"YOU ARE IDENTIFIED. YOU ARE THE DOCTOR."
"Oh, very perceptive of you! Let's have a round of applause! You'll be passing the Turing Test in just a few millennia!"
Despite all probability, the Doctor didn't appear worried in the slightest. On the contrary, he had leaned back in his chair, set his shoes on the table, and folded his arms behind his head, calmly taking in the form of a seven-foot tall iron-clad monstrosity. Will, meanwhile, was too perplexed by the whole thing to speak for a moment. The maid, who was ticking a small box of recognition deep in the back of the Doctor's mind, stood stock-still.
"Is…is it a Knight?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing so noble, William me lad. It's a Cyberman. Deadliest species in this sector. And unless I miss my guess, they would very much like to speak to me."
"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR," the Cyberman grated again. "YOU WILL COME WITH US."
"Really? Will I now?" The Doctor rocked forward, glare suddenly razor sharp. "And what if I don't want to go?"
"THEN YOU WILL DIE."
He rolled his eyes. "Always with the killing. You lot never quite got the value of polite conversation – oh no, just crash through a wall and shout your demands, and then you're baffled when everyone runs around like headless chickens. Did it never occur to you to just ask?"
The pub was empty now, the patrons having all fled. The Cyberman remained, as did a pair of sentinel Cybermen at the doors, and on the ground floor a pair of Cybershades snarled madly as the Doctor's eyes swept across the weird scene.
"Firstly," he said, raising one finger on his hand contemplatively, "it's late-medieval, early renaissance London. No electricity, and only the barest minimum means of generating power. If you thought Victorian London was tough, just wait until you get settled in this time period. Except you have, haven't you – that's how you got here so quickly, and without drawing attention, because a bunch of tin soldiers kinda tends to draw attention.
"Secondly," as he raised another finger, "I happen to know for a fact that you lot should be stuck in the Void along with what's left of the Daleks – how are they by the way? Ah, never mind, I dare say they'll turn up in a bit demanding I go with them – and that you've only managed to escape because you're so desperate you don't care where or when you end up. If you'd landed on the moon, it wouldn't have mattered. Some poor astronaut would have found a buried chamber, and poof, there go the Cybermen across the universe again.
"And thirdly," he finished, raising a third finger and moving over to the serving maid, "you let the people go. Which means you're not interested in cyber-conversion. Yet. Which means you either don't have the capability, or it means you know what will happen if you do. And considering point A...sorry, point First…I'm willing to bet it's that. Which probably means," he said, daintily touching the device in the girl's ears, "that this little device…isn't permanent."
There was a faint popping sound, as the Doctor wrenched the cyber-equipment out of the girl's ears. The glazed, aimless look on her face was replaced by brief confusion and then, catching sight of the Cyberman and the strange man grinning ecstatically at her, she screamed, dropped her tray, and fled.
The Doctor harrumphed. "Not even so much as a thank you!"
"YOU WILL COME WITH US," the Cyberman repeated.
The Doctor glowered at the thing. "Oh yes. But not because you're threatening me, you understand? I come because something is deeply wrong, and it must be fixed, and I'm the one to do it. And," he added, "on one condition – my friend here gets to leave. No tricks, no subterfuge, no kidnapping or cybernetic implants – and believe me, I'll know."
Finally, Will roused from his stunned state. "No, Doctor. We're in this together, 'til the bitter end."
"Hopefully not all that bitter, Will," the Doctor joked.
"THE COMPANION WILL BE SPARED."
The Doctor blinked, suddenly flustered. "He's not my companion."
"Well I realise we've only met twice-"
"No, I don't do that anymore. Just me on my own."
"THEN HE IS OF MINIMAL VALUE," the Cyberman said, stepping forward threateningly.
"No! His timeline is a fixed point – interrupt it, and the whole of time will begin to unravel. And frankly, I think you're on a bit of a deadline."
There was a pause. "CHRONOMETRICS DETECT NO FIXED POINT."
