Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

*

It’s dark down here, the Doctor notes, gloomy and wet with that very particular ancient-dripping-cave smell – all minerals and earth and rock-untouched-for-centuries.

Dark is good, though, and so is that smell. The Doctor likes that smell, likes it very much. It’s not just the smell of a cave. It’s the smell of an adventure. It’s the smell of a mystery.

Shifting her scarf back over her shoulder, she swings herself downwards through the final gap, landing lightly on her feet – and squints into the darkness of the cave, before checking the readout on her sonic screwdriver for the fifth time in the last few minutes.

“Well,” she says, her voice echoing in the darkness, “the signal cut about about ten minutes ago, but before it did, it was absolutely coming from somewhere in here. We’re definitely onto something. Careful, it’s a bit of a jump,” she adds hastily, glancing back at the gap she’d come in through. “Maybe you should – ” Before she can say anything else, there is a scuffle and a very distinct body-hitting-ground thump. The Doctor can’t help but wince in sympathy. “ – wait for Carrie to – okay. Never mind.”

“Ow,” says Travis, who hadn’t been nearly as graceful with his entrance, and is currently sprawled out on the craggy rock floor a short distance away. “Ow, that’s... ow.”

“Travis? Are you alive?” Carrie calls from further along the tunnel. “Did the monster eat you?”

“I keep telling you, Carrie, there’s no monsters down here!” the Doctor calls back, faintly exasperated. “There’s no legends of monsters, there’s literally no other life signs except for us, and unless you’re counting humans as the greatest monsters of all – ”

“Pft, there’s always a monster with you, Doctor,” says Carrie, head poking out of the gap above them. “Rule one: there’s always the possibility of a big scary monster turning up to bite all of our heads off. Forgetting that would just be irresponsible.” She shines her torch down at the two of them, and the Doctor brings her arm up to shield her eyes from the sudden glare, biting back the urge to argue the fact that no, that’s not generally what ‘Rule One’ tends to be, in her experience. “Travis, seriously, you good down there?”

Travis squints up at her, and then gives a tentative-thumbs up. “Think so. I’ve had worse – and, hey, I don’t think I even broke anything this time!”

“Hey, good on you. Not breaking anything’s the bare minimum,” the Doctor says, and reaches out to help him to his feet just as Carrie leaps down, landing much more neatly than Travis had.

The Doctor adjusts the settings on her screwdriver and starts running another brief scan – just in case – as Travis starts brushing himself down. “The signal’s still gone,” she starts, and then scowls. “Travis, stop that, you’re getting dust everywhere.”

“Sorry,” he says, a bit sheepishly. “It’s just – you know, I tripped. I fell. I got dusty.”

“I know,” she says, with impressive patience. “I was there.”

“Actually, speaking of tripping and falling...” Carrie tugs a brightly-colored flyer out of her bum-bag, angling her torchlight so she can squint at it properly. “...I don’t get it. If this whole prophecy pool thing is, like, the main attraction on this planet, how come they made it so hard to get to? No stairs, no light strips, nothing. Seriously, that’s just bad tourism. And bad accessibility, honestly!”

The Doctor shrugs, and fiddles with the settings on her sonic until the light emanating from its tip spreads and strengthens enough to light up most of the immediate surroundings. This section of the caves is mostly nondescript, tunnels leading further downwards and inwards. The rock formations are pretty enough, but it’s not much to look at. “It is the main attraction, yeah, but the planet’s kind of out of the way. Installing stairs in the cave systems probably wasn’t worth it to them.”

“Sounds about right,” says Travis. “I’m pretty sure their main source of income’s selling overpriced snacks at the visitor’s centre. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of extra cash for... you know, internal infrastructure.”

“Also,” the Doctor adds, looking up, “if it was that easy to get to the mysterious prophecy pool located at the heart of the planet, then everybody would be doing it. Half the experience is the climb down, you know.”

“Is that why we didn’t just take the TARDIS directly here?” Travis asks.

“No,” says Carrie cheerfully. “I think that’s just because the Doctor’s just a bad driver.”

The Doctor huffs. “Okay, well, that’s just entirely unfair. I’m a perfectly good driver. I got you to Toontown, didn’t I?”

“Sure; only after about seventy tries – ”

“All right – next time, you can try to land the TARDIS in a very specific location on a mostly-unknown planet with basically no spacial-temporal context apart from one extremely vague signal,” the Doctor says, a bit testily. She sees Carrie brighten and begin to open her mouth as if she’s about to accept this offer with extreme enthusiasm, and hurriedly starts sweeping the beam of light from her sonic around, looking for a distraction. “Oh, hey, looks like the signal might be coming back – we should hurry up and figure out what direction it’s coming from. I’m thinking, right over, mm – ”

They’re all mildly filthy from the descent, clothes and skin smudged with cave dirt and hair plastered stickily to their faces from the exertion of climbing down through a series of elaborate cave systems into the very heart of the planet. The Doctor’s done much more strenuous things under much more pressing circumstances, but she’s pretty sure that both Travis and Carrie are more than a little winded by the whole experience. They look like they could use with a couple of minutes rest.

But nonetheless, the second the light from her sonic catches the distinct form of a much more purposefully-constructed archway leading out of the cavern they’re in, they all brighten simultaneously with excitement. A single glance is exchanged between all three of them, and then they’re all hurrying towards it without another word.

As soon as they’re through into the room and casting their light sources this way and that, the Doctor knows that they’ve found the place. There’s nowhere else it could be.

“Nice cave,” says Carrie after a moment.

“Pretty cool cave,” Travis agrees.

“Top ten caves I’ve seen, definitely,” the Doctor puts in.

The cave itself is huge, far larger than any of the smaller antechambers they’d had to pass through to get here. There are so many stalagmites and stalactites here, and the majority of them are obviously ancient – even larger than the TARDIS. Even when the Doctor raises her sonic as high as she can, casting its light upwards and above, the extent of its ceiling can’t be properly made out – it’s just  shadows and darkness.

The most striking thing about this cave, though, isn’t its size. It isn’t the impressive natural formations that are illuminated just about everywhere they sweep their torches, and it isn’t even the stunning acoustics that bounce their every word and movement around and around its interior. No, the definite highlight of this place is the perfectly round, perfectly still pool of water that sits at its very centre. It stretches almost to the outer edges of the cave, but not quite touching it – allowing just a small ribbon of solid rock for them to stand on and edge around the circumference of the water on.

The sound of dripping water echoes all around the cave, amplified by the natural resonance of the location, but as the Doctor lets the light in her hand shine outwards, letting it fall across the pool, she sees that no ripples are forming in it. The water is dark and glassy, mirror-like. It’s impossible to tell how deep it is or what might be lurking beneath the surface.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not seeing any ‘uncanny visions of my own future reflected back at me’,” says Carrie, still paging through the information booklet she’d got up at the visitor’s centre. “Kind of a letdown, if I’m honest.”

Travis glances over at the Doctor. “Do you think that distress signal was, you know, coming from in here, somehow?”

“Coming from the pool? Possibly. Very possibly. We don’t know if the pool even does anything yet, though,” she adds, shrugging. “I’m not saying it could be just a weird regional folk tale thing – but also that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Carrie looks a bit let down by this, but she doesn’t seem entirely deterred as she begins circling around the edge of the pool, shining her torch downwards to get a better look.

“Well, even if it doesn’t actually show the future, it’s still pretty cool,” says Travis thoughtfully. He scoops up a rock from the ground, weighs it in his hand, and then drops it into the water. “Like, just visually.”

The Doctor looks up from where she’d been checking her sonic as he does, watching with interest. The water ripples and circles out from the point of impact, but only very briefly – leaving the pool just as motionless as before. Strange.

Travis looks downright fascinated. He reaches for another rock, and adds, “Kind of reminds me of the Blue Hole, actually.”

“The what now?” Carrie says.

Travis shrugs. “Oh, there’s this big bright-blue pool of water near where I live. It’s, like, local legend that the Jersey Devil uses it as a personal bathtub – it’s supposed to be really dangerous to swim in. It’s also supposed to be bottomless.” He tosses another rock in. It lands further away this time, ripples rapidly spreading and then dissipating. “This looks pretty bottomless, I’m just saying.”

“Sorry,” says Carrie, “what are you talking about? What’s the Jersey Devil?”

“Oh, well, it’s...” Travis bends down to pick up yet another rock, and then pauses. “I was going to say it’s just one of those local cryptid urban legends, but come to think of it – hey, Doctor, how possible is it that the Jersey Devil actually exists?”

“...I’ve never thought to check.” The Doctor is intrigued too, despite herself. “Maybe we should check the Blue Hole out next. As long as we’re doing weird natural formations today...”

“I don’t know, this pool doesn’t look super natural to me,” Carrie says. “It’s too round. I don’t trust big perfect round holes in the ground. Travis, seriously, what is the Jersey Devil?”

“Uh – okay, so, picture a horse,” Travis says, scratching his head. “But also picture it standing on its back hooves.”

“...I already don’t like where this is going.”

“And give it really long legs. And a devil-tail. And bat wings, and horns, I think? It usually has horns.” 

Carrie is looking increasingly horrified. “This is your state cryptid? Travis, that sucks. Travis, your state cryptid is terrifying. Why can’t you have something normal?! Like Mothman!”

The Doctor smiles, and kneels down to dip her finger into the water as they continue to talk. The water is chilly, but not unusually so. She sniffs it – rich in natural cave minerals; also not very unusual considering where they are. She briefly brings it to her tongue. Mm. Salty. But nothing especially strange about it. So, if it’s not the water itself –

“Hang on,” says Travis abruptly, catching himself against the wall and breaking off from his conversation with Carrie. He frowns. “That’s weird. That wasn’t there before...” He trails off, and then tilts his head at the Doctor, questioning. “I think something just switched on. Did you do something?”

“Well, I stuck my finger in it. Which, in retrospect, might have been a mistake, but you know what they say about hindsight.” She’s instantly alert, her attention bouncing back to focus on him. “I might have activated it – some sort of technology?”

“Yeah. Oh, yeah – ” He presses a hand to the side of his head briefly, and then his gaze sharpens as his eyes dart left and right, apparently trying to trace the source. “It’s, like, all along the edge of the pool, ringing the outside. And – okay, this is going to sound crazy, but Doctor... I know what Time Lord technology feels like. And this feels like Time Lord tech.”

“That doesn’t sound crazy,” she says, and starts flipping through settings on her sonic screwdriver as she starts to make her way around the edge of the pool, staring down into the depths. “It doesn’t sound good, but it absolutely does not sound crazy. Right, if I just – ” Before she can even start to do anything, the sonic beeps. “ – what? That’s – that’s an incoming message. Travis, are you picking that up?”

He taps the side of his head, like he’s adjusting his internal aerial, and then says, sounding a little surprised, “Yeah, I am. Is that the distress signal?”

“I think so,” the Doctor says, switching methods of attack – now fully focused on attempting to properly track the signal. “It seems like the same source, same frequency – ”

“Guys!” says Carrie loudly, voice echoing fiercely through the cave.

“Not so loud,” the Doctor says. “Please, I’m trying to track – ”

“Guys, forget about the signal, something weird’s happening with the pool!”

The Doctor looks up immediately, and sees that the pool of water is no longer dark and impenetrable. It’s starting to glow, with faint blue luminescence spinning this way and that right underneath the surface. The glow’s getting brighter with each passing second, like someone’s spinning an invisible dimmer switch, turning it up higher, higher –

“That’s got to be connected,” she says, and waves her screwdriver sharply at the water, trying to get a decent read on it. “Travis, can you – ”

“Yep. I don’t know what it is,” says Travis, and now he’s digging in his pockets, pulling out his GameBoy and switching out the cartridge with practiced swiftness, “But it’s definitely booting up. Hang on, I’ll see if I can jack into it.”

“What do I do?” says Carrie, already halfway towards reaching to the baseball bat slung across her back. “You two are doing your whole tech wizard thing, and I just have, absolutely no idea what you’re talking about – should I get ready to hit whatever’s going to come out of that pool? Oh my god, is the Jersey Devil about to come out of that pool and try to eat us?”

“The Jersey Devil is probably not about to come out of that pool and eat us!” says the Doctor with what she hopes is a reassuring amount of confidence. “Actually, this makes a lot of sense! If it’s some form of time-travel technology – maybe projecting onto the pool, depending on what it is – it makes sense that people have been coming down here and mistaking it for prophetic visions. They might actually be seeing the future.”

“That doesn’t explain the distress signal,” Travis points out, fingers blurring across the keypad of the GameBoy. “It doesn’t feel like the machine is sending it...”

“Right, the distress signal,” says Carrie, who has now fully committed to arming herself for whatever might end up climbing out of the pool, and has her baseball bat held out in front of her in a white-knuckled grip. “That’s why we came down here – a message broadcast? So are they actually saying anything? Like, is there a message with the signal, or-?”

“No,” says the Doctor, and bites sharply at her bottom lip. “There’s no message, just the signal. It’s a general standardized call for help, they keep bouncing it out over and over – ”

“The tech, whatever it is – it’s not letting me in,” calls Travis, audibly frustrated. He pokes at the GameBoy, and sparks fly off it, causing him to yelp and hold it away from him. “Okay, it’s never done that before!”

“That’s probably not good!” Carrie says. “I feel like that’s a not-good thing, right?”

“Just a bit not-good!” says the Doctor. “Travis, forget the tech for the moment, can you track the signal?”

Travis’s eyes flicker brilliant-green. He spaces out for one second, two – then he comes back to himself with a little shudder, and says, “It’s not the tech that’s sending the message, that’s coming from somewhere else. The signal is... human, maybe? Twenty-first century. Definitely twenty-first.”

“You said we were in the forty-third,” Carrie says, pointing at the Doctor. “Far-future stuff.”

“I did, and we are, which means it’s – aha! Okay! It’s coming from inside the pool,” the Doctor realizes suddenly, and scrambles for the edge to look for the source. Despite it now glowing brighter than before – bright enough that they no longer need Carrie’s torch to see by – she still can’t see very much in it at all. There’s no obvious light source, and no visible technology, even though the ground is starting to vibrate beneath her as whatever it is that’s been activated starts to hum and thrum with power. “Or maybe – oh, maybe it’s coming through the pool...”

“I’m running a search!” says Travis, and he probably means that he’s running an internal inside-his-head sort of search because he doesn’t really look like he’s doing much searching with the way he’s currently furiously mashing his GameBoy’s keys. A moment passes, and then he says, “Okay, I’ve finished running a search and I still have no idea what this is! I’m – uh, I’m going to run another search!”

“Hurry up,” advises Carrie. “I’m having a Star Wars moment here, guys.”

Travis glances up, briefly. “You mean, like – ”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” they all chorus in unison, and exchange deeply serious nods – and then Travis redoubles his efforts to break through into whatever it is.

The Doctor is still kneeling at the edge of the pool of water. Carrie’s not wrong, she really isn’t. There’s something about this place and the sudden surge of activation energy, that’s making the Doctor feel distinctly uneasy, although she can’t put her finger on why just yet. She’s nearly certain now, that the alleged ‘prophecy pool’ is just misattributed Gallifreyan technology, although it’s impossible to tell how deliberate its presence is. She stares into the glowing depths, laser-focused, searching for any new piece of information. She knows she’s missing something. She’s nearly certain she’s seen something like this before. She just can’t remember –

Vibrations are starting to ripple across its surface, great concentric waves all emanating from a single central point. The blue glow is almost impossible to look at, the roar and rumble of the hidden machinery underneath their foot building up to overpowering volumes.

There is a distinct feeling in the air, she realizes. A very familiar taste, beginning to build in the back of her throat, tingling all through her skin, making her hair stand on end and her hearts race. And then, abruptly, it hits her. She knows what she’s looking at. Her hearts begin to thump even faster.

She straightens up, stuffs her sonic screwdriver into her pocket, and her voice sounds entirely too calm to her own ears when she says, “We need to get out of here.”

“Uh, hard agree,” says Carrie, already beginning to circle the pool, moving back to the entrance.

Travis says, “But, the distress signal-?”

“No,” says the Doctor, and grabs his arm, hauling him up from where he’s been crouching right at the edge, “No, we really need to get out of here. That’s not just a projector. That is a very specific, very archaic, very illegal piece of technology that’s designed to rip a messy hole in the fabric of the universe, and we are standing right next to it.”

Travis pales, snatches up his GameBoy, and says, “Great. We should run, shouldn’t we?”

“We should definitely start thinking about running,” agrees the Doctor, giving him a shove in the direction of the exit. “And by start thinking I mean stop talking and actually do it. Let’s go!”

Carrie has made it back to their side of the pool. Travis is already at the exit to the rest of the cave systems, clearly ready to move but still hovering, looking back over his shoulder to make sure that they’re right behind him. The Doctor is midway to grabbing Carrie’s arm to drag her along faster when she feels it – a click that’s more in her mind than in reality of something aligning into place. And it’s definitely not a good sort of something, because moments later the roar of machinery intensifies like an approaching train – and the glassy, glowing pool of water begins to scream. And then pressure starts to build up in her ears, and she barely has enough time to think, not good, extremely not good, and grab onto a nearby stalagmite before the gravity of the room seems to abruptly reverse.

Carrie screams as she’s yanked backwards, only stopping at the last minute by the Doctor’s hold on her arm. Travis lets out a similar yelp of surprise, but manages to catch himself on the edge of the archway-exit just in time. Loose rocks and rubble, anything that’s not firmly attached to a hard surface; it all starts skimming and bumping, drawing towards – what else? – what had formerly been the pool of water making up the centre of the room, but now much more closely resembles an angry, raging whirlpool of a portal.

“Okay, running might be a bit difficult,” pants the Doctor, struggling to keep a firm grip on Carrie. “New plan time? I think it might be time for a new plan.”

“New plan is don’t drop me!” Carrie yells, voice going up about an octave. “Forget the Jersey Devil! I don’t want to be eaten by a weird prophecy portal pool even more than I don’t want to be eaten by the Jersey Devil!”

 “Can you deactivate it?” Travis calls over the roar of the engine. “Turn it off with your sonic or something?”

“Not without letting go of Carrie – ”

“Do not drop me! Don’t do it! Nope! Absolutely not!”

“ – which is something that I’m not going to do, for obvious reasons!” The Doctor tries to brace herself against the wall, find a good pivot point to drag Carrie up to somewhere comparatively safer - but can’t quite manage it. “Try, I don’t know, zapping it with your brain or something!”

Travis nods, grits his teeth, and (hopefully) sets about trying to do just that. Visually speaking, it’s fairly underwhelming, because ‘zapping it with his brain’ mainly consists of him glaring really hard at the portal while trying his best to not lose his grip and get pulled in. She’s sure he’s doing his best, though. He usually is.

A second passes, and then another, and nothing’s changed and Travis isn’t saying anything, so she starts considering other options. No other way to turn it off from where they are. No visible machinery, so no real chance of breaking or damaging it enough that it’ll stop trying to suck them in. Other options: there’s not a lot of them.

“Travis,” says the Doctor. He doesn’t respond, and for a second she thinks he’s losing his already-shaky grip on the edge of the frame. She barks his name, louder this time: “Travis! Any luck?”

“I,” he says, sounding a bit breathless. “I... no, it’s not – I don’t think – ”

He doesn’t sound right. She doesn’t have time to dwell on that, and he doesn’t have time to not be okay. Right now they’ve got to survive. She has the beginnings of a new plan. Maybe. “Forget that for the moment. Is the distress call still broadcasting?”

“What?” Travis says, and then, “Yeah, I – yeah, I think – I think I can hear it – ”

“And it’s still coming from inside the portal – the pool, whatever it is right now?”

The air around them is getting hazy, blurry – streaked through with blue and white and time and space. A fault in the universe is trying to drag them outwards, wrap its fingers around them and pull them through it. The Doctor can feel every atom of her body blurring, stretching in the direction of the ever-widening portal, and it’s hard to see much of anything right now, but she still manages to catch the paleness of Travis’s face, the slight unfocus to his eyes as he says, “There are a lot of signals coming from the portal right now.”

“What?” says the Doctor.

“What?” yells Carrie. “How many?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to tell, but I think it might be... an infinite amount?”

“Why are you saying that so casually?” Carrie wails at the top of her lungs.

Infinite messages means infinite sources, the Doctor thinks, and her mind is going in about half a million directions at once, trying to piece it all together. The device – whatever it is, however broken or intentional or accidental its functionality may be – is ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe.

Which can only mean –

Under her grip, the stalagmite snaps.

She should have seen it coming, there was no way that a simple rock formation, no matter how ancient or sturdy, was going to hold two entirely people being tugged backwards by a primordial, utterly uncontrollable force, but there’s a moment where she’s still surprised, anyway. She thinks, sorry, Carrie, and then they’re falling, they’re both falling sideways and backwards, blue streaks whirling upwards to catch them and pull them backwards.

“Doctor!” Travis screams, stretching out a hand to her, and he’s entirely too far away for her to catch onto it, but she still reaches back for him anyway on reflex. There’s not nearly enough time to say it, but she still opens her mouth to tell him not to be an idiot about it, to hold on as long as he can and hope the device deactivates and whatever he does not to try to follow them –

But he’s lost his grip too, and it’s impossible to tell if it had been intentional on his behalf or if the force had finally been too much for him, or if the assault of all-of-the-signals-at-once had dazed him to the point of losing focus – all she knows is that he’s falling too now. They’re all falling. The air streaks around them, colorful and burning with ozone and artron energy, and faster than she can blink, they explode through the portal with all the force of an asteroid striking home.

For a split-second everything is silent –  and then everything is very loud as the full weight of the multiverse descends upon the Doctor. She is held in perfect equilibrium, frozen mid-motion as time slows down to less than a crawl, and she sees an infinite expanse of possibilities, leaping away from her in all directions towards an infinite expanse of distant horizons. It’s not the first time she’s seen a sight like this, and it almost certainly won’t be the last, but it still takes her breath away.

And then the possibilities start to whittle down, spindle away, being tugged out of sight and out of reach in a series of lightning-quick withdrawals. As they do, she becomes abruptly aware that she’s not the only being held in this nowhere-place. There are two bright presences, two familiar bundles of ephemeral human life right next to her, suspended like she is.

The possibilities are falling away, quicker now, and she can’t see where they’d emerged from, only where they might be going. Possible futures, alternate pasts, altered presents, and every combination and variation in-between. The Doctor reaches out. She stretches herself, straining against the very limitations of this impossible state she’s found herself in; manages to just touch them. Their fear, their determination, their confusion, it all echoes back at her and the moment they become aware that she’s there, they’re already trying to reach back.

Their fingers link. They have only just managed to get the most rudimentary grip on each other, hand in hand in hand, and then everything around them collapses, swift and violent – down into three distinct possibilities. Three singular directions, all leading sharply away from each other.

“You can’t let go,” the Doctor shouts over the roar of eternity, not sure if they can even hear her. “You cannot let go, you need to hold on to me – if we get lost in here, we might never find each other again – ”

There is an almighty tug, then, as some invisible force seizes all of them bodily and wrenches, backwards – outwards. Reflexively, the Doctor tightens her grip, and she feels them doing the same. With some effort, they manage to draw in closer together.

“Wait, what happens if we get lost?” Carrie gasps, clinging on for dear life. “What is this place?”

“I don’t know,” says the Doctor. “To both of those things – I don’t know, I really don’t – it feels like some sort of nexus point, some kind of meeting of possibilities – it’s other universes, we’re in the middle of a kind of... multiverse meeting-place. I think. I think – ”

“Can we get back?” Travis asks, hands white-knuckle-clasped around hers. “Go back to where we came from, backtrack to-?”

The Doctor shakes her head furiously; borderline violently. “No, it’s not – it’s just these three left, and I don’t think any of them are – ”

It happens again. The roar increases to fever pitch, they’re all yanked backwards, rattling against each others’ grasps like tin cans on a wire, and although they’re still holding tight, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that they’re not going to last very long. Whatever this place is, it doesn’t want them to go in the same direction as each other. And there’s nowhere to run to, no other options at their disposal.

“I’ll find you!” the Doctor yells, aware that she only has seconds left. “Wherever you end up, whatever happens, I promise I’ll find you! Just, stay safe, don’t do anything stupid, and remember – ”

And she’s not even sure what she’d been meaning to say and she’s not sure if they say anything in return, but either way it wouldn’t matter at all – because there is suddenly an iron-tight grip right around her hearts, looping around her bones and muscles and very essence of being, and she’s ripped away from both of them, spiralling backwards and outwards into an eternity of icy-cold nothingness.

Chapter Text

*

There’s a long moment of dizzy, terrifying weightlessness where Travis is half-convinced that he’s never going to land. He’s sure that he’s going to be adrift and alone in this noisy, colorful void forever, trapped without seeing anything or anyone remotely close to familiar ever again.

And then he collides face-first with a wall.

The wall had not been there a moment before, but it’s definitely here now – he knows that for a fact because he’s currently sliding down it, his face throbbing fiercely with the sheer force of the impact. He finds himself on the ground, faintly stunned and blinking around at the plain, almost aggressively white corridor he finds himself in. The air is clean, filtered. He hears footsteps, but they’re distant, nowhere near him.

Sitting up, he rubs the side of his head, and swallows. Empty hallway. Nobody else in sight. He is extremely alone.

Never a good start.

“Doctor?” he says, and his voice echoes in the corridor, the acoustics strange and ever so slightly off in a way that he just can’t put his finger on. “Carrie?”

There’s no response. There doesn’t really need to be – Travis has developed a bit of a knack for being aware of his friends’ presences, at this point. He’s not sure if it’s Wire-related or TARDIS-related or something-else-related entirely, but lately he can just sort of know when the Doctor’s nearby, in that way that you know things without really knowing. And right now, there’s nothing. Nothing from Carrie or the Doctor, that is. He’s getting a lot of things from a lot of other sources, but...

Travis stands up, leaning on the wall to steady himself. Back in the cave, with the pool revved up to full power; there had been so many signals coming straight at him that he could barely think straight. The sudden lack of overwhelming input is nice, but it also has him feeling more than a bit off-balance. There’s technology in the walls here – pretty much everywhere around him, actually – but he’s too scattered right now to identify what it is. He should know. He knows he should know. It’s just not clicking.

He decides to table that thought, just for the moment, and take a quick inventory instead. He checks his pockets, and finds that... apart from his GameBoy, a map of the cave system that they’d been exploring, and a few miscellaneous alien coins, he has practically nothing with him.

All right, well. He’s definitely been in worse situations.

He looks left and then right. Both left and right are equally identical, as far as corridors go, and the footsteps he’d heard had been coming from somewhere to his left. He doesn’t know if he’s allowed or supposed to be here – wherever here is – so he picks right, just to be safe, and starts walking.

At the end of his current corridor, he can see a huge floor-to-ceiling window, glass almost opaque-white with the glare from outside. Travis brightens at the sight of it, and starts jogging towards it, hoping for some sort of clue as to where he is exactly. This place doesn’t feel like Earth, but it’s entirely possible that it could be far-far-future Earth, and equally as possible that it’s somewhere else entirely. His internal compass is scrambled, his mental databanks and processes not doing all that much better. Some point of reference, some sort of hint – no matter how vague or inconsequential – would do wonders for his state of mind right now. He’ll start feeling a lot better about this as soon as he has the first clue what’s going on, he knows.

And then Travis gets close enough to see through the glare and into the bright sunlight beyond – and he slows abruptly, surprised. He takes one step closer to the glass, and then another, and then another. He stops inches from the window, nose nearly brushing against it.

There’s a weird sensation stealing over him. It’s not quite dread and not quite fear, and it’s not entirely unlike deja-vu. He doesn’t know what it is.

“Okay,” he says, staring. “That’s... okay.”

Outside the window, spiralling structures made of intricate metallic lattices and intricately woven glass gleam and shimmer underneath the brightness of two blazing suns. Circles everywhere, circles and spheres tangling together in endless rings and loops. The architecture is alien, elegant; ruthlessly precise. Beyond the outer reaches of this circular, futuristic city, he can see mountains – great jagged mountains dusty with snow, brushing up against the dusty-orange sky. It’s unmistakable.

It’s Gallifrey.

He’s on Gallifrey.

*

The wind is blowing right into the Doctor’s face – sharp, cold, tasting distinctly metallic – and her hair is falling around her shoulders, tangled and frizzy. She groans, mutters unhappily to herself – then opens her eyes and finds herself on the ground, face half-mashed into the gravelly, gritty unpleasantness of unforgiving pavement.

She peels herself off and upright, groaning again. Her glasses are, improbably, still on her face, although they’re hanging crooked and smudged and she has to fumble to right them, wiping them clean with her scarf with fingers that don’t seem inclined to work properly. She’s in an alleyway of some sort, alone and disoriented, which is always the most fantastic way to kick off an adventure like this. But that’s the least of her problems, because, well...

...Space and time don’t feel quite right. There’s a sense of disturbance all around her, an uncanny feeling that clings to her skin and sets her teeth on edge. It’s the very distinct feeling that she’s come to expect from being present in a universe that she doesn’t belong in. She hadn’t been entirely sure when they’d been in the process of being sucked through – entirely too much had been happening all at once – but now she’s sure of it. The gash in reality that the machinery inside the cave tore open had pulled them through, yanking them all across into someplace different. It’s not the first time this has happened to her, not even the first time in the last few months, but that doesn’t make it any better. Especially since she’s alone. Speaking of which –

“Carrie?” the Doctor calls out, straightening her coat and attempting to fix her hair back into some semblance of order. “Travis?”

No response, and she briefly recalls the sensation of their hands being tugged out of her grasp, sharp and violent. Three different directions. Three different universes. This isn’t good. This is the very opposite of good.

She breathes in, notes the tang of sharp metal on the breeze once again, and hauls herself to her feet. Taking a moment to rebalance, she rocks lightly on her heels – and then wheels around in a neat 180 spin to make her way out of the alleyway. It’s time to find out exactly how much trouble she’s in.

The moment she emerges into the watery sunlight beyond the alley, she knows that it’s Earth. She’d know Earth anywhere. It’s as familiar to her as the inside of her own TARDIS, as the back of her hands and the workings of her mind. This is particular is Earth, twenty-first century – late twenty-first century if she had to hazard a guess. But it’s not her Earth.

She is standing in what she assumes was probably once downtown Los Angeles, and the only reason she knows that for a fact is because she’s been on this exact street only very recently. It’s fresh in her mind. But that had been normal LA, with its sweeping skyline and ever-moving crowds and agonizing amounts of noisy, never-ending traffic. This LA is strange, shining, silent. Worn metal plates are plastered all over shopfronts, blinking futuristic lights glimmering in sleek devices fastened to any spare surface. Metal. Metal everywhere. The sky is dark and overcast, and something tells her that it’s the sort of dark and overcast that might not be entirely natural. Not to mention the distinct lack of people on the streets –

Which is not to say that the streets are empty.

The Doctor gazes out along the long road stretching out in front of her, and shudders faintly before looking down at what’s directly at her feet. It’s an unmistakable sight – the decapitated head of a Cyberman. It’s partially dented; obviously roughly ripped off. No trace of power left in those cold teardrop eye sockets. Completely dead.

Slowly, the Doctor steps out into the middle of the silent, shattered street to survey her surroundings with a growing feeling of cold unease. It’s not just the one head. Downtown LA, in addition to being metal-bound and eerily silent for this time of day, is completely littered with Cyberman remains. Arms, legs, torsos, even more decapitated heads. All in varying states of damage, some of them visibly and extensively rusted – they’ve been there for a while.

Two facts. Just two.

Fact one: someone’s been killing Cybermen, ripping them to shreds – killing enough Cyberman that the streets are pretty much paved entirely with battered metallic remains. This is disturbing.

Fact two: there have been enough Cybermen in LA, apparently, for the streets to be almost entirely paved with their destroyed remains. This is actually more disturbing than fact one, in some ways. Especially since it’s becoming increasingly obvious, the more she looks around, that the current state of the city is definitely the result of Cyberman influence.

Her sonic screwdriver is still in her pocket, and seems to be functional. Mostly functional, anyway. Some of the functions are impaired, but...

She shakes off the lingering traces of Stubborn Cave Dirt, and runs a quick scan of her surroundings for any local signals. Almost immediately she picks up several dozen local, distinctly Mondasian transmission frequencies, ferreting communications back and forth with cold, precise efficiency. The most obvious of them seems to be somewhere to the east, some sort of Cyber-hub by the looks of things.  

But there’s also one non-Cyberman signal, just one – and to her surprise, it’s a familiar one. It’s the distress broadcast, the one that they’d been tracking in the first place. She turns this way and that, trying to get a fix on it, and realizes that its source can’t be more than a short walk away.

She’d be the first to admit that she doesn’t have a lot going for her right now. No TARDIS, no plan, hardly any information at all. No Travis, no Carrie – she hasn’t the faintest idea where either of them are beyond not here, and no way of finding out. She needs to find a way to get to them, she knows, but to do that she needs knowledge, and she needs resources, and she needs to get a proper hold on what’s happening in this universe. And this distress signal is the first real lead, because it’s an anomaly, and more than that, it’s the catalyst sparked this entire escapade in the first place.

She steps over the broken Cyberman head, raises her screwdriver like a homing beacon, and begins to follow the signal.

*

Carrie skids, arms pinwheeling wildly, and only just manages to prevent herself from colliding bodily with the TARDIS console. Which is good, because the console has, just, so many buttons and levers and crashing into it at the speeds she was going at is definitely the sort of thing that would result in literally the most painful bruising.

She pants, trying to get her feet back under her as she adjusts to the feeling of Not Falling Through An Empty White Void Anymore, and it takes her a moment or two to properly identify her surroundings. The warm lighting, the retro furnishings, the clicking and humming that comes from seemingly everywhere at once. The faint, ever-present smell of coffee-and-cat-fur.

“Oh, hey!” she says, a broad grin breaking across her face. “Hey, Doc, we’re back – wait, what? Hang on, how are we here?”

The Doctor doesn’t say anything, and neither does Travis – and as she looks around, Carrie realizes that a) she’s alone in here, and b), someone’s rearranged the console room. But, like, in a weird way. The chairs and sofas and coffee tables, they’re all there, and the console itself seems mostly as she remembers it, but there’s enough differences in the layout of all of this that she knows something’s wrong. The coatrack, which she’d hung her spare jacket on this morning before heading out to the caves – it’s not here. The scratching-post they’d put near the interior entrance for Gunther and Mr Meezers (rarely used, but it’s the thought that counts) – completely vanished.

At least Gunther’s there, napping happily on a couch under the soft warmth of a thoughtfully downturned lamp. She doesn’t seem at all bothered, which is one point of consistency. Gunther’s, like, one of the chillest cats Carrie knows.

“Doctor?” she yells down into the corridors, and her voice echoes back at her. No response. She waits for a moment, glancing around, but the TARDIS just continues to beep inscrutably at her and Gunther continues to doze peacefully. And then she goes to the external doors, and creaks them open, peeking outside.

She doesn’t know what she’d been expecting, but old-fashioned hospital definitely wasn’t it. The TARDIS seems to be parked in a hallway, tucked away into a quiet corner. The walls are dusty, cracked-plaster stretching out into the distance as far as she can see, and there’s a faint sting of antiseptic in the air. She hears footsteps, and hurriedly closes the door to a sliver of a crack as a pair of doctors – actual medical doctors, they’ve even got the white coats and masks and clipboards to prove it – walk right by, discussing a sudden new influx of patients. They sound old-fashioned in that way that people-from-the-past tend to, all formal and accents-slightly-off. She’s in the past?

“Okay,” she says to herself, and closes the door entirely, retreating back into the safety of the console room. “This is – okay! This is kind of weird! Doctor?” she calls again, raising her voice. “Seriously, are you anywhere around – Travis?”

Still no response. She shrugs, giving up on that – if they’re not around, then she might as well stop waiting for them and get on with figuring things out herself.

It takes a lot of fumbling and muttering to herself and a tiny bit of desperate pleading with a TARDIS who doesn’t seem inclined to listen to her like it listens to the Doctor, but she eventually manages to get a location up on the TV-VCR combo. A place and a date – Toronto, Canada; 1916. Which doesn’t make sense, because hadn’t they been on some planet near Orion before all this happened?

Another short interlude of desperate wild fumbling and muttered Vietnamese curses under her breath, and she’s got what seems to be a list of previously-visited locations up – except it’s all in weird numbers and letters and she doesn’t know what any of them mean. Isn’t the TARDIS supposed to translate this sort of thing?

“Hey,” she says, looking up at the ceiling. “I thought you liked me! The Doctor said that you liked me – did I do something, was it something I did?” Something occurs to her. “If I did do something, do you accept bribes? I could give you snacks – oh, no, you’re a time machine, I don’t think you eat normal people food – do you eat?”

There’s a pause, and then the TARDIS console bleeps non-committally at her. It sounds confused, inasmuch as a presumably-sentient time machine can seem confused through bleeps alone. Carrie doesn’t know why; bribery through snacks seems like a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem at hand. She clears her throat, tries again. “Could we try finding you a snack you like? Like, black holes or something?”

The TARDIS bleeps again – louder and longer, a series of hums and buzzes that sound almost like it’s trying to say something to her – and then the TV-VCR flickers and flashes, and suddenly there’s something new onscreen. Carrie frowns and looks up at it.

It’s another list, but this time, instead of locations and dates, it’s... messages? Carrie brings her head in closer to scan the small, pixelated print. She’s not entirely sure, but she’s pretty sure these are distress signals, judging by the flashing red next to every entry. She checks the timestamps, does some quick internal math, and sees that the signals have been going out several times a week for the last few months.

Which... has the Doctor been sending these? They look like they’re coming from the TARDIS, but that doesn’t make any sense. Most of the time, they’re the ones following up distress signals, not the other way around.

She’s so focused on trying to decipher what all this could mean, she doesn’t notice that the front doors have opened and shut until several seconds after it’s happened.

“Stay where you are,” warns a voice from right behind her – and before she can do much more than blink in surprise and begin to open her mouth, adds, “and don’t turn around.”

It’s not the Doctor’s voice – she knows what the Doctor sounds like, and this definitely isn’t it. No, it’s a woman’s voice, taut with exhaustion and almost tangibly tense. Carrie briefly considers turning around – hey, what are you doing, telling me what to do? Rude! Super rude! – but then there’s an intuition-type prickle at her spine, and she realizes very suddenly that whoever it is might well have some sort of weapon pointed right at her back. She presses her lips together, and raises her hands very slowly. “All right! Staying where I am, got it. I can do that.”

“Good. I’m going to ask you this once,” says the woman. “And you’d better have a really good answer for me. I don’t know who you are. You’re messing with the controls. I didn’t let you in here. What are you doing in the TARDIS?”

*

*

Travis reaches out to press a hand slowly against the window pane, as if doing so will reveal that it’s some sort of hologram or illusion – but the glass is warm underneath his palm, undeniably from the sunshine outside, and besides that, he’d have noticed already if it was any sort of projection.

No, this is definitely happening. He’s definitely here.

He’s on Gallifrey, but there’s something wrong. It’s not just that he’s alone, and it’s not just that he doesn’t know why he’s here. No, there’s something off. A feeling in the air. The city outside looks... strange. He’s not an expert, he’s only been here twice before, but it really does look different. He can’t see any people outside – not on the streets, anyway. Gallifrey’s capital city, encased in that strange shimmering glass-like dome that stretches up to scrape the dusty orange sky – it seems downright deserted, and he has no idea how or why.

He can still feel the faint echo of the distress signal from earlier – whoever had sent it, they’d been sending it from here, on this planet; although now that he’s focusing it’s already fading away, like it’s been hastily deactivated at his very presence or something.  

Hang on, he thinks, and turns his attention briefly inwards. It hasn’t been so very long since he was last here, and he’d never actually properly disconnected himself from the local network. He’s still got the password. If he’s in the Capitol – and judging by the view from the window, he’s pretty sure he is – then he should be able to just...

He folds himself swiftly into his own head, and has a rapid-fire, electric-fast conversation with a manifestation of his own subconscious. In less than a split-second, they’ve managed to reactivate that connection to the Gallifreyan internal network, discover that they don’t have automatic access anymore, reverse-engineer the encryption and password structure, and set up several disparate subprocess to start brute-forcing their way back in.

It takes maybe five seconds of real-world time for the system to break, which is a bit slower than usual – but he’s feeling a bit out of sorts, so Travis figures he’ll forgive himself.

Once it’s open, he gets a split-second glimpse of a spiralling, skeletal map of the Capitol, floors and rooms and staircases unfolding before him. But that’s not nearly as interesting as the sudden, intense realization that wherever it is that he is right now, whatever strange past-or-future Gallifrey it is he’s on... right here and right now, the Matrix is currently completely active. And there’s something wrong with it. He can feel it. It’s thrumming away with the combined consciousnesses of every Time Lord that’s ever lived and died, fully powered and overflowing with predictions and possibilities like a seething bubbling river.

He’d seen the Doctor destroy it, rip it apart piece by piece with a burning gauntlet and sheer force of will. It shouldn’t be here. Not if this is his timeline, his universe – and he’s starting to suspect that it very much is not.

Something is very wrong.

Before he can get any closer to the Matrix to figure out what’s going on, a jolt like an electric shock runs through him, and every one of his mental screens displaying subsets of the task at hand goes suddenly, abruptly black. And then he’s shoved out of his own head with a distinct lack of ceremony and more than a bit of urgency, and –

He opens his eyes in the real world to the depressingly familiar sound of alarms blaring. It’s a very distinct-sounding sort of alarm, the sort that he’s come to recognize as meaning intruder alert.

He bites his lip, swivelling away from the window. “Uh. Whoops.”

Not only has he not managed to connect to the network properly, he’s managed to get himself spotted. And, judging by the distant shouts and running footsteps quickly drawing nearer, they know exactly where he is.

Travis glances back along the corridor he’d come down, and wonders if it’s worth it to try to run – where would he even run to, though? And before he can put any more consideration into that, the footsteps are getting louder, and the several members of the Chancelry Guard round the corner, stasers out and ready to fire.

“...Hi,” says Travis. “Uh, I don’t happen to look exactly like the Keeper of the Matrix, do I? Judging by the looks on your faces, I’m thinking... probably not, but it seemed worth checking. I’m unarmed,” he adds hastily, raising his hands up in surrender as they move in closer to him. “I wasn’t trying to break the system or anything, I promise! I was just trying to figure out where I was – ”

The guards seem to be ignoring what he’s saying completely. He’s almost instantly swarmed – restrained, pushed against the wall. His pockets are searched, and he winces as the GameBoy is summarily confiscated.

“Augmented human,” says one of the Guard members, looking up from a handheld scanner. “Circa late twentieth century. Significant traces of Artron energy. No visible mode of transport. How did you get here?” – this last bit directed right at Travis, of course.

“I mean, I don’t actually know,” says Travis, trying his best to look non-threatening, which he’s told he’s pretty good at. “I’m starting to think I might have jumped dimensions, or something? Believe it or not, fifteen minutes ago I was on a completely different planet – ”

“Did you connect to the system using this?” says the guard who had confiscated the GameBoy, holding it up.

“Uh,” says Travis. “Well, okay, not really – ”

“Someone alert the Castellan’s office that we’ve apprehended the intruder,” says the one who looks like the leader of the team of guards. “And set up an investigation for any possible perimeter violations. We have a possible security breach on our hands.”

They don’t seem like they care all that much about listening to him, so Travis keeps his mouth shut as he tries to work out what to do next. He hasn’t been recognized, so either these guards are really out of the loop, or (and he’s almost certain of this, at this point) he’s not on the same Gallifrey they’d left behind several weeks ago. Past, future, or alternate timeline, he’s not sure yet. Either way, he probably doesn’t know anyone here. His options are... limited. Extremely limited. Probably best to cooperate for now.

“Bring him through,” says the leader, and Travis’s arms are unceremoniously forced behind his back and bound with an electronic beep and a pair of cuffs that click, metallic and tight behind his back. Ow. “The Lord President will want to talk with him.”

“Lord President?” Travis says, as they begin to move, dragging him roughly along. He does his best to keep up, keep his legs underneath him, but they’re moving so fast that it’s an honest struggle. “You mean, Rassilon?”

One of the guards snorts. Another says something under their breath to the guard next to them, and they both exchange grim little half-smiles. And then they redouble their pace. Nobody responds to him.

A cold weight settles in Travis’s stomach, and he can’t seem to get rid of it not matter how hard he tries. He walks faster, manages to just about keep pace without stumbling, and tries very much not to think about how much it feels like he’s walked into the middle of something really, really terrible.

*

The longer the Doctor spends wandering the empty streets of downtown Los Angeles in search of a wayward distress signal, the more she starts to wonder about the sheer amount of Cyberman corpses littering the streets. She’s on full alert, ready for ambush or attack – she hasn’t seen a functional one this entire time, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not there. Cybermen are always there, when and where you least expect them.

The thing is, you don’t get this many Cybermen in one place without there having been an invasion of some kind, and the altered, metallic appearance of her surroundings supports that theory – signs of a cyberinvasion, attempts at upgrade, maybe? The upgrade had failed, obviously, otherwise there’d be Cybermen, live Cybermen, everywhere – but that still leaves her none the wiser to what actually happened here.

And then there’s all those blinking devices, visible in just about every window she’s passed. Pressed up tightly to the glass, blinking and humming. She’s tried to scan them, but her screwdriver seems unable to pick their signal up, whatever they are. Anomalies. Human-made, she thinks, but thoroughly anomalous nonetheless.

She stops walking as she nears the short flight up stairs up to a tall building, boots clomping to a halt on gravel as she lowers her screwdriver. The signal has brought her to... a door. A pretty ordinary-looking, slightly rusty, unlabelled door on the side of an office building. It looks like a back entrance, one that’s barely ever used apart from smoke breaks. When she goes up and tries opening it, it’s locked.

The Doctor leans in and presses her ear to to the door briefly, curious. It seems to be well-reinforced, but she has exceptionally good hearing and can, ever so faintly, make out the sounds of footsteps and people talking and the hum of those same strange blinking devices. Finally, some sign of life in this place – even though it seems to be coming from below – an underground encampment of some sort.

The Doctor looks at the door, looks back at the dead and cyber-strewn streets of a once-lively city, and looks back at the door once more. And then she shrugs, and does the polite thing – the only thing she can do, really.

She knocks.

*

“What are you doing in the TARDIS?” Carrie fires back immediately, hands still raised in the air. “You’re not letting me turn around so I can’t see you, which is pretty rude, by the way – and actually it totally feels like the sort of thing you’d do if you were planning on killing me and burying me in the garden, so if you could please just promise that you’re not going to do that to me, that’d be, uh, great.”

The woman snorts. “If I was planning on killing you, there are much better hiding places for a body in here than the garden.”

“...Good point,” says Carrie. “Like, the mountain range. Or the aquarium. Or the morgue. Or you could feed me to the cats, probably. But also, don’t feed me to the cats, they’re on a diet, and I’m pretty sure humans aren’t great cat food.”

“I’m not going to feed you to Gunther,” says the woman, sounding honestly affronted at the very thought. “What sort of monster do you think I-?”

“I don’t know! You still haven’t promised that you’re not going to kill me yet!”

“...I’m not going to kill you,” says Mysterious Woman Who’s Probably Not Going To Feed Her To Gunther (Maybe) – and, wait, how does she know who Gunther is? Is that something Carrie should be worried about? No, she probably read the nametag on Gunther’s collar, never mind. “I don’t really – no. I don’t do that, I don’t kill people.”

This is probably the best that Carrie’s going to get. “Cool, so you’re not going to kill me, glad we’ve got that sorted – so can I turn around yet?”

“Fine,” says the woman, after a moment. “Just don’t try anything.”

Carrie takes a deep breath – and turns to face her.

*

*

The cuffs are chafing Travis’s wrists. It’s a minor inconvenience next to the fact that he’s just been arrested and dragged down several long stretches of corridor (as well as in and out of quite a few of Gallifrey’s weird sci-fi elevators) but they’re still kind of irritating. He probes them tentatively with his mind, and concludes that he could probably activate the release mechanism and break himself out within a matter of seconds. He’ll wait, though. It’s better if he waits for his moment.

Escaping is a bit like jazz, he thinks to himself – it’s all about timing. It’s all about the cuffs you don’t break open.

He can’t help but grin a little at the private joke – and then one of the guards catches his eye and gives him a flat look and he does his best to sober up. Right. He’s been arrested, he needs to take this seriously. Although, look, he’s been waiting here outside these doors in silence for what feels like half an hour at this point. He has to take his fun where he can get it. Even if it does involve making dumb jokes at himself.

“The War King will see you now,” says the guard standing just outside, and goes to push it all the way open, with another guard doing the same on the other side. Beyond is what seems to be a fairly opulent set of personal chambers, or maybe a very large office; draped in red and gold and tasteful amounts of silver. Very fancy. Very alien. Weirdly, none of those swirling, Celtic-knot seal designs that Travis had seen literally everywhere the last time he was here – although, come to think of it, he doesn’t think he’s seen any of those seals since he’d arrived here. Weird.

Travis stumbles as he’s once again dragged forward, this time towards the now-open double doors. He knows that talking back probably isn’t a great idea, especially right here and now, but he can’t help but ask, “The War King? I thought I was here to see the Lord President.”

The squadron of guards who have been accompanying him haven’t been very talkative, but apparently this is a stupid enough question to get a response from one of them – namely, the fairly incredulous reaction of, “Where have you been?” from the youngest-looking of them.

“Not on Gallifrey, mainly,” Travis says, and then, “You have a War King? What does that even mean? Ow!” he adds as he’s shoved roughly forward into the room. “I’m going! I’m going!”

As he enters the office of the Lord President of Gallifrey and is pulled to a halt in the centre of the room by the guards, the first thing he notices is the massive amount of glowing holographic screens covering the far wall. Spiralling, circling writing winds its way around the outside of complicated diagrams full of arrows and shifting patterns that he can’t even begin to parse. Instinctively, he reaches out with his mind to see if he can extract any information from them from where he is – but the sharp sting of overwhelming conflicting data that he immediately picks up on is so painful that he almost immediately withdraws.

There’s someone there, facing the largest of the screens, wearing what Travis recognizes to be the robes of a high-ranking Time Lord official. It’s all very ceremonial – the red, the gold, the stiff, curving collar decorated with elaborate swirls and circles rising high over the back of their head. Hand tucked neatly behind the back, head tilted ever-so-slightly to one side. It’s hard to recognize someone from behind when they’re wearing a collar like that, but Travis is... pretty sure that it isn’t Rassilon.

“Lord President,” says a guard. “The intruder has been apprehended.”

“Splendid,” says the Lord President, and turns away from the monitor to face Travis at last. “Having a mystery-someone running wild around the Capitol was really bugging me, let me tell you; I do not like intruders. Especially not with the state this place is in.” He adjusts his glasses with a frown, as if he’s not quite seeing Travis right, and needs to try again. “...A human, was it?”

Travis starts, eyes widening – feeling a lot like all the air has been knocked out of him in one sharp blow. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it – and then opens it again, and only just manages to begin to say, “Wait – ”

*

“About time,” says the Doctor when the door opens, several minutes later. She’s been leaning against the nearest brick wall, searching through the contents of her pockets, and has so far retrieved several battered-looking paperbacks written (improbably) in perfect Esperanto, a spare (broken) sonic screwdriver, and several lengths of colorful string. She could keep herself amused like this all day, but she’d rather not. She has friends to find and a universe to get back to, and an emergency signal to get to the bottom of. Speaking of which – “Got your message. Somehow. I have no idea how you managed to beam it across the multiverse like that, but I’m here now. I’m assuming the whole, you know, emergency thing has something to do with your entire Cyberman situation, whatever’s going on with that – sorry, why are you looking at me like that?”

The man standing in the doorway looks like he’s seen better days. He’s wearing practical, worn-looking clothes, has a receding hairline, and he’s currently utterly wide-eyed as he stares at her. He looks like he’s seen a ghost, or maybe an angel – an apocryphally-accurate angel, anyway, one of the ones with all the wings and eyes and fire and so on, judging by the awed, haunted, and frankly terrified expression on his face.

“It’s you,” he says, sounding a bit breathless.

“It sure is,” says the Doctor, frowning. “Is this one of those cases where my reputation precedes me? Because I have to warn you, I’m not exactly from around here. I’m even more not-from-around-here than usual.”

“I thought it was you,” continues the man, clinging to the doorframe a bit. He doesn’t seem to be listening to her. “I knew I’d manage to get through to you eventually, if I just kept on sending – I mean, that is – it was a long shot, but you’re here so obviously it worked – ”

“Wait,” says the Doctor, recognition dawning gradually as she finally, finally processes where she knows him from. His face is worn and weathered, and he looks older, far older than the last time she’d seen him, but... “Wait a minute – you’re – ”

*

The woman is tall, with a short shock of curly hair that looks like it’s remained unbrushed for a good few days, if not weeks. She looks exhausted, she’s holding an oversized wrench in both hands, and is staring down Carrie with distinct suspicion. But it’s not any of these things that capture Carrie’s attention.

“Hey,” says Carrie, eyes narrowing. “That’s the Doctor’s scarf. Why are you wearing the Doctor’s scarf? Where did you get that from? And – that’s Travis’s coat.” She immediately reaches over her shoulder for her baseball bat, but it’s nowhere to be seen – she must have lost it while falling through that weird colorful void, earlier. She looks left and right for something to defend herself with, and then lunges for Gunther, grabbing her and holding her up in front of her like a shield. Gunther is not at all pleased by this treatment. She’s meowing and squirming like Carrie’s never done this to her before. “All right, Miss – Miss whoever you are, you’d better start talking now. What did you do with the Doctor and Travis? And also, more importantly, what did you do with my cat? Because he should be out here saying hello to me, but in the last fifteen minutes I haven’t seen him. At all. Which means that there’s something very wrong going on here, and you’re the only one who’s around to give an explanation, so!”

The woman doesn’t seem threatened at all by this. In fact, the main expression on her face is shock, swiftly followed by a mixture of disbelief and an emotion that Carrie can’t quite pin down, and then she says, in a voice that trembles, just a bit, “What do you mean, Travis’s coat?”

Carrie blinks, confused. “I mean... the coat you’re wearing is Travis’s? He barely ever takes that thing off – ” She straightens up, and glares. “- okay, don’t try to distract me! What did you do? One second we were in some sort of bizarre, chaotic... cave-y... pool disaster situation, and now I’m in the TARDIS and you stole the Doctor and Travis’s clothes, which is extremely weird of you. So, just tell me already. Where are they and where is my cat?”

“You know Travis and the Doctor?” says the clothes thief. Her voice is definitely shaking now, and so are her hands. Her fingers tighten around the handle of the wrench as if it’s the only thing keeping her grounded anymore. “You – I – where are they? You just saw them?”

“Hey, I’m asking the questions here!” Carrie snaps, and brandishes Gunther at her. Gunther lets out a mournful mewl of protest. “What’s going on? – hang on, are you –  ”

*

*

“ – Roman?” Travis breathes.

*

“ – Russell Turner?” says the Doctor incredulously.

*

“ – actually, I have literally no idea who you are,” Carrie admits, lowering Gunther slightly. “Who were you, again? I don’t remember getting a name.”

The woman in Travis’s jacket and the Doctor’s scarf is currently clutching her wrench so hard that it might just shatter in half at any moment. Her eyes are wide, wet. She takes a step back, and then another, and then she catches herself against the wall of the TARDIS. She takes in a very deep breath.

And then she looks up.

“I’m Amelia Earhart,” she says, and her voice is suddenly perfectly steady as she stares at Carrie with an expression on her face that’s an astounding mixture of hope and disbelief. “Where are the Doctor and Travis? And who the hell are you?”

Chapter Text

*

The Lord President of Gallifrey is tall and sharp-eyed, with faintly greying hair, a finely-kept goatee, and a pair of round, friendly glasses perched neatly on his nose. His robes are long and rich and red, extravagant and elaborately-decorated, golden spirals and circles weaving their way all up along the hem and throughlines of the fabric and circling up around the base of that equally elaborate and slightly ridiculous collar. He eyes Travis over his glasses with a distinctly discerning eye, like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. His hands are tucked behind his back. The room is silent; every assembled person waiting for his verdict.

He looks imposing. He looks otherworldly. He looks like the Lord President of an unimaginably powerful alien civilization.

...He looks exactly like Roman. Just... wearing fancier clothes and a curvy stiff space collar that looks like it was designed by a Lucasfilm employee with too much time, too much imagination, and too much excess gold leaf on their hands. There’s no pink coat and there’s no cat brooch, not that Travis can see – but the face is unmistakable even if the clothes aren’t.

Travis doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t even know what to think.

“What are you supposed to be?” says the Lord President of an unimaginably powerful alien civilization, breaking the silence abruptly. He frowns down at Travis. “Like, four?”

...Yeah, it’s definitely Roman. This is Roman, there’s absolutely no denying or mistaking it, but the way he’s looking at Travis right now is... well, mostly it’s just weird, because there’s not even the slightest trace of recognition there. He’s looking at Travis like he’s a complete stranger, which is an expression on his face that Travis had only seen the last (first) time they’d met, back in the other Doctor’s TARDIS – and god, that feels like forever ago. How long has it been since he’s last seen Roman? Travis can’t remember, can’t unravel the times and timelines quick enough to wrap his head around it. He hadn’t expected to see Roman ever again. And now, here he is.

Funny how things work out.

Anyway, Travis is now about ninety-five-point-six-recurring percent that he’s landed in yet another alternate universe with a modified timeline, and the only reason that there’s any sort of margin of error there is because the sentient digital assistant who lives in his brain and does those sorts of calculations for him is currently freaking out just as much as he is.

“So now the other powers are sending human children to do their dirty work,” Roman is saying, frowning at someone just over his head. “That’s... well, weird, actually; I didn’t think there were any humans left. Where did they find him?”

Travis doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’s pretty sure that both options aren’t good, considering the situation he’s in.

“Roman,” he says again, which is the only thing he’s said since stepping into this room. He’s aware it’s repetitive and makes him sound even less intelligent than usual, but in his defence – in his defence – he hadn’t expected to get flung face-first through a portal into another timeline, and he hadn’t expected to end up on Gallifrey, and he definitely hadn’t expected to end up face-to-face with his long-dead friend. He swallows, tries for some semblance of an actual proper sentence. “Roman, you’re – you’re the Lord President?”

“Y... eeesss?” says Roman – the Lord President? The War King? – Roman, drawing out the word for just a few seconds too long. He’s frowning, now, tilting his head curiously. He glances around the room, around at the members of the Chancelry Guard, as if any one of them has the answers he’s looking for. “That... is my name, and that is the position I hold, which... frankly, I don’t understand how you don’t know that, considering you managed to break through the transduction barriers and infiltrate the planet. Sneaky, clever work, by the way. I’d congratulate you, but mainly I’m just very ticked off,” he adds, a displeased little crease developing in his brow. “You are human, aren’t you? Augmented, they said. You can’t have got here on your own – actually, where did you get the technology to manage that? Who are you working with?”

Travis winces. ‘Ticked-off Roman’ tends to lead to ‘Roman with gun’, in his experience, which in turn generally leads to the inevitable consequence of Roman using said gun, which... has historically never really ended well. For anyone. He doesn’t want to get shot, and he especially doesn’t want to get shot by Roman. “I’m not working for anyone. I know it’s going to sound... stupid and convoluted and probably a lot like a lie someone would say if they were trying to do something, you know, super sneaky, but... it was an accident. I came here by accident.”

Roman’s expression is faintly incredulous as he surveys Travis. “Right. Of course. And you managed to... accidentally hack into the Matrix. One of the most deviously-devised and well-protected Gallifreyan secrets in existence; so well-defended that not even the smartest Gallifreyan on the entire planet could get in without a key. Is that seriously what you’re telling me?”

Travis pauses, and says, slowly, “Well, I’m very clumsy.”

The incredulous expression becomes, if possible, even more incredulous. “Clumsy enough to just... trip and fall sideways through the transduction barriers?”

“I guess so,” Travis says, and then realizes that being cheerfully flippant probably isn’t going to end well for him. He does his best to look vaguely contrite. “I didn’t mean to break through the – transduction barriers, you said? – those. I don’t even know if I did. I think I tripped sideways through... something else.”

“Something else,” says Roman. “Something else – okay. All right. How did you get into the Capitol?”

Travis pauses again, then says, “Again, this is going to sound like a lie  – ”

“Everything you’ve said so far has sounded a lot like a lie, yes,” Roman says, cutting Travis off abruptly with a raised finger.

Travis stomach drops.

“But,” Roman adds after a second, and he pushes his glasses up his nose with one sharp, deliberate movement. “...Strangely. Very strangely... you don’t seem much like a liar to me. What was your name?”

“Travis,” he says. “I’m Travis.”

“Travis,” says Roman, slowly, like he’s trying to weigh the shape of his name in his mouth. There’s a long moment where their gazes meet and nobody speaks, not at all – and for a second Travis swears he can see some distant spark of recognition in Roman’s eyes. But it’s probably just wishful thinking. And it’s gone as quickly as it was there. But then he says, “Travis – Travis, you wouldn’t happen to have met me before, would you?”

Something like hope jumps in his chest. He takes a breath to steady himself, and then nods. “Like I said. It’s going to sound like a lie, and it’s going to sound crazy, but... I know you. I’m from another universe, and I know you. The version of you who’s there.”

The incredulous look is gone. It’s been replaced with an expression of careful-blankness, not revealing anything at all. “You do, do you?”

“...I told you it was going to be a bit out-there but, look, I can prove it,” Travis says. “...Probably. Probably, I can prove it. How can I prove it?” He stares at Roman, this other Roman draped in red-and-gold, and is suddenly dizzyingly aware of the fact that, even though he knows that there has been some kind of timeline divergence – some alteration in his past that made Roman the President, made it so that he’d never met Travis at all – he doesn’t know when that was. “I... okay. You know the Doctor, right?”

The strangest expression passes over Roman’s face; a flicker-flash of broken composure, mixed emotions that are too fast to properly track. He regains his composure almost instantly, blankness spreading across his face once more. “Of course I know the Doctor. And if you know me, you should know that. I take it you’re one of his...” A split second of consideration. “...friends. Companions.”

Him, Travis notes, and files that away for later. Him. All right. “Yeah. We’ve been travelling around for...” He’s lost track of time, he realizes. Which is funny, because time machine, but it’s only occurring to him now that he should have kept a calendar or a diary or something. It’s got to have been more than a year, definitely. “...you know, a while. We – it’s not just me and the Doctor, there’s Carrie too, who... who you also don’t know, she’s our other friend – we were investigating some sort of prophecy pool in the middle of nowhere, a distress signal coming from inside it.”

Roman nods, makes a little go-on gesture, as if to say, pretty standard, sounds about right, keep talking. He’s got a ring, Travis notices, elaborately inset with a large dark gem that seems to glow with energy. It’s distantly familiar. Had his version of Roman worn that ring? He can’t remember.

“I mean,” says Travis, tearing his attention away. “It wasn’t really a prophecy pool. It turned out to be some sort of... rip-a-hole-in-the-fabric-of-the-universe machine. I think we accidentally activated it, because the next thing I know, I’m... here. And I didn’t know what was going on, so I tried to check with the Capitol system – because I’ve been here before, did I mention that? That’s how I got in, I already kind of had the key – and I seriously didn’t mean to trip any alarms, but...”

“My security,” says Roman, when Travis trails off, “is very good. It needs to be. Which is why it’s so remarkable that you made it within the transduction barriers in the first place – they are, to all intents and purposes, completely impregnable.” He pauses. “Another universe, you said?”

Travis nods. “I think so. I’ve... let’s just say I’ve done the whole parallel-world-slipping thing before, and I think... I think the how to how I managed to get through whatever barriers you have up is just, I fell through an entirely different dimension to get here. You probably didn’t protect against that.”  

“And the Doctor, and this other friend of yours,” says Roman. “They didn’t come to this universe with you?”

“I mean... they weren’t around when I got here,” Travis says. “Which doesn’t mean they’re not here, I guess, but I haven’t seen them.”

Roman looks at one of the guards on the outskirts of the room, and says, “Expand the search. Keep me posted.”

The guard in question nods back, swivels around, and exits.

“If they’re around, we’ll track them down, hopefully catch them before they get into too much trouble,” Roman says, looking back at Travis. “I’m sure they’re wondering where you are.”

Travis feels a sudden flare of hope in his chest. “So you believe me?”

“Well...” Roman raises a hand, does a little so-so motion with it, and then abruptly sighs, dropping it. He shrugs, and then nods. “...Honestly, yeah. Your entire story is just, a), too ridiculous to not be true, b), exactly the sort of nonsense that someone travelling with the Doctor would get themselves embroiled in. He has a habit of dragging his companions into the most ridiculous long strings of coincidences.”

Travis can’t deny it. “Yep. That’s – yeah.”

“And you’re human?” Roman presses. “Entirely human?”

“Mostly human,” Travis says. Relief is spreading through him like a wave. He has no idea what he’d’ve done if Roman hadn’t believed him. “There’s some – it’s a bit... uh, let’s just say, a few things happened.”

“Technology augmentations?”

“Kind of.”

Roman is silent for a moment, two, and then he raises his head. “Leave,” he says loudly. His voice is suddenly sharp, whip-like – Travis can’t help but flinch a bit. He inclines his head at the remaining guards. “We are not to be disturbed. And it goes without saying, don’t breathe a word of this to anyone at all – you will not like the consequences if I find out you’ve been snitching.”

The guards leave, shutting the doors behind them, and then it’s just him and Roman, with no other sounds but the faint, persistent buzz of the monitors at the far end of the room.

*

A second passes, then another, and then Roman’s shoulders slump. That cold imperiousness floods away from him like water washing down a drain, and when he pulls a face at the closed doors, he looks a lot more like the Roman Travis knows. Knew.

“Lord, I hate it here,” he mutters, and shoves his glasses up his nose with a tiny, frustrated exhale of breath. He clicks his tongue, muttering to himself, and then looks up. “Right. Travis, was it? Time to work out what your whole deal is. Oh,” he adds, halfway across the room already as something occurs to him. “Your cuffs, right. Do me a favor and call those guards back in, would you? – we really should get you out of those if you’re going to get anything done today.”

Travis grins. “It’s okay. I’ve got it,” he says, finds the release mechanism, and gives it a firm mental prod in just the right spot. The cuffs beep, click, and then disengage, unwrapping themselves from his wrists. He catches them, and holds them out to Roman.

Roman takes them, looking faintly bewildered, and then says, “You could’ve done that the entire time, couldn’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Travis says, shrugging. “But – you know, escaping is a bit like jazz.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Roman nods. “You were waiting for a good moment.”

“Right, exactly. It’s all about the cuffs you don’t break,” Travis says, and is quietly pleased when Roman smiles, a little flicker of genuine amusement passing over his tired face. Because that’s the thing – Roman looks tired. Really properly exhausted in a way that Travis has never seen from him, like he’s been awake for weeks on end without rest or any sort of sustenance.

This universe is strange and unfamiliar in all the wrong ways, so he’s going to take the small scraps of familiarity where he can get them.

“Might as well sit down for this one,” Roman says, smile fading. “This feels like it’s going to be one of those Long Talks, if you catch my drift.”

A short distance away from the tall arrangement of monitors is a desk covered in paperwork and piles of blinking datacubes and datapads, and there’s a fancy ornate chair behind it that’s just on the cusp of being an outright throne.

Roman makes his way over to it, Travis trailing in his wake, and falls into that fancy chair with a faint groan. He stretches, rolling his shoulders out, and says, “So. Obviously you want to get back to your own universe.”

“...Yes.” Travis sits down on the chair opposite Roman. “I mean, not that it isn’t great to see you, because – it is. It’s amazing to see you, actually, I’ve...” He swallows. “Sorry. I know you don’t know me at all. This must be weird for you, it’s just... been a while. Since I’ve seen you, I mean.”

“Well, now I know you’re from another universe,” says Roman. “The last time anyone around here was happy to see me was – I can’t remember, honestly. I’m the bloody President. Nobody’s ever happy to see the President.” He rubs the back of his neck, looking more than a bit frustrated. “These collars are dreadful, did you know that?”

“I was wondering about that,” says Travis, curious despite himself. “They do look pretty terrible to wear. You could take it off, if you want? I mean, I don’t know if it’s some cultural or, uh, political thing, but – I don’t mind.”

His hand drops from his neck, and a sour look passes briefly over his face. “No, best not. I never know when I’m needed somewhere else. Got to look presentable. Ergh. Appreciate the thought, though. Where were we? Right. Right, getting you back to your own universe.”

“Oh – yeah.” Travis pauses. “You’re... going to help me?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, you just seem... really busy. And you’re the President, and being President of an entire seems like an, uh, intense job.”

“You vastly underestimate my desire to procrastinate,” says Roman dryly, and then, “I take it that in your universe, my counterpart... is not in my current situation.”

“No,” says Travis. “You’re... no. Uh, more ‘renegade’ than ‘planetary leader’, I’d say.”

