I'm sorry it's been so long, but I am back with this series. I hope you enjoy what I've got in store for you.

As usual, I don't own Doctor Who. Please let me know what you think.

X

Eye of Harmony.

"Why do some pieces of technology always have to be so annoying to fix?" The Doctor grumbled to herself.

The Doctor had many laboratories within the labyrinth of her grand ship. Her original incarnation had been the more scientifically minded incarnation of her two prior lives, but her second self had not been much of a slouch either. Some of the labs were for different purposes, some were devoted to physics or chemistry. In her current life, the Doctor had formed her own laboratories and turned them to the cause of getting the TARDIS operational again, following the Time Lord's trial. She had even repurposed some of the ideas and inventions of her previous selves, after all, she was them and they were her.

At the moment the Doctor was focusing on the chameleon circuit of the TARDIS. She had put off working on the stupid thing on and off over the centuries of her exile although she had made a few attempts in the past to make some effort in fixing it; it wasn't as if she was going anywhere, so she had decided to make the effort, but she had become so frustrated lately with her last escape attempt failing. Well, attempts - her attempt to use the Sun-Glider had not ended well; on a return trip from a test flight, someone had shot her down, but she had teleported off of the ship, and she had arrived in Melbourne; she did not want to even go into how much of a nightmare it had been to get UNIT off of her back. They'd asked the familiar, boring questions.

How did you get there?

What were you doing?

The Doctor had heard them all before, and after a while, they became dull to even listen to, but right now she was too busy focusing on the chameleon circuit. Why hadn't she paid much attention to the classes at the Prydonian academy back on Gallifrey for things like this? If she had paid attention to so many things, she might've made some success.

Okay, granted, she had been an arrogant, conceited fool back in the days when she had resembled the old buzzard, but she had been a jerk back then and believed that she knew everything and didn't stand for the idea of being wrong, but that didn't excuse the arrogant belief the TARDIS didn't need maintenance.

"Come on," the Doctor whispered as she examined the circuit, glancing at the manual in front of her.

The Doctor hated the TARDIS manual since it didn't really explain much about how to repair some of the systems; for a book devoted to the care and maintenance of the TARDIS, it was quite useless, and she had found a number of flaws in the manual over the years.

But this time the Doctor had decided to simply swallow her pride and just see what the stupid thing said about the repair work. She had been at it for two hours already, and she was beginning to see it was a lost cause. The problem was the circuit was not perfectly tested and tried before it had been installed in the TARDIS. It was no wonder the stupid thing was faulty.

With a sigh, the Doctor stopped her work and leaned back in her chair. She was not giving up. No, she wanted her TARDIS to be a fully operational model, but she had started to see as she had begun working on the chameleon circuit it was a lost cause where that thing was concerned.

The Doctor closed her eyes and rubbed them gently, thinking for a moment about what she could do.

"Build a new chameleon circuit from scratch? Would that take forever or would it be easy?" The Doctor asked herself, rubbing her chin thoughtfully as she considered the matter.

As the Doctor saw it, she had four options.

Scenario 1; she could continue to work on the chameleon circuit, and use the mathematical and dimensional data she had collected from one of those old fashioned police boxes she had found scattered around the country not long before they were decommissioned and use that to data to repair the circuit. She had it in front of her, but the circuit was rubbish.

Scenario 2; she could build a new circuit out of the contemporary technology around her and from the working pieces within her old circuit, but she wondered if some unforeseen fault was hidden in those other components; at the same time some human technology didn't come close to creating a proper chameleon circuit; the most the Doctor could do normally would be to create an invisibility device.

Scenario 3; she could abandon the work and just forget the circuit even existed, but she had become so bored over the years at looking at the silly blue box form of her TARDIS for so long that she would eventually go back to the dead-end of working on the circuit anyway, so that idea was kicked out before it even formed in her mind.

Scenario 4; she could create something that could change the TARDIS outer shell, like perhaps a highly advanced and sophisticated perception filter that made it look different.

The Doctor was about to pick up the circuit when…..the TARDIS took off.

