The Doctor blindly poked his left arm out of the TARDIS
doors. While this looked, to Romana, to be a ridiculously pointless action, it
was in fact the direct result of various complex thought processes that had
occurred inside the Doctor's remarkable brain. His questionable logic wasn't
immediately obvious to his companion, who watched with both amusement and
irritation.
'Doctor, what are you doing?'
'Checking to see if there's anything out there,' he replied
matter-of-factly. The exasperated look on Romana's face seemed to encourage him
to elaborate. 'Scanner's on the blink again, and this is the best way to see if
it's safe out there. If my arm isn't sliced off or shot at, we should be okay
to have a wander around.'
Roman smirked. 'Silly me. How could I not have guessed
that's what you were doing? It's completely obvious!'
The Doctor thought for a moment. 'Sarcasm?'
'Indeed,' nodded Romana.
The two of them waited in silence for a few moments, and
were relieved to find that nothing happened. All was well, it seemed.
'Do you want to stay here, in the TARDIS?' he asked.
'Why?' replied Romana. 'Would you prefer to be alone when
you reunite with the Cavalier?' She loved teasing him.
He didn't love being teased. 'Certainly not! I was thinking
of you, that's all. Might be dangerous.'
'Oh,' said Romana, 'I'm coming with you. Wouldn't miss this
for the world.'
'Why not?'
Romana smiled. 'Might be dangerous.'
'Good girl,' the Doctor said warmly, smiling back at her.
They shared a moment--an odd, beautiful, terrifying
moment--that seemed to last for both a second and a lifetime all at once, in
which the time-travellers from Gallifrey seemed to be looking right into each
others souls. Romana's hearts were beating faster than ever before, even more
than when she had been running from Daleks or Mandrels or sentient security
cameras. In times like these, she was reassured that beneath all the Doctor's
snide comments or sarcastic putdowns, he really seemed to care about her. She
wasn't sure if the same could be said about his relationship with K-9. She
almost hoped not...
Out of embarrassment and unease from their meaningful
glances, Romana looked away. She cast her eyes over the control console,
wanting to look at something else--anything else. She was scared. She could
understand the complex trans-temporal and dynamic spatial readouts of the
TARDIS, but she didn't know her own hearts... Or did she, she wondered, and she
just couldn't admit it? Why not? Was it more that she wouldn't admit it? And
again: why not? There was no good reason for her silence. There was something
there, between her and the Doctor, almost definitely. She cared for him, that
strange, ridiculous, completely bonkers man, who was stood just a few feet away
from her with his arm hanging out of a police box.
Finally, after far too long, she decided she was going to
tell the Doctor how she felt--or at least how she thought she felt.
She looked up again. 'Doctor, I need to tell you...'
But the Doctor was gone.
Romana just caught a glimpse of his scarf trailing behind
him, as the Doctor tumbled out of the TARDIS, left arm first, as if he had been
pulled outside by someone--or something. Either way, it couldn't have been
good.
'Doctor!' she cried, as she hurried after him.
~~~
A few minutes earlier, the Cavalier had been asleep. His
mysterious captors had finally decided to stop torturing him and allow him to
rest. He certainly needed it. It had been such an insane few hours, from a
chase through the Time Vortex, to a trudge through the impenetrable environment
of the Alps, to an encounter with not-quite-Ancient Rome. He had just drifted
off and was dreaming of Gallifrey, and his old friends who had become his enemies
simply because he wanted to be different, when he heard a noise--a familiar,
beautiful, reassuring noise that woke him immediately.
The Cavalier shook off his sleepiness and sat bolt upright
on the pathetic excuse for a bed, watching as a bright blue police box faded
into existence. He knew it from the stories, the myths and legends on a
thousand worlds right across the universe, which spoke of a mysterious and
magical wanderer known only as the Doctor. Of course, the Cavalier knew his old
friend by a dozen other names, but he understood why he had changed it. “The
Doctor” suited him much better. He always wanted to make people better, and
from the stories the Cavalier had heard, it sounded like that was exactly what
he'd been doing since leaving Gallifrey. And all those tales spoke of his
police box, that rackety old TARDIS that he never fixed. The Cavalier
laughed--that was very him.
