A/N - Well, based on favorites and follows, a few people like this! Thank you so much to everyone who's read and reviewed! Perhaps this will pick up a few more people once I get further into the story? I'm hoping so, but I still appreciate everyone!

Disclaimer - I do not own Doctor Who or anything in it. I do own my OC, though! So there's something...

The Doctor woke up to something hard whacking him in the hip. After he had kicked the TARDIS, he had spent a few more moments being cross before he had returned to pleading with her. He plead with her all through the night and even finally came to the point of apologizing, but it was clear she didn't believe it. It wasn't until the sun started to rise that he gave up, propping up against her and falling asleep without really meaning to.

Time Lords didn't need as much sleep as humans did, they could get away with an hour a night and even go days or weeks without any at all, but what else could he do? It was a way to occupy a small bit of his time, and perhaps the TARDIS would take pity on him for sleeping on the filthy ground and let him back in when he woke up.

"Up with you, ya bum!" There was another whack, this time to his calf, and he shot up in surprise. With disheveled hair and wild eyes, he looked up to see a rather heavy man who had to be some sort of employee of law enforcement. "There's no place for you here!"

As he raised his cane for another hit, the Doctor quickly scrambled to his feet and jumped back, knocking into the TARDIS. "I—I'm not a bum! Look!" His voice had gone up in pitch in his panic and he reached into his coat, pulling out his psychic paper. In his hurry to get it open to show the man his false identity, it slipped out of his hands. He reached down to pick it back up and got it just in time to avoid having his hands hit with the cane. "Don't you think you've done enough of that?"

"I don't care who ya are!" The man spat. "Remove yourself or you'll be imprisoned."

"But...I..." He sputtered for a moment before tensing his shoulders and glaring back at the TARDIS. "Are you satisfied now?" He turned back and made his way out of the alley with a rather unhelpful shove from the man.

"If I catch you here tomorrow morning or any other morning, you'll get worse than a shove!"

He watched as the man stormed of, most likely to arrest someone for laughing too loudly, and put his psychic paper back into his coat. "Humans," he mumbled. "Never sleeping in an alley again..."

Katherine North walked down the street at a slow pace, in no hurry and only in need of a little air to breathe. The red dress she had worn the day before was replaced with a pale blue day dress, but her hair was pinned back out of her face in the same way that was expected for all women.

But rather than dwell on how her corset was tight or how her hair pulled at her scalp, she was paying attention to the people that passed by her. There were working men whose strong bodies carried heavy materials, higher up men with little wives on their arms who looked at everyone with disdain, groups of women in fancy hats who gossiped about the people of London, and little children with little dogs. Some with big dogs that stopped to lick her hand before scampering off after their children.

She was smiling at an older gentleman with what she assumed were his grandchildren, when she heard a loud cry. She looked ahead to see that the noise had come from a boy, who sat on the ground clutching at his knee.

No one even stopped. In fact, all anyone did was give him a disgusted look and walk around him, as he was sat in the middle of the pavement. He may have been a slight inconvenience and his sobbing was loud, but he was nothing more than a hurt child. People acted as if he were a madman yelling obscenities.

With a soft sigh, Katherine made her way over to the boy, gathering her skirts as she knelt down beside him. "Now, now...um...where's your mother, then?" It wasn't that she disliked children, but she had never really had the opportunity to be around them before. How was one expected to be nurturing when they weren't used to it?

"Sh—she's in the shop, buying a hat," he hiccuped. "I was playing on those boxes, but she told me not to! Please don't tell her, miss!"

"Don't fret. Let us see the damage." She took his wrist and pulled his hand from his knee, finding his stockings had torn to reveal a scrape. "You've only skinned yourself! That isn't anything to cry over." But it was something that would need a bandage, and she didn't exactly carry around that sort of thing. She looked at the people around her, biting her lip. There had to be someone who could help.

That's when she spotted him. The doctor she had met only the day before, standing outside the alley they'd met in, flailing his hands about as he spoke to himself. He was mad, that was for certain, but he was still a doctor.

Oh, but what was his name? It was something common, she knew that. James? George? Or maybe Harry? Those didn't sound right. Dick? John? John! That was it!

"John! John Smith!" She knew she was yelling loudly enough for him to hear her, yet he simply continued talking to himself animatedly. Then she remembered something he'd said:

"I prefer to be called Doctor."

She took as deep of a breath as her corset would allow — why had her mother tied it so tightly this morning? — and yelled, "Doctor!"

That got people to stop. Women were lucky they were allowed to talk above a whisper; one yelling at the top of her lungs came as a shock. She didn't care that they were all staring, however, because the Doctor had looked up at the call of his name and was running across the street.

When he saw who she was, his face turned a bit sour. "Have you called me over to poke fun at my name some more?"

"No, sir, I have not." She gestured to the boy. "All I need is a bandage for his knee. He seems to have tripped over his own feet and skinned it." That earned her a watery smile from the child, knowing she wouldn't be telling his mother he had been playing where he had been told not to.

The Doctor opened his mouth to shoot something back at Katherine, but paused as he listened to the chatter around him.

"On her knees in the dirt! The Vicomte would be horrified," a woman wearing a hat with terrifyingly large feathers in it said to another woman.

