My second Doctor Who fic! And yes, I know that it's probably not canon, but whatever, I just made up whatever seemed feasible. The Doctor, Rose, Jack, the Time Lords, Doctor Who aliens and the Time Agency belong to the BBC; everything else is mine. Oh yeah, and I put myself in here, I couldn't resist. Sorry:)

December 23, 4000 A.D., in an abandoned house in New New York

"You!" It was a short hiss full of anger and fear. She raised her laser gun slowly, her arm trembling.

He just gazed at her with those blue devil's eyes. "Yes, me. Were you expecting someone else?" He was infuriatingly calm, his expression, as always, completely human, until you looked into his eyes and saw the vortex there. She flicked off the safety catch of her gun and turned the setting to lethal, reminding herself that he wasn't human, that he might look like some eccentric British gentleman but inside was a demon.

She fired.

March 3, 2004 A.D., in a woods near Princeton, New Jersey, America

The first thing Janet always did after coming through the portal was try to figure out just where she'd landed this time.

Usually she was bang on target. The people back at HQ had had almost a century to perfect time travel, and they weren't often wrong. But a couple of times she'd ended up in France in the Middle Ages when she'd been aiming for Australia in the 2090's, and she made a huge mess of things before she found out.

This time, however, there didn't seem to be any problem. Not that she could tell, as the portal never put you down in the middle of civilization. Janet looked around at the trees and the pouring rain and sighed. It was just one thing after another. She'd be lucky not to catch a cold.

There was something up ahead that might be a highway. Janet struggled towards it, climbing over boulders and slipping through mud, dragging along her suitcase. Her twenty-first century boots would be ruined. Eventually after much effort she reached the highway. It was definitely a highway, hard black tarmac choking the earth, smoke-spewing cars racing along. She thought back to her two-month briefing on the 2000's. She had to hitch a ride.

The fifth car stopped. By that time she was thoroughly drenched, and her hair was a mess. She sighed in relief as the driver pulled over, sticking his head out the window. He was a young, nervous-looking man with light brown hair. "Can I give you a ride, miss?"

Very polite for a twenty-first century contemp, Janet thought, smiling thankfully at him. "Yes, actually. I don't suppose you could take me as far as Princeton? I mean, if you're going in that direction."

"No problem," he laughed. "Climb aboard." Janet fumbled with the car door for a second before figuring out how it worked and clambering inside, heaving the suitcase in after her. It was a blessed relief after the rain. The car smelled of chemicals and loud music boomed through the speakers, making her head hurt, but at least she wasn't freezing.

It was only a ten-minute drive. The young man was very friendly. His name was Robert, she found out, and he was driving down to Newark to meet his sister who was flying here from New Orleans. He even drove her to the Nassau Inn, where she was staying. She thanked him.

After checking in and unpacking her luggage, she looked at her wristwatch. It was charmingly antique and clunky, built from previous traveler's instructions by skilled craftsmen back at HQ. It was a quarter to eight. She could check out the town before bed, get a bit more adjusted to the time period. Apparently Old Princeton was very historic and scenic, and just because she was on a mission didn't mean she couldn't play tourist as well.

The rain was still lashing down, and there were few other people on the streets. There was a very quaint little coffee shop that made the best old-fashioned coffee she had ever tasted in her life. There was also a small library, though it was probably rather large for the time, and she entered it eagerly, hoping for a glimpse at some lost books.

There weren't that many people in the library, either, as it was soon to close. For her own amusement she visited the science fiction section, just so she could laugh at how wrongly they had predicted the future. There was a girl there, who looked to be about ten years old, her dark brown hair in ponytails. She was taking a copy of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy off the shelf. Janet blinked. She was fairly certain twenty-first century girls didn't read hard sf.

After the library, she wandered about in the dark streets. She couldn't help feeling a bit lost. Normally she'd be with the team, and they'd be laughing and joking and making disparaging comments about the contemps. Liel would be flirting with Jaken, and Mari would be shopping, taking unexplainable delight in tasteless contemp fashions. But they were all experienced agents by now, they could handle missions on their own. Nevertheless, it would have been comforting to have someone from her own time to talk to. Someone who'd understand. It was always unnerving, talking to contemps, people who had died centuries before you were born. Janet had never gotten used to it.