“Well, that sounds like a lot more fun,” Roman sighs, and leans back in his chair, prodding ineffectively at his collar. “Why didn’t I do that instead?”

“I... actually don’t know. How long have you been President?”

“Ever since Rassilon got deposed, and there wasn’t anyone else to take up the reigns.” Roman leans sideways, propping himself up against one side of the fancy ornate president’s chair with one elbow. “I do have some experience in the whole area of ‘being President’, so I suppose it being me makes sense, but with every passing decade I regret it more and more. I can’t remember why I ever enjoyed politics.”

“...They called you the War King,” Travis says, glancing back to the now-closed double doors.

Roman snorts. “Stupid archaic title. I keep telling them to cut it out with the whole War King thing, but Gallifrey really does pride itself on its airs and graces and old-fashioned traditions. Covered in dust, the lot of them. God, I need a drink,” he adds, standing up abruptly. “I’m making coffee. Do you want coffee, Travis?”

“Um. Sure?” says Travis, and watches as Roman crosses over to the closest of the ornately-carved walls. He presses a hand flush to it the centre of one of the large circular carvings, and after a second, it pops open, revealing a concealed cabinet. From it, he pulls out a pair of chipped coffee mugs, a small electric kettle, a compact grinder, and an equally small coffee press that... honestly all look like something that they would have had in the break room back at the library. Cheap, low-tech, and almost definitely human in origin. Right at the back, there’s a battered, worn bag of coffee beans that looks like it’s close to empty – Roman takes that too, sweeps back over to Travis, and starts placing it all down, carefully arranging it on the desk in front of them.

“You just... have all that in there?” Travis asks, half-amused and half-baffled.

“The Lord President of Gallifrey has needs,” Roman tells him, switching the kettle on. “Specifically, coffee-flavoured needs. Words cannot describe how much I need this right now, and you should be really, really grateful that I’m choosing to share my limited supply with you, considering how much of this is all your fault. Well,” he adds, “not really your fault, you didn’t choose to get slammed through into this universe, and it’s not like you’re behind the whole, you know, ongoing situation I have on my hands – ”

He trails off, shakes his head, and sets about the task of grinding the coffee beans. Travis folds his arms on the desk in front of him, rests his chin on them, and takes a moment to just breathe. He’s still reeling; still caught thoroughly off-guard by the situation and the suddenness of it all. Not to mention the completely bizarre incongruity of a version of Roman who didn’t even know Travis existed until ten minutes ago, who’s wearing the over-the-top robes of an alien president, and who – despite all of that – is still, for some reason, currently making him coffee. It feels perfectly normal and ludicrously outlandish, all at once.

“...‘War King’ implies that there’s... a war,” he says after a moment, trying to collect his thoughts.

“So it does,” Roman replies, shaking out a fresh coffee filter from a nearly-empty packet of them. “Which makes sense, when you think about it, because there does happen to be a war currently on.”

He says it so casually, so lightly, that Travis almost doesn’t understand. But then he thinks about the empty streets and the atmosphere of general wrongness, how tense the guards had been and how quick they had been to find and apprehend him, and finally, he properly takes in Roman’s gaunt, exhausted face.

Oh, he thinks.

“They called the last one the ‘Last Great Time War’,” says Roman. “Bit optimistic of them, don’t you think?” He shakes his head again, frowning, and reaches for the now-boiled kettle, prodding the mugs to stand next to each other on the desk. “Right. Never mind all that. We’re trying to figure out how to get you home, aren’t we?”

“No – no, wait, I...” He shakes his head, and stares at Roman. “What happened?”

“You fell through from another universe.” Roman doesn’t look up from pouring the coffee. “I thought we’d established that.”

“No, what happened with the war?”

“The usual,” says Roman, sounding entirely too casual for someone talking about a time war. “A minor disagreement, a tiny bit of an angry scuffle that ended up growing into outright animosity, that ended up spiralling outwards into civil unrest and eventually into a miasma of temporal espionage and attacks and misery for everyone involved as well as many, many civilisations caught up on the outskirts. The only upside of this particular Time War is, well – at least the Daleks aren’t involved this time.” He sighs. “Although now I’ve said it, I’m, like, super aware that I’ve probably jinxed myself. So feel free to brace yourself for an imminent Dalek attack any moment now. Here you go.”

“Oh, thanks,” Travis says, startled out of the dizzy spell of horrified fascination this little monologue has sent him into, as Roman pushes a mug across the table to him. The coffee, apparently, is ready. Travis reaches out, raises it to his lips without thinking, and gags a bit. It’s very dark, very strong, and very bitter.

“Whoops,” says Roman, and nudges an unmarked container that’s as battered as the coffee beans had been in Travis’s direction. “Should have guessed you’d want sugar. You seem the sort.”

Travis wants to argue this, but Roman’s... not wrong. He does want sugar. He’s super not a straight-black-coffee sort of guy. So he just keeps quiet and adds several spoonfuls. And then several more. It doesn’t do all that much for the quality of the drink, but at least now he can drink it without his entire mouth cringing in on itself in disgust. The warmth of it is grounding, at least.

He sees that Roman’s own mug is chipped, distinctly worn, and has a cheerful-looking cartoon cat emblazoned on it, which is another bit of weird incongruity that makes Travis feel like he should be switching his brain off and then on again. But then again, it is Roman. Maybe it would be weirder without the cartoon cat.

For a moment or two, it’s silence between them as they nurse their respective drinks.

“In my universe,” says Travis slowly, “the Doctor had this entire plan where she was, like – trying to destroy the Matrix.”

“Yeah,” Roman says. His tone is oddly flat. “I remember that one.”

“...I’m guessing whatever happened here, that didn’t end up working out.”

“You could say that, yes.” He’s staring at some point just over Travis’s head, eyes a little distant. “Stupidest plan I’ve ever heard. And I’ve known the Doctor a while, so I have heard a lot of stupid plans.”

Travis swallows. He feels the instinctive urge to defend the Doctor’s stupid plans. “I mean. It worked? It worked in our universe, at least. Where’s the Doctor in this universe? She – um, he – they, whoever they are, where did they end up? If they had the plan, and you’re the President, but the Matrix is still here... did they just give up? Did you both give up? That – that doesn’t sound like the Doctor. Or you.”

Roman says, “The Doctor’s not around.” He’s not looking at Travis.

Travis’s stomach drops. This is exactly what he’d been afraid of. He doesn’t want to ask, but... “Did... something happen to them?”

“Yes,” says Roman, and then, immediately, “No. It’s – it’s complicated, actually. I’m sure he’s – I’m sure they’re fine, just fine, but they’re in no position to do anything about the war and certainly in no position to help you, which is coincidentally what we’re attempting to do. Don’t worry about this universe’s problems, we’re trying to get you back to yours.”

There’s that feeling of dread rising in Travis’s stomach again. He wants to know what’s happened to this universe’s Doctor, he needs to know so, so desperately, but the look on Roman’s face right now tells him that asking is going to be completely fruitless.

What happened here? What happened to Roman, to Gallifrey, to the Doctor, to all of it?

“You said you came here through some form of portal,” Roman says briskly, fingers clasped around the circumference of his cartoon-cat coffee mug. “Your universe can’t be too different from this one in terms of locations and placement – there must be an equivalent of it somewhere here. Finding it might be a start.”

Something like a headache is brewing. Travis pushes away the faint fuzziness, and pushes away the horrified speculations that are starting to build in his head, and tries to focus on what Roman’s saying to him. “Yeah – yeah, that might be it, actually.” He taps his fingers against the rim of his mug, staring down into the watery dark depths. “But... there’s a problem. I don’t actually know where it was. We landed there, but it’s not like the Doctor gave me any coordinates or timezones or anything, we were too busy running off to follow the signal. Carrie had a flyer, but it was just a... you know, generic alien national park thing. I didn’t get a name.”

“Well, that’s not helpful,” mutters Roman, but there’s a look on his face as he raises his cat-print mug to take another sip, a very specific sort of look of intense concentration – like he’s just on the verge of realizing something deeply important.

Travis lets one second slip pass, and then another, and then he asks, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” says Roman, very slowly, “that the two of us might just need to reactivate the Matrix.”

And just as he speaks, there is a tremor that starts in the ground. It begins fine and slight underneath Travis’s feet, but quickly progresses into quaking and rattling as the entire planet seems to shake with the force of a distant earth-shattering impact. And then there is a moment where his brain just freezes – not in a digital way, all systems are fully functional within his head and he’d know if they weren’t. No, it’s like time has shuddered to a stop around him, and even though he’s distantly aware of the fact that things aren’t progressing linearly anymore, he can’t properly perceive it or do anything about it. He has the distant impression of the steam from his cup of coffee shattering outwards into jagged, impossible fractals, and swears he can hear the squealing protests of clockwork being dragged backwards, teeth grinding and gnashing out of sync.

And then events resume and he can move again, and the mug falls from his grip to collide with the table, splashing now-ice-cold coffee all over the table. Roman is no longer sitting across from him. His cat-patterned mug is just sitting there, long-abandoned on the table, and now he’s at the monitors all the way across the room, the glow of multiple flashing screens casting angry swirling designs across his face as his fingers dart this way and that, incomprehensible diagrams rearranging themselves at his touch.

“What,” says Travis, heart suddenly hammering. “What was that?”

“Temporal assault,” Roman says, sounding distracted. “I did mention there was a war on, didn’t I?”

Beyond the doors, people are shouting, running. The sound of laserfire, other sounds that Travis can’t quite pin down. Chaos. And not the fun kind, either. He looks at Roman, all traces of exhaustion pushed away, his face now serious and sharp as he spits out rapid-fire commands into what seems to be five different communications lines. The orders, if that’s what they are, don’t make sense to Travis’s ears; the tenses are all wrong and the chronology is incomprehensible. Attacks in the past, defences in the future.

Time war, Travis thinks, and doesn’t even know how to begin wrapping his head around that. Time war. War King. Okay. All right.

Roman’s distracted enough right now, and there’s enough alarms going off outside that Travis decides that making a second attempt at connecting to the network is probably what he should be doing right now. If nothing else, he’ll get a good grasp of what’s going on.

One quick internal conversation, and he’s got his fingers into the system again, this time carefully avoiding the thrumming, sizzling malevolence of the Matrix. There’s definitely something very wrong with it; he can feel it practically boiling over, hissing and whispering distantly as he brushes past it. That’s not what he’s here for right now, though. He finds the map, the schematics of the Capitol, tugs it to the forefront of his consciousness, starts scouring it for information.

Roman is still barking orders into the monitors, and he doesn’t seem to hear the footsteps and gunfire directly outside, and he definitely can’t see what Travis sees – which is a series of bright red dots converging directly on the office from all directions, as the nearest already-there dots nearby flicker and go dark.

Travis has no weapons, he’s not even sure if he’d want to use them if he did – and even though he’s opening his mouth to shout a warning, to let Roman know that something’s happening, that they’re probably in very immediate danger, the door is already slamming open.

It’s a squadron of Chancelry Guards. They don’t seem to be the same ones that had escorted Travis here earlier. They flood into the room, fanning out to form a circle, thoroughly blocking the exit and penning both Travis and Roman in as they raise their oversized humming-thrumming weapons to bear like a firing squad.

Travis has a feeling that, even though he’s very much in the line of fire, he’s not the target here.

“Lord President,” says one of them. He's wearing the exact same helmet and uniform as the rest of them, but Travis stiffens in surprised recognition as - improbably - he recognizes the man. Coydan, of all people, bares his teeth in a furious, humourless grin. “War King of Gallifrey presiding.”

“Oh, great,” says Roman, turning away from the monitors. “Coydan, hello, of course it’s you. How long have you been waiting for this?”

“Surprisingly, not all that long. I was just waiting for the transduction barriers to drop so the signal could finally get across.” He inclines his head at Travis. “Your little friend’s arrival was actually the perfect opportunity for that. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Roman nods. “And now Gallifrey is officially an open house for all Rassilon sympathizers, and a free-for-all zone for literally anyone in the mood for pointless carnage and destruction. Brilliant work, Coydan; now things are about to get even more complicated than they already were.”

He says, “Yes, well. What you’ve been doing for the past few centuries is treason.”

“I could say the same to you. You’re about to execute your Lord President, I’m pretty sure that kind of fits the textbook definition of ‘treason’. Also, murder. But I have a feeling you don’t care much about the murder bit.”

“This isn’t treason,” says Coydan. “This is justice.”

“Ah, well,” says Roman, and lets out a showy little sigh, shoulders slumping a bit. “Just goes to show – you can’t trust anyone these days.” He looks very, very deliberately at Travis and adds, “Travis? Duck.”

Travis doesn’t think, he doesn’t have time to; he just drops – throwing himself down to the floor, pressing himself flat against the ground. The moment he does it he knows he’s made the right choice because time does that weird thing again, goes all elastic and strange around him. He can’t move, he knows that time is frozen and events have come to a standstill; but there’s still the sounds of shouting and gunfire and that horrible grinding-ticking noise, getting louder and louder –

Abruptly, it stops.

Now there’s a hand in his field of vision. Extended towards him. He blinks, realizes he can move again, and reaches out to take it.

As Roman hauls him to his feet, he looks around the room and sees that every member of the fake Chancelry Guard is down and motionless – sprawled on the ground and splayed up against the walls. The smell of burning flesh is thick in the air. In Roman’s other hand, a gun that looks even nastier than the ones that the fake-Guard members had been carrying. A small sliver of smoke curls upwards from its tip as Roman shakes it once, twice, and then stores it underneath his robe, away into some hidden pocket.

“Oh my god,” says Travis, and his legs are suddenly very shaky. “That was... they were trying to kill you. That was an assassination attempt.”

“Yeah, did I mention I’m extremely popular these days?” says Roman, sounding a lot less concerned than he really should. “Not as fun as it sounds, trust me. Do not recommend.”

The room is a wreck and a mess. Papers everywhere, overturned furniture, the burning smell is getting worse. Several of the would-be assassins are beginning to glow, dusty golden light shining from their motionless bodies, flaking upwards as the inevitable change begins to take hold.

“That’s not going to stop them for long,” Roman mutters, more to himself than Travis. He glances down at the nearest of them, nudges them distastefully with a foot. “...and I don’t have time to shoot them all again – ”

“We need to get out of here,” Travis says, pushing back the instinctive panic and forcing himself to think through it. Mindbending time tricks and alternate-universe versions of friends aside, this is just like any other adventure. “Is there somewhere safe nearby you can get to – like, a TARDIS or something?”

“I can’t leave Gallifrey,” Roman replies, sounding harried. He chances a glance to the monitors he’d been working at, which are shattered and blank, flickering with the dying remnants of malfunctioning internal power. “Damn. Damn and blast. And things were going so well...”

Travis bites his lip, looks around the room. “Okay, then...” Scorch marks on the walls. Squadron of temporarily-dead Time Lords, all in various stages of dead and currently-regenerating. There are more people coming. The map in his head is covered in blinking, blaring lights, all rapidly converging on their current location. He tries to chart out an escape route, but there’s nothing; there’s just nothing. What can he do? What can he do? “...I... I can probably lock us in. Deadlock the doors, make it hard for them to break through, but that’s not going to last forever – ”

“Do that,” says Roman instantly. “Slowing them down is a start.”

The room shakes again. His brain freezes over, refusing to process what’s going on, and then when he comes back to himself, it’s louder outside and Roman is standing right next to him. At some point in that indistinct interval of lost time, he’d crossed the room, and now he’s fiddling with the ring on his finger, twisting it around and frowning at it.

Travis tries to remember what he’d been thinking, what he’d been doing. Right, the doors. He directs a line of code in their direction, and feels-and-hears the locks engage, falling into place and locking themselves securely. Another thought, and they start to warp and crack and fuse together. “Done. Now what?”

“Now, we do a daring escape... thing,” Roman says, and holds up his hand, wiggling the finger with the ring on it. “Or something along those lines, anyway. Time Ring – should have enough juice for the both of us, just a short hop. Might get a bit bumpy, though.”

“I travel with the Doctor, remember?” Travis says. “I can do bumpy.”

Roman winces the very specific wince of someone who’s been thrown against a wall by a certain someone’s poor driving skills far too many times. “Fair enough.”

The now-locked door lets out a loud, violent rattle, as if someone on the other side is throwing themselves at it or perhaps attempting to shoot it down. Both Roman and Travis look up in identical alarmed startlement, and then share a glance.

Roman says, “Okay, time to go,” and wraps an arm around Travis’s shoulders, dragging him in close with a sort of hasty, practical side-hug. Even though all the robes, Roman is so cold. Cold and thin, the sort of leanness that’s easily hidden by the sheer volume of his robes, but so obvious now that Travis is right up next to him.

He doesn’t have very much time to consider that, because in the next instant everything has gone brilliant-white – and quite suddenly, he and Roman are somewhere else entirely.

Chapter Text

*

The last time the Doctor had seen the original Russell Turner – former CEO of Talent Acquisition of Epoch Talent, former employee of the Staycation Dome, partial inadvertent mastermind behind an invasion of countless multitudes of interdimensional doppelgangers – had been shortly before she, Millie, and Travis had been thrown into another dimension of their own. Presumably he’d been flung sideways through realities too, but he hadn’t made it back the same way that the three of them had. At the time, she’d assumed he’d died. Burnt up with the rest of that parallel universe, or gotten lost somewhere along the way – but at the very least she’d pretty much figured she’d never see him again.

Needless to say, he’s pretty much the last person she’d been expecting to come face-to-face with today – especially here, on the other end of that mysterious distress signal she’s been tracking down all day.

Before he can say anything else, she grabs him sharply by the shoulders, stares him in the face for a long, long moment, and then leans in close, inhaling hard. She has to concentrate to pin it down and work out what she’s smelling, but after only a split-second she’s absolutely sure. There’s an uncanny feeling to being in another universe; something that clings to her skin and sets her teeth on edge, but here’s the thing – the man standing in front of her has none of that. He feels perfectly normal, he smells faintly of a broad, wide concept of home. Which should be impossible, and yet...

“Did,” says Russell Turner, “I’m sorry, did – did you just smell me?”

“Well, I was going to lick you,” the Doctor says, frowning at him, “but I thought that might be weird for both of us. But never mind that. You’re Russell Turner? You’re the Russell Turner, the one from the same universe as me? That’s who you are?”

“Y – yes? That is... that’s me.” Turner’s no longer looking quite so awestruck at her very presence, but he’s still steadying himself against the door and staring at her in what can only really be described as outrightwonder. “I mean, I assume that we’re from the same original universe. Considering that the whole multiverse theory thing is... well, a thing, I guess there’s no real way of knowing – ”

“No, I’m pretty sure that you’re the right one,” the Doctor says, cutting across him. “Millie, Travis, Epoch Talent? Colony 47? Joan Hodgman, an infinite amount of parallel dimensions merging into each other – rings a few bells, right?”

“Okay,” says Turner, starting to look a lot less awestruck and a lot more irritated. “You don’t need to remind me of everything I’ve ever done wrong – I know I screwed up, but – ”

“Well, you did screw up,” the Doctor says. “Like, a lot; but the Colony 47 thing wasn’t all your fault. You tried, at least. You tried, and that’s – no, nope, sorry, I’m currently mostly just stuck on the bit where you’re here in a parallel dimension, and you were trying to contact me across universes?”

“Yes, I...” He trails off, and peers out into the street behind her.

The Doctor glances over her shoulder, following his gaze – but apart from more wrecked Cybermen and more blinking devices in windows, there’s nobody and nothing in sight.

Nonetheless, there is an expression of distinct nervousness on Turner’s face as he says, “It’s not safe to stick around out here. We can talk inside.”

The Doctor instinctively opens her mouth to argue, to demand that no, he can absolutely explain right here and right now, even if it’s just a condensed basic version of it all. But the humming of the devices is eating away at the back of her senses; a distant feeling that there’s something here that she’s missing, something very obvious that she should be aware of. A constant thrum of wrong wrong wrong wrong.

She relents. “Fine,” she says, “fine. But this had better be good.”

“Good,” Turner says, “is definitely not the word I’d use for any of this.” He pushes the door open wider. “But – I’ll do my best. Hurry up. Come on in.”

*

Turner has a wind-up portable torch with him. It reminds her of the one Carrie had been using earlier today – which reminds her that she has no idea where Carrie is or what she’s doing, and she swallows an abrupt jolt of worry for her absent friends, forcing it to the back of her mind. Nothing she can do about them right now. Time to focus on the problem at hand.  

Holding the torch out to light up their descent, Turner is leading her down a dark flight of stairs that looks like they haven’t been cleaned since they were built – far, far down into the ground. It takes them nearly five minutes to reach the bottom – a large, heavy door that he unlocks with an equally large and chunky key. She lends a hand in helping him heave it open, and beyond –

It seems to be some kind of massive basement, repurposed into something that’s a cross between a refugee camp and a command center. Long rows of cots are arranged at one side of the room, with crudely strung-up curtains cordoning areas off to provide some measure of privacy. At the other side; boxes of equipment and supplies, hastily-assembled weapons made up of scavenged parts and lashed-together household supplies. Nothing more technologically advanced than a battery-operated lantern, it looks like, except for... aha.

Along the wall closest to where they are right now, there’s what looks a lot like a long-range radio transmitter. Old fashioned by local modern late-twenty-first-century standards, but still fairly impressive that they’ve managed to get it working. It’s currently operational and powered-on.

On a hunch, the Doctor checks her sonic screwdriver again, and sees that, yes – this is the source of the distress signal. A signal that managed to cross the boundaries between worlds. Even more impressive. And just a little bit worrying, actually.

Some of the residents of this basement room look up as she enters. Some of them look curious, but most of them turn away in disinterest, and resume whatever they’d been doing – talking amongst themselves, or reading battered-looking paperbacks, or performing various repairs on their clothes or possessions or equipment. The Doctor runs a quick headcount. There can’t be more than thirty people in here, all looking thoroughly exhausted, pale, and washed-out. Judging by the state of the place and the state of its inhabitants, they’ve been down for at least two months, maybe more. Another refugee camp, this time hiding from the Cybermen. Russell Turner seems to be making a real habit of forming refugee camps, she notes to herself. Which is another surprise, but definitely not an unwelcome one.

As Turner shuts and locks the door behind them, he waves to his left, to a short woman with close-cropped hair, who seems to have been monitoring the radio transmitter. “Turn it off, Verity. We did it – we found her.”

This is said loud enough to garner some reaction from the residents of the basement bunkers. Some people, more of them than before, turn to look at the Doctor with faint astonishment, or suspicion, or just outright disbelief. The Doctor shrugs to herself, and waves at them, trying not to let her disquiet for the entire situation show in her face.

“This is the Doctor?” says the woman at the transmitter – Verity, apparently – as she starts to do just that, switching the transmitter off. “You’ve found her – like, for real?”

“It looks like it. Can you – ” He lowers his voice, biting his lip as his eyes dart sideways. “We need to talk, I need to explain what’s going on – can you make sure the others don’t bother us, just for a bit?

Verity looks at the Doctor in the same way that you’d look at a wild animal that had previously been considered to be extinct. But after a moment, she shakes herself and says, “Sure. Sure, I’ll – I’ll do that. Russell, does this mean-?”

“I don’t know what this means,” says Turner. “Let’s not get hopeful. Not yet.”

“Yeah,” says the Doctor, who can’t force herself to stay quiet for any longer. “First of all, you might want to explain what’s going on.”

Turner flinches like he’s been shocked, and then nods rapidly, gesturing to the other side of the room jerkily. “Yes – yes, of course. Let’s sit down, over – yes.”

There’s what seems to be a communal eating space, several tables set up with rickety plastic chairs near a series of camp stoves and pots. Turner leads the way, sits down across from her. He doesn’t say anything for a moment – and then he lets out a massive sigh, an exhale of air.

“This doesn’t feel real,” he admits.

“Feels pretty real to me,” the Doctor says drily. “It’s hard to fake dead-Cyberman smell.” It’s a very distinctive odor. All rust and ozone and decay and the lingering, distant taste of human remains. She chances a glance over at the rest of the people in the basement, who are currently being corralled out of the way by that woman who seems to be Turner’s second-in-command, and then back at him. “Look, I can tell you’re tired, but I’m very impatient right now. I need to figure out a way to find my friends and get home, so I’d really appreciate it if you could just cut to the chase and tell me what’s going on.”

“Right. Right, of course.” He takes a second to compose himself, and then he meets her eyes, folding his hands together on the table in front of her. All business. “So. Right. So, after Doctor Hodgman... you know, ejected us out of that universe and into separate dimensions – ”

She can’t help herself, she interrupts him. “It wasn’t different dimensions.”

“What?”

“For us – for Travis, and,” she breathes out sharply, then shakes her head, “Millie, we all ended up in the same parallel world.” She pauses, and then adds, a bit softer, “I didn’t check for you. I should have. It slipped my mind in the moment, and by the time I remembered, there was no way of going back.”

For a second, he looks kind of startled, and kind of touched. “I... well. It’s all right, I survived, so – don’t beat yourself up about it?”

It’s not all right, not really, but she nods, accepting that they don’t have the time to linger on it at the moment. “You must have slipped sideways, into a completely different universe from the rest of us. This one. This universe. What happened here?”

He squares his shoulders again. “That’s what I was going to explain. I ended up on Earth, 2085, in the middle of California without any identification or clue what was going on. It was... I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t great. It was a rough few months, but eventually I managed to get it together enough to get a job at a local tea shop, which was...” He trails off. For a moment, his stare goes blank. “...just a little humiliating, I will be honest, not that I didn’t deserve it – ”

“Oi,” says the Doctor. “There are much worse jobs you could have been working at. Are you saying you’re above working in customer service?”

“I – no, of course not, I – ” Turner sighs. “All right, I suppose it wasn’t that bad. It was a nice tea shop. Actually, it also doubled as a – ”

“Nevermind. Can you just get on with it?” the Doctor says. “I doubt that your brief job as a tea-server, however thrilling, had any direct impact on – ” She nods, indicating the door leading upstairs. “ – all that.”

“Right. Sorry. Well, I was there for about a year, and then – ” He makes a helpless little gesture with his hands, and then drops them to the table. “Well. It was all... disturbingly sudden.”

“The Cybermen showed up,” the Doctor guesses.

“Yes.” Any small amount of levity is gone from his eyes, and the Doctor can feel it draining away from her too as he continues to speak. “About five months ago. One day, no trace of them, the next they were everywhere. It was carnage. Conversion, deletion, the works.”

“How bad?” She’s not sure she wants to hear the answer.

“Very bad,” says Turner. “Very... very bad. Extremely not-good. Most major powers were targeted first; UNIT’s been disbanded for years in this universe, Torchwood apparently went under several decades ago too. Communications went down quickly, we’ve been trying to get any other survivors back on the line, but it’s hard to do that and avoid getting noticed by the, frankly, terrifying amount of Cybermen that are up there. They’ve got a monopoly on the airwaves. So, I don’t know. I really don’t know. For all I know, we’re the only ones left.”

The Doctor takes a moment to process that, and then she shakes her head. “I can’t believe that. I refuse to believe that.”

“No. Neither can I. I know there’s other people out there, it’s impossible that...” He laughs, humorlessly. “...that it’s just me and the rest of these people, that we’re the only ones who made it out, I know other people absolutely did, but... some days it’s hard, you know?”

She doesn’t know what to say to that just yet, not without more information, so she prods further, saying, “There’s other people down here with you – you’ve all managed to avoid the Cybermen?

“Right,” he says. “Yes. I’d heard of the Cybermen before, from my time back at Epoch, so I had a bit more experience. Not much, but – you know. I helped form an underground group of survivors – I’m getting very good at doing that, you know – and we managed to stay more or less – hah, underground, literally underground –  until we could come up with a solution for the Cybermen.”

“Good for you,” the Doctor says, meaning it. “Good initiative. I’m guessing that whatever you did has something to do with those blinking boxes all over the place up there?”

After a second of silence, Turner grins. It’s a surprisingly normal grin from him, considering the first time she’d met him he’d been what she would describe as a ‘classic corporate supervillain’. He’s really, genuinely pleased with his work here, and as he starts to explain, she gets why. “EMP transmitters – electromagnetic pulse-producing devices. We managed to cobble a few together. Miss Derbyshire – ah, Verity – ” He points vaguely in the direction of the woman who’d been monitoring the radio transmitters, who’s now sitting amongst the rest of the survivors. “ – she’s a talented electrician, as it turns out. And when we realized that they were actually working to slow down the Cybermen, we started mass-producing them, as many of them as we could manage with our supplies. Which turned out to be a lot, actually. All of downtown LA is currently a Cyberman-free zone. They can’t get anywhere near us without freezing up entirely.”

The Doctor’s eyebrows raise. She can’t help it – she’s impressed. “So, all of those scattered abandoned Build-A-Cyberman kits upstairs-?”

“The Cybermen froze in place when the EMP generators started working,” Turner says with a shrug. “We had tools, weapons. It seemed safest to take them all apart, just in case.”

The Doctor nods. “Again, good instincts.”

“Thanks,” he says, and then his pleased smile fades. “It’s working to keep them out, but they know we’re in here, and they know as well as we do where the limits of the EMP fields are. We can’t stay here forever. We’ve got enough food to last us for years, but the food’s not the problem.”

“You’re afraid the EMPs are going to fail?”

“We know the EMPs are going to fail,” he corrects. “It’s only a matter of time. Whatever Cyber-intelligence that’s orchestrating this, it’s smart enough to have managed to crush basically the entire world in a matter of months. If the grid doesn’t fall on its own, the Cybermen are going to work out a way past it. Either way we’re doomed.” He stares out at the other inhabitants of the underground bunker, clustered together on the other side of the room. “I give it less than a month. But that’s being optimistic.”

The Doctor leans back in her chair, balancing on the back two legs before realizing that it’s probably not stable enough to support her like that. She reluctantly stops leaning back. “And you want me to do something about them. Get rid of the Cybermen, save all of you.”

“You’re kind of our last hope,” he says, looking faintly apologetic.

She restrains herself from making a very obvious and not-at-all-funny joke, and instead says, “All right. Why try to get a message to me? You must have known the chances of it ever getting through were astronomically low.”

“...Yes, I – well, it worked, didn’t it?”

She can feel irritation bubbling to the surface, worming its way through the cracks. Without any of her friends here, it’s much harder than usual to reign it back. “I mean, yes, it did work, but I can’t stress just how astronomically low the chances of it were. Microscopic, Russell Turner. Less than atomic. The multiverse is literally infinite, and you were throwing a needle through a forest made up entirely of haystacks on the off-chance that you’d find another needle, that needle being me – this metaphor is bad, hang on, let me start over – ”

“Well,” says Turner, starting to look a bit peeved, “well, it worked, though, didn’t it?”

“...Yes,” she snaps, temper flaring abruptly. “Yes, it did work, and I’m kind of extremely angry that it did; why did you do it in the first place? Why me? Why didn’t you try this universe’s me? That had to have been a lot less effort to do, and maybe if you had I wouldn’t have fallen through a portal and gotten separated from my friends, again!”

He leans back, looking a bit shocked at the force of her sudden outburst. “I’m... sorry. I didn’t think you were going to – ”

“Yeah. Yeah, you didn’t think. And it’s even worse than last time, because this time they aren’t even in the same universe as me, and I don’t have a TARDIS to try to break through, and...” Her fingers clench together reflexively, and she presses her fists against the grain of the fold-up plastic table, presses them down hard. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this, Russell Turner, I really don’t!”

He opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again; says, “So, you’re not going to...”

“What?”

“...Help us?”

“What?”

For a moment, she just stares at him. He looks afraid, and she suddenly realizes just how loud she’d been speaking. That everybody else had probably heard all of that. She’s supposed to be their last hope of getting out of this alive.

Her temper bubble down again, she forces it all the way down. Forces herself to take a breath. “No. No. Of course I’m going to help you. I wouldn’t just leave you like this, who do you think I-? – no! I’m going to do everything I can.” She takes another breath, holds it, lets it out slowly. “I just might be a bit angry about it the entire time.”

He nods, and looks sideways, glancing at the people gathered on the other side of the room. And then he says, “I did try.”

“Try?”

”I tried contacting this universe’s you. I never got a response. And you definitely exist here, there’s records dating back to – well, there’s records. Of this regeneration, as well as previous ones, but... either you’re ignoring me in this universe, or...”

He trails off The silence hangs between them for a moment.

“Even if I felt like ignoring you, I don’t think I’d ignore the entirety of Planet Earth being cyberconverted,” she admits, eventually, reluctantly.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s what I thought. So.”

“So,” she echoes. So, either she’s dead or distressingly indisposed. Either way, she can’t rely on herself here – her alternate self, anyway. It’s all down to her. She nods, slowly, and accepts this. “That’s fine, didn’t need another me anyway. I always end up stepping on my own toes, whenever that sort of thing happens.” She drums her fingers against the table, thinking fast. “All right, down to business, if I’m going to stop them I need to get my way to the heart of things. Tell me everything you have on their centre of operations.”

“It’s to the east,” he says, almost instantly. “We’ve managed to trace the signals. Basically every Cyberman around is receiving and sending signals to one specific location, about a hundred miles away. Obviously nobody’s actually seen it, it’s outside of the EMP zone and it’s right in the middle of Cyber-occupied territory, but we’re pretty sure it’s the centre of all this.”

“Great. Perfect, actually. I need... I need one of those EMP transmitters of yours. Got any spares?”

“Not many, but I think we can...” He trails off, waves at Verity, who seems to have been listening in. She nods, waves back at him, and almost immediately starts hunting through boxes, apparently in the search of a transmitter. “...I think we can sort something out.”

“I need some sort of transport, too, if I’m going to make it all the way over there. What do you have, anything that wasn’t taken out by the EMPs?”

“Cars are pretty useless these days,” says Turner slowly. “But... I think most of the ones on the street should be gassed-up and all right to drive. If they’re not destroyed, that is.”

She nods. “Good, all right. I can work with that. Right, new question; EMPs shouldn’t work on Cybermen. Not unless they’re extremely early designs, the later models are entirely too advanced for that... so, where did you say these Cybermen came from, again?”

He shakes his head, looking a bit baffled at the very thought of it. “Not a clue. The invasion was really sudden, and honestly, when you stop and think about it, really weird. They came from all over the place, at almost the exact same time. Like they’d just materialized out of this air. Why, do you know something?”

The Doctor runs back the facts in her head. The year, the state of the world, the make and model of the Cybermen she’s encountered on the street. No version of her in this universe to stop them.

She falters, gaze suddenly fixed on the far wall of the bunker, and swallows. Hard. Says, “Right. Uh. So, right before the invasion, just before everything started getting, you know, bad – was there anything that you might call... unusual, happening with the moon?”

He pauses for a moment, and then says, “That’s an awfully specific question, especially since the answer happens to be... yes.”

“A second moon appeared.” She wants to phrase it as a question, but can’t quite manage it. She already knows she’s right.

Turner says, “...Yes.”

And suddenly, everything is beginning to make a horrible amount of sense.

“Why – how did you know that?” he’s asking, frowning. “Did this happen in your universe, too?”

“No. No, it didn’t.” She can’t linger on the implications. She can’t. Not until she sees what’s going on, sees it properly for herself, with her own eyes. Her skin is itching, tingling against the wrongness of this universe, and she knows she can’t stay here in this underground bunker for very much longer. She needs to be out, needs to be moving, needs to do something to fix this place. Everything about this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Turner’s second-in-command, Verity, she comes over from across the room, a small black blinking device held in her hand. “Here. Last one. I guess we could take one from upstairs, but – ”

“No, I don’t want to disrupt the power grid as it stands. Just one’ll be fine, thanks.” She accepts the device, taps at it, examines it, makes certain she understands how it works – it’s not hard, it’s a pretty simple piece of technology – and then nods. First at Verity (who nods back, her mouth an unhappy little crease, before turning to leave), then at Turner. “Let’s find one of those cars you mentioned.”

“You’re leaving now?”

“Yep,” she says as lightly as she can manage. “No time like the present.” And then, off the look on his face, she adds, “There’s not all that much planning and plotting I can do down here, I think best on my feet, and also, I just really want to get this over and done with because, like I mentioned, my friends are quite possibly in a lot of danger and I need to get this done and get to them as quickly as I can.”

“Right. Right. Yeah, of course. Do you need anything-?” he asks, gesturing at the weapons rack across the room, all those hand-made and impromptu devices plastered to the wall. The last resorts of a group of panicked, desperate people.

She can’t fault them for trying to fight back, but she also can’t help how her voice goes flat, cold. “I don’t do weapons.”

“...Of course,” he says, quickly. Apologetically. Flustered. “Sorry. Well, I’ll just – right. Let’s find a car for you, then.”

“Right,” she says, and stands up. “Quick as you can, then. Let’s go steal a car.”

*

Turner leads her upstairs, away from the whispering and stares from the rest of the refugees. The street upstairs is still empty and eerily silent; the sky seems even more overcast and dreary than before. There are no birds, the Doctor realizes abruptly. Cybermen have no need for birds, no need for anything living.

“The majority of the intact cars are on Second,” Turner says. His eyes keep darting back and forth, anxiously scanning the surroundings. He’s on high alert, which is fair enough given the whole Cyberman problem he’s currently in the middle of. “Most people didn’t have time to lock up behind them, so it’s just a matter of finding one that... still runs. Shouldn’t take too long. I hope.”

“Right,” she says, and follows him through the empty streets. They end up on the corner of Second and Martel, hunting through rows of cars in various states of disarray and scorched-by-energy-weapons and jammed-inelegantly against street poles and walls. Even here, the Cybermen parts are everywhere. Now that she knows why, she can’t help but search for signs confirming what she already knows. Older models, all of them. She’d call them retro, if it weren’t... well, Cybermen.

It startles her for more than one reason when Turner speaks up, finally, a note of clear hesitancy in his voice. “I – Doctor. I was... wondering...”

“Good for you,” she says. There’s so many shattered windscreens here. She knows she can’t really afford to be picky with her vehicles, but also – she’d prefer to be able to see out of the front of whatever car she’s trying to drive. “Well, what is it? Spit it out.”

“Is Millie... is Millie doing all right?”

The Doctor stops. She finds that she doesn’t know what to say. She stares at him, silent. She can’t quite remember how to blink.

He doesn’t know. Of course not. How could he know?

Turner seems to misinterpret her silence as anger for even asking, because he hurriedly raises his hands, adding, “I – I know, I’m the one responsible for separating you from her, I’m sorry, I don’t need to know the details, I just... never got a chance to say goodbye to her. Or the rest of the refugees – oh, god, did they make it out okay? I’ve been thinking about them for years now, but it’s not as if there’s any way for me to check – ”

“The Colony 47 refugees are fine,” the Doctor tells him, cutting him off. It feels a lot like being on autopilot. “They’re... fine. We got them out, there was a little trouble with a former dictator and a murder, but – they made it out. They’re doing great, last I’d heard.”

“Oh!” says Turner, a faint smile beginning to spread across his face. “That’s – that’s wonderful, actually! Is it – ”

The Doctor says, “Millie didn’t make it.”

“Oh,” says Turner after a long moment, voice very small.

“Well,” says the Doctor. “She made it back to our universe, with us, after everything happened. It was just the bit after that...” She trails off, and looks around the rows of cars. If she finds one, she doesn’t have to be having this conversation anymore. But everything around her is just so... broken.

“Oh,” repeats Turner. His head falls to his hands and he rubs at his temples, looking a bit lost. “She... oh. Oh, so, you...”

“She was a paradox,” the Doctor says. “The Time Lords don’t approve of unregulated paradoxes roaming around. They took corrective action, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

It’s just silence, and the buzzing of the transmitters, and the nearly-silent sweep of the wind swirling through the empty streets.

“I’m sorry,” he says, quietly.

“Yeah. So am I.”

She takes a moment to regather herself. Then she straightens her back, and points decisively.

“This one,” she says.

“This one?” He startles, and looks at where she’s pointing, like he’s forgotten what they’re trying to do. “ – Oh. That one, right.”

She nods. “Looks pretty sturdy, and it’s still got the keys in it – look.” It’s a Jeep, black and slightly battered, but the windows are intact and when the Doctor opens the door and turns the keys in the ignition, it seems both functional and fully-fuelled. She nods. “It’s no Bessie, but it’ll do. Wish me luck,” she adds, pulling herself up and situating herself in the driver’s seat.

“Good luck,” says Turner immediately, and his eyes are dark, worried as he stares at her through the window. “And... I know it’s not worth much, but after all this, if there’s anything I can do to help you get back, get to your friends – ”

There’s probably nothing he can do, honestly. Nonetheless... “It’s worth more than you think.”

She sits sideways in the seat, bumps the heel of her boot against the side of the car as she stares at him, thinking.

“Look,” she says, eventually. “Everything else aside – you’ve been doing really good work here. Evading the Cybermen, keeping this many people safe for this long, it’s no easy task. You’ve changed, Russell Turner. Which isn’t an easy task either, mind you, so good on you for that. “

“Are you about to tell me you’re proud of me?”

She tilts her head at him. “Do you want me to tell you I’m proud of you?”

He kind of looks like he does, in fact, want her to tell him exactly that. Nonetheless he says, “N-no.”

“Right, then. Keep up the good work, hold tight until I hopefully sort all this out, and... try not to die, I guess?”

“Good advice,” he says as she swings her legs around, and slams the driver’s door shut. “I’ll keep that all in mind.”

“You’d better,” she says, and twists the keys in the ignition. The engine comes to life with a dull roar. She spends a few seconds checking over the car, then glances in the rear-view mirror to see Russell Turner stepping back to stand in the overhang of an abandoned shop building watching her. He waves, and she waves back, and then she looks forward and eases her foot down onto the gas.

And she’s off.

No friends, no TARDIS, but something starting to resemble a plan. The clattering and rattling of broken, discarded Cybermen parts grinds unpleasantly underneath the tires. Time to deal with a problem that should never have existed in the first place, she thinks, sets her jaw – and drives directly east.

Chapter Text

*

“They just left. They were there, and then they – they were gone.”

Carrie makes what she hopes is a deeply sympathetic and understanding noise, but it probably comes out more like bemused bafflement. Which is the best she can manage, because... well, this is weird! This is pretty weird, even by her standards! And her weirdness-standards in the last few months have raised. Like, so high.

Amelia Earhart – the Amelia Earhart! Actual proper historical Amelia Earhart, the one with the plane and the mysterious crash-related crab-related disappearance and everything – has stopped brandishing her oversized wrench with Apparent Intent To Do Lasting Bodily Harm. She’s currently sitting on one of the console room couches, head in her hands, and spilling her entire life story to Carrie. Which involves a lot more time travel, GameBoys and getting-abandoned-by-the-Doctor than Carrie would have expected from actual proper historical Amelia Earhart. Which, holy shit! Today is turning out to be so much cooler than she thought it would be!

Apparently Amelia Earhart and Travis had met the Doctor while trapped in some kind of futuristic human zoo, which – yeah, Carrie remembers hearing about that, vaguely. She’d thought they were joking, though; some kind of weird time traveller’s joke, but apparently not, apparently it had been a literal human zoo.

They’d travelled together for a few months, then gotten separated –  (says actual proper historical Amelia Earhart, looking a painful combination of devastated and furious) – and then when they’d reunited, months later –

And here she rattles off a disjointed, scattered explanation about parallel universes, some sort of refugee camp and also Albert Einstein. Carrie’s not sure she catches the nuances, because there’s a lot going on there, but she thinks she gets the general gist, anyway – there had been some sort of incident involving a parallel-universe machine ripping holes in the universe, and the three of them had been thrown into another reality. Which... sounds familiar. Very familiar, actually.

“Wait,” Carrie says, interrupting. “Wait, the machine that we found, the pool in the cave – the Doctor said something about it being able to rip holes in the universe. Is this... hey, are you from another universe? Is this what happened here? Are you, like, an alternate version of me?”

“What?” goes Amelia Earhart, momentarily roused out of her tragic backstory out of sheer confusion. “I – I don’t know how that would even work – ”

“Or, wait, maybe you’re the one from my original universe,” Carrie says, thinking out loud. “And – and when I fell through, I accidentally found you – wait, never mind, you weren’t done – sorry.” Carrie mimes zipping her lips. “Keep going, I’m listening.”

Amelia Earhart, because this is actually Amelia Earhart (yes, that one) who she’s talking to (what? Whaaat?) gives her a bit of a strange look (Amelia Earhart is giving her a strange look! WHAT?) – but she keeps talking, and keeps explaining.

According to her, the three of them – Travis, her, the Doctor – had managed to find their way back to each other through a universe that was falling apart at the seams. The Doctor had managed to wrangle some sort of desperate way out with another version of her TARDIS, managed to propel them wildly through the boundaries between dimensions and fling them back to their original universe through a neat combination of bullheadedness, willpower, and sheer luck, but...

But, something had gone wrong.

Maybe the strain had been too much for the broken, run-down, other-universe TARDIS; the travel between dimensions it was never designed for splintering it apart. Maybe it had been a fluke, a deeply unfortunate quirk of fate – or maybe she’d just been holding on tighter to the console than the other two had, and that’s what had saved her. She can’t remember how it happened, she says, can’t even remember if she’d seen them disappear.

All she can remember is this.

The TARDIS had crashed, splintering apart against the reality of their home dimension, and when Amelia Earhart had peeled herself out of the wreckage and regained her senses, the Doctor and Travis just... hadn’t been there. They were nowhere to be seen, and all around her, reality was fracturing.

She’d done what she could. She’d tried her best to help, but reality had been stretching so thin around them, horrible alternate versions of people she knew and didn’t know stumbling through in increasing states of panicked feverish violence. And then the Time Lords had shown up, stopping everything dead in its tracks, sealing up the holes in a heartbeat – there to capture the Doctor.

The Doctor, of course, hadn’t been there. Just Amelia Earhart. (Actual proper historical Amelia Earhart, Carrie reminds herself, because it’s so weird and so cool and she does not want to forget that no matter how much other weird, cool stuff also happens today.)

She’d know that she couldn’t face down the Time Lords, not on her own. So she’d snuck her way back into the TARDIS, and did what the Doctor would have.

She ran. And ran. And kept on running.

“Oh,” says Carrie – stricken, despite herself. “Oh... oh no, that sounds – that sounds awful, I’m sorry. You’ve been here all this time? On your own? Trying to find them?”

“I want to find them,” says Amelia Earhart. “But there’s something wrong with the TARDIS. With the Randomizer.”

Carrie looks over in the direction that’s being indicated, and sees something that she’d missed before – some sort of weird blinky-beepy box, clamped to the console, right next to the central rotor.

“It keeps sending me to the same places, over and over again,” she says, and her voice cracks as she sucks in a deep, ragged breath. “Just, a never-ending cycle of the same places, and I can’t get it off, and the Doctor’s just – she’s, just – ” Her shoulders tremble, and her head ducks, and she chokes out, “She’s never there. Why is she never there? Why would she – how could she...”

Carrie is pretty sure that actual proper historical Amelia Earhart is now actively crying. She has no clue how to deal with that. Snacks? Is offering snacks appropriate in this situation?

“Uh, Amelia – ” Carrie starts, but – ugh, that feels wrong. “Um, Ms Earhart?” And that feels even worse –

“Millie,” says Amelia Earhart, slightly muffled due to the fact that she’s covering her hands with her face.

“Uh?”

“Millie,” she repeats, finally looking up. She scrubs an arm across her eyes, and when she blinks at Carrie, her eyes are almost completely dry. “My friends call me Millie.”

Right. Oh, right! That actually makes sense. Travis had occasionally mentioned someone named Millie, but had never lingered on her for all that long, and had never elaborated, and Carrie had (understandably) never made the connection between that Millie and... Amelia Earhart. Actual historical Amelia Earhart, who is sitting right in front of her.

“Millie,” says Carrie. “Millie, all right. Look, I saw Travis and the Doctor, like, fifteen minutes ago. Less than. And they were fine. Apart from the whole falling-into-a-portal thing, but I survived that and they’ve been doing this for a lot longer than I have.” Millie looks up, at this, and there’s something that looks a bit like relief in her eyes now. Carrie grins encouragingly, and adds, “Uh, I’m Carrie, by the way. I can’t remember if I introduced myself.” She extends a hand, because it’s the polite way to introduce yourself. “Hi – Carrie Vu. I’m a PA.”

There is a moment where she can’t predict how Millie’s going to react to this, and she’s kind of nervous because what if Amelia Earhart doesn’t want to do a handshake? – but then a flicker of a smile passes over her face, and she reaches out to take it. “My condolences,” she says, solemnly.  

“Thanks,” Carrie says. Millie has a strong grip, callused hands, but she doesn’t do that weird squeezing-too-hard-to-assert-dominance thing that some men do. “Joining up with the Doctor was the best choice I’ve ever made, because now I actually occasionally get to punch the annoying people I’m forced to work with.”

Millie nods. Her expression flickers briefly, then a look of distinct curiosity falls across her face. “...How did you meet the Doctor, come to think of it?”

“Uh, got set up on a blind date by an evil advertising company,” Carrie says. “There were robots, and I nearly died like five times. It was pretty great. Apart from the nearly dying part. And the date part. The date part was probably the worst part.”

“A date? With the Doctor?”

“...With Travis.”

The side of Millie’s mouth twitches, like she’s desperately struggling to control her expression. “Oh no.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” says Carrie.

“So, you were – ”

“Yep.”

“And he was – ”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not – ”

“No,” says Carrie hastily, “oh, god, no. Like, he’s really nice and very sweet, but it was never going to work out. We’re just friends now. Sort of, like... work colleagues. But the work is adventure and shenanigans.”

Millie is grinning now – although it fades noticeably after a second or two of silence. She clears her throat. “So,” she says. “So, you fell through a portal into another universe. This universe.”

No more gossip, apparently, that’s fine – back to business! “You know, I’m actually not sure! I think so, I think that’s what happened, but I’m...” Carrie breaks off, briefly, and laughs. “...uh, super bad at wrapping my head around most of the complicated stuff. I’m just here for snacks, shenanigans, and the occasional whacking-something-with-a-baseball-bat. When the Doctor lets me.”

“The Doctor really doesn’t like hitting things,” points out Millie.

“Exactly! So it’s usually just the snacks-and-shenanigans part. Anyway, the point is, I’m not really great with all of the weird time-universe-space stuff, so maybe I fell into another universe, but maybe not? I don’t really know what’s going on – ”

The TARDIS beeps. Suddenly, loudly – and both of them startle. Millie looks over to the VCR screen, which seems to be flashing some sort of report. It looks like an analysis of some kind. Millie gets up, goes over to check it out.

“Apparently there are these... kind of... lingering particles that stick to you if you’re from another universe,” she says, after a moment.

Carrie shrugs. “Okay, why not. And...?”

“You’re covered in them,” Millie says, turning back to her.

“Well, would ya look at that,” Carrie says. “Looks like I am from another universe after all. Welp.”

“Thank you,” Millie says to the TARDIS. And then, slowly – more to herself than Carrie, really – “If the Doctor and Travis are still around in your universe... what happened to me? Did I...?

Carrie bites her lip, suddenly unsure. She knows what happened to Amelia Earhart, actual historical Amelia Earhart, actually historically speaking. If the Doctor and Travis had been travelling around with a woman who history had down as being famously extremely dead, there’s probably something funky going on there. And there’s no way that the Doctor hadn’t known about the whole plane-crash-crab-rave thing. “I... have no clue. You weren’t around by the time I joined up, and they... don’t talk about you much. Sorry, sorry,” she adds, because the expression on Millie’s face has gone from ‘vague trepidation’ to ‘mild devastation’.

“No, I...” Millie shakes her head. “...Ever since I found out that history recorded me dying in a mysterious plane crash, I realized that my existence here, on this ship, with the Doctor was... wrong. That I wasn’t meant to be here. The TARDIS has been acting strange around me, the longer I’ve stayed here, and I think she knows that... well, I shouldn’t be. Staying, I mean. But there’s nowhere else I can go, and I think she also understands that I hardly want to walk off to my own death, so.” She sighs. She’s playing idly with the tassels of the Doctor’s scarf, strung around her neck, tied twice-tight. “I suppose, in your universe, I either decided to go back myself, or... the Doctor put me back right back where I was meant to die. I can’t imagine there’s any other reason you don’t know me.”

“No,” Carrie says, “hang on. She wouldn’t do that. I know she wouldn’t do that.” She hesitates. “Or... or, even if she did try, Travis wouldn’t let her do that.”

Millie’s expression has gone extremely sour, very quickly. Her fingers tighten around the Doctor’s scarf. “Yes, well. I thought they wouldn’t abandon me twice in a row, but here we are.”

The reassuring words that had been rising to Carrie’s throat die, abruptly. And just as she’s realizing that, no, there really isn’t anything good she can say to that, the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS taking off begins to rise all around them like a wave.

“That was fast,” Millie says, shaking herself out of the bitter melancholy that had taken up residence over her features. “Usually it takes you a few days to get around to that.”

Carrie’s confused, until she realizes that Millie’s talking to the TARDIS, as casually as the Doctor usually does. “The TARDIS is just... taking off randomly?”

“Randomizer,” Millie explains, although it’s not much of an explanation. “Every couple of days between landings, It’s like she can’t help it. I think she’s been trying to keep it to when I’m inside, but she... hasn’t been doing so great, honestly.” She lowers her voice, mutters to Carrie,. “I think she misses the Doctor.”

“Aw, oh nooooo...” Carrie makes a sad face at the console, which bleeps back at her. “That sucks. Well, we’ll find a way to get the two of them back together, okay?” This time, the TARDIS doesn’t respond, and she looks over at Millie. “...Right? Won’t we?”

Millie smiles. It’s a nice smile, if a bit distant. “That’d be nice. If we can find her, then... yes. But I’m starting to think...”

There’s a long pause, and as the silence stretches and Carrie waits for Millie to finish the thought, the TARDIS lands with a weighty clunk. Solid ground.

“Never mind,” Millie says.

“Hey,” says Carrie, “hey! don’t get all melancholy on me! I’m here now, together we can work something out, right?”

“Let’s hope so,” says Millie, but she doesn’t sound very hopeful or enthusiastic. She checks something on the scanners, and nods to herself, looking a bit resigned. And then she looks at Carrie. “I have some errands to run here. If you want to come with me...?”

Carrie stands up. She wishes she had her baseball bat, but that’s probably lost somewhere in time and space at this point. “Is it safe?”

“As long as you don’t go flashing around the fact that you have a GameBoy with you,” says Millie somewhat cryptically, taking – a GameBoy, apparently? – out of her pocket and placing it on the console. It’s yellow, covered in faded stickers, and... no, it’s Travis’s GameBoy. It is exactly the one that he carries around all the time. “...Yes. Yes, it’s safe. It’s probably one of the safer places I’ve been ending up lately.”

“...Good enough,” decides Carrie. “All right, let’s go run some errands.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Millie, and pushes the TARDIS door open.

*

The first thing that hits Carrie is the smell. It’s not a bad smell, not by any means, but it’s very overpowering and very unexpected, because – well, it smells like an enthusiastic barbeque in here. Sizzling, succulent meat, everywhere around her. She’s suddenly extremely hungry, and looks around to see what the source of the excellent barbeque-smell is, but...

“Wait,” she says. “Is this entire place made out of meat?”

“Ayup,” says Millie, who’s locking the TARDIS behind them. “Welcome to Meat Base Alpha.”

Carrie stares at the ceiling, which is that Very Particular red-raw meat color, inset with intermittent slashes of shining white that can only be bones – and then around at the bustling marketplace. There’s people everywhere, some visibly human and some a bit more alien and some extremely alien; stalls and shops and buildings jutting out of the ground – most of them making generous use of the organic location they’re built around. It’s busy and noisy and crowded and vibrantly alive with business and activity of all kinds. Nobody seems to pay any attention to the blocky blue form of the TARDIS, which is neatly situated just in the shadow of what seems to be some sort of spinal cord that weaves its way from the ground, up perpendicular to a meaty, oozing wall, and away into the ceiling.

It’s extremely cool. It’s also extremely gross. Carrie’s opinion is flickering rapidly between ‘this is the most awesome place I’ve been so far’ and a massive, resounding, ‘EW’. “Is it alive? Are we... are we inside some sort of massive space whale or something?”

“Not a clue,” says Millie, glancing around at the stalls and shops around her. “I’ve been here half a dozen times at this point, and I keep wondering if I should go find out. I really hope it’s not alive. Or at the very least, I hope its not sentient.”

“Because there’s people inside it, walking around, and that’s probably not very fun for it if it is alive...?”

“Because people keep hacking bits off of it and eating it,” Millie says matter-of-factly, and nods to one of the food vendors closest to them. Its proprietor is, in fact, currently carving off a big, meaty slice from a meat-protrusion jutting up from the ground with one spindly spidery appendance, and stoking a roaring wood-fire oven with another.

Carrie abruptly realizes what’s causing that delicious barbeque-smell. “Okay, gross!”

Millie looks like she’s biting back a grin. “It’s not that bad. I caved and tried it, a few runs back. It tastes a bit like pork, actually.”

“Still gross!” Carrie says, face scrunching up. “You don’t know where that meat’s been! It could have all sorts of horrible... space Prion diseases! There’s probably no health and safety regulations for food consumption out here; eating weird alien market meat is just... no!”

Millie snorts. “That’s what I told Travis, the first time we were here.”

Carrie side-eyes her. She’s still not entirely sure how much she believes her about the whole ‘having travelled with the Doctor and Travis before she was around’ thing – Millie seems genuine enough, if a bit guarded, but Carrie has been around for a while, okay? Trusting people blindly before you know anything about what they really want is a terrible survival strat. “Did he-?”

“He wanted to try the weird alien market meat,” says Millie. “Because of course he did.”

Carrie thinks about this for a second, and then nods, acceding. “...That does sound like Travis. Hey, where are we going, anyway?”

Because Millie is leading them through the market streets with purpose – she’s definitely been here before, and she even more definitely knows exactly where she’s going. Carrie’s happy to follow along, but she kind of wants to know where in a market like this is the sort of place Millie needs to run an errand at. The possibilities are endless, and a lot of those endless possibilities are super gross.

Millie says, “I did say the Randomizer was broken, didn’t I?”

“Right, you keep ending up in the same bunch of places over and over again. I got that. I pay attention! Sometimes.”

Millie holds out her arm, keeping Carrie out of the way as a large elephant-like alien trundles slowly down the main market street. “Yes, well – it’s not just that the TARDIS keeps landing in the same sequence of places. There’s something wrong with the time travel side of things, too, because every time I land, I’m... earlier. I keep ending up a few weeks before the last time I’ve visited. Kind of... moving backwards along the timeline of all the different places I show up in. It was very confusing for a bit, but I’ve gotten used to it.”

Carrie watches the elephant alien continue down the street, shoppers scattering wildly in its wake as it goes. “Oh. Like, a Benjamin Button kind of thing?”

“I don’t know who that is! But if that helps you understand it, sure, yes, a... Benjamin Button kind of thing.” She starts walking again, and Carrie hurries to keep pace with her, and for a minute or so it’s quiet. And then she says, “One of the places I keep ending up is Travis’s town, back on Earth.”

“Oh?” says Carrie, not quite getting why Millie’s bringing it up.

Millie nods. “I didn’t realize it was his home, at first. I just thought it was... some place that the two of them had visited, when I wasn’t there, and that’s why the Randomizer was picking it up. But after a few cycles, I ended up far enough back that... Travis was still living there.”

“Oh,” says Carrie again. She sort of gets it, now? But... “Well... I bet it was good to see him, at least.”

Millie lets out a strangled little noise that’s almost laughter but mostly just Pain, and Carrie thinks, oh. Oh no. “No. I can’t ever let him see me. It’s too – well, that would be a paradox, wouldn’t it?”

Carrie thinks about this for a moment, and does not enjoy the act of thinking about it. Meeting the Doctor or Travis or any of her friends or family before they even knew her would suck. None of the shared in-jokes would exist yet, and it would just... be sad. Really sad. But it might actually be even worse if she wasn’t allowed to talk to them... and, yeah. She gets it now. She gets why Millie has that expression on her face.

Damn. Who knew Amelia Earhart would be so sad, all of the time?

“Anyway,” says Millie. Her voice is still a bit strangled-sounding. She clears her throat, once, twice, and says, “This is one of the places I keep ending up with. So, Meat Base Alpha is where I get my groceries.” She catches Carrie’s eye, sideways, and says, with a hint of forced brightness, “I worked out a system, actually! The great thing about always showing up after your future self? It means that your pre-ordered packages are always there on time, even before you’ve even done the ordering.”

Carrie attempts to wrap her head around this. It takes a few seconds. In her defence, though, she’s only recently found out that they’re actually doing time travel, rather than just hopping dimensions or realities or whatever. (Nobody had actually bothered to tell her! She’s not at fault here!) Although, come to think of it, it seems a lot like she’s actually hopped dimensions this time, so... nope, she has no idea what’s going on here. “Uh? What?”

“Current-me orders food for me-in-the-past,” Millie explains, “who’s already showed up in the future. Keeps the TARDIS kitchen stocked. Look, the first place is over here.”

It’s some kind of fruit-and-vegetable market, wares laid out in cardboard boxes all out the front of the store. There’s a lot of foods that Carrie recognizes, and quite a few that she doesn’t, but there’s something weird about them. Again, it takes a second for it to click, but...

“...Are those carrots made of meat,” says Carrie flatly.

Millie nods, resignation all over her face. “Why do you think I have to order from off-world?”

“Gross.”

“Don’t try them,” says Millie, with the tone of voice of Someone Who Knows Better. “They taste about as bad as they look. Worse, actually.”

As they enter the shop proper, Carrie sees that it’s pretty empty in here, apart from a single woman, draped in half a fabric store’s worth of eyewateringly bright fabric, who’s sitting behind the counter, checking through her accounts.

Millie wastes no time in going straight up to the counter with a winning grin already firmly in place. “Good morning, Sydney. The usual pickup, if you could?”

“Usual?” says the woman behind the counter. She has skin that’s faintly green in hue, and what looks like several short antennae extending from her forehead region. She eyes Millie quizzically. “...Sorry, let me check the records. I might not have been here when you made the order-?”

“What do you...?” Millie trails off as Sydney (apparently) ducks behind the counter, humming to herself as she starts to look through piles of records.

“Do you know her?” Carrie stage-whispers at Millie, who seems to be frozen in place.

“Yes,” says Millie, although she’s not stage-whispering, she’s normal-whispering which is probably more practical come to think of it, and also she looks worried, now. “She usually handles my orders, she... she’s a very nice woman, actually, but...”

“She doesn’t recognize you,” Carrie guesses.

“She doesn’t recognize me,” Millie agrees.

A second later, Sydney’s head emerges once more, antennae bobbing gently on her forehead. “I’m sorry, what was your name?”

Millie says, “I had an account registered for the Doctor – just the Doctor.”

“Just the Doctor? That’s an unusual name – I might need to check again.”

“It’s – it’s not my name, exactly, it’s –” Her face twists, and then her shoulders slump. “ – registered under the Doctor, full name Doctor Amelia Earhart. If you can’t find it, I... I suppose I’d better open up an account, or a tab, or... an order. Whatever it is.”

“Right you are,” says Sydney merrily. “I’ll find the forms for that, they’re somewhere in the back. Just a minute!”

She slips off her chair, and vanishes through the back door in a flurry of brightly-colored fabric.

Silence. The smell in the fruit-and-vegetable market is weird. Kind of fresh, but also really greasy-meaty. Carrie kind of wants to see what the apples look like inside, because they look really red and her curiosity is at an all-time high here, but she restrains herself.

“I thought it was strange,” Millie says blankly.

Carrie makes a gentle noise of confusion.

“The last few stops. Fifty-first century Earth, Epsilon IX, the hospital; nobody seemed to recognize me there either. I thought that future-me was just getting better with her – with our disguises. But now I think... I think this might be it.” She gazes around the inside of the market shop. “This might be last time I come here.”

Carrie blinks. “Well, that’s good, right?”

“It is?” Millie says, sounding sceptical.

“It means that whatever it is that’s got you trapped in this... weird destination repeat-loop thing, it’s about to stop happening, if I’m getting that right. You might get that Randomizer-thing off the TARDIS."

“Or something terrible happens, and the TARDIS is stranded here forever.”

Carrie frowns. “Well, you’re cheerful.”

“Sorry,” says Millie, shaking her head and looking irritated at herself, “sorry, that’s not – I’m usually more optimistic than this. It’s just been... a long few months. Lord, it’s been a long few months.”

“Wait,” says Carrie, something occurring to her. “Maybe I’m the one who helps you get the Randomizer off. Is that how time travel works? Like, since I’m here now, the future or whatever knows that I’m going to help you tear it off, and that’s why you’re not going back to any of those places?”

“I... I don’t know. I suppose it could be...” Millie appears to be deep in thought for a moment or two. “Do you have any experience with fixing TARDISes?”

“No,” says Carrie, “but I do have experience with breaking things. Does that help?”

“...Oh, I like you,” says Millie, with feeling, and turns back to the counter as Sydney emerges from the back with a datapad and a stack of forms balanced carefully in the crook of one arm. “Thank you very much – thank you for everything. What do I need to do here, exactly?”

*

Millie sorts out the final round of future-groceries for her past-self, checking in at various shops and setting up accounts while Carrie trails behind her, trying to figure how a monetary system comprised entirely of what appear to be human teeth is supposed to work, exactly, and trying to work out just how terrible of an idea trying some mystery market meat would actually be. It smells entirely too good. She’s tempted, despite herself. And Carrie would be the first to admit that she doesn’t have great impulse control, so it’s probably a good thing that, a), she doesn’t have the money (teeth?) (tooth-money?) to make a poor financial/culinary life choice and b), it isn’t that long at all before Millie’s finishing up and casting one last long look around Meat Base Alpha, and saying, “I think we’re done here.”

“You sure?” Carrie says. “Because if this is your last time coming here, you probably want to make sure you didn’t forget anything.”

“No, everything I need I’ve already got in the past. Or the future. Or... something.” She pauses, and then adds, “Time travel.”

“Time travel,” Carrie echoes, mirroring her disgruntled tone.  

They exchange a glance of mutual understanding and exasperation, and then set off back to the TARDIS, which is exactly where they left it – parked next to a bony, spiny protrusion behind the back of a coffeeshop whose branding strikes Carrie as oddly familiar, only the name is all misspelled – weird.

Once back inside, Carrie takes the opportunity to give Gunther a good scritch behind her furry fuzzy little ears – she seems amenable enough to it, although still a bit grumpy over the whole feline-shield thing from earlier – and then it’s down to business. Millie rolls up her sleeves, and Carrie comes to stand next to her, and together, they stand there and stare at the Randomizer, attached firmly to the console.

“Why didn’t you try just prying it off?” Carrie wonders, glancing at Millie’s extremely large wrench.

“I did. I did try. But the TARDIS just kept... zapping me, like she didn’t want me to do it.” Millie frowns “I think she’s been trying to keep me safe from – ”

“From?”

Millie offers up a single, wild shrug. “I don’t know! After Travis and the Doctor disappeared, the Time Lords showed up, and I ran to the TARDIS and took off, but I think they must have done something to her, or to the universe, or – I don’t know! I don’t know!”

Carrie frowns, scratching a hand through her hair, thinking hard. “So, you think she’s been sending you to all these places... to protect you?”

Millie seems to think about this for a moment, too, before she nods, just as wildly as she’d shrugged a moment before. “Yes. Yes, I think so. Yes.”

Carrie takes a deep breath, then goes up to the console. She’s not quite sure what part of the TARDIS to address when it comes to Speaking Directly To It, so she settles for staring at the central rotor, and saying, “All right. Look, you know she can’t keep doing this forever.” There’s no immediate response, so she presses her hands down onto the console, squishing them flat, and doubles down. “It’s great of you that you’re doing this to try to protect Millie, but running away from your problems doesn’t help, and being stuck in a loop like this also really doesn’t help. You want to help her? Help both of us? Let us out. Let us actually try to find the Doctor for you!”

Because Millie is nice, and also extremely cool, and Carrie is having the best time hanging out with her like this, but also? Mr. Meezers has been left behind in a universe without her, and he is probably missing the crap out of her right now, and also there’s that thing with the Doctor and Travis being nowhere to be seen and probably also being in other universes. She needs to get home. She doesn’t mind being stuck here, but there’s no use sitting around and moping about it like Millie seems to have slipped into the mindset of doing. They’ve got to start somewhere, and they’ve got to start now.

Millie steps up to join her, newfound resolve in her eyes. “Come on,” Millie says to the TARDIS, pressing her hands to the console too. “Come on. Help us out, honey. She needs to get home, and I need to get you back to the Doctor. You miss her, don’t you?”

Carrie very politely decides to not bring up the fact that Millie is sweet-talking the TARDIS just as much as the Doctor tends to. Especially because it actually seems to be working. There’s a change to the rhythm and the pulse of the air around them – it warms, reluctantly, like an affectionate cat coming to brush against its owners legs – and then the glowing of the console pulses once, twice, and the lights around the Randomizer in particular blink on, bathing it in a small spotlight.

