I'm with Rose of Pollux. It's perfectly plausible to have the Brig (retired and at odds with his life) distracted enough to throw his lot in with the Second Doctor during his parolee years and wander a bit as his Companion.
Besides, the Brig is just awesome. He had hidden depths that rarely came out—DOWNTIME is one of the most glorious character-enhancing films for his unabashed joy in discovering his lost family, and his warmth to old compatriots like Sarah Jane.
Two DIDN'T need a Yes-Man with him; he naturally gravitated to people who could stand up for and think for themselves.
And we all know how good the Brig was at that.
So without further ado, here's a Birthday fic for Rose of Pollux! Betcha didn't see that one coming. It's been awful, keeping the dark secret to myself!
Overall, the Timespace Continuum had had better aeons, but things hadn't really been the same since a certain auspicious birth occurred on a certain Otherstide holiday.
Overseeing scanners back at the Citadel observed the following events with electronic trepidation in the wake of Rassilon's possibly-high-handed-dispersion of Borusa's kidnapped Time Lord(s) and humans.
+ The Original Doctor returned to his Timeline.
This was received with mixed emotions by the Temporal Oversight Committee and the Temporal Scanning Service, who hated to see a renowned criminal return to his bolthole—not to mention it was so illegal to tamper with that portion of the Timeline that even the CIA wouldn't contemplate hauling the rascal back to the Citadel for a separate trial (or at least that was what they believed. The CIA was just annoyed they hadn't thought about it until it was too late).
The Doctor's traveling Companion Susan (who was also an illegal emigrant from Gallifrey and far too young to be allowed offworld) had to be dropped off to her secret Timeline, so some certain parties had hopes of getting back at their old enemy through her. These hopes were cruelly dashed when that cunning old reprobate of a renegade proved the steering issues with the TARDIS weren't quite as bad as he'd led people to believe...before Gallifrey could lock on to his coordinates, he'd jumped from his rose garden into his TARDIS, and spun off into the nearest multi-dimensional Vector, rendering their instruments useless just long enough to get away.
Of course there was the fact that ONE Gallifreyan had riddled out the secret location of Susan Foreman...but to be honest, no one was going to go into the Death Zone to ask Borusa anything—even if he was capable of answering questions, and he wasn't.
+ The Third Doctor returned to his Timeline...Mostly.
It may be more accurate to say, he jumped off in his TARDIS with the human Sarah Jane Smith so quickly that it was a wonder he didn't leave temporal trails smoking in his wake. Once in a great while, Gallifrey was uncomfortably reminded that this Doctor, the one to whom they'd pinned the greatest of their warped hopes on respectability and a cultivation for a useful political career as their ambassador again...still had a regrettable grain of rebellion (not to mention a misdirected stiff neck and stubborn streak).
Many Temporal-years later, Gallifrey would look upon this ever-so-slight hiccup of Timelining with deep regret and just a bit of anxiety, but for now they could just take a deep breath and sigh in relief and the (terribly mistaken) belief that the Third Incarnation had actually just dropped off Miss Smith before returning to UNIT. He didn't. In truth, he spent several years spinning about in a Parallel Universe and probably had the time of his life doing it; but who was to know? None of that showed up until years after, so it wasn't their bureaucratic migraine just yet. For Gallifrey, Ignorance was bliss when it came to the Doctor.
+ The Fourth Doctor jumped off with Lady Romana in tow—
-or more accurately, Lady Romana ramped off of Earth with the Fourth in tow—so quickly that a few regrettable errors were made in navigational calculations. In short, it was a very long time before anyone could even find that wretched old TARDIS, much less pin down the Doctor long enough to make him return to Gallifrey to finalize his duties.
Duties which were rendered incredibly complicated because of what the Fifth Doctor did:
+ The Fifth Doctor promptly gave Flavia orders, spun on his heel and literally jumped into the TARDIS with a grin on his face, knowingly leaving his home planet without his presence as Lord President.
In the resulting fury of Formal Hearings that followed, Flavia could only point out she was following the letter of the law, and no one on Gallifrey had (that anyone knew) been executed for following the law.
Yet.
And this of course led to the problems with the Second Doctor.
In order of headaches, this one was the last and the worst. A positive migraine.
Some wondered if the presence of a more staid primitive might adapt his free behaviors.
They were allowed that wondering; the fact was, the nanosecond that aspect jumped off Gallifrey, he was once again the legal property of the CIA, and no one, not even the Lord President pro tem, wanted to get their robes dirty with CIA nonsense—unless of course you were the TSS, and the two agencies loathed each other as much as they were forced to work with each other.
It was the only way they could sleep at night, because no one knew what horrors the CIA was up to anyway. And they liked it that way.
One minute had the Brigadier standing on the chilly greensward of merry olde England, giving the Doctor a heartfelt goodbye...
"Well, this time I really mean that I must be off."
The little Doctor looked even sadder as he said it this time, with the echoes of Time lapping around them both. The big human recognised the look as one he'd worn himself. He'd donned it when he's said good-bye to a friend or comrade...and sometimes, even a foe, knowing it was probably the last time he'd ever see that face again.
He opened his mouth, but knew that whatever he'd say would hardly compete with the clever little fellow, and moved to his default motion of honour: His hand was already lifting on its way to a farewell salute, when...
...when a very familiar wheezing, grinding sound vibrated through the air.
The Brig had only one heart, but it sank as heavy as the two within the breast below that dawning expression on his old friend's face. He knew it well from his days at UNIT: It was an expression he had often worn...Yates called it the "Oh, good heavens, NO" expression.
"Brigadier..." The little Doctor's sickening expression didn't make him feel any better. He lifted a small hand inside his fur coat. "Run..!"
It was already too late, but the Brigadier had quite enough of a few things in the past twelve hours.
"I'm not leaving you, Doctor!" He snapped, even as the TARDIS Console Room materialized around them and—with a crunching LURCH that sent them both flying into the roundels, they were off again.
"You pig-headed old fool! I told you to leave! You could have gotten away!" The little Time Lord screeched at him as he clung to the Console with both hands—even if at times both his feet parted ways with the wildly tilting floor. Around them the TARDIS screamed her massive displeasure at the treatment. The Brigadier simply kept his grip on the roundels and let gravity fight it out without his assistance.
"Can we save the yelling for later? When we know we're going to survive whateverthisis?" The Brig yelled back with impressive lung power—even if he did say so himself.
