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Chapter Text

Sergeant Mike Yates liked to think he was a fairly reasonable man. He believed in aliens, anyone who worked at UNIT had to have some level of belief to get through the workday. Besides, working with the Doctor opened one’s eyes to really anything being possible. But the Time Lord hadn’t been back on Earth in a while. After having his banishment lifted and regenerating into a new man, it seemed the man would rather spend as much of his time away from Earth as he could. Mike couldn’t say he blamed him. Though he knew that those who had worked with the man missed him dearly. Alistair liked to joke that things had gotten too quiet. The last genuine alien threat had been almost over a year ago and, though calls still came in, nothing substantial seemed to be found. They should be thankful. Without the Doctor there, the bigger threats felt overwhelming even to them.

What irony it was then, that something would happen on a simple train journey back down to London. Yates had been investigating reports of a strange object out in the woods in Sheffield. The person who’d found it had told them that it had been almost an onion shape, but massive and blue and freezing to the touch. By the time UNIT had got there, however, it had gone. There was evidence of it being there. The ground it had been sat on had been frozen, as though it had sat in below zero weather for a few days but the weather in Sheffield had been nothing but sunny and warm in the last week. He’d called back to UNIT HQ and Lethbridge-Stewart had told him to bring what samples he could get back to London, while the rest of his men searched the surrounding areas for any clues. He’d only just left the station in Sheffield, 15 minutes ago, when the train had suddenly made a sharp stop, throwing he and the other passengers on board to a violent stop. He’d been quick to his feet, assessing the other civilians on board with him for any damage. There was one older couple, the husband quickly helping his wife to her feet after they’d been thrown off of their seats. A young man had fallen against the doors who’d been waiting patiently for his upcoming stop was clutching the yellow bar next to the glass separation panel between the doors and the seats tightly.

Mike checked quickly on the samples tucked away in a locked box on the seat next to him. The box had shifted but it, luckily, hadn’t fallen from the seat. He pushed it back to make it secure then went to check on the civilians to ensure they were all okay. The older couple waved him off in thanks and the younger man told him it was all okay as he slowly let go of the bar.  Mike had moved to the doors, intending on moving through to go check on the driver. It was only when he found himself unable to unlock either those doors or the side ones out of the train that he began to worry, an uneasy feeling settling in his gut. He’d just moved the couple towards the doors when there was a sudden loud scraping noise, like metal ripping through metal. He watched the passengers run screaming from the other carriages and that uneasiness in his gut expanded into a full-blown worry. He didn’t even think alien. He just immediately worried about any kind of attack. The ripping metal sound soon made itself known again, this time directly above them and Yates quickly moved the civilians behind him as the roof of the carriage was torn open. A creature made its way inside and it was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. It seemed to float, shrouded in a blue energy that held the mass of tentacle like wires and tubes that made up its body together.

It was at the other end of the carriage but was slowly encroaching on them, mass of arms lifting towards them and reaching out. The civilians cowered behind him and Yates was frantically trying to get the doors to open to get them to safety.

The creature had just reached the halfway point when something else had fallen through the roof between it and them. It had taken Yates until the thing moved to realise that it wasn’t a thing and was instead a person. A woman. In what looked to be men’s clothes that were torn and entirely too big for her. Her blonde shoulder length hair was mussed up every which way and she looked dazed and confused. She staggered to her feet, clutching her head until her gaze focused on them, she was apparently ignorant of the creature behind her.

“Oh, hello?” she tilted her head upwards, through the hole she’d fallen through with a confused squint, “what?”

“Ma’am! Please.” Yates grabbed at her arm, tugging her towards him and just barely out of the way of the creature as one of its tentacles swung for her. It barely missed her head and she let out a gasp, spinning round and finally seeing it. Her mouth dropped out as she gaped.

“Oh!” she’d looked around frantically, then a hanging electrified wire had caught her attention and she’d pulled from Yates’s grip to grab it and thrust it into the creature which had begun spasming as though in pain before it dropped to the ground, completely still. Like a pile of metal tubes just dumped on the spot. The woman spun to them, still holding the wire in one hand and grinned, “that should buy us a second.’ At the looks they continued to give her she tilted her head, confused then glanced upwards again at the hole in the roof and made a face, “oh, yeah, long story. Tell you later, doors?”

“Locked shut.” Yates told her and she smirked, beginning to reach into her inside pocket.

“We’ll see about that.” The rummaging continued for another few seconds, getting more panicked as it went on before she stopped, her face concerned, “no sonic.” She continued rummaging into her other pockets, the concern growing yet again, “empty pockets.” She grunted in frustration, “oh, I hate empty pockets.”

“It’s coming back!” the young man cried out from behind Yates and the strange woman spun around and, despite Yates’ attempt to stop her, began creeping closer to the creature as the sparking blue electricity started back up and it slowly began to lift up off of the ground again.

“What are you?” it sparked violently, and the woman flinched backwards, holding up her hands for a second in surrender, “okay, you don’t like questions. More the private type, I get that.” She began backing up again only for it to surge forward suddenly, and she tossed herself into one of the seats off to the side and it moved passed her. Yates and the older couple pressed up against the doors whilst the young man threw himself into the first side chairs next to the doors and pressed up against the windows. It didn’t pass him. It seemed to focus on him.

“Get it away from me!” the young man cried out, looking frantically from Yates to the woman. She’d scrambled out of her seat and crept forward yet again towards it.

“All of you, stay very… still.”

“It’s going to kill us.” The young man whimpered out, cheek pressed up against the glass as the creature got closer still, his breath spanning out against the glass, fogging it up.

“It could’ve done that already.” She pointed out and Yates realised that she was right. The creature had stopped. It was staying hovered near the young man, tendrils and sparks of electricity dangerously near him but going no further. The woman tensed and tried to take another step closer when suddenly the thing sparked. Bolts of electricity shot out and hit everyone on the train with bolts of electricity that had them all doubling over and grabbing their necks in pain. Then it shot up, back through the hole in the roof and up into the night sky and disappeared in a flash of blue light. “You lot, relax, but stay put.” The woman looked to them, hand dropping from her neck, “I’ll check the rest of the train.” Then she spun on her heel and began moving back through the carriage towards the doors on the other side. Yates was quick to go after her.

“Hold on there, please, madam! I’m going to need to question you about this.” she stopped suddenly, turning to him with a look of intense confusion on her face.

“Why are you calling me madam?”

“Because you’re a woman.” Yates told her, both bemused yet worried about her behaviour. Her eyes widened at his words, her gaze snapping downwards over her own body as though she’d never seen it before. Then she looked up and positively beamed.

“Am I? Does it suit me?”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, yeah! I remember” her smile became more apologetic this time as she leaned forward, voice lowering to a semi-quiet whisper, “sorry, half an hour ago I was a white-haired Scotsman.” She whirled around to continue walking, “when’s the next train due?”

“This is the last one back.” He began going after her again, pausing only to inform the other civilians on board to stay put whilst they tried to find a way out, and wait for the authorities who would have been called by now by at least one of the other civilians who had escaped the train. The woman had stopped, and was staring at him intently, her head tilting a little to the left.

“Have we met? Who are you? Why do I know your face?”

“I have no idea. I’m Sergeant Mike Yates, ma’am. I’m certain we’ve never met before, I’m sure I’d remember.” She let out a soft noise of frustrated disappointment, turning away before turning back once more quickly to give his face another once over, then shook her head at herself and continued onwards, “ma’am, can I please get your name? Who are you? Do you require any medical attention?”

“When I can remember it!” she informed him.

“You don’t know your own name? Perhaps I should make a phone call for medical assistance-”

“Course I know it. I just can’t remember it. It’s right there on the tip of my…” she froze suddenly, whirling back around to him, her finger sitting on her outstretched tongue, “what’s that?” she asked, the words garbled.

“Your tongue?” he frowned, genuinely concerned for this woman’s mental and physical health now. She broke out in a delighted grin, however, and pointed at him.

“Tongue! Smart man, biology, Yates.” She paused once more and frowned, “are you sure we’ve never met? I’m certain I used to know a Yates.”

“Certain. There’s more than one Yates in the world.”

“Anyway, good name. Are you a Doctor?” she leaned forward suddenly, and he leaned back at how close she’d gotten, shaking his head.

