No Future

by TimeTraveller-1900

The Second Doctor was shown mercy by the Time Lords of Gallifrey and was subsequently exiled to Earth. But what if it hadn't happened that way? What if the Time Lords believes the Doctor's meddling was too great to ignore? Forced to find a way to escape fate and Gallifrey, the Doctor's life will never be the same again.

I don't own Doctor Who, sadly enough.

X

No Future.

By TimeTraveller-1900.

The Doctor laughed at the sight of his old companion Jamie chasing after a Redcoat soldier with his trust Claymore sword before the monitor screen went blank again after being allowed to see his other companion, Zoe, safe in her own time.

When he turned around, the Doctor was brought back to the present; thanks to the Time Lord's mercy, he had been able to imagine, just for a moment, he and his friends were free.

But the sight of the Time Lords in their fine robes and with their air of detachment brought him back to the present.

The First Time Lord wasn't affected or bothered by the Doctor's lack of decorum. "They will both continue their lives as if nothing had happened," he said, clearly not concerned about the two humans.

The Doctor stopped laughing and folded his hands. "Ah yes, very efficient," he said. "Now then, what about me?"

The First Time Lord paused for a moment to gather the right words. "We have accepted your plea that there is evil in the universe that must be fought," he began.

"What-what are you going to do?" The Doctor asked gently, his hopes starting to rise, thankful that the Time Lords had listened to him, but then he had known they would.

But the First Time Lord hadn't finished making his point. "However, none of the evils in the universe will affect the Time Lords or Gallifrey," he replied. "Our people will remain safe in our pocket dimension in inner time, Doctor."

The Doctor was outraged. "You mean you're not going to do anything?"

"Did you expect us to, Doctor?" The Third Time Lord asked.

"We listened to your case, Doctor, and it was a well-spoken case, but our people have remained in safety for millions of years ever since we mastered time itself. And therein lies our conclusion," the Second Time Lord said.

"Conclusion?" The Doctor echoed, already worried by what the Time Lords were getting at. He didn't like the sound of that.

"We have examined your timeline, Doctor," the First Time Lord explained, "while you have changed history to create new and far better outcomes, you still changed history, breaking the laws of time in the process. A prime example was the involvement you have had in the early history with the Daleks."

"I have stopped and fought the Daleks when they invaded Earth when they threatened to use time travel technology to subjugate-," the Doctor's breathing became strained as he began to rant.

But he wasn't to get very far.

"Did it ever occur to you, Doctor, that by interfering or entering the Dalek city and informing them about the capabilities of your old Type 40 TARDIS, you were giving them the inspiration to create or steal time travel technology in the first place?" The Second Time Lord interrupted sharply, silencing the Doctor's rant before it even began. "One of a Time Lord's most important duties is to prevent other races from developing time travel, but you did not do that. Instead, you encouraged it when you prepared to bargain with the Daleks in their city when they were planning on wiping out the Thals. When you did that, you began a chain reaction where the Daleks developed a time ship with capabilities similar to a TARDIS, which has made them a threat to the space/time continuum."

"You have also endangered the Time Lord people as well as the other races in the universe, Doctor. Perhaps you have fought the Daleks, and perhaps you have saved lives, but they wouldn't have been threatened on that level in the first place had you not offered to build them a time machine," the Third Time Lord snapped harshly.

Desperately the Doctor tried to fight the decision. He had slowly come to the realisation when the Time Lords had begun speaking that he wished he had come up with a totally different plan when the War Lords had been defeated and the final and most important matter, getting the humans back home to their own times.

He wished he had asked the War Chief where the other Time Lord's own TARDIS was instead of relying on his own to do the job. Instead, he had felt the overwhelming need to call for help. If he had asked his old friend and schoolmate for help in evacuating the planet, then none of this would be happening.

But his control over the War Chief had not been perfect. There was a chance that the War Chief would have found a way, bided his time, and found a way to escape before they even got to his TARDIS. And now it was beginning to look like he was condemned. Jamie and Zoe, poor Jamie and Zoe, were not here, and for a moment he was relieved for that one mercy. The Doctor had known that there was a chance that he would be killed.

