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Prologue3,397 words
Part 1 The Doctor is In: Chapter 1 Run!2,581 words
Part 1 The Doctor is In: Chapter 2 What Did I Just Say?!3,072 words
Part 1 The Doctor is In: Chapter 3 The Distance7,026 words
Part 1: The Doctor is in: Epilogue 3,168 words
Part 2 A Dazzling Beginning: Chapter 5 Wild Wild Dress5,446 words
Part 2 A Dazzling Beginning: Chapter 6 It's Just One of Those Days3,240 words
Part 2 A Dazzling Beggining Chapter 7 Time Lady Justice8,469 words
Part 2 A Dazzling Beginning Chapter 8: The Burning Alure of Life's house collapsing6,381 words

Part 2 A Dazzling Beggining Chapter 7 Time Lady Justice

“Oi!” The Doctor said in his most terrible British voice. “Stop right there!”

“Y-yes?!” the fire breathing reptilian gaunt ‘human’ like creature with a faint… almost scale like shean to it’s skin asked as the stern tone of the command somehow got him to stop at an instinctive level. It swallowed the fire it seemed intent on breathing on its target and began to tentatively eye the couple meter high wooden fence behind it that it had just cleared in a single bound.

“You’re a far way from home, eh? Izorelie is on a whole ‘nother branch of the Milky Way.” The Doctor smirked. “So you know what this is?” he asked as he waved around his sonic screwdriver.

A blue-shining, wiring silver device practically appeared in the doctor's hand and the being suddenly crumbled into a ball, staring at it near complete terror. It then took a moment to puff itself up and attempt speech, seemingly hoping it could intimidate the much smaller Doctor. “Time- Time Lady… Yoa-you have no authority-“

“Time Lady?” The Doctor asked with a slight frown that gave way to a curious interest. “Time LORD.”

The entity known as Spring-Heeled Jack suddenly stood up to its full height. “Wait you don’t… Are you not the Time Lady Justice?”

The Doctor’s face tightened. “You got the wrong gender, but have you actually seen or heard of another Gallifreyian running around? Hopefully, they’re righting wrongs and not causing them... or are you just extraordinarily bad at identifying sex of other species?”

Spring-Heeled Jack smiled breathed out a bit of blue fire that curled up around its mouth and gave the air a scorched smell to it. “They all look the same hacked to bits and burned to a crisp.”

“Charming…” The Doctor quipped dryly as he tightened his grip on his sonic screwdriver. He probably should have just played along to get the fire breathing, leaping, claw-equipped creature to surrender quietly rather than attempt a struggle. He had come up on top of countless more intense fights than a 1v1 with an Izorelian, but that didn’t mean he was LOOKING for a fight with something that could spit blue flames and give him some impressive scratches.

The Doctor tilted his head a bit as a peculiar, high pitched sound cut through the air on a frequency much higher pitched than what a human could hear. He was about to ask his would-be attacker if he head it, but said Izorelian stopped preparing the blast of flame it was working on and attempted a different strategy of screaming, amd clawing at its sharp teeth as if they were no longer fireproof which, the Doctor mused, not likely the case, but blimey, what bad timing that would be.

‘CRACK!’

“MOTHER FUCKING CAN’T SORT OUT HIS OWN ALIEN BULLSHIT TIMELORD-BREAK RIDING TOKYO DRYFT PRETTY BOY ASSHOLE!”

Ah, timing! Ha-ha. The Doctor thought to himself dryly. It seemed he was, in fact, not the only known surviving humanoid from the planet Gallifrey as he was currently staring at woman with a slightly tanned complexion, deep ocean blue hair that went snow-white near her bangs. Her eyes, which were now directed at the doctor, where likewise a deep, deep blue. Both in terms of color and the things they had supposedly seen.

She certainly wasn’t human and carried herself with the air of someone who had seen a lot of shite. Also, she was preemptively mad at the Doctor even though, to his recollection, he had never met this woman. This almost always meant she had met him before but hopefully meant they weren’t married. Time-traveling relations where often completely devoid of linear structure, which the Doctor accepted, but this particular woman seemed very hot-headed. Not a quality he was unused to in a companion, but not something one wanted to be blindsided by.

Other notes, except for her 20th to 21st century garb of a doctor’s white coat over a tasteful, yet flattering fitting grey blouse and matching mini skirt, which didn’t match the current styles…

She had appeared out of seemingly nowhere and was standing on the neck of a being several feet taller than her, which was still breathing, but clearly in quite a bit of pain from the aforementioned neck pressure and other potential pain from the high pitched tone that was emanating from somewhere in this supposed Time Lady's coat.

The Doctor thought for a moment as he struggled to figure out the proper response to someone he was meeting for the first time from his perspective, but who had decided to be a royal ‘c’ word to him out of the gate which he may or may not have deserved.

As no immediate illuminating wisdom of how to deal with an issue rather specific to time travelers and licensed psychiatrists, he elected to fall back to a tried and true method of ‘being a cheeky git’. “‘ello, luv. Rough day at the office, was it?”

The unknown Time Lady wrinkled her nose and lips so she resembled a rather slagged off bunny. “Every day, week, month, year, century, millennium is a ROUGH one with you! You limey-loving, obnoxious anglophile!”

“Oi’, no need to get personal Miss…?” The Doctor mentally prepared himself for equal parts amusement and vexation. Asking for someone’s name that you have no reasonable way of knowing while from their perspective you should basically have it tattoos on one’s brain matter was always good for an over the top reaction.

