Chapter 6: The Brigadier
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"Wait, Doctor," said Jack suddenly. "Before Gallifrey was destroyed… was there anyone at all who had some kind of grudge against the Time Lords? Someone who had done something so bad that caused your leaders to excommunicate them? Because if there is someone, maybe they still harbor a grudge. And like you said, maybe this other person and the Master both want different things, but there's a common path they have to take in order to get there?"
The Doctor was silent.
"Doctor?" Martha asked. "Can you think of anyone?"
After a moment, the Doctor nodded. Yes, there was someone he could think of. But he hoped he was wrong.
oOo
"I can," the Doctor said after a moment more.
"Who, then?" asked Donna.
"Her name is the Rani," the Doctor replied. "She's another Time Lord. Well, Time Lady, but same difference. Sort of." He sighed. "She's always had sort of a grudge or whatever you want to call it, against me. Although how she got out of the time lock I have no idea, because once the war was reaching an end, the Rani decided to come back and see if she could pick up anything she could to experiment on unnoticed."
"But Doctor… remember the Master said that someone had helped him get back into his own body. The time ring he had…"
He looked at Donna. "You're right."
"I'll bet it was the Rani who brought him back, then," said Jenny.
"More than likely," the Doctor replied. There was a pause. "I'm- we're- going to need help with this. More help than Torchwood can give- no offense, Jack."
"None taken," said Jack. "But where are you going to go for this help?"
"UNIT. Well, not technically UNIT. But I have an old friend, retired, but still does work for them occasionally. If anyone can help us find out more information about the imbalance, it's him."
"Who is it?" Jack asked.
"Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart." The Doctor explained how he had known the Brigadier back in his third and fourth regenerations at UNIT, and how the two had first met when the Doctor was exiled on Earth by the Time Lords.
"Sounds like a sharp enough guy," Jack commented.
"He is," said the Doctor. "If there's anyone I can trust besides you lot and my other companions, it's him."
"Then you should get going," said Martha. "Best to make contact as soon as possible, so we can figure this whole thing out."
"You make it sound like I'm going to greet Martians on their first visit to this planet of yours," the Doctor said, amused. "And for your information, yes, I have. Remember Roswell? Those were Martians."
Everyone looked at him, some incredulously.
"What?" exclaimed the Doctor. "They were. I was there. Of course, the US government thought the Martians wanted to invade, but I knew better. So as soon as they landed, I snuck out to Roswell, New Mexico, evaded security, and greeted the Martians myself. I stayed the night with them; let me tell you, if you think the French know how to party, just wait til you meet the Martians.'
"Let me guess what happened," said Jack. "The US showed up the next morning, guns at the ready, to take out the Martians?"
The Doctor nodded. "It's natural they'd be intimidated, so I tried to reason with them on the Martian's behalf. Didn't work. So I convince the Martians to make replicas of themselves which they threw out their ship as they left the earth, along with shrapnel to make the US government think they'd won and destroyed the Martians."
"Wait…" said Martha. "I heard it was some kind of crashed weather balloon?"
"Well, the ship did look like a weather balloon. And that's what the US government let the people believe. No sense letting the people know that Martians had supposedly come to invade."
"Incredible."
"Isn't it?" said the Doctor, grinning like a child.
"How'd you get away from the Roswell site?" Mickey asked.
"I had my TARDIS," said the Doctor. "I parked it behind some top-secret buildings. One of the guards used it was an outhouse. And let me tell you, when I found him outside, peeing onto it…"
"But there were witnesses who saw the Martian's ship for what really was," said Donna.
"They were intimidated into silence," said Jack, shaking his head.
"Sad," said Donna.
"I know," Jack agreed. There was a pause. "Anyway, it's nice having story time and all, but you three should probably get going. Let us know what you find, will you?"
"Will do, Captain," said the Doctor. He shook Jack's hand. "Come along, my wenches!"
"Oi! Watch it, space man!"
Jenny and the others laughed.
"Come along, Donna, love," the Doctor amended. "You two, female clone of mine."
"Hey! I'm an independent, free-thinking person!"
"Right you are," said the Doctor. He was about to say something else when Martha interrupted.
"Best not to dig yourself into that hole any deeper," she said.
"Excellent idea," said the Doctor. "Come along, my Time Ladies."
"That's better," said Donna. Jenny agreed.
The three said one last goodbye to the Torchwood team and made their way to the TARDIS. As soon as they got inside, Donna threatened to smack the Doctor if he called her a wench ever again, to which the Doctor meekly apologized.
"Being a wench has its benefits." He muttered under his breath. Jenny heard him and laughed. The Doctor closed the TARDIS doors as soon as the three of them were inside and took the ship into the vortex. "Now, where does he live?"
