One man stands, staring at the Doctor. Another man is on the floor – either dead or unconscious. There's also a girl. The Doctor looks at her; she has flaming red hair and she's wearing a large, knitted black-and-white sweater over black leggings. Her left eye is swollen and puffy as if someone's only just punched her in the face. She's staring at him with apparent bewilderment. The pretty redheaded girl then jabs her friend in the side. "What did you do that for, you stupid head?"

"I didn't want him to…I don't know! I was trying to stop the machine!" the man replies defensively.

"I'm sorry," says the Doctor, interrupting their squabble. "Hello, I'm the Doctor. This might seem a little odd, but do you happen to know the date?" His eyes then fall on the young woman's sweater; there are two reindeers stitched onto the front. "Christmas," says the Doctor before the girl can answer. "Brilliant. Of course it has to be Christmas."

The young man and the girl look at each other. "Doctor?" the girl asks.

The Doctor flashes a grin at her. "Hello."

The man rolls his eyes.

"We have to get him back in there," says the girl. "Now. You took him out before that memory restoration thing could happen. Did you not listen to Lazarus at all?"

"It was my first instinct," says the man.

"Right," says the Doctor, "well, I should get going." He starts off towards the door. He pauses. "You haven't seen a big blue police box anywhere, have you?"

The girl grabs his shoulders. "Doctor," she says, "you need to stay put. We have to get you back in that machine."

"I've been in stasis long enough, thanks," says the Doctor, gently nudging her aside.

"Doctor, please," says the girl.

"Where's my – ?" the Doctor begins before stopping himself. He hesitates. "Where's Rose?"

"Rose?" the girl asks faintly.

"Rose Tyler," says the Doctor. "Or, no, wait…" The Doctor rubs his head. "My memory is a bit fuzzy. Donna Noble? Is Donna around? Martha? No, Rose. I was just saying goodbye to her. On the beach with my meta-crisis. I didn't get to…What's happened?"

"What the hell is he talking about?" the man asks.

"His companions," says the girl miserably. "I think he's talking about his old companions."

"Old companions?" the man asks.

"Old?" the Doctor questions. "What do you mean? Where are they? Who are you lot?"

The pretty redheaded girl touches the Doctor's shoulder. "Doctor, you need to listen to me. We're going to right everything, but we need you to cooperate. I'm Amy - Amelia Pond." She points at the man. "This is Rory."

"Amelia Pond?" the Doctor questions. "That's a brilliant name." He looks at Rory. "Rory is just a…so-so name, I suppose."

"That's definitely the Doctor," says Rory dully.

"Of course I am."

"You just look a bit different," says Rory, wincing.

"But in a good way." Amy smiles. "You have great hair."

"Amy," says Rory, giving her a dirty look, "don't hit on the very confused Doctor."

"I look different? Have I regenerated, then?" The Doctor turns to look at his reflection in the glass door of the stasis chamber. Same brown hair, brown eyes, and sideburns. He adjusts the collar of his brown, pinstripe suit. Everything seems in order.

"What happened to his clothes?" Rory mutters.

"He must have been wearing that two hundred years ago or so," says Amy. She looks at the Doctor. "How old are you?"

"Nine hundred and three," he replies, looking about the room. "Sorry. Mind telling me where I am? Or when I am, rather?" He frowns. "Looks like 21st century Earth to me."

"I kind of miss the bowtie," Rory admits.

"Bowtie?" The Doctor narrows his eyes. Was this a secret code word?

"Bowties are cool," Rory and Amy chime instantly. "Or," Amy adds, "at least you seem to think so."

"I'm very confused," says the Doctor.

"We know," says Amy. "Now, would you please step back into the chamber so we can fix you?"

The Doctor adamantly shakes his head. "I'm not going back in there. I have to find Rose."

"But, but…Doctor," says Amy. "You haven't seen Rose in two hundred years."

"Was I in stasis that long?" he asks. "How did I get here? I didn't get to finish saying goodbye to –"

"If you go into the chamber, everything will make sense. Trust me, Doctor. You have to trust me; if you don't, you won't remember us. Or River; you won't remember River!"

"River?" the Doctor questions.

"River Song," says Amy. "My daughter. Rory and I are her parents."

"The parents of River Song?" the Doctor asks, feeling a sense of dread. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so sorry, but River is…Well, she's not exactly dead, but – "

"Oi!" someone shouts from the doorway. Amy, Rory, and the Doctor abandon their conversation to look at the door. A guard aims a handgun at them. "You shouldn't be in here, mates," he says. He then looks past them to see the unconscious man on the floor. "Lazarus?" The unconscious man doesn't stir. "What did you do to him?" the security guard demands.

"Don't look at me," says the Doctor. "I just woke up. These two are the criminals." The Doctor thumbs at Amy and Rory.

"You weren't sleeping," Amy hisses. "You were in a Time Reversal Device. And we're not criminals. We were rescuing you."

