Alice was having fun exploring the big city.  She’d never seen so many people not screaming in fear as they were ruthlessly killed.  She’d tried asking the Doctor about these upsetting memory files but the Doctor just insisted that they were necessary for a comparison.  Still she had her favourite shoes on and her second best dress and she felt happy.  Some of the locals were wearing trendy yellow stars on their clothes and she wanted one too, as she felt that she was a robot with good fashion skills and the stars were pretty and had six sides.

The Doctor looked around at the various shops.  She’d landed here by accident on the way to 1913, to say hello to some friends she’d made saving them from the Titanic.  Instead of tea and scones however there were Gestapo and Wermacht.

Somehow Alice had gotten separated from the Doctor and Mickey.  Perhaps they were playing hide and seek?  She carefully counted to 100 and hardly left out any numbers except the ones she couldn’t remember and the ones she didn’t like.  Finally she started to look for her friends but instead of finding them and getting a hug all she found were empty hiding places or irate people in the bath.  Finally she gave up looking after just sixteen hours and went back to find the TARDIS, however it was gone.  It wasn’t in any of the fifty four identical looking places they’d parked.  She felt upset and sad and upset and sad.  She looked over at a strange metal box on wheels and wondered if it tasted nice to eat.  However she got a shock when something in her brain lurched to one side and her whole body changed, ripping her dress to shreds in the process, as she because a car!  “Honk!  Honk!”  She honked merrily and drove about on her wheels.  This was so much fun.  She had no idea she was really a car in disguise and she was so happy to drive about.  However after a few hours she got tired and went to sleep in an old house.  She awoke the next day to find that she was on a train.  A proper choo choo train and everything.  She was back in her human shape again, wearing a new dress that had the trendy yellow star on it.  “Are we on a day trip to the beach?”  She asked the nearest human.  The human just started crying so Alice gave her a hug to cheer up.  “Don’t worry.  It’ll be ok.  There’s sand and the sea and pebbles and we can build sandcastles.  We’ll have a great time.”

The Doctor searched all over the city for Alice.  However there was no trace of her.  “I hope she’s alright.”

“She’ll be fine.”  Mickey said to the Doctor.  “She’d have turned up hours ago if she wanted to.  Can I take this Womble costume off now?”

“You look cute.”  The Doctor gave her best cheeky smile.  “Maybe we can try over there?  Give me a jam sandwich, would you?”  She pointed towards another part of the city and tried not to get the sticky strawberry jam on the clean fabric of her pink and cream cotton summer dress.

“My feet are hurting.”  Mickey complained, again.

“Mine too.”  The Doctor replied.  “I had no idea I could walk seventy five miles in these heels.”

“Maybe if we use the TARDIS to track her location?”  Mickey suggested.

“That’s an excellent idea.”  The Doctor gave Mickey a big kiss on the costume’s cheek.  “Lets get back there and dial us up a fembot.”

The TARDIS seemed quiet and empty when Mickey got back inside of it.  He quickly hauled the costume off, while the Doctor hopped around on one foot trying to get the other shoe off of her swollen foot.  “Where shall we look first?”

The Doctor wrenched the shoe off and it fell to the ground with a clang on the metal grille.  Quickly she put on her own demure soft pink slippers and moved over to the console.  “Shoes, I must buy more shoes.  Maybe I can get a small rack put up in here.  Maybe we can pop along to Ikea later?”

“What about Alice?”  Mickey snapped.  “God knows I think she’s weird at times but she’s our friend and we should at least try to find her.  Imagine what They would do to her if they discovered what she really was?”

Haana sullenly followed Claire as they emerged from Leslie in the middle of a huge mass of mud.  “Where the Other is this anyway?  It looks like Maplins in the late 1980’s.”

“Hell.”  Claire replied softly.  “We’re here to liberate the angels.”

Haana frowned to herself.  “I’m not liking this.  Why am I not liking this?”  Here she was, dressed in what seemed to be a very unfashionable boiler suit in the middle of a muddy field.  It was just like being back at Woodstock but with clothes on.  “What are we doing anyway?”  She wasn’t going anywhere until she had an answer.

“Will you be quiet?”  Claire hissed.  “If the guards hear us I’ll have another you to break in.  We’re in the middle of a concentration camp.”  She spat the words out with as much bile and disgust as she could manage.  “We’re going to rescue some very special people, orders from the big white.”

Haana stared at Claire.  “You spoke to my son?  How is he?  Is he keeping well?”

“I didn’t ask; I just got the vision and words.  There was no Q&A afterwards.”  Claire shrugged her shoulders and started to unlock the nearest hut.  She went inside and a few seconds later she emerged with a middle aged woman and a small boy.

