"So, Doctor, what do you do for a living?" Borusa asks, watching the Doctor tinkering with the machine.

The Doctor has been working on the machine for a small hour now and he's still not done. After about ten minutes of watching the Doctor, the Deca got tired and bored, so they moved back to the lounge again, and the Doctor can still hear them laughing occasionally.

"Really, Borusa? Small talk I didn't think you the type." The Doctor says connecting a black cable to the machine.

"Well, it's a great way of spending time when you have nothing better to do."

The Doctor looks momentarily up at Borusa before saying: "I don't know, really. I don't really think there's a word for what I do. I travel mostly."

"Where? On Gallifrey?"

"No. I travel through stars and planets and people." Briefly, he turns away and notices Theta, standing by the door leading to the lounge. He looking at the Doctor, realising what they're talking about. The Doctor continues, but he's looking at Theta, as if he's talking directly to him. "Like I always dreamed I would."

"Is it like everything you wanted it to be?" Theta asks, scared and excited at the same time.

The Doctor grins at that. "And so much more." However, his smile fades as he looks away and stares into the air. "Sometimes, maybe a little too much."

Everything is silent and uncomfortable for a while, before the Doctor shakes his thoughts off and turns back to the machine again. "Oh, well, nevermind. I got to live my dream and it's been absolutely brilliant. I wouldn't change it for the world."

"But?" Theta asks, sensing something wrong.

"Well, when I first started this crazy, wonderful adventure, I made a mistake" he says, careful not to cross and limits. "I wanted to change the universe. And I did. And it was great. But the thing is, … I never considered how the universe would change me."

"And that's bad?" Borusa says, slightly confused.

"I don't know. Is it?" The Doctor pauses his work on the machine starts to think for himself. It's amazing to think how many wonders this child, standing in front of him, will live through. He's like a blank page. Ready to be filled up until the tiny edges are the only white and clean spaces left. That's where the Doctor is now. All filled up. Maybe I should retire? He turns to Theta, noticing that he is looking a little worried. "Don't worry. It's nothing for you to think about yet. You've got other things to worry about, right? Like educating?"

Theta looks down at the floor, feeling that pressure of the Academy that he had actually forgotten for a while. He really hated it.

"It gets easier, you know," the Doctor says, and Theta looks up to see him smiling encouraging. "You're going to make it."

The door opens and Koschei peaks his head inside. Immediately, the Doctor turns to continue his work on the Time Viewer. "Theta, can I talk to you?"

"Sure," Theta says and starts to walk over to Koschei, but he shakes his head.

"No, sorry. I meant, the other you."

"Oh." Theta abruptly stops, never having guessed that would ever happen. His chest twists uncomfortable, almost like he's being betrayed by his best friend. Stop it, he thinks to himself. He would never do that. And besides, it's me he wants to talk to. Just a thousand years from now. Why would I be jealous of myself?

Even though he clearly heard Koschei wanting to talk to him, the Doctor doesn't turn around to face him. Instead, he leans into the machine, pretending to work on it, and mouths curses. Facing Koschei is a thousand times harder than facing his younger self. And he knows perfectly well why.

He hears Theta and Borusa making their way out the door and closing it behind them. Now, he's alone in the room with Koschei and his stomach twists in nostalgic pain.

"Theta," Koschei says from behind his back.

"Don't call me that," the Doctor interrupts and finally turns around.

"Doctor," Koschei talks slowly and carefully. "I have a confession to make. Earlier, when you were talking to Theta and Borusa." He hesitates for a second, looking a little guilty. "Well, I listened in on you, and I heard you talking about how you got to live your dream."

The Doctor nods slowly.

"Well, it's just … what I'm trying to say is …" He stutters. "Look, I know you can't tell us about it. But you did say that something will happen to the Time Lords, and I'm assuming that it ended with their death."

"I can't confirm anything."

"I know, I'm just assuming. But earlier, you said that you travel. Did you start travelling before it happened?"

The Doctor looks slightly confused at Koschei, not sure where this is going. "Yes."

"And, again, I'm just assuming, I die too in whatever happened. But before what happened, did I travel with you?"

The Doctor doesn't answer for a long time. He knows now what Koschei is getting at, because he remembers all those nights he and Koschei had lied on the grass staring at the night sky. He remembers telling Koschei about his dream of travelling through the stars. He also remembers asking Koschei to join him and to be there with him through the adventures. But he never did.

"No," he answers, staring into Koschei's eyes, feeling a little guilty about it.

