Chapter 1: The Problem and the Plan

Author's Note: Throughout this story I have indicated section breaks within chapters by two bold-faced words.

"Well, this can't be right." Donna Noble surveyed the scene in front of her with a mixture of impatience and mild glee. His terrible driving had landed them in the wrong place or time—again—and she wasn't going to let him hear the end of it. "Oi, spaceman!"

"I'm coming, Donna." He emerged from the TARDIS, blinking in the sunlight, his eyes briefly invisible behind the glare on his lenses.

"You've done it again."

"What?"

"Landed us in the wrong place."

Still blinking, his eyes traveled over the streetscape. "What?"

"Paris, you said. Paris, 2008, you said. 'Donna, you've always wanted to see Paris, I'll show you Paris,' you said. No alarms, no surprises, no aliens, just a weekend in Paris to relax, you said."

"But this is Paris." He looked confused, mouth slightly open, taking in his surroundings.

"Don't be thick. This," she gestured around her "is the Place de la Concorde and that," off to the left, "is the Louvre, but," gesturing to the right up the wide boulevard that stretched away from them, "there's no Arc de Triomphe!"

The Doctor tried not to wince at her mangled pronunciation of the French. Tried. She smacked his arm. "Weeeeell…"

"Don't 'well' me. And that," pointing to a sign on a bus going by, "and that," pointing to a street sign, "and that," indicating an immense banner advertising an exhibit in the Louvre, "are in GERMAN." She spoke no more German than she did French, but she'd recognize an umlaut anywhere.

"Indeed. Well. Let's see what the TARDIS has to say." He turned on his heel and disappeared back into the blue box, his brown coat flapping behind him. He left the door open for her, but she paused for a few moments to contemplate the weird not-Paris before her. Sure, she'd never actually been there, but everyone knew what Paris looked like, didn't they? How many photos had she seen, since childhood? And now, turning a full circle to look at the cityscape visible from the broad plaza on which she stood, she saw more and more differences. No white pimpled domes of Sacre-Coeur on the hill of Montmartre. No Eiffel Tower visible on the other bank of the Seine. And everywhere, German. People speaking German as they passed her. All the signs in German. This was strange. A parallel universe's Paris? But the Doctor had said it was impossible to travel to parallel worlds. He had lost his Rose in one, after all. She shook her head and turned back to the TARDIS, anxious to see what he had discovered.

What she found was a very perplexed Time Lord. He was in his familiar position over the console: brown coat removed, shoulders hunched, skinny frame tense, hair wild, glasses on his nose. "Doctor?"

"Hmm?"

"What have you found? Are we in the wrong universe?"

"No."

"Then what? The wrong time? Before Sacre-Coeur and the Arc and the Tower? But it seemed…modern out there. Like today."

"No, according to the TARDIS we are in Paris, in our universe, in 2008."

"But…"

"Yes, Donna, I know. I'm working on it."

A few minutes later he straightened, but the look on his face gave her no comfort. There was no cry of triumph, no manic grin as he figured it out. Rather, he looked troubled.

"Doctor, what is it?"

"This is our universe. This is 2008. Something has gone wrong in the timeline. Something important has been changed, in the past, leading to a different present."

"When? How?"

"That will take some more work. I'll have to call up the TARDIS's saved files on the history of France in our universe and compare with current records to find the discrepancy."

"I'll just leave you to it, then? Go see if they still make croissants and café in this German Paris?"

"Mmm."

He seemed barely to hear her, but as she opened the door to leave, causing the tell-tale creak of the hinges, his head shot up. "Donna?"

"Yes?"

"Don't wander too far. This place is wrong."

She smiled at him with real affection. "I won't."

An hour later she was finishing the last of a hot chocolate in a coffeehouse—no croissants, it turned out, and she had gotten the fish eye from the waitress for trying to order one—when he suddenly appeared, slumping down in the chair opposite her.

"1223."

"What?"

"That's when things start to go wrong. 1223."

"What happened in 1223?"

"The French king at the time, Philip II, died without an heir. He had accomplished a tremendous amount in strengthening the government of France, but without a stable succession, his advances didn't last. France was irreversibly weakened. The dominos start to fall then, and France ends up, much later, being taken over by Germany."

"When? World War I?"

"Donna, France and Germany fought long before the twentieth century. Honestly, don't you study your own history on this planet?"

"Yeah, but I didn't pay attention in history at school. It was boring."

He rolled his eyes. "You're hopeless."

She rolled hers right back. "So, professor, I'm assuming that in the real timeline, Philip didn't die without an heir. He had a son?"

"No, a nephew, but the transition was seamless. The nephew was the son of Philip's sister, and Philip had known for a long time he wasn't going to have children of his own, so he groomed the boy to take over for him. But in this timeline, the sister never married. There is no nephew, and no other obvious heir in Philip's family."

"Wow. So…can we fix it?"

"Weeeellll. It's tricky."

"It always is."

