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“Oh, god,” the Doctor said, ducking behind a tree quickly, dragging Yaz with her. Yaz peeked her head out to confirm what she thought she’d seen – yep, that was the TARDIS.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered in the Doctor’s ear, “we just parked back there – how’s it moved? Have we just gone in a giant circle?”
The Doctor turned her eyes up to her. “Right, yeah. Sorry, I’m only just remembering this. Which is annoying –” she scowled, “‘cause sometimes, just sometimes, it’s nice to know where I’m actually going! It’s difficult though, with all the overlapping timelines – things tend to get deleted. In my brain. Otherwise we wouldn’t have come. Because I’m already here. Damn it.”
“What are you on about?” Yaz asked hopelessly.
She shifted awkwardly. “Right, so, the thing with time travel is, you’re never quite sure when you’re about to bump into yourself.” Just then, the door gave its telltale creak, signalling someone had opened it. Yaz risked another glimpse.
“There’s a strange man coming out of the TARDIS!” she squeaked.
The Doctor squirmed underneath her and poked her head out. “Yep,” she said. “That’s me.”
“What?”
She looked up at her, squinting slightly. “I told you, I used to be a man, right? And somehow – ” she aimed this back into the forest, in the direction of their own TARDIS – “I’ve bumped into myself. Again. Highly embarrassing.”
Yaz stared at her for a moment. “He doesn’t look anything like you, though.”
“Well,” the Doctor said, confusion colouring her voice, “yeah? I regenerated. Whole new body!” She wiggled slightly.
“Please don’t do that while we’re trying to hide from past-you,” Yaz said thickly.
“Sorry,” the Doctor said insincerely.
Yaz looked at her. “I need you to understand that when you say, ‘I used to be a man’, everyone just thinks you mean you’re trans.” The Doctor looked blankly at her. “As in, this is the body you’ve always had, but you took some hormones.”
Recognition flicked across her features. “Ah.”
“Yeah,” Yaz said.
The Doctor said, “It’s not really like that – every cell of my DNA changes. Rewrites itself. I become a whole new person.”
Yaz didn’t know what to say to that, so didn’t. They stood there silently for a bit before she shifted. “So, are we going to say hello…?”
“God, I suppose so,” the Doctor grimaced. But she didn’t move.
“What’s wrong?” Yaz whispered.
The Doctor slammed her head on her shoulder and groaned. “It’s just embarrassing! I don’t know what to say to him.”
“Don’t you remember? Just say what you remember the other you saying before.”
She didn’t move her head. “Doesn’t work like that – I told you, things get deleted. You’re not meant to meet yourself, the timelines get all cross, but somehow it keeps bloody happening to me anyway! ”
They only had a second’s warning as a branch cracked nearby before the – the other Doctor, Yaz supposed – approached their hiding tree saying, “Hello? Is someone there? I can hear voices – blimey!”
They jumped apart quickly as he slammed his hand across his eyes. “It’s not what it looks like!” Yaz blurted.
“Sorry, ladies! Didn’t mean to intrude on a bit of scary-forest snogging, you go ahead, I’ll just be off –” he shuffled backwards.
“We weren’t –” she elbowed the Doctor. “Say something!”
The Doctor – her Doctor – said scathingly to her past self, “Take your hand off your face, you idiot.”
He opened his fingers and peeked out, before lowering it and looking at the pair of them. Yaz took a moment to take him in, all floppy hair and purple suit – and a bow tie . She turned to her Doctor and said, grinning, “I can’t believe I ever insulted your fashion choices.”
“Oi!” said the other one.
“A bow tie?” Yaz sniggered.
He jutted his chin out and straightened the thing. “Bow ties are cool.” He seemed to shake himself off, and then stuck his hand out. “Anyway, I’m the Doctor, nice to meet you.”
Yaz shook his hand. “I’m Yaz, and this is –” she turned to her Doctor – “You wanna…?”
The Doctor pumped his hand too (her own hand?) and said, shooting a significant look at Yaz as she did, “John – Joan Smith. Joan.”
“Yaz and Joan!” he said grandly. “What brings the two of you to this lovely mysterious forest then?”
Yaz glared at the Doctor, who widened her eyes beseechingly. A brief but furious battle of wills was fought. The old Doctor looked between the two of them as the silence stretched out.
“Fine,” said Yaz, giving the Doctor another dirty look. “We’re looking for our friends, Ryan and Graham, they’re lost in the forest,” she told him. “Everyone who comes here gets lost in the fog.”
He leered at the two of them. “Didn’t look like you were looking too hard.”
“Hey!” Yaz said, embarrassed. “That really wasn’t –”
At that moment, another person staggered into their clearing, cutting off her protests. He was wearing a long brown coat and had very spiky hair. “Oh my god…” the Doctor muttered under her breath, turning away.
“What?” Yaz asked.
“You again!” the old Doctor exclaimed.
The newcomer gawped at him. “What are you doing here? I’m busy!”
“Do you two just hang out or something?” the Doctor said testily.
