Chapter Twenty: The Parting Of The Ways

"We've got incoming," Alex warned, seeing missiles heading towards them on the monitor. They hit home, but all they felt inside was a jolt.

Jack laughed. "The extrapolator's working. We've got a fully functional forcefield. Try saying that when you're drunk."

"And for my next trick..." The Doctor threw the dematerialisation lever, landing the TARDIS around Rose, and the Dalek standing next to her. "Rose, get down!"

Rose hit the deck as the Dalek aimed. "Exterminate!" It shot towards Jack, but missed, and Jack took it out with his defabricator gun.

"You did it!" Rose said, getting to her feet. Alex ran over and hugged her tightly. "Feels like I haven't seen you in years!"

"Told you we'd come and get you," the Doctor reminded her, giving her a hug too.

She beamed. "Never doubted it."

"I did," he admitted. "You alright?"

"Yeah, you?"

"Not bad, been better."

Jack grinned, holding his arms out. "Hey, don't I get a hug?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Oh, come here!"

"I was talking to him," Jack joked, then hugged her. "Welcome home."

"Oh, I thought I'd never see you again," Rose sighed.

"Oh, you were lucky," he told her. "I was just a one shot wonder. Drained the gun of all its power supply. Now it's just a piece of junk."

She nodded, then bit her lip, eyeing the Dalek. "You said they were extinct. How comes they're still alive?"

"One minute they're the greatest threat in the universe, the next minute they vanished out of time and space," Jack added, his brow furrowing.

"They went off to fight a bigger war," Alex told him, remembering what the Doctor had told her. "The Time War."

Jack's eyes widened. "I thought that was just a legend."

"I was there," the Doctor admitted, his voice heavy. "The war between the Daleks and the Time Lords, with the whole of creation at stake. My people were destroyed, but they took the Daleks with them. I almost thought it was worth it. Now it turns out they died for nothing." Alex took his hand silently.

"There's thousands of them now," Rose pointed out. "We could hardly stop one. What're we gonna do?"

The Doctor hesitated, then brightened. "No good stood around here chin-wagging. Human race, you'd gossip all day. The Daleks have got the answers. Let's go and meet the neighbours." He headed for the door.

Rose's eyes widened. "You can't go out there!" He went out anyway, and the others followed.

"Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!" The Daleks shot at them, but their lasers were stopped by the extrapolator shielding, a few metres out from the TARDIS.

The Doctor snorted. "Is that it? Useless! Nul points! It's alright, come on out. That forcefield can hold back anything."

"Almost anything," Jack corrected, closing the door behind him.

"Wow," Alex said, raising an eyebrow. "It's a good thing we don't have any real secrets."

He bit his lip. "Sorry."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, turning back to the Daleks. "Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek homeworld? The Oncoming Storm. You might've removed all your emotions, but I reckon right down deep in your DNA, there's one little spark left, and that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me?" The Daleks shuffled backwards. "So tell me. How did you survive the Time War?"

"They survived through me," a deep, echoing Dalek voice stated. Lights turned on to reveal a ginormous Dalek casing, opened to reveal the oogly creature inside, splayed out as if it were sitting on a throne.

"Kez, Rose, Captain..." The Doctor swallowed. "This is the Emperor of the Daleks."

"You destroyed us, Doctor," the Emperor accused. "The Dalek race died in your inferno, but my ship survived, falling through time, crippled but alive."

"I get it," the Doctor realised.

"Do not interrupt! Do not interrupt! Do not interrupt!"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "I think you're forgetting something. I'm the Doctor, and if there's one thing I can do, it's talk. I've got five billion languages, and you haven't got one way of stopping me, so if anybody's going to shut up, it's you!" The Daleks quietened, and he smirked. "Okie dokie. So, where were we?"

"We waited here in the dark space," the Emperor explained, "damaged but rebuilding. Centuries passed, and we quietly infiltrated the systems of Earth, harvesting the waste of humanity. The prisoners, the refugees, the dispossessed. They all came to us. The bodies were filtered, pulped, sifted. The seed of the human race is perverted. Only one cell in a billion was fit to be nurtured."

