The Doctor and Erin fought hand-to-hand with the space pirates as they tried to board the luxury liner.  Well the Doctor did the fighting, while Erin hid in the loo and prayed to come out of this alive.

The Doctor was not a fighter.  Sure she was tough; she liked to keep in shape regularly.  She jogged and did weights and aerobics and swimming but she just hated the very idea of fighting.  Her last self had been a bit of a tom boy, but this version of herself was way too sissy to do much more than wave her hands about and pretend she could still do those fancy Venusian Aikido moves she’d learned many lifetimes ago.  Despite all this girly ineptness she was winning.  By tripping the first one up as he pushed his way into the airlock she’d created a bottleneck jam and then the bodies had just started piling up and it was really just a case of hitting them on the head with the saucepan she clenched in her hand like it was Excalibur.  “Why me?  I’m no good at this sort of thing.”  Give her a neutron bomb and a planet crawling with vicious monsters and she was in her element.  She was a surgeon, using the scalpel of doomsday devices to surgically remove untold horrors from the universe.  She was not a bar room wench who hit people.  She whacked another pirate on the head.  “Sorry.”

Erin finally opened the door and looked outside to see that the Doctor had saved the day again.  “Well done.”

The Doctor dusted down her jacket sleeves with a little clothes brush.  “That was a nightmare.  Plus the only place to store them is in first class.  That means we don’t get any more of those free drinks.”

“Well it’s a necessary sacrifice, to ensure that those pirate scum get sent to prison.”

“They won’t get sent to prison.”  The Doctor frowned.  “The standard punishment for space piracy is execution.”

“Oh, harsh.”  Erin sighed.  “Can’t they just get a stern talking to and maybe just spend twenty years peeling potatoes?  Is it right to kill captive prisoners?”

“What would you prefer?  They’re hardened killers, rapists and worse, some of them don’t like coffee.”

“We can’t hold that against them.  The coffee part I mean.  Can’t we just get them to promise to be nice or something?”

The Doctor pushed Erin into the nearest Pirate, and then pulled her away from him before he could get his tongue all the way inside of her ear.  “You were saying?”

“I need a shower.”  Erin shouted.  “That was uncalled for.”

“I’m sorry.”  Another pirate called out.  “I only joined this band of psychos to try and kill the scum who killed my sister and her family.  Now that we’re all going to die, I can take satisfaction in knowing that he’s never going to hurt anyone ever again.”

The Doctor looked down the ranks to a slender young man with nice legs.  “Who are you then?”

“Dave Tinder.”  Dave felt a sudden pain as the weird woman put her hands on his head.

“Relax, many of my people are telepathic, especially the women.  I’ve been developing my skills recently.  I can see your whole life.  How can anyone like video games that much?  Also that shirt on you nineteenth birthday, big mistake.”  The Doctor removed her hands.  “He’s telling the truth, sort of.  You killed three people though Dave.  How can you repay that debt?  How can you make amends for taking their lives?”

“I dunno.”  Dave replied.  “Their faces haunt me every night when I’m awake and in my dreams.  I thought that death would stop them but maybe the stain on my soul will not go away even by sacrificing myself.  Can one sin hide another or will they magnify each other?  I guess all I can do is try to save the lives of others somehow.  Maybe by helping others, I dunno.  I deserve justice for my crimes.  I’m no better than the scum who killed my kin.”

Erin could think of a few uses for Dave that would last all night long.  Most of them involved her locking her door and soundproofing the walls.  He wasn’t that attractive, but he was rough and muscular, her favourite fantasy involved her on her knees getting to know him very well.  She swallowed dry air on reflex as her imagination got the better of her.  “Shouldn’t we be going?”  She said at last.

“Yes, probably.”  The Doctor replied.  “You look a little flushed Erin.  Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine.”  Erin muttered.  “You hate staying around for adoration and accolades.”

“That’s true.  I don’t want any statues or religions started in my name.  I’m not that sort of hero.  Ok, maybe a plaque or a commemorative stamp, but nothing flashy.  I’m not vain.  My left side is my best.  Certainly don’t make too big a fuss over me.  Just because I saved your lives and brought a dozen desperate criminals to justice.”