Carrie gasps, and points, glancing up at Millie. “Is that-?”

Millie says, “It’s an invitation if I’ve ever seen one.” She carefully raises her wrench to the Randomizer and, when the TARDIS doesn’t immediately shock her, wedges the flat of it underneath the gap where it’s attached, and starts carefully prying it off. It comes away slowly, wires fizzling as they disconnect, screws rattling away and falling to the ground with tiny clinks. And finally, after several minutes of careful wrench-manipulation, the Randomizer falls off, clattering to the ground. The lights in the console room seem to brighten – ever so slightly, but definitely visibly, and the TARDIS lets out a distant noise like a sigh of relief.

Carrie and Millie exchange a glance, and then look down at the inert Randomizer on the ground.

“That’s it?” Carrie checks. “All we had to do was ask politely?”

“I... guess so,” Millie says, looking a bit baffled.

“All right!” Carrie raises her hand. “Up high!”

After a moment of continuing confusion, Millie accepts the gesture, clapping her hand against it awkwardly. “That’s... a future thing, yes?”

“Yeah, it’s a high-five – didn’t Travis ever show you?” Carrie scrunches up her face, displeased. “Travis didn’t even show you what a high-five was! I’m really disappointed in Travis, actually!”

“No, no – I think he might have,” Millie says, looking at her hand. “It’s just been – well. A long few months, like I said.” Determination steals across her face, suddenly. She swivels to face the console. “You said you know where the Doctor and Travis are?”

“I don’t know where they are,” Carrie admits. “But I think I know where to find them. Or, at least, I know where to start.”

“Knowing where to start is a start,” says Millie, and claps her hands together and straightens up. She looks more alive already – there’s a spark in her eyes that wasn’t there before as she adjusts the Doctor’s scarf around her neck and squares her shoulders. “So. You said you fell through a portal in reality. What do we need to do to find that portal?”

“Good question!” says Carrie, and circles the console, biting her lip, gauging the best place to start. The six-sided console is, as always, an incomprehensible mess of switches, dials, levels, and miscellaneous coffee-making equipment. “Soooo... do you know how to actually fly this thing, or-?”

“I...” Millie looks conflicted, very conflicted. “...Sort of. I – no. No, not really. I was trying to watch the Doctor, work out what she was doing, but she never actually flew the TARDIS. It was all the Randomizer doing the work. Do you?”

“No,” says Carrie, and experimentally prods the closest button. The TARDIS beeps at her, sounding annoyed. She takes the hint, retracts the finger, and says, “There’s got to be... like, a manual. Some kind of instruction booklet? A WikiHow walkthrough article with uncanny-valley pictures and vaguely condescending instructions?”

“I have no idea what that last thing is!” Millie says. “And all of the instruction manuals in the library make no sense. I gave up trying to read them after I realized that half the pages had been ripped out, and the other half had either been set on fire or annotated so heavily the pages were completely black. I think I’m going to set the Doctor on fire, the next time I see her.”

Carrie’s eyes widen, and she slams her hands down onto the console, bristling with sudden excitement. “Hang on! Hang on hang on hang on, I remember, I remember – emergency program? There’s some sort of emergency program in here! Last time the Doctor wasn’t here, it activated, and it took us – emergency program! Activate Emergency Program... R? I think it was R – hey!” She starts jabbing at buttons and tugging at switches, trying to get the TARDIS’s attention, or get something moving, or just, any sort of effect. “Activate the Emergency Program! We got the Randomizer off – take us to, I don’t know, someone who actually knows what they’re doing?”

“I really don’t think you should be doing that,” Millie says, grabbing her arm, and she looks like she’s going to try to pull Carrie back away from the console – but the moment she brushes up against it, there’s a whirring and a clicking, and then a flash of light sizzles out across the console room, and someone else is suddenly in the console room with them.

Millie stumbles back, looking stricken.

It’s the Doctor – coat and scarf and glasses and wild curly hair falling freely down around her face, no space buns to be seen. Carrie nearly calls out in greeting, but then she sees that the edges of her form are all dim and flickering, and she’s just a bit transparent. Hologram. It’s a Doctor-Hologram – it’s a shame this hologram doesn’t have space buns, actually, because it’s almost an absolute Princess Leia look, and Carrie just knows the Doctor would appreciate the reference.

“This is Emergency Program One,” says the Doctor-hologram, gazing solemnly, sightlessly out across the room. “Millie, Travis, if you’re seeing this, it means that something has gone very wrong. And I need you to know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry – ”

“Turn it off,” says Millie, and then says it louder – “Turn it off!”

“I don’t know how to – ” Carrie is now frantically looking for some sort of really obvious off-switch, because Millie looks pale and distressed and it’s really obvious that the Doctor-hologram isn’t doing her any good, but there’s nothing to be seen. She flails wildly, lets out a groan of panic, and then just starts mashing buttons wildly, because it’s the only thing she can think to do.

The transparent, intangible form of the Doctor is still speaking, unbothered by any of this. “ – let the TARDIS die. If I did this right, it should end up in your back yard, Travis, so just – ”

Mashing buttons isn’t working. Millie stumbles across the console room, lets out a strangled half-cry, and delivers a ringing, dizzying blow against the side of it with her oversized wrench. The lights flicker, and the room shudders, and then the Doctor flickers once and disappears.

“Sorry,” Millie says to the TARDIS. Her forehead is pressed flush against against the central column, eyelids half-lowered. “I – sorry. I know, I know you’re only trying to help, but it hurts, you’ve got to understand that seeing that hurts.”

“But that was the emergency program,” Carrie says, a bit bewildered. “I knew it was there – why didn’t you-?”

“Because it doesn’t work,” Millie says flatly. “It’s never worked. And even if it did, it’d just send us back to Travis’s hometown, and that’s not going to do us any good.”

“You’ve seen it before?”

“It kept playing on repeat, the first few weeks,” Millie says. “Just – over and over. Apologizing to Travis and I. Telling us not to come back for her. Telling us to – to be brilliant, and just...” She shakes her head. “It never worked, anyway. It’s not what we need.”

Carrie nods slowly, accepting that. And then she says, “That wasn’t the version of it I saw, though.”

“Well, your version probably had your name in it instead of mine.”

Carrie waves a hand, as some things begin to fall into place in her head. “No – no, like, it was totally different. That one was just the Doctor apologizing and being sad, which is honestly just, so depressing. She gets like that sometimes, and you’ve always got to get her some good-quality dark chocolate or find her a pirate ship to cheer her up; pro-tip. The Emergency Program I got had a completely different dude saying it, and – can you find it?” She whirls to face the TARDIS again. “That’s Emergency Program One. Can you activate Emergency Program R?”

For a moment, she thinks nothing is going to happen. She has her fingers crossed behind her back, but she’s still pretty sure that whatever-this-is is going to end up just like the whole giraffe necromancy thing. She’s still disappointed about the giraffe necromancy thing, actually.

And then a part of the opposite side of the console lights up with an abrupt blink.

Millie blinks too, and then leans over at it, frowning. “Those are – ”

“The telepathic circuits!” Carrie says, recognizing them. The TARDIS lets out a disgruntled sort of trill in response, and the lights around them flash again, as if in invitation. “You want me to – do that thing? The thing with my hands? Stick my hands in them?”

Another trill of electronic noises, faster this time. The lights flash again.

Carrie shrugs. “Okay, you asked for it!” she says, crosses over to the telepathic circuits, and jams her hands right into them. It’s weird and fleshy, and there’s a moment that feels a bit like electricity tingling all through her brain, which is probably how Travis feels all the time, come to think about it. She doesn’t know how he can stand it, it’s like standing underneath a shower where the water pressure is just a bit too much and it feels like needles jabbing into your back. Fine for just a bit, but if she had to feel this all of the time, she’d be constantly on the verge of absolutely losing it.

The TARDIS silently asks a question, presence pulsing at the edges of her mind. It doesn’t know what Emergency Program she’s talking about, has no concept of it, but is reluctantly willing to learn, if she can provide context. Carrie scrambles to get her thoughts together, which is hard because she usually is thinking about like half a million things at once at any given moment, and tries her best to concentrate on Roman. If the Doctor isn’t here and Travis isn’t here, then her list of people she knows with the ability to do TARDIS-related shenanigans is pretty limited. But Roman is definitely at the top of that list.

She doesn’t know Roman very well, not like Travis does and definitely not like the Doctor does, but she’s pretty sure that wherever he is in this universe, he’s their best chance of getting anywhere in finding Travis and the Doctor. She thinks about the crowded streets of the festival planet, the two of them navigating through the crowds, pressed closely together to avoid getting lost. Remembers the soft fondness in his eyes when he’d curled Gunther close to his chest, his wide expansive hand gestures and soft pink coat and that pretty shiny silver cat pin. He’s a good guy, she knows – there’s no way someone who loves Gunther that much could ever be a bad person.

There is a beep. She opens her eyes.

Emergency Program R activated, reads the VCR-TV display, flickering at them uncertainly. Now processing.

From deep within the TARDIS, there is the sound of engines grinding, and the shifting of movement. And then everything starts happening very, very fast. The TARDIS is rolling, rocking, shaking with the exertion of travel. Alarm bells are going off, lights are blinking, and the message on the display keeps gaining more and more question marks the longer the console room continues to shake. But shaking and alarm bells is how you know something’s happening.

“It worked!” Carrie squeals. “We’re moving! I have no idea where we’re going, but we’re going!”

Millie, hanging on tight to the edge of the console, lets out an incredulous bark of laughter that quickly shifts upwards into sheer joyous cackling. “It worked! It actually worked! Miss Carrie Vu, you are a marvel!”

“I know!” Carrie yells, beaming. “I’m awesome! I just hope we don’t cRAAAASSH – ” – which slides into a scream as the entire room lurches, even more violently than before –

- and then there is an almighty, bone-shuddering, jolt of an impact, and the alarms start blaring, even louder than before, as both Millie and Carrie are thrown violently across the room.

Chapter Text

*

‘Bumpy’ is a bit of an understatement. Compared to TARDIS travel, travelling by Time Ring is a bit like getting punched seventeen times consecutively in the face, tied to the back of a rusty motorcycle, dragged at the speed of light directly across the universe, and dumped unceremoniously in a dark alleyway. Honestly, it’s a good thing that Travis is already used to getting thrown around the console room like a rag doll during especially bad trips – or he’s pretty sure he’d have thrown up upon landing. And throwing up wouldn’t be great. This version of Roman barely knows him, and he’s trying his best to keep his opinion of him like, slightly above zero.

It’s dark here, wherever they are. Dark and faintly dusty. There’s the faint hum of technology tickling at Travis’s mind from somewhere in front of them, but the only actual light being cast is from what seem to be the bare minimum of emergency lights, faint and watery. All Travis can see is faint shadows, sharp and strange. He can hear whispers, or maybe he’s imagining them; and over the top of them there’s still the echo of laserfire and explosions, but now they’re muted, distant. Coming from far, far above.

Roman seems to be as disoriented as he is, at least for a brief moment. He looks left to right, all around, and then unwinds his arm from around Travis’s shoulders to examine the Time Ring – still glowing on his finger, but rapidly losing its brilliance as he shakes it. “Well, it was bound to happen one of these days.”

“Out of juice?” says Travis, trying to pinpoint their location on his mental map. He’s pretty sure they’re still on Gallifrey, at the very least. The specifics are taking a moment or two to register properly.

“Out of juice,” agrees Roman, sounding annoyed. “Criminy. Good thing I didn’t try a longer hop, it might’ve ended up killing the both of us.” He lowers his hand, the ring’s light now completely dimmed. “Well, we should be safe here for now, at least. Even if they manage to track the artron trail, I doubt they’re going to be rushing down here to follow us.”

Travis’s internal compass finally aligns, with a whirring of mental processes. Right, okay – there they are. They’re still in the Capitol, technically. Like he’d already halfway suspected, they’re very far down – below the towering spires of the uppermost structures, below the encircling rings of steel and glass that jut up from its above-ground base. They’re underground, so deep that they’re close to being off the grid entirely. The mental map that the Sisterhood of Karn had hooked him up to, so many months ago apparently only stretches so far. Because currently he and Roman are standing at the very edge of what the map marks only as a large, gaping, entirely unlabelled territory, deep within the heart of Gallifrey’s capitol city. And within that unlabelled territory, something is buzzing. Pulling at him.

Travis swallows. This has apparently become a full-on sci-fi horror movie, and he’s never been a big horror fan.

Roman roots around for a bit in his robes. “You wouldn’t happen to have a – aha! No, there we go.” He’s produced a glowing ball from within them, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. It seems to have the sole functionality of providing light – casting a small warm circle to light their way by. “Off we go,” he says, and starts walking.

Travis follows. He’s assuming that Roman actually knows where they’re going, and isn’t just walking wherever he feels like – is he? “Not to ask the obvious question, but... what is this place?”

“Well, I had intended to land us a bit further in, but maybe it’s best if we take it a little... you know. Slower. Shouldn’t be too far, if I remember the way.”

“Could you be any less cryptic?” Travis says, sighing, and hurries to keep pace.

“Easily,” Roman says. He hitches up his impractically long robes with one hand, making a face. “Technically speaking, we’re in Sector Nine. Philosophically speaking, we’re in quite a bit of trouble. And practically speaking... we’re very close to the Cloisters.”

Which is very ominous and atmospheric, but doesn’t explain much. Travis tries to skim at the basic Gallifreyan knowledge he’s gleaned from his dips into the local network so far, but doesn’t get very far, because a), the shift in location seems to have scrambled his connection, somehow (annoying and unhelpful), and b), Roman has just asked him a question.

“What?” says Travis, who had been briefly distracted while using his magic brain to hack alien computer systems and hadn’t properly heard whatever it was. “Sorry, I didn’t-?”

“I said, what happened to the other me?”

Travis is no longer thinking about trying to connect to the local Gallifreyan network. He’s now thinking about how he’s supposed to respond to this. He doesn’t want to lie to Roman, is really not a big fan of lying in general, but... “Um. What do you mean?”

“When you first saw me, you looked a lot like you’d just seen a ghost,” Roman tells him dryly. “Something must have happened there.” A moment of silence passes, and he adds, “Oh, come on. I can take it. I’ve been running a war effort singlehanded for the last few centuries, there’s not a lot that can disturb me, anymore.”

Travis looks away. His gaze rakes through the shadows, and he swears he can see something moving within, but every time he tries to focus on whatever-it-is, it shifts into nothingness again.

“You died,” he says, after a second.

“Yowch,” replies Roman. He sounds grimly unsurprised.

Travis feels obliged to elaborate. “You kind of... died in my arms, actually. It was – it wasn’t great.” Now that he’s talking, it’s hard to stop. “Like, you regenerated – eventually, it took a while – but you still died. It’s hard to forget something like that, even if time travel means that I did see you again a few times after it actually happened.”

“Huh,” says Roman. A tinge of morbid curiosity seems to creep into his voice. “Well, what was it? Fell off a cliff? Poison, again? Some sort of fiddly nonsense temporal paradox – something a bit weirder, maybe?”

“...You were shot. We were trying to activate something, and it was – ”

“I was shot?” Roman interrupts, sounding indignant. “Of all of the – who shot me?”

Travis blinks. There’s some sort of weirdly satisfying irony to it, considering what’s just happened. “Uh, Coydan, actually.”

“Figures,” says Roman, and scoffs a bit. “Coydan. Of course it was Coydan. Bloody fool was one of the first to defect to Rassilon’s side. Glad I got him good, then.” He pauses, and then mutters, “Hopefully he comes back slightly more agreeable this time around, but – knowing him, I doubt it. Coydan.”

Travis briefly considers that there’s probably no line of apology cards for ‘sorry you got shot and killed by one of the worst people you know in an alternate universe’, even he knows for a fact there’s definitely some sort of market for that. A very niche market, but a market nonetheless. Maybe he should start one. Is that anything? It might be something.

After another few seconds of silent walking, Roman speaks up again, jerking Travis out of half-serious marketing plans. “We were friends, in your universe?”

“Yeah,” says Travis, and files away the extremely specific greeting card idea to workshop later. “I mean – yeah, I like to think so.”

“That’s...” Roman trails off. He hums thoughtfully, then says, “That sounds... nice. I don’t have a lot of friends, these days.” Abruptly, he snorts. “Well, let’s be real, I don’t have any friends.” He raises the lantern in one hand, and taps Travis on the shoulder briskly with the other. “Pro tip, Travis, never go into politics – it’s filthy, filthy business. The only way that you can sink any lower is by dipping into the used-car market, and even used-cars salesmen don’t get as many assassination attempts as I do.”

Travis suddenly feels a bit unsteady, as the truth of Roman’s situation starts to properly dawn on him. “God, I’m... I’m so sorry.”

Roman sighs, and shakes his head, deflating a bit. “Well – don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

The Roman from Travis’s universe hadn’t exactly had the easiest time of it, but the idea of any version of Roman – of kind, strange, cat-loving Roman, with his absentminded humming and clever fingers and complete inability to comprehend human ages in any universe – stuck as the leader of a miserably stuck-in-the-past planet in the midst of a brutal time war for god knows how long, by himself... “It’s... you’ve been alone? All this time?”

“Everyone I trusted is either very dead, or very hates me,” Roman says. “Like I said, war and politics. Never great alone, even worse in combination.”

The two of them have been sticking pretty close together so far – Roman’s the one with the light, and Travis isn’t exactly afraid of the dark, but he has a feeling that getting stuck in the shadows down here isn’t the greatest idea. Right now, they’re walking shoulder-to-shoulder. Travis glances up at Roman. He doesn’t look too bothered by any of this conversation, but there’s a tightness to the corners of his mouth, a stiffness to his shoulders as he continues to move forwards.

“I guess I’m just sorry that... this universe’s version of me wasn’t around,” Travis says eventually. “I know that if I was around it would mean that none of this was happening, and it probably wouldn’t mean much, but... you deserve friends, you know.”

Roman is silent for four steps, five steps, six...                                                                                

“Thank you,” he says. His voice is soft. “Thank you, Travis.”

Travis releases a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. “Yeah. Any time.”

“Hold up,” says Roman abruptly, voice back to normal, and he comes to a halt, raising his hand to prevent Travis from going any further. “Right. This is it.”

Visually, there’s not much difference between the part of Sector Nine where he and Roman currently are standing, and the area that they haven’t gone into yet. A bit darker and dustier, maybe; a few more trailing cables and faintly-glowing wires winding along the tall pillars that scatter throughout this entire area. Like the rest of this place, it seems to be entirely deserted.

But there’s a reason that Roman isn’t stepping any further inwards, and there’s a reason Travis is doing the same. There’s a distinct of dread that’s hanging in the air, almost tangibly emanating from the zone in front of them. Travis can’t see more than a few feet away even by the light of Roman’s lantern, and he’s sure it’s illogical, but he can’t quite shake the feeling that there’s something gargantuan, ancient, and unspeakably deadly looming just out of sight. Something a lot worse than any armed-and-dangerous Time Lords. Something way worse than any Jersey Devil or urban legend humans could ever dream up.

“Nobody comes down this far,” says Roman, almost casually. He lifts the device in his hand, raising it to the solemn gloom. Travis is somehow unsurprised when the light from it doesn’t permeate quite as far as it should. “Which is... a shame, probably. It’s very atmospheric, isn’t it?”

The buzzing is louder, here, and so is the whispering. Travis isn’t entirely sure if that’s in his head or not. “And it’s safe? To be here?”

Roman laughs. “Oh, no. Very no. This might be the most dangerous place on the planet, I’m really not kidding when I say that nobody comes down here. Well – ” He wiggles a hand, so-so. “ – sometimes people come down here. But they don’t tend to come out again, if you catch my drift.”

Sudden motion. There is a sharp crescendo in the ever-present whispers, and Travis can’t help but jump, just a little, as a tall cobwebbed creature draped in shadow and dust comes sweeping sharply by them, just at the edge of the perimeter. Its face is shifting, tortured, and it moves with the sort of harsh violence that makes him sure that if he was any closer, it wouldn’t hesitate to attack him with no hint of mercy or forgiveness.

He takes a step back as the thing – whatever it is – flashes back out of sight, retreating into the shadows. Roman does too – even he looks a bit perturbed at the sight. He mutters, “Well, aren’t you scary?” To Travis, he adds, “Cloister Wraith. Try not to get too close, they’re about as dangerous as they look.”

“Great,” says Travis, trying to catch his breath and slow his heartrate, and he says it again for good measure: “Great! We’re in an alien death basement with alien death zombies which are trying to strangle us. Roman, what are we doing here?”

“Well, like...” Roman hums contemplatively under his breath for a moment. “...You know how on Earth, there’s those clownfish that hide in extremely poisonous sea anemones, because they know that the big scary predators that want to eat them are too scared to get anywhere near the extremely deadly poison that will absolutely kill them if they get anywhere near it, or at the very least give them a really nasty stomachache?”

“Yes...?”

“That’s us,” says Roman. “We’re the clownfish.”

Travis frowns. “I don’t know if that’s – wait, aren’t clownfish immune to the anemone poison? Because I don’t think either of us are immune to... whatever that was.”

“Yeah, nobody’s immune to Cloister Wraiths,” says Roman, and sighs. “Look, it’s not a perfect metaphor. Also, when I said that nobody had survived the Cloisters, I wasn’t being totally honest. Some people have. So... it’s probably fine? It’s probably fine!”

It’s funny how this isn’t remotely reassuring. “They have? How many?

“Oh, you know – a whole bunch; like – one or two, or...” He trails off, muttering under his breath.

“How many,” says Travis.

“...One.”

“One?”

“Two,” Roman amends. “Technically three – does it count if one person did it twice? Yeah, let’s go with three, makes it sounds a lot more hopeful for us. Hey, one of them was even a human,” he adds, poking a finger at Travis’s shoulder. “The odds for us are looking great.” He takes a step forwards into what are (apparently) the Cloisters.

Travis says, “Roman – ”

“Come on, trust me a little,” Roman says, looking over his shoulder with a wry little quirk of his mouth. “I got us this far, didn’t I?”

The alarming faux-lightheartedness has fallen away from his words, leaving something that feels a lot more real. It’s easier to trust that. Travis hesitates, then nods and steps up so he’s standing next to Roman. “All right.”

They set off into the Cloisters.

It’s not quite as bad as Travis thought it would be, but it’s still... well, pretty bad. All around him, between the towering pillars of twisted wires-and-marble, are the twisted remains of various alien creatures he recognizes and quite a lot that he doesn’t. He spots Daleks, Cybermen, something that looks like the oozing, broken form of a Zygon’s true form – all tied back and wired down by a system that seems to be partially organic in nature. Like it’s half-digested them and given up on doing the rest.

“Natural defences,” Roman supplies, voice low. “This place is a little bit alive.”

“Yeah.” Travis matches his tone, not wanting to draw any sort of attention. “I can hear it.”

Roman nods. “The Cloisters function as a kind of... underground, back-door Matrix entrance. Like, there’s the one upstairs, which everyone uses – ”

Travis is intimately familiar. “The Matrix chamber, right.”

Roman nods again. “The problem being, you need the Keeper’s key to get inside from there.”

“Which you don’t have,” Travis surmises, and frowns. “Who is the Keeper, anyway? You didn’t recognize me, so I’m guessing it’s not, um, a parallel evil version of me.” He sees Roman quirk a quizzical eyebrow in his direction in the dim light, and shakes his head. “It’s a... long story. Probably not important. “

Roman seems to accept that, because after a second, he says, “There isn’t a Keeper. Which makes things... tricky. In many ways.”

“Tricky?”

Roman scowls. “Right before I managed to seize hold of the presidency, Rassilon got wind of the big ‘destroy the whole thing’ plan, and sealed up the Matrix – and presumably, went and murdered the Keeper right afterwards to keep anyone but him from getting into it.”

“....Wait,” says Travis, and stops walking abruptly. “I thought you said killed Rassilon.”

“Well, I tried,” Roman says, sounding disgruntled. “But the mad old bastard’s surprisingly hard to get rid of. He’s like... the ultimate Gallifreyan cockroach. Every time you think you’ve gotten rid of him, he comes scuttling right back at you – ”

“So he’s still alive?!”

“I said that there was a war on!” Roman snaps. “Who did you think we were at war with – the Scorchies?”

His voice rings, echoing through the Cloisters, and he abruptly shuts up, closing his hands tight around the light source. For a second or two, he and Travis are silent and unmoving, waiting as Cloister Wraiths wheel around in search of them, whispering and babbling senselessly, incomprehensibly. After a minute that seems to stretch for eternity, they fade away.

Quieter now, Roman says, “The Matrix has been locked up tighter than Omega’s antimatter universe for the last century, now. Nothing gets out, and nothing gets in.”

Travis swallows. He looks around, just in case more Wraiths are lurking nearby; finds none. “And you can’t destroy it from the outside? Just... set it on fire or something?”

“Set it-?” Roman stares at him. “You want to set the Matrix on fire?”

“I mean, I don’t want to, but if it works...”

“It wouldn’t. You can’t do anything to the Matrix unless you’re already inside it. It’s a closed system, of a sort.” They’re still standing in a shadowed corner of the Cloisters, not moving, keeping their voices as low as possible. Travis blinks, surprised, as Roman raises a finger to tap right against Travis’s forehead. “But you... you managed to crack it open from the outside without even trying. You were connected to it in the other universe, correct? That must have given you a leg up, a headstart into doing it –  and I bet you anything you can break it open all the way without even needing a key.”

Travis can still feel the Matrix, at the edge of his mind – an angry roiling mass of words and voices and lives, bubbling and seething and just barely contained by the barriers that bind them back. Now that he’s so close to it and now he knows why it feels so furious, he can’t help but shudder a little. Hundreds of years of being locked up in a place like that is bad enough, but if nobody can hear you screaming...

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” says Roman, voice a cheerful whisper. He spreads his hands wide, presenting the plan. “You jack open the Matrix with that digitally-enhanced brain of yours, and we can get it to chart a course to that portal that you found. Get you home free, get you off this planet, and I can get on with whatever the hell I’m supposed to be doing.”

“What?” Travis stares. In the midst of everything else, all thoughts of the original plan of finding this universe’s equivalent of the portal pool had been almost entirely forgotten. “What about you?”

“What about me-?” Roman parrots, sounding honestly confused, and then, “Oh, right, civil war. Ha. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I – ”

“All you need to worry about is breaking open the Matrix, and we can go from there.”

Travis stares at Roman. “If Rassilon’s... army? Forces? I don’t know what he’s got, whatever it is – ”

“Angry space militia?” Roman offers.

“ – fine, that – if they’re on the planet and they managed to get all the way up to your office to try to kill you – ” And Travis can see the map in his head, see the fleets of dots that indicate intruders, and there’s just so many of them – “ – that means that they’ve pretty much taken over. You’re not going to survive that. I know you said that nobody comes down here, but either they’re going to track you down eventually, or you’re going to have to leave – ”

Roman sounds a bit impatient when he says, “If the Matrix is open and I have access to it, I don’t need to worry about them.”

Travis’s brain is whirring, ticking overtime as he stares at Roman. “That’s – that doesn’t – can’t you just leave? With me?”

“I can’t leave Gallifrey behind, I told you,” says Roman, sounding even more impatient, now. “Travis, I appreciate the concern, truly I do, but we don’t have time for this. Just unlock the Matrix, and – ”

“I’m not leaving you here!” Travis shouts, and his voice echoes sharply through the Cloisters – and for a moment, all movement around them seems to cease. The Wraiths halt, the swirling shadows still, the whispers cease entirely as Travis stares at Roman, and Roman stares back at him.

“Travis,” says Roman, very softly. “Travis, I – ”

His head is aching furiously. “I know you don’t know me,” he says, barely remembering to keep his voice down, “and I know I’m not from this universe and I know that this is all, just... it’s probably even weirder for you than it is for me, but I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t –  I can’t just leave you here if it means that you’re going to – ” He can’t even say it. “- because even if I don’t have to see it, I’ll know that I left you, and... I can’t do that. Not again.” He takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes for a second, and then opens them, adding, “And I don’t think we should open the Matrix. There’s a reason the Doctor wanted to destroy it, and if Rassilon’s on the planet, it’s just... yeah. I think it’s too dangerous. You said you wanted to get me off-planet, so let’s just... let’s just do that, can we do that? How were you thinking of doing that – can we find a TARDIS, or maybe charge up your time ring-?”

“Travis,” says Roman again, and takes a step towards him. His voice is gentle. Another step, and now they’re right up next to each other. “It’s all right; really, it is. Here, come here.”

Travis is still faintly dizzy with the force of that entire outburst, so it takes him a second longer than it really should for him to realize that Roman is now carefully wrapping him into a hug.

For a second or two, he’s too surprised to do anything – his universe’s version of Roman had been notoriously awkward with initiating anything like this, and this Roman is even more distant and aloof – and then it morphs into incredulousness, because Roman’s hugging Travis to stop him from arguing, to stop him from trying save Roman’s life, which is... beyond rude, actually, and he’s about to open his mouth and argue some more, because the hug is a nice gesture but what would be even nicer is if Roman would stop being chronically self-sacrificial and listen to –

And then Roman’s hand is resting, feather-light, on the back of his neck, and suddenly he’s just... tired. Tired of running from people and things that want to kill him, tired of losing friends over and over again – but mostly just exhausted, bone-deep weariness from a very, very long day that’s catching up with him all at once.

“Roman...” Travis yawns, and then frowns, vaguely aware of a feeling of not-quite-right-ness that’s growing more and more distant by each passing second. “What... what are you...” His eyelids flutter, unwillingly. He takes a staggering step backwards, making a half-hearted attempt to disengage.

“Sh. Shh.” Roman follows him, matching him step-for-step, other arm snaking around his back, keeping him upright. “Don’t worry about it. You can just rest for a bit, hm?”

The haze of exhaustion washes over Travis’s mind like a wave, dragging him down. The embrace is almost tender, Travis notes as he begins to slide away into nothingness. It’s... nice. It’s really nice. He hadn’t got many hugs from Roman, before the end. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend this is his version of Roman, that this gentleness and warmth is from his long-dead friend. He closes his eyes, and sinks deeper. Just resting sounds good. His head falls against the soft fabric of one narrow shoulder, and Roman’s arms tighten around him as everything starts to fade away.

And then something in the back of his mind clicks and begins to whir. Slow at first, then furious, speeding up, and then there’s a roar of activity, pressing up fiercely against the back of his mind, and someone says –

No, no, absolutely not. Travis. Travis! Wake up!

A flash of bright green behind his eyelids and a feeling like static-fingers digging sharply into his shoulder, and Travis is suddenly awake and alert, eyes flying wide open – and he tears himself out of Roman’s arms, backpedalling to a safe distance away.

He’s reeling, feeling an awful lot like he’s been torn open and split in half. Raw-and-ragged, like being ripped out of bed without warning at two in the morning. He doesn’t feel properly in his body just yet, but now he’s steadying himself against a pillar, frantically trying to get his thoughts together. The fuzziness is lingering. He shakes his head, panicking, trying to clear it, but the fog remains. “What. You – I – Roman, what was that?”

Roman – the different Roman – just looks at him with hands that are half-raised in a gesture that’s probably meant to be calming. And he sounds genuinely impressed when he says, “You’re full of tricks, aren’t you?”

He thinks what, and then oh, and then, oh no, oh no, he didn’t, there’s no way he just and there’s got to be an explanation that doesn’t mean Roman is – but there’s no, there’s no good explanation – and so Travis has to take a moment to recalibrate to the fact that he currently finds himself in the state of being diametrically opposed to Roman, of all people. The very thought sends a shiver of dread all through him.

He has to swallow, hard, before he manages to say, “Stay out of my head.”

Roman – the Lord President, the War King – he lets out the tiniest sigh. It’s not showy or theatrical at all, is the worst thing. It would be so much easier if he was dropping the facade at last to let out an evil cackle or at the very least a devious maniacal grin, but he’s not, not at all. He sounds downright normal when he says, “Honestly, Travis. You should’ve just opened the Matrix when I asked you to.”

Travis is an idiot. He is such an idiot.

“You... you want to use the Matrix.” He’s figuring it out as he says it, and every word is making him feel cold, cold, colder. “You want to use me to use the Matrix. You weren’t – you never were going to help me get back home, you just wanted me to open it up so you could... use it. Use it to...” His throat is tight. His head swims. “What happened to destroying it?! That was the plan! That was the whole plan!”

“That was the Doctor’s plan,” the Lord President corrects, razor-sharp and whip-quick. “And the Doctor’s always had a recklessly optimistic streak a mile wide. I have had time – so much time it’s unbelievable, actually – to realize that it was never going to work. I mean, destroying the Matrix? It’s, like, one of the biggest cornerstones of our civilization. I know he craves anarchy and chaos like a drug, but this sort of mass-destruction is taking it just a bit far. I can’t believe I ever thought I could do it singlehandedly.” His eyes are so cold. Roman’s eyes have never looked this cold. “It was never. Going. To. Work.”

“It worked!” says Travis, desperation mingling with fury, and his fingers are shaking. “It worked in our universe!”

“Well, good for your universe,” snarls the President. “Welcome to this universe, where I have an ongoing civil time war to deal with, an unspeakably ancient culture and civilization to protect, and a planet full of people who don’t realize that I just want the best for them. I need to keep Rassilon out. I need the Matrix. I can’t afford to not see the future. And I can’t afford to lose. “

“That’s... you’re...” Travis trails off. His head is hazy. Now that he’s not blindly following along in Roman’s wake, he’s aware of the fact that there’s something wrong, that there’s been something wrong for a while – not just with him, with the entire situation. How long had he been ignoring it? From the beginning, probably, because he’d been so caught up in the sheer joy of seeing Roman again in any form. The inside of his mouth tastes sour, and it’s not just because of the situation he finds himself in.

Something has just occurred to him.

Travis says, “You put something in the coffee, didn’t you.”

The Lord President smiles. There is no warmth left in his eyes. “Yep,” he says. “Should be kicking in about now. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this – but you know what they say about those best-laid plans.”

“Goddamnit,” mutters Travis, swaying on his feet.

“I don’t actually need you conscious for this,” the Lord President adds. “Like, it would definitely help, and it would help even more if you were willing to do it, but – ”

“Oh, no,” says Travis, trying to catch himself against a wall. “Oh, no no no, no, you’re not – I’m not letting you. I won’t let you.”

The Lord President winces, and it almost looks apologetic. “Ah – yeah. About that. You’re not going to have much choice in a minute, I’m afraid.” He pauses. “Try not to hit your head. I’m going to need that later.”

He’s probably right about that not having much choice thing. Travis’s head is pounding, he’s dizzy with terror and whatever it was that was in that coffee, and his hands are shaking uncontrollably. But he hasn’t got as far as he has by giving up in the face of impossible odds, and here’s the thing – the Lord President isn’t actually making any move to get to him. He’s just waiting. Waiting for Travis to pass out. And Travis isn’t just about to stand there and let it happen.

He summons up every ounce of strength and willpower that he has left. And then he whirls on his heel to face that whispering, humming darkness, and he runs. He doesn’t have time to be wary of the shadows and grasping hands that reach out to him as he goes – all he can focus on is avoiding the Cloister Wraiths as they whirl and spin around him, chattering and screaming – the sound of his footsteps echoing on ancient stone floors – and the clicking of the Lord President’s boots-on-stone right behind him, as he follows in hot pursuit, calling out, “Travis, please, be reasonable.”

Travis bites his lip, hard, and forces himself not to respond. The Matrix is pulsing in his head, pressing up against his mind. His sight is blurry, and he scrubs his hand frantically against his eyes to clear it as he stumbles onwards. He doesn’t have a map down here, he doesn’t know where he’s going. All he knows is that he has to get away, as quickly as possible.

Electric-green flickers in the corner of his vision, and for a second that stretches out for so much longer than it really should, everything slows; slows dramatically. And then a tall man whose green coat wavers and glows like television static coalesces into existence with a pop and a click, falling into step right next to him.

“I warned you,” Norman says.

“I know,” says Travis. “I know.”

Norman doesn’t stop. He’s flickering with furious bursts of electric-green, pacing equally furious curving arcs around Travis as he says, “I’ve been telling you. I’ve been telling you this whole time, and you’ve been, what, ignoring me? He was giving off the worst vibes, Travis. The absolute most rancid. He shot twenty people right in front of you – ”

“I know!” Travis yells. He hadn’t expected to yell, hadn’t wanted to yell, not at Norman, who’s only ever there to help him. But he can’t really help it, because... “I get it! I know, Norman. I just – ” His head is still ringing, stuffed with cotton. He swallows, feeling indescribably pathetic, and says, quieter, “He drugged my coffee. Don’t I get a pass for him drugging me?”

“I – well-!” Norman seems to lose a bit of steam, at this, but then his coat flares bright green, bright enough to sting Travis’s eyes, and he’s revving up again. “ – I suppose, it’s not – but you shouldn’t have trusted him in the first place, I’ve been saying – ”

“You were as happy to see him as I was.”

Norman’s mouth snaps shut.

He is silent, dead air crackling between them for a moment or two, and then he raises his hand and there’s a glowing tablet of data in it, and he’s already tracing patterns on it as he says, “I’m stimulating your neurochemistry to increase metabolism of whatever was in that coffee. Should perk you up in no time.”

Travis hadn’t been entirely aware that he could do that, but he can’t say he’s complaining. “Thanks, Norman.”

A second of silence passes that’s more like a picosecond, because time is stretchy and strange in here, and Norman glances up from his tablet. His coat has faded back to its usual level of glow-intensity, and his eyes are worried. “I shouldn’t have yelled. You’re all right?”

Travis sighs, and rubs the side of his head. “I’m... no. Not really. But I will be, hopefully. Let’s just... let’s escape this first. Somehow.” He’s still in bullet-time, caught between one second and the next. He’s not really standing here, talking to Norman, he’s just very fast at pretending he is. Nonetheless, he casts a glance over his shoulder at the hazy perception of the reality that he’s put on pause for the moment. Frozen in place is the flickering image of the Lord President, racing after him, his face cast heavily in shadow. Travis is kind of glad of that. He doesn’t want to have to see the President’s face right now. He won’t be able to focus if he does. “Any ideas?”

“You tell me,” says Norman.

“I have... a few.” He’s not sure if whatever Norman’s doing is actually working or not, but his head already feels clearer. “When he said I could break open the Matrix – we can actually do that, right?”

Norman frowns, hovering several inches off the ground. “You’re not suggesting that we – ”

“No, of course I’m not; but we can access the basic Matrix outboard systems? I’m pretty sure we can.” There’s a tablet in his hands too, now, and he’s scrolling through pages and pages of code, of local networks and processes, and he grins as he abruptly comes to exactly what he’d been looking for. “Bingo,” he says, and tosses the tablet over to Norman, who snatches it out of the air with uncanny precision. He’s almost certain that Norman’s neurochemistry-stimulation trick is working, now, because his brain is functioning well enough for him to come up with this plan. It’s a pretty good one, in his opinion. “Step one of escaping is getting as far away from this guy as possible, so we’re going to need a distraction.”

Norman scans the data in the blink of an eye, and now he’s smiling too. “We’re hijacking the Cloister Wraiths? Oh, I do like that. Oh, ooh, this might even be fun – ”

“Think you can handle that?” says Travis, already preparing to re-enter reality.

Norman takes a less-than-split-second to consider, and then nods. “Move fast, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep them focused away from you, even if you are technically a Matrix entity.” He raises a finger thoughtfully. “Oh, and try to get to one of the main fibre optic stations. I have an idea of my own, but let’s hold that thought until we get there.”

“Will do,” Travis says. “Thanks, buddy, you’re the best.”

“I know,” says Norman, and then Travis falls back into his body and he’s running. He can see where he’s going, now, not that it’s much help because it’s all a whole lot of identical stretches of ground and ominous wire-wrapped pillars. All around him, the cobwebbed Wraiths start to wheel away from his path, splitting off and swarming around him to hone in on the man currently pursuing him, whispering and moaning as they go.

He hears a muttered curse from behind him, and the quick-stepping of someone altering their course hurriedly. He focuses his eyes into the darkness, searching for one of the stations Norman had mentioned – and then hears a short, panicked gasp, echoing all the way from behind him. Genuine, proper fear. His heart stops.

Don’t kill him, he’s thinking before he’s even aware of it, please don’t actually kill him, just get him out of my way for a bit, please –

There is something like a pause, and something like a sigh, and he hears the Wraiths shift to accommodate. He’s not sure why he feels so relieved.

A gunshot rings out. He feels a lot less relieved, and redoubles his pace. Something in his brain clicks into place, and he can see, suddenly – see the cable he needs to get to, knows exactly where it is, and it’s not so very far away. He sprints, drawn towards it like a compass to magnetic-north, practically stumbling over his own feet, and screeches to a halt just in front of a wall ripped open to reveal the single thickest fibre-optic cable he’s ever seen.

He stares at the exposed cable, and reaches out a hand, hovering just over it. He can feel the immense amount of power travelling through it; knows without even having to ask or check that he’s looking at one of the main power sources of the entire Capitol. This is... a lot. Even for him. He closes his eyes, and Norman is there, jabbing wildly at the tablet in his hands – muttering happily and just a bit vindictively to himself as he redirects the Cloister Wraiths like he’s playing a video game.

“I think I figured out your plan,” Travis says.

“Good,” says Norman, tearing his gaze away from the tablet in his hands, “because we’re technically the same person and it’d be really weird if you didn’t know what your own plan is – oh... no, that happened already, didn’t it? We already did the whole you know, I know thing. Let’s not get caught up in it again. Yes, is what I mean to say. We’re having the same thought.”

“Can you do it?”

Norman nods. “I can. We can, I think, but – it’s going to take a lot out of us.” He waves a hand. “You. Me. And, it won’t kill me, but...” A look of disquiet crosses Norman’s face. “I might end up being out of commission for a bit.”

Travis feels his stomach dip with unease. “Oh. Are – ”

“Just a few hours,” Norman is quick to assure him. “Sleep mode, you know. You should be fine and functional, just... might not be able to pull any, ah... ‘sick tech stunts’. Not for a bit.”

Travis nods slowly. “As long as you’re okay with it, we do it.”

Norman hesitates for a nanosecond longer than Travis is comfortable with.

“What?” Travis says. “What is it?”

“...I don’t want to leave you like this,” Norman admits.

“I’ll be fine,” Travis says, and he really wants to just hug Norman right now, but they’re both multitasking furiously and now isn’t the time for that. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” says Norman with a small smile. “Be careful.”

“Always am.”

“Ready when you are,” says Norman, and Travis snaps back into himself with an electric jolt; sees the Lord President midway through reaching out to him as if to drag him bodily away from the cable his hands are hovering over. He doesn’t miss a beat. He slams his hands down onto the exposed fibre-optic cable, hard, and forces every ounce of energy, every bit of intent and power and focus that he has within in – forces it in.

The Lord President’s hand catches onto his shoulder at the exact moment as what feels like a million volts of electricity surges all through his body. And Travis does several things that should be impossible – or at the very least deeply improbable – all at once.

There is a sound that is absolutely indescribable as every light on the planet; every security system and computer terminal and energy cell – anything even remotely electrically-powered – it all goes dark. There is a moment where the Cloister Wraiths flickering and howling all around them just freeze – and then they stop, crumbling away into dust. And then, for the first time since they’d stepped into the Cloisters, it’s completely silent. No whispers, no humming, no nothing.

In the back of his mind, Travis hears Norman let a little whoop of giddy delight at a job well done – before fading away into a dim green speck, like a television switching off. Click.

And then the silence stretches. No gunfire from above, no ever-present hum of technology. After a moment, a rising chorus of distant, indistinct voices can be heard – rising as many, many people start to talk all at once.

“...What did you do?” says the Lord President, a dawning sort of horror rising in his eyes as he holds his shocked hand loosely to his chest in a gesture that he probably doesn’t even realize is defensive. “You did... you did something. What was that?”

Travis has to take a moment to catch his breath. His head is spinning, but honestly he kind of feels great. Like he’s just got the greatest workout of his life, but entirely mental.

“Well,” he says, and steadies himself against the wall. “I kind of might’ve, just... shut off all power on Gallifrey.”

“You,” says the Lord President. “You – what.”

“Yeah. You heard me. All power,” Travis says. “Transduction barriers. Comms units. Public records, lighting, defence grids, even the Matrix is completely offline. Sorry about that, but I needed the spare power to get a message out.”

He’d managed it, too, just in time – the timing required had been exquisitely horrible, a delicate balance between composition and redirection and channelling all the energy into sending it just before everything had just down. It’s the simplest of messages. One word, four letters. He’d willed it outwards, out into the wide expanse of the universe, willing it to one single person, hoping against hope that it’ll make it to its intended recipient on time.

“A message,” says the Lord President. His tone has gone flat, so flat, so strange and hard, and he just keeps staring at Travis in what seems to be outright disbelief.

“I figured I couldn’t make it out of here on my own, so...” Travis shrugs, trying not to look at the Lord President’s face. He doesn’t want to have to see whatever expression Roman’s making, doesn’t want the last time he sees his friend to be like this, even though there’s pretty much nothing he can do about it. “...I did the smart thing. I asked for help.”

The Lord President takes one long, long, inhale of breath, and then he’s straightening up. Raising the laser pistol. Changing the settings. He’s probably not setting it to kill, but it’s not a good sign either way. He says, “Asking for help isn’t going to do you much good.”

Travis’s heart is in his throat. “You’d be surprised,” he says.

And then he hears something. And judging by the expression on the Lord President’s face, he can hear it too. It’s the most beautiful sound he knows, the most wonderful noise in the universe. It’s only a short distance away, and as they both turn to look, Travis can already see the familiar shape of it, the light flashing as it fades into existence with a wheezing and a groaning of ancient, ancient engines.

For a moment, the President seems to be thoroughly distracted. He’s not looking at Travis, at the very least. “How. How in the name of – the transduction barriers – ”

“Got crashed along with the rest of it,” says Travis, peeling his stiff-and-sore hands away from the cable they’d been bunched in. “Which isn’t good if you’re trying to keep people out, but it’s actually really great if you happen to be me and you’re trying to get someone in.”

There is the thunk of wood-hitting ground, and the tall blue form of Travis’s favorite time machine in existence is right there.  

“That’s impossible,” says the Lord President, and now he’s definitely not looking at Travis. The expression on his face is caught between awe and fury and disbelief. “You shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here.”

The TARDIS doesn’t care what the Lord President thinks is possible or not. The blue front door bursts open with explosive force, and Travis is already sprinting with the last of his energy, putting everything he has into one final mad dash – away from the Lord President, who’s remembering that Travis exists now and aiming his laser gun accordingly – away from the cold, dead vaults of the Cloisters and towards safety, the safest place in the universe.

“Hurry up! Get in!” roars a voice, and Travis doesn’t have time to wonder at its complete unfamiliarity, because he’s already throwing himself headfirst through the doors.

The doors slam shut, and whatever Lord Romanadvoratrelundar, High President of Gallifrey and War King Presiding, does next is completely lost, because Travis is in the TARDIS now. And the first thing he says as he finally, finally catches his breath, is –

“Hang on. What?”

Chapter Text

*

Several miles out of LA, the Doctor activates the EMP generator that Turner had given her, jabbing at it with her sonic screwdriver and fixing it to the front of the Jeep’s worn dashboard. She’s started to see signs of Cyberman outposts, heard the distant clashing-and-clanking of vast armies of the shining metal creatures as they patrol and pace the landscape, searching and seeking out any remaining life, to convert and destroy. She knows the use of a single one of these generators probably isn’t going to give her much cover for long, especially the closer she gets to the base of operations – but hopefully it’ll give her the edge she needs to get up close enough to sneak in. That’s all she’s got at this point. Hope and the vague outline of a plan.

Soon after activating the generator, the Doctor spots a squadron of shining metal creatures proceeding directly towards her, and she grimaces and holds her breath but doesn’t stop in her progress eastwards. Thankfully, the EMP seems to work well enough, because as she comes within a short distance of them, they slow down, movements becoming strange and jerky, lights flashing behind the dark hollows of their eyes – and as she gets even closer, they stop entirely. She could mow them down with the Jeep, if she wanted to, and she’s pretty sure they wouldn’t move an inch.

She releases her breath with a relieved huff, silently thanks the ingenuity of humans-backed-into-corners – and briefly considers actually driving right into them, knocking them flying. After a second, she dismisses it as too much a risk to her newly-acquired car, and skirts neatly around them, before continuing east.

And all-in-all, the trip takes several hours of non-stop driving. It would be longer if California hadn’t been absolutely decimated by the Cyberman invasion – buildings practically flattened by battle, streets empty of any sign of life, cars and miscellaneous motor vehicles unceremoniously crushed and swept to the side to allow an ever-growing army of barely-living machines their swift passage through. As it is, she has a more-or-less clear path directly to her destination.

And as she approaches the destination in question, she slows. Her eyes narrow as she takes it all in.

The control hub rises out of the landscape in a twisted, tangled mess of cables and shiny silver plates, welded neatly and sharply to each other to create a huge, glimmering dome that hums with power and presence so loud that the Doctor can hear it even from where she is. It reminds her of a nest, she realizes, as she draws the Jeep to a halt – the way that it’s nestled, half-sunken into the razed-and-ruined landscape, the flow of Cybermen marching constantly in-and-out of the many bay doors lined along its base. The very heart of the invasion.

The Doctor parks the car, hiding it partially behind the nearly-complete wreckage of what had probably used to be a building. She’d really rather have driven up closer to the Cybernest, but she has a feeling that the Jeep might not survive the trip. She’s going to need an escape vehicle, she knows that much, so – yeah, probably safer to store it here, at the base of the hill.

Off comes the EMP generator. She checks that it’s still functional, then tucks it away in her coat pocket. She spends a moment or two tilting the rearview mirror down so she can see herself and fixing her hair, weaving the tangled curls into her usual twin space-buns. And then she hops out of the Jeep, locks it behind her – tosses the keys once in the air, catches them, stows the fob away – and sets off up the hill. Towards the Cybernest.

There’s an uncomfortable amount of Cybermen out here, flowing in and out of the bay doors in mechanical marching waves, and as she approaches – a single lone figure in a sea of silver and scorched-earth – they turn to regard her. They move to try to stop her, reach out to her, attack her – but the EMP generator is doing its job admirably. The second they get even an inch within its range, their movements are slowing and their systems are freezing, and by the time she passes by them they’re as still and silent as any statue.

She valiantly resists the urge to tip them over. Instead, she walks through the unlikely welcome-gathering crowd of Cybermen frozen in place like the world’s strangest silver forest, and up a shining silver path towards the biggest of the bay doors, which loom – dark, foreboding, closed. 

The Doctor stops before the doors, reaches into her pocket, pulls out the EMP generator, and switches it off before stowing it away again. Then she looks up at where she knows the surveillance cameras are, and keeps on looking as they reactivate, swivelling to focus on her. She waits until she’s sure she has their attention, and then raises a hand. Wiggles her fingers in silent greeting. She thinks the smile on her face must be dreadful to look at, all sharpness and hardness and no real joy whatsoever, but she can’t bring herself to care.

No Cybermen come to attack her. The EMP is deactivated, but they still hang back, none of them even coming close.

“It’s me,” she says. “Open up.”

A second passes; a long, long second where she just keeps staring up at the camera and it keeps staring back at her, perfectly still and unmoving. A light within it blinks steadily, like the beating of a heart. She times the blinks in her head, weighing them against the tilt and turn of the planet beneath her feet. Waiting, just waiting.

And then the door shudders and shakes, and begins to slide open – moving upwards, exposing a tall entrance and a long metal hallway leading away into the Cybernest, further away, deeper down.

She inhales sharply through her teeth, grimly satisfied, and says, “Thought so. Right. See you soon.”

That said, she strides forwards, into the shining gloom without another word.

*

It seems quite a lot like the Cybernest is made up of veins, running through and around the structure, trailing inwards to the very centre of the dome, the Doctor notes to herself as she passes through the corridors, boots echoing against the metal floor like hammers on coffin nails. The heart of the place, as it were. She isn’t disturbed or halted as she treks downwards – as a matter of fact, she doesn’t see a single Cyberman, all the way. She seems to have a bill of unimpeded passage.

She sets her jaw against the unease, keeps walking, and within minutes has made it to the central chamber of the Cybernest – stepping through yet another one of those huge open doorways, and emerging into what seems to be a huge metallic atrium. It’s big and domelike and thrumming with the power of every major processing unit in the country packed wall-to-wall. It’s lined generously with circuit boards and cabling and technology that shouldn’t exist yet, but the Doctor doesn’t care about any of that. Because there’s something much more important in here. Her eyes are drawn to the figure sitting on what can only be described as a throne at the very centre of the nest. It’s a horrific mass of metal and machinery. Every plug and cable in the room seems to be jacked up to it, trailing up the short flight of steps from all directions like a starburst of silver snakes.

A sharp shock of horror shoots through the Doctor the moment she sees it, and it’s all she can do to keep still and steady in the face of it all. It’s one thing to suspect – to drive frantically cross-state with a certain, distinct possibility ringing through your head over and over again; to have that feeling, that horrible feeling that events are too perfectly specifically aligned for anything but this to be the case –  and quite another thing altogether to be brought face-to-face with your very worst fear, in the flesh. Or in the steel, as it were.

She finds herself clenching her fists; folding her fingers over onto themselves and squeezing them so tight her knuckles are numb with it. There is a furious speech building up at the back of her throat, bubbling and bursting to get out. She bites it back. Yelling isn’t going to fix this, as much as she wishes it would.

“Doctor,” says the Cyberkeeper. Its voice hisses with static, shivers with the processing of layers upon layers of programming and hardware – and underneath all that static and processing is something that is horribly, horribly familiar. “I must say, this is... unexpected.”

She stares at the Cyberkeeper, nested in place above her. The metal is almost all-encompassing; the barest shape of a humanoid figure only just visible beneath the layers of creeping silver and twining wires. It shifts in place, as if in response to her gaze – head swivelling slowly, smoothly, until those dark, empty eye-sockets are regarding her with all the impassive flatness of the emotionless murdering war machine it is.

“Hi, Travis,” says the Doctor, and doesn’t bother to force the cold, seething fury out of her voice. “Don’t worry. This won’t take long.”

“I am not Travis Killian,” grates the Cyberkeeper.

“I know that,” she replies. “But I wasn’t talking to you.”

Some days, the Doctor thinks about how astoundingly well their stop on the lost moon of Mondas had gone. Obviously, it hadn’t been a great thing that Travis had been possessed by a malevolent entity hell-bent on ensuring the destruction of the human race, and the entire place crumbling to dust around them subsequently also hadn’t been the most amazing turn of events – but Travis had been fine. Better than fine, he’d ended up brilliant; and the thing is – the most important thing – outside of the monks and the Cyberkeeper, nobody had gotten hurt. The three of them and the rest of the lunar landing team had made it back to the TARDIS just in time. Earth had been fine. They’d all been fine, after a fashion, and there’s not much more to say about that.

And... in general, the Doctor doesn’t like to think about how things could have gone. If asked, she’d advise you not to dwell on things that never happened. That way lies madness. There’s no point overthinking the things that you already got right, especially if you’re already the sort of person who overthinks the things that you got wrong.

But some days the Doctor doesn’t take her own advice. Some days she wonders what would have happened if she wasn’t so quick to act, or not quite clever enough, or if fate had twisted sideways in the worst possible way, and the thing is – she’s very good at imagining those sorts of things. There’s a reason she tries not to think about it.

And now here she is. Right in the middle of a world where she just wasn’t clever and quick enough, and she’s now realizing that maybe she hadn’t thought about it enough. Because if she had, she might be more prepared for this situation.

“Travis Killian is gone,” says the Cyberkeeper in that horrible hissing voice. But that’s wrong and it’s lying, because if she looks close enough, she can almost see the faintest hint of dark hair; the slightest snatch of pale skin.

“Really?” she says. There’s only one thing to do in a situation like this, and she’s very good at it: play for time. Buy as much of it as she can. “Why did you open the door for me, then?”

“You’re a dead woman walking, Doctor,” humms the Cyberkeeper.

“Aww. Flatterer.”

“You shouldn’t be alive,” it repeats. Shift. Click. “You’ve been dead for months now, and I know because I ensured it personally. You may have managed to escape death once, but this time I intend to ensure it sticks. Before you die, though, tell me. How did you manage to survive the first time?”

“Well,” says the Doctor. “I was only mostly dead, see. And there’s a big difference between being mostly dead and all dead, because mostly dead is slightly alive – Princess Bride? No? Not landing?” She stares the Cyberkeeper down. Searching for any trace of recognition, of life within its shining shell. “Come on, Travis, it’s a classic, I know you’ve seen it. Or read it, actually. We both know the book is superior – ”

“Travis Killian is gone,” says the Cyberkeeper again.

Her fingers are trembling. She pulls them tighter against her palms, straightens her shoulders stiffer. “Really? Then whose voicebox are you using to talk to me right now?”

The Cyberkeeper does not say anything for a long, long moment. It shifts and hisses and clicks, and then tilts its head, and asks, “Are you going to tell me how you survived, Doctor?”

“Are you going to let my friend go, or am I going to have to do something that we’ll all regret?” she says, and doesn’t wait for a response, just keeps ploughing on, “Well, I say ‘we’ll all’. It’s just you. You’re going to be the only one regretting things.” She wants to make it afraid. She wants to make it terrified, because that’s what it deserves, and she knows that’ll be a task in and of itself because Cybermen can’t feel fear, but, well. She’s always been an overachiever, this time around. She’s ready to put in the work.  “I’m threatening you, just so you know. You’ve made me very, very angry, Cyberkeeper. And I am not having a good day. Consider me very, very low on patience, and then consider the position you’re in. And then consider your next move, and consider it carefully.”

“Well, as long as we’re doing threats,” says the Cyberkeeper, and tilts its head. The doors around the edge of the room begin to slide open with severe, ringing thumps of metal-on-metal, and through them the Doctor can hear the familiar echoing of Cybermen marching closer, feet pounding at the ground in rhythmic synchronisation.

She’d pretty much expected this. “The entire local army, just for me? Seems like overkill, just a bit.”

“I killed you before, and you somehow still managed to escape,” the Cyberkeeper tells her, and the voice is incredibly familiar and terribly distracting. She forces herself to ignore it, for the moment. It’s just another taunt, like everything its doing. She can’t rise to the bait. “I can’t take any more chances with you. You’re a rogue element. If you’re left to your own devices, everything that I’ve built could be destroyed within a matter of hours.” It clicks and hums, and its head tilts again, and there is a horrible twist to its voice now that almost sounds as if it’s smiling at her. “I know you, Doctor.”

She’s surrounded on all sides by legions upon legions of Cybermen, standing silent and still, shoulder-to-shoulder. The exits are thoroughly blocked, she sees, as she turns to inspect her situation – not even the slightest gap has been left for her to escape through. Nowhere to run – but that’s fine, because she’s not planning on running. Not quite yet.

“You know me?” she says, and laughs. “I don’t think you do know me, actually, because if you knew me you’d know that letting me in here was a very, very stupid thing to do.”

The metal shifts and creaks in a way that makes it seem like the Cyberkeeper has just shrugged. There doesn’t seem to be enough leeway in its casing to allow it to shrug properly, though. After a second, the metal chitters and squeaks again, and it says, “I’m aware. But it doesn’t matter. You’ll be dead soon enough.”

“Bet,” she says, snapping out the word sharp-and-angry, and draws out the EMP transmitter from her pocket, wiggling it in the Cyberkeeper’s direction pointedly. “Ta-da,” she sings. “Know what this is? Any clue what this does? Any ideas from the class? You there, in the front?”

“That won’t work,” it tells her. “You’re in the middle of my territory. The best you could hope to do with that is knock out a handful of my Cybermen. Your death is still guaranteed, Doctor.”

“Nope,” says the Doctor.

A pause. A hum. It sounds almost curious when it says, “No?”

“Nope,” she says, and waves the transmitter at it again, sharper this time. “See, on the way over, I analysed the signals coming out of this place, the radio waves you’ve been using to transmit communication. And I realized something very interesting about them. See, I don’t think you had very much to work with, after you ended up on Earth.” She spins, indicating the entire atrium, the dome around them – the shining metal support beams, the cables and tubes winding their way through the walls and floors, all jacking into the Cyberkeeper’s throne. “This entire structure’s very impressive but it’s not quite full Mondasian. It’s mostly repurposed Earth content, right? And Earth definitely doesn’t have the kind of material to run the central processing unit for a full Cyberman army. So what could you possibly be using as the central processing unit to direct all your military forces on this planet?”

“This conversation is over,” says the Cyberkeeper, which means she’s right. And that’s all the confirmation she needs.

“I think it is, yeah, just a bit.” She jams her hand into her pocket, wraps her hand around the familiar weight of her sonic screwdriver, and then looks very deliberately, right past the Cyberkeeper. Through the empty eyesockets. Beyond. She knows he’s in there. She knows he is. “I need five seconds, Travis. Not long, just five seconds. Please. Help me.”

“Cybermen – ” says the Cyberkeeper, raising a metal-bound hand into the air, and begins to say something else, a familiar cruel order beginning to hiss from its throat. But then it just stops – the words dying in its throat, as if being strangled from within. Its hand shakes, mid-air, trembling with exertion. The Cybermen all around her don’t move – waiting for orders from their leader.

Five seconds. Five seconds is all she needs.

“Thank you, Travis,” the Doctor whispers, and sets her screwdriver buzzing.

She’s communicated with Travis’s GameBoy via sonic enough times by now that she doesn’t even have to think twice about reactivating that link. The hope is that, even though this is a different universe and a different Travis and a different GameBoy and a different her that had interacted with all of those things, it’ll all be similar enough for the link to properly establish.

It takes an agonizing split-second longer than it really should. But then her screwdriver buzzes an affirmative and her fingers are tingling with anticipation, and she raises the EMP generator high above her head.

“Right,” says the Doctor. She knows she only has seconds before the Cyberkeeper regains control, but she can’t quite help herself. She tries to be kind, this time around, really she does, but even she has limits, and she is thoroughly past them at this point. “What is it you lot love to say at times like this?” She looks the Cyberkeeper dead in those hollow, hollow eyes, and lets that terrible, terrible smile fall across her lips again. “Oh, that’s right. Delete.”

The signal connects.

The EMP held in her outstretched hand beeps, pulses red-hot under her fingers – and then explodes, radiant energy pulsing outwards in great cascading waves. She holds her ground, stares unblinking at the Cyberkeeper as all around her, there is the almighty clatter of every Cyberman in a hundred-mile radius toppling over in perfect unison. Their solid-steel frames hit the ground in a cacophony of metallic violence – clanking and clattering, the sound of the mass-impact ricocheting around the closed curved corridors like thousands upon thousands of gunshots going off.

And before her, the Cyberkeeper lets out an almighty shriek that wrenches out of its stolen throat like a physical force. Its frame rattles and shudders and begins to spark at the edges, electricity arcing along its warped metal frame as it struggles to keep composure. And then the shriek continues, just keeps on going – warping and crackling, and flaming bursts of sparks shower out from its joints, from its throne, from the computer banks all around it. And gradually, the scream begins to dwindle and twist as it begins to slow down, still rattling and trembling – until it finally comes to a complete halt. Unmoving. Inactive.

And then it is still and silent in the central command chamber of the Cybernest – but the Doctor is already in motion, before the dust even has time to settle.

She’s following the signal that her sonic had managed to connect to, skirting around to the back of the room, tearing open a buried-panel and digging her hands into the mass of wiring and machinery and Cybertech until she finds it: the tiny oblong form of an old yellow GameBoy, the screen as dead and blank as everything else in this room. The Pokémon stickers are faded but still there, plastered lovingly along its casing even as it sits in a nest of hateful war technology. The central control unit of the entire Cyberfleet. A single archaic entertainment system.

She tears it out – the machinery is dead, she doesn’t need to worry about electrocution – and holds it, for just a second. Her mouth twists unhappily as she realizes what she needs to do. Reluctantly, she tosses it to the ground, takes a breath. Then she brings the heel of one scuffed-and-dusty Doc Marten down on it, hard. And she does it again, and again, until she’s sure that it’s properly destroyed, not a trace of data or information ever able to grace its screen again.

And then she’s moving again – faster this time; urgency driving her forwards, setting her skin itching and electric with panic. She rounds the corner of the dais, kicking aside the dead-and-deactivated Cybermen littering her path, and sprints up the short staircase to where the Cyberkeeper is sprawled, limp and limbless. Its shining metal skull is tilted up to the roof, resting at a strange angle against the back of its makeshift throne. A curl of smoke drifts up from its chest, trailing towards the ceiling like an afterthought. It doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch.

The Doctor is right up next to it in less than a second, pressing her sonic screwdriver up to the rivets and cracks where the metal frame is stitched together like patchwork – forcing them to undo, unlock. Then she’s digging her fingers underneath the plating, tearing it out and away, peeling back the layers of cruel metal with great heaving wrenches of exertion.

The first thing she sees is his hand. It’s tangled in cables and tubes; pale and corpselike – but the fingers are twitching minutely, straining outwards. Trying to reach for her. Not enough strength to make it.

She presses her own hand down around it, stilling the trembling fingers, squeezing gently. I’m here, I’m here. “Hi,” she says, throat tightening in something like grief, “hey, hello, Travis; hold on, hold on just a minute. I’ll get you out. I’m getting you out now. Just hold on.”

She redoubles her efforts, twisting back the wires and wrenching away the twisting tubes filled with no-longer-moving coolant fluid – until she sees tangled filthy hair and a pale face smudged with grime and oil, and then she’s on her knees, leaning in, scrambling with suddenly-shaky hands to try to unravel as much of the wiring and cabling as she can.

It’s Travis. It is definitely, absolutely, undeniably Travis Killian in front of her, buried beneath layers and layers of Cybertech, clamped down into machinery and left here alone and afraid for months on end. The tattered remains of a familiar leather coat hang off his thin frame, scorched and sawed-through to make room for cables and clasps and clamps. The faded Reading Rainbow t-shirt, its once-colorful print still faintly visible, hasn’t fared much better.

It’s... horrible. It’s all just so horrible, and horrible isn’t a good enough word for it but she doesn’t want to think of anything more apt. She has to take a moment to remind herself that Travis, the Travis she’s known for over a year now and has travelled with for all that time, hasn’t actually spent several months as a Cyberkeeper’s puppet. He’s fine. He’s all right – well, she hopes he’s all right, even if there’s no way of knowing what he’s facing right now. Hopefully not this. Hopefully never this.

Not that it makes that much difference, because even if this isn’t her version of her friend... he’s still Travis. She doubts that there’s much difference between their timelines before this point, and even if there were, it wouldn’t matter. The version of her from this universe isn’t around to help – if what the Cyberkeeper had said is true, she’s long gone and far beyond help. But the Doctor is here now, and she’s the next best thing – and she’s going to do everything she damn well can.  

She starts untangling him, detaching cables and what could charitably be described as IV lines – as quickly as she can, but as gently as she can manage.

Even when she manages to get the majority of them removed and cast aside, his eyes are still shut, and he’s terribly still. She is briefly terrified that he isn’t breathing, but then he shudders and coughs weakly, and his hands twitch again. She leans in, fumbling with her sonic screwdriver to disengage the clamp holding his head in place. It comes apart with a rusty, grating crack, and immediately her hands leap to it, trying to wrench it open. “Travis. Travis, can you hear me?”

There’s no response. She manages to rip the clamp open, and practically tears it away before hooking an arm around the back of his shoulders to draw him upright, out of the metallic cocoon. There’s something wrong with his arms, plating and shiny-silver armoring that refuses to come undone from his skin. His right leg, too – the metal encasing it goes far beyond simple attachment to the Cyberkeeper’s throne. It looks like it’s worked into his flesh. It’s not as bad as it could be, holistically speaking – he could be so much further gone, so much more deeply converted, but... it’s not good. None of this is good. It could be worse, but it could be so much better.

Why hadn’t she got here sooner?

She slides her palm to his too-cold cheek, pushes the tangled hair from his eyes and measures his ragged shallow breathing with frantic desperation. “Come on, come on,” she cajoles, rubbing at the back of his neck, squeezing his arm. “Time to wake up, I need a bit of company here. You spend too much time asleep, anyway. I look away for five seconds and you’re passing out again – typical you – ”

His eyelids flicker. Something occurs to her, and with a sudden jolt of terror she splays both hands out, framing his face, and skims briefly along the surface of his mind; mapping out its shape. And it’s ragged and torn, bleeding pain and fear outwards like a beacon, but there’s still Travis underneath it, that crucial spark of brightness only dimmed slightly – and more importantly, the Cyberkeeper is nowhere to be seen. There’s traces of it still there, quite a lot of it, actually, but its actual presence is completely gone, eradicated, utterly obliterated.

