Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.

(A/N: A big hoorah to Hhgbh for being a beta!)

The Other Doctor

Chapter Three: Greener Grass

Two soldiers shoved him roughly into the chair, and the Doctor struggled to stop it from tipping over. Not a particularly dignified position for the last of the Time Lords.

Not a particularly dignified anything at the moment, really. The room certainly didn't scream 'made for your comfort'. Four blue-grey walls with a thin metal square table in the middle, one chair on either side. A simple circular light bathed the room in white light, the brightness at such a level that it was more irritating than discomforting.

His coat was currently in the hands of a third soldier in the corner of the room, searching the pockets for anything dangerous. Well, the Doctor assumed that was what he was looking for. All he found was a wallet.

"What's this?" he asked sternly.

"That's a wallet."

The soldier stood on his left grabbed him roughly by the collar of his pinstriped jacket. "And what's in the wallet?"

The Time Lord cast his gaze upwards, unsure himself. "Let's see… there's some psychic paper, a photo of Bob Dylan, and a button from some piece of clothing I can't find anywhere. Very annoying, I can tell you." Slowly, the soldier released him and let him sit back down.

A few seconds of trifling later, the soldier with his coat came up with the sonic screwdriver and tossed it to his colleague with a cruel smile.

"Sonic screwdriver." The soldier beside him smiled smugly, and the Doctor just frowned. The soldier pointed it at his head.

"Now… you are going to tell us how to get into the TARDIS, or I'm going to start showing you what our intelligence division has shown us about this thing."

"Well," the Doctor said, rocking back and forth on the chair, his hands firmly lodged in his pockets as he crossed one leg over the other. Honestly, what a pathetic bluff. "I suppose I could tell you…" He looked the soldier straight in the eye. "…but I'm not going to."

The soldier took a frustrated breath. "Fine."

He twisted the bottom of the screwdriver. "Setting twenty seven. Recognise what that is?"

They were asking an awful lot of technical questions, which made the Doctor frown. "Setting twenty seven, setting twenty seven… is that for ironing out creases?"

The soldier pushed the button, and the light reflected against the Doctor's forehead.

The Doctor giggled. "Tickles." Usually he would just say such a thing to annoy his captors, but setting twenty seven genuinely did tickle. He made a note to remember that little titbit, just in case.

Confused, the soldier tried a different setting, each one prompting a different response from their captive. One made him sneeze, another itchy, and one even made his left eyelid twitch uncontrollably.

All very annoying, but obviously not effects they were hoping for.

His irritated colleague dropped the Doctor's coat on the floor and stormed over to the soldier as he struggled to find the right setting.

While they quietly bickered amongst themselves, the Doctor raised a hand. "Um… just wondering," he said, scratching behind his ear, "but are you sure you've got the right person? Obviously it's someone very similar to me, but-"

The soldier stood on his other side, who so far had remained silent, suddenly sprang to life. He grabbed the Doctor's chair and whirled it around so they were facing one another.

"Are you the Doctor?"

"Yes…"

"Do you carry a sonic screwdriver with you?"

"Yes…"

"Do you use a TARDIS as your main method of transportation?"

"Yes! This is uncanny, really." He smiled.

After a brief silence, the soldier released the chair, letting all four legs hit the ground. "Then you're the one we want."

"All right, fair enough," the Doctor shrugged, "but why?"

The soldier moved around the table and sat opposite him, his still masked face unreadable.

"Because you have performed atrocities around the universe. Entire solar systems drained to nothing, just as you're doing here. Billions of lives… gone in an instant. Because of you and your TARDIS."

The Doctor stared silently as he thought for a moment, and then shook his head.

"You've lost me, sorry."

Large gloved hands grabbed his chair and swivelled him around to face the would be interrogator, the sonic screwdriver still in his hand.

"You are the Doctor! The single most hated thing in this universe!"

Taken aback by the intensity, the Doctor looked past the soldier. "Well, I know my happy attitude can get a bit grating, but-"

"Shut up! The only reason you're not dead is because we need you to-"

His colleague got to his feet. "Reeves. Calm down and get out."

