Author's Notes:

Sorry for the delay - had to manage some real life priorities. Here is a nice long chapter to make up for it.

Warning: One small section of this chapter takes place in Nice on Bastille Day, 2016, during the parade. No violence takes place, but that was an important day and a tragic event few will forget any time soon. For those who lost loved ones in the Nice truck attack, you have my condolences and no harm is intended.

Chapter 10

Tuesday, 2 February 2016, Durham, New Hampshire, 06:35

The Doctor became aware that someone was shaking him energetically by the lapels. His head bounced around involuntarily with the motion, adding to the nausea. He opened his eyes out of sheer self-defense – he had to get the shaking to stop.

Senator Martin Shaw leaned over him, his eyes wide with concern. His breath smelled of breakfast sausage. The Doctor rolled to his side and heaved.

Nothing came up but a thin trickle of bile, thank the gods. He reached shakily into his breast pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph! You scared the living crap out of me! Are you okay? And how the hell did you do that? You're not from the Brookings Institute. Who are you?"

The Doctor noticed with some amusement that senator Shaw was only partially dressed. While he had on a turtleneck and sweater, he was still in his boxer shorts.

He worked his way up onto his hands and knees and paused in that position to fight another wave of nausea before answering.

"I'm a time traveler," he croaked. "I came here from the future because something's gone terribly wrong and I'm trying to fix it." The Doctor was horrified by how breathless and weak he sounded. So much for making a grand entrance.

"What? Time travel? Well, I suppose I have to accept that for the time being, since you just appeared out of thin air. But why visit me? What do I have to do with anything?"

By now the Doctor had managed to rise and gingerly made his way over to a bench at the foot of the bed. Everything hurt. He took a deep breath and composed himself.

"You have everything to do with it. You were supposed to end your campaign at the Iowa caucuses like you said you would, only you didn't."

The senator searched the room, spied his trousers folded over the desk chair, and moved to put them on.

"That doesn't make any sense. My Iowa numbers were laughable. What difference does it make if I stay in the race for Super Tuesday? I'm really not that important."

"You're not, in a historical sense." Shaw cringed. The Doctor heard Clara pipe up about his woeful lack of tact and tried to channel a little of her graceful diplomacy. He also made a mental note to pop ahead to see if even the small modifications resulting from this first botched attempt changed her outcome at all.

"But by the numbers, you are very important. As I cautioned you back in Des Moines, by staying in the race you have chipped away at the conservative candidate's base at a micro level. You may think that doesn't matter, but in this case, it will cost her valuable delegates."

"Why do you care?"

"Because in the future, instead of enjoying a few years of mercurial politics, trade wars, and increasing national and international tensions, if the conservative candidate does not win the nomination there will be a global-scale nuclear war that will end life as you know it."

Shaw stared at him a moment before responding. "No. No, I won't accept that. It's not possible. This is some kind of ruse that Bernie put you up to. Or maybe Hillary. Yeah, this feels more like Hillary. At any rate, the joke's over, and I'm going to call security now and have you escorted out."

He scanned the room, apparently searching for his mobile, which the Doctor happily discovered was sitting on the bed within arm's reach. He leaned over and scooped it up.

"Sorry, Senator, but it's all true. I wish it weren't. What will it take to convince you?"

"Show me the future. Take me there. If it's like you say it is, then I will withdraw this morning."

"I was afraid you would say something like that." The Doctor considered the situation and came to a decision. One thing for sure, this wasn't going to be pretty. He stood a little shakily and took a deep breath.

"You won't do it, will you? You can't because none of this is true."

"No, I can, and I will, but I don't think you're going to like it."

Back in the TARDIS, before he'd made his first trip, he'd told Peter that he had only one vortex manipulator as a way of breaking the news that Peter wasn't coming along on the journey. In reality, the Doctor could have taken the boy along.

"Why not?"

The Doctor smiled. "Oh, lots of reasons. What's going on in the future is scary. Heartbreaking, even. Also, you're new to this, and you won't be prepared for the experience, or what you see. But first,"

The Doctor moved close to the senator. So close, he could feel his breath on his face.

"We have to get a bit intimate."

Without further warning, the Doctor embraced Shaw tightly.

