Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Koschei took off the aviation goggles and dismissed his aeronaut henchmen. Their prisoner wasn't going anywhere now that he was safely stashed within the bowels of Koschei's war zeppelin. The Doctor could break his bonds, if he put his mind to it, but the only thing waiting for him outside was a thousand-kilometer plunge into the methane lakes of Al-Murzim VII.

"I know how you're going to be about this, but I can assure you that this time it was for the best. All of them were miserable. I took them traveling for their own good."

"Really."

"Indeed."

"Really."

"Yes! Really!" The Doctor made a valiant attempt to throw his hands up in exasperation, in spite of the fact that they were cuffed securely to the bars behind his back.

"My dear Doctor, am I correct in my understanding that you've got--" Koschei paused to check his datapad. Heaven forbid he get the Doctor's collection of primitives muddled. "-- Adelaide Brooke and the Twenty-Third Chief Executrix of the Google-Exxon Imperium stashed somewhere aboard your TARDIS?"

The Doctor shifted his weight. "Not all of us have problems meeting new people," he said.

"I'm more concerned with the problems that will develop if any of your pets die or get lost. Doctor, you have got to stop stealing these people from their timelines. The CIA does not have an infinite supply of robot doppelgangers."

Koschei's insinuation that the Doctor might neglect the care and feeding of his curiosities went over about as well as could be expected -- which was to say, not well at all. Koschei had long since given up on trying to make the Doctor understand that he, Koschei, was supposed to be the indignant one in these situations. Working around an anarchist hippie carried unique occupational challenges.

"As though you've any room to lecture me about morals!" The Doctor huffed. "Now see here, old chap: I'm certain that if you put your mind to it, you could find more productive things to do with your time than nagging me across time and space. Don't you have a pack of murderers to brainwash? Rogue Time Agents to torture? Surely somewhere, in this very galaxy, there is a badly-organized totalitarian regime that is in desperate need of your consulting services. I hear the Judoon have been letting themselves go."

Now it was Koschei's turn to be annoyed. He lit one of his cigars, and let the soft roll of smoke soothe his fraying temper.

Koschei was a simple man, and he liked to think that he was a good one. All he wanted was a nice, orderly cosmos, bound by a nice, orderly timeline; the universe needed laws, a master to create and enforce them. Yet the Doctor, who should have understood his interventionist leanings better than anyone else, worked instead to complicate his mission at every turn, and insisted on painting him as some kind of beard-stroking villain. The man was absolutely impossible.

"Parole on Earth didn't work, and you won't see sense about becoming my partner. You won't even touch the side projects I set up. What am I to do with you?"

"What you always do," the Doctor proclaimed, as though it were obvious. "Confiscate my companions and let me go. Unless you'd care to see me executed by the High Council for what we both know is little more than petty theft."

"And you'll promise not to do it again?" Koschei said, flatly.

"Oh, yes sir! Anything you say, mister officer sir." The Doctor smirked. "You've really taught me a lesson, cuffing me to this nasty fence." He waggled his eyebrows and shifted the weight of his hips, playing the mock-harlot. What a marvellous jest. Ha ha.

The flirting was, of course, part of the script. Koschei knew his part. Only this time, he didn't feel like following stage directions. He wasn't sure that he'd be able to play along for very much longer.

"That's enough. Recall your position." Koschei blew a ring of smoke in the Doctor's face, and let his free hand wander down to the Doctor's left thigh.

"Rough year keeping those Cybermen in line? I'd've thought those drones would be your sort of people, though I can't imagine they're terribly good conversationalists." The Doctor leaned into Koschei's touch, for a moment, before he realized that he was being patted down rather than felt up. "Now hold on a minute, I--"

Koschei checked the Doctor's thighs, then his calves, before hitting upon the biodata ring that was stuffed in his sock. He set the ring on the ground so that he could check it with his laser nightstick without putting down his cigar. Supply runs to mid twentieth-century Havana inevitably ended with Koschei spending weeks on posh hotel patios, drinking rum and reading too much Hemmingway, so he tried to keep his trips spaced out. It was bad enough that he couldn't remember how he'd picked up the paso doble.

"You're keeping Mahatma Gandhi in there?" Koschei arched an eyebrow.

"I assure you that it was entirely voluntary. Young Mohandas has a strong appreciation for the wonders of the cosmos. I'd hoped to spare him the indignity of being carted home like a stray cat." Now the Doctor looked properly put-out. It should have cheered Koschei up immensely. His next move would ordinarily involve rattling off the details of the Criminal Non-Linearity Act as an excuse to bask in the Doctor's protracted sulk.

Instead Koschei stood, pocketed the ring, and turned to head for the exit.

The Doctor tugged at his restraints, and if Koschei hadn't known better, he might have detected the beginnings of a whine in his expression. "You don't mean to leave me here like this, do you?"

"You dare to make demands?" Koschei said, as something snapped in his breast. He was meant to keep control, always had to keep control, but he couldn't stop the words from leaving him in a great thundering rush. "For you, I have made a mockery of the law! And I am the law! I have tried, time and time again, to show you how easily a pardon could be secured in exchange for minimal assistance to the CIA. And all I have to show for my efforts is your continued vexatious behaviour and the lost respect of our people. You will honour what I have given up on your wretched behalf!"

Silence fell upon them both, as their pretensions stretched thin and threadbare. For a moment, they were not an iron-fisted lawman and an infamous criminal; they were a pair of overgrown schoolboys in funny costumes who'd just realized they'd stayed out past the curfew bell.

"It's your choice. You've always had a choice. You chose to become like the very worst of those pompous old blowhards. And I'm supposed to laud you for acting upon the occasional echo of independent thought? Hah! I think not." The Doctor said. His frown settled somewhere between pity and anger, and the mixed expression didn't suit his current face one bit. "There was a time when you knew how useless their laws are. You used to be someone worth honouring. Now you're just a tool of authority, and an exceptionally dull one at that."

Whatever Koschei used to be, it hadn't been enough to keep the Doctor from leaving him behind. He'd understood for centuries that the Doctor saw no value in his work or his ambitions. But it was one thing to know, objectively, that his desire to see the Doctor set right was unreciprocated. It was quite another to feel the Doctor's lack of respect cut him straight to the bone. This impact was all too familiar.

Koschei did not like to think about what might have become of his younger self if the CIA hadn't seen his situation as a recruitment opportunity and taken him firmly in hand. As it was, his own hands were nearly shaking with rage.

"I grew up," Koschei rumbled, stabbing the air with his cigar. "Perhaps you ought to consider following suit."

Koschei wasn't certain how the Doctor was going to escape from the Sky Pirates of Al-Murzim VII, and frankly, he didn't care. The Doctor could go hang. Koschei had intended to turn the primitives over to the local authorities once they were no longer of use to him. Whatever chaos the Doctor brought down on their heads would serve as a substitute punishment.

When Koschei stalked out, the Doctor did not call after him.

+++

A full two hours had passed since the man in the Red Baron costume disarmed them and marched them back to the TARDIS, and Adelaide still had no idea what was going on. You expected certain things when you were was taken hostage. Threats, for instance. Violence too. But this nutter could barely be bothered to glance in their direction, once he had them trussed up in the console room. He stormed around the TARDIS like he owned the place, rifling through shelves and opening wall panels. It was though he sought to press his presence into every corner of the Doctor's time machine.

The whole thing was a bit boring, to be honest. Not exactly what Adelaide had envisioned when the Doctor offered to fulfill her dream of exploring the universe. She hoped that Mo was having a better time of it in that ring.

Adelaide was wracking her brain for ways to contact the Doctor, when she felt thin, metallic fingers curl around the sleeve of her lab coat. She glanced down to see her youngest traveling companion looking wildly about the cabin.

"404 error! The Doctor is not found!!"

"Stay calm, Executrix Gamma." Adelaide patted the girl's shoulder-plating -- a gesture that was as much an order as it was a reassurance. "He'll have this sorted soon enough."

Executrix Gamma made an unhappy squawking noise and buried her face in Adelaide's side. Adelaide took that as her cue to get a grip on the situation. Luckily, their captor had chosen that moment to return to the console room and begin fussing over the main time rotor. He made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat and started ripping the duct tape off.

"What do you think you're doing?" Adelaide tried to pitch her tone as something close to commanding. It didn't work out as well as she'd hoped -- she was a postdoctoral fellow, more used to bossing around undergraduates than confronting enemy combatants -- but at least it got the man to do her the courtesy of looking her in the eye. "I'll warn you that this TARDIS is a highly unique vessel. It won't be as easy to fly as a dirigible."

This seemed to break their captor's dark mood. He chuckled, and returned to his work. "You think I intend to pilot this dismal excuse for a time machine? Hardly. I'm merely tidying up. This console room is practically a disaster area -- I wouldn't wish it on my own worst enemy."

Adelaide turned that over in her mind, examining the statement from every possible angle. She had a hunch that 'tidying up' wasn't exactly their captor's primary goal here.

"So you're not one of those air pirates?"

"Indeed, I am not."

Adelaide nodded. "Then I suppose you must be the traffic director."

The man's hands stuttered to a halt. "Pardon me?"

"Temporal traffic director. The Doctor said you'd come 'round." The Doctor had seemed so invigorated by the prospect that Adelaide hadn't imagined their meeting would involve being held captive by a deranged housecleaner. She had a sinking feeling that she ought to have known better. When it came to evaluating danger, the Doctor's standards were highly skewed.

No matter. Adelaide wasn't about to be cowed just yet. She shouldn't feel nervous. She shouldn't, so she wouldn't. She'd seen the sterilization wars in live broadcast. She'd lived through a Dalek invasion and the genmod grain riots. This, by comparison, was a very small disaster.

Executrix Gamma finally peered out from behind Adelaide's coat. "You are a temporal traffic director," she piped up, hopefully. "This job is not listed in our career-buzz linksystem; therefore, you are acting as an autonomous contractor. Would you like to provide your social networking geneprint and connect with my personal profile hub as a friend? I have four friends and over ninety billion subfriends who would like to make professional connections!"

"That's Lord Inspector Koschei to both of you," the man said, darkly, ignoring Executrix Gamma's offer. "And I have 'come around' with the intention of repatriating you young people to your rightful timelines, which I can assure you is a task of much greater import than mere traffic direction."

Executrix Gamma made a sad little squeaking noise. Adelaide decided that, whatever this Lord Inspector bloke was up to, she was not impressed.

"But it's not hurting anyone, is it? We saved a whole planet just last week. I can't see how any harm could ever come of venturing out to see the stars."

"The harm, Dr. Brooke, is that the Doctor only extends boarding invitations to the most select and extraordinary people." The Lord Inspector turned to remove some spare wiring that had gotten stuck underneath a lever, and Adelaide couldn't catch his expression. "You happen to number among them. And should you undergo a radical personality shift due to post-traumatic stress disorder, or perish while the Doctor indulges in disaster tourism, it will do incalculable damage to the history of your regrettably fecund race."

Adelaide stared at the Lord Inspector's back. "You can't be serious."

"I am many things, most of which are beyond your limited comprehension. Seriousness happens to be amongst my better qualities." Lord Inspector Koschei took a strange, glowing vase out of his messenger bag, and well as a bunch of plastic daffodils. Then he set about diligently arranging them next to the big red dial. In fairness to the Lord Inspector, Adelaide had to admit that he appeared quite engaged and meticulous. The wafer he was attaching to the bottom of the vase seemed to require a lot of complex wiring.

But for all his gravity, Adelaide was sure that this self-proclaimed Lord Inspector must be flattering her in an attempt to win her co-operation. Her? That important to history? It didn't seem like a reasonable claim. Hundreds of millions of accomplished people lived their whole lives without making it into the history books. It was true that she hoped to do great things one day, but nothing about her life felt all that weighty. She had an underachieving boyfriend and roommates who couldn't be relied on for rent. Her sister teased her about her impractical degrees. The biggest contributions she'd made to interstellar travel involved handing the Doctor test tubes and calling him brilliant.

"No results found for search query: Lord Inspector Koschei." Executrix Gamma said, before Adelaide could give voice to her doubts. "Did you mean: Lord Inspector Cossak? Did you mean: Lord Inspector Kojak? Did you mean--"

The Lord Inspector topped his work off with a small, rectangular card, before turning to give Executrix Gamma a heavy glare.

"Be silent," he commanded her.

Executrix Gamma wavered in place, her lips shaping words that never made it through her supplementary voice processors. Her cybernetic eye-displays blinked once, twice, three times over, until the icons widened into great big zeroes.

Adelaide was sure that Executrix Gamma was about to burst into tears. It wouldn't be the first time she reacted poorly to having her search string interrupted. But to Adelaide's surprise, the Executrix smiled hazily and stayed quiet.

"Executrix Gamma?" Adelaide nudged the girl with her hip. When that produced no response, her eyes widened, and she whipped her head up to take a good look at her captor. "What did you do to her?"

The Lord Inspector shrugged. "This is becoming tedious. You will be silent as well, Dr. Brooke."

And with that, Adelaide had her answer as to what had happened to the chatty young monarch. The Lord Inspector's eyes were dark, so dark, like looking out into a black hole, and she could wander up to the pupils and trip right in, oh yes, dive forward and wouldn't that be comfortable, warm and peaceful, with no pesky stars to worry about.

"Oh, I'd--" Adelaide flinched, shaking her head to clear the clouds out. "I think I'd rather not."

"I see," the Lord Inspector said, with a sound that was more bark than laugh. "Typical. Quite typical. Though not so typical as the Doctor would like, by half. You have a strong will, Adelaide Brooke." He un-holstered a pistol-like weapon and pointed it at Executrix Gamma's belly. She beamed sedately down at the pistol's barrel.

"But I'm still the man holding the, ah, 'gun'. And it can cause a great deal of unpleasantness for both of you without causing irreparable damage."

