Dsiclaimer - I don't own Doctor Who. Please leave some feedback.

Author's note - The Doctor in this short story is the alternate Doctor from the Unbound story "Full Fathom Five" where he believed the ends justified the means. In this story the Doctor has not yet travelled down to the DEEP to recover his TARDIS, when his charge Ruth discovered he had murdered her father, resulting in her shooting him and causing him to regenerate. In this story I've put my own spin on the Men in Black, and there are current species references to the Shadow Proclamation and to psychic paper.

Lights in the Sky.

"Wow!" Ruth whispered in awe as she looked through the scanner the Doctor had created for seeing through the stars. "It's incredible! I feel like I'm looking at the stars through a magnifying glass!"

The Doctor chuckled; while he sometimes found living on Earth to be a chore even after being trapped on the planet for thirteen years ever since that disaster on the Deep-Sea Energy Exploration Project where Flint had hidden the key to his TARDIS, he had to admit there were moments where he enjoyed being able to relax with Ruth, especially after her mother had died. "Be careful with it," he warned. "The scanner circuitry is extremely delicate."

"Why did you make it anyway?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I felt that you might want to look even further into space," he replied, "besides, there's so much more to space than what the average astronomer actually witnesses during their lifetime, right?"

"Right. But I do have another question. How does the magnifying effect work?" Ruth asked.

The Doctor chuckled again. "If I told you, Ruth, it wouldn't be much of a secret," he answered, not wanting to tell her the magnifying effect was based on a primitive version of Time Lord technology.

Ruth looked like she was on the verge of arguing but she took one look at the Doctor's face and realised it wouldn't get her anywhere. She went back to looking through the scanner. In appearance, it looked just like an ordinary telescope a regular stargazer would look through in the hopes of finding a new star to name after themselves, but it was actually rather bulky and was coloured a jet-black in colour. Along the side were wires and cables that were connected to a computer on top of a small crate. The screen of the laptop was covered with letters, symbols and numbers Ruth had never been able to work out. It only solidified in her mind the kind of scientist the Doctor was.

The Doctor opened the picnic bag and took out a flask and he unscrewed the top and poured a liberal amount of tea into a mug he also produced out of the bag. As he drank the steaming liquid, his tongue and his mouth easily identifying the tannins he had ingested over the centuries, Ruth's gasp caught his attention.

"Doctor!"

"What is it?" the Doctor almost leapt out of his seat.

"There's something out there, I can see it through the scanner!" Ruth's voice was rising with excitement.

The Doctor grabbed the laptop computer, mindful of the various wires leading into it, and he opened up a new window. His eyes widened when he saw the gleam of the saucer-shaped hull of the alien spacecraft which was putting out a light shield which was one of the most common defences alien lifeforms used to mask their appearance from more primitive races, however they had underestimated even this equally primitive copy of Time Lord technology, though the Doctor was aware if he had access to his TARDIS, even a Type 40, would have no trouble peering through this light screen.

Unfortunately, the copy of Time Lord technology the scanner was based on human technology, and some of the equipment needed to make the Time Lord variety simply did not exist yet.

Still, the scanner was doing a great job of picking out the finer features of the alien hull, though the shape of it was still masked by the light shield. The Doctor couldn't say he recognised the alien ship - so many races tended to use the saucer-shaped configuration even though there was hardly any real need because, in the vacuum of space where there was no drag, there was no need for alien races to spend years designing a sleek ship, however, the saucer-shaped design was better able to handle warp or hyperspace travel.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed as he tried to identify the mode of faster than light travel, and he tried adjusting the computer, but he cursed in his mind when he caught himself just in time - with Ruth nearby she would question why he seemed to be in a bad mood, and he didn't want to give out an explanation.

He remembered that time when he tried to the Sunbelt project to provide sustainable energy to the Earth, and how he had worked out the technology was too advanced for humans in the present age, and how he had assumed they had help from aliens. When he had made that deduction though it was later proven wrong, the Doctor had hoped the aliens would have the means of helping him retrieve the TARDIS. While the Sunbelt project had ended in failure, and Guzman was killed, and Reid was cut off Reid was cut off from the Ethereal as a punishment for her attempts to transform humans into electromagnetic signals.

He remembered how frustrated he had been when he had been proven wrong in his hopes aliens were involved, but now he had some hope he could recover the TARDIS at long last rather than wait for years for the radiation to drop around the DEEP.

"Wow!" Ruth's whisper of amazement caught his attention and the Doctor lifted his head to study her. He couldn't see the whole of her face, but he knew the young woman was excited by what she was seeing through the scanner; even in the late 2000s, many people were still trying to work out if aliens and UFOs were real or not. "Wait, what's it doing? It's….moving closer to us!" The Doctor turned his attention back to the scanner, and he saw Ruth was right.

The alien ship was moving closer to the duo, and it was close enough for the Doctor to literally smell the metallic stink of the lubricants the ship's antigravity motors used to repel themselves and move above a planet.

"What's it doing?" Ruth whispered, moving her head so she could see the alien ship and look at the Doctor at the same time.

The Doctor tilted his head, studying the ship as it moved slowly closer, the light screen was so bright they had to squint painfully in the glare. "I think it's studying us," the Doctor whispered, watching as the light covering the metallic saucer-shaped craft crept closer and rustled the blades of grass on the small hilltop the Time Lord and human were presently sitting on.

No sooner had the Doctor said that the alien ship instantly flashed a bright blue-white in colour and there was a roar of rushing air as the ship passed over them so fast Ruth screamed as the screech roared in her ears. The Doctor himself was just as stunned by the sound and clapped his hands over his ears, but they still buzzed.

