Strangers among Friends

[The First Doctor]

The ancient machine wheezed and thundered, its timbre off, its rhythm asynchronous. The time rotor in the center of the console shuddered and twitched, lights flashing irregularly as it lurched up and down. In the background, the great bulk of the fault locater chattered and whirred.

The Doctor puttered around the console with a look of concern on his face, checking readouts and examining dials, flipping switches and rotating knobs. "Oh, dear me," he muttered. "Dear me."

[The First Doctor]

A shudder rocked the TARDIS and, with a long drawn out groan of a final motion of the time rotor, the time capsule ground to a halt. As the echoes died, the lights flickered and winked out, sputtered to life, then winked out again.

Standing in the blackness of the control room, the Doctor fumbled through his pockets. A watch, a bit of string, a packet of sweets, a wallet of so-called "psychic paper" - And why I let Susan talk me into that purchase I'll never know, he thought, The fool thing has never worked properly... - three coins, Ah!

There was a hiss and a flare of light as he struck a match. The sudden illumination caused him to jerk, and it went out. Muttering under his breath, he struck a second one. Carefully, sheltering the tiny blaze, he hunted around the control room. "Armchair...," he said, "coat rack..., panda..., ah, yes! End table!"

The match burned down, causing him to shout in sudden pain and suck at his fingers. A third hiss and flare, and he was fumbling at the glass chimney of an antique oil lamp. "I'd meant to try and track Barbara down and return this," he remarked to nobody in particular. "Now, if the dear girl has just left oil in it..." A warm orange glow sprang up as kerosene-soaked cotton caught fire. He clapped his hands in delight, then replaced the chimney and trimmed the wick.

---

The delight from successfully making light had long faded. Paper tapes from the fault locater - everything the machine had produced before the power was lost - were scattered around the control room. The Doctor sat in his wing-backed chair, brooding.

"To the positive," he murmured, "It's not a general systems failure. I only need to replace a single component."

He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and massaging the bridge of his nose. "To the negative, the concentus loupe has fractured irreparably. The TARDIS has no connection to the Eye of Harmony, and there is no reserve power. I am trapped here, wherever here may be."

He continued to brood for another minute, then stood up. "Well. I shan't make any progress sitting here wallowing in self-pity. With good fortune, I have landed on a world with sufficient resources to forge a new loupe, or at least to enable me to send a distress signal."

That last thought rankled, but to be rescued by the Time Lords would be preferable to death by slow starvation. But only just.

---

The emergency mechanisms for opening the doors of the TARDIS were harder to work than he had thought they would be. Thrice, he had been compelled to sit and rest, recovering his strength. More times than that, he had wished Chesterfield were still about. Or even Steven, mule-headed as that lad had tended to be. Either one would have had a good strong back and the energy of youth.

He smiled thinly at that thought. Barely four hundred and seventy, and I'm lamenting lost youth? She'd laugh in my face for that, and I'd deserve it.

But the doors were open, now. And outside? Outside, the air was breathable, albeit a trifle on the thin side and - from the odor - richer in nitrogen than home would have been. The gravity was a little lighter, but not so much as to make walking undignified. The light was bluer and whiter than he preferred, with a daytime sky the shade of indigo. A paved road ran nearby the TARDIS - a sure sign that there at least had been intelligent life here - with an octagonal stone obelisk on the nearer side.

Above, a few clouds drifted by. A small blue star burned overhead and, towards the horizon, glowed the variegated swirling light of a wormhole terminus.

The Doctor took a deep breath, flipped a coin, and turned left down the road. It was as good a direction as any.

[Sarah Jane]

September 23rd, 1921. Vienna State Opera. The debut of the fine career of Rosette Anday. The Doctor had promised to take her to see the opening performance of Georges Bizet's 'Carmen' where the 18-year-old, hitherto unknown, mezzo made her debut, singing one of the most demanding and yet fervently desired parts in all opera.

That was when and where he was supposed to take her for her 21st birthday.

She was all ready, decked out from the wardrobe. Cornflower blue satin fit nicely through the ribcage with a high princess waist. There was a demi ruffle that fit just where Sarah Jane would have worn a short skirt, but under this there were long, close panels of sea green velvet, and darts of stiff black netting that went right down to her toe tips. Under all that was a deep red satin skirt that flashed through at the ankles when she walked. This wealth of cloth below was nicely balanced by a well fitted top that scooped as wide and as low as her heart, front and back. It was simple, just more of the silk. There was a long, ermine edged drape to ward off the chill.

