LANE CHANGE: Chapter Three of a Daria/Doctor Who crossover

Perpetrated by: Ranger Thorne

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The following takes place after the Doctor Who episode "Family of Blood."

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Degas Street Music had operated under other names in the past, with the last name change coinciding with a change in ownership almost ten years previously. This knowledge did not help sore feet, however, as the late-night clerk, Monique Martin, could attest. It was only a few minutes away from closing time, and she was ready to go home for the night. The money had been counted and squirreled away in the safe in the back so the owner could recount everything before making the deposit and all the nightly cleaning had been done. Now, the thin dark-haired woman was leaning against the counter and looking forward to taking a long soaking bath when she got home.

So of course, she thought as the door opened again, here comes a last-minute shopper. Oh well, maybe it's the guy who called about that piano earlier. "Hi," she said to him, "can I help you find something?"

"Why yes," he said in a smooth voice, "you can." He was wearing a hooded jacket with the hood pulled up. Beneath it Monique could see a pair of sunglasses that the man removed with shaking hands. The eyes were yellow, with the irises slightly darker and with slitted pupils like a cat or snake. When they locked onto hers she found herself unable to look away. Some small part of her mind still noticed how pale and sick the man looked as he pulled back the hood. His hair was falling out rapidly and the skin looked diseased. "You are Monique Martin." It wasn't a question.

"Y-yes," she stammered, unable to look away or even blink.

"We are alone?"

"Yes," she answered in a sleepy voice

"Good." He walked up to her and smiled. "I have need of you."

"Need of me." All thoughts of leaving vanished from her mind as an outside presence seized control.

"That's right." He leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. As he stared into her eyes he calmly said, "I am the Master, and you will obey me."

======

"So you're a doctor, too?" Jane asked as they looked around the medical bay of her TARDIS.

"No," came the reply. "But I do know which buttons to push to find out stuff. Like this," Quinn pointed to an object that looked like a very small toaster oven, "is a tissue sample reader. I don't need to know how to do a DNA analyst to find out if your DNA is Human."

"What do I do, butter my hand and stick it in there?" Jane bent over to look at the device.

"Why do you need butter?" Quinn asked, confused.

"Never mind. What do I do?"

"Like, take a hair and stick it in."

Jane grumbled before separating a hair from the others and giving it a pull while making a face. She scowled at Quinn then put the hair into the sample reader. "Okay, now it's in. Now what?"

"I push more buttons." Quinn operated some controls on the consol next to the reader. "Give it a few seconds and we should have our answers."

======

"There." Monique pointed to a small group of people walking down the sidewalk. She and the Master were standing in an alley next to the music store as they watched. "The one next to the bald guy."

"The one with the grin and dark hair?" the Master asked.

"That's him. He's in good shape but dumb as a bag of hammers." She smiled at him as her dark eyes showed no emotion. "Think he will do, Master?"

"He may." Now looking eighty, the bald man focused his attention on the man with the shoulder-length black hair, blue jeans and a yellow T-shirt. After a moment, the man looked around in confusion. Seeing a motion from the alley, he left the small group he was with and headed in their direction.

"Hey," Monique said as he neared. "I got something for you."

"For me?" A grin appeared. "Cool."

"It's a present." Turning to the Master, she said, "My friend is holding it for you."

"Cool." The two stepped to the figure, now hunched over and leaning against the building. "Hey," he asked, "is he okay?"

"I am fine, now." The Master looked up and their eyes locked. Unable to look away, he felt a foreign presence in his mind, then felt nothing. He went limp and fell over while the body of the Master collapsed and stopped breathing.

Monique asked, "Did it work? Are you all right?"

When the eyes opened they were still brown. But a dark presence seemed to radiate from them. "It worked," he said in a cool voice. "And you were correct, he has neither the will nor the intellect to resist. By the end of the hour his life will be erased from this body for good." He came to his feet and looked around. "This is a strange place for a rebirth."

"So what now?"

"Now we . . ." Looking at Monique, the Master frowned. "My power over you has faded, yet you remain?"

Monique's eyes had returned to their original green. Smiling, she shrugged and said, "I like your style. And I love what you're doing. So I thought I'd hang around."

