Chapter 28: Teamwork

Ten minutes later, the Doctor and Koboho were sitting in a stockroom with the door locked, both handcuffed. Koboho looked as though she wanted to tear the Doctor apart, her rhino eyes narrowed and burning with contempt.

'I'm sorry,' the Doctor said seriously. 'I had to. You weren't listening.'

'You think I need your apology?' Koboho grunted. 'Once they find out, they'll condemn me to death on the planet! I'm going to die because of you!'

'Hey, I'm going to be left behind too,' the Doctor said, gesturing with his cuffed hands to his New Shada mark.

'Oh, you'll die long before the planet is demolished!' she snarled.

'Really?' the Doctor wondered. 'Yes, your naughty or nice Santa system has resulted in probably thousands of children being left behind to die, but you're not a murderer, Koboho. You're still a judoon, and you've spent your life enforcing the law with procedure. This was just an outcome you hadn't accounted for. I think, if someone had pointed it out to you that wasn't me, you'd have reversed that decision and saved the children anyway.'

'Don't pretend to know me, Time Lord!'

'Koboho, I understand why you did what you did to me. You panicked, and you took the wrong road. You're not evil, you've just made bad decisions.'

'I don't care about your opinion.'

'Listen to me,' the Doctor stressed. 'Any minute now, the soldiers will come back, confirm the story and leave us both here on the planet. Either you can refuse to talk properly to me, or we can work together and escape this.'

'I will not believe your Time Lord lies!'

'No lies,' the Doctor said. 'I've got some friends looking for me.'

'And put me in prison!'

'Not necessarily,' the Doctor said. 'I forgive you for everything you did to me. I never wanted to charge you. Maybe we can work something out with the Neo Proclamation.'

'Time Lord tricks!'

The Doctor sighed, rolling his eyes. 'Please, Koboho.'

'Don't speak to me again, Time Lord!'

The Doctor gave up.


A few hours later, and the Doctor and Koboho were standing in a street of the town he'd come from, watching as the last rocket took off, carrying the final passengers, Jacob with them. He hoped Jacob would find his parents.

'21,550 … 21,549 … 21,548 …' The countdown voice was on a PA system now. He worked out that they had until 6pm - six hours to get off of the planet.

The Doctor turned to Koboho. 'Time to work together?'

She grunted at him, turned, and walked away.

'Koboho!' he called after her, but she didn't break stride.

He sighed. Rose's voice suddenly came into his head.

'I hope you can hear me. We've found the area you're in but we've got no idea where you are. There's a massive military training base called Petinstrad, please get here.'

'Koboho!' he called, running as best he could after her. She carried on walking. 'Koboho, where's Petinstrad?'

She spun around, her fists clenched. 'Go away, Time Lord!'

'Our way out is here and it's at a military training base called Petinstrad,' the Doctor said, ignoring that. 'We need to get there. You know this planet now, where is it?'

She snorted, and pointed to the west. 'One hundred miles that way. Good luck.'

She turned back, and started walking again.

He caught up, walking backwards in front of her. 'Perfect. We'll get a car and drive there. We've got six hours.'

'Get away!' she roared.

'Either you can walk around, find nothing and die, or you can come with me and get saved,' he said, ignoring her again.

'I told you, I'm not …'

'Where are you even going?' he asked. 'There's nowhere to go.'

'Away from you!'

'Koboho,' he said patiently, stopping and raising a hand. She came to a halt. 'What you did to me in New Shada was horrific. But the only person you hurt was me. You were doing what you thought was right for you and I commend you for that. I forgive you. I'm also truly sorry for everything you've had to go through since then. It can't have been easy. You have every right to hate me, and that's okay, because a lot of people hate me - I'm used to it. But don't let it cause your death. Please. Don't let your pride kill you. I want to help. And I need your help. I can't get there fast enough on my own.'

She was still clearly annoyed, but the Doctor sensed a slight change of mood, so he pressed.

