By the time Tali left the engineering workshop, the snow had covered the path back to her dormitory. Winters Academy stood on the wooded slope above town, and the wind always seemed to save its worst temper for the walk between buildings. She pulled her scarf over her mouth and tucked her unfinished assignment inside her coat. At twenty two, she had expected to be better at several things, including circuits and remembering gloves. The last of those was becoming an immediate concern.

A light moved behind the trees beside the school gates. Tali initially mistook it for the caretaker’s torch, until a grinding noise rose above the wind and a blue wooden box appeared where the bicycle rack had been. Its arrival pushed snow across the path in a broad circle. One door swung open, releasing smoke and a tall man in a badly scorched suit, who staggered outside with a satisfied expression entirely at odds with his circumstances.



The Doctor: There we are. Ground. Got to love the ground. If I didn't hit the ground I just would've kept falling, and falling is only fun when you know you're going to land. Land where? THE GROUND! 

He attempted another step, caught his shoe against the threshold, and dropped to one knee. Tali hurried across the path as he lifted a warning finger toward the box. 

The Doctor: That was you. Don’t pretend it wasn’t. I'm not clumsy, or am I? I guess I don't know yet.

She caught his elbow before he could fall farther. Heat came through his coat despite the weather, and something golden flickered beneath his collar. He smelled of smoke and hot wiring. Tali looked past him into the open doorway, expecting a fire, but saw a distant railing inside a room that could not possibly fit within those wooden walls. The door closed before she could make sense of it.

Tali: You need an ambulance. 

She reached for her phone, but the man shook his head so emphatically that he had to steady himself against her shoulder. 

The Doctor: No, thank you. They ask difficult questions. Name, address, species. Species usually comes later, after the screaming. Two hearts, you see. 

He studied her face with an effort that made her less inclined to laugh. 

The Doctor: I’m the Doctor. I’ve had a rather difficult evening. Is there somewhere quiet I could sit down?

Tali tried the academy infirmary first. An automated voice told her that all appointments had been suspended until morning, although she knew there was supposed to be a nurse on overnight duty. While she listened to the message repeat, the Doctor turned his hands over beneath the gate lamp. His fingers trembled. He seemed frightened by them for a moment, and the sight persuaded her more effectively than anything he had said.

Tali: Can you walk as far as that building? 

She pointed toward the dormitory beyond the courtyard. 

The Doctor: With encouragement. Possibly applause. Then yes, I suppose so. I think? 

He managed a smile, but his weight settled more heavily against her as they began moving. Tali kept her arm around his back and chose the laundry entrance. Whatever had happened to him, she was not leaving him in the snow.

Getting him upstairs required patience, a stolen laundry cart, and one argument about whether riding in it would diminish his dignity. The Doctor settled that question by climbing aboard before Tali finished asking it. She pushed him past the common room while he crouched beneath a pile of clean towels. At the second floor landing, he discovered that the trolley’s left wheel had an alignment problem and began reaching underneath to correct it.



Tali: Stop helping. You’re making us louder! What is with this guy? Weird box, making no sense. What is with me even helping him?!

She hauled him out beside her door and ushered him into the room. He took in the unmade bed, the crowded bookshelves, and the circuit board occupying most of her desk with obvious approval. 

The Doctor: Oh, you’ve got an excellent room. Very lived in. Doesn't clean up after itself. Very nice.

The Doctor looked into the mirror across from the bed, and gazed at his face as if for the first time. 

The Doctor: Ginger? Finally.

He sat on the edge of the bed and abruptly lost the strength to remain upright. Tali caught his shoulders before his head struck the wall. The foolishness vanished from her own thoughts as she lowered him onto the pillow and unbuttoned his coat. Beneath the scorched fabric, both sides of his chest seemed to be beating. She checked again, pressed her fingers to his wrist, and stared at the brief curl of golden light that escaped between his lips.

The Doctor: Two hearts. Both supposed to be there. 

His eyes remained closed, but one hand found her wrist with surprising gentleness. 

The Doctor: Everything’s rearranging itself. A few hours. Water would help. Please don’t let anybody put anything in my head.

Tali looked toward her phone. Everything sensible she had ever learned told her to call for medical help, but she had seen that impossible room, and the man on her bed was breathing more steadily now. She put water within reach, pulled the quilt over him, and sat beside him long enough to make certain he was sleeping. When somebody knocked, she nearly knocked the glass onto the floor.

