The Doctor stood, removing his coat from the little Doctor, taking an attentive stance at her side.
The little Doctor, grinning at him, turned towards her sovereign, bowing politely.
"President Flavia. I hope you don't mind, but I brought back a companion additional from The Dead Zone."
"Of course not," Flavia conceded, smiling. "When is the Doctor ever without a companion Flavia swallowed hard. "Doctor! It's you!"
Grinning like a Cheshire cat, the Doctor waggled the fingers of his right hand in greetings.
"Wotcher! One can never be sure where I'll pop up next, Lady President."
Unobtrusively, the Surgeon General stepped up to the little Doctor, handing her a copy of his medical report.
"But ... but ... but ... the First Law of Time, Doctor!" Flavia stammered.
The Doctor sighed deeply. "Not that old thing again?"
His eyes darted to the companion at his side, then traveled back to Flavia. "As all of this is Rassilon's idea, perhaps you'd like to take the matter up with him, your Excellency?"
"No Doctor, that isn't necessary," Flavia shook her head. "We welcome your involvement. And we of the Inter-Council collectively thank you both, for neutralizing the recursion in The Dead Zone."
The Doctors looked at each other, deciding to set this one thing straight.
"Actually, President Flavia," the Doctor began. "We didn't do anything ..."
"Your humility is commendable Doctor," Flavia interrupted. "But our gratitude remains unchecked. However, we have an additional problem."
As one the Doctors eyes darted towards the large visual display of the Matrix overhead.
"Has the Matrix jeopardized further while we were in The Zone, President Flavia?" the little Doctor asked with concern.
"No more than anticipated, Doctor," she answered. "The problem is with your TARDIS."
"What about my TARDIS?" the Doctor haughtily asked.
"It caught fire while you were in The Dead Zone Doctor, Doctors," Flavia said softly.
The Doctors looked at each other in stunned silence.
Slowly, the two personae of the Doctor, fumbled round the melted, burnt, charred, water soaked remains of the console in the primary control room. While Munchkin and K9 stood by in total silence
The little Doctor nodded, finally understanding.
"So, it was the TARDIS. I ... I felt it die!" She covered her mouth with Gomer's report trying very hard not to cry. "Oh no, oh no," she softly sobbed.
"I can't believe this," the Doctor mumbled, his eyes traversing the Edwardian Console Room. Bending over, his hand latching onto a piece of debris.
Wandering round aimlessly, the Doctor was a picture of utter defeat.
"This can't have happened. Not to the TARDIS. Not to my TARDIS!" His broad shoulders drooped.
"Where do we possibly begin?"
The little Doctor shrugged her tinier, softer shoulders.
"Station three, TARDIS central computer, memory core?"
Almost as one, they realized what she had just answered.
The Doctor took her forearms, beaming animatedly.
"Doctor, you're fantastic; that is, I'm fantastic; what I mean is, we're both fantastic!"
The little Doctor began to softly chuckle.
"With the memory core we can reconstruct everything!" the Doctor exclaimed. Then paused. "True ... it will take some time, a bit of elbow grease, a smidgen of luck, but we can do it!"
"I know, I know," the little Doctor said, nodding.
"Time's a wasting!"
The Master stood in his gaming room gloating. Gloating over the newly installed device responsible for the tap of the energies from the Matrix.
"Soon now, very soon I shall have at my fingertips the necessary power to regenerate myself a whole new cycle! This plan is fool proof." The Master grinned widely. "Even Doctor proof!"
The Doctor, laying on his coat, on the deck of the original control room, had wriggled part way inside the smaller, oak console.
Munchkin and K9 stood beside them patiently waiting. The little Doctor stood beside the Doctor not so patiently waiting.
"I said, I still don't know how you got those wide shoulders, through that tiny opening."
"Ha!" a deep baritone voice, chided her. "That's for you to know, and me to find out," he burbled, reversing the quote.
"Ah, ha! Got it!" was the Doctor's still muffled, reply. Gliding out from the console's base, the Doctor sat up, a wide toothy grin on his face.
In his hand was a carriage carrier tube. Partly opening the tube he exposed the numerous hard discs mounted in it. "Madame, your TARDIS."
The little Doctor nodded. "Well done, Doctor. I am proud of both of us ... we."
"Landed, my little Xoanon," the Doctor teased. "You've adequately established your point."
Carefully, almost reverently, the little Doctor lifted one of the memory discs from the tube, to examine it closer.
Her proud grin slowly dissolved, as she realized, the disc had been damaged.
