“Asleep again,” One sighed, closing the door and looking keenly at his assembled other selves. “He can’t take much more of this, though. If we don’t do something about this alternate once and for all—and soon—his mind will give out completely and he will die.”

“Taking us with him,” Nine muttered darkly.

“Not to mention a great chunk of space-time, Nexus or no Nexus,” Four reminded them.

“This is all your fault, the pair of you!” Two rounded on the latest incarnations in a rare show of genuine anger. “If you hadn’t let him go on that fool’s errand of a mission, if you hadn’t told him about that wretched Time War business in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

“It wasn’t me what told him, it was another alternate!” Nine protested.

Six rolled his eyes. “Pah! Alternates!”

“The place is lousy with ‘em,” Ten added. “Each one worse than the next, and Rassilon only knows why they’re all here!”

Three snorted. “Don’t be too sure about that.”

Two shot him a glare that would have liquefied him on the spot and rendered the entire debate academic had such a thing not been impossible, even for Time Lords. He then returned his gaze, more or less unchanged, to Ten. “That doesn’t excuse your more or less giving him your blessing to run off and break the Laws of Time, like some kind of potentate!” he huffed.

“And if I hadn’t, he would have driven himself mad with guilt and closed his mind off completely! You try imagining someone who used to be you wasting away!”

“Rather like he’s doing now?” One interjected pointedly.

Five spoke up for the first time that evening. “What d’you suggest we do, then?”

“Try the manipulator again,” was Ten’s immediate answer, which was responded to by a chorus of objections. Someone else suggested a Zero Room. A suggestion to contact Lord Rassilon himself was quickly squelched. Eventually Seven cut through the babel with three quietly spoken words:

“Let him go.”

A beat of mental spluttering gave way to the verbal equivalent.

“What’re you talking about?”

“What d’you mean, ‘let him go?’”

“We can’t do that, he’s dangerously unstable!”

Ten stared intensely at the inscrutable little man. “You know more than you’re letting on. You always know more than you’re letting on. Feel like sharing any of this wisdom, or are we just going to have to stumble after you?”

Seven just smiled that smile that used to drive his companions barmy and wasn’t doing much more for the tempers of his other selves. “As long as he remains in the Nexus, his timeline remains flexible.”

The others nodded. After a tick, Nine provided the “So?” that Seven was clearly waiting for.

“So,” Seven concluded, “Releasing him into the Nexus decreases his proximity to us and thereby also the strain on his alternate here. He’ll have a chance to reach whatever mental stability he can, and his timeline will remain unsolidified.”

“Arrant nonsense!”

“Out of the question!”

“He’s already tried to kill!”

“That was here, though,” Four pointed out thoughtfully. “It’s much more difficult to do so in the Nexus.”

Silence. Eventually Six gave a gusty sigh. “As much as I hate to agree with a man who never has the decency to remove his hat,” Seven scowled at this, but Six continued, ignoring him, “he’s right. There’s nothing else for it.”

“The Nexus’s got a funny way of sometimes turning things out for good, anyway,” Ten said, scruffing a hand through his already wild hair; the others suspected he attempted to convince himself of this more than anything else.

“Are we in accord, then?” Seven asked.

There were various All rights and Very wells and Let’s get on with its from the others, until eventually all eyes came to rest on Two, who glared hotly at the others.

“I can’t believe you’re going through with this foolishness! Very well! But on your heads be it when this whole thing ends in disaster!” He turned and stormed from the room.

“So be it,” Seven murmured quietly.

((Continued, somewhat, from http://community.livejournal.com/prime_education/79389.html ))

Finding this Alex Mason fellow in the Nexus had been the easy part, and even then it wasn't exactly a piece of cake. The entire multiverse had had to be sifted through, after all, and even the unique mental signature of a dreamwalker hadn't narrowed the search down terribly well. The Doctor had found several varying individuals and two versions of the same Endless before he'd found the young man in question.

The trace had finally led the Doctor to an alleyway in some reality or other that vaguely resembled Earth, an amalgam of 19-century appearance and 25th-century technology. The date, 17th April, 2487.

