Detour: Chapter 1

Martha stood in the wardrobe room with the man who claimed to be the Doctor. She knew he was—she’d seen him change before her very eyes the day before, but he was so different, so vastly different, from her Doctor. She hadn’t seen him since it had happened. Shocked, bewildered, angry, hurt, Martha had ran from the control room as he’d gotten nimbly to his feet, the bullet that had killed him slipping from his belly when the regeneration had squeezed it out of him. He’d tried to explain to her what had happened, but she just hadn’t been able to hear it.

“Remember last time we were here?” he said, hearing her come into the room. The Doctor had been right. He didn’t just look different, his voice was different, and it was odd hearing a stranger speak of past experiences as though they’d been his. “We stayed in here for three hours while you tried on dresses. I wonder why we haven’t been back since.”

He turned to her, looking at her with those bluish-gray eyes. His lips, she noticed for the first time, were very full and red. Especially the bottom lip. He had Brad Pitt lips. Male model gorgeous, he was.

“I never seemed to find the time,” she said softly. “Who are you, really?”

“The Doctor,” he said patiently. “Remember, right before I regenerated, I said I would change, and I did. Every cell in my body has changed.”

“Like the Chameleon Arch?”

“Exactly!” he said, smiling brightly, in a shadow of his former self. But he seemed to have lost his manic energy. He was so still.

“You’re not the same man, then.”

“Not physically. Inside, I’m still me.”

“If you can change every cell in your body, then change back to him.”

“I am him, and it doesn’t work that way,” said the Doctor. He sat down, still wearing her Doctor’s too-tight blue suit. The brown jacket now hung on a hanger on the nearest rack, where she didn’t doubt it would come to be forgotten.

“Why not?” she said, sitting on a crate across from him. The Doctor leaned on his elbows, folded his hands together, and regarded her.

“I can’t do it at will. Only when I’m about to die.”

“I could wound you, painlessly,” she said, unable to believe she was suggesting such a thing. He took it in stride, even going as far as to grin a little.

“And then I’d regenerate again, into a new face, but it won’t be the face you know. I’ll never be that man again, no matter if I tried.”

“The Chameleon Arch could change—”

“It would change my species. I’d keep my face, same as I did when we hid in 1913. I was human, but I looked the same.”

He watched her with a calm, steady gaze. She didn’t like his new personality. He was too…sedate.

“You’ve changed the way you act, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Then how can you say you’re the same man? You’re not the Doctor. Not my Doctor.”

“I can take you home—”

“Maybe you should.”

He looked hurt at those words, but he nodded all the same. “Maybe one day you’ll want to come back.”
A sound reverberated through the wardrobe. The rebels who’d murdered her Doctor were once again trying in vain to penetrate the TARDIS.

“I need to shower and change, and then I’ll be right up.”

Nodding, Martha stood and left the wardrobe.

The TARDIS was the same, at least. The Doctor’s blood had been cleaned, and she had this odd feeling that the TARDIS had absorbed it. She went to the grating and searched for any sign of it, but it was all gone.

I’m being morbid and ridiculous, Martha thought. The TARDIS didn’t suck up the Doctor’s blood, he wiped it away.

She was still on her knees when the grief overcame her again. He was dead. Her Doctor was dead, regardless of how much this new man said they were the same. His face, his voice, his mannerisms…all gone.

He was a shell who had the memories of her Doctor, but he wasn’t the same man.

Will he be a good man? She remembered how Yana had changed from being a good man into the monster that was the Master. Would the regeneration change the Doctor into a Master-like man? He hadn’t displayed any evil traits. He’d been straight-forward and patient, understanding.

Just like the Doctor, Martha thought. Well, maybe a little more patient than my Doctor.

She heard his footsteps approach. Even his gait had changed. His strides were longer to accommodate his extra three inches of height, and his steps fell much heavier than before. He appeared in the entrance, dressed in a pair of jeans and a muscle shirt. He pulled on a t-shirt over it, and she saw he wore a pair of Nike trainers.

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re sexy,” she said, “but you’re missing two things.”

“What’s that, then?”

“A fag and a bottle of whiskey.”

He laughed at that. It was a rich, throaty sound. “I used to love a good cigar and a scotch. I may pick up the habit again.”

“I won’t breathe your second-hand smoke,” she said, getting up from the floor and wiping tears from her eyes.

“I thought you weren’t going to be here,” he said, over renewed banging from the rebels outside.

“I’d rather be anywhere than this planet.”

The Doctor began to flip the switches and turn the dials on the TARDIS with expert ease, a reminder, and proof, that he was indeed the Doctor. “Before I take you home, I’d like to show you one last world.”