Adelaide nodded. She was inclined to believe him. If this little man could throw a sweet girl like Gamma off then there was no telling what else he was capable of.

The Lord Inspector inclined his chin towards the TARDIS doorway. "The Doctor will fight his way back here soon. It's time we were off."

+++

Koschei shrugged his leather jacket off, and sat down in a straight-backed chair. It was easily the least comfortable piece of furniture that his TARDIS could produce, and thus, it set the perfect mood for his secured communications room, which regularly played host to a cavalcade of subtle torments. Koschei wouldn't tolerate his ship wasting anything better on this place.

"You always push for more than I wish to allow you. Even you, it appears, have no concept of my authority," Koschei sighed, not without affection. The communications room might be set for maximum angularity, but that hadn't stopped his sympathetic TARDIS from conjuring him up warm, cheery fireplace, and a mug of hot mulled wine. The video port to CIA headquarters was disguised as an ugly brass monkey statue, and his official uniform had been locked out of his reach, within a large, foreboding wardrobe.

Koschei would accuse his TARDIS of mothering him, but his mother had been far too baffled by her brilliant, demanding son to ever bother with coddling.

"Engage line encryption program," Koschei directed the TARDIS. "Manual input."

He closed his eyes for a split second, and when he opened them, an antique wooden touchpad sat on the table in front of him. Koschei used the attached stylus to draw the curves and whorls of this week's modifier algorithm. When he was done, the glowing lines rose up off the page, and reconfigured themselves into an image of his handler's desk at CIA headquarters. A flashing alarm went off, and in due course, the officer rushed over to greet him.

"Lord Inspector."

"Lord Superintendent."

"You must be in right off the field, if you're still wearing those primitive rags. Status report."

Koschei took a sip of his mulled wine. Watched the Lord Superintendent fidget some invisible wrinkles out of his robes. Took another sip. And then began talking.

"The Doctor was detained, briefly, but he effected an escape via the unorthodox use of a Venusian trans-mat beam." It sickened him, to recognize how accustomed he had grown to debasing himself. The words came to him easily, but the spark behind them was gone. "This would cease to be a problem if you would grant me the surveillance resources I've been requisitioning for the past fifty years. I grant you that the incident with the SIDRATs reflected badly on the Agency, but I maintain that the Doctor would be a great asset, if he could simply be tracked more closely and convinced that the CIA has the means and motive to guide the universe on its allotted path. If this combat-TARDIS is the only equipment you'll allow me then I'm afraid--"

"Yes, yes. Your rationalisations have been duly noted, Koschei. We're sure you'll kill him next time," the Superintendent said, indulgently. As though he had no expectation of Koschei ever being competent enough to carry out the Doctor's death sentence, and had made his own peace with the situation.

"Now, what of the mission objective?"

"All three targets are in my custody. One is being decanted from biodata storage, and the other two are detained in my second-best study until I can program more suitable accommodations. I've decided to keep them all on board until the biodata situation is resolved. The human female is resistant to psychic intrusion and will therefore require some delicate surgery before she can be placed back in her natural habitat. The presence of her companions will help her remain calm."

"Biodata?" The Superintendent frowned. "Your Doctor's never resorted to psychic storage technology before."

"As I have reported, Superintendent, the Doctor is a highly adaptable criminal, and is not to be underestimated by this office."

The Superintendeant cleared his throat. "That's Lord Superintendent, Inspector."

"Yes. Lord Superintendent," Koschei grated.

The Superintendent blinked myopically at him, appearing to be at a bit of a loss. He was evidently used to Koschei being in a better mood after taking a few weeks off to hunt his personal white whale.

"Give yourself fourteen days to get the loose ends wrapped up, Inspector. Once you're done with this routine business, we need you to disgrace and eliminate a group of temporal physicists working for the Rubiyat Court. You know you're the best man we've got for that kind of work. We'll be expecting your usual efficiency and, er, creative flair," the Superintendent attempted an encouraging tone. "You don't need any spare parts? An extra EMP modifier?"

"No."

"Good man. My assistant will send you the dossier files."

The Superintendent's image flared out, and Koschei was left gripping the body of his mug so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.

Of course the Doctor didn't respect him. Nobody respected him. Oh, they liked him well enough when he was killing people, but did they listen to him? Did they grasp that he was capable of operations which were much more complex than insert-bomb-a-into-problem-b? Did they understand how important it was to keep the Doctor in the forefront of all their considerations? No. No, they did not. Their disdain showed in the way they insisted on editing his operational plans. To them, Koschei was a janitor of the timelines; a necessary drudge.

Koschei stood and tossed the mulled wine into the fireplace, where it was destroyed in a satisfying burst of blue flame and shattered clay. The TARDIS let the fire gutter after that. Apparently, she felt that his petulance was both unseemly and uncalled for.

"Yes, I'm aware." He ran a gloved hand through his hair. "I know."

Koschei left the communications room and walked five hundred meters down the hallway, until he reached an unassuming door with a worn chrome handle. The hinges swung back at the touch of his fingertips, revealing exactly the room he'd been looking for; his first, best study, with the overstuffed chair, and the sabres over the fireplace, and shelves laden with stacks of handwritten manuscripts.

It was never hard to find specific chambers in Koschei's TARDIS. Unlike some gentlemen, he made sure to regularly prune her excess territories.

Kochei closed the study door behind him and began listlessly scanning the various titles. During the first days of his CIA training, Lord Inspector Koschei had been introduced to a variety of emotional management techniques. He could close his eyes. Count backwards from ten. Excite his periphery aetheric neurons such that the link between his left and right brain assumed a state of psychic grace. But none of those methods could fully occupy a mind as active as Koschei's, and so he'd turned to more creative pursuits. Each one of the thin, unbound books in this place represented a proposal that the CIA would never approve of -- a project of visionary scope and ambition.

In his working life, Koschei was a professional agent provocateur, and rather a good one at that. Yet in his pipe dreams he was a mastermind, imposing law as he saw fit and slicing through the universe's Gordian knots. The man who lived in Koschei's books was a master of tactics and deception; a man who had summoned immeasurable powers and set traps of unparalleled intricacy. He was a man who demanded respect and brooked no opposition.

Koschei was not required to report his location for the next two weeks. Sorting out the Doctor's strays would hardly be an all-consuming task.

He located a forest green folder, and pulled it down.

+++

Adelaide paced back and forth within the confines of their prison. She guessed that she should be happy to have been placed in a room straight out of an Alan Quartermain film, instead of the traditional concrete brig, but mostly she was worried for herself and for Gamma. The Executrix had barely said a word since Lord Inspector Koschei locked them up in the belly of his machine. And what kind of police officer didn't bother to keep a regular holding cell? The kind who didn't usually keep live captives?

"Come on, Executrix, you're not all that soft. You can hear me, can't you?" Adelaide sat down on top of the fine mahogany desk.

"Mmm," Executrix Gamma hummed. She was kneeling on the floor with a froth of petticoats spread behind her. A stack of thick, creamy paper had been liberated from the desk, along with a monogrammed fountain pen, and Executrix Gamma was using them to sketch advanced fractal equations in the shape of bunny rabbits.

"Good. You're not talkative, but-- good. Okay." Adelaide said, mostly to herself. She drummed her fingers on the desktop. Fidgetsed in place. Wracked her brain. Tried not to panic. There had to be something she could do to get them out of this scrape. She refused to return to lab work, and boyfriends, and rationing, and bills, when she finally had the whole universe spread out before her. This Lord Inspector was going to drag her back over her own dead body.

"Gamma, did you ever add geneprints for the Doctor and his TARDIS to your social networking hub?"

Executrix Gamma looked coyly down at her doodling.

"Of course he wouldn't want that. But you did it anyway, didn't you. Because they're your friends."

The girl made a mechanical gesture that might have been a nod. Adelaide suspected that she hadn't had any proper friends at all, before the Doctor brought her aboard the TARDIS. She was clingy one minute and awkward the next; a lot like the boys in the nanotech labs, back at Cambridge.

"Can you put me through?" Adelaide pressed. "The Lord Inspector didn't order you not to put me through."

Executrix Gamma smiled -- first slow and cautious, then sharp and genuine -- and extended her left left hand. Beams of light shot up from her fingertips and coalesced into a cube-shaped holographic representation of the Doctor's console room. The Doctor did not appear to notice this, as he was busy spraying the Lord Inspector's daffodils with what looked like an acid-spewing fire extinguisher. His cape has been slashed to shreds and there was some strange green gunk in his hair.

Adelaide clambered off the desk and crouched down by the hologram. "Doctor? Hello, Doctor, can you hear me?"

The Doctor whipped around so quickly it was almost comical. Fortunately for him, the offensive bouquet was already disintegrating into a writhing, melting mess.

"Addie?" He blinked.

"Yes, Doctor. And Executrix Gamma as well. Mo is being re-corporealized in a tube somewhere nearby."

"But-- well, this is astonishing!" The Doctor strode up to the console. "I was sure he'd have made you forget by now. That petty blaggard will stop at nothing to fulfill his masters' orders. He's nothing but a dog of the secret police."

Adelaide didn't recognize the Doctor's pensive look, but she knew a speech coming on when she heard one, and she was in no state to indulge him. Desperation clawed at her throat. She felt as though she could barely breathe.

"Make us forget? And you didn't think to mention that this might happen!?" Her mind stumbled over the implications. "Is this some stupid codependant game you and your-- your little friend play with each other?"

The Doctor's expression slammed closed. "I should think not! Which is to say, it's all a bit-- well, it was never my intention, and it's not as though you'd have noticed after the fact, and anyway, as you can see, I am a bit busy here. He does like to leave a few presents to keep me occupied after he gallops off into the sunset; presents of the sort that can get people like you killed. And the TARDIS looks terrible. It's like piloting a decontamination room.."

Adelaide was two decades too old to throw a tantrum, but she was sorely tempted to grab a paperweight and chuck it through the Doctor's holographic face.

"I've touched the stars! I've seen Jupiter form from a cloud of cosmic gas, and I've fought the Ice Warriors on Tianzi Prime, and no one -- no one -- is wiping my mind! No one gets to take that away from me! So you had better come and get us, Doctor, or so help me, I will-- I'll-- "

"I didn't say I wouldn't, did I?" The Doctor said, waspishly. "I do what I like and it so happens that I value the free will of the sentients whom I associate with. You humans are terribly quick to spout off about a situation without knowing all the facts. I absolutely will track Gamma's quantum IP and rescue you. You hold on."

The Doctor did something to a switch on the TARDIS console, and Executrix Gamma's hologram fizzled into static.

Chapter Text

Adelaide awoke to the feeling of thick metal bands holding her immobile against a solid steel surface. This was the ninth morning of her stay in the Lord Inspector's TARDIS, and it was just as painful as those that had come before it. Same fake wood walls that didn't echo when you knocked on them. Same sun-bright windows that looked stubbornly out on nowhere. Same bruises all down her torso, and the promise of even more aches to come once her flesh caught up with prior evening's torments. The Lord Inspector was exploring whole new frontiers in the world of police brutality.

Adelaide must grin and bear it. Well, grimace and bear it. Gasp and choke and wince and bear it. The bearing was the important part, in any event.

"Executrix."

"Mrph." Executrix Gamma snuggled closer, and exhaled a sleepy burst of static into the shell of Adelaide's ear.

"Yes, good morning, Gamma." Adelaide wriggled within her friend's pneumatic clutches. "Come on -- it's time to get up."

"Nrrrfnr," Gamma complained, flailing drowsily beneath the sheets.

The motion twisted Adelaide's spine into a shape that would have sent her old yoga instructor into hysterics.

"My ribs, Gamma!"

With that, Gamma booted back up into coherence, and immediately let her arms fall slack. Adelaide hauled herself gratefully to the other side of the bed.

"There, see?" Adelaide wheezed. "Nothing to be scared of."

Gamma pulled the duvet up to her chin and nodded shyly into the covers. Adelaide couldn't blame the Executrix for being embarrassed. Grown women didn't crawl into bed with their friends because they were scared that the boogeyman might get them while they were in sleep mode. But Gamma's fears weren't anything to be too ashamed of; Adelaide was uncomfortably aware that if she hadn't had Gamma to take care of, she might have fallen to pieces herself.

Nine nights in the Lord Inspector's TARDIS, and he hadn't so much as bothered to look in on them. Adelaide couldn't understand it. Was he trying to smother them with comfort? To break them with uncertainty? The Doctor's TARDIS was a sprawling, wonderful, alien craft, like something from an old science-fiction vid, but this new time machine was stuffed with so many human comforts that it was impossible to ignore the inherent jarring wrongness of the place. The light from the windows was cold and sterile. None of the antiques carried the scent of oil or dust. Rooms budded off from the central study without warning, and shelves never held the same books twice. Infinite dimensions loomed down from behind the doors of the dumbwaiter that delivered their food.

"Breakfast?" Adelaide threw the covers off and followed her nose towards the side cabinet. She smelled bacon, fresh butter, and that funny tamarind drink that she still didn't trust well enough to try out. There was a jug of coolant for Gamma as well.

Gamma wrinkled her nose.

"We could have a whole 'nother day of waiting ahead of us," Adelaide warned her.

Gamma made a neutral noise and padded off to the bathroom, leaving yet another mangled bed-frame in her half-tonne wake. Adelaide shrugged and set about scarfing down as much of the rich meal as she could handle. She tried not to leave her post when she could help it, which meant no midday snacks or extra pots of coffee.

A half-hour later, once all the necessities were taken care of, Adelaide and Gamma found themselves waiting once more in the main study area. Adelaide picked up the largest book she could find and settled into the armchair by the main entrance, while Gamma sat at the desk, and tapped her steel-bright fingers on the tabletop. There was no rhyme or rhythm to the steady tack-a-tack-tack.

