oOo
A light tapping at the door ten minutes later interrupted nothing more than some serious contemplation. Noni entered when she received no response, hesitating only a moment before stepping into the room.
The Doctor's two selves were sitting in identical wing chairs on either side of the small stone fireplace, in identical postures: hands on chins, foreheads furrowed, legs crossed. It would have been comical if the situation weren't so dire.
"Susan is still sleeping," Noni announced. "I put her in the smaller bedroom. The clean one," she added with heavy emphasis. She indicated the open door with a jerk of her head. "I'm leaving this open so I can hear if she wakes up."
"Feisty little thing, isn't she?" The first Doctor's tone was part admiring, part critical.
"Just like her mother," the current Doctor replied placidly.
Another moment passed in silence before his first self spoke again. "Were any of my ideas helpful?"
"Extremely." There was a world of satisfaction in that word, and his first self allowed a smile to swiftly cross his face. Noni rolled her eyes and expelled her breath in an almost inaudible huff of exasperation, but it was enough to catch the old man's attention.
"This habit of picking up hitchhikers and stowaways, how soon does that start?" The note of criticism was harsher now, but the Doctor's seventh self refused to be baited.
"If history is anything to go by, it starts now. By taking Susan and raising her while I search for her parents." He hesitated. "It's the only way to set our past straight."
"Yes, setting it straight." The first Doctor's voice turned meditative. "This business has you tinkering in your own past far too much, dear boy. Do you think that's wise?"
"No. But I think it's necessary." The seventh Doctor had conveyed all the information leading up to this moment in a literal blink of an eye; a larger part of their time together had been spent digesting that information on his first self's part, and contemplating the future on his own part. "I've one last stop to make after this one." He had an appointment with Susan's 10-year-old self, a visit he secretly looked forward to since his own memories of her were still far from complete. "That should be the last, or at least it's the last of the ones I've already discovered I made. Then it's back to my own timeline before I become tempted to make more trips."
"Before you try to save anyone you shouldn't, eh? Alter their destinies, as it were?" the Doctor's first self asked shrewdly.
His counterpart nodded. "Yes." He hesitated, then added: "There are far too many lives the Master has taken that I am very tempted to save. That's why I have to move quickly. Before temptation catches me up in a moment of weakness."
Noni's eyes lit up. "Doctor, why not? The Master was tampering when he did everything he did, wasn't he? So fixing things would just be putting them back the way they're supposed to be!" Her eyes strayed ceilingward, and the Doctor knew exactly what she was thinking.
He shook his head. "No, we are not going to change my past and keep Susan. You have no idea what repercussions that could have."
Noni scowled, looking remarkably like her mother. "So we just leave her. Here. With him."
Neither Doctor reacted to the contempt in her voice. "Yes. We do." The one she thought of as "her" Doctor rose to his feet, jamming his hat firmly onto his head. "And we do it now." He looked at his other self, offered a hand which the older man (younger man?) took firmly in his own as he, too, vacated his chair. "Thank you. For everything."
"No need to thank me," the Doctor's first self said brusquely. He nodded at Noni, leaning sullenly against the door. "Just take this young lady off before she does something we all regret. Find our son," he added softly. "And Ace. Even if I never meet her, she's still my granddaughter's mother and therefore very important to me. All of me." The brusqueness returned to his voice as he shooed them toward the front door. "I'll take good care of her, eh? Haven't I already?"
"Yes, you have," the Doctor agreed, taking Noni gently by the elbow and moving her reluctant form out of the house.
"Can't I just say good-bye?" she pleaded, but he shook his head.
"No. No more good-byes. Right now we have to find Ace and Kyris. We've set things back the way they were supposed to be," he added, his tone softening just a touch. "Now its time to figure out where Susan's parents have got themselves off to."