Leaping out of her seat, the Doctor rushed out of the laboratory, running for the console room. When she got there she found the time rotor rising and falling within its glass tube, and she got to the controls. She quickly checked the navigational instruments but she didn't find a clue there about what was happening, nothing at all. She checked the fault locators. Everything was functioning the way it should; the time engines, the dematerialisation circuit….

The dematerialisation circuit?

When she had been exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, they had removed her knowledge of time travel lore and disabled the circuit, scrambling its code and core circuitry. She had been trying to repair the circuit so many times she was amazed the stupid thing was even still operable. But if it was working now and the TARDIS had taken off - one glance at the navigational systems had made it clear she was in the vortex but she didn't know where she was going.

That meant….

The soft sound of shoes in the otherwise silent console room behind her made the Doctor stiffen and turn slowly around. A woman stood behind her and the Doctor recognised that she was a Time Lady at once. She was tallish compared to the Doctor, with long blonde hair and an aristocratic face. She wore her in a jewel entwined braid, and she was dressed like a princess with a flowing blue dress. She had a slight figure, making her look very young compared to her actual physical age.

The two women stared at one another, regarding each other with totally different emotions; the woman was gazing back at the Doctor with a haughty expression, but it was marred by the uncertainty in her gaze. She was so out of her comfort zone it was nearly painful, but she tried to compensate with Time Lord arrogance that was so ingrained even the Doctor felt it from time to time.

The Doctor just gazed back at the human with an icy coldness that wasn't even feigned, and the aura from her was truly unwelcoming and the woman had to increase her haughty demeanour in order to control her own nervousness.

Finally, the woman broke the silence. "You're not what I expected," she commented, trying to make her voice as light as possible, but her haughty demeanour had truly put the Doctor off. She was just too dense to see it.

The Doctor didn't reply. She didn't frown. She did not smile. She just stood there, her inhospitable hostility so dark the Time Lady felt more nervous and she couldn't maintain her airs and graces.

"Aren't you going to say something to me, Doctor?"

The Doctor's hostility increased. She didn't like the way this young intruder who had appeared in her TARDIS had dared to call her by her title even if it was her name.

The woman swallowed, a bead of sweat rolling down her face. "I heard you didn't normally not speak."

The Doctor closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and in a tone of utter boredom that was deliberately feigned even the most socially dense and awkward Time Lord would have noticed. "Arcalian," she opened her eyes and saw how uneasy the woman now looked, something that the Doctor smirked viciously at, a smirk that made the woman shive. "You are 310 years old, still in your first incarnation. You are a Newblood, which means you will likely have greater control over your regenerations, but you are frightened you will either have Abridgement syndrome, or regenerative dissonance."

The woman gaped at her. "How did you know all of that about me?"

"I touched your mind," the Doctor explained, "but I did it so quickly you didn't notice."

A chime came from the woman's right hand. She lifted it up and tapped an exquisitely crafted diamond ring. The jewel was glowing. The woman tapped it a second time. A communication signal. Although nervous especially after having been described so accurately by a renegade Time Lord who was currently under sentence of exile, the woman maintained some professionalism as she said, "Activate Holo-Link."

The Doctor watched nonchalantly as a figure shimmered into existence through a hologram. The holographic communication reminded her of how she had helped George Lucas with his ideas for the Star Wars universe; the hologram here was being broadcasted in real-time from Gallifrey, tuned in through her TARDIS's very communication systems, and yet the hologram still flickered, a hologram of a man wearing a long black robe. The Doctor didn't recognise him, in any incarnation, but she was more than aware of who this was. The robes made it clear he was a member of the CIA. That was not good. The Celestial Intervention Agency were not a pleasant organisation, and they were human conspiracy theorist's dream come true. They were a dirty trick squad hiding in the shadows, doing what the rest of the Time Lords refused to do.

Interfere.

The Doctor had worked for the CIA a lot on and off over the centuries since that mess with the War Games (and she had suspicions they had even forced her original incarnations when she'd been free to do their dirty work), and she had learnt to be on her guard around them.

"Doctor," the figure greeted.