"What is that, mock-typing?"

Gamma burst into laughter, which she quickly tried to smother with the edge of her sleeve.

"Alright, alright, I get it -- when would you need to type. Binary code, then," Adelaide said. "This TARDIS. You're trying to make a friend."

Gamma's giggling thinned into a light chortle.

"Good luck with that."

Adelaide didn't see much hope -- only Executrix Gamma would try to win over a place this creepy -- but she felt no need to fight the girl on it. There was precious little to do here other than stew in their own juices. They'd spent the first day unearthing the Lord Inspector's various treasures, and found them disappointingly ordinary, aside from the extremely questionable portrait that was stashed beneath a hidden panel in the desk drawer. The second day had been for scouring the Lord Inspector's books, most of which were in languages outside of Gamma's translation database. By day three they'd progressed to far-fetched scheming. In the absence of the Doctor, there was nothing else to be done.

Until the Lord Inspector appeared in their doorway a few minutes after lunch.

The aviator's costume had been exchanged for chain mail, dark furs, and a great sweeping cloak; the Lord Inspector cast a rather broad silhouette against the hallway lighting, for such a compact person. Something about the way he presented himself reminded Adelaide of a cat that had puffed its fur up to try and appear larger than its frame. If they weren't careful, he might scratch.

Gamma scurried up behind Adelaide's chair while the Lord Inspector swanned in to speak with them.

"Executrix. Dr. Brooke. You must accept my apologies for neglecting you. I'm sure you've felt us moving frequently over the past few days; I've been preoccupied with business elsewhere," the Lord Inspector said. "I trust that my TARDIS made you comfortable while I was delayed? It is my hope that a little time for reflection has helped you to--"

"D'you fancy little boys?" Adelaide interrupted. She closed the book that was open on her lap.

The Lord Inspector's smile twisted into a baring of teeth. "Explain yourself."

"I think you're the one who needs to do some explaining." Adelaide fished the photograph out of her pocket and handed it to Gamma, who held it up for the Lord Inspector's benefit. It was a dodgy sort of polaroid thing, thought it was shaped differently from any polaroid that Adelaide had ever seen in a museum. Two figures on a pier. A rip between them, patched over with paste and sello tape. One of the edges was singed haphazardly, as though someone had set it on fire, and then thought better of it quickly enough to blow the flames out. "Boys without shirts on? Really? Not what I'd expect from a lawman."

The Lord Inspector turned a fascinating shade of ash-grey, and lunched forward to snatch the picture from Gamma's hand. "That is none of your--"

Whatever it was none of, they weren't to know, because Adelaide took that opening to bring the spine of her Draconian dictionary down on the back of the Lord Inspector's head. His body tumbled to the floor with a solid metallic thunk.
Score one for far-fetched scheming.

"All right!" Adelaide leapt to her feet. Her hours of waiting were over, and it suddenly felt as though her heart were running at a rabbit's pace -- two hundred and twenty beats per minute. "Let's go! There's no time to waste."

Gamma gave the photo back to Adelaide, and then slowly, deliberately closed her fingers over the back of the empty chair, holding it between them.

"Gamma?"

Adelaide heard a rattling noise, and realized that it was the sound of chair-legs scraping against the floor. Gamma's hands were quaking. The Executrix closed her eyes, as though wincing away from a blow, and shook her head firmly no.

But what could--

Oh. Their friend, obviously. Adelaide had forgotten about him. Or maybe she just hadn't wanted to think too hard about what she was about to do.

"I know. I don't like it either," Adelaide said. Discomfort coiled beneath her ribcage, clenching around her lungs. "But he's going to make us forget, Gamma. All we have to do is stay out of his way until the Doctor gets here. We'll be of no use to Mo if we can't remember what a TARDIS is, let alone what room he's been stashed in!"

There was a dirty sink waiting for her at home. Lime stains, and her boyfriend's dishes, and the dried remains of a burnt curry that had gone down the garbage disposal and she couldn't. She couldn't face the prospect of not remembering. She couldn't go back to being that awful old self. Not now, not ever, not for anything, no matter what was right and what was wrong.

God, she was such a coward.

"All right." Adelaide swallowed. "I'm sorry." Not sorry enough. "I'll see you again, when the Doctor comes. I promise."

This was probably a good time for a hug, or a- a gesture of some sort. Only Adelaide wasn't really the type to make gestures, so she turned and ran without further comment. She felt the weight of Gamma's gaze on her back all the way down the hallway to the console room, where her mind turned to other matters, such as the pressing need to break the hell out of this place.

The Lord Inspector's doors were more ornate than the Doctor's, and equipped with a solid brass lock. Adelaide squared her stance, lowered her left shoulder, and charged the entrance with all the force she could muster, fully expecting that she'd have to batter it down by weight alone.

It parted easily before her and she found herself stumbling into a rough gravel thoroughfare, full of carts and animals. Very familiar animals, as a matter of fact. Adelaide felt as though she had been hit with an explosion of smells; a deadly mélange of donkey shit and meat pie and woodsmoke and unwashed human.

"Oh, fuck me," Adelaide said, as she stared at a pedestrian carrying a very large lute.

One of the horses whinnied sympathetically in response.

+++

For a man who had a very high opinion of his own abilities, Lord Inspector Koschei of the Celestial Intervention Agency took an extraordinary amount of pleasure in becoming other people. He'd never signed out a prefabricated disguise; no assistant could possibly live up to his standards, and the idea of letting someone else write his roles filled him with a feeling akin to existential dread. Koschei designed each of his aliases from the ground up. He built new temperaments with the care of an architect, and supervised the crafting of each of his garments when he could not sew them by hand. And why should he not? Koschei was no Time Agent vermin, tromping around the universe with a backpack full of half-baked scams, unaware of the extent to which his betters were forced to clean up after him. His work was impeccable. His commanders could not begrudge him the occasional holiday from himself.

Lord Inspector Koschei would have been deeply perturbed that his plans had been complicated by a disobedient little ape with a teflon mind. Sir Gilles Estram, on the other hand, was somewhat put-out by the bump to his head, but otherwise confident that his stray fugitive could be quickly secured once the festivities were over and his mission had succeeded. The knight knew his priorities. A champion of the throne -- loyal or otherwise -- must always keep his eyes fixed firmly on the Crown.

The Crown was currently looking down her nose at the wares of a local artisan. This was a good time for her to shop, if not a good location. Her host's coffers were at her disposal, her children had been farmed off to various servants, and King John the Lackland -- her doting, lecherous husband -- had holed himself up in London to take the Crusader's Oath, in the wake of one of their infamous arguments.

Sir Gilles allowed the guards a moment to announce him, before joining Queen Isabelle in the reception chamber that she'd commandeered from the local feudal lord.

"My Queen." He bowed, sweeping into the room with a flourish of black cloth. A good Frenchman must always greet beautiful women with the appropriate level of panache. "It is delightful to see you again. I rode all night to get here, when I heard that fortune had brought us to the same district of this rude country. I hope you will allow me to pay my respects."

"Ah, Gilles! Such noble impulses you have, joining me here where I can offer you both bread and hearth in exchange for the pleasure of your company," Queen Isabelle said, in the cultured French of the continent. She met Sir Gilles' eyes, unleashed a practiced smirk, and then returned her attention to a bolt of virulently purple cloth. A woman of Isabelle's breeding made a point of letting her visitors know that they attended at her pleasure. "How long as it been, Sir Estram? You do not know how glad I am not to hear our mother tongue butchered by these English. I had nearly despaired of finding a civilized gentleman to escort me to my banquet."

It had been a eighteen months, in Queen Isabelle's time, and an equal span for poor Sir Gilles, who was a younger son and thus very much interested in currying favour with a royal patroness. In contrast, barely five hours has passed since their last meeting in Lord Inspector Koschei's chronology. A TARDIS was a highly convenient ally when one was interested in cultivating long-term relationships without all of the tedious waiting parts. In the space of just over eight (nigh sleepless) Gallifreyan days, Koschei had shaped Sir Gilles Estram into the Queen's close acquaintance and frequent correspondent.

"Your banquet, your highness?" Sir Gilles said, all polite bafflement, as though he didn't know quite well that Queen Isabelle intended to clean out these nobles for every penny of entertainment they could provide.

Queen Isabelle gestured for one of the servants to approach with a piece of beaten silver that passed as a full-length mirror. "Yes, of course!" she exclaimed, not fooled by Sir Gilles for a second. "The banquet that they will hold in honour of my visit, with dancing and games and a joust. A banquet such as this backwater castle has never seen! Between us, old friend, you have been quite correct about these awful upstart baronets. They intend to have my husband to make the more ridiculous concessions of power. Well, I won't have it while I'm on the throne, that's for certain. We'd be the laughingstock of Europe. And so these days I have the fun of provoking rebellion, so that John will see we must be done with this nonsense."

The servants stood patiently in attendance, not understanding a word of the treason that Queen Isabelle was uttering in her mother tongue. Sir Gilles did not delude himself into thinking that the Queen believed him much more of a threat than they were. That was why she spoke so frankly. He was a French knight in England, without lands or influential supporters, and if Queen Isabelle wished, she could have him killed on the slightest of whims.

Sir Gilles raised his hands in a gesture of supplication. "My sole concern is your comfort. I fear that you are greatly mistaken as to my intentions. I can't imagine how you might have interpreted my letters discussing catechism in such a manner."

Queen Isabelle tilted her head back, and laughed as though he'd just pranced in with bells on his toes.

"And I fear that you are a spy for dear King Philip le Dieudonne, Sir Gilles. But worry not! I am a shallow and dissipated woman, quite unused to speculating about political affairs." She twirled in front of the mirror, wrapping the garish purple cloth around herself. "Do you think that John will like it?"

Sir Gilles arched both eyebrows. "Oh, my Queen. Surely you jest."

"Not at all!" Queen Isabelle was still chortling. "John thinks I'm positively vile, and yet he is known to prefer my bed to that of any other woman. Do you know why?"

Something of Lord Inspector Koschei stirred in Sir Gilles' breast.

"I'm afraid that I must ask you to enlighten me, your highness."

"Because I take care to keep his eyes on me always, regardless of what that might entail. That is why I, Isabelle d'Angouleme, am the modern Helen of Troy and the undisputed Queen of England."

Sir Gilles cleared his throat, and resolved to change the topic. "I happen to be in this area on business, pursuing a minor female fugitive. A witch of sorts. If you will allow me access to your men, I would like to put the call out for her arrest."

Queen Isabelle struck a pose in the mirror, pouted at the way the cloth draped, and set about extricating herself from the knot she'd created.

"Of course, of course. Now rid your mind of such mundane concerns. We must address the matter of which peasants are fit to fight in the games for my favour. You will help me to evaluate them, and also praise my marvelous new hat. In exchange I will introduce you to some fascinating new cheeses."

"It would be an honour."

Lord Inspector Koschei had no intention of actually allowing Queen Isabelle to disrupt the manufacture of the Magna Carta, but in order for his plan to come to fruition, he must wait until after the party to nip this course of events in the bud. Playing fast and loose with the timeline turned out to be less worrisome than he had anticipated. Was he not the most accomplished officer in the CIA? Had he not mastered these sorts of manipulations? Everything was under his control; the climax approached, his blood was singing, and this, this, was nearly as grand as pursuing the Doctor.

+++

Adelaide crept through the tent city with as much stealth as she could muster, which meant that she moved around the fairgrounds with almost no stealth whatsoever. Her hair was too clean, she was wearing a lab coat and trousers, and the bruises that Gamma had inflicted on her back made her hiss every time she attempted to crouch. Adelaide was no historian, but she still felt justified in being surprised that she hadn't been strung up as a witch by now. Mediaeval people were supposed to be fond of their mobs and superstitions.

Oh well. Adelaide didn't care about superstitions, nor did she care about what the Lord Inspector was doing here. She wouldn't take the chance of checking out whatever celebration these people were so excited about. All she had to do was stay safe and hidden until the Doctor figured out a way to find her.

A pair of guards tromped through the crowd, chewing grass stems and fingering their crossbows. Adelaide shimmied out from her (poor) hiding place beneath the drooping end of a merchant's tent, and dove to a (marginally) better spot behind a cluster of beer barrels destined for the vendors.

"Who is this bloke with the lah-di-dah beard, anyhow?" One of the guards complained, in the overloud voice of someone who was used to handing out beatings to anyone who talked back. "I were gonna go see the bear baiting, and now I got to spend my afternoon chasing after some tart."

The other guard punched him in the shoulder. "Keep yer voice down! He's French, isn't he? For all we know he could be the Queen's favourite uncle."

"Uncle my arse. Bloody French." They ambled onward.

Shit. The Lord Inspector had sicced what passed for a local police on her. How could he possibly hold that kind of authority? Adelaide fisted her hands in the folds of her coat, and tried to keep her rate of respiration steady. This was hardly worse than the time she'd helped fight the Ice Warriors, and she was not about to turn into some hyperventilating little schoolgirl just because the Doctor wasn't around.

"S'up?" A hot hand fell on Adelaide's shoulder.

A shriek welled up the back of her throat, and was stifled just in time when the hand moved off her shoulder and clapped over her mouth.

"Easy, now. No need to struggle -- unless that's your thing. It's one of your own." Adelaide wrenched around to find herself looking at a fresh-faced young man in suspiciously clean period clothing. He flashed her a white-toothed grin. "Time Agency, right?"

He looked Adelaide up and down, his eyes shamelessly lingering on the soft wool that stretched over her chest. Under different circumstances she wouldn't have hesitated to smack him.

"Where's your kit? You misfire a vortex manipulator at a research lab or something? I hate to break it to you, little lady, but this op is for experienced agents only. If you're here to string a bard's lute then I recommend Kind Ethelfried's court."