“Minuette!” The Time Lady all but screamed. “OR, Time Lady Justice, if you want to get formal!” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Let’s not get formal. I don’t want to call you Time Lord Victorious.”

Huh. ‘Time Lord Victorious’. He rather liked the sound of that… grandiose thing that it was… Asking where the name came from and explaining he had never met Minuette nor had he met Time Lady Justice in her current form or any other would have been her next step, but before the conversation could continue, ‘Spring-Heeled Jack’ made his move.

It wasn’t much of a move, however. He simply reached a clawed hand around one of the knee-high, black leather boots which looked both trendy and expensive by earth standards. Before Spring-Heeled Jack could pull Minuette off, she looked down into the slightly reptilian eyes, seemingly transfixing them in place with an intense gaze of her own and said in a reverberating voice, ‘Suffer…’

The Doctor watched as the hapless creature’s expression twisted into one of complete agony, yet the rest of its body went completely limp even as it increased it’s breathing rhythm.

The Doctor cringed. That clinched it. That was 100% the reaction of someone who had lived a long time and expected to live longer yet. The scary thing was that from everything the Doctor had just witnessed, Minuette seemed the patient type in regards to how his seemingly-less-extinct-than-expected species usually behaved. “Well, that seemed excessive. How’s it work?” The Doctor asked.

The woman’s angry expression was suddenly cut into a smile like a scythe had just been cut across her face and she was the one doing the reaping. “The ‘forever Time Hell’ thing?” She asked coyly as she produced a golden chain from her white doctor’s coat. At the end of that golden chain was a series of spheres, and in the middle of an hourglass with bleached white sands that poured like a tiny waterfall forever contained in glass. She flicked it and at once the spheres began to spin and rotate and a golden pulse as if time itself hadn’t begun until the little sands at the center of her little personal time turner hadn’t begun to turn. Her eyes suddenly glossed over and her smile softened. “It’s just a thing I do start now and have done from the beginning of all existence.” She shifted her weight slightly and the being behind her let out a gurgle as if its soul was leaving its body.

Again, 100% certifiable Time Lord/Lady reaction.“Hey!” The Doctor protested as he looked down at the hapless alien who had just lost its life to the hilariously undersized doctor with a grey miniskirt and matching form-hugging blouse who placed the golden item into her jacket. “Time Lady or not, you can’t just run around executing everyone who looks at you sideways.”

Minuette smirked at the Doctor, or rather Time Lady Justice did. The frustration and anger had now been completely replaced with a haughty look and the air of someone who possibly COULD freely kill anyone who looked at them sideways, get away with it, and sleep very well assuming they needed sleep.

“Hello? Time Lady Justice?” the Time Lady said as if the title, well… justified the action, and given said title it was quite likely she was the universe authority on what was right and just unless someone tried to stop her. “Besides, I’m cleaning up your mess!” she insisted. “It takes a toll on a developing species psyche to deal with aliens when they don’t even have flight figured out yet…”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Well, blame me if you want, but I got a companion to rescue so, I’m hoping you have more than a shovel to cover up this one.”

Lady Justice smirked in response. “Well, it’s funny how time and perception work, Ten… Can I call you Ten?” A shimmering deep blue and golden energy surrounded both woman and ‘alien’ it’s long, deadly frame began to compact and fill out, pushing against the expensive black button-up shirt, ‘tie’ composing of a length of braided black string with expensive flattened turquoise stone against the end. “The locals will quickly run out of any sort of credible evidence to find a culprit to the disappearances and the papers will compare the two equally credible theories of Spring-Heeled Jack on the run from the British Government and a traveling group of gypsies whisking off the girls for ‘unspeakable deeds’.” She took a step forward and whispered to The Doctor in a tone that was again Minuette’s, same voice with much less gravitas and haughtiness than ‘Time Lady Justice’s tone, “As far as I know these ‘gypsies’ are luring away girls and men for ‘unspeakable’ deeds, but the type of deeds that leaves one alive, satisfied, and maybe just in need of a priest and hangover treatment”

The Doctor rubbed his eyes slightly took a deep breath. Minuette might have been able to adjust to what felt like his entire world being destroyed and put back together, but this was all new to him. He did a quick mental check. Still… a Time Lord. Good…. It’s okay… wild west times… after Debra who has been kidnapped and… “HEY!” He protested as a sense of Deja Vus hit. Something of an occupational hazard. “Time Lady or not, you can’t just—”

“Kill murderers and clean up your mess?” Time Lady Justice purred.

“Haha…”

The Doctor jumped back as the corpse, or rather, a portly, balding man with some facial scruff suddenly stood up. “Oh man… nice threads…” the man said as he reached into his own sun-bleached and mud battered leather jacket and somehow produced an entire, full bottle of amber liquids. “Oh, hey Doctor.” He uncorked the bottle. “Sorry, just getting rid of some aliens so the locals don’t freak out, find this species little cache of weapons, and accidentally kick start a technological revolution that destroys the planet.” He glanced at Lady Justice, “Hey, boss. Hey, uh… Mr. Hart.”

“Why is it I feel today is not a ‘questions answered’ sort of day…”? The Doctor begrudge, the new arrival taking no note of his dreary expression.

“Hey, Soos!” Lady Justice greeted as if she was seeing a cheery employee as both went for their daily morning coffee. “Oh! You should have a stack of papers on you. They concern the fate of literally everything!”

The Doctor frowned. “Are you doing that thing where people misuse the word ‘literally’.”

Minuette smirked. “I am literally using literally correctly in this context.”

