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best_enemiesTitle: Five Vignettes on How the Doctor First Left Gallifrey (And One Vignette Where He Doesn’t)
Author: Blackletter
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3600
Summary: *points to title*
Notes: This came about because I was musing on how differently One talks about home versus Two. I love the fuzzy non-canon of the Doctor’s early life. All but one are various degrees of Doctor/Master. Some are more canonically likely than others. Warning: Crack theories and high levels of schmoop are contained herein.
1. Adventures of Youth
Ushas’s latest creation was her best yet, Theta thought, giggling uncontrollably at Koschei’s clumsy attempts to break the lock into the TARDIS bay. She insisted that the side-effects of her psychic enhancement drug were entirely accidental and would be eliminated in the next revision, but Theta thought the side effects were the best part. She’d be furious when she found out how much he’d stolen.
“Be quiet. You’re going to get us caught,” Koschei hissed. Theta only giggled more, pressing a hand to his mouth to suppress the sound. He slumped down on the floor next to Koschei and leaned up against him, shoulder to shoulder. Koschei’s hands were shaking and he blinked groggily at the lock.
“Where are you?” Theta asked.
“Half-way through the secondary tesseract sequence.”
Theta put his hand over Koschei’s to steady it and together they attacked the problem of the lock. With the psychic enhancer running through their veins, even that simple touch brought their minds into deep contact. They calculated the sequence as one consciousness and together pressed the key code buttons in their proper order.
Theta sighed in bliss at the sensation of being wrapped up in Koschei’s thoughts. “This is nice, hmm?”
Koschei nodded, his thoughts swirling daisy and silver on Theta’s tongue. He wondered what he tasted like to Koschei.
“Orange sky and moons,” Koschei said. Theta tried to remember whether he’d asked out loud or not. Then the door opened and he forgot to care.
“You have the key?” Theta asked. It would be silly to have come all this way only to realize that they’d forgotten to bring the key. It was something he would do. But not Koschei. Koschei was more organized than that.
Koschei stood, swayed, and pulled Theta to his feet. Then he rifled through his pockets. “Key,” he said, producing said object and presenting it to Theta. Theta grinned and kissed the key. It was warm from being close to the heat of Koschei’s body.
“What are we waiting for?” He threw his arm over Koschei’s shoulders and together they staggered to Koschei’s father’s TARDIS.
Piloting a TARDIS was trickier than it looked. In retrospect, they were lucky they didn’t crash it into Mount Cadon. They didn’t get far—only about one hundred years into the past and two systems over—but it was the grandest adventure Theta had ever yet had.
They were picked up by the Planetary Patrol and dragged back to Gallifrey. The patrol officer went off to inform their respective families and locked them together in an interrogation room until their parents could come to collect them. There was never any question of pressing charges, not against two young Time Lords from such powerful houses.
They sat side by side in the little room. The drug still buzzed in Theta’s system and he longed for an excuse to touch Koschei again and feel that bright, thorny sparkle of Koschei’s thoughts. “Same time next week?” he asked.
Koschei chuckled. “My father probably won’t let me leave my room for a year.” He knocked his knee against Theta’s. “I used to be good until I met you. Never got into trouble.” His words were slurred and he dropped his head onto Theta’s shoulder.
“Same time next year, then.”
2. Political Fugitive
“I knew that involving Chancellor Gialtixorand’s gardener was one complication too many,” the Doctor said without pausing in his hasty retreat towards the TARDIS docking bay.
“Don’t you dare blame this on me,” the Master said, throwing a quick, resentful glare in the Doctor’s direction.
“It was your plot.”
The Master scoffed. “Who said ‘let’s change Gallifrey for the better?’ Who said ‘let’s stage a coup against the stagnant government?’ Let me think, oh that’s right, it was you. Every plot, scheme, conspiracy, and trick I wove was all for you. If there’s blame to be placed, it rightly belongs on your head.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. His spouse was always blaming everything on him. It was one of his less loveable traits. “Let’s argue about this later, my dear. We don’t have time right now. The Chancellery Guard will be here any minute.”
“Right,” the Master agreed to the ceasefire, although the Doctor knew that the fight wasn’t over yet. “You find us a TARDIS and get our granddaughter out of here. I’ll meet you in Wind’s Eye Meadow in half an hour.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get the Matrix downloads.”
“Our rooms will be crawling with guards by now. Just leave them.”
“After all the effort we went to in order to steal them?”
“Just be careful.” The Doctor’s blood ran cold with disquiet but he had to trust that the Master knew what he was doing. It was the least he could do after all the trust the Master had given to him.