"Hey, what-"

He found the Home button on the vortex manipulator and pressed it. Whatever else the senator said was lost in the time vortex.

14 July, 2016, Nice, France

Danny proposed after they placed their dessert and coffee order. He did it sweetly. He got down on one knee. His voice trembled while saying the words. Clara saw that his eyes were even a bit moist.

And when she turned him down, he visibly crumbled. To her credit, she managed it well, confirming she did love him, and explaining that her answer wasn't "No" forever, it was more of a "not yet."

She's gotten monosyllables from him since then. He paid the cheque and they made their way through the crowds back to the front of the hotel. It was late. The parade had already started two blocks down. They couldn't see it yet, due to the crowd, but they could hear it. Everyone was drunk and having a good time. Well, except for the two of them. Clara tried to keep things light and hoped that Danny would emerge from the funk he'd fallen into.

She was watching the crowd and then turned toward Danny to say something and discovered he was gone. She didn't know what upset her more, the fact that he was gone, or the fact that she hadn't noticed him leaving. She checked her mobile, in case he'd texted her, but there was nothing. She stepped up onto the cement buttress of a streetlamp to try to spot him in the crowd.

That's when she heard a commotion nearby, much closer than the actual parade, which was still a block away. Many in the crowd screamed when a gunshot rang out. Someone shouted through a megaphone in staccato French.

Other people in the crowd were craning and pushing to catch site of whatever was going on. From her elevated view, Clara saw that a truck that was clearly not part of the parade was stopped in the middle of the street. Several French police officers surrounded the vehicle, some with truncheons, others with rifles. One looked like he had just discharged his weapon into the air. The driver was pinned against the truck by several police officers. And then she saw him. Danny stood off to the side speaking with two other officers, one of whom was taking notes. Clara pushed her way through the crowd and joined him.

"Danny, what happened?" He avoided her eyes and smiled shyly.

"It's nothing, really. I just saw this guy and he didn't look right. I followed him and saw him passing a sack of machine guns through the window of the truck. I found a police officer and told him."

The officer who had been taking notes looked up and smiled at Clara. "Votre petit ami vient de sauver beaucoup de vies."

Typical Danny Pink. Just when I think I've got it sorted, you go and do something incredible.

Clara felt a rush of love for the man standing next to her. Danny gasped in surprise when she hugged him fiercely. He accepted her sloppy kiss on the cheek, eyes averted, perhaps a little smug. The officers smiled knowingly, then returned to the official scrum around the driver and truck.

Clara whispered in his ear, "I do love you. And, if the offer still stands, I will marry you."

Sagacity, The Universal Collaborative for Temporal Insight, the TARDIS

When the Doctor felt like he could, he opened his eyes. As he'd surmised from the sound, Senator Shaw was off to his immediate left, puking his guts out. So it's not just me, he thought.

Travel by vortex manipulator wasn't a pleasant experience for anyone, but for a reasonably youthful person of average health, such an extreme reaction was rare. Got to have a look at the device. Maybe a tune up will smooth things out.

"What the hell did you do to me?" The Senator spluttered. "You nearly killed me!"

The Doctor used the console to lever himself up from the floor grate and then offered a helping hand to Shaw. Once back on his feet, Shaw tugged at his clothes to set them right. He was pale and sweaty.

"Where are we?" He asked, his first question forgotten over the grandeur of the TARDIS interior. The Doctor smiled a little.

"This is the TARDIS. It's my vessel. It moves through time and space. Well, only not right now. It's impounded."

He used the nearest keyboard to initiate a search command.

"What's your postal code?"

"My what?"

"Postal code. Your Zip code." When the Senator hesitated, the Doctor let a little of his irritation show.

"Look, you said you'd believe me if I showed you how bad it was in the future. If you give me your postal code, I can show you what your neighborhood looks like in 2025, when the nuclear exchange happened."

Shaw gave him the postal code and the Doctor entered it in, using the same date in December of 2025 when he'd visited Kate. Once the TARDIS completed the search the Doctor pulled a monitor over, peered at it, and then invited Shaw to have a look. It was nearly a minute before he said anything else. When he did, his voice was tight and shaky. He pointed to a partially collapsed structure in the viewer with one pudgy finger.