"Co-ordinator….Someone," the Doctor returned without bothering to add anything else. She knew this man was a member of the Celestial Intervention Agency. It was best if they kept this as brief as possible. She pointed at the console, making sure he took in the rise and the fall of the time rotor, "I take it you're responsible for taking control of my TARDIS?"

"You assume correctly, Doctor. You're needed for an important mission."

The Doctor glared at him. "Look, if you want or need my help, release my TARDIS to my control after giving me the basics of the mission. You've got to stop taking remote control of the TARDIS before you cause irreparable damage."

The Time Lord sent her a pitying look. "You really are naive, aren't you Doctor? Do you really imagine we wouldn't have created a form of remote control for our TARDISes that wasn't safe for the ships and the operators?"

"Not at all. I know Stattenheim remote controls work, but I still don't like it regardless. And besides, you know how much of an advantage any particularly unpleasant renegade would have working with something like that; that's likely why you haven't released the technology as standard. What do you want? Where were we going? And who is this?" The Doctor jabbed a carless finger rudely in the direction of the strange Time Lady.

"You are needed for an important mission, Doctor. You are going….here," the Time Lord's holographic form lifted the holographic arm and a second hologram appeared. "This is the Timeline Institute. It's a scientific research unit based in the 24th century, dedicated to devising and understanding a means and a method of time travel."

The Doctor took a step nearer. The Time Lord's hologram was large enough to give her the details of the space station. She was familiar with the 24th century; the design was not dissimilar to many others she had seen in the past; it was a set of three large wheels with a central hub spinning slowly in order to create artificial gravity, the wheels themselves were made up of small segments joined to the spokes that were habitat areas and laboratories.

But there was something she noticed.

Ignoring the two Time Lords, the Doctor reached out for the hologram.

"Is she meant to do that? How can she do that?" The Time Lady demanded in surprise when the hologram in the coordinator's hand grew larger, revealing the space station was really close to a binary pulsar.

"I just did, just accept it," the Doctor jabbed her chin at the image. "What are they doing that's attracting your attention?"

"They are creating a number of alternate timelines and alternate universes. The Institute has harnessed the energy of the pulsars for the job, but they have found a way of harnessing alternative universes," the Time Lord said grimly. "The institute has found a way of sealing the timelines and universes away from the main universe, so they don't endanger our own, but at the same time a large number of the timelines are unstable and they disturb the Web of Time."

The Doctor understood the problem right away. "The universe is a finite size and a new timeline would take up space, and consume the energies of the universe, any more and the problem grows worse. Why haven't you done anything beforehand about this? Why come to me?"

"We needed time to see what they were doing and the methods of time travel they were using, and we selected you because of your experience and knowledge, Doctor," the Time Lord explained.

The Doctor wasn't fooled for a moment. There was another reason why the Time Lords were sending her on this mission, but whether or not she would find out, she didn't know. But it was likely the Time Lords were simply sending her on this mission for plausible deniability. It was one of their favoured methods. How could the Time Lords be linked to something like the shutting down of a dangerous series of experiments into time travel if nobody could prove it was them?

"Why is she coming with me?" The Doctor jabbed a finger in the direction of the Time Lady, who looked affronted by the Doctor's attitude. She didn't care.

"We felt it would be within your interest to take an assistant, Doctor."

The Doctor didn't believe that for a moment, but there were benefits to this mission, the only downside she could see was the Time Lady. There was no doubt in her mind the Time Lords had put her here with her as a watchdog to make sure she didn't do anything stupid or try to escape. They needn't worry; she had learnt her lessons long ago.

"Alright, if you'll give me the space/time coordinates and control of my TARDIS, I'll carry out the mission," she said.

"No need," the coordinator folded his arms, and the TARDIS console hummed into life and the time rotor rose and fell within its tube.

The Doctor glared so fiercely and coldly at the Time Lords that the younger Time Lady, who lacked her elder's self-control, swallowed out of fear. The coordinator was unbothered.

"I wish you would stop doing that," the Doctor snapped.

"Good luck, Doctor," the Time Lord replied, and he was about to leave, but the Doctor stopped him.

"Wait."

"What is it now?" It was bizarre seeing irritation flicker over the hologram, but it was there while the Coordinator waited with thin patience.

