Four people stood or sat inside a hexagonal pinky grey walled room. The room was both the heart and nerve centre of an impossibly big time machine called the TARDIS. One of the four travellers, known only as the Doctor, had borrowed the TARDIS a long time ago just before she had fled Gallifrey. Of course she had been a man then, the complexities of the lives she had lived had once given Sigmund Freud a nasty headache.


“Grandfather, where are we going?” Susan Foreman pleaded with her white haired grandparent for answers.
“We must flee Susan, everything we held dear about our home is gone.” The Doctor reprogrammed the door lock that lead to the TT Capsule repair centre. He picked one of the capsules at random. “This one will do I think Susan.”
“Time and Relative Dimension is Space.” Susan remembered her lectures.
“Dimensions.” The Doctor corrected his young granddaughter.
Inside the while walled time machine Susan ran her hands over the few controls she was familiar with. “T A R D I S, TARDIS. That’s what we’ll call the ship Grandfather.”
The Doctor looked up from his intense concentration. “Hmmm what was that? TARDIS? Yes, it’s as good a name as any other.” He returned his concentration to the console and finally pulled a lever making the double doors close.


The second time traveller was called Haana and she was a Time Lady like the Doctor, although she had been born a human on Earth. A Student at the Prydonian Academy she was top of her class in alien affairs and alien languages. She was technically on a sabbatical from her studies but she had seriously abused that by using a Time Ring for a while to explore the Universe.


The Doctor looked at the three Time Lords. “I refuse to do your dirty work anymore.” Petulantly he looked at the floor and stamped his foot. “I’ve done more than enough clearing up your mistakes.”
“Very well Doctor, your sentence shall be passed upon you now.” Cardinal Goth looked down on the small man with the smiling sad eyes and battered clothes. He levelled the rod of Rassilon at the Doctor. “Doctor, I shall now terminate this existence in accordance with your fair trial by a jury of your peers and a judge of good standing. We wish you better luck in your next life.”
The Doctor turned to run but there was nowhere to run to. It struck him in the back and darkness overcame him.


The third traveller was the only male currently occupying the TARDIS, Jean-Marc Baptiste. His parents had been turned into Daleks and he had become an orphan, resorting to stealing food to eat. Haana had discovered the truth and kept her promise to tell him. The Doctor was like an aunt and a crazy best friend rolled up into one.


“Now look Doctor, UNIT cannot afford this sort of nonsense.” Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart looked at the tall curly white haired Time Lord. “UNIT funds are not limitless you know.”
The Doctor rubbed his mouth. “Yes well Brigadier I said I was sorry. I was sure I was on the right track. It’s this circuit here, Earth is just not at a sufficient level of technological sophistication to get it accurate enough for what we need.” He looked round to his petite blond haired assistant Jo Grant. “Jo would you get onto supplies and see if they have those components for plan b?”
Jo smiled at the Doctor. “Of course.” She turned and left.
“What’s plan b Doctor?” The Brigadier was suspicious.
“I’m going to have to build the thing myself. Then we might stand a chance of locating the Master.”


The final, and newest, traveller was Penny Bayley. She had been a shop assistant in the Oxford Road branch of Marks and Spencer’s. Haana had taken her away from her job to explore the Universe before she met up with the Doctor and Jean-Marc. Now they all travelled together inside of the TARDIS like one big, and very odd, family.


Romana looked at the squat pepper pot shaped alien and grinned. “Hi there, I’m Romana and this is my friend the Doctor. Say hello Doctor.” They were in some sort of clay quarry in the middle of southern England, blue sky and small white clouds were overhead and only the occasional bird witnessed the three alien beings.
“Hello there.” The Doctor rumbled quietly. “It’s awfully nice to meet you. A Dalek without a gunstick is so very rare these days.”
“Yes indeed.” Romana agreed. “Can we take this opportunity to ask you why you have invaded this planet? What is your stance of planetary invasions and would you like a jelly baby?”
The Doctor sulked. “I wanted to say that.” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his grey overcoat and looked blackly at his blonde haired companion.
“I’m sorry Doctor.” Romana apologised. “I didn’t mean to steal your line.”
The Doctor took out his packet of jelly babies and offered them to the Dalek. “Would you like a jelly baby? They’re terribly nice.” When the Dalek didn’t take one he handed the packet to Romana who took one, before taking one himself and popping it into his mouth. “You really don’t know what you’re missing.”


