"Good morning!" The Doctor called cheerily into the TARDIS control room, his bedhead still sticking out from here to yonder. His snappy shoes clicked against the floor humming with possibilities. He twirled on his heels, pointing at the handsome devil who winked back from the mirror.

He straightened his bow tie, waiting for the reply that would never come.

"Oh, yes, that's right…" He rapped his knuckles against the doorway.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Four beats, always.

"Alrighty, then. Where are we going today, old girl?" He drummed his fingers against the wall once more. The still air in the time machine hung around his shoulders like a thick bear cloak.

The Doctor pushed back his hair as he meandered over to the monitor. A sticky note on the side proclaimed a secret message for him in Gallifreyan: take Clara to Akana- diamond beaches!

He ripped the sticky note down with a wry twist of his lips. There would be no Clara, and certainly no diamond beaches. There would be no more adventures for the dynamic duo, at least not for today. Another note on the side of the monitor bore Clara's straight and narrow teacher's hand: Bananas, milk, bread, eggs, tea bags

He left that note where it was.

The Doctor sighed, smoothing his hair down the rest of the way. "Oh, Clara… My Impossible Girl. Never thought you'd run off and leave this old man all alone."

Well, technically, she hadn't run off. Rather, Clara Oswald, the Doctor's close friend and travelling companion, had stormed off. His head hung low as the scene replayed across his vast memory, igniting the killing loneliness inside of him yet again.

"Doctor, I don't know how much longer I can do this," Clara sighed, casting a glance over her shoulder as she closed the TARDIS door. The red skirt of her dress swished away just in time to not get snagged.

"Do what?" The Doctor adjusted another set of levers. "We're time travellers, Clara. We have all the time in the universe."

She took a deep breath, dropping her eyes to her hands. She casually covered the ring on her left hand with the perfect white polish on her right. "This, Doctor. All this travelling and secrecy and… escaping from reality."

"What do you mean? This is reality." The Doctor pulled another lever, setting the coordinates for the planet Akana. She would love the diamond beaches there, he was sure of it. When he was cleaning out the spam folder, he noticed an unusual influx from diamond brokers.

"No, you know what I mean." Clara looked up at him, finally. "Doctor, I love travelling with you, but this isn't… this isn't real life."

"Oi! This is my real life!" The Doctor scowled. This was the only life he wanted!

She rolled her eyes. "But, Doctor, this is not my real life! You know, the teaching job and the new flat and the family and the fiance that I keep running away from!"

"Fiance?" The Doctor crossed his arms. He was supposed to know everything. Best friends always knew everything.

Clara put her head in her hands. "Yes, my fiance. I didn't mean for the news to come out like this." She looked back up at him with a smile brighter than any star in the universe. "Doctor, Danny proposed to me last night."

"And you said no, of course."

"No, I said yes." She frowned. Why would he doubt her love for Danny Pink?

"And I say no. No more finances on the TARDIS. I won't have you jumping off a building in New York only to end up a colonist."

"Then I say no." Clara flashed him a look that he hadn't seen since Martha Jones left the TARDIS for the very first time. "Goodbye, Doctor." She grabbed her purse and marched towards the door.

She left her key to the TARDIS behind.

The Doctor leaned against the controls in exasperation, knocking the final lever askew.

VWORP! VWORP! VWORP!

"No, old girl! Woah! Slow down!" He pulled and pushed at the controls in a frantic panic. "I didn't tell you to go anywhere!"

But he knew that his protesting was useless. The TARDIS didn't always take him where he wanted to go, but it always took him where he needed to be.

"YOU WILL BE UPGRADED!"

The unmistakable chant of the Cybermen rattled the Doctor to his very core.

He crept out of the TARDIS carefully, keeping one eye in front of himself and another behind at all times. He knocked into a security guard, dropping his sonic screwdriver beneath a tangle of MI6 agents and UNIT specialists. The Doctor grappled for his beloved screwdriver, chasing it as it rolled beneath shoes and between feet.

"Looking for this?" When the Doctor scrambled to his feet, he was face to face with an old friend.

"Martha!" The Doctor beamed, wrapping his arms around the woman who walked the earth to save the world.

"Dr. Jones," Martha corrected him, arms crossed. "Nice of you to finally show up, Doctor."

"Nice to see you, too, doctor," he winked. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, if you called me every once in a while, then you'd know," she scowled. What Martha didn't know was just how often the Doctor came to check up on her. "This world is in danger. I'd save it myself, but I kind of have my entire world on the way."

