Chapter Text
Things had progressed quickly from that initial meeting, as the initially hysterical Doctor had been escorted from the shuttle bay. With every moment that had passed, he'd seemed increasingly agitated; not outwardly loud or violent, but just growing tenser by each moment. He'd all but ogled a Vulcan crewmember they had passed, and when an Andorian had been spotted vanishing down a side corridor, the strange man had actually jogged off in pursuit.
Still, they'd finally managed to get him to sickbay for a quick examination, mostly to ensure he wasn't carrying any pathogens... only, from the way Doctor Crusher had turned several shades paler at the readings on her tricorder, clearly things wouldn't be so simple as that. Crusher hadn't let her own shock, or unease, leak into her bedside manner, however, and had been nothing short of courteous and every bit as soothing as Troi was trying to be.
And, sure enough, the strange visitor seemed to relax, bit by bit, with each passing moment, until he showed no signs of his prior unease.
Unfortunately, it was replaced with a sense of curiosity so strong, it bordered on Attention Deficit Disorder, which is why when Jean Luc Picard sat behind his desk in his Ready Room, less than half an hour after the stranger's arrival, the Doctor was not sitting across from him. No, instead the ancient, incredibly wise and unmeasurably dangerous Time Lord was... kneeling on the floor, peering under the Ready Room couch.
"I must say," Picard finally called down to him, "you seem far more relaxed than you did a short time ago."
"Yes, well," the Doctor replied, hopping back to his feet, head craning upwards as he peered at the ceiling with great fascination. "Situation like this, there was a fifty-fifty chance the universe was about to implode... but it doesn't look like it's going to any time soon, so I feel much better now."
Picard honestly wasn't sure to say about that, but something about the way the man wandered about with no apparent regard for his host was starting to grate on his nerves, just a little. It also seemed irritatingly familiar...
"You must understand... Doctor... that your appearance here is highly irregular, almost contradictory." Settling into his chair, Picard tried to look relaxed... difficult, given his guest had opted to instead pace back and forth across the room like an overexcited child. "You enter this sector within a vessel that, by all appearances and readings is a relic from Earth's past, not even spaceworthy, with clothing to similarly denote an older time period. You speak our language flawlessly, and even possess a regional accent common to Britain. And yet my Chief Medical Officer informs me that you are unlike any being we have thus far encountered, and the... device... you used to scan us blocks even the most detailed scans of its interior."
The Doctor smiled a little at that, slim shoulders shifting in a brief shrug as he replied; "Well, it's not always inclined to give up its innards... as for the accent, Captain, isn't 'Jean Luc Picard' supposed to be French?"
"...touche," Picard replied, leaning forward just a little and lacing his fingers together as he tried not to let the offhand reply irritate him; "Nonetheless, we know that your arrival was heralded with a sudden increase in chroniton particle emissions. That would suggest time travel, which is why I must ask... are you from our past, or our future?"
"Hmm? Oh, I'm from the past." The Doctor paused before adding distractedly; "Well, no, actually, I'm from the future. Well, at the time I came from I was in the future, originating from the past, visiting the future... or it might have been the other way around... but technically I'm from an alternate timeline, so I suppose the answer would be 'neither leaning towards the former more than the latter, if one... absolutely must... lean...'" Trailing off for a moment, he gave the couch a gentle gentle tap with his foot, then spun on his heels. "But that's not important in the grand scheme of things."
"Oh," Picard replied, sounding increasingly displeased by the moment. "I disagree."
"You're entitled," came the chipper reply, even as the Time Lord began to pace again, the words tumbling forth faster and faster; "But the vital question is 'why am I here?' I wish I could answer that one, Captain, but I can't. I didn't mean to come here; not sure I could have if I tried. Delighted to be here, mind you... but the doing of it is troubling... oh, what a lovely aquarium! Lionfish, no?"
"Yes, it's... troubling, why is it troubling?"
"Oh, well, because naturally there's... difficulties with..." Once again the Doctor's attention wandered, this time to a gleaming model of an older, bulkier starship. "this is a very nice model, is this of your ship?"
"A previous generation of this ship," Picard replied, his patience wearing thinner by the moment with each interruption. "Why is your arrival here troubling?"
"Well, the last time I ended up in a parallel universe, the Cybermen were trying to take over it," the Doctor mused, picking up a heavy book from the captain's desk, and brightening considerably when he saw the title. "The Complete Works of Shakespeare! Wonderful that the Immortal Bard made it to this universe, he was such a friendly chap. Terrible handwriting, though, I ended up transcribing Hamlet for him while he dictated."
Picard, whose mouth had been opening to sharply reprimand what was, yet again, a sharp detour from their original topic, paused for a full second as the Time Lord's words sunk in. He was torn between going through with his tirade, or submitting to what was admittedly considerable curiosity on just whether the visitor was telling the truth.
