Discovery

by LizzeXX

11/OC -Time Lady- The Doctor has lost all his people again after his confrontation with House...or has he? When a mysterious contact appears that leads to an old friend, the Doctor might just find himself with more than he bargained for. A dear friend who went Mad at the Untempered Schism, a friend of his AND the Master's. What will happen? First in the Mysteries of Space and Time.

3. The Almost People

The Almost People

The Doctor and the Detective could only watch on as their Gangers seemed to scream and twist in pain, all their memories hitting them at once. Well…the Doctor's Ganger at least was having some trouble. For all that he'd seen and done throughout his many lives, for all the pain he'd felt, all the Companions he lost…it was a little harder for him to take things in like the Ganger was. His entire being was set to run away from things, for the most part.

The Detective, well, she was one of the unfortunates who had gone mad when she looked into the Untempered Schism. Her mind worked a bit different, set her body going a bit odd. Her pain tolerance was a little higher than his and her mind absorbed stimuli and engaged it in different ways. Where he might be overwhelmed by something, it would just set her mind, and her, going faster. And she had never had the same streak of companions that he'd had, it had only ever been him, the Master, and her in the very early days, or her tagging along between their fights, popping in to see the Master then him when he had time, or scooting about on her own. She hadn't lost as many people or been involved in as many debacles as he had. Though, she had to admit, her Ganger did seem quite uncomfortable.

"What's happening?" the Ganger Doctor groaned, clutching his head, "I wonder if we'll get back. Yes, one day...aaagh! I've reversed the polarity of the neutron flow…"

"The Flesh is struggling to cope with our past regenerations," the Doctor warned the Detective.

"I know," she told him, shifting beside him to rest her right elbow on his shoulder, half leaning on him, "It's sort of obvious."

"Hold on!" he urged the Gangers.

"Ooh…" the Ganger Detective whined, pressing the sides of her heads, like she was covering her ears but more to the front, near her cheeks and temples, almost dragging her hands down her cheeks, "Oh, this is worse than the time you and the Master dared me to drink all those slushies in a minute!"

"No," the Doctor frowned, "No, we told you DON'T drink them so fast…"

The Detective gave him a playful pout, moving her left hand to pat him on the chest, over his left heart, "You know we love a challenge."

"How was THAT a challenge?!"

"Would you like a jelly baby?" his Ganger suddenly spoke, using his 4th self's voice, before crying out, "Why?!" in his own, "Why!?"

"Oh, shut up!" the Ganger Detective huffed at him, spinning in a slow circle, "I'm at the point where we went to that mad concert! I don't want to miss the best part!"

"You sneaking up to use the triangle," the Detective nodded to herself though she was speaking to the Doctor, "Classic."

"Why what?" the Doctor tried to help his Ganger focus, seeing the Detective, both of them, wouldn't be much help.

"Hello," his Ganger popped straight up, speaking like his last self, "I'm the Doctor. No!" he snapped, back to normal, "Let it go, we've moved on!"

"Hold on, hold on, you can stabilize!"

"Urgh," the Ganger Detective bemoaned, stopping her spins to nearly sag against the Ganger Doctor's back, her head flopping back to rest on his shoulder, "There's that brief stint as a Starbucks Barista…who in their right mind orders DECAF coffee?" she stuck her tongue out like the entire idea of decaf anything was sacrilege.

"I've reversed the jelly baby of the neutron flow…" the Ganger Doctor seemed to be wheezing now, worn out and tired of the pain, using the Ganger Detective as a prop to rest back against her too, "Would you like a..." he jerked forward to grab the Doctor's coat, sending the Ganger Detective flailing and falling onto her back and yanking the Doctor forward, jostling the Detective away from him, "Doctor...Doctor...I'm...I'm the...I can't."

"No," the Doctor gripped his elbows, urging him, "Listen, hold on. Hold on!"

"Hold on!" the Ganger Detective called out, still lying on the floor though she flopped onto her stomach, before fake sobbing and reaching out, "I'll never let go, Jack! I'll never let go, I promise!"

"What?" the Doctor rounded on his Detective as she moved to help her Ganger up, "You said you hadn't met Captain Jack yet!" he very much would have liked to be there for that, both to ward off Jack and then prescribe him some migraine medicines for once the Detective got going.

...actually maybe they should stop there after this, pop in to see Jack, if just to see the look on the man's face when he realized the Detective was more than a match for him, MUCH more. It took a special kind of Time Lord...man...person, to be able to handle the Detective. He'd only ever met one other besides himself outside her family.

The Detective rolled her eyes, holding out a hand to her Ganger and yanking her up, "It's from a movie, you dolt."

"Noooo!" the Ganger Doctor cried out, shoving the Doctor away, right into the Detectives, the three nearly toppling over, but catching themselves, "Aaaagh!"

"Ooh, god," the Ganger Detective winced, rubbing the side of her face, turning to bury it in the Doctor's chest as he instinctively wound an arm around her shoulders in comfort, "If it wouldn't kill us dead, I'd really go for an aspirin right now…blimey…"

The Detective pouted at the display and moved over to the Ganger Doctor, ducking down some to nudge her head through his arm and straightening so his arm was around her shoulder. She stuck her tongue out at the Doctor who rolled his eyes at her antics, though he had a smile on his face, pleased to see her treating his Ganger just like him.

"Doctor, we need you," Amy called, hurrying over to the Time Lords while the humans kept trying to barricade the doors, seeing that the Gangers had calmed down a bit, "Get over here!"

"Hello!" the Ganger Doctor called, beaming at her, his face fully formed now.

"Doctor!"

"Is that it, then?" the Detective glanced over at herself, where her Ganger was currently poking her own face, fully-formed also, now having turned in the Doctor's arm to rest against his chest. She sighed at having to step away from the Ganger Doctor to investigate herself, walking over to the woman, both of them tilting their heads in opposite directions, before they reached out to poke each other.

"Oh, this is cool," they both muttered, grinning and starting to squeeze cheeks and tweak noses, the Doctor chuckling at the sight and moving to his Ganger as well.

"Cybermats," the Doctor said to his Ganger instead, curious just how far the knowledge went and trying to pick lesser known enemies, less common ones, to test that.

"Do we have time for this?" his Ganger countered.

"We make time. I'd like more proof that you're me."

The Detectives snorted, "We're fine with it," they said, their arms around each other's shoulders.

"Cybermats?" the Doctor repeated, ignoring them.

His Ganger sighed, "Created by the Cybermen. Kill by feeding off brainwaves."

The Time Lords all looked over, hearing a hissing noise sounding from the door, smoke starting to rise from it and realized the other Gangers were trying to use acid to eat through the lock.

"Rory and Amy may not trust all of us," the Ganger Doctor stated, sensing his original self had accepted him.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Inevitably."

"I'm glad we're on the same..."

"Wavelength. You see, great minds…"

"Exactly."

The Detectives shook their heads at that, "Our plan is much better," the original Detective told them.

"How so?" the Doctors asked as one.

The Ganger Detective grinned, "Wait and see."

"So, what's the plan?" the original Doctor asked them all.

"Save them all, humans and Gangers," his Ganger answered, even as the Detectives threw their hands in the air to answer themselves.

"Oh," the original Detective lowered her hand.

"Got that wrong," her Ganger agreed, taking her hand down too.

"Were you thinking we…"

"Oh, yes, that pasta was delicious!"

"Trip to Italy after this?"

"Perfetto!"

"Sounds wonderful," the Doctor chuckled.

"AFTER we save them," his Ganger reminded.

"Doctor, come on!" Amy snapped, trying to get them to help.

"So, what now, Doctor?" the Ganger Doctor asked.

"Well, time to get cracking, Doctor," the original beamed.

The original Detective grinned as the Doctors headed for the humans, "This is going to be…"

"Absolutely mad," her Ganger beamed, the two of them high-fiving before they followed.

"Hello!" both Doctors called out, "Sorry..."

"But we had to establish a few..." the Ganger began.

Only for the original to finish, "Ground rules."

The Detectives exchanged a look when they saw Amy glance down at the Doctors' feet, how the original was wearing brown replacement shoes and the Ganger black ones.

"See, this is why…" the original Detective started.

"Our plan is going to be so much cooler," her Ganger agreed.

"Formulate a..." the Ganger Doctor continued, not hearing them.

"Protocol," the Doctor cheered.

"Protocol. Very posh."

"A protocol between us. Otherwise..."

"It gets horribly embarrassing."

"And potentially confusing."

"I'm glad you've solved the problem of confusing," Amy deadpanned.

"Ooh, sarcasm," the original Detective giggled, moving to Amy's left side.

"We like that," her Ganger joined her on Amy's other side.

"Maybe we should make her Thing 1 again instead?"

"Hmmm, not sure, let's see how it goes."

Amy nearly jumped out of her skin, when all four Time Lords suddenly shouted, "Breathe!" at her.

"What?" she blinked.

But the Time Lords just went about their business as though they hadn't said a word, "We have to get you off this island," the Ganger Doctor stated.

"And go to Italy," the Ganger Detective agreed.

"And the Gangers too," the original Doctor amended.

"And THEN we go to Italy," the original Detective added.

"Sorry," Cleaves cut in, "Would you like a memo from the last meeting? They're trying to kill us!"

"Well, of course they are," the Ganger Detective rolled her eyes, getting that much off the Flesh she was made of.

"Didn't YOU kill one of them?" the original reminded her.

"Did she? Well, that was rude."

"I know, hard to work out why they might want to kill her back, isn't it?"

"They're scared," the Ganger Doctor tried to make it a little less threatening.

"Doctor, we're trapped in here," Amy reminded them.

"Oh, we're not trapped," the original Detective reassured her, putting an arm around Amy's shoulder.

Her Ganger mimicked the move, "We're…" she waved her hand in front of her as though she were gesturing to large writing in the air, "Inconveniently Circumstanced."