“Of course I’ll be careful,” the Master said. “I’m not the reckless one.”
They exchanged a quick kiss, little more than a light brush of lips, and went their separate ways.
Forty eight minutes later, the Doctor waited in Wind’s Eye Meadow on the Oakdown estate but the Master was nowhere to be found. The Doctor set his young granddaughter—not even old enough for the Academy yet—monitoring the security communication frequency he’d hacked into. Her squeal of dismay brought the Doctor back into the decrepit Type-40 he’d found unlocked and unguarded in the TARDIS decommission hanger.
“...Coordinator Master incarcerated in block 498,” the voice of the Castellan hummed over the comm waves.
“And Cardinal Doctor?”
“We’re closing in on him now, Lord President.”
He leapt to the console to lock and seal the doors. His hand hovered over the dematerialization control. If he left now, he’d be abandoning the Master to his fate, a fate that he was responsible for. Rescue was impossible. If he stayed, the best they could hope for were neighbouring cells where they might whisper to each other late in the night when the guards were drowsy, and catch brief glimpses of one another’s faces reflected off the mechanized dinner trolley, aging as the years in captivity stretched on.
Waiting to be captured to show solidarity with his spouse and co-conspirator was just the sort of illogical emotionalism that the Master affected to despise. He could hear the mocking words now. “Martyr for sentimentality.” Or “Foolish emotional sop.”
Leaving is what the Master would want him to do, he was sure of it. Mind made up, he flicked the temporal phasing switch and pushed the dematerialization button. Perhaps, someday, he would come back. Yes, he would come back and rescue the Master someday.
3. Escape
“Such a quiet man,” people said. “Such a quiet, unobtrusive man. So easy to overlook. Nearly invisible.”
The Doctor wondered who they were talking about, when he became this person he didn’t recognize. He had faded so much over the decades since he’d finished school he was half afraid that one of these days he’d vanish entirely. One day his supervisor would come in, belatedly realize he hasn’t seen the Doctor in two months, and wonder for half a second where he’d gone before turning his mind to more important things.
He tried to speak to Borusa about his concerns. Shuffling timidly into Borusa’s office, he replayed in his mind the speech he had prepared, requesting a transfer to a new section, something a little more exciting, like meteor taxonomy.
“Theta—” Borusa began.
“Doctor,” he corrected him diffidently. He had earned that title and these days it was the only reminder he had that underneath his dusty robes he had dreams of his own.
Borusa waved away the Doctor’s correction. “Oh, to me you’ll always be Theta.”
A hard, black space deep in the Doctor’s mind seethed but he said nothing, let nothing show on his blank and mild face.
“I can’t let you have the transfer,” Borusa said.
“Sir—”
“No. You already got one promotion this decade and we wouldn’t want anyone accusing us of favouritism, now would we?”
“But I’m...not happy.” It was the first time he’d admitted it to anyone.
“Don’t be silly, Theta.” Borusa laughed. “You have a lovely wife.” A wife picked out for him by Borusa himself. A wife with whom he hadn’t had one genuine conversation in over fifty years. “A talented son.” A son he hadn’t seen in nearly as long.
“I don’t feel like what I do is meaningful or important.” He tried to make Borusa understand. He desperately wanted someone to understand.
“Oh, Theta, you know that’s not how the system works. What of it if the work you do is not in itself meaningful or important? It’s the little cogs that matter, little cogs like you that allow other people, more qualified people, to accomplish the meaningful and important things.”
“More qualified people,” the Doctor echoed flatly.
“It’s your own fault for nearly failing your exams. If you hadn’t spent so much time dithering about with your friend Koschei you might have been appointed to a better position.”
The thought of the Master filled the Doctor with such longing it was painful. The Master had left long ago and too late the Doctor understood the opportunity he had passed up.
“Come with me,” the Master had said to him. Like a fool, the Doctor refused, too caught up in notions of duty and responsibility.
“I can’t,” he had replied.
“They’ve broken you.” The Master’s tone had been harsh and bitter, but his brows had been pinched with sadness. “You used to be beautiful, but now you’re—” He hadn’t finished the sentence, as if there were no words to encompass what the Doctor had become. The Master’s gesture, which had encompassed the Doctor garbed in the robes of a Class 3 Assistant Data Manager and the sterile room with its blank and impersonal walls, had expressed his meaning well enough.
Now, in Borusa office, the Doctor would have given anything to go back and give a different answer to the Master’s proposal. Borusa was waiting for him to speak, so he said in an empty voice. “Thank you for your advice, sir. May I be dismissed?”
