Author's note:

Wow. I thought I had been laying the craziness on Three a bit thick; never thought it would hit him to that extent! Oh well, he should be fine when we come back to him.

Meanwhile, back to Nine! And a cameo!

The Doctor, companions, enemies, merchandising, etc., belong to the BBC.


The Ninth Doctor: Nice to meet you, Rose. (Brandishes detonator.) Now run for your life!

-Rose

The Tenth Doctor: Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden. Except for cheap tricks.

- Smith and Jones

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With a shuddering thump, the TARDIS landed once more. The Doctor ran around the console anew, closing switches and turning a few dials.

"I think this will get our heads together on what's going on. Just try to be polite, and don't mention any movies that came out after, oh, 1975, alright? It's-" His hand came down on two switches.

Crunch.

The Doctor pulled his hand back and gaped as a shimmering blue switch skittered down the console and fell with a plink to the grating.

"That's not good, is it, Doctor?" said Rose.

The Doctor glared over at her. "Please, Rose, let's not get into the stupid questions bit, it really doesn't become you."

"Well, excuse me!"

He sighed. "No, it isn't good." He leaned down and snatched up the switch just as it was about to fall into one of the grated floor's many holes.

"I really don't understand it, either. I mean, sure she's an older model, but I thought I'd been maintaining her better than this."

"Well maintained." Rose looked around at the hanging hoses, the ill-fitting controls on the console, and the scaffold-looking stairs and platforms of the main console room. "If I hadn't seen other parts of this ship myself, Doctor, I'd have ta say it looks like you never got around to finishing it in the first pla- "

"Oi!" The Doctor scowled at her. "Get some sense of perspective, there! With all the running about we've been doing, only natural some things slip my mind..."

There was a bleeping sound, and the Doctor was suddenly frantically digging about in his pockets. He pulled out a small squarish device with a handle on each end. There were several red and yellow lights running down the sides which were flashing in an odd, whirling series of arcs. He tapped some buttons in a complicated sequence, then took a closer look at the screen. "Well," he said.

Rose couldn't help but note that his face, while not changing expression, had gotten slightly redder.

"Doctor?"

"Hadn't expected this thing to start pinging, but I guess it's a given, considering," he said. "It's an anomaly detector. It scans about, finds something odd, then cross-reference back into the Matrix to compare it to the various known spacial and -" He let out a ragged gasp.

He dropped the device and spun around. His face was a study in stark terror.

"NO!"

He dove for a section of the wall, whipping out his screwdriver as he ran. He swiftly played it over the edges of one section, then with a wrench, yanked it off and threw it aside.

Rose jumped back as the panel caromed off the decking in front of her.

"Doctor!" She ran over to his side.

He didn't reply; his full attention was on running the screwdriver over various lines and conduit boxes, which were fizzing out with great gouts of sparks. "Come on, come ON!" said the Doctor in a terrified, pleading tone. The screwdriver didn't seem to be working fast enough for him; he dropped it and dove in with both hands, pulling cables and jamming on buttons.

Finally, he seemed to be done. He dropped to a sitting position on the floor, gasping.

Rose, by this time, was huddled in a far corner of the room, eyes wide. A few tears streamed down her face.

The Doctor looked over at her, then hung his head with a sigh. He grabbed onto the edge of the hole he had made and pulled himself to his feet. He walked slowly over to her, crouched down.

Her eyes tracked his every movement.

"I'm so sorry, Rose. It was just... well, just..."

He stood up again, offered his hand. There was a second before she took it, and was helped to her feet.

"It's just that if that device could contact the Matrix, it would only be a matter of moments before the contents of the TARDIS' data banks would be fed back into it."

He looked into Rose's eyes. "If that happened, and the Time Lords learned the particulars of the last 'Great' time war, well..." he rubbed at his face. "The paradox generated, as far as I can see, could wrench reality apart in ways worse than the war itself."

Rose was silent.

The Doctor sighed again, then walked back over and retrieved his screwdriver. He then went back to the console, starting in again on looking over the parts, trying out different dials. After a few minutes of trial and error, he had at least managed to re-attach the broken switch.

"Big mess you've left over here."

He looked over at the smoldering, scattered remains of the service hatch, and grinned. "That I did." He laughed. "I certainly did a job on that one, eh? Fantastic!"

"So how are we going to fix that one up? Those things could be a safety hazard," said Rose, eyeing the still-sparking cables.

