Kim Possible and all related characters are the property of Disney.

Doctor Who and all related characters are the property of the BBC.

This chapter features the Twelfth Doctor.

The Doctor and Ron spent the time it took getting from Shada back to Earth bringing Kim and Clara up to speed on what happened at Yamanouchi in the year 338. Clara was taking it all in stride, no doubt because she was used to this by now. Clara Oswald had been traveling with the Doctor since he was in his last incarnation and was there when he regenerated into his current form. She even teamed with three versions of the Doctor to stop a previous Zygon incursion. This was just another day ending in "Y" for her.

As for Kim, things were starting to make more sense. "All those prophecies," she said when the story was done, "they were the most specific prophecies I'd ever heard. That was because they were firsthand accounts from the future."

"When Sensei saw me in my, for lack of a better term, my eighth persona, he recognized me from a drawing Toshimiru made of Ron and me. He knew, from his ancestor's journals, that it was time for Ron to bring the Monkey Master prophecies to the past. It was a textbook example of a predestination paradox."

"What are we gonna do with this dude when we get him?" Ron asked. "I mean, if Shada was supposed to be like Alcatraz and he still broke loose, where can we put him now?"

"Fortunately for us," the Doctor said, "there's a large Zygon population on Earth now. They can help us with that problem. Maybe he just needs a sense of community. Their home planet was a victim of the Time War, and they had been coming to Earth at different points in your history because of it. There was Twelfth Century Scotland where, incidentally, they brought the Lock Ness monster with them, Elizabethan England in 1562, and of course, Japan in the year 338."

"Which brings us to now," Kim said. She looked over at the Doctor. "This Time War has caused a lot of problems."

The Doctor nodded. "As I told Yori and Sensei shortly before I met Ron, I'm not always good with the concept of cause and effect. However, there is no way I could have known any of this would happen."

The room fell silent. No one spoke; they were all letting what had been said sink in. Abruptly, that silence was broken by a loud rumbling sound. Everyone turned to Ron.

He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry. I haven't eaten since breakfast. Is the kitchen still in the same place?"

"I'll show you where it is," Clara said, and she led him off.

"A little nourishment would do you some good as well," the Doctor told Kim. "Besides, over a meal is a good time to talk."

The kitchen was as cavernous as the console room, and even shared some of the same aesthetic. The lighting was the same, as was the metallic gray of the walls. It may have been called a kitchen, but it certainly didn't look like one. There was no oven or refrigerator, no sink or cupboards. There were slots built into the wall that would dispense whatever someone could want. Ron remembered how the controls worked.

"Would you like some tea?" Clara asked. She took a seat at the large table in the middle of the room.

"I think all I want is a cheese sandwich," Ron said. Rufus peaked out from Ron's pocket at the mention of cheese.

"You sure? It's no trouble." Clara really wanted to pick Ron's brain about the Lorwardian empress some more.

"Actually, Clara, would you excuse us?" Kim asked we she walked in. "I'd really like to talk to Ron in private."

Ron tried not to shudder at the thought. It had been ten years since Ron had spoken to his ex before this sitch started, and now it seemed like he couldn't get away from her.

Clara looked uncomfortably from Kim to Ron. "Oh. Sure. I'll just meet you both in the console room."

Rufus scampered up to Ron's shoulder and chittered at him. "Traitor," Ron grumbled. "Clara, would you take Rufus with you?"

As soon as Clara and Rufus had gone, Kim took a seat. There was an uncomfortable silence as the former members of Team Possible tried to figure each other out. There was a time when they were perfectly in sync, when they could communicate with a glance. Now that sixth sense was gone. Now they were practically strangers to each other.

"What do you want from me, Kim?" Ron finally asked. It seemed fitting that it was the same question he'd asked Kim the last time they had an involved conversation about their former relationship.

"Just some of your time," Kim replied. "I want to apologize. I mean really apologize. No excuses, no justifications for what I did, just an apology."

