So, I know I said I wouldn't be doing most episodes that don't have a major change from the original, but Girl In The Fireplace has always been a favorite of mine, and Reinette kind of hijacked the story. Plus there were some character moments I wanted to get in, and a huge plot hole I wanted to address. If it's not your thing, you can skip ahead to Rise of the Cybermen once that's published.

LuciferRedeemed: Nice guess. You're not completely wrong, is all I'll say...That being said, this story will be going on until
about midway through Season 4. Book 2 will cover Barry's adventures as the Flash in Central City.

Within a metallic tomb drifting through the stars, a noise like a thousand elephants trumpeting in pain sprang out of nowhere. It rose and fell in pitch until, with a final thump, the TARDIS fully materialized. Barely a second later, the doors swung open, and two men stumbled out, followed by a billowing cloud of smoke.

"Ach," the Doctor spat. "You okay, Barry?"

His young friend hacked and coughed before entering. "Yeah, I'll live. You?"

"I've had worse."

"'Tis but a flesh wound!" Barry exclaimed, and the Doctor affectionately rolled his eyes as he straightened up and cast a keen glance around.

"Good job you're now a walking cyclone machine," he added, and Barry smiled wryly, remembering how he'd spun his arms at super-speed to produce a current of fresh air.

"Will the TARDIS be okay?"

"Yeah, she's taken worse in her time than a few blaster bolts. We'll just leave her for a few hours, let her heal, and she'll be good as new.

Well, almost."

"Sounds good," Barry nodded, looking around in turn. "So, abandoned spaceship, yeah?"

"Looks like it," the Doctor agreed. "Nothing here. Well, nothing dangerous. Well, not that dangerous. You know what, I'll just have a quick scan. In case there's something dangerous."

Barry sniggered quietly. "So, where and when?"

"Dagmar cluster, two and a half thousand galaxies away from Earth," the Doctor told him. "Fifty-first century."

He frowned at the displays. "Dear me, had some cowboys in here. Got a ton of repair work going on. Now that's odd. Look at that. All the warp engines are going. Full capacity. There's enough power running through this ship to punch a hole in the universe, but we're not moving. So where's all that power going?"

"And where are the crew?" Barry pointed out. "There's gotta be someone doing the repairs, right?"

"Good question. No life readings on board."

"You said fifty-first century, could it be, like, all robots?" he wondered. "I think I read an Asimov story like that."

The Doctor sniffed, and Barry became aware of a familiar scent. "Robots wouldn't barbecue."

He operated the console, opening a door behind them. Inside, they found a paneled wall with an ornate French fireplace, which as the Doctor pointed out, was not exactly the kind of thing you expected to see in a spaceship.

"Maybe it's a French spaceship?" he shrugged, then blinked in surprise when the Doctor started talking to a little girl on the other side of the fireplace, who told them that she was in her bedroom, in Paris, in 1727. Barry grinned and waved at her before they straightened up.

"So how is there a girl's bedroom, in Paris, in a spaceship?" Barry asked. "Is she, like, some kind of VR projection, or a time bubble, or…"

The Doctor grinned at him. "Nice idea! No, remember I said this was operating enough power to punch a hole in the universe? I think we found the hole. Must be a spatio-temporal hyperlink."

"Yeah, okay, but why Paris in 1727? Why not back home to wherever they're from? Or the nearest repair yard, or something? 1727, they haven't even invented steam power yet…"

He trailed off as the Doctor pressed a hidden switch on the wall, which swung him around. Barry leaned forward to examine it, but was nearly run over seconds later when it swung around again, and the Doctor jumped out, followed by a man in French costume. He grabbed an ice gun and blasted the person—which turned out to be a clockwork robot in camouflage—until it stopped moving.

"This thing is gorgeous!" the Doctor exclaimed. "No, seriously, I mean this from the heart, and, by the way, count those, it would be a crime, it would be an act of vandalism to disassemble you." He raised the sonic. "But that won't stop me."

It crossed its arms and teleported away.

"Don't go looking for it!" the Doctor ordered, and Barry rolled his eyes as his friend went back through the fireplace, grabbing another icegun off the wall.

"Like he actually expects me not to wander off."

The ship was, even by the standards of an experienced companion of the Doctor, totally bizarre. A camera had what looked awfully like a human eye built in, and a human heart served as a pump. A cluster of wires were interwoven with veins.

