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“Why can’t I DO this!” The Doctor chucked the piece of chalk across the console room in exasperation.
“Do what?” Donna asked.
“This!” He gestured at the chalk board in front of them. It was covered in the symbols of the written language of Gallifrey. Along with some very Human strike throughs, ticks and question marks.
Donna looked at the rubbish on the board and snorted dismissively, “A bunch of squiggles, lines and circles? I could do that! What’s the problem?”
“It’s a calculation, Donna. One we need. And which, for some reason, I can’t get right! That’s the problem.” He grabbed his head in both hands and started to slap his cheeks. “Come on! How do I fix this? What do I need? Think! Think! Think! Think! Think! Think! Think! Yes!” He suddenly twirled around on the spot, “Yes!” He grabbed Donna and twirled her around, too. When they stopped, he held on to her, “I need a new head!”
When he let her go, Donna took a step back out of the firing line, “What? You’ve only just got a new one - sort of - why do you need another one?”
The Doctor pulled a face, continuing frustration making his whole body vibrate like a tuning fork. “Because this is the wrong head! This one’s stuffed full of stuff that’s useful for everything except working out how to save Earth!”
“So, what’re you going to do?”
The Doctor became suddenly very still as a whole plan formed in his mind. Then, like some naughty schoolboy, he gave Donna a big scary grin. “Like I said, get a new head. And I know just the one I need.”
He charged round the central console to the scanners and began tapping in instructions at blinding speed. “OK, where are you? Where are you? Come on, show yourself! You have an appointment with the Doctor!” He was almost growling, “Come on!” Then sudden stillness again, like a hound who’d found the scent. “There you are! THERE! YOU! ARE!”
He looked hard at the screen, triumph etched on his face, until he saw the planetary data the TARDIS had given him. His expression softened along with his voice, “Ah, but that’s not where I would’ve wanted you to have been …. still, too late now. Needs must.”
He typed the co-ordinates into the navigation computer. “Ok, we’ve got him! Allons-y!” He looked at Donna, “Do I still say Allons-y?” Then he grinned, “Must do, just said it!”
He threw the lever and launched the TARDIS into the vortex.
Donna finally got a word in, “Who, Doctor! Got who?”
The Doctor’s grin got even wider and he laughed, “Me!”
………………..
River walked into the den from her study. The Doctor was sitting in the recliner noodling away on his electric guitar, the amp unplugged so he wouldn’t disturb her while she worked. She came to his side and pushed a hand into his hair to play with the waves, “You finished?”
He looked up with a bright smile, “Yes, restrung and retuned: a bit like regenerating!”
“Exactly like, but without the whole ‘destroying the inside of the TARDIS at the same time’ thing.” River leaned in and they exchanged a long, slow kiss.
“Mmm …” Hummed the Doctor, “… nice.” He opened his eyes and contemplated his wife, the incomparable River Song. “You look like a woman with questions on her mind. Can I help you?”
“Just one question. And, yes, you can. Sweetie, why is there a TARDIS in the garden?”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow and gave her question exactly none of the concern that she wanted him to. “If that’s the new code for ‘Shall we go to bed and shag each other silly?’ I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline: dinner will be ready in exactly 20 minutes, I’m hungry and need to eat. And, if there happens to be any shagging later, I perform better on a full stomach, as you know.”
River gave him a long-suffering look, “As much as you know what we can do shag-wise in exactly 20 minutes - full stomach or not - the question still stands: why is there a TARDIS in the garden?”
A look of confusion flitted across the Doctor’s face as he realised that River was being serious. “Because that’s where we parked her three years ago?”
River took a hold of her husband’s head and turned it so he could see out of the den’s windows.
“Not that one, we didn’t.”
The Doctor got out of the chair and went to the window. River joined him.
“Well …” He mused, “… That’s unexpected.” He pressed his nose up against the glass and squinted at the seemingly familiar blue box that was sitting at the bottom of the garden. “Is it ours?”
“Ours is still where we parked her – for completeness, I checked - but given that the likelihood of there being another police-phone-box-shaped TARDIS crashing round the Universe is virtually nil, I would say, yes, it’s ours.”
“How long’s it been there?”
“About 20 minutes.”
“20 minutes!” He turned away from the window and gave his wife an exasperated glare. “Why didn’t you come and get me earlier?”
“I was busy.” She smiled. “Oh, by the way, the moonstars all around the TARDIS have budded: the flowers are going to look really pretty against the blue.”
The Doctor returned her smile, “They will, won’t they. We’ll need to thank the neighbours again for the seeds. I wasn’t sure they’d come to anything given how late we planted them. Isn’t nature amazing!” He nodded his head sideways, indicating the errant vehicle in the garden. “D’you think it’s us?”
“D’you remember doing this?”