Looking at the Doctor, her chin began to quiver.
"What is it Doctor?" he asked with growing concern.
Slowly the little Doctor crumpled the disc in her hand.
"No! Not all of them!" the Doctor screamed. "Certainly not everyone of them! Not everything! Eternally and utterly lost!"
The little Doctor shrugged, turning from him, accepting with a finality, the TARDIS was gone.
But the fourth persona wasn't so ready to admit defeat. Hurriedly rummaging through the discs, the Doctor knew he'd find something that hadn't been rendered useless by the carnage.
"Some, surely some," he mumbled. "There must be at least part, a usable essence."
Shuffling through the discs, the Doctor began to discard them, scattering them in all directions.
Looking up to the little Doctor, he implored her. "Come on Doctor, help me, don't just stand there."
Gazing at the Doctor's hand, the little Doctor began to slowly shake her head.
Her eyes traveled to the tube carrier. The Doctor's eyes followed his companion's.
He too saw the tube was empty; as empty as his hopes had been.
The Doctor angrily crushed the last remaining disc in his hand. His wrath turning then to the totally useless carrier tube. Growling, the Doctor attacked the tube, twisting it into a useless lump of metal.
"That's really torn it!" he screamed in frustration.
His final action sent the carrier tube hurling across the room, where it crashed into the south wall.
The Doctor's anger spent, he looked up into the hazel eyes of his companion.
At present, her eyes were brimming with concern ... concern for his welfare.
The Doctor drew up a long, lanky leg, resting his head on the knee.
The little Doctor quietly reflected, his sigh had been incredibly deep.
She sat down beside him, putting her arms round him in a wide, sweeping, protective gesture.
With their heads together the Doctors began to weep.
"Wha ... what a welcome home," the Doctor sniffed. "My TARDIS, my TARDIS, gone. Gone. Utterly destroyed. Utterly."
"I should have understood the Cloister Bell," the little Doctor sobbed. "It was trying ..."
The Doctor gently covered the little Doctor's mouth, shushing her.
No ... shush, don't ... don't blame yourself."
"Then why did this happen, Doctor? And how?"
"And how is right!" he echoed, looking round, his cheek glistening with a single tear.
The Doctor snuffled loudly, clearing his throat.
Courageously, the little Doctor set her jaw in mimic of him, though she felt anything but courageous.
She nosily cleared her throat.
The Doctor smiled warmly at this tiny copy cat.
"So what first Doctor?" the little Doctor asked.
The Doctor gruffly wiped the tear from his own face with the back of his sleeve. Next he proceeded to gently brush the tears from her cheeks with his fingertips.
"Well," he finally answered. "Anything has got to be a sight better than sitting round here, crying over all this spilt milk."
The little Doctor nodded.
Before the Doctor could speak again, Rassilon's Time Ring began to beep.
"Rassilon!" they replied together.
Brushing back her caped sleeve, Munchkin looked quizzically to the two. Both Doctor's noticed the ring was glowing.
"Wonder what he wants?" the little Doctor asked.
The Doctor shrugged.
The little Doctor's eyes began to shine. "Want to find out old thing?" she queried, quickly slipping the Time Ring from Munchkin's wrist.
"Why not, even older thing?" the Doctor quickly retorted.
Standing, facing each other, the Time Ring was held between
them.
"Back in two shakes, Munchie," the little Doctor promised.
"Ditto, K9," the Doctor echoed.
Within moments the two spinning Doctors dematerialized before Munchkin's eyes.
"Phooie, always being left out when things get really interesting."
"Indeed, Mistress," K9 agreed. "Then how about a trip to the Bathroom, Mistress?"
K9 asked, trying to be helpful.
"Perhaps, it is deep enough inside the TARDIS to be undamaged."
"Sounds good, I need a swim and to be surrounded by GREEN to clear my head, anyway. Lead on, tin dog."
Within moments the Time Ring had transported the two to Rassilon's tomb.
As the Doctors approached the dais of Rassilon, the hologram projection appeared before them.
"This is the Game of Rassilon!"
The Time Lords bowed as one. "Lord Rassilon," they replied in unison.
"Renegades," the projection replied.
The Doctors grinned at each other.
Straight to the point Rassilon began.
"The destruction of your capsule was my doing."
"Wha ..." the little Doctor started.
"I thought you were on our side!" the Doctor interrupted his counterpart.
Rassilon did not reply, to either one of them.
After a few moments of uncomfortable silence for the two ...
