Chapter Forty-Four

The Doctor lounged on the bed and flipped through one of Zoe's neurobiology journals, tipping it one side to read the notes she had written in small print that brought a smile to her face as the sound of 90s pop filled the air. According to her notes, it seemed that she disagreed with the authors conclusion drawn from what she described as questionable sources, etching a small stick figure in the corner that was puking onto the author's name to hammer home her disagreement.

Rolling over to her bedside table, he unearthed a pen from the mess that was her drawer – a phone charger was tangled around stray tampons that bumped into a colourful collection of hairbands nestled on British coins – and added to the illustration. Zoe made the effort to try and keep her research out of the bedroom but she tended to drift about the TARDIS with relevant books and journals in her hands, leaving them in the oddest of places that he wasn't surprised the majority ended up in their bedroom. Not that he minded. He liked flicking through her work to see how she was progressing with a potential cure or, at least, a deeper understanding of what had been done to Zoe Heriot.

The way her mind worked was splayed across the lined pages of notebooks picked up from WHSmith and he felt like it was a peek into the mind of the woman he loved. He was fascinated with how she approached problems as she had had no official scientific training, certainly nothing like the rigorous process he had endured on Gallifrey, and he was curious as to how she got from A to B. Scratching the nib of the pen behind his ear, accidentally drawing blue marks over his skin, he hummed along in time to the Spice Girls when he heard a clatter and an exasperated swear fly from the bathroom.

"You all right in there?" The Doctor slipped the lid onto the biro and set it down, rolling onto his back so that he was able to see into the bathroom, catching small, upside-down glimpses of her as she picked up what her elbow had knocked to the floor. "Need a hand?"

"It's this stupid top," Zoe complained, setting everything back where they belong. "I don't have any bras that go with it. And don't talk to me about strapless ones, I hate them. It always feels like I'm half naked even when I'm not."

"Having never worn a bra, I'll take your word for it," he replied. "I've worn a dress a couple of times but that's not really strange on Gallifrey, not like with you lot."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, humans have an odd fascination with what's in each other's underwear," she said in a tone of voice that let him know she wasn't interested in hearing his thoughts on the matter again. She huffed and attempted to right her appearance. "God, why am I even bothering with this?"

"Honestly, I can't actually believe you're about to do it," the Doctor said. "Did you lose a bet or something?"

Her head popped around the corner, hair exploding around her. Having forgotten to braid it back the night before after washing it, distracted by the Doctor's mouth moving down her body, it bordered on unmanageable. He rather liked the chaotic mess it created yet wisely kept his mouth shut when she had struggled with sorting it out that morning, giving up and twisting it into a bun that had left it kinky.

"No." Her eyes swept over him, narrowing slightly as though suspecting that he was up to something. Deciding that he was simply lying there to be in her company, she stepped out of the bathroom in a crop top and wide-legged trousers that rested on her waist. "Rose just me asked if I wanted to go and I said yes. I'm pretty sure I only said yes because I say no to it all the time and she had this look on her face like she wasn't expecting me to agree to it and I just wanted to prove her wrong."

"I don't get the two of you sometimes," he said.

She ignored him even even as she reached down and scratched the top of his head. "And I really don't want to be the boring one all the time."

The Doctor flopped over onto his stomach, face in his hands, bumping his head up into her touch. "You're not boring."

"Sometimes I feel it." Her fingers carded through his hair and twisted thick strands up to give a gentle, pleasing tug.. "And I know that I live on a spaceship with a super old alien boyfriend and I travel through time on a regular basis, which is definitely not boring, but Rose does all of that too."

"She doesn't have a super old alien boyfriend that we know of though," he pointed out. "Also, I'm not loving the use of super old as an adjective here. How about mature?"

"You're 870 years older than I am," Zoe said. "And that's me being generous since you're so old you can't remember your own age."

"Hey!" His eyes slid up to her, mouth turned down. "I'll have you know 900 years old is practically a teenager amongst my lot."

"Is it though?"

He dropped his hands from his face and caught her by the back of her legs. Giving her knees a tug, she toppled with a startled yelp, bouncing off the mattress. He twisted his body around and avoided her flailing limbs to wrap himself around her like a limpet, his long legs pressed over hers and his arms holding hers against her chest. Deliberately pressing her hips back, she wriggled against him and laughed when he stuck his face in her neck. Not expecting to encounter perfume as she didn't wear it, the scent went up his nostrils and made his brain ache as he sneezed it out.

"You're wearing perfume," he grumbled.

"To cover up the smell of sweat when I'm dancing," she said, twisting away from him when he wiped his face in her hair. "Got to think ahead with these things."

He hummed and splayed his hand across her bare stomach. "Why do you think you're boring?"

"Because Rose called me boring the other day, you heard her."

He snorted. "Because you wouldn't eat that fire chili thing that gave Jack trouble breathing. That's not boring that's sensible."

"Bah."

"Rose loves you just as you are," the Doctor told her. "And you don't need to go out and prove yourself to her in whatever twisted notion you've got in your head this week. Hell, last week you made yourself sick eating that entire cake to prove a point to her."

"She said it wasn't possible," Zoe argued. "And no one suggests that Matilda isn't a realistic film on my watch."

"There's magic in it, love."

"Says the man who loves Harry Potter."

"And it was an extremely large chocolate cake and you're very tiny in comparison," he continued. "I'm surprised you didn't put yourself into a diabetic coma. And I don't know why I'm going on about this. You two were exactly the same when I first met you so I suppose this is a nice return to normality. At least you're not ganging up on me this time."

"We never ganged up on you, you big baby," she scoffed. "But I will admit that the chocolate cake was larger than I expected. I did it though."

"You spent the night throwing up," he reminded her.

"Yeah, but Rose doesn't know that, does she?"

"Tonight's going to be the chocolate cake incident all over again," the Doctor said with a sigh. "You in a nightclub..."

He trailed off with a solemn shake of his head, and she poked him in the stomach in retaliation, drawing a small oof from him.

"When I was little," Zoe began, looping his tie around her fingers to play with it. "I used to watch Rose get dressed up for her nights out. She and Shareen would take over the bedroom with their music and make-up, drinking WKD Blues or Lambrini and I wanted to join them so much. I used to think that when we were grown and had our own lives, we'd meet up every Friday for a night out on the town and be like the women from all those TV shows who have cosmos and complain about work and men."

He drew small circles on the bare skin of her stomach. "Yeah?"

"But she met Jimmy and when she came home she wasn't much in the mood for more than the pub and then she met you," she said with a sigh, stretching her toes to touch his ankles. "And then we were both travelling with you and, honestly, life was like so busy that we didn't need to do any of that other stuff. But when we met Jack, it was like watching her and Shareen all over again. Like I was the little sister on the outside looking in except this time I was welcome but I felt intimidated, I guess."

He hooked his chin over her shoulder. "So you think going out with her's going to help you feel like you're connecting?"

"I don't think it can hurt, right?" She asked, rubbing her cheek against his. "And part of me's still that thirteen-year-old with a mouthful of braces who thought Rose was the coolest person ever."

The Doctor smiled. "She is pretty cool."

"I don't really want to go but I also do, you know?" Zoe played with the bones of his wrist, pressing lightly against his pulse point to feel the thrum of his life. "Although, I wouldn't mind just staying in with you. We could put our jammies on and snuggle."

"I do enjoy snuggling," he said, kissing the curve of her shoulder. "But you're going to go and have a nice time. Just, don't take this the wrong way –"

"Oh boy."

"Do you even know what to do in a nightclub?"

"Yes!"

"From personal experience?"

"No, obviously," Zoe said, eyes rolling. "I had to Google it. I mean, I've definitely been to a nightclub before on business and stuff so I'm not fully unaware of what takes place in them but I wanted to know things to avoid. It's a good job Jack's going to be there as it seems date rape drugs are a pretty common issue. Like way more normalised than Rose and Shareen ever told me."

"Don't leave your drink unattended and get whatever you're drinking in a bottle," the Doctor told her. "And that doesn't mean you should walk around drinking a bottle of wine through a straw because I think people get arrested for that."

"Really?"

"It might just be frowned upon," he conceded. "Part of me wants to come with you if only to see what's going to happen."

Zoe hummed and turned her face into his, nose rubbing against the underside of his jaw, bathing in the late night smell of him: warm and settled. "Sorry, girl's night only."

"Jack's going."

"Jack qualifies," she said. "And he's useful to have around to keep any unwanted male attention from us. For some reason, we get hit on less when he's around. Probably because everyone's too busy hitting on him now that I think about it."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "I should hope all male attention towards you tonight is going to be unwanted."

