Disclaimer: Tragically, I don't own Doctor Who.


The Doctor heard noisy commotion as he stepped out of the TARDIS. His war-honed instincts made him tense up, ready for trouble, before he realized that that sounds were of an excited crowd rather than of a panicked or angry mob.

He followed the hubbub to its source, a mass of people lining a street in the downtown of whatever city the TARDIS had taken a mind to land in – he couldn't even hazard a guess. He shouldered his way through the crowd to see what all the cheering was about.

A motorcade was slowly wending its way down the street. An advance group of police officers on motorcycles passed first, followed by a white car full of grim-looking law enforcement types; next was a black convertible, with two couples in the back smiling and waving at the adoring crowds. The Doctor squinted against the midday sun to get a better view of the celebrities, and suddenly had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly when and where he was.

He turned to his right, nudged his neighbor, a bespectacled white man in a collared shirt, with his elbow. "Hey, mate, today is November 22, yeah?"

"All day and part of the night," the man said, grinning as if this were an original and immensely witty reply.

The Doctor managed not to roll his eyes, but only just barely. "And the Texas School Book Depository? Where is the Book Depository?"

"What? How in the world should I know? What kind of loony tune question is that?"

This time the Doctor didn't bother restraining his eye roll. "A simple 'I don't know' would do." He leaned forward, tapped the shoulder of the black woman in the head scarf in front of him. "Pardon, ma'am, do you know where the Book Depository is?"

"That's it, I believe." She pointed to an unremarkable brick building down the street.

"Fantastic, ta!" He pushed his way back out of the crowd and took off running. Dallas, November 22, 1963. The Dealey Plaza Massacre, where President John Kennedy was assassinated, along with his wife, his vice president, nearly half the people in his motorcade. So much for peace and love and flowers. But he was still buoyed by his recent success in saving the Daniels family, and he grinned as he ran.

Afterwards, he would never know exactly what it was that drew his attention away from the building where he could already see the barrel of a rifle glinting in the sun from a sixth-floor window. Perhaps it was a flash of light, an unearthly sound, an alien scent, something detectable only to heightened Time Lord senses; he couldn't say. All he knew was that he was sprinting past the depository, heading for a small green hill a few hundred feet away.

As he got closer, he saw that the instincts that had sent him in this direction were correct. Behind a stockade fence at the crest of the hill was a mauve-skinned alien, perhaps eight feet tall, bony ridges lining its forehead, six eyes staring down at some piece of equipment, a black metal box topped with a joystick and assorted buttons and dials, that it was holding in its four hands.

The Doctor slid to a stop on the grass and leaned his shoulder casually against the fence, folding his arms across his chest. "Oi, what do you think you're up to, then?"

The alien looked up, four of its six eyes blinking in surprise. "Wait, you can't see me!"

"Obviously I can."

"But the perception filter…"

"Must have calibrated it for humans only."

"And you are…?"

"Not human."

The alien appeared to be waiting for a more specific answer. When none was forthcoming, it said merely, "Ah."

"And you? You're Axipillian, yeah?"

"How can you possibly know that?"

"I know lots of things. Proper genius, I am. For instance, I also know that your lot is a meddlesome, ambitious race. So I can pretty well guess what brings you to this spot today of all days. There always was speculation about conspiracy, about a second shooter on the grassy hill – no, verge – no, knoll, grassy knoll, that's it. But that's not a weapon you're holding, is it?" He leaned over the fence for a better view; the creature clutched the metal box to its chest, but the Doctor had already seen enough. "No, it's a diathurmeric fusion guidance system! Wait, that's what's behind the 'magic bullets', isn't it? The conspiracy theorists claimed that there was no way that just three bullets could do so much damage to so many people, but they could if they were being remotely controlled, courtesy of alien tech, couldn't they?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Axipillian said primly.

The Doctor ignored this weak denial. "So Lee Harvey Oswald, he was just what, your patsy? Are you controlling him as well as his ammo?"

"Certainly not. He came up with his plans all on his own. When our advance scouting surveillance team became aware of his intentions, we merely…upgraded his weaponry."

"Unbeknownst to him, I'd imagine. He thinks he's firing a regular old bullet. But you're thinking you can manufacture a crisis even greater than what he intends, take advantage of the confusion and chaos to invade unopposed, yeah?"

"It is a sound strategy." The ridges on the mauve forehead moved closer together in what the Doctor figured was the Axipillian version of a furrowed brow. "How can you possibly know any of this? And why are you using the past tense? You're speaking of our plans as if they've already happened."

"Nope, haven't happened yet. Not going to happen. Because I'm going to stop you." He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, adjusted the setting, tapped it meaningfully against his palm.

The creature snorted. "With a sonic tool? Not likely."

"Oh, don't underestimate this beauty. Designed it myself. Setting 832 should do it." He activated the screwdriver and the air around the Axipillian shimmered for an instant. The Doctor frowned down at his tool. "Oh. Oops. I seem to have burnt out your perception filter. Didn't mean to do that, actually. Sorry about that. Oh, I see the problem, the setting was off by one. Now it should –"

He had forgotten how fast Axipillian reflexes were, even faster than those of Time Lords. The alien's lower left arm flashed out too quickly for the Doctor to react, slapping the screwdriver out of his hand. It sailed end over end in a high arc, bouncing off the shoulder of one of the spectators lining the street, rolling to a stop in the gutter.

