"HA!"

The triumphant cry broke the silence inside the TARDIS. No one else was there to notice. "I told you I could do it!" the Doctor declared, glancing over first one shoulder, then the other, frowning at the empty spaces; both of them. "Oh." He looked at the Time Rotor, instead, giving her a wink. "I knew that," he said, flashing a smooth grin, playing it cool. He looked down to the tiny wire in his hand and added, "I did," very softly, petulant.

The Doctor was alone.

He was sitting in a chair in the control room, hunched over his work. Though now he was simply wrapping the end of a wire around a little piece of metal, the disaster around him spoke of a far more arduous day; days, in fact; many of them. It's not every day his TARDIS grew a new button!

He thought, perhaps, that she was upset with him for not noticing it sooner. He'd pressed the button almost a month ago; he couldn't say how long it had been there before he noticed it, but he pressed it as soon as he did. It had sparked a bit, and that had been exciting. It started blinking, after that. Something was stuck, still loading, or downloading, or uploading, or something. It was definitely doing something, he was sure. It was certainly taking its time, and far too much of his. After three weeks of waiting, the Doctor had decided to help it along. Just a bit.

He leapt out of his chair with a grin and stepped blithely around strewn tools and cords and panel pieces, two jackets, and only he could say what else. He followed the wire back in, disentangling it where necessary, collecting it like a kite string. "Now we'll see what you are!" he told it, a sing-song promise, shoving the handful of twined wire into the console. He was more careful with the panel as he fed the wire through and put the console back together.

Then the Doctor paused. He stood up and checked the chair. "Maybe," he amended, holding one hand up in a placating gesture. He turned around, twice, on the spot. Where had he put it? "Button." He walked around the console. "Button, button, button. Who," he drawled, thoughtfully, "has the button?" Now, stop, you stuck it somewhere so you wouldn't lose it; somewhere safe; somewhere obvious, so couldn't possibly forget. Where?

He lifted his hands to his forehead, scrubbing his face in his frustration, and he dislodged the button case from his pinky finger. "Oops!" He did manage to catch it after a brief hacky-sack dance and he straightened up, quickly, with a sharp glance around.

No. Of course no one had seen that.

He straightened his bow tie anyway. Habit.

"Right! Got it!" he enthused, snapping it into place over the wire and metal. "Little, red button, never saw it before, with very strange readings. What are you good for, if you don't do anything but blink?" he asked it, his tone curt, and he carefully picked his way back to the console. "There." After he fed the wire through, he popped the button back into place, ran his sonic over the panel and stepped away to admire his handiwork, arms akimbo. He stumbled over a sledgehammer.

He did take a moment to cast a dirty look at the offending piece of equipment, brushing imaginary wrinkles from his waistcoat, but not a long one. "I've been wondering about you for days, now," he carried on, pacing in front of the button. "Not blinking anymore, are you?" he cooed. The Doctor gave it another scan with his sonic before crouching down in front of it. His nose brushed against the dash of the console. He held the sonic up so he could check the readings.

His smile unfolded slowly and his attention slipped back to the mystery button. "Are you ready?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He launched himself up, slammed the button down and spun around with his arms in the air, victorious! "What did I tell you?" he crowed as the message – What message? "Who is that?" he demanded, startled.

The Doctor jerked around as, indeed, a voice struggled to come into focus. He flashed his sonic, once, twice, until he could get a fix on the frequency. Then, it was a small miracle he didn't drop it! "…Listen to me," his previous regeneration was saying in his serious voice.

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor begged, gawking.

"And don't mess up!"

"Oi!"

"I'm not at all who you think I am," the voice went on, and the Doctor loomed over the console panel, listening to, and trying to place, the sounds in the background. He didn't remember this.

"Weeell," the voice drawled, and the Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, get to it!" he snapped, pacing away from the button.

"No," the voice surprised him by saying, cutting off his own prattle. "No time for particulars.

"I'm your fighting hand…"

"Ooo!" The Doctor giggled, hands up, his right hand fingers wiggling with excitement. "Metacrisis me! Oh! That explains all the explody noises! Always did like to listen to yourself talk. Hang on! Only you would stop to leave a message!"

"…Rose."

The Doctor spun around so quickly his coattails flared and he shot the button with his sonic. The message backtracked. The sonic went quiet and the message resumed playing.

