To the Stars and Back

by LiteratusAO3

Following the Game Station and the Christmas Invasion, Team TARDIS set out to do what they do best: explore the universe, get into trouble, and run for their lives. And as a threat to their happiness grows in the form of a shadowy organisation known only as Torchwood, they learn that the past doesn't always stay buried and the future isn't what they think. (Covers season two.)

58. Chapter 58

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Rimmed yellow and purple from the bruises left behind by his mental assault on the Beast, the Doctor's eyes locked onto hers. She had lost count of the number of times she had stared into his eyes – once blue, now brown – and was finding it difficult to recall a time he looked so panicked, fear leaping like electrical sparks behind his gold-flecked irises. Her stomach twisted at the sight of it, frightened at what he was keeping from her, and she suddenly didn't want to know. Anything that made him appear scared as he was now – scared of her reaction, scared of her leaving him – was something that she wanted to keep at arm's length. The tip of her tongue touched her dry bottom lip, his hands like a vice on her arm, and she flexed them to get him to ease his grip.

He released her, burned, skin flaming with shame as the shape of his fingers flared yellow and then red.

Her heart beat throbbed in her ears as she turned from him, pushing aside the duvet and kicking her underwear from her ankle. The mess between her legs was cold and unpleasant, and she stood, tugging on the bottom of Jack's shirt before silently entering the bathroom to clean up. Shutting the door behind her, she rested her forehead against the cool wood, a tight feeling clenched around her throat.

"It's okay," she whispered, an attempt to reassure herself. "Whatever it is, it's okay."

Cleaning herself up, she pulled a pair of leggings from the laundry basket and stared at her reflection in the mirror. With stiff arms, she reached up and braided her hair back, lifting it off her neck and pinning it into place. Her fingers shook as she picked up her toothbrush, aware that she was prevaricating, and she avoided her eyes in the mirror as she brushed her teeth with more precision than she usually employed. Her mind was blank, an empty expanse that her anxiety swept through, and she spat into the sink, washing the foam away.

Part of her had hoped that it was one of the Beast's lies, wanting to believe the Doctor wouldn't hide something from her even though she had done the same to him with Zoe Heriot.

That's not the same, she immediately thought even though it might be.

The Doctor wasn't the sort to keep things from her unless he had a good reason, even if that reason was to avoid her hurt feelings.

Over the years of loving Reinette and during the short and happy time they were married, Zoe had learnt that it was best to give her partner the benefit of the doubt when it came to difficult moments. Instead of reacting with defensiveness or anger, she forced herself to remember that the Doctor loved her and that whatever he had kept from her he had done so for a reason. She had to remember that no matter what it was – no matter how much she might disagree with his reasonings for whatever it was he had hidden – his actions came, unquestionably, from a place of love.

If she forgot that...

She sighed and shook her head: Forgetting his love for her wasn't an option, not when she lived with it every second of every day.

Drawing a deep breath, she breathed out slowly before opening the door and stepping back into their bedroom. Misery was draped over the Doctor, a cloak that shrouded him where he sat on the side of the bed facing the bathroom, his fingers toying with one of her hair-ties, eyes lifting up when she appeared.

"Tell me," Zoe said.

"I..." his mouth moved, muscles tightening in his jaw as he swallowed. "We need to – my office. I've got everything there. It'll be easier to explain if I have that to hand. You can look at all the data."

Data.

A frisson of terror rolled through her.

There was data.

"Okay," she said.

He set the hair-tie down and made to stand but she crossed the room and took his face in her hands instead. Freezing, he stared up at her, wide-eyed, knees automatically making space for her.

"I love you," Zoe told him, fiercely. "Whatever this is, I want you to remember that I love you."

His bruised eyes softened, a faint sheen of tears passing over them before it was blinked away. "Can you remember that for our conversation, please? I need you to love me a little harder today."

"I promise," she breathed, bowing her head over his, his arms sliding around her as his forehead pressed into her chest. "We'll be okay. I may angry or upset but we'll be okay. Of course we will."

His breath warmed her skin, a jerky nod uncomfortable against her collarbone as he swept his fingers down her back, resting beneath the curve of her buttocks as he looked up at her, memorising her she realised with a jolt.

Touching her fingers to his mouth, she smiled, braver than she felt. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

His hand slid into hers as he got his feet under him, a small stagger as body adjusted. Worry flashed through her, the urge to tell him to wait until the morning, after he had slept and eaten properly, hit her. She stayed silent though, knowing that it was another attempt to delay the inevitable, certain that she wouldn't be able to spend the next few hours wondering, not when the answers to her questions were finally at her fingertips. It was a sign of how worried he was that he followed her silently, his bare feet the only loud thing about him, and her stomach knotted itself up in worry: A silent Doctor was a concerning Doctor.

He wasn't a silent man, he never had been, and she worried about him when he wasn't filling the air with nonsensical chatter or humming or – once, much to her frustration – popping sounds.

"...find it, though it might take longer than we thought," Jack said as he appeared around a corner, hair uncharacteristically dishevelled and ink smeared over an inch of his jaw as he spoke with Ood Hyacinth. "I think the best thing we can do is –" his eyes lit on the Doctor and his face brightened. "Hey, you're awake! When did that happen?"

The Doctor frowned at him.

"About an hour ago," Zoe answered in his place. "Ood Julian said that he should be fine with the telepathic suppressers for the next twenty-four hours."

"Right," Jack nodded. "Why didn't you come and get us?" Much to her annoyance, heat started to flare in her cheeks and he grinned. "Ah, post-trauma shag. I get it. I pretty much mauled Mickey once all was said and done."

"Hello, Ood Hyacinth," Zoe said, deliberately ignoring the image Jack's words had thrown into her mind. "Any luck with finding the Ood Sphere?"

"No," Ood Hyacinth replied. "But we have hope."

"Good, that's good," she said. "We'll come and help when we can but we've got something to take care of first." Jack eyed the Doctor; like Zoe, he was troubled by the silence. "We'll catch you later."

"Sure," Jack said, hand reaching out to clap the Doctor lightly on the shoulder as he had done a hundred times before. "Take it easy – ah!"

The Doctor's hand caught Jack's wrist in a tight grip, thumb pressing into the lunate bone, pain blooming outwards. "You knocked me unconscious."

Understanding settled on Jack's face, something hard forming beneath the surface. "If you're waiting for an apology you're going to be disappointed. I'm not sorry for what I did and I'm not going to ask your forgiveness for it either. We had no way of knowing Zoe was alive let alone able to reach the TARDIS. You'd have died there for nothing and damned us all with it."

"That wasn't your call to make," the Doctor ground out, releasing his wrist abruptly. "You had no right to make that decision for me."

"I had every right," he snapped back, a brief burst of temper that was unusual for him. "The only chance we had to save Zoe and Ida was to leave and we needed to leave with you for the best chance. Be pissed at me if you want but it's not going to make me apologise."

"I don't need your permission to be pissed at you," the Doctor replied, sharply. "I –"

"Stop." The word cracked between them and Jack pulled back, glancing at Ood Hyacinth who watched the argument with their tendrils curling with anxiety. "Doctor, you're picking a fight. Jack did what he had to do. You know you'd have done the same if it was anyone else but me down there. You know that."

His nostrils flared and he turned his face away, anger lining his jaw.

Hurt flickered across Jack's features for half a second, a small moment he allowed himself, and Zoe felt sick; she hated it when the people she loved fought. Not wanting to pull at the thread too much, aware that they needed to work it out themselves, she reached out and brushed her hand over Jack's before smiling apologetically at Ood Hyacinth who was twisting their speech orb between them palms, nervous.

She imagined that the Ood hadn't had a good experience with the anger of non-Ood and she regretted that they were having to witness it now.

"Catch up with us when you can," Jack offered into the tense silence. "Tracking down the Ood Sphere...it's more difficult than I thought it would be. Could use your help. Both of you."

Zoe tightened her grip on the Doctor's hand, a warning. "We will."

She stepped to one side and made room in the spacious corridor for Jack and Ood Hyacinth to pass, swallowing back the sigh that built in her throat. Not looking at the Doctor, she continued on their path and trusted him to follow behind her: After a moment's resistance, he did so. It felt as though the TARDIS had set the door to his office further away than normal. Usually, she shifted rooms around to make it easier and quicker for them to access but, occasionally – normally when she was being mischievous – she liked to hide rooms, sending them on hunts where they would grow distracted by the new things they discovered.

