When the Doctor woke up the next morning, the TARDIS was quiet. His ship was flying quietly and safely, and his two new (old?) companions were still sleeping soundly in their beds. This left the Doctor alone with his mind, a place he often found himself. And those two had a lot to talk about.
His brain immediately went in three directions, which may have been impossible for anyone who wasn't him. The first part of his brain went to memories of Amy and Rory and how they no longer remembered him. The second part of his brain went to the metacrisis that was really just a plain crisis. The third part of his brain was thinking of how easily Amy had understood him the night before. The Doctor shut down the first and third direction and focused on the second, knowing that one was the most important on a large scale.
There could be countless mostly Time Lord beings out there, wandering without a cause or any idea what they were. That was a very dangerous thing. When uninformed or badly trained, a Time Lord could be a deadly weapon, something the Doctor didn't like to remember. He'd seen that much during the Last Great Time War. He'd seen the Master turned into a weapon without him even knowing what was going on inside his own head.
"Morning, Doctor," Rory greeted the Doctor. The Time Lord had not even noticed Rory entering the console room until he spoke.
"Morning," the Doctor greeted Rory brightly. Amy wasn't far behind. "And to you," the Doctor added as the redhead came into the console room.
"So… what do we do now?" Rory asked. The Doctor stopped his brain from working in full-on think mode and paid attention to his companions.
"Now, we have to find out how far this event has spread. It could have reached across all sorts of galaxies, but it was most likely contained in the span of about a year. For all I know as of now, nonhuman races could have been affected by the Time Lord DNA," the Doctor explained. It was a disturbing thought to have as the Doctor imagined partially Time Lord Silurians or Daleks.
"How are we supposed to do that? Search every planet for Time Lords?" Rory asked, seeing what he perceived to be a flaw in the Doctor's plan.
"No, we'll find a planet with a superior broadcasting device and use the sonic with it to pick up any disturbances that seem Time Lord," Amy corrected Rory.
The Doctor had just been about to say something to the same effect, but he wasn't mad that Amy had said it. In fact, he was thrilled. Now he could talk to someone besides his own brain about these sorts of things, someone who could understand.
"Oh. Right, of course," Rory said. He didn't sound completely convinced, but he was smart enough to know he wasn't the smartest person in the room. The Doctor returned to his controls to fly his blue box to a new planet, one with a large broadcasting device.
"To Radiora!" the Doctor proclaimed, sending the TARDIS shaking slightly as he landed her on the planet of Radiora.
The Doctor, Amy, and Rory stepped outside of the box to find a planet that had more metal in sight than Earth had grass. They appeared to have landed in the middle of some sort of city. The main inhabitants were tiny creatures that flew around almost like specks of light, intelligent specks of light. These beings zipped around the city in a hurry, each one no bigger than the palm of a person's hand.
"What are they?" Amy gasped.
"Wavoxes. Little workaholics, if you ask me. They've spent generations building this city, made it into one huge communication radio, trying to reach out to nearby galaxies and make contact. They know life's out there, but they just haven't met any yet," the Doctor responded. A little Wavox flew straight over Rory's head, making him duck just in case.
"Amazing," Rory murmured.
The Doctor walked forward, heading for the center of the city where there was a large mass of metal, obvious some sort of centerpiece to the metal device that encompassed the city. Once they'd reached the center, the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the device.
"Bloody intelligent little buggers, the Wavoxes. It's a shame they can't seem to find the right frequency to make their communication city device work. Ah, but they're determined. In about, oh, twenty years from now, they'll figure it out," the Doctor said with fondness. There was a low rumble from the metal and the Doctor put the sonic close to his ear. "Ah. Oh, well that's good news. Fairly good news," he said with mild approval.
"What is it?" Amy questioned.
"There's about a hundred or so life forms that have been affected by the metacrisis, and they're all concentrated in one galaxy- on one planet, in fact. Earth," the Doctor told his companions with a genuine smile on his face.
Having only humans be affected made the Doctor's life easier. Now he would be able to concentrate his efforts to find the Time Lords on one planet, one point in time. And though a hundred sounded like a lot at first, relatively speaking, that was a small percentage of the humans who could have been affected. The Doctor laughed, feeling happy in spite of the world always seeming to conspire against him, because this time, even though things may look difficult, perhaps he was finally getting a sort of second chance.
"Right then. Come along, you two. We've got a new race of Time Lords to hunt down!" the Doctor exclaimed with a certain degree of excitement.
The Doctor raced back to his TARDIS, grabbing Amy and Rory and pulling them with him. It was fabulous to the Doctor- a new adventure, and his two best friends were back to help him. Well, mostly back. They didn't remember him from before, only one instance when he'd apparently met Amy as a little girl, a slightly different encounter than the one he remembered.
