Author's Note: I apologize ahead of time for Jack. I'm a thoroughly oblivious person, in real life, and I often don't realize when people are flirting with me, so writing flirty dialogue is difficult. I did my best, but Jack isn't quite as sophisticated sounding as I'd like. Just pretend he's acting more Jack.

Buffy blinked. "What?"

The shadow-Doctor cringed, giving a small cry. "No time!" he said. "The Tardis is helping me to stay out here, but his mind is very strong. Pretty soon, he'll figure out how to counteract what I'm doing, and then I'll be locked up again." He raced over to the mushroom thing in the center, and started pushing buttons and pulling levers. A wheezing, groaning noise filled the room, and something in the green tube at the center began bobbing up and down, rhythmically. The room lurched, and if Buffy hadn't been training for as long as she had, she probably would have toppled over. But she managed to keep her balance. The shadow-Doctor didn't topple over, either. He was running around the mushroom-thing, continuing to do whatever it was he was doing, and chatting. "He set a trap, you see. Trying to create a temporal instability that would allow him to penetrate this reality. I tried to fight him, but, well, we're not as strong as we were a few centuries ago. I got locked away, somewhere deep inside this mind. I've been trying to reassert control ever since."

"You… you're the Doctor?" Buffy asked.

"Oh," said the shadow-Doctor, looking up at her across the mushroom thing. "Yes, that's right. You've met the other one. Tall fellow, lanky, wears a funny pinstripe suit and speaks with a rather common British accent?"

"He definitely was tall with a pinstripe suit," said Buffy.

"Ah, yes," said the shadow-Doctor, thoughtfully. "How to explain?" He paused a moment, in thought. "Same person, different points on the timeline. He used to be me, I'm going to be him. That sort of thing." The shadow-Doctor's vibrancy faded, as he gained a suddenly sorrowful look. "Or at least, that's how it was supposed to happen. If I'd still been all in one piece. It all went a bit wrong, I'm afraid, in Amsterdam." He shook off his melancholic mood, and gave Buffy a cheerful grin. "Still, I suppose Hedrin would be suitably mollified, if he were still alive."

"Who-drin?" asked Buffy.

"Long story," said the shadow-Doctor. "Dusty old Time Lord. You wouldn't have heard of him. Nasty sort, came to a sticky end when—"

The shadow-Doctor suddenly cried out, his voice wavering between the lighter, friendlier voice, and the menacing, gravelly one. He clutched his head, gritted his teeth. When he looked up, there was sudden desperation on his face. The room (or whatever it really was, Buffy thought, since rooms usually didn't shake or make noises like this) had suddenly gone still and quiet with a final thump. The tube at the center stopped moving.

"Can't keep him back much longer," said the shadow-Doctor, through gritted teeth. He pointed to the doors. "Out there. Find someone. The fixed point in time. He can stabilize you. He knows the Doctor. Tell the Doctor… something's trying to break through. Something worse. Tell him…" the shadow Doctor took in a pained gasp of air, before continuing. "Tell him Toby is coming."

"Toby?" asked Buffy. "Okay, really, I gotta get these demons a better naming dictionary. Toby? What kind of self-respecting demon calls himself Toby?"

There was another cry from the shadow-Doctor. And for a second, Buffy heard the gravelly voice snarling, "get out of my head, Doctor!" Then there was another shout, and the shadow-Doctor looked up at her. Even though he was still mostly shadow, Buffy thought she could see pain and desperation in those eyes. He pointed to the doors. "Go, now!" he shouted. "I can't stay out here much longer. Leave! Find the fixed point! You'll know him, because he'll… feel… wrong…"

And then he screamed, really screamed, the way that Buffy never wanted to hear anyone scream (but wound up hearing far too often in her line of work). Buffy decided there was nothing she could do for him, and ran out the door.

The moment she hit daylight, she stumbled. She could hear traffic in the background, and as she looked around, she realized that she was somewhere else. Not in the same way she'd been somewhere else in Sunnydale, back when it had been going crazy. No, she was somewhere stable, somewhere that wasn't changing. She watched as a red double-decker bus rushed by. On the wrong side of the road. Okay, so England. She was in England.

There was a rush of footsteps behind her. At first, she thought it was the shadow creature again, but as she whirled around, she found herself face-to-face with a handsome-looking man with twinkling blue eyes and a dashing smile. He was wearing a World War II military greatcoat, across a blue, collared shirt and black pants. He also gave Buffy a serious headache. Yeah, if she thought her Slayer senses had gone nutsy over the Doctor, she didn't know what nutsy meant. This guy was like a headache wrapped in a migraine wrapped in an unnerving sense of there-ness. Sort of… wrong.

Oh, so this was the guy she was supposed to be looking for.

The guy stopped, looking her up and down. He gave her a charming smile. "Well, hello there," he said, in a flirty tone of voice (American accent, Buffy noted mildly). His entire being radiated charm and sex appeal. He was like… a Xander that actually worked. The man pointed at her. "If you're the Doctor, I like the upgrade."

