Author's Note:

Well, would you look at that, I'm alive. I know, I know, you all thought I'd died or given up on this story or something but no, I've just been insanely busy with the bullshit that is work and whatnot... Anyway, I want you guys to know that I'm not giving up on this story, at least not as long as I'm still having fun writing it, no matter how long the gap between updates. That being said, the next update likely won't be up for a while (I only managed to get this chapter finished because I wanted to post it on honour of the Season 8 premiere!)

As always, I hope you enjoy. If there is anyone still reading after that outrageously long wait between updates then please let me know what you think!

Happy Reading!

Chapter Thirteen

Milk, Six Sugars

Two hours, a shower, quick nap and change of clothes since they'd left Starship UK, and Wilfred found himself in the TARDIS kitchen, seated at an old wooden table with a steaming cup of tea before him watching his red-haired companion pace the length of the room.

"Winston Churchill," Amy laughed, "I spoke to Winton bloody Churchill!"

The elderly man chuckled at her antics. "You don't say," he teased.

The redhead tossed him a glare, but didn't bother to contest the barb. "I'll get to meet him too, if the Doctor ever gets out of bed…" she muttered instead.

"He needs his rest," Wilf smiled gently, "He's had a hellova day."

Amy just grinned and tossed herself into a chair across the table from the old man. "I still can't believe you got him to take a nap," she laughed.

"Time Lords do not 'nap'."

The two humans turned towards the kitchen door in unison, their eyes coming to rest on the Doctor who was leaning in the doorway and trying his very best to look cross but while his former face would have been able to pull it off nicely, the effect was not quite the same when tried by this new, younger model.

"Of course not, Doctor," Wilf agreed calmly, "Tea?"

The alien seemed to bounce slightly at the suggestion and abandoned all attempts to look displeased. "Oh yes please!" he grinned, "Milk, and hmm…" he paused and frowned thoughtfully before smiling once more, "Six sugars!"

"Six?" Amy laughed.

"I'm going to see Winston! Gotta be on my best behaviour!"

His companions stared at him, Wilfred in amusement and Amy in disbelief, as the former made up the tea as per their host's instructions and passed it to him. "Milk, six sugars."

The Doctor accepted the cup with a grin before taking a sip as he sat down next to Amy. "Perfect, Wilf!"

The old man nodded in thanks and took a drink of his own tea as silence fell over the group. Unsurprisingly, however, that silence did not last long.

"Are we really going to see Winston Churchill?" Amy burst out suddenly, glaring at the Time Lord beside her.

"'Course we are!" the alien replied, looking somewhat insulted, "We're mates, Winston and I, in fact – " he grinned, drained the last of his tea in one go, choked, and made a strange spluttering sound before jumping to his feet – "Let's go!" And with that dignified statement he tore cheerfully from the room.

"What?" Amy laughed, staring after him with her mouth hanging open slightly, "Seriously, what the actual – "

"You heard 'im," Wilf cut her off with practiced ease (he had his own redhead back home after all,) "Let's go."

By the time the two humans reached the control room, their pilot had already brought his ship in for a landing (complete with all the noise, shaking and bumping which usually accompanied that feat) and was poking his head out the TARDIS door with an unusual degree of caution. Wilfred and Amy exchanged glances before making their way slowly towards him.

"Amy?" the Doctor called as he stepped out of the safety of his ship, "Wilf?"

Offering his younger companion a reassuring smile, Wilfred followed their host's lead and stepped out the door with Amy close behind. They were met by the barrels of three Lee Enfield rifles and –

"Winston Churchill!" the Time Lord introduced happily, gesturing towards the man who could be no one else.

"Doctor," the Prime Minister greeted, "Is it you?"

"Oh, Winston, my old friend."

The two men moved forward, as if to shake hands, when at the last minute Churchill cupped his hand and beckoned.

"Ah," the Doctor laughed, pointing, "Every time."