"I don't think we are," the original Doctor countered, "The Flesh Bowl is fed by cabling from above…"

"But where are the earthing conduits?" his Ganger agreed.

"Just ruin our fun," the Ganger Detective huffed.

"Spoilsport," the original crossed her arms, the Ganger mimicking her.

The original Doctor shook his head at them, "All this piping must go down into a tunnel or a shaft or something, yes?" he looked around, spotting some paneling on the wall, "With us?" he called, hurrying over to it and pulling it off to reveal a grate for a ventilation shaft behind it, "Yowza! An escape route!" he chuckled, pleased, "You know, I'm starting to get a sense of just how impressive it is to hang out with me."

"Do we tend to say 'yowza?'" his Ganger asked.

"If not, you should," the original Detective giggled.

"Or else we will," her Ganger agreed.

"That's enough, let it go, ok?" the original Doctor huffed, "We're under stress."

His Ganger shook his head, reaching out to help him break the grate off the wall, the two of them ushering the humans and the Detectives in first, before following, managing to get the grate back on just as the door was thrown open and the Gangers stormed in.

The original Doctor quickly moved to sonic the grate in place, keeping the others from following even as they caught sight of them escaping.

~8~

The Doctor and his Ganger had to shake their heads as they watched the Detectives skipping ahead of the group…literally skipping, their arms linked together, and he was fairly certain they were humming 'We're off to see the Wizard' as they went. He really had forgotten just how mad she could be. If the Master hadn't been so completely evil, he imagined the man would have been much the same way. He had a theory going once, wrote a book on it, just based off of the Master and the Detective for how the madness created by the Untempered Schism could affect people, in 1 of 2 ways. Either the madness led them to be a sort of criminal mastermind or led them to be an eccentric genius.

He'd even gone into detail about how the madness in children presented, how it was an indication of what the child might grow up to be. The Master had seemed fairly normal, if a bit odd, after his initiation. It was only as he grew older, as the years went on, that his madness began to manifest more and more. The Detective, on the other hand, had been...well, it broke his hearts to see her after her initiation. She...she hadn't been in a good way. She'd gotten better over the years, with a lot of help from him and the Master, warding off whispers, breaking noses when people got too vicious, standing by her and helping as much as they could to help her cope. Her initial madness had been blatant and obvious and encompassing, not quite easing as she grew but becoming manageable with effort. He was sure that many others who went mad at the Schism and grew the way the Detective had worked harder to manage it, to seem normal to others, perhaps a bit odd but not overwhelmingly.

It was because of the Master, he thought, that the Detective didn't work as hard to cover it up.

Most children would naturally form a trio, triumvirates as they called them on Gallifrey. They would gravitate in groups of threes, one from those who were Inspired, one who Ran, and one who went Mad, they would join together, balance each other, help each other heal and grow and handle what the Schism had done to them. She and the Master had both gone mad, but they had all been friends before it happened and refused to be separated, their triumvirate was skewed and unbalanced, which...now that he thought about it, likely explained why each of them had such extreme variations of their affects. He'd taken the 'run away' part literally, running from the planet itself. The Master had gone off the deep-end for sure, and the Detective wasn't quite all there in a noticeable way.

Still, for as much grief as the Master would come to cause him later in their lives, he wouldn't give up the friendship they'd all had for anything, he knew the Detective wouldn't either.

"The army will send a recon team," Buzzer was speaking behind them as they walked on, pulling his thoughts back to the immediate danger.

"We need to contact the mainland," Cleaves reminded him, if they didn't send out some sort of distress, the army would have no reason to send anything.

"What about Rory and Jen?" Amy asked, "They are both out there."

"Takes a long time to find someone in a maze," the original Doctor spoke.

"Not always," the original Detective called back, "You could just blast through the walls till you get to the other side."

"And what happens if you blast through the person you're trying to find?" the Ganger Doctor pointed out.

The Ganger Detective snorted, "They'd probably go, 'Ow! You shot me!'"

"Well," the original Detective considered it, "If they're still alive after being shot and-or crushed by a wall."

"They could be ghosting," her Ganger reminded, neither of them seeing the humans growing more disturbed by their casual remarks on shooting someone.

"I bet you lot have got a computer map," the Ganger Doctor glanced at the humans, hoping to distract them from that.

"If we can get power running, we can scan for them," Cleaves agreed, starting to cough only a moment before the others did too.

"Doctor, you said earlier to breathe," Amy gagged.

"Very important, Pond," the original Doctor nodded, "Breathe."

"Yeah, I'm struggling to."

"Wow, humans DO have such weak lungs, don't they?" the original Detective turned to ask her Ganger.

"Appears so," she nodded.

The original Doctor scanned around with the sonic, "Acid interacting with the stone…"

"Creating an asphyxiant miasma," his Ganger realized.

"A what?" Cleaves struggled to get the word out.

"Choky gas," the original Detective clarified.

"Extra heavy by the looks of it," her Ganger commented, eyeing the humans.

"If we can get above it..." the Ganger Doctor called.

"The evac tower," Cleaves shouted, "This way!" before she turned to lead the way to the tower, trying not to breathe or to hold her breath long enough to get them there and safe.

Thankfully they all made it, the humans stumbling into the tower, hacking and gagging and gasping for air. The Doctors, even, appeared to have a little cough to them, though the Detectives appeared remarkably unaffected.

"Oh, that's just not fair," the original Doctor muttered, seeing the two women wander in at ease.

The original Detective snorted, "After surviving you and the Master at odds?" she reminded him.

"And that one period where you both used that weird food to try and cause an internal blitzkrieg with your lower intestines playing the parts of Czechoslovakia?" her Ganger added, crossing her arms to give them a look.

"Yes, that was, quite frankly, more rank than a Raxacoricofallapatorian."

"Our nose can handle anything, thank you very much."

"Oi!" the Ganger Doctor pouted, "Stop it," he whispered, glancing at the humans, who couldn't be bothered to pay attention to their talk of flatulence anyway, not that they would even really know given he doubted any of them knew what a Raxacoricofallapatorian was.

"Ohh!" Amy groaned, rubbing her back, "I think I coughed so hard, I pulled a muscle or something."

"It's ok, it's easing off," the Doctor hurriedly soniced the others to check on them as they moved to the control panels.

"Power's off here too," Cleaves huffed, she'd been hoping that room might have been spared.

"Let us have a look," the Doctors spoke, moving to check the panel, the original Doctor taking the front while his Ganger moved to the back.

"No!" they both shouted at the Detectives when they moved to join them.

The girls held their hands up, huffing, "We can HELP."

The original Doctor snorted, "Last time you 'helped' you caused a power outage through the whole of the Academy."

"Don't forget the time she blew the fuses across the Citadel," his Ganger popped up from the back to remind him of that one too.

The Detectives just crossed their arms and pouted.

The humans looked up as a bell chimed out, causing Jimmy to smile, "It's midnight. It's Adam's birthday. My son's five. Happy birthday, bud."

"Doctor," the Ganger popped up, "Bit of a mess back here."

"On my way, Doctor," the original Doctor agreed, hurrying back behind the console with the man.

The Detectives glanced at each other and rolled their eyes, already working out what the Doctors had planned to do, because they planned to do the same thing.

Switch.

While the humans were so distracted and with the Doctors hidden behind, there was nothing to stop them swapping shoes to pull one over on the humans. If there was ever a way to make someone face their own hypocrisy it would be this.

THEY had a much cleverer plan for when their own switch came about, they were just biding their time.

"Can you really get the power back?" Cleaves asked the men.

"There's always some power floating around," one Doctor popped up on the right.

And another popped up on the left just as the first ducked down, "Sticking to the wires, like bits of lint."

"Can you stop finishing each other's..." Amy began.

"Sandwiches?" the Detectives guessed, only for that Doctor and Amy so send them an odd look for it.

"Sentences?" that Doctor tried instead, chuckling at the Detectives, before pointing at Amy, "No probs."

"Yes," the first one agreed, popping up before they both ducked down again.

"Hang on," Amy frowned, "You said that the TARDIS was stuck in acid, so won't she be damaged?"

"A TARDIS?" the original Detective scoffed.

"Done in by ACID?" her Ganger similarly sounded.

"We would have been shite in the war if that was all the Daleks needed."

"No, acid won't even scratch her."

"She's a tough old thing," one of the Doctors agreed, "Tough, old, sexy."

"No," the other countered, "Tough, dependable, sexy."

Amy rolled her eyes, rubbing her forehead, starting to feel a migraine forming at having four Time Lords in the room, "Come on. Ok, how can...how can you all be real?" she looked at them all.

"Because we are?" the original Detective gave her an odd look.

"How can we be sure YOU are real?" her Ganger eyed the humans suspiciously.

"How do we know anything is real?"

"What if nothing is?"

"What if this is all just a big virtual world?"

"Or a dream…

"Or nightmare…"

"Could be the Matrix..."

"Or this could be the Void."

"What if this is hell?"

The humans had to glance at each other for that, the Detectives both sounded more serious than their questions rightly should have made them.

"Does anyone really know anything?" they both asked.

The Doctors had to chuckle behind them, well that was one way to put it.

"Because...we are," one Doctor spoke, giving a simpler answer, "I'm the Doctor. She's the Detective."

"So am I," the other agreed, "And so is she. We contain the knowledge of a lifetime of experience. We both wear the same bowtie, which is cool."

"Because bowties are..."

"And always will be."

"And we have our super cool trainers," the original Detective grinned, proud.

"Look, they even light up!" her Ganger began to stomp on the ground…but nothing happened.

"What, are they not the light up kind?" the first followed suit, stomping, still nothing.

"Oh, well that's rubbish!"

"Oh, my god," Amy muttered to herself, she was going to kill all of them, wasn't she? She shook her head, "But neither of you were linked up to the Flesh," she pointed out.

"We did touch it though," the original Detective reminded her.

One of the Doctors snapped his fingers and pointed at her, "It must've been after we examined it. Thus, a new, genuine Doctor and Detective were created."

