Sorry for the long wait for this! This is pretty much the first half of a double chapter, but I'm busy for a while, so I'm uploading this now to read. Don't worry- it still has some important events in it, so I hope you enjoy!

Jo's consciousness stirred from slumber, her eyes flickering open to see a space illuminated with very few lights, making it hard to determine details. As far as she could tell, she was in a small room, moving from the feel of it, and probably in space, due to the sole window she could see having nothing noticeable through it. She felt woozy, her body aching, obviously still suffering from whatever she had been knocked out with- she would remember going to sleep in a place like this, away from her bed at UNIT HQ, and her memory was blank since parting with the Doctor. She guessed he was nearby as well- he had a tendency of getting captured along with her, after all.

"Doctor? You there?" She whispered quietly. For several seconds, there was no response. Then, the gas nozzle next to her face started spraying, flowing into Jo's lungs and flooding them with an alien gas.

Her body went limp immediately, mind falling back to sleep.

The small craft flew on, invisible and unnoticeable, like an owl through the night sky.

The Ninth Doctor's TARDIS, dissimilarly, was like an elephant through a forest at night with no moon, while being steered by a man with a map for a different forest, held upside-down, written in a different language, unused to riding an elephant, the pair managing to go towards their destination slowly but unsurely. This may have had something to do with the fact that the console hadn't been used from the pilot's perspective from around 200 years, and it was damaged anyway. It may have had something to do with the pilot being useless anyway in normal space, the time vortex being practically inaccessible due to the shield around the planet. Or maybe it was the style the pilot was going for.

It was not.

Inside, Rory and Ace held to the railings around the edge, the interior shaking. The engines were loud and grating, but they were quiet under the sound of the Cloister Bell tolling from its room, signalling immense danger and possible destruction. Eleven and Seven weren't hearing any of this, apparently. The pair were buzzing around the console, trying to keep the destruction of the inside to a minimum while getting to their destination.

"The engines must still be in bad shape." Seven shouted, before pulling a part of the console off while trying to use it. He gawped at it for a second or two before throwing it away, it managing to hit Rory on the head.

"Really? I hadn't noticed!" Eleven shouted back, wiping his brow before being thrown from his feet by a violent quake. Seven helped him up, the two staring into each other's eyes for a moment, concocting a plan before the TARDIS lightly shook and paused, going silent except for the four's breathing. "But I'm listening now."

"Listening for what?" Ace whispered back slowly, reaching for something from her back. She felt unsafe in the eerily quiet, usually safe environment of home. "Could anyone else have gotten into here?"

"The door was locked." Rory said, knowing that should stop most people. "And I'm guessing you only give keys to people you trust?" He asked the two Doctors there.

"There are ways of getting in her without the key." Eleven replied quietly, slowly turning to cover Seven's blind spot behind him, the two standing back to back. He took out his Sonic, while Seven readied his umbrella. Rory didn't think it would have the same effect. "I can click my fingers and the door opens for me, for example."

"Really?" Seven asked loudly and suddenly, breaking the suspense. "Are you sure?" Ace coughed up a laugh, unable to keep a straight face with Seven looking so shocked. Rory rolled his eyes, turning away.

"Yes! Rory, you've seen me do it!" Eleven shouted back, indignified. "Tell him!"

"I… don't think so." Rory said, walking over to the door. "You usually don't bother to lock them anyway." He pulled open the door, revealing an expanse of space, stars twinkling as a backdrop. "Well, at least the shields are still working."

"Stars aren't supposed to twinkle in space, aren't they?" Ace asked, walking over to the door.

"No, they're not," Seven said, still looking into the darker spaces of the TARDIS. "It happens on Earth due to scattering of the light due to the atmosphere."

Eleven finished the science lesson. "I'd guess the effect here is due to some form of security field around the area distorting the light. This part of the universe may be out of temporal shift with the rest due to it- I've seen it done before, but that requires some serious power. The power an empire would have to wield." His voice grew dark and whispery, and Rory, having known him for a while, heard something rarely present in his voice. Rarely present in anything he did.

Fear.