"When I tried to impress the essence of my Autron energies onto your TARDIS'es central memory core, the sequence of events leading to its eventual destruction ensued. I just now discovered it was the secondary Logopolition computations in the Chameleon Circuit that caused the primary source of the unraveling. It appears the Logopolitian ciphers, and my own precise mathematics are in dynamic opposition. Wonder what Lord Falla would calculate about that?"
Rassilon continued to deliberate in silence.
."Which also explains why your TARDIS reacted so adversely to my initial intrusion, setting off its Cloister Bell, Doctor," Rassilon said, directing his comments toward the little Doctor.
She nodded.
"Must have been overheating its wiring for some time," Rassilon speculated.
The Doctor looked at Rassilon's projection greatly put out. His hands shot to his hips.
"And that's the sum total of your apology?"
The little Doctor winced, smiling. Her eyes traveling to the tessellated, marbled floor, anticipating Rassilon's rebuff.
"I do not apologize to anyone! The very least being a Time Lord renegade, Renegade!" Rassilon bellowed.
There was a second, even longer period of silence, as Rassilon meditated further. "Behold!"
The familiar chuffing, whirring, groaning, wheezing sounds caused the Doctors to turn as one; in time to see the TARDIS materialize 'alive' and 'well' and very much intact!
The Doctors looked at each other totally dumbfounded.
Rassilon delighted wholly in their total, and complete silence. "Ho, ho, ho, Doctors. I have rendered the two of you, speechless! A task more difficult than encasing Rassilon's Star in the Eye of Harmony!"
Rassilon began to laugh uproariously.
"But how?" the Doctor finally asked, scratching his head.
"Always your questions Renegade. Does it not suffice to say that I am after all an engineer, and an architect?"
"Then we can take as your silence Lord Rassilon, the how of the TARDIS is to remain another eternal mystery?" the little Doctor asked softly.
"Quite so, Renegade. I wish you to think that which was destroyed utterly, can exist, due to the power, the will, and the compassion of Rassilon!"
"Works for me," the Doctor concurred. "Or, perhaps I should have said: Utterly."
The little Doctor turned to the Doctor grinning. "Well stated, old thing."
The Doctor grinned toothily, bumping the little Doctor with his shoulder as if to say, ('Ah, go on').
"But Enough! You two were given a task. So attend to it before I turn you into toads!"
The Doctors looked at each other for the span of two single heartsbeats.
Turning to Rassilon, they bowed in humble obedience. "Ribbit ... ribbit," they expounded together.
Walking towards their TARDIS in total silence, at the threshold, the two turned back towards Rassilon's projection.
"Lord Rassilon, eternal gratitude!" the little Doctor thanked him, bowing once again in humble obedience.
"Yes, Lord Rassilon. Gratitude! Eternal and utter!" the Doctor concurred.
As the door to the TARDIS closed, it slowly began to dematerialize.
Rassilon smiled, beginning to nod. What had he just unleashed, out into an innocent Universe?
The little Doctor was busy dressing beside her row of nonidentical coat racks. Six coat racks, which held six very different outfits, evenly spaced along the length of one wall of her bed chamber. On the wall behind the coat racks hung small paintings of each of the Doctors she bad been. Painted by? Rembrandt naturally.
At present, she was standing by the fourth coat rack (a brown
stand made from mahogany) in front of the sketch of Doctor Four. Already in blue knickers, white braces festooned with blue question marks, and a white shirt also decorated with a pair of blue question marks, the little Doctor smiled as a knock at her suite door reached her ears.
"Come," she said, reaching for her blue argyle, sleeveless Jersey.
Pulling it on over her head, she turned towards the door.
The Doctor bounded into her room. A room his nose quickly informed him inhabited by a Gallifreyan of the female persuasion. Well, he thought, ruefully, my private rooms have never smelt of bubble bath, dusting powder, and flutterwing perfume!
"Anybody about?"
"Nobody here but us Doctors ... Doctor," the little Doctor replied. "Well ... you're certainly in a merry pin this morning."
The Doctor grinned toothily, nodding.
"I like the way you've redone this room," he said, looking round. His brow furrowed. "It's, it's vaguely familiar somehow."
"Queen Victoria once had a bed chamber much like this. Though I doubt Prince Albert would have permitted all these pictures hovering about."
."Oh quite," the Doctor agreed perusing the photos. His eyes kept returning to a specific one. "Oh ... what a handsome brute."
The little Doctor smiled, and nodded, putting on her navy jacket. "Oh quite," she echoed.
