Sounds of shaking.

"What was that?"

"I don't know."

A crashing slamming.

"The doors!"

Tearing space.

"Doctor!"

Thump.

Thumpthump Thumpthump.

The echoing sounds in the Doctor's head melted into that of his heartbeats. He was lying down. Something was stuck to his forehead. His left wrist was cuffed to something. Hospital bed?

He opened his eyes. White ceiling. White walls in his peripheries. A monitor watching his brainwaves, but not his heart rates. The controller cared about alive, not health.

Footsteps and a door. The Doctor sat up as best he could. His whole body hurt. Had he fallen from somewhere?

Two men in uniforms stood in a doorway directly in front of the Doctor. He didn't recognize the insignias, which was disconcerting. Then again, war history was the only thing that was not his specialty, so he probably shouldn't be too worried.

"What is your name?" the man with the most chevrons asked. The language was Rapluan, a common language during the Third Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Fortunately, as with every language, the Doctor spoke it, though the man's accent made it a little strange. It sounded Southern, but Southern where? More pressing was the question of why it didn't automatically translate. That meant the TARDIS wasn't nearby.

Where was Kathryn?

"I'm not asking again."

The Doctor blinked, the officer's voice interrupting his train of thought. "I'm the Doctor," he answered with his usual confidence. "And you are…"

The officer's friend's eyes widened ever so slightly hearing the Doctor's name. The man questioning the Doctor blinked but otherwise had no reaction. "A doctor of what?"

"Everything. Well, sort of," the Doctor sniffed. "I'm not sure I have all the certificates anymore. Didn't actually pick up most of them though. Took all the classes though. Where is this?"

"You're the one who fell through the barrack's roof, doctor." The way the still nameless officer said the name made it obvious he didn't consider it as such. The Doctor frowned.

"I fell through a roof? That's new. How did I get there?"

"Asking us wouldn't do much good, considering you're the one breaking into high security bases."

"Whose?"

"I'm still not sure who you are. What exactly do you do?"

"Anything I please. Well, to a certain extent," the Doctor corrected himself. "I've got this friend—rather irritating and persistent girl—who keeps wandering off and changing things up, and then there's the TARDIS, who doesn't always take me where I want to go. Cheeky for a blue box."

This time the eyebrows on both men went up. The questioning officer turned to his subordinate. "Get the nurse. I want to see the results of his chest scans and blood tests."

"What about the Field Marshal?"

The superior officer hesitated. "We make certain before telling him."

Mauve lights were flashing somewhere through the smoke. Kathryn stumbled towards where the door to TARDIS was, knocking it open and falling on the ground outside, coughing. Now that it had an escape route, the smoke billowed out of the Type-40, still obscuring Kathryn's vision. Her hearing, however, continued to work, picking up voices and snatches of sentences.

"…blue box…!"

"…what he looks like?"

"…will the companion…?"

"…really worked?"

"Julius will know."

"… he's alright?"

"…get the medic?"

Kathryn pushed herself up, the smoke clearing somewhat. She saw dozens of faces in the early morning light, mostly men. She instantly tensed when she saw that all of them had weapons.

"Let me through!"

Kathryn turned her head sharply to the left even as she stepped backwards towards TARDIS's doors. The crowd parted and a man stepped into the open space around Kathryn. She took him in at a glance; humanoid, reptilian look to his eyes and skin—crossbreed, early thirties. Built, not heavily so. Armed. He stared at Kathryn with an almost reverent expression, but she felt a…an intense emotion twist her stomach when she saw him. She wasn't sure if she was scared of him, or wanted him dead, or just wanted him gone.

"Are you one of the Keepers of Time?" he asked, a little breathless.

"Are you in charge of this company?" she challenged.

"No mam."

"Then I'll speak to whoever is."

"Not until I know who you are."

"Not until I know who you are," Kathryn returned, closing TARDIS door behind her and feeling it lock. The man straightened up.

"I am Lieutenant-General Julius Robertson of the Iuhin Army. I specialize in the weird and incomprehensible."

"Then I take it you haven't gotten around very much," Kathryn bit at him. "There is only one specialist in that field and I'm not looking at him." She held her chin up. "I'm known as Trouble Moore," Kathryn said, leaving her first name off. Her middle and last name sounded scarier without it, and with the Doctor who knew when, scarier was better.

"That's what you're called," Julius said, un-intimidated. "Are you one of the Keepers of Time?"

"I'm known by a lot of monikers, Robby. Be a little more specific."

"Do you travel with the Time Lord known as the Doctor?"

"Yes, but if I don't take to why you want to talk to him you are never going to find him."

