Tick-Tock, brown, blonde, Tick-Tock, The eternal sound of the world clock, clock, clock, clock.

The empty echoes of the null dimension were like those of a cathedral, although it looked more like a laboratory.  The scientist, for lack of a better word, was busy perfecting her newest creation.  She was trying to find a way to destroy a creature that was not of this universe, that didn’t obey any of the laws of physics or nature as she knew and broke.  It was for lack of a better word alien.  She brushed her blonde curly hair out of her face as she tried again to make the captive specimen die.

Dodo looked at the Doctor, except it wasn’t him.  It was some other bloke.  “Who are you?”

“My dear Dorothea, I am who I have always been.  I am the Doctor.”

Dodo shook her head.  “Oh no your not.  You look nothing like him.  For one you’re taller and you have completely different clothes on.”

“Yes, well I don’t exactly understand it m’self yet.”  The Doctor scratched the back of his neck.  “I’m from my own future.  As far as I can tell.  I was here, I remember that much.  Something had attacked us.  It really is a blur you know.”

“It was only a few minutes ago.”  Dodo recounted the events to the geezer who claimed to be the Doctor.  “And then you were there, in stead of…yourself.”

“A rather succinct explanation.”  The Doctor stroked his chin thoughtfully.  “Somehow I’ve been drawn back in my own time line.  I wonder who could have done such a thing. Oh no, I hope its not, no it couldn’t be…he’s in jail.”

She gave up and with a burst of a different type of energy that didn’t obey any of the laws of thermodynamics she sent the creature back to its own dominion.

What an amazing time, the years just went by.

She had to get help, but whom?  One heart was already dead.  She didn’t trust her first self, who could?  She certainly didn’t trust him, in any of his lives and he only thought of himself.  Of course that prissy madam would have nothing to do with her, especially her third self, that only left one option and she was loathe to ask him for help at any time, ever.  However if he offered to help then maybe she wouldn’t hate herself so much for even thinking his name.  She tried the nice one but they got there first.  Same with the effective one and then they made the smart one vanish before her eyes.  It was almost annoying but finally one of them was near by, if only it had been the one with the scarf she mused.  Then her last heart stopped.

A boiled car at the wheels of a car crash, scary nightmare time.

The Doctor looked around the vast expanse of nothingness.  “I must admit m’dear this has got me stumped.”

“You’ll figure it out.”  Dodo was confident.

“Yes, I’m sure I will.”  The Doctor smiled.

“You always prevaricated too much.”  The Rani smiled at her former enemy.  “However to the casual observer it is inexplicable, because there are no terms of reference to this Universe.”

“Another reality?”  The Doctor wondered.

“Hardly.”  The Rani retorted.  “Oh, don’t have that hurt look.”  She smiled. “Impress us girlies with your knowledge.”

“The Rani?”  The Doctor recognised her new look.  “So what are we dealing with?”

“You think of the Universe as infinite, correct?”

“Well of course it is.”  The Doctor replied with a snort of derision.

“Incorrect thinking.  The universe is merely very, very, very big.  It is however not infinite.”  The Rani took her grey top hat off and held it up.  Imagine this hat as the Universe.  It has everything we know of inside of it.  However recently I discovered several smaller Universes outside of it.”

“And this is one of them?”  The Doctor gasped.

“Please, don’t interrupt.”  The Rani hushed the Doctor.  “The thing is the Universe expanded from a single point, thanks to the big bang.  What I was researching was, what was here before the big bang and where did it go?”

“It was destroyed in the fires of creation.”

The Rani giggled.  “No it wasn’t.  It’s still here.  It’s still surrounding the Universe.  That’s what this room is, a part of the other side of the hat.”

“Like going from the air bubble in a glass of lemonade into the lemonade itself?”  Dodo tried to grasp what the blonde woman was on about.

“Exactly.”  The Rani said to Dodo.  “You’re smarter than you look.”

“I’ll try to take that as a compliment.”  Dodo replied.

The chance to take the brake to stop the wheel except it might grow.

The Doctor read through the Rani’s notes.  “Fascinating.  A completely alien species.  Nothing like we’ve even known before.”

“It’s impervious to all my chemicals and fire doesn’t do it much harm either.”

The Doctor looked at one particular entry, the most recent one.  “This attempt to bring another of me here, it was detected and one of the creatures attempted to kill my companions?”

