Lucy woke up to find The Mistress staring at the console of the TARDIS with a look of intense concentration. Eddie and Orion had decided to sleep in the room with the bunkbed, and Emily had taken the other room. Lucy had been content to sleep on the mattress that Eddie and Orion had brought inside. Watching The Mistress silently, Lucy tried to focus on what question she wanted to ask.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked sleepily.

The Mistress jerked up in surprise and looked to where Lucy was still laying on the mattress. The chair made a soft creak as she got up from it and walked over to Lucy. Sitting on the other side of the mattress, The Mistress took one of Lucy's hands in her own.

"Yes, I'm fine," The Mistress replied distractedly.

"You don't sound 'fine,'" Lucy pointed out in a whisper. "You're worried about Doctor Mort— The Monk and The Rani, aren't you?"

The Mistress gave her an appraising eye and asked, "Were you close to him? The Monk in his disguise?"

"Not particularly, but he was always pretty supportive of my work. And after my family… he sent me some flowers and a letter of… encouragement, I guess. He told me not to give up, and that my family would be proud of me… But I guess he was just considering using me for something."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Him turning out to be someone completely different. I can't imagine that being pleasant."

"It's not, but… I'm a bit relieved. I felt bad about my sudden disappearance and how he must have felt to see a student disappear, but now… I guess he never really cared. It's kind of freeing."

"You know… I'm more like them than The Doctor," The Mistress said nervously playing with Lucy's hand. "I've done… bad things. Horrible things. I… I'd understand if you want to leave when this is all over. Don't answer now. I don't want to get my hopes up. Odds are that they will find a way to tell you things about me and my past. I would tell you now, but… I can't. You're all I have right now. Although later you may not want to stay with me, and I understand."

The Mistress' face was downcast, and her hand shook slightly as she held onto Lucy's. Lucy sat up and put her other hand on top of The Mistress'.

"The things you did before… the horrible things, would you do them now?" Lucy asked point-blank, shocking The Mistress whose grip tightened on hers.

"No. Of course not. I'd kill to protect us in a heartbeat, but… no. Nothing like I've done before. That's why I started all of this… I want to get better. To be better. At first it was just for The Doctor's approval, but now… I just want to be a better person. To do good and maybe even make up for the bad I've done. You're probably the reason for that."

"Me?"

The Mistress looked at Lucy with a sincere smile and said, "Yes, you. Especially now. And I feel like we've got a second chance. We were both hiding things from each other. After this business with The Rani and Monk is all over, I feel like we can get a fresh start. Maybe even find The Doctor."

Lucy smiled in return and replied, "I'd like that. Very much."

The Mistress pulled Lucy close, resting her head on Lucy's shoulder. She whispered into Lucy's ear, "My real name… the one I used while I was still at the academy is Koschei. That one may be a bit dangerous to use though… so why don't you just call me Missy from now on? It's much more informal." The Mistress had started to ramble in embarrassment, so Lucy cut her off with a small hug.

"Okay, Missy," Lucy said releasing her. "Should we find a way to contact The Doctor? I assume that she'll or he'll find a way to meddle with or without us… Why didn't you want The Doctor to see you before? If you wanted to impress him so badly?"

"I didn't know which incarnation of him was there. He thought that I was dead for a good long while, and even the last time that I saw him… he probably thought I died at the hand of my former incarnation, but that was just a Ganger. I was able to create a duplicate of sorts. It even thought that it was me. I remembered that I killed my previous incarnation, so… I decided to make the Ganger. Not that I knew it at the time. A stable time loop of sorts."

"That's… super confusing. And I'm still super tired. But the gist of all of that is: you couldn't trust yourself, so you made a contingency plan. And a clone."

"Exactly. Now I just need to make sure that The Doctor I contact is after that point in time. I don't want to create any new problems. Back in New York… you said that The Doctor was a woman, correct?"

"Yup," Lucy replied and laid back on the bed.

"So… I'm betting that was his next incarnation. I've never heard of him being a woman before… or at least before this incarnation. How exciting. We need to make sure that she's the one who gets called to fix this problem."

"Great. Sounds super easy," Lucy said with a yawn, and D'Artagnan crept from his bed in the corner to Lucy's arm. Lucy smiled; she had been finally forgiven.

"I'll work out the details, my sweet. You get some rest. I'll get to work. If she is The Doctor, then I'm assuming that she'll get, or already has gotten, into trouble. After all, there is no one better at finding trouble than my dear Doctor."

Lucy watched Missy run to the controls once again but now with renewed vigor. D'Artagnan shifted into a cat and snuggled into Lucy's arm. Lucy closed her eyes, and once again the world turned to darkness as sleep took hold.