For the Sake of an Angel:

Chapter One: Rebirth

Adelaide nearly fell on her face as she stumbled on some rocks; wherever she had been transported to was outside. "An image of an angel is an angel." She muttered under her breath, and then rubbed her eyes tiredly. Not that it should have mattered, of course. Everybody knew that Doctor Who was only a television series; none of it was real.

It couldn't be.

And yet, as she finally looked up, Adelaide couldn't find it in herself to deny what was in front of her. A gorgeous blue box, slightly battered and well-worn, stood proudly on a patch of grass. Adelaide inched forward in awe, her eyes tracing the beautiful, glowing words that read, "Police Public Call Box." The windows, too, were lit up, and the lamp at the top of the box was shining brightly, like a beacon. Casting a quick glance around, she took note of the rather decrepit mansion behind her and a spark of familiarity registered in her mind. Weeping Angels plus old, creepy house meant "Blink." Which, she realized belatedly, meant that she was very likely to meet the Tenth Doctor.

Adelaide swallowed nervously and decided to postpone thinking about that prospect.

Anyways, she hadn't seen any more angels as of yet, but that didn't mean that they weren't out there. "They probably haven't found the TARDIS yet." Adelaide mused, finding that the familiar sound of her voice comforted her in such bewildering surroundings. Another thought hit her and she scanned the periphery warily. "So, that means that the TARDIS will be taken away by the police soon."

While at first, she felt a sense of comfort at the thought of having human company, she then felt a split sense of panic when she remembered that she didn't have her passport on her - perhaps a silly sentiment, but one more easily grappled with than the possibility that she was in a television show. An American in England with no identification? She didn't even know what would happen. However, even if she did have her passport, it would have been dated from the future; she was pretty sure that it was only 2007 or so here, whereas where she was from, it was 2017.

That left her with two choices: run and hope she'd survive in this alternate reality, or ask the Doctor to help her figure out how the hell she got here. It didn't take Adelaide long to decide, especially after she heard a familiar rattling noise. Throwing her worries aside, she knocked hurriedly on the TARDIS door, too terrified to look behind her again. "Hello? Doctor? Martha? I really, really need some help. Like, right now."

There was no response, no sound of footsteps coming to the door, and Adelaide belatedly remembered that the Doctor and Martha were probably in 1969. Fantastic, that didn't help her at all. She looked pleadingly at the TARDIS, knowing that she was listening to her plight. "Please, please, can you let me in? I know I don't have a key and that you don't know me, but I'm very desperate. I swear on my life, I don't mean any harm. I'm just lost, and I need the Doctor."

The lights flickered, and Adelaide took that as a sign to continue. "I know he's not here right now. I promise I'll just sit in the console room, and I won't move a single bit. You can electrocute me if I try."

For a few seconds, she waited with bated breath. Then, the door creaked open and Adelaide rushed inside, tossing one last look behind her and seeing an angel off in the distance, staring in her direction. With a shudder, she slammed the door, leaned against it, and prayed that the police would take the TARDIS before the angels could use the key they had stolen. If all went to plan, then everything would be fine.

Unless she irrevocably screwed things up by simply being in this universe.

"Shoot." Adelaide ran a hand through her hair at the revelation. Could she really afford to ask the Doctor to help her? Would that mess up the timeline? Would it screw the Earth over? On the other hand, could she even travel with the Doctor without causing some universal butterfly effect? She couldn't very well be left alone, either, because she had no money except for a few crumpled dollar bills at the bottom of her bag. Somehow, she didn't think that would be enough to rent an apartment.

"Maybe I should just stop existing." Adelaide bit her lip thoughtfully, mostly joking, but really seeing no other alternative. The TARDIS didn't seem to agree with her, though, and she sent a small shock through Adelaide's body. Letting out a hiss, she rubbed her arms and glared at the console in front of her, which she hadn't taken the time to look at yet. Adelaide's eyes widened. She took a few steps forward and gaped at the beauty she had somehow managed to ignore until that moment, letting a soft exhale fall from her lips. "Wow."

She was in the TARDIS. In all of her wildest dreams, Adelaide never thought she would be here. How very far away her real life seemed at that moment, and for a second, she even wondered if she wanted to return home. Did she really want to go back to a life with no family (bar Florence), no passions, and no purpose?

