"Autistic rights now!" Ten shouted as he marched down Oxford Street holding his picket sign.

Ten was followed in his protest by his girlfriend Rose and his friends, Martha, Donna, Mickey and Jack, who we're also marching with picket signs.

Ten's picket sign was the most simple. It had been made last minute that morning and consisted of a sheet of A4 sellotaped on a bit of cardboard, which had also been sellotaped to a thin plank of wood. On the A4 read 'Autistic Rights Now!', each letter in a different colour of Sharpie and obviously hastily written.

Rose's picket sign was less hastily made and her cardboard had at least been painted. It still had a picture of a blue puzzle piece stuck on with PVA glue. The letters of the words 'People Are Not Puzzle Pieces' had been cut out from print outs from WordArt.

Mickey's sign was the laziest. His sign comprised only of a piece of A4 paper. And on that piece of A4 paper were the words 'Diffrent Not Lesser' scrawled in ballpoint pen (blue ink) typo and all.

Donna was marching with a large sign with a blue puzzle piece in the centre, a no symbol around it with only the words 'NO CURE' in big bold capital letters.

Martha's picket sign was covered in poorly printed and cut out pictured of needles that were stuck to white painted cardboard with Pritt-Stick (some were peeling off). In a rather eye catching shade of red, her sign read 'Vaccines Don't Cause Autism, Genetics Does'.

And Jack was marching with a rainbow coloured picket sign that in black ink and a calligraphy style font simply read (simply referring to the words, rather than how they were written) 'Boo Eugenics'.

Mickey stopped as they passed a news vendor. "Hey, Ten, have you seen this?" He handed his sheet of paper to Martha and held up an issue of The Standard.

"What is that?" Ten asked walking back towards Mickey.

"Trouble." Mickey replied.

"Yeah, I see that happening." Jack agreed.

"Oh crap." Ten lowered his picket sign and took the newspaper from Mickey.

The headline read in bold letters:

DISABLED CIVIL SERVANT MOCKED BY WAITRESS

"Well then. Twelve's dead." Jack said. "Shall we start planning the funeral?"

"Where does it say that he's died?" Donna asked.

"Right... there." Rose pointed to a sentence. "It clearly says 'Mr Doctor and his girlfriend, Missy Masters'."

"Oh well. It was nice knowing him." Donna said. "I'd like to say the same thing about Missy only I wouldn't mean it."

"Shame." Martha said. "I liked Twelve. He could play the guitar really well."

"I liked listening to his practicing when I came over." Rose said.

"It was always cool when someone would offer unwanted assistance and he'd threaten to ram his long cane up their urethras." Jack said. "And kinda sexy."

"Can everyone stop talking about my brother like he's already dead." Ten asked. "And/or describing his rage fits as 'sexy'?" He did air quotes with his fingers.

"He's always frowning. Scowling. Even when the rest of his face doesn't look angry, his eyebrows do. That's-"

"I swear to god, Jack, if you say 'sexy', I'm going to defriend you." Ten said. "Like, that's my younger brother-"

"I'm sorry, but people with autism do already have rights."

Ten turned from the newspaper and to the woman on the pavement. "In the sense that all people have human rights and it's autistic people, not people with autism."

"I'm sorry, but it is people with autism, that's the correct term." The woman said. She was holding the hand of a little boy who was sucking his thumb.

Jack stepped forward. "I'm guessing that's your little boy, right? Around seven years old? And he's autistic, isn't he."

"He has autism." The woman said.

Jack shrugged slightly. "Eh. He's autistic. What's his name?"

"Oliver." The woman said. "I don't see how that's relevant-"

Jack crouched down to the boy's eye level. "Hey there, Oliver."

Oliver averted his gaze from Jack and carried on sucking his thumb.

"He has autism. He can't speak. He doesn't understand."

"He understands alright." Ten said. "He understands that because either you or your partner? Husband? either way one of you is autistic and passed that gene on to him and you resent him for it."

"Unless he's adopted." Donna suggested.

"Yeah, good point." Ten said. "Is he adopted?"

"... no."

"Yeah, then you resent him because you're unhappy with your own genetics." Ten said.

"Excuse me!" The woman growled. "He has autism because he's had vaccine damage from the MMR and-"

"Oh hey, look who's fully vaccinated and isn't autistic." Ten said.

Rose waved and Mickey folded his arms.

"I'm a med student. Vaccines cause nothing except lower disease levels and allergic reactions in some people." Martha said.

"Then he had one of them." The woman said.