"You don't know where the Brigadier lives?"
"Now, Donna, you know me. I'm very clever, and even if I don't know where someone lives, I can find them. Especially if they've traveled in the TARDIS before."
"What do you mean?" Jenny asked.
"Back in my fifth life- at least, I think it was my fifth- the Brigadier took a little trip in my TARDIS. It's a long story, but in a nutshell, there were two Brigadiers, one from the past and one from the present, both together on the same ship, run by Mawdryn. Nice chap. He and his men wanted me to sacrifice myself so they could die. Right when I was about to, the two Brigadiers met and caused a discharge of temporal energy, which gave Mawdryn and his mates what they wanted while I got to live."
"Sounds like you lead an interesting life, Doctor," Donna commented.
"You're just realizing this now?" Jenny asked.
Donna rolled her eyes while the Doctor laughed. "So, did you take the Brigadier in your TARDIS back to UNIT?"
The Doctor shook his head. "He'd retired by then. I took him back to the school where he was teaching. He still does work for UNIT occasionally, though."
"Ah. So the artron energy is what you'll use to track him, since everyone who travels with you in the TARDIS gets it," said Donna.
"Right," said the Doctor. "I'm taking us directly to his home."
"Bit rude, dropping in without calling, eh, Doctor?"
"Oh, he won't mind; like I mentioned earlier, he's an old friend."
Smiling at Donna and Jenny, the Doctor raced around the console, pressing all the right buttons and twiddling the right dials that would take him to his old friend's house.
The TARDIS landed, and the Doctor, Donna, and Jenna stepped out and took a look at their surroundings. The had landed in what appeared to be an old basement cellar. There was dirt for the floor and walls made of stone; the ceiling was of wood, which made sense considering it was a basement and there was a house on top of it. All the walls were lined with shelves filled with food. There was a wine rack in one corner, filled with dusty bottles, and in another corner was a staircase leading up to what the Doctor assumed would be the kitchen.
"Shall we?" The Doctor asked, not necessarily looking for a response. He made his way toward the staircase, which creaked as he set foot upon it, followed by the others. Indeed, he was correct, as he found when he got to the top: the stairs did lead to the kitchen.
There was a door that lead from the stairs to the kitchen, but it had already been open, allowing sunlight to pour into the cellar. The Doctor, Donna, and Jenny looked around the spacious kitchen. There were windows on two sides, allowing sunlight to beam in, casting everything in a warm early afternoon glow. Through the windows, they could see a garden with flowers, a small vegetable patch, and two trees with a hammock tied between them. The kitchen door, leading to the outside, was open, and through it, the Doctor, Donna, and Jenny could see an old man with grey hair bent over a shrubbery with a pair of clippers.
"Is that him?" Jenny asked, standing on tiptoe for a brief second to get a better glimpse. "The Brigadier?"
The Doctor nodded. "Yes," he said. "It's been a couple regenerations since he's seen me, so he's not going to recognize me at first."
"So what are you going to do when he finds us in here?"
"Oh, don't worry; you know me, always great at improvising."
"Doctor," said Donna sternly.
"Don't worry, Donna, we'll manage," said the Doctor. "Everything is going to turn out fine, trust me."
"Here he comes," interrupted Jenny.
The Brigadier came back to the house, clippers in hand. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he noticed the Doctor and his two companions standing there, at the opposite side of the room. He stopped and glared at them.
Waving the clippers, he said, "I don't know who you are, but if you don't get out of my house in ten seconds, I'm calling the police!"
"Look, I can explain!" said the Doctor.
"Yes, I'd like an explanation," glared the Brigadier. "You tell me how you got in here, then you get ten seconds to vacate before I call the police, you hear me? And don't even think of trying to rob me, or I'll set my dogs after you."
"We're not going to robe you, Brigadier; that's the last thing on our minds."
"Oh?" The Brigadier narrowed his eyes. "And how do you know who I am?"
"Brigadier, it's me, the Doctor; we met at UNIT when I was in my third life, remember? When the Time Lords had exiled me to Earth. Remember Mawdryn, in my fifth life? You met an earlier version of yourself."
The Brigadier stared at the Doctor for a moment more, then recognition came to him, and a realization that the intruder was his old friend. "Doctor!" He realized he still held the clippers and set them down on the counter. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize you; thought you were intruders."
"We are, in a way," muttered Donna. She quited down when the Doctor gave her a look; she stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation.
"It's good to see you," said the Doctor.
"And you," replied the Brigadier. "It's been too long! You should've dropped in sooner; I could've made lunch arrangements for us all."
"Sorry," said the Doctor. "I've been…busy."
"Yes, yes," said the Brigadier. He took a deep breath, then sighed happily. "Well, what brings you here, to my home?"