Shadow of Klein.
New Body, New Grief.
"Professor?"
Ace's voice was so quiet the Doctor almost couldn't hear her, but he did, and his smile dimmed slightly, although that was more out of concern when he saw the state Ace was in.
"Yes, it's me, Ace."
The Doctor hoped Ace wasn't going to be one of those companions who had trouble accepting him following a regeneration, but thanks to his post-regeneration fogged mind, the Doctor was having trouble recalling the moments his previous selves had regenerated in front of a companion. But he could remember their scepticism, their fear, the accusations they made as they tried to work out where their Doctor had gone when in fact he was right in front of them, dressed in the clothes of his predecessor. But as he stared into Ace's eyes, the Doctor could see something there he recognised but was having trouble identifying…..Rassilon, his head really did hurt.
"I….I'm so sorry!" Ace cried and she flung herself at him, sobbing into his shoulder. The Doctor, surprised and unprepared for the impact, staggered back slightly until his back went into the console, but he quickly wrapped his arms around Ace's body - he noted the uncomfortable feeling of the clothes he was wearing, as they were much too small, and he realised he had shot up in height; his previous four bodies had been rather tall, so when he had regenerated into his seventh life, he'd needed to get used to being short again.
But the Doctor pushed those thoughts aside - his height and his clothes, although he'd need to get to them later on - and he focused on Ace. She was more important.
"I'm so sorry!" Ace repeated.
The Doctor frowned. There it was again, his mind was fogged by the result of the regeneration even if his mind was slightly clearer than some of the post regenerative crises he'd had in the past, but right now his memory was more fogged than blurred. And then he remembered. Arriving in Colditz castle after the TARDIS had passed a temporal anomaly which had caused havoc with the ship's navigational systems, Ace leaving the TARDIS before he had performed the right checks - he might be careless at times, but when there was an anomaly like that in the Time Vortex it was a bad idea not to take precautions - being captured by the Germans in the POW camp while being shot and working through the night to eject the bullet from his injuries, the predictable interrogation, the usual boring threats made by unimaginative big-booted soldiers who were so obsessed with winning a hopeless war, being separated from Ace and the TARDIS in the camp while the Germans made their boasts they had access to the 'travelling machine' even though they had no idea how to get inside or even how the TARDIS operated.
The Doctor remembered trying to work out a way he could get Ace to safety and then get them both back to the TARDIS without their lives being put at risk despite the castle's reputation for being escape-proof… and then came the arrival of Elizabeth Klein, a Nazi scientist. Her arrival had not only taken the Doctor by surprise but the German officers at the camp had been surprised in turn. A German scientist arriving at a POW camp… that did not happen every day, although at first, the Doctor had suspected the woman had arrived because the TARDIS had been reported and she had just been sent to inspect it.
But there had been something odd about her. The Doctor could tell there was something not quite right with her, how she knew too much, and he had realised she was a time traveller herself. He had discovered she was a Nazi scientist…from an alternate 1960s where the Nazi's had won the Second World War thanks to the laser technology found in Ace's CD walkman. The discovery Klein was from a future where the Nazis not only won the war but they had systematically rebuilt the world in their own image, when the 1960s was supposed to be a time of change, of art, rock music… all of it wiped clean by Hitler's views of racial purity only a fanatic who was just determined to see the world in a finite way instead of a richly diverse collection of possibilities.
The 1960s was one of the Doctor's favourite times on Earth, not least because he and Susan had spent months in a junkyard in Shoreditch, but while he had been busy on repairing the TARDIS and dealing with the Hand of Omega, the Doctor hadn't been ignorant of human culture as Susan had imagined. He had just been shy of it, and he had kept it a secret until he had grown more comfortable in Ian and Barbara's presence. He had often listened to human rock music, the Beatles among other things.
The thought of the Nazis destroying it all was horrifying enough, but truthfully the Doctor had known nothing would have come from making Klein see the evil which had been caused by the Nazi's destroying so many lives, just so then their trains ran on time, and everything was the ordered world Hitler had promised while all of those who were different, such as their religion or their skin colour, to their beliefs and abilities were not only ostracised but condemned to be gassed without being allowed to make a worthwhile contribution to the world.
The Doctor had always hated the way people and beings, not just humans, but Daleks and a host of other alien beings out there, who just attacked and attacked and attacked, and killed and killed, and stamped down on whole cultures and believed they were justified because it was they who were the ones doing the killing, and then stamping down on the culture that already existed and would come in later to add to the beauty of the culture before.
And Klein had believed such a world had been beautiful while she believed her knowledge of time travel accounted for all of the variables. The Doctor frowned mentally as he thought of how the Nazi scientist had travelled back into the past, using an alternate version of his TARDIS to come back. But at the same time, he could see himself doing what his alternate self had done, seeing the damage caused by the change of history before heading further into the future, being captured and regenerating, a plan in mind for putting history back on its natural course, going so far as to give Klein the TARDIS and then using her to send it back to give his earlier self the means of changing the future to what it should have been.
