"You've let this place go a bit," the Warrior grumbles.
"Ah, it's his grunge phase. He grows out of it," Chinny grins.
Sophie jumps up the stairs, moving around the console to the jump seat. She collapses into the chair, crossing her legs underneath herself.
"Don't you listen to them," the Time Lord says, running his hands along the console. An alarm sound through the room, the Gallifreyan reeling back as it sends a shock through his hand, "Ow! The desktop is glitching."
The walls change around them, the room becoming brighter, as the TARDIS interior blinks to one from before the Time War. The walls fill with roundels, the floor once again the tile. As the room changed, the jump seat vanished, and Sophie hit the floor, hard. "Ow!" She exclaims, moving to stand off the floor.
Sandshoes smiles, walking over to help her up.
"Three of us from different time zones. It's trying to compensate," the Warrior says.
"Maybe it could compensate faster?" she grumbles.
"Hey, look," the oldest Time Lord says, "The round things."
"I love the round things."
"What are the round things?"
"No idea."
The TARDIS console starts to spark once again, the oldest Doctor bouncing up to it, "Oh dear, the friction contrafibulator." He flips a switch, the sparks disappearing, "Ha! There, stabilised."
Suddenly, almost like whiplash, the room around them changes again. The console isn't plain like it was, it has a top with Circular Gallifreyan words carved into it. The floor beneath their feet turns to glass, and railings appear behind them, where beyond you can fall to the lower level. Sophie relaxes her shoulders, hoping that that's the last change that will happen.
Sandshoes looks around at the console room, a deep frown forming on his face, his eyebrows furrowing, "Oh, you've redecorated. I don't like it."
Chinny, who had been looking at him with a yappy smile, morphs his face into a more playful glare, "Oh. Oh yeah? Oh, you never do." He once again bounces up to the console, his hands finding the exact buttons and switches he needs to begin to navigate the time/space machine. "Listen, we're going to the National Gallery. The Zygons are underneath it."
"No," Clara says, jumping up to stand beside him. She claps her hands, "UNIT HQ. They followed us there in the Black Archive." All she gets in return from the rest of the squad are stares of anger mixed with annoyance. "Okay, so you've heard of that, then."
Sophie shakes her head in frustration, "Well this is just bl**dy brilliant! This plan is going about as well as I'd hoped."
***
It takes a little while of the bow tie clad Doctor searching through cubbys, and storage rooms with in the immense ship, but he eventually returns small machine clutches in his arms.
After all three Doctor's crowd around and fiddle with it a little, a voice begins to filter through the dusty speakers, "Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart. I am his daughter."
"Wait...the Brig has a daughter in UNIT? Wow! That feels an important detail to have mentioned, Doc," Sophie says, turning to glance at the oldest Time Lord.
"Shush, I'm making a call," he says, shooting a pointed look. Picking up the old microphone off the machine, he shouts, "Science leads, Kate. Is that what you meant? Is that what your father meant?"
"Doctor?"
"Space-Time Telegraph, Kate. A gift from me to your father, hotline straight to the Tardis."
Quietly, so the mike can't pick up her voice, Sophie mutters to herself, "That makes three. Three people with a direct line. Gotta make a note of that."
The Doctor just plows on, "I know about the Black Archive and I know about the security protocol. Kate, please. Please tell me you are not about to do something unbelievably stupid."
"I'm sorry, Doctor. Switch it off."
The spikey-haired Doctor looks up, rushing his hands through his hair, "Not as sorry as you will be. This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with."
"Kate, we're trying to bring the Tardis in. Why can't we land?" Chinny asks.
"I said, switch it off."
"No, Kate, please. Just listen to me!" he pleads, but receives only static in return. Begrudgingly, he tosses the microphone back onto the console.
Sophie shakes her head, letting her own frustration show as she lightly kicks the console, "Bl**dy UNIT with their stupid, bl**dy TARDIS-proof tower."
"How can they do that?" Clara asks.
"Alien technology plus human stupidity. Trust me, it's unbeatable," the Doctor grouches.
"We don't need to land," the Warrior states, a smile playing on his face.
"Yeah, we do," Pinstripes says, before tilting his head, "A tiny bit. Try and keep up."
"No, we don't," the youngest Time Lord shakes his head vehemently, "We don't. There is another way," he rounds the console, making his way to the clear cube. He nods, pointing at the statistics cube, "Cup-a-soup. What is cup-a-soup?"