'I've got a wife, a daughter, and an unborn son to get back to. I've been away for two weeks and I miss them, and all I want to do is see them again. That's what I'm doing. I'm only interested in staying alive.'

'Then I'll owe you a debt,' she grunted.

'You'll owe me nothing,' he said quickly. 'Koboho, you don't have to like me. Let's just help each other out. Please.'

'21,367 … 21,366 … 21,365 …' the countdown voice continued in the background.

Koboho looked pained. She looked at him, and then behind them where the rocket had disappeared.

'Okay,' she said.

The Doctor smiled. 'Thank you.'


They found a car, and started on their journey. The Doctor couldn't drive for fear of sudden numbness, so he let Koboho drive - a decision he regretted slightly when he realised that although Judoon were trained to operate all modes of transport, cars were not their thing at all. Not to mention that their stoic adherence to procedure meant she kept obeying all the road signs and traffic laws, despite there being no one else on the roads. He decided not say anything, one, because he didn't want to annoy her, and two, because the roads were covered in snow and going any faster might just kill them.

'So was I right?' the Doctor wondered. 'Did you go on the run after your trial?'

'Yes,' Koboho replied, taking a corner with a staggering amount of speed. The Doctor held onto the dashboard and made sure his seatbelt was secure. 'Straight after the trial I escaped and I've been running ever since. I couldn't return to my home planet, so I've been bouncing from place to place, getting the odd job here and there.'

'Your sentence wasn't that bad, was it?' the Doctor asked. 'I told Leya to be lenient.'

'Any time spent in prison is shameful to my race,' she replied, slowly to a snail's pace to go over a speed bump. 'I couldn't face it.'

'I suppose it would be,' the Doctor mused.

'So I was also correct, then.'

'About what?'

'You faked your crime. Was I also correct about the other prisoner being in league with you?'

'You were,' he confirmed. 'You'll probably meet him when we get to the base.'

'What was so important that you had to get inside New Shada?' she asked.

'I had to get to Sirrus to save a life,' he said.

'And did you?'

'Yeah,' he affirmed, smiling.

'Typical Time Lord,' she said, her nostrils flaring again. 'Take what they want and leave carnage in their wake.'

'Sorry,' he said. 'But I couldn't let my wife die.'

Koboho fell silent for a moment. 'She was the one in your head, correct?'

'Yep.'

'You must really love her to have risked everything to save her.'

'Without a doubt,' the Doctor replied. 'What about you?'

'What?'

'Got anyone you'd risk everything for?'

Koboho sighed, hurtling around a blind bend. 'I have no one.'

'What about family?'

'How can I return to Judoonia with everything I've done?' Koboho asked seriously. 'I am condemned to roam the universe, avoiding my fate until the day I die.'

'Everyone makes mistakes,' the Doctor said. 'I think whoever you left behind would just be happy to see you.'

Koboho harrumphed, and didn't reply to that. 'You said you have a daughter.'

'Yeah. Her name's Leah.'

'How old is she?'

'Five,' he answered. 'And I have a son due in six weeks.'

'Well … congratulations,' the judoon supposed.

'Thanks,' the Doctor replied, looking at her. He sensed a bit of pain, there.

'Who did you leave behind?' he asked gently.

'There is nothing on Judoonia for me.'

'Talk to me,' the Doctor coaxed her. 'I'm a great listener.'

'No, thank you,' Koboho gruffed in reply.

'Okay, sorry,' the Doctor said, hands in the air. 'Won't say another word about it. Hey, I've gotta admit, I don't know much about your species, just what I've seen.'

She snorted again. 'Happy to kill swathes of the Universe but not know anything about what they're killing. Stupid, ignorant Time Lords.'

'Hey, little bit racist,' the Doctor protested. 'As far as I remember Judoonia wasn't caught up in the Time War. In fact, we share a great history of peacemaking.'

'No, we don't,' she gruffed.

'Your ancestors united with my ancestors to fight threats to universal harmony,' the Doctor pointed out.

