Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose

The sweet melody of Louis Armstrong and his band waltzed along the corridors of the little blue spacecraft from another world. The music was being amplified through a special modification that had been made to the TARDIS' speaker system which the Doctor had rigged up in the aftermath of his visit to one of the Gagralakan Mind Zones where he had accidentally crashed a Disaster Area concert by landing in the middle of the main stage during one of their biggest and loudest hits which had fractured the previous system into a billion pieces. The new system in the TARDIS allowed the soft, magical music to float from room to room and could be controlled from wherever the Doctor happened to be. If you followed the music, its origin could be traced back to a gramophone which sat somewhat precariously on a small wooden table below the main hub of the console room. The lights in the room had been dimmed so that the main source was coming from a rickety old lamp below. It stood on a wooden desk at which the Time Lord was busy at work.

'When you kiss me, heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose…' The Doctor sang under his breath. He would never allow himself to hum a simple tune, let alone sing, when someone else was aboard the TARDIS. But now that he was alone and just wandering, seeing where the winds of time took him, he would catch himself singing now and again without fear of being interrupted and laughed at. This had all resulted from the time the Doctor had been singing Sunshine of Your Love by Cream only to realise that Clara had been stood listening at the entrance to the TARDIS all along. She hadn't laughed so much as enquired who he'd had lessons from: Elvis or Nana Mouskouri? At the time he had attempted to effortlessly shrug it off and say both but he'd always been careful in case Clara caught him again. Ah, Clara. It had been a while since he'd last seen or even thought of her. The Doctor had been wandering for a while now. He had left Clara back on Earth thinking that he had gone to find Gallifrey to be a King or a Queen or something. Indeed, he had left, but knowing full well that Gallifrey, for him at least, was still missing. The Masters' coordinates had not proven fruitful and after a long time being angry and letting out his rage on the firing ranges of Azengard, and becoming the holder of the title of Best Flinklock shot in the region, he had come to a point in this life where he just wanted to aimlessly wander. He would set the coordinates to random and see where he ended up. The TARDIS would land on some world on a random date and inevitably he would tether himself to that world whilst he got on with whatever needed to be done. Every so often he would check the date, out of interest, to see if anything would lure him out of his stupor, but nothing ever really did.

At present, he was working on a small piece of equipment that he had found on Azengard in the remains of a starship that had crashed into the principal dockyard. The piece looked out of time and more accustomed to something George Stephenson would have invented, let alone on a space craft from the 87th century. He had been able to take the device apart until it left in seven detachable pieces. He had cleaned every piece until the bronze lustre that had hidden under the grime shone through. Now it was just a matter of getting the thing back into one piece and working out what it did and why it had been on the starship.

Suddenly, he heard a timid knock come from above him. The Doctor sat up straight and stared in the direction of the front door of the TARDIS console room. Ever since he had been greeted by the frightful presence of Rodney Stench he was wary of any unexpected knocks on the door. On a previous wandering, he had landed in Whitechapel in 1957. He had just been about to set sail into the time vortex when the front door had flown open and a gruff middle aged man had been thrown into the console room.

'Now stay there whilst I go and get back up. You lousy piece of crap.' Shouted a voice from outside the TARDIS as the door was slammed shut on the bewildered man. The Doctor stood and stared at him as his eyes began to trace every detail of the console room. After a few seconds, the intruder spoke.

'Are they all like this now?' Rodney asked.

'All like what?' The Doctor asked, taking steps to stand between the man and his beloved console.

'Well, police boxes. Thems I've been in ain't been all nice and done up like this. This ones in pretty good nick.' Rodney said, barging past the Doctor, looking at the console, deciding which button to press first.

'I can assure you that there isn't another police box like this anywhere in London.' The Doctor replied, batting the man's hand away from his previous console.

'Now that I can believe.' He sniffed, rubbing his nose along his shirt jacket. 'Name's Rodney by the way. Rodney Stench.' Rodney offered out a hand to shake, which the Doctor hastily dipped away from as he walked to the console room door. He poked his head out the door and saw that he had landed in a dingy courtyard. It was dark and smog covered the large amount of the space, but the Doctor could just see the bobby walking leisurely away from the police box. The Doctor sighed before pulling himself back into the TARDIS to find that Rodney had snuck up behind him ''as he gone?'

'What?'

'The copper? 'As he gone?' The Doctor didn't reply and went to the console to see if Rodney had touched anything. 'So what's your name? I mean, if we're gonna be cell mates as it were I should like to know what kinda company I'm keeping.' This still did not garner a reply from the Doctor who started to polish one of the panels of the console with a handkerchief drawn from his inside pocket. The panel was covered in murky finger prints and the Doctor tried to flash Rodney his most patronising glare. 'Alright, then, Mr Owl-brows. What did you get caught doing?' This was a step too much for the Doctor.

'Earthlings! Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with this pathetic little planet.' With this the Doctor strode over to Rodney and caught his collar and coat arm between his hands. The Doctor had dragged the protesting London towards the exit. Eager to draw an end to their acquaintance.

'Oi. Watcha doing? Hold on a cotton pickin'…' but before Rodney could finish his sentence, the Doctor had opened the TARDIS door and thrown the man out of it.

'Call it a first warning. Now hop it.' And the Doctor closed the door behind him and took off as fast as possible. Ever since then he had locked the door from the console. He didn't want to risk another Rodney Stench blundering into the TARDIS. Thoughts past and his mind was soon brought back to the present matter when the knock resounded again. This was different from last time. This was not a rough, abrupt, rude kind of knocking. This one knocked politely and kept doing so.

'Sorry Louis. Maybe next time.' The Doctor said as he took the needle from up from the record and the whisper of La Vie en Rose fell into silence. The Doctor stood from his desk and ascended the stairs to the main console level. He went to stand as near to the front doors as he dared. He cautiously began to edge his way towards the door when he heard an all too familiar voice. One he had not heard in a very long time.

'Grandfather, I know you're in there. Let me in.'