"What's he after?" Amy asked curiously.

"TARDIS key, of course," the Time Lord replied

"Think of what I could achieve with your remarkable machine, Doctor," said the Prime Minister passionately, "The lives that could be saved!"

Wilfred, who had been staring around the filing room in which they'd landed and trying his best to avoid the memories being stirred up by the decor, found his attention caught by that statement. "Ah, but I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, sir," he spoke up, looking the man who'd been a hero of his youth in the eye for the first time, "It can't."

"Well said, Wilf," the Doctor nodded as he pulled the TARDIS's door closed.

"Must I take it by force?" Churchill asked, peering over his glasses at the alien who had turned to face him once more.

The Time Lord took a step forward, his expression darkening. "I'd like to see you try."

Winston considered the Doctor for only a moment smiling slightly. "At ease," he told his men who, at long last, lowered their rifles.

The darkness in the alien's expression disappeared as the weapons were safely stowed. "You rang?" he asked cheerfully.

"I did," Churchill confirmed, "But first things first," he turned to Amy and took her hand gently in both of his, "Winston Churchill, it's a pleasure to meet you, my dear."

"Amy Pond," the redhead replied with a goofy grin, "Are you really Winston Churchill?"

"The very same," the Prime Minister chuckled before turning to Wilf, "And you, sir?" he asked.

"Wilfred Mott," the older companion introduced himself, "It's an honour to meet you, sir."

"And you," Churchill returned as he led them out of the filing room and into a white walled corridor which shook violently with every bombardment from above.

Bombardment? Oh… Wilf felt his heart sink. It made sense, he supposed, that now would be the time Winston Churchill would think to call upon his time-traveling, alien friend but that didn't make the idea of being back here any more appealing.

"Where are we?" Amy asked as the walls shook and dust rained down from above.

No one answered, however, as the Doctor and Churchill were busy with their own conversation and Wilf couldn't bring himself to.

"So you've changed your face again," the Prime Minister was saying as he led the way down the corridor.

"Yeah, well, had a bit of work done," the Time Lord shrugged and Wilfred was struck by how much more casual this new version of the Doctor was about the topic of regeneration.

"Got it, got it!" Amy cried out suddenly, all but hopping in her excitement, "Cabinet War Rooms, right?"

"Yep," the Doctor confirmed, gesturing all around them, "Top secret heart of the War Office, right under London."

Wilfred looked around. "I always wondered where the orders came from," he mused.

Churchill turned to him with one eyebrow raised. "Came from, sir?" he asked.

Wilf froze, Amy, however, didn't seem to notice. "You fought in World War Two?" she asked curiously.

Glancing over at the Doctor, the old soldier noticed that he was grinning. "Cat's out of the bag now, Wilf," he laughed.

"Yes," he conceded at last, "I fought in the war. I was just a kid, but I did my duty."

"And came back alive," Churchill added, looking Wilf up and down.

"I did," the old man agreed, "A lot of others didn't."

"Then help me change that," the Prime Minister urged, "You know this war, help us win it without the cost!"

Wilfred gave him a tight smile but was saved from answering by the Doctor who chose that moment to cut in. "No can do, I'm afraid, Winston."

Churchill frowned. "Then why come at all, if not to help?"

"You rang!" said the Time Lord as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "And we can help, Winston, just as much as history will allow."

The Prime Minister shook his head but offered up no further argument. "You're late, by the way," he said instead as a dark haired girl appeared at his side.

"Requisitions, sir," she said, handing him clipboard and pen.

"Excellent," Churchill murmured, signing the form as he walked.

"Late?" the Doctor questioned indignantly.

"I rang you a month ago."

"Really?"

The genuine surprise in the alien's voice drew a chuckle from his older companion. "Having a time with your landings lately," he teased.

"Shut up, Wilf," the Time Lord muttered, before turning his attention back to the Prime Minister. "It's a Type Forty TARDIS," he explained, "I'm just running her in."