"... you... you know what an allergic reaction is, right?" Martha asked. "Because anaphylaxis doesn't cause autism."

"Well he must have had it-how else did he get autism?"

Martha frowned. "From you or you partner-do you not know how genetics work?"

"Leave it." Mickey said. "There's no reasoning with martyrs like her." He said with a flick of his head.

The woman's nostrils flared in anger. "How dare you-"

"How dare you not read a book." Rose said. "Andrew Wakefield falsified data so he could patent his own MMR vaccine. He literally had his medical license stripped from him."

"Yeah, I barely got A-Levels and even I know this." Donna said.

"And you know what I have to say about this guy." Jack stood up and pointed at his picket sign. "Boo eugenics."

Ten sighed. "This is why we need autistic rights."

"Boo eugenics." The little boy, Oliver, said.

The mother's eyes opened wide and her jaw nearly dropped down to the floor as she looked at her son.

"At least we got through to someone." Rose said.

The woman huffed and pulled her son away.

"Boo eugenics." Oliver said again. "Boo eugenics."

"And read a science journal!" Martha called after her.

Jack snorted. "Fucking load on her."

"When that kid started talking I got the feel she was about to keel over." Mickey said.

"Oh my son used to be non-verbal but I'll never hear him say 'I love you' because some rat-arsed twenty-something taught him to say 'boo eugenics' instead and now that's all he'll say." Donna said, doing a near perfect imitation of the woman.

"Did I ever tell you that some days I really hate my life?" Ten asked. "Right, where's that paper? I want to have another look at it."


"Check it out." Thirteen said, happily admiring a box.

"It's a box." Eleven said. "From Amazon."

"Yeah, but it's what's inside the box." Thirteen said happily.

"What is inside the box?" Eleven asked.

"You'll see now." Thirteen picked up a pen and used it to stab the tape open. She opened the box and her eyes went wide and a big smile passed across her face. "Oh brilliant!"

"What is it?" Eleven asked.

Thirteen pulled the contents of the box out and discarded the box. "Look!" She showed her item to Eleven.

"A Barbie doll in a wheelchair." Eleven said.

"It is a Barbie in a wheelchair!" Thirteen said excitedly. "I've never seen a Barbie that looks like me before-it's... so cool, Eleven! For the first time, I feel seen."

"You know who else is seen?" Eleven asked, looking at his phone. "Twelve."

"What'd you mean?" Thirteen asked.

"According to Ten, it's in the newspaper that Twelve and Missy are dating." Eleven said.

"Oh." Thirteen shook her head and peeled the cardboard backing from her doll. "I'm going to miss him. Sometimes it's nice having a brother like Twelve."

"What about Ten and I?"

"Twelve's scarier."

Eleven nodded in agreement. "True, true."

"But it was cool growing up with thirteen older brothers. Some of them even feared. It kept a lot of people off my back that normally would have bullied someone like me." Thirteen said.

"There's nothing wrong with you." Eleven said.

"Really?" Thirteen cocked an eyebrow. "What about the social awkwardness, the impulsiveness, the fact that I had a help teacher, the orthoses-that I still wear, the walker that I had, the way I couldn't take part in PE-"

"I get it, Thirteen." Eleven said. "PE was hardly a cakewalk for me either, you know."

"But you're not in a wheelchair." Thirteen pointed out. "You don't get the stares that I do. The mutters that I'm 'faking'. The people groping me and my chair when I try and get on the Tube-which not all the stations are accessible, actually. The people trying to 'help' and getting huffy when you say 'no, I'm fine', like, my chair doesn't have handles for a reason. And the catcalling. Ugh. I always try and have another guy with me when I go down the street."

"No, you're right." Eleven said. "You have it worse. But not for long. Pretty sure the next time we see Twelve, he'll be in a box."

"That's if it's an open casket." Thirteen said.

Eleven nodded. "Ooh yeah, good point."


"You're dating Melissa Masters."

Twelve was standing in Three's very spacious flat in Westminster, squeezing his hands on his cane. Also in the flat was one of Three's friends, Jo. Despite that they had been doing an experiment for UNIT, Three had called Twelve over, specifically over the piece that had emerged in The Standard.

"How do you know?" Twelve asked.

"Benton sent me a text of what was in today's edition of the Standard." Three said. "You're dating Melissa Masters." He said, not as a question, but as a fact.

"Yes." Twelve said.

"Dump her. Now." Three said, oddly calmly.

"No."