"And what empire would this be?" Ace asked, held in slight panic. Seven walked away into a deeper part of the vehicle, intending to check out somewhere else, knowing that he should probably avoid learning anything this important about his future. It definitely sounded like a major event, something he should experience first-hand. Or, at least, something he shouldn't be spoiled for first.

"It was something I took care of- well, my friend did. I doubt they'd be stupid enough to try it again. Then again, this does seem to be much more sophisticated than last time." Eleven was talking to himself, obviously oblivious to the presence of Rory and Ace. "And they wouldn't be able to stay away for this long. They're too scared of me, and too scared of being wiped out again. They can't be here." At this point, he sounded like a scared child trying to convince himself, to no avail, that there wasn't a monster under his bed.

"The Daleks can't be here."

"You're threatening us with a spanner." The War Doctor said, shaking his head in bemusement.

"No I'm not!" The girl said, still holding the large, bulky, weapon-looking thing. Her northern accent could rival Nine's for presence, and she knew how to use it for deadly effect, trying to intimidate them. "This is a deadly weapon that I can use on you, beardy."

"No. It's definitely a spanner. A Krotesian spanner, to be precise." Twelve chimed in, walking up to her and taking it away. "Broken beyond repair, as far as I can tell."

"Hey! Give that back!" The blonde shouted, grabbing for it. A small tug-of-war ensued between her and Twelve, with it ending with the thing snapping in two. Broken parts, blue oil, and a single, bloated, Krotesian finger fell out. The girl shrieked, kicking it away.

"What are you going to do? Lock me up? Try to kill me? Leave me to die in the wilderness without any money? Not as if I have any anyway…" She trailed off, before turning her angry gaze back to the pair. "It won't work. I've faced all that, and more. I'm-"

"Lucie Miller." The War Doctor smiled at the mention of her name, not really caring about the beard jibe- he liked it. "It's been a long time."

Lucie was caught slightly off-guard by that. She hadn't expected them to know her name when she had walked off, holding one of the Doctor's tools for safety. Hey, he had wanted her out of his TARDIS while he tried to fix the damage from them crashing. Maybe he hadn't wanted her to go so far away…

"How do you know who I am?" She asked angrily, possibly faking it. These two looked rough, but something was telling her they were friendly. Even if they had wrecked her spanner. "Who are you working for?"

"Lucie… we're the Doctor. Both of us." Twelve said, forcing a smile, trying to appear friendly. It didn't work, and the War Doctor shook his head.

"Really? Prove it! Tell me something he would know!"

"We met when you were dumped in my TARDIS by the Time Lords as part of a protection scheme, because they won't interfere with the universe, just my life." Twelve said. "And then, since I couldn't get you back to Bla-"

His description of Lucie's life was interrupted when a high pitched 'crack' came from in the distance, causing the trio to snap their heads in that direction. "Let me guess…" The War Doctor.

"That's where you came from?" Twelve continued.

"Yep." Lucie finished off. "He's gone and got himself killed, hasn't he?"

"Hopefully not." The War Doctor said. "That could make things difficult for us."

A few minutes before he had been caught in some form of noise explosion, Eight was working on his console. He had removed it from the main room, something he hadn't done in years, since UNIT, and the doors had sealed, his TARDIS trying to pull herself together. He was happy to let her do it- the forest he was in had a nice breeze, the weather was calm, the atmosphere wasn't toxic, and nothing was trying to kill him. He had the gothic styled console opened up, with wires and components exposed to the air.

"I suppose this is like me having my heart taken out, fixed up, and then being stitched back into me, isn't it?" He asked, not expecting a reply from his old friend. It was just as well- he didn't get one. "Then again, I only have two hearts. I suppose you have at least four or five of these, at least."

He looked around for Lucie, not expecting her to come back again any time soon. He trusted her enough, though. She couldn't get into trouble in a forest. He should probably be worried about crashing, but it happened often enough to him that he was starting to get used to it. Granted, it was never usually that violent or destructive, but he'd seen worse. And after the Anti-Time incident, he was just happy his TARDIS was still herself.