"Poor jealous baby," Zoe mocked, touching her fingers to his lips. "Worried I'm going to trade you in for someone with three heads and a nicer ship?"

He huffed. "You'd never betray the TARDIS like that."

"That's true. She's my favourite." The lights flickered through the room with delight, and Zoe laughed. "Anyway, Mickey's not going either. I think he's still exhausted from the holiday and's looking forward to putting his feet up. You two can have a boys' night in: Watch football, have a few beers, talk about whatever it is men talk about when they're alone."

"If they're anything like me and Jack, then it'll be ship maintenance, tofu recipes, and the plurality of 21st century humans," the Doctor replied. "Might be nice to spend some one-on-one time with Mickey. I think he actually likes me now."

"Only stopped you being a complete dick to him to make that happen," she said, dryly. "Who'd have thought?"

The Doctor lightly bit her neck, her body squirming away from him as she laughed when there was a perfunctory knock on the door before it flew open with a bang! and Jack and Rose tumbled in. One of the disadvantages of everyone knowing that he and Zoe were together was that his once-private bedroom was no longer private. He wasn't sure they necessarily needed to be in his room to clamber over each other and fill the air with chatter but he also didn't mind it; though, admittedly, it was a little disconcerting to step out of the shower, towel wrapped around his waist, to find one or all of them gathered on the bed gossiping.

Rose pointed a bulging bag of make-up towards him like a sword. "Let go of my sister. We need to get her ready."

"I'm readyish," Zoe said as the Doctor planted a final kiss against her cheek and rolled away at the exact moment Mickey loped through the door, hands tucked into the pockets of his soft sleep trousers, looking as though he had been dragged out of bed to participate against his will. "Just need to do my make-up and hair."

"Nope, no, absolutely not." Jack pulled her to her feet and turned her in a complete circle. "You're not wearing that."

"Why not?" She didn't think she looked too bad. "What's wrong with it?"

"We're going to a nightclub not a church."

"I would never wear this to church," she said. "First of all, Reinette wouldn't have let me out the house looking like this; and secondly, what sorts of churches have you been to?"

"The fun kind, apparently," Jack said. "And you look as gorgeous as ever but we're upping the levels tonight. We're taking gorgeous to sexy and you wearing those trousers isn't going to cut it."

"It's easier to do what he says," Rose said, setting up the make-up on the bureau in the corner that Zoe and the Doctor generally used as storage for whatever piles of books they were reading through. "He always vetoes my outfits unless he chooses them."

"Controlling," the Doctor noted.

Jack spared him an unimpressed look as he delved into her wardrobe in search of something appropriate, reaching out with his mind to ask the TARDIS to help. Behind him, Mickey searched for a place to sit and ended up pinching a strap of Zoe's bra between his thumb and forefinger so that he had space to sit on the bed. He dropped it onto a chair and wiped his hand against his thigh, wishing he was in bed where sleep beckoned him. Rose had joked that it looked like he needed a holiday from his holiday and she wasn't exactly wrong: The thought of a night on the TARDIS where Jack was occupied and no one wanted him for anything was heaven to him.

"Why are all your clothes here so normal?" Jack asked, muffled, from the wardrobe. "What happened to that nice red dress you wore to Jackie's party? And the one from New Year's?"

"Back in the main wardrobe," Zoe said, sitting opposite Rose and squirting a small circle of light moisturise onto the back of her hand that she dabbed onto her sister's skin and smoothed out. "If I'm going somewhere fancy I just mine it for things to wear. Everything in there is what I've bought myself: Jeans, T-shirts, a few dresses, the day-to-day stuff."

"No underwear though."

"Who keeps their underwear in a wardrobe?" She asked. "And you're not choosing my underwear. I'm putting my foot down there."

The Doctor lay back on the bed, ankles crossed and fingers looped together over his stomach. "Can I –?"

"Nope."

"Damn."

"Can we stop discussin' Zo's underwear, please?" Mickey asked, lifting his legs onto the bed and resting against the headboard, eyes heavy. "Some of us don't need to hear that."

"You're the only person who doesn't want to hear about it," Jack said, emerging from the wardrobe triumphant. He held a short red dress with thin straps between his two index fingers, the Doctor's eyebrows rising in surprise. "This is what I'm talking about."

"I've never seen that dress before," the Doctor said, pushing himself onto his elbows and looking to Zoe who spared the briefest glance at the dress before focusing on accurately contouring Rose's face. "I'm feeling a little cheated right now. When, where, why, who?"

"Forgot I had it," she said, adjusting the light to make sure that she didn't accidentally make Rose look like a clown as she blended. "And I might not even fit into it any more. I bought it in my third year at UNI to go on a date."

"A date?" Rose's eyes shifted to hers, curiosity slipping across her features. "With whom?"

"Hey, you used whom correctly!" Zoe tapped her on the nose with the contour brush and Rose batted her hand away. "And it was with someone called Jessica. We knew each other from around campus and I tried dipping my toe into dating but it didn't really go anywhere. Not worth mentioning."

Jack set the dress on the bed and disappeared back into the wardrobe for shoes. "Do you even know how to date?"

"Are you going to be mean to me all night?" Zoe asked, sweeping a pale pink blush across Rose's cheek bones, using her pinky to smooth it into her skin. "If so, let me know so I can ignore you now."

"I wasn't saying it to be mean." A shoe flew out of the wardrobe and the Doctor caught it before it hit Mickey. "I actually want to know. First there was Frelin and you paid for his services –"

"Worth every single penny," she said, mildly regretting that Jack knew that piece of information after Rose let it slip in their all-night catch-up session after weeks apart. "I highly recommend him."

"Noted for if Mickey and I decided to break away from monogamy," Jack said, stepping out with the other shoe. "But it's not like you dated him, or Reinette for that matter. And you definitely didn't date the Doctor before jumping into bed with him."

"She didn't jump," the Doctor said in her defence. "It was more of a slow slide over a period of four years from her perspective."

"Please stop talkin'," Mickey grumbled, eyes shut.

"I know how to date," Zoe said, blending together colours on the back of her head, adding glitter a small sprinkling of glitter, before sweeping a slender brush through it and applying it to Rose's eyelids. "Go for dinner, listen to them when they speak, be nice and respectful, and see where the evening takes you. It's not that hard."

"You're missing so much nuance," Jack said with a roll of his eyes. "Thank God you've got the Doctor. He's about as useless as you are."

"Hey!" The Doctor frowned at him. "How am I useless?"

"Have you taken Zoe on a date yet?"

"Yes," he said. "We went dancing in Egypt, isn't that right, love?"

"It was lovely." Looking away from Rose, she smiled brightly at the Doctor, warmth fizzing through her at the memory fo that night. "Archaeology, dancing, and a little bit of alcohol. I loved it."

"That was just before Sarah Jane, right?" Rose asked. "That was ages ago."

"Stop talking or you'll make me smudge my work," Zoe told her. "And it wasn't that long ago."

"About four months," Jack said, pointing at the Doctor. "There needs to be more dating happening. Mickey and I make sure we have dates every few days, isn't that right, honey?" Mickey didn't open his eyes and simply raised his thumbs in agreement. "See, dating."

"Right, you're done." Zoe leaned back from Rose who stood from the chair and pressed her painted lips against a tissue to blot the colour. "Busybody, you're in the hot seat." Jack whooped and dropped himself into the still-warm seat, mouth opening. "I know, I know: Big, bright, and beautiful with lots of glitter."

His smile sent ripples of affection through her. "You know me so well."

It was easier to keep Jack silent when she was applying make-up to his perfect skin, her hands moving swiftly and easily over him. Having done his make-up so often over the year they had known each other that she moved almost on autopilot as she smoothed, contoured, blended, and sent glitter dancing over his skin and down his neck. When she was finished, she took his face between her hands to examine her work, warm love for him pulsing through her and she bent over and pressed her lips to his forehead.

"You're good to go."

"Thank you," Jack said, hand squeezing her hip. "It's your turn, and I still need to do your hair. I don't know what's going on with it today but it's going to take some time."

As Jack and Rose fussed over Zoe, the Doctor removed a packet of playing cards from his pocket to keep himself entertained and out of the way. Generally, it wasn't appreciated when he got in the way during beauty time unless he let them sit him in a chair and do his hair and make-up as well. And since the last time he let them do that had ended with polaroid pictures of him in Jack's possession – pictures he still hadn't got back – he wasn't overly eager to let them loose on him again.

Shuffling the cards in a rapid tac-tac-tac-tac-tac sound, he tried to remember the disappearing card trick Peri had taught him on a beach in Cuba. The memory swept over him without any warning and the gentle lap of the ocean against the beach filled his ears, the rough grains of sand rubbing against his calves as he lay back on his coat – multicoloured then – with the setting sun warming him into a faint doze. It was still difficult then for him and Peri, the trauma of his regeneration lingering in both of their bones, their friendship off balanced and never truly able to recover from the shock of his change, but that day had been a small respite in the undercurrent of tension that ran between them.