Good.

She extends a mental hand in Travis’s direction. Projects every last bit of sincerity, of kindness and care; at the distant speck where he’s retreated within himself. Thinks, you can come back now. I’m here. I need you. Please, come back to me.

A moment passes, and then another. There is the distant prickle of stirring consciousness, and she holds her breath, counting the seconds.

And then Travis’s eyes open, and he’s blinking up at her. At first it’s lethargic, dazed; but then it morphs into confusion, then dull panic – and then clear distress. His body jolts abruptly like he’s trying to flinch away from her but can’t quite manage it. The Doctor has to lunge to stop him from toppling over backwards, hands shifting down to his shoulders.

“Hey!” she says. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re all right.”

She knows it’s a lie the moment she says it, because nothing about this is all right. But she can’t take back the sentiment, not now; she has to let it hang. He stops struggling, then. And for a long moment, he stares at her with an expression that she can best describe as haunted, with a tinge of desperation. He’s looking at her like he’s looking at a ghost.

For several seconds (she’s counting them, she’s still counting even though there’s no point to it), he can’t seem to speak. His lips part, but no words come out, and he makes a tiny noise that sounds halfway between pain and terror. But after a minute...

“Is this real?” he whispers eventually. His voice is ragged, rasping. He sounds half-dead, but there’s no horrible mechanical growl or static-hiss to it. His voice is entirely, wonderfully his own.

“Yeah,” says the Doctor, and her grip on his shoulders tightens. “It’s real. I’m here. Sorry it took me so long; but you know how LA traffic is.”

“Doctor,” he says. His voice cracks.

“Travis,” she says, holding him steady.

“This isn’t,” he says, and then he stops, and then he’s crying abruptly, silent tears flowing down his cheeks, crumpling forward bonelessly – too weak to stop himself from crashing sideways into her. “I’m sorry,” he says, breath hitching. “I’m so – I’m so sorry.”

“No. No, no, no. No, don’t. Don’t – ” She manages to disconnect the last of the couplings from his legs, and slides forwards to extract him properly, to pull him all the way out. He’s so much lighter than he should be, she realizes with a start. “ – it’s not your fault, none of it. Don’t apologize, please don’t apologize, I should be apologizing, I left you here – ”

He heaves out a breathless sob that’s more like a scream. His movements are jerky and uncoordinated, as he tries to claw his way further away from the steel-and-wire cocoon he’d been embedded in, skittering and sliding across the floor. He manages a short distance before his limbs give out entirely, and now both of them on a mess of stone and metal, the remains of the Cyberkeeper’s army broken and inactive around them.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, nearly hyperventilating, apparently unable to say anything else. The tears are no longer silent; he’s outright panicking and it’s not pretty. She shushes him, cups his face in her hands; hums frantically, nonsensically, trying to calm him down. It’s barely working. Travis is rapidly approaching hysteria, and it’s only growing worse the more he takes in his surroundings, the more the Doctor tries to talk him out of it. Even as she manages to pull him into some semblance of sitting-upright, he’s still muttering slurred, senseless apologies; trembling and shuddering with tears sliding down his cheeks as he tries to say something that he can’t quite force out, something that barely make sense anyway.  

There’s only one thing she can think to do, only one thing she thinks will be of any use whatsoever. She hugs him. He twitches as she wraps her arms around him, pulling him close and tight enough that she can feel exactly how thin and frightened he is, how fast his heart is racing, how sharply the metal twisting through his arms and skin sticks out. But it seems to work, at least momentarily. He freezes and then sags against her shoulder, fingers grasping weakly at her back. He lets out one last heaving sob that shudders through his entire body – and then is still.

The Doctor says, “I know you’re probably very scared and very confused right now, but I need you to know that I’m going to do everything I can to get you somewhere safe.” She keeps her voice as calm and even as she can. Hoping he’s not too far gone that he won’t understand her. “Hopefully the TARDIS, if I can find her. If not...” She shakes her head. His heart is still racing, so fast. “It doesn’t matter. We’re leaving. I just need you to be a brave for a little bit longer. Just for a bit. Just so we can get out of here. Okay?”

A second passes, and then he croaks out, “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeats, and closes her eyes, holding onto him for another few seconds that don’t feel long enough. When she releases him, the uncontrollable sobbing from before has receded into shaky, ragged breathing, and he’s looking at her with bloodshot eyes, rocking a little in place as he stares and shivers and presses his trembling lips together so very tightly. “You’re shaking. Here – ” She shrugs off her jacket, peeling it away, and tucks it over his shoulders, over the tatters of his old coat.

It doesn’t stop him shivering, but he draws it closed around him with shaky fingers and he seems to be somewhat calmed by its weight.

“I don’t,” he says, and stops again, and now his voice is taut with distress. “I don’t understand – Doctor. Doctor, you – how? How?”

She looks at him – barely able to sit up straight, clinging to her jacket like a lifeline, his eyes alight with pain and fear and confusion – and she can’t. She just can’t. She can’t tell him that she’s from another universe, that his version of the Doctor is at worst long-dead and at best in no state to help him; that she’s from another universe where this never happened to him. That she hadn’t arrived looking specifically to rescue him, it had been a strange quirk of fate. She’s sure he’d understand, but... it would be cruel.

She can’t. Not yet.

“Hey,” she says, and closes her hands around his, squeezing lightly. “Don’t worry about it, all right? I’ll explain when we’re out of here.”

“You came back,” he says, thready and wavering. Disbelieving, but gradually regaining hope. “How... how did you come back?”

“I’m the world’s most annoying boomerang, Travis,” she says, and squeezes just a bit tighter. As tightly as she dares. His hands are so cold. “Coming back is what I do.”

It takes a moment for this to properly register with him, but then he’s looking at her like he finally believes that she’s there, which is a definite improvement. He nods, shakily, and then his gaze darts sideways as he tries to take in the chaos and destruction of the room around him – seemingly trying to process the situation they’re in, like he hasn’t had a chance to do it before. His breathing is growing unsteady again. She can’t let him lose himself like that, not now.

“Do you think you can walk?” the Doctor says, drawing his attention by bracing her fingers on his knuckles, pulling his hands towards her. He blinks, his attention snapping back to her. He doesn’t have shoes, she notes. She’s going to have to get some shoes for him, somehow. “Only, I know I’ve taken care of these Cybermen but I’m not so sure about the ones who weren’t in the direct blast zone. I think it’s best if we keep moving for the moment, all right?”

It takes another second, but a waveringly familiar expression of determination creeps across Travis’s face. Her hearts ache with painful fondness at the sight of it. He nods, and lets her tug one of his arms over her shoulder, wrap one of hers around his waist for support. When she pulls them both to their feet, his knees nearly buckle under his own weight, but he forces himself stubbornly upwards with her assistance.

His eyes are hazy. She’s shouldering half his weight, she can feel a tremor running through his entire body, a persistent shaking that just never ends, and that’s not even starting with whatever’s happened to his leg and arms.

Still, he says, “Let’s go,” and he sounds almost like his old self when he does.

And they do.

*

The Doctor ends up having to half-drag Travis down the corridors of the Cybernest, his right leg bumping and dragging limply behind them. Despite his determination, walking – even with assistance – is an agonizing, excruciatingly slow process. But there are no Cybermen to impede their progress – not in the hallways, not at the exit, and not as they emerge into the chilly night air.  The sky is still horribly overcast, faint red glowing over the horizon.

The Doctor takes a deep breath as cross through the exit. The air still tastes like metal, but it’s at least a touch fresher than the atmosphere inside the Cybernest. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

Travis stares at the sky like he’s never seen it before, and clutches at her shoulder just a little tighter, before letting out a very small, very weak, “Oh.”

She casts him a worried glance, and stops to readjust her arm around his waist. It doesn’t look like he’s about to descend into his earlier panicked hysteria again. Mostly, he just seems fatigued – drowsy and uncoordinated despite his determination to push onwards.

And right now, he just keeps watching the sky, looking puzzled and dully horrified. “Did... did I do that?”

The Doctor tilts her head upwards too, following his gaze. She sees that the cracks in reality are beginning to show, spiderweb fractures spilling across the sky, thin and wavering as if from a very long way off. They’re only just noticeable, right now. They’re only going to get worse from here. She knows – she’s seen it before.

“No,” she says. Another sick sinking feeling is beginning to grow, deep in her stomach. “That wasn’t you.”

He looks over at her, a silent question in his hazy eyes. He doesn’t have to ask it for her to know what it is.

“I’m not just saying that to make you feel better,” she tells him, and hikes up his arm, tugging it tighter around her shoulders. “I wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t you. Come on, let’s get you out of here. Let’s get both of us out of here.”

He’s barely moving at all as she heaves him towards the Jeep at the bottom of the hill, and nearing unconsciousness. A potent combination of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion, she thinks, and it’s finally catching up to him. It’s downright astounding that he’s lasted as long as he has, but Travis has always been the sort to push himself to his absolute limits. Some things don’t change, no matter what universe you’re in.

She wrenches open the passenger door, and bundles him in. He goes without complaint, and sags into the shotgun seat, gasping faintly. She makes sure his legs are safely in, slams it shut, and then hurriedly reopens it to tug the seatbelt across his chest, buckling him in.

And then it’s around the side of the car and into the driver’s seat, jamming the keys into the ignition and twisting it to draw a roar of activity from the engine. She yanks the shift stick, stabs her foot at the gas pedal, and the Jeep jolts forwards, violently.

“Seatbelt,” Travis mutters from her right, so faintly that the Doctor almost doesn’t hear it.

Seatbelts are boring. She bites her lip, then pulls it over and across anyway, clicking it into place. “Right. Safety first.”

The Cyberkeeper is gone, crushed like a bug and deleted from Travis’s system, and she’d taken out a good portion of the local Cyberman population out in one dizzying blast of energy – but the Doctor knows that there’s no way she’d managed to get all of them. And if the remaining Cybermen are going to be heading anywhere in response to the destruction of their keeper and dictator, it’s going to be here. It won’t be too long until the Cybernest is ground zero for every Cyberman in the state – and possibly the country, if they’re unlucky, and she isn’t feeling all that fortunate. They need to leave. Now.

The Doctor grits her teeth, and floors it. Dust and metal swirls up around them as the engine makes a dreadful screech, and then they’re heading down the hill, back along the route she’d taken to get here. Back to LA. Nowhere else to go.

In one part of her mind, she’s thinking, get Travis away, get him somewhere safe, I can’t let him get hurt like this again. In another, she is thinking about her version of Travis, him and Carrie – she doesn’t know where they are, she doesn’t know if they’re in a universe even worse than this one; has a feeling that they’re still alive but can’t know for certain – trying to piece together a way to make her way back to them, to get back to their universe.

In another part of her mind entirely, she’s wondering how in the name of sanity she thinks she’s going to accomplish any of this. She still doesn’t have a TARDIS, her friends are just as far away and utterly inaccessible as they had been at the start of this roadtrip, and her only plan right now is putting as much distance between them and the Cybernest as she possibly physically can.

The Doctor grips the steering wheel tighter, stares out over the horizon and into the distance, and drives westwards.

Next to her, Travis is half-slumped into the passenger seat. His breathing is soft and stuttering, but she can hear it so at least she knows he’s alive. She keeps looking over at him, checking up on him regularly, and every time she does something in her chest tightens just a little bit more. It seems there’s nothing about him that isn’t broken. She isn’t responsible for this. She’s not. She can’t be, even if she tries her hardest to blame herself – but it’s hard to feel like it’s not her fault, when he looks like this. His hair hangs around his pale face in limp tangled strands, every visible inch of his skin grazed and scarred-over with the remnants of the Cyberkeeper’s shell, and that’s not even mentioning the twisted layers of metal that still remain. He’s filthy with months’ worth of oil and sweat and grime and tears and still faintly shaking with months’ worth of unimaginable trauma.

Only hours ago, she’d been trekking down an alien cave system with him and Carrie on the trail of a mystery. They’d been talking science-fiction, taking apart time travel tropes and plots piece-by-piece, and they’d been making fun of him for walking face-first into each and ever dimly-lit wall in his path, as per usual. Trying to reconcile that Travis – bright with good humor and ready for anything in his path – with the shaking husk of a human being in the car with her right now is near-unthinkable.

He looks horribly small and terribly young, huddled under the thin warmth of her coat and watching her with a kind of hungry desperation. He looks like he’s on the verge of passing out, but every time his eyelids flicker closed, he forces them open so he can look at her again. It’s painful to watch.

He needs rest, and he needs peace, and he needs kindness. The Doctor’s not sure how much of the first two she can provide right here and now, but as for the last...

As she turns to look at him one more time she forces a smile onto her face, and hopes it doesn’t look as awful as it feels.

At the very least, she thinks, he’s trying to smile back.

*

*

Travis can’t close his eyes.

None of this feels real. The sequence of events leading from cold-pain-fear to where he is here and now is fuzzy, color-streaked and disjointed. He’s been awake for months now – months? Years? Decades? – and it’s entirely possible that he might have gone mad. He is in a car with the Doctor with her coat hanging heavy on his shoulders and she is driving them westwards, away from the central processing station, and this is what madness feels like because there’s no way this can be real.

His head aches. His eyes are burning. His arms are cold. All of him is so cold, so numb and disconnected, and the warmth tugging at him and dragging him all the way down is so sweet and so welcome that he just wants to fall into it forever – sleep and be warm in the stillness of it all.

But the Doctor’s here. The Doctor’s been gone for so long and she’s here and he’s afraid that if he rest his eyes for even a second, he’ll lose her again. He forces them open against the exhaustion, blinks through the tears and stares at her, just stares. The messy space buns, the glasses pushed all the way up her nose as she studies the horizon intently. The scarf. He’d forgotten about the scarf. How could he forget about the scarf, how could he forget about any of this?

She glances sideways, catches him staring. She looks so sad and just a bit tense in that way she gets when she’s on the verge of full-on rage but trying very hard to hold it back – but she still smiles at him, soft around the edges, like nothing’s happened and he hasn’t done anything to her. He tries to smile back, but he knows that whatever’s on his face right now it’s probably the furthest thing from a smile that there is.

“Go to sleep, Travis,” the Doctor whispers, like a song. Her hand rests, ever-so-gently, on his arm; fingers quietly massaging at his pulse point. It’s making him feel strange, drowsy. “Things will be better when you wake up. We can talk then.”

The car is rattling its way over the uneven ground, shuddering; the vibration of the motor trembling through his body. “Promise?”

“Promise,” she says, and her fingers slip upwards to weave through his, squeezing tightly. “I just need to get us back to LA. Going to be a rough trip, I think.”

“Isn’t it always?” he breathes, eyes falling shut.

There’s silence for a long moment, and then she says, slowly, quietly, “I guess so.” She squeezes his hand one more time. “Smoother soon. I promise. I promise, Travis.”

He wants to say something else, but then her fingers fall against his wrist again and he’s dizzy, floating, and his eyes stay heavy and closed as she starts to hum under her breath. It’s a strange sort of song, all alien and bright and shiny-with-stars, and either it’s doing something to him, making him feel content and calm despite everything, despite everything, or the everything-of-it-all is finally catching up with him. He finds he doesn’t care much, either way. She’s here. She’s here and that’s all that matters.

He curls up in the passenger seat, her coat draped around his shoulders and her fingers still steady against his skin, and lets himself fall away into nothingness.

Chapter Text

*

The landing is not what Carrie would call gentle, but she’s definitely had worse. She and Millie only end up a little bit thrown to the ground and a little bit bruised and battered from the inevitable impact. Gunther, who’d maintained her position right next to the psychic circuits all this time, seems unhurt – she just lets out one of her relatively-chiller meows of annoyance before unloafing from the console, springing to the ground and slinking out into the corridors, never to be seen again (for at least an hour or so. Carrie’s seen this before, she knows how it goes).

“Sorry!” whisper-yelps Carrie reflexively, but Gunther’s long gone, apparently not in the mood for driving-mishap apologies.

The console room is noticeably dimmer as Carrie takes a moment to catch her breath. It’s not dead, definitely, but it looks a lot like the effort of activating Emergency Program R without knowing exactly what Emergency Program R was had taken a lot of power out of the place. Carrie hopes very much that she hasn’t done any permanent damage to the TARDIS by accident. The Doctor would not be happy. (Come to think of it, Millie probably wouldn’t be too cheerful about it either.)

“We’re here?” she asks, sitting up.

Millie heaves herself up from where she’d fallen, just next to the console, and leans into the VCR monitor, squinting. “I... suppose we must be. We’ve landed, at least.”

“Cool. Coooool,” says Carrie. “So... where have we landed? Because I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing when I did the thing, and I don’t think the TARDIS did either. So...?”

Millie continues to lean into the VCR screen. Her squint intensifies, as does her look of puzzlement. “...She says we’ve landed... nowhere.”

“In the middle of nowhere?” Carrie checks, brushing dust (and some leftover meat-market-residue) off her jeans.

“Maybe? I don’t think – ” She shakes her head, and looks over her shoulder at Carrie. “No, it just says ‘nowhere’.”

Carrie considers this for a moment, and then says, “Huh!”

“Huh indeed,” Millie agrees. “What’s Emergency Program R? Why did you activate it?”

Carrie spreads her hands, wiggling her fingers. “Okay! You know how you said that the Doctor was missing?” At Millie’s nod, she nods back. “Well, the last time the Doctor went missing for me, I accidentally activated this, sort of... built-in message thing that zapped the TARDIS over to a friend of the Doctor’s. And he helped me and Travis find her in, like, under an hour. So even if this is some kind of alternate universe, I figured that if he’s somewhere around here...”

“Wait,” says Millie. “A... friend of the Doctor’s?”

Carrie, still on the floor (because it’s actually pretty comfy! She doesn’t need another reason to just lie on the ground and chill for a bit) nods again. “Yep! He said his name was Roman – ”

“Roman?” Millie interrupts again, just a bit too loudly. A kaleidoscope of emotions flash across her face, starting with shock and ending with tentative hope. “You brought us to Roman?”

So, Millie knows Roman. Does everybody know everybody else except for her? Like, she knows she’s still the new girl, relatively speaking, but they could at least try to organize some kind of meet-and-greet so she can get to know everyone. That would be nice “I... think I brought us to Roman?” She gestures helplessly. “Look, I’m new here, okay? Like, not really really new but I’m definitely not as Into It All as you and... and the Doctor, and Travis are!” Her voice has gone up a semitone or two at this point, probably. “I’m learning. I’m learning things, and it’s very cool and I’m having tons of fun but I don’t know if I actually got us to Roman or not, so, just... cut me a little slack if it didn’t work out. I’m not perfect, you know!”

“...Whoa,” Millie says, looking a little taken aback. “Don’t... forget to breathe between sentences, Miss Vu.”

Carrie takes a second to breathe, rein her temper in just a bit. She’s not actually mad at Millie; Millie hasn’t done anything wrong at all, actually. But she’s kind of flailing around in the dark, here! It can get a bit frustrating sometimes! “Um – look, if I’m calling you just Millie... just Carrie is fine for me.”

“...Carrie,” says Millie slowly, like she’s testing it out. “Carrie. All right. I think I can do that.”

Carrie raises a finger, brightening. “Although! If you want to call me something fancy, I don’t object to like... Lady Vu. Lady Vu sounds very cool.”

The side of Millie’s mouth twitches. “Lady Vu.”

Carrie pumps her fist in the air, delighted. “See, I like the sound of that! I love it, actually, keep it up. Not that I’m an actual lady, like, professionally – I don’t have the title or anything. Maybe you shouldn’t call me that. There’s probably places you can get in trouble for impersonating ladyships – no, I just realized, I don’t care.”

“I mean, if that’s what you want – ”

“We’ll trial it,” Carrie decides. “Right, where are we?”

Millie fiddles around with the switches on the TARDIS, frowning until she lets out a light ha! and switches on the external monitor. “There we go. Now, let’s see...”

Carrie gamely bounds to her feet and goes to peer around Millie at the outside view. And... it’s a corridor. She has seen a lot of corridors over the last few months, and she can say with confidence that this is definitely a corridor, and possibly a spaceship corridor judging by the whole Star Trek set-design look it’s giving off. It’s well-enough lit, but there’s something wrong with the walls – there’s what looks an awful lot like some kind of alien mould forming splotchy patches along the otherwise-clean whiteness. She swears she can see a few mushrooms there, too. The overall effect is pretty grimy. It doesn’t exactly look long-abandoned, but it’s definitely getting there.

And then something moves, shifting past the camera on-monitor in flickers and glitchy flashes, and both Carrie and Millie freeze. It’s difficult to make it out its exact shape, but in the brief second that it’s visible, Carrie can see blotchy discoloration, a bloated spherical body, jerky movements.

And then it’s gone.

Silence.

“Okay, what was – ” Carrie starts, wide-eyed.

“Not a clue,” says Millie grimly. “But it didn’t exactly look friendly, did it?”

Carrie fumbles for positivity, and manages to grasp onto it for approximately three entire seconds. “I don’t know. We shouldn’t just assume, it could have been – ” She relents, deflating. “...Okay, yeah, that thing looked freaky. Look, I know how the Doctor feels about weapons, but... you’ve been around here for a while, you probably know where the armoury is.”

“I don’t know where the armoury is,” Millie admits, looking frustrated. “The Doctor always said there wasn’t one, but – ”

“But there totally super is, and she’s absolutely a liar, right?” Carrie agrees, nodding frantically.

Millie nods and lets slip a tiny smile. She hefts that oversized wrench of hers in one hand. “I try to not to use guns, because... guns! Ergh!” she says. “But this has gotten me out of more pinches than you can imagine, so it’s good enough for me.”

Carrie admires the wrench briefly. It’s a very good-looking wrench, all solid and weighty. She bets it can do some serious damage. “Wow. Okay, no armoury, but do you think we could maybe find me a baseball bat or something before we go out there? Just, you know... I did not like the look of that thing. Whatever it was.”

Millie looks at her for a long, long second. And then grins. Wild and a bit dangerous. It’s a weirdly familiar grin, because it’s exactly the sort of grin she’s seen spreading across the Doctor’s face hundreds of times. “Lady Carrie Vu, I think we can absolutely get you a baseball bat.”

*

One short journey through the TARDIS storage rooms later, and Millie’s now pushing the door to the TARDIS open. She’s got her wrench hefted over one shoulder, and Carrie’s got a brand-new baseball bat slung over hers. All things considered, she’s feeling pretty badass, and she hopes Millie is too.

She waves goodbye to Gunther and the TARDIS, and then hops out into the spaceship corridors to let Millie do the locking-up-behind-her bit of things.

Outside, the air is weirdly heavy. Not, like, physically, but there’s a definite sort of mental weight to it. It feels like they shouldn’t be here. There’s a distant smell of rust, decay. The patches of mould on the walls seem to be staring at her, despite their lack of eyes. Probably most worryingly, there’s no sign of the mysterious weird blob-thing that they’d seen on the monitors. Carrie feels a prickle of unease run up her spine, and she shivers.

“Ooh boy. All right,” she mutters, and looks around. The corridors stretch out in both directions, with a set of near-identical double doors at either end. She bites her lip, and then calls out, “Roman? Hey, Roman!”

Millie seems to have the same idea. She straightens her scarf – the Doctor’s scarf – and calls out, voice ringing through the empty corridor, “Hello? Anybody home?”

No response.

Carrie glances at Millie, shrugs, and then heads right towards the nearest of the two double-doors. There’s nothing for it, really. They’re heavy, wooden – weird choice for a spaceship or whatever this is supposed to be – but Millie lends her a hand, and with a grunt and a heave, they swing open to reveal...

The exact same corridor that they’re in right now. Mould creeping up the white walls and the TARDIS parked right in the middle of it and everything – and at the end of it, two people are standing, staring through an open door. Two women – one in jeans and a light tank top, the other in a long jacket and scarf.

“Ooh. Whoa. Trippy,” Carrie says, taking a step back, and watching the her-at-the-other-door do the same, in reverse. Her voice echoes back to her, from beyond the door. “Now we’re thinking with portals, I guess?”

“Well, this is a fine how-de-do,” says Millie, although she looks faintly fascinated by the entire setup. She slowly raises her hand, pokes it forwards as if expecting to encounter some sort of barrier. Nothing happens. “It’s just a continuous loop. How do we get out of here, if it’s just a loop?”

“Dang it, Roman,” Carrie mutters. She looks around, stepping back further from the door. There’s no windows, no way to see outside beyond the looped corridor they seem to find themselves in. “Okay, maybe I got something wrong. Or maybe the TARDIS did. Because, look, I only met him once. Once and a half? We hung out for, like, an hour, tops. But this does not seem like the sort of place a guy like him hangs out in.”

“I only met him once, too,” says Millie. “...And a half. But I have to agree.” She indicates the mould and decay creeping up with walls with a wrinkled nose. “It’s not very...”

She trails off. A second passes.

“Jazz?” Carrie offers, uncertainly.

“...Sure.” Millie is still examining the walls from a distance, and an expression of dawning realization is beginning to spread across her features. “I know where we are.”

Carrie’s eyes widen. “Wait. You do?”

“Well,” Millie hastily amends, “I don’t actually know where we are.”

“...Then why did you say you did?”

Millie’s frowning now. “Because I’m pretty sure we’re in a TARDIS, even though I don’t know where it’s parked. So I’m kind of at a weird midway state of both knowing and not knowing.”

“A TARDIS?” Carrie demands, eyes still wide. “I mean, that makes sense, but... how do you even know that?”

“I’ve been living alone in one for the last few months,” Millie says, which... is fair enough, actually. “I know what a TARDIS feels like. I can sort of...” She wiggles her fingers, uncertain. “...feel her brushing up against my mind. And there’s something almost familiar about this place, actually. It’s almost like...”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Maybe.” Millie shakes her head. “I don’t know. I – can’t you feel it?”

Carrie tries to Feel It. She wiggles her fingers and catalogues the vibes of the air around her, but all she comes up with is that same unsettling weightiness that she’s been getting all this time. “Uh, nope. I think it’s just you, whatever it is.”

Millie falls silent for a long moment, her face going unreadable, and then she says, abruptly, “This is all well and good, but it still doesn’t help us much with getting out of here, does it?”

Carrie shrugs. “We could try the other door?”

“I was about to say ‘won’t it just open back to this corridor again’ but I suppose if we’re in a TARDIS, we can’t take anything for granted. So, sure! Why not?”

They shut the door they’d been looking through, and cross over, past the Doctor’s TARDIS, to the other side of the corridor. Together, they heave the other double-doors open, and see... the same corridor. But minus the TARDIS, now – and this time, there’s no weird loop effect. It’s not just the absence of the TARDIS, though. Carrie squints, trying to figure out what the difference is, and after a second, it clicks – the decay and rot is much more pronounced in this version of the corridor, like it’s been growing for a while now.

“Progress?” says Millie.

“Progress!” agrees Carrie, and steps through.

She doesn’t immediately die, which she counts as a success.

There’s nothing really of note in this corridor apart from the growing amount of creeping alien mould on the ways, but there are another one of those big double-door sets right at the other side of the hallway, and Carrie figures that this is one of those onwards-and-upwards sort of things. She doesn’t really know where she’s going, but if this TARDIS is anything like the Doctor’s, if they just keep walking long enough they’ll end up getting to the place they need to go to.

She and Millie cross to the end of this new corridor, push open the doors again, and it’s another corridor, similar in design. There’s some subtle differences – the cracks on the walls and the pattern of the rot, so Carrie’s pretty sure it’s a new zone. Still, it’s a little bit disheartening. Also, some of the mould seems to be... bubbling? Swelling and pulsing, like it’s alive, which is... hm. It’s... hm. Yes. She’d definitely classify that as ‘concerning’.

“So,” says Carrie, taking a tentative step forwards and continuing to not be dead (further success! Her track record so far is really great, actually!) – “if this is a TARDIS. Why don’t we just... talk to it?

“Talk to...?” Millie frowns, and then her eyebrows go way up as she Realizes. “Oh!”

“Right?” says Carrie. “Like, you know how the Doctor talks to her TARDIS, like, all the time? I saw you doing that earlier, so I’m pretty sure you already know. I think we should just, y’know, ask it where Roman is. Direct route in,”

Millie is now looking thoughtful, drumming her fingers on the handle of her wrench as they continue on. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Although, there’s...” She glances around, and then lowers her voice, leaning in close to Carrie so their heads are nearly bumping. “I think there’s something wrong with this TARDIS. She feels – I don’t know. Abandoned. Sick.”

“I got you, I got you,” Carrie agrees, bobbing her head rapidly. She keeps her voice hushed too, matching Millie’s. “The fungus on the walls? Either a really weird decor choice or there’s something seriously bad going on here.”

“I will give it a try, though.” Thoughtfulness has now given way to determination and a slightly mad gleam in her eyes that Carrie swears she’s only seen from the Doctor. “If she really is abandoned, she might appreciate the company.”

“Right! I mean, you’re the TARDIS Whisperer, so... whatever you think is going to work. Do the thing.”

Millie looks a bit startled at that, like – what? I’m the TARDIS Whisperer? – even though it’s so obvious that’s what she is. The only person Carrie’s ever seen chatting to the TARDIS more is the Doctor, and the Doctor is probably a weird outlier there, because the Doctor is a weird outlier for most things. Nonetheless, she squares her shoulders, looking all-business, and strides over to the nearest wall, finding a clear spot to splay her fingers out, pressing into it.

She pauses for a second, apparently gathering her thoughts, makes a face to herself like, what am I even doing, and then says, with obviously forced joviality, “Hello, er... hello, Madam TARDIS! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and we’re very sorry for not introducing ourselves sooner. If it’s not too much trouble, would you be willing to lend us a moment of your... time...?”

For a second, Carrie is pretty sure that there isn’t going to be a response. She’s already preparing herself to pat Millie on the back in a conciliatory sort of way and offer snacks – but then there’s a rumbling and a growling from deep beneath their feet, all around them. It’s scary at first, but then it seems to refine, resolve into a single low note. Carrie’s not fluent in TARDIS-noises, but it almost sounds like a greeting.

Millie certainly seems to think so, because she says, “Forgive me for saying so, but you seem... unwell. Is there anything at all that we can do to-?”

The sound that emerges from all around them this time is a very clear disagreement, and even Carrie can recognize that. It’s angry and it’s tired and it’s very very negative. No. No, there isn’t anything they can do to help.

“...Then, I’m very sorry.” Millie’s forehead falls against the side of the wall, and for a moment her eyes shut and the rumbling and roiling of the TARDIS seems to fall silent. “I’m... very sorry. I wish there was...”

Millie really is the TARDIS Whisperer. Like, Carrie feels bad for this TARDIS and whatever’s happened to it, because it doesn’t seem great! But Millie is, like, full-on psychic-empathing the fuck out of this situation.

After a second, Millie raises her head, and clears her throat, and says, “We’re looking for a Time Lord by the name of Roman. I am... nearly certain that’s short for something else – ” She glances back to Carrie for support.

Carrie nods. Enthusiastic agreement. “It’s definitely short for something else, but I can’t remember what it is. Roman – door... something? It sounded really fancy when he introduced himself – anyway! That probably doesn’t matter.”

As she’s speaking, the ground underneath their feet shakes, sharp and violent, and deep within the walls, there’s a dreadful cracking sound. The TARDIS sounds... angry? Angry is definitely the vibe that Carrie’s getting here. Oh no.

“All we want to do is find him!” Millie says hastily. She steps back from the wall, raising her hands in a kind of I’m-not-here-to-hurt-you way. “We just need to talk with him, and then we’ll get out, and leave you alone if that’s what you want. We don’t want to hurt him, we just – ”

The interior dimensions of the corridor they’re standing in twist around them, angles curling up into themselves. There is a distant roar of fury – not human at all, just gears and machinery.

“I don’t understand!” Millie exclaims, backing up towards Carrie now. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand! You’re his TARDIS, aren’t you? We’re here to help, we’re his – his friends – ”

The dimensions snap back into place with an echoing crack, like a branch finally snapping under the weight of stress. There is a moment where the dim lighting above them crackles and fizzles. Carrie’s grip on the baseball bat tightens, just as the lights go out entirely, leaving them in pitch-blackness.

Carrie lets out a squeak of surprise, and takes an instinctive step towards Millie – and judging by the way they collide, Millie had been doing the same. They’re so in-sync already! Carrie is in-sync with Amelia Earhart! Definitely not how she’d expected this day to go, but she is vibing with it. She’s not vibing so much with the absolute pitch-blackness, though. She does want that to stop.

“I’m sorry!” Millie calls, again, voice echoing out. “I’m very sorry if I’ve annoyed you! All we want to do is find Roman – ”

The lights snap back on, and the screaming and roaring cuts out abruptly, and Carrie blinks away the spots from her vision as she processes the fact that... they are standing in the exact same corridor. Again.

Except this time it’s, uh.

Different. Just a little bit different. Just a tiny bit.

The walls still are sticky and grimy with the slow creepy of rot and decay, but they’re also covered with something else. Specifically, they’re covered, floor-to-ceiling, with sharp black words scrawled frantically across uneven wall panels.

“‘Where are you?’” Millie reads aloud, turning on her heel to take in all of it. Because it’s... literally just that. WHERE ARE YOU. The same three words, over and over – increasingly frenetic, increasingly violent, until it’s borderline unreadable at the wall closest to where they are.

“Well,” says Carrie, and then, “um, yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen about six hundred slasher flicks with this exact scene in them. This is bad. This is how stupid people die in horror movies. We need to get out of here.”

“...At least it’s not written in blood,” Millie points out, tracing a finger over the nearest iteration of the sentence.

“It could be written in blood, though! You don’t know what color alien blood is!”

Millie doesn’t reply to the extremely good and pertinent point Carrie has just made. Instead, she presses her hands to the wall again, and says, “Are you trying to tell us something, Madame TARDIS? Because I’m not sure if I understand.”

The TARDIS doesn’t audibly respond, but that ever-present smell of rot all around the abruptly intensifies, and Carrie gags a little. She squeezes her eyes shut against a sudden swirl of dizziness as the world seems to swirl around her, blurring with motion.

She hears Millie mutter, “We’re just trying to help.” and then that sense of movement stops, and Carrie cautiously cracks open her eyes again.

They’re still in the same hallway, long white walls covered floor-to-ceiling with rampantly wild scrawlings – but it’s no longer just the two of them there. There’s someone else. A man, tall and gaunt-looking, half-slumped against the far wall – forehead resting lightly against it, shoulders slumped in defeat. He’s got a permanent marker clutched in one hand and a faded pink coat that looks like it’s definitely seen better days.

“Roman?” exclaims Millie, startled.

“Roman!” Carrie gasps, delighted.

Roman does not respond. Roman doesn’t even seem to have heard them, which is fantastically unlikely seeing as they’re in such a small corridor. His fingers have been slowly tightening around the marker to the point of being white, and abruptly there is a crack as the flimsy plastic case snaps.

He flinches, lets out an incoherent mutter, and then slams his head sharply against the wall. The wall doesn’t break, but the sound the collision makes is sickening. Carrie flinches, in that way you tend to flinch when someone slams their head against something. She wants to look away, but she can’t force herself to. A second passes, and then he does it again, and again, and all the while he’s saying something to himself in a language that Carrie doesn’t know, sounding more and more frantic.

Cold dread is creeping up her spine. This isn’t right. She doesn’t know much about Roman outside of the less-than-an-hour she’d spent wandering an alien festival with him, and the brief snippets of trivia Travis and the Doctor drop occasionally when they’re not too sad about whatever-happened-to-him, but this... doesn’t feel right. He can’t have been the one to write all this horror-movie-fuel on the walls, can he? Isn’t he supposed to be a cheerfully ridiculous force of nature? Is there even enough ink in a single permanent marker to cover an entire corridor’s worth of walls?

She’s frozen in place, unable to force herself to move or do anything remotely productive, and Millie is the one who takes a step forwards. Her eyes are bright with worry. Her hand is extended, outstretched, as if about to gently take hold of his shoulder, but before she can, Roman rears back from the wall, spinning around sharply.

His glasses are broken – fine spiderweb cracks spreading from the corner of one lens. His face is haggard, wild; his eyes are darting all over the place. Paranoid, skittish. He looks left then right and back again, pressing a shaking hand to the wall, and then he looks dead centre down the corridor, right past Millie, right through her.

“Um,” says Carrie, trying to force past the sudden jolt of nervous fear that’s coursing through her, “Uh, hey there, Roman, buddy! Good to see you! Look, it definitely looks like you’re... going through some sort of thing here – if it’s a bad time, we can come back later-?”

For a moment, she swears he’s looking right at her. That he can actually see her. But then his face tightens in something like agonized fury, and he takes off like a storm, racing right at them, picking up pace as he dashes towards them with no hint of slowing down.

Carrie tries to throw herself out of the way a split-second too late, but it doesn’t matter – he passes through them like a ghost, a transparent image flickering right past them, and as she spins around to watch him continue on, he’s already gone.

“What the fuck,” she breathes.

Millie has also turned to stare in the direction that the Roman-ghost had fled in. “That... was...”

“That was freaky. That was – that was Roman, right? A good Roman? Not, like, his identical evil alternate-universe twin?”

“I... maybe?” Millie still sounds unsure. She’s frowning. It’s her I’m thinking hard look, which Carrie is beginning to recognize on sight – her brow gets all furrowed and she starts rubbing a thumb along the edge of her oversized wrench. “I think... I think Time might be broken in this TARDIS.”

“You think so?” Carrie casts a glance around the walls again. Somehow, the repeated refrain of where are you on every exposed surface is managing to unsettle her even more now that she’s pretty sure Roman’s the one who wrote it. He’d always struck her as a pretty sensible sort of guy. But sensible guys don’t go crazy and start scrawling madness mantras up and down the corridors of their slowly rotting spaceship, do they? “How do you break Time? Do you drop it, like, really hard?”

Millie shakes her head. “I don’t know, but – really, you can’t feel it? It’s almost like something’s slipped out of joint. A sort of...” She trails off, and then nods down the corridor that the ghost had disappeared into. “I’m not sure. I’m not an expert. But I think that Roman is here, and whatever that was we just saw was – something from the past.”

“How far in the past?”

Millie bites her lip, and shrugs a little helplessly. “I wish I knew.”

Something occurs to Carrie. “Do you think... do you think the TARDIS was trying to show us that? I mean, you did ask where Roman was...”

Millie glances up at the ceiling, as if waiting for a response from the ship around them, but there isn’t anything. No rumbling, no humming, no disorienting shift in their surroundings. “If she was trying to tell us something, I... don’t get it.”

“Yeah, neither do I.” Carrie looks around again, frowning. The scribbled words had been the first thing in this room to catch her attention, but now she’s looking past them, she can see that there’s... something else wrong with the walls. It’s the rot. It’s bubbling and pulsing, and even as she watches, she sees that something is... growing out of the wall. Slowly at first, but then it pushes itself out of the rot with a gruesome little pop and now it’s floating in place, flickering and whirring to itself like a malevolent bubble of rot – slowly swivelling to face them.

It’s that thing that they’d seen before, on the monitors. It’s all gross green-and-orange, bulbous and floating, about the size of a beach ball but so much more menacing. As Carrie takes a reflexive step back, she sees another one sprout and form from the wall. These blob-things are currently hovering between them and the door that Crazy Ghost-Roman had been running towards.

She raises her baseball bat, but the blob-things don’t appear to be especially cowed by the threat.

Millie’s been fumbling in her pockets with a free hand for a few seconds now, and produces what looks like a compact mirror. Carrie has a moment to think, what? before Millie rears back and throws it as hard as she can, directly at the hovering blobs, and then she thinks, oh, and shortly after that oh no, as the compact mirror is absorbed. Messily. It’s half-dissolving as it goes, rusting and shrivelling into pieces until it’s completely gone, not even a trace of it left.

“Oh, god, okay,” she says aloud, taking a step back, “all right! That’s not good!”

Millie raises her wrench, mirroring Carrie. “It really isn’t. We need to find a way around them.”

Carrie’s hardly the universe’s leading tactician. Usually she just gets the Doctor to point her in the right direction, and sets about swinging. But... “Shouldn’t we be trying to go the other way?”

“Maybe, but – whatever they are, they really don’t want us to go that door, do they?”

“Are you saying – you want us to try to get past them?!”

“They’re clearly hostile products of a very sick TARDIS,” says Millie, sounding perfectly reasonable despite the slowly growing threat in front of them, “and if she’s trying to keep us away from a certain direction...”

“...That’s actually a great idea! I just don’t know if it’s the sort of idea that we’re going to survive!” Carrie looks ahead, scans over the assembled floating blob-creatures that are beginning to form into a sort of impromptu blob-army. They’re moving towards Millie and her. Slowly, but gaining speed. “What happens if they touch us, do you think...?”

“I don’t think we want to find out.”

“Fair. Fair! Okay! What happens if we just hit them really, really hard?”

Millie hefts a wrench, a grin slashing across her face. “I don’t think they want to find out.”

Carrie feels a matching grin rising to her own lips. “Let’s do this.”

It’s at about this point that the blob-creatures get close enough to be within attack range, which honestly is their first mistake. Because Carrie has a baseball bat and she’s not afraid to use it, and she also has a friend named Amelia Earhart who is definitely not afraid to use that huge hefty wrench of hers. They strike out in unison. Carrie had not consulted Mille on this beforehand, but apparently it’s an unspoken agreement that they should yell top-of-the-lungs war cries while attacking, because that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Carrie goes left, Millie goes right. Carrie takes a swing right through the middle of the biggest of the blob-things, and it’s like swinging her bat through partially-congealed glue – it gives, but it’s sticky and gross, and then when she finally gets it all the way through, it... splits. Right in half. The bits explode outwards, vibrating, but it’s not, like, dead-dead – and when she looks over to see how Millie’s going, the state of things is pretty much the same for her. Messy, explode-y; between the two of them they’ve taken the majority of them out, but it’s only a temporary reprieve.

So now the blob-things are reforming, but now there’s a more-or-less clear route to the door. Millie shoves at Carrie’s back, yells, “Go go go –” and they’re running, reaching the door and slamming it open just as it starts to dissolve at the edges like the rest of the ship is trying to eat it up.

And then they’re inside some sort of library, except it’s nothing like a normal library or even the library in the Doctor’s TARDIS, because there’s jars on the shelves where the books should be, and books on the floor where the carpet should be, and it looks like a warzone in here, scattered components and artefacts and what look like alien body parts, littered absolutely everywhere they look. The walls are starting to warp and shudder. The rot, present here too, is starting to bubble, and more of those awful blobs are starting to peel themselves out of the walls, even as Carrie and Millie pause for a second to catch their breath.

From several shelves over, they hear a hoarse voice say, “ – you’re blowing this out of proportion and you know it. Is this really the hill you’re prepared to die on?”

It’s Roman. Carrie looks around wildly at the blobs beginning to assemble around them, looks down the rows of books to another set of double-doors that probably lead deeper into the TARDIS. They’re not where Roman’s voice is coming from, though. She draws in a panicked breath, flails her arms indecisively – and then grabs Millie’s arm, dragging her in Roman’s direction. (Look, Millie’s been grabbing her arm and vice versa all this time, it feels like the sort of thing their friendship’s going to be fundamentally founded on at this point. It’s all good! This is how all the best friendships start!)

There are horrible bubbling noises coming from the ends of the aisles, and the ceiling is rumbling in what sounds like angry warning. Carrie ignores it for the moment as she and Millie skid around the edge of a row to where she’s sure she’d heard Roman’s voice coming from. But he just isn’t there.

“Wasn’t he-?” Carrie starts, but is cut off halfway through by... Roman, again. From a different direction, this time.

“Kill yourself, then!” she hears him snarl, his voice echoing over the shelves from the exact opposite side of the room. “See if I care! I’m just as unhappy with this situation as you are, believe me!” 

“Roman!” Millie yells at the top of her lungs. “Are you actually here, or is this just – a – another echo?”

“Dude! Not cool!” Carrie yells, also at the top of her lungs. “Telling someone to kill themselves is never the way to deal with arguments, no matter how angry you are!”

And now he sounds like he’s right behind them when he speaks, and the tone of his voice has changed – flatter, angrier, lower as he snaps out, “And the Doctor can die too, for all I care. It’s all gone to hell, anyway. Where is she?”

For a moment, neither of them move – even as the ceiling begins to flake, raining the dust and grime of centuries down at them, even as the killer blob-things begin to flit down in their direction.

“That,” says Millie, still unmoving, “That was – ”

“Aren’t...” Carrie bites her lip. “...aren’t he and the Doctor friends?”

Millie shakes herself, and seems to force herself back into motion. “No time to think about that. He’s not in here, it’s just the TARDIS echoing him at us, or – or something.” Her hand shoots out, entangling with Carrie’s, and she squeezes, before tugging her onwards. “Come on. Run.”

“Don’t have to tell me that twice!” Carrie agrees, and they do.

They charge down the aisle, past books with covers that flicker and rearrange, past half-shattered tubes of writhing coiling gas, past things that look a bit like iPads but mainly just looks really weird and really alien – and as they come face-to-face with a veritable crowd of those hovering beach-ball things, Carrie screams at the top of her lungs and brings her baseball bat swinging down, scattering them left right and centre.

Once again, she and Millie lunge for the door – they’re getting really good at that – and slam it behind them. Not that it makes much of a difference, because the blobs are already beginning to eat through, and they’re already running. They’re in a hallway. A long, stretching hallway that’s just, pure black interspaced by doors. So many doors, nothing to distinguish them or let them know which one they should be going through. The corridors are twisting up behind them, the TARDIS crumpling up the inner dimensions of this place about as quickly as they’re running through it, and the blobs are gaining on them. Carrie kind of wants to stop and try to take another swing at them to buy them some time – but she also has the feeling that if they stop even for a second, the walls are going to catch up and crush them like bugs.

“This sucks!” she realizes at the top of her lungs.

“This sucks a lot!” Millie agrees, also at the top of her lungs.

There’s a door coming up on their left that has some kind of light shining out from beneath it. It’s dim and watery, but something about it is strangely welcoming. It’s the first welcoming thing Carrie’s seen since they’ve arrived here. “There?” she gasps, gesturing wildly towards it with her baseball bat.

“There!” Millie agrees with a sharp nod, and Carrie gathers up all of her strength and throws herself at it with a last frenetic burst of energy, going at it shoulder-first and bodychecking it open as hard as she can.

It gives, so much easier than she’d expected it to. She goes tumbling through, Millie right behind her, skidding and overbalancing and sliding down a short flight of stairs in a tangle of limbs to land flat on her back on a metal-grate floor in the middle of a large room that looks a lot like a derelict, metallic-future-tech version of the Doctor’s console room. It’s all tarnished and dark, with emergency lighting on all over the place. Carrie stares up at the dimly-lit vault ceiling with rust and rot flaking off the metal struts above, and then slowly looks sideways to see that... there’s someone else in here. To the side of the darkened console is an armchair – and sitting in the armchair is exactly the person they’ve been looking for this entire time.

He’s not quite as run-down and wild-eyed as he had been in the writing-covered corridor, but he does look older, just a bit. Crow’s feet around his eyes, hints of grey poking through at the roots of his hair. He seems to have repaired his glasses at some point. His coat shows visible signs of a crude patch job done on the seams. He has a book in his hands and an expression of bewildered disbelief on his face, and he seems frozen in place as he stares at her for a long, long moment, and she stares back.

Roman inhales shakily, licks his lips. He says, “...Carrie?”

Carrie beams sideways at him. He doesn’t look like he’s about to commit unspeakable acts of violence onto her person in a fit of paranoia-induced madness, so she’s stupid happy to see him. It’s also kind of fun to see him so taken aback like this. She loves confusing people. It keeps everyone around her on their toes! And she’s always kind of wanted to confuse the hell out of Roman.

“Heyyyy, Roman!” she says. “Hey, man! Good to see you again – um, what’s that thing you always say? – oh, right!” She raises a hand, approximating his usual finger-wiggle of greeting. “How’re things?”

Chapter Text

*

The floor that Travis is currently lying on as he pants and gasps for breath is cold marble. It’s swirls of grey spiralling outwards in seemingly random patterns, lovingly polished to a shine, and there is the distant sound of running water; a coolness to the air that reminds him a lot of the caves that he’d been trekking through before all of this started. He’s nearly certain that this is the Doctor’s TARDIS – because who else has a police box time machine and would be willing to answer a distress call emanating from Gallifrey itself? – but it’s definitely isn’t the TARDIS he’d expected.

Travis stares at the shoes that are directly in front of him, and he must still be a bit dazed, a little heady-with-adrenaline, because the first thing he thinks is, those aren’t the Doctor’s shoes.

Slowly, he looks up. He sees a skirt that is far longer and far more monochrome than the Doctor’s usual knee-length colorful skater-skirt, neat dress shoes, and a fancy black ruffled shirt that’s far too elaborate to be anything the Doctor would wear on a daily basis. Her skin is dark, her long hair is pulled back into a severely tidy bun, and she has one hand on the console controls as she eyes him with a combination of suspicion and bewilderment.

She says, “You aren’t Gunther.”

“I...” Travis blinks. “...do I really look that much like a cat?”

“What?” she says.

“What?” Travis says.

“What?”

She looks nothing like the Doctor and this looks almost nothing like the console room, but Travis knows how flexible both of those things can be. And there’s something about her eyes...

“Doctor?” he says.

“Well, yes,” she says impatiently. “Obviously. Which means you recognize me, but I haven’t the faintest clue who you are, which means...” She shakes her head, the ghost of a scowl springing across her lips. “I’m very busy right now. Very busy. I don’t have time for this, I have a friend to find. I don’t...” She looks as if she’s going to dart back to the console and start rearranging coordinates, but then she looks at him closer, and her face twists in agonized indecision. “...Ahh, no – no, but you sent a distress signal to me from Gallifrey, and future-Gallifrey, no less. And you’re clearly human. I can’t just leave you. All right. We need to make this quick. Who are you, and what sort of help do you need?”

Travis thinks he might have whiplash from the rapid 180-degree turnaround of that little monologue. "...You already did what I needed, actually? The help was mainly to do with getting off Gallifrey.”

“Aah.” She narrows her eyes at him; considering. “That bad?”

“Pretty bad,” Travis agrees, and starts to push himself to his feet. “The President, he was –"

She cuts over him abruptly, startling him into falling back to the marble floor. “Spoilers.”

Although she does seem reluctantly intrigued.

For a second, he’d forgotten about the whole time travel thing. Which doesn’t happen that often, with the sort of life he leads. “Right. Uh, I’m Travis. I... I guess, I travel with you? But not you-you, it’s – it’s kind of complicated.”

She seems to look at him sharper upon him telling her that, her gaze becoming abruptly searching. She’d been distracted before, probably by her having to find her friend, whoever that is – but now she’s properly, actually focused on him. It’s a little gratifying, and a little disconcerting. “I know how regeneration and time travel works. It can’t be all that complicated, I’m sure.”

“I know, I know you do – it’s weirder than that, is what I mean.” He waves a vague hand around the room as he rises to his feet, properly this time. “There’s a whole... alternate universe thing going on. I’m not from around here.”

“Parallel universes? You could have said so earlier. I know all about parallel universes too.” Another moment of disconcerting scrutiny, and then: “Hm. All right.” She spins around the console in three precise steady steps, whirling like a dancer to snatch something out from a cradle. Three steps back, and she’s in front of him, presenting it in his direction. “Hold this.”

He nearly takes it, and then hesitates, torn. It’s the Doctor, and he trusts the Doctor, no matter what universe they’re in or what she looks like or what she sounds like. He’d know her anywhere. But up until about ten minutes ago, he would have said the same thing about Roman. “What is it?”

“Lie detector.”

He’s a bit offended at the thought. “Hey. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

She smiles. It’s nothing like his Doctor’s beaming ridiculous infectious grins, it’s just a little half-twitch of the mouth, but it lights up her eyes all the same “Yes. But that’s what someone who’s lying would say to me.” She says it lightly enough, but there’s a definite edge to it. Normally I’m sure I’d trust you, but with the war and the universe in the current state it is, I don’t think I can be too careful.”

He can’t scan it as thoroughly as he’d like, with half his brain shut-down and undergoing internal repairs, but he can at least get the general vibes of the box she’s offering. It seems to be as-described, nothing more complicated than a brainwave reader. He nods, and takes the box. “Right. Fair enough, I guess.”

She leans back against the console. “So. Name?”

“Travis. Killian. Travis Killian. Why would I lie to you about my name?”

The box blinks and hums in his hands, which seems to be an affirmative indication. The Doctor – this other Doctor – just nods, apparently approvingly, and says, “I don’t know. People lie about all sorts of silly things. Now, how did you get here? – and keep it quick, if you can.”

Travis thinks about the best way to summarize the events of his day so far. “Uhh. Fell through a portal, lost the Doctor, lost my home universe, got in trouble, tried to find my version of the Doctor in this world but ended up finding you instead...?”

The device in his hands flashes again. Travis doesn’t know why he feels so relieved. He already knows he’s not lying.

“Intriguing,” the Doctor notes, “but narratively sparse. Just to check – you are not actively or passively trying to kill me, or otherwise wish me harm for any reason, in any way, shape or form?”

“Wh – no!” The device flashes again, confirming this. He finds himself gripping it harder than strictly necessary.

“Just checking. What were you doing on Gallifrey?”

This feels somehow more like an interrogation than his initial meeting with other-Roman had. “Being an idiot. Trusting the wrong person.”

“Story of my lives,” she says. “The President, you said?”

“You also said no spoilers.”

She nods, and it almost seems approving. “I did. That’s right. The War King, though?’

Now it’s Travis’s turn to narrow his eyes at her. “...How do you know that there’s a War King? A war, even? If that’s all happening in your future, then-?”

She turns away, lips folding into a displeased little frown. She moves very precisely, Travis notices. Every action deliberate and intentional.  He watches as she fiddles with the folds of her checker-patterned skirt, and eventually says, “The future war on Gallifrey has had – consequences. The sort that reverberate all throughout time and space.” She glances over at him. “Goodness only knows whether the War King or Rassilon have realized how much havoc they’re wreaking on the structure of the universe as a whole, or if they’re just too engaged in their petty turf war to notice that everything’s falling apart. Including my timeline, as it happens. I don’t know the specifics, just that it will happen. I know I shouldn’t know any more, but... my curiosity has always been a character flaw.” She shakes her head. “Nevermind all that. I don’t need to know more. I believe you; I believe you’re from my future. You are from my future, yes? Even if it’s just a parallel one?”

It’s surprisingly reassuring to have it all laid out like that. “I think so, if I’m getting this right. You’re a... previous regeneration of the Doctor?”

An elegant little shrug. “Linear time dictates that every version of me is a previous version of some other version of me. I don’t know my future. I don’t know what you want me to say. What me are you talking about?”

Travis pictures the Doctor in his head. “Curly hair, long scarf, Doc Martens, likes cats and coffee and old sci-fi movies-?’

She’s nodding along with him, and then she abruptly shakes her head. “I was with you until you got to the Doc Martens bit. I – no, I don’t think I’ve been them yet. Here, you don’t need that,” She adds, and takes the lie detector from him with a quick little sweep of her wrists. ‘All right. Future friend, alternate universe; rather a lot going on there but I really don’t have time to linger on it, so... What do you want me to do? I’m busy, as I said, and although I’m certainly not opposed to helping a friend – future, alternate, or parallel – in need, I’m somewhat at a loss to how you want me to deal with this.”

Travis swallows. “I don’t know. I just... I think I just want to go home.”

The walls of this TARDIS console room are a smooth, shiny stone; set with intermittent water features around the edges. It’s not very large in diameter. Travis lets his weight fall back against the nearest of the walls, and takes a deep breath.

He doesn’t like being alone like this. Well, he isn’t alone, the Doctor’s here – but she doesn’t know him and she’s so different like this. And Norman’s silent in the back of his head, quieter than he’s ever been, and Gunther is nowhere to be seen, and the Roman of this universe is a power-mad stranger who’d tried to use him to break open the Matrix for not-great reasons, and he has no idea where his Doctor and Carrie are, or if they’re even alive, and –

He lets his eyes fall shut, and breathes in the clean, slightly-humid air, the familiar static-hum of the TARDIS in motion. Not quite home, but getting closer.

“Travis?” says the Doctor, and for a second she almost sounds like the version he knows – but the voice is all wrong, and there’s a hint of hesitancy that his Doctor would probably never be caught dead exhibiting.

“Sorry. Long day.” He opens his eyes. “I think whatever R – mmh – uh, the President gave me hasn’t quite worn off yet.”

If the Doctor he knows were here, she’d give him a cheerful glib comment and friendly poke or swipe of her hand, probably whip out some kind of miracle headache cure out of the inside of her endless pockets or at the very least make a sympathetic scrunched-up face at him. This Doctor just looks at him like she doesn’t know quite what to say, and then slowly nods. “This must be difficult for you.”

“I’ve had worse,” he says, meaning it. “And... look, it’s probably not great for you either, is it? The... the timelines, and everything...” He trails off. “I know you were expecting your friend, and you ended up with me instead. That has to suck.”

“It’s... it’s fine. You... didn’t mean to do this.” She shakes her head, suddenly. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m under quite a lot of stress at the moment, and I suppose I started to take it out on you.” She tweaks a dial, and then moves away from the console as the TARDIS begins to make a noise that isn’t anything Travis recognizes as take-off or landing. She says, “Want to know a secret?”

Travis blinks, and then says, “Yeah?”

She leans in close, face perfectly solemn and schooled. She reminds him strikingly of his eighth-grade English teacher.

She says, “That’s not actually a lie detector. It’s just a box that I stuck some lights on.”

This gets a surprised laugh out of him. Surprised because he really hadn’t expected it, and this Doctor really hadn’t struck him as the type of person to pull that sort of gambit. But then again, appearances really can be deceiving.

She clasps her hands together suddenly; a loud, brisk clap. “Now, Travis, I’ve had a thought, and I think you may well consider it an apology. Let’s see about getting you home, shall we?”

He blinks. “What? I mean, that sounds amazing, but – what, sorry?”

“Not directly home,” she amends. “But – to someone who’ll be able to help. More so than I can.” There’s a definite echo of the Doctor he knows as she looks up at him, a smile springing to her lips. “We’re going to fling you forward along my timeline until you find a version of me who actually knows what they’re doing.”

He blinks again. “I – okay! Wait, you can do that?”

“Technically, no, but I’ve started to realize lately that the Laws of Time are the sort of rules that are meant to be broken. I don’t have the time or knowledge of to help you, so we need to get you to your version of the Doctor.”

“…All right!” He’s not entirely sure if this is going to work, but he’s game if she is. He pauses, and then brightens. Brightens abruptly. “Oh my god. This – this is Back To The Future. Doctor, I’m Back To The Future-ing you!”

Her nose wrinkles. She says, “What-?”

He can’t help it, he’s grinning. “You’re a Doctor with a time machine, and I’ve showed up at your house at a point in your timeline where you don’t know me yet, and you’re trying to help me get back to the future before...” He pauses, trailing off. “...Well, I’m not actually fading from existence, so I guess it kind of falls apart there. But I am trying to get back to the future – also, not my future, more like your future? – to, you know, get home. So it all kind of fits. Kind of.”

She stares at him for a long moment, in which he starts to feel a bit embarrassed for the sudden outburst. And then she says, “But you’re hopefully not about to have a questionable romantic subplot with your mother in the process.”

She knows the plot of Back to the Future! He knew there was a reason he loved the Doctor in every iteration. “Ew. No. Let’s not bring my mom into this.” He pauses. “Hey, can you say the line?”

“I only passingly remember the movie,” she says, somewhat sternly. “I’ve had a lot on my mind, and old Earth movies are hardly my most pressing concern.”

“I know. Right, right, I know, of course.” He pauses again. “But, can you say the line?”

“I... well. We do need to get you...” Her mouth twitches a bit, like she can’t believe she’s saying it. “...back to the future, I suppose. So – ”

“Yesss.” He hurriedly clears his throat. “Yes. Okay! Got that out of my system. So, Doc –“ She gives him a look, and he hastily amends it, although he’s unable to entirely keep the grin off his face. “– Doctor. How do we do this? What do I need to do?”

“Not much. Just hold this,” she says, plucking a long rod off of the console and swinging around to present it to him.

He takes it. His fingers tingle. “Is this another prop that you glued lights to?”

“All of my gadgets are props that I glued lights to, and this one is no exception,” she tells him. “But this is an interface for the TARDIS internal space-time realignment circuits. It should shift you forwards in the TARDIS’s personal timeline and let you off where you need to be.”

“You just made that name up,” he says.

“I did,” she agrees. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t work.” She fiddles with something, and then nods at him. “All right. Hold tight, and think happy thoughts.”

“All... right. Okay.” He sees her reaching for a switch, and hurriedly adds, “Thank you. Thank you for helping me, even though you don’t know me.”

“Any friend of mine is a friend of... mine?” She shrugs. “Ah, well. You know what I mean.”

“I hope you find your friend.”

“I hope I do too. See you soon, Travis.”

There is the strangest sensation, then, like he’s being filtered down a drainpipe, and then the world spins around him, the muted grey-blues of the waterfall-filed marble TARDIS blurring into long twisting ribbons as the familiarly incomprehensible babble of TARDIS-tech data rushes through his brain. And then everything goes strangely neon, bright lights flashing against his vision – even as his feet hit the ground and the motion abruptly ceases.

*

He stumbles backwards, arms pinwheeling a bit – but then a strong arm hooks around his back, arresting his fall. He tries to blink the colors from his vision, but they remain, and he realizes that the room he’s in is absolutely lit up with neon. Electric blue, vibrant green, shocking pink; everything in-between and beyond.

“Mr Killian!” exclaims the person holding him up, with evident delight. “Hello!”

Travis looks up to see yet another stranger beaming down at him – neatly coiffured blonde hair with a pair of sunglasses perched crookedly on top, faint bruises smudged up the side of a round, cheerful face. The clothing is distinctly more old-fashioned this time and the colourfully-patterned suspenders are definitely new, but the overall effect is just as outrageous as ever. Which can only mean –

He takes a breath, and says, “Doctor?”

“Allegedly!” comes the cheerful response, and before he can blink, he’s being levered properly upright as this new Doctor spins him around to grab him by the shoulders, still beaming. “And come to think of it I didn’t even bother to offer you a place to sit down last time, terribly rude of me but then again last-me’s manners weren’t the greatest, do you think you could wait for just a tick or two while I go grab you a chair, Mr Killian?”

“Uh, just Travis is fine?” Travis says, blinking. “And I guess – ”

“Excellent!” says the Doctor, not even waiting for a complete response, and darts off into a door set into the side of (what Travis is realizing to be) a very, very neo-futuristic TARDIS console room. The whole place is buzzing with actual proper neon, running along the walls and ceiling, up the central rotor and waving all over the controls themselves.

It’s giving him a headache. Like, it looks great, and the overall effect is stunning, but it’s a lot.

After only a few seconds, this version of the Doctor (who seems to be vying to match Carrie in terms of sheer deranged chaotic energy) skids back into the console room with one of those spinny wheely office chairs whizzing along in front of him. He pushes it forward, nudging it firmly at Travis’s legs until he fully realizes what’s being offered and sits down. “There, take a moment to breathe!”

Travis does, in fact, take a moment to breathe, because he definitely needs it. The Doctor, however, does not. Travis isn’t sure this Doctor actually knows how to breathe, at the rate that his sentences keep sliding and slipping into each other.

“Now, what is it we needed to do with you? It’s been a good few hundred years, so I’m not sure...” There is a brief, very brief moment where he trails off, and then he clicks his fingers, three times in quick succession, raising a finger to point at Travis. “Aha, yes! Getting you to a point in my timeline where I know what’s going on, that’s the ticket!”

Travis can’t help but ask. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“Never!” the Doctor proclaims, quite proudly.  

“...Never?” This Doctor, it seems, is even more different than the previous. Travis can’t imagine his Doctor ever freely admitting to not knowing something.

“Oh yes, never! – well, hardly ever.” His teeth shine as he grins, chuckling to himself at some private joke – then it fades as he continues. “Which is to say, no, my timeline hasn’t quite caught up on this dreadful war that’s looming in my future, so it does seem that we’ll need to poke you forward just a tick, or two, or maybe three.” He wiggles his fingers in front of him, and then spins around to the console. He starts dialling in coordinates like a mad switchboard operator, humming a madly jaunty tune as he goes.

Travis watches this for a second, and then scoots the office chair forwards so he can properly see what’s going on. “Hey, uh... is everything going okay for you?”

From the angle he’s at now, he can see that this Doctor’s jawline is speckled with fading bruises, and there’s a distinctly painful-looking scrape running down his forearm, out from beneath his rolled-up sleeves.

“Never better,” declares the Doctor, and then seems to become abruptly aware of his own physical state. He grins sheepishly, and then amends, “Oh, well, I may have gotten into a scrape or two, but what’s life without a few tumbles, hm, Mr Killian?” He reaches out to playfully push on the side of Travis’s chair, giving it a swift 360-degree spin. Travis yelps reflexively and grabs onto the console to steady himself, and the Doctor just laughs. “They’ll heal up soon enough, don’t you worry – Time Lord, you know. Hm, I may need to recalibrate...” He trails off, muttering under his breath. A series of bright points of light start to flash along the edge of the console in patterns that make no sense to Travis, but the Doctor seems to understand perfectly.

Travis’s brain is still kind of lightly fried from the whole Gallifrey power grid incident. He feels a little bit useless, but mainly just a lot bit exhausted, so he decides to just sit back and let the Doctor deal with all of the timeline time-travel nonsense. It’s weird to think that this colorful, electric man with the strange fluting rhythm to his words is the same person as his best friend – or will be the same person in the future, if he’s getting his tenses right. The sheer amount of bruising and scrapes is concerning, to say the least, but he doesn’t seem like he’s lying about being fine. If anything, he seems to be so cheerful about it that it’s failed to be a problem.

Travis says, “Did you find him? Your friend?”

The Doctor stops humming for a moment, blinks at him over his shoulder. “Hm?”

“Your friend,” Travis says, and tries to clarify: “That one you were looking for when you picked me up by accident.” He’s already sort of half-regretting asking, because he has no idea how long it’s been for this other-Doctor since he’d last seen him, and there’s probably a very low chance that this friend of the Doctors had survived this long, and also he doesn’t want to make the Doctor sad. “Gunther, right?”

The Doctor stares at him. Blank. Unrecognizing.

After a moment, he says, “Who?”

There’s a moment where it feels like strange vibrations are spreading all through him, the ripples from a stone dropped a long way away finally reaching him, passing through his body. It’s like those distortions he’d felt back in Roman’s office, but worse – and then the moment clears and he can’t remember what he’d been talking about. “What?”

“What’s what?” the Doctor echoes back at him.

“We were – there was something – ” Travis shakes his head. The neon lights must be messing with him, he thinks. It’s definitely the sort of thing a person would have to get used to. He’s pretty sure his Doctor would hate living in this console room. No wonder she switched things up. “ – nevermind. We were...?”

“Sending you back! To the future!” The Doctor says, punctuating it with a distinctly Doc Brown-esque finger-stab into the air. “No lightning bolts or clock towers necessary, my friend, we’re doing this here and now! Hold this!”

Travis takes the lightning rod-like device – the same one that the other Doctor had given him, wired up into the console. He stands up, pushing the chair backwards, and prepares himself mentally, for another jump. He has a feeling it’s not going to feel any more pleasant the second time. “Hey – Doctor?”

“Hmmm?” The Doctor stretches the syllable out like a slinky, makes it long and curious as he raises his head rapidly to meet Travis’s gaze.

“Just... take care of yourself, all right? You’re the only you we’ve got, so...”

“Not to be pedantic,  but there’s actually quite a lot of mes out there, and you should know that seeing as your whole current situation revolves around meeting them! Yes, I know,” he adds, waving a hand as Travis opens his mouth. “Oh, I’m doing my best, I’m not trying to stumble facefirst into fistfights for the sake of the universe, really I’m not, but...”

“Sometimes it just happens?” Travis offers, when he trails off.

“You get it!” the Doctor exclaims, and then, “But I’ll try. I will try, I will, I never can ignore a heartfelt request and you seem to care about this very much. Now,” he adds, and starts spinning a dial on the console, faster and faster until it’s a colorful indistinct blur. He turns to Travis, and winks. “When this baby hits eighty-eight miles an hour...”

Travis laughs, delighted. Before the Doctor can complete the quote, there’s that same strange down-a-drain sensation – and it’s at that exact moment that the neon chaos of the console room twists violently around him again, and he’s flung forwards through time once more.

*

When the world resolves itself, Travis finds himself in yet another completely different console room.

