Title: Heroes and Enemies

Author: Lady Rheena

Rating: T (some violence and non-kiddie friendly stuff)

Disclaimer: Not mine. Evidently. No money. Don't sue. Please.

Notes: I am primarily a TNS Who fan and won't try to convince anyone otherwise. Any muff-ups I therefore make with TOS continuity can just be considered part of the AU definition. The Antecedent Series was written midway through TNS season two, and begins just after the events of Tooth and Claw.

Heroes and Enemies

Part 1

'So we're exiles now, eh?'

'Yup.'

'Can't go anywhere in the British Empire, ever again.'

'Yup.'

'I s'pose that technically means I can't go home.'

'Yup.'

'Of course…pouring yoghurt on top might help.'

'Yup. Eh?'

Rose burst out laughing.

'You haven't been listening to a word I've been saying, have you?'

'I heard the bit about the yoghurt,' the Doctor said, turning defensive. 'Where does yoghurt come into it?'

'Never mind. Least it got your attention. You were miles away!'

'I was thinking!'

'You can't think and listen at the same time? Typical bloke…'

They continued to bicker pointlessly back and forth as they climbed up to the hill where the TARDIS was parked. Rose considered bringing up the aborted Sheffield concert trip, but decided against it. If on any given day the TARDIS decided it didn't want to go somewhere in particular then that was it and no amount of fiddling, shouting, kicking or hitting it with blunt instruments would change that. The Doctor had tried just about every approach with it when it felt stubborn, but the TARDIS always won.

'So, where to next?' he asked as they went in. 'Past, present, future, here, there, where?'

'Future,' Rose said, having an answer all ready. 'You mentioned anti-gravity Olympics?'

'Oh, yeah, 2250! Fantastic year! Britain didn't win anything though.'

'Well we can go and cheer the team on anyway, right?'

'Absolutely!'

'Right.' Rose glanced down at herself and giggled. 'Only I'm going to change into something else. Don't want to be mistaken for naked again.'

'Oh, I don't know, found that pretty funny actually…' his voice was drowned out by the chorus of clanks, bongs, whizzes and pops that seemed to be part and parcel of any operation of the TARDIS's control mechanism. Rose left him to it and navigated her way carefully back to the little cabin she'd appropriated. She suspected it was only one of dozens of such compartments but having found it so close to the control room she didn't want to go looking for another. The Doctor had warned her not to go wandering off into the TARDIS's labyrinthine depths. Even he didn't know what was behind every door. They had gone exploring once, for a laugh, with one end of a ball of string tied to a railing near the front door to be safe, but the only thing they'd found other than a lot of corridor was a room stacked floor to ceiling with silver milk bottle tops. The Doctor had opened the door, taken a long look at its contents, nodded gravely and then shut the door again. It still made Rose titter to think of his expression but she'd declined to comment. For all she knew a room of milk bottle tops was essential to the operation of a TARDIS. But the cabin was convenient, if small. All it contained was a battered old wooden wardrobe (which smelt, against all probability, of mothballs. She hadn't gone too far inside in case it led to the magical land of Narnia…you never knew, with the Doctor) and a surprisingly comfortable hammock. It wasn't as though she spent much time in there except for sleeping. She still didn't know where the Doctor slept, or indeed if he slept except when knocked unconscious or recovering from a regeneration cycle. It wasn't the sort of thing she wanted to ask. He'd only have given her one of those cross-eyed looks and changed the subject anyway.

Changing into a more serviceable pair of jeans and a t-shirt, Rose jogged quickly back to the control room just as a loud thud and slight rocking sensation heralded the TARDIS's arrival in- if all had gone according to plan- the year 2250. The Doctor was actually under the console for some reason, only his legs visible. She watched with a little concern as some sparks fell down, then there was a high-pitched pop noise. He wriggled out from underneath and brandished something that looked uncannily like an orange yo-yo.

'Ha! Got you! Nasty little blighter.'

'What is that?'

'Flux inversion capacitor. Broken. I'll fix it during the shot-put. Anti-gravity shot-put's boring. Defeats the whole object of the exercise, in my opinion.' He pocketed the yo-yo or whatever it was and strode across to fling on his coat, as always thrown carelessly over a balustrade any old how. Rose sighed. The Doctor might be a mysterious alien and a Lord of Time and much else besides but he was still every inch a typical bachelor when it came to tidying up.