She turned up her rhino nose, slowing to 20 miles per hour to pass an empty school. 'I watched, Doctor, I watched the Time War, I watched the news as day after day massacre after massacre came in, listing the amount of dead in ten digits. I heard the stories of what Time Lords did to innocent people; the lengths you went to to win. And you didn't even do that, did you? You lost. You ravaged the universe with your stupid Time War and you lost.'

The Doctor paused, the memory of it feeling like it had jumped up between his hearts, wormed up his throat and started choking him. 'It started off as a fight against the Daleks. I don't know what it turned into in the end. Everyone just went mad, me included. I did things I regret deeply. But as I've slowly come to terms with everything that happened and what I did, I've realised that there wasn't much else we could do. We should have been far less tyrannical, that's for certain, but if we hadn't fought then the Daleks would be running the Universe right now. I'm not saying that's justification for what we did. I'll never expect forgiveness for my own personal actions and I won't excuse them. I still have nightmares about it, I still think about it when it's quiet. I joined the Time War after I saw a Dalek killing a child, and I ended up killing 2.47 billion children on my own planet. Everytime I look at Leah I can see the faces of the dead children. And it hurts. I know the anger you have towards me, and you know what? I share that anger. I can never atone for what I did, but I'm trying. Because, not by choice, I'm still alive.'

The following silence was low, and depressing. No one spoke for ten minutes as they left a town and went deep into the countryside. Suddenly the car began to choke.

'We're out of fuel,' the Doctor realised as the car rolled to a stop.

'Then we get more,' Koboho stated.

The Doctor looked pointedly around at their landscape - nothing but acres of untouched land. 'Good luck with that,' he pointed out. 'We must be about twenty miles away from the base.' He checked his time sense. 'Four hours until demolition. We've got to walk fast.'

Koboho got out of the car. 'Then start walking, Time Lord.'

She turned, and marched off. The Doctor watched her for a moment, before jogging to catch up with her incredible pace.


The Doctor's intermittent pains and numbness kept forcing him to stop. The first few times Koboho had paused to wait, but it wasn't long until she got fed up and carried on without him. She really, really hated him. He kept trying to communicate with Rose as he'd done before but nothing was coming back. Could she not feel him? He dearly hoped this was a temporary thing.

He had no idea where Koboho was anymore - he'd lost her in the snow, and now it was falling thicker and faster than ever before. He was freezing, and it was becoming harder to move. Everything his healing coma had helped with felt like it was coming undone as the pains returned. Soon his speed was terribly slow, and then he started to limp.

If he kept going at this rate, he wasn't going to make it in time, and he was fairly sure Koboho wasn't coming back.

Another wash of numbness set in, this time to every single limb. He could do nothing but collapse face first into the snow, and lie there, unable to move.

'Koboho!' he tried, hoping she might be close. 'Koboho!'

Nothing. He waited for the numbness to subside.

It took ten minutes for it to go, by which point when the feeling came back he was in a severe amount of pain, and all of his muscles had weakened significantly. He was almost still numb from the cold itself.

He managed to stand up. He started walking again, but he was even slower than before. With every movement he was becoming worse. He was tired, in pain, and shivering badly.

'Koboho!' he tried again. Nothing. 'Rose! Brax! Jack!' he tried instead, but again, nothing came back.

His feet caught on a rock and he fell forward to the ground, landing in the snow. He groaned, and tried to get up, but he couldn't.

'Koboho,' he moaned without any volume. 'Please …'

He must've passed out, because when he opened his eyes he found himself in something that looked and felt uncannily like a coffin. It was cold, dark, and metal.

He slammed his fist onto the top of it, testing, when suddenly he realised his wrist. There was a bright green hairband on it. He was in a vision? How!?

'Rose!' he cried, but he got nothing back.

He lifted his legs, and slammed his soles into the metal by his feet. He did that a few times, until it bent open, and finally fell off, hitting the floor with a clang. Desperate to get out, he scrambled and pushed his way out, and finally he emerged into the TARDIS infirmary.

It was in emergency lighting, and he could hear the cloister bell ringing out.