"Oh." A Time Reversal Device? The Doctor frowns, trying to work everything out in his head. From the information provided by the Amelia Pond girl, the Doctor gathers that he must have regenerated for the eleventh time and, some time after regenerating, he was placed in a chamber that somehow reversed the effects of his regeneration. My head hurts, he thinks.

Rory takes a step towards the door.

"Stop right there," says the guard, pointing the gun at Rory.

Rory raises his hands. "Take it easy. We're not going anywhere."

The guard edges into the room and squats down next to Lazarus without taking his eyes or his gun off of the Rory. The guard checks Lazarus's pulse. Lazarus, the Doctor thinks. That name definitely sounds familiar. Realizing his situation, the Doctor makes the decision that it would be in his best interest to trust Rory and Amy.

"So, what happened to that poor man?" the Doctor whispers to Rory.

"I…decked him."

"Because you were rescuing me."

"Yeah."

"Don't worry – I can get us out of this," says the Doctor, feeling his pockets. He pulls out his psychic paper.

Amy holds up a wallet identical to the one in the Doctor's hand.

"What the – ?" the Doctor asks, glancing between the two wallets.

"You gave it to me before you went into the chamber. And since you also had it on you two hundred years ago, now we have two."

"This is – this is weird. This is textbook weird." The Doctor shakes his head.

"Shut up, the lot of ya," says the guard, straightening up. He retrieves a walky-talky from a clip on his belt. Still pointing the gun at the three of them, he squeezes the walky-talky and says, "Yeah, I've got three trespassers on the second floor. Mr. Lazarus is out cold. I'm gonna need a couple of men up here."

"No need for that," says the Doctor, flipping open his wallet. Amy follows suit.

The guard frowns at the two IDs. "They're both blank."

"There goes that," says the Doctor pleasantly. "Word of advice: run."

They start off towards the door. The guard shoots a round off at the Doctor; the Doctor ducks, and the guard ends up shooting the Time Reversal Device. The air explodes in sparks, and the Doctor does a somersault on the floor, shielding his face from the bright white light.

"No," Amy bellows, doubling back to the machine. Another shot rings out, missing Amy by centimeters. Rory grabs her upper arm and yanks her out into the corridor with the Doctor fast on their heels. Rory leads them to the lift.

"Too slow," shouts the Doctor as the guard lumbers out of the room after them. "Find the stairs!"

"Over there!" Amy points down an adjacent corridor.

"Christmas is the worst," says the Doctor as they take off down the corridor. They burst through the doors to the stairwell. The security guard is right behind them; he shoots at them again, and the bullet rips through the glass window set into the stairwell door. Shards of glass chase the three trespassers down the steps.

Rory shoulders open the door to the lobby. The woman behind the front desk looks up at them in surprise as they fly past her.

"Sorry," Amy calls to the secretary, "I suppose we won't be stripping after all."

A blast of frigid air meets them as they run outside and down the street. They expertly weave through bewildered passerby and hop over manholes and sleeping bums.

"Where are we going?" the Doctor calls from behind.

"The TARDIS!"

They take a left down a side street, passing banners depicting Lazarus and the following description: Marcus Lazarus Unveils: Humanity Unconquered by Time. The Doctor stares at each of the banners in turn as he jogs past them.

"Doctor, hurry up," Amy says over her shoulder. She and Rory cross the street, and the Doctor hastens to follow them. The TARDIS is wedged between two buildings, patiently waiting his return.

He breathes a sigh of relief as he slips through the front door of the TARDIS. His relief doesn't last long as soon as he takes a look around inside. "What the devil…?" He spins on Rory and Amy. "What have you done to my TARDIS? Why is it all," the Doctor says as he waves his hand in disgust, "shiny?"

"What are you talking about?" Rory asks.

"This is an outrage," says the Doctor, examining the glass platform around the console.

"Doctor," says Amy. "I've seen the inside of the TARDIS of your day – trust me, this one is way better."

The Doctor scowls at her, though only halfheartedly. "How dare you."

"Your TARDIS was so boring," Amy insists.

"It was homey," the Doctor corrects, putting his hands on his narrow hips. "This is just…ridiculous. I'm going to have to have a talk with my eleventh regeneration."

"About that," says Amy slowly. "How are we going to get you back to normal? It looked like that guard destroyed the device."

"Which is funny because that's what we went there to do in the first place," says Rory. "Only…you weren't supposed to actually go inside the machine, Doctor."

The Doctor scratches his head. "Miss Amy – "

"The Doctor usually calls me Pond."

"The Eleventh Doctor calls you Pond. But I'm Ten, now. Ten would call you Amy." The Doctor grins. "Anyway, as I was saying, Amy…I think I could do with a bit of a recap. Tell me exactly what's happened."

Amy hastens to explain as the Doctor sits down on the steps leading up to the console. She explains how the Doctor visited her and Rory on Christmas, and how they ended up in London on December 10, 2017, and how they came to find Marcus Lazarus and his Time Reversal Device. The Doctor listens patiently as Amy tells the story; he rests his elbow on one of his knees and props up his chin with the heel of his hand. When Amy finishes, the Doctor takes a deep breath.