Once, when unable to sleep, Zoe had planned to go to the gym to exhaust herself and instead had been directed into what she later learnt was called the Butterfly Room. It was a gorgeous room with a sunny hill and a thick meadow that was home to billions of butterflies. She remembered being so excited by the discovery that she had skidded through the TARDIS in search of the Doctor so that he could experience it with her. The memory of them lying on the side of the hill, artificial warmth washing over them, watching the curtain of butterflies move warmed her now.

Just as Zoe was beginning to feel the first prickle of annoyance with the TARDIS for drawing their search out, the door appeared with a lack of ceremony that was jarring. She walked past a blank wall only to catch it materialising out of the corner of her eye, doubling back and nearly stepping on the Doctor's toes as she did so.

As always, his office was in a general state of chaos and he dropped her hand, moving quickly, to catch a pile of journals that wobbled precariously before falling in a cascade. A muffled sound left his throat, and he crouched, putting them on the floor, not looking at her as she shut the door behind them. His office reminded her of dusty libraries and a child's playroom: There was knowledge within these four walls that existed nowhere else in the universe that were pressed up against banana-based cookbooks, a treatise on the evils of pears, and children's colouring books that he liked to use when he needed a distraction. It was a dichotomy of reverence and farce that she thought suited the Doctor perfectly.

"Jack did what he thought was best," Zoe said, facing him. "He had no reason to believe I was still alive and every reason to believe I was dead."

A storm passed across his face. "You beat the odds before."

"Once or twice."

"And if you hadn't been able to find the TARDIS in time –" his throat closed off, choking the words from him, fingers clenching into fists at his side. "I could've saved you from the drilling platform, I couldn't from the rocket. Jack took that from me."

She closed the distanced between them, his hands grabbing hold of her with a desperation that broke her heart.

"Listen to me," Zoe implored. "He did the right thing. You know he did because you know that he's not the one you're really angry at. You're angry at yourself for the whole situation and you're angry at me for going down with Ida. And you're absolutely furious with me that I went down into the pit even though you haven't said so yet."

Small muscles twitched across his face, his mouth moving. "Yes. You were so – what the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I was already dead and that I wanted to use the time I had left to try and understand what was going on," she said. "I wasn't doing it to hurt you."

His body shuddered when he breathed out, forehead resting against hers. "Whenever you're in danger, I can't think clearly. I hate that you do that to me. I hate that Jack had to be the person to make that call. It shouldn't be on him."

"It shouldn't always be on you either," she murmured, hand on the back of his neck, stroking through the soft crop of hair at the base of his skull. "And I'm alive. Don't focus on the what-ifs."

The Doctor's hands loosened their grip on her, nose rubbing over hers. "I can't not."

Zoe tilted her face and pressed her mouth to his, the memory of having sex on his desk pulsing through her, and his mind must have drawn the same images because he groaned and tugged her harder against him. She tasted the desperation on his tongue, the eagerness that surfed on the wave of hope that he might be able to distract her from the conversation hanging over their heads, and she curled her fingers into his hair, worried that when he told her what he had to they wouldn't have this for a while.

She wanted to savour the taste and feel of him.

When his cool fingers slipped beneath her shirt and brushed over the skin of her stomach, she pulled back, releasing him slowly so that he had time to prepare, and she stepped away from him. The smile that he always wore after kissing her – a slightly rumpled, bewildered, pleased smile as though surprised that she wanted to kiss him – dripped from his face like candle wax.

"Right." He cleared his throat and passed a hand across his mouth. "Okay. You should –" he gestured uselessly at one of the sofas. "Let me –"

"I've got it." Zoe scooped up the heavy books and put them by the side of the sofa, tweaking them until they were straight. Brushing the dust off the surface, she sat down on folded legs and rested her arms over her knees, back straight. "Are you going to sit?"

As though his strings were pulled, he jerked onto the opposite sofa, wincing and pulling a hair clip that belonged to neither of them out from under his thigh. Examining it curiously, he tossed it to one side and instantly regretted it when he had nothing to distract his hands with. Noting his discomfort, Zoe removed the hair tie from around her wrist and offered it to him, watching as he twined it around his fingers.

"Doctor." His eyes snapped to hers. "Tell me."

"There've been some...changes to your chromosomes," the Doctor said, carefully. "It's what I've been researching since the Game Station, more or less."

She breathed out. "The telomerase thing."

"Yeah."

"You said they were hyperactive or something like that," she said, the memory of their conversation shadowed by the afternoon spent in bed after it, his mouth leaving bruises across her skin that she had to hide with make up to stop the others asking questions about. "It was nothing to worry about, right?"

"Right," he agreed. "Except –" dread filled her and it must have shown on her face because the Doctor looked at a point over her shoulder instead. "The thing about telomerase enzymes is that they are typically hyperactive in cancer cells but that wasn't what I was seeing in your scans. For some reason, they'd become adaptive and I didn't know why."

She nodded her head. "That's why you created that weird monkey, wasn't it? What did you call him again? Harry? Humbert?"

"Humphrey." Zoe hadn't exactly been thrilled at the presence of a computer-generated monkey running amok in her garden but she had forgotten about him soon enough, which relieved the Doctor considering what had happened to him in the end. "You and monkeys are 96% similar. Well, not you personally. Humans. Humans and monkeys share a 96% similarity in DNA."

"Don't we have more in common with chimpanzees?"

"99%," he answered, automatically. "A monkey's easier to generate and programme though. There's a lot that can go wrong with programming a chimpanzee. It's why we don't have a sauna any more."

Bewilderment passed through her eyes. "All right. So you used Humphrey the monkey to run a simulation to track the changes of the telomerase. What did you find out?"

The Doctor twined her hairband further around his fingers, the rubber digging into his skin as his eyes skittered further away from her. He was conscious of her in a way that was more focused than normal: The sound of her slow and steady breathing, the slight shift she made against the surface of the sofa, and the gentle tap of her fingers against her knee as she fought off her impatience, trusting him to answer the questions burning through her mind.

He wished that they were back in bed, wrapped around each other and sleeping off recent events. Life had been so busy lately that he felt as though he hadn't had time to simply enjoy Zoe's company, and he desperately wanted to dig out the yurt and disappear with her for a month or two. Instead, he found himself sitting through a conversation he didn't want to have, a tremor of lingering uncertainty over his findings making his skin itch because this changed everything.

There was so much he still didn't know that it felt wrong, careless, to give Zoe the truth when he had only half the facts even though the main fact – the main change – was set in stone.

"I'm still running tests," the Doctor said, sitting back only to shift forwards again, unable to remain still. "There are a number of other avenues I haven't looked at, people I want to talk to in order to get another opinion on the results." His tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, dry and tacky. "The thing is...I think I know what they're going to say because they've been saying the same things for months."

Her shoulders stiffened, spine straightening. "Am I dying?"

To anyone else, she sound unaffected by the prospect. But to him – someone who knew her and loved her – he heard the small shiver of fear in her words, the sudden, startling press of her mortality landing a blow.

"No," he said. "You're not."

"Good." Relief reflected off her words, eyes sweeping over him. "Then I don't know why you look as though I'm about to drop dead in front of you. Can you just –?" Her hand curled into a fist against her knee, cutting herself off before impatience filled the space between them. "Can you please tell me what's going on? This feels overly dramatic and I don't like it. Just rip the plaster off; whatever it is, I can handle it."

Hearts thundering in his chest, acutely aware that they were on the edge of something that would either bring them closer or send them spiralling apart, he snapped her hair tie around his wrist and began.

"After Mondas, when I used the Chameleon Arch on you, I accidentally changed more than I realised," the Doctor said, doing her the courtesy of looking into her face as he broke her life apart, hands ready to pick up the pieces. "I would've caught it sooner if we'd been together but, at that point, we were already separated. I could've fixed it earlier, slowed it down or – or something, maybe even stopped it, I don't know. All of this is –" he gestured vaguely with one hand before sighing. "The point is, I could've given you the choice but by the time a year'd gone by, it was already too late. The changes had settled. They were too integrated into your system to reverse them, which means if I tried now, I'd have to strip everything back, including the neural changes that kept your brain from melting out of your ears because of the Untempered Schism."

"I'd die," Zoe said, succinctly.

"Yes."

She nodded, absorbing that. "Okay. Okay. What are the changes?"