The Doctor quickly mentally went through the process of being concerned about the scope of Minutte’s statement, irritated at her lackadaisical attitude, then accepting of the fact that this was probably what it was like to be around him.

“Hahaha! OH, right! I need both your signatures,” Soos said as he pulled out a white stack of stables papers that couldn’t possibly have come from humans in a wild west timeline.

“Wha—” Was all the Doctor could get out as the paper where forced in front of him by Lady Justice who produced her ‘time turner’ again, except this time it was a ballpoint pen and the end was still a series of spheres and an hourglass that was rotating and still giving the Doctor the distinct notion that a world was being created with every little turn. It was as if the universe itself began at the center of that little sphere and the Doctor, through meeting the Time Lady in front of him and both having brains full of memories of people who most have existed, and therefore must have as time raced to catch up with everyone and provide prospective between them so they could all exist, experience others, and also read stories where all of existence including themselves was created.

“Sign zee papers!” Time Lady Justice demanded in an oddly masculine tone. “I took the liberty of adding ‘more children’ to the conditions.”

The Doctor shacked his head in disbelief as Soos just laughed. “That’s okay, dudes, you don’t have to do that!”

“I WANT MORE KIDS! Everyone involved in this affair should want more children after THAT hot, near multiverse consuming nonsense.” Minuette declared. “Oh! And a wife. Uh…” She scribbled something onto one of the pages on the papers. “Marble Pie! Er, if she’s single...”

The Doctor had seen… well, he thought he had seen everything, but not a portly man who-WAS-just-an-alien-until-a-minute-ago’s eyes roll back into his head with a bright white light for a moment. “Haha, she’s single, dude.”

“Really?!” Time Lady Justice exclaimed happily as she began to dance in place. “Okay! We’re going to have some adorable time babies together! Oh… like… let’s just say ‘two’ for now!”

“Haha, okay,” Soos turned and presented the pages. “Doctor?”

The Doctor began to protest but suddenly he was no longer outside talking to a Time Lady and a… Soos… He was at a TABLE. A NICE table with a tasteful black tablecloth over it and lit candle in a small bottle at the center like a fancy restaurant. To complement that motif he was now looking at a menu… of children?! Er… girls and boys vaguely described by attitude. Furthermore, the buildings and distant trees of the frontier city were gone, or rather replaced. Specifically, he was now indoors surrounded by many more tables, some occupied, furnished walls with tasteful photographs of cosmic bodies or beautiful scenes from planets across the universe. There was even a bar of considerable length and a wall behind the bar that was loaded with hundreds of different bottles.

Music was even playing with just enough volume that it could be heard over the din of the occupants as opposed to forcing everyone to shout at each other. If he didn’t have the lingering thought that he had someone to rescue nagging at him, despite having all the time in the universe, he might have ventured a drink.

“Come on! Debra’s waiting!” Time Lady Justice said impatiently.

The Doctor considered explaining he was thinking just that but instead opted to look around. There were millions of stories throughout time and space warning against Strangers appearing out of nowhere offering ‘too good to be true’ contracts. Some species assumed something spiritual was afoot where’s the Doctor knew it was often the work of something ‘alien’, but the distinction was often unimportant. This issue was more that for any being to fulfill a complicated wish such as ‘wife’ or ‘children’, there was often a terrible cost if done quickly or a very convoluted method to go about thing in which the universe didn’t come to a screeching and explosive end.

Probably.

“You’ll be wanting one of my many souls I keep in my jacket, then?” The Doctor asked.

“No, we’re Fucking with time.” Time Lady Justice suggested with a smirk and far away smile that screamed with seemingly countless entities behind the eyes who were powerless to stop it. “Yes. I’m sure this sounds like bribery to you, but your wife sends her regards and really needs you to sign the papers so you can two can finalize your unmarriage.”

Several thoughts drifted through the Doctor’s brain and then menu and papers where grabbed in nearly an instance as well as his sonic screwdriver again which, oddly enough, had its own ballpoint pen attachment. See, that was the difference between a ‘deal with the (alien) devil’ and ‘agreeing to terms that require X amount of tasks to be fulfilled and everyone, in theory, gets what they want because we’re that good at time travel.’ The first usually involves giving up things one takes for granted, freedom, free will, JOY, for a twisted version of what they asked for. The Second is basically getting paid VERY well for a job you’ve technically been doing already, are about to do, and have possibly have already completed.

Between all parties involved, the papers were looked over and signed as if three people with all the time in all of existence had places to be and had done this countless times before.

Soos dumped some of the liquid from the open bottle he had on the written papers then produced a box of matches. After a few embarrassing ‘first’ tries, the seemingly awkward, yet comfortable in his own skin man had got the documents on fire. The burned away with speed in defiance of physics that almost claimed the papers as they were dropped to the table. A fire broke out across the table, eating it and then spreading to the floor, other tables, and tasteful decor of the establishment.

The Doctor blinked once and he was staring at ‘Time Lady Justice’.

Soos had clearly passed out in a heap… no… he was…

The Doctor titled his head. Soos eyes were open, but lifeless and the bottle empty. His skin was pale and the veins bulging against the thinner edges of skin as if what was inside was poison.

Time Jady Justice clicked her tongue. “All these disappearances AND the town drunk goes and drinks himself to death… Sheriff is not gonna like this…” She laughed to herself, bent down, pulled the turquoise tie off the corpse and put a gold store on the corpse. “No wait. This will be funnier.” She said as she pulled out her time turner and give it another tap.