The boots she was wearing were perfectly comfortable, beige calfskin with twenty pearl buttons on the shoes. Each shoe. Did the Doctor have any idea how long it to hook forty buttons?

Then some sort of message had reached him as soon as they landed. He'd insisted on reading it.

As though he had forgotten she existed, he revved up the TARDIS and they were leaving. It was a good thing she hadn't gone out for a look see. He didn't answer her questions. Granted, he was busy directing the TARDIS, and the trip was very short, in which time all he told her was that he must go meet someone.

The outrageous part was, when they landed, he made her wait inside, simply by stretching his long legs and slipping out the door without her. Of all things, he'd actually locked the door! She discovered this when she tried to go out and find him. She fumed while he was gone. Oh, likely as not he'd get them to the Opera House to see the opening show, they could go anytime. But today was her birthday. That's what her Daily Diary said, anyway. And the Doctor had promised her.

The Doctor came back in a hurry, and he barely spared her a glance as he went right for the controls, fussing with them quite a bit.

"Doctor, what is going on? What did you do? Did you meet someone? Where are we going? Why do you look so worried?"

Finally, he stopped his adjustments and calibrations, and sent them through time, the column softly wheezing. The Doctor met her eyes for only a moment, ancient and serious. The TARDIS, as if sensing his mood, had darkened, and his white white hair was catching the heavily golden light of the slowly pumping time rotor. Then he began to tell his story.

The way he told it was chilling. She imagined him here, all those many years ago, before he had ever regenerated. The TARDIS; cold, dark, dead in unknown territory. The paper tapes a scatter and lit low by warm lamp light. All this power, reduced to a Time Lord with some matches.

She imagined him pushing the doors open to light and unfamiliar life, deciding his life on the flip of a coin.

She was absolutely captured, leaning on the rail, watching him make adjustments and check old records on the screen. Or whatever he was doing. Sarah often thought of it as flying by the seat of his pants. She liked it.

The Doctor's story continued as they went.

[The First Doctor]

"A good afternoon to thee, grandsire."

The unexpected voice broke the Doctor out of his reverie. He turned, automatically replying "And to you as well, my good man," as he did.

A dreadlocked man with coal-black skin and sapphire-blue eyes sat astride a polished aluminum wagon, supported by some form of suspensor rig and drawn by a single palomino draft beast of some sort. The payload of the wagon was loaded high with bales of green leaves, and the man wore a toga-like garment dyed in all the colors of the rainbow.

The man eyed the Doctor curiously, taking in his Edwardian pinstriped suit and opera cape. "Thou art a fair distance from any idrenstead, grandsire, and this concerns I-man. If such a question be not unseemly, may I-ani ask if all be well with thee?"

"My transportation broke down, and I was forced to abandon it to seek help on foot," the Doctor replied. "As I am a stranger in these parts, I did not know which direction I should take, and thus elected to follow the road in hopes of finding help."

"Thou hast found the assistance thou seekest," the man responded with a smile. "Come thou, sit beside I-man and rest thyself grandsire. It shall be that we enter idrenstead Jahyaad before noon, and I-ani shall make thee a guest in I-man home."

Wearily, more wearily than he had realized, and gratefully, the Doctor climbed into the wagon. It bobbed for a few seconds, like a rowboat, then stabilized. The man made a clicking sound to the draft beast, and they continued down the road.

"I-ani am named Hailey Bob Jahman," the man said, "And how may I-ani know thee, grandsire?"

"I am the Doctor."

Hailey nodded, gravely. "I-ani saw no vehicle along this road, Doctor. I-ani saw nothing save the grass and the trees and the sky. And a strange blue box three kloms behind us. Hast thou walked far, Doctor?"

The Doctor weighed his answers carefully, considering the suspensor-lifted wagon and the apparently genetically-modified draft beast as he did. "Three... kloms, did you call them? Yes, I suppose I have walked three kloms, then."

"But where was thy transport, Doctor?"

"The blue box. It is the form my transport takes."