Ron sighed. "I guess I've been putting this off long enough. Okay, Kim, I'll listen."

Kim nodded. She took a breath to calm herself, then began. "I had this whole speech prepared. I've spent years rehearsing it in the mirror. Now that the time is here, I realize those words are hollow. Nothing I say can make up for what I did, and the words 'I'm sorry' are so inadequate. Yes, I was lonely. That was true. I also wasn't ready to be so far away from home. I was the girl who could do anything, except admit to myself that I wasn't ready to be so far away from everyone I loved, and that included you."

"So much for no excuses," Ron muttered. "It wasn't a walk in the park for me you know. Everyone was gone. You, Monique, Felix. Wade was still there, but he was spending more time in his room than usual to get his PhD, so I hardly ever saw him. Then the fam took off on that cruise, and I was REALLY alone."

Kim closed her eyes. "You're right. Those were excuses. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. For cutting you off, for ignoring you when UNIT recruited me, and especially for seeing Reed behind your back."

"Why did you do that, Kim?" Ron demanded. "That was the last thing I ever thought you'd do! I mean, you never had nice things to say about cheaters, then you became one."

Kim sighed and nodded. "Which is why I tied myself into knots trying to justify what I did, but there is no justifying it. Yes, Reed pursued me, but as my mom pointed out, I let him catch me. I made the choice to betray you. I didn't have to accept any of the dates he asked me on. I really didn't have to go to bed with him."

"I'd rather not hear about that," Ron said, his voice hard.

Kim gave him a dirty look. "Why not?!" she snapped. "I had to hear about you and Empress Wargayme!" The venom in Kim's voice made Ron both nervous and irritated.

"We were broken up when that happened!" he barked.

"Were we?" Kim demanded. "You ran off with the Doctor instead of talking to me!"

Ron shot to his feet. "You said, and I'm quoting here, 'I've met someone else and I'm breaking up with you!' Now I may not be the sharpest knife in the crayon box, but even I can take a hint! That was you dumping me for Mr. Wonderful! And so what if I slept with Wargayme?! At least I knew where I stood with her! She said if I defeated her guards, the revenge invasion would be called off! I guess she was impressed with my bondigetty fighting moves because she decided she wanted a go at me herself! If I won, Earth would be left alone permanently! And yeah, I spent the night with her, which she told me would be my personal reward for defeating her! And she told me my life would depend on satisfying her! Wargayme never lied to me, which is more than I can say for you!"

Kim was about to scream at him again, but she stopped herself. "I'm sorry. You're right. We were broken up. Besides, it's not like I have any room to talk. I guess I'm just bothered by the fact that you slept with an alien queen." She gave Ron a weak grin. "I'm just curious how that worked. Physically, I mean. The Lorwardians are bigger than we are. I thought there might be some, uh, some incompatibility issues."

Ron could have taken that as an insult, but he knew where Kim was coming from. "Actually, we're pretty comparable in that department. I was really surprised by that." Ron was almost lost in his memories. "That was an intense night," he said with a sly grin. "It was the only time I had to use the mystical monkey power for something other than a fight." He chuckled. "Now that I think about it, their idea of foreplay is practically a wrestling match."

"Okay, too much info," Kim said weakly. She took a calming breath and slowly let it out. "It just, you know, hurts to know that you were with someone who's league I'm nowhere near." She looked down at her own chest. "I remember how top heavy Warmonga was compared to me. I can only assume Wargayme was about the same."

Now Ron felt like dirt. He hadn't wanted to make Kim feel inadequate. "Why are you so hung up on this?" he asked. "And why are you jealous? Okay, Wargayme was, shall we say, gifted in that department, but you know I don't care about that! It's not like Rita was super busty." Ron noticed Kim flinch at the mention of his ex-fiancé, which made him realize something. "Wait a minute. Were you expecting me to stay single? Was I some kind of wrong-sick backup plan?"

Kim's silence was her answer. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought. I guess it's time for total honesty.