The Doctor glanced down at Martha's swollen belly. "You've swallowed a planet!" he beamed, wrapping her in another tight embrace.

Martha smiled, finally. "Do what you do best. Go save the world."

The Doctor turned to face the chaos.

Innocent civilians ran screaming from the shopping center in as many directions as the Doctor's bedhead reached. A silver cylinder the size of a habitable asteroid had made a rather large pothole right through the shopping center sign. He straightened his bowtie and strutted inside.

Time to save the world.

(Again.)

"Everyone, stay calm and get back!" He called out, forever the hero. "London police! The situation is under control." Relieved mothers and calmed elderly made their way towards the exits.

The Doctor ducked behind an especially tall fikas, carrying it with him as he scooted along the wall. Even with the sound turned all the way down, the screwdriver still made enough noise to attract even the least attentive cybermite. He slinked along the wall and into- what else?- the Apple store.

"Figures," the Doctor smirked to himself, dropping the fikas and ducking into the Cybermen's makeshift control center. He pushed open the doors to a dark room. Only the slight tick tack of computer keys guided him to the back of the storefront. Cyberman technology strung together three dozen Macbooks and twice as many iPhones. This looked not unlike Clara's kitchen counter.

The Doctor scanned the tech setup with the screwdriver. He marveled at the sheer intricacy of the disorganization. What a beautiful mess!"Oi!" He exclaimed, stumbling over an extended woman's leg. Terror seized his heart as he took in the way she appeared to be remotely attached to the machines, running them with unhumanlike purpose. Her eyes were unblinking as if her mind was under the influence of another.

"Don't you dare lay a finger on that, you will mess up my coding!" she growled. She lept to her feet and darted to the next computer, typing as if her life depended on it, because it did, actually.

Taken aback, the Doctor tripped again. She caught his wrist just in time, only to let him go once more. Regaining his composure, he assured her, "Don't worry, dear. I'm the Doctor, and I'm here to help you!"

Long brunette waves hung in her face as she typed away furiously. "No thanks. I've got this under control."

"You've got this- what?" He scratched the back of his head with the screwdriver. "Are you with the police?"

"No."

"Security?"

"Nope."

"UNIT?"

"No sir."

"Shadow Proclamation?"

"Never heard of it."

The Doctor tilted his head. She was a quizzical one. He did a quick scan with the sonic screwdriver. She was human, but she was so very human that it felt forced.

"Are you a human?"

"Yep. That's me. Good old fashioned Homo sapien. Now be a dear and pull my hair back, would you?" She flicked an elastic at him, not a second to sacrifice.

With a sloppy shrug of his shoulders, the Doctor plaited her hair the way Amy had taught him to one night while the TARDIS was charging in Cardiff. As he pulled her hair back, he peered over her shoulder at the screen. "Bloody… how? That's bloody brilliant."

"University of Cambridge computer science program, top of my class," she replied, typing in another furious code on another smoking laptop. "Now go be stupid somewhere else." She caught her reflection in the screen of a dead computer. "Nice plaiting skills. Do you do hair for weddings?"

The Doctor scowled at the mention of such a pointless celebration.

"Oh, relax," she smirked, meeting his eyes in the glint of the next screen she moved to. "I'm asking for a friend. You can still get my number after I finish saving the world."

The Doctor simply stared at her in awe. How did one human realize she was saving the world while executing her plan so perfectly? How did one human so easily put the fate of her kind on her shoulders? How did one human continue to flirt through imminent disaster? He did not leave.

He would not leave.

"Fine. You can be my assistant," she mumbled. "Take my jacket." She tossed a leather jacket at him, revealing one of those baggy blue tshirts required of all Apple Store employees.

The Doctor folded the jacket over his arm and scanned the rest of the computers with his sonic screwdriver. She had disabled nearly all of them.

"Don't you dare touch a single thing," she told him. "I am almost finished. Just stand there and look pretty."

An unsuspecting smile crept up his face. "You think I'm pretty?" He straightened his bowtie. "Well, you, my dear, are quite lovely yours-"

"It's called sarcasm, look it up," she quipped, moving on to the next Macbook. "Remember these numbers: 2711."

"Why those particular numbers?" He inquired, daring to take another step closer.

"In case everything blows up," she answered as if it was a casual lunchtime conversation.

