-8-
The Fugitive Doctor, while befuddled about the lack of memories of her awakening and the loss of Lee, continued with her travels. She had gotten herself a vortex manipulator, using it to try to stay hidden from the Division's temporal agents; sometimes she would even steal starships or hitchhike on them while carrying her TARDIS around in a messenger bag. Her reasons for it were straightforward enough; the Division relied on Time Lord technology, and since the Time Lords only focused on Time Lord tech, ignoring the technologies of other powers and races, Division had fallen into the same trap over the centuries.
Deep down she knew she couldn't keep running forever for the rest of her regenerations, but the Fugitive Doctor hoped, just hoped, some fresh plan came to her before it was too late. For now, she was watching over her shoulder.
After spending a whole month watching some hyper pod-races on the planet Jakooine, the Fugitive Doctor decided to use her TARDIS to travel. After resizing her time ship, the Fugitive Doctor opened the door and set the controls. As the TARDIS dematerialised, she caught sight of the light flashing from the telepathic circuits.
She paused, studying them in concern. Division? No, this wasn't their style. She had worked with the shady, dirty secret of the Time Lords for so long she could write a book on what they would do. If they had planted some virus or trojan, it wouldn't be signalling to her now. They would have thrown the TARDIS out of the vortex and. They would have ambushed her by now. They wouldn't do something like this.
The Fugitive Doctor walked slowly towards the telepathic circuits, seeing no other option. She grasped the contacts, mentally preparing herself…and she gasped.
She saw her human self going through her ordinary life on Earth, Lee acting as her protector while making friends, including the so-called 'All Ears Alan,' who nursed such a clear crush on her despite being suspicious of Lee and not knowing when to back off.
She saw her last 'birthday' start off ordinarily before the Judoon turned up.
She remembered meeting the weird blonde woman with the terrible coat, rainbow shirt, and trousers that didn't reach…
She remembered tearing off the Judoon captain's horn, using the martial arts moves she had mastered over the centuries after Lee awoke a part of herself left in her mind by the Chameleon arch.
She was awoken, just as the weird blonde bimbo who spoke constantly and would never shut up had unveiled the TARDIS, and they transmatted aboard.
Her surprise and worry the other woman announced she was also the Doctor still resonated within her, and her worry grew when the other Doctor who was obsessed with some stupid buzzing toy made it clear she hadn't been anything like her before making her wonder what was going on, before her worries were replaced by rage and shock the other Doctor not only didn't recognise Gat, but refused to let her deal with the problem that was hers anyway.
But most of all, the Fugitive Doctor had been furious her so-called future self had endangered them both by not keeping her mouth shut, and knowing if Division ever discovered what happened, they would chase after them both. And her future self clearly did not know about Division; if she had she would have either kept her gob shut, or she would have known from the beginning who the Judoon were working for.
Lastly, the Fugitive Doctor remembered how she had used the telepathic circuits to save the memories when the TARDIS's systems, worked automatically to lock away her memories so when she became that other Doctor she wasn't forewarned. That was the only reason she had recovered this at all.
Shaken and confused, she weakly took her hands from the contacts and rubbed her forehead as she absorbed the flood of memories. She left the console room, trusting the old girl to guide them through the vortex, and she went and found a comfortable seat where she could process all of this…
Another version of her? She knew only too well Time Lords could break the Laws of Time, but she had always hoped it would never happen.
But what happened?
Why hadn't her future self recognised her, known Gat? One of the biggest red flags had been when her future self asked her about Division without directly referencing them or knowing who they were; okay, at the time, she had been far too busy to really pay attention but she had heard every word her future self said. She hadn't known who Division was, and if there'd been more than enough time then they should have had a chat, but there hadn't been.
The Fugitive Doctor sighed; one of the reasons why she and Lee had kept the biodata module at the lighthouse was to simply put enough distance between themselves and the TARDIS; okay, they were prepared to sacrifice the old girl but Division wouldn't have been able to find the biodata module which was well hidden. But they had debated it so much when they'd come up with the plan to hide, but what would have happened had they kept the module?
She shook her head. What ifs was not going to work here? She needed to think more about what was going on. How could her future self have lost her memories of her? Was she even her? No, her scans had confirmed it. They were the same person. The Fugitive Doctor looked around the roundelled walls of the room, biting her lip. It was just no good, she needed information. She needed to find out who that other Doctor was, but where? The usual sources of information she knew of were under Division control.
'Actually, would they be of any use at all?' She asked herself, knowing only too well how closely Division maintained its secrets, how they had gone the extra mile in making certain the information released was only released with their say-so. She would need to be creative. With that in mind, the Fugitive Doctor returned to the console room, wracking her brains for anything, and then she remembered.
The Library.
Walking to the console, she reset the controls.