The Doctor conceded to the wisdom of this plan by hammering one-handed on the Console, his other hand latched to the console like a gumboot chiton on a rock—and with that fur coat he bore more than a passing resemblance to that odd intertidal creature. The Brig had little to do except hang on to his own part of the timeship and listen to the Doctor gripe about Time Lords with clean smiles and dirty hands. If the Brig had ever doubted the evidence of his X-rays, he would have deemed the tirade proof positive that four lungs were at work. Nothing else would explain the decibels.
And the next minute both he and the little Hobo were flying like so many ninepins across the wildly tilting floor of the timeship, rolling with many bruises and little dignity into a room banked wall to wall with expensive-looking computers and other electrical bits.
"Ooof!" With the unnerving ease of a man who has done just this thing before many times, the little Doctor (somehow without his coat) reached out, grabbed the human, and latched his arm around the old soldier's chest. The Brig felt the floor leave his feet utterly, and gawped with mild astonishment and just a little resignation with the fact that the floor was now the wall—and the floor was a good eight feet up if it was a Scottish Ell.
Negligible to the young man he once was, but a cry out for broken bones and torn ligaments now.
The old soldier felt sweat pop over his face as he imagined the consequences of a deadweight drop straight down on top of something large, weighty, and in possession of many, many sharp corners of what appeared to be enameled steel casing, but chances were he wasn't that lucky. Good sensible steel was a lesson that skipped most aliens—and he had the invasion records to prove it.
Instinctively he tightened up his body, removing the deadweight into activeweight, and inhaled as far as he could go, which lightened the load of his corpus by a few precious grams (and anyone who didn't think the little things were important never worked for UNIT, much less tried to operate on their annual budget). Not a few mantras crossed his mind in this moment of pure existentialism, but he settled for mentally drawing down a line of energy from ceiling to floor, which helped equalize his weight for the Doctor's grip (anyone who lumped Buddhism, yoga, the Celtic afterlife, animistic science and Tai Chi as nonsense had never been locked inside a quantum dimension for thirty seconds whilst the Master boasted and gloated about his latest tiresome schemes for planetary/solar system/galactic/Universal domination).
Thank goodness it had only lasted thirty seconds. Some of it was still a blur, but he did vaguely recall saying some things to the Master in a rather stern tone that had left the Doctor, the Master, and everyone at UNIT gape-jawed mute for a few blessed minutes.
Come to think of it, the Master seemed anxious to avoid his presence after that...
"Hold on, Brigadier!" The little Doctor yelped in his ear, and incredibly, hung on. The Brig twisted his head around to see the Time Lord was gripping on to something oblong for all he was worth. It seemed unbelievable that the little fellow could hang on to his weight plus his own, but he could hear two hearts beating against his one between the layers of coat, and he reasoned with the distant cool soldier's tactical observations that he was designed for withstanding trouble.
And trouble they were in.
"Damn it, Doctor!" The Brig yelled as the room changed again—getting him a smack on the cheek from a plastic square thing covered in yellow blobs-"This is why I never became a Navy Man!"
"I'm sorry for the Royal Fleet's loss, Brigadier!" The Doctor exclaimed breathlessly. "But we're in some sort of wormhole, and there's nothing to do but ride it out—ooh!" That last was a cutoff of air in his lungs as another tilt sent the Brig full-weight into his chest.
"Sorry," The Brig apologized.
"Quite...all right..." The Doctor gasped. His eyes were changing color from green to brown to blue to hazel and back to green—surely not an encouraging sign. He was still trying to hold up the Brig from a messy spill on the floor below, but the ship was starting to tilt, slowly, to what passed for normal in the Blue Police Madhouse.
"Wormhole?" The Brig repeated. His brain dearly wanted him to get them both out of this nonsense, but he was just as sternly telling it to shut it; didn't it remember UNIT's glory days with the Third Doctor? His brain shot back with acidic wit, informing him in no uncertain terms there were advantages to blocking out past traumas.
"Yes, wormhole." The Doctor panted.
"Please don't tell me this is a Schwartzchild variation, Doctor." The Brigadier begged. "I don't want to go to another Universe!" Not again, please no.
"I have no idea just yet—but goodness me, when did you find the time to study wormholes, Brigadier?"
By this time, the two were hanging into space; the floor-turned-into-a-wall was now a wall-turned-into-a-ceiling, and the Brig was watching his Death-Zone scuffed shoes (200 quid for the lot) sway above the center of the room. Unfortunately, this part of the room was the only space not filled by a computer or bank of alien whatsit—he was looking at a painful looking straight drop to polished white floor.
"Somewhere between the Spanish Influenza and a case of Jenner's Intergalactic Pox," the Brig told the Doctor dryly. Just to the side, he could see the little man's Hush Puppies poking out from the other side of his check trousers. "Doctor, what are you doing with McTavish Tartan, anyway? That can get you thrashed on the wrong side of Argyll."
"I'll have you know this is called the Likhanswer Weave on the planet Naro!" The little man huffed. "And it means "prosperity in twilight" to the natives!"
"Good on them. I'd change it too." The Brigadier deadpanned. Being deadpan helped take his mind off his brain's obsessive calculations with his pain levels once the Doctor lost his grip. "So we might not be going off down a one-way street into another Universe?"
"If we do, I'll get us back." The Doctor snapped in that harassed, worried and snippy way the Brigadier had heard himself make all too often as a father and troop leader when someone asked the right question at the wrong time.
"Mmn—hmn. Make sure you do. I'm supposed to be meeting my family for tea tomorrow."
"Why weren't they at your speech?"
"They're still mad at me, I imagine."
"Mad at you?" The Doctor twisted his head down to peer at the Brig, giving the old soldier a glorious view of a rumpled little man with crazy hair, owlish green eyes, and a face made for radio. "Why are they mad at you?" He sounded incredulous, bless him.
"I missed my former father in law's retirement party when I was off saving the world from the Master with your future self, twenty years ago." Twenty years, one month, a fortnight, and six hours past midnight, but who was counting?
"And they're still mad at you?" The little Time Lord's mobile face collapsed inward like so much Dwarf Star Alloy into an expression of irreversible suspicion. Did you marry a Gallifreyan, by any change?"