Erin blushed further when the Doctor said the word desperate.  She needed a good hard shag and bottling up all her hormonal needs must be doing something to her.  But she’d never show how pathetic she was, she did have an image to maintain.  She just hoped that Dave made the first move pretty damn soon.  She needed a cock inside of her so badly.  That phrase ‘gagging for it’ came to mind and she redoubled her efforts not to look like a sad slapper.  “I’ll, I’ll be in the TARDIS.”  She ran inside and hoped there was enough power left in those batteries to help calm her down, she needed her ‘medicine’ and she needed it right now.

The Doctor stumbled into the privacy of her bedroom.  It was her inner sanctum, her refuge.  It was a shrine to the man she loved as much now as she had the day they met.  Chung Yin was the one perfect love she had ever known.  She remembered the touch of his hands upon her thigh.  The look of passion in his eyes as they made love.  The look of sadness in his eyes when they parted.  She snapped out of her sad remembrance and cracked open a fresh bottle of anti-depressants.  She shoved a handful of pills into her mouth and washed them down with tepid water.  She undressed slowly; there was no urgency in it anymore.  No longer did she relish the desire that came with teasing her husband by slowly doing a sexy strip for him.  No more did she want to get naked so that she could get into bed with Yin and feel him where she needed him most, connecting with her body and soul.  She threw the bottle of pills on the floor next to the other ten dozen empty containers.  One for each day she missed him and not a single one of them had done her any good, not really.  They just took the edge off of her misery.  They took the sting away but the venom was deep in her veins, it always would be.  It was a mortal wound to her psyche; she was no longer complete and never would be again.  Her soul mate was gone.  Forever.

Erin pushed Dave up against the inside of the door and her lips on his.  She started to undress herself and him at the same time.  She wanted him so badly.  She needed him.  Craved him.  Something primal had seized her mind.  The urge to mate, to reproduce.  She wanted his seed inside of her so badly.  It was pure carnal lust and she was a slave to her desires as she rubbed her breasts slowly against his chest, all the while undoing his trousers to reveal the contents that were driving her wild with desire.  It felt so good, so big, it filled her completely and it was impossible to breathe while it was in her mouth.  She’d fooled around like this before, with a couple of boyfriends she’d stepped out with.  She’d never let either of them go between her legs before though.  Dave seemed happy with it though.  Men.  She saw to her own needs as well, guiding his hands to her needy nipples, she saw to the rest herself.  Suddenly he was like a rocket and she gagged as it rushed into places it shouldn’t but it tasted so good and she coughed most of it over her tits anyway.  Then they moved on to sensual massage and this time it was her turn to feel that special moment of pleasure only this time it swamped her mind and all she felt was bliss as her body jack-knifed on the bead like a firecracker over and over the feeling of total perfect joy repeated itself until her primal passions were spent and they lay together in a pool of their combined fluids.  Erin could do nothing except lie there and bask in the afterglow of the most fantastic sex she’d ever had, and this time she’d actually done it with someone else.  She was glad she wasn’t a proper virgin anymore.

The Doctor ran her fingers gently over the glass of the picture frame that contained her favourite picture of her dead husband Terry.  He was her one true love.  They were brilliant together.  In the bedroom and out of it they had been truly, madly, deeply in love.  Then it ended, with a bullet from the barrel of a gun.  The Doctor yelled loudly, giving vent to primal fury.  She was like a volcano exploding with emotional pressure.  The love of her life was dead and nothing would bring him back and they’d talked about starting a family together too.  Now it was all gone, empty words as dust on the air.  She could never have him back again in her arms where he belonged.  She could never be happy again, could never be whole again.  The man she loved was dead.  Terry was gone forever.  Chung Yin was gone forever.  What was her husband’s name again?  Why did she have two sets of memories?  What was going on?  She had only been married once.  A beautiful sunset ceremony on a beach.  She married Chung Yin.  She was his wife.  Who was Terry?  Why did she have memories of him?  She had never met the man, but she had memories of him.  How could she have memories of a man she’d never met, never mind done such intimate things with?  Then realisation struck.  Someone had been meddling with her past.  Some unseen hand was trying to reshape her own personal time line.  She could not allow them to steal away the most treasured memories of her existence.  She was still Dr. Chung Li Na at hearts, she wouldn’t let them steal away her life and replace it with a fictitious pseudo life.  The Doctor sat up on her bed and sent her mind out back across her past, down through her existence she looked inward.  She relived past adventures, past meeting Erin, past Yin’s death and back to the time she was the mindless slave of Chthuga, before then too back to when she met her beloved.  There she saw an insubstantial shadow, a potential future trying to force itself onto the once she already occupied in body if not soul.  She lunged at it and revealed her nemesis.

