Chapter 12

Opening Credits

The TARDIS flies out of a blue vortex and passes by into a red stormy Vortex. Names fly by slowly one at a time:

David Tennant

Colin Baker

Eliza Dushku

Nicola Bryant

The names are followed by a flattened, golden ellipse with the words "Doctor Who" written on it. The logo flies away to be replaced by the words:

With

James Marsters

And

Sarah Michelle Gellar

The names fly away and are followed by:

"The Doctors and the Keys part 2"
By DWDuck

The sixth Doctor turned around slowly, taking in the new control room. His view of half of the room was blocked by the floor to ceiling Time Rotor. "Oh…bother," he swore.

"Doctor, what happened?" Peri asked.

The sixth Doctor refused to look up from the console as he tried to make sense of this TARDIS' layout. "I compensated for the dimensional instability and corrected the phase alignment perfectly. I have no idea why we aren't in the TARDIS anymore," the sixth Doctor admitted in a rare moment of humility.

Peri Brown, Companion of the Doctor had seen many things in her journeys with first one Doctor and then his replacement. She had never dreamed that a TARDIS could look and feelalive like this one did. Peri stepped out from behind the center console to get a better look at the large room and was shocked to see that they weren't alone. On the other side of the Time Rotor was a small group of people, two men and two women. The blonde pair looked confused while the brunette woman looked slightly amused. That left the tall, skinny man with dark, messy hair. He wore an expression of extreme annoyance.

"Wait a minute…this isn't a different TARDIS! This is myTARDIS. What have they done to her?" the sixth Doctor complained loudly, still messing with the controls. Peri grabbed his arm and pulled the sixth Doctor away from the console. "What are you doing you stupid girl? Can't you see that I'm trying to figure out what has happened to us?" he demanded.

"I'm sure you would eventually figure things out Doctor," Peri said sarcastically. "But wouldn't it just be easier to ask them?" she asked as she pointed to the other people in the room. This caused the tall man's expression to slip into a small grin.

"Peri Brown, look at you," the tenth Doctor said warmly.

Peri was about to say something when the sixth Doctor interrupted her. "Keep quiet, Peri. Let me handle things," he instructed his Companion. The sixth Doctor looked at the tall man in the suit and asked, "Are you the idiot responsible for all of this?"

"Screw this," Faith swore under her breath. She rushed forward and grabbed a fistful of the multi-colored jacket. Faith effortlessly lifted the sixth Doctor and held him suspended a couple inches off of the ground. "Drop the 'tude or I'm going to kick you in the balls so hard that he'll still be feeling it," she warned while jerking her head toward the tenth Doctor.

"Please put me down, Faith" the tenth Doctor said reluctantly. "It isn't his fault that he can be abrasive some of the, well actually most of the time," he said.

Faith slowly let the sixth Doctor down. "OK…Doctor," Faith said to her boyfriend. She smiled as she caught the look of recognition on the sixth Doctor's face as he finally remembered who the tall man was. Peri looked shocked at the other man being called the Doctor as well. She made the intuitive leap to guessing that the tall man was an older and cuter version of the Time Lord she traveled with.

Once Faith removed her hand, the sixth Doctor smoothed out his jacket and rolled his neck. He looked at his older self. "Since we are in your version of the TARDIS, I suppose it's safe to assume that you're the reason for the dimensional instability," the sixth Doctor said. Faith narrowed her eyes and he quickly stepped behind Peri and peered over her shoulder. This act of self protection brought a chuckle from the newer Companions.

"Six minutes and 9 seconds," the tenth Doctor told his younger self, letting him know that the time wasn't up yet.

"That bad?" the sixth Doctor asked, his curiosity overcoming his fear of testicular battery.

"Worse than you can imagine," the tenth Doctor explained. "While we are waiting for the safety protocol to go into effect, I should make introductions," he said. The tenth Doctor walked over to Peri so that he stood shoulder to shoulder with her, facing his Companions. "The blonde girl is my friend, Buffy Summers. She's human and has died twice during her numerous battles to save your planet," he said.

Buffy waved her hand in greeting. "Nice to meet you," Peri said. She wasn't going to say anything about the young woman's name considering her own name was actually "Perpugilliam."

"The bloke standing next to her is her husband, William Summers, but we call him Spike," the tenth Doctor said. "Spike is a vampire half-breed who fought to get his soul back and succeeded," he said proudly. Spike was embarrassed by his friend's feelings of devotion and just waved his hand as well.

"There is no such thing," the sixth Doctor said indignantly. He took a step back and raised his hands up defensively when Faith glared at him.

The tenth Doctor looked pained for an instant at his younger self's reaction. The moment passed and the tenth Doctor stepped away from Peri and stood very close to Faith. "Peri Brown, I would like to you meet Faith Lehane," he said, once again full of pride. Peri wasn't sure, but her female intuition told her there was something more than just a Doctor / Companion relationship there.

Faith held her hand out to Peri. "Sorry you stuck with the crappy one," she offered.

"There's no need for that!" the sixth Doctor complained.

Peri only smiled and took the offered hand. "I'm glad to see that he eventually learns to act more human," she said, choosing her words to irritate her Doctor. The sixth Doctor stormed away from Peri and went back to examining the slightly different layout for the controls.

"I think Peri and I are going to get along great, Doc," Faith said as she chuckled at how Peri had managed to get the sixth Doctor's goat.

The tenth Doctor snapped his fingers. "Oh I'm getting forgetful in my old age. Peri, Buffy is from California as well. A little place called Sunnydale. Buffy, Peri is from Pasadena," he told the young women. Peri wandered over to Buffy and her husband and they began to talk about their home state.

