"I don't want to go." ~Ten
"I don't want you to go, either. You need more adventures. Here, let me fix that for you." ~Me
(Set after "The Next Doctor")
The Doctor's Treasure
Chapter 1
The Beginning
The Doctor ran close behind Martha down an unfamiliar corridor within Torchwood, following a high, keening wail.
"What is it? What's happened?"
Martha glanced at him and seemed to be considering what to say. "So, the mind of a Time Lord receives more information than the mind of a human, right?"
The Doctor wasn't entirely sure where the question was leading, but he was very sure he didn't like it. "Yes. Much more."
"I thought so." Then, to herself, "Her mind must be drowning in information."
He frowned as he followed her into a pristine laboratory. "Whose mind?"
Martha nodded toward a hospital bed tucked into the far corner. "Hers."
A girl in her late teens or early twenties sat on the bed, holding her head and rocking. The wailing they'd been following was coming from her.
The Doctor rushed over. "You put a Time Lord mind into a human?!" He had a sudden, horrible flashback to Donna.
"No. Well, not exactly." As the Doctor's fingers touched the girl's temple and her eyes locked on his he heard Martha say, "She's not human anymore."
He closed his eyes, the better to see within, and found that this was indeed a Time Lord mind, but not fully formed. It lacked critical infrastructure and was resting on a core of human intelligence. The girl's human-based mind did not possess, or could not access, the tools necessary to cope with the onslaught of new information.
Gently, the girl's heartbeat a double cadence in the background, the Doctor began to guide her mind. 'Here,' he told her, 'use this to handle that. Put this information here. And that can go there,' and so on, helping her sort new sensations and process new data. When he was done, he withdrew and found the girl staring at him, wide-eyed but calmer.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"I'm the Doctor, and I'm going to take care of you. Trust me."
She nodded shakily.
"Good. Now sit tight while I get this sorted." He stood and turned to his erstwhile companion. "Talk to me, Martha."
He listened quietly as she told of the Torchwood experiments using DNA collected secretly from Harold Saxon, infused into critically injured girls they'd surreptitiously collected from accident scenes, trying to create a Time Lord. They'd failed repeatedly, but refined the process each time until, finally, the regeneration process had triggered for one test subject.
"Why would you do that?" the Doctor demanded.
"It was for you, Doctor! Everyone who has traveled with you has left. We wanted you to have someone who could… y'know, stay. Maybe."
"And did she consent to all of this?"
"She was dying! We saved her!"
The Doctor glanced it the girl, who was watching the exchange closely. "I want to go home."
He turned back to Martha. "Her family?"
She handed him a newspaper clipping which featured a picture of a girl superimposed on a photo of a car crumpled against a tree. "They believe she's dead."
"Why would they believe that if her body wasn't there?"
"There was a body, just not hers. We substituted a body that we had… on hand." She addressed the girl. "I'm sorry, but you can't go home."
"But why? I could go to them and explain! Tell them it was a mistake!"
Martha shook her head, went over to a cabinet, and pulled out a mirror. She handed it to the girl, who took it cautiously. She looked and gasped at her reflection, and then gingerly touched her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. Her hair was shorter and wavier than the girl's in the newspaper photo, her eyes dark rather than light. Her lips trembled and tears welled up. "What have you done to me?" she choked. "This isn't my face." She looked at them in bewilderment. Her voice shook. "What have you done to me?"
"No. No, no, no, no," the Doctor murmured as he gathered her gently in his arms. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He rocked her gently as she sobbed.
Martha watched them sadly for a moment, and then quietly left.
They sat like that for a time, until the girl's sobs quieted into sniffles. The Doctor offered her a handkerchief and asked, "What's your name?"
She took a moment to blow her nose before answering, stuffily, "Giselle. Giselle Chandler."
"Giselle." he repeated. "That's beautiful."
She smiled, just a little. '"I always hated it." She sniffed, then sighed. "I guess I can't say it's mine any more, though, can I? Giselle Chandler is… dead." The last word was barely a whisper.