“Yes, however one of them stopped it.  He got in a lucky shot with his energy blaster.”

“You tried to recreate the conditions but the creatures had adapted themselves somehow.”

“Exactly.”  The Rani replied.  “It’s like that time last month when I got caught up in that sale.  The feeling of complete helplessness.”

“So you brought me here to help.”

“Well you’re the only one I could trust not to betray me to Them or steal my research and use it for your own purposes.”

“Yes, well I’m flattered that you think so highly of me but the answer’s no.”

“Please.”  The Rani asked.  “They could destroy all life on that precious little planet you like so much.  I don’t want that to happen, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“One of them was killed there, what if they want revenge?”

Wave the magic wand on the vista of decayed sea gulls, no one sees the crying sun.

The Rani wandered into the white void.  The brilliant light showed the contrast between exposed snow white flesh and the inky black of her denim hotpants.  “Are there no rules at all, or are rules only subjective to you?”

Hoe the lawn stupid, the weeds are invisible patterns of sound and ideas.

The Doctor re-examined the Rani’s data.  It was most meticulous and detailed, however there was no sense of what these creatures wanted, nothing of their behaviour outside of her experiments.  That was if you could call them experiments, attempted vivisection was closer to the mark and that made his blood run cold.  “This is most disturbing.”

“What is it?”  Dodo asked.  “Have you found something.

“Only the Rani’s trademark arrogance.  She has no consideration for any other life form.”

“How arrogant of you to say so.”  The Rani remarked.  “The first time that creature saw me it attacked.  I was trying to communicate with it but it ignored me.”  I tried to find out what it was but I’d lost too much blood.”

“You regenerated?”

“Not through any choice I can tell you, but I quite like this body.  It has a certain presence, don’t you think?”

“I think you need to finish dressing.”  Dodo commented bitchily.”

“I call it Ibiza 2005.”  The Rani replied “and in that consideration I’m amply overdressed.”

“Fashions of your world are always in flux.”  The Doctor said to Dodo.

“Exactly.”  The Rani replied as the touched up her bright red lipstick.”  She offered it to Dodo.  “It’d suit you, you have great cheekbones.”

The new style of the super fan is hot and the small bubbles are driven hard to extinction time to die in bloom now.

“What exactly do you hope to achieve with this research?”  The Doctor demanded.

“A way out.”  The Rani replied.  “The Universe will end, we all know it does.  I want a way out when it does.”

The Doctor laughed.  “You want the impossible.”

“It’s beginning to look like it’s just a pipe dream.  The conditions in there are utterly hostile.  Sure you could survive, but you couldn’t live.  At least not yet.”

“You’ve discovered a way?”

“Not exactly, it’s just more of a theory at the moment.”

“A means of cellular adaptation.  Change yourself to live in the environment.”

“Exactly.  The law of evolution still applies to even us.”

“But that’s horrible.”  Dodo shuddered.

“Not at all.  By knowing the ultimate form of this realm I can change a living creature to survive in those conditions.”

“The high council would never permit this.”  The Doctor stated firmly.

“Since when did you start singing their praises Doctor?  I’m not the one they put on trial, remember?”

“That’s all in the past now.”

“Not forgotten though I imagine.”  The Rani mused.  “There are others who deserved that more than you.”

“Yes well I expect they’ll get around to you in due course.”

“I doubt it.  You see I’ve never done anything to concern them.  Besides why would they want to?”

“Because you have no morality and you kill without compassion or mercy?”

“That was all in the past.  Even I shudder at some of the things I did.”

Amazement at the timeless void is of no concern chances untaken bleed with regret.

Jo looked at the Doctor.  “Are you ok?  Was that…regeneration?”

“Hmph. What are you on about?  Unhand me madam.  Where am I?”

“UNIT HQ of course.  Do you want to see the Doctor?”

“Wait a minute, don’t I know you?”  Jo paused.  “You’re the Doctor aren’t you?”

“I might be any number of things, but as it happens, yes I am the Doctor.”

“I thought so.  Will the other one turn up too?”

“What other one?”

“The small one with the kind smile.”  Jo had liked him a lot.

Wear the brand, live the brand, be the brand, the brand that marks you as a dairy cow.

“I still don’t know what this is all for.”  The Doctor said to Dodo.

