Note: The author of this… story does not own BBC Doctor Who nor the Avengers, nor any affiliated trademarks or characters.

The Doctor

I hesitated, lingering along the back wall of the wide, white room. My presence had been acknowledged by a few uneasy nods in my direction, but the one I wanted to notice me was not even looking at me. Of all military bases I had to get called to in the middle of World War II, I thought wryly, I get called to the one she's in. She had a reputation for being overly violent, I knew, but the odd little voice in the back of my head kept telling me, Go. Talk to her. She still hadn't looked at me, not once. She was staring determinedly straight ahead. I took two quick, soft steps in her direction. No reaction at all. Two more. Nothing. I slowly came to stand directly behind her, ignoring the What are you, crazy?! looks the other Americans were giving me. Still absolutely nothing. After deliberating for a moment, I opted for the least (?) dangerous option. Hoping violent acts would not be enacted upon my person, I leaned close, laying my hand on her shoulder and said in a low voice, "Hello. I'm the Doctor. I need to speak with you." The girl whipped around, dark hair flying out around her…

Liberty

Acting on instinct, I spun, pulling my pistol out of my sleeve, and fired twice into the heart of the man that had touched me, before I realized what had happened. Oops.

The "doctor" staggered back a half-step, vague surprise flitting across his expression, his hand coming up to the hole I'd just blasted through his chest. "Ow." he said, sounding mildly concerned. He pulled his hand away, frowned at the blood splattered across it, then looked up at me accusingly. "Well that was rude," he said. "I've only just said hello. Tell me, do you always shoot people for saying hello to you?"

I blinked. That sure wasn't the response I'd been expecting.

After a moment, he went back to examining the wound, prodding it with his forefinger.

"Uh, you're not dead." I finally managed.

He looked at me like I was an idiot. "Of course not. I'm the Doctor!" he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Brit.

I shot him again, this time through the shoulder.

"Ow-ww!" he exclaimed, sounding like an annoyed little kid that had just stubbed his toe. "Will you Quit. Shooting. Me! It not enough that you stopped one of my hearts, but now you're bent on turning me into Swiss cheese as well! It's been well over fifteen hours since my last regeneration cycle, so this is all going to have to heal on its own, which is very inconvenient for a Time Lord, I'll have you know!"

I stared at him, completely drawing a blank.

Without taking my eyes of the "doctor", I turned to my commanding officer. "Captain?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"I think we just found another one of them weirdos."

"I'm not a- Oh, never mind, you humans never listen to me anyway. See now, if I was a weirdo, I'd be like:-" He dropped his voice into an exaggeratedly eerie stereotypical "stalker voice."

"Hello, child, I have candy." He rasped, clearly making a (failed) effort to be creepy.

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Tempting." I said.

Cap America frowned at me. "Liberty, I thought you knew by now that talking to that type only encourages them."

The "doctor" straightened and frowned at me, mouthing indignantly, Whose type?!

I looked down to conceal the smile worming its way across my face. "Yes sir. Sorry, sir."

I turned back to the "doctor". "That means shut up."

"Er, I believe he was talking to you."

"I will shoot you again."

"Liberty,-can I call you that? Liberty?- let me tell you somethin'. I'm the Doctor. I never shut up."

I fired again, this time at his foot, and the ridiculous flat shoes he was wearing. He jumped back, bullet narrowly missing his big toe. "Okay, then." He paused. "Please don't shoot me."

Then, he hugged me.

I was so flabbergasted, for a second I couldn't do anything. By the time I'd thought to do something reckless, like shatter his nose, for instance, the Doctor had stepped back, my pistol in hand. "There we are, now doesn't that make everything nice and -"

Blam!

He started as a bullet whistled past his ear.

"First rule about me, Doctor: I always have more than one gun."

He deflated slightly. "Doctor versus Liberty, round two." he muttered, almost too softly for me to hear. Almost. He moved forward as if to assault (hug) me again, but I was ready this time. Pulling back slightly, I rammed my closed fist into his jaw.

The Doctor's head snapped sideways, trench coat swirling as he dropped to the ground. After gingerly testing for broken bones, he gazed flatly up at me from the floor. "Really?"

"Oh, really. You so asked for that."

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but America beat him to it.

"If the children would please stop bickering, we're in the middle of a war here."

The Doctor's attention shifted over instantly. "Ooh, really?" he said, standing up. His previously impeccable suit now had pale smudges all over it. "What year did you say this was?"

Lieutenant Smith looked at him like he was insane, which, in all fairness, I was starting to wonder about as well. "It's 1943. World War II?"

"Well, I know that. The uniform makes it a bit obvious that it's the middle of World War II, but, 1943, that was a very interesting year for the Alliance. Well, the Germans, too, but anyhow."

