The Doctor continued to sprint into the TARDIS, where he operated the controls to take him four days in the future. In the meantime, K-9 decided this would be a good time to inform the Doctor of his progress.

"Antidote discovered, Master," K-9 informed him, wagging his tail.

"Good boy, K-9!" the Doctor grinned. "Do we have any?"

"Affirmative, Master."

"Excellent!" the Doctor grinned. "Show me, K-9."

K-9 trundled out of view, tail still wagging, to demonstrate where the medicine was. The Doctor retrieved it from the shelf, and located a nice, sterile syringe. He measured out a dosage exactly and then decided to find Atlanta so he could actually inject her with it. After a little bit of backtracking, the Doctor found where he had left her. Atlanta appeared to be very restless, and tried to jerk her arm away as the Doctor injected it.

"Shh," he tried to tell the unconscious – but moving – girl. "This won't hurt a – well, it might hurt a bit, but it's good for you." He pulled the needle out of her arm triumphantly, walking over to K-9. "I want you to monitor Atlanta's condition," he told the robotic dog. "If it doesn't improve normally, fetch me right away."

"Affirmative, Master."

The Doctor grinned and shuffled out of view. He wouldn't be long. He was just going to blow up the American army...


The Doctor laid the various charges around the concrete building. Due to it being concrete, he had to lay as many as he could find to have a hope of blowing it up. Thankfully, wherever he got the stuff had appeared to have a lot of it, and he felt he had more than enough to at least injure most of the army. Grinning triumphantly, he followed the cords back to the TARDIS. Outside the front of it, there was a box with a handle on it. Pushing the handle down would detonate the whole lot, thereby requiring him to jump back into the TARDIS rather quickly before flying bits of concrete flew towards him.

The Doctor took a final triumphant grin at the concrete building before setting off the charges. Jumping backwards to hide inside the TARDIS, he found he jumped headlong into a girl. He hastily stood up and closed the door, sealing them from the explosion, while a weak Atlanta, too weak to get up off the floor, stared at him nonchalantly.

"What happened?" she asked. "I was... going to die. K-9 was no use. He just told me you'd gone."

The Doctor stared sympathetically at the girl. Was she best off knowing?

"You have nothing to worry about," the Doctor grinned. "K-9 and I found an antidote for the poison they injected. I just blew up the Americans then."

Atlanta nodded hastily and the Doctor operated the dematerialisation control. He then proceeded to offer her a hand to get up with, which Atlanta readily accepted.

"Where are we going?" she asked quietly.

"To your home," the Doctor answered. "The Americans won't bother you again."

Atlanta smiled. "Thank you," she responded. "Will anyone?"

"Oh, undoubtedly," the Doctor answered cheerfully. "But you shouldn't worry about it. Worrying about invasions makes people paranoid, and that's the last thing anyone needs when rebuilding a world."

Atlanta half-smiled. "So I suppose everyone will be quite busy for a few years, then."

"Well, humans tend to assume they're always busy. Me, I just saved several billion lives before lunch. Now, that's busy."

"You have a very funny way with words, Doctor."

"So do you, Atlanta."

"Not as funny as you," Atlanta teased.

"Pfft," the Doctor sighed. "I'm glad I don't have to put up with you and Sarah at once. Imagine all the distractions that would cause."

Atlanta poked her tongue out as the TARDIS materialised. Looking outside, she realised it had landed in the right backyard, and hopefully four days after it left it. Atlanta stared out at the open door at the grass and sunny sky. She loved those warm days in late winter and spring where there wasn't a cloud in sight. Today was one of them.

"Goodbye," Atlanta smiled at the Doctor and K-9 before stepping out of the door. She stepped away and looked with delight at the old plum tree in the corner, which had sprung a lot of white blossoms out of nowhere. She heard a wheezing noise behind her and turned around fast enough to see the very last of the blue box fade away. She sighed contentedly and set about finding a nice chair to relax on outside.


The Doctor, for his part, was grinning like a very triumphant Cheshire Cat. K-9 was as nonchalant as ever.

"I did it, K-9!" the Doctor boasted triumphantly. "Now, let's collect Sarah and take a nice holiday, hm? How does Peladon sound? I'd rather like to see how much of Sarah's lecture Queen Thalira remembered."

The Doctor did not expect to see Atlanta again on his return to 2090s Melbourne.