The Two-ish Doctors Part Two

The Doctor and Frobisher were enjoying a stay at the Salayshun Ski Resort. It was a small community in the mountains of Salayshun Minor. Another human colony. The Doctor continued to select human-centric worlds because, while he did like and sometimes visit other worlds, it was hard to enjoy himself when he was the only human-looking alien amongst a world of Draconians or Sensorites or hermaphrodite hexapods or whatever. Frobisher, on the other hand, didn't care, and insisted on remaining a penguin.

They spent the day exploring the snowy mountains and the local community's small collection of shops. Finally, just after sunset when the younger generation started making some serious noise, the two time travelers headed back to the TARDIS. All was quiet, until the Doctor thought he spotted himself come around the corner at the end of the street. But before he could react, they were interrupted by a sudden flash... and suddenly Frobisher was alone!

#

The Doctor woke up. He was in a corridor. He was on a stretcher. He was being carried… by two Sontarans! Oh, dear! And so it begins. Fortunately, he had kept up on the anti-radiation tablets, and his body was prepared against a deep scan.

"Ah, Space Station Camera," he said. "I'd recognize it anywhere."

The Sontarans carrying the stretcher were worried. "How did you know where we were?"

"Please. Who do you think you're dealing with?"

They reached the end of the corridor and went through a door. And the Doctor found himself in the same laboratory in which he had been strapped before. His stretcher was set down on a table.

"Thank you," he said politely. He then climbed casually off and stepped down onto the floor. He glanced around the laboratory, found nothing of interest, and then turned back to the two Sontarans, "I assume that Professors Kartz and Reimer are around here somewhere?"

Just then they stepped in. Kartz was dressed in an identical brown leather jacket and dark trousers to the Doctor. "Nice outfit," he said slightly suspiciously.

"I could say the same," the Doctor said. Little did Kartz know that these were not just similar looking clothes. They were in fact the same clothes.

"Welcome, Doctor," said Professor Reimer, the shorter man. "I assume you are wondering why we brought you here?"

The Doctor answered for him, "You're trying to master time travel. The Sontarans are backing you because you told them you plan to share your findings with them. And you kidnapped the first available Time Lord you could find: Me."

"Something like that," Reimer said.

"You won't have to lift a finger," Kartz said. "All you have to do is lie there while we scan you."

"Oh, is that all?" the Doctor asked sarcastically. He walked slowly about the laboratory, trying not to give the Sontarans an excuse to shoot him. "You know, if you let me help you, I could fix some of that equipment so that it actually works. That dematerialization circuit for one thing looks like it's about to fall apart if I just look at it hard. I can tell from here that it's a botched job."

"And why would you want to help us?"

"I'm a renegade! Anything that upsets the Time Lords is okay by me."

The two human professors glanced at each other and quickly realized they each thought that the Doctor was lying. "We'll just stick to our plan, thank you."

The Doctor knew that he would be rescued by his other self before any serious damage was done by these two meddlers. So he shrugged, "Suit yourself." He stood in the middle of the room, "Now… where do you want me?"

A moment later, he was strapped down on the table.

#

Hours went by. And eventually, a couple of days. The Doctor wasn't sure how long it was going to take for himself and Peri to arrive. But when they did, the Sontaran guard was not in the room with them… like he was now. Should he wait for the guard to leave? Or should he try to get him out of the room, and thus speed up his eventual rescue? Relax and let destiny take its course? Or take some action? He was not at all comfortable with not taking some kind of action. Particularly this regeneration!

But there was nothing to do!

So he should just wait.

But he hated waiting!

Finally, he turned his head to look over at the guard, "You, Sontaran! Get out!"

And the Sontaran left the room, the door closing behind him. Had he actually done that!? Or was the Sontaran leaving the room for his own reason, and it was just a staggering coincidence that he decided to do it right then?

But before he could ponder the matter any further, the door on the other side of the room opened, and his younger self and Peri entered the room. "You!" the other one shouted.

The Doctor on the table shouted back, "Well, it's about time! Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you!?"

"You knew we'd come?" Peri asked.

Both Doctors said together, "Obviously."