“Yes, Theta, you may go.”
The Doctor fled the room, aimless and adrift, unwilling to suffer either the barren atmosphere of his workplace or the grim silence of his home. He wandered to his favourite sanctuary—an observation lounge where he could watch through thick glass windows the TARDISes materialize and fade. One older model had sat unmoving in a corner for weeks, static and immobile while her fellows went off to have adventures. He fancied he related to her, imagined her tickling his thoughts, calling for a friend and companion.
He sighed at his desperate folly, his imagining that a strange TARDIS was talking to him. It was well past dark and time for him to return home. On the way, he passed by the door that led to the TARDIS bay. Without thinking, he froze in front of it, unwilling or unable to take another step. The buzz in his head was louder, more insistent.
He had a choice, he realized. Borusa didn’t want him to know it, but he had a choice. Not just one choice, many choices, an infinite number of choices. He could go home and try to forget. He could return to his office and put in another late night at work in the hope that he might eventually earn a promotion out. He could leave the Citadel and run through the red grass on the mountain until the cold numbed his feet and hands and he rolled down the slope and threw himself on the mercy of the elements. He could blow up the Matrix. He could pick a fight with a Shobogan. He could donate all his worldly possessions to charity. He could steal a TARDIS.
His mind thrummed as he opened the door. She was calling to him; she needed him. She would show him time and space and love him with every fibre of her being. She was exactly what he needed. It was what the Master had tried to give him but he refused. She let him in, embraced him, joined her mind with his. He didn’t even remember reviving her power cells and engaging her systems.
“Unauthorized pilot, please identify yourself.”
He opened a comm line. “This is the Doctor speaking. I’m off to accomplish a few meaningful and important tasks. Don’t expect me back in time for my next duty shift.”
He jabbed a finger at the controls, turning the comm link off before the Time Lords could reply, and laughed a giddy, joyful laugh. The grind and hum of dematerialization vibrated in his bones. There was a whole universe to explore.
4. Ostracism
Every hundred years, the august body of Time Lords assessed their ranks and, if the Council deemed it necessary, a formal ostracism would be held. Exile being considered a dire punishment for a Time Lord, it was a long-held method of keeping any one individual from doing anything too unruly.
The Doctor thought for certain that the Rani would be voted off the planet this time around. True, the Doctor had accidentally levitated the entire continent one hundred feet above the planet’s crust during his recent experiments with gravitational energy, but surely that didn’t inconvenience anyone as much as when the Rani’s giant lagomorphs rampaged through the city two years ago.
“What do you mean, the Council wants me to leave?” the Doctor said when Braxiatel gave him the news. “They can’t possibly mean it.”
“Don’t fret too much. It’s only for a hundred years, then you can come back. Just find some quiet moon or colony and consider it a vacation.”
“Hmph. Vacation.” He snorted in disgust. “I’ll just grab my granddaughter and make it an educational tour, then.”
“If it pleases you,” Brax replied, ignoring the Doctor’s sarcastic tone.
The Doctor frowned. “I’m a scientist, Brax. I need a laboratory, equipment, supplies. I can’t get those on some quiet moon or colony. I don’t want a vacation.”
“I’m sorry but you’ve got one whether you like it or not. You might as well try to make the most of it.”
“Why me? Why not the Rani? She’s far more disruptive than I am. Have you seen her newest project? She’s going to get someone killed one of these days.”
Braxiatel took hold of the Doctor’s arm and steered him to the cabinet to fetch a box and start packing. “The Rani keeps her head down and gets her work done. She didn’t lie to the Prydonian Cardinals to get more funding for a zeta-ray particle meter. Nor did she decide that what the Panopticon really needed was a high-powered neural scanning security net then proceed to implement such without informing or waiting for approval from the Council. Nor did she call Chancellor Jerinaloten a—and I quote—‘fat headed Gilotean sloth not worth the synaptic electricity he produces, which is minimal’ in front of the assembled Academy deans.”
“Trifles, surely.”
“Doctor,” Braxiatel spoke firmly. “The Council’s wishes are plain. Go away. Just for a century or so. It will be good for you, I promise. And just think how much better it will be when you come back and the Council realizes that they missed your brilliant, unconventional self after all.”
“Do you really think they’ll miss me?”
“I’m sure of it.” Braxiatel’s smile was as wide as it was insincere. “Just remember not to interfere in the affairs of the natives. You wouldn’t want to get into trouble.”
