Christmas present for Mrs. 11th. Originally intended as a oneshot but it got long and I haven't been able to get to the end yet anyway.

AU where Holtz is a Time Lord and the others are her companions. It's gay, somehow, idk how exactly yet.

Erin Gilbert has imagined countless times what it would be like to run into Abby Yates again. She just never expected it to involve alien rhinos and a mad blonde in goggles who just doesn't quite make sense.

It had been a good six years for Erin. She has her Master's degree in theoretical particle physics and has been accepted into the PhD programme. And more importantly, she has put her mortifying obsession with aliens behind her - even if sometimes her study brings her a little too close to matters of space and the extra-terrestrial for comfort.

You've just been watching too much X-Files.

Alien girl.

Freak.

The words never fade completely even if their impact is far from what it had once been. It's embarrassing to look back at what she had thought and done but painful as well because there is always that what if?

Which is why, when Erin walks right into Abby Yates on the streets of Manhattan, she has never been more blindsided in her life.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I-" Erin stops short when she sees who is in front of her. "Abby?"

"Erin?" Abby seems to be similarly bewildered and for several seconds they just stare at each other. They might have continued doing so for an insurmountable period of time if not for -

"Who's this?"

Erin tears her gaze away from her ex-best friend to notice for the first time the blonde standing at Abby's side. The other woman must be mid twenties, same as them, but there's something in her eyes that makes Erin a little less certain about that than she should be. Erin is used to seeing intelligence in people at first glance but this is something more. Not just intelligence but also experience, more than is logical.

The blonde is wearing denim overalls with a strange circular design on the front pocket, over a dark green crop top. There are a pair of yellow tinted goggles atop her head which makes Erin wonder if she is a scientist like them or simply someone with a unique personal aesthetic.

"Erin Gilbert. My ex best friend," Abby says, with harsh emphasis on the 'ex' that makes Erin wince.

"M'kay, well, that's great, but we have...that thing," the blonde stranger says to Abby, "Kinda gotta get going. Soon. And by that I mean about three seconds ago."

"Wait, what is that?" Erin asks, for the first time noticing the bizarre device in the blonde's hands. It's about the size of a novel with a spinning disc on top, and looks homemade but also like it's doing something.

The blonde grins. "Morphic residue detector. Handy for finding shapeshifters who are, uh, getting around. Pretty neat, huh? Made it myself out of a toaster and a-"

"Sorry, did you say shapeshifters?" Erin asks, skeptically.

"Yep, following the trail of one that's been causing a real fuss around here - not his fault, he doesn't know how to act around 'the living dead'. We ran into him last night, managed to talk to him a bit, but he got scared off by-"

"The living dead? What does that mean?"

"Well, for his species, being unable to change shape is worse than being dead," the blonde says, like she's talking about a particularly interesting flower arrangement and not something that sounds utterly insane, "So naturally, humans are a little bit really terrifying."

She has an odd, manic grin. It's unnerving.

"His species?" Erin is vaguely aware of the fact that she's mainly just staring at the blonde and repeating various tiny parts of her sentences with great confusion, but she doesn't know how to react. She's talking like - like - well, like Erin used to, but it sounds legitimate.

"Don't bother, Holtz, Erin gave up on aliens a long time ago, she lives in a state of denial now," Abby says scathingly.

"Yeah?" Holtz - what kind of name is that, anyway? - gives Erin a once over, an easy smirk on her face. "Maybe she just hasn't met the right one yet."

Abby looks at Holtz with great exasperation. "No, we're not doing this now! You can flirt with every woman from here to Metabelius III and I don't give a rats ass, but you do not flirt with Erin. Because Erin sucks. Now, we need to get going or we're never going to find Trien before that Judoon does."

"Yeeeeah, fair call," Holtz admits.

"What's a Judoon?" Erin asks, automatically.

"Alien rhino cop," Holtz answers without missing a beat, and just lifts an eyebrow when Erin snorts derisively. "Yikes, Abby's right about you. I don't have the time to work with this. Come on, Yates, we got a shapeshifter to save."

The device in her hands starts beeping and Holtz and Abby snap to attention.

"This way," Holtz says, and they start running back the way they had come.

