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by Andie J. P. Frankham
‘Finally. Took me bloody ages to get out of the TARDIS. By the way, gotta admit, love the new look to Tardis. Mace Windu she wasn’t.’ He laughed. ‘Reminds me of a female you, you know.’ The Doctor’s brow furrowed. ‘What? How do you know about Tardis?’ Regance looked down at himself, then back at the Doctor, smiling. ‘Sorry, forgot about this body. Hang on a mo, I’ll sort it out.’ Regance’s body shook, and the skin began to bubble as if there was something underneath trying to get out. The hair changed colour, and the body grew taller, thinning out. Finally, now wearing clothes too short and too big, was a thin man with long blond hair. He looked at the Doctor and winked. ‘Better?’ The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come. The young man stepped towards the Doctor and hugged him. ‘Nice to see you’re choked up about my return, Doctor, but no need. I’m back now.’ The Doctor closed his eyes, and one word shot through his mind. A word that removed so much weight from his shoulders. Nick! The two men broke from the embrace. Nick held his hands out and span around. ‘What d’you think? Good as new.’ There was no response from the Doctor, who just stood there, looking at his old companion, his face trembling with emotion. He took a deep breath. ‘You cannot be Nick, he was killed by Ashgotoroth.’ The Doctor backed away, until he was up against the closed door. ‘I’m sorry, mate, I wish I could have told you earlier. But, you know what it’s like, we all have our reasons for doing what we do.’ The Doctor narrowed his eyes, while his hands ran across the door looking for the control that would enable him to escape the room. ‘What is this?’ he asked, his voice betraying how shook up he was feeling. Nick stepped forward and reached out a hand. The Doctor attempted to pull back further. ‘Doctor, please, you’ve gotta trust me. We needed you to be here now, not sooner.’ ‘We?’ ‘Yes, Tardis has been helping me. We could have helped you to Outpost Gallifrey earlier, but you’d have been too early. Besides, you needed to face the Furies, deal with any inner demons you had left over from your regeneration.’ The Doctor thought back to the Furies domain, and further, to his findings outside the cell on Counterpane. Then there was the remainder of the book by the grave. ‘You left the pages for me to find…’ ‘Yep, that was me. Neat, eh? It delayed you long enough.’ The flippancy faded from Nick’s voice as his tones changed to emphasise the warning of his next statement. ‘Things are not as they seem on Outpost Gallifrey.’
Episode Three: Rewunderer rushed down the corridor, his mind still reeling from the callous treatment of the clone by the Doctor. No matter how much he thought about it, no matter what angle he tackled it from, he could not understand how the Doctor – his hero! – could act in such a way. So caught up in thoughts was he that Rewunderer failed to notice the two people turning the corner at the exact same time as he. They collided with such force that Rewunderer was on the floor before he had a chance to register the pain. ‘You stupid…’ he began as he looked up. Seeing the two people brought him to a stop, and a smile plagued his lips. ‘Am I glad to see you two.’ Zelante rubbed his chest, and raised an eyebrow. ‘Ow. What’s the hurry?’ Shinjiru reached down and helped Rewunderer to his feet. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. Rewunderer straightened his robes. ‘Yes,’ he replied with a smile, then turned to Zelante, the good humour leaving his countenance in a second. ‘I think we’ve got a big problem here on the Outpost.’
