**Did you know only the UK Netflix gets the film "Doctor Who" (1996), not the American Netflix? Suffice it to say, this Yankee had to improvise for Theta's visit to the Eighth Doctor. This interaction takes place after the film but before the Time War really gets going, without any hints to the Eight Doctor's countless prose, comics, and audio stories. After this is the New Who stuff – I won't be messing around with the 50th Anniversary can of worms. Also, super random, but Theta's dialogue will now be in quotation marks. It's easier to type, easier to format for my three fanfiction sites, and - let's be real here - we know he's telepathic by now.**

There was something soft under Theta's claws, something that made him want to curl up and nap for hours. He purred and fell onto his back, unfolding his wings entirely as he stretched his limbs as far as they could go. When he opened his beak he caught the scent of tea and the TARDIS library.

"Enjoying yourself there?"

Theta lazily opened his eyes. He was with the Doctor in the TARDIS library. Only, this Doctor was wearing a frilly coat and sported rather elegant flowing locks, and this library was smaller than the Twelfth Doctor's. The soft thing he was lying on was a fluffy blue rug, illuminated by a candelabra sitting near the Doctor's shoulder. The Time Lord himself had been in the middle of reading a black tomb as thick as Theta's torso. One leg was crossed over the other, and he was raising his eyebrow at his guest in amusement from a worn, leather armchair.

In response to the Doctor's question, Theta turned over. He rubbed the top of his head into the rug and stretched until he reached a comfortable position.

The Doctor chuckled. "Don't get any feathers on it. I faced the horrors of the Destrii for that rug."

Theta lifted his head just enough to give him a raised eyebrow.

"Alright," the Time Lord conceded. "Queen Elizabeth gave it to me as a parting gift. She said it matched my eyes."

They both chuckled. Then, having no more to say, the Doctor returned to his book, and Theta closed his eyes again.

The two remained in their peaceful states for a few moments. The silence was only broken by the crackle of a distant fire and the occasional snap of a turned page. Theta breathed deeply. The TARDIS was there, in the back of his mind, but she was also around them, pulsing like a sleeping heart. All in all, it was quiet.

Perhaps…too quiet? Theta strained his ears, but nothing came. He didn't even think he heard a companion in another room. They were alone.

Alone with the Doctor on the TARDIS? The safest place in the universe…right? Remembering what had happened with the Doctor's fifth incarnation, Theta shivered.

"What brings you here, gryphes de stelis?" The Doctor asked.

Feigning nonchalance, Theta rolled onto his stomach and yawned. "You know me, just dropping in."

The Time Lord didn't laugh. Theta hoped he was imagining any tension in the room and focused on cleaning his claws. "What's new with you?"

The Doctor laughed at that. "Well, there's always the new haircut, I suppose," he mused.

"What book are you reading?"

"What, this?" The Time Lord glanced at it. "It's an Earth book: 'The Old Man and the Sea'. It's a short story by a human named Ernest Hemmingway." He shrugged. "The rest of the stories in here are useless, I assume. This is the only story I've been able to sit through today."

Theta sat back on his hindquarters and cocked his head. "Something on your mind?"

The Doctor stared at a spot behind the gryphes for several moments. Then he breathed out a sigh, closed his book, and uncrossed his legs. He stared into Theta's eyes. "Who are you?"

Theta didn't know what threw him off more, the Time Lord's piercing stare or his question. "I don't know what you mean. I'm Theta. I'm a gryphes de stelis." He scoured his brain for what the Doctor could've wanted. "I'm…from your future? That's not very hard to guess."

But he shook his head. "No, who are you?" The Doctor repeated. "Who are you to me? What is your purpose? Do you want to be here, or is the TARDIS just playing with you and—by extension—me?"

Theta felt his mouth open and close like a fish.

"Because I've thought about you more and more these past few hundred years," the Doctor continued. "You have appeared every regeneration thus far. I can only assume it was you who broke my chameleon circuit all those years ago. Don't try to deny it, there are clear bite marks on the wires. And if this is true then I can conclude that you are playing a demented game of Temporal and Intergalactic Jumping with my timeline."