"Oh, dear. You really don't know the Connacht Irish, do you?" The Brig would give up (cheerfully) every last pence in his pocket plus his pension if Ireland would go to war with Gallifrey (he would be so magnanimous towards the aliens as they went down in bewildered flames and woad), but, time to change the subject. "I've been teaching maths at a boys' school since I retired UNIT, Doctor. You'd be surprised the number of gawp-eyed mushrooms that think they know everything once they get their grubby little hands on a slide rule."
"Hmph. Sounds too much like my old school days." The Doctor muttered.
"Really? Were you one of the knowitalls?"
"Certainly not. I just...well..." By inches the proper direction was correcting; the men sighed in relief as they began to slide down to normal. "It wasn't my fault there were so many idiotic instructors!"
"Assumed they knew all the answers to your questions, did you? For shame, Doctor." The Brig tried not to laugh but it was all too easy a thing to imagine a younger, flustered Doctor, innocently asking impossible questions to an equally flustered and dry-boned old academic who had shed their last original thoughts three generations hence.
"Oh, good!" The Doctor chirped as their soles pressed upon the rightful surface. At the same time, the TARDIS was slowing its grinding protests—the Brig had once heard McCrimmon liken it to an old lunger of a grampus, and the description fit all too well. But if that sound was dying, that meant (theoretically) so was the cause.
"Now, let's see where we are!" The Doctor proclaimed and clapped his little hands together, off-venting stress with a thinly-masked cheerful beam that might just be colored by a smidgen of hysteria. The Brig was well familiar with that mannerism of his 'original' Doctor, which was a much more flighty model compared to the a-little-too-well-grounded version in velvet that followed.
He was just touching the Console when several things happened at once:
WHOOM.
The TARDIS...just...shuddered.
The Doctor's small body went flying, a cricket ball on the wrong side of a willowwood bat. He struck the wall just next to the Brig's ear—and at the same height. Proving his reflexes hadn't gone completely to hell in his retirement (as if keeping an eye on the destructive English Schoolboy wasn't hell enough on the insomnia and PTSD), the old soldier grabbed him and kept him from denting the floor with his face.
"Oh, that smarted." The Doctor mumbled under his breath, rubbing at the back of his skull like a small child, but the Brig didn't miss the fact that the little fellow had missed the back of his head a few times whilst trying to rub it! The Brig had the absurd urge to turn parental and check the bruise, wrestled with his conscience for one-tenth of a second, and decided old soldiers never quite stopped looking for a fight. He reached up, plunked the Doctor down into the old chair (ignoring the heroic yelp of indignation), and pulled his old first aid kit out of his sleeve.
"Let's take a look at that, shall we?" He asked rhetorically. "Still fatally allergic to aspirin?" It was a shallow cut on the scalp, and the blood was already clotting. The color of the bruise around the cut had him worried. The whole area had an odd mottling that might have matched up with the pattern of the computer console during their next-to-last collision with the inanimate.
"Aspirin?" The Doctor asked blankly.
Oh, not good.
The Brig cleared his throat. "Doctor, do you remember what Rassilon just told us?"
"Rassilon who?"
Oh, really, really not good.
"Never mind, Doctor. It'll come to you."
"Come to what?"
He was just putting the last bit of tape on the Doctor's lump when the TARDIS made a grumpy sound; the Doctor tensed, and the doors opened.
On the other side of those doors were a cadre of men dressed so outlandishly, they had to have been Time Lords.
But even the Brig's inexperienced eye could tell this was a different lot—and, were he pressed, he would guess...another time. He couldn't explain how he sensed this, but it was his instinct talking and it was usually worth a listen.
"Doctor!" The leading man, a lean, starved-looking old hawk, blinked at the two. "You missed your appointment by one aptosecond!"
"And that's why you felt obligated to reel me in like so many cubic feet of fish?" The Doctor hopped to his feet and squared off (swaying slightly) with his opponent—a neatly dressed patrician in robes and headdresses facing down an indignant little scarecrow with flyaway pepper hair. The Brigadier hoped he was the only one who noticed the swaying, or the fact that the Doctor's eyes were changing color out of sync like so many traffic lights in the heart of Piccadilly Circus the night before Christmas. The last time this happened, he had been mildly concussed from the compression impact of Cyberfire...and had been all too happy to sit and pose for Miss Watkins.
The Brig hoped with the fires of Jupiter's surface temperatures in August that this time the Doctor wouldn't try to go take a swim in the canals—but maybe they didn't have canals over here. It was worth a hope.
"I was yanked out of my timestream before I could make my appointment, I'll have you know!" The Little man was posturing like a Banty rooster before a much-larger but baffled hawk. No, that wasn't posturing, that was unsteady swaying. "Sent gallivanting through the future and straight into the Death Zone, of all places! Not that I expect you to believe that for one minute!"
"Friend of yours, Doctor?" The Brig asked delicately.
Time froze.
The Patrician took in the other occupant, squawked like a rusty chicken, and fluttered backwards. "A human!" (not unlike Fiona's mother when she learned her precious daughter was fancying a man who swore his loyalty to the English crown). "What are you doing with humans, Doctor!"
"Oh, dear..." The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I was taking him back home! And then you reeled us in like so many cubic feet of f-"
"Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Formerly United Nations Intelligence Taskforce of Earth, Formerly Colonel of the Watch, and mathematics instructor, at your service, sir." The Brig clicked his heels and saluted, figuring that manners would yet be the death of him.
The formality soothed the feathers a mite. "At least this one has some awareness," was the cold sniff. An icy eye raked over the fuming Doctor. "Very well. He's here, there's little we can do about it. Go make yourself presentable. We have a Stibatium to attend."
"A WHAT?!"
The Brig dug the ringing vibrations out of his ear with a wince. He'd forgotten about that particular vocal gift of this version of the Doctor. The last time UNIT had heard the fellow trumpet like that, he'd sent all the Tower Ravens to flight (sending a galloping and contagious horror in London as said ravens would only leave when Britain was doomed to fall).
"Shall I repeat myself?" The Time Lord sneered. "Make yourself presentable—you have fifteen minutes." With that he swept away, his men in tow. The Brig could just barely make out the mutter: "...be as late as his fashion sense as it is..."
"Of all the confounded, puffed up..." The little Doctor was winding up full-tilt in righteous rage.
"Ahem. Doctor? What does a Roman Dining Hall have to do with you?"
