The TARDIS materialised with it’s usual lethargic fading in and out. After a minute or so two people emerged and had a quick look around. The taller of the two was dressed in a peculiar get up. He had long brown curly hair and he wore a long dark blue coat and a very long scarf of many different colours.

He liked to be called The Doctor. He may have had another name once, a label given to him by his people, the Time Lords, to identify him from the others of his race. Perhaps he had rejected it when he had left his people to wander the galaxy as an outcast. Perhaps he had simply forgotten it as he was fast approaching his eight hundredth birthday. The memory was like that with his people as they approached their first millennium. Currently he was wearing his fourth body. This could come as a shock to some of the people he regularly encountered but he had learned simply not to trouble them with such details.

His travelling companion was also one of his people, a much younger woman. She was called Romanadvoratrelundar but she preferred Romana for short. She was barely one hundred and sixty and only on her second body. She was sporting a much more colourful and cheery wardrobe. A sensible green trouser suit with a pale pink blouse and dark grey pumps. Heels were just not practical for most of the environments they tended to find themselves in. It seemed like the universe had a fondness for planets which looked like chalk quarries and buildings that seemed to have more corridors than rooms.

"Romana, I don’t think we’re in Kasterborus anymore." The Doctors deep voice boomed without much effort.

"Oh dear. That dimensional vortex must have thrown us off course. The manual says you should have dematerialised before it hit us." She pulled out the thick black leather book seemingly out of thin air.

"I prefer to ride out life’s little storms, if you can’t take what the universe throws at you then you’re in the wrong job."

"I am in the wrong job Doctor. I had signed on just for the key to time, remember? This is just extra credit for my fifteenth degree."

"Is it really?"

"No, I’m not going back to that stuffy academy again. Excitement, adventure and a good romp through the universe is what a Time Lady craves these days." She pushed a stray strand of her long blonde hair behind her ear.

Deep inside a dark and hidden cave three figures had gathered. They had a job to do and they were going to do it well. They were three of the universe’s most powerful accountants, but it was not money they handled but souls. They wore dark shrouds over simple tunics and leggings. Two of the figures were male and the third was female.

"He is here, in the flesh," the first said, his silky voice lingering over the vowels.

"So he is," the second replied with his deep bass voice.

"She is with him," the third pointed out with a voice like broken glass or fingernails on a blackboard.

"Oh well, I suppose that was to be expected." The first was not concerned.

"Will it still work?" The second asked.

"I don’t see why not. It took me ages to peel all of these potatoes." The third was put out.

The Doctor and Romana explored the immediate vicinity, checking the local gravity at the drop of a hat.

"One of these days it’s going to blow away, Doctor." Romana teased.

"Well that’s possible. Hello, I see a local over there." He walked towards the startled native at a brisk pace.

Romana skipped after the Doctor, as if she was playing one long line of hop scotch. "Shall we be insurance salespeople again?" she asked gleefully.

"Yes all right but at the first sight of a Dalek or a Movellan it’s back to the TARDIS." They laughed as they chased the native who had succumbed to the running away part of the fight or flight response.

The three raised their hands up and the first said. "Now."

"Now?" asked the second.

"Now!" confirmed the third.

The Doctor stopped and slumped down to his knees. "My head feels funny like a burning itch or a runny egg on thin ice."

"Doctor, what’s wrong?" Romana asked. She was concerned.

The Doctor yelled in pain and collapsed the rest of the way to the ground, unconscious.

"Doctor? Doctor? Can you hear me?" Romana was unsure how to react. For all her degrees the practical side suddenly seemed a lifetime ago.

Images flooded the Doctors mind. There was a jam buttie swimming in a river of treacle. A tree made of glass trying to smash itself and a small blue dog was doing something to his leg. "I say!" he exclaimed.

I say, we say, you say, hooray, no way, today, lets play. A disconnected voice in his head changed his words into something else.

"Hello..."

Hello, yellow, mellow, jello, bellows, sellers, fellows. The voice was persistent.

Three figures appeared behind him. He would have seen them arrive but he only discovered their existence when he backed up and fell over them. "I say would you not do that?"

"Fool," the first said.

"Clown," the second added.

"Idiot," the third agreed.

"He’s nothing more than a buffoon," they said together.

"Is this the anti-me association? It’s always nice to meet one’s critics. I’m the Doctor and it’s terribly nice to meet you. Jelly baby?"

"He’s not what he used to be, he used to be so direct and he knew what he was doing," the first said.

"He has lost his mind," the second exclaimed.

"No, he has lost himself," the third proclaimed.

"He must rediscover himself," the first said.

"He must be set back on track," the second said.

"He must become what he needs to be or he will be lost to himself," the third decided.

"Hey you, this is all fascinating and I hate to interrupt but where’s Romana?" The Doctor stood up.

"She is with your body. We are with your mind," they all said.

The Doctor sat back down again. "I thought it may have been something like that."

"Doctor? Enough of this carry on Doctor, please wake up now. This game has gone on long enough." Romana was now in tears and a few drops had discoloured her pretty blouse. She pulled out a small dog whistle and blew on it as hard as she could.

Inside the TARDIS a small robot that looked more than anything like a small dog whirred into activity. It’s ‘ears’, two radar dishes, rotated as it picked the signal up. "Coming Mistress," it said. A small signal to the console enabled it to exit the time machine.

