AN: Some of the story in this prolog in non-canon, but the part where the Doctor steals the TARDIS, well you get the picture. That actually did happen, except for the diolouge. In the mean time ENJOY!
He was born to prevent the prophecy of the destruction of Gallifrey. But he ended up destroying it. The prophecy foretelling their world ending in fire. To prevent it they created a weapon, a child, later known as the Doctor. The word for Doctor in old Gallifreylian meant, Savior. And what power in that word if the child's name was discovered. The Universe would want to destroy him because of the knowledge of the Universe planted in his head, the lost secrets of the Time Lords. In the end they had failed. Because of their desperate measures to save themselves they ended up creating a parodox. Their own interferance made the Prophecy unfold. But they had another child, who would later be known as The Master. They planted the sound of the drums, the hearbeat of a Time Lord inside his head, so that one day they would find their way out of the darkness of the Time War, if their weapon would fail them. No one would know about the weapon, outside Rassilon's power, and the parents of the child. He started the Academy like any other Gallifreilian at the age of eight. They did not become Time Lords till the looked into the Un-tempered Schism. He was the one that ran away. They did not find him for weeks. Even then they knew he would be trouble. At the Academy he met Koschei. The young Time Lord, nicknamed Theta by his classmates, became a trouble maker. On the other hand, his new found friend, Koschei was reluctant to lag behind. During Theta's early years at the Academy, he was a trouble maker that eventually grew up to be a slacker. Despite the knowledge the Time Lords barried in his head he seemed not interested in learning, though he did not lack intelligence. It was there. Perhaps the young boy acted out because his father had been hardly there his first eight years. The Time Lord Ulysses, was a traveler. He would The memories the boy could remember of his father was of him shouting at his mother. The trouble maker, turned slacker, who eight hundred years later would think how appraised he was by humans and he d idn't deserve it. Because what he was back on his own planet, an outcast, a failure. Everyone else saw him as a hero. He kept up the fake facade for awhile. They didn't know what he really was and he sort of liked it. He slacked of in school in his later years, barley passing his exams. He barley scraped by the 'Process and Concepts of Regeneration" exam. It was a written test every young Time Lord had to take when they turned 119. Perhaps that's why he had no control over what his form looked like, but at least it would always remain humanoid because he always thought of humans during each regeneration. Out of all the exams and tests, he failed one, just one, and it was the big one.
At the age of 120, graduation age you had to pass one more test, learn to fly a TARDIS. Since he never passed he was never allowed to fly one. So he 'borrowed' one. Susan caught him, but swore she'd never tell, if only he allowed her to come with him. And he did. He didn't 'borrow it' because he was bored or fed up with Time Lord ways, (well maybe it had some small part in it.) it was because he had always wanted to explore. His boyish and reckless nature never left him, no matter what face he wore. A Time Lords body ages like a humans does but rather slowly. It takes them over 200 years at least to age. Then from there they keep going till the original body is warn out and the first regeneration is triggered. It is when this happens that a Time Lord gets their second heart. Galifreylians were born with one heart, and died with one heart at the end of their life cycle (a total of thirteen incarnations, put in place by the Time Lord High console.) When he borrowed the old type forty he was old, in his original body.
He left his wife and sons behind. It had been an arranged marriage anyway. So like his father, before him he became a traveler of the Universe. But the only difference was that he interfered. And his sons were already grown up by this time. He was near 300 at the time. Susan was still a child at the age of 87, though she looked 15 in human years. He didn't mean for her to come along. She just happened to follow him. And she shared his interest in traveling the stars.
He thought he was alone.
He was deperate to get away from it all. Being tied down to this planet, with rules and how the Time Lords ran things, he was fed up with them.
"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." The Doctor said, touching the controls and stroking bits of the console.
The TARDIS's lights began to flash as if in response. She had found her Time Lord. He would come into the muesum everyday, just staring. She would wait, wondering when he was going to steal her away, her theif.
The Doctor took the flashing lights as a warning that someone was coming, being un- familiar with TARDIS Lore, that they could form a telepathic bond with a Time Lord. This was their way of 'choosing' their Time Lord.
The TARDIS didn't expect the girl to follow. But her theif was fond of her so it was ok. She wouldn't get used to strangers he brought in, until Sarah-Jane Smith. Even then though she didn't really like it. He payed more attention to the strays rather than to her.
