The Key to All His Troubles
On a street corner somewhere in London, outside the Red Tavern, there was nothing. A blank spot where nothing had stood existed outside the well-known pub. This spot of nothing had existed since the 1890s, when, for a few hours, a tall blue police box had materialised on that spot and a tall man wearing a long scarf hurried out of it, looking for two gentlemen he knew. A few hours later, the box and the man had vanished and the nothing had remained.
Today, however, that would be different. With a pleasant wheeze and howl, the blue police box returned. It looked slightly different this time: older and more worn out. This exhaustion could be heard as well in the wheeze and howl of the ancient engines as they heaved the infinity of the TARDIS into that spot of nothing. This symphonic process continued until the TARDIS had fully materialised. A few seconds after the TARDIS had landed, the dark blue door opened and a young man dressed in a purple tweed jacket and bowtie stepped out, peering around him cautiously.
"Good, good." muttered the Doctor, checking to see if any of his past was nearby. He needed to sort something out and he didn't want any of his old friends from UNIT dropping in. He had enough on his hands already.
Imelda Williams sat in the Red Tavern, sipping a glass of wine. She deserved this. Those three words echoed throughout her head. It was Friday afternoon and she had finished writing an article for The Times earlier that afternoon. She enjoyed sipping a glass of red wine at the Red Tavern and she also enjoyed having a bath, which she would have later that afternoon. But she did deserve this reward.
"Oi, what do you think you're doing?!" yelled the greasy looking man behind the bar as a young man dressed in purple leapt beside him and took out a slim tube of metal which glowed green and whirred wildly.
"I'm just looking for something I left behind the last time I was here." the purple stranger protested, looking awkwardly at the barman, "I forgot to pick it up."
"What did you forget?" she asked the stranger, hoping to resolve any conflict, "I'll help you find it."
The young stranger smiled at her, startled by her kindness.
"Thank you." he mouthed to her.
"Please give us some time to look for whatever he's lost." she pleaded to the barman, who nodded reluctantly.
Imelda walked up to the stranger and looked at him curiously.
"You're oddly dressed." she commented. He looked at her like a grandfather proud of his granddaughter.
"I'm the Doctor and I'm often oddly dressed." the Doctor replied, taking out his sonic screwdriver and activating it, moving where its warble became louder. Imelda had no idea what the Doctor was looking for but she did want to help him find it. She felt like being kind. After all, she didn't have to write an article. It was her weekend now.
"What are you looking for?" she asked him.
"A key." he replied, "A key to my blue box."
She frowned. A key to a blue box? Why was that so important? She asked the Doctor that question as she found herself following him to the backroom of the pub, where the barman, who was called Ian, had flung his brown leather satchel.
"Because my blue box isn't any ordinary blue box." he replied enigmatically before leaning in close to her and whispering, "It's a machine that can travel in space and time."
Her eyebrows rose to just under her fringe and she stared in disbelief at him.
"You're kidding!" she exclaimed.
"No, I never kid unless I have to. Unfortunately I decided to give two old friends of mine a key to my TARDIS and I left that key here."
"And when was that?"
"80 years ago."
"Why do you think that the key is still here then?"
He took out a flat square block of metal with a black screen on it. He turned the screen on and activated his sonic screwdriver at it. The background of a young man wearing a battered leather jacket stood next to a pretty blonde changed into a diagram of Earth, a flashing blue spot hovering above Britain. The image then zoomed in to reveal that the blue spot was somewhere in London.
"I see." she remarked, "And you think that the key to your time machine is still here?"
"Perhaps. Either it's still here or someone's taken it. Hopefully it won't be the latter otherwise my past might just catch up with me."
But before Imelda could ask what the Doctor meant, the Cloister Bell began to toll ominously and the Doctor hurried back outside worriedly.
The object had been found by Sergeant Hartley earlier that day. He had been on a mission to investigate unusual energy readings detected by the Doctor, the white haired dandy who held the title of scientific advisor at UNIT. The Doctor was busy visiting Professor Emil Watts with his assistant Liz, meaning that Sergeant Hartley had led a squadron of UNIT soldiers to the Red Tavern to find the object emitting strange readings.