Haana watched the green plasma ball as the tendrils of light moved as if they were alive. The Doctor preferred this animate light display to the phallic column she used to favour when she had been a man. She had come to travel with the Doctor when she had started giving swimming lessons to the Doctor’s then companion Claire Mason. Claire had recently discovered that she was bisexual and they had become close and fallen hopelessly in love with each other. She had been Claire’s first real female lover, she had apparently made out with some sort of computer-generated hologram when she first discovered herself. Haana had always known about her lesbianism since she had been a small child when her Sindy dolls had set up home together.


The Doctor and Turlough looked down at the injured vampire. “Should we should help him Doctor.” Turlough stated, not sure what to do himself.
“Kill me now Time Lord.” Klaus. A vampire spoke in a scratchy hissing voice.
“I can’t.” The Doctor dropped the wooden stake. “Tegan was right, too many people around me die.”
“You would condemn me to a life of misery?” Klaus demanded. “If I survive this then I promise that one day I will make you suffer as I do now.”
The Doctor lowered his head. “You’re not the first to say that.” He picked the vampire’s body up and carried it into the shadows of a wood house before the dawning suns rays could kill it.”
“Will he be ok in here Doctor?” Turlough wondered. He didn’t like to think what would happen if a small child wandered in and became lunch.
“Yes, I think so.” The Doctor headed towards the open door and closed it once Turlough was outside. “We should get back to the TARDIS, Kamelion said he’d have breakfast ready for us.”
“I was wondering why he resembled that human chef.” Turlough laughed briefly.


Jean-Marc adjusted the bronze bracelet on his left wrist. It was an identical copy of the one Haana had built for herself. In fact it was a temporal duplicate as the Doctor corrected him when he asked her about it. Apparently it would keep him safe from random pockets of temporal disturbance but he liked it because it was a gift from Haana. They were like brother and sister in some ways, they felt comfortable around each other and neither fancied the other slightly. Penny was different however; he was seriously keen on her. He only had to see her flame coloured hair and his head would fill with a billion thoughts about how beautiful she was.


The Doctor was like a pantomime horse Peri decided. He was a gaudily coloured larger than life character who seemed in two minds about everything. Now they were lost in a large underground tunnel and the Doctor refused to concede that he didn’t know where they were going.”
“This way Peri, we’ll soon be out now.” He put a large hand onto his companion’s shoulder to cheer her up.
Peri’s feet were killing her by the time they finally reached the surface five hours later. “At last, fresh air. I though you said you knew where you were going.”
“I did.” The Doctor explained. “You must have distracted me and we got turned around once or twice. However we’re here now, there’s the TARDIS; we should go. Our work here is done, the Kraag stronghold was in ruins and its occupants had fled when the explosions had first started.
They were back inside the security of the TARDIS. “I wished we could have saved more Doctor, that creature absorbed so many of the Kraags before you banished it.”
The central column started to move up and down as the Doctor escorted Peri through the white roundel covered corridors towards her room. “I do too Peri” he assures her. “I do too.”


The kitchen lights came on when Penny and the Doctor went into the room. Penny didn’t know the Doctor as well as the others but there was something reassuring about her. She didn’t seem so much a mother figure as a big sister or best friend and the Doctor knew more about Penny’s secret hobby of stamp collecting than she did. This didn’t surprise Penny too much as she knew the Doctor had passed her bi millennial birthday a while back. She would have needed something to do in all those aeons of travelling. Penny still couldn’t get used to the idea that the Doctor had been a man for twelve life times, she was so feminine and girly and yet she had the best right hook in the cosmos. She held the silver tray while the Doctor placed the teapot, cups, biscuits, milk and sugar onto it. Then she follows the Time Lady back towards the console room for a game of blind horse as Haana is too good at all the other cards games they know.