"Precious little. Nothing. But they can't seem to understand that." The Doctor sputtered. "Oh, very well. There's nothing for it." He dusted off his coat, his shoulders drooping from a sudden weariness. "It's a formal dinner combined with boring speeches. Are you hungry?"
"Er..." In truth he was, but not for Time Lord food. He'd learned that early on with the Third Doctor as his advisor. They had six flavours as opposed to human's five, and the Brig could never accept "sawdust" as a flavour base, much less texture. "Ah, no. No. That's quite all right. I can wait here if you wish."
"I certainly do not wish. They're going to make me miserable...the least I can do is share it." The Doctor took a deep breath for courage and shook out his silk handkerchief. "Besides, I'm afraid they'll make you vanish if I turn my back."
"WHAT!"
"Oh...did I say that out loud?" The little Time Lord flinched. He bravely met the Brig's wide eyes. "I'm so terribly sorry." His eyes were changing again, to reflective dark malachite—the first shade the Brig had seen in the little man, and in his mental Guide Book to Doctor Spotting, was still the most indicative of danger. He still couldn't see that color without thinking of Yeti and web guns and hissing animated corpses.
The Brigadier didn't consider himself an expert on the Doctor, but he had been around Doctors One through Five enough to know that the changing eye color was unique to the Second version. And it was a bloody accurate mood-gauge if you knew what to look for.
"Doctor..." The Brig lowered one eyebrow as he left the other aloft. It was an impressive glare. "Just how long have you been traveling alone?" Just as quickly he shot up his hands. "Never mind, that was inexcusably rude of me. Let's not be late—your people don't seem to be the type to appreciate that form of...creativity."
In all his bitter years of servitude under the Time Lords, this would be one of the few times the Doctor had faced them in the company of a friend. He didn't know what to make of it; part of him was relieved and the other part was terrified. What if they excavated another dusty old law that justified wiping the Brigadier's memory too? Omega's Cube, he hoped not. Earth was perpetually vulnerable to the extent it was a constant joke amongst the higher evolutionaries. Earth needed all of its fighters, and one who had the blessing of a Goddess surely couldn't hurt.
But his people had a gift for hitting him right where it hurt the most, and in that dry, stiff-necked old soldier with the twinkling eyes, the Doctor could see the warmth of the past...and Jamie and Zoe were there in those twinkles.
Victoria as well...oh, how those three memories hurt.
A sudden pang of real, physical hurt made him wince and he dug the heel of his hand into his forehead, frowning even as the pressure failed to help the growing throb in his skull. He didn't remember hitting the wall computer quite so hard...
The little Time Lord found himself walking far too quickly down the halls of the Wall. He stopped dead in his tracks, hearts thumping in his chest, and whirled, stunned to find himself alone.
Or had he been alone all along? Was the Brigadier a phantom just as Jamie and Zoe? Was all of this one of the illusions of-
-No, not alone; the Brigadier was standing with his arms folded over his chest at the far entrance, a wry and worried look on his ageing face.
"I wondered how long it would take you to notice," he said quietly.
"Well if you couldn't keep up, you could have just said something, Brigadier!" He snapped, but it was too late; they both knew the human had seen his expression. His chest heaved under his baggy coat as sweat broke over his brow. Oh, crumbs, but his head hurt!
"I'm not the most intelligent of men, Doctor, and I doubt I'm even a contender for intellect among your people." The Brig let his arms drop and walked quietly across the acoustical carpet, ignoring the pretentious statues and wall-paintings. "But I would hope my memory isn't so fallible that I've forgotten what you told me in the Death Zone."
"I told you plenty of things." The Doctor heard himself grumble, and scowled at the tops of his shoes as they walked side-by-side down the rest of the hall. There was almost a mile of it to go. "Mostly how to not get killed."
"For which I'm grateful." The Brigadier said wryly. "But truthfully, Doctor..." The tall human paused and tilted his head back to take a deep breath. "How long have you been travelling alone?"
"You make that sound like a crime." He said defensively.
"For you? It is."
The Doctor's gaze snapped up to the Brigadier's. The human was unflinching as ever, his eyes still unchangeable, but never completely readable. Did he know how unusual his gaze was to a Time Lord? He wouldn't care if he did. So young to a Time Lord, but to a human? Many humans would call him ridiculously old. And he considered himself old, when he hadn't even lived to his first century!
"I've nearly lost count." He heard himself saying in a voice he barely recognized. "It's been..." He took a deep breath. "Almost two hundred years."
"My God." The Brigadier's voice was soft, almost reverent with the moment. His hard-bitten face was suddenly gentle, and in the red alien light, the Doctor realised he was seeing the true soul of the old soldier for the first time. "That long?"
"Time passes quickly or slowly, Brigadier. Sometimes it passes by me very quickly indeed. But I don't age the same way you humans do." He didn't know why he felt the need to defend himself, when there was no blame in the other's response.
Come to think of it, the Brigadier had never blamed him in areas he'd expected...nor had he found fault. He'd simply accepted him for what he was, the same way Jamie had. His only criticism had been when he was pointing out his inability to remember to communicate with humans on human terms...
"You shouldn't be alone." The Brigadier said flatly. "It's not good for you, Doctor. I could sense something was off about you even when we were running for our lives. And then in that damned Tower..." He shuddered.
"I should never have gone to Earth." The Doctor muttered. Scarcely knowing what he was doing, he stopped and turned to the right where a large glasstic window revealed the entire enormity of Gallifrey's largest city on the other side of the Red Plains. His fingers pressed against the glasstic, a very human gesture but the cool smoothness soothed him. Below them a cluster of aircraft were darting back and forth like so many insects, children playing with altitude adjustments in one of their endless learning games. He remembered being one of those children...long ago. "I'm sorry! I should never have gone to see you, Brigadier...it put you in danger and more than once."
"You just wanted to pay respects, and there's no shame to that." The Brigadier said as carefully as he could. "I would do the same, you know. I'd do it in a heartbeat, and hang what others thought of me."
"But you always stuck to the rules." The Time Lord's voice was low and almost...wistful.
"I did because I had no choice, Doctor." The Brig heard himself chuckle a bit. "And hard as it is to believe, I've broken a few of those things in my time. When the rules had outlived their practicality..."
The Doctor heard himself laugh silently...or more accurately, felt his body shake with the hitches in his chest.
