"So, Alison," said the Doctor, well-practiced, "where would you like to go?"

Alison stood blankly in the console room, feeling the eyes of the alien and the android on her. "I don't—I don't know. I don't have clothes," she said. "Oh my goodness, I don't have a toothbrush."

"You look very nice," said the android who went by the name of the Master, reassuringly.

"That's not what I mean," Alison started to say, and then saw what she supposed must be some sort of electronic sparkle in his eye, and realized he was misunderstanding her quite deliberately. She altered her reply to a dignified, "Thank you."

"There is the wardrobe room," said the Doctor, as if he'd only just thought of it. He waved a long, vague hand: "That way."

Alison eyed the Doctor's own outfit—steampunk vampire chic, she thought, and saved the phrase for future use—and asked, "Is it your wardrobe?"

The Doctor laughed shortly. "Don't worry, I think you'll find something to suit you," he said, patting the console with a curiously personal gesture. "Perhaps even expand your horizons."

Alison found her own way to what the Doctor had called the wardrobe room. It was... extraordinary, actually. It was huge and cluttered, like a poorly maintained second-hand shop, but that wasn't what was impressive: it was the range. Alison found herself with a Victorian frock in one hand, an actual honest-to-God spacesuit in the other, and she felt it really hitting home that the craft she had joined truly could go anywhere in time and space.

And the Doctor had asked her to pick.

A corner of her mind already knew her new fellow travellers enough to realize that, wherever and whenever she selected, they were just as likely to end up halfway across the universe and in the thick of trouble. But she found she didn't mind that quite as much as perhaps she should. All those horrible weeks, she'd longed to do something, to take some kind of action, and no one had been with her.

She had people with her now. Cynical on the surface the Doctor might be, and prone to snap at anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way when he was feeling snappish; and there was something disquieting about his soft-voiced companion, who chose, apparently, to call himself the Master. But, thought Alison comfortably, the two of them seemed to get on beautifully precisely by giving as good as they got, and she could hold her own.

Now for the hard decisions. Not just what to wear, but what to wear where...

When Alison swept back into the console room, the other two looked up immediately from their respective tasks to see what selection she might have made, and what it might mean for their immediate plans.

She hadn't altered her style at all; she was wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt. More importantly, though, she was carrying an armload of other clothes, which she dumped on the console. Her shirt had a yellow smiley face on it.

She held the Victorian frock up to herself and spun around, swirling the long skirt. There was a 60s minidress, a linen sheath from ancient Egypt, and a nano-woven jumpsuit which, to the Doctor's certain knowledge, came from the year 4320.

"You certainly found the wardrobe room," said the Doctor.

"There's a lot of horizons in there," she said.

"So where to first?" the Doctor asked again.

Alison made a thoughtful face. "A supermarket, please," she said.

The Doctor raised one angular eyebrow, and the Master said, "Honestly."

"Because," said Alison, breaking into a smile, "I would like to buy a toothbrush, please. Since I'm going to stay."