When the effects passed and their eardrums recovered, the Doctor instantly checked his computer. He was surprised the aliens hadn't tried to erase the recordings the scanner had taken, they had either not understand how advanced the system was or they had and decided not to try. Either way, he had enough information about the ship…

For a moment, the Doctor was really tempted to go through the scanner's files, knowing they were more extensive than what Ruth had seen visually since he had suggested she see the stars to see just how impressive and awe-inspiring the galaxy was, but then he decided against it; it would take time to go through it all, and besides he felt they had been out here long enough.

But he decided to stay out here for a little bit longer with Ruth, guessing correctly after knowing the woman for a long time - long for humans, but short for Time Lords - was too excited to want to go back home. Besides, if his guess was right, the technology of the scanner had been the factor which had attracted the alien ship to their location…..

Maybe, he thought to himself, I might be able to find a way to leave sooner than I'd thought...

For the next week, the Doctor was working in his laboratory and workshop while he worked on enhancing the scanner he had constructed originally, though he had also added twelve other scanners to boost the scanner signal, but to make things more attractive. The aliens had come to the scanner because they had detected the alien designed technology of the scanner, so the Doctor was willing to bet they would do so again with a more powerful signal to pick up.

The Doctor had no intention of letting these aliens go. He needed them to help him get the TARDIS back. He had told Ruth what he planned to do with the scanners, though he hadn't told her what he planned to do in the long-term with the alien's technology. It was a risk, of course, though he wasn't worried, and besides Ruth wouldn't know what was going on until it was too late, that was if he was able to hide the truth of him cannibalising the alien's technology to recover the TARDIS, but with his resources so limited he was willing to do what it took to get his ship back. But then again he had the mindset and his belief the ends justified the means anyway, so it made no difference to him.

Ruth stood to the side while the Doctor set up the equipment - she was used to seeing the Doctor making gadgets and setting them up, but she had never seen anything like this. Arranged around the little hill where they had seen the alien ship three weeks before was a cluster of those telescopic scanners the Doctor had constructed since they had seen that alien ship.

There were times the young woman didn't understand the Doctor who had been her guardian angel since her father Eric Vollmer had died in the DEEP and the navy had blamed him so they could cover their own tracks, though she was still trying to work out why the military had funded her father's black smoker project which had no military value whatsoever.

But this was one of those moments where she had no idea what the Doctor was doing; it was one thing to be interested in seeing an alien ship, but it was another to be this interested. The Doctor seemed to be almost obsessed with the whole thing.

Finally, he looked up, his eyes twinkling. "Well, that should do it. We can start in a few moments," he said.

Ruth nodded, biting her tongue; she knew from long experience the Doctor wouldn't answer any of her questions until he was either sure of his mind, or he would never speak at all.

The Doctor gestured for her to sit down in the small but comfortable chair where she could look through the scanner as it was mounted on the tripod, and when he was sure she wasn't looking, he activated the booster. When he saw all of the small scanners positioned around the hill were operating, the Doctor leant back in his own chair and they waited.

The Doctor and Ruth sat on the hill for over three hours without anything happening, but the Doctor was patient; unlike Ruth and every other human on Earth, he knew that aliens were far more frequent visitors to the planet, and with the scanners putting out more energy and a stronger signal, someone was bound to show up considering how many times humans were visited by aliens. Most of them were just fascinated by this backwater planet, though he knew not all of them were.

When he had joined UNIT quite a few lives ago, the Doctor had become aware of the figures of alien visitations though he had been aware of how often aliens had arrived at the planet and either had interest in the planet itself, or because they just wanted to invade the place though he had no idea why. Many human science-fiction writers were of the opinion aliens invaded Earth in their books because the planet had water, minerals, or something like that. In practice, they didn't need to - the universe was littered with many uninhabited worlds, and they could simply reach out and take them and no time would be wasted on battering down a world.

Humans were so flawed when it came to thinking the only times the aliens turned up was when a report of light in the sky was made, or a couple were abducted for experimentation was told to the media, in truth the aliens came to the planet frequently. UNIT managed to protect Earth along with a few other organisations the Doctor had heard of over the years, but in truth, many of them were just coming here for research, for a holiday, or even for crimes.

When they heard a sound like a whoosh overhead and saw the bright light shield, the Doctor held back the urge to laugh with triumph when he saw the beautiful sight of the alien ship. If this went the way he hoped, then he might get his TARDIS back to where it belonged, and he might be able to finally destroy the DEEP, and he could take Ruth with him to explore the wonders in time and space…

"Doctor, it seems closer than it was three weeks ago," Ruth's comment drew him out of his fantasy, and he noticed for the first time just how close the ship was. Ruth was right, the ship was much closer than what they had seen weeks ago. The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and saw the young woman looking at him with a questioning expression on her face, and he cursed. He had hoped to transmit a recognised distress call to the alien ship as soon as he had gotten its attention, but he knew he would need to reassure Ruth everything was alright before he could.

"It must be the signal we're putting out with the boosted scanner signal," the Doctor replied, making it sound like it was just guesswork, but he knew that it was the case. "Hold on," he added and he typed in a command into the computer. It was the command which would transmit the distress signal to the alien ship in a controlled burst. It wasn't a complicated message, it was just a mathematical sequence repeated over and over again which was recognised by many alien races, and acknowledged by others.

The alien saucer flashed a light so bright the Doctor felt as though he were standing right next to a star, making the Time Lord throw up his hands in reflex, and then the light shield muted a little bit and he heard the whirling buzz of the antigravity motors slowing down.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder and he saw Ruth had stood up from her chair, gazing at the alien ship with astonishment. "Incredible," she whispered.

The Doctor groaned as his head swam as he woke up, mentally checking on his body. His hearts were beating slower than usual, but they were beating nonetheless. He closed his eyes and tried to force himself to push aside the effects of what had happened to him, and he stood up slowly through sheer will power. He tottered around on his feet for a moment as his mind cleared the strange haze that had engulfed him, and he looked around blearily before he sniffed the air while his Time Lord mind, far more complex than the minds of the humans on this planet, worked to clear his vision.

