"Your honor," Morgan said, forming his opening remarks with care, "I do not deny that my client did indeed violate Section B of the First Law of Time. I am aware of the physical dangers which such a meeting can cause, and about the breakdown of causality in the space/time continuum.

"However, I am determined to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt not only that there are precedents for these situations, but also that the circumstances of the meeting were extenuating, that they were way beyond my client's control, and that my client's character and charitable record of helping others speak for themselves, louder than any words ever could."

Then Morgan allowed himself a smile as he played a card that he was particularly proud of. "I'm sure your honor knows that people have a hard time being objective, and that sometimes memory may be faulty," he said. "Therefore, I'd like the court to hear, first of all, from the most objective member of Eden Advance, one who has a perfect memory. The defense calls to the witness stand the robot known as Zero."

The judge was surprised. Zero duly stood up and started his way forward.

"Objection, your honor," Andred said, standing up. "A robot is nothing more than a recorder with a voice which can be programmed to say anything at all. As a witness, it's hardly reliable for anything. This particular robot wasn't even created for anything other than manual labor."

"A robot that's capable of lying is no different than a person who's capable of lying!" Morgan argued.

"Oh?" Andred asked. "And the oath the witness takes will mean something to it, will it?"

The judge held up her hand. "I'm going to sustain this objection," she said, and Morgan's face fell. "I don't feel it would be necessary to hear from a robot unless all 15 remaining witnesses cannot remember accurate information themselves, in which case they should not have been called as witnesses in the first place. Mr. Martin, to establish character references, you need to call witnesses who know what a character is, and who can define it, and who can explain it. Is this robot capable of that?"

Morgan looked mournfully at Zero. "No, your honor," he said, realizing that she had a point. "This robot could give us facts, but it would not be able to define character."

"And are the other witnesses capable of giving us facts, as well?" the judge asked.

"Yes."

"Then let us hear from them. Objection sustained."

Morgan jerked his head. "All right, Zero, get back to your seat."

Zero just looked from Morgan to the judge, then back to Morgan. Slowly, he turned and trudged back to his seat, more slowly than when he had approached.

No one noticed.

Morgan approached Andred and leaned down to whisper in his ear, trying to make it look as if he was addressing a legal matter between them. The courtroom was silent, and even the judge raised her eyebrow, wondering what they could be discussing.

"I thought the idea was to drag the trial out for as long as possible," Morgan whispered.

"I have to give the appearance of opposing you, which means objecting to everything you do!" Andred hissed back. "It's not my fault the old witch actually agrees with me!"

Morgan nodded, as if they had just cleared up a legal technicality between them, and addressed the judge again. "Very well," he said. "Then I call the Doctor as my first witness."

Morgan had been surprised to find that, unlike Earth, Gallifrey had a law which protected a person from being a witness in their own trial. It was a law similar to ones in many countries on old Earth, before the Council had come to power. Morgan was unfamiliar with such a law, never having worked with it before, and he was gambling that waiving it would show that they had nothing to hide. Especially since they really didn't.

The Doctor took the oath and sat down.

"Doctor, do you recall the incident about which you are currently charged?" he asked.

"Reasonably well," the Doctor answered. "My mind-link with Mr. Danziger helped quite a bit. Following that, I put myself into a trance during the night I spent in my cell. As a human, Mr. Martin, you may be unaware that the different regenerations of a Time Lord are distinct personalities which never really go away. They're like strata of geologic history. They're still there, hidden beneath the surface, lying dormant. While I was in my trance, I held a mental conference with my earlier incarnations, and I relived the events in question from the points of view of my first and fourth selves."

His role as attorney momentarily forgotten, Morgan just stared. "You can talk to your previous selves?" he asked.

"In a way," the Doctor answered. "I spoke with the personalities I once was. Imagine if someone hypnotized you and regressed you back to childhood, but kept you as an adult at the same time, allowing you to talk to the self you once were. That's the closest equivalent I can come to describing the process."

"I see," Morgan said. "And will you please relate to the court your experience of the incident?"

"Both times?"

"Um...yes," Morgan said. "Both times."