The Doctor felt another wave of creation hit him and then… he was simply staring at Minuette who had clearly taken the time to pick up a time souvenir on her way to save the Doctor from his homicidal fire-breathing unhuman attacker who was also the sheriff of this little town…

Oh, and also a bunch of what seemed like very important time stuff like him just contractually agreeing to saving all of everything for the price of one happy smile from anyone he so pleased, and three… no FOUR beautiful children… Wait, could he order more? Well, it was a ‘restaurant’ that specialized in children. Of course, he could also order more… Oh, and a series of rescued wife(s)… that would come to him here, there… and well… These things never did play out linearly for a Time Lord or Lady…. Anyhow, that was all something he wasn’t about to forget.

Minuette delivered him the absolutely radiant smile and the follow-up statement, “You’re a bastard.”

“I hear that from time to time. Just had to be sure.”

Minuette shook her head as if clearing fog and the expression from it. “Alright, fair. Uh… There’s more than one of these things…” she said as he kicked the corpse.

“Soos?”

Minutte chortled. “There is no one like Soos.” Her eyes unfocused then suddenly came back into focus and then out of focus as if they were looking at everything all at once. “Oh MY GOD! HA! THAT WAS Amazing!” Much to the Doctors surprise Minutte smile became something far more personal and far more dark. “You better find Debra… Oh! And Tell Adagio to tell you ‘It has begun’ Next time she sees you.”

“Who is—” The Doctor sighed and shook his head. “Right, Time Travel Bullocks.” He’d find out… in time… He always did.

Minuette’s smile changed and at once she was Time Lady Justice. “Yep… War’s over… everyone lost… ” she said with a disturbing amount of dark mirth in her tone, as in any amount given the subject matter.

The Doctor tilted his head. “Lost and we’re…”

“Recreating worlds… settling down with families…” Time Lady Justice answered as she pulled out her time turner.

The Doctor chuckled. “Sounds like there are winners, then.”

“Only if you get a move on AND FIND YOUR KIDNAPPED COMPANION, JERK FACE!”

‘Jerk Face’ Don’t think I’ve been called that before… He sat the insult aside and again remembered he had a companion that had gone missing in his care to address. Cringing, he began to look around as if might just spot one of the girls milling about the quiet town right after they had fled it not a few minutes ago. “Right, thanks, I don’t suppose…”

“20 miles west in the west there’s a ‘mysterious mansion’ that looks like it was shaped from the woods around it rather than hewen.”

The Doctor sighed. “Right, so not humans then.”

Minuette let out a knowing laugh like the Doctor was in for a heap of unpleasant work. “No. Sirens.”

“… Bullocks.” Sirens where often old, powerful psychics, and nearly devoid of morals or ethics. There were THREE of them… Though, given what Minutte had mentioned it seemed Debra wasn’t in any MORTAL danger, but he wasn’t about to rest his laurels assuming the ‘broad daylight kidnapping’ was a simple misunderstanding.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, then depressed his thumb against the side. The twinkling blue light at the end extended upwards as a piercing sound vibrated out past the molecules of his body, the space around him, the planet, system galaxy until his Tardis parked a few yards away resonated with the device and began a familiar moan into visual and physical existence. The Doctor opened the door and poked his head inside as a thought occurred. It was him against three sirens with no realistic way of telling if Debra would be able to help out this time. He could use a little help and it was a good opportunity to get to know someone he was likely stuck with from now until the end of forever given. He turned. “Oh, I don’t suppose…”

He trailed off… an empty, sunset lit old wild west town devoid of people with an actual tumbleweed was all that was by to listen.

“Oh, hey dude. I forgot something!”

Doctor Who jumped. Oh, and the talking corpse.

Clearly more corpse than person, Soos had somehow reproduced the paperwork, a period-appropriate feathered quill already dipped in ink and began scribbling something. “Hey, Doc! Did you—”

“Four!” The Doctor said.

Soos laughed. “Hah! Watch out universes! There’s going to be a lot of ‘ying-yang’ babies out there. Okay!” He said as he scribbled through some pages, flipped to the end, and stabbed at the last page like dotting an eye. The act caused the paper to once again catch flame which liked out at Soos himself and returned him to a state of total death…

The Doctor craned his neck and peered into the alley. The ‘sheriff's’ cause of death would have to be either attributed to a cigarette lighting mishap or, ironically, Spring-Heeled Jack.

...Wait, Ying-Yang babies? What the Bloody Hell does th—

‘Crunch!’ “Oh, Hey!”

“Blimey!” The Doctor exclaimed as Minutte’s voice sounded out a few feet away from him INSIDE his Tardis. “Do you knock?!”

Time Lady Justice stood in front of the Doctor. Same coat, this time she was wearing an orange tank-top composed of tiny squares highlighted by a burnt orange color, blue jeans, her white doctors quote and knee-high black boots with golden straps and buckles. She was holding a box labeled ‘MARSHMALLOW Fruit Loops’ and eating them by the handful as if dental hygiene was a thing people should only really worry about a couple dimes a day for two to three minutes at a time. “No, not since becoming Time Lady Justice,” she answered simply. “Yeah, I’m taking this cereal box as payment.”

“Payment… For what?”

“For my help…”

“Oh…” The Doctors face lit up. “Oh! Brilliant!”

“Yeah, lots of people die without me,” Minuette said as she casually leaned back against the copper support of the Tardis room.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. That seemed unnecessarily cruel to tell him. Then again, his people would be celebrated bastards if they hadn’t mostly all died. “I’m not telling you where the mi—”

“So many…” Minutte whispered out cryptically.