"What?" said Buffy. "No, I'm not…"

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned, noticing the thick black smoke pouring out from the door of the phone box. She stepped back. Not again. "Oh, my God," she breathed. "The Doctor!" She wanted to say something more than this, but she was trying to express way too many things at once without really being sure of what she wanted to express anyways. She just hoped this handsome stranger got the message.

The stranger's charm and flirtiness melted into sudden seriousness as Buffy said the words. He hesitated. "What does he look like?" asked the stranger.

"I don't know! Weird! Shadowy!" cried Buffy. The smoke was really pouring out, now. Buffy braced herself for a fight. Assuming there was enough there to fight.

The stranger was looking more and more worried by the second. He looked like he wanted to dart into the phone booth, but was holding himself back. "Tall, skinny, spiky brown hair, pinstripe suit?" asked the stranger.

Buffy wasn't really sure how to answer this, but she supposed she didn't have to. Something on her face must have told the stranger that she recognized the description, because he darted forward, opened the doors, and rushed inside the phone booth. Smoke poured out from the doors, but it was only then that Buffy noticed it wasn't the malicious smoke from before. This was actual smoke smoke.

The stranger came outside, coughing violently. "I don't see him," said the stranger. "He must have ducked into the back. Might take us days to find him in there. What were…?" The stranger stopped suddenly, just staring at Buffy. "Hang on," he said. "I know you."

Buffy sighed. Here it came. Now he was going to start calling her Elizabeth, and telling her about things she hadn't done. "Do you?" she asked in a dull, flat tone.

"Yeah," said the guy, giving her another charming smile. "You're Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Buffy stared at him. She almost wasn't sure what to say. "You… you know I'm Buffy?"

The stranger gave her a wink. "Not to brag or anything, but I've sort of been a vampire hunter myself in the past. Best way to find a Time Lord, I thought. After all, vampires and Time Lords don't really get along. I fought some of the nastiest, most despicable vampires you could imagine over the past hundred and fifty years. You better believe I know who the most recent Slayer is."

Buffy swallowed. Right. Nastiest, most despicable vampires. She was pretty sure she knew who that referred to. "A hundred and fifty years?" she asked, instead.

The man's ease dropped, and there was something very lonely in his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "Sort of inexplicably immortal. Not a lot I know about that. Trust me, you're not the first to take an interest." He dashed her a winning smile, and offered his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness, at your service," he said.

Buffy took the hand. It felt human. Distinctly, decidedly human. Even her Slayer senses were telling her that he was human. Wrong, but human. Buffy had no idea what to do about that. But if she was in England, she could find the Doctor, and figure out what the hell was wrong with her. And Jack — maybe he could help her.

"You know the Doctor, right?" asked Buffy.

"Hot guy in a suit," said Jack. "Course I do."

"I need to find him," said Buffy. "He told me he could fix things, and I thought… I was sure I could do it all by myself, but instead I just messed everything up. I need him to help me make things okay again."

Jack gestured at the phone booth. "Isn't he…?"

"No," said Buffy. "I mean, maybe. Possibly. But I don't think so? It's just, okay, it's really, really confusing, and I have no idea what's going on, but I think I need the Doctor to fix it, and I don't know why or whether or not—"

Jack cut her off. "Woah, woah, woah, slow down," he said. "What happened to the Doctor?"

"He's at the Watchers Council," said Buffy. "And it's my fault. I thought I could deal with this temporal explosive whatever under the library, but I couldn't, and it went off, and all the clocks started going screwy."

"This temporal explosive whatever," said Jack. "Wouldn't happen to be small, spherical, about this big," Jack indicated the size with his hands, "made of enforced ionized conlicramiun with a string of green lights around the middle?"

"Possibly," said Buffy, who had no idea what ionized conlicranium was, much less what it would look like.

Jack winced. "A Zenuranium-12 Temporal Explosive Device," he said. "That's a bad one. No wonder the Doctor was concerned."

"The Doctor kept telling us that he was the only one who could fix it," said Buffy. "And no one believed him except for me, but everyone thought I'd been bewitched or something, so no one would let him out to disarm the—"

"Let him out of where?"

Buffy fidgeted with the hem of her t-shirt. "We sort of… locked him up a little."

Jack gave her a half-smile. "Typical. Bet he escaped in about five minutes."

"No, he didn't," said Buffy. "I mean, he managed to get out of the Duct Tape, but…" She noticed the inquiring look on Jack's face. "We restrained him with Duct Tape," Buffy explained. "So that he wouldn't take off the gag."

"This keeps getting better and better," said Jack. "Gag?"

"It's just… there was this book," said Buffy, "and it said some stuff, I don't know, about a magic voice and—"

"Buffy," said Jack. "I think you and I need to talk."