The smile was slow and unpleasant. But when he said, "I think we can be very good together, Monique," she smiled in return. Raising his hands, the Master looked at his new appendages. "I can feel the life in this body." He took a deep breath then added, "Kevin Thompson, your body will serve me well."

"So we go to the next step?"

"Yes." Casually, he kicked over his previous body and took the sunglasses from the pocket of the jacket. Slipping them on, he ran a hand through his hair and said, "Let's be going. Royalty hates to be kept waiting after all."

======

Quinn found Jane sitting in the bunker behind the house, staring at the new door that led to her TARDIS. Trent had been gone when they arrived, giving Jane time to think about what she was going to tell him.

"You changed clothes," Quinn noted as she leaned against the counter behind her. Jane had changed into a high-necked red shirt, pleated gray skirt and a black jacket with two pockets in the front. A silver chain ran from one pocket to the other. She had put on a pair of black tights and had found a pair or red high-top sneakers.

"Found them in the wardrobe," Jane absently told her. Reaching into her right pocket, she pulled out the silver pocket watch that was connected to the chain. Flipping it open, she checked the time then put it away.

"You okay?" Quinn asked.

"Okay?" Turning to look at her, Jane smirked. "Quinn, I just found out that I'm not Human. Lawrence Alma-Tadema, how could I be okay?"

Deciding that she didn't want to know who or what 'Lawrence Alma-Tadema' was, Quinn shrugged and said, "You're alive."

"But I'm not the same." With a sigh, Jane stood and began to pace in the small bunker. "Yeah, I'm alive and breathing and maybe I shouldn't be. But," she stopped long enough to point at Quinn, "I can feel the differences. Well, a couple. I use to love pizza, and I mean adored it. Now, it's okay, but I think I'd rather have a big plate of wings." She was interrupted when a rumbling sound came from her stomach. "Shush, you," she ordered.

"I know how you feel," Quinn told her. "I've been a little different since my own regeneration."

"But at least you look the same."

"Looks aren't everything, Jane." The two looked at each other in shock for a few seconds before they laughed. "Told you I was different," the redhead reminded the now-auburn-haired woman. Turning serious, she went on, "I knew I'd, like, changed while I was at the Academy, but I still had the same sense of fashion. Now?" She shrugged. "Now I do it more out of habit. And the thought of a cheeseless pizza sounds pretty stupid."

"Now you know how I felt about it all this time."

Nodding, Quinn waved a hand toward the TARDIS. "You give any thought to how you're going to explain this to your brother?"

"It's tempting to tell him I'm a long-lost cousin or something."

"Always tell him you're really Daria," Quinn joked. "You look almost enough like her to --"

"No." The stern tone caught Quinn by surprise. Seeing the flinch, Jane smiled. "Sorry about that. It's just that Trent had a really realistic dream that he and Daria has sex the night before she left for the war."

The realization of what she'd nearly suggested brought a rush of color to Quinn's cheeks. "Ooh, that would be bad. But, you know . . ."

"What?"

"Maternity," Quinn whispered, a far away look on her face. Glancing toward the door of the bunker, she added, "Or would that be paternity?" Nodding, she went on, "Yes, paternity is the word I'm looking for."

Confused, Jane asked, "Quinn, what are you going on about?"

"If," Quinn turned and looked at Jane as is seeing her for the first time, "if one is the parent, then the other is the parent, right? After all," she went on, "the test proved that half of your DNA is Gallifreyan."

"Yeah, but how does the last part of what you said match the first part?"

A look of mischief appeared on her face before Quinn said, "Let's find out!" and rushed out the door.

"Quinn?" Jane looked blankly at where the redhead had gone for a few seconds. "This can't end well," she muttered before racing after her.

======

"Miss Barksdale?"

The woman looked up from where she had been watching the beach and said, "Yes?"

"You have an important message to call your sister," the man in white told her. "Something about your niece."

"Thank you," she told him as she reached for her belongings. As she did, the man wondered at how a woman could visit the beach so often over the past few days and still be pale.

"Maybe I should get a cell phone," she muttered as she stepped into her room. "It's not like where I am is a secret anymore."