The Doctor took a deep breath. “Alright! But I’m not telling you where the milk—”

“Moooo!”

The Doctor was once again torn from his thoughts as a white-and-black cow… a Belted Galloway if he wasn’t mistaken, complete with bell strolled up to Minuette as if the lady in front of him had hand raised the animal just to snub the doctor in this once instance. Worse yet, he had taken his eyes off the time lady for an instance and now the box was on his time temporal console and she was holding a gray cereal bowl and a spoon. She shoveled, now, wet cereal into her mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. “Soooooo many….”

The Doctor pointed at the cow. “I’m not cleaning up after that cow.”

“My name is Brie,” the cow answered in a snippy, feminine tone, “and I can clean up after myself, thank-you-very-much.”

The Doctor took a moment to take in the situation. “Right then…” he turned immediately towards the consul and began fiddling with knobs and hitting levers.

“Not going to question the cow?” Minuette asked.

“Minuette, I’m shocked you’d just insult your best friend like that!” The Doctor said as he reached over and swatted a lever.

Brie gasped. “Colgate! I thought we agreed you’d never call me that again!”

Minuette sighed, pulled out her time turner. “And I told you it was Minuette, Brie… OR SHALL I SAY, HARUKO!”

Surreal as the scene was, the Doctor took it all in stride as he watched it play out. He was clearly not the only Time Traveler on the block consisting of all known creation. Time Lords and Ladys had a lot of time to play elaborate jokes on each other and also acquired a great deal of friends, enemies, frenemies… some of which had their own tricks. This might very well just be how his life went on from this point on...

Brie’s eyes took on a terrified look as she stared at the item. “Wait! Let me in on this other deal! I know things didn’t go so well last time bu—”

Minuette let the item spin and the Doctor immediately felt like he had just been born… Born knowing he was the tenth incarnation of a doctor who had just agreed to life with a wife both somewhat known unknown to him three no four beautiful children.

“Your kids are going to be just as troublesome as you two!” Haruko/Brie said or seemingly VOWED as time adjusted and the universe saw fit to create itself with… Well, the place that was its center seemed as good as any… And…. Oh my… was that… two pairs that could potentially form the basis for an entire species, nay, DNA sequence that could explain every living being at least in a few universes until the laws of said universes made it a little less dangerous and the laws of many other universes made it a LOT more fun… let’s see… they’d need… OH, convenient, their minds already contained enough plenty of data…oh memories of others that must have existed ...best make them too, oh look some of them want to make more versions of themselves, have ancestors, myths, stories with beings universes in them, best start making those two.

The Haruko/Brie’s eyes rolled back into her head and she fell sideways and lifeless on the copper catwalks that served as a floor. The spirit/cow wouldn’t get to participate in the new universe, it seemed, but it would at least be a more effortsome path for those who ‘made the cut’.

The Doctor frowned and nodded his head in the direction of the cow. “That seemed a bit over the top for avoiding asking where the fridge was.”

Minuette shrugged and leaned over the council. “Whatever… I’m redecorating the Tardis.”

“Now Wait just one bleeding minute!” The Doctor said as he put on red-and-blue pair of white-rimmed glasses, glanced across his panel, and hit a button that was otherwise invisible to anyone one not currently looking at the radiation time spectrum currently ongoing the andromeda galaxy which technically wouldn’t be passing through four about 4 or 5 billion years but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t already here in one way or another. He found the proper bell, reached out for a hammer that was rudely snatched by Minuette who threw it across his console at the bell which rang.

“YOUR STUPID TARDIS LOOKS LIKE RUM DRUNK PIRATES TOOK A BREAK FROM BUGGERING EACH OTHER TO IMAGINE WHAT A ‘SUBMERSAIBLE BOAT POWERED BY STARDUST’ WOULD NEED TO BE STEERED, YOU MEGOLOMANIAC!”

The Doctor sneered and put his food down. “No! Look, I’m not going kick you out just yet, but you can’t just show up, cause a little interplanetary and causality murder than just invite yourself to redecorate the heart of MY Tardis. ”

Again, the Doctor felt a wave hit and a feeling like whatever he was seeing was the first time anyone had seen anything except his brain was likewise telling him that was silly as it distinctly remembered existing a few seconds before even if some feeling was also letting it know that was impossible. He looked around and gasped. The copper and metal and… really anything material of his control room was now gone, as was ‘Brie’. In fact, the central console was now replaced by a series of stars, swirling galaxies, nebulas, and squares full of paragraphs of words that drifted out from the yet where clearly being sucked into a super gravitational pull that originated from the new location of the now invisible bovine Brie/Haruko.

“Good, good…” Minuette said as she began flicking at squares that disappeared, and shifted into different holographic menus.

The Doctor stomped his foot as the black void that seemed to go out forever took on a strangely…. Cosmically organic… like stardust coalescing to form what looked like a… burning purple cardiovascular system with a black hole sucking in the lot of it.

To his great surprise, the center of the Tardis looked much like a black hole while The Doctor himself seemed to be standing on a beam of light that originated from himself.

Minuette/Lady Justice cast neither light nor dark, but instead an expressionless bipedal creature of swirling base elements and gleaming lights that stood ‘underneath’ her like a mirror version of herself cast in the reflective floor. Wings in the form of lines of metal, flesh, wood, air, fire, water, light, dark, stone, magma, ice, stars etc… extended out and away in an arc of unknown length that seemingly englobed everyone in the Tardis with worlds stretching out into infinity.