Erin stares after them. They're insane, they can't possibly actually be talking about real aliens, because aliens aren't real. But how could it be fake? Why would they lie, when Abby couldn't possibly have known that she would run into Erin? And that's the thing about Abby, she's always so...genuine. She says what she thinks and what she believes, and it seems to have gone from looking through a telescope and going over Roswell theories and talking about 'Erin's alien' to...whatever the hell Erin just witnessed.

Erin shuts her eyes for a moment, cursing herself, before running after them.

"Abby, wait!" She calls, and nearly busts a lung catching up to them. Since when is Abby fast? She'd never been slow, but she's downright speedy now.

"Get lost, Gilbert!" Abby yells over her shoulder. "I stopped needing you a long time ago!"

"In here," Holtz meanwhile says, coming to an abrupt stop, "It's a wax museum. Of fucking course it is. Brilliant. Literally, brilliant, Trien's got quite the little brain on him."

"Shapeshifter among wax figurines," Abby says, not sounding remotely thrilled, "Great. Just great."

Erin finally reaches them and is practically doubled over catching her breath. "But doesn't that device find him for you?"

"Not at this short a range. Morphic residue isn't like a tracking chip, it's residue," Holtz says, like she's stupid, and reaches out to run her finger along the door handle of the wax museum entrance. It comes away with a clear, sticky yellow substance coating the tip. "See?"

"Please don't-" Abby sighs when Holtz licks at the substance. "...do that."

"Mm. Tastes like earwax, with just a hint of lemon."

"I don't wanna know how you know what earwax tastes like."

"Live as long as I do, Abby, and play enough games of truth or dare in seedy spaceport bars, and you'll have a good seven dozen experiences you'd rather forget about entirely. But anyway, we were doing something, I was trying to make a point." Holtz frowns until a radiant smile lights up her face. "Oh, right, the residue. Tastes like fear too. Not that Trien being afraid is new, but this is strong. That aftertaste."

She reaches out to wipe her finger on Erin's white blouse, staining it with a truly hideous smear of yellow.

"Hey," Erin tries to protest, but Holtz just puts the finger to her lips.

"Is she going to go away?" She asks Abby.

"At this point? Probably not."

"Then I guess she's coming in."

Abby sighs, but upon glancing sideways stiffens at something she sees. "Shit, Holtz, it's the rhino guy, we gotta move."

Holtz grabs Erin by the hand and yanks her towards the door, giving her about half a second to glimpse the bipedal rhino creature striding down the street in their direction. Abby closes the door behind them and wastes no time barricading it with a bench.

"What was that thing?"

"Judoon, alien rhino cop, were you not listening?" Holtz asks, frowning at her and letting go of her hand to snap her fingers in front of Erin's face, making her blink. "Hmm. Slow reflexes."

"Holtz, forget about my annoying ex-best friend and focus on finding Trien!"

"Right," Holtz agrees, frowning at Erin before turning away to walk out of the entrance hall and into the main display room. "Trien! Trien, we know you're in here! The Judoon's outside, we don't have a lot of time. I can take you home, to your planet, but you've gotta trust me."

No response.

"How can you get him to his planet?" Erin asks.

Holtz gives her an odd look. "With my spaceship. Obviously."

As she moves off and keeps calling for Trien, Erin stops and takes a moment to try and process it all. Process that she's asking questions like she believes all of this insanity. Like she isn't on the slipperiest slop for her sanity that she's been on since the matter of extraterrestrial life came up as a debate topic during her last year in undergrad. She'd had to leave the room.

And now she's possibly just seen an alien rhino cop – though that sentence alone is enough to make her want to check herself back into therapy – and is helping her old best friend and her weird new friend look for an alien shapeshifter in wax museum.

"Wait," Erin says, very belatedly, "Your spaceship? How could you have a spaceship?"

"Work it out, Gilbert," Abby replies, rolling her eyes as she walks past her, "Holtz! You found him yet?"

No reply, but Erin is fairly sure she can make out the sound of voices in the next room. She and Abby creep in a few moments later, only to find Holtz standing there alone. She flashes them a smile that is just a little too friendly, a little too innocent. Erin would not have trusted it even if she hadn't seen Abby's look of scepticism beside her.

She feels breath on the back of her neck and whirls around only to shriek at the top of her lungs upon seeing her own face poking her tongue out at her.

"What the fuck?!" She exclaims.