"Ta-Da," the Ganger Detective and the other Doctor cheered that last bit, though the Detective added jazz-hands for more pizzazz.

"But one of you was here first," Amy continued to push.

The Doctors looked at each other and sighed, "After the Flesh scanned me," one offered, "Sigma and I had an accident with a puddle of acid. Now new shoes, a situation which did not confront me learned self here."

"That satisfy you, Pond?" the second Doctor, implied to be the Ganger, asked.

"Don't call me Pond, please," Amy asked, her nose lifting in the air a bit, which only earned odd looks from the Time Lords, "What?"

"Interesting," the 'Ganger' Doctor observed, "You definitely feel more affection for him than me."

"No, I...look," she sighed, "You're fine and everything, but he is the Doctor. No offense. Being almost the Doctor is pretty damn impressive."

"Being almost the Doctor's like being no Doctor at all."

"Don't overreact."

"You might as well call me...Smith."

"Smith?"

"John Smith."

"Does that mean one of us should have a new name?" the original Detective turned to the other.

"But what would we be?" her Ganger asked, before gesturing to all of herself, "What could encompass all this magnificence?"

"True, very true."

"Shall one of us just be Sigma and the other Detective?"

"You," Amy called out, pointing at the original Detective, "You're Sigma."

"So the original gets a name, then," she observed.

"And the Ganger gets a title," her Ganger realized, the way they used a title and not the name to almost dehumanize or de-Time Lordize the one made of Flesh.

"Hold on," the Detectives called, turning and leaving the room, only to come right back in as soon as the door was shut.

"Which one am I now?" one of the Detectives asked.

Amy blinked, glancing at the humans, who were frowning, and the Doctors, who were grinning, and back, realizing, "I...don't know."

The Detectives grinned.

"Can't cheat and use our shoes," the second one added.

"So I could be 'real' or the Ganger," the first nodded.

"And you would never know, would you?"

"Now…important question."

"Probably THE most important question…"

"Does that mean we can't call you Thing 2?"

"No!" Amy snapped.

"What about if we upgrade you back to Thing 1?" the other tried.

"Still, no."

"Neither of us?" the first confirmed.

"NO!"

They both pouted, "Well that backfired," they muttered, clearly Amy had missed the point. She didn't want to be called Thing 2, yet she was ok calling someone by a title or something not their name just because they were 'Flesh.'

"Doctor, please," Amy turned to him, "Do they have an off switch?"

"Do you happen to have any food on you?" the Doctor asked.

"No."

"Then no," John Smith replied, "Sorry."

"Great."

"I'll be Sigma 1," the Detective on the left put her hand in the air.

"And I'll be Sigma 2," the other Detective added, also raising her hand.

"Fine, whatever," Amy muttered.

"Communication a go-go!" John Smith called out, motioning them over to the console as it began to power up, the two Doctors coming from behind the equipment to help.

"Find Rory!" Amy called out, "Show me the scanny, tracky screen. Come on, Rory, let's be having you."

Cleaves quickly brought up a screen to scan, "There's no sign of him anywhere."

"Come on, baby, show yourself."

Cleaves shook her head, letting the others handle finding Rory, as she pulled up a microphone for their distress signal, "St John's calling. Emergency Alpha. St John's calling the mainland. Are you receiving me, Captain? Come in," she paused, hoping to hear something, but sighed, "We'll never get a signal through this storm," she took a breath and tried again, "St John's calling the mainland. Come in, this is urgent."

"We're just about reading you, St John's," a voice called over a moment later, "How are you doing? We've had all kinds of trouble here."

"Request immediate evacuation. We're under attack. The storm's affected our Gangers. They're running amok."

"…your Gangers?"

"Yes, our Gangers are attacking us. We need you to take us off the island immediately and wipe them out."

The Time Lords glanced at each other uneasily.

"I get the feeling the Master would…" Sigma 1 began.

"LOVE to sit and chat over tea with her?" Sigma 2 answered.

"Yes."

"My thoughts too."

"Copy that, St John's," the rescue team replied, "Shuttle's dispatched. Hang on."

"You'll need to airlift us off the roof of the evac tower," Cleaves warned, "And Captain, any further transmission sent by me must come with the following code word. I'm typing it, in case they're listening in."

Sigma 1 leaned over to observe what she was typing, mouthing 'badboy?' to the others with a lifted eyebrow, earning shrug from Sigma 2.

"Got it. We'll swing in, get you out, and decommission the Flesh."

~8~

The Sigmas were sitting on the small, flat top of the control panel, on either side of it, with the Doctor resting on a chair below, in the middle between them, beside Amy in another chair, fiddling with some controls. John Smith was standing nearby, watching the goings on from across the room, the humans frantically preparing to be evacuated.

"We've got to get out of here," Buzzer was muttering.

Amy frowned, "We're not leaving without them," she insisted.

He sighed and rounded on her, "I want 'em found too, but it's about casualties, innit? Can't be helped."

"What are you doing?" Amy asked the Doctor.

"Making a phone call."

"Who to?"

"He hasn't made it yet," Sigma 1 pointed out, absently kicking her legs as she watched him.

"It's on delay," the Doctor agreed.

In the moment of silence that followed, a light snore rang out. The Time Lords and Amy looked over to see that Sigma 2 had fallen asleep sitting up, her chin drooped down to her chest, driven by boredom of just watching and dozed off.

Amy shook her head and turned back to the Doctor, "Why exactly are you making a phone call?"

"Because, Amy, I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams," he cheered, reaching out to spin her chair and make her laugh, "The wheels are in motion. Done."

"I still say my plan was better," Sigma 1 sighed.

The Doctor chuckled and patted her shoe as it danged near his face, "We are not tying them up and duct taping their mouths shut."

"But it would be so much fun!"

He just shook his head.

Amy glanced at them, eyeing Sigma 1 trying to determine if there was any glimmer of a hint to whether she was real or not, but couldn't find it. She turned her attention then to John Smith across the room, "You know, really, there can be only one."

"One what?" Sigma 1 looked down at her, "One crisp? One love? One Ring to Rule them all?"

Amy gave her an unimpressed look, "Nevermind," she huffed, pushing up and moving around the room to stretch her legs.

"You know she meant one 'real' person, right?" Sigma 1 whispered to him, moving the toe of her foot onto his shoulder to nudge him.

He patted her shoe again, "I did."

"I don't get it," she sighed, "Real or fake, if something is alive, it's alive."

The Doctor opened his mouth to comment, when Amy suddenly jumped back from the wall she was staring at, gasping and startled, "Amy? What happened?"

Amy hurried back over to him, plopping into her chair, "It's her again."

"It's who again?" Sigma 1 frowned at her, glancing at John Smith as he went to investigate the wall himself.

"There's a woman I keep seeing," Amy told them, her fear overriding that she might be telling the Detective's Ganger instead of her, "A woman with an eye-patch, and she has this habit of sliding walls open and staring at me. Doctor?"

"It's nothing," he reassured her.

"Well, it's something," Sigma 1 countered, "It's a woman with an eye patch in a wall."

"I mean it's a time memory," he reached out to lightly grab her foot, giving it a squeeze, giving her a silent request not to say anything about the lie he was telling, "Like a mirage. It's nothing to worry about," he turned back to the console to fiddle about.

"It's in my head..." John Smith murmured across the room, wincing in pain, before he turned to stride out of the room, through the nearest door.

"Hey, hold on!" Jimmy tried to stop him.

"Don't let him go!" Cleaves shouted out.

"On it!" Sigma 1 hopped off the panel and hurried for the door.

"That's not making me feel better," Dicken grumbled.

Amy nodded, agreeing, because they didn't know if Sigma 1 or 2 was the Ganger and they might be teaming up right now, "Leave it to me," she told the other humans, going after the two of them.

The Doctor turned in his chair, making a show of fiddling with the controls, though his gaze subtly moved to Sigma 2, the woman's face scrunched in the same flash of pain John Smith's had been…

~8~

"Ooh, are we in time out?" Sigma 1 asked as she entered the hallway of the tower to see John Smith staring at the wall. She moved beside him and glanced between him and the wall, before staring at the wall too, "If I fall asleep, don't blame me. I didn't even make it two minutes into your experiment of 'how long DOES it take paint to dry?'"

His lip quirked into a small smile, which quickly schooled back into a neutral expression when he heard the door open again and Amy start to speak though neither he nor Sigma 1 turned to face her.

"I'm sorry," Amy began, eyeing the two of them, but she focused on John Smith, "What I said about you being almost the Doctor, it's just really hard, because I've been through so much with him. I've even seen...I've even seen the moment of his..." she trailed off, frowning when Sigma 1's head lulled to the side, onto his shoulder, and the same soft snoring sounded, "Can you die?" she asked, not sure if the woman was genuinely sleeping or pretending, but hoping for the first. This wasn't something she wanted to ask with someone else around, but it was eating away at her, it had been for months now and she couldn't take it any longer. And now, having a Ganger in front of her, someone the Doctor kept claiming was him, then...maybe it wasn't the Doctor she'd seen dying at a lakeside but someone else, another him, "If you really are the same, then you can die. You can be killed, and...I might have seen that happen."

"Why?" John Smith asked.

"Why? Because you invited us to see it. Your death!"

He spun to face her suddenly, jolting Sigma 1 upright, and strode up to her, grabbing her by the shoulders and pushing her against the wall, "Why?"

"You're hurting me!" Amy struggled.

"Apparently, very weak skin too," Sigma 1 remarked, ambling over, "How easy DO humans bruise?" she asked.

But John Smith was too focused on the pain he'd felt moments ago, "It's all the eyes say! Why?! I can feel them as they work each day, knowing the time was coming for them to be thrown away again. 'Not again, please!' And then they are destroyed and they feel death, and all they can say is, 'Why?!'"

Amy managed to yank herself away, running back into the evac tower.