"So you created an army of Daleks out of the dead," the Doctor said, disgusted.

Alex frowned. "But that makes them half human."

"Those words are blasphemy," the Emperor decreed.

"Do not blaspheme! Do not blaspheme! Do not blaspheme!" She stumbled backwards as the ship filled with the cries of the Daleks.

"Everything human has been purged," the Emperor stated. "I cultivated pure and blessed Dalek."

The Doctor's brow furrowed. "Since when did the Daleks have a concept of blasphemy?"

"I reached into the dirt and made new life. I am the God of all Daleks!"

"Worship him! Worship him! Worship him!"

"They're insane," the Doctor realised, his eyes wide. "Hiding in silence for hundreds of years, that's enough to drive anyone mad. But it's worse than that. Driven mad by your own flesh, the stink of humanity. You hate your own existence. And that makes them more deadly than ever." He set his jaw. "We're going."

And, while the Daleks screamed and cried their worship, they walked back into the TARDIS.

***

The quartet ran out onto floor 500 as soon as the TARDIS materialised.

"Turn everything up!" the Doctor ordered. "All transmitters full power, wide open. Now! Do it!" The remaining workers did so.

"What does this do?" Davitch asked as he worked the controls.

"Stops the Daleks from transmatting on board," Alex explained, checking the displays over his shoulder. "How did you get on? Did you contact Earth?"

He shrugged. "Well, we tried to warn them, but all they did was suspend our license because we stopped the programmes."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "And the planet's just sitting there, defenceless. Lynda, what're you still doing on board? I told you to evacuate everyone."

"She wouldn't go," Davitch said, sighing.

Lynda tilted her head coyly. "Didn't want to leave you."

It was at that exact moment that Rose decided she didn't very much like Lynda. The Doctor and Alex, who didn't seem to notice they were even touching, were oblivious.

"There weren't enough shuttles anyway, or I wouldn't be here," another worker pointed out. "We've got about a hundred people stranded on Floor 0."

Jack glanced across at them from the computer he'd commandeered. "The Fleet is moving. They're on their way."

The Doctor got to work.

***

Later, he was explaining his plan to them while pulling components out of the conduits, making a big pile on the floor. Alex, Jack and Rose watched, confused.

"Dalek plan is a big mistake, because what have they left me with? Anyone? Anyone?" The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, it's obvious. A great big transmitter, this station. If I can change the signal, fold it back, sequence it... Anyone?"

Jack's eyes widened. "You've got to be kidding."

The Doctor grinned. "Give the man a medal!"

Alex frowned, working it out in her head. "You don't mean... a Delta Wave?"

"A Delta Wave!"

"What's a Delta Wave?" Rose asked, raising her eyebrows.

"A wave of Van Cassadyne energy," Jack explained. "It fries your brain. Stand in the way of a Delta Wave and your head gets barbecued!"

"And this place can transmit a massive wave," Alex realised. "We can wipe out the Daleks!"

Lynda beamed. "Well, get started and do it, then."

The Doctor made a face. "Trouble is, wave this size, building this big, brain as clever as mine, should take about... oh, three days? How long till the Fleet arrive?"

Davitch raised his eyebrows. "Twenty-two minutes."

***

"Got it," Alex muttered, seeing the forcefield appear on the computer display of the satellite.

Jack clapped her on the shoulder, turning to address the rest of the humans left on Floor 500. "We've now got a forcefield so they can't blast us out of the sky, but that doesn't stop the Daleks from physically invading."

"Do they know about the Delta Wave?" Davitch asked.

"They'll have worked it out at the same time," Alex told him, flashing a kind smile. "So, they want to stop the Doctor, so they'll have to get to this level, Floor 500. I can concentrate the extrapolator around the top six levels, 500 to 495, so they'll penetrate the station below that at level 494 and fight their way up."

Davitch winced. "Who are they fighting?"