There was movement from behind her. As Amy Barksdale turned, a cold voice hissed, "Hello, Princess."

======

Jane found Quinn standing in Trent's room with his brush in her hand. "Quinn, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"If," Quinn said, "our theory is correct, then not only do we know who your father is but we know who your mother is and I'll be your aunt!"

"But Daria was killed in the Time War," Jane pointed out. "How could she have been killed at the beginning of time if she was around in 1982? And wouldn't she have needed nine months before that?" Leaning her head to the side, she stopped before asking, "How long is Gallifreyan gestation, anyway?"

"No idea. Besides," Quinn shrugged, "Time Lords and Ladies stopped having children eons ago. They used an artificial process called 'The Loom.'"

"But Daria wasn't born on Earth," Jane pointed out. "Her mother was Princess Amalie and her father was the Doctor's son, Darvian."

"But she was, Jane," Quinn corrected. "And Princess Amalie is my Aunt Amy. Who," she pulled some hairs from the brush, "could be your --"

"Don't say it," Jane ordered. "Just put the brush and hairs down and we won't have any trouble."

"Don't you want the truth?"

"Quinn, I don't think I can handle the truth."

"Oh." Looking sad, Quinn set the brush on the dresser and tossed the clump of hair to Jane. Without another word she walked past her and out of the room.

"That's better," Jane said quietly to herself as she threw the hair into the trash. "I'm glad you saw reason. Just let me have my way, nice and simple. Don't bother to argue. Ah." Looking up, she grinned. "I'm an idiot." The grin faded as she turned and raced out of the room yelling, "QUINN!"

======

Jane reached the medical bay just as the screen began to blink with the words, "Checking paternity."

"Just a moment now, Jane," Quinn told her as she turned to face her.

"I ought to kill you for this," Jane snapped at her. "This is my life you're playing god with, here!"

"It's my life, too, Jane," Quinn shot back.

"Really? How is the fact that my best friend may turn out to be my mother YOUR business?"

"Because I'd be your aunt."

"No you wouldn't. Daria isn't you sister," Jane told her with a growl.

Quinn's eyes narrowed. "I don't care if Daria has more arms than a rexora, um, rexafino, uh," she scowled, "one of those many-armed things on that planet I can't pronounce, she's still my sister." Stepping closer to Jane, she shot out a finger a she said, "And if it turns out you are my niece, then you are the last," she jabbed Jane in the shoulder, "piece," she jabbed again, "of her that I," jab, "have," jab, "left."

"You do know that's painful, right?"

"I think I jammed my finger, so yeah."

"So STOP DOING IT!" Jane walked around the redhead to look at the computer screen. Then, she stopped. "Quinn?"

"What?"

"I was born September 16, 1982."

"Yeah?"

Jane turned as the grin appeared. "If, and since we don't have the results yet, I stress 'if,' Trent turns out to be my father and Daria my mother, then she must have been alive on September 16, 1982, right?"

"Yeah."

Leaning forward, Jane whispered, "Time machine." Quinn's grin grew to match her own. "Shall we?" she asked, gesturing toward the door.

"Oh let's," Quinn replied.

The two started to head for the door just as the computer dinged. After a glance at each other, they moved to stare at the screen.

"It's true," Quinn whispered. Looking at Jane she smiled as she said, "Welcome to the family."

"Yeah." Looking at Quinn she raised an eyebrow and smirked before saying, "Does this mean I need glasses?"

======

Monique found the Master sitting in the library staring at the ceiling. "Master?" she asked as she sat next to him.

"I'm recalling when I shot the Lane girl," he told her. "I don't think she knew what she was."

"I don't understand, Master."

"Of course you don't." Patting her knee, he smiled and leaned forward. "Because of my more developed mental skills I could sense that the girl, you told me her name was Jane, correct?"

"Yes, Master."

"She's Gallifreyan."

Monique's eyes went wide. "But, how Master? I've known her for years. I dated her brother for almost half my life. And believe me," the surprised look became a smirk, "he's as human as they come."

"She wasn't adopted?"

The woman started to shake her head but stopped. "You know," she whispered, "I think she was." In a normal voice she went on, "Trent said something once about how the family left her alone so much because they knew she wasn't theirs."