"As I understood it, Brousa planned it so you would have a Companion to help you get through the Zone...and possibly keep you all distracted from learning the real cause of his plot." The Brigadier pointed out. His bigger, warm body was as soothing to the Doctor as was the touch of cool glasstic; friendly heat radiated off him like a stove.
The Brigadier was Type O blood; the warmest type of Human; the Ancestor Human, the forefather of the humans to follow. In time they would be seen as obsolete and outdated; embarrassingly anachronistic...but they had been the first pioneers of their race, and carried in their genes all possible codes for their descendants.
Like Jamie.
"...So it was nothing you could have done." The human was saying.
"It still put you in danger! I had no control over it."
"I'm not sorry, Doctor." The Brigadier began to sound exasperated for the first time. "You're one of my oldest friends and I'm no stranger to danger. And I'll be a deserved fool if I let a friend go into battle alone."
The Doctor heard himself huff a strange sound—what was that sound? Jamie. Jamie used to make that sound. Oh, Jamie. "You should pick your friends more carefully, Brigadier. I'm not safe."
"I don't know how Time Lords define friendship, but safety is never in a human's equation." The Brigadier was watching the same things as the Doctor, but what was he truly seeing? There was so little to reveal in his twinkling human eyes. So many layers of multitudinous thoughts, so many tiny reflections. Oh, he just was impossible to read; a rare human. What would the Time Lords do when they noticed him? Would they put him in a laboratory to study? Or just casually find a way to be rid of him?
"I didn't pick you to be my friend, Doctor. It just happened. The way it should be. And to humans, a friend is what makes one better. Use whatever definition your people have for friend, and allow me the freedom to use mine."
The Doctor knew they were running late and there would be hell to pay, but his feet were rooted to the floor. By his idiotic, unthinking kindness, the Brigadier was crushing every defense he'd carefully built up in his long tenure for the Time Lords. He couldn't trust himself to speak.
"Besides, running off with you gave me the opportunity to clean the Master's clock." The Brigadier lifted his fist; the knuckles were quite bruised. "If you only knew how many nights I've lain awake dreaming of that moment...He could have TCE'd me and I would have still died with a smirk on my face."
"Oh, dear." The Doctor laughed under his breath even as his hearts lurched at the thought. "Oh, dear, Brigadier. I can only imagine." He gulped hard. "But if he'd done that to you..." He shook his head, dazed with the enormity of the situation. "Don't joke about it, please. I...I couldn't bear it."
"Because he was once your friend?"
"He was my first friend, Brigadier. One doesn't forget one's first friend." The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment. "Even though it makes one...dangerously nostalgic." He swallowed again. "He...plagues my future self, doesn't he?"
"He did quite a bit in the years I worked with you then." The Brigadier admitted. "Did he never try to plague you in your current body?"
"He did once." The Doctor said flatly, and with a coldness that shocked himself. "I locked him in a black hole. I..." He hesitated, drawing breath and finally looking up into the human's layered eyes. "I'm not...like my Dandified self, Brigadier." He confessed heavily. "I'm...not as...good as he."
That must have been a massive admission; what he'd seen of the past and present Doctors suggested as much grief as bewilderment. At the time of what UNIT called "Project Omega", the Brig assumed he'd imagined the long and mixed expressions cast between "his" Doctor and the Third Doctor's spinal column, but here was the proof he hadn't imagined it.
The younger Brigadier would have recognized that look but the man he was now, who had to face his successor across the desk every time he was consulted...well, he knew it and had more confidence in his ability to speak the truth.
"Didn't you hear me, you...you old buffoon?" The Doctor was snapping. "I told you! I'm not as good!"
"I know." The Brigadier said without surprise or pity. When the Doctor was terrified, or mired in self-loathing, the names were the first to fly. It was true for the Third, and it was true for the Second-they who were far more alike than the Time Lords would like to know.
He rested his much-larger and warmer hand, a heavy deadweight, upon the layers of battered Earth clothing over the short, solid shoulder. In a flash of insight he asked himself if this Doctor played at being a fool harder because he wore a body designed for war. "You are not as good as your future self. I know. Nor am I."
"That's different."
"Because I'm human? Or sworn to a narrow-minded duty too much like a Time Lord's? If you can accept this hidebound and limited old horse of a soldier, then enjoy the fact that you improve with age...into someone just a bit nicer to his enemies." The Brigadier was smiling behind his mustache, but the smile was weary. "We are both old soldiers, you and I. We've both given up a lot of ourselves to allow our futures freedom. The only difference is...my future was for my daughter and yours for your future self to come."
In the phantom reflections of the glasstic, the little man closed his eyes.
"Did your daughter ever forgive you for the things you did?"
"No, but I didn't serve for forgiveness. That's the price I paid so she and everyone else on Earth could live free of domination...or death by a Dalek, or Auton, or whatever the invader was that week. If she hated me, it was a luxury I didn't deserve because it meant she had the freedom to do so." A pang crossed his chest and he closed his eyes for a moment. "I'll not lie to you, it wasn't easy. Not until I imagined her forgiveness in death. Then anger and life became an easy choice."
"She doesn't hate you." The Doctor was pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead. "She needs Time." He said it with a capital T.
A strange, eerie moment rippled through the old officer, and he felt what his grandmother called a Crucial Moment: for just a split second, this Doctor and his future self, the one he'd fought, laughed, and shared life with for years...was speaking in a moment of tandem agreement. It was strange, fey and crippling in its awe for while he had no preference for any of the men who were the Doctor, he felt he knew-and loved-the personalities of the Second and Third-or, his First and Second-the best.
The Brigadier had but one heart, and that one lurched deep in his pleural cavity. His mouth opened to say—something-but in that crucial moment, a door went CLICK and a high-pitched, strident voice quavered an irritated string of syllables.
For a moment it was all gibberish; then it translated into the Brigadier's mind (thank you, TARDIS) with the force of a slamming windowsill. They were late.
He didn't want the Doctor to pay the punishment for something he'd done.
"Terribly sorry!" He exclaimed at the top of his lungs, directed at the red-faced fop in strange robes. "Felt a bit of planet-sickness; needed a bit of downtime to get my head in order!" He put on his best Polite Smile, which was not to be confused with the Generic Smile. "Been ages since I was offworld, and the Temporal Wobblies muddled my head a bit."