“Who the hell are these two?”  Haana whispered to her erratic girlfriend.

“Gran and Dad.”  Claire explained.  “The circle of life must not be broken.”  She led them back towards Leslie.

“Huh?”  Haana exclaimed before pulling a thin but attractive girl out of the hut.  “Come with me.”  She whispered.  “We’ll see who can create their own paradoxes around here.”

“Hello.”  Alice said to Haana.  “Are we going somewhere nice?”

Haana put her hand over the stupid girl’s mouth.  “Keep quiet or we’ll both end up dead.”  She kept her hand in place, unwilling to tempt fate.  Finally they made it back to where they had left Leslie, disguised as an out of order ladies latrine with a picture of Marilyn Monroe on the front of it.

“Who the hell is that?”  Claire demanded.  “We’re not supposed to break the fabric of reality.

“What’s that?”  Alice asked before transforming herself into a child’s plastic car and driving around the console room.

“On second thoughts, well done.”  Claire clapped Haana on the back.  “You obviously know your paradoxes.  A shape shifter would raise too many questions.”

“Vroom, vroom!”  Alice enthused.

“I have a wild, mad idea.”  Haana winked at Claire.  “She needs someone who can look after her, nurture her, teach her.”

“The Doctor?”  Claire asked in amazement.  “She has her hands full at the moment.”

Haana shook her head.  “One of her earlier selves.  Her eleventh self to be precise, the nice one with the hat and appalling taste in clothes.”

“That could be almost any of them.”  Claire joked.  “Even ours only remained fashionable because we made her buy tasteful stuff.”

“Don’t.”  Haana shook her head.  “I still have nightmares about that pink silk suit I let her buy.  At least I finally managed to get her into some halfway sexy clothes before we left.”

“I was wondering why she was wearing Ann Summers.”  Claire replied before looking at the strange robot girl who was reading the mother and son a story.  “We have to get rid of her.”

Haana distracted Claire’s relatives while Claire had a few quiet words with the fembot, and explained how she could help a couple of people in the process.

“It’s a nice day isn’t it?”  The Doctor looked up at the young woman who seemed rather upset about something.

“Go away or I’ll jump.”  Vicky threatened.  “I mean it.”

“I’m sure you do, but I’m sure you won’t disrupt my appreciation of the weather.”

“What?”  Vicky demanded.  “I’m going to jump to my death and you don’t care?”

“I’m not like you, I’m not of this world, I’m an alien, why should I have the same likes and dislikes as you?  It’s rather conceited of you to think that I should have the same judgement values as your species young lady.”

“What are you?”  Vicky asked.

“A friend if you’ll allow me to be.  I have forsworn the ancient society of Time Lords and I’m a renegade time traveller known only as the Doctor.”

“You’re crazy.”  Vicky said.

“Perhaps, but I’m not the one threatening to kill themselves just to get attention.  Go ahead, jump I could do with some entertainment.  There’s precious little else to amuse on this backwards little planet.”

Vicky climbed down off the ledge.  “I’m not going to kill myself for your amusement.”  She shouted angrily at the old guy with the glasses and stupid woolly jumper.

“A very wise choice young lady.”  The Doctor replied quickly.  “You see you don’t want to end your life, you just needed some way of expressing your emotions.”

“What would you know about emotions, you, you…man!?”  Vicky snapped.

“Your species is so naive and yet so passionate, perhaps that’s why I find you such a conundrum.  Why don’t we talk about your problem and I can help you find, oh what was that word I thought of a few seconds ago?  Ah yes, closure.  That’s what you need, have you met my friend Eve?”

“Hello.”  Vicky’s jaw dropped open.

“Hi there.”  Eve said.

“She’s rather reserved.”  The Doctor whispered quietly into Vicky’s ear.

“Not to worry.”  Vicky said with a smile.  “After Haana I’m sure I can deal with this.”

“She’s also straight.”  The Doctor informed Vicky.

“Well I’m not looking for love, just a friend to talk to and get rid of a lot of mental scarring caused by she who leaves you for a floozy called Claire who’s returned from the dead.”

“I do hope I don’t have these problems in my last two lives.”  The Doctor said to himself before a Time Lady suddenly appeared along with a servant of the White Guardian and a rather dim witted human looking girl.

“Hello Doctor, Vicky.”  Haana waved hello to one of her many, many ex’s.

“This is Alice.”  Claire said to the Doctor.

“Hello.”  Alice turned herself into a large bowl of daffodils.

“She’s a shape-changer.”  Haana said to the Doctor.  “We rescued her from Nazi Germany where she would have caused a massive temporal paradox.”

“We thought she’d be better off with you and Eve.”  Claire said to the Doctor.  “She likes her friends to call her Alice.”

