Episode 3 – The Truth Is Out There
Chapter 1
Previously - The one in the suit frowned, "You're The Doctor?" the Time Lady nodded slowly. The suited man, the Tenth Doctor, turned his head slightly to inspect his future incarnation, "Well, that's a little", he paused for moment before adding, "different". He continued to examine the current Doctor, almost disbelieving that she was telling the truth, "How far from my future are you?" he asked.
"I'm number twelve", The Doctor answered, "but you've still got a while to go until you're me".
Whilst this conversation had been taking place, the Eleventh Doctor merely stood there with a small smile on his face, "Everything worked out alright then".
"Yes Doctor it did", The Doctor smiled back, "mostly", she added with a slight grimace. She clapped her hands together, "Now then, shall we get on with saving Gallifrey", she added with a smile.
The Twelfth Doctor was a blur of motion inside her TARDIS, flicking switches and twisting dials on the console. The calculations to freeze Gallifrey might have been completed but they still needed to be interpreted correctly. One wrong input could have disastrous consequences for her home planet. The Time Lady knew this day would be coming eventually, there had been thirteen TARDIS's present during the mission after all. Her memories indicated that everything had been successful but she didn't want to get complacent. Time could be rewritten and the status of the timestreams around Gallifrey were perilous to say the least. If this went wrong then the entire outcome of the Time War could change.
The Time Lady spied Jenny out the corner of her eye, the red head was shuffling awkwardly around the console. The Doctor could feel the confusion coming off the younger Time Lady, like a lost lamb who couldn't find her mother. She felt bad for Jenny as this was supposed to be their time together, her chance to explain everything to the younger Time Lady. Instead it looked like The Doctor's secret would be dragged out of her before she could fill in the blanks for the young Time Lady. The raven haired stopped what she was doing and gripped the console a little tighter. Jenny didn't deserve that, she had been through enough in the last few hours. She was entitled to a proper explanation but the universe clearly had other ideas.
The awkward silence in the console was killing the older Time Lady, causing her to lose focus. Perhaps there was a way to alleviate that, "Care to help me Jenny", she called out.
"Really?" Jenny asked with a quiet tone. The Doctor wasn't sure if it was due to nervousness or hope, "I don't know what I'm doing".
"Then consider this your first TARDIS lesson", The Doctor smiled and gently pulled Jenny towards the console, "twist these knobs until the output read seventy two", she added, pointing at a couple of brass valves. Jenny nodded and did as she was instructed and carefully observed the gauges. The Doctor moved a little further down the panel and began moving some levers, "I'm sorry about this Jenny", she continued, "I wasn't aware this was going to happen yet".
"It's fine Doctor", Jenny sighed but The Doctor could tell that everything wasn't fine with her daughter. Her disappointment about being kept in the dark was growing and she wasn't hiding it well, "What are we doing here?" Jenny asked after a few moments.
"You know about the Time War right?" Jenny nodded in confirmation, "until my eleventh incarnation I believed that I was responsible for Gallifrey's destruction". She paused for a moment, those were a dark few centuries for her, the emptiness, the hopelessness biggest of all, the guilt that came with her decision. Looking back now she was amazed that she didn't crack under the strain. Maybe she did in her own way, the Time War had changed everything for her and the universe would never be bright again.
Pushing the dark thoughts aside, The Doctor continued, "There's a very real chance that I actually saved the planet by freezing it in a moment of time. The explosion everyone witnessed was the Daleks blowing themselves up". The Doctor stopped what she was doing and pulled a monitor around the console, "Here, perhaps a diagram will help explain things", she brought a military diagram of the current front lines in the constellation.
If there was one thing Jenny understood, it was military diagrams. The object in the centre must be Gallifrey and surrounding it were various dotted lines which represented the primary planet's defences. The Dalek ships had breached those lines and were encircling the planet. She didn't need to understand military tactics to know that the planet was doomed. In a few minutes it would be totally surrounded and subjected to heavy bombardment. It was then that she realised what The Doctor's plan was, if the planet was frozen in time then it would disappear. The Daleks would end up firing on themselves, "That's an outrageous plan", Jenny gasped in awe. It was certainly bold with a heavy dose of insanity, it summed up the older Time Lady perfectly.
"Thank you", The Doctor smiled, "the calculations took a while, almost my entire life". She smiled as memories of her early life came to mind, a carefree time when the only thing she had to worry about finding another planet to explore. She often wondered what her original self would think if he could see what had happened to him since. She would probably get the answer to that question imminently, "All of my past selves are out there somewhere, it will require that much power to put this plan into action", she added. She could sense them beginning to arrive, silently thankful that she wasn't the one to make that call. Ten, Eleven and the one she mentally labelled The War Doctor were taking care of that. Her job was to provide the finished calculation to the others.
"So they're all out there", Jenny closed her eyes and was alarmed to feel presences in her mind. They all felt like The Doctor, only much younger, "I can feel them in my head", the red headed gasped.
The Doctor slapped her hand against her forehead, "Stupid me, I forgot you wouldn't have had another Time Lord presence in your head before". She reached out to Jenny and gently touched her head. The younger Time Lady flinched slightly at the contact, unsure what The Doctor was about to do. The raven haired woman gave Jenny a warm and reassuring smile, "I'm just going to place some basic mental shields in place. It'll prevent you from getting overawed by the multiple voices inside your head".
Jenny nodded slowly and The Doctor placed her fingers against her temples. The younger Time Lady could feel a warming presence seeping into her brain. Just as quickly as it started, the sensation stopped and The Doctor gently released her grip. The voices had been quietened but Jenny still knew they were there, like a reassurance that she wasn't alone, "Thank you Doctor", Jenny gave her a weak smile.