Mara Ellis pushed the door inward carrying two mugs and the expression she wore whenever she had news, most certainly gossip of some kind. Behind her, Nina Shah held snacks against her chest. Tali planted herself in the opening, leaving only a narrow view of the desk.

Mara Ellis: You’ve been missing for an hour. We thought your circuit finally killed you. 

Mara tried to peer around her. 

Tali: I was studying. Really locked into it, ya know? 

From beneath the quilt came a sleepy, indignant voice. 

The Doctor: Don't worry, I sent them back. I had no choice.

Mara stopped trying to look past her and looked directly at her instead. Tali could feel herself becoming warm despite the cold air leaking around the window. She had known Mara for three years; any explanation involving a man in her bed would be remembered for the rest of their lives. 

Tali: That’s a lecture recording. 

The quilt shifted. 

The Doctor: He helped me. In the end, he helped me save us all.

Mara Ellis: Is the recording under your blanket? 

Nina gave a small laugh, but it arrived a little late, after Mara had already started smiling. 
 
Tali: He needed help. He isn’t staying. He isn't a boyfriend. Please don’t make this a thing. 

Mara’s amusement softened when she saw the scorched coat on the chair. She put one mug into Tali’s hands and promised to return in the morning with considerably more questions.

The academy’s nine o’clock chime sounded from the corridor speaker while Nina was setting her snacks. She stopped with one hand on the desk. For three notes she remained motionless, her eyes unfocused and her fingers pressing into the packet. Tali asked whether she was all right. Nina blinked, released it, and smiled apologetically.

Nina Shah: Sorry. I’m exhausted. The clinic said that can happen while the treatment settles. 

A small silver patch showed behind her ear when she brushed her hair back. Tali had seen the advertisements for the new sleep program around campus: better rest, better concentration, free appointments for resident students. Nina had been delighted with it last week. Tonight she left her favorite snaks unopened and followed Mara out without taking any for herself.

The Doctor watched the closed door from the bed. Tali had not noticed him waking. 

The Doctor: How long has your friend been wearing that? 

When she told him, he frowned and reached toward his coat. His hand fell short, and frustration briefly crossed his face. 

Tali: What are you doing? 

The Doctor: I wanted to get a look at that patch, the one behind the ear!

Tali: They are all over campus. You can look at one later, if you'd like. 

The Doctor: Where am I? 

Tali: Winters. 

The Doctor: Winters? On Earth?

Tali: Uh...yeah. Where else would you be? 

The Doctor: I don't recall a Winters.

Tali: What do you recall? How did you get here, in that weird box thing?

The Doctor: Fire. Hell was coming through. I had to stop it. Even if I didn't want to. He helped me. 

Tali: Who helped you? 

The Doctor: ...My friend. Seriously though, where is Winters? Am I in the United Kingdom? What year is it?

Tali: United what? It's 2026. 

The Doctor: 20- You should know what the United Kingdom is. I think I really need to get up.

He tried to object, lost the argument to a yawn, and settled back against the pillow.

Tali spent the night in the desk chair with a spare blanket around her shoulders. She woke twice to check him and once because she heard footsteps outside. Through the gap beneath her door, she saw several shadows pass in the same direction. Nobody spoke. In the morning she found a damp line down the center of the corridor, as though a procession of people had walked through melted snow on their way toward the service stairs.

The Doctor had recovered enough to dismantle her alarm clock. He sat cross legged on the bed wearing a borrowed academy sweatshirt over his damaged shirt, with components arranged carefully on a dinner tray. His hair stood in several directions. Tali watched him hold a wire between his teeth while adjusting something with a burned metal instrument he had taken from his pocket. The alarm clock gave a weak electronic chirp, and he looked enormously pleased with himself.

Tali: Hey! What are you doing? I needed that. 

He removed the wire from his mouth. 

The Doctor: Still tells the time. Also measures electromagnetic interference and makes an adequate doorbell. I’m trying to give it a sense of smell, but we’re working with limited materials here. I mean I can only do some much! 

Tali: You were unconscious six hours ago.

His smile faltered as he tested his grip on the screwdriver. 

The Doctor: Yes. There’s still a bit of that left over. Working on a project helps me think. Helps me concentrate.