"Well, it's this little packet of powder...and you just like, throw that powder into a mug. Then you pour hot water over the powder, like boiling water, and you stir it, and then blam-o, soup," Sophie explains, helpfully.
The Warrior somewhat nods, "I guess I can kind of see the relation to the statis cube."
"No, you can't," Sandshoes says.
"You're right I can't. Now, the only issue is, which painting do we enter?"
"And how do we get to the Tower of London?"
Chinny glances at Clara, "I know the painting, and I'm fairly sure how to."
***
The eldest Time Lord sums up his plan to the squad, and doesn't await feedback. He swings open the TARDIS doors, grabbing the phone off the hook. Quickly dialing a number, it's a few moments before he shouts onto the phone, whilst avoiding being thrown into the vortex, "Take a look at your phone and confirm who you're talking to." There's a brief pause, before he plows on, "You were just talking to me. I know. I'm a time traveller, figure it out. I need you to send the Gallifrey Falls painting to the Black Archive. Understood? "
It's only about four more seconds before he places the phone back on the hook, and hauls himself back inside the ship.
"Okay, so we go to Elizabeth, and put ourselves into the special painting?"
"Yep!" he nods, straightening his bow tie.
***
Sophie suddenly wakes up to a burning Gallifrey, a Dalek aiming a blaster at them. In unison all three Doctors pull out their screwdrivers, blasting the pepper pot backward. It crashes through a sheet of glass, slamming into the floor with a loud bang.
Right behind the reeling Dalek, all three Time Lord's step out, skirting around the wreckage in their wake, "Hello," the War Doctor says, stepping forward.
"I'm the Doctor," Sandshoes follows, stepping forward as well.
"Sorry about the Dalek," the eldest finishes, moving to join his past selves.
Clara and Sophie each pull themselves from the painting, glancing at each other, "Also the showing off."
"It's been a while since they had the chance to be complete bl**dy w*nk*rs," Sophie adds. "Can't stop the dramatics."
"Important moment," Sandshoes says, turning to look at her, "If you don't mind. World to save, all that."
"...sorry."
The eldest Doctor rolls his eyes, turning go glare at the UNIT officials, and the Zygons. "Kate Lethbridge Stewart, what in the name of sanity are you doing?"
The Kate that he wasn't looking at, responds, "The countdown can only be halted at my personal command. There's nothing you can do."
"Except make you both agree to halt it," the pinstripe Doctor states.
"Not even three of you."
"You're about to murder millions of people," the Warrior grumbles.
"To save billions," Kate argues, "How many times have you made that calculation?"
Sophie looks at the three faces of pure pain the Time Lords are showing. She moves over toward Sandshoes, carefully taking his hand in hers. He smiles at her, looking down at the hand, while his older self says, "Once. Turned me into the man I am now. I'm not even sure who that is any more."
"You tell yourself it's justified, but it's a lie. Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong," the Time Lord holding her hand adds.
She glances back at the youngest Doctor, seeing the pain in his eyes. He looks over into seemingly empty space.
"And, because I got it wrong, I'm going to make you get it right," Bow tie finishes.
The two older Doctors grab rolly chairs, moving them up to the table. The sit down in unison, propping their feet up. Sophie hops up, sitting on the opposite end as the two carry on.
"Any second now, you're going to stop that countdown. Both of you, together," Sandshoes smiles, raising his eyebrows.
"Then you're going to negotiate the most perfect treaty of all time,"
"Safeguards all round, completely fair on both sides."
"And the key to perfect negotiation?"
"Not knowing what side you're on."
The duo of Doctor's push themselves back, jumping to their feet. Immediately they each grab their sonics from their pockets
"So, for the next few hours, until we decide to let you out," the older one says, flipping his sonic.
"No one in this room will be able to remember if they're human," Sandshoes adds, flipping his own sonic.
"Or Zygon," the eldest finishes.
They both leap up, standing on the table. The War Doctor grabs his screwdriver as well. Instantaneously, the trio point their sonics at the memory eraser. The machine activates, flaring a bright white light fills the room. As she regains her sight, Sophie sees that the countdown is at seven seconds.
The Kate's look up, and shout in unison, "Cancel the detonation!"
Sophie relaxes the tension in her shoulders, jumping off the table. Walking over to the eldest Doctor, he mutters, "Peace in our time."
"And with five seconds to go," she smiles at him.