Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own Doctor Who
Feedback: Of course
AN: Reference to my story "Filling in the Blanks" regarding the circumstances of the Eighth Doctor's regeneration; reading it isn't essential, but I felt that clarification would be appreciated
AN 2: Hope everyone likes this; working out how the conversation between the Doctors and their enemies go was not easy...
The Legacy of Gallifrey
"Great..." Fitz groaned, staring at the empty areas where the Doctors and the three Time Ladies had been standing as he slumped against the wall. "It's official; we're screwed."
"What do you mean?" Tosh said, looking at him curiously.
"Uh, did you just miss the part where all our TARDISes and every Time Lord here just vanished?" Fitz asked, looking at the woman sitting in front of the computer with what Martha could only describe as frustrated panic. "Even if we knew where they'd gone, we've got no way of getting there-!"
"Not every TARDIS is gone," Tosh interrupted, smiling slightly at Fitz as she pointed upwards with one hand. "We still have the one just above us."
"What-?!" Martha began, before she snapped her fingers in realisation and pointed at Klein with a smile, her issues with the Nazi doctor temporarily forgotten. "Of course; that's the TARDIS of your Doctor!"
"Which is not the same ship as the other TARDISes, and was therefore missed by whatever took them from us..." Klein said, nodding in a manner that Martha almost wished she could think of as anything other than condescending, as though she was a teacher complimenting a child for coming to the right conclusion; only the fact that she didn't particularly like Klein anyway made it easier to ignore that issue and focus on what was important.
"Uh... I hate to sound like I'm deliberately bringing the mood down, but didn't whoever was responsible for this take away all of our potential TARDIS pilots?" Ian asked, looking around at the other companions. "I mean, the Doctor told me some of the essential details about how our TARDIS works, but I'm fairly sure that I couldn't pilot the ship on my own, and from what you're saying the only TARDIS available to us is a bit more advanced and therefore probably more complicated than that one..."
"As much as I... hate to admit it, you have a point, Mr Chesterton," Klein said, nodding briefly at Ian in acknowledgement of his statement, despite the slight expression of distaste that crossed her face at the idea of admitting that someone else in their current group could make a point that she would agree with. "I have... some experience in piloting the Doctor's ship, but the TARDIS above us was significantly beyond my own skills-"
"Well, it's a good thing we're not relying on your skills to do it," Donna interjected, glaring briefly at Klein before she looked over at the other companions. "We're relying on our skills."
"Our- you mean all of us?" Rose asked, looking at Donna in surprise. "You're suggesting that we-?"
"Pool our knowledge and experiences with the Doctor to try and pilot the TARDIS above us by working together?" the Brigadier finished, nodding thoughtfully at the young woman. "A challenging prospect, I admit, Miss Tyler, but one that I am confident that we are up to."
"And what makes you think that?" Klein asked, looking back at the Brigadier.
"Because, Doctor Klein," the Brigadier said, as he turned to stare firmly at the Nazi scientist, "I have known the Doctor for a very long time, in a great deal of the bodies that we have witnessed here, and of the few things that have always been constant about him, one of them is in his ability to select companions who will become the best that they can possibly be. We may not know how to operate the TARDIS above us completely on our own, but I can at least be certain that, if we have some time to put everything together, we will be able to put that information together in a manner that will allow us to control it properly."
"You really think that we can do that?" Klein asked, looking sceptically at the Brigadier. "Just... pool our resources and-"
"We have to try," Claire said, looking resolutely at Klein. "I don't know about whatever you might have picked up from the Doctor, but I've only just met him and I know we shouldn't quit that quickly!"
"Exactly!" Martha said, slamming her hand firmly against the desk in front of her as she looked at the group of companions around her. "The Doctor has saved us all so many times over the centuries; we are not going to fail him now that it's our turn to save him! Some of you have known him for longer than I have, some of you have barely met him, and there are others who... well, OK, maybe just one or two... who don't particularly like him, but none of that matters right now; what is important is that we have to find him before whatever we're up against decides to..."
She trailed off, not even wanting to voice the worst-case-scenario that they could be facing, but everyone present knew what she wasn't saying; if they didn't act quickly, it was highly possible that whoever was responsible for the Doctors' abductions would do something highly unpleasant to them.
Martha might want to believe that whoever they were up against would be sane enough to recognise that the consequences of killing the Doctor's past selves would be too unpredictable for them to take that kind of chance, but considering that they were up against someone crazy enough to bring the Doctors together in the first place...
