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.

25. Bowler Hat Man, We Meet Again

25. Bowler Hat Man, We Meet Again

The Doctor went from "thinking ahead" to "betrayed by life's stupidities" in the brief seconds it took to step into his TARDIS just as an unpleasant guest materialized.

In his TARDIS.

Oh, blast it.

"*...Hello again..." The Doctor said with no little trepidation. It is easy to be respectful when you are talking with sharks; they are cold, sharp, and own multitudinous teeth.

"Doctor," The Bowler Hat Man nodded, leaning on his umbrella. He glanced about and appeared to find the room pleasing, if a little...nostalgic. His nose twitched. "I regret to interrupt your business...whatever it is," a single brow lifted. "But I must needs intrude."

"Not at all." The Doctor said hastily. "What's the occasion?"

"Our signals thought you were your predecessor." Thin lips curled in a cultured, supercilious smile. "Obviously not."

"Oh. Well. No, thankfully." The moment turned delicate indeed, as this was one of the very minds consulted in forcing his change. The Doctor swallowed hard and kept his face calm. "I believed he was working for you."

"He is. Or rather," A most discrete cough. "He was until he was lost."

The Doctor didn't hide his surprise. "Lost?" He repeated.

---

26. Mindness and Madness

The little Time Lord soon learned the waist straps were for his own protection; he could move about and even release the strap...which was soon proven a very bad idea.

Sitting up was the first in this series of bad ideas. He doubled up. He kept his head down and breathed. He shut his eyes and counted to five hundred, odd numbers first. He watched blotches dance across his eyelids. He named them after the Temporal Oversight Committee members: It made him feel twice as good to watch them slowly dissolve into nothingness.

He tried lifting his head again. That went a little bit better. Things went grey and fuzzy for a few seconds.

"Jamie?" He coughed on metal-dust. "Jamie?" There was no answer. "Zoe?"

Silence.

Someone strapped him down, his confused mind reasoned. He couldn't have done it himself. And he didn't travel with anyone but Jamie and Zoe...

They wanted him to use one of their worthless agents—or worse, one of their gullible "volunteers" thinking they were getting political capital with a mission, only to learn too late of the true dangers.

Still half-mad, he kept calling. For his friends, and for his TARDIS.

To no avail.