Title: Transcendence

Author: Lady Rheena

Rating: T (some violence and non-kiddie friendly stuff)

Disclaimer: Not mine. Evidently. No money. Don't sue. Please.

Notes: I am primarily a TNS Who fan and won't try to convince anyone otherwise. Any muff-ups I therefore make with TOS continuity can just be considered part of the AU definition. The Antecedent Series was written midway through TNS season two, and begins just after the events of Tooth and Claw.

Transcendence

Part 2

'He was my instructor in Basic Temporal Mechanics,' Will explained to Rose as they headed off down the corridor in the opposite direction from the pip-pip of the shooting. 'Well, our instructor, actually. He knows every story about the Doctor off by heart, and he was always dropping anecdotes into his lectures-' he stopped when the Doctor, at the front of the line, abruptly flattened himself against the wall, gesturing impatiently for quiet. Rose strained her ears in the ensuing silence and could just about hear the thud of footsteps on the grilled floor. Beside her, Jack counted slowly to three under his breath and then spun out into the junction. There was a muted aargh and he reappeared with a gun in his hand, grinning.

'Ladies and gentlemen-' he held up what looked to Rose like a credit card '-we are now armed.'

It turned out to be a keycard, not a credit card, and gained them access to one of the arms storage lockers distributed about the deck. Once everyone was armed- except the Doctor, of course, who only ever used the sonic screwdriver- and even Rose herself had been given a moderately destructive-looking hand pistol, Nat tapped the Doctor on the shoulder.

'We could leave her here,' she said, indicating Freyja. 'Seal the door. She'd be safe…until it's over.'

'No.' He didn't even give the idea a moment's consideration. 'She stays with us.'

'Doctor, I'm all for keeping an eye on her too but don't you think carting an unconscious body about is a bit of a liability?' Will pointed out.

'Shut it, mate,' Cal said to him. 'Since you're not the one doing the carting! Besides, it's Freyja. And she weighs almost nothing,' he added. 'Is that a side-effect?'

'Not bloody likely,' Rose said with a snort. 'Took me and Mickey to shift him-' indicating the Doctor '-when he was out of it.'

'What do you mean, she weighs almost nothing?' the Doctor barked, ignoring the jibe. 'Why didn't you say something?' He crouched down by Freyja's prone form and laid a hand on her forehead. 'Oh my god, she's losing all cohesive matter interlock…'

'She's what?' Rose asked.

'Her body's converting to pure energy. No wonder she doesn't weigh anything, there's hardly any mass left!'

'Can you stop it?' Nat demanded. 'Can you help her?'

'Someone shut that door.' When Cal complied he took a deep breath. 'Well. Haven't done this in a while.' Then before anyone could ask or protest he leaned down and kissed Freyja on the lips. Rose felt her jaw drop.

'What bleeding good did that do?' Will exclaimed. 'Kiss of life?'

'I thought that involved breathing in-' Rose began diplomatically.

'It wasn't breath I was giving her,' the Doctor said, straightening and picking Freyja up as though she weight absolutely nothing, which she apparently did. 'I gave her a little of my cohesive energy. With any luck it'll…well, slow the process a bit at best.'

'You mean you can't stop it?' Nat said, horrified. 'She's going to turn into energy and there's nothing we can do?'

'We can get to the Tardis and sort this blasted mess out is what! Cal, since you're the only one not whining, lead the way!'

The museum was strangely unguarded when they got there, having run into only a few lone guards in the ensuing passageways, all of whom seemed to be en route to somewhere else. Clearly the diversion provided by Yarris and the others was doing its job. The Doctor deposited Freyja gently onto the platform next to the K-9 whatever-it-was as Cal reactivated the holomatrix.

'You made it!' Holo-Rose didn't waste time on pleasantries. 'What are you going to do?'

'Either solve the mystery or make the universe implode,' the Doctor said levelly, eyeing the Tardis on its plinth.

'Ah. So, business as usual then…'

'Oi!'

'Rose? Come on, we need to barricade this door,' Jack said to her. 'Imploding the universe is one thing but he's gonna need time.'

'Great. Giving time to a Time Lord. What's wrong with this picture?'