This did not seem to surprise Hailey greatly. "Ah. Then thou art an offworlder, Doctor. I-ani should have known. What brings thee, then, to Zion?"

"Had I known how lovely a world this was, it would have been a deliberate choice. But I fear that my vessel suffered a malfunction, and I was forced to make an emergency landing."

Hailey shook his head sympathetically. "Crosses, Doctor. I-ani have them as well. But thou art in luck, for Jahyaad is the capital of Zion, and much commerce with Babylon passes through the idrenstead. As I said, thou shalt be an honored guest in I-man home tonight, and on the morrow I-ani shall make introductions between thee and the Sciecnemon."

"I do not wish to trouble you..."

"It is no trouble, Doctor, I-ani assure thee of that. Jah is in all, and I-ani honor Jah by honoring thee. And in time, perhaps thou shalt honor I-ani in return."

"Thank you," the Doctor answered. He settled back, and watched the miles - no, kloms - drift by.

[Romanadvoratrelundar]

So many adventures, so little time, and yet at the same moment, there were numerous opportunities. The universe was open for them, the whole of space and time was waiting, and that's what let Romana feel at ease. While it was not in her nature to be emotional, she'd ben fretting about the fact that the Key to Time had been recovered, and given to the White Guardian. Surely, oh surely this meant she had to return to Gallifrey.

And yet, she did not want to return home. She had a sip of the nectar spoken about by Earth's great poet Homer from the 8th century BC. Nectar being a taste of the universe and how life was different outside of Gallifrey, and she was addicted. She did not want to return. She was still almost newly regenerated, and to say she was not quite at her normal was an understatement.

The last journey she had encountered the Daleks and had been imprisoned. She still had to get used to seeing herself with the appearance of the princess Astra. Her long blond hair, and blue eyes, . Her height was short, much shorter compared to her first form, her original form.

When she was still newly regenerated, she tried on various bodies, one resembling a tall Greek goddess, and many others before settling back on Astra's form. Oh, how her Doctor had scolded her about copying another person's appearance. In the end, she had mimicked her Doctor's apparel, a knee-length pink coat, a white shirt, pink trousers, boots, and a long white scarf.

Still dressed, and not yet changed, she walked out of her room and to the control room. She crossed her arms and then watched the console. "Doctor? Is something troubling you?" She asked, and watched her Doctor burst into erratic movements. The story was continued, as she listened.

She could imagine it then and there, the man named Hailey Bob Jahman, and the conversation. It was exciting, and she leant forward to look up at the tall curly-haired wild Time Lord.

Adjustments were made to the console and she waited patiently. The Doctor was always fiddling with things that didn't need to be, and could the randomizer was disabled. Coordinates were set, and the familiar whirr of the T.A.R.D.I.S meant that they were to start on a new journey with unknown surprises.

And so, the Doctor's story pushed forward.

[The First Doctor]

"Wilt thou not have another helping, Doctor-mon?"

The Doctor waved a hand and smiled regretfully. "My dear, I wish that I could. I have not eaten so well in, well, in years. But the hospitality of your house overwhelms me, and I fear that I cannot eat another bite."

The speaker - Leah, a pleasantly plump woman with chocolate skin and black hair just touched with grey - dimpled at the praise.

The trip to Jahyaad had passed with the ease of a lazy summer afternoon, and the Doctor's first sighting of the city had brought sheer delight. Far from the crowded arcologies and megalopolises favored by far too many human colony worlds, the settlers of Zion had chosen to live in harmony with nature. Low buildings, roofed with solar panels and wind turbines nestled between spacious gardens and abundant greenspace, every line showing a technology advanced enough to be inconspicuous, and integrated enough to be used only where needed."Jahyaad," Hailey had announced with a touch of pride. "First idrenstead of Zion."

His family was a delight as well. His first wife Leah, his second wife Rachael, and his third wife Ruth - whose first husband was Moses, a man taken as second husband by Leah and Rachael. There were a dozen children as well, whose names the Doctor had been unable to keep straight.

"Are they all yours?" the Doctor had asked.

"They are all the children of Jah, Doctor-mon," Hailey had responded. "Those four" he pointed out the oldest "were born before I-man brother Moses joined our family, but it makes no difference. Their mothers are known."