But Churchill didn't appear to be listening, instead he seemed to be focused solely on the young girl to whom he'd just returned the clipboard. "Something the matter, Breen?" he asked, "You look a little down in the dumps."

"No, sir," the girl, Breen, replied with a quick smile, "Fine, sir."

"Action this day, Breen," the Prime Minister told her bracingly, waving his pen, "Action this day."

The girl smiled a slightly more genuine smile and took the pen from her boss's hand calmly. "Yes, sir."

"Excuse me, sir," a uniformed man, a Group Captain if Wilfred remembered his uniforms right, hurried up to them as Breen walked away, "Got another formation coming in, Prime Minister. Stukas, by the look of them."

"We shall go up top then, Group Captain," Churchill decided confidently, "We'll give them what for! Coming, Doctor?"

"Why?" the Time Lord asked.

Churchill's smile left a slightly uneasy feeling in the pit of Wilf's stomach. "I've got something to show you."

"We stand at a crossroads, Doctor, quite alone, with our back against the wall," the Prime Minister's voice seemed amplified in the confines of the lift, the smoke from his cigar illuminated by the dismal lighting as he spoke, "Invasion is expected daily. So I will grasp with both hands anything that will give us an advantage over the Nazi menace."

Wilfred frowned. What on earth could Churchill be talking about? He racked his memory for anything that might fit the other man's words but came up blank.

"Such as?" the Doctor asked, echoing Wilf's own trepidation.

"Follow me," came the cryptic reply.

And follow they did, out of the lift and up onto the sandbag laden roof above where a scientist, complete with white coat and glasses, stood studying the sky with a pair of binoculars.

"Wow…" Amy whispered, staring around.

Wilf silently agreed as he imitated his younger companion and stared, wide eyed, at the carnage around them. The barrage balloons, the bombs, he could remember everything so clearly, every terrible moment of it. He could hear the Prime Minister introducing the scientist to them as a Professor Bracewell and mentioning something called an Ironside but he couldn't bring himself to pay the conversation that followed any mind. Not in the face of a war he'd thought was long over.

Amy, to, seemed distracted by the sight, her eye still scanning the sky in amazement. "Oh, Doctor… Doctor, it's…"

"It's history," Wilf whispered, "It's our history…"

The Doctor gave him a sympathetic yet understanding look and the old human nodded at him in appreciation of the gesture but was prevented from responding any further by Churchill, who chose that moment to shout above the noise.

"Ready, Bracewell?"

The scientist gave the Prime Minister the thumbs up without looking away from the sky. "Aye aye, sir," he called back, "On my order… Fire!"

Wilf, expecting the anti-aircraft artillery of the time, shoved his fingers into his ears but the noise never came. Instead, beams of pale light shot in quick succession from behind the sandbagged emplacement, every one of them striking a direct hit until not a single Nazi plane remained.

"What was that?" Amy asked, shocked, but no one paid her any mind.

"But..." Wilfred whispered softly, his fingers falling away from his ears as he stared at the patch of sky formerly occupied by the Nazi planes, "No... That's not right..."

"What's not right!?" Amy demanded.

"That," the Doctor replied in a voice all too similar to that which Wilf had used, soft and laced with horror, "That wasn't human. That was never human technology..."

Wilf shook his head. "Doctor, that sounded like..."

"I know," the Time Lord cut across him before taking off across the rooftop and up the ladder to where Bracewell stood, beaming at them all proudly, "Show me. Show me what that was!"

"Advance!" the scientist ordered.

"Our new secret weapon," Churchill called up, sounding just as proud as Bracewell looked, "Ha!

And from behind the emplacement came the last thing Wilfred ever wanted to see again. A Dalek – albeit a Dalek painted khaki green with a Union Flag for a designation logo and an army utility belt strapped around it – but a Dalek all the same, standing in the middle of the Second World War.