The Fifth Envelope

"Ian, is the mail in yet?" Barbara called from the other room.

"Mail?"

"Post, Darling, here in America, it's called Mail," explained Barbara.

"Ah."

It was America, 1969 and Ian and Barbara Chesterton were vacationing in Florida, ready to watch two men step out onto the moon in a few months time. Why so early? Well, it's not everyday someone wins a lottery for a year trip to America and two million pounds that they don't remember entering.

"Barbara," Ian came into the kitchen on the flat (apartment! Americans were funny) they were renting for the space launch.

"What is it?" she looked up from the magazine she was reading. Ian was holding a blue envelope. It was covered in stamps and had their address written on it in white lettering.

"What an interesting shade of blue," Barbara took the letter and opened it. Inside was a date, a time a place and the number five. Beneath that were only six words: help him, no hospitals or aspirin.

"What does it mean?" Barbara looked from the card to the envelope…the TARDIS blue envelope.

"It does seem his style, doesn't it? Difficult, not wanting to explain himself or show up in person; it seems kind of…grumpy, doesn't it?" Ian read the card.

"That's three blocks from here," he realized.

"This whole circumstance seems impossible, doesn't it? A lottery we didn't enter, ending up in America for a year with a lot of spending money to make irresistible, the promise of seeing an event where humans land on an astral body that isn't their own when we've already done that…it can't be anyone else," Barbara looked at the date. "That's in three hours."

"After all this time, the Doctor decides he needs our help? Even for him, that's odd," remarked Ian.

"Do you think he'd complain if we were there early?" Barbara stood up and grabbed her hat and sunglasses.

"Oh, he'd complain…but I don't think he'd mind," Ian grabbed his keys and they walked arm and arm out of the flat.

The Doctor looked at the readings on his sonic screw driver. He had split off from Amy, Rory and Canton two weeks ago and had begun tracking the Silence which was difficult considering he couldn't remember encountering them after he had encountered them.

Just keep calm, Doctor…

He checked his hands. No marks, thankfully.

By now, Canton had to be actively searching for them as per the plan of fooling the Silence into believing they could capture the Doctor. The Doctor wondered if Amy and the rest had been caught yet. A black van drove slowly around the corner, the Doctor ducked around a corner and waited for it to go by.

That was fast…

The Doctor put his screwdriver back in his pocket and peeked. This street was empty now for the moment. As the Doctor ventured out onto the road, something hit him—something big, something he hadn't noticed. The Doctor hit pavement and rolled over onto his back.

I can't die just yet…

The Doctor got up and stumbled back to the sidewalk. He felt himself falling and suddenly a strong arm steadied him. The Doctor looked up and saw a very familiar face looking down at him, full of worry.

It can't be…

Everything faded to black as the Doctor looked at the face of Ian Chesterton.

Ian threw the man over his shoulder and started walking. Barbara's face was a mask of shock and she hurriedly looked at the note again.

"No hospitals," she read.

"I know, let's hope we can get him back home without anyone asking questions," Ian started walking. The street was still empty; everyone was hard at work cleaning their houses and shops, waiting for the big day only weeks away that marked a turning point in Earth's history. Everyone was too busy to notice the three walking back up to their flat in America.

"Put him on the couch," Barbara advised. Ian set the man down carefully.

"Who is he?" he asked.

Barbara shrugged her shoulders. "Some sort of…professor?" she guessed.

"He doesn't seem to be bleeding," Ian undid the man's bow tie and his shirt. Black bruises were forming but they weren't nearly as bad as they should have been. He groaned in his sleep and tried to roll over. Ian stopped him.

"Check his pulse," advised Barbara. Ian held the man's wrist and counted.

"There's…something odd…" he pushed harder, hoping the beat of blood through the man's veins would seem normal. "It's doubled. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four…" Ian counted.

"That's…" Barbara checked for herself.

Neither of them said anything, they just waited for the man in the bow tie to wake up.

The Doctor hated healing comas. They left him so dizzy. Dizzy was not cool. He opened his eyes, expecting to be on the side of the road or something. Not on a couch in an American flat in 1969. It could be worse. The Doctor sat up and buttoned his shirt, noting the bruises had for the most part faded. As he was adjusting his bow tie, the door opened. The Doctor sat down and pretended to be groggy…which he was, but he'd soon be over that.