“I’m Alice.”  Alice said and turned herself into a large water fountain without any water.

“Well isn’t this jolly?”  The Doctor said.  “Three companions and, wait a minute, where’s Vicky gone?”

“She ran away Doctor.”  Eve stated coolly.  “She tried it on with me and I broke her arm.”

“I taught her that.”  Haana said to Claire, it always worked for me in the past, it definitely worked on you.”  She kissed Claire.

“We should be going.”  Claire managed to drag Haana back into Leslie.

“I wonder who they were?”  The Doctor wondered to Eve and his new companion Alice.

Eve persuaded Alice to return her appearance to that of a human woman.  “Come on Alice, you’ll like travelling through time, well it’s better than the alternative and we can talk about why men are so irritating and high maintenance.”

The Doctor’s hands paused over the TARDIS controls.  “Alice will be fine, Mickey.  Some how I just know she’ll be fine.”  She set the controls for England 1913.  “Why don’t we go somewhere refined, with art and culture and you in a suit and tie and me in a gorgeous little number with the most adorable shoes and purse?”

“So we’re free of that weird klepto robot then?”  Mickey asked.  “I still feel sorry for her though.”

“She said that to me about you.”  The Doctor replied quickly.  “Never judge a person by your own standards, you’ll find they will surprise you in ways you can’t imagine.”

“I am Field Marshal Stryffe.”  The proud Sontaran officer hissed quietly.  “I claim this miserable little planet in the name of the glorious Sontaran Space Security Service.”

“Not so fast!”

Josh turned to see a slenderly built man with long red and black hair fluffed up on his head standing there looking like John Inman on steroids.

“You cannot stop us you worthless and insignificant being.”  Stryffe replied menacingly.

The Doctor shook his head.  “When will the Sontarans ever learn that they’re not the most stupid species in the Universe?  I am the Doctor.”

Stryffe started to laugh.  “I though you were taller somehow Doctor, you’re just a weak creature that I will swat aside like a fly.”

“Appearances can be very deceptive.”  The Doctor stated and pulled out a gun from his waistcoat pocket.  “Like this gun for instance, it may look like a child’s water pistol but it is far deadlier than anything the glorious Sontaran Empire will ever manage to build.”

Alice braked as she drew lever with the Doctor and transformed herself back into human form.  “Can I have my water pistol back now Doctor?  I’m going to play cowgirls and Indians with Mike.  Molly is General Custard and I’m in Wonderland.”

“So your bluff has failed Time Lord.”  Stryffe sneered.

“Ooops.”  The Doctor gulped.  “Well it was worth a try.”  He waited as the stocky Sontaran drew closer before squeezing the trigger and squirting the officer in the eyeholes with pure choronic acid.

Alice saw that the nearby human had caught some of the acid in his eyes when a few drops had splashed off the Sontaran’s helmet and changing her outfit to that of a nurse she quickly poured fresh water into his hurt eyes by tapping the nearest water pipe.

“Oh dear.”  The Doctor stepped over the liquefying Sontaran corpse and examined the man.  “He’s blind Alice, I should have waited a second longer, waited until there was no chance of accidental sprayage.  I’ve cost him his eyesight Alice, no more will he see a daffodil, see the wondrous beauty of nature or the simple pleasure of a rainbow.”

“A world without rainbows?”  Alice found that very frightening indeed and her chassis began to tremble.

“We’ll find somewhere where he can be taken care of Alice.”  The Doctor stated.  “We’ll make sure he’s provided for in his advancing years.”

“Doctor.”  Alice was very worried about her friend.  “You’re scaring me, please talk normally.”

The Doctor scooped the man up in his arms and handed him to Alice.  “Why don’t you turn into an ambulance and we can drive to the nearest hospital?”

A long way away, well half a mile at most the Doctor watched Alice through specially enhanced binoculars.  She saw how happy her friend was with her future self, although she was sad to see that she was male again in that lifespan, she’d have to enjoy her shoe collection now, while she could.  She turned to Mickey.  “She’s happy now.  We can move on, she’s safe.”

Mickey looked at the older Doctor’s companion, he was a classy dressing guy with a shaved head.  He looked kind of like a Nubian god, Mickey felt jealous of him, wishing he had that much sophistication.

“We’d better get back to the TARDIS.”  The Doctor took Mickey’s arm.  “We’ve got an appointment to keep and I’m looking forward to glamming it up with some handsome man who’s going to sweep me off my feet on the dance floor.”

Mickey paused for a moment.  “Doctor.”  He waited for her to turn around before smiling.  “I’ve got some great moves.”

The Doctor grinned.  “I bloody well hope so.”