“It’s no good Ace!” The Doctor shouted. “There’s too many of them.” He tugged on Ace’s jacket sleeve, urging her to follow him. There were simply too many zombies to deal with.
Ace swung the golf club one last time before she followed the Doctor to where Benny was waiting for them, hopefully with some nitro-9.
Benny’s heart lifted when she saw the Doctor and Ace. Quickly she handed Ace the two cans of home made explosive. “These are all I could make in time. Your handwriting is pretty naff you know.”
“Oi, dead gits!” Ace called to the zombies with her trademark irreverence. “Come and get a load of this if you think you’re tough enough.” She lobbed the two cans into the pack of animated corpses.
The Doctor crouched down with his fingers in his ears and his eyes screwed tightly shut. Benny wondered what he was doing that for when the Nitro-9 went off with a deafening roar. She felt definite heat on the back of her neck before she picked herself up off the ground. “Did it work ok Ace?” She asked excitedly.
“Wicked.” Ace laughed and tapped Benny’s nose like the Doctor did from time to time. She pointed at the shredded, unmoving, bodies. “I hope you’re not trying to do me out of a job here” she joked before helping Benny to lift the Doctor to his feet and telling him it was ok now.


Jean-Marc sipped his cup of tea slowly. No matter how many cups the Doctor forced on him he still preferred coffee. He dunked a rich tea into the brown liquid and nibbled on the tea-laced part before it dropped off into the cup. The actual working of the TARDIS puzzled him. The Doctor had tried to demonstrate with cream cakes but she ate them before she had finished her explanation. Haana had tried drawings but they quickly turned into something like Picasso might have done. Finally he had read a book and was so completely baffled that he had given up and came up with his own theory; the TARDIS works because it does. He mentioned it to Penny one time and she laughed at it, at least he hoped she was laughing at that and not him. He liked her a lot, he really did. One day he might get up the nerve to talk to Haana about it.


Grace Holloway was San Francisco’s top heart surgeon until a chance encounter with a patient from another world had made her quit her job and open up her own private clinic. There she had worked among the people she wanted so badly to save, to hold back death for them. He had come back one day and that time she had gone with him to see the Universe. She had come back home finally and returned to her work renewed and refreshed. She helped more people than ever before but until a couple of years ago that she didn’t know about the one person who needed her the most, herself.
She found the slight bladder infection she put the tummy pains down to got worse and worse and finally she realised it wasn’t her renal system that was the problem and sought a second opinion. The news had hit her like a hammer, ovarian cysts. She had both ovaries removed and realised that what she had wanted most in the world was not to hold back death, but to bring forth life. But by then it was too late.
Then the Doctor had come back into her life, not the cute one with the brown curls and soft sexy eyes but a weird platinum blonde who managed to get her the fertilised eggs implanted into her aching womb that she so badly wanted. That Doctor left of course after the baby was born. Little Mary Jane Holloway was one now and she held her child in her arms as she answered the door. “Who’s this at the door?” She asked her daughter. “Who’s come here to see us?” She opened the door to see the Doctor, her Doctor. The cute one with the hair and eyes and most definitely male.
“Hello Grace.” The Doctor smiled. “Who’s this little person then?” He made a fuss of Mary Jane while Grace tried to make a pot of tea.
“It’s so nice to see you again Doctor, especially after meeting that other you.” She didn’t know how much to reveal about his future self.
He sipped the tea and sighed. “You make the best cup of tea since Sergeant Benton and believe me that’s a compliment. I almost forgot, the reason why I popped by.” The Doctor fished into his jacket pocket and took out a small box. “There’s one each for both of you. It’s a set for mother and daughter.” He showed the necklaces to Grace. “I’d better go, Sheri’s waiting for me in the TARDIS. I couldn’t come to town without seeing you and Mary Jane though could I? Have you heard from Chang Lee? He’s next on my list of old friends to look up.”
Grace handed the Doctor a postcard. “I got this last New Years. He sends me one each year. He’s married now with two kids and another one on the way. They live in Hawaii now, he invested that gold you gave him and he’s a multi millionaire now.”
“Are you happy Grace?” The Doctor asked suddenly and seriously.
Grace smiled. “Yes, yes I am. We both are, aren’t we Mary Jane? It was nice seeing you again Doctor.” She wondered if the Doctor knew what his part in Mary Jane’s creation would be already. She closed the door after he left and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Time for your bath isn’t it?”


