Hello there. Just had to write this one. Was watching my favourite Classic Who story 'The Three Doctors' last night and I have watched it a hundred times already, but whilst watching it last night, a particular line jumped out at me. This little story is based on that line from the perspective of one of the story's participants. Hope you enjoy!
Doctor Who belongs to the BBC
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It was times like these that the Doctor resented agreeing to the Time Lords offer. It had been a snap decision, one made on the turn of life and death. He had been given a second chance and like a self-professed coward; he had taken the easy way out. The Second Doctor sat in his console room. Alone.
The Doctor had just completed one of his hardest tasks to date. One of many which he had been set by the CIA, all in return for a prolongation of his sentencing by the Time Lords. He knew that his antics in the War Games had brought him to justice and would catch up with him eventually, he just hadn't wanted to taste the elixir of whatever came after life for a Time Lord…not yet anyway. He and his companion, Jamie, had just returned from an exciting adventure concerning the Sontarans, Androgums and, probably the most problematic of them all, one of his future selves. The Second Doctor sat back and considered how he seemed to have a knack for meeting his other incarnations. According to the First Law of Time set down by Rassilon, all Time Lords were specifically prohibited from meeting their former or future selves, which seemed fair enough. However, in his time he had met four of them. None of whom he really liked. Yes, he could get on with them as was expected of him under the circumstances, but he supposed the feeling of dislike was always going to be there. Especially concerning future selves. There was always the feeling that you had to die for them to live. The very fact that they got to live whilst you…encountered whatever it was that happened when a Time Lord died. He supposed the feeling was resentment. The Second Doctor also supposed that the feeling was mutual. His future selves probably didn't like their predecessors or successors either. They were left with the legacy that the past had created for him no matter what that entailed. All part of life's rich tapestry. The Doctor presumed it was natural as he sat in the console room, watching as the TARDIS' central column rose and fell.
Now he thought about it, there was one he wasn't particularly fond of and yet…there was something about him that made both men almost inseparable when they met. The tall, white haired fellow. His next self or so he had come to believe. The Doctor had met this particular incarnation of himself twice. Once against Omega with UNIT and once against Borusa where he met more of his future selves. On the Doctor's first encounter with the toff, the blighter had destroyed his recorder in a daring bid to give Omega his freedom. The only freedom he would ever have. Now that the Doctor thought about it, the loss of a recorder was hardly monumental, but it had felt like it at the time. It had been the first time he had been pulled out of his own time stream and the recorder had been his only link to his world amidst his future. His future hadn't looked bright. His future self reminded the Doctor of an upper class dandy, trying to assert his superiority over those around him. Whenever they met, the Second Doctor would wonder why his future necessitated that. What was wrong with short hair and braces after all? Apparently it had been too much for the fancy pants to keep things simple in whatever life he chose to live. The Second Doctor always got a feeling of badly concealed contempt from his successor. He wondered how bad the sentence was that the Time Lords had given him. It was the demeanour of his future self that drove him to keep doing as the CIA asked. He wanted to lessen the sentence. Perhaps by doing as he was told, by those he ran away from all those years ago, he could get his sentence reduced for the man he was going to become. For this he would grin and do as he was told. That is until he could bear it no longer.
His mind wandered to the other incarnations he had met and finally to the most recent expedition into his time stream. In this particular adventure, he had met another future self. Loud clothes and with a mouth nearly as loud. He wasn't bad at heart, he just gave out the image of a man who had experienced the bad times and wasn't scared to give them back. He wasn't brash, he wasn't unkind, he was just…certain of who he was. But in his eyes, the Second Doctor could see, there was regret whenever he looked to his companion. A young thing. Very pretty. It was like his future self had forgotten something when he looked at her. Something important…
The adventure was over now. The excitement of the past few days was only now beginning to wane. He'd been attacked, tortured, tied up and there was even a part of it that he couldn't remember. All he could recall was waking up face down on the table, in a little Spanish restaurant, feeling like he had eaten a thousand patty cake biscuits and not left room for tea. His only hope was that what he could not quite remember was either far too exciting for it to be good for you or too terrible to contemplate.
His thoughts then turned to his companion, who had been there with his other self in the restaurant. The young Scot had now wandered off to his room. His mind seemingly on other things. As they entered the TARDIS, Jamie had a rather large smirk spreading across his face. He had seemed….distracted. The Doctor could not, for the lives of him, think what could be eluding his young friend. It looked like the same thing that his future self felt every time he looked at his young companion. Maybe it was the fact that neither Victoria nor Zoe had accompanied them on this trip. The Doctor had asked the CIA to allow him the assistance of Jamie on this mission when it had first been posed to him. He didn't want to risk taking more than one of his many young friends. But knowing the Time Lords, they never truly understood human beings, they were so quizzical and always asked after something that was wrong. The absence of any of his other companions must have been why Jamie was being so suspicious now that they were back in the TARDIS. Or maybe it was the idea of being confronted with the true future. Yes, the Doctor had taken Jamie to worlds and times that his mind would not have been able to comprehend when the Time Lord first encountered the Scot in the Battle of Culloden in 1746. But now, he was really seeing the future. What became of both himself and the Doctor and how fleeting their spans are. It was one hell of a thing to take on and the Doctor only hoped that it wouldn't affect his young friend too much. The CIA were likely to bestow another task upon their obedient servant any time soon and the Doctor would need Jamie by his side.
Suddenly, the console started buzzing loudly. The Doctor hated it when it did that. He loved the TARDIS and it was his only true companion through the bleak years of exile from Gallifrey, which he was only now starting to appreciate after his employment by the CIA. However, some times the TARDIS would never get him where he wanted to be. Maybe one day he would understand why…
But the buzzing was becoming louder and more high pitched and harder to ignore. The Doctor leapt from his chair and started running around the main console, pressing every button in sight. Maybe it was the Time Lords, giving him another mission to complete for them. Well maybe he'd had enough…maybe it was time…
'What is it? What do you want with me now? I haven't done you any harm…' The Doctor shouted to an invisible audience. He hoped the Time Lords could hear him. A moan came from the console 'Well…anymore harm!' The Doctor waved his arms about, looking fearfully between the ceiling and the main doors, hoping that he wouldn't be visited by those on high. Finally, the buzzing stopped. Silence resumed its rightful place over the console room. The Doctor span every way to see whether anything new had changed. Perhaps they had taken Jamie from him, ready for a new task, necessitating a new start. However, the Doctor suddenly noticed a presence within the small console room. He turned cautiously so that the little man was now facing the main doors that led everywhere. A shadow seemed to stand and look at him. By the shadow's side was a large wooden box. It looked substantial enough, more so than the shadow. But the shadow vanished almost faster than the Doctor could blink and all that was left was the box. The Doctor walked over to it looking around suspiciously in case the shadow returned. He circled the box before going to lift the lid. Inside, the Doctor counted hundreds upon hundreds of recorders. He delved his hands into the crate and withdrew a nice recorder with a swerving blue pattern snaking its way from tip to toe. The Doctor played a few notes of his favourite 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and whilst throwing and catching the recorder in his hand, completely satisfied, looked to the large box with more suspicion. He looked deep into the packing and recorders once more and saw that his search for a new recorder had unearthed a piece of paper. He grabbed at it and dusted the packing off before reading the little note. It was in Old High Gallifreyan and what could have only been his hand writing. The note simply read:
As promised…
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Hope you enjoyed my little take on the regenerations and their relationships with one another. Thank you for reading :D xxxx