Last time:

The Eleventh Doctor and Mary rescue the Doctor's infant self from Torchwood and reunite him with Donna. In Donna's room, the Eleventh Doctor is surprised to find his past self talking about therapy.


Chapter 5

In Which They've Redecorated

"How is it an improvement?" Sand Shoes released Donna's hand and rose to his feet.

"Oi, Spaceman! Don't do anything stupid."

Sand Shoes nodded, took a long breath, and asked more calmly. "How is it an improvement? Why would we change our mind about seeking mental help after Mars?"

"Mental help?" The Doctor asked softly. He took a step toward Sand Shoes, whose hands were still twitching into fists.

Oh, there was something very not good here. The Doctor placed a hand on his younger self's shoulder. "Perhaps you should seek mental help. You're acting odd – you didn't even try to rescue Donna's child, did you?"

Sand Shoes lowered his eyes. "I scared Donna too much, and she was right too. I would have rescued Jon, but I mostly wanted to take revenge on Torchwood." He took a breath. "Do I like who I am when I'm you?"

"As much as we ever do." The Doctor gripped Sand Shoes' arms. "Doctor, I no longer understand: what happened on Mars?"

Sand Shoes eyes shot up, brows raised. "Captain Adelaide Brooke? We decided that we were the master of time and rescued her from the base?"

A weight dropped into the Doctor's stomach. "Doctor, Captain Adelaide Brooke died on… Earth? That can't be right. I listened helplessly as she died on Mars. Something's messing with our timeline." He gulped. "Who are you seeking mental help from?"

"UNIT. Sylvia's called them in to rescue Jon. They could handle it, but I see it's taken care of." He frowned. "I'm starting to think future us tricked me into getting help by telling me that Donna needed me."

The Doctor pressed his lips together. "I hate to ask twice, but are you sure that was us? You only have one regeneration left, and that's me."

Sand Shoes shut his eyes and placed his forehead against his. "Take a look. Find what's happening to us."

He looked, images and sounds flashing through his combined mind at a speed few but the Time Lords could process. He let go of his younger self. "Okay, so you were right: she was definitely us. Blimey! She couldn't have given you any hint of what we're up against, could she?"

"I don't like it." Sand Shoes crossed his arms, glaring at the sterile-white tiles.

"I don't like it either, Matchstick Man, but we'll sort it." The Doctor pulled his arms back. "If future us was stable enough to warn you, I'm probably fine too. I'll help."

What could be rewriting the timeline? The Doctor's gaze stopped on his mother smiling at his infant self. No, probably not that. But if someone was rewriting his timeline for the worse, that would be an easy place to strike. "We have to tell her."

Donna and Sand Shoes stared at him and asked in unison, "Tell me/her what?"

The Doctor's eyes flickered to his younger self. "You don't know?"

Sand Shoes crossed his arms. "No."

The Doctor sat on the awkward plastic chair beside Donna's bed. "Your child's full name is Jonathan Wilfred Noble."

Sand Shoes came closer, taking in the baby. "No!" He grinned at Donna. "No, this is brilliant! I do get to remember you."

She frowned at the both of them in turn. "Doctor, are either of you going to tell me what you're talking about?"

The Doctor met his younger self's eyes. "I'm sure she'd rather hear it from a familiar face."

Sand Shoes nodded. "Right." He shuffled, hesitated, and took their mother's hand. When he spoke, his voice was rather small. "Donna?"

Her face was a bit pale, her breathing shallow. "What is it? Is Jon going to grow up to be the next Hitler?"

"I hope not," Sand Shoes muttered, "but the way his history is changing, he might be. Donna…" He gulped. "My birth name – well, one of my birth names anyway – is Jonathan Wilfred Noble. I was born on Earth at Chiswick Mercy Hospital on the 24 of May, 2018."

She let go of his hand. "Jon?"

Both Doctors nodded. "I'm afraid so," mumbled Sand Shoes. He looked at his future self. "You knew that Donna couldn't remember us without her mind burning. In your timeline, how did Time Lord energy get into her head?"

"When I was you, I got shot by a Dalek and decided I didn't want to regenerate on one Ms. Rose Tyler again. Bit vain really." The Doctor smirked a bit at the glare his younger self sent him. "So I used just enough energy to heal myself and poured the rest into my dismembered hand. Donna touched it and created a two-way metacrisis."

Sand Shoes nodded, starting to tug on his hair. "Same as you, but what Donna described for me earlier, that was a Reaper. A Reaper attacked her, the metacrisis energy left her mind, and she became pregnant with us. If Mars is where our timeline was altered, how is that possible? No, Mars is a symptom of a much earlier rewrite. One that should have erased my incarnation from existence."

The Doctor paled. "Whatever this is created that part of our timeline. Your us don't exist, Donna never receives Time Lord energy, when she still has it, her subconscious saves her from the Reaper by converting that energy into us a baby – an uncontaminated us. Then, having failed to erase our incarnations with an earlier attempt, whatever it is went after us again, only this time, it went after the first one it could without entirely erasing our existence – you." He swore. "Whenever one attempt fails, I get the feeling it's just going to keep going after a later version of us until our final self defeats it. Or whatever self encountered it defeats it. One of the two."