Leaning back, the body that had once been Kevin Thompson chuckled. "Very good. That means her mother was in town on her birthday." Standing, he held out a hand to Monique. "So, my dear," he asked as he helped her to her feet, "do you remember your old flame's younger sister's birthday?"

"September 16, 1982. Master," she told him in a breathy whisper.

Giving her a smile, he half-growled, "I love it when you talk history."

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She hadn't believed the pain could have gotten worse, but as she began to wake up she realized it had. The drugs in her system would have hidden most of it, but would have kept her unconscious. I will not die in my sleep, she told herself.

The sudden cry of a newborn caused her to open her eyes. Despite the agony racing through her, she smiled at the small girl looking around in confusion. Gathering her strength, she opened her mouth and said, "Let me see her."

"She's supposed to be unconscious," one of the doctors snapped.

"No more drugs," she told them with a weak wave of her hand. "It won't stop it." Holding her hand out to the infant, she told them, "I just want to see her."

The woman holding the baby looked to the doctor, who nodded. Unable to sit up, she rolled to her side enough to get a good look at the child. There was a lot of jet-black hair already on her head and deep blue eyes staring out at the new world around her. Running a hand over the infant's cheek, the woman whispered, "I knew who you were the moment you were conceived. You will have a long life, my daughter. We will meet again, although I won't know who you are then." Falling back again, she nodded to the nurse and smiled as she said, "Thank you." Her strength was almost gone, now, she knew. Just time for one more thing . . .

"Doctor?"

Leaning in close, the doctor asked, "Yes, miss?"

"The family that adopts her," she managed to whisper, "ask them to call my daughter 'Jane.'"

"I will." He started to say something else, but she could no longer hear him.

Well, Daria, she thought as she closed her eyes, you did at least one thing right in your life. How ironic that it was giving birth to your best friend?

======

Byron Gale stopped pushing the rolling dumpster to listen as a strange sound repeated itself a few times then stopped. With a shake of his head he went on, ignoring the new storage cabinet that had appeared behind him.

"Ew," Quinn commented as she stepped out of the TARDIS. "I thought hospitals were supposed to be clean."

Being sure to pull the door closed behind her, Jane smirked and told her, "They are. We're in the basement where they put all that dirt they take from upstairs."

"Oh." She glanced around. "Elevator?" she finally asked.

"I think I see one over here," Jane said, pointing to their left. As they started walking, she asked, "How are we going to find Daria, anyway?"

"With this," Quinn told her, holding up a black leather billfold.

"And this is?"

"Psychic paper. It'll show people whatever I want it to." Opening it, she showed the paper inside to Jane. A picture of a bored Daria was staring out at her. "I'll tell them I'm a government agent and they'll believe me."

"And take us right to her." Jane nodded, "That's great. Sounds nice and simple."

"Simple plans usually work best," Quinn confirmed.

"Let's hope so."

======

Monique smiled as she watched the Master work his way through the bureaucracy of the hospital. By using just a hint of his power to 'persuade' people to help him they had found the room with their target in it. Now to take what we want, she thought as they stepped inside.

Her breathing was labored and a thin sheen of sweat coated her forehead along with the bandages covering the injuries she'd had when she was brought in. The top of a hospital gown could be seen just above the sheet. To Monique's surprise, she recognized her.

"Daria Morgendorffer?"

The Master looked down and smiled as weary brown eyes opened. "Well, well," he said, "this is a most pleasant surprise."

"Kevin?" The pain in her eyes was replaced by confusion.

"Once, but not anymore." He leaned over her as he explained, "You see, missy, between your grandfather's and your interference I've had to find new ways to survive. And this body is one of them. But you," his smile became a snarl as he leaned in close, "you will give me back what you took."

"Master," she almost managed to put disgust into her tired voice. "I should have known you'd survive the war. Even the Eye of Harmony didn't want you. Probably gave it indigestion."

"Charming to the last." Pulling a bracelet from a pocket, he waved it at her. "See this? This will temporarily suspend you in time. Long enough for us to get you where I can take your regeneration and turn it to my own uses. So," he tossed the sheet aside and grabbed her arm, "let's be on our way, eh?" Daria tried to struggle but was too weak to do more than watch as the bracelet clipped around her arm. "There, now, see?" he said to Monique as Daria went still. "She can be cooperative."