Starting to get a nasty feeling about where the crew went, he thought to himself. And there was that smell of barbecue…

He stopped by a picture window, which showed more of eighteenth-century France. An elaborately-dressed man walked straight up to the window, looking right at Barry, and began straightening his suit as if looking at a mirror.

"Pretty sure I said not to follow me," the Doctor commented as he came up beside him. "King of France there, by the way."

"Oh, here's trouble," Barry nodded. "What've you been up to?"

"This and that," the Time Lord shrugged. "Became the imaginary friend of a future French aristocrat, picked a fight with a clockwork man. Oh, and I met a horse."

"So I see," Barry nodded, petting its head. "What's with all the portals?"

"They're all over the place, on every deck. Gateways to history. But not just any old history." A woman entered the room and curtsied to the King.

"Hers. Time windows deliberately arranged along the life of one particular woman. A spaceship from the fifty first century stalking a woman from the eighteenth. Why?"

"Who is she?"

"Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, known to her friends as Reinette. One of the most accomplished women who ever lived."

"So she's planning on being Queen?" Barry asked, folding his arms and enjoying the view.

"No, he's already got a Queen," the Doctor shook his head. "She's got plans of being his mistress."

"Ah."

"I think this is the night they met. The night of the Yew Tree ball. In no time at flat, she'll get herself established as his official mistress, with her own rooms at the palace. Even her own title. Madame de Pompadour."

"Wow. And the Queen was okay with this?"

"Oh, yeah," the Doctor shrugged. "They get on very well."

"Really?"

"France. It's a different planet."

"Literally."

The Doctor looked at him.

"Because we're on a spaceship. Get it?"

The Doctor turned back and ignored him. Barry sighed to himself. On the other side of the mirror, Reinette turned and spoke to a figure in the back of the room.

"How long have you been standing there? Show yourself!"

It was a clockwork android, and even Barry's enhanced reflexes were hard-pressed to catch up as the Doctor grabbed Barry's ice gun and dove through the mirror. He sprayed the robot and threw it back to Barry, who'd come through right behind him.

"Who are you? Identify yourself."

When it didn't answer, he turned to Reinette and told her to make it answer, pointing out that it had done so when she was a child. She drew herself up, and Barry saw the air of authority that must've made her an invaluable member of French high society.

"Answer his question," she ordered. "Answer any and all questions put to you."

The repair droid revealed that the ship had been struck by an ion storm.

"What's happened to the crew?" the Doctor pressed. "Where are they?"

"We did not have the parts," it said blankly. Barry swallowed.

"Doctor…"

"There should have been over fifty people on your ship. Where did they go?"

"Doctor!"

"What?" the Time Lord snapped, half-turning to face him.

"I found a bunch of…of body parts, wired into the ship. D'you think…"

"Ohhh," the Doctor breathed, before turning back to the robot. "You didn't have the parts, so you use the crew. But what are you doing here? You've opened up time windows. That takes colossal energy. Why come here? You could have gone to your repair yard. Instead you come to eighteenth century France? Why?"

"One more part is required," it stated.

"Then why haven't you taken it?"

"She is incomplete."

"What, so, that's the plan, then?" the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrows. "Just keep opening up more and more time windows, scanning her brain, checking to see if she's done yet."

"Why her, though?" Barry asked. "You've got all of history to choose from. What's so special about a random lady from eighteenth-century France? Uh, no offense."

"We are the same," it told them.

"We are not the same!" Reinette snapped. "We are in no sense the same."

"We are the same," it insisted.

"Get out of here. Get out of here this instant!" she ordered, and despite the Doctor's shout of alarm, it was too late—the robot crossed its arms and teleported out.

"It's back on the ship," the Doctor reported grimly. "Barry, take Arthur. Get after it, follow it. Don't approach it, just follow and watch what it does."

"Arthur?" he raised his eyebrows.

"Good name for a horse," the Doctor shrugged.

"You're not keeping the horse," Barry rolled his eyes.

"Go!" the Doctor insisted, and he went.

In the room where they'd first landed the TARDIS, Barry spotted several of the clockwork robots gathering together.

"Report," one ordered, sounding unpleasantly like a Dalek.

"We have not yet located the correct time window," another stated. Barry frowned to himself. Correct? They're looking for one in particular?

"Damage to control circuits is extensive."

