The road less travelled...

Title: Redemption 31/?
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: When you have lost everything, what do you do to get it back?
Characters: The non-Doctor first glimpsed at the end of Name of the Doctor and a lot of old friends.

Part XXXI

The Vadlott blinks, stares, and blinks again. A moment ago he was walking along a street on Clom and now suddenly he finds himself in an official-looking room facing a panel of men in legal gowns and headgear. Outside the window he sees flying shapes that resemble eyeballs surrounded by snowflakes, and since only one race in the universe uses these for their security ships, this clues him in on his location. He allows himself a tiny fraction of a relieved second that he isn't somehow back on Gallifrey before speaking.

“An Atraxi courtroom,” he says slowly. “How good of you to invite me here.”

He eyes the figure who is clearly at the centre of the trial, contained in a box made of clear material that would block all possible psychic connections as well as assassination attempts, before turning his attention back to the panel of judges.

“Why have I been transported here again my will?” he demands, about to recite chapter and verse against such behaviour, but he is beaten to the punch by the figure in the centre who, by the colour of his robes, is the primary judge.

“Your role is to describe the behaviour of Prisoner Zero during his time on Earth.”

“Behaviour of whom?” he asks, glancing briefly at the snake-like form he has never seen before, but who he guesses to be the subject of this trial.

“Prisoner Zero.” The judge sighs impatiently, gesturing towards the box. “You confronted him on Earth. You were responsible of him being arrested. You...”

“I did no such thing!” The Vadlott glares at the gowned figure. “Do you mean to tell me that you idiots hauled me away from the legitimate work I was doing because your research is so lazy that you thought I was the Doctor? I can’t believe it! Check your records!” He slams his fist down on the metal railing in front of him, seeing as several people in the courtroom jump slightly at the unexpected sound. “Bring them up right now! Everything you have on the Doctor. I’ll prove to you that I’m not him!”

The judge looks startled by the outburst, but nods at someone behind the Vadlott. At once a screen springs to life in the centre of the room, playing short snippets that show the Doctor’s different incarnations. The Vadlott can remember each of the events that are shown during the first eight lives of the Doctor, although he watches the ninth and tenth with closer interest. Then, just as he is expects the screen to deactivate, he is startled at the sight of a stranger, a gangly, youthful figure in a bowtie and braces, the authority of the Doctor in every fibre of his being, walking towards the camera. Clearly the Doctor avoided being sucked back into the Time Lock and remained on Earth, but he was obviously not left unscathed by those events.

“So you’ve regenerated again,” he mutters to himself. “I suppose Rassilon got to you before he was dragged away. Him or the Master. I’m so sorry.”

The film flickers to an end, and the Vadlott crams his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, rocking back on his heels.

“Well?” he demands. “That’s clearly not me, is it? I’m waiting for an apology!”

There is a faint muttering from behind him, but he ignores it.

“Do I have to go to the Shadow Proclamation about this?” he bellows. “Judging by what I’ve just seen, you have already been playing with fire by your activities on Earth. Clearly you didn’t learn your lesson then, in spite of the warnings I have no doubt the Doctor gave you! What’s more, you’ve got plenty of evidence for them to use against you! Filmed everything, didn’t you, like a pack of moronic teenagers! Why not just put it up on this planet’s version of YouTube so that they can find you even more easily? Idiots!”

The judge is shifting uneasily in his seat and the mutterings are getting louder.

“Now,” the Vadlott says more calmly, “I want a proper apology, recorded by this court, and then I want to be returned to the location from which I was snatched, or I will contact the Shadow Proclamation immediately.”

He fishes in his pocket and produces the only electronic device that he happens to have on his person at present – the remote recall for his tardis. (He has not yet got around to making a new sonic screwdriver.) Still, they don’t have to know exactly what it does. Just the act of him raising it into the air is enough that it feels as if every breath of air has been sucked out of the room.

“The Court will record that it offers an unqualified apology,” says the judge hurriedly before pressing a button on his desk.

The room wavers in front of the Vadlott’s eyes before he finds himself deposited back on the street on Clom from which he was so unceremoniously snatched. He smiles rather smugly and returns the remote recall to his pocket. But then he begins thinking about what he has just learned and the smile fades.

In the time that has passed since that regeneration that brought him into being, the Doctor has now onto his third body while he, the Vadlott, is still on his first. But is that a good thing or a bad one? Does it mean he is smart enough to avoid those situations in which he may have to sacrifice himself, or has he not done enough to earn the right to regenerate yet?

He certainly hopes it’s the former.

* * *
No sooner has the Vadlott insisted to an Atraxian court that he is not the Doctor when he finds himself having to answer a distress call going out for that name. He checks the tardis records and notices with concern that they have been calling for a long time without any sort of response, and in the end it is curiosity as much as concern that drives him to respond.

Help is on the way.

A committee is waiting when he comes out of the tardis and he closes the door before taking a step or two forward, waiting to hear where he is and why he is needed.

“Welcome back to the Starship UK, Doctor,” says one of the men solemnly.

For once, sensing the urgency of the situation, the Vadlott does not bother to correct them. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he asks, hoping to be able to understand the situation as he goes along.

“The Queen wishes to see you.”

The Vadlott nods and follows the guards who have clearly been sent to escort him through a series of passageways until he emerges into a large room where a woman is pacing. She casts a sharp glance in his direction.