"They'll show no mercy!" The War Chief had yelled that. The Doctor knew his old friend was right, but at the same time, he had been persuaded by that irritatingly young and handsome young man, his eighth incarnation, whom he had met before during that time when he had been contemplating - and only contemplating, mind you, he remembered indignantly - killing that caveman who was slowing them down.

His eighth incarnation had told him not to do it, that it would haunt him and he was right. That moment had shaped him into the renegade he was today. And now the Eighth Doctor, his own future self (oh dear, the Doctor prayed the Time Lords were not aware of that little bit of timeline interference; it was bad enough interfering, but it was even worse triggering the Blinovitch Limitation effect) had come to him again when the Second Doctor was in the middle of one of the biggest decisions of his two lives.

The Eighth Doctor's mind was mired by loss of memory, something their original self recalled from their original meeting, and they had suggested their future incarnation visit their other selves to break down the barrier around their memories to be whole again. Sadly it seemed their common sense and their knowledge of time travel was also, likewise blocked off. If it wasn't then he would have known the Time Lords would have had the option of killing the Second Doctor.

The Eighth Doctor had been sure they wouldn't, after all, how could he be there if that happened?

But the Doctor told his future self that the Time Lords could still execute him and that timelines could shift and change, and now the Doctor was sure it would. With him dead, the Time Lords would simply mitigate whatever changes to the timelines were made. But the Doctor hoped they didn't take that line. He was just hoping the Time Lords would keep him here, on Gallifrey (while the idea was horrible since he had been bored out of his mind the first time around, it was preferable to be killed).

"I have been regretting that ever since," the Doctor snapped harshly, remembering the grotesque way Sara and Bret had been killed during that mess with the Dalek's time destructor. "I gave them that offer out of desperation, I didn't know it would have such great consequences; but the Daleks would have eventually left Skaro at some point, with or without being told there was alien life in the universe. The Daleks are the ultimate racial cleansers. Even if I hadn't told them about time travel, they would have likely discovered a race who had knowledge of it and they would have eventually come into conflict with the Time Lords. Remember the Utricians; they went back over and over their own timelines, and they discovered time travel by themselves. The Daleks would have likely done the same anyway, and they would have come into conflict with Gallifrey one way or another."

The three Time Lords were really unimpressed with the Doctor's argument. "Doctor, Gallifrey has remained safe for millions of years since our mastery of time travel. The reason for that is not only the transduction barriers and the quantum forcefield which have protected our world for generations, but because when we do go out and explore the universe, we are not foolish enough to draw attention to ourselves. Did it never occur to you that the people you helped would never have been in so much danger had you not interfered in the first place?"

The Doctor let out a deep shocked breath at that question, and he stumbled back, staring at the Time Lords with wide eyes.

The First Time Lords sighed himself, gazing at the Doctor with something akin to genuine sympathy. "Your meddling in the affairs of the universe has put us in great danger, Doctor, you took the law into your own hands, and you decided to interfere in affairs which were none of your concern. Yes, you have saved lives and defeated alien invasions of various worlds. But you drew attention to our existence as well. Thanks to your foolishness, the Daleks possess time travel technology."

The Second Time Lord spoke up, following in the same vein as his colleague. "This is why we Time Lords made our laws to observe only, not to get involved in the affairs of others because we do not have the right to do so. Whenever we do interfere, as we did in our history, taking the choices of others into our hands, that is when the situations become deadly."

"When we interfered in the affairs of the Minyans, we tinkered with their biology, taking their choice for doing so out of their hands and giving them the genetic manipulation needed to enhance their intellectual capacities. We augmented their minds and bodies, forgetting they were a bright, intelligent, and aggressive race already, and we gave them the means of waging war on a level they should have waited millennia to reach."

