Chapter 2

Pride woke up and rubbed his neck. It was a little sore, but that was about it. He was still in the main room. He wasn't sure how much time had passed. The TARDIS wasn't really an easy place to keep track of that.

Looking around, he saw the Doctor still standing by the controls. Her face didn't give much away. She was just sort of standing there. If anything, that was worse than if she'd gloated.

He scowled, getting up.

"What did you do?"

"I placed a Stormcage neural restrictor in you." Pride was not sure what that was, but none of those four words were good. The Doctor confirmed his suspicions a moment later. "It prevents you from killing or hurting anyone."

"It does what?" Pride asked, alarm spiking. He spat out the first coherent response he could think of. "Why didn't you do this to Porter?"

"Porter's living technology and could easily shut down anything I put in him. Also, he's essentially a prisoner. Do you really want that?"

No, he didn't want that treatment. But he didn't want this either. He'd killed a lot of humans. This was demeaning, and taking away from what limited abilities he had left, and dangerous. The Doctor might listen to that last one.

"I'm not going around randomly killing people on the street. What if we meet the daleks again? You're saying you don't want me to fight them?"

"See, the fact you're still arguing about this tells me I made the right choice," the Doctor said. She started fiddling with the TARDIS controls. "I could try to trust you, that you'd listen to me, and ignore how you can't even listen to 'don't wander off'. Or I can make those concerns irrelevant. I'm not putting everyone else in the universe at risk for your peace of mind or hovering over your shoulder all the time. I do know who I'm dealing with." She finished messing with the TARDIS controls and came closer. "I've gone to the past and watched you sometimes."

Ignoring some of the less pleasant implications behind that, Pride focused on the flaw in the claim. "That's impossible. If you kept appearing throughout time, I would've noticed."

"Really? You expect me to believe that? You, Pride, don't notice anyone except yourself unless you're told to or they force you to, and you practically told me as much earlier on the train. You wouldn't have noticed a seemingly normal woman appearing a few times. I could stand around in the same spot forever and if I didn't do anything, you wouldn't notice I'd been there a hundred years."

"You're exaggerating."

And annoying. There were a lot of people, especially when you lived for hundreds of years. Why would he go through the trouble of noticing them unless there was a reason?

"Oh I'm so glad you said that. Otherwise I brought us here for no reason. We should be invisible. Don't try to cut in."

The Doctor opened the TARDIS doors. Pride walked forward, looking out.

Pride was inside the TARDIS, but he was also outside, with his actual body. He watched as past Pride's shadows went back into his vessel, vessel eyes gaining a bit more focus.

"Excuse me." And that was the Doctor's voice. The present Doctor was currently staring at him very hard, making sure he didn't even think of leaving the TARDIS. So it must have been the past Doctor walking up behind past Pride outside. "Are you lost? It's a little late for kids to be out alone isn't it?"

Past Pride's expression shifted towards that of an innocent child as he spun around. "No, I'm okay. I was just getting something for my father."

He held up a bag. His statement was probably true, but whatever he was getting for Father wasn't in the bag.

"How thoughtful of you," the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor by the way."

"I'm Selim. I should really get going now."

It looked like their two past selves were going to say a bit more, but Pride didn't get to hear it as the present Doctor closed the TARDIS doors.

"That was the most obvious example, but I've got more."

She took off again, but Pride didn't even pay much attention. He'd met the Doctor. He actually had a brief conversation where she introduced herself as the Doctor. But when she'd become his tutor, he hadn't had the faintest flicker of recognition. How had that happened? He wanted to say it was a trick, but no. He knew that wasn't right.

Then the Doctor moved past him, opening the door again. Pride turned, looking out. They were in the tunnel. Past Doctor was walking in the tunnel with a group of Amestrian soldiers. They'd brought two lanterns. Pride didn't remember this particular instance, but he didn't have to, to know where this was going.

Sure enough, a moment later past Pride was in the tunnels, eyes opening wide on his shadows, and teeth smiling down as he stabbed them. The past Doctor lay on the ground playing dead. Either being a Time Lord gave her some ability to do that well, or Pride had let her go as some sort of warning. He'd done that on occasion.

His focus was shifting away from what was happening outside though. The look the present Doctor was giving him was taking far more attention. He did not like that look.

The Doctor closed the doors and went back to the controls. Wait. Was she going to do this again? If she could make the TARDIS invisible, why had she met his past self in person anyway? Just to prove this point later?

The annoying part was, try as he might, he couldn't think of any other instances where he'd met the Doctor. If she planned on showing him every moment, he didn't know how long that would take.

"Okay enough," he said. "What do you actually want?"

The Doctor, thankfully, paused. "What I'd like is for you to try a little harder."