A very short Short Trip. I wonder if Nicholas Briggs' son was young lad at the time he wrote this because it concerns a boy's fate.
It begins with a young boy in the bath. He's always anxious at bath time and wishes the door could be locked. He hears someone outside in the hall and becomes fearful of just who that may be. "Hello?" he asks and the reply comes, "‘It’s only me." The voice was "so warm, recognisable and reassuring" that his bath time fears were immediately vanquished.
The back story we get sees the TARDIS trio of the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe on a beach on the Isle of Wight. They have it largely to themselves as most folks are inside glued to the idiot box watching Neil Armstrong take his small step for Man. The Doctor heads over to the ice cream stand and encounters a small boy who warns him about cow pies in the vicinity. Thinking that the kid's mother would be worried about him since she's nowhere to be seen, he tells the boy that he should head home. The kid heeds the Doctor's admonishment but steps in the path of a car and the accident leaves his legs smashed beyond repair.
Distraught, the Doctor violates all applicable laws of time and goes back to ensure that he does not encounter the boy and thusly not convince him to cross the street on his way home.
This story is only 6 or 7 pages long. Perhaps it reflects some parental anxiety on the part of its author. The Doctor's decision to violate not only the laws of time but the established convention of the show makes for a heartwarming little tale.
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