"Your memory for one, it's improved, but you know that already," he said, easing himself into it. "And your insomnia isn't actually insomnia, by the way, you just need less sleep now but your mind is still telling that you need at least eight hours of it, which is why you toss and turn instead of getting up. You're just not used to it yet." Her eyes slipped in a slow blink, the only sign that she was surprised. "Your metabolism too, that's improved, but it's needed to because of everything else, so you eating a lot is actually normal now and not because you have a tapeworm or whatever it was Mickey suggested the other week."

To his surprise, the corners of her mouth turned up, amusement shadowed there. "That's good news. But if you tell me I'm going to have to start drinking those god-awful energy drinks again then we're going to have problems."

"You don't have to," the Doctor replied, latching onto her good humour, sinking into it. "What you're doing now works; although, I wouldn't recommend skipping too many meals when you're distracted otherwise you'll start feeling fainter quicker."

Her forehead creased. "Wait. Is this why you've been feeding me more lately? I thought it was a little odd that you were bringing me sandwiches in the middle of the day or a snack a few hours after breakfast but I thought you were just being sweet, if a bit weird. Is that because of this?"

"It's a little bit of both," he admitted. "And kind of also down to the fact that you're completely awful when you're hungry. You get snappish and grumpy and tend to take it out on whoever's closest. It's a preventative measure if anything."

She harrumphed, unimpressed. "All right. So far we've got better memory, less sleep, and an increased metabolism: I'm still not seeing anything overwhelmingly negative."

"Most of the changes are good," the Doctor told her. "Your regenerative abilities, for example. You're healing a lot faster than normal. Remember your broken arm in the parallel world?" Her hand drifted to her arm, rubbing the echo of pain away. "Even with that splint Jack put on, you should've needed a trip to the medical bay to finish the job and get rid of the dermal damage but your bruises were already on the edge of being healed. I've –" colour darkened his cheeks, eyes slipping away. "I tested that a couple of times on your –" he waved his fingers at her, awkward and slightly ashamed. "Neck."

"You've left marks on me as a scientific experiment?"

"A little, yes."

Her eyes narrowed, displeased. "And?"

"They've also healed quicker than they should," he replied, flustered. "I tested various levels of bruising and tracked their progress. Not one of them healed at the same time but they did all heal at the same speed."

"Okay." She shifted and wriggled her toes, face pulled into a frown. "You conducting experiments on me during sex isn't great. I hope you're know that."

"I didn't go into sex with that in mind; it was more that the idea hit me kind of halfway through and I just went with it," the Doctor explained, embarrassed: Saying it out loud made it sound so much worse than it had felt at the time. "I'm sorry. I should've told you."

"Yes, you should've." Her fingers lifted to rub her eyes where he suspected a small migraine was brewing when she paused, poking the soft skin beneath her eyes.. "I wear glasses for reading. If I'm healing quicker, why do I still need glasses?"

"Yeah, that confused me too," he said, pleased that she was setting aside his unethical research in favour of more questions. "My best guess is that you wore them when your body was rebuilding itself and it sort of rebuilt itself around your glasses, if that makes sense. You only wear them for reading so your body needs the glasses when you read because they were there when it was completing the upgrade." A wince immediately rippled across his face. "Sorry, poor word choice, you're not a Cyberman."

Zoe's mouth thinned, the skin around her eyes tightening, and she unfurled her legs, standing.

His eyes tracked her, worry seeping into him, as she took a step from the sofa and moved to stand by his desk, fingers reaching out to touch the leaves of the plant she had given him. After her manhandling of him in the office – much appreciated and one of his favourite memories – she decided that there wasn't enough greenery in the room. There had been, somewhere, a dead plant that had long since turned to dust and he swiftly disposed of that lest it somehow hurt her feelings – she had an odd relationship with plants: Loving and occasionally hostile when they refused to do what she wanted them to do. But she had potted some lemon palm for him even though it was technically a herb but he preferred that as he was able to rub the leaves between his fingers and get hit by a sudden burst of lemon that made him think of Zoe.

She brought her fingers to her nose and breathed in the sharp lemon scent, shoulders relaxing an inch.

"Am I human?"

The question sliced through him, hot pain left in its wake. She sounded...young.

With her back to him, it was easy to imagine how she was when they first met and they were trapped in Downing Street together. He remembered looking over to her, Harriet sat on one side of the table as she went through the emergency protocols with a briskness he now realised was simply part of her character, and thinking how small and fragile she looked in her oversized denim jacket and mass of hair, youthful fat rounding out her cheeks. Now, as then, he wanted to take her into his arms and keep her safe from the harm the universe might do to her.

"Yes." The certainty in his voice had her turning back to him. "You're human. Completely, perfectly human. There's nothing alien about you. You're just a little..." he searched his mind for the right adjective. "Different."

"But if I'm human then why did the werewolf and the Beast call me a hybrid? That implies there's something else in me." She folded her arms across her chest, protecting herself, even as a look of horror dawned. "I'm not pregnant, am I? Jesus, if you've somehow managed to knock me up, I'm really not going to be all that happy. I don't want a baby right now."

The implication that she might one day want a baby knocked the breath from his lungs, and he struggled to speak past the image his mind created of her pregnant with their child. "No, you're not pregnant."

"Then why are they calling me a hybrid?" Zoe asked, a brief glimmer of fear and impatience shining from behind her face. "What does that even mean?"

The Doctor bowed his head, rubbing at the back of his neck where the tension was building in tight, uncomfortable knots.

"I think they were both noticing the fact that your telomeres have noticeably lengthened," he said. "The Beast probably picked it out of my mind. It knew my name so it's not a surprise that it saw everything connected to you as well. As for the Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform, to be honest it probably smelled something was off with you. That creature seemed to be doing a lot with its nose."

She stared at him. "I smell different?"

"I don't think so but other species have more sensitive olfactory nerves than I do," he told her. "I think you smell lovely, by the way. Are you using a new perfume?" Her eyes rolled, unimpressed with his attempt to change the subject. "Right, yeah, you don't wear perfume. That was a stupid question."

"Doctor." His name snapped sharply from her mouth and he jumped. "Please, stop waffling. What the hell does it mean that my telomeres have lengthened?"

"It means that the amount of times your cells can divide has increased," the Doctor told her, his chest aching as she listened to him: It wouldn't take her long to realise what he meant and, for a nanosecond, he wished she wasn't as smart as she was. "In humans – and human adjacent species – as you get older, your telomeres get shorter and shorter until the cell dies. They're a biomarker of typical ageing. Everyone has them. Even me, although mine are different because of the regeneration process, but we all have them and a staple of their existence is that they get shorter over time."

Zoe's chin dipped to her chest in a nod. "Okay...so mine are longer and that means that it'll take longer to shorten?"

"Yes," he said. "In a normal human, in someone like Rose or Mickey – maybe not Jack because he's got 3000 years on you lot and things change slightly with life expectancy – the average telomeres are about 8000 to 10,000 nucleotides long. Over the course of a year, you generally lose between 24 and 28 telomeric base pairs. And that was you up until the age of twenty-five."

"Mondas." Her arms tightened around herself before dropping to her side, fingers gripping the edge of his desk. "Mondas happened when I was twenty-five."

"And I had to use the Chameleon Arch to save your life," the Doctor continued. "Now I don't have the results from your time in Massachusetts but I don't actually need the data because I did that full work-up on you after you came back from France and it was easy to extrapolate what I needed."

"You're about to tell me I haven't lost as many base pairs as I should have, aren't you?"

He exhaled slowly. "From the time I did the scan after France to when you looked into the Untempered Schism, you lost the appropriate amount of telomeres and your telomerase enzymic activity was normal. However, from then until now, you haven't lost any."

Zoe's throat moved in a swallow. "None?"

"Not even a bit of one," he said. "And I've checked. I've double and triple checked. Not only have you not lost any base pairs, you've actually gained some."

"I don't –" her body shifted, nervous energy making her twitch, hands swinging into fists at her side. "I think I know what that means but I also don't. I need you to put it into words for me because I can't – Doctor, I can't –" anguish sent a low sound through her chest, fist pressing into her mouth. "Please say it."

The Doctor thought of the Zoe Tyler he had met years ago in 1941, London, on the night that Jack Harkness had come swaggering into his life.

