Author's Note
Happy New Year! Yes, this story has resurfaced. Many apologies for the hiatus! I am happy to be back to work and hope to have another chapter up soon.
Chapter 18
Earth, 2012, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
The Doctor Landed the Type 946 TARDIS and accessed a 3-dimensional projection of the immediate proximity outside of the time machine. While he missed his TARDIS tremendously, he had to admit that the much later model came with significant upgrades. Among other things, the chameleon circuit worked consistently, and the landing accuracy was much more precise. What would work less well, Erdith advised him, was the telepathic circuit. Naturally, a TARDIS he had only travelled in a few times had no time to attune to his mind. And, of course, this TARDIS would not enable him to roam about time and space as he chose.
They were on a short leash.
The other drawback was the absence of a chronoscanner. The later models certainly had them, and no doubt they were much more advanced than what he'd cobbled together for the old girl, but Hanar removed it to prevent the Doctor from looking ahead whilst on his mission and potentially "going off script," in Erdith's words, to correct or enhance something he didn't like in the future.
"Peter, take a look at the readings. How are things outside?"
After his briefing with Hanar and Erdith back on Karn and their charging him with untangling and, if possible, righting one strand of the fractured timeline on Earth, the Doctor insisted on bringing the boy along.
"You said in the alternate timeline he discovers time travel in a decade or so. It could well be that the reason he did is because he travelled with me."
"But the boy-" The Doctor did not let Hanar finish the sentence.
"Is an integral part of this strand of the alternate timeline, I know. If we're correcting it, though, it won't matter. In fact, maybe it has to be this way. In order for Peter to be a time travel genius in the alternate reality, he needs a leg up. If I don't take him with me, that might fracture things further. Have you considered that?"
He reveled in the blank looks from the two student time lords.
"Seriously. Have you not realized yet that we are currently all on the alternate timeline? It doesn't matter what your research currently shows because that data exists here with us in the alternate timeline."
He was still irked that Hanar and Erdith withheld any information about Peter's path on the true timeline and removed the chronoscanner, and he made that clear when he and Peter dropped the two student time lords back on Sagacity one minute after they departed. He knew they were worried that any foresight of how things played out in the future might cause the Doctor to say or do something that would create further damage.
But for Erdith and Hanar, time travel was all still theoretical. Over his two thousand (and then some) years travelling in the TARDIS, the Doctor had developed an innate sense of give and take with the rigid rules around time travel. Sometimes you just had to throw away the playbook and trust your gut.
Peter finished his careful study of the environmental readings at their landing site.
"Everything is within normal readings for Earth. It looks like a freaking war zone, though."
"It is a freaking war zone, Peter. We're in Afghanistan, year 2012. You may not have covered that in school yet, but it was a very bad time to be in Afghanistan."
Their mission, as mandated by Hanar and Erdith, was to systematically protect and correct the timeline of one Danny Pink.
There was a long list of intervention points, and those were the only destinations the Doctor and Peter would be able to travel to. At least, in this TARDIS.
Pink served in the military and received an honorable discharge in 2014, after which he re-entered civilian life as a maths teacher at Coal Hill School. He spent the majority of his military career in Afghanistan as part of a NATO peacekeeping force. While much of his time was devoted to improving living conditions to the communities ravaged by war through education, training, and labor, Danny was there at a time that infiltrations, sudden violence in the streets, and improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, were still terrifyingly common.
Their first intersection point was on 2 October in a small village on the outskirts of Kandahar. Apparently, Alistair Beckman (who the Doctor still thought of as Jameson Starck), intervened in events in such a way that prevented Danny Pink from accidentally causing the death of a pre-teenage boy.
On the true timeline, as explained by Hanar and Erdith, Pink threw a grenade into a building in response to gunfire, killing the boy in the process. The trauma of this event was profound for Pink, leading to his decision to leave the military at the end of his first two years to go into teaching at Coal Hill. Once there, he met Clara and they began dating. Hanar and Erdith refused to offer additional information about what happened next, explaining that the Doctor was involved in events and any prior knowledge of the outcome by the Doctor could lead to further fractures in the timeline.
On the alternate timeline, Beckman approached the boy five minutes before the impending accident and told him his mother was looking for him and needed him right away. The boy left and was not killed, meaning that the traumatic event that caused Danny to decide to leave the military never happened. Danny stayed in the military for another two years. When he left the service, he still went into teaching at Coal Hill, and met Clara and started dating her. On this timeline, though, Danny married Clara after two years and Peter became his student.
The Doctor's mission at this intersection point was to prevent Starck/Beckman from speaking with the boy or, if that had already happened, convince the boy to change his plans in such a way that Danny's actions led to the boy's death.
How is it that I always end up on this side of the equation? The Doctor thought to himself. Naturally, he couldn't tell Peter that they were essentially stepping in to cause the death of an innocent.
The Doctor was dressed in traditional Afghani attire, wearing simple long cotton robes over loose-fitting trousers. The Doctor didn't always make the effort to blend in with wardrobe adjustments, but in this case, he was willing to do everything necessary to get it right the first time. Having a TARDIS that could suitably camouflage itself certainly got him more in the mood to match his wardrobe to the time and place. In a fit of whimsy, he selected from the list of camouflage options for the TARDIS the look of an out-of-business hashish shop.
When the Doctor prepared to leave, he was met with further resistance from Peter.
"I can't believe you're leaving me behind. Again. And look what happened last time. It's not fair."
The Doctor took a deep breath and counted to three in high Gallifreyan. As a result, he was able to summon a more empathetic tone.
"I'm sorry, Peter, but to have you on this mission at all I had to promise Erdith and Hanar that I wouldn't bring you into danger. This is a war zone. It's dangerous. I can't take you on this one, but there will be lots of other times where you will be with me."
Peter avoided eye contact. "What if something happens to you? How will I know? What would I do then? I don't know how to fly the TARDIS. I could be stuck here in this time zone forever."
The Doctor surmised that Peter was more worried about that possibility than he wanted to let on. Given everything he'd been through already, it wasn't too surprising, but it didn't change the Doctor's decision.
"I'll be safe. We're here a full hour before Beckman. And I can make it so you can see what I see and hear what I hear through the monitor. Would that help?"
When the Doctor found, implanted, and activated the nanocam, that led to a pack of technical questions from Peter, which the Doctor deflected for the time being.
"Okay, last thing. In case anything happens to me, which it won't, there is an emergency protocol in place that will automatically send this TARDIS back to Sagacity one minute after we dropped off Hanar and Erdith. You won't have to do anything, it will be triggered if I die, which, again, I won't."
"But - "
"No more buts, Peter, I need to go. Watch me on the monitor. Do not leave the TARDIS. I will be back soon."
"Okay. Be careful, Doctor. Please?"
"Count on it. Laters."