John Smith turned to Sigma 1 when she reached out to pat him on the shoulder, "And you say I'M dramatic," she huffed, shaking her head, before turning to head to the door, "But if you wanted to convince her you're the Ganger, well done."

John Smith could only frown, knowing he'd taken it a bit far with his questions, he hadn't expected it to be as overwhelming as it was, connecting to the Flesh. HE felt it, because the Flesh couldn't. He'd opened his mind wide to keep connected with his Ganger, and he wasn't just feeling that man but ALL the Flesh he now knew was discarded around the factory too. When the others had spoken before, about the Flesh, he'd thought they decommissioned it at the end of its use back into its liquid form...he'd been so, so very wrong.

And it hurt, both the Flesh screaming out at him, and the knowledge of how horrible the humans had been to it.

~8~

"Why?" the Doctor murmured, looking at the door with a frown, feeling what John Smith had, but more muted, more like an echo of it that he only gleamed because he was keeping his mind open to the man.

"Not a question to answer," Sigma 2 spoke, having been woken by the intense jolt of pain she'd felt in her head. The Flesh around the castle was screaming out now that it knew it could be heard, and she'd heard it too. She looked down at the Doctor as he turned to her for her words, his face full of grief as he knew there was pain in the Flesh but couldn't seem to work out the answer to the 'why' part of it. He leaned forward, resting his forehead to her knee as she reached out to run a hand through his hair, "It might make even YOU lose faith in humanity, Theta," she added softly, when he pulled away to look up at her, her hand trailing to his cheek in an offer of comfort.

Amy suddenly burst through the door at that moment, causing them to jerk apart and look over as she shouted out, "Keep him away from me!" and ran straight for the Doctor, standing beside him as though the man could protect her from John Smith as he entered with Sigma 1.

"Did you sense it?" John Smith asked, ignoring the other humans to focus on the other two Time Lords.

"Briefly," he admitted, "Not as strong as you or Sigma 2 here," he patted her foot.

"Oh, again!" Sigma 2 huffed, hopping off the control panel, seeing how the others were looking at her, like she HAD to be the Ganger. The two hers disappearing through the door and back, both looking equally annoyed.

"Happy?" Sigma 1 asked, "Which of us was Sigma 2? Hmm?"

"You know, it really says something that they keep missing the point," Sigma 2 muttered. They had come back in in the same order as they left, the same Sigmas they had been, but the humans didn't need to know that, they just needed to be equally as confused to which was which.

"I know," Sigma 1 sighed, "Theta was always saying how clever they were."

"Humans."

"They never listen."

"Amy," John Smith took a step towards Amy, but she backed away, "I'm sorry."

"No, you keep away!" Amy glared at him, "We can't trust you."

"But he's the Doctor," Sigma 1 remarked.

"He loves to say that, too, 'trust me, I'm the Doctor,'" Sigma 2 agreed.

"What DOES he actually do to get them to trust him though?"

"Beats me, it's like telling kids NOT to go with a stranger just cos he has candy."

"You're not helping," the Doctor shot them a look.

"It would appear I can connect to the Flesh," John Smith spoke to the others.

"Well, you are Flesh," Amy muttered.

"I'm beginning to understand what it needs."

"What YOU want. You are it."

"It's much more powerful than we thought."

The Sigmas glanced at each other, "What?" Sigma 1 looked at Amy.

"No, 'YOU'RE much more powerful than we thought?'" Sigma 2 continued.

John Smith chuckled, but grew serious when he saw the looks the other humans were giving him, "The Flesh can grow, correct?" he asked them, hoping to get them to understand.

"Its cells can divide," Cleaves said simply.

"Up bup," Sigma 1 shook her head, "That's not what you said before."

"You said," Sigma 2 nodded, "And I quote, 'it's even learning to replicate itself at the cellular level' and 'it's no more than how moss grows.'"

John Smith pointed at them, "Now it wants to do that at will. It wants revenge. It's in pain, angry. It wants revenge."

"Sounds like the Master," the Sigmas both said.

"I was right," Amy glared at John Smith, "You're not the Doctor. You can't ever be. You're just a copy."

"Doctor," Cleaves spoke up, "It might be best if you stayed over there for now, hmm?" she nodded to the back wall.

"Hold on a minute," the Doctor stood from his seat, "Hold your horses. I thought I'd explained this. I'm him, he's me."

"We're us, we're each other," the Sigmas agreed.

"Both of you, too," Cleaves added to the Sigmas.

"You know one of us is the original," Sigma 1 pointed out.

"You're going to treat the original like a horrible, nasty old Ganger?" Sigma 2 eyed them.

"What's that say about you?"

"How you treat any person?"

"And if that's how you treat a Ganger…"

"Are you really shocked at how they're treating you?"

"No more philosophics," Cleaves shot them a look, before gesturing to Buzzer, who stepped up, pulling an empty oil drum and shoving it against the wall as a makeshift seat.

"Take a seat, mate," Buzzer glared.

"It's only polite to offer the seat to a lady," John Smith declined, "And you only set up one."

Buzzer rolled his eyes, but brought over another drum, for the two Sigmas to sit down as John Smith stood beside them.

The Doctor shook his head at the sight, "Is this really what you want?" he asked the humans, hoping for that shred of 'the very best of humanity' to shine through…but Amy just crossed her arms, looking coldly over at the three as did the other humans.

~8~

"This is the shuttle," a voice called over the comm. a short while later, "We're right above you, but we can't get low enough. Gamma static could fry our nav-controls. Sit tight. We'll get to you. Just..."

The Doctor, who had been eyeing Cleaves as she sat beside him, rubbing her forehead, clearly in pain, pulled the sonic out and scanned her.

"Hello?" Jimmy hurried over to the comm., "Can you hear me?" but there was static.

"I can't find Rory," Amy huffed, having been set up by the monitors, trying to spot him somewhere, wherever the functioning cameras still were, "I'm going out there."

"We could use the sonic to track him," the Doctor remarked, "Humans and Gangers give off slightly different signals. The sonic can tell the difference."

"Oh, so the sonic knows Gangers are different, so the other Doctor is different."

"So peanuts can kill some people," Sigma 1 called out, not bothering to look up from where she was braiding Sigma 2's hair as the woman sat on the floor, John Smith behind her doing the same for her hair. It was either this or fall asleep again, it was SO boring just sitting there. Though, she got the feeling she was doing it wrong...were braids supposed to look like knots?

"Therefore anyone who makes, sells, or eats a peanut butter sandwich should be burned at the stake," Sigma 2 finished for her.

"You realize, you sound ridiculous."

"And that's why she should stay Thing 2."

"Agree with the sentiment, not the example," John Smith offered them a smile, patting Sigma 1's shoulder when he finished the braid.

"He is the Doctor," the Doctor agreed.

"Not to me," Amy argued, "I can tell."

The Sigmas looked at each other and burst out laughing, "Oh, oh, my god, that is too funny," Sigma 1 gasped for breath, hunching over, her hands now on Sigma 2's shoulders to keep herself from literally falling off her chair with how hard she was laughing.

"SHE thinks she can tell?!" Sigma 2 had to grab at her stomach it hurt so much from such a powerful chuckle.

"A human. A human without any science background."

"Or a sonic, apparently she's a human sonic now."

"I think they're trying to say you sound a bit prejudiced," the Doctor said to Amy, sounding like he'd had a lifetime of experience translating and apologizing for how the Detective came across.

"Nice try," Amy gave the two women a glare as Sigma 1 helped Sigma 2 up to sit on the second barrel once more, turning her nose up a little at their jeering at her and returning her attention to the Doctor, "But I know, ok? We've been through too much. You're my Doctor. End of."

"Hey, there's a camera up!" Buzzer called, as a bit of power was restored to other areas of the castle, "We've got a new visual!"

Amy forgot her argument completely, running for the screen as the Time Lords exchanged a look behind her, she could see Rory and Jen making their way down a hall, "That's Rory and Jennifer!"

"They're heading for the thermostatic room," Cleaves noted.

"Let's go get them!" Amy cheered, though she faltered when the Doctor tossed his sonic to John Smith instead, the man sliding the device into his pocket, "Hang on…"

Cleaves agreed with her, "We can't let him go. Are you crazy?"

"Am I crazy, Doctor?" the Doctor asked him.

John Smith quickly reached out both arms around the Sigmas shoulders, wrapping around so he could cover their mouths with his hands, REALLY not wanting to know what they'd say, the humans still had to trust him a little, human or Ganger him, "Well, you did once plumb your brain into the core of an entire planet just to halt its orbit and win a bet."

Both Sigmas started trying to speak past his hand, clearly on a rant about the OTHER mad things he'd done in his long life.

He blamed the Master for at least 34 percent of it…and the Detective for another 33.

He really wasn't THAT bad on his own!

"He can't go rescue them," Amy argued, ignoring the Time Ladies for now, "I'M going."

"Do you know, I want him to go," the Doctor stood to look Amy in the eye, "And I'm rather adamant."

"Well, then, he'll need company, right, boss?" Buzzer offered when John Smith finally released the pouting Sigmas.

Cleaves sighed, rubbing her head, "Take one of them with you too," she nodded at the two identical women, "I don't think I can handle both of them here much longer."

Buzzer nodded, "It's fine. I'll handle it."

"I'll go!" both Sigmas threw their hands in the air. Before mock-glaring at each other, and then launching into a game of rock, paper, scissors, to determine who it should be…only to keep giving the same object the other did.

"You!" Amy snapped, pointing at Sigma 1, "Just…GO already!"

Sigma 2 huffed and crossed her arms, "Maybe we should downgrade her to Thing 3," she muttered under her breath.

"Ha ha, sucker!" Sigma 1 cheered, hopping off the barrel and following Buzzer to the door.

John Smith snapped his finger and pointed at the others, "It'll be alright," he promised Amy, "I'll find him."

"I can't explain it to you now," the Doctor turned to Amy once the door was shut, "But I need you to trust him, to trust the Detectives, too. Can you do that for me, Amy?"