Erin screamed Dave’s name yet again as she felt the ecstasy and bliss of complete and total enjoyment of lovemaking.  She was rudely snapped out of it when the Doctor threw a bucket of cold water over herself and her lover.  “What’s going on?”  She shouted.

The Doctor threw the pile of assorted clothing at Erin and Dave.  “Get dressed, both of you.  We’ve got work to do.  You two can get all groiny later.  Right now we’ve got to get going.  I have someone to kill and I can’t manage it alone.”

Dave grabbed his jeans.  “Just point them out to me and I’ll pull the trigger.”

Erin grabbed Dave’s ass and pulled him back into bed.  “This is a time ship, can’t we finish first and then kick ass?”

The Doctor sighed as she headed towards the door.  “Now’s not the time to celebrate success, now’s the time to dig down deep and suck it up.”

“We were going to do…you really don’t care about my love life do you?  Great?  I have to listen to the adventures of Doctor No-Knickers and her wonderful human stud muffin, all the time, and I can’t even have one night with a guy?”

“Now’s really not the time for this.  Wait a minute, were you two having sex?  Oh well, now you’ve finished, you can help me.”  The Doctor headed back to the console room.  “If you needed condoms you could have just asked me.  I know a great little chemists.”

“I’m trying to get pregnant.”  Erin threw her hands in the air and grunted in frustration.  “Wait a minute.  Why would I want to get pregnant with a guy I just met?  That’s so not me.  I can’t even look at a guy without wanting to be in another room, with a chaperone.”

“It’s not just my past that’s being reshaped.  It’s yours too.  But why?”

“Who cares about reasons?”  Dave meanwhile just grinned like a loony and lit up a smoke.

Erin threw her shoe at Dave.  “Sexist pig, get out of there.  I’ll have to burn the sheets now.  I can’t believe I had sex with a total stranger.”

The Doctor was in the console room when her two companions finally decided to put in appearance.  “We’re nearly there.  As both my and Erin's pasts are being meddled with I need you to be our reality anchor Dave.  Tell us when we start doing things that aren’t what you’d expect from us.”

“I’ve only just met you both.”  Dave shrugged and lit up another ciggy.

“Good point.”  The Doctor muttered.  “Well I’m not one to remain mysterious and aloof.”

“Yeah, right.”  Erin scoffed.

“Well I don’t like talking about my past.  How can I help it if people build up a huge mystique about me?  I come from an abusive broken home, my father was Rassilon and my mother was a human he met when he visited Earth one day and he fell in love with her.  My uncle Omega once tried to kill me and another time he tried to copy my body in an attempt to escape his black hole prison.  Also my star sign is Leo by the human calendar and Frigomptex, the sign of the two crossed computers if you use the Gallifreyan calendar.  My favourite drink is coffee, I’m allergic to dairy and I’m a widow.  My husband’s name was Chung Yin, not Terry.”

“Who’s Terry?”  Erin asked the Doctor.

“Long story, but it has to do with whoever it is trying to change my past.”  The Doctor set the controls.  “I guess you already know everything about Erin.”

“Her name’s Erin?”  Dave asked.  “I thought it was Julie.”  He laughed as Erin threw her other shoe at him.

“Settle down you two, you can have your lovers tiff or whatever when we get there.”

“Where are we going Doctor?”  Erin asked.

“The past.”  The Doctor replied.  “My past.  I have to save it from whoever is trying to change it.”