Deadly Games

[The First Doctor]

“Grandfather,” Susan said, responding to his question about great-grandchildren. “That’s not going to happen.”

"You may feel that way now, my dear," the Doctor answered confidently. "But you're still young. I predict that, by the time you've entered into your second century of life, you will feel differently about the whole thing."

He strode along, arm in arm with the attractive young lady from his future. "Then you'll be far more interested in finding a suitable companion. And then? Well, it becomes natural enough to employ the Looms, or far more primal methods, to bring new life into the universe." He smiled at his granddaughter, only partly out of amusement at her embarrassment. "Mark my words."

Events progressed, culminating with a distressingly chaste kiss on the forehead. Ah well, he reasoned, I must seem frightfully old to her right now.

"Thanks."

He waved the thanks away with a smile and a gesture. "Think nothing of it, my dear.

"First, I take it we're in a bi' if a hurry."

"There does seem to be a note of frantic haste in your speech, yes."

"Second we started a plan, but then you pair show, up gift and curse all at once, and we dinna have time to sort it all out. Doctor, I need ya' to do that thing ya' do when you 'elp me remember. 'e was talkin' to someone about it, but it wasn't me. All Timey Wimey stuff too. Canno' we just duck in a side street and figure it out? Doctor I need sompthin' you 'ave, but I ain't sure what it is."

"Timey. Wimey. Stuff." The Doctor bit the words out as if he found them distasteful. "Oh, dear me. Please tell me I have not fallen into the habit of 'baby-talking' to others."

Then he fell silent for a moment, thinking hard. "Do that think I do when I help you remember? My dear, this is my first time having the pleasure of your company, and I am not certain what I may have done in the past to improve your memory." He held up a hand, forestalling questions. "You must remember, time is a fickle thing and your past is my future. So I must request further aid from you, and ask that you describe what it is that I do to help you remember."

[Amy's understudy! Not Amy now.]

The Doctor was slightly insulted by his kiss, but she had done it for Susan's benefit anyway. As for her little white haired Doctor who walked her so smoothly down the avenue, he was as logical and infuriating as he'd ever been.

"You've always hypnotized me, Doctor, don't tell me ya' haven' learned that wee trick yet? I dunno wha' we will do if ya' 'avent. No' to say I believe in sooch thin's, Doctor, but that is wha' it seems to be, an' it works every time, su can't ya' do it, Doctor?"

[The First Doctor]

"Hypnosis..." the Doctor mused. "Hypnosis. I have studied it, yes. Hmmm..."

He reached a decision. "Yes, of course. We shall find a private spot, one in which we shall not be bothered, and we shall attempt to unlock your memories through the art of hypnosis!"

He looked at Susan. "Perhaps we should adjourn to the TARDIS, my dear? Or can you think of a more suitable location close at hand?"

[Susan Foreman]

“You may feel that was now, my dear, but you’re still young. I predict that, by the time you’ve entered your second century of life, you will feel differently about the whole thing,” her grandfather said. Susan fell quiet, thinking about his words. She doubted that she’d ever leave the Doctor to start a family and settle down. “Then you’ll be far more interested in finding a suitable companion. And then? Well, it becomes natural enough to employ the Looms, or far more primal methods, to bring new life into the universe. Mark my words,” he said, bringing a bright blush to Susan’s face.

She put her hands behind her back, deciding to let the Doctor win this argument. (He did all of them, eventually.) Susan almost opened her mouth to pry him for information about her grandmother and the rest of her family, but she decided to keep quiet. Her grandfather would most likely not divulge those details in the present company. Or at all.

“You’ve always hypnotized me, Doctor, don’t tell me ya’ haven’ learned that wee trick yet? I dunno wha’ we will do if ya’ ‘avent.”

“Hypnosis. I have studied it, yes. Hmmm… yes, of course. We shall find a private spot, one in which we shall not be bothered, and we shall attempt to unlock your memories!” her grandfather exclaimed.

Susan nodded. “The TARDIS sounds excellent,” she said. “Much better than the restaurant from last night.”

ooc| eek, I’ll edit this if I need to, but I don’t think I can squeeze much else out. Also, this is pre-Unearthly Child, so their TARDIS still has a working chameleon circuit, yes?