Hartley had returned to UNIT HQ now and he had given the key he had found to the Brigadier, the fierce military man who commanded UNIT and who was the only person in the universe who could say that he was the boss of a Time Lord.
"A key?" the Brigadier exclaimed in surprise, "You stormed a tavern just to find a key?"
"The barman said that he didn't know what it was doing here. This key has to be what the Doctor meant, sir." Hartley replied, "Is the Doctor back yet?"
"Yes, he's in his lab with Ms Shaw. Go and give it to him, Hartley."
"Yes sir."
Meanwhile, the Eleventh Doctor had noticed that the console room of the TARDIS was bathed in a dark red light as the Cloister Bell continued to toll. Imelda had followed him into the vast time and space ship and gazed in astonishment at the stark contrast between the sizes of its exterior and interior shells.
"I know what you're going to say so there's no point in saying it." the Doctor said, adjusting controls at the console and then groaning in horror, "Oh no. Not there."
He was looking at a small screen which showed a view of an official looking building, presumably owned by a governmental organisation of some sort.
"What's wrong with there?" Imelda asked him, unaware of the reason for his worries.
"That, err..." he started, remembering that he didn't know her name.
"Imelda. Imelda Williams."
"That, Imelda, is where a younger version of me is working. If a key from a future TARDIS ends up in the hands of my former self, it could do untold damages to my personal history."
Imelda frowned, still not understanding what he was saying.
"Surely the keyhole of a time machine would stay the same throughout its life?" she reasoned.
"Well, no. The TARDIS's exterior shell changes every time I change my appearance, whenever I'm dying or seriously injured. That key fitted into the TARDIS of my fourth incarnation and the version of me working with UNIT is, well, my third incarnation. My third incarnation's TARDIS wasn't working at this point in time and it didn't work until after complicated incident involving a Time Lord maniac and an alternate universe."
"But if he gets hold of the key, he could use it to kickstart his TARDIS and your past would be altered." Imelda concluded, now understanding what he was saying, "We'd better go there then."
The Doctor frowned at her.
"We?" he asked, confused.
"Yes. You need someone to steal the key. You need a burglar and I'm the only one around."
He nodded to himself and activated the dematerialisation control, allowing Imelda to hear the TARDIS wheeze and howl away joyfully.
Hartley had now reached the Third Doctor's lab and he opened the doors to find the Doctor sat at his desk, alone. The old man dressed in a black velvet jacket and a white frilly shirt was examining a strange pocket watch, a jeweller's eyeglass in one eye.
"Doctor, I uncovered this at the site of the unusual energy readings you detected." Hartley said, showing the key to the Doctor. The Doctor looked amazedly at the key and took it out of his hand and examined it with his eyeglass.
"Remarkable." the Doctor commented, "This is a key to my TARDIS."
He walked over to the bright blue police box that was parked near his desk and inserted the key into the lock. It fitted in but it didn't unlock the door. He took the key out and frowned at it.
"That's odd." he remarked, "It seems that this TARDIS key is from my own personal future."
He closed his hand around it and looked up at Sergeant Hartley.
"Thank you. I think I may be able to use this in some way."
A few metres down the corridor from the Doctor's lab, the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS materialised to the surprise of Sergeant Hartley, who was heading back to the Brigadier's office.
"What the-" Hartley started, before being cut off when the Doctor stepped out, his young face showing an expression of half-playfulness, half-seriousness.
"Hello." the Doctor exclaimed, not noticing that Imelda was looking out from the TARDIS console room behind him, "I need your help because my past may just unravel in the next few minutes and I can't afford to have every victory I've ever had undone. Now, you may not understand a word of what I've said but please, just listen. Whatever you do, don't give the Doctor that key."
Hartley frowned, indicating the presence of the TARDIS.
"The other Doctor." the Eleventh Doctor added, a few seconds before he screamed out in pain and clutched his head in agony, almost collapsing back onto Imelda. She gently lowered him to the smooth metal walkway leading to the hexagonal console and looked up at Sergeant Hartley.
