napier clapped her on the back as he jogged past to join Commander Bruton.

Fred reloaded her gun and waited for instruction.

Fred had never liked sharing rooms but she was enjoying bunking with the others. She sat on her bunk and studied her team mates.

Rudi was the quiet one but once Fred had managed to talk to him, she found he was very knowledgeable not only about Acadess but about a whole range of planets and races. Occasionally, when they had a night's rest, she would ask him to tell her about a planet he'd been to and about what he'd seen. It made her feel relaxed; she supposed it was because his stories reminded her of the ones the Doctor used to tell her. Used to. Two months ago. It felt like another life now.

Seraphina – who insisted on being called Phin instead – was the only other woman on either Elite team (Shaw's Elite team consisted entirely of men) and Fred was greatful for at least an element of female company. Phin was extremely accomplished in the technological side of their work; she could tap into almost any communications system on the planet and fix things that seemed to be irreparable. After a few weeks, Fred noticed how closely Phin and Lieutenant Napier worked together. They seemed to be able to understand each other perfectly, as though they had known each other their whole lives. Fred liked Napier greatly; he first appeared to be incredibly hard and closed but Fred found he talked her easily once they had spent enough time in each other's company. Napier was probably her favourite team mate. She didn't really know why – they never talked about anything personal or shared secrets or recalled the day's events like you would do with close friend but she just knew they were close. She hoped that – however long she stayed here – Napier would always be here with her. He was a good friend and she didn't want to lose that. Besides, he was bloody huge and that's always useful in a fight.

The other male soldier was Deimos. He wasn't particularly knowledgeable or skilled at anything; he just liked killing stuff. And Fred supposed that was fair enough when they were in a war. In the first few weeks, she'd been on an observation mission with Deimos and he'd taken to her. Quite strongly. Fred found herself caught between feeling horrified and desperately wanting to given in to his advances. She felt so abandoned here and to know that anyone cared for her sent her head spinning.

She started from her thoughts when Napier charged in and roughly switched off the light in their quarters. "Get some sleep. We're gonna need it in the morning."

Fred had found the war exciting. She felt like she was in a game, a brilliant game when she couldn't lose.

That all changed on the fifth day of her third month.

She, Napier and Bruton were assigned to flush out a mass of Malums at a former base of the Acadessi. All of the army soldiers that had been assigned with them had been killed except two. They had originally been assigned 150. They were holding the Malums off at an entrance to a part of the base they'd cleared and locked up but the door was jammed and they couldn't get inside. Without Phin there to help them, Bruton had told the two remaining soldiers to try their best at fixing it while he, Fred and Napier tried to hold off the constantly incoming Malums. It felt like the fight went on for hours. Fred had never seen so much blood, so much gore. The Malums were much more varied than she had seen before; there were some heavily armoured ones that held knives, some smaller ones that carried plasma guns and some larger ones with huge guns that shot grenades at them.

She heard a cry of joy behind her and she realised that the soldiers had managed to get the doors working to ensure their safe return to base.

"Sir! Doors!"

Bruton nodded and the three of them began to walk backwards towards the slowly closing doors, keeping the Malums at bay as they went. Fred reached safety first but still tried to pick off as many as she could from inside. Napier soon joined her. Bruton was the only left outside.

"Sir! Hurry! The doors!"

The doors were nearly shut and she and Napier tried to push them back open a little. Napier bellowed;

"You two! Get these fucking doors back open!"

"We can't sir! It's jammed!"

Bruton began to squeeze through the tiny gap, his armour catching. He was halfway through when Fred saw his eyes go wide and his whole body jump in shock. Napier gave a howl of rage and then Fred saw what had happened. Behind Bruton was a heavily armoured Malum, its knife stuck in Bruton's side. Fred had frozen to the spot but Napier pulled out the pistol from his belt and shot the Malum three times in the head until it fell to the floor.

Bruton slowly removed his helmet, letting it fall at their feet. The look on his face was heartbreaking. He knew he was about to die and Fred could tell he was almost glad. Almost.

"Go. I'll hold them off as long as I can."

"Sir!" Fred began to protest. Maybe they could still help him.

He shook his head, the pain evident on his face. "You've been a good soldier, Knight. I'm glad I gave you that trial. But you're gonna have to carry on without me."

Bruton began to pull himself out from between the doors and back into the fight outside. Before he disappeared from view he said, "Oh, and Napier!"

"Sir?" Napier said, his voice thick with emotion.

"You're the best Lieutenant I've ever had." Bruton fixed him with a look that still managed to be authoritative despite his agony. "You know what to do when I'm gone."

"Yes, sir."

With a final heave, Bruton pulled himself out and the doors closed. Fred watched through the small windows as he pulled the knife out of his side with a growl, gave a war cry and charged on the Malums.

It didn't take long for Commander Bruton to die. But he still managed to take 34 Malums with him.

"What? That's not possible!" Fred exclaimed, baffled by General Garnett's words. "What about Napier? He's the Lieutenant after all! I can't be Elite 2's Commander!"

Napier shook his head. Fred had been called for a meeting in Garnett's office which she knew would be about Bruton's death but she didn't know that she'd be named as the new Commander.

"I agree. You can't be." A voice said from the doorway. Fred bristled. She didn't need to look to know who it was. But she looked anyway and shot Commander Shaw a glare.

"What are you doing here?"

"We may be different teams but we're still Elites. I like to know what's going on. Besides, I wanted to see who Bruton's replacement was. He was a good man."

"Shame he didn't feel the same about you." Napier muttered, much to Fred's amusement.

"Knight, we've all discussed this. You've received a recommendation from another officer of high rank and we have to take that into account."

"Who?"

"That doesn't matter." Garnett dismissed quickly. "And Napier agrees that you're the best choice. Bruton had laid plans for his successor and he chose you. So I suggest you go and brief your team about the Assault."

"Commander!"

Fred recognised Phin's voice and she opened the door to her quarters immediately. "What is it Phin?"

"We found someone wandering in the dust. He looks confused. We think it might be one of your friends. Will you come and identify him? We had to blindfold him to be sure."

Fred stomach churned – with what she wasn't sure. She didn't feel ready to leave yet; she'd just got the Commander position and it seemed to come naturally to her. She had made so many friends here, she didn't just want to up and leave. But she so wanted to see her old friends again and to cuddle up to the Doctor like she used to.

She may miss them, but now she had responsibilities. Now, she had her team to think about. And they had to come before everything else. Even her own life.

I hope you enjoyed that and please leave a review! We'll be back to the main timeline next chapter where you'll find out more about what the war is all about.

Also, my sister (whose a massive Whovian and also reads this series) has drawn a super cool picture of Fred and the Doctor! The link's on my profile so go and check it out! She'd love to hear what you think!