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[Amy's understudy! Not Amy now.]

As she listened, she realized that if you took what this Doctor said, sped it up, added some flailing and some random remarks about Fezzes, he did sound just like his future self. She also realized that the dark haired china doll wasn't just his friend, she was his Granddaughter. Somewhere, out there, the Doctor had family. How come they never went to visit them? How come the Doctor never spoke of them?

She hoped everything had come out well for his family, but somehow she doubted it. Did they all die in the Time War? Her poor Doctor. No wonder there was that pain in his eyes that never quite went away. Even this incarnation of the Doctor's eyes, twinkle though they might, had seen things that had turned them fathomless.

"Ya' 'ave the TARDIS, do ya'?" He could not see her smiling behind her thin woolen veil, but surely it showed in her eyes. "I dare say we'd 'ave to go there anyway." She was tempted to tell him that it was some sort of generator, that she knew, but decided to put it off for the moment. She didn't want to put him off by perhaps asking for the wrong thing, and impossible thing. How would the Doctor's TARDIS work without its generator? How could she ask for that? She'd just have to figure it out. She followed the Doctor and his granddaughter through the streets.

[The First Doctor]

(You know, I had forgotten that the Chameleon Circuit hadn't gone out until shortly before An Unearthly Child. This will be a new experience.)

Susan nodded. “The TARDIS sounds excellent,” she said. “Much better than the restaurant from last night.”

"The food was rather substandard, wasn't it?" the Doctor said with a smile. "That settles it, then. We shall adjourn to the TARDIS, and see what may be done to recover Amy's memory."

"Ya' 'ave the TARDIS, do ya'?" Amy asked.

The Doctor looked scandalized. "Of course I do. How else would we have come-" he gestured with his blackthorn cane "-here?"

"I dare say we'd 'ave to go there anyway."

"Perhaps, perhaps," he off-handedly agreed. "But let us not prejudice your mind with fruitless speculation. Let us instead enjoy this walk and this company, and let deep investigation into what we need and from where we must obtain it bide until we have unlocked the gates of Munin."

He walked in silence for a moment, and glanced up at the saucer hanging in the sky above them. "Would it be revealing too much about my future, if I were to ask you to tell me from what civilization that vessel derives? I don't recognize it." And then he sighed. "No, no, don't. I suspect it would."

Several minutes more passed as they strolled through the City of London, proper. Finally, he stopped in front of a two-story townhouse on Baker Street. "And here we are," he said. "Would you care to do the honors, Amy?"

[Amy's understudy! Not Amy now.]

She took his arm quite formally, and walked with them in gentle parade. She was certain this was the near top speed of the tiny Doctor's self. She bet he could run, but wasn't interested in drawing any attention. Easy strolling parade they were, and the Doctor, was right. Death may be in the sky, but it was quite for now, and it was a beautiful day where the sun still smacked into things out from under the Dalek ship's

She thought about the Doctor's question. Dangerous as it was, she decided a little information could go a long way with him.

"Tha' is." She pointed at the flying saucer, "- an' always will be a dangerr to ya' Doctor. Tha' I kin say."

They walked on, enjoying the easy peacefulness of now, her matching the steps of the other two. They did not stop at a TARDIS it was just lovely two story home. The Doctor never used his words lightly though, and she put two and two together.

"Are ya' serious?" She asked with delight and let go his arm to run up the little stair way. Her TARDIS key fit right into the lock and she let them in, her eyes everywhere, stunned by the differences.

[Susan Foreman]

She raised her eyes to the ship as Amy told her grandfather it would always be a danger to him. It seemed much more menacing now, even more so than a few moments before. The fact that Amy couldn’t tell them what it was only made her mind leap to the terrible possibilities. She shifted closer to her grandfather, intertwining their fingers and looking up at him with a frown.

Something bad must have been about to happen, or her grandfather would never have crossed his own timeline. And this woman... was she the one designated to protect them? That was what she was implying, was it not?

