A/N: New year, new me. I apologize for not posting, but this past year has been a bit rough for me. I promise to do better this year, and I have far more lovely twists and turns for this story that several months ago never had occurred to me. Thank you for sticking with me so far, I love you all. My PM box is always open to y'all! ~Archie
Next thing she new, she was stumbling out of a startling white wall into a room with broken glass, abandoned desks, and a man in a brown suit. He was standing off to the side, his arm dropping limply from one of two black cemented hooks in the room, and his eyes focused blankly on the wall Aria had just appeared out of.
She was fine with that for the time being and shut her eyes closed tightly as she tried to process what happened to her. Ears ringing with a sound akin to a song and skin tingling as if she held a static charge, curling up in a ball on the floor seemed like a pretty good idea. Every part of her felt sore and it took several moments to not throw up the bile that rose in her throat. Finally opening her eyes again, the first thing she fully noticed was her hand that lay in her line of sight. She did take notice in the back of her mind that her entire body was shaking, but the silver mist hovering over her skin immediately grabbed her attention. She shot into an upright position and crawled backwards until her back hit the wall, all the while still staring at her hand. The raven haired girl didn't pay attention to the robotic movements of the Doctor as he walked to a space next to her and pressed the side of his face against the structure. Aria still took no notice of his actions, instead trying to sort out her thoughts, as her watch was silent on the matter at hand.
I know it had something to do with the rift, because I somehow linked up to it while standing under that blasted archway... Did I fall into it? I don't think I'm dead, so maybe not. Time travel maybe... She was cut off as a set of hands grabbed her arms and slid her up the wall into a standing position. Only then did she finally see the fury and loss in the ancient eyes of her Time Lord friend.
"Where the HELL have you BEEN!" he shouted furiously, slamming her against the constricting surface behind her. She cried out, more in shock than pain. She could feel each of his fingers digging into her upper arms and assumed she'd find bruises at the end of this encounter.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied in a hoarse voice neither being expected. Aria didn't dwell on it, instead racing through any explanation that could cause such rage in the usually collected alien.
"We had no idea where you were for days!" he hissed through his teeth. "Now you show up and Rose is gone! She's gone!" He breathed deeply, speaking his next words as if wounded. "Is this some kind of cruel payback for what happened to Jack? Look," his voice broke, "I'm sorry about him! We were a great group, the four of us." He breathed deeply, and the girl hoped he was about to calm. "But I needed you and you weren't there."
Aria wished that he had screamed those words at her rather than whisper them.
She finally broke down and began to dry sob, as no tears seemed to want to form. "I'm sorry Doctor, but I don't know what's going on!" Glancing up to see a now stony expression from the grieving man made it a bit easier to talk to him. "I just came from a basement in eighteen-eighties Cardiff, and I don't know what's going on." With everything that had just been thrown at her, the girl had no idea she was being repetitive.
The silence seemed to stretch on forever after her admittance until the Doctor gave a shaky laugh and released his grip on her, turning away and running a hand through his hair. "So this was your first jump," he mumbled before laughing a tad madly once more. Aria couldn't find it in herself to move at all, still in shock from the events she had just gone through.
"Jump?"
He turned back like he had forgotten her existence in the room. "I'm sure I'll explain it soon." The Doctor gestured at her whole body casually. "You've got that silver glow, so I suspect you'll be leaving any second now."
Looking back down at her hands through blurring vision, she noticed that the silvery glow around her was growing stronger, and she was reminded of the soft glow around the TARDIS when it landed. Aria opened her mouth to respond just as the gentle tingling from earlier recommenced throughout her body, this time with an accompanying warmth that slowly began to rise until she felt as if she was on fire. This time she gritted her teeth, determined not to cry out. Her world went black once again.