That Zoe had been older, more experienced, and completely and perfectly at ease with him: A professor of some sort though she refused to be drawn on the subject, and a woman who delighted in the strange and unusual. He recalled being reluctantly charmed by her, laughing when he wanted to be grumpy, eyes unconsciously drawn down her body only for his ears to burn when she caught him looking, a grin stealing across her face that excited and embarrassed him all at once.

They had worked their way through London, scrabbling around through the rubble of the East End, looking for clues as to what was behind the gas mask child, and she had been cracking jokes and teasing him and flirting with him. She had been a Zoe Tyler who knew him very well and given everything they had been through since then, everything they were to each other now, it made sense to him; however, with the new truth yet to be fully spoken, he couldn't help but wonder just how well she was going to know him. It was exciting and nerve-wracking in equal measure, and he wanted it with a fierceness that took him aback, frightened by how much it would hurt if she didn't want the same thing.

When the basic accepted fact of their relationship was that one day he was going to have to leave her behind on Earth and not see her again, changing that was terrifying.

"You're not ageing," the Doctor said, finally. "I mean, you are, but not like the others. You've stopped ageing at the rate you should be. You've got years more life in you than either of us thought."

She stood perfectly still, face pale and tight. "How many?"

"It's hard to say."

"Guess."

His hand shook as he rubbed it over his forehead. "Thousands. It's probably thousands of years."

She staggered as though he had struck her and proceeded to collapse in on herself like a building sinking to the ground. Her knees went first, hand pressed over her heart, heel digging it to try and dislodge the ache that settled there, and she hit the ground with an audible thunk. Instinct led him to lunge for her only to recoil, hurt, when she flung a hand out to keep him away from her as a violent, full-body tremble rolled through her. She tipped forwards onto her hands, back bowed, head dipped, and her fingers curled into the faded edges of his rug as she opened her mouth and he flinched back at the sound that left her, the thought of an animal caught in a trap slamming into him.

The Doctor watched her until he could no longer bear it and sank to his knees, stretching his hand out until it rested on the rug near hers. Her shoulders shook and heaved and he supposed it was fortunate that she hadn't thrown up as he recognised the shortness of breath and the light sheen of sweat across her skin as she lifted her head, eyes wild. He shifted, legs splayed on either side of her body, careful not to touch her, and he drummed his knuckles against the ground, drawing her eyes to it.

"Breathe in and out every time I knock against the ground," he said, pitching his voice as calm as he knew how. "And just focus on my voice. Okay? Now breath in." He knocked on the ground once and she sucked in a deep breath of air, holding it until he rapped the ground again. "I was thinking about organising the store room the other day. You know, the one with all my friends' old things. I keep thinking I should maybe give Sarah Jane her stuff back but I don't know if I want to. It's not like she's needed in over the years but it feels a little like stealing. Not that I've got a leg to stand on when it comes to stealing given how the TARDIS and I met."

Zoe ground her teeth, forcing herself to focus on him and not the overwhelming panic that surged through her and made her shake. She was lucky: As far as panic attacks went, it was a mild one but she knew how easily they spiralled away from her. Yatta told her it was important to confront her fears, to face the triggers of her attacks head on when she felt comfortable doing so, yet every time her mind brushed up against what the Doctor had said, a fresh wave of panic slammed through her.

The steady knock of his knuckles and the comforting roll of his voice was the only thing keeping her from losing herself.

It took ten minutes until she felt herself again, loosening her arms until she lay on the floor, resting her temple against the Doctor's thigh, her back to him as she breathed easier. His recounting of the book he had recently read – something Jackie had recommended to him during one of their renewed texting sessions – stuttered to an awkward close and she felt his hesitance above her until his fingers came to rest in her hair, gently stroking it back from her sweaty skin. She pulled her legs into her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible, and twisted her fingers into the leg of his trousers, holding on tightly.

"I don't want this," Zoe whispered. "Take it back."

Sadness dripped through him. "I can't. To reverse it now would mean killing you. Please don't ask me to do that."

"So what?" Her words were thick with unshed tears. "I'm going to be like Boe, a head in a jar? What if I am the Face of Boe?"

"You're not the Face of Boe," the Doctor said, gently. "You're not immortal. You can still die. You won't regenerate or anything like that, that hasn't changed. You're still vulnerable to most things, you're just a little less breakable now."

"But thousands of years!"

The very concept of living for thousands of years wasn't beyond her as she knew the Doctor was going to live that long but, for her, she couldn't imagine it. She didn't like to think too much about what the Doctor's life would be like after her, the pain a little too encompassing and the jealousy of the people he would meet without her a little too bitter, and so she tended to avoid thinking about his lifespan too intently. Whenever she made reference to it, it was generally in passing and usually a light-hearted mockery of his age. The fact that she might one day reach the age of nine hundred had sweat beading cooly across her skin and her heart twisting in her chest, an odd sensation that made it difficult to breathe.

Her vision swooped and her hearing dimmed, almost missing what the Doctor was saying.

"I know this is a lot to take in and you're going to need some time to sit with it," he said, fingers cool as he stroked through her hair, comforting and loving. "But...couldn't this be a good thing?

"What?"

With gentle hands, the Doctor turned her so that she was on her back, her head still against his thigh, and she dropped her knees from her chest as she looked up at him. Beneath the concern for her that he wore like a mask, she saw a faint flicker of hope that turned her stomach.

Had he planned this?

It was a horrible, ungenerous thought that she felt immediately ashamed of and yet it lingered in her mind as he opened his mouth and his want spilled out.

"We thought we'd have to say goodbye to each other," the Doctor said as she sat up, their bodies tangled together by proximity rather than their usual intimacy. "Now we don't. Zo, I can spend the rest of my life with you." His joy physically hurt her. "We have time now, time we didn't think we had. This is a good thing, isn't it? Or at least it can be once the shock wears off."

Zoe stared at him, disappointed by his reaction. "You don't – you don't get it."

"No, no, I do," he said, quickly. "It's just a lot to take in. I do get that. I've had time to wrap my head around it, you haven't. That's okay. You just – think about all the things you can do that you've thought you'd never have time for. All the books you can read, for example. You're always complaining that you'll never have time to read everything you want." A dark cloud passed across her face, forcing him to find a new track. "You want a doctorate? Get all of them, you've got the time now. There's a whole universe out there that you're going to get to see and we can see it together in the TARDIS. Me and you. Together. This is a gift, love. You have to see that."

"A gift for whom?" Carefully, she untangled herself from him and got to her feet, lightheaded and a touch nauseous from everything. "For me or for you?"

The lost confusion on his face as he looked up at her sent a startlingly bright wave of anger through her. "I don't understand."

"That's really clear," she said: He loves me, he loves me, he loves me, she repeated to herself, frightened of forgetting it during what was to come. "You're sitting here and telling me that my lifespan's been increased exponentially because of a stupid accident on a stupid planet that shouldn't have even been there and you're trying to spin it as a gift. It's not a gift; I don't know what it is but it's not that."

He blinked rapidly. "What?"

"You're so old you can't even remember how old you are," Zoe told him. "And how many of the people you love are still here with you? How many of your family?" He flinched, turning cold, and he looked at her knees. "Because if what you're telling me is true then I'm going to have to bury Mum and Rose and Mickey and Jack. And if they have any kids, I'm going to have bury them too and then their kids and so on and so on and fucking so on! I'm going to be the last one standing of my family and I don't want that because I've seen what it's done to you. I don't want to live for so long that I've got nothing and no one left."

He swallowed past the painful lump in his throat and risked lifting his eyes to hers. "You'll have me."

The look on her face broke his hearts, the realisation that he wasn't enough was unexpected even though of course he wasn't. Zoe loved her family fiercely and deeply: Watching them grow old without her – watching them wither and die – was something he hadn't considered as the truth slowly revealed itself to him over months.

"You don't have to bury them," the Doctor said, climbing to his feet while the room closed in on him. "We can figure something out, ration the time they have so we can stretch it out."

"I don't want to ration it!"

"Zo –"

"I want to be live my life with them," she argued. "I want to call my mum for chats every week, not once every hundred years or whatever the maths is. I want to be there when Rose has a kid: I want that kid to know it's Aunt Zoe. I want to see Mickey and Jack do whatever it is they're going to do in real time instead of spread out over decades or centuries. I want to be there in the moment, don't you get that?"