As she reached for and began to put on the ten foot multi blue scarf, the Doctor realized just who it was she would look uncannily
like when she was dressed.
"Aup! What is it with you Gallifreyan females? Romana stole another's body. And you ... you other people's bed chambers, and other people's scarves?"
The little Doctor calmly continued to put on the seemingly endless garment. "This is my scarf, Doctor. Madame Nostradamus, a witty little knitter, made it, and the earth tone one, for 'we' when 'we' were still Fancy Pants."
The Doctor briefly pouted, but was forced to concur. "You know, Doctor, that kind of thing could get very confusing." Suddenly he recalled. "Hey! Just a minute! We unraveled it as Cricket remember? So how can you, two additional Doctors down the line, still posses it?"
"I can't count?" the little Doctor sought to help.
The Doctor shook his head.
The little Doctor lifted her eyebrows. "The scarf Cricket undid was a scarf of different colors. Tricolor, actually: the scarlet & orange of a Prydonian, and navy blue (thrown in for good measure), to be exact."
"Ah, so it was," the Doctor agreed, nodding.
The little Doctor noticed the Doctor's expression turn to puzzlement, as he continued to traverse the room with his gaze.
"Something wrong, Doctor?"
"Your east and west walls."
"A problem?"
"Yes. The west wall has one interior door."
"Correct," she agreed.
"And your east wall has eight doors set into it. The middle
two, doubled."
"Correct again. Why is that a problem?"
"I guess," he answered, with a sigh, reconsidering. "It really isn't."
The Doctor pouted, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "So ... where do they all go?" he asked, his curiosity egging him on.
"The door in the west wall leads to The Necessary Room, via The Clothes Cupboard."
"Necessary Room?"
"The Loo."
"Ah, I see," the Doctor began to understand. "That makes sense. But why eight doors on the opposite wall? Why not evenly divide them?"
"You have something against asymmetries, Doctor?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No, not really."
The little Doctor smiled warmly. "Why not go and read the plaques on the doors yourself? They are clearly, to the point labeled, in old high Gallifreyan."
The Doctor abruptly stopped his forward motion. "Oh, there's a point!"
The little Doctor encouraged. "If I can do it ... so can you."
Positioning himself in front of the west wall; the Doctor began to slowly move from the far left corner, to the right.
With some hesitation, he started translating the small, rectangular brass plates, centered on each door.
"Library. Bath ... Bathroom. Messy, no Music; Music Room."
The Doctor turned back towards the little Doctor. "Very good,
Doctor. You certainly have been busy with your pedestrian infra structuring."
The little Doctor nodded, winsomely. "It was, and remains, a computer challenge."
"I imagine so," he agreed. The Doctor squared his shoulders. "Next on the agenda; the set of centered, double doors."
"Ah, ... Edwardian Console Room," he translated the two identical plaques before him.
Eyeing the little Doctor, he smiled. "Perfectly understandable. Not to mention, handy."
"Tired of climbing stairs ... seems the lifts are always out."
The Doctor nodded. Turning back round, he tried first one door pull, and then the other.
The Doctor looked back at her, a frown on his face. "They're locked."
She shook her head. "No, don't work exactly. We can't use those two, yet Doctor. Unstable interface. Some of the logic gates are not behaving very logically. And have yet to track down and zap, all the bugs in the program."
"I see," he said nodding. "Well, happy hunting ... Tesh!"
The little Doctor nodded.
"Now, to the final three."
The Doctor swiveled back towards the doors, sighing deeply.
"Workshop. Clutter, no Cloister; Cloister Room. And, ... Sick
Bay." He pouted once again. "Why didn't I ever think of that?"
The little Doctor smiled, "Ah, Doctor, I think YOU did."
He smiled warmly.
The little Doctor reached into her pocket, retrieving her sonic screwdriver.
"Hey!" the Doctor bawled, seeing with his peripheral vision what she had done.
He wheeled on her. "My sonic screwdriver! Now that's really hitting below the belt. Stealing a Time Lord's universal opener while his back is turned."
The little Doctor chuckled, opening up her coat, lifting up her Jersey. "No belt, braces. Besides, look in your pocket."
"My pocket?"
The little Doctor nodded.
Reaching into his pocket, the Doctor smiled, pulling out his sonic screwdriver.
"TARDIS Console Room, Doctor?" the little Doctor asked.
"TARDIS Console Room, Doctor," the Doctor confirmed. .
In the maze of the corridor system, at a junction; one Doctor turned to the right, the other to the left.