“No.”

“Shame. I’m looking for a doctor.” His heart stuttered momentarily, his thoughts moved momentarily to UNIT’s former Scientific Adviser and he wondered if it was him she was searching for. Then he shook the thought from his head and told himself that this was perhaps simply an injured woman looking for medical help. Just one that could handle aliens. UNIT couldn’t be the only people on the planet that knew aliens. They finally reached the door at the end of the carriage and she reached to tug the door open. It moved. They were no longer trapped inside, apparently. They continued onward until they reached the front of the train and both paused upon finding the door into the driver’s cabin all but destroyed and there was a figure in the dark slumped over.

Yates attempted to pull her behind him, ready to step forward to keep her safe but she just shook him off and moved forward without fear. At once she’d turned to the wall of switches on their left whilst Yates moved to check on the train conductor.

“Power, lights, outside doors.” She pressed the corresponding buttons and he felt the rumblings of the train’s engines as it powered back on. The lights flickered to life and they both stared forlornly down at the man who had likely been attacked by the creature which had evidently crashed through the front window of the train, going by the large chunk missing from the front of the train.

“That thing must’ve killed him as it came through.”

“Must it?” he looked to her as she frowned down at the man, “Didn’t kill anyone else. Looks more like he died of shock when it smashed through the window.”

“Either way, a man has died here.” He scalded her softly, but she barely glanced up at him as she continued.

“But no more creatures, and no other passengers left on board.” She jolted upright and around suddenly, “let’s get back to the others.”

“Can you please wait, ma’am. This has been a major incident; I’m going to need to ask you to remain here.”

“What are you going to do?” she spun around, eyes narrowed, as though challenging him now to keep her in place and he squared his shoulders, putting on an authoritative tone.

“I’m going to make a call to my superiors.”

“What are you going to tell them?”

“The facts.”

“Which are?”

“That the train was attacked.”

“By what?”

“By something from unknown origins, believe me, ma’am, this isn’t the first extra-terrestrial thing to have come to Earth. I work for an organisation that deals with these kinds of things specifically. So, I’m going to have to ask you to return with the others and sit.”

“But what was it? Why is it here? Where’s it going next? And, most importantly, how do we stop it? Cos whatever it is, I don’t think it’s done.”

“And UNIT will deal with all of those queries.” He frowned at her, “we, the professionals, shall look into what happened here today, and, as soon as we have the answers, we will let you know. Now, please.” He motioned towards the other end of the carriage, back towards where the other civilians were, and she narrowed her eyes at him but complied.

He should have known better than to expect that she’d comply here.

“Right then, troops! No, not troops. Team, gang, fam?” she grinned expectantly at the older couple and young man who had all gotten to their feet as they’d entered the carriage, they all shared confused looks and the woman shook her head, “I’m distracting myself.”

“You came crashing through that roof!” the older woman exclaimed, pointing upwards at the hole in question.

“I was thrown out of my TARDIS.” Yates at once startled at the mention of the Doctor’s ship, coming to a stop behind the woman. She threw her head up to look up out of the hole in the ceiling with wide eyes, her tone gutted, “Oh, I’ve lost my TARDIS! It was exploding and then it dematerialised. Don’t panic. Not the end of the world. Well, it could be the end of the world, but one thing at a time.”

“Are we supposed to understand anything you’re saying?” asked the elderly man gently, glancing to his wife and then to Yates who was still stood behind the woman, staring fixedly at the back of her as she rambled.

He would have thought companion. But she’d said my TARDIS, twice now. The more she rambled the more like the Doctor she sounded. And the Doctor had changed his face before, twice now. Face and body. But this seemed impossible. Absolutely absurd. People didn’t just change genders. There had to be some rules to this. Perhaps she was simply another Time Lord?

“Was that thing an alien?” the young man piped up; his voice weak.

“Don’t be daft, son. There’s no such thing as aliens, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be on a train in Sheffield.” The older man spoke once more, softly scalding, yet reassuring, the younger man.

“Why not?!” the woman stepped in closer to the older couple’s seat, her expression earnest yet confused, “I’m alien and I’m here.”

Yates sucked in a heavy breath, his theory all but confirmed in his head and he realised instantly that he couldn’t let her go wandering off.

The older gentleman stared back at her for just a second before grabbing a hold of his wife’s hand and getting to his feet, evidently freaked out by this woman and everything she was saying. Yates couldn’t blame him. If he didn’t know better, he’d probably have thought this woman mad as well.

“We’re going.”

“No, sir, please. The authorities will be on their way, they will want to question you, and after that UNIT will be taking over this and you will need to give a statement to them as well, I apologise.” Yates quickly tugged the woman back and held out a reassuring hand to the man, “if you could just take your seat, they won’t be long.”

“She just saved our lives.” The older woman pointed out and the stranger smiled at her, evidently pleased to have someone on her side in this.

“Don’t be scared. All of this is new to you, and new can be scary. Now, we all want answers. Stick with me, you might get some.”

“I don’t want answers.” The younger man piped up, voice still weak, “I just want to get to work. And forget about all this.”

“I understand.” The strange woman gave him an understanding smile next then turned back to the rest of them, “Obvious question, but has anyone noticed anything else out of the ordinary tonight?” The other three civilians all looked between one another before, all three, giving her shakes of their heads and she scowled slightly to herself before whirling around to Yates, not caring as the man took a half step back at how close to him it put her. “Yates! What are you doing in Sheffield?” her gaze slid passed him to the box still sat tucked away in the seat closest to the wall that he’d been sat in earlier and she slid passed him, “ooo, what’s this?”

“That is confidential-” he never had a chance to stop her as she made quick work of the lock on it and pushed the lid open to peer inside. He sighed heavily, hands coming to sit on his hips as he came to a stop next to her, stood in the aisle still as she dropped onto one of the seats and sat the box on the table between the four facing seats. He lowered his voice so only she could hear, glancing over his shoulder to the other civilians before looking back to her as he explained, “UNIT got reports of a strange object that appeared in a forest earlier today. It was found by a young man searching for lost property. About hip high and it’s entirely below freezing. We’ve struggled to move it, it’s so cold. So it’s remaining where it was found for now, one of our scientific advisors will be returning with me from London tomorrow.”

“And these are samples?”

“What we could get from it, yes. But the sub-zero temperatures make it rather difficult to get anything substantial from it.”

“Show me it.” She looked up at him, eyebrows furrowed in determination and jaw set in a firm line and for a moment he almost felt like getting swept up in the notion of it all. It felt exactly like it used to with the Doctor, the feeling of being around someone who seemed to have all the answers, or, at least, was the most qualified to find them. It gave my credence to his theory in his head. However, he didn’t know for certain. And until he knew, he could do no such thing.

“No.” she scowled, visibly unhappy at his denial and pushed herself to her feet, clearly ready to lay into him in response when she’d suddenly wavered, eyes glazing over as she wobbled. He’d reached out to steady her but then she’d lurched over, like she was about to be sick and when she opened her mouth all that left her was a strange golden mist. An energy like nothing he’d ever seen before. Her entire being seemed to glow that same gold, for only a split second. The mist that had escaped her floated upwards, the human inhabitants of the carriage all watching, mesmerised, as the energy gently flew upwards, dissipating into the night sky up above like starlight. His eyes were drawn back to the alien on board when she staggered upright, and he finally reached for her once again.

“Are you alright?” he’d just gripped her shoulder when she locked eyes with her, her gaze struggling to focus on him.

“Can you catch me?” his eyebrows had just enough time to furrow in confusion before her eyes rolled back into her head and she’d dropped like a stone.

Chapter Text

“Well, where did she come from then?” Alister looked down at the woman as she lay on the hospital bed. She was blonde, dressed in torn men’s clothing that positively shrouded her. Yates shrugged. He’d rushed her to the nearest hospital with the emergency services that had arrived, asking for the police that had come to contact the UNIT men who were station in the city to come collect their three witnesses before he’d gone with the mystery woman to the hospital. He’d called the Brigadier almost as soon as they’d arrived, informing the doctor that spoke with them about his need for a private room for her and then informed said doctor that they were just going to make her comfortable whilst Lethbridge-Stewart brought up a doctor from UNIT to take over her case. If she was definitely alien, as she’d said, it wouldn’t do anyone any good to let that information get out. The Brigadier had arrived, 3 hours later, after having driven all the way from London. The woman hadn’t moved from the hospital bed. Hadn’t so much as woken up.