They were nearly there now; Haana could feel it. Her connection to the TARDIS transcended the physical. It was a part of her. Not as much as it was a part of the Doctor obviously. Maybe that was why the Doctor never bothered with relationships she mused. Then again she still referred to the TARDIS as old girl? Maybe it was platonic, yeah probably she considered. It was such a huge burden living to be over two thousand. The Doctor had blazed through several of her lives like a comet or shooting star. Only as she neared her few remaining lives did she stretch them out and this last one seemed determined to fit in as much life as possible. Maybe that was what she liked most about the Doctor? Maybe that’s why her brief fling with Peri had failed? Or maybe it was just better to do as the Doctor urged and take up abstinence as a hobby? She looked at Penny and decided that abstinence was the same as loneliness. She knew that Jean-Marc fancied Penny, all the times he spent not looking at her was almost proof enough and it was obvious to a blind hermit that she felt the same way about him. She didn’t want to stand in the way of true love so she resolved to fix the two of them up on a date. Now if only she could do the same with the Doctor? Let her experience an intimate relationship or several as a woman.


The Doctor rolled over and looked at the perfectly formed face of his fiancée, Emma. He gazed down at her sleeping form for several minutes before kissing her softly on the lips. His hands felt under the bed sheets for her wrist and he checked her pulse, it was still regular. He kissed her again before getting out of bed and pulling on his white y-fronts.
He walked down the corridors of the TARDIS to the console room. Their destination was the planet Golf, the home of the world’s largest crazy golf course but in his love for Emma he changed the settings. He would take her somewhere that was as beautiful as she was, she exciting as she was, as broad of buttocks as she was. No that was just his imagination running awry. The beautiful and exciting parts were enough. It had been simply ages since he had visited Karfel.
“Where are we?” Emma asked as she looked around the mirrored corridors that were resplendent with opulent decadence. The floors were real slabs of gold and the ceilings were diamond encrusted. This place was almost as beautiful the their love for each other. She took his hand in hers as they walked through the massive indoor garden and they kissed passionately in front of several nude and anatomically disproportionate statues. They were almost as big as, she felt a hot flush of passion surge though her slight figure and had to think of British MP’s to make it go away.
“Planet Karfel, once a dreary little place with a planetary budget slightly less than five pounds per corridor. Since my last visit they’ve become very rich indeed.” The Doctor pointed to two lavish full-length portraits. “My third and sixth selves. I wonder if my portrait will join those?”
“I don’t see why not my love.” She hugged the Doctor as they continued to the Karfelon council chambers.
The Doctor sighed heavily. “It’s just that I have to tell the Malin that I’m here to confiscate all this material wealth for their own good. They’ll be better off in total squalor, believe me my love.”


Jean-Marc watched as the green plasma ball ceased its frantic activity, which indicated that they had landed. He handed the empty cup to the Doctor before she started to examine the control setting just to confirm their destination. Then he followed her outside of the TARDIS along with Haana and Penny. His hand brushed against Penny’s and a song burst through his head.
They found themselves heading along a corridor lined with blue and green plastic chairs and the occasional potted plant or seven. The Doctor knocked on a set of gold doors and walked inside before waiting for a reply.


