When he woke, The Doctor's head was in halves. Bleary-eyed, he rolled his eyes around his surroundings and groaned. God, he felt awful.

"Hello!", lilted a Scottish voice from outside the containment field. Focusing his vision, he saw Missy sitting in his chair, a pile of papers at her feet. "You really do snore, you know that? Like a foghorn you were. I can't remember your other regenerations having that. Have you just picked it up?" Rolling over, The Doctor groaned and noticed the empty bottles surrounding him.

"C-can you be a bit quieter?" he asked, wincing at the light of the containment field.

"Aw, sweetheart. What hurts? Head, legs, neck?"

"Yes", The Doctor answered quickly and then sat bolt upright, a wave of realisation washing over him. "Missy, what day is it?"

"I believe it's Earth's Monday". The Doctor groaned, just what he needed: a classroom full of university students and a hangover. What was he even meant to teach? Poetry, or physics? They were practically the same thing, and it's not like any of his lectures stayed on the same subject anyway. He just had to pick one and hope for the best. 

"Why did you let me drink so much?" he asked, grabbing his clothes from the corner of the room and pulling his trousers on, not questioning how they were off in the first place. He was in too much of a rush to think of such things. Besides, he could take a wild guess at what had happened.

"Hey, you bring the whiskey, I'll bring the party", Missy murmured under her breath and then picked up the papers from the floor. "I did this for you", she hummed awkwardly, not quite knowing how to introduce the fact that she had actually done something out of character. "I hope it helps".

"Oh wow, Missy. Thank you", The Doctor answered, a small glimmer of hope appearing in his eyes at her change in nature. "Thank you so much". He went to reach for them, and then found the containment field bending around his hands, holding him back. Blue rays highlighted the hexagonal mesh that formed the field and The Doctor's smile fell.

"This thing goes, Theta. You can lock me behind a door, but this takes it too far".

"I'm not trying to lock you away, I just want you to be safe".

"No, you want the world out there to be safe", she snapped back. Her temper was growing with every hour she hadn't done something bad and, even though most of the time he hadn't deserved it, Missy always directed it at The Doctor. "When will you decide to trust me?"

"I do trust you. But I trust what you are now, rather than what you have been. I know he's been in your head, telling you things, trying to take you back". Missy stood back slightly from the field, flicking her eyes from the floor to The Doctor.

"How did you know?"

"I can hear him. Whenever I try to reach you, all I can hear is him. I thought how you can live with it, the constant noise, the voice in your ear. No wonder you're snappy".

"I'm not-" she started, then stopped, realising that her voice had raised. "Snappy", she finished, calmer.

"Okay, fair enough. I'll take the containment field down. Not that I could get you back in anyway", The Doctor answered, then backtracked slightly, realising what he had actually promised. "But let me keep it as a... Precaution. I'm sorry, but-"

"It's okay. I get it. You can't trust me completely. And that's my fault. It's all my fault and I understand", Missy murmured, defeated. "I don't know how much longer I can take this, Doctor. I want to do the right thing, I really do, but how can I when the past is against me?"

"We'll find a way. We always do", The Doctor replied with a smile and Missy took his sonic screwdriver from her pocket, pointing it at the controls. The blue screen fell and The Doctor walked forward a few steps to face Missy. "You going to be okay?"

"Yeah", she murmured quietly, then grinned. "Don't bring home any strays". 

"Would I ever?"

Yes, yes you would".

:/:

A few hours later

He realised he had got it wrong the moment the students looked at the covers of their textbooks in confusion, wondering whether they had walked into a completely different class by accident. But no, here he was. The Doctor, a physics teacher, explaining iambic pentameter to a group of extremely grumpy pupils. 

Except one. 

You always knew when you walked into a teaching job you'd see a whole range of people of different backgrounds and attitudes. You had the quiet ones, the troublemakers, the ones who didn't want to be there, but if there was one thing that denominated them all it was their confusion at anything that seemed different. And how quickly that confusion translated onto their faces in such deep frowns. But as he scanned his audience of frowning faces, he noticed that there was one different. One smiling. As if the challenge of understanding amused her. He had noticed that she had come to many of his lectures, but looked too old to be part of the students. She always came in at the same time, same seat, same eager eyes watching the blackboard as The Doctor filled it with equations and who knows what. It made The Doctor wonder, why was she here? Surely you would have thought that she would have better things to do with her time than listen to him grumble on about something that wasn't even on the syllabus. He would have to ask her, but not let anything spiral out of hand. Missy did say after all to not take anyone out in the TARDIS, and besides, he had been lonely since Amy and Rory... You know.

If he was to be perfectly honest with himself, he really couldn't remember what had happened between Manhattan and now, he just guessed. He would have remembered if there was someone else. Why stop a run of loneliness now, eh? But he wanted to, he so wanted to. Just to have someone to impress. It's not like he could take anyone he knew. Nardole shut down every now and again, Missy knew more than him about the TARDIS anyway, and River, well, he had mucked about with her timeline too many times already for him to go back and see her. 

Yep, he'd convinced himself. It really didn't take much. He'd ask Nardole to investigate and organise her to meet him. He'd just ask her why she was here out of pure curiousity and that would be it, right?

:/:

Bill was not sure what she was more confused by, the fact that she had been called in by a teacher she'd never even met or the strange squeaking coming from the man who escorted her. Heading through the door into what was quite a beautiful office. It was wood-panelled, almost symmetrical in character, decorated in weird and wonderful things. Now she thought about it, it was more like a museum than an office. Over the mantelpiece hung a 1661 Rembrandt self-portrait and a collection of brass clocks ticked away in unison. The duffel-coated man gestured for her to sit in front of the desk, still squeaking for some unknown reason. Something fell from his arm and he smiled, trying to cover it up. Backing away, he closed the door behind him. 