"Keep searching. We must locate Madame de Pompadour at age thirty-seven. Only then will her brain be compatible with the ship's computer. Repairs cannot be completed until then. Continue searching. Have all reserve units join in the search. Priority Alpha."

The other robots crossed their arms over their chests in salute, then all of them teleported out.

"Huh," Barry mused. He went to tell the Doctor.

There was no sign of his friend aboard the ship or in the room he'd left the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour, but he did hear a familiar voice declaiming on the health benefits of the banana from down the hall on the other side of the mirror.

"Oh no," Barry sighed. He wandered down and cautiously peeked his head around the corner. The sight of an elaborate ballroom met his eyes, with men and women in fancy dress dancing or standing around, many holding wine glasses and listening to a brown-suited man hold court from atop a chair with a banana daquiri in one hand (did they have banana daquiris in eighteenth-century France?) and a pair of castanets in the other, sunglasses perched rakishly on his forehead and tie serving double duty as a bandana.

"Not only am I an amazing inventor—you're welcome for the daquiris, by the way-but I can also do magic. For example, in just a minute, I'm going to disappear in a flash of lightning."

There was a twitter of polite laughter.

"I said," the Doctor repeated, louder, throwing a side glance at the hallway where Barry waited (he could've sworn that he hadn't made any appreciable noise, especially not over the noise of the party, nor had the Doctor looked his way at all), "I'm going to disappear in a flash of lightning."

Oh, right. Barry shrugged his suit on, raced into the room, did a lap, grabbed the Doctor, and ran out.

"So, uh, should I ask?"

"Never mind. What's happening with the robots?"

Barry filled him in, and the Doctor frowned, absentmindedly putting his tie back where it belonged, sunglasses going in one pocket, castanets in another. He drained his banana daquiri in one gulp and left it on the mantle as they headed back towards the mirror portal.

"Fine. Barry, this is what I need you to do…"

Versailles, 1754

Reinette looked around as a gust of wind blew through the room. She could have sworn that the windows had been closed. Bending, she picked up a small square of yellow paper which, she could've sworn, had not been on the piano a moment before. A rough hand wrote,

Please don't scream.

"What…"

There was another breeze, a crackle of lightning, and a man in a red suit stood before her. It was of a material unfamiliar to her, and had a lightning bolt emblazoned on a white circle on his chest. He pushed back his cowl, revealing a boy perhaps a decade younger than herself.

"Hey," he said. "Sorry, I just…uh, anyway. I'm Barry, Barry Allen. I'm a friend of the Doctor's."

One did not rise as high as she had in the King's court without an excellent ability to judge people. He was young, this one, and had the innocence and awkwardness of youth. For all that, though, he held himself like a soldier, ready for battle. She recognized him, from several years ago and from the Doctor's thoughts. Indeed, she thought that perhaps she knew more of him than he knew of himself. But that was not pertinent at the moment.

"Listen," he said. "I don't have much time. But I need to warn you: They'll be here in five years."

There was no question of who 'they' were.

"Five years?"

"Some time after your 37th birthday. I, uh, we don't know the exact date. But they're coming. Or, from my point of view, it's already happening. Sorry, I don't really do this well, and we don't have a lot of time."

"Then be exact," Reinette ordered him, with all the authority of a King's mistress, "and I will be attentive."

"There's no time!" he insisted, running a hand through his hair.

"There are five years."

"Yeah, for you. I barely have five minutes."

"Then also be concise."

"Right, okay, fine." He began to pace, and just like that, the youthfulness shone through again. "So, there's a, uh, a ship that sails the stars. You with me?"

She nodded.

"Right, so, there are all these, these windows, like doors through time. These, uh, these metal men, they've been searching for you for a while."

"There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book, so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age while I, weary traveller, must always take the slower path."

The young man grinned at her. "He was right about you."

She shook her head. To business. "So, in five years these creatures will return. What can be done?"

He swallowed.

"The Doctor says keep them talking. They're kind of programmed to respond to you now. You won't be able to stop them, but you might be able to delay them a bit 'til he can get there."

She felt her breath catch, and schooled herself ruthlessly.

"He's coming, then?"

"Yeah. He promises."

"But he cannot make his promises in person?"

Her compatriot smiled sadly.

"He'll be there when you need him. That's how it has to be."

"It's the way it's always been," she reflected. "The monsters and the Doctor. It seems you cannot have one without the other. I suspect you know that, better than most."

"Yeah," he said, and they smiled at each other, thinking of childhoods and monsters in the dark and the Doctor coming to save them.

