Hello and welcome to a brand new story… well technically stories. Yes, I'll be tackling the idea of What If…? and putting my own spin on it. Instead of just strictly Marvel-centric stories, however, I'll be going across multiple franchises to bring you new stories with infinite possibilities. Well, at least, as many possibilities that I can think of…

Anyway, let's get on with the stories! I don't own any franchises that'll be involved in this series. Enjoy!

Note: Italics means that The Watcher is narrating while normal text is just… normal text. You get the idea.

(Chapter 1: What If… The Tenth Doctor Didn't Regenerate?)

Earth, in the year 2009, Christmas Day. Usually a time of peace and celebration… unless you're The Doctor.

The Last of the Time Lords is forced to face his darkest hour as his old enemy, The Master, was resurrected after his wife shot him a few years ago. But that's the least of his worries as the Ood warns him of an impending disaster that'll bring about the end of time itself.

After the Time Lords and their president, Rassilon, are sent back to the Time War, The Doctor makes an honourable sacrifice by saving his friend, Wilfred Mott, from being inflicted with massive amounts of radiation.

But in another universe, one single choice can change the fate of someone's life...

The Immortality Gate laid in ruins as the white light that consumed the Time Lords started to fade away. All was quiet except the faint sounds of electricity sparking nearby, everyone that was in the room before the Time Lords appeared had fled in fear of them.

On the marble floor, The Doctor was as still as a brick as he found himself unable to get up. His face was covered in cuts and bruises and his brown pinstripe suit was torn and tattered. Opening his eyes, the Time Lord uses whatever strength he has left to attempt to get back onto his feet.

"I'm alive…" he muttered, in relief, as he managed to get onto all fours. "I'm still alive…"

The Doctor then started to laugh to himself, happy for the first time in a long time. He couldn't believe it, he survived. He cheated death once again, it almost seemed too good to be true.

Then he heard the soft tones of someone knocking nearby, which made The Doctor's face turn from relief to that of horror.

One knock.

Two knocks.

Three knocks.

The Doctor's horror-stricken face maintained as he waited for the dreaded fourth knock. But he found himself confused when the knocks suddenly turned silent. The Doctor slowly turns to see Wilfred, still stuck in the glass chamber, moving his hand away from the glass just as he was almost about to do the fourth knock.

There. That's the moment that created a new universe. Instead of knocking four times, Wilfred Mott remembers the prophecy The Doctor told him in the cafe and knocks only three times. But soon, The Doctor would have more to worry about than just a prophecy…

"They're gone, then?" Wilf murmured. "Yeah, good-o. If you could let me out?"

"Yeah…" The Doctor whispered as he slowly got to his feet.

"Only, this thing seems to be making a bit of a noise," Wilf said as he gestured to the glass chamber around him.

The Doctor made his way to the glass chambers and examined them closely. "The Master left the nuclear bolt running. It's gone into overload," he mumbled.

"And that's bad, is it?"

"No, because all the excess radiation gets vented inside there," The Doctor started to explain. "Vinvocci glass contains it. All five hundred thousand rads, about to flood that thing."

"Oh. Well, you'd better let me out then." Wilf said, with a slight chuckle.

"Except it's gone critical. Touch one control and it floods," The Doctor continued, in a serious tone, as he grabbed his sonic screwdriver from his suit jacket. He wiggled it through his fingers when he realised it wouldn't be the best of ideas. "Even this would set it off."

The Doctor stares at the chamber, unsure of what to do. True, he could go in there and absorb the radiation when it floods the other chamber… but surely there had to be another way? He couldn't go messing with the controls because it'll just flood, as he said before, regardless of what he did.

But who said he had to touch the controls?

"Unless…" The Doctor said, before racing into the other chamber and immediately ripping off the access panel from below the controls.

Wilf looked shockingly at The Doctor's sudden change in behaviour. "Doctor, what are you doing?" he wondered. "You said it yourself, this thing will flood if you touch the controls."

"Yes, but maybe if I just adjust these wires here then maybe I can trip the system!" The Doctor grunted as he ripped out a couple of wires.

Wilf didn't seem convinced. "Look, just leave me…" he sighed in defeat. "I'm an old man, Doctor. I've had my time."

"Not an option, Wilf!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Just gimme a couple of seconds!"

Gritting his teeth intensely, The Doctor carefully grabbed onto a small red wire from the panel and tugged it out of place. At that moment, the lights above him started to flicker on and off before eventually shutting off for good.

There was silence, The Doctor stared up at the glass chamber above him. No red lights, no radiation flowing in any of the enclosures, no sounds of agony coming from Wilfred. Did that heat of the moment idea really just work?

"Wilfred?" The Doctor called out, popping out from under the controls. "Are you alright?"

Wilf twirled around slowly in his chamber, looking around for any signs of distress. "Yeah, yeah… is the thing turned off now? I heard it making noises just before."

"I tripped the system, hands-free of course," The Doctor answered, wiggling his fingers about as he exited his chamber and approached Wilf's. "Forced the chambers to shut down for good."

"Does that mean the door's open then?"

"Oh yes!" A huge beaming smile spread across The Doctor's face as he opened the glass door in front of Wilf. "See for yourself!"

The old man's eyes widened as he slowly stepped out of the chamber, a smile of relief eventually appearing from both ends of his face.

"Well, I'll be…" Wilf muttered, chuckling happily and embracing The Doctor before twirling around cheerfully. "Here we are then, safe and sound. Mind you, you're in one hell of a state. You've got some battle scars there."

Wilf gestured to the many cuts that were plastered all over The Doctor's face. The Time Lord merely raised an eyebrow and looked over at his reflection in the glass.

"Oh, would you look at that?" The Doctor murmured, examining the damage to his face. "It'll heal, eventually."

"So you're not… changing?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Nah, too minor. I could go into a healing coma but even then, it would be excessive for these types of injuries."

"What about that prophecy you told me? He will knock four times? Was that supposed to be with the Master, with the noises in his head?"

