A/N: I have absolutely nothing to say, so just carry on!

Windows in Time

"Let's go," the Wolf growled and stalked off.

Their argument forgotten, John quickly tagged after her. "Where exactly are we going?"

"To find out what else those droids have been up to."

"Droids?" John asked, wanting clarification.

"Has to be more than one. Too much work for one robot to maintain. We can assume at least one person was chopped into pieces, and also the link to Reinette. Now, if only I could figure out why they want her..." the Wolf trailed off as a clopping sound came from behind them.

John stilled, not quite wanting to turn around if another killer robot was coming after him with a spinning saw. But when the Wolf merely looked confused by what was in front of her, John spun around. "Is – is that a horse?" he finally asked after momentarily staring.

The horse was bridled and saddled, appearing as though it was ready to be ridden and had just gone out for a stroll.

It's not coming.

"That would appear to be a horse," the Wolf confirmed. "Maybe if we keep going it will go away."

"Or get chopped into little pieces by a robot," John muttered sarcastically.

Still not coming.

"Let's just – go," the Wolf suggested. They moved on, with the horse following dutifully behind them. After nearly ten minutes of wandering around empty halls with the never ending clip-clop behind them, the Wolf groaned and turned to confront the horse. It halted and nudged at her chest with its nose. "Would you stop following me?" she complained, backing away from it. "I'm not your mother!" John snorted, covering a laugh, and she turned her glare on him. "Shut up, Johnny." He attempted to sober himself, eventually succeeding. The Wolf just huffed in annoyance and moved on.

They walked on for a bit, the horse faithfully plodding along behind them. After a while, the Wolf sighed. "Just an ordinary day, isn't it John? Become the imaginary friends of a future French aristocrat, pick a fight with a clockwork man, meet a horse," she trailed off. The animal whuffed back.

"Speaking of, how did the horse get on the spaceship?" John wondered.

"John, how did pre-revolutionary France get on a spaceship?" the Wolf asked exasperatedly. "Get a little perspective. Oh, look at that." She stopped to take a look through another time window, overlooking an extensive garden that they could clearly see Reinette touring through with a companion. A horse and rider trotted around nearby. "Guess this is where you came from, eh, horsey?" she murmured to the horse. She tapped the window experimentally, and it easily swung open. The Wolf stepped through, but stopped John with a hand to his chest when he tried to follow her.

"Why can't I come?" he complained.

The Wolf rolled her eyes. "Because we're not going to risk history anymore by letting Reinette see you again for as long as we can avoid it," she said firmly before letting the time window close behind her. John growled and spun around, but turned back when he heard the Wolf again.

He found her peeking back into the ship. "You. Do not move. Stay here with Arthur."

John gave her a quizzical look. "Arthur?"

"Good name for a horse."

"What happened to the horse 'Isn't coming'?" John asked.

Now it was the Wolf's turn to look confused. "When did I say that?"

"Like ten - " John shook his head. "You know what? Never mind. Just go. Do your thing."

The Wolf nodded. "You. Stay," she said again, pointing at the ground in a stay put motion.

John just rolled his eyes back at her. As soon as the Wolf had turned her back and set out once more, John continued down the hall they'd been walking down before. "Come on, Arthur," he called over his shoulder. "Might as well see what else we can find." The horse whinnied softly in reply to his voice. "Provided it's not more dissected humans," John muttered as he wandered off.

The Wolf watched Reinette wander around the gardens with her female friend. From what she could make out from the conversation, Reinette was still young – had yet to even meet the king, let alone had time to become his mistress. Suddenly a peacock called from behind the Wolf, causing Reinette to turn. The Wolf quickly hid behind a stone urn on the wall. When her friend called Reinette's attention again, the Wolf peeked around the stones and listened as Reinette and the other girl discussed the upcoming Yew Tree ball, where Reinette was to finally be introduced to the king.

Satisfied with her findings, the Wolf snuck back through the time window and onto the spaceship. Looking around, she groaned when John was nowhere to be seen. "Every time," she muttered. "It's rule one! Don't wander off. I tell him, I do," she complained. "Rule one. There could be anything on this ship, including a white horse all saddled and ready to go and killer clock men and – anything else." Sighing in frustration, the Wolf stalked off to find her errant companion before he got himself into trouble yet again.