"I'm not from your 'Time Agency'." Adelaide pulled her coat more tightly around her. She might as well resign herself to feeling small, damp, and confused, because it didn't look like that was going to change anytime soon.

"What? Nah -- you're human, aren't you? You've got to be Time Agency." The self-proclaimed Time Agent wedged himself in beside her so that they were sitting hip-to-hip, backs against the barrels. "It's an all-points bulletin; the first thing the bosses have taken seriously in the last five relative years. There's a storm brewing around the Magna Carta! Can you believe the fucking nerve of it? One of the foundations of a galactic civilization. Someone out there's got real balls."

He gestured for her to peer over the tops of the barrels with him, and Adelaide felt herself compelled to join in. Suddenly the Lord Inspector's choice of parking spaces made a great deal more sense. Handling these sorts of situations must be his stock in trade.

"It's not just us who've got to take this seriously. There are plants in this crowd from nearly every major trans-temporal species who stands to lose from humanity being knocked out of their history. See that guy? An Ur-Draconian under an image generator." He pointed to a portly blacksmith who had taken his shirt off, to better enjoy the sun. "And I bet you anything that there's a squid-controller from the Cephalophorm Collective hiding in that chick's hat." Now that he mentioned it, Adelaide could see that the woman's arms swaying in the breeze, pale and boneless. "Every time corps I know of I has got some of their best people here."

"Including the Time Lords," Adelaide said.

"Time Lords!?" The Time Agent bit back a laugh. "Ha, yeah. Time Lords. Next thing you're gonna tell me to look out for the Space Illuminati." He elbowed her. "I like you. You're funny. But look: you can't stay here if you're gonna stand out like this. It's embarrassing for the Agency. We're all gonna go to the nice lady's party and get this clusterfuck sorted out before it leaves this crappy fiefdom. If you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't stick around to get caught in the crossfire."

"I know perfectly well what I'm doing, in regards to time travel." Adelaide bristled. "And I told you: I'm not from your Time Agency."

The Time Agent looked her over again, this time with an eye to her competence rather than her curves. Adelaide was in no mood for the scrutiny. It felt as though his gaze was stripping away the cotton of her lab coat thread by thread; like he'd crack her bones open to investigate the marrow.

"You're really not," he said, in a tone that was almost like wonder. "Are you from our future? I know, I know -- no spoilers -- but a rival Agency could be pret-ty sexy." His eyes flashed with something darker, and he inched his hand towards the belt of his tunic. "Or maybe you're one of the jokers behind all this. A traitor to your own species."

Adelaide wasn't going to stick around to see whatever weapon this clown was packing in his tights. She bent her hand back, cocked her elbow, and rammed the heel of her palm right into the Time Agent's balls.

He rocked backwards clutching his crotch, and Adelaide made a run for it while he was still howling.

Oh, God. What the hell was taking the Doctor so long?!

+++

It turned out that Queen Isabelle did have access to an array of excellent cheeses, and she and Sir Gilles passed a fairly pleasant afternoon snacking on some sort of proto-Stilton and sharing catty remarks about the men who hoped to compete in the Queen's contests. Naturally, Sir Gilles had fought countless battles as a soldier of fortune. He had good reason not to be impressed with these untried young bucks.

The ill-disguised time travelers were by far the worst of the lot; trying to pass themselves off as veritable Robin Hoods when their fingers were calloused from the press of blaster guns. Thankfully these amateurs were not going to be a problem for much longer, now that he'd gathered the most foolhardy of their kind in a discrete temporal locality. Lord Inspector Koschei was looking forward to having fewer pests to dodge when he made his rounds. This was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Queen Isabelle leaned on the parapet and sipped at her wine. "You believe, then, that I ought to value experience over stamina?"

"But of course," Sir Gilles said.

"My husband said much the same thing on our wedding night." Queen Isabelle confided, with a wink. "He was insensible to courtly rhetoric even then."

Sir Gilled drained his goblet and handed it to a skinny attendant. "I fear that I have been spun from even rougher cloth, your highness, for I must now sink to the unpardonable rudeness of asking you to excuse me. I must check on a new squire of mine, whom I have left to watch over my things. You know how these servants steal when you leave them to their own devices."

"Oh-ho. The enigmatic Sir Estram keeps a squire!" Queen Isabelle clapped her hands, delighted. Sir Gilles wondered if she was slightly drunk. "You shall introduce me to him before I expire of boredom."

And so it was that Sir Gilles and Queene Isabelle strolled down to the stables together. There, Lord Inspector Koschei's TARDIS waited in the form of a man-sized trunk. He hadn't been about to leave her where Dr. Brooke could find her. She might get ideas about sabotage.

Hypnotizing the Queen into believing she'd met a small boy instead of the superlatively annoying Gamma should be no trouble, unless someone interfered with—

Koschei stopped cold.

"My, my. That's no squire. Is this jester an associate of yours, Sir Estram?" Queen Isabelle inquired.

"You might say that."

For there was the Doctor in all his dandy, ruffled glory, leaning against Koschei's TARDIS as though he owned the place. He'd never think not to dress like a complete anachronism. Oh no, that was for lesser men, who put time and effort into their excursions, instead of flouncing through the timelines on a lark. The Doctor was exactly as Koschei had left him -- flamboyant, diffident, and exuding such concentrated Doctorishness that sartorial consistency was rendered entirely immaterial. No costume could ever have hoped to contain him and no era would dare to question his trappings. He was who he was.

Some animal part of Queen Isabelle's brain sensed this as well. She shifted slightly closer to Koschei than was appropriate.

"Sir Estram. Hmph. Aren't you going to introduce me?" The Doctor demanded, looking at Queen Isabelle as though to catalogue her chemical properties for extended analysis.

"My Queen," Koschei said. "I present to you the Doctor, a man whom I encounter frequently in the course of my, ah, activities. I ask that you excuse his atrocious manners, and insistence upon speaking English; he is clever enough, as these things go, but he has fallen very far from his breeding." He looked the Doctor in the eyes, resenting the strain that it put upon his neck. "Doctor, I present to you the wife of King John and the lily of the English court -- Her Majesty Queen Isabelle."

The Doctor was not supposed to be here. The Doctor was never supposed to be here. The very idea that the Doctor had come after him was incomprehensible. The Doctor was supposed to exist for leisure and casual heroics, as was his wont, only pausing his dissipated lifestyle when Koschei came calling to collect his toll. Ideally, the Doctor would have heard an edited version of Koschei's successful scheme at a later date, from the lips of Koschei himself. He was not meant to blunder into the middle of Koschei's first personal project.

Probably, the Doctor was laughing at Koschei beneath that standoffish facade. Koschei often suspected this. Why else would the Doctor be so mirthful whenever Koschei cornered him with an ingenious trap? The chainmail, the assumed name, the careful web of lies and manipulations -- all of those things must seem ridiculous to the Doctor, who improvised miracles in the time it took most men to brush their teeth. Koschei had spent centuries planning bigger, broader, denser, trying desperately to find the combination that would make the Doctor realize that Koschei's work was actually very impressive.

Koschei's hearts beat a panicked little tattoo. He barely noticed what the Doctor said to cap off the introductions -- something about how Koschei was a hypocrite, after all, and wasn't his friend there a great figure much like the Doctor's assistants, and what the hell did he think he was playing at. Thankfully, Queen Isabelle stepped in before he thoroughly humiliated himself.

"Charmed, I'm sure," she said, her gaze flicking back and forth between the two Time Lords. She reached some conclusion that was far beyond Koschei, and the corners of her eyes crinkled with merriment. "The mysterious Sir Estram has long been a provider of great amusement to me. I have often wondered who his associates might be outside of our court."

Ah. Now she was certain that 'Sir Gilles' was a spy, by virtue of his acquaintance with a lunatic criminal. That did not explain why she seemed so entertained in the face of the Doctor's glowering, or why she had suddenly latched herself onto Koschei's arm, but honestly, Koschei could not be expected to spare too much thought for such peculiarities, when he was confronted with a far greater anomaly in the form of his best enemy.

"Be that as it may, 'Sir Estram', you should know that I honed in on Gamma and landed my TARDIS inside your own." The Doctor crossed his arms, looking very severe for a man in a red satin cape. "You're not going anywhere until you bring Addy back. Intact."

Koschei nearly cursed. "You're bluffing," he bluffed. "And as you know that I have her, you know that it would be a bad idea for you to do anything rash."

Queen Isabelle cleared her throat. "Sir Estram, am I to take it that you are involved in a dispute over honour and property?" She squeezed his bicep, switching on a sunny smile. "If that is the case, then there is only one thing for it. We will settle this at my games! Ah, what fun."

"What does she mean?" The Doctor asked.

"She means a duel. Trial by combat."

Chapter Text

As it happened, Queen Isabelle's idea of trial by combat bore more resemblance to dinner theatre than any sort of legitimate judicial process. Koschei and the Doctor were advised to wait in an antechamber near the Great Hall whilst the Queen gathered her various hangers-on and had the kitchens whip up a quick snack for the audience.

"It's time to face facts, old chap. For once I'm the one who's got you caught up in a trap," the Doctor said, crossing his arms and leaning back against a load-bearing pillar. "And a rather clever one, at that -- simple and effective. You might wish to give the simplicity of my Time Ram gambit some consideration, next time you set a trap for me."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows to underscore some obscure point of rhetoric. Koschei couldn't be bothered to try deciphering the Doctor's mad logic. He was busy contemplating the laws of physics that would need to be violated in order for him to literally be swallowed up by the floor, never to be seen in this time period again.

If only the CIA had granted him the funding he needed to develop a prototype of that compression ray he'd designed. Then he could have shrunk himself small enough that the Doctor would be unable to see him. Those short-sighted fools.

"But that's no reason to spend the rest of the afternoon sulking," the Doctor forged onwards, having received no response. "When you catch up with me, I handle it with grace and professionalism, and you'd do well to emulate my example." Koschei refrained from scoffing at that pronouncement. "Matters may proceed on their usual course, with the added bonus that my young friends will continue traveling with me. I am of sufficiently large character to forgive you for leaving me tied up on Al-Murzim VII, in order to attend to whatever nonsense errand the CIA has sent you to accomplish in this era."

Ostensibly, all of Queen Isabelle's party preparations were only meant to give them the time they needed to choose their weapons from a selection of the local lord's finest. Six blades lay on a table in the middle of the room. The Doctor picked up the shortest of their number, and handed it to Koschei hilt-first.

"You must admit that participating in trial by combat will be one of the more unique cultural experiences we've had during these little set-pieces of yours," the Doctor said. There was a bit of bounce to the Doctor's gait -- a sort of boyish enthusiasm that should have been ridiculous in a man of his physical age. Koschei supposed that he looked almost hopeful.

He took the proffered sword from the Doctor, and made a show of contemplating the strength of its cross-guard. "And we forget all about – mm, how was it that you put it? Ah yes. We forget all about the fact that, according to you, I am nothing but 'a tool of authority, and an excessively dull one at that.'"

The Doctor was taking his time considering the remaining weapons.

"My dear chap. Are you quite certain that you haven't regenerated lately?" the Doctor said.

"I should think not," Koschei replied. "Why would you ask such a thing?"

"Because at some point when I wasn't looking, you evidently turned into a giant girl." The Doctor unsheathed one of the sabres and gave the air a practice slash. Satisfied, he re-sheathed the weapon and stuck it in his belt.

It occurred to Koschei that the Doctor perhaps did not take their rivalry as seriously as he ought to. It also occurred to Koschei that this meant he had very little to lose. He would go through with his plan, and the Doctor would see. He could go through with a hundred plans if it meant that the Doctor would understand.

This was what the Doctor had wanted, wasn't it? These past few days had been so exhilarating. Now they could really have some fun.

"You have no idea how long I have waited for just this sort of opportunity to bring you to trial," Koschei said. "All the better if we can evade tedious courtroom rituals and a decade of opening arguments." And if his eyes were a little feverish or his smile was a little too sharp, well, he fancied that he was a good enough actor that it didn't show.

Something in the Doctor seemed to uncoil at the sight of the Koschei's expression; it was as though he had allowed himself to exhale after a long period of respiratory bypass. Another operative might not have noticed it, but Lord Inspector Koschei had made a veritable hobby of studying the Doctor's criminal psych profile. Surely Koschei must know the Doctor better than any other man in the cosmos.

"I quite agree," the Doctor said.

The Doctor sauntered over and – maddeningly! -- took advantage of his greater height to press a kiss to Koschei's forehead, before striding off into the hallway.

"Let's get started, shall we?"

+++

Adelaide crouched inside a lilac bush and considered her options. It turned out that hitting a man in the groin wasn't the fool-proof deterrent that it was portrayed to be in self-defense courses and old movie torrents. The Time Agent turned out to be more irritated that incapacitated, and now she was stuck dodging guards with a specialist on her tail.

Her calves hurt and she'd gotten a burr in her trainers. Adelaide was just about sick of running right now, and considering the Doctor's running-heavy lifestyle, that was really saying a lot.

"Hey. Hey!" Adelaide stage-whispered at a passing woman. She walked with the same wobble that Adelaide had seen in the lady that the Time Agent had pointed out; the one that he called a squid-controller. "Yes, you! A little help, if you please."

The squid-woman swished over to stand near the foliage. Adelaide was sure she didn't want to see what lay beneath the woman's ridiculous conical princess hat.

"You require assistance?" She took a vial of something from the folds of her skirts, and splashed it on Adelaide's face. It tasted like water. Adelaide really hoped that it was water.

"Tell me that was water."

"You are Human," the squid-woman confirmed, having confirmed Adelaide's species through the use of probably-not-water-after-all. "You are a Time Agent?" She didn't look too pleased about that.

"Hardly." Adelaide pressed her lips together. "I was sent here to make sure that their operation goes well. But as you can see, the Time Agent male who's been walking around here sabotaged me by getting rid of my period clothing. Please. Please help, I beg of you."