"I..." he scrubbed his fingers through his hair and tried to wet his dry mouth. "I've thought a lot about how you'd react to this news but I didn't think...I didn't realise this would be so horrible for you."

"Of course you didn't." A haunted expression clung to her. "This is normal for you. You've spent so much time with humans but you don't get it, not really. Time looks different to you. You know that you've got lots of it but for us – humans – every moment counts and yeah, sometimes we waste it doing stupid stuff but we know it's finite. Living without that certainty that it's going to end..." she wiped at her face, tears falling without her permission. "Cassandra was human and I saw what happened to her when she lived too long. What's going to be left of me if I live for thousands of years? Am I still going to be the person I am now, or will I be someone different, someone Mum wouldn't recognise? Am I going to be just some woman with my name travelling through time and space? I won't be me any more. Whoever that person is, it won't be me. It can't be."

The Doctor felt as though he had been hollowed out, the edges of her words scraping at what was left. Her tears felt like salt against an open wound, and he wanted to reach for her and comfort her but his arms were heavy, his body exhausted, and he wasn't sure if his touch would be welcomed.

He wasn't sure he could handle her refusing him just then.

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly. "Zoe, I'm so sorry."

"Are you?" A jolt travelled through him and his eyes snapped to hers. The look on her face sent a shiver down his spine: Dark, edge with a hint of cruelty, a promise of something she was going to regret on her tongue. "You can't tell me you haven't wanted this: Someone to be with forever so you don't have to be alone. Like you said, this is a gift, but for you, not for me."

"Honey, I –"

"When I was sick," she began and he wanted to scream at her don't say it, you'll hate yourself for it but she kept going, "did you see an opportunity to have someone with you and just take it?"

Although he was braced for the accusation, the room still swirled around him: Her capacity for cruelty took him by surprise.

"You know me," the Doctor said when he found his voice. "You know I wouldn't do that to you, no matter how much I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I wouldn't do that." Regret flashed across her face, mouth opening but he cut her off. "Don't, please. You're angry with me and you're angry at what's happened. If we kept talking, we're going to say horrible things to each other and I don't want that to happen. Please. Let's take a break."

Zoe looked away, jaw tight with tension, and she nodded.

"You need to sleep," she said, forcing herself to breathe evenly. "Your head must be killing you even with the suppressers Ood Julian gave you."

His head was sore, a painful throb somewhere deep in his brain that let him know he had bruised something important that only sleep would be able to heal; however, he wasn't sure he was going to be able to sleep with such uncertainty between them.

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed because there was nothing else he could do. "Are you – what do you need right now?"

"I think I need to be away from you for a little bit," Zoe said, honestly, wiping at her face again. "I just...I need to think about everything and I don't know how long I'm going to need but I need you not to be there while I do it." Expected, yet painful, he nodded. "Could you – I want to look at the results and your data. Could you send it to my laptop after you've got some rest? I want to go through it piece by piece."

"I'll do it now."

"You're going back to bed now," she said, caring for him even through her anger. "You look like death warmed over at the moment."

He passed a hand over his face. "I know you hate me right now –"

"I don't know how to hate you," Zoe said. "I couldn't ever hate you, I don't think I have it in me."

"Disappointed, then."

"Yeah, disappointed," she sighed, exhausted. "Angry."

"I need you to know that I love you," the Doctor told her. "And I'm sorry for not realising what you're going to lose but I need you to know that I'm not something you need to worry about. The future is up the air for you right now and I'm in, for all of it, every single one of our years, You may decide you don't want that and that's fine but I don't want you leaving this room thinking that I'm something uncertain. I'm in, love. Completely in."

The sudden appearance of a thick lump of emotion in her throat made it difficult for her to swallow. In the face of his commitment to her, she was only able to nod.

"I'm sorry for implying that you did this on purpose," Zoe apologised, finding it easier to do so than linger in his vows to her. "That was badly done of me. I know you wouldn't do that." She exhaled a shaky breath, wanting to hide from him to try and sort through her new truth in private. "And I love you too."

Her feet unstuck from the floor, jerking her forwards, and she moved towards the door, pausing briefly to touch her fingertips to his shoulder before she passed through the doorframe and was gone.

The Doctor stared after her before he sat on the edge of one of the sofas and pressed his face into his hands, silent tears sliding between his fingers.

---

Sixteen Hours Later

Los Angeles, 1955

Bright lights hung from the rafters and shone on Ella Fitzgerald as she sang Blue Skies, dominating the stage of the Mocambo Nightclub. Fingers curled around the microphone, her energy suffusing the air of the club, enrapturing the packed house that had come for Marilyn Monroe but stayed for Ella's rich voice. Sweat glistened like diamonds on her skin, the heat of the room almost overbearing, and her eyes flicked down to the table right at the front of the room where Marilyn sat, a thick fur coat draped elegantly over her shoulders, toe tapping in time to the beat of the song, unbothered by the heat.

Their eyes met and Marilyn's smile widened, pearly teeth flashing from behind red lips, and, around the lyrics of the song, Ella smiled back. A small disturbance next to Marilyn caught her eye as the song started to reach its crescendo, an empty glass skittering across the table only to fall to the floor and shatter into pieces. Ella wondered who the woman was and how she, as a black woman, felt comfortable enough to get drunk in a room full of whites.

"I broke a glass," Zoe murmured, head spinning as she stared at the shards on the floor, a waiter already cleaning it up. "I didn't mean to, I just broke it. I went like –" she mimed grabbing it and knocked Marilyn's half-full champagne flute onto the floor where it broke into pieces, the waiter throwing her an exasperated look even as her face crumpled. "Oh no, I did it again."

"That was wonderful," Marilyn breathed.

She rose to her feet in applause, thrilled with Ella's success, oblivious to the small crisis happening next to her. Zoe tore her eyes from the broken glass and jerked herself to her feet, staggering upright, her hands coming together in a clumsy applause, unable to feel both them and her feet due to the alcohol buzzing through her system. She lost her footing and slipped down, hitting the table with her elbow as she did so, slicing her palm open on a piece of glass that had hidden itself beneath a napkin.

Marilyn looked around and down, staring at Zoe in surprise. "Honey, are you well?"

She picked the bloodied shard out of her hand and held it up, the light glinting off it. "Found some glass."

"You're hurt," Marilyn gasped, moving the chair out of the way to kneel next to her. Her soft fingers wrapped around Zoe's wrist and pulled it forwards, the scent of body-warmed Chanel No. 5 in the air. "That looks bad."

"It's fine." Zoe watched the blood pool out of the cut, flexing her thumb to watch it run down her wrist. She wondered if she left it to heal on its own how long it would take; if it was now possible to watch the muscle and skin knit itself back together or if she still needed more time. "It doesn't even hurt."

"Of course it doesn't," Marilyn said, clucking her tongue. "You're drunk. I'm surprised you can feel anything."

"I feel sad," she said. "And dizzy. Also, a little hungry."

Marilyn sighed gently, the strange woman who had saved her life was clearly in the middle of something deeply personal, and she removed a white, delicately embroidered handkerchief from her purse. Folding it into a small square, she pressed it against the cut and watched the dark blood soak into it.

"Of course you feel sad," she soothed, curling her hand around Zoe's pointed elbow to help you up. "You've had a big revelation and it's taking a while to settle."

Zoe leaned into her, rubbing her nose against the soft fur coat. "I told you about that, did I?"

"In between the running and the shouting, yes, you did."

As Marilyn helped her back into her seat, Zoe tried to remember what had happened since arriving in Los Angeles but she had already been drunk off Jack's whiskey by the time she met Marilyn Monroe on the empty lot of a 20th Century-Fox studio.

She hadn't been looking for trouble, all she had been looking for was a bar where she could drink. The TARDIS had been supremely unhelpful in her pursuit of alcohol-induced oblivion and Jack's bottle of whiskey in the cupboard over the fridge was the only liquor she could find. He had put up a fairly strong fight when she relieved him of his Vortex Manipulator – losing only because he was unwilling to hurt her – and she had popped out of the TARDIS with a warning for him not to leave in case he was kidnapped again.

It was just her luck that instead of ending up in Massachusetts in 3143 – or thereabouts, she wasn't too fussed – she had crash landed into Los Angeles, 1955 and found procuring a drink as a black woman difficult.