She had been tipsy, a flush in her cheeks from the daiquiris she had drunk, and he remembered laughing as she tried to recite the Pledge of Allegiance for reasons he no longer recalled, her words tangling in her mouth and falling messily between them.

"You're drunk," he had accused, laughing.

"Oh, yeah, can a drunk person do this?"

The way she made the playing card disappear had startled him, which sent her into a fit of laughter when she caught the look on his face, before she offered to teach him. They spent hours under the setting sun and then the bright moon playing magic with the cards before trooping back to the TARDIS, hope lodged in his chest that maybe they would be all right and the worse was behind them only for the morning to arrive and the tension to still be there.

Sliding the card over his palm, he disappeared it and enjoyed being able to think of Peri without guilt crawling up his throat.

"Done." Jack dusted off his hands and the Doctor glanced up as Zoe got out of the chair and tugged on the hem of her dress. "Not bad at all."

"Makes it sound like you were workin' from nothin'," Rose quipped.

Zoe turned and the Doctor's breath caught in his throat. She was always exquisitely, painfully beautiful in his eyes and he enjoyed the various ways he got to see: Early morning Zoe with her dishevelled hair and pillow-creased skin; normal Zoe in trousers and a T-shirt; naked Zoe was a particular favourite of his. Yet, there was something about seeing her dressed up for a night out with her hair perfectly styled and make-up enhancing her natural beauty that made his mouth dry out.

The dress was shorter than she normally wore, which made him suspect it had been a spur-of-the-moment purchase soon regretted, but it had the advantage of allowing his eyes drag up her legs, over her slender waist and up to her face.

"You look wonderful," the Doctor said, taking care not to let his voice grow too husky as there were some things he didn't want to share with the others. "Sure you don't want to stay in tonight?"

Rose stepped in front of her, eyes narrowed, and his mouth curved.

"Don't you be tryin' to flirt her into stayin' here," she warned. "She's comin' out with me an' that's that."

He gave her the small, mock salute he had picked up from Jack. "Yes, boss."

"Boss." Rose puffed up as she considered the title. "I like the sound of that."

Jack bent down to kiss Mickey's forehead, thumb moving over his temple gently, murmuring something to him that no one else heard before straightening.

"Right, we're off," he said to the Doctor. "Don't go anywhere fun without us. Don't get into trouble. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Wait, no. Don't do anything Zoe wouldn't do. Hold on, that still doesn't work. Don't do anything a semi-adventurous nun wouldn't do."

"How specific."

"Got to be with you." Jack smacked a kiss to his cheek and took Rose's hand. "You've got thirty seconds to say goodbye to Zoe. Make them count."

The Doctor waited until they were gone before jumping off the bed and sweeping Zoe into his arms, mouth finding hers in an attempt to do his level best and kiss the lipstick from her. Her body shook with laughter, hands curled around his shoulders for balance, as he licked into her mouth. Laughter turned to a soft, pleased sigh that pressed her closer into him, one hand dropping to trace the curve of her ass, fingers brushing over the hem of her dress.

Zoe caught his hand. "We don't have time for that."

"Shame," he murmured into her mouth. "Please wear this dress for me later. I'll make it worth your while."

Her eyelashes fluttered. "You always do."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she sighed, turning her mouth from his though that didn't deter him as he trailed kisses along her jaw and onto her neck, relishing the way her fingers jumped when he hit a particularly sensitive spot. "We don't have time for this; we've only got thirty seconds."

"Fourteen now."

He tilted his head and kissed her again, pulling her close. It was hot, wet, and absolutely filthy – nothing they should be doing when Jack was likely to burst back in to get her – but he made every second count.

"You're the worst," Zoe panted when he released her, colour spread across her cheeks and the heady want in her eyes. "Getting me all fired up like this as I'm about to go out."

"Might keep you from staying out too late," the Doctor said. "I get lonely."

"Try porn."

His nose wrinkled. "No, thank you. Honestly, you humans and your propensity to record every bit of your lives is baffling."

"If you're about to tell me the high and mighty Time Lords didn't have porn, I'm about to call you a liar," she said.

He opened his mouth only to close it again upon remembering the holograms the Master had shown him late one night that had sent confused arousal through him, too young to fully understand what he was looking at.

"I've got to go," Zoe said as Jack sauntered his way back down the corridor, singing out for Zoe to come out, come out. She slipped her phone from the pocket that all her dresses and skirts possessed and tapped at the screen, his phone beeping. "Maybe that'll help."

"Have a good night," the Doctor said, curling his fingers against the small of her back when she rose up and kissed him, the door opening to reveal Jack who stood with his hands on his hips. "Look after her, captain."

"I always do," he said. "Now, come on, Zo. We've got a schedule to keep."

"A schedule?" She repeated, flashing the Doctor a bemused look over her shoulder as her friend pulled her from the room. "What's a schedule got to do with clubbing?"

"Oh, my sweet summer child –"

The Doctor listened to their voices grow distant before dipping his hand into his pocket and removing his phone. Tapping his index finger against the message alert, a picture popped onto the screen that sent all the blood in his body rushing south, dizziness and disbelief consuming him.

"Dirty picture," he breathed, eyes wide. "She sent me a dirty picture."

Mickey snored from the bed.


Sanlitun was different to how the Doctor remembered it. The area had undergone massive regeneration and restructuring since he was last there in 1952, the craving for bànshuāngcuì – cold pig's ears in sauce – hitting him hard after his unexpected, and unnecessarily violent, regeneration in San Francisco.

He had been minding his own business, letting his regenerative juices bubble beneath his skin as he attempted to finish his book, when the sudden and all-consuming craving for a food he had never eaten before slammed into him with a vengeance. Twelve portions of the dish and a restaurant fascinated by the sight of a gwáilóu scarfing down food people who looked like him tended to avoid, the craving was satisfied and he ambled back to the TARDIS content.

He wasn't looking for bànshuāngcuì that night; he was more for something to fill his time and stomach while Zoe enjoyed her night out.

Any expectation of spending time with Mickey was sharply curtailed when, slowly recovering from the shock of Zoe sending him a naked picture of herself, he realised that his friend was fast asleep on the bed and snoring into Zoe's pillow. The Doctor didn't know what Jack had done to him to leave exhaustion clinging to him – and he was certain he didn't want to know either – but he didn't have the hearts the wake him up just so that he had someone to spend time with. Instead, he drew a throw over him and turned off the light, leaving Mickey to sleep as he tried to occupy his time.

Checking on Humphrey, the small, computer-generated monkey that was currently living in Zoe's garden as he attempted to work out how and why her telomerase had lengthened and to see if the process was replicable without the Chameleon Arch – and therefore reversible –, had taken up an hour and half of his time. Another thirty minutes was consumed by appeasing the frogs who did not appreciate the new interloper in what had, until three weeks ago, been their territory and theirs alone. It took another hour to clean up the mess Humphrey had made of Zoe's flower beds.

As Zoe was already doubtful enough about Humphrey's existence, bothered by how realistic it was, he didn't want to give her any more reason to question the necessary experiment. It would be at least another week before he started seeing results that he could compile and make sense of, a clearer picture of what he had done to Zoe soon to be displayed before him, and he rapped Humphrey lightly on the head with a warning not to tear anything else up.

Leaving the monkey behind to thoroughly ignore his instructions, the Doctor had pottered about the TARDIS before deciding that enough was enough and he was able to go and get dinner by himself without company to keep him entertained.

He wanted company, of course he did. Too long alone with his thoughts and he generally started loathing himself, but he didn't need company.

Ducking under a string of lights, Chinese New Year having been celebrated the night before, he found a restaurant that looked less busy than anywhere else on the street, two large blue penguins standing guard outside. Poking one and verifying it was plastic, he stepped into the restaurant and breathed in the smell of authentic Beijing food.

The takeaways he occasionally had in London never measured up to the real deal, and his eyes swept over the menu board, eager to try something of everything. He wished Zoe was with him as her appetite generally helped him get through the food he typically over ordered, forgetting that his stomach wasn't an unending pit that he could simply shovel food into.

A thousand years and he still hadn't figured out the correct portion sizes: Somewhere and somewhen, his father was shaking his head in disapproval without knowing why.

"Hi there." A cheerful-looking server smiled at him from behind the front desk, her back to the restaurant that was lit with paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. "Looking for a table?"

"Depends," the Doctor said, rocking back on his heels. "How's the food?"

