Guy considered. 'That, admittedly, is true.'

She hit the b.u.t.ton, bit her lip. 'I'm sorry for being happy.'

'Don't be. Your radiance is aggravating my burns, but apart from that it's not a problem.'

'It's just I've been away from home for ages.'

'Travelling?'

'Like you wouldn't believe.' Anji smiled at him. 'It's going to be OK. The Doctor will sort things out.'

Guy grimaced. 'The Doctor goes swimming in the Thames in his vest and pants. Physician, heal thyself.'

'He should have something that'll help heal those burns.'

The lift opened and Anji led the way to her front door. The communal hall was spotless, and Guy felt conspicuously scruffy. He clicked his tongue absent-mindedly, until Anji silenced him with a well-placed Gucci heel on his foot.

She sighed contentedly as her key turned in the lock and the door swung open. 'Home. Go inside, they'll all be waiting.'

'Terrific. Can't I call the hospital first?'

'Let's do the introductions first. You can ask the Doctor about how your gran's doing...'

As he followed her inside, Guy had the strangest feeling he was meeting potential in-laws or employers or something, people he had to impress. Anji showed him in to a small yet tastefully minimalist living room that made him ache with envy, and he saw them the bizarre characters that had haunted this most dismal of days, now all squashed up together on a small leather sofa. He had to come to this bunch for explanations, for protection?

'Guy Adams,' said Anji, 'meet your saviours and benefactors. From left to right, Fitz...'

The gangly lift engineer. He'd changed out of his blue overalls; now he was wearing a yellow T-shirt and maroon flares. His long legs were crossed, and he raised a palm and a lazy smile in laconic greeting.

'...Trix, or Mac, or Trixie or whatever she's calling herself today...'

This was the crone from the tea bar? Sc.r.a.ps of latex still clung to her smooth cheeks; she looked to be about his age. She pulled off the teetering white wig and placed it in her lap, stroking it like Blofeld's cat. Her real hair was short, blonde and spiky.

'Trix, today,' the girl said.

'As in Domina-trix,' Fitz added helpfully.

'But I'm thinking of changing it to Famished. Jeez, Anji, you've got a perfectly good freezer compartment in your fridge with nothing inside! Don't you keep ready meals for emergencies?'

'She had some cheese in the fridge,' Fitz pointed out.

Anji frowned. 'I did not.'

Fitz looked worriedly at the empty plate he'd placed by his long brown loafers and swallowed hard. But the nutter the other side of Trix was taking Guy's attention; he was fidgeting with barely restrained energy like an overlooked pupil desperate to prove he knows the answers.

'And this', said Anji finally, 'is the Doctor.'

'How do you do!' The Doctor beamed. 'It's a pleasure to meet you. You must be very important, very special indeed, for some as yet unknown force to have possessed the minds of those who know you and targeted you for death.'

An uncomfortable silence ensued.

'Coffee, anyone?' asked Anji.

Fitz, Trix and Guy spoke as one: 'Please.'

Anji had to give Guy credit: he'd adjusted to the weirdness of the whole set-up fairly quickly. She guessed it helped to know that his gran was safe being held overnight at the hospital along Albert Embankment, and that Pete was doing well in Camberwell.

Trix had made the call, posing as an elderly relative and ringing off when the nurse got nosy. The Doctor had asked her not to tell Guy that Pete would be in hospital for several days, and that some serious scarring was inevitable. He had enough to worry about.

At least the Doctor had been able to give Guy some magic cream for his own burns, promising a full physical check-up in the morning once he'd recovered a little from his various ordeals. For herself, Anji was just happy that poor old Julie had walked out of A&E puzzled but all-clear after a number of X-rays. She looked down at her bruised fist ruefully.

A thought struck her after Guy had retired to her spare bedroom. 'Doctor,' she asked as she cleared away the small mountain of coffee cups that now littered the living room playing the perfect host since Trix evidently wasn't about to play the good guest 'Will Julie remember me? The police must have questioned her by now, surely? What if I'm wanted for GBH or something?'

'Don't worry, Anji,' Fitz said, stretching his skinny white arms in the air. 'They'll like you in Holloway. You'll get by.'

She smiled sweetly at Trix. 'Any tips for me?'

Trix smiled and shrugged. 'Sorry, Anji. Never been caught. Maybe you can compile a few for me, in case I ever start slipping.'

'I doubt if this Julie will remember much about anything,' said the Doctor mildly, looking up from a local newspaper that must've been months old. 'She was compelled to act on magnified emotions blurs the mental processes...'

Fitz rubbed his eyes and blinked blearily. 'Come again?'

'I'll explain later.'

Anji scowled at him. 'I seem to recall hearing that before.'

'I mean it!' The Doctor yawned noisily, opened another newspaper and leafed through to the property section. 'I'll explain once I'm sure. There's been altogether too much guesswork in my life recently.'

'So...' Fitz looked between Anji and Trix with studied nonchalance. 'What are the sleeping arrangements?'

'Yeah, it's a bit poky, mate.' Trix tutted. 'No offence.'

'None taken,' Anji a.s.sured her, quietly seething. 'Well, I'm going to sleep in my own bed, you three can fight it out for who gets the sofa.'

'Might as well kip in the TARDIS,' Fitz observed dourly.

'I know a place you can stay,' murmured the Doctor, still absorbed by the freesheet.

Anji shrugged. 'Whatever.' She felt suddenly happy and drowsy, intoxicated by the thought of climbing into her own bed, and resting her head on her own pillow. 'It's so good to be back home, isn't it?'

