He hadn't been into this part of the ship for years. Absently brushing a speck of dust from the cracked wall roundel with a silk handkerchief, the weary traveller glanced around with an air of tired interest, a face lined with sorrow and disappointment enlivened by eyes that had never lost their sparkle, and a perky expression that spoke of an inquisitive child. He smiled slightly, deep furrows forming in a high forehead. Along here somewhere, surely. Returning the handkerchief to its place, neatly folded in his brown jacket, he spun round on his heels and opened a door at random. A cloud of dust flew out, making him cough quietly. The room was old, plain brick and plasterboard; there was no ancilliary circuitry to require access roundels and metal walls this deep in the TARDIS, and although he had tried to keep the whole mechanism in out-shopped condition the sheer weight of responsibility with which he had encumbered himself was far, far too great. Silently he stepped into the room and closed the door.

Crates and boxes filled the cramped interior, and other objects, the whimsies and fancies of childhood. A chess set stood on a table by the door. He picked up the white king and examined it broodingly, his own dark expression offset by the cold, hard sneer upon its carven face.

"It's all we can take with us, my child, don't you realise that?" How many centuries ago? Five at least... probably more. She had looked up at him pleadingly, but he had refused.

"Now you're being childish. We must go, Susan dear, surely you must see.. we can't stay here."

A curious expression crossed the traveller's face. He pushed his hand roughly through tousled hair, almost trying to drive the feelings away. Gently his hand caressed the mane of an ancient wooden rocking horse. Bertie. He had once fitted it with a rudimentary time drive for her; nothing fancy, just enough to make little micro-jumps forwards and backwards across the waves of time, just to render an old childhood favourite a little more interesting. She had protested though, said it spoiled him, and she was sure the tachyon waves made Bertie feel sick. He'd removed the generator of course, spent weeks in the workshop planing wood, filling in the holes he'd made for the contacts, extracting the dematerialisation filaments from the mane, until finally Bertie had been his old self again. Kneeling down, one hand resting on a splintered wooden box, he tilted the horse back. No sign remained, it looked just as it had come from his hands when she had been born. The traveller smiled, eyes twinkling with what could not have been tears. He peered over into the box; a bald, one-eyed piratical teddy bear glared back at him. He remembered going hunting with Teddy Roosevelt and stroked the threadbare head. Every stitch of the bear, every line, every angle, every carved grace of the horse, they were all his work. He had given her everything. A little tinplate car nestled in the crook of the bear's elbow. The wanderer took it out, carefully laying it on the floor. The car's steering was automatically controlled, linked to a nanocomputer in the tiny wood-and-card driver's head. It seemed totally random but, if you looked carefully enough, a pattern would emerge. What was the car doing here? She had never liked it, it was the one toy

her grandfather had not made and yet the one he had always tried to foist upon her. It had been his. Reaching back into a childhood as distant as the limits of imagining he remembered it spinning about the Panopticon, remembered an old man, not a peacock like the rest, but a simple, humble old man who had picked it up, smiled, and shaken his head at the boy.

"Tut... you see things wrongly, my lad. Look for the random in the order." The travelling man wiped a tear from his face irritably, replacing the car in the box. As he did so he caught the teddy's eye, black and accusing.

"Yes, I let her grow up, just as I grew up." The faint Scot's burr of his voice sounded angry, angry at being caught out, angry at being forced to step out of the shadow. He hadn't met her since the Death Zone, an affair made misty by the depredations of pluralism. He sat on the horse now, rocking to and fro. He stroked its mane, delicate little hands, the hands of a musician or a chess player, hands caressing the silvered hair. The TARDIS changed course with a faint lurch, and the man looked up from his old creation crossly, before he understood. He nodded to the old horse, dismounting and reaching into the box. Dust cascaded from the teddy bear as he lifted it. The traveller surveyed his treasure trove thoughtfully. A new eye, some new fur... no. The clock shouldn't be turned back, wounds of valour and loving service should not be healed. Taking the bear in one hand he pushed open the door again and set out, back to the control room and Ace, who would doubtless be even now brewing explosives in the laboratory. He coughed ostentatiously, remembering Borusa's words.

"A student who is caught placing a bucket of water over my office door deserves all he gets; one who places it there and gets away with it will make our finest Lord President." The traveller chuckled, thinking of many buckets of water, and gave a conspiratorial wink to the teddy at his side.

*

It had been a very hot day, and Susan was glad to get back to the farmhouse. David was in London; something to do with a Dalek weapons dump being made safe, and Barbara had been restive. The child didn't like the heat, perhaps a lower body temperature being the last vestige of the long distant Gallifreyan heritage. As they entered the house she ran up to the nursery, leaving Susan to put down the heavy bags. A faint noise echoed in her ears as she tidied away what remained of their picnic, a half remembered echo of twenty years ago.

"Mummy!" Barbara came down the stairs. "Mummy, come and look at this!"

"What is it, Barbara?"

"Come and see!" The child rushed back up the stairs and disappeared. Susan followed, the sound she thought she had heard making her go faster. If one of them had found her then... she entered the nursery. At first it looked as it had always looked, but then she saw the thin square of soil in the corner, about four feet each way, and on the old wooden chair in the middle of it, a battered old teddy bear. Barbara ran over to it, pulling away the label tied around its neck and bringing it to her mother, looking over her shoulder as if afraid the new toy would go away.

"Can we keep him, mummy?"

"Let me see, darling." She took the note. The writing was a half ornate, semi legible scrawl that any who had not known it so well would have despaired to read. Susan knew the hand.

"To the daughter of Susan Campbell;

Please look after this bear,

love,

your barmy old great-grandfather."

She looked up, eyes full of bittersweet tears.

"Yes, Barbara dear... we can keep him."

*

"So, what was all that about?" Ace, arms folded across the back of one of his genuine fake Chippendale chairs, which was creaking ominously, looked up as he entered the TARDIS. He hung his hat and jacket on the hatstand, leant the umbrella against the same, and only then looked up at her. Ace blinked as, for once, he allowed their eyes to meet, and hold that meeting, instead of snatching his eyes away, like someone jealous of a secret. She felt the familiar, overly-intimate feeling, as if someone were letting themselves into her mind with the spare key. Asking about it once, he'd dismissed it as increasing Time Lord powers, increasing with age, and then changed the subject with a curt flick of the wrist. For one moment though, she saw a different man in her mentor's place, a thin old man, eyes scarred with disappointment and regret, hawk nose held high, and silver hair swept back. Then her professor stared back again. He smiled his strange, dark smile, glinting from under bushy eyebrows, the smile that belonged to the man who, after strictly banning her from making explosives, left neat nitroglycerine just lying around in the laboratory, the smile that said for once, let's have some fun.

"A late Christmas present, my dear Ace... and now I think...." he continued, playing the console like a virtuoso pianist, ".. it's about time we had some real fun."

*

He looked around the toy cupboard again. They all seemed comfortable now, nestling quietly. He wondered vaguely if they would miss the old teddy, but knew they would understand. Bertie had suggested it after all. He glanced over at the chess set by the door. The king was where he had put him down, not quite straight. He crossed to tidy it, restore the perfect symmetry of the board, then caught the horse's glittering eye and left the piece, imperfect in an imperfect universe, noticing as he did so that, from this angle, standing amongst the toys, the face was not the sneer he had thought it, but rather a warm, if sorrowful smile.