"Us," Jack told him.

"And what are we fighting with?"

Jack showed him one of the guns they'd taken earlier. "The guards had guns with bastic bullets. That's enough to blow a Dalek wide open."

The last worker other than Davitch sighed. "There's six of us."

"Kez, Rose, you can help me," the Doctor intervened quickly. "I need all these wires stripping bare."

The worker huffed. "Alright, now there's four of us."

"Then let's move it," Jack ordered. "Into the lift, isolate the lift controls." Davitch and his colleague ran off to do as they were told as the others went over to the Doctor.

"I just want to say, er, thanks, I suppose," Lynda said to him, smiling coyly. "And, I'll do my best."

He smiled politely. "Me too." She went to hug him, but he stepped back, offering a handshake instead. As Lynda went off to join the others, Alex bit her lip to hide a smirk.

Jack cleared his throat. "It's been fun, but I guess this is goodbye."

Rose shook her head. "Don't talk like that. The Doctor's gonna do it. You just watch him."

He gave her a sad smile, cupping her face in his hands. "Rose, you are worth fighting for." He kissed her, then turned to Alex. "Lexi... I'm going to miss our talks. You were the sister I never had." He kissed her too, and then it was the Doctor's turn. "Wish I'd never met you, Doctor. I was much better off as a coward." And then he kissed him too, making him smile. "See you in hell." And then he was gone, the lift descending.

Alex sighed, glancing across at the Doctor. "He's going to be alright, isn't he?"

The Doctor said nothing at all.

***

A little while later, the girls were stripping the wires while the Doctor pieced his wave together.

Rose frowned. "Suppose..." She trailed off, shaking her head.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"Nothing."

He raised an eyebrow. "You said 'suppose'."

"No, I was just thinking." She bit her lip. "I mean, obviously you can't, but you've got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them?"

"As soon as the TARDIS lands in that second, I become part of events, stuck in the timeline," he explained.

She nodded. "Yeah, thought it'd be something like that."

"There's another thing the TARDIS could do," the Doctor said, and Alex lifted her head curiously. "She could take us away. We could leave. Let history take its course. We could go to Marbella in 1989."

Alex blinked. "What, and leave these people to die?"

He smiled. "Never even occurred to you, did it?" A computer bleeped an alert. "The Delta Wave's started building. How long does it need?" He raced over. When he saw the report, his face fell.

"Is that bad?" Rose asked, then saw his expression. "Okay, it's bad. How bad is it?"

His eyes widened. "Rose Tyler, you're a genius!" He kissed her forehead, grinning. "We can do it! If I use the TARDIS to cross my old timeline... Yes! Come on, Kez!" They all ran into the TARDIS. "Hold that down and keep it in position," he said to Rose, pointing to a lever.

"What's it do?" she asked curiously.

"Cancels the buffers," he replied, hoping Alex wouldn't understand. "If I'm very clever—and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant—I might just save the world. Or rip it apart."

Alex made a face. "Yeah, I'd go for the first one."

He grinned. "Me too. Now I've just got to go and power up the Game Station. Hold on!" He ran back out onto Floor 500, the doors swinging shut behind him. Then he turned back to the TARDIS, buzzing the sonic screwdriver to activate Emergency Program One.

Inside, Alex's eyes widened as the engines started up, the rotor moving. "No, no, no, don't you dare!" She ran for the doors, but they wouldn't open.

"Let us out!" Rose cried, banging against them. "Doctor, what have you done?"

"This is Emergency Program One," his voice said behind them. They whipped round to see a hologram of him standing next to the console. "Rose, Kez, now listen. This is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger, and I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape."

Alex's breath caught in her throat, tears pricking in her eyes. "No!"

"And that's okay," the Doctor continued. "Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home."

"I won't let you!" Rose exclaimed.

"And I bet you're fussing and moaning now," he said, rolling his eyes. "Typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Program One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do. Let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one'll even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world'll move on and the box will be buried.