"I beg your pardon?" Three frowned. "After our parents died, I was the one who raised you so you'd best listen to me when I tell you that you need to dump Melissa Masters."

"Her name's Missy." Twelve said.

"Don't get cocky with me, young man." Three said.

"I'm not dumping Missy. I like Missy. She likes me."

"Can't you just let this feud go, Three?" Jo asked, stepping into the argument. "You've held a grudge against the older Masters man for years-"

"And for good reason, Jo." Three said.

"I don't doubt that." Jo said. "But Twelve and Missy-"

"She's going to break his heart."

"He's nineteen, you can't protect him forever." Jo said. "You weren't able to protect him from that waitress after all."

"Thank you, Ms Grant." Twelve said.

"Twelve is in university. He's got a job as a civil servant-"

"Intern." Twelve corrected.

"He's a civil service intern. He pays his own rent. He's a responsible enough lad."

"And you'd know all about civil servants, wouldn't you?" Three asked.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Jo asked.

Three sighed and turned his attention back to Twelve. "Dump her. I'm not going to tell you again."

"What happened," Twelve asked, "between you and Delgado Masters?"

A silence fell over the room for an uncomfortable amount of time before finally being broken by Three.

"Dump her."


Harry slammed a newspaper down on Missy's coffee table. "You're dating a Doctor?!"

"I never said I was dating anyone." Missy said.

"You bloody well did and it's right here." Harry tapped his finger down on the paper. "You're dating the blind one. Of all the people you could have dated, it was the blind Doctor! What's his name-"

"Twelve." Missy replied. "He's not 'the blind one', his name is Twelve."

"Twelve." Harry scoffed. "His name's not actually Twelve. Says in here that it's... Dougan."

Missy waved her hand dismissively. "They're all numbered from William down to Jodie."

"Jodie's the stupid wheelchair girl."

"She has cerebral palsy, yes. But she's not stupid."

"She's a Doctor, of course she's stupid."

"What have they ever done to you, Harold?" Missy asked. "As I recall, you and Ten used to be friends."

"Melissa, we're not five years old anymore." Harry said. "There's a feud. Act like there's one."

"No." Missy said. "No, I like Twelve."

"I don't know what you see in him and his grey hair and his stupid angry eyebrows. He can't see you back he's blind."

"I'm very fucking aware that he's blind, you know. The cane and the Braille books very much give it away." Missy folded her arms. "Delgado used to be close with Three, you know. They were like brothers-"

"Then something happened and bam! We're feuding." Harry said.

"Do you know what that something was?" Missy asked.

"Er... no." Harry admitted.

"Wouldn't you like to find out?"

"I'm not about to ask Delgado 'hey, what happened between you and Jon Doctor?' because chances are he's not going to answer that question anyway."

"I want to know because it affects my relationship with Twelve." Missy said.

"I'm not asking." Harry put his hands on his hips.

"Fine." Missy huffed slightly. "You can just, I don't know, sit here watching Teletubbies. Like some kind of twenty year old baby." She turned to the door to leave.

"Where are you going?" Harry snapped. "I wasn't done talking with you."

"I was." Missy opened the door, walked out and slammed it after her.


That evening, Twelve strapped his acoustic guitar to his back and grabbed his long cane ready to slip back out of the flat.

"Where are you going?" Eleven asked.

"Out." Twelve said. "You didn't care last weekend, why do you care now?"

"I know Three's talked to you." Eleven said. "And you've got your guitar-"

"Correction, one of my guitars."

"Where are you going?"

"It's Open Mic Night at the local." Twelve said. "Thought I'd play fucking... Wonderwall or some shite."

"Do you want me to call Thirteen and we can go and see you?" Eleven offered.

"Where is Thirteen?"

"Gone to stay at her friend Ryan's. She came back earlier to get her mail. Took all her meds with her."

"You think she's moved out?"

"Nah, she's got her beloved coat here and her spare wheelchair's still in the closet."

"Right, well, I'm going out. And I don't want you to follow me."

"Oh. Right, okay." Eleven nodded. "I'll just... call River then."

"Call her then." Twelve opened the door and walked out.


Twelve knew the way to the Tube station. He had his Oyster card with him. There were very few routes Twelve had memorised, but the ones he did have memorised were to his work, to Westminster, to King's Cross and to Euston. And now he would be stopping off at St James's Park.

Twelve always took more caution in the Tube stations. They were always full of people that would ignore that he was blind. Sure, he loved it when people ignored that, but not in places where he could fall down escalators and die.