She was terrified at how easily she could answer that question.

Almost as if the TARDIS knew where her thoughts had turned, a path of lights appeared beneath her feet and led to the chair beside the console. The console itself flashed a few times in warning, and Adelaide carefully made her way to the seat. "Okay, I've got the message, sweetie. I'm going."

She had just settled into the chair when the TARDIS gave a huge lurch. She grabbed onto the armrests for balance and pulled her legs up from the floor. The police must have towed the box, then. That was good.

However, what wasn't so good was the fact that she knew the angels would be taking the TARDIS back from the garage. At least Adelaide would be safe inside. The downside was that she didn't know how long it would be before Sally Sparrow and that one guy came to send the TARDIS back to the Doctor. Resigning herself to a long wait, Adelaide pulled her laptop and a granola bar out of her bag and started typing.

She estimated that it had been about a day before the TARDIS was violently moved again, and a further eight hours after that when Sally Sparrow and her friend came stumbling inside.

"Finally." Adelaide was exhausted, not having been able to fall asleep in such unfamiliar surroundings (that is, assuming that she wasn't dreaming, and she was half-convinced that she was). She had eaten all of her snacks (as was evident by the wrappers surrounding her) and was pretty dehydrated. The TARDIS had only let her up to use the bathroom, and had shocked her every time she tried otherwise. She was not a happy camper.

Their heads jerked towards her, and both had expressions of fear painted on their faces. Adelaide quickly held her hands up in a gesture of innocence, then dared to touch a toe down to the floor. She got yet another shock and yanked her leg back up to the cushions. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. My name's Adelaide."

"You!" The man pointed at her excitedly, all fear gone from his countenance. "Sally, it's her!"

"Who?" Adelaide was confused, as per usual. "Were you expecting me?"

The man nodded frantically, flipping open the pages of his notes. He jabbed at something on one of the pages triumphantly. "The Doctor said, 'The blue box, it's my time machine. There is a world of time energy in there they could feast on forever, but the damage they could do could switch off the sun. You have got to send it back to me - that, and the girl inside.'"

"Yeah," Sally interjected hurriedly, "He said to make a shirt with the angels and the blue box on it. Larry was right excited about that."

Adelaide opened her mouth to reply, but then the TARDIS tilted on her side and the three of them were jolted off their feet. Again, Adelaide struggled to hold on to the chair. "Take out the disc in your pocket!" She blurted, choosing to face her confusion later. "Now!"

Hands full with notes, the man looked helplessly at Sally, who rolled her eyes and snatched the disc out of his jeans. Almost instantly, a hologram projection of the Doctor appeared. "This is security protocol seven one two. This time capsule has detected the presence of an authorised control disc, valid one journey. Please insert the disc and prepare for departure."

"Well, hurry up, then!" Adelaide pushed when no one moved. The TARDIS tilted to the other side and the two newcomers clutched the console. Sally spotted what looked to be a DVD player and hurriedly shoved the disk in as the angels shifted the TARDIS once again. Adelaide crossed her fingers, hoping that the Doctor's statement in the tape meant that she would be transported to 1969, too.

Sure enough, as she held up her arm, she could see that it was becoming translucent in time with the sound of the engines. "Thank goodness." Adelaide sighed, collapsing back into the chair.

"What's happening?" Larry gasped.

"Oh, my God, it's leaving us behind. Doctor, no! You can't!" Sally was understandably alarmed as the angels around them became apparent.

"You'll be fine, I promise!" Adelaide shouted as they disappeared from the center of the TARDIS. As the walls became solid again, and the TARDIS landed with a reassuring thud, Adelaide gulped. "Now, me? I'm not so sure."

Her whole body froze as the jangling of a key echoed throughout the room. "That's it, I'm dead." She stuttered. "I broke into his TARDIS, and now I'm dead. He's going to kill me." The TARDIS shocked her out of her manic state right as the door opened.

"Ouch!" Adelaide yelped, instantly catching the attention of the man who had just entered the room. Her cheeks flushed as his eyes inspected her from afar.