"Oi! What's attacking you when it comes home then?" Donna was holding their infant self to her chest.

As Sand Shoes took her hand again and started explaining, Mary came up to the Doctor. "I don't understand everything that's going on here, but don't you still have an evil government organization after you? We should really get you and your mum away from this hospital."

"Right!" He stepped toward the door. "Hey, Matchstick Man! Make yourself useful and get Mum and baby us to safety, will you? I'll distract Torchwood until UNIT arrives, then I'll speak with them, get our family some protection and put in a good word for Mary, if she wants, and all that." And erase their birth records for River's sake, or course, but his younger self did not need to know that.


His future self was right: he did need to get Donna out of there. "The TARDIS is right outside the hospital, but I don't want to leave you alone to go fetch it, and I'm not sure the nurse here can protect you. I take it you can't walk?"

"What do you think?"

The nurse – Mary – walked toward the door. "I'll get a wheelchair."

The Doctor nodded. "Thank you."

Donna sulked. "All that time traveling with you, and you couldn't, even once, mention that I'm your mother in one of your timelines?"

"Time Lord childhoods last beyond a human's natural lifespan, so I was very young when you…." He stopped, deciding against saying the word died to Donna while she was still alive. It wasn't hard to pick up on what he was about to say of course, and Donna stroked the baby's head glumly. He swallowed. "Anyways, I was very young then, and I'm very old now. Even Time Lord memories fade. It wasn't even on my primary timeline back then. I didn't have photos or anything. I didn't remember your face."

"What if it's more than that? If I'm going to die, I think it would be better for you to be raised by someone with a similar lifespan. I know the Time Lords are gone, but isn't there anyone else?"

"Mum, I-" There was more the Doctor wanted to say, reassurances for the most important woman in his universe. He was drowned out by a VWORP! VWORP! as a dark blue telephone box appeared.

"That'll be that you with the big chin, won't it?"

He stood up. "I don't think so." It was too dark to be that future self's TARDIS.

The TARDIS doors opened, and out stumbled his female incarnation, faded through. She was bent over, clutching her chest.

Not good. The Doctor took a step toward her. "Are you alright?"

She looked up at him. "Restrain me!"

She was really scaring him. He and Chinny had thought she was stable. He ran toward her, reaching her just in time for her to solidify into a body he hoped he'd never see again: the Valeyard's.

The Valeyard knocked him to the ground. He rolled over and grabbed the Valeyard's ankle, pulling him away from Donna.

The Valeyard kicked him in the nose.

He cried out. His hands flew to his face, catching the blood.

Donna screamed.

The Doctor pushed himself up. The Valeyard's hands were on Donna's throat. Her eyes met his and flickered down to the baby slipping from her arms.

"Stop it!" he shouted. "You're going to kill us all!" He rammed himself into the Valeyard's side.

The Valeyard was knocked into the wall. The Doctor saw bruises forming on their mother's throat, but she was still breathing, if gasping for breath at the moment.

He took his chance to hold the Valeyard's wrists behind his back, pressing his evil future incarnation into the sheet rock. "What are you doing? No. How are you here? You died in the Matrix. On Gallifrey!"

The Valeyard's voice came out a little breathless. "I wanted to interfere before we destroyed Gallifrey. 2.47 billion children, Doctor! I was never as bad as you've become. As you're becoming."

The Doctor slackened his grip on the Valeyard, guilt swirling in his stomach. If he were to become the Valeyard, could he stop himself from making things worse in his attempts to intervene? Just like he had on Mars.

"He's tricking you," Donna croaked.

The Valeyard twisted against the Doctor. The Doctor shoved him harder into the wall. "How does killing our own mother stop my downward spiral? She's the one best positioned to help me out right now."

"She's human. She can't understand the laws of time like we can, can she?"

"No, but she understands other things. Say what you want about my judgment, but I trust hers." The Doctor smirked on hearing marching footsteps rushing their way. That would be UNIT, and just in time.

Sylvia Noble stepped through the door, followed by two young soldiers. "They're here. They're going to save-" she stopped when she saw that child in her daughter's arms. "Jon! Doctor? Who's that? He's Torchwood, isn't he?"

"No, he's not." The Doctor craned his head to look at the soldiers. "Help me! We've got to restrain him. I need him alive to reverse the time stream, so no guns! Either of you got any handcuffs?"

"And a gag," Donna croaked, wincing. "He plays mind games."

Sylvia's hands flew to her mouth. "He choked you, didn't he? That awful man! Someone get a doctor!"

With a great heave, the Doctor peeled the Valeyard away from the wall and toward the soldiers. "Don't worry, Mum. We've got it. Try not to speak while your throat's healing."

All three of the room's new arrivals stared at him. "What did you call my daughter?" Sylvia demanded.

"Mum," he repeated. "She's my surrogate mum. You knew I'm a time traveler." He looked at the soldiers, struggling to keep his grip on the Valeyard. "I need help!"