"Well," he says, poking his tongue between his teeth in thought, "this complicates things. So, you two are my current companions? Both of you?"

"We were, but you've been gone for two years. Two years for us, anyway."

"What was I like? The Doctor you knew, I mean."

"A dickhead," says Rory.

"Rory." Amy gives him a look before returning her attention to the Doctor. "He was different. Not just that he looked different, but…" Amy's face falls solemnly.

"I'm the same person," says the Doctor softly. "I'm just a different man."

"Hold on a moment," says Amy, climbing up the stairs. She disappears in the back for a few seconds before returning with a picture frame. "This is you," she says, "just before you faked your death."

"I faked my death?" the Doctor asks, surprised, taking the picture frame. In the photograph, they – Amy, Rory, River, and a man he doesn't recognize – are all sitting on a blanket beside a lake. Amy is the one stretching her arm out in front of her to take the picture. They're all smiling. Well, they're all smiling save for the man the Doctor doesn't recognize. The man looks like he's trying to smile, but, frankly, he looks like he's having intestinal problems.

"Technically, that's not actually you. That's the Teselecta. A miniature you is inside its head."

I need to take up drinking, the Doctor thinks. "But that's what I look like?"

"Yeah."

"I'm rather unfortunate looking, aren't I?" the Doctor asks. "I look like a girl."

"Don't knock your eleventh regeneration," Amy chastises. "I happen to like him."

"Sorry." The Doctor looks at the picture again. "So, I see that I somehow managed to rescue River from the library?"

"Pardon?" Amy frowns.

"Never mind. It's so strange to hear about all of these things I've done that I don't remember doing – the last thing I remember was standing in front of Rose in Bad Wolf Bay..." The Doctor trails off.

"Bad Wolf Bay?" Amy asks. "What's with you and wolves today?"

The Doctor cocks an eyebrow at her. "Today?"

"Yeah. Before you went into the chamber, you kept telling me how I said 'bad wolf' – which I didn't – and you wouldn't shut up about it."

"You said that before I went into the machine?" the Doctor asks. He starts to laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm an idiot," the Doctor says, still laughing. "You said 'bad wolf' and I didn't run for the hills? Eleventh me sounds like a total nutcase. Sounds like I have something to look forward to."

"You were going to run, but Lazarus was too quick."

"Bad Wolf. This can't be good," the Doctor says, thinking. He bows his head and attempts to hide his smile. Even after leaving Rose in a parallel universe, she's still helping him out. Sobering up a bit, he says, "If what you two are saying is true, then I'm a paradox. As a Time Lord, I regenerate when my body dies. So, if I were to 'die' right now, would it be my eleventh regeneration, or my twelfth? Either way, I've reversed to the point where I've cheated 'death,' and that can't happen."

"You cheat death all the time," Rory says. "It's kind of your thing. It's actually pretty annoying."

"You don't understand," the Doctor insists. "If I'm supposed to be two hundred years older than I am right now, it means that idiot Lazarus has gone and rewound my body to the place in my timeline when I was in a parallel universe saying goodbye to Rose for the final time." Bad Wolf, he thinks. Bad Wolf Bay. Even the place I last saw her was a warning.

"That's…bad, is it?" Amy asks.

"Very, very bad." The Doctor pauses to think. "Well…Good and bad. Mostly bad. Yeah, pretty much entirely bad. It means that, however unintentionally, Lazarus has gone and made himself a rift between two universes." But, the Doctor thinks, it also means I might get to see Rose again.

"How do we fix it?" Amy asks. "Maybe we can get Lazarus to make another device to put you right. Maybe getting you back to your proper regeneration will mend whatever tear in the universe that dolt made."

"I got the impression that the device only went one way," says Rory. "That's why it's called the Time Reversal Device."

The Doctor shifts uncomfortably. Truthfully, he likes his current body. He doesn't want to be morphed into some fellow who, apparently, wears bowties, habitually romps around with two companions, thinks it's funny to fake his own death, and feels the need to have a new fancy TARDIS. That regeneration sounds like a total cheesecake.

The Doctor looks down at his dirty converses. Would it really be so bad if he just left? What if he dropped Amy and Rory off and went back to doing what he does best? Saving the universe, and all that. He could figure how to close the rift without returning to his eleventh regeneration.

He thinks of Rose, and both of his hearts begin to hurt in his chest. Selfishly, he thinks how much easier it would have been had Lazarus reversed the Doctor to a point in his timeline before he'd ever met his faithful pink-and-yellow Rose – he wouldn't have the bad memories of having to say goodbye to her. Twice. Sure, he wouldn't have any of the wonderful memories of traveling with her either, but how would he be able to miss someone he doesn't remember?

xxx

If I'm not making any sense, let me know. Also, I probably won't be updating every single day…I just happened to not have class today.