Once the Doctor realized he was alone, he turned back towards the junction. "Oh yes," he remembered. "She prefers the other one."
Standing in the Edwardian Console Room, the little Doctor looked up from her computations, smiling. "I see you got lost again."
The Doctor snorted at the insult. "Oh pooh, I never get lost. I was merely taking a short cut."
The little Doctor nodded soberly. "Which is why I got here first."
The Doctor glared distastefully at her. "I was not lost! I have an unerring sense of direction."
The little Doctor looked dubious. "Of course you do, Doctor,"
she said, slowly nodding.
"Well, nine times out of ten I never get lost," he said, reconsidering.
Turning, the Doctor headed for the antique hall stand that already held one multi blue muffler, two navy blue felt hats, and two blue great coats.
The Doctor lifted the corner of his upper lip, sneering at the other scarf.
Slowly unwinding himself from his own scarf, he ammended his previous statement.
"That is, seven times out of ten I never ..."
The little Doctor shook her head, remaining unconvinced.
"OK ... OK ... OK ... five times out of ten I never get lost!" the Doctor snorted, hanging his scarf next to that of his companion's.
The little Doctor smiled, at last satisfied.
"I started for the primary Console Room," the Doctor said rapidly approaching her. "As I forgot for the moment you have a fondness for things antique and unique."
The little Doctor lightly stroked the nose so rudely stuck in her face. "Assuredly Doctor."
"Aup! My nose Madame, is neither antique, nor is it unique," the Doctor griped. "Well," he mused. "At least it's not any older than anything else on me."
"If you ask me Doctor, which I know you're not, any nose that has for well over nine hundred years been sticking itself into the Universe's business surely could be classified as both unique, and antique."
"So ... so have it your way," the Doctor grumbled, quickly changing the subject. "How are the computations coming?"
"Awaiting final readout ..." Her eyes moved to a flashing light on the console. "Final read out setting up, now, Doctor."
"So is old age Doctor, ours!" With an ungentlemanly snort, the Doctor reached for Gomer's medical report, laying on top of the wooden console, and began reading it, with great relish.
About that time, K9 glidded in.
"Master, Doctor; Mistress, Doctor."
"K9," they said as one.
"Where is Munchie, K9?" the little Doctor asked.
"Sleeping in a tree in the Bathroom, Mistress.
She told me she would join me in the Primary Console Room when she woke up.
But once there, I detected the two of you here,
so I left a body presence, activated, voice mail for her to meet us here."
"Good dog, K9," the little Doctor and the Doctor said as one.
The Master walked over to another control device in his gaming room.
Bending over it, he began to manipulate the complex circuitry.
"Now ... let's see what I can do towards dismantling the Quantum Force Field. Not total destruction of course, but just the teeniest number of holes, say somewhere above the Outer West Wilderness to give my silvery cohorts several access corridors to the Citadel."
He grinned audaciously. "Surround and overrun my little diversions. Very soon now, President Flavia and Gallifrey will not be very concerned with my energy acquisition from the Matrix."
The room was soon filled with the Master's ominous, insolent laughter.
"I finally figured it out. I know what you are!" the Doctor began his tease, slamming shut, with a loud snap, her medical report.
"Doctor?"
"Rassilon's Revenge on the whole of the Universe; especially me!"
The little Doctor remained unaffected by his comment. "So, what
about you?"
"Me? What about me?" the Doctor asked, his Irish definitely up.
"Reconstructed plaything of Rassilon."
"Reconstructed ... ah, reckon ... ? Oh pooh! That's the most ridiculous notion I've ever heard."
The Doctor noticed the little Doctor wasn't backing down, so he initiated an even more massive bluff.
Straightening himself up, to his full height; the Doctor slowly, determinedly stalked closer to her.
Hulking over her, the Doctor bent over, glaring into the little Doctor's face, exploding with malice. "Waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle!"
"Waffle all you want reconstructed plaything of Rassilon," she said yawing widely. "It changes nothing."
The little Doctor continued to tinker with the TARDIS'es computer.
"Oh ... oh ... Pepper beer & Cossacks, you're no fun when you're right!"
The Doctor turned his back on her, leaning against the console's wood & brass railing for a proper sulk.
The little Doctor began to giggle, rubbing her chin.
"Kipling said it much better I think."
The Doctor swiveled round, staring icily at her.
"Oh, he did, did he? And just what did he say, Miss Widdershins?"
"-'A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty'-."
The Doctor exploded into a fit of laughter.