"That's the community college. I've spoken there dozens of times." His finger moved to an area across the street from the levelled school that might have once been a gas station. For the most part, it was now a scorched hole in the ground.

"That's Joe Weldon's Mobile station. My—my son works there. What the hell happened? Is he okay? Can I go out there?" Shaw searched for and found the door, but the Doctor grasped his arm.

"We're not actually there. I told you, my ship is impounded. I just pulled it up in the chronoscanner so you could see it on the viewer."

"Take me there. I need to find Mike and Laura. You take me there right now!"

"Senator, I can't. Look at those numbers on the screen. That's the radiation level. Even in a suit you would die within minutes. I'm sorry."

Shaw balked a bit more, maintaining that it was all a ruse. The Doctor pulled up other segments of the corrupt timeline, becoming increasingly anxious as more of the nighttime period eroded on Sagacity.

After looking at snippets of some of the last news broadcasts from major syndicated channels, which laid out the catastrophe in terms he could both see and understand, the American senator finally began to accept that the corrupt future was real.

But before he returned Shaw to his hotel room in 2016, the Doctor, ever the scientist, led him to med bay for a quick full body scan. Shaw was still bowled over by what he'd witnessed on the corrupt timeline and didn't put up much resistance.

The scan revealed that Shaw had taken on a moderate level of artron energy and also chorenn, two byproducts of time travel that should have been contained by the vortex manipulator. While artron energy was harmless, and even helpful to the immune system, chorenn could really do some damage.

These results confirmed the Doctor's hypothesis—the vortex manipulator was damaged. He considered doing a quick self-scan but thought better of it. The Doctor knew he was saturated with the stuff. Well, no wonder I feel awful, he thought.

"What does it say?" Shaw asked, looking concerned. The Doctor took a deep breath and tried to channel his inner Clara.

"Well, you've definitely time travelled, and you will have stories to tell your friends back home. You did get a dose of chorenn poisoning. That's why you were sick. Once I get you back home, the effects will resolve in a day or two," or perhaps more like a fortnight, the Doctor thought but didn't say.

Shaw was impatient to return to his own time stream, but the Doctor made a critical detour to his workshop on the lower level to try to repair the damaged device. Upon inspection, it looked likely that the field coils were overloaded and one or more of them had burned out. In retrospect, the Doctor realized he should have checked that before using this particular vortex manipulator, as he had been forced to charge it from enemy blaster fire the last time he'd used it. It was a clever trick, and, at the time, his only option to escape a fatal outcome, but clearly it compromised the device.

While he lacked the parts to make a full replacement of the damaged components, he hoped that cleaning and tightening the field coils would true things up sufficiently to minimize the leak. If that failed to address the issue, the Doctor would have to find another mode of travel if he expected to live long enough to repair the corrupt timeline, if this attempt didn't resolve things.

That done, the Doctor returned to the console room, where he had instructed Shaw to wait and not touch anything.

"Can we go now?"

Shaw still looked pale and unwell. The Doctor tried not to feel too guilty.

"Yes. And you must promise to withdraw from the race straight away. Cancel all your speaking engagements and notify your staff. It's the only way to repair the timeline."

"Yes, of course, I will. Do you think I'm an idiot?"

The Doctor embraced Shaw tightly again. Shaw squinched his eyes shut, obviously not looking forward to the journey. The Doctor smiled a little as he pressed the execute button.

From the journal of Brigadier Alistair Lethenbridge-Stewart

12 November, 1971, UNIT Headquarters, London

Well, our coverage of the first world peace conference almost ended in disaster, thanks to the Doctor. Well, that's a bit harsh, but I doubt the Master, another of his race, would be as interested in taking over Earth if the Doctor hadn't claimed it as home these last several years.

Even worse, our thunderbolt missile got hijacked by the Master and pointed right at the peace conference. The Doctor managed to foil it in time, destroyed the thunderbolt in the process. I have loads of paperwork to fill out about that and will surely end up in front of a military tribunal to explain why it was necessary.

As useful as the Doctor often is, I look forward to the day when he is no longer confined to Earth so we can have a break from him. I often wonder whether we would have so many strange occurrences if he were elsewhere.