'Do we need tickets?'

'Psychic paper! It'll even fool the electronic readers, don't worry. Should get there just in time for the opening ceremony with any luck.' Then he was off for the door and she had to run to keep up with him. However as it fell closed behind her she nearly walked straight into his back, because he'd stopped short just in front of her.

'What?'

'Hello hello hello…what have we here?'

Rose extricated herself from where she was pressed between Time Lord and TARDIS and then frowned. There was a…well, a machine of some kind, presumably, sitting not ten feet away. It was a perfect cube, a dull brown colour all over, with no visible apertures or openings, about the size of a transit van.

'What is that?'

'I have no idea,' the Doctor said, putting on his glasses to peer at the object.

'You don't?' That worried Rose. In her experience if the Doctor didn't recognise something that usually spelt trouble.

'Nope. Not a clue.' He took out the sonic screwdriver and made a few passes. 'Hmm. Taradinium alloy. Nice hull. And a lot of power. A lot lot of power. But no engines. It's hollow though. I think it might be a ship of some kind.'

'A spaceship?'

'Oh, not just that.' Laying his ear against the nearest side, he squinted as if listening intently. 'A timeship. That's weird.' A frown. 'I honest to goodness do not recognise the design. And there's few enough species have ever built timeships of any description. Could be a freelancer, I s'pose, but…'

'Like Captain Jack?' That both pleased and reassured Rose.

'Possibly, possibly.' The Doctor replaced both glasses and screwdriver in his coat and regarded the block for a moment more. 'Well, one way to find out.' He reached out and rapped smartly on the exterior of the box.

'Is that a good idea?' Rose asked, nervous again.

'Well in the absence of a doorbell…' he kicked idly at a stone for a minute or two, hands in his pockets, and then sighed. 'Nobody in. Well, it's not like it's really doing anything. Come on or we'll miss the flag parades.' And he started to walk off.

'Hang on-' Rose scurried after him '-you're just going to leave it?'

'Doesn't seem to be doing any harm. Just a random box. Could be one of those funny scenic enhancements your lot are always thinking up '

'But- but you said you don't recognise it-'

'Definitely not.' The Doctor stopped and frowned, glancing back. 'Funny though, I can't shake the feeling it's definitely not dangerous…oh, hang on!' As he spoke a door had opened in the side he'd knocked on. 'That's more like it! Mysterious invisible doors! Now this is right up my street!'

A face popped out from behind the door. It was a nice face, Rose rationalised, perfectly human-looking and unremarkable. Brown hair in a chin-length bob. Brown eyes. Freckles.

'Hallo!' The Doctor waved cheerfully. 'Nice day for it!'

Slowly, the body associated with the face emerged. Again it was a reasonably normal-looking human body, the right number of arms and legs connected by the usual arrangements. It was wearing all black with a maroon overjacket. Boots that looked like Army issue. About the same age and height as Rose, but a lot skinnier.

'Hello,' the Doctor said again with a broad grin. 'Don't worry, we're not dangerous. I'm-'

'-the Doctor-'

'-and this is-'

'-Rose Tyler-'

'-and you seem to have us at an unfair advantage.' He blinked. 'That was surreal. All right then, how do you know who we are? Sorry, I don't normally start with the demanding questions this early on but you've thrown me all off-track.'

Rose realised the girl was gaping at them even as she replied.

'But I…uh…everyone knows who you are!'

'They do?' the Doctor echoed quizzically. 'Everyone?'

'Oh, yes! Everyone where I'm from!'

'Which is where, exactly?'

'The year seventeen billion, six hundred and ninety-four thousand, eight hundred and twenty-three. Traveller's Institute. I'm new,' she added with a brief blush. 'Only graduated a few months ago.'

'Seventeen billion-' Rose began.

'And you're human,' the Doctor said, cutting her off. 'Absolutely, totally human. As human as you, Rose. Weird.'

'Well technically I'm a Type Four bipedal human derivative,' the girl corrected. 'But we're the most common now. In my time, I mean. Mutations and alternate evolutionary structures are still about though, and-' she grinned in a knowing manner and wagged one finger '-I'm no Cassandra!'

'You know about Cassandra?' the Doctor said curiously.

'Oh yes.' Another blush, more obvious. 'And Jabe, and the Face of Boe, and…well, most of your encounters really.'