The Time Lord was really getting into his theme now. Theta drew his wings and tail closer to his body, keeping his beak closed so tightly it hurt. "But you couldn't have played that game alone," he continued. "No, you need help. Powerful help. Someone who had access to not only my timeline, but my TARDIS as well—she never would have let you in otherwise. I can therefore conclude that you consorted with my future self.

"But to what end? What purpose could this game serve? Now that I can't figure out. If you were sent to right some past wrong, you would have been there to help against the Daleks and the Cybermen and who knows what else. But no…instead I see you in times like these; peaceful, for the most part, but never for longer than a few minutes. If your goal is to drive me mad with wondering you're nearly there."

Theta averted his gaze. "It was just a game, that's all…"

The Doctor's face hardened. "Nothing is ever that simple." His eyes were like flints of iron. "Are you a villain?"

"No!" Theta squawked.

"Are you here to mock my name?" His voice rose in volume with each word. "Myself? My TARDIS? My way of life? Has the Council of Time Lords sent you to find some way to charge me with treason?"

Theta hissed, slapped the ground with his tail, and gave a strong wing-flap in the Doctor's direction. "Have some sense, Time Lord! If I wanted you arrested, I'd have reported you as soon as I discovered you traveling with a stolen TARDIS."

The tension hung in the room for a moment, and then it all drained away with a long sigh from the Doctor. He leaned back in his chair. "It seems I am not as mature as I thought I was."

"You do have a knack for getting under my skin," Theta admitted with a relieved grin.

The Doctor chuckled. "Speaking from experience, I assume? Some things never change." He rubbed the cover of the black book in his lap. "Forgive me, Theta. These wild jumps into the unknown are only fun when safety is guaranteed."

Theta nodded slowly. "I can never know what mood you're in Doctor, but if you're quick to anger then something must be on your mind. Something big."

The Time Lord stared at the wall behind Theta again, deep in thought. Theta settled into his spot on the rug once more await his answer.

"You've known me for many generations now," the Doctor began, "maybe even more than I know. By comparison, it took me a few incarnations before I even learned your name. No matter how used to you or—dare I say it—fond of you I've grown, my questions remained unanswered."

"Your frustration is certainly understandable," Theta admitted.

The Doctor nodded. "Correct. It was one more variable in my life that I didn't need to worry about. When I learned you had no control over where or when you appeared in my timeline, I feared you might spawn in front of a Dalek blast. But at the same time, I knew that it would be disastrous to grow too curious, lest I lose someone I could call a friend."

Theta looked down at his claws. The Doctor he knew, the future one, was surely feeling these memories as readily as he was right now. Shame at his immature, rude antics rose up in his throat.

"But there is something coming, Theta." When the grphes looked at the Doctor again, his eyes had grown darker. "Something is brewing. A storm, perhaps. It's right there, in the middle of everything and the fringes of nothing. I thought you might have some connection to it, but now that you're here…no, you are blameless. It's as if…a bomb, that's it. There is a bomb waiting in the center of time and the universe. It's waiting to be lit, or perhaps it has already been lit and I should be counting the seconds. In my dreams I stand on the edge of a cliff, but there is only fog below me. At times I feel like I have my finger on the trigger of a gun, but I can't find the gun."

The silence after the Time Lord's words was heavy. Theta's fur stood on end in a room that had suddenly grown cold.

Suddenly, the Doctor laughed. He waved his hand, as if clearing the fog in his dreams, but his levity didn't cleanse the room of tension this time.

"You're here listening to the words of an old man," the Doctor said. He chuckled again. "Well, perhaps not 'old' yet. Not to you. I suppose there is hope in that."

Theta attempted to still his vibrating tail. "Yes, perhaps."

The two exchanged tight smiles. "Go, Theta. My friend." The Doctor crossed his legs once more and opened his book to where he left off. "I rather like this fashion sense, so I hope to not see you for a while."

Silence followed his words. When he looked up, Theta was gone. True to the gryphes's word the rug was feather-free.

The Doctor huffed in amusement, and then his smile fell. He was so tired of how silent his TARDIS was without a companion or two. Or three. Or more.

He looked at the page he was reading, but the words were swimming again. He turned to the first page of the story and started reading – maybe this time he'd finish it.

"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish…"

*/*/*/*/*

A panicked Theta realized too late that he wasn't flying through time during this jump. He was falling.