Moving through the streets on unsteady legs, her whiskey consumption making the world hazy, a scream ripping through the air sent a burst of adrenaline through her and led to her vaulting a low fence and running across an empty tarmacked lot. Expecting aliens, it was the first time in her life she hadn't been disappointed or annoyed at the sight of two Zygons who, for reasons that failed to become clear, bore down on Marilyn Monroe, hissing at her.

A quick run and a few shouted threats later – she may also have thrown in doubts about their parentage again and questions of their honour by implying it didn't exist – the Zygons were gone and she was left with a grateful Hollywood starlet. Never one to pass up an opportunity to mingle with the rich and the famous – a facet of her personality she attributed to both Jackie and Reinette – she let Marilyn express her gratitude by inviting her along to see Ella Fitzgerald perform at the Mocambo Nightclub where, she was assured, she would be served alcohol.

Marilyn had been delightfully unperturbed by the attempted murder – possibly kidnapping – at the hands of aliens, shrugging it off.

"Well, honey, I guess they were just some stage hands, weren't they?" She had said when Zoe pointed her casual indifference out to her after vomiting in a corner as running with a stomach full of whiskey was not advisable. "I do say that the costuming is getting realistic though. It was excellent."

Zoe looked down at the bloodstained cloth in her hand, dragging her chair closer to the table, scraping it across the floor as Ella prepared her next song. "I'm ruining your handkerchief."

"It's just a handkerchief." Marilyn brushed her concerns aside. "Though you should go and see a doctor about that. I think you need stitches."

"The Doctor's the last thing I need right now."

She leaned over the table and used her good hand to dig in her pocket, finding the small first aid kit Jack had put together for each of them: Marilyn eyed the kit that was far too large for the small pocket it came from with open interest.

"It's not that I blame him. How can I? He didn't plan this, I know he didn't, and he loves me – god, he really loves me – I'm upset because my whole life's changed, y'know? Everything I thought was going to happen has just –" she gestured with her injured hand, accidentally spraying droplets of blood on the table. "And he thinks it's a good thing. I get why he thinks that but it feels like he doesn't think about things from my point of view sometimes and that when he tries to cheer me up, he makes it worse. It's like when he keeps forgetting I'm black and then acts all surprised when people want to enslave me or they call me stupid, horrible names. And I want to tell him, what they hell d'you expect when we go to the past? I can't stop being black and it's not like we can change the past."

Marilyn eyed her clumsy movements. "Would you like me to do that?"

"Huh?" Zoe looked down at the gauze she was tearing apart. "Oh, yes, thank you, that's very kind." She craned her neck for another waiter. "D'you think I can get another drink?"

"Perhaps a little water to see you through," she suggested, delicately catching the attention of a server before she carefully cleaned the wound with materials from the small cotton bag that seemed endless. "Is this change that's happened to you such a terrible thing?"

"Yes." Ella opened her mouth and her smooth tones filled the room again. "No. I don't know. That's the problem. I don't know. It's so unpredictable."

"Life tends to be," Marilyn replied. "At least that's my experience."

"And it's not like I had a choice in the matter," Zoe complained, her head too heavy to hold up lowered to the table. "It's either this or death so I guess it's this. I hate that I wouldn't have chosen this. Or maybe I would've. If I'd known what the consequences were of the Chameleon Arch, maybe I'd have done it anyway. I didn't want to die."

"No one does, honey," Marilyn said, not understanding a single thing that came from her mouth. "Not even the very sad, not really."

Zoe sniffed, close to tears again. "I don't like not being able to control this."

Marilyn found what looked to be a small tube of antiseptic cream and applied a small, pea-sized amount to the tips of her fingers, gently rubbing it around the wound. "Lack of control is always terrifying. We women face it every day with the power taken out of our hands. Hard for all of us. Harder still for people like you and Ella."

"Bit different for me," Zoe said, eyes lighting up at the carafe of water and another whiskey sour that the waiter put on the table next to a fresh champagne. She reached for the alcohol only to have a warning pressed on the edges of her cut, her hand going to the water instead. "Not like you have it easy with that contract you're tied up in."

A dark looked passed across Marilyn's face, a brief break in the calm happiness she exuded, before she cleared it. "We have to make the best of a bad situation: Career, marriage, happiness, all of it's tied up in men. We're victims to the vagaries of their moods and must make do."

Zoe chugged her water, surprised by her thirst, and set the glass down with a heavy hand. "My guy's not like that."

"Is he not?"

"No, he's just..." she searched her alcohol-sodden brain for the right word. "Thoughtless. Not always. Sometimes he's the most thoughtful man you've ever met but –" she heaved a sigh, wondering if the rest of her life was long enough for her and the Doctor to fully understand each other. "We're from two different planets. The things I take for granted, he doesn't even think about. I suppose I do it as well except he doesn't complain about it when I do it. He's definitely more patient than me."

Marilyn examined a small metallic tube. "What on earth does this do?"

"It's a stapler for flesh." Zoe took it from her hand and rapidly stapled her wound back together with the soluble staples that would help keep her from getting an infection. She showed Marilyn her palm. "See?"

"You sound like you're from England," Marilyn said in her deep, lilting voice that had taken Zoe aback when she first heard it, having expected something breathier, more stereotypically feminine. "But it seems like you're from outer space."

She laughed, putting the device back in the bag and picking up her whiskey to stop her descent into unwanted sobriety. "Not me. I'm London born."

"If you say so," Marilyn said. "Now, darling, tell me something: If this man of yours is so thoughtful and patient, what're you doing sitting here talking with me when you could be talking this out with him?"

"That's a good question," she said, lolling her head on her good hand, slipping a charming smile onto her face. "Would you believe me if I said I was hoping for a kiss from you?"

Marilyn tipped her head back, bright blonde curls bouncing, laughter fizzing through Zoe. "I would believe that. I hate to disappoint you though as I am very much attracted only to the male gender."

"Shame," Zoe said, pulling back. "You might spare yourself some trouble if you weren't."

"Something I do think about." She plucked her olive from her glass and twirled the toothpick between her fingers. "But, really, why are you here instead of there? Nothing's going to be fixed at the bottom of that whiskey sour."

Zoe shrugged. "Can't hurt to try."

Marilyn was right though. Zoe knew that. Alcohol had never solved her problems in the past, it was a way to drown her sorrows and feel sorry for herself, something she wouldn't allow when she was sober.

It hadn't even been a full day since the Doctor told her the truth, she couldn't expect to embrace the new future that stretched out before her without an end in sight, and, all told, she thought she was handling it okay. She hadn't had another panic attack, for which she was grateful, and she hadn't cried yet even though she knew that was going to happen at some point. As far as dealing with the seismic shock delivered to her, she was persevering.

Maybe Marilyn had the right of it when she said that Zoe should be with the Doctor. She wanted him to anchor her to the present, to stop her drifting away into the unknown, and she wanted to press her nose into his shoulder and let him hold her fear as she worked through it. Her fingers toyed with the Vortex Manipulator under the long sleeve of her coat, swiped from Marilyn's dressing room as she hadn't been dressed for the chill of a Los Angeles' night, contemplating how easy it would be to simply appear where he was.

She dropped her touch.

Despite her desire to see him, she wasn't ready for that, not yet.

She didn't blame him for what had been done to her, except for the moments when she did.

If he hadn't used the Chameleon Arch to alter her body so that she could bear the weight of the Untempered Schism, she would have been dead and buried in a grave next to Reinette years ago. Knowing that helped her in her more lucid moments when she was able to rationalise what had been done to her, the choice that had been taking away, but it didn't help her when she thought about the things she was going to lose.

With the knowledge that her life was going to vastly outstrip theirs, Zoe found it difficult to remain calm and tempered: She was going to miss so much.

Never, in her life, had she had a group of friends that she loved as much as them before: Rose, Mickey, and Jack formed the nucleus of her life and when she had imagined her time after the Doctor – in the vague way that she sometimes did – the four of them were together. Sometimes they shared a house, other times they were just wrapped up in each other's lives; never once had she imagined a future that she wasn't going to share fully with them.

Knowing that there had been a limit on her relationship with the Doctor had been hard to accept – not as hard as it might have been had they met under different circumstances as she had always known, quietly, deep down, that it was impossible to spend their lives together without him spelling it out for her – was a fact that had always been there. She knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it. And being forced to realise that that limit was now on Rose, Mickey, Jack, and Jackie was a devastating blow for her.

She had already watched Reinette wither and die in front of her, she didn't want to watch it with them too.