The squid-woman made a gesture that looked sort of like jazz hands for people who had no wrists.

"If Time Agents would do their jobs, none of us would have to be here. You Humans are very alarming!"

Adelaide reached out of the bush to tug at the squid-woman's skirt. "Yes. We're awful. Now please. I really would be grateful."

A sticky tentacle lashed out from beneath the woman's skirt to wrap around Adelaide's neck. Oh God, oh fuck, there were suckers.

"My ink-partner betrayed me with a Time Agent Human male. A thing with only one tentacle," the squid-woman glowered, as though the existence of inadequate of human genitalia was an insult to her species as a whole, and to her sexual prowess in particular. "I think you are a Time Agent. I think that you will not be missed."

"I don't believe this."

"All is fair in espionage, Human female."

Adelaide yanked back on the tentacle before it could choke her, pulled the squid-woman into the bush, and grimly resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to take a look at what was under that hat after all.

+++

When Koschei and the Doctor entered the Great Hall, Queen Isabelle was already perched happily on her makeshift throne, presiding over a flock of spies and sycophants. Servants bustled around with refreshments while the guards lining the walls manfully pretended that their stomachs weren't rumbling.

The two Time Lords took their stage without any prompting from Queen Isabelle's staff. Someone had removed all of the furniture except for the high table and its accoutrements, so that Koschei and the Doctor would not lack for places in which to try and stab one another. Koschei found that he appreciated the thought.

"Sir Gilles! Ah, there you are. I had thought that you or your cohort might be up to something nefarious with the swords we lent you." Queen Isabelle's eyes were twinkling, and Koschei didn't appreciate that thought at all. "I nearly sent in a guard to check and make sure that you did not begin the battle prematurely."

"I resent your insinuation about our character," the Doctor said. He glanced over at Koschei. "Which is to say: I resent your insinuation about my character!"

Koschei dredged up the remnants of his 'Sir Gilles' persona, and pasted on the most servile expression he could manage under the circumstances.

"What my woefully unpolished acquaintance means to say is that we would not dream of resolving this matter like common cutpurses, when Your Highness has been so kind as to give us an honourable outlet for the settlement of our dispute."

"Yes, yes. Your matter. It cries out for the justice of God." Queen Isabelle held out her wine goblet, so that one of the servants might refresh her drink. A small furrow formed on her perfect brow. "What was the matter again?"

"A dispute over property," Koschei said. "The Doctor there has impounded my carriage. It is a gross misappropriation of my property and frankly it shames me that Your Highness should be exposed to such boorishness on the part of a man of noble birth."

"Boorishness? Hmph." The Doctor puffed himself up. "I have only been driven to impound the carriage of your 'Sir Gilles' because he has seized something of mine in a singularly underhanded manner. If you knew this blackguard as I do, Your Highness, then you would know that there are few things he deserves more than a proper thrashing in the name of justice." He cast a cheshire grin Koschei's general direction, practically daring him to strike prematurely and lose their contest before it truly began. "Happily for you, I am here to administer it."

"Very well, then! Bother me no more with dull talk surrounding your 'property dispute'," Queen Isabelle waved off any further comment. "I need not be wearied with contrived particulars. The winner may do what he likes with the loser's 'property', as his triumph shall show his superior moral qualifications. 'Victory' goes to the man who draws first blood, May God and 'virtue' guide your swords!"

Koschei spared a moment to be thankful that the pernicious 'air-quotes' gesture would not be invented for another few centuries. Then there were no more moments to spare, because the Doctor had made a dashing bow, drawn his sword, and assumed an offensive stance.

Kochei made his own bow – deeper, stronger, really putting his back into it – and likewise prepared himself for combat. He barely noticed the eyes of the guards on him, watching to see if the French scoundrel would make any move to threaten their Queen, or the small explosion of giggles that arose when Queen Isabelle made some pithy aside to her ladies-in-waiting. The Doctor was looking at him. Really looking at him. Devoting every synapse in that glorious, madcap mind to analyzing Koschei's slightest flinch. The world had narrowed to accommodate only the two of them.

By Pythia's sainted bosom. Why had they not done this since the Academy?

Koschei was too far away from the Doctor, his Doctor, so naturally he lunged forward on the attack, quick as a grass snake.

"I dare say your form has improved, old chap." The Doctor sidestepped Koschei's charge, casting an evaluating look at Koschei's backside as he stumbled past.

"My form has always been excellent," Koschei replied. He recovered his balance quickly, whirling around to assume a guard position.

The Doctor scored a glancing hit across Koschei's shoulder by virtue of his greater reach, but it was nothing that Koschei need be particularly concerned about.

"Yes," the Doctor said. "It's too bad you're forced to compete with me when I'm so handsome."

Koschei chose not to rise to that bait. He stepped forward more cautiously, this time, trying to work himself within striking distance of the Doctor's exposed collarbone.

"A thrashing in the name of justice?" Koschei willed his TARDIS to stop translating their comments into English, and start translating them into thirty-first century Sino-Russian, for the benefit of their audience. "Really, my dear?"

Koschei brought his sword up, only to have the swing blocked with a resounding clang. The Doctor's forearms didn't flinch with impact. He hardly seemed to feel the blow at all.

That wouldn't do.

"You've never considered a little role reversal? Your lack of imagination is extremely disappointing," the Doctor said, licking his lips.

Koschei solved his offensive problems by stamping down hard on the Doctor's instep with the heel of his boot. The Doctor wobbled backwards. Koschei pressed in with a confident thrust.

"My lack of imagination indeed." Koschei laughed, wild and reckless. "My dear Doctor, what exactly is it that you think I'm doing here?"

"Oh, something tedious, I expect. At least until I showed up."

His thrust ended up deflecting off of the Doctor's belt buckle, by some complicated trick of Venusian Karate, and the Doctor used Koschei's surprise as an opening to resume the attack.

"Do you see the young lady in the corner?" Koschei inclined his chin towards a plain-looking maid with beady, too-dark eyes. The Doctor reminded him of where to keep his attention by rapping the flat of his blade across Koschei's gloved knuckles.

"Top right?" The Doctor continued on with driving Koschei back into a corner. "Hold on, that's not a Human. That girl's from the Wild Hunt! An agent of the Tuatha de Danaan!"

"Precisely." Koschei slashed up and across, gaining some momentum back. "Over the past week and a half I have cultivated a longstanding correspondence with Queen Isabelle of Angouleme, whom you see here today. Through our acquaintance I have influenced her to undertake certain actions which place the signing of the Magna Carta in significant jeopardy."

Their exchange was growing swifter, now. Koschei could feel the Doctor's force in the ache of his forearms.

"Obviously I have no intention of allowing any such thing to take place. However! The disruption has drawn out the rabble from every two-bit time travel cabal known to the Agency. When their concentration hits its peak, during the Queen's banquet tonight, I have arranged for weaponized cyber-rats from proto-Mondas to teleport to this location and devour all of the diners – other than myself, of course -- who are polluted with artron energy. So shall the cosmos be saved from idiots and bunglers."

Ah, Koschei felt as though he could do this forever. Or at least so long as his cardiovascular system held up. The Doctor in his competitive aspect was truly a sight to behold, from the long line of his legs to the graceful economy of his movements. The CIA must come to see that the Doctor should be converted to their cause. Koschei could have no other worthy partner.

Except the Doctor had stilled, which at this point was more than a little disappointing.

"You're serious," the Doctor said, staring at him.

"Naturally." Koschei grinned. "Well?"

The Doctor muttered an oath in ancient Valorian, and lashed out with a high kick, combining Venusian Karate with traditional Gallifreyan fencing form. When their contest was merely a matter of skill, Koschei had stood more than a fighting chance, but now that the Doctor brought his full height and upper body strength to bear, there was no question that he was about to be pummeled. His sword was wrenched from his grip with a powerful twist, and before he quite knew what was happening, he'd been knocked into a sprawling heap on the floor.

The Doctor cut a nick into the top of Koschei's ear, and the battle was decisively lost.

+++

Adelaide adjusted the lacings on her nice new (stolen) green dress, and tried to step out of the bushes as inconspicuously as possible. It didn't work, and she was met with a wolf-whistle from one of the local guard almost as soon as she set foot outside the foliage.

"I see you ladies of the evening are starting business early tonight," He leered. "Mind you keep your trade out of the Queen's sight. You need someone to keep you company once the dusk shift is over, you come back and talk to ol' Ham, yeh?"

Adelaide clenched her jaw. The guard did not know any better. Her hair was mussed, her hem was torn, and her neck was covered with bruises from those damn suckers.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Adelaide was not going to punch him. She was not going to punch him because that would be wrong, and because she was an educated woman, and because the reverberations through the time-stream would probably destroy Plymouth or something.

"Yeah, that's it, honey. Put yer hips into it!" The guard watched her go.

On second thought, what had Plymouth ever done for humanity?

No. No. Adelaide couldn't lose her nerve. She had to focus.

The princess hat wriggled plaintively in her left hand. Adelaide located a rain-barrel, dropped the princess hat inside, and finally let go of a full-body shudder. Calamari was ruined forever. When she got back to the TARDIS – the correct TARDIS -- she was going to shower until her toes pruned.

Adelaide nicked an apple from a vendor and made her way towards the castle entrance, with the squid-woman's party invitation in hand. She needed to find the Doctor, which meant that she had better walk straight into whatever trouble was brewing in these parts.

+++

Queen Isabelle confirmed the final verdict, but Koschei heard barely a word of it over the sound of his own pounding heartsbeat. The Doctor had overpowered him, disarmed him, and cut a notch in his ear as a mark of his possession. The strength of Koschei's outrage was matched only by the strength of the treacherous erection that was straining his trousers.

Thank Rassilon that he was still wearing his cloak.

The Doctor made some appropriate noises at Queen Isabelle and then steered Koschei up off the floor and out of the Great Hall, in order that the servants might start setting up the tables for Queen Isabelle's banquet. Koschei allowed the Doctor to manhandle him into a shadowy nook beneath some stairs. As soon as they were out of sight, the Doctor grabbed Koschei by his shoulders and shoved him up against the wall.

"Help me stop it," the Doctor hissed.

Koschei felt light-headed from blood-loss, and the heat of the Doctor's breath against his fresh wound was not helping. He batted ineffectually at the Doctor's hands.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Help me stop the creatures you've summoned," the Doctor repeated, more slowly this time.

Koschei frowned. He was far more interested in starting things than stopping them at the moment. "Whatever for?"

Given his choice, he would begin by nipping at the Doctor's lower lip until he drew blood.

"Focus, you old villain!" The Doctor snapped. "A hundred people are going to die! Innocent idiots who are only trying to do their jobs. People like you. I won't allow a massacre here!"

Koschei snarled. His face was red and his blood was up and he really wanted to break something and stupid impetuous obnoxious distracting impossible Doctor took this moment, of all moments, to pretend that he wasn't just as hard as Koschei was.

"Have you ever had to clean up the chaos in the timelines after a Time Agent orgy goes awry? Have you been forced to taint an entire city's water supply with Retcon, because a reckless Ur-Draconian dropped the perception filter on his ship in the middle of the city's harvest festival? I should think not! Those people are hardly anything like me. They're a menace to the cosmos. You may have the freedom to be an ideologue, Doctor, but law enforcement is a realist's game."

"The CIA ordered you to do this? This is how they conduct their affairs now?"

"Heavens, no. They couldn't innovate their way out of a plutonium reactor. I happen to be more independent than you give me credit for," Koschei said, proudly, offering his cleverness up for the Doctor's approval. "This plan is entirely my own."

The Doctor took a minute to think that over, and then used his bulk to press Koschei up against the flagstones, tighter and tighter, until Koschei felt as though he could barely breathe beneath the inexorable weight of him.

"You're right," he said, roughly, and kissed Koschei on the lips. "Did you hear that? I just said that you're right."

"By all means, repeat it again if you're so inclined," Koschei exhaled.

"You're right," the Doctor said. "Your laws are important – not like whatever those mewling children and third-rate bunglers are up to. But you must understand that I'm not yet inured to the kind of work that you do, and it would weigh upon my conscience to begin our partnership with a bloodbath. I couldn't bear it."

"Partnership?" Koschei swallowed.

The Doctor held Koschei's chin up and looked him in the eyes. "I had a... passable time with you today. It was jolly good fun. Really it was." He then pulled Koschei into a hug, and Koschei could no longer catch his expression. "Help me stop those things you've set loose, and I'll keep my TARDIS nested with yours. I'll do as you've always asked. I'll go with you. We'll travel together."

"Oh. Well." The Doctor's chest smelled like dust, and old piano wire, and sweat, and Koschei's own blood. Koschei pressed his nose into the fabric. "Very well," he conceded, basking in the rush of giddy power that came with the knowledge that the Doctor required it of him. "In deference to your liberal sensibilities."

The Doctor carded one of his hands through Koschei's hair. "You should know that I'm very proud of you, Koschei, for trying an initiative on your own," he said quietly. "That's what I always wanted for you."
But he did not look at Koschei again for quite some time.

+++

Adelaide presented her papers to an officious-looking servant, and tried to not rock back and forth on the balls of her feet. She didn't know much about how ladies were supposed to act during this time period, but she was pretty sure that fidgeting wasn't an option if she wanted to look convincing. The servant was already looking down his nose at her tattered clothing.

"Welcome, Madame Dashwood. I take it you've never been presented at Court in London?" He sniffed, holding up the line in order to make sure she felt sufficiently small before making her entrance.

"Oh, uh, yes. It's just so amazing for me to meet the Queen," Adelaide said, flatly. "Her tour to these lands is so generous. Oh, I am thrilled. Never will this experience be equaled in my life. I will tell this story to everyone in my Church for many... Church-days to come."