He stopped when his time senses told him it was three in the morning. That couldn't be right, it had been eleven when they had activated the scanners to attract an alien ship to them, but he knew his senses were accurate right down to a nanosecond.

What happened? he thought to himself.

He cast his mind back over what happened - he remembered the landing of the alien ship after he began transmitting the signal to it and then…nothing. The Doctor tried to touch the blank space he could sense over that part of his mind, but it was getting him no-where.

Frustrated but seeing that he had nothing else to do, he looked around the hilltop and saw that everything was intact, but then he spotted Ruth. The young human was on the ground, looking completely asleep. The Doctor crossed over to where she was lying sprawled on the grass, and he gently examined her.

She was breathing normally and judging from her rising chest, she was still alive, and her unconscious state made it easier for the Doctor to gently place his fingers over her face while closing his eyes so he could concentrate better for this task, while his mind gently reached out and probed Ruth's mind.

The Time Lord wanted to find out if she could shed some light over the loss of memory. But no. He saw the girl's memories and her thoughts…. but then he sensed a barrier around her mind as he tried to access her memories, a barrier which felt much like the one over his own. The Doctor pulled out of Ruth's mind, knowing that human minds were just not suited for long-term battering, and he looked around the hilltop. There was nothing else for them to do up here, so he started packing up the equipment he had spent the last three weeks working on. As he packed up the different scanners he had assembled to boost the power of the one he had originally made and used three weeks before, he came across one of three cameras he had left on the hill site in order to record everything that happened tonight.

The Doctor had been determined to make a long-lasting friendship with the aliens and although he was usually sardonic at the best of times after having developed a more extreme view of protecting the universe and taking such matters seriously, he had been hopeful such an alliance could be made, but he had been worried about something like this happening so he had decided to take precautions. He knew if the memory was blocked in a mind, a retelling of what had happened would restore the memories. He ground his teeth angrily as he remembered all of those invasive alien examinations performed on many people over the years, and he promised himself he would check Ruth and himself over to make sure they hadn't caused long-lasting damage. If they had, they would pay the price.

The Doctor checked on the cameras and he replayed the last images briefly and saw the aliens had been too baffled by the alien-style technology of the scanners to really bother with seeing if there were recording devices nearby. His mind sharp again thanks to the time he had given it to recover after waking up from the aliens' invasive mind wiping technique, he picked up the camera and started replaying the last segments of the recording.

He narrowed his eyes when he saw the aliens with their six dark eyes examine himself and Ruth as they lay unconscious -

He decided to worry about it later and he turned off the cameras and put them gently inside the box. He would go over them later when he and Ruth were comfortable enough to see what was on them. Ordinarily, the Doctor wouldn't often show Ruth the full truth of what he was doing or indeed what was going on, but in this instance, this was one of those times where he would break that rule.

The Doctor took the equipment down the hill to the van he owned - it wasn't as sophisticated as Bessie, but it did the job just fine - and he began the task of piling the lot outside the vehicle before he went up the hill again to collect Ruth. When everything was safely stored inside the van and Ruth was safe in her seat, the Doctor began the journey back home.

As he drove home, the Doctor's hands were clenched around the steering wheel in frustration. He was annoyed with how things had gone, but he was even more furious Ruth had been put in danger. His mind raced as he wondered what he was going to do next. He had no intention of giving up on his hopes and his plans to recover the TARDIS, though he would need to keep Ruth safe next time.

The plan had been so simple as well. He had created a hypersonic stun pulse that would knock out any living person within half a mile, but he would still be upright and aware thanks to the inhibitor he had rigged up. Ruth would have been knocked out herself due to the pulse, but she would have been safe, and besides he hadn't rigged an inhibitor up for her mostly because he wanted to recover the TARDIS without Ruth or the aliens knowing. He hadn't cared or given a thought about them, or how they'd have reacted. He was desperate to recover the TARDIS, and after that case of mistaking the Sunbelt project as backed by alien help, he had decided not to play nice.

Granted, he had hoped to persuade the aliens to help him of their own free will, but if they didn't then he would have no hesitation in using the stun pulse to get what he wanted.

The Doctor was relieved when his van arrived at the house he shared with Ruth, but he got out and opened the garage door before he drove the van inside. After making sure Ruth was safe in bed, the Doctor went down to the living room to watch some television to see if there was anything reported about the aliens. But there was nothing.

Ruth woke up with a splitting headache as light streamed from outside and hit her square in the face. She felt awful. Her mind was swimming as she tried to make sense of what had happened to her the night before. But no matter how far she cast her mind back between now when she was safe in her bedroom to where she had been with the Doctor, on that hill, she could remember nothing else.

Confused, she took a shower and donned some fresh clothes, and then went downstairs to find the Doctor was there, cooking for both of them.

The Doctor heard her feet as they stepped onto that creaking step, and he half turned and saw her there. "Ruth, are you alright? Do you remember anything?"

Ruth shook her head but groaned. "Ooh," she grimaced as she felt the sudden pressure on her head that felt like her skull was being crushed in a vice. "No, what happened, Doctor? I remember…. the alien ship landing, but that's it."

The Doctor nodded. "I expected as much," he said bitterly, "the aliens did the job well."

"What did they do?" Ruth asked, frightened as he remembered all of those stories she had heard (and ridiculed) over the years about alien abduction, but now she was suffering from amnesia, she wasn't laughing anymore.

"I don't know what they wanted, but I suspect they were curious about why those scanners were so powerful and they wanted to investigate," the Doctor answered.

Those scanners… Ruth decided she would talk with the Doctor about those at some point, but for now, she wanted answers to her questions. "Did they do anything to us?"