"Oh hurry K9." Romana pleaded as if wishing would make the small robot dog move faster. The Doctor had not moved now for simply ages and she was so worried and then he began muttering.

"Not, must not."

"Must not what Doctor?" Then she had an idea. They usually were rare for her as she was a practical sort of woman. Her education was sorely lacking in thinking for herself but with his guidance she had the occasional idea such as this one. She put her hands on his forehead. "Contact."

"Contact." The Doctor wondered why he said this but then Romana was standing next to him. "Hello Romana. I’d like you to meet...I’m sorry I didn’t get your names."

"Doctor there’s no time to explain. You’re lying unconscious on an unexplored alien world." Romana was a bit put out to see her clothes had turned into a pair of blue denim dungarees with an itchy wool sweater and red and white head-scarf covering her hair.

"Steady on. Breathing. Remember how I said you must breathe while talking. Otherwise it sounds so unladylike."

"Yes, Doctor."

"Ahem," the first interrupted. "You should not be here young lady. We are trying to help him and he doesn’t need distractions. He’s become too used to distracting himself that he has forgotten himself."

"Really? Well I never. Who was I, I wonder?" He smiled a big toothy grin.

"Enough of this frivolity. We are here to strip away the layers of unreality," the second intoned.

"You may be able to help him. Your psychic link to the Doctor will strengthen our powers. Although if you get distracted then all will be for naught," the third said as she brushed Romana’s hair with a long ivory backed hair brush.

"You could say my dear, this is his wake up call," the first pushed his fingers into the Doctors head.

"Be careful there," the Doctor cautioned. "I don’t want another one of my turns."

"Remember Doctor, look deep inside the empty spaces and remember. Remember why you left Gallifrey, why you left your people and why you began your crusade against evil."

Images of the Doctors past were displayed to Romana. It wasn’t the boring black and white home cinema of a human’s mind. This was Imax with Dolby surround sound and free complementary bag of popcorn. Romana ate the popcorn as she watched.

"I remember. They wouldn’t act. They said they couldn’t interfere. It was not the happiest day of my life. I was so enraged. I took Susan out of her class and we escaped that very day. I made her leave behind all her friends and I can never repay her that debt. We wandered for a while always one step ahead of the Celestial Intervention Agency until I finally disconnected the primary recall device. They left us alone after that. That was so long ago, why are you showing it to me now? I gave Susan a better education, sent her to the best schools in the universe. True I accidentally abducted two of her teachers but by then she was very much ahead of their technology. They taught her some of the social skills I lacked back then."

"You still carry the guilt Doctor. That is not the main reason however. The show must go on, remember the demat gun. Remember the Sontaran invasion of Gallifrey. Remember Castellan Kellnar."

"What? I don’t know anything about that. Wait Kellnar, ambitious and servile. Yes I remember reclaiming the Presidency of Gallifrey I earned after I was put on trial. No after the trial, Goth was dead so I won by default. The Sontarans invaded after using the Vardens as a bridgehead. I stopped them, but how?" There was a large white bricked wall in the Doctor’s mind.

"The knowledge was locked off in your mind, to prevent you from spreading the secrets of a terrible weapon. You must breakdown this wall, remember what you have done and why you did it."

"I can’t."

"You must."

"I can’t."

"If you don’t then you will be lost inside your spiralling insanity for ever."

Each brick was embossed with the seal of Rassilon.

The Doctor imagined a huge mallet which pounded away at the wall. "It’s no good."

"Stop, aim at just one brick Doctor."

"With all the force aimed at just one brick the Doctor began to break the wall down."

"Quickly now Doctor, remove another brick in the wall."

"It’s working." The Doctor brought the wall tumbling down and long trapped memories of his recent past were freed. "I did that. I built a weapon of mass destruction and I used it?"

"So it would seem Doctor. Now you must live with this information. Had you gone on much longer your mind would have snapped under the strain."

"We are finished." The three figures vanished.

"Popcorn, Doctor?"

"Mmmm, no thanks Romana. I think I need a bath. Something to wash away the blood on my hands."

"You did what had to be done, Doctor. For the safety of Gallifrey and time."

"It doesn’t take away the loathing I feel, does it?"

"No it doesn’t, look on the bright side. They just saved your life."

"But at what cost? My soul?"

"We have the secret of the demat gun," the first pulled of his robes.

"That gullible fool will never realise," the second opened a bottle of wine.

"We will reign supreme," the third took the roasted potatoes out of the oven. "The Varden Empire will conquer all of the universe."

"I don’t think so. K9, fire!" the Doctor leaned out of the shadows. His face was ashen and he looked like retribution incarnate.

"Affirmative Master." K9’s nose mounted blaster emerged and it fired three bolts, one at each of the three figures.

"Check their minds K9, make sure they never use this information."

What appeared to be a small red sucker cup on car aerial was used to check the minds of the three Vardens. "Stun level seven has caused minor brain trauma. Recent memory engrams have been deleted." K9’s biotronic probe had finished its work.

Back inside the TARDIS the Doctor set the controls. "I think we need a nice holiday. I’ve got a nice place in mind. There’s a pavilion opening or something like that."

Romana noticed that the Doctor seemed more sombre than before. She hoped he would be all right.

"Romana, I’ll take you to Brighton!" He gave her a toothy smile and they set off on their journey.