-8-
The Library was a planet of books. As far as she knew the Library wasn't controlled by Division, although they likely knew of it, and controlled the flow of information. But it was a hub which contained the knowledge of millions of cultures; as the humans of the 51st century had explored and built Federations, Republics, Commonwealths and Empires spanning centuries, it was almost unparalleled.
The Fugitive Doctor liked it. Being able to hold real books and data pads rather than reviewing information stored by once-living brains like they did on Gallifrey was truly wonderful. She had arrived on the Library planet a week ago (Earth time), and she had gone on a massive hunt for anyone named 'Doctor,' and variants of the title. She had rented a room under an assumed name to keep throwing Division off the scent, knowing they likely knew by now what happened to Gat.
She was just…stunned; it had taken her a while to find the right sections, but she had uncovered a vast amount, more than she'd expected. The evidence was piling up.
And it troubled her.
She had found more than she had expected, and many of the exploits sounded like things she would have done, but she knew one thing. They were not things she had ever done. Okay, granted, the Fugitive Doctor knew they might have been down to future incarnations. She was in her ninth incarnation right now, and yet the pictures she had seen so far belonged to twelve or thirteen people, one of them being the weird blonde woman she had seen. That was not possible; Time Lords only had thirteen lives, and she had four lives left, not twice that number.
There were records of her on worlds like Telos, one of the Cyber planets; there were surveillance pictures of two men, a short man wearing a baggy frock coat, and a large man in terms of height and weight wearing a hideous patchwork coat with curly hair. Were they her future lives? Or what about the little man with the hat and umbrella on Terra Alpha? Or spotted in Paradise Towers? What about the bohemian figure with the teeth and curls seen scattered throughout time and space, including Argolis's leisure hive (thinking of how Division manipulated both sides to destroying both worlds caught in that war still made her sick)?
But there were dozens of other people, some of them without pictures but describing people who saved worlds, helped people, fought evil aliens invading, or invented some new technology; some of them sounded like things she would do, but she not only did not recognise them, they did not match the photos or descriptions of the thirteen before. That was utterly impossible; no Time Lord could have so many lives. Yeah, Time Lords could get new regeneration cycles, either by throwing themselves into a loom, or some other means…but she didn't know them.
She looked at the notes she had written. She had learnt some of the people she had read about had numerous exploits on Earth, in the 20th century, working for UNIT - United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. She made her mind up to look into them.
-8-
Later when she left the library after spending another two weeks there trying to learn more, the Fugitive Doctor was able to learn more about the incarnations known to this alien and mystery investigation team. Apparently, UNIT learnt of the Doctor before its foundations, they had met a small man who matched the scruffy clown she had seen in that Cyber surveillance picture. He had helped them stop an invasion by the Great Intelligence, and then vanished, and later stopped an invasion by the Cybermen. The next incarnation was then exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, for interference. Over the next few years, this Doctor struggled with the repairs to the TARDIS, fending off invasions from the Nestene Consciousness, the Silurians, visiting a doomed Earth in a parallel world, stopping an interplanetary war, fighting the Daleks, the Cybermen, and another Time Lord renegade known as the Master, fought a Daemon (that stunned her; she remembered how Division had manipulated the Daemons into visiting dozens of worlds like they had done with the Osirans before coming up with plans to kill Sutekh when the insane so-called God of Death tried to annihilate life), and even undertook missions from Gallifrey.
And then his exile lifted when Omega, the legendary Time Lord Founder, tried using a black hole to drain all universal energy. The news Omega not only lived but was insane shocked and saddened her. She had assumed like everyone else on Gallifrey the legendary engineer was dead. But thanks to UNIT and Torchwood, the Fugitive Doctor was able to piece together a good chronology of these incarnations.
It started with a tall, old hawk-faced old man who dressed like a Victorian professor; next was the little clown with a big jacket; following on was the dandy who worked for UNIT; next was the bohemian; following him was a cricketer; the patchwork-coated man was next; then was the umbrella man, noted in UNIT records as the most deadliest Doctor for his manipulative tendencies; next was a man who looked more like a Byron esque hero; then was an old man wearing a battered leather coat and bandolier and a permanently haggard expression.
The following Doctor was a man with a large nose and large ears and a buzzcut with a leather jacket (the Fugitive Doctor was concerned and even terrified when she learnt this Doctor referred to himself as 'the last of the Time Lords,' what did that mean?); next was a tall man with a tight suit, great hair, and a long brown coat; next was a geography teacher who loved bow ties; following him was a tall white-haired man.
Lastly, there was the rainbow-shirted blonde.
It was a complete collection of incarnations, but where did she fit in? The Fugitive Doctor realised she needed help; Lee was gone, and Karvanistra likely had the collider put in his brain by now. That only left Taslo.