The human Dalek wiggled herself lower beneath my covers.

"A rather pleasant punishment, don't you think?"

"Oh Lord," I groaned.

"You seem to have been saying that a lot these last few minutes. I guess it gets you in a spiritual mood?"

I shuddered. "What-"

"Woo woo!" came a muffled voice from somewhere in the room. A pitiful whimper followed.

"Zanie!" I cried, staring at Desiree in alarm. "What did you..."

I rolled off the bed, taking the Dalek with me.

"She's safe," Desiree said as we both got to our feet.

She opened an oversized dresser drawer, and there the dog was, barking and growling at its captor.

Zanie quickly jumped out, growling and carrying on.

"She saw us going at it, and got a little too excited," Desiree said.

"Apparently she's not the only one," I said.

She turned to me, putting her flippers on her naked hips. She had tentacles, scales, suction cups, and a lot of other things that weren't exactly appealing, but I guess I had bought the whole package already.

"Were you referring to you, or me?" she asked indignantly.

"Um," I stammered. "Mostly you, but maybe a little of both..."

She sidled up to me, running her flipper over my chest.

"I told you not to touch it anymore, but you did anyway."

I swallowed. "So you sleep raped me?"

Desiree laughed. "There's no way you could have done what you just did in your sleep."

Blushing, I said, "I wish I could remember it."

She pulled me close to her body, and I again could feel tentacles grabbing at my crotch. "Want a refresher course?"

"That's really okay. I'll pass."

I backed away, wondering what the hell just happened.

"So I actually slept with you."

"We didn't do much sleeping," she grinned.

My face reddened more. "But I don't remember any of this!"

"How could you not remember?" she said. "Your very first time..."

I could feel my whole body turning red with embarrassment.

"I don't. None of it."

Desiree suddenly looked pale. "You mean...?"

I nodded. "Did something happen after I killed myself this time?"

"Well," she said. "While you were the creature, the other part of you painted my picture..."

"The dog, you mean."

She nodded. "It was a nice portrait, done with claws on canvas, and I said we should keep it in your TARDIS.

"Then, of course, your other self teleported into the wall of the ship.

"When I found your tiny dismembered body, I cried. I never thought I'd cry for a Dominator, but I did."

"I've died that way lots of times," I said.

She nodded. "Perhaps. But this was the first time I actually saw it."

I sighed. "Okay. Then what."

"Well," she grinned. "It seems you're a very traditional sort, for the part of you in the dog was asking if I had ever (ahem) been with anyone, and when I said no, you said that this was the case for you also, and since we happened to be spending so much time with each other partly clothed, we should find a chapel..."

"So you married my dog," I said.

"No. It was you. Zanie had parts of your brain, and, well, don't you want to be my husband?"

I swallowed. "I suppose if we're sleeping together..."

I checked my fingers. "Where's the ring?"

Desiree laughed. "You said it would probably disappear when time started over."

After all I'd been through already, I was not at all surprised to hear that the chaplain married dogs with...anything.

"You are aware that Zanie is female," I said.

"So?"

"So, what you did was actually lesbian in nature."

"Actually," she said, breathing into my neck. "What we did just a few minutes ago was the complete opposite of lesbian."

"I didn't even know this place had a chapel," I said.

She shrugged. "Down the hall. I can show it to you, if you like."

"What," I said. "The time loop started over without me noticing, and I still somehow remembered we were married?"

Desiree nodded.

She glanced in the drawer Zanie had been kept in.

"Oh!" she cried. "They're still here!"

And she pulled out a gold wedding band and a gold bracelet, apparently the best one could do with a fin for a hand.

"What was that doing in there?" I said.

"I don't know. After we got married, I thought that the time loop would start over, so I put them in a drawer just in case things stayed the same. But this isn't the right drawer."

She slid the ring on my finger, and it fit.

A chill ran down my spine.

It was like this was the wedding.

"How did you size it?"

"I checked your corpse," she said.

I cringed.

"Uh, I guess it's a little late now, but you think we could go down to the chapel? Again? So I can marry you as a human being this time?"

She chuckled. "We already did that."

I swallowed hard. "This time loop amnesia thing is really getting old."

"Did you...want to...get married a third time?"

I shook my head. "Let's wait until this is all over and do it for real." Then I frowned at her. "What, did the captain marry us?"