The Doctor proceeded to tell the court about landing on G889 thousands of years previously, with his granddaughter Susan and his companions Ian and Barbara. The court listened with rapt attention as he spoke about a species suffering the growing pains of an evolutionary change, and how he was almost killed by a Terrian who wanted to sacrifice him in a misguided attempt to free his people from pain and anger. Reilly, in particular, was paying close attention to every word.

The Doctor then told how he arrived on G889 again in his fourth incarnation, and how he and Romana had helped the Edenites bring the colonists' ship down safely and catch a saboteur. He told them about the Terrian who had led him onto the dream plane, allowing him to meet his previous self face to face, and to save his own life by turning the energy of the planet back onto the murderous Terrian. He also told them how the Terrians had foretold that he would one day be called "Time's Champion," being able to look into his own personal history, giving a prophesy which had eventually come true.

Morgan was surprised to find that he was able to keep up with the time travel paradoxes involved. "So," he said, "you experienced the same incident in time twice. Each time, it left you with amnesia. Furthermore, even if you had remembered meeting yourself, you had no idea when the Terrian showed up in New Pacifica that you were about to meet yourself again, because the Terrian did not tell you anything about where it was going to take you on the dream plane. Is that correct?"

"Absolutely," the Doctor said.

Morgan nodded, making sure that the judge was catching every word. "Doctor, could you explain briefly the dangers of using time travel to come into contact with yourself?"

"Yes. The most obvious danger is that it creates a paradox, or it might alter an event that hasn't yet hardened in the web of time. The earlier version of myself might acquire some knowledge which he shouldn't have. Also, the time vortex experiences stress whenever a time-traveler's stream crosses itself, due to the biodata buildup."

If Morgan didn't understand of word of what the Doctor was talking about, he didn't let on. "Yet you mentioned earlier that you spoke with your previous selves within your own subconscious," he said. "Isn't that a form of time travel?"

"No," the Doctor shook his head. "I wasn't literally talking to my past selves. Just the personalities still within me."

"But it's still a metaphysical meeting, rather than a physical one?"

"Yes."

"And the dream plane is a metaphysical plane also?"

"Yes."

"So, if you crossed your time stream on the dream plane rather than in the physical world, doesn't that mean that the dangers you listed don't apply? After all, there's no longer a time vortex to get all worried about, and the amnesia you experienced negates any future knowledge you might have picked up. In other words – " Morgan turned around dramatically and spread his arms wide " – where is the harm in what you did?"

"Well, the dream plane partially exists within the time vortex," the Doctor explained. "If time travel of any sort is allowed on the dream plane, then that has to be so. There's no way around it. Therefore, the time vortex can still be endangered by the crossing of one's own time stream while on the dream plane."

Unseen by anyone, Devon glanced at Uly and bit her lip.

"Also, the fact that I experienced amnesia doesn't mean the amnesia wouldn't wear off one day, as it eventually did. Meeting myself on the dream plane still posed a threat in the ways that I described."

"Oh," Morgan said. He was at a loss for words. Couldn't the Doctor see that he was trying to help him?

"Of course," the Doctor added, "that still doesn't mean that this trial isn't a farce and the Castellan's charges aren't a load of banana rot."

Uly and True burst out giggling, Savil coughed loudly to cover something, and the judge banged her gavel.

"Doctor, I have less patience now than I did during your last trial," she said. "I will not tolerate behavior like that in this court."

The Doctor nodded, still stifling his grin.

"Well, let me pursue this point a little further," Morgan said. "Despite all this talk of harm to the space/time continuum when crossing your own time stream, haven't you crossed your own path several times before?" Morgan casually turned to face the judge, as if he was just pacing, to make sure she caught his next sentence. "With the approval of the High Council of Time Lords?"

"There have been two other instances in which I crossed my own time stream," the Doctor said. "In neither of them was I willing or eager, and they were either sanctioned or excused by the High Council without any fuss whatsoever."

The Doctor silently crossed his fingers. There were actually a few other instances when he'd met his other selves that the Time Lords still didn't know about.

He continued, saying, "I should also point out that even if I had known where the Terrian was going to take me, I would have gone anyway to prevent a paradox."