Unable to answer, The Doctor turned to the Immortality Gate behind me and stared at the last place where The Master was. Why was he still alive, after everything that has occurred? From the Ood's message to the sudden return of his own people, this whole adventure felt like a sort of swan song for The Doctor.

So how come the prophecy wasn't fulfilled today? Was the Ood wrong about his fate? Or was there something much bigger in the cards for The Doctor?

The Time Lord simply stared at his friend and gave him an uncertain look. "I don't know…" was The Doctor's only response.

(-)

The TARDIS materialised a good distance away from the Noble residence. Despite the fact that a gigantic orange planet was moving towards the Earth, all was quiet on the streets of Chiswick. Then again, if you live in England during the Christmas period, an extraterrestrial incident always happens at this time.

The Doctor and Wilf emerged from the TARDIS, The Doctor now sporting an undamaged, cleaner brown suit complete with a new shirt and tie. The scars on his face still remained present; that kind of damage would take much more than a change of clothes to disappear completely.

Sylvia Noble, Wilf's daughter and the mother of The Doctor's former companion Donna, stood on the steps of her house. As soon as she saw The Doctor and Wilf exit the police box, delighted to see the two of them. An emotion not usually shown in the presence of the TARDIS or even The Doctor but today was a special exception.

"Oh, she's smiling. As if today wasn't bad enough…" The Doctor muttered, slightly weirded out by Sylvia's look of delight towards him. He then turned to Wilfred. "Anyway… Don't go thinking this is goodbye, Wilf. You'll see me again."

Wilf's face fell, not sure he's hearing his friend correctly. "What d'you mean? When's that?"

"Just keep looking. I'll be there…"

"But where are you going?"

The Doctor smirked. "Oh, you know me. Here, there, everywhere. Wherever the road takes me, I guess."

Waving goodbye to Wilf and Sylvia, The Doctor entered into the TARDIS once again where he slid off his long brown coat and tossed it onto the nearby archways as he strolled up onto the main console of the ship. He then reached out towards a nearby switch and pulled it firmly, activating the TARDIS.

As the time rotor began to rise up and down, The Doctor looked up towards the glass cylinder and stared sorrowfully into the moving machinery, the atmosphere around him quiet as the hush of evening.

While The Doctor prevented his fate that day, there's one thing he can ever escape. That he'll always be alone no matter how he tried. As willing as his friends are to come with him on outrageous and fantastic adventures, the inevitable time where they'll grow bored or are hurt because of him has never left The Doctor's mind. To him, he was the Last of the Time Lords. A lonely traveller.

But maybe… fate has other ideas for The Doctor.

All of a sudden, the TARDIS started to go berserk. Sirens were blaring and the entire console began to roll around rapidly. The Doctor gripped tightly onto the console and manoeuvred around at various buttons and switches to calm the old girl down.

"Oi, stop it!" The Doctor exclaimed as he got the TARDIS under control. "What was that all about, eh?"

The Doctor got a response when the Cloister Bells echoed through the console room. The Time Lord stood stiff as that sonorous, ringing sound drilled into his head like a bad memory, his eyes widened and his breath most irregular.

Something was behind him.

Something was in the corner of his eye.

Cautiously, The Doctor rotated on his heel until he was facing the wall behind him and what he saw made him stagger back to the console.

A large crack had appeared on the TARDIS' wall, seeping out pure white light that seemed to lead to an endless void. The crack was jagged, resembling a crooked smile. Almost as if it was somehow taunting The Doctor with its silence, it achieved the one thing that all of the Time Lord's greatest adversaries have never achieved: get into the interior of the TARDIS.

"W-What?" The Doctor managed to sputter out, grabbing his glasses from his suit pocket as he carefully moved towards the strange crack.

The Time Lord stood speechless as he examined the crack in front of him. Inside, there was nothing but The Doctor picked up faint traces of voices. The voices were faint and talking over each other but he managed to pick up only a few of them.

"Now, all we need is a little Energon… and a lot of luck." One voice said, a bit of hope in its tone.

"Some things are beyond your control. You shouldn't blame yourself." Another muttered, that of a female. It sounded like she was trying to comfort someone, judging from the level of comfort in her voice.

"You want forgiveness? Get religion." This voice was the opposite of the previous one. It was calm but The Doctor could sense there was a form of darkness hidden behind it.

"I have lived my life as best I could not knowing its purpose but drawn forward like a moth to a distant moon." The Doctor noticed that this voice had a thick Italian accent, rather than the American accents the others had. The voice sounded tired, almost as if he was done with whatever he was doing.

The Doctor quickly equipped his sonic screwdriver from his other jacket pocket and scanned the crack, moving the device around the surface of the tear in the wall. Whatever this crack was, it wasn't natural. Like two parts of time and space that should never have been pressed together.

Who were these voices? The Doctor couldn't recognise any of them. Were they connected to him? Were they him in the future? Or did this have something to do with parallel universes? The Time Lord wasn't sure, and that feeling doesn't come around often.

The TARDIS then started to make its preparations to land, the Cloister Bells sounding quieter as the wheezing noises of the time machine became more prominent. The Doctor stood away from the crack and stared worryingly at the TARDIS control console.

"What's happening?" He wondered aloud. "Where are you taking me?"

The old girl's only response was a shuddering thud, a thud loud enough to shake the entire console room. The TARDIS had landed and the Cloister Bells stopped suddenly, leaving the time machine in an eerie sense of silence.

The Doctor turned back around to see that the crack on the TARDIS wall had disappeared, leaving no trace on the surface whatsoever.

"Oh… that can't be good," The Doctor mumbled to himself. "Not good at all."

Immediate, without any hesitation, The Doctor raced towards the doors of the TARDIS, not bothering to stop to grab his long coat. When he swung the doors open, he was stopped in his tracks by the least likely person on The Doctor's mind at the moment.

A little red-haired girl was standing in front of him, shining a torch right into his face.

