III
He sat alone. He had nothing to write with, so he just thought.
I am the Doctor. That is my name. The name I chose for myself. Not Bob, or Joe, or Jocrassa Fel Fotch. The. Doctor.
There have been other me's, of course. Right at the beginning, I was Theta. Then, for long time, I was merely 'Grandfather'. Then someone called me Dr Foreman. But I didn't like that, I never did. So it was just Doctor.
Just Doctor. Always, just Doctor.
And now that's all I have. The only other survivor of my species is a crazed lunatic. And now it looks like I'm going the same way.
Trouble is, I know that I am. So does that mean I'm not?
Oh spack, now I'm questioning my own bloody logic. Fantastic. Oh, and now I'm channelling my Ninth Incarnation. Not good. I seem to be falling apart at the seams. Marvellous.
Doctor.
What?
Let me out...
Oh no.
Him.
--
"What?" Harkness said, hardly believing what he was hearing.
"You and your Sergeant have been called up for guard duty after a spell on the front line," the official-looking soldier repeated, with the same blank look on his face.
"You have gotta be kidding, boss," Sergeant Brown said. The official-looking soldier said nothing further.
'Trained to say only what he needs to,' Harkness thought. 'Now that's efficiency.'
"Do we have a choice?" he asked.
"Not really," the official-looking soldier said. "Apart from come willingly or be drugged and dragged."
Harkness nodded.
"Alright then," he said. "We'll come."
--
He's stalking me. I've tried so hard and for so long to hold him back, but he's coming. He'll take control, and this whole world – this whole universe – will suffer for it. The Valeyard. My evil self. All the darkness and doubt that I have felt over my lifetimes made flesh – my flesh...
NO! I will not submit to him! Never! I am the Doctor! I will not submit to the darkness.
I will not submit... but will I have a choice? I'm alone. I've been here for weeks. All the things I've done are coming back to haunt me
"Let me take control."
What? Who -?
"I am you and you are just a part of me – but I am the true Doctor. The Champion of Time. The Ka Faraq Gatri."
Oh...
A little known fact of Time Lord Mentality is that they have thirteen personalities that the outside world is aware of, and one other. The true man – or woman – within. This true Time Lord only comes out once in a blue moon, when they're needed.
Well, he was needed now.
"Just let me have control."
It's a safe bet to assume that that the Tenth Doctor was sidelined for a while. He closed his eyes – and the Ka Faraq Gatri, the Champion of Time, opened them. There was a noticeable difference, in that his eyes were silver-grey, like the last time he had been manifest, during the seventh life. This was less permanent than that had been, hopefully, but no less important.
It was time to escape.
--
The Doctor looked up, as the interrogator came in again. His eyes shone blue in the dark. The Interrogator frowned at that – the prisoners eyes had been brown before, surely? It didn't matter.
"What?" the prisoner asked simply.
In reply, the man smacked him across the face. That reaction the prisoner would probably have expected. Brutality. Violence. That was the way to get this filthy spy to talk.
"Well," the prisoner said, "now that you've got tat out of your system, what can I do for you?"
"You can start, 'Doctor', by telling me your true name," the man barked.
The Doctor smiled.
"Ka Faraq Gatri," he said. Then, faster than the eye could perceive, he was up on his feet, knocking the Interrogator to the ground. Before the startled man could react, the Doctor kicked him in the chin, breaking his neck with a sickening crack.
--
The man who went by the name of the Doctor stared at the corpse. It was a sad fact that these people would die to try and stop him – but he was Times Champion. He could do the things that no other Doctor could.
The part of him that constituted the Tenth incarnation balked at the violence.
'Was that necessary?' the Tenth Doctor asked, in his mind.
'You know it was,' replied Times Champion. 'You understood before, in your/our seventh life.'
'I was older,' the Tenth replied. 'I don't want to be that old again.'
'We are that old,' Times Champion said. 'If you don't like my methods, who would you rather have running things?'
The Tenth Doctor sighed in the mind plain.
"Well, we're out," he said, "so you can let go now."
Times Champion said nothing. He just closed his eyes, and the Tenth Doctor was back in control.
"Right then," he said to himself. "Time to find the others."
He turned to the corpse.
"I'm sorry," he told it. "I truly am."
He ran out of the cell. He had two friends to find.
--
Harkness and Brown marched down the corridor towards where the prisoner they were meant to be interrogating was.
"What I don't get," Brown commented, "is how the hell are we supposed to interrogate someone? We're front-liners, not bloody quizmasters!"
"Command send us, we go," Harkness replied. "That simple."
They turned a corner, nearly at their destination when…
"Oi! Stop!" came a shout from up ahead.
The two soldiers instantly broke into a run, heading for where the shouting was coming from. They were surprised, therefore, to see that all the yelling was coming from one man, who, somehow, was taking on a bunch of soldiers with nothing but his own two hands. He was dressed in a silver suit, with black pinstripes, covered in dust and mud from the cells. Harkness got the strangest felling that he'd seen this man somewhere before.
The man turned to look at them, and grinned when he saw them.
"Jack, Eilidh!" he called. "You've escaped already, great!"
Harkness turned to look at Brown. She looked back at him and just shrugged.
"Well, come on then!" the man yelled at them. "We haven't got all day!"
Harkness looked at him. The man had knocked out all of the guards.
"What are you waiting for?" he asked.
Brown raised her gun, and aimed it at the man, shakily.
"Surrender now," she said, "or be shot!"
--