“Sorry,” Yaz said, definitely feeling like she was losing control of the situation. “Who is this?”
The man with the hair turned to her and smiled, somewhat unconvincingly. “I’m the Doctor.”
Looking between the two men in front of her and the woman behind her, realisation dawned. Oh my god, she thought gleefully, another one! She smothered the grin growing on her face, and decided to prod the wound. Drawing on all the theatrical training she’d got from GCSE Drama, she gasped and pointed at Bow Tie. “But he said he was the Doctor!"
“Yaz!” the Doctor hissed. “Stop it!”
Hair and Bow Tie shifted uneasily. Bow Tie sighed. “It’s very complicated, but we’re not lying. We are both the Doctor.”
“No!” Yaz interjected. “How’s that even possible?” This last bit was aimed significantly at her Doctor, who was stomping around the clearing with her arms folded over her chest.
“We’re time travellers, the same person at a different point in our timeline. We look different because… our species ages in a weird way.” Not waiting for a response to that, he carried on, “Whatever. We’ve bumped into each other. It’s – timey-wimey. It’s not meant to happen.”
She raised her eyebrows. “‘Timey-wimey’?”
“You could just stay away from places I’ve been!” said Hair.
“I would stay away, if you could put some effort into remembering where you’ve been!” Bow Tie fired back.
“Anyway! Yaz, I take it?” Hair said, turning to her. She nodded.
Bow Tie flapped his hands at the Doctor, “And this is Joan,” he told him. “They were snogging. I think she’s annoyed they got interrupted.”
“We weren’t snogging!” burst the Doctor. “We were –” she coughed – “doing some reconnaissance! –” the other two tittered, but she soldiered on – “on the badly-dressed man we bumped into in the weird magic forest where it is impossible to find anyone.”
“Well. It was impossible. Bit of a free for all now, though,” Yaz commented.
“Yeah,” Bow Tie agreed, “That’s a bit strange. I’m parking ‘badly-dressed’ for later, by the way, when I have time to feel offended,” he addressed this to the Doctor. “So, why’s everyone here? I know you two are looking for your friends. We might be able to work out how to find them if we know how we found each other.” He looked around the group, “I got a message on the psychic paper telling me to come.” He got it out of his pocket and showed them the message.
Forest of Nightmares
Come when you can
XOXO
“It’s really called that?” Yaz asked the Doctor. “Ugh, why do we ever let you choose the planets.”
The Doctor smiled broadly at her. “Sorry!” she shrugged, looking not very sorry at all.
Bow Tie looked at Hair. “And you? Why’d you come?”
Hair scuffed his feet on the ground. “Well. ‘Forest of Nightmares’, isn’t it?” He looked up at them all. “Thought it was worth a look. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?”
Yaz punched the Doctor’s arm. “Honestly. You dragged us here when you’ve already been! Twice!”
The Doctor shushed her frantically.
The other two looked at them, confused. “What?” Hair asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” the Doctor hurried past it. “The thing is, it’s not like we were looking for you – we just stumbled into you,” she told Bow Tie. “And he literally stumbled on us,” she gestured at Hair. “It was very inelegant. So how did we all manage to meet when the fog is determined to separate everyone from their companions?”
“Good question!” Bow Tie said. “No idea.”
Hair was looking at Yaz and the Doctor. “You two’ve managed to stick together as well,” he said. “How’d you manage that?”
“We were holding hands,” Yaz told him.
“Snogging!” Bow Tie muttered.
Ignoring the heat rising in her cheeks, Yaz said, “Do either of you know how the fog works? If we can work that out, we can get to Ryan and Graham. Our mates,” she told Hair.
“The forest separates everyone from the people they start out with,” Hair said. “You then spend the rest of your days wandering around trying to find the people you’ve lost, while it feeds off the potential energy of your stolen days. It wants everyone to spend eternity by themselves. Hand-holding notwithstanding.”
She felt her face going quite red. “There’s really nothing –”
He interrupted her, turning to Bow Tie. “And what better way to spend eternity by yourself, than being stuck with another version of yourself from the future?” Bow Tie stuck his tongue out at him.
Yaz looked between them, “You’re saying that, because you’re the same person, even though you’re from different points in time, the forest pushed you together?”
“Well,” Hair said, “it’s just a theory, but. Yeah, I reckon so.”
“And everyone who gets stuck in the forest is having their soul devoured, or whatever?”
He wavered a hand. “Not their souls, exactly, but pretty much, yes. Potential energy.”
She felt her heart rate rising, thinking of Graham and Ryan stuck out there on their own. “How do you know all this?” she asked.
“Read up on it before I came!” he said defensively. “Not going to recklessly wander into danger, am I?” Bow Tie snorted. “Shut it!”
Taking a deep breath, Yaz turned to the Doctor. “You’ve got to tell them now, I think,” she said.
The Doctor scrunched up her face. “I know. Don’t want to though.”
Bow Tie moved forward. “Sorry, tell us what exactly?”
Yaz shoved an elbow in the Doctor’s ribs. “Go on.” She smiled winningly at the other two.