'Oh?'

'Well, really-' this time she coloured a deep beetroot colour '-I wrote my graduating thesis on you.'

The Doctor stared at her.

'Your graduating thesis?'

'From the Traveller's Guild Academy at the Institute. They don't let just anyone become a Traveller, you have to go through all these examinations and tests just to make the Academy, and only the top two percent or something pass. One of the graduating criteria is an analytical study of a preceding Traveller and…well, I did you. Not many do,' she added, 'I mean, there's just so much…but I wanted to, and my assessor said my paper was probably the most comprehensive and insightful analysis of you that he'd ever read, although he did think some of my theories were a little far-fetched…sorry, I'm babbling like an idiot.' She rubbed the back of her neck, embarrassed. 'I just can't believe I'm standing here talking to the Doctor and Rose Tyler for real-'

'So we're, like, celebrities?' Rose asked, unable to help feeling rather flattered.

'Celebrities? More like legends…I mean…' the girl spread her arms helplessly '…the Doctor and Rose Tyler! It's like…like Batman and Robin or Superman and Lois Lane or- or maybe some famous pairing that's a lot less fictional…'

'I didn't catch your name,' the Doctor said pointedly, apparently choosing to ignore that little spiel.

'Oh. Right. Sorry. Freyja. Just Freyja.'

'Freyja, eh? Sounds vaguely Scandinavian. Although of course Scandinavia would be long gone by your time…' he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and regarded her for a moment.

'So…what did you get?' Rose hazarded, intrigue drawing her on.

'For what?' Freyja asked.

'For your thesis…thing.'

'Oh.' Another blush. 'I came top of the class.'

'Wowee!' Rose nudged the Doctor. 'Top of the class, eh? Because of us!'

'Yeah…' he seemed distracted. 'What are you doing here, Freyja?'

'Just a standard info-cording mission. First anti-gravity Olympics and all…' suddenly she seemed to give into something and did a little funny dance for a moment '…I knew it! I knew you weren't dead! I knew, I knew, I knew you couldn't be-'

'Dead?' the Doctor echoed with understandable bewilderment. 'When was I dead?' He thought about it for a moment. 'That statement was either very profound or totally, totally wrong…'

'But you disappeared!' Freyja said. 'You…you vanished. You took Rose home one day and then you just disappeared. There are all sorts of stories surrounding it…myths and theories…'

'Whoa, back up-' the Doctor held up a hand '-I took Rose home one day and then disappeared? Don't you mean just…left?'

'Yeah, 'cos he's got previous for that,' Rose said dryly.

'No, not left. Disappeared.'

'Well he does that all the time! The TARDIS-'

'No, that's just it,' Freyja said. 'Without the TARDIS. He just left it behind…wherever he went.'

'The TARDIS,' the Doctor said.

'Yes. Which is why I don't understand how you can be here. I mean presumably you left somehow, went back to that time and picked Rose up and then started travelling again but there's no record of you having a spare timeship anywhere and-'

'The TARDIS? Big blue boxey type thing?' He indicated. 'Sort of like that one over there?'

Freyja turned around and her jaw dropped.

'That's- that's impossible! I saw it in the museum just before I left…there's no way…even you would have tripped every alarm in the Institute…'

Rose gaped at her, then changed tack and gaped at the Doctor instead.

'Museum? Left the TARDIS? What-'

'I think we might have to forego the Olympics, Rose,' he said sombrely.

'I'm with you on that one.' She grimaced and then went into what Mickey called her default Mum Mode. 'Shall I go and put the kettle on?'

'Yeah…a cup of tea might be just the thing.' To Freyja the Doctor added, 'This info-cording mission thing of yours-'

'Olympic build-up,' she said. 'I'd just finished when you- er- knocked.'

'Right. Well, let's go in out of the…fairly pleasant weather, actually, and have a chat. I smell a big, fat, baffling mystery and if there's one thing I love it's a big, fat, baffling mystery although usually I prefer it if they don't involve me as a direct protagonist…'

'Go in?' Freyja boggled at him. 'You mean-'

'Oh, god, don't have another fangirl moment.' He grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the TARDIS without further comment, opening the door and unceremoniously throwing her inside. Rose followed him in, trying not to giggle, and shut the door behind her. Freyja looked as though all her birthdays and Christmases had come early and at once.

