I don't own Doctor Who, especially with Big Finish. Oh boy, if I did then there would be more of those phenomenal stories. I've recently purchased Dalek Universe Volume 1. I didn't even know the Meddling Monk would be involved, but a new version of the Monk, a female version no less.. was a welcome surprise.
Enjoy.
The Irony of Time Meddling.
As he stood over the lash up he hoped would restore time and repair the damage done to time and to history after the Monk - the Nun - (Gallifrey's sake, it was hard for him to believe he was meeting a female incarnation of one of the first renegades he had met shortly after leaving Gallifrey with Susan all of those centuries ago, back in the days where he had thought the only things he needed to do was to protect his granddaughter, and just travel before discovering the scope of what the universe had and what he would need to do to protect time) stupidly removed the temporal velocitar from Sheldrake's time tunnels without considering what it would do to history in the process, the Doctor was torn.
Here, in front of him was a golden opportunity to change it all.
It was ironic, really; he had long since derided the Monk/the Nun for their desire to meddle in history - his first incarnation had been rigid in the opinion time could not be altered and so as a result that incarnation had been even more determined to preserve the flow of time, and while the Doctor had learnt over the centuries time was more malleable than it looked, you just needed to be careful, there were moments where time was as damaged like this where you could make changes to history, he had occasionally tried to do just that.
Meddle in history, to make it all better.
He remembered, back during his exile to Earth, when he'd had the opportunity of using the TARDIS during that mess with the Sild, and he'd briefly considered slipping back in time, back over the time tracks, back and back until he had returned to Gallifrey. He had been so tempted to either make his original incarnation either take a different TARDIS or persuade his first incarnation to get hold of a second time machine so when the exile came he would have a way out or something like that.
In the end, he hadn't. The risk was just too great. Even if he did manage to return to Gallifrey and make even the slightest change, he had no idea what would happen to time. Would it still be stable? Would it collapse? His third incarnation might have taken a "the ends justify the means" approach when it came to trying to escape exile on Earth, but there were just some things even his desperation would never allow.
But the voice was still there. The Doctor knew it would never go away, and he suspected all Time Lords who never went mad staring into the Untempered Schism and understood the risks involved had the same voice when they left Gallifrey.
The Doctor found it ironic it was the Monk/the Nun who was the one to give him the voice of reason instead of encouraging him to change history, especially now he knew he was way back, before the Time War. Oh, how he had yearned to once more live in the universe before things went wrong so quickly; the mess with Faction Paradox and the paradoxes surrounding Fitz and Sam, the shadow of the mysterious temporal Enemy which was threatening the Time Lords, the first destruction of Gallifrey, the century of exile while the TARDIS regenerated herself while his eighth incarnation wandered Earth for a hundred years while trying desperately to discover clues of his own past and missing them with Harry and the Countess present, reuniting with Fitz and travelling with him and Anji and later Trix while seeing how time was falling apart before he jumped through the Big Bang, the mystery of Sabbath and that mess with the Council of Eight who'd tried to become the new lords of time following Gallifrey's loss, the restoration of the Time Lords in a new reality, the mess with Padrac, the early years of the Time War…
Yes, the Doctor would have given anything to return to the days before the war, and he still wasn't entirely certain how and why he was here, but finding himself here, because time itself was under threat… that was bad, seriously bad. He had been stunned when he had found himself ripped away from the TARDIS, but now he realised it was him who had been pulled through time…
Gallifrey still existed. The Time War had not yet begun, but he had no idea which point in time he was in. Was he before that mission to Skaro, where he first met Davros? Was he later in his own timeline?
The Doctor didn't know, but he knew one thing. The Time Lords were still alive, and for the first time ever since that mess with the Master and the Year-That-Never-Was, he was with another Time Lord again.
Okay, granted, finding out that Time Lord was a female incarnation of the Monk was annoying. She hadn't really changed that much. She still meddled in history. She still gloated and still believed herself to be cleverer than anyone else, when in fact she was out of her depth. She still had that childish aspect which made her unpredictable and dangerous. But this was one of those moments where she proved she did not learn from her mistakes.
She had worked with Sheldrake, gave him hints and tips of temporal mechanics, and somehow he had stolen her TARDIS's temporal velocitar.
It must have occurred to her giving someone time travel was a bad idea, but no. The Monk had never had any sense; if you meddled in a nexus point with a clear outcome, bargained with a chronovore, it made you incredibly careless about the consequences to time. Even worse, she had foolishly given Sheldrake access to her TARDIS. It was no wonder, really, that Sheldrake's time tunnels were a remarkable piece of work, but ever since he spotted the velocitar in Sheldrake's building, he realised the human had once had access to a TARDIS.
While he was still reeling from the news his earlier assumption of her kidnapping him from his own time was false, although he was concerned by her little comment where she wasn't sure herself what incarnation she was in anymore, but her history couldn't have changed that much.
She still remembered that mess in 1066, their first encounter since leaving Gallifrey and he'd stolen the dimensional control from her TARDIS. He was willing to bet she also remembered how he had stolen her directional unit, too.
The Nun had only kidnapped and impersonated him for revenge even if she'd had a reason for her kidnapping just to get a missing component back - honestly, you would have thought by the now that the Monk would be more cautious about whom they let inside their TARDIS, but no - from Sheldrake and she hadn't known her actions would cause the temporal disaster in the first place.
The Nun had been shaken, unsure…
She hadn't trusted him.
It was not a surprise. There was too much history between them, a lot of it was bad, and because he had no idea which incarnation of the Monk he was dealing with the Doctor could not tell if the mess with the Dalek Time Controller, Tamsin, Lucie, and Alex had happened, to say nothing of that business with the Eleven and the Weeping Angels, but the Doctor had worked out the reason why. Despite her attitude, despite the things she did, the Nun was still a Time Lord. Time was central to who they were, so it wasn't a surprise she was uncertain. Working with her was…interesting. While the Nun might be a Time Lady, he found her lack of practical temporal knowledge irritating but at the same time having another of his people nearby was soothing even if he was missing the comfort of other Time Lord minds in his head after so long on his own. He knew it was because he was not where he should really be within the timelines, but the lack of other voices in his head was still distressing.
And yet, as he was working, the Doctor had paused as he realised the scale of the power he had at his command.
He could bring anybody back.
He could save everyone.
He might be able to ensure Faction Paradox didn't rise to power, prevent his eighth self from losing his memories for so long while his mind was forced to forget so much to make room in his head for the Matrix.
He might stop the deaths of Lucie, Tamsin, and Alex. He might even prevent the deaths of Adric and Katarina…
He could stop the war. He could ensure everything that happened from the Daleks replacing the Enemy and Faction Paradox as the biggest threats to Gallifrey never happened.
He might….
He might even change history so then Rose would not be lost in that parallel universe. Strangely, while the thought was appealing to him, the Doctor found it…unappealing. It was odd; ever since that mess with the Medusa Cascade, his thoughts towards Rose had dwindled, almost as if he didn't love her anymore.
The irony of the Nun, an incarnation of the Time Lord who didn't give a damn about the Laws of Time, pointed out what he was thinking and planning would never work was not lost on him. How many times had he tried to make it clear to her other selves over the years their meddling was futile? And she was right, Omega she was right. The instant he changed anything, it would just be undone by the temporal disaster they were both trying to prevent.
The good thing was, now he knew he was the one to bring himself here, and how time was in a mess, it was remarkably easy to set up.
When he was finished, however, the Doctor knew he would need to think of a way of getting back.