The tirade won out.
"I'm sure it's very wonderful," Picard began, his voice relatively mellow as his hands planted flat on the table, leveraging him to his feet. "And in other circumstances, I would be delighted to have a long discussion on that very topic, but I would nonetheless be very grateful if you would please have a seat and just focus for one second!"
The Doctor stopped. Simply stopped. All the good cheer, the excitement and energy bled from his frame, and slowly, deliberately, he turned to consider the Enterprise's captain. The eyes that had been just moments ago sparkling with mirth and delight had grown eminently cold and dark beneath his brow, and though he didn't make any overtly hostile gestures, his entire body seemed to tighten like a spring... and the very air seemed almost to thicken in response.
Jean Luc Picard was no stranger to adversity, be it a bar brawl against Nausicans, or a battle with the Borg. He had, indeed, even faced down a being who quite literally possessed Godlike abilities, all without allowing the dangers to deter or discourage him. But something about the simmering anger behind this scrawny, bowtie-wearing man's eyes was plain unsettling, and the Captain had the most unusual instinct to shrink back, and possibly hide beneath his desk.
But he wouldn't give into that urge. He'd be damned if he backed down, and so Picard's eyes only hardened as he met the Time Lord's gaze for a long, silent moment, both of them unmoving, both unspeaking, neither wavering.
In the end, it was the Time Lord who gave ground. The tension gradually bled out of the Doctor's posture, the cold anger in his eyes replaced with a little bit of embarrassment.
"You must understand," the Doctor explained, a bit chagrined as he fiddled for a moment with his tie, finally sinking down into the chair that had been offered. "This is all... well, new. Very new, brand new, in fact, and for someone accustomed to same old, same old each and every decade, that is... very... exciting for me. I have no idea where I am, no idea who you are, not the slightest clue what that large, ridged, somewhat irritable fellow who accompanied us is... I have so many questions, millions. I don't even know what to ask first, and I haven't had that feeling since I was very, very young. I suppose that means I'm regressing, just a little. I apologize, Captain."
Picard sank back into his seat just a moment later, and now that the guest seemed to have restrained himself, he let his own irritation fade, his expression softening a little. "I understand that this is disorienting, likely even more so for you than for us... but the safety of my ship, and crew, demand that I try to get to the bottom of this matter."
The Doctor's lips quirked upwards, just a little.
"I can respect that. Right!" Straightening in his seat, the Doctor held up both hands, making thoroughly unhelpful gestures as he spoke. "There are alternate universes, where events have played out differently from one another. Some are simple enough; one battle, won or lost, altering the broad strokes, such as a planet's allegiance, but leaving many of the details, such as the people who live on it, the same. Others, however, are far more removed from each other... where only the faintest similarities still survive. A race here, a planet there, but with far more that is different than alike. Most individuals that exist in one universe do not exist in the other, completely changing the face of reality.
"Now, travel to alternate universes of any kind is by itself very difficult, falling just below the realm of theoretical impossibility, but travel to a far more alien universe... the difficulty, and required power, increases exponentially. Just as it would be far more difficult to reach the Andromeda Galaxy than it would Earth's moon... Earth still has a moon, right?"
"Yes, it does," Picard replied dryly.
"Wonderful, love that big beautiful ball." Settling back in his chair a little, the Doctor's slim shoulders shifted in a bit of a shrug;
"In any case, I originate from a parallel universe... one vastly different, I think, from this one... though that is admittedly just a working theory, as I know very little about the specifics of this reality. My TARDIS was caught in the gravitational field of a sort of super singularity- think twelve black holes dancing the Charleston after a night of binge drinking, if that helps, though it's nothing like that- and in trying to pull out of it, I might have... well, punched through it instead."
Picard had stopped nodding along towards the end of the explanation, and by the time the Doctor was finished, he was just staring; "Why precisely were you so close to a... 'super'... singularity?"
"Oh, I was trying to surf it," came the casual reply, without a trace of smug pride to be found. "Woulda been the first in all of history to manage it, too! In one piece, anyway."
Picard considered the explanation for several long moments before giving a single, sharp nod. "Very well, if I am to take this story as genuine- and I will confess it seems almost too bizarre to be a deliberate fabrication- then the most obvious question is why you were simply drifting out here, if your craft is capable of space flight? Let alone flight through such adverse conditions?"
"Out of fuel. Sort of." The Doctor paused, hesitated, then sighed, coming clean; "The TARDIS is powered by, for all intents and purposes, the universe itself, drawing on the Time Vortex- don't even ask, take decades to explain-" he added when Picard's mouth began to open, "-but my TARDIS is calibrated for my universe. It's not that there isn't power available here... it's just the TARDIS isn't built to draw on it."