"And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, girls. Have a fantastic life. And Kez?" The hologram turned to look right at her, meeting her eyes the way he had done a thousand times before. "I was better with you. Thank you." The image disappeared, and as the TARDIS landed, the girls stumbled.

Alex fell to her knees, her breaths heavy and loud in her ears. She couldn't shake the feeling that she had lost more than just a friend.

***

Later, Rose, Mickey and Jackie had coaxed her into a café. They ate, but she just stared out of the window. In her head, she could still see that crooked smile, that Northern voice. How could she move on from him?

"It's gone upmarket, this place," Jackie was saying. "They're doing little tubs of coleslaw now. It's not very nice. It tastes a bit... sort of clinical."

"Have you tried that new pizza place down Minto Road?" Mickey asked conversationally.

Jackie raised her eyebrows. "Oh, what's it selling?"

He frowned. "Pizza."

"That's nice." She was distracted, watching her youngest daughter ignore her food. "Do they deliver?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, come on, Alex," Jackie sighed. "It's not like you to pass up on food!"

Alex swallowed. "Two hundred thousand years in the future, he's dying, and there's nothing I can do." Her voice cracked.

"Well, like you said, two hundred thousand years," Jackie tried. "It's way off."

"But it's not," Rose disagreed. "It's now. That fight is happening right now, and he's fighting for us, for the whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips."

"Listen to me," Jackie said firmly. "God knows I have hated that man, but right now, I love him, and do you know why? Because he did the right thing. He sent you back to me."

"But what do we do every day, Mum?" Rose demanded. "What do we do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips, go to bed? Is that it?"

"It's what the rest of us do," Mickey pointed out.

"I can't," Alex whispered, tears spilling over.

He frowned. "What, because you're better than us?"

"No!" she protested. "Because I..." She faltered, shaking her head. "He showed us a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed us a better way of living your life. You know! He showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen, you make a stand! You say no! You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I—" She made a noise of frustration, her tears flowing freely, and ran from the café.

***

Rose and Mickey found her in the park, sitting on a bench by the basketball court.

"You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about the Doctor," Mickey tried. Rose just sat next to her sister, putting her arm around her.

Alex shook her head. "I don't want to forget him."

Mickey bit his lip. "You've got to start living your own life. You know, a proper life, like the kind he's never had."

Rose blinked, feeling her sister tense. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"It's here," Alex realised, seeing the graffiti on the opposite wall, reading BAD WOLF. "Rose, it's here as well!"

"That's been there for years," Mickey pointed out. "It's just a phrase. It's just words."

"I thought it was a warning," Alex said, starting to smile. "Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's a message. The same words written down now and two hundred thousand years in the future. It's a link between us and the Doctor. Bad Wolf here, Bad Wolf there."

"But if it's a message, what's it saying?" Rose frowned.

Alex swallowed, making a decision. "I've got to go back. I can save him. I have to."

***

"All the TARDIS needs to do is make a return trip," she was saying later as they returned to the TARDIS. "Just reverse."

Mickey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but we still can't do it."

"The Doctor always said the TARDIS was telepathic," Alex explained. "She's alive, so she can listen."

"Not listening now, is it?"

"What if we got inside?" Rose suggested. "Last time we saw you, with the Slitheen, this middle bit opened, and there was this light, and the Doctor said it was the heart of the TARDIS. If we can open her up, we can make contact. We can tell it what to do."

Alex grinned. "You're a genius!"

Mickey bit his lip. "Alex, if you go back, you're going to die."

She hesitated for a second, then nodded. "That's a risk I've got to take, because there's nothing left for me here. Not without him."

"Nothing?" he echoed.

"No," she said firmly. There was no going back now.

Mickey sighed. "Okay, if that's what you think, let's get this thing open."

***

Ten minutes later, they were trying to break the console open with a chain attached to Mickey's car. Alex was stood inside the TARDIS, while Rose stood just outside, Mickey in the driver's seat. Jackie watched from the other side of the road.

"It's not moving!" Alex called.