"Have you ever had Chinese food before?" Her eyes tracked over him and he knew what she saw – a tall, white man who looked more at home on a country estate in Britain than in a restaurant in China with unusually perfect Mandarin – and hesitated. "Authentic food, I mean."

"Once or twice," he said. "Is that a requirement?"

"Most Westerners find authentic cuisine a little...flavoursome the first time they try it," she admitted with an air of amused politeness. "If that doesn't bother you –"

"It doesn't."

"Then the food's great," she said. "The chef's new and her speciality is sea food. I'd recommend anything from that part of the menu."

"In that case, table for one, please."

A smile spread over her face and she stepped back from the podium and smoothed her hands over the front of her uniform, a modern, Western take on the qipao. The restaurant was cast in an atmospheric lighting that bordered on the romantic: Dark wood furnishings and traditional Chinese artwork added to the old-world feel of the interior, a direct contrast to the modern hustle and bustle of the street outside. He had landed them in 2002 as Jack and Rose felt it was best not to fling Zoe in at the deep end with the nightclubs they usually went to. He thought that was a wise idea as while she had walked through Rayal and enjoyed a drink or two at Roxx's, those were two very different activities to the sort of licentiousness that Jack was attracted to.

A nice, normal, human nightclub was perfect for Zoe.

And as long as she avoided picking a fight with someone, the night was going to go well for her.

"Here you go," the waitress with the English name Betty pinned onto the breast of her uniform said, handing him a slim menu. "Would you like something to drink while you have a look?"

"Just a beer, thanks, whatever you have," he said, flipping open the menu to the seafood section, closing his eyes, and pointing. "And I'll have the sea cucumber with the quail eggs, the braised fish, and the egg and shrimp pancake, please. Actually, make that two of the egg and shrimp. I'm a bit peckish."

Thin lines of amusement appeared around Betty's eyes as she jotted his order down. "Coming right over, sir."

The Doctor watched her leave and turned a folded paper napkin into the shape of a swan, his fingers restless with not having anything to do. Looking around the restaurant for something or someone to distract himself with, he saw couples enjoying their dinner, the majority of them tourists with the rest being businessmen who were in Beijing for a night before flying back to wherever home was. He amused himself by picking out the various nationalities: there was a British couple in the corner, the rise and fall of Leeds jarring in a Beijing restaurant; a set of French parents were attempting to get their teenagers to try different dishes with little success; and an American couple were notably so due to the American flag plastered across their fanny packs they had hooked onto the side of their chairs, digging into the fried pig's ears with delight.

The temptation to go and join another table for company pulsed within him, held at bay only by the thought of Zoe telling him that not everyone wanted their dinner crashed by a Time Lord. Humans had bizarre rules for social interactions that he still didn't understand even after centuries of knowing them: On Gallifrey it would be stranger not to join strangers eating than it was to do so as eating was an activity that was meant to be shared with others.

If someone was eating alone, then it was the responsibility of others to draw them into their group and make them welcome; humans, however, thought nothing of eating alone and some even preferred it.

Strange creatures, he thought, fondly.

Removing his phone from his pocket, he checked to see if there were any messages that he could respond to, delighted to find a message from Doris asking if he and Zoe were free for dinner the next time they were in London. Aware that the British liked to trade off with social invitations, he sent a swift message back inviting her and Alistair to the TARDIS for dinner instead, figuring he was able to put together a suitable meal for the four of them – more if the others wanted to join them.

It was only after he sent the message that he was struck by the thought he should have asked Zoe if she was willing to have dinner with his friends first before scheduling her time for her.

"Bollocks," he swore.

Not willing to send her a message that might be construed as him checking up on her or him being unable to spend an evening alone, he flicked over to his photo album as Betty brought his beer over to him. Skimming over the addition of a naked Zoe as he didn't dare look at it in public, he went through his photos from the last six weeks and determined that there was a significant absence of Jack and Mickey from them. He had loved spending time with just Rose and Zoe, the nostalgia making them all a little giddy at the beginning, but the TARDIS wasn't complete without Jack and Mickey on it.

Thumbing through the pictures, he was painfully aware that he was attempting to stave boredom off. Unlike Zoe who was able to spend hours looking at her phone because everything was up-to-date and she used it more often than she used her laptop, there was only so long his phone could hold his attention for before he had to admit defeat. Setting it face down on the table, he leaned back in his seat and took hold of his beer, hating that he was alone.

The fact that he had three friends and a Zoe should have meant that he didn't have to suffer through dinner by himself yet they all had surprisingly active social lives.

He knew that was a good thing and didn't begrudge them it but they were more proactive about seeking stimulation and entertainment off of the TARDIS than his other friends had been. Then again, it wasn't as though the dynamic that currently existed was one he had experienced on the TARDIS before. It felt more like family than anything else and family didn't need to spend all their time together, content to go off and do other things before reuniting in the evening.

It reminded him a little of how it was with Susan before Ian and Barbara stumbled into the TARDIS and sent him headlong down the path of a life of human friendships.

Susan used to wander off.

Something would catch her eye and she would be gone, reappearing minutes later but sometimes absent for days at a time. Stories tripped from her tongue when she found him again, falling into step with him as though she was never gone, and he hadn't thought to be concerned about it. She was a child, yes, but she was a Time Lord child; it was why he hadn't felt overly guilty about leaving her behind with David, knowing she needed that time with him, her duty to her eccentric grandfather the only thing holding her back.

Had he been able to spare her the pain of losing him while helping her learn the lessons she needed to mature and grow into herself, he would have. Though,, as she said herself when he next saw her on Gallifrey with her son getting to know his new home and his new culture, she wouldn't have changed anything as loving David had given her Alex.

Susan had always been much wiser than he was and his hearts sang with pain as he thought of her.

Shaking his head, the Doctor drank down half of his beer and remembered why it was never a good idea for him to be left to his own devices for too long: Loneliness tended to creep in and turn him maudlin.

The food mercifully arrived as he was attempting to recite the first chapter of Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier from memory. The copy he had got Zoe for her twenty-fifth birthday was currently resting on her bedside table as she read it again, his fingers flicking through it while he waited for her, and he happily diverted his attention to the food. Cracking his chopsticks apart, they slipped into place easily and he clacked them together, eyes sweeping over the food as he considered where to start.

Pinching a piece of sea cucumber between his chopsticks, he placed it on his mouth at the exact moment a man slid into the seat opposite him.

"Hello, Doctor."

The Doctor removed his chopsticks and chewed, annoyed that he wasn't able to enjoy the flavours bursting across his tongue, his attention caught by the man who was clearly out of time. Even if a Vortex Manipulator didn't sit on his wrist, his clothing gave him away: 52nd century judging by the way the fibres were woven together and the sharp, militaristic cut of the shoulders. Dressed in varying shades of green, he looked at the Doctor from across the table, his own beer held in his hand.

"Do I know you?" The Doctor asked, lowering but not releasing his chopsticks.

"Not yet," he said. "But we have people in common. One of them you're very closely acquainted with: Zoe Tyler."

Her name settled between his hearts like a heavy warning. Something pricked at the back of his mind and the Doctor sharpened his focus on the man, taking in the details of him from the golden blonde hair to the bright blue eyes and onto the square jaw that bordered on being too heavy for his features: Definitely someone the Doctor imagined toiling away in the City of London before decamping to Cornwall for a weekend of surfing.

The curiosity, anger, and small hint of amusement at the audaciousness of approaching him was carried along on the tide of awareness that this was Zoe's mystery man.

"So you're the one that's been following her through time." The Doctor set the chopsticks down and sat back, the general hum of the restaurant fading to white noise in the face of a glimpse of Zoe's future. "And now you're here talking to me. Either you're incomprehensibly stupid or you're in need of help. Which is it?"

"Neither," he said, eyes passing methodically over him, lingering on his chest in a way that felt clinical rather than anything else. Once he had finished his passover, content with letting the Doctor wait for him to keep speaking in a manner that rankled, he met the Doctor's eyes again and allowed a small smile to shadow his lips. "I keep getting the time wrong. It's frustrating."

"That's what happens when you travel by Vortex Manipulator," the Doctor said. "Short hops at best are what those are built for. Considering how far and wide you've travelled on it, I'm amazed you've not been turned inside out."

"I'm made of stronger stuff than most," he said, simply. "Still, it's a bother."

"You could always stop," the Doctor suggested. "Find a new line of work. I hear farming is quite restorative to the soul. You should give it a try."

"I'll pass, thank you." A sharp smile cut across the man's face, shadows dripping over him. "Besides, what I do isn't work."

"A new hobby then."

"Definitely not a hobby, either," he said. "Finding the right Zoe Tyler is a personal matter."