Right now, her best chance was to hope that their unknown enemies would just want to imprison the Doctors for some reason...
Martha shook her head; what their enemies wanted with the Doctor wasn't important right now, particularly since everyone here would work to ensure that they never had a chance to complete it.
The small army of companions they'd gathered here would get him back.
There were too many people working towards that goal for Martha to think otherwise.
The alternative was impossible to consider...
"Saving Gallifrey?" Romana repeated, looking at the Ninth Doctor in horrified confusion at the implications of his last statement before she turned to look at the oldest Doctor present. "Doctor, what is he talking about?"
"Oh, he didn't tell you?" the Valeyard asked, looking at Romana with a mocking smirk. "I'm disappointed, but I suppose I should expect it of my old weakness; he never could face-"
"Look, before we do anything else here, can you just do me one small favour and let Ianto Jones out of Compassion?" the Doctor asked glaring over at where the sentient TARDIS stood in one corner; it might be a minor detail, but his willingness to recognise the minor details was one of the qualities that separated him from this version of him in the first place. "You don't need him any more, and I'm fairly certain keeping him locked up in there is-"
The Doctor's request was cut short as the Valeyard snapped his fingers and Compassion opened out into her familiar door shape, followed by Ianto's suit-clad form falling out of the sentient time-ship and hitting the ground with a thud. The Fifth Doctor and Susan hurried over to help him to his feet, each nothing that he seemed to be relatively unharmed apart from feeling slightly thinner than was completely healthy.
"As you requested, Ianto Jones," the Valeyard said, smirking dismissively at his other selves. "Now we're all here-"
"On that topic, would you mind telling us how you can be here?" the Eighth Doctor interjected, staring firmly at his other self despite his slight fear at the prospect of what he was facing. "After all, the last time you fought us... well, I'm fairly sure we saw you die?"
"Oh, I did more than die, Doctor," the Valeyard replied, smiling slightly at his other self. "After all, when you destroyed me in London, you did more than merely kill me; you destroyed what existing potential of existence I possessed at this time-"
"I'm sorry, but I think that at least half of us seem to be missing something here; who is this man?" the Third Doctor asked, looking at the later Doctors in confusion.
"And who- or should I say what-, precisely, is that?" the First Doctor asked, indicating Davros with his stick.
"'That'," the Fourth Doctor said, looking coldly at the indicated individual, "is Davros, the Kaled who created the Mark Three Travel Machines that we know as the Daleks, as a means of transporting the mutations that his projections indicated his race would become after centuries of radioactive warfare."
"I... see," the First Doctor said, staring grimly at Davros with an air of contempt that made it clear that he thoroughly disapproved of the very concept of what Davros had done despite his own limited experience with the Daleks to date.
"And that man?" the Second Doctor asked, looking grimly at the Valeyard.
"He's... us," the Seventh Doctor explained, looking solemnly at his five youngest selves after a brief glance at his immediate past and three future selves culminated in him being unofficially 'nominated' to speak for them.
"He's what?" the Fifth Doctor asked, looking sharply over his future incarnation as though wanting to confirm he'd heard him correctly.
"He's us," the Sixth Doctor explained grimly. "The manifestation of our own dark nature, created in our future- somewhere between our twelfth and final incarnations, according to the information I heard at the time-, and back in our pasts to ensure our own destruction."
"And to ensure my own existence, Doctor," the Valeyard said, staring solemnly at them. "After all, it is only natural that I should want to exist now that I have been granted that particular gift..."
"We should have realised who was behind this all the moment we pooled our resources," the Seventh Doctor said, shaking his head grimly as he stared at the figure before them, clutching his umbrella tightly as though preparing to use it against his foes as a weapon. "Who else would hate us enough to risk such an extensive and outrageous plan to attack us?"
"Outrageous?" the Valeyard said, looking mockingly at the Doctor who'd defeated him during his last encounter with them.
"An unholy alliance of Time Lord and Dalek, bringing together some of our most dangerous individual enemies, to say nothing of working with the race we sacrificed everything to stop?" the Doctor said, before he looked scathingly over at his immediate predecessor. "The only thing madder than him thinking this is a good idea is the thought that you'd be a part of it."
