CHAPTER 59

ON THE MEND

The Doctor went to meet with Commanders Tolan and SorRell shortly after the Alterran relief ships arrived. SorRell was appalled when finally told how severely injured Prince Jason had been during the ultrasonic attack. "Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded.

"I didn't want to worry you," the Time Lord informed apologetically.

"I could've had a medical team down there," SorRell countered angrily.

"Not too much they could've done, is there?" Tolan pointed out. "You were sent with minimal provisions. Doesn't exactly equip you to deal with the effects of a sonic disruption."

SorRell gave him a dark look, although she had to admit that he was right.

"Looks like the plans to phase out the countermeasures will be scraped, doesn't it?" Tolan remarked to SorRell.

The Doctor blinked. "What? When was this supposed to happen?"

"It was supposed to start last year, but got bogged down in bureaucratic red-tape."

"Thank goodness for red-tape," SorRell injected. "Otherwise we'd all be in need of medical attention and not just Prince Jason."

"Talking of which, I must be getting back. If you'll excuse me, I have a timeline to untangle and a companion to retrieve." With that, the Doctor turned on his heel and left.

Jason sat cross-legged on the sleeping mat in the TARDIS control room contemplating the energy tube cupped in his open hands. After absorbing enough energy to heal his damaged body completely, he was hesitant to try. He had been mulling over everything that had happened over the past few weeks, finding the total darkness of blindness strangely illuminating. It allowed him to strip away all superfluous details and concentrate on what was truly important. He had been going over the events, analyzing each incident that he found troubling at the time, only to still find them troubling now. The most troubling, of course, was the most recent, and quite possibly the most important. The incident in the time corridor. With everything that had happened, would he be able get past his misgivings about the Time Lord's darker side? Darker? Demonic was more like it.

At that moment, the Doctor strode through the exterior doors. He saw Jason alone in the room and stopped dead. "Where's Grant?" he asked.

"I sent him to get some sleep. The poor boy's exhausted."

The Time Lord threw a quick glance over at the interior door. Uncertain how to proceed, he informed conversationally, "Tolan's sent some scouts to make sure the Elite forces have left the area properly. He also wants to send a medical team down to check you over,"

Jason stiffened, waving a hand in the air. "Oh no, I'm not seeing a battery of Healers."

"That's what I thought. I told him you were on the mend." Pausing a beat, the Doctor asked seriously, "You are on the mend, aren't you?"

The Alterran nodded slowly. "Physically, yes. I don't know if my poor shattered psyche will ever recover, though."

The Doctor studied his friend a moment before saying, "I'll go if you'd rather…"

"No, I didn't mean it that way. My head is a lot clearer than it was earlier," Jason said quickly. After a thoughtful pause, he said, "I thought...out there, I thought…I really must've messed up in the future."

"Whatever made you think that?" the Time Lord wanted to know.

"You wouldn't tell me anything when I asked. And yet…you've been so critical of everything I do that I just thought..."

"Oh, Jason, I am sorry." The Doctor put his hands on the console and leaned forward, sighing heavily. Shaking his tangle of blond curls, he said, "You've taken the bad end of things since the start of all this—and I don't mean what happened out there. I've been pushing you to go on even when you insisted that you couldn't, and then I go and step in—without even asking—when I thought things were too much for you. I tell you to stop looking back and then turn around and ask you to share your past with Grant. I thought I was helping but I only seem to've made matters worse."

The Alterran nodded in agreement.

"I knew something was troubling you," the Doctor went on. "It never occurred to me that I might be the cause. You're usually more forthright in these matters."

Jason smiled briefly. "You're right. I don't know why I didn't say anything sooner. I thought you were dropping vague hints. I wasn't sure how to take them." He held up the energy tube. "And I'm still not sure what to do. I have enough energy to heal myself but…I'm afraid to."

"Afraid? Why?"

"Because once I'm back to normal…" Jason chose his next words carefully. "Once I'm back to normal, I'm back to being dangerous."

The Doctor was taken aback by this remark. It was not the reply he expected, despite the fact that he knew it to be the literal truth.

"I couldn't get angry in the corridor, but I could in the console room. And I still couldn't—" Jason broke off and sighed. "If I'd been healthy, you might not've gotten out alive, and that scares me. At least like this I'm not a threat to anyone."

The Doctor could not help but laugh at this. "My dear Jason, you managed to drag yourself out of the TARDIS, get the opening to an unstable temporal fissure stabilized, walk into it and then face the horrors you found there when you were completely blind and on the point of total exhaustion. And for that I owe you my thanks and my life. It's that strong will of yours that's the key to who you are, not your temper. It's what has kept you alive all these years against the most insurmountable odds."

Jason sat staring into the darkness before his eyes, realizing suddenly that he was still running away—from himself and his own future. A future he feared as an abstract, but his friend had already seen as reality. For better or for worse he was going to have to face it—eventually.

Resigning himself to the inevitable, Jason drew a deep breath, his body shimmering as he transmuted. He returned to his true form for a few seconds, fully repairing his sensor array before returning to his familiar human appearance. For the first time in what seemed like years, he could see clearly and what he saw was the Doctor at the control console, the expression on his face one of sadness rather than joy.