On another note, little Kate turns eight tomorrow. I'm glad to be home for it this time. Want to help Doris as much as I can. I've been away too long.

Earth, Royal London Hospital

18:00, 27 December 2025

In her bed on the lower level basement ward Kate dreamed.

She stalked angrily through the woods. Kate knew the Doctor followed behind at a discrete distance. He arrived from London with her father the night before. While she'd been glad to see them, her father was uncommunicative through the evening meal and ignored friendly prodding from her Mum and the Doctor to eat. Finally, he excused himself from the table, claiming tiredness, and retreated to the master bedroom.

At thirteen, Kate could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times her father joined them at the summer cottage in Southampton. She felt like she barely knew him. So, she'd been excited when they had word that he and the Doctor were making the drive. Kate tried not to take it personally when he didn't seem happy to see her.

But then this morning when she sneaked up on him where he worked at the stove making eggs to give him a good morning hug, he jumped, sending the spatula flying across the kitchen. Egg from the spatula dripped across the floor as it made its journey, finally landing under the kitchen table.

Then, he'd yelled at her.

"Damn it, Kate, you shouldn't sneak up on people! When are you going to grow up?"

She felt like he'd punched her in the stomach.

"I don't know. Maybe when you start acting like a father."

She stormed out of the kitchen and out of the house.

Kate found herself in the clearing, the remnants of last summer's tree fort overhead.

While she was sure she'd outgrown the old place, she wanted the feeling of safety it's flimsy four walls brought her. She climbed the six wooden slats that served as a ladder and pulled herself up into her aerie.

After about a minute she heard a knocking below and peered down out of the window. The Doctor dropped the stick he'd used to knock on floor of the fort and craned his neck to look up at her.

"Hello there. May I join you?"

Kate almost said no out of spite but changed her mind. The Doctor had nothing to do with the fact that her father was an insufferable git.

"Okay. But be careful. You're pretty old. And I can't carry you back to the house if you get hurt."

"I'll watch my step, then."

He scaled the ladder much more nimbly than anyone his age should be able to manage, and soon sat across from her on the floor of the fort. She glowered at him, both furious and ashamed that he saw her in such a state.

"Why does Dad have to be such an arsehole?"

She studied the old man as he prepared his response. She could tell he was trying to decide how best to answer her question. Ultimately, to her great relief, he opted to treat her like an adult.

"Kate, your father's been under a lot of stress lately. His job – well, he's got to make some very tough decisions, and it's not easy on him. I'm sure he didn't mean to be an arsehole this morning, especially to you. He loves you, you know. More than you can imagine."

While Kate was still hurt, as usual, the Doctor had found a way to help her feel better. A tear slipped out and she wiped it away angrily.

"Why was he so quiet last night? Why did it freak him out when I snuck up and gave him a hug?" The Doctor didn't answer. He gazed back at her with those kind blue eyes of his. His silence got Kate worried.

"What's wrong with him?" The harshness of her own voice scared her. More tears escaped.

The Doctor sighed.

"He had a very bad day yesterday. Some good men under his command died right in front of him. That's hard to live with."

Kate didn't know what to say to that.

"Your Dad has seen things that most people would never imagine. He works very hard to keep the world safe, and it takes a toll on him. Experiences like that can make it hard for a person to open up."

"Is that why he has the nightmares?"

He'd raised the whole house the night before with his screams. It wasn't the first time.

"Yes, I imagine so. What do you think?" Kate considered the question.

"I think so. I know he can't control it. And he's always sorry when he wakes us up."

The wind soughed through the trees. It felt much chillier all of a sudden. It was darker, too. It cast a shadow over the Doctor's face. Perhaps a storm was rolling in.

"Doctor, you work with Dad a lot. You've been in the same situations as he has. Why aren't you like him?"

The Doctor flinched a little, as if surprised by the question. When he met her gaze again Kate was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

"I'm a lot more like him than you might think." He leaned forward and clasped Kates hands. Kate was always surprised by how much cooler the Doctor's hands were, compared to hers.

"Let's go back to the house. I'm sure your father wants to apologize. And when he does, just remember that he's human, just like you, and trying to find his way."

The dream faded. Pain, dizziness and nausea returned. Kate awoke.