"Exactly the point I was about to bring up next," Morgan agreed. "You are not the one who initiated the meeting between your selves, are you?"

"No, I'm not. The Terrians did."

"And once the meeting took place from the point of view of your first self, it was always destined to take place from the point of view of your fourth self, isn't that right?" Morgan asked.

"You're absolutely correct," the Doctor replied. "I couldn't have stopped it from happening without creating a paradox."

"So," Morgan said, summing up triumphantly. "You didn't ask for the meeting to happen. You didn't want the meeting to happen. Neither time did you even know that it was about to happen. You didn't cause the meeting. Even if you had known about the meeting, you would have had to go anyway to prevent a paradox. And on top of all that, there is a precedent of a Time Lord – you, in particular – crossing your own time stream with the approval of the High Council. Is all of that perfectly true?"

"Perfectly."

"Then I don't know what all the fuss is about," Morgan said. He spun lightly on his heel and walked briskly back to his seat. "Your witness," he told Andred.

Andred approached the Doctor, strolling slowly, as if thinking how to form his questions.

"Mr. Martin's entire line of questioning centered around two basic points," he finally said. "The first being that the meeting was not your fault, the second being that this meeting should be excused because other meetings have happened before with the High Council's 'approval.'

"Let's tackle the second point first. Doctor, when was the first time you crossed your own time stream?"

"The incident involving Omega," the Doctor said, causing several gasps around the courtroom.

Savil looked around him at all the shocked faces. I guess it's not a state secret any more, he thought.

The Doctor said, "While in my third incarnation, the Time Lords, of their own volition, sent my two previous selves to assist me on Earth, and later inside the black hole."

"So it was a do-or-die situation for the universe, is that right?" Andred asked.

"Yes, it was."

"Well, there's nothing about that which resembles the situation on G889," Andred said smoothly. "Moving on, please tell us about the second time you crossed your own time stream."

"That was the affair involving President Borusa," the Doctor said. "While I was in my fifth incarnation, he used the forbidden time scoop to collect my four previous selves and sent us all into the reactivated Death Zone together. That was another meeting I did not ask for, and it was excused by the High Council."

"Yes, after you were appointed President and immediately abdicated the post," Andred replied.

"Objection, your honor," Morgan said. "That last remark was not relevant."

"And I do withdraw it," Andred said without breaking stride. "I just wanted to establish that the previous incidents which Mr. Martin brought up do not relate in any way to the current charge against the Doctor, and therefore they have no relevance."

"Thank you for clarifying that, Castellan," the judge said. "However, in the end, the relevance will be for me to decide. Mr. Martin does have a point that if previous incidents were excused, then that may set a precedent of some kind."

"Yes, your honor," Andred said. "Now I wish to address the first point Mr. Martin made. Doctor, you are well known for interfering, and for getting involved, and many people are of the opinion that wherever you go, others get hurt. And when anyone travels in time and space as much as you do, the chances become increasingly higher that an incident like this will happen.

"In other words, if you continue to take risks and to live dangerously, do you really have any right to say that it's not your fault when a law this important is broken? Do you?"

"Perhaps not," the Doctor said amiably. "All of life is a risk, Castellan."

"But you seek to excuse yourself from the consequences!" Andred shot back. "Tell me, if you were to go out and accidentally kill someone while testing some new machine, should you be excused just because you didn't mean it? It wasn't what you meant to do, it was an accident, so sorry, we should just allow it to pass unmentioned! Is that it?"

"I wouldn't expect that at all," the Doctor said. "But I like to live by the maxim, 'No harm, no foul.' It's much more practical. And if I continue to use your own analogy, it's not a case of killing someone, it's a case of a near-miss in a bad situation that could have been much worse. Lives were saved, Castellan. Not taken."

"By luck, apparently," Andred said. "The fact is, crossing your own time stream could have damaged the space/time continuum. What's going to happen next time? Are there other instances of crossing your own time stream that we don't know about? Rassilon didn't create that law because he was bored one day! He created it to protect causality, and the integrity of the vortex, the energy which binds this universe together. An integrity you endanger just by being out there, charging around the cosmos recklessly, selfishly, and without any consideration for the consequences!"