Selfishness coursed through her: She didn't want to give them up. She didn't want to pop in and out of their lives once every century or so for her. She wanted them there for weekly lunches, spa trips, coffee dates, advice sessions, and everything and anything in between.

That, more than anything, was the hardest blow for her to accept.

"I don't know what I want," Zoe said, startling Marilyn who had grown used to the silence as Ella glided smoothly into another song, her set nearly complete. "I know what I wanted: PHD, family, the Doctor. And I wanted to do something useful with my life after I finished travelling but now the rules have changed and I don't know any more."

Marilyn sipped her champagne, fingernails burnished a pale pink that caught the light. "It seems that thinking about what you do want might be the place to start."

"Does that work for you?"

"Sometimes," she said with a small smile. "Not always but knowing what you want is a step in the right direction."

Zoe touched her foot to hers beneath the table. "You're a wise woman."

She winked and raised her champagne glass in a toast.

The night ended at four in the morning when the Mocambo Nightclub finally closed. The waiter who had cleaned up Zoe's broken glass was solicitous to Marilyn and Ella but, as soon as their attention was diverted, fixed Zoe with such a look of pointed disdain that she tipped her eleventh and final whiskey sour down her throat and began to make noises about leaving. It took her a while to properly get her feet beneath her, both Marilyn and Ella holding onto an arm each, guiding her out of the club with a minimum of injury to her person, the world cast in a warm haze, all feeling to her nose gone. Though Marilyn offered to take back to her home and let her sleep off the alcohol in the comfort of a generously decorated guest room, Zoe waved her off, clumsily kissing both of her cheeks in fond farewell before trying to do the same with Ella only to find her already in the car at a safe distance from her.

Chanel No. 5 clung to her as she walked the streets of Los Angeles, realising that she had made off with Marilyn's dark green coat. She bumped into a wall as she opened up the system to Jack's Vortex Manipulator using a bobby pin from her hair as a stylus. A black woman walking drunk and unaccompanied through the streets of Los Angeles during Jim Crow was so dangerous that the few minutes she was without protection helped chase some of her drunkenness from her system. It took her a moment, standing with feet planted firmly on the ground, tongue stuck between her teeth, before she succeeded in extending a perception filter around herself.

As far as the citizens of Los Angeles were concerned, she wasn't there.

Los Angeles wasn't a city she had spent a lot of time in before aside from a quick trip in the 32nd century to visit see observatory there on a long weekend. She rented a hover car and drove across the country for a week's holiday, her head throbbing from the work she had been doing, only recently feeling better after a long illness. She remembered stopping in each state along the way, wishing that someone was there with her, before arriving in LA and visiting the Griffith Observatory. It hadn't been as exciting as she hoped it would be: By the 32nd century, the observatory was more of a tourist attraction: a glimpse into how people in the past performed their analysis of space. All it had served to do was to make her feel homesick and miss the Doctor and Jack that much more. She ended up getting a shuttle home, leaving the hover car at one of the rental depots on the outskirts of the city.

1955 wasn't the best year to experience LA and her feet began to drag as she turned in the direction of Griffith Park. All she wanted was to put as much distance between herself and her problems as possible, a difficult task to do when she carried them with her.

Her pocket suddenly vibrated and she grunted, digging her hand into the pocket of her trousers, passing by those forced to sleep beneath park benches and large, overhanging trees. Pulling her phone out and catching a tumble of bills that came with it, she sorted through the wad for American money and left them tucked beneath the outstretched hand of the nearest homeless man, hoping that it would be enough to tide him over for a bit. Quickly straightening in case he awoke – the perception filter only worked when she wasn't right on top of a person – she squinted at the screen of her phone to find a message from Harriet.

Do you have ten minutes?

Zoe swayed on the spot and frowned before sending back a quick yes. She tracked the temporal and spatial location of where the message ended up and transferred the co-ordinates to the Vortex Manipulator. Squeezing her eyes shut, the Vortex wrapped around her and sucked her into only to spit her out seconds later onto a pair of shiny black shoes that she promptly vomited over.

"Oh, dear," the Master said above her. "That's unexpected."

"Zoe!" Harriet scraped her chair back across the floor and hurried around her desk as the Master twitched his feet out of the way. "Good lord, are you okay? What was that?"

"A prodigious amount of alcohol by the smell of her," the Master replied, flicking vomits off his shoes, annoyed by the unexpected turn of events: He preferred to be prepared for such things. "Does this happen often, Prime Minister?"

Harriet slid him an annoyed look, a brief crack in her smooth facade. "Hardly."

"Jesus." Zoe toppled back onto her rump and blinked up at the Master who stared down at her, annoyed by her chaotic arrival and faintly disgusted by the contents of her stomach. "Fuck. Harry. Hey."

"Hello," he said. "Having a rough night?"

"I think it's technically morning for me," she groaned, drawing her sleeve across her mouth and coughing. "Sorry about your shoes."

"It was an accident," he said with a generosity he didn't feel, using her and Harriet's distraction to swiftly gather up the documents on the Archangel Network and slide them into his briefcase. "These things happen."

"I think I got the time wrong," she complained, yanking the Vortex Manipulator around, the Master's eyes fixed on it as she squinted at the screen. "Shit. I set it to an hour later, not a minute. Sorry. I was aiming for after you sent me that message."

Harriet sighed. "No matter. Come on, on your feet. There's a girl. Up we get."

"Allow me." The Master stood from his seat and neatly sidestepped the pool of vomit that had stained patches of his trousers. He reached down and took Zoe's clammy hands in his, lifting her to her feet easily; she staggered into him, a sudden warm press of human that repulsed and thrilled him in equal measure. "There we go. Do you think you're likely to vomit again?"

"No." Her head twitched to one side. "Maybe."

"In that case, I'll make my excuses and leave," he said, holding her at arm's length and passing her into Harriet's hands. "Shoes are easily fixed but this is a bespoke suit and I don't have the time nor the inclination to go to the dry cleaner's any time soon."

Zoe squinted at him. "You go to the dry cleaner's yourself?"

"Well...no," he admitted, passing his thumb across the biometric lock for his briefcase, a small knot of tension easing once the plans were securely locked away. "But Lucy does complain if there are too many trips for the butler to do. Keeps him from his jobs around the house."

"You're living the Tory stereotype, aren't you?" The accusation was muted by her slurred words and tilted frame that threatened to spill over onto Harriet. "Got yourself a fancy butler and some fancy suits."

He arched an eyebrow, dipping his gaze over her outfit. "Whereas you're a patron of the working class with that coat of yours. What is it? Madame Bruyère, 1956?"

"You've got a good eye," Zoe said. "It's '54 but yes."

"That must've set you back a small fortune."

"I stole it," she admitted. "Accidentally."

"I'm sure," the Master replied, certain the story was less interesting than it sounded. "I hope you feel better, Zoe. And, please, give my regards to Rose as well when you see her."

A sharpness broke through the drunken haze suggesting more control than the Master initially though.

Interesting, he considered.

"You've met my sister?"

"Didn't she tell you?" Although he had to be on his way – too long spent with Zoe while he carried the Archangel Network plans on his person was a risk he wasn't willing to take yet – he couldn't resist the opportunity to create a little trouble. "We met not too long ago when she was touring UNIT. She was a little upset about a few things and we went for a drink."

"So you're the one who got her drunk," Zoe said, disapproving.

"Since you're practically sweating alcohol, my dear, I'm not sure you've got a leg to stand on to complain," Harriet said, deciding that enough was enough. "Mr Saxon, we can pick up our conversation after the next cross-party meeting on the issue. Although, from the looks of it, your network will be up and running by Christmas if you can get the final companies to back it."

"Wonderful," the Master beamed, pleased that everything was coming together even if it was moving at a glacial pace. "Until then, Prime Minister. And until next time, Zoe."

She gave a small waggle of her fingers. "See you around, Harry."

Zoe watched him leave the office, the low murmur of his farewells to Alex drifting back to them, and she turned to look at Harriet. "Did I interrupt something important?"

"Some fatuous ramblings about his genius," Harriet replied with a sigh. "For someone so skilled at PMQs, he does like to take a circuitous route to his point in normal conversations. I thought I was going to be here all night."

"In that case, you're welcome."

"You vomited on my floor."

Zoe held up a finger, blinking. "Yes, I did. Sorry about that."