But, he wondered, why had the Doctor come here? Was it
random? Or had he really come looking for his old friend, the Cavalier, after
all these years? He had thought that the Doctor must have forgotten him. But
no, it seemed that he still thought about the Cavalier as much as he thought
about the Doctor. They'd always vowed to remain friends, but then again people
always did, usually right before they lost touch forever. But the Cavalier had
always known that he and the Doctor shared a bond that was stronger than all of
space-time. Nothing would tear them apart. But it seemed that it was more than
that: now the universe had brought them together again.
He watched with bated breath for the moment when those
TARDIS doors would burst open and the Doctor, in a new body all these years
later, the Cavalier suspected, would look upon his old friend and smile. The
Cavalier straightened the Roman armour that he still had to wear because he had
nothing else, and waited to see the Doctor again.
But all that came out of the TARDIS doors was an arm--a left
one, by the looks of it. The Cavalier approached it cautiously, studying it,
trying to work out why it was there. Was it the Doctor's arm? Probably, he
decided. Not many people were mad enough to think sticking an arm out a time
machine was a good idea.
The Cavalier thought for a moment. What was he supposed to
do, just stand there and stare at the disembodied arm? But what if the TARDIS
dematerialised without its occupants ever leaving the ship? If that were the
Doctor, would the Cavalier just let himself stand there, dumbstruck, and give
up the chance to see his old friend again after far too long?
'No,' he decided aloud. He reached out and grabbed hold of
the arm, pulling the body it was attached to out of the TARDIS and onto
himself.
The two Time Lords landed in a heap on the floor.
'Hello, Doctor,' said the Cavalier.
'Hello, Cavalier,' said the Doctor.
Romana rushed out of the TARDIS just a few steps behind the
Doctor, fearing for her friend's safety. Stepping out the police box, she found
herself in a dark prison cell. But the environment didn't demand her attention
so much as the two men lying on the floor did.
'What's going on?' she asked, in disbelief.
'Oh,' said the Doctor casually, looking down at his old
friend, 'we were just getting reacquainted, weren't we?'
The Cavalier smiled. 'It's been a long time, Doctor.'
'Too long, old friend.'
'Do you want to get up?' asked Romana, with her hands on her
hips. She wasn't impressed.
'I suppose so,' sighed the Doctor. 'It's no use wasting two
good legs, is it?'
The Doctor clambered up off the grubby floor, and the
Cavalier did the same. He looked Romana up and down, almost suspicious of her,
or at least curious. 'Hello there,' he said, flashing his dazzling smile. 'I
don't think we've met, have we? I think I'd remember you. They call me the
Cavalier.'
'My name is Romana,' she replied formally, shaking the man's
hand. 'I'm a Time Lord, too. I've heard a lot about you.'
'All good, I assume?'
The Doctor smirked. 'I left out all the naughty bits. Just mentioned
how you're not particularly fondly remembered, back on Gallifrey.'
The Cavalier looked away in embarrassment. 'They're not too
fond of me, those stuffy old Time Lords.'
'Far too serious, that lot,' the Doctor said, nodding
agreeably. 'That's why we ran away, isn't that right, Cavalier?'
'And Romana, you've run away as well, yes?'
'Sort of,' she said. 'I like it out here in the universe.
But I could go back, one day. I've not burned all my bridges like you two did.'
'Oh, I'm not that bad,' the Doctor replied defensively. He
stood tall, throwing back his shoulders and sticking his nose in the air, and
said, 'You, Cavalier, are in the presence of Gallifrey's Lord President!'
The Cavalier hooted with laughter. 'You? No way! That's so
cool!'