“Hmmm… Not ‘Time Lord Default’, honestly you’re energy is so pure in this mode it’s kind of pissing me off. Haven’t you like… committed a few genocides?”

The Doctor sneered at Minuette. “They were necessary!”

Lady Justice smirked back. “They always are.”

The Doctor balked just long enough for the entirety of his world to be replaced by polished steel, the color of a love so pure and innocent that the unexpected shock of it all knocked both him and Minuette of his feat.

Minuette laughed nervously, raised a hand up, then balled her hand into a fist and brought it down on a spiral galaxy that responded with a brief increase glow, doubling of the comforting, love fleeing, then a return to normalcy.

“Call from my girlfriend!” Minuette giggled drunkenly as she picked herself off the floor… which was somehow now more bounce then empty space as new galaxies exploded into existence forming a comfortable sectional couch that housed the pair and created a universe that would contain a planet that would correctly deduce the golden ration from the pulsating feeling that is the curve between Minutte’s thighs as she lounged on the comfortable spread of cosmic creation.

None of this was particularly important to the Doctor, but any being that can also decorate with emotional feelings and impressions usually did. Which is one of the reasons he tried to avoid this navigational mode. HE could pull himself away from these seemingly random thoughts, but others might find themselves lost there. Still, that was more than just a simple scenery change.

“What kind of ‘phone’ did you leave on earth?!” The Doctor cried. The center of his ‘Tardis Room’ now a far less otherworldly color of off-gray gunmetal with plenty of knobs and buttons as well as a few holographic and functional screens.

“The good kind!” Lady Justice replied in a voice that was ever so briefly two women talking.

“It was like every bleeding cute baby creature in existence was condense into ray and weaponized…” The Doctor mused wondering how many species would pay handsomely for that ‘drug’ and others would consider it sexual assault… He managed enough sense to look over his new readout. The Doctor grinned at the more mechanical interaction devices but sneered at the touch screens. “I don’t like ‘em…”

“Well, they make things easier to run!” Lady Justice explained as she swiped at a few more screens and music filled the tiny universes like they never before…

The Doctor shot his counterpart the most contemptuous of sneers that all of time had known up until that point. “Look, it’s too ‘disconnected’ from everything.” The doctor exclaimed.

“Technically it’s connected to everything,” Minutte replied. She placed her hands on her hips. “Look, do you want babies, and also my help now or when I have to rescue the last humans from the radiation golems?!”

The Doctor let out one more helpless sigh. “Okay, but no more killing!”

“I, personally, will not kill anyone!” Lady Justice as her deep blue eyes made a rotation around her eye sockets.

The Doctor took a deep breath and shook his head. Anyone who tended to deal with a lot of ‘binding’ documents to the various unseen laws of the cosmo was usually quick to agree to verbal terms… with language that still allowed them plenty of freedom to get what they wanted. “Not good enough!” He narrowed his eyes and pointed an accusing finger. “Look, what was your Time Lady title BEFORE Justice
?” He shook his head.

Minuette narrowed her eyes as if she resented the question, she responded in a distinctly ‘Lady Justice’ tone, “Given the nature of Time Travel, one could say it’s ALWAYS been that.”

The Doctor scoffed. “No really… No one with as much power as you uses it to… for loving relationships and create bovines to win arguments if they were born with it…”He smirked. “People who had to work to get noticed and figure out how to be quirky and interesting so they stand out and they continue to do that when they acquire or even earn that much power.”

Minuette hesitated for a moment, then replied with, “I… I was a Dentist, alright?”

The Doctor recoiled. “Naw, it’s rubbish.”

“I can’t help what I did before my planet was unmade from creation!”

“No, I mean your new name! Old one’s much scarier!” The Doctor insisted on earning him a death glare from being across from him as he flashed the girl his pearly whites as if they were ready for inspection. “I’d much rather be fighting ‘Lady Justice’ then, ‘The Dentist’.”

Minutte closed her eyes flipped a palm upwards. “‘The Dentist’ makes me sound like some sort of tooth themed mad scientist with tooth-shaped robots or something equally asinine!”

“Asinine like not really agreeing to not kill anyone where you’re basically an immortal time Goddess?”

Minuette tossed her hand into the air. “Three of the things we’re going to face are at least immortal!”

“But not time goddesses,” The Doctor pointed out. “For all intensive purposes, you and I are still in a whole ‘nother league compared to most things. Maybe, it’s not too late to focus on your dental skills over some mad murder spree delivered by finger flicks against a tiny time engine.”

Minutte took a bit to think about the Doctor said, however, it was a bit of silence that seemingly just gave her enough time to spin herself into a tizzy of a tantrum. AS the self prescribed ‘Time Lady Justice' responded with, “WELL YOUR AMAZING, REALITY BENDING BUBBLE-SHIP JUST TRAVELED A WHOPPING 3 SECONDS TO THE PAST AND 20 MILES TO THE WEST!” in lieu of anything that would continue the conversation. This all much closer to the tone of an angry sister then an immortal being as she swatted at the screen and the device began to moan and wail as the material it was crafted from began to bend and warp through all of spacetime, past wonders not yet born of stardust, and long dead star gasses slowly collecting to live, burn bright, then die again… all to shift in a neat arc 20 miles west of its previous location.

