A/N: Part 1 of a 3-part mini-adventure, during which Nova faces her first proper threat (which happens next chapter). However, the Doctor and River Song will not make an appearance here (they will eventually show up, don't worry).

WARNING: Spoilers for Doctor Who episodes "Sontaran Stratagem/Poison Sky," "Stolen Earth/Journey's End," "Eleventh Hour," "Christmas Invasion," "Runaway Bride," "Voyage of the Damned," and "The End of Time" (not necessarily in that order).

Also, spoilers for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

As always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated and will also keep me motivated to post more. Even if you don't have anything to say about it besides "great story," I'm totally okay with that. It'd at least let me know you're enjoying the story.

Chapter 5: The Weird Continues

Almost a whole decade went by, and weird things still continued to occur in my life (no surprise); though the majority of them didn't happen to me personally but in places that I'd recently been to, and other places I had yet to visit. Some weird occurrences even the entire world had experienced but didn't affect me personally, which only proved my non-humanness to be more true:

In 2008, giant eyeballs materialized in every electronic on Earth and declared on a repetitive scale that "the human residence will be incinerated" if some prisoner didn't hand his/herself over to them.

Every car on the entire planet (at least ones that were equipped with ATMOS) erupted with poison gas that choked the planet for a handful of days in 2009.

Also in 2009, Earth got "stolen" and taken to another area of space where twenty-six other planets were taken; and then shortly after, Earth was invaded by war-tank-like beings that had "exterminated" millions of innocent people.

Weird things even happened four Christmases in a row:

In 2006, people with A-Positive blood were possessed into standing at the edge of the highest building as if attempting to commit suicide—an event in which I had nearly lost my father-guardian.

In 2007, a "Christmas star" (which turned out to actually be a spaceship made out of spider webs) appeared over the city of London but was destroyed by a military force called UNIT; and then shortly after that the River Thames drained (however that was possible) and took several years to refill.

In 2008, a space-replica of the Titanic fell out of the sky and almost crashed into Buckingham Palace.

However, Christmas of 2009 was the worst Christmas I had ever experienced in my entire life. I remembered waking up at five in the morning to two (one) blond strangers in my house that literally replaced my guardians. I meant 'literally,' because the blond guy (guys?) was still wearing the clothing that my guardians had gone to bed in the previous night (needless to say, it was downright disturbing to see a seemingly random man wearing a woman's nightgown). I was so terrified of this mysterious man that I immediately fled the house, despite the bitterly cold weather, and didn't stop running for miles. I hid in the sewers for the majority of the day in nothing but PJs and socks—no shoes, no coat, no way of contacting anyone. I stayed, freezing and alone, in the sewers until a police officer (now back to normal) found me and brought me back home. A resident in the neighborhood heard crying in the nearby sewers and sent a police officer to investigate, hence how I was found. Shortly after returning home, I found out that every single human on the planet (except me, of course) was transformed into this psychotic man, but nobody had an explanation as to how it happened. One thing I was sure of (although, I had kept this to myself) was that I was, for once, thankful that I wasn't human at the time, because if I was human, I would've become the psychotic man as well. Another thing I kept to myself was that after everyone became the man, I felt like the man was somehow familiar to me, like we were somehow the same, but I couldn't explain why, not even to myself. People still talked about that crazy Christmas as if it happened yesterday, and it was a Christmas I was never going to forget.

Despite all the weird things that happened, I was still able to do somewhat "normal" things like everybody else. Since I was seven, I attended several Martial Arts classes after school and learned to defend myself and others in case anything similar to the intruder incident at my school back in Second Grade happened again. In middle school, I planned to join the Track team, but because of my busy schedule, I couldn't join any sports teams (excluding Martial arts) and, instead, just went for daily runs around my neighborhood to stay in shape. I even developed an interest in music, particularly guitar and singing. My father-guardian taught me to play guitar when I was ten, and I received my first guitar when I was thirteen. Throughout middle and high school, I joined the school choir and sang in school concerts. On more than one occasion, I was even picked to be the lead singer for both the school orchestra and choir Christmas concerts; so there were weeks when I had my hands full of extracurricular activities, as well as the typical seven-hour school days. Normally, a human wouldn't be able to handle so many things in one day, but I was obviously not like other humans. Yes, there were some days I was exhausted by the end of the day, but I still pushed through, living as my "normal human self," as my father-guardian always said.