Koschei's eyes widen and turns slightly glassy, because the paranoid thoughts he's been having ever since the Doctor walked into the room just got confirmed. "Why not? Where was I?"

But the Doctor only shakes his head. "I really can't tell you, Koschei."

"Why? I'm going to forget this anyway!"

"It really doesn't matter."

"You always said you would travel with me. With me. So, where am I? Don't you think I haven't noticed the way you've been avoiding me?" Koschei starts to wave his hands around, not sure if he is more angry or sad.

"Koschei." The Doctor tries to calm him down.

"You'd think you'd want to look me in the eye when you see your best friend who's been dead for centuries."

"Koschei."

"Something happened, didn't it? Something happened and now you're too scared to face me."

"Stop it!" The Doctor yells and Koschei stops immediately. "Yes, I got to live my dream, and it's been really wonderful. It really has. But there are some things that I just didn't know about way back when. Things neither of us considered. Life isn't a fairytale, Koschei! Nothing is always happy ever after. I know I asked you to travel with me, but you changed. And so did I. We all did. Things didn't turn out the way we planned. And there's nothing we can do but accept that."

The Doctor stops talking, knowing his been at the edge for what is acceptable to tell for too long. Especially to Koschei. They have too much history with each other.

Koschei stops talking for a while too. He was slightly shocked that the Doctor yelled at him. It isn't something Theta would do. But at the same time, he understands. He looks the Doctor in the eye again and swallows thickly.

"Was I there for you in the end?"

Koschei could see the change on his face so clearly. The Doctor opens his mouth, but nothing came out, and his eyes turns more glassy than they have ever been this entire time. The Doctor continues to stare, lost in painful memories and Koschei knows he touched something broken inside.

"No," the Doctor says, swallowing hard.

Koschei looks down at his feet, sighs and looks at the Doctor yet again. "Then I'm sorry. I might be a little late, or a little early. But on his behalf, I'm sorry."

The Doctor sheds a single tear and smiles sadly, hearing words he thought he would never hear. "Thank you."

He turns back to the machine to continue his work, but his face falls in despair as he notices something wrong. "No! No, no, no, no, no, no!" he yells frantically,

Koschei doesn't understand what's going on. "What? What's happening? I thought we were okay?"

"No, it's not that. It's the Time Viewer. It's not working." the Doctor explains.

"I'll get Professor Borusa."

Koschei turns and leaves.

A short while later Koschei had brought Borusa into the room, and of course, the Deca followed them, wanting to see what the fuss was all about. The Doctor is no longer working on the machine, knowing it would be for nothing. He's sitting on the floor with his head in his hands and sighs.

"What's wrong?" Borusa asks, walking up to the Doctor.

"The Time Viewer, it's …" He trails off. "The technology is brilliant, but limited. Because you don't actually travel through time, you only have one place to go. The temporal displacement device can't just place you anywhere in space-time. It pulls you to it. Meaning there's only one place in all of space and time you can travel to: the current location of the device. And it's only a one-way trip."

"But a TARDIS can take you anywhere in time and space," Jelpax says.

"Yes, but - is no one listening to me? - a TARDIS can't cross the Time Lock."

"So, what then?" Ushas asks looking at the Doctor slumped in defeat. "You're stuck?"

Suddenly, the Doctor brightens, as if he just got a really good idea. "Unless …, we connect the interface with a retroactive manipulator! That way we can find the last place it retrieved a person or an object from, reverse the process and send me back to the same place and the same time that I left!"

However, Borusa shakes his head. "No that wouldn't work. The process would collapse and you would be left as scattered atoms."

"Not if you had a stabilizer that could maintain the structure."

Slowly, Borusa nods, his eyes glinting with admiration. "That could actually work. Well, how about that. The student becomes the teacher. I'm proud. There's only one problem though: there's isn't an element in the known universe that could maintain the structure through the entire process."

"Yes, there is, and I know just where to find it." The Doctor starts to look into space again, thinking hard. Is it worth it? He really needs that element to get home, but it will certainly be challenging to get it. What would happen if he decided not to take the risk? He would be stuck. Probably facing the High Council eventually and they would never take their eyes off him. He wouldn't just be stuck in this timestream, he'd be stuck on Gallifrey. And one day, the Time War would come and he would have to go through that hell all over again. No, he decides. The risk is worth it. He would do anything to avoid the Time War. But that doesn't mean the others have to take the risk too.

"Oh, well," he shouts suddenly and gets up from the floor, clapping his hands together. "It was nice seeing you and all, but I've really got to go now. It's was really lovely. We should do this again sometime. Bring tea. I don't know when, but I'm going to need the Time Viewer eventually." The Doctor starts to walk towards the door.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Koschei asks, looking as confused as everyone else in the room.

