Time and Tide: Fire.
Part 2 of the experiment in the tentatively named TIDERAKER series, which will be completely in 6B and Parallel Time(s).
Summary: The Sontarans are still in Space. The Time Lords are planning. The Third Zone is about to be very unhappy. Guess who has to clean up the mess?
Characters: Second Doctor, 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon, unspecified Time Lords.
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The Madame Supervisor and two pursuivants regained their dimensional forms amidst alien surroundings. Amazingly damp air thick of minerals and trace elements made a cloud in her nose, clung to the exposed skin of her face and hands, and stung her nostrils all the way into her brain. Behind her the pursuivants were standing at perfect attention, doubtless hoping she hadn't noticed how uncomfortable they were.
Before her, Parolee 2(9*200) never looked up, though her presence was so obvious it was questionable if he was being rude or polite. Time Lords rarely failed to note another's presence. They were unlike the other denizens of Gallifrey in that respect. As usual, it was simpler to decide Parolee 2(9*200) was being polite. He doubtless didn't want to see one of his (many) ranking supervisors discomfited in any way, or perhaps he didn't want her to see that he was discomfited at her presence inside what was indisputably his TARDIS.
When Goth left his post at the CIA for bigger and better advancements, Madame Supervisor had thought him a little irrational and prejudicial against a good many of the prisoner-parolees. That opinion had still not changed, for her convictions were as firm as bedrock. Still, she had come to see some of his view. Goth's narrow-minded and stiff-necked ambitions did not mix well with what made a Gallifreyan fail to be a proper citizen (and that was most of the Agents). They were natural rule-breakers or they wouldn't be arrested. They had all earned their tracking chips and lengthy checkpoints and to be honest...they had earned the work-hours to regain the Gallifreyan honor with their condemned actions.
She did not forget that Goth had died at the hands of 2(9*200)'s future incarnation. Not that she would say such a thing; the Parolee was so far being kept blessedly ignorant of his future timelines. She did not look forward to instigating the backup plans in case he did find out. Memory filters were a tricky thing to install upon a brain as complex as a Time Lord's, especially since the procedures were still under review...
Madame Supervisor tucked her hands inside her sleeves and waited; they were far enough away from each other that they could afford the manners of avoidance for a bit.
The small man kept on with what he was doing, which was play an odd little song on the Tellurian woodwind. He was sitting crosslegged on the grass with all the postural grace of a small child (not that he wasn't), and his human was sound asleep with his head on his lap. For all the world it looked like a father seeing to a small child and it almost warmed what passed for her hearts. Time Lords were a people of privilege; they were selected and elite and separated from the rest of the Universe and even their own Gallifreyans. The price they paid for being the most superior beings in the multitudinous Universes was the loneliness of their rank. They all dealt with it in whatever way fit them best.
She dealt with the strain by studying plants. Goth had collected art. The Acting Lord President was driven by charity as much as he was by work. Gend rescued small animals; Ttoth had all but adopted half the Shobogans in his volunteer relief work across the less disreputable parts of the planet...the Doctor just kept alien pets. He wasn't the first one and he certainly wouldn't be the last. Intellectually she was glad he had some altruistic outlets. Not enough of their people were as concerned for the Universe outside of proper channels.
Thoughts of the Acting Lord President made her very uncomfortable. Parolee 2(*200) was more than a hopelessly lost cause and a renegade; he was also the past incarnation of one of Gallifrey's Presidents. A poor version to be sure, but the political...indelicateness...of the situation rather much guaranteed anyone in the CIA who had to deal with this shabby little fellow was going to feel the pinch of stress.
Of the top twenty things that the CIA worried about, the state of the Doctor's memory were in three of them. The time was coming in which the Agency would have to decide what to do...they could all feel it. The man was too clever by half and controlling him was a nonstop aggravation. His solve rate was unparalleled but so was his ability to do things “his way.”
It was going to require finesse and determination in equal measure. And doubtless...some more rule-breaking.
Oblivious to her thoughts, the Doctor kept his head down, absorbed in playing. She had noticed after many long years of exposure that his choice of music as well as his ability was an approximation of his mental status. The tune was slow and winding, indicative of troubled thoughts but calmness as well. He was thinking; that was good. The Doctor was always a little less dangerous when he was thinking, as opposed to his penchant for panic and impulse-sheer anarchy let loose.
The proximity of the human's ear to the notes would have been enough to wake any Gallifreyan, but she knew little about that race. They were short-lived to a fault. It wasn't a tune she recognized. It was quite alien with its reliance on the Key of D, and it rose and fell with the sound of the simulated waves. She took in the small details of the room and wondered if its occupants hadn't missed a useful career in eco-formatting. It was a thoroughly alien environment and did nothing to persuade her to go off-planet, but all the pieces fit.
The last notes slowed, and slowed again, until they finally drifted off into the air.
Now he looked up, his hands still posed with the instrument.
“Earlier than I expected, Madame Supervisor.” He noted.