"Maybe it wasn't a real heart," John tried to lie to himself as he wandered up and down random halls. "Of course it was a real heart," he scoffed. "How dumb do I think I am?" He passed by a window and stopped when he saw a gilded room through the glass. "France again," he murmured. "It's always France."

John watched through what he thought might be a mirror as a spiffily dressed man entered with what looked like two servants. "Well, look at him," John told Arthur. "Isn't he all important?"

"The King of France," the Wolf said over his shoulder, making John start.

"God, Wolf. Don't sneak up on a man like that. Like to give me a heart attack. How did it go, whatever you did?" he asked once he'd recovered.

"Fine. See these?" the Wolf answered, pointing at the window. "They're all over the place. I saw them on every deck. Gateways to history. But not just any old history." Reinette entered the room and curtseyed to the King. "Hers," the Wolf specified. "Time windows deliberately arranged along the life of one particular woman. A spaceship from the fifty-first century stalking a woman from the eighteenth that snogged you. Why?" she wondered.

John rolled his eyes. "I don't think the snogging bit was so important to mention," he protested. "But maybe they think she's special, somehow?"

"Undoubtedly. They scanned her brain for a reason."

John and the Wolf watched Reinette fuss with her clothes for a few minutes, looking nervous. "So she's got plans on being King Louis' mistress," he murmured.

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

"Madame de Pompadour," John repeated. "The Queen must have loved her," he said sarcastically.

"Oh, she did," the Wolf corrected. "They get on very well."

John's eyebrows flicked up in surprise. "The King's wife and the King's girlfriend?"

The Wolf nodded. "France," she said rather nostalgically. "It's a different planet."

John looked back through the mirror just in time to see Reinette turn to face a woman standing in a corner with her back to the room. "How long have you been standing there?" Reinette demanded, her voice muffled by the glass. "Show yourself!" The figure slowly turned, revealing itself to be a female clockwork android, again in fancy dress.

The Wolf grabbed another fire extinguisher that was hung on the wall and entered the room through the rotating mirror. "Hello Reinette," she said cheerfully.

"Long time no see," John added as the Wolf sprayed the robot down with the icy substance.

"Fireplace man!" Reinette exclaimed, staring at John. "And woman," she tacked on as an afterthought.

"Glad I make such an impression," the Wolf muttered to herself inaudibly, making sure John couldn't hear her. She threw the extinguisher to John as the android began to creak.

"What's it doing?" John asked.

"Switching back on," the Wolf answered quickly. "Melting the ice."

"And then what?"

"Then it kills everyone in the room," she said blithely. "Focuses the mind, doesn't it? Who are you?" she asked the robot. It remained silent. "Identify yourself," she ordered. When it still refused to speak, the Wolf spoke over her shoulder to Reinette. "Order it to answer me."

Reinette shook her head. "Why should it listen to me?"

The Wolf shrugged. "I don't know. It did when you were a child. Let's see if you've still got it."

The young woman stared at the Wolf for a long moment before seeming to make a decision. "Answer her question. Answer any and all questions put to you," she commanded the clockwork woman.

"I am Repair Droid Seven," the robot replied, speaking for the first time.

"What happened to the ship, then?" the Wolf asked. "There was a lot of damage."

"Ion storm. Eighty-two percent systems failure," the droid answered.

"That ship hasn't been moved in over a year," she pointed out. "What's taking you so long?"

"We did not have the parts," it said vaguely.

John huffed out an annoyed breath. "Like any lazy mechanic. It always comes down to parts."

"What's happened to the crew? Where are they?" the Wolf went on.

"We did not have the parts," the droid merely repeated.

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

"We did not have the parts."

"Fifty people don't just disappear. Where – oh," the Wolf paused, realization dawning on her. "You didn't have the parts, so you used the crew."

"The crew?" John asked before he, too, figured it out. "The heart. And the eye." A feeling of dread made him sick to his stomach.

"It was doing what it was programmed to," the Wolf said. "Repairing the ship any way it could, with whatever it could find. No one told it the crew weren't on the menu."

"Someone cooking," John remembered. "Flesh plus heat. Barbeque." He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

The Wolf nodded before addressing the robot once more. "But what are you doing here?" she asked it. "You've opened up time widows. That takes colossal energy. Why come here? You could have gone to you repair yard. Instead, you come to eighteenth century France? Why?"

"One more part is required," it informed them.

"Then why haven't you taken it?" the Wolf inquired, confused.

"She is incomplete."