The humans spent some time wrecking the museum to build an improvised blockade in the inner archway after the Doctor had sealed the outer hatch with the sonic screwdriver. He then returned his attention to the Tardis, pacing around it and muttering to himself as if trying to see it from all possible angles at the same time.

'They know you're down here,' holo-Rose said suddenly, sounding frightened. 'They're overriding my access circuits!'

The Doctor sprang across the room and attacked her control panel with the screwdriver before anyone else could react. There were some sparks and then a funny woooo noise that made everyone jump.

'There,' he said to her. 'I've isolated your control algorithm to this point.'

'I can't see out of this room!'

'But they can't shut you off, either-' he was cut off by an explosion that made the bulkheads rattle.

'They're in!' Jack shouted as the air filled with the pip-pip of laser fire. 'Whatever you're gonna do, Doc, make it fast!'

'I don't know!' The Doctor scrabbled at his head frantically. 'I don't know!'

'Doctor!' Rose yelled as Cal fell backwards to the ground when a laser bolt impacted him squarely in the chest. 'Oh god…'

'Move!' Jack roared. 'Fall back, fall back!'

Dragging Cal with them, they dived away from the barricade as it blew apart under the irresistible assault of the Institute's weaponry.

'Doctor! Jack, we've got to get to him!' Rose shouted.

'No!' the hologram screamed. 'Stay with Freyja!'

Before Rose could counter this idea a dozen armoured troopers jogged in, taking up offensive positions around the archway. Orders were barked around in voices made harsh and guttural by the filters on the full face masks.

'Freeze! Nobody move! Where's the target? Primary objective located!'

The Doctor looked up, right at Rose, and she felt her throat close up.

Run, she mouthed at him, willing him to obey her for once. Get into that Tardis and RUN!

He cocked his head on one side and then, completely unexpectedly, gave a little smile and mouthed back.

No.

'You! Doctor! Don't move!' one of the troopers barked. Turning his back on the room, the Doctor reached out with both hands…and flung the doors of the Tardis wide open. Rose had to shield her eyes at the violent explosion of light, painful in its intensity. A strange singing filled her ears and her mind at the same time as a curious awareness flooded back. She remembered this…

'And why shouldn't you?' an unmistakeably Northern accented voice said. 'Isn't it your memory and no one else's?'

Blinking rapidly to clear her eyes of the afterflash, Rose slowly got to her feet and looked about in amazement. Time seemed to have stopped altogether. A dozen laser bolts were hanging in midair on their way to the Tardis. Jack was frozen midway through lunging for his dropped gun. Her hologram was motionless, one hand outstretched in a warning. Even the dust motes in the air stood perfectly still like bubbles in an ice cube, casting a billion tiny shadows on the far wall. With difficulty she turned her gaze towards the source of that light, that voice, and gasped.

'No…' she shook her head. It couldn't be.

'It is.'

'How?' she breathed. 'How can you-'

'Oh, you'd be amazed what I can do when I put my mind to it.' He flashed one of those old goofy grins she remembered so well and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry because it was him, entirely him, from the grey-blue eyes to the jug ears and the just-too-big black leather jacket.

'You're…you're you again!'

'I've always been me, dummy!'

'I know, but…the old you!' Rose didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 'How? How are you…here?'

'I've always been here. That's the paradox, you see.' He spread his arms wide. 'See when I was stuck in that isolation tank, I was screaming blue murder but the only person who could hear me was me! And I heard me screaming just as I took you home for your twentieth birthday. Tell your mum the cake was lovely, by the way.'

'What?'

'Well, knowing I'd need me, I went back into the Tardis and stayed there! Seventeen billion-odd years. Boooring. Mind you, I didn't stay corporeal. Couldn't! Wouldn't have worked, otherwise.'

'Then…what happened?'

'Got myself absorbed into the Tardis, didn't I!' He seemed extremely pleased with himself about this declaration. 'We did it, the Tardis and me. Created a paradox. Knew I'd end up here, so I had to make sure I was already here to help me when I did!'

'But you're here…in that shape…' Rose groaned '…you're not making any sense!'

'Yeah, I'm good at that,' someone said from behind her. She whirled, flabbergasted, to find the Doctor giving the motionless face of a nearby trooper a cursory inspection. He straightened and wrinkled his nose at her. 'Why are evil henchmen always so ugly, do you think?'