Andred was really hitting his stride now, and many Time Lords in the courtroom were nodding in agreement. "You can't possibly sit up there on that witness stand, look me in the eye, and tell me that you're not responsible, that it's not your fault. Your propensity for involvement has brought trouble to Gallifrey, and is a breeding ground for problems of causality, and you create a bad name for the Time Lords wherever you go!"

"My involvement," the Doctor said, his eyes suddenly as hard as steel. "My involvement? Is that the only way you can put it?" He leaned forward and addressed the courtroom at large, the dignified Time Lords of rank assembled in the seats before him, most of them hoping for his head on a platter. "I'm surprised the Time Lords know the meaning of the word."

Suddenly, the Doctor's voice thundered.

"How many people have suffered because we as a people did nothing?" he shouted, and the accusation echoed off the high ceiling of the courtroom, and off the stunned faces of the judge and everyone attending the trial.

"Where were you when the Daleks began their campaign of terror at the galactic rim and began sweeping towards the galactic center?" he asked. "Where were you when the Kaligarian refugees tried to escape their planet from the conquering hordes of the Sontarans, only to be picked off, robbed and raped by the Simperion Pirates of the third cluster as they tried to make their way to safety?" The Doctor slowly rose to his feet, no longer aware of what he was doing, the words spilling out of him. They cascaded from him in a waterfall of emotions a thousand years in the making.

"Where were you when the ice winds of Vega IX swept away entire cities due to orbital shifts in their planet, orbital shifts that you knew about? Where were you when the Nazi concentration camps formed on Earth and millions of people were wiped out just for being different? Where were you when the Great Blight hit the Outer Galaxies, and no one knew to send any help because the governments panicked and blacked out communication to sustain the quarantine?"

The Doctor took a deep breath and belted out three words as loud as he could.

"WHERE – WERE – YOU?"

A stunned silence greeted his eyes, as the last word echoed around the chamber, away.

Gone.

"How dare you," the Doctor whispered, and it was a whisper that carried far and clear into the hearts of every person present. "How dare you put me on trial for an accidental meeting between two of my selves which never hurt anyone. I should be putting all of you on trial. I should bring here every person who has been forced to flee their home in the face of an advancing invader, while you stood by and simply recorded the invasion for your archives, and let those people judge you."

As Devon watched, spellbound, she could only think of two words: Time's Champion. It really was him. She closed her eyes briefly, thankful that the Doctor was their friend and not their enemy.

"You asked me earlier if I can take the consequences of my actions," the Doctor continued, still whispering to a room that was deathly silent. "I tell you that I can. And I do. Every single day of my life, I take the consequences of all my actions, here in my gut, and I live with them. What I don't understand is how the rest of you can live with the consequences of your inactions!"

The Doctor sat back down, his contempt for his fellow Time Lords written on his face for everyone to see.

Andred took a deep breath. "No further questions, your honor," he said, and sat down.

As he did so, he glanced at his wrist monitor again. The chart was holding at 19 percent, still nothing found.

Devon looked around her at the courtroom full of Time Lords now whispering and muttering to themselves, looking with unease at the Doctor on the witness stand, and she realized that his words hadn't touched them at all. They were stunned, puzzled, but completely unmoved. They simply considered the Doctor some form of crackpot, an embarrassment, a wild strain to be silenced.

She knew then beyond a shadow of a doubt why the Doctor had left Gallifrey.

And she couldn't help but feel, as she looked around her, that she saw a lot of similarities between this world and the one she'd left behind on the stations. It was something the Doctor had been trying to tell her yesterday, but she was only now beginning to understand what he'd meant.

"Does the defense have any rebuttal questions for the witness?" the judge asked, and Morgan shook his head.

"Doctor, you may be excused," the judge said. Still fuming, the Doctor left the witness stand and sat beside Morgan.

"You may proceed, Mr. Martin," the judge nodded to him.

"Your honor," Morgan said, standing up, "all of my remaining witnesses are here as character witnesses on behalf of the Doctor. I would like to call as my first witness Dr. Julia Heller of Eden Project, planet G889."

He turned to look at Julia. She let out a slow breath, stood up, and approached the witness stand.