The Doctor frowned, as Shakespeare looked a bit taken aback. "What, really?" He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, giving him a test buzz, and then examining the metal rod. "Not even a whiff of fixed-pointedness?" He blew out, shaking his head. "Blimey, this is turning out to be a day and a half."
"Doctor, what-"
"Go, Will. And, ah, give my regards to Bessy, will you?"
And with a clap of a metal fist against a hollow chest, and bright flash of light, the Doctor was gone leaving only a bewildered playwright.
A TARDIS stands in the field.
Unlike a specific earlier incarnation, there are no people thronging around it to ignore it. Maybe it feels grateful – nobody likes to be ignored. If someone put an ear to its exterior, besides possible splinters, they'd feel the faint throb and hum that was the heartbeat of the best ship in the universe.
Somebody did.
"Just like he said it would be," says one in a voice of excited awe. "Right where he said."
"The colour is a bit darker than he told us," says another.
"Is he gonna care if it's not the right shade of blue? Get the lorry."
"What, right now?"
"He said he wanted it right away. You wanna lose a shot at that gold, you're welcome to leave. Me, I'm saving up for a new tractor."
A few minutes later, a lorry trundled away across the field, carrying away the best ship in the universe.
The Doctor pushed his 3D glasses up to their perch upon his nose, peering about him quizzically, smiling.
"Nice ship. A bit dusty, but I expect Rosy's a bit busy. Oh, and can you feel that?" he knelt, palms pressed to the metal deck. "The harmonic resonance – ooh, you've got a bit of a problem in your plasma reactors. And…" he stuck his tongue out, wrinkling his nose, "…animal fat?"
The Cyberman tried to loom threateningly, but anyone trying it on any version of the Doctor was doomed to fail. "YOU WILL FOLLOW."
He bounded up like a spring, a grin plastered across his face. "Lead on, Allonz-y!"
The journey through the bowels of the cybership was a quiet one – the Cyberman had very little to say, and the Doctor walked in quiet contemplation. This wasn't his first time in a cybership, but it was the first time he'd been invited aboard one, without hostages being taken. It was a bit of a new experience, and he spent it drinking in all the details – the semi-tubular shape of the corridors, the arc of the struts that hung so low, its builders confident that its cybernetic crew would never bump their heads. The Doctor was not so lucky, and had to keep his head ducked after he struck a particular low-lying strut.
Finally, at the end of the long corridor, the Cyberman halted in front of a door, taking up a security position next to it. As it retracted into the ceiling, revealing a bustling command center, the thing rumbled, "YOU WILL ENTER."
"No fanfare?" he asked cheekily. He shrugged as the Cyberman raised an arm, pointing emphatically at the opening. "Alright, alright, I just thought I'd make a more dramatic entrance." He hopped across the threshold, onto the command deck.
The Cybermen froze.
It wasn't the freezing of paused time. He would have felt it if it was. The Cybermen just stopped what they were doing, standing stock still. The Doctor couldn't help noticing that there was a large, empty space in the middle of the room, where he was clearly expected to enter.
He warily prowled the edges, roaming among the automata.
"You wanted me?" he called out across the room. "Well, here I am!"
"INDEED," boomed a voice.
The Cybermen moved as one, turning to face the centre of the room and clasping a fist to their chestplates with a loud resonating clang, as a hologram wavered to life, projecting the image of a large Cyberman head, painted in black with a portion of transparent casing exposing the brain within it, looking down at him.
"Oh, very Wizard of Oz," the Doctor remarked amiably. "Shall I bring you the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West? A bit of a power drain, but when we're talking about animating giant cyborgs or putting on a spectacle, I know which one I'd go for. Oh, you must really be scared of little old me," he added, grinning nastily.
The machine ignored the jibe. "YOU HAVE BEEN SOUGHT, TIME LORD. YOU ARE REQUIRED."
"Oh no no no no," the Doctor said, shaking his head and drawing his sonic screwdriver. "First, I wanna know what you lot are doing here. Last time I saw you was in the Victorian era. Has that happened yet?"