"But-"

"Out!"

After a lingering glare at the Doctor, Reeves stormed out of the room, tossing the sonic screwdriver to the other standing soldier as he went. He slammed the door behind him.

"Happy fella, that one," the Doctor said, nodding to the slammed door.

"Can't blame him. His wife's entire family was killed. Everyone down to the half cousins."

"I'm sorry."

"You should be. Because you did it."

He scrunched up his face and shook his head. "Oh, look, I am sorry, but whoever this Doctor is that you're looking for, he clearly isn't me."

"And can you prove that?"

"Yes. Take me to my TARDIS."

"Funny you should say that. Because we've got it right here."

The Doctor frowned. "You do?"

He nodded. "Got it weeks ago."

"Weeks ago?"

"That's right."

"Can't be mine, then. I only landed a few hours ago."

"Is that right?"

"Correct," he replied, putting emphasis on the 'r' noise. "Mind you, it was by accident, but still… only a few hours ago."

"And would that be the TARDIS we detected in the western region?"

"Probably."

"Which, conveniently, we couldn't reach at the time because of the blizzard. Which, conveniently, is now gone."

The Doctor tried to hide his frown. "Actually, if the TARDIS is gone, it's probably more inconvenient than convenient." He paused. "For me, anyway."

The soldier rose from his chair. "Tell me how to get into the TARDIS."

A blank stare was all he got as the Doctor thought it over. Obviously the Doctor these soldiers were so incredibly happy with wasn't him. So, by extension, his TARDIS wouldn't be the same.

He shrugged. "Okay, tell you what. I'll give you my TARDIS key, but I guarantee you it won't work."

"Why? Some kind of DNA lock?"

"Nope."

"Retinal scan?"

"Nah."

"Voice recognition?"

"No."

The soldier took a calming breath. "Then what?" he growled.

The Doctor leaned forward across the table, interlocking his fingers together and resting them on the table. His captor moved back slightly as he did so. The fear of the action made the Doctor worry. Just what had the other Doctor been doing here?

"Because it's not my TARDIS. It's this other Doctor's. If this key," he reached into his jacket and pulled out the key, holding it up for the soldier to see, "doesn't fit, then I want you to at least entertain the wacky, silly and incredibly funny possibility that I'm telling you the truth."

Cautiously, the soldier took the key. "Fine," he said, staring at the metal Yale key for a few moments once it was in his glove. He closed his hand into a fist around it and pointed at the Doctor. "But if this turns out to be some kind of trap, I will-"

"Pull out my spleen, etcetera. I'm well versed with the classics."

The soldier straightened up in annoyance and left through the door, telling one of the guards stood outside to come in and keep an eye on the sole occupant of their interrogation room.

At least, the Doctor assumed it was an interrogation room. The closest the Drentax Five he knew had to an interrogation room were the saunas. And he hadn't been in many interrogation rooms in his extensive lifespan.

Odd that he'd never been interrogated that much. He wasn't exactly popular with a lot of people. Daleks, Cybermen… Queen Elizabeth…

That still made the Doctor giggle. Made him wonder just how rude this tenth incarnation of his could be.

He idly looked around the interrogation room, and, finding only four bare blue-grey walls and a man who didn't look like much of a conversationalist, jammed his hands in his pockets, crossed his legs and started humming 'Like a Rolling Stone'. He used the one foot he had on the ground to teeter back on forth on the rear legs of the chair.

Less than five minutes later the soldier was back, this time unmasked, revealing his short cut blond hair and dulled blue eyes. He nodded to the guard to leave the room, and then sat opposite the Doctor.

"It doesn't fit," he stated blandly, avoiding the Doctor's gaze in frustration.

The Doctor lifted his leg, allowing the chair to topple forward onto four legs. "You don't say."

"Where's the real key?" he said in some semblance calm, tossing the key onto the table.

That wasn't the question the Doctor was expecting. "Pardon?"

