23rd of March, 2027

Grindon, The United Kingdom, Earth

In a corner shop at both Gerrard Road and Gartland Road, a cashier was doing work keeping the tills in order, serving a customer who had in his hands a bottle of pop and a small box of flapjack pieces.

"That will be £2.20, please." The cashier said as the customer pulled out a £5 note. The change was given to the customer and the cashier said "There you go. Thank you."

"An' thank you in return." the customer replied before leaving.

There seemed to be nobody around, so she talked to her coworker.

"Slow day today, Sameen." she said.

"Well, Jessica," Sameen replied, "Tuesdays aren't really that active of a time."

"I know. I mean, slower than usual. What could be possibly happening that would have people not coming here."

"I mean, we are probably on one of those days where everyone's got what they need. We rarely get these sort of days."

"True. Still though, I do wish that something, anything, will happen to break the monotony a bit."

"Well, life's not always exciting, is it?"

Meanwhile, on the top a hill, the TARDIS materialised next to a black bench. The Doctor and Ibn Khaldun both left the TARDIS. "Ah, England!" the Doctor said after breathing in the open air, "Here we can see how much more civil the world has become!"

"Impressive." Khaldun replied, "This is England? The building here are nowhere near as magnificent as in Cairo, but this city looks well-kempt."

"This is no city, but three villages."

"Well I'll be damned. What happened here?"

"Plenty of technological advancement. That's what happened. If you think this village is spectacular, then I should show you London sometime. I guess we're just here now." The Doctor noticed a man with a bottle of pop in one hand sit down on a black bench further down the hill and ran to him. "Excuse me, sir. Do you know where this is?"

"This is Grindon." the man said, "There's a nice shop nearby."

"Which way?"

"If you go down to that cross-section, go to your left."

"Thanks."

The Doctor and Khaldun got down the hill, and as they were moving to the direction they were told to go, Khaldun became curious. "Doctor, how far in the future are we?" he asked, "There seems to be a lot of things that are different from my time."

"Let's see." the Doctor began, "We are in the date of the 23rd of March, 2027, you came from the 16th of May, 1385, so if I calculate the difference in days between your time and this time, we should be precisely 641 years, 10 months, and 8 days forward in the future. If we are to use that same exact timespan by starting from the birth of Christ, Constans II has just become the new Roman Emperor."

"Amazing! I've only been alive for a fraction of the time you've just described. Wait, how old are you?"

"Khaldun, it's rude to ask a woman her age."

"A woman who travels through time and space in a box that would make Euclid cry?"

"Fair enough. Let's see... carry the one, account for the amount of time I was in a prison for a few years, remember the vigils I once took, and that would make my age just a tiny bit under six billion."

"I'm sorry. What?"

"Again, most of those years were spent in a prison for a few billion years, but that's still my age."

"Still, how can someone live as long as you have?"

"It's complicated. A story for another time."

They got to the corner shop at both Gerrard Road and Gartland Road. "This is a shop in the 21st century, Khaldun." the Doctor said, "Here, there's more choice on what to buy than in your time. And before you ask about whether I can pay or not..." The Doctor reached into her satchel and pulled out a wallet containing British money. "...I've been on this planet many a time. Let's go get a drink."

The duo entered the shop, and in particular went towards the alcoholic drinks, where the Doctor was looking for a specific kind of drink: mead. "Huh." she said, disappointed at the lack of mead, "I guess a part of England that has cultural ties to the Vikings can't really stock the shelves with Viking beverages." It was then that she went to the Jessica, who was alone behind the counter while Sameen was taking a break. "Excuse me. Do you have anything similar to mead in this store. It doesn't have to be alcoholic."

"Um, yeah." Jessica replied, "There's a few bottles of Dr. Pepper at the end of that refrigeration unit. It's the closest we have in terms of taste."

"Thanks."

While the duo were at the refrigeration unit, Jessica went to check on Sameen. At said refrigeration unit, Khaldun asked "How can this area feel so cold while this building feels so warm?"

"Because humans learn about refrigeration long after your time." the Doctor answered, "Humans have done plenty of things, actually: harnessed electricity, invented indoor heating, improved medicine, captured Constantinople, and others."

"I'm sorry, Constantinople? That Constantinople? Who did it?"

"You know of the Ottomans?"

"Oh yes. The Turks who took over most of Anatolia, right?"

"Correct. They're the ones who take the city in the end, with the aid of cannons."

"Them? They're good, but Constantinople's walls are big."

"So were the cannons they used, especially one in particular. Pulled in by sixty oxen, able to launch cannonballs that were six-hundred pounds in weight, and put holes into the walls as deep as a mile. And yet the fall of the Romans was caused by a guard leaving a door ajar."

"And when does this happen, exactly?"

"A few decades after your time."

"So something so momentous as the end of the Romans is something I'll never be able to witness."

"Unless you're with someone with a time machine."

"Fair point."

"Now," the Doctor took a couple bottles of Dr. Pepper from the shelf. "Let's get these taken to the counte-"

It was then that they both heard a high-pitched scream from the storage room. The Doctor quickly put the pop back onto the shelf.

"Fasaeidan." she said, "We need to investigate what's gone on."

What produced the scream was Jessica finding Sameen's body, lifeless and covered in a blue substance with crystals protruding from it. The Doctor and Khaldun rushed in afterwards. Khaldun was taken aback by the sight of the body, while the Doctor was barely phased by it: this wasn't the first dead human she encountered. Far from it. "Stand back." she said as she took a small mechanical rod out of her satchel: her trusty sonic screwdriver, "I'll find what caused this." She used the screwdriver, it shining a purple light over the body, and read the results. "Oh dear. This woman was asphyxiated by this layer." The Doctor squatted at the corpse, broke off a piece of the crystal, and put that bit in her mouth. "Isomalt. What monster could produce enough of this to suffocate somebody?"

Jessica looked on in horror before turning her head towards the Doctor and pulling her away. "Get away!" she said.

"Why'd you do that?" the Doctor said.

"You ate something off of her."

"No, I ate a piece of the isomalt crystals that were on that layer on the corpse, not a piece of the corpse itself."

"Her name was Sameen!"

"Then I'm sorry that Sameen's dead. If I knew this would happen, I would stop it. But now, we must find the monster and stop it. I'm the only one here who can make sure that nobody else in this village dies. You can join me and avenge your friend or run back home. Which option will you choose?"

Jessica was silent for a bit. "I'll join you."

"Then we have little time to waste. Let's save this place."

The trio walked into the storage room. The creature couldn't have moved very far from here. Jessica has been here many time before, so spotted something different about it. "The sweets are missing." she said.

"Missing sweets?" the Doctor replied, "Why go for them instead of more substantial food? Unless..." The Doctor noticed the blue trail left behind by the monster and ran off to follow it. Khaldun and Jessica caught up to the Doctor, where she saw a humanoid move towards the nearby wall. "Hey!" the Doctor yelled. The humanoid turned around, showing its face. It looked like it was formed from nothing but confectionery, with a blue head that looked like covered liquorice, with two swirling black eyes and a moustache that looked like the same isomalt as what killed Sameen.

"How impolite of you to yell at me." It said, "However, that tone of yours showed me what you are, Doctor."

After a bit of silence, the Doctor uttered a few words. "Nice to see you again, Kandyman."