"No. They just examined us, but they didn't look too deeply," the Doctor said as he handed her a plate of scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon and picked up his own plate, and they started to eat. Ruth wondered how he was able to eat with the knowledge aliens had probably probed him, but she decided to eat. The Doctor washed his meal down with a glass of orange juice, and when Ruth was finished with her own breakfast, he put both plates in the sink before he walked off and came back with a DVD.

Ruth looked at the disc with surprise. "What is it?"

"I set up cameras last night to record the whole encounter," the Doctor explained, hoping Ruth wouldn't ask him for a more in-depth reason which was a lie though he had it already prepared just in case, "I've checked - they didn't tamper with the cameras. Do you want to see what they did?" he asked casually.

Ruth narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, I do."

I thought as much, the Doctor thought to himself.

Half an hour later both Ruth and the Doctor reacted to the footage differently - Ruth was horrified the aliens had knocked them both unconscious and used some kind of strange, glowing orbs to scan them and the equipment nearby, she noted they seemed to be paying an awful lot of attention to the Doctor as they examined him, but she didn't think anything much about it.

Finally, she watched as one of the aliens pressed a small device on the Doctor's head, and it made a sound like a heart defibrillator before there was a flash of laser light, and the process was repeated when a second alien pressed an identical device to her own head. But overall the aliens didn't seem particularly interested in them, just the scanners the Doctor had set up.

The Doctor sat back and folded his arms, looking at her questioningly as if waiting to hear what she felt they ought to do; Ruth knew the Doctor too well, she knew he was challenging her to come up with a clever response.

"We have to tell people," she whispered, gazing into her guardian's eyes and seeing instantly he didn't like this, "we can't ignore this-."

"Ruth-," the Doctor tried to say, but she spoke over him.

"No, Doctor, we have to tell people-!"

"It won't do any good, Ruth. The footage of the aliens is excellent, but there will be many people out there who will claim the recording is doctored," the Doctor argued.

His reasons for keeping this secret were far more complex. He didn't want people to trampling around their home, asking questions and people trying to examine the scanning technology he had. While he was prepared to make any deal to recover the TARDIS, he didn't like the thought of giving humans, especially irresponsible and stupid humans, using a crude version of Time Lord technology for some dangerous aim.

"Besides, if there are people constantly swarming all over, they will eventually work out your connection to Professor Richard Vollmer. You know how many people view him, Ruth. Do you really want to go through that again?" he asked, making sure the manipulation was not audible in his question, he didn't want Ruth to pick up on it.

But Ruth was too obstinate. "It may not come to that! Doctor, we need to tell people-!"

"What good would that do, Ruth? No, telling people is a bad idea. I don't want to discuss this anymore," the Doctor stood up, "and besides it won't do any good."

"But Doctor-!"

"No more words, Ruth!"

With that, the Doctor headed back into the kitchen to begin clearing up.

As she walked around the neighbourhood, deep in thought, Ruth was struggling to work out what she had to do. Deep down she could understand the Doctor was trying to keep them both safe, and he was right - the media would hound them no end, and eventually they may learn she was the daughter of Professor Richard Vollmer, a discredited scientist who was reviled in many quarters for poisoning the waters where the DEEP was located, and the navy and the rest of the government hadn't cared about what it had done to her and her mother.

Thinking about her mother made Ruth sigh with sorrow. She had lost both of her parents - her father due to strange events which were mysterious even now and had haunted her for her entire life, and it had spiralled out of control and had sent her mother to an early grave. If it hadn't been for the Doctor, she didn't know what would have happened.

But she was convinced others needed to know what had just happened.

Ruth reached into her pocket and drew out her mobile phone and checked the internet for contact details. She was going to put the story out.

The Doctor was busy reading a book in the living room of the house when the doorbell rang. Thanks to the capacity of his Time Lord brain, the Doctor had been able to break through the memory wipe the aliens had placed on his mind - it would have happened, either way, the conditioning was so primitive the repeated pressure of his mind as he tried to discover what had happened even without the recording would have been enough - and he had learnt a lot more had happened on the hill, though he had no intention of telling Ruth.

When the doorbell rang, the Doctor had been busily sorting through the memories of what happened. Lifting up the tablet that was on the coffee table, the Doctor booted up the small camera mounted outside to see who it was. A few years ago, Ruth had been harassed by a former boyfriend who had become obsessed with her to the point where he stalked her. It had become so bad Ruth was virtually afraid of leaving their home, and since he had long-standing disdain for the law, the Doctor had decided to take things into his own hands. He had installed a security system, and weaponised the property so then if the boy tried to break inside while Ruth was around, it would give him an electric shock which would be powerful enough to burn through his nerves.

He never triggered it, but the Doctor eventually snapped his neck when things went too far. Ruth didn't know what the Doctor had done, she had assumed he had left with his family, unaware he had telepathically told them to move off when they heard the news of their son's death.

But the Doctor was surprised when he saw it wasn't Ruth or even one of her friends at the door.

Two men were standing outside, wearing black suits that were immaculately tailored, with dark sunglasses and black hats. The Doctor narrowed his gaze at the screen curiously, wondering who they were... Then he saw one of them press the doorbell again, holding the button down for slightly longer, and he stood up quickly after shutting off the tablet and walking over to the door.

"Yes?" he pretended to ask in a surprised manner as if this was the first he'd actually spoken to them.

The man in black standing closest to the door didn't react to the suddenness of the Doctor's sudden appearance. "Doctor John Smith?" he asked.

The Doctor nodded silently as he took a deep sniff of the man standing in the doorway, wondering about the monotone voice he'd just heard.

"Yes," the Doctor replied, studying them, noting their too-pale skin and slightly pink-red lips which contrasted with the darkness of their attire.