The Doctor stood surprised as he quickly looked around at his surroundings. It was nighttime, judging from the darkness and the fact that the little girl was wearing a nightie… and of course the torch as well. The TARDIS appeared to have landed right into a small garden shed, well what's left of it.

Where was he? Was he at someone's house? Was it still 2009?

"Hello?" The Doctor muttered, placing a hand in front of his face to evade the torchlight.

The little girl shined the torch away from The Doctor and looked at him cautiously. "Hello?" she murmured, revealing a Scottish accent. "Are you alright there, mister?"

"Um… yeah," The Doctor replied, looking up at the sky before returning his gaze to the girl. "Sorry, but where am I?"

"Are you thick or something?"

The Doctor smiled. "Well, just a bit. I hope to get a bigger head one of these days…"

"You're in my house."

"Yes, I know that bit but where?" The Doctor frowned. "Judging from your accent, I'm guessing we're in Scotland?"

"No… Leadworth, it's rubbish," the girl answered, looking at him oddly before noticing the TARDIS behind him. "Are you a policeman?"

"Maybe," The Doctor answered, slightly cocking his head to the side. "Why? Did you call for a policeman?"

"Did you come about the crack in my wall?"

At the mention of the crack, The Doctor's face turned dark. "Crack?" he asked, his lip slightly quivering as he knelt down to the little girl's level. "What crack? What did it look like?"

"Just like a crack…" the girl responded, noticing The Doctor's sudden change of expression. "It's like it's smiling at me, is that bad?"

The Doctor blinked, replacing his worried look with a smile. "No, of course not," he lied to ease the girl's nerves. "But does it scare you? The crack?"

"Yes." Was the girl's only answer.

"Well then, no time to lose," The Doctor said, shooting himself back on his feet. "What's your name?"

"Amelia Pond."

"Amelia Pond? Lovely name… I'm The Doctor. Do everything I tell you, don't ask stupid questions, and most importantly, don't wander off."

(-)

The Doctor was led by Amelia into her house. The house itself was old-fashioned and considerably large, consisting of three floors. The interior almost matched the exterior if it wasn't for the modern-looking furniture that turned into a decent home.

The two briefly passed by the kitchen on their way in where Amelia offered The Doctor an apple which he happily accepted, considering he only had a cuppa on Christmas Eve.

"So… Amelia, are your mum and dad around? I suspect they've woken up by now." The Doctor wondered, chewing on his apple.

Amelia merely frowned, shaking her head. "I don't have a mum and dad. Just an aunt."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Amelia said. "I hardly knew them. What about you? Do you have anyone?"

The Doctor shook his head, his eyes full of sadness. "No… not anymore. They're all gone now."

"Gone? All of them?" Amelia questioned. "Surely there must be someone."

The Doctor decided to change the subject, not wanting to expose a child to a lifetime of trauma. "Anyway, your aunt. Where is she?"

Amelia rolled her eyes. "She's out."

"She's out?!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Leaving you all alone?"

"I'm not scared!"

The Doctor chuckled. "Course, you're not. You're not scared of anything. A blue box falls out of the sky, a strange man falls out of a box, and look at you just standing there. So you know what I think?"

"What?" The red-haired girl wondered.

"Must be one hell of a scary crack in your wall."

Seeing that a bit of colour drained from Amelia's face, The Doctor gave her a reassuring smile and offered his hand. "Come on, let's see if we can sort this out."

Amelia returned a smile and grabbed The Doctor's hand, racing in front of him to take him to her bedroom where the crack resided. Once they got upstairs, Amelia released her grip on The Doctor and let him pass through so that he could examine the room first.

Amelia's bedroom was quite simple; it had literally everything a child her age could have. It mostly consisted of a bed and a dresser, a table littered with art supplies between the two. A dollhouse also sat next to the dresser but that was something The Doctor wasn't focusing on at the moment.

The crack was right in front of him, maintaining the same crooked smile as it did in the TARDIS. Although, this crack was slightly larger and was lacking the white glow that inhabited it.

"Dearie me, you've had some cowboys in here," The Doctor mumbled, taking his mind off the crack and looking around Amelia's room. "Well, not actual cowboys… though that can happen."

The Doctor then turned to Amelia, who had picked up an apple from her bedside table. The Time Lord noticed that one side of the apple had a happy face carved into it. Normally The Doctor would just acknowledge it as something a child would do but he could tell there was a different story when he saw the way the little girl was staring at the apple.

"What's with the smiley face?" The Doctor questioned.

Amelia walked up to The Doctor and passed him the apple. "I used to hate apples, so my mum put faces on them," she explained.

"I'm the opposite, I love apples. But pears though? That's a different story," The Doctor said, taking a quick second to look at the apple carving, tossing it up and down in his hand before putting it in his pocket. "She sounds good, your mum. I'll keep it for later. Maybe I should try it with pears someday…"

After putting the apple in his pocket, The Doctor's attention immediately snapped back to the crack on the wall. "Right, so, crack in the wall. Any idea where it came from?"

"I don't know," Amelia replied. "One night the wall was fine, the next morning, it appeared out of nowhere."

The Doctor snaps on his brainy specs and presses the side of his face against the crack, feeling the inside with the slightest touch of his finger. "This wall is solid and the crack doesn't go all the way through it," he muttered. "So here's a thing. Where's the draught coming from?"

Pulling himself away from the crack, The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and quickly used it to scan the wall. He then extended it and checked its readings where his eyes widened. Same readings as the TARDIS; completely unnatural. "Fascinating," he said. "Amelia, quick question… you know what the crack is?"

Amelia shook her head. "No, what?" she inquired.

"Basically, it's a crack," The Doctor explained, earning an unimpressive look from the little girl. "But the funny thing is… If you knocked this wall down, the crack would stay put, because the crack isn't actually in the wall."

"Where is it then?"

"Everywhere. In everything. It's a split in the skin of the world. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched, pressed together right here in the wall of your bedroom." The Doctor answered, taking off his glasses. "But there's something else as well…"

"A voice?"