"What does the Vicomte have to do with her?" The second woman had a rather obvious cockney accent.

"Didn't you hear? He's to be her husband!"

"What?" The Doctor looked at Katherine with surprise clear on his face. "You're a Viscountess?"

She let out an exasperated sigh. "I am to be Vicomtesse. I'm engaged to be married to the Vicomte de Château. He came from France to marry me. Now, could we please focus on the matter at hand? You're a doctor, you must know how to help a skinned knee."

"You want my help?" He huffed. "I thought I was prideful and you weren't impressed."

"Look!" She practically growled, leaning in close. "Impressed by you or not, this child is hurt and needs something on his wound."

He opened and closed his mouth a couple times before he realized she was right. She may not be impressed with him, but there was still the boy. "Right. Yeah." Clearing his throat, he turned to him and let a wide smile come to his face. "Hello! I'm the Doctor. Let's check out the damage, eh?" He reached into his jacket, this time pulling out a magnifying glass and holding it to the boy's knee. "What's your name, then?"

"Henry." He laughed as the Doctor looked up at him with one eye looking ginormous through the glass.

"Well, Henry, I'm happy to say that the wound doesn't look fatal." He put the magnifying glass away, now searching in his pocket for bandages. Given that it was the eighteenth century, he couldn't very well take out a box of Band-Aids. It took him a moment, but he soon found a roll of gauze and went to dressing Henry's not-so-serious wound. "There we are!" He finished quickly, helping him to his feet. "You'll be good as new in just a few days."

"Thank you, si—"

"Henry!" A shriek sounded over any noise there was, a woman with heavy makeup running out of a shop and to the boy. "Oh, my darling, what has happened?" She grabbed onto him and lifted him into the air, squishing him to her bosom. The Doctor gave the poor kid an apologetic look. "You were fooling around on those crates, weren't you?"

"No, mother!" Henry's voice was muffled. "Honest!"

She gave a 'hmph' and set him down on his feet again, dragging him away from the crowd by his hand. "You know your father will not be happy that you've hurt yourself! You will..." Her voice slowly faded.

Katherine shook her head, smiling softly. She stood up and turned, opening her mouth to say something to the Doctor, only to find that he was gone. "Where..." She peeked through a group of people, soon spotting him already across the street, walking back to the alley he seemed to frequent.

She rose to her feet and pushed past the groups of people, causing them to start to disperse as she followed the Doctor. "It was very kind and not-so-very mad of you to take care of the little boy like that." She watched him stop in his tracks, though he didn't turn around to face her.

"Have I impressed you yet, Katherine?" There was a soft smile on his face that she couldn't see.

"That depends on how your pride is doing. I can tell you, however, that I am glad you were there to help." She stepped up to his side, peeking at him out of the corner of her eye to see him glaring at something. All she could see when she looked forward was the length of the alleyway. "Do you live here, Doctor Smith?"

"Doctor. Just Doctor," he said with a frustrated sigh. "Yes. No! Erm...maybe. I lived her for a night until some man threatened to arrest me. I just seem to be getting kicked out by everyone lately...is it my face? Nobody listens to it and nobody wants it to stick around?"

"I don't think it is your face, Doctor," she nearly laughed, but found that she couldn't as something troubled her. She wasn't sure if she liked this man, given his pride and how rude he had been acting, but her parents had still raised her to be proper. "You said you cared for the Queen. Has she...kicked you out?"

He gave the TARDIS a grim look. "Yes. The Queen has kicked me out."

"So you are staying in this alley?"

"I was."

"Right." She bit her lower lip. "Listen...I am not exactly fond of you. You are prideful, and mad, and rather rude on top of it all; but my mother and father raised me to be respectful of those related to royalty. I suppose it does not matter much that your relation is previous. We have an extra bedroom...surely, they would not mind for you to stay until you find yourself another employer, and I believe I could survive it."

He considered her offer. The TARDIS clearly wasn't going to let him back in, he didn't want to stay in the alley another night and end up spending however long he had here in jail, and he wouldn't have anywhere else to stay. He hated being stuck here, especially in a domestic house of all things, but what other choice did he have?

Slowly, he began to smirk as he turned to face her. "You are so impressed by me."

"I...I am not! I'm only being kind and proper, like father or mother would be!" She was sputtering a bit, opening and closing her mouth, looking rather like a fish. "You do not impress me! I...do not even like you!" Her face was growing red, from embarrassment and frustration at his growing smirk. "I mean it!" She stomped her foot.

"I hope you won't be yelling at me the whole time I'm staying." He began to walk off, her stumbling after him to take the lead. "It wouldn't be respectful." He glanced back at the alley, leaving the TARDIS behind. Oh, this would show her. He would come back at dawn tomorrow and her doors would be wide open.

"Oh, shut up."

"That wasn't respectful either!" He grinned at the quiet growl she gave. Someone to bother would certainly bide his time until tomorrow morning. "You know, I've been thinking about it...I quite like the name Katherine."

"Stop speaking!"

There's chapter two! Don't go thinking Katherine likes the Doctor so quickly...she really doesn't, haha. She's just being a proper ~lady~ and giving him a place to stay. Which actually sounds pretty not proper...ah, well. Please review, follow, and favorite :)