He considered that for a heartbeat before answering, "Well, it is true that the human you were on the outside is dead, but you, the person inside, are still very much alive."
"She said I'm not human anymore."
"No. You're a Time Lord. Well, Time Lady, I suppose, if you prefer."
"You mean, like an alien?"
He nodded. "Well, not from my perspective, but yes, basically."
"And this whole… having a new face thing is normal?"
"Yeah. You get used to it."
She shook her head. "O… kay. So, what does a Time… Person do?"
"Well, I travel, mainly."
"What, in a spaceship?"
He grinned. "Yep."
She pondered this new information. "This all feels like a dream. I'm not going to wake up, though, am I?"
"I'm sorry, no."
She nodded, then asked, abruptly, "Is your name really just 'Doctor'?"
"No. That's the name I chose. Time Lords keep their true names secret." He considered her. "I suppose you'll need to choose a name, too."
She blinked, surprised. "I'll have to think about it."
She sat quietly for a few minutes, shell-shocked, trying to reconcile her new reality. He kept an arm around her and let her think things through.
After a while she asked, "Can I see your spaceship?"
"Absolutely." He held out his hand and she took it. He led her back down the corridors until they reached the police box.
"Here she is. My TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space," he announced with pride.
She stared. "You're kidding."
"Oh, you've just got to give her a chance." He opened the door and invited her in with a flourish.
She stepped over the threshold. Then she stepped back out. She walked around one side of the box, then the other. She came back to the door.
He grinned. "Well, what do you think?"
"How is that possible?"
"What?" he asked innocently.
"It's bigger on the inside."
"There it is!"
Her eyes shifted to him. "You're enjoying this!" she accused.
"Every second! One of my favorite things, actually. Look around, if you like."
She went inside and started exploring in earnest. "You can go anywhere in the universe in this?"
"Yep. And time," he added nonchalantly.
Her mouth fell open. "It's a time machine, too?"
He nodded.
"Get out!" Her next question was uncertain. "And you would let me travel with you?"
"I think I would rather enjoy it, actually. Gets lonely all by myself."
"You don't travel with anyone? No other Time Lords or anything?" She eyed him suspiciously. "You're not some sort of psychopath, are you?"
"I guess that depends on who you ask." He took a sudden interest in a spot on one of the struts. "I don't travel with other Time Lords because there aren't any more."
"What, you're the only one?"
He nodded.
"I'm sorry." She ran a hand thoughtfully along the edge of the console. Her brow furrowed. "Hang on. They didn't change me into a Time Lord just so you and I could make little Time… Babies or something, did they?"
"What? No! No, no, no! Absolutely not. Just… no."
"Oh. Well, alright, then."
"There's one more thing," he added. "Your mind still isn't completely stable. I've addressed most of the major issues, but there's still some fine-tuning needed. Since I'm the only one who can do that, you'll need to stay with me for at least a little while."
To his surprise, she laughed. "I guess that narrows down my options then, doesn't it?"
He couldn't help but smile back. "I suppose it does."
The next day, the Doctor found himself inextricably in the company of Captain Harkness, Martha having taken the girl on a shopping trip. He liked Jack well enough, but by the time the girls returned, he was ready to throttle the man. He was never so glad to see the invisible lift activate.
The girls were laughing as they came down, Martha evidently in the middle of a story. "... and then. I swear to God, he described it as a 'big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-winey stuff'!" and her laughter pealed out into the lab.
The girl laughed with her, then quieted, thinking. "Hang on." She looked at Martha, wide-eyed. "He was talking about a time sphere!"
Martha's laughter trailed off. "A what?"
"A time sphere!" she repeated with growing enthusiasm. "See, we refer to time as the fourth dimension, but it's really only one-dimensional. Well, not even, since we can move only one way on a timeline. But theoretically, if you added a second time dimension, you could have a plane of time. And if you added a third, you could have a sphere of time. So the Doctor, or at least his ship, could be accessing two extra dimensions of time." She grinned, eyes sparkling. "That's so cool!"