"I wasn't expecting the Daleks- I thought it was just him-, but that doesn't matter right now," the Ninth Doctor said, a slightly pleading edge to his voice as he briefly indicated the Valeyard before he looked more directly at his future self. "You have to understand; this is the only way to save Gallifrey-"
"Why does Gallifrey need saving?" Serena asked, looking in shaken confusion between her short Doctor and the Doctor in the leather jacket. "What happened?"
"There was a war," the Ninth Doctor said, grimly looking at his other selves and their assorted remaining companions. "The last great Time War... Time Lords and Daleks, with the fate of creation hanging in the balance..."
He sighed and stood in silence for a moment, pain and anguish in his eyes at the memories he was reliving, until he focused his glare firmly on his predecessor. "And then he cut it all short by destroying Gallifrey."
"I what?" the Eighth Doctor said, looking at his next incarnation in horror. "I would never-!"
"You didn't have a choice," the Doctor interrupted, looking over at his eighth self with as much comfort as he could master; he'd had to deal with a great deal of anger after his eighth regeneration, both at what his previous self had done and at the fact that he'd been left to cope with the guilt and grief inspired by those memories after his regeneration while trying to save the Nestene feeding planets, but he'd moved past it since his last regeneration, and was better able to accept what his prior self had done. "The war was about to begin, the enemy were winning, and the Time Lords' only hope would have been to pre-empt their pre-emptive strike by travelling back in time to start the war before the other side started it; you destroyed Gallifrey because the only other option was to allow the Time Lords to wage a war that would dehumanise them all to the point of becoming monsters that all evidence suggested we couldn't win anyway-"
"We would have won!" Rassilon proclaimed, stepping forward to glare at the Doctor. "We are Time Lords-!"
"Which just means that we're stronger than most races," the Sixth Doctor interrupted, looking at Rassilon with a solemn but resolute glare. "We are not gods, Rassilon; we're very good at what we do, but we're not indestructible."
"Add in the fact that we don't exactly have any kind of long-standing army available to us in the first place, and I can see several factors that could result in us losing a war like that," the Fifth Doctor said, the pain in his eyes the only indication of how difficult it was for him to discuss that particular topic, before he shook her head and looked at the Valeyard once more. "And we can discuss that issue later; for the moment, could those of us who know please explain why it's such a shock to see this... Valeyard alive?"
"Because I killed him," the Seventh Doctor said, staring grimly at the Valeyard.
"You killed him?" the Sixth Doctor said, looking sharply over at his successor. "I'm the one who-"
"He retreated into the body of the Keeper of the Matrix after your confrontation with him," the Seventh Doctor interjected, his attention focused on the Valeyard as he spoke. "He attempted to use his position to harness the power of the Dark Matrix to create a new body for himself, but that wasn't the extent of his crimes; he also used its influence to try and corrupt us."
"Corrupt us?" the Fourth Doctor repeated, looking over at his future self in shock. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I didn't remember it happening myself- whatever he was doing to Time with the Dark Matrix operated on a level far beyond most temporal theories that we know of; he was somehow able to preserve parts of our history to remain unaltered while changing others-, but apparently, thanks to his influence, you were provoked into destroying the Daleks during your first encounter with Davros," the Seventh Doctor said, looking over at his younger self.
"I... I was?" the Fourth Doctor said, looking in horror at the Valeyard, the scarf-wearing Doctor's usually jovial expression replaced by one of horror at this news.
"Fascinating," Davros said, looking at the Fourth Doctor with a mocking smile. "Even with me standing here, with my Daleks around me, you still find yourself unable to contemplate such an action..."
"No," the Fourth Doctor said, looking sharply up at Davros, shock replaced by cold certainty as he glared at the other man. "I acknowledge that I am capable of such an atrocity, Davros; what makes me better than you is the fact that I will not resort to genocide in order to enforce my views!"
"And that's why I had to do this," the Ninth Doctor said, glaring at his past self. "Because you were too goody-goody to do what had to be done-"
"What was done then is done," Rassilon interjected, holding up a hand as he glared at the Ninth Doctor in a warning manner. "What happened then is not important; we are where and what we are, and that is what matters."
"And what exactly are you now, Valeyard?" the Seventh Doctor asked, bringing their conversation back to focus on their darker self. "As I recall, you were destroyed when your TARDIS explored after the Dark Matrix tried to escape; how could you survive?"
"I didn't," the Valeyard replied.