"…particulars. Short version, I'm your fighting hand, and you need to catch Rose!"

"You want me to what?! Catch her?" He spat out the words like sour grapes. "What do you mean, 'Catch Rose'? Unless-"

"Do not miss."

"No, no, no! Stop!" The Doctor cried, storming over to the button. He waved his hand over it, as if to dismiss the message content. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Do not be late."

"I've just finished fixing the mess you made last time!" he cried, pointing towards the doors of the TARDIS, well, the mess from last time. "Do you know-"

"Do not stand there lecturing at me – I'm only a recording…"

The Doctor shut up, crossed his arms, and turned away. He pulled a face as he slanted his gaze down to the button. "I know you are," he insisted, peevishly, talking over the insistent voice of his predecessor. Already done! How stupid!

"Coordinates are on screen."

"What? Mine? My screen?" The Doctor stumbled around his rubbish, grabbing onto the monitor as much to catch himself as to look at it, his eyes jumping between black screen and red button.

"They should be."

"What do you mean? Come on," the Doctor said, worry creeping into his voice. "Come on. Come on! Where are they?"

"I hope they are."

"THERE'S NOTHING HERE."

Silence again, as both men recollected themselves, broken only by the sounds of the metacrisis' failing ship.

The voice picked up again and the Doctor began circling the console. "Your best," he seethed, "is never good enough. How can I do anything for her if you can't even – Will you quit babbling?!" he demanded in the same moment that the voice said, "Never mind."

"But it wasn't finished."

The Doctor scoffed.

"And she doesn't have a capsule, so go."

The Doctor growled, wordlessly, pounding his head with the heels of his fisted hands.

"Now, I haven't got…"

"I'll tell you what you haven't got!"

"I haven't got any time."

"Brains!" he corrected, tapping his forehead, significantly, and glaring at the button. It took him a full moment to realize he'd reached the end of the message. "What? That's it? That's it? Is that all there is?" He pushed the button again and the message replayed.

He flew into motion, a blur around the console, and pieces of the message haunted the control room as he worked on it. He scanned the whole thing with the ship's systems and the sonic and three other devices he still had lying around from before. He ran it through again and again and he listened to it backwards and forwards and inside out.

None of it worked. He tapped the sonic against his temple, his eyes screwed tight in thought. No good. The Doctor stared into the still-black monitor, with only a reflection of himself to look at, and he glowered. Little comfort, that. "Look at you. You look awful," he said, heavily. He batted the screen away.

He turned around and sat back against the dashboard, tucking his sonic back into his jacket pocket. He jerked his hand away as if he'd been shocked. He pressed his jacket closed and giggled into the empty space in front of him. "No. Really?" He pulled the jacket lapel again, peeking at his pocket and, just once more, pressed a hand over where the pocket was, holding it close, and closed. "Really? No, but it's a silly idea.

"Except that it's not!" he cried, wringing his hands together. He hoisted himself up again, moving around to find the button. "Oh, that might be good. Slightly psychic paper and a slightly Time Lord mind! That's not silly at all," he said, reaching inside his jacket pocket. He froze, staring at nothing in particular. He swallowed, hard, and drew the psychic paper out of his coat pocket. "Why not?" he asked it, flipping it open and closed. He shrugged. He cleared his throat. "We've gotten far stranger messages from less likely sources," he went on with false bravado.

He shot his hand out to hit the button and ran over to the monitor. He pressed the paper flat against the screen and kept it there, holding quite still as the message played through again. When it was over, the Doctor slid the wallet down into his hands.

He opened it to check, and snapped it closed again with a strangled sound that lodged in his throat. He swallowed, hard, and looked up into the screen and this time, "Oh-ho," this time, the fragile smile he saw in his reflection did offer some hope.

"Geronimo."

Author's note:

Thank you for the lovely reviews!

Let me know if you catch anything off, or if you love it, or just anything. It was SO nice to hear from you, readers.

I hope you like this one. I was pitching fits over it. I had a few helpers that worked very hard to get this out to you! (Thanks for that!)

Remember: the full message is at the bottom of the first chapter, if you want it without 11 interrupting! I know I needed it - he kept distracting me.

I own nothing of Doctor Who.

Thanks!