'But- but-' Rose looked at the Tardis doorway. The Doctor grinned. She turned back to the arch. The Doctor grinned. 'There's two of you!'

The Doctor by the Tardis- the old Doctor, looking as he had when she'd first met him- gave a laugh.

'Give the girl a medal! She can count to two.'

'Oh, I don't know.' The new Doctor, with the somewhat younger-looking face she'd come to be so familiar with, gave a one-shouldered shrug and walked across so he was standing side by side with his counterpart. 'I think she's doing well not to have a brain implosion, myself.'

'Hmm. Good point. Shame about the gormless expression, though.'

'Oh, that's a human thing, they all do that.' Then they both laughed while Rose boggled at them.

'Hang on…' she gestured to the old Doctor '…you were inside the other Tardis?'

'Yep.'

'And you-' indicating the other one '-you're the real Doctor? The one I know?'

'We're both the real Doctor,' the older one said. 'I've just lived a longer and different version of history to this one-' jerking a thumb at his equivalent.

'It's called a Time Bubble, Rose,' the younger Doctor said, more patiently. 'That's why there are two Tardises. And two of me! This station, the Institute, the Travellers, all of it, is a self-contained bubble of history floating about in the currents of Time. It exists because of a version of your future which will no longer happen, but because it's in the bubble it can still exist. It's protected. By me- well, him- and by this Tardis.'

'Oh.' Rose tried to get her head around the concept. 'So…what now?'

'Time to burst the bubble!' the older one said gleefully. 'Or, rather, pick it up and throw it back into Time and then burst it.'

'How?'

'Ah, well.' The younger Doctor gave her a wink. 'That would be telling.'

'And there's two of you now? Permanently?'

'Oh, no. Got to be only one of me or the paradox still exists.' A broad grin. 'The universe is only big enough for one Doctor!'

'Then…one of you is going to die?' Rose said, stunned.

'I'm already dead, Rose,' the older Doctor said sadly. 'Gave up my corporeal body- my life, as you'd call it- to merge with the Tardis and create the bubble. And the Tardis- my Tardis- is dying now. It gave all its life force to create the bubble. It's got nothing left.'

'But you're-' she stopped, looking from one to the other as bitter realisation dawned. 'One Time Lord, one Tardis?'

'That's the rule.' Suddenly they were speaking simultaneously, their voices blending together in a curious harmony.

Rose glanced about.

'How come everyone else is…stuck? How come I can see this happening?'

'You looked into the Tardis, Rose Tyler. You saw the heart of the time vortex. And while I took the vortex out of you, I couldn't quite take you out of the vortex. You're linked to it- and to me- for good, and nothing anyone can do will change that. Now.' The double-grin was eerie. 'Here we go.'

A roaring sound, like a rushing wind, drowned out the ethereal singing of the Tardis. Rose watched, awestruck, as the older Doctor seemed to step into the younger one. He gave a strange shiver and rubbed at his hair, and then was standing quite by himself.

'Now that felt weird.'

'Are you all right?' she hazarded.

'I have a very strange urge to talk with a northern accent, but I think I'm on top of it.' He made a face. 'Here goes. You might want to duck.'

Rose threw herself at the floor, expecting another flash of light, but there was nothing. When she dared to look the Doctor was facing the Tardis doors again, but they were still closed.

'Throw down your arms!' one of the troopers yelled, about to blow Jack's head off.

'Do it!' she shouted. 'Jack, do it! Will, Nat, drop 'em!'

'What?'

'DO IT!' she shrieked, one eye on the soldiers and one on the Doctor. They all seemed as surprised as she was when they obeyed, although Jack gave her a frankly dirty look as the troopers disarmed them and incarcerated them between two exhibit stands. Radio orders were exchanged, some shouting done, and a report was given about the Loyalist forces throwing themselves on Institute guns as their own weapons ran out of the power pack charges that constituted ammunition.

But nobody made a single move in the Doctor's direction. The soldiers didn't seem to have realised he was standing there.

'What's he doing?' Jack hissed.

