*Creeps out of shadows and quickly sets down chapter before fleeing for life.*

My goodness it's been far too long since I started this. I've rewritten this chapter about three times and it always came out far too close to the original episode, so I cut out a lot of the action. Future chapters will deviate more from the source material so will be longer.

Enjoy :)

Chapter Two: Run

As a child James McCrimmon had had great plans. He had decided at the grand old age of four and a half that he would be a doctor. He would live in a large house and maybe have a pretty girlfriend. At the time he hadn't really cared about the girlfriend part, it had just seemed like something that a proper grown up would do.

Twenty seven years later found the thirty one year old James trudging through towards Henrick's department store for another night of watching nothing happen on the security cameras. James had gone to medical school and had been doing very well there, until a fellow student he had believed to be a friend had framed him for a prank which had gone horribly wrong- he had been lucky not to have been arrested for what happened and that rat bastard Harry had got off scot free.

"Hey Jimmy," John Smith, the guard on the door called out to him as he passed. "Got Wilson's lottery money 'ere…"

James rolled his eyes and took the envelope that John held out and sloped off towards the lift down to the electrician's lair in the basement.

"Wilson?" he called as he stepped out of the lift. "I've got your lottery money. Wilson?" He knocked on the door to Wilson's office, an old supply cupboard that the man had laid claim to when he had been hired. "Look, Wilson I can't hang around- I've got to get to the security station."

A sudden scuttering noise away to his left made James start. The noise came again and James went to investigate. He followed the noise into a store room, packed tight with shop window dummies. The door slammed shut behind him and James whipped around, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever prankster was responsible for this.

"Hey, if this is someone mucking about, come out now and we'll all have a good laugh and say no more about it."

No one emerged. Nobody except one of the dummies. Then another. And another, and another, until they completely surrounded James.

A small cool hand closed around James', he looked round and found himself staring at a small woman with a determined expression. "Run."

James barely registered the sense of deja vous he felt under the surprise that the diminutive woman was strong enough to drag him along with her, out of reach of the circle of pranksters and back towards the lift. The dummies followed in slow, ominous pursuit. James and the woman made it into the lift, but the dummies swarmed, like something out of a surprisingly terrifying, low budget zombie movie. One; wearing a peach dress with a pattern that looked like someone had thrown up on the shoulder; got its arm into the lift just as the doors closed and, with another astonishing feat of strength, the woman pulled the arm from the dummy's body and the door slid shut as if nothing had ever jammed them.

"Y-you pulled its arm off?" James said, stupidly.

"Yes I did," the woman nodded. John took a moment to process this, and to get a good look at the woman who had saved his life. She was older than him if the thin lines around her eyes and forehead were any indication and stood a good foot shorter than his own six foot two frame. Her black hair was restrained in a tight French plait and her dark heavy clothes: black jacket and jeans, purple shirt and black boots, put James in mind of combat fatigues.

"Ok, I'm guessing they weren't students judging by the solid plastic of that arm."

The woman stared at him, in pleasant surprise.

"I'm right aren't I?" he asked, feeling oddly pleased with himself- though that may have had something to do with the adrenalin rush.

"No, they weren't students," she confirmed. "In your place I'd have thought they were though."

"Pretty sensible conclusion I suppose." he shrugged. "Who, whatever they are, Wilson'll call the police when he finds them."

"Wilson?" she asked, the ghost of something passing briefly over her face. "Who's he then, caretaker?"

"Chief electrician."

"Wilson's dead." she told him, and stepped smartly out of the lift.

"That's just sick!" James declared, following her out.

"Doesn't make it any less true I'm afraid." she returned, pulling something thin and silvery from an inside pocket of her jacket. "Mind your eyes."

He did so, but wondered at the blue light and mechanical sounding hum which followed. Next thing he knew the woman was swanning off down the corridor.

"Just who are you then?" he demanded, confused and irritable as he trailed along in the woman's wake. "And that lot down there?"

"Would you believe me if I told you they were creatures made of living plastic?" she asked, not turning to look at him. "And that they were being controlled by a relay device on the roof?" She smirked at the look on his face. "Probably not, no. Anyway, no need to worry because I've got this."

James blinked as she pulled a matt black box from her pocket; a box that was too big to fit in her pocket. "Is that a bomb?"

"Yup." she nodded. "I'm gonna go up there and blow em up- I'll probably die in the process but don't worry about me- you just go home and have your bananas on toast or whatever it is you like."

"I'm the night watchman." he told her.

"Then I'm sorry mate, but I'm about to blow your job sky high." The woman stepped smartly out onto the fire escape and paused. "I'm the Wolf by the way, and you are?"

"James," said James. "James McCrimmon."

The woman, the Wolf apparently, looked genuinely surprised for a second, then a mask came down over her generally unremarkable features. "Nice to meet ya James McCrimmon, now run for your life!"

The door slammed shut behind her and James ran.

Half past nine the next morning found James on his sofa, job hunting. He wasn't holding out much hope of anything decent, and he wouldn't be able to get student finance to fund another attempt at working towards a degree...

The cat flap rattled.

James had lost his cat, Wolfie (a slightly scabby yellow animal who had suited no other name, no matter how many James had tried to christen it with) to a particularly nasty stray dog only a week ago and he had yet to cover the catflap. Setting his banged up old laptop aside, James got up, intent on chasing off whatever stray happened to be trying to get into his flat.

There was no cat, just that mad woman from the previous night, wearing an amused expression.

"Oh you would live here, wouldn't you." The Wolf said snarkily. Before James could ask what she meant by that, the small woman had produced the wand she had used to open the fire escape to Henricks' roof and activated it, muttering under her breath as she breezed past him into the flat, completely ignoring his cry of protest at her intrusion.

"Where are you, you little..."

The Wolf stood in the control room of the TARDIS, bathed in the jade light of the central column, lost in thought.

James McCrimmon. She had fully expected to meet a John Smith in the basement of Henrick's Department Store. The Rose part of her had been a little surprised to find a human version of the latest incarnation of the Doctor, minus the pinstripes, trench coat, and gravity defying hair instead of the irate northerner who had whisked her away from her mundane little life.

Their first adventure together had worked out almost exactly the way she recalled, at least as far as she could tell. There was a strange irony in the fact that James McCrimmon's best friend was Mickey Smith; although the Wolf would have preferred for him not to have to become an Auton, she had forced herself not to intervene, something that the Wolf was accustomed to, but hated doing nonetheless; sometimes things had to play out as they would.

James had saved her, as Rose had saved the Doctor; although instead of swinging to the rescue, James had used nothing more than a tennis ball thrown at the Auton who held the vial of anti-plastic.

And then he had turned down her offer to join her on the TARDIS.

'The Doctor asked twice.' Rose's voice reminded her. 'Bet'cha if you go back and mention time travel he'll come around.'

The TARDIS hummed in agreement.

"Fantastic," The Wolf grinned and threw the TARDIS into reverse.

~v~

Next Time: Does it need saying? End of the World.

Until then, please leave a comment, I love getting your feedback.