She grimaced. "Perish the thought! I know how you feel about that. No, we, uh, actually found a vacationing minister. You probably saw him. He's in the band."

I furrowed my brow. "The Dalek?"

"No. The hairy one."

I smacked my face. "The Yeti?"

Desiree nodded. "He was inspiring. A shame you can't remember it."

My stomach sank as I looked into her eye. "I don't even know your full name."

"Unit 92419901," she said.

"Lovely," I groaned. "Desiree Brown is definitely an improvement."

"I still kept nine as my middle name," she grinned.

"I'm sure whatever we did was fun, sweetie, but I guess I've got to go to work, or we'll be stuck here forever."

She pressed me against the wall, kissing me passionately as she rubbed her body against me. "Is that really so bad?"

"Whoa," I cried. "Whatever happened to the human Dalek who as willing to sacrifice anything to stop the Quarks?"

"She got married," she purred.

She caressed my bare flesh for a few moments, then froze, crying on my chest.

"You're right," she moaned. "We have to stop the Dominators."

She looked up at me with tears streaming down her face. "You think we'll still be together after all this is over?"

"I..." I stammered.

"Because this is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, and if I wake up and find it never happened, I don't know what I'll do."

"If it never happened," I countered. "Then you won't know how to be sad."

I took a deep breath. "But if I remember anything, I'll make it a point to at least be a friend to you."

She sighed and nodded. "you should go."

As I got dressed, I said, "Wait. How does the time loop start over when you're not actually setting an explosive?"

"I...don't know," she said. "Maybe that's something both of us don't remember?"

And so I marched down to the Master's ship and let him chop up my brain again.

Success.

For the first time, I actually made the jump from the lab to the upper floor of the Island Princess without dying.

For a moment, I just froze, completely baffled about what to do with myself.

Once I had gathered my senses, the answer came to me quite quickly: I was here to kick ass.

So I started a sweep, teleporting down the corridor next to Senator Tayari's room.

I still had trouble adjusting to my new eye and the screens, but I could see characteristic shimmering ahead of me, and as I neared the shimmering I saw orange triangles on the monitor, paired with a bunch of unreadable symbols.

I didn't think, I just fired. After all, I'd had plenty of practice.

I saw something explode and one of the Quark vehicles toppled on the floor with a noise like someone kicking over a refrigerator.

I teleported further down the hall, passing Desiree's room, but didn't see anything.

A few hops down, and I came to Room 109.

Thinking it a step in the right direction, I teleported through the door, opening fire on the first Quark I spotted.

A second one got in a few shots before going down, damaging something on my vehicle, but I blasted that one to bits too.

The room, for the moment, appeared to be clear.

Riversong, as usual, was busy setting up the machinery for transporting slaves.

Having mastered the skill of brainwashing, I zapped her with my tentacle, and she stood blankly staring at me, bewildered at her surroundings.

"What am I doing here?" she blurted. "What are you?"

"It's Nick," I said, my voice sounding weird and alien. "I...had an operation."

Her mouth fell open. "Mr. Brown?"

"Yeah," I said. "You're still on the Island Princess. It's a secret room. You've been brainwashed."

She put a hand on my robotic vehicle. "That's really you in there?"

"Yeah." I explained the operation in more detail, and why I did it.

She accepted it more quickly than I expected. "You poor silly boy," she said. "And you expect you'll be able to change back, I suppose."

"I don't expect anything," I said. "I only expect to stop these things before-"

At that precise moment, I see four Quark machines shimmering into view, surrounding me on all sides.

I whirled and fired at one, but the others blasted me and Riversong with a rain of shrapnel.

Riversong died immediately, but I, being a Quark, survived the barrage.

Well, kind of. My vehicle was severely damaged, the lights inside my little control chamber all flashing red.

I still managed to destroy two more of the slavemasters, but the last one shattered part of my dome, and reinforcements came, loading me with so much shrapnel that my vehicle crashed to the ground, and shards of broken vehicle impaled my tiny vital organs.

As I slowly bled to death, I saw Riversong's corpse begin to glow like the Doctor's had at the funeral.

Time Lord, I thought.

Well, she is the Doctor's wife.

Something sharp stabbed into my brain, ending my train of thought.

Actually, thought, period.