"Is that why you were so dismissive of me finding love again?" Ron's voice was irritated yet tinged with hurt.

"I'm afraid so," she said quietly. "I didn't even realize I was doing that until…" she trailed off. "I was transferred back to Colorado within an hour of Reed ditching me. When I called my mom and told her I was coming home, she told me you had gotten engaged. It felt like my heart had been broken twice in the same day. You had moved on. Without me. That's when I realized I was seeing you as a backup boyfriend in case things didn't work out with Reed." She hung her head. "Even after the way I hurt you, I expected you to be available. I was so delusional."

"Understatement," Ron said coldly.

"When I broke up with you, I convinced myself you were overreacting," Kim said, returning to her previous narrative, "and that you either had, or eventually would, come to the same conclusion I did that the distance was killing our relationship. It wasn't until my post-Reed counseling sessions that I realized I was the one who let the distance kill us.

"You tried to use the video chat system Wade set up to talk to me and I kept brushing you off. At first, my excuse was my classes. Then I was recruited by UNIT, which didn't distract me from those classes the way I claimed your calls did. And, finally, there was Reed.

"He was there, and he used my loneliness as a way to weasel his way in. He was nice, he was supportive, he listened to me when I told him things I should have been telling you. I let it happen. I let him in, I let him chase me, and I let him catch me. The first night I spent with him was when I knew you and I were done. That there was no coming back. So, I told myself this was the inevitable outcome and that you would be on the same page. When you refused to come to that same conclusion is when I got tweaked."

"After I spent that time with the Doctor doing the Bill and Ted thing," Ron began, "I went back to Yamanouchi. Sensei taught me how to really control my powers. I can turn them on at will now. I can control how much I use, and even use them to predict what an opponent is gonna do. The fights on Lorwardia would've been a whole lot easier if I could have done that then. He taught me monkey kung-fu, so I could fight without using my powers. It also helped me to focus."

Ron took a deep breath, trying to center himself. It was time for the big admission. "He tried to help me deal with you dumping me. It kinda helped. I mean, he helped me figure out I was blaming myself for it happening." Kim was about to interject, but Ron stopped her. "If I had been a better student, I would've gotten into at least one of the schools I applied to, maybe even the same one as you. And if I had been a better boyfriend, you wouldn't have replaced me."

"Oh, Ron," Kim said in a hushed whisper. "I'm so sorry."

"I was there for about a year and a half," Ron continued. "I left shortly after Hirotaka asked me for advice about asking Yori out. I remembered the disaster that was me trying to set up Wade and Monique, so I told him to just go for it. I told him she would either say yes or no, and if she said no, to take it as an answer. She said yes, and the rest is history." Ron actually smiled. "Of course, I knew she'd say yes. I saw the way she was looking at him. That's why nothing happened with Yori and me. She was crushing on Hirotaka, and I was hurting. It wasn't the right thing for either of us. Besides, I needed to be single for a while. That lasted for a few years.

"When I got back to the States, I went to live in Denver. I got a job in a shipping warehouse and moved into a nice little studio apartment. Me working in a warehouse is why Derek Hoffs worked in one. I wrote what I knew, y'know? Needless to say, that's when I started writing The Obsidian Scourge.

"I'm the one who wrote all the Monkey Master prophecies. With the Doctor gone for over two months, I had to rely on my mediocre Japanese so I could talk to Toshimiru. I mean, the TARDIS wasn't there to translate, so I had to sink or swim. I swam, and I was able to write the prophecies. I'm pretty sure Toshimiru corrected my bad grammar, though. Doing all that gave me the writing bug.

"I got this idea in my brain that wouldn't go away, so I wrote it. And rewrote it. And rewrote it some more. It took on a life of its own. It let me deal some more with what happened to us, hence the Hoffs' marriage taking a nosedive. Once it was done, I sat on it. I'd gone to see my fam one weekend, and I made an offhand comment about writing a book. Since my dad's an actuary, he knew some literary agents. He made some calls, I got contact info, and the rest is history. That was also how I met Rita, but that was a few years later."