Tali: What happened to you? What even is your name?

The Doctor: Names. They were always meant to tell you something about someone. Can't really tell much about someone named Tim, except their parents were in a hurry. You can call me The Doctor. I was dying. This is what my people do about it. 

He examined his new hand again, more quietly this time. 

The Doctor: Same memories. Different machinery. Takes a while to find out what you’ve kept and what you've lost. 

Tali thought of the fear she had seen outside the gates and resisted the temptation to bury it under more questions. 

Tali: You asked me not to leave you outside. I think you kept the sensible part. 

That brought his smile back.

The Doctor: You're handling this situation rather well. 

Tali: I'm a curious person, what can I say?

The Doctor: I like that. 

Tali: You know you sound crazy though, right?

The Doctor: So I've been told. It's true though. I was dying. I did died in a sense. When we change, we're not always the same. If I liked a food before, I might not like it now. Might not seem like much, but that's just the start. What else do I like now? What don't I like? imagine having to wake up and figure that all out. I'm excited to still be here, still be alive, but who am I? The person, the personality, you know about as much as I do.

Their peace lasted until the eight o’clock chime. The instrument on the tray squealed. Across the courtyard, students heading toward breakfast stopped where they stood, remained still through the final note, and resumed walking. Only some of them had stopped. The others continued around their stationary friends, laughing or complaining, apparently accustomed to small oddities.

The Doctor was at the window before Tali reached it. His awkwardness disappeared as he counted the students below and adjusted the improvised detector. 

The Doctor: Did you see that? That's not normal. 

Tali: After everything you've done since showing up, I doubt you know what normal is.

The Doctor: Is THAT normal to you? 

Tali: No, I suppose it isn't.

Tali found Nina among the figures crossing the courtyard. She was moving again, but her hands hung stiffly at her sides. 



The Doctor: I'm seeing a lot of those patches. What did you say they were? 

Tali: Huh? Those were for a sleep trial. They started a little while ago. Seems to do the trick. 

The Doctor: Everyone that stopped moving, is wearing one of those patches. 

Tali: Oh? I guess they are. What’s happening to them? 

He did not answer until he had watched her friend disappear through the dining hall doors. 

The Doctor: Someone’s checking whether the controls work.

Tali brought breakfast back for three, intending to get Nina somewhere private before the Doctor began examining her. Keeping him in the room proved harder than fetching her friend. He had discovered the academy crest on his sweatshirt and was rehearsing a plausible teaching position cover when Mara arrived behind Nina. Tali blocked his attempt to introduce himself as the visiting professor and settled for the truth she could currently manage.

Tali: This is the Doctor. He’s uh....really interested in the sleep program. 

Mara looked from him to the disassembled clock and back again. 

Mara Ellis: Him? Is he a real doctor? You sure it wasn't just a booty call you might be regretting? 

The Doctor opened his mouth, but Tali answered first. 

Tali: Absolutely not! He is definitely a Doctor. Definitely. 

He accepted this with a small nod and pulled the desk chair out for Nina. His manner changed as he spoke to her, becoming patient enough that Tali felt foolish for having worried he would frighten her.

Nina admitted that she had been losing time. She remembered getting into bed the previous night and waking there in the morning, but her socks had been wet and there was a bruise on her wrist. Other things had become difficult to explain. She had scored perfectly on a test she could barely remember taking. Yesterday she had watched someone drop a tray in the dining hall and felt nothing when a broken plate cut his hand. That frightened her more than the missing hours.

Nina Shah: I knew I should help him. I could remember being the sort of person who would. 

Her fingers tightened around the mug. 

Nina Shah: I just wanted him to stop making noise. 

Mara sat beside her and took the mug before she could spill it. The Doctor crouched to examine the silver patch without touching it. Tali watched the detector’s needle climb and the concentration settle into his face.

The Doctor: You’ve got something interfering with the signals in your brain. It isn’t changing who you are. It’s getting between you and the controls. 

Nina reached behind her ear, but he gently caught her hand. 

The Doctor: Don’t pull it off. We’ll switch it off first, and a proper medical team can remove it safely. Tali, can you show me where she was treated?