'This…' she turned slowly in a circle, drinking in the view '…oh my god…this is…this is incredible!'

'Yeah.' The Doctor grinned at her.

'It really is bigger on the inside! It's enormous! Matter compression into a self-contained mag-flux field oscillating permanently between normal and L-type space! Wow!'

'What was that she just said?' Rose muttered.

'Bigger on the inside than the outside!' the Doctor seemed delighted with Freyja's rapid little speech. 'Dead on! You have done your homework!'

'I don't believe this!' Freyja spun in a delighted circle, arms outspread. 'I can't believe I'm really standing in the TARDIS! The last time and relative dimensions in space machine in the universe! The lair of the Oncoming Storm himself!'

'Oh really?' The Doctor was attempting to be nonchalant and not making a very good job of it. 'You- er- you call me that?'

'Well if it's good enough for the Daleks…'

'You're enjoying this,' Rose said to him quietly.

'Well…maybe a bit,' he admitted with a smaller, more sheepish grin.

'And since when has this place been your lair?'

'Apparently since I got graduated to superhero status.'

'And Rose Tyler-' Freyja whirled on her admiringly. 'The Last Companion. The only human to ever look directly into a time vortex…the heart of the TARDIS…'

'Yeah, well…' Rose started to absently straighten her hair, then realised she was doing it and stopped.

'Now who's enjoying it?' the Doctor said to her in an undertone.

'Shut up.'

Freyja was now admiring the control column.

'I never even dreamed it would look like this…it seems so…'

'Junky?' Rose suggested.

'Oi!' the Doctor put in. 'That's incredibly complex and sophisticated technology, that is!'

'You got to admit though, it does look a bit…jury-rigged. All pipes and wires and random buttons and stuff.'

'And post-its!' Freyja was practically orgasmic over this detail. 'You work out the vortex flux parameters on post-its!'

'Well they're…sticky…' the Doctor mumbled '…they…stick to things…look,' he added, 'Can we get back to the me disappearing mystery?'

'You mean you don't remember?' Freyja thought about this for a moment. 'Well no, you wouldn't. I mean, from your point of view you didn't, so…but I still don't see how this can be here. Isn't there only supposed to be one TARDIS? Existing independently of the usual space-time parameters?'

'Yes, there is.' The Doctor folded his arms. 'Tell me how I supposedly vanished.'

'I did. You took Rose home, and then the next morning you were gone, but the TARDIS was still there.'

'That's not the story. That's the summary. I need details.' He leaned over the railing. 'Tell me everything you know. Then I want to hear some of these far-fetched theories of yours.'

'You do?'

He raised his eyebrows and she subsided.

'Oh. Well…the story goes that the Doctor- that is, you-'

'Use third person past tense or we'll never get anywhere.'

'Oh. Okay. Well the Doctor took Rose-' nodding to her '-home, back to the Powell Estate in London on Earth in the year 2007. April the twenty-seventh. Friday.'

'April the twenty-seventh's my birthday,' Rose said. The Doctor nodded and gestured for Freyja to go on.

'According to the stories, there was a party. They stayed up all night. But then when Rose and her family woke up, the Doctor was gone. The TARDIS was still there but it was sealed. Nobody could open it. Nobody's been able to get inside since. The only other thing he left was his coat, lying on the chair where he'd been sitting.'

'What, this coat?' Rose said, indicating the brown trencher the Doctor was currently wearing.

'Yes. It's in the museum, vacuum-preserved, right next to the TARDIS. The Institute took it away a few days afterwards…but even now we can't open it.' Freyja sighed and looked at the Doctor wistfully. 'The official line is that you died. You took Rose home, your work was complete, so you died. But I never believed it,' she added vehemently. 'Even when I was a little girl I never believed it.'

'Why not?' he asked thoughtfully.

'Well…what kind of a universe is it for a little girl when heroes can die?'

'Not then. Now. I bet one of those far-fetched theories of yours was about my so-called demise. Let's hear it.' In one of the clandestine moves he was capable of when he put his mind to it, he'd backed Freyja up against the one wide chair in the room. She sat down on it with a bump. 'Come on then.'

'I- uh-' Freyja looked at Rose, who nodded encouragingly, and then back at the Doctor. 'In the past few hundred years the Institute has managed to detect…energy, coming from the TARDIS. Electromagnetic fluctuations. L-fields. Like it's still alive in there.'

