"You won't believe the things I've seen,
Far beyond your wildest dreams,
I've seen chaos and order reign supreme."

From the song Things I've Seen by Spooks.

The Doctor sat in the plastic chair, at the plastic table, under the plastic sunshade. He sighed. Why did mass produced items have to look cheap and tacky? Why couldn't somebody, somewhere, put some effort into making them look artistic or natural?

He smiled slightly, despite his melancholy mood. Cheap and nasty was cheap and nasty, there was no getting away from that basic fact.

When Jack returned from inside the cafe with two teas and two slices of cheesecake, the Doctor was polishing his glasses on his white silk scarf. Though he hadn't been travelling with the elderly Time Lord for long, Jack knew this was a bad sign.

"What's wrong?" he asked, setting his burden down on the plastic table.

The Doctor looked up, blinking owlishly at him. "Nothing." He then sighed deeply. "Everything."

Jack frowned. "Still thinking about her?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, much deeper thoughts than that. Jack, you're a good man. That's why I want to take you home."

"Sick of my company already?"

"Far from it. You're brave and loyal, always good traits in a companion. But I don't want your life on my conscience."

"I have no intention of cashing in my chips just yet, thank you," Jack replied.

The Doctor sighed. "I'm serious, Jack. The Grindocks were ready to execute you. We barely escaped their clutches."

Jack shrugged. "I trusted you to get us out safely," he said, recalling their most recent adventure. "And my trust wasn't misplaced."

"What I'm trying to say is, one day our luck will run out. It's happened before."

"I'm sure it has. But you're still here, and so are most of your friends, thanks to you."

The Doctor frowned deeply. "I'm not a safe person to be around. The things I've seen, things I've done." He shook his head. "You would be safer half the Universe away from me."

Again Jack shrugged. "I don't have anything to return home for. I would much rather be helping you, saving reality from the scum of the Universe."

The Doctor smiled slightly at that remark. "I'm not making a very good case for putting you off am I?"

Jack shook his head. "Not a bit of it. I'm along for the ride, Doctor."

"Nothing I can say will put you off?"

"Nothing. I'm looking forward to the strange, the weird and the wonderful."

The Doctor frowned. "There is a lot of strangeness out there Jack." He paused for a moment, savouring his cheesecake. "I was involved in a strange incident that happened just before I met you. I think it will illustrate the alienness of the Universe perfectly."

"I'm all ears," Jack replied.

***

Alone. How come he always ended up alone?

The Doctor stood over the console of the TARDIS. He was supposed to be monitoring passage through the vortex. Instead he was brooding.

His recent visit with Sarah hadn't helped. He had called in on his former companion to cheer himself up after the incident with Thaylia.

Thaylia. He closed his eyes, shutting out the painful memory again. With time the pain would ease, but it would never go completely. But now, he needed to focus elsewhere.

Sarah had told him of the strange incident at the motorway service station a few months earlier. Of the handsome young Time Lord who she had mistaken for an attacker, but had in fact been her rescuer.

The Doctor had listened to the story, nodding and smiling, while his mind worked furiously. The young man sounded very much like Vaidya. It was the assassin that worried him. He made his excuses a short time later and left, intending to check if this had been an isolated incident.

A visit to Alistair and Doris had confirmed his worst fears. Somebody was targeting his former companions. But who? And how did he stop them?

He needed more information, so he had set the co-ordinates and plunged the TARDIS into the vortex. But his mind refused to concentrate on the task ahead, intent on the melancholy of a stroll down memory lane.

A beeping from the console alerted him to the fact that all was not well. A light was flashing insistently, calling his attention.

"That's odd," he muttered to himself. He flicked a switch but the light stubbornly refused to stop flashing.

The Doctor frowned. The light indicated that the TARDIS had stopped moving, yet the time rotor continued its smooth rise and fall.

He checked the scanner, but it didn't tell him much. There was only blackness, no stars or light of any kind, yet the instruments showed him that the TARDIS should still be in the vortex.

The trumpeting roar of materialisation filled the console room. The time rotor slowed and stopped.