'Not sure.' Since nobody else had been even marginally aware of the interruption in the normal flow of time, Rose decided not to try and explain. She scuttled to the back wall where Cal had been propped up, his breathing laboured and in obvious pain although still alive. Laying next to him was Freyja, still wrapped in the Doctor's trenchcoat. On a hunch, Rose lifted it away from her face to find her eyes open and alive.

'Rose…'

'What?' Rose took her hand. 'Freyja, what is it?'

'I…create…myself…'

'Doctor!' The unmistakeable voice of the Director rang out across the room before Rose could reply. Freyja gave a shudder and flinched as if the sound hurt her. Rose gripped her hand tighter.

'I'm here, Director,' the Doctor said from the plinth, in a curiously detached tone. 'I'm here.'

'Your followers are being slaughtered at their lines, Doctor,' she snapped. 'Surrender and I may consider sparing their lives. This has gone on long enough!'

'Yes,' he agreed. 'It has.'

'Oh god,' Cal muttered indistinctly. 'Rose, don't let him-'

'S'all right, Cal, he knows what he's doing,' she said. I hope…

'Then you yield?' the Director pressed.

'No.' The Doctor turned around. 'I don't.'

Behind him, the doors of the Tardis flew outwards of their own accord. Light streamed out, blindingly bright, flooding the room with its brilliance before it faded to outline the Doctor, now a dark silhouette standing before an unearthly glow. It surrounded him, seeped over and about and even somehow through him. He opened his eyes and Rose gasped again, because in place of their usual gentle hazel they burned with some inner fire that lit his face as brightly as the Tardis illuminated its surroundings. His lips parted and formed words but it wasn't just his voice he spoke in. It was the old Doctor's, and what seemed like a thousand others besides. The voice of every Doctor? But there was no dischord, no sense of an echo. That voice was a billion voices at once, and yet at the same time only one.

'You wanted to see the power of the Time Lords.'

The Director shielded her eyes with one hand, her mouth open in amazement.

'Y- yes?'

'You wanted to feel it firsthand. You wanted it for yourself.'

'Yes!'

'You cannot feel it.' He tilted his chin up slightly. 'It will destroy you.'

'It won't! We humans have power you can't conceive of-'

'SILENCE!' That command seemed to take on a physical shape as it rolled around the room. 'You know nothing of infinity or eternity. Yesterday and tomorrow are closed to you. Even in the now you barely know yourselves. I see all. All that was. All that is. All that ever could be.' Again Rose's memory stirred. The words seemed familiar. 'You are not ready for that knowledge in even the smallest measure.'

'We are ready!' How the Director could even think of arguing with that luminous, godlike figure was beyond Rose's comprehension. 'Who are you to decide?'

'I am the Lord of Time.'

'You are a relic! A last remnant of a dead people! You are alone!'

'No.' That came out as barely a whisper. 'Not any more.'

'What?'

'I am not alone.'

'What can you possibly mean by that-'

Beside her, Rose felt Freyja stir. She reached out to restrain her but she'd already stood up.

'Where do you think you're-' Rose stopped short when Freyja looked down at her. The same opalescence was glowing in her eyes as in the Doctor's, and there was a similar duality in her voice as the old and new incarnations spoke together.

'I create myself…'

'Oh my god.'

'Her?' The Director's head turned towards Freyja. 'You! How? How can you-'

'You cannot take by force what may only be given freely,' the Doctor said. 'You wish for a curse. The world is not that unkind.'

'A curse?' The Director spat. 'Eternal life? Limitless rejuvenation? How is that a curse?'

'That you cannot understand proves that you are not ready.'

'And she is?'

'If she was not ready, she would not be what she now is.'

'How?' The Director turned to Freyja, half commanding, half beseeching. 'Tell us what you did, Freyja. Your own people-'

'I have no people.' Freyja's voice abruptly shifted back to the Oxford accent again. 'We have no people.'

'You are a human woman, Freyja, whatever else you may have become-'

'I am less.'

'And more!'

'I am less. I cannot die. I go on.' To Rose's astonishment there were tears on Freyja's cheeks. 'I go on. Alone.'

'No.'

She looked up, towards the Doctor. A slight smile curved his lips.

'You are not alone.'

'But I-' slowly, she lifted one hand out towards him.