"Faster!" Rose urged.

"Come on," Mickey mumbled. He accelerated, and the chain broke. Inside, Alex kicked the console in frustration before sinking into the jump seat.

Jackie came in, putting her arm around her daughter. "It was never going to work, sweetheart. And the Doctor knew that. He just wanted you to be safe."

Alex shook her head, trying not to cry and failing. "I can't give up."

"Lock the door," Jackie encouraged her. "Walk away."

"Dad wouldn't give up," Alex blurted out.

Jackie blinked, taken aback. "Well, he's not here, is he? And even if he was, he'd say the same."

Rose scoffed. "No, he wouldn't. He'd tell us to try anything. If we could save the Doctor's life, try anything."

"Well, we're never going to know," Jackie sighed.

"Mum, please," Alex begged, her eyes full of unshed tears. "All those times you told us about Dad, you always said he was the most fantastic man in the world. That it broke your heart that he died alone, that you wished someone had been there with him." She shook her head, crying. "That's the Doctor for me. If it was your choice, and it was Dad dying, wouldn't you do anything to keep him safe? All those times you asked me who he was, well this is it. He's... he's everything. And I can't let him die!"

Jackie sobbed, running away.

***

Later, Mickey and Rose were talking outside the TARDIS while Alex remained inside. "We just need something stronger than my car," Mickey was saying. "Something bigger. Something like..." He looked over Rose's shoulder to see Jackie driving a big yellow truck. "That!"

"Right," Jackie said, climbing out and giving Mickey the keys. "You've only got this until six, so get on with it."

Rose gaped at the size of it. "Mum, where the hell did you get that from?"

"Rodrigo," she replied. "He owes me a favour, never mind why. But you were right about your dad, sweetheart. He was full of mad ideas, and it's exactly what he would've done. Now, get on with it before I change my mind."

***

"Keep going!" Alex called, watching as Mickey used a second chain with the big yellow truck.

"Put your foot down!" Jackie ordered.

"Faster!" Rose shouted.

"Give it some more, Mickey!"

"Keep going!"

"Come on, come on!"

"Give it some more!"

Finally, the console cracked open, and Alex smiled, looking into the light. The doors slammed shut before Rose could enter, and the TARDIS dematerialised as golden energy streamed into her sister's eyes.

***

The Doctor looked up as Daleks entered from all sides. He'd finally completed the Delta Wave, but if the Daleks had reached him, it was too late for Jack and the other volunteer fighters. He closed his eyes briefly, but this was no time for mourning. "You really want to think about this," he threatened, "because if I activate this signal, every living creature dies."

"I am immortal," the Emperor Dalek insisted, visible on a hologram.

"Do you want to put that to the test?" the Doctor asked.

"I want to see you become like me," the Emperor countered. "Hail the Doctor, the Great Exterminator."

"I'll do it!" He put his hands on the switch, but he could already feel his resolve leaving him.

"Then prove yourself, Doctor. What are you, coward or killer?"

The Doctor hesitated, then stepped back. "Coward," he said, guilt rising in his chest. "Any day."

The Emperor seemed to enjoy that. "Mankind will be harvested because of your weakness."

"And what about me?" the Doctor asked tiredly. "Am I becoming one of your angels?"

"You are the heathen. You will be exterminated."

He sighed, hanging his head. "Maybe it's time." Behind him, a familiar sound echoed through the satellite, a draught blowing against him. His eyes shot open.

"Alert! TARDIS materialising!"

"You will not escape!"

The Doctor whipped around to see the TARDIS filled with a blinding light. He stumbled back, shielding his eyes. Amidst the swirling golden energy, her eyes glowing unnaturally, Alex walked out of the TARDIS. "What have you done?" he gasped.

"I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me," she replied. Her voice, though still recognisably hers, was smoother and seemed to echo.

"You looked into the Time Vortex!" the Doctor realised, his eyes widening. "Kez, no one's meant to see that!"

"This is the Abomination!" the Emperor decreed.

"Exterminate!"