"And what if you're wrong?" Amy crossed her arms.

"Then he's wrong?" Sigma 2 called over, now lying back across the two barrels with her legs dangling off one of them, staring at the ceiling, "I don't know why people keep asking that. If someone isn't right they're wrong, or their not wrong."

"What?" Amy shook her head at her.

"Like…if you ask someone 'guess what I did before I went to work this morning,'" she offered, "And they said 'slept.' That's not what you meant, cos you meant 'ate breakfast,' but they're also not wrong because you WERE sleeping before you went to work."

Amy shook her head, turning to the Doctor, but he was just smiling softly at the Time Lady.

"Madness," Sigma 2 spoke, "Makes you look at the world different."

Cleaves scoffed, "Well what I'm looking at isn't good," she called over, "These temperature gauges are rising. Jennifer and Rory must have shut off the underground cooling vents."

"Why do that?" Dicken frowned, "They'll kill us."

"There's a million gallons of boiling acid under our feet..."

"And now it's heating up the whole island," the Doctor realized.

"How long till it blows?!"

Amy shot Sigma 2 a look for that, the Time Lady should NOT sound so excited for the prospect of an explosion.

And, just as the thought hit her, the sound of an explosion going off reached them, causing the room to shake. Sigma 2 let out a small squeak as the sudden jolting disrupted her balance and sent her falling off the barrel, before scrambling back to her feet with her hood having fallen onto her head.

"I'm ok!" the Time Lady announced as she threw her hood back down with a flourish.

"Gangers or no Gangers, we need to get the hell out of here!" Dicken shouted.

"Shuttle!" Cleaves ran to the microphone, "We need evac! Where are you? Can you hear me? Can you..." she winced, her hand flying to her forehead as a stinging pain shot through it.

"Cleaves?" the Doctor ran over, "Cleaves, sit down," he quickly moved to help her sit while Sigma 2 casually moved over to the comms. fiddling with them now that the Doctor was distracted.

"I'm fine. I'm waiting for results, so let it go."

"It's a very deep parietal clot," the Doctor warned her.

"Inoperable?"

"On Earth, yes."

"Well, seeing as Earth is all that's on...offer...hmm," she fell silent a moment, thinking about it, not noticing the Doctor reach out without looking to grab Sigma 2's arm as it shot into the air to lower it back down.

'You are NOT operating on a human brain in the middle of a factory that's about to explode in an acid bubble,' he half-scolded the Time Lady in her mind.

'I was NOT going to offer that,' she grumbled back, letting him keep hold of her hand if just to ensure he wouldn't notice her trying to subtly put the scalpel she'd pulled out of her pocket back into it, 'I was going to ask if she preferred anesthesia.'

He shot her a narrow eyed look for that, not needing to have a connection to her mind to know she was only going to ask that because, if the answer was no, THEN she would offer to perform the operation herself...despite not having a medical degree at all.

'I do SO have one!' she reminded him, seeing that comment in his mind.

'Yes, from 1893,' he gave her a look, 'A lot's changed since then.'

"I'm no healthy spring chicken," Cleaves continued, unware of their silent debate, "And you're no weatherman. Right?"

"The Doctor," Sigma 2 reminded her, "And the Detective. Theta Sigma. Why do people keep thinking weatherman? When did we ever say we were weathermen?" Yes, they may have let the woman assume and not corrected her at first, but that still wasn't them SAYING it.

The room shook again.

"Something just cracked," Amy warned them, "I heard it."

"Wasn't me!" Sigma 2 shouted, "What?" she added when Amy shot a look at her, "My back cracks very loudly, apparently."

"We can't stay here, let's go," the Doctor called out, hurrying for the door, tugging Sigma 2 with him as he went by the hand he was still holding.

"Let's shift!" Jimmy agreed, ushering Dicken towards it.

But Cleaves tried the comm. again, "Cleaves to Shuttle. We need to move, and we can't be collected from the evac tower."

"Give us the codeword," a voice finally came through.

"The codeword is..."

Only for another quake to cause the console to spark, shorting out the comms.

"Come on!" Sigma 2 reached out to grab the woman as she jumped back, hauling her towards the doors, "The comms. are dead. Let it go!"

"We need to get out of here," the Doctor helped, grabbing Cleaves' other arm as the woman struggled in Sigma 2's hold, "We need to get back downstairs and get those vents back on, come on!"

~8~

Sigma 1 and John Smith walked along the halls of the castle, shining a torch light and sonicing respectively as they went, Buzzer following behind, silent and ominous, a torch in hand too.

"I'm getting something!" John Smith called out.

"Is it human?" Buzzer asked.

He rolled his eyes, "Yeah, it's human, but it's fading. It's fading. This is bad. Fading is very..."

"Bad?" Sigma 1 offered.

They turned a corner and stopped short, spotting Jennifer lying on the ground a few feet away.

"The signal's gone," John Smith breathed, rushing over to the prone form with Buzzer, Sigma 1 a bit behind, "She's...dead," he confirmed, reaching out to press his fingers to her neck, "She was hanging onto the edge of life and she just...just slipped away. Oh, Jennifer, I'm so sorry. She's been out here for hours."

Buzzer frowned, "But if the real Jen's been lying out here..."

John Smith nodded, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead, "Rory's in trouble," he said.

He stiffened a moment later, hearing a whistle of wind, a metallic thunk, and then a thump. He looked up to see Buzzer on the ground, with Sigma 1 standing behind him, a…shovel resting on her shoulder.

"Did you just hit him with a shovel!?" he hopped to his feet, rushing to check on Buzzer.

"I did," she nodded.

"WHY would you do that?"

"He was about to clock you unconscious with the torch," she shrugged, "So I hit him first."

"Where did you even GET a shovel?" he huffed, turning to her, Buzzer clearly knocked out.

Sigma 1 just blinked at him, "Pockets."

It struck him, no pun intended, and not for the first time, just why the Master had been friends with her too.

~8~

Cleaves took lead in the hall, guiding the group to the thermostatic chamber as fast as she could. The Doctor was right, if they could get the vents open, they might be able to save everyone, or at least buy themselves some time.

"That is both disgusting and absolutely wicked," Sigma 2 spoke as they turned a corner to see eyes, made of Flesh, staring at them from the walls.

"The eyes have it," the Doctor agreed, reaching out to grab her wrist to stop her from poking one with her stick.

"Why are they here?" Amy grimaced.

"Maybe someone wants to play a very extreme game of I Spy," Sigma 2 shrugged.

"To accuse us?" the Doctor offered.

"Ignore them," Cleaves cut in, continuing on, they didn't have the time to debate this, "It's not far. Just down the hall…" she led them over to a door at the end, shoving it open and bolting in, heading right for the controls.

The Doctor rushed to help her. Even with the sonic it quickly became apparent to him that there was no way this would work, "It's a chemical chain reaction now. I can't stop it. This place is going to blow sky high."

"Exactly how long have we got?" Cleaves turned to him, alarmed.

"An hour?" he guessed, at the same time Sigma 2 called out, "Five seconds!"

He winced, because she was actually right. There was no telling how long they had, "Somewhere in between?"

Another explosion went off, this time sounding a klaxon, causing the machinery around them to hiss.

"Out!" the Doctor shouted, pushing them towards a second door, Amy in the lead, the group running down the tunnel just outside it, and nearly crashing into Rory!

"Thing 1!" Sigma 2 cheered at the sight of him.

Rory gave her an odd look, before turning to Amy, "Alright?"

"Oh, Rory!" Amy threw herself at him, hugging him tightly, "Oh, Rory."

"There's a way out," Rory told them, "Jennifer found it. A secret tunnel under the crypt."

"From the crypt?" Cleaves frowned at the mention, "It's not on the schematics…"

"It runs right out of the monastery," Rory insisted, "Maybe even under the TARDIS. Follow me."

The Doctor and Sigma 2 hesitated to follow him, even though Amy and the humans rushed on.

"What do you think?" he asked her quietly.

"Love a crypt," she shrugged, "And a secret tunnel. And even if it's not…they've run off."

He sighed, but nodded, the humans had already gone after him, they couldn't abandon them now.

~8~

John Smith and Sigma 1 walked cautiously on, having tucked Buzzer away, near Jennifer, to return to once they'd found Rory. They would need his help to carry the man and Jennifer's body back to the others.

They stilled for a second time, when they came across the sight of discarded, misshapen, Flesh…just thrown about the floor like garbage.

"I know I'm not always right here," Sigma 1 murmured, tapping her head, "But even I wouldn't do that."

"This is how they'll always treat us," Cleaves spoke behind them, and they turned to see her Ganger standing there with Dicken and Jimmy's Gangers, "Do you see now? After all, you're one of us…" she eyed Sigma 1, "Aren't you?"

"Well they let her go with me," John Smith pointed out, though he didn't confirm or deny their statement.

Ganger Cleaves just smirked.

~8~

Cleaves led the way down the halls of the castle, guiding the group to the Acid Room as Rory instructed.

"We can't leave without Buzzer," Jimmy argued.

"I'll go back for him," Cleaves began, moving to grab a torch.

Rory stood near the doorway, "Um, look...I'd better tell you, I haven't been quite straight with you..." he started, only to be yanked back out of the doorway.

Jennifer, likely her Ganger, appeared and reached out, slamming the door shut, a lock clicking into place, trapping them in the room.

"Rory!" the Doctor shouted as he and Cleaves rushed to try and open the door.

Sigma 2 sighed, more put out about something else than being trapped, "No secret passage, figures."

"Rory Pond!" the Doctor continued to yell, "Roranicus Pondicus!"

"Rory!" Amy joined him, calling through the door, "What the hell are you playing at?"

"They've been throwing away old Flesh and leaving it to rot, alive!" Rory yelled through the thick door, "I think the world should see that."

"Rory, there is no time!" the Doctor tried to get through to him.

