"Might I inquire as to what the version of myself that you're acquainted with looks like? Not that I imagine there are many people hidden away down here but my other future self never gave an explanation of what either of these future self's of mine look like." The Doctor with the celery in his lapel stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled best he could. It was slightly forced, the grief from seeing his planet the way it was, the emptiness in his head where his people should be. Inside this pocket universe, as he'd been informed that they were in, he existed outside the natural laws of time. They were all stood in one moment. One, quiet, empty moment. He really thought it better to speak, not let the silence drag on in person as well as internally, he knew that his other selves would probably agree.
He glanced around at the colourful mess that he was apparently destined to become and made a face. He really seemed to be the most egotistical atrocious fellow. It just made the fact that he was him sting all the more.
"Well," Ryan spoke up, rubbing his hands together momentarily, "the other Doctor was young looking, wore a bowtie. My version of you, she's small-ish, blonde, wears a lot of rainbows."
"She?" He blinked, more thrilled than surprised and he smiled, "ah, finally. It seems it's going to take a while. It's about time we got there."
"You know, that's exactly what I said." The version of him in the awful coat spoke up, the girl he travelled with, Peri, spoke up next, her voice high pitched but happy sounding.
"She seemed nice enough, I only got to meet her for a few minutes."
"When was this?" The monstrous coat Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow to her and she shrugged.
"The first time I got swapped around. She was the version of you I met."
"I met her too while that happened." Sarah Jane piped up, "she did seem nice."
"Well, we can always appreciate that we're still nice by that age." The Doctor with the huge scarf spoke up, his hands stuffed in his pockets, "assuming that she is of a more advanced age."
"She's over 2400 years old, last she told us," Ryan paused, mind flittering back to what Yaz had told Graham and him about the Doctor having spent centuries in prison, then corrected his statement, "but I think she might be older. It was a while ago."
"A more advanced age indeed." He sounded slightly taken aback, as if the mere thought of getting that old hadn't occurred to him. The other two Doctors looked just as shaken.
"Over 2400 years old?" Tegan raised an eyebrow, "blimey, Doctor. I wasn't aware anyone could get that old and still look young."
"I'm over 600 years old Tegan." The Doctor with the celery said and she blinked in surprise, making him smile softly, "Time Lords live a lot longer than humans. Your life span is quite short in the relative scheme of things."
"Rather makes you all the more impressive, I think." The Doctor with the scarf grinned at the collection of humans around him.
"Hold up." Ryan came to a stop first, eyes casting about, and the others followed suit, "can you hear that?" The others fell into silence and, sure enough, somewhere nearby came the familiar heavy metallic footsteps of Cybermen. Tension began settling over the group and the Doctor with the celery was quick to hiss out words.
"Over there, quick." He was pointing to a doorway that was open further up the hallway. There was a quick fumble to get every one inside but the door slid shut behind them and locked thanks to the sonic. A very different looking kind of sonic in the Celery stick wearing Doctor's hand that Ryan couldn't help but stare at. It was all so different and yet exactly the same. It was difficult to wrap his head around. They all remained silent, however, as they heard the stomps of the Cybermasters as they moved passed the door outside. Once they'd passed and began to move further down the corridors they all let out matching breaths of relief and Ryan turned finally to look around the room they'd hid in. At what he saw his eyes widened and he let out a low breath.
"Woah…"
"Don't you have any way of tracking her?" Graham asked, raising an eyebrow, "like, knowing when other Time Lords are about? Surely you have a special sense for knowing where another version of yourself is? So you don't run into one another."
"It's not a radar." The shaggy looking Doctor, who'd been toying with a flute earlier, grimaced, "We would try and contact her mentally, but there is some kind of a block going on. Though whether that's the Master or Rassilon's doing is still to be discovered."
"Who is Rassilon?"
"One of the founders of the Time Lords." The opera cape wearing Doctor spoke up, "he, the Omega and the Other created the Time Lords, or so it's said. I've long since learned to take those stories with a grain of salt."
"Suppose." Graham shrugged, giving a weak smile, "suppose it must be the same as trying to decipher ancient pictures, hieroglyphs and whatnot."
"Not exactly. Having met two of the three, it's easier to say neither are worthy of the praise they receive."
"Well, I'm sure Alexander the Great probably wasn't all that great but you know what they say, History's written by the winners." Graham shrugged with a small shake of his head. Having travelled with the Doctor for as long as he had now, he'd gotten to know just how true that statement really was. All the moments in history that he knew happened differently, but someone else had gotten there first.
"Wise words." The youngest version of the Doctor, who was also, coincidentally, the oldest looking, spoke up. His words sounding impressed. He was lagging behind just slightly with his cane, Susan ever-present at his side, the girl quiet and withdrawn. The whole horrid day's shock was still yet to work its way out of her system. The future destruction of their planet, the apparent cannibalisation of their people into Cybermen, and her grandfather(grandmother?)'s apparent danger at the hands of the perpetrator.
"Oh, thanks very much." Graham smiled around at him, then turned back around to look where he was walking, "so, this mind jamming psychic machine thingy, any idea what it looks like?"
"Well, if the Master's created it, it should be obvious to us what it is. However, if it's Rassilon's device then it may be slightly more difficult to pick it out." The opera cape wearing Doctor said with a frown on his face, "all of this was constructed eons ago. Closer to the beginning of time than of any time that any of us would know of. Rassilon and the Omega delved into powers beyond which the average mind could think of."
"Not that he's saying we have an average mind" the flute playing Doctor interrupted quickly and the opera cape wearing one fixed him with a raised eyebrow and an unimpressed look, muttering near under his breath.
"Not anymore anyway." It got him the stink eye back but he merely smirked and Graham raised an eyebrow between the two. He wouldn't have imagined so much arguing to happen between two men who were the same person. Especially the kind of bickering that was this… childish. It made his head hurt slightly to think of these three men all being younger than his version of the Doctor all combined.
"So, what exactly did Rassilon get up to then? How did you meet him? What sort of thing would he look to use to jam your mental signals?"
"It would have to be some kind of Psychic Interferometer Jamming Frequency Projector. Rassilon scoured the known universes for a way to create immortality for himself, that decent into madness eventually led to his tyranny which led to his inevitable downfall." The youngest version of the Doctor explained, Susan this time deciding to speak up and continue his explanation.
"His body now lies within the Death Zone on Gallifrey, within its tomb. His mind through the Matrix. It's forever but not probably how he expected."
"How so?" Barbara asked.
"He was still too respected by the Time Lords for them to actually kill him. So, they separated him from his body, and allowed his mind to be uploaded to the Matrix where it could be consulted and, perhaps one day, put back into another body should he be needed, but that bit's just hearsay." The Opera Cape wearing Doctor elaborated.
"Yeah." Graham muttered, keeping the information stored in his brain to ask his version of the Doctor about it later. Or maybe the pinstripes one if she didn't feel like sharing.
"What about through here?" they all turned when Jo called out, the young woman pushing at a doorway that none of them had noticed before. It was the same colour of the smooth rock walls surrounding them. It was her version of the Doctor, the Opera Cape wearing one, who stepped forward first and ushered her backwards quickly whilst the door swung open. He was right to do so. Two green tipped silver spears fired from somewhere unknown down the hallway and hit the wall opposite the doorway opening so hard they embedded themselves into the stone.
"You know," the Opera Cape wearing Doctor spoke up once the shock of what had just happened wore off, his arm still around Jo's shoulders, "I think you might be right, well done Jo."