The soldier grabbed him by the collar and pulled him across the table. "I am in no mood for your notorious sick sense of humour. Where. Is. The. Real. Key?"

Feeling similarly irritated, the Doctor glared straight back at him. "That. Is. The. Real. Key. The key for my TARDIS. Which is not what you have here. Search me if you like, but I can tell you with no degree of uncertainty that I do. Not. Have it!"

After a few seconds worth of staring, the soldier roughly released the Doctor, and he fell back into his chair.

Slightly annoyed at the creases, he straightened out his suit before speaking.

"Listen. Let me have a look at it, I might be able to-"

He snorted a laugh. "You're joking, right? What the hell do you think would possess me to let you near a TARDIS, whether it's yours or not?"

"Because I'm the only chance you have of getting in there. Or do you have another Time Lord hanging around that I haven't seen?" To accentuate the point, he looked around the small dull room before staring intently at his captor.

Still avoiding his gaze, the soldier absently tapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds before suddenly rising and leaning across the table, pointing an angry finger at him yet again.

"You will be under armed guard. I will fit you with remote controlled explosives. If I see even one hint that you are going to attempt an escape, I will personally make sure you are in five million pieces before you can even say 'whoops, I messed with the wrong person'. Understand?"

Feeling a little less intimidated than he thought he should, the Doctor nodded. "Crystal."

The man nodded. "Dandy."

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Martha grasped the pipe and slapped it against her hand a few times, as though that would be a good measure for how much damage it could inflict. She wasn't too sure on Time Lord physiology, but a good whack around the head should be able to knock anyone out. Although Time Lords only looked like humans. For all she knew, it could just end up annoying him even more.

She hoped it wouldn't be necessary anyway. Try to reason with him first. If that doesn't work… knock out the Doctor, put him somewhere where he can't dissolve everything and then find some way back to Drentax Five. Fix the Doctor, they go on their merry way, end of story.

Easy.

Right.

After taking a lifetime's worth of deep breaths, Martha ascended up the stairs to the control room, the pipe behind her back and underneath her jacket.

"Doctor? You there?"

What she could have sworn was a muttered curse wafted through the air to her ears.

"Yes, I'm up here," he said tiredly. "Come on up."

Confirmation given, Martha straightened her back and tried to walk upstairs a manner she assumed was nonchalant. She had seen the Doctor do it often enough.

"What's going on?" she asked faux-curiously, walking towards him on a tiptoe and trying to sneak a glance at the monitor.

"Energy transfers almost done. Then we're off!" he said, slapping that sparkly globe thing as he turned to look at her. He rested one hand on the control panel, leaning against it with his legs crossed beneath him.

"Off… where?"

He grinned and waved a finger at her. "Oh, never you mind, my faithful companion!"

Martha smiled at him, idly wandering around the control panel so they were on opposite sides. The monitor in front of him bleeped, and the Doctor became absorbed in whatever had just popped up. A quick and (she hoped) unnoticeable glance revealed that Martha couldn't see whether the controls were rotting or not. Wonderful.

"Um… Doctor?"

"Yes?"

She wandered around the control panel casually, closing the gap between them and tightening her grip on the pipe. "Have you noticed… anything strange around the TARDIS recently?"

That stopped him. He looked at her, but kept his hunched over position in front of the monitor.

"Like what?"

"I don't know… stuff… rotting… dissolving, that kind of thing?"

He stared at her blankly for a few moments. "Nope. Nothing." He returned to the monitor.

Martha took a long breath. "Are you sure? Because back in the cloister room I noticed that-"

"Oh, what?!" He threw his arms up in the air and stormed over to her. They were nose to nose. "What petty thing have you come across now to pester me about?" he spat, making Martha blink.

She backed up a bit. "Look, Doctor, I think you should just calm down, all right?"

"What if I don't want to be calm, hm?" he said, leaning in dangerously close to her. "What if I want to be absolutely mad?"

It was getting increasingly difficult to keep her breathing steady. "It's just I think you might have caught something on Drentax Five, or-"

The Doctor whirled around so his back was to her, waving his arms around in the air.