The Doctor nodded as he pressed his ear against the wall again, hearing nothing but a vague growling coming from the other side. "Yeah… I think it's a voice, a bit faint but it's definitely something. But what?"

Getting no answers with just his ear, The Doctor rushed over to Amelia's bedside table and casually tossed out her nighttime glass of water over his shoulder. He then returned to the crack and planted his ear against the glass, hoping that it could enhance the faint growling somehow.

"Prisoner Zero has escaped…"

The Doctor's eyes widened. That's not one of the voices he heard earlier, this was something different. Something potentially dangerous. "Now then, who's Prisoner Zero?"

"Prisoner Zero has escaped," Amelia repeated. "That's what I heard. But what does that mean?"

"It means that on the other side of this wall, there's a prison and they've lost a prisoner," The Doctor explained, separating himself from the wall. "And you know what that means?"

"What?"

"You need a better wall," The Doctor responded. He then picked up the table in front of him and moved it to the other side of the room. "The only way to close the breach is to open it all the way. The forces will invert and it'll snap itself shut. Or…"

"What?"

"The crack gets larger and we'll get sucked inside," The Doctor replied, gaining a horrified look from Amelia. "But that's very unlikely to happen. Say ten, no! Twenty percent chance of that happening… actually, probably twenty-five percent but that's still quite low."

Amelia shuffled uncomfortably. "I don't know…"

The Doctor then offered his hand to Amelia. "Trust me," he said.

Amelia hesitated for a brief second but eventually, she nodded and grabbed onto The Doctor's hand. Once she clutched his hand, The Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver directly at the crack. As the blue light from the sonic hit the wall, the crack began to glow brightly and slowly widened to reveal a black void.

All silence, no voices… nothing. The Doctor squinted his eyes to see if there was something hiding in the darkness but ultimately failed.

"Prisoner Zero has escaped," The same faint voice from before suddenly bellowed, sounding much more echoey. "Prisoner Zero has escaped."

"Hello?" The Doctor called out cautiously. "Show yourself…"

Before either The Doctor or Amelia could react, a gigantic blue eyeball came zooming in towards the crack. The strange eyeball rapidly looked over the two of them before a bolt of blue light shot itself into The Doctor's pocket, causing the Time Lord to stagger slightly. The eyeball continued to gaze at The Doctor and Amelia as the crack started to close in front of it.

However, strangely, the eyeball then disappeared just as the space between the crack was getting smaller. In its place were six orbs of light, each having a different colour: blue, red, orange, yellow, green, and purple. They only appeared for a brief second before the crack shut completely.

"See, good as new now. Told you it was only a twenty-five chance." The Doctor said.

Amelia didn't seem convinced. "What's that thing?" she wondered. "Was that Prisoner Zero?"

"No, I don't think so," The Doctor replied as he reached into his pocket and took out a small black wallet. "I think he might've been Prisoner Zero's guard or warden. Whoever it was, they sent me something. Psychic paper; takes a lovely little message."

The Doctor opened the psychic paper where a frown was immediately plastered on his face. "Prisoner Zero has escaped," he read. "Old news then… but why tell us over and over again? Unless…"

Without finishing his sentence, The Doctor instantly dashed out of the room and stopped just outside Amelia's room.

"Unless what?" Amelia cried out after him, joining the Time Lord in the hallway.

"Think, think, think," The Doctor started to mutter to himself. "Why would they tell us? Prisoner Zero couldn't have escaped through here. Yes? No? Maybe? Even so, we would've known if he did. But there's something I'm missing, Amelia, something so obvious. Something from the corner of my eye…"

Before The Doctor could figure out what was going on, the TARDIS' Cloister Bells started to toll from outside. Hearing the bells was enough to make The Doctor's two hearts skip a beat and his eyes widen with absolute terror.

"What?!" The Doctor exclaimed, sprinting down the stairs with Amelia trailing behind him. "What?! No, no, no, no!"

Soon enough, The Doctor and Amelia made it back outside where the TARDIS was currently in a bad state. Smoke was seeping from the small slit between the two front doors and the exterior lights were flickering like crazy. It was like the old girl was unwell, well extremely unwell.

"Something's wrong! I've got to get back in there… whatever made that crack, the TARDIS isn't reacting to it well!" The Doctor shouted, quickly fishing his key out and using it on the lock on the door.

"But it's just a box… how can a box be smoking up like that?" Amelia wondered.

"It's not a box, it's a time machine."

Amelia scoffed, not believing a single word. "What, a real one? You've got a real time machine?

"Not for much longer if I can't get her stabilised," The Doctor replied as he managed to open the door and wave some of the smoke away. "Five minute hop into the future should do it."

"Can I come?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, it's not safe in there. Not yet. Five minutes. Give me five minutes, I'll be right back."

"People always say that…" Amelia said, disappointingly.

The Doctor saw the sadness in the little girl and approached her, kneeling down and placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Amelia… really I am but I can't let you in there but I promise everything will be fine in five minutes time."

"Promise?"

"Promise," The Doctor beamed. "Tell you what? While I'm gone, pick a star… any star."

Amelia raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because I'll show you one up close, to say thanks for helping me," The Doctor replied. "Think you can do that?"

With an affirmative nod from Amelia, The Doctor stands back up and heads back into the TARDIS, and shuts the door behind him. As soon as the door closes, the TARDIS begins to wheeze and groan, her exterior dematerializing into thin air as the lantern on the roof pulsates brightly. The leaves and debris around the TARDIS move in the breeze the time machine is creating before eventually standing still as the ship disappears for good.

Once the TARDIS departed, Amelia immediately raced back into her house and quickly headed up the stairs to her room. She then digs up an old, small leather briefcase from underneath her bed and begins to stuff clothes and her teddy bear inside.

Now dressed in a duffel coat and a woolly hat, Amelia ran back outside to where the TARDIS had just left. She places the suitcase on the ground and sits on it, eagerly awaiting the return of The Doctor.