The Doctor shook his head. “D’you?”
“No.” River frowned, “I suppose someone or something could have stolen the TARDIS and they’re here to invade the planet.”
The Doctor pulled a face, “Bit of a rubbish invasion force if that is what’s in there: they’ve sat there doing precisely nothing for 20 minutes. Any invasion force worth its salt would’ve enslaved the population and gone on holiday to the beach by now!” He curled his lip, gave the TARDIS a sour look and growled, “It’ll be me.”
“I assumed so, darling; just suggested the aliens to give you an ‘out’.” She smiled sweetly and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.
“I suppose I’d better go and see what I want.”
River nodded her agreement. This was a TARDIS, so it was well within the scope of things they’d agreed years ago were his to deal with. Of course, they had been talking about their TARDIS … which, she supposed, seemed to be this other one, too.
However, and just in case, she moved on to a thing that they’d agreed was hers to deal with. “Weapons?”
He raised an eyebrow - this was, after all, their TARDIS: but amused now, especially at the sudden unholy gleam in his wife’s eyes at even the slight possibility of the use of weapons, he gave her question the serious consideration it deserved. “I have shades!” With a flourish, he produced a pair from a trouser pocket and shoved them on top of his head. “And an axe!” He brandished his guitar to her, the strap swinging back and forth.
She nodded again, decisively, now fighting her own smile – this was, after all, their TARDIS. “Good! All tooled up, then.”
She looked him up and down with a critical eye: black Doc Martens boots, skinny black jeans, white t-shirt only partly tucked into his trousers – just as she liked it, giving easy access to his belly and chest when she was kissing him – and a white shirt unbuttoned all the way down – ditto.
When her gaze reached his, he smiled and asked, “Do I pass muster?”
Their eyes held and held, then she took a deep breath, “Have I ever told you how damn hot you are?”
He raised an eyebrow and shook his head, “Actually, no, at least not in so many words. You’re not normally so obvious, or so obviously conventional.”
She pulled a face and stuck out her tongue at him, “Well, I may be sending my husband out to war so things need to be said, you know, just in case you don’t make it back for dinner.”
He frowned, “Well, that’s not going to happen: I need fuel for all the shagging later!”
“In that case …” River straightened her spine, pulled his head down, snogged him, let him go, walked into the hall and threw open the front door. The Doctor strode out past her into the garden. “Go forth, my conquering hero!” She called, “Come back with your shield, or on it!”
The Doctor held his guitar up in the air as a salute and heard her laugh as she turned away and went back into the house.
………………..
He stood at the bottom of the garden in front of the newly arrived TARDIS. It hummed with life. It was odd to feel the ‘familiar’ presence in his mind of this other TARDIS when he could also feel the familiar presence in his mind of his TARDIS. But, of course, they were the same ship.
He reached out and gently laid a hand on the doors, “Hello, old girl. What’re you up to?” He felt a tingling sensation in his palm and laughed, “Yeah, I’d say this would count as ‘having an adventure’!” He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. OK, he was ready. “Can I come in?” The right-hand door popped open and he stepped over the threshold
The inside of the TARDIS had changed, of course it had - he didn’t like it - but he felt the welcoming warmth and the sense of safety that he always felt. He propped up his guitar against the nearest seat.
There was a man and a woman standing on the other side of the console room. He gave them a hard stare, the man especially, then he raised an eyebrow.
“Doctor.”
The man nodded and replied, “Doctor.”
12 walked around the central console and stopped in front of the woman. “Donna Noble. Hello again.”
Donna looked away from this stranger’s gentle gaze and caught the eye of her Doctor.
“Which one is he?”
“Two ahead. Two behind.” 14 replied.
“How are you, Donna?” 12 asked.
Donna turned her attention back to the man – the Doctor – standing in front of her. “Good, thank you. Yeah, good.”
12 smiled. “Good. That’s good. I’m good, too. May I have a hug?” He held out his arms to her in invitation, “Do you do hugs? I do hugs. I’ve been practising.”
Donna looked a little taken aback at his statement but stepped willingly into his arms, wrapped hers around him and rested her head on his chest, “Practising something is always good.”
“I think so too. Hi. I missed you.” 12’s voice rumbled under her ear as he enveloped her in a gentle bear hug. They held on tight for a minute before he asked, “Am I still a skinny spaceman?”
Donna stepped back out of his arms and grinned at him, “Yeah, but somehow even skinnier!”
“Oi!” Both Doctors objected simultaneously, then they both laughed.
“Where are we?” Donna asked her Doctor.
It was 12 who answered her, “Darillium.” He watched as Donna’s face fell. He could see the worry that she’d hurt him with her question. And more, sudden anger at his other self for intruding on this last night. But, of course, she didn’t know. “Donna, it’s ok. We’re fine. It’s early yet.”