"Oh, yes! Let's blame it all on Drentax Five! Can't be that I'm just sick and tired of all the constant nagging! After all, that's all you do! 'What does this do?' 'What's that for?' Makes me cringe every time you speak!"

His tone became slower, quieter, and Martha pulled out the pipe from under her jacket.

"Well, you know what? I'm tired of it. I'm tired of this little act I've had to put on since I met you. I'm tired of pretending to ignore the pathetic little suspicious looks you've been giving me. And I'm tired of pretending-"

Martha swung the pipe, and the Doctor turned and caught it in his hand.

"-that you're not trying to betray me at every turn."

With strength Martha wasn't aware the Doctor had, he tugged the pipe from her grip. Time froze inside the TARDIS. Martha wasn't sure what to do. Explain herself? Run away? Attack him? She dismissed the last thought almost as soon as she pondered it. Attacking the Doctor was a stupid thing to contemplate in the first place.

The Doctor studied the pipe for a few seconds before he swung it around and cracked it into her arm.

Martha yelled out in pain and stumbled back onto the gantry leading to the door, falling backwards awkwardly. She cradled her arm, her brain unable to advance past the fact that the Doctor had just hit her with a pipe.

"Now," he said, advancing on her, "you will stay there…" he gestured dangerously close to her face with the pipe.

"…shut up…"

He tossed the pipe over his shoulder.

"…and let me work!" he said, his tone suddenly casual and light.

Keeping that same demeanour, he wandered back to the control panel and started working again.

"Trust me," he said, winking at her, "you'll love it."

Martha didn't tend to the pulsing pain coming from her arm. She didn't even move from her awkward sitting position. She just stared at the Doctor. The man who she had trusted for no reason at all. The man who she had always felt safe with, even when being chased by human size rhino aliens, witches and Daleks.

And now she was scared of him.

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The soldier in front of the Doctor, after sparing a paranoid glance back at him, swiped the card down the slot beside the door.

"Only a card?" the Doctor scoffed. "That's not very high security, I must say-"

"Shut up," he muttered over his shoulder, leading the way into the large cargo area as soon as the creaking metal door was open.

With a little trepidation, the Doctor followed. It was a rather large room, which made sense for something called a holding bay. Metallic grey walls gave the warehouse of a room that lovely 'all business' feel. Yellow crates of some supply or another lay in the corner of the room, and that was all she wrote as far as contents were concerned. Except for the object in the center of the room. The Doctor almost instantly stopped in his tracks when he saw what the centrepiece was.

A police box. A TARDIS, exactly like his.

And yet, not his. It was dilapidated. The wood was rotting, the paint peeling off and greying. The light behind the writing above the doors flickered ominously like some seedy dive of a bar.

As he closed in on the dying vessel, the Doctor reached into his jacket.

"Hey!"

Instantly on alert, the ten or so soldiers in the room brought their weapons to bear on him.

The Doctor froze. Slowly, he pulled out his glasses. When his captors were satisfactorily at ease, he rolled his eyes and shook his head before he returned to his inspection, crouching in front of the lock.

He ran a cautious hand over the door. He quickly pulled it away, hissing.

"What?"

It was the soldier who had 'interrogated' him, now stood behind him with his hands on his hips.

The Doctor shook his head, frowning as he inspected his hand. He rubbed his fingers against his palm thoughtfully, as though crushing some insect in his fist. He stared at the lock. "There's something… wrong with it."

"What? Broken?"

"No, it's not that… at least I don't think it is. There's something fundamentally… wrong about its existence. As if it shouldn't exist."

"You're not making any sense."

"I know," he conceded, nodding his head to the side. "It's a real mystery." He looked up at his erstwhile companion. "Isn't it fantastic?"

After giving him a good stare, the soldier squatted down beside him.

"Either you start talking in a language I can understand," he hissed quietly, "or I start pushing explosive buttons."

