The incident of the red-headed woman in Lab C was not one the Brigadier wanted to relive. He would honestly have preferred a Dalek invasion, but only by a narrow margin. The incident of the red-headed woman in Lab C was, frankly, the single most bloody awkward affair he'd ever had the misfortune to experience. As with the others up there in that general vein, it invariably involved the Doctor, and the near-death of the universe; because you never got one without the other.

Shortly after the Doctor had buggered off leaving UNIT without its Chief Scientific advisor, they had acquired a weapon from an alien ship. One of those fancy high-tech things the boffins would spend weeks puzzling over then the Doctor would show up and say 'oh no my dear fellow that's actually the thing that the little blue men from the planet Zog use to clean their toilets with how could you possibly mistake this explosive-esque ticking object for a weapon haha typical military minds thinking everything's for killing people'. The man had to be as blithely infuriating as he could be sometimes, didn't he?

Regardless, UNIT was looking into that box, the box that kept ticking at irregular intervals, a multitude of coloured lights flashing in surreal patterns: one, two, three, red and green and a blinking triangle of blue. Then it would tick again, quickly and slowly, with no clear pattern, tick...tock tick tock- ticktick...tockticktocktick. Sometimes it hummed, other times it buzzed. Once it sounded like it was screaming, but that turned out to be the machinery the technicians were using to try and get it open.

That was when the ground started shaking.

Every light on the box turned on at once, and so did every light in a ten-mile radius. Then the range doubled, trebled, and then it started ticking again in a quick rhythm, ticktickticktickticktickticktick getting faster and faster and the ground shook in time with it as the effect spread itself far and wide. Lights turned on for no reason, and the ground shook.

Well. Blast it.

Cracks had started to appear on the wall, here near the epicentre of it all where it was at its worst, and Benton was clinging to the desk to try and stay upright. The Brig himself was sat in his chair, holding on for dear life. A cup of tea upended itself, spilling its contents all over the saucer.

It wasn't a cleaning device, or some other useless object, evidently. And the tremors just kept getting worse.

"Sir!" Benton began, but the roar of the earth drowned out whatever he was trying to say. He kept mouthing 'Lab C'. Acknowledging this, the Brig started to haul himself to his feet, struggling against the unstable terrain, and make his way along down the corridor, drawing his gun instinctively despite the admonishing voice, different voices of the Doctor: 'really my dear Brigadier, a gun? And what do you hope to achieve with that?' He gritted his teeth, determination clear on his face. The Doctor didn't get to judge him. The Doctor had left in his box, abandoning them to this; he didn't get to judge their efforts when he himself had run away, wasn't there to help. For his part, the Brigadier was trying his best.

He and Benton made it to within sight of the door labelled Lab C when abruptly the quake stopped, as if taking a momentary rest, only it didn't resume again. Exchanging a look, the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton barged into the lab, to find the silhouettes of the scientists in ash outlines on the wall (yet another incident whereupon UNIT's science staff had found itself depleted. The unions would throw a fit!) and a red-headed woman – who was eating a cheese sandwich while sat on the table. Next to her, the box had stopped ticking.

Her face lit up, and she waved cheerily. "Don't worry! Your scientists are still alive, if you can call them that. Scientists, I mean. They're still very much alive. The nasty ticking multi-coloured murderbox translocated them, rather than combusted, which I realise is what it looks like. That's what this thing does, it translocates, randomly and repeatedly, until everything's inside out and back to front and the universe is nothing more than funny coloured soup. Cold soup, though, because of all the black holes and boringy bits. More like gazpacho really. Universe gazpacho. What was I saying? Oh, your 'scientists'," Here, she drew quotation marks in the air. "Judging by the residual energy, I'm guessing they'll turn up in...roughly Blackpool, if not St. Anne's. If it's Fleetwood now, I'll eat my head."

The Brigadier levelled his gun at the woman. It was only a bluff – he would never shoot an unarmed lady, unless she proved to be a threat, alien or no. The former of which was very likely. He looked her over. She was wearing brown chinos, a long, striped, white-and-green shirt, and boots, with a tartan jacket tied around her waist. Her hair was tied up, and there seemed to be a collection of different coloured ballpoint pens stuck into it. She was, admittedly, quite pretty, if decidedly odd, and her inane babble was a little on the disconcerting side.

It was always best to proceed as if everything were normal. Treat the stark-staring mad possibly-alien intruder exactly like you would a definitely human one. Sometimes following protocols like that seemed the only familiar comfort in a world of underground lizard people and Ice Warriors from Mars."Excuse me, miss, how did you get in here? This compound is secured by the United Nations Intelligent Taskforce."

"It is?" The woman snorted. "That'd be a first. Please, could you just...you know, the gun...could you just not?"

Everything about that sentence, the tone, the cynicism, the outright anti-military obnoxiousness, even the semi-erratic phrasing, reminded the Brig of the Doctor. The easy, effortless arrogance. The ridiculous chatter from earlier. How the woman seemed to recognise them. But that wasn't possible. Swapping faces was one thing, swapping sexes an impossibility in itself.

The Brig kept the gun pointed at her. He was suspicious of this woman, showing up at the most inconvenient time and talking jargon. Since she couldn't be the Doctor, who was she?

"Aren't you at least going to thank me for saving you from gazpacho?" The woman continued, indignant. "I mean, this is how you react? Rude."