Like flicking a switch, he was once again serious. "Well Doctor, also of numerous teeth and curls, I want to be certain you're not guessing with these computations!"
The little Doctor grinned widely. "You can bet your life on them."
"I quite probably will. So they better be right ..." the Doctor said, tapping the tip of her tiny nose. "Doctor Changeling!"
The little Doctor opened her mouth; but then closed it, without uttering a sound. However, her bright eyes remained wide open, with a look of total exasperation in them.
The Doctor loved it!
The Master looked up from the terminal he was monitoring, noticing the TARDIS on another monitor. "Well ... well ... well company. But hardly unexpected, Doctor. Come into my parlor dear, juicy little fly."
The Master grinned in sinister anticipation. Oh, the plans he had!
"You know Doctor," the Doctor contemplated. "We really are two different people, now. And even though we exist in the same time frame, our experiences are bound to be different."
"You could certainly say that again!" the little Doctor agreed. "What in the great horned toads of Illia am I supposed to do with an Estrus cycle?" The little Doctor shook her head; obviously annoyed.
"I see what you mean," the Doctor said, stroking his nose,
chuckling softly. "All of this has been very difficult for you, hasn't it, Doctor?"
"Yes," she admitted, sighing deeply. "Especially when people stoop to name calling. Doctor Changeling, indeed!"
"Sorry about that one, Doctor. In the future I'll try to be kinder."
"Apology accepted, kinder and gentler, Doc."
The little Doctor smiled shyly, scuffing her foot across the TARDIS'es deck. "Besides, how can I stay mad at you ... me ... us ... we?" her voice tailed off.
The Doctor chuckled.
"I did discover something very interesting reading your medical report, however," the Doctor interjected with a grin.
"Oh?"
"According to Gomer, your lipira levels are extremely high."
The female Doctor chuckled. "So I'm extra fertile, big deal," she said shrugging. "I have no desire to spread my Time Lord nuclei through all of Time and Space."
"Well, I should hope not!" the Doctor snorted. "But it should make the next regeneration easier."
The little Doctor raised a brow. "Guess I didn't stop to think it that far through. Now that's something worth anticipating. An easy change, for a change."
The Doctor grinned, nodding.
"I bet I can show you something that isn't in Gomer's medical report," the little Doctor challenged.
"Oh?" the Doctor questioned, his eyebrow peaking with interest.
With a flourish the little Doctor removed her jacket, beginning to roll up her right shirtsleeve.
The Doctor pondered her actions in silence.
"I guess Rassilon was afraid I might get lost, as it is a rather large Universe, so he imprinted a star chart on my arm"
The Doctor drew closer.
"As you can see, the moles on my arm are different sizes and intensities, just like the stars they represent."
"Then that one would be Karn's sun!" the Doctor exclaimed, pointing it out.
"And this one's Gallifrey," the little Doctor nodded covering it with her forefinger. "The whole of Kasterborous actually."
"Handy," he nodded. "As I've stated before, Rassilon is one wily old bird."
Rolling down her sleeve, she became very serious. "You know,
Doctor, I've always thought, and I know you'll concur; I always believed girls were just like boys only squeakier and bumpier."
The Doctor's eyes began to glisten, grinning in concurrence.
"But it's more than just the obvious physical differences.
We're not the same. My mind 'flows' at a different 'rate'. It has a completely different 'feel' to it."
The Doctor looked at her wide eyed, engrossed. "Oh?" His nose was on the receiving end of a rub, stifling a chuckle.
The little Doctor put her hands on her hips. "Oh Doctor," she balked. "Be serious."
The Doctor sucked in his cheeks. "But I assure you Madame, I am
serious," he insisted. His tongue moved against the top row of his teeth. "I mean, I am trying to be serious."
Unable to contain himself any longer, the Doctor broke up.
"I'm glad to see, at least one of us has a sense of humor, in all of this," the little Doctor snorted factiously.
"Oh, I give up," she grumbled, throwing up her arms. "How can I explain the differences between you and I, when you're rolling round on the deck, beside 'usself' with laughter."
"I'm truly sorry Doctor," the Doctor sincerely tried to apologize, slowly up righting himself, crossing both hearts. "I didn't mean to fall about like that, but when you get all stuffy serious." He successfully stifled another chuckle.
Clearing his throat the Doctor continued. "Actually Doctor, it isn't necessary to explain our differences. Wouldn't it just be simpler to enjoy them?"