The doors to the TARDIS opened. The Doctor hadn't locked the door behind him.
"Grandfather, what are you doin?" Susan asked when she caught him.
"I'm just borrowing it for awhile."
"Borrowing is the intention of returring the object." Susan looked down at the console. He was already pressing the wrong controls. It was basic level stuff. But her Grandfather was never good at piloting a TARDIS. He had never been allowed. She had heard many stories that he had been a slacker in his school days. And the family and friends that were fond of him anyway said, it' a shame, he doesn't have full potential. Perhaps thats why he was unsually grumpy lately. She was more concerned about him operating the ship.
"It's been a long time since I've been able to handle one of these." The Doctor suddenly had a boyish look about him. Like he'd been caught doing something bad. Maybe it was, considering he was planning to steal from his own people.
"Are you planning on returning it?" asked Susan. They probably would have crashed landed by then. He didn't answer so she asked instead, "Do you know what you're doing?"
"Yes of course, my dear." He looked up at her with that smug look we know all so well in his much later regeneration. "Just one little trip Susan."
"Grandfather, if anyone understands your idea of 'borrowing' you are stealing. Time Lord technology..."
Outdated. The Doctor was thinking. But who would abandoned you? You beatiful thing. His own family didn't even want him. Perhaps maybe only his Granddaughter.
" it says right here.." She pointed to a plague on the console, right under his said, "stealing a Type 40 TARDIS may resault in Exile or face pending Consequences." Susan continued, "I'll have to report you."
"Then stop me." He retorted.
"I won't. Unless you take me with you." Susan said defiantly. Her mind was made up. Never able to fly a TARDIS had to be hard on her Grandfather. Now seeing him around the controls it tore at her heart. He was living his boyhood dream. She couldn't stop him. Where as her parents might have, Susan wouldn't have had the heart to. (AN:Remeber Time Lords only have one heart until after their first regeneration.I don't know if this is true but I think I read it somewhere.)
"You do know what you're asking." The Doctor said. He already considered himself an exhile. "We will never be able to return. If they find us we'll be facing exhile or worse?"
Susan nodded. "I understand Grandfather." she said, looking down at the controls.
And now his Granddaughter was one as well.
Their initial trip was the first time the Doctor actually piloted a TARDIS, and not so well. Susan could fly the TARDIS better than him, and one day River. Though he would get better over the centuries he would still not be able to fly her right or near just as good. The type Forty had it's faults at first, having not been in use. That didn't make the Doctor's piloting any easier.
They landed in 1963. Susan attended school in London. She would never finish her training at the academy. She used that as a liable excuse, saying 'I'd like to join the school here, Grandfather. To make up for my education. It's a nice little school. The inhabitants seem rather nice..."
Her Grandfather instatley protested. "Primitives. Their knowledge is limited. You'll never learn anything useful." He called her by her real name. Sorinakamalena, shortened to Sorina. "When they find something they can't explain, that goes on beyond their limited minds, they go into mass hysteria. If we're found out it'll have those barbarians trying to knock down our door."
" How could you know how they'll react. We'll never know the truth if we don't try." She convinced him. "What better way to observe than to be among the 'Primitives." as you call them, Grandfather."
The girl was more brave than he was. He was still unsure about the Humans despite all the great stories he had heard from his mother when he was a child. Other Time Lords and young Gallifreyians at the academy had not told not so nice stories. Humans were also called not so nice things. They were considered, primitives, pests of the Universe.
Her grandfather gave in. What better way to observe how humans lived than through Susan's eyes?
He shouldn't have let her. Her teachers Ian and Barbara, concerned about her, stumbled upon the TARDIS. The Doctor 'kidnaped' them not because they saw too much, because he was fascinated by them. The reason why he was so hard on them was because he wasn't sure about them still. He had heard many different stories, spanning over two centuries. Two different versions of stories were Humans were limited, violent creatures, of no understanding, and another were Humans were great explorers and intelligent beings, forever building and creating, expanding out to every star.
The Doctor started to doubt the storied his mother had told him. Children stories. Her fantasies of what she hoped humans were like. But that didn't abolish the Doctor's of these apes.
