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A/N - While many of the changes are subtle, this is an alternate universe where the Second Doctor's trial ended totally differently from in canon. My thanks to the Doctor Who Unbound series for the inspirations, particularly "Exile" and "Sympathy for the Devil."
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Time Agent.
"You have heard the charge against you, that you have repeatedly broken our most important law of non-interference in the affairs of other planets. What have you to say? Do you admit these actions?" The Time Lord the Doctor had gathered was named Goth said.
The Doctor - now in his second incarnation - stood as defiantly as he dared in front of the Time Lords. He had known for a long time something like this could and would have happened when he left Gallifrey originally with Susan. "I not only admit them, I am proud of them. While you have been content merely to observe the evil in the galaxy, I have been fighting against it."
Interfering with the affairs of other worlds and people in the universe had been a conscious decision, although it had taken the Doctor's prior personality a while to accept it. He had only begun to freely intervene whenever the TARDIS was at risk and he didn't have a choice but to intervene in order to ensure the TARDIS was safe, to say nothing of Susan before arriving on a Dalek-occupied Earth and coming face to face with the psychopath who murdered an entire species, including Vicki's father to make him see he would need to interfere in order to stop the evils of the universe getting out of hand.
For a long time, the Doctor had travelled through time and space, arriving during moments of crisis and he had always endeavoured to stop evil from getting out of hand.
And then he had arrived on the planet the War Lords were using for their War Games; a truly barbaric plan where a highly advanced race was trying to transform humans kidnapped from various times of war on Earth who were kidnapped using time technology provided by another renegade Time Lord to brainwash them to create a super army of obedient and invincible warriors. The humans would be placed in time zones protected from each other by force fields where they would fight against each other separate from the other zones, and the strong would be weeded out. The plan was falling apart when the Doctor and his companions, Zoe and Jamie arrived; the conditioning process used on the humans was so primitive it often fell apart, and the humans realised something was wrong. By the time the Doctor and his companions arrived there were soldiers from the different zones who'd banded together, forming a resistance to discover what was going on and try to get back home.
But the humans, with no understanding of what was really going on, struggled and by the time the Doctor and his friends got involved, rallying them with the knowledge they had, they turned the resistance into a major threat and stopped the War Games. But that wasn't enough. They still needed to get the soldiers home.
The Doctor's TARDIS was not functioning properly and the time machines the War Lords were using were falling apart and decaying, and there weren't any resources that the Doctor or the other Time Lord could use to send them back home. The Doctor had no choice but to summon the Time Lords, and it had resulted in his capture, and now his fate was in the hands of his people. He only hoped they didn't dematerialise him and remove him from history as they'd done to the War Lord leader.
"It is not we who are on trial here, Doctor, it is you," the third Time Lord pointed out.
"No, no, of course, you're above criticism, aren't you?" The Doctor snorted.
"Do you admit that these actions were justified?" Goth asked the word justified said with disbelief.
The Doctor realised he could mount a defence. "Yes, of course, I do. Give me a thought channel and I'll show you some of the evils I've been fighting against."
The Time Lords glanced at each other and they nodded in agreement. While they knew the Doctor needed to be punished, they were prepared to let him listen, and he knew it.
The Doctor took a deep breath, wondering where he was going to start. For a moment he thought about showing them the Quarks and the Dominator's plans to enslave the Dulcians before moving on to the Ice Warriors, the Cybermen and the Daleks, but then he decided to change his mind. He doubted it would impress the Time Lords that much, and besides he wanted to show them a little bit more than that, he could get to the aliens he had dealt with later. Dredging through his memory, the Doctor showed them his the alternate timeline he had visited with Ian, Susan, and Barbara where WOTAN had conquered the Earth, and the limited time travel technology he'd had at the time to stop Earth's research into time travel, how they disposed of the Dalek technology that the people of the changed history had used to develop time travel in the first place before he dealt with it later in his personal timeline with Dodo, Ben, and Polly.
The Time Lords listened and watched calmly; their senses told them what they were seeing was not part of predicted history, and all of the Doctor's actions were justifiable.
"Later in my first incarnation, I prevented the Daleks from using a temporal weapon to conquer the Milky Way," the Doctor closed his eyes to concentrate as he projected the timeline that was accidentally created when Zoe connected the Time Path indicator back to the console, as well as the other timelines like the one created by that chap, Christopher who time travelled using Robert's time machine. But he also showed them different timelines he had sensed during that long struggle as the Daleks tried to recover the Taranium core for the Time Destructor, to show them how dangerous the Daleks would become if they used time travel weapons, knowing that even the Time Lords could not tolerate it for long.
And the defence went on.
The Doctor told them about the Quarks and the Dominators. The Ice Warriors. The Cybermen and the Daleks. After the Doctor was finished, he looked up at the Time Lords. "All of these evils I have fought; I may have meddled, interfered, but I always tried to uphold when I knew the history and saw the differences which could affect or damage the Web of Time; I never interfered because I felt I knew best."
Goth nodded. "Your defence has been heard and will be carefully considered, but you have raised difficult issues. We require time to think about them. You will be recalled when we have made our decision."
The Doctor sighed, knowing that his fate rested in the Time Lord's hands. He only hoped he had given them enough to think of.