"WE HAVE MADE ONE ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE THE VOID BEFORE. IT FAILED, AND THE CYBERKING WAS DESTROYED."
"Cyberking, right. So we're roughly synced up. Which means if I pressed this button," he said, resting his thumb on a bump on the screwdriver, "I could blow up your ship right now and end you lot forever. No more Cybermen, again. I could stop you from even starting the genocidal conquest I just know you're planning."
"BUT YOU WON'T."
"And you know that because..?"
"BECAUSE YOU ARE THE DOCTOR."
"If you're counting on my mercy, think again tinman, because I don't have any where you lot are concerned. Not anymore."
"EVEN IF IT KILLS YOU AS WELL?"
"I'm nine hundred and five. I think I've had a good run."
The Cyberleader paused, considering the Doctor's bluff. "NEVERTHELESS, YOU WILL NOT DESTROY US. NOT UNTIL WE HAVE EXPLAINED WHY WE HAVE SUMMONED YOU."
"True. I just wanted to let you know what I could do, to prevent any unfortunate misunderstandings. By the way, I'm already in your system-" there was an blare of klazons that quickly subsided. "-don't bother flushing the software out, I'll have plenty of time to do what I need to do."
"THEN WE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER", the Cyberleader said in what the Doctor could only interpret was a sound of smug surety.
"Right, then if you lot have a comfy chair and a hot mug of cocoa, we can begin!"
To his surprise, a seat was produced – a wooden three-legged stool. The cocoa was not. He took the seat anyway, leaning back slightly, legs crossed, trying to look at relaxed as possible.
"So, what have you gone through all this trouble to ask me?"
"WE REQUIRE YOUR COOPERATION."
Yeah, I got that. What's really interesting is that you let my friend go. Not exactly your usual M.O. there.
"YOUR FILES WERE REVIEWED. COERCION WAS DEEMED…INEFFICIENT."
The Doctor smiled. "There may just be hope for you lot yet. And what did you want my cooperation with?"
"THE DESTRUCTION OF A MUTUAL ENEMY."
"Mutual? Oh, please don't tell me the Daleks really did follow you out."
"UNKNOWN. NO DALEK SIGNATURES DETECTED IN THIS LOCATION AND TIME."
"Well, that's a relief. So, who's this mutual enemy?"
"WE WERE WEAK WHEN WE ARRIVED. OUR SHIP WAS DAMAGED. OUR ENERGY RESERVES LOW. THEY OFFERED REPLENISHMENT IN EXCHANGE FOR OUT…SERVICES."
"Making a deal with a Cyberman? They're playing with fire."
"WE DID NOT KNOW THEIR IDENTITIES AT FIRST. WE ACCEPTED THE OFFER. IN EXCHANGE, THEY REQUESTED ACCESS TO OUR DATABANKS. TO OUR FILES ON TIME TRAVEL. TO OUR FILES ON YOU."
"Really? I'm flattered."
"EVENTUALLY THEIR DEMANDS BECAME MORE AGGRESSIVE. ASSISTANCE WITH CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS. EQUIPMENT FOR ESPIONAGE. WEAPONS. THE ENERGY THEY PROVIDED DIMINISHED WITH EACH REQUEST. WE NOW DEEM IT INEFFICIENT TO CONTINUE WITH OUR AGREEMENT AND THE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE TO TERMINATE IT."
"With extreme prejudice, I take it?"
"YOU WILL TRACK THEM DOWN, AND DESTROY THEM. IN EXCHANGE FOR WHICH WE WILL LEAVE THIS WORLD. WE HAVE THE MINIMUM REQUIRED ENERGY, BUT NONE TO SPARE. IF YOU STOP US, WE WILL NEED TO GAIN MORE. AND THE COLLATORAL DAMAGE TO THIS WORLD WILL BE SIGNIFICANT."