"I'll get to them shortly," said the Doctor, turning back to the console and pulling up a corner of one of the console service hatches.

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A small cafe in Roaring Twenties New York

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Martha Jones took a sip, then looked down in some surprise. "Doctor, to be honest, when you said this was one of the best places to get tea, I thought you were joking." She stopped, and took another sip. "This stuff is great!"

"Yeah, I do know how to pick them, don't I?" The Doctor ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair, leaving it in what looked like someone had taken haphazard to a fine art, and then gelled it in solid."Of course, there are a couple of other places that do better, but I don't know if Tamerlaine would be too hospitable if we just popped in on one of his war councils. He..." He trailed off. Frowned. "Something isn't right."

Martha set her cup down. "Not right?" She looked around nervously. "What do you mean not right?"

The Doctor fidgited. "I dunno," he said. "It's like something at the edge of memory coming out. If I could just... NO! "

The last word was uttered in a shriek of horror, as he leapt to his feet, upending his chair. In his mad dash to get out of the cafe, he knocked down two members of New York's Finest, the deputy mayor and a couple of young flappers. Martha dashed out close on his heels, both trying to apologise and avoid being grabbed.

The Doctor himself was no help. He was just a blur of brown suit and blue trainers, trailing a repeated shout of "No no no no no!" in his wake.

She rounded the last corner into the alley where they'd concealed the TARDIS, just in time to see it disappearing.

"Doctor! Wait!"

It was no use. The TARDIS was gone.

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"Cosmic angst, I called it last time," said the Doctor as he raced about the console. "This time I know what it means. Someone's mucking with my timelines!"

He paused from turning two cranks to answer the suddenly ringing cell phone. "Yes?" He suddenly held it away from his ear at the stream of vitriol that poured out.

"Martha, calm down! I'll be back right away, promise!" He paused, punched in some keys, then turned a globe carefully. "Constellations..." he muttered.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, Martha. You're alone with no money in 1920s New York. Yeah," he said. He rolled his eyes.

"Yes, well, the longer you talk, the longer I take. So just cool off a moment, eh?" He pressed the 'end call' button, then got back to entering coordinates. He turned one final switch

BaWHHOOOM!

"Whaaa!"

The TARDIS lurched sideways, then the entire room turned on its side. The Doctor managed to just catch onto a railing to avoid falling into one of the walls.

A loud siren sounded, then another.

"What?!"

He grunted as he struggled to find feet- and hand- holds in climbing back up to the console. Flailing around, he slapped two buttons. The TARDIS flipped in an interesting fashion, and a third klaxon started.

"Whoops! Not those."

He tried again, and managed to pull two more switches. The TARDIS righted itself, and two of the alarms ceased.

"Right!" he said. "Now, what the heck just happened back there? I was sure I got the temporal coordinates right! If I could just see..." his voice trailed off as he pulled the main screen toward him and took a careful look.

He stared.

"What?!"

It seemed a good, fitting word, that one. He tried it out a few times, in different inflections. "That's impossible!" seemed to fit, too, so he used it. It came out a bit shriekier than he meant it to.

"How could those coordinates be behind the lock on the Last Time War?!"

He tried fudging the coordinates forward. Nothing. Backward. Nothing.

He leaned against the console and hammered at it with an impotent fist.

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Vuarp vuarp vuarp

The TARDIS reappeared, just as a nasty-looking crowd of leering street thugs was descending on Martha. A brown-coated hand reached out from the doorway, grabbed her by the jacket collar and yanked her inside.

The door slammed shut.

Vuarp vuarp vuarp

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She had been shouting at him for four minutes before she noticed that he was just quietly looking at her. How tired-looking he was, too.

She started to speak again, but he just turned back to the console and calmly, methodically, began to plot a new course. The TARDIS main engine began to pulse at a steady pace.

"Er, so, where are we off to now?"

"There's a rather nice little pub I know on Nellus V, about 78,000 years from your time," he said. "Good food, good drinks, some of the best entertainment you could hope to find. Well, best you could hope to find in a nice little pub on another planet, anyway."

"But what about our tea?"

The Doctor turned and gave her a look. An impossibly ancient look, tinged with pain and worry. She gave a small gasp, took a step back.

"Doctor Jones," he said heavily, "if you knew just what I've been through, you would know that what I need right now..."

He turned to the console, flipped a switch. The landing was quite emphatic.

"...is something just a little stronger than tea."