The bystander, a short, young, blond man in a tan suit, whipped around to see who had hit him, a protest forming on his lips, but when his eyes met the now unfiltered alien, his jaw dropped in silence.

The Doctor glanced from the man to the presidential limo, just turning the corner near the book depository into the final stretch of the plaza, and then to the fallen screwdriver, calculating how long it would take for him to run down the hill and retrieve the tool, how long it would take the motorcade to arrive at the point in the street where dozens of lives would end. He knew he wouldn't make it in time. Okay, time for Plan B: take the guidance system by force. Or Plan C: get Tan Suit to use the screwdriver. Best bet, Plan D: try B and C simultaneously. He vaulted the stockade fence, launched himself at the Axipillian, whilst yelling over his shoulder, "Pick it up! Pick it up and flick the switch!"

The two aliens wrestled over the black box, as the Doctor continued to shout at Tan Suit to use the screwdriver. The Time Lord managed to grab the joystick and yank it hard to the side, a split second before he heard the sharp crack of a rifle. His cry of victory was cut short when his opponent let go of the box with one hand and gave him a stunning blow to the nose. The Doctor's grip loosened enough for the Axipillian to take over the joystick just as the second shot rang out, but he managed to hang on, and the two were in a stalemate for control when the third report echoed through the plaza.

And then the shooting was over. The sound of gunfire was replaced by the screaming of the crowd, the wail of sirens, the shouting from the motorcade. Shouting – that's a good sign. Means someone is still alive to do the shouting. He had saved some – maybe even saved them all, he dared to hope.

The mauve alien released its grip on the guidance system with a suddenness that made the Doctor stagger, and it stepped back. "This isn't over. We will be watching for another opportunity."

"And I'll be watching for you. I'm kind of fond of this planet, you know."

The creature vanished in the blue light of a transmat beam, but the Doctor was distracted from any thought of following when he was hit by a spell of dizziness as the history that he had just changed rewrote itself. He braced himself with one hand on the fence as a wave of new memories washed over him. And that was when he realized that he had saved dozens of lives – the First Lady, the Vice President, policemen, Secret Service agents – but not the President.

All those lives saved, but still, the one lost gnawed at him. He looked around and saw at the bottom of the knoll a good target for his anger. He swung himself over the fence and charged towards Tan Suit, who was still gawking uphill, oblivious to the chaos around him.

"It was purple," the man said before the Doctor could speak. He was staring glassy-eyed at the spot where the Axipillian had last stood.

"It was mauve, you idiot," the Doctor snapped. "And really, I don't like to judge a book by its cover, but mauve is just a spot-on color for that lot." He plucked the screwdriver out of the gutter and shook it in the man's face, rage swelling within him. "And you, fat lot of good you were! 'Pick it up,' I said. 'Flick the switch,' I said. Not too complicated to follow, is it? The president dead, the governor wounded, and you could have saved them both just by listening to one simple direction." Or you could have saved them by not losing the screwdriver in the first place, his conscience reminded him. How he hated that little voice. He wasn't perfect, he couldn't possibly get everything right all the time. Was it too much to ask that someone else pick up the slack now and then?

"It was purple," Tan Suit repeated, apparently not registering a word of the Doctor's tirade, still staring over the Doctor's shoulder.

In the face of this near-catatonia, the Doctor's anger drained away, replaced by a great weariness tinged with pity. "Sorry, mate. You were never meant to see that. Better that you forget that you did." He put his fingers to the man's temples, feeling only the slightest twinge of conscience as he erased the memories of the last few minutes, and then turned him back to face the street before the fog of the mental invasion could clear.

He headed slowly back to the TARDIS, trying to summon the feeling of satisfaction that he knew he should have in what he had accomplished. But all he could think of was what he hadn't accomplished, rehashing the ways it could have gone differently – if he had managed to hold on to the screwdriver, if he hadn't burnt out the perception filter, if Tan Suit hadn't been paralyzed by the sight of the alien. Rose Tyler wouldn't have been fazed by seeing a mauve Axipillian, was the thought that popped into his head unexpectedly. Rose Tyler would have done what needed doing.

They worked so well together in dealing with the Nestene Consciousness. He pulled the head off of the Auton in the restaurant; she pulled the fire alarm and got all the other diners out of harm's way. He brought them to the vicinity of the transmitter; she pinpointed its location. He provided the anti-plastic; she put it to use. She shepherded the useless but innocent bystander to the TARDIS; he piloted them to safety. Teamwork, partnership, that's what he had found with Rose. And it had been oh such a long time since he had had that with anyone. The thought made him unbearably lonely.

He was overwhelmed by the urge to see her again, just once more, just to remind himself of what they had shared for a brief time. He stepped through the doors of the TARDIS, and was spinning dials and pulling levers before he could think better of it. "Not to talk to her, certainly not to invite her along; I learned my lesson on that one," he told himself. "Just to check on her. Left her alone – well, as good as, with that boyfriend – in the middle of the city, late at night, amidst all that destruction and chaos. I owe it to her to make sure she got home safely. That's all."

And with that firm lecture, he pressed one final button and allowed himself a small smile of anticipation as the TARDIS dematerialized.


To be concluded in Chapter 5: Bicycle