"Oh, move over. You're blocking the entrance." A voice huffed from outside. The Doctor was unceremoniously shoved out of the way as Martha came storming in. "I'm not too happy with you, Doctor. We were in 1969 for how long? Two months! I'm sick and tired of - " She cut herself off when she, too, spotted the girl frozen on the chair. "Oh! You must be that girl from the manuscript! How did you get here?"

"Yes, I'd very much like to know that, as well." The Doctor spoke up for the first time, and Adelaide couldn't help but relish the fact that he existed and was speaking to her, of all people. "The TARDIS doesn't typically let strangers just waltz in. Or foxtrot. Or tango. Or anything else, really." His brows furrowed. "Although, there was this one time where me and Rose and the Captain -"

"Doctor." Martha interrupted, noticeably irritated. "You're going off topic again."

"Right, right." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Alrighty. Who are you and why are you here?"

She didn't even know where to begin. Perhaps her name would be a good starting point. "Er, hello. My name is Adelaide McLaughlin." She fiddled with her pendant nervously, and when his eyes focused on the movement, she forced herself to stop. "I'm twenty years old, from Santa Barbara, from California, from the United States, from Planet Earth, from some sort of alternate dimension. I think."

"But that's not possible!" The Doctor immediately shot her down. "Travel between dimensions can - "

"Only be achieved through Time Lord technology which was destroyed in the Time War?" Adelaide dared to say, wondering if she had a death wish. His jaw fell comically. "Yeah, I've considered that. I got a birthday present, a very early birthday present, by the way, and it was a shirt with a Weeping Angel on it. But, I was a complete idiot and hung it up in my room. I forgot that - "

"An image of an angel is an angel." They said together, and this time, Adelaide shut up. "But that doesn't explain how you got here if you're really from another dimension. There had to have been some rupture in time for something from our universe to get delivered to yours, let alone an entire person, to get transported into ours." He suddenly got close to her and buzzed her with his sonic screwdriver, then inspected the readings. "Well, you're human, so you can't possibly have any Time Lord technology on you, and you're not smart enough to have come up with this story on your own."

"I resent that."

"So you must be telling the truth." The Doctor leaned against the console. "Well, that complicates things, especially because I don't know how you know about the Time Lords in the first place." He arched an eyebrow, wordlessly asking for an answer.

This was the part she had been avoiding in fear of sounding like a lunatic. "So, about that… Would you believe me if I told you there was a television show about your entire life?"

"Er, no, quite frankly."

"Then I don't know what else to tell you." Adelaide tried to summon her courage. "I've always been a huge fan of Doctor Who - that's what the show's called - and so when my foster sister sent me a Chinese takeout box with a shirt inside that had a Weeping Angel and the TARDIS on the front, I was elated."

"That's a funny sort of way to give a present." Martha commented. The Doctor nodded in agreement. "How do you know it was from your foster sister?"

Strangely, she hadn't even considered it to be anyone else; only Florence would do something so, er, unique. Besides, it wasn't like she was that close with many people. "I don't, actually." Adelaide admitted. "No one was there when I opened the door."

"And you just took the box inside your house?" Martha asked incredulously.

"Well, when you put it that way…" Adelaide flushed red again. Perhaps it hadn't been the smartest decision she'd made. "But, you have to understand that aliens haven't had any contact with my planet, where I'm from. They're all myths, fairy tales, fantasies meant to entertain sci-fi enthusiasts."

"Sci-fi enthusiasts, huh?" The Doctor grinned. "As a sci-fi enthusiast, yourself, you got pretty lucky then, didn't you?" Martha elbowed him at his insensitivity.

"Did I really?" Adelaide's anger at his insensitivity forced her to her feet, and she was grateful that the TARDIS let her stand up without any repercussions. "Should I consider myself lucky to have been torn from everything I know?" She considered her thoughts from the day before, of how she hadn't felt attached to anything back home, and the fury began to fade just as quickly as it had come on. She remembered the disconnect she had always felt from reality, and subconsciously, her hand reached up to turn her pendant over in her hand again - the only remnant she had of her true family. Her foster parents had never paid her much attention after she became an awkward middle schooler, and Florence only occasionally visited when she needed something. Adelaide's shoulders fell. "Perhaps."