"Yeah, Thing 1," Sigma 2 'tried' to help, "This factory's about to explode!" she moved on her tip toes to look out the tiny window in the door, to see Ganger Jennifer grabbing his arms, trying to pull Rory away.

"Let me go..." Rory struggled, but for such a small girl, she was quite strong, "I'm sorry!" Rory shouted back to them as he was dragged away.

Ganger Cleaves appeared in the window, "We have to be free," she told them.

"I'm sorry too, Miranda," Cleaves spoke to her double, "Of all the humans in the world, you had to pick the one with the clot," she tapped her head, "But hey, them's the breaks. Welcome to the human race."

Ganger Cleaves frowned as she eyed her, before turning to walk away.

"We're trapped!" Dicken exclaimed.

Sigma 2 looked at them, "We're in an acid room…can't we just use acid to eat the lock?"

The Doctor pointed at her like he was going to counter that, before turning to the vat of acid and scanning it with his own sonic, the device having been duplicated by the Flesh, "This is going to overheat and fill the room with acid, just as a point of interest," he muttered, not liking the results.

"So it WOULD eat the door."

"And all of us," Amy pointed out.

"And we can't stop it?" Cleaves looked frantic.

"Just as a point of interest?" the Doctor rubbed his forehead, "No."

Amy shot Sigma 2 a look, "How's this for 'inconveniently circumstanced?'" she nearly spat.

Sigma 2, however, just shrugged, "Honestly, not the worst I've ever been."

~8~

John Smith and Sigma 1 watched on, silent, as Rory got into a row with Ganger Jennifer in the middle of the dining hall. He was shouting all sorts of things, with a good point to them, but Ganger Jennifer was clearly too self-righteous and delusional to be reasoned with, at least in Sigma 1's opinion. The woman wouldn't even let her raid the fridge again! How rude.

"You created another Ganger just to trick me," Rory accused Ganger Jennifer, who didn't deny it, "You tricked me. When I found you, you were both Flesh and you tricked me into trusting you! Jen's dead, isn't she?"

"Yeah," Sigma 1 nodded, standing beside John Smith, his arm thrown over her shoulder, both of them the picture of calm, "We passed the original's body on the way here."

John Smith winced, "Tact, Sigma, work on it," he reminded her, tapping her nose with his other hand.

She rolled her eyes, "He's as good as killed his own wife, Theta," she poked him in the side in retaliation, "I don't think anyone has time for tact right now."

"Shuttle," a comm. crackled to life across the room, "We're dropping down on our approach. Stand by for evac."

"The humans will be melted, as they deserve," Ganger Jennifer smirked, "And then the factory will be destroyed. Once we get to the mainland, the real battle begins. The humans won't stand a…" she trailed off, hearing a crunching noise and turned to see Sigma 1 munching on something, a bag in her hand.

"Oh, sorry," the Time Lady blinked, "I'd offer you some, but you're nuts enough already," she bobbed the bag of mixed nuts in her hand, before tossing a handful into her mouth, "Sorry, you were saying? I'm sure it was more interesting than boring talks of revolutions and genocide and what not...continue."

"Ring, ring," John Smith said instead, not letting Ganger Jennifer answer.

~8~

Dicken struggled to lower the cap over the vat of acid, trying to lock it down, buy them some time.

"It'll never hold her," Jimmy warned, rushing to help.

"If you have a better plan, I'm all ears," the Doctor huffed, "In fact, if you have a better plan, I'll take you to a planet where EVERYONE is all ears."

Sigma 2 grimaced, "I prefer the planet where the doggies have no noses."

The cap slammed shut.

~8~

"Is he alright?" Rory asked, eyeing John Smith oddly.

"Ring, ring!" the man called again.

"Is that some sort of phone version of a knock, knock joke?" Sigma 1 asked, "Who's there?"

~8~

Cleaves shook her head as she watched the vat of acid closely, "The acid's eating through," she warned, moments before the building shook again.

~8~

John Smith pointed at Sigma 1 for her guess, stepping away right as a phone literally started to ring, "Ah, that'll be the phone. Somebody get the phone. Jimmy, get the phone. No? Fine, I'll get the phone. Stay put," he moved over to the phone and flicked the sonic at it, creating a hologram of the call…a young boy in his pajamas appearing in the middle of the room.

"Thank you for booking your holo-call with Morpeth Jet..." an operator began.

But John Smith cut it off, "Ha! Hello, Adam, I'm the Doctor. Well, Other Doctor. Call me Theta," he offered, turning to send a wink to Sigma 1 who gave him two thumbs up, and back to the boy, ignoring Ganger Jimmy's stunned expression, "It's complicated and boring. Anyway, who cares, it's your birthday!"

"Yay!" Adam beamed, letting out a whooping cheer.

"Yay! Now, have you been getting up very early and jumping on the bed?"

"Yes, really high!"

"Ask for some chocolate for breakfast," Sigma 1 wandered over, "If you're not feeling sick before lunch, you didn't eat enough."

"Now, I think you want to speak to Dad!" John Smith turned to look at Jimmy's Ganger.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" Adam wiggled, "Daddy?"

Sigma 1 eyed the Ganger, "I guess you'll have to do," she remarked, "You're the same dad, why would he need the other one?"

"What does the other Jimmy matter now?" John Smith agreed, "Come on, Adam's waiting."

"Daddy?" Adam called out, frowning when he was able to hear the quake that struck the room even over the phone, "Daddy, what's that rumbly noise? What's going on, Daddy? Daddy?"

Sigma 1 smirked as Jimmy's Ganger turned and fled the room, spinning on her heel to go stand by Adam, "Your dad had to go get something," she told him, "He'll be right back, gonna put you on hold ok?"

"Ok," the boy nodded.

"Let me know if the music is good, it's always such rubbish…" she muttered, turning to the phone and pressing the hold, freezing the hologram.

"You've tricked him into an act of weakness!" Ganger Jennifer sneered at them.

"No," John Smith shook his head, "We've helped him into an act of humanity. Anyone else like the sound of that? Act of humanity."

Ganger Cleaves nodded, "Dicken, drain the acid well in crypt one."

Ganger Jennifer glared as the man immediately moved to do so, "Don't you dare!"

"Ooh, I'm sorry, are YOU in charge here?" Sigma 1 snorted, "I thought stick-in-the-mud over there was the foreman."

Ganger Cleaves had to agree, choosing to ignore the slight name-call at the end, "I've had it with this! What's the point in this ridiculous war? Look at you, Jen. You were a sweet kid. Look at you now. Stuff of nightmares. I don't want my world populated by monsters."

"You can't stop the factory from melting down, boss," Ganger Jennifer spat the last word, "I'll take revenge on humanity, just like I did Buzzer, with or without you."

"It doesn't have to be about revenge," John Smith tried to reason, flinching at the mention of Buzzer, realizing Ganger Jen, at some point, had found where they'd left him and finished him off, "It can be so much better than that."

Sigma 1 let out a low whistle as the woman ran out of the room, "And I thought the Master had a temper. Toddlers, the lot of them."

"Says the woman who throws a fit if she can't have ice cream after eating a meal, ANY meal."

"Ice cream is one of the essential food groups, why shouldn't you be able to eat it after the most important meal of the day?" Sigma 1 stuck her nose in the air playfully, the two of them settling down with Ganger Cleaves to wait for the others to get back.

~8~

In the acid room, Jimmy was struggling to keep the lid on the vat of acid, the Doctor and Sigma 2 trying their best to get the computers back up to help him. Well, the Doctor was, Sigma 2 was more hitting random buttons and trying to avoid the Doctor as he attempted to slap her hands away from the bad buttons. But they weren't fast enough, a slash of acid escaped and struck Jimmy in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground with a gasp, just as the door to the room burst open and his Ganger ran in.

"Let me through!" the Ganger shouted, rushing to Jimmy's side, nearly pushing Cleaves and Dicken aside to reach him. The only person he let near was the Doctor who scanned him with the sonic.

"There's nothing we can do," he said, giving the Ganger and Jimmy a sorrowful look, "The acid's reached his heart," he stood when he felt a hand on his shoulder, stepping back to give the two a moment of privacy, taking Sigma 2's hand as she tried to comfort him.

"Hang in there, mate," Ganger Jimmy pleaded.

"I'm quite handsome from this angle," Jimmy spoke, trying to keep it light. He wasn't a violent man, he never had been, he was also a father, and seeing anyone in pain or upset got to him and made him want to fix it.

"I'm...sorry. I'm the fake. Adam deserves his real dad."

"Shut up."

"What do you want me to do? Anything, just say."

"The way things are, mate..." Jimmy winced, reaching to a cord around his neck, "It's up to you now," and tugged on it, pressing it into his Ganger's hands, "Be a dad. You remember how…"

They could only look on sadly as Jimmy's eyes closed with is last breath, having passed his wedding bands to his Ganger.

"Would now be an appropriate time to say 'it's a boy?'" Sigma 2 whispered, quite loudly, to the Doctor, "That's what humans say when they become parents, right?"

The Doctor could only shake his head at her, "We need to go," he reminded them, agonized over what happened, but needing to save the ones who remained.

~8~

Sigma 1 had her tongue poking out as she sat at the end of the table in the dining hall, working on rebuilding the house of cards Buzzer had once started, John Smith, Rory, and Ganger Cleaves behind her, Adam's hologram still paused. The sudden stomping of boots startled her and sent the cards scattering everywhere, the house demolished.

"What rubbish!" she muttered, turning to see Ganger Jimmy rush into the room with the others. Rory went right to his wife's side, while Cleaves moved to her Ganger to speak to her. Jimmy took one look at the frozen hologram and rushed to the phone, taking it off of hold.

"Daddy!" Adam cheered, seeming to be mid-jumping on the bed, before he hopped down to talk to his father, "It's me!"

"Hey, sunshine!" the Ganger gave a nervous laugh, "What are you up to?"

"Opening all my presents."

"Ha ha, good lad. You have fun today. And remember, your dad...he loves you very, very much."