While he was working on the Higgs Distortion Minimiser, a bleeping started up. He ignored it at first- warning lights were not his thing. But, after about thirty seconds, when it didn't shut up, he thought to check it. It required getting up and going to the other side of the console, and seemed to be indicating a flux in the background temporal flow. What that said to the Doctor was that there was someone trying to time travel into the area while being blocked by something. He hadn't seen anything like it in... well, in forever.

"Now, do I help out these nice time travellers, after being almost killed by most of the ones I know, or do I leave them, possibly stranding them in the time vortex to be eaten alive by Vortisaurs and Reapers? Well, knowing me, it's as simple as figuring out how to dodge laser beams if they try to shoot at me. I'll save them, and worry about them killing me later."

He started wiring up his console differently. Without access to his main engines, he had the Dynamorphic Generators and Isonomical Boosters to work with, and using the incoming flux as a crux, he could easily puncture a hole whatever was holding them out while not interfering with the rest of the field. It was like putting tape over a balloon then poking a pin in it- the balloon doesn't pop, and you can go in and out. Or, at least, that was the theory. He didn't realise he was saying all this out loud, but he didn't care. No-one would understand anyway. Time Lord extra-quantum hyper-physics didn't translate well into other languages anyway.

He fired up the console, and the central column started to move up and down, lights flashing all over. The noise of the brakes sounded lightly, controlling the flow of energy through the machinery. The Doctor found himself standing in an energy shield- an automatic projection to protect him from vortex exposure. He didn't expect it, but he found himself keeping close to the console, well away from the barrier itself.

"This shouldn't be needed, Doctor." He re-assured himself with his comments, monitoring the screen and rate of flux change. "They'll appear in a flash of artron energy, assuming some form of primitive technology like a vortex manipulator, and they'll probably try to kill me for something. As long as they miss like all the other times, I'll go back to fixing my TARDIS, and they can go find whatever they want from this quite plain planet. I can't taste the molecules signifying civilization in the air, so I don't know what they want. Maybe a relic or something."

His conversation with himself was interrupted when the barrier surrounding him lit up with energy crackling around it, and Eight found himself and the console tumbling through the vortex. Briefly, he saw a hole punctured in it leading to reality, his TARDIS visible through it, before he tumbled away, the hole sealing behind him. The spinning TARDIS was carried on the wave of time to where the original entry point had been detected. To where someone waited, with a time machine, and a reason to try to reach the planet of the Doctors.

That man was currently in the bathroom of a bar on a planet about 90 light years from Earth, hitting a device on his wrist and looking at a small, crumpled post-it note with complicated instructions written on it in an untidy scrawl. Someone knocked on the door, and he shouted in an angry American accent, not to be heard of in this place officially until the late 2100s, "Go away! I'm busy doing something!" When asked what, he replied "Your dad!" This seemed to either satisfy or disturb the creature at the door, which was actually genderless and born through cloning pods, making the insult somewhat ineffectual and it left, leaving the man to swear at the air, at his wrist, at the instructions, at some place called Cardiff, and just generally at everything he could think of. The other patrons weren't surprised- you didn't come to this bar if you wanted quiet, and he was using some new profanities they were happy to hear.

He stopped swearing when a sphere of light appeared in the dirty bathroom, a brown console with a single pilot holding on materialising into the room. The console sparked, and the sphere failed, a man in a waistcoat standing there, looking around, as if he was lost all of a sudden. He made eye contact with the man in the bathroom, and he stared at him. The two looked each other over, and the man had to admit that this new arrival looked pretty cute. However, the TARDIS console was very slightly more interesting than the pretty face, considering it gave a name to the face. Not a Doctor he was expecting, but one he was happy to see all the same.

He held out his hand, smiling brightly. "Hello. I'm Captain Jack Harkness, and you must need my help."

And in this chapter, we meet one of the most underrated Doctors, Eight! (And his companion Lucie Miller. Go check out Big Finish if you haven't heard of her. From what I've listened to, she's brilliant!) And, making a surprise appearance, Captain Jack. This takes place before Miracle Day, whatever the canonicity of that mess is, so I don't have to worry about it. I should have the next posted within the week, so stay tuned!