"We need to get an heir produced for Philip. We need to get his sister married, as she should have been."

"What went wrong in this timeline, with her marriage?"

"I can't get much detail out of the records, unfortunately. In the original timeline, Blanche—that's Philip's sister—married the heir of the Earl of Northumberland, in northern England. It was a match that was supposed to box in the kings of England, who were Philip's longtime enemies. Philip and Blanche made the journey to Northumberland together, actually, and the wedding took place at Durham. Predictably, the kings of both Scotland and England were annoyed by this, but the marriage produced two sons. It was an unusual circumstance, but an agreement was made that one son would inherit Northumberland and the other became Philip's heir in France. Apparently both England and Scotland threatened war if they tried to give both territories to one son and thus create a French outpost in northern England."

The Doctor was clearly enjoying giving this lecture but Donna felt the familiar feeling of her eyes glazing over; just like history class at school. "OK, you're going to have to write all this down so I can memorize it. What went wrong in this timeline, then?"

As far as I can tell, something happened on the trip to Northumberland. They went, but came back without Blanche married to Robert—that's the heir. Beyond that, I can't say. I think we'll have to try to time our appearance back then to coincide with the beginning of the trip, try to figure out what went wrong, and fix it."

"So, we go back, dress up in some medieval clothes…and play interstellar matchmakers? How are we going to manage that?"

The Doctor sighed. "I don't think it's going to be enough to be outsiders. We have to enter the story ourselves."

"What does that mean?"

"To try to shape events, from the position of random people who happen to appear at the court, would be too difficult. We need to—well, more specifically, I—need to join in."

"Still not clear, Doctor."

"I'm going to become Philip."

If he expected a squawk of dismay, he didn't get it. Donna sat very still, staring at him, her mind clearly working. Despite himself, he smiled—she really was very quick, his temp from Chiswick.

"OK, Doctor, two things. First, won't that mean there's two Philips? And second, how exactly are you going to convince people that you're the king of France?"

"Unfortunately, we'll have to grab the real Philip and tuck him away in the TARDIS while we work on events, and then return him, with appropriate memories, when we have fixed things."

"Oh, and that should be dead easy, to kidnap the king of France."

"We've managed worse."

"Fine. Putting that aside, I'm presuming you don't look like this man? How ever are you going to manage to replace him?"

"I'll use the chameleon arch."

"What? But you said…you said when you used it when Martha was here…to become John Smith…you said you looked the same. Like yourself, only human."

"There's more than one setting on the chameleon arch, Donna. The time with Martha, the aliens that were chasing us, the Family of Blood, had not seen my face. But they could sense my Time Lord brain and body and essence. So I didn't have to change my appearance, but I had to become human and change my very nature. What I'm talking about now is actually much simpler. There's no way these people will be able to tell I'm a Time Lord, so I can stay a Time Lord, with my brain and everything intact, and just change my body."

"So you'll be you, but just…wearing a mask? Or…a full-body mask."

"Sort of, yes."

"But…your voice? Your memories? Your way of speaking? You're going to have to pass for this man with his friends, family…people who've known him his entire life."

"That's why it's key that we get hold of Philip first. The TARDIS can then use his voice, appearance, and memories as part of the process of remaking me."

"So you'll look like him and sound like him, but you'll still be you?"

"Basically, he and I will co-exist, but my brain will be dominant, so I'll be able to think with my brain even when I'm being him, and switch him off when I need to, which will mostly be when I'm talking to you."

"Yeah, that brings me to another question. How do I fit into this? It's not like I can just pretend to be your sister or something, like in Pompeii. Everyone will know you don't have another sister. So what am I?" Donna eyed him suspiciously. "I'm not going to be some kind of…serving wench or something, I'll have you know!"

He grinned wickedly at her. "You could be my latest mistress. Kings had lots of them, you know."

"Keep dreaming, alien boy," she shot back, not missing a beat.

"Seriously, you could be…part of Blanche's household. A new lady-in-waiting I've given her for the journey to her new home. Or something. We'll figure it out."

"So I'll be speaking French too?"

"A late form of Latin, blending into Old French, yes. Don't worry, the TARDIS will take care of that."

Donna paused, considering, and then looked suddenly alarmed. "What about the plague?"

"The what?"

"The plague. Didn't they have a plague in the dark ages, where we're going?"

"A plague? Do you mean the Black Death?"

"That's the one. Sounds terrible."

"Honestly, Donna, I'm going to make you read several shelves' worth of history books before we go. The Black Death happened more than a hundred years later. And in any case, I'll inoculate us against all the known diseases and infections before we leave the TARDIS."

"All right then."

"So we're agreed?"

"What am I agreeing to? Saving Paris through a ridiculous plan that has almost no chance of working and might end up with me dying of the Black Death?"

He sighed, patiently. "Donna, I told you…"

"Oh, shut it, I'm just pulling your leg. Yes, we're agreed. I'd better go see what the TARDIS has for lady-in-waiting gear."