Alexander Mason, formerly of Arkham, Massachusetts, was a slight, underfed-looking individual, clad in what used to be a somewhat long suit jacket, button-down shirt, tee-shirt, and nondescript trousers; trainers, knit gloves with the fingers worn off and a long crocheted scarf completing the ensemble. Whatever the clothing had started life as, it now bore too much dust, mud, and scuffing to be very recognisable. One lens of his wire-rim spectacles was visibly scratched and bore a small crack. His dark hair was overgrown into a shaggy mess. He lay asleep, curled inside a chalk circle on either side of whose borders various Elder Signs had been scrawled. He held a PINpoint in his left hand, and his right was awkwardly bound in a very tight sling.

The Doctor debated simply picking the young fellow up off the concrete and carrying him back to the TARDIS--it was only a few yards away, after all. But the Elder Signs were most likely there for a reason and he wasn't going to risk anything popping out of the aether if what was said in Mason's letter was accurate. So he reached out and nudged the bedraggled figure. No response. Nudged him again. Still no response. A little worried, he reached down and placed a finger against Mason's neck, feeling for a pulse. He'd just managed to find it when the young fellow stirred, made a soft, unintelligible sound, and then startled awake.

"Hullo," the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor."

"Haba--wha?" Was Mason's witty reply. "You're what? What Doctor?" As he struggled with words, he pushed himself to his feet, a little unsteadily.

"The Doctor. Well, a Doctor. But that isn't important, right now. What is important is that I know of the man you seek--Randolph Carter."

Mason stared. "Y-you're ... from the Nexus?"

"As of late. Come with me and I'll explain."

"How do I know this ... isn't a trick? Can't mug me, I don't ... have ... any money...." Mason leaned against the wall, fumbling with his PINpoint and wheezing.

"You don't know," the Doctor answered, remaining still and calm. He fixed the other with an unwavering gaze. He wasn't much of a telepath, but he had a knack he'd developed in this form to unobtrusively pull little streams of thought toward believing him. All they had to do was look at that steady, grey gaze. "But I don't look like a mugger or a killer, do I? I look like someone who's got something to tell you. You can leave and I won't stop you, but if you do, you'll never find out what it was."

There was a tiny pause as their eyes locked. Mason twitchily dropped the PINpoint into his pocket. "What d'you want to tell me?"

The Doctor led him back to the TARDIS. Boy needed to sit down before he fell down, after all. And while he brought Mason a cup of hot tea, he explained as much as needed explained--How the Doctor knew Carter, how they could go about trying to find him, and how Mason could feel certain that the TARDIS was a safe place. Completely removed from spacetime as it was, he could sleep undisturbed there.

Though it wasn't surprising in the slightest that the room Mason settled into was quickly decorated with Elder Signs in black biro.

However, once washed and clad in something clean, Mason was antsy to begin the search. It wasn't going to be an easy search or a simple one. But there was no time like the relative present to begin it.

They had gone by TARDIS--a different one than the Doctor's; Lady President Romana, Lord Castellan Andred, the Doctor, and all who had come with him; waiting quietly in a silent, bare console room.

The journey had been short. And when the TARDIS landed, no-one moved to activate the scanner. Instead, the Castellan solemnly touched the door release. The doors swung open with a quiet hum, revealing what lay outside.

There wasn't much left.

Beyond the remains of a city lay a desert. The remains themselves were not dead, but dying, the sand and wind unsuccessful yet in sweeping away the scents of fire, metal, blood, and viscera; the concentrated ozone smell of energy weapon discharge; the odor of unwashed beings, of decay and sepsis. Arterial red smells, black and dark bile green, rotted yellow and thick brown smells, under the grey-beige of sand and smoke and the crackling, flame-hot blue. The scents mingled and clung to the back of the nose, put a foul taste in the mouth, lanced through the sinuses and into the brain.

The wind howled. It skirled around the objects and the TARDIS; high, thin wailing over bass rumbling. An angry wind. An angry planet. No sun shone. Nothing was visible through the roiling clouds to tell one if it was night or day save for flashes of lightning within its depths. Below, the city's remains had scarcely any light to them, save for some sort of sickly, ambient orange glow that came from no discernible source.

"This is what is left of Dronid. The latest of the planets to fall," Andred stated softly, as though loathe to be heard.

There was movement, just there, as something or, rather, someone, slipped out of cover; a dark humanoid shape walking in a hunched and wary position, carrying a weapon. A few others followed it and they made a chain of four beings in total, sneaking their way toward a structure.

They never made it.