Time to concentrate on her mission. It was an extremely important experiment, to try to change the path of history, just a tiny bit. If she succeeded... the implications were astounding.

She bit her lip nervously, and walked back to the hotel. She slept uneasily, troubled by disturbing dreams, and morning dawned cold and chilly, though thankfully not as wet.

Well. Today was the day. The day she found out if she was really an expert Time Agent.

She opened her suitcase and took out The Object. She carefully placed it in a coat pocket.

The place of the mission was a house. An ordinary house, with an ordinary occupant, except for the fact that he taught Computer Technology at Princeton University. She surveyed the house for a moment. Light brick, brown shingles, shrubbery, a few half-hearted daffodils (extinct in the century she came from) attempting Springtime. She marched up to the front door and took out the object, then bent down to place it on the doormat.

Suddenly she received a violent bang on the head.

As the stars cleared, she realized that someone had opened the door, knocking her backwards and quite probably leaving a nice lump on her skull. She looked up to see who had had such bad timing. She found herself staring at a handsome young man, perhaps in his late twenties, blond, blue-eyed, and decidedly British. He was, for some reason, wearing what resembled a cricket uniform, with embroidered question marks on the lapels and a stick of celery in his breast pocket. Janet had an eye for details; her job required it. Strangely, however, she found herself avoiding those bright blue eys.

"My sincerest apologies," the stranger said. "How unfortunate." He helped her to her feet. She accepted his help, still avoiding his eyes. "I trust you suffer no major injuries?"

"N-no," she stammered.

"Ah, excellent. As it so happens, I am a good friend of Professor Smith, and was just leaving. Was it him you were seeking?"

"No, I must have gotten the wrong house number," she said, still flustered. What is it about those eyes?...

"Then let me escort you to your car."

"No, I assure you, I am quite all right."

"Oh, but I insist." His accent was British, all right, but with no regional accents- it was like he learned English there as a second language. She declined his offer again and ducked away. A few blocks later she realized she no longer had The Object. Humanity would not discover the molecular communicator five hundred years early.

She spent some time imaginatively cursing the posh stranger.

August 15, 3040, Market Square, New Baltimore, Antarctica

It was two months later, on Janet's personal time scale. On the larger scale, it was more than a thousand years later. Humanity had changed somewhat. Not physically, perhaps not even mentally, but certainly culturally. World Wars 3-15 had changed its veiwpoint on war, and for the first time there was global peace. Aliens, too, had been contacted, and humanity was at one of its highest points. Market Day in New Baltimore showed just how culturally diverse humans had become. Janet thought wryly of the wasteland this place would become in just three centuries' time. Time travel made you rather the jaded cynic, she thought.

Still, this place, this time was a sight for sore eyes. Wares from all over the galaxy were displayed in old-style booths, everything from holovids to amber necklaces. The beings manning the booths were just as diverse, with species ranging from the mostly humanoid Argolins to the cybernetic humanoid tortoises known as Chelonians to Krillotaines, which Janet noticed were currently in the form of some sort of giant rodent with huge ears. Most of the people in the square, however, were in fact people, that is to say humans, or at least humanoids. She shivered at the thought that there might be some future Time Agent watching her from the crowd.

After her failure on the previous mission (which had had to be scrapped; no agent could be in the same place and time twice) HQ had decided to try again, this time removing an object which had affected history, slightly. She scanned the crowd until she found the target, a balding man in a black suit and sunglasses. He was holding the object slated for removal in his left hand. Right, now to 'accidentally' bump into him...

"Excuse me." Janet jumped in shock. That posh British voice... but it couldn't be! But it was. There, standing in front of her, with a huge grin on his face, was the young man from twenty-first century Princeton, cricket uniform and all. His sharp blue eyes glittered strangely. He must be another Time Agent, Janet thought in shock. From the future. They're following me...

She got a grip on herself. Of course this couldn't be the same man. It was obviously his descendent, who seemed to have inherited his taste in apparel. Get a grip on yourself, girl!

He continued, "Do you think you could direct me to the Statue of New Baltimore, representing Hope, Justice and Peace? The one forged in 2995, almost fifty years ago, by the great artists of Sydney, and given as a gift to the people of New Baltimore as a symbol of the peace treaty between the world powers of Antarctica and Australia, after the Last World War? It is said to be one of the greatest tourist destinations this side of Galileo City, and you look like just the young lady to know all the tourist spots around here! Very native, you look. Very native."