"Doctor?"

"Mmm?"

"Shut up."

The Doctor.

For just a split second, everything was calm, relaxed, even perfect, in its own way. And then, it wasn't.

White, blinding pain shot through my remaining heart, making the room go white as well. When it cleared, I was on my hands and knees, Liberty leaning over me.

"Doctor? Doctor, are you alright?"

"I - Ope, no, I'm not alright. Time Lords can't live very long with only one heart. Ah! Not very long at all." I said, trying not to wince.

Liberty looked hard at me for a moment, then turned to Captain America. "We need Hawk."

"Hawk? Who's - Argh! - Hawk?"

Liberty looked down on me coolly. "The only person who can help you if you've got a stopped heart. I'm assuming you have at least two, based on the fact that you're not dead yet."

"I - Arggghhh! If she doesn't get here soon," I said through gritted teeth. "I won't even have the other. It'll - Ggghhh! - have stopped, too. And then I'll regenerate, and you'll have a great big lovely mess on your hands."

Liberty leaned down. "Tell you what. You live, and I'll apologize for shooting you."

"Yeah," I said, panting. "That's motivating."

I hear the door hiss open behind me. Then, somebody sighed.

"Liberty. Tell me you didn't."

Liberty widened her eyes innocently. "I di'nt do anythin', Hawk."

"Yeah, that's why there's a man on the ground with bullet holes through him. Ooh, one through his heart, too; that's why you called me. Liberty, one of these days, I'm going to stop reviving all these people you accidentally kill."

"Oh, that's a happy sentence." I muttered from the floor. "And, -Ow ow ow ow ow- I'm not technically dead yet, so -owwwwwWW!- you don't need to revive me."

The new arrival leaned over me, raising an eyebrow. "Yet."

Captain America jumped in. "Hawk, just shut up and restart his heart. If the Doctor dies, UNIT and NATO both will… be extremely unhappy." he said, clearly tacking on a euphemism at the end.

Hawk snapped to attention. "Yessir."

She knelt over me, hand hovering over my chest. "This may hurt a little," she warned.

I grimaced and spoke through gritted teeth. "It already hurts, just get on with it!"

She paused uncertainly for 8/17 of a second, then placed her hand over the bullet wound. Clear blue eyes meet mine as she asked "You ready?" Without waiting for me to answer, she closed her eyes and… Pulsed. That's the only way I can describe it. A shock of about 700 volts jolted through my heart causing it to stutter, then fall silent.

A fine crease appeared between her white-blonde brows. "That should have worked..."

"It takes over 1,000 volts to... restart a... Time Lord's... heart." I gasped.

Hawk was quiet for a moment, then asked, "Would 1,200 volts be enough?"

"Maybe. But where in the world are you going to find 1,200 volts?!"

A wicked smile flashed across her mouth. "I'll just have to increase the intensity that I'm releasing into you."

"Increase the - Ah!" My remaining heart froze in its tracks as 1,200 volts were passed through it. For an eerie second, I experienced the odd sensation of having no heartbeat at all, then, simultaneously, both started up again.

I rolled over, rising up onto my knees. Hawk was staring at me, wide eyed. "Um... that should be impossible. You can't just get up and walk after having a heart stopped, and then restarted."

I winked at her. "Oh, you just watch me. I'm the Doctor, by the way."

I stood up, dragging the back of my hand across my mouth as I did so. "Anyway," I said, pointedly ignoring the stunned looks I was being given, "Liberty. Liberty Rogers. History says you're supposed to die today."

Liberty

I instantly leveled my pistol with his newly restarted heart. The Doctor threw his hands up in the air. "Oi! You don't even let me finish before non-verbally threatening to shoot me again. That's bad, Liberty; We're gonna have to change that. Anyway, as I was going to say, I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen. Allons-y, Miss Rogers!"

With that, he charging off down the hallway, kicking open the doors and nearly knocking over Princeton.

"Hey, uh, you can't...Hey...Hey! Do - why am I surrounded by idiots?" I muttered, already starting to chase after him. Far down the hallway, his distant reply echoed back to me: "For the record, the Time Lord brain is capable of holding nearly three times as much as a human's!"

"Yeah? And how much of it do you use?"

Crash Bang WHOMP!

"Apparently not enough." I muttered.

The Doctor

"If you'd be kind enough not to criticize me while I'm trying to save your life, I'd appreciate it!"

"Well, that's never gonna happen."

"Y'know, Liberty, there is a lot I'd like to say to you, but right now, I'll just say 'DUCK!'" Without missing a beat, I turned and threw myself down on top of her as the front doors exploded inward.