'I know!' the Doctor grinned, dropping his stance of mock
importance. 'It's a laugh, I suppose. The other day, I sent a communication
cube back to the Capitol, banning all those funny hats and demanding that
everyone should wear scarves like mine instead. I think they thought I was
joking. I wasn't.'
'Sorry about these clothes, by the way,' said the Cavalier,
drawing attention to his Roman uniform. 'They're not mine, I had to borrow
them. You see, I woke up naked this morning.'
Romana rolled her eyes. 'Oh, you are just ridiculous--'
Romana rolled her eyes. 'Oh, you are just ridiculous--'
'Intruders!' came a heavy, rasping voice from nearby.
The three Time Lords jumped in fright, and turned to face
the source of the interruption. Barely visible in the shadows outside the cell
door was a Zeronaught, tall and menacing in its jet-black armour. Its piercing
red eyes that shone out from beneath the helmet spooked Romana, and it felt
like her blood ran cold.
'What is that thing?' she asked.
'They're the ones who kidnapped me,' said the Cavalier.
'Well, they have kidnapped me. Present tense. I'm not free yet. Yes, that's a
point. Doctor, why haven't we left already?'
'I don't know,' the Doctor shrugged. 'I don't even know
where we are. Some sort of spaceship, I assume?'
'At the heart of the Accumulation's fleet, escorting the
prisoner to our home world,' said the Zeronaught. 'We are the Zeronaughts, and
we will destroy you.'
The cell door swung open, and the Zeronaught stepped
through. It raised a gloved hand that sparked with fiery red energy as it
advanced upon the Time Lords.
'Stay back, you two,' said the Cavalier confidently. 'I'll
handle this.' He raised his own fist, which also began to glow brightly. Golden
energy played around his hand, lighting up the darkness and cutting a trail
through the air as he swung it towards the Zeronaught.
The knight in black armour staggered backwards, shaken by
the blow, until it tumbled onto the floor of the cell.
'Knocked him out cold!' the Doctor observed admiringly.
'Nice work, Cavalier. How did you do that?'
'Used my residual regeneration energy to give it an extra
kick. Well, an extra punch. But you know what I mean.'
'You've recently regenerated, then?' asked the Doctor.
'Congratulations!'
'Not exactly,' said the Cavalier miserably. 'It was my
twelfth one. This is my thirteenth and final body.' He looked himself up and
down. 'I know, I'm not exactly going out on a high, am I?'
'Oh, I wouldn't say that,' said the Doctor, looking his old
friend up and down. 'I like it. I think it suits you.'
By this point, Romana's eyes had been rolling almost
constantly, so much so that her head started to ache. 'Doctor, we've got to
go,' she urged.. 'There must be more of those things.'
'We're okay for a while,' said the Doctor, kneeling down
beside the unconscious figure. 'Before we leave I have to find out some more
about this lot.'
'Yes, what are these so-called Zeronaughts?' asked Romana.
'Are they like astronauts?'
'Not really. They’re explorers of the worlds of physics and
mathematics, not the wonders of the universe. To them, reality has no beauty;
it is merely a string of numbers. They see the great questions about life, the
universe and everything not as enjoyable philosophical debates but as equations
that need to be solved. That’s their aim. That’s what they do. They take the
fun out of everything, balancing the problems of reality, reducing everything
to zero.'
'So why did they kidnap him?' Romana asked, gesturing
towards the Cavalier.
'Good question,' mused the Doctor.
'Oh, never mind that,' said the Cavalier, with a dismissive
wave of his hand. 'I’m always getting kidnapped, it’s nothing really. It’s
become a bit of a hobby, I suppose. A better question would be: why are they in
these big scary suits?'
'Because it makes them look big and scary,' said the Doctor
simply. 'They’re only scientists, remember. And pompous brain-boxes like the
Zeronaughts frequently get picked on anyway. Imagine how many more people are
going to picking on them when they tell them that they’re trying to alter the
fabric of reality. The suit is protection, keeping them alive.'