The leading man in black held up an identification card - it showed some government organisation the Doctor had not really heard of in all of his lives; he wasn't interested in memorising every governmental department (there were so many of them anyway, devised for some pompous bureaucratic reason anyway) - but the moment the Doctor saw it, he realised he wasn't looking at a card.

Psychic paper…

The knowledge of how to make psychic paper was well known for some races out in the universe when the Time Lords disappeared, and the Doctor had used it often enough over the years for his own purposes to recognise the psychic tang it gave off. He didn't hear what the man in black called himself, but he didn't care.

"May we enter?" the man in black asked (it was at that point the Doctor took a deep sniff and the man's scent hit him, and his suspicions were confirmed. These 'men' were aliens. It all made sense now, the monotonous way they spoke, the psychic paper, and their bizarre complexions, but there was something off about them, there was a metallic tang there as well, a stench of some kind of artificial liquid…).

The Doctor didn't want them inside, but he was nonetheless curious about what they wanted, and besides, he might be able to persuade them to help him recover the TARDIS... If I can persuade them, he thought to himself.

"Yes, please. Come in," he said, stepping to the side of the hall to give them a clear path into the house.

The two men in black stepped into the house, and as they did their scent once more hit the Doctor full on. It was a subtle scent, one no human would have been able to detect no matter how acute their senses were. But they gave off other signs of their non-terrestrial origins, and the Doctor noticed how stiffly they moved.

"Please sit down," the Doctor invited them politely without giving anything away before he sat down opposite them, "what can I do for you?"

The second man in black spoke while the first one sat like a statue (the Doctor wondered who this race was, though he was just as curious about the other smells mingling with the flesh), "We understand," the man in black began in a voice as monotonous as the other one, "last night you were on a hilltop, and you saw a bright light."

The Doctor sat up instantly. They know too much, he thought, but he wondered what else they knew. "That's right," he said, deciding it wasn't worth denying that part of the truth though he hoped they hadn't discovered too much about him, "why do you ask?"

"Did you discover what that light was?" the first man in black asked now.

The Doctor licked his lips before he decided to put his cards on the table, and see what came of it. "An alien ship-," he instantly said, but the words were hardly out of his mouth when the second man in black instantly opened his mouth, "No, that is not what happened," he snapped in a voice that dragged much like those of the early Cybermen. "You saw no alien ship. The light was, in fact, a weather balloon test-."

The Doctor snorted, he couldn't help himself. How many times had that excuse been given over the years? "No it was not," the Doctor argued, refusing to let these two argue with him. "It was an alien spacecraft. It was disc-shaped, and it made a whirling sound-,"

"The whirling sound was caused by equipment from the weather balloon. The disc-shaped profile was a new, experimental design for a new type of weather balloon," the first man in black interrupted.

"Why were you out so late?"

"I was stargazing," the Doctor replied, deciding not to say anything about the weather balloon; it was so unimaginative, and these two seemed determined to make him think it was a delusion anyway.

"Is there any physical evidence of this encounter, Doctor Smith?"

The Doctor tilted his head and lifted an eyebrow at the question, guessing immediately what it meant, but he wanted to know more about these two and the only way of doing that was to keep them here. "How do you mean?"

"Were there any burns on you and Miss Ruth Miller?" the first man in black asked. "Any cuts or bruises?"

"How do you know about Ruth?" the Doctor asked, though truthfully the answer was irrelevant.

The question was ignored. "Please answer our questions."

The Doctor considered refusing, but he decided against it. "No," answered.

There was a pause as the two men in black looked at each other, and the Doctor stiffened when he felt the psychic energy as the two aliens in front of him entered into a telepathic conference. It ended in just a moment - the Doctor wasn't surprised, a lot of information could be passed in just seconds during such a conference.

When their telepathic discussion was over, the two men in black turned their attention back to him, but the Doctor stiffened when he felt the psychic aura hit him strongly. "I believe things are clear, Doctor Smith," the first men in black said, looking at him and directing the psychic field in the room towards the Doctor's seat, and the Time Lord felt something like menace coming from them.

So that was how they operated, he thought to himself, they used a telepathic aura to augment an air of menace to terrify their human victims into doing what they wanted. But the Doctor had no trouble shaking it off; if he could choose to resist the brute force mind probes used by the idiot Security Chief of the War Lords who was trying to discover a conspiracy that wasn't even there thanks to Magnus not even trying to maintain an alliance and General Williams' stupid device, he could resist this.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Who are you really? What species? It's just I'm trying to place what species use a psychic aura like that."

He said it so casually and conversationally the two men in black were taken aback, though it was hard to pick up as these two were as emotionless as a robot. "We are human-," one of the men in black said.

The Doctor chuckled and decided to lay his cards on the table. "No, you're not. I can pick up your psychic aura," he said, and he focused his own powers of hypnosis using the Time Lord empathic on them both, "because I have one myself."

The two men in black were taken by surprise by the unfolding telepathy, but they shook it off themselves. The Doctor was momentarily disappointed - he had hoped to learn more about these two quickly, but he decided it didn't really matter - but he recovered when the second man in black leaned forward.

"Who are you? What are you?" he asked, his voice still a monotone but there was a hint of a very real surprise there.

The Doctor folded his arms. "I am not human, I am a Time Lord," he said.

It was a risk, he knew that telling these two about his race since there was no telling about what they were going to do if they found out who he was, but he hoped they had learnt enough about his species to know how dangerous they could be.

The two men in black had been surprised before, but now they were displaying a tinge of fear. "Time Lord?" the first man in black began, reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket-

The Doctor was quicker - he whipped out his sonic screwdriver and managed to blast the blaster out of the hand of the man in black. "Don't do that," he said, unimpressed.

"You should not be here, Time Lord," the first man in black said, not reacting at all to being disarmed like that, "there are treaties the Shadow Proclamation have put into place involving this planet."

"I don't care about the Shadow Proclamation," the Doctor replied, "now leave. Don't come back either."