“She fell from the sky; I don’t know from where. She didn’t know her name, or where she came from. She said she was looking for a Doctor.” Alister paused, gaze darting to the Sergeant before back to her, eyebrow raising.

“Could she have been looking for the Doctor?” Yates had been about to inform him about her mentioning the TARDIS when Dr. Henderson had bustled into the room, clutching the woman’s test results and x-rays in his hands, interrupting their quiet conversation as he spoke.

“Whoever she is, she’s got a similar biological make-up to your Doctor.” He’d been the one to handle looking over the Doctor’s health the first time he’d shown up on Earth after regenerating. Alistair would have brought Dr. Sullivan but seeing as he was off travelling with UNIT’s former scientific adviser, he’d made do.

“Meaning?” he’d inquired with a tilt of his head and an eyebrow raise.

“Well, two hearts, binary vascular system, even the discrepancies in the blood are an exact match to last time. She even seems to have put herself into a similar kind of healing coma. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that they were the same person, of course that would be impossible.” As the man turned his back to them to hang up the x-rays, the Brigadier turned to Yates, his tone dry and his eyebrow raised further as he responded.

“Yes.” His gaze slid back around to the woman in the bed, “wouldn’t it just.”

“Perhaps they’re of the same species? The Doctor wasn’t the only Time Lord to ever come to Earth. The Master came, maybe someone else did as well.” Yates spoke up once Henderson slipped from the room once again and Lethbridge-Stewart shrugged, finally glancing back up.

“Yes, perhaps. Any sign of the TARDIS?”

“No, but the men are searching. No sign of a blue box yet.” Alistair let out a disappointed sigh into his fist with a shake of his head.

“Can’t be the Doctor then.”

“She did mention a TARDIS. Said she’d fallen from it, that it was blowing up. But she can’t be the Doctor. You’d really believe that she and him were the same person? She’s a she.”

“And the Doctor is an alien being who can change their entire DNA structure when dying. Who’s to say this isn’t at least a possibility?”

“Perhaps. Maybe this is another punishment from the Time Lords?”

“And how would that be any kind of punishment for an alien who traverses the universe?” the Brigadier allowed a bit of bite into his words and Yates seemed to easily back down, smiling apologetically as he held his hands up.

“You’re right. It was just a suggestion. Besides, we don’t know how women are treated on, what was it called again? Gallifrey? We don’t know how women are treated there. Women on this planet only got the vote 50 years ago.” Yates pointed out and Alister frowned, unhappy at the route this conversation seemed to have gone down.

“And yet, I’ve never known the Doctor to treat his companions with any less respect than he thought they deserved. I don’t think that’s it.” He paused and sighed once more, “there’s nothing for it, old chap, we shall just have to wait until she’s woken up.” He looked around to Doctor Henderson who had stepped back into the room, “do see that she gets changed out of these clothes doctor, they seem much too big for her. And give me a call should anything change?”

“Of course, Brigadier.” The doctor answered with a nod.

“Yates.” Alister paused, halfway towards the door when he realised Yates was following and sat a gentle hand on the man’s chest before pointing towards the woman, “last time we had something like this happen, the Doctor escaped no less than 3 times before being kidnapped. I think, perhaps this would be safer if you stayed? Or at least we had someone keep watch.”

“Of course, sir.” Yates nodded, already internally readying himself for what was going to be a few more hours of sitting here bored out of his mind as they waited for this woman to wake up. He wasn’t even certain they’d get the answers that they were looking for. She hadn’t seemed able to remember much back when she was awake before. The Brigadier informed him that he was going to take a look at the site where the strange object they’d been studying was and to get someone to fetch him immediately if she woke up or if anything else happened.

Yates watched over her for another two hours before something happened, sat on the bed next to hers when she’d let out a soft groan of pain. He’d looked around, just in time to see her give off a faint golden glow and exhale. The energy she exhaled was just as golden and mist like as before and he watched, mesmerised once again as it floated across the room before it seemed to dissipate. When he looked back at her the gold had disappeared, whatever the excess energy was had flown away with that spark and she settled back into a dreamless sleep once again.

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It was gone.

Alister could only gape for a few seconds at the shamefaced looking guards in front of him, his brain racing to put together any kind of series of events which could explain someone managing to escape with an unmovable alien artefact that seemed big enough to fit a full grown man. A pop-up tent had been hastily constructed around it, hiding it from view from any civilians who might have been moving through the woods. After sending out men to look for the TARDIS out of the relatively small crew that had been sent out in the first place, it had left just two men standing guard outside the tent. He’d figured that would be all that was needed. It wasn’t moving, couldn’t be moved and they were armed should anything go wrong. Apparently, he was spectacularly wrong.

“How in God’s name could someone just up and leave with it? Weren’t you two paying any attention?”

“Brigadier, sir, we were stood guard at our posts the entire time.”

“Well, someone got up here and got away with it, didn’t they? And neither of you two-” he cut himself off before he said something he’d regret and took in a deep breath to calm himself then addressed them, with more composure this time, “I want those out searching for the TARDIS to instead look for this artefact. You can only get into the TARDIS with the key, and we don’t even know if this woman is the Doctor, so until such a time, this artefact is our top priority. Someone knows what this thing is. They wouldn’t have taken it otherwise; I want you to find it and find out what they know.” He paused, eyes sliding back across the men disapprovingly, “expect to be disciplined accordingly once this whole mess has been sorted.” He let that threat hang in the air for a moment then spoke once more, his tone short, “dismissed.”

The two men saluted him, their faces pinched as they looked thoroughly scalded and then spun on the balls of their feet and moved quickly towards one of the nearby jeeps in order to go gain their necessary help in hunting down the artefact.

The Brigadier resisted the urge to mutter under his breath about the incompetence of the men under his staff and instead moved towards the tent to step inside of it again and see if he could pick up any more clues that might have been missed. The ground where the artefact had been was still frosted over, a large circle of ice which spoke volumes of just how cold the thing was considering the unusual heat in Sheffield this time of the year. Which, knowing Sheffield, wasn’t a sentence one used all that often. Upon finding nothing more than he had when he first stepped inside the tent the Brigadier sighed heavily and stepped back outside into the rapidly approaching darkness of night.

If the woman in that hospital bed was the Doctor, it could only mean that trouble was bound to be incoming. And if she wasn’t? The Brigadier had no clue what exactly he was supposed to do but he opted to do what he always did in these situations. Keep a calm head and hope that whatever they did was enough to keep the planet safe if the situation did worsen.

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“Ah! Ah! Oh!” Both Yates and Dr. Henderson jumped when the woman threw herself upright. Her eyes were wide, panicked, her hand coming to sit upon her chest, and she looked at them both, her words frantic, “who woke me up? I’m not ready. Still healing, still…” she trailed off, throwing the covers back and tumbling from the bed as she tried to get to her feet. Both men rushed to aid her but she was quick, scrambling from their holds and onto the bed to stand on it, face scrunching up in displeasure, “can you smell that?” she paused, “no, not smell, not hear, feel… can you feel…?” her hand came up to the spot on the side of her throat where the creature’s electricity had hit it and her panicked gaze fell on Yates alone. She reached for him, “Yates, stay still.”

“What is it? What’s the matter?” he took barely a second to wonder what was happening because she moved closer still to him, like one approaching a caged rabid animal, or perhaps a bomb. She reached out a hand, just slightly taller than him from her perch on top of the bed. He stepped closer to her as she motioned for him to do so.

“Show me your collarbone.” He shared a concerned glance to Henderson before he obligingly unbuttoned his first few buttons and pulled his shirt to the side for her to see. Both she and Dr. Henderson’s faces turned horrified. He tried to look down to see what it was but couldn’t at the angle, “Where are those other people that were on the train with us?”

“The old couple are being interviewed, the young man finished his, I’d imagine he’s on his way to work. What is it? What’s wrong?” She pulled her own hospital nightgown’s neck hole to the side and he frowned upon seeing the small blinking red light coming from just below her skin. He reached up to his own neck, trying to find the spot on himself.