He knew his way down from the train station to the District line, that it would take him to Westminster, where he got off to work. St James's Park was just the next stop along where he'd meet Missy. Another route he knew well was the route to Lewisham, where Missy (and Harry) lived (as well as to Croydon, where Four and Sarah lived).

When the Tube came, Twelve asked the conductor to make sure it was going to St James's Park (which it was), so he got on and sat down. He took his guitar off and put it between his legs and put his folded up cane in his lap. It was going to be a long journey of about forty minutes, so he took his earbuds out and started fiddling with his phone; listening to music and texts.

People generally took no notice. Until around halfway through the journey, a man put his hand on Twelve's shoulder.

Twelve took one of his earbuds out. "What?" He asked, almost aggressively.

"I would like to pray for you."

Twelve groaned. He'd had nutters try and pray for his eyesight before. He'd always refused. This time was no exception. "No." He said firmly and went to put his earbud back in.

The man grabbed his hand to stop him and Twelve closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This guy was one of those guys.

"I wouldn't be doing my duty as a Christian if I didn't pray for the less fortunate."

Twelve gritted his teeth as his mind filled with expletives that he wanted to scream at the man, but would also be screamed all over the rest of the Tube carriage.

"Dear Lord, I pray that you heal this unfortunate blind man's eyes and help him to-"

"Look mate, there's fuck all wrong with my eyes." Twelve hissed in a low voice. "Yes, I'm blind, but that's because of fucking brain damage that I will not be healed from because guess fucking what? There's no cure for brain damage! And surprise, fucking, surprise, I was actually cured of the disease that blinded me-I believe you may have heard of it it's called meningitis."

Twelve glowered at the man. "And if you don't get your fucking hand off me right now, I will snap your fucking fingers off and shove them so far up your arse that you'll have to have surgery to get them removed because there is no way you're shitting them out yourself. Got that?"

The man relinquished his grip on Twelve's hand and gave a weak nod. "Yep." He squeaked. He was so shocked; he'd never had a disabled person threaten him before.

"Good."

"You're disabled though-I thought you'd be happy to be cured by the hand of God with a miracle since your life is lesser to mine-"

Twelve's jaw dropped. "Oh ho ho... fucking fuck me. My life is not lesser. After all, I'm not the useless fuck who harassed a random stranger on the Tube. You don't fucking know me yet but I guarantee you will. And even if I did believe in God and his... Divine Plan, then he clearly fucking meant for me to become blind and it's un-Christian-like or insulting to God some shite to not believe in that plan or whatever, right?"

"Um-"

"Good. Now we have that cleared up, get the fuck out of my residual sight." Twelve put his earbud back in his ear and shook his head. At least that man hadn't confused him for a beggar and offered him money.


Towards the end of the journey, Twelve took his earbuds out; he needed to hear where he was. Embankment. Two stops to St James's Park.

The next stop was Westminster. He stood up, unfolded his cane and held his guitar between his legs. He put his arm around the handrail to brace himself. He couldn't see much of... anything, but he could definitely feel they were about to stop. That and the Tube announcement said they would.

The doors opened and Twelve picked up his guitar and stepped off the train along with around twenty other people. When he was safely on the platform, he swung his guitar over his shoulder and began to find his way out the maze of stairs and escalators.

Twelve was alone. Most of the time, he liked that. Alone was great.

Tube stations were not really a place he liked to be alone. And from what he'd heard from his friends and family, even the non-autistic, non-blind, and non-wheelchair users, the Tube could be daunting, especially on unfamiliar routes and stations. He did not know the St James's Park Tube station like he knew the Westminster Tube station. Or the Lewisham DLR station. Or the Croydon Overground station. Yet he found his way out-mostly by groping walls and ticket barriers.

"Twelve." Missy said in concern. "What the hell did you call me here for?"

"Missy. Missy, they know."

"Who knows what?"

"Three knows." Twelve said. "Jo Grant knows. And apparently some guy they work with called Benton. He knows."

"Yeah, Harry knows too."

"It's going to come out."

"Why did you tell Sarah Jane Smith?"

"You talked to her too." Twelve said.

Missy sighed. "What now then? Go on to Victoria and elope while watching Hamilton?"

"Vegas." Twelve suggested.

"I'm being serious." Missy said.

"So am I. We'll stay there." Twelve said. "Eight's living out in California with his girlfriend and their friends so it's not like we'll be alone out there. And apparently one of them's Irish."

"I don't care about Irish people, Twelve."

