Trial Separation

A Doctor Who story

1—A Nasty Shock

Warm water cascaded down the Tenth Doctor's back as he showered; it had been a grueling week for him and he had wanted to wash up even before he moved the TARDIS. He stepped out, dried off and got dressed in a clean suit. After that he went to the Console Room and tried to decide where to go to next. He'd spent the last year in the Erubis Cluster, and the year before that exploring the Wesachi galaxy, deliberately staying away from Earth. His current arrest and daring escape after freeing a civilization enthralled by a Hexricon had been par for the course except for the slime, hence the shower. He thought about using the Randomizer, but just wasn't in the mood. He sat down on the jump seat and mused, wishing he weren't so melancholy, but it was to be expected; it was The Anniversary. Two years ago in linear time the Master had died.

Two years. He wondered if he would feel this way in five years or ten, or a hundred. How long would it take him to get over losing the last existing member of his species, his only link with someone who knew him and the context through which he viewed the cosmos? When would he be able to fill or be accustomed to that kind of loneliness? His plan had been to follow the routine—land on a planet, get involved in some sort of disturbance, disaster, or uprising, get to the bottom of the matter and sort it all out, and then leave. Unfortunately he'd been following the pattern for two linear years now and the pain felt as wrenching as it had the first day.

Stop it, he told himself sharply. I don't have to be alone. I'll go visit someone, someone who might cheer me up. I know! I'll go and pop in on Jack; he's used to the unexpected.

He set the coordinates to Earth in 2014 and was about to materialize when one of the TARDIS' scanning screens started blinking. He looked, and saw something interesting—he had picked up the life signs of another TARDIS. He sighed morosely; it was the Master's TARDIS, had to be. He must have parked it on Earth and now that the Master was dead, it . . .

The Doctor stopped his line of thought, pondering. If the Master had had a working TARDIS, he wouldn't have needed to use the Doctor's to make a Paradox Machine; he could have used his own. Moreover, he wouldn't have used the Toclafane to hunt down Martha Jones; all he would have had to do was prime his TARDIS to lock onto her DNA and she would have been found almost instantly. It was wrong, something was wrong with his thesis; this couldn't possibly be the Master's TARDIS. That left only one conclusion: there was another TARDIS on Earth, meaning there might be another Time Lord on the planet.

The Doctor quickly locked on to the signal and changed the coordinates appropriately. He also did a scan for Gallifreyan life signs and found nothing. Well, he thought, the poor TARDIS was probably abandoned ages ago and the perception filter had finally broken down. He did one last sensor sweep and materialized his TARDIS as close as he could get to the other craft. He grabbed his coat, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

When he stepped out, he found himself outdoors with a large garage twenty feet in front of him, and another, smaller one about fifty feet behind him. There were little outbuildings to his right and a compact, rounded A-frame house to his left. It was cold though sunny, and there were traces of snow on the ground. All the buildings were painted a deep, rich brown nearly the color of his eyes, while a well-worn driveway of crushed grey stone went winding off and out of sight. The house and garages had light brown shingles on the roofs. The two smaller sheds seemed to be made of slabs of wood right off the trees, almost like log cabins, and they had black shingles on top. There didn't seem to be anyone else around.

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and started exploring. To his annoyance, he couldn't find the location of the other TARDIS. He should have been able to detect it easily, even if the perception filter was still active; why couldn't he find the dratted thing? He marched back into the TARDIS and brought out a hand scanner, more powerful than his screwdriver and able to pick up the faintest trace of signal, but he still couldn't lock it down; how frustrating! How was that TARDIS being hidden? It wasn't a perception filter, it wasn't plain physical disguise, what? Finally The Doctor took another reading and realized the location signal was being bounced back and forth between two or three different harmonics; someone was using a triangulating mask to hide the vehicle. He wouldn't be able to find it without shutting the mask off first. He went back in his TARDIS and looked for possible sources of power links between here and the first signals he had gotten pinpointing the other TARDIS. Finding a suspicious pattern in the harmonics, he set his TARDIS and materialized to the new location.

When he opened the door he was inside a small room on the second floor of some building. The room had almost nothing in it. There was a box of linens and towels in one corner, and a box with books in another. He snooped around and found what looked like a toolbox on a shelf in the closet. He took it down and found what he had been seeking—the controls for the triangulating mask. He was about to open the box the array was in, but something stopped him. He examined it more thoroughly and found that if he tampered with it too much, the box, and the TARDIS on the other end would explode. The Doctor sighed and put it back where he had found it. It had been a good thing he hadn't rattled it around too much; this type of fail-safe was usually rather sensitive to movement or "exploration".