It wasn't until the end of Sophomore Year of high school when things got uber-weird, on a specific day with Hazel that changed from an innocent game of laser tag to a deadly laser shootout by a psychotic armored dwarf from another world. It was also the day that my friendship with Hazel changed forever.

"Can you believe it, Sydney?" Hazel exclaimed excitedly as she was driving us to our local arcade a few days after the last day of school for the year. "Only two more years of high school left!"

"I know, right?" I said in agreement. "Where has the time gone?"

"I can't believe we're juniors now," Hazel shook her head incredulously. "That's just insane! I heard Junior Year is the toughest year of high school. How're we gonna keep up?"

I shrugged. "I'm sure it'll be fine, as long as the classes are easy."

"Easy?" Hazel scoffed. "You're one to talk, Syd, with your big Einstein brain. Everything is easy to you."

I disagreed. "Not everything. It wasn't easy getting my black belt in Martial Arts Class. That took years to achieve, to build up all that stamina and strength. You have no idea how hard I worked to get that far. And on top of that: choir practice three days a week."

Hazel shook her head. "Wowzers! Seven-hour school days, five days a week…Martial Arts twice a week after school…choir practice three days a week after school… Geez, how do you do all that stuff and not get exhausted at the end of the day?"

"I don't know," I half-lied with a shrug, "I just do." The truth was, I did often get exhausted from days of seemingly nonstop activities, but I didn't get as exhausted as normal humans got when they spent hours of nonstop work. I guessed as a non-human, I was able to better preserve my energy and not get as easily fatigued as most regular hard-working humans with daily nine-to-five jobs.

Hazel sighed. "Well, anyways, I'm glad school is over for at least the summer. It'd be nice to sleep in for once. I'm getting sick of getting up at five every morning."

"Same," I nodded in agreement, even though getting up early never bothered me, since I didn't need as much sleep anymore.

"What do you think you'll do after you graduate?" She then paused. "Or is it too early to ask?"

I shook my head. "No, they say Junior Year is when people start to think about that. Anyway, to answer your question, I'm not sure yet. For now, I just want to focus on the here and now. I don't want to plan too far in my future, especially not knowing whether I'd be able to actually do any of that stuff."

"Right, but say you did know what you wanted to do after graduation," Hazel wondered, "what would you do?"

I paused for a moment, not sure whether to share my plans with Hazel or not. My guardians had often asked me that same question, but I hadn't had the courage to tell them, fearing that I'd upset them; my plans were to do with my biological parents, after all, and I didn't think they'd approve of my plans.

"I'd want to travel around the world," I admitted, "explore new places, and discover new and impossible things. Of course, I'd have to get a job first, so I can pay for airfare and stuff. Maybe I'll study abroad while in college."

"Where would you go?" Hazel asked curiously.

I shrugged. "College, I don't know yet. Travelling in general…literally anywhere. You close your eyes and point to a random place on the map, I'd go there, even if it's slap-bang in the middle of the ocean. You never know what sorts of things you'll find in uncharted waters."

"I always wanted to go scuba-diving at the bottom of the sea," Hazel smiled. "They say the city of Atlantis is a myth, but what if it isn't? We could be the first to discover it. That wouldn't be nerdy at all, would it?"

I laughed. "Actually, it wouldn't. If we'd actually discovered Atlantis, it'd be true fact and not myth; as long as we bring back proof."

Hazel laughed as well. "True. So what else do you want to do?"

I paused again, this time a little bit longer, just watching the world outside the car window. "I'd want to find my parents," I admitted after a few moments of silence.

"Your parents?" Hazel said, puzzled, making me think she was referring to my guardians. Of course I knew where, and even who, my guardians were, but there were still a lot of things I didn't know about my biological parents, including myself. Even several years later, my guardians still refused to tell me anything else about my true origins, and who better to get some real answers than from the people who gave birth to me; obviously, they'd know everything.

"Oh, you mean your bio-parents?" Hazel then realized a few moments later.

I nodded. "Yeah. I know I've been saying that I don't care whether they'd come back for me because I'm perfectly happy with my life here with my guardians, but that doesn't keep me from being curious about my bio-parents. I want to know who they are, what they do, where they're from… Where I'm from. Who I am."