Five minutes. Five minutes until young Amelia Pond's life would be changed forever…

(-)

Morning broke over the town of Leadworth, all was quiet in the front garden of Amelia Pond's house until the TARDIS materialised, after what The Doctor presumes was, five minutes later. The time machine was no longer smoking in the interior and had significantly quietened down now that time had passed.

A man on a mission, The Doctor immediately pops out of the TARDIS just right after it landed with a deep thud and sprints towards the front door with his sonic screwdriver in hand.

"Amelia! Amelia, I worked out what it was!" The Doctor shouted out. "I know what I was missing! You've got to get out of there right now!"

The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver to the keyhole and activated it, instantly unlocking the door. Once the door was open, The Doctor proceeded to run up the stairs and onto the second floor where he twirled around frantically in search of Amelia, or anyone as a matter of fact, in the house.

"Amelia? Are you alright?" The Doctor wondered loudly before frowning at the lack of response. "Is anyone even here?"

A faint growling in the distance gave him an answer; an answer that made The Doctor stop dead in his tracks. The Doctor cautiously rotated around and slowly made his way to a door behind him, a door that seemed to escape his mind. The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver to the mysterious door and scanned it curiously.

"Ohhh very clever," The Doctor muttered. "There you are, Prisoner Zero…"

The Doctor was soon interrupted by the sudden impact of a cricket bat hitting the back of his head. The Time Lord grunted surprisingly from the pain as he staggered to the railings nearby, unknowingly dropping his sonic onto the ground. Luckily for him, Time Lords were quite tough when it came to pain tolerance. At least it wasn't at a time when he was in the process of post-regeneration.

"Huh? What?" The Doctor murmured, rubbing the back of his neck and turning around to see his attacker.

To his surprise, the attacker wasn't little Amelia Pond but rather a young woman wearing a police uniform although it was a bit more basic than the standard uniform. There was no badge or label indicating what police department she worked at nor any standard equipment besides handcuffs and a radio. The Doctor also noticed that the policewoman's uniform had a skirt rather than trousers as any normal police member should have.

Before he could react, the policewoman had already cuffed him in one hand and locked the other handcuff to the railing.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" The Doctor exclaimed, pulling at the handcuffs. "How did you do that so fast? And where did you get the handcuffs?"

"Oi, you stay right here…" The policewoman muttered, clutching her radio. "Sarge, I've got someone breaking and entering. White male, around thirty maybe forty years ago, face covered in scratches."

"No, no, wait! I mean you no harm, trust me!" The Doctor protested.

"Do you want to shut up now? I've got back up on the way."

The Doctor eyed the policewoman up and down briefly. "Hang on, no, wait. You're a policewoman."

"And you're breaking and entering. You see how this works?"

"But what are you doing here? Where's Amelia?"

The policewoman froze. "A-Amelia Pond?"

"Amelia, yes. Little Scottish girl. Where is she? I promised her five minutes but I might have gone a bit far. Sorry, couldn't help it… my ship was being wibbly wobbly timey wimey," The Doctor said, his eyes becoming sorrowful. "Has something happened to her?"

"Amelia Pond hasn't lived here in a long time." The policewoman answered.

"How long?"

"Six months."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "What?! No… that can't be right, I can't be six months late. I said five minutes. I promised," he muttered, pulling at the handcuffs once again. "What happened to her? What happened to Amelia Pond?"

The policewoman stayed silent and took a few steps back from The Doctor, pressing her radio once again. "Sarge, it's me again. Hurry it up," she murmured. "This guy knows something about Amelia Pond."

"I need to speak to whoever lives in this house right now," The Doctor said.

The policewoman folded her arms. "I live here."

The Doctor scoffed. "Really? How long?"

"Since… a long time ago," The woman shrugged. "Have you got a problem with that?"

"Okay then, how many rooms?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"On this floor," The Doctor elaborated. "How many rooms on this floor? Count them for me now."

"Why?" The policewoman questioned.

"Because it will change your life…"

"Five. One, two, three, four, five." The policewoman counted, pointing at all the doors on the floor.

"Six." The Doctor corrected her.

The woman gave The Doctor a confused look. "Six?"

"Look."

The policewoman raised an eyebrow. "Look where?"

"Look to your right, the corner of your eye. The place you don't want to look, somewhere you never want to look." The Doctor answered, using his head to gesture to the door on the far right.

The woman was initially hesitant to listen to the Time Lord but something in the back of her mind told her to listen, and eventually she gazed towards the corner of her eye. There she saw the door but, despite it being the same age as the rest of the house, the policewoman looked like she had just noticed it.

"But that's… that's not possible," the woman said. "How's that possible?"

"Perception filter, sensed it the last time I was here," The Doctor explained. "Would've seen it if my ship wasn't acting up suddenly."

The constable then slowly started to make her way towards the door. "But that's a whole room. That's a whole room I've never even noticed."

"The filter stops you from noticing. Something came here a while ago to hide," The Doctor said, trying to stop the policewoman only for the handcuffs to stop him. "It's still hiding, so it might be a good idea to uncuff me…"

"I don't have the key. I lost it."

"What?! How can you have lost it?!" The Doctor exclaimed, tugging harder at the handcuffs when he saw that the policewoman was about to grab the doorknob. "No, don't open that! Whatever you do, don't open–"

But it was already too late, the woman had already opened the door and was about to head inside. The Doctor grunted angrily under his breath, waving his arms around frustratingly.

"Why does no one ever listen?!" The Doctor barked. "Do I just have a face that no one listens to?!"

The Doctor attempts to reach for his sonic screwdriver using his free hand, only to find his pockets are completely empty. At the realisation of this, The Doctor then frantically checks every part of his suit to see if he had put it somewhere else.

"My screwdriver… where's my screwdriver?"