“Hmm? Oh yes, of course, no interfering.” The Doctor was already only half paying attention. He mind was already spinning out possibilities of how he might salvage the situation, or even turn it to his advantage. Upon reflection, it might not be entirely horrible. What things might he discover out from under the stifling scrutiny of his fellow Time Lords?
5. Away Without Official Leave
The Doctor was pleased to have qualified for field work at last. Only the most trusted officers in the Celestial Intervention Agency were sent out into the wider universe, but the Doctor had been doing reliable work for them ever since he had left the Academy and he knew that he’d earned his position.
The Director briefed him on his mission. “We’ll be giving you an older TARDIS as befits your cover story. You are to make contact with this renegade, earn his trust, and discover his plot. Once you’ve gathered all the information you can, take him into custody if you’re able. You are authorized to use your staser if you must, although we’d rather capture him alive.”
“Understood.”
“Your TARDIS is waiting for you. The coordinates are already programmed in.” With that the Director dismissed the Doctor to his task.
It took virtually no time at all to reach his destination—a wet and mouldy little world populated by aliens who resembled giant tree slugs. He could feel the renegade’s psychic presence as soon as he landed. It was naggingly familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it, like forgetting the words to a dearly loved nursery tune.
He made his way through the thick, verdant underbrush towards a metal structure that looked part bunker, part laboratory. He followed the psychic thread through the building to an inner chamber and knocked. It would be impossible to take the other Time Lord by surprise, and sneaking in wouldn’t give a good first impression to a man he was suppose to ingratiate himself towards.
“Come in, Doctor.”
The itching familiarity clarified into burning dread when he heard that silky voice call his name. He opened the door to reveal a man with dark hair and the beginnings of a moustache and sideburns.
“Master.” The Doctor swallowed. He was ordered to bring in a renegade. No one told him that the renegade in question was his childhood friend and former lover. He stepped in the room and closed the door behind him. His staser sat heavily under his coat. “This is awkward.”
“Not at all. It’s quite simple, in fact. The CIA sent you to arrest me. You will not do so.” The Master was perfectly calm and confident in his assessment. The Doctor went for a bluff.
“What makes you think I’m here on behalf of the CIA?” the Doctor said. “Maybe I came here to find you because I missed you.”
The Master chuckled. “If you came because you missed me you wouldn’t have looked so thoroughly shocked and dismayed when you saw me.”
The Doctor inclined his head in acknowledgement of the Master’s logic. “In that case, if I am with the CIA, what makes you think I won’t arrest you?”
“I’m not doing anything immoral.” The Master slinked towards the Doctor until they were barely a foot apart and put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder in a show of camaraderie. The Doctor glanced at the presumptuous hand and back to the Master, who continued, “I’m helping the Urocyclideans with an environmental problem. In return, they are giving me space and equipment for my own studies.”
“I can’t return without you.”
“Tell them that you couldn’t find me. Tell them that by the time you got here, I’d already left without a trace.”
“They conduct thorough brain scans every time an officer returns from the field. It’s insurance against psychic tampering. I can’t lie to them. And I can’t return without you or they’ll arrest me instead for dereliction of duty.”
The Master shrugged. “Then don’t return.”
The Doctor stared at him in wide-eyed shock. “You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious. You said that the only reason you were going to join the CIA was because they were your best chance of getting a TARDIS and seeing the universe. Well, you have a TARDIS. Surely you want to see more of the universe than this soggy rock?”
The Doctor’s eyes darted shiftily here and there. The Master had a point. A selfish and dishonest point, but still a point. The Master stepped closer, bringing their bodies together, and cupped the Doctor’s cheek in his hand
“Doctor,” he whispered in his ear. “You know what captivity would do to me. You feel it in your own mind, the restlessness, the need to throw off the yoke of hierarchy and claim self-agency. Let me be free and free yourself in the bargain.”
The Doctor nodded a short little nod, his breathing ragged. The Master’s thumb rubbed over the Doctor’s lips. “You’ll let me escape, then?” The Master asked, goading the Doctor into a verbal commitment.
“Yes,” the Doctor promised, breaking his oath to the Time Lords and becoming a renegade in one breath. The Master smiled and pulled the Doctor into a tender embrace.
For the last time, the Doctor accepted what the Master offered him. For the last time he let the Master’s wishes be his own.
Home Is Where the Heart Is
Theta leaned against the windowsill gazing dreamily up at the night sky. He didn’t turn away, even when Koschei dropped down next to him.
“Have you decided which one you want to see first?” Koschei asked.
“All of them.”
“That might take a while.”
Theta took Koschei’s hand into his. “All of our lifetimes together, I hope.”