Alex shattered the beam with the palm of her hand. "I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words, I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here."

"Kez," the Doctor begged. "You've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now. You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're going to burn!"

She met his eyes then, smiling through her tears. "I want you safe," she confessed. "My Doctor, protected from the false god."

"You cannot hurt me," the Emperor sneered. "I am immortal."

She glared, the vortex swirling behind her eyes. "You are tiny," she seethed. "I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence, and I divide them." All around her, the Daleks started to disintegrate. "Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends."

"I will not die! I cannot die!" the Emperor protested.

"Can't you?" She raised an eyebrow, and he dissolved.

"Kez, you've done it, now stop," the Doctor urged. "Just let go."

She laughed. "How can I let go of this? I bring life. The days he should have had."

In the corridor, Jack gasped, resuscitated.

"But this is wrong!" the Doctor tried. "You can't control life and death!"

"But I can," she smiled. "The sun and the moon, the day and the night..." Her face contorted in pain. "But why do they hurt?"

The Doctor swallowed. "The power's going to kill you and it's my fault."

"I can see everything," she breathed. "All that is, all that was, all that ever could be."

"That's what I see," he told her gently. "All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"

She whimpered. "My head."

"Come here." He held his arms out to her and she gladly stumbled into his embrace.

Her breathing was shallow, strained. "It's killing me," she realised.

The Doctor smiled. "I think you need a Doctor." He kissed her softly, pulling the vortex out of her head and into his. He pulled away, his eyes glowing, and caught her as she fainted in his arms. Then he turned to the TARDIS, exhaling the vortex back where it belonged. He pulled Alex up into his arms and brought her into the TARDIS, which dematerialised, leaving Captain Jack Harkness stranded in the aftermath of the battle.

***

Alex groaned as she stirred, feeling the soft cushion of the jump seat against her. "Oh, what happened?" she asked, coughing slightly. Her head was pounding.

The Doctor looked over from the console, raising an eyebrow. "Don't you remember?"

She frowned, sitting up. "It was like... there was this singing..."

He smiled. "That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away."

At that, her eyes widened. "Christ, the Daleks!" A memory flashed before her eyes, of golden energy and Dalek dust. "I... I killed them... Christ, did I kill them?"

"Alex Tyler," he said, and she looked over to see him smiling fondly at her. "Kez... I was gonna take you to so many places. Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. You'd love it. Fantastic place. They've got dogs with no noses. Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny."

She smiled, but it was uneasy. "Then why can't we go?"

He tilted his head. "Maybe you will, and maybe I will. But not like this."

"You're not making sense," she told him, biting her lip.

"I might never make sense again," he realised. "I might have two heads, or no head. Imagine me with no head. And don't say that's an improvement." She rolled her eyes, and he went serious again. "But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with—" He gasped, doubling over in pain.

"Doctor!" She jolted forwards, but he held up a hand to stop her.

"Stay away!" His voice was strained, agonised.

"Doctor, tell me what's going on," she pleaded, tears pricking in her eyes again.

"I absorbed all the energy of the time vortex, and no one's meant to do that," he told her. "Every cell in my body's dying."

Her eyes widened. "Well, can't you do something?!"

"Yeah, I'm doing it now," he assured her. "Time Lords have this little trick. It's sort of a way of cheating death, except..." His expression softened. "Except it means I'm going to change, and I'm never going to see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go—"

She made a strangled noise in the back of her throat. "Don't say that!"

"Kez..." He smiled sadly. "Before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I!" He met her eyes one last time, before golden energy burst out from his body, obscuring him from her view. Then the light disappeared and his head fell forwards, except...

Except it wasn't him anymore. A different man, a younger man with thick chestnut hair and a wide smile was standing there, wearing the same clothes.

"Hello!" he grinned. "O—" He cut himself off, frowning. "Ooh, new teeth. That's weird." He shrugged, brightening again. "So, where was I? Oh, that's right. Barcelona!"

All Alex could do was stare. Where was the Doctor?

~~~