The squat woman choked, her hand snatching the card from the stranger as her cigarette and nail file flew forgotten into the sand. The stranger took a step back as the woman's hands scrabbled desperately, shortly unveiling a small pistol hidden within the folds of her shawl. She jabbed the weapon frantically at the group, which had separated in its collective surprise. Coughing again, she clutched at her sweaty, purpling throat with one hand but the gun remained steady in the other, sweeping from the stranger, to Amy, to Rory, the Doctor, then back to the stranger. Her voice was strained in anger and it demanded of him, 'Where did you get that?' It grew higher in pitch. 'That is MINE! Tell me where you got this! TELL ME!'

The Doctor noticed that Zat'Zul had disappeared. He was really going to have to figure out where they got that teleport, as it wasn't usual for Inliens to have technology like that. Why did he recognised Zat'Zul's species, but not their planet? What was happening?

The bow-tied newcomer had clasped his hands behind his back and was rocking back on his heels. 'Ah, now, you see! That's what you were looking for, wasn't it madam? Now if you don't mind, anger will help nobody. Please excuse us, my friends and I have some business to attend to.'

'Why- Wait! Stop!' The Toymaker's voice was piercingly high now. 'I will shoot!' She lunged for the stranger, arms swinging wildly. She aimed and fired as the stranger sprang away. The gun missed its target; the bullet kicking up a flurry of dust as it landed inches behind the stranger, who was now scampering in a beeline toward the TARDIS doors.

'Come on!' He called to the others as he dived through the doors of the impossible box. All followed; the doors closing swiftly on the shiny, purple face of the woman, which now wore an expression of an amusing mixture of astonishment and fury.

Inside, Amy and Rory looked around in awe. This was… different.

'Is he you?' Amy asked the Doctor, instantly guessing the stranger's identity correctly.

'Wha-' Rory began.

'Right,' The Doctor said, determined to nip Rory's inevitable rambling realisation process in the bud. 'This is my adventure and I want to know what is going on right-'

'Oh please do be quiet, me,' the stranger gestured dismissively at the Doctor in a very Doctory way. 'This is my TARDIS, so fingers on lips!'

Amy giggled. 'He is you! Oh my God.'

'Quiet, please!' The new Doctor shouted. Amy folded her arms and scowled. The new Doctor continued, 'Nobody is listening to me, and that is silly because I am the one who is going to explain everything. You ought to relax, and take a custard cream.' He deposited a cream-coloured biscuit barrel into Rory's hands.

'Now,' he said, as he began to pace around the unusually bright console room. 'Oh dear. Where should I begin...'

He clasped his hands together, and began at the beginning.

'Zoë and Jamie were at home celebrating Christmas, and I was in the TARDIS celebrating a good result I had had whilst fixing a particularly problematic problem with the console here.' He patted it lovingly. 'The TARDIS and I travelled to a planet where I met an Unguian Inlien, who had been injured in war. He was very pleased to see me, and I mean very pleased… somehow he knew me, although we had never met - not in my past at least! More specifically, he seemed to know of my TARDIS. I… we… are part of a legend of the Inliens of Ungui, as we are parts of legends on many planets, the power of the Time Lords being one…'

'Yes, yes, the Time Lords are fantastic, please feel free to get on with it,' the Doctor said huffily, still miffed about being told to shut up, by himself. Ah, he thought to himself. This is Ungui! No wonder I didn't recognise it, it feels nothing like Ungui. He whipped out his sonic screwdriver.

'Yes, yes,' the shorter Doctor continued. 'The Inlien – Zahghen is his name - told me that his planet had been invaded by another race, and that Unguian legend said that I was to be the one who would provide the coming of the New Age… namely, the return of the planet to its rightful inhabitants. So, when I - of course - came here to see this planet – Ungui - for myself, as I am wont to do as a traveller of time and space, I found the Inliens. They had unfortunately already been defeated and the small remaining numbers of them were hiding in the caves. So, saddened by their plight, I helped them in their final effort to achieve peace with the invaders. I found out that the town hall is something to do with the time loop and the other goings-on-'

'So you decided to help the Inliens blow up the town hall with a bomb on a train?' She looked over to the recent incarnation of the Doctor, who had not yet heard about this. He looked up only briefly before continuing to scan the console with his sonic screwdriver and absent-mindedly munch on a custard cream.

'No-no, the Inliens had already planted the bomb on the train which they had timed to detonate when it reached the town hall station. I, of course, didn't think this approach was wise. It would not only cause a lot of destruction to this planet, but it could cause an unlimited, rapid expansion of the time loop and affect this entire planet system, if not the universe. So, I disguised myself as an invader and boarded the train from outside the town, but before I could make any sort of plan to try to stop it reaching its destination I was captured by the invaders. They're not very nice people.'

'Aye, we met them,' Amy said. 'They're a bunch of cowboys. So,' she hopped up and sat on the console, 'You went and just like, got on board an atomic train, without any idea of a plan?' She smiled. 'You must be the Doctor.'

'Yes, well,' he smiled back at her, with just a hint of pride, 'of course it all went rather pleasantly, being captured. Until they took it upon themselves to tie me to the track further down the line, which is where you and your companion found and rescued me Amy, thank you both very much. I have no idea why the time loop shifted when I was left on the track, but it did, and somehow its boundary stopped the train exactly before it was due to squash me flat! Which leads us to our current problem. The fact that it shifted then is too much of a coincidence, which means that the time loop must have been created, or at least altered, deliberately. So, now I need to use the TARDIS to see just what, or who, is creating these temporal anomalies!'

The version of the Doctor Amy already knew interrupted then, with a loud, 'Er, yes,' and he put away his sonic screwdriver. 'Amy, Rory, me, I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that I've already done that.' He folded his arms and looked at the others, grinning, and eagerly waiting for them to ask for the answer.