"Those creatures are messing with history, though," he reflected. "None of this was ever supposed to happen to you."

Reinette glared. "Supposed to happen? What does that mean? It happened, child, and I would not have it any other way. One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel."

He inclined his head—not out of deference, simply in acknowledgement of her point. Her opinion of him rose higher.

"You remind me of Kara," he murmured.

"Kara?" she asked, noting the slight blush on his cheeks, the involuntary quirk of his lips, and knew his answer before he spoke.

"My, uh, beloved."

He shook himself, and Reinette smiled.

"Anyway, listen, I have to go. You know how it is. See you in five years!"

Reinette smiled in farewell. "Goodbye, Barry Allen."

He gave her a kind of half-bow, an awkward wave, and in a gust of wind and a swirl of lightning, he was gone.

"You found it, then?" Barry asked as he sped back onto the control deck.

"They knew I was coming," the Doctor snapped, running a hand through his already-messy hair as he worked three controls at once with the other. "They blocked it off."

Barry glanced over at a screen visible on the bulkhead, mind whirring.

"So, they teleported through?"

"Long as the ship and the ballroom are linked, their short range teleports will do the trick," the Doctor nodded.

"TARDIS still repairing itself?"

"Yeah. Gonna be ages before it's ready."

"Can we smash through?"

"Hyperplex this side, plate glass the other. You'd need a truck."

"Right," Barry sighed, but an idea niggled at him. "Or…a smaller object, traveling really fast."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Like…a speedster?"

The Doctor straightened up and glared at him.

"Barry, you do that, there'd be no way back. You would be stuck there, in the past."

Barry nodded solemnly. "You're right. I mean, gee, it's such a pity I don't have, I dunno, a friend with a time machine."

The Doctor blinked, blinked again, and suddenly spun from the controls. He grabbed Barry's forehead and kissed him soundly.

"Yes! Barry Allen, you are a genius! And I don't say that often, because, well, me, but yes, that could work! Here!"

The Doctor slipped a hand inside his suit and threw his sonic to Barry. "Activate that when you're ready, and the TARDIS will be able to home in on it. Like a beacon!"

"Got it." Barry held out his ring-bearing hand, and lightning danced through his eyes.

Versailles, 1759

Two clockwork droids pushed Reinette to her knees, but she looked up at them defiantly.

"You think I fear you, but I do not fear you even now. You are merely the nightmare of my childhood. The monster from under my bed. And if my nightmare can return to plague me, then rest assured, so will yours."

There was a rushing sound, a yell, and then the mirror above the mantelpiece exploded.

A sudden storm of wind and saffron lightning blew through the ballroom, and every one of the clockwork men and women collapsed in a clatter of metal. Once again, Barry Allen stood before her, still clad in his red suit.

"Madame de Pompadour," he said, with a reasonable attempt at a courtly bow. "Doesn't time fly? It's been five years, but I feel like I just saw you."

With a smile, she took Barry's outstretched hand and rose to her feet.

Once Barry had cleaned up the mess (refusing to say what he'd done with the metal men, who had collapsed when the link with his world had been cut), they spent a quiet evening over a glass of wine. Between her experience at court, and his accelerated metabolism, the alcohol was barely noticed.

"…so yeah, there's actually a Michelangelo statue of me in the British Museum," he finished.

"You've lived such a remarkable life," she shook her head.

"Not bad yourself either," Barry toasted her. "Madame de Pompadour. The Doctor called you one of the most accomplished women who ever lived."

She smiled. "Quite a compliment, from him."

"Oh, yeah."

"So, tell me of this Kara of yours," she encouraged, and Barry sighed wistfully.

"We've been, uh, courting, I guess you could say, for a few years now. She was pretty much the only person to believe me about my dad, the other speedster, everything. Except…"

He sighed and gazed, unseeing, out the window.

"I never, I mean, I didn't think it would be permanent, you know? I mean, we have a lot in common, we're good friends, but my heart was always set on Iris. Ever since we were kids. And yeah, I know it's a bit weird I was in love with my foster sister."

"I'm in love with my imaginary friend," she reminded him, and Barry choked on his wine before shooting her a grin.

"Ha. Yeah. But now, I mean, Iris just thinks of me as the boy next door. Time got rewritten, and I got to grow up with my dad. And I wouldn't give that up, not for anything. But…so many of the times we bonded never even happened. The secrets we shared, the things we did together…it's all just gone, like breath in a mirror, and I never even noticed."