"It's fortunate I've got an excellent cleaning staff," Harriet said, slipping an arm around Zoe's waist to keep her upright as she was canting at a forty-five degree angle and looking green around the edges. "Alex!"

A quiet rustle of papers and a chair rolling on wheels before gentle steps against the ground preceded Alex's head appearing around the door. His face opened wide with surprise, a warm smile curling across his mouth. "Oh, hey, Zoe. Didn't realise you were here."

"Hi, Alex," she said, head lolling against Harriet's shoulder. "How're tricks?"

"Not bad, thanks," he replied. "Is this a social visit or are aliens invading again?"

"Social."

He visibly relaxed. "That's good. There's a lot of paperwork for everyone when there's an invasion and I've got a holiday coming up."

"Really?" Zoe brightened. "Where are you going?"

"Ten days in the Canary Islands," Alex replied. "Me, my boyfriend, and – as per the Prime Minister's orders – no phones."

"It's your holiday," Harriet reminded him. "You shouldn't be working on your holiday."

"Wait a second," Zoe interrupted with a frown. "Since when do you have a boyfriend?"

"Since three years ago," he said, a fond smile tugging at his mouth. "We met at the BBC. He was outside protesting the suggested raise in licence fees for the over-65s and he called me a slave to the corporate machine and then bought me a coffee to apologise."

A small, soft sound left Zoe's throat as she loved romance in all forms when she thought no one was looking, her restraint lowered by the whiskey sours. "That's adorable. What's his name? Can I meet him? And instead of the Canary Islands, how about Drana? It's this great planet with amazing sushi and just a handful of semi-murderous water nymphs."

"His name's Hamish, no you can't meet him, and we're happy with the Canary Islands, thank you," Alex said. "Semi-murderous water nymphs?"

"They tried to kill Jack once, it was a thing." She dismissed his concern with a wave of her hand. "Why can't I meet him?"

"You're not exactly easy to explain," Harriet informed her. "I tell my mother you're a travelling academic who tends to pop in unexpectedly when the wind brings you my way."

Zoe stared at him. "Really? What academics?"

"Computer science."

She considered the cover story and nodded. "I'll take it."

Alex sniffed, nose wrinkling. "What's that smell?"

"Ah, yes, that's what I called you in here for," Harriet said. "Could you please call Vincent in cleaning and tell him there's been a small incident?" She gestured to the pool of vomit on the floor, and Alex coughed to hide his amusement. "And please let them know it wasn't me that did it. I don't need any rumours of my ill health spreading at the moment."

Risking a small grin, he nodded before disappearing.

"Hamish," Zoe repeated. "Sounds Scottish."

"He is," Harriet said. "Now, let's you get upstairs and you can tell me what on earth's going on with you. I say this with all the love in the world but you're a complete and utter mess at the moment."

She huffed and forced her legs to cooperate with Harriet's movements. "You're not far wrong. Before we get to me though, what did you want ten minutes for?"

"Oh, that." They left her office, Zoe waving goodbye to Alex as he spoke on the phone with Vincent in cleaning, and made their way up the discreet staircase that led to the private residence of the Prime Minister. "It's regarding Elton Pope."

A dark expression fell over her face. "What about him? He's not been bothering my mum, has he? I thought we'd put the fear of god into him."

"As per your request, UNIT was monitoring Mr Pope's activities just to make sure that he kept his distance from Jackie," Harriet explained, grateful that Zoe was relatively light as they climbed the stairs. "He's been as good as his word –"

She scoffed. "His word means less than nothing."

"And kept away from her," she continued, ignoring the interruption. "He hasn't even gone back to Peckham as far as UNIT can tell. They also placed L.I.N.D.A under observation. Although, since we're on the topic, could you tell me – just for my own curiosity and the betting pool at UNIT – does the Doctor have fan clubs throughout the universe?"

"Not that I know of," Zoe said, catching herself on the banister before she fell back and dragged Harriet with her. "He's not going to cop to them though when he knows that I'll take the piss."

"Wise man."

"Only sometimes."

Harriet shouldered open the door and half-guided, half-dragged Zoe into the warm and homey interior of her home. "I thought about calling Jackie myself but then I though that maybe the news would be better coming from you or Rose: Mr Pope died yesterday."

Zoe fell onto the sofa and rolled off it, landing in a puddle of limbs on the floor. "He what?"

"Along with the other members of L.I.N.D.A."

"Jesus," she said, stunned. "What the hell happened? UNIT didn't –? No, they wouldn't. What happened?"

Harriet left her on the floor and crossed over into the kitchen – open plan which allowed for easier conversation – and she put the kettle on, pulling two mugs from the cupboards and putting two slices of bread into the toaster to help soak up the alcohol in Zoe's body.

"There was an alien who disguised himself as a member of the group," she explained as the kettle boiled. "By the time UNIT realised that there was an alien presence, it was too late. The members of L.I.N.D.A had been...absorbed."

"Absorbed? What does that mean?"

"I'll have the pictures sent to you," Harriet replied. "Needless to say, it wasn't a particularly pleasant end for the group. UNIT has the alien in custody now. It's being interrogated but we know that it's from the sister planet of – gosh, I can never say this right – the place where the Slitheen came from."

Zoe struggled out of her coat. "Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"Show off."

"Only sometimes," she said without missing a beat. "What's the twin planet of that then?"

"Clom."

"You're having me on."

Harriet laughed, pouring the water onto the teabags. "No, apparently it's just Clom. I was surprised too."

"Clom," she repeated before rolling her eyes. "What was he even doing on Earth? He wasn't looking for the Doctor, was he? Please tell me he wasn't because you know what the Doctor's like, he's going to blame himself for this no matter what and I don't want to give him a stick to beat himself with."

"Unfortunately it does seem that the Doctor was his intended target," Harriet said, buttering the toast lightly. "It seems that he blames the Doctor for the loss of his planet."

"Clom's gone?" Zoe sat up straighter, toeing her shoes off. "It was destroyed?"

"Disappeared, apparently." Picking up the two mugs by the handle in one hand, toast on a small plate in the other, she made her way back to Zoe who reached up to help her with the tea. "One day it was there and then it was gone. This person believes the Doctor had something to do with it."

"He's not in the habit of stealing planets," she said as Harriet made herself comfortable on the floor next to her, her physical presence comforting and needed. "Thanks for letting me know. I know that this is below your pay grade, so I appreciate it. UNIT's great but unless it's Alistair, I'm not really feeling the communication. They're so brisk."

"You intimidate them," Harriet replied, sipping her tea. "And you're welcome. Now eat your toast. You need to start sobering up."

Zoe pulled a face even as she reached for the first piece of toast and slowly ate her way through it. Emptying her stomach of her whiskey sours and simply being around Harriet helped her feel significantly better and by the time she had finished her toast and drunk her cup of tea, she was bordering on sober again, though she suspected her hangover was going to be extremely unpleasant. The news of Elton and his friends settled low in her chest, a small bloom of pain that was swallowed whole by everything else happening, and she rested her head on Harriet's shoulder.

"D'you remember what we talked about at Christmas?" She asked, tiredness weighing her bones down. "About worrying about changing into people we won't recognise?"

"I do," Harriet said, rubbing the sore soles of her left foot in one hand. "You were confident that you'd remain yourself. Has that changed?"

"Yeah," Zoe sighed. "The Doctor...he told me something today that...it's changed a lot of things for me. Things that I thought were unchangeable. It's terrifying."

"Zoe..." she turned to look at her, dislodging her head from her shoulder. "What happened today?"

"It's a long story," she warned.

"I've got the time," Harriet told her. "And I'm more than willing to listen if you want to tell me."

Zoe's head fell back against the seat of the sofa and she stared up at the white ceiling, the world shifting slowly around her, conscious that this relationship – this friendship that she had cultivated away from the others – was also at risk with her new future. Harriet was hers in a way that she felt greedy of: Her friend, someone she didn't always have to share with others, the two of them bound together by a bewilderingly terrifying and jarring day that sent their lives hurtling off in different directions.

And if anyone was able to understand what she was feeling right then, it was Harriet Jones.

"I suppose it all starts on a planet called Mondas," Zoe began. "We ended up there by accident. It should've been impossible because the planet was destroyed centuries ago but that's never really stopped us."

Harriet turned her whole body, head propped up on her hand, and listened as Zoe wove her story and painted a new picture of the future.