The Doctor let out another sign. He wasn’t used to letting others touch any part of his ship. And it’d had been rarer and rarer for another Time Lord or Lady to see it since they all d—

The Doctor slowly reached for his sonic screwdriver the way a priest might reach for a cross that’s kept them feeling safe time after time. Minuette/Time Lady Justice had done a good job of convincing him she was who she claimed to be by virtue of her behaviour and actions, but HE had not put in any work to verify any of it for himself. Which was especially dangerous if he was going to be working with her. “Colgate—”

“Damnit, Doctor! I told you never call me that! Stupid Haruko!“

The Doctor chuckled. Minuette had never explicitly told him that from HIS perspective, but she acted like she did so perhaps... “She’s almost worse than those Cybermen who wiped out our—”

Minuette groaned. “Stop doing the ‘Are you a REAL Time Lady test at me! Why would you need to do that? We’ve seen each other… OH DAMMIT, IS THIS THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE MET ME?!”

The Doctor smiled and shrugged. “Do ‘first’ times have any real meaning for time travelers?”

Minuette slumped her shoulders, stared up at the cold metal ceiling, and smacked a palm against her face. “That’s a convoluted way to say ‘yes’.”

“Right, so like… should we pick a safe word for all this ‘time buggering’ we’re supposedly going to be doing? You know, if things get a little too convoluted.” The Doctor asked with a smirk. “Hrm, I suppose it’s the fourth dimension itself that should give us a safe word. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll come up with one in due—”

Minuette grit her teeth.

“—process.”

Minuette cringed, “That bait in switch didn’t make any sense! Appropriate that it may be.”

“Oh, do you think the safe word issue is ‘time sensitive’?” The Doctor let out an exaggerated gasp. “No wait, maybe that should be the safe word. Well… phrase”

Lady Justice shot The Doctor an unpleasant look pulled out her sonic time spinner. Her eyes began to roll back in her head as beams of light shot out from the sides of the room and she quickly waved intricate symbols with her fingers. “Oh, by the beard of Zeus’s useless ass-father!”

The Doctor blinked his eyes a few times and just stared at Lady Justice. “I just looked into the future at the Fourteen million, six hundred and five times I try to have a good comeback for that.”

“And?”

Lady Justice responded by angrily flipping the Doctor with one hand and slappy the console one more time. “Time Sensitive is the funniest safe word I could come up with, too!”

With a cheeky smile the Doctor felt his body slip away and appear outside.

The first thing he took note of was Debra being ‘held hostage’ on a dimly lit deck by the three colorful showgirls who had nabbed her just a bit before the Doctors peculiar encounters with aliens, a time Lady, whatever everything ELSE was. Except she was simply standing on the balcony behind the girls with nary a weapon pointed her or rope keeping her restrained to anything. If anything, it looked more like she was outside to see what the commotion was about.

“Oh, hey Doctor!” Debra called out the, other girls seemingly perturbed her ability to take being held hostage seriously was lacking. “Hey! Can you help tell the townspeople were time travelers and not witches!”

“Oh, the witches have summoned their demon masters to rescue them from divine justice!” A tired-looking man in overall pointing at the Doctor and Lady Justice exclaimed.

Minuette threw her arms up in the air. “I’m the closest thing to divine justice you dim-witted, cow rustling HILL-BILLIES are ever going to meet!”

“Good thing I swapped out my buck-shot for salt and soaked my ammunition in holy water!” another voice added.

The Doctor quietly took stock of the situation. Debra seemed fine enough but clearly about half a dozen local town folk had responded to the earlier commotion, rounded up guns, torches and said guns where now aimed at both time traveling ‘medical’ professionals.

“Who the heck is that?!” Debra asked in an indignant tone. “I’ve been kidnapped for only a few hours and you go find another companion?!”

The Doctor cupped his hands around his mouth and replied. “She’s just a friend and something of a co-worker!” ‘Friend’ was maybe a stretch at this point, but the later felt true.

“Oh, Okay!” Debra replied. Seemingly satisfied.

“Is she single?” One of the girls up in the balcony asked, specifically the one with long purple hair.

“No!” Mineutte was quick to add.

“Oi!” The Doctor exclaimed. “Are you trying to hook-up during a tense stand-off?”

“All my best hook-ups happen at standoffs, ya yack!”

“Really?” The blue haired woman exclaimed. “See, all mine are people I sneak up on from the shadows!”

“Aria, Sonata! SHUT UP!” The siren with the curly hair commanded. “You can pick through my leftovers after I choose a few of the survivors!”

“Hell no!” Aria replied.

“Yeah, Adagio!” Sonata agreed. “We’re calling ‘dibs’, now!” she insisted. “You always pick ALL the survivors and we have to settle for sloppy seconds if we’re lucky!”

“Usually it’s filthy fifths!” Aria exclaimed. “You know the guys are totally spent by that point and even the girls aren’t good for much more than lying still while we have our way with them!”

One of the armed men who came out to fight gasped. “The witches are queer, too! Their capacity for sin knows no bounds!”

“With demons no less!” Another chimed in. “Those fiends!”

“FIENDS ARE LITERALLY DEMONS!” Minuette screamed, clearly more focused on the Minuette let out another sigh and raised fingertips to her forehead. “Why is this my life?!” Turning towards the doctor she reached into her jacket and produced her time turner. “I know you said no killing, but like… four out of five guys out there have beards that say ‘my best mating prospects are whatever I trap…”

“I’m Spring-Heeled Jack!” The Doctor exclaimed as he held up his hands. “As you can no doubt tell from my English accent and incredible bounce!” he added, jumping a whole foot above the ground to a couple astounded cowboys.

Every gun was suddenly on the Doctor.