"Don't mention it", The Doctor replied, "I look after my family". She leaned over and kissed Jenny on the forehead, "And you will get your explanation, straight from the horse's mouth". Jenny wasn't sure what The Doctor meant by that and she didn't get a chance to ask. The console pinged loudly and the Time Rotor flashed blue, "Ah looks like we're ready to go", The Doctor changed the image on the monitor, "Here you go Jenny, take a look at your ancestral home".
The image changed to show a planet with an orange sky and deep red grass. In the middle of the open space was a giant glass dome and inside was the biggest city Jenny had ever seen. The towers and spires seemed to stretch on forever with an architecture the young Jenny had never seen anywhere else before. Breath taking was the first word that came to mind, "It's beautiful", was the second. The beauty of the planet reduced Jenny to silence, even The Doctor lost herself in the moment, "It doesn't look like this now does it?" Jenny asked sadly.
"No", The Doctor replied with a gentle hush, "but this is how to choose to remember Gallifrey and if this goes according to plan then it'll look like this again someday". The Doctor left Jenny looking at some old images of Gallifrey and walk around to the communication monitor. She leaned over the console as her thoughts drifted back to the Time War. At least she tried to.
The Doctor hadn't told Jenny this but it wasn't just her memory of her daughter that was missing, large chunks of the Time War were also blank to her. She had vague memories, the empty feeling every time a fellow Time Lord went silent in her head, the aftermath of key battles and such but the rest was just a blank. At first she thought this was a symptom of regeneration and that the memories would come back after a few hours, however, everything was still a blur. It was like she had been given the abbreviated version of certain events, enough to get by but not enough to truly remember.
The Time Lady bit down hard on her lip in frustration, there was only one possible explanation for this and as if on cue, his face appeared on the monitor, "Did I catch you at a bad time?" the Eleventh Doctor asked quietly. The Doctor slowly looked up and glared at her predecessor. The Eleventh Doctor nervously adjusted his bow tie and seemed to take a visible step back which pleased the Time Lady immensely, "I'll take that as a yes", he muttered.
"Trust me Doctor you don't want to try my patience right now", The Doctor growled, "you've spoken with a grey haired woman recently haven't you?"
The Eleventh Doctor nodded slowly, "Yes I have", he said grimly, "nice hair by the way, much longer than I'm used to".
"Don't change the subject", the Time Lady snapped, "she slapped you that day and I'm not afraid to do the same". She looked away from the screen briefly, trying to reel in her rising temper.
"That really hurt by the way", Eleven unconsciously rubbed his jaw, "she was surprisingly strong, for a girl".
The Doctor ignored his attempted joke and slowly turned her head back towards the screen, "The matrix wasn't complete was it?" she asked. The moment the question left the Time Lady's lips, the Eleventh Doctor looked away sheepishly, "I expect to have the blanks filled in before you leave".
"I was just trying to protect you", Eleven said quietly, "the things that I've seen, you shouldn't have to relive that".
The Time Lady could sense the genuine remorse from the Eleventh Doctor, releasing some of her anger in the process. She let out a deep breath and glared at her predecessor, "I'm not a child that needs protecting", she began, "technically I'm older than you now". She shook her head and leaned closer to the screen, "I want what's rightfully mine", she added with a cold whisper.
Trying to take some control back, the Eleventh Doctor stood a little taller and glared back, "What if I refuse, get in my blue box and fly away".
"Jenny", was The Doctor's only response and this grabbed the younger Time Lady's attention. She had been trying to tune out the argument between the two Doctor's but now she had been dragging into the conversation, she couldn't help but listen. The older Time Lady held up her hand to stop Eleven from replying, "I found our daughter and she's here with me right now". The Eleventh Doctor looked shocked at this news, "Do you know how embarrassing it is, running into your own daughter only to tell her that you can't remember her?"
"I-I had no idea", Eleven stammered, "I thought she was dead".
Jenny's patience ran out, she was getting tired of feeling excluded from conversation. She stomped around the console and nudged The Doctor out the way, "Except I wasn't dead", she cried, "is that why you didn't come looking for me?"
"Jenny", Eleven gasped, "you've regenerated, I didn't think that you could?" The Eleventh Doctor grasped his floppy brown hair, his head was a whirlwind of emotions. He was happy that Jenny was alive but he had left Messaline without her, "I didn't know Jenny, if I had know", Jenny didn't want to listen to the response, instead she ran out of the console room with tears in her eyes, "I'm sorry Jenny".
"She's spent her entire life looking for us", The Doctor shook her head, "you could blame Ten for leaving too quickly but you never even went back to visit her grave". The Doctor wasn't angry with her predecessor anymore, instead she was extremely disappointed. She hoped that she wouldn't treat her former companions in this way in the future.
"I couldn't", Eleven said with a hollow voice, "I just couldn't".
The Time Rotor flared into life and the TARDIS began to move. The Doctor sighed, glancing at the floor in the process, "This conversation isn't over Doctor", she whispered and turned off the monitor without waiting for a response. She moved around the flight control and prepared to move her TARDIS into position. The Doctor needed to focus for the next part of her mission, forcing her to push her anger and disappointment aside for the next few minutes. Gallifrey wouldn't be lost just because of an argument with her past self, she wouldn't add the destruction of Gallifrey back onto her list of failures. That would have to drive her forward for the foreseeable future.
A/N - Episode three starts off with a bang as the two Time Lady's are thrust straight into the action. Eleven and Twelve really aren't going to get along, little bit of forewarning about that. Next chapter the truth about the Twelfth Doctor's regeneration comes out...it's a controversial idea that I had so not sure if it will be universally popular. Guess we'll see...