What I am, I thought but didn't say. If it was true that, like the mysterious Nova Song, I was a so-called 'Time Lord' too, I wanted to know what that was, since that was something I'd never heard of before. At this point, I was seriously doubting that the name 'Time Lord' came out of a Star Trek episode (trust me, I checked), or anything on TV, really, or even on Earth.

"You said one of your parents was a doctor, right?" Hazel asked, puzzled. "Does that mean he, like, saves lives for a living, like a physician?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, but that might not be all that he does. Who knows, maybe my mom is a doctor too, but of something else, like…archaeology, or something." My guardians never said what my bio-mom studied (frankly, I never asked), so I just threw out the first occupation that came to mind.

"Archaeology?" Hazel said with a raised eyebrow. "Who'd want to study archaeology? That's, like, the study of dead things, isn't it?"

I shook my head. "No, it's the study of history—ancient history, like places like Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, and Egypt. You ever wonder where the pyramids came from, what they were built for?"

"Tombs, right, for their kings and pharaohs?" Hazel replied uncertainly.

I nodded. "Right. That's the sort of place an archaeologist is drawn to—tombs, and ruins, and such. You know, like Indiana Jones."

"So, like I said, archaeology is the study of dead things," Hazel pointed out in an obvious tone.

I sighed, rolling my eyes. "Okay, fine. My bio-mom may or may not have an obsession with studying all things dead, which isn't creepy at all." Ignoring Hazel's sniggering, I said, "For the record, that may not be what my bio-mom actually studies. I just randomly threw that out there."

Hazel laughed. "I know you did. Imagine if she did actually study that though."

"Yeah, that may be a bit creepy," I nodded in agreement. I then thought better. "Then again, maybe not. It might actually be quite fascinating. Seeing 'dead things' like that might make you wonder what it was like before it died."

"Yeah, that's true," Hazel nodded. "You'd have to have some sort of time-machine to find that out though, wouldn't you?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, probably. Unfortunately, that sort of thing only exists in Sci-Fi movies."

"I remember you saying something that it would be impossible to meet your bio-parents, since you didn't think they'd ever come back for you," Hazel pointed out.

"No, I said the likeliness of bumping into them would be very low," I corrected her; "like, I'd have to be at the right place at the right time in order to meet them. I never said it'd be impossible, just unlikely. But, as the old saying goes, 'the only way to achieve the impossible is to believe that it is possible.'"

Hazel snorted with a raised eyebrow. "You stole that from Alice in Wonderland."

"I know, but it's true," I shrugged in a no-big-deal manner. "Where do you think Lewis Carroll got the quote from? He wouldn't have said that if it weren't true."

"True, I guess," Hazel shrugged in a 'okay, you got me' manner. "Do you think you'd ever see your parents?"

I sighed, glancing out the window again. "I hope so. If not today, then hopefully at some point in the near future, preferably before I die." Preferably before my next regeneration, if that's something I can still do, I thought but didn't say. I then continued out loud, "I have so many questions I want to ask them, the number one question being why they gave me up. Apparently, they gave me up to protect me from some kind of danger, but what exactly is that danger? What makes it so dangerous? What does it have to do with me? What does it want with me?"

"You said the 'danger' wanted to kill you, right?" Hazel said uncertainly.

I nodded. "Or turn me into some sort of assassin to kill my own parents," I scoffed. "Like that would ever happen. I didn't take Martial Arts classes to do anything like that; I took them to protect, not to kill."

"That's twisted," Hazel said with a frown.

I nodded in agreement. "Right?"

I then paused, suddenly thinking of the curly-haired woman I'd seen several times in my life, even more so now than back when I was a kid. "Actually, come to think of it," I said, "I may have seen one of my bio-parents a few times already."

"You have?" Hazel glanced at me briefly when she stopped at a red light. "When?"

I sighed, deciding to admit my thoughts and feelings about the woman to my best friend, believing that she wouldn't think of me as a freak for feeling seemingly paranoid that this woman may or may not be a dangerous stalker, even though I never felt that way about her in the past.

"There's this woman I've been seeing always at a distance," I admitted. "She doesn't do anything; she just sort of…watches me." When I noticed Hazel's concerned glance, I said, "Not in a creepy way; more in a comforting 'it's okay, I'm here for you' kind of way. You know, like a mother would toward her anxious child? Every time I see her, I always get this feeling like I'll always be safe, like she's my guardian angel, or something…which probably sounds childish. Anyway, I've developed the theory that this mysterious woman could be my biological mother watching over me and protecting me."