======

They quickly loaded the young woman onto a stretcher and wheeled her out into the hall. "Transfer to cardiac care," the Master told one nurse as she glanced at the pale form.

As the down light blinked on one elevator the up light came on for another. Stepping inside, the kidnapers glanced back to see a redhead and another woman who looked strangely like the one on the stretcher between them.

As they looked around, the Daria-looking woman spotted them just as the doors began to close. Surprise held her for a couple of seconds before she pointed and yelled, "They've got her!"

The Master pulled his weapon from a pocket and pointed it at her. As the couple froze, he smirked and said, "I see you take more after your mother this time, Miss Lane."

"How did . . . ?" Jane scowled at him. "You're not Kevin Thompson. Only one man would know to say that. What do you want with Daria, Master?"

"None of your business," he said sweetly as the doors closed. As soon as they did he put the weapon away and hit the button for the next floor. "They will believe we went all the way down," he explained as they got off. As soon as they did he hit the 'up' button. A minute later they were on their way.

Getting off on the top floor, they made their way to the roof access and up onto the roof itself. There, next to an antenna was the wardrobe. With Daria, now dressed in an oversized robe and draped over his shoulder, the Master whistled as he walked toward it with a key in his other hand.

======

Jane and Quinn exploded out of the stairs and into the lobby to find no sign of the Master or of Daria.

"They got off on an earlier floor you think?" Quinn asked between breaths.

"They'd still have to come down," Jane replied. "Wait, what about the basement?"

"Better yet," Quinn corrected, "your TARDIS should be able to find mine."

"Cool," Jane said as they turned back toward the stairs.

======

The door to the TARDIS flew open as the two women charged inside. Reaching the consol, Jane flipped the switch that closed the door behind them as Quinn began working the sensor controls.

"I see it," she said a few seconds later. "Hmm, no wonder that elevator was empty, they're on the roof."

"Get us up there," Jane told her. Looking down at the controls she felt helpless.

"Working on it," Quinn shot back as her hands began to fly around the consol. A beep sounded, causing her to stop and glare. "Crap, they're moving."

"We can't let them get away with Daria," Jane stated.

"I'll try to catch them," Quinn said, "but my TARDIS is built for speed over size."

"I thought it was some kind of war machine?"

"Small quick strikes, not heavy bombardment," came the explanation. "We had the bowships for that."

"Well," Jane rolled her eyes and gave up.

"Don't give up so easy, Jane," the redhead told her. "We've got an ace up our sleeves."

Jane's eyebrow shot up. "An ace?"

"All we need to do is stay close enough so he can't lose us in the time stream." Moving to another side of the consol, she pressed a few buttons then grinned. "We do that and our ace can catch them."

"What is our ace, anyway?"

"The Doctor."

======

Martha could tell he was still hurting. Despite the smile and his manic movements around the TARDIS, she could see he was burying this new pain with all the other that he had concealed from everyone else. Wishing again that he'd let her help him with the pain, she gave him a smile as he turned from the controls on the TARDIS to look at her.

"Well," he asked, rubbing his hands together, "where shall go today?"

"Galaxy's biggest shoe store?" she asked, hoping for a reaction.

The distress that suddenly appeared was exactly what she'd been wanting. "Ew," he said. "You don't want to go there. Too much like . . ."

"Shopping?"

"Exactly." Before he could go on, however, there was a beeping from the far side of the consol. "That can't be," he muttered as he hurried over. "That's the sound for TARDIS-to-TARDIS communications. But this is the last one."

"The Face of Bo said you weren't alone," Martha reminded him.

For a second he looked at her, shock and fear on his face. Then, in a moment Martha would cherish her entire life, she saw it replace with hope. As the grin spread, he mused, "Looks like he was right again." Flipping a switch, he said, "This is the Doctor. Who is this?"

"This is Jane Lane," came the voice.

"Jane?" Confusion reappeared. "How'd you get a TARDIS?"