The Wolf shot a look at Reinette, who appeared frightened. "What, so, that's the plan, then. Just keep opening up more and more time windows, scanning her brain, checking to see if she's done yet."

"Why her?" John jumped in. "You've got all of history to choose from. Why specifically her?"

"We are the same," the droid answered.

Reinette, who had been silent throughout the conversation, broke in. "We are not the same. We are in no sense the same," she denied vehemently, her voice trembling.

"We are the same," it insisted.

"Get out of here," Reinette spat. "Get out of here this instant!"

"Reinette, no," the Wolf began, but it was too late. The droid teleported away in a flash. "It's back on the ship. John, take Arthur. Get after it," she instructed quickly. "Follow it. Don't approach it, just watch what it does."

John went to do as he was told, but stopped to say something. "You know the TARDIS will never let you bring a horse on board, right?" he asked, trying to keep a straight face.

The Wolf rolled her eyes and gave him a light shove. "She let me keep you," she teased. "Now go! Go! Go!" She closed the mirror door behind him, effectively cutting off his reply. John just chuckled and moved down the hall with a whistle to Arthur, who eagerly followed.

Grinning slightly, the Wolf turned back to face her bigger problem. Serious again, the Wolf cautiously approached Reinette, who still looked frightened. "Reinette, you're going to have to trust me," she said quietly. "I need to find out what they're looking for." The Wolf raised her hands and placed them near the girl's head, not quite touching. "There's only one way I can do that. It won't hurt a bit," she reassured the young woman.

Reinette hesitated, but eventually gave a small nod. The Wolf gently placed her fingers in the appropriate places, and tiptoed into Reinette's memory. The aristocrat gasped softly. "My imaginary friend, you are inside my mind," she said in wonder.

"Oh dear, Reinette," the Wolf said regretfully. "You've had some cowboys in here."

"You are in my memories. You walk among them."

"If there's anything you don't want me to see," the Wolf warned, "just imagine a door and close it. I won't look." The Wolf noticed that several doors immediately popped up, blocking sights of the King and – John, the Wolf realized a bit jealously, but she shoved the feeling aside, refusing to acknowledge its existence.

"To walk among the memories of another living soul. Do you ever get used to this?" Reinette inquired.

The Wolf grit her teeth. "I don't make a habit of it."

"How can you resist?" the younger woman asked, sounding sincere.

"I don't like the feeling of taking advantage. What age are you?" the Wolf asked suddenly.

Reinette gave a small laugh. "So impertinent a question so early in the acquaintance," she jested.

The Wolf shook her head. "Not my question. Theirs," she informed Reinette. "You're twenty-three and for some reason, that means you're not old enough." Reinette gasped. "Sorry," the Wolf apologized, "you might find old memories reawakening. Side effect."

"Such a lonely childhood," Reinette murmured.

"It'll pass," the Wolf reassured her quietly. "Stay with me."

"Wolf, so lonely. So very, very alone," the young woman said mournfully.

"What do you mean, alone?" the Wolf asked quizzically. "You've never been alone in your life. And since when did you start calling me Wolf?"

"Such a lost, lonely little girl," Reinette said, compassion filling her voice. "Lonely then, but now, a golden light shines through. He takes away some of that loneliness. You may be my guardian angel, but he is most certainly yours."

The Wolf immediately broke their mental link. "How did you do that?" she whispered, startled.

Reinette smiled softly. "A door, once opened, can be stepped through in either direction. The Wolf. The Bad Wolf. It's more than just a secret, isn't it?"

"What did you see?" the Wolf asked, eyes wide and frightened.

Reinette's smile turned sad. "That no matter how a wolf howls, a storm cannot be stopped."

Cold washed over the Wolf, chilling her to the bone. "I have to go," she said hurriedly, turning and sprinting for the ship.

John woke with a start, unable to move anything except his head. What happened? Looking down, he realized that his hands, legs, and midsection were all strapped down to a metal table, and several droids were huddled in the room. They appeared to be inspecting him. They had also brought the TARDIS with them – it sat in the opposite corner. Arthur was nowhere to be seen. John frantically searched the room, looking for the Wolf.

She's coming.

It would be helpful if she came sooner, rather than later, John told himself.

"You are compatible," a droid told him.