Holtz bursts out laughing. "I'm sorry, I had to."

"What just-" Erin can only gape as the other Erin smirks at her and then entirely shifts her physical form until she is actually a he, short and olive skinned with dark blue hair.

"Glad to see you're in one piece, Trien," Abby says, looking relieved and cracking a smile, "So I'm assuming if you two had time to plan this prank, we're all good?"

"He knows the plan," Holtz says, getting a new, smaller gizmo out of her overall pockets – which, now that Erin thinks about it, aren't big enough to fit the morphic residue detector on its own let alone this one as well.

"It's good to see you again too, Abby," Trien says politely but genuinely. A moment later, he and Erin can't help but wince at the sound of the wax museum's front door cracking under the force of the pounding it is taking from the Judoon.

"So, you have a plan?" Erin asks.

Abby grins. "She always has a plan."

"Or at least, you know, part of a plan," Holtz says, her fingers flying across the buttons of the smaller gizmo, "Or something that could be a plan." She looks up and grins proudly. "Or I'll – I'll just do something, hope for the best, and say afterwards that it was part of the plan."

"But it's not."

Holtz grins. "Almost never."

"That is far from reassuring," Trien says to her nervously, his voice thickly accented in a way not dissimilar to Russian.

"Agreed," Erin says.

"If you worry-warts could just give me a second," Holtz says, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she keeps fiddling with her gizmo, "Our ride will be here very very soon."

The smashing of wood makes Erin jump, and heavy footsteps start heading in their direction.

"Holtz, the Judoon," Abby says urgently, "Are you sure the remote control works? We haven't tested it yet-"

"Wait, we're relying on something that hasn't been tested?!" Erin yelps, as she runs to slam the door shut in the hopes of buying them a few more precious seconds from the rhino cop she glimpses before she locks it.

"Just hang on!" Holtz retorts. A moment later, a wheezing sound not unlike the groaning of machinery fills the room and she and Abby visibly relax as a shape starts to form in the air between them.

"Is that…a wardrobe?" Erin asks with bewilderment.

"Yeah, we landed in a furniture store," Holtz says, shrugging as she takes out her singular earring to shove the key dangling from it into the lock that doesn't quite fit with the rest of the wardrobe's design, "Alright, everybody in!"

Trien looks dubious, but Abby reaches out to take his hand and he allows her to gently lead him inside. It seems she hasn't lost that quality in her that can make anyone follow her lead.

"But, we're not all gonna fit," Erin stammers, just as the door opens open and a rather furious space rhino storms in.

"No time for that," Holtz says, grabbing her by the shoulders and physically shoving her through the wardrobe doors. "Sorry, Captain, no arrests today. I'll be giving Mr Trien a nice ride home free of charge. You're welcome. Say hi to your boss for me. Catch ya later!"

Erin is so busy being amazed at her cavalier attitude that it is only just then that she turns around and realises that she is standing inside a large room, not the inside of a wardrobe.

"I….what?"

The room feels like the lair of a mad scientist from a cartoon. The entire space is dominated by a large hexagonal console with a central rotor that extends all the way to the ceiling. The console is a mess of wires and lights and what looks like a vintage typewriter wired into the system alongside some tech that Erin has never laid eyes on before. It all looks like it could fall to pieces with the wrong touch.

"Pretty sweet, huh?" Holtz says from beside her, clapping her on the shoulder. "It was Erin, right? Erin, welcome to my TARDIS and aforementioned spaceship."

"But-" Erin's head is spinning. "A wardrobe can't be a spaceship."

Holtz is grinning. "Says who?"

Erin is sure she has a good answer for that, somewhere, but comes up short because it's bigger on the inside and oh yes there was that feeling of spatial disturbance as I stepped over the threshold which implies interdimensional transference but this shouldn't actually be possible –

"Besides, it's not actually a wardrobe," Abby says from where she is checking a screen attached to the console, "The wardrobe is just a disguise. Obviously."

"Obviously," Erin mimicks with annoyance, "Well I'm sorry, Abby, if my difficulty to take in all of this absolute insanity isn't impressive enough for you."

"Eh, you're doing fine," Holtz says, giving her a playful punch to the shoulder, "But you know what is impressive? Me. Or rather, what I just did. I mean, did you even see that?"