He slowly places the device back on the console, looking around. It’s still not the cosy-90s-coffeeshop design he’s come to expect from the TARDIS, but... he realizes, with a start, that it’s not unfamiliar. It’s a lot more put-together and cleaner than the last, brief, time he’d been in here, but he definitely recognizes this desktop theme. The wood panels, the boxes and display cases, the maps and posters and paintings hanging off every wall. It’s like the unhinged fusion of a travel office and a museum, and Travis half-expects a museum guide to pop out from behind a cabinet of curiosities at any moment, ready to guide him on a mad tour of the place – but there’s nobody to be seen.

“Uh, anybody home?” Travis says, raising his voice so it echoes through the room and down the corridors. There’s no response. Travis briefly checks in with his own brain, but he seems to be alone there too. He takes a shaky breath in, and then sets his jaw. This is all right. He’ll be fine. He just needs to find the Doctor.

There’s a long tangle of cables running from just under the console itself, along the wooden floorboards, and out to the exterior doors. Travis’s gaze travels across, following it, and he sees that they’re cracked open just enough to allow the cables to run outside, revealing a crack luxuriously green grass and a beautifully blue sky – just a bit too blue, which makes him suspect that this is an alien planet of some sort. There’s some sort of distant crackling and buzzing happening, too. His brain is too overloaded to work out exactly what it is, but he knows what it feels like when someone nearby’s playing with electricity. And someone nearby is definitely playing with electricity.

He goes over to the door, cautiously nudging it open, and peers out. The TARDIS seems to be parked in the middle of a beautifully grassy field, which in turn is in the middle of a wide, open expanse of hilly terrain. In the distance, where the grassy plains start to fade away and trail off into dirt, massive mountains rise up. He can tell it’s definitely an alien planet, because there’s two suns and two moons hanging in the sky above, and unless something is drastically different in this universe, Earth only tends to have one of each.  

And then there’s a massive crackle-flash of electricity, and Travis jumps as the sunny sky above him erupts with a flare of light, like someone slapping their palm violently against a plasma ball. He hears flapping and screeching from the other side of the TARDIS; bird calls and fluttering and then the sky erupts again with sudden impact and he realizes that the TARDIS and its immediate surrounding are currently enveloped in a massive spherical forcefield. He looks to the skies, and sees a flashing mass of colors whirling around in a tight ball overhead, too fast and far above him to properly make out the identity of. There’s definitely something going on here, and it seems pretty par-for-the-course as far as the Doctor’s concerned. Which means that there’s really only one thing for it.

He pushes the doors open fully, and moves out into the field, skirting around the edge of the TARDIS to follow the trail of the cables to their source. It doesn’t take very long – only a few metres away is a pile of boxy electronics that seem to be powering the spherical forcefield, with a short man kneeling in front of it all, gnarled cane lying just next to him on the ground as he mutters cheerfully to himself under his breath.

The man’s shiny-silver jacket catches Travis’s attention first, and he can’t help it – he breaks out into a massive grin, and then starts running. Finally, a Doctor he knows – not quite the one he’s looking for, but he barely cares. It is so good to see a friendly familiar face, it’s almost unbelievable. “Doctor! Hey, Doctor!”

The Doctor startles comically, and twists around halfway, eyes popping wide open. He’s almost unnervingly thin, with a wild mop of hair that’s sticking up as if he’s just been electrified. Dressed for adventuring, satchel slung over his shoulder – and honestly, Travis would recognize that leather jacket anywhere. It’s just that distinctive.

“Travis!” exclaims the Doctor, enthusiasm lighting up his face. He grabs his cane, levers himself to his feet with a hop and a limp, and comes trotting forward to greet him as Travis draws to a halt, panting and beaming widely. “Hi there! When did you pop up?”

“Only a minute ago.” Travis just can’t stop grinning. “Oh, man, it’s good to see you! Like, you-you, I mean – I’ve met this you before. The other you. The other version of this you. In the other universe, in my universe.”

“Oh!” he says, looking pleased. “Well, then, you know me better than I know you! That’s more common than you’d think, but not as unwelcome as you’d expect. It also makes for some intrigue and excitement, and I’ve been looking for more of that in my life, recently.”

Travis thinks that it’s pretty unlikely that any version of the Doctor has a deficit of intrigue and excitement in particular, but he doesn’t say that out loud. Instead, he gestures vaguely up at the dome, and then back down at the forcefield generator. “So, uh, what’s with the-?”

“Birds,” says the Doctor frankly.

“...Birds?”

“Yes, birds. Very big birds.” The Doctor points with his walking stick, sweeping it upwards towards the whirling ball of colors high above the dome – which, now that Travis is paying closer attention, does seem to be rather avian in composition. “Very big, very colorful, very intelligent; deeply determined to get into the TARDIS for migration purposes, but doing so would disrupt the ecosystem, so I can’t have that! Hence, the dome.”

“Huh,” says Travis, gazing up at the flock. “Cool.” He pauses. “Can’t you just... leave?”

“I could,” says the Doctor, “but that would mean leaving a very good friend of mine behind on this planet too, and I’m not really the sort of person to leave friends behind. Unless they’re walking too slow, but I always make a point to wait for them or double back in that case. I prefer to move forward, but sometimes it’s worth it to move back, for a friend!”

As Travis continues to watch the skies, the colorful flock seems to decide that now is the perfect time for another attack. They whirl and swarm, and then all streak directly at the TARDIS in a barely-visible streak of rainbow lightning. The sound, when they collide, is earth-shattering – lightning going everywhere, the birds spiralling off in all directions in a flurry of brightly-colored feathers. Travis reflexively lets out an alarmed hiss of air through his teeth as the dome crackles with energy once more, and then fades into almost complete translucence.

“That won’t hold for long,” the Doctor notes, far too calmly, and then follows it up with, “But never mind that; how are you? What are you doing here?”

Travis blinks. “You... don’t remember...?”

“I’m afraid I may have rearranged some things in my head,” he says, looking genuinely apologetic. “You were only a mild blip on my radar, I’m sad to say, so you may have gotten, well, absorbed. I did remember your name, though! Let me see if I can track that down in my head... Travis, Travis, Travis...”

“That’s... uh, that’s me, yeah – ”

“Oh,” says the Doctor brightly. “I remember now! Or rather, I don’t remember, but I do remember I wrote myself a note for this – hang on.” He flips open his satchel, and starts digging through, picking up and sliding back in various items – books, long coils of rope, what looks like a flare gun – and eventually comes up with a thick sheet of paper, folded over several times. He holds it up, straightens it out, and frowns at it, before clearing his throat, and reading aloud – “For Travis, whenever he shows up: War’s not on just yet, can sort of feel it brewing. Like tea. Tastes a bit like tea, but more disagreeable. It’s only a matter of time! Just like tea. Next line – tell him one more hop should do it, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. Next line – to do: rewatch Back To The Future, stop the war from happening in the first place, question mark?, stock up on band-aids – ” He pauses, squints. “...no, never mind, the second half of that’s just my to-do list. It’s not really relevant to this.” He lowers the note. “Do you like tea?”

“...Depends what type,” Travis says. “But not usually. I like iced tea, if that counts?”

The Doctor nods sadly. “Of course, you’re American. I’m very sorry about that.”

“Uh, I – ”

“That is not to say that Americans are inherently dreadful, just that your opinions on tea are.. hmm, lacking. It’s all right,” he adds, reaching out to pat Travis on the shoulder. “Your tea opinions don’t define you. You’re your own man.”

“...Thanks,” says Travis, unable to help the smile that creeps back onto his face. There’s something about this Doctor – all of them, really, but this one in particular – that makes it kind of impossible not to like him. Or maybe he’s just, like, naturally predisposed to liking every Doctor, ever?

It’s at this moment that the birds decide to attack once more, and the resulting flash-bang and colorful scattering of squawking avian wildlife is enough interrupt the conversation quite thoroughly. Travis looks over and sees that the device that’s projecting the forcefield is beginning to smoke alarmingly. Which is almost never a good sign when it comes to electronics and mechanics.

“Oh, yes, I forgot!” The Doctor gestures happily at the forcefield. “Travis, I regret to inform you that we have a Situation.”

“I... yeah!” Travis can’t deny the fact that a Situation is, in fact, exactly what’s happening right now. “Yeah, you sure do! Anything I can do to... help?” He pauses, a memory tickling at the back of his mind, and then adds, with a slight grin, “How can I best support you right now?”

“Oh!” The Doctor’s eyebrows go all the way up. It gives him the appearance of a somewhat startled bird. “Well, that is a nice way of putting it. I do like that. I shall have to remember that one. How can you support me right now – hm! Well, how good are you at negotiating with angry avian wildlife?”

Travis winces. “Uh, I got mauled by a seagull in New York City when I was twelve.”

“Not so great, then!” The Doctor claps him jovially on the back. “That’s fine. How are you with reinforcing forcefields, incidentally?”

Travis glances over the setup the Doctor’s rigged up. His brain is still far, far quieter than usual, not as much processing power and not as much information as he’d like, but it’s just a basic plasma-grid defence unit. He could probably reprogram it in his sleep. And if it’s just a matter of reinforcing it... “Pretty good, I think. Let’s see what I can do.”

“Splendid, right this way.” The Doctor twirls his cane like a stage magician, and then plants it firmly on the ground, before leading Travis right up to the pile of miscellaneous mechanics and electronics currently taking up a good chunk of the plasma grid’s perimeter. He kneels and slides into place at the base of it, tapping at a panel with several flashing red lights. “The TARDIS is trying her best, bless her, but it’s not the power supply that’s the issue, it’s the execution. I just need five, maybe ten minutes so my friend can get back from her little field trip across the planet. Ancient artefact to retrieve, you know.”

“Right, sure,” Travis says, eyeing up the control panel. On instinct, he goes digging through his pockets for his GameBoy Color. And then freezes, as his hands contact... nothing. Nothing at all, because – he remembers, abruptly – the Chancellery Guard had confiscated all of his possessions, including the GameBoy. And he’d been so caught up in the surprise of seeing Roman, and then everything else on top of that, that he’d... just never thought to try to get it back. His GameBoy, along with the sonic cartridge his version of Roman had made for him so long ago, is currently somewhere on a parallel Gallifrey in the midst of bloody revolution.

It’s probably not, like – a problem-problem. If all the War King needed to access the Matrix was a beefed-up piece of Earth technology, he’d have done it himself a lot sooner. But, god, it hurts to think he’s never going to see it again.

He swallows back the wave of agonized regret, waves off the concerned head-tilt-y look the Doctor’s giving him, and starts prying off the panel covering the generator’s insides. He can probably do this mechanically, just maybe not quite as quickly as he usually would. He can... ask the Doctor to find him another GameBoy, when he gets back home. Or something. “Right. What sort of tech are you working with here?”

The Doctor shrugs – which Travis takes to mean that he doesn’t actually know, he’s just been slamming and soldering random components from all number of different worlds together with wild, reckless abandon. Par for the course where the Doctor’s concerned. But he’s pretty familiar with most of the parts involved here, at this point, and if he just reroutes the power supply, boosts the gravometric generators, reconfigures the hard-light barrier...

“You’re very good at this!” remarks the Doctor, his eyes gleaming as he watches Travis work. “I should keep you on full-time!”

Travis is elbow-deep in the machine at this point, and most of his brain is focused on the task at hand, but he still finds a moment to grin, appreciating the praise. “Thanks! Honestly, I’d love to...” He trails off, and his smile dims a bit as he abruptly remembers why he’s even here in the first place. “...you know. If I could.”

The Doctor’s enthusiasm level noticeably drops a few notches as he seems to pick up on Travis’s train of thought. He sounds quite genuine when he says, “Yes. Yes, I understand. You need to get back to your Doctor, your friends.”

“Yeah.” Travis takes a deep breath, withdraws his hands, and then stares at the final bit of wiring, drawing out the connections in his head, mapping them out as best he can without digital assistance. He misses Norman fiercely – can still feel his humming, sleeping presence in the back of his mind; knows that if he was awake he’d be doing thing in less than a split second. He knows he’s still working fast by normal-people standard, but this still feels agonizingly slow. “I like you, a lot, but...”

“I like you too,” says the Doctor, with his usual astounding forthrightness. “I think that, if the circumstances were different, we could be very good friends.” He pauses, clarifies: “That is to say, I know we will be very good friends in the future, but I think we could be very good friends now. Time travel is so sad like that, sometimes.”

“It really is.” He swallows and, still working, says, “Hey, um... this is a bit of a strange request, but – when I’m done fixing this, could you...”

He trails off, and the Doctor must catch his hesitation, because he says, gently, “If there’s any way I can support you right now, I would like to do it. I may not know you very well, but I do know you’re my friend. “

Travis breathes out. “...I could really do with a hug about now.”

The Doctor smiles. “That I can do. But let’s finish fixing this first, yes?”

“Absolutely.” He looks up, measuring the distance between them and the far-off, still-circling birds. “For the next bit, you’ve got to turn the whole thing off so I don’t end up electrocuting myself. If we do it really fast, I think I can get it connected before the birds realize what we’re doing. I know it’s risky –”

“Risk is the doorstopper that exists to let in excitement!” declares the Doctor, with relish. “You clearly know what you’re talking about, Travis, so I say we do it. No time to waste, after all!”

There is nothing better than the knowledge that the Doctor trusts you. Travis nods, and gestures towards the machine, and the two of them hastily shift into position. “Right! Count of three! Three, two –”

“One!” the Doctor trills, and jabs his cane at the power button.

Abruptly, everything powers down – and the moment it’s out and off, Travis’s fingers are back in the wiring, flashing this way and that as he undoes and retwines connections at light-speed. He doesn’t have time to doubt himself, to overthink it or wonder if Norman would be advising him any differently. The moment he thinks it’s all in place, he yells, “Now!” – and then Doctor slams the power button again.

The forcefield whirs back into place again, just in time for the flock of huge birds to come screaming in with a vengeance. As they collide, the field crackles and sparks, and they’re repelled with a brilliant flash of green as the forcefield reactivates, even more powerful than before.

The Doctor lets out a triumphant hoot of joy, jabbing his cane towards the sky, before dropping it, letting it fall to rest against the side of the generator, and scrambling forward to hook Travis (who’s smiling to himself and pulling his hands out of the insides) into an enthusiastic embrace.

This Doctor is thin, bony, elbows sticking out at wild angles and legs contorted wildly on the ground, and Travis swears he can hear bones grinding as he moves, like he hasn’t been properly oiled. Nonetheless, he hugs like it’s all he was ever made for. Travis flails briefly, not having expected it so fast and fierce, and then rearranges himself to reciprocate.

“Are you feeling supported?” the Doctor asks, rather anxiously. “I don’t do this a lot, so I’m more than willing to accept feedback. I enjoy improving myself.”

"I’m –" He can't help it, he laughs. " - yeah! I’m feeling very supported. Thanks."

The Doctor delivers a brief affectionate peck to Travis’s forehead, and says, “The least I can do for someone who boosted my forcefield singlehandedly. Very well done, you!”

Travis laughs again. “Not singlehandedly! You did most of the work; I just helped.” He’s pretty sure that this small amount of kindness shouldn’t be making his chest ache quite this much, but it’s been a very long day, and so much has been happening so fast. He curls into the Doctor’s weird bony hug. He’s tired, so tired, but as much as he wants to just fall asleep on the Doctor right here and now (and he’s like 92.5% sure the Doctor wouldn’t mind) he knows he can’t. He can’t afford to stop, not yet.

“Travis, you’re shaking,” says the Doctor after a moment, with considerable concern.

“Am I?” He is. Adrenaline crash, probably. He hadn’t even realized. “I... guess I’m just a bit overwhelmed. And tired. And, a lot of things. I’ll be fine, I just need to find... you know, the right version of you. Future you.”

The Doctor withdraws from the hug swiftly, and starts frowning at him. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Um.” Travis hasn’t eaten in... how long has it been? Definitely since before they’d left the TARDIS in search of the prophecy pool, and the closest thing he’s had is a cup of drugged coffee. He doesn’t want to think about the drugged coffee. “It’s been... a bit.”

“That might be it, then. Or part of it, at least, and it’s a part I think I can help with.” The Doctor starts rooting around in his satchel as he stands up. “Hm, I do have granola bars...”

Of course he does. Travis remembers the granola bars. He remembers them being pretty good, as far as granola bars go. “That would be really great, actually.”

The Doctor nods, and promptly whips out two foil-wrapped granola bars from the unknowable depths of his patch-covered satchel, presenting them grandly to Travis. “Here you go. I daresay you deserve them, after all that.”

Travis accepts the snacks, smiling. “I deserve them, huh?”  

“Of course you do. You’re very clever, Travis. I like you a lot.” He taps his cane against the ground. “Now, let’s get you moving again. No time to waste, no time at all!”

Travis hastily unwraps the first granola bar, and shoves it into his mouth as the Doctor leads him back to his TARDIS, with its piled-high boxes of miscellaneous esoterica and maps, flags and posters plastered along every free wall – and almost immediately sets to work on the console, poking and prodding the lightning-rod device that Travis has been jumping around in time with, and humming wildly to himself as he goes.

“...You’ll be all right with the bird situation, though?” Travis says, wiping a stray crumb off his face, casting an anxious glance to the door, from which the muffled sound of ‘alien birds colliding with an electric force grid and getting very angry about it’ can still be heard. “Like – I can stick around and help out, if you need. It wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Oh, thank you, Travis!” says the Doctor, looking pleased at the very offer. But then he shakes his head. “But no – no, I think I’ll be just fine, we should get you moving forwards. It’s always good to keep moving forwards! Besides, Romana ought to be back any moment now.”

Travis freezes. “Romana?”

“Oh, you haven’t met her? That’s sad; I think you would get along well! Maybe you can wait around a bit and say hi to her when she shows up.” He prods a few buttons on the console with a flourish, one-two. “I picked her up a few hundred years ago, and we’ve been catching up ever since. She’s been helping me track down some of Rassilon’s old notes, his experiment logs. I’m starting to develop a plan for that, did you know? It’s a very clever one, if I do say so myself. You see, there’s this whole thing with the Matrix – ”

Travis opens his mouth to say something, but then abruptly remembers every lecture the Doctor has ever given about the laws of Time and maintaining causality. Oh no.

“I really ought to let her know what I’m thinking,” the Doctor continues. “It’s a good plan. I think she’s going to really like it.”

Pieces are beginning to fall together, and he doesn’t like the shape they’re forming.. He remembers the War King’s – Roman’s – fury at the very thought of the Doctor’s plan. Remembers how evasive he’d been about the Doctor’s whereabouts. Oh no. Oh god, oh no.

“Just – just send me forwards.”

“Travis?” The Doctor turns, and frowns at him. “Are you all right? You’ve gone all strange and pale. Well, you’re already pale. Paler than usual.”

“Fine,” he lies, forcing a smile. He doesn’t like lying to the Doctor. It makes him feel sick to his stomach and his legs feels shaky. “I... just... know you need to go back to your bird thing, and...” He’s so bad at lying. So, so bad. He hesitates. Remembers the Doctor’s to-do list. Stop the war from happening in the first place. Wouldn’t that be a paradox? Is he allowed to be responsible for a paradox like that? This is a parallel dimension, would it even matter that much? “Look – about Romana – ”

“Yes?”

It’s a snap decision. No time to second-guess himself. “You can’t trust her. I’m sorry. You can’t trust her.”

His mouth hangs open, almost comically. He looks hurt at the very thought of not being able to trust Romana. “I... well, that’s not very nice. Oh. here she is! I can introduce the two of you, and whatever it is, i’m sure you two can – ”

There are footsteps approaching, from outside. Travis doesn’t have time to think about what he’s doing. He stretches out a hand, and slams his fist down on the TARDIS’s  controls in the exact same way he’s seen the Doctor do twice now. In the doorway leading out of the TARDIS, he catches the briefest glimpse of an unfamiliar face, round and startled at the sight of him. He sees she’s wearing a hat, wide-brimmed and floppy, and hears her begin to say, “Who-?”

– and then he’s gone.

*

The trip is more violent this time, the colors and sounds and sights twisting this way and that in a furious cacophony. Travis holds on tight and hunches his shoulders and hopes very hard that he’s actually going to land somewhere – and just as he thinks that, he does – feet jolting hard as he collides roughly with the ground, falling forward against the console. He takes a split-second to regain his balance, and then he’s looking eagerly around the console room to see what it looks like.

His breath catches in his throat. His stomach swoops and sinks.

It may have been stupidly hopeful of him, but he’d been expecting his version of the TARDIS. The plush couches, the warm lighting, the ever-present humming and whirring of some coffee-related machine. But he’s in exactly the same console room he’d been in when he’d set off, cabinets and display cases and all. Only, it’s not the same console room, because it’s dark and it’s shadowy, emergency lighting only, the floorboards warped and bent, the maps and portraits on the walls torn and shredded all across the room like a hurricane’s hit the place. And, most tellingly, the Doctor is nowhere to be seen.

He slowly releases the lighting-rod device, letting it fall back against the dim console. He clears his throat, and once again calls out the Doctor’s name.

No response.

The console beeps softly at him, the sound muted and dull, and Travis reaches out instinctively in its direction, not quite sure how to respond. He knows the TARDIS is alive, of course he does, but he’s never really quite got how communicating with her is supposed to work. Not like the Doctor does. He’s tried doing his tech-brain communication, but he’s never got any response apart from what he thinks might be vague amusement. (At the very least, the TARDIS seems to like him well enough to drop book recommendations in his lap when he’s reading in the library, and keep him from getting lost on his way to the bathroom. Although she really does seem to delight at throwing him bodily around the console room while in flight like some kind of extremely squishy rag doll, so...)

He tries patting the console like he’s seen the Doctor do, and saying, “Hi? Any idea where they are, or...” He swallows. “Has something gone wrong?”

There is a long, long silence where the TARDIS just hums underneath his hand, slow and laborious. And then he hears a door creak open.

It’s a torturous, creaking sound, unoiled and painful. Travis turns to see torn, crumpled papers and scraps of maps blowing away from the entrance as the front door to the TARDIS opens fully, to reveal a shattered, fractured sky. It’s like someone’s taken a hammer to the void of space. Glimmering spiderwebbed cracks breaking apart the sky, stars scattered few and far-between. Something glowing, angry-red and pulsating, in the thin spaces between the cracks.

When he steps out, he finds that there is very little to stand on. There seems to be some kind of breathable atmosphere, or maybe that’s just the TARDIS helping, but the ground is patchy and rocky, and as he looks from side to side, he sees that only a short distance away it just... drops off. Into void.

There’s a thin strip of this land leading forwards, into the blackness, curving upwards slightly – a path leading to nowhere. It takes him a moment to focus, but when he does he can see a figure, only just-visible in the gloom and dark.

He starts running.

The first thing he sees properly is the silver coat, and he almost makes the obvious assumption – but then he gets closer, and he can see the back of her head properly, the wild mass of curly hair hanging limp and bedraggled down her back. She’s sitting on the very edge of the end of the dirt road, legs dangling off into nothingness – humming tunelessly, listlessly; as she throws rocks one-by-one, almost mechanically, into the nothingness.

It’s her. It’s actually, finally her. For a moment, he’s thrilled out of his mind, and then he takes in her half-bowed head, the clear exhaustion all through her frame. No space buns. No scarf. He gets even closer, and she stills, apparently hearing his footsteps.

With distinct bitterness, she says, “Come back to gloat, huh?”

Her voice is so familiar he could cry.

“Doctor,” he says. “Doctor, it’s me.”

There is a long, long silence. And then she lifts her head, and turns to look up at him.

She doesn’t smile, doesn’t straighten up, doesn’t seem at all happy to see him. She just nods slowly, taking in his appearance, and says, “Travis. I shouldn’t have sent you here. I’m sorry.”

His throat is dry. The Doctor should never look this weary, this defeated. He wants to ask her what happened to her, what happened to Roman. He wants to tell her how much he’s missed her, how scared he’s been, how much he hates getting separated from her and Carrie like this. Wants to ask what’s wrong with the console room, why she’s not wearing her scarf or coat, where Gunther is.

Instead, all he can manage is a strangled, “Where... where are we?”

“Hah. Yeah, welcome to Earth,” says the Doctor, and throws another rock. It sails off into the fractured night, and disappears. There is no sound to indicate that it lands. “Or what’s left of it, anyway.” She picks up another, and weighs it limply in one hand. “Surprise. We’re stuck here forever. Here, do you want a rock?”

Chapter Text

*

*

When Travis opens his eyes, the car is no longer moving and the Doctor isn’t in the driver’s seat. The keys are in the ignition, though, and the heat is on. Distantly, he can feel the thin warmth blowing at his face, tickling his skin.

For a second he thinks that maybe he’d imagined it, that the Doctor had never been there at all. It wouldn’t be the first time. He’d imagined it a lot in those first few months; almost tricked himself into thinking it was real once or twice, but those self-inflicted mind games had never lasted all that long. Reality always managed to press through and drag him back into the coldness eventually. This, though... he doesn’t think his imagination is nearly this good. He can feel the softness of the worn upholstery behind his back. The Doctor’s jacket is over his shoulders. He shifts, just a bit, and finds that her scarf is there too, bundled around his neck like a soft grey snake. It still smells like her. Coffee and cats and just a hint of engine grease. It makes his chest ache in a way he doesn’t know how to deal with.

He looks out through the windows and sees a shattered, broken city, and feels nothing. The buildings are crumbling, glass windows shattered, streets jammed curb-to-curb with unmoving cars and shredded, gleaming cybermen parts, and he just... can’t. He just can’t. He tries to reconcile what he’s seeing with what he can remember himself doing, and something in his head just blanks, refuses to go on. 

He can hear people talking outside, muffled through the car windows and he knows one of the voices, knows it so well, so he turns as best he can, trying to locate it. There. Just by the wall of an abandoned shop with all its windows smashed out, it’s her – divested of her coat, she stands with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, scuffing absently at the dirt with one dusty-dirty boot as she speaks to a man that Travis doesn’t recognize. It seems to be a serious sort of conversation, based on the way that they’re both frowning. The Doctor keeps gesturing up to the sky, and the man keeps turning this way and that, scanning the vicinity nervously. 

Travis reaches out clumsily, attempts to curl his finger around what he thinks might be the window controls. His arms are heavy, filled with metal, and his head aches, but he manages to apply pressure. The window retracts, rolling down, and a blast of cold, dusty air hits his face. He clears his throat, realizes there’s no way he’s going to be able to yell out to the Doctor like this. 

Travis rests his cheek on the edge of the now-open window, and takes a breath to steady himself. he’s already slept, but he’s still exhausted. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to stop being exhausted. It feels quite a lot like the exhaustion is permanent, that he’s going to go through the rest of whatever amount of life he has feeling like this. 

Very carefully not looking at his forearms, which are cold and strange and don’t feel properly attached to him, Travis leans over to the driver’s seat, braces an arm painfully against the steering wheel, and honks the horn. 

It’s loud; so loud he winces and recoils. The Doctor jumps like a startled cat, and then spins around to stare in his direction. Seeing her face is a little like getting punched In the stomach because even though he can remember in hazy bursts her tearing him out of the wires of cables, dragging him to the car, driving with him half-curled-up against her arm; there are the equally hazy memories of his hands around her throat, Carrie screaming, screaming, and then she hadn’t been screaming at all anymore –

They can’t both be true. His brain is fractured, sparking, overloading. He can’t trust himself. He’ll just have to trust her. He waves. For a second, she seems to be frozen in place, but then she raises a hand and waves back. She says something to the man, who nods, and promptly takes off in his direction. 

He realizes, as she approaches, that he has no idea what to expect. He doesn’t even know what she’s going to say. 

*

She tells Russell Turner, “Think about it. I’ll be back soon,” and then she’s running, because Travis is awake and she hadn’t even noticed, and she really shouldn’t have left him alone like this but what else could she do, she hadn’t thought he’d wake up for a while yet. At least she hadn’t been all that far away when it happened. At least there’s that.  

Travis looks – well, he doesn’t look better, but at least he’s sitting upright and at least he’s awake and alert enough to smile at her as she throws open the driver’s-seat door and clambers inside. It looks borderline ghastly, with all of the bruising and how terribly pale his skin is and the dark circles under his eyes, but it’s still a smile and everything else is just incidental.

“Hey,” he whispers. 

She wants to reach out and hug him again, but she’s not sure how well he’d take it and it’s bound to be painful and cramped anyway, trying to hug him across the middle of the seats. She settles for a, “Hey, yourself,” as cheery as she can manage, as she shuts the car door behind her, sealing them into a small pocket of relative quiet and peace. “How are you feeling?”

“Bit weird,” he says, and then hesitates, tongue darting out to lick his lips. “I... not great.”

“Yeah?” It’s pretty much what she’d expected, if a bit of an understatement. Travis has an amazing tendency to bounce back from pretty much anything you’d care to throw at him, but this is something else entirely. Asking him to easily bounce back from this would be like asking an aluminium can to bounce back from being crushed against a wall. 

“Yeah.” He shrugs, jerky and mechanical, and his fingers play along the edge of her jacket’s collar. “Missed you.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m back now.” He tries to unravel her scarf from his neck, pass it back. She smacks his hand gently, very gently; shakes her head. “Keep it. It’s fine. Anyway. Sorry about that, didn’t think you’d wake up. I just had to talk with – ” She indicates back in Russell Turner’s direction, not entirely sure if she should namecheck him or not. She decides against it. No use making things more confusing. “ – about, you know. Stuff. Working out what we’re going to do with the refugees.”

“Oh,” he breathes, and then seems to take in what she’s saying. “So... people survived.” He looks stunned, a bit awed.

The Doctor settles back in the driver’s seat. “Yeah. A few. Probably more that I haven’t met, but they’ve been doing all right for themselves.”

“People survived,” he repeats. “I thought I’d killed them all.” There’s a pause, where his gaze rakes across her; searching. “You survived. I thought...”

“I...” She hesitates, and it’s probably for a moment too long. “All right – no, yeah, we need to talk about this. Okay. Right.” The hesitation stretches longer now, long enough that Travis’s questioning gaze gains an edge of nervous. “You remember Colony 47, don’t you?”

It seems to take him a while to process this. His eyes shift languidly, from her face to the city outside the windows. “The Staycation Dome.”

“Right. That’s right. And we ended up getting yanked from there into a different universe, didn’t we?” She’s hoping that this universe is similar enough to hers for there to be some sort of parallel there, and is gratified when Travis nods, confirming this. “Different universe, different events; there was something that happened in the past that ended up making things go completely different, right? That’s multiverse theory. Well, sort of – well, it’s complicated, but we can get into that later.”

“O... okay? So – ”

“So,” says the Doctor. “So, as it turns out, Joan Hodgman wasn’t the only person to make a device capable of flinging people into other dimensions. We were... I was following a distress signal, and I slipped through the cracks. Ended up here.”

“Oh,” he says, and she can see that he understands. His face crumples, despair setting in, and he sags back. “So... you’re not...?” 

She nods, and doesn’t bother to fight back the curl of answering grief that springs up in her chest, mirroring his. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. She doesn’t want to be telling him this, doesn’t want to be sitting here watching his world shatter all over again, but at the same time, he needs to know. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But no. I’m not her. I’m pretty close, I think, but... I came from a different universe.” 

“So, I really did...” He stares at his arms, the half-upgraded Cybertech still gleaming dully in the hazy light from outside, and she sees his fingers twitch. “You, and Carrie... I...” 

The Doctor remembers the Cyberkeeper telling her, I’ve killed you before. Thinks about the way he’s been staring at her, all this time. Like he’s seeing a ghost. She’d already known that the other-her was long dead, but – no. Oh, no. “Travis – ”

He lets out a dull keening noise, like a wounded animal, and suddenly he’s shaking again, tremors running all through his body as he ducks his head down into his hands. 

The Doctor scrambles out of the car so fast she nearly trips over herself, swiftly circles to the other side, and climbs in next to him, squishing him up against her side, tugging him close. The Travis she knows is fond of physical touch, responds best to being close to people, and she can only hope that hasn’t changed here, because she doesn’t know what else to do. She shifts, wrapping herself around as much of him as she can in the crowded, cramped space. He’s too thin, too light. This world has been so cruel to him.

He curls into her, trembling and panting and shaking his head. He’s trying to talk, but the words are coming out choked and wavering, fractured sentences spilling over each other. “Why here? Why me? Why are you – why didn’t you-?”

“I know,” she breathes, stroking his hair, his back, anything to try and soothe him. “I know, I know, it’s not fair, I should have gotten here quicker. I didn’t expect any of this. As soon as I realized what had happened to you, I came as quickly as I could.”

“She died,” he gasps, and something in her chest breaks just a little bit at the pure, complete anguish in his voice. “She shouldn’t have – why – you aren’t supposed to die. You’re the Doctor!”

She doesn’t have a response to that, so she just holds him tighter and says, “I know. I know.” 

Eventually, his tremors die down, and he goes limp in her arms, exhausted. She can feel his heartbeat thudding rapidly, and she rubs his back gently. Oh, Travis. 

He’s no longer clinging to her like a lifeline. So carefully, cautiously, she untangles him from her, although she remains wedged next to him in the passenger seat. He goes willingly enough, letting his head fall back against the headrest. His face is tear-streaked, his shoulders slumped. 

“Travis,” she says, and takes his hand, and hopes very much that her voice is steadier than she suspects it is. “I’m going to do my best to help, okay? I’m going to try to fix this, for you, for everyone; fix it as much as I can.”

He nods. The amount of trust there is heartbreaking.

“I don’t know what happened here,” she tells him. “I’m only guessing, at the moment. And I’m very good at guessing, but I don’t have the full picture. And I know it hurts. I know, I’m sorry, but I need you to tell me what happened.”

She fully expects him to react badly to this. But he just shudders and closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” She squeezes his hands. She swears she can feel every one of his bones. “You don’t need to be sorry, okay? It wasn’t your fault.” 

She has to be careful here. This is Travis, it’s Travis Killian through-and-through, there’s no doubt about that – but he isn’t her Travis, not like she remembers him. This Travis hasn’t seen her for months, maybe years. He’s been locked away in the distant corners of a mad Cyberkeeper’s brain with the knowledge that he’d been responsible for not only his Doctor’s death, but for the destruction of all of Earth. He’s strange, skittish, wide-eyed, pale. He looks at her like he’s not sure she still exists, like he can’t believe she’s actually here, still looking at him.

“Please tell me what happened.”

He tells her. 

*

She knows most of this story already. Meeting Carrie, the killer dating app, inviting her along on her very first trip – a trip to a moon, if not the moon. The military space-team, the temple, the four-armed monks... all matching up perfectly with her own memories, to a point. But there seems to be one specific point of divergence between the universe the Doctor remembers and the one that Travis has been living in. A tiny, tiny change in the state of affairs, and it’s this: 

When the electricity had coursed through the floor of that moon temple, sending the Cyberkeeper spiralling out in search of a mind to capture, and when Travis had been chosen to be that mind, it had not tried to pretend to be him – apparently knowing that it wouldn’t be able to fool her long enough to make it to Earth. Instead, it had decided to feign unconsciousness. Worrying unconsciousness, the sort of borderline-coma that had prompted this universe’s version of her to panic enough to drag Travis’s unconscious body (and the cyber-passenger within) straight back to the TARDIS.

Which is exactly what it had wanted.

Such a small chance, such a tiny alteration in circumstances; but it’s the smallest changes that have the largest ripple effects. And apparently this had been the butterfly that broke the temporal camel’s back, so to speak. 

“I killed them,” says Travis. She’s still tucked up in the seat next to him, arm around his back, holding him to her side. He isn’t moving, he’s holding very very still, but silent tears are running down his grimy face. “All of them. And then I flew the TARDIS to Earth – crashed it, and then... th – then – ”

And then, conversion. And then, carnage. All using Travis’s body as a conduit. “Okay. All right. Shh, all right.”

“I tried to stop it. I swear I tried to stop it – ”

“I know. I believe you.” She rests the side of her head against his, and feels the stuttering of his breathing, the thready start-stop of uneven breath. “It’s not your fault, I’d never blame you for this.”

“I let it use me. I let it do all of this – ”

“And you fought it, every step of the way. I know you did. I know you.” She cups a hand around one side of his face, presses their foreheads together sideways. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been worrying about that all this time.”

“I got you killed,” he whispered. “I killed you.”

“I almost get myself killed on a near-daily basis.” The Doctor tries for a smile, and knows it falls flat. “Travis, we need to get moving,” she adds, after a moment, shifting back in the seat. “I wish we had time to spare, but... well. Remember the parallel universe – you went to that one here too, right? The one with the Wire, and the... oh, you know.”

He nods – which brings up interesting implications about the multiverse and recursions-within-recursions, but they don’t have the time to dwell on that. 

“Right. It was ending there because of something Rassilon did, back on Gallifrey. The sky was breaking. Holes in reality.”

He nods again. “That’s what’s happening here?”

“ Right. Not your fault, it’s definitely Rassilon’s, but there’s basically no stopping it at this point. We need to get out of this universe – you, me, the refugee camp, anyone else we can carry.”

“Right,” he says. “Right. Right, of course. Of – of course. You...” He nods rapidly. “Right. How do we do that?”

From the moment that he’d mentioned the Cyberkeeper crashlanding the TARDIS on earth, she’d known what her next move would need to be. “I don’t know the details, exactly – breaking out of universes isn’t easy. I know, I know,” she adds, waving a hand, “I keep doing it by accident, but on purpose is a whole other thing. I need... well, first things first, I need the TARDIS.”

He falls silent, worrying at his bottom lip. Eventually, he mutters, “I know... I think I know where the TARDIS is.”

She can’t help the surge of excitement that shoots through her, makes her sit up straight. “Oh, brilliant!”

But he’s shaking his head. “But – no, it’s not... not good. The Cybermen, they...” He seems to struggle for words for a while, and then he shuts his mouth, abruptly mute.

For a second, she looks at him, and then says, “Whatever’s happened, I can work with it. If I drive, do you think you can navigate?” 

“Yeah. I can.” He bites his lip, then nods. “I can... I think I can remember. Just... keep talking, maybe? I don’t want to...”

He trails off into nothing again.  

“All right,” she says, and swings her legs over the divide between the front seats, settling herself back in the driver’s seat once more. She smiles at him, and he manages an almost-smile back. “You know me, Travis. Talking is one thing I can definitely do.” 

*

The drive takes several hours. At first, the Doctor tries to avoid the topic of what she’d been up to while busy not being dead. She rambles on about movies and books and games and spoils the twist ending of Detective Pikachu for him two times over, but in the end he’s the one to ask about what she’d been up to in her own universe. 

She keeps her hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road, and says, “Oh – you know. Travelling. Doing... Doctor-y things. You know how it goes.”

He doesn’t seem to care that she’s being deliberately evasive. Instead, he just asks, “You said Carrie’s... alive?”

Oh, the Doctor thinks. “She’s all right, yeah. She’s been travelling around with us for the last few months. She’s... she’s really settling in.”

His eyes have gone all shiny again, but he seems to be more relieved than anything else. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“...Where did you take her?”

They’re heading to the coast, because it’s where he remembers the TARDIS being. On the way, she tells him about Fry’s Electronics, about Toontown, about Universal Studios, skimming neatly over any of the more distressing parts. She thinks he knows that’s what she’s doing, but he also doesn’t call her out on it – he nods along and appears to be paying more and more attention the more she talks. The light is re-entering his eyes, slowly but surely. 

So she keeps on talking.

Towards the end of her telling him about the Auditor and his final exam – grape stickers and wardrobe makeovers and fountain-TARDISes and all – they reach the coast, and he sits up a bit straighter, starts to give more specific directions tinged with just a bit of uncertainty, like he isn’t entirely sure of his own memory. But nonetheless they’re accurate, because it only takes them a very short while to get there.

And what there is – well. 

In the centre of a crater – and yes, it is a proper crater, as big as a parking lot, the earth around it crushed and crumpled with the force of a tremendous impact – the TARDIS rests crookedly, askew in the earth. She is grimy, her windows dark and her paint chipped and peeling. The Doctor instinctively reaches out with her mind, but can’t find a trace of psychic connection there, not at all. Terror takes hold before she remembers that this isn’t her TARDIS, not really. At least, she hopes that’s the reason why the space-where-the-connection-should-be is as dark and empty as the TARDIS’s windows are. 

She sees Travis shifting uneasily in the seat next to her, and realizes that she’d fallen abruptly quiet upon seeing the crater. She forces a smile, says, “Good navigating, we made it! Travis Killian, MVP of this post-apocalyptic road trip, couldn’t have made it without you. We might need to walk, I don’t think there’s room to drive – ”

“There’s a path down,” Travis says quietly. He’d been talking, smiling, even joking a bit, but now he seems to be retreating back into himself. 

The Doctor looks properly, and sees a metal-bound, expertly welded structure leading down one side of the crater, right to the TARDIS’s front door. Clearly Cybertech. The sort of thing that you might make if you were intending on hauling resources out. She tries not to stiffen up too much. “Right. Yeah, there is. Well, good. I’m feeling lazy today. Aren’t you feeling lazy, Travis?” 

He shrugs. Not even an attempt at a witty rejoinder. His fingers curl around the sleeves of her jacket, still draped around his shoulders, and he stays silent as she drives the Jeep all the way down the crater, and parks it as neatly as she can next to the TARDIS. 

And then she’s out of the Jeep and right up next to the door of her beautiful blue time machine, pressing a hand to the door and feeling nothing at all there. There are dents and scrapes in the paintwork from rough Cybermen hands. The light on top of the roof is shattered. 

Too late, she remembers Travis, and turns to see that he’s struggling out of the passenger seat on his own. She makes an abortive move to help him, but he’s already haltingly making his way around to the TARDIS front, leaning heavily on the Jeep’s bonnet as he forces himself to walk on one metal-bound leg. Limp, thump. He doesn’t come to stand next to her, though. Instead, he remains by the car, watching her anxiously. 

She turns her attention back to the TARDIS. Her key hangs around her neck, of course – a steady, solid weight – but instinct drives her to try without the key first.

The door swings open with an agonizing creak. It’s unlocked.

The Doctor’s hearts plummet. She shuts her eyes, breathes in once – and steps through into the console room. 

It’s a mess. Oh, it’s such a mess. Oh, her beautiful TARDIS is in such a state and she wasn’t here to do anything to stop it, and she hates this universe, she hates it so very much, hates it for what it’s done to her home and her friend and the other version of her and her planet. 

It’s still recognizable as the console room she loves, if only dimly. The roundels remain, there are faint snatches of vibrant color in the dimness. But the place has been torn apart. The furniture is in scattered pieces and piles of splintered ash, barely recognizable, large parts of the walls have been torn down, leaving huge piles of rebar and rubble blocking off large stretches of the console room. The console is a stripped-back mess of raw components and ragged metal, the floors have been ripped to tattered ribbons to expose the inner workings, and anything that might have been vaguely useful as a tool for Cyberman supremacy just isn’t there anymore. 

The Doctor’s throat is tight. She rubs the flat of her palm across her face, and wants to scream and scream and scream. Wants to go back to the Cybernest and reduce the Cyberkeeper to screaming molten cinders over and over again. The lights are off, the power is all the way down; this isn’t her TARDIS but she’s so close to being her TARDIS that the distinction barely matters, and she has been ravaged nearly beyond recognition. 

It’s the sound of hitching, stuttering breath from the doorway behind her that draws her out of her horrified spiral, and she looks back to see Travis looking nearly as miserable as she’s feeling. He says, “Sorry. Sorry, I – sorry. I – I did this. I did this, I...” 

She doesn’t like how she has to take a moment before she can think of denying this. Doesn’t like it at all. She’s angry, but she can’t be angry at Travis. He can’t take that right now, and he doesn’t deserve it. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says. It comes out harsh, sharper than intended. She can’t summon the mental energy to make it gentler, but she forces her face flatter, kinder. “Not you. This wasn’t you. You can’t seriously tell me you would ever willingly do this to the TARDIS.”

He shakes his head, bracing himself on the doorframe. “I killed her.” 

“Travis.”

“I killed her. I did it. I tore out the parts, I told them to rip apart the console, I - ”

“Travis!” the Doctor snarls. His eyes snap wide, and he stumbles back, only just managing to catch himself on the doorframe before falling over completely. She freezes too, and there is a moment of complete, perfect silence. 

“It wasn’t you, and she’s not dead,” the Doctor says, quieter – firmly. “I can tell, okay?” She goes over to the console. What’s left of the console. There’s just about enough there that she can work through the mess, find her way to the psychic circuits. “She’s just... sleeping.” She gently eases her hand down, presses her mental presence into place, and calls out, I’m home. Fitting a key into a lock, waiting for a click.

And then the click comes – and when it does, two things happen at once. 

The lights turn on – a flutter of a flicker from what’s left of the lighting fixtures that turns into a glow – dim but consistent, throwing shadows all through the room.

And at that exact moment, a sudden flash of awareness ricochets through the Doctor’s mind. A memory, hers-but-not-hers. The console room, as it had been before all this – chaotic, cluttered, warm, whole. There are people here. The three soldiers from the moon-recon team, Carrie too, Travis of course but something’s wrong with him – he’s unconscious, he’d been unconscious since that jolt of electricity had surged through the floor of the moonbase, and he just won’t wake up. And she’s keeping it calm and breezy, chattering cheerfully and hauling him along, but underneath it all, that ever-present panic. What if this is it? What if this is where she loses him?

She remembers... remembers leaning over him, screwdriver out, so very worried but biting it back for Carrie’s sake. One of the soldiers is saying something, and she is replying over her shoulder, and it’s then that it happens, because they’re in the TARDIS now and the Cyberkeeper only ever needed a moment. Just a single moment of distraction. 

A jolt of panic shuddering through her whole body as Travis’s hand closes tight around her neck, so much swifter and stronger than it has any right to be. She sees what’s happened and knows and there’s a split-second of realization, but only that, because the thing wearing Travis’s body like an ill-fitting costume doesn’t let her get any further. It smiles, cold and sharp without a trace of light behind its eyes, brings its other hand up to seize her head – 

- and twists.

There is a snap, a sharp moment of pain and betrayal and fear, and then there is nothing at all. 

She jerks back from the console to the sound of Travis calling her name with increasing panic. She’s just witnessed the exact moment the her-of-this-universe had died. Seen it, felt it in painfully perfect clarity – so sharp, so unceremonious. Even worse than Travis’s scattered reluctant descriptions. And on one hand, she’s glad that she doesn’t need to witness the other-Carrie’s death too, doesn’t need to witness the subsequent carnage, the destruction of the TARDIS and then the Earth, but on the other...

Travis’s hand lands on her arm. Shaking, clumsy. Worry all over his tired face; he’s terrified that something’s happened to her. “Doctor? Are you-?”

“Yeah.” She recovers herself, pats his hand. “Yeah, fine. Just... seeing what needs fixing.” 

The answer is a lot. A lot needs fixing. The TARDIS is waking up, and a rudimentary connection between the two of them has been established, after that initial psychic wave. The TARDIS sends out waves of lost-alone-broken-hurt and the Doctor sends back apologies, condolences, pain in return, and the TARDIS seems to understand, very quickly, that she is not this universe’s Doctor. There is grief, and then misery, and then quiet anger. 

I know. I know, I’m sorry. But I love you, even though you’re not mine, the Doctor thinks, and the sentiment echoes back at her, and a painful sort of equilibrium is reached. This TARDIS is not all right. This TARDIS may never be all right again, because she is dying. Has been dying for a while now, and not just because of the many, many missing parts. She doesn’t have all that long left, relatively speaking – but she has time to help them. And she’ll give all the help she can, while she can.

“She’s not angry at you,” says the Doctor, opening her eyes. Travis is watching her, relieved and worried in equal measure. “She’s just... very, very sad. And hurt.”

Travis nods. His fingers twitch, and he bundles up his arms around himself, glancing around. “We... can we clean this place up? I know we’ve got to...” A breath passes, stuttering and uneven. “...get out, do something before... everything blows up, but – she doesn’t deserve to be like this. Can you – can you fix her?”

“I can try.” And then the Doctor sees something in the rubble that makes every inch of her body go cold. Before Travis can see it too, she says, “Later, though.”

He says, “But – ”

“Travis,” she says, low and quiet. “You’re tired. You haven’t eaten in months, and sleeping in a car isn’t good for your back. It’d make me feel a lot better if I knew that you were feeling better. A bit better.” Her hand finds its way to the console, questioning. “I know you’re not at your best, but... d’you think you can rustle up a kitchen of some sort?”

There is a soft, uncertain beep, and then the door to the inside of the TARDIS swings open halfway. An invitation. 

“I don’t... know if...” He wavers, holding himself against the door. Her scarf and coat are still hanging off him, like clothing hanging off a mannequin. It really serves to highlight just how thin he is. 

“Come on,” she says, and takes his arm, and it’s equally heartbreaking just how quickly he gives in, lets her take control and lead him away. She leads him around the piles of wreckage, and sets them off down the corridor. It’s not perfectly lit up here, either, but at least the signs of destruction are far less pronounced. The walls are clear, clean, white. The doors they pass look familiar – library, recc room, butterfly room. 

Travis’s hand grazes over a wall, just barely brushing a roundel. “She’s... all right?” 

The TARDIS is not all right. She’s dying. She can’t tell him that. He already thinks he’s responsible. But she doesn’t want to lie to him. 

As if to save her from responding, there is a meow from ground level. And both of them freeze.

“Is that-?” Travis begins.

The Doctor is already pushing Travis over towards a wall so he can support himself properly, and then dropping to her knees, making hushed clicking noises, and extending her hand in the direction the meow had emanated from. “Here. Here, Gunther, shh, shh, it’s me, here, I’m back – ”

Gunther emerges. Slow, cautious, keeping tight to the walls. She looks a bit bedraggled, her fur uncombed, and visibly more skittish, but she appears mostly fine. She hangs back as she eyes them for a moment or two, tail swishing nervously, and she lets out another nervous yowl. 

The Doctor says, “No, no, no, it’s all right. It’s us, see? Just me, just Travis. It’s going to be all right, now.”

Travis slides carefully down the wall so he’s sitting too – and then extends a hand as well. “Hi, Gunther,” he whispers. “Sorry about everything.”

The Doctor bumps her shoulder into his – stop. Stop that. 

A meow from further down the corridor, and the Doctor looks beyond Gunther to see a larger grey cat, looking even worse-off than Gunther. Mr Meezers. The two of them have been in here all this time. At least they don’t seem starved, so they must have found a food source at some point. So there’s that. Not everything is completely terrible. She starts clicking her tongue and pspspsing at Carrie’s cat, inching towards him, but he bolts before she can get anywhere close – and she sits back on her heels, annoyed at herself. He’ll probably be fine – he’s survived this long, after all – but it still feels like just one more failure.

When she looks at Travis, she sees that he’s managed to coax Gunther into his lap, and is tentatively, delicately scratching behind her ears. He catches her eye and makes a half-aborted motion as if to pick up the cat, offer her to the Doctor. 

The Doctor takes the offer and takes Gunther, briefly, buries her nose in her cat’s fur and holds her tight – and then rises to her feet, Travis shakily following suit. She turns, tucks Gunther into his hold, makes sure he’s holding her securely. Pats his arm. Steps back. “There. Designated cat carrier Travis Killian.” 

 Gunther starts to purr, and she thinks that this might be the most genuine smile she’s gotten out of him yet. 

“Right. Lunchtime,” she says. 

There’s not a lot in the kitchen left unspoiled. All systems offline include freezers, fridges, and miscellaneous time compression units too – so there’s a lot of rotten meat and moldy bread that she winces at and then closes the cabinets on. That’s a problem for future her. There is canned soup, though, and crackers that don’t look too terribly stale. When she holds up chicken noodle, Travis nods at her vaguely, and keeps on holding Gunther, running his fingers through her fur. 

She heats up the soup. Serves it up in a bowl for him, crackers on the side. The Doctor doesn’t need to eat, doesn’t feel like eating at all really, but she takes her own share of the crackers and nibbles at them so he doesn’t feel like she’s watching him as carefully as she really is. He’s not malnourished, the Cyberkeeper wouldn’t have let its physical form deteriorate like that, but he’s worryingly thin and pale, like a ghost has crept in at the edges and replaced her best friend. When he doesn’t move to pick up the spoon, she prods him, insistent and annoying, until he eats half the bowl, and Gunther naps in his lap the whole time.

“Tired?” she asks, when he pushes the bowl away. He shrugs, noncommittal. “We can at least get you a change of clothes, I bet. Rags aren’t a good look on you.” 

“Sure,” he says, and gathers Gunther up again, pulling her close to his chest. The Doctor leaves the dishes in the sink, and off they go again. 

Only a short while down the corridor, the TARDIS opens the door to Travis’s room, which is untouched and looking just as she remembers it from her universe. A short flight of steps leading down to a cozy basement room, bed folding out from a wall, miscellaneous arcade cabinets. A bit dusty, sure, but mostly untouched. The lights are low, flickering a bit. 

For a second, Travis looks like he’s going to object, but then his face crumples a bit, and he nods and lets the Doctor help him down. He has to put Gunther down to manage the stairs with the state his leg is in, but she seems content to slink down into the basement bedroom ahead of them.

There is a horribly raw expression on his face as he looks around his room. He takes off her scarf, coat. Passes them back to her, and now he’s standing in the tattered remains of his jacket, looking a bit lost. So she drapes the scarf back around her own neck and sits down on his bed, and after a second he joins her. Gunther is milling around the room, skirting the edges and nosing around. Gunther doesn’t care about alternate dimensions or parallel-hers, she’s just glad to have familiar people around her.

“Okay,” he says after a second. “Okay, this is...”

“Weird?” she guesses, after he doesn’t finish the thought.

“A bit. Yeah. It feels weird. All of this feels weird. I feel like I’m not...”

Again he trails off. The Doctor watches him, and then offers, “Not properly awake?”

“Yeah.”

She leans against the wall. “That’s an understandable reaction considering what you’ve gone through. Sometimes your brain just... checks out a bit. It’s fine,” she adds hastily. “I don’t mind if you go all weird and floaty. I’ve had days like that. I’ve had lifetimes like that.” 

He nods, and his fingers skim clumsily over the remains of his jacket. It’s less of a jacket, more just scraps that happen to be hanging off his body.” I... clothes. Let’s do clothes.”

The Doctor goes to his closet and tosses T-shirts at him until he almost-laughs and tells her to stop, pulling an older-looking shirt into his lap. It’s got a colorful faded band name emblazoned over it, one she doesn’t recognize – but more importantly, it’s clean and it’s soft, which is what he needs and deserves. Sweatpants are easier, because they’re pretty much all the same. 

Soon he’s got a pile of new clothes in his lap, and he’s staring down at them with a faintly bewildered expression. “I should probably get the... you know. Oil. All of that. Off first.”

It’s not just oil. it’s blood and sweat and tears and IV fluids and all manner of nasty Cyber-substances built up over months and months, and he’s right, he really could do with a shower on more levels than one. She touches a wall, thinks a silent question, hopes the architectural reconfiguration systems are still functional enough to give her what she needs. After a moment, a door silently shuffles itself into existence against an empty wall. 

“Here you go. Shower.” She jabs a finger at him. “Oh, and, sit down or lean against the wall if you need it, do not push yourself because if you faint I’ll have to come in to help you and neither of us want to deal with that, probably.”

“Right,” says Travis dully. “We wouldn’t want this to get even more embarrassing than it already is.”

Her half-teasing smile drops away. “It’s not a problem. It’s really not.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Travis. You’re not a burden. We talked about asking for help in this universe, right?” She stares at him. “I won’t care even if I do have to come in and haul you out of the shower. You’re still my friend and I’m still going to help you.”

He sighs, then shakes his head. “I know. I know, I... thank you. I’ll try not to pass out, though.”

“Good plan,” she says, then watches as he scoops up the pile of clothes, and goes limping and shuffling across to the new bathroom door, disappearing through it with a shaky little huff of breath. After a second, she hears the water turn on.

She waits for him – watching Gunther creep around the room, startling and hissing at shadows, and listening intently to the sound of water falling, waiting for any sound of distress or faltering. He’d slept and rested for a while in the car, so theoretically he should be fine, but she worries. Oh, she worries. When she gets back to her normal universe, she’s not sure how normal she’s going to be able to be with her own version of Travis. She’s not sure if she’s going to be able to restrain herself from materializing in Sheffield, pushing him out the door, and just leaving. It wouldn’t be fair to him, but having to watch all of this isn’t fair to her. She doesn’t think she can do this more than once.

A short while later, the water shuts off abruptly, and she stiffens, but there’s no sounds of distress, and a few more minutes pass before the door opens again, and Travis re-emerges. 

He’s on the damp side of faintly bedraggled, and it clearly hadn’t helped the more Cyber-ized parts of his physique much judging by the way he’s holding himself. His eyes are red-rimmed, and he hasn’t brought the remains of his jacket out with him. But he looks just slightly less hollow and gaunt, now, so she counts that as a win, however small.

She straightens up, eyeing him. “Better?”

He manages a little smile, although it doesn’t reach his eyes, and takes a few limping hops towards the bed until she reaches out and helps him along, the final few steps of the way. He sinks down, looking grateful. “A bit. Kinda tired, though.” He rubs at his eyes, and he looks exhausted, but despite that and despite the shower, his shoulders are still tight and tense.

“I can stay,” the Doctor offers, feeling somewhat at a loss for words. “Until you fall asleep. Longer, if you want.”

“I think I just want to be alone for a bit,” he says – quiet, faint. “If that’s all right.” 

“Yeah. ‘Course it is.” The phone that’s wired to contact the console room is still there, at his bedside table, along with a worn copy of The Time Machine and several half-full glasses of water. The Doctor taps a finger to the receiver. “But if you need me, or need something – and I mean anything, anything at all – call. All right?” 

“All right,” he says. 

“All right,” she repeats, but for a moment she doesn’t get up. She looks at him. Her wonderful, broken friend. He doesn’t deserve any of this, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do with him. He’s coming with her, whatever happens, but beyond that... “Travis, I...” She pauses. Swallows. She’s not so good with this part. It’s so much easier to keep things light and breezy, to brush things off with a cheerful joke or sardonic comment, but there’s no way she can do either of those things right now. “...You know I love you, right?” She hesitates, then is quick to add – because humans are so quick to categorize in all the wrong ways, and she can’t afford to be misunderstood, not here and not now – “not like that, obviously not like that, you know what I mean, it’s – ”

“Yeah,” he says. An expression passes over his face that’s a little bit like panic, and then something much more unreadable. “No, I... I know.”

“ – but that doesn’t mean it means any less,” she stresses. “It means just as much. More.” She chews on her bottom lip, fitting the words together. “And you know that it doesn’t matter to me that you’re not... my Travis. Right?”

This time, he doesn’t say anything.

“Our worlds weren’t that different, I don’t think. It was only a few months after – anyway, it wouldn’t matter even if they were more different, because you’re my friend, and Travis, I care about you.” She keeps looking at him, trying to decipher what he’s thinking. Right now, it’s the only puzzle worth solving. “Look. There’s a Travis who I’ve been travelling with in my universe, and of course I want to get back to him and make sure he’s okay – but you’re just as important. And if he were here I know he’d agree.” She rests a hand on his wrist. He doesn’t pull away. “I’m not trying to overwhelm you, I just need you to understand that I do want you here. I don’t hate you. I just want you to be safe and all right and happy. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to be honest with you.”

He almost cracks a smile. “You’ve always been honest with me, Doctor.”

“Yeah, I try,” she says, almost-smiling back, and then: “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen next, I don’t know if I’m going to get back to my own universe or stop this one from ending or if I’m going to find my versions of my friends. I hope I will, I really hope I will, but I don’t know. But whatever happens, I’m not leaving you behind. I need you to know I’m not leaving you behind. You’re important. I want you to be okay. Okay?”

He nods. His hands are shaking. 

“I’m sorry I’m not her,” the Doctor tells him. “But I think if she were here, she’d say the same thing. I can’t imagine any version of me not thinking you’re important.”

Travis nods again. He’s not crying, but his eyes are shiny, a bit glazed-over. “I... I think... yeah.” She thinks he might be retreating again, falling back into himself, and she reaches out to take his hand and ground him – but he pulls away, and smiles, even though it doesn’t reach his eyes. He says, “Thanks. I needed that. I... think I’m going to try to sleep now.”

He’s lying to her. She can tell he’s lying, that he has no intention of sleeping, but she can hardly blame him for that and she doesn’t call him out on it. Instead, she stands, and says, “All right. Sweet dreams.” 

She leaves him in his room, and is half-hoping Gunther will stay and keep him some sort of company but as she closes the door behind her, she finds that her cat – her alternate-self’s cat? This situation probably constitutes her taking legal custody, actually – is milling around at her heels, sticking close enough to be a general underfoot nuisance. It’s familiar. And trying to get Gunther to stay would be more trouble than it’s worth. Cats do what they want, who is she to try to stop them?

The Doctor leans against the wall for a moment, inhales shakily, and then goes to find a shovel.

*

It takes her ten miserable minutes to finally shift the rubble enough to haul them out, and she would quite literally rather be doing anything else. Gunther sticks around until the moment where she pulls the first body out – but doing that seems to be the cue for her to startle and skitter and dash like an anxious furry bullet right out of the console room and down the hallway – hopefully, back towards Travis, who could really use the company about now. 

The Doctor can’t blame her, really. If she were a cat, she’d be running too. 

There really is something deeply unsettling and horribly unnerving about seeing your own corpse. 

She’s dead – it’s obvious by the unnatural angle her neck is twisted at, the half-open eyes blank and dry. She hadn’t regenerated, for whatever reason. The glasses are still lying crooked and cracked on her pale face, the clothing near-identical to what she herself is wearing right now. 

She’s remarkably well-preserved, considering she’s been here for upwards of five months. Maybe the TARDIS hadn’t been quite so dead, after all. Rot has barely begun to set in. It’s as if she’s only just been killed. 

There’s no familiar crackle of artron energy, the way that it usually happens when she meets a past-or-future version of herself in any incarnation – and that is because it’s an alternate universe her and also because there’s no life in her body at all. Which means that the Doctor is free to drag her body to rest near the door, and keep on looking, jaw set grimly. 

Some part of her had been holding out hope that this Carrie had somehow managed to escape, but that part shatters like fine china at the sight of her friend’s broken body, only a short distance away. Her neck, similarly snapped, her face still twisted with fear and terror. It’s somehow worse than seeing her own body, because the Doctor is abruptly remembering now that this had been Carrie’s first trip. Her first hop to another time, another place, and she’d been so excited about it at the time, too. For it to end here, like this...

She closes her eyes, forces the nausea back. She needs to get this done before Travis re-emerges from his room. She can’t fall apart now. 

She spends some more time looking, but the members of the recon team are nowhere to be seen. It could mean anything at all, that they escaped, that they were converted, that they were killed elsewhere, and she knows she doesn’t have time to linger on it. She doesn’t know why the Cyberkeeper had left the other two’s bodies behind – if it had been cruelty, or an inability to convert the already-dead, or if some lingering part of Travis had kept it from touching the bodies any further. None of these are amazingly comforting options, and they’re also not relevant.

The Doctor shoves that all to one side in her head, swings the shovel she’d managed to find in a side storeroom over her shoulder, and steps out of the TARDIS.  

Outside, the ground is scorched and dead, and at first glance there’s barely any sign of life, but over a hill or two towards the east, she finds it – a hint of green, a cluster of weary-looking saplings just poking through the dirt. The earth is soft enough there, and it’s not all that far away from the TARDIS. She picks a spot close by, but not so close that she’ll disturb the saplings, marks it with the toe of her boot. Then the Doctor unshoulders her shovel, starts to dig. 

It’s gruelling work, but on some level she relishes in it. The solemn rhythm of planting the shovel, forcing it down, heaving the dirt to one side, repeat-repeat-repeat; it hurts and it stings and burns exhaustion all the way down to her bones, but all of it feels right. 

When she’s done, the Doctor goes back to the TARDIS, and carries out the bodies of her other self and her other friend. She lays them down gently, settling them in the warm soft earth. Tucks her other-self’s glasses into her lapel pocket, makes sure her sonic screwdriver is there too. Earth is where she’d want to be buried, she knows. If nothing else, she knows that. But for Carrie, she doesn’t know what to do. There are no items to bury her with beyond what she already is wearing, and the Doctor doesn’t know if there’s any particular way she would have wanted to be left. She’ll have to hope that this is enough. She stares at them both for a long, long second, promises to herself that she’ll do everything she can to prevent her Carrie from ever ending up like this. 

She’s no stranger to burying friends, but usually it isn’t quite this literal. And burying herself is a very rare task indeed. There’s no coffins and no service, and the only mourner present is her. She doesn’t sing, doesn’t speak, doesn’t weep. Just raises the shovel and begins the process of committing their lifeless bodies to the broken earth. 

“Rest easy, you two,” she says, when she’s done. She sits down next to the graves, curls her legs crossed, smooths the earth over the best she can with numb fingers. “I’m... going to do my best, all right? I’ll look after him.”

It’s silent, almost peaceful out here, next to the gently-swaying saplings. She sits there for a while, watching the broken, flickering sky. Wondering how much time she has left in this universe, knowing that she has at least enough to rest here for a while. 

She’s not sure how long she’s been sitting by the freshly-turned graves when she hears the scream. 

It’s agonized, faint, echoing all the way up from the bottom of the crater, from the still-ajar TARDIS doors. That’s Travis. Travis is screaming. Why is Travis screaming? He’s meant to be safe, meant to be resting – what happened, what went wrong? 

She’s on her feet before her brain can catch up. She yells Travis’s name, and gets no response, and yells it again. The silence echoes for a moment too long. 

The Doctor takes one sudden, gasping breath of terror, and runs.

*

The TARDIS is vibrating with alarm bells. She’s nowhere near powered-on enough to be exerting the energy to do that, but they’re ringing nonetheless, and the Doctor is sprinting in the direction of a sensation, an impulse tugging at the forefront of her mind. Leading her onwards to an overwhelming sense of wrongness. 

He’s not in his room, he’s in the medical bay. She bursts through the doors at the speed of sound and thinks what and why and there’s blood all over the floor where he’s half-slumped and his arms, they’re all wrong, he’s done something to his arms, why had she left him alone? There’s blood and metal everywhere. He’d ripped out the cyber implants, and is that a scalpel he’s holding and he raises his head and he’s conscious at least, at least he’s conscious, and he says, “Doctor – ”

She’s at his side, tearing her scarf off, grabbing his wrists and forcing him to drop the scalpel with a sharp twist of her fingers, pushing him roughly back so he falls against the wall. She’s winding it around his ragged, torn skin, pulling it taught and tight, keeping pressure on as best as she can as she growls, “Why? Why would you do that?” She can barely keep the outright panic out of her voice. Now she’s kneeling in front of him, applying pressure to the wounds. “Of all of the stupid – hold still, I’m trying to stop you from bleeding to death, in case you hadn’t noticed! Travis, what were you thinking?”

“I had to get it out,” Travis says, looking blank and frightened and a bit desperate. His voice is hoarse, ragged. “It was in me, it was in – it was me, I couldn’t let it be me, I couldn’t let it kill you again. I couldn’t kill you again, Doctor. I can’t do that again. I can’t. I can’t. I – ”

His blood is on her hands. Her hearts are pounding in her ears. She stares at him, trying to comprehend what he’s saying. 

She shouldn’t have left him alone. She should have known what that look in his eyes meant, should have known that he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to make anything remotely resembling a good decision.  

“It’s inert,” she tells him gently, as gently as she can when she’s pressing frantically and fervently, keeping the scarf tight and in place. “All of it is. The signal’s been deactivated, the Cybermen aren’t getting anywhere near you, and you’re in the TARDIS. The TARDIS likes you, she won’t let it get to you again.”

“Things have gotten into the TARDIS before,” he says. Eyelids fluttering. Blood loss. Shock. No. No. “Signals. The – VITAL. I remember.”

“I won’t let them in,” she says. “I’m not going to let anything get near you. You’re not going to hurt me, and you’re going to be all right, and – Travis? Travis, listen to me. Look at me, you’ve got to look at me – ”

“It’s all right,” he says, barely audible now. “It’s all right, I won’t hurt you again. I won’t hurt anyone ever again. It’s all right.”

“Travis!” she snarls in his face. “It’s not! It’s not all right! If you die on me here, it will never be all right, not ever again. You don’t want to hurt me again? Then stay awake.” 

She doesn’t know if he hears her. His eyes are slipping shut, and his head is lolling to the side.

I don’t know what to do, she thinks, except that’s wrong because she knows exactly what she’s got to do. She’s got to save him. She’s got to be a doctor. She’s running out of time – this universe is running out of time, as is everyone in it. And right here and right now, on a far more immediate and urgent scale, Travis is running out of time. 

She looks down at her hands on the scarf, and they’re perfectly steady. She’ll have time to panic later. Right now, her friend needs her. 

She gets to work. 

Chapter Text

*

Roman stares at Carrie for a very long moment. 