'Right…'

'But there's pretty concrete evidence to suggest that the Doctor and the TARDIS are irrevocably linked. You can't have one without the other. Like…like the telepathy field failing during a regeneration cycle, or the fact that the Doctor is the only one who can actually fly the TARDIS. Well, under normal circumstances,' she amended hastily with a glance at Rose.

'Go on,' the Doctor said, a shadow of a smile flitting across his face.

'Whenever the Doctor malfunctions- so to speak- the TARDIS malfunctions.'

'And so…?'

'If the Doctor was dead, the TARDIS would be dead too.'

'Yes!' He punched the air and did a little spin, then wagged a finger at her. 'You! You are so smart! You figured that out from a bunch of stories and an old coat? You're brilliant! God, the brain on you- and this is me talking here. Oh no, don't blush-' she'd gone bright crimson '-I mean it. You're super is what you are. Fantastic mind.' He leaned down to peer into her face. 'Cor, I wouldn't half like to get inside your head. Bet it's all neat lines and columns joining things up.'

'Don't worry,' Rose said when Freyja gave her a startled look. 'He does that.'

'Yes, you told me but-'

'However,' the Doctor said, cutting her off, 'There is one last leap of genius missing from this tidy little rundown of yours, Freyja.' He stepped back and folded his arms. 'If I'm not dead, where in the universe am I?'

'Well…here. Which doesn't make any sense. The TARDIS was still in the museum when I left. If it had just vanished then everyone on assignment would have been called back to investigate. And why would you take Rose home only to go back in time and pick her up again?'

'All excellent points.' He frowned.

'So what did happen?'

'No idea. None of this makes any sense. I hate it when things don't make sense.' He started to pace, hands in his pockets. 'One Time Lord, one TARDIS. You hit that dead on. So if the TARDIS you've got in your museum is still alive and emitting energy readings, then the Time Lord who owns it is still alive. But I'm the only Time Lord left. Ergo, I'm still alive. Well, that's a relief. But then if the me who's connected to that TARDIS is alive, why is the me connected to this TARDIS even having this conversation?'

'Uh…what?' Rose said, now completely confused. He gestured wildly.

'The whole point of having a TARDIS instead of some mechanical gubbins-filled timeship is that a TARDIS isolates its passengers from conventional cause and effect, allowing them to move through time without running the risk of meeting themselves on an earlier journey and causing a mess in causality.'

'Meaning...?'

'We've just come from 1879, Victorian England. Theoretically, in a TARDIS, once we left there we could have gone straight from the vortex back into the same place, the same time, and still not run into ourselves. The history of the events we took part in would just reset every time until we left the vortex at a different set of temporal co-ordinates.'

'But what about the time with-' Rose swallowed '-I mean, when we saw my dad and then went back and saw ourselves-'

'That was a paradox,' he reminded her pointedly.

'Oh.' She frowned. 'That's why once we're involved in something we can't use the TARDIS to move around?'

'Exactly.' He slammed both hands on the panel and glared at the buttons underneath. 'But something's gone wrong…very, very wrong.' Looking up at Freyja again, his brows creased. ' You're from the year seventeen billion-ish, right? When was the latest confirmed sighting of me, temporally speaking?'

'Five billion and twenty-three,' she said promptly. 'New Earth. Sisterhood of Plenitude's hospital outside New New York.'

'And the last sighting working on the TARDIS as a temporal line base?'

'2007, the Powell Estate.'

'Dropping off Rose at her mum's on her birthday before disappearing into the blue beyond,' he muttered. 'This is wrong. This is so wrong it's as wrong as a wrong thing can possibly be.'

'What's going on?' Rose asked him.

'A paradox. Nasty one. Two TARDISes. Past and present versions of me. There should only be one version of me, no matter when anyone goes. A paradox,' he repeated at her blank look. 'Like the thing with your dad. You know the sort of thing…go back in time and kill your mother, which means you were never born which means you could never have gone back in time to kill your mother which means you were born…'

'All right! All right, I get it.' Rose grimaced. 'God, that makes my head hurt just thinking about it.'

'The thing is, technically I should be able to,' the Doctor went on. 'In all theoretical circumstances a I could go back in time and kill my own mother- if I felt so inclined, and if I had one to kill- then return to my present and not be affected. That's what being a Time Lord is all about. Isolation from conventional cause and effect.'

