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By Root 1057 0

recovering more quickly than he was himself. He wanted her to be ready. He didn’t intend to spend very much time here, wherever here was, in fact he wasn’t really sure why he was bothering to explore at all. It was probably worth finding out where they were though. It seemed pointless to suffer a lumpy landing without having anything to show for it except lumps. And there might still turn out to be a reasonable reason to be here. Of course a reason is not the same as a purpose, as he had to keep explaining to the hopelessly purposeful... it was a shame that people kept looking for purposes when they should be looking for reasons... the point was you could make up a purpose to suit any particular insanity but a reason existed and had to be found...

Leela interrupted his chaotic musings. ‘What is this place and why are we here?’ she asked reasonably.

The Doctor glanced back to where the TARDIS was already partially hidden by a buttress, a heavy angular support that ran from the base of the culvert, across the top, and back down to the base again. ‘Yes,’ he said vaguely.

‘Yes what?’

‘What?’

‘What is this place and why are we here?’ Leela repeated. It was a challenge more than a question now.

‘I should have brought a ball of thread; the Doctor mused.

‘Or a bag of breadcrumbs.’

Leela said, ‘I do not understand.’

‘Neither do I,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Devising a way of finding the homing device shouldn’t be beyond the wit of a Time Lord. I wonder if that’s another training course I missed?

Routine TARDIS locator location.’ He turned back and walked on with renewed determination. ‘Keep an eye open for identifying features we may need to find our way back in a hurry.’

Leela touched the hilt of her knife. ‘You think this place is dangerous.’ She strode along beside the Doctor, her gait easy and relaxed, only the brief touch to the knife hilt betraying her tension.

‘I think this place is anonymous,’ the Doctor said. The channel was sloping slightly downwards and bending gently to the left, and they were approaching another buttress. He noticed for the first time that they gave off a faint, slightly luminous glow. ‘One whatever-this-is looks much like another whatever-this-is.’

‘Now you are being silly,’ Leela said lengthening her stride and beginning to move ahead of the Doctor.

He made no attempt to keep up with her, pausing instead to look more closely at the surface of the buttress. ‘Am I being silly?’ he asked of no one in particular. ‘Yes, I think I probably am.’ Leela was disappearing round the bend ahead.

‘As it happens I don’t think this is a culvert,’ he called after her. ‘Or a storm drain. You don’t bother to light culverts or storm drains. Not even with a chemically reactive paint... or a bioluminescent coating, it could be a bioluminescent coating.

If it is bioluminescent, the question becomes: is it naturally occurring or is it deliberately engineered?’ He rubbed the surface with his finger. It was slightly warm to the touch, suggesting it wasn’t bioluminescence. ‘And the other question becomes why am I dithering about here talking to myself?

Why don’t I just get on with it? What am I afraid of? That’s three questions. Why can’t I count properly? That’s four questions. I think that’s four questions.’

He closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated on what had happened in the TARDIS an infinite sometime briefly ago. It was as though his other incarnations before and after, the once and future Doctors, had fringed and multiplied, overlapping and leaving him not quite jumbled and almost confused. There was still no place for him now. He should not be here. That was it. This was not his here and now. This was still not his here and now. He waited, trying not to concentrate. He concentrated, trying not to wait. And then it was done and he was himself again. He felt it all focus and slot together, and he knew he belonged where he was. He shivered and opened his eyes and was himself and only himself again. He wasted no more time and set out after Leela. It’s an alleyway, he thought, or possibly a corridor in