“You need to bring him back.” She told him seriously, “now.”

“What are these?”

“Really sorry. Not good news. DNA bombs. Micro-implants which code to your DNA.” She jumped down from the bed and began pacing between the two men while she spoke, “on detonation, they disrupt the foundation of your genetic code, melting your DNA. Fast and nasty and outlawed in every civilised galaxy.” She stopped in front of Yates, once again pulling his shirt to the side so she could get a closer look.

“How did we get them?” he asked her, swallowing and trying to tamper down his fear, “are they going to detonate soon?”

“Quiet, I’m trying to think, It’s difficult, I’m not yet who I am.” She stepped back, “brain and body still rebooting, reformatting.” Her gaze slipped passed him, landing on something behind him and her eyes widened once again, “Oh! Reformatting! Can I borrow that?” Yates followed her around in a circle as she slipped passed him, her small hands tugging out the defibrillator tucked away under a table at the other side of the room.

“I suppose so. What for?” Henderson’s voice was wary, both men unsure of what was happening as she started doing something with it, she even quickly peeled the back off of it and fiddled around with some wires, not giving Henderson a chance to get a word in edgewise as she worked.

“That creature, on the train when it left, it zapped us all with these. Simple plan to take out the witnesses. Very clever. Merciless, but clever.” She slapped the back panel back onto the machine and lifted one of the defibrillator pads, “I reformatted it!” she seemed awfully proud of herself and Henderson could only gape in horror.

“No! That’s sensitive hospital equipment! It needs to be calibrated to a certain point otherwise-”

“Not anymore.” She cut him off with a big grin on her face and a casual shrug of her arms. Then she pressed the defibrillator pad against her collarbone and activated it before either man could stop her and the resulting spark of electricity from both the pad and the defibrillator itself, as it near exploded, caused her to drop the pad and she was thrown backwards with a yelp of what Yates could only suspect was pain after an electric shock like that. They’d both rushed to her aid, but she’d shot up almost instantly, a bright smile on her face, “That nap did me the world of good! Very comfy bed! Come on, keep up!” she’d just leaped towards the door, both Henderson and Yates once more moving to stop her, but the door opened before she could reach it and she stopped as the Brigadier stepped once more into the room. The man himself allowed his eyes to survey over the recent destruction of the room and he raised an eyebrow, calmly asking the room in good humour.

“Should I even ask?” he looked back down to the woman who he was near startled to see had leaned towards him, her eyebrows furrowed intently in intrigue and confusion as her eyes darted over his face a few times, “hello ma’am, you’re feeling better I hope?” he tried for a friendly greeting, hands clasped at his back as he subtly leaned away from her, “I wonder if I might inquire after your name? Sergeant Yates said you couldn’t remember it on the train, perhaps your time asleep has kickstarted some memories?”

“What’s your name?” the words came out rushed, an almost soft pleading to them and he frowned in concern but acquiesced to her question.

“I am Brigadier Alister Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, madam. Head of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, or for short, UNIT.” Her eyes widened for just a split second in recognition, Alister waited for the moment that she would open her mouth and tell him that she was the Doctor, felt it in his gut, but then just as quickly as the recognition flickered in her eye it disappeared again and she snapped backwards from him with an aggravated sigh.

“Ugh, it was right there again. Does sound familiar though. Give me time, I’m working through it. Just had to electrocute myself.” She paused, glancing back up at him, “I feel like I know a Lethbridge-Stewart though. You don’t know a Kate, do you?” He froze at the mention of his 9-year-old daughter, protective instincts rearing up despite the fact that this woman seemed to harbour no malice and was just inquisitive. If this was the Doctor, or another Time Lord, then they could have met Kate in the future. It still put a sour taste in his mouth and he resolutely shook his head.

“No.” the word came out hard, leaving no room for questions or badgering and her head tilted as her eyebrow raised in question at the hard leap from friendly to warning.

“So, what do we do about the DNA bombs?” Yates asked her after a few moments of tense silence and she whirled back to him, reminded of the situation at hand.

“DNA what?” the Brigadier asked, alarmed.

“DNA bombs, that creature on the train implanted them in us, and those other people on board, you’re gonna want to call the young man back that left for work and keep that older couple nearby.” The woman informed him, moving back to the defibrillator to look over the destruction caused by her using it. She sighed forlornly, “if I only had my sonic, this would’ve been so much easier. Could’ve dismantled them all with that.” She dumped the broken piece of machinery back onto the table, “I’ll figure it out. First though, we’ve got to find that creature.” She turned to the Brigadier once again, “let me see this weird object that’s turned up.”

“Wish I could, but it’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared, Sir? How?” Yates exclaimed in confusion and Alistair could only sigh wearily.

“It appears that someone just up and left with it. The two guards on duty were left none the wiser until I went to go in and inspect it once I had arrived and it was no longer there. But there are search parties out looking for it now, it should turn up. Can’t be that easy to hide something so alien, in Sheffield of all places.”

Chapter Text

The woman had changed back into the clothes she’d arrived in, despite the Brigadier’s kind offer to get someone to go and get her a proper change of clothes. She’d turned him down, kindly protesting, “they’ll probably just pick up something I don’t like, and I’ll look stupid, and I used to like this, so I’ll stick with this just now. Let me solve this situation and then I’ll look for something else once I get the TARDIS back.”

“TARDIS?” the Brigadier asked, head tilting as he followed her manic pacing back and forth. It seemed she was the impatient type. She’d let it be known she would rather be out helping to look for this alien object, but the Brigadier had put his foot down, informing her that she would be staying put with them for now until they got news. She’d been ready to simply walk out then, telling him no one could make her stay if she didn’t want to and he’d quickly changed the tone with a sigh.

“You’re an unknown alien to us. Until you remember who you are, we have no way of knowing what you came here for. I’m happy to let you assist us, but this is a UNIT operation and you need to respect that.” She scowled but seemingly accepted his logic and sat back down.

“The longer we wait about the more danger we’re all in with these DNA bombs.” She reminded him and he nodded in agreement.

“But we can’t know anything until the object is found, not unless you want to attempt to send a few thousand volts through a few humans and see how they fare compared to you?”

When they finally got the call in about suspicious activity down near a warehouse and a description of a strange object that sounded suspiciously like their missing alien artefact the woman was all but pacing a hole into the floor. She’d bounded out the door before Alistair had even finished the call.

><><><><><><><>< 

The explosion caught everyone’s attention. Before either man could even suggest that she stay behind the woman was off and racing towards it, calling out to them over her shoulder.

“Come on!” she raced around a bend and they hurried after her, “Oi!” they heard her call out and caught sight of her down a wide alleyway, the smoke from the explosion obscuring their vision of the tall figure that had stepped out of the doorway that had been blown open. It had paused at her yell, whipping around to face her with a hiss. It was just barely visible but was clad in all black. It’s face obscured by some kind of mask, the Doctor’s head tilted in confusion, “I was expecting a tentacle-y thing.” Then she shouted out to the creature, “Don’t you move!” She scowled when it simply turned and rushed away. She took off after it and the Brigadier sighed heavily in response, watching her go.

“Shall we go after her sir?” Benton asked, hesitating as he waited for the go ahead from his superior and Alistair nodded.

“Benton, you go after her. Yates, we’re going to investigate in here.” He motioned to the warehouse the creature had come out of. Benton nodded and took off after the woman. Alistair watched them go and once they disappeared the two men made their way into the warehouse, both moving slowly, wary of anything or anyone else who might still be inside. Inside they found the large alien object that had been found earlier in the day. Only now it was open, split in two like something had forced its way out.

“Sir,” Yates caught his attention, drawing his gaze over to the body that he’d found. He approached and the two checked for signs of life but both grimaced at what they found, finding that the man was indeed dead. And missing part of his jaw.

“Oh, lost it.” They both looked up when the woman and Benton made their way inside, Benton panting to catch his breath and the woman with her hands on her hips and a huff on her lips, “it’s fast. I’m slower cause of all this… fizzing inside.” She motioned absently to herself and Alistair chose that point to intercede.

“We’ve got a man down.” She whirled around, frustration giving away to sadness upon finding them crouched over the body and she made her way over, “Benton, go call for back up, inform them that we’ve got a possible alien hostile at play, and call for medical to help move the body.”

