BENNY: Take two shopping trolleys into the shoe canyon? Not me. I'll take six!

BENNY: You know, just when you think life might be turning a corner; just when you think things might be getting better, wham! another curveball. I've been through a hell of a lot, you know. If I stopped and told you the story of my life, we'd just be hitting the age of ten when that bomb goes off. 'Oh, she's a fighter,' that's what people say about me, but they're wrong. I'm not a fighter. I'm a liar and a coward. Ha, the things I've done. The universe calls me a professor but the only things I'm qualified to profess are the vitues of hiding at the bottom of a whiskey tumbler, or running so far away from life that even time couldn't catch up with me.

I could do it all again, you know. Run away. Hidden in a dusty shoebox, tucked away at the back of my wardrobe, I have a pair of Time Rings. Open tickets to anywhere and anywhen. They're my escape route; my way out. Any time, I could just slip one on and disappear forever. Tiptoe away from my life. Run and run and run until everything is less than a speck in the distance: Jason, Brax, Bev, Adrian. Even dear little Peter. I could just say goodbye to it all, this bonkers like the universe has thrown at me. But I don't. Ah, I think about it now and again, but if I left... Well, who would fight the monsters, hm? Who would be left to believe in the angels? I choose to stay here.

So, the Time Rings stay in the wardrobe, out of temptation's reach, and this life is the life I choose for myself. Archaeologist. Mother. Secret agent, freedom fighter. The good guy. And what's more, I'm glad. I'm glad that one of those bloody curveballs landed me here. I've got everything I ever wanted: friends; a family, almost; a lover... well, sometimes. A child. A home. It's worth fighting for. You talk about believing in bigger things. Well, a home is the biggest thing in the world.

LEELA: I might stay here. It is as much a home as Gallifrey. Here, I would be of use.

ROMANA: But you can be of use to me.

LEELA: How is that?

ROMANA: I need someone to watch my back. A Presidential bodyguard.

LEELA: Me? A bodyguard? K9! I am to be a Presidential bodyguard!

LEELA: I do not lie. I shall kill you, Time Lord.

TORVALD: Leela, please.

LEELA: I shall dangle your entrails before your dying eyes.

TORVALD: That’s… really horrible.

LEELA: I could not return to the place I came from.

ROMANA: Well, yours is a special case.

NARVIN: How so, Madam President?

ROMANA: Because I say it is!

LEELA: They mean you no cruelty when they chew on your bones.

OLD MAN: That is so. This is the life of the outsider. Why would you cross this line, sister Leela?

LEELA: When I am inside the city, old man, now, that feels like outside to me.

OLD MAN: You have been inside for many years. You have changed, for the city never does.

LEELA: There was a man. They said he was my tamer, but it was not like that. We were both of us lions, happily mated in our cage. Then came the day that he did not return. As two lions, we were proud to walk the city, but one lion alone does not make a pride. There is not even the Doctor. Not anymore.

BRAXIATEL: Mozart, Madam? The Magic Flute?

ROMANA: It purports to be. How K9 will ever understand beauty, I don’t know. Not when the only recordings he can access are so inadequate. He’ll just have to go to Salzburg.

BRAXIATEL: Ah, where you can be his star blazing queen of the night.

ROMANA: Don’t push it, Braxiatel.

LEELA: But will we not seem out of place at your summit? I warn you, I am not wearing your shiny, chafing city-clothes for seven days.

ROMANA: I don’t want you to. This is an undercover assignment.

LEELA: Oh?

ROMANA: And you will blend in beautifully just as you are.

ROMANA: My greetings to you, delegates. I regret deeply that already the serious work of this committee is degenerating into petty squabbling, and that Gallifrey should be dragging it deeper into the jingoistic mire. If we can chart the universe from an incandescent atom to a final fiery crunch, it is to be hoped that we can outgrow such childish patriotism. This is an historic moment, delegates. We may have mastery of time, but time will ever judge us.

K9: Affirmative. I am programmed in three levels of dance instruction. Beginners, intermediate, and specialise–

LEELA: No thank you, K9. I shall dance the fire dance of the Sevateem, though many years have passed since I last… I remember it still. I will not let Lexi die, K9. Tonight, I shall watch Flinkstab with the eyes of a hunting bird. He shall not strike.

ROMANA: I didn’t believe it when Narvin told me. I didn’t want to believe it, but then I remembered reading up on the Braxiatel Collection, once. Long ago, on my travels.

BRAXIATEL: Ah, just a notion of mine at present. A way of doing what little I can to preserve the creations of lifekind from the ravages of time.

ROMANA: It’s a good idea. How long have you–

BRAXIATEL: A very long time. At first, I expected to be caught. At every deal, I expected Narvin or one of his cronies to be waiting for me. I suppose it was Project Alpha that set me off on it - knowing how close, how very close, we came to destroying so much.

ROMANA: So you set about saving it before another catastrophe.

BRAXIATEL: We live in a catastrophic universe!