The new arrival began unstrapping his other self, then paused, "What on Gallifrey are you wearing!?"

"Would you kindly just unstrap me, please?" the other said.

After the Doctor got off the table, the new Doctor began removing his multi-colored coat, "No. No. This won't do at all. Here…" he said, offering the travesty of a garment to his older self.

And then the Sontaran entered the room. "Don't move! Hands in the air!"

Both Doctors and Peri raised their hands above their heads. The Sontaran shot the coat as it dangled from the Doctor's raised hand. The Doctor watched it burst into flame for the second time. And now that he had gotten used to the dark leather, he didn't mind nearly as much as the first time he had seen this happen. His younger self however, shouted out, "How DARE you!? Do you have ANY idea how UNIQUE that coat was!?" The Sontaran called for backup, and a few moments later, Kartz and Reimer entered, followed by three more Sontarans.

"What's going on here?" asked Professor Kartz.

The Doctor who had just vacated the table replied, "Me, Peri, allow me to introduce you to Professors Kartz and Reimer. And these others are merely Sontaran thugs, and don't deserve to be introduced."

"Be very careful, Time Lord," growled the lead Sontaran.

The Doctor who had just arrived, nodded in understanding. "Let me guess. You're trying to create your own time machine and you need the help, and I use that term loosely, of a Time Lord or two."

Kartz said, "And you have clearly come back in time to rescue your earlier self."

Both Doctors scoffed. The younger version said, "You have it backwards! He's the one from my future!"

Kartz nodded. "Well, it hardly matters. We have two of you." He then turned to Peri, "And one hostage. I believe that gives us the advantage." He turned to the Sontarans, "Take the girl. Lock her up safely and post a guard."

One of the Sontarans gripped Peri's arm and escorted her out of the room.

Kartz turned back to the Doctors, "Her safety depends entirely on your conduct."

The Doctors agreed. The older Doctor was strapped down to the table once again, and the search resumed for the symbiotic nuclei. Everyone else, including his younger self, moved into the next room and watched it on monitor screens.

#

The next day, the two Doctors were told to work together in making the home-made dematerialization circuit work. The Doctor knew what was coming, and whispered, "Contact." A moment later, his younger self whispered, "Contact." Having already been through this plan, all he had to do was let his younger self know what they had already done. His younger self suggested maybe another plan might work better. But when his older self wanted to know what plan he had in mind, knowing that he didn't have one at all, his younger self admitted that he didn't have one, and so they agreed to stick to what they knew would work.

So they worked with the temporal rectifier until they could successfully freeze time with it. They called the professors into the room to demonstrate, and then froze time.

The older Doctor turned to go, but his younger self called over the cacophony of the time winds, "You go! Obviously you're the one who should get away!"

"I know! I remember from the last time I was here! Don't worry! It'll work out!" He then ran out of the room to search for Peri. It didn't take long before finding her locked up in an empty room. She sat on a bunk, totally unaware that she was frozen in time. He picked up her small, unmoving form, slung her over his shoulder and made for the exit.

As he made his way down the stairwell, the time winds stopped! Normal time and sound resumed. And Peri suddenly came to life, "Hey! What are you doin', Doctor!?"

The Doctor set her on her feet and said, "I'm taking you to the TARDIS."

She immediately noticed his clothes and realized which version of the Doctor this was. "Where's my Doctor? The one I came here with?"

"We're going to have to come back for him."

"You can't just leave him!"

The Time Lord grabbed her hand and dragged her down the stairs. "We are not leaving him! He is the younger one! In order for me to even exist must mean that my other self in the other room will be all right in the end. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here!"

Peri didn't feel that this was the time to argue the point. And he did make a sort of sense. So, she ran alongside the older version of the Doctor.

They burst out a door and came out in the space station's lobby. The TARDIS was safely nestled away in the corner. Unfortunately, one of Kartz and Reimer's assistants and a Sontaran were carrying equipment across the lobby. The Sontaran looked up and instantly recognized the Doctor!

Suddenly lasers bombarded the Doctor and Peri, who quickly turned and fled through a nearby door which turned out to be the kitchen.

