What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious" (short story)

What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious"
Main character(s):	The Doctor's TARDIS
Featuring:	Tenth Doctor
Main setting:	Earth, 21 November 2059
Key crew
Writer:	James Goss
Release details
Release date:	15 November 2020
Format:	Online short story
Time Lord Victorious
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What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious" was a short story published to mark the 11th anniversary of the airing of TV: The Waters of Mars and tied into the Time Lord Victorious storyline.

Summary

The TARDIS notices a Time Fracture that has been created by the Tenth Doctor saving Adelaide Brooke. She prepares to use the Fracture to take the Doctor to the Dark Times to complete his business there, as there's a mistake he has to make.

After watching Adelaide enter her house, the TARDIS knows the Doctor will turn to her for comfort in a few moments, but he won't get it this time.

Plot

The TARDIS reflects on her travels with the Doctor. She notes how the sight of the exterior of the TARDIS, though never accurate, always gave him a feeling of comfort and homeliness. The TARDIS notes that the current Doctor finally thinks he knows how to pilot her, when in fact the secret is that she only takes him to where he needs to be.

She considers London, 1965 being a great example of a temporal point that she could happily have reached in no time at all, if the Doctor had asked politely. But she felt it more important that the Doctor at the time was having fun and learning a lesson about who the Doctor truly was, from those who would teach him more during their travels than he'd have learnt in a thousand years: Ian and Barbara.

The TARDIS explains that each Doctor presumes that they have made their own identity, but continues to explain that their travels were never accidental. They were purposeful to shape the Doctor's personality. This Doctor in particular, she notes, is afraid of Death. She can sense this fear and she can also sense him wanting to teach Death a lesson. That was the reason why the Doctor rescued Adelaide Brooke from her fixed death, despite knowing the paradox that would be born. That's why he baptised himself the Time Lord Victorious.

However the TARDIS notes that the universe is not allowing one line of it. Adelaide's new foot in the snow has created a Time Fracture, so clear for the TARDIS to see. The TARDIS formulates a new future. She knows exactly where to take him and what she'll do with this Time Fracture. She foresees the Fracture spreading throughout time and the races that will try to harness it. But most importantly, she can use it in the here and now.

She plans for the Doctor to stagger back to the TARDIS, haunted by his actions but still determined. And she'll take him to the past of every Time Lord, to the time locked era of the Dark Times, to finish his business and to make a very bad mistake. She knows he's going to change the future and that someone has to tell him that he's done wrong.

So she'll obtain other Doctors to join the tale. She will obtain the one before him with the "leather jacket and tired smile", as well the one further back the "last of the carefree Doctors". She knows the previous Doctors have already sensed change and can foresee their terrible alliances with the Daleks.

She is distracted by an Ood falling through the Time Vortex. Thinking he might be useful to her plan, she gives him to one of the Doctors to help him. She considers another Doctor, who "played terrible games with eternity and pullovers", and wonders if he'd be proud of her now.

Her plans draws to a conclusion. She will bring three Doctors together to learn from one another, pulling them through the Time Fracture and to the Dark Times. Back in the present, she watches as Adelaide Brooke pulls out her gun and walks into her house. She knows that in a few moments' time, the Doctor will turn to her, sad and angry, and he'll expect comfort. But this time, she's not going to give it to him. That's not what he needs right now. And she dematerialises.

Characters

• The Doctor's TARDIS
• Tenth Doctor
• Adelaide Brooke

Worldbuilding

• The TARDIS claims she could have returned the First Doctor to 1960s London when he was trying to return Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright home.
• Rassilon declared the Dark Times off limits.
• The TARDIS comments on Rassilon's overuse of the word "time" when it came to naming things.
• The TARDIS misses the Ninth Doctor, who she recalls was "beaten by losing a war against Death".
• The TARDIS considers the Eighth Doctor "the last of the carefree Doctors".
• The TARDIS recalls the Seventh Doctor as "a Doctor who played terrible games with eternity and pullovers" and wonders if he'd be proud of what she's doing.

Notes

to be added

Continuity

• The TARDIS claims she takes the Doctor where he needs to be, which is not always where he wants to be. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
• The TARDIS recalls taking the Doctor to Skaro rather than Shoreditch, (TV: The Daleks) Aberdeen instead of Gallifrey, (TV: The Hand of Fear) and delaying him from getting to Heathrow. (TV: Four to Doomsday, The Visitation, Time-Flight)
• The TARDIS leads the Eighth Doctor into an alliance with the Daleks to maneuver him towards the Dark Times. (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy)
• The TARDIS notices an Ood falling through the Time Vortex, (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not) and gives him "a little push" into the Dark Times. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)

External links

• What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious" at Doctor Who TV