And then he slowly closes the book and sets it down on his lap, shaking his head. “I’ve lost it,” he mutters, seemingly to himself. “Knew it was going to happen one of these days. Too much time alone in this nightmare box. Ah, well. At least it’s a friendly face, so –  Millie?! ” His voice jumps up about an octave and he recoils violently back into his chair as finally he sets eyes on Millie, who’s finally levered herself to her feet on the balcony above them. “A –  Ms Earhart? ” 

Carrie wants to say something else – be all like,  yeah, I found actual proper historical Amelia Earhart and I guess you guys already know each other? That’s cool!  or,  why do you look older now, what happened?  and also,  what was UP with all of that mad screaming and scribbling back in the rest of the TARDIS?  – with a possible side serving of,  dude, you look like you need a nap. Get some rest, weird tall time guy!  – but Millie’s got that expression on her face again, the one that says she’s having a Big Important Emotion. Carrie looks back to Roman, and sees that he appears to be having some sort of Big Emotion, too. She shuts her mouth, and scoots back against the wall. It’s probably best to just let them go at it for the moment. She’ll chip in if there’s something important worth saying. 

“Hello,” says Millie. “I... hi. Um. Hmm.” She raises a finger, lowers it, and braces herself against the balcony as she continues looking down at Roman. “Before I say anything else, I need to check. We’re doing this in the correct order, aren’t we? We went to Disneyland together? You sent me back in time?”

Roman opens his mouth. Shuts it. Pushes his glasses up his nose, shoving them all the way up like he’s trying to see properly through them to make sure that this is actually happening. “Yes. Yes, that – that  did  happen.”

Carrie gasps, sitting up properly. She’d told herself she was going to keep quiet through this, but – “ You guys went to Disney?  Why wasn’t I invited?”

“Well, mainly because if you had been there, it would have been even more of a paradoxical nightmare than that entire mess already was,” says Roman, somewhat blankly. “Not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed your company, probably, but – ”

“Here,” says Millie abruptly. She rifles in her pocket, produces a ring. It’s a simple, sleek metal design, with a dark stone inset into it. Carrie has no idea what’s up with the ring or why it’s being pulled out, but Roman seems pretty surprised to see it, and even more surprised as Millie descends one of the staircases winding down to the console itself – walking right up to Roman’s chair, and reaching out to press it into his hands. “Here. You told me to take care of this, and I did my best, so... here.”

“Oh,” says Roman, quite softly, and raises the ring to eye level, turning it over slowly. “Oh. Oh, dear. This is...” Slowly, he lowers the ring, staring at Millie. “...this is real, isn’t it?”

“Well, I hope so. Because I haven’t said thank you yet.” Millie is still standing in front of Roman, hands clasped together over her chest, obviously unsure of what to do with herself. “So... thank you.”

“What?”

“I didn’t get to thank you for saving me. You didn’t  have  to save me, you didn’t have to do that. But...” Her entire expression convulses, shifts, and then she says, “...I’m still  pretty  angry at you for sending me away like that. You – I could have stayed with you. I could have helped you.” 

Roman looks at her for a long moment that feels almost too long, then gently slips the dark-stoned ring onto his finger. “If you’d stayed with me, we’d both be stuck here. And you’d most likely be... like, super dead, actually.”

Carrie blinks. “What?”

Roman seems to have recovered from the shock of seeing them, and the brief speechlessness induced by Millie handing him the ring. Now, his tone is dry and a faint crease has formed between his eyebrows as he speaks. “It’s been a good hundred-or-so years. I’m not too solid on human lifespans, but – no, this is stupid. This is actually, extremely, very... why are we even discussing this?” He drags his gaze from the ring, and says, quite sharply, “The two of you shouldn’t be here. The two of you shouldn’t even be  together.  It’s supposed to be Travis and the Doctor who find me – where are they? Where’s the Doctor?”

“We were hoping  you  could tell us that,” Millie tells him, taking a step back.

He sits up even straighter, and the book slides off his lap to land on the floor, pages crumpling. “Wha – why would  I  know where the Doctor is? I’m the one waiting for her!” He looks between the two of them, incredulous. “How did you lose her? Were you just really not paying attention or something?”

And Millie’s expression... it just  drops . She goes from hopeful to utterly devastated so fast it gives Carrie whiplash, and a second later when she turns away with what sounds an awful lot like a muffled sob, Carrie realizes just how sad this woman really is. She’d been holding herself together pretty well all of this time, but it hadn’t been hard to see that it was an  effort –  and Roman’s words had been the final few nails in the coffin for her. 

“Oh – oh, no, did I say something – Millie?” Roman sounds worried now, and uncomfortable, and also  deeply  out of his depth. He leans forward in his seat, hands hovering uselessly. “Millie, please don’t – whatever it was, I probably didn’t mean it. Don’t go falling to pieces, now.”

“Millie?” says Carrie, and hurriedly crosses the room. “Hey, come on, Mils, we’re going to find her. She’s out there somewhere, she has to be – I mean, she’s the Doctor, right? The Doctor doesn’t just die.”

Millie shakes her head, and her shoulders are trembling even though Carrie can’t see her face. 

“I’m going to hug you,” Carrie decides. “Because you really look like you could use a hug, and I can’t think of anything else to do. If you’re all right with that? Okay?”

“Okay,” says Millie, rather thickly, and Carrie hugs her. Amelia Earhart is strong and sad and extremely huggable, as it turns out. It’s kind of like hugging Travis, because they both wear the exact same coat, but also nothing like hugging Travis, because Travis is a skinny weedy stick insect of a man and Millie has  muscle.  Also, Millie has the distinct sweaty-grimy odor of someone who’s been running themselves into the ground without showering for at  least  a week, and Travis at least takes regular showers, so. There’s also that.

Carrie takes a breath and pats Millie’s arm as she shakes and sobs into Carrie’s jacket. She looks over Millie’s shoulder at Roman, and mutters, “You could help, man.”

Roman is still sitting on his armchair, the book lying long-forgotten on the ground. There’s still an expression of faint bewilderment lingering on his face, like he’s not entirely convinced that this is actually happening. “Hugs aren’t exactly my  thing,  in case you’ve forgotten.” He stares at them, and then once more back at the ring on his finger. “Ah. I... feel like I missed something. What happened to the Doctor, and why are you two here? This isn’t... right.”

Millie extricates herself from Carrie, wiping at her face, and Carrie pats her once more on the shoulder before explaining. The whole thing with the parallel universe (as best as she can remember it), falling through the portal pool, how she’s not  actually  from this universe, and by the time she gets up to Millie’s Whole Deal, Millie has recovered enough dignity to supply her own side of the story. 

“Yep,” says Roman, when they’re finished. “That sounds about right.”

Millie frowns, and her eyes are still red, but she sounds almost completely composed when she says, “No questions about the believability of it?”

He shrugs. “It’s too ridiculous to  not  be true, and it’s exactly the sort of nonsense that someone traveling with the Doctor would get themselves embroiled in. Her tendency to drag her companions into the most ridiculously long strings of coincidences, etcetera, so on and so forth.” He sighs. “Oh, boy howdy. This is going to be one of  those  talks, isn’t it?” He looks around the dimly-lit, badly-maintained console room, then back at them. “I’d offer you a seat, but... well, there’s not much in the way of excess comfortable seating in here.” 

“All good, all good,” Carrie says, sliding down to sit on the ground nearby. Millie takes a seat on one of the nearby staircases, which looks a bit rickety but ultimately seat-suitable. “So... any ideas?”

“Give me a  minute.  You just dropped this whole...  situation  on my head; still trying to wrap my head around it.” Roman’s massaging one side of his head, looking deep in thought and still more than a bit out of his depth. “I don’t know how you even managed to get in here.”

Millie says, “We ran, mostly.”

“Well, you’re very good at running. If it had been me out there, she’d have eaten me whole. She almost did. Several times. She is... really  very  angry. I – what was I thinking?” He frowns once more, and that  thinking hard  crease forms between his eyebrows again, before abruptly clearing. “Oh, right. It’s good to see you. Both of you. I didn’t say that before, but I was thinking it, like,  really  hard. I’m going to need you to cut me a bit of slack here,” he adds, raising a finger, “because the only conversational partner I’ve really had over the last few hundred years is myself. And while I am, of course, a  scintillating  conversationist, even I can admit that it gets a bit... recursive after a while.”

Carrie balances one elbow on a knee, resting her cheek against an outstretched hand. “Yeah, actually – what happened  here?  This is your TARDIS, right? But why are you just...”

“Sitting here, waiting to die?” Roman offers.

“Yeah,” says Carrie, then, “Wait, what? You’re waiting to die?”

“No,” he says. “I’m waiting for the Doctor, weren’t you paying attention?”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” Millie says. “What  are  you doing here?”

“Well, SparkNotes version... I was on the run from the Time Lords because of – ” He makes a little gesture at Millie, who nods back in understanding, which Carrie takes to mean ‘something that happened on Millie’s Life-Changing Roman-Mediated Field Trip’. “ – yeah, you get it – made a  tiny  bit of an itty-bitty micro-miscalculation, got stuck in the time vortex. I’ve been stranded here for the last, hm – roughly hundred-and-fifty-six years, but who’s counting? Certainly not me.” He lets out a dry little chuckle, clears his throat, and smiles, spreading his hands out wide – before adding with what is frankly  maniac  cheerfulness. “Long story short, my house is evil and is slowly trying to murder me!” 

“I had an apartment like that in college,” Carrie says thoughtfully. “But then it turned out there was a leak somewhere, and I actually just had CO poisoning the whole time. Hey, Roman, are you sure this isn’t a carbon monoxide problem?”

Roman’s eyebrows go  way  up. “Does this  look  like a carbon monoxide problem to you?”

“Yes,” says Carrie. “Honestly, yes. You were screaming suicide threats at the ceiling, buddy.” 

“Urgh.” His hand shoots up to massage the side of his head. “I suppose she must have shown you... yeah. I’m betting that didn’t look too great for me, did it?” 

Millie says, slowly, “Your TARDIS doesn’t like you very much, does she?”

Roman laughs. It’s a dry little cough of a laugh, the laugh of a man who hasn’t spoken aloud for many,  many  years. “Understatement of the millennia, thank you, Ms Earhart. No, she doesn’t like me. She  hates  me. She decided she’d rather die than keep on traveling with me for any longer, crashed herself into a snarl in the vortex, and has spent the last century-and-a-half making my last living days a continuous agonizing misery. I’d say  not liking  me is as much of the tip of the iceberg as it’s possible to be.”

“...Shit,” says Carrie, when she can’t find anything else to say after about fifteen seconds’ worth of hardcore searching. “That – that sucks.”

He gives another exhausted little shrug that she takes to mean,  yeah, I know, but I’m too tired to get angry about it . “I tried accessing other parts of the TARDIS initially, but as the decay got worse she started getting more... violently opposed to my presence. Apparently, the console room is the exception to that – sort of the eye of the storm. So I’ve just been living in here for the past... one hundred and fifty-six years, two months, six days.” He pauses, and his lip curls unpleasantly, and he adds, “Nine hours. Three minutes. Six seconds. Seven. Eight. Nine. You get the picture.”

Well,  now  he’s just showing off. Carrie rests the side of her head against a strangely dead-feeling wall, and says, “All right. Well... how do we get out?”

Another dry cough-laugh. “Ha. We don’t.”

“What?” says Millie.

Roman reaches down and picks up the book he’d been reading, tugging it back up to rest on his lap. “Look, the hope was that when the Doctor arrived, she’d be able to land the TARDIS directly in the console room, and we could just sort of... slip out, undetected.”

A gradual dawning horror is starting to creep across Millie’s face. “But we didn’t do that.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“And... neither of us actually knows how to fly a TARDIS,” she says. “That’s what we were trying to find you for.”

“Yes.”

“And – ”

“And my TARDIS is currently dedicated enough to trying to kill me that leaving the console room for any extended period of time is going to result in... shall we say, a little bit of light murder. Definitely for me, anyway, not sure about the two of you.”

“Which means...” Millie trails off.

Carrie’s been following along as best as she can, and she puts it together about a second later. “You’re saying, your TARDIS isn’t going to let us get back to  our  TARDIS.”

“That seems to be the amount of it, yes.”

“So we’re trapped here,” Millie whispers.  

“We are,” he says. Then, seeing their expressions, he adds, “Oh, cheer up. At least we have each other for company. And I have a  lot  of books I bet you haven’t read yet.” 

*

Roman, it seems, has given up. 

That’s the vibe Carrie’s getting from him, anyway. He hasn’t outright said it like that;  I’ve given up! I couldn’t care less anymore!  – but it’s pretty obvious that he  has  because if he  was  willing to do something about their current situation, he would be doing something other than just sitting there. 

Well, he’s not  just  sitting there. He’s down to talk, apparently, which makes sense because he probably hasn’t had anyone to talk to for a while – but when it comes to doing anything remotely useful or helpful, it’s a no-go. Millie is asking him more questions, indicating the broken, half-stripped-back console with a frown and a raised finger, and Roman is answering, but it all sounds very technical. Carrie decides to leave them to it, and sets about poking around the outer perimeter of the console room to actually get things done here. Seriously, does she have to do  everything  herself?

And, honestly, this place is a mess. Roman’s TARDIS has the same weird round dome things the Doctor’s has, except they’re loose and hanging and when Carrie digs her fingers in a bit she can pry them back to reveal that they’re, like, storage devices of some sort? There’s a whole cupboard’s worth of miscellaneous shoes in one of them (neat, not helpful), several dozen packets of muesli bars in another (uh,  hello?  Very fishy!   And  definitely  not helpful!), and when she tugs open yet another, she finds several bunches of half-rotted bananas and realizes that she’s probably not going to find the tools they need to get out stored in  these.  

She turns her attention to the doors. Because there’s a whole bunch of doors in here, actually – there’s the one she and Millie had come through, of course, and several other identical-looking ones placed semi-evenly all around the outside of the upper balcony, and then – closer to ground level – one that looks like the doors leading outside. But if it was as easy as walking out of the front doors, Roman would have already done it, wouldn’t he? 

She glances over at Roman and Millie, who are still talking, and currently not paying her much attention at all, and then goes to check outside. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and all that. It opens easily enough, not even locked, and then she has to brace herself against the frame as an explosive burst of force blows all her hair back at once in a sudden rush. She blinks out at what she’s pretty sure is the Time Vortex, which is just a raging, roiling mass of impossible colors and angles. “Oh.” 

From across the room, Roman pauses in his conversation with Millie, and says, “Probably not the best idea to go out there, no.” 

“No, I – I  got  that. Right, closing the door now.” Carrie does so, and takes a step back. “What about going back the way we came?”

“She won’t let you.”

This time it’s Millie who frowns and asks, “Well, do you know that for sure?”

He grimaces, and sets down his book again, which he hadn’t looked like he was reading anyway. “I can make a pretty solid guess. She controls the interior dimensions. And, admittedly, that control’s been pretty shaky as of late – but she can still redirect and reroute enough that she could stop us from getting back to the Doctor’s TARDIS if she didn’t want us to. Aaaand she doesn’t.”

While he’s been speaking, Carrie’s been circling the outside of the console room, and now she’s reached the door that she and Millie had arrived through. “How shaky are we talking? Like, if you wanted to give us some odds on the likelihood of us making it there, would it be, like... five to one? Ten to one? I don’t know how betting odds work.”

“A million to one,” says Roman flatly. “Infinity to one.” Then he pauses, and relents – “No, less than that, there’s... yeah, I’ll admit there’s a minuscule chance. Maybe. Carrie, what are you doing?”

She’s already reaching for the handle. Once again, they’re never going to know if they don’t  try,  and she just wants to see what’s on the other side so she has a kind of basic lay of the land. It’ll be  fine.  And then she pushes it open and the corridor beyond looks completely normal .  Normal for a time machine, anyway.   No killer floating blobs and no rot, nothing at all. She pokes her head through, shrugs, and then takes a step into it.

She hears Millie say, “Hang on just a minute – ” and then there is something crawling on her skin, and then there are  many  things crawling on her skin, scurrying all through her hair and under her eyelids and down her throat, and for a second the terror and disgust is so  much  that she can’t even think to scream. Her feet stumble and stutter; she tries to grab at a wall for support but there’s just more of them and, and,  and – 

She’s pretty sure she might be screaming, but it’s hard to make it out over the crawling and creeping on her skin.

When she had been young, very young, there had been a spider infestation in her family’s apartment. Her parents hadn’t caught it at first; had dismissed it as just a few excess spiders and had gone about the task of squashing them without fuss or ceremony, but the thing about  infestations  is that, left unchecked, they tend to grow, and breed. And when you’re six years old there’s nothing worse than looking up at the ceiling and seeing the egg sac burst and seeing hundreds of itty bitty spider babies scurrying out like a wave, over the ceiling, down the walls. It’s not like they would have been dangerous, they probably weren’t even venomous, and none of them had even  got  on her at any point, but...

It’s funny the things that stick with you. 

Her entire body is lit up with the most perfect and absolute terror she’s ever known, and she’s caught between Fight and Flight, perfectly balanced between them in such a way that her brain doesn’t know which way to swing, and – 

Fingers close around her arm, sharp and tight. Reflexively, she yells at the top of her lungs, twisting back and clawing at the grip – kicking out wildly in the direction of the mysterious grabber. And as she does, she comes back to herself, remembering where she is. What she’s doing. Realizes who she’s just kicked – the person who’s released her arm, and has hopped backward several steps, wincing in obvious pain. 

“Aw, crap,” she says. “Next time, don’t  grab  me like that, man!”

Roman says, “Well, I’m sorry for trying to pull you out of your deepest darkest nightmares!” He glares out into the depths of the void he’d just hauled her out of, adds, “Isn’t torturing  me  enough? Leave them alone, damn you!” – before slamming the door shut so hard the entire wall seems to shudder with it, heaving out a shuddering breath. A moment later, he turns a surprisingly sharp gaze onto her, eyes raking up and down her. “Are you all right?”  

“I – I think so? I – ” She shudders reflexively, brushing at her shoulders, running a hand over her hair. The phantom sensation of hundreds upon hundreds of tiny limbs scurrying across her skin isn’t leaving. That sucked .  That really,  really  sucked. “Oh my god. Okay.” She drags in a breath, hands jittery and heart still racing. “Thanks. Um, thanks. Sorry I kicked you.”

“Quite all right,” he says, although the way he’s wincing and favoring his right leg implies otherwise. She realizes, suddenly, that he’d probably dashed across the console room to get to her, because Millie is still standing on the other side of the decrepit old room, looking startled, like she hadn’t had proper time to react.  

She gets why Travis and the Doctor miss him so much, actually. Roman is  really  nice. 

Millie seems to have finally gathered her wits about her, and she’s coming over, looking equally concerned. “That was... really very reckless, Carrie.” She cautiously reaches out to pat Carrie down, which Carrie lets happen because it’s kind of sweet that she doesn’t know how else to deal with this. Also, she’s getting patted down by actual historical Amelia Earhart, which is both cool and kind of hot. “Please don’t do that again. I don’t think my heart can take it.”

“Right, yeah, sorry, I know,” says Carrie. “But! on the plus side....”

Roman says, “There’s a plus side?”

“...At least we know that you were right about the whole ‘TARDIS not letting us out’ thing?”

He gives her one last look of concern, and then he snorts, and turns away to stalk back to his armchair. “Hate to break it to you, but I already knew that.”

Roman is really nice when he isn’t being a jerk on purpose. Like, Carrie gets that he’s probably stressed and really tired too, but she’s trying to  help!  Honestly, she’s not sure why she’s bothering at this point. 

Oh, right. Getting home and finding the Doctor and Travis. That whole thing. Yeah, that’s pretty important. 

“Millie?” she says under her breath to Millie, who still has a hand on her arm. “Team huddle?

Millie gives her a weird look, and casts a glance over at Roman, but obligingly comes over to duck her head into a mini-huddle with Carrie. “Yes?” 

“So, obviously we need to get out of here. All of us – ”

“ Yes, ” Millie agrees instantly.   

“ – but Roman refuses to come up with a solution because he’s depressed.”

“Carrie, I can  hear you, ” says Roman from across the room.   “And   I am  not  depressed.”

“Yes,” says Millie, like Roman hadn’t said anything, “but he does make a good point about the TARDIS not letting us out. We’re inside a living building, and there’s not much we can do about it if she really wants to keep us in here. She could drain all of the air out of the area, or trap us in a room with no doors or windows, or – ”

“Again,” says Roman, louder this time. “I can hear you. And please, don’t give her ideas.”

Carrie had been thinking vague thoughts about maybe getting Roman to give them TARDIS-flying instructions so they can go out and land the Doctor’s TARDIS in  here,  but at this new nugget of information, her mind suddenly switches tracks. She spins around to face him. “Hang on. She can hear us? This TARDIS can hear us? From in here?”

“ Yes, ” says Roman slowly, drawing the single word out. “She can’t affect the console room itself. It’s a bit of an... eye of the storm situation, actually; but she’s perfectly aware that I’m in here, and not very happy about it.”

“So we can talk to her! From in here!”

And now he looks completely baffled. “I... why would you want to do that?”

Millie appears to have caught on. “Because that might be our only way out of here.”

“ What? ”

“You need to talk,” Millie says. “To your TARDIS. It might be our only chance.”

He stares at them for a moment, and then leans back in his chair. “Mm,  no.  I can see where you’re going with this, but it’s not going to work. I don’t want to talk to her and she doesn’t want to talk to me. We are  so  far past talking it out at this point that it’s almost hilarious.”

Millie’s jaw has acquired a stubborn set to it, and so have her shoulders. “Which is  why  you need to talk to her.”

“I  tried  talking to her! Many times, actually! And she retaliated by trying to kill me, so,  nope!  No! I don’t think I  will  be trying that one again, thank you very much!”

“Okay, but if Millie mediates,” Carrie begins.

“Have you thought,” says Roman, “about – maybe –  no?  I’m not doing that.”

Carrie grits her teeth. “You’re being really stubborn here for no reason, man.”

“I’m being really stubborn because I don’t want to die,” he replies, with a furious snap to his words. “Come back when you have a better solution to this problem that doesn’t involve me walking into a death trap or trying to  talk  to said death trap. You don’t negotiate with a guillotine. And if you’ll excuse me... while you’re doing  that,  I’m going to finish reading this book.””

“Roman,” Millie says.

“Yeah,  what ,” says Roman, whose face is now obscured by the pages of a dusty old volume with a Latin-looking title.

“You’re holding that book upside down.”

He glares at her over the top of his glasses. “I’m reading it upside-down on purpose because I already tried reading it the right way up and it was a really boring book. I’m hoping that by flipping it like this it’ll be at least  marginally  more interesting.”

This sounds like a lie, but at least it’s a fun sort of lie.

“Team huddle?” Millie mutters after a second of tense silence.

“Team huddle,” Carrie agrees, and they crowd together into a corner on the other side of the room. “Okay, so getting Roman talking isn’t working, obviously, so maybe we should try, like… the other half of the problem. And, you know – you’re the TARDIS whisperer.”

“I still don’t know how to feel about that title! But, all right.” Millie glances around the darkened console room. “Where do you think would be the best place to-?”

“Maybe the walls, like you did before? Or, the console...?” The lights on it are burnt out, and although there are occasional flickers of light running through it, they’re very slight. “I don’t know how this is supposed to work.” 

From the armchair on the other side of the room, Roman releases a hugely dramatic, put-upon sigh, and says, “I can still hear you, and as long as you’re trying this – and it’s not as if I can actually  stop  you or anything  –  I think you ought to know that it won’t matter where you’re standing if you try to talk with her. Just where you are should be fine.”

Millie nods. “All right. Madame TARDIS?”

The TARDIS, astoundingly, lets out a dull groan that is hard to interpret as anything  other  than a signal that she’s listening. Carrie hesitates, then takes a step back. Millie probably needs some space to do her thing.

“All right,” says Millie, and for a second she looks unsure but then she lifts her chin to the ceiling, which is dripping with rot and shadows. That determined set to her jaw is back. “So – can we establish that you don’t, in fact, want us to leave?”

Silence, and then the walls seem to briefly ring with a sound like a finger being dragged along the rim of a wineglass. It sounds strangely like agreement. 

“And that’s because you think that if we leave, then we’re going to find a way back to this console room and rescue Roman?”

Again, the wineglass-agreement.

“Which you don’t want us to do.”

Agreement – sharper, this time.

“Because you want him to die here with you.”

Even sharper than before. The TARDIS does think this, yes.

“I... see. I – well, obviously, you two have some sort of problem here.”

The agreement is turning sourer, but it’s still unmistakably affirmative. Carrie chances a glance at Roman, but his face is carefully blank.

“And because of this problem, you’ve decided that the best thing to do is...” Millie hesitates, and then says, “...kill yourself, and take him with you?”

The walls ring with crystalline affirmative.  Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I’m doing.  Carrie wants to say  have you considered not doing that , but just barely manages to bite it back. Probably not the time.

“Okay,” says Millie. And takes a breath. “Why?”

The room is silent, and the silence seems almost puzzled. 

“What’s the actual problem here?” Millie continues, after a second of no response. “What was  so bad  about traveling with him that meant you had to resort to... this?”

But it seems that whatever the answer is, it’s beyond the TARDIS’s communicative capabilities of humming and buzzing and shaking the room they’re standing in. The room remains still and silent, and for a second, nobody says anything at all.

Carrie looks at Roman. 

“What?” he says.

Carrie continues looking at Roman, very pointedly.

“Oh, well – fine. I suppose I can answer that.” He crosses his legs neatly, one over the other, and tilts his head back at the ceiling, frowning. “It’s pretty simple, actually. The Doctor got to choose  her  TARDIS, which means that they have the world’s greatest relationship and they’re practically making out every time she’s in the console room, but I didn’t get to choose.” He kicks out one boot-clad foot, rapping it furiously against the ground. “I, in fact, got shoved into the nearest TARDIS the Time Lords had to offer, which wasn’t a good match for me at all because I had a  plan  to follow and things to get on with, and this TARDIS is... the most boring TARDIS on Gallifrey, actually. Whoever heard of a TARDIS that doesn’t want to travel?”

The TARDIS makes an angry noise, as if to say,  and whoever heard of a Time Lord who does?

“Yes.  Yes.  I  don’t care, ” he says, and then, “The point is, I had to do a lot of traveling around; a lot of bumping around from planet to planet and time to time, a couple millennia’s worth of it, and we just never clicked. Never ended up having a  good vibe.  And I suppose she just got so sick of it that she felt like  this  was the best option. And this is  fine.  This is just  great.  I’m  enjoying  this.”

...Carrie gets the impression that Roman is not, in fact, enjoying this.

“And did that... come out of nowhere?” Millie says, frowning.

“What?” says Roman, raising an eyebrow. “The  murder attempts? ”

“Well – I suppose I’m just wondering if you maybe discussed this before she resorted to... yes, as you said, the... murder attempts. I remember that she didn’t seem too happy when she took us to Disneyland, but surely you must have... well, communicated your problems a bit. I mean, how long did you say you were traveling together?”

“A... few centuries,” he says slowly. “But – ” 

At this, Millie cuts across him. “Carrie. Another team huddle?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” says Roman.

Carrie ignores him in favor of huddling in the corner with one of her new favorite people in the universe,  Amelia freaking Earhart.  “Sure, what’s up?”

“So, they’re being idiots,” Millie starts, which is a very good and true thought, “and that’s obvious, but I’ve just had a thought.”

“...Well, it’s just a theory,” Millie says. “But – I’ve been traveling in the Doctor’s TARDIS for the last few months and I suppose… I suppose I’ve noticed that she acts differently with me than she ever did with the Doctor. It’s not just that I’m a different person.” She pauses, and that exhausted devastated expression slides across her face once more, before being replaced with careful blankness. “Obviously she doesn’t have the same relationship with me as she does with the Doctor, and besides all of  that,  I’m not even a Time Lord, but.... they’re psychic, aren’t they? If you let a psychic time machine into your head, they’re letting you into their head as well; not that they have heads, but – you understand what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”

Carrie nods, then shakes her head, and then shrugs. “You’re giving me a lot of credit for understanding things, Millie.”

“It’s a give-and-take thing, is what I think I’m trying to say. A mirror effect? A... mutual reflection. Is this making  any  sense?”

Carrie tries very hard to understand. “So what you’re saying is... they affect each other?”

“Exactly.” Millie looks very, very relieved.

“So it’s not a one-way sort of thing,” Carrie says, conclusion falling neatly into place. “Both Roman  and  the TARDIS are contributing to this situation. Okay!” She whirls to face Roman and claps her hands together, loud and sharp. “Enough bullshit, actually! As fun as this all is, I don’t want to spend forever in a TARDIS with you guys, I have stuff I actually need to be doing and we  also  need to find the Doctor. So. Roman? I need you to stop pretending to read that book, and get your butt over here  stat  so we can get the couple’s therapy started!”

“I’m sorry,” says Roman. “The  what? ”

*

Several minutes later finds them sitting on the ground in a rough circle, with Roman grumpily hunched up next to the nearest of the console room’s walls and Carrie staring at him with her best  we’re getting this done so help me god  expression; arms crossed for good measure.

“Even if you’re right about this, do you really think you can solve  centuries  worth of bitterness and resentment in the space of... one impromptu therapy session?” Roman says, a note of incredulity clear in his voice.

Millie’s arms are crossed too, because apparently that’s how they’re doing this. “If it doesn’t work, we apparently have the rest of eternity to keep on trying it.”

“Also, do we really have any better options?” Carrie points out.

Roman sighs,  hard,  and his expression darkens. He looks away, and doesn’t say anything at all.

“Exactly,” Carrie says, and clears her throat. “Okay, so the most important thing to do here is, you need to be willing to keep an open mind. Are you ready to at least  try  to communicate about your problems?”

Roman scowls. “No, not really.”

Around them, the TARDIS lets out a brief shrill cacophony of wordless screeches, that quickly die off into nothing.

Carrie and Millie share a glance. 

“Well,” says Millie slowly. “...At least the two of you... agree on something? That’s a start. I think.”

Carrie tries to stare down both Roman and an omnipresent time machine at once, and is mostly unsuccessful. “Guys, come  on.  I’m not actually a therapist – this is hard for me too. You could at least, like, try to be helpful about this.”

Millie presses her hand to the wall of the TARDIS closest to her. “Can you at least hear him out? And you can speak your side of things too. This could be your chance to get him to listen.”

After a second, the TARDIS lets out a muffled grumble of assent, and Roman scowls even more fiercely, before doing much the same.

Carrie releases a relieved sigh. Finally, progress! It’s only a tiny bit of progress, but she’ll take what she can get. “All right. All right, uhhh – let’s get started, I guess. Okay, so, like Millie said, the two of you  obviously  have some issues, so... let’s start with putting those on the table, making sure we’re all on the same page. What, specifically, are you guys so angry about?”

“Mostly, I’m angry that she’s trying to kill me,” says Roman. He’s leaning back against the wall, arms crossed, an expression on his face that practically screams,  why am I even doing this . “I feel like that’s a fairly reasonable thing to be angry about, actually.”

The TARDIS hums back something furious, and Carrie becomes abruptly aware that they may have a communication issue on that front, seeing as TARDISes don’t generally seem inclined to speak any language she understands. 

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately?) everybody else in the room seems to understand the TARDIS just fine.

Millie says, slowly – “She’s angry because... she says... ah. She says that Roman is – actually, no, I’m not repeating that.”

“I appreciate that, because it was really, really   rude.” Roman elbows the wall, sharp and furious. “You are being  really, really rude .”

In response, a panel on the other side of the room cracks open, spilling approximately half a tonne of marbles out of a hidden compartment. They rattle over the ground in a noisy, clattering wave. 

“See?” Roman says, and falls back against the wall, arms folded – glaring out at the other side of the room. “She  hates me. ”

The TARDIS makes a loud, clattering racket, as if to say,  correct! Go die, immediately and painfully!

“Whoa,  whoa  there!” Carrie exclaims, waving both hands in the air before this can get any further out of hand. “ Okay!  We’re going to start using ‘I’ statements instead of ‘you’ statements, because this... this  clearly  isn’t working.”

“ ... I’m sorry,  what  statements?” Roman says. 

“Like, instead of saying ‘she hates me’, you might want to try and say ‘I feel like I’m not being listened to’,” Carrie explains. “Focus on how the problem affects  you  rather than blaming other people by assuming you know what they’re thinking. That forces us to take responsibility for our own thoughts and feelings. Which is what we need right now.” Those therapy appointments are finally coming in handy! Although her therapist had probably never meant for all of those communications tips and tricks to be used in this exact context. But, hey, open communication is for everybody. “So, start off by saying what  you  think, and then follow that up by explaining how  you  feel. We can go around in a circle – Millie and I will go first, okay?”

Roman’s expression is ranging expansively between incredulous and furious. “Sure,” he says, after a long moment. “Fine. Why not?”

“I’ll start.” Carrie clears her throat, and tries to think. “Um, I think your TARDIS console room is a little creepy, and that’s making me feel a bit stressed out. But I also understand that’s something that nobody here really has any control over, so I think it’s something I’ll just have to deal with in my own time. And I’m all right with that!” She releases a breath, relieved that she could think up something on the spot like that. And it’s true, which is a bonus! “Millie, you go next.”

Millie looks a bit taken aback to be put on the spot like this, but she recovers gamely. “O... okay. Uh – hmm. I... am... really sorry you both got stuck here for such a long time, and it’s making me feel... regret!” She pauses, looking triumphant, and then elaborates – “Because you’re my friend – Roman more than you, Madame TARDIS, my apologies – and it doesn’t seem very fair that you risked your life to help me out only to get stuck in the middle of nowhere. I regret that I couldn’t have helped you out. That’s what I’m... that is what I’m feeling.” She glances at Carrie. “Am I doing that right?”

“Right!” Carrie agrees eagerly. “Just like that! Okay, Roman, your turn.”

Roman’s expression had softened a bit while Millie was talking, but now he rolls his eyes, and settles back against the wall. “Sure. All right. I think... that my TARDIS is trying to murder me in a terrible fashion because she hates me and wants me to die. And that makes me feel...” He trails off for a long, long moment, and then spreads his fingers, wiggling them. His expression is utterly blank as he intones, flat as anything: “ ... sad. ”

A moment passes.

Carrie forces brightness into her voice, and says, “That was a pretty good start! Although, you have to be careful again with assigning blame to other people, because you kind of... did that again with that ‘she hates me’ thing. Uhm, TARDIS, do you want to –”

The TARDIS’s lights flash on and off, three times in quick succession. There is an awful deafening rattling noise that echoes all throughout the room, and the message is quite clear: no, Roman’s right. She really does hate him.

“Oh,” says Carrie, deflating.

Silence reigns, and Roman drums his fingers against the floor, looking away from them. Beyond the doors, the sound of murderous blobs passing by in equally murderous flocks can be heard, and Carrie isn’t sure what to say. A few sessions of anxiety-management therapy hadn’t really prepared her for this. Like, she wants to help, but both Roman  and  the TARDIS are making this stupidly difficult, and she’s not built for solving other people’s problems if they aren’t willing to compromise a bit!

Thankfully, Millie’s the one that speaks up first. “So, what I’m getting here is that neither of you ever really wanted this.”

Roman lets out a vague hum of agreement, still not looking at her.

“And... neither of you actually wants to die.”

This time, it’s the TARDIS letting out the hum of agreement. At this, Roman’s scowl seems to deepen, and his lips press firmly together.

“But the TARDIS is holding steady to the mutual death thing out of spi – ” Millie hastily corrects herself mid-sentence. “ –   to prove a point.  And, you refuse to apologize because...?”

Roman sits upright, back straightening, and snaps, “I’m not the one who should be apologizing here!  She’s  the one who converted herself into a nightmare death trap and locked me here!” His hands go flat, slamming against the ground with a furious clatter. “Do I have to keep on repeating this? She’s trying to  kill me.  She tried to kill  you.  I don’t see what you’re not getting about this!”

“She’s hurt,” Millie says, leaning forward to stare him down.

“ So am I ,” Roman growls back at her.

“Sometimes, when you’re hurt, you... lash out,” Millie continues, stubbornly. “You say things you might not mean – or maybe you do mean, then, but you end up saying them in a way that... exacerbates the problem. Makes things worse.”

This time, Roman’s sigh is more of a violent hiss. “Ms Earhart – ”

Carrie hastily cuts in before things can get even more heated. “I think what Millie’s saying is – it might be worth trying to apologize. You don’t need to forgive each other,” she adds quickly, seeing the expression on Roman’s face begin to darken, feeling the TARDIS begin to vibrate and thrum beneath her, “because that’s not how this sort of thing works! But an apology might be a start.”

“Fine,” spits out Roman, and looks out to the dark-and-empty console room, glaring. “Fine, then. I’m  sorry. ”

It’s the most insincere apology Carrie’s heard in her entire life, which is really something considering that she’d spent several years as a PA in Los Angeles, of all places. The TARDIS seems to agree, judging by the noise that she’s making in response to that.

Roman flings a hand out, gesturing indignantly at the room as a whole. “ As I said. ”

Carrie’s eyes dart sideways, and she and Millie share a look.

Millie says, “That was...”

“That wasn’t great,” decides Carrie.

“That was really terrible,” Millie concurs.

Carrie nods. “You’re  not good  at apologizing.”

Roman smiles bitterly, and lets his head rest on the wall behind him. “I thought we were supposed to be using ‘I’ statements instead of ‘you’ statements.”

He’s right. Damn it. “I... feel frustrated.” 

“Sure,” says Roman, and it’s a bit insufferably smug, the way he says it – like he’s somehow won the conversation, even though he hasn’t even done anything remotely  close  to that. “Let’s talk about that. Why do you feel frustrated, Carrie?”

Carrie can’t take this anymore. She clenches her hands into tight fists, pressing them to her thighs, and snaps, “Because neither of you is  trying,  oh my gosh!” She wants to scream, actually properly scream, but manages to restrain herself because she doesn’t want Millie to have to be the only sensible and reasonable person here. “Like, I’m doing my best, but... Roman, listen, I’m not a machine built to keep on trying to solve your problems. And I need you to know that if you two keep on going like this, I’m going to straight-up walk out  that door ,” she jabs a finger at the exit to the console room, “and fling myself  right  into the nightmare abyss. Because  honestly?  dealing with the spiders is preferable to dealing with  this bullshit. ”

Roman’s expression has faded from ‘slightly insufferably smug’ to ‘just tired’. “Carrie – ”

“I’m serious. I said it! I’m saying it now, and I’ll say it again. This is  bullshit.  All of this!”

“It might be.” Roman pushes his glasses up his nose, and he looks unimaginably exhausted. “But I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”

“I want you to  try, ” Carrie tells him. “Like, you don’t have to be all soppy and lovey and Doctor-y about it, but, like...  try.  She’s willing to listen.”

“Is she?” says Roman, sounding unconvinced.

“...Hey, Roman?” says Carrie, fed up. “Have you considered that by stewing in your own self-hatred and bitterness and projecting it outwards onto your TARDIS you’re just perpetuating a toxic cycle of mutual hatred and regret which is ruining your relationship with her?”

Silence.

“What.”

“I said – ”

“I  know  what you just said.” Roman’s gone back to avoiding eye contact like the plague. “And what you said is stupid. Really stupid, actually, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Millie says, “...Being stuck in here, alone, for several hundred years made you really, really grumpy, didn’t it?”

“You  think? ” snaps Roman. 

For a few minutes, none of them speak. Roman seems like he’s trying to regain his composure, not that he had a lot at the start of this. Millie’s staring furiously at the wall like if she does it hard enough the TARDIS will start cooperating with them. And Carrie’s just trying to figure out another way to get this conversation started again that doesn’t end in her attempting to strangle Roman. Because it really feels like that’s where this is going to end up. Yes, Roman is sensible (sometimes), and Roman likes cats (rightfully so) and Roman is nice (occasionally), but also Roman is really stupid and somehow even more stubborn than the Doctor. 

“Okay,” says Carrie when it finally looks like Roman’s not about to punch a wall or say something incredibly dumb that’ll make everything a million times worse. She takes a deep breath. “Can you try to apologize again? Or at least, like... talk it out. Both of you,” she adds, glancing at the ceiling. “I am  not  kidding about flinging myself into the nightmare abyss.”

“I don’t think she’d do that to you,” Roman murmurs, and then, at Carrie’s (understandably) skeptical look – “Well, I mean – she knows you’re trying to help. At least, I  hope  she knows you’re just trying to help. If she hasn’t picked up on that by this point...” 

He trails off into bitter angry muttering that Carrie can’t quite make out. She bites her lip. She’s not entirely sure if this is an improvement or not. 

And then Millie looks up abruptly from the wall, eyes sharpening. It looks like she’s had a thought, which is good because Carrie’s not a big fan of being the only one here with a brain cell. It just isn’t her style.

Millie says, “Roman. Do you really want us to be stuck here with you forever?”

Roman stops muttering angrily to himself. He’s silent for a tick, two ticks, and then he says, “It won’t be.”

“Huh?” goes Carrie, head swiveling towards him.

“It won’t be forever,” he says. “Humans have... a drastically reduced lifespan, compared to Time Lords. even with the spillover Artron energy, I’d only give you about a century at most.”

Millie nods, looking unsurprised. “You’d have to watch us die.”

He doesn’t look happy in the least to be saying it. “Yes.”

“You don’t want that, do you?” Millie’s staring him down again, barely even blinking. 

He’s returning the favor, although he doesn’t look nearly as determined as she does. “Of course I don’t want that. But –” He cuts himself off, mid-sentence. Looks over to Carrie, looks immensely pained – then back at Millie. For a long moment, he says nothing at all. And then his shoulders drop. “Okay. Lord knows how I’m going to do this, but... okay. I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” says Millie quietly.

He nods, but follows it up with a hearty scowl. “Don’t thank me just yet. I’ve got to  do  this first.” 

He shifts over until he’s sitting cross-legged, facing the TARDIS wall directly. And then he’s silent.

After a moment, he says, “So, first things first. I think you’re in the wrong here.”

Which really isn’t the greatest start to a situation like this. But, hey it could be worse. Maybe.  Maybe?

“I think it’s... really, really unfair of you that you’re doing this to me,” Roman continues. “I accept that I have some responsibility for the whole thing and you didn’t want to be here, but this feels like an overreaction. From where I’m standing, anyway.”

He’s using ‘I’ statements instead of ‘you’ statements, which Carrie counts as a definite win. She’s not sure about where he’s going with this, though. Probably best not to start celebrating until he’s done.

The TARDIS makes a series of groans and grinding-gear-grumbles that are completely beyond Carrie’s limited ability to translate, but that Roman seems to understand just fine. 

“Of course you do, of  course  you have a right to be angry,” Roman snaps at the wall, “but so do I.”

More grinding, more furious this time.

“ Fine! ” explodes Roman, whirling away. “Fine! I get it, I get the point.” He takes a second to collect himself while the TARDIS keeps complaining at him. After a second, his breathing goes from harsh to moderately steady, and he raises his head again. But... I need you to know that I didn’t want this any more than you did. If I’m honest...” He trails off, and then he  laughs.  It’s still dry and it’s still cracking around the edges, but it’s real laughter. “Oh, if I’m honest with myself, then I’ll never stop. No, but really – if I’m honest, I think I would have preferred to stay in one place, too. I can’t be sure because I never got a chance to, but, I think I would have liked to stick around somewhere pleasant for a while.” And now he just sounds wistful. “Fall into some kind of rhythm, stop moving for a bit. Stop and listen to the music, smell the roses, eat some chips. The  good  kind. Not the American ones.”

“Why didn’t you?” Millie says. 

She and Carrie have been hanging back, staying in the shadows and staying quiet during all of this – and now Roman startles, like he hadn’t been aware she was even there. His eyes meet hers for a second, then he says, “The Doctor, of course. It’s always the Doctor. I suppose I could have walked away at any time – said  to hell with the plan  and just gone off to do my own thing, but... well.” He leans against the wall, looking weary. “She’s the Doctor. She needed me, and she asked for my help, so I kind of had to, didn’t I? I think I love her too much not to have said yes.”

Carrie thinks,  oh, that’s rough. That’s really rough.  But she doesn’t say it aloud, because Roman doesn’t look like he’s done talking.

“And then there’s the little matter of the entirety of this universe being obliterated if the Plan doesn’t go through,” he continues, seeming to shake himself out of her reverie, “so I guess  that’s  also a whole thing, but – yeah. Loyalty falling into outright stupidity. Story of my lives, isn’t it?”

Another angry flurry of beeps and whirs. 

Roman looks up at the ceiling, and now he’s addressing her directly, even as his expression sours. “I – well. First, let the record show that I didn’t  choose  you and I didn’t have a  choice  when the Time Lords pushed me into you and sent me chasing off after the Doctor in the first place, so if the two of us are blaming anyone for that, we should blame  them. ” He jabs a pointed finger upwards, vindictive.   “Keep that in mind!” And then he takes a step back, and sighs. “But, that being said, I... yes. All right. I suppose I could have swapped out for another TARDIS at some point, that’s... yeah. That’s on me. I –” And here Roman’s face twists, and he appears to be actively struggling to get the words out. It sounds like the worst thing he could possibly admit in the world when he finally forces it out: “– I...  apologize . I should have... been... more sensitive to your needs. And I... admit... that I may have been... entirely too harsh when it came to... dragging you around the universe and complaining about your unwillingness to... cooperate.”

The TARDIS beeps, noncommittal. She doesn’t seem to have fully accepted the apology yet. But at least she’s listening.

“And... look.” It’s hard to avoid eye contact with the time machine that you’re currently standing within, but Roman’s making a pretty good attempt at it anyway. “Obviously I’m still not happy about you trapping me here and doing the whole... psychological torture thing. But.” He takes a deep,  deep  breath, and then, almost gently, he admits: “You deserve to have the life that you want without me and my... whole grand scheme and quest getting in the way of it.” Even quieter: “I’m sorry it had to be like this. I’m sorry you had to get stuck with me.”

Silence. Long, long silence. Then, the lights begin to flicker on, slowly but surely, until they’re low and warm. They’re still faded and flickering, but they’re very deliberately  on . And a single, sad bleep echoes out directly from the console.

Carrie looks at Millie. Millie looks startled, and a bit delighted – and she nods. Carrie sits up straighter, and starts paying even closer attention to what noises the TARDIS is making, because she appears to be trying to communicate something. Something that sounds a bit like... a reluctant apology of her own, if Carrie’s not mistaken. 

If Carrie’s honest, she hadn’t actually expected this to work. Not so quickly. Not so  simply.  But apparently all that had been required was a proper, genuine apology. 

Roman still is looking down. There’s a rueful little smile on his face as he says, “We’re really bad for each other, aren’t we?”

Another bleep. Carrie watches Roman step up to the console and very carefully lay a hand down onto its surface – and his eyes fall shut. It’s nowhere near the level of tenderness that she’s used to from the Doctor and her TARDIS, but there’s some amount of awkward gentleness to it all the same. A short silence ensues, where nobody speaks and both she and Millie are holding their respective breaths. There seems to be some kind of silent communication going on that’s even more impossible to parse than the previous weird-beeps-and-screeches had been.

And then Roman sighs, and the console room around them seems to breathe out as well, and a tension that had filled every room in this TARDIS up until now seems to finally disperse.

“She says we can go,” he says, looking up. He sounds a bit bewildered at the very thought, but he seems confident enough about its reality.

“What’s going to happen to her?” Millie says. 

“She anchored herself on a temporal snarl on purpose,” says Roman, eyes still wide. “So I suppose she’s... going to try to disentangle herself. Apparently she intends to return to Gallifrey. Stick around one of the quiet chapterhouses. Heal for a bit. Ah – good for her, I suppose.”

Carrie isn’t sure what’s just happened, exactly, but it seems like good news. “And... you can leave? she’s going to let you leave?”

“Apparently?” Roman makes it sound like a question that he doesn’t want the answer to.

Carrie resists the urge to run up to him, throw her arms around him, and then start bashing him mercilessly over the head with her bum bag for taking so long to actually get to this point. She settles for just saying, “Shit, man, that’s great! Is there anything you want to bring with you, or?”

Roman leans down to pick up the book he’d been reading when they’d first entered the room. And then he slowly puts it down. “I... no. I think I can just... go.” And then, more firmly: “I think we should just go.” And, to the ceiling – “I wish you the best.”

And here’s the thing: it doesn’t sound like a lie at all. It doesn’t even sound remotely insincere. 

And the noise the TARDIS makes... well, it almost sounds like she’s repeating the sentiment back to him.

*

The entire trip back to the Doctor’s TARDIS, Roman has the distinct air of a man waiting for the other shoe to drop. He lets Millie lead the way, and lets Carrie bring up the back, but his movements are careful, cautious, and he keeps glancing at the walls, the ceiling, the way they’d just come, as if expecting killer slime blobs to come oozing out at any moment and get the jump on them. The poor guy probably needs some  actual  therapy, Carrie decides, and then starts wondering if whatever therapist they book might have a slot open for Millie as well, because the two of them have some  issues,  there.

But no attack comes. The walk back to the Doctor’s TARDIS takes five minutes at most, and the hallways of Roman’s former TARDIS are quiet and calm around them. There isn’t even the slightest hint of objection as Millie unlocks the doors, and holds them open for Roman. 

Roman hesitates, then takes a breath and straightens his back, and steps through the doors. Within, a distinctly pleased hum rises up, and judging by the smile that begins to rise on his face in response, this is definitely his preferred TARDIS of choice. 

Carrie raises her hand to Millie for a silent fist-bump, which is accepted and reciprocated after only a second of hesitation. Mission accomplished! Well, first mission, at least. The next step is finding the Doctor, but they’ll set that bridge on fire when they get to it. 

“Good luck getting home,” says Millie, to Roman’s former TARDIS, and receives a hauntingly melodic chime from the walls around them in return. Carrie waves goodbye, and then two of them follow Roman in, shutting the door behind them. Even as it clicks shut, the sound of grinding engines rises up from outside, quickly replaced by the sound of rushing void. There is a  jolt  as the Doctor’s TARDIS falls, spinning sideways into the Time Vortex, but after a moment it seems to right itself. 

The other TARDIS is gone. It’s just them now. 

“All right!” says Carrie, clapping her hands together. “So, Roman – uh, Roman?” She frowns, looking around, because Roman seems to have abruptly vanished from sight. 

A moment of closer inspection reveals that he’s still in the console room – he’s just disappeared around the other side of the console, and is hidden from sight by virtue of the fact that he’s currently sitting on the ground, Gunther in his arms, and his face buried in her back. She doesn’t appear to mind, judging by just how hard she’s purring. 

“Don’t mind me,” he says, slightly muffled by fur. “Just, hmmm... catching up. Hello, darling, hello, you sweet girl,  yes,  I have missed you – ”

He’s definitely having a Moment. Carrie can relate, because she’s pretty sure she’s going to do the exact same thing with Mr. Meezers the moment she gets back home. “You know what? Fair! Take your time.”

Roman makes a pleased noise that indicates that yes, taking his time is  exactly  what he’s planning on doing here. 

“You know Gunther?” says Millie, sounding curious.

Roman raises his head from Gunther’s back, and gives her several fond scratches at the scruff of her neck. “Of course I know Gunther. I was the one who gave her to the Doctor, originally. Not that she’d know that.”

Carrie blinks. “Whoa, what?”

Now that he’s no longer in the dying empty TARDIS, Roman’s mood seems to have done a complete about-turn. He seems lighter, somehow. Still a bit shaky at the edges, not quite  perfectly  all right, but the mood shift is palpable. He smiles at Gunther, tugs her closer. “It was an anonymous donation. Did she ever mention that she was stranded in the nineties for a while there?”

“Uh,” says Carrie, “I mean, yeah. She brought it up once or twice.”

“Yeah, I dumped a cat on her,” Roman says, and indicates Gunther, rather unnecessarily. “She wasn’t picking up any companions and watching her moping around gathering up parts was getting really old, actually, so I picked out Gunther... mwah.” He plants a kiss on the back of Gunther’s head – who, to her credit, only squirms a bit at the amount of attention she’s getting. “Who’s the best girl? Yes, you are, yes, it’s you, yes I  did  miss you a lot you sweet perfect thing... ah, and the rest is history. Or something.”

Millie looks like she’s trying to bite back a smile and a frown, all at once. “Not that this isn’t, well,  adorable –  I’m really glad you get to have your cat back, actually! – but... if there’s any way you could find the Doctor for us...?”

“Oh, I’m not good enough? I see how it is.” He’s smiling, though; good humor thoroughly restored. It’s hard to tell if that’s more because of his recent change in home address, or because he’s got a cat in his arms. Both are good reasons to be happy, Carrie thinks. She watches him gently places Gunther back on the ground, and then stand up, dusting himself off. “All right,” he says, and then he’s stepping up to the console, his fingers flashing left right and center as he’s suddenly all business – operating the TARDIS with such skill and swiftness that it makes the Doctor look like a flailing amateur by comparison. “Finding the Doctor. Let’s see about that, then.” 

Carrie’s not sure if she even wants to know, but...“What are you doing?”

“Biodata scan.”

“Bio- what? ”

“All living beings have a unique individual intrinsic code that allows them to be identified as such, even across incarnations and mutations. Think of it like... DNA, but for your timestream. Now, I don’t know about Travis, but I  do  know the TARDIS has a record of the Doctor’s. So if we can just track her most recent biodata traces...”

“What if you end up finding a past version of her instead?” Millie says, sounding very much she’s had that happen to her all too many times.

Roman hums to himself, typing away at the speed of light. “Shouldn’t happen, if I set it to find the most recent temporal instance of her. You said the last time you saw her in this universe was Colony 47? I’ll set it to any appearances in her personal timeline past then.”

Millie joins Roman at the console. Hope is beginning to gradually creep onto her face. “And if we find her, Travis should be nearby.”

“Exactly,” says Roman, snapping his fingers at her. “Or at the very least, she might have a clue where to find him. I can’t imagine she  wouldn’t,  considering.”

Carrie crowds in, forcing herself in between Millie and Roman so they all can see the monitors. “I  told  you finding Roman was a good idea! He actually knows what he’s doing!”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Roman replies, with an expert twirl to a set of glowing dials. “I’m sure you would have figured it out on your own eventually. I mean, it’s not  hard,  a first-year temporal engineering student would be able to do this, it’s just a matter of...  aha,  here we go! Fingers crossed...”

Carrie crosses the fingers of both her hands, holds them up so the others can see, and Millie does the same. Roman slams his hand down on a lever, setting some sort of weird TARDIS process into action, and then – somewhat reluctantly – crosses his fingers too. The TARDIS whirs and beeps, lights flashing wildly across every surface as the scan begins to run, and for a second the three of them are standing there, fingers crossed and holding their breath, and  waiting. 

There is a beep. Roman’s shoulders go tense and tight as the results flash across the screen, simple and damning:  No instances found. 

Millie blinks. “What – ”

“I’ll run it again,” says Roman abruptly, cutting her off.

He does, and this time the response comes back even quicker.  No instances found. 

Roman takes a breath, and then a step away, and says, very quietly, “Oh no.” 

“No,” breathes Millie.

Carrie’s heart sinks. “Wait. Do you mean – ”

“They’re gone,” Roman says heavily. “Whatever happened to them, wherever they are, they’re not in this universe.” 

Millie’s hands are tight on the scarf hanging around her neck. She’s holding onto it like a lifeline, fingers woven into it so tight that it almost looks like she’s trying to fuse with it. “No. No.” 

“Ms Earhart –  Millie . Millie, I’m very sorry, but...” Roman hesitates, and then reaches out, very carefully and very slowly, and rests a hand on her arm. “...if. If they fell out in the space between universes, as you said, there is... very little chance that there’s any way to get them back. It’s – ” 

“ No.  No, they are, you can’t – they  can’t  be – ” 

“Millie,” says Roman, very softly, and his voice is thick with grief. “Millie. I wouldn’t be saying this if I wasn’t sure.”

Millie lets out a sound that’s halfway between a sob and a choked-off scream, and grabs onto Roman’s arm so sharply that for a second it looks more like an attack. But he doesn’t fight back or withdraw, and Millie just.  Crumples.  It’s like watching a plastic cup get smashed against the wall, the way she falls against Roman’s shoulder, and the worst bit might just be the expression on Roman’s face as he rests a hand on her back and lets her cry on him. It’s bitter exhaustion, hopeless understanding, and just a bit of outright despair. 

“She can’t be gone,” Millie croaks out. “She just...  can’t.  I waited for her. I waited for  so long  -” 

“I know,” says Roman. It can’t be comfortable, the way she’s clinging to him like that, but all he does is just let it happen. “I know. Oh, I know.”

Carrie has to look away. It feels like something she shouldn’t be watching. This isn’t her universe the people that they’ve lost aren’t her friends, she’s only an interloper in the middle of this whole thing, and the worst bit is that she can’t do anything about it. She’s not smart with technology like Travis is, or a jack-of-all-trades genius like the Doctor is. She doesn’t have Millie or Roman’s experience, and while she knows that she brings a lot to the table, adventuring-wise, most of that is negotiating and reckless stunts and hitting things. Nothing that can help  here. 

It’s a long time before Millie finally stops crying, and when she does, she doesn’t move away from Roman. She just stays there, leaning against him, her eyes red and swollen and her breathing heavy and uneven. 

She says, rather thickly, “Carrie.”

“Um, yeah,” says Carrie. She wants to go over and hug Millie, but it doesn’t look like there’s a non-awkward way to insert herself into the situation. Roman’s still lightly rubbing Millie’s back, and not saying a word.

“You’re not from this universe,” Millie says, and turns away from Roman at last. “You said – you told me that you fell through a portal from another dimension, so that  must  mean there’s some sort of access point to... ‘the space between universes’ – what he just said. Yes?”

Roman says, very quietly, “I’m not sure that – ”

“That’s what we were planning to do the first time, when we went looking for Roman,” Millie continues insistently. “We were going to get him to fly you to that  dimension pool  or  prophecy pool  or whatever it was so you could get home. Well, let’s do that! Let’s find that place, wherever it is, and let’s get you home. And maybe – ” She’s glancing at Roman, who’s got his lips pressed together into a thin line. “ – well, maybe there’s some way to get the Doctor and Travis back from wherever they are. We’ll never know if we don’t try!”

“I don’t even know where it  is,  it’s not like the Doctor told me,” Carrie says, and then her eyes widen. “ Wait!  No, I  do  have something. I’ve got...” She’s fumbling so fast for the zip of her fanny pack that she doesn’t manage to get it open until the third try. There, roughly shoved into the top, is a crumpled flyer from an alien information center that she’d picked up just that morning. “… this!  It’s a map of the caves. It should probably tell us something, right?”

A moment passes where Carrie is looking at Roman, and Millie’s also looking at Roman, and Roman’s staring back at them both with a sort of deer-in-headlights,  I was not expecting this turn of events  look. Then he steps back and lifts his hands to the console again. His shoulders are set and there is a look of sharp determination in his eyes. 

“I’m not entirely sure yet,” he says. “But give me that flyer, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Chapter Text

*

He’s sitting next to her, now. Side-by-side at the edge of reality; Travis and a Doctor who he knows almost as well as he knows himself – but also doesn’t know at all, not really. She looks the same, she sounds the same, has that familiar furious-frown slashed across her face that she gets when there’s something really bothering her, but... she isn’t looking at him. She isn’t acknowledging him as a friend. She’s barely acknowledging him at all, even.

It’s hard to find the words to speak, and this Doctor doesn’t seem as inclined to filling silences as his version is.

“This,” he says, when he can find the words to do it. “This… is Earth. You’re saying... we’re on Earth?”

“What’s left of it, yeah,” she confirms, and flicks another pebble out into the void, spinning it off her thumb like a flipped penny. It skitters down the steep slope at their feet, bounces off at a sharp angle, and disappears into cracked, broken nothingness without even so much as a sound. “Pretty sure this used to be California.”

He looks around at where they are. It’s just... chunks of earth floating. Untethered, impossible. No, scratch that, they’re literally chunks of Earth. There’s not many of them, not really. This one that he and the Doctor and the TARDIS are on, it’s the largest. This sight of it all fills him with the sort of yawning dread that he gets when he contemplates death a bit too carefully and a bit too long. He can’t quite wrap his mind around it, can’t force himself to understand. This is Earth. This was Earth. Something happened to Earth, in this universe. Something happened to this Earth, and this Doctor has been stranded here with a broken TARDIS, on what’s left of it, and that feels like the worst thing imaginable, because, god does she love this planet. Loves it as much as her own, maybe even more, she’s so unimaginably fond of it, and now she’s just... sitting here. Drifting in its wreckage.

Alone.

He tries to swallow, finds that he can’t. His throat is too dry. “What happened?”

“Well,” she says, and laughs. Dry and unamused. “For starters, I didn’t listen to you. About Romana – Roman.”

He’d meant about the Earth. About her. About why she hasn’t changed out of her old-self’s clothes, about what happened right after he’d left her the last time. But Roman is a good place to start. He wants – no, he needs to know what happened to her and Roman. “Did he – ” And then he has to stop, almost immediately. He doesn’t want to ask did he do this. He doesn’t want to know for sure that Roman’s responsible for the Earth being… like this.

But the Doctor seems to know what he means, anyway. “Yeah. He did.”

“How – ”

“You know what happened. Or you had a pretty good idea. There’s no other reason you would have tried to warn me, is there?” She scoops up another pebble, flicks it out and away, glowers vaguely into the void. “Nice try, I guess. I appreciate the attempt to break the laws of Time for me. Look at that; I’m not even mad.”

“I knew something ended up happening to you,” Travis says. Tenses are tricky when it comes to time travel, but he’s pretty sure she knows what he means. After a second, he slowly picks up a rock of his own, and looks out to the lack of horizon. He aims, and flings it out, and it vanishes into the void. It’s not nearly as satisfying as he’d hoped it would be. “I didn’t know the details. I knew... I don’t know what I knew. I didn’t think it was going to be this.”

A pause, and then… “You thought I’d died.”

“I... kinda.” Although – this probably isn’t the time to be evasive. “…Yeah. I did. The – he – Roman made it sound like you had.”

“Right, you said you’d met him.” The Doctor sounds weirdly unconcerned, only a touch bitter at the edges. Morbidly curious as she asks, “So. How’s he doing?”

Travis frowns at the void. There’s no good way to say this. “Um. He drugged me and tried to use me to break open the Matrix so he could maintain control of Gallifrey.”

“So, power-hungry dictator.”

“I guess.”

“Figures.” She fiddles with the collar of the shining silver jacket, picking at a loose stitch. It’s a familiar fidget, the sort of thing she’d usually do with her scarf. She isn’t wearing a scarf right now. “Yeah, so – you left, and then – sorry, this was a while ago, trying to remember the details. The bird thing, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. The bird thing, they were trying to get into the TARDIS.” Time travel never stops being weird like that; how it can be seconds for him and a lifetime for her all at once. “What happened next?”

She tells him what happened next. The bird adventure had gone well, apparently – she doesn’t bother to share the details. The adventure after that, not so much. Messy and desperate and not many survivors of the situation in question, and Romana had been a casualty. So, goodbye Romana, hello Roman.

It had been a pretty traumatic regeneration too, and they’d spent a good few days in the TARDIS recuperating, getting their heads back on straight, but Roman had been… off. Out of it. Strange, too, not at all the cheerful blitheness of his previous incarnation. Harsher. Violent. (Travis feels a shiver run up his spine at that. Harsh isn’t a word he ever wants to pair with Roman, but he can’t deny that harsh is kind of exactly what this universe’s Roman is.) The Doctor had chalked that up to standard regeneration trauma and the usual personality changes, rather than anything being actually wrong.

 But then she’d decided to tell him about the Plan.

Travis says, “And that didn’t go... it didn’t go well, did it?”

Another bitter little laugh from the Doctor. “No. He blew up at me. He told me it was idiotic, told me that a long-term plan involving so many moving pieces was both unnecessary and something he didn’t want to be a part of, and he said he could deactivate the Matrix so much quicker if he just... went on his own and did it himself. Which – look, the entire reason I thought up the Plan was so we wouldn’t go off storming the Capitol recklessly.” She sighs. “But, no. We argued. And kept arguing. And then we argued some more, and crashed on Skaro, and the argument continued, and it got pretty heated and I don’t remember a lot of details from it – and I guess I must have stormed off to deal with the local reality-bending problem, but the details from there get a bit fuzzy.” She gestures helplessly, palms up. “The next thing I know, I’m back in the TARDIS and Roman just... isn’t there and I’m regenerating, and – ” A long pause. “He did something to the TARDIS. Stole a component, modified something. I usually end up setting the TARDIS on fire when i regenerate these days, but it was more than that. It felt worse. I crashed on Earth, and then a few days later... the war kicked off.”

“The Time War,” Travis says.

“It’s less of a war and more just a bunch of overpowered children throwing rocks at each other across space. Yeah, the Time War. A Time War. I mean, they’re all the same after a while, aren’t they? This time, the only difference is it’s not Daleks or vampires or... whoever, throwing rocks at the Time Lords. It’s Time Lords throwing rocks at each other.”

He doesn’t want to be rude, or ask stupid questions to a Doctor who’d clearly lost her patience a long time ago, but… “How do you... know? I thought you said that you’ve been stuck out here all this time.”

“I can still pick up broadcasts. I’m getting the gist of things.” She grimaces. “And the gist is that my former friend Romanadvoratrelundar is an idiot, and former president Rassilon is pretty much matching him beat-for-beat in terms of idiocy.”

“What are they even doing?”

She sighs, stops poking at rocks and picking at her jacket, and sits back, resting her weight on her hands, pressing her hands to the ground. “Essentially, it’s a power struggle. Grudge match for who gets control of Gallifrey. Rassilon, of course, really wants to get his hands on the place. Roman’s not too keen on the idea, and normally I’d be with him every step of the way, but he said he’d take care of the Matrix and flounced off to do it himself, and hasn’t been back here in several decades, so either something went wrong or he decided he had a better idea.”

Travis swallows. “Yeah. Well. He... kind of, sort of, maybe decided he was better off controlling the Matrix than destroying it?”

“Right. Power-hungry dictator. Of course he did."

Travis doesn’t know if Roman’s a power-hungry dictator, exactly – he didn’t seem power hungry, just at the end of his rope – but, no. He doesn’t want to be sitting here making excuses for a person who had pulled a gun on him and tried to mind-zap him, no matter how much he looks and sounds like Travis’s old friend Roman. He swallows again, and tries to summarize. “So, the TARDIS is broken. and you’re stuck here.”

“That’s what I said,” the Doctor agrees, and for a moment or two silence rings between them.

“Doctor...?” Travis says, very slowly.

She hums at him – vaguely, tunelessly.

“How long have you been here?”

She doesn’t respond, which either means she doesn’t want to tell him, or that she can’t remember. Travis doesn’t like either option.

He stares off into the distance. None of this feels real. “Doctor. Do you remember when I said I really needed a hug, and you gave me one?”

After a moment, she nods. “Why?”

“It’s just... you really look like you could use a hug.”

She grimaces sharply. “ I... wow, all right. Look, I appreciate the thought, but I’m not much of a hugger this time.”

He bites his lip. Obviously if she doesn’t want the hug, he’ll respect that, but... “It’s been a while for you. I know it’s been a while. And I was alone for that long… I think I’d want a hug, too.”

She is sullenly silent for a second. “Travis, I don’t know you.”

He tries not to look too desperate. “I know.”

“We’ve met, what, three times? And some of my past selves were a lot more trusting than others, but... Travis, I don’t know you. And you don’t know me either, and... you shouldn’t be trying to help me. This entire universe is broken. You need to just jump back along my timeline and get out of here. It’s not your problem. You need to leave.”

“What?” he says. “No. No, I’m not... I don’t think I can leave, if the TARDIS is broken, can I?” He knows she isn’t his Doctor, not really – like she’s said, she barely knows him apart from a few hurried time-jumping meetings, she hasn’t smiled once since he’d shown up, and everything about her seems to indicate that she’s given up completely. But it’s still her face, her voice, her familiar impatience, her habit of chewing on her bottom lip when thinking hard. She’s still his best friend. “And that’s not even – even if I could leave, I wouldn’t. Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you.” He reaches out to grab her hand or grab her arm or anything and then forces himself not to. “Can... can I please hug you?”

She sighs. She sighs that very familiar, very particular sigh of hers that only occurs when she’s at the very end of her rope – an annoyed little huff of air that comes out almost involuntarily, like she just can’t keep it contained any longer. “Make it quick, then.”

He tries to make it as quick as he can, but it’s hard because he kind of just wants to wrap himself around her forever and never let go. Like, she’s an ancient alien who’s probably been alive longer than he can possibly conceive, but she looks so terribly young like this. She’s his best friend and she’s so sad and he wants to make everything better but doesn’t know how to.

For a second, he swears she’s hugging him back just as tightly, but then she says, “All right, that’s – that’s enough.”

He nods and withdraws, shuffling away. A second passes, and then the Doctor straightens up, and she begins to speak, briskly, like she’s embarrassed the hug had even happened and wants to gloss over it as quickly as possible with information. “There’s enough food in the TARDIS to last you a while. I think the library’s still functional, so as long as you like reading you shouldn’t get too bored.”