'Don't get too attached to it,' cautioned the Doctor airily, rustling through another few pages. 'Something's got big plans for this universe, and with Sabbath involved the Earth must be at the epicentre of its plans.'

'Thanks for that, Doctor,' grumbled Anji. 'Sweet dreams to you too.'

At that, the Doctor looked up, wounded. 'Oh, but it's all right!' He smiled slyly at his friends. 'I have the rudiments of a plan myself.'

'Like taking back the journal?' asked Trix.

Fitz frowned. 'Yeah, I thought that was the first thing we had to do to stabilise all this?'

'All in good time.' The Doctor leaned back on the sofa, and covered his face with the open newspaper. 'I'm just going to have a long blink...'

Trix sighed, and Fitz raised his eyebrows in a 'what can you do?' look at Anji.

She nodded and went to bed.

The sheets weren't as fresh as they might be but Anji was too tired to change them. Sleep didn't come as easily to her as she'd imagined. She heard Fitz clonking about outside, Guy's rhythmic snores from the room next door. She couldn't relax; surely the pillow hadn't been this lumpy before she'd gone away?

And with the lights out, she kept seeing Pete on fire, and that freaky little girl with the dog and the dolly.

The girl was standing by the bed, looking down at her. I have a secret I have a secret, her eyes seemed to say.

Anji gasped, sat bolt upright.

There was nothing in the room but the rosy orange of street lamps, creeping under the blind. No girl.

Anji fell back into a fitful sleep. She kept thinking the girl was there in the room, watching her.

As she lay in the dark and slipped between waking and sleeping she could picture the Doctor in her kitchen, sat at the table in his shirtsleeves with a pot of tea. She swore she could hear a slow tapping from the back door that led to the fire escape. The chair sc.r.a.ped against the polished wooden floorboards as he got up and opened the door to the night outside.

The girl, her dolly and her dog were waiting outside.

'h.e.l.lo again,' said the Doctor.

Four.

Flashbacks The girl has read about it; about the moment the Doctor was doomed to arrive back in his own universe.

And she knows what Anji was thinking, of course.

'What do you mean?' Anji yelled, chasing through the TARDIS's long dark corridors after the Doctor. 'Why am I a genius? What did I do?'

'Pre-credits sequence!' cried the Doctor. He breezed up to the main console and flicked a mult.i.tude of switches. The lights began to rise again. 'A beginning before the beginning!'

'What's he talking about?' Fitz whispered in her ear. Anji shrugged.

'You remember I tried to steer us to another galaxy?' The Doctor looked despairingly at them. 'I wanted to see if we could breach a Charged Vacuum Emboitement, slip into a genuinely genuinely different universe!' different universe!'

'Oh, yes,' said Fitz. 'That.'

Anji remembered something of his rationale. 'You thought we could slip into our own universe the back way, was that it?'

'Precisely. But the old girl wouldn't budge. She's sat here clinging to Earth like she's afraid to let go... and thanks to you and the TARDIS's own somewhat graphic demonstration I know why I know why!'

'This is where we ask you to explain everything to us like we're infants,' sighed Fitz. 'Go on, then.'

'Thank you.' The Doctor cleared his throat. 'The TARDIS hasn't wanted to leave Earth because she's so familiar with your planet's history, it's so well doc.u.mented. Away from the Earth, her chronometers simply don't function. She drifts, unable to calibrate a single date once out of this solar system.'

Fitz frowned. 'How do you know?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Because it happened four days ago. I forced her to go against her wishes, and we were nearly set adrift for ever.'

Anji turned to Fitz. 'No wonder he was so a.r.s.ey.'

'Luckily, the old thing found her way back home.' The Doctor grinned. 'But she's made her point, hasn't she? Her time navigational systems don't function properly away from the Earth, the place where all this chaos started. She can't predict the location of planets in their various...o...b..ts, can't piece together the geo-temporal relationship of the galaxies because the great celestial clock she works to never started started anywhere but here!' anywhere but here!'

'Meaning?' Fitz asked him resignedly.

The Doctor opened his mouth but it was Trix who spoke. Everyone jumped at the sound of her voice as she clopped elegantly into the console room in high heels and a black evening gown.

'It's the Big Bang, isn't it?'

The Doctor looked at her, aghast. Then he turned petulant. 'Yes, it is.'

Trix beamed at Fitz and Anji. 'Thought so. Big Bang equals opening credits of the whole universe. And before that...'

'But there was nothing before the Big Bang,' Anji protested.

'Then that "nothing" must equal the pre-credits sequence,' reasoned Trix calmly. 'At least in the Doctor's head. Or he'd hardly have used the metaphor in the first place.'

Anji glowered at her. 'Hadn't realised what an Einstein you were.'

Trix shrugged. 'I don't understand what he's getting at only how he got there.'

The Doctor looked at them indignantly. 'Who's giving this explanation?'

'And what's the Big Bang again?' added Fitz, presumably having just managed to tear his gaze away from Trix's legs.

'It's the start of this universe,' said the Doctor before anyone else could interrupt. 'The spontaneous formation of matter from total void superheated matter that expanded and cooled and formed...' He gestured wildly round his ship. 'Formed everything! Everything from nothing at all!'

'That's so cool,' said Fitz, grinning.

'Isn't it?' The Doctor beamed. 'And that "nothing at all" that absolute nothing is precious treasure. It's what makes this universe the one that really matters because it has a precise beginning and one day it'll reach a natural end. That's how the TARDIS can find its way around the universe, which is ultimately a closed, predictable system.'

Anji sneaked a look at Trix, and was glad to see she looked just as baffled as the rest of them.