“Some futuristic Earth?”

“Earth-like, but not your homeworld. You’ll love this place.” He looked at her. “Trust me.”

She nodded, even though she didn’t think she should, and the TARDIS gave a small jerk. It wasn’t nearly as violent a lurch as it had always been in the past.

“How’d you do that?”

Even the Doctor looked surprised. “Search me. It seems I’ve improved my flying skills with this new body.”
He licked at his teeth and then clacked them—another thing her Doctor would have done.

“I like my new teeth,” he said, and smiled at her. Some of the grief in her heart seemed ease up at that smile, and she returned it weakly.

The planet was like Earth, all right, only pristine and perfect. The TARDIS was flying over the planet’s surface, something else her Doctor had never done, and both of the doors were wide open. They stood there, looking out at the landscape below. A white winter wonderland zoomed beneath them, broken occasionally by black water. Strange looking creatures dove happily from ice floes to splash into the water, and some animals had white fir that nearly masked them completely from view.

On the TARDIS flew, and Martha would occasionally step back to get warm. The next time she looked out of the door with the Doctor, they had come to a desert, flying over dry, dusty ground, broken by the occasional lump of brownish green cacti. The desert quickly gave way to greener land, and an ocean that sparkled deep green beneath the blue sky.

“It’s beautiful,” Martha said, speaking for the first time in hours. “I haven’t seen any settlements.”

“You won’t. This planet has no higher intelligent humanoid life. Or any higher intelligence, actually. It’s a sanctuary planet for endangered species. It’s used by the Chaldronites to replenish animals on their endangered lists. Once the animals have reached sufficient number, they’re brought back to Chaldron Prime and put back into the wild.”

“What does Chaldron Prime look like?”

“This planet is a replica of their world in every way that matters. The same plant life, the same kind of soil, same microbes and bugs and viruses. It’s a clone world. Earth will develop that kind of technology in another twenty…eight thousand years or so, from your time. But by that time, the Chaldrons will be dead and gone.”

“Why?” Martha asked, sounding alarmed.

“Civil war.”

“They’re advanced enough to clone their world, but they’re too stupid not to destroy themselves with civil war?”

The Doctor smiled at her. “Silly, isn’t it? You’d think they’d know better, but they don’t.”

“Have you ever tried to save them?”

The Doctor shook his head no and closed the door. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because everything has a time to live and a time to die, Martha. Everything.”

Kaydin was closer to her goal than she’d ever been before. She’d located the TARDIS, and there were only two people in it. One was human, like herself, the other was a Time Lord. The last one, the one who’d destroyed his own people. She’d punish him for that later. As it was, she had to gather her team together and prepare them for the long, arduous journey through time and space to the clone planet of Chaldron Two. The Doctor and his mate were the only ones on the planet besides the animals placed there. They would have no one to turn to for help.

“Gover, Steel, Planx, Rem, it’s almost time. I’ve found the TARDIS.”

Greed lit her team’s eyes afire as they turned from their game of poker and looked up at her. They thought they were going to help her steal the TARDIS so they’d have a machine to travel in time. It was much easier on the body, more comfortable, it would offer protection from their enemies, and from law enforcement, and there was very little danger of the TARDIS burning out like their wrist units could.

“Where and when?” Planx asked. He was a Bursonite, short but deeply compact and as strong as thirty human men. Even at 5 feet in height weighed 380 pounds, almost all of it muscle. He’d come in handy during a few jobs in the past, and he’d be invaluable on this last mission. Shame she’d have to kill him first.

“Chaldron Two, Earth year 2321,” she said. “We’ll pinpoint their location and have enough power to be there in three linear days.”

“Three days,” Gover said, slapping hands with his girlfriend, Lana Steel. “Three days, baby, and we’ll be the proud co-owners of the last TARDIS in creation.”

They shared an indecently intimate kiss. Kaydin couldn’t wait to be rid of them. They annoyed her with their constant groping and copulating. They were disgusting. They’d be second to go.

She might keep Rem, however. He was quiet, never spoke unless spoken to, or unless it was absolutely necessary. All he wanted was to do his job, get his cut, and stay to himself. He never caused trouble, and he was good at getting into places no one else could. Would he try to take vengeance for Planx’s death? Planx was the only one she’d ever heard him speak to for the sake of talking, and in the three years they’d traveled together, that had only been four times.

Kaydin decided she’d worry about Rem when the time came. Until then, all she cared about was getting their wrist units juiced up enough to take them to Chaldron Two, to the Doctor, and his TARDIS, which she would take for her own.