Donna frowned, there was a nuance to his reply that she wasn’t getting. “I don’t understand: ‘early yet’? What does that mean?” She looked back and forth between the two Doctors.
It was hers who replied, “A night on Darillium lasts for twenty-four years.”
12 heard Donna gasp and was reminded so much of River’s reaction when he’d told her the same thing. He took her hand and squeezed it gently, “We’re fine.” He repeated, “It’s early yet, we’re just into year three.”
Donna’s eyes filled with tears and she held on tight to his hand. She looked at her Doctor - can I? – and he nodded to her. To the man standing in front of her, Donna gave a look blazing with compassion, and love and truth, “The Doctor, he… “ She nodded her head to her Doctor as she spoke, “… saved her.” She let go of his hand to cup his cheek, “You save her.”
12 pulled her back into a hug, this one short and fierce, then he let her go, “Well, thank God for that! I have a reputation to uphold - I’m a scary, handsome genius from outer space and I save people!”
His voice was light, but Donna could see the tears in his eyes.
“’Scary, handsome genius’?” Her tease was gentle, and she laughed, helping him back from where he’d gone to in his head.
“Yeah, I know, River laughed, too.” His face crinkled up into a small, secret smile.
12 turned to his counterpart. “No rescue yet, though?”
14 shook his head before replying, “Not yet.”
12 nodded, as if knew this was going to be the response. “Well, that was always going to be the harder part. Keep working at it. Please.”
Then Donna watched with some amusement as this both later and earlier Doctor, one with a mad Scottish accent and fierce eyebrows, turned all of his attention on her Doctor. “And what is going on with you? How the hell did this …” He waved a hand up and down, indicating 14’s body and face. “… happen?”
14 backed up as his older/younger self advanced on him menacingly. “Well, something wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey…”
12 stopped in front of him and pinned him with a look. “You haven’t got a clue.”
“I haven’t got a clue.” 14’s admission was accompanied by a sheepish grin.
12 rolled his eyes, stepped back and allowed himself a moment of satisfaction as he saw 14 had started to breathe again: yeah, he still had it. “So, to business. Why are you here and what do you want me to do?”
14 clenched his fists by his side, geeing himself up. “Fix the board.” He pointed to the chalk board round the other side of the central console. “You understand more about temporal mechanics than all of the rest of us put together.”
12 raised a sceptical eyebrow but walked over to the board. He stood in front of it in silence for a few seconds frowning at the calculation. Even in this incomplete form, he could see what it was trying say. What it was going to do. More than a little horrified, he turned to his other self and asked, “It’s Earth? It’s that serious?”
14 joined him and they stood there, shoulder to shoulder, looking at the seemingly pretty symbols from their world written in chalk on a board from another world: a world he – they, now - was desperately trying to save, “Yes.” He huffed out a breath, “Isn’t it always?”
12 turned back to the board again, thoughts zipping through his brain at the speed of light: what a bloody mad, messed up calculation it was; likelihood of it working; likelihood of it not working and destroying the Universe; likelihood of him being able to fix this bloody mad, messed up calculation before his dinner was ready … oh, well, here we go again. “Ok! Right!” He clapped his hands together and then waggled all his fingers in the air. “Let’s do this thing!” He shoved a hand in his pocket and pulled out his digital watch, glanced at the time, and then tossed the watch over his shoulder onto the console behind him. “Six and a half minutes! It’ll be tight but I can do this.”
“Six and a half minutes? What’s six and a half minutes?” Donna asked as she also came over to the board.
12 grabbed the chalk and the board eraser and got down to work, talking as he went, “I’m cooking dinner … Really, Doctor?” He once again pinned his other self with a quick but pitying look, “… How could that step …” He pointed to a group of symbols two thirds of the way down the board, “… possibly have resulted from that one?” The group of symbols directly above. 14 blushed: 12 erased the offending group and then the one above, too, for good measure. “It’s in the oven and it will be ready in – now – six minutes. Aubergine parmigiana does not do well if it isn’t served exactly on time …. Good God, man, you don’t want to be doing that!” Another group of symbols were erased. “And - I have no idea why I’m telling you this – I need my dinner to keep my strength up.”
Donna leaned back so she could see her Doctor behind the other Doctor’s back.
“For what?” She mouthed to him.
“Sex with River.” He mouthed back, deadpan.
Donna clapped a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh out loud, but all that did was make her snort inelegantly and wetly through her nose.
12 took a step back and turning his head from side to side, glared at both of them, “I heard all that.”
“He cooks?” Donna asked her doctor out loud, indicating 12, while wiping her eyes of laughter induced tears. Then a more disconcerting thought occurred to her, “You cook?”
14 shrugged, “I have skills.”