“Yes sir.” With a salute Benton spun on his heel and hurried out of the warehouse.

“That thing must have killed him.” Alistair told her, his tone matter of fact.

“I’ve never seen injuries like these.” Yates piped up; his own voice mildly horrified.

“Not a weapon blast.” She murmured, still leaning in close to inspect it, “more of an ice burn.” That one confused her, her head tilting and she glanced to the part of the jaw that had been torn off.

“It broke his jaw open too.”

“Looks like it took one of his teeth.” She pointed to where there was indeed a missing left hand side canine.

“Find something to cover the body.” Alistair instructed Yates, as they stood and began to back away to continue their investigation, who nodded and turned to go do as had been asked.

“I’m sorry any of this is happening.” The woman spoke quietly, “I’m sorry that thing on the train planted these bombs inside of you,” that one was to Yates who waved her off gently, “and I’m sorry I haven’t figured out what’s going on yet.”

“You can only know so much.” Alistair offered her what comfort he could muster, given the circumstances, “you’ve fallen out of the sky, and you’ve lost your memory of who you are, it’s been a long night.”

“Yeah.”

“This is the alien object that had been found.” He informed her, motioning over to it and she quickly approached, he followed behind her, hands clasped behind his back, “it was sealed up earlier, looks like it’s been broken.”

“Or it’s done what it came here for. It’s some sort of transport chamber, presumably for that thing we just saw in the alley. But why here?  Why tonight?”

“That may have been the young man who called it in in the first place.” Yates piped up, finishing laying a large sheet over the body before he joined them, “he said he’d been out cycling, there had been lines in the air, he touched it and then it appeared.”

“Let’s touch strange lines in the air,” Alistair muttered sarcastically, and the woman shrugged, taking it in good spirits as she replied,

“I would’ve done the same.” Definitely the Doctor.

“So why did this young man bring the artefact here? Why go through all the trouble of stealing it right from under UNITs noses?” Yates asked and she gave an impressed tilt of her head.

“Good questions. Let’s take a look around, try and find out.” She paused then sighed heavily again, “I’d be able to follow the signal from this thing.” She nudged the small device resting inside what remained of the artefact, it was palm sized, and flashing red, “but the tracking’s been blocked. Like it figured out what I was doing. If only I had my-” she trailed off then visibly brightened, “I could build one! I’m good at building things. Probably.”

She set about gathering up materials and equipment in the large warehouse, finding what she could and for the moment Alistair let her work. Medical personnel arrived and began to move the body and Alistair got a report from Benton when the man finally made his way back into the warehouse, following the medical staff.

“Any sign of the creature?”

“There was another body reported, sir. Found about half an hour from here. No creature yet but we’ve got everyone out searching. And we’re monitoring any emergency service calls for anything strange as well.”

“Very well. Keep us informed.” Alistair glanced to Yates, “you should go assist with the search. I’ll keep with our guest.” He nodded his head towards the woman, setting up what she needed on a workbench and Yates nodded. Both men saluting him before they spun on their heels and left. Once they were gone, he made his way over to the woman. He was almost certain at this point that she was the Doctor. He just wanted the confirmation from her. Wouldn’t do anyone any good to start calling her the Doctor if she ended up being another Time Lord. “You don’t look alien.” He attempted small talk, knowing already that aliens could look just as human as him.

“You should’ve seen me a few hours back.” She smiled round to him, “my whole body changed. Every cell in my body burning. Some of them are still at it now. Reordering, regenerating.”

“Sounds painful.” He frowned. He’d never given much thought to regeneration being something painful. The Doctor had never mentioned that particular titbit of information before. That seemed an important one as well.

“You have no idea.” She snorted softly in amusement, leaning over the workbench, her words almost absent as she spoke, “there’s this moment when you’re sure you’re about to die and then…. You’re born. It’s terrifying.” She trailed off for a moment with a frown, and then turned to him, tools in both hands, “right now, I’m a stranger to myself. There’s echoes of who I was, and a sort of call towards who I am, and I have to hold my nerve and trust all these new instincts. Shape myself towards them.” Her hands, which had been frantic in movement while she spoke as she stepped towards him went still, dropping to her sides, then she forced herself to perk up and tried a reassuring grin with a shrug, “I’ll be fine, in the end. Hopefully.” She spun back to the workbench, sitting the tools back down on it, “Well, I have to be because you guys need help. And if there is one thing I’m certain of,” she turned back to him, determination spreading across her features, “when people need help, I never refuse. Right,” she paused, hands on the plastic curtains that would block off the area, “this is going to be fun!” She pulled the curtain around between them and Alistair blinked, surprised at the sudden block between them.

“I’ll just… look around, shall I?” he murmured the words dryly, quietly, intending for them to mostly be for himself but she called out brightly towards him.

“Go ahead! I’ll be quick as I can!” he rolled his eyes and looked around, figuring he should look into the little office section to see if he could find any information from their poor soul as to why he’d taken the transport object in the first place.

><><><><><><><><><><><><>< 

The office was relatively small, cluttered as these offices usually were. What was strange, though, was the fact that the desk at the back wall had been cleared of everything except a single open journal that had a shaky scrawl of a last note. Alistair approached it with a frown, bending over the desk to read, the sound of clanking metal coming from somewhere in the other room.

It’s come back. The thing I saw the night my sister was taken. Everyone always says disappeared, but I know she was taken. Seven years now, tracking energy signals so that I’d know when the atmospheric disruptions matched what happened that day. And today it came back again, and I’ve got it. I am going to find out what happened to my sister. If anything happens to me, her name was Asha. Don’t let anyone else go through this.

He flicked further through some past entries, frowning in sadness over all the work this man had gone through only to end up dead. Alistair was impressed that he’d managed to sneak out a man-sized artefact from under the nose of his men. Furious at his men but impressed by this man. His past entries spoke of other disappearances like the one like his sister. Other deaths with missing teeth. It told the story of repeated attacks, the fact of which let an uneasy feeling settling in his gut. He wondered how UNIT hadn’t picked up on any of these before.

He heard the sound of a flame melting something and stood upright, glancing back towards the door. Leaving the diary for a second, he continued looking around the small room while he waited for the woman in the other room to finish or for his men to return with news of either of the creatures. He’d show her the diary once she was done.

><><><><><><><><>< 

“Ta da!” she pulled back the curtain, a slim silver device with a golden tinged design across it in her hand. She pressed the button on it and the tip lit up gold as well then sparked and she flinched away, glancing to the Brigadier who frowned at her in concern and she shrugged, “should be fine.”

“I found this.” He handed her the diary and she flipped it open in her hands, placing the silver device between her teeth while she read. It took her only a few seconds to flip through the book and then her frowned only deepened as she handed the book back to him and removed the device from her mouth. “He knew what he was doing might kill him.”

“She was his family.” She returned softly and he nodded, the two of them turning once again to the transport device that she’d been looking at earlier.

“You made this device?” he inquired after another moment of silence too many.

“Yeah. Sonic screwdriver. Well, I say screwdriver, but it’s a bit more multi-purpose than that. Scanner, diagnostics, tin opener. More of a sonic Swiss Army knife. Only without the knife. Only idiots carry knives.” She paused, throwing him a look up and down, her tone turning disapproving and dry as she turned back to the device in front of her, “guns too. Not fond of those. I remember that much.”

“UNIT is a military operation. Guns are simply there as a last resort. Not all aliens that come to Earth are as eager to help as you are.” He reminded her, “once you’re done here we should remove the bombs from the other civilians and Sergeant Yates.”

“Can do.” The words came out somewhat breathless, she dropped into a crouch, her focus fixed on the object.

“What are you doing what that?”

“Mapping the distance this object has travelled.” She stood back, inspecting the results on the sonic, “it looks like it started over 5,000 galaxies away.”

“How can you tell?”

“That bit there.” She pointed down to a smaller part on top of the object that was a bright orange and glowing, “recall circuitry. It’s designed for a return journey.”

“So, whatever has killed these people will have to come back here? I’ll get guards stationed and prepared.” He’d turned to go, to flag down the men waiting outside but she’d continued talking and he’d been forced to wait.

“Question is, why did it leave? What’s it looking for?”