"Well, it's a nice offer, but I can't exactly wipe out a group I don't even know just because you don't like them. Why are they my enemy too? I mean, if it's genocide or enslavement of the planet, I'm your man, but if they're not up to anything I'm just not going to do it. What do they want?"
"WE DO NOT KNOW."
"Oh come on!" the Doctor said, derisively. "You're the best spies in the galaxy!"
"WE DO NOT KNOW. BUT A NAME WAS REVEALED TO US."
"And that was?"
"THE IMPOSSIBLE ARMY."
The Doctor sucked his teeth thoughtfully. "It's a bit hyperbolic, isn't it? Really? You know, as names go, I was expecting something a bit more…well, impressive."
"WE DO NOT KNOW IF IT IS THEIR NAME, ONLY THAT IT IS A PHRASE THAT IS IMPORTANT TO THEM."
"Well, that's a bit rubbish. All you've given me is a name and some vague hints. It's not much to work on, even for me!"
"THERE WAS ANOTHER NAME."
The Cybermen do not feel emotion, or at least, like the Daleks, claim not to with a surety that is very convincing. But as the Cyberleader paused, the Doctor thought he could detect an almost imperceptible shudder throughout the assembled Cybermen.
"NIGHTMARE CHILD."
The Doctor bolted upright, eyes wide and horrified. "What?!"
Not that name. It couldn't be. It really couldn't be!
"THE NAME IS FAMILIAR TO YOU?"
He stood, rigidly, staring in horror at the Cyberleader. "That's impossible. That's…that's just impossible!"
"WHAT IS THIS NIGHTMARE CHILD?"
"It's impossible, is what it is! What the hell do they want with it?!"
"UNKNOWN."
There was a pause as Time Lord and Cyberleader looked at each other, as if daring the other to blink first. Normally, trying it on a metal face would be a doomed venture. But "normal" was never a word anyone could apply to the Doctor.
"WE WILL PROVIDE YOU THE COORDINATES OF THEIR LAST CONFIRMED LOCATION," the Cyberleader intoned. "YOU WILL WITHDRAW FROM OUR SERVERS AND WE WILL LEAVE THIS WORLD. YOU ACCEPT THESE CONDITIONS?"
"And how do I know you won't go back on your word? You lot aren't known for honouring your agreements."
"WE HAVE SET THE SHIP ON A TIMED OUTBOUND COURSE. IF YOU WISH TO DEADLOCK THE CONTROLS TO ENSURE OUR COMPLIANCE, WE WILL ALLOW IT."
"That's awfully trusting of you."
"WE WILL HAVE TIME TO REORIENT AND PRIORITISE LATER."
The Doctor buzzed the screwdriver over the nearest control panel for a few seconds, and then pocketed it, satisfied.
"Done. We've got a deal."
"EXCELLENT," the Cyberleader said, reminding the Doctor of one he'd met so very long ago. "PREPARE FOR TRANSMAT."
"Wait!" said the Doctor. "Since I only have this chance to tie up a loose end, how did you escape from the Void? I took the Dalek device you used last time, and I'd know if there was a Void Ship anywhere here, so…what did you do?"
The Cyberleader looked a bit embarrassed, if that was possible. "WE DID NOTHING. WE ARE NOT HERE BY OUR CHOICE. THE CRACKS LED US HERE."
The Doctor frowned. "Cracks? What cracks, you mean like transdimensional drywall?"
"CRACKS IN THE SKIN OF THE UNIVERSE. WE DISCOVERED ONE. IT LED US HERE. "
"That's impossible," the Doctor said. "The Void exists outside of the universe, you'd need…you'd need a tremendous amount of power to make one that could reach it. An impossible amount of power."
He wondered briefly whether these were the same cracks the Mi-go had mentioned, a thought that was interrupted by being surrounded by pale light.
"PREPARE FOR TRANSMAT."
That was then. This isn't quite now, but it is much closer.
The Doctor sighed.
"Really, why does she keep doing this to me?"