“Are ya’ serious?” the woman asked, looking a bit surprised. Susan looked at her grandfather, silently asking why the woman seemed so amazed by the TARDIS. She obviously was a trusted friend to her grandfather, so it'd stand to reason that Amy was familiar with the TARDIS. Right?

“Why wouldn’t he be?” she asked politely, smiling encouragingly as Amy opened the doors to the TARDIS. She hurried after the woman, standing near the console as Amy took in the surroundings. “Are you going to begin now?” she asked eagerly, excited to witness her grandfather hypnotize someone.

ooc| sorry it’s so short. >.<

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[The First Doctor]

The TARDIS was as it should be. The doors opened into the main control room, a largish room dominated by a hexagonal control panel containing the Time Rotor, by the display of the main viewscreen, and by the observation windows that looked into the room containing the Fault Locator. A chair in the corner to the left of the door, next to a grandfather clock and a coatrack. A stuffed panda sat on the chair.

The Doctor caught Susan's look of confusion, and shrugged. "Here we are, my dears. The TARDIS." A smile. "Of course, I would imagine it has undergone a few changes between my time and yours."

“Are you going to begin now?” Susan asked eagerly.

"Well, there is no time like the present." A beat. "Quite literally, in fact." He gestured to Amy. "Please, sit down. Move the panda, if you would."

He sat on the ottoman in front of her, and produced a sparkling disk on a stick - like a sucker made of chrome - from a coat pocket. "Now, Susan, please observe. I'm not the consummate master at this that Koschei was-" here an expression crossed his face, like the memory of pain, "-but I've some talent. The disk is not strictly necessary, save as an aide, something for the subject to focus on as you speak. The majority of the effort comes from your own inherent gifts. Focus your will as you begin the process."

He paused, and looked up at Susan. "With practice, you should find this comes quite naturally. You take more after your," his words stumbled a little, "your grandmother in this regard."

He smiled at Amy. "You may have absolute confidence in me, my dear. I am a gentleman, and will not take advantage of this. And my granddaughter will remain as the guardian of your virtue." A jolly twinkle came into his eyes. "That is... Protocol, after all."

"Now. Observe the disk as it spins. Look at nothing else. See nothing else. Listen only to my voice. Hear only my voice. Relax. Relax... yes. Now, there was something you needed to tell me. Something aboard my TARDIS you need, in order to help me. Remember. Remember what it is that I told you, far in my future, and repeat my words to me."

[Amy Pond]

Amy did as the Doctor asked and picked up the stuffed panda, cuddling it in her arms as she took a seat, and the Doctor sat on the ottoman across from her.

"Aye, I do have absolute confidence in ye, Doctor - always have, always will," Amy declared, relaxing into her chair. She was still reeling from the fact that this old looking man was actually a younger version of her own Doctor, but... He was, and she knew it, and she trusted him implicitly - he was her best friend, after all.

Amy stared at the spinning disc and focused on breathing slowly and deeply. The Doctor worked on putting Amy into a trance where her subconscious would be more responsive, and maybe - just maybe - she'd be able to recall the extremely super-duper important thing that they all needed.

Staring blankly towards the disc, Amy heard everything the Doctor said to her. The gears in her mind started to turn at his suggestion, and things started to come back to the surface of her memory. Amy's mouth opened as if she were a puppet being controlled by someone else (although, it was just her subconsciousness at the helm), and out popped the words that her Doctor - the Eleventh Doctor - had said they needed.

"Ye told me... Ye said that tha TARDIS once had some old generators that could disrupt a gamma field, but that they'd been lost durin' a past (or was that future?) skirmish with tha Daleks..."

Amy blinked a few times and then looked questioningly at the First Doctor, worriedly asking him, "Did tha' make any sense?" She hadn't the foggiest what a gamma-anything was...

[The First Doctor]

"Did tha' make any sense?"

The Doctor tapped the disk against his chin, lost in thought for a moment. "Yes, more or less."

He thought a little longer. "I've no idea what a 'dah-lex' might be, or why I might be 'skirmishing' with one, so I most certainly must have the generator I referred."

He shifted his attention to his granddaughter. "Susan? Would you be a dear and fetch my tool box? We'll have to dismount some equipment."