Nina could show them the appointment messages, but she remembered very little about the clinic itself. There had been white walls, a reclining chair, and Dr. Miriam Harker assuring her that the academy had developed something remarkable. The Doctor listened without interrupting. When Nina mentioned a humming sound beneath the floor, he asked about the academy’s recent construction work. Tali told him about the lower infirmary extension and the new equipment installed in the bell tower to improve campus communications.

He spread her campus maintenance plans across the desk. She had spent two miserable weekends surveying the old wiring for a practical assignment and was surprised by how carefully he studied her annotations. He traced the line between the infirmary and the tower, paused over a drawing of the original alarm system, and asked whether the service switches were still there.

Tali: They couldn’t remove them without replacing the whole circuit. The tower’s got a manual isolation switch. Everything new goes through it. 

She pointed to a second line descending to the infirmary. 

Tali: That one’s a return for testing equipment without broadcasting through the air. 

He looked up with the first encouraging smile he had given her that morning. 

The Doctor: This is incredible work, I must say. You have an eye for details, and I appreciate that. 

She would have enjoyed the compliment more if Nina had not begun quietly counting the seconds until nine.

They left Mara with Nina and instructions to stay away from the clinic. Outside, the academy was busy with the ordinary annoyances of a winter morning. Someone was scraping ice off a bicycle seat. Two students argued about a borrowed charger. Beside her, the Doctor kept one hand near the wall until he found a steadier rhythm. When she offered her arm, he accepted it without making a joke.

The Doctor: I'm learning to walk again. You don't get used to that feeling. You know that you could walk, but never with the legs you're using now. Does that make sense? 

Tali: Not at all. 

The Doctor: You're very brave for trusting me. 

Tali: Or I'm very stupid. 

The Doctor: I think you know I don't mean you any harm by now. 

Tali: I got that feeling immediately. 

The Doctor: Perceptive. Very good. Surely one of the bright minds of...where are we again?

Tali: Winters.

The Doctor: What country specifically? 

Tali: Northern Eagleland. 

The Doctor: Eagleland? Huh. That's a puzzle for later.

The infirmary reception stood empty. Behind the desk, the computer displayed a list of names under the heading FINAL ASSESSMENT, with noon marked beside each one. Tali recognized Nina’s name and several students who had supposedly gone home ill. An open research folder described equipment recovered from a survey site beneath the northern glacier. The photographs showed a blackened metal capsule in a cradle of ice, followed by pictures of the same object in an academy workshop. Each successive image contained more cables and fewer people.

The Doctor: They brought it back to study. 

He turned a photograph toward the light. 

The Doctor: And it taught them how to repair it. 

Tali found an appointment note signed by Dr. Harker, followed by several pages carrying exactly the same signature, identical down to the break in the ink. The Doctor glanced at those and began moving toward the service stairs with a purpose she had not seen in him before.

The Doctor: Wherever I am...they're here too. That can't be a coincidence.

They reached the basement through a door Tali opened with her workshop access card. Heat struck them halfway down. The radiators upstairs had barely worked for days, but below ground the pipes were hot enough to make the air shimmer. Beyond a ventilation grille, students lay in a row of reclining chairs beneath suspended metal frames. Some wore the silver patches. Others had broad bands fitted around their heads. Dr. Harker sat among them in her white coat, awake and struggling weakly against a restraint.



Tali recognized a boy from her workshop class in the nearest chair. She had lent him a soldering iron two days earlier. Seeing his shoes protruding beneath the machinery made the room horribly real, and she had to catch the Doctor’s sleeve to keep herself from reaching through the grille. He covered her hand with his own and nodded toward the guards.

A silver figure stood beside the chairs. Its broad shoulders almost brushed the overhead pipes, and the rigid handles on either side of its head framed a face with empty circular eyes. Two more waited near the recovered capsule. Parts of their armour were scorched or missing, exposing machinery that moved as they turned toward a terminal. Tali heard the steady weight of their footsteps through the soles of her shoes.

Tali: What? What is this?! What are they?

The Doctor’s hand tightened over hers. 

The Doctor: Cybermen. 

He watched one adjust a frame above a student’s head. 

The Doctor: There are people inside those bodies. Or there were. They replace whatever they think is weak. 

Tali: I'm starting to think you're not crazy. 

The Doctor: I'm crazy, I assure you, but between me and them, I'm the safer option.