"At least then," said Moses, "wilt thou join us in a bowl, Doctor-mon?" Hailey had already produced a pipe, and was tamping it full.

The Doctor smiled, fumbled in his jacket, and produced a battered old briar pipe. "Of course." He accepted the pouch from Moses, filled the bowl, and lit it with a lighter offered by Hailey. He wrinkled his nose slightly at the unexpectedly sweet smelling smoke, and took a puff.

"Ah," he said out loud. "A cannaboid of some sort."

"It is the gift of Jah, Doctor-mon."

The Doctor shrugged, and took a drag from his pipe. It would have a mild affect on his physiology at most - Gallifreyan neurochemistry simply did not respond to cannabanoids in the same fashion as human brains - and most likely it would have no impact at all.

---

The three men sat on the porch, watching the sun set over the garden, lost in thought.

"This seems a good life," the Doctor said.

"This is a good life," Moses answered.

"As it is written in the Book of Marley," Hailey said, "The gifts of Jah are good work, good food, good music, and good herb."

There was a tug at the Doctor's jacket sleeve. He looked and saw the boldest of the younger children, the others clustered shyly together nearby. "Grandsire," she said, "wilt thou tell us a story?"

A wave of intense emotion washed through the Doctor and he found himself looking away, hands shaking, throat working, eyes brimming. "Grandpa!" he could hear the voice of another little girl echoing out of his memories, "Tell us a story, grandpa!"

"Art thou unwell, Doctor-mon?" Hailey's voice was filled with concern.

"I..." The Doctor swallowed hard, then removed his glasses and wiped at his eyes with the back of a hand. "I... yes.." Another wave of emotion washed over him.

Running...

How had things gone so wrong. He'd wanted to make a better world. He hadn't wanted this.

What have you done, Koschei? What have I done?

A tiny figure shivered against his chest, whimpering.

"Shh," he whispered, "Brave heart, Susan. Brave heart."

Someone pressed a glass into his hand and he drank, reflexively. Warm hands held his. "What is it that troubles thee, Doctor-mon?" Leah asked.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. He took a deep, ragged breath. "It's just... well, I had a family. Once. I lost them all, and not so long ago that..."

"That the pain lingers," said Rebecca.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. The pain lingers. And your daughter, well, she sounded so much like one of my grandchildren just then..."

Leah looked meaningfully at her husbands, and at her sister-wives. They nodded. "I-ani would not seek to supplant their memories," she said, "But thou art a good man, Doctor-mon, and I-ani would call thee father and have thee into our home. If thou art willing, thou shalt have us to be thy family."

The Doctor sat, speechless. "I...," he stammered, at a loss for words. "I... that is..." He wrapped his arms around Leah in a fatherly hug, and let the tears flow.

[Amy's understudy! Not Amy now.]

She hated it when the Doctor did things like that in front of Rory. TARDIS door shut and locked in her face, she kept wishing something witty would come to mind as she turned woodenly to face Rory. There was nothing she could say to the fact that sometimes, not every thing was equal between her and her raggedy Doctor.

Rory's face melted her again, and it made it hard to argue with him. She managed to change the subject instead and passed the half hour or so well enough in the Doctor's absence. She ignored him as he came in, not wanting to talk while her ears were hot with her renewed irritation at his return. He was ignoring her as well. He went under the console and got busily to work. Usually, he liked to narrate his great feats of engineering. His silence was unusual enough that it brought her away from the three dimensional puzzle she and Rory had been working on to her feet, and to his side. She simply stared. Eventually, he began to explain.

She did not interrupt his story. She did not move from where she sat cross legged on the floor beside him. She did not move until the Doctor's voice began to choke up, and tears showed in the corners of his eyes. She reached out and simply held on to his shoe.

"I'm so sorry." She said, in near whisper, surprised to find tears pricking at her own eyes. She swallowed them back. The way he spoke of those people, those families, his deep appreciation of them was so clear, and so riddled with a pain she could not yet understand.gave him the most gently encouraging smile she could. "Keep talking."

[The Fifth Doctor]

Rory didn't move while the Doctor told his story, he dare not, not wanting to break the little bubble of serenity that he currently occupied, surrounding himself, nothing but the story could enter.
And Amy Pond, of course.
It was rare, this serenity, and he had to enjoy it while he could.
So he had slumped against the railing of the TARDIS, and let the words flow over him.