"I thought it was amusing that you wound up dating a literary agent," Kim said.

"She wasn't my agent, though," Ron replied. "That could've been really bad. Especially since it didn't last." He let out a long, weary sigh. "She'd talked about her ex before, but I didn't know she was still hung up on him." He started to laugh a pained laugh, the kind of laugh that one does to keep from crying.

"I really am a loser. The two women I thought I had a future with decided I wasn't good enough." He had a resigned look on his face. "I only got a gentleman's C in math, but even I can figure out the common denominator in those equations. It's me. There's something wrong with me."

Ron slowly sat back down, as if he was deflating after his outburst and his admissions. "Back at Yamanouchi tonight, Yori thought I was still mad at you, and I'm not. Like I said, I let that go. I'm still mad at myself. I may have figured out I was blaming myself for us crashing and burning, but that doesn't mean I stopped."

Ron stood up again and slowly made his way to the doorway, his appetite gone. "I'm not the same lovable goofball I used to be, Kim. I admit it, I'm bitter, and that bitterness has given my stories the emotional gut punches that have made me rich and famous. Clara thinks I'm afraid of forgiving you because then I'd lose that edge my pain gives me. She's wrong. I'm afraid of forgiving myself and losing that edge.

"I accept your apology, Kim, and I forgive you. I'm sorry I wasn't a better guy for you. If I had been, maybe this wouldn't have happened." With that he left the room. Kim burst into tears.

Kim had mostly pulled herself together by the time the TARDIS materialized at UNIT HQ. When the door opened, the Doctor was greeted by Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. Beside her was a young woman with long black hair and glasses. She wore a lab coat, a bow tie, and a sweater vest with question marks on it.

"Kate. Osgood," he said in greeting. Petronella Osgood was one of two individuals who looked the same. One was definitely a Zygon, and the other may have been one. It didn't matter. Both Osgoods were dedicated to maintaining the peace between the humans and Zygons cohabiting Earth.

"Doctor," Kate said. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"We have a rogue Zygon in the United States," he replied. To Osgood he said, "A recent arrival."

Clara, Kim, and Ron followed the Doctor out the door. Kate raised an eyebrow. "Miss Oswald. Chief Possible." She looked at Ron. "Mr. Stoppable. Welcome back to the Tower of London."

"But I've never been here," Ron said, clearly confused.

"Oh, but you have," Kate said. "Everyone still living and still in this universe who's traveled with the Doctor is brought here for a debrief. Your memory of it was edited."

Ron's eyes narrowed. "Wait, you brain zapped me?!" His tone of voice was identical to when he would have a freak out as a teen.

"Ron," Kim said, "it's okay."

"No it isn't! It so isn't okay!" He turned to Kate. "You can't go around doing the Men in Black flashy thing on people's brains! How do I know you didn't erase an idea for a new book when you did that?!"

"He's got a point," Osgood said. "The memory modifiers are sometimes a little overzealous."

"That's not important right now," the Doctor said. "Trust me, Ron, you have many more bestsellers swimming around in that fertile imagination of yours. For now, we're going to need a small team to come with us to America."

"How small?" Kate asked Kim.

"No more than a dozen," she replied. "Light armaments. We don't want a shootout. Also, I'd prefer it if Lieutenant Place isn't on the roster."

"On the roster for what?" a voice very familiar to Kim asked. It belonged to a man with a muscular build, a strong jaw, immaculate brown hair, and dark eyes. "Kim! I thought I recognized your voice. You're supposed to be in America. What don't you want me on the roster for?"

He turned his gaze from Kim to the Doctor and Clara, then to Ron. His lips curled into a sneer. "I know who you are. Little Ronnie Stoppable! The loser who fancies himself a writer."

Ron scowled. "Yeah, I'm a loser wannabe writer with six bestsellers and a net worth of over two hundred million US dollars." Yes, he was bragging, but he felt he had a right to. He'd never met Reed Place, but Ron had hated him for ten years now. Eleven if you counted the time Ron spent with Toshimiru and the Doctor.

