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The Prime Minister made his way through the halls of 10 Downing Street, smiling and nodding at the people that he passed. He avoided a few different hallways - the last thing he needed right now was to get into a row with his Director of Communications - but eventually made it up to his office. He couldn’t help the slight sigh of relief that escaped him. It had been a long day of nothing but meetings, and he was more than ready to dip into the bottle of scotch tucked away in a cabinet behind his desk. The heavy wooden door opened without a sound, and he quickly shut it behind him.He froze. A woman with blonde hair was sitting at his desk, a small frown on her face as she stared intently at the desk toy that she had in her hands. She was examining it like it was the most fascinating thing that she had ever seen. Her booted feet were up on the desk, and the sleeves of her coat were pushed up around her elbows. In the corner, a large blue box stood, glowing eerily from the inside.“Who are you?” he asked, his hand creeping towards the panic button in his pocket. Pressing it would have every security guard in the building running for them, ready to take out this woman in a heartbeat.“Don’t bother with the button - I’ve disabled it.” The woman said, then continued playing with the toy. ”What is this?” she asked, sounding amazed even as she ignored the question that he had asked her. “It’s a bird, made out of metal, but it still drinks water!”“Who are you?” he repeated. He was starting to get nervous.“I'm the Doctor.” she said, barely looking up from the toy that she was still playing with. “Who are you?”He blinked. It was rare these days that people didn’t know who he was, especially if they were waiting in his office for him to show up. But then if this woman was who he thought she was, then he supposed it was perfectly reasonable for her to not know who he was. Even if it did hurt his pride a little. But he had heard enough stories from his predecessors to know to tread softly - even if she did look like she had just stepped out of the nearest thrift store. “I’m the Prime Minister.”“Huh.” she said, looking slightly disappointed. “I thought you might be Ed Sheeran. I keep wantin’ to meet him.”“Why would Ed Sheeran be in the Prime Minister’s office?” he asked.“Dunno.” she shrugged, looking slightly confused herself. “Why am I in the Prime Minister’s office?”“The Doctor?” he asked, repeating her answer from earlier and shelving her question. “Really?”She looked pleased with herself, standing up from his chair and gently placing the desk toy back in its place. Her coat swished gracefully around her ankles as she made her way around the desk, making a beeline for the books that were proudly displayed on the shelves. “Ah, so you've heard of me then.” she said absently, a noise of disappointment escaping her as she realized that the books were just for show, all of them texts on political treatise.“Ms. Stewart… may have mentioned you.” he admitted. It was only once in passing, when one of her subordinates had burst into a meeting with her mobile pressed against her ear, saying something about an ‘Ultimate Code Red’. The UNIT director had gone pale for a moment, before jumping out of her seat and barking orders. She had left their meeting without another word, striding out the door and asking if the Doctor had arrived yet. “Oh good, so you know Kate as well. You know who I am, you know who Kate is - don’t really need to do much exposition, do I?” she said, an almost proud look in her eye at the mention of the woman. That in itself was enough to make the Prime Minister nervous. Dr. Lethbridge-Stewart - the former director of UNIT - had been a thorn in his side for far too long. Between her insistence that ‘science leads’ and her despicably honorable way of not using her father’s influence to help her gain power, he had no power over her. “That makes this much easier.”His eyes narrowed as he stared at the woman who looked far too pleased with herself.“Makes what easier?” he asked, staring her down with all the strength that he had. She barely even noticed.“Now, we just had an alien invasion where the entire planet could have been lost to one of the most terrifyin’ creatures in the universe.” she began, moving back over towards the desk “It was so bad, I had to call in for backup.”The Prime Minister winced, sensing where this was going. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation, especially since she was standing between him and the bottle of scotch in his desk.“So imagine my surprise when I call UNIT, expectin’ to get a team headed by a Lethbridge-Stewart, and get told that they don't exist anymore, because they've been defunded.” the look on her face expressed exactly what she thought of the situation.He tried to speak up, to defend the choices that he had made, but she steamrolled over him. “This planet lost good people today, because we didn't have the backup we needed.” she said, leaning back against his desk. “So I’m goin’ to ask you nicely - actually, I’m goin’ to tell you. Get UNIT back up an’ runnin’. This planet needs to be defended.” Despite the pleasant look on her face, her eyes were hard, and he could tell that she expected to be obeyed. So he did the only thing that he could do in the situation - he gave in. “Alright.”The Doctor nodded, looking pleased. “And Kate?” “What about her?” he asked. He already had a feeling that he knew what she was going to say, and was dreading it.“You can't have UNIT without a Lethbridge-Stewart at the helm.” The Doctor explained, just barely managing to keep herself from smirking at the man. “Remember that.”And with her piece said, the ancient alien stepped into her box. Within a moment the box was fading out of sight, a strange wheezing noise sounding as a breeze made important documents fly across the room..8888Two months later…UNIT was humming with life, full of the sounds of feet moving and people talking and equipment humming and the occasional explosion.Kate looked around, a small smile on her face as she walked through the halls of UNIT HQ. After almost a year of petitioning the government to have UNIT reformed, they were back once more with the full support of Her Majesty and the government. Kate had her office back - both the rarely used one in the DOD and her home-away-from-home office underneath the Tower of London. The Osgoods were back in the labs, figuring out the mysteries of the universe with Jaq and the rest of the Science Division, instead of moping around the back garden. Although if anyone asked her, she would say it was Kate who had been moping around their house. Her sister agreed, much to her dismay.Despite everything that the people in charge were saying about ‘planetary security’, everyone at UNIT knew the real reason behind their revival, and it had everything to do with an old friend of the Lethbridge-Stewart clan. One, that, if the stories were to be believed, had known the family for three generations.On the first day, UNIT had run like clockwork - there were a few Greyhounds that needed to be returned to the fold from the different organizations that they had been reassigned to. But when Kate walked into her office, there was a note sitting on her desk - creamy parchment paper from the 17th century, written on with an iridescent blue ink that smelled like custard. Even without seeing what was written, it had been obvious who had left it there. Even in a TARDIS-proofed facility, there was no one who could sneak into a secure facility quite like the Doctor could. And no one else in the universe would sneak into a completely secure government facility full of dangerous alien tech, just to leave a note on someone’s desk.
Be more careful next time, please! I’d hate to have to fight Daleks again without you.
Love, the Doctor
She didn’t have time to do anything more than smile at the note before Osgood - she was always Osgood at work, no matter what they were at home - came through the door. “Ma’am we’ve got a situation.”An almost feral grin curled over Kate’s face. “Let’s get to it, then.” she said, leading the way out of her office before she began barking orders once more. It was good to be back, she mused.