"Excuse me?" the Second Doctor said, looking at the other Time Lord in confusion. "You... did die?"
"With the destruction of my corporeal fom and my TARDIS, my already-tenuous timeline was severed and I was banished to the non-existence of the Void," the Valeyard replied, staring at the Doctors. "Imagine it... conscious nothingness... the black void all around you... aware of your existence but unable to take any kind of action... your body nothing but a memory... nowhere to go, no hope of reprieve..."
He paused for a moment, giving them a chance to process his description, before he smiled mockingly over at the Doctor. "Until a crack in the Void appeared, as something that had once passed through it had no longer done so..."
"What...?" the Doctor began, before his eyes widened in horrified realisation. "Rose!"
"Rose?" the Ninth Doctor repeated, looking at his future self in sudden shock. "What about her?"
"Trapped in another universe, until a daring experiment in cross-dimensional travel brought her back to this one," the Valeyard said, smirking at the thought as he took in the horror on the Doctor's face. "He had to reverse it, of course- there were other factors to consider aside from Miss Tyler's return to this universe, after all-, but while he could erase her trip from history in this universe and the one she was taken from, he couldn't erase the rift she created in the Void."
"And you... escaped through that?" the First Doctor said, looking sceptically at the Valeyard. "Through a tear in something that essentially doesn't exist?"
"You'll learn soon enough that just because we think something doesn't exist doesn't necessarily mean that it can't exist," the Third Doctor said, smiling briefly over at his first incarnation before turning his attention back to the Valeyard. "But... would you even exist? When Omega was trapped in the realm of anti-matter, his body eventually collapsed; I find it hard to imagine that physical entities could last for long in the Void..."
"Oh, they couldn't," the Valeyard said, smiling as he glanced down at his body with a smile. "But fortunately, I was able to find a suitable host in our slave over there..."
"Slave...?" the Doctor repeated in confusion, only to trail off as he realised what the Valeyard was talking about. "You possessed Nivet?"
"Nivet?" the Eighth Doctor repeated.
"A technician from Gallifrey; Compassion took him with her after Gallifrey's destruction to help keep her systems in working order in the absence of the Eye of Harmony while you and Fitz started travelling in... another ship," the Doctor explained- getting into the specifics of how he'd reacquired the TARDIS after the Avalon incident opened up far too many complications-, before he focused his attention back on the Valeyard. "So, let me guess; you possessed Nivet, force-regenerated him into a body that resembled your own, and then set about contacting some of our most powerful adversaries?"
"Rassilon is an adversary?" the Fifth Doctor said, looking curiously over at the oldest Doctor. "I know he's been ambiguously portrayed in history-"
"He tried to turn me into his assassin against a race who would have evolved to replace the Time Lords simply because he didn't like the fact that the world had to change around him," the Eighth Doctor bluntly informed his past self.
"And that's not even the extent of his schemes," the Doctor said, looking coldly at Rassilon (His eighth self would actually be experiencing the timeline where the Faction would be responsible for his decision to destroy Gallifrey, but since the universe remembered the timeline where the Daleks were responsible and his past self would forget this event anyway it was easier to focus on the new memory of the war that would have happened in the vision Compassion had given him rather than the original one). "When he was recovered and taken back to this universe to help lead us in our new war, his last great plan for our survival was to trigger the 'final sanction' and rip the Time Vortex apart-"
"WHAT?" Romana, Serena and Susan yelled virtually simultaneously, the three Time Ladies turning to look at Rassilon in shock.
"You... were going to destroy everything?" Romana asked, looking in outrage and disgust at Rassilon. "We were losing a war, and your solution was to end the entire universe so that... what; our Enemy couldn't have it?"
"It was all for us!" Rassilon proclaimed. "The Enemy would have fallen, but the Time Lords would ascend to a level of consciousness as the vortex collapsed-"
"Excuse me?" the First Doctor said, glaring with new intensity at Rassilon. "You would have destroyed the entire universe... to save one race?"
"And that's why I had to make my choice," the Doctor said, looking grimly back at Rassilon. "He considered the sacrifice of the universe a fair exchange if it meant that the Time Lords would survive; I didn't have a choice-"
"Of course you did," Rassilon said, staring coldly at the Doctor. "You simply chose-"
"We are Time Lords, Rassilon; we defend time, and your plan called for its complete destruction!" the Doctor yelled, glaring at the first Time Lord with cold resolve. "And now you're going to try and undo it by working with the race that drove me that far?"
