Saturday, July 28th, 1am, London
Lord Sebastian Coe sat in his office overlooking the Olympic Park watching the happy crowds depart. The opening ceremony had gone brilliantly; years of British cynicism and low expectations had been completely confounded. It was a job spectacularly well done.
Only he was aware of how badly wrong it had nearly gone, of how much a disaster that man had nearly caused.
There was a thrumming whooshing noise from the corner of the room and a blue police box faded into view. Its door opened and a gangly man wearing a bow tie, a tweed jacket and a slightly frazzled appearance stumbled out. "Do you have any idea how difficult that was?" he shouted, swaying slightly.
"Doctor!" Lord Coe greeted him. "I can't thank you enough."
The Doctor ignored him, instead pacing around the office and continuing his rant. "Never, not in over a thousand years, have I ever had anyone that infuriating in my TARDIS, upsetting her by pushing buttons and pulling levers and moving the jammy dodgers! Even the rampaging llamas of Alpha-Syrcorax did less damage! I think the implosion in her dematerialisation circuit has eaten part of my timeline! She burped and I saw I image of me at your ceremony. Of course, I was never there. At least I was, but now I wasn't. All gone! I think she did it on purpose, to punish me. She's still not speaking to me. Do you know what its liking having a TARDIS not speak to you? No, of course you don't. It's taken a decade to persuade her to let me leave 2457, the year famous for being the most boring in the entirety of time! And she made me live through it ten times!" He finally stood still and turned to glare at Lord Coe. "If you think I'm ever bringing him back here." he said darkly.
"No, no, a one-way trip is fine," Lord Coe reassured him, smiling broadly.
A small planet, 3 million light years away.
Gordon Brittas was sitting in the middle of what appeared to be a field. It was rather a nice place, he thought, all things considered. Of course, the blue grass and the orange sky took a bit of getting used to, but after taking the colours into account, it was a lot like the British countryside. He wondered when the Doctor would be back. He had some ideas on how to park that TARDIS of his, and of course, he wanted to ask him to fetch Helen. After all the years on those pills of hers, she probably wouldn't even realise she'd left Earth.