Once inside the blue box, the Doctor set his coordinates back for Earth, for a building this time instead of a bathroom stall. He shuddered, thinking that out of all places his inconsistent box had landed him, that may possibly have been the worst of all.
"Doctor, how are we going to find the other Time Lords?" Rory asked. It was a good question, a very good one, one that the Doctor himself had been contemplating just the night before.
"Exactly. These Time Lords will have been born into perfectly normal human families and look human and act mostly human. But they will have faster brains, regeneration capabilities, a desire to travel in time, and two heartbeats. Really, it should be easy enough to find them. We, er, tend to stick out sometimes," the Doctor replied. Rory nodded, understanding what the Doctor meant. The three landed on Earth, five minutes after they'd left originally even though they'd been gone for longer.
"But how are we supposed to search the whole Earth for a hundred people? What, three people with stethoscopes?" Amy scoffed. The Doctor grinned.
"No, not just three people. It's time I pay a visit to some other old friends of mine," the Doctor said, tapping Amy on the nose as he spoke. She didn't seem confused, only interested. The three exited the TARDIS and were met with some people who did not look ultimately very thrilled with them.
The Doctor had indeed landed on Earth, but he had landed in the middle of a place called the Torchwood Institute. The Doctor put his hands up as he heard a few clicks as guns were pointed in his direction and at his companions.
"Oh, must you always go for the guns?" the Doctor complained. A group of ten soldier-type people all stared intently at the Doctor, Amy, and Rory and kept the three in their gun sights. "Look, I know your old Queen Victoria wasn't exactly my biggest fan, but I thought we'd gotten past all that by now," the Doctor said with some level of annoyance.
No guns were lowered.
"Records indicate that the Doctor travels in a blue box, sometimes accompanied by various humans. You must be the Doctor, even though we don't have visual records of your current face, Time Lords are known to change faces," one woman in the group of soldiers announced.
"Yes, yes, you could write my biography. But we've got more important things to tend to!" the Doctor retorted. The woman looked taken aback. "So, whoever you are, I suggest you phone a man by the name of Jack Harkness and tell him the Doctor is in," the Doctor continued with a cheeky grin. The woman soldier gave him a look of disdain, but she picked up her phone and punched in some numbers, never taking her eyes off the Doctor.
"Doctor? Why do they have guns pointed at us? How is this your plan?" Rory hissed while the woman dialed a number. The Doctor ignored Rory in favor of listening to the phone call unfolding in front of them.
"Hello, ma'am," the soldier woman said into her phone. So, she hadn't called Jack like the Doctor had told her, unless Jack was going by ma'am now. Which wouldn't be all the surprising. "The Doctor's here, ma'am." A few more seconds of silence. "He asked to speak to Captain Jack Harkness, ma'am." There was another full minute of silence while the woman's face being progressively darker and more frustrated. "Yes, I understand, ma'am," the woman said in a resigned voice before hanging up her phone. Without a word to anyone else, she dialed another number.
"Captain Jack Harkness," the woman greeted gravely over the phone. "Yes, I have a message for you. The Doctor is in."
The woman soldier made a signal for her fellow soldiers to lower their weapons and return to their positions. She, however, kept her gun aimed at the Doctor, sometimes flicking its aim toward Amy or Rory.
"Who is Captain Jack Harkness?" Amy whispered to the Doctor. He smiled, knowing this would be a very interesting day. There was never a boring day when Jack was in the room.
"He's an old friend, and he should be able to help us," the Doctor explained. A man appeared out of thin air in front of the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and their captor.
"You called?" Jack greeted with a killer smile and a wink. The soldier did not appear to be overly thrilled with Jack's presence.
"Yes, I called with a message for-" the soldier started to answer Jack, but she was cut off.
"I was talking to the Doctor. You can leave us now, I've got this," Jack dismissed her. She left in a huff. "Doctor, Doctor, you've changed again! Not bad, this time around," Jack said with a casual air about him. "And who are these two lovely companions of yours?"
"This is Amy and Rory," the Doctor introduced. "And Amy's the reason I called for you." Jack gave a short laugh and smirked.
"What, are you inviting me to your wedding? Because I was under the impression that this was a work call," Jack laughed. The Doctor rolled his eyes slightly.
"No, that's not why I called. Now, I should really introduce you more properly," the Doctor started. "Rory, Amy, this is Captain Jack Harkness, part of the Torchwood Institute. Jack, this is Rory, a human from the 21st century. And this is Amy, a Time Lord."
Jack's jaw dropped.
A/N: The Doctor needs help searching the Earth for Time Lords, so where else does he turn but to an institute created partially to capture him? And here's the return of Captain Jack, because the Doctor has to be able to trust someone at the Torchwood Institute.
So, how do you like it so far? Feel free to give me your honest opinion- it really encourages me to write more when I get some feedback from you guys.