The servant sniffed again. Adelaide put her hands on her hips.

"So?" She pressed. "Let's move it along, then."

A man with disturbing green snake-eyes was standing behind her, and Adelaide did not think any good would come of delaying him further. Thankfully the servant seemed to agree with her. She wasn't delusional enough to think that anyone would buy into her acting job.

Adelaide's boyfriend was always telling her that she was too hard. That she should lighten up. Well, Adelaide would lighten up when she was bloody well tenured, and when people stopped kidnapping and/or threatening to kill her on a regular basis. That would be a really good time to talk about feelings and maybe have a nice five or ten drinks.

"You may proceed inside," the servant sighed, and the guards raised their pikes.

Adelaide sailed past him into the courtyard. She paid no mind to the rats that scampered back and forth across the path.

Chapter Text

Adelaide found her way to the Great Hall and sat down at the head of one of the long tables that had been set up for the Queen's guests. History had never been her subject, and she didn't know how a woman in her position was supposed to act, so she'd decided to conduct herself as though she were the arbiter of all standards for everything in this castle. That usually worked out well for the Doctor.

It didn't go too badly for her, either. Adelaide whiled away a good twenty minutes staring down probable time-travelers until they rushed off to check their period clothing for stray scraps of vinyl. She might have made it all the way to the first toast without incident if a large man with shaggy blond hair hadn't elbowed himself into the seat at her left hand.

"You," he said.

"Me," Adelaide agreed.

"You've got a whole lotta nerve, little lady."

The Time Agent steepled his fingers and glared in a way that he probably thought was threatening. It actually was sort of threatening, in the manner of an angry golden retriever. He had the bulk to be dangerous but lacked the heart to be vicious.

Adelaide cupped her chin in her hand. "You're going to try to attack me here? Really?" She gestured towards the Queen's makeshift throne "In front of a historical figure and scores of enemy agents?"

The Time Agent pulled something that looked like a medicalert bracelet out of his pocket, and brandished it in Adelaide's face.

"I've got my eye on you. You make one false move towards that woman, and I'll 'port you straight to the Storm Cage. No lie."

Adelaide concluded that she didn't need to know what the Storm Cage was in order to want to avoid it. She turned her attention back towards the head table, where the guest of honour was chugging wine and making remarks that her hosts pretended to find hilarious. That Queen looked flashy. Adelaide had never liked flashy. Anyone who spent that much time curling her hair had to be a real piece of work.

"Which Queen is she, again?" Adelaide asked.

"Isabelle d'Angouleme." The Time Agent rolled his eyes, but apparently chose to humour her. "Not all that important in the big picture. But she was smart enough to keep King John wrapped around her little finger for twenty years, so maybe she's smart enough to sabotage the Magna Carta, too." He underlined that last sentence with an accusing look. Adelaide took another page from the Doctor's book, and studiously ignored it.

"And what about Adelaide Brooke?" She asked, trying to keep casual.

"What about her?" The Time Agent blinked.

"You've, er... heard of her as well? No? No, probably not."

"Yeah." The Time Agent snorted. "I'm the Time Agent who's never heard of Adelaide Brooke. Christ. She's only the grandmother of interstellar travel. What is with you?"

Adelaide swallowed. Her throat was dry. It felt as though she were choking; as though she could barely breathe. Where was the damn wine? Wasn't this supposed to be some old-timey mediaeval feast?

"I'm Adelaide Brooke," she said, in the vain hope that someone could tell her what she was supposed to do with that.

But it seemed that the chatty Time Agent's answers had run out right when she needed them most.

"Yeah, and I'm Stephen Hawking," he said.

Adelaide sighed and slumped forward, bowing her head. My, her lap was an interesting place these days. Nice homespun cloth. Plenty of interesting stains. Her thighs were toned, from all the running, and her knees had gotten downright boney. The Lord Inspector had been telling her the truth all along and she couldn't process that right now so instead she was going to think about the shape of her calves and the texture of hand-spun cloth.
Adelaide was still only one woman, after all, and she was very far from home.

Something sharp nicked Adelaide's right ankle, and she caught a glint of LCD out of the corner of her eye. So she put her train of thought on hold and reached down to see what the hell had bitten her. It was dark, under there, since the lamps in this place weren't all that illuminating, but if she squinted she could just about make out a silhouette.

Hawking cleared his throat. He probably thought she was reaching for a knife in her boot.

"How do you feel about rats, Hawking?" Adelaide asked, with due caution.

"My ex-girlfriend was a Rat," Hawking said. "Came off nice enough when I met her, but turned out to be real racist against Cats. They can't help what they eat, you know? I don't go around judging people for eating fast-food monkey brains." Adelaide could hear a frown creep into Hawking's tone. "Wait, you better not be some kinda Human supremacist. Is that it? You creeps at Earth for Earthlings came up with this cockamamie plot?"
Adelaide had spent more than enough time listening to Hawking accuse her of trans-temporal terrorism. Never mind her tactical strike against his scrotum.

"I don't care about your ex-girlfriend. Now, what about normal-sized rats with light-up tails?" Adelaide snapped.

Her question was greeted with an almost audible pause, and Adelaide was given a tense few seconds to wonder whether Hawking was about to tag her with that bracelet thing. Then Hawking overturned the whole damn table with a great grunting heave, revealing four robotic-looking rats that had been scurrying underneath.

"Shit!" Adelaide wobbled backwards, falling off her stool and right onto her ass.

One of the rats stared at her with blank, static-filled eyes, and lashed the razor edge of its tail.

"Everyone!" Hawking bellowed. "Watch your legs! We're under attack!"

Only the various factions in the room were too busy pulling blasters on one another to spare much attention for mechanized rodents. The Queen belted out some drunken order or other; no one was listening to her either.

Adelaide had seen her share of Mexican standoffs during her travels with the Doctor, but this was truly ridiculous. The guests had gone from renaissance faire to ray guns, and she couldn't make heads nor tails of who was supposed to be watching whose back.

"Treachery!" hissed a man with yellowish eyes, who was backed by a pair of burly-looking twins. His hair rose up from his head in solid grey-brown locks, almost like the crest of a lizard.

The clutch of women who were still wearing their princess hats didn't seem to like that. They raised their arms and waggled them back and forth. Their leader let forth shriek of warning from a place that was definitely not her throat. "You are the traitors, Ur-Draconian scum!"

Someone in the corner fired a violet-coloured beam at the ceiling. "Century Cross Alliance! To arms!"

The mechanized rat extended its steel claws and made a leap for Adelaide's face. Adelaide shielded her eyes with her left hand, grabbed the rat up with her right, and flung it at the nearest crowd of angry-looking partygoers.
Fuck, her hands were bleeding. Stupid claws. Servants were crying and people were shouting and Adelaide could smell something that she hoped was burning wool.

Adelaide rose to her feet, helped by the fact that Hawking had grabbed her forearm in order to haul her up.
"Not so fast, little lady. Don't think you're going anywhere when--"

"Shut up and come with me," Adelaide interrupted. "We've got to keep the Queen from getting hurt, don't we? It won't be long. The Doctor's going to rescue us."

She wouldn't even mind running into that awful Lord Inspector right about now.

+++

The Doctor ushered them through the castle hallways, half-dragging Koschei in the direction of their nested TARDISes. Koschei wasn't sure how he felt about being led around like this. A part of him – the same part that would repay the Doctor tenfold for handing him such a public defeat – wanted to rage and curse and dig in his heels. Koschei supposed that meant he rather liked it.

"Oh, for pity's sake. Have you been listening to a word I've said?" The Doctor demanded, as he led Koschei down the staircase.

As a matter of fact, Koschei hadn't been listening to a word the Doctor had said. He'd been too busy strategizing. Somehow, against all odds, the Doctor was holding his hand. Koschei's long and storied history of chaining the Doctor to various uncomfortable surfaces had not involved a great deal of hand-holding. He and the Doctor were going to have to develop a whole new practicum, and naturally Koschei, as the superior tactician, needed to take the lead on dreaming it up.

"Yes, of course, my dear," Koschei lied. "Do go on."

The Doctor countered with a laconic arch of his brows, which really was quite impressive, considering that they were practically jogging. "I asked you about the teleportation bandwidth of these creatures you've summoned. We're going to have to build a jammer."

"Ah. Indeed. Naturally, I was about to tell you that, having heard your request," Koschei said, warming to the conversation. "But I'm afraid that the issue is not so pedestrian as you've insinuated. I became acquainted with the cyber-rats during an undercover stint at Kalabash Prison in the ninety-third retrograde millennium. I was required to gain access to a prisoner on in the execution blocks, so I acquired a job working in the cafeteria. Naturally I took over their operational management, and from there it was simple to devise a system by which the weekly menu rotation was altered to bribe several key prison gangs. It turned out that the standard prison rats had cyber-enhanced themselves and begun a rudimentary methamphetamine ring, so I--"

Koschei's explanation was cut short when he stumbled into the Doctor's side. Naturally, this was entirely the Doctor's fault. The Doctor had stopped walking very suddenly, and Koschei couldn't help that his legs were so much shorter.

It seemed that they'd reached their TARDISes. The Doctor was fussing with his ruffles like a nervous prom date, and giving Koschei the oddest of looks.

"What?" Koschei asked.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're ridiculous?" 


"Yes. You." Koschei crossed his arms. "With great frequency, I might add."


The Doctor shook his head. Koschei thought that the Doctor might have been smiling, but it was hard to tell when he wouldn't make the effort to put on a proper smirk. It wasn't like him to subdue his customary bluster; admitting that Koschei might have a point now and then must have been horribly awkward for him.

Koschei suppressed the urge to gleefully rub his hands together. He was gentleman enough to save his gloating for the bedroom.

"Well that's good, because you are," the Doctor said, in a low, rough tone. "You're ridiculous and an absolute menace."

"A menace to crime, I hope you meant." Koschei elbowed him.

"A menace to nice young ladies, is more like it." The Doctor unlocked his TARDIS' door – their TARDISes' door – and raised his voice. "Gamma! Come here, Gamma, there's nothing to be afraid of. Koschei here is going to fix you right up."

Koschei crowded up behind the Doctor to peer into the TARDISes' interior, and immediately regretted it. That was his console room. That was his console room, and someone had changed the skin to 'Princess White', complete with bunches of lilies and a gauzy canopy around the central engine column.

"Am I, Doctor? Am I really?" Koschei sighed.

The Doctor placed a warning hand on his hip. "I'm afraid so," he said, and Koschei was reminded of how very strong Doctor was; of exactly what sort of damage those arms could do, when the Doctor put his mind to it. Koschei's ear still stung and his cheek was bloody. If he avoided using a tissue regenerator, the wound would definitely leave a notch.

"Very well, then." Koschei grumbled, feeling flushed.

The insufferable little robot girl came skipping up through the console room, and the Doctor pulled away from Koschei so that she might hug him hello.

"Yes, that's right, there's a good girl," the Doctor murmured. "Don't worry, I'm right here."

He spun the Executrix around by the shoulders so that Koschei could look her in the LCD-patterned eyes. Koschei did so, mostly because it was preferable to dealing with the Doctor's glaring. Honestly, the man could be so petulant about the most minor of issues. Koschei was beginning to realize that a partnership with the Doctor meant inviting him to undermine Koschei's authority at every turn, and not just on special occasions.

"Speak if you like," Koschei told the Executrix. "Speak as you will. I release my hold on your psychic circuits." He snapped his fingers right in front of the Executrix's superfluous steel nose, and she flinched back against the Doctor with a tinny little squeak.

"Doctor!"

"Yes, hello, Gamma. You're all right?" The Doctor squeezed her shoulders.

The Executrix clasped her hands to her breast. "Core functionality was compromised. My mood could be have been qualified as: underclocked. But then I made a new friend, and we conducted social bonding activities!" She smiled over at the central console. "Our latest activity was known as the make-over. Please rate on standardized network scale."

The Executrix paused for a moment. "You may include 'white lie' modifier if appropriate," she hastened to add.

The Executrix pulled free of the Doctor and spun into a pirouette. Koschei noticed that the TARDIS had given her some of the black satin he kept on hand for costuming purposes.

"You traitor!" Koschei accused the delicate lattice console.

Infuriatingly, his TARDIS ignored him. Just as the Doctor was ignoring him. Even the wretched robot had lost her fear of him now that everyone was on her side.

"Oh, contain yourself," the Doctor told Koschei, preempting a further outburst. "You're a hundred years too old to make that face." He turned his attention back to the Executrix. "You look very charming, Gamma. I myself favour velvet, but I understand that not everyone can wear the fabric of gentlemen."

The Doctor adjusted the ruffles in his lapel, and Koschei's memory proffered the image of a robin preening at its bright neck feathers. Good heavens. How much time had he been spending on Earth?

Koschei took a half-second to smooth the hem of his fur-lined cloak.

"Doctor," Koschei prompted. "I believe you we came here for a purpose, my dear. Unless you're having second thoughts?"

The Doctor brightened, dashing Koschei's faint hope that he might have reached an epiphany about Koschei's plan within the last five minutes. "Ah yes. Quite right. Gamma, we've got some wonderful new pets for you to make friends with, while Koschei and I whip up a teleport jammer. We need you to get their quantum IP coordinates so that the jammer can override their teleport bandwidth and send them back home. You like fluffy animals, don't you?"

The Executrix bounced back and forth on her footpads. "Confirmed! Confirmed!"

How delightful. His beautiful, glorious, entirely appropriate plan was being dismantled by a fop and a girl. It had been one thing to offer his work of genius up as a sacrifice to the Doctor's bleeding hearts. Watching his long-cherished plot be dismantled right before his eyes was quite another.

But if the Doctor's company had come without pain and frustration, then Koschei supposed he never would have been able to trust it.

