First off, I will state what should be blindingly obvious; that I am not the BBC (Hell, I'm not even British) and I do not own Doctor Who or the characters thereof, mostly because if I did, the show would feature a lot more... interesting events.
Now, This idea has been floating around in my head for at least a year and some change, and has been transferred to many a flash drive over that time (in part due to a perfectionist streak I seem to possess). I admit that I was intrigued by the Time Lord Victorious, and I wish the producers of the show had kept him around for a few episodes. That combined with a reluctance to bury the Tenth Doctor, who got me so hooked onto this show, led to the story that follows. Currently, the tale stands on its own, but I'm seriously considering continuing this, perhaps a chapter or two, or more. I don't know. But please, read the story. If you like it, then that's great; if not, then I apologize.
And now, the story.
Birth of a Victorious Doctor
The pace is slow.
Agonizingly slow.
He tries his best to ignore the sound coming over the PA, do his utmost to keep walking away from what his head said must happen and can't ever change, and ignore the voice in his hearts yelling at him to save these people, Laws of Time be damned!
After all, haven't you played around with history a thousand times before? What makes this date so different?
The reasoning part of him replies, This event is a fixed point. Fixed points HAVE TO HAPPEN, that's one of the Laws of Time!
Laws that were written by a species that no longer even exists! What's the point? You are a Time Lord! The Time Lord! You can do anything you want, whenever you want, wherever you want to go, with whoever you wish to have with you!
But the timeline-
SHUT UP ABOUT THE BLOODY TIMELINE! You can change the timeline all you want, and no one will stop you because you are the Doctor, The Lonely God, The Oncoming Storm! What mortal being would dare challenge you?
It is at this moment that the escape rocket self-destructs. The force of the shock-wave knocks the Doctor off his feet and slams him to the hard, unyielding ground. He manages to look up and he sees the devastation surrounding him. Somewhere in his head, the Doctor starts to remember himself speak.
-I'm not just a Time Lord; I'm the Last of the Time Lords… It'll never come back, not now… I've got a TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords… And they died, took it all with them. The walls of reality closed, the worlds were sealed, gone forever… 'The Time Lords kept their eye on everything. And it's gone now… But they died, the Time Lords! All of them, they died! I'm the last of the Time Lords-
SHUT UP!The Doctor finally screams in his head. The voices die down, leaving him free to think clearly.
We can save them, Doctor. All you have to do is let go. With a nod of his head he decides.
And so the Time Lord rises to his feet and walks toward the airlock with a newfound purpose.
The TARDIS lands on a suburban street. The Doctor throws open the door and ushers out the shaking survivors. They look around and see where they are and look back at the grinning Time Lord.
"Isn't anyone going to thank me?"
Gadget the robot treads up to the Doctor and cuts out.
The Doctor shakes his head. "He's lost his signal. Doesn't have a clue where he is." He reaches down and pats the robot on the head.
Adelaide points to the door of a nearby building. "That's my house."
The Doctor waves his arms around. "Don't you get it? This is the 21st of November, 2059. Same day, just on Earth. And it's snowing!" He spins around in the snow. "I love snow!"
Mia stares at the TARDIS in shock. "What is that thing? It's bigger… I mean, it's bigger on the inside!" She stares at the Doctor. "Who the hell are you?!"
Mia takes off, Yuri close behind.
Adelaide walks to the Doctor. "You saved us."
He grins. "Yep. Just think! Your daughter, and your daughter's daughter, you can see them again. Family reunion!"
Adelaide slowly shakes her head in confusion. "But I'm supposed to be dead."
He shakes his head. "Not anymore."
"But Susie, my granddaughter, the person she's supposed to become might never exist now!"
The Doctor laughs. "Nah! Captain Adelaide can inspire her face-to-face. Different details, but the story's the same."
"You can't know that! If my family changes, the whole of history could change. The future of the human race. No-one should have that much power!"
Harshness enters the Doctor's expression. "Tough."
Adelaide backs away in horrified realization. "You should have left us there."
The Doctor shakes his head, thinking You simple little human. "Adelaide, I've done this sort of thing before, in small ways, saved some little people. But never someone as important as you. Oh, I'm good!"
"'Little people'? What- like Mia and Yuri? Who decides they're so unimportant? You?"
The Doctor shrugs. "Who better? From the moment I learned each of your names, I knew your entire life stories- When you were born, where you went to school, what grades you received in college, and every other insignificant detail. I can read timelines like you can read a book, only my version is a lot more open-ended.
"That's power right there- to look at anyone and see exactly how their life would unfold if left alone, and more importantly to see what would change if I interfered. With this power, I can shape anyone into exactly what I want them to be and with my TARDIS, place them when I feel they must be placed."
The Time Lord grinned. "You know what's funny? For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner. That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious." Yes, that sounds perfect.
Adelaide glares with unconcealed disgust. "And there's no one to stop you?"
The Doctor shook his head. "Nope. Once, there may have been, but now? I am a free agent!"
Adelaide looked furious. "This is wrong, Doctor. I don't care who you are! The Time Lord Victorious is wrong."
"That's for me to decide." He switches to a falsely chipper tone. "Now, you'd better get home. Oh, it's all locked up, you've been away. Still, that's easy."
The Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver on her door and it unlocks.
He smirks at Adelaide. "All yours."
Adelaide says ruefully, "Is there nothing you can't do?"
He shakes his head. "Not anymore."
Adelaide attempts to pull her sidearm, but the Doctor sees it coming a mile away. He rips the gun from her hand and disintegrates it with the sonic screwdriver before she does something irredeemably stupid.
He grabs Adelaide and with a simple pinch of nerves, knocks the astronaut out cold. As the Doctor looks upon the sleeping woman, he hears a last cry for 'reason'. Doctor, stop. There's no going back if you go forward with this. But he shakes the thought away. I know what is best for the Universe. I can fix it. I will fix it!
He then reaches into her mind and rewrites a few lines of mental code. Nothing too fancy, just enough to ensure that Adelaide does her new job of inspiring her granddaughter and a slight revision of their conversation.
As he steps into the TARDIS with the unconscious Adelaide in tow, he decides, for the first time in 700 years, to take off the brakes and run his beloved time machine on silent. The ship herself requires only a few calming words from her pilot before she's acting normal again.
He ends up taking Adelaide to her daughter's house for her to look after. He silences the daughter's overwhelming questions and tells her that her mother is ill and needs rest for a few days.
He stops in young Susan Brooke's bedroom for precisely six minutes. He only adds a small bit of… pressure to the infant's developing mind, so that the child will always try her hardest to succeed. Nothing dangerous whatsoever.
When he enters the Time Vortex, he can feel the timelines shifting and churning with the change in events. The Doctor grins at this initial success. He thinks about the lives that had been lost who could now be saved because he, the Doctor, understood his new place in the universe. This is a new beginning, Doctor. He grins.
"Well, Old Girl" he says to his TARDIS, "Let's get started!"
And the Victorious Doctor piloted his TARDIS to parts unknown, starting a new chapter in history.
But those are tales for another time.