Sigma 1 looked over at the small group, the other her dragging a finger under her neck to let her know the other Jimmy had died somehow.

"When are you coming home?" Adam asked.

John Smith walked over and clapped Jimmy on the back, "Daddy's coming home today, Adam!"

"Yay!" the boy cheered, starting to do a funny dance, making Jimmy smile.

"Now," the Doctor called out from the doorway, "We need to move," he nodded to the hall, before dashing out of it, leading the way down the hall as the others followed, skidding to a halt when he spotted a misshapen and distorted Ganger Jennifer down one hall.

"Would you look at that…" Sigma 1 began, about to take a step towards the creature, her magnifying glass already in hand, but the Doctor yanked her back.

"Run!" he shouted, urging them back, "Run. Run!"

They turned back the way they came, John Smith now in the lead, guiding them down a narrow hallway, Ganger Jennifer chasing after them on all fours, till they reached another room, the roof groaning above them.

"Ooh, roof's going to give!" John Smith warned.

"Which means back up," Sigma 2 began to push the humans out of the way of where the creaking was coming from, both Dickens trying to close the metal door to the room while this happened.

"We have to stop her!" his Ganger called, "This door doesn't lock."

"No, but the far one does!" Dicken realized, running out of the room and back down the hall, struggling to shut that door…

He managed it though, they heard a slamming noise moments before the man screamed.

"No!" his Ganger lunged forward, wanting to help, but it was too late. He turned and slammed the metal door shut, the Doctor and Ganger Cleaves moving to help him, pressing their bodies against it as it would be their only defense once the Ganger-monster broke through the other door.

"Here she comes!" John Smith called in warning, stepping back as the TARDIS fell through the roof and into the room.

"Beautiful!" both Sigmas cheered.

"Oh, she does like to make an entrance!" the Doctor laughed.

"Move!" John Smith began to usher the others into the box, quickly getting the door open, "Go, go, go, go!"

Sigma 2 moved over to the door and the Doctor, "You heard him, go!" she began to shoo the two Gangers away from the door, pressing on it with the Doctor while Ganger Cleaves and Ganger Dicken ran to the TARDIS.

"Now's our chance," Amy rushed over to them at the door.

"Yeah," Sigma 2 scoffed, "Because what we really want to do is let her through to latch onto the TARDIS and travel with us wherever we set down to be set loose on people!"

The Doctor nodded, "We have to stay. Hold this door closed. Give you time to dematerialize."

"Oh, don't be crazy," Amy frowned, "Ok, what happens to you?"

Sigma 2 made a whistling noise, mimicking something dropping, and then an explosion noise, "Blown to bits."

"But we can stop her," the Doctor agreed.

"Both of you can survive this, ok," Amy continued to insist.

"Or perhaps you think I should stay instead..." John Smith called, drawing her attention to where he and Sigma 1 were standing behind her, "Mr. Smith?"

"Or me?" Sigma 1 remarked, "IF I'm the Ganger, that is…"

"No, of course not," Amy argued with them, before turning her attention to John Smith, knowing him better than the Detective as an extension of the Doctor, "But look, this man, I've flown with him, you know? And you are amazing and yeah, I misjudged you, but you're not him. I'm sorry."

"Told you," Sigma 2 remarked, "Not, in any stretch of the imagination, a human sonic."

"Nor is she as not-prejudiced as she thinks she is," Sigma 1 agreed.

"Amy," John Smith sighed, "We swapped shoes. I'm the Doctor."

"And I'm the Flesh," the 'Doctor' behind her told her.

"You can't be…" Amy shook her head, looking between them, before settling on the Ganger Doctor at the door, "You're the real him."

"No, I'm not, and I haven't been all along."

"What?" she breathed.

"I'm the original Doctor, Amy," the Doctor before the TARDIS spoke, "We had to know if we were truly the same. It was important, vital, we learn about The Flesh. And we could only do that through your eyes."

Amy blinked, tears coming to her eyes, and she looked at Sigma 1, "And you're the real Detective?" she guessed.

"Oh, right, no," Sigma 1 shook her head, walking past her and bumping Sigma 2 with her hip, getting her off the door, "Ganger, hello!"

"Clever, wasn't it?" Sigma 2 spoke, moving to stand beside the original Doctor, "What's behind door number 1?" she joked.

Amy looked from them to the Gangers at the door, ready to die to keep the rest of them safe, and hurried over to hug the Ganger Doctor, "I never thought it possible," she murmured.

"What?" he asked.

"You're twice the man I thought you were."

"Push, Amy," he whispered, "But only when she tells you to."

"And breathe," the Ganger Detective added, reaching out to squeeze Amy's shoulder, "You're going to have to be very brave very soon."

Amy gave her an odd look for her words, about to hug her too for her sacrifice, when she jumped back at the sound of something throwing itself against the door with a bang.

"Way to ruin the moment, Carol!" the Ganger Detective shouted through the door, but a snarl and more banging was the only response.

"Amy!" Rory's voice called from within the box, "Come on!"

Amy looked between the two of them once more before running into the TARDIS.

"Well," the Ganger Doctor mused, "My death arrives, I suppose."

"And surprisingly not at my hand," the original Detective joked, recalling all the times in the past she'd 'threatened' to kill the Doctor when he was being annoying.

"Or the Master's," her Ganger agreed, also thinking back to all the times in the past the Master HAD tried to kill the Doctor when he was being annoying.

"At least this one we're not invited to," the Doctor murmured.

"Pardon?" his Ganger frowned.

"Nothing," he shook his head, "Your molecular memory can survive this, you know. It may not be the end for you two," he tossed the sonic to him, only for the Detective's Ganger to snatch it.

"If we turn up to nick all your biscuits, you'll know you were right," the Ganger Doctor chuckled, nodding at the Ganger beside him, of the two the one most likely to literally eat all the biscuits to be found in the TARDIS.

"Always hoped we'd go out with a bang," the original Detective nodded to her Ganger.

"Much better way to go than that first one," her Ganger winced at the memory.

They exchanged nods, before turning to head to the TARDIS, managing to catch Amy before she could bolt out to beg them to find another way, half dragging her back into the console as Rory shut the doors.

The Gangers watched as the TARDIS began to fade away, and the Detective held up the sonic, "Which setting will dissolve her again?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes and took the sonic from her, flicking it to the proper setting, "This one'll take us out, too," he reminded her, "But…there may be a way back from this."

"Neither of us are the Master," she countered, "I don't think our chances of randomly appearing again are quite that high."

"Let's find out?" he held up his hand higher.

She grinned, grabbing his hand tightly, "Love it!"

He grinned back and they jumped away from the door, throwing it open and holding the sonic up, the two of them shouting, "Geronimo!" as they flicked the sonic on, dissolving themselves and Jennifer too.

~8~

The Doctor smiled as he watched the Detective practically dancing around the console as she single-handedly piloted the box. He was both indulging her and just making sure she was sharp as ever about it, not rusty. He got the feeling what would be happening next would test even his limits, and having someone else around capable…he'd need that.

He hadn't realized how much he actually needed someone else, another Time Lord around, till now. Even with the Master, when he'd appear again, part of him knew it would never make it to the two of them in the TARDIS. His companions filled a void, but only part of it. They were incredible, but they could never understand his culture, his way of life, the laws of time, or all he'd lost. Any one of his people, his species, back with him would be a miracle, but for it to be the Detective, someone who knew him, who had been there for him from the start, who he had been beside at every turn in life...it was something he'd never dared to ever hope for.

When House had set his trap, even then he hadn't let the tiniest spark of hope come about that maybe he'd find her there. It would have killed him to have that taken away. Part of him whispered he was a traitor to feel that way about the Detective and not his own wife or his children. A larger part reminded him that there was a bond between him and the Detective he and his wife could never have had, she had never been part of his triumvirate. He loved her, yes of course, but the bond that formed between 3? It lasted all their lives, from the age of 8 and for centuries it strengthened. You could love someone with all your heart, but have a unique bond with someone else that, at times, overshadowed even that love.

That same voice whispered that he had only ever loved his wife with one heart and not all of his heartS.

He nearly jumped when Amy came up beside him, wrapping her arm through his, pulling him back to the present, as she should, now was not the time to be thinking all that. He cleared his throat, "The energy from the TARDIS will stabilize the Gangers for good," he called out, giving a look more to Dicken, Jimmy, and one of the Cleaves, "They're people now."

"And what happens to us?" the original Cleaves asked, tapping her head, "We still have this."

"Here!" the Detective called, tossing her and her Ganger a tiny vial of red liquid, "Tastes horrible," she grimaced, "But it dissolves blood clots like that!" she snapped her fingers, "What?" she asked when the Doctor gave her a mock-serious look.

"Did you go rooting around the medicine cabinets again?" he crossed his arms.

"Of course," she nodded, as though it were perfectly normal, "Had to make sure you were well stocked on earache treatments. It may have been a while, Theta, but I DO remember how much YOU talk."

He chuckled, looking at the Cleaves and nodding, assuring them it was true and they both downed the contents.

"And here!" the Detective cheered, turning and thrusting a string attached to a red balloon into Jimmy's hand.

The man blinked, having been watching her and honestly not at all sure how she'd managed it, "Where did that come from?"

She just blinked at him, "Pockets."

"You keep balloons in your pockets?" Dicken asked.

"Doesn't everyone?"

The Doctor gently tugged away from Amy, moving to the Detective's side and putting an arm around her shoulders, "Happy endings," he smiled at them, reaching out to pull a lever to send them off.

~8~

It hadn't even been a debate whether to bring Jimmy home to his son or have him attend a press conference going on about the events of the solar tsunami, how Gangers everywhere had animated. Cleaves, both of them, shot it down before Jimmy could even offer. And they had sent him off, with the balloon, onto a beach where his son was waiting, all of them watching with small smiles as they reunited.