"What did she do?" The Doctor asked. "Sleep with your sister and not call her back?"

The man laughed and there was a bright burst of familiarity that took the Doctor aback, recognition scrabbling at the back of his mind only to fade when he reached for it, frustration winding itself around his bones.

"I don't have a sister," he said, dimples pressing into his cheeks. "And you think I'd follow her through time because of a one-night stand?"

"I don't know," the Doctor replied. "People do all sorts of things when they think someone they love's been dishonoured or hurt. And I don't know anything about you except for your creepy stalker tendencies, which, I'll be honest, don't exactly paint you in the best light. What's your name?"

"Would you also like my home address?"

"That would help."

He laughed though there was no warmth to it. "You can call me Ryga for now."

"Ryga." The Doctor turned the name over in his mouth. "What does it mean?"

He raised his eyebrows and took a slow sip of his beer, deliberately making the Doctor wait for his answer.

"Do you always overthink things?" Ryga asked when he was done. "Because sometimes a name is just a name."

"I tend to find people like to be clever with their names," he said. "They like to layer meaning upon meaning on them because putting the truth under the noses of the people they're deceiving amuses them. And you seem to be the type of person who'd enjoy that."

"Like the Doctor?"

"Excuse me?"

"Rumour has it you chose your name," Ryga said, stretching his legs beneath the table and relaxing into his seat: To anyone watching, they looked like two old friends sharing a meal. "I wonder what it says about the person who chooses to call himself the Doctor, what sort of ego that implies. Do you think you can heal the universe?" The derisive scoff that fell from him went straight through the Doctor's bones. "Physician, heal thyself."

"It means no more than I was a child when I chose it," the Doctor lied, fascinated by the level of knowledge the man possessed about him as most who had heard of the Time Lords weren't familiar with their naming customs. "And as fascinating as this is, you haven't answered my question."

"Which one? You've asked me a few."

"Why are you following Zoe?" The Doctor said. "Why are you interested in her?"

Ryga's shoulders rolled in a lazy shrug. "My own reasons."

"Are you going to share them with me, or do I have to guess?"

His smile spread, light dancing across the surface of his eyes. "Want to play twenty questions?"

"Not particularly," the Doctor said, sharpness spiking the edges of his words. "I want you to answer my question. I want to know why you're stalking my friend through time."

"Friend." Ryga's entire face changed as good-natured amusement was wiped clean and sour anger poisoned his handsome features. "She's not really your friend though, is she? Zoe Tyler and the Doctor friends. Please. You think I'm new to this? You think I don't know what the two of you get up to in the ship of yours. She's not your friend. Not unless you make a habit of fucking all those who travel with you." Surprise rippled through the Doctor and Ryga gestured to the waitress, tone shifting into genial politeness. "Could we get two more beers, please?"

Betty nodded and slipped away, her brief appearance long enough for the Doctor to wrestle his surprise under control. "What could you possibly know about my relationship with Zoe?"

"I know enough to know that it's not going to end happily," Ryga said. "How could it? You're the Last of the Time Lords, and she's – well – not. A God dabbling with a human. How exactly does that work?"

"You're not the first person to tell me that," he said, remembering Margaret Blaine sitting on the floor of the Zero Room, taunting him over his love for Zoe. "Nor to call me a god."

Ryga inclined his head. "You're right. You're not a God. Or, if you are, you're one of the fucked up ones. Mind if I have a pancake? Manipulator travel always leaves me hungry and that pancake looks really good."

The Doctor pushed the plate towards him and watched as Ryga rolled it up and bit into it, small lines of tension disappearing from his face. Blue eyes danced over him as he chewed, hand spreading out in a magnanimous gesture.

"Don't not eat on my account," he said. "Dig in. You're probably hungry. Where have you just come from? No, wait, don't tell me, let me guess." Ryga examined him closely as he methodically ate the pancake with the mannerisms of someone who had once been starved – chewing every bite and not letting any crumbs leave his mouth. "Considering I didn't see Martha in the nightclub with the others, I'm going to say this is very early for you. You haven't even done Canary Wharf yet, have you?"

"You clearly know I haven't," the Doctor said. "So stop showing off your knowledge of future events. It's tiresome."

"All right, I think I know where you are," he said, leaning back with a laugh that sucked all the warmth from the room, enjoyment painted across his face. "You've got no idea what's coming for you. This is wonderful. You're walking into the future without a single clue of what's to come and, you know what? I love it."

"No one knows what the future holds," the Doctor told him. "Not even time travellers."

"I do," he said. "At least when it comes to you and Zoe. Know thy enemy and all that."

"And we're your enemies?"

"Well, she is," Ryga admitted. "But the two of you are sort of a package deal. Don't get me wrong, I don't like you but that's more of a general dislike than outright hatred."

"I'm so pleased," he said, dryly.

"And I'd kill you given half the chance but we both know that wouldn't hold," Ryga continued. "Time Lords are tricky to kill even before you factor in regeneration. But, no, I wouldn't kill you now, not when I know what's coming."

Curiosity poked and prodded at the Doctor who had never been able to ignore the bright shininess of knowledge he didn't possess.

"And what's that then?" He asked, hating himself for giving Ryga the satisfaction of asking, and anger began to build itself up in his chest brick by brick. "This thing that's coming?"

Ryga drew a pattern in the condensation from his glass, smearing it across the surface of the table, eyes never leaving the Doctor's. "Doomsday."

"Sounds dramatic," he said.

Ryga snorted and reached for the origami swam, unfolding it to dry his fingers. The Doctor observed him openly – no sense in concealing his intentions when Ryga was doing the same to him – and didn't like what he saw. Handsome in a blandly generic way, he was like a thousand men with blonde hair and blue eyes that drew the attention of some people but were often skimmed over in passing. It was his aura that fascinated the Doctor as there was something around him that pulsated with unnaturalness; a thing that pushed against his Time Senses and made him itch.

Picking up his beer, he attempted to wash the itch from the back of his throat.

"It's all right," Ryga said, easily. "Most people feel like this around me."

"Annoyed?"

"Discomforted," he said. "It was offensive at first the way people wouldn't look me in the eyes – you don't realise how much you miss eye contact until it's gone – but I'm used to it now. I promise I won't think less of you if you look away."

The Doctor let his gaze rest on him. "Do you think I'm afraid of you?"

"I think you're afraid of what I can do to Zoe," he said, honestly. "And you're right to be. She and I have unfinished business but I'm not stupid enough to tear apart the universe by killing her out of turn. I can wait until I meet up with the her I need. In the meantime, it's fun to know that she's losing sleep over me."

"She's not," the Doctor told him. "She barely thinks of you."

"Liar." He rolled his left ankle beneath the table as Betty returned with two glasses of beer balanced on a tray that shook lightly as she felt the atmosphere between the two men, happy to leave as soon as possible. "What is it humans from the 21st century say, churn?"

"Cheers," the Doctor corrected, not touching his glass. "You want to kill her?"

"Torture, kill, little bit of both," he said. "Anything that makes her scream really. Death is so final and dull."

A thought struck him and his shoulders rolled in a silent laugh as though he had said something funny.

"And you think telling me this is a wise idea?" The Doctor asked, unamused. "If you know anything about me – anything at all – you know I don't take threats to the people I care about lightly. And I'm finding I don't take them at all well when they're directed at Zoe."

"Look at that." Ryga slapped the table, eyes crinkling and dimples appearing as a wash of delight doused him. "I've taught you something new about yourself. Isn't that fun?" As quickly as the cheer appeared, it disappeared to be replaced with a cool, penetrating stare. "I've always been curious about you. Because Time Lords were an odd bunch, weren't they? And then there's you, the exact opposite of what your people were. What is it Brother Lassar said about the Time Lords? Peaceful to the point of indolence."

Ice rolled down the Doctor's spine. "That was a private conversation. How do you know about that?"

"You've been out in the universe a long time, Doctor," he said. "You think you're not being watched? There are people out there who would pay good money to see the Last of the Time Lords dead – properly dead and not that weird regeneration thing you do. You think they don't talk to each other from time to time?"

"Their lives that boring, are they?" He asked, never having given the matter any thought. "I hope they enjoy my supermarket trips and food choices."

"Zoe should probably drink less coffee," Ryga replied, and the Doctor's gut twisted at the confirmation that someone had been watching them. "And what are those things Rose likes? She makes you get her a pack every time you pass Marks and Spencer." The Doctor stared at him, blankly. "You know, they come in a green and pink plastic bag: Small pink things shaped like an animal."

"Percy Pig?"

"I don't know the name," he said with a shrug. "What are they?"

"They're sweets," the Doctor said. "Raspberry flavour, I think."