The tallest Cyberman moved to the central console. A display lit above it, showing the academy grounds, a widening transmission radius, and the figures 11:14. 

Cyber-Leader: Neural conditioning complete. Conversion will begin at twelve hundred. Distress beacon will activate upon restoration of the production unit.

The Doctor leaned closer to the grille, studying the conduits beneath its feet. Tali understood enough to feel her stomach tighten. The academy was being turned into a factory, and the thing running it intended to call for company.

She found the restraint release beside the nearest chair and considered the distance between it and the guards. The Doctor followed her gaze and shook his head. 

The Doctor: I know. But we get one chance to open that door before they start using your friends as leverage. 

He glanced back toward the stairs. 

The Doctor: We need your plans, your friends, and somewhere they can’t hear us think.

They retreated to the disused changing room beside the old gymnasium. Its metal lined equipment store dulled the signal enough for the Doctor’s detector to settle, and Tali called Mara with directions. When the two women arrived, Nina’s relief was immediate. She described the sudden quiet inside her head, held Mara’s arm, and cried with a helpless embarrassment that made Tali want to return to the basement and tear the machines apart herself.

The Doctor let her cry while he tested the signal at the doorway. He explained the situation only when she was ready. The three Cybermen had survived the wreck but exhausted their independent power supplies. They were drawing energy from the salvaged generator through a field carried along the academy’s service network. The same system fed commands to the implants. At noon, it would bring the treated students to the basement and hold them still while the machines took over.

Mara Ellis: So we turn off the generator.  

The Doctor: Those people are connected to it. If we force a shutdown while the equipment’s attached, they take the shock with it. First we stop the commands. Then we get everybody out of the chairs. After that, we can deal with the Cybermen.

Tali drew the tower’s test return on his sketch. If they isolated the aerial and closed the return, the signal would come straight back to the basement instead of going out across the academy. He followed her pencil, took it from her, and added a connection at the generator. His expression brightened with an enthusiasm that worried her. 

The Doctor: Feedback. There it is. I can make their power regulator listen to its own output. It will shut down to protect itself, and everything drawing power from it will stop. 

He tapped the drawing of the tower. 

The Doctor: But we need someone up here to work those switches by hand. 

Tali took the pencil back. 

Tali: I know where they are.

He looked at her for a long moment before explaining the order again. The aerial had to be isolated first, freeing the students from the commands. The test return must remain open until the clinic had been evacuated. Closing it would disable the generator and the guards, but it would also shut the chair machinery down wherever its moving parts happened to be. Tali repeated each step until he nodded. Mara would take Nina and the released students through the loading entrance, while the Doctor handled the clinic controls.

Tali: And how are you getting past three Cybermen? 

He straightened the academy sweatshirt and tried unsuccessfully to make its sleeves reach his wrists. 

The Doctor: I thought I’d introduce myself. They’ll be interested in what’s happening inside me. Interested means talking, and talking buys us time.

The tower stairs were narrow, cold, and much steeper than Tali remembered. She climbed with a maintenance bag knocking against her hip and a call open to the battered telephone the Doctor had produced from his coat. Through its speaker, she heard him descend into the clinic and offer a greeting.

The Doctor: Hello. I’m the Doctor. I believe you’re running a rather ambitious extracurricular activity. 

There was a pause, followed by the measured approach of heavy feet. 

Cyber-Leader: You are a Time Lord. 

The Doctor sounded pleased by the recognition. 

The Doctor: Yes. The genuine article one might say. New face, established qualifications. Before we do anything unfriendly, I can stabilize your power supply. We can find somewhere for you to rebuild without taking anyone from this school. We're all strangers in a strange land I believe. Why don't we work it out together for a change?

Tali reached the belfry and set her phone beside the switch cabinet. Snow had blown through the louvres, whitening the floor beneath the great bronze bell. Its old hand rope remained tied to an iron cleat, but the bell itself had been disconnected from the clock when the electronic chimes were installed. She remembered the complaints about the new sound and wondered how many people would have welcomed the old one now.

Cyber-Leader: Human personnel will be preserved through conversion. 

The voice carried clearly from her phone. 

The Doctor: They have names. Start using them and we might get somewhere. 

Tali opened the cabinet and found what she was looking for. 