As bright and chipper as he'd tried to be when they'd emerged, the Doctor's mood had clearly plummeted to thunderous levels, sheer irritation at not arriving where he'd wanted overshadowing the usual joy of somewhere new to explore. "Mr. Grumpy-Face" as Clara had once called him, though the name has brought an odd look on his face, and she'd never used it again.
"Who, you mean the TARDIS? Dropping you off where you don't want to be?" asked Clara, as the two of them continued to trudge along the dirt road.
"Yes! I have things to do, places to go, people to see, dictators to topple! I can't just go gallivanting across the middle of nowhere!"
"What happened to 'there's always something interesting in the countryside'?" she teased.
"I do my utmost to keep my friends' spirits up," he said dourly.
Clara shrugged. "I always assumed it was because she had a sense of humour." She smiled nastily. "And face it Doctor, anywhere you go gets interesting really fast."
"Ah," he retorted. "But there's a difference between the place being boring, and the things happening there being boring. Just because I'm being chased by Daleks or Zygons or Cybermen doesn't make it interesting, it just means I've got stuff to do and a lot of people are going to be very unhappy when I'm done, which means I have to hurry off without getting to have any fun. I wanted Barcelona! Any old time really, but I wanted beaches and sand and Spaniards!"
She looked around herself, at the green English countryside. Really, it looked to her for all the world like one of those sappy postcards you sometimes get from an aunt you never talk to but keeps remembering you exist and has taken it upon herself to remind you that she does too – green rolling fields boxed in my piled stone walls, the occasional tree, scattered scarecrows flapping in the breeze and an old tractor parked at the top of a hill.
"We're in the 20th century at least," she said, nodding at the machine. "Tractors are recent, right?"
The Doctor glanced over. "Chesterfield 1911. Designed by a lovely but confused man called Peter, put into production in 1849. Shame about the Lunar Wyverns, but at least you lot got an agricultural revolution out of it."
Clara decided not to ask.
"So, if we've landed here, there must be something here worth landing for, right?" she reasoned gamely. "The TARDIS never just dumps us in the middle of nowhere for no reason. Any idea what it could be?"
"How should I know? Maybe a race of mouse-people is poisoning all the cheese? Maybe the outdoor loos are all filled with portals to Jupiter? Maybe an army of scarecrows is swarming across the countryside? Actually, scratch that, I've already seen that. It wasn't pretty."
"Don't knock the countryside," Clara said, grinning. "If there's one thing Midsummer Murders has taught me, it's that it's a nest of secrets, scandals and murder, and that an amiable chap with a plucky assistant can work miracles."
The Doctor grunted. "It was okay. Season 86 got a bit salacious when the Americans took over, but it got good again by season 97 during the ITV buyback."
Clara laughed, and even the Doctor reluctantly smiled. And then he frowned.
"Now that shouldn't be there."
"What?" Clara squinted where the Doctor was looking, but he was already off, jogging up the grassy hillock. Clara took off after him.
The Doctor was crouched down, looking at…a fairy ring. At least, that was what Clara's parents had always told her they were - formed from when one mushroom released its spores, rings growing where they landed.
"You're not expecting fairies to show up, are you." She joked.
The Doctor tapped the sonic against his chin thoughtfully. "What do you know about the fairy rings, Clara?" he asked thoughtfully. "What do the stories you've heard say?"
"They're made when the fairies dance, I think. Or was it elves? dwarfs?"
"In the old stories there's not much difference," the Doctor said, suddenly serious and quiet. "And they didn't just dance. They would sing, and tell stories, and laugh and feast and sing, and sometimes a mortal just couldn't resist joining them. Sometimes you'd never see them again. Or sometimes they'd return to find the world had moved on, their friends and family were all dead, and he had nothing left." He extended the sonic screwdriver and buzzed it around the fairy ring. "Oh, those naughty elves."
Clara raised an eyebrow. "So…elves are real? You know…after everything I've seen with you, I shouldn't be surprised."