She moves towards the console and stands in front of Abby, her whole body bouncing with manic energy while Abby just looks on with fond amusement.

"Abby. Abby, Abby, Abby." Her hands are planted on Abby's shoulders while her feet and lower body move in a kind of Elvis mimicry. "The remote control worked!"

Abby chuckles. "You kept saying it would. I only had a single second of doubt, I promise."

Holtz holds up the remote control as she looks back to Erin. "Stole it from a really salty biochemist back home. God, she hated me." She shakes her head and chuckles. "Of course, she hated everyone, and no one really liked me, so we actually got on pretty well, considering."

The other three just stare at her and she makes a face.

"Anyway," she says awkwardly, before breaking out into another grin, "Time to get you home, Trien! One solidly economy class seat back to Lorra coming up. Well, it would be if we had a seat, which we don't. Abby, you know the drill."

Holtz starts moving around the console, her hands travelling over the ramshackle controls with an ease and dexterity that makes it impossible for Erin to look away. Abby moves in a slower counterpoint, just pressing things here and there, her lack of speed and frown of concentration the only things that betray her lower level of confidence.

The ship starts to shake and Erin has to grab onto the door handle to avoid falling on her face, while Trien is not so lucky. Abby and Holtz are clutching the console and the latter lets out an enthusiastic whoop.

The wheezing that had signalled the ship's arrival in the wax museum fills the room again now, and then the shaking finally stops.

"Is it like that every time?" Erin asks, when she can finally find her footing again.

"Not every time," Abby replies in the same moment that Holtz says, "Damn right. I love it."

It occurs to Erin that there's a chance she could be dreaming. It's strange to think it's taken this long for this incredibly strong possibility to have occurred to her, and she wants to believe it, since she has always had such an imagination that shapeshifters and alien rhinos aren't much of a stretch.

She's not sure, however, that she could have thought up somebody as odd as Holtz or her weird bigger-on-the-inside wardrobe.

"Thank you for all your help," Trien says to Abby and Holtz gratefully as they head back towards Erin and the door, "I owe you my freedom. Possibly my life."

"Happy to help, buddy, it's not your fault you got caught up in that rift storm and ended up in New York of all urban jungles," Holtz tells him cheerfully, before her face and posture become more awkward. "Just, uh, now that you're home, do me a favour and get your family packed up. Go somewhere else. Emigrate. Just as a general, uh, tip from someone who may or may not know that your planet is going to have a minor…invasion, next year. Best to just...not be around when that happens." She taps her nose.

Trien stares at her for a moment. "I – alright. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, Lady Holtz."

Abby struggles to smother a giggle and Holtz snorts but just opens the doors and spreads her arms. "Like I say, happy to help. Now get back out there and do your thing. Shift. Flow. Whatever you call it."

"I will," he said, and steps out onto a rocky landscape overshadowed by a deep violent sky.

Erin's eyes widen. "Is that-"

The door is slammed shut before Erin can work out exactly how she wants to word her question, and she doesn't get a chance to express her annoyance because Abby and Holtz have burst into laughter so powerful that there are tears in their eyes.

"He called you – Lady Holtz!" Abby manages to get out, clutching her gut.

Holtz half wheezes with laughter. "I know, I know, you tell people you're a Time Lady and some of them just fucking run with it. Like, okay, sure, it's technically an accurate form of address, but have you seen me? Who looks at me and goes 'oh yeah, that's a real lady'?"

"Sorry, Time Lady?" Erin asks, weakly.

Holtz glances at Abby. "Should I tell her? Is she going to freak out?"

"Definitely."

The blonde cackles. "Awesome." She regards Erin with a small smirk. "You, Miss Erin Gilberry or whatever your name is, have the esteemed honour of addressing one of the only surviving Time Lords of Gallifrey, a horrifically pompous and boring planet on the other side of the universe that no longer exists."

She does a huge, sweeping bow, but one that is obviously intended to be silly given that she wiggles her bum a bit before straightening back up and slinging her arm around Abby's shoulders.

"And Abby here is my wonderful companion/partner in crime," she says happily, squeezing her hard, "Not actual crime, mind." She laughs. "Though that can happen too. Hazards of the job. Abby's the first human I've met who could handle it. First two humans I tried didn't really work out. Your species can be…so dumb. Like wow. Really. Wow."