Of course she looked native, the folks in Costuming had made sure she looked exactly like the average contemp of the time! But she didn't have, ha, time for this, her target was disappearing into the crowd, the vital papers still in his hand, she went to go after him but the posh Englishman blocked her. "Hey, what's a girl like you doing in a place like this? Speaking of which, you look like a woman in the know, would you happen to know where I could find the British Embassy? I'm looking for my friend, uh, Winston Churchill, yeah, ole Will, and really it's a very scenic building, got lots of pillars and things stuck on the front-"

"You idiot," she growled, "get out of my way!" She dived under his arm and took off after her target, but soon found he had disappeared into the crowd. Another mission down the drain. She kicked a nearby booth, violently. An entrepaneuring alien tried to sell her the latest iCom. She brushed him off and walked to the middle of the square, thinking. Something went bing in her memory. Winston Churchhill. As far as she knew he certainly wasn't at the embassy in 3040, but back in the twentieth century where he belonged. So either the posh stranger was making some kind of really bad joke, or- he wasn't a contemp.

But then what was he?

She ran to where she'd last seen him, but he was gone, and in this crowd she'd no hope of finding him.

Damn.

September 1, 1931, outside a bookstore in Boston, Massachusetts, America

Janet waited. This wasn't really a mission. She'd made up something to get them to send her here. She was really just seeing if the Englishman would turn up.

It was chilly outside the bookshop and she snuggled into her warm contemp coat. It was late, and there weren't many about. She'd been waiting for a quarter of an hour now. She thought longingly of the warmth of HQ, through the portal.

A sudden thought made her look in the store window, past a display of children's books. And there he was.

He was buying a book- well, what else did you do in bookstores? She couldn't see which one it was. He was talking to the clerk at the checkout counter. Then suddenly he turned around really fast. Janet quickly ducked out of sight, beyond the edge of the window. He walked up to the glass. Pressed against the brick, she could hear his slow footsteps. Step. Step. Step. A pause as he looked around, then step. Step. Step. He walked back to the counter.

Janet slid down the wall and sat hugging her knees, glad there were few contemps about to see her acting so silly. Why was she so frightened of one harmless posh Englishman? She knew the answer. Because he was following her through time and space, and she didn't know how he was doing it. But she was going to find out.

She stood up, just as the bookstore doorbell dinged and he walked out. As before, he was still wearing his cricket outfit, the creamy yellow and soft red looking rather incongrous in a 1930's bookshop. His blond hair was short in a hairstyle that could have been from anywhere between the eighteenth century and the forty-fifth. She had no idea how to place him, how to figure out where his native time was. His outfit, though very natural on him, seemed more like a costume than his everyday clothes. He turned to look at her. "Hello," he said softly.

She backed away. "Who are you?!" she cried. "Why are you following me?!"

"Oh, do be a little quieter, please? The natives are getting quite alarmed."

She consented, lowering her voice to conversational level. " 'Natives', " she said. "You're not from this time, are you."

"It took you this long to figure it out?" he asked in mock disappointment. "I thought you were smarter than that, Janet."

"How do you know my name?" she asked, striving to keep her voice calm. Inside, however, she was anything but. This eccentric figure somehow struck her full of terror.

"I know a lot of things, Janet," he said, his voice somehow sad now. "I know that your pathetic 'Time Agency' cannot be allowed to continue. You are meddling with powers you do not understand."

"And you do?" she spat.

"Yes." Just one short syllable.

"So what are you then? Who are you? Where are you from? Who do you work for?"

He looked down. "Sadly, I am afraid I can only answer two of those questions. The other answers you would never believe." He looked up. "I am the Doctor, and I work for no one but myself."

"Just 'the Doctor'?"

"Yes. That is all I have ever been. Now go home, Janet, and never attempt to alter the course of history again."

He turned then, and started to walk away, but she wouldn't let him. If he thought he could just walk into her life, mess it up, and then walk out again... well he was wrong. She grabbed him and turned him to face her. "Who are you, Doctor, really?" She looked into his eyes...

... and saw eternity. Rushing, spinning, blue eternity and lonelyness, stretching on forever in a place that had no time. She pulled herself away, and stood, shocked, while he looked at her with eyes that now were only human, and sad. "Don't do that again," he said. "You know the human saying, 'eyes are a window into the soul'?... well, I'm not human."

