The first rays of dawn sparkled on the sea as Jasmine and the Doctor stood on a rocky outcrop just a few feet above the foaming waves, carrying three buckets between them. They had retrieved four Klavites, dazed but unhurt, from the broken remains of their xenosuits, and one from the crashed flying saucer, and put them in water in time to save their lives. The one they had left by the shore during the night made six.

"It's better than they deserve," said Jasmine, peering down at the contents of the bucket she held. "Murderous little creatures."

The Doctor laid his two buckets down on the stone and glanced over at her.

"You're all right with it? It was your guardian they killed."

She winced painfully at the memory but shrugged the thought away.

"What else could we do?" A half forgotten memory from the chaos of the night's events returned to her. "When you told that one I'd tear its arms off if it didn't help us. You know I never could have done that, don't you?"

The Doctor frowned reproachfully.

"Jasmine, if I thought you were capable of ripping the limbs off a defenceless, sentient living creature, I doubt I'd have been hanging around all these years."

She smiled in a melancholy way, and poured the contents of her bucket into the ocean. Watched the Klavites disappear into the blackish green depths of their new home. The Doctor did the same with the first of his, then the second.

"Ignorant primitive!"

They both drew back, startled, at the sight of one of the Klavites clinging on to the bucket handle with its tiny, monkey-like hands, its spindly arms stretching out under the stress of its own weight and its beady little yellow eyes glaring at them in defiance.

"You think you've won?" it hissed, gills heaving in the dry air. "You are nothing to us. Nothing! If it takes years, we will find a way back to our ship, we will repair the damage you have done, and then we will hunt you down like the animals you are!"

The Doctor gripped it about the body in one hand and disengaged it from its handholds.

"You'll find that rather difficult," he told it. "Didn't want to spook the natives by leaving a flying saucer lying around, so I told Jasmine how to invert the gravity well. Very dangerous things, those. Should be banned. By now it'll have sucked itself into oblivion." The only reply was a stuttering gasp of absolute impotent fury. He shook his head. "Now on your way. Say hello to the sharks for me."

He threw the alien away, and it vanished with a splash into the sea.

It had been a long night. They made a slow journey back up to the clifftops and to the rubble which was all that remained of the mansion Jasmine had once called home. The Doctor headed straight for the strange rectangular blue box which was the only manmade object that remained intact.

"He's really gone," Jasmine reflected, standing lost amongst the ruins. "I still can't believe it. He's always been around. A lot of the time I wished he wasn't."

The Doctor turned.

"Did he have family?" he asked. He didn't seem that interested, just making a perfunctory effort to be polite.

"No. No, in fact I think the house comes to me."

There was a moment's silence while they both took a look at the devastation around them.

"Um, well," she went on. "I think he had a lot of money and such as well."

He nodded understanding.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

The Doctor spread his hands out in front of him, palms down, and watched in seeming fascination the fresh young skin he saw there.

"Well," he said. "It seems my retirement is over. Sitting watching the sea, shuffling from one day to the next, complaining about my aches and pains, seemed a decent enough life at the time, but this..." He tilted his head back and gazed up at the pale blue of the morning sky. "This is like waking up from a dull dream. It's like trading monochrome for colour. Everything I can see and sense is intensifed a hundred times, and I suddenly remember all the things I used to love about life, that I haven't done for all these years. I have the whole universe of time and space to explore, and as long as I've lived I've still only seen a tiny fraction of it." He dropped his eyes back to Jasmine. "I've been stuck on this planet for far too long. I'm leaving. Right now."

With that, he walked the rest of the way to the blue box, pushed open the door, and vanished inside.

Jasmine stood there alone in her ruined, filthy dress, perfectly lost for an idea as to what she should do now. After a few seconds the Doctor poked his head back around the door.

"Are you coming?"

She glanced around at the emptiness that surrounded her.

"Yes."

She trotted over to him, and he stood aside to let her squeeze past him into the Tardis, then pushed the door shut with a clunk. Moments later there was an unearthly wheezing, groaning sound and the rising sun saw nothing but the ruins of an old house lying unattended on an empty clifftop.

END