One was shot down by a white-blue beam of energy. His skeleton--humanoid--was visible for a brief moment as he writhed, spine arching, a strangled scream escaping him, before he collapsed. The others whirled and opened fire, staccato bursts of white and crackling noise and there was an explosion, but they, too, fell to the same weapons.

The noise of the wind filled the silence that they left with their deaths. And into view slid a cadre of completely alien metal things. Completely alien, yet instantly recognisable. Daleks. Hovering unstoppably over the rough landscape, barely visible save for the silhouette of their forms against the pervasive orange glow and the lights on their shells, they passed the TARDIS, not noticing it, and continued.

"Dronid is only two systems away from Gallifrey," the Doctor said in an equally hushed voice, a mix of emotions apparent on his face. And under their protection, is what he didn't need to add.

"The planetary defence was taken apart from the inside," Andred replied, "and our aid never reached them. The temporal interference misdirected them at every point. Dronid fell only recently in relative time and most of the population were taken as slaves." Outside, more beings were shot down by the patrolling Daleks. "Those who resist... you can see the fate they meet."

"What of Karn?" the Doctor asked, turning away from the sight to look at the other Time Lords.

"Still holding," Romana answered. "Though not even the Matrix can predict for how much longer."

"You see the urgency of the situation now?" Andred asked.

"I do! I've come too late!" The Doctor hit the door control, cutting off the view. "We're all too late."

He looked at the others, apology evident on his features.

The TARDIS has landed. That much was made obvious by the soft, musical chime one could hear through almost the entire ship.

Eight looks up from pondering a small object. He slips it into his pocket. It's now or never, really. They know he's here. He uncurls from the chair he's been occupying and makes his way into the TARDIS interior.

Everything had been prepared.

Or, as prepared as it could be for an undertaking such as this, which wasn't very.

He knew he was going to have people wanting to go with him on this. And somehow, he didn't mind.

What he wasn't expecting, however, was a stowaway. Or, rather, he'd been expecting a stowaway of some kind. Just not here. Not now. Not now of all times...

There wasn't anything for it, though, but to look. The TARDIS knew exactly where said stowaway was, after all. The Doctor just had to get there.

He just hoped this one wasn't Australian....

He'd been avoiding his previous selves. His previous selves and his ninth self--he reminded him too much of the heretofore amnesiac fellow who'd started the whole thing.

Eight hid--near the centre of the TARDIS, usually, or in areas close to. He contemplated going home. Home home. Just giving it all up and hiding there. Bollocks to the timestream. But it wouldn't work. No, if anything, that'd do more to ensure it happened than anything else he could possibly try.

And yet he ached to return, now. He'd hated the place for centuries and now, thanks to a revelation he never should have had, something pulled at his hearts to return home. To Gallifrey.

He hadn't slept for seven days. Couldn't.

And now he paced, nearing the end of what shred of strength he had, snared in an indecision. Go home or not?

Go home?

Stay?

Change history?

... This last possibility chilled him. It was remotely, ever so remotely, possible. With the presence of this Nexus of realities, it was possible. Dangerous, perhaps fatally so, but possible. He could ensure that the Time War never came to this conclusion. Could ensure that the Time Lords survived.

Would he do this thing?

On and on he paced.

((Continued from http://community.livejournal.com/prime_education/24097.html?view=957729#t957729 ))

The outside of the vehicle was familiar enough. It never changed, really, except for the breif time it was an armoire, a pipe organ, and a set of doors on Telos....

The inside, however, was probably not what Jack was expecting.

Oh, it was still transdimensional. It was still imbued with a strange life in the very air itself, a sourceless light, a barely audible hum.

But wow.... had it ever gone ... sf. Gone were the organic struts, the gangplank, the metal deck, the wooden doors with the telephone on the inside. Everything surrounded them in white and gold. The console was a slick, eight-sided affair, dominating a more or less empty-looking room. Controls covered it in an orderly pattern not unlike that of a Concorde's panels, and the time rotor had become a salmon-lighted affair within a crystal-and-glass column.

"Well, this brings back memories," Eight muttered. Two spared him an unreadable look before darting through the door into the space beyond.

It came suddenly, this shockwave through time. A vast explosion, an almost limitless silent roaring, a reeling blow to every sense that left all ten incarnations of the Time Lord on the floor where he'd been standing.

A deep, sonorous bell tolled from within the depths of the TARDIS.

Every TARDIS.