The Doctor sighed at how quickly the soldier had sucked the fun out of it. "Look, I can't explain this any better than I already have, because I'm trying to understand it. Although," he said, pulling his ear and looking innocently into the distance, "if I had my sonic screwdriver…"

Looking increasingly stressed, the soldier reached into a pocket and gave him the relevant implement.

He grinned. "You're a star, Captain…?" He looked to the soldier for some kind confirmation.

"Admiral…?"

Nothing.

"DCI…?"

Still nothing.

"King…?"

The soldier worked his jaw. "Will you please just get on with this?"

"All right, all right, just trying to be polite," he replied, putting his hands up in surrender before getting to business. He fiddled with the screwdriver for a moment before applying it to the lock. Faster than he expected, it was done.

Impressed, the Doctor let out a curious 'Hm' noise, looking from the screwdriver to the lock.

"What?"

"My TARDIS is nowhere near as easy to open with the screwdriver. In fact, it's near impossible. You really have to jimmy the lock to-" he noticed the look on the soldiers face and stopped in his tracks. He cleared his throat sheepishly. "Anyway, it's… difficult to get into." He inspected the lock closer, running two fingers over it. "Must be fatigue…"

Tucking the screwdriver back into his pocket, he got up to go inside. Three soldiers thundered past him and into the TARDIS.

"Excuse me, but I opened it!"

His soldier friend grabbed him by the shoulder and tossed him in.

"Just get this thing working and find our Doctor. If you're telling us the truth."

"Well if I'm not, I'm doing a pretty awful job of killing you all, aren't I?"

"We'll see, won't we? Get to work."

Feeling ever so slightly annoyed at being constantly manhandled, the Doctor straightened his suit and brushed off his shoulder. After shooting a indignant look down his nose at the soldier, he wandered around the control panel, staring up at the transparent column that went from the panel to the ceiling.

He shivered. "Ooo… this feels even… wrong-er."

"What?" the soldier asked tiredly.

A deep frown worked it's way onto the Doctor's face as he looked around. "It's wrong; this whole place is just… wrong. Can't you feel it? It's like it just… shouldn't exist. Well not here, anyway." His gaze dropped to the control panel. "But! That's not what I'm here for, is it? Let's get this baby on the road!"

He slammed an enthusiastic hand down on an alignment orb, which promptly fell through the panel.

The Doctor stared down at the hole it had left.

"Well," he said simply. He looked up at the soldier, pointing at the offending hole. "That doesn't happen on my TARDIS, I can tell you." He noticed something on his hand. Frowning, he lifted it up to inspect it closer. "Hm," he added curiously, tracing his palm with his fingers.

"What is it now?"

"Don't take that tone with me, young man," he reprimanded, taking off his glasses and using them as a gesturing aid. "I'm helping you out, remember?"

The soldier grit his teeth. "What is it?"

"Dead skin," he said, showing his palm. "Not as pronounced as if, say, a human touched it, but still… dead skin."

"And? What about it?"

"Well, aside from needing a good moisturiser, I've got dead skin exactly where my hand touched the alignment orb."

"The what?"

With an exasperated groan, he waved a pointing finger at the hole in the panel. "The… thingy on the control panel."

Looking slightly annoyed at being kept out of the loop, the soldier closed the gap between them and stood beside him. "So? What does that mean?"

"It means," he said, his gaze travelled up and around the TARDIS, "that this place drains… life, basically. Or at least negates it. Kills it dead, just like that," he finished, snapping his fingers for clarification.

"We already knew that. You've been-"

"Ah ah. Not me," he said, waving a finger.

The soldier ground his jaw for what was about the hundredth time. This man would definitely need to see a dentist by the time this was all over. Or at least apply for some stress management. "The other Doctor has been using this… thing to drain entire solar systems dry. Planets collapsing, suns fading away."

The Doctor nodded as he listened, chewing on the left temple of his glasses and letting them dangle from his mouth.

"Well," he said, removing them from his mouth and slipping them back onto his face, "it looks like that's its nature."

A wary glance up at the central column was the soldier's first response. "So… it's feeding on us?"