Earth, Royal London Hospital

20:00, 27 December 2025

"I am in touch with a group in Madison, Wisconsin."

Jax was giving Kate an update on the amateur radio operation as Kate took a slow tour of the ward. This was her second walk of the day using crutches. While she didn't feel up to it, she made herself do it to build on the success of her first brief outing the day before.

"That's progress. What have you learned from them?"

Jax winced and adjusted her arm in the sling. "According to my contact in Madison, the casualties were devastating, but the aftermath has been almost as bad. Lots of vigilante justice. People running around shooting each other. Skirmishes over food and water. It sounds like chaos."

"All those guns. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Is any of the government system intact?"

"A bit, but communication is patchy. Washington DC and Virginia were obliterated, of course. There are rumors that the vice president and her husband were on holiday in Florida and are still alive, but they're just that, according to my source – rumors. The Governor of Wisconsin is alive, as well as the mayor of Madison and several other officials. They're working to get organized, but conditions are primitive, at best."

"I don't remember much of my American geography, but I know that Wisconsin is in the upper Midwest."

"My source says the majority of the missile attacks were on the East and West coasts. They had no impacts in Wisconsin, but the fallout's been severe. They're only barely managing, just like us."

"So we can't expect help from America." They reached the end of the hallway and turned around. Kate's head swam a little. Jax steadied her until she felt better. They resumed their stroll back to Kate's bed, moving more slowly for Kate's benefit. Her arms were fatigued from using the crutches.

"Anything else?"

"My Madison contact is in touch with a group in Mexico, and he says they're in better shape. He gave me their call sign. I will give them a try tomorrow afternoon our time, which will be morning, their time."

They reached the row of curtained cubicles that included Kate's bed. She made a point of looking in on the patients they passed as they moved down the aisle. Most were sleeping or not in good enough shape to know Kate was there, but she spoke to them anyway, urging them to hang on and focus on getting better.

She sank back into the pillow gratefully. Jax covered her with the sheet and blanket. Before Kate fell asleep, she asked the question she'd been holding back because she already knew the answer.

"Any word from the Doctor?"

"No. Sorry, Kate."

"Let me know…"

"Of course. If he shows up, we'll bring him straight to you."

Kate descended into dreams. Unlike the memories from the past that had been manifesting themselves of late, this time she dreamed of the Doctor. Not the Doctor of her childhood, but the new version that had shown up two weeks ago. In the dream, he was trying to get back to her but couldn't. Kate sensed that he was heading into danger and tried to warn him, but when she tried to call to him, she found she had no voice.

In the dream, he was moving from place to place trying to fix things, but there was a looming presence following him. He didn't seem to be aware of the presence, or how it drew continuously closer to him. Kate had the sense that soon this presence would catch up to the Doctor and torture or kill him, or worse still, turn him into something evil.

The dream faded, then twisted and changed, as dreams do. This time it was her recurring nightmare. The zombie dream. Like all the other times, Kate heard a noise, and rose to follow it. She heard a struggle and a scream that got cut off. She ran to the source of the noise and found a woman dead on the floor, her throat torn out. A wraith-like form knelt over the corpse. Kate drew in breath sharply when she recognized the dead woman was Jax. The creature turned at the noise. It was the Doctor, only he was a zombie. His eyes stared blankly at her, with no recognition. His mouth was ringed in blood. His features curled into a snarl and he hissed at her.

She woke up screaming.

Tuesday, 2 February 2016, Durham, New Hampshire, 06:45

"You!"

The Doctor felt himself hauled to his feet by two very strong hands. When his eyes focused, he was staring directly into the inscrutable brown eyes of Fred, the senator's personal bodyguard and driver. The smell of his aftershave was overwhelming.

"Fred, put him down!" Shaw sat down shakily on the desk chair. Fred maintained his hold on the Doctor's shirtfront. The Doctor drew in a strained breath, trying not to let the aftershave cause another vomiting attack.

Fred studied Shaw carefully.

"I came down to get you and you didn't answer the door. I got the concierge to open it, and you were gone. I knew there was something off about you, 'Doctor Smith'."

"Please. The senator is fine, and I can explain." The bodyguard finally relaxed his grip. The Doctor stepped away, straightening his clothes.

"Somehow I doubt that."