The Doctors picked themselves up. Those who weren't in a console room already ran for said area. Ten different screens all bore the same message:

TEMPORAL INSTABILITY
SITUATION CRITICAL

And a lot of other information scrolling below that large-type message--blocks of Gallifreyan text, images, more text. Each Doctor squinted at it and frowned, thinking hard. And still the Cloister Bell droned.

Something had to be done, and quickly.

There wasn't anything for it, and each one simultaneously reached for a newly-installed communication node, the one that would put him in contact with each of his other selves, until they formed a bizarre ten-way partyline.

"How many realities has this hit?" Ten asked.

Six shook his head. "Far too many to count, by now."

"It's radiated out from a central location," Eight supplied, busy at the controls. "I should have it traced in a moment...."

The information reached their screens a beat later. Seven frowned. "The Nexus."

"Hardly surprising," Two opined.

"Plenty of time for opinions later," Five interjected briskly. Then he frowned at the readouts. "This isn't very specific."

"The TARDIS is having trouble narrowing it to a specific location," Three observed.

"The energy wave is still too powerful," Five added.

"Can't exactly twiddle our thumbs and wait for it to be so kind as to dim," Four reminded them.

"We've a general location, anyway," One put in. "Someone'd best go and take a closer look."

Ten and Eight both started for the door. No-one seemed about to stop them, as perhaps more than one would be able to get a fix on the location sooner. they slipped out the doors, popping into two different timespaces in the Sanctuary.

The rest stayed, worked at trying to narrow down the cause and its location, and at ignoring that persistent bell.

Eight and Ten had returned to their own TARDISes, finally, after having received treatment in the Nexus Clinic. Ten was back to being his usual hyperactive self, but Eight was still a little ill.

Still, they were up and about.

It looks as though the Doctor was making it a habit of finding Lan in small spaces in his TARDIS.

This time, he found her in a tiny alcove near the power source, the TARDIS' connexion to the Eye of Harmony. Here he artron energy was at its highest level, almost infusing the air with a kind of life.

He peeked inside the alcove, finding a small mound of blankets and the jar of jam.

The Doctor walked and walked. Down long corridors and spiralling flights of stairs, through rooms he forgot he had, stopping often to explore something forgotten as though seeing it for the first time.

By the time he reached Sublevel 15, his pockets were stuffed with random items he'd forgotten he had, and he carried a stack of books.

The random items and even the books were not, of course, what he was looking for. He only found what he was looking for when he peeked into a linen closet that the TARDIS had given him a helpful mental nudge toward.

"Lan?"

The Doctor was faced with a challenge. He pondered this challenge as he walked round and round the console, poking controls and thinking. How to track a person through the Nexus when this TARDIS had so much difficulty moving from one reality to another? The biosignature he was looking for was still there in the TARDIS' databanks, but ....

Any amount of frequency-twiddling and dial-spinning and button-clicking turned up nothing. She wasn't in any of the realities this TARDIS had been to. And the Nexus was too difficult to penetrate to start searching from the vortex.

The Doctor sighed. There was only one thing for it and he hated doing it. It was just irritating in the extreme.

He was going to have to enlist one of his previous selves.

He made a very pained face as he put out the comm signal, waiting for one of himself to answer. The face just got even more pained when the respondent turned out to be his floppy-haired Victorian eighth incarnation. Oh, bloody hell. Well, he was preferable to the one with the question-mark pullover, at any rate.

"What is it?"

Ten leaned against a convenient random protruberance. "D'you remember Lan? Somewhat snakelike? Collects poetry?"

"Of course I do." Eight already looked worried.

Right ... this was one of the less arrogant ones, Ten remembered. He relaxed a little. "She's gone missing. I can't track her biosignature, this TARDIS can't quite make it through the Nexus as well as it used to."

Eight's brows met and had small talk. "It can't? What happened?"

"Can't tell you that. Laws of Time and all that."

"Oh. Right."

"At any rate, even though my TARDIS can't hop realities any more, yours still can. I've tracked the entry of her biosignature entry to yours, as well."

Eight looked at his controls. "Right. I've got it right here. I'll have a look."

"Fantastic, as I used to say. Brilliant. Get back to me with it, eh?"

"As soon as I can."

The connexion broke, and ten sighed. Well, as long as Eight didn't suddenly get distracted by something shiny in the vortex, this just might work.