“I’m – I was a librarian.” (Is he still a librarian? Do you stop being a librarian just because you’re a million light years and several universes away from your library? No. Nope. Wrong time for that philosophical tangent.)

“Great, you’ll be right at home then. Feel free to…” She waves a hand. “I don’t know. Whatever.”

His throat tightens. “You... what?”

“What?” she echoes, bewildered.

“What?” he repeats.

“What do you mean, what?”

“I mean, what are you doing? Why aren’t you – why aren’t you trying to fix the TARDIS? Stop Roman? Stop Rassilon, stop any of this? Why are you telling me to just... just hide in the library and read until the world ends?”

“Never underestimate the power of a good book,” she begins, then grimaces. “No, never mind, I can’t even say that with a straight face. Look, what do you want me to do? I don’t have the parts to fix the TARDIS, and it’s all going to be over in a decade or two anyway, at the rate that things are going.”

Travis stares at her. Really stares at her, takes her in. The last Doctor’s clothes hanging off her, ragged and torn at the edges. Her glasses are smudged and her hair is lank and messy. “Have you been wearing your old self’s clothes this whole time?”

She glances down, like she’s only just seeing herself. “Guess so.”

“You.... didn’t pick out your own thing?”

“Is there any point?”

For a second, Travis finds himself completely unable to speak.. She’s... really not his Doctor. Because his Doctor is bright and quick and forwards-moving – and, crucially, never one to pass up the opportunity to dress for the occasion. Even if the occasion doesn’t necessarily need to be dressed up for. “There... what?”

“The TARDIS is broken.” She sends a rock sailing off into nothingness with a languid flick of her wrist. “No Earth and no planets nearby means nowhere to find the parts to fix it.” Yet another rock goes flying off into the black. “Whatever the Time Lords are doing is ripping the universe apart, galaxy by galaxy. And without a working time machine, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. What am I meant to be getting dressed up for? My own funeral?”

For a single, wild moment, he feels the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she splits open like a pinata and reveals the real Doctor inside. Ask her what the hell she’s talking about, ask what happened to her even though she’s already explained and he already fully knows the answer. The Doctor doesn’t just sit around and do nothing. She shouldn’t be sitting at the end of the universe, wrapped in a tattered shiny coat and throwing rocks into the void like it’s the only thing left to do. She should be... she needs to be... she needs…

He knows what she needs.

He stands up, a bit clumsily, and brushes dirt off his jeans. “Come on,” he says. “We’re going to find a scarf.”

She looks up at him, flatly uninterested. “Are you feeling chilly? I didn’t think it was that cold out here.”

“Nope.” He hopes his voice isn’t shaking. “The scarf is for you. Or, maybe not a scarf, but we’ve got to find something. How do you feel about boots?”

She sighs. “Travis, why are you doing this?”

“Because you’re my friend and I care about you,” he says, and adds to himself, and seeing you like this is terrifying. I’ve never seen you so defeated and I want it to stop, but does not say it aloud. “And… and you need a new coat, so you’re ready to help me fix the TARDIS. You can’t fix the TARDIS without a new coat.”

She looks at him and somehow manages to convey a flat, disbelieving what, all without saying a word.

Travis squares his shoulders, summons the last of his energy. When all of this is over, he’s going to crash face-first into his bed and sleep for, like, a week. Being the assertive guy-with-a-plan is hard, but he forces himself to look like he knows exactly what he’s talking about. “We’re going to fix the TARDIS, and get us both out of here.”

She rolls her eyes at him, crosses her legs and sits back again. “Yeah, all right. I don’t know if I explained this properly, but I don’t have the parts. Where were you thinking of getting them from, abandoned chunk of Earth-asteroid number twenty-six?”

He’s not good at fighting the Doctor on anything, but for her sake, he’ll try. He jabs a finger in her direction. “Good news: I have a whole database of alien knowledge in my head. I’m talking ridiculous amounts of information about future tech, and I’m very good at technology. I bet between us, we can figure something out. Come on.”

“That database doesn’t happen to contain Gallifreyan engineering manuals, does it?”

Travis actually... doesn’t know. He can’t access his usual databanks and databases right now, but he suspects that the collected knowledge of all of Mondas does not, in fact, have all that much information on Gallifreyan engineering. He doesn’t want to say that, but also doesn’t want to lie to the Doctor, so he just opens his mouth, and says, “Uhh – ”

“Right. There you go, then.”

She’s being flippant. Horribly dismissive, in that way she gets when she’s dead-set on something and isn’t going to listen to anyone or anything contradicting her worldview, which is normally fine and great, but right now she’s dead-set on... not being herself. Not doing anything. He swallows, squeezes his eyes shut, tries to breathe through the slowly-growing panic of the situation he’s found himself in. The Doctor’s usually the one that gives the grand motivational speeches, not him, but he’s spent so much time around her that he’s pretty sure he’s absorbed some of the speech-giving just through general osmosis.

“Look,” he says, letting his shoulders drop. “It didn’t go like this in my universe.”

“Kind of figured, yeah.”

“It really didn’t go like this,” he stresses. “Like... okay, for starters, your plan worked. It took a while and it got a bit complicated in the middle, and I don’t know how much of it I understood, but it worked. You managed to take apart the Matrix. Gallifrey is... improving. It wasn’t a bad plan, Doctor.”

She’s giving him a look that he can best describe as sounds fake, but okay. He tries to ignore it, and presses on.

“And Roman – he’s not like this where I come from. I’m not sure what happened to him here, but in our universe he’s... he’s our friend. He didn’t just dump you on a rock in the middle of nowhere and run off, he helped with the plan, and… he’s your friend. And, you have a cat. We’ve got two cats, actually, one of them’s Carrie’s.”

She doesn’t sound interested when she says, “Carrie?” – but she doesn’t sound not-interested either, which he counts as a win.

“Our friend. Your friend. You have friends, you have us. You’ve got Roman and, you’ve got me and Carrie, and – and Millie too.” It still hurts to think about Millie, it always does, but he’s powering through that thought so fast it’s barely even hitting him. “We’ve gone on so many adventures and seen so many places and – ”

“Okay,” the Doctor interrupts, “yeah, I get the point. What’s the point of telling me this?” She looks exhausted. “Your universe is so much better than this one. Great. Brilliant. Got that bit, thanks.”

“It doesn’t need to be like this. I’m telling you because we can make it better,” he says, stressed to the verge of tears. He swallows, hard. “There’s no point just lying down and waiting to die, because if you never at least try to fix things you’ll never get anywhere. You taught me that, Doctor.”

She hangs her head for a moment. Her loose curls spill over her eyes, lank and uncombed. After a second, she mutters, “You’re so optimistic.”

“Someone needs to be.” He waits until she’s looking back at him, and looks her dead in the eyes and summons up everything he has, and says, “Please can you help me fix the TARDIS? If you don’t come, I’m going to try to do it on my own, but I really don’t want to do that because... god, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She’s silent for a moment, a very long moment. “Thought you wanted me to change my clothes first.”

He had nearly forgotten, on top of everything else. “I... yeah.”

“So let’s do that.”

It’s such a sudden change of opinion that he’s left mildly blindsided. She’s agreeing, just like that? He’s definitely not complaining, but the Doctor is legendarily stubborn, and this seems like a complete 180-turn in such a short span of time. All he can do is nod and watch as she stands up, brushing the dust off her shiny-silver coat, and then follow behind her as she leads the way to the TARDIS. Because some things really don’t change, apparently.

*

The TARDIS wardrobe is a familiar sight. He’s spent more hours than he can count in here – with Millie, with Roman and Carrie and the Doctor in various combinations – sometimes hurriedly grabbing appropriate clothes for unexpected adventures, sometimes just digging through the racks and shelves out of idle curiosity. There are lifetimes’ worth of clothes in here, and stepping through the door is stepping into colorful chaos. That, at least, hasn’t changed over universes. If the lights weren’t off and there weren’t a thready buzzing noise echoing through the halls, rather than the familiar warm hum, he could almost trick himself into thinking he’s back home.

The Doctor steps into place behind him, silver shimmering coat still hanging limp off her shoulders. None of it really fits well on her; every part of it made for a man much thinner and taller than she is. “What’s the plan? High school chick flick fashion montage?”

He blinks. “If you want? I mean, I can definitely do the thing where I stand out here and give you a thumbs up every time you come out wearing something new. I’m pretty good at that.”

She shrugs. She looks... uncomfortable. The Doctor doesn’t often look this uncomfortable, not unless you’re pushing her into an overwhelmingly mundane situation where she’s going to have to pretend to be a human being, or being handed a loaded gun or something. “Just... what am I looking for?”

Travis frowns. “Well – clothes, mainly...?”

“Oh, all right,” she says, a flicker of irritation falling across her face. “All right, fine, be like that.”

“I didn’t mean – ” Travis shakes his head. He’s used to the Doctor getting jokingly irritated at him, scrunching up her face at his obliviousness and making gentle fun of slips of the tongue, but this other Doctor’s temper seems shorter, if anything. It’s less of a joke, more of an edge. “If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to. We can just go and try to fix the TARDIS.”

“No, you’re right,” she says, shortly. “I should change. Tell me what I need to find.”

This is such a weird reversal of the usual string of events that he’s momentarily lost for words. Travis is the worst at getting dressed up, usually it’s Carrie and the Doctor throwing outfits at him and reminding him how to tie a tie. Any time someone needs to make a fashion choice, the best he can really do is nod encouragingly and make excited noises at things he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to say, ‘can’t you just find your own stuff’, but...

“You said a scarf. Scarves are good.” She doesn’t sound very enthusiastic about it. “I think I keep the scarves over… here, here we go.” With a sudden burst of energy, she’s flitted over to the other side of the room, where – yes, an entire revolving rack of scarves dangle, like a hanger full of oddly-colored snakes. She swipes through several, pauses on one particularly long-and-colorful-one that looks like the person who knitted it had been smoking something really, really interesting, and adds, “Was it one of these? I think I’ve got some others in storage...”

Travis is struck with the sudden realization that she’s only doing this because of him. No, more than that – she’s only doing this for him. It’s not at all about what she wants. She still doesn’t want to be doing this.

His stomach twists, and he becomes aware that the Doctor is looking expectantly over her shoulder at him. There’s no way he can’t answer, so he says, “Um. Grey. It was – it’s a grey scarf.”

She nods, satisfied, and starts pulling out grey scarves from the depths of the rack, holding them up in his direction, apparently looking for him to point out a specific one. Her patience frays very quickly as he hesitates, reluctant to make a choice. It’s not just that none of them really look like his Doctor’s scarf. He can see her usual scarf. It’s right there, in the middle. He tries not to look at it. “I don’t know. They all look – fine. They look good.”

The Doctor gives him a look, like, what’s up with you? “O... kay. Sudden lack of enthusiasm, right. This whole thing was your idea, you know.”

Travis is also very aware now that there’s no real way he can brush this off, and he doesn’t think he can just insist that she makes her own choice. He swallows back the discomfort, and jabs his finger at the scarf he thinks would suit her best.

The Doctor looks at it for a split-second, nods, flings it carelessly around her neck. It’s a darker grey than the one he’s used to her wearing, a single solid color rather than patchy stripes and streaks, a bit shorter too. It does suit her. “Coat. I usually do a coat at this point. What do you think-?”

And Travis... can’t. He just can’t; he can’t do this anymore.

“I need a new shirt,” he says abruptly, looking around wildly for the appropriate rack. “I’ve been running around in this one all day – you can pick out a jacket, whatever you choose will be great, probably. I’ve just got to – ”

She doesn’t stop him, as he makes a hasty retreat into the shadows of the rest of the wardrobe room. Maybe she’s realized just how uncomfortable he is, or maybe she just doesn’t know him enough to feel like she has to run after him – but either way she doesn’t follow or call in his direction as he shoves himself through the gap between two clothes racks and disappears into the darkness.

He does find a new T-shirt, one that he half-remembers being in his universe’s TARDIS – but the excuse of a task doesn’t take him that long. So he ends up just sitting in the dimness of the barely-lit wardrobe room in one of the seemingly unending aisles of clothes, hiding for what he hopes is an appropriate length of time to let this other Doctor find something to wear. It’s the coward’s move, definitely, and he kind of hates himself for it, but he feels faintly sick at the idea of the Doctor twisting her own personality into something that will please him. It really shouldn’t feel like so much pressure, but it does and it’s choking. He’ll go out and help her in a minute. He just needs a second or two to breathe.

For all of his forced confidence and self-assurance in that speech he’d given the Doctor, it’s starting to dawn on him that... they might not actually be able to fix the TARDIS. And even if they do, the chances of him actually making it back to his universe, finding Carrie and his version of the Doctor... they’re growing slimmer and slimmer the more he thinks about it. He might be stuck here. Stuck in a broken TARDIS with a sharp, sad Doctor who barely knows him, in a universe that’s close to snapping in two at any moment. He bites down on his knuckles, closes his eyes, and tries to work through the turmoil of emotions he’s feeling right now. He wishes he didn’t feel so much panic at the very thought of that. This Doctor needs his help, but every time she says something sardonic and snappish, it makes his chest feel up with dread, like he’s drowning.

If he makes it back to his own universe – no, not if, when – when he gets back home and when he sees his Doctor again, he’s going to give her the biggest hug. She’ll probably make a disgruntled little sound and laugh at him and ask him if he’s really that starved for attention, but she’ll hug him back anyway because that’s just what the Doctor’s like. And then he’s going to go and help Carrie restock her stash with the best snacks they can find, and cuddle with the cats for hours and find old photos of Roman and flip through them until he can’t remember the expression on the Lord President’s face anymore, and curl up in his room with Norman and watch Back To The Future for the ten billionth time, but of course he needs to get home first before any of this can happen, and home is unthinkably far away.

He misses his friends. He misses them so much.

Gradually, Travis becomes aware that the Doctor’s calling his name from across the room.

He sits up, wincing at the stiffness of his back from being tucked into a corner all this time, calls out, “Yeah, I’m coming,” and makes his way back to the main wardrobe section, the bit with all the mirrors.

The Doctor has assembled her new outfit, apparently. It’s not very 90s, which makes sense, because... she hadn’t spent all that much time in the 90s before everything had gotten destroyed. (God, the Earth’s gone. Completely gone. The Lord President had said something about there not being humans left – does that mean he’s the last human in this universe? That can’t be true. He needs to stop thinking about this.) But strangely, the disparate parts are still pretty similar. It’s not a skater skirt, but she’s still wearing a skirt. Her coat is longer, falls down to her knees. It’s all shades of grey ranging from soft-dusky to nearly-black. Nowhere near as colorful as he’s used to from her.

No space-buns, and maybe that’s a good thing. She’s too exhausted, too jaded and cynical for those to look right on her. No, this Doctor has ended up weaving her hair back into a single simple bun on the back of her head. It reminds Travis strangely of the style the checker-skirted Doctor in the waterfall TARDIS had favoured.

She looks up at him from where she’s lacing up a pair of boots – Doc Martens, actually; some things never change – and gives him a rueful sort of shrug, raising her palms up skywards as if to say, well?

Reflexively, he responds with a big double-thumbs-up. “Nice. It’s good. You’re looking...” He fumbles for the right word, and fails to grasp it. “...Snazzy?”

“Snazzy,” she repeats, with a hint of disbelief in her voice.

“Yeah, snazzy.” It’s simple and the sheer amount of grey is just a little depressing, but, just like the scarf – it suits her. “Very Doctor-y.”

“Well, I’d hope so,” she huffs, “seeing as how that’s who I am.”

And for the first time, it really sounds like it’s true.

She’s straightening her scarf and patting her coat down so it’s lying smooth and straight, but she catches his eye, and says, “You all right?”

Travis nods. “Yeah, I just needed a moment.”

She nods back, slowly. “Long day?”

“Very long day.” He takes in her new look again, and hurriedly changes the subject. “I’m fine now, though. So... do you think this is it?”

She blinks at him, expressionless. “Do you think something’s missing?

“Do you?”

She gives him a disgruntled look, like she knows he’s turning the question back on her, and glances down at herself. “I guess not. I guess... I think this works.” She clasps her hands together, scowling – and turns on him abruptly. “We’ve wasted enough time in here, we should get moving. Come on, Travis. You haven’t changed your shirt? I thought you said you were going to do that, hurry up and do that. If we’re going to try to fix the TARDIS…” Although the way she says it makes it sound like she doesn’t really have much hope for actually managing it; is just humouring him – “…Then, we should get started sooner rather than later.” The unspoken: so you give up quicker. “What are you waiting for? This was your idea, remember?”

*

A short while later finds them both in the console room, which is still absolutely covered with all sorts of junk. Now that he’s no longer just passing through, it’s even more obviously like a natural history museum exploded in here. Travis stares around, and realizes that he has no idea where to even begin. “You said... Roman stole a part?”

“The dematerialization circuit,” the Doctor says, sounding more than a little bitter. “He always did know his way around a TARDIS. If he had taken any other part, I might have been able to jury-rig a solution, but...” She catches his eye. “...In human terms, it’d be a bit like taking the engine out of your car.”

“Ow,” says Travis, biting his lip. “That can’t have felt great.”

The TARDIS lets out a distant pained shrilling, as if in agreement.

“Right,” says Travis. “I guess we just need to...”

“To what?” the Doctor says, when he trails off and doesn’t continue for a good few seconds.

“...Fix... the... dematerialization circuit.”

She snorts. “Wow. Couldn’t have figured that one out on my own. I’m glad you’re finally here to help me out, I’d be completely lost without you.”

Travis wants to say hey, come on, but also – yeah. He kind of deserved that one.

He still has no idea where to start. And he knows he should. There’s nothing worse than knowing that you have the ability to answer a question or solve a problem, but not being able to make the connections fit in your head. It’s like there’s a glass barrier between him and the solution – visible, but just out of reach. He balls a hand up into a fist, presses it tight against the side of his head, forces himself to think harder – to dig through what he can currently access of the Mondassian database. Dematerialization circuit. Tachyonic visualiser. Klister valve. What? What the hell is a Klister valve?

The Doctor has stepped up to the console and is poking around at a part of the dashboard that has been very obviously ripped apart. He swallows a lump of miserable discomfort that’s formed in his throat. He doesn’t want to imagine any version of Roman tearing apart the Doctor’s TARDIS for any reason. At the very least, the Doctor appears to be actively trying to do something to try to fix it now.

After a second or two of just watching her poke halfheartedly at a series of burnt-out cables, Travis crosses to the other side of the console and starts looking for something that he recognizes. There’s next to nothing. Not even a VCR or a coffee machine – it’s all elegantly retrofuturistic in a way that’s very aesthetically pleasing but doesn’t line up at all with the TARDIS console that he knows.

Faint lights blink on and off as he runs a finger down one control panel, flickering at him as if to guide him, which is nice, except Travis’s experience with TARDIS repair is literally next to nothing. He could fully repair a Mondassian battlecruiser in half an hour flat; rewire and invert a neutrino-shell lasergrid in even less than that, but Gallifreyan tech really is at a completely different level to everything he knows.

“Doctor,” he begins, not really knowing where he’s going to finish, and it’s at that exact moment that something blinks in his head, like the power light on a PC coming to life. He hadn’t been expecting it at all. Which is why he stumbles and catches himself on the side of the console, mouth falling open in shock as he gasps in a sudden breath.

“What?” says the Doctor, whirling around to face him. “What is – ”

“Just a second,” he says, and he sees the Doctor’s puzzled frown, but doesn’t have time to explain himself, because he’s far too busy folding himself up and away into his own mind at the speed of light. Faster. Faster than the speed of light. The familiar pattern and form of his mind-sphere assembles itself, folding up and around him – screens blinking on, processors whirring to life, but he barely cares about that. He’s far more focused on the mass of pixels and data that’s currently resolving itself into the form of a tall-green coated man, which is becoming more and more corporeal and defined by the second.

“It looks like you’re trying to fix a broken TARDIS with absolutely no knowledge of how to do that,” says Norman, adjusting his glasses. “Can I help with – oof!”

Because Travis has just collided with him, throwing his arms wildly around his favorite internal system process with reckless abandon. He doesn’t even care that he’s squeezing way too hard. “You’re back!”

“I... am, yes. Ah – is this really necessary?” Norman wonders. His hands hover awkwardly over Travis’s back, and then he pats at his shoulder once, twice. “Yes – yes, all right, hello. I’m back. It’s me. Nice to see you too.”

Travis just clings tighter. Norman’s technically not real. He can take it. “Next time we’re finding a solution that doesn’t involve you using all your power.”

“That – yes. I agree that would be preferable, yes.” Norman shifts a bit, delivers one more awkward pat to Travis’s back, before saying, “All right, this is officially weird. I was gone for, like, two hours, tops. I haven’t checked – did something happen, or-?”

Travis raises his head from Norman’s shoulder, and makes a vague gesture in mid-air, pulling all of his memories from the last few hours into one compact packet of information. He takes it, and presses it at his friend, and lets him absorb all of it. The easiest form of exposition.

It only takes a few seconds of processing for Norman to take it all in, and then he says, “Ah. Yeah, that’d do it.”

“I’m just really,” Travis says, “really glad you’re back.” He’s aware that the level of absolute delight he’s hitting at having Norman back in place in his head is probably terribly embarrassing, but also – who’s ever going to know? Besides Norman, obviously “Like, it’s good to have the Doctor around, but she’s... well – ”

At this, Norman takes Travis by the forearms, and gently unpeels him, pushing him back so they’re looking each other in the eye. “Speaking of that. Are you sure we should be just... trusting her?”

“Norman, she’s the Doctor,” Travis says, mouth twisting. “If I can’t trust the Doctor, then I can’t trust anyone.”

He doesn’t seem impressed. “That’s what you thought about Roman. And look how that turned out.”

Travis can’t help but flinch. He’s right, of course. And what’s worse, Norman isn’t saying anything that Travis hasn’t already thought about extensively. He’s just playing devil’s advocate. Looking out for Travis. Like he always does. “I know. But... I think I know the divergence point for this timeline. Reality. Whatever it is. It really messed him up – messed both of them up, honestly – but I think this Doctor didn’t end up like him. I think she just ended up… sad.”

“She is really sad,” he says, consideringly – and, well, it’s nice to have corroboration. “And she’s not doing much on the whole fixing-the-TARDIS side of things... Travis, did you find a useless Doctor? is that what you did?”

“She’s not useless, she’s just given up.” He takes a deep breath. “But I haven’t. So I’m... going to have to fix this somehow. Whether she likes it or not.”

‘You’re going to take the longest nap when this is over,” Norman mutters, scrubbing at his static-filled hair, making it sound half like a threat and half like a promise.

“Oh, god,” Travis says, “yeah. I know. I fully plan on sleeping through the next month if the Doctor’ll let me.”

“If she doesn’t, I’ll send her a strongly-worded email.”

Travis can’t help it. He goes in for another hug, because Norman’s right there and he can. This time, Norman lets it happen, pulling him in close as they float gently in the star-speckled void of his mind. Hugging Norman feels like hugging radio static – strange, soft in the way that rubbing your hand across a CRT television is; not properly there. It’s indescribably comforting. Norman hums at him, a low droning tone that vibrates all through the mindscape, and for a moment that stretches out to eternity, they hang there, rotating slowly in place.

It’s a rare moment of peace and calmness in a long, long day that has had very little of both of those things, and Travis kind of wants to just stay here forever. At least as long as he’s in here, he doesn’t need to think about how impossible getting home seems, how far away the Doctor and Carrie are, how Norman’s the last familiar thing in the middle of a universe filled with nothing properly familiar. Except he’s already thinking about it now. And his nerves are already beginning to sizzle with anxiety.

A hand comes up, and presses to the back of his head, steadying him. “We’ll get you home.” Because Norman knows the direction his thoughts are going in. Of course he does. When does he not? “Chin up, Travis. We’ve got this.”

“We’ve got this,” he repeats, and presses his forehead into Norman’s shoulder. A moment passes, and he’s successfully steadied. “We have got this. right. Pull up any and all reference materials relating to TARDISes, TARDIS repair, or failing that, just any Gallifreyan tech we have.”

“Processing. Roger that.”

Screens begin to flicker to life all across the inside of his head and everything is alight with data and logistics, and Travis spins away, twirling to take it all in as quickly as he can. And then everything is falling into place, and the mindscape dissolves around him, leaving him back in the broken-down TARDIS console room – exactly where he’s been standing for the last few seconds. The exhaustion remains, but his mind is buzzing with activity now and he feels the bizarre urge to start bouncing on his toes. He barely restrains himself.

The Doctor is staring at him weirdly. “Do you do that a lot?”

“Do what?”

“Freeze perfectly still while your eyes start flashing neon-green.”

“Oh,” says Travis. “Um, yes. I think. I don’t know, actually – usually people don’t comment on it.”

“Right.” She’s still giving him a weird look. “And... you’re all right?”

Travis grins. “I’m great! I’m... super all right, actually!”

It’s incredible how much Norman’s return has improved his optimism. Looking at the TARDIS console room before had been like looking at an insurmountable mountain, but now he’s looking it over and he’s starting to see things he can work with. Starting to see the optimism in a terrible situation. Norman keeps shoving articles and database entries at him, pushing them in order of relevance as they come, and part of him is reading them all at lightning-speed and yet another is scanning the room around him and figuring out how to apply it, and –

“Right,” he says, looking at the Doctor. “I think I’ve got an idea. Where’s your helmic regulator at?”

Travis is at full – all right, not completely full – all right, more like half-the-way-there processing power, but it’s definitely better than he was working with before. It’s a rolling ball of progress. Once the Doctor realizes he actually has somewhat of a direction to take, she stops huddling in dark corners and pretending not to care, and they start properly working together. They reroute circuits, cannibalize components to create new ones, and burn their fingers on broken wiring.

It’s not a quick fix, and it’s certainly not a lasting one. But after nearly a full hour of work, Travis forces the last modulator plug into place, and breathes out a ragged sigh. “How’s that working?”

He gets no response, and wriggles himself out from under the console just in time to see the lights come on fully, and the light in the Doctor’s face comes back to life. She rushes to the console, planting her hands against the half-open machinery with such an open expression of complete relief and astonishment all across her tight features. And Travis feels the horrific tension in his back and shoulders loosen, just a bit. The universe is a little less broken now that the Doctor has her TARDIS back.

And he is also super not needed in this reunion, he is wildly aware of that. So he backs out of the console room, and leaves them to it. Well, as much as he can leave when he’s currently standing inside one of them… and that thought quickly gets weird, so he forces it all out of his mind and goes to find something to eat. Thankfully, the kitchen seems to be exactly where it expects it to be – the TARDIS must be feeling extra charitable about the fix job.

When he gets back, two sandwiches fuller, and feeling a lot more like a human being, the Doctor strides towards him, and says, “You didn’t take a shower, did you?”

He blinks, immediately self-conscious. “Uh – no. I mean – I could go and find one-?”

“No, that’s the opposite of what we need,” she says, then wrinkles her nose at him, then adds, “Well, after we get this done you might want to consider it… No, forget that. I did some thinking after you ran away, and I was thinking – that cave you were tramping through, the one with the dimension ripper in it. The trace minerals for that sort of place have to be fairly unique, and they can’t be that different, universe-to-universe. If we assume that the reality ripper’s a universal constant…”

It takes him a moment to catch on – but only a moment. Travis has always been good at following the Doctor’s trains of thought. “You think you can track the location? Using… dust that got caught on me?”

“Feels like our best bet, doesn’t it?” She gazes him critically, up and down, and then nods. “Take off your shoes – let’s see how close we can track this place?”

*

Incredibly, between the two of them, Travis and the Doctor have managed to land the TARDIS exactly in the right spot. Travis cracks open the door, peering cautiously outside – and when he sees the rock walls and jagged stalactites, and feels the damp cave air against his face, he pushes it open even further.

The Doctor’s half-heartedly nudging bundles of maps and half-crumpled cardboard boxes to the side, as if she’s slowly becoming aware of just how much of a mess this place is and starting to get kind of self-conscious about it. “This is the place?”

“I think so?” Travis brushes his fingers against the walls, trying to remember if the roughness matches up. “I mean, a lot of alien caves kind of look the same, but...” He squints out into the darkness. “Actually, do you have a flashlight or something?”

“I have a torch,” says the Doctor, who is terminally British, and kicks open yet another one of the cardboard boxes, which is marked ‘GHOSTS’ in the previous Doctor’s looping, scrawling hand and seems to be inexplicably full of everything you’d ever need to start filming a paranormal investigation show singlehandedly.

A flashlight rolls across the ground towards Travis, and he bends down, scooping it up before fumbling with the switch and pointing it out into the cave. The walls are lit up, criss-crossed with extremely spooky looming shadows – and now he can see the tunnel leading further inwards. “Hey, yeah! This looks like it. In my universe, the pool was right through here, I think...”

The Doctor finishes shoving the last stray bundle of wires into a corner, and comes across to the door. She looks like she’s trying desperately not to be interested, but Travis knows her well enough to know that her curiosity has been thoroughly piqued. “Right. Let’s see what we’ve got.” From her pocket, she digs out... it’s not her sonic screwdriver. It’s her past-self’s one, the one that looks a lot like a Swiss Army Knife, but with a lot more alien attachments. Right now, she flicks it over to one that seems to be some sort of penlight – except when she turns it on the beam of light that emanates is a lot bigger than it really should be. She grimaces down at it. “This... has too many attachments. What was I thinking?”

“Probably that being overprepared is better than the alternative?” suggests Travis, thinking about the previous Doctor’s equally overpacked satchel.

She lets out a noncommittal little grunt, and gestures forward with her own light. “You know where we’re going. Lead the way.”

Travis does, and there's a bizarre amount of normalcy to this; navigating a gloomy alien cave system by torchlight. Well, of course there is – it may be a different universe, but he’d been doing almost exactly this... earlier today? (Has it really been less than a day? It must be, no wonder he’s so exhausted. Like, Travis knows he can put up with a lot, but he thinks he might be seriously reaching his limits.) It’s still him and the Doctor, trekking through the deeply-buried tunnels of a planet in search of something that might not even be there. Only this time, there’s no Carrie, no cheerful back-and-forth about sci-fi time travel, and the Doctor hasn’t reminded him to stop walking into walls once. Not that he’s doing it right now. He’s been through this cave already, he knows where to walk.

...He hopes Carrie’s all right. He knows she’s endlessly capable and can take care of herself perfectly well in pretty much any situation you’d care to shove her in, but she’s still relatively new to all of this. Well, newer than he is. And she could be anywhere – in a universe just as bad as this one, or even worse. The same goes for the Doctor, his Doctor, but... he has to trust that she’s all right. Whatever happens, he has to believe that the Doctor will be fine, because he’s not sure if he wants to contemplate the alternative.

They slip down through the final gap leading into that final chamber – (“Um, there’s a bit of a jump here, careful not to trip – ” “Right, cheers.”) – and the Doctor skips forward a few steps to be the one to lead them through the archway.

And then they’re in.

Chapter Text

Travis is alive.

There’s more to it than that, of course; there’s all the hows and whys and everything in-between and beyond, but that’s the heart of the matter – Travis is alive, the Doctor has made sure he’s alive, and she’s made sure that he’s going to be staying that way for the foreseeable future, because she can not and will not be in any way, shape or form responsible for his death. Not in this universe, not in any other.

It’s been several hours since she found him with a scalpel in his hand in the TARDIS medical bay, and those hours have been very long indeed.

Now, he’s in bed in his room, and it’s hard to be sure if he’s unconscious or just sleeping, but either way, the Doctor’s pulled the covers up around him and made sure that the bandages wrapped around his forearms are tight and clean and functional. Right now, she’s sitting next to him, back resting against the headboard and legs stretched out down the bed, listening to every shallow breath he takes as she dully fiddles about with the settings on her sonic screwdriver.

She’s considering her options. Thinking about what she needs to do next. She needs to get the TARDIS in good enough working order to pick up Russell Turner’s basement-refugees, and then get them all into a universe that’s not dying – hopefully her home universe, but she’s aware that at this point she might not be able to afford to be picky. She knows what the cracks in the sky mean, it’s the same thing that had happened in the last parallel universe she’d been flung into: Rassilon’s Perfector has succeeded, in some form. It’s charging up. Everything might be on the very verge of being consumed, folding in on itself. They can’t be here when it happens.

But then, there’s Travis, lying next to her. Travis, who almost succeeded in killing himself just hours ago. Travis, who she saved. Travis, who she can not and will not leave behind. Travis, who has… so much wrong with him that she doesn’t even know where to start. It’s not just the obvious. She’s mentally hitting herself over and over for not doing a full comprehensive medical scan of him the moment she’d had the opportunity; for getting so caught up in her own head and her own problems that she’d forgotten that being imprisoned by Cybermen for several months would have consequences worse than exhaustion and fear. There’s a terrifying lack of sleep, which would certainly explain the poor decision-making and the constant spacing-out, but that’s only the start of it.

The first time she’d met him, so long ago back in Russell Turner’s human zoo, he’d been cheerfully ready to accept the idea of aliens and time travel and every-science-fiction-cliche-ever existing, and had thrown himself headfirst into adventure with barely a second thought.

And now, this.

What has she done to him?

*

Her usual pinpoint-perfect time sense isn’t as neat and proper as it should be – this universe is different; it’s thrown her off her rhythm. So she’s not entirely sure how long it’s been by the time she sees Travis start to stir and come awake.

His eyes open, and she watches and remains silent. He looks at the ceiling, still half-hazy with sleep, and then seems to register that he’s not alone, and looks sideways to where the Doctor has propped herself up against the headboard.

At first, he looks startled to see her, which is fair enough because she doesn’t usually invade his room, and throwing herself onto his bed like this is an even rarer occurrence. He blinks and he smiles, looking only half-awake as he starts to shift – and then the pain hits, and he freezes, and she can practically see awareness rushing across his face as he remembers. He immediately begins to struggle to sit up, letting out a strangled gasp as he fails to do so.

“It’s all right,” the Doctor tells him hurriedly, resting a hand on his arm to keep him from moving. “I bandaged you up, took care of the blood loss. You’re – you’ll be fine. How much does it hurt? Scale of one to ten.”

He winces and blinks and his eyes are visibly watery. “Um. Like, four?”

Four isn’t good, but four’s also better than anything higher, and she doesn’t think he’s lying to her. Travis doesn’t lie to her. “All right. I’ll get you some more painkillers in a bit.”

He doesn’t protest at all, just sinks back into the blankets and nods. His expression has gone strangely blank, perfectly still and smooth; completely unlike him. She thinks it might be the coolness of her tone that’s shutting him down like this, and she wishes she could force herself to be gentler, kinder; but she can’t stop thinking about the expression on his face when his eyes had closed from the blood loss. Terror is making her sharp, furious. She’d nearly lost him.

She bites her tongue, and forces herself not to say anything else just yet. For a second they just study each other. There’s an odd undercurrent of measuring each other up. It’s like meeting for the first time all over again, because it really does feel like there’s an invisible layer of impenetrable glass between them. She wishes she could just sonic it away, break him out of the cage all over again and whisk him away and out of danger just like the first time, but that’s not how any of this works, because he’s not trapped in a human zoo, he’s trapped inside his body and his head and there’s no getting him out of there, not any time soon.

“Don’t do that again,” she says.

He looks at her, and says, “Okay.”

“Please don’t do that again,” she reiterates, letting the faintest trace of every emotion she’s been feeling at once over the last few hours creep into her voice. “I – Travis, you nearly died.” He doesn’t say anything, and all at once it’s overwhelming how very big it all is, and she doesn’t think he fully grasps the enormity of that one single sentence. “You nearly died, and – and, that’s – ”

She wants to scream at him. Wants to grab his shoulders and shake him, ask what’s happened to him even though she already knows the answer. He’s not allowed to be like this. He has to be Travis, he has to be all right and healthy and ready to save the world right next to her, otherwise nothing is okay and nothing is right.

“ – I’ve had some bad moments in this regeneration,” she says, anger falling away into something like quiet despair. “Some really bad ones, but that might have just been the worst, and – I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“I wasn’t – it wasn’t – ”

“You nearly died.” She keeps saying it, but that’s because it really doesn’t seem like he understands just how bad it is, just how close to the line she’d cut it. “You – Travis, you almost killed yourself.”

He groans, scrubs at his face. He so clearly doesn’t want to be having this conversation, and if she’s honest neither does she, but it needs to happen. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then tell me what it’s like,” she says, and rolls over onto her side so they’re looking at each other, and after a second so does he – haltingly, his arms clearly still tender despite the painkillers.

It’s like some weird parody of a sleepover. The darkness is soft around them and there’s the faintest crack of light trickling down from beneath the door leading to the rest of the TARDIS, and here they are, staring at each other sideways, waiting for the other to breach the fragile silence.

Travis takes a breath and says, “I wasn’t thinking straight. I was – I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

She sighs, feels herself deflate. “You don’t need to apologize.”

There’s a pause. He voice sounds thin, almost transparent – so see-through you could shine a light clean through it.  “You sound like you’re angry at me.”

“I’m not,” she lies, very well she thinks. “I’m just... I was just scared. That’s all.”

Even thinner: “Nothing scares you.”

There’s something roaring in her ears, and she’s pretty sure he can’t hear it like she can. “Plenty scares me. I just try very hard not to show it. This scared me a lot. You scared me, Travis.”

“I didn’t mean to.” He stares down at his arms, wrapped so tightly in bandages that not even a trace of skin is visible. “I just wanted it gone.”

“You could have asked me. I would have helped you; I could have removed them for you. I could have – ”

“Now that I’m thinking about it properly, I know that. Just, at the time, you weren’t around, and all I was thinking was, wouldn’t it be nice if I could just get rid of the problem? Just cut it all out and be normal again. It’s so stupid, but I guess I thought that if I got rid of the cyberbits, I’d just... start working properly again. Be more like the version of Travis that you know.” He keeps staring at his arms. “But I’m not. I feel just the same, except now my arms hurt more. And that’s not much of an improvement at all.”

He’s so close to her that if she shifted just a bit, their shoulders would bump and she’d be able to feel how solid, how warm and alive he is. But she’s not sure if he wants the contact, so she doesn’t. She swallows. “Travis...”

“Aren’t you going to tell me that it’s going to be all right?” he whispers, and it sounds more than a little desperate. “That you’re going to fix everything, that it’s going to be okay and I’m going to be fine?”

The Doctor swallows, and it’s painful. “I could. I could tell you that. I really want to tell you that, Travis. I want everything to be okay and I want to be able to fix everything and I want to be unkillable so you never have to watch me die ever again.”

“But you can’t,” Travis says, and it’s not a question. “You can’t promise that.”

“No,” the Doctor says quietly. “I don’t want to lie to you, Travis. I never do.”

Travis looks away, and the Doctor can see the glitter of unshed tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

"I know," the Doctor says. She reaches out and hesitates for a moment before she finally rests her hand on his arm, just above where the bandages meet his skin. "I’m still not leaving you behind, you know."

“I’m coming with you?” he asks, and it’s frighteningly hesitant, the way he asks it.

“Yes.” She can’t help it. She reaches out and seizes his hand in hers, as tightly as she dares, and she just holds onto him, and repeats it. “Yes, you’re coming with me. We’re going to go back to a universe that isn’t falling apart, and we’re going to clear every last trace of that awful technology from your system, and... and I’m going to take you to see every Star Wars movie in order, in the right order, even the ones that haven’t been released yet.”

“...You said you weren’t allowed to take me to see them. Something about... paradoxes. Timelines. I can’t remember.”

She squeezes his hand. “Yeah, I probably said that, but I say a lot of things a lot of the time, and sometimes those things are ridiculous, and I’m saying right now that we’re going to see every Star Wars movie ever. Okay?”

A cautious smile begins to creep across his face. “How many is that?”

Her eyesight blurs. She shakes her head to clear it. “So many that there’s a very real possibility you might be sick of them by the end of it all.”

A moment passes, then his voice – still thin, still fragile – croaks out, “Impossible.”

“I know, right? And just so you know, you don’t need to get dressed up if you want but there’s no force in the multiverse that can stop me from breaking out my Princess Leia cosplay.”

A moment passes, and then she hears the best sound in the entire universe. It’s small and it’s ragged but it’s real. Travis is choking out a laugh.

She can barely keep the smile off her lips as she forces a mock-offended pout, and says, “Oi. Don’t laugh. I worked really hard on this cosplay, Travis.”

He is almost smiling as he says, “I know. I know. I want to see it, I bet it’s great.”

It is great. “Okay,” she says, and then, “come on, bring it in,” as she shuffles over sideways, extending an arm in his direction. He buries his head in her shoulder, and she wraps her arms around him as tightly as she dares. He smells like antiseptic and the infirmary; faintly sickly and faintly of ashes.

He starts to shake, and for a second she thinks he’s laughing again – but then his breath begins to grow ragged again and she holds him even tighter as he starts to cry. Before in the car, it had been helpless heaving sobs, but right now it’s light and strangely understated. “Sorry. Sorry, I don’t know why – sorry. Thank you. Sorry.”

“You’re fine,” she says. “It’s fine, I mean. No need to apologise for crying, I do it all the time.”

“I’m just - I can’t stop thinking. I keep thinking – ”

She doesn’t like that sound in his voice. The sudden discordant note of panic-guilt-pain. “What?”

It comes out in a guilty, half-blurted rush as he looks rapidly away from her. “When I ended up in that other universe, the one with the other me who gave into the Wire, I – I remember thinking at the time, God, I’m so glad that wasn’t me.” He swallows, audibly. “I thought, ‘I’m so glad that didn’t happen to me’. I remember thinking that. And – I know it’s not – I mean, I know it’s probably not, but I can’t help but think that, maybe… maybe…”

“Travis,” the Doctor says, and grasps at his hands again, clumsily, hopelessly. “Oh, Travis, no. That’s not how this works. It’s not karma and it’s not your fault, and you don’t deserve this.”

He breathes harshly, gaze directed downwards, then mutters, “We don’t have time for this. We don’t have time for me. We need to leave.”

As much as she wants to deny it, she knows it’s true. This universe can only last so long in the state it’s in, and they were running on borrowed time since the beginning. She can’t put it off any longer – she has to get them out of here, find a way to slip into a more stable universe, if not her original one. She holds his hands tighter. “I always have time for you. But you’re right. We need to leave.”

“So get us out of here,” he says, struggling to sit up. After some assistance from her, he manages it. “I can focus, for now. I won’t do – that, not again. What do we need to do?”

She closes her eyes. She needs to focus too. “We need to get the refugees. If we’re leaving this universe – well, we need to at least ask them to come along. I think we can manage a short hop. And then we’ll need a longer one, to get to the portal… but I can handle the first one, just stay here and take a moment to breathe, okay?”

For a second, he looks as if he might protest. Then he says, “Okay. But I’ll help with the second. I need something to do with myself.”

“Absolutely,” she says. “And – one more thing.” She pauses. “Just a sec.”

He blinks at her, confused, as she digs about in her pockets, dislodging [a long list of things], until she finally produces what she’s looking for. She peels it off the plastic backing, and carefully affixes it to the front of his shirt.

“You’re grape,” she tells him solemnly.

For a second, she thinks he’s going to either start laughing or crying hysterically as he stares down at the simple purple sticker now decorating the front of his shirt. She would really prefer the laughter over the alternative, truth be told. But he doesn’t do either of those things. He just scratches at it, a bit idly, then looks up at her. “Thanks,” he says. “You’re pretty grape too, Doctor.”

Good enough for her. She smiles, pats his hand. “Hold tight. I just need to go see a man about a universe, and then we can see about getting out of here. Will you be all right here for a bit?”

The last time she’d left him alone in the TARDIS he’d nearly killed himself. Nobody would blame her for getting over cautious and suspicious of him, but she knows Travis. Knows that he won’t try it again, especially now that the implants are, in fact, out. He knows she trusts him, trusts him to be safe for a minute or two on his own. So when he nods after a moment, she believes him.

She slips out of his room, and sets the TARDIS console.

*

Against all odds, it’s a pleasant evening.

The Doctor hasn’t lost track of time, because that’s impossible – she’d know what time of day or night it is on any continent of any planet in any solar system, even in a pitch-black secluded room – but it still gives her pause for a moment, the fact that nearly a full day had passed since the last time she stepped outside.

Russell Turner is there, sitting on the street curb and staring contemplatively at the hazy sky. He barely startles when she clears her throat to announce her presence, just looks up and nods at her.

The Doctor doesn’t really feel the need to reintroduce herself. “How long’s it been?” When he gives her a strange look, she adds, “Time machine, remember? I think I got the timing pretty okay, but I don’t know for certain.”

“A few hours.”

“Good,” she says, “nice, got the day right. This TARDIS is a bit on the blink, you know, so I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to make the hop properly... so, ready to go?”

He’s standing with his shoulders faintly hunched, biting his lip as he gazes out from the open door. “I did think about it, like you said. And I talked it over with everybody else.”

The Doctor’s hearts sink, just a bit. She can already see where this is going.

“There are other people still on Earth, Doctor. Now that the Cybermen are offline, Verity’s been able to hook up connections with a lot of other people, and there’s probably even more that we haven’t contacted yet. We’re not the only ones left. I’m guessing you don’t have the time or... power, I suppose – to go pick all of them up?”

“No. I don’t think…” she begins, reluctantly, then shakes her head. “No.”

Russell sighs. “Someone’s got to stay behind.”

“It doesn’t need to be you.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“If this is you trying to atone for what you did back at the museum –”

“No. Lord, no, I’ve already... I’ve already done enough of that, even though sometimes it feels like it’ll never be enough. No, I think I need to stay because it’s the only right thing to do.”

“Your chances of surviving what’s going to happen next to this universe are very minimal,” she warns. “I can’t stress that enough. You understand that, right? Really, truly, properly.”

“Yes. I do. But there still is a chance.”

“It’s not –”

“There is a chance, Doctor. Isn’t there?"

"I – ” She sighs. “…Yes. Fine, yes, there is a tiny chance that the Perfector won’t go off, in fact, it might even collapse in on itself, and... Earth might make it out all right. But that’s not –"

“Then I’m going to take that chance,” says one of the most surprisingly brave people she’s ever met “There’s other people here, and they need help, and it wouldn’t be fair to any of them to just... leave. Everyone agrees on that. Even if we all end up dying eventually, at least we can try to rebuild something. Help.”

“Everyone agrees with you?” the Doctor presses. “Everyone?”

“It’s a small group. We talked it over.”

She bites her lip. “I could take you away from this. You don’t need to – not all of you need to stay and help.”

“We know,” he says, simply.

The Doctor stares at him, flat and hard. Then she sticks out her hand. After a moment of confused silence, Russell Turner takes it. His own hand is lined, worn from years upon years of hard work. It’s a solid, trustworthy sort of handshake. “You’re a good man, Russell Turner.”

“Only because of you, Doctor.”

“Then I’m glad I could help.”

There’s nothing more to say, really. They’re never going to see each other again – well, maybe not never, never say never and all that, but the chances are even more unlikely than this Earth’s ultimate survival.

The Doctor looks at Russell Turner one last time, and nods, before turning and re-entering the TARDIS.

*

Inside, Travis is sitting on a sofa that looks dusty enough that it was probably pulled out of some storage room, somewhere, by the TARDIS. Gunther is snuggled up in his lap, and he’s absently scratching at her ears. He looks up as she enters, and says, “Isn’t anyone coming?”

“No,” she says, and gently shuts the door. “They’re staying. They’re all staying. I tried to talk them out of it, but...” She rubs her forehead, shakes her head, lets her shoulders slump as she sighs. “Humans. I’m – I’m always amazed at the lengths humans go to, in order to survive in the worst possible conditions. I don’t know if they’re going to make it, I really don’t, but – Travis, if anyone can do it, it’s them.”

“I could stay,” he offers, hand stilling on Gunther’s back. “They – might need help. They might need, you know...”

“You could,” the Doctor says, looking over at him. “But, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s what you want or need.”

“No,” he says softly, staring down at Gunther’s fluffy back. “No, I want to stick with you.”

She slides into place next to him, and wraps him into a brief, careful side-hug. “As long as you want. Don’t worry about my universe’s Travis. If he’s anything like you, and I know him and you so I know he’s exactly like you – he’ll understand. We can work something out.”

“Two Travises might be too much for one TARDIS,” he says glumly.

“Maybe,” she says, and feels him stiffen before she adds: “But, consider – you’ll finally have someone else to consistently play Pokémon with.”

There is a short silence, and then he says, slowly, “That is true...”

Abruptly, belatedly, she remembers the fact that she’d destroyed his GameBoy in this universe back in the Cybernest. She turns away to hide her reflexive wince. Okay, not thinking about that right now. Time to change the subject. “Anyway. We should get going. There’s a… I won’t say decent, but it’s a more-than-zero chance that this universe isn’t actually going to get, you know, zapped anymore. But either way, I think I’d prefer to get moving now rather than later.”

“Where are we going?”

And there’s that curiosity she’d missed so dearly. She bites back a grin. “I know where there might be a hole in reality that we can slip through. No guarantees it’ll get us to the right other-universe, but at least getting there is a start. Shouldn’t be too dangerous, but... well, you know how it is with me. There’s always a risk.” She shrugs. “That’s the plan, at least. If you’re game.”

“Sounds good to me.”

It takes her less than a minute to remember the coordinates of the cave-riddled planet that this entire mess had started on, and considerably longer than that to coax the TARDIS back into enough life for a single hop – through space, if not time. The Doctor knows that this TARDIS is on her last legs – any trip might be her last, and even this short journey is seriously pushing it – but it’s the only lead she has for the task of getting back to her original universe. And the TARDIS seems to understand that – clearly pushing herself to the limits to get the task done, groaning and creaking in pain as she forces herself through the fabric of the universe with a singularly impressive determination and drive.

And with an unpleasant grinding and rattling of engines that drives it home even further – just how broken this TARDIS is, just how unfixable – they shudder to a halt. The Doctor spares a moment to press an apologetic hand to the console, and then she flips the external door lever, and strides across to step outside.

It’s amazing that how, even though every part of this Earth is shredded and ravaged and wrecked nearly past the point of repair, other bits of this universe can be... exactly the same as hers. Like this cave. If the Doctor couldn’t feel the difference in the air at a near-molecular level, she would have sworn that it was the exact same cave that she, Travis and Carrie had been investigating only days ago. The rock formations, the echoing walls, even that gap in the wall that Travis hadn’t quite managed to avoid tripping over the first time around. She raises her screwdriver high into the air, turning, and sees the passage leading down into what she’s pretty sure is the reality ripper’s chamber.

“This is it,” she says to Travis, who’s hanging onto the inside frame of the TARDIS doors, casting nervous glances around, with – yes, that’s a tinge of curiosity, isn’t it? He’s never seen this place before, not in this universe. For a second, she can see past the exhaustion and terror and anxiety and see Travis Killian, the excited opportunistic traveller who’s for anything. He’s still there. He’s still in there. “I shouldn’t be too long, just have to take some readings. You can stay here if you want?”

He shakes his head. “I’m sticking with you, remember?”

No hesitation. “So you are.” The Doctor tucks her screwdriver into her front pocket, keeping the light on, and steps back towards Travis, extending a hand in his direction. “Come on, then. Careful where you’re walking, the ground’s a bit rough. Looks like nobody bothered to make it properly accessible in this universe, either.”

Travis’s thin fingers close around hers, and squeeze lightly. She returns the gesture – and after a second, she sets off towards the stone archway leading deeper into the cave, a bit slower than she’d usually go. He’s already falling into step next to her, and after a moment, he clears his throat, and says, “You’ve been here before?”

“Yep. ‘S how I got to this universe in the first place.” She eyes the path ahead, keeping watch out for any dangerously uneven ground. “If I got this right, there should be a portal in the next room.”

He hums briefly, and then says, “There is.”

Her eyebrows go up. “You sound pretty sure of that.”

His eyes are distant, but this time it doesn’t look like he’s drifting or fading – it seems almost thoughtful. She swears a hint of green flickers over his irises as he nods, saying, “I can sort of feel it.”

The Doctor can’t help but blink at him, faintly surprised – and stops walking. He stumbles to a halt, and watches her, looking curious.

 The timeline split had been far after Colony 47 and Travis’s brush with the Wire, so it makes sense that he’d be able to access that particular set of abilities, even if he isn’t properly in control of them yet. But she’d been halfway assuming that... well, what had she been assuming? That being tangled in with the Cyberkeeper for so long had stripped any hint of that away from him? That it had gotten ripped out along with the metal plating when he’d taken a scalpel to his arms? Of course not.

Their hands are still clasped together. She squeezes his hand again. “Yeah? Are you okay with that?”

“Being able to feel technology? I... I’m not sure.” He reaches out, bracing a hand against the wall. Brow furrowing. “I remember... it was worse in 2019. I could do it then, too, couldn’t I?”

“You could,” she agrees. “And yeah, it probably was. Smartphones everywhere, in 2019. Not to mention all of the background noise...” She trails off, and then looks him in the eyes. “It’s not dangerous, you know. My – the Travis from my universe, he had this whole thing too.”

“Yeah?” Travis looks much more relieved than she’d expected, a faint smile darting across his lips.

“Yeah. He multiclassed into tech-wizard and now he can hack computers with his brain.”

Travis hesitates. “Is that how he... Is that why the Cyberkeeper didn’t end up getting him in your universe? Because he knew how to... you know?”

The Doctor finds herself brought up short by this. Her eyebrows shoot up as she ponders it. “I honestly don’t know. I never asked. I guess it must have been. I know he has some sort of internal antivirus program, but...” After a second, she shrugs. “It seemed private. Sometimes you’ve got to have things to yourself. I get that.”

Travis mouths the words ‘internal antivirus program’ to himself, looking a bit awed.

“Sorry. Was that a bit much? That felt like a bit much.”

“No. No, I – that sounds... awesome, actually.” He releases a breath, and his head dips a bit. “I kind of – is it weird that I want to meet him? I think I really want to meet him.”

“I think he’ll want to meet you, too,” the Doctor says, and gently bumps her shoulder with his. “So it’s a good thing that we’re going to make that happen, huh? Let’s crack open that dimensional rift.”

“I don’t know how much use I’ll be without, uh…” He wiggles the fingers his free hand into bunny ears. “The ability to ‘hack computers with my brain’, but – ”

“You don’t need to hack computers with your brain,” she says fondly, wrinkling her nose at him. “If that was the only reason I wanted you around, I’d have ditched you ages ago.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“The reason I still want you around,” she continues, before he can ask any dumb questions or get any wrong ideas, “is because you’re clever, and kind, and thoroughly brilliant, and you also happen to be one of my best friends in the universe. Any universe.” She’s going to keep on telling him this until he finally gets it – because judging by the startled expression on his face, he hadn’t seen it coming. “I don’t care what you can or can’t do. Okay?”

Travis doesn’t agree, and he doesn’t disagree. But after a very long moment, he does say, “I wish you could have met her.”

Who? she wonders. Then – “Oh.” His version of the Doctor. This universe’s original Doctor. “Well – ”

“I know. You’re pretty much the same person; it’s just...” He shakes his head. “It’s stupid. Never mind.”

“Not stupid,” she corrects. “Clever, kind and thoroughly brilliant. I wish I could’ve met her as well, because she’s me and I’m just as brilliant as you are, and having two of me in one room means I can get some pretty amazing things done. Trust me, I’ve done it before.”

He laughs, fingers flexing under her grip, and quiets again. Then: “I missed you. A lot.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad I get to do this again.” Travis’s voice cracks a little. He clears his throat. “I never thought I’d be able to do any of this, ever again. I always liked this bit – the exploring with you bit. It’s... good. Normal.”

“Exploring an alien cave in search of a reality-ripping prophecy pool is normal?” she says, but it’s fond, no bite to it. “Well, I guess it is. Come on. I think you’re going to love this next bit. It’s pretty cool-looking.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, and leads him through the door.

Chapter Text

Roman lands them right on target. First try and everything, and it’s so smooth that Carrie barely feels it as the Doctor’s TARDIS settles and stills around them.

Carrie creaks open the door, and peers outside, and sees – yep! This is the place! Even though it’s dark in here and the only light being cast is emanating from the TARDIS interior, she can still see it’s pretty much exactly the same cave system as the one that she, Travis and the Doctor had been exploring, not so long ago.

“Heyyy, nice!” she says, withdrawing back into the TARDIS and shooting Roman a big ol’ thumbs-up. “You did it!”

“Of course I did,” he says, with just a touch of haughtiness to it. “After so long wrestling with my TARDIS, this is basically nothing. She likes me, don’t you, old girl?” he adds, patting the console affectionately. “Oh, yes.

…And now Roman’s sweet-talking the Doctor’s TARDIS too. Is Carrie seriously the only one who’s not constantly flirting with an (admittedly probably sentient) time machine? She wishes Travis were here. Travis’s interactions with sentient technology are strictly platonic, and she could use a little backup on that front.

Millie’s dried her face and straightened her coat and done all of those things that you do when you’re trying to forget how hard you were crying only minutes before. If Carrie hadn’t been there for the whole crying-sobbing bit, she probably wouldn’t even know.

“Everybody ready?” Carrie checks, and pats her holstered baseball bat just to make sure that it’s still in place – it is. “Okay – bat, check…”

“Wrench, check,” says Millie, and reaches over to the console to grab Travis’s GameBoy. “And – just in case. It’s come in handy before.”

“Good call,” says Roman, frowning distractedly at the console for a brief moment. “It’s dark out there. A torch or two, perhaps?”

Carrie remembers where the flashlights had been in her Doctor’s TARDIS, and bounces off to find them – exactly where she thought they’d be, score! – and by the time she gets back with as many as she can carry, Roman has produced what looks like a thinner, more boring sonic screwdriver, and is fiddling around with it to make it produce a bright light from the tip. Way to make her efforts irrelevant, Roman! Still, Millie seems grateful for it, so, not a complete waste of time.

“All right,” says Roman, and sighs. “I admit, I don’t know what we’ll need or what to expect from all of this, so let’s go see what’s out there, shall we? We can come back if we need anything.”

Millie’s the one that leads the way out of the TARDIS, with the kind of brash confidence that makes Carrie think that maybe she’s briefly forgotten that the other two people here even exist. She’d been on her own for a while there, so that kind of makes sense. Either way, it gives her an opportunity to hang back and keep pace with Roman for a bit, who seems alert and ready for anything (constantly glancing around) but also content to walk evenly, slowly – almost sedately. “Hey, Roman? Uh, Ro?”

He turns his head to look at her, and even in the shadows she can see him raise an eyebrow at her. “‘Ro’?”

“Yeah, no, it felt weird as soon as I said it,” Carrie says. “Uh, Roman. I just wanted to, you know. Check in. See how you were holding up.”

For a second, it looks as if he’s going to make some kind of sarcastic, flippant comment (which she’d totally get, really; that’s just the way that some people communicate, and Roman’s definitely One Of Those People) – but then he sighs, and he rubs absently at one shoulder, and says, “Better. I’m doing… better.”

Carrie casts him a sideways glance. “Really?” she says, before she can stop herself and say something more sensibly tactful. “Even though your Doctor and Travis have probably mega-beefed it? Because, like – they’re not my versions of them, so it’s not quite as bad as it could be, but I don’t think I’d be handling it great if I were you.”

“Obviously, I’m trying not to think too hard about that.” For a second, she sees a flash of unthinkably ancient pain in his eyes, but he seems to be very good at hiding it, because in a split-second, it’s gone. “I’m trying to focus on the positives. Like not being in a ship that hates me anymore. Whoops,” he adds, hand shooting out abruptly to catch her arm as she forgets to look where she’s going and nearly trips over a rock and eats cave dirt. “Steady there.”

She huffs out a half-laugh. “Whoops! Thanks, man. I think Travis might have tripped over, like, that exact same rock last time, and it was nooooot pretty. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to this beautiful face!”

He graces her with a brief hum; distracted amusement, and then releases her arm as they continue walking – following Millie, who is continuing to forge ahead with singleminded, very Doctor-like determination. “You can’t imagine how good this feels. I’d been in there so long, I’d almost forgotten what fresh air smelled like.”

Aww. Oh, man. Poor guy. But, even so… “We’re underground,” she says.

“But at least it’s not recycled.” Once again, his gaze becomes distant. “It felt like drowning, Carrie.”

A chill runs through Carrie. She wishes she knew what to say, but she’s starting to feel deeply unqualified to deal with whatever Lingering TARDIS Trauma that Roman has going on.

“And the thing is, Time Lords can’t really drown. We have… there’s this entire lung thing we have going on. Very biological, very complex, don’t worry about it, the point is you can dunk us in water for ages and ages and we won’t drown at all, we can just keep recycling air and live down there forever, more or less. And that’s well and good, but someone’s still trying to drown you and after a while everything loses all its color and you forget what not being soaked to the skin feels like, and, well…” He takes a very, very deep breath, like a diver coming up for air, and then winces visibly. “…Hm. You know, I think I’ve forgotten how to talk to people.”

She swallows. “A hundred years alone probably does that to a person, yeah.”

He offers her a very small smile, but it’s warm. “I don’t think I said this before. It really is very good to see you, Carrie.”

“Good to see you too!” says Carrie. “We’ve got to get you somewhere sunny and nice when we’re done here. I’m thinking, like… Disney. You should go to Disney.”

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” he says dryly. “Last trip didn’t end great.”

“So go again and take me too this time,” she says, unsubtly.

He raises an eyebrow at her. “You know, the Doctor would probably take you if you just asked her – ”

Before she can get any further in her grand clever plan to take Roman to a theme park and get him to wear Mickey Mouse ears (it would improve his mood so much, she just knows it), Millie’s voice rings out, loud and echoing from some distance in front of them. “What are you two doing back there? I’ve found the prophecy pool! Hurry up and get down here!”

“Well, you heard the lady,” says Roman. The wry humor hasn’t left his voice. He almost sounds fond.  “We ought to hurry up and get down there before she gets into any trouble. She seems to be a magnet for it, or so I’ve noticed.”

Carrie grabs his arm before he can start monologuing sadly again, and starts tugging him down towards Millie’s voice. “Coming! Just a sec!”

*

It’s exactly like Travis remembers it. He doesn’t have the Doctor’s near-photographic memory, so he can’t be sure, but the pool is just as huge and glassy and perfectly circular as it had been when they’d first stumbled upon it, and the rest of the room is as terrifyingly tall and austere as he recalls it being.

The Doctor raises the Swiss-Army-sonic up to the dizzyingly high roof, craning her neck upwards in almost exactly the same way that Travis’s Doctor had upon setting foot in this room for the first time. Her glasses glint, the light reflecting off them, and a small smile falls across her lips. “Well, that’s certainly atmospheric.”

“It is pretty cool,” agrees Travis, and kneels down next to the pool, careful to not let his fingers brush against the water. Once again, he quietly bemoans the loss of his GameBoy – now that he knows what the device in this pool does and roughly how it works, and with Norman back in place and flitting around his brain like usual, he’s certain that he’d be able to jack into its internal circuitry without a problem. But he can’t. He has no interface to work with, and a purely techno-psychic connection can only get him so far. “Hey, Doctor? Can you check this out with the screwdriver?”

She nods and finishes up being fascinated by the structure, then comes down to kneel beside him, scrunching up her face in that very particular way the Doctor does when she’s thinking hard about something. After a moment of scrunch-faced contemplation, she reaches for the pool, just like his Doctor had, and he says, “Wait, no – ” and reaches out to grab her wrist.

She doesn’t touch the water, but she does swat his fingers away, rather viciously, and snaps, “Don’t.”

He withdraws his hand. His fingers aren’t the only thing that are stinging. “Right. Sorry.” For a second, he’d forgotten that she doesn’t know him like he knows her. And she’s always been a bit prickly towards people she doesn’t know yet. It’s not surprising. It shouldn’t hurt this much. “Just... maybe don’t activate it just yet. We don’t want to end up getting sucked into another random universe.”

The Doctor is silent. She doesn’t lower the sonic from where she’s aiming it at the machinery, but her shoulders dip a bit.

She says, “You trust her a lot, don’t you?”

He blinks, surprised. “I mean... yeah. Of course I do. Doctor, you’re, like... the best person I know. In any universe. There’s literally nobody I trust more than you.”

She looks at him like he’s an idiot. This isn’t new. The Doctor has a tendency of looking at a lot of people like they’re idiots, which is the sort of thing that comes with being the smartest person in a room at any given moment. It’s just that usually this look doesn’t linger on him in particular for so long. All Travis can do is stare back, and after a moment, she says, “I ruined this universe.”

All he can manage is, “What?”

“If I hadn’t come up with the Plan, if I hadn’t told Romana about it, Roman never would have gone off on his own like that and started up a grudge match against Rassilon, and this universe wouldn’t be like this.” Her lip curls unpleasantly. “I am directly responsible for this Time War. I’m sure your version of the Doctor is trustworthy, but I’m not so sure you should be assuming I am.”

“No – no. Rassilon would have done that anyway. Or tried to, anyway. He had this whole plan where he was, like, trying to convert the entire universe into a… uh…”

“Doesn’t matter,” the Doctor says, and looks away from him sharply. “This thing, you said it was a reality-ripper?”

The Doctor, as always, manages to throw him entirely off-balance with a swift, unforgiving topic change. He blinks, and shakes his head. “Uh, did I?”

“You mentioned it rips holes through to other universes. And it looks like a reality-ripper.” She cranes her neck over the edge, squinting at the technology half-hidden under the lip of the pool. “It’s old Time Lord tech, from before the first War. I thought most of it had been decommissioned, but apparently not.”

She’s all business, now. Travis tries to recalibrate, match her energy as best he can. “...Any particular reason why it might have been decommissioned? I mean, like… no offense, but travelling to other dimensions for – um, reasons, it seems like the sort of thing Time Lords would be really interested in.”

She almost laughs but mostly sighs. “Yeah, no, I get where you’re coming from. Also, you’re not wrong. It is the sort of thing my people would be extremely interested in, for exactly the reasons you’re thinking, but the thing is that once you end up in another universe it tends to be, you know, pretty hard to get back to where you started. “

Travis feels cold, all of a sudden. “Oh.”

The Doctor is now poking her sonic screwdriver carefully at the underside, apparently trying to connect to it. She keeps flipping through the many attachments and accessories built into it and scowling every time she comes up with something wholly useless. “The CIA kept sending out agents into other dimensions through these things, and they kept on never coming back, and I guess after a while they realized they were running out of agents, so they shut the project down.” She pauses, hands stilling, and still doesn’t look up at him, even as she says, “What’s with that look?”

“You... just said that the people who got sent through this thing never come back.”

“Yeah.”

Travis swallows. “Does that mean... are you saying – ”

*

“ – there’s no way for you to get home?” Travis asks, looking more alarmed than the Doctor had expected him to. He’s sitting on a nearby rock, legs half-curled beneath him as he watches her poke around the outside of the pool with distinctly more caution than she usually does. Getting sucked through into yet another universe because of a single wrong move is the last thing she wants at this point.

“I didn’t say that,” the Doctor replies. “I said that the CIA couldn’t figure it out. I probably can.”

She casts a glance over in his direction, and is gratified to see that he seems to have relaxed a fraction at this. It’s a tricky balancing act she’s walking, here. On the one hand, she needs quite a bit of attention devoted to figuring out what’s up with the reality ripper and how she’s going to get home and how she’s going to find her friends, and everything. On the other hand… well, there’s Travis.

He seems to catch onto the fact that she’s paused in her work to stare at him worriedly, and quickly flashes her a smile, waving a hand at the pool – go on, I’ll be fine.

She shakes her head, and then shakes the sonic screwdriver for good measure. She knows she’s worrying more than usual, overthinking this and quite possibly being unbearably overbearing – but really, could anyone blame her? So much has gone wrong in this universe already. She’s hardly going to let it get any worse, not while she has any means to stop it from happening. “Okay. Opened up the system. It’s pretty archaic Gallifreyan tech, but… I think I can find my way around.” She raises her sonic screwdriver to eye-level, checking the readout. “Looks like it needs direct Gallifreyan biodata contact to activate it, which... yeah, that explains why it opened when I touched it in the other universe. And it’s not calibrated to anywhere in particular. It’s actually just.. open.”

“Open?” he echoes, clearly curious.

“Yeah, looks like it’s been abandoned for a while, and the last person who messed with the settings just never bothered to shut it down properly. And that’s the interesting thing – explains a lot, even – without a Time Lord, it’s not going to be actively dangerous or anything, but signals and messages from other universes might squeak through. Hence why it was being used as a tourist attraction when I found it in my universe.”

“So is there any way to… you know, get through to the other side? The right other side, I mean. The one you originally came from. The multiverse is… pretty big.”

“If by ‘pretty big’, you mean, ‘functionally infinite’, yeah. It is.”

Travis nods, and gains a distant, thoughtful look. “So – how do you find an exact specific universe in the middle of all of that? It’s been a while, but I remember how multiverse theory works… sort of. Even if you find one that looks right, there’s, like, no guarantee it isn’t just a completely different universe that just happens to be really similar.”