Ryga flipped over the napkin and removed a standard HB pencil from his pocket, writing the word Percy Pig onto the back of it.

"21st century stuff confuses me but Rose always seems happy with them," he said, and the Doctor wanted to rip her name from his mouth. "Next time I'm London, I'll pick a pack up and try it myself."

Uncharacteristically lost for words, the Doctor wasn't sure what to make of Zoe's mystery man who was much saner yet so much more dangerous than either of them had initially thought.

When she first told him about the man haunting her temporal footsteps, his first theory was that it was a future friend looking for help or – and he had never told her this – their son popping back in time for assistance as it wasn't necessarily a given that any children they had would have Zoe's skin colour. Now, faced with the man who called himself Ryga, he realised his optimism had blinded him to a danger that was coming for Zoe. Anyone who possessed a casual confidence in his belief that he was able to approach a Time Lord and speak as he was doing and leave unharmed unsettled the Doctor.

People who tended to threaten him or those he cared about carried a nervous fear beneath whatever veneer they plastered over the top of it in an attempt to make him believe that they were in charge. Even the Daleks feared him and they were the Daleks. Yet, Ryga wasn't frightened of him in the slightest and the Doctor couldn't figure out why.

"Who are you?" He demanded again. "And why do you want to hurt Zoe?"

"You'll find out," Ryga said, sipping his beer. "And when you do, I want you to know that it'll be your fault what happens to her."

"Nothing's going to happen to her," he said. "I won't let it."

A smile pulled across Ryga's face.

"Say it again and it might just come true." Anger stretched taut in the Doctor's chest, and he held onto the thin shreds of his patience and calm as Ryga stared at him. "The way you take humans into the TARDIS and give them the universe, is it any wonder some of them turn out like Zoe? You take them and you warp them into something else. Although, some of them are lucky, aren't they? Some of them get to die before you fuck them up too badly. Imagine what Adric would've –"

"Don't." The word snapped out like a whip, silencing Ryga. "Be very careful with what you say next."

Ryga moved his fingers lightly over the rim of his beer glass. "Everywhere you go there's death and destruction except where it might be most useful. Willing to let your own planet burn with everyone on it but not willing to destroy the Daleks when you had the chance. Is it any wonder then that she saw your past and took on board what you were teaching her with enthusiasm?"

"Zoe's not like me," the Doctor said, wanting the conversation to end but also wanting to reach across the table and throttle him. "She's good and kind and nothing like me."

"Is that what you tell yourself?" Ryga asked, a cruel lilt to his voice. "Do you try and fool yourself into thinking that she's this perfect woman who you can fuck your guilt into?"

"Mind your tongue," he snapped, grabbing the edges of his anger and pulling them back, jaw tight with tension. "And no one's perfect."

"There's someone we can agree on," Ryga said, lazily, lifting one finger from his glass to point at the Doctor. "See, the thing is you think that humans have this unerring ability to be good and great. You look at them and you see potential and optimism and all that crap, but the truth of the matter is, Doctor, you look close enough and you can see the truth. You see that they'll fight each other for tiny patches of land on a world that they're mining of all its natural resources. I mean, what do they have from her time? A hundred years? Two, maybe, before they completely fuck the planet up. They take and they take and they kill and they kill. Really, the universe would be better off if they were nipped in the bud right now. Just –"

He snapped his fingers.

"You say this as though you aren't human," the Doctor said, fingers curled against his thigh, pressing his knuckles into his muscle to keep him calm. "But you lot have a pretty distinctive smell, even from the outer colonies like you are. Although," he sniffed, allowing himself to analyse the scents in the air: the ozone burst of manipulator travel, the medicinal layer of soap, and then, buried deep, humanity that was mixed with a sour stench of time as though it had gone off in the fridge. "There is something off about you."

He twisted his arm around so that the Doctor saw a scar on his forearm, thick and knotted from healing. "Bio-dampener. I don't want you knowing too much about me. Not yet, anyway. Wouldn't want to mess up the timelines, right?"

"Yet stalking Zoe through time is perfectly fine?"

"It is when she killed my partner."

The honesty of the response took the Doctor by surprise even as he refused to believe the truth of it. Despite recent events, he knew in his bones that Zoe wasn't a murderer; whatever Ryga believed was the case, the Doctor was certain he was wrong.

"When you say partner," he began. "Is that a work partner or a sexual partner?"

The muscles around Ryga's mouth twitched down. "Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Then both."

That information filed itself away in his mind, and he took a slow, steady sip of his beer, eyes fixed on Ryga who watched him, waiting.

"You're wrong," the Doctor said, setting his beer down. "Zoe didn't kill your partner."

Anger spread beneath Ryga's smooth skin and warmed it from beneath, sharpening the edges of his cheekbones and emphasising the cut of his jaw. He turned his head away to draw a hand over his mouth, fingertips dragging over his lips, and the straight line of his nose sent familiarity searing through the Doctor again: Where do I know you from?

"Just like that?" Ryga asked, finally, fury simmering in his eyes. "You're willing to give her the benefit of the doubt without knowing a damn thing about it?"

"Yes."

His chest expanded with a breath. "Why?"

"I know who she is," the Doctor said, simply. "I know that she's not a murderer. So whatever information you think you have –"

Ryga slammed his hands flat on the table, fingers curling against the wood, and there was a strong crack in his calm facade. True anger burnt inside him, flames stoked by passion and love, and the Doctor imagined he might look much the same if someone took Zoe from him.

"I saw her," he hissed, white flecks of spittle settling on the table. "I saw her do it."

There was a heavy pause as the Doctor took in the flared nostrils and parted lips, colour slashed across his cheeks.

"No," he decided. "You didn't."

Ryga drew his hands back to his thighs, fingers knotting in his trousers, resisting the urge to lunge across the table and attack. It was fascinating to watch him wrestle his emotions under control, regret at losing his temper already making itself known, and the Doctor waited; he had got what he wanted from that small, furious interlude. The knowledge that Ryga wasn't as impervious to hurt as he pretended was useful information that went next to the fact his partner was dead.

"It was on his retinal cameras," he said, the words dragged from his mouth and spat onto the table between them. "Her face, her body. She stood over him with blood on her hands as he died."

"And what about before?" The Doctor asked. "Before your partner saw her standing above him in his last moments, what came before that? What did the cameras show you?"

A beat and a swift, rapid blink.

"She killed him," he said. "I know she did."

"You didn't answer my question," the Doctor told him, slipping his hand into his pocket. "And, right now, you're drawing a pretty damning conclusion from not a lot of evidence."

"Everything I know about her, everything anyone knows about her, is that she's –" his eyes sharpened, lines on his face tightening. "Take your hand off the sonic screwdriver, Doctor, or I'll explode it in your pocket. It won't kill you but it'll hurt like hell."

The Doctor removed his hand from his pocket and placed it on the table next to his phone.

"There are any number of reasons why she was the one captured in the frame," he said, not caring to hear what other people thought of Zoe, certain it would only anger him and he was struggling to keep his calm as it was. "And they're easy enough to tamper with if you know how. She didn't do it."

"Your girlfriend is a monster." Ryga leaned far enough across the table that the Doctor smelt the beer on his breath and saw the micro-thin layer of technology in his eyes that was recording their meeting. Interesting, he thought. "She thinks she can play at being a Time Lord and not face the consequences."

"And you imagine yourself to be the consequences," the Doctor said, eyes lingering on his bone structure, positive he had seen it on another person before. "Judge, jury, and executioner?"

"Yes."

"You seem to know a bit about me," he said, pushing away the almost recognition to focus. "Enough to know I'm a Time Lord and my relationship with Zoe and Rose's taste in sweets. Certainly enough to track me down as well by the looks of it."

"I didn't track you," Ryga said. "I tracked her but I'm too early again. She's with Rose and Javic dancing it up in a nightclub as though she isn't covered in blood."

"Careful," the Doctor warned, taking note of how he used Jack's birth name: So far, only time agents had used it and with the Vortex Manipulator around his wrist, he wouldn't be surprised to learn he was a former agent. "I've been patient with you so far because I want to know what you want with her but that patience is now at an end. You will leave her alone. Now and always."

"I won't," he said. "I'm not going to stop until she's dead."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "Are you stupid? You have to know telling me this means nothing's going to end well for you."

"Maybe I want to give you something to worry about while you're gone," Ryga said, grinning. "I quite like the idea of the Oncoming Storm knotting himself up with worry and not being able to do a damn thing about it. There's sort of a poetic justice in that, isn't there?"

"Am I going somewhere?"