The Doctor was numb with shock at the unexpected speech from two of the Time Lords. He knew they were speaking the truth, the truth of the Time Lords and why their society deemed it wrong to get involved. He had once shared their views, believing that as a time travelling Time Lord, he did not have the right to get involved. Things did happen, he got involved, for one reason or another, either because he simply felt he knew better or because his title of Time Lord made him feel entitled to meddle in the first place.

But…looking at it from the Time Lord's perspective, especially hearing their concerns and their annoyance at being threatened by the likes of the Daleks, he knew he had made mistakes. Big ones.

For a moment, for one moment, the Doctor thought about what happen if he became too big, too smug that his interference was not only justified but he did it recklessly. And the results were not pleasant.

X

The Doctor was being slowly escorted along to an Oubliette, an elaborate Time Lord cell by a member of the Chancellory Guard. The Doctor had been on trial for over an hour while the Time Lords finished their deliberations. There wasn't anything much for them to go over, to be honest. They were simply finalising the details. The Doctor was just relieved the Time Lords had decided to not erase him from history although it would have solved some of the Time Lord's problems like the threat to Gallifrey. The idea of having his timeline thrown into reverse as he had never existed was one the Doctor did not care for. But that only came about when the Time Lords discovered that the effects on history he was involved with were fixed.

It would take time for the Time Lords to get the Warrant of Termination and to prepare the Vapourisation chamber for his execution. In the meantime, he was going to be waiting for death.

The Doctor struggled to contain his fear of his impending death. But it was virtually impossible. They were sending him to the oubliette to prepare for his death. They would either make him use a Confession Dial since he had his in the TARDIS, and he hadn't bothered to take it out. As they turned a corner, the Doctor took note of the guard escorting him. The guard was typical of a modern Gallifreyan guard, the Doctor felt - young, hoping to look impressive.

Otherwise bored.

At that moment, the Doctor had an idea for escape. A few more minutes passed as the Doctor went over it in his mind what he needed to do, weighing up the pros and the cons and looking at the risks of what he was looking at. There were risks, but this was a dangerous plan. Ordinarily, the Doctor would be too reckless and make a plan up as he went along, and while he had every intention of doing that to make sure nothing went wrong, this was too dangerous to play a game with. The Time Lords were not to be taken lightly as while he cursed his future incarnation for this disaster (he wondered if his amnesiac future self had gone through something similar back centuries ago when he'd been him), he knew he would need a good enough plan.

The Doctor jabbed a finger into the guard's throat, making the man gasp before he dropped to the ground. The Doctor caught him, regretting already using his skills in Venusian aikido to knock him out.

X

The Doctor wondered how the Guards coped with wearing their stupid helmets as he gathered the vortex manipulators that would help restore his freedom. In one of the dimensionally transcendental pockets, the Doctor carried the biodata extract which had once been in the Matrix. The Time Lords had believed their methods of maintaining Matrix and data security was foolproof, but even without an operating key, it was relatively easy to hack once you had a little criminal know-how and a bit of experience in hacking computers.

It reminded the Doctor of the time he had tried to hack the Teaching Machine in the Learning Hall of the Gonds when he, Jamie and Zoe had been fighting the Krotons. Zoe had stupidly used one of the machines and the Doctor had wanted to take her place. He had tried to hack the computer in the hopes of erasing Zoe's profile from the database. Selris and Zoe both assumed he had gotten the questions wrong, but what actually happened was he was trying to get her out, but the wretched machine was too simplistic. In the end, he'd had to just accept the fact Zoe and he would have to deal with the Krotons together.

But the Matrix was more versatile. Academy students were always hacking into the stupid system, but access to the biodata extracts was more difficult. It took the Doctor less than half an hour to steal the Data Extract and leave. Once he had the DE the Time Lords would find it impossible to catch him, especially since he had plans for hiding himself, but he couldn't stay the way he was…

Using the vortex manipulator he'd placed on his wrist, the Doctor went back in time and got to his TARDIS. After making sure no Time Lord was inside, he replaced the old and damaged chameleon circuit with one he had stolen from another Type 40. He shrank the TARDIS down to the size of a matchbox and he transmatted himself to a cave once he was sure his ship was safe and sound in his pocket. Shivering slightly in the perpetual wind that blew through the caverns, the Doctor walked slowly around. He had had bad memories of this place when he was younger.

