‘I want to see his hand. The one he’s got in his pocket. Then I decide what I do next.’

‘Well, you could always⁠ —’ The man in the shadows revealed his left hand, and flexed his little finger. His calm expression darkened into a stormy frown, and he growled: ‘Run.’

August lunged at Hoff.

Hoff threw Joan aside and brought up his gun.

The blast went straight through August’s side.

But the force of August’s run sent both men tumbling backwards towards the wall of the dome.

The Doctor threw the Pod across the room. It slapped against a control on a distant instrument bank. He jumped at a closer panel, and, faster than the eye could follow, clattered hundreds of switches into new positions.

Hoff threw the gasping body of August aside and swung up his gun towards the Doctor.

But the Time Lord had already spun the final dial.

The first time barrier swept into the room through the wall of the dome and into the sphere atop the control panel that the Doctor was working on. Hoff shouted as the shimmering wall went through him. ‘No!’ he bellowed. ‘Don’t!’ He dived at Joan and held on to her like a lifejacket. ‘You’ll kill her too!’

‘I’ll kill no-one,’ the Doctor snarled.

The second timeframe arrived a moment later.

The two walls collided, with all of them between them.

Hoff fell from Aphasia’s wrist, a tiny newborn trailing blood.

Greeneye caught the baby and dropped him into a vat of liquid nutrients. ‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ he said.

Hoff had never known he’d heard that before. Serif was busy dabbing at Aphasia’s wrist as she sobbed. August looked proudly down into the vat and smiled.

‘Well, that’s the last one. What shall we do now?’

Laylock was standing by the door of the dome they’d erected. Every now and then, he’d glance out at the burning fields in the distance. ‘What indeed?’ he whispered.

Hoff lay back in the liquid and luxuriated in it. He was at peace, for the first time in his life. And the last.

The Doctor watched the image of the scene spiral away, replaying itself time after time between the shimmering membranes of the timeframe. He was watching with his eyes closed, because he knew that if he opened them, he’d really be just standing in the dome.

And it was good to be able to watch with his eyes closed again.

Good to be the Doctor.

August stood before him in the timeless time. He held out his hand. ‘The Doctor, I presume?’

‘Good to meet you, Dr Smith.’ The Doctor shook the hand of the being who used to be August, marvelling at how familiar the new expression on the alien’s face was. ‘I got you killed. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. Joan would never have accepted me like this, in this body. Does she know?’