He was totally unprepared for the two people who came to stand in front of him. Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright…though from the ring on her finger it was probably Barbara Chesterton by now. He could only stare blankly at them.

Of course, it's 1969 and everyone would want to be in Florida to see the space launch even it means getting here obnoxiously early. It'll only have been what…four or five years since they stopped travelling with me? It's been so much longer for me. Four hundred years...and while I did see them at the end of my last life, I didn't exactly talk to them, I just looked…

"Are you alright?" Ian asked, waving his hand in front of the Doctor's face.

"Fine!" the Doctor stood up, intent on getting out of there, before they could realize who he was, before they could ask any questions about the hows and whys, before he started involving them again. He'd nearly destroyed their lives once in his youthful naivete, he wasn't about to do it again. They'd done so much; they didn't need to do anymore. He walked right up to the door before he realized how much the room was spinning. Ian grabbed his shoulders as he fell and hauled him back to the couch, making him sit down with a cup of tea.

"Don't try to leave just yet," urged Barbara.

"She's right, lad, relax; you're perfectly safe here," Ian patted his shoulder.

"Right, sorry," the Doctor leaned back, intent on going back to sleep (or at least pretending to sleep). After a minute, someone draped a blanket over him, it must be Barbara—she always fussed over him.

"Who is he?" Barbara whispered to Ian.

"I don't know, but if the Doctor wants us to help him, we should. We owe it to him," Ian replied.

The Doctor picked that moment to pretend to wake up "Who's the Doctor?" he asked, blearily. It wasn't that he didn't know who he was, but he was curious. How did they see him after all this time?

"A dear friend of ours, we haven't seen him in a long while," answered Barbara.

"He's a temperamental old man who gets into the worst kind of mischief and used to drag us along with him. He seemed completely crazy at first until we got to know him," replied Ian.

The Doctor blinked. If only they knew…

"You should sleep; you were hit by a car," Barbara told him.

"So…why am I not in a hospital?" asked the Doctor. Ian looked at Barbara who nodded. Barbara handed him an open envelope with a card inside. The Doctor looked at it and then pulled out his own envelope with the number one on it.

"You have one too?" Ian exclaimed.

"Yes, no idea who sent it," replied the Doctor.

"We thought it was the Doctor," Barbara informed him.

"Really," the Doctor looked at the two envelopes. Amy, Rory and River had been 2 and 3 and number 4 remained to be seen. Someone had wanted Ian and Barbara here and here they were.

"Why are you here? I mean, it's obvious you're British and there's a monumental event happening in a few months, but why else?" the Doctor stood up slowly and paced.

"We won the lottery," Barbara told him.

The Doctor stopped pacing and froze. That's my trick!"Of course," he slapped his forehead and smoothed his hair back in the same movement.

"What is it?" Barbara asked, startled.

"It has to be me, only I could organize it. But why? Why would I do that?" the Doctor asked, looking to his former companions for answers. They stared back like he was crazy.

"Oh come on, Ian, Barbara, it's obvious! My future self sent these messages, risking crossing his own time stream in the process. He rounded up Amy, Rory, River and I…and then set it up so that you two would be here because I was going to be hit by that car no matter what," the Doctor looked at them.

"Who are you? How did you know our names?" Ian stood in front of his wife, protectively.

"There's so much I didn't tell you two," the Doctor smiled at them. "When I met you, I was five hundred years old; I'm nine hundred and nine now. You two were so young and concerned and…British. Susan adored you, of course," the Doctor told them and then stopped. He'd done it again.

"It can't be…it's not possible, you're too…" Barbara couldn't finish.

"Different? It's a funny little quirk of my species, when we're dying we can regenerate into a younger body; it usually changes everything right down to personality. It's quite complicated and I don't have the time," the Doctor moved to the door.

"I have to go, same advice as when Susan left: just move forward with your beliefs and prove to me how cool you are," the Doctor smiled and left.

"That isn't what he said-" objected Barbara.

The Doctor ran away from the flat, away from his two friends, and out into the street. The black van was waiting for him.

"Hello, Canton!" smiled the Doctor, knowing full well what was about to happen.

"Grab him," ordered the ex-FBI agent and the Doctor was caught.

All according to plan.

Should this be a two shot where the Doctor explains everything when he's 1103 and just did the whole nearly destroyed time bit? I won't do it unless you lot all yell at me to.