As soon as the glass shards stopped falling, I rolled off of her. She looked at me like I was an idiot. "Shield. Adamantium. Hello." She gestured to the shield strapped across her back.

"Oh, right. Yes. The shield. Yeah. Forgot about that." I stood up, brushing myself off and extending a hand to help her up. "Now, we need to find a police box, a blue police box, it should be over there… somewhere."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

I looked down at her. "Yeah, blue police box, you heard right."

"I'm still not convinced of that."

"Well, I find that tragic, because it's right there." She positioned herself to see where I was pointing. "Oh. You were serious."

"Of course. That's my police box. She's called the Tardis, and she's not actually a police box, she's a space… ship. But, you'll see that when we get inside. You ready to run, Miss Rogers?"

She gave me an Are you serious? look."I'm a freaking supersoldier."

"I'll assume that's an answer. Ready, go!"

We took off running pell-mell down the corridor, ducking as various debris flew overhead. "Doctor, what is happening?" She shouted up at me. "I haven't the foggiest!" I shouted back.

We rammed into the outside of the doors, me fumbling in my bigger-on-the-inside pockets to fish out the key. I pushed it into the lock and shoved the doors open. We dove down as something behind us exploded. The Tardis doors closed behind us, the newfound silence almost eerie in its completeness. As soon as we had regained our breath to some degree, Liberty's pistol was in her hand and trained on me. Again.

"Doctor, what. The. H- Whoa." She became momentarily distracted by the Tardis as she took a moment to look around. "It's… It's…

I waited for a moment, anticipating the time old classic It's bigger on the inside! remark.

"It's… All the proof I need to accuse you of being an alien and have you locked up for a very long time." she finished.

Well. That was a new one. "Okay. Fine. If that's what makes you happy. But, first, it's not only bigger on the inside…"

Liberty

I stepped out of the Tardis into Berlin, Germany, 1943 at one of Hitler's pep rallies. I stood with the Doctor at the back of the crowd, listening to the insane man scream in German. "We are in Germany." I whispered to the Doctor.

"Yes, indeed."

"In 1943."

"Yes, indeed."

We were silent for a moment.

"That's the man that killed my mother."

"Yes, ind - Wait, what? Oh, Liberty. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It's fine. I just sometimes wish I could get back at him in even a small way, like by, I dunno, throwing a pie in his face during one of these rallies, you know?"

"Wait, are you saying Cap was married?"

"Doctor, is it impossible for you to focus while I'm talking to you?"

"Quite possibly, what did you say?"

"I said, sometimes, I want to get back at him in even a small way, like by -"

At that moment, a pie tin full of whipped cream smashed into Hitler's face, leaving him spluttering.

"- Doing… just… that." I finished, bewildered.

Nazis started swarming two people off on the left of the podium.

"Hold on, is that… me?" I asked, confused. Taking a step closer, I tilted my head, recognizing the spiked hair and ridiculous flat shoes of the Doctor. The same Doctor who was currently standing beside me.

He swallowed slightly, a nervous habit. "Liberty." He took me by the arm, pulling me gently back towards the Tardis. "I think it's time we left."

"But, Doctor-" At this point, some of the guards noticed us, pointing and shouting in our direction.

"Okay, definitely time to go." We turned and ran.

The Doctor

We opened the door to yet another explosion. "Who is dumb enough to attack the Avenger's base?!" Liberty shouted at me. "No idea! Let's go find out!" I shouted back.

We leapt over the shattered remains of the glass doors, feet crunching on broken pieces, and got our first look at the enemy.

A spaceship, sleek and elegant, was parked on the lawn. It had marking on the side, thin, spiked lettering that translated roughly as "Cardin Designation: Seven." Needless to say, I didn't recognize it. A jagged hole gaped in the front, twisted metal ribbons reaching out at us.

"Oh, based off the evidence, I am going to say that a prisoner escaped during transfers. But, where's the guard?"

"Doctor, that's not important."

"Yes, it is, it's very important, because-"

"Doctor, there is a lot I'd like to say to you right now, but I'll just say this: Duck."

I ducked and felt something snap over my head. I stood up and spun around to face the creature. Red skin, grey leathery wings, long, clawed back legs, short, shriveled hands with needle-like nails. I, however, was more concerned with the merciless eyes of absolute black, and the mouthful of viciously hooked fangs. Chunks of plaster and mutilated metal were speared on its claws. It appeared to have been trying to tear down the Tower singled-handedly. Good luck with that, I thought.

After a moment of sizing up each other, Liberty grunted. "Looks like a Tyrannosaurus Rex that shrunk down to about six feet and somehow managed to grow a pair of wings."