"If I may ask," he was going to ask anyway- "Why are you doing this? Why are you not running away?"

She didn't hesitate, not for even a millisecond. "My mall, my store, my job."

"So it's to save your job in this store," the Doctor tried.

"I'm not the only person I care about who works here, if that's what you're asking."

"I wasn't asking."

"Then shut up."

He shut up.

The woman stood up, finished with the laptops. "Now you can help. Pull out the blue USB cords, carefully. Only the blue ones."

For the first time in his life, the Doctor did as he was told.

As they worked to save the world, an unspoken bond formed between the girl and her unlikely companion. They were, for better or worse, a team, because destiny had thrown them together, and destiny always knew what she was doing. The Doctor wondered if this anxious uncertainty was the way that his friends always felt when they travelled with him. He wondered if this woman would like to travel with him. He wondered if she already knew how to fly a TARDIS. He wouldn't be surprised if she could.

"Okay, do me a favor," she cut into his thoughts. "Go keep watch by the door while I finish up rerouting. Let me know as soon as the Tin Men get back."

"The Tin Men?" He smiled. Her new name for the Cybermen had a certain moxy to it. "That's cute. Actually, they're called Cybermen. I know because-"

"Go keep watch!" She snapped. "And stay quiet! I feel them coming!"

The woman worked diligently to finish up her self-proclaimed mission as Earth's mightiest hero, and he waited for the Tin Men. As he kept watch, sonic screwdriver at the ready, the Doctor began to make a list of all the places that he would take her on the TARDIS after they finished with the Cybermen. Raxacoricofallapatorius, Asgard, Ponton, Kastria, Akana...

The Apple Store groaned with the finality of failed power.

"No! Ugh! Get off me, metal mouth!"

He turned around just in time to watch a pair of Cybermen drag her off through the employee entrance.

The Doctor did everything that he could to keep his cool as he searched for an alternate entrance. Whoever this woman was, she was brilliant, and the last thing the Cybermen needed was a mind like hers.

Also, in the short time that he'd known her, the Doctor had taken a bit of a fancy to this woman.

Nevertheless, she was a human in peril, and it was his duty to get her out of it. The Doctor followed the faint electric trail of the Cybermen to a window looking into the bowels of the shopping center. He jumped as high as he possibly could, grasping onto the window ledge and hoisting himself up and through it.

The Doctor landed with a thud.

"And he stinks the landing!" He laughed, hopping to his feet and facing the Cybermen face to face. "Now let the lady go."

The foursome of Cybermen who held the woman unconsciously strapped to a chair stared at him in unison. Her insides were hooked to machinery.

"She will be upgraded," one informed him.

The Doctor pointed his screwdriver right at the Cyberman's face. No matter how many times he faced these monsters, he could never believe that they were once human. "Let her go, and we won't have any trouble. You know who I am."

"You are the Doctor. You are no match for us."

"The Doctor, that's right. And I am no match for you. I am so much more than a match for you. And my friend there is more than a match for you. You want to know why? It's because she has a heart. And you know what? I have two."

The Doctor tucked the sonic screwdriver into his pocket.

He took a deep breath. "Let her go. Please."

The woman stirred beneath the Cybermen's unerring stares. "Two… sev….seven…"

He caught her message loud and clear, even as she whispered. "Two. Seven. One. One."

The Cybermen before him sputtered and died.

The Doctor watched the scene before him in horror. The Cybermen crashed to the floor and twitched for a full minute before the spark finally left them.

"Decommissioned," the woman mumbled before passing out once again.

The Doctor worked through his disgust to untie his friend. Tossing her over his shoulder, he ran through the mall and to the TARDIS, hopping over piles of decommissioned Cybermen.

When Trixie finally came to, she was laying on her back in a hospital bed, a hot mug of tea beside her, the strange man holding her hand. She blinked twice, then asked, "Where the heck am I?"

"Oh, thank goodness!" The man with the bowtie pulled her into a tight embrace. "Oh, um, nurse! Nurse! Excuse me!"

A tall woman who looked not unlike a cat stepped into the room and checked her vitals. She smiled warmly. "Mr. Smith, everything checks out. Your wife is free to go."

"Your what?" She exclaimed.

"Shh, love, slight amnesia," the man interrupted her. To the nurse, he explained. "Poor dear. She gets like that when she's stressed." He looked at Trixie with puppy eyes. "It's me, love, don't you remember? The love of your life? Your husband of five years? The father of little Johnny and Emilia Smith?"