“Well you said she was a scientist.  Sounds like she just wants to get her name in the papers to me.”

“No, there’s something more to this than fame and ego.  For starters she doesn’t want fame and she has no ego, not in the way you think of it.  No, the real question is ‘why is she here?’  Maybe if you ask her nicely she’ll tell you.”

“Me?”  Dodo asked.  “Why me?”

“Because she’s notoriously contemptuous of humans.  That’s a weakness we can exploit.”

Style is reviled is the window to the soul, tells more than you want someone to know.

The Rani was trying on shoes when the human woman entered her room.  “What do you think of these?  Too Harajuko?  Do you think I should try Italian?”

“They’re nice.”  Dodo replied.

“Let’s see what they look like on you.”  The Rani sat Dodo down and handed her an identical pair of shoes.  “It’s so nice to have another female to talk to.  I used to prefer the company of men, but that was a whole other lifetime ago.  Now I feel that I prefer to have a few girlfriends I can chat to.  What do you think of my plan?”

“Why would you want to change your whole body?”

“I know, I just got this one, so why change?  It’s simply a matter of practicality.  The humanoid form while perfectly suited to this realm in totally useless in that other one.  It’s a much harsher existence and that’s why I looked at the native inhabitants to work out their biology.  Did you know they’re neither animal or vegetable or mineral?  They’re a completely different form of life to any we’ve ever known about before?”

“Why would you want to go and live there?”

“A means of escape.”  The Rani replied.  “There’s a war going on, a war I’m not prepared to fight in.  Why should I?  I looked for a way out and I found one.  An existence outside of this universe where no one could ever bother me again.”

“You’re running away?”

“Wouldn’t you?  They’re forcibly drafting everyone.  I refuse to fight their war for them.  I’m dodging their draft.”

“Look, you and the Doctor should get out of here.  I’m sorry for bringing you both here.  I was confused, my brain was a bit addled.  Still this third life has been short but sweet.  Perhaps one day I shall return to it?  Tell the Doctor to take my TARDIS and go.  I won’t need it anymore.”  The Rani popped open a vial of sticky blue liquid and drank it all.  “I will become…other.  You should go, before I get hungry.  They, we, always are.”

Dodo ran out of the room.

What are you waiting for?  What are you waiting for?  What are you waiting for?

The Doctor operated the controls of the Rani’s TARDIS.  It was one of the newer type 63’s with the rotating silver hoop rather than the plunging central column.  “Next stop Earth.  I’ll reunite you with your Doctor and take you both back to where your TARDIS is.”

Bloom like the flower, drink deep on the void, become one of us, one of us.

The Rani was aware only of a strange feeling of connection as she skittered on the floor.  Her body was not as she could yet understand.  She was an infinity of possible shapes.  She flowed and oozed and crept.  She found she could assume humanoid shape as easily as wearing gloves.  She had become other.  She left the smallness behind and walked into a bigger and newer reality.  The bubbles looked so small here, tiny things.  She saw them burst into life and she saw them die away.  They were not important however.  The hunger was all that consumed her, the eternal desire to feed and grow strong.

Eternity is meaningless, an abstract concept.  This place outside the hat is in but another hat…

Dodo was glad to be reunited with her Doctor.  “I’m so glad you’re back.”

“Yes, child, don’t fuss so.”  The Doctor opened the TARDIS and went inside.  “Come along child, don’t dawdle.”

Jo waved goodbye to Dodo.  “Fab shoes by the way.”

“Thanks, bye.”  Dodo waved to the other Doctor and Jo.

“So what happened to your friend?  She sounds like she was really confused.”

“She was scared by something so terrible that she accepted a totally alien existence rather than face what it was she was running away from.”  The Doctor looked at the Rani’s TARDIS.  “You know with this I could finally go where I wanted to go.”

“I just want to go back to Earth.  My home.  That’s where I feel the safest.”

The Doctor sighed.  “I like Earth too, I suppose we should tell the Brigadier what happened.”

“You should have seen his face when I told him you’d changed your appearance.”

“Good grief Jo, you didn’t?”

She watched with curious eyes the contents of the small bubble.  It was like a half remembered dream, was she a woman who dreamed she was a butterfly or a butterfly who dreamed she was a woman?

The Doctor's face fell as the Rani's TARDIS dematerialised once he and Jo had exited it.  "I guess it's needed elsewhere."