"Yeah, neither do I really." Twelve said. "I mean I don't not care about them. But... What I mean to say is that I have no strong feelings-or connection-to Ireland."

"I'm not moving to California." Missy said

"Why not? They have a Disneyland." Twelve pointed out.

"I don't want to go to Disneyland. Twelve, just listen to yourself." Missy said.

"I don't want to." Twelve admitted.

Missy sighed. "Come on. There's a bench here. Let's just sit down and talk this through."

"I don't want to talk." Twelve said.

"And I don't want to run away." Missy said. She took Twelve's guitar off and pulled him down onto the bench.

"I don't know what else there is to do." Twelve admitted, putting his head in his hands.

"Come on. It's August. It's evening. We're in St James's Park." Missy said. "You brought your guitar-"

"As an alibi because Eleven asked where I was going." Twelve said. "I told him I was going to the local, not into London city itself."

"Why does that matter so much?" Missy asked. "You're twenty in three days."

"Three days." Twelve moaned. "I'll be in work then."

"I thought Parliament was in recess-"

"It is but I'm not a politician, I'm a civil servant, therefore I have to keep working."

Missy frowned. "Mean."

"Mean." Twelve nodded in agreement. He lifted his head from his hands as a thought occurred to him. "Mean." He repeated, opening his guitar case.

"What... what are you doing?" Missy asked.

"You said 'mean' and that gave me an idea." Twelve said. He pulled his guitar out and gently strummed to check that the strings sounded right. "So... what should I play?"


A/N: Parliament Square is where people go to protest politics stuff like Brexit, but other good places to protest are Oxford Street Leicester Square or Trafalgar Square, purely because of the foot traffic, the amount of people that'll see it. Ten and his friends have a message and because they want people to see it, that's where they'll take it.

The Standard is London's newspaper. People stand around on street corners and in Tube stations handing them out. See, there's a reason I chose The Standard over something like The Daily Mail or The Guardian.

Oliver was one of the top baby names in the UK in 2012. If Oliver (The little boy) was around 7 or 8 years old, then why wouldn't he have one of the most popular names.

Yes, the leading cause of autism is having an autistic parent. (And the term among the community is autistic, not person with autism).

I have the wheelchair Barbie. It's very good for the price. Not only do you get a made to move Barbie, but you get a fully functioning doll wheelchair, brakes and all, and if you are so inclined, you can take the clip out. So why does Thirteen have one and say 'I've never seen a Barbie that looks like me before'? Well, that's got something to do with the Thirteenth Doctor Barbie (which I also have).

Three lives in Westminster. That and Kensington are the most expensive areas to live in London, heck the whole of the UK and that's for a one bedroom flat. So how can Three afford a spacious one? Watch this space.

Three made a comment about Civil Servants because in Who canon, Jo's Civil Servant Uncle, I believe? pulled some strings and got her a job at UNIT.

So One is William, Three is Jon and Thirteen is Jodie. There's a pattern emerging now. So why is Twelve Dougan? Well, it's quite simple really and will be explained unless you want to Google it.

Thirteen has cerebral palsy. There's a reason for that too.

Yes, blind people can navigate the London Underground. They just need to take a bit more care.

Nearly everyone lives dotted around London. Get used to that.

Anyone with a disability can relate to Twelve on his Tube ride as there are people who pray for you completely uninvited and touch you uninvited and grab you uninvited, though the grabbers are the worst of the worst.

Twelve's blindness was caused by brain damage. He caught meningitis as a four year old. And he's been blind ever since. He doesn't really remember being sighted so to him, a miracle where he got his sight back... well that would freak him out. He wouldn't want that because being sighted is not what he knows. And though he's an atheist, he's come to the conclusion that if there was a god and if that god had a plan for him, it would include him being blind so he points that out to godbotherers who try and invasively pray for him that they're insulting god.

The Tube services aren't just made up of the London Underground. There's also the London Overground, the DLR (Docklands Light Railway), the TFL Rail (soon to be the Elizabeth Line) and the Emirates Air Line, which is a cable car. All that on top of the black cabs, the rail lines, bus lines, river bus and subways (not the Underground). Yep, Transport for London sure is varied. Wild, right?

Hamilton is outside the Victoria Tube and train station, along with Wicked. I've seen both musicals there twice.

Eight is established not to live in London. He lives in America, but he isn't the only one who lives away from home. Who is it then? Watch this space.

Twelve (and Thirteen, Ten, Eleven, River, Amy and Rory) live somewhere on the District Line. If you can figure out where, you get Internet points.