Koschei rested his chin on Theta’s shoulder and Theta dreamed about the day he’d leave Gallifrey and drift among the stars.
Author: Blackletter
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3600
Summary: *points to title*
Notes: This came about because I was musing on how differently One talks about home versus Two. I love the fuzzy non-canon of the Doctor’s early life. All but one are various degrees of Doctor/Master. Some are more canonically likely than others. Warning: Crack theories and high levels of schmoop are contained herein.
1. Adventures of Youth
Ushas’s latest creation was her best yet, Theta thought, giggling uncontrollably at Koschei’s clumsy attempts to break the lock into the TARDIS bay. She insisted that the side-effects of her psychic enhancement drug were entirely accidental and would be eliminated in the next revision, but Theta thought the side effects were the best part. She’d be furious when she found out how much he’d stolen.
“Be quiet. You’re going to get us caught,” Koschei hissed. Theta only giggled more, pressing a hand to his mouth to suppress the sound. He slumped down on the floor next to Koschei and leaned up against him, shoulder to shoulder. Koschei’s hands were shaking and he blinked groggily at the lock.
“Where are you?” Theta asked.
“Half-way through the secondary tesseract sequence.”
Theta put his hand over Koschei’s to steady it and together they attacked the problem of the lock. With the psychic enhancer running through their veins, even that simple touch brought their minds into deep contact. They calculated the sequence as one consciousness and together pressed the key code buttons in their proper order.
Theta sighed in bliss at the sensation of being wrapped up in Koschei’s thoughts. “This is nice, hmm?”
Koschei nodded, his thoughts swirling daisy and silver on Theta’s tongue. He wondered what he tasted like to Koschei.
“Orange sky and moons,” Koschei said. Theta tried to remember whether he’d asked out loud or not. Then the door opened and he forgot to care.
“You have the key?” Theta asked. It would be silly to have come all this way only to realize that they’d forgotten to bring the key. It was something he would do. But not Koschei. Koschei was more organized than that.
Koschei stood, swayed, and pulled Theta to his feet. Then he rifled through his pockets. “Key,” he said, producing said object and presenting it to Theta. Theta grinned and kissed the key. It was warm from being close to the heat of Koschei’s body.
“What are we waiting for?” He threw his arm over Koschei’s shoulders and together they staggered to Koschei’s father’s TARDIS.
Piloting a TARDIS was trickier than it looked. In retrospect, they were lucky they didn’t crash it into Mount Cadon. They didn’t get far—only about one hundred years into the past and two systems over—but it was the grandest adventure Theta had ever yet had.
They were picked up by the Planetary Patrol and dragged back to Gallifrey. The patrol officer went off to inform their respective families and locked them together in an interrogation room until their parents could come to collect them. There was never any question of pressing charges, not against two young Time Lords from such powerful houses.
They sat side by side in the little room. The drug still buzzed in Theta’s system and he longed for an excuse to touch Koschei again and feel that bright, thorny sparkle of Koschei’s thoughts. “Same time next week?” he asked.
Koschei chuckled. “My father probably won’t let me leave my room for a year.” He knocked his knee against Theta’s. “I used to be good until I met you. Never got into trouble.” His words were slurred and he dropped his head onto Theta’s shoulder.
“Same time next year, then.”
2. Political Fugitive
“I knew that involving Chancellor Gialtixorand’s gardener was one complication too many,” the Doctor said without pausing in his hasty retreat towards the TARDIS docking bay.
“Don’t you dare blame this on me,” the Master said, throwing a quick, resentful glare in the Doctor’s direction.
“It was your plot.”
The Master scoffed. “Who said ‘let’s change Gallifrey for the better?’ Who said ‘let’s stage a coup against the stagnant government?’ Let me think, oh that’s right, it was you. Every plot, scheme, conspiracy, and trick I wove was all for you. If there’s blame to be placed, it rightly belongs on your head.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. His spouse was always blaming everything on him. It was one of his less loveable traits. “Let’s argue about this later, my dear. We don’t have time right now. The Chancellery Guard will be here any minute.”
“Right,” the Master agreed to the ceasefire, although the Doctor knew that the fight wasn’t over yet. “You find us a TARDIS and get our granddaughter out of here. I’ll meet you in Wind’s Eye Meadow in half an hour.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get the Matrix downloads.”
“Our rooms will be crawling with guards by now. Just leave them.”
“After all the effort we went to in order to steal them?”
“Just be careful.” The Doctor’s blood ran cold with disquiet but he had to trust that the Master knew what he was doing. It was the least he could do after all the trust the Master had given to him.
“Of course I’ll be careful,” the Master said. “I’m not the reckless one.”
