The End of the Universe (Doctor Who fanific)

Chapter 5

The Doctors all fell silent, the heavy discussion of their motives and actions pushed aside in the face of their current problem. One sat down, looking expectantly at his successors. "Well? Any ideas, hmmm?"

"Several," Three answered. "Unfortunately, they all depend on having access to a lab outside the TARDIS." The TARDIS lurched again, but no one paid any attention, too used to it now to care.

"Oh, I forgot you were a homebody," Ten said with a smile. "How is everyone? The Brigadier? Mike Yates? Jo Grant? Oo, sorry, are you not up to her yet?"

"Everyone's very well, thank you," Three answered, sounding annoyed. "I take it you haven't been back to UNIT recently, then?"

"The military's not really my style," Ten said darkly.

"And yet you claim to have destroyed your own home planet?" Seven asked incredulously. "That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?"

"Not if he wasn't the one who destroyed it," a deeper voice said. They turned around to see a figure with short hair in a leather jacket leaning against the TARDIS.

"Oh, come on, are we really going to start distinguishing between incarnations?" Eleven asked in exasperation. "What you do, what I do, what he does. We're all the same, does it really matter?"

The new arrival raised an eyebrow and shrugged, "I wouldn't mind that, sometimes. Who doesn't want to forget their mistakes? Like that collar. Ruffles, really?" He sent Three's outfit a disdainful look.

"Whereas you look about as professional as the plumber who unstoppered the Brigadier's kitchen sink," Three shot back.

"Hang on, let me work this out," Seven said. "You're before him" -pointing to Ten, "but after me. Eight?"

"Nine," the leather-jacketed new arrival said.

"Eleven's right," Five said. "I've always taken responsibility for anything my previous incarnations have done. We are all the same man, after all."

"It's different for you," Three shot back. "You didn't have it forced on you."

"Exactly," Nine said. "See, Ruffles gets it. All of your decisions coalesced on me. Every time you let the Daleks live, every time you pushed the war off, you pushed it off on me. Are you proud of yourselves? For destroying us, and everything else along the way?"

The atmosphere grew uncomfortable, Ten and Eleven carefully not looking at any of the others, and the previous five glancing at each other in shame. It didn't matter that they knew nothing of these future events. They knew what he said was true.

One stood up, "I can see I'm going to have to corral all of you. Utter children! It doesn't matter who did what, what matters is where we are now. Now, why were we all brought here?"

"We still haven't figured out if we were brought here," Four said, but One shushed him with a glare.

The others deferred to him, looking between each other for the answer. "Because somebody wants something?" Five finally suggested.

"Because somebody wants something only we can give them," Eleven clarified.

One waved his cane at Eleven. "Exactly, my boy!"

"But what can that possibly be?" Three asked.

"The TARDIS?" Ten suggested half-heartedly.

One waved a hand, "They could get that anywhere, all they need to do is go to Gallifrey."

"Not from where I'm standing," Ten said.

"Think, my boy, think! If something managed to get a message to all of us, from me to you, then doesn't that mean they could find their way to Gallifrey too, no matter what's happened to it in the future, hmm?" One asked, looking up at Ten, who rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish.

"Er, yeah, that does make sense." he grinned.

"What would you all do without me?" One asked, shaking his head, moving between them.

"Be very bored on Gallifrey, I expect," Three said. "If they weren't looking for the TARDIS, what were they looking for?"

"Ahh, that is what's interesting," One said, beginning to pace as if he were a lecturer at the Academy. Nine rolled his eyes, seating himself on the edge of the console. "Whatever it is, it's something that requires all of us."

"Not necessarily," Seven argued. "It could have been looking for just one of us and got us all by mistake."

Nine shook his head, "This thing, whatever it is, it doesn't make mistakes like that."

"Well, why on Earth not?" Three asked.

"Because," Nine said. "If this thing, whatever it is, could reach across time and find just our brainwaves, nobody else's, wherever we happened to be, then it could have picked only the one it wanted. Instead, it set up a Doctors' reunion for us." He glowered at them, daring them to tear a hole in his theory.

"Ahh, I see," Five said. "Whatever it wants, it needs all of us to get it. Although I can't see why. I think it'd be in for more trouble than it bargained for, with all of us here."

"It certainly won't get what it's after," Seven said. "Not with all this arguing."

"Not unless what it wants is to eliminate us," Eleven said. "All of us, I mean. Because I travel around the universe, and while I may think I'm generally pretty great, not everyone agrees."

"The Daleks," One threw in.

"The Axons," Three said.

"The Jagrafess," Ten said, then looked apologetically at Nine. "Sorry, that was yours, wasn't it?"

"My point is," Eleven went on. "There are plenty of people and beings that would love to see us all dead, or better yet, erased from history completely."

The thought was disquieting, and they all looked at each other. "Do you mean to tell me we've just wandered into an elaborate trap?" Four asked, rather angrily.

Three was staring at them impassively, "It seems I've become rather famous by your time."

"I've gained myself a bit of a reputation these days," Eleven said.

"So what are we supposed to do, just sit here and wait for this thing to kill us?" Five asked.

"I'm not very good at waiting," Nine said darkly.

Seven looked up, calculating, "It gives us plenty of time to work our way out of this, if nothing else." Everyone looked at him and he went on, "Well, it could take hours for the rest of us to turn up!"

"That's right," Five said. "There's at least three of us missing already, and if you're only Eleventh, there's at least two after you."

"And who knows if we've found a way around the limit by then?" Seven mused. Three and Five stared at him, scandalized. "What? I can't be the only one who's thought of it."

"Let's face it, if anyone could find their way around the limit, it'd be us," Ten said.

"So nice to see I haven't gained any modesty in my old age," Three said with a smile as the TARDIS shuddered and swung to the side.

"Modesty is overrated," a high pitched, commanding voice said as the newest arrival walked around the TARDIS, surveying his other selves.

"It must be, for you to walk around like that," Nine said, his eyes wide as Ten collapsed into giggles next to him.

"At least I'm not dressed in boring, like you," the new Doctor said.

"No, no, boring is definitely not a word anyone would use to describe you," Ten said through giggles.

"I'm the Sixth, by the way," their latest arrival said. "Now, have we worked out why we're all here?"