There was another gasp. "It's true," one of the group whispered, his translated accent Northern. "The Blue Box is real. They really exist."

"Come with me Miss Moore," Julius said to Kathryn. "The Field Marshal will want to see you."

The door to the Doctor's room opened again. The two men from before entered, accompanied by a nurse. She quickly took off the brain scan tabs while the minor officer hurriedly un-cuffed the Doctor from the bed. The man who had done all the talking before tossed the Doctor's folded clothes on the bed.

"I am Colonel Yeseana of the National Ranngourian Armed Forces. I have been ordered to take you to one of our specialists for questioning."

The Doctor got out of the bed and pulled the curtain that was around it to afford himself some privacy while changing out of the hospital style gown. "What sort of specialist?"

"One who will tell us if you are a genetic fraud sent by the Ihuians or the man you claim to be."

"The who?"

"The Ihuians."

"Ihuians…" the Doctor muttered to himself as he tried to place the name. "What planet did you say this was?"

"Are you simple?"

"What? No, and that's a rude question," the Doctor snipped back. "I was sort of…flung here after my ship got hit. Haven't the slightest idea where I am."

"You're on Beriin," Julius told Kathryn. "One of the outskirt planets of the Third Human Empire."

"No great and bountiful?" she asked sarcastically, glancing edgily at the people lining the route that they were taking. The tents, rough equipment, and general miss-match of everyone's clothes made her think that this wasn't a well-funded enterprise. Either that, or this was some kind of revolution. Not that she'd be disappointed if it was.

"Our benevolent rulers don't bother much with anyone on the edge," Julius said bitterly. "We're left to ourselves. Beriin is the planet no one cares about in an Empire that's falling apart. Half the time they don't even remember to collect the taxes."

"Then I take it you aren't picking the fight with them."

"No. We're fighting the Ranngour, on the Southern side of the planet."

"So that's why you all sound Northern. I guess every planet has a North," Kathryn added, mostly to herself. She shot a glare at one of the nearby starrers, trying ineffectively to scare them off. "What year is this?"

"7632," the Doctor said, checking his watch. "Not a very good year. Lots of disease, and some of the worst art the human race has ever spit out." He parted the curtain grandly, adjusting his tie. "Where's the rest of my stuff? And my coat; I got that from a friend of mine. It's a good coat."

"Once we have decided whether or not you are a threat your things may or may not be returned to you," Colonel Yeseana said with a blank face. "Follow me."

He left the room and the Doctor kept pace with him. The other officer followed behind. The Doctor was starting to wonder if he was just for show. "You Ranngourians are from one of those insectoid-human cross races, aren't you?"

"How could you guess?" Yeseana said dryly, obviously not wanting an answer. The Doctor ignored the tone, as always.

"The exoskeleton sort of gave it away, though the multi-facet eyes helped. Who are you fighting again?"

"The Iuhin terrorists on the Northern side of the planet."

"Oh, that's right. Reptile-human breeds. Mostly because of the Homo reptilians from Earth you know. Once the Silurians and the Humans got used to each other they started sharing gene pools. Not surprising, considering they were from the same planet."

"History anyone would know," Yeseana said sharply. He slid a keycard down a reader next to a door. It unlocked and he opened it, the Doctor still with him. A small man with glasses looked up from a table in the small room.

"Is this him?" the small man asked with a hint of awe to his voice.

"That's what you're being paid to be certain of," Yeseana answered tightly. "Frankly, Dr. Usher, I never had faith in your stories, and I'm still not sure how you managed to convince Field Marshal Lathezia to run this insane project. I leave you to it."

He shut the door rather loudly and the Doctor blinked at the door before sitting down. Dr. Usher stared at him for an uncomfortable moment.

"Am I supposed to do something?" the Doctor asked. Dr. Usher gave a small start.

"Yes. Yes, you are," he answered, tapping a screen built into the table top and pulling a stylus from his breast pocket. "Nothing much, just a few things to be certain you are, indeed, the Doctor."

"What sort of questions?"

"Mam, I'm just trying to check—"

"Will you stop maming me?" Kathryn snapped at Julius. The way he kept dodging her questions to ask his own was annoying her to no end, and all the whispering people weren't helping. She stopped and crossed her arms. "I'm not moving until I know what, in the name of the Mason-Dixon Line, you think I am."

"A hero," one of the crowd said. Kathryn stared around at the people.

"Are you serious?"

Julius gave the speaker a glare, then motioned Kathryn inside a nearby tent. He seemed rather irritated with Kathryn, which was fine with her; she didn't really like him either. Once Julius had thrown out the current—sleeping—occupant and had the tent flaps closed, he spoke.