The Doctor checked the readings. They told him the TARDIS had landed where it was supposed to be. Somehow, he doubted that was true.

Bracing himself, he operated the door release and stepped outside.

The blackness he had seen on the scanner was all around him. There was nothing to give him a sense of scale or perspective.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Hello," he called.

The sound of his voice echoed away swallowed up by the darkness.

The Doctor frowned. "I assume I'm here for a reason," he said, addressing the blackness. "Now I'm sure your time is valuable and I have somewhere to be, so can we get on with it?"

Again, his voice bounced away into the darkness. There was no reply.

The Doctor sighed. He went back into the console room and tried to initiate dematerialisation. The controls were frozen, as he suspected.

A few minutes later he stepped out of the TARDIS once more. He set up a deck chair beside the craft, lowered himself into it and produced a battered paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

"In your own time," he said to the darkness, settling down to read.

***

The Doctor had nearly finished a chapter when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Looking up, he focused on what had caught his attention.

Over to his left, ripples of light were bisecting the darkness. A slight smile crossed the Doctor's face.

Accompanying the light ripples was a deep booming, rather like thunder.

"It's about time you showed yourself, whoever you are," the Doctor commented.

The light show and thunder continued for a couple of minutes. During that time, the light became more focused and the thunder developed a pattern.

The Doctor stood up, laying his book in the deck chair. "Now we're getting somewhere."

The light was taking form. A humanoid figure, slowly taking on substance and characteristics, until it stood before the Doctor, fully formed.

"Now we're getting somewhere," the figure repeated with a voice like thunder.

"Oh my," the Doctor murmured.

"Oh my," the duplicate Doctor boomed.

The Doctor winced. "There is no need to shout, old chap," he admonished his doppelganger.

The duplicate frowned. "Why not?"

"Ah, so you're not just a sophisticated parrot."

"No, I'm a representative of the intelligence that inhabits this space."

"Good," the Doctor replied. "Maybe you could tell me why I'm here."

"Why are any of us here?"

The Doctor sighed. "That's all I need. A philosophical sentience."

The duplicate smiled. "Your trouble, Doctor, is that you've lost your sense of humour over the centuries."

"And you haven't, I suppose?"

"No. I am an amalgam, built from your personalities and memories. I have all your qualities, good and bad."

"I'm very happy for you," the Doctor commented. "Now, will you please answer my question?"

The mirror image considered. "Why are you here? Because One detected your craft. One was curious. One wanted a better understanding of the outside."

"You do seem rather full of yourself, if I may say," the Doctor said. "Referring to yourself as One. Or are you the local royalty?"

"It is the best designation One can find in your strange vocabulary. This entity," the double gestured around, encompassing their surroundings, "is One. There are no separate parts, no others, just One."

The Doctor nodded. "I see. A gestalt. You are a single being of many parts."

"That is correct," said One.

" 'Call me Legion, for I am many'," the Doctor quoted. "But that still doesn't explain my being here."

One looked at its shoes, obviously embarrassed. "One has studied other beings from afar, seen their uniqueness. At first, One found this frightening. Then the thought became appealing. One reached out beyond and brought you here."

"So One was curious," the Doctor deduced. "I can understand that. Well, ask me anything and I'll answer as best I can. Then I'll be on my way."

One shook his white-haired head. "No, Doctor, One is not curious. One is lonely. One requires that you remain here and keep One company. Forever."

At first the Doctor was surprised. Then he was annoyed. Finally, he was angry.

"You can't do that! I have a life to lead, friends who need me. You can't just imprison me here!"

"Friends," said One, considering. "Beings like yourself to whom you have an attachment. The One wants to be your friend."

The Doctor scowled. "A friend would not hold another friend against their will. Let me leave!"

"The One cannot allow the Doctor to leave. The One does not want to be alone again."

"There must be another way," the Doctor said.

"The One can see no other way." The One took off its spectacles and began polishing them on its silk scarf.

The Doctor was thinking, his brow creased. "How did you come into existence?" he asked.

"Do you mean originally?"