They exchanged a quick kiss, little more than a light brush of lips, and went their separate ways.
Forty eight minutes later, the Doctor waited in Wind’s Eye Meadow on the Oakdown estate but the Master was nowhere to be found. The Doctor set his young granddaughter—not even old enough for the Academy yet—monitoring the security communication frequency he’d hacked into. Her squeal of dismay brought the Doctor back into the decrepit Type-40 he’d found unlocked and unguarded in the TARDIS decommission hanger.
“...Coordinator Master incarcerated in block 498,” the voice of the Castellan hummed over the comm waves.
“And Cardinal Doctor?”
“We’re closing in on him now, Lord President.”
He leapt to the console to lock and seal the doors. His hand hovered over the dematerialization control. If he left now, he’d be abandoning the Master to his fate, a fate that he was responsible for. Rescue was impossible. If he stayed, the best they could hope for were neighbouring cells where they might whisper to each other late in the night when the guards were drowsy, and catch brief glimpses of one another’s faces reflected off the mechanized dinner trolley, aging as the years in captivity stretched on.
Waiting to be captured to show solidarity with his spouse and co-conspirator was just the sort of illogical emotionalism that the Master affected to despise. He could hear the mocking words now. “Martyr for sentimentality.” Or “Foolish emotional sop.”
Leaving is what the Master would want him to do, he was sure of it. Mind made up, he flicked the temporal phasing switch and pushed the dematerialization button. Perhaps, someday, he would come back. Yes, he would come back and rescue the Master someday.
3. Escape
“Such a quiet man,” people said. “Such a quiet, unobtrusive man. So easy to overlook. Nearly invisible.”
The Doctor wondered who they were talking about, when he became this person he didn’t recognize. He had faded so much over the decades since he’d finished school he was half afraid that one of these days he’d vanish entirely. One day his supervisor would come in, belatedly realize he hasn’t seen the Doctor in two months, and wonder for half a second where he’d gone before turning his mind to more important things.
He tried to speak to Borusa about his concerns. Shuffling timidly into Borusa’s office, he replayed in his mind the speech he had prepared, requesting a transfer to a new section, something a little more exciting, like meteor taxonomy.
“Theta—” Borusa began.
“Doctor,” he corrected him diffidently. He had earned that title and these days it was the only reminder he had that underneath his dusty robes he had dreams of his own.
Borusa waved away the Doctor’s correction. “Oh, to me you’ll always be Theta.”
A hard, black space deep in the Doctor’s mind seethed but he said nothing, let nothing show on his blank and mild face.
“I can’t let you have the transfer,” Borusa said.
“Sir—”
“No. You already got one promotion this decade and we wouldn’t want anyone accusing us of favouritism, now would we?”
“But I’m...not happy.” It was the first time he’d admitted it to anyone.
“Don’t be silly, Theta.” Borusa laughed. “You have a lovely wife.” A wife picked out for him by Borusa himself. A wife with whom he hadn’t had one genuine conversation in over fifty years. “A talented son.” A son he hadn’t seen in nearly as long.
“I don’t feel like what I do is meaningful or important.” He tried to make Borusa understand. He desperately wanted someone to understand.
“Oh, Theta, you know that’s not how the system works. What of it if the work you do is not in itself meaningful or important? It’s the little cogs that matter, little cogs like you that allow other people, more qualified people, to accomplish the meaningful and important things.”
“More qualified people,” the Doctor echoed flatly.
“It’s your own fault for nearly failing your exams. If you hadn’t spent so much time dithering about with your friend Koschei you might have been appointed to a better position.”
The thought of the Master filled the Doctor with such longing it was painful. The Master had left long ago and too late the Doctor understood the opportunity he had passed up.
“Come with me,” the Master had said to him. Like a fool, the Doctor refused, too caught up in notions of duty and responsibility.
“I can’t,” he had replied.
“They’ve broken you.” The Master’s tone had been harsh and bitter, but his brows had been pinched with sadness. “You used to be beautiful, but now you’re—” He hadn’t finished the sentence, as if there were no words to encompass what the Doctor had become. The Master’s gesture, which had encompassed the Doctor garbed in the robes of a Class 3 Assistant Data Manager and the sterile room with its blank and impersonal walls, had expressed his meaning well enough.
Now, in Borusa office, the Doctor would have given anything to go back and give a different answer to the Master’s proposal. Borusa was waiting for him to speak, so he said in an empty voice. “Thank you for your advice, sir. May I be dismissed?”
“Yes, Theta, you may go.”