He looked back at Amy. "Did I happen to mention if I needed a generator that could disrupt a helical Gamma-series field of force, or if I needed a generator that can disrupt a standing wave of gamma particles? Both are often referred to as a 'gamma field', and I would hope that I retain a penchant for precision in the future."

[Amy Pond]

Amy's eyes went wide and she frantically thought, working on remembering what her Doctor had told her.

"Now, I don't remember anything about a 'gamma-series' force field..."

"But, Ye did say somethin' about a 'gamma distributor' an' 'gamma waves'..." Amy replied, trailing off in thought. But, she hadn't the foggiest what those things really were, nor what a gamma-series field of force was.

"Ye said that we needed ta be able ta teleport through these gamma waves, an' we'd need a gamma distributor in order ta safely do so, an' if we tried ta do so without it that it'd turn out incredibly badly," Amy relayed - thanks to the hypnosis, these things were a little easier for Amy to recall.

[The First Doctor]

"Ye said that we needed ta be able ta teleport through these gamma waves, an' we'd need a gamma distributor in order ta safely do so, an' if we tried ta do so without it that it'd turn out incredibly badly," Amy answered.

The Doctor clapped his hands together, delighted. "Wonderful! A gamma distributor, you say? Yes, that does imply a standing wave Gamma particle field. And I believe we have just the thing."

He stood up. "Susan? Have you found my... ah! Thank you, my dear." He took a case from his granddaughter, and rummaged through it. "Let's see... yes. We'll probably need the Mandelbrot spanner, the virtual probes, and... of course. The sonic screwdriver and suppressor."

Gripping the tools in one hand, he smiled at Amy and Susan. "Well, then. Shall we dismount the gamma distributor? I suspect I'll be needing it soon."

[Amy Pond]

Brilliant! Amy wasn't at all certain of what they were looking for - what it looked like, how big it was, or anything like that, yet somehow he had known exactly what she meant, and the First Doctor was ready and willing to assist them. Amy smiled from ear to ear, hugely relieved, and nodded her head emphatically as she stood up from the chair and replaced the plushie panda bear.

"Oh, yes - please!" Amy replied, delighted. "Wot do ye need me ta do, Doctor?" she asked, ready and willing to pitch in.

[Susan Foreman]

Susan, like her grandfather, was not an exception to the inherent curiosity that ran in the family. Therefore, when the Doctor told her to watch, she’d widened her eyes, and kept them trained on the pair in front of her. “I’m not the consummate master at this that Koschei was, but I’ve some talent,” he said, a flicker of pain crossing his dear face when he thought of – what she assumed to be – his old friend. She nodded once, to encourage him to continue.

“You take more after your… your grandmother in this regard,” her grandfather told her. She took a step forward, questions tumbling forward. She lifted a hand to her mouth, subtly trying to keep the deluge of questions inside of her. He was back to the redheaded woman, trying to unlock the human’s memories. She watched him closely again, offering a brief nod or two – and a blush – as her grandfather claimed to be a gentleman that wouldn’t take the woman’s virtue.

You take more after your grandmother in this regard.

He wasn’t willing to share too much about their family back on Gallifrey. She tried to cling to each name and reference, trying to make the story in her head. There were too many bad memories for her to begin to imagine, and, as much as she deeply wanted to know everything that her grandfather knew, she didn’t want to make him live through all those memories. That flicker of raw emotion that had happened upon him when speaking of Koschei and of her grandmother? It hurt her as well.

She raised brown eyes to Amy. A generator? “Susan? Would you be a dear and fetch my tool box? We’ll have to dismount some equipment,” he said. She nodded and hurried away, searching quickly for the toolbox he’d asked for. Upon the first one she found, she hoped that he didn’t have more than one, and promptly returned to him.

“Susan? Have you found my…”

“Yes, Grandfather,” she said politely, handing him the toolbox.

“Thank you, my dear,” he said. “ Well, then. Shall we dismount the gamma distributor? I suspect I’ll be needing it soon.”

Susan grinned widely. “Yes! I want to help!” she volunteered quickly, standing next to Amy.