The Doctor sat on the edge of the transmat platform, the flaps of his frock coat covering his legs. Nick leant against the door, and the two men regarded each other. The Doctor could not deny that it was good to see Nick again; for now he was certain that it was Nick, although a few things still puzzled him. ‘I have a lot of questions, Nick.’ ‘Just as well that I’ve got all the answers, then, eh?’ Nick smiled. ‘I’m kind of guessing that you’ve worked out what has happened to me.’ ‘I can only assume that somehow you have recovered your Millennium People powers.’ ‘Got it in one!’ Nick laughed. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s been like these past few years. Rediscovering my godhood.’ ‘Years?’ ‘For me it has been, yeah.’ ‘How did you get them back?’ ‘Remember our trip to Earth in 1986?’ The Doctor nodded and Nick continued. ‘We were both different people back then. As I have since discovered, the only reason Bradley was not able to turn me into a Kuang-Shi was because the Millennium People restored my powers.’ ‘You had the powers since then?’ ‘Nah. Well, yeah, too.’ Nick smiled at the confusion on the Doctor’s face. He held his hands up. ‘It’s simple, really, Doctor. For reasons I can’t explain yet, the Dommervoy interceded. Turns out I accepted the Millennium People’s offer and returned to them, spent quite some time there, too, by all accounts. But the Dommervoy had other plans, so they took me from Forum World and blocked me powers. I had them from that day on, until after the wedding, but I just couldn’t access them. Of course, things happened on Earth in 1991 that I couldn’t control, and I had to accept it that that was when the Dommervoy chose to unblock the block. From then on being mortal was no longer an option. Don’t get me wrong, it was great being mortal, and I had the best teacher.’ The Doctor acknowledged the compliment with a nod of his head. ‘But?’ ‘But being a god is really what I’m about. Always was.’ Nick looked up at the ceiling, although the Doctor could tell that Nick was not seeing the ceiling at all. ‘And I can’t deny that falling in love was the most potent feeling in the universe. That I’ll never forget.’ ‘What about Alf, Nick?’ Nick looked back at the Doctor, almost as if he had been caught off guard. The Doctor continued. ‘Alf was as in love with you as you were with her, and thinking you had been killed devastated her. Why did you not tell her, Nick?’ Nick smiled and walked across the room. He sat down beside the Doctor and looked sideways at his old mentor. ‘I did tell her. I visited her a couple of months after you left. I had to give her time to find herself, you know? And besides, I needed some time, to…’ Nick reached out a hand towards the Doctor’s head. ‘I’ll show you.’ ‘How?’ Nick laughed softly. ‘Makes a change to hear you asking all the questions.’ He extended a finger and pressed gently against the Doctor’s right temple. ‘Like this. Just relax and go with it.’ The Doctor was
‘This is where I exist,’ he hears Nick say. The Doctor looks around for his companion, but there is no sign of another person. All he can see are the clouds of light. One such cloud drifts closer to him. ‘Nick?’ ‘Yep. This is my natural form now. My corporeal body was destroyed when you ejected Ashgotoroth into the Liquid Time outside your TARDIS. The only way I can physically interact on the linear plane is by possessing others.’ ‘Like Regance?’ ‘Uh huh.’ The cloud that is Nick expands and begins to envelope the Doctor. ‘Don’t worry, this won’t hurt. I’m just gonna take you back into my memories, show you how I left Alf.’ The Doctor relaxes his mind, because he realises that his body is still on Outpost Gallifrey. Nick has frozen time around both bodies – an advantage of being a Time Lord is that the Doctor is able to detect such subtle alterations to time. As he relaxes, a room forms around him. He tries to look down, but he has nothing to look down with. No body, no eyes. It is as if he is the author looking in on a scene. Alf is in the small room, standing in front of a mirror, straightening out the uniform she wears. The Doctor recognises it as a UNIT uniform. As Alf had told him before he had left her, she has joined UNIT. The Doctor’s heart feels heavy at the realisation that she has done just that. A glow of light appears behind her and Alf turns just in time to witness the man shape that has gathered there. ‘Oh my god, it can’t be…’ Her voice trails off as the form takes on the more distinct features of Nick. ‘It is you,’ she says, her eyes misting over. ‘Hiya, Alf,’ Nick says. He holds his hands up. ‘Please don’t try and touch me.’ Alf was walking towards him, but at that she stops. ‘You what? Why not?’ ‘I don’t want to disappoint you. You try and touch me and your hands will only go through me, since I don’t have a real body no more.’ ‘What’s happened to you, Nick? I thought you were dead.’ Alf sniffs, holding back the emotions building up inside. ‘I know. I would’ve come back earlier to tell you, but I’ve been preoccupied. I had to leave my body when the Kuang-Shi entered it, if I didn’t then I would have been consumed. It was the only way I could have survived.’ Alf shakes her head. ‘This is bollocks,’ she says sharply. ‘You could have come back… You left me on my own.’ Nick reaches out to hold her, but his hands pass right through her body. Alf steps back quickly, as if stung by the non-contact. Nick glances down at his hands. When he looks back up the sadness in his eyes is palpable. ‘I so want to hold you, one last time.’ ‘You’re going again?’ ‘I have to. The Doctor needs me.’ A single tear falls from Alf’s eye. ‘I need you,’ she says imploringly. ‘I never really got to say goodbye to you, Nick, how could I? I’ve tried, for two months I’ve tried! But I’ve seen too much to just give up hope like that. I still need you.’ Nick shakes his head softly. ‘No you don’t, not any more. Before I came back here I visited you mum. Her finding religion helped me. Poor dear thought I was an angel. So I told her that we’d given you back to her, for a second chance. Go back to her, Alf. Leave UNIT and the violence behind. Your mum needs you. You need each other.’ ‘But, Nick…’ Alf steps forward again and reaches out a hand. Nick holds his hand out too and rests the incorporeal shape lightly on top of her skin. ‘Do you remember what you did on Alpha Centauri, after we returned from Peladon? Remember how you burnt your combat suit, got rid of your weapons?’ Alf nods her head, still looking down at the cloudy hand on top of hers. ‘You promised me you’d give up the violence, turn away from it. Can’t you see what’s happened? You’ve traded one combat suit for another. I don’t want you to fight anymore, Alf. I want you to live!’ Alf looks up and blinks rapidly, and tears slowly work their way out of the ducts in her skin. She sniffs, and clasps the hand that is not there. ‘Thank you,’ she says. The human features begin to coalesce, and Nick slowly returns to his light-cloud form. ‘Goodbye, Alf. Always remember that I love you… I’ve never stopped.’ Alf looks up at the cloud, her eyes full of wonder. ‘Will I ever see you again?’ The cloud disperses, but the voice of Nick echoes around the small room. ‘Count on it.’ Alf is left standing in the room alone. Slowly she turns round and faces the mirror. For a moment she stands there, looking at her reflection, at the green uniform she wears. Her eyes drift to the UNIT emblem on her sleeve. She reaches for it and pulls. ‘She is smiling,’ the Doctor says as the
Nick stood up. ‘No need to thank me, it’s what we do, right? What you taught me. We’ve got to do what we can to make life better.’ The Doctor nodded. ‘Very true, Nick.’ Nick waved a hand in the air and the door opened. ‘Go on, Doctor, you need to get to Ruby before they send her back to Earth. You’re gonna need her to stop the Millennium People.’ The Doctor jumped to his feet. ‘The Millennium People?’ ‘Uh huh. Remember Yahanis and Jeret Seth?’ A look of horror swept across the Doctor’s face. ‘By Rassilon’s beard! He told me that I sent him to…’ He slapped himself on the forehead. ‘The other me, he sent Jeret to Yahanis, didn’t he? You mean I… he… is in league with the Millennium People?’ Nick clicked his fingers. ‘Bingo!’ ‘But why would I do that? It still does not make sense. Oh well, that is a question that will have to wait.’ The Doctor dashed passed Nick and skidded to a stop by the door. He turned to face his old protégé. ‘What about you?’ ‘I’ve got things to do, but I’ll be back when the time is right.’ ‘Right.’ The Doctor nodded, and rushed out of the room. Once the Doctor had gone, a golden glow emanated from the body that Nick possessed, and slowly it changed until once again Regance was standing there. He ran a hand down his scar. ‘What is going on here?’ he asked the empty room, just before he collapsed onto the floor, unconscious.
Ruby was being escorted down a corridor by the woman with the short red hair and one guard. Secretly she felt a bit of pride at the treatment. The people of Outpost Gallifrey must have considered her quite a threat if they were giving her a guard as an escort, and a member of the Elders. They reached a door and the guard opened it. Ruby peered inside but did not move. She looked at the other woman. ‘I thought I was being sent back home?’ Ruby enquired, acidly, and indicated the room beyond the door. ‘That’s not my home, dear.’ The woman looked her up and down. ‘Listen to me, primitive; this place will be your home for quite a while. We’re not going to lower the defences of Outpost Gallifrey just to send you to a back water little planet like Earth.’ Secretly Ruby was glad. After all, she did not want to leave Outpost Gallifrey just yet. There had to be something she could do to save the Doctor from death, she just had not thought of what yet. She needed time. Still, Ruby had no intention of letting the woman off so easily. ‘I was under the impression that your President told you to send me back to Earth.’ ‘There’s a lot of things that presidents say. He’s not the first one to think he has absolute power. Back on Gallifrey the President would have ultimate power, but not here. Things are different for the Gallifreya.’ Dissent in the ranks. Ruby smiled. Excellent. ‘Well, in that case, pet, why not let me go and prevent the Doctor from being killed?’ The woman snorted. ‘I’m not your pet. I am Moulivia, an Elder of the Gallifreya. And I certainly don’t listen to orders from you, if anyone at all.’ With those words, Moulivia shoved Ruby into the room. ‘Make yourself comfortable, now, you’ll be here for quite some time.’ The door closed, shutting Ruby off from the rest of Outpost Gallifrey. She looked around the room. It was either the same room that she and the Doctor had been in earlier, or an exact replica. She let out a sigh. Not that the familiarity of the room would be of any help to her. Ruby walked across the room and sat on the chair in front of the monitor, and let out a long and heavy sigh. ‘Oh, Doctor, what can I possibly do now, pet?’
