Break A Few Eggs

Author Note: For the Ninth Doctor, this happens before ''Rose''. For Clara, this happens between ''The Day of the Doctor'' and ''Time of the Doctor''.

He ran, from the fire burning in his head, from the screams of Gallifrey's children, from the memory of Romana's smile, from everything. He turned up at the Boston Tea Party – give me work, any work - he unearthed bones on planets circling dead suns, he camped out in London, in New York, in so many cities. He listened to people's stories and held their wounds shut. He blew up weapons factories, he took tea with the great and the good and the downright unmentionable. He ran.

He couldn't sleep. He couldn't close his eyes, not for one moment. He only slept when forced to, the TARDIS locking him in the medbay until he hopped up onto a narrow bed and actually closed his eyes for a few hours. On one memorable occasion, after too many blurry-eyed days without sleep, the TARDIS had drugged him via her kitchen's coffee and he'd woken up after a chemically-induced sleep with a crick in his neck and a burning desire to threaten the TARDIS console with a mallet.

He bled, he bruised, he gained scars and stitches. What did it matter? He'd heal, he'd survive. That was what he did, unforgivably. He always survived.

That was what he was currently trying to do, while a group of very angry worshippers of the Undying God were doing their best to make him pay for stealing their ancient relic – actually a component from a downed spaceship which needed to be given to a stranded community a couple of lightyears away. Needs of the many and all that.

So he was surviving, as usual doing what nobody else was willing to do. His hand pause in its flight towards a door handle, because the complaints he usually made went unheard now, didn't they? There was nobody to hear them, nobody ... No.

He was running, remember? The mob was getting a little too close for comfort and once he'd pushed past the door, all he could see were suspicious crowds and heads bowed in silent prayer. Nobody was going to help him. Why would they? Why...

"Oy!"

An anachronistic motorbike roared out of a nearby ally and screeched to a halt. The driver – petite, female – flipped up her helmet's visor to reveal big, bright expressive eyes. She beckoned him urgently.

"Come on, Doctor, what are you waiting for?"

Frozen in place for a dangerous moment by the very unexpected use of his name, the Doctor forced himself to run, throwing himself onto the back of the bike. A second later, they were roaring down another street until they reached the very outskirts of the city. The driver parked the bike in what looked like a small crowded garage and quickly dismounted, peeling her helmet off as she headed through a door, clearly expecting him to follow. The Doctor glanced around and then did exactly that. He had questions he wanted answered after all.

His saviour had left her leather jacket and helmet piled up on a chair and was now pottering with purpose around a small kitchen.

"The bad news is, there's not much here. But the good news is I have everything I need to make a soufflé."

She pulled a pint of milk out of a tiny fridge along with a carton of eggs. The Doctor watched her, he was certain he'd never met her before, and if she was from his future, then she had to know better than to cross his timeline early. So why had she done it? And how?

"When do I meet you?"

The girl's movements slowed as she poured milk into a bowl, a happy sort of wistful smile on her face. "A few years yet."

It was good that she thought that way about him – happy and wistful – but God, travelling back risked her future encounters with him ... "So why come here? Why put all that at risk? Break a thread and everything tumbles down. I've seen it happen."