Meanwhile, as The Doctor continued to search around for his sonic screwdriver, the policewoman cautiously crept around the room she literally just noticed after all this time. The room itself was dirty and looked like it had been neglected, presumably from the effects of the perception filter. The paint was rotting off the walls and the windows were covered in moss and scum, boarded up so that no one could see inside.

Strangely, a bunch of boxes were also in this room but the constable had no clue who they belonged to. She knew it wasn't hers since she didn't think this room existed until now but what is in the boxes remains to be seen…

The policewoman could hear The Doctor grumbling from the hallway. "Silver, blue on the end… where did it go?!"

"There's nothing here…" she called back.

"Whatever's there stopped you from seeing the room," The Doctor said from the hallway. "It's probably still hiding in there… now please, just get out!"

The Doctor's pleas were ignored when the woman came across a box that had a silver device with a blue tip on top of it, weirdly covered in some pellicular black gunk.

Knowing that this was the device that The Doctor was trying to find, the policewoman approached it carefully. "Silver, blue on the end?" she asked.

"My screwdriver, yes!"

"It's here…"

"Must have rolled under the door when you hit me with the cricket bat," The Doctor deduced. "Which really hurt by the way…"

"Yeah, it must have rolled under…" The policewoman murmured. "And then it must have jumped up onto the table."

Even though she couldn't see him at the moment, the woman immediately knew that The Doctor was starting to panic. "Get out of there!" he shouted out, his tone confirming the policewoman's suspicions. "Get out now!"

However, the woman didn't immediately obey The Doctor's pleas but instead, she went to the crate and grabbed the sonic screwdriver. As she was carefully removing the device from the black gunk, she couldn't help but feel that she wasn't exactly alone in the room anymore.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor shouted out.

"I think it's looking at me," The policewoman muttered. "But there's nothing here…"

"Corner of your eye."

"What?"

"Don't try to see it," The Doctor advised. "If it knows you've seen it, it will kill you. Whatever you do, don't look at it. Not even a glance."

As much as the woman wanted to heed The Doctor's warnings, curiosity got the better of her, and turned herself around slowly. There she saw the face of a monster: a slimy snake-like creature with long sharp teeth and beady orange eyes with slits as thin as paper.

This was the thing that lived in her house for many years. This was Prisoner Zero.

Prisoner Zero bared its teeth towards the woman and growls threateningly, causing the policewoman to let out a piercing scream. With the creature now out to kill, the woman instantly ran out of the room to rejoin The Doctor back in the hallway where he is seen tugging at the handcuffs once again.

"My sonic, where is it?" The Time Lord wondered.

"Here," The policewoman answered, shutting the door behind her and tossing the sonic towards The Doctor's free hand.

The Doctor grimaced at the feel of the slimy texture the sonic now possessed, rubbing his trusty tool against his trouser leg before scanning it against the handcuffs. As soon as the blue light contacted the cuffs, the shackles loosened on The Doctor's wrist which enabled him to slide it off the cuffs.

"Right then, I suggest we run," The Doctor said, placing his sonic back in his suit pocket.

"What about that thing?" The policewoman questioned. "Will that door hold it?"

"Do you want to stick around to find out?" The Doctor replied. "Besides, it'll probably run off when your backup arrives anyway…"

"There is no backup."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Of course there is, I heard you on the radio."

"It's not real, I was pretending! It's a pretend radio!"

The Doctor seemed even more confused. "Aren't you a policewoman?"

"I'm a kissogram!" The woman shouted, removing her police cap and letting her long red hair flow down to her shoulders.

Before The Doctor could respond to that sudden revelation, the door that was holding Prisoner Zero started to shake and tremble as the creature banged viciously behind it.

"Hmm… maybe we should get out of here first," The Doctor suggested.

"Good idea," The not-policewoman agreed.

The Doctor then grabbed the kissogram's hand and ushered her down the stairs to the front garden where the two rushed towards the TARDIS, The Doctor shutting the front door and locking it with his sonic screwdriver behind him.

"Sorry, you're a what now?" The Doctor suddenly questioned as they approached the TARDIS.

"A kissogram. Work through it."

"Then what's with the police get-up?"

"You broke into my house. It was this or a French maid," The kissogram explained. "But what's going on? Tell me!"

The Doctor reached for his TARDIS key and proceeded to unlock the front doors. "Basically, an alien convict is hiding in your spare room," he replied, scratching his hair thoughtfully. "But what for? If it escaped then why stay in the same place where it escaped from? Why not just go away and hide on another planet?"

"Attention Prisoner Zero!" A voice erupted from far away, interrupting The Doctor's rambling. "The human residence is surrounded!"

The Doctor stepped away from the TARDIS and lifted his head up towards the sky, slightly spinning around to find where the voice was coming from. It almost sounded familiar but The Doctor couldn't put his finger on it for some reason.

"Now then, who do we have here?" he pondered.

The kissogram also looked up. "What is that?"

The Doctor frowned. "I don't know… But whatever it is, it's only after Prisoner Zero. Looks like we do have backup after all."

"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated." The voice then demanded, making The Doctor's jaw drop drastically.

"Well, so much for backup," The Time Lord then muttered, approaching the TARDIS. "Shall we suggest we step into the box?"

The ginger-haired woman's eyes widened. "But you said it wasn't safe inside!"

The Doctor stopped in his tracks and turned towards the woman, as if what she said reminded him of something. "What did you say?" He wondered, confusion sweeping all over his face.

"I… um," The kissogram was slightly caught off-guard but managed to clear her throat and regain composure. "What I meant was… since that voice mentioned incineration, it might not be a good idea to step into the box."

"No, no, you didn't ask if it was safe first," The Doctor said, not sounding convinced. "You simply knew, like somebody told you before…"

Before the kissogram could say anything, the two were interrupted by the sudden banging on the window. To their surprise, it wasn't Prisoner Zero but rather an older human male with blue overalls and a toolbelt.

The human was not alone however, there was a large black dog beside him. The dog, strangely, was calmer than the human was as the male proceeded to bang at the window and seemingly shouting aggressively towards The Doctor and the woman.