Zelante looked at Rewunderer aghast. ‘You’re mad. Why would the Doctor act like that? You’re making it up cause you don’t want us to meet him.’ ‘Why would I do that?’ Rewunderer turned to Shinjiru. ‘You believe me, right?’ She looked to the floor, answer enough for Zelante. ‘See! Look, Rewunderer, you’re not the only one who’s been waiting to meet the Doctor. I seem to recall that we agreed that if he ever got to the Outpost, we’d all go and meet him together. I don’t remember anything about agreeing that one of us would become his personal assistant.’ ‘Believe me, if I knew what he was really like I would never have accepted that role!’ Rewunderer snapped. He stepped up to Zelante and pointed a finger at him. ‘Don’t believe me, then. I’m going to find his clone, save him before he’s put to death.’ Zelante folded his arms. ‘Go for it, see if I care. I’m gonna go and meet the Doctor. The real Doctor!’ He looked at Shinjiru. ‘Coming with me?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m going to help Rewun. I don’t like what he’s been saying.’ Zelante harrumphed and pushed his way passed Rewunderer. ‘Fine!’ Once Zelante was gone, Rewunderer turned to Shinjiru. ‘Thanks.’ She looked over at him and smiled sheepishly. ‘Did the Doctor really do that?’ ‘Sign the clone’s execution orders? You bet he did.’ Rewunderer placed a finger on his bottom lip. ‘But I don’t know how he wants the clone killed.’ ‘Maybe there’s a way we can find out,’ Shinjiru ventured uncertainly. ‘Oh?’ ‘Follow me.’ Shinjiru set off, a broad smile on her face, and Rewunderer followed.
Typical Gallifreyan design, the Doctor thought, as he made his way down another seemingly identical corridor. It did not much matter what his people now called themselves, at the end of the day Gallifreyans would never be able to make an habitation without placing in it endless and identical corridors. Best way to confuse people, he mused. ‘Still,’ he said to the empty corridor, ‘it is a good job I have a better sense of direction than a homing pigeon.’ ‘You’d think so, eh, Doc?’ The Doctor brought himself to an abrupt stop. He recognised the voice that spoke behind him. Slowly, with something approaching anxiety, the Doctor turned around to confront the owner of the voice. It was as he thought. Standing before him, dressed in trainers, jeans, t-shirt and leather jacket, was a young man with an angular face, on top of which sat black hair with nuclear red tips. It was a man that the Doctor had last seen being set upon by several Kuang-Shi. ‘Bradley,’ the Doctor breathed.
A door slid open and the Doctor President turned around, in time to see Moulivia enter. They were in a silver walled room, the far wall covered in screens and computer interfaces. A man in white robes stood before that wall, looking at the two large people. ‘I trust that the human has been returned to Earth,’ the Doctor President said. ‘Yes, Lord President,’ Moulivia replied. She looked over at the image on the main screen. Figures that represented quantum formula danced on the screen, and in an instant she knew what she was looking at. ‘The codes for the temporal shields.’ ‘Yes, quite right, Mou.’ The Doctor President strolled over to the far wall and placed a large hand on the shoulder of the man in the white robes. ‘I need the shields to be taken down, so that the ambassador from the Millennium People can come to Outpost Gallifrey. But this chap here doesn’t seem to believe that I’ve got the authority to get him to take them down.’ He beamed at the small man. ‘That’s because you don’t,’ Moulivia said and she joined them. The Doctor President could not disguise his surprise. ‘I beg your pardon, but am I not Lord President of the Gallifreya?’ ‘Of course you are.’ ‘Then my power is absolute!’ Moulivia shook her head. ‘Sorry to tell you this, but that simply is not so. Not on Outpost Gallifrey.’ For a moment the room was in silence, until the Doctor President opened his mouth and let out a booming laugh. He slapped both the man and Moulivia on their backs. ‘Capital! Simply capital! Power corrupts, eh? Don’t want the Outpost falling into the wrong hands.’ ‘Exactly our point, Lord President.’ The Doctor President rubbed his hands together. ‘So, what must I do to get the barriers down?’ Moulivia walked passed the two men and placed her palm on a small panel in the wall. An image of an old man appeared on a screen. ‘Inform the Elders that we need authorisation for a brief removal of the temporal barrier.’ She removed her palm and the image faded. ‘You see, Lord President,’ she said, turning back to him, ‘you must have the agreement of all the Elders for the barriers to be taken down.’ ‘And, erm, how long will all this take?’ ‘That all depends on how long you want the barriers down for.’ The Doctor President chewed his bottom lip and stroked his beard. ‘Ooh, about a minute should be long enough, I think.’ ‘In that case, the complete process should take no more than half an hour.’ ‘Smashing!’ The Doctor President clapped his hands and turned to leave. ‘Then I shall contact the Millennium People. Half an hour it is.’