Jason's eyes narrowed suspiciously. What's going on in that mind of his now? With a small smile, he said mildly, "It's good to see you again."

"Is it?" the Time Lord asked pointedly.

"What do you mean?"

"I've completely lost your trust, haven't I?" the Doctor observed sadly. "And I don't know what to do or say to repair the damage."

"What…? How…?" Jason drew a deep breath. "Doctor, how am I supposed to respond to that?"

"I don't know. I'm beginning to believe that this whole incident was orchestrated so that I would lose your trust and friendship."

"What? Starting when?"

"I'm not sure," the Doctor replied truthfully. "As a future version of myself, my alternate knows everything I do. I suspect he's the one who told the Elite about the sonic disturbance. With your sensor array inoperative, you couldn't see or sense the time fields fading in and out."

Jason blinked. "No, but l'X'el could," he said under his breath.

"The damaged temporal corridor was the perfect place for him to manipulate my current timeline—and you along with it."

"How?"

The Doctor studied his friend a moment. "Just look at you. Even back to normal you're afraid to come near me." He waved a hand to indicate the distance between them. Jason had not moved from his place across the room. "Any other time you'd've been bounding over here annoying me with a hug. You've completely shut down emotionally."

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? Stay in control?" came the astringent reply.

"Now who's being vague?" The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "He really got under your skin, didn't he? Was it the insult or my having said it that you can't get past?"

The Alterran gave him a dark look. "Does it really matter? Whoever or whatever this person is—or was—he didn't get his way, did he? You're still here. I'm still here—"

"Yes," the Time Lord interrupted, "but you're not the same person who walked into that time corridor. You've changed."

"Damn right, I've changed!" Jason exclaimed. "What do you expect? This demonic side of you appears out of nowhere and I'm just supposed to go on like nothing happened?"

"No. But I don't want this single incident to drive you away, either."

"Why? Will that affect the future in some terrible, dark and foreboding way?" The look Jason got in reply made him stiffen visibly. "Oh no, don't you give me that look, Doctor'" he scolded. "We both know that some events can never be altered. I mean, just look at what we've just been through. The El'Li'Ono accord. You told me about it weeks ago, but it won't become official history for another..." His voice trailed off as a sudden thought struck him. "History. History! That's it, isn't it?" he gasped. "I'm not the same person, that's what you said. I've changed. And if I continue in this change, somewhere along the line history will change. That's what's got you so scared."

The Doctor was still leaning against the console, his head lowered. He closed his eyes as Jason's last statement struck home. He could think of at least one future incident that hinged on the Alterran's unquestioning trust in him.

Able to read his friend's body language for the first time since the events in the corridor, Jason scrutinized the man across the room. He looked like a man with the weight of the universe on his shoulders. "Nothing to say, Doctor?" he said at last.

The Time Lord drew a deep breath and straightened, looking his friend in the eye. "What would you have me say? I've told you all I can. Whether you accept it or not is up to you."

"You're not making this very easy, you know?" Jason muttered darkly. After another agonizing pause, he said quietly, "Look, I'm willing to accept your explanation of what happened in the time corridor. Like I said, we've seen stranger things happen." He crossed to the control console, looking his friend in the eye. "I am also willing to accept your apology—but only under one condition."

The Doctor gave him a sideways look. "Which is?"

"That you also forgive yourself. For as long as I've known you, you've been forcing me to forgive myself for every enraged outburst, every eruption of Mt. Jason." With a small smile, Jason added, "Now I'm returning the favor."

"You're sure you can put this behind you—racial slurs and all? Without reservations?"

An uncertain expression crossed the Alterran's face. "I'm willing to try if you are."

"Even if I am an arrogant, egotistical, thinly veiled tyrant?"

Jason gave him a stern, unapologetic look. "You forgot condescending, pompous bastard," he said bluntly. Before the Doctor could reply, he held up a hand. "Don't even try to deny it. I have been stroking your ego for two centuries. I can overlook your arrogance. You're a Time Lord. It seems to be a requirement."

The Doctor gave an indignant snort.

"And I will concede that you are a certified genius and quite possibly the most brilliant person I have ever met."

"But…"

"But this regeneration only seems to have magnified the egocentric part of your personality. In all your recent pontifications, you've overlooked the fact that you are not the only one in the universe with a brain in his head."

"Pontifications?"

Jason ignored the interruption. "Not all of my extensive and, I might add, rather impressive abilities are dangerous. I do know what I'm doing most of the time, and I happen to be extremely good at it. That's probably because I'm almost as intelligent as you are. It would be nice to have that acknowledged once in a while rather than criticized and looked down on."

"I do not look down on you!" came the defensive reply.

Jason gave him a challenging look through his eyelashes, saying nothing.

"Although…" the Doctor added hesitantly, "I will concede that there may have been times in the past when it appeared that way."

The Alterran could not prevent an amused smirk from coming to his face. "There, that wasn't so painfully hard, was it?"

"Excruciating." After a pause, the Doctor asked, "I take it I'm forgiven?"

Jason drew himself to his full height and met his gaze levelly. "What do you think?"