"That's not Prisoner Zero," The woman pointed out. "Who is that?"

"Nope, it's Prisoner Zero."

The kissogram blinked in confusion. "But-?"

"Multi-form. Clever, but a bit of a rush job… look at the faces."

The woman darted back towards the window where he saw the man, who had stopped shouting and now it looked like he was growling at them while the dog stayed silent and emotionless. That's when the kissogram eventually realised what The Doctor had said just before.

"What? I'm sorry, but what?"

"Like I said, rush job," The Doctor said. "But multi-forms are incredibly difficult to master, I wonder where he got the pattern from? Psychic link? Live feed, perhaps?"

"I don't think we should worry about that now," The woman murmured as she pointed to the window where Prisoner Zero was, only to find that he had left. "I think he's coming for us."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Right, and we should be going now."

As the kissogram was about to open the TARDIS doors, The Doctor suddenly halted and gazed at the garden shed in front of him. He raised an eyebrow at the state of it; considering last time he was here, he had smashed to pieces. But while a new one would've been built in the past six months, something felt off about it.

"Come on!" The kissogram urged, noticing that The Doctor was trailing off.

"That shed. Last time I was here, I smashed to pieces." The Doctor muttered, still wandering towards the shed.

"So? There's a new one," the woman explained. "Let's go!"

"Yes, but the new one's got old. At least ten years old…" The Doctor said. He then quickly raced towards and licked the surface of the wood. "No, wait. Twelve. It's twelve years old. I'm not six months late, I'm twelve years late."

"He's coming."

The Doctor darted to the kissogram and approached her. "You said six months. Why did you say six months?"

"We've got to go." The woman said, trying to avoid the subject."

"No, no… this matters," The Doctor muttered, his eyes flared. "This is important. Why did you say six months?"

"Why did you say five minutes?!" The woman eventually shouted out, her accent changing from British to Scottish in a blink of an eye.

The Doctor stood there, speechless. He couldn't believe his eyes as he stared at the kissogram's features. Red hair, freckles, green eyes, Scottish accent… why didn't he see it before?

"What?" Was all that The Doctor could say.

Amelia then grabbed his hand and opened the TARDIS door. "Come on."

"What?"

"Come on!"

"What?!"

Amelia pulled The Doctor into the TARDIS and shut the door behind her, not aware of what was beyond the police box exterior. The Doctor, meanwhile, was still trying to process what just happened, rubbing his temples as Amelia gazed through the TARDIS windows.

"A-Amelia?" The Doctor managed to stutter.

Amelia didn't even look at him. "You're late."

"Amelia Pond? You're the little girl I met!"

"I'm Amelia and you're late!"

The Doctor ruffled through his sticky-uppy hair stressfully. "But that's impossible! I couldn't have been! How? What happened?"

"Twelve years." Amelia simply answered.

"You hit me with a cricket bat."

"Twelve years."

"A cricket bat!" The Doctor exasperated loudly.

"Twelve years and four psychiatrists."

The Doctor cocked his head slightly. "Four?"

"I kept biting them."

"Why?"

Amelia frowned, briefly glancing towards The Doctor before looking back to the TARDIS windows again. "They said you weren't real." She then cleared her throat. "So now that we're stuck in here, how are we going to escape?"

"Escape?" The Doctor queried before slapping his forehead after asking a stupid question. "Right, of course. Hang on a tic."

The Doctor then raced to the centre of the TARDIS control room where he began to frantically circle around the console, flicking as many switches and dials as he could. Amelia grew curious as to why The Doctor had gone silent all of a sudden and slowly started to turn around when she heard the TARDIS preparing to depart.

Her eyes widened, utterly shocked to see the coral and rather alien-looking interior in front of her. Amelia knew that The Doctor had a time machine, he said so himself, but she didn't expect it to be so… bigger.

As he leant over the console, The Doctor caught sight of Amelia's surprised expression. "Oh, right. Sorry, bigger on the inside," he said. "What do you think?"

"I, er… I'm not sure," Amelia stammered. "It's not what I expected at all…"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What did you expect?"

"I expected it to be a bit more orange, maybe with a glass floor perhaps."

"Nah, not my style," The Doctor immediately dismissed as the TARDIS began to land. "Now then, Prisoner Zero, we need to stop it before it starts hurting people. And we also have to before the planet gets incinerated."

Amelia's eyes widened once again. "What do you mean about the planet? I thought they were just going for my house!"

"Course they're not going to just burn the house," The Doctor responded. "Escaped alien prisoner? They always need a contingency plan."

The Doctor then gazed at Amelia, her eyes a mix of uncertainty and fear. "I've landed us in the middle of town. You can leave and say your goodbyes, or you can stay and help me. The choice is yours…"

Amelia, feeling conflicted on what to do, flicks back-and-forth between the TARDIS doors and The Doctor. All of this felt a bit too much for the young woman from Leadworth, just yesterday she was just living her life and then the mysterious stranger from her childhood drops in suddenly the next day. Something didn't feel right about that, it didn't feel real enough for her yet.

"I can't… I mean, I don't know. None of this feels real," Amelia muttered, folding her arms anxiously. "I'm not even sure you're real."

The Time Lord's face fell as he approached Amelia slowly, cupping her cheeks in his hands carefully. "Amelia, listen to me," he said quietly. "Everything that happened to you twelve years ago was true, I'm real. My time machine, Prisoner Zero… that's all real. You've seen it yourself…"

"I don't believe you."

Instantly, The Doctor went into his pocket and grabbed out the apple that the younger Amelia gave to him. "Then how come I still have this?" he said before throwing it to Amelia. "Catch."

Amelia caught the apple in her hands and examined it closely. The apple still had the same smiley face carving that it had twelve years ago, exactly the way it was done when she was younger. The apple wasn't rotting or shrivelled, it was still fresh as the day she got it. But how could that be possible? Unless…

The kissogram looked straight into The Doctor's eyes, which were full of truth and honesty but deep down showed sadness and age. Then Amelia peered at the Time Lord's face, still full of scratches that had barely any time to heal.