That spurred the soldiers into action. They had the Valeyard handcuffed and gagged in a matter of minutes.

Sylvia looked at the Valeyard, wide-eyed. "Who is he? What does he want with Donna?"

The Doctor quickly explained and Sylvia looked horrified. "Gran, the reason he attacked Mum was because she might be able to help me prevent myself from turning into him. The fact that he's still around worries me, but if I can get the other future me back long enough, we can figure out how to stop it altogether."

She blinked tears from her eyes and nodded. "You stop this, Jon."

The Doctor entered his future self's TARDIS and balked at the feminine theme. "Can't be helped," he said to himself. "I am a girl at the time. Good to see she's still mine and not the Valeyard's." He jogged to the console and checked the settings. "She's already giving all she's got to try to get her back as a paradox. It would take another TARDIS or two to get her back and stable. I've got another TARDIS or two."

He patted a smooth section of console. "Don't worry, Old Girl. We'll get your Doctor back."

He ducked out of the TARDIS, barked an answer to where he was going, sprinted through the corridors, took the lift, and dashed outside.

Chinny's TARDIS was still there. Good.

Rather than trying to figure out a new configuration just to get Chinny's TARDIS upstairs, it would be easier to materialize his own TARDIS around it and take them up at the same time. One mad dance with his controls later and he dropped Chinny's TARDIS off in the room. He parked his own a few feet away, arranged so that his future self was in the center of the triangle they made. He matched his ship's settings to his future self's and ran outside.

His future self was back to normal. Well, she was mostly in her Doctor form anyway. Well, she was more the Doctor than she was the Valeyard, but she was as ghostly as when she showed up, and her form kept flashing back to the Valeyard's.

"Hang in there. One more TARDIS. That should do it."

He entered Chinny's TARDIS and scowled: he didn't like the way that version had redecorated either. "What has he done to you?" he asked as he approached the console.

The TARDIS thrummed impatiently.

"Right." He started guessing at the controls, working them out as he went. It took several minutes, but he got the settings changed. "She won't remember our timeline, will she? Just the original. Just as well we need the original more."

When he climbed out of Chinny's TARDIS, his future self was solid and very constantly herself. He knelt in front of her and removed the gag. "Are you alright?"

"For the moment." Her blue eyes swam from one TARDIS to the next. "I count three. Who else is here?"

"My immediate successor."

Blondie shook her head. "He's not the Doctor anymore. I caught a glimpse of him before I fully turned: there are two Valeyards running around."

The Doctor's hearts skipped some beats. "He was consulting himself. That hypocrite."

Blondie grimaced.

"You're not alright, are you?"

She shook her head. "This is taking a lot of power from the TARDISes. They can't keep me comfortable, but never mind about me. We have to change your future!"

"How? I know in the original timeline, I left Captain Brooke on Mars, but I was already falling into despair before that! How did I keep the darkness from taking over?"

She took a breath. "How does Donna's baby tie into this?"

"That's us. Well, me, not so much you. But if we can restore you to time, it will be you too. How do we restore you?"

She nodded to a UNIT nurse that the Doctor had not noticed while he was parking the TARDISes. "The other Valeyard had a syringe. He must have talked UNIT into giving it to the baby. It's too late. We'll have to do it another way."

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "Is it safe to release you?"

"Should be. I'll stay close to the TARDISes."

As soon as the Doctor removed the handcuffs from her wrists, she stood up and took out her own sonic. She strode over to Donna's bedside with a smile. "Long time, no see."

Donna opened her mouth, but the Time Lady shook her head. "You're still injured. I just want you to nod yes or no: can we examine your child?"

Donna looked at the Doctor, and he could practically see the question in her eyes: is she really you? He stepped towards them, jaw moving before hers could get a chance. "She is me. My future self. Well, if we can prevent me from turning evil anyway." His eyes drifted toward the blonde. "She's not what I expected my future to be exactly, but I'd much rather turn into her than turn into the Valeyard."

Rolling her eyes, the future Doctor bent toward Donna's ear, but she had to speak loudly enough for human hearing that the Doctor could catch her words at the distance between them. "I remember you complaining on the day we met about being bleeped. Well, now it's my turn to be bleeped. I'll have to examine Stretch Toy there too."

"Stretch Toy?" Why did he keep up this habit of insulting himself?

It wasn't all bad though: Donna smiled. Her eyes gleamed as though she recognized him in his future self. And she'd still trust him when he was her – she offered her newborn son to the Time Lady as though to be held.

His future self started examining the infant, keeping her sonic well away from baby Jon's curious hands. The current Doctor joined in, forming a frown as he determined the substance injected into his child self. He stepped closer to the blonde, keeping his voice low. "We can't neutralize this in a baby. That much radiation would kill a Time Tot, no regeneration at all."

"I don't think we have to. It's dormant for now." She aimed her screwdriver between the Doctor's eyes, probed him for a moment, and pulled it away. "It's still in you, but in you it's started activating. I think the Valeyard I was was a distraction or a back-up plan. This is more sure-fire."


Next time:

The Tenth Doctor wants a say in what happens to his infant self.

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