"Explanations later," she told him. "For now, we need your help. The Master has Daria on a stolen TARDIS and is pulling away from us."

"The Master? He can't have Daria, they're both dead."

"Remember what I said about explaining later?"

"Yeah."

"This isn't later."

"Oh."

"We're going to try to keep close enough for your to use us as a," there was a pause before she went on, "temporal anchor. You need to catch the Master or who knows what he's going to do with Daria."

The Doctor took a few seconds to digest what he'd been told. Then he was a flurry of action as he threw the TARDIS onto a new course. "Jane," he finally said, "I've used your signal to lock onto the both of you. Just remember to stay as close as you can."

"Got it."

As he piloted the ancient ship, he paused for a moment to give Martha a smirk. "I guess that solves where we're going today," he told her.

======

"They are following," the Master told Monique as came into the control room. "But they are too slow to catch us." Nodding back the way she had come, he asked, "Are our guests ready?"

"Yes, Master," she replied. "All is as you asked."

"Good." Giving his hands a glance, he smiled. "All too soon this body will have the regenerations that brat and her grandsire stole from me."

"Yes, Master."

======

"How we doing?" Jane asked.

"Same as we were five seconds ago," Quinn shot back. With a grunt she leaned back from the controls. "He's not even trying to lose us anymore."

"What about the Doctor?"

"He's not going to show up until he comes out of the time stream," she explained.

"So how will we know he's there?"

"The extra mass will slow the ship down. It should be enough for us to catch them."

"It better be," Jane said, "or he'll be facing the Master's gun on his own."

======

It seemed to Daria that the change of location was instantaneous. One blink she was in the hospital and the next she was in what looked like the Cloister room of a TARDIS. She was hanging from chains at the top of the stairs, with an odd lense directly in front of her. The lense was angled down to another lense sitting behind another likewise-chained woman, with, it seemed, a third lense in front of her.

Through her haze of pain and without her glasses Daria was having trouble identifying the woman, who was dressed in what looked like a pale blue one-piece swimsuit and a large white shirt.

The Master and Monique smiled from next to her, Monique flapping the bracelet as if it were a fan. "I love family reunions, don't you?" she asked.

"Oh yes," the Master replied. "Mother and daughter together again."

"Jane?"

"Daria?" The woman below strained to turn around, but was barely able to twist enough to see her.

"Mother." Daria had never stopped calling Helen Morgendorffer 'Mom' but she had finally been able to stop calling her birth mother 'Aunt Amy.' "You okay?" she asked.

"Arms are asleep and I could use some moisturizer," the older woman replied. "You?"

"Oh," the Master cut them off, "she just gave birth to your granddaughter. But," he grabbed Daria by the hair and pulled her head back, "your was wounds are killing you, aren't they? I can see the beginnings of your regeneration in your eyes."

"Still don't see how this helps you," Amalie, known on Earth as Amy Barksdale, grumbled.

He laughed as he and Monique walked down the stairs. "It's rather simple, although it would have been easier if the Eye still existed on Gallifrey."

"You're going to use the power of my regeneration to drain the both of us," Daria stated.

"Even at death's door, you're still too smart for your own good," Monique said.

"Indeed," the Master agreed as he stood directly in front of the lense at the bottom. "And you are correct. The only question is," his voice dropped to a whisper as he asked Daria, "how long can you fight death?"

======

"Almost there," the Doctor told Martha. "Another few seconds." Looking over at her, he advised, "You should probably hold onto something."

"Okay." Wrapping her arms around the supports, she watched as he flew over the controls.

"Hang on," he told her. Then, a few seconds later, he cried out, "Here we go!"

======

The cyclic wheezing, groaning noise that began as the Doctor's TARDIS materialized in the control room of the stolen ship ended just seconds before he and Martha came out of it.

"I thought that was going to be rough," Martha half-whispered as they looked around.

"Yeah," he did, giving her a glance, "so did I." Moving to the center consol, he looked up and whistled. "Very nice," he muttered. "Someone found a way to make it work."

"That looks a bit different," Martha noticed as a more refined version of the sounds made by the Doctor's TARDIS sounded from behind them. For a second Martha thought the shape was a silver color, but then a familiar blue box-shape appeared. "Doctor," she asked, "I thought your TARDIS was the only one like that."