Through the window she could see snow falling. It was not a storm, just a few flakes. How close was Christmas? She had to wonder. Years they had spent here, where it was always winter and never Christmas. Ruby gagged and coughed. Her throat was dry, rougher than sandpaper. She reached out for the glass of water sitting on the small table beside her bed. As she reached out she could feel her arm shaking. The fire needed stoking. ‘Doctor!’ she called out, and glanced around. As she did so her old fingers brushed the edge of the glass, forcing it to topple over. ‘Oh…’ She started coughing again, wishing with all her might that the Doctor were with her. ‘Ruby?’ ‘Doctor?’ Ruby called out once more, attempting to lift her head as she did so. ‘Doctor, is that you?’ It sounded like him, but she could not see him. Again he called out her name. ‘Oh, Doctor,’ she said with a sigh. Maybe she was going senile? She closed her eyes. ‘Ruby?’ Ruby opened her eyes, brought to by the gentle shaking of her shoulders. She was not in the cottage, trapped from the TARDIS and dying, but sitting on the chair before the console. She had fallen asleep. ‘There you go, Ruby, time we got a move on.’ Ruby tilted her head up and looked into the smiling face of the Doctor. Still feeling a little disorientated, she asked, ‘what, how?’ ‘How did I find you? Easily. This may not be Gallifrey, and they may not even call themselves Time Lords any more, but they are still my people. Boring and unimaginative as ever. Remember what I said about there being no prisons on the Outpost? So, where else would they put you? Back in the same room.’ Ruby looked around the room. ‘I thought it was the same room.’ She smiled. ‘These people of yours really are dull, aren’t they?’ ‘Yes, they are indeed, pet.’ The Doctor reached out a hand and helped Ruby to her feet. He indicated the door that was standing open. ‘Come on, we need to get to out of here before they realise I am still alive.’ Ruby allowed herself to be led out of the room, and as she was she noticed the unkempt state of the Doctor’s clothes. He was in his shirtsleeves, and his trousers looked like they had seen better days. With this in mind, she asked, ‘how come you’re alive anyway?’ ‘Had the help of an old friend. You did not meet Nick, did you?’ ‘No. That was Alf’s husband, right?’ ‘Yes.’ As they walked out of the room, the Doctor smiled at Ruby, his whole face alight with joy. ‘He is still alive, and he is here to help us.’ Although Ruby had never met Nick, she knew how much his death had hit the Doctor, so her heart leapt at the news. ‘That’s great, Doctor,’ she said as she put her arm in his, ‘I’m so happy for you.’ The Doctor glanced down the corridor, first one way then the other, before they carried on out of the room. The Doctor strode down the corridor with a purpose, so much so that Ruby had to trot to keep up with him. ‘Where’re we going?’ The Doctor glanced at Ruby, and she was surprised by the darkness in his eyes. ‘To find the impostor.’ ‘Who?’ Ruby asked of the Doctor. He narrowed his eyes. ‘A question to be answered soon. And, I daresay, it will be an answer that…’