“None of which contributed to doing this calculation correctly.” 12 growled, while promptly erasing more of it. “What have you got in your head, pudding?”
Almost the whole lower third of the calculation was now completely gone. 14’s blush got deeper, “Apparently, yes.”
14 and Donna grinned at each other.
12 poked his counterpart in the arm with the chalk, “Will you concentrate on this, please?” He pointed at a small group of symbols right at the bottom of the board. They looked for all the world like two overlapping circles intersected by a diagonal line: innocent but deadly. “When?”
14’s reply was all business, “Twenty-four hours and thirteen minutes from now.”
“Yes, I can cook.” 12 glanced at Donna as he replied to her earlier comment, “I can also clean; garden; yo-yo; strip down, clean and reassemble my wife’s rubbish stolen vortex manipulator in less than two minutes; and play the guitar. And fortunately for him, I can also fix a calculation that my past and somehow future self here has made a complete dog’s dinner of. Now, shut up, both of you: here comes the magic!”
For the next few minutes there was no sound but chalk hitting board as, with breathtaking certainty, 12’s hand formed symbols that fell into place with all the elegance and simplicity of a great watch movement.
Then it was finished.
The two Doctors stood side by side again front of the calculation.
14 looked at the calculation with baffled amazement, “How did you do that?”
12 smiled, “Ah, it’s easy, you just have to remember that, ultimately, everything rhymes.” Then he grabbed his counterpart’s arm and with fierce earnestness, demanded, “Do you see it?”
14 nodded, his eyes equally fierce, “Yes.”
“Good!” 12 stepped back, relaxed and chucked the chalk the same way as the watch. “Then my work here is done. Just like old times: saved Earth and dinner with …” He cocked his head to one side, pulling time out of the air, “… two whole minutes to spare! Well, maybe not the dinner part: don’t think I’ve ever had to save dinner in quite the same way as I’ve saved planets, so that can’t be like old times. Ok, delete dinner from that claim to glory.” He flung his arms out, “Saved Earth - with two whole minutes to spare!”
He came up to his other self and offered his hand, “Good luck, Doctor.”
14 took it. They held on. “And you. Thank you ….” He stopped and then started again, “She loves you.”
12 smiled, and gently corrected him, “She loves us all.”
“She loves you.” 14 repeated, his voice soft and sweet, then smiled, “And quite right, too.”
They both tightened their grip on each other’s hands for a few seconds before they let go.
“Donna Noble.” 12 covered his left heart with his right palm and bowed very slightly.
“Doctor.” She blew him a kiss, which he ‘caught’ and touched to his lips.
“Ok, leaving now. No mushy goodbyes: I don’t do them. Keep the watch: I’ve set the alarm for you.” He snatched up his guitar and slung it across his back, pulled his shades down from the top of his head and put them on, then flung open both doors of this not-quite-his TARDIS.
His white shirt glowing in the combined brightness of moonshine and house lights, he headed down the garden path, calling to his wife through the open front door as he went.
“Riiiverrrr! Prepare to be aubergined!”
“That isn’t even code!” River’s voice didn’t sound in the least bit scandalised.
“And don’t you just love it!”
“Oh Doctor, my Doctor!” Came the coquettish reply.
He snapped his fingers and the TARDIS doors slammed shut on the laughter rolling out of the house into the still night air.
………………..
Inside the TARDIS there was complete silence until Donna managed to pull her senses together enough to ask, “OH! MY! GOD! What was that?”
The Doctor, just as stunned as she was from the whirlwind that had just hit them and left them, finally got some words out, “’That’, ladies and gentlemen, was doctor number 12.”
“He’s hot!”
“No, he’s not!” The Doctor scoffed.
“Yes, he is. The body. The face. The accent. The hair.” She looked a little longingly at the TARDIS doors, wondering if River was the sharing type. “Trust me, he’s hot!”
The Doctor pulled a face. “No, he’s not!”
“He’s like Mick Jagger: all snake hips and bum! Oh, and the guitar!” She blew out a breath and fanned her cheeks with her hands, “I’d have him.”
“As what?”
“A mate … double entendre intended.”
“Really? Isn’t he a bit … obvious?”
“As hell! But who cares! Were you not looking at him? He’s hot!”
The Doctor put on his ‘thinking about it’ face, “Well …..”
Donna pounced, “Maybe a little bit?”
“Ok, maybe a little bit.”
“Maybe a little bit more than a little bit?”
“I’m getting us off this planet.” He stalked around the console to the navigation computer, out of the immediate danger zone of her teasing, he hoped.
But Donna’s now sing-song voice followed him round, “You think he’s hot! You think he’s hot! You think he’s hot!”
The Doctor threw up his hands in submission, “OK! OK! I give in! He’s hot!”
Their laughter went with them into the vortex