"If you're so great," Reed said, "why aren't you a billionaire?"

Ron grinned. "Let's see, I paid off my parents' mortgage, bought a house for myself, set up a really nice college fund for my sister, gave Kim's brothers hefty chunks of change when they graduated high school, and I give sizable yearly grants to the Middleton Medical Center and the Middleton Space Center. Oh, and I paid for my friend Monique's Caribbean honeymoon. It was my wedding present to her." He looked over at Kim. "I know you probably think I wasn't at the wedding because you were there, but I was on a European book tour with Neil Gaiman at the time.

"Then there's the millions I give to charity every year, the literacy programs I've been funding with LeVar Burton, and the grants to the University of Upperton and the Middleton Institute for Science and Technology." Ron grinned wider. "I already have more money than I know what to do with, Place. I use what I have to help people out. Besides, with my investments and royalties, I could go the rest of my life without writing another book, and still be able to keep my current donations going while living very comfortably."

"Good man," the Doctor said approvingly. "Kate, let's go have a word. If possible, I'd like to bring this Zygon in alive. My hope is that he needs community more than anything."

The group went off toward a conference room. Reed grabbed Ron by the shoulder and stopped him. "Where do you think you're going?"

Ron removed Reed's hand from his shoulder. "Dude, you so don't want to do this."

"Oh, but I do. You see, I spent years hearing Kim complain about how you just ran off to Japan like the loser you are. Now, considering I had to clean up your mess, I figure you owe me."

"Place," Ron said with an edge in his voice that made Reed back up a little, "considering you helped make the mess to begin with, you don't get to complain. Now back off! I have more important things to do than waste time with you."

"You really are a coward," Reed said with a laugh.

Ron shook his head. "I've seen things that would give you nightmares for the rest of your life, dude. And as for me walking away from an unnecessary fight, that so doesn't make me a coward." With that, Ron walked off in the direction the others went.

When he got to the corridor, he saw Kim waiting for him. "Mr. Wonderful's gonna be a problem," he said. "He was just itching for a fight. How bad would it be if he tried to beat up a civilian?"

"Really bad," Kim said. "Dishonorable discharge and possible criminal charges bad."

"Maybe not the charges," Ron said. "I'm pretty sure coming here by TARDIS means I'm in the country illegally."

"Good point." Kim tried not to smile. Given the charged nature of their last conversation, the fact that they were being civil to each other was a big deal. Then again, they seemed to have a common enemy in Reed Place.

After getting a partial briefing on the situation – all references to Yamanouchi and Shada were left out – Kate sat silently. "It's too bad you didn't have this information when you initially asked for a strike team, Kim, it would have been granted." She looked to Ron. "What does this Tolkran want with you?"

"Payback," Ron said. "I stopped him from killing someone, and that someone gave him a whole world of hurt."

"Which made it possible for us to get him off world," the Doctor said.

"It sounds like you need multiple strike teams, then," Kate said. "Fully armed."

"No one dies if I can help it," the Doctor said. "Here's what we're going to do. Clara, Kim, Ron, and I will take the TARDIS back to Colorado and search for our shapeshifting friend. While we're doing that and gathering information, the strike team comes by hypersonic transport."

"Why not bring everyone by TARDIS and avoid having to wait for backup?" Kim asked.

"I don't want people with itchy trigger fingers in the TARDIS. The strike team is a last resort. I want to bring Tolkran here peacefully and alive. He's another victim of the Time War. I don't want to make him another casualty of the same."

The TARDIS rematerialized in the hangar of the Denver UNIT stronghold. Dr. Wade Load was staring in amazement as a blue box appeared out of nothing. When Kim stepped out, she strode up to Wade and hugged him tightly.

"That is the coolest thing I've ever seen!" Wade gushed.

"You should see the inside," Kim said.

"Holy cannoli!" Ron exclaimed. This was the first time he'd seen Wade in person in over a decade. "Dude! You shot up like a tree!"

