"Ace? Not a bad moniker. Short, easy to remember. You must be a whiz at poker."

Ace smiled lightly. "Not really." Ace watched Katie as she walked around the motorcycle, examining it, commenting as she did.

"Reminds me of one of the light bikes from the original TRON, right down to the dark blue color. Well, the ones in the movie were a weird glowy blue, but basically they're the same bike. Except for this thing." Katie crouched down in front of the handlebars and looked curiously at the yellow colored thing between them. It was clunky and aerodynamic at the same time, with several buttons and a small screen.

"What do you do, watch movies while you're chasing down bad guys?"

Ace grinned. "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."

Katie looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. "You just jumped from a pillar of air and blew up a rather large ship with a cylinder of nitroglycerine. I think I can handle whatever you may have to say."

"It's a time hopper. I patrol a section of time on this planet, and this helps me to do it."

"Only time? Hope you don't mind me saying so, but you look a little human to be here."

"So do you."

Katie acknowledged the comment with a tilt of her head as Ace continued. "It also goes through space, though only to two separate locations, here and Earth. I have a set time for Earth, so I don't go jumping through time over there."

"So you act as a vigilante for this planet while Earth struggles on?"

"It has enough people watching it. This planet has no one."

Katie gave Ace a look, though her words didn't match her expression. "I'm not sure how you can stand it, having only two planets to go too. I'd probably lose it after the first few visits. More fun going everywhere and every when."

"Are you from the time agency?"

"The who?"

"Obviously not. How do you get around then?"

"In a big blue box."

Something in Ace's eyes flickered, then she laughed. "You remind me of a friend I once had. You would have liked him."

"Oh yeah!" Katie stood up, her expression one of sudden recollection. "I should probably introduce you to the guy that brought me here. Actually, I technically drove him here, but he's teaching me how to fly the ship, so he brought me here. It's complicated." Katie peered past Ace's shoulder and shouted, "Yo, Doc! Stop hanging with the beetles and meet the lady who solved the problem you couldn't!" Katie looked back to Ace. "The Doctor has this thing against force. I personally don't see what's wrong with it when used correctly, but…" Katie's voice trailed off as she noticed Ace wasn't looking at her.

Ace had gotten off her bike and was now standing to face the Doctor. The Doctor was in his usual pose, leaning slightly to one side, hands in his trouser pockets. He studied Ace as she looked at him, as though unsure about something. Katie walked to where she could see both of their faces.

"Ace, this is my friend the Doctor. Doctor, this is Ace."

The Doctor smiled, but it was a sad smile. "Hello Dorothy. Last time I saw you, we were fighting robotic ants in Egypt."

"You know each other?" Katie asked.

"I don't know," Ace said, still watching the Doctor, addressing her next words to him. "Did you undergo that process you told me off, ah, regeneration?"

"Three times since we last met. You still look the same. And still using explosives, I thought I told you to stop that."

"Yeah, well, drug runners don't always respond to your methods, Professor."

"Drug runners? I thought they were Twirks."

"They are, but the market for drugs is bigger right now, so they turned to that instead. I've been tracking them down through time, over the course of about 70 linear years. "

"Okay, time out!"

Katie stepped in between Ace and the Doctor, her hands crossed in a 'T' shape. "Back up about thirty seconds." Pointing between the two of them, Katie tried to clarify. "I just met her, but you know her. She knows you, but its been awhile. You called her Dorothy, so that must be her name. She called you Professor, either making that a name you used to have but changed, or it's a nickname. You did something called regeneration that makes you look different, so she didn't recognize you. The poacher race isn't really a poacher race because they're running drugs. She blows things up, and you're okay with that, but when I want to send something up in a cloud of smoke, you flip out." Katie glanced between Ace and the Doctor. "Did I get everything?"

The Doctor scratched his chin and nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Okay. Good. I just wanted to be sure." Stepping backwards, Katie made a sweeping gesture. "Please, continue. I've learned more about this loon in the past 30 seconds then I have in two months."

Ace dipped her head and smiled. "Yeah, the Professor is like that."

"How'd you meet?"

"Fast food joint on an ice world."

Katie made a snirking sound. "That's even better than mine."

Ace tilted her head. "How did you meet?"

"I took a shot at him and he flew me to a hospital."

Ace smiled in response. The Doctor had a look on his face that spoke of serious déjà vu, though whether it was from seeing an old friend or because he had had companions meet before, Katie didn't know. She didn't really care though; she was getting a perverse pleasure from seeing him so out of his element. The Doctor wasn't much of a touchy-feely person.

"Tell me, is the TARDIS still shaped like a phone box?"

"Oh yah! Teaching me to fly her now, just started today. Was she always blue?"

"Yes. Most of the time. It was pink once."

"PINK?"

The Doctor stepped forward, a kind of horror in his eyes that most people get when their baby pictures are shown to their friends. "I don't think Kathryn needs to hear that one."

"Quiet Doctor, I want to hear this." Turning her attention back to Ace, Katie said, "Please, continue. I didn't know she could be any other color."

"It wasn't optional. We had landed on a world where it was illegal to be sad, and the local police felt the blue color was too depressing, so they painted it pink."

"Her."

Ace looked quizzically at Katie. "Her?"

"TARDIS is a her, not an it."

Ace's smile had a very slight condescending look to it this time. "Of course. It's been about twenty years since I saw the Professor last, so it must have slipped my mind. So, he's been teaching you to fly her."

"Only because I almost blew a hole in space time trying it on my own. I got where I was going, but I ended up in a tree."

"Really. He hadn't gotten around to teaching me that part yet. I was still working on getting into Prydon."

"Is that a planet?"

Ace looked at the Doctor. "You haven't told her about Prydon?"

The Doctor swallowed, as though the name brought back hard memories. "Prydon Academy doesn't exist anymore, Ace. It's gone."

"Gone? How-" Ace was interrupted by a ringing sound. She pulled a cell phone-like device off her belt and answered it.

"Ace." There was a brief pause, then Ace closed the phone. She grinned at the Doctor.

"We'll have to chat later, Professor. Seems like you brought the classics with you today. I just got a call, this planet, about 20 years back. Silver men seem to be causing problems. Care to take a look?"

The Doctor smiled. "Depends. Do you have gold on you?"

In response, Ace pulled out an automatic. Firing it at a tree, the bullet burst into a glittery shower that reminded Katie of pixie dust. She looked back at Ace, who was putting the gun back in its holster.

"Answer the question?"

The Doctor grinned. "Good. Give me the coordinates and I'll see you there."

"Nothing doing. Hop on.," Ace said as she mounted her cycle. "You too, Kate," she said almost as an afterthought.

Katie glared at Ace, but neither she nor the Doctor noticed. Katie's first opinion of Ace was rapidly dropping. Still, she went with the Doctor, and the Doctor was on the motorcycle. Katie got on as well.

Ace punched a few buttons on the time hopper, and a pillar of air similar to the one before opened up. Ace revved the engine and put her helmet back on, clicking down the visor.

"Just like old times!" she shouted, driving through the pillar.

*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*