The Doctor straightened, shrugging. "Well, what is an elf, really? Just something strange you lot have never seen before. You wouldn't believe how many people have called me strange, can you believe that?" He frowned as Clara smirked. "Huh. You know those sentences that sound better in your head?"
"Yeah?"
"Just pretend it was one of them."
Clara knelt down beside the fairy ring, taking a look for herself. "So what's wrong with it? Okay, so elves exist. Does that mean they're coming back, or…"
"No. Maybe. Probably not. The problem isn't the elves. The problem," he said, pointing the sonic to a patch in front of her, "is this patch here. See anything unusual?"
Clara peered down at the grass. Bright green, with the rich brown earth showing underneath.
"A beetle?"
"No. The beetle's fine. The sun's behind you."
"So?"
"So where's your shadow?"
Okay. Clara had to admit, he was very good. She leaned forward, trying to find the spot where her shadow actually ended-
"Not too close Clara," he added in a tone of warning.
"So where is the-OOP!" She wobbled, her boots slipping in the morning dew, and she put out a hand to steady herself.
A hand that passed over the fairyring and brief disappeared before she toppled over completely.
"Well," she said, trying not to sound too surprised, "that was odd."
She stared at her hand, flexing it, making sure it was all there. Because while it had disappeared, it had felt…gone. No touch, no weight, as if it has stopped existing. The Doctor hurried over kneeling down next to her as he ran the sonic over the hand that had gone AWOL.
"You alright? All in one piece?"
"You know what, I'm starting to see what you mean about the TARDIS."
She picked herself up, dusting grass and dew off herself, and then yelped as a hand suddenly appeared from thin air.
It flailed around for a bit, as if someone had just stuck an arm out into something they couldn't see, and then expanded to include a wrist, and an arm…an arm wearing a blue and red pinstripe sleeve. The Doctor's eyes widened as the arm brought through a shoulder, and then a torso, and then an entire body. An extremely familiar body, with spiky hair, magnificent sideburns, and a look of utter stunned surprise as he took in the sight of the Doctor and Clara, who were likewise gobsmacked.
"You again!?"
The Doctor, Clara's Doctor, looked outraged. "What the dickens are you doing here?"
The other Doctor's shock gave way to disappointment. "Oh no. Not this again."
"Now who's crossing their own timestreams?" asked Clara's Doctor angrily. "You know the kind of anomalies this'll cause!"
"Look, I didn't ask to be here. One moment I'm in a Cybership, the next I'm standing in the middle of a field and I see a hand appear from thin air. What am I supposed to do, walk off like it's an ordinary day?"
"We don't have ordinary days," Clara's Doctor muttered.
"You're telling me!"
"Will you two give it a rest already?" Clara finally broke out. "Not even two minutes together and you're already bickering with yourself!"
The Doctors gave each other a Look, but stayed meekly quiet.
"Right," she said forcefully. "So, there's two of you again. What's wrong in the universe this time?"
The other Doctor gave his later version a brief eyebrow raise for permission, and received a subtle nod. "Well, I don't know what you two are up to, but I was catching up with Shakespeare when I stumbled on something about cracks in the skin of the universe, and something about an Impossible Army."
The older Doctor frowned. "Cracks? Did you say cracks?"
"Yeah. Powerful enough to destroy Yuggoth, and make a tunnel from the Void for the Cybermen. Oh! Speaking of which!"
He pulled out his small silver sonic screwdriver, and jabbed an arm back through the…whatever it was.
The Cybermen had offered to let the Doctor deadlock their navigational coordinates as a sign of good faith. And he had done so…but not before altering the coordinates, sending their ship straight into the sun.
As if the Doctor would ever allow them to leave.
"There, that should take care of them." He looked around at his older self and Clara. "And you two were…?"
He followed Clara's gaze, down to the ring of mushrooms that were now trampled underfoot.
"What, fairy rings?" he asked sceptically.
"Yes, fairy rings," insisted the older Doctor, a bit defensively. "We can't all be gallivanting around renaissance London attracting attention! Some of us prefer a bit of a subtler approach!"