"I want something in return; I want a new chameleon circuit for my TARDIS. Every time I try to repair the one in the TARDIS, it fails. It's a bad circuit," she went on, not liking to admit her failures to the Time Lords, but she had become tired of trying to fix the stupid thing that she'd had enough.

She wasn't about to give up on her hopes to have a functional TARDIS for the sake of her pride.

"Very well, Doctor, you shall receive a chameleon circuit for your TARDIS." The hologram disappeared.

Walking back to the console, deliberately turning her back to the Time Lady to prove to her she was not welcome, the Doctor checked the systems. The old girl seemed to be working fine, but the Doctor knew she would need to check everything now to make sure the control the Time Lords and Gallifrey had on her was not going to cause damage.

Out of the corner of her eye, the Doctor noticed the nervous Time Lady without sympathy. "What's your name?" She snapped.

The Time Lady jumped. She had lost some of her confidence when she had arrived in the renegade's TT capsule, and the last few moments where she had been ignored had not helped. "Megumi," she replied.

The Doctor turned, surprised by the name. "You chose a name from Earth?"

"That's right," Megumi smiled, proud of her chosen name.

It was a tradition on Gallifrey for Time Lords to choose their titles or their names to show the universe who they were, although they would likely spend their time on Gallifrey.

"Why did you choose that?"

"It seemed to call to me," Megumi answered as if that explained it, and it did for the Doctor.

The Doctor nodded and turned back to the console. They didn't have much longer to wait before they could start this mission. "I know the feeling, but that doesn't explain much to me about why the Time Lords chose you to be here."

Megumi smiled, but she was so unsure about being here that it was painful to watch.

Not giving any sign she cared if Megumi even replied or not, the Doctor went to a cupboard and pulled out a thick black bracelet.

"Is that a vortex manipulator? Aren't you supposed to be exiled?" Megumi asked.

"It's not a manipulator, it's a teleportation bracelet. We don't know what is on that station, and since there are alternative universes being created there, we need to get around quickly without any problems and without getting caught."

The time rotor sound mixed with the sound of the TARDIS materialisation. Hurrying to the console, the Doctor quickly took a look at the readings before she activated the scanner. One look at the screen and with a satisfied nod and a pleased hum, she opened the doors. Followed closely by Megumi outside, they found themselves in a cylindrical corridor linked to a large chamber. It looked fairly primitive, considering this place was supposed to be running dangerous time travel experiments. They could feel a strange rotating motion.

"We must be in one of the wheel compartments," Megumi said thoughtfully.

"We are. I checked the TARDIS instruments before we left," the Doctor looked at the computer bulging in the teleport bracelet. "The time experiments are several floors down. But I think we won't have a problem evading security."

"What's happened to your TARDIS?" Megumi's sudden exclamation had the Doctor turn around in surprise. The TARDIS was standing against the wall, but instead of the blue police box she had been seeing for centuries, her TARDIS had transformed into a tall cylinder with a door.

"I need a new chameleon circuit," the Doctor replied.

"But we can't leave it like this," Megumi snapped, staring at her in horror. "I mean, aren't these ships meant to be camouflaged?"

"They are. But the chameleon circuit in my TARDIS was frozen a long time ago. I have tried to repair it several times, but it hasn't worked. That's why I asked the Time Lord to provide a new one. Now are we going or not?" The Doctor turned and walked off, deciding the matter wasn't worth it. With nothing better to do, Megumi followed.

"You're not what I expected," the Time Lady commented after a minute.

The Doctor sighed. She had been deliberately keeping herself from teleporting down to the lab and destroying the equipment and wrecking everything there was because she was hoping to keep her eyes open for the guards, she was watching them now. But she didn't need some stupid little Time Lady lecturing her about what she should be like. "What are you babbling on about now?" She snapped.

"You. You're a renegade, a member of an old Gallifreyan family, and yet considering how you turned out at the Academy, I guess it's not surprising you turned renegade," the jumped up sycophant said.