"Are you going to get that key or will I have to do it?" she asked him.
The commotion caused by the Eleventh Doctor's arrival unexpectedly gained the Third Doctor's attention, as he poked his head outside of his lab and gazed in astonishment at what was happening.
"Jumping jehosophat!" he exclaimed, approaching the future TARDIS with caution and then noticing the body of his future self, "What the devil am I doing here?"
"You know that key that this soldier gave you?" Imelda said authoritatively, indicating Sergeant Hartley, "You're not supposed to have it."
"And why is that, my dear? Surely it would have helped me escape this dull little planet and have some proper adventures?"
This remark made Imelda and Sergeant Hartley look crossly at the Third Doctor, who raised his hands in defence.
"You're changing your own history, Doctor." Imelda pleaded, "Just give me the key."
The Doctor knelt down beside his future self's body and placed a finger on the Eleventh Doctor's temples. He shut his eyes for a few moments before opening them and standing up once more.
"That's all going to happen to me?" the Doctor remarked, staggering back slightly, "Daleks and the Master and Cybermen?"
"If your future self said so, then yes. But none of that will happen if you don't hand me the key." Imelda argued.
The Doctor looked away from Imelda and Hartley and towards one of the nearby white walls.
"What have I become?" he muttered to himself, "This isn't me. I'm not some sort of superior being. I may be a Time Lord who saves people but I can't abandon Earth completely."
He hurried away to his lab and returned a few seconds later, holding the TARDIS key that he had been given a few moments ago.
"I hope you'll find its proper owner." the Doctor said with one of his charming smiles as he handed the key to Imelda, who closed the TARDIS door and placed it in the palm of the Eleventh Doctor.
"Please wake up." she whispered repeatedly, as she knelt by the unconscious body, "Please wake up."
A few moments later, the Doctor blinked open his eyes and sat up with a smile.
"It worked." he said, beaming at Imelda, "You did it."
"I know." she replied, "Your past self was quite selfish though."
He stood up and moved to the console, adjusting controls and flipping switches.
"I was quite a character in those days. I always favoured travelling the universe as opposed to being stuck on Earth. But I grew to like it. Eventually."
He activated the dematerialisation control.
After the Eleventh Doctor had dropped off Imelda, he stood at the console, the key he had found earlier in his hand. He blowed on it softly and it glowed a golden light.
"Now what do I do with you, eh?" he wondered, watching it glow and heat his hand.
The TARDIS bleeped and dinged suddenly and a set of co-ordinates appeared on the scanner screen. He examined them and activated the materialisation control.
On the distant planet of Kybis, the TARDIS wheezed and howled into existence near a small village that was made up of large mudhuts and thatched houses. The Doctor stepped out and noticed that a young woman was stood in front of him. She was short and had red hair and was dressed in brown rags.
"Hello," the Doctor said awkwardly, "I'm the Doctor. I know this may sound a bit odd but have you seen any other police boxes around here other than my one?"
"There is a man on the hill." the young woman replied, "He saved us. He arrived in a police box."
"Ah. Perfect."
The Doctor hurried up the hill the young woman had indicated and found, at the top of the hill, that another version of his TARDIS was parked near a tall grey rock that reminded him of one of the stones at Stonehenge. Oh, what a day that had been.
"Ah, Doctor. Have you had a good future?" came a familiar booming voice.
He turned and spotted his fourth incarnation with his curly hair, friendly features and long multicoloured scarf, all on top of a mixture of tweed and velvet.
"I think you may have dropped this." the Eleventh Doctor said, offering the key to him.
The Fourth Doctor walked over to him and examined the key inquisitively.
"Yes, I recognise it. It's the key that I gave Jago and Litefoot. Did they leave it behind?"
"They did. I just managed to stop your predecessor from altering the future and re-engineering the key to unlock his TARDIS's hidden abilities."
The Fourth Doctor smiled happily and took the key.
"Well done, Doctor. Well done."
THE END