With a sigh, the Doctor settled into an overstuffed chair. "There," he said, smiling, "that should settle things."

 Wil barely looked up from the book he was pretending to read. "What sort of things?"

 "Oh, you know. Restoring our connection to the Eye of Harmony, returning to the natural universe, that sort of thing." The Doctor tried to catch Wil's eye, but failed.

 "Oh, that." Wil shrugged, and returned to the book.

 The Doctor's smile vanished. Things were getting worse in the TARDIS on almost a daily basis, he thought. He'd expected a certain degree of interpersonal tension when he'd brought Jadi and Angela on board; it was always difficult for humans to adjust to additional people in their daily lives. But adding in a romantic entanglement left things in a rather nasty state, and being trapped in another dimension didn't help matters any. And as bad as things were now, they'd gotten worse when Jadi found out about Angela...

 Pushing these thoughts out of his mind, he levered himself back out of the chair and headed back over to the console. Pulling down a monitor, he started to check their new location.

 "Oh, dear," he muttered, "that can't be right..."

 "What can't be right?" asked Jadi Morok as he entered the console room.

 "The computer display...it should be showing our location."

 Angela Ferris stepped in behind Jadi, quietly slipping her arm through his. "What's it saying?"

 "That 'Halfway up the stair is the place where I sit. There isn't any other stair quite like it. I'm not at the bottom, I'm not at the top; but this is the place where I always stop.' Ah. Pooh."

 "Poo?" asked Jadi, slightly lost.

 "Winnie the Pooh. The TARDIS must be accessing the literary data banks by accident." He thumped the side of the monitor, but the text remained the same. "Still, it is showing excellent taste. Can't fault it that." He turned to the others. "We'll have to recalibrate manually--the dimensional transfer probably confused the poor girl to no end." He pressed a button on the console and a small drawer popped open. From it, he removed three wristwatch-like devices. He then tossed one to Jadi, and another to Angela. "Go ahead and put those on, would you?" As they complied, he explained, "These are navigational locators--the TARDIS equivalent of sextants. When we go outside, they'll automatically quadrilatilate position with the TARDIS and give us our exact position in space and time. Jadi, Angela, and myself will each head off in a different direction. Wil, I'd like you to come with me, please."

 Wil didn't even look up from his book. "Why bother?"

 It's worse than I'd imagined, thought the Doctor. Aloud, he merely quipped, "The fresh air will do you good."

 "Assuming it is air," Angela said. "For all we know, the atmosphere out there is pure hydrochloric acid or something."

 The Doctor seemed unconcerned. "No, no. The TARDIS environmental systems would warn us if it was inhospitable out there."

 "Would these be the same systems that are currently favoring us with selected quotes from children's literature?" Wil asked sweetly.

 "Er...yes, but that's only a minor fault. Trust me, nothing will go wrong."

 Privately, Wil felt less than reassured by this, but he knew better than to try to argue with the Doctor. He set the book aside and joined the others as they prepared to leave.

 "If you're referring to my breath," quipped Wil, "then yes. Good thing you had us all bundle up like this."

 "Traveler's intuition," the Doctor said as he locked the TARDIS door. "Now then, Angela, if you could just head down that alley; Jadi, you head towards that plaza; and Wil, you're with me. The natives look human, so..." the Doctor waved his hands helplessly as he took in the group... "just try to blend in."

 Jadi smirked. "Sure, no problem. How will we know when it's done?"

 "The locator will light up. When that happens, just turn around and walk right back to the TARDIS. Now then, off you go--the sooner we start, the sooner we finish, unless we're caught in a chronosynclastic infindibulum." He started heading off purposefully.

 Jadi and Angela touched hands briefly and set off. Wil paused for a moment, apparently lost in thought, then set off after the Doctor.

 None of them noticed a heavyset man staring intently at the TARDIS.

 He'd seen it a few times before, he thought as he walked without even registering the scenery. Well, not seen it exactly, but he'd heard about it happening a lot of times, and had definitely seen the autopsy results afterwards.

 In the trade, it was called 'Sharon Stone Syndrome', after an ancient 2D vidstar. A law enforcement officer becomes convinced that his mark is innocent. He gets too wrapped up in the case--in the suspect--for his own good. The two wind up getting emotionally, even physically entangled...

 And then she winds up killing him in cold blood when he least expects it.