There were torches blazing - all ceremonial, the flames fed by a chemical pump designed to pump in flammable chemicals to keep them burning, and with the dark gothic gloom, it gave the aura of a horror movie - all around the Doctor as he reorientated himself and looked around to make sure there were no other Time Lords present before he walked to the Untempered Schism.

It had been decades since he had stood before the Untempered Schism, the gap in the fabric of reality through which young Gallifreyans aged 8 were removed from their families and would see the sheer power of time and space. And much more. What the Doctor had seen through the schism had frightened him and made him run away, and he had been running ever since.

The Doctor did not look into the swirling maelstrom of the Time Vortex. Once was more than enough, and he didn't have any curiosity about what he would see in the Schism this time around. Anyway, he wanted to get out of there. The Doctor's fingers stabbed into the vortex manipulator as he slowly walked to the Schism. When he was finished, he was less than a foot from it. Taking out the staser from the holster, the Doctor adjusted the settings and blasted himself, screaming and wheezing in pain with each blast which tore through his organs and he felt pain in both of his hearts, while he lost the strength to stand.

Writhing on the ground in agony, gasping, the Doctor felt a greater pain tearing through his body, feeling a burning sensation that was starting.

The Doctor knew he was regenerating.

He had hoped after the first time he wouldn't find himself regenerating again, but it had to be done if he hoped to escape back into the universe to evade the Time Lords.

Pushing the pain aside through sheer force of will, the Doctor stood up and gasped as he felt it take hold; he felt terrible for shooting himself, much like he had when Shiner DNA had stopped the regeneration by chance and luck when his skull was damaged, this incarnation hadn't lasted as long as his original, but this time he had to regenerate if he was going to escape Gallifrey.

The Doctor stepped closer to the schism, his hands and vision glowing with golden energy. He gasped, feeling it build up within his body before he threw his head back before he flung himself into the Time Vortex….

X

…. When she woke up, the first thing the Doctor noticed was she was lying on the cold wet grass. She was freezing cold; Time Lord clothes were not made with different climates in mind and she was soaked to the skin. It was dawn and as she woke up, her memories returned she gasped even as she looked down at her new body, seeing a pair of female breasts on her chest before she felt her new features.

"I'm a woman, now," the Doctor gasped as she stated the obvious. But what else could she do?

Groaning she stood up and staggered around, unsure if she was taller or shorter than before, but right now all she wanted to do was to get out of there. A horrible thought occurred to her and she delved into her pockets, but she gasped in relief when she found the TARDIS. It was still intact while she had regenerated in the schism and in the Time Vortex. So was she; she had jumped into the Time Vortex, she had been halfway through the regeneration, knowing the Time Lords would be confused by the signature, and it would be wreathed in Artron energy in the Vortex, but since she had just regenerated, the Time Lords would have an extremely hard time tracking her down. And since she hadn't escaped Gallifrey in the TARDIS, they would have an even harder time looking for her. If she was lucky, the Time Lords would perform a cursory search for her, but they would find nothing. Still, she would have to lie low.

The Doctor sniffed the air - her senses were still recovering from the regeneration, but she could tell she was in the 18th century, somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy. Standing up the Doctor spent the next several minutes adjusting the TARDIS, pulling out a vortex manipulator as she worked, staring at the time machine in wonder.

With this, she could make some long overdue adjustments to the TARDIS navigational systems, but right now she needed to deal with what her new gender meant. Once the TARDIS was resized, she briefly wondered if she should adjust this chameleon circuit or replace it with the old one since she had come to like the police box shell. With a shrug of her shoulders, the Doctor walked inside the TARDIS to begin her new life.