'You didn't have a mother?' Rose echoed, a trifle surprised at this although she felt like an idiot the moment the words left her mouth. He shot her a disdainful look.

'Rose, now is really not the time.'

'Sorry.'

'There's only one thing for it…I need to find this other TARDIS and figure out what the hell happened.' He straightened and turned to Freyja. 'I need you to show me where this museum of yours is.'

'No!' she said, a little too quickly. 'You can't go to the Institute. It's too dangerous.'

'It'll be even more dangerous if this extremely messy and acutely embarrassing temporal paradox is allowed to carry on unchecked,' he snapped.

'I don't mean the paradox.' She gestured helplessly. 'The Institute isn't exactly…well, unified. There are certain…factions whose methods differ from those widely accepted. If you were to just walk in they'd trank you, lay you out and have your brain and most of the rest of you spread flat on a dissection table before you knew what they were doing.'

'Ah. Again with the dissecting.' He wrinkled his nose. 'My innards really aren't all that interesting.'

'It's not your innards they care about.' Freyja looked uncomfortable. 'It's how you regenerate.'

'Eh?'

'Even in my time, humans are still mortals. Lifespans are greatly elongated…the average now is maybe three hundred years, but we still get old and we still die. And there are some people who don't think of the Doctor as a repository of knowledge or a hero or anything else except a shortcut to the fountain of youth!' She clenched her fists. 'They would rip you apart and tear into your soul and keep you alive while they did it and I am not going to lead you back there and let that happen.'

There was a silence.

'All right, new plan,' the Doctor said finally. 'We'll go in undercover. I've never really liked a fanfare reception-'

'Ten Downing Street,' Rose said, examining her nails.

'-although I indulge occasionally. And being tranquilised and chopped up really diminishes my enthusiasm for the idea.'

'You can't go in undercover,' Freyja said.

'I'll go without the coat, good old psychic paper, nobody'll ever-' he stopped when she stood, pulled something out of her pocket and pressed down on it. Rose's jaw dropped.

'That's- that's us. In the hospital.'

'It's the only visual record we have of both of you together,' Freyja said as the little three-dimensional film clip of the two of them entering the doors of the hospital, chatting amiably, cycled back to repeat itself from the beginning. 'But it's pretty clear. And believe me, Doctor, everyone has seen this. They all know what you look like. We've got image references for all nine of your previous bodies as well, and a lot of your other travelling companions.'

He sank slowly onto the chair.

'Blast. But we have to get in there. Can't leave something like this messing up the nature of causality. Let a little bit slide and the whole universe could start to fall apart.' Scowling, he ran his hands through his hair and then buried his face in them. Freyja edged over to Rose.

'Is he all right?' she whispered.

'He's thinking. S'all right, that's normal.'

'What, thinking, or making that face while he does it?'

'Both! You get used to it after a bit.'

Freyja suddenly pulled back and stared at Rose as though she'd only just noticed her,

'Oh my god, I am so stupid- Doctor, there is way to sneak inside the museum without being detected. I'm sorry, I should have thought of it sooner but…'

'How?'

'I'll give you a set of quad-ordinates to land the TARDIS. Stay inside until I come get you. I'll have to dock the usual way and make my report or there'll be trouble.' She glanced about. 'Spare post-its?'

'I've run out.' He rolled up his sleeve and brandished it. 'Got a biro, Rose?'

'Uh, yeah…' she found one in her pocket and a slightly baffled Freyja used it to inscribe a set of complicated-looking symbols on the bare skin of the Doctor's forearm. He examined them for a moment and then nodded.

'Right, gotcha.'

'Don't leave the TARDIS until I come for you. They'd catch you in a nanosecond.'

He nodded acknowledgement as she ran for the door, then turned to start adjusting the controls. Only Rose saw the look Freyja gave him when she paused briefly on the threshold. It was nothing short of absolute, complete adulation…with a hint of fear. Of him, or for him? Rose didn't care overmuch for either.

'Are you sure about this?' she asked once the door was shut. He continued to fiddle with the controls, pausing occasionally to consult his arm.

'Nope. Not even a bit. But I haven't got much option. Paradoxes are what Time Lords are for. And if I'm directly involved in this one I must have done something to cause it, which means it's my mess to clear up.' He rolled his sleeve back up and slammed a button, giving her a wolfish grin. 'Here goes nothing.'