HUGE apologies, the creative juices wouldn't run over the summer and it took me ages to finish this... although now I have finished the next chapter as well, so watch out for that soon. Hope you like this, and as usual don't own any of it, its all the BBC's and, for a limited time now, RTD's. Except of course Lilith, who is all mine, and William Marshal, who belongs to English History. Again, sorry about any historical inaccuracies, if you've got a specific niggling point, please let me know and I'll do my best to correct it :) enjoy C x

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"How? What is this?" she asked as she walked around, staring at the golden knobbed ceiling.

"This is a TARDIS, stands for Time And Relative Distance In Space, and it's my Time Machine." He said proudly, watching her carefully as he flicked a couple of switches on the huge board that encircled the central pillar. She looked at him askance.

"A time machine? Really?" He nodded.

"How long is it since I first met you?"

"Three weeks."

"I only met you yesterday."

"But that's impossible."

"Well, not impossible, more, improbable. I would usually ask before I did this, and I would usually ask where you'd like to go, but I really have to go and sort something out before all of history gets irreversibly changed."

"Right, ok, say I believe that this tin can, optical illusion thing can actually travel through space."

"But it can, and time too." He looked at her, scratching his head again perplexed that she didn't believe him. To be fair to him, most people believed him as soon as they saw the inside of the TARDIS.

"Of course it does. Look, I hope you get the help that you need, but I have a meeting about my paper. It's due soon and I just can't get a handle on it."

"Your paper, that would be based on William Marshal? How about meeting him to find out what you're stuck with?"

"Yeah, right, this is starting to something like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." The box shook for a minute. "So there's a couple of teenagers outside shaking the box? Real slick." The shaking stopped and he walked to the door.

"You sure it's teenagers? Or is there a tiny part of your mind that thinks maybe he's telling the truth, and if he is what's out there now?" she looked at him, a slight flicker going across her face telling him that he was, in part, right.

"Go on then, open the door." He grinned, an infectious grin that she found she was sharing. He leaned forward and pushed the door wide. "Lilith, welcome to France circa 1173. Henry the Young King is rebelling against his father Henry II. This isn't quite where we're supposed to be, but I thought the sidelines of a battle field might just convince you. Go out and look left I think." She walked out slowly.

"There's nothing there, Doctor" she said mildly scathingly. As he replied to her she heard crashing and yelling behind her and was slowly turning.

"What? That can't be right." He stuck his head out and started to look around. "Ohhh, look right not left. Sorry bout that." He watched her, a little smugly as she took a couple of steps closer. "So, do you believe me now?"

"This, that's." she stammered, turning back to him. "It's impossible. I've never seen a re-enactment so, so real. The King's there, and that's Couer de Lion's banner, and John Lackland… this is real, isn't it? That really is a time machine." She stared at him with awe in her face.

"Yes, yes it is a time machine," he glanced behind them. "And it's time to leave."

"But, I want to see how it ends."

"Easy, stalemate. But we have to move because William Marshal is about to lead his knights over this hill."

"But we're here to see him. But then you said we were too early, and forty knights on horseback…"

"Would probably crush us. Come on, let's go forward a bit." She pulled the door shut behind her and it creaked as she did so, a warm familiar creak. His hands were flying over the knobs on his console, until he flicked one, pushed another and dived over to stop another popping back up. As he was stretched across the console, stretching his suit trousers tight across his butt, he muttered, "Hopefully we'll end up in the right time this time." The shuddering she now recognised as the TARDIS moving through time stopped with a lurch.

"So, where are we now?" she asked, her voice sounding a little like Tigger on helium.

"Well, it could be Mars in the 32nd Century, they built some nice Botanical Gardens in that century, or we could be in New New York on New Earth in the 44th Century, been there a lot recently, too many Cats. Or we could have landed on Raxicoricophalatatorius. Think I may have to go there some point soon, possibly been called up as a witness in a court case. The Slitheen family, very smelly mess. Took weeks to fumigate 10 Downing Street. After they rebuilt it of course." He heard a slight strangling noise and glanced at Lilith. She was staring at him, again, she seemed to do that a lot. This particular time she looked a bit stunned, her eyes were wide and her lower jar was slightly ajar. "Right, sorry, too much information. We're not on any of those planets. Or those centuries."

"So where are we then?"

"We are in 1199 near, hopefully, Chepstow Castle. Shall we open the door?" it was hard not to laugh at him, he was bouncing around like a kid in a candy store. He snapped his fingers and the door swung open reveal a marvellous view of the sea, over the smart new looking stone crenulations pressed tight against the entrance. "Oh. It's never done that before." He leapt to the door and peered out. "That is not good. Um, how are you at climbing?" As he peered worriedly over the edge a booming voice echoed into the TARDIS.

"Sir Doctor, do you require assistance?"

"My lord Marshal! I appear to have parked rather badly. If you could, with a few strong men, turn me about I would be most grateful. I of course do not mind the climb, but I have brought a lady cousin of mine and I fear she would fare badly."

"I shall see to it immediately. And I shall inform Lady Isabelle of your cousin…"

"Lady Lilith."

"I'll inform my wife of Lady Lilith's arrival."

"Thank you my lord." He shut the door quickly. "He can't see inside, spoilers. Now, you need to go and change. Door at the back on the right. Go three floors up, take the fourth door on the left and go one floor down. On that corridor take the fifth on the right. Pick something to wear."

"What? It's how big? I didn't catch all that, why up and then back down?"

"Well you can't meet Lady Isabelle Marshal of Pembroke in those clothes. Oh, sorry she isn't of Pembroke yet, just Striguil… what is Striguil?" he tailed off.

"It's Chepstow." She told him quickly.

"Right, that makes sense. William Marshal hasn't been named Earl of Pembroke yet, and he's even farther away from gaining the castle itself. So don't mention it. I'll explain later. As to the rest the TARDIS is larger on the inside; it's like a 10 floor apartment block back there. I said go up three floors and back down because there are things you shouldn't see in the space you're missing out. Now go on." He grinned again as she headed off in the direction he had indicated.

She went up four floors instead of three, but remembered to go down two floors instead of one in the next stairwell and found herself in a huge room, large enough to be a ballroom, filling with racks of women's clothes and full length mirrors. The room sparkled in a myriad of colours in silks and satins, sequins and gold threads. She walked to the closest rack and ran her fingers through the mix of textiles slowly. Looking back towards the door she noticed a plan of the room, which she realised was an overgrown closet. She scanned it quickly and found the era she was looking for and went to see what she could find that fit her in those racks walking with a distant smile on her face, for all her ordinary clothes she did love the finer clothes, just couldn't afford it on her ordinary wage. This was an image of heaven on Earth.

She returned to the console room and entered just as the Marshal's men lifted the TARDIS and wobbled it round on the walkway, thus destroying her hopes of a dramatic entrance in her new attire as she stumbled across the threshold.