The other two seemed quite surprised. "So, you don't want to go back?"

"It's not like you could take me back, anyways." Adelaide admitted, feeling strangely distant from the whole situation.

"Then, why are you here?" Martha prodded gently.

And for some ridiculous reason, her eyes began to water at the caring nature of Martha's voice. "I don't know."

Martha clucked sympathetically and pulled her into a hug, which, of course, made the tears worsen as it always does when one is comforted in her time of need. "Doctor, can't she come with us?"

"Companions don't get to choose companions." The Doctor stated automatically, rubbing his eyes. He didn't know what to do; Adelaide would be a liability if he just left her alone. But, on the other hand, she had shown some interesting quirks that could make her a good companion; her knowledge was impressive, almost overly so, and when she had been confident, he had enjoyed her witty responses. Truthfully, it didn't hurt that she was pretty, either, and the TARDIS had obviously trusted her enough to let her inside without a key.

The last thought was what decided it for him. Even if he, himself, had some doubts about her story, he knew that the TARDIS would never put him in danger. "I suppose you can stay with us."

Adelaide's teary face looked up at him in surprise, and the Doctor suddenly noticed how short she was. Maybe about 157.5 centimeters, his brain calculated. "Really?"

"On one condition." The Doctor reconsidered. "Actually, two. No, three."

She slowly pulled herself away from Martha's hug. "What do you want me to do?"

"Firstly, I need you to accept this present." The Doctor handed her the shirt that had been in the folder that Sally Sparrow had given him. He had peeked at it during their extended stay in 1969, and had to admit that it had a disturbing design. "There was a note on it that said, 'For the girl in the TARDIS.'"

Adelaide took it from him and warily unfolded it. She had a suspicion about what it would be, and sure enough, it was the exact same shirt that had been in the Chinese takeout box. However, this one still had the angel on it, so she balled it up and stuffed it in her backpack so that it wouldn't be able to escape; heaven knew they didn't need an angel loose in the TARDIS. She would figure out what to do with it later.

"Secondly," The Doctor continued, "You have to promise not to tell us anything about our direct futures unless it is a life or death situation." He suddenly remembered that those occurred very often with him, so he remedied his condition. "No, I take that back. Only tell us something if the entire universe is at stake, and even then, be careful."

"You won't get mad at me if something happens that I can't prevent?" Adelaide questioned, wiping the tears off her cheeks. "Even if it's terrible?"

"I can't really be upset if you couldn't prevent something, because that means I wasn't able to, either." The Doctor admitted. "But that doesn't mean you can't give us vague hints."

A small smile started creeping across her face. It was nice to know that she would be able to use her knowledge to help. "And the last condition?"

"You have to let me call you 'Addie.'" His nose crinkled. "'Adelaide' is a bit of a mouthful, don't you think?"

That was interesting, she distinctly remembered the Eleventh Doctor requesting the opposite of Amy; he had practically thrown a fit when he found out she had changed her name from Amelia to the more modern moniker. She felt a thrill when she realized that she would get to learn more about the Doctor than had ever been revealed on the show. She definitely planned on sticking with him for as long as possible.

"Deal." Adelaide agreed easily. "Is that everything?"

"Yep, that's it, that's all. Any questions?"

Grinning, she shook her head, and could see Martha doing the same. "Not that I can think of."

"Then, Addie, Martha." Adelaide held her breath, knowing what was coming next. A manic grin in place, he yanked on a lever and the TARDIS shuddered into motion. "Allons-y!"

Adelaide laughed giddily as the three of them tried unsuccessfully to stay on their feet. Her heart felt light, for the first time in a long time, and she lay on the ground as she finally let go of her past.

Addie.

She could live with that.

Hello!

I wanted to thank SeleneAlice, MyPhoneIsStupid (Guest), and ThoughtfulPencil for their delightful reviews! I am especially grateful to ThoughtfulPencil for giving me what is potentially the best compliment I have ever received.

Your positive responses caused me to sit down for five hours and crank this chapter out, so I hope you like it! I am aware that there are some discrepancies (namely that Ten didn't know about the image of an angel being an angel), and differences in lingo (because I am American, not British), but I hope they're not too distracting.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

- Entitea