The Doctor was unsure what would possess his alternate self to send Klein back in particular, especially since it was likely there had been other Nazi scientists in the first place, but it might have been because of her overly ambitious nature. People like that tended to be a touch single-minded, short-sighted; if his alternate self had met Klein and realised quickly just how ambitious she was, and careless when it came to the rules of time travel, then she would be perfect. The only problem was hoping nothing went pear-shaped at the other end.
And it had.
He had just regenerated and he had to try to comfort Ace. He had no problem with that; he could tell with his new persona, he was better equipped mentally for dealing with people who were hurt inside than his previous self, although the Doctor half expected to pick out that thought his predecessor had sometimes gotten whenever someone like Mel or Ace had been upset.
She's no use to me like this.
It was not happening now.
The Doctor tightened his grip gently. His memory was coming back the more he thought on the recent past, and more aspects of his predecessor's life were becoming clearer for him. "Ace," he began gently, "you've got nothing to be sorry about."
"But I got you killed, all because of that damn CD walkman-."
"No," the Doctor's voice was firm, although he knew Ace had a point about the walkman, and he really needed to make it clear to her she would need to be careful about carrying around dangerous anachronisms. "Ace, I chose to shield you and take those bullets; I knew I would come back, and besides, while I had been looking towards the bigger picture, a masterplan laid out in my mind, I cared more about you. I wanted everyone in the universe to have a safer life, and if that meant giving my life to do it, so be it."
Ace sniffled, and the Doctor was about to further reassure her when suddenly the TARDIS lurched, sending the two time-travelling friends to the floor.
"What the hell was that?" Ace demanded, wincing as she rubbed her head and an aching bruise which had just formed from the impact of the fall.
"I don't know," the Doctor groaned, although he tried to maintain a cheerful demeanour to put Ace at ease. It wasn't working, although Ace couldn't help but feel happy at the same time he was making an effort like that. The Doctor jumped to his feet, and he nearly fell back again when there was another lurch, and he rushed to the console and immediately checked the instruments. "It's the anomaly we passed through before we arrived in Colditz."
"What? I thought after that mess with Klein and getting the TARDIS back, that timeline was negated."
"It has. But there is still a nice little ripple in the vortex, and the old girl really does not like it," the Doctor explained, pausing for a moment to pat the console while he adjusted his jacket; the move drew Ace's attention to the clothes the Doctor was wearing, and her heart ached at the sight of the last Doctor's clothes. They barely fitted this new Doctor, but regardless of that fact, they did not suit this new Doctor at all. He resembled a more Byron-esque figure than her last Doctor, and the smaller clothes looked awkward on him to say nothing about being uncomfortable.
"But surely we would have just gotten rid of it after we put history back on track?" Ace shook her head, dismissing the thought. The Doctor was old enough now to take care of himself.
"We did and it did, but we're just dealing with a shadow of turbulence. At the same time, Klein's act of coming back to 1944 also unveiled a number of alternate timelines; nine of them in total."
"Nine?" Ace whispered in disbelief; as an experienced time traveller, she knew about timelines and how they could change, but she had never encountered so many before, in one point. "So many?"
"Yes," the Doctor whispered, showing he was just as surprised as she was. And troubled. "Curious; Colditz 1944 must be a nexus point, and everything that happened when we arrived, and Klein's arrival has opened the veil between the timelines. They're closing up, but we're trapped in the aftershocks."
The Doctor shook his head and he nodded. "The TARDIS gave a lot of energy to shield my regeneration against the nexus point, knowing that in the other timelines, different events took place. At the same time, she was slowed down, and her engines weren't fast enough to completely break us free."
Ace needed a moment to comprehend what she had just heard. She had never known the TARDIS had the power to do something like that, but she imagined it made sense, given how the Doctor - the previous Doctor - had wanted to get into the TARDIS again quickly just before the regeneration took place, the ship had the power to stabilise his condition should anything go wrong.
She wondered just how deep their relationship went, especially if the TARDIS would care more for giving up her energy to the Doctor to heal him and protect him at the same time from this nexus point (idly she wondered what it would do to a Time Lord should they regenerate unprotected near one, but since the TARDIS had sacrificed so much to protect him at the risk of being trapped, she was willing to bet the results would not have been pretty).
And she felt humbled; for a long time, Ace had taken the Mickey out of the Doctor for his love and tenderness for the TARDIS, but it wasn't a mocking gesture; more friendly teasing. She hadn't meant it, but now she wished she hadn't since it was clear these two were more connected than she had imagined, and if the TARDIS could do this, then the ship was more powerful than Ace had first imagined, and that was even without seeing the console room before discovering the scope of the interior dimensions.
"What are you going to do?" She asked, instantly feeling bad for the question, but truthfully what could she do?
