Sometimes Will slides through time, slipping between the cracks of centuries without realizing it until it's too late. He would be concerned, except he knows that whether he is in the present or the past he is exactly where he is meant to be at that moment. The cup of tea he'd been holding in the small bookshop had been cold for an hour, but now it is warm against his fingers and he is staring at rows of jarred herbs.

"Lovely blend, isn't it? Ginger is good for the stomach, you know." The elderly woman behind the counter pours herself a cup and sips it cautiously, her eyes never leaving Will's face.

"I didn't know." Will says amiably. "It has a pleasant taste, very light." His tea at the bookshop had been black, not herbal, but as he sips from the cup he tastes the aforementioned ginger. The woman beams at him and scurries towards one end of the wall, climbing onto a ladder and spooning tea leaves into a tin. Will reaches into his pocket and feels the weight of coins there. When he'd left his flat that morning he had only brought a ten pound bill, and his coat had been wrinkled where it is now ironed smooth.

"Here you are, dear. No, no, don't pay me, you're too young to worry about such a thing. I hope the tea will help your mother." She hands him the tin, neatly tied with a ribbon, and Will reaches up to place a few coins on the counter anyway.

When he had left home that morning he had been a twenty five year old man where he is now an eleven year old boy.

"You are never too young to worry." He says solemnly. "Thank you, ma'am, and have a wonderful afternoon."

He turns to leave and finds himself staring at rows of bookshelves. His coat is wrinkled again and he is much taller, but the tin and the tea are cool in his hands. Will pockets the tin and returns the teacup to the counter of the cafe. The barista smiles at him and tosses her dark hair over her shoulder but Will only gives her a half hearted wave before leaving. For a moment the world overlays cars with carriages but when he blinks there are only taxis, no horses to be seen.

He is not running out of time because he is made of time. Time does not master him just as he does not master it. But Will knows that something is shifting. The slips come more frequently than ever before and each time he leaves with something he has physically carried over. They are not things of power, just ordinary things he has no right to be keeping. They are warnings to him. He knows that much.

Will makes his way to the nearest tube station and when the lights flicker, plunging him into momentary darkness, he suddenly understands.

He is not running out of time, but someone else might be.