…that was until a swarm of seagulls began to swoop at and dive bomb them, and they realized the Detective had gotten distracted from the scene and began throwing sunflower seeds everywhere to feed the birds and they'd had to quickly retreat and leave.

The TARDIS was not happy about the extra droppings that landed on her.

Now, though, they were set down just outside the doors to Morpeth-Jetsan Headquarters, where the briefing was happening.

"You really want us to do this?" the original Cleaves looked at him, backed by her Ganger and Dicken's.

"Why else would we bring you here instead of home?" the Detective pointed out.

The Doctor nodded, "Your company's telling the world that the situation is over. You need to get in there and tell them that the situation's only just begun. Make them understand what they're doing to the Flesh. Make them stop. Dicken, Cleaves," he looked at the Gangers, "Remember, people are good. In their bones, truly good. Don't hate them, will you?"

"How can I hate them?" Dicken asked as Ganger Cleaves merely nodded, "I'm one of them now."

"And don't forget," the Detective popped up right in front of their faces, causing them to jerk back in surprise, "People died. You fail this, then all their deaths will be in vain and that will be on your heads," she looked at them all seriously, "So no pressure," she smiled and spun around on her heel to walk off.

The human and Ganger-turned-humans glanced at each other, "Ready?" Ganger Cleaves asked, before they headed for the doors, "Side by side."

Dicken pulled open the door and instantly reporters began to ask, "Have the army dealt with the imposters…"

The doors shut just as they heard the flurry of shouts die down, the shock of seeing two Cleaves stunning them to a silence that would hopefully last long enough for them to speak.

"You ok?" Amy called, when she saw the Doctor reach out for the Detective's hand, the woman glancing at him and then her hand and back, growing serious in a way they hadn't seen from the woman yet.

"Have you been breathing Amy?" the Detective turned to her.

"Yeah?" Amy frowned, confused.

"Breathe," the Doctor merely repeated…and a moment later, Amy was doubled over in pain, clutching her stomach.

Rory ran to her side, "What's wrong with her?!"

The Doctor glanced around and only said, "Get her into the TARDIS," before striding back in, Rory and Amy following, the Detective bringing up the rear and shutting the doors behind her as soon as they were all in. She rushed past the humans and to the console where the Doctor was. She slipped past him, his hand touching hers for a moment, before she was at the controls, putting in some commands as he spoke to the Ponds.

"Doctor!" Rory spoke before he could, "What is happening to her?"

"Contractions," the Doctor answered.

"Contractions?"

The Detective peeked out from one side of the console, frowning at him, "Aren't you a nurse?"

"She's going into labor," the Doctor cut in, knowing she would either ask how he'd made it that far without knowing what contractions were or go into a lecture about what they were.

"Did he say..." Amy shook her head, "No, of course he didn't," only to flinch when another pain hit her, "Rory, I don't like this. Ow!"

"You'll have to start explaining this to me, Doctor!" Rory shouted.

"Oh, you need to get your money back," the Detective whistled, "You see, when a man and a woman love each other, they get special feelings and…"

The Doctor shook his head at her, cutting in, "She's having a baby, Rory," he said as bluntly and clearly as he could, "I needed to see the Flesh in its early days. That's why I scanned it. That's why we were there in the first place. Sigma and I were going to drop you off for fish 'n' chips first, but things happened and there was stuff and shenanigans."

"LOVE that word," the Detective mumbled, pulling a lever and walking past the Doctor, past the Ponds, like she was heading for the doors, "Shenanigans."

"It hurts!" Amy cried out, now doubled over.

"I expect the body preparing to push a living being out of it would hurt," the Detective remarked, though she had no idea, she'd never been a mother before.

"Breathe," the Doctor repeated, ignoring her a moment, "I needed enough information to block the signal to the Flesh."

"What signal?" Amy snapped.

"The signal to you."

"Doctor…"

"May want to back away, Thing 1," the Detective called from behind Rory.

"Why?" he looked back at her, "No! And why!?"

"Well, you're in the splash-zone for one…" the Detective began, shrugging, not seeing why he'd need another reason, "And two, it can be quite traumatic, I'd imagine."

"Given what we've learned, I'll be as humane as I can," the Doctor spoke, drawing the Ponds' attention back to him and sending the Detective a look that told her to be quiet, he couldn't risk the Ponds looking at her or noticing her near the end, "But I need to do this and you need to stand away!"

Rory looked from Amy to the Doctor and back and forth, before reluctantly stepping back.

"No," Amy frowned, "No!" and turned to look at the Doctor, "Doctor, I am frightened. I'm properly, properly scared."

"Don't be," he stepped closer to her, "Hold on. We're coming for you, I swear it. Whatever happens, however hard, however far, we will find you," he promised her that, touching her cheek.

Amy grabbed his arm, "I'm right here!" she insisted.

"No, you're not," he told her, shaking his head as he pulled his hand from her grasp and began to step back, "You haven't been here for a long, long time."

Before anyone could blink, Amy dissolved into melted Flesh, the Detective behind her with the sonic in hand. It was far more humane to not have her know what was coming, to not anticipate and fear and think of the worst but to do it quickly without her needing to watch it coming.

The Detective lowered the sonic and looked from the puddle of goop that was Amy and up to the Doctor, "Does that mean we're going to war?" she asked, before nodding, seeing his grim, determined look, and tossed the sonic in her hand, "Excellent."

A/N: I'm trying not to jam pack everything about Sigma or the Doctor's complicated relationship with her, or their possible feelings, into any one chapter so we'll be learning more about her as we go, but we got a few hints here about what she became at the Untempered Schism. We'll see more about how her madness manifested in a way that broke the Doctor's hearts before this story is out. We'll also see more about their feelings for one another, this is only their first adventure back together, it'll take time before they believe this is real, that they are together again, and can relax enough to start letting more of that to the surface. They won't meet and instantly declare their love, a lot has happened in the meanwhile, but their affection and closeness is still there, it survived and, on a subconscious level, I think that will bring out their feelings even more, that if that connection could survive so can other things ;)

And now we've got a glimpse into the sort of connection based relationship for this series. We'll get much more about what a Triumvirate is on Gallifrey, how the skewed one affected the Doctor, Detective, and Master. I can say it's not a romantic relationship between 3 people, it's more a very deep bond that lasts throughout their lives. It DOES affect the relationships they have outside of it, and there are relationships, romantic ones, that form within a Triumvirate between 2 of the people in it, and how that affects the third person will also be explored.

Sigma, for all that she is mad and scatterbrained, is also a Detective for a reason, her madness presents in a certain way that makes her more observant and look at the world differently. She has been aware of something for a very, very long time that has had a significant impact on the relationship/friendships she's formed with the Doctor and the Master. As the Doctor himself theorized, she's leaned more towards the eccentric genius end of madness than the criminal mastermind part (though, keep in mind, his paper was based on the Detective and the Master and they were in a skewed Triumvirate which means the normal Triumvirates would be different. But skewed ones are not as common so his 'research' is still relevant and revealing). So the way the Detective processes things and the connections she makes, the way she surmises and guesses at answers will have a connection to how she herself has helped shape the bond she has with the Doctor and the Master. She IS the Master's friend too, so her empathy and the strength of it towards humans or others who are not-her-friends isn't as developed, but there is something she's done and has been doing that reveals how deep her care runs for those she cares about ;)

Oddly enough, the Doctor may not be the first one she talks to about it, which does make a bit of sense since he's part of the 'mess' and too close to the issue. But we will see Sigma's thoughts on a possible romantic relationship for herself, her thoughts on the Doctor's relationship with his wife, and more before this story is over.

Ok, going to cut myself off there before I get into a pages long meta about things and spoil too much ;)

This chapter contained 4 quotes and 2 mini bonus references ;) Although, 2 of the 'quotes' could probably qualify as a mere reference since they are quite brief, but I'll put in what all of them are next chapter ;)

And, to end, woo hoo! This chapter has put me over the top into 12 million words archived! :D

Quotes from the last chapter:

It's alive. It's alive! IT'S ALIVE! - Young Frankenstein (though it appears in many Frankenstein movies)
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - Oscar Wilde (even though it's a fairly famous/common quote, just putting it in here ;))
Fear leads to anger, anger to hate, and hate to the dark side… - Star Wars
Does he normally just lie on the floor lie that without moving? - Magnus Bane (Shadowhunters TV show and Mortal Instruments books)

References:

Thing 1 and Thing 2 - Dr. Seuss
A snack hole - Justice League
The exchange where the Doctor was trying to warn Cleaves about being at a crossroads - inspired by the Road to El Dorado

Congrats to anyone who spotted them :D

Some notes on reviews...

I'm definitely sort of aiming for a bridge between the Doctor and the Master with Sigma so I'm glad it comes across :) I can say there are some romantic feelings they both have, we just haven't quite seen them hit the surface yet. They're both, at the moment, sort of at that 'I can't believe this is real' stage where they're just overwhelmed with being together again, once it calms down a bit, we'll see more of that feeling surface. They may have had them for so long they've both just gotten very, very good at not acting on them or letting the other notice it ;) But we'll get much more of a look into their memories of the past and the bond they had as the story goes ;)

Oh, I think Sigma will just sort of get progressively worse as the story goes lol :) In my head, the triumvirate mentioned is meant to help a trio of Time Lords find balance and cope, her triumvirate was skewed from the start so she never got that. Now with just 1 person of her triumvirate there with her, she's going to sort of veer off course even more, where she might have almost sort of been normal-ish, she's just going to go mad now ;)

Salut! Je suis tellement contente que tu l'aimes :) Elle a définitivement ses priorités avec manger et dormir, la meilleure façon de vivre ;) (I used Google Translate to try and say: Hello! I'm so glad you like her :) She has definitely got her priorities right with the eating and sleeping, best way to live ;))

Awesome guesses! :) For Thing 1 and Thing 2, I was more influenced by Dr. Seuss as I haven't gotten to Season 10 yet. That's awesome to know Missy makes a comment similar to that! :D