She was only a young woman, after all. Her scientific comprehension was good, and being with the Doctor/Professor had given her insights into other fields of science only books and TV shows in her time had talked about, but she didn't have any suggestions for getting them out of here.
Fortunately, she didn't need to.
"Oh, that's easy," the Doctor sent her a beaming smile; the smile was so sudden, so cheerful…so contagious that Ace could not help but feel warm and smile back (Oh God, she thought to herself in embarrassment, I'm not developing a crush on the Doctor, am I?). "I just need to telepathically connect my mind to the TARDIS, and mentally guide her through; the time distortion is too intense and random for me to use ordinary means of piloting, so I need to connect my mind to the ship."
"Is that safe?"
"Not really," the Doctor shrugged, non-plussed at the reality which worried Ace immediately. "But I have no choice."
"What do you want me to do, Professor?" Ace asked, instantly wincing at the title - the last Doctor had managed to tolerate it, and even liked it; how would this one take it?
Fortunately, the Doctor stopped as he made his way around the console, smiling at the title. "Professor?" He echoed, smiling despite the situation. "I like that. Anyway," he added, snapping back to the present and he walked over to a different part of the controls, "here I go. Wish me luck."
"Good luck," Ace said automatically, just as the Doctor grabbed the telepathic circuits….
X
He really wasn't sure if he should be doing this, so soon after a regeneration but the Doctor knew he didn't have much choice in the matter. As his mind merged with the TARDIS, he mentally smiled at how motherly his ship was acting; she was concerned for him and his current condition, and she accepted his help reluctantly.
The nexus point was like a pane of shattered glass leading to various timelines, although it was perfectly normal, and as he examined the situation for a moment to give him the best course to mentally set, the Doctor took a moment to study each and every single timeline that he could immediately perceive.
In one timeline, Klein's desired world was almost right in front of him. The Doctor wasn't surprised about its presence, it was bound to be rather close, and he watched it unfold right in front of him; he saw how Ace's CD walkman was dissected and studied, and he saw how the Nazi scientists examined the laser technology before they had used it to work with uranium before their experiments gave them nuclear bombs. To the Doctor's horror, the Nazi's immediately flew one of the first of their nuclear weapons to the front lines. In a few moments, the Nazi's had turned the war around, but while the allies struggled with the outcome of the first blast and the surprise that came from the realisation the Nazis had, what they believed at the time, the ultimate weapon, the Nazi's did not slow down.
In revenge for the humiliation they had received previously, the Nazi's ordered several Russian cities to be erased from the Earth, and at the same time they destroyed two British cities in Manchester and Leeds, and then they destroyed New York. With their cities destroyed by the Nazi's new weapons and seeing for themselves, the Nazis had won the race to build a nuclear bomb, the allies had no choice but to surrender to the Nazi's. As his mind perceived the enormous death toll, the Doctor was horrified enough but when he saw how the Nazi's, even in the 1960s, took their genocide to a level that had never been seen in the original timeline, he was almost sick.
This was the world Klein was proud of…
Fortunately for his current mental state, the Doctor saw the timeline shift until he saw a different alternate timeline. He had believed the one with the Nazis using laser technology was bad enough, but this one was threatening to be much worse. The TARDIS arrived in Colditz as she had before, but almost as soon as he and Ace had left the TARDIS, the Nazi's shot them. Ace was killed, but his predecessor was forced to abandon her rapidly cooling corpse, but before he could leave in the TARDIS, a lucky sniper's bullet shot him in the spine, leaving the interior of the ship open to the Nazi's. With a crippled Seventh Doctor and an open TARDIS and a CD walkman, the Nazis were not only nuclear-capable in a short time, but they had access to the higher technology of a TARDIS. It took the Nazis a few decades, but since they had won the war, they took their time in attaining basic teleportation. When that happened, the Nazi's established colonies in the solar system and bases on Mars, the moon, the asteroids, and they also terraformed Venus while they went through the TARDIS databanks in order to study the alien cultures. The Nazi's then started spreading through the local systems near Earth, and instead of making peace with them, the Nazi's wiped them out and stole their technologies.
As the Doctor steered the TARDIS out of the nexus point, he perceived other timelines while he tried to ensure the TARDIS didn't accidentally slip into one.
As he did, he spotted other alternate timelines, but he barely saw enough of the events to work out too much how their histories would unfold from the point of Colditz, 1944.
In one timeline derived from the history split created by the CD walkman's unintended bonus for their war effort, the alternate Eighth Doctor failed to persuade Klein to go back in time and give the Seventh Doctor the means of putting things back on track. Instead, he was forced to kill Klein, and travel back himself to put things right… the Doctor was thankful he did not wait around to see for himself how that one panned out.
The TARDIS finally managed to slip out of the nexus point, and the Doctor disconnected himself from the telepathic circuits when he was positive the danger was over. He glanced over at Ace and smiled although it was dimmed slightly as he was reminded, after witnessing all of those timelines, about Elizabeth Klein.
She was still out there.