Wade now stood over six feet tall, towering over his old friend who was just a hair over five-foot-ten. Wade felt his eyes tearing up. "Thanks," he said. "For the books."

The two old friends embraced. "I'm sorry, Wade-man," Ron said. "I cut you off and that wasn't fair to you."

Wade released his friend and stepped back. "I get it." He looked at Kim. "You, me, and Kim were kind of like the Three Musketeers. I can't imagine seeing me on a regular basis would have been easy."

Kim directed Wade's attention to the two others who came out of the TARDIS. "This is Clara and the Doctor."

"Dr. Load," the Doctor said. "A pleasure. Your dissertations on artificial intelligence and cyber-robotics were brilliant."

"Wait, you read my papers?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor said. "They'll be part of general education curricula in those fields in the coming years. You're quite the innovator. Now," he changed topics, "let's see that alien ship. I need to see if it's the same vessel Tolkran took from Shada, or if he got a trade in."

The ship looked like a cross between an arrow and a flying saucer. It was a vaguely oval shape, with one end tapering to a point. The Doctor, his sonic glasses in place, was scrutinizing every square millimeter.

"This is definitely not the ship Tolkran used to escape Shada," the Doctor said. "It looks almost Movellan, but not quite." He straightened up and took off the glasses. "It seems to have been altered and upgraded rather haphazardly. It could have started as a Movellan design, but then was refurbished and rebuilt repeatedly until it looked like this. This vessel is capable of traveling faster than light for a much longer duration than the ship he originally took. If I had to guess, I'd say he made it to the main space ways, and then was able to hijack this one." The Doctor put the glasses in his pocket. "His captive was unharmed?"

"Shaken, but okay," Wade said.

"Good," the Doctor replied. "Did you find anything aboard?"

"Nothing," Wade said. "I was trying to crack the onboard computer, but the code is completely beyond anything I've ever seen."

The Doctor smiled. "Then it's a good thing I'm here. Come on, Wade, let's see what we can learn."

While the Doctor and Wade were playing super hacker, Ron and Clara went to the cafeteria so Ron could finally get some lunch. A plate of nachos later and Ron was finally starting to feel like himself again.

Clara wore a concerned look on her face. When Ron came back to the control room after his talk with Kim, he looked down. His confrontation with Reed Place didn't help matters.

"I wish there was something I could do for you," Clara said.

"S'fine," Ron muttered. "Just another day in the life of a former sidekick." Ron let out a long sigh and leaned back in his seat. "I thought I put all this behind me. The missions, the weirdness. At least I haven't lost my pants yet."

Clara's eyes went wide, thinking Ron had been completely denuded from the waist down before on a mission. Then she remembered that, for Americans, pants were what she called trousers, not underwear. "That happened a lot, didn't it?"

"Yeah, I was so skinny that I couldn't always find pants my size. And belts were no help at all until Kim gave me a titanium reinforced one for our half-iversary." He saw the confused look on Clara's face. "That's what she called it when we hit six months of dating." Ron took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

Ron put his glasses back on. "Yeah," he replied a little more brightly than Clara expected. "Honestly, I'm already starting to feel better. I put that talk off for way too long. I should've talked to Kim years ago, but I thought I'd never see her again." He got up to refill his nacho plate. "After I get that Captain Constellation screenplay done, it may be time to start the next Derek Hoffs novel," he said when he sat down again. "I use those books to work through my issues."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Already? The new one just came out."

"Oh yeah," Ron said. "I try to keep a book ahead of myself. It's how I've been able to release one novel a year for the last five years. I don't want to be like George R. R. Martin and take years and years between books."

"You don't like Derek Hoffs, do you?" Clara asked. "I mean, the poor guy can't catch a break. You build him up just to break him down by the end of the story."

"He kinda represents my own self-loathing," Ron admitted. "I've already plotted out the last book. At the risk of spoilers, I'm gonna do to Derek what Agatha Christie did with Hercule Poirot before she died and what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried to do with Sherlock Holmes."

