Part 3 – The Great Undoing

"But wait!" cried the Doctor's long-developed sense of morality. How selfish are you? You can do anything in the Universe, and all you can think about is self-gratification!

"Haven't I earned it?" the Doctor shouted back to himself. A situation was already developing in his pants at the thought of finally being able to roam free amongst the strip joints of the Universe without fear of heresy cries from concerned parents and well-meaning watchdog organisations. But even someone without the Doctor's rigorous moral code would have eventually started to consider the facts. A time machine. A life without consequence. And then he knew that the girls would have to wait until at least the second day of his three months of freedom. He knew exactly what he had to do now.

--

The freighter trembled as it sped towards the planet on its scanner screen. On the flight deck, amid the ruins of a fallen silver robot and a charred bank of controls, there stood a young man. The look on his face was one of sheer terror as he twisted his belt in his hands, grinding the ends together but unable to remove his startled gaze from his inevitable fate on the screens before him. The end would come very soon. There would be no rescue. He'd failed. He'd die, and so would the Earth.

And then the impossible happened. The battered shape of the TARDIS materialised out of the air behind him, and a stranger stood beaming at him from the doorway.

"Wh-Who are you?" stammered the boy.

"Exactly! Well don't just stand there... come on!" urged the Doctor.

--

Another century, another spaceship. Something terrifying was happening here too - a young girl this time, being held against her will. Her wrists bound by the grip of the stranger whose breath burned down upon her neck. They were in an airlock, friends screaming at them in terror through the sectioning glass.

"Not that switch! Katarina!"

But she knew. Somehow, she knew. If she could open the portal, her friends would be safe. And she would be where she belonged to be. She hit the switch. The cries of her companions faded as the whole of space opened up before her. The man let go, falling away with a scream as his body exploded in the airless vacuum. But Katarina tumbled straight into a hovering box and landed in a heap on the hard floor inside.

"Good catch!" congratulated Adric, as the Doctor strode forward to greet their concussed new arrival. "Now, who's next?"

--

A battle was ensuing. The Time Lady Romana leapt back as a troop of Gaztak mercenaries raised their weapons. Lexa acted without hesitation. She knew what her God, Ti, commanded. She had known it from the moment she opened her eyes as a small child and stared around the wing of Tigellan Maternity Ward B. Her life was born so that others might follow, only thus would the circle be closed. She ran in front of Romana, and an electronic bolt pierced her heart.

She lay on the ground, her spirit preparing for ascent, her last breath escaping through her body towards her cold lips. The others were just shapes around her now, just as she could barely feel the fingers on her non-existent pulse. And then they moved away, no time even to cloak her body in the ceremonial robes of the Dion faith.

"Cardiac Arrest!" yelled a different voice suddenly.

"You'll not die yet! Thanks be to Ti!" sang another equally unfamiliar voice. Lexa opened her eyes to see a handsome, determined stranger trying to resuscitate her.

"Marti Pellow?" she murmured. The boy next to her was dressed in yellow pyjamas and clasped two metallic plates.

"Now! Now!" they chanted in some bizarre ritual as bursts of a strange electric power surged through her. She knew not what was happening. Only that she was very definitely alive again.

--

He was a dead man, running.

He ran blindly, desperately through the swirling green fog, deep, sobbing breaths rasping into his tortured lungs. He knew there was little hope. Somehow, he had been separated from the others in an ambush, and now his enemies were hunting him. Without checking his run, he glanced over shoulder. Shadowy figures were flitting through the dunes behind him.

He reached a small stagnant pool, stopped to get his bearings- and a black-cloaked, hooded figure rose up before him like a ghost. There was a sudden blur of movement and...

…an arrow thudded into a frilly cushion held before a tousle-haired, dandified man who stepped out suddenly in front of him. The figures dispersed into the night, grunting with terror at the unexplained new arrival.

"You saved my life!" gasped Commander Stewart.

"There's no time for thanks – we’ll just leave these for Jill!" cried the stranger jauntily, tossing a fresh packet of Sulphagen tablets down onto the ground.

---

"The only problem is, a very crowded TARDIS!" smiled Adric, giving the Doctor a toothy grin. "These people have no place in their own times anymore. They should all be dead."

The console room, and indeed most of the rest of the Doctor's impossibly vast craft, was packed with the oddest assortment of life forms one could imagine. The Dragon from Svartos chatted idly to Charlie from the Last Chance Saloon, while next to the scanner screens a rogue Monoid tried to explain the principles of non-verbal communication to a disinterested Professor Zaroff.

"This is everyone?" Adric asked in disbelief. The Doctor smiled proudly.

"Everyone I let die, I've now saved. It feels good, I can tell you. For the first time in my life, I have no guilt."

"Yes, but what are we going to do with them all?" Adric whined.

"Oh, we'll drop them all off on the planet Mechanus," the Doctor waved away his question. "It’s a little place I know where there’s some seriously cheap accommodation and a desperate tourist shortage. Anyway, I've still got eighty three more days of doing what the hell I like without consequence to enjoy."

"Does that apply to me too?" Adric asked innocently.

"Well yes, I suppose, yes it does!"

"Good." the boy smiled. "You know Doctor, you cut quite a dashing figure in this regeneration."

"I suppose I do!" agreed the Doctor, gracious of the compliment. Adric slipped his arm into that of the Time Lord.

"So what's say we offload the passengers and have some real fun?"

This was more like it, the Doctor thought warmly. He had his freedom, the whole of time and space, and a fellow chum to explore it with. It was going to be a very interesting three months, he felt sure.