"We don't think you are the hero, mam," Julius said, straining the words. "Frankly, I expected the Doctor to come," Julius told her. "He's the one we've all been counting on. His harem of women was only included as a passing thought in the records, barely even a foot note. You're the sidekick, as it were."

"Harem? Sidekick?" Kathryn repeated. "Is that what you think I do? It would take me an hour to list the number of times I've pulled that man's skinny backside out of a fire, and another two just to tell you how often something he's tried would have flopped without me on the other end! I don't know what ya'll want a universal fix-it man for, but I swear on Robert E. Lee's tomb that—"

"We are in the middle of a planet wide war, Trouble," Julius barked, suddenly right in front of Kathryn. "Right now you are standing on the losing side, and only someone straight out of a story book is going to be able to turn it around." He lowered his voice to be certain only Kathryn heard his next words. "These people have pinned their last hope on a fable, and whether you like it or not, you are part of that fable. If you are half the woman those stories make your kind out to be, then maybe even you could be of use."

Kathryn stuck her tongue in her cheek and took a deep breath. "What, if I may be so bold as to ask," she said sarcastically, "makes you think the Doctor would show up here? I know a friend of his that had to wait nearly two centuries; what makes you think he'd help out a stick-in-the-mud like Beriin?"

"As I've already made quite clear, we have nothing else."

Kathryn stared at Julius, processing what he was saying. "The Doctor doesn't do warfare," she finally said.

"We don't want a warrior!" Julius said, voice strained. "We aren't trying to fight."

"Then what do you expect him to do?"

"We don't know!" Julius took a breath. "What almost no one except the very highest officers know is that this…" he searched for the word "…excuse for a protest we have going on has nothing left. We need the Doctor; we need his intellect, we need his creativity, we need whatever he can offer us to settle this dispute. If one of his followers is all the universe will give us, then we will take it."

Kathryn sat down on cot next to her. "If you just admitted that to a total stranger, then you really are at the end of your rope."

"Hanging by a thread, mam."

Kathryn stared at the canvas under her feet for a long moment before looking up at Julius. "Just what do you think I am?" Kathryn asked again, this time in overwhelmed disbelief. Julius looked her in the eye.

"You're the stuff of legends."

"What color is your home planet, this Gallifrey?"

"You've asked that question three times," the Doctor said, exasperated. Dr. Usher blinked, looked at his notes.

"So I did. Red, you said?"

"Yes; from space, Gallifrey looked red."

"What do you travel in?"

"For the fifth time, a TARDIS. A Type-40 TARDIS with a broken chameleon circuit that makes it look eternally like a blue box. What exactly are you trying to find out?"

"I already gave you that answer. What can you tell me about your exile on Earth?"

"Nothing I haven't said before."

"What can you tell me about a group called UNIT?"

"You've asked me everything over and over again Usher," the Doctor snapped. "Whoever it is you think or don't think I am you have your evidence. Either you believe that I am the Doctor, or you don't. I'm done with circles."

Dr. Usher sighed, took off his glasses, and wiped them with a pocket handkerchief. "You're quite right. You aren't one of my lab experiments; I don't need to run you six times." He put his glasses back on and proceeded to fidget with his stylus. "The thing is Doctor, is that we've been waiting for you for a very long time, and we can't just accept anything at face value."

"Why have you been waiting for me?"

"We're in a war, of planetary scale, and we need you to end it."

"Then you waited for nothing, because I don't fight in wars."

"Despite what we've heard about you, we don't want a soldier, Doctor," Dr. Usher stressed. "Volunteers are lining up for that task every day. We don't want a weapon either; those are far too easy to invent."

"Then I don't understand what it is you waited for."

Dr. Usher sniffed, scratched at his upper lip, continued to fidget with his stylus. "Beriin is a colonized planet of the Third Great and Bountiful Human Empire. As all colonized planets have, there are…stories. I'm sure, being who you are, you know what these stories have to say about you."

The Doctor sighed, sat back in his chair. He knew; he knew all too well the picture most of them painted of him, the names they passed out. He was far too busy not to be noticed by people.

Dr. Usher took the Doctor's silence for the agreement it was and continued on. "Most of us on Beriin have taken those stories to heart. So, we set up every sort of signal we could devise with the one message; Doctor help us."

The Doctor leaned forward, being certain he understood. "You tried to flag down a time ship?"

"Yes."

"You must be desperate."

"We are," Dr. Usher confessed. "The Ranngour have been battling against these terrorists for a very, very long time Doctor, and we really are running out of options. We needed a story, no matter how farfetched, to help us figure out what do to next. Doctor," the small, nervous man said with sudden devotion, "you are the stuff of legends."