The Doctor walked through the electronic parts boxes, delighted there was a great deal of order to the parts. The Time Lord studied each circuit and board closely, despairing at having to make use of these primitive pieces of equipment to repair the TARDIS, but this was as good as he was going to get.

Earth technology was primitive, but the TARDIS was an adaptable old thing.

It had been 20 years since the Doctor and Susan had escaped from Gallifrey.

20 years since the Doctor had been shot while they'd fled, and had regenerated into his second incarnation; since the two of them were both Time Lords, neither Susan nor the Doctor had many problems with acceptance; regeneration was a vital part of Time Lord culture, and was one of the defining powers of a Time Lord.

Granted, the Doctor had needed to adjust to his new incarnation, and Susan had quickly accepted her grandfather's new appearance and personality. The duo visited many worlds together, from Arkhaten, Earth in various time frames, Esto, Skonnos, Peladon, Mondas, Ockora, and many other worlds.

And then it went wrong.

The TARDIS broke down and landed in 1963. The Doctor had taken with them the Hand of Omega in a trunk; while he'd been concentrating on making it work and repairing some of the TARDIS, the Doctor found he needed electronic parts to make the repairs. The problem was many of them were too basic and primitive to be long-term substitutes; it was only in the 51st century when vortex manipulators became commonplace that humans would have the technology needed to fully repair the TARDIS. Why hadn't he bothered to do some maintenance on the TARDIS when he'd first gotten her?

Okay, granted, it was because the Doctor had run away from Gallifrey years ago, he had explored a large chunk of the universe before he'd returned to Gallifrey. But when he had left Gallifrey originally, he'd had problems with the temperamental nature of his Type 40; it was not a problem until he had decided to return to Gallifrey so he could graduate.

Those years travelling had changed him. They had broadened his mind and made him better. He had left Gallifrey and returned about a minute after he had originally left; it was tricky navigation, especially without a TARDIS that worked, but the Doctor had managed it, after the way he'd been kidnapped and taken as a Rocketman, the Doctor had fought to return and he'd built a teleportation device that would get him back to the TARDIS so adapting it to get him back to Gallifrey was not difficult.

But he had assumed, wrongly, the TARDIS could handle the long journeys.

In any case, there were advantages to the Doctor not being able to properly steer the TARDIS; the easiest was the Time Lords would have a harder time learning where he was, despite their methods.

The trips were random.

But the easiest disadvantage was it was a nightmare trying to fix the TARDIS whenever something went wrong. Still, even in the 1960s, the technology came from a period after nuclear power was invented, so it was more advanced, but only slightly.

The Doctor was so busy looking through the drawers that he almost didn't hear the voices of the security guards until they were almost on top of him. When he did hear them at last, he turned the torch light off and clutched the perception filter he was wearing around his neck collar and concentrated on being unnoticed.

"I thought I saw a light in this part," he heard one of the humans say.

"Doesn't look like anyone's here now, does it?"

"Let's take a look," the first guard said, and the Doctor closed his eyes, keeping very still, and concentrating on the perception filter.

"You can if you want, I'm going on," the second guard said.

"Okay," the first guard said before he began muttering a few obscenities, clearly not pleased. But he opened the door and the Doctor kept still as he watched the guard shine the torch around; it amused the Time Lord when the human shone the torch straight at him but the human didn't notice him. That was the joy of the perception filter.

The guard sighed, "I must have imagined it."

The human walked away.

But the Doctor didn't move until he was sure the human was gone, and then he got back to work.