"Aren't you always?" Ryga shot back. "Never staying in one place too long, always leaving the people you love behind. It started with Susan, didn't it? You left her and –"

The Doctor's hand shot out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. Without realising he was doing it, he yanked him across the table and sent their drinks and his food smashing to the floor. The American couple twisted around, eyes wide with surprise, and the French teenagers looked up, interest settling over their faces for the first time that night; across the restaurant, Betty froze, pen hovering above her pad in mid order, and silence drenched the room. The Doctor heard the rushing thunder of his hearts in his ears, grip tightening on the shirt as he drew Ryga until they were nose to nose.

The memory of Susan dying, regenerating and regenerating until there was nothing but twisted flesh and curved bone left, played itself out behind his eyes.

"Mention my granddaughter again and it'll be the last thing you do," the Doctor threatened, air crackling with his rage.

Instead of feeling frightened, Ryga laughed.

"Look at the things that make you tick," he breathed, eyes bright with fascination, head tilting as he examined him more closely.. "I threaten to kill your girlfriend and all you show is mild annoyance; I make one small mention of your granddaughter and you're ready to rip my throat out. Isn't that something?"

Furious with himself for losing his temper, the Doctor shoved him back into his seat with enough force for the wood to crack. Ryga rolled his neck and there was a heated silence that pulled between them and was only broken when Betty approached the table cautiously, her manager making ushering motions at her as he stayed behind the bar at a safe distance. Taking care to clear his face of his anger, he tore his eyes from Ryga and levelled an apologetic smile at Betty.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, sincerely, regretting that his behaviour had frightened her. "We just had a small disagreement, everything's fine. I'll pay for the mess, please don't worry about it."

"I –" Betty looked between him and Ryga before nodding. "Okay."

Ryga shook the spilt beer from his arm and rubbed the Vortex Manipulator dry against his thigh.

"Tell me who you are," the Doctor said again.

Blue eyes flicked up to him. "No."

"I'll find out."

"I bet you will," Ryga said. "But in time?"

The Doctor set his jaw. "If you're as much of a threat as you say you are to Zoe, I could kill you right now."

"And go back to the TARDIS and touch her with those hands of yours?" He clucked his tongue. "You wouldn't. The one man in all the universe drenched in so much blood wouldn't be able to live with himself for taking a life in a bar like a common criminal. No. That's not you. You're not Zoe after all."

He stood up and the Doctor immediately catalogued every physical aspect about him – 1.91 metres; a small injury to his left ankle that looked temporary rather than permanent; a circular scar on the inside of his forearm beneath his elbow where the Doctor suspected a tracker either was or had been. He took those details and filed them away in less than a second, loosening his fist on the table, watching as Ryga tapped something into his Vortex Manipulator.

"I would say it's been a pleasure, Doctor, but we both know that's a lie," he said, meeting his eyes once more. "Still, when I saw you alone, I couldn't pass up the chance to say hello."

"And record my reactions for whoever you're taking those retinal cams back to," the Doctor said, thrilling Ryga with his observation. "Tell whoever you work for that if anyone comes after Zoe or any member of my family, they'll find out exactly who I am."

"They'll get the message." Ryga tapped near his right eye and activated the Vortex Manipulator, a small hum of power making the Americans look up, confused, searching for the source. "And since we're passing messages back and forth, tell Zoe I'll be seeing her sooner than she thinks."

With a wink, he disappeared in a crackle of energy and the Doctor stared at the space he had occupied, a dark frown woven into his features.


"Fuck."

Keys clattered to the ground and Zoe stumbled back from the TARDIS, squinting in the broken darkness for them. With a groan, she bent down and patted her hand along the floor before curling around them and holding them close to her face as she tried to find the TARDIS key. Using the handle to heave herself up, she leaned heavily against the door and yawned, key scraping along the side of the gold lock as she misjudged her aim, a huffed swear tumbling from her, too tired to do battle with the ship.

"Can you just let me in, please?" Zoe asked, forehead resting against the surface. "I'm tired and a little bit drunk."

The TARDIS sent laughter rolling through her mind before the door clicked open. Murmuring her thanks, she stepped inside and let the cool warmth pass over her. Until that moment she hadn't been aware of how cold the night was, her bare skin chilled, and she hurriedly shut the door on Beijing and rubbed her hands over her arms as she toed out of her shoes, leaving them on the ramp. Despite wearing flats, her feet ached and she hurried across the grating to the smooth, cool flatness of the corridor, trying not to make too much noise despite the fact there was sound proofing all throughout the TARDIS unless there was an emergency or she was being contrary.

The latter happened far more frequently than the former.

Zoe made her way along the corridor, the promise of tea in the kitchen moving her forward at a fast pace, half-surprised by the fact the Doctor wasn't pottering about in the console room waiting for her to –

"Hello."

She jumped and slammed her back into the wall, hand pressed over her chest as she stared at the Doctor who held a cup of tea in his hands and a startled expression on his face.

"You scared me!"

"I see that," he said, mouth curling up an inch. "Sorry."

She pointed at him, breathless. "Bell. For your birthday, I'm getting you a bell."

"You don't know when my birthday is," the Doctor reminded her. "As a matter of fact, I'm not entirely sure when it is anymore either. I've completely lost track of the Gallifreyan calendar. Not that it matters since there is no Gallifrey any more but c'est la vie and all that."

Zoe blinked. "What?"

"Never mind," he said. "You're home earlier than expected. Were you not enjoying yourself?"

"No, I was having a great time," she said, rubbing her chest as she eased away from the wall. "But Rose went off with a bloke and Jack got arrested, so I decided to come back since there wasn't much point being there without them."

"Jack's arrested?" He ignored the bit about Rose, her sudden desire to sleep with anything male and vaguely attractive not an issue he wanted to delve into. "What for?"

"Fighting." Reaching out, she took the tea from his hands and sipped it. "After Rose left he caught someone trying to slip a roofie into a woman's drink and he went all in. Said not to worry about bailing him out, he'll sort it."

"Surprised you didn't get arrested too," the Doctor said. "That sort of fighting is right up your alley."

"I was helping the woman get it out her system," Zoe replied, smiling up at him. "Made her throw up in the bathroom and then got her back to her hotel room. By the time I came back, Jack was being stuck in the back of a police van with a few others who took advantage of the fight to, well, fight."

"Sounds like a normal night out then," he mused. "He's sure he doesn't want us to come and get him?"

"Said he wanted a word with the police on how to stop this happening again," she told him. "You know what he's like."

"All right, fair enough." Part of him pitied the police that had to deal with Jack and the other was amused by the thought of Jack trying to change social and cultural behaviour in one night: He did love him for trying. "If he's not back by the time Rose is tomorrow, I'll go fetch him though. And you're telling Mickey his boyfriend got himself arrested."

"Deal." She eyed him over the top of his mug as she took another long drink of his tea, taking note of the slight tension running through him. "Are you okay? You look like a mad scientist right now."

The Doctor flattened his dishevelled hair with the flat of his palm. "I am a mad scientist."

"Eccentric more than mad." Cold from the night and desirous to be pressed up against him, she stepped into his space and his body shifted to make room her her, hand sweeping over her hip in welcome. "What's wrong, love?"

"I –" the truth caught in his throat and he was tempted to not tell her and spoil her mood but their last argument occasionally throbbed through him; she deserved the truth from him even if it was something she didn't want to hear. "How drunk are you right now?"

Zoe considered the question. "Drunk enough that everything feels light and slightly numb but not so drunk that I'm going to have an awful hangover in the morning. Why?"

"Because I need to tell you something." Curving a hand around her elbow, he gave her a small tug. "Come with me. You're going to want to sit down to hear this."

Dread filled Zoe. Good news was never delivered when a person was sitting down; it was always flung at a person in delight, sooner rather than later, and the careful hedging the Doctor was doing sobered her quicker than anything in the med bay could have done.

Tightening her fingers around his favourite mug, she padded silently alongside him until he nudged open the door to his office where he had clearly been working, a laptop closed on the desk and streams of notes sprawled across pages of a notebook. Releasing her elbow, he cleared space for her to sit on his dusty sofa and she sat lightly on it, pressing the balls of her toes into the soft Gallifreyan rug beneath her feet, nervousness creeping through her.

For the last few months, he had been working hard on her telomerase data and the look on his face told her that she wasn't going to like the news he had to tell her. Bracing herself for bad news – you're going to die, you're about to grow an extra head, how fond are you of your skin because you're about to lose it – she almost missed him speak.

"I met your mystery man tonight."

Zoe stared at him. "I'm sorry, you what?"

"He stopped by while I was having dinner out," the Doctor explained, brushing the seat on the opposite sofa clean and sitting, resting his elbows on his knees, fingers linked loosely together. "He said his name was Ryga."