?! was the expression the Doctor was giving him, all greying peppered mop-top and ferocious black brows. Well, to be truthful, it was more like "?" in the eyes whilst the brows were doing a "what the bloody hell have you been up to?" at the same time.
"Thank you, Doctor. Much obliged." The Brig looked him zat in the eye and dared him make something of it.
"Yes...yes of course." The Doctor said in a –wouldn't you just know—a deadpan tone. He even coughed for effect. "Are you recovered? Can you walk?"
"Just stay close for a bit longer, would you? It has ages since I was offworld, and I'm not certain the transdimensional plane counts as another world. Or does it?" He looked at the increasingly panicked official in puzzled politeness. "I do apologise. I don't want to cause trouble, but I would like to make certain my language arts are up to the task..."
"Did you say, you have been on the transdimensional planes?" The official asked with what was probably an admirable case of self-control.
"Yes...yes, sir." The Brigadier paused, pretending to think. "I do believe we call it The Bardo Plane on Earth. It's not something we normally discuss in polite company, you know. Consensual Reality and all that." Now that was a case of making it up as he went along... "I do hope I'm not being rude, sir..."
"No. No. No, not at all." Hands were waving in all directions and frantically. "Quite all right, Tellurian. Your manners commend you." That last bit was said with great relief, and the official mopped his brow against a dew of sweat. "You can certainly make the time until you've recovered." He collected his pompous composure long enough to spear the silently gaping Doctor with a gimlet glare: "Can't he, Doctor?"
"Absolutely." The Doctor smiled meekly. It was an Emmy-grade performance.
No, make that the Clio Awards. The Doctor was selling something-his credibility.
The Brigadier had enjoyed dinners with many, many reprehensible beings. Bureaucrats were up there with the worst.
He mentally shrugged and copied the Doctor's actions—well, sort of. When the Doctor flung himself with somewhat dramatic grandstanding into a reclining couch, the Brig chose instead to sit back with a slower and more assembled dignity.
His body was older. He could get away with the silliness of dignity.
He counted a loosely grouped twenty men and women in robes—at least half of which were red-oranges. Everyone reclined with all the ponderous pretension of plutarchian Romans, sipping delicately from overly ornate goblets and nibbling at—what a surprise—nutricubes. Ugh.
Worries about food were alleviated when the Doctor picked up a water goblet and a dull blue cube off a tray of assorted dull-colored cubes, and handed it to him. "Stick with the blue ones," he was advised in a whisper. "The rest are either horrid, toxic, or fattening, and the round ones made Jamie think he was seeing flying checkered earthworms."
"Easy enough." The Brigadier was glad someone thought a nutricube could be horrid... This one was fairly palatable...not unlike that freeze-dried ice cream Yates liked to use for coffee creamer when he thought no one was watching.
Because he was uncertain on what passed for manners on this planet, he held it in his hand a moment, noting that the Doctor had eaten his with a few quick bites, washing it down with half the water in his goblet with what looked like unseemly haste.
"The position of the Council ought to be clear enough," an officious, pale-faced man with pinched cheeks and a starveling eye pronounced over the volume of his dining companion. As if in unspoken signal, all other conversation paused, permitting him the moment.
The moment of peace derailed as in some clueless cue, all eyes went to him.
"Perhaps our guest has a differing opinion?"
The Brig wondered if something about his body language had accidentally told then he wasn't interested in participating. Too late now. He didn't dare look at the Doctor, but his peripheral was a decent 30% (adding to his fame in the field of hurley, or, if you were an utter sissy, lacrosse), so he calmly sipped his flat, stale water.
"Is there a reason why I should wish to differ with my hosts?" He asked with an expression of social propriety so convincing that every incarnation of the Doctor from 1-5+ would have wisely ran behind the nearest furniture for cover.
"Not at all, if you choose. We merely wonder if there is a differing point of view for your...human...species that we should consider. All the better to ensure we have the welfare of the valued parties." The speaker was using just enough unctuous tones that nearly half his cohorts were looking embarrassed to be in his presence.
"Actually," The Brigadier corrected with bland politeness, "I'm a poorly evolved semi-aquatic ape. I'm quite narrow-minded and warlike, enjoy long walks, bagpipes, watercolour paintings, and fungus soup. My favorite colors happen to co-incide with my mother's clan tartan, and I play the Pennywhistle in the Key of C." He smiled sweetly and held it. "And I find everyone of value, not just a few."
In the almost reverent silence that followed this shocking pronouncement, the Doctor managed to ruin the horror of lack of propriety by trying not to choke on his drink.
The Brigadier's mother had died of a very early age. While he would always miss her, another part of him was devoted to not being a disgrace to her honor.
Thus, it was the constant question of what his mother would have said. She would have been very strict on his honor as a Scot, and as a child loyal to his upbringing in Shimla, India.
So, when an odd-looking older man in sky-blue robes asked about Earth's unfortunate history of invasion, in an era he really wasn't supposed to know about (he named her Mr. Stuffy in his mind) ... he invoked his mother's savvy.
"Oh, dear." The Brigadier pretended to think. "You know, there've been so many of those. Are you referring to the blighters that shot projectiles from their foreheads, or those walking poisonous thorn women?"
"Thorn women." The Doctor piped up. "What was it UNIT finally named them?"
"We decided on Attercops." The Brig said in a voice as bland and level as a bubble level. "Due to the fact that they had poison in their skulls. They weren't happy about it, though. I finally told them to file a report."
The Brigadier was no longer a young man, and he could not help but think of the cautionary proverb from Japan at the speaker's officiousness confidence. Although his moustache was larger than his youth, something must leaked past it because Mr. Stuffy noticed.
"Does our learned guest have something useful to add?" He asked dustily.
"Useful? I very much doubt it." The Brigadier calmly took another sip of water. "Your words merely reminded me of a popular proverb back home."
There was a quick SNAP in the atmosphere, and the flimsy materials about the room fluttered in a powerfully charged air-current. The Doctor jumped to his feet, eyes wide and turning to the source of the sound.
Someone screamed.
People backed away in their ornate robes. Then they stumbled in them, fell, and scrambled away on their hands and knees, which at least cleared the view: A flopped-over cadaver in blackened robes, the skull still gaping open in a horrid grin as smoke curled from its charred throat.
It sounded terrible, but the Brigadier always tried to see everything, no matter how dire, in some sort of positive light, and the best he could come up with on such short notice was: That's one way to liven up a High Tea.
