THREE
They were still walking, and Ace's feet were beginning to hurt. "How much further, Professor?"
"I'm not sure," he mused, "If the answers to our questions are to be found at the centre of the maze, and I don't know that for sure, we should make our way there – but without a map of the place I've no way of knowing which way we're going."
"Nice rhyme, Professor," said Ace. "So, what you're saying is for all we know, we could be walking round in circles?"
"That's entirely possible," said the Doctor. "Keep an eye out for anything noteworthy so we'll know if we pass the same way twice."
Ace had been walking slightly ahead of him, but now she stopped short, staring at something on the ground. "Well, here's something we haven't passed already," she said, an odd tinge in her voice which alerted the Doctor that something was wrong. He quickly went to join her, and saw, to his horror, that on the floor in front of them was a half-eaten, slowly rotting, human corpse.
Ace's face was pale and the Doctor's grave. "We're not alone," he murmured, "Something's in the middle of having lunch."
"So where is it now?" Ace said softly, "and what disturbed it?"
Footsteps, heavy ones, came from behind them. A deafening roar filled the tunnel and the Doctor hastily pulled Ace by the arm into the shadows of the darkest part of it. "I think we're about to find out," he whispered.
Ace held her breath as the plodding footsteps grew gradually nearer. Eventually she could make out the outline of an enormous beast, wide-shouldered, with a huge head and a pair of sharp, curved horns which Ace would rather not get any closer to, thank you very much.
The beast dropped to its knees in front of the half-eaten corpse and started tearing the flesh apart ravenously, the sound of its hideous teeth gnashing together making Ace's skin crawl.
To her alarm, the Doctor began to inch slowly along the wall of the tunnel, still keeping to the shadows but growing ever closer to the colossal beast.
Silently he signalled for her to follow him, and, keeping her eyes on the monster, watchful for any sign that it had seen them, Ace did so.
They continued treading carefully until the Doctor decided they were far enough away not to be heard, and then they began to run.
* … * … * … *
After Donna slapped him, the man who claimed to be 'the Doctor' indignantly exclaimed that he was envious of the hair colour, not critical. "Ginger hair is brilliant!" he yelped, "I've never been ginger – ten heads and still not ginger!"
Donna looked at him, and Amy wondered if she was going to hit him again, but she didn't. "Ten heads? What kind of Martian are you?" she asked, sounding horrified.
The Doctor-imposter shrugged, scrunching up his face. "We-ell, Time Lords – we have this thing of changing our appearance, happens if we're about to die. Rewrites our entire biology, leaves us with new face, new teeth, new everything. This is my tenth body – still waiting on the ginger, but at least I got a mole this time around."
Both Donna and Amy stared at him for a moment in utter disbelief. Finally Amy spoke. "So, if you're the Doctor – and my friend's the Doctor, too – and you're both Time Lords with TARDISes…"
"Same TARDIS. Same Time Lord. It would appear so, yes." The 'other' Doctor finished.
Amy nodded. "I get it, now. You don't know me so you must be an earlier version than my Doctor."
"Seems likely," he agreed, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat and continuing along the tunnel. "So, what do I look like now?"
Amy hesitated. "…Different," she said, wondering how to explain it. "Younger, I suppose, which doesn't make much sense if you're the earlier version."
"Doesn't work like that," he said, "I looked my oldest in my first body, the age I appear to you is just another variable. What else?"
"Kind of – floppy hair."
The Doctor looked appalled. "Floppy?" His hands shot to his own hair, stroking it as if making sure it was still sticking up in its usual way.
Donna looked amused. "Is he still a skinny strip of alien nothing?" she asked Amy.
"Well, I don't know," Amy grinned, "He's quite all right, actually."
"Oh, yeah?" Donna looked even more amused. "Still wearing the old pinstripe, is he? I don't think he ever changes, y'know."
"No – tweed," Amy told her, "Tweed, braces and a bowtie."
This was too much for Donna, who now exploded into laughter. "Oh, spaceman!" she spluttered, "Can't wait to see that. Bet it looks – what's the word? – terrible!"
The Doctor merely gazed in bewilderment at the two women, both practically shaking with laughter by now, and couldn't help but get the feeling that the cause of their hilarity was somehow connected to him.
"All right, all right," he said, holding his hands up. "Laugh all you want, you think that's bad you should see the coat I once had. And that celery—"
Neither of them appeared to be listening to him, however. Sighing, he shook his head and carried on walking.
Soon the tunnel widened out into something more like a cave: a wider, much lighter space with three tunnels branching off it in addition to the one they'd come through.
"Hmm, this is a bit more roomy," Donna said, her laughter having subsided by now. "It's not exactly a mansion, but at least we can see.
"Always a plus," Amy said, with definite feeling.
The Doctor hastened for them to be quiet, pointing at the tunnel opposite theirs, from which echoing footsteps could be heard. "Someone's coming," he said.
* … * … * … *
Rose was so relieved to be able to stop running – something they'd been doing since bowtie Doctor had realised he'd left his friend behind – that at first she didn't notice the other three people occupying the cave they now found themselves in.
"Amy!" Bowtie Doctor rushed towards a tall red-haired woman and threw his arms around her, "Thought I'd lost you!"
Disentangling herself from his gangly limbs, the redhead – Amy – stepped back and said, "Doctor. Think I've found you."
She pointed to the man standing next to her, and Rose's eyes shifted to look at him – he was tall, and rather handsome, she noticed, dressed in a pinstripe suit, trainers and a long brown coat. Great hair, she thought, and brown eyes…
…which were staring straight back at her, as if they could hardly believe her existence. Gazing into her as if he knew her better than anyone, though she was almost certain – newyear'sdaymanintheshadows – that she'd never seen him before in her life.
"Rose," he said quietly, and his gaze was so intense that she didn't have spare brain cells to wonder how he knew her name…
The third unknown – another red-haired woman, shorter than the first and somewhat older, raised her voice then. "Right! I think we all need to do some introductions. Dunno about you," she said, apparently to Rose, "But it's making my head spin."
"Yes," came an unfamiliar, slightly Scottish-sounding voice from behind them, "I think some introductions will be necessary. Don't you, Ace?"