He nodded his hide from side to side. "I suppose you could put it that way. I'd need to have a better look around before I could tell you more."

His companion nodded numbly. But then he shook his head and the old lovely friendly soldier from before was back. "I don't want you to tell me more; I want you to help us find this other Doctor so we can kill him!"

The Doctor groaned in exasperation while he pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "All right, all right! You know something? You are a very rude man," he said, waving the screwdriver under the soldier's nose.

And with that, he set off underneath the control panel to see whether he could retrieve a fallen alignment orb from the depths of the TARDIS.

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The Doctor had been working solidly for a few hours now, only stopping now and then to check she wasn't doing anything suspicious or annoying. After recovering from the shock of the blow, Martha had inspected her arm. No broken bones, but one very ugly bruise was beginning to form.

Try explaining this to mum.

"There! All done," the Doctor announced, hopping back like an artist appreciating his canvas. "You know, this TARDIS of yours is amazing. Does everything you ask it to, and best of all, it's not draining me to nothing every time I touch it!"

She frowned. TARDIS of mine? What was he talking about?

His inane grin disappeared as he looked down at his watch in mock surprise. "Let's be off, shall we? I've got people expecting me!" With a mighty heave on a lever, the TARDIS started up.

Martha finally managed to find her voice. "Where are we going?"

"Drentax Five," he said nonchalantly, his eyes on the monitor.

A small glimmer of a smile pushed its way to Martha's lips. "So… you're going to find out what's wrong with you then?"

His laugh pierced her to the very core. "No, you silly woman! Because there's nothing wrong with me! Not exactly fit as a fiddle, true, but that should change pretty soon. You don't absorb an entire universes' worth of energy and end up unhealthy and withering, do you?"

"What… what are you talking about?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly blew out a tired breath. He waved a dismissive hand. "Nah, I'm bored now."

"But-"

"I said shut up!" he shouted. With a speed Martha hadn't thought possible, he moved over to so they were nose to nose. "If you want to survive this, I would recommend shutting up when I say so, and speaking when I say so. Then you can get back to whatever ponce-y excuse for a Doctor you've got in your universe."

Martha's frightened visage gave way to a confused frown. What did that mean? Was he someone posing as the Doctor? But he acted as though he were called the Doctor…

The TARDIS rumbled slightly around them, and the Doctor launched himself back to the control panel. "Ah! There we go! End of the line, Drentax Five! Ha! Nice little rhyme, don't you think?" he asked, not wanting an answer. "'End of the line, Drentax Five'! I've got talent!"

The TARDIS noise stopped, and the Doctor bounced over to the door, making a show of stepping over her and opening it. He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

"Boys!"

Then the noise started. Quietly at first, but it slowly became louder. The regular beating of metal against metal. A noise Martha had heard before. It was months ago. Working in the hospital, trying her best to ignore the ghosts that had been wandering around for weeks… and then suddenly they became men. Men made out of metal.

Cybermen.

A hauntingly familiar glint of silver made Martha scramble backwards on the floor. The Doctor grabbed her by the injured arm and heaved her to her feet. She bit down on the inside of her cheek to stop the yelp of pain she felt like releasing.

"Oh, come on now," he said, giving her arm a squeeze. "You welcomed me to your home. It's only right I let you see mine." He waved his arm through the air in a grand gesture.

He shoved her out of the TARDIS and into the waiting arms of a Cyberman. Except these weren't like the Cybermen that had captured her. The face was flat, with tubes framing the wider than usual head. What looked like pipes ran the length of their arms and led to a control panel on their fronts.

It made little difference, though. They were just as terrifying. The same dead eyes. The thin slit of a mouth that betrayed no emotion.

And no Doctor to save her. Just a psychotic madman who had stolen his face.

"Right! Take her to a room somewhere, chop chop!" he shouted, clapping his hands. "Make sure it's a room with a view of the planet."

He winked at her as the Cyberman holding her pulled her along, her heels dragging along the floor.

"This is where the fun begins."

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