The two men in black once more glanced at each other, once more having a telepathic conference. The Doctor had to hide another his second snort when they tried to block him picking up on what they were saying, but he managed it nonetheless. The two men in black were surprised to find a Time Lord here on Earth, and now they were trying to debate on what to do about it.

But as he listened in on their conversation - he had never really liked people speaking verbally or telepathically about him, and besides these two were unwelcome anyway so he wasn't going to waste time sleeping on his morals of listening to a private telepathic link - the Doctor could feel their wariness. They had no idea what to do about him, and now their minds were full of plans but they eventually decided to get their commander to tell them what to do.

But as he listened to their telepathic conference, he couldn't help but notice something odd - there was something almost computerised about their talk…

The Doctor wasn't surprised when the two men in black stood up in unison. "We shall return soon," the second man in black announced and without a word, the two left the house. The Doctor was only too glad to see them gone, but a few minutes later he put on his jacket and grabbed the keys to the van and drove off. He had an idea of why those two 'men' had arrived.

He had to find Ruth.

Ruth was actually closer to the house than the Doctor had guessed, but she was delayed when a gleaming black car pulled up close to her and two men dressed in dark suits got out. "Miss Ruth Mills?" one of them asked.

"Yes, that's me. What do you want?" Ruth asked, surprised by the monotone voice.

"We want to discuss with you what you saw with the Doctor on the hill last night," one of the men in black began.

"We want to know what you saw," the second man in black added.

Ruth blinked with surprise, she hadn't expected anyone to be this quick to ask her questions. "I was out with my friend and guardian, the Doctor, and we used some equipment of his to study the stars, and an alien ship appeared."

"Describe this alien ship, Miss Mills."

Ruth was trying to conceal her concerns, she had been picking up a bad vibe from these two weird men who'd appeared from nowhere who had arrived so quickly to talk about the close encounter she and the Doctor had last night, but the longer she was in their presence she felt… oppressed, being in their presence.

"It was, er, disc-shaped, with blazing lights and it as it moved there was a whirring sound," she said, deciding she was definitely not going to talk about the DVD the Doctor had made of the encounter. "It landed close to where we were-,"

"RUTH!"

Both the men in black and Ruth were surprised to see the Doctor. Ruth breathed a sigh of relief under her breath, but she could quickly see how annoyed the Doctor was as he glared at the men in black. "I told you not to come back, now go!" he demanded in a low voice.

Ruth looked questioningly at the men in black, who didn't seem to show any reaction or emotion to the Doctor's sudden presence. In fact, it was like they didn't feel emotion. The two men in black suddenly jerked into motion, one of them got back into the car but the other turned to Ruth and stepped so close to her Ruth could see the strange almost-albino like pigmentation in his white skin that was stretched over the face like a rubber mask.

"It would be in your best interests if you did not speak about that night with anyone, Miss Mills; you have already alerted the media, but we have already taken steps to prevent any panic," the man in black whispered.

Ruth swallowed; she wasn't certain if it was the close proximity, the lack of emotion, or the sudden feeling of oppressiveness of the man in black standing in front of her, but she was terrified of him-

"That's enough!" the Doctor stepped forward, and Ruth let out a sigh of relief when her guardian angel stopped this stranger from scaring her, though she still felt frightened.

The man in black turned his head towards the Doctor (Ruth wished she could see the man's eyes, that way she could tell what he was thinking), and then glanced back at her for a second, before he relented and got into the car. The Doctor and Ruth didn't move until the car had left, but when she looked at her longtime friend Ruth shuddered when she saw the angry expression there.

"Ruth, I told you not to say anything about last night, and now this," the Doctor began, but he was stopped from saying any more when Ruth's mobile suddenly went off. Relieved by the interruption, Ruth took out her phone and looked at the screen, recognising the number as the same one she had called only an hour ago.

"Hello?" she said, listening to the voice on the other end, but the Doctor watched as her expression paled and her eyes widened. It wasn't a very long call, it only lasted for about a minute but whoever it was seemed to have put their point across, and not in a good way.

"Who was it?" the Doctor asked curiously, seeing for himself it was not the time to have a go at Ruth. "What's happened?"

Ruth meanwhile was looking at the phone in disbelief. "It was the media," she whispered, surprising the Doctor since Ruth had never forgiven the media for vilifying her father, though she probably felt there was no other choice but to contact them which was logical after encountering a UFO. "They say they've already been told it was a weather balloon, of all things, by the government, and they're not pursuing the story any further," she whispered in disbelief, and the Doctor could tell she was amazed the story had been put down so fast though he had no intention of telling her the truth.

"Doctor," she began after she'd shaken her head after clearly trying to make sense of things but not having any luck, and was now trying to find something else to focus on, "who were those men? What did they want?"

The Doctor didn't reply, he just took her into his arms and held her tight. He was just privately relieved he had planted a tracking device on their car.

Once more sitting in the living room of the house, the Doctor was surfing the internet. Ruth was upstairs, asleep. He had put her into a telepathic trance and found traces of their telepathic signature on her mind. The Men in Black seemed to like leaving a telepathic 'virus' in the minds of the people they encountered to keep them frightened and compliant after they'd threatened them, which went in hand with what he'd learnt about them.

The Doctor had no trouble removing the virus from Ruth's mind. It had been triggered very quickly after the call had come from the media, just before they had stepped back in their house, so the Doctor had put her unconscious quickly to calm her down so he could get to work.

In the meantime, while she was sleeping, the Doctor had some time to himself. He spent that time online so he could research the Men in Black; he remembered hearing about them a few regenerations ago, but the stories had been too vague for him to take any notice of the accounts and barring those Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones movies he'd watched with Ruth a while ago when she'd been younger, he hadn't heard much about the MiB.

