A/N: Sorry, sorry, I missed a week whilst I was out of town. Normal service now resumes. Yes, technically these characters never met, but don't you wish they had?

[In the life of the Doctor there are good days, and there are bad days. Sometimes, when he's feeling down, the TARDIS (who has a very long memory), takes over the viewscreen and reminds him of the good days.]

The Console room had changed dramatically from its time as a sumptuous library. the Roundels had returned, as had the white tiled floors, but the room was far from pristine now. Tangles of cables hung from the ceiling and snaked across the floor, piling up and wrapping around the pillars which, like parts of the console, were visibly made of TARDIS coral; the interior design circuits were apparently malfunctioning. Leaning against one of them was a man with close-cropped hair, large ears, and a leather jacket worn over a red shirt.

"Ah well," he said, standing up suddenly and moving to the controls. He spoke with a broad accent that would have been at home in the north of England. (The speaker, personally, doubted he'd ever feel "at home" anywhere ever again.) "That may not have worked out as well as I'd hoped, but it wasn't a total loss." He set to work, efficiently moving the TARDIS into a temporal orbit using just one set of controls.

He paused. "Where to go now, then?"

"Does it really matter, Doctor?" said a voice from behind him. he spun on the spot to find a woman in an extremely old-fashioned purple dress suit leaning against the pillar where he'd been standing minutes before. "I mean, wherever you try to go, you'll inevitably just end up blundering into danger, making a mess of things, and doing something infuriatingly heroic and selfless before vanishing off into the vortex again. That is how it works, isn't it?"

"Who the hell are you?" the Doctor said. "How did you get in here?"

"tsk, tsk, so rude!" the woman said, making an attempt to look offended, which quickly broke into a wicked smile. "I like it. Just look at you! So angry." she moved in uncomfortably close to him and looked him over. "Not sure about those ears, though, are you really going to keep them?" when the Doctor's expression didn't change, she sighed. "You're still no fun, though. I'm Missy. I just decided to...drop in." She put her umbrella over her shoulder, causing her sleeve to slip down, revealing the bulky cuff strapped to her wrist.

The Doctor stared at it. "You used a Vortex manipulator to get into a TARDIS mid-flight!? That's impossible!"

"Oh, impossible is for other people, dear." Missy replied calmly. "Not for Time Lords like us." She laughed at the Doctor's expression; he appeared to have been unexpectedly slapped. "Didn't you notice? You're losing your touch, old man."

"You...You survived?"

"Well…" Missy considered. "I will have. I haven't yet, but I'm going to have. By the way," she added. "Where is that lovely companion of yours? I hate to have her walk in on us and panic, she might hurt herself." Missy's tone implied this would be more of a nuisance than a real problem.

"I don't have a companion," the Doctor growled. "I haven't had one since the War started."

"Well, that is a problem," Missy said. "You tend to get ever so dull when you're alone, all grim and suicidal. I need you alive in the future." she sighed theatrically. "well, I was planning to use the afternoon to do something positively heinous, but I guess it'll have to wait." she located the hat rack in one corner and hung her umbrella neatly off of it.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh, do pay attention," Missy rolled her eyes. "I'm going to help you find a new friend. That's what old friends are for. Now. Have you really not run into anyone suited to getting captured and asking questions that make you look smart? I find that rather hard to believe."

"There was one…" the Doctor said, a little softly. "Her name was Rose. Resourceful, clever, talented…"

"pretty?"

The Doctor scowled. "I didn't notice."

"Ha! Look at you, Tiger! You're actually smitten with one of them! How pathetically romantic of you. So where is she? Don't tell me you let her nobly sacrifice herself for the greater good or some such nonsense; that's your job!"

"I asked her to come with." The Doctor said. "She wasn't interested."

"Have you gone completely soft!?" Missy said in mock astonishment. "You seriously couldn't get one of those primitive monkeys to come with you? I bet you didn't even mention you had a time machine!"

The Doctor blinked. "I didn't ment-You're right, I didn't. It never came up."

"Well, there you go, then!" Missy said, exasperated. "All you need to do is go back to a little after you left and give her a bit more incentive! And if that doesn't work," she put an arm around the Doctor's shoulders, "You let me talk to her woman to woman and I'll soon convince her. I can be very persuasive when I want to be." she winked. "One other thing, clean this place up before you invite her home, it's a mess."

"Circuits are broken, there's only one other available setting," the Doctor said absently, working the controls.

"Anything would be better than this." Missy grabbed her umbrella and fiddles with the controls on her manipulator. "I'll give you some space, and check back to see how it went in a couple of hours. Ta-ta now!" she all but sang, and vanished.

The Doctor hardly seemed to notice. he was deep in thought. "Did I mention it also travels in time?" he murmured, then nodded to himself. "worth a shot."