The Doctor fled the room, aimless and adrift, unwilling to suffer either the barren atmosphere of his workplace or the grim silence of his home. He wandered to his favourite sanctuary—an observation lounge where he could watch through thick glass windows the TARDISes materialize and fade. One older model had sat unmoving in a corner for weeks, static and immobile while her fellows went off to have adventures. He fancied he related to her, imagined her tickling his thoughts, calling for a friend and companion.
He sighed at his desperate folly, his imagining that a strange TARDIS was talking to him. It was well past dark and time for him to return home. On the way, he passed by the door that led to the TARDIS bay. Without thinking, he froze in front of it, unwilling or unable to take another step. The buzz in his head was louder, more insistent.
He had a choice, he realized. Borusa didn’t want him to know it, but he had a choice. Not just one choice, many choices, an infinite number of choices. He could go home and try to forget. He could return to his office and put in another late night at work in the hope that he might eventually earn a promotion out. He could leave the Citadel and run through the red grass on the mountain until the cold numbed his feet and hands and he rolled down the slope and threw himself on the mercy of the elements. He could blow up the Matrix. He could pick a fight with a Shobogan. He could donate all his worldly possessions to charity. He could steal a TARDIS.
His mind thrummed as he opened the door. She was calling to him; she needed him. She would show him time and space and love him with every fibre of her being. She was exactly what he needed. It was what the Master had tried to give him but he refused. She let him in, embraced him, joined her mind with his. He didn’t even remember reviving her power cells and engaging her systems.
“Unauthorized pilot, please identify yourself.”
He opened a comm line. “This is the Doctor speaking. I’m off to accomplish a few meaningful and important tasks. Don’t expect me back in time for my next duty shift.”
He jabbed a finger at the controls, turning the comm link off before the Time Lords could reply, and laughed a giddy, joyful laugh. The grind and hum of dematerialization vibrated in his bones. There was a whole universe to explore.
4. Ostracism
Every hundred years, the august body of Time Lords assessed their ranks and, if the Council deemed it necessary, a formal ostracism would be held. Exile being considered a dire punishment for a Time Lord, it was a long-held method of keeping any one individual from doing anything too unruly.
The Doctor thought for certain that the Rani would be voted off the planet this time around. True, the Doctor had accidentally levitated the entire continent one hundred feet above the planet’s crust during his recent experiments with gravitational energy, but surely that didn’t inconvenience anyone as much as when the Rani’s giant lagomorphs rampaged through the city two years ago.
“What do you mean, the Council wants me to leave?” the Doctor said when Braxiatel gave him the news. “They can’t possibly mean it.”
“Don’t fret too much. It’s only for a hundred years, then you can come back. Just find some quiet moon or colony and consider it a vacation.”
“Hmph. Vacation.” He snorted in disgust. “I’ll just grab my granddaughter and make it an educational tour, then.”
“If it pleases you,” Brax replied, ignoring the Doctor’s sarcastic tone.
The Doctor frowned. “I’m a scientist, Brax. I need a laboratory, equipment, supplies. I can’t get those on some quiet moon or colony. I don’t want a vacation.”
“I’m sorry but you’ve got one whether you like it or not. You might as well try to make the most of it.”
“Why me? Why not the Rani? She’s far more disruptive than I am. Have you seen her newest project? She’s going to get someone killed one of these days.”
Braxiatel took hold of the Doctor’s arm and steered him to the cabinet to fetch a box and start packing. “The Rani keeps her head down and gets her work done. She didn’t lie to the Prydonian Cardinals to get more funding for a zeta-ray particle meter. Nor did she decide that what the Panopticon really needed was a high-powered neural scanning security net then proceed to implement such without informing or waiting for approval from the Council. Nor did she call Chancellor Jerinaloten a—and I quote—‘fat headed Gilotean sloth not worth the synaptic electricity he produces, which is minimal’ in front of the assembled Academy deans.”
“Trifles, surely.”
“Doctor,” Braxiatel spoke firmly. “The Council’s wishes are plain. Go away. Just for a century or so. It will be good for you, I promise. And just think how much better it will be when you come back and the Council realizes that they missed your brilliant, unconventional self after all.”
“Do you really think they’ll miss me?”
“I’m sure of it.” Braxiatel’s smile was as wide as it was insincere. “Just remember not to interfere in the affairs of the natives. You wouldn’t want to get into trouble.”
“Hmm? Oh yes, of course, no interfering.” The Doctor was already only half paying attention. He mind was already spinning out possibilities of how he might salvage the situation, or even turn it to his advantage. Upon reflection, it might not be entirely horrible. What things might he discover out from under the stifling scrutiny of his fellow Time Lords?