“Do you have any clue?”

“Two aliens, one city, one night. Best guess?” she turned to him, eyebrows drawn together, “Two species at war, using Earth as a battleground.”

“So, the creature from the train and the one we saw coming out of this warehouse, are at war? What do we do?”

“We stop them meeting. Capture them, send them home. Away from each other, and away from Earth.” She set about pulling parts off of the device, and Alistair could only raise an eyebrow at her plan.

“How do you propose we do that?”

“Well, give me a minute. I’m working on it.”

“And getting rid of the DNA bombs?”

“Enough questions! You really love to chat, I get it. Lots to do. I’m working on it all. I haven’t forgotten about the bombs, give me… nine minutes, a bit of quiet and I’ll be ready to roll. Scouts honour.” She threw up a half hearted scouts salute and Alistair sighed heavily in response but acquiesced to her request, finally stepping outside to speak with his men.

“Sir,” he turned, mouth having just opened to give an order to his men as Yates rushed up to him.

“What is it?”

“They’ve found something.”

Chapter Text

“Your tentacle creature had been spotted above a tower just outside of the city. A bus driver reported it just a few minutes ago.” Her head darted up, her eyes wide and she at once got to work, gathering up coils of wire and metal clamps.

“Alright! So, we need a plan to take it down so I can get in close to scan it. I’ll just put together something quick. Oh,” she paused, stopping for a second, “and we’ll get these bombs out of our necks. Has the young man from the train been brought back yet?”

“Not yet.” She frowned, clearly concerned over that, Allister continued, “tracking him down has been… difficult.”

“Find him. We’ll stop off for that couple as well while on our way. Get them cleared, should only take a minute or two. Let them get home finally.”

><><><><><>< 

“Hi! Us Again!” The woman climbed up ahead of them, a mass of cables and tubes strung around her that she’d insisted she didn’t need any help with when climbing to the top of the tower.  Once the Brigadier made it up after her he paused at the writhing mass of electrified tentacles that floated on the spot at the centre of the roof of the tower. Yates followed him up, his hand immediately settling on the spot on his collarbone which the DNA bomb had previously sat at. Benton wasn’t far behind the man.

“That’s the thing from the train, sir.”

“I had gathered.” He responded in his typical dry tone. They watched as the woman made her way forward towards the creature. It seemed dormant for now. Floating peacefully and clearly hadn’t realised that they were there yet somehow. The woman now began to hand things off to them, raising an eyebrow as she stood holding a metal prod.

“Who fancies getting in close?” there was a second of hesitation amongst the three before Allistair sighed and reached for the prod from her.

“What do I do?”

“When I say ‘now’ just jab it at it. Should short circuit it long enough to give me time to work out what it is.”

“It only stayed down for a minute or two on the train.” Yates pointed out and she sighed but nodded.

“Should be all I need with my sonic. Now, come on you lot, lets get a shift on. We need to hook the rest of this up to the signal towers and anything else metal that you can find. Should give it some real power.” The four of them set about getting everything set up, and with one last clamp onto the signal tower the woman called out, waking the creature from whatever slumber it had been partaking in.

“Now!” The Brigadier pressed forward, not letting up until the thing collapsed in a very not electrified pile of metal arms on the ground.

“By god, it actually worked.” He breathed out, mostly in assurance to himself but the woman scoffed, moving passed him to crouch down next to the creature, her sonic in hand.

“Of course it worked. I’m not an amateur. Overloaded its socket, stunned it for a bit. Not sure for how long though. Best be quick. And thank you to Kevin the bus driver for the location intel.” She muttered the last part but Benton still smirked.

“Keeping a track of civilian chatter and calls to local authorities payed off.”

“Always ask a bus driver.” She grinned around to them then finally set about scanning the creature, “Half organic, half machine, starts to make sense now.” She lifted the sonic to take a look at the readings and her face visibly fell as she pushed herself back upright, “Wait, it’s a Gathering Coil.” She looked down, “No, dozens of Gathering Coils.” She crouched back down again, looking up to them, “These tentacle-y things, they’re creatures which gather information. They’ve been lashed together and augmented into one super-creature. But why? What data are they gathering? Unless…” she stood up again, her gaze fixed on something distant as her mind raced to catch up the information.

“It is an alien species though?” Allistair asked and she finally looked around to him and shrugged.

“Not really, more of a semi-species, weaponised bio-tech.”

“You said there were two aliens in a battle.” He reminded her and she frowned apologetically.

“You’re right, I did. But now I think I’m wrong and I’m trying to catch up with what that might mean. If I can access the data it’s gathered…” she pointed the sonic at it once again and they all flinched back when it sparked somewhat to life and a picture was projected above it. Both the woman and Yates looked on in recognition and shared a look.

“That’s the young man from the train. Karl.”

“Karl’s the data. That’s what it was gathering on the train.”

“But what would the alien want with him?” Allister raised an eyebrow in question to her but any response she might have given was cut off when a deep voice spoke from behind them.

“Which one of you shall I kill first?” they all spun around. It was the figure from before at the warehouse. It was clad in all black, armour thick but leaving any points of movements less covered in order to aid movement. It’s mask reminded Allister of a spiders face, with each bit of darkened glass (or whatever it was) spaced out like the bug’s eyes.

“I’m voting none of us.” The woman darted forward, placing herself ahead of the three men around her, “Get behind me now.” The creature started stepping forward, as though to meet her in moving forward but she reached out a hand and gave out a command, “Stop right there! Come any further and we’ll blast whatever that thing is.” She pointed behind herself to the Gathering Coils.

“You’re interfering in things you don’t understand.”

“Yeah, well, we all need a hobby.” She shrugged, tossing her arms up and the Brigadier resisted the urge to roll his eyes. If she wasn’t the Doctor. He would eat his own hat.

“You’re not human.” Its head tilted as it observed her, “Who are you?”

“Me?” she smirked, taking another step forward, the three men behind her preparing themselves as she seemed to remember, “I’m…” she hesitated then let out a groan, shoulders drooping as she tossed a hand out in annoyance, “oh, it’s gone again. I had it a minute ago, so annoying.” She scowled. Allister cough pointedly to draw her attention back to the creature stood waiting on her and she quickly pointed to it, looking back up at it, “Same question back at you. No! In fact, before that, because it’s really bugging me, actually not bugging me, offending me – why the teeth?! Bad enough you kill, why take a tooth from the victim?”

It watched them for a moment. Then it reached up, and with one hand, pulled its mask off. The four of them all gaped in horror at the sight of its face. It had blue skin but what drew the horror was the multitudes of teeth embedded in its face.

“A Stenza warrior wears his conquests.” He hissed out, something akin to pride in his voice and it just made Allister feel all the more sickened. “You may tell your children you were once privileged to encounter Tzim-Sha of the Stenza.”

“Time Shaw?” the woman’s head tilted, her eyebrows drawing together.

“Tzim-Sha!” he repeated.

“Tim Shaw.” She was doing it to annoy it now, Allister could tell.

“Tzim-Sha!” he snapped, and the woman somewhat flinched back with a subtle shrug, “Soon to be leader of the Stenza warrior race, conquerors of the Nine Systems.”

“When you say, ‘soon to be’ leader, what are you now, the office junior?”

“Must you rile it up?” Allister hissed at her, but the creature carried on, its eyes fixed on the woman.

“Tonight is my challenge.” he told her, “Trace and obtain the selected human trophy.”

“It’s a hunt. You’re on a hunt.” She spat out, clearly angered by this realisation. Allister was too. Horrified at the prospect that this creature saw human’s as little more than trophies. Things to track and kill.

“Well done. Your tiny mind must be burning with such effort.” Allister winced, if this was the Doctor could only imagine the offense that comment would create.

“Did he just say I had a small mind?” she looked back to them, a scowl on her face.

“The challenge is simple. Our leaders randomly designate a selected human. I am sent here alone- no weapons, no assistance. I must locate and obtain the trophy and return home with it, victorious. By doing this, I ascend to leader. This is the ritual of the Stenza.”

“And it’s happened before.” Allister mumbled, mind casting back to the diary of the now dead young man they’d found back at the warehouse that this Stenza warrior had first appeared in. It’s come back. “That poor young man’s sister.”

