The road less travelled...

Title: Finding A Way Home – Prisoner of Fate
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: The Time Lord has some questions. Does the other Doctor have the answers?
Word Count: approx 1,145 words
Characters: Both Doctors.
A/N: Written for the twenty-fourth
and thirtieth Travellers’ Tales with the prompts ‘assume’ and ‘tranquil’.

The Doctor sits on the very threshold of the TARDIS, swinging his blue-clad legs in space as the vortex whirls around outside the protective shield. His eyes follow the swirling patterns, his thoughts as peaceful as the tranquil light playing on the darkness.

“You’re thinking about her,” a voice says behind him, and he doesn’t have to look around to know that the Time Lord is standing at the entrance to the console room.

“I am,” he admits, because he is.

The other Doctor crosses the room and comes to sit beside him. He smiles a little as he takes his seat.

“I haven’t sat like this for a long time.”

“Donna doesn’t like it,” the other man reminds him. “She says it makes her dizzy.”

“True,” the Time Lord agrees, smiling fondly as he leans against the door. He studies the glorious of space outside for a moment longer before turning his attention to his double. “Can I ask you something?”

“I couldn’t stop you if I tried, so why would I waste my breath?”

“True,” the other Doctor concedes with a chuckle. “Actually, it’s about Donna.”

“Donna?” The half-human Doctor frowns. He had assumed they would discuss other things, beginning and ending with Verity. This is a surprise. “Really?”

“Yes.” The other man nods firmly. “Well, Donna and me actually. When did you first know about us? Us as a couple, I mean.”

“Er, you told me, remember?” prompts the other man.

“Yes, I know that,” comes the rather impatient retort. “But you knew about Donna – or at least you didn’t look too surprised when we finally admitted we’d come to our senses.”

“I’m neither blind nor stupid,” the man in blue points out rather acerbically. “And if either of you were under the delusion that you were being subtle....”

The other man gives an apologetic chuckle. “No, we probably weren’t,” he admits.

“Besides,” admits the half-human Doctor, “you weren’t the only one to tell me how you were feeling. Donna and I had a few little chats about it as well. And then,” he goes on, getting in to his stride, “there was all of those time where you were dancing around each other like a couple of boxers, neither of you willing to make the first strike and actually say or do anything meaningful.”

The Time Lord laughs again. “I bet you were wondering when we’d get on with it.”

“You could say that,” agrees the other man.

There’s a moment of silence, broken by the Doctor in brown. “We both trust you, you know,” he says at last, and the man in blue can feel the shift in the conversation. “And I’d hope,” he goes on, “that if you had things you wanted to confide, you wouldn’t hesitate.”

The half-human Doctor chuckles, unsurprised by the new topic, and pulls up his legs to hug his knees. “You assuming I have anything to confide. I don’t, I’m afraid. Not yet, anyway.”

He sighs, but his progenitor remains silent, allowing him to continue.

“I don’t know how I feel,” he says at last. “Not yet. And when I’ve been thinking about her, at least since the accident,” he adds, stifling another sigh, “I can’t help remembering Joan and the things she said when she refused to come. How she said no. Her pain.”

“As you said to me before we all went out together, Verity isn’t Joan,” the Time Lord points out patiently. “And don’t forget that Verity sought out the Doctor, much as Donna did. She isn’t afraid, in the way that Joan was. She wants this,” and he waves an arm with a gesture that encompasses the scene before them and the TARDIS, and presumably the Universe beyond. “She came looking for you.”

“For us,” corrects the other man.

“No.” The Time Lord shakes his head. “In Verity's eyes, you are the Doctor. I think she sees me in the same way Donna sees you - as the second Doctor.”

“But she knows you were the one her great-grandmother fell in love with!” protests the half-human Doctor almost indignantly. “I explained it all to her!”

“She might have heard you say the words,” retorts the other Doctor, a grin lighting his face. “But I think, because you were the first of us that she met, because she saw you acting in a way that she understood to be typical of 'the Doctor,' she sees you as the first and me as second. And the accident probably helped to solidify that idea,” he continues. “You took over - took charge - when I was incapacitated. You did exactly what the Doctor always does. So that only confirmed her earlier feelings. If ever anything happens that requires the Doctor,” he adds, “I have a feeling she will always turn to you.”

“Oh.” He ponders this strange role reversal for a moment before meeting his progenitor's gaze once more. “Do you mind?”

The Time Lord looks thoughtful. “Not really,” he says at last. “If nothing else, it's given me the chance to understand how you must feel - having all those memories but sometimes feeling as if you don't quite own them. And particularly,” he adds, strain in his voice, “how it must have felt when I left you with Rose.”

The silence stretches out between them once more, but it is left to the man in blue to break it.

“I’ve been wondering,” he begins. “Those scenes when the watch was opened – the wedding, and being in the park with those children, and even that death – were they just some fantasy created by the trapped Time Lord energy, or were they some sort of alternate reality? Made to suit John Smith’s understanding of the world, of course, but still a future?”

“It couldn’t be exactly the same as that, not now,” the Time Lord warns. “For one thing, you can’t die. But the rest – I don’t know. Maybe.” He smiles, a knowing tone in his voice as he continues, “There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there? And,” he goes on before the other man can interrupt, “I have a suggestion.”

“Oh, really?” The half-human Doctor arches an eyebrow. He’s always suspicious when the other man uses that tone. “What is it this time?”

The smile on the other man’s face broadens into a rather mischievous grin. “We-ell,” he begins, “you know Sylvia isn’t going to be at all happy about the fact that she wasn’t there when the twins were born. To try and make it up to her, I thought perhaps we could spend a few days there, and you could take the TARDIS and do – whatever you wanted.”

He stands up and claps the blue-clad shoulder before heading down into the lower rooms of the TARDIS, leaving the other Doctor wondering just where he should take Verity first.

Finding Verity