[Amy's understudy! Not Amy now.]

She let go of the Doctor's shoe to lean back against Rory's legs. She wrapped one long limber arm behind her own back to hold loosely across the back of his ankles. As they listened together it dawned on her that the Doctor might be telling them, the long way around, where he had been and what he needed to do next. But first, he had to tell them this. What had gone before.

[The First Doctor]

The hierarchy of Zion - such as it was - had been just a touch tricky to work out at first. Mostly because of how simple it was. He was accustomed to elaborate ritual and ceremony, titles and honors and interminable wittering with allusions to past events and florid turns of speech.

Zion was nothing like Gallifrey, and everything like what he'd wanted to see when he finally left.

It had been two weeks since the Doctor's arrival, and since his adoption. He'd been to see the Sciecnemon on the first full day after his entrance into the Idrenstead. Sciecnemon Malachai Jones, it turned out, was one of the most respected of the - not leaders, precisely. Elders, perhaps. Men recognized as wise. He was a scientist, a philosopher, and a poet.

"Thou art marooned on Zion then, Doctor-mon?"

The Doctor glanced around the room, then met Malachai's gaze. "Marooned is such a harsh word," he said with a smile. "This is a lovely world."

Malachai smiled. "I-ani appreciate your words, Doctor-mon. But Hailey gives me to understand that your visit was not... voluntary."

"True enough, yes. One of the parts of my ship malfunctioned, and I was forced to make an emergency landing. Hailey indicated that I might be able to acquire the part I need here, or at least send a signal to request one."

That thought rankled. And frightened him, to tell the truth. He had left Gallifrey under less than ideal circumstances, and there could be dire consequences if he returned...

"What is it that thou needest, Doctor-mon?"

"It's called a concentus loupe. A lenticular structure of preon-degenerate matter about five centimeters wide and one thick at the center, contained in a sixth-order field of type 37JX-227 Theta."

"Preon-degenerate matter?" Malachai asked in astonishment.

"Yes. In a pinch, one can be manufactured out of quark-degenerate matter and contained in a fifth-order field of type 226 Sigma 4479K. But it would be nearly 15 centimeters by 3 centimeters."

Hailey and Malachai stared at each other, wide-eyed.

"Oh, dear," said the Doctor. "You don't have one, I assume?"

"We have one," Malachai said. "But that one is mounted in a fixed projector, and we use it to regulate the Maw of Babalon - the wormhole terminus," he added, seeing the Doctor's confusion. "What sort of ship of space would mount such an object as a component?"

The Doctor sighed. He'd hoped to avoid this. "One of Gallifreyan origin."

"Babalon," breathed Hailey.

"Thou art one of the Lords of Time then, Doctor-mon?" asked Malachai.

The Doctor grimaced. "I... was. I left that world behind, many years ago. And I would prefer not to have to return."

Malachai glanced at Hailey, who shrugged and smiled. "He is my father and family now, Sciecnemon Malachai."

"That he is now, Hailey. That he is."

The three men brooded and pondered for several minutes. Finally, Malachai broke the silence. "It may be that we may obtain such a lens for thee, Doctor-mon. But it shall have to be brought out of Babalon, from Earth itself at great expense, and it may be many months before it comes. Art thou able to recompense Zion for such a burden?"

The Doctor started to answer, then stopped and thought. "Yes," he finally said.

"And how shalt thou do so, Doctor-mon?"

"I am a scholar and a scientist, Sciecnemon Malachai. There is much I would be able to teach your people in the intervening months."

Silence, for almost a moment.

"Nay, Doctor-mon," Sciecnemon Malachai said.

The Doctor's heart sank.

"Thou hast misspoken," Malachai continued. "Surely, what thou meant to say is that there is much thou wouldst be able to teach our people."

Hope surged back to life. "You mean...?"

"Thou art family and father to the Jahman of Zion, Doctor-mon. How could I-ani not aid thee?"

---

Elsewhere. A place that was no place whatsoever, a time that was no time at all.

"A trail has been found."

"It is the Doc-tor?"

"Yes."

"Follow it. He is our enemy. He must be exterminated."