Below ground, the Doctor allowed the guards to guide him toward an empty chair. He kept talking while he examined the machinery over it. The fittings had been adapted from the academy’s medical equipment, and the most elaborate mechanisms still depended on the original frame. That was useful. Less useful was the dizziness returning as the Cyber-Leader scanned the regeneration energy beneath his skin. He pressed his heels against the floor and concentrated on keeping his hands steady.

Cyber-Leader: Your cellular reconstruction process will be incorporated into the conversion system. 

The Doctor settled into the chair and looked up at it. 

The Doctor: You’ve had one look at me and decided to change the entire syllabus. I ought to be flattered. 

As a guard secured his right arm, he let his burned screwdriver slide into his left hand beneath the edge of his coat. The guard closed the second restraint without noticing it.

Tali loosened the brace enough to move it, but one bolt had seized. She changed the angle of her wrench and put both hands into the effort. The metal gave with a sharp crack that carried down the stairwell. From the telephone came an immediate electronic warning, followed by the Cyber-Leader ordering one guard to investigate the tower. Tali stopped trying to be quiet. She tore the loose brace aside and pulled the isolation handle down.

The electronic chime cut off halfway through its first note. Across the academy, students stumbled out of interrupted movements and found themselves in corridors they did not remember entering. Nina emerged from the equipment store clutching her head, heard Mara calling from the loading entrance, and ran toward her. In the basement, Dr. Harker cried out as her hands began obeying her again. The Doctor met her frightened gaze and nodded toward the release pedals at the base of the chairs.

He had spent the Cyber-Leader’s lecture removing the two screws that secured his wrist restraint to its frame. With his left hand free, he released the other arm, ducked beneath the descending examination unit, and pressed the pedal beside Harker’s chair. She fell forward into his arms. He steadied her, pointed toward the nearest student, and spoke quickly enough to get through her shock.



The Doctor: The frames have to lift before anyone moves. Green pedal, wait for the light, undo the straps. Can you do that? 

She nodded. A Cyberman turned toward them, and he shoved an instrument trolley into its path before running for the generator terminal. 

The Doctor: Good. You’re a doctor. They’ve been waiting for you.

Mara reached the first chair as Harker raised its frame. Nina went to the next, repeating the instructions aloud until her hands stopped shaking. The Cyber-Leader moved to intercept them, but the Doctor struck the terminal’s alarm control and called its attention back to the generator. He displayed the damaged regulator across the screen and began entering a repair sequence, forcing the machine to choose between the escaping students and the power supply keeping its own body alive.

The Doctor: You wanted to see what these hands could do. Pay attention.

His fingers moved rapidly over the controls. He could feel the Cyber-Leader approaching behind him and hear the slower progress of frightened people getting out of the chairs. He resisted the urge to look around. Each extra second at the terminal gave Harker another patient, and the regulator still needed to be configured for the returning signal.

In the belfry, Tali heard metal scrape the stairwell wall. She had left the test return handle untouched, exactly as instructed, and could do nothing with it until the Doctor gave the word. She lifted the telephone, but his reply was drowned by the guard forcing its shoulders through the narrow doorway. It assessed the open cabinet, raised one arm, and ordered her to move away from the controls.

Tali backed beneath the bell, judging the space between the cabinet and the maintenance platform. There was nowhere to hide that it could not reach. Through the louvres she could see the courtyard and the small figures beginning to gather outside the infirmary. If she ran, the guard would restore the transmitter before they got clear. Her hand closed around the old bell rope. She remembered how much force the unbalanced bell could gather once its weight passed the center of the frame.

Tali: You’ll have to come and get me. 

The Cyberman advanced beneath the bell, deliberately placing itself between her and the switches. Tali stepped onto the low maintenance platform and pulled the rope free of its cleat. Her first heave moved the bell only slightly. She hauled again as the Cyberman reached for her, feeling the rope bite through her gloves.

The rim struck its shoulder hard enough to drive it sideways into a support. The impact rang through the tower and made Tali’s teeth ache. She ducked behind the swinging bronze as the guard tried to recover, caught the rope on its return, and threw her weight backward. This time the bell met the Cyberman’s head and upper chest, knocking it off the platform. It landed on the boards beside the cabinet with a crash that shook dust from the beams.