‘… will surprise everyone,’ finished the Doctor’s hologram as he and Ruby continued down the corridor, arm in arm. Rewunderer watched the hologram, his mind racing. Everything he had just witnessed confirmed his worst fears. Shinjiru had come up with a simple but very effective idea. Moulivia was a predictable woman, and they knew she would never lower the defences of the Outpost to simply return a human to Earth. It therefore seemed obvious that the human woman would still be on Outpost Gallifrey. Shinjiru had lead Rewunderer to his and Zelante’s room, and once there she used the hologram recorder to track down the only non-Gallifreyan DNA. It had taken seconds for the hologram to generate an image of the sleeping woman. Since then they had watched, entranced as the Doctor performed his rescue. Shinjiru was sitting in the chair in front of Rewunderer. She flicked a switch on her hand unit and turned to look up at Rewunderer as the hologram slowly frizzled out. ‘That explains why the President sentenced the clone to death. He isn’t the Doctor at all.’ ‘No. He isn’t.’ Rewunderer let out a deep breath. ‘We have to help the clone… I mean the Doctor.’ His eyes lit up as he remembered how the DNA readings had changed when the Doctor had entered the room to wake Ruby. The readings revealed that the clone possessed the most perfect Gallifreyan DNA ever. There was little doubt in Rewunderer’s mind now, the clone was the Doctor. ‘Imagine, we could be the Doctor’s companions when he puts an end to the plan of the fake Doctor!’ Shinjiru’s eyes shone in the same manner as Rewunderer’s. ‘Just like we’d always dreamed. You, me and…’ The light in her eyes died. ‘Oh no! Zelante. He’s gone to meet the President.’ ‘We have to get there before him.’ Shinjiru jumped to her feet. ‘Where?’ ‘The Great Hall, it’s where President Fake is going to meet the ambassador from the Millennium People.’
The Doctor President nodded his head, in response to the question asked by the Supreme Goddess. ‘Exactly, the Gallifreya do not suspect a thing.’ He walked around the hologram that displayed the scene on Forum World. The Supreme Goddess stood there, draped in white cloth, while around her the Millennium People prepared for their mass exodus. ‘Once you are here, you simply need to play your role as ambassador, convince the Elders that we shall unite our two races, and then, once the temporal barriers are truly down, we shall attack. The Gallifreya won’t know what hit them!’ The Doctor President’s ranting was interrupted by a cough from behind him. He spun round. Standing in the shadows was a figure he knew only too well. He forced a smile. ‘Nick, you’re alive!’ Nick stepped out of the shadows and slowly walked across the room. ‘Yeah, like you didn’t know.’ He waved at the woman on the hologram. ‘Hi, Goddess, long time and all that.’ ‘Bloke!’ she hissed. ‘You were supposed to be dead.’ ‘Sorry to disappoint you. The Dommervoy have other plans for me, and for you.’ He looked back at the Doctor President. ‘I can’t believe your nerve. I have to possess bodies to interact on the linear plane, but you… what’s wrong with your own corporeal body?’ The Doctor President looked down at his large bulk. ‘This one suits my purpose better. Consider it my own Trojan horse.’ Nick laughed. ‘Oh, very good. You do realise that me and the Doctor will stop you?’ The Doctor President clicked his fingers. ‘It was you! You stole the Book.’ ‘That’s right. Had to get the Doctor to Outpost Gallifrey somehow. Suppose I should thank you for the idea, eh?’ Nick bowed. ‘So, thanks.’ The Doctor President narrowed his eyes and great cloud of anger passed over his face. ‘You always were impudent. Well, not any more…’ He raised his hands. Nick smiled. ‘Come one then, have a go. If you think you’re hard enough!’ He clenched his fists and a golden aura appeared around them. ‘I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeves,’ he said as he swung his fists towards the Doctor President.