"Strange", Bill thought to herself and sat down. Though that probably wasn't the weirdest thing she had ever seen in this university since she started. Standing up again, she curiously examined the room around her, taking in the eccentric decor. A blue Police Telephone Box was parked in the corner by a large window, with an 'Out of Order' sign hanging from its doors. The desk that took up most of the room was cluttered with photographs of two women, one in black and white, the other in colour. Papers covered most of it, but a pencil pot with weird devices protruding from it stood in the corner. Reaching for one of them, she jumped as the sound of a guitar reverberated through the office, disturbing the peace. Beethoven's Fifth, she recognised it as. Her classical music knowledge wasn't as bad as she had previously thought. Whoever was playing continued, not noticing her presence. 

"Ahem!" she coughed, halting the melody and she heard the door behind her open. 

"Potts?" said a voice, and she turned around to see who it was. She immediately recognised him as The Doctor. It wasn't like it could be anyone else, who else would wear tartan in England? 

"Yeah", she answered and he went around to the other side of the desk and sat down. 

"Bill Potts". 

"You wanted to see me?"

"Er, you're not a student at this university".

"Nah, I work in the canteen".

"Yeah, but you come to my lectures". 

"No, I don't. I never do that", Bill answered quickly. Busted. 

"I've seen you".

"Love your lectures. They're totally awesome".

"Why'd you come to my lectures when you're not a student?"

"Okay, so my first day here, in the canteen, I was on chips. There was this girl. Student. Beautiful. Like a model, only with talking and thinking. She looked at you and you perved. Every time, automatic, like physics. Eye contact, perversion. So I gave her extra chips. Every time, extra chips. Like a reward for all the perversion. Every day, got myself on chips, rewarded her. Then finally, finally, she looked at me, like she'd noticed, actually noticed, all the extra chips. Do you know what I realised? She was fat. I'd fatted her. But that's life, innit? Beauty or chips. I like chips. So did she. So that's okay", she explained and then realised she was trying to talk her way out of things, as per usual. 

 "And how does that in any way explain why you keep coming to my lectures?"

"Yeah, it doesn't really, does it? I was hoping something would develop. What's that? A police telephone box?" she said, changing the subject. It was one of her flaws, she guessed: trying to make things better with words. All it really did was dig her a massive hole to climb out of. He seemed to take the bait though and walked towards the box in question, seemingly amused at her mild interest. 

"Yeah". 

"Did you build it from a kit?"

"No, it came like that". 

"Then how did you get it in here? The door's too small and so are the windows". 

"I had the window and a part of the wall taken out and it was lifted in". 

"What, with a crane?"

"Yeah, with a crane. It's heavier than it looks. Why do you keep coming to my lectures?"

"Because I like them. Everybody likes them. They're amazing. Why me?"

"Why you what?"

"Well, plenty of people come to your lectures that aren't supposed to. Why pick on me?"

"Well, I noticed you".  

"Yeah, but why?"

"Well, most people when don' t understand something, they frown. You smile". 

"I'll tell you what I don't understand. You've been lecturing here for a long time. Like, fifty years, some people say. Nabeela in the office says over seventy". 

"Yeah, and you're thinking, 'Well, he doesn't look old enough'".

"No. I'm wondering what you're supposed to be lecturing on. It's like the university let you do whatever you like. One time, you were going to give a lecture on quantum physics. You talked about poetry". 

"Poetry, physics, same thing". 

"How is it the same?"

"Because of the rhymes. What are you doing at this university?"

"I always wanted to come here".

"Yeah, to serve chips?"

"So anyway, am I nearly done?"

"Do you want to be?"

"See ya", Bill quipped and stood up from her chair. What a waste of ten minutes. 

:/:

"Don't you dare, Doctor", he kept saying to himself. "You have a duty to Missy, and God help you if you break that". He kept thinking about what she said, 'Don't bring home any strays'. But whether he could help himself was a different question altogether. 

"You ever get less than a first, then it's over", he pronounced, half of himself being against him as the words came out of his mouth.

"You what?" Bill asked, stopping in the doorframe. He had peaked her attention. 

"A first. Every time, or I stop immediately".

"Stop what?"

"Being your personal tutor". Oh God, he'd gone and done it. This wasn't even him talking anymore, it was just the loneliness of a couple of hundred years reaching out for something to hang onto. 

"But I'm not a student. I'm not part of the university. I never even applied". 

"We'll sort all that out later", The Doctor answered, pushing the argument aside. He was getting hopeful and he kicked himself for it, for it always seemed that his hope always hit a dead end. 

"You kinda have to sort that out earlier". 

"Leave it with me. I'm assuming that it's a yes". 

"Yes". 

"I'll see you at 6pm every weekday. I don't care who's dying, never, ever be late. I'm very particular about time". 6pm, that would give him enough time to give a lesson and get back for Missy. He would just have to make an excuse for being slightly later, even if she would probably hiss at him expletives for the first few days. She really was like a one of those domesticated lionesses that humans liked so fondly and recording videos of frequently. Cats, that was it. He had came across a student watching one and couldn't help finishing the video under his desk when he had confiscated it. Most intriguing indeed how this was a popular form of entertainment, though The Doctor could see how it could brighten a day. Missy was definitely a cat, perhaps one that had not been allowed to go out and bit him whenever he left her for too long. 

"Oh, er. People just call you the Doctor? What do I call you?

"The Doctor". 

"But Doctor's not a name. I can't just call you Doctor. Doctor what?"

:/:

A/N: Sorry for the wait. Been through a bit of a hard time health-wise, but I'm back now and the next part is in the works. Probably going to be out by about Wednesday. Thanks for being so patient - L x