"Doctor?" Amelia whispered.

A wide smile quickly spread across The Doctor's face. "Hello."

The Doctor then spun towards the TARDIS doors, opening them wide before turning towards Amelia with his hand held out as if it was a form of invitation.

"So, Amelia Pond… shall we go and save the world?"

(-)

And they did.

As in another universe, both The Doctor and Amy Pond were able to successfully recapture Prisoner Zero and stop its captive, an alien race known as the Atraxi, from disintegrating the planet. All in the matter of twenty minutes, give or take.

However, the Atraxi didn't leave without receiving a warning from The Doctor first. Only one word was said, and that word was simply: 'Run'.

While The Doctor did depart soon after, he found himself materialising in the front garden of Amy's house hours later. Even though he was hesitant to travel with anyone else after the loss of Donna Noble, The Doctor did have a promise to fulfil…

The Doctor leant himself on the TARDIS as he stood outside in Amy Pond's front garden, his hands deeply buried in his suit pockets while the bottom of his long coat flickered slightly in the gentle nighttime wind.

Amy emerged from the house, now dressed in her nightie, and wandered towards the TARDIS, surprised to see that The Doctor had returned.

"It's you," she murmured. "You came back…"

"Well, I still have a promise to keep," The Doctor said with a smile.

Amy raised an eyebrow. "What promise?"

"Pick a star, any star you like," The Doctor reminded her. "Or… any place in the universe, your pick. Call it a thank you for helping me out twelve years ago, and today as well come to think of it."

The Doctor then opened the TARDIS door that was closest to him, the sounds of the console whirring faintly spilling from inside. "So, Amy Pond, whaddaya say? Do you want to see the universe?"

At first, Amy didn't answer as she began to think to herself. Eventually a smirk appeared on the young woman's face.

"Oh Doctor, I haven't thought of anything more…"

The Doctor smiled back and stepped aside to let Amy through. "Be my guest."

For The Doctor, one choice was enough to save him and give him a chance to live again. New adventures await the Last of the Time Lords and his companion. As for me, these are my stories. I observe all that transpires here, but I do not, cannot, will not interfere. For I am... the Watcher.

Amy nodded excitedly and slowly made her way into the TARDIS. The Doctor, meanwhile, was about to follow suit when he stopped and briefly looked back at the house in front of him. Something about this house made him feel uneasy. The Doctor wasn't sure if it was because of Prisoner Zero or the crack that tormented Amy until he came along.

Where did that crack even come from anyway? How did it move from the TARDIS to the house of an innocent little girl? These thoughts, plus many more, filled The Doctor's head but he quickly shook them off. He'll deal with that later, Amy's first trip was what he wanted to focus on right now.

The Doctor stepped into the TARDIS and was about to take off his long coat when he was hit with an odd feeling. The console room was quiet, a bit too quiet.

Where had Amy Pond gone off to?

"Amy?" The Doctor called out, noticing that she was nowhere to be seen.

No response, but Amy's absence was the least of The Doctor's worries right now.

The Doctor stood shockingly as he looked upon the crack on Amy's bedroom wall. It had returned to its place on the TARDIS wall, but it was much bigger and was growing slightly. The Cloister Bells started to ring, echoing through the console room.

"Oh no…" The Doctor mumbled as the crack started to consume the TARDIS.

Before he could do anything, the white void inside the crack engulfed him as well.

(-)

Sunlight. That's what The Doctor first saw when he opened his eyes.

The Doctor laid still as he began to wake himself up. He wasn't in the TARDIS, obviously, but where was he? The Time Lord moved his hand around the ground and felt damp grass brush across his fingers.

After feeling the grass, The Doctor immediately shot himself into a sitting position where he was left speechless by the environment around him.

Where was he? What is this place? Where was Amy? Where was the TARDIS?

Wherever he was, The Doctor found himself in the middle of a clearing in some kind of forest. Gazing around, The Doctor could also see mountains from afar and a river close by. He also noted the twin suns that shone in the sky, light reflecting from the surface of the water.

At that moment, The Doctor frantically searched his pockets for his sonic screwdriver which had thankfully survived the trip. He got himself off the ground and started scanning the area around him.

The Doctor's eyebrow slightly raised when he went to check his readings. While the screwdriver did pick up signs of artron energy, there was another strange energy that The Doctor couldn't figure out.

"What?" he pondered to himself.

Then suddenly something darted past the Time Lord at a rapid pace, knocking The Doctor back onto the ground. The Doctor only had a split second to make out what it was: it looked like a dragon with bright purple scales and a lean frame.

The Doctor had hardly any time to react when another dragon rushed by, this dragon had darker scales and looked more muscular than the purple one.

"You're never going to beat me, Spyro!" The purple dragon, which turned out to be female, called out to the other dragon.

The dark scaled dragon, that of an male, simply laughed at that comment. "We'll see about that, purple girl!"

As the dragon took off into the air, The Doctor quickly scurried back to his feet and sprinted off in the direction of the dragons.

"What?!" He shouted out. "Oi, wait!"

But his shouts proved useless as The Doctor halted to a stop just as he came across a cliffside. The dragons grew distant in the sky as they both glided into the far horizon. But what he saw in the distance made his eyes widen in both shock and amazement.

"What?"

What The Doctor saw was a large city. A city of dragons.

Man, what a cliffhanger. I guess you have to wait till the next chapter to find out what happens next, huh?

If you didn't realise it already then the next chapter will be in the Spyro the Dragon franchise but I won't tell you the scenario yet. You'll just have to wait for that.

So I apologise for the sudden abrupt ending. I did want to write the rest of the Tenth Doctor's first adventure with Amy but it was getting too long and I didn't particularly feel like rewriting the entire plot of The Eleventh Hour… plus I wanted to add in that ending. So sorry about that.

This is TARDIS1039, signing off. Allons-y!