'No!' The Director whirled to her troops. 'Fire! Kill him! She must be ours! Ours to control, to understand!'

Rose screamed as a hundred laser bolts shot through the air towards the Doctor's glowing figure. He held up one hand, palm out, and they vanished in mid-air. She shut her mouth, gobsmacked.

'Wow,' Jack said in her ear. 'Never saw him do that before.'

'Me neither.'

'You are so very young,' the Doctor said, and Rose thought he sounded almost sad. The Director, for her part, seemed only to grow more furious.

'You have no right!' she roared. 'She is human! We are her people!'

'You are nothing. You are potential without substance.' For some reason she couldn't pin down, Rose suddenly felt very, very afraid of the Doctor. 'I will unmake you-' he raised a hand.

'No!' That cry was from Freyja.

'You defy me?' Now Rose was frightened. This wasn't like the Doctor at all.

'Isn't there enough nothingness in the universe?' Freyja said to him. 'Isn't there enough emptiness in space and time?'

'They are tiny!'

'As I was! As even you were!'

'Newborn you would challenge me?' He sounded angry.

'Yes,' she said brokenly. 'If this is what you really are.'

'I have seen a billion suns set on a billion worlds! Nine hundred years in one body alone! How dare you defy me? HOW DARE YOU?'

'Destroy him, Freyja!' the Director barked. 'If you can do it, destroy him!'

'No,' Freyja said quietly. 'I'm not like you.' She looked up at the Doctor again. 'And neither are you.'

There was a long pause. Rose wanted to say something, but somehow didn't dare. This wasn't anyone she knew. This wasn't her Doctor at all. Or was it? Suddenly his arm dropped.

'No. Enough have died.' He hung his head.

'Holy crap,' Will hissed. 'Rose-'

She tore her eyes away from the scene to see Cal sitting up, peering at his burn-free chest and looking thoroughly befuddled.

'Er-'

'It ends,' the Doctor said.

'And it begins,' Freyja added.

'Life and death.'

'The sun and the moon.'

'The day and night.' Lifting his chin up, he broke into a broad, boyish grin that made Rose's fear vanish as quickly as it had arrived. His voice shifted back and he was her Doctor again, singular and entirely himself when he next spoke.

'So, Director…who's afraid of the big bad wolf?'

The final surge of power was blinding. It made Rose's hair stand on end and her skin cackle with static. Even closing her eyes and covering them didn't keep out the brilliance, but this time it wasn't at all painful. It felt like being washed clean by a steaming bath with no danger of being scalded. As the sensation ebbed, she gingerly levered herself upright in time to see the Doctor collapse.

'Doctor!' She half-ran, half-fell across the room to him, grabbing his head to force his chin up so she could see his face. 'Doctor? What…what was that? Are you all right?'

'Yeah…' he gave her another goofy smile '…I passed…'

'Passed? Passed what?'

'Gimme a hug…'

'What?'

'Good god girl, if you won't I will!' Jack pushed her aside. 'What in hell was that?'

'I passed!' The slightly drunken tone evaporated and he sprang up, giving Jack such a hard slap on the shoulder they both nearly overbalanced. 'I passed! I did it!'

'Did what? What are you on about?'

'Look! Look at them!'

Rose followed his gesture to see the Director and her troops spread about the room, to all appearances fast asleep.

'Wiped their memories!' the Doctor said gleefully. 'The whole lot! None of the other lot are dead any more, and the lot that were causing all the trouble- and gosh there were a lot of them- have no recollection of anything except their own names! How fantastic is that?'

'Yeah!' Rose was too distracted to be over-happy. 'But…what happened? I mean, it was like you were the Tardis…' a horrible thought struck her '…are you going to regenerate again?'

'Nope! Wasn't me. Well, it was. It was the other me.'

'But I thought no one was supposed to look into the time vortex-'

'Yep! No one. There was two of me!'

'Then the other Doctor, he's…gone?'

'Other Doctor?' Jack exclaimed. 'What other Doctor?'

'Dissolved,' the Doctor said to Rose, ignoring Jack. 'No longer exists as an entity, so to speak. But all the important stuff's up here.' He tapped the side of his head and then grimaced. 'Mostly consists of the memory of being non-corporeal and stuck inside the Tardis for seventeen billion years. Not exactly edge of your seat material.'