The Doctor froze at the judgemental tone in the Time Lady's voice. She had always been proud of how she had left Gallifrey, and to this day one of her longest-held regrets was she had summoned the Time Lords in to deal with that War Games mess so long ago. But despite that, she was proud of what she had become, the person she had grown to be ever since her impulsive escape from Gallifrey after spending so long trapped there. But what she really didn't like was how this little Time Lady spoke about her as if she was not even there.

"If you want to psychoanalyse a renegade, don't do me. There's another Time Lord you can do. The Master. He would certainly put you in your place and make you feel small by the time he was finished," the Doctor turned to her suddenly. "Hold on, you know how I was back at the Academy, how?"

Megumi squirmed nervously, realising she had said too much. "I-I asked to learn more about you, so I took a look at your academy records."

"Listen, little girl," the Doctor spat, feeling fury rising within her at how this stranger had taken one look at her records from Gallifrey and assumed they were the end all, be all where she was concerned. "There is more to me than what is found in my records. I had many reasons for leaving Gallifrey. I had every right. I never belonged there, and neither do half of the renegades out there. Look, whatever your name is-.'

"Megumi." The annoyed tone in the unwanted little helpers' voice gave the Doctor a petty little point. Score.

"Okay, look….Time Lady, I can't be bothered remembering the name of; I don't care. I really don't care about Gallifrey. I stopped caring long before my exile, and even longer before I even took my TARDIS. I left to see the universe. I interfered. I got in too deep, and I was exiled for my troubles. They forced me to regenerate, making me lose one of my lives. I have done more in my lifetimes than you have ever imagined, and once we're done, you can return home as if you'd never met me, and I can be free of you," the Doctor grabbed Megumi abruptly and she tapped the teleport actuator.

Both Time Lords felt the warped effect of the wormhole as it teleported them through space before they materialised back in a large laboratory filled with equipment the pair of them recognised. The Doctor had checked the interface she'd made with the link to her teleportation bracelet to the station's security computer network, so she wasn't surprised when she saw she and Megumi were not alone. There were two scientists there, both of whom were working with a large computer like an upturned beer barrel. The Doctor signalled to Megumi to be silent and not move, and then she walked over to the scientists, and she grabbed them both on the backs of their necks.

"What did you do?" Megumi demanded as she walked over while the Doctor closed and sealed the laboratory doors.

"Venusian aikido. A specialised martial art that took me years to master until it became second nature. I needed to knock them out so they wouldn't ask stupid questions or try to stop us," the Doctor was kneeling by the bodies and examining them. Megumi watched as she took out a small cylinder from an upper pocket on their tunics.

"What's that?"

"Computer code interface. It contains the scientists' codes and passwords to let them into the computer network. This will be a help. I don't care what the Time Lords say. I want to know more about what they're doing here so I can do more to stop the experiments," the Doctor walked to one of the computer terminals and after a minute of examining it, plugged the cylinder into a socket. The device instantly broke through the firewalls and password protected files, giving the Time Lords access to the network. Thanks to the code interface, the Doctor found it easy to hack into the rest of the network.

"You make it look so easy," Megumi commented with a shake of her head. "I've never understood alien technology."

The Doctor laughed. "Oh, so you're one of those Time Lords who think anything beyond Gallifrey is only worth learning from Temporal Observations. Why did they send you with me?"

Megumi was surprised by the question. "That's the second time you've asked me that," she observed.

"And this is the second time you haven't answered. Why? Why send an inexperienced Time Lady who isn't interested in the rest of the universe and truly doesn't care? I saw the way you looked frightened when you stepped out of the TARDIS. You're out of your league," the Doctor knew she was hurting the Time Lady's feelings, but after hearing her arrogant, icy voice, she found she genuinely did not care. Information scrawling on the screen made her smile. "I'm in."

Megumi stepped forward, but she said nothing; the Doctor's harsh rebuke had hit her where it hurt.

"The Time Lords have it wrong. The institute knows of the Time Vortex, but at the same time they are looking into experimenting with many aspects of time travel," the Doctor went on.

"What do you mean?" Megumi stepped closer to the terminal.

"They want to know if some of the classic theories of time travel are true. They're trying to create alternate universes and parallel timelines in the hope they can learn more about time travel. Is that why you're with me?" The Doctor asked suddenly, glancing at Megumi with a short turn of the head, wanting the truth. "Because you are good at temporal mechanics? Because you would know the perfect place to cause the most damage to this institute?"