He was about to shout, when he saw a piece of paper lying on the bed. He picked it up, and immediately felt even more confused.

DON'T SAY ANYTHING, TAKE EVERY BIT OF PAPER WITH YOU Rose's handwriting said in thick black marker pen, followed by an arrow pointing left. He obligingly folded it and put it in his pocket. He then looked left, and saw another bit of paper stuck to the scanner.

FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY, followed by another arrow pointing to near the store cupboard. That one read: IGNORE THE NOISE.

He frowned, when suddenly there was a clang from somewhere outside the room. He turned, startled, and walked up to the door. He immediately saw another piece of paper stuck on the entrance.

I SAID IGNORE IT!

This was weird, he decided, pocketing the paper and turning back. The next piece of paper was on the door of the store cupboard.

GET IN HERE, CLOSE THE DOOR

He followed the arrow inside the store cupboard and closed the door, where he had his collection of medicines and instruments. The next bit of paper was taped on the shelf right in front of him.

TAKE THE GUN

He looked down, and saw Jack's weapon of choice lying on the shelf. There was another bit of paper.

DON'T ARGUE, JUST DO IT

He took hold of the gun and checked it. It was fully loaded. The paper under the gun was revealed.

TURN AROUND

He did. There was another bit of paper stuck to the back of the door.

LOCK THE DOOR! STAY QUIET! DON'T MOVE!

He did. He'd never been more confused in his life. He waited for roughly twenty seconds, before suddenly he heard the infirmary door open.

'Theta?' his brother's voice asked.

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, when his eyes refocused on the paper.

LOCK THE DOOR! STAY QUIET! DON'T MOVE!

He shut up, and remained perfectly still.

'Theta … are you okay?' Brax asked in gallifreyan, clearly concerned.

This was ridiculous, the Doctor thought. His eyes drifted down from the warning paper, to another one below.

DON'T ANSWER

'Theta, answer me. I'm worried about you,' Brax said, still in gallifreyan.

The Doctor's confusion deepened. Why was he holding a gun and hiding from his own brother? He carefully and quietly dropped to his knees. He leant forward, so he could see the infirmary through the crack under the door. There he saw Brax's shoes, walking up to the tube he'd woken up in.

'Oh, you managed to get out,' Brax suddenly said in an eerie, sing-song voice. 'But I know you have not left the room. So where's little Theta?'

That unnerved him a bit, his brow well and truly furrowed.

The infirmary door suddenly opened, and another pair of shoes arrived.

'Found him, yet?' a voice asked in gallifreyan.

The Doctor knew that voice, and it shook him to the absolute core.

That was the Master.

'I think he wants to play hide and seek with us,' Brax said cheerily.

'Oh, love that,' the Master replied. 'Me and him used to play that in the Academy. It was great fun. He used to hide for days on end.'

'He's very good at hiding, isn't he?' Brax supposed.

'Oh, very good,' the Master agreed. 'But he always had one fatal flaw.'

'What was that?' Brax wondered.

'If you listened closely enough, you could always hear his little hearts going like two tap dancers being dosed with 5000 volts.'

The Doctor had to stop himself from gasping, his hand snapped to his chest. His hearts were racing. He quietly and methodically took some breaths, forcing his body to calm down, slowing and quietening his heart rate.

There was a long, quiet, excruciating pause.

'Oh, how cute,' the Master said. 'He's learnt how to stop that now he's older.'

'Looks like he wants us to play the game,' Brax said. 'Should we count to ten?'

'Well, if we're going to play, let's do it properly,' the Master said. 'Cover your eyes, Brax. One, two, three, four …'

The Doctor stayed absolutely still. He was panicking. What the hell was going on!?

'Five, six …'

Brax's feet started to move towards the store cupboard.

'Seven, eight …'

There was a rustle of clothing.

'Nine … ten.'

The Doctor watched, terrified, as suddenly under the crack of the door he saw his brother, staring straight back at him. A small crinkle appeared at the corner of his brother's eye as he smiled.

'Ready or not, here we come …' Brax's voice hissed through the gap.