"Oh, um… yeah…" She nodded slowly. "Johnny and Emilia. And little Roxanne on the way."

The nurse gave her a look of gentle confusion. "Mrs. Smith, I'm sorry, but you're not pregnant. We checked before we administered your medications."

Medications?! What kind of drugs had this weird looking woman streamed through her body without her consent?

"Yes, well, we're trying," Trixie flashed the woman a fake smile. "Right, John?"

Face bright as a tomato, he added, "Yes, dear. Of course." He paused, an awkward silence. "Well, we must be on our way."

With that, he scooped Trixie up into his arms and ran away.

He ran through a hospital that looked like something out of Star Trek. He ran out the door and past a field of unnatural grass and straight into a blue box.

"Yes, dear, it's bigger on the inside," the man informed her, rushing to the control panel in the center of the octagonal room after setting her down in a swing below.

Trixie stumbled out of the swing. She paced about, tracing her fingers along the circles on the walls. "It's nice," she smiled, "Like one of those tiny houses." This place, this box, was like fairyland for a technology geek like herself. "I'm Trixie, by the way."

"And I'm the Doctor. Pleased to meet you!" He shook her hand, catching her as the blue box shook and took off. "And this is my TARDIS. That's Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. We can travel anywhere in space and time, anywhere that you'd like."

She smirked. "I said you could have my number after we saved the world, not take me home."

The Doctor gave her an awkward smile. "Well, then, anywhere in time and space. Where would you like to go?"

"I'd like to go back to London, please," she replied. "London 21st century, day after we saved the world. We did save the world, didn't we?"

The Doctor nodded. "Welcome to the day in the life of one of my travelling companions! You see, that what we do here aboard the TARDIS- we see the universe and we go where we're needed." His eyes glittered when he smiled. "And the universe needs you, Trixie. You're bloody brilliant."

"Oh, I know," she shrugged him off. "And I'd like to go home please." She ran her fingers across the TARDIS controls. "Maybe you can come over for tea and scones."

He just smiled at her as if she was the most unusual thing in the universe. "I tell you that I'm a time travelling alien, and all you want is a tea party?"

Trixie made a face. "Tea party, no. Tea and scones, yes. Just very casual, you know… Like a book club."

"A book club?" The Doctor chuckled. "Alrighty, then, let's go have a book club."

Suddenly, the TARDIS seized as if someone else had control. A health warning flashed across the monitor. Trixie stood in front of it, squinting to read the long lines of tiny print. "It says I'm not healthy enough to return to earth yet."

The Doctor read it from behind her. "That it does."

Trixie merely shrugged. "Alright then, Doctor, take me to a space beach."

She strutted down the unfamiliar beach as if she had belonged there for a long time,

The Doctor carefully studied every move she made- the hair tossed over her shoulder, the bare toes digging into diamond dust, the pale skin glinting in the starshine. She was a mess of today and tomorrow and everything that stretched between them. He wanted to step forward and take her hand in his own, but she walked as a woman who needed no one beside her.

What he saw beneath her confidence was a reflection of himself- loneliness.

Trixie had a long scar down the side of her stomach from where the Cybermen had cut her open and the nuns had sewn her back together. She showed it off as a red badge of courage, strutting down the beaches of Akana in a two piece suit that had been in the TARDIS wardrobe since the 1950s. "What's the matter, Doctor?" She called over her shoulder, her hair still pulled back in the plait.

"Oh, nothing…" he assured her, letting the goofy grin contort his face. "I'm glad you're feeling better, that's all."

"I'm always fine," she said. She bent down to pick up something from the shore. She stood up and pranced over to him, proudly showing the Doctor her new treasure. "This is the biggest diamond I've ever seen!"

He chuckled. "Yes, this planet is known for its diamonds. The sand here is made of diamond dust."

Her eyes grew into saucers at the notion of grandeur. "Can I keep it?" He nodded. "Goodbye student debt!" She held it out to him, fingers outstretched. "Can you keep it in your pocket so I don't lose it?" The Doctor accepted the diamond and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket. He had opted out of proper beach attire, instead remaining in his suit and bowtie.

"Let's lay out the towels and go sunbathing right here," Trixie decided. The Doctor obediently spread out a pair of towels he'd unearthed within the TARDIS and sat down. Trixie spread out her long legs luxuriously, not giving a crap about the rest of the universe. "Relax, Doctor," she laughed. "You said that you save the world twice a day. Take a day off."