Once inside the kitchen, they were face to face with the robotic kitchen staff. "Okay, you guys," Peri said as authoritatively as she could. "This is a matter of life or death. You have to surround us and escort us to the far corner of the lobby."

And without hesitation, the robots did so.

The Sontaran continued to blast away at the robots, while the Doctor and Peri remained safe. With a trail of blasted, destroyed robots behind them, they were nearly up to the TARDIS. But just then, the Sontaran worked out a better plan of attack. He simply ran up to them and yanked the few remaining robots out of the way.

The Doctor pulled out his key as there were only two robots left between them and the angry Sontaran. The door opened, the Time Lord shoved his companion inside, just as the Sontaran thrust his arm in between the two robots and fired!

The blast passed safely between them, as the Doctor shut the doors. The console had been damaged. The Doctor looked at the singed area of the time machine and sighed. "That's going to take weeks to repair!" Then he sighed again and simply began the work before him.

As he worked, Peri leaned in to see if the Doctor had anything to say to her. Apparently, he wasn't, she decided after a few moments. He simply worked at the damaged section of the console.

Peri decided that she had no choice but to resort to sarcasm, "I know. I know. Pretty good thinking on my part. But you don't have to thank me."

The Doctor could barely be distracted from what he was doing. Though he did take the time to say, "Hmm?"

"I was talking about how I rescued us back there."

The Doctor got to his feet so that he could look down on the confused Earth girl. "What are you talking about?"

Peri was clearly going to have a fight on her hands here, "I just meant I would like to get some kind of recognition from you that I can do some pretty decent thinking too sometimes."

"My dear girl, you were only building on what was in fact my original idea."

"Then why didn't you think of it?"

"I did. Just not in this particular situation." He returned to his work.

Peri watched on the screen as the Sontaran tried to break in to the TARDIS, and then finally give up and go away. Now that the dust had settled, the hotel staff sent some robots to clean up the destroyed robots, and then all was quiet. Life in the space station lobby apparently returned to normal.

#

Nearly five days later, the Doctor finally announced, "That's it! It's all fixed. Who said this would take weeks to repair?"

"You did," Peri pointed out.

"Well, it didn't," the Time Lord insisted. "Now let's get on with rescuing me."

"I just hope your other self is okay," Peri said. "I don't know what they could've been doing to him all this time."

"Oh, there's no need to worry," the Doctor said. "We're not going to rescue him now."

"W', w', we're not?"

"Of course not. We're going to rescue him five days ago!" He shook his head patronizingly, threw a switch and dematerialized the TARDIS. They were in flight for only a moment. And then, smoothly, without fuss, they materialized around his other self, who just seemed to fade into existence in the middle of the console room.

"Well, it's about time! Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you!?"

"Yes, I do."

Now that they were dressed alike, they stood face to face, like a man looking in the mirror, and nodded in approval.

Then the older one turned to the console and began pressing buttons and flipping switches. "Right. I'll just take us to my TARDIS and we'll say goodbye."

A moment later, they arrived. The older one turned to face his other self, "Well, take care."

"I'll do my best," the younger one responded.

The older one turned to Peri and smiled sadly. It was good to see her again. He was missing her very much. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to give her some warning that would make their upcoming departure less painful. But in the end, all he could get out through the lump in his throat was, "You take care too, Peri." And he left quickly before she could ask any awkward questions.

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and found that he was back in the middle of the Salayshun Ski Resort. He heard the familiar sound of dematerialization behind him as his other self left. He then went to look for his own temporal version of the TARDIS.

Everything seemed to be exactly as he had last seen it. There were one or two familiar faces he had seen earlier. The weather and time of day seemed correct. But he secretly worried that he might be one day early or late.

The search shouldn't take too long, as the resort wasn't very large… And then a flash caught his eye! He looked towards the flash, and saw Frobisher standing there at the end of the road, looking around like he had lost something. "There you are!" the penguin said as the Doctor approached. "What happened? We were walkin' along and then zap! Suddenly you're over there!"

"What have you been doing all this time?" the Doctor asked.

"All what time? That was like two seconds ago."

"Ah. Well then, never mind." And they continued on to the TARDIS.