He was now brushing up on what there was on the internet. It wasn't much; like UFOs and stories of bizarre lights, there was a lot of disagreement about the Men in Black, some people believed they were hallucinations though it didn't explain why so many, who had probably never even heard of the MiB, had so many sightings. And the internet did not exist yet to distribute information, so that hypothesis was incorrect. Fortunately, many people agreed with him there.

Conspiracy theorists were torn when it came to the MiB; some believed they were government agents working for an organisation who were so secret no department would admit they existed, though it made no sense since the Doctor knew they were aliens who were indifferent to the various borders around the planet. Many people thought they were aliens, but the Doctor had already known that from the moment he saw them on the doorstep.

The Doctor pushed the laptop aside and he closed his eyes to concentrate. He wondered if the Men in Black were some sort of organisation posted to Earth by the Shadow Proclamation to monitor and regulate alien activity until humans were capable of interacting with the rest of the galactic community, but he wasn't sure. He also wondered what the MiB would do now they knew a Time Lord was on Earth; it was clear they were aware of his people, but he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. He also wondered when they would find that tracker he'd planted on the car when he'd stopped them threatening Ruth.

He picked up the laptop and accessed the communication circuit he'd built into the trackers. He had used tracking devices when he'd become pressed for options ever since he'd lost the TARDIS, and over time he had fitted in communication circuits so he could spy on those he was keeping an eye on.

When he accessed the circuit, he was surprised when he saw the readings coming from the Moon, however, he quickly guessed that it made sense - the Men in Black would need a place to base themselves and have the means of transporting themselves to Earth. The Doctor's mind raced as he tried to work out how this type of connection might work; it had been so long since he had encountered a teleportation linkage between two bodies in the same star system, but he guessed there was a transmat somewhere.

And if they had transmat technology… He might be able to get his hands on it, rework it a bit, and then use it to get his TARDIS back. The Doctor leaned back in his seat, calculating… He had no doubt the Men in Black who'd come to visit him and Ruth today had been taken by surprise he was a Time Lord, but he had no intention of giving them the time to get their acts together, and come back and deal with him in some way.

The Doctor stood up and walked to his laboratory. He had to work on a weapon to deal with the MiB, something he hadn't really needed because he had always preferred to use his intellect to outthink an enemy, but this was different because he didn't know what the MiB were capable of, or what they could do in the long term and who they worked for.

The Doctor stood back and looked at the device on the workbench. He had just spent the last hour and a half working his sonic screwdriver, modifying it and transforming it into a laser screwdriver instead. Well, he corrected himself, it was now a Sonic Laser screwdriver, or Saser, for short. The Doctor had just used his old screwdriver's already made design and complex Gallifreyan technology to act as a template for the new systems. It would have the ability to fire laser beams and yet it would still act as the versatile tool he'd worked on for centuries.

Besides, as he'd worked he had come up with a plan.

The Doctor had set the laptop to scan the tracking devices' communication bands who were capable of monitoring human as well as alien frequencies. He was planning on contacting the Men in Black directly, offering them the chance to give him the teleportation equipment he needed for the TARDIS in exchange for a copy of the DVD he'd recorded. But the Doctor had been aware since the meeting he'd had with them the Men in Black were not a pleasant organisation, so he had prepared a plan.

He had constructed the screwdriver and reworked it to scan the brains of the MiB agents he was going to be dealing with, and it would deliver a hypersonic pulse which would knock them unconscious for hours. It would beep much like a watch would, which would let him know if the screwdriver had done its job.

When he was finished testing the device, the Doctor left the laboratory and headed out to the living room with the laptop and he opened the communication circuits. "This is the Doctor," the Time Lord spoke into the laptop, hoping the MiB were listening to this, "calling the Men in Black. I wish to speak to you. I have a DVD recording of the encounter I had last night. I want you to send some agents to meet with me to take me to your base on the moon if you do not… well, the entire world will know about last night, and your little job will be at risk. I need to speak to you urgently. Please respond."

Closing down the communications channel, the Doctor closed his eyes and mentally counted the seconds. It took about ten minutes before he received an urgent ringing from the doorbell. The Doctor stood up, making sure the screwdriver was set to scan mode, and he walked to the front door.

He wasn't surprised when he opened it, revealing the presence of four MiB agents. All of them were armed with alien weaponry, though he didn't recognise their design.

"Come with us, Doctor," one of them spoke, and he recognised the MiB instantly as one of the two operatives who had visited earlier.

The Doctor picked up his jacket and followed them without question, and one of the agents opened the door of the car they'd arrived in. The Doctor was forced into the middle seat while the extra two agents squeezed in without a word of complaint. When the other two agents get inside the vehicle, they drove off in silence.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was studying the car with interest. On the outside, the car looked like an old but well maintained Cadillac, and on the inside…. it resembled the interior of a Cadillac. He wondered what the point was, and then his temporal senses sensed a build-up of pressure… The Doctor wondered what it was because he knew if it was happening so close for him to be aware, it must be happening all around… then the windows showed a brightly lit metallic room where row upon row of black cars similar to the one he and the Men in Black were sharing appeared.

The car pulled into an open space and the agents got out with their usual mechanical manner, and the Doctor got out himself. The agents took him through a maze of similar metallic corridors before they entered a large chamber with showed display screens mounted on the wall showing pictures of the Earth from varying angles.

The MiB's around the room were working with almost robotic precision, but when the party arrived, they all looked up at him at the same time, convincing the Doctor more and more they were not just aliens, but something different, something worse.

The Doctor didn't have time to think anymore about it when he was taken into what looked like an office. Sitting behind a barren desk was another MiB operative, only this one had some type of silver-white badge on his tie like a pin. The Doctor didn't think anything of it; if it wasn't for the colour of the antennae you wouldn't be able to tell a Cyber-leader from the rest of the Cybermen.