"Easy for you to say," she griped, stuffing her hands into her knickers' pockets. "You're beginning to sound like Rassilon." Abruptly the little Doctor changed the subject. "What's your favorite game, Doctor?" she asked brightening.
"What?" the Doctor asked, startled by her sudden shift.
"Your favorite sport, favorite athletic endeavor."
"Oh, that old thing. Cricket, naturally."
"Wrong ... wrong ... jelly baby breath," she snorted, pouncing in on the kill, "Baseball!"
"Wha ...?"
"Baseball! Everyone knows who's on first!"
The Doctor reacted as if he'd just been run through with a foil. "Oh, that's dreadfully awful, Doctor Caligari."
The two began to giggle.
"Really went a 'fer piece back 'fer that one, didn't ya' Doc?" she mocked.
"Yup!" he said with his most precise United States ian's southern drawl. "Way back t' the life and times of that first fella!"
Narrowing his eyes the Doctor decided it was his turn. "You know Doctor, and I use the term loosely, as I only have Gomer and Rassilon's word you are me."
The little Doctor's mouth dropped open.
"Come to think of it, how do I even know you're a Gallifreyan?"
The little Doctor smiled coyly. "I have two hearts." She lightly crossed both of them.
"Big deal," the Doctor snorted. "Half the sapient creatures in the Universe are exotropic, including the humble earthworm."
"What about my 60 degree body temperature?" the little Doctor balked.
"Cold hands, warm hearts, that's an old Alderbanian saying," the Doctor said with a snort.
The little Doctor's eyes began to glisten, as she thought of something truly Gallifreyan.
"Res ... respiratory bi-pass!" she exclaimed in triumph. "Wanna see my wattles?"
The Doctor looked bored at the slightly vulgar suggestion. "How disgusting, Doctor. Besides ... why should the fleshly, gill like appendages, the leaflike vascular processes of mucous membranes, commonly known as wattles, nestled protectively in the
oxters, and exterior organs of the respiratory bi--pass system of
Gallifreyans interest me?"
"Ah, ha! Got you! you said Gallifreyan respiratory bi-pass!"
the little Doctor screamed victoriously.
"So ... so why would I want to see your wattles? I have two complete, functioning sets of my own. Last time I checked anyway."
"But mine are pink, and I only have two sets of twelve!"
"Like every female and her sister on Gallifrey," the Doctor stated flatly.
"But they use to be red! Bright red! And I use to have two sets of sixteen!"
"Wrangle that one out with Rassilon!" he said argumentatively.
The Doctor thought a long moment in silence.
"How did we get on the subject of wattles?"
The two began to giggle.
"I do want to show you one final thing though, Doctor."
The Doctor nodded, mildly amused. What now?
"Actually," the little Doctor ruminated further. "I guess I should say, two things."
The Doctor's eyebrows arched high. It was all he could do, to not laugh.
Cackling softly, the little Doctor put her right foot in one of the high back, Victorian, Console Room chairs.
"What a suspiciously wicked, and dirty mind you possess, Doctor," she teased.
"You're the who, who keeps throwing double entendres at me!" the Doctor griped.
Rolling down her argyle sock, she pushed up her knickers cuff.
Looking up at the Doctor, the little Doctor was pointing to a small, star shaped scar on her upper leg.
"See, Doctor? Where I was shot by Goth, when we battled in the A. P. C. net."
"When I battled Goth in the A. P. C. net!" he gruffly corrected.
"In the old days, Doctor, we were one. And as I'm the one with the scars and the memory, I must have been in there ... somewhere."
The Doctor lifted his upper lip. "That's a disgusting thought. Ah ... I think."
The little Doctor giggled. "But you're not sure?"
"Wait a minute," the Doctor realized. "It was a mental battle in the Matrix. Mental battles do not leave physical scars."
Rolling up her left sleeve, on her upper arm was a larger, star shaped scar. "The other wound, when Goth shot me out of the tree," the little Doctor said very mischievously.
"Shot me, out of the tree!" the Doctor exacted.
The Doctor sighed, taking off his jacket, hanging it on the back of a second Console Room chair. He began to roll up his left sleeve, his own curiosity by now incessant.
There it was! On his arm was an identical scar, except for it being bigger, naturally.
"I wonder what Rassilon was trying to tell us, with all this redundancy?" he asked, lightly rubbing the scar.
"That you and I truly are the Doctor," she surmised. "Despite any outward appearances, or inward feelings?"
The Doctor grinned. "Could be. Want to lay odds on a fourth
scar?" he asked, lifting his foot onto the chair.