+++

It took less than a minute for the room to degenerate into a kicking, punching, shooting, screaming, chaotic mess of a dust-up. Beer was thrown as well as punches. A candelabra fell and set a table on fire. Adelaide guessed that this was what a proper bar brawl must look like, assuming that the people in the bar brawl carried weapons from out of a sci-fi vidstream.

She and Hawking crossed prone bodies and flailing combatants, making their way towards the Queen. Her servants had fled and her guards were pinned at the entranceway. She was huddled in her throne, clutching a flagon of wine as though it were a lifeline.

How terrible it must be, to be so friendless.

They reached her just in time to keep a disoriented-looking time traveler from shooting her in the face. Hawking tackled him around the waist, and then Adelaide knocked him out by bashing in the back of the head with a stray fragment of bench.

Once that was done with, Hawking tipped the head table over to serve as a shield, sending platters of rich food crashing down the floor. Adelaide pulled Queen Isabelle off her throne and behind their makeshift cover.

"Right. Hello." Crap, should she have bowed? She didn't have time for this. "I'm Adelaide. He's Hawking. And those lot are all-- uh, demons."

"Demons!" Queen Isabelle shook.

"Demons from hell," Adelaide clarified, in case there were other kinds of mediaeval demons she wasn't aware of. She was really beginning to regret napping through her mandatory history requirements.

Hawking joined the behind the table and placed a heavy hand on Queen Isabelle's shoulder. "Don't be scared. We're here to help."

"I'm not scared!" Queen Isabelle snuggled against Hawking's side. "I'm the Queen of England! These demons would not dare lay a hand on a woman of my position." She punctuated this statement with a flick of her fan, then peered coquettishly up Hawking over the fan's edge. "Do you not think I have the favour of God, good sir knight? Perhaps my dear husband has sent these demons to ruin my party."

Hawking used his spare hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "This is bad. This is really, really bad."

Queen Isabelle did not notice, as she was busy making happy drunken snuggling noises against his chest.

"Don't worry," Adelaide said. "As I told you, I've got backup coming."

"What kind of backup?"

One of the chandeliers exploded. Hawking pushed a giggling Isabelle to the ground, and Adeliade raised her arms to shield her head. Fortunately the debris fell into a group of shrieking insect-people.

"Time Lords," Adelaide whispered. "My friend, the Doctor, and a... time policeman, of sorts."

"Bullshit," Hawking declared.

"Oh. Oh, I see. Sir Gilles and his gentleman friend will be around to sort this out." Queen Isabelle wriggled back up into a sitting position, defeating Hawking's frantic attempts to keep her contained. She must have a lot of practice evading handsy men. Adelaide supposed that she was very good-looking, for a certain value of pretty. "'Time Lords'," the Queen grabbed up her goblet, just in time to scoff into it. "Would that be a sort of agent of the Pope? My, that would explain a lot."

"That doesn't explain anything!" Hawking complained.

A robot rat thing careened around the corner, and put its bright little beady eyes on their position. Adelaide could see that Hawking's doublet was bunched up around his hips. She was willing to bet that he had some guns holstered in there; so willing that she lifted his tunic up, grabbed one, and started firing wildly at the rodent. A childhood worth of video-games served her well, and the cyber-rat collapsed in a bunch of fried circuitry.

Fuck it, maybe she was famous after all. She'd just rescued the bloody Queen of England.

"This reminds me of my husband's fortieth birthday!" Queen Isabelle exclaimed, fumbling her hand across Hawking's abdomen.

Adelaide was struck with the chilling thought that her whole world might cease to exist without this woman.

"Less talking, more shooting," Adelaide declared.

Hawking nodded and drew his other weapon. Together, they might have a hope of fending off the horde.

+++

Koschei, the Doctor, and the Executrix all trooped back to the Doctor's primary research lab and got to work. Koschei was pleased to see that his earlier tidying had not been entirely undone yet. A few test-tubes were spilled haphazardly over the workbenches, but the sinks at least looked sanitary, and there was nary a speck of dust to be found. Koschei had long suspected that the Doctor's TARDIS spread debris around its interior purely as a matter of spite. The Doctor, no doubt, would say that it gave his home 'character.'

Both ships were Koschei's, now, in a manner of speaking, so this one was simply going to have to learn to mind her manners. Koschei hoped that his own ship would not pick up any bad habits, though he couldn't help the hazy thrill he felt, when he imagined the Doctor's clutter unexpectedly appearing in his rooms.

The Doctor wasted no time in wheeling an old-fashioned chalkboard out for them to work on.

"We'll design our jammer here. Gamma, do you need to do any preparation for your friending procedures?"
The Execturix shook her head. "Math and designing!" She chirped. "I can help you!"

"We shall take care of the math and engineering," Koschei told her, "since it's quicker to calculate in Gallifreyan." He seized possession of a stick of chalk and pretended not to notice the Doctor rolling his eyes. The Doctor could feign disinterest all he liked; Koschei knew very well that he wouldn't want to miss out on working the equations either. Computer calculation was so boring.

Mental calculation, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. Koschei finished explaining the technical intricacies of the cyber-rats, and then he and the Doctor were off to the races, crossing one another's lines and finishing one another's equations. Just like old times. The Doctor was more physical in this body than he had been as Theta – his preferred method of reaching past Koschei seemed to involve pressing up against Koschei's back – but otherwise it was the same as always.

Oh, he'd missed this so much.

"Brilliant," the Doctor said, once they were finally in possession of a working prototype. Koschei slid his gloves back over his singed fingertips. It had been a while since he'd had to work such an antiquated solder.

"Let's get this over with," Koschei replied.

Gamma unfolded herself from the corner where she'd been sitting, and they headed back to Koschei's console room. Koschei was easily able to pilot them all into the great hall, no thanks to the Doctor's TARDIS, who'd gotten the unruly notion to drag them all off towards Metabilis Three.

The Doctor hefted the jammer, the Executrix cracked her non-existent knuckles, and together they exited through the large police-box door. Immediately upon their exit Kochei was assaulted with the noise of a dozen different battle-cries. Then someone hit him with a meat pie to the side of the head. He dove away from the TARDIS, hoping to draw some meagre bit of attention away from his new partner.

"Doctor! If you please!"

"Hold on, old chap." The Doctor said. "Here we go!"

The Doctor flung their jammer up to the rafters, where it let out a pulse of sickly green light. Then the Executrix darted forward to grab up one of the rats. It bit and scratched at her polymer casing, cutting gouges in her chest with its laser eyes. She sunk her fingernails into the back of its skull and let out a string of ugly binary syllables.

A blonde woman – Adelaide Booke? -- screamed out a profanity and started trying to battle towards them. She wasn't the only member of the riot who seemed ready to descend upon the conspicuous new arrivals. Koschei dearly wished for his sword.

"D-Doctor!" Gamma's eyes re-focused, and she flung the rat away from her with all her might. "Forced friending has been achieved. I have their quantum IP!"

"Give it here," the Doctor ordered.

She did so, and with a flick of his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor remotely reversed the polarity of their jammer's neutron flow. The jammer fixed on the cyber-rats' quantum IP coordinates and unceremoniously transported them back from whence they came.

Gamma then snapped her fingers, and rest of the quarreling time travelers fell unconscious. Koschei suddenly found himself in a room with a few dozen slumbering spies, some weeping primitives, a very confused Time Agent, and of course the Doctor's followers.

"What?" Koschei asked, feeling thick-tongued and foolish.

Apparently he'd missed a part of the plot.

"The Google-Exxon Imperium has a user-base of over ten trillion sub-friends." The Executrix managed to sound almost sly. It was possible (if unlikely) that Koschei had underestimated her. "All the travellers here had already joined. I have invoked my admin privilege to down-vote them into slumber mode."

With that, she skipped off to join her travelling companions, leaving Koschei standing alone in the rubble. He set about scrubbing pie residue out of his beard.

+++

Queen Isabelle had fallen asleep at some point during the fray, and Adelaide was extremely thankful for that. It had kept her from screaming about the rats so much, and now that the Doctor was here, it meant that Adelaide didn't have to mind what she said so as to keep from polluting the timeline.

Hawking stowed Queen Isabelle back on her throne while Adelaide dropped her weapon and ran to rejoin her friends.

"Doctor!" Adelaide laughed, feeling lightheaded. It might be the wine, but it probably wasn't. Travelling with the Doctor, travelling and winning, was unlike any rush she'd ever had.

"Addie," the Doctor nodded, eyes sparkling.

"So you did come through."

"Was there any doubt?" The Doctor actually managed to look offended.

"Not for long," Adelaide said. "Gamma, you were amazing."

Gamma skipped past the Doctor and pulled Adelaide into one of her legendary rib-crushing hugs. This time, Adelaide didn't mind so much. Gamma was reassuringly solid. "Thank you for liking my actions, Adelaide! My primary emotional status is: relieved! My secondary emotional status is: happiness."

Gamma snuggled her head into Adelaide's breast. Adelaide was almost too busy flinching away from the overheated metal to notice that the Lord Inspector was speaking. He looked pretty happy too. Adelaide hoped that he choked on it.

"Now, ladies, I hate to break up your touching reunion, but the Doctor and I will be escorting you both home immediately."

The Doctor took Adelaide and Gamma by the hand, and led them both over to the TARDIS door.

"No we won't," the Doctor said.

"What?" The Lord Inspector froze.

"I said, no we won't," the Doctor repeated.

The Lord Inspector's weapon fell from his nerveless fingers. "I don't understand."

"Nonsense. Of course you do. You're willfully blind, when it suits you, but a genius of your calibre can't possibly be that thick." The Doctor rolled his eyes. "You couldn't have thought for one second that I would really give up my entire way of life to travel the universe as your glorified sidekick, assassinating scientists and handing out parking tickets." The Doctor tried to push Gamma and Adelaide into the TARDIS ahead of him. Adelaide let him, since she was more than happy to get getting the hell out of there.

"If I were willing to compromise for you, for anyone, then I would have done it centuries ago. I am not that man. I wouldn't be able to respect myself if I were. Get over it."

If it were anyone else, Adelaide thought he might have been pleading. But this was the Doctor, so that was impossible, full stop.

"Come on, Gamma," Adelaide pulled Gamma towards the interior of the time machine. "Put some ice on it, Hawking," she called out behind her, hoping that he could hear her through the TARDIS's protective barriers.
Adelaide couldn't see how the Lord Inspector was reacting to this, but she could guess that he wasn't too pleased. Thankfully she hadn't much reason to care.

"Koschei." The Doctor paused in the doorframe. Looked down at the ground. Swallowed. "I'll... see you around."

The Doctor locked the door behind him, and soon enough, the TARDIS was wheezing them out into the Vortex.

+++

Koschei looked at the afterimage of the Doctor's time machine for as long as he could bear it. In his mind's eye, he could still make out the contours of its frame – the silly sign on the doorway, the irregularities in the wood grain, that maddeningly conspicuous blue. But there was nothing there but plain grey stone, and the dull iron maiden that he presumed to be his own TARDIS. She might be responding to his mood. Trying to sympathize. Except his mood was flat, and detached, and empty, and so her attempt at wit barely registered.

Koschei gathered the tattered remains of his dignity around him and pivoted on his heel, putting the ghost of the police-box firmly behind him. The Time Agent was gawping in his general direction. He should probably kill the boy, or wipe his memory to keep him quiet about the existence of Time Lords. That was protocol. There was always protocol.

Instead of following protocol, Koschei favoured the boy with a long, blank stare.

"You. Help me gather up the Queen's surviving staff. I'll need to rewrite the memories of any natives who were in this hall."

The Time Agent scrambled into a standing position.

"You really are a Time Lord!" He squeaked, wide-eyed and bog-stupid. "And you came here to stop all this."

"Correct," Koschei lied reflexively.

"And that was Adelaide Brooke." The Time Agent bobbed back and forth, grinning like a loon. "Holy shit. Adelaide Brooke punched me in the balls." He stopped moving for long enough to stuff his hands in his pockets. "Sorry about your boyfriend, man. That guy's a douche."

Koschei exhaled. In and out, like they'd taught him. Nothing else mattered now. None of this felt real. It was though he were looking down on himself, watching a stranger fumble on through his humiliation. It was so far from everything he'd ever dreamt of. How could it possibly be true?

"It's not your concern," he said.

"Hey, don't be like that." The Time Agent circled around to clap him on the back. "Here. For saving human history." He pried open Koschei's palm, and dropped what appeared to be a cats-eye opal into it. "I smuggle rare jewels on the side. Nothing major, just, y'know. Keeping in the game. The Agency lets us go about our business, so long as the jobs get done and nothing gets real screwed up."

Honestly, Koschei should be killing the boy. Any minute now. When he could move again.
He looked down at the stone in his hand.

"Thank you."

The Time Agent nodded, and got down to work. It was an exhausting piece of business and one which Koschei would have preferred to resolve without the boy's constant prattle. But if the boy stopped talking, then Koschei would have to start thinking, so. There was that.

Hours later, when the reconstruction work was complete, Koschei left his erstwhile assistant in the arms of Queen Isabelle and returned to the depths of his TARDIS. He did not pause to change her skin back to something more masculine. He barely noticed the white marble floors and delicate carved archways. The contents of his precious folders were spilled out all over the hallways. He crushed the well-loved parchments beneath his boot-heels, and did not falter.

Eventually he reached his communications room. He scribbled the correct password and encryption onto the messaging tablet, and summoned up the hologram of his nominal superior.

"Lord Superintendent."

"Don't bother, Koschei." The Lord Superintendent wiped some imaginary sweat from his brow. "Executrix Gamma already contacted us about the situation and forwarded the files."

"The files?"

"Your files. Your little... power fantasies." The Lord Superintendent's lip curled. "We have protocols for a reason, Koschei, and this cock-up shows exactly why they are in place."