He wandered through what had to be an apartment. There were the usual things like clothes and a bed, appliances for the kitchen, a sofa in the living room. He also found signs that the person living here could easily be a Time Lord hiding in a bio-data watch, just as the Master had been. There were very few possessions, and none of a personal nature, no photos or personal correspondence, no birth certificates or family information. All the bills in the small filing drawer only went back a few months, there was no television or computer, and the place didn't feel lived in. He took one more look around then stopped rummaging; he'd found all that he was going to and now he just had to wait.

Late in the evening a light that must have been on a timer switched on. A few minutes later he heard someone coming up the stairs. He didn't try to hide; he just sat on the couch and waited. The door opened and revealed a middle-age woman with limp, greying light brown hair and a black coat. Her blue eyes were weary, hidden behind thick lenses, and she looked very thin, perhaps even beyond thin. She didn't seem either surprised or afraid; she just nodded and put down her bag. "You'll want to come with me," she told him.

"You were expecting me? You knew I would come?" The Doctor was shocked.

"I knew something was coming, but I thought you would be a little more . . ."

"Impressive? Stocky? Academic?"

"Terrifying. Never mind; you need to come with me in the morning."

The Doctor was puzzled. "Why not go now?"

"It's late and I don't want to have to drive in the dark."

"We don't need to drive," the Doctor protested. "I have transportation—it's in the other room. We can go right away . . ."

The woman shook her head. "I'm not ready."

"Just take a look at it," the Doctor pleaded, standing and urging her to the other room. "It'll save so much time . . ."

The woman looked into the room, blanched, and said in a faint but determined voice, "No. I won't go anywhere in that."

The Doctor was going to speak, but the woman held up a hand. "Please . . . you have invaded my home. Don't plan on kidnapping me as easily."

"Fine," the Doctor huffed, "in the morning." He didn't like it, but the woman was telling the truth; he would have problems if he tried to take her away by force. He went back to the couch while the woman turned on a light for him in the living room.

"Would you like something to eat?" she asked.

"Sure," the Doctor told her.

She gave him an apple but didn't eat herself; she just took a handful of pills with some water. The Doctor wondered, but didn't say anything; it wasn't his business. Something was bothering him; he finally asked, "You're not the least bit curious as to who I am, where I'm from?"

The woman shrugged. "Does it matter? I'm sure we can figure it out in the morning. For now I've had a long day and want to unwind. I hope the couch is good enough to sleep on . . ."

"Oh, I won't need sleep. But don't feel uneasy about resting yourself, I'll—"

The woman looked directly into his eyes and said firmly, "You are a strange man in my house; I have no intention of going to sleep. You could do anything."

She grabbed a book from a prodigious bookshelf and sat down in a chair opposite the Doctor, then ignored him. He was unused to being dismissed in such a fashion, but didn't complain. She knew nothing about him and didn't owe him anything.

It was a long night.

In the morning, the woman drove the Doctor out to an unknown destination. She had asked if he wanted her to feed him, but he dismissed the offer with a shake of his head. He waited a bit impatiently while she got a few things together, then got into her electric blue car. The drive was very similar to the night they had just spent together; neither spoke or acted like the other was even there. This upset the Doctor slightly, but he knew he was partially to blame himself; he had not asked the woman's name or been forthcoming with his own, after all. Best to leave it now.

The drove for nearly an hour, getting further and further from urban areas as they went along. As they went along he noticed wildlife like deer and groundhogs and many types of birds. He appreciated the view; it gave him something to think about other than the uncomfortable silence. They finally pulled into a narrow driveway of grey crushed stone. They wound and twisted back into the woods until they reached . . . wait a minute . . . they were back where he had started! Here was the rounded house, the two outbuildings, the two garages, everything! "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded indignantly.

"What do you mean?" the woman asked, confused.

The Doctor's frustration just kept building. "Why are we here? I've already been here. I thought you were taking me somewhere I could find some answers and instead . . ."

He knocked over a bag that had been between them as they drove. Stuff tumbled out of the bag, including . . . there it was—a bio-data watch! He snatched it up then got out of the car and slammed the door behind him, quickly locking the woman in the car with the sonic screwdriver. He marched around to the driver's side of the vehicle, then stopped to consider what to do next. He decided to open the watch immediately; that would give him time to make the next move with his enemy reasonably contained. Squatting down close to the door of the car, he opened the watch and waited. When the process was complete he looked into the car and was so surprised he lost his balance and landed on his rear. The Time Lady was his wife, Maraltha-Hedronisicalimar!