“Right,” said the Doctor, shaking her hands out and walking in a little circle. “You know how we’re all together, even though us two don’t know you? Except, I do know you.” She looked at them expectantly.
“What?” said Hair.
She stared at him like he was being a bit thick. “The forest can only bring people together if they’re already psychically linked. That’s how River got the message through to the psychic paper, right?”
Bow Tie took a step back, eyebrows raising. “How do you know River?”
“How do you think!” the Doctor said, exasperated.
“I literally have no idea!”
“The two of you were pulled together by the forest, because you’re the same person...” she raised her eyebrows.
“Yes?” said Hair. “We’ve already established that!”
For heaven’s sake, Yaz thought. “She’s you from the future, you melts!”
It was quite funny, really, watching the others’ mouths flop open, gobsmacked, as they looked the Doctor up and down. “Here we go,” she muttered.
Bow Tie seemed to regain control of his mouth sooner. He snapped it shut before swinging around to Hair and back to her again. “But you’re – you’re…”
“Don’t say anything you’ll regret later, please.”
“You’re Northern!”
Now it seemed like the Doctor’s turn to be taken aback. “That’s all you’ve got to say?” She rolled her eyes. “We’ve been Northern before.”
“Not that Northern,” he said. “What is that, Manchester?”
“Sheffield!” Yaz interjected, feeling incredibly insulted.
At this, Hair seemed to pull himself together. “Wait, you’re based in Sheffield now?”
“You can talk!” said the Doctor. “The two of you spent your entire regenerations in London. London gets boring after a while.”
Bow Tie sniffed. “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,” he quoted.
“Yeah,” the Doctor said, “very clever! Gold star. I’m not a man though, am I? So I’m allowed to get bored of London. And Sheffield is a very hip-and-happening place.” Yaz snorted. “Shut up, Yaz.”
“Samuel Johnson!” Hair said, snapping his fingers like he’d just remembered. “We had a lovely breakfast together once.”
“What is there to even do in Sheffield?” Bow Tie scoffed. “Admire the brutalism?”
“Just you wait till you’re Scottish,” the Doctor said crossly.
The other two looked at each other in delight. “We’re going to be Scottish!” Hair exclaimed. He cleared his throat and leaned closer to the Doctor. “Important question. Lives might depend on it. Will I be... ginger?”
“Nope,” she said smugly. “Sort of grey-white.”
“Typical," Hair sighed.
“You know,” Yaz said, “You’ve never really explained why you have a regional accent – these two sound really Southern.”
“Well,” the Doctor said. “You never asked.”
“I just assumed it was the TARDIS translator thingy making you sound like me! Are you actually speaking English? Wait – actually, cycling back, bigger question. Did you shag Samuel Johnson?”
“What!”
“You said you had breakfast with him! Why would you have breakfast with someone you’ve not shagged?”
The Doctor looked bewildered. “What’s wrong with breakfast? We’ve had breakfast together.”
Hair cut in, “Not to be rude, I’m sure this is a very important conversation and I’m looking forward to having it, but can it wait? Why did you lie? Why not just tell us who you were?”
She scowled at him. “I’m two thousand years old, I’ve bumped into myself more times than I can count, and to be honest it’s getting boring.”
“Two thousand?” he said, horrified. “How many regenerations has it been?”
“Only one more in between me and this one,” she jerked a thumb at Bow Tie. “He stuck around for ages.”
“Oi, spoilers!” Bow Tie said.
“You know as well as I do that neither of you will remember this, otherwise I wouldn’t be here !” The three of them glowered at each other.
“Wow,” said Yaz. “A psychologist would have a field day with you lot.” She looked at the Doctor curiously. “Actually, I’ll have a field day. Do you see yourself as the same person? You keep calling your other selves ‘him’, not ‘me’.”
The Doctor scrunched her face up again. “We’re the same person, we have the same memories. It’s difficult to explain. Regeneration, you end up… you have the same memories, but it’s like they belong to someone else.” She waved absently to the other two. “I remember being them, I remember what they did, but it wasn’t me-me. It was them-me. For example,” she said, gesturing at Bow Tie, “when I was him, I made a conscious decision to dress like a Victorian dandy. Very embarrassing in retrospect.”
“Oh! She’s funny,” Bow Tie sniped. “She’s very funny, with her… culottes. Yes! You look very… comfortable.”
“Dicky bow! Waistcoat!” She grabbed at his front, pulling out a pocket watch on a chain. “You realise they make these to go round your wrist now, right?”
Hair said to Bow Tie, “Did you just decide to wear braces one day, and then not take them off for a thousand years?”
Okay, this was getting silly now. “Perhaps,” Yaz said, trying to project an aura of calm into the clearing, “we should stop the bickering and instead focus on finding our friends? And your… psychic river. Before their souls get eaten by a carnivorous forest?”
They all stopped arguing, looking slightly shamefaced. The Doctor gave her a warm smile. “How do you reckon we should do that, then?”
“Well, there’s three of you now,” Yaz said, holding her gaze. “Do something clever.”