The little Doctor slowly shook her head.
Smiling, the Doctor began to roll down his sock, and roll up his knickers cuff.
There it was, close to his knee, his other scar!
"By Jove, we've landed!" he exclaimed, with a slight jolt.
Rassilon's Time Ring on the little Doctor's wrist began to hum.
"And obviously at the precise coordinates, this time!" she exclaimed with delight, patting the console affectionately. "Always knew you had it in you ... you old dear!"
"Why thank you, Doctor," the Doctor teased.
"I was addressing the TARDIS, Doctor," she said, hissing.
The Doctor brows became lively animate. "I know."
"Ready to ensnare an old enemy, now new Doctor?"
"How's your hippocampus?" she answered him, with a question of her own.
"I 'ferget'," he said ignorantly, slipping once again into the western drawl.
"Then remember Logopolis!" the little Doctor shouted, charging for The Way Out, in a gesture highly reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt.
At the door she turned back towards the Doctor, suddenly serious.
"Doctor, remember what we use to call Logopolis?"
"You mean, 'The Abacus at the end of the Universe'?"
The little Doctor nodded.
The Doctor reflected. "Of course, I never realized till now, just how correct we were with that gentle gibe."
"I know," she replied softly. "Just what I was thinking."
"Danger Master, danger Mistress," K9 interjected. "Emplore ... allow me to go out with the two of you."
"No need, K9, as you just pointed out there are the TWO of us now," the little Doctor started.
"Besides, you need to wait for Munchkin to return," the Doctor finished.
Exiting the TARDIS, the Doctors attired in their blue great coats, fedora hats, and the seven shades of blue scarves, were confronted by another TARDIS outwardly identical to their own.
"This shape and size is vaguely familiar," the little Doctor said rubbing her chin.
"Yes, in a vague sort of way," the Doctor agreed.
Looking at the blue rec tangled object before them that looked like a simple British police lock up box, the Doctor took out his TARDIS key and inserted it into the lock.
"Wonder if this will work?"
"What's to hurt by trying?" the little Doctor shrugged.
"Exactly my sentiments, Madame."
Turning the key, the door silently opened inward. The Doctor made a loud creepy, creaking door sound.
The little Doctor quietly giggled.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "You realize current companera, this is all too easy."
"Of course Doctor," she confirmed, shrugging. "Traps always are," she said, rubbing her nose.
The Doctor looked down at her. "Coming? Or perhaps, just praying?"
"Just a tick!" the little Doctor said, bent over to tie her shoelace.
"Quixotic fool ... ah, fools," the Doctor murmured.
The little Doctor smiled, gesturing towards the interior of the
police box.
"Uppard twizzle?" he suggested.
"Probably more like ozzle twizzle," she countered.
The Doctors chuckled at each other. That time spent in the RAF had certainly colored their vocabulary, if nothing more.
The Doctors faces took on very serious countenances then, knowing the box which appeared so solid and substantial before them was not as it seemed, but was in truth the Master's TARDIS, it too in Chameleon Circuit disguise.
Taking the little Doctor's hand, without further conversation, the Doctor lead the way into the police box. Silently she pulled the door closed behind them.
As the Doctors approached the Master's command seat in his Console Room, he slowly turned the massive chair round.
"Ah, company. Good morning," the Master grinned, acknowledging their presence.
The little Doctor squared her shoulders, jumping right in. "Because of your crimes without number, and your villainy without end; it is with the greatest pleasure we arrest you, Time Lord renegade, known as the Master, on behalf of Lord Rassilon, the C. I. A., President Flavia, and the Time Lords of Gallifrey."
I"Well spoken Time Lady, but I don't think so," the Master said, slowly shaking his head.
Calmly taking out a patrol stazer he leveled it at the two.
Trying to reach a decision, with his usual attitude imperious, the Master gleefully moved the weapon slowly back and forth between the two Doctors.
"No state of Temporal Grace here, Doctor," the Master said, chuckling.
Finally choosing, the Master's hand stazer stopped squarely in front of the Doctor.
The Master fired, without further hesitation.
Hurled against the wall by the force of the weapon, a startled Doctor crumpled to the deck. His final thought: (stun guns? Oh ... how I hate stun guns!)
Quickly turning, the Master aimed the stazer gun at the little Doctor, gleefully firing a second time.
Thrown against the same wall, the little Doctor fell to the deck, coming to rest beside her stilled companion. Her final
thought: (killing us before insulting us? this isn't like the Master
at all!)