 And it didn't just happen to guys, either. He remembered Sally Dumadros, a manhunter from one of the colonies near Antares--she'd been tracking a guy down for murdering his wife. The mark was a vidstar, a celebrity, and he claimed that he'd been framed by a psychotic fan. She actually wound up believing him...until he trapped her in the plasma vents of her own ship. She lived, but her face was beyond the reach of even the best reconstructive surgeons. Just thinking about the mass of scar tissue, cyborg eyes replacing the eyeballs that were flash-fried in the first wave of heat...Jadi shuddered. There was no way he was going to end up like that.

 But the hell of it was, he could swear that this time really was different. He knew Angela was a thief; it was pretty obvious, and he'd feel guilty as hell for not turning her in. But the bounty on her--it was way out of line for a simple theft, no matter what was stolen. The bounty on the Cat's Paw wasn't even that big. There was something going on--she was being set up...

 And she'd already shot him once, he thought morosely.

 Jadi sighed. Maybe it'd be best if he just got the Doctor to swing back to their time and let him drop her off, wash his hands of her...

 Then the locator lit up.

 Optical systems scanned every detail of the surrounding area as she walked, but she only let a minimal amount of the information through her priority filters.

 It would have been so easy if she didn't have emotions. This place looked to be a Grade 33 society, but it wouldn't be too difficult to rig up a communications beacon. And even in a worst-case scenario, she could go into sleep mode to await a rescue. It'd be so easy...just take the locator off, throw it as far as she could, and walk away.

 But she loved him.

 At least, she thought it was love. It wasn't really something she'd had experience with. Murder, theft, duplicity...all those, they'd been careful to make sure that she understood perfectly. They'd installed elaborate simulator programs to instill a lifetime's worth of experience into her in a matter of seconds...but the way that another person can become the center of your world, the way that their smile makes you lose track of everything else in the room, the way that their touch on your hand sends a quiet thrill through your neural receptors and straight into your soul...that, they left you to find out on your own.

 And so many other things, too. So many sins she had committed, before she found the Goddess...she hadn't known she had a soul--hadn't even known what one was--until that day. She remembered how terrified she'd been, knowing that there was an all-knowing, all-powerful entity that could hold her accountable for her sins, and punish her...

 She let out a cynical chuckle. There was an all-knowing, all-powerful entity that could punish her, and Jadi was working for them. 'Corporate theft', indeed! They were pissed about losing her...and the little 'prank' she'd pulled on the way out hadn't done anything to endear her to them. She had to be suicidal to even think about getting involved with Jadi when he was working for them, and she knew it. He might whisper sweet words in her ear, and even mean them; but when they got back to their own time, the lure of the money would be too great, and he'd take her back.

 She shuddered. She knew what would happen to her if they got ahold of her again. They would strip her apart atom by atom to find out what had gone wrong; then they'd put her back together with so many filters, buffers and controls that she'd never even think of disobeying again. They'd take away her soul...worse, they'd own it.

 Maybe she was fooling herself. She loved Jadi, she knew it with every fiber of her being; but nothing was worth this maddening dread that she was living with every waking hour. Maybe she could talk to the Doctor and try to convince him to drop her off somewhere out of harm's way...

 Then the locator lit up.

 "You know," the Doctor said, "I can't help but think that I've been here before. These buildings seem familiar..."

 Wil didn't respond. The Doctor looked over at him, but Wil didn't look back; he just kept staring straight down at the street, his arms folded up into his bulky coat. Occasionally he let out a heartfelt sigh.

 "Wil..." the Doctor began hesitantly, then stopped. What would be right to say to him? Benny had always been better at this than she was. She understood humans; then again, that should come as no surprise. But he knew he had to say something...taking a deep breath, he dug in. "Wil, I wanted to apologize for--"

 "I want to go home, Doctor."

 The rest of the Doctor's speech died in his throat. He thought back to his threat to evict Wil from the TARDIS--even at the time, he 'd known it wouldn't help matters, and now... "I...are you sure? I mean...are you sure?"

 "I'm sure," Wil said firmly. "I've been sure since before we got sucked into the black hole, but there was never a good time to tell you until now."

 "Look," said the Doctor, "if this is about the...the whole, er, situation between you, Jadi, and Angela, I can drop them back off in their own time instead. To tell the truth, I'd been having doubts about the wisdom of 'locked-room diplomacy' in any event. I mean, let's face it, no matter how much I try to change Jadi's perspective, he'll still have to deal with the real world..."