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"They will both continue their lives as if nothing had happened," Councillor Goth said, he and his fellow councillors' eyes penetrating the small, clownish figure of the Doctor.
The Doctor's laughter after seeing the sight of his two friends readjusting quickly to life back in their own times died out completely as he remembered that he was on trial now. It was just good to see the sight of Jamie and Zoe who were both safe at last, even if their attempt to escape to reach the TARDIS was a failure. "Yes, very efficient. Now then, what about me?"
"We have accepted your plea that there is evil in the universe that must be fought, and that you still have a part to play in that battle," Goth began.
The Doctor couldn't believe what he was hearing. He hadn't expected this. "What? You mean that you're going to let me go free?"
Goth exchanged a glance with one of his colleagues. "Not entirely. We have heard your defence, and we have decided that you will remain here on Gallifrey."
"What?"
As he stared up at the three Time Lords in horror at what they were suggesting, the Doctor started to wonder if it had even been worth it calling in the Time Lords. Yes, he had needed their help and their power to return those human soldiers back to their home times. At the same time, he had gone off in an outdated TARDIS, rejected Time Lord law, and travelled and interfered, but it had been worth it.
And yet he wasn't the only renegade Time Lord who had stolen Time Lord technology and done much the same thing.
Look at the Master; when the Doctor met him on Destination a regeneration back, his old friend turned rival was enslaving a human colony and manipulating them to create nuclear power for his own purposes. Mortimus, the Meddling Monk, was meddling in history, while the War Chief the Doctor had recently dealt with had joined an alien race who had kidnapped human soldiers with Time Lord technology to build an army.
Now here he was, trapped on Gallifrey while the Time Lord decided his fate.
His friends were gone, their memories of their time together gone. Poor Zoe, and Poor Jamie.
"The Celestial Intervention Agency has been very interested in your defence and your actions, Doctor. Originally we were planning on simply exiling you to Earth in the 20th century, where you would have remained there for as long as we deemed proper while the TARDIS was rendered inoperable. However, your actions have won their attention, and they have stepped in with a counter-proposal. They want you to become an agent, and you will remain here on Gallifrey," Goth exchanged a look with his colleagues. "You gave a very good defence, Doctor, but you still broke the law of non-interference. You must answer for that crime, and others must understand it will not be tolerated. By working for the Celestial Intervention Agency your talents and skills will be put to better use."
"What?" The Doctor took a step back in horror; while he was reassured the Time Lords were going to keep him alive and there was no talk about forcing him to regenerate, or anything worse, being made a member of the CIA was not something he wanted. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him to run, to just rush to his TARDIS and get away from Gallifrey for good.
But he knew it wouldn't work.
The Time Lords would simply block him off from leaving and if he continued to push, he would find himself in a much worse situation.
An agent for the Celestial Intervention Agency?
"I helped people, and I stopped several plans which put the Web of Time at risk," the Doctor said.
It was his hope bringing up the Web of Time would make them realise they didn't need to do any of this. There were very few races in the universe who understood how important Gallifrey and the Time Lords were to the safety and balance of the universe; without Gallifrey keeping watch over the timelines, they would get out of hand as time travellers from various worlds changed history, putting the universe at risk.
As he had hoped, the Time Lords stiffened at the mention of the Web of Time. But Goth had quickly thought up a comeback. "Did it ever occur to you, Doctor, that all of the victims you have saved were in danger because you got involved in the first place?"
The Doctor jumped back, startled, staring at them with wide eyes.
"Each time you get involved, you risk damaging the Web of Time yourself, you take the law into your own hands and your involvement in many cases has risked our own exposure. Each time you get involved, you commit actions which make the Daleks or the Cybermen kill people. This is why we made our laws to observe, not to get involved in the affairs of other worlds and races because we don't have the right," Goth lectured. "History has shown whenever we do interfere, that is when situations become deadly. As an operative of the Celestial Intervention Agency, you will work within the confines of that organisation, as we deem fit."
The Doctor stared at the three Time Lords, seeing that all three of them believed in that truth, and he knew they were speaking for the whole of Time Lord society, who had deemed it wrong to get involved in the affairs of others. Once he had believed in it strongly, back in his previous life after he had left Gallifrey with Susan. When he had left Gallifrey, he had wanted to keep his head down, his brain still ringing with the Time Lord's law of non-interference; he had only reluctantly gotten involved in order to safeguard the TARDIS.
That mess on Skaro when he had foolishly sabotaged the TARDIS and Ian had allowed the fluid link to fall into the hands of the Daleks was a prime example of his stupidity, but as time passed and he had gotten involved in the Dalek Invasion and when he had revealed the truth behind the murder of Vicki's father, he realised he could not interfere.
And…sometimes, despite his best intentions, things did get worse, and now he was facing the gauntlet thrown down by the Time Lords, the Doctor realised he needed to change his ways.
Instead of blundering into situations, the Doctor realised, he would actively seek them out and deal with them, by himself and keep the dangers to a minimum, to himself and to others.
But at the same time, what if he changed his approach…? The Time Lords were recruiting him into the CIA and he would work with them just like Mortimus had. That was something he was not happy about.
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Until the next time...