"You are saying that the Daleks pushed us to that point?" the First Doctor said, looking incredulously over at his oldest self; the Doctor almost wished that he could remember how it felt to be so young and comparatively innocent, believing that all he needed to do was travel before he understood the scale of the evil that he would discover in his journeys, but those days were long gone and only the facts remained in his mind. "They were dangerous, I grant you, but-"
"We became far more than just dangerous, Doctor," Davros said, looking mockingly at the old man he'd never met before now. "We were the most powerful race in the cosmos-"
"Which doesn't explain why you're working together now," the Doctor interrupted, looking in frustration at the Daleks' creator even as he jerked his head towards Rassilon and Omega. "I don't deny that you've put your ego aside in the past when you were dealing with high enough stakes, but what in the Vortex could possess you to work with the founders of Time Lord society after you tried to destroy us?"
"A... 'tit for tat', I believe is the appropriate description of our arrangement?" Davros said, smiling slightly at the Doctors. "They provide the knowledge, and I provide the equipment for our... endeavour."
"Which is?" the Seventh Doctor asked, an apprehensive edge in his voice that reflected the feelings of all the other Doctors about this new revelation.
"Saving Gallifrey and Skaro from destruction," Omega replied, looking like he was smiling under his mask.
"How- the Timescoop?" the Sixth Doctor said, answering his own question in horror.
"You're going to use a Timescoop to remove Gallifrey from the moment of its own destruction?" the Seventh Doctor said, looking at Rassilon in horror. "But you don't have the power-"
"We are working on that particular shortcoming," Omega informed them. "We are also working on a means of preserving the timeline; if we transfer two other planets back in time at the same moment that we remove Gallifrey and Skaro from the moments of their destruction..."
He smirked slightly as he looked at the Doctors. "I feel that the scenario described should pacify your concerns about us tampering with the timeline?"
"Except for the fact that you can't guarantee which planets will be replaced," the Third Doctor said coldly.
"They can't?" Susan asked, looking at her grandfather's third self in confusion. "But-"
"We're talking about accessing a planet 'protected' by a dimensional ripple created at the moment of its own destruction," the Doctor explained. "Right now, nothing can reach Gallifrey from our present, just as nothing from Gallifrey prior to its destruction can access history as it is; our current interaction is only possible because we're relatively 'free' from the influence of Gallifrey's timeline after we've spent so much time away from it, but that won't allow him to access Gallifrey itself."
"But what does- oh," Serena said, realising the implications of the Doctor's news before she could finish her question. "You're saying that, even if they can... reach Gallifrey..."
"They'll have to devote all of their processing power to punching through the barrier around Gallifrey's spatial-temporal coordinates, particularly not when they're trying to get Skaro to safety at the same time," the Second Doctor finished for the benefit of his new companion, a subtle edge of horror in his voice the only indication of how he really felt about the topic that he was discussing. "Which means that they won't be able to choose which planets will be 'selected' to replace Gallifrey and Skaro when they initiate the swap, which means that two innocent, randomly-selected planets, will die so that they can achieve their goals-!"
"Considering the worlds that we're attempting to rescue, Doctor, I think the universe can afford to spare two planets," Omega said, smirking at the Doctor once again.
"But... if you had all this planned, why did you need Greel and Chen?" the Sixth Doctor asked, looking at their enemies in confusion. "Why take the risk of bringing back two of the most unstable human geniuses in existence to... mine for you?"
"They were needed to solve the power requirement problem," the Valeyard replied, with the same frustratingly cool manner that had so disturbed the Doctors who knew him during the trial that served as their original 'meeting' (As much as you could be said to have met with yourself). "Finding a suitable star to detonate to create a new Eye of Harmony would take too much time and attract too much attention- the resources required to harness something that powerful aren't exactly something that could be missed by someone who knew what they were looking at-, so, when I remembered the power potential offered by the anti-matter harvested from Zeta Minor on our second trip to the planet, I decided to use Greel's 'out-of-the-box' thinking to find new ways of harnessing its power to its fullest extent, providing us with a new means of operating the Timescoop in the absence of the Eye of Harmony so long as we keep a careful eye on it."