5. Away Without Official Leave
The Doctor was pleased to have qualified for field work at last. Only the most trusted officers in the Celestial Intervention Agency were sent out into the wider universe, but the Doctor had been doing reliable work for them ever since he had left the Academy and he knew that he’d earned his position.
The Director briefed him on his mission. “We’ll be giving you an older TARDIS as befits your cover story. You are to make contact with this renegade, earn his trust, and discover his plot. Once you’ve gathered all the information you can, take him into custody if you’re able. You are authorized to use your staser if you must, although we’d rather capture him alive.”
“Understood.”
“Your TARDIS is waiting for you. The coordinates are already programmed in.” With that the Director dismissed the Doctor to his task.
It took virtually no time at all to reach his destination—a wet and mouldy little world populated by aliens who resembled giant tree slugs. He could feel the renegade’s psychic presence as soon as he landed. It was naggingly familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it, like forgetting the words to a dearly loved nursery tune.
He made his way through the thick, verdant underbrush towards a metal structure that looked part bunker, part laboratory. He followed the psychic thread through the building to an inner chamber and knocked. It would be impossible to take the other Time Lord by surprise, and sneaking in wouldn’t give a good first impression to a man he was suppose to ingratiate himself towards.
“Come in, Doctor.”
The itching familiarity clarified into burning dread when he heard that silky voice call his name. He opened the door to reveal a man with dark hair and the beginnings of a moustache and sideburns.
“Master.” The Doctor swallowed. He was ordered to bring in a renegade. No one told him that the renegade in question was his childhood friend and former lover. He stepped in the room and closed the door behind him. His staser sat heavily under his coat. “This is awkward.”
“Not at all. It’s quite simple, in fact. The CIA sent you to arrest me. You will not do so.” The Master was perfectly calm and confident in his assessment. The Doctor went for a bluff.
“What makes you think I’m here on behalf of the CIA?” the Doctor said. “Maybe I came here to find you because I missed you.”
The Master chuckled. “If you came because you missed me you wouldn’t have looked so thoroughly shocked and dismayed when you saw me.”
The Doctor inclined his head in acknowledgement of the Master’s logic. “In that case, if I am with the CIA, what makes you think I won’t arrest you?”
“I’m not doing anything immoral.” The Master slinked towards the Doctor until they were barely a foot apart and put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder in a show of camaraderie. The Doctor glanced at the presumptuous hand and back to the Master, who continued, “I’m helping the Urocyclideans with an environmental problem. In return, they are giving me space and equipment for my own studies.”
“I can’t return without you.”
“Tell them that you couldn’t find me. Tell them that by the time you got here, I’d already left without a trace.”
“They conduct thorough brain scans every time an officer returns from the field. It’s insurance against psychic tampering. I can’t lie to them. And I can’t return without you or they’ll arrest me instead for dereliction of duty.”
The Master shrugged. “Then don’t return.”
The Doctor stared at him in wide-eyed shock. “You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious. You said that the only reason you were going to join the CIA was because they were your best chance of getting a TARDIS and seeing the universe. Well, you have a TARDIS. Surely you want to see more of the universe than this soggy rock?”
The Doctor’s eyes darted shiftily here and there. The Master had a point. A selfish and dishonest point, but still a point. The Master stepped closer, bringing their bodies together, and cupped the Doctor’s cheek in his hand
“Doctor,” he whispered in his ear. “You know what captivity would do to me. You feel it in your own mind, the restlessness, the need to throw off the yoke of hierarchy and claim self-agency. Let me be free and free yourself in the bargain.”
The Doctor nodded a short little nod, his breathing ragged. The Master’s thumb rubbed over the Doctor’s lips. “You’ll let me escape, then?” The Master asked, goading the Doctor into a verbal commitment.
“Yes,” the Doctor promised, breaking his oath to the Time Lords and becoming a renegade in one breath. The Master smiled and pulled the Doctor into a tender embrace.
For the last time, the Doctor accepted what the Master offered him. For the last time he let the Master’s wishes be his own.
Home Is Where the Heart Is
Theta leaned against the windowsill gazing dreamily up at the night sky. He didn’t turn away, even when Koschei dropped down next to him.
“Have you decided which one you want to see first?” Koschei asked.
“All of them.”
“That might take a while.”
Theta took Koschei’s hand into his. “All of our lifetimes together, I hope.”
Koschei rested his chin on Theta’s shoulder and Theta dreamed about the day he’d leave Gallifrey and drift among the stars.