"How do you know all that?"
The girl shrugged. "I like to read."
The Doctor's voice made her jump. "Oh, I like you!"
She cocked her head at him. "Well, one would hope," she teased.
"Nice shoes, by the way."
She glanced down at her new pink Chucks. "Thanks. They're what all the Time Lords are wearing nowadays."
He grinned at her. "Quite right!" He took the myriad of shopping bags from them and sketched a bow. "Shall I show you to your room, my good Lady?"
She returned a curtsy, incongruous with her jeans and t-shirt. "That would be lovely, kind sir." She took his proffered elbow and the two of them left together, for all the world like a proper Lord and Lady.
Jack and Martha were left staring after them, open-mouthed.
Martha spoke first. "Oh, he's in so much trouble."
Jack just shook his head. "That, or all the rest of us are."
Their eyes met and they burst out laughing.
A few days later, they stood on a rise of land, in the shadow of a clump of trees, overlooking the funeral. They watched as the casket, all blush and silver, was lowered into the ground. The minister's voice was only a drone of sound from their position. The attendees stood solemnly, the men stoic, the women weeping.
The Doctor glanced at the girl beside him. She had his handkerchief pressed tightly against her lips. Tears streamed down her face. He laid a gentle arm around her shoulders before turning his attention back to the scene below. "They loved you."
Her reply was little more than a shaky exhale. "Yeah."
They matched the rest of the service in silence. Her parents were the last to leave, her mother leaning, sobbing, against her father, he supporting her while silently weeping himself.
"I love you Mum," the girl whispered. "I love you, Daddy." Her quiet words made his hearts try to break themselves to pieces. His grip on her tightened as she began to sob.
She cried for quite a while and he let her, standing quietly and occasionally rubbing her shoulder. Slowly, her tears subsided. She asked him a little shakily, "Can I come back and see them sometimes? I mean," she added quickly, "not to talk to them or anything. Just, y'know, see how they're doing?"
"Of course. Any time you like." He nodded toward the fresh grave. "So, Giselle Chandler has been laid to rest. Any thoughts on a new name?"
"No. All my ideas are either really lame or sound incredibly pretentious. It may take a while to find the right one."
He nodded. "Sometimes it does."
She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, took a deep breath and said, "Okay. I'm ready."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
He looked doubtful. "Because we can wait longer if you think you need to."
She gave him an appraising look. "Listen," she reassured him. "I've lost a lot. My life, my family, my humanity are all gone. I can't say that I'm over it, but I've thought about it. I realized that, regardless of what Torchwood did, I was dead. And I've decided that, if Martha and Jack and the others had given me a choice," she looked him straight in the eye. "I would've chosen this."
"Really?"
She gave him a wry smile. "Beats being dead."
He nodded. "Valid point."
"Besides, there's just too many memories here. If I stay, I think I'll go mad."
"I know that feeling," he said quietly, then, "So where do you want to go?"
"You're leaving it up to me?"
"Yep. Anywhere you want. Anywhen you want."
She looked thoroughly overwhelmed. "Wow. I'll have to think about it."
Back at Torchwood, they met with Jack and Martha at the TARDIS to say their goodbyes. Martha declined the Doctor's offer to go with them, and the Doctor declined Jack's request to join them. There were hugs all around, then the Doctor and his new companion boarded.
Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor asked, "So where are we headed?"
"You know, I've always loved the ocean."
He grinned. "Oh, I know just the place."
She watched in fascination as he circled the console, turning knobs and flipping switches.
"The planet Aqu'ul," he announced. "Home of the Ceph. It's a completely ocean world - no land masses at all." His eyes sparkled with excitement. "You're gonna love it!"
He pulled the last lever, sending the TARDIS on its way with a jolt.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I sincerely hope I've done the Doctor and Co. justice. I didn't have anyone to proofread for me, so please let me know if there are any spelling or grammar errors or gaping plot holes I've missed. Thanks!