The Doctor frowns and scrunches a hand into her hair, which is starting to fall out of her usual neat double-buns and hang, tangled around her face. “I mean, ‘multiverse theory’ is a bit of a misleading term. For one thing, it’s not really a theory. And for another, it’s not really a multiverse…”

*

“…is what the Doctor would say, if she was here,” Roman says, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “Because she likes being clever and saying clever things, but also – and this is the key bit that you really do need to remember – sometimes to make something sound clever you’ve got to exaggerate, just a tad.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed she does that,” Carrie says, kicking a rock into the pool. It skips twice and then sinks like – well, like a stone. Ripples barely spread across the surface before it becomes still and flat again.

“She does,” Millie agrees, who’s lying on her stomach in front of the rocks, and has been sticking her hand into the pool and swirling it around (to no visible effect). “So, you’re saying… I don’t know, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the multiverse exists, but probably not in the way that you envision it – assuming that you spend any time thinking about that sort of thing at all.”

“Not recently,” Millie says.

Carries shakes her head. “Nah, that’s more Travis’s thing.”

“Figures,” says Roman, and rolls his shoulders, tipping his head back to gaze at the roof of the cage. “Look, the hows and whys of how the many-worlds theory don’t really matter in this case. Reality rippers aren’t hard to program if you’re smart about it. That’s not even the point.”

“The point is getting Carrie home,” Millie says matter-of-factly.

Roman points to her. “Exactly. And to that end – every universe has, like, an individual smell to it. Not really a smell, but you two don’t have the appropriate senses to actually understand what it is, so let’s just go with smell. Or vibe. And if you know what the smell or vibe of your universe is, it’s not too hard to follow that smell all the way back home, if you know what you’re doing.”

“Oh! Yeah!” Carrie straightens up, brightening. “I get it. Like a homing pigeon catching the scent, right?”

“Homing pigeons… don’t catch the scent,” Millie says slowly. “Do they?”

Carrie blinks. “They don’t? Wait. Why not?”

Roman says, “I don’t think birds can smell.”

“They can’t?” Millie says, sounding surprised.

Roman’s frowning now, clearly distracted by the side tangent. “Well, they don’t have noses.”

“Oh, good point.”

“How the fuck do homing pigeons work if birds don’t have noses,” Carrie says furiously.

“It’s something about… magnetic navigation?” Roman suggests, still frowning. “Or maybe all pigeons are aliens, I… can’t actually remember. Why are we talking about pigeons?”

“I think you were going to tell us how we’re supposed to find Carrie’s versions of the Doctor and Travis,” Millie says, swirling her hand through the water again.

Roman snaps out of it so quickly it’s like he was never distracted in the first place. “Oh, right. That’s easy. Well, they’re all from the same universe, so – ”

*

“– if you send out a certain kind of signal, the three of you should just kind of latch onto each other,” the Doctor says.

“It’s that simple?” Travis asks, surprised.

“Well, the problem is that there’s no guarantee that your friends are sending out the signal at the same time as you are. I’m working on the assumption that they are, but – honestly, what are the chances?”

Travis has to admit that the chances are probably not too great. The Doctor – his Doctor, that is – well, maybe she might be, but when it comes to Carrie, he can’t think of a single reason she would or could send out any sort of signal like the one this Doctor’s describing. Maybe if she’d found an alternate version of the Doctor too, but… he honestly doesn’t know what’s happening to her in whatever universe she’s ended up in. “Is there any other option, though?”

“No. No, there isn’t.” She doesn’t sound like she’s properly listening, though, muttering under her breath to herself. “Seriously, though, what were the time lords thinking? Don’t answer that, I already know that they’re almost never thinking anything good. But still, leaving it out in the open like this… anything could happen. Anyone could find it, and just… fall through.”

“In our universe, it was being used as, like... a tourist attraction,” Travis volunteers, not sure if she wants to hear it. “Apparently prophecies got displayed on the water in the pool. Well, alternate universes, but obviously they didn’t know that.”

“Makes sense,” the Doctor agrees. “That sort of thing happens more often than you’d expect, you know. Technology getting mistaken for magic.”

“Clarke’s third law.”

“Sufficiently advanced technology, exactly.” She briefly glances at him, and the look in her eyes says, I think I get why we’re friends. But she doesn’t say that. Instead, she brushes her hands off on her skirt again, and nods. “All right, I think I can recalibrate it and try to get some sort of signal out. Might need your help, though. First things first, gotta find an access panel.”

“Right, of course.” Travis delivers a mental poke in Norman’s direction to wake him up, and grins. “Good thing I can cast Detect Magic as a cantrip!”

The Doctor gives him an unimpressed look. “Travis, Detect Magic is a first-level spell.”

“...I have unlimited first-level spell slots?”

She squints at him for a long second, and then sighs, shrugs, and mutters, “Warlocks with the Eldritch Sight Invocation can cast it at will at second level; I’ll allow it.”

“You are a kind and benevolent DM,” Travis intones. He finds the hidden access hatch in less than a minute, and then he and the Doctor set about reprogramming it to act passively rather than actively. It’s over in a few minutes, and then they’re sitting back, and he says, “Can we open up the thing? Make it so things can actually come through? I... don’t know if I want to go jumping in just yet, but maybe we can throw a rope in or something...?”

“Sounds dangerous,” she says.

Travis smiles. “You love dangerous.”

“Good point, I do,” says the Doctor, wiping her now-greasy hands off on her skirt, which is a familiar-enough action that Travis feels a pang of something that’s very nearly, but not quite, grief. “All right, step aside. All it needs is – ”

*

“ – a dash of Time Lord DNA!” says the Doctor with relish, smearing her grease-streaked hands down her skirt and slamming the panel closed. “And then we’ll really be cooking. Travis, you might want to find something to hold onto.”

Travis stands up, a bit unsteadily, and casts his gaze around the cavern. “You… think it might try to pull us in?”

“Not if I did my job right, but I don’t want to take any chances.” She wiggles a finger in the direction of the doorway, and says, “Find a stalactite or something back there, hold on tight until I give you the all-clear. If anything goes wrong, get back to the TARDIS.”

“Okay,” he says, making his way over to the doorway, “now you’re starting to worry me.”

She makes a face at him. “What? The fact that I’m being cautious? When am I not careful? Don’t answer that,” she adds quickly, going to kneel besides the pool. Her hand is braced around the sonic screwdriver, ready to zap the control panel at the first side of something going wrong – even though she’s not entirely sure that would even work. “All right. All set?”

“All set,” says Travis from behind the doorway, sounding more than a little anxious.

“Right,” says the Doctor, and dips her hand down, letting her fingers brush the water. There is a sudden flash of light, and –

*

 – Roman is rising to his feet, even as the pool starts to bubble and swirl with flashes of electric blue. Carrie wraps her arms even tighter around her stalactite of choice, waiting for the inevitable yank and shift of all gravity in the room reversing, but it doesn’t come. Cautiously, she loosens her grip – and then at a nod from Roman, comes over to join him. She squints down at the swirling patterns forming in the water. She can’t really see anything specific, and it doesn’t look like if she jumped into it she’d end up in any sort of universe, let alone her own, but that’s what she’d thought about the last time too, and look how that had turned out!

“Can we send a signal through?” Millie says eagerly.

Roman doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but it’s a very near thing. “‘Thank you, Roman. Good job on accomplishing the almost-impossible, Roman.’”

Carrie latches onto his arm and hugs him sideways, which seems to startle him into shutting up for a brief moment. “You did great! But now what?”

“You tell me,” he says after taking a moment to clear his throat. He raises his sonic screwdriver. “I can broadcast pretty much anything – so what do you want it to say?”

*

“A signal’s coming through,” says the Doctor, sounding startled.

“I can hear it.” It’s pinging in his mind bright and clear. They’re not distress signals, more like homing beacons. “That’s – that’s Carrie! That’s got to be. “

Because literally nobody else in the universes would send a message comprising of every Beatles song blasting, all at once. Improbably, somehow, Carrie’s managed to do exactly what he’d never expected her to be able to do. Carrie is just like that, though. He really should give up being surprised by her, one of these days.

Travis glances over at the Doctor, and points to the Swiss Army Sonic. “Can we send one back?”

She fiddles at the controls. “Probably. What did you have in mind?”

*

The Doctor can’t help it. When she hears the two messages being beamed through directly to her screwdriver, playing over and clashing with each other, a delighted laugh escapes her throat. She throws her head back to the ceiling, punches a fist in the air. “Yes!”

From outside the cavern, Travis calls, “What? What is it? What’s going on?”

“You can come in! It’s all right, it’s more than all right – I don’t know how they did it, but they’re there. Both of them are there, wherever there is, and they’re getting signals through to me.”

Travis inches into the room, and comes to stand next to her. “They are? How did you know?”

Wordlessly, the Doctor holds up the screwdriver and lets the sounds of a Beatles-infused mess and the Pokémon Red battle theme playing at once echo around the cavern.

After a second, Travis laughs too. “Yeah, that’s definitely me.”

She wraps an arm around him, hugging him to her side. “Travis Killians, infusing the multiverse with video-game nerdery one universe at a time. Please never, never change.”

“He’s grinning now and looking away, kind of bashfully. “So – are you going to send out something too? So they know it’s you?”

“Of course I am,” she says, and barely has to think for more than a single second before she knows what to send.

*

“Is that… Pokémon?” says Millie, who apparently knows what Pokémon is somehow.

“And the Star Wars theme,” says Roman, looking just a little bemused.

“That’s them!” says Carrie, pumping a fist in the air. “Gottem! Good work, team!”

*

Travis thinks he might have the stupidest smile in all of existence on his face now, and the Doctor might be giving him a weird look for it but he barely cares. The Doctor, his Doctor, and Carrie too by the sounds of it, they’re both there. They might be universes apart, but it feels like they’re so close he could touch them.

*

“What now, then?” Travis says, sounding worried at the frankly alarming noises the reality ripper is making.

“Only one thing I can do, Travis!” She tosses her sonic screwdriver in his direction, and he only just manages to catch it, nearly dropping it as he does. “I’m going to stick my hand into it!”

“Doctor, are you sure about that – ”

*

Carrie tosses her baseball bat to one side so she can throw herself down on the ground next to the pool. If she squints really hard, she thinks she might be able to start making out the vague form of… well, something. It’s way too vague to actually put a name to, but there’s something in the pool beyond pretty colors and flashing lights.

And, well, Carrie’s never been known for having the greatest impulse control. Behind her, she hears two simultaneous panicked intakes of breath – but it’s too late. She’s already reaching out.

*

Travis says, “I think I see something.”

“What, the active reality ripper?” the Doctor replies. Yeah, I see it too. It’s been on for the last few minutes. We turned it on together; good job, us.”

“No, like, something in it. Someone, maybe?” He squints harder, trying to work out if he’d just been imagining it or not. “I think... hang on.”

“What are you doing?” says the Doctor.

He’s kneeling at the edge of the pool now, staring into the depths with his eyes narrowed. He’s sure he saw it this time. Which means that...

The Doctor is giving him the Look to rival all Looks. “Travis, I can’t believe I have to actually tell you this – do not stick your hand into the reality ripper, under any circumstances. Do not. Don’t. Stop – ”

It’s too late. He’s already done the Doctor Thing and acted on pure instinct without thinking of the consequences, which is a definite sign that he’s been spending way too much time around her.

It’s not pulling at him or trying to suck him in, at least, but even though he’s stuck his hand right through the surface of the water, whatever he’s reaching into right now doesn’t feel like water. In fact, it doesn’t feel like much of anything. It’s like he’s reaching into an empty void free of any sort of sensation. He wiggles his fingers, stretches them, and leans away from the Doctor, who’s attempting to grab his arm and wrench it viciously out of the water. “No, it’s all right – just give me a minute, I need to see if – aah!”

Because the feeling of someone’s disembodied fingers grasping at yours is startling even if you were halfway expecting it. Travis only just manages to prevent himself from recoiling, and ignores the Doctor’s familiarly exasperated-worried, “Travis!”

“It’s fine! There’s something there. I just need to...” He reaches out again, fingers grasping into the empty void, stretching out in search of something he knows is there, but can’t quite touch, not yet.

And after a long, long moment where he’s nearly sure he’d imagined it –

*

someone

*

reaches

*

back.

*

Chapter Text

Objectively, Travis should probably find it weird that he can recognize the Doctor by her hand alone at this point. But also, she makes such a habit of tugging him forwards out of danger (or towards, as the case may be), seizing onto it when she’s particularly delighted at any number of things, and idly poking at his arm to grab his attention that… well, he doesn’t find it weird at all. And when he feels those familiar cool fingers wrapping around his own, the calluses worn through from all sorts of tinkering and crafting and poking and prodding, he knows it’s her.

There’s a moment where he thinks, Doctor! – except with about a million more exclamation marks tacked onto the end of that. In the same moment, a wave of feelings courses through him – relief, incredulity, joy. And although he’s feeling all of those things on some level or other, he’s also pretty sure that they aren’t his feelings.

“Doctor? Doctor!” he says frantically into the water beneath him, trying to squint his way into seeing whatever he’d caught a glimpse of only moments before. He can’t see anything but pulsating blue, though – his hand is invisible underneath the water, and the Doctor’s hand isn’t visible in his even though he can feel it, steady as anything.

“Yeah, what?” says the Doctor behind him, who’s got a death-grip on the collar of his jacket and appears seconds away from heaving him bodily away from the water at the slightest sign of danger. “Oh – you’re not talking to me, are you? Or, well, I guess you are talking to me, but it’s not – ”

Another hand slaps down onto Travis’s under the water, and he jolts, not having expected either it or the sudden jolt of manic excitement that comes with it. They don’t make a habit of grabbing each other’s hands quite so much, but it’s still unmistakable. “Carrie! Oh my god, Carrie, yes!”

“It worked,” says the Doctor behind him. It’s half a statement, half something that’s almost a question. Travis feels her hold on the back of his jacket slacken, just a bit (although she’s not letting go entirely, which he kind of appreciates). “It – you’re sure that’s her? Your friend, your Doctor?”

“Pretty sure,” Travis says, and then does some swift internal calculations and amends, “I’m working off a… let’s say, 0.4 percent margin of error, here? I can’t hear them or anything. I’m getting kind of… emotional resonance coming from both of them? But I don’t think – whatever it is, it’s not strong enough to communicate properly.”

“I think I can help with that. Hold on.” She levels the swiss-army sonic at the machinery. “Gonna boost the psychic resonance. Let me know if this works.”

“Thanks,” he says, and shifts awkwardly. “Are you… going to let go of my jacket…?”

She huffs, and does not. “Do you want to take another trip through an unstable reality ripper into another unstable dimension? Let’s hold any universe jumping until we know what’s actually going on.”

“Fair point,” he says, and then something switches and it’s like his brain is getting blown open all over again, circuitry rewiring and reconnecting and suddenly he can see even more perfectly than ever before, and –

“Travis! Carrie!” the Doctor just about shrieks. “You’re all right? Tell me you’re all right!”

And now Travis can hear her; hear her like she’s standing right in front of him (even though she still isn’t visible) which is – well, it might just be the best thing he’s heard all day. “Yes! Yes, I’m here!”

“Doctor! Hi, Doc!” That’s Carrie, of course, sounding breathless but just as upbeat as ever. “Doing pretty good – and, ooh, hi Travis, you’re here too?”

For a second or two they’re all talking at once, each of them trying to get a word in edgewise about what’s going on and what’s happening and trying to figure out where the other two are, which of course means that it’s impossible to understand any of it – and then the Doctor goes, “Oi, okay, all right, hang on,” extremely loudly, which makes Travis shut up pretty quickly. Carrie sheepishly follows suit a moment later.

“How did you two even get this open?” the Doctor almost immediately says, now that she has the floor. “I mean, not that I’m not thrilled, but the reality ripper needs a Time Lord to activate. Where did you find one of those?”

Travis says, “Uh – I found you, actually. An alternate version of you, from this universe.”

For some reason, this makes the Doctor snort with amusement, and she says, with no small amount of fondness, “Of course you did.”

“She’s actually here right now, and – hang on.” Travis looks back to the Doctor who’s still maintaining a grim death grip on the back of his jacket. “Can you hear them? “

She shakes her head. “Psychic wavelength for people who have their hands in the pool only, e.g., not me. From here, sounds like you’re having a one-sided conversation with a pool of water. Not a great look on you.”

He nods, and then to the pool – “She says hi.”

“I didn’t say that,” says the Doctor standing behind him. Then, grudgingly, loosening her grip as she apparently deems it safe enough to do so – “But, yeah. Hi. Seems rude not to say it, I guess.”

The Doctor who is holding his hand, the one he can’t see, she says, “And she looks like me? She’s not, well – not another version?”

“I mean, I ran into a few other versions – last you, sad you, the guy with the neon TARDIS, he was a lot – but yeah, she looks and sounds like you. Same face. You know. Uh, what about you, Carrie? Did you find a Doctor in your universe too?”

“Well,” says Carrie, and he can tell just by the tone of her voice that she’s pulling a face at him, “well, not exactly…”

*

“What are they saying?” Millie says over Carrie’s shoulder, looking fairly agonized at not being directly involved in the conversation. “Should I stick my hand in too? Would that work?”

“Best not,” Roman says from where he’s idly leaning against a wall a short distance away. “You’re not from another universe, we have no idea how it’d react. Might end up pulling you through too.”

Carrie briefly tunes the two of them out, and focuses on the disembodied voices of her two other friends currently echoing at her through a rift in time and space. “Turns out, there isn’t a Doctor in this universe.”

“What?” says the Doctor, sounding a bit offended. “Boring sort of universe, then.”

“Well, there was a Doctor, but then she died or something.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Roman make a so-so wiggly indication with his hand… and Millie flinch like she’s been punched. Whoops.

“Right. That...” The Doctor trails off. “Makes sense.”

“…Grim universe,” is Travis’s contribution. “Worst timeline.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty sad. But, like, I ended up in the TARDIS and we ended up finding Roman, so it’s not all that bad!”

“Roman?” the Doctor asks.

Travis makes a strange little noise in the back of his throat. “Wait, Roman’s there too?”

“Whoa! Travis, you have a Roman as well in your universe?” Carrie says, enthused. “That’s, like, two entire Romans! That’s pretty cool! Roman, are you getting this?”

“Uh,” says Travis, “well, not exactly – there was this whole thing with Gallifrey and the Matrix and – we probably don’t have time to get into it – ”

“The Matrix?” the Doctor says, loudly. “But I destroyed the Matrix. What’s going on over there?”

Travis, again: “– just, Carrie, you’re sure that Roman isn’t evil in that universe?”

“Roman,” says Carrie, over her shoulder. “Are you evil in this universe?”

“I considered it,” says Roman. “Seemed like too much effort, though.”

“Pretty sure he’s not,” Carrie informs the pool, then, “Wait, you found an evil Roman in that universe? Does he have, like, an evil goatee?”

“Carrie,” the Doctor says, sounding a bit strangled. “Regular Roman has a goatee.”

“Oh,” Carrie says, “huh. Yeah. Right.”

“You’re safe now, though?” the Doctor presses, that strangled note to her voice still remaining. “Both of you?”

“Yeah,” Travis says. “I mean, this universe is… falling apart a bit, the Earth’s destroyed and there’s a whole Time War going down, but also, you’re here. The other version of you is here. We’re pretty safe, I think.”

“And we’ve got guns and wrenches and miscellaneous weapons and I haven’t met anyone who wasn’t nice, here, so… I feel pretty safe?” Carrie adds.

“Good,” the Doctor says, obviously relieved. “That’s good. Okay, listen up, I’ve got a plan.”

*

“First step is all of us getting into the same universe,” the Doctor says. “Preferably one with a functional TARDIS, because that’s the best way I can think of to get us back home.”

She’s still leaning over the pool, staring into the glowing depths although she still can’t see a single trace of either of them. Next to her, Travis is doing the same, although – she realizes, belatedly – he doesn’t have the context for two-thirds of this conversation, so it can’t exactly be easy to follow.

“Well, it did work last time,” Travis-from-the-pool says.

“Exactly, although I hope it’s not such a rushed, panicked attempt this time.” The Doctor frowns. “That’s not going to be the universe I’m in, though. The TARDIS here is.” She swallows, alarmed by how her throat tightens. “Well. Not doing so hot. Let’s go with that.”

She feels Travis’s fingers tighten around hers, and after a second so do Carrie’s. At the same time, the Travis who’s sitting right next to her shuffles a little closer, bumping their shoulders together. She bites her lip and thanks the universe – no, multiverse, probably – that her friends exist.

“Sorry,” says Travis-from-the-pool quietly after a second. “That’s – sorry, Doctor.”

Carrie’s voice is sympathetic, too. “Yeah, that’s rough, Doc. Whoof.”

“Yeah, I didn’t end up in the most fun universe. Tell you all about it later, though. What about you two? Functional TARDISes?”

“This universe’s one is kind of on the blink,” Travis reports. “Like, we got it working, but it’s not in the best condition. But also there’s a Doctor here too, and I don’t know if she’d be too happy about you using hers.” A split-second pause, and then, “Yeah, that’s a no from her.”

“I wouldn’t ask her to do that,” the Doctor says. “Carrie?”

“I mean, I think this TARDIS is working?” says Carrie, and then her voice retreats a bit, goes distant and fuzzy as she directs a series of questions to her universe, and she’s back with a cheerful, “It is! I don’t really know what that means, but that’s a good thing, right?”

“Pretty good!” the Doctor confirms. “It means we have a chance. We just need to get over to your side, which means we need to stabilize the connection so we can all get through, which means… hang on. Travis!”

“Yeah?” says the Travis on the other side of the portal.

“Not you.” She looks over her to shoulder, to the version of Travis sitting by her side. “There should be a box of cables by the console, some really long ones. We’re going to need to hook the portal up to the console, which means running a whole bunch of cords from the TARDIS to here. Like jumpstarting a car, just with more dimensional fallout. Do you think you can get it started?”

He nods, and gives the pool a brief dubious look. “Don’t fall in,” he advises, and struggles to his feet. “Be right back. It’s the power couplings under the psychic circuit panel that we want… right?”

“That’s the one.” She watches him go for a second, and turns her attention back to the pool, the two friends she’s got by the hand. “Right. Might be a bit trial and error, but I reckon I’ve got it.”

“Did you find another Travis?” Carrie demands. “Are you replacing Travis with another Travis? Doctor, that’s just rude. You didn’t even, like, ask him.”

“I’m not replacing him,” the Doctor says, exasperated, and then, “Travis, seriously, I’m not replacing you, I promise.”

“I didn’t think you were!” Travis says immediately. “But also – you found another me?”

“I did. He was in a bit of trouble, and he needed my help, so he’s here with me now. Helping out.” She bites her lip. “He wanted to say hi, I need to introduce you too.”

“I… can’t pretend that’s not going to be weird, but – sure, I’ll talk to him.”

Carrie says, “Tell him he can’t be Parker, because Parker is already Parker. Travis, do you have any other middle names he can use?”

“Let’s have that conversation later.” The Doctor clears her throat. “Back on the topic of getting things connected, Travis – you’ve got a Doctor over there. Can you ask her to stabilize the portal on her side, using the TARDIS as an energy source? She’s me; I can’t imagine she wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Yeah, course. Just a second,” he says, and for a second his voice retreats again as he asks something to the Doctor on his side of the pool.

Then there’s a brief pulse of shock and confusion from his end – and then the connection is abruptly, violently cut off as his hand is torn out of the Doctor’s grip.

“Travis?” says the Doctor. “Travis?”

*

The Doctor on his side of the pool has been quiet for the last few minutes, probably thinking or considering or doing those Doctor-y in-her-head things, so when Travis asks her about stabilizing the portal and doesn’t get a response, he isn’t immediately concerned.

He does raise his head to look at her, though, and what he sees –

She isn’t moving. Not in the sense that she’s unconscious on the ground, or deep in thought or anything like that, she’s just not moving, like she’s been frozen solid where she stands. Her eyes are watching him, though, and they’re bright with fury and urgency, and she’s blinking rapidly at him.

He starts to frown, starts to open his mouth, already aware that something’s happened and something’s wrong – but before he can say a word to either the Doctor in the cave or his friends through the portal, there is a sharp tug on the back of his collar, and he’s yanked violently backwards, his hand slipping out from the Doctor and Carrie’s respective grips. He feels their sudden alarm in the instant before he’s disconnected, and then he feels his back impact with the cave floor, scattered rocks digging into him painfully.

“Finding you was a lot more trouble than it was worth,” says the Lord President from above him. Travis stares wildly up at him, he realizes with a distinct sinking feeling that there is a gun pointed right at his forehead, and that the man who looks like Roman except for all the ways he doesn’t is holding up what looks like an empty medical syringe with the other. “Fortunately, I can be very clever sometimes. You got the Doctor’s TARDIS working all on your own? Not bad for a five-year-old.”

Norman wants Travis to kick the Lord President’s legs out from under him. Kick him, and then bite him. (Norman suggests a lot of stupid things like biting alien presidents when he gets panicked.) Travis is pretty sure that’s going to do nothing at best, and at worst get him shot. He takes in a shaky breath, blinking away the spots from his vision. “The – the Doctor. What – what did you do to – ”

“Paralytic nanite injection.” The Lord President sounds impatient. “Oh, stop looking at me like that, it’s not going to kill her. Probably not going to kill her. She’s just not going anywhere for the moment. You, on the other hand…” And now the Lord President is reaching out to yank Travis up by the front of his shirt, and he’s too dazed to do anything but stumble to his feet. “I mean, you already know the drill. I still need the Matrix open, so let’s get on with it.”

“I know you’re not going to kill me, you need me,” Travis says, “and you already know the mind tricks don’t work. So what makes you think I’m going anywhere with you?”

The Lord President laughs. He sounds like Roman when he laughs. “Oh, Travis. Whatever makes you think I was properly trying last time?”

Their eyes meet. In the back of his head, Travis feels Norman swirling to attention, ready for a fight, and he’s scared, very scared; because he’s suddenly immensely aware that he isn’t remotely ready to take a Time Lord in a mental battle of wills, especially in the state he’s in right now. The shadow of the Lord President’s mind looms over his, and he feels very small indeed. If the President tried to break his brain right here and now, he thinks he might just crumble to dust on the spot.

“But I don’t think there’s any need for that,” the President continues crisply, and inclines the gun in one hand, almost playful. “This isn’t for you, really. Do you think the Doctor is up to dodging, in her current state?”

Travis’s stomach drops. “You’re her friend. You used to be her friend. You wouldn’t just – Roman, please.”

The gun goes swivelling smoothly, its aim skimming across the room. Away from Travis, over to rest right between the Doctor’s hearts. The Doctor isn’t looking at the Lord President. She’s looking right at Travis.

He says, “If you want to find out what her next regeneration looks like, please, continue to do whatever you feel like doing.”

Travis doesn’t respond. He can’t. He just stands there as the Lord President seizes him by the arm, and wordlessly allows himself to be pulled along. Everything had been going so well. He’d had home quite literally within reach, and now…

He throws a panicked glance back at the Doctor, who’s still standing there unmoving. Her eyes are following him, and it’s hard to read what she’s trying to tell him without facial expressions to accompany it, but he thinks she looks angry. He silently wills her to break free of the nanites or whatever they are, pull out some clever trick and have his back at the last second, but the President’s iron grip is tight around his upper arm, and he’s being dragged towards the open doors of a TARDIS, and –

*

Millie must have been watching Carrie very closely indeed, because in almost the exact moment that Travis’s hand disappears and he goes abruptly silent, she says, “What is it? What’s happened?”

Carrie is currently listening to the Doctor yelling Travis’s name, and she can’t help it, she’s worried too. That blast of emotion she had caught right before he’d vanished had been confused, and confusion followed by dead silence is never the best combination. “I don’t know? Something happened to Travis. It’s like he just disappeared or something – ”

“Travis disappeared?” Millie looks horrified, and starts eyeing the pool like she’s planning on diving right into it. “Is there… is there some way of checking? Seeing what’s happening on his side?”

Roman seizes onto Carrie’s shoulder. “Describe exactly what just happened.”

“Um,” says Carrie, who is extremely not prepared to answer technical dimensional questions. “Uhh.”

From the other side of the portal, the Doctor says, “Carrie, I need to stabilize the portal. Just stay exactly where you are. I’m coming over, and then – and then we’re going to get Travis. He’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay. Just, don’t move.”

Carrie huffs. “Doctor, you should know by now that if you tell me ‘don’t move’, there’s no way in a million years I’m going to do that – aaaand she’s gone. All right.” She wiggles her hand around in the pool, but there’s nobody reaching back to her. She looks up at Millie and Roman, who are both extremely close to her right now, and are both looking identically intense. “All right, uh, Travis went blip, he’s not responding to us, the Doctor said she was going to try and stabilize the portal and now she’s also gone, and told me not to do anything or go anywhere, which is dumb and she should know that. So… what do we do?”

“Stabilize the portal on our side, I suppose?” Millie says, looking to Roman for confirmation, who nods. “And then we don’t listen to the Doctor, because you’re right and that is extremely dumb.”

“Precisely that,” says Roman. “Carrie, keep your hand in there for just a tick or two. I just need to lock the settings.”

“Got it,” says Carrie, and does that until Roman finishes buzzing at the edge of the pool with his sonic screwdriver and nods at her.

“Gonna try something,” says Roman briskly, shoving his screwdriver in his coat pocket. “Sorry in advance if this goes terribly wrong, you two. Here goes.” And before either Carrie or Millie can say anything, he leans forward, and just… dunks his head into the pool. Like, just shoves it straight in there, like he’s bobbing for apples or something. Do people actually bob for apples anymore? Roman’s probably not hoping to find apples in the weird reality portal pool, right?

A moment passes, and then two, and then he’s sitting up, withdrawing from the pool. He doesn’t look wet, not even slightly damp, but he does look furious. That sort of calm, tranquil furious that the Doctor tends to get when she’s just on the verge of doing something impulsive and reckless.

“Whoa,” says Carrie. “That sure is an expression you have on your face right now. Um, hey, do you want to maybe talk about it?”

“Maybe,” says Roman, and swings his legs over the edge of the pool. “Right after I do this. Remember what the Doctor said about staying here and not moving, and how you said that was dumb?”

“Yes…?” Carrie says.

“Stay here and don’t move. Be right back.”

And like a swimmer hopping into the deep end, he slips off the edge and just… disappears into the swirling blue depths. Millie yells out, and reaches for him, but it’s a split second too late. Roman is completely gone.

“I hate it when he does that,” Carrie mutters, and –

*

Travis has disappeared in a blast of shock and confusion, and now getting through to his side of the portal has shot up from being a moderately urgent priority to the most important thing in any universe. The Doctor shoots up, dragging herself away from the portal, and turns on her heel to sprint directly towards the TARDIS.

Halfway there, she just about collides bodily with the other Travis, who’s been obligingly hauling as many armfuls of jump cables as he can carry down the rocky corridors towards her. They both stumble, she manages to right him before he can faceplant right into the ground and do even more injury to himself, and says, “Right, forget that, change of plans.”

He coughs and holds himself against the cave wall, wires spilling from his arms as he struggles to breathe. “Change of-?”

“Back to the TARDIS,” she says, seizing him gently by the wrist. “Forget the wires.”

“The portal – ”

“That’s the safe way. We’re doing the direct way.” She catches his eye, and says, grimly, “They might be in trouble. I’m driving the TARDIS right through the middle.”

His eyes go wide, and now he’s hurrying too. They make it to the battered blue box standing stubbornly at the far end of the cave tunnel, and the Doctor kicks aside all of the cables that Travis had been trailing out towards the portal room. No point in any of those now. “Come on, get in,” she says, although he’s way ahead of her. She throws herself at the console, and starts programming microadjustments near-feverishly.

Driving the TARDIS through an active reality ripper isn’t the best idea that the Doctor’s had in the last few days, but it also definitely isn’t the worst, and it might just be all she has. She grabs onto the edge of the console, presses her forehead to the central column like a prayer, and says, “This is it. One last hop. Come on, you; we can do it.”

The rotor lets out a rattle and a groan, like the TARDIS is struggling to breathe. A moment passes, a horrible moment of silence, and then the dials and buttons spread out beneath her downturned palms all light up with a strained flicker.

“I know,” she whispers. “I know, I know. I’ve got you. We’ve got this.” Her fingers find the way to their familiar positions, all poised and ready to go. “Just one little hop down the hall, and then it’s just falling, and we’re good at falling. Travis!”

“I know, I’m holding on,” he says from the other side of the console.

“Good, because this might get bumpy.” No point putting it off any longer. She sets her shoulders straight, and slams down the dematerialization switch.

Everything jolts, and – 

*

Travis is all out of his own clever ideas for how to escape terrible impossible situations. That’s what happens when you’re moving nonstop for nearly a full day, with no time to stop or rest or recharge your brain. He’s so, so tired, and things just keep happening, and he’s being dragged away to god-knows-where by probably the second-last person in this universe who he wants in charge of the Matrix – Rassilon coming in just slightly on top, there, although not by much.

So no ideas of his own left, but what would Carrie do? She’d probably just bite the Lord President, wouldn’t she? Travis briefly considers this as an option, but quickly realizes that he won’t be able to get a good angle, and also he’s never tried biting anyone before and he’s kind of afraid he might get it wrong.

…What would the Doctor do?

She’d talk. She’d talk until her throat was sore, until she had enough time to think of a plan or until the Lord President got so very irritated at her that he just gave up and shot her on the spot. And she’d say all the right things, too.

The Lord President’s fingers are tight and harsh around his wrist, but the dull cylindrical form of his TARDIS is all the way at the other end of the pool room, so there’s plenty of time for Travis to dig his heels in and start feverishly babbling out the first things that come to mind. “You know what that pool is? The one I had my hand in?”

“Of course I know what it is, I’m a Time Lord,” the President says curtly.

“It’s a reality ripper. It’s a portal to other dimensions – ”

“I know.”

“But – ” Travis gulps. “But what you don’t know is who I was talking to. I was talking to the Doctor. Not this one, not the one in this universe, and – she’s coming through in a minute and she’s a lot more determined than this one is. And she’s definitely not going to be happy. When she gets here. And sees – whatever it is you’re doing.”

The Lord President laughs. “It’s not stabilized. Nobody’s going anywhere.”

Travis doesn’t know why the Lord President hasn’t just brain-zapped him yet. It’s probably unbelievably clear how little of a fight his brain’s going to put up in a psychic battle – it would be the obvious thing to do. But the Lord President isn’t even looking at him. His gaze is fixed firmly forward. Travis says, “How did you even find me?”

“Left your GameBoy in my office,” he replies, almost airily. “Picked it up. Figured it wouldn’t do any harm to have a backup plan, in case things went wrong, and would you look at that, it turned out being just the thing I needed to track you down.”

“Can I,” Travis tries – throat dry, hands shaky, “at least, you know – have it back…?”

“Oh, funny,” he says, sounding almost amused. “No, that’s not happening. You’ll probably go and channel all of the energy in my TARDIS to power your interdimensional EarPods or something stupid and Doctor-y, and we can’t be having that.”

One last yank of the hand, and they stop in front of the grey-slate cylinder TARDIS, and now Travis is being pulled around to face the Lord President. His eyes glimmer behind gold-rimmed spectacles, cold and flat. He says, very clearly: “As soon as you step through those doors, I’m going to do the obvious thing, because as it turns out you’re really very… well, Doctor-y. Like, extremely Doctor-y, and it’s all of the annoying bits.”

He can’t breathe. “The obvious thing?”

“Well, yes,” the Lord President says, almost conversationally. “I’m going to drug you so hard that you won’t be able to so much as twitch your pinky finger so you won’t do anything with my TARDIS, and then I’m going to take care of that strange mental program of yours so we won’t have a repeat of last time. And then we’re going back to Gallifrey to end this war once and for all. Easy peasy, you break open the Matrix from me, and then we can use you as a sort of… remote controller. It’ll be great, although… you won’t be conscious for most of it. Sorry? Sorry.”

“Roman.” It’s all he can say. This is going to end like it started, with him repeating Roman’s name over and over pointlessly, uselessly. “Roman, please. I’ll – I’ll help you. I’ll do it, you don’t need to do any of that.”

He stops, and shoots Travis a discerning look. “Honestly? I believe you. You don’t seem like a liar, Travis, you really don’t, and I think you’re scared enough to actually follow through with it. But also…” He withdraws a second syringe from his pocket. The liquid inside is shifting like it’s alive. It’s also bright purple. Nope. Travis doesn’t want or need that in his body. Nope. “…I can’t take that chance. Night night.”

Before he can break Travis’s lifetime streak of saying no to drugs, kids, a shot rings out from behind them. The sizzling sting of a laser firing sears through the air, missing both of them by a considerable margin, and the Lord President stops in his tracks, and Travis’s brain breaks a bit more because… what? No. He’s on his own, the Doctor’s frozen, his friends are in completely other universes, there’s no way he could have any help, but –

“You missed,” says the Lord President coldly, who is already reaching for his own gun as he turns around.

“Whoops,” says someone from behind them, voice echoing through the cavern. “Like, really, whoops. Next shot’s not going to miss, though. Hold still.”

Travis spins around fast enough to give himself whiplash, only partially stopped by the fact that the Lord President is still holding his wrist tight enough to bruise.

He almost doesn’t even care, though. Because Roman – messy dark hair, glasses crooked on his nose, looking exhausted and grey at the temples but his coat is right and he’s alive and he’s there – is hauling himself over the rim of the pool. He gets a boot over the edge, and then another, and then he’s drawing himself up to his full height, and he does not look happy.

“A syringe?” he snaps, levelling a familiar gun directly at the man holding Travis hostage. “What are you, a second-rate slasher villain? Get away from him, and stop making a fool of yourself. You’re making me look terrible.”

The Lord President, for his part, looks briefly completely thrown by the appearance of his doppelganger. He recovers quickly, though, and lifts his own gun again, this time levelling it right at Roman. Travis’s momentary joy over seeing his friend again is quickly eclipsed by a rising panic and no, not again – which only increases as the Lord President of Gallifrey flips back the safety, and then, without even the slightest of second thoughts –

– fires.

Chapter Text

Only seconds after Roman disappears – and seconds after Carrie begins to contemplate diving right in after him – the water in the pool begins to bubble and roil, which is completely new and just a bit concerning.

Millie reaches out to tug Carrie to her feet and away, but Carrie’s already scooting and scrambling back. And just in time, too – only seconds after it’s started, the water just about explodes, and a blurry blue form comes shooting out with all the force of a rocket, slamming across the room and narrowly missing both Millie and Carrie, who have reflexively kind of grabbed at each others’ arms. It collides with the far wall, shaking the entire cave with the violence of the impact. Several stalactites snap and plummet to the ground. There may be a small crater now. Carrie is pretty sure this might be some sort of galactic heritage site. Oh no! Not great!

“Whoa,” she says, as the dust settles, and then, “Whoa! That’s the TARDIS! I mean, another TARDIS!”

Because it is – it looks a lot more battered, a lot more warped-and-cracked than Carrie remembers, and besides that a thin stream of foul-smelling smoke seems to be pouring out from the doorframe and the lights aren’t on – but apart from that, pretty much identical.

Millie has swiftly recovered from the shock, has dropped Carrie’s arm. She’s tripped over to the new TARDIS’s doors, and is knocking at it. It’s polite knocking, but also sort of frantic, and also she’s doing it like half a million times per second, and saying, “Doctor? Madame Doctor! Are you all right in there? That sounded like a nasty crash. That is you, isn’t it? Madame Doctor?”

Carrie sits up, and watches from the sidelines as the faint sound of distant Doctor-grumbling resolves into the sound of her saying, “All right, all right, I’m coming – we just got thrown violently into the console room walls, I am trying to make sure we’re all right – ” and then the door gets yanked open inwards to reveal a very dishevelled-looking Doctor with her hair hanging singed and frazzled over her eyes, who says, “Look, if it’s not Travis out here, I hate to say it but I’m not interested – ”

Which exactly when Millie full-body-slams her with a hug and a sob. The Doctor makes a strange half-strangled noise, and on reflex, flails her arms – trying to back away.

“Doctor,” Millie chokes out.

At the sound of her voice, the Doctor stops trying to get away.

“Millie?” She sounds breathless and her voice has gone weirdly small. “But, I – ” And now she catches sight of Carrie, over Millie’s shoulder. Carrie waves, and gives a big ol’ thumbs up. Doctor-Millie reunion facilitated, mission successful! “But, you – Carrie? Carrie, is this-?”

“Ayup, this is the right universe,” Carrie says from the ground, still holding the thumbs-up, although the Doctor doesn’t seem reassured by it. “Or, y’know, the wrong universe, but I’m the right Carrie! And, hey – check it out, Doc, I found some of your friends!”

“You said you found Roman,” the Doctor hisses, voice still breathless and tiny, but gaining volume rapidly. “You never said anything about Amelia Earhart.”

“Oh,” said Carrie. “Uh, well, I thought I mentioned that, but I guess I didn’t? Surprise?”

Another one of those strangled Doctor-noises, and now she’s wrapping her arms very, very tight around Millie, so fiercely that it looks like she’s trying to lift Millie up and carry her away. “Millie. Millie – Millie. Why are you wearing my scarf? Where did you get it from?”

“You left it!” says Millie, quite indignantly. And then a second passes and, her voice cracking, she adds, “You left me. Again.”

“Millie,” says the Doctor, helplessly, and then she doesn’t say anything else and neither does Millie for that matter. Neither of their faces are visible due to just how tightly they’re holding each other. Carrie looks at them for a good long moment, and officially deems this a Moment that they’re having; another one of those moments that she’s absolutely not prepared for or qualified to interrupt.

So she looks away, over to the TARDIS – and is extremely startled to see Travis there. At first, it’s just because she’s kind of already working on the assumption that Travis is in trouble, but then she takes him in properly and realizes that he looks like absolute shit. Complete garbage. His face is horribly pale and his arms are wrapped in so many bandages it looks like he’s trying to (badly) cosplay a mummy, and also he’s holding himself against the TARDIS door and staring, unblinking, at the Doctor and Millie, looking like he’s in danger of collapsing in the next few seconds. And – like, Carrie had thought she’d been having a bad time in the alternate universe blender, yeesh, but what happened to him?

She easily switches off the part of her brain that’s paying attention to Millie and the Doctor (they’ve got it from here, probably), and goes ambling up to Travis with a, “Heyy there Travis, what’s good-?” and the intention to give him a friendly clap on the shoulder and hope he doesn’t fall over from it, but she doesn’t even make it that far.

At the sound of her voice, Travis’s head whips around at the speed of light. His eyes go wide, his already-pretty-pale face drains of the remaining ounces of color, and he staggers backwards involuntarily, only barely managing to catch himself on the TARDIS doorframe as he slides to the ground with a thud.

“Whoa!” Carrie exclaims, hurrying forward to meet him, already reaching out to help him up. “Careful there; you don’t want to hurt yourself – any more than you already have, I mean, because whoa you don’t look great – ” but even as she reaches out, he’s sliding back away from her with an expression of pure panic. Their eyes meet.

And, with no small amount of horror, Carrie realizes that Travis is crying.

*

Travis has had nightmares about this exact moment, the one where Roman dies all over again.

Well, maybe not this exact moment; admittedly he hadn’t predicted that he’d ever have to witness an alternate-universe version of Roman try to shoot another Roman, but the pieces are all there – the laser-fire, the helplessness of having to just stand there and watch it happen, the crushing static of an oncoming tragedy. It’s all so horribly familiar.

And it’s a split-second too late to be of any use, because the shot’s already been fired and the deed is done, but Travis throws himself forward anyway – scrabbling frantically at the Lord President’s shooting hand, trying to pull it back and wrench the gun away from him. It’s no use. The President’s grip is steady and unmovable, and after a few seconds of pointless one-sided struggle, he lets out an irritated huff. His arm sweeps out sharply, slamming Travis squarely in the throat.

Travis, already half-dead on his feet, can’t manage to dodge. He staggers backwards, stunned. His head hits the cave wall, and his ears ring, and now he’s on the ground, coughing and gasping for air. He tries to get to his feet, knowing that he can’t just lie there and let things happen, can’t let this fight be just one-on-one, but his feet aren’t cooperating.

“Oh, you’re just as rubbish at aiming as I am,” comes the voice echoing from across the room, grim and sharp. “You’re the President here, are you? I would have thought you’d at least have taken the time to practice.”

Through blurry vision, Travis watches Roman sliding himself haltingly to his feet from where he’d thrown himself to one side to avoid the laser fire. It’s hard to tell from the distance and the way that his brain is buzzing, but it looks a lot like he’s raising a nearly-identical compact laser deluxe. This is confirmed, seconds later, when he starts firing, and things descend into an honest-to-god gunfight in the middle of an echoing, shadowy cavern.

The sound is tremendous, and it’s near-deafening, and it takes Travis a few more seconds to realize that, over the noise of the gunfire, the two combatants are yelling at each other.

“I’ll admit, I don’t have the faintest clue about whatever’s been going on here,” says (what Travis is blearily assuming to be) the relatively normal, well-adjusted Roman. “I’ve only got the broad strokes through what I just heard from Carrie, but I’ve got to say: I hate what you’ve been doing with this place, and by place I do mean universe.”

“That’s a pretty snap judgement to make from seeing a single room of it – ”

“I don’t need to see the rest of the universe, I just need to see you. Five seconds of you was enough! You make me ashamed to be myself!”

Travis once again tries to get up, and fails by virtue of the fact his legs aren’t working. Roman is in trouble. (Well, two Romans are in pretty equal amounts of trouble, but he cares about one of them slightly more than he does the other.) The Doctor is still there, and he can see her out of the corner of his eye, frozen in place and facing away from him, and she’s not directly in the line of fire, but what if a shot ricochets, goes awry?

“At least I’m doing something,” the Lord President growls, and fires again – one, two, three shots, and all of them miss. “Travis said you were a renegade. Again. At least I’m in charge this time!”

“WE SAID WE WERE NEVER GOING TO BE PRESIDENT EVER AGAIN, YOU FOOL.”

“WE SAID THAT THE LAST FIVE TIMES, TOO, AND WE ALWAYS END UP BEING PRESIDENT ANYWAY. And seeing as you’re me, you should know that!”

There is a short silence in which neither of them fires, and then Roman says, in the coldest, flattest tone that Travis has ever heard from him – “Die.”

The laserfire resumes, and within seconds the Lord President has hastily thrown himself behind the shelter of a wall, right near where Travis is still prone on the ground. He’s muttering to himself, furiously checking his gun, apparently checking for a fault.

“If you’d just hear me out,” the Lord President begins, then cuts himself off with a sharp bark of vicious laughter. “…But of course you won’t, you’re me, I wouldn’t hear me out either. Oh, for the love of – see how you feel when you’re alone for this long, without anyone to help you! You’re me! I can guarantee that you’ll be forced into making some pretty awful decisions, too!”

“I was alone for a century!” Roman snaps. “Completely alone, I didn’t even have Gallifrey to keep me company. And I didn’t go off the deep end, did I?”

“Are you absolutely sure about that? I can see that look in your eyes. I know what it means. You’re just as mad as I am.”

“Mad sure is one word for it,” Roman snaps. “I’m just so serious about this; die already.”

Travis tries to grab the Lord President’s leg, hopefully drag him off balance long enough to do something, but misses thoroughly – so much so that the Lord President doesn’t even seem to register the attempt. He ends up half-facedown in the dirt again, and it’s at this point that he realizes that, in all the chaos and confusion, the Lord President had dropped that syringe of his – the one that had been intended to immobilize Travis. It’s just lying there on the ground, innocuously clean and untouched, still glowing that evil shade of purple. Within easy grabbing distance.

Travis glances up, sees that he still hasn’t been noticed, and slowly reaches out to wrap his fingers around it.

The Lord President snarls – “Why are you so – ”

“Why am I trying to kill you?” Roman interrupts, nearly a scream.

“Actually, yes,” comes the bitten-out reply. “I would like to know that!”

“Easy answer!” Roman roars. “I heard the tail end of that conversation! I heard what you were planning on doing with Travis and the Matrix, I can see what you did to the Doctor of this universe, and from what I’ve heard, this is all your fault. And I have a lot of pent-up anger from the last hundred-or-so years. I’d hate to take it out on someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

On one hand, the fact that at least part of this is because Roman is furious on his behalf is… well, Travis can’t deny that it warms his heart a bit. On the other hand, Travis really wishes that Roman hadn’t draw the President’s attention back to him, because he’s only just got a hold on the nanite syringe. There’s no more time to stall. He rolls over onto his back, grabs for the Lord President’s leg, and slams the syringe right into his thigh, driving the plunger home.

The Lord President inhales sharply, and takes a stagger-step away from Travis. His chin goes up, and then sideways, and then down, as he seems to look everywhere at once before finally landing on Travis, on his hands and knees in the cave dirt, barely able to hold himself up as his hand falls away from the plunger.

“Sorry,” Travis whispers, because it’s still Roman and he can’t stop himself.

The Lord President looks down at his leg, where the expended syringe remains, jutting at an unpleasant angle and thoroughly emptied of that awful purple stuff.

“Smart,” he breathes, and takes another step – towards Travis, this time. “I knew I liked you.”

And without another word, he falls – folding in half and crumpling to the ground, going down in a pile of horribly thin limbs and red-and-gold robes, right at Travis’s feet – over his legs, pinning him down. And because Travis is right there, he can feel it – that the Lord President is absolutely, completely still, not moving an inch.

*

The Doctor is in the middle of hugging one of her best friends in the world who she never thought she’d ever, ever see again, and all other details about the situation have flown her mind completely because at the moment this is quite honestly all that matters. It doesn’t matter that this is an alternate dimension, and that their histories might not quite line up, or that the implications of this universe’s Doctor leaving her, again are more than disturbing the more she thinks about it. Millie’s here and that’s all that matters.

And then she hears Carrie from behind her, yelling, “Doctor? Doctor, I think Travis is dying or something!” and she almost accidentally drops Millie painfully on the floor with how fast she’s spinning around. Millie doesn’t end up getting totally dumped to the ground, though, because she’s doing much the same. For a moment, it’s like nothing had ever changed. It’s Millie and Madame Doctor, back in perfect sync, backing each other up and running in the direction of certain danger together.

Travis isn’t dying. Probably not. Carrie’s just being dramatic. But at the very least, he doesn’t seem like he’s having a good time. He’s sitting on the ground at an awkward sprawl, breathing unsteady – seemingly having pushed himself rapidly away from Carrie.

The Doctor slides forwards, kneeling to meet him, waving Carrie and Millie back hurriedly. “Hey? Hey. Talk to me, Travis. What’s going on?”

He shakes his head, and says nothing for a second.

“It’s real, you know,” the Doctor tells him, and covers his hands with hers. “Carrie and Millie, they’re both here.”

“I know,” says Travis breathlessly, “I know, I know, I knew that I’d probably see them, but – I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Right. Right, makes sense. I should have thought –”

“No,” he interrupts. “I – I get it. I mean…” His voice lowers to nearly a whisper. “That’s Millie. Is it – ”

“Another universe. But. Yes. I think so.”

“She’s –”

“Um, what is going on here?” Carrie interrupts, her voice a little too loud. “Because I swear it’s been only, like, a day or two since we’ve seen each other, but you look like you had the worst several-month-long vacation of all time.”

“I… concur,” adds Millie. She’s standing a short distance away, looking like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Her hands are twisted together, and her gaze keeps darting swiftly between the Doctor and Travis. “Travis, are you all right?

“This isn’t original flavor Travis,” the Doctor says, by means of explanation. “Or – original flavor to the universe I’m from, I mean. He’s, mmm, limited-edition parallel dimension Travis. He…” She briefly catches Travis’s eye, trying to ascertain how much he’s comfortable with her saying. He nods. “…Had a bit of a rough time with some Cybermen. You good to get up?”

He nods, and lets himself be leveraged gently to his feet. “Hi,” he says, with a strained smile. His gaze lingers on Carrie for a second, and then he looks over at Millie, and then back to Carrie again. “Sorry for the freakout.”

“Sorry for coming at you with the intention to punch you,” Carrie says, looking thrown-off in a way that she doesn’t usually look. “I mean, I wasn’t going to punch you hard. Like, on the shoulder. Just, a friendly punch. But I was going to do it. I’m not going to do it now, though, unless you want me to.”

“I might… pass.” He doesn’t seem to know where to look, between the two of them. “Uh. Oh, wow. Wow. Um. So, are you from…?” He trails off, and looks to the Doctor with a curious pleading expression.

“This one’s mine,” she says, waving a hand at Carrie – to which Carrie goes hey, rude, and she lets out an apologetic shrug. When it comes to parallel dimensions, there’s no real good way of denoting who comes from where without resorting to numbers or possessives. She glances over at Millie. “And… this one was unexpected. But, the good sort of unexpected. I like a pleasant surprise, don’t you?” She sees the way that Travis is still looking at Carrie, a combination of startlement and terror, and makes an executive decision to shift the focus away from her. “Millie, do you want to – ”

“Yes. Hello,” says Millie, a worried crease forming just above her nose – a familiar expression of concern. One hand jitters outwards, briefly – but she pauses, retracts it. “Hi.”

Travis’s attention is now back on Millie. His eyes are watery. “Hi.”

Abruptly, Millie gives up utterly on restraining herself. Within seconds, she’s thrown herself down to the ground, right next to Travis, and has his hands on his shoulders. She’s grinning widely, but her eyes are watery too, and she seems on the very verge of tears. “I am so glad you’re here. You wouldn’t believe how much I missed you, Travis.”

“Oh god, we left you,” Travis says. “I’m so sorry. Millie, I am so sorry.”

“It’s…” Millie seems to choke up for a moment, unable to speak, then says, “No, you didn’t. Not on purpose. I know you wouldn’t leave me on purpose, and whatever’s happened to you… of course I forgive you, Travis. Always, forever.”

“A lot has happened. You missed… a bunch.”

Millie lets out a watery laugh. “I can tell. Oh, I missed you.”

“Same,” Travis says, and reaches for her. “Same.”

*

The Doctor watches as Travis and Millie hug like they’re trying to fuse into one person through means of sheer compression, and is extremely, painfully aware of how traumatized they both are. Carrie shuffles back to stand next to her, and for a second, they just watch their friends.

“So,” says the Doctor, when she can’t take not-talking for a second longer – which doesn’t take all that long, really – “You two have been getting along, I take it?”

“Yeah,” says Carrie, upbeat. “She’s cool. Good taste in big things to hit other things with!”

The Doctor smiles. “She’s still carrying around that wrench? Good. It’d be weird if she wasn’t, probably.”

“She missed you a lot,” Carrie adds, chewing on her lip contemplatively. “Something... uh, something happened to the you and Travis in her universe. They just kind of vanished? And she was looking for them, but it turned out that they were, like, completely gone or dead or something? I don’t know, really, I wasn’t paying too much attention. She’s really messed up about it, though.”

The Doctor doesn’t want to think about Millie like that. She doesn’t want to think about any of her friends in a situation like that. She doesn’t like how many alternate-dimension versions of her seem to have just up and gone and left, even if it wasn’t their fault. “That’s… thank you for telling me. I’ll talk to her.”

“Good.” Carrie nods, decisive. “She really needs a friend, I think. Not that I’m not her friend, but, you know, it’s only been a day or so, like I said.”

“A very long day. Also, you,” says the Doctor, “come here,” and then wraps Carrie in a sideways embrace that’s every bit as aggressive as it had been when it was Millie that she was holding – it surprises even her, for a moment. “You’re all right?”

“Whoa!” says Carrie, clearly startled, then she throws an arm around the Doctor’s shoulder and squeeze her happily back. “Well, I am kind of tired, could do with some cookies and maybe a Frappuccino or two, but I met actual real-for-real Amelia Earhart so… I’ve gotta say, my day is going pretty good. How about you?”

The Doctor pauses for a second and then laughs, and it comes out a little strangled. She says, “Yeah, I’m all right.”

“You sure?” Carrie checks, sounding dubious.

“Well, I get to see real-for-real Amelia Earhart too,” the Doctor says. “That’s pretty special, you know?”

“I doooooo,” Carrie agrees, pleased, then pauses. “Wait. If that’s not the Travis from our universe…”

“Yeah, you can just say ‘our Travis’, it’s faster.”

“…Then where is he? I thought you had gone to get him? But if you ended up in this universe instead of his… he’s probably still in trouble, right?”

And the Doctor freezes, horrified.

She usually prides herself on just how good she is at multitasking, but the shock of seeing Millie on top of Travis’s mini-panic attack had thrown out the obvious cleanly from her mind. Travis. Her Travis is in danger.

She grabs Millie by the arm, hauls her to her feet – and then offers her hand out to Travis and waits for him to take it, with no small amount of urgency.

Millie staggers. “Whoa there! What’s the rush?”

“This is a Travis,” she says, gently shaking the hand that’s currently attached to said Travis, “but I’ve got more than one of them to worry about right now. It’s a whole many-universes situation, didn’t I mention that? Never mind. Did you come here in a TARDIS? The one we came in is… she’s finished. She won’t be able to help us.”

“We did,” Millie says. “But – ”

“No time to waste. Where is it? We need to go, now.”

“But, Doctor – the cats,” says Travis urgently.

“Oh – oh no, you’re right, we can’t leave them there – okay, you three get the cats, I’m going to get the TARDIS from this universe, but quickly, we’ve got to do this quickly.”

*

And everything is silent.

“Thank you, Travis,” whispers Roman, after a second. He’s breathing heavily, one hand to the cave wall to keep himself upright. “Ah – good thinking. Quick thinking. Wasn’t sure how long I could keep that up for.”

“No problem,” Travis wheezes, similarly out of breath. The Lord President’s limp arm is lying across his, pinning him down, and his skin crawls. He hurriedly drags himself out from underneath, pulling himself back a few feet. “Um. Hi.”

Roman nods at him. They’re still on opposite sides of the pool. “Yes. Yes, hi. How are things?”

Travis tries to think up a witty and interesting response to this that will make him sound appropriately calm, cool and on top of things, but quickly finds that he’s way past the point of that. Instead, he just tips his head back until it rests gently against the side of the cave wall, and he laughs, letting the hoarse sound pour out of his throat until it’s all he can hear. It’s only for a few seconds, though – too drained to maintain it, he just lies there and hopes that it’s really actually real-for-real over this time.

Roman’s footsteps echo as he approaches – he’s not really walking with a limp, but there definitely isn’t a spring in his step. He walks right past the Lord President’s body, pauses, then turns back and delivers a vicious kick to his doppelganger’s side – Travis winces, reflexively. And then he turns, and faces Travis properly.

“So,” he says, quite conversationally. “Parallel dimensions.”

“Yep,” Travis agrees. “I’m probably not from yours, for the record.”

Roman pulls a face, sighing. “I figured. My Travis is… long gone, probably; not much chance of getting him back.”

“Yeah,” is all Travis can say. “Yeah, I… you too, where I’m from.” There’s probably all sorts of subtle differences between their universes, he knows, and if he talks long enough with this Roman he’s going to become strikingly aware of quite a few of them, but for now it’s not even worth considering. He hesitates, and then, realizing that the chance to say it isn’t going to come around very often, says with feeling, “God, I missed you.”

For a second, it looks as if Roman’s going to brush the sentiment off with a dry comment or aloof little quip, but then the fine lines around his eyes deepen as he smiles and says, “Very mutual. Always happy to come in, guns blazing, for a friend.”

Travis neglects to mention that most of the ‘guns blazing’ bit had involved Roman spectacularly failing to hit his target, and just grins back.

“But, you’ve been through the wars, haven’t you?” Roman continues quietly, a bit wryly – and then, “How’s that head of yours feeling?”

“Uh, tired,” Travis says, and is surprised when Roman crouches down and reaches out, gently tilting his chin up to look him squarely in the eyes. It’s an odd relief to look at Roman like this – obviously not his Roman from his original universe, but whatever divergences there have or haven’t been, he feels right in a way that his counterpart had never been. Everything about him is right to look at.

There’s a brief prickle of discomfort there as Roman’s gaze searches him in a way that makes the back of his neck tingle – but it’s very swiftly gone when he makes a little face, drops Travis’s chin, and then reaches out to tap gently on the side of his head. “Oof. Guess who got concussed?”

Travis sighs. “Yeah. Sounds about right.” He hates getting concussions. He’s had a few, recently. The Doctor always makes a point of not letting him read books or watch movies, even within the confines of his brain. Norman tends to agree with her, which is even worse. “I’ll bounce back, though.”

“Oh, I have no doubt.” Roman reaches out, and helps him to his feet. His hands are cold and strong, but Travis detects a faint tremor. It’s familiar in a distant sort of way, and it takes him a moment to place why – it’s the same way that Roman’s hands had felt when they’d first taken him out of that dying TARDIS, so long ago. And now that he’s paying attention and not terrified out of his mind, he can see that Roman’s clothes are threadbare, ragged, fraying at the edges and seams.

“You all right?” is all he can say, because all of that I’m glad you got out of your TARDIS in a universe without me and the Doctor in it and I’m so sorry it had to happen to you and every other stray thought and feeling he’s ever had is too much to package together in an easy sequence of words.

“I will be,” says Roman, with a grim look in his eye - and a bit of a knowing one as well, as if he knows exactly what direction Travis’s train of thought has just taken.

“I’m fine, since you didn’t ask,” says the Doctor loudly from across the cave.

Travis startles, and almost on instinct alone starts towards her, stumbling on the ground as he goes. Without even looking, Roman steadies him. He mutters a vague thanks, and then says, “Doctor! Oh – I completely forgot, I’m so sorry – are you okay?”

“Fine,” she says, sounding disgruntled, and comes around to meet them. “Metabolised the sedative enough that I could shake the nanites off, but it took a bit too long to be of any use.”

Travis casts a guilty and worried glance at the Lord President, motionless on the ground behind him. “Do you think he’ll also be able to – ”

“Probably, but he definitely brought backups. It’s what I’d do,” says the Doctor, and limps across the room to the body. She shoves a hand into the pocket of his robes, retrieves another one of those evil-purple syringes, unceremoniously slams it into the back of the President’s neck. “Bet he can’t metabolize two at once, though.” She looks over her shoulder, and she’s still visibly grumpy but it fades a bit as she eyes Travis and says, “Are you…?”

“Yeah,” Travis says. “Roman’s got good timing. Uh, this Roman. Not the one from your universe, and he’s not really from my universe either, but – this one doesn’t suck. I hope.”

He kind of desperately wants her to like Roman, this Roman – wants her to see that he doesn’t have to be as bad as his power-hungry counterpart, even though she probably already knows that – she’s been friends with him way longer than he ever has, and is pretty damn good at seeing the best in people anyway.

“A sparkling endorsement from my very favorite human,” says Roman dryly from right behind him. “Hello, Doctor.”

Travis sees her flinch at the sound of his voice, and his heart sinks. But after a second, she clears her throat, and inclines her head, and says, “Hello, Roman.”

“I like you better than that other one,” she says gruffly, after a moment of sizing him up.

“I like me better than that other one, too,” Roman replies.

After a second, she nods, grudgingly approving. “Just don’t be President again. Leadership isn’t your strong suit.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Which is probably the best Travis is going to get for now, and it’s pretty good all things considered.

“Also, the coat’s still awful,” she adds abruptly. “But you’re making it work, so good on you, I guess.”

He stiffens. “How very dare you.”

Travis feels a sudden wave of ridiculous affection for these two bizarre aliens. It’s not his Doctor and his Roman, but it doesn’t matter because they’re still his friends anyway. He throws his arms around both of them in a clumsy double-sideways-hug. Predictably, they both let out disgruntled little noises, but – and here’s the thing, the most important thing – they let it happen. For a few seconds, at least. He’ll take what he can get.

Roman says, “This is all very well and good, but I haven’t the faintest clue of what we’re supposed to do next.”

“Probably should get back to your own universe,” the Doctor says, already squirming to get away from Travis. He lets her go.

“And leave you here?” Roman says, frowning – absently patting the back of Travis’s head even as he disentangles himself too.

“Yeah, I… wouldn’t feel good about that, either,” Travis says. “Okay. Maybe we can – ”

It’s at this point that the TARDIS – a different TARDIS, mind you, but still the same loud blue box he knows like the back of his hand or the inside of his brain – comes crashing sideways through the portal in a splintering of water and light, casting the area lousy with the smell of ozone, and probably leaving a really sizable dent in the ancient stone walls as it just smashes right into it.

“Never mind,” says Travis.

Roman rolls his eyes. “I told them to stay put.”

“Told who? Carrie?” Travis blinks. “You had to know that wasn’t going to work.”

For a second Travis is worried that something terrible has happened, because nobody’s coming out and the TARDIS is just sitting there, silent, with dust flaking off the place where it had collided. Then the door opens with a slam, and a dishevelled figure comes stumbling out, shaking soot from her scarf.  

“You’re late,” say the other Doctor and Roman together, with uncanny synchronicity.

“I know,” snaps the Doctor – his Doctor. “Shut up! Where’s Travis?”

“Here,” Travis says, after a moment where his throat briefly closes up and he’s afraid he might not be able to speak. He (very gently and awkwardly) shoves his way around Roman and into her field of view.

There’s a moment where the two of them just stare at each other. It’s just such a relief to see the Doctor as he knows her that there’s nothing else he can do. He can’t deny that she looks a bit worse-for-wear – nowhere as bad as he probably does, but she carries the distinct scruffiness of an adventure gone for a few days too long without time for rest, and there’s an exhaustion in her eyes that makes him think she’s had as bad of a time of it as he has.

And then she’s in motion, a streak of pure energy beelining directly towards him. Two steps, three, and she’s thrown her arms around him, whisked him up, and spun him around, and he just wraps her arms around her neck and clings on with a breathless laugh that’s really more like his last dregs of energy. He’d been saving the last of it for this moment – the moment he gets to see her again. She doesn’t bother to ask if he’s the right Travis, and he doesn’t bother to ask if she’s the right Doctor. It’s all right. They both know.

“Remember when I told you to stay safe and not do anything stupid,” the Doctor says as she finishes spinning him, lets his feet touch the ground, and keeps on hugging him.

“Yeah, uh – I ended up on Gallifrey,” he says, still clinging to her neck. “You try not to do anything stupid when you end up on Gallifrey. Go on, I’ll wait.”

“Fine,” she says, “fine, it’s Gallifrey, I get it, you get a pass. Just – whatever happened here, I know I’m not going to be happy hearing about it, you need to stop giving me hearts-attacks like that.”

“I know. Tell you about it later. Right now I’m thinking I might need a really, really long nap.”

“Me too,” she agrees. “Might need to wait a bit for after introductions though. There’s a lot of people here.”

“There really are.”

He looks over her shoulder, and sees the other Doctor watching them with an unreadable expression in her eyes that’s not really unreadable at all, at least not to him. It’s not a very familiar Doctor-expression, though, which is probably why it takes him a moment to clock it – it’s wistfulness.

“I found… you,” he tells his Doctor. “I found a you.”

“Noticed, yeah. Found a you, too.”

“You too, the band?”

She releases him from the death grip, swatting at his wrist. “I don’t know why I was glad to see you, you’re being terrible. No, not the band, a Killian.”

He laughs. “You just can’t stop collecting us. We’re too great. But – you also got Carrie, right-?”

“Of course I got Carrie,” she says, sounding affronted, and swats at him again. “And – also picked up a few other people – right. Ah – right.” Her expression flickers briefly. “So, you might want to prepare yourself for this one…”

“Heyyyyy normal Travis!” Carrie’s unmistakable voice cheers from across the cavern. “Check it out! We brought friends!”

“Or just go look in the direction of the TARDIS right now, I guess,” she finishes, sighing. “That works too.”

Which isn’t ominous at all, but Travis only hesitates for a second before turning around in the direction of the TARDIS.

Carrie is there, and she’s holding her cat bundled up to her shoulder like a big grumpy baby. Travis thinks okay, all right, and his gaze travels sideways to take in… himself. Another himself, just like the Doctor said, looking honestly even more exhausted and run-down than he himself feels, which is really saying something. He’s holding Gunther with an expression of faint shellshock on his face, which probably means that he’s from a universe where he hasn’t had as much experience dealing with endless multiversal bullshit. Travis nods to himself and wonders what they’re going to call this one, seeing as Parker already stole his middle name and at this point he’s running out of names to give away to alternate versions of him.

He doesn’t wonder too long, though, because it’s at this point that he sees Millie.

For a second, he can’t breathe.

“Yeah,” says the Doctor from behind him.

He swallows. “But – ”

“Yeah,” the Doctor repeats, and now her voice is filled with unmistakable, glorious joy. “It’s her, Travis.”

He had really truly though he had no energy left, but as he runs to meet Millie, his friend who he never, ever thought he’d ever see again – well, he proves himself wrong one more time.