"You're gonna kill him off?" she asked, shocked. "That's… that's really dark."

"I can't think of any other way for his story to end. But hey, he's gonna go out like a hero! Self sacrifice and all that." Ron was about to say something else, then stopped. "Wait a minute…"

"Ron?"

"I think I have an idea!" Ron pushed his plate away, the remaining nachos forgotten. "I gotta go find the Doctor and Kim!" Ron dashed out with Clara hot on his heels.

Kim was equal parts amused and confused by the chatter she heard coming from the alien ship. They sounded like they were speaking their own language, one even the TARDIS couldn't translate.

"Well, guys, what's the sitch?" she asked. "Find anything?"

"Nothing of much use," Wade said.

"On the contrary," the Doctor said, poking his head out. "We have confirmation of our hypothesis. This was, indeed, once a Movellan ship. They're a race of androids who once went to war with the Daleks."

"Does that mean this ship has some weaponry we could use against Tolkran?" Kim asked. "I mean, if they could go up against Daleks, then surely they have something that can work against a Zygon."

"All Movellan weapons are lethal," the Doctor said. "Remember, I don't want to kill Tolkran. That's why I took him to Shada in the first place. I thought he would be safely out of the way long enough for me to figure out a more permanent solution. Unfortunately, the Time War went worse than I thought it would. Then, afterwards, I was trying to heal from my own experiences. It's been over thirteen hundred years since that war ended. I should have gone back long before now to check on him."

"Why didn't you?" Kim asked.

"Good question," the Doctor replied. "Call it good old fashioned avoidance."

"Any ideas?" Kim inquired. "I don't want any more people being abducted and copied by Tolkran, and I don't want to let him get anywhere near Ron."

"None of us do," the Doctor agreed. "We should also keep him away from the Black Archive. I happen to know that there's a vortex manipulator there, and I don't want Tolkran to obtain the means of traveling back in time to get his revenge on Toshimiru."

"I'll call Kate and tell her to lock it down, just in case," Kim said. "Too bad there's no way of detecting a disguised Zygon."

"I used to have a device I cobbled together," the Doctor said. "It was a box that went 'ding.' I used it to find a Zygon in 1562. Of course, it wasn't exact. The Zygon I was searching for was disguised as a horse and I thought he was disguised as Queen Elizabeth."

"I suppose it's too much to hope that it's still in the TARDIS," Kim said.

"The TARDIS's desktop theme has changed more than once since I built that device," the Doctor said. "Things aren't necessarily in the same place now. Not to mention the fact that a creature from outside the known universe once possessed the TARDIS and jettisoned several of the rooms. I should be able to recreate it if necessary."

"Okay," Kim said. "That should be a priority."

"I'd like to help," Wade said.

"Of course," the Doctor said.

"Maybe we can network it into our main computer here and boost its range," Wade suggested.

As the Doctor and Wade walked off, Ron came in. "Doctor! Wait up! I have an idea!"

"That'll be the day," another voice said derisively. It was Reed Place.

Kim pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just wonderful." She looked up. "Is there a reason you're at my base uninvited?"

Reed smiled like a disingenuous politician. "As it turns out, I was the senior most field commander available, so I was sent. I guess the communiqué with the authorization got lost in the mail."

"Whatever," Kim grumbled. She turned to Ron. "What was your idea?"

"We give Tolkran half of what he wants. We give him me."

Next: Ron vs Reed.

I don't know if the TARDIS kitchen was ever shown on screen, I don't think it was, but I could be wrong. I'm most likely was. Either way, I think I came up with a fun take on what the kitchen would look like.

Like Ron, I wrote some of what I know. I spent four years working in the shipping department of the company I joined in 2017, which is why Ron was doing that in his post-Yamanouchi days. I was even forklift certified. I've since transferred to quality assurance. I was having a tough time with the physical demands of the job. Long-COVID is no joke.