A/N: This was inspired by "Death in Heaven," so beware of some spoilers.

She Came

"This is a secure line. How did you get this number?"

Osgood raised her eyes expectantly. 'Who?' she mouthed.

Kate Stewart shook her head. "Why should UNIT believe you? Why should I believe you?" Her brow creased. Something in her gut told her that she should trust the voice on the other end of the line. It felt familiar somehow.

"Ma'am!"

Kate raised her arm to command silence from the UNIT officer who had just entered the room. "No, wait!" Her fingers curled into her palms. "Damnit!"

"M-Ma'am?" Osgood whispered cautiously. "Shall I trace the call?"

"If you want to waste your time," Kate replied, slamming the phone to the table.

Osgood winced. "Who was it?"

"I don't know. A woman with a Scottish accent."

"What did she want?"

"She said we need to stake out St. Paul's."

"For what?"

"I don't know."

"A trap?"

"Possibly. Probably." Kate bit her lip. She was going with her gut on this one. "But we're going anyway."

Osgood stared at her boss for a moment, then retrieved her inhaler and took a deep breath. She pointed to the soldier who still stood at the door. "You heard her! St. Paul's, now!"

DW DW DW DW

Delete.

Did they think she was going to delete; did they really think she was going to take them up on the offer?

Detect.

That was what they should have done: detect the flaw in their system. Hard drives, computers, those were easy. She'd hacked them before. Sort of. In a life that happened even though it didn't. But that wasn't the point; the point was that they should have considered that she had the potential before trying to manipulate her to get to him. Again! Maybe it wasn't the same group this time, but it was the same probe. Same software, different case.

She wasn't going to wait around to be saved this time. If she'd learned anything, it was that being late was a letdown. So she'd gone early. Manipulated the hard drive to send a single drop back to Earth ahead of the storm.

Thud!

Thud!

Slowly she lumbered to face the mirror. Her arm made mechanical crows as the elbow bent, the fingers curling in to reach for the Cybermask. Once removed, there was a skull; a skull framed in ginger.

"All these years living here, most of your life, and you've still got that accent."