"You wonder if you should even continue with Iris," Reinette nodded. "If there's even a chance for you at all."

"Yeah."

She drained her glass, looked at it thoughtfully, and set it aside. "Barry, I cannot tell you what to do. But what I do know is that you cannot wait for love. You must seize your life with both hands, and live it to the full. Do you know of Voltaire?"

"Uh, yeah, the writer guy."

She smiled. "I shall inform him that in two hundred and fifty years he will be known as 'the writer guy.' I'm sure he'll be pleased."

Barry stuttered a denial, and she waved a gentle hand. "I am teasing. But do you know what he said to me, a while back?"

The young man shook his head.

"He said, the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death. Each player must accept the cards life deals him. But once they are in hand, he alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game. You, Barry, must do as your conscience dictates. And now, I have a surprise for you."

"Oh, it's not even my birthday! Wait, actually, what day is it?"

She held out a hand, and he followed her to her bedchamber, where she showed him...

"The fireplace!" Barry exclaimed, so excited he almost forgot that he was alone with a beautiful woman in her bedroom.

"It's not a copy," she told him. "It's the original. I had it moved here and was exact in every detail. I did this many years ago, in the hope that a door once opened, may someday open again. One never quite knows when one needs one's Doctor."

"Yeah," he agreed, and they shared a smile as he moved closer to examine it. "Looks undamaged. So maybe you broke the link with the ship when you moved it, which must've been what saved it. But maybe, if I'm lucky, if I'm really really really really really really lucky…"

He knocked on one part of the mantle, then another and another. The first few were hollow, but the last…

"Ha!"

Barry withdrew the sonic and pointed it at the fireplace. "The Doctor added a telepathic interface recently," he added over his shoulder. "All I have to do is point and think."

There was a whirr and a clunk from deep inside, and he grinned. "Okay! Well, either this is going to work…or it really, really won't."

He jumped onto the revolving platform and grinned at her. "See you in a minute…hopefully."

Sure enough, it worked, and Barry paused just long enough to shout through the fireplace to his friend that he would be right back before he ran off to find the Doctor. They exchanged a quick hug and Barry babbled out an explanation of how he'd gotten through before they hurried back through the fireplace.

Now, it was evening, the candles unlit, and the two men looked around. While he was perfectly well aware that she might have just gone back to the ballroom, Barry's instincts nagged at him.

"Reinette?" the Doctor called as they entered the hallway outside, then nodded to a man Barry recognized as the King of France, with visibly more grey in his hair than the last time he'd seen him. God. How long has it been? "Oh, hello."

"You just missed her," Louis XV told them. "She'll be in Paris by six."

"Ah."

He took a sealed letter from the drawer, seemed to deliberate for a moment, then handed it to the Doctor.

"There she goes," he said, and Barry sucked in his breath as he leaned his forehead against the window. Below, a horse-drawn hearth rattled out through the rain. She had been forty-two years old.

"Why her?" Barry asked once they were back inside the TARDIS, Arthur the horse's reins in his hand.

"We'll probably never know," the Doctor shrugged, not meeting his eyes. He sucked in his breath, scratched his ear. "There was massive damage in the computer memory banks. It probably got confused. The TARDIS can close down the time windows now the droids are gone. Should stop it causing any more trouble."

Barry nodded, and gave his friend and mentor a hug. They swayed together for a while, both remembering people they had loved and lost.

"Right," the Doctor announced, busying himself with the console. "We can drop off Arthur somewhere nice. I know a captain in Cleopatra's guard, he's fond of horses."

"Right," Barry echoed. "I'm going for a few laps around the cricket pitch, then I think I'll have a cup of tea and a snack in the kitchen," he added quietly. "Come find me when you're ready."

"Thanks," the Doctor nodded. Barry turned, shrugged into his suit, and darted off in a rush of wind and lightning. Oh, Reinette…

Outside, the SS Madame de Pompadour spun quietly through space.

Incidentally, Voltaire was friendly with Madame de Pompadour in real life. The Michelangelo statue in the British Museum is a reference to the novel Stone Rose. Or, I guess, in this 'verse, it would be Stone Barry. Reviews are wonderful! See you soon for a marvelous adventure. I'll just say that the alternate universe they visit next episode will NOT be Pete's World, oh no...