Imran blinked. One minute he/they were being chased by the Alryssas, and then…
He was sitting by the Pro-Fun bar. So was Alryssa. There was no sign of their ‘other selves’.
He looked at Alryssa. “Y’know, what I really want, right now, is a strong–”
A strong black coffee appeared in front of him. “Err… thanks.”
“Guinness. Double strength.” Alryssa snapped. It appeared in front of her.
“Jamesons and ginger ale,” said Thomas, flopping onto a bar stool. A small glass appeared. “Fantastic,” he said, and was about to raise the drink to knock it back when the seventh Doctor strode in.
“Right, everybody, we’re heading back to Gallifrey…”
Groans from everyone at the bar.
“I know, I know…” the Doctor said. “But there’s still the small matter of the Valeyard to deal with…”
Thomas knocked his drink back in one anyway, deciding that he needed the Dutch courage. “Hooooo, that felt good…” He shook his head, curls boinging. Alryssa took a quick swig of her Guinness and joined the partygoers, who were slowly reconvening. Thomas gave her a quick hug, and winked at her.
Donald hurried over. “Alryssa…”
She turned to see what the duck wanted, making her a perfect target for a large custard pie in the face.
Dusting his hands off, Fitz grinned cheerfully at Thomas, then hurried off to find his guitar while Alryssa was busy wiping pie off her face.
Donald took one look at the expression on what was visible of Alryssa’s face, and fled.
Alryssa picked up the nearest blunt object and gave chase, yelling, “Okay, who wants duck a l’orange for dinner?”
Weaving between the legs of one of the Doctors, Donald asked himself why he was running. After all, he hadn’t thrown the pie. Filled with a new resolve, he stopped and turned to face Alryssa.
His eyes lit up as he caught sight of the object in Alryssa’s hand. “An oboe! Just what I was looking for! Thank you!”
Alryssa stopped dead and stared at him. Good, Donald told himself, she’s not attacking you, now talk fast…
Eloise sighed. Well, she told herself hopefully, at least the cycle of pie revenge was over, and several of her crew had had target practice now. She just hoped there was enough ammunition left for the battle with the Valeyard. As the fifth Doctor trotted after Fitz and Donald, she handed him a pair of noisemakers and party hats. “Make sure they get these,” she said.
She searched for Orange Anubis in the crowd.
“Still got your feather ready?” she asked, when she found him.
“Right here!” he answered, waving it with a flourish.
“Good. If Snarky is a Boojum, and if Eris lets him out of Compassion, we won’t need it. But otherwise, we may have to corner the Valeyard and tickle him.”
“Until he dances?” Orange asked, hopefully.
“Perhaps… I was just thinking that the Valeyard is the, erm, ‘dark’ or rather, ‘scrambled’ version of the Doctor… Tickling may be just the stimulation needed to unscramble him – to rearrange the energy and bio-data that the Matrix spit out in the first place.”
“And get him back to a regular, ‘good’ Doctor that we all know and love?” Orange asked, his eyes twinkling.
“That’s my theory,” Eloise said, “–either the twelve or thirteenth regeneration… or, perhaps, both simultaneously.”
Orange nodded solemnly, yet happily, if such an action were possible. “I’ll be ready,” he said.
Eloise nodded in acknowledgement, then went off in search of Rufus. On the way, she spotted the cybermat wearing Rufus’s fake Groucho glasses, and bent down to give it a little pat. “Well,” she said to it, “you came to the hoedown. Does that mean you’ve escaped the influence of the Cybermen?”
The little creature beeped in the affirmative.
“Good. Be prepared. And try not to get stepped on.” Then she spotted Josie, at the hunt, ready to pounce on their new ally. “Come on, sweetums,” she said, scooping the cat into her arms, “I’ve got a dish of heavy cream with your name on it.”
As she went back to the kitchen, she passed the water trough that acted as her scanner. She gazed longingly at the reflection of the Rad-wahian landscape reflected there, and sighed. She’d hoped she’d be able to fight the Valeyard on her home turf, to chase him down through the forests and ravines of her beloved orange mountains, with the pro-fun fairies and bears at her side. Maybe someday, she would be back, in a happier circumstance. But what had to be, had to be.
As if in response to her thoughts, the pro-fun TARDIS, under the control of Eris, activated its time rotors; the wheezing, groaning sound began, and the image in the scanner vanished.
“Hmm…” the seventh Doctor said.
“I take it you overheard the part about trying to return the Valeyard to what he should be, then?” the eighth asked, with a twinkle in his eye.
“You know I did,” the seventh said huffily.
“Were we ever able to sort out what he actually was?” the sixth stuck in.
“Let’s see… creation of the High Council, between twelfth and final incarnations – hmm, interesting, embodiment of our dark side, possessed the Keeper of the Matrix, claimed to want all our lives…” the eighth recited, eyes closed.
“This doesn’t make sense,” the seventh murmured. “Why would he want to destroy Cyberspace and alter time? It’s just not his modus operandi… All he ever wanted was more time, more life… So why?”
“You suspect he’s got other reasons?” the fifth asked.
“Yes,” was the eighth Doctor’s response. “The last time I – we – saw him, he was dying… Then, he’d used up the Keeper’s last life. Or thought he had, at least…”
“…but he also disappeared,” the seventh added. “I – we – didn’t see him die. But then there was a large amount of temporal distortion…”
“Yet he’s back, with a new life,” muttered the sixth. “He has what he wants. He doesn’t need to do this… and even in our darkest moments, doing something like this, this elaborately, just for the sake of it, is not us…”
“Spit it out, my boy!” the first Doctor demanded.
“I think…” the eighth began, “…that someone’s using the Valeyard. Someone has given him more lives – perhaps even a new life cycle – in return for his aid in this… He, of all people, should know we’d stop this. He deliberately dropped us hints as to who he was, knew we’d work out he was trying to destroy Rad-wah. He was laying a trail… Which means somebody wanted us involved in this, wanted us to know the Valeyard was involved…”
“…and that Cyberspace and Pro-Fun were under threat,” the sixth completed.
“Which would mean…” the fifth started.
“…that this whole business was instigated to have us ensure that certain events happened,” the fourth finished.
“In other words,” the sixth said, “someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to use us as temporal repairmen…”
The Doctors reached the same conclusion simultaneously, as they worked out who had staged all this. And why.
But then the Pro-Fun TARDIS landed on Gallifrey. And there was no time left.