Megumi didn't see any point in hiding the truth. "Yes," she admitted. "My academy specialities were transdimensional engineering and temporary mechanics. The CIA gave me the assignment because of my own experiments that delve into understanding alternate timelines."

"And you didn't think to tell me since it might be important?"

"I was told not to tell you, Doctor. When did you figure it out?"

"I saw the look of recognition on your face as you studied the technology and when you glanced at those readouts over there. But did the Time Lords the institute aren't really opening portals to travel into these realities?"

"No," Megumi admitted with a sigh, but her mind was more focused on what the institute was up to and so she tried to summarise it into words. "All they detected was the Bocca waves. So the institute is looking into time travel, but they are looking to see the limits of the research using the power of the pulsars to supply the energy for their experiments? They're creating small changes to history and studying the changes to see what's possible and what isn't; it's not that different from what the Time Lords did before more advanced TARDIS models were pioneered."

"No, it's not," the Doctor said softly as she took a look at the files. A lot of it was redacted or much of the content was considered top secret, but the Doctor luckily had a boot in the door so she was soon hacking into the institute computers. "They've gathered a lot of information here. They have been creating alternate timelines held away from the vortex by the Time Lords, but they can tell that they can change history and what the effects are."

"We have to stop them."

"I know. I've even got an idea of what do to get them to stop, but I've just found something worrying. According to the database, the institute has been running so many experiments they've published many of their findings. That means even when we destroy this place, and we have to, in the future more dangerous time travelling marauders will use their findings for their own ends," the Doctor explained grimly as she read off the screen.

"Can't we stop it?" Megumi asked.

"No, it's too late. This place is a scientific institution; there are too many articles in scientific and holo journals in this time zone. The Time Lords could never stop them all. Our resources are focused on stopping time meddling on larger scales, and truthfully it's not so bad; in this era, vortex manipulation is not widely known, so it will take centuries before these findings can be put to the test. That gives the Time Lords plenty of time to prepare, but they can monitor this era for anything similar while we take care of the more dangerous side."

"That's not good enough."

"It's the best I can do. Now shut up and let me look around for a way of blowing this place up… Ooh," the Doctor's eyes suddenly widened when she saw something. "That's interesting. This place has conducted a number of experiments, allowing them to time scoop several iterations of the same sun in different timelines, depositing them into a new universe and then freezing them in place as they explode into supernovas before their collapse into black holes. They've harnessed the energy output of the different timelines at the same time. They've also found a way of using it as a kind of indicator to help them tell the difference between parallel universes and timelines with our own reality."

"Interesting," Megumi said in an exasperated manner that indicated she was not enjoying being lectured and wanted to get on with the job; the Doctor could appreciate her dedication, her attitude just needed adjustment. "Can I take a look so I can see what they've been up to?"

The Doctor moved aside, remembering this was Megumi's speciality even if she hadn't seen it first-hand. "Of course. Knock yourself out."

"Why would I want to do that?" Megumi asked bewildered.

The Doctor groaned mentally. "It's just a figure of speech."

"A figure of…Oh, one of those stupid human customs, then," Megumi turned dismissively to the screen and her eyes scanned the findings. She was just getting into her stride when an alarm went off. "What's happened? What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything. I was watching you the whole time, and you didn't accidentally trip any security sensor. It could be someone running a cursory or routine security scan, saw the bodies of the scientists and saw us, and sounded a general alarm," the Doctor looked around in apprehension, mentally calculating how long it would take for security to get here, and how they could destroy the facility. "Move over. I need to check something."

Megumi did as she was told and she watched the renegade Time Lady's hands dance over the computer terminal. It was clear even to her that the security people in the institute were trying to block her out, but the Doctor was too fast, and she seemed to anticipate every single move to block her out. Megumi, like all Time Lords, had learnt about computers and computer hacking, but the renegade she was with was really something else, and she wondered to herself just what the Doctor knew.