“We are monitoring the quadrant.” She skipped the pleasantries; they both preferred it that way even if it led to the unpalatable fact that this understanding put them together more and more often. “Earth still needs work. Your future tense left dead Sontarans, Androgums, and humans behind.”
“Hmn. I checked the time-stream. It was all snapped up by UNIT. He gave them a call before he left the planet.”
“The organization you founded?”
He sighed again. “UNIT founded itself, by, I might add, a rather determined and resourceful human.”
“You were inspirational in its development. That leaves, I believe, the temporal responsibility to you.”
“Because they're human and I am not? We've been over this before.” He stuffed the woodwind into his sleeve in agitation but kept his voice down, not wanting to wake the other. “Eventually the Councils will have to decide on one definition for planetary responsibility. You can't decide a people are guilty of their leaders' crimes one moment and then make the opposite ruling on another. That's having one's cake and eating it too.”
“That would be one alien proverb I can fathom.” She wondered how the Human could sleep with such a conversation happening just inches from his head. It unsettled her that he was aging so quickly. She had seen him on the tapes at the Doctor's Trial. It wasn't even six hundred years past. Now he was grown and lines of age were sinking into his sleeping face. Her cousin's pet cobblemouse had a longer lifespan.
The Doctor caught her look, but pointedly said nothing while holding her gaze. Time Lords were good at communicating without words or even thinking. They simply demonstrated presence to get their points across.
“When you've finished resting, there will be a meeting with the Representatives of the Third Zone.” She said carefully. “It is recommended that you be present, as one of the former ambassadors of peace and goodwill.”
“Oh, now I'm back to being the ambassador instead of the bully.” He said without rancor.
“An ambassador is too often the same thing, and the Chimerans needed a show of strength.” It was not her fault the plan to strong-arm Dastari had been so flawed. They simply hadn't all of the facts.
“Silly me.” Sarcasm as a concept could have shriveled upon the pinpoint of the Doctor's voice. “We'll be ready when you are.” A still-dark eyebrow went up as the other went down. “Shouldn't I see about getting this re-installed first?” He tapped his right forearm with his left thumb where the Exile's Cobra normally glowered.
Madame Supervisor exhaled and locked her hands inside her sleeves. “That can wait until this horror is finished.”
“Horrors don't finish, Madame.” He corrected her in a barely audible voice. “They just continue on in another form. They're like viruses in that respect.”
She didn't like it when he both managed to put out a new insight, and make perfect sense. She also didn't like it when he didn't do the expected thing, which was protest the dishonesty of waiting until after the Hearing to restore the brand of his status.
“You will receive a briefing. It is expected that you conform to it.”
“I'll do my best.” He said dryly.
“You shall need to do more than your best.”
“Hmn. Does that mean I'll be expected to wear the robes of office?”
His voice dropped just a bit, and the expression glinted in a sly way under the dark green gaze.
The Madame Supervisor knew one rule about this Parolee: Never be predictable if you can help it.
“No.” She told him. There was almost a flicker of surprise at the response. “You are a renegade, after all. To place you in your old robes of office would hardly impress the Delegates. They do know something of your history.”
“Good.”
“You and the Piper are expected to report to the Medical Bay as soon as possible.” She reminded him of standard CIA procedure, to which he exhaled and rolled his eyes upward.
“Your medicos can't tell the difference between a Human and a pre-Cyber Mondasian.”
“Then give us more to work with.” She allowed the bite of temper in her voice. “Your resistance to medical protocols is understandable on some level-they are unpleasant and no Time Lord is actually eager for them...but to feel this way about your companion as well...” She shook her head, finally baffled at showing emotion. “Do not give us a reason to take him from you again.”
The Doctor's face changed. It was back to normal almost instantly, but under that flicker, the Madame Supervisor felt the urge to step backwards.
“You've already taken Zoe and Victoria from me.” He kept his face calm, but it was a mask.
“They will be returned at the proper time, Doctor.” She did hate referring to him by his non-CIA name but sometimes she felt she had to remind him of what he had lost. “It was not an unfair punishment; it was a fair balance for the refusal to conform to orders.”
“I followed your orders to the absolute letter.” His eyes were changing color, shifting from his mad Lungbarrow green to a paler, milkier shade-- his protective lenses were trying to invoke in a defensive instinct for potential combat. Madame Supervisor did not know why his body was preparing for conflict up to the level of battling in vacuum, but was gratified he was holding on to his control. When his left hand reached down and stroked a lock of hair out of the Piper's sleeping face, she felt justified in her suspicions. The action stilled the little renegade. His eyes calmed, lenses retracted.
“You did follow the letter. Too much so. You knew what we really wanted.”
He was calm now, perfectly calm, but he would never be less than leery around her. “If you could trust me, you'd have no use for me. Your old predecessor was fond of saying that.”
“Because it is true. It is true of all our Agents. To quote one of the Piper's proverbs, 'fighting fire with fire' is quite often effective.”
“That's a Human proverb, true.” The Doctor's mouth almost smiled. “But it isn't his proverb. His is quite more to the point.”
“Which is?”
“Fire. It is a good servant...” One last time, his eyes turned chlorophyll. “But a bad master.”