'Right. But when you went all…' she groped for a word '…scary just then…'

'That's what I mean, the test. I passed it! Come on, you must have heard the saying: power corrupts and absolute power-'

'Corrupts absolutely,' Jack finished. 'Huh?'

'So you actually had the power of the time vortex under control, and you could've wiped out the lot of them but you didn't?' Rose asked. 'That was the test?'

'Yep. Little trial from the innate fundamental forces of the universe, I think. Just checking up on me. And I passed! Mind you, there was a moment there-' he suddenly seemed to remember something and barged past her '-Freyja!'

'What the heck was that all about?' Jack demanded of Rose.

'I'll explain later.'

Freyja was standing in the middle of the room staring at the sleeping forms of the Institute's former Director and security forces. Her face was stained with tear-tracks and her eyes seemed strangely overlarge in her face. She turned around very slowly to look at them.

'It…it burns…'

He darted forwards to catch her just before she hit the floor.

'I know, I know it does. How do you feel? Headache still?'

'I…' she blinked '…no, actually.'

'No?' He frowned.

'Is that wrong?' Rose ventured.

'For someone experiencing a total neurone implosion and a total loss of cohesive matter interlock, yes.' He glared at Freyja accusingly. 'You should feel terrible!'

'Sorry.'

'You know, considering she just saved you from eternal damnation you might try being a LITTLE polite to her.' The hologram! Rose had forgotten all about her. 'And don't look at me like that, O Fleshy Incarnation, with all the vortex energy ricocheting around here most of my emitters jammed up so no wonder you couldn't SEE me. I saw you, though.'

The Doctor rose and helped Freyja to stand. She was a little wobbly but otherwise seemed unharmed. It was only at this point Rose noticed Cal, Will and Nat picking their way slowly across the field of slumbering bodies, astonishment written on all three faces.

'What…' Nat shook her head '…was that?'

'The death of a Tardis, amongst other things.' The Doctor turned to regard the darkened box on the plinth sadly. 'She gave her last for that final surge.'

'One Time Lord, one Tardis?' Cal said.

'That's the one.' He sighed. 'Still, no more paradox. You lot are going to drop out of your little bubble around the year fifteen billion- sorry, best I could do- around the Promar sector with any luck. There's a deserted planet there, unexplored by any notable species. You'll be able to set up there and pretend to be just another civilisation.'

'But the history…' Rose gestured '…everything that happened, in their past-'

'Did not, in fact, happen. Time bubble.' He grinned. 'Don't think about it too hard, or your brain'll melt and trickle out of your ears.'

'Right. Thanks. I won't.'

'Good girl. So the only thing that remains is what to do about you.' He accepted his coat from Nat with good grace and slipped it back on, thrusting his hands deeply into the pockets to regard Freyja thoughtfully. 'You're an evolutionary leap of another billion years at least ahead of the rest of your species.'

'Why me?' she asked bluntly.

'Ah, the big question.' He pursed his lips. 'No idea.'

'You don't know?'

'Nope. Not the foggiest. Are you sure you don't feel ill?' he added, a trifle suspiciously. 'Headache, chills, shivers, fever, aches and pains, feeling like your intestines are being cut up and then restitched together the other way around?'

'I'm sure. Although-' she laid a hand on her stomach '-I do feel a little-'

'Yes?' he pressed hopefully.

'Hungry,' she admitted. 'And I could murder a cup of tea.'

Rose burst out laughing, as did the hologram.

'Cup of tea! Oh my god, where's Mum when you need her?'

'Hungry!' The Doctor was disgusted. 'You should be feeling nauseous, not hungry!'

'Sorry.' She frowned. 'I keep trying to remember something…but I'm not sure what.'

'Oh, that'll pass. Little minor amnesia. Comes with the new body.'

'And my hands itch a bit.'

'Oh, crisis.' He rolled his eyes. 'Itchy hands. Whatever next. Quick, call the doctor. Oh, wait, I'm already here.'

'No, Doctor, I mean it. My hands really itch.' She held them up, a few inches apart, and Rose was somehow not all that surprised to see a faint glow coming from them. 'Is that supposed to happen?'