“DAMNIT, DOCTOR! DO YOU WANT RADIOACTIVE GOLEMS?! THIS IS HOW YOU GET RADIOACTIVE GOLEMS!” Minuette cried.

“Wait, seriously?!” Debra called out from the gnarled wood balcony decorated with large and small tiny animal skulls. “Hold on a minute! Have we considered the net positives of a world where we get to study radioactive golems?”

“BY CHORNUS’S DUMN-ASS PARENTING SKILLS, NO WONDER YOU TWO ARE DATING!” Minuette yelled.

“We aren’t dating… ARE WE?!” Debra asked in an excited tone.

“What’s radioactive?!” Sonata asked her rifle armed sisters.

Aria sighed. “It’s sounds like a made up word to me… you know… something people just imagine. Like dragons…”

“Could you two shut up and focus on all the ex-clients we now get to kill before we console their wives?!” Adagio exclaimed as she steadied her aim.

Debra took in the situation with her good eye then looked back down, “Hey, Doctor! Uh… Things are escalating up here!”

“Stop tattling!” Sonata Dusk called out in a dark tone that toned oddly syrupy. “Tattlers get 10 Hail Marys and the pelvic saw!”

“Like, really badly escalating and I’m not tied up or anything but I’m super clumsy and they have guns!”

“Hey, Debra!”

“Yes, erm…”

“Minuette!”

“Hi, Minuette.”

“Hi, Debra! Look, could you give us a moment?” she folded her arms across her chest and glared at the Doctor. “Some of us don’t want to be shot and are standing next to the guy apparently hellbent on wanting to get shot tonight!”

“Yeah, sorry. I was just having a laugh,” The Doctor said with a smile. “It was so tense with all the guns I figured I can get everyone’s attention and maybe we can come to a solution where no one has to be shot.”

“No deal!” Aria exclaimed.

“Yeah, we came here for blood!” Sonata agreed

“But… you live here…” Debra mused.

Sonata nodded. “Exactly! I live here, so this is where I keep all my blood!”

“... Doctor, I think I need that rescue after all!”

“A’ight! I’m working on it!” The Doctor replied. He looked about the people a few yards above and in front of him with guns and the others several yards away in the cover of the treeline also with guns. “Look, there’s been a terrible misunderstanding in all of this, no one has to get shot today—”

“Aww!” Sonata cried in a disappointed tone.

The Doctor continued as Minuette stood by, silently watching to see if what could only be described as complete insanity actually played out in their favor “So let’s put the guns down, maybe agree to talk this over in the very large house, and we can all enjoy a nice spot of tea and go on our merry ways.”

Someone gasped from the group. “Wait… Tea.. That voice… HE sounds like a Brit so he must be Spring-Heeled Jack!”

The Doctor began to protest, but suddenly the bark from the tree behind him exploded and he and Minuette found themselves hiding behind a tree.

“You just had to English it up!” Minuette said. “How did you not think this through!”

“It doesn’t come up that often!” The Doctor insisted. “Look, if you had bloody hell not jumped where and WHEN everyone was in the most harm’s way, maybe we could have done this with a few less sets of hearts beating!” He gave Minutte a scrutinizing look. “What would you have done?!”

“…I don’t have a good answer for that, YET!” Minuette said. She reached into her coat “Oh, maybe if—”

There was a sudden grasp on her wrist. “Would you please figure out something that doesn’t involve going on a killing spree?!”

Minuttee sighed, “Okay… you’re going to have to trust me here…” she again pulled out her time turner. She smirked and nudged her time turner ever so slightly.

The gunfire paused.

“See! It's no big deal.”

The Doctor’s lips pulled up as he looked behind the tree. “Wait, did you stop time? That’s brilliant.”

“Nope! Like… two of those guys are really Izorelians. I just dropped their camouflage so the townsfolk can see for themselves what’s going on and maybe get a fresh perspective on this Spring Heeled-Jack stuff.”

“Clyde’s a demon! CLYDE’S A DEMON!”

And then the front of the house erupted in bullets, fire, and blood with all sides pulling the trigger against their targets. The fire hit next and then the teeth but this didn’t stop the tiny arsenal of bullets fired off from the girls on the balcony.

“—Fuck me…” Minuette uttered as a savage roar and blood curdling screaming called out and a severed arm fell a few feet from where her and the Doctor had hunkered down.

“Sounds like you can ask one of the girls up there for that if you can’t hold out until you see your girlfriend again.”

“I really hope we meet a Time Lady or Lord of Humor so he can spend a minute with you and decree you’re not allowed to make jokes!”

Somewhat used to this level of ire, The Doctor ignored the angry wish in favor of poking his head around the tree to scope out the situation. “Look, I got an idea, but it’s a bit barmy.”

Minuette sneered and glared at the Doctor. “Are you Britishing it up to piss me off more? ‘Cause it’s working! I can still solve all my problems with time murders, you understand!” she exclaimed in a tone born less of imminent threat and more of frustration.

The Doctor stood up. “It means the plans a bit daft.”

Minuette sighed as she stood up “Well, that was slightly less british, and yeah… you don’t know that I know this, but your plans usually are ‘daft’.”

The Doctor nodded. “Good, then this shouldn’t surprise you. Follow me!”

“What?!”

The Doctor made a mad dash for the ‘otherworldly house’ in the woods as gunfire erupted around him. Minuette spent maybe half a moment being flustered before she ran after him.

“THIS IS YOUR IDEA?!” Minutte exclaimed in shock as she charged forward.

“I told ya it was daft, didn’t I?”

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