"I can't do anything from here; I need to get you back to the TARDIS. We're about to leave," the Doctor announced as she stood up, already fiddling with her teleportation bracelet. "Right, I've inputted the coordinates. It will take you back to the TARDIS. I'm going to stay here and keep on working on a way to blow the place up."

Without giving Megumi a chance to argue, the Doctor's hand wrapped the bracelet around Megumi's wrist. Megumi shouted in surprise when the teleportation actuator switched on, and she found herself spiralling through space as it twisted and blurred around her before she found herself back wherein the part of the station the Doctor's TARDIS was in. Megumi bent over double, sickened by the stomach-churning experience and the sound of the alarms was giving her a splitting headache, and she lifted her head…just in time to see the teleportation bracelet vanish.

"Why…why would she send me away like that?" Megumi didn't understand it. With no answer forthcoming and with nothing else for it, Megumi sighed and walked over to the TARDIS before she noticed the keyhole, and she cursed angrily. This old antique was a Type 40, it was one of those TARDISes which lacked the newer security systems. She had trained with newer model TARDISes, so she didn't even know if she could even get this piece of junk working properly.

What in Rassilon's name was that? Megumi jumped in horror at the sound of the change in alarm tones. But the Doctor reappeared with the teleportation bracelet on her wrist.

"You didn't give me your TARDIS key!" Megumi shouted as the Doctor took out the key and slipped it into the lock and they got into the TARDIS. "Why's that?!"

"Shut up for a minute!" The Doctor snapped as she got to the console and flicked a switch before she yanked down the dematerialisation lever. The time rotor roared into life, and the TARDIS left the institute. "I sent you away back to my TARDIS because I knew with the station on full alert, they would triangulate the readings of the teleport, and go to you, but I needed time to overload the reactors and the converter they built to take the output of the pulsars."

"You used me as bait?" Megumi snapped.

"I didn't," the Doctor turned around with a regretful look. "I needed their security confused. They would track the teleport, but they would know you were gone and I was on my own, and I could sabotage the station quicker on my own."

The console beeped and the Doctor turned back, and she scowled. "We're on our way back to Earth."

"What about the station? The institute?"

The Doctor switched on the scanner and gestured at it. Silver and gleaming against the backdrop of space, the station was spinning slowly on its axis before it exploded abruptly in a colossal explosion with a glare so bright the two Time Ladies were forced to throw up their hands to stop themselves from being blinded. The Time Lords were working quickly because Megumi suddenly vanished without a word of farewell, and the Doctor herself didn't even have time to comment or say anything.

"Well, that was rude," she observed.

Tingling in the air out of the corner of her eye made her glance down at the console, and she watched in amazement as she saw a large electronic component appear. The Doctor snatched it up, a smile growing over her face as she examined the new chameleon circuit before she looked at the TARDIS console sadly.

She had lied to Megumi.

She hadn't needed long to set the station on overload. She had done it from the computer terminal as the alarms blared while the silly Time Lady had been nearby, that was why the alarms had gone off in the first place, but the real reason she had sent the girl away was that she had wanted to see if she could steal the alternate universe power source and use it to replace what was in the TARDIS.

The Doctor had been repairing her ship long enough to know that deep within the bowels of the TARDIS was a star that was frozen in the moment of becoming a black hole. The TARDIS was old enough to have records of some of the legends of Gallifrey, and it didn't take her long to figure out that the ancient Time Lords had ripped a star that was on its way to becoming a black hole, and harnessing the alternate timeline where it actually happened. But it was common knowledge on Gallifrey that TARDISes received their power from Gallifrey itself, it was beamed across the universe, through the vortex, and into every single TARDIS in the universe.

And she had the feeling the Time Lords used her connection to this power source to seize control of her TARDIS. Truthfully the Doctor didn't have any objection to receiving her energy from Gallifrey, it gave her TARDIS a point of reference, but she didn't like the way they took control of her ship without thinking of what it could do to the ship.

The Doctor sighed and rubbed her eyes, deciding that it was pointless trying to think of a way she could create a new power source for the TARDIS unless she used temporal rifts, but that had all kinds of problems. A tapped alternate timeline had had some nice possibilities, but she had underestimated the overload, so she didn't have time to find it and steal it.