"That's a shit name," Zoe said, instantly. "Who the hell names their kid Ryga? Isn't that the capital of Lithuania or something?"

"Latvia," he said. "And I'm pretty sure that's not his real name."

"Right, yeah, that makes sense." She shifted and set the mug of tea down, running her tea-warmed hand over her thigh to tug the hem of her dress down. "What did he want then?"

"I'm not entirely sure," the Doctor admitted, eyes lingering on her hand before he looked up to meet her eyes. "It was pretty clear he was seizing an opportunity to speak to me while he had the chance but I don't know what he wanted from the meeting other than to get information back to who he works for."

"What do you mean?"

"He's not working alone," he said, gesturing at his eyes. "He had retinal cams over his irises, and he made it clear that there's a group of people out there that really don't like me. He's either working for them or with them, I'm not sure. Either way, he was recording our conversation for them to analyse later."

"That's..." there was a fine tremble in her hand that made him want to reach for her. "Are you okay? He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"No, love, he didn't hurt me," the Doctor said, warmed by her worry for him. "Whoever he is, he's definitely related to the Time Agency in some way. His Vortex Manipulator for one –"

"You can get those on the black market for a hefty price," Zoe told him. "Roxx has a couple in stock but she doesn't sell to just anyone. She's a bit of a snob when it comes to who can access time travel so she might know if someone's recently bought a Manipulator. I'll ask her."

"That might be a useful list to have regardless," he replied. "But there's another reason I think he's a Time Agent. He called Jack Javic."

"Oh." She blinked. "Yeah, that's – not many people call him that except Time Agents. But why's he after me then? If he escaped the data purge we sent through the system, why is he following me and not Jack?"

The Doctor paused. "You're not going to like it."

"I'm not expecting to."

"He is operating under the belief that you...killed –" a flinch ripped through her and guilt settled in his chest. "– his partner: Both work and sexual partner if that makes a difference to you. Now I don't believe it for a second. From what he described, there's a lot that hasn't been verified but that doesn't really matter considering he believes it."

"Right." The normal shine in her voice was dull and flat, her eyes losing their focused as she turned her gaze inward, posture softening into a slump. "Well, it definitely sounds like something I would do."

"Zoe –"

"What else did he say?"

He breathed, hating everything about the conversation. "He knew a lot about us. I mean a lot of stuff. He's been tailing us for a while, long enough to know that Rose likes those Percy Pig sweets from M&S."

"That's creepy."

"And he knew details about my conversation with our old friend Mr Finch."

"That's a lot of work for one person," Zoe said, rubbing her finger over a faint bruise he had left on her knee the night before when a thought struck her, panicking slicing through her. "Mum. If they're watching us then they're watching Mum."

"I've already called Alistair," he soothed. "He's going to put a secret detail on her so she doesn't know they're there. And after what happened with Jack, I placed a few things in the flat and in her purse so that I can track her if necessary. I didn't tell you because I know you wouldn't like it but I'm not going to take a risk with her life."

The tension bled from her and she nodded. "Okay. That's – okay. Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me for that," the Doctor said, softly.

"I do," Zoe replied, passing a hand over her face; she leaned back and rested her head against the top of the sofa, lying at an awkward angle, legs splayed as she though. "What was he like this Ryga?"

The Doctor blew out his cheeks, struggling to find the right way to describe him. "Confident."

"Confident?"

"You know what people get like when they know who I am," he said. "They tend to overcompensate with casualness or dial up the threats. He did neither. He was...comfortable. He wasn't afraid of me at all. Not even when –" he hesitated, eyes flicking from hers. "Not even when I gave him cause to be."

"That's disturbing," Zoe said with a frown. "The Daleks are terrified of you and they're the Daleks. What's this guy got that he doesn't even hesitate?"

"I don't know," the Doctor confessed, the not knowing frustrating him. "And that bothers me. He's human, I know that much, but he's definitely had something done to him because he smells wrong. It's like time's soured around him."

Her eyebrows went up. "You can smell time?"

"A little bit, yeah," he said, knee bouncing. "I don't pay much attention to it because it's just a smell I grew up with, sort of like your mum's perfume, but I know when it's wrong and it's wrong with him. I suppose it could be his Vortex Manipulator twisting time around him: Those things shouldn't be used for long-term travel. Who knows what effect they have on people at that point."

She hummed to let him know she heard him, mind taking her down another path. "You never said what he wanted from me. If I killed – will kill – his partner, then I assume hashing it out like gentlemen is out of the question, right?"

"I'm not going to let him hurt you," the Doctor said, his fierceness sparking the air around them. "He can believe what he likes about what he thinks you've down but he's not laying a finger on you. Not while I'm alive.

Zoe's eyes flicked over him. "He threatened to kill me then."

"Amongst other things, yes."

"Doctor." Pushing herself upright, she stepped out of her seat and slid into his lap. His arms looped around her and pulled her closer, the press of her body and the familiarity of her weight a balm to his frayed edges. Slowly, she passed the fingers of one hand through his hair and drew his forehead to rest against her shoulder where he breathed. "Whatever is coming will come. We'll face it when it does."

"You're too calm," he complained into her skin.

A small laugh rolled through her.

"Only one of us can be not calm at a time, yeah?" Bowing her head, she pressed her lips to his scalp and lingered there. "Once you feel better then I'll panic and have my moment but, until then, I've got you."

The Doctor shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut against the jut of Zoe's collarbone. Holding her in his arms reassured him that she was safe – right then, in that moment, she was safe – except he wasn't able to always keep her safe. His track record with her was poor and Ryga believed that the Doctor wasn't always going to be there to protect her; he knew that Jack, Mickey, Rose, and Jackie would never let any harm befall Zoe if there was an opportunity to stop it but he didn't trust anyone but himself with her safety. The desire to keep her locked in the TARDIS made his body shake, and she pressed her fingers against his scalp and murmured soothingly into his hair.

"I can't lose you," he whispered.

"You won't," Zoe said, making a promise they both knew she couldn't keep: If Ryga didn't kill her then Time would steal her from him bit by bit. "Doctor, you won't."

"This man..." he lifted his head and looked at her, her thumb brushing beneath his eyes to smooth the tiredness away. "I don't frighten easily but there's something about him that makes me afraid. I don't like how confident he was in approaching me. And I don't like the fact there's something about him that I recognise. I've seen him before, or bits of him in someone else. When you've seen him, did you feel he was familiar?"

"I haven't really seen him up close before," she said. "Just Scotland and Kutlib but he was gone before I started paying attention; every other time I've seen him from a distance." With a nervous twitch of her fingers, she readjusted his collar. "You don't think...I know you say that everyone's dead and I believe that but this seems like something he might do from the stories you've told me so...do you think Ryga might be the Master?"

"No." The answer was so swift she felt like a fool for entertaining the idea. "There's no bio-dampener in the world that would stop me from recognising another Time Lord, especially the Master."

She swallowed and nodded. "What about kids? Did the Master have any children?"

"Yes, three, but they were on Gallifrey when it burned," the Doctor said. "His daughter, Akilam, helped me steal the Moment before she left to try and destroy the sky trenches over the Citadel. I didn't see her again after that. And I don't believe they'd do anything like this. We always got on very well."

"Oh." She rested her mouth against his forehead: It had been a foolish notion anyway, one she didn't know why it had come to mind. "Then I don't know who he could be. If he's a Time Agent, why's he not going after Jack? If he's one of your enemies, why not you? I can't think of anyone I've pissed off enough that they'd track me through time. Well, maybe Sharaz Jek but this is excessive for just a beating."

"You're thinking linearly," the Doctor told her. "Whatever caused the chain of events to lead Ryga back in time to you hasn't happened yet. Remember, cause doesn't always equal effect."

"So at some point in my future I'm going to kill Ryga's partner and trigger everything that's happening now," Zoe said, a headache beginning to brew behind her left eye. "If I don't do it, will I create a paradox?"

"Nothing the TARDIS can't handle but it's not like that," he said. "If you work towards not doing this thing you're supposed to have done, you may accidentally do the thing. Time finds a way of making things happen even when they're not fixed points. It's frustrating that way."

"So we just wait?" She asked. "That's what we're supposed to do, just sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop?"

"We take precautions," he said. "We be more careful than we are now, and we tell the others about it so they can be on the lookout. But even if we killed Ryga the next time we see him, it won't change what's already happened."

Zoe cleared her throat and pressed closer to him. "Okay. I – I'm actually a bit scared right now, so do you mind if I panic for a bit? I know it's your turn but I need a moment."

"You go right ahead," the Doctor said, bottling away his fear to draw her against his chest, hooking his hand behind her knees to curl her legs against him. "I've got you."