NARVIN: One thing our President cannot be accused of is incompetence. She may be guilty of compassion, intuition, emotion, honesty, integrity - pragmatism, even. But she is supremely competent. That is the root cause of most of our problems.

ROMANA: Don’t trust Narvin. Or Torvald.

LEELA: I do not. Both have let me down before.

ROMANA: Remember, we need to know who is behind this. We need someone left alive to interrogate.

LEELA: Try not to kill anyone. That’s what Andred used to tell me. It amused him to say it… My late husband.

BRAXIATEL: Do you think she finally believes that Andred is dead?

ROMANA: I think she’s starting to accept that he may be.

BRAXIATEL: Is he?

ROMANA: I don’t know.

ROMANA: I am Lady Romanadvoratrelundar, President of the Supreme Council of Gallifrey and all her dominions, holder of the wisdom of Rassilon, preserver of the Matrix, guardian of the legacy of Omega. But you can call me Romana, and I have come to present evidence.

BRAXIATEL: That fool Glower was actually going to set the thing off! As a scientific study!

ROMANA: But something stopped him.

BRAXIATEL: Right at the last moment. The device was dismantled and never spoken of again. Rumour has it that Narvin persuaded him to change his mind. Whatever happened, the CIA recruited Narvin and he’s never looked back.

LEELA: Except to see who stands behind him with a knife.

NARVIN: This piece of equipment is essential to my mission.

ROMANA: Aha, and what might that be?

NARVIN: I might very well ask the same of you. This time zone is subject to the most stringent embargoes!

ROMANA: None of which apply to the President. I am free to go wherever and whenever I choose, without submitting a mountain of paperwork first, and I do find the Alpine air so refreshing.

NARVIN: Madam, the Alps are in the other direction.

ROMANA: Are they? Damn.

LEELA: A man does not become hated for nothing.

SISSY: He says things sometimes, about the races. Things everyone believes, but no one wants to hear. About how some of us are born high and noble, and others are born with less… desirable traits. I mean, what’s wrong with keeping people apart if they won’t ever get on?

LEELA: Where I come from, the people were kept apart for longer than anyone could remember. Now, the Sevateem were as clever as the Tesh, and the Tesh were as savage as the Sevateem. But because they had been apart for so long, they could not see they were just the same. This system sprang from madness, too.

SISSY: Well, you would say that. You’re a Slav. I don’t blame you for wanting to live alongside us, but, well, you can’t, because you’ll drag us down, and we have to preserve the most beautiful things. Oh, I mean no offence, of course.

LEELA: You think you are better than me? You pick the lock.

SISSY: I can’t. I don’t know how.

LEELA: Then who is dragging who down? I mean no offence, of course.

TORVALD: You’re mad!

ROMANA: Boiling mad! Time is not a game, Torvald! You, Narvin, Arkadian - silly boys, the lot of you! Treating the timeline like a train set in the attic! Chuck this carriage here, this carriage there, move point, change the signal box, replace the controller. I’m not having it, Torvald! Not anymore! So tell me the truth!

LEELA: I see you. I see my enemy in my enemy's clothes, and my heart runs cold, because I see, too, that the man I loved… is dead.

LEELA: No. The spirit told me you would come.

ROMANA: Oh, come on.

LEELA: Do not mock me, Romana. You should know by now I am rarely wrong about such things.

ROMANA: Granted, you’re rarely wrong with your instincts, but… as for rational explanations of what you feel, well, that’s another story.

LEELA: You do not believe me?

ROMANA: I believe you that something is here alright. Just not that it’s a spirit, evil or otherwise.

LEELA: I never said it was evil.

ROMANA: Oh, well, I just assumed. I mean, they usually are with you.

K9: Something has happened to Leela. Apparently, she has vanished. Literally.

ROMANA: When you say literally, K9, I assume you’re not talking figuratively. I find people who use the word literally when they don’t mean it literally very annoying.

K9: Leela has literally vanished, mistress.

BRAXIATEL: I do what I do for the benefit of Gallifrey. You are the best President it has had for… well, for a very, very long time.

ROMANA: I doubt this is over. Narvin will make capital of it, I’m sure.

BRAXIATEL: So will others. We’ll weather the storm.

ROMANA: This is going to be a trying time. For both of us. I’m glad you’re on my side. I feel we might have a chance.

BRAXIATEL: My President flatters me.

LEELA: How far now, K9?

K9: Query, mistress?

LEELA: How far have we walked, K9, below the Capitol?

K9: Do you require the measurements in inches, feet, metres, spammers, trigons–

LEELA: Enough, K9.

K9: We have come, in your own terms, mistress, a long way down.

LEELA: I wonder how long we’ve been away from them.

K9: If you require the time lapse in your own terms, mistress, we have been walking for quite some time.

K9: This unit does not have feelings, mistress.

LEELA: That is untrue, K9. Many times you and the other K9–

K9: Neither K9 unit possesses feelings, mistress.

LEELA: You should not be afraid of your feelings, K9.

ROMANA: Yes, thank you. If we can move on from the emotional support group session?