Meanwhile in the TARDIS 3

"TARDIS."

"What?"

"That's what it's called."

Ruby gestured to the big lamp in the middle of the room with all the buttons. "That thing?"

"No, the whole ship! Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It's how I travel. From anywhere, to anywhere. And," he added with a wink "anywhen."

Ruby looked around in amazement.

"I know, drink it all in. Everyone usually does." He suddenly pointed behind him to a door. "And if you wanna get settled in full-time, just about any room you can imagine is through there. I imagine there's probably still a bedroom near the door. Haven't spent much time exploring the new model."

Ruby's head was spinning. She stepped over to the jukebox. "Jukebox? In a time machine?"

The Doctor looked offended. "Of course there's a jukebox! Would you go on a road trip without any tunes?"

Ruby flipped through the song selection. There were a lot of things she hadn't heard of on here. There were a lot of words she hadn't heard of. And flipping further, a lot of letters that she hadn't heard of.

"Are you an alien?"

"Yeah, probably."

"How do you mean, 'probably'? Are you a wacky spaceman with a time machine or are you a 49th century bloke with a time machine?"

"Well, like I said, I was found as a baby. I dunno where I'm from. Maybe I'm from Earth, somehow. But I was raised on Gallifrey."

"Gallifrey... Do they have goblins there, too?"

"No, there's not much of anything there."

"What happened to the goblins, anyway."

"I killed them, I think."

He said it so casually. Like killing meant nothing to him. Ruby felt a lump in her throat as she tripped over the word.

"Killed them?"

The Doctor stepped quickly down the ramp and held up his hands calmingly. "No, I didn't go in guns blazing or anything. You were being kidnapped, and I pulled down on the ladder to bring the ship down. It crashed on the church spire, and then the whole ship just kinda dissolved. I think they're dead."

"Oh." She stood up straight, no longer fearing him as a murderous madman. "So it was an accident."

"More or less", he shrugged.

"So... what happens to me now?"

The Doctor flashed her another huge grin. "Now, you go whenever and wherever you want."

Ruby selected 'Changes', by David Bowie on the jukebox.

"No, I mean my luck. From the goblins."

"Oh, yes! About that."

Ruby leaned in and waited for him to continue.

"I have no idea."

"What!?"

"Like I said, they work off collective consciousness, and they're not from this universe. They may be dead, or they may not be, and if they are, I have no idea of their lasting effects."

"So what are some theories? I wanna at least know some possibilities."

"Well... the way I see it, there's 3 ways this could end up. Number one is that the negative luck they were causing rebounds like a rubber band, and you have extraordinarily good luck for a while. That'd be pretty good."

"Yeah, sounds wonderful. Might have to buy some lotto tickets." She turned and looked at the thing in the middle of the room. "Hang on, with a time machine, I could always buy winning tickets!"

"No." Said the Doctor firmly. "That's only for grave emergencies."

"OK," laughed Ruby, "whatever that means."

"Possibility number two," the Doctor continued, undeterred, "is that your life goes to normal. You live like a completely normal girl as if the goblin thing never happened."

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad, either." Ruby's heart sank as she began to piece together the answer to a question she no longer wanted to ask. "What's possibility number three?"

"If the goblin magic is irreversible... you might end up having the same bad luck for the rest of your life, since they died trying to capture you."

Ruby gulped as the friction of her shorts and tank top against her naked body suddenly felt coarser than ever.