Picard was silent for yet another good, long moment as he chewed over the semi-helpful, semi-cryptic response. He was clearly considering whether he should ask what a 'Time Vortex' was, but anything that had to do with 'Time' was generally, he'd learned, to be avoided on principle. So instead he went with a more constructive, and far safer, question;
"Can your... TARDIS... be modified to function in our universe?"
The Doctor started to shake his head, then paused, considering the room, the Captain's terminal... even squinting at the communicator on his chest.
"Well, you're significantly more advanced than the humans in the last alternate universe I was stranded in," the Doctor mused, chewing on the tip of his thumb in thought. "While there is an... alternate... means of powering the TARDIS, it's something I'd rather not do unless absolutely necessary. Given the greater degree of seperation between our universes, I'm uncertain if it would even be enough to return to my reality. Still... I may be able to jury-rig something to draw power from this universe, but I'd need some time to think..."
Picard waited to see if the Time Lord was about to say anything else, but the Doctor seemed thoroughly wrapped up in his own thoughts now, eyes narrowed and fingers twitching restlessly. The moments stretched into minutes, and still the strange visitor didn't speak which, considering his previously jubilant behavior, was almost unsettling to behold.
"Well, in the meantime," Picard finally said, inadvertently causing the startled Doctor to jump slightly, "we can offer you accommodation on board the Enterprise, as our guest. And if it's answers you seek, then we can provide you with a library terminal that would allow access to historical and anthropological archives during your stay. Enough to give you firmer footing, at the very least."
The Doctor had been about to refuse the initial offer, his hand lifting to wave it away, but at the mention of the library access, he perked up.
A lot.
"I'd be delighted to accept, Captain," he announced, leaping to his feet, then pausing, then half-sitting, then straightening a little, until he was all but perched over the chair, clearly all but straining to get going. "Was there anything else?"
His irritation aside, a small smile nonetheless flitted over Picard's lips; where but moments ago he had seen a silent, wrathful figure, now to all appearances he was facing a schoolboy waiting to be excused from class. Still, there were too many concerns to completely erase the lines of worry across his brow, and even as he tapped his communicator, he was already outlining the staff meaning he'd be holding very, very soon...
"Mister Data, please report to my Ready Room."
* * *
"These quarters are equipped with full lavatory facilities," Data explained only a handful of minutes later, even as their newest guest admired his quarters.. "As requested, a terminal has been prepared that will grant you access to Federation historical and cultural databases. It should be noted, however, that any sensitive information will be restricted. The terminal, and the food replicator unit, are both voice-command enabled, so you need only make your request to the computer."
"Marvelous, absolutely marvelous," the Doctor all but cooed, craning his neck as he peered out the broad windows on the far wall; he could see the graceful sweep of the Enterprise's swan neck below his viewport. "Truly a lovely vessel, all the more so because you actually had to adhere to physics in its construction. Quite a project."
Data didn't really know how to answer that, so he settled for assuming it required no response. Still, as he considered the visitor, he experienced the closest equivilent he had to a niggling thought... a comparative analysis that had turned up an interesting question. Though he considered waiting until the staff meeting to raise the matter, the Captain had requested that he gather as much information on the visitor as possible.
"Sir, if I might pose a question..."
"Please, just call me the Doctor," the Time Lord insisted, holding up a hand to forestall Data's question, his attention on a painting mounted just beside the replicator. "I'm far too old to act old enough to be called 'Sir.'"
Data's head inclined, briefly, then tilted as another thought occurred; "Query; in Standard language interactions, it is generally considered incorrect to use the term 'the' when directly addressing an individual. Is the use of the adjective a requirement for your species?"
"No, excellent point, 'Doctor' will do fine, then." he amended, the hand waving in an vague gesture.
"Very well," Data agreed, immediately launching into his subject; "Doctor, several papers by a variety of accomplished and renowned linguists have noticed an unexplained and common usage of the term 'Doctor' within a large number of unaffiliated and unconnected planets spread across known space. What is particularly intriguing is that they nearly all share the same basic meaning in each language."
"That's the wonderful thing about languages," the Doctor replied cheerfully; "They're supposed to help us understand each other, yet we so frequently fail to understand them."
"An... interesting observation, Doctor," Data blinked, then continued; "Given you appear theoretically capable of temporal and spatial travel, is it possible that you, or a universal counterpart of yourself, could have provided the linear thread linking these cultures together?"
"It's possible," the Time Lord murmured, a bit of a grin crossing his face as he turned to consider the android. "I'm impressed that you pieced all that together so quickly, you're quite the credit to your creator. Be sort of comforting to know another Doctor's running about, though I imagine the reunion would be awkward... though suppose not as awkward as my last three reunions with my temporal counterparts... to say nothing for the two clones... how many languages share the word in your universe, anyway?"