Rewunderer was so caught up in his own thoughts that he failed to recognise the man and woman walking towards him and Shinjiru. Shinjiru, on the other hand, did notice. She pulled at Rewunderer’s sleeve, but he seemed oblivious. ‘Rewun!’ she hissed, tugging even harder. ‘It’s him, it’s…’ She stopped, pulling Rewunderer to a halt. The man and woman continued talking as they drew nearer, so caught up in whatever they were saying that they failed to register Shinjiru and Rewunderer. Shinjiru could not contain herself anymore. ‘Doctor!’ she exclaimed, somewhat louder than she had meant. The Doctor abruptly stopped talking and looked up. ‘Erm…’ He glanced down the hallway up which he had just walked, then to Ruby, and finally at Shinjiru. ‘Nope, never heard of him. If someone is sick I am sure there are medical facilities close by.’ Shinjiru looked confused, unsure of what to say in response. It was then that Rewunderer came out of his little world and noticed the Doctor. His face broke into a smile. ‘Doctor, its is so good to meet you!’ he said and he stepped forward and took the Doctor’s hand. ‘As I have just told this woman, I have no idea who…’ It was no good, he could not help but smile as Rewunderer pumped his hand excitedly. ‘Oh, yes, yes I am he.’ He released the Gallifreya’s hand. ‘Must say, this is quite a surprise,’ said the Doctor, rubbing his earlobe. ‘You are the first people to be welcoming since we arrived on Outpost Gallifrey.’ The Doctor looked at Ruby, who was waiting patiently. ‘Oh, this is my friend Ruby.’ Rewunderer nodded. ‘Yes, we know. We know all about you.’ The Doctor eyed him with suspicion. ‘You do?’ ‘Yes.’ The Doctor continued looking at the two young people, rubbing his earlobe all the while. Suddenly he smiled. ‘Well, this pleasant but I am afraid Ruby and I have to get going now. We have some urgent business to attend to.’ Shinjiru stepped forward. ‘We know that, too. You’ve got to stop the fake Doctor from carrying out his diabolical scheme.’ ‘Only you’re going the wrong way,’ Rewunderer said. ‘He’ll be in the Great Hall, expecting the ambassador from the Millennium People.’ The Doctor’s brow furrowed, but he did not show any sign of surprise at this. ‘Quicker than I would have expected.’ He looked from the young Gallifreya to Ruby and back again. ‘Well, come on then! We have got to stop them!’ So saying, the Doctor darted off back the way he had come. Rewunderer and Shinjiru looked at each other, and then turned to Ruby. She shrugged. ‘Well, are you coming, dears?’
The four Elders bustled in to the Great Hall, led by Moulivia. They walked up to the platform that sat in the centre of the Hall and the Doctor President who stood on the platform. He looked down at Moulivia. ‘How long now?’ ‘Just a matter of moments, my Lord,’ she said and bowed her head. ‘Capital!’ The Doctor President beamed at the Elders, his white teeth shinning through the darkness of his beard. He raised his hands high. ‘We stand at the precipice. After this day nothing on Outpost Gallifrey will be the same again. The universe will know the true meaning of power and order, together the Gallifreya and the…’ ‘ENOUGH!’ The voice echoed throughout the hall and all heads turned to look. Walking across the hall, finger pointing out directly at the President Doctor was the Doctor. Following in his wake were Ruby, Shinjiru and Rewunderer. ‘You cannot do this.’ The President Doctor scowled. ‘Moulivia, call the guards. Arrest this man.’ ‘Arrest yourself you mean!’ the Doctor snapped back. He stopped once he had reached the Elders and smiled up at the Doctor President. ‘After all, we are the same person, are we not?’ The big man narrowed his eyes. ‘Something tells me you don’t believe that.’ ‘No, you are quite right. I know we are not the same person.’ The Elders started murmuring amongst themselves, but those murmurs were soon cut to the quick when the Doctor President stepped off the platform and pushed his way through them. ‘He’s right. I tire of this charade.’ Before he could speak any further, the Doctor pulled the president back from the Elders. ‘As have I.’ The Doctor glanced over at a spot in the Hall where the air was shimmering and a humanoid form began to appear. ‘The Supreme Goddess comes,’ the Doctor President said. ‘Once she is here nothing can stop me,’ he whispered softly at the Doctor. The Doctor shrugged. ‘Oh, I know.’ He turned to the Elders. ‘Gallifreya, allow me to introduce you to the leader of the Millennium People – the Forum Boss!’ He pointed at the large body that was once his, and could not help but smile smugly at the look of surprise on his old bearded face. ‘How did you…’ the Boss began. ‘What does it matter?’ Ruby went to move forward. ‘Doctor, what’s going on here?’ The Doctor held up an arm to ward her off. ‘Stay there, Ruby.’ He looked at the Boss, and with much flair, he sank to one knee. ‘I offer up my services to the Millennium People.’ Ruby let out a gasp. She did not know a great deal about the Millennium People, but there was something telling her that they did not mean well. ‘Doctor, you can’t!’ ‘I can, Ruby. What you said earlier was true. What do I owe my people?’ He looked up at the Boss. ‘When I last saw my people they put me on trial, and now it is time I got my own back.’ He turned his eyes down. ‘I wish to assist you and the Millennium People in the destruction of Outpost Gallifrey.’
Starring:
Special Guest Star:
Guest Starring:
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