"Demon," she whispered.

He laughed, a harsh, mocking sound. "Ah yes, your quaint little religion. I must remember to avoid the forty-ninth century from now on. I doubt you folk would make me welcome."

And now, finally, he left, and she watched him go without a sound. But she vowed he'd not seen the last of her. And next they met, she would be the one with the power.

June 1 to July 2, 4937 A.D., Time Agency HQ, Los Angeles, America

For more than a month she devised her plot. She got the gun and chose the battleground. Finally, she was ready. The portal opened.

December 23, 4000 A.D., in an abandoned house in New New York

The crackling blue energy of the laser gun hit him squarely in the chest. He went on smiling that infuriating smile as it buzzed about his slight frame before dissapating. "I'm so disappointed in you, Janet. I didn't think you were a killer."

"Sending a devil back to where it belongs is not murder," she hissed. "How did you survive?"

"Your pathetic gun may work on humans but I'm made of sturdier stuff," he explained.

"But the other demons," she said in confusion. "The guns work on them!"

The smile disappeared, replaced, for the first time, by deadly anger. "Those demons were ordinary people!" he shouted. "The men and women of your time are murderers!"

"No!" she cried. "You're a lying demon!"

"I'm not a demon," he said. He sat down on a convenient beat-up chair, crossing his legs and putting his feet up on the wormeaten table, his arms crossed under his head, a bitter smile twisting his lips.

"Then what are you?" Janet was shaking all over now. How dare he come and tear down her world around her.

"An alien," he said. "Of a species your pathetic little race has never contacted and never will. We don't show ourselves easily. Very few know of our existence. But we watch over history and protect it from idiots like yourself."

"What species?"

"The name isn't important. What's important is that you so-called Time Agents stop this thoughtless mangling of time. There are creatures out there in other dimensions who are just waiting for a thinning in this world's boundaries caused by a time paradox, and if they get in they will destroy your planet. You're probably safe as long as I'm here- they know not to cross us if they value their lives- but don't think I'm about to hang around. You have to stop."

She wasn't ready for this. It was too much information. She couldn't cope. "Let me... think about this," she said.

"You will," he said. "I know it. You have a big destiny ahead of you, Janet Thatcher."

"How do you know?"

For the first time, his mild smile was replaced by genuine amusement. He grinned, and held up a battered holoviewer. "History book!" He waved jauntily, then walked to what she had assumed was a piece of rubbish, an old wooden blue box. He fished in his pockets for an antique key actually made out of metal, twisted it in a keyhole, then opened the doors. "Goodbye, Janet! Have a nice life!" He closed the door.

Janet waited. After a few seconds the light on the top of the box began to flash, and a horrible racket started, and to her amazement the box faded from sight. She stood there for another whole minute, then stood up and went to the portal. She had a busy future ahead of her. And she would be damned if she'd let some devil stop her.

February 2, 2086, a restaurant somewhere in Florida, America

"So what's a 'Time Agent'?" Rose asked, half laughing at a previous joke with wide brown eyes. "Come on Jacks, you know all about us."

"Oh no I don't," he chuckled. "Doctor Who here hasn't told me anything. All I know is he's the designated driver."

"Yeah, but you know I'm just an ignorant little shopgirl 'e happened to pick up. So tell me what a Time Agent is."

"All right, all right," he said, sighing. "You know I'm not an agent anymore, but I do remember the history we got taught at Headquarters. It's located in my home century, the fifty-first, and they do a bit of trading between centuries. Back in the early days they used to be stopped by some guys who called themselves 'Time Lords', I mean really, the conceit!" He looked at them, expecting them to chuckle, but they didn't, they just stared at him, Rose with a look of suppressed laughter, the Doctor with a look that was totally indiscribable. Unnerved, he continued the story. "Yeah, but the Agency kept on bouncing back, and by the time I joined it was a major power, kept raking in the money. Used to be a government organisation in the early days, but a woman called Janet Thatcher (god, what a name!) set it up as a commercial unit, and-"

"I met her," the Doctor interrupted. "Very singular woman."

"Really," said Rose sweetly. "Like Cleopatra?"

"Look, I only mentioned her once!"

"Yeah, but you called her Cleo."