"They found it in Hong Kong."

"Really? And you say it was addressed to this school?" Headmaster Stevens examined the strange box the secretary had brought him. It was a cube two centimetres along each side, made of a strange metal with no visible seams. A hand-written card attached to the top of the box gave only the school's address and the letters "VW."

"The letter that came with it said it was discovered during the excavation for one of the new buildings in Hong Kong, and was dated as being two hundred years old."

"But that's long before this school was built," exclaimed the headmaster. "How can that be possible? And who or what is VW?" His face screwed up with confusion for a moment. "Volkswagen?"

The secretary could only shrug.

 

The long, dark corridor stretched before her. It had no doors on either side, no means of hope or escape. It was lit only by a bluish light, seeping under the lone door at the other end. She felt drawn to the light – it seemed familiar. Without knowing how she moved, she drew closer, and suddenly she could make out the words on the door. It was the headmaster's office. Her hand reached out and the door opened in perfect silence. The source of the blue light was a small metal box on the desk. She stepped up to it and reached out her hand...

Victoria awoke with a start into strange surroundings. Several panic-stricken seconds later, she remembered where she was. The moonlit dormitory, her roommate sleeping soundly in the other bed.

This was the third time she had dreamt of that box. Each time, it had seemed more real than reality itself, in a strange way, and she had fought back a powerful urge to go to the office immediately. She dared not, knowing the consequences. But the sense of urgency was too overwhelming.

She left the room quietly and crept down the corridor to the headmaster's office. Her heart beating madly, she turned the door handle and pushed, and was astonished when the door actually opened. On the desk she saw the little box, exactly as she had dreamt it, except without the glow. She was hesitant to touch it, yet the feeling in the dream had been one of an honest reassurance. Trembling with fear, her fingers gently brushed the top of the box.

It opened.

She gasped, but nothing else happened. Inside, there was only a piece of paper, seemingly torn from a notebook. Written on it, in a familiar handwriting, was a message to her.

"My dear Victoria," it read. "Please come to the Det Sen monastery and bring the following items: a bottle of sodium chloride solution, a towel and a ham sandwich. Hurry. The Doctor."

Memories flooded through her. The Doctor...her second father through time. Rereading the note, she knew nothing would stop her from helping him.

 

Precisely one week later, Victoria faced the deserted monastery, the bittersweet memories which she thought she had left behind flooding through her. Yet again, she asked herself if she should have told anyone where she was going, and yet again she knew it couldn't have been any other way. She took a deep breath and pushed her way carefully through the front gate, one door of which was hanging askew. Only shadows and ghosts of the past followed her.

Trembling with fear, she remembered the last time she had been here. The half-heard voices of Professor Travers and the monks seemed to echo from the dim corners. She felt drawn to the Abbott's chamber and realized that she remembered the way perfectly. She suddenly found herself at his door, but didn't know if she had taken minutes or hours to get there. Mustering her courage, she pushed it open.

Before her was a man, frozen in a running position, encased in web. His hand reaching for the door, just meters away.

"Doctor!" she cried as she rushed forward to pull the web off of him. It wouldn't move. It seemed stronger than she remembered. She reached into the bag, pulled out the bottle of sodium chloride solution and poured its contents over the web. It dissolved on contact and the Doctor stumbled into her arms.

"Doctor!" she cried.

"Victoria!" The Doctor beamed with delight, clapping his hands and bouncing on his feet. "You got my message! Did you bring a towel?"

"What?" Victoria asked, taken aback. But the Doctor was already rooting through her bag. He pulled out the towel she had brought and began drying himself off.

"Doctor, what's going on?" Victoria asked. "Where's Jamie?"

"Jamie's in 16th-century Manchuria."

"What?" Victoria's eyebrows shot into her hair. "How did he get there?"

"I'll explain later." The Doctor tossed the towel to her casually. She didn't see it coming and it landed cleanly over her head, covering her face. She pulled it off with exasperation, only to find the Doctor rummaging through her bag again. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but the Doctor beat her to it. "What took you so long?" he asked.

"I got here as quickly as I could!" she retorted. "I managed to get some information out of the school secretary, and she told me that strange box was found, two hundred years old, in Hong Kong!"

"Oh, dear," the Doctor answered, sounding apologetic but not looking it in the slightest. "I must have let my mind wander. Must look into that some day. Victoria, did you not bring that ham sandwich?"

Victoria sighed good-naturedly, opened a side pocket on her backpack and pulled out a crusty sandwich containing salted ham. Before she could speak, the Doctor took it from her and hungrily tore into it.

"Doctor, why did you ask me to bring you a sandwich?" she asked.

"I uz undry."

"What?"

The Doctor swallowed. "I was hungry."

"Don't you have any food?"

"Yes, but I had a craving for a ham sandwich." He fell silent and looked at the floor, munching thoughtfully.

"Doctor, what are you doing here?" Victoria asked.

"Well, I was trying to stop the Great Intelligence from taking over the world."

"Again?"

"Third time's a charm. I thought I had defeated it but I was caught in one of its traps. I had just enough time to send out that message before I was frozen."

She looked around nervously. "Is it gone?"

Sighing heavily, he replied, "For now. But I don't think it will try anything here again. Shall we go?"

She hesitated before saying, "I'm not going with you, Doctor. I want to live a normal life."

The Doctor looked sadly at Victoria. "If that's what you want. At least let me take you back to the school."

As they left the Abbott's chamber, a powerful, hidden force quietly planted a seed in Victoria's mind, and a whisper barely echoed through the empty halls.

"Victoria...," it sighed, as soft as a breeze. "You shall return to me..."