Knowing full well what was going to happen, the Brigadier dropped his water goblet over the corpse before it could catch the drapes on fire. The quenching hiss underscored the one, blissful second of total and dead (sorry) silence as his actions caused everyone to freeze up in the middle of their panic…before the inevitable happened:
Screaming. Jumping up of feet, squishing of robes, panic and pandemonium.
The Brigadier leaped to the Doctor who was also pouring his water over the still-smoking body, grabbed him and held him tightly against the wall just before he could get squashed by a massive official who must have outweighed the little Doctor by at least nine stone.
"Bloody hell, calm down, you lot!" He roared as the panic only seemed to spread. "You'll kill yourselves!" And the Doctor was still not on top form; that bad crack on the head was not good.
"It's no use, Brigadier!" The Doctor shouted back over the din. "They're civilians! They don't have any sense whatsoever!" Then he cringed at the sound, and clapped his aching head in his hands. "Oh!"
The Brigadier dearly wished he could get the Doctor away—he invoked Tai Chi (including its patience), and cleared a bit of space. "On my shoulders!" He knelt. "Get on that top shelf! You'll get crushed in this mess!"
"But what about you?"
"Don't argue, Doctor, just do it!"
"Oh, my word!"
The Doctor did as he was told.
"Hang on!" The Brig grunted and rose to his feet, fisting a passing shrieker in his nerve cluster and knocking him cold. Now, there was an idea...he waited until the weight of the Doctor's shoes left his shoulders and with some slight trepidation mixed in with his secret satisfaction, the old soldier waded right into the fray, striking in choice areas considered negligible to humans but highly sensitive to Gallifreyans.
The Doctor clutched at the top of the shelf, his head still spinning. Being this far off the ground didn't help, and a lamp had been kicked over, so the sudden shift of light made his skull throb worse than ever. He cringed against the pain and scooted between two vaguely expensive glass vases filled with rare gases.
The Brigadier was doing rather well, he had to admit. Must have been listening when his Dandy self lectured...
Oh.
He grabbed up the nearest of the vases and threw it over the head of a frenzied hysteric before they could run right into the Brig's spinal column. And though it was tempting to repeat that action, the Doctor chose to take the high road and threw the next, less-expensive vase into the wall console, sounding the parameter alarm. Thank goodness.
Seconds later, the doors opened and guards stormed in. Good.
They went for the Brigadier.
Not good.
The Brig had already decided he would wind up shot or dead or incarcerated in this madhouse of a planet within his first ten minutes, so he wasn't exactly surprised when they went for him with drawn weapons. Overshot his estimate by fifteen minutes—not bad. He lifted his hands in surrender.
Whatever they were going to do to him (The Brig suspected shooting because of the weapons), was put on hold as they ran right into the screaming officials.
"Good God!" The Brig couldn't believe it. Luck was not something that happened to Good British Soldiers.
"Brigadier! Get up here!"
"That's-" The Brig watched the scrum get worse. People were tripping over the body now, and that really didn't help to calm the situation. "Actually, that's not a bad idea," he muttered, and despite the pull of gravity and his older body, managed to surprise himself by scaling up the shelf in creditable time.
The Doctor helped pull him up, but he cringed as he did so, and reached up to touch the back of his head.
"Did you start bleeding again?" The Brigadier was not chuffed.
"It's not like I'm bleeding on purpose!" The Doctor snapped defensively. Below them low-charge stun weapons were enforcing a type of Frontier Justice against disturbing the peace.
"Turn around, let's have another look...oh, good Lord. Doctor, did you get nobbled before you came to visit?"
"Uhm...well..."
"I see." The Brigadier sighed. "Hold still. I'm going to have to lance this lump of yours..." He had to repeat himself over the clamor as more guards and their supervisory officer of the Law entered the fray. "I take it your opinion of medical doctors is not sterling here?"
"I'll sooner go to one of your hospitals, Brigadier." The answer was scathing. "At least there I could watch a match on the television, or send out for jelly babies."
"Mmmnnn..."
As one, they leaned over to peer down at the fray. It seemed to be getting worse, not better. "What's a cat doing in there" The Brig wondered.
"Oh, don't worry, it's not a Gallifreyan cat." The Doctor reassured him.
"Why does it matter and why would it worry?"
"Terran cats are a lot less...trouble than Gallifreyan cats." The little fellow shuddered.
"I'm afraid I don't understand. Cats are trouble unless they aren't."
"Gallifreyan cats are worse. C.A.T. Calculating Animal with Tail."
As they watched, the feline casually nipped through the chaos, grabbed up a mouthful of nutri-cube, and took off flying.
"Must have kittens to feed." The Doctor guessed.
"Poor thing. Reduced to eating purple sawdust."
"It isn't sawdust! You just don't have the required-"
"Oh, oh." The two flinched backwards, just in time. Something ornate and expensive looking went sailing by. "Doctor, I was under the vague and unsolidified impression that your people were...well...less prone to the baser emotions?"
"Well, we try to be." The Doctor rolled his eyes and instantly regretted it. He grimaced again and clutched at his aching head. "Ow! It's just that...well, that body came from the Death Zone, and thanks to some laws that aren't going to be rectified until my fourth or fifth incarnation, any exposure to the Death Zone whatsoever could be punished with being sent to the Death Zone!"
The Brigadier turned that over in his mind. "Isn't that like putting a student on suspension as punishment for skipping class?" He wondered.
"What barbaric culture has that law?" The Doctor was appalled. "It's far more suitable a punishment to make them sit in extra classes! I should know-it happened to me often enough."
"Somehow not surprised that you managed to break rules as a boy."
THIRTY MINUTES LATER:
"Would rather not, thank you." The Brig said stiffly as he glared down at the small ocean of bewildered blinks. "I've got a wounded man up here, and I'm not sure he belongs on the floor until everyone can promise to behave themselves like decent, passably civilized beings!"
Blinks. "I'm sure your concerns are creditable, but I assure you all is under control."
The Brig found himself liking this situation more and more, because Mr. Stuffy sounded just like the world's worst Suicide Counselor.
This could be fun.
He dropped with dubious dignity to the ground and placed his hands on his hips as he faced the nearest official. "Control?" He leaned forward. "Do you mean to say you knew that blasted corpse would T-mat into the middle of High Tea?"
