Four Days, 19 hours.

--

He took her to one of the manifold spare bedrooms that the TARDIS had, and left her to it, before heading back for the console room. Idly, he flicked a switch, and then he turned his gaze to his side.

Samara was there.

"Hello," he said to her. "What's wrong, the room smell bad…?"

Then he noticed her arms; cold, pale. Dead. Her hair was lank over her face. Her dress was tattered. She was holding something.

"You shouldn't be here," he said to the spectre. "I saved you. You're in the bedroom there, you can't be here, can't be dead…"

The ghost held up one of its hands, and then, a soft click alerted the Doctor to the presence of a pocket watch.

Not just any pocket watch – his pocket watch. No hands.

"Why are you…?" he asked, but then she was gone. He blinked. No, this must have been a mere… temporal echo. Yes, temporal echo.

--

Samara remembered him. It had been a year since she had seen him, and she had known that he was going to die. She didn't know why, but she knew he was going to die.

"Doctor?!" she called. She had to talk with him. He was there in a moment – and she could tell he shaken.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I just saw a ghost," he smiled, and it was forced, like her parents smiles often were. "But don't let that worry you, I see weird things all the time…"

"You didn't die," she said, matter of factly.

"Oh," he said. He seemed to have been anticipating this. "Well…"

"And this place… it's not normal," she added. "It's a space ship, like in Star Trek."

The Doctor looked mildly indignant.

"Well, I think my ship is a little more complex than that hunk of junk the Enterprise…" he said.

"Who are you?" she asked him. He stopped for a moment, taken aback by the question.

"I'm the Doctor," he said at last.

"You're not like any other Doctor I've ever met," she said.

"I'm… not human," he managed.

"That's just a description," she told him. "What are you? Who are you?"

He sighed, mildly put out. Most people just stopped at 'Doctor'.

"Come with me," he said. "Little detour."

--

A field, somewhere, he didn't even know where or when – just that it was on Earth.

Samara looked around, and smiled at it. It was idyllic.

"This is Earth," the Doctor said. "Your world. Right now, beneath us, the entire world is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the whole thing is hurtling around the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour. I can feel that, right now."

She wasn't listening to him. Shame, he thought – it was a nice speech. Needed a bit of work. She was singing…

"#Here we go, the world is spinning. When it stops, it's just beginning. Sun comes up, we all laugh. Sun goes down, we all die..."

"Samara," he said, coming up to her, and kneeling down beside her. "Look at this."

He took out his watch. He had a horrible feeling that it was self fulfilling prophecy, but he held it up, and the lid snapped open.

No hands.

"I am a Lord of Time," he said. "My people live outside ticks of the clock. My people are the observers who make sure all things happen as they must. They must never change time. Never. Observe, do not interfere."

She stared at the watch, captivated for a moment. Then she asked the sixty five million dollar question.

"Did you interfere when you saved me?"

He straightened up.

"That's why we're going to my home," he said, leading her back to the TARDIS. "To ratify my interference and its necessity."

"If they don't like your interference," she asked, tentatively, "will I have to go back to the well?"

He looked her in the eyes, and they blazed with righteous purpose.

"I promise you, you will never go back to that well," he said. "Not while I can stop it."

As he said it, he had an image in his mind of the dead girl, the watch in her hand, no hands, like his own, and he shrugged it aside.

They went back in the TARDIS, and there was time for one last question.

"Why is it bigger on the inside?"

"Ah," he replied, as the doors closed. "I'm glad you asked me that.."

--

When the TARDIS arrived in a small secluded corridor – with about thirty capitol guards surrounding it, along with President Romana and her sternest face (leastways, the sternest face the second Romana could pull – the first one was better at that) – the Doctor took Samara out and held her before him, presenting her for all to see.

"You're in a lot of trouble, Doctor," Romana began.

"I'm glad you're here, Romana," the Doctor countered before she could continue. "I hereby announce for the test the candidacy of Samara Morgan," and this he pronounced as if it were one word. "She is of age and is of stern mind and true heart."

Now, this little ceremony went right over Samara's head, but to the Doctor, Romana and every guard, it was an announcement that he wished her to be taken before the Schism, the great maker-or-breaker of Time Lords. The Doctor's reasoning was clouded from all but himself; Samara's power had to be controlled, and if she were trained as a Time Lord, she would be come far more – stable, was the best word.

"Doctor," Romana said, "to submit her candidacy, you'd have to adopt her."

"Who says I won't?" the Doctor snapped at her. "I've been a father before."

"Regenerations ago," Romana said to him.

"Experience counts," he said. Samara looked up at him.

"You want to be my daddy?" she asked.

"Why-ever not?" the Doctor said, lightly, without even looking at her.

"My daddy didn't want to be my daddy," Samara said, slightly shocked.

"His loss," the Doctor said.

"Doctor," Romana snapped. "This is serious. You have altered multiple individuals timelines – extended them by considerable margins. That is major interference."

"If you want to put me on trial, just do it, don't talk me to death," the Doctor sighed.

"I'm not putting you on trial," Romana sighed. "It seems fairly self evident that no matter how may times we put you on trial, it isn't going to change anything. But we are going to put right what you changed."

The Doctor blanched, and even Samara understood that part.

"You're going to put me back in the well…?" she said.

Romana didn't even look at her.

"Romana," the Doctor said, his voice a warning. "I'm warning you. Don't push me."

"You might scare Daleks and despots with that, Doctor," Romana snapped, "but not me."

"Look at her, at least!" the Doctor yelled. "Look at the girl you would condemn to death and eternal suffering!"

Romana risked a glance at the frightened girl, and met her eyes. For a moment, her expression softened. Then it hardened to granite, and she looked back at the Doctor.

"I only see an anomaly to be corrected," she said.

"And you only see a human," the Doctor added.

"Yes – no!" Romana yelled, in denial.

"Don't insult my intelligence," the Doctor snarled. "Like all of us, you've come to believe only Time Lord life matters."

Romana bristled but, crucially, did not deny it.

"Fine," the Doctor smiled. "Samara, when I say run, run."

"You can't escape," Romana warned.

"I know," the Doctor smiled. He glanced around the corridor, then smiled even wider. "Left then right then right."

"What?" Romana snapped. Then the Doctor burst into action, hitting out and sending guards flying everywhere. The only word Samara heard over the din was "RUN!"

She belted down the corridor, the direction, the Doctors eyes had last settled; because she understood.

Left turn, down a corridor.

Right turn – down some stairs.

Another right turn, down a corridor, more like a cave than a building…

Then suddenly, she ran into an old man in long robes with a big, odd shaped collar.

"Don't run, child!" he said. "Now, are you here for the test?"

"Yes," she said instantly.

"Name?"

"Samara Morgan."

The old man looked up at her.

"New entry," he said. "Put down by – oh, my. Haven't seen that name since I was a young man. Calls himself the Doctor now, if I know my gossip."

"Yes, the Doctor sent me," Samara smiled.

"Well," the Time Lord said, sighing, "you're lucky you're the only one on for today. Come on."

The Time Lord led her off, to her destiny.