Like he expected they couldn't get their minds around Tridendental Dimentional Space. But the female seemed different, more excepting. That made things troublesome for the Doctor. He would have to do some more observations, learn more about these learn about these creatures, he would have to go back to the stone age, and see how different they were.
As if that was the only troublesome thought in the Doctor's head, the type forty seemed to be having it's faults again. When they traveled to the stone age the TARDIS didn't change like it was supposed too. It remained the iconic shape of a Police box. "It's still a Police Box." The Doctor said, looking a bit peeved as he went around it. "How disturbing." He thought that now but he would become rather quite fond of it.
Meanwhile the Doctor's companion's stayed by the TARDIS while the Doctor went off too do his own exploring.
"How incredible." Ian Chesterton marveled. "A Police Box in the middle of nowhere. It just doesn't make sense."
"It's supposed to change shape." said Susan, matter-of-factly. "I don't know why it hasn't done it this time. The Chameleon Circuit must be faulty."
It stuck like that for a long while. The Doctor became so used to it, he didn't bother to change it. It wasn't like he could fix it anyway, that and he rather liked it how it was.
Susan traveled with him for a long while until The Dalek invasion of Earth. After destroying the Dalek fleet, they arrived in London. The Doctor bid farewell to Susan, who wanted to start a relationship she had fallen in love with.
It was difficult to let her go. She had chosen a human over him. But he had to let her make her own choice. Susan had grown up during their travels.
That's why he doesn't want his companions to grow up. But they always do, finally seeing the reality and want to get on with life. They leave.
The Doctor, Ian, and Barbara left in the TARDIS. And soon they would leave too and so a day went by after Susan left that he didn't think about her. When he regenerated for the first time he stopped thinking about her. He had moved on. He never noticed it then. That he'd always be alone.
It was when Susan had left, that Doctor felt utterly, truly alone for the first time. He never imagined that he'd keep traveling, that it'd bring more heartaches.
He'd keeping picking up more, picking them up and dropping them off, going back for more.
It tried to fill the hole but over time it just got bigger and bigger. He didn't realize it until his tenth life. It took him that long.
The Time War had punched a hole through both his hearts. He didn't think any one could fix it, until Rose came along and proved his wrong.
Still it never went away. Not completely. At times when he was alone it was more present, it was eating away at him. But they kept him going. They always kept him going. Those bright shining companions, bringing starlight in their wake, lighting the path.
Back in those early days, when he was still that grumpy old man trying to be young at the same time, he never imagined this.
He never saw his family, hardly ever in those days. And he regretted it. All of they died, even Susan.
He saw her again before the Time War. He was in his eighth life.
She had three adopted children, David, Ian, and Barbara, and one biological child, Alex. Alex's father had died shortly after Alex had been born.
Alex was 17 in 2190. His other siblings were already grown up and moved out of the house, and had families of their own. The Doctor met Alex by saving him from a Guldreasi and told him of his origins. The Doctor wanted him to have an education on Galifrey as he could fulfill his potential as a Time Lord. But Alex saw Earth as his home.
Six months later Alex and his mother had Christmas dinner in the TARDIS along with the Doctor and his companion Lucie Miller. During the visit the Doctor analyzed Alex's DNA. Only 7% of the Gallifreyian gene constituted his genome, meaning that Alex could never regenerate.
During the Dalek's second attempt to conquer Earth, Alex and Lucie saved the Doctor from being blown up in a Dalek saucer. Alex was later killed by a Dalek while planting a bomb Lucie later died.
It was the first time the Doctor felt the darkness. He expressed the disdain the Laws of Time and questioned weather saving Lucie would adversely affect time. He asked Susan to accompany him so that her presence will serve to curb his dark impulses. She declined. She didn't want anything to do with the Time Lords anymore. No doubt she was grieving for her son. However she did not blame her Grandfather.
But she hoped to see him again one day, but she never did. The war was slowly approaching and the Doctor could feel it in his very bones, his very exitance.
AN: I will be posting One-shots of each Doctor, each month in honor of 50 years of Who and in addition to the Doctor Who: The Doctor's revisited, airing on BBC America, which our friends from over the Pond can't see.
And also I just want to thank the BBC and the writers that helped bring back Doctor Who. It is now ever growing in the US. And without them, the rest of the world wouldn't be able to celebrate the anniversary of this wonderful iconic British Show. Happy Birthday Doctor Who!