DISCLAIMERS/NOTES

1. This is a fan fiction based on characters owned by the BBC. I DO NOT OWN THEM. This is just for fun.

2. This is a femslash story. If you don't like that sort of thing, you won't like this.

3. For story notes, see Part 1.

PART 4

Team TARDIS entered the pub and the Doctor immediately went to the area where, on the other side, the glowing crack was. None of her companions paid any notice to the looks they garnered for their peculiar, non-drink-ordering actions.

The Doctor frowned at the plain wall. "Huh. Nothin'. Though to be honest, I didn't know what t'expect. To be even honest'er, it would've been even weirder if the crack just led to inside 'ere."

"Why would that be 'weirder'?" asked Yaz, always the enquisitive one. Or, as Graham and Ryan often wondered, she just wanted to hear the Time Lady's voice.

"The sonic showed space and time were being pulled into the crack into... somewhere even it couldn't scan," the Doctor explained. "The sonic would've picked up if it just led back to inside 'ere."

"So we came in 'ere for no reason," smirked Graham. "Doc, did you just wanna come in for a pint?"

"Alcohol has no effect on me, Graham," replied the alien. "Not Earth alcohol, anyway. 'Least, I don't think so. Can't remember the last time I was drunk, to be honester'er."

"Y'sound drunk already," grinned Ryan.

The Gallifreyan frowned. "I'm just speakin' normally."

"Exa... "

"Look," Yaz intercepted. "Why don't we ask the woman behind the bar if she's seen anythin' unusual?" She noticed said woman eyeing them suspiciously.

"Great idea, Yaz!" the Doctor beamed. "100 points t'you!" Her points system was so out of whack it was comical...

With that, Team TARDIS approached the bar. "'Ello there, landlady or barmaid or waitress!" grinned the Doctor. "How are you this fine mornin' or afternoon or early evenin'?"

The woman behind the bar narrowed her eyes. "Landlady." There was no fun in her Scottish accent nor, the Doctor noticed, joy in her eyes - at all. Truth be told, the woman looked familiar, but the Doctor could not place her. She appeared a little past middle-age for a Human, with wrinkles on her face, though hair red as fire, not a trace of grey. "What can I get you?" the landlady asked, again almost monotone.

"Actually, we were wonderin' if you could tell us if you've noticed anythin' weird around 'ere," the Doctor said. She furrowed her brow: there was something about this woman...

"No," came the simple, cold reply, as the landlady proceeded to clean a glass. "Now what are you having?"

The Time Lady blinked at the curtness, and briefly glanced at her team, who looked equally stymied. "Maybe it would help if we introduced ourselves. I'm the Doctor, and this... "

The smash from the glass hitting the floor was like a foghorn in the quiet pub.

Everyone was taken aback, none more so than the landlady. The Doctor stared wide-eyed as the woman glared back at her. The woman's lip was actually trembling. "Hey," said the Time Lady, hand reaching out, "are you al... "

Then their hands met...

And the Doctor was engulfed in a flood of images.

A little girl in a nighttime garden. Drawings of a thin, raggady man. A fiery redhead in a police uniform. A white nightie on a Union Jack-branded ship. Being pulled underground. A pirate's outfit. An opened door at Christmas. Shackled and tortured. And so much more...

And with that, the Doctor collapsed...

TO BE CONTINUED