"You found it a few minutes ago, didn't you?" he asked, giving Clara a wink. Her grin was answer enough.
"Excuse me," said the older Doctor, "but we were investigating a spatial anomaly." He peered closer at where his younger self had appeared. "Can you see any shadows there?" he asked.
Remembering he was still wearing his 3D glasses, the younger Doctor turned and squinted.
"Nope."
The older Doctor pulled out his own sonic screwdriver, and buzzed it at the anomaly. "How about now?"
The spot suddenly glowed and crackled, energy arcing around a point where space seemed to simply split in two, divided by a jagged crack that had appeared in thin air. The two Doctors circled it, but neither of them could see around it – it seemed to turn to face both of them simultaneously.
"This is impossible," muttered the older Doctor.
"I've been saying that a lot today," the younger Doctor said in exasperation.
"Doesn't stop it from being real," said Clara, smiling cheerfully.
"No," the older Doctor explained, "I mean I've already fixed this problem. It should be staying fixed."
"Well, it wasn't fixed while I was still around, was it?" asked the younger Doctor. "Maybe it's an earlier version of the problem? Or maybe it's something unrelated? There was a breach at Canary Wharf, when the Void Ship battered its way through…"
"It still shouldn't be possible. I had to reboot the universe to fix it last time, I don't want to have to do it again." He shrugged at the younger Doctor's curiously raised eyebrow. "It was a bit wibbly wobbly-"
"-Timey wimey. I use a phrase once and you just pick it up and run with it, don't you?"
"Just…take it from me, it's a very bad sign."
"If you say so," he said. "Right, well, I've got to track down a shadowy organisation, so if you're all good here-"
"Wait. This organisation, they have something to do with this?" asked the older Doctor.
"So I've been told."
"Well then, why don't we use my TARDIS to analyse it further? I mean, it's either you hop back and find yours which could take days after you hitch a ride back to wherever you left it – and I'll tell you, travelling through a crack in time isn't my idea of a safe trip – or we could walk back to mine, which will only take-"
"A few hours," interjected Clara.
"Yes, okay, hours, but it's still shorter."
The younger looked dubious. "Neither of us should be here. You know the kind of risks we'd be taking just staying in the same timezone – the anomalies that could occur. We might end up with the Reapers popping back."
"Yeah," said his older self, "but I haven't seen those guys for about…oh…four hundred years now, and I've done a lot of fiddling with the universe that should have brought them out. I'm starting to think they all died off. And," he said, smiling confidently, "let's face it, when have we ever cared about the consequences if it means saving the world?"
The younger Doctor considered this, and then smiled broadly. "All right then. Lead on. Allonz-y!"
As the three of them set out, Clara resigned herself to being a third wheel on this unexpected tricycle as the two Doctors started bickering again.
"You need to get a catch phrase."
"Oh hark at Mr. Timey-Wimey!"
The young man stares at his prize. Centred in the middle of a richly furnished room, the Blue Box almost seems to glow, beyond the light that shines out through the windows of the door. Beyond the dim glow of the candelabra that hangs above it.
He puts out a hand, hesitating a moment just before he touches the wood panelling. Or, at least, what appears to be wood panelling. Appearances can so often be deceiving, as he has learned well.
"It's beautiful, my lord."
He turns to his assistant, a hooded man. If you didn't know who he was, you might mistake him for a monk. But there are no monasteries in these parts, and the One they serve is far more powerful than a mere god.
"It is indeed, doctor." He smiles at the title. A little touch of irony.
He slides his hand across the exterior, feeling the texture – the roughness of the wood, the smoothness of the glass, every corner and frame that he can reach. It's been a long time since…
"The farmhands who found it. They expect to be paid," the other said, as though merely the praise of his master was not reward enough.
The lord smiled. "Then they shall have it. Let them have fifty guineas. Each."
"A generous sum."
"Oh, not so generous. You will of course send the Hound after them later. He will retrieve the sum when he is…finished."