Once the six minutes and 9 seconds was over the sixth Doctor said, "Buffer time is up. Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?" He put his hands on hips. "One minute we having a nice argument about the relative intelligence of that moron, Plato and suddenly the cloister bells rings and all power gives out on the TARDIS. I was able to restore back-up power and was compensating for dimensional instability in the Vortex when I found myself in this…horrendous looking control room," the sixth Doctor said.

The tenth Doctor ran his hands through his hair. "Where to begin?" he asked himself. The tenth Doctor took in a deep breath. "Bad things happened (and no I can't go into what they were) and the Eye of Harmony was forced to take human form," he said. "Oh…and for your information, I like the coral theme!" the tenth Doctor said, defending his decorating of the TARDIS.

Shock was written all over the sixth Doctor's face. "How? Why?" was all he could get out. The tenth Doctor was pretty sure the sixth one was referring to the current cosmic situation and not his choice of desktop themes.

The tenth Doctor pulled the sixth Doctor over to the monitor and punched some keys. The screen began to rapidly scroll equations and symbols. "Like I said, I can't really tell you why, but here is the how. A couple of humans put together this spell in an attempt to protect her," he explained.

The sixth Doctor leaned forward to look at the code. "I've seen this before," he said absently.

"The Logopolin code," the tenth Doctor provided. "However, even the source code for the Universe wasn't powerful enough to contain her. The code is breaking down," he said softly.

The sixth Doctor looked at the tenth sharply. "That would cause the erasure of the Eye of Harmony from existence. The temporal instability it caused would destroy all of existence," he said, more than just a little worried. "What are you doing to fix things?" he demanded.

The tenth Doctor glared at his younger self. "Well, up until just a little bit ago, 5 and I were doing just fine rounding up segments of the Key of Time," he said sourly. "Speaking of which, Faith, do you still have the second segment?" the tenth Doctor asked his girlfriend.

Faith walked over to the center console where she had placed the segment down when they had returned to the TARDIS. "Yep, right here, Doc," she replied and tossed the cube to the tenth Doctor.

"You had a Key segment resting on the console, no wonder the temporal barriers were warped," the sixth Doctor said loudly.

"Oops," Faith said apologetically. She shrugged her shoulders and went over to join in on Buffy and Peri's conversation.

The sixth Doctor followed the tenth one up the ramp into the segment room. When the tenth Doctor carefully put the second segment next to the first, they both heard an audible click as the segments fused together. "That's new," both Doctors said.

The sixth Doctor glanced out the doorway to where the Companions were all standing. "Obviously age hasn't brought wisdom if you are letting your Companions handle something as powerful as a Key segment," he said.

The tenth Doctor stepped in front of the sixth Doctor's face. The older Time Lord was wearing his expression that he used to intimidate cosmic powers. "Choose your next words carefully," the tenth Doctor warned. "Faith is more than a Companion to me, she's my girlfriend," he explained. The sixth Doctor remained silent as he tried to process the fact that his older self was having an affair with a human.

The Doctors left the segment room and shut the door behind them When they got to the center console, the tenth Doctor started running his hand through his hair and muttering, "No…no…no, why did I let him keep the blasted thing."

Faith rushed over to the tenth Doctor. She put her hand on his arm and looked him in the eyes. "Slow down and tell us what is wrong. Not all of us are you and we don't leap to the same conclusions," Faith reminded the tenth Doctor.

Peri noticed how the Doctor moved his arm so that he could hold Faith's hand. "Good for him," she thought. Peri wondered how long it had taken for her version of the Doctor to change into this more open and caring alien.

The tenth Doctor took a deep breath. "We need to find the next segment, but 5 had it in his jacket when he swapped places with 6," he explained.

The sixth Doctor reached into his multi-colored jacket's trans-dimensional pocket and pulled out the tracer. It had some pocket lint on it. The sixth Doctor blew the lint off. "Is this it?" he asked, holding the tracer out.

"Yes, but where did you find it?" the tenth Doctor asked, mystified.

The sixth Doctor looked a little confused as well. "I felt something poking me through the pocket and as you well know, that is quite a feat considering all of the inter-dimensional physics that requires," he said.

The tenth Doctor snatched the tracer out of his younger self's hand. "The tracer was built using spare parts from the TARDIS and is tied to her. It must have kept its temporal coordinates locked onto my TARDIS," he surmised. Before anything else could go wrong, the tenth Doctor placed the tracer in the custom slot prepared for it on one of the six control panels. The tracer glowed and coordinates flashed on the small monitor above the console.

The sixth Doctor looked at the screen and frowned. "Do you think the warrant is still active?" he asked his older self.

"Probably, we didn't exactly leave on good terms," the tenth Doctor said with a shrug of his shoulders. "On the plus side, at least we don't look like 4 anymore, so it should take a little time for them to figure out who we are," he suggested.

Faith stepped next to her boyfriend and looked at the screen. The tenth Doctor had taught her to read and write in High Gallifreyan. When she read the coordinates and what the place was called, Faith started to giggle. "What did you do this time?" she asked.

The sixth one looked up at the ceiling, his hands clasped behind his back. He was whistling in an attempt to appear innocent. The tenth Doctor gave Faith a sheepish grin. "I sort of found out the hard way that casinos in the 51st century still frown on card counting," he explained.

"Someone want to tell us where we going?" Buffy asked, not keen on being kept out of the loop.

Faith gave her sister Slayer a huge smile. "We're going to New Vegas, baby!" she exclaimed happily.