Notes:
Requested by Bighead98. Set between Last Christmas and The Magician's Apprentice.
The TARDIS was silent but for a faint hum. The usually noisy console room seemed to have allowed a moment of silence to appreciate the momentousness of this particular journey. The Doctor watched as the time rotor finally eased to a stop, then looked at his companion.
Clara Oswald, bright eyed and breathless, looked back at him. A teacher off with him for the Christmas Holidays—or indefinitely. Indefinitely was better.
"We've arrived," he whispered.
"So we have," she whispered. "Why are we whispering?"
"I though it—added to the mood," he said, resuming his normal tone of voice. "We've arrived somewhere. The question is, where? The TARDIS is confused. She's not used to Gallifrey being out of its normal time and place. Plays havoc with the sensors."
He squinted at the readings. He'd sounded rather more confident than he felt, mentioning Gallifrey so casually. A hyperjump randomly opening to a parallel pocket universe was a rare occurrence, but not necessarily a sign that Gallifrey was on the other side.
The gravity was off, the atmospheric readings too. He could feel his hearts sinking.
"Doctor." Clara grabbed his arm.
He flinched at the sensation. "What?"
"If it isn't—Gallifrey, we'll keep looking. This isn't our only chance."
"Of course it isn't," the Doctor said, pulling away.
He knew that. He knew that. But still, a crushing sense of disappointment was smothering him. Clara's words were far more comforting than he'd ever be willing to admit.
He continued examining the readings, but there was nothing. Nothing that could indicate that this was his home planet.
"Is it Gallifrey?" Clara asked gently.
The Doctor shook his head and turned away. "No, it isn't."
There was silence in the TARDIS.
"Should we go back?" Clara asked finally. "It's fine with me, if you want to—"
The Doctor snapped his head up. "Where's your sense of adventure? We've gone through a hyperjump into a parallel universe. There could be anything in here. Another you. Another—"
The words another Danny hung heavily in the air.
Clara was first to recover. "Another you," she said.
The Doctor shook his head. "Impossible. Time Lords don't have copies in parallel universes. The paradoxes that would be created if we met our own copies would overwhelm the universe."
"Oh, c'mon. How do you know you won't meet another Doctor out there?"
"I just do."
Clara laughed at his seriousness. "Or maybe you just think you're too good to have a double. Ego. All I'm sayin'."
"I am unique!" He pulled open the doors. A blank white wall greeted him. A corridor. How—ordinary. "There can't be another—"
"Ah, I didn't see you come in. My apologies. Welcome!" A slightly heavy woman in a mustard yellow jumper rushed towards them and grasped first Clara's and then the Doctor's hand in a crushing handshake.
The Doctor stared at her.
The woman checked her watch. "You are, however, slightly early. It's no problem, of course. The Director is waiting to meet you."
She spoke to Clara as if the Doctor weren't there.
"Ah, of course!" Clara said. "Lead on."
She and the Doctor exchanged a glance behind the woman's back as they were led through a series of empty white corridors. Eventually, the empty whiteness opened into a conference room where a thin woman with a rather square jaw sat at the head of a polished black table. She rose when she saw Clara and extended a hand to shake.
"Welcome, Professor Oswald. I'm so grateful for you taking this meeting on such short notice."
"I guess we know who you are in this universe," the Doctor muttered into Clara's ear.
"It's really no problem," Clara said to the woman.
The woman frowned, but recovered within a moment. "Well, yes. Do sit. Janice, tea for me and mineral water for Professor Oswald."
The other woman left.
"Well, to business," the woman said. "I know you don't usually have time for this sort of thing—your secretary made that quite clear." She nodded at the Doctor, who scowled in reply. He wasn't some secretary! "But I think we have something that will interest you."
"Do go on then," Clara said, adopting a more imperious tone.
"Yes. Right." The woman handed Clara a datatablet. "Here we have the specs on the latest temporal fluctuations around earth."
The Doctor peered over Clara's shoulder, and absorbed the specs with interest. Some time traveler had been meddling quite a bit, it seemed. Not only that, but the biodata samples they'd collected around the last data point seemed…explicably familiar.
Clara, however, stared at the data uncomprehendingly. "And?"
"And look at these. There have been massive temporal interference patterns around all major alien incursions that you've reported to the Time Agency. The Daleks, the boneless, the Skovox Blitzer, even that panic with the Cybermen and the graveyards. Someone is interfering in our timeline, Professor Oswald."
"Yes, wow. You've done good work," Clara said.
"I was hoping for something a little more specific. How are we to catch this person?"
Clara looked straight at the Doctor. "Don't worry about it. I know exactly who it is."
The Doctor met Clara's gaze. He didn't believe her. There were no parallel versions of Time Lords. But—but that biodata was familiar. It might be his own. And those were definitely all events he had been at—that was obviously how Clara had drawn that conclusion.
Either way, he couldn't take the chance that it was him. "If it is me, then we need to get out of this universe, now, or it is going to collapse."