"Of course, my lord," the assistant said, backing out of the room, still bowing reverently.
Alone again, the young man strikes a finger around the keyhole. There is a dull clang, a flash of red light, and he snatches his hand away – but nothing happens. It was merely a noise to frighten him away, he things to himself. A toothless warning.
He knows of course that nobody can enter the best ship in the universe without The Key. Even trying is impossible, unless it specifically wants to let them in.
He rummages around in a pocket, and pulls out a small bit of metal that is already glowing with a brilliant yellow light.
It's a good thing, he thinks to himself, that he doesn't have to resort to such desperate measures.
"You know, maybe going back for my TARDIS wasn't such a bad idea," said the younger Doctor, hands thrust into his coat pockets as his older self and Clara stared bemused at the empty field.
"Are you sure we parked here?" Clara asks, belatedly.
"Yes," her Doctor said, offended at the idea that he'd got it wrong. "I am sure we parked here. Look, there's the wall we clambered over to get to the main road. And down there's the bush you caught your jacket on. A little further on, you'll notice the tree I nearly ran into. And over there-"
"Okay, okay," Clara said, raising her hands in defeat, "I get it. We parked here. So where did it go?"
He buzzed the patch of flattened grass where his ship used to be. "I don't know. I'm not detecting any outbound traces, and the artron signature is already hours old, what we arrived with. It didn't leave through the time vortex. And," he waved a hand over it, "it's not camouflaged."
"Oh, you got that working, did you?" asked his younger counterpart excitedly.
"Spoilers," the older version said grumpily. And then, in a grudgingly enthusiastic tone, "yeah, and it works a treat. Total camouflage, no texture pop or depth perception, total invisibility. It is pretty cool, if I do say so myself."
The Doctors smiled at each other, and then Clara brought them back to the present with an exclamation of, "I think I know how we can find it.
"And how might that be? Have you got a spare vortex manipulator handy? Oh, wait, hang on, that's still in the TARDIS."
Wordlessly, she smiled benignly and pointed to the ground a few meters away. Twin gauges in the muddy grass led from where the TARDIS had been, to a gate in the fence.
"Oh look. There appear to be tyre tracks in the mud here. I wonder wherever they shall lead?"
Her Doctor glared at her, annoyed. "Sarcasm is unbecoming in a young lady," he said crossly.
"Don't you listen to him Clara," said his younger self, grinning broadly. "That was a brilliant bit of deduction."
And as the three of them took off again, following the muddy trail, none of them noticed the small, silver drone emerge from behind the trees around the field, rotating to keep its camera lens focussed on them.
Somewhere else, some when else, something stirred.
There was…sensation. Not quite touch, or smell, or sight, but something very akin to them, the feeling of existence, of being. The feeling of a nonexistence briefly shrugged off.
It reached out a finger. A homeless drunk screams in terror as a corpse rises up and murders him.
It flexes another finger. Somewhere else, an old man stirs, his dreams turning to thoughts of horrors a human mind would struggle to create on its own.
It strains against the chains that bind it fast, giving a roar that would shake worlds.
Nothing.
So small now, a tiny fraction of its former majesty. A scattered, sundered remnant.
But enough.
More than enough.
A note to the reader: as absurd or egotistical as it will sound, I was both overjoyed at and horrified by the 50th Anniversary Special. Overjoyed, because it was a fantastic episode, and Ten and Eleven had such brilliant chemistry with each other. And horrified because it was Eleven, Ten and a Time War Doctor confronting something significant they did during that, which also dealt with why Elizabeth was so angry at him. OH DEAR. Because really, that was precisely the setup of my original plan. So while I'm flattered that Moffat psychically lifted my idea and crafted a really good episode out of it, I was left in an uncomfortable position and tempted to just let this story die a quiet death.
But nope, I just couldn't do it.
I really cannot guarantee any kind of regular updating, but I would love to continue with this, especially in light of what we now know about some things. And while the original idea is the same, how I was planning on executing it was decidedly different, and I still hope it could make a good story on its own.