The Brigadier was slightly taken aback. Relenting, he put the gun away and the woman beamed. "You understand, miss, that we will need to ask you a few questions."

The woman laughed. "Oh, please, my dear Brigadier, at least give me my proper title. That is, Doctor." A wicked grin.

His heart sank. Sergeant Benton, on the other hand, was busy trying to suppress laughter in the background. Meanwhile, his superior just stared, blinked, and tried not to look shocked, all of which caused the woman to laugh even more. The woman.

"By that I take it you are referring to the definite article?" he asked, flatly. The Doctor clapped her hands.

"Ding-ding! And the award for observation and deduction goes to Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Hi Sergeant, by the way. Nice to see you again."

Benton managed to stop himself chuckling for one moment. "Doctor. You've changed more than your face this time, I see." Then he descended into hysterics again, pointing at his superior's face. "Sorry sir. Your face. It's just..." he trailed off into wheezes.

The Doctor smiled obliviously. "Tell me about it! Honestly, this is pretty surreal for me too. Nearly had my own eye out first time I tried to put on a bra. Clara was in stitches laughing at me, which is totally uncalled for, it was a serious situation and it could have been a total waste of a regeneration, just as I'm getting used to it! How do humans cope? But hey, at least I'm ginger!"

Sergeant Benton was now clutching his sides, tears pouring from his eyes, while the Brig tried to stop himself choking.

He'd thought of the Doctor as pretty. The Doctor. That wasn't something he'd ever needed to envision. His old friend. And there she was, sat on the table talking away innocently as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn't just been on about- things that weren't fit to discuss...this really, really wasn't something he'd ever seen happening to himself. Ever.

"Oh, come on Brigadier!" the Doctor rolled her eyes. "It happens to most Time Lords at least once. Happened to the Master recently, she's the Mistress now, Missy for short. Just ran into her the other day. Master, Mistress, Mister, Mattress, whatever. Still saved your lives."

"Yes, well," the Brigadier wasn't sure what else he could say. "It certainly seems the change in gender has done nothing for your sense of melodrama."

"Thank you!" The Doctor beamed and jumped down off the table. "Anyway, next time don't start fiddling with dangerous explosives as though they were toilet cleaners, alright?" There really was no winning. "Be careful. Can't have you dying on us, can we?"

"Thank you, Doctor," the Brig sighed, the word that had seemed at first so incongruous fitting the red-headed woman perfectly. "Will you be staying long?"

"Nah, sorry. One of the lads, my old selves that is, is going to be arriving soon. Don't mention anything about this to me – him – me. You know what I mean. I can probably stay for tea though." She shrugged. "Why not? There's a thought. Come on then. We'll catch up over some tea. Good idea. Thanks for suggesting it."

As ever, the Doctor could carry out an entire conversation singlehanded. Some things never changed. The Doctor was still immovably the Doctor, whether male or female.

"Very well, then. You can explain this whole thing there. Sergeant Benton!" The Sergeant jumped slightly, getting himself to attention. "Tell nobody about this."

Heading back to his office, the Doctor walked with a skip in her step and an idiot grin on her face. Despite his initial discomfort, the Brig managed to smile too, rolling his eyes.

"My dear Brigadier," the Doctor said, walking backwards just in front of him. "You're handling this a lot better than I thought."

He was? How badly did she think he'd handle it? It didn't bear to think, what went on in that funny alien head. What she possibly thought about, he couldn't even guess.

"One must keep an open mind around a face-changing alien who travels through time," he said eventually. "We live in a world where Cybermen and Daleks and...blobs from space attack with increasing frequency. This is hardly the strangest situation we've been in." Hardly, but it was definitely up there.

The Doctor nodded and walked backwards into a wall, crashing into it with a yelp. "Ow! Forgot that was there. Been a few millennia since I was last here, you know?" Her voice was casual, reminding the Brig of her inherent strangeness, her existence outside of time, that she could leave for what seemed like twenty minutes and come back a thousand years later, from her perspective at any rate. She was older than nations, able to dip in and out of history wherever and whenever. It was surreal, but you just had to accept it.

They talked for a little while, the Doctor derailing the conversation onto wildly irrelevant and absurdist, occasionally amusing tangents for the most part. She didn't really do small talk. It was a charade she was trying to play along with for his sake, and missing the mark. But they talked anyway; they were after all old friends; until she said it was time for her to go. After she left the phone rang.

He picked it up. "Lethbridge-Stewart. Who is this?"

"Um, it's...well, I'm on the science division. I don't know how, sir, but I think we're in Blackpool. Or the Eiffel Tower got a lot smaller and moved to the sea."

Sighing, the Brigadier sent out an order to collect the science team, and tried to enjoy what remained of this cup of tea without being interrupted by reality-threatening disasters. Until the TARDIS materialised behind him and another version of the Doctor appeared, gesticulating wildly and ranting about some disaster he'd apparently detected.

The Brigadier was bound by his promise, so he could hardly tell the Doctor that he'd been here already- well, she'd been here – and had already dealt with the situation. Still. Just this once, he wished he could have a little peace and quiet.

It was the first time he'd seriously considered retiring, but he put that thought off for a little while. He wasn't ready yet. It wasn't time. There would always be incidents like the red-headed woman in Lab C, but he had to keep going.

His country – and the world, and the Doctor in whatever form he or she elected to take – needed him.

And besides: he didn't want to go.