Tali scrambled across the platform and dropped to the floor. Her phone had fallen beneath the guard and gone silent. She reached for the return handle, but a metal hand closed around her ankle and pulled her down. Pain shot along her leg. She gripped the cabinet frame, kicked at the fingers with her free foot, and heard the Doctor calling her name from the crushed telephone.

In the clinic, he received no answer. The Cyber-Leader caught him by the shoulder and slammed him against the terminal before he could try again. Pain spread across his back, sharpening the dizziness he had been fighting since morning. Behind the machine, Harker and Mara were helping the last student toward the exit. Nina waited at the doorway until he waved her through, and he was relieved to see how unwilling she was to leave anyone behind.

Cyber-Leader: The conversion program will continue. You cannot protect them. 

The Doctor glanced at the completed repair sequence beneath his hand. One confirmation remained. He pushed against the Cyber-Leader as though trying to free himself and used the movement to reach it. 

The Doctor: I don’t have to do it on my own. 

He pressed the control and raised his voice toward the phone. 

The Doctor: Tali! Everybody’s clear. Close the return!

She braced one knee against the cabinet and pulled herself upward despite the hand around her ankle. The handle lay just beyond her fingertips. Her boot was slipping. She remembered how loosely she had tied it in the rush downstairs, stopped fighting the movement, and pulled her foot free. The Cyberman dragged the empty boot toward itself as she caught the handle with both hands and brought it down.

The lights across the academy flickered. In the basement, the generator’s rising hum broke into an uneven whine as the returning signal overwhelmed its regulator. It shut down with a heavy internal thud. The Cyber-Leader’s grip stopped tightening, its head tilted toward the darkened screen, and the Doctor wrenched himself free before it toppled against the terminal. The other guard collapsed beside the overturned trolley. Upstairs, the hand holding Tali’s boot became perfectly still.

She stayed where she was for several breaths, sitting on the cold floor with one sock soaking up melted snow. The bell swung gently above her. Without the machinery beneath it, she could hear the wind and people calling to one another in the courtyard. She tried to stand, discovered how badly her leg hurt, and sat down again. By the time footsteps reached the stairs, she had retrieved her boot and begun laughing out of nervous shock and relief.

The Doctor appeared in the doorway, pale and breathless, with his sweatshirt torn at the shoulder. He took in the fallen Cyberman, the bell, and Tali on the floor before kneeling beside her. 

The Doctor: You hit it with the school bell? 

She accepted his hand. 

Tali: My way of giving your plan a ringing endorsement. 

His laugh came out with considerably more relief than amusement. He checked her ankle, helped her stand, and stayed close enough that they could support each other on the stairs.

By late afternoon, the academy belonged to ordinary people again, although very few of them were behaving ordinarily. Students had gathered in the dining hall beneath borrowed blankets. Emergency crews moved between the clinic and the road, and the Doctor noticed an organization similar to UNIT had quickly arrived. He locked eyes on an older man with an ear piece, who looked at him as if he knew he was out of place. Before anybody entered the basement, The Doctor disconnected the Cybermen’s power receivers and showed Harker which equipment could safely be touched.

Dr. Harker: We thought we were helping them. 

The Doctor: You were. You were showing the goodness of humanity. It's not a weakness, but it is something that is frequently exploited. I'm learning more and more that someone has to be there to protect it. That it's worth protecting.

Nina sat with Mara while a paramedic examined the inactive patch behind her ear. Removing the implants would take time and specialist care, but nobody was waiting for instructions from them anymore. She cried when she found the student whose cut hand she had ignored, apologized until he became embarrassed, and helped him carry tea to the other patients. 

Mara cornered Tali beside the kitchen doors while the Doctor was explaining something to a bewildered police officer with the aid of three spoons. 

Mara Ellis: Next time you hide a man in your room, introduce us. You have great taste in men apparently.

Tali leaned against the wall, her ankle wrapped and her exhaustion finally catching up with her.

Tali: It feels more like he chose me. 

Mara considered this, looked toward the Doctor, and conceded the point with a reluctant smile.

He found Tali at the gates an hour later. She had gone outside for quiet and discovered that the blue box was no longer smoking. Light shone behind its windows, warm against the deepening snow. The Doctor wore clothes borrowed from the academy’s theatre department. Tali looked him over and decided he seemed more himself.



Tali: Is that the new you? 

He looked down at the jacket and tested its pockets. 

The Doctor: I kind of like it. 