He closed his eyes and lay back against the towel. With the thousands of thoughts and half a dozen parallel universes racing through his mind, it was hard to stay still, even for a moment. The Doctor was just about to get up when Trixie lay her head against his shoulder. "This is nice," she smiled.

The Doctor reached for her hand. "It is, isn't it?"

"Excuse me, m'am, but can I get a picture?"

Their sweet daydreams were interrupted by a cow-shaped man with a pig-shaped face. "For, uh, the newspaper."

"For, uh, I think not," Trixie quipped. "I'm not a resident."

"Sorry, miss, you're just such a lovely specimen." The farm animal humanoid held up a Polaroid-esque telescope. "Just one quick shot? I could make you famous."

"I'm fine, thanks," she replied.

"Miss, come on, I'm just a simple guy who wants a picture of a pretty female. Is that too much to ask?" He reached out a hand towards her.

This was where the Doctor decided to intervene. "Excuse me, but she said no. And when a woman says no, she means no." He sat up, inadvertantly pulling Trixie's arm up with him.

She sat up to be in a more comfortable position to address the pig man. "Now go on, scram. Get lost."

"Ma'am, just one-"

The Doctor snatched away the camera. He zapped it with his sonic screwdriver. "This isn't a camera. In fact, it's the exact opposite of a camera. This is an Aremac. Where did you get an Aremac in this century?"

"No, sir, I think you're mistaken, this is a vintage camera." The pig grabbed for it, but the Doctor stood up and held it just out of reach.

"So, if it's the exact opposite of a camera, then does it shoot something at people?" Trixie inquired.

"Close," the Doctor answered. "A Polaroid camera spits its products out. An Aremac pulls its products in."

Trixie stood next to the Doctor. "So, how do we get them out?"

"Please, just give me back my camera!" The pig man exclaimed.

Trixie shot him a look of liquid vitriol. "No, you pig! We're going to free the women you have trapped in here and turn your sorry bum into the beach security."

With that, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

A trio of lifeguards came running to her aid. "What is it, miss? Are you okay?" A tall and surly purple porpoise held out a first aid kit.

She pointed at the pig man, playing the part of damsel in distress. "This man is trying to capture me with his Aremac! He's already got a ton of my friends, but, like, thank goodness my boyfriend was here to stop him!"

The purple porpoise latched his arms around the pig man. "We're going to have to take you in, sir." He turned to the Doctor. "And we're going to need- Oh my! Are you… You're him!"

The Doctor smiled. "Yes, I am!"

A red porpoise smacked the purple one in the belly with his flipper. "Dude! He's just trying to have a relaxing vacation with his girlfriend! Be cool!"

The purple one still couldn't help but gawk. "I didn't know there were lady Time Lords!"

"I'm a human, actually," Trixie cut in, dropping the damsel act. "Just take this guy in, yeah? I'm pretty sure we can handle to Amerac."

"Yes, ma'am. Of course ma'am." The purple porpoise took her hand and kissed it awkwardly. "Thank you, ma'am! Goodbye!"

As the lifeguards dragged the pig man away, the Doctor gave Trixie a goofy grin.

"What?" She demanded.

He couldn't help but laugh. "So I'm your boyfriend now, is it?"

Trixie rolled her eyes. "Oh, goodness no." But then she laughed. "It's too early to say, don't you think?" She tapped the Amerac. "How about we free these ladies and see where it goes, yeah?"

The Doctor returned his attention to the matters at hand. "So, when you take a picture, how do you get the picture out of the camera?"

"You develop the film," Trixie answered. "Film is developed in a dark room typically, but Polaroids just take the right paper, light, and some time."

"Precisely!" The Doctor booped her nose endearingly. "Now, how about we print these people out and get them developed?"

The Doctor and Trixie worked quickly to remove the people from the Amerac one picture at a time, laying the Polaroid-style pictures end-to-end along the shore line. As the starshine hit the blackness, the trapped women slowly began to materialize from their paper prisons. They ran off one by one, desperate to find freedom again.

"I hope that pig rots forever in space jail," Trixie quipped, crossing her arms around herself as the star began to set.

"Come one, now," the Doctor decided, laying his jacket across her shoulders. "Let's get back to the TARDIS before we freeze to death out here. You wouldn't believe how cold diamond dust can get."