'Ah. No.' The Doctor bent down to give them a closer inspection. 'Now that's weird…'

'Something else for the list,' Jack said dryly as the glow intensified.

'Ow!' Freyja gave herself a shake. 'That stung!'

'If it hurts, don't hold them like that,' Cal suggested.

'I can't move them!' The glow was extending between her hands now, two spreading miasmic radiances. Where they touched a brighter spark appeared. 'Doctor…'

'No!' He leapt back, waving his hands madly. 'No! You're kidding me! It can't be!' Then, crouching to peer at the spark again, 'It is! It is! Oh, brilliant! Oh, this is beyond brilliant! Oh, wow- here, Rose, watch this-' grabbing her arm and yanking her forwards '-oh wow, oh…fantastic!'

With a little pop sound the spark abruptly detached itself from Freyja's hands and flitted away. She rubbed her palms together.

'What is that?'

The Doctor's only response was a laugh as it shot past his face, doing a quick orbit of Rose's head and then hovering in front of Jack's nose until he swatted at it, whereupon it shot away again.

'Hyperactive firefly?' Will asked, making a face as it flew past him to whiz around Freyja again.

'Looks like some kind of microscopic Tinkerbell,' holo-Rose said.

'Definitely hyper,' Rose agreed. The Doctor grinned.

'Aw, it's so cute!' The mote seemed to react to his tone, floating a little closer to him. 'Oosa wuvvy ickle baybee den?'

'It likes you,' Freyja said, arching one eyebrow. 'And me,' she added when it promptly shot back to circle her head again. 'But what is it?'

'Don't hit it,' the Doctor said when she flicked her wrist at it. 'It's only a baby. No wonder it's twitchy, it's not sure which of us it belongs to.'

'Belongs to?' she echoed. He wafted the mote back towards her when it aimed for him again.

'Go on, go back to mummy!'

'Mummy?' Now Freyja sounded openly horrified.

'Doctor-' torn between amusement at the antics and irritation at his evasion, Rose tugged at his sleeve '-what is that thing?'

He grinned at her.

'It's a Tardis. A brand spanking newborn baby Tardis.'

'A Tardis?' all the others exclaimed together.

'One Time Lord, one Tardis.' His smile at Freyja was warm and almost entirely devoid of mischief. 'Or in this case, Time Lady.'

'You mean it's-' Freyja ducked back to try and see the spark as it buzzed about her '-it's mine?'

'Yep! Don't mind the fidgets, they're like overexcited puppies when they're new. She'll settle down in a bit. Ah, there you go.' He beamed as the mote settled in the hand Freyja offered to it, a pinpoint glow against her skin. 'Your very own miniature Tardis. Needs a shell, of course, or she won't be good for much except driving you bonkers…' he suddenly whirled towards the box on the plinth. 'Of course! That's handy…look, this one's empty, isn't it? You can put her in there!'

'Are you sure?' Freyja peered at the little glow. 'She seems quite happy out here.'

'Believe me, she'll be better off with a shell. They like being useful. And they love travelling.' He winked. 'Go on, console's open. Just tip her in and close it.'

They all watched, incredulous, as Freyja hurried inside the blue box to obey. There was a loud clank as the panel clicked back into place and then a loud whirring noise.

'It'll take her a minute to settle in,' the Doctor said by way of explanation. The whir became louder and then abruptly stopped. He cocked an ear and then grinned. A funny hum filled the air.

'What?' Rose nudged him. 'What's that noise?'

'They're talking to each other.'

'What…your Tardis and that one?'

'Yep!'

'What are they saying?' Nat asked.

'Oh, hello and how d'you do…think the old girl's giving the new one an operations rundown. Hold on, any second…' the lights in the one in front of them came on '…there you go!'

Freyja came out, beaming.

'All settled in?' the Doctor asked.

'Oh yes! I think she's quite comfortable. But I…' she looked momentarily flustered '…I mean, all those controls and things…'

'She'll show you how she works, don't worry.'

'One Time Lady, one Tardis?'

'That's the spirit! Now-' he sighed and glanced around '-we'd better figure out what to do with this lot, I suppose.'