Data blinked for a moment, accessing the relevant information he had gathered earlier. "Within the fourteen thousand, four hundred and thirty seven unique languages suitably known, discounting linguistic assimilation through cultural interaction... three hundred and twenty-eight."
The Doctor blinked. Just blinked. But the brief flicker of his eyes, the tightening of his jaw and the restless shift of his feet were a dead giveaway, even to Data.
"Is something wrong?" the android asked, head tilting.
"No. Well..." The Doctor paused, then muttered; "It's fewer than I expected."
"Is that troubling?"
"Yes. Sort of. I don't know." A brief giggle passed the Doctor's lips. "Never going to get tired of saying that."
With that, the Doctor whirled away and scuttled over to the nearby terminal, hunching over it and giving it an experimental tap with one finger. Data stepped a little closer, eyes shifting back and forth as if reading some invisible text as he processed the admittedly confusing conversation.
"Curious." Data finally mused. "You have said you do not know why you have arrived here, or how... and yet, rather than be concerned, you appear quite... happy."
"Oh, I'm sure I will be concerned, eventually," the Doctor replied breezily, even as he flopped onto a chair, bouncing slightly as if to test its cushions before leaping right back up to his feet. "I always get around to it, sooner or later. But right now I'm just enjoying the experience, to say nothing for the mystery. I always enjoy a good riddle, and a riddle that doesn't involve immediate, impending death and destruction is even better. And considerably rarer."
There was a long silence, broken only by the Time Lord's idle humming, before Data spoke again, his gaze unfocused, his tone curious.
"I have admittedly noticed a similar reaction from some of the ship's crew..." His brows lifted as he shook his head; "At times, they appear to draw great interest, if not pleasure, from difficult situations. Even if it presents an immediate obstacle to their purposes."
"And you don't understand why that is?" The Doctor asked idly, toeing the carpet.
"The subtleties of human emotion and behavior are quite beyond me," Data explained, "but it is something to which I have always aspired."
The Doctor stopped dead at that, whirling around once more to consider the android; the smile was gone, his expression more pensive than anything else. Slowly, he drew nearer, arms crossing over his chest as his mouth opened... then closed... then opened. He seemed to be considering how to phrase what was on his mind, and by the time he'd decided, he was standing right in front of Data.
"I have to admit," the Time Lord said quietly, his expression unreadable; "I haven't come across that many non-humans nowadays who share a terribly positive view on humanity, certainly never enough to aspire to be one of them. Would it bother you overmuch if I asked why you hold them in such high esteem? They seem a rather... simple species, at least when I've found them. Violent. Petty. You strike me as far more reasonable."
"On the contrary," Data replied, seeming to perk up at the opportunity to discuss it. "I function in such a way due in no small part to the initial programming imparted by my creator. I have no negative emotions, or egotistical self-concerns to hinder my actions, or impair my judgement... but this does not make me better. Less burdened, perhaps. Although humanity's history is notably filled with incidents of violence against one another, there are also numerous instances where they have sought to elevate themselves beyond base instinct. Beyond their programming. The existence of the Federation is a testament to that effort, and it is that ability to overcome that I seek to attain."
A slow, delighted grin crossed the Doctor's face, replacing the somber frown entirely. Stepping a bit closer, he reached out and clasped a hand on Data's shoulder, a low, knowing chuckle passing his lips; for just a moment, he seemed less the excitable child, and more the wise, approving grandfather.
"Mister Data," he announced, sounding quite proud; "For someone who claims to find the subtleties of humanity beyond him, I don't think I have ever met someone who has phrased them quite as well. I think you're going to manage just fine, and you won't need to be human to do it either."
Data considered this for a moment, then gave a brief nod. "Thank you, Doctor. Will there be anything else?"
"No, I think I'm all right." Pulling away, the Doctor's hands folded behind his back as he considered the room; "Thank you for your time, I'll just potter about for now."
"Very well. Good night."
Once the doors had hissed shut, the Doctor took a long, slow breath, his shoulders rising, and then slumping as the manic smile faded from his face. Drawing a hand across his jaw, his eyes flitted from side to side, considering the silent room for several long minutes; as much as he didn't want to admit it, the concern was indeed starting to set in. Still, it took him very little time at all to realize there wasn't much good worrying about things right now... not until he knew more about what was going on.
So, in the spirit of, well, keeping up his spirits, he meandered over to the wall-mounted replicator unit, considering its control schematic for a long moment.
"Replicator!" Pausing at the affirmative beep, the Doctor's brows lifted for a moment, then he shrugged, frowned in thought and then announced grandiosely; "Give me fish fingers."
"There are no culinary files available featuring aquatic craniate species possessing digits. Please re-specify request."
"...we're not going to get along, you and I."