Time Fears the Sphinx

by aragonite

Doctors Two and Three are both caught in "halfway" zones of their Timestream due to personal circumstance and bizarre coincidence (or is it?). They have to work together in order to repair the damages seeding the Web of Time throughout the Universe, and most of all, they have to do it without being caught because even their closest friends could ruin everything.

6. Taking the Fall

11: Theory and Reality

The Meteoroids were getting more and more troublesome and the TARDIS more and more difficult.

The Doctor had managed to wedge his large body into a solid position that would let him stay put and watch the bulk of the excitement. The initial plan was to sample enough of the meteoroids' incoming trajectories to plot backwards and find the source of the meteoroid's orbits. Once he had that, he should be able to chart out the quickest way out of said orbital field.

In theory, this worked grand, like one of his beloved school projects.

In reality, this was more like one of his school projects sabotaged by the Master to embarrassingly explode.

A lump of solid ore that must have weighed twelve English tons in Standard Gravity struck the side of the TARDIS and sent her spinning erratically. The Doctor found his floor had become the wall, and tumbled head over heels straight into the Power Room. This was unfortunate, but not the worst thing that could have happened to him; he only struck the Auxillary Memory Banks, and that was with his back instead of his skull. In his weakened state it was enough to knock him out.

12: Taking the Fall

They didn't know Susan was forced to help transfer the Halomancer's mind to the Helm with the Valeyard's machinations; they couldn't possibly care about her trauma. They would convict her for Interference and condemn her presence on his stolen TARDIS, rip her from David and possibly erase her children out of History! David would be made to forget her, but she would be permitted to remember him—hell for both. He couldn't let her go through what they'd already done to him with Jamie and Zoe!

But it was true that the Halomancer couldn't Mind-transfer alone. So he had to convince the CIA he was the guilty party.

"What of it?" He repeated, drawing himself up to his full, slight height, thumbs hooking into his braces. "It's not like one has a choice when there's a gun on their head! He could push his mind into any body! The idea of that murderous killer using my genius is hardly something the CIA would approve!" Not lying; Susan did have his intellect. Lie with truth. He set his jaw like a stubborn little bulldog. "The problem is fixed. That should be the end of it!"

"Hardly. There remains your punishment."