For a while they stood together watching the lamps come on along the road to Winters. He seemed content with the silence now. Tali thought about how strange it was that a man could arrive unable to stand and leave her feeling that the whole world had become too small overnight.

The Doctor: Thank you for the room. 

She glanced at him. 

Tali: You did save the school. 

He shook his head.

The Doctor: You didn’t know I could do that when you let me in. You didn't know anything about me. You trusted the strange man falling out of the blue box. Why do you think that is? 

Tali looked away toward the dormitory windows, finding she had no useful answer. Her friends were somewhere behind those lights, and she was very glad they would still be there tomorrow.

The Doctor put a key into the blue door. 

The Doctor: Would you like to see where I live? 

Tali followed him inside and stopped so abruptly that he had to step around her. A vast room opened beyond the threshold, warm with copper light. Stairs curved around a many sided console, and a tall column rose through its center, moving with a steady rhythm that she felt in the soles of her feet. The distant walls held doors, balconies, and passages leading far beyond anything the outside dimensions could contain.



She walked back out, circled the box in the snow, and returned. The Doctor waited beside the console, plainly enjoying himself. 

Tali: It's...amazing. 

He laid a hand on the railing. 

The Doctor: Isn't she? She's a she by the way. She was rebuilding. I was in the way. We’ve both had an eventful couple of days. 

Tali approached the console slowly, letting her fingers trail along the warm metal. 

The Doctor: It’s called the TARDIS. Let's break it down easily. A ship. Anywhere in space, anywhere in time. The biggest mystery right now is that I have no idea where I'm at. Something happened last time.

Tali: Last time?

The Doctor: I'm a Time Lord, Tali. I come from the planet of Gallifrey, though I have sometimes called the Earth my home. Problem is, this isn't the Earth that I know. This is different, and it's an exciting kind of different. A universe full of new possibilities. I could take you somewhere. There are cities built inside flowers. Oceans underneath crystal moons. You could see the past or the future!

Tali looked toward the doors. Beyond them lay her course work, her narrow room, and the friends she had nearly lost. She did not want to discard any of it. That surprised her almost as much as the certainty that she wanted to see what he was offering.

Tali: This isn’t me leaving forever. 

The Doctor shook his head. 

The Doctor: You choose how long. You can come home. Right back to this moment in fact. 

She studied him before asking the question that mattered more. 

Tali: Why me?

He rested both hands on the console. 

The Doctor: In my more recent past I have had people thrust upon me with great purpose and destiny as it turns out. You were frightened in that tower. You understood exactly how frightened you ought to be, and you stayed because your friends needed you. You're NOT a person of great destiny. You are a curious person. A brave person. You remind me of so many of them, but you carry a uniqueness about you. I’d like to travel with someone like that. That could be fun. 

His smile returned, bright and a little mischievous. 

The Doctor: Also, I’m discovering a tendency to make speeches when I ought to be getting on with things. You seem unlikely to encourage it.

Tali laughed, and the decision became easier without becoming smaller. She made him wait while she fetched a bag. When she returned, he was still by the console, resisting an obvious urge to touch every control at once. She closed the doors behind her and held tightly to the railing he indicated.

Tali: Somewhere with less snow. 

The Doctor considered the request with exaggerated seriousness, moved a lever, and grinned as the central column began to rise. 

The Doctor: Right. We’ll start with a sun. 

Tali’s alarmed expression delighted him until the floor lurched and they both grabbed the rail. Outside, snow lifted around the police box as its lamp flashed. The grinding of its engines spread across the courtyard, and the students watching from their windows saw it fade into the winter evening.



---

Far from Winters, golden light drained from the walls of a ruined chamber. A man knelt among fragments of scorched machinery, his breathing gradually slowing as the last threads of regeneration energy slipped from his hands. His clothes no longer fitted properly. One cuff hung loose over a wrist he turned carefully beneath the fading glow, studying the unfamiliar shape of his fingers before closing them into a fist.

The Master rose without approaching the light. His face remained lost in the darkness above the collar of his burned coat. For a long while he stood absolutely still, listening to something that had occupied his thoughts for so many years that its absence required examination. He lifted one hand toward his temple, waited, and slowly lowered it. When he spoke, the voice was new.

The Master: The bells have finally ceased.

Last edited by Machismo (Today 3:05 am)