"No, I mean this duplicate of me I'm talking to. How was it created?"

"The One scanned your physical and mental self. The duplicate was created from raw energy."

"How long can it last?" was the Doctor's next question.

"Forever. It is unlikely the One will need to absorb this energy pattern again."

The Doctor smiled slightly. "If I could help you create a companion, would you release me?"

"The One has seen into your mind, Doctor. The One knows you are cunning and clever. If you trick the One, the One will bring you back here."

"Sounds fair," the Doctor replied. "Now, if you would care to follow me." The Doctor picked up his book and chair and led the way into the TARDIS.

The One didn't express any surprise about the difference in size between the inside and outside of the time craft. The Doctor found that quite refreshing.

The Time Lord approached the console and placed his hands on the smooth plates that contained the telepathic circuits. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again and stepped away.

"You can still communicate with the rest of your parts?" he asked.

The One nodded. "We are linked across the dimensional bridge."

"That's why I left the doors open," the Doctor said with a smile. "Now, place your hands as I did and relay what you get to the rest of the One."

The One did as the Doctor suggested. The process took a couple of minutes. Then the One looked up and stepped back.

"It is done."

The Doctor nodded. "Shall we go and see?" He walked out of the TARDIS, followed by the One.

The light was rippling again. The thunder boomed. As the Doctor and the One watched, something began to form from the light. It was a figure, human characteristics becoming more obvious. Finally the figure stepped forward.

"Hello, Doctor, One. I am Two."

Two wasn't quite what the Doctor expected.

It was less androgynous than he thought it would be, but he supposed the stronger female features represented the greater number of females he had travelled with.

Two's hair was short and dark, very much like the style Tegan had when they had met again in Amsterdam. The mouth was definitely Jade's, especially when Two scowled. The nose reminded him of Zoe, small and petite. The eyes were Grace's, the confident gaze of the professional.

The clothing was an interesting mixture also. Two's light blue blouse looked exactly like the one Sarah had worn when he had visited her so recently. The cardigan over it made him think of Barbara, while the yellow striped jacket was the one Peri had worn for a while. The blue jeans could have been worn by a number of previous companions, but the silver belt buckle, showing a prancing horse, was Sheri's. The boots belonged to Ace, without a doubt.

At first the ring on Two's left hand reminded him of Jo Grant, but then he realised it was a pale blue stone with an Omega symbol imbedded into it. An Academy ring. Thaylia's Academy ring.

The Doctor took most of this in at first glance. Two grinned.

"Do you like it?" Two asked, turning.

"Amazing," One replied.

The Doctor nodded. "I assume you have an amalgam personality, Two?"

"Of course. The telepathic circuits have picked up a lot over the centuries."

They certainly have, the Doctor thought. He had noticed a number of different inflections in Two's voice, and more than one accent hidden in there as well.

"Are you happy with your new companion?" the Doctor asked One.

One smiled. "How could I not be? I am an amalgam of your thoughts and personalities, after all."

"Then I am free to go?"

"With the blessing of One, Doctor."

"And of Two."

The Doctor paused in the TARDIS doorway. "Enjoy eternity together," he told them.

"Thank you, Doctor," said One.

"Goodbye, Doctor," said Two, waving.

The Doctor smiled at them, then walked into the TARDIS, leaving One with its new companion.

***

"So you see, Jack, there are all sorts of strange beings out there in the Universe. If I hadn't been so worried about my companions, I might still be there now, in One's domain."

Jack favoured the Doctor with one of his rare smiles. "It sounds like fun."

The Doctor sighed. "You're not going to be dissuaded, are you?"

"Nope. Looks like you're stuck with me."

The Doctor smiled slightly. "I'll just have to try and keep you safe then."

"And vice versa," Jack replied.

"Well, if you insist on staying with me, it will cost you."

Jack looked uncertain for a moment. "How do you mean?"

"Oh, the price of another cup of tea should cover any travel expenses," the Doctor said innocently.

Jack grinned. "I should have seen that one coming." He stood. "It's a deal," he told the elderly Time Lord, heading back into the cafe.