“Earth is not a hunting ground.” The woman was glaring at him, her voice firm.

“Access was granted.” Tzim-Sha all but shrugged, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Through a misunderstanding.” Yates spoke up, “it was never intentionally given.”

“Just to pick up on one thing. You don’t mind, do you? You said the rules were no weapons, no assistance.” She spoke up once Yates went quiet.

“Correct.” Tzim-Sha nodded.

“How did you kill them? What caused the ice burns?”

“We Stenza live at temperatures far below this planet, one touch of my cold skin will kill a human.”

“So, this super-powered Gathering Coil right here, you’re not meant to have it, are you?” She smirked, eyebrow raising in challenge.

“The creature is irrelevant.” Tzim-Sha growled out in frustration.

“I don’t think it is. I think you smuggled it ahead of you. I think it located the randomly designated human for you. I think you broke the rules. Some leader you’re going to make. Tim Shaw is a big blue cheat!” Tzim-Sha raised his hand, the ice blast sparking on his palm as he snarled in anger. The woman jerked back, stepping out of the way and motioning for them to do the same, “Okay, fine, have it!” He kept his palm facing her the entire time as he stepped passed them towards the Gathering Coils. Once there he crouched, reached out to touch the coils and his arms began to glow a blue colour as the Coils started sparking.

“What is it doing?” Benton asked, keeping his voice low as he leaned towards her.

“Total transference.” It took only a moment, the blue light spreading up until it reached his head and after a few seconds it faded. Tzim-Sha got back to his feet, looking to them as the woman spoke once more, “If you’ve finished, let’s be really clear, you’re not taking any human from Earth tonight. Leave now or we’re going to stop you.”

“Good luck.” He mocked, then spun himself around into a crouch, disappearing in a blinding blue light. The three humans covered their eyes whilst the woman let out a shout of frustration.

“No! Short-range teleport! Double cheat!”

“Where has it gone?” Yates asked and she spun to face them.

“To hunt.”

“Hunt who?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Chapter Text

“Have you manged to get through to the building ground management?” Yates asked the Brigadier who was sat in the back of the jeep with the field telephone that had been implemented into most of UNIT’s vehicles. They were rushing as fast as they could towards Skylark Building Services’ building site at the other side of the city. The woman was sat impatiently in the passenger seat, occasionally rhythmically tapping the fingers of both hands against the dashboard as she leaned forward slightly.

“Still engaged.” He answered with an aggravated sigh, slamming the phone back down into its holder, “Yates, step on it. Time is against us.”

“Yes sir.”

><><>< 

A frantic voice coming through a walkie talkie in the hand of the dead site security guard next to the broken fence announced to them already that they were too late to beat Tzim-Sha here.

“Dennis? I need help! Somebody’s on my crane!” The four of them looked up, noting the two massive cranes that dominated the landscape of the work site. The woman scowled and muttered with mock enthusiasm.

“Oh, great. Karl’s a crane operator. He would be, wouldn’t he?” She looked around, even disappearing for a moment into the security box as she looked around.

“It’s over there!” Benton cried out, pointing towards the crane to the left, on which they could see the armoured creature climbing methodically up the side of the crane towards the box that Karl was currently cowering inside of. The woman raced back out, looking up where he was pointing.

“And that creature’s guarding the bottom of it.” Allister pointed out the gathering coil creature that was hovering near the bottom entrance of Karl’s crane. The woman turned to them, a plan clearly already in her head.

“Benton, Yates, get everybody off of this site. Don’t care how, tell them whatever you like. Use the uniforms. Stand guard at the gates, don’t come back inside.” She turned to Allister next, “How are you with heights?” He resisted the urge to sigh, but motioned for Benton and Yates to do as they were both ordered and then for her to lead on.

“As good as I need to be. What’s the plan?”

“That tentacle-y thing is guarding Karl’s crane. So,” she led him over to the entrance of the opposite crane and motioned up to it, “we go up this one!”

“And what, might I ask, do we do once we get up there?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

“Really?”

“Well,” he resisted a sigh once more, “I will have by the time we get to the top.” She whirled around and didn’t give him a chance to argue as she started making her way up the ladder. He had little choice but to follow her up. He was slightly behind her, seeing as how she scurried her way up there, but he was close enough to hear her as she all but screamed her words, standing on the outside of the crane, loud enough so that Karl could hear in his pod across the site.

“Oi!” she was waving her arms frantically to get his attention away from Tzim-Sha crawling his way up towards him, “Karl from the train. Up and over! Up and over!” the Brigadier watched her motions from inside the pod of this crane and he paled himself at the prospect of what she was intending for Karl to do. Rather than give the full attention he began reaching for different booklets and folders as he tried to figure out how to turn the damn thing on.

“What’s the plan? You said you’d have a plan?” Allister called out to her and watched the small far away figure of Karl as he climbed out of the top of his pod and began crawling on his hands and knees across the long arm of the crane. The woman floundered for a few moments.

“Nearly. Nearly, nearly… I got one!” She turned to look at him in the pod of the crane, “I climb the arm of this crane, you swing the arm round next to Karl’s crane.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Karl steps across, you swing the arm away. I get him back in here, all back down for a cuppa and a fried egg sandwich.” She paused with a frown, “I’m really craving a fried egg sandwich.”

“Can we focus?” her gaze snapped back to him; eyes wide.

“It’s simple, no?”

“No, not in the slightest.” She waved him off.

“Alright, it’s a work in progress, but so is life. It’ll be fine.” She paused, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a huge rung of keys that should definitely not have fit inside that pocket, “I got these downstairs, one must work.” They were handed in to him quickly, “You can figure out how to work a crane, right?” She didin’t give him a chance to say anything back as she waved a hand at him then disappeared to begin walking up the arm of the crane, “Go!”.

He worked his way through the rung, finding it just his luck that it wasn’t until the final key that one finally worked and he could get the engine going. He glanced back to the open folder he’d sat up on the small dashboard of the crane operating box and tried to make heads or tales of the instructions it gave him. “Every day’s a learning day.” He sighed heavily to himself and pushed the joy stick to the left, intending for it to swing the arm of the crane in that direction. Instead he was shown that the controls were inverted and the arm instead swung to the right. The woman craned her head round, holding onto the metal railing of the arm.

“Wrong way! Wrong way!”

“I can see that!” he called back and pushed the joystick to the right, satisfied when the crane’s arm swung in the correct direction, stopping only when the arms finally lined up. The Brigadier cursed to himself as he realised that there was still a large amount of distance between the two cranes but he could see the woman still motioning for Karl to try and jump across. He could also see Tzim-Sha stalking ever closer, now up and onto the arm of the crane. Karl took a few steps back, clearly psyching himself up before he ran and leaped. Tzim-Sha simply reached out and grabbed him by the collar, plucking him out of mid-air and back onto that crane, despite Karl’s desperate struggling. “Oh my god.” He watched as the woman took some steps back and then ran, charging at full speed and leaped. Barely catching herself by her fingertips to haul herself up onto the other crane.

He really wished he could hear what was being said. He got to his feet, keeping an eye on the other figures on the higher crane the best he could as he pushed open the door to the crane’s pod and only took his eyes off of them to look down the side of the crane for his men. He caught sight of them both, carrying a mass of wires and other equipment, making their way towards the tentacle-y creature who was still guarding the entrance to Karl’s crane. He made a face, unhappy that they both seemed to have ignored the order that they’d been given to stay outside the building site once they’d gotten rid of all the civilians. His attention was quickly caught back around at the sound of a shout and metal breaking. He just caught sight of Tzim-Sha as he fell from the arm of the crane, what looked to be smoke almost masking him before he was shrouded in a blinding blue light, still snarling in pain before he finally disappeared. The Brigadier cursed, assuming that he may have gotten away once again, and began rushing his way down the many, many, ladders in order to get back to the ground again. He was about halfway down when another bright flash of light caught his attention and there was a cry of pain followed by two loud thumps.

“Yates? Benton?” He yelled out, audibly panicked and as soon as his feet hit the ground he was sprinting towards them, his heart racing until he finally caught sight of them both, Benton on the ground with Yates all but on top of him, the tentacle-y creature lying still on the ground at the base of the crane. “By god, what happened here? Are you both alright?” He held out a hand to help Yates up, noting how shaken the man still seemed.