The Doctor put his feet down off his desk as Brigadier Bambara walked into his office. “Winifred, you never come down here in person. What’s wrong?”
“Doctor.” Bambara looked around the Doctor’s office for a few seconds. “We have a situation. Last night there were a lot of UFO sightings over Maidstone. Three RAF jets were scrambled to investigate but when they landed the pilots had been replaced with some sort of green and brown liquid.” She put a filled jam jar down on the Doctor’s desk. “What the hell can do this humans?”
The Doctor lifted the jar up and examined it carefully. “This is bad, very bad. Your pilots are dead Winifred. This is their remains.” He put the glass down carefully on his desk. “Did Alistair ever brief you about the Cybermen?”
“Cybermen?” Bambara laughed. “Pull the other one Doctor, they’re a myth. That whole Mondas thing was a practical joke by the KGB remember.”
Ruffling his long brown hair the Doctor sat back down. “Do doubt they told themselves that it was the CIA’s responsibility. Mondas was real Winifred, very real indeed. The Cybermen are what you could have been if it the Earth had been in it’s position at the time. Consider them a warning of what could have been.”
“Fine.” Bambara closed the topic. “Will they be back and what sort of firepower do they possess?”
“Yes and lots.” The Doctor grinned at his good friend Winifred. “I think we should get started don’t you?”


“Doctor!” Romana exclaimed as her blonde friend walked into her office. “I didn’t expect to see you here so soon. What’s the problem?”
The Doctor outlined the whole situation with the White Guardian and how the Black Guardian had destroyed her. “We came back here to try and find a way to restore the balance.”
Romana looked at the Doctor’s companions. “Lady Haana do you agree with the Doctor?”
Haana stared at her good friend Romana. “Oh hell yeah” she exclaimed “and I’m going to be the one to take him down.”
Penny put her hand on Haana’s shoulder. “You need to calm down Haana, the Black Guardian just wants to provoke you into doing something hasty.”
The Doctor clarified things for a puzzled Romana. “Haana’s upset because the White Guardian adopted Claire’s form just before the end. It shook her up very badly. A lot of painful memories came back.” The Doctor held Haana’s hand. “You’ll get through this, you’ve been doing so well up to now. She wasn’t really Claire you have to understand that.”
“I know that Doctor, it just brought back some painful memories.” She didn’t let go of the Doctor’s hand for a while.


How on Earth she had ended up travelling with the Doctor again Peri didn’t know. However this one was better than the last one and she needed his company after splitting up with Haana. Where had her life gone wrong? Was the Universe trying to break her heart?
The Doctor studied his reflection in the mirror. His moustache was carefully trimmed and his sideburns just the right shape. He looked at his ebony skin and started to whistle the tune to Shaft. “Peri, I’ve been thinking, why don’t we drop in and visit my old friend K D Lang? You’ll like her and I know you’ll both get on so well together.”
“K D Lang?” Peri asked. “I might just have been with another woman once but that doesn’t mean anything and I don’t need you to fix me up with dates. Are you trying to get rid of me Doctor? You are aren’t you? You don’t like me anymore do you? Why don’t you like me Doctor?”
The Doctor shook his head slowly. “Peri, shut up!” He shouted at his distraught companion. “We’ll go and see the Eurovision Song Contest then. I know a brother who can get us tickets.”
Peri ran screaming out of the hall closely followed by a screaming Doctor. “That’s the last time I let you take me anywhere Doctor.”
“How was I to know that they would allow the Sontarans to enter this year?” The Doctor wound his badly damaged scarf back around his neck. “They’re always such bad losers.”
“I was impressed by the way you used the drumstick to stop the one that was trying to strangle Chris Evans.”
The Doctor gasped. “That was Chris Evans? I should have waited a bit longer first, maybe eaten some of the meat off my KFC first.”
“So what do we do now Doctor?” Peri wondered. “Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if we saw the Spice Girls in concert?”
“Peri.” The Doctor said. “Shut up!”


