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The areas turned out to be residential, and every home Leah tried had a personal computer. None, however, had any electricty coming into their (twin round pin) mains sockets, so trying to find people online was out, even if she could use a foreigncomputer with no access software.

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So instead she started collecting batteries and settled down in one of the more secure first floor flats to pull apart a hifi system and construct a useable Short Wave radio. This she tuned through miles of thick white noise while adding a transmitter.

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The morse code transmitter is easy. It's a few days and a lot of cannibalised electrical appliances before she perfects a battery powered motion device that will keep the SOS code on a loop on a fixed frequency, but she manages that.

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That channel stays open while she starts building a new radio.

[OOC: very much open, but please do not tag if your character would be able to locate and rescue Leah. I want to keep her lost for a while]

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"Of course," she says. "Sorry. Habit. I'm too used to being the only one with any clue what's going on!"

Leah's smile comes through loudly in her voice.

"We have that in common."

"Oh?"

There's a shifting sound, as if the woman on the other end of the line is settling into a soft squishy hair - which is exactly what she's doing.

"Tell me something about yourself, then."

"Me?"

Leah leans back, rocking on the back feet on her chair and deciding she needs to move some furniture around in this flat so she can have a comfy chair here.

"Adopted daughter of a millionaire, which nowadays means I can afford to shop at M&S. Born in Liverpool, lived in London with me Dad for about eight years, then moved back on me own."

"British through and through, eh?" She asks. "I always had a weakness for the Brits."

Not that she herself is exactly English, however much she sounds it. Gallifrey is a rather long way from the UK. . .

"Probably because we're great," Leah informs her. "And I should know, my best friend's a Yank."

"Greatest nation on Earth," agrees the alien.

"I should know. I've tangled with most of them."

"Yeah?"

While she's at it, Leah might as well act like she's never thrown a pillow at a TV depiction of a Dalek.

"Tangled how?"

"You're the one who called me 'Doctor' before I introduced myself," she says with a laugh.

"You tell me. I'll see if there are any gaps that need filling in."

"I don't know everything," Leah protests. "All I can remember is some guy travelling through time in a police phone box, occasionally picking up some innocent little Earthling like Will did with me."

"That's pretty much it," she says. "I couldn't exactly fill you in on my entire life now could I? Did you know, the reason I retired was that I calculated I'd saved every planet in the known universe a minimum of twenty-seven times. I figured that after that, I deserved a rest. Plus, I wanted to get married. Of course, I was still male at that point."

"Male and straight?" Leah hazards. "Or is that a given on your planet?"

"Not a given, no, but I had been. Now - well. It's hard to shake off that much experience."

There would be a wink, if they were face-to-face.

Leah snorts.

"OK, that's bordering on the wrong sort of info, right there."

She doesn't sound like she minds that much.

"Pfft," she snorts. "I'm not giving you any details."

"Keep it that way," Leah tells her.

"Except - OK, I'll bite. What happened to the wife?"

"I. . . sort of left her for my arch-enemy, who was pretty hot, when I wasn't a man."

Of course, then he got himself blown up in a freak accident involving a pair of fusion-powered curling tongs, but that's beside the point.

"Uh."

The conversation has just taken a turn that defies Leah's concept of the Real World.

Only just, though.

"Major personality overhaul?"

"Happens with every regeneration," she says. "The map is the territory, after all."

"So did someone switch sides?"

This is Leah's major obstacle; an unwillingness to see very many shades of grey.

"Cause it'd take more than a genderswap and a regeneration to get me in bed with my archenemy."

"After a fashion," she says. "He'd been betrayed too many times. And ruling the universe is a lot less fun when it's about to be obliterated."

OK, this is good! The bad guy switching sides rather than the person Leah's talking to.

"Can't see it being fun at all," she has to admit, though. "Gues it takes all sorts."

Oh, the Doctor could never give up saving the universe. Even when she tried.

"Me neither, to be honest," she admits. "You'd think I'd have worked out what the attraction was after so many centuries preventing people from managing it, but nope. Not yet."

"Know thy enemy?"

Leah considers this, and shakes her head. "Nah, I don't much want to understand some of the crazies out there."

"It's useful," she says. "But that's one mindset I could never come to grips with. Who would want that much responsibility? You'd never have a moment to yourself."