“Fine, sir. Just…. Had a bit of a fall there, Benton just saved my life. But that’s the creature taken care of.” Benton picked himself up with little more than a wince, clearly the weight of catching Yates as he’d fallen having caused some bruising but nothing more serious.

“Good job. But that was more of a risk than you should have taken, the situation was being handled.” He tried not to sound more scalding than he needed to. He had the immense feeling that both men had more than learned their lesson through the experience.

“Hey!” All of them looked up hearing the woman’s voice as she called down, spotting that she was on her way down, already about half-way down. As she got to the bottom rung of the crane, Karl stumbling out ahead of her, she took in the still mass of the tentacle creature lying on the ground and looked between Yates and Benton, noting how shaken both men looked. “Good job, you two. Everything alright?”

“Fine.” Yates waved her off gently, “and you both?”

“Yeah, shaken up,” she motioned to Karl who’d dropped to sit on the ground, shaking like a leaf, with his legs pulled to his chest as he mumbled quietly to himself, “but we’re alright.”

“What about Tzim-Sha? Did he escape?” The Brigadier asked and watched as her face scrunched up in displeasure for a moment before she shook her head.

“He teleported away but it doesn’t matter. When he transferred all that data from that thing,” she pointed to the tentacle creature, “he also transferred all those DNA bombs over to himself. I tried to give him a chance. He didn’t take it, he did this to himself.” She still sounded forlorn enough to be sad over the death of someone who’d tried to kill them all but the Brigadier said nothing about that and instead coughed, clasping his hands behind his back as he looked her over once more. He spotted the recognition first, then the amusement that started to glitter in her eyes and he sighed heavily, “So it is you?”

“I’ve no idea what you mean.” She seemed to bite back a smile, her eyes darting away.

“Don’t play coy now. It’s you, isn’t it Doctor?” He tried not to huff in annoyance as she broke out in a grin and seemed to barely hold back laughter. Yates and Benton both looked at her, both shocked as she finally nodded. “Of course you are. I knew it.”

“You’re too good at that.” She told him, “it’s almost scary at this point, how quickly you seem to be able to sniff out different versions of me.”

“Yes well, when you’ve met as many versions of you as I have, you seem to pick up a sixth sense for it. Where is Dr Sullivan? And Miss Smith? What happened to you this time?” She blinked, seemingly confused for a moment before it clicked, and she quickly shook her head at him.

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I’m way ahead of that. That version of me in the massive scarf’s still out travelling with them. You’re gonna meet a whole bunch more of my past selves. I’m well in the future.” She paused, glancing between them all, “Speaking of, when that me comes back, maybe don’t mention that you’ve met this me. It was a nice surprise finding out I’m a woman. I’d hate to have it spoiled.” All three men just stared at her for a moment, all trying to take in the information that she was the Doctor and was a far in the future incarnation from the one that had left them over a year ago.

“How far in the future?”

“Gods, why do you always ask the complicated questions? Couple millennia at least, it’s hard to keep an accurate running tally when you’re a time traveller.”

“And where’s the TARDIS?”

“That’s the question. Not on Earth, anyway.”

“You said it exploded.” Yates reminded her worriedly and she seemed to take a second to think before shaking her head.

“I said it was exploding. Very different. That’s why she tossed me out. She needed to do an emergency dematerialisation and it would’ve put me in danger. Except now she could be anywhere in time and space.”

“And how will you find her?” She took another moment to think before shrugging and turning to look down at Karl who was still in a ball on the floor.

“We’ll handle that later. I think Karl here needs to get somewhere he feels safe. We can deal with my problems later. Once I’ve had time to have a think properly, especially now my brain has knitted itself back together.”

><><>< 

“The old lab!” The words came out the Doctor’s mouth, the tone of utter delight making the Brigadier raise an eyebrow.

“It’s exactly how you left it. Or, well, we have one or two specialists come in at some points to help us with identifying or categorising any unknown objects. Not that they knew what to make of half of this equipment.” He tapped one of said pieces of equipment, remembering being around when the Doctor had first built half of it. He’d dealt with the man’s complaining for months about how ‘primitive’ the equipment they had was, despite it being some of the most advanced equipment that was available on the planet at that time, before the Doctor finally decided to just build what was needed or find the odds and ends needed within the TARDIS.

“Don’t think anyone would in this day and age.” She was thumbing her way through a collection of papers that had been bundled together and left to the side. Most of it were notes and god knows what left by the Doctor before he’d left Earth with Miss Smith. Lord knows it had taken him this long to get back to it. “Alright,” She looked back to them, “I need your help getting back to the TARDIS. Do you think we could get the transport pod here? It would really help me out.”

“Of course. In the meantime, though, perhaps we’d best help you find some actual clothes?”

“Don’t these count?” She looked down over herself and the Brigadier sighed heavily.

“Do you really wish for me to answer that?”

><><><>< 

“How much longer do we have to stand here? I’m afraid I’m starting to cramp.” Yates made a face, shifting his weight once again to his other foot, trying his hardest to not let the device the Doctor had placed into his arms almost an hour ago move around too much in the process. She’d been very strict about everything needing to be in exact positions otherwise she could end up in the wrong place or wrong time. She was using the remnants of the transport pod and other alien artefacts left behind to build something that would get her back to her ship.

“Thought soldiers were trained to stand in one place for a long time? And I’m trying to concentrate here.” She sniped back playfully, not even turning around from where she was adjusting settings with her sonic screwdriver. She’d refused any actual department stores when they’d gone out to find her some new clothes, deciding instead to head into a local charity shop. The Brigadier had spent the time waiting on her outside the changing room remembering that he had a job that he really should’ve been doing rather than standing there waiting on an alien picking out a new outfit. The strange ensemble she’d stepped out in, with a grin on her face, had just made him sigh. The rainbow sweater and grey-blue jacket with 3 quarter length blue trousers and bright yellow suspenders were just as much of an eyesore as anything else he’d ever seen the Doctor wearing. Why would this version be any different?

“I know I asked before, but seeing as I simply got a half coherent mumbling in response,” The Brigadier coughed pointedly, drawing the Doctor’s attention over to him in the lab, “what are you doing?”

“The TARDIS uses a very particular type of energy. I’ve tracked that energy trail from the moment I lost it to where it is now. Now, given this is a transport pod, I’m configuring it to send me to the planet where my ship seems to have ended up.”

“It’s going to take you to another planet?”

“Well, hopefully it will. Except Stenza technology’s really annoying and super hard to decipher. 139 layers, seven of which don’t make sense.” She gave the device she was fiddling with, one that looked suspiciously like a microwave, a good smack with a sigh of frustration before turning back to them. “Right, Benton, my good man, mind clamping those onto there?” She motioned her head from the crocodile clipped tipped wires in his hands towards the device in Yates’ hands. He did as he was asked, and she motioned for the Brigadier to step forth and thread the cable through and flip the switch as she’d instructed him earlier to do. At once they all took a step back, apart from Yates who stayed where he was. She gave them all a soft smile, “Okay you three, it was brilliant seeing you all again. Believe me. Nice post regeneration surprise.”

“For you and us.” The Brigadier responded in quiet amusement, “Just so that I know, how many more versions of you am I going to have to worry about popping up from time to time?” She broke out in a wide grin at that question.

“Oh, loads.” He just sighed tiredly, but his snarky response was cut up by a ding coming from the microwave looking device behind her. “That’s it. It’s connected up. Should work.”

“I was good seeing you again Doctor, you never fail to surprise us.”

“Same back at you.” She paused for a moment, clearly overthinking something before she locked eyes with the Brigadier and threw up a salute that caught him off guard. “It was an honour, sir.” Then she dropped her arm and raised the other one with the sonic, “Moment of truth, then. Wish me luck. Deep breath.” She sucked in a heavy breath and was surprised when she heard the others start to do the same and waved her free hand towards them with an amused grin, “Not you lot. Me.” She squeezed her eyes shut and activated the sonic. The microwave thing’s timer ticked down to zero and a bright white light surged through the cables around them. Though rather than just taking her, the light burst outwards, shrouding the whole room. And when it disappeared, all four inhabitants of the room were gone. The device that Yates had been holding hitting the ground with a crash.