Author's Notes:
A thousand apologies for the hiatus. I've had some health issues, major surgery and am now home recuperating. This is a short chapter, but another is in the works. I am SOOO happy to be diving back into this story!
Chapter 16
Karn, Encampment of the Sisterhood
The Doctor became aware that his respiratory bypass system was engaged just as his lungs heaved and he involuntarily gasped in a great breath of air. It was a while before he knew of anything else.
The next thing he noticed was the feeling of someone patting his body down with a towel. He faded away again.
When he again resurfaced, the feeling of psychic crowding told him that there were time lords near him. He heard/felt a muted telepathic conversation between them. He picked up a sentiment of concern.
And then he heard a very familiar human voice.
"How long is he going to be like this?"
The question, one of so many issued by that voice since the Doctor started on his mission to help Kate and her ragtag group of survivors in London 2025, focused his attention sufficiently that he awaited an answer.
Hanar's thinly veiled impatience made the Doctor smile inwardly.
"He's waking up, Peter, but you need to be patient. He's been through a lot."
"But this is taking forever! And it's really boring here. I mean, there's nothing to do here."
"Go find O'Hila. She was looking for you earlier. If you ask nicely, she might teach you how to calculate the space-time coordinates for the center of the citadel."
The Doctor put together what he heard with the noticeable, acrid and familiar smells of Sulphur and boninite basalt.
I'm on Karn.
He opened his eyes.
When his vision focused the site of highly mineralized stalactites overhead confirmed his location.
He felt Hanar alert to his consciousness right before the man himself stepped into his field of vision.
"Doctor, you're awake. You're on Karn. You're safe."
The Doctor cleared his throat. Hanar's eyes showed concern, and possibly fear. His psyche mirrored those emotions.
"The inquiry?" The Doctor was surprised at how weak his voice sounded. His body felt cold and heavy. He shivered a little. A soothing feminine hand wrapped a soft blanket more tightly around him. Erdith, the Doctor identified from her psychic presence. She seemed equally concerned and equally frightened, but also exhilarated. The Doctor surmised she had never been on Karn before.
"It's underway back on Sagacity. We have much to tell you. But first, how do you feel?"
"Like I've been in a very deep healing trance. Why are we on Karn?"
The Doctor tried to sit up but found he didn't have the strength. Erdith restrained him with a gentle hand on his chest.
"Best to take it slowly, Doctor. You were nearly beyond the point where we could help you. Chorenn poisoning. You really must take better care."
"Will you let me talk to him already? Jeez!"
Apparently Hanar had prevented the boy from approaching, but Peter was made of sterner stuff. The boy squeezed in front of Hanar, taking the chair by the bedside. His cheeks were scarlet and his face pulled into a dark scowl.
"You weren't supposed to leave until I was awake. We had a deal."
The Doctor was a little startled by how angry the boy seemed.
"We never had a deal. I told you I was going to make the timeline adjustments overnight so we could fix things before morning on Sagacity."
"Well, I woke up because that alarm was going off. The radiation one. When I got to the console room you were passed out on the floor. I thought you were dead."
That's right. I visited Coal Hill. Forgot the radiation suit.
"Oh. Sorry."
"I didn't know what to do. Finally, I figured out how to open the door and went back into the lab. I asked the guard to go find Hanar."
"You did everything right, Peter," Hanar validated, "you acted bravely in a crisis. Thanks to you, the Doctor is alive, and we still have a chance of putting things to right."
The Doctor thought he saw a glimmer of tears in Peter's eyes and felt guilty.
"Peter, O'Hila waits."
"But-"
"Remember what we discussed. You can visit more with the Doctor later.'
"Okay." Peter left reluctantly. Hanar's eyes followed the boy out of the room.
"He's the first human I've met. Very interesting. I can see why you spend so much time with them."
This time when the Doctor tried to sit up, Hanar supported him while Erdith rearranged the pillows. The Doctor felt tired, but very well-cared for. He started to ask his next question, but his voice failed him. He cleared his throat and Erdith offered water. When he felt ready, he continued.
"Tell me what happened. Why are we on Karn? How long have we been here? What's going on with the inquiry?"
"I think you've spent too much time in Peter's company, Doctor." But Erdith was smiling, and the Doctor sensed she liked the boy very much in spite of his precociousness.
They communicated in the way of their people, a mix of thoughts, feelings and spoken word.
As Peter described, Hanar was summoned by the guard. When he arrived at the TARDIS he found a distraught Peter and the Doctor lying unconscious in the console room.
Making a snap decision, Hanar summoned Erdith. The Doctor was surprised to discover that Hanar and the other students were strongly opposed to Romana's handling of the situation and were already covertly investigating the timeline error and doing what they could to influence the inquiry in the Doctor's favor.
The Doctor sensed a long back-story that involved too many years stuck on Sagacity with such a rigid preceptor. While curious about that, the Doctor didn't pursue more detail, reserving that investigation for a later time.
The conversation with Hanar and Erdith moved completely to spoken word when the topic switched to the faulty timeline itself.
"We observed your efforts to correct the timeline errors. Interestingly, your actions surfaced some disturbing themes we overlooked in the original timeline audit."
The Doctor sensed embarrassment from Hanar at the oversight.
"Your work with the Torchwood agent in the United States uncovered the direct cause of the most serious timeline failures, and it goes far beyond the 2016 American election."
"Starck."
"That's not his name."
"What do you know about him?"
The Doctor felt a sudden reduction in residual telepathic input and surmised that both Hanar and Erdith wanted to withhold information from him. After a brief private consultation between the two student time lords, Hanar turned back to the Doctor.
"There is much we can't tell you because your timeline is involved. What we can tell you is that it looks like the timeline corruption actually began much earlier than we originally detected."
Erdith clasped his arm and the Doctor sensed she worried that he would misconstrue things.
"We saw all of your attempts to correct the timeline in the United States. We were surprised when that didn't undo more of the damage at other points of the timeline."
Hanar picked up the narrative.
"The problem, or one of them, became clear when you started working on the Nice Bastille day event. There are paradoxes upon paradoxes, Doctor, and the universe as we know it is in jeopardy if we don't set them right."