"To be fair, from what you've told me about Kevin, he really was an outlier even by human standards," Abby says.

Erin can't really hear them anymore. She heard humans and your species and horrifically pompous and boring planet on the other side of the universe and what that means about Holtz is just too much. It's all starting to sink in now, everything she has tried to shut out for years now screaming at her to face it, the aliens and the bigger on the inside spaceship. And it can't be real, it can't be, but it's so vivid and she's wants to be sure she couldn't make any of this up but that's what she'd thought about the Star Poet too –

Erin, honey, you don't have to make up stories to get attention –

Erin, do you want to tell me about why you tell your parents that an alien comes to visit you at night? You know that lying to your parents isn't good? Or are you hearing voices, telling you they're an alien? Do you think it's possible it could all be inside your head?

"Oh shit, she's having a panic attack," Abby says. Her voice sounds so far away to Erin, like it's through water or honey or a wall.

"Oh crap."

Hands – Abby's hands, as soft as Erin remembers – cup her face and force her to look away from the wall.

She thinks she hears her name being said, but her chest feels hot and she can't think because this can't be real, none of it, it was never real, she was just crazy, except she's not and she never has been, she saw that alien, talked to it, he had been real and a part of her had never stopped believing.

It isn't until a familiar tune fills her ears that she starts being able to breathe again. Hooked on a Feeling isn't her favourite song by far and Abby's voice is nothing spectacular but suddenly it's like she's seventeen again and on her bed, Abby's arms around her and her voice soothing the panic away. Why this song? They had no idea, it became the remedy for any kind of awful feeling either of them had, no matter what.

And she had had no idea how much she had missed it until this moment. As Erin's heart rate comes back down, all she can do is stare at Abby.

"You remembered," she whispers, and Abby smiles, her thumb stroking her cheek.

"Yeah, of course I did, you dummy."

"So….aliens," Erin says, very quietly, with a shaky, hesitant smile, "Aliens are…real. Really real. Actually….real."

"That's me, really actually real," Holtz chimes in, beaming.

Abby, for the first time all day, only has eyes for Erin. She just smiles and wipes the tears from Erin's cheeks with her thumb. "Yeah. They're real, Erin. We were right. You were right. You always were."

"I'm sorry for leaving and saying all those things," Erin says, swallowing.

"We both said some awful stuff, let's forget about it."

"…friends?"

"You bet."

Erin lets out a tiny sob of relief and then they're hugging and she feels whole again for the first time in years, like she hadn't even realised that a part of her was missing until it was back in her arms.

"Aw," Holtz says from behind them, wiping a tear from her eye that may or may not have been imaginary and shaking her head. "You kids are so sweet. Glad me and the old boy could help."

Erin lets go of Abby to regard Holtz with new awe, hand over her mouth.

"You're an alien."

"Yep."

"With a spaceship."

"Yep."

"Oh my god, no, Erin, that's not even the best part!" Abby exclaims, making Erin blink at her. "Erin, it's not just a spaceship – it's a time machine."

"...what?"

"TARDIS," Holtz says, grinning, "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. That's what this thing is. My TARDIS." She pats the wall fondly. "I call him Bob. You want a tour?"

"I – of course I want a tour of your alien time machine spaceship," Erin stammers, laughing at her own words, "Oh my god. This is actually real."

"You better believe it, baby," Holtz says, "And any friend of Abby's is a friend of mine – well, any cute friend of Abby's with a passionate interest in aliens, anyway. So, you can stay as long as you like."

"You mean, she can come with us?" Abby asks, face lighting up.

"Uh, yeah. I mean, I don't know how smart she is, but we can always just work around-"

Erin coughs. "I actually just got my Master's degree in Theoretical Particle Physics," she says, "So I think I'll be able to keep up."

Holtz's eyebrows lift. "A human physics degree. Cute." Erin tries and fails to not be offended, and it must show on her face because Holtz laughs and punches her on the arm. "Ha, I'm kidding! Well, half kidding, but really, it's way better than what I was expecting. You'll do nicely, Gilberry."

"Gilbert."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yeah."

Holtz looks disappointed, but only for a moment. "Ah well. You can still stay."

So yeah, this will be a threeshot or a fourshot. Hope you like it so far! Let me know what you thought!