"You are the Doctor," the MiB chief spoke in the same monotone voice as the others, "you are a Time Lord who has a digital recording of the visitation."

"Yes," the Doctor replied, "I am willing to give it to you, but only on one condition."

"We do not make bargains."

The Doctor bit back the urge to send a scathing retort. "But it's an important one."

"Proceed," the MiB chief said.

"Some time ago, I lost my TARDIS at the bottom of the sea in a marine research laboratory," the Doctor began, "but the base was suffering from malfunctions, and the reactor core was destroyed. I managed to escape, but my TARDIS is stuck at the bottom of the sea. I need to get it back."

"Your ship has likely been destroyed by the radiation," the MiB chief said coldly to the point of being dismissive.

"No. TARDISes are more resilient than that, my ship is still at the bottom of the sea."

The MiB chief was silent and the Doctor wondered what it was thinking behind those sunglasses. "What do you propose?" it said at last.

If this was an ordinary alien I wouldn't need to tell it, the Doctor thought to himself, thinking the creature was more machine like a Cyberman. "You have access to teleportation technology. If you give me some help and allow me to retrieve my TARDIS, I shall give you the DVD. I don't care if you threaten humans. I don't care what type of role you have here on Earth. I merely want my ship back."

"We do not make bargains with aliens," the MiB chief spoke with finality, "you will give us the recording, and we shall arrange for you to be shipped to another planet."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes angrily, almost jumping in surprise when the screwdriver beeped.

The MiB chief also reacted, "What was that?"

"This," the Doctor replied, and he pressed the sonic screwdriver's control. The hypersonic pulse burst out of the tool with an explosive buzz on all sonic frequencies. The effect on the MiB chief was immediate; the chief stiffened and toppled over soundlessly like a tree. The Doctor bent down and examined the body before rolling the chief over, and he gently removed the sunglasses. The Doctor reared back when he saw two completely different eyes.

One of them was clearly some sort of cybernetic optical implant and the other was a gleaming jet-black eye.

Just as I thought, they're bio-mechanoids, not quite organic but not quite cybernetic, he thought to himself before he deemed it irrelevant and he stood up and checked the computer on the desk. As he suspected, the hypersonic sound had affected every agent. The Doctor then began studying their teleportation technology for a moment before he stood up straight, his eyes fixed on the screen, and he nodded in satisfaction.

It was as he thought. There was a teleportation link connecting the moon base with Earth in multiple locations about the planet, allowing the cars to travel to any point in moments, but also allowed individual agents who didn't need to travel to a location in a car to just arrive outside a house. The Doctor called up a schematic of the room where the smaller teleports were kept so he could access them, and he memorised the route. But before he left the office, he had one more task to carry out…

When he was finished he headed on his way to the teleportation room. It wasn't a particularly long walk, and thanks to his Time Lord mind he had memorised the entire route. By the time he reached the room and picked up a small handful of teleportation equipment and took them to the transmat bay, he was unsurprised when he saw the MiB chief and several other agents.

"You're awake," he stated.

"Your hypersonic weapon will not work on us again, Doctor," the MiB chief stated coldly, holding out its arm, "Now, give us the teleportation devices."

"No. You see I want to use these to recover my ship, and I will take them with me," the Doctor replied, reaching into his pocket and pulled out his modified screwdriver. "Now, you are never going to bother me or Ruth, ever again," he warned, "and this is why."

The Doctor pressed the button and alarms began to sound.

"What have you done?" the MiB chief asked coldly without any concern at all about the alarms.

The Doctor smiled thinly. "I've just triggered off an overload with the reactor. I've also activated a memory wipe system to remove information about myself and Ruth and the knowledge you will know I'm down there, however you will never find me again. I wanted to do more, but as is the trouble with bio-mechanoids, you're not that bright; you don't want anything to permanently corrupt your memories, so you have done work on yourselves to minimise the risks."

Suddenly the MiB chief and the agents near it stiffened and then collapsed once more when the Doctor stunned them with another hypersonic pulse which stunned them - they might have been able to resist the type of pulse from other hypersonic weapons, but the Doctor's was based on Time Lord technology, and it was more powerful and they had no counters for that. Besides he had also checked the computers to check on their cerebral weaknesses to make the pulse more effective and modified the screwdriver accordingly and the Doctor quickly walked into the teleportation booth which would send him back to Earth. He raised his screwdriver and calmly mentally selected the location before he triggered it.

He had been lying.

He had set the overload to be the final solution for the Men in Black. They were too dangerous to be allowed to exist, especially after they threatened Ruth and himself. He had decided to just wipe the Men in Black out after he'd stolen the teleportation device, but before he teleported back to Earth, he saw the chief of the MiB looking at him with a very real expression of anger.

The Doctor unlocked the door of the house and stepped indoors before he quickly closed it. He headed into the laboratory and dumped the teleportation devices on the workbench, and he went upstairs to check on Ruth.

To his relief, she was still asleep. Nodding to himself in satisfaction, the Doctor walked downstairs and went back to his laboratory. He was halfway there when the smoke alarm went on. The Doctor jumped in surprise and rushed to the lab, and when he got there he almost screamed in despair when he saw the teleportation devices he'd stolen smouldering with the stink of melting high-tech plastics. The Doctor grabbed the fire extinguisher he'd bought and sprayed the white foam to put out the electrical fires.

The Men in Black. They must have triggered a signal across the whole Earth to set the devices to self destruct after he had set their base to be destroyed in turn; they might not have been able to track them down again when he'd tampered with their computers, but they didn't need to since they would be able to send a destruct impulse nonetheless. He had never guessed they would do something like this out of spite, but they had.

They were useless!

The Doctor threw the lumps of the foamy mess to the ground with a roar of rage, and he threw the fire extinguisher to the ground angrily.

He was still stuck on Earth.

Until the next time.