"I'm going to Disney World to ride space mountain and eat pink cotton candy!" the Doctor exclaims happily.

"What!?" Ushas shouts.

"I'm kidding! I'm going to find the thing I need for the Time Viewer."

"Doctor!" Borusa says and the Doctor stops and turns to him. "Seeing as you need to find something, and I'm betting it's not anywhere near here, the only means of transport you have is my TARDIS."

The Doctor has another great idea and brightens again. "Well, actually." He walks back to the Time Viewer and types in some adjustments. "The temporal displacement device can't bring me back to the future, but I can pull anything from any time and place it here. The only thing I need is something that originated from it." The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver. "This will do." He places it on the panel that Theta had earlier stood on. He pushes a couple of buttons and a big, blue police box materializes before them. The Doctor beams happily at it.

To everyone else, it doesn't look like a TARDIS at all, and so they all blinks confused.

"I'd rather travel with my own ride," the Doctor says. "No offense, Borusa."

"Wait a minute?" Theta's eyes widen as he realises what the Doctor is saying. "Is that a TARDIS?"

The Doctor nods, opens the door and goes inside to set coordinates by the console. Everyone follows him excitedly, but stops when the Doctor comes back to block them from entering.

"Ah, ah, ah, ah! What are you doing?" he asks offended.

"Following you," Magnus says.

"Haha!" the Doctor laughs. "No."

"Why? I really really really want to see it!" Theta beams.

"I really really really need to do this myself. No kids allowed."

"We're not kids!" Ushas says.

"Don't you need at least six people to pilot a TARDIS?" Vansell asks.

"That's what the Time Lords say. I say … screw the rules. I do it perfectly by myself."

"Okay, we won't follow you." Magnus promises. "Can we just see it?"

The Doctor rolls his eyes and sighs in defeat. "Fine."

They all walk in and gasps as they see the interior of the TARDIS. It looks nothing like Borusa's TARDIS. His TARDIS was white and plain. The Doctor's TARDIS is warm and quite yellow.

"It's really cosy," Ushas says looking around at the walls.

"It's beautiful!" Theta exclaims and looking frantically around at everything. So much so that his neck is too short to let him look around quickly enough. He jumps excitedly and runs towards the console to look at all the controls.

Meanwhile the Doctor and Borusa are still standing by the door.

"So, you finally got your own TARDIS? That's great, Theta. I'm proud of you."

The Doctor notices that he used his old name, but this time he doesn't try to correct him. Instead, he nods and smiles, proud of himself as well.

"Thank you."

"Which type is it?"

"A type 40"

Borusa frowns in confusion and looks suspiciously at the Doctor. "Aren't they museum-pieces now?"

The Doctor starts to grin guiltily and his cheeks reddens. "I may, actually, kind of stolen it from a museum."

"What?"

"It's fine though. Nobody was using her and she was certainly fine with it. Weren't you?" He looks up at the time rotor and the TARDIS makes a comforting humming noise. "Exactly. Besides, I was always going to take her back."

Suddenly, the TARDIS lurches forwards and everybody loses their balance and falls to the floor.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to pull the leaver!" Theta yells horridly.

"Urgh," Rallon groans. "That's the second time today."

The Doctor gets up and runs over to the scanner. "No," he mumbles. Then he runs to the door and opens it and immediately closes it before anyone could peak outside. The Doctor leans his back to the door, his face clearly horrified. "No, no, no, no, no!" He runs to the console again and sets in new coordinates, but the TARDIS makes a sound and refuses to take off.

"What!? Come on! Work with me, old girl!"

She makes another sound and still doesn't take off.

"I'm just out of luck today," the Doctor says.

"What's happening?" Mortimus asks.

"The TARDIS won't take off again, because she's scared the inhabitants of this planet will find her if she activated the time rotor. And I think she's right," the Doctor sighs.

"So what?" Koschei asks, shrugging. "They probably can't catch her. I mean, this is Time Lord technology. Who can catch a TARDIS?"

"And even if they could," Millennia continues. "What makes you think they would do harm to her or us?"

"Because I know these people," the Doctor explains. "And they won't let us go easily."

Borusa narrows his eyes, walking over to the Doctor. "Where are we, Doctor? What's the planet called?"

The Doctor takes a moment to answer, knowing he's done a terrible mistake. He should never have let them into the TARDIS.

He looks Borusa in the eye with a horrible feeling in his chest.

"Skaro."