"That's pretty much exactly what happened. Thee millions years of evolution can do some rather freaky stuff." Returning my attention to the creature before me, I said "Now, listen, I know you can understand me, so don't act stupid like so many before you have. You're a Cardithian, and right now, I would highly suggest you get back on that ship and go back home to where you belong. Before the people that own this base get ahold of you."

It let out an arrogant hiss of laughter.

"I'm not as kind as they are. I don't give second chances. I am a Time Lord, and I protect this planet, and all its people, and I won't sit here and let you - Oh, look, I found your guard."

A heavy-set Ariss-Than pounced on him, quickly setting a pair of LaserSets on him. The guard looked me in the eye and his telepathic voice whispered My thanks.

"Anytime. If I am anything, I am a master in the art of gabbing."

As the Ariss-Than led the convict up the ramp to the door, Liberty muttered, "You got that right."

"Oi! Only when I happen to be saving a bunch of pathetic humans!" I protested.

"Oi!" She snapped indignantly.

My mouth twitched. "Did you just…?"

Suddenly, the Cardithian turned back. "Before.. I go." He rasped in a gravelly voice. "What… name?"

I glanced at Liberty, confused, that back at the creature on the ramp. "The Doctor. They call me The Doctor."

His eyes widened, rage burning in his ferocious gaze. "Doc...tor?! I… KILL you! Not.. get away… from me… again!"

"Ooh. Best back up a bit, Liberty." I held her by the elbows as the guard wrangled the thrashing creature into the hull, and didn't let go of her until the mangled ship lifted up and away, blurring into hyperspace.

I looked down at Liberty. "Well, if you ever happen to run into a Cardithian, or even a Slitheen for that matter, give me a call, eh?"

She smiled tentatively. "Yessir. Oh. Oh, Cap! I gotta go see if Cap is okay." She turned and ran off. Again.

Smiling fondly after her, I turned back around to look at the place in the sky the ship had vanished into. The Cardithian had clearly known me, but I had no idea who he was. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey timelines.

"Doctor?" I turned back to see the nurse, Hawk I believe she was called, walking towards me.

"Yes, Hawk?" I said, still smiling slightly.

"Who are you?"

The smile faded.

"You are a man with two hearts, you call yourself a 'Time Lord', you speak the most wondrous things, and you give names to the unnamable. You look, and sound, so young, but have the age of the stars themselves in your eyes." She reached out, shaking ever so slightly, and put a hand on either side of my face, barely touching me at all. "Again, Doctor, who are you?"

"Hawk, it's a long story, and I - Ah!"

I have no explanation for what happened next, but, somehow, our minds melded together. I saw myself, staring down the Time Vortex, reflected in her eyes. I could hear, ever so faintly, a soft rhythm echoing in her mind: du-du-du-dum, du-du-du-dum, du-du-du-dum. I saw her, standing in a smoldering field, looking out at the horizon, face smoke-stained, but blue eyes still clear as she whispered Doctor. What have you done?

With a gasp, she let go, and I snapped back into the present. Her face was inches away from mine, and her eyes glowed with a faint golden light. "Child of Gallifrey." She whispered, her voice doubled, as the glow fading back onto the startling, brilliant blue of her eyes.

"What are you?" I whispered back.

Hawk shook her head sadly. "Oh, Doctor. I have no idea." With that, she turned, and wove her way back to the side of the wounded.

I turned away again, my mind clouded with thoughts of the future and of the past.

Liberty

I caught sight of him over by the Tardis, on his own, as per usual. "Doctor!" I screeched.

The Doctor turned, face breaking into a grin. "Liberty! How's Cap doing?"

"He's Captain America, he's fine. Or, he will be by tomorrow."

We stood quietly for a moment, looking out at the mayhem.

"Well, Doctor? Think you'll ever see the T Rex again?"

"Most definitely. I'm the Doctor.I'm impossible for anyone to be rid of."

I was quiet for a moment. Then, "You're going to leave soon, aren't you?"

A wry smile touched his mouth. "And you say you don't know me. Yes, Liberty, this will be goodbye for a little while. Well, unless… no. Cap would shoot me."

"What?"

He looked down at me. "You could come with me. For a short trip, I mean. To say thank you."

"For what?"

He smiled down at me. "For giving me a reason to smile again."

I looked away. "You're right, Cap would shoot you."

The Doctor laughed.

Then, I smiled wickedly up at him. "But, I'm willing to ask."

"Brilliant! But, before you go ask…"

He ran inside the Tardis, then, after a moment's pause, stuck his head out the door. "I believe a certain World Leader needs to be pied in the face, don't you?" He asked, grinning wildly, offering me a pie tin full of whipped cream.

I looked down at it, laughed, took the pie from his hands, and stepped into the Tardis.

The End

For now...