"Hm?" Glancing over, the Doctor smiled. "Oh, that's just the chameleon circuit trying to blend in with mine. If mine looked like, say," he paused to shrug, "a dumpster, there'd now be two of them."

Quinn came through the door first, followed closely by Jane. They stopped and looked at the couple in front of them for a long moment.

"Quinn Morgendorffer?" The Doctor's eyes went wide as he smiled. "Look at you, you look great!"

"Um, like, do I know you?"

"It's me, the Doctor." Holding his hands out he looked down at his blue suit and red trainers. "A bit skinny compared to last time, but still me." Turning to Jane, he stopped. "You look a lot like Daria, but you're not her, are you?"

"Nope. Nice shoes, by the way," she told him. "I'm sure you remember me. I'm Jane Lane."

"What? Nooo," he scowled. "Jane had black hair and was less, uh, well," he made a vague gesture toward her torso.

"Smaller breasts?" Martha offered.

"What she said," he agreed, pointing at her. "Oh, by the way, this is Martha Jones."

"Hi," came from Quinn.

"Hey," was Jane's response.

"Hello," Martha said back to them.

"This is, like, interesting and all," Quinn then said to the Doctor, "but we need to stop the Master."

"Are you sure you're not wrong about that?" The Doctor looked hopeful for a second.

"He said he was the Master and he's acted like it," Jane stated. "Shot me and everything." Rubbing her chest, she went on, "Carvaggio that hurt." Pointing down the corridor she added, "And now he's got my mother down there."

"He's got your mother and Daria?"

"Daria is her mother." Quinn's words brought a stunned expression to the Time Lord's face.

Sighing, Jane locked her gaze with his. "It's not later, yet," she told him.

Pulling himself out of the shocked state, he turned toward the corridor. Scratching his head, he said, "Right, well, we should . . . stop him. Although," he glanced at Jane and smiled, "I think I'm going to like later, when it gets here."

"I know I'm looking forward to it," Jane agreed.

======

The foursome was silent as they reached the open doors of the Cloister Room. Holding up his hand, the Doctor motioned for the others to stand back as he peeked his head inside.

A man the same age Jane had been before regenerating was standing in front of Princess Amalie who was hanging from chains coming from the ceiling. Up and behind her was the battered form of Daria. As the Doctor watched his granddaughter started to glow, only to convulse with agony as she gritted her teeth and seemed to fight it off.

Why would she fight off a regeneration? The Doctor asked himself. It was only then that he noticed the lenses.

"Oh no," he whispered as he ducked back.

"Is it bad?" Jane asked.

Instead of answering, he turned to Quinn. "How did you overcome the lack of temporal separation between past and future and acceleration in the new rotor system?" He asked in a rapid whisper.

"I used three temporal focusing crystal lenses," she replied.

"I was afraid of that." Leaning against the wall, he sighed. "It seems the Master has removed them."

The other three watched as the color drained from Quinn's face. A quick glance into the room confirmed his words, leading to a panicked look being added to the pale coloring. "That madman," she whispered. "He's killed us all."

"No, Quinn," the Doctor insisted as he grabbed her by the shoulders. "He's given you a problem to solve."

"But it can't be done," she insisted.

"Maybe not by anyone else," he gave her a grin, "but you're Quinn Morgendorffer. The only Human to ever pass the temporal engineering course at the Academy."

"But --"

"No buts," Jane cut her off. "Quinn, you built this whole system, remember? No one knows it like you do."

"It's not possible."

"So's mucking about in time," Martha pointed out. "So's people changin' their faces and having two hearts."

Quinn looked hard at the other Human for a few seconds before her look of panic was replaced with determination. "Come on, then," she said as she grabbed Martha's arm, "let's leave the two-hearted people to save Daria while we save everybody."

Martha paused for a second to look at the Doctor, but after receiving a quick not from him allowed herself to be dragged away.

"Can the fashion queen really save us you think?" Jane asked him.

Looking down the hall at the retreating forms, he shrugged. "She's the only one who can." Turning back to Jane, he smiled. "Well, now let's save your Mum."