 "But I thought that you--you said, back in the TARDIS that you were going to--you'd really do that?" asked Wil.

 "Do what?" asked the Doctor, momentarily lost in a different train of thought.

 "Let them go, just to keep me around. I mean, Jadi's an expert marksman and fighter, Angela's a computer expert and professional thief, but what do I bring to the party? I'm a coward, I can't fight, I can barely understand how to use a computer...I can juggle, but how often is that going to help save the universe? Why would you give up those two for me?"

 The Doctor opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "I don't know how familiar you are with Earth's religions, Wil," he began hesitantly, "but one of the major ones is about a man, Jesus Christ, who died and returned to the world as a god. On the day of his birth, three prophets arrived bearing gifts for him.

 "One of those gifts was myrrh, a scented oil that was used to anoint the bodies of the dead. It was said that the prophet knew Jesus would return from the dead as a god...but the scent of myrrh, he hoped, would stay with him and remind him that he, too, was once mortal."

 He put his hand on Wil's shoulder and smiled. "Crack shots are a dime a dozen, Wil, and thieves are, well...as thick as thieves. But you--you have a rare gift. You understand me. When I get too lost, wrapped up in all of the plots and tricks and schemes, you can show me what it's like to be alone, human, and afraid. When I lose my soul, you can show me where it is. I need that."

 Wil smiled gently, and wiped a tear from his eye. "Thank you, Doctor...you can never know how much that means to me. But I still have to go."

 The Doctor's face fell. "But you can't!"

 Wil shook his head. "I have to do this, Doctor. It's not about Jadi or Angela. It's about me. I've been running away from too many things for too long--things that are my responsibility. I can't keep running from my responsibilities, Doctor. You taught me that."

 The Doctor sighed. "You're determined, aren't you?"

 Wil nodded. "Afraid so."

 "Very well. As soon as we get back to the TARDIS, I'll set the controls for Paracastria." He forced a smile. "It'll be nice to see Grace again, I suppose..."

 Then the locator lit up.

 "Ah!" exclaimed the Doctor, his sadness momentarily forgotten. "We've got a position. Let's see where we are, shall we?" He tapped a button on the side of the locator, and a small holographic display appeared. "Hmmm...Earth, it appears...Petrograd--Russia! See, Wil, I knew I recognized this place! Now, let's see when we are...5:45 PM, November 7th, 19...17..." he trailed off in shock, then stopped abruptly. Grabbing Wil's arm, he turned and started walking rapidly back to the TARDIS.

 "Hey, hey, whoa, what's the problem?" Wil cried out as his legs, which were still moving the opposite direction, nearly shot out from under him.

 "I think we might just have overstayed our welcome, Wil," said the Doctor as he walked, his light tone belying his rapid gait.

 "Why? What's wrong?" Wil was trying to get himself turned around, but the Doctor's grip made it awkward. "What did we wind up in this time?"

 "A revolution, Wil. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March--he tried to pass the throne on to his son and brother first, but the Russians wouldn't allow it. They set up a Provisional Government headed by Alexander Kerensky." He paused. "Odd...eight centuries later, his descendant would crush just such a rebellion..." He shrugged, and continued.

 "In any event, Kerensky's Provisional Government didn't last long. Bolshevik revolutionaries were constantly demanding change, and World War I just exacerbated things. On October 24th, revolutionaries led by Lenin stormed the Winter Palace and executed the Provisional Government."

 "But that was on October 24th!" Wil had managed to settle into a crablike walk behind the Doctor. "You said it was November 7th!"

 "November 7th by the Gregorian calendar. The Russians are still using the Julian calendar, and to them, it's October 24th..." he fell silent as he came into view of the TARDIS.

 A squad of armed men ringed the police box, blocking it from any attempts at entrance. In front of them stood a slim, balding man with a goatee and moustache.

 The Doctor stopped, and Wil walked directly into his back. "Well," the Doctor whispered, "we are in illustrious company indeed. Probably on his way to the Bolshevik headquarters when he got word of the TARDIS materializing...something like that would get anyone's attention." Raising his voice in the manner of a presenter, he announced, "Gwilym Young, allow me to introduce Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, also known as Vladimir Lenin."

 TO BE CONTINUED...