“You’re not the Doctor,” she says at once, waving a hand dismissively in his direction.

“I’m as close as you’re going to get,” he retorts, irritated by her attitude. “You’ve been sending out emergency beacons and he hasn’t responded. I have. You can tell me what the problem is and I’ll do what I can to help, or you can let me walk away and solve it yourselves. Your choice.”

She stalks towards him, indignation in every line of her face. “Now listen to me, whoever you are,” she snaps. “I’m the bloody Queen and nobody talks to me like that!”

“Then maybe it’s time they did.” He arches an eyebrow. “You called for the Doctor. He never came. But I did. If I’m not good enough for you...”

He turns away, just as he did to Victoria all that time ago, and wonders if this queen’s reaction will be the same.

“You’d let the UK die,” she challenges him.

“You’re the one doing that,” he retorts. “You’re the one rejecting my offer of assistance.”

A quick glance over his shoulder shows her struggling to overcome her disappointment at him not being the Doctor so that she can accept his help, but given her attitude, he is not about to make it easy for her.

“It’s the starwhale,” she says at last, speaking through gritted teeth. “It’s injured and slowing down. If it gets worse, we’ll be stranded here.”

“We have no way of helping it, up here on its back,” one of the ministers adds. “We need someone who can take people down to find out what’s wrong. We were hoping, with your ship, you might, you know, do that...”

“And then what?” the Vadlott prompts testily. “You cure it? Put it out of its misery? What?”

“We can’t let it die!” The Queen’s fear is barely hidden beneath her angry tones. “We need it!”

The Vadlott tilts his head slightly to one side. “Then you had better let me take a look,” he tells her.

He is rather surprised when the queen insists on accompanying a group of medical professionals in his tardis. He hovers his blue box beside the side of the starwhale on which the tentacles are no longer moving and joins the others at the door, drawing air in sharply between his teeth as he sees the problem.

“It’s a burn,” he tells them furiously, “and it’s terribly infected. What the blazes did you do to let it get to this state?”

There is an uncomfortable muttering from those around him, with people shuffling their feet and staring at the floor of the tardis, but finally, reluctantly, they tell him what went on, what the Doctor did, and what has happened on the Starship UK since then.

“And these are your so-called experts?” he demands angrily of Queen Elizabeth once he has been given the main details. “They know so much, but they didn’t bother to remember the one really important thing about electricity: if you zap something, then all of that power you’ve shot into it? It. Has. To. Come. Out. Somewhere. Else.”

There is a stricken silence from those around him, but he ignores them, instead placing a gentle hand on the starwhale above the site of the burn on what looks like undamaged flesh. The creature’s skin shivers beneath his touch, revealing that the infection is as deep, if not deeper, than he had feared.

“You poor darling,” he murmurs to the beast. “All this time you were trying to help them and this is how they repay you.”

A doleful wail comes from the head of the creature, which spurs the Vadlott into action. He brushes aside those gathered behind them and begins stalking off in the direction of the lower rooms of the tardis. At the last minute, though, he turns and points an accusing finger at his guests.

“Don’t any of you dare to touch her,” he snarls. “Not if you want me to fix this!”

He returns from the medical bay with his arms full of equipment to find everyone standing where they had been when he left, presumably too afraid to move.

Good.

He tips the majority of what he is carrying into the nearest set of arms and then turns to the poor injured starwhale. The first treatment he applies soothes the pain from the burns, and the Vadlott is delighted when all but the closest tentacles resume their movement.

“Why aren’t those moving?” asks a voice from his elbow, and the Vadlott looks down to find the Queen beside him, pointing at the nearest tentacles, which have fortunately remained motionless.

“It shows how intelligent a creature this is,” he tells her, his initial fury fading a little now that the starwhale is no longer in pain. “She knows we’re helping her, but we wouldn’t be able to do that if they were in motion. A single swipe from one of those limbs would send the tardis flying, and us with it.”

He turns to the man holding his supplies, dumping the anaesthetic distributor on someone else and then selecting the machine that will heal the injured tissue. He holds it against the starwhale’s body, seeing as the red, angry marks begin to fade. Does he imagine that he hears the creature give a sigh of relief?

“How did you do that?” demands Elizabeth as he removes the machine to reveal clear, undamaged skin.

“Because I’m clever.”

The Vadlott swaps that machine for another, which, when he presses a button, produces a needle large enough that everyone around him takes a substantial step backwards. Smothering a grin, he injects the starwhale with the final stage of the treatment and then shoves the syringe into the closest pair of arms (retracting the needle first) before stroking the beast’s repaired skin with a gentle hand.

“There you are, sweetheart,” he says. “Off you go now.”

As the Vadlott crosses to the console, the starwhale lets out another noise, but this time it is a happy sound and, as the tardis pulls back, all of the tentacles begin moving together, sending the Starship UK off into space at a much faster pace. Pleased with his work, the Vadlott prepares to drop his unwanted passengers, but as he sets the co-ordinates, he sees out of the corner of his eye as one of them approaches him.

It is Elizabeth, still with the huge syringe in her arms, who stops beside the console. For a moment she gazes at the equipment that is flashing and blinking in front of them, before turning her eyes on the Vadlott.

“Thank you.”

Next Part