Somehow, a part of me felt like this was the truth. The mysterious curly-haired woman wasn't there to kidnap me or kill me; she was simply there to protect and watch over, and nothing else. Every time I saw her, I never felt scared or feared for my life; in fact, I felt the exact opposite, exactly how I felt when my guardians were around. The woman seemed to often appear on my birthday and would wave to me to let me know she was there, but she never seemed to have any intentions of hurting me in any way, certainly not in public. Despite having feelings of security towards her, I also felt confused whenever I would attempt to approach her, and she'd shake her head and disappear (sometimes literally) into a crowd of people or around a corner. I always found that strange, like she didn't want to talk to me until a certain time in the future.

"How do you know she's your mother?" Hazel asked quizzically.

"I don't, it's just a theory," I shook my head. "But one thing I do know is that we look a lot alike. She and I both share the same facial features, the only difference being our eyes. My eyes are a much darker shade of green than hers. I've seen her in my dreams too, so obviously I have some sort of connection with her, since she seems to only appear to me and nobody else."

"Have you tried talking to her?" Hazel asked, seeming more and more suspicious about this mysterious woman as I was.

I nodded. "Yeah, several times. Every time I've tried approaching her, she always shakes her head and walks away, like it's not the right time for us to talk yet. It's very weird, but it always makes me wonder: when are we actually going to talk? I mean, we've got to talk at some point, right? She can't avoid me forever." I sighed. "It's kinda like in Star Wars with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. In Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader reveals that he is Luke's father, but Luke had absolutely no idea how that was possible. But imagine in an alternate universe, Luke develops the theory earlier in the saga that Vader is his father, but just waits for Vader himself to reveal that truth. That's the sort of thing I'm dealing with. I believe that this mysterious woman is my mother, but I'm just waiting for her to reveal that that is the case. But for some reason, she's refusing to tell me, like it isn't the right time to tell me yet."

The more I shared my feelings toward the mysterious woman that may or may not be my mother, the more anxious I felt about finding out the truth of her identity. At this point, my hearts were pounding at a pace I couldn't control.

Hazel raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "Yeah, that does seem a little sketchy. Then again, maybe she's avoiding you for a much bigger reason. Like, maybe she senses danger nearby, and she doesn't want said danger to find out about you and her connection with you."

I nodded. "Yeah, I've considered that possibility, but I don't really know. That's the problem; that's something I really want to ask her, but apparently it's not the right time yet to know, which is super annoying. I'm honestly getting sick and tired of having to wait all the time to find out stuff. It's like, 'I'm sixteen; shouldn't I be old enough to understand things now?'"

Hazel nodded as well. "Yeah, you'd think." she sighed as she turned off the car and stepped out; apparently, I hadn't been paying attention to when we had arrived to our destination. "You know what, now that we're here, we should put all confusions and concerns aside and have a bit of fun. I mean, that's the main reason why we're here."

"You're right," I said as I unbuckled my seatbelt and stepped out into the parking lot. "School's finally out, and we're now in a stress-free time. No homework…"

"No tests to study for…" Hazel added.

"No more Martial Arts classes…"

"No more having to get up at five in the morning…"

"Now's the time for celebration," I said with a smile.

Hazel smiled back. "Right, of the end of final exams and the beginning of a well-deserved summer break."

We laughed as we walked through the parking lot and into the arcade for what I felt—at least at the time—was going to be a good day. Little did I know the day was going to be the exact opposite of good.

A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!

For those that are wondering what Nova looks like throughout this story, here's a description:

Even though in reality they are twenty years apart, say Alex Kingston and Matt Smith married and had a daughter together, Nova would look like a combination of the two, but she'll mostly look like an eighteen-year-old Alex. Like Alex, Nova has a round face, but with a prominent chin like Matt's, but not as prominent as his. Nova also has deep-set green eyes like Matt, and floppy brunette hair (with a slight tinge of red) that's more frizzy than curly (like Hermione in the Harry Potter films). To control her frizz, she styles her hair similar to how the women in the "Game of Thrones" series styled their hair (straightened or braided). My personal head-canon is that Gallifreyan/Time Lord women styled their hair in the same way (before the War), so Nova will style her hair like that.

Please let me know in the comments what you think of Nova's physical description.