"Well that's just brilliant," he said sarcastically. "I'm so pleased that my body is perfectly suited for dissection, but you see, I rather think I had other plans for the day, other than being chopped up and stuck all over your stupid spaceship. You just wait until you meet my friend. She's gonna kick your sorry butts so hard you'll kiss the moons. Maybe not literally," he babbled on, "but hard enough. They don't call her the –"

A burst of singing interrupted him, and John watched, astounded, as the Wolf bounced in, holding a goblet containing a dark, purple liquid, with her jacket hanging off one shoulder and her a hair a disheveled mess.

"Well, if it isn't the big Bad Kitten," John drawled, staring at her in shock.

The Wolf rolled her eyes. "You're one to talk – Oncoming Drizzle," she shot back.

"Excuse me?" John asked, head cocked in confusion. What does that even mean? "What've you been doing? Where have you been?"

"Well, among other things, I have been imbibing highly fermented grape juice with large amounts of ethanol in it," the Wolf said cheerfully. "But do you know, I think I like banana daiquiris better. I doubt the French have never even seen a banana before, how weird is that?" she asked, still extraordinarily happy sounding. John couldn't think of anything to say, but it didn't matter, as the Wolf had already turned to the androids. "Oh ho, ho, ho, brilliant. It's you. You're my favorite, you are," she told the droid that they had first met in a young Reinette's bedroom. "You are the best! Do you know why?" she asked it. It remained silent. "Because you're so thick. You're Mister Thick Thick Thickity Thick Face from Thicktown, Thickania. And so's your dad," the Wolf added after a pause.

John just kept staring, wide eyed, at the Wolf's drunken shenanigans. She looked over at him. "Do you know what they were scanning Reinette's brain for?" she asked him. "Her milometer. They want to know how old she is. Know why? Because this ship is thirty-seven years old," the Wolf continued without waiting for him to answer, "and they think that when Reinette is thirty-seven, when she's complete, then her brain will be compatible. So, that's what your missing, isn't it, hmm?" she asked the group of robots. "Command circuit. Your computer. Your ship needs a brain. And for some reason, God knows what, only the brain of Madame de Pompadour will do."

"The brain is compatible," the droid that seemed to be the leader informed the Wolf.

"Compatible?" she scoffed. "If you believe that, you probably believe this is a glass of wine." The Wolf removed the android's mask and poured the contents of the goblet onto its head. All the clockwork immediately seized up. "Mulitgrain anti-oil," she said proudly. "If it moves, it doesn't." She turned to John. "Right, that's enough lying about, don't you think? Time we got the rest of the ship turned off."

"Are you drunk?" John asked incredulously. "Did you seriously get drunk while I was potentially in mortal peril?"

"Please," the Wolf groaned. "First, no, I am not drunk. It takes a lot more than some fifty-first century wine to get me intoxicated, and that wasn't even wine, as I thought I made clear. Second, you wouldn't have been in mortal peril if you just listened to me and stayed put like I told you to."

It was John's turn to groan in annoyance. "As if you ever stop wandering," he told her, getting to his feet. "Are the robots safe now?" he asked.

"Yeah. Safe. Safe and thick, way I like them," the Wolf answered distractedly. "Okay. All the time windows are controlled from here. I need to close them all down. Zeus plugs. Where are my Zeus plugs?" she wondered, patting her clothes down. "I had them a minute ago. I was using them as hair decorations..."

"Forgetting those for the moment," John interrupted, "why didn't they just open a time window to when she was thirty-seven?"

"With the amount of damage to these circuits, they did well to hit the right century," the Wolf answered, still digging around. "Trial and error after that. The windows aren't closing," she muttered, flipping the switches back and forth when nothing happened. "Why won't they close?"

A bell rang, drawing their attention. "What's that?" John asked.

The Wolf took a look at a screen. "I don't know. Incoming message?"

"From who?"

"Report from the field," she realized. "One of them must still be out there with Reinette. That's why I can't close the windows. There's an override."

Another odd noise caused the pair to turn back around. The first droid whirred back into life, expelling the anti-oil from its system through its finger.

"Well, that was a bit clever," the Wolf sighed. Out of the corner of his eye, John saw the android lever switch on again. The Wolf saw it too. "Right. Many things about this are not good," she admitted. "Message from one of your little friends? Anything interesting?" she asked the lead robot.

"She is complete," it replied. "It begins." All the androids teleported out in a flash of light.

"What now?" John asked.

"One of them must have found the right time window," the Wolf said grimly. "Now it's time to send in the troops. And this time, they're bringing back her head."