"And that's why you recognised the TARDIS you found in Greel's camp," the Seventh Doctor said, looking over at the Fifth and Sixth Doctors as he reflected on their memories of their return to Zeta Minor. "It was our TARDIS, but it's the version that was destroyed when the Valeyard lost control of the Dark Matrix..."
"Damaged, yes, but not destroyed," the Valeyard corrected, smirking over at the Doctor's question. "With some help from the Trickster- there will be some chaos if our plans succeed, which was enough to attract his interest-, we were able to recover Greel and Chen from the moments of their deaths and replace them with copies, and then it was a relatively simple matter to direct Greel to the remnants of my TARDIS and use what power was left in its systems to take him into the future; Chen, of course, travelled in a Dalek time capsule."
"On that topic, saving Greel made a... sort of sense- he's twisted, but he has some experience with technology like that-, but what about Chen?" the Fifth Doctor asked. "What purpose did bringing him back serve?"
"He served as a... a coordinator is the best term, really," the Valeyard replied. "Greel was a genius, but his tactical abilities were limited, to say nothing of his inexperience with Daleks; Chen served as a convenient proxy to control the Daleks' activities there when Davros's services were required here."
"And what about those dark matter bombs that drew me, me and me together?" the Second Doctor asked. "Why did you do that?"
"A test to weaken the reality barriers," the Valeyard clarified with a shrug. "Risky, of course, but considering the benefits if we succeed, I'm certain that we can straighten out any side-effects once the Timescoop has completed its purpose and restored Gallifrey to us."
"But... hold on, you can't do that any more!" the Fifth Doctor protested. "We destroyed the mining facility you'd established-!"
"But you didn't destroy the anti-matter we'd already acquired and taken from the planet," Omega replied. "It's not as much power as we'd hoped to harness, of course, but it should be enough to get the job done; we can harness enough additional power from your TARDISes while they're helping us calculate the necessary additional details."
"Our TARDISes...?" the Doctor began, before his eyes widened in realisation. "You mean you went to all the effort of bringing us together because you didn't have enough processing power?"
"You're using our ships to make the necessary calculations to penetrate the barriers around Gallifrey's history?" the Eighth Doctor said, looking at the Valeyard incredulously. "With all the supercomputers out there-"
"Most of which are either highly unstable personalities, dangerous to access, or have been destroyed over the centuries," the Valeyard said dismissively. "The TARDISes might not be as inventive as some of the systems out there, but when added to the processing power we have here already, they'll work out what we need."
"And you think we'll just let-?" the Sixth Doctor began, standing up with a stern glare, only for a Dalek beam to strike him in the legs, leaving him to fall to the ground as the other Doctors looked anxiously at him.
"I don't want to harm any of you- what we're attempting will be dangerous enough without introducing more temporal paradoxes into the equation-, but don't mistake a lack of desire for a lack of will," the Valeyard said, glaring at the other Doctors until his expression shifted to a slight smirk. "Your TARDISes are all currently grounded and locked, and there will be Dalek guards outside at all times, so don't think that you can escape; I do know every trick you all like to use, after all..."
As though those last words had been a cue, the Valeyard shrugged and turned around to head towards the door to the room, pausing only to look back at the Doctors with a satisfied smirk.
"See you all later," he said, a satisfied tone in his voice that left even the most non-violent Doctors wanting to punch him. "Once I come back, it'll all be over."
With that ominous statement, the Valeyard departed, followed by Rassilon, Omega, Davros and the Daleks, leaving the Ninth Doctor to look solemnly at his other selves.
"You'll thank me for this later," he said at last. "I'm bringing back our home."
"You can't do this!" the Doctor yelled, looking desperately at his ninth self. "They're going to destroy-!"
"They're going to save it," the Ninth Doctor said, looking back at his next self with a slight hesitation in his manner before he seemed to steel himself and nodded resolutely at his future incarnation. "I can't ignore that."
Before the Doctor could reply to that comment, the Ninth Doctor had turned around and walked out of the room after their other enemies, the door closing behind him with an overly ominous thud. With that sound, the other nine Doctors were left in the large room that was their cell, Susan, Serena, Romana and Ianto the only company that wasn't themselves, their TARDISes standing silently in one corner alongside the two unresponsive Compassions.
The Doctor couldn't remember a time that he'd felt so lost.
To be betrayed by himself... a self he remembered being...
He'd known that he had problems in that incarnation, but even in his worst nightmares, he'd never imagined that they could become this bad...
What were they going to do now?