Inhale. Exhale. Koschei could do this. By now it was practically instinct. If he wanted to make this go away he was going to have to show a little throat.

"Lord Superintendent," he said, cravenly, "if you'll allow me to explain--"

"I most certainly will not!" The Lord Superintendent barked. "Summoning Daemons? Trying to start a war between the Draconians and the Daleks? It's madness, and it shows that we never should have put you on such a long leash when you consistently cheat your psych evaluations."

A whine built up in the back of Koschei's throat. "Lies. All lies. The Executrix is trying to discredit me. I would never--"

The Lord Superintendant leapt to his feet. "Do you take me for a fool?" He roared. "I am your commanding officer!" He slammed the palm of his hand down on his desk, sending documents flying, before he came back to his senses and composed himself enough to sit back down in his chair.

"Return to Gallifrey, Koschei, and surrender your TARDIS," he continued, in the low voice of a man talking an invalid down from the edge of the Panopticon walkway. "We'll put you back into therapy. In a few decades you'll return to the field a better man for it. The primitive has done a good thing here. She called herself a friend of your TARDIS, and I believed her. We'll get you help before this goes too far."

"No," Koschei said.

The Lord Superintendent's head tilted quizzically to the side. Like a puppet with the strings cut. "No?"

"No. I don't need your help," he enunciated, slowly, as though speaking to a small child. "What I need is to take control."

Something in Koschei thawed, in that moment. It felt as though he were occupying his own body again. He registered the light from the hearthfire and the faint smell of smoke, the hum of the engines and the feel of leather on his fingertips. His face twisted into a furious snarl and a formless wail tore out of his throat.

Koschei picked up the communications access pad and brought it down, hard, against the edge of the table. The Lord Superintendent's image disappeared in an outraged burst of static, and the device broke in two with a satisfying crack.

+++

When Adelaide returned to the Doctor's TARDIS she spent at least an hour in the bath, slept for over half a day, ate an entire plate of hash-browns, and visited Mo in the recovery room.

Then, once she was feeling like herself again, she decided to go hunt down the Doctor.

Luckily for Adelaide, he'd ensconced himself in the central console room instead of some far-flung solarium. He was leaning over the console and staring at the TARDIS' diagnostic screens, as though he were waiting for his ship to give him some sort of sign. And who was Adelaide to say it was pointless? She didn't know one fifth of what the TARDIS was capable of. Maybe it could record the heartbeat of the universe.

"Do you let him catch you?" She asked, as she walked into the room.

The Doctor glanced up, with a start. "I beg your pardon?"

"No you don't," Adelaide said. She sat on the edge of the console, a little too close for the Doctor's comfort. "You owe me answers, Doctor, and after the rubbish I've put up with these past two weeks, you don't get to beat around the bush."

The Doctor hunched his shoulders, returning his attention to the displays. "I can't imagine where you picked up this appalling lack of tact," he said.

Adelaide was having none of it.

"Doctor! Do you or do you not let him catch you?"

"Sometimes," the Doctor admitted, his bluster fading into something quieter and more brittle. "Not every time. Not when I don't have to. He really is frightfully clever, when he's not being stupid. That hasn't changed since we were at school together."

"I met my boyfriend in graduate school," Adelaide commented, more than a little pointedly.

The Doctor didn't seem to notice.

"He wants me to be someone I'm not. It's disappointing, and it's exasperating, and it's- it's ridiculous, that's what!" The Doctor's monologue built steam, working up to a full-on rant. "He, of all people, should know me so much better than that. Except no, evidently he doesn't, and he can't abide having anything good for too long without going and making it complicated. Him with his plans within plans and his law and his ludicrous ideas about universal order."

The Doctor closed his eyes. "I didn't do anything wrong by playing on his desires," he said. "Koschei brought it on himself."

Adelaide tried not to feel offended that a question about her being kidnapped and brainwashed had somehow devolved into a bitch session about the Doctor's on-again-off-again relationship. The Doctor had a lot of good qualities. Being considerate wasn't one of them.

Anyway, Adelaide could sort of understand how the Doctor had felt. Her boyfriend a great guy: smart, and kind, and fun. But ever since they graduated it was like he'd lost all his ambition. He was happy being a contract lecturer in theoretical physics while Adelaide wanted so much more. It made things... difficult.

Though at least he'd never locked anyone in a room for a week and a half.

Okay, so, maybe Adelaide was offended. But she had to think about this strategically. The more distracted the Doctor became, the more likely he was to be honest.

"And how would you rather he be?" Adelaide asked.

The Doctor fell silent for a long moment.

"Different," he finally supplied.

Adelaide sighed. "So what is it that you plan to do with us? If he doesn't come back 'round again to take us off your hands before things get messy."

"He'll be back. He has to be back. He's like spyware. Once you let him into your system you can't ever be rid of him. He's always popping up trying to rewrite code," the Doctor insisted. "Let that be a lesson to you about feeding scraps to strays. Once they think they can rely on you for handouts, they'll follow you anywhere."

Adelaide refrained from sighing a second time. This distraction business wasn't working out as well as she'd hoped. She needed more information and fewer mixed metaphors.

The Doctor was supposed to be someone that she could rely on, no matter what. And now she found that she was really only-- what, a pet to him? Something for the pound to pick up, neuter, and de-claw, before being packed off home?

"That's not an answer to my question," Adelaide said.

Something in her expression must have shaken the Doctor out of his sulk, because he straightened his spine, pulled away from the console, and put his hands on her shoulders. The Doctor could be very gentle, for such an imposing man.

"Look here. I know what you're thinking about me, my dear girl, and your suspicions are incorrect. I firmly believe that all my friends remember me on some level, when they are stout of heart and strong of mind. The experiences you've lived can't ever truly be forgotten. Not when you're made of them. Eleventh-century alcohol is being processed in your liver, and the pigment of your skin recalls exposure to a white dwarf star."

The Doctor gave her a small smile, as though it were a peace offering. "Koschei isn't wrong. I do have to let you go. There's the timeline to think of, as well as your potential. But before you're taken from me, I give you as many of memories as I can. And I always remember my companions when they have gone. Not as famous people, or historical figures, but as they really were. It's my privilege."

There wasn't much to say to that. Adelaide had never been good with these kinds of conversations. So instead she grabbed the Doctor and wrestled him into a hug.

Neither Adelaide nor the Doctor were much good at hugs, either, but somehow they muddled through.

"I'd like to go someplace where they serve really good food, Doctor." Adelaide hid her watery eyes in the Doctor's shoulder. "And after that, I'd like you to take me home."

"Whatever for?" The Doctor asked, though he didn't sound surprised.

Adelaide relaxed for what felt like the first time in months.

One day, in the future, she was going to make it to the stars underneath her own power. She was going to have a serious talk with her boyfriend, and live her stupid life, and maybe be famous, and all that was... scary, but okay. Really, truly okay.

If she could rescue the Queen of England, what the hell couldn't she do?

"Someone's got to go be Adelaide Brooke, and I think I'm just the woman for the job."

+++

Koschei waltzed into the squad room as though he owned the place, flanked by a squadron of flunkies and handlers whom he would be arranging terrible accidents for as soon as possible. He needed them to make this official. And once that was done with, he would need no one at all.

No one who couldn't be dealt with, at least.

The men, women, and intersexed who worked in this place were a motley crew at best, decked out in a mishmash of period styles and faded battle scars. They lounged on beat-up old desks and never-used filing cabinets. Koschei felt out of place in his neat new black suit. That would be the first thing he'd be changing about this dump.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and reasonable facsimiles thereof." Koschei raised his voice, silencing the chatter of the crowd. "Your sergeants have gathered you here today so that I may deliver an important announcement.
Behind him, one of the handlers activated a recording device. He presumed she led a double life as an Imperial security agent. Koschei would be scornful of her poor form and lack of deftness, but sadly, he had to give her credit for being the only person in the room paying rapt attention to him. The drones he was addressing hadn't learned that lesson.

Yet.

"Throughout the cosmos, the operatives of this Time Agency are known as murderers, cheats, liars, and frauds. You concoct petty schemes and call them missions. Your superiors fund them because they'd rather pay you off than try to recall all of the vortex manipulators that have gone missing from requisitions. All told, it's a passable scam to expropriate government technology and funds." Koschei favoured them with a slow clap. "Well done."

The Time Agents exploded into a flurry of shouting, and Koschei made out profanities from at least five different galactic civilizations. Did these whelps think they were about to intimidate him? It nothing he hadn't heard before, over the course of his career in law enforcement.

Koschei frowned, raised his Laser Compression Blaster, and shot a retcon grenade straight out of the hands of a Time Agent who'd apparently thought he could pull a fast one and gas Koschei's entirely party. The sudden compression of organic gas caused the grenade to implode, its concentrated contents spilling out over the Time Agent's hands and rendering him a drooling vegetable.

That shut the rest of the room up quite nicely. Someone bundled the unfortunate retcon victim off to the washrooms. Koschei put his genial face back on.

"Is that how you usually deal with Imperial inspectors? I'm afraid you're a bit far off the mark. Now, you must hear me out," Koschei continued. "I have discussed this situation with your patrons in the Imperial Parliament. We have agreed that there is nothing fundamentally amiss with an espionage agency that is staffed with murderers, cheats, liars, and frauds, but that you could stand to act with a bit more... vision. For that reason, I will be taking over command of this organization effective immediately."

"Fuck me. I didn't see, without all that armour claptrap on-- but it's you! Guys, it's the one I told you about." One of Koschei's new subordinates piped up from the back. Ah, yes. The boy who had helped him with Queen Isabelle.

Koschei shrugged an assent.

"I am a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and I will be your new master."

Hm. No, that didn't sound quite right. It lacked eloquence. It lacked style. Koschei was done with living the bland, utilitarian life of a wretched civil servant. He was going to bring law to the whole wide universe, and that law would be written in his own hand.

Queen Isabelle had been right about one thing. Koschei must become a man that the Doctor dare not take his eyes off of. Not ever again. For so long as the Doctor was captivated, the Doctor would be his, no matter how great his scorn or how empty his promises.

"I am the Master." The Master corrected himself, and smiled.

"I am the Master, and you will obey me."

+++

Epilogue: Five Years Later (Gallifreyan Relative Time)

The Master removed his space suit, ran a hand through his hair, and checked the neatness of his beard in the surface of a polished chrome display. He spent several moments fidgeting with his appearance until he could be sure that he was the very picture of sleek black military propriety. Then he overrode the encryption on the blast doors, so that his people could join him in the control room. Moonbase Excelsior was now under new management.

The Master floated motionlessly in front of the main control bank, while a squad of dishevelled-looking Time Agents bounced into the room. Their Sergeant broke off to greet him while the rest of them flitted about securing the prisoner.

"We disabled the air quality control system while we were down there." The Sergeant saluted, quite sharply, and then ruined the gesture with a cheeky wink. "You're good to go, sir."

"Excellent."

Smoking a cigar in zero gravity was a terrible idea by almost any standard. The Master chose to light up anyway. He liked the way that the smoke made his lungs feel heavy, and cast a dashing, mysterious haze about his person. Between the cigar and the notch in his ear he felt pleasantly rakish.

"Tell your colleagues to keep his people busy for a few hours until I am free to deal with them." The Master told his minion, between puffs. "No killing, no unlicensed sex clubs, the one who brings me the best intelligence on the Doctor's travels will get to be the lounge singer in the Osirian mob takeover."

The Sergeant nodded, while had the effect of propelling her slightly backward. She kicked out her feet in a vain attempt to keep from rotating.

"Sure thing, boss," she said. Then she gave up on defeating momentum and spun towards the door. Her squad recognized a hint when they saw one, and quickly alit to follow after.

"That's 'Master' to you!" The Master yelled after them.

The blast doors rotated shut in their wake, and they gave no indication of having heard him.

"Good luck!" One of the Time Agents shouted, to a chorus of cackles and wolf whistles.

And then they were gone.

The Time Agents had, at least, been thoughtful enough to chain the Doctor at the foot of the jet-age command chair that looked out over Moonbase Excelsior's bridge. The Master drifted down into a seated position.

"Did that henchman just give you a thumbs-up?" The Doctor asked.

"No," the Master said. "I believe that gesture is more properly termed a double thumbs-up."

"Ah. Well." The Doctor attempted not to look nervous, and did an exceptionally poor job of it. "It has been a while, Koschei. Business as usual?"

The Master's hand drifted down from the elbow rest, and ruffled the short hair at the nape of the Doctor's neck. The Doctor made an offended little noise in the back of his throat.

"You'll find that I go by 'the Master' these days," the Master informed him.

"Really?" The Doctor said. "That's certainly... a name."

The Master responded to the Doctor's dubious tone in the best way he knew how: by yanking back on a clump of the Doctor's hair, causing the Doctor to hiss and squirm at the pain in his scalp.

"Indeed it is. And do you know what your Master is going to do with you now, Doctor?" The Master hauled the Doctor up by the scruff of his neck, so that he was forced to look at him.

"Tell me I'm a very bad man?" The Doctor said, waspishly, his demeanour at odds with the way the tension in his bonds slackened. Some part of the Doctor was evidently relieved by this turn of events. The Master hoped that it was a part which was connected to the more entertaining bits. "Warm up the space lasers? Confiscate my companions? Perhaps you've got a regulation that you'd like to go on about. I could use a good nap."

The Master chuckled, more dryly that he might have liked.

"No, Doctor. I make the regulations now. And I'm going to do whatever I please."

"Is that so?" The Doctor breathed.

"Absolutely."

The Doctor did not smile. He'd been generous with his smiles in his second body, and so it fell to this incarnation to be frugal with expressions of approval as a point of pride. But the Master didn't miss the way his breath hitched, or the twinkle that dawned in the depth of his eyes.

"Let's see you try, then," the Doctor dared him.

It went without saying that the Master would oblige.