Haana took Penny to one side. “I know it’s not my place to interfere, and usually I wouldn’t but I can’t stand it anymore. I know how much you fancy Jean-Marc and the way your heart flutters when you look at him. Just go up to him and snog him ok? Please? I’ll front you the money for a meal if you want?” She handed her young friend a packet of three. “Just remember that the Doctor must under no circumstances find out. She doesn’t approve of hanky panky in the TARDIS. I have no idea how she tolerated Claire and myself, we were constantly using up all the spray cream.”
“That’s a little more detail than I would have liked Haana.” Penny giggled. “We should fix the Doctor up with someone though, she needs to unwind.”
“Operation Doctor is in hand.” Haana revealed to Penny. “Now go get him Penny.”


Tiffany screamed in pain as the creature bit down hard on her shoulder. Its teeth buried themselves into the flesh and she felt them grind against bone. She screamed again when suddenly the Doctor was there and he fired the special bullets into the creature. It’s mouth unclamped from her injured shoulder and the heavy weight was gone from her back.
The Doctor helped Tiffany to her feet. He looked at the wound and frowned. In front of his very eyes it knitted itself closed and soon all that remained were tiny scars and blood. “This could be very interesting Tiffany. I think we may need to restrain you the next time we go somewhere where there is a full moon.”
Tiffany panicked when she saw that the wound had closed up. “I’m going to turn into a hairy walking carpet? Please shoot me now.”
The Doctor shook his ginger haired head. “It’s not that simple Tiffany, it’s only once a month and only then on planets with a moon. The rest of the time you’ll be the same as you are right now.”
She looked into his deep blue eyes for reassurance. “Do you really think so? I don’t want to hurt you Doctor, you’re my best friend. I don’t want to be wolf woman.”
The Doctor handed Tiffany his dark blue coat to wear over her damaged blouse. “I won’t let any harm come to you Tiffany. There may even be a way to overcome this infection before you change into wolf woman.” He led her back to the TARDIS, intending to make her a nice cup of tea to calm her frayed nerves.


Haana took Jean-Marc to one side. “Now listen to me, I know how keen you are on Penny. She’s a very attractive girl and if circumstances were different I would be knocking on her door. She feels the same about you however and I won’t stand in the way. Here’s some money, if she decides to ask you out you had better say yes ok? Go halves on the bill if you must. If you take advantage of her I’ll never talk to you again? Now go and have a good time do you hear me?”
“How can you be so sure she like me?” Jean-Marc asked Haana.
“I just do ok?” He handed him a packet of three. “Use these if she wants you ok? Now I think big sister has said enough don’t you?”
Jean-Marc stared at Haana as she walked away. She was even stranger than usual and he wouldn’t have her change for the world.


The Doctor was talking to Romana when Haana found her. “I think I’ve managed to take Jean-Marc and Penny out of the loop, now we can get down to business. How the Other do we destroy the Black Guardian?”
The Doctor looked at Haana. “Either you’ve put two stone on in an hour or there’s something you haven’t told us Haana.”
Romana gasped when she saw Haana’s swollen stomach. “She’s pregnant?”
“Like I’m going to have sex with a guy?” Haana scoffed. She felt the stomach and screamed when she found that it was immense. “I’m going to have a baby?” She fainted.
The Doctor and Romana hefted Haana up onto Romana’s comfy leather chair. “She wasn’t pregnant earlier on Romana.” The Doctor stated.
“Yes, I know.” Romana agreed. “I would have noticed that bump earlier. You don’t think it could be him do you?”
The Doctor took out a mirror and checked her makeup. “I’m not sure, but yeah, it could well be the Black Guardian’s handiwork.”
Romana soothed Haana as she came to. “Shhh, just relax. Don’t panic.”
Haana screamed in shock as she felt a contraction and her waters broke.