"Why, no, of course not, Brigadier, we are simply prepared…"
"Then you mean that you've seen this before?"
Pause.
"I see." The soldier injected all the disapproval this situation deserved.
"Oh, bother. Just give me a mo' Ill be-"
"No, you don't..! The Brig said sternly, whirling on his heel to aim a Doom Finger to the little form perched on the top shelf. "You're staying right there, and if you even think about hopping down until I give the order, I'm going to march you back up there!"
"Oh, all right." The Doctor sounded appropriately meek (much to the wide-eyed astonishment of everyone in the room), but the Brig recognized relief hiding inside his voice. He still wasn't steady enough to do much.
The Brig waded serenely through the awed crowd that parted for his presence as he went to the scene of crime. With blessed aplomb he dropped to one knee and studied the corpse with reservation. It was still smoking. Some sort of high-energy bolts had cooked it in an uneven fashion, and he could glimpse a few organs through the blackened clothing.
"Why does he smell like a roasting lizard?" He muttered under his breath.
The Doctor twisted his head down. "Time Lords are related to Tereliptils."
"Tereliptils." The Brig deadpanned, and took a long, long look at the little Time Lord sitting on the top of a thirty-foot shelf, kicking his legs restlessly off the edge of the air. "Is that like a flying squirrel?"
"Oh, hah."
Ridiculously, the Brig remembered the dark day he forced the Doctor to fill out his "In Case of Death" form for UNIT. "Cremation" had been his response to "burial preferences" and for some reason the Brig could only think of how convenient this would be for the bereaved.
I've been out of combat too long, haven't I?
"Yes...why was he shot with an alien gun?" The Brig cleared his throat at the wave—nay, tsunami—of incredulous gazes and open jaws. He pointed with his chin to the remains with a slight sense of self-consciousness. "I know it's after my Time, but those Mark III-V Quartz-heated Projectile .44-metric calibres are a little hard to forget."
"You've seen these before, eh?"
"Unfortunately...I was there when the Dominators tried to invade with their absurd little Quarks. Silly things. This is fused quartz, isn't it?" The Brig squatted down and politely rested a gloved fingertip to the charred throat. "Produces an awful lot of heat, and when you've got a jacket of titanium, well, it's more than the stuff of atrocious jokes in the lab." Hmmn. "Synthetic quartz?" He blinked in wonder. "Why would someone go through the trouble to synthesize quartz? We've got enough of it back home!"
"Earth is rich in quartz like no other planet in the Universe." The Doctor told him from above. "It's common stones to you, but precious to nearly all species."
"Precious? Really?" The Brig scowled. "Why can't the planets just synthesize its own quartz? We do it all the time!"
There was another awkward silence.
The Doctor coughed into his fist. No one was quite looking at the Brig out of embarrassment.
"Most planets are fortunate to say they have enough quartz in their entire planet to fill a broom closet. They don't have enough to experiment on to even know how to synthesize."
The Brigadier blinked. "Remind me to bring that up the next time Earth is invaded by lunatics? I'd rather offer a tribute in quartz if it gets them off our backs." Another thought struck him. "Oh. Is that why the Krotons keep mucking about?"
Now the blinks were universal, including the Doctor's. "Krotons?"
"Yes. Big, awful blokes, crystals mounted on clumsy ballisters, horrendous accents. Kept trying to use our brains to power up their ships." The Brig snorted through his nose. "Idiots. Almost as bad as the Quarks. Wouldn't take my word that we were unsuitable power...oh, no. They had to find out for themselves!"
"Dare I ask what happened?" The Doctor asked in a tiny voice.
"Tried to suck up poor Benton's brainwaves through their straws and promptly blew up. Served 'em right, too!" The Brig shuddered at the memory. "They could hear me well and clear when I told him to start running through his Buddhism mantras when it all went to pot. Their rigid intellect couldn't take the strain." He shook his head, then belatedly remembered that Time Lords might possibly qualify as one of those species to invade Earth. "They're not always that stupid, to be fair. But really. As far as invaders go, they were really sub-par."
"I'll try to remember that." The Doctor was rubbing his hands over his face in a scrubbing-away-the craziness motion he recalled well from his fresh-faced youth as a cadet.
"I really ought to send a note to Geneva." He muttered. "Maybe it would lower the kidnapping rates on our scientists...I know we're just a mud-ball, but we're fond of our scientists and need every single one of 'em."
Someone new cleared their throat. The soldier glanced up-and appraised the cool gaze of the tall man before him.
"Would you be willing to loan your expertise to the situation at hand, Brigadier?"
By now, the Brig had realized "titles" meant rather more than "names" among these daft and overly detail-oriented people. They really probably did think that his family name and his military honors were one and the same thing. Morons. "Depends." He said darkly. "If you mean am I willing to investigate the tragic death of a person," he nodded at the charred remains, "of course I am. And I'm more than willing to do it. But I can't do it alone, you know. My quasi-religious paradigm forbids walking into a situation without a partner that I already know and trust."
"What?!" Said a very familiar voice from the top of the ceiling.
"All the better." Mr. Stuffy smiled, showing his teeth. All of them. "In that view, we are prepared to ask you to commit to a small task for us...being the puzzle as to what happened to our unfortunate comrade. And if your culture requires a partner..."
"Every Peter needs a Paul." The Brig sniffed.
Not surprisingly, another collection of blinks met his announcement.
The old soldier sighed. "Proverb against dogmatic inbreeding. One steers, whilst the other guides." He held the gaze of several people in the crowd. "If you want my help, I'll be pleased. But I far prefer to work with a man I already know." Without asking for permission he whirled and looked upwards. "Doctor, are you ready to come down?"
"Oh, if I must..."
The Doctor had picked up on the atmosphere then. Good for him. The human reached up and guided the small man to the floor and guided him to a safe recliner, just in case. He faced the astounded gazes as though they were the ones being daft and silly, not he.
"Once you're over that knock on the head we'll be off." He sighed. "For what it's worth."
"I'll be fine with a little rest." The Doctor snapped.
"So glad you agree with me." Inwardly the Brigadier was smiling from ear to ear. The Doctor was, as usual, up to his neck in some kind of trouble, but this time he wasn't alone.
Trouble meant danger, so the odds were a little skewed on survival, but it still beat meeting up with the in-laws for tea.