The Lasts by Sian
Synopsis: It's time that Susan learned the fate of her home planet.
Characters: The Doctor (Ten), Susan, little bit of Jack.
Episode/Spoilers: Anything up to new series 2, Doomsday
Rating: PG some angst
Notes: See below the story (after all it's Susan, so it's complicated on the canon/fanon front).
Susan got off the bus and hurried home through the rain. As she approached the mansion block, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise, there was something here, something different. She remembered the feeling from long ago, knew what it meant. The street was full of people rushing home from work, she watched them all, looking for the old man, but she couldn't see him. Then her eyes settled on a young man in a long brown overcoat, standing near the entrance to the building.
The Doctor stood with his hands in his pockets, oblivious to the rain that had soaked his hair and was slowly seeping through his overcoat and suit. He'd been there for the last hour, watching people pass by, waiting for her. As soon as the TARDIS had materialised, he'd felt her. Suddenly there was one small sound in the silence that had filled his mind since the war.
Now she was here and he wasn't sure what to do. Had he been right to come? What purpose would telling her serve? She was staring at him now and he was struck by how much she looked like her parents. Memories awakened, old memories that had been pushed to the far corners of his mind. Memories of his son, of his home, the memory of the pain he'd felt when he'd left her here, hundreds of years ago for him, thirteen for her.
Susan stood in the small garden, scared to approach him. Could it really be him or was it another Time Lord? She couldn't believe this man could be her grandfather, he was so young. He was watching her, he looked so nervous that in other circumstances she might have laughed.
He broke the silence, "Hello."
"It's you isn't it?" she asked.
He nodded. "I didn't know if you'd recognise me, I've changed a bit since you last saw me."
"Where have you been?"
The Doctor stifled a laugh. Where had he been? What to say to that? "Traveling."
"Traveling?" Susan asked. "You left me here. I haven't seen you for 13 years, but it's okay because you've been traveling."
"I'm sorry. When I landed and saw there was another Gallifreyan... it had to be you, I had to come and see that you were alright. I'll go."
She stood frozen for a few seconds, watching him start to walk away, before she found her voice. "Wait!"
When he stopped and turned, she crossed the garden and stood in front of him, raising her hand to touch his face, but pulling it quickly away. She studied this new face, the messy hair, the eyes that had seen far too much, that seemed out of place in such a young face.
"I can feel you, in here," she touched her head. "I haven't had that sort of connection with anyone since you left, I'd almost forgotten it, but as soon as I got out here, I could feel you."
The Doctor smiled for the first time. "And me you."
His smile made her relax, made her want to know what had happened to keep him away and to bring him back. "Come inside out of the rain, we can talk."
-+-+-+-+-+
She led him through the entrance to the building, he followed her into the lift and up to her flat. After she let them in, she told him to make himself at home while she got changed. She offered him a towel to dry his hair, a drink of tea, something to eat. She knew she was talking too much, but suddenly she was nervous.
While Susan changed, the Doctor looked around the living room. He studied the paintings, the ornaments, the books and lastly the photographs of people enjoying their lives. He'd often wondered, in the years since he'd left her, whether he'd done the right thing. Should he have taken her from her home and brought her here? Was he right to have left her? Now, as he looked around the room at the snapshots of her life, he knew he'd been right. What kind of a life would she have had on Gallifrey or traveling with him?
He was looking at the photos on the coffee table when Susan returned with two steaming mugs of tea. "Yours?" he asked, indicating a picture of two children playing on a beach.
"My niece and nephew, Amy and Callum."
"Do you have children?" He asked. When she shook her head he studied her for a second. "Soon though," he said and placed the photo back on the table. "Susan..."
When he didn't continue, she prompted, "Grandfather," and then she smiled. "Do you know how strange that sounds. Look at you, you don't look much older than 30. You can't be long into your second life."
"Tenth," he replied. "I've regenerated nine times since I saw you last."
"Nine times." Susan was shocked. While ordinary Gallifreyans had a similar life span to Humans, Time Lords lived over 250 years. "You need to be careful. You've only got three left and I don't imagine the council would grant you another set," she teased.
He smiled sadly. "The Council's gone."
"Gone? All of them?" She asked and he nodded. "How?"
"There was a war," he began, "between the Time Lords and the Daleks. Well, there'd already been several wars between us, but this one was different."
When the silence dragged on, Susan asked, "In what way?"
"No one won. Both sides lost, they both lost everything."
"I don't understand, what do you mean 'everything'?"
"Everything, Susan. The Dalek fleet was destroyed, but it took Gallifrey and the Time Lords with it. They're all gone. The Time Lords, everyone on Gallifrey, the planet. There's only us. The last Time Lord and the last Gallifreyan."
Susan stared at him, trying to take in what he was telling her. Her home planet was gone. She didn't know how to feel about that. She could never have gone back, she knew that, she really did. But a small part of her had always held the hope that he'd come back one day and take her home for a visit.
"How did you survive?"
He shook his head, because in truth he had no idea. "The TARDIS fell through time, landed in the early 20th century in Southampton. I must have been badly hurt because when I came to I'd regenerated." That was possibly the hardest memory of all, waking up from regenerating, blissfully unaware of what had happened and then remembering what he'd done.
"Couldn't others have survived?"
"No, I'd know. Like you knew I was standing outside the building. I used to able to feel all the Time Lords, all our family, I could hear them in my mind, now it's just quiet."
"When was it?"
"In my time, two years ago. I should have come to tell you sooner, but... I couldn't, didn't how to."
Susan nodded her understanding, although really she didn't. "It wasn't your fault," she tried to comfort him.
"Yes it was."
The force of his reply shocked her. "How?"
He let go of her hand and walked across the room, stood staring blindly out of the window, for a moment lost in the memories he'd fought to hide for the last two years. He was pulled back to the present when he felt her standing behind him.
"How?" she asked again, more gently this time.
"We were loosing, were about to be invaded. I couldn't let Daleks have the power of the Time Lords, they'd have destroyed everyone and everything." He turned to face her. "So I pushed the button that wiped an entire civilisation from the timeline."
"Did you know that would happen?"
"I knew it was a possibility."
"Did you think that you'd die too?"
"Yes."
Susan shivered at the hopelessness in his voice when he spoke that single word. "It must have been your only choice."
The Doctor's expression was sad, more than sad. "Such faith," he whispered.
"You're my grandfather. I wouldn't be alive now if you hadn't taken me from Gallifrey. They would have destroyed us both."
'And instead I destroyed them.' The words were left unsaid, but they both understood. Him taking her from Gallifrey, stealing the TARDIS, had been the beginning of a chain of events that had led to the destruction of their home planet.
"You saved me," she repeated. "You did what they drove you to." She watched him, saw the pain he was trying very hard to hide. "Stay and have something to eat. Tell me where you've been for the last 13 years. In fact tell how long it's been really," she smiled.
As they'd cooked and eaten dinner, he'd shared some of his adventures, the fun ones, with her. He even told her about some of his companions, but he didn't mention Rose, nor did he mention the Time War again. Once they'd washed the dishes and drank their coffee, he collected his coat and went to leave.
"Are you happy?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied truthfully. "It was the right decision to stay here. What about you?"
"I'm fine."
"Are you happy?"
"I have the whole of time and space at my fingertips, who wouldn't be happy with that?"
"A Time Lord who didn't want to be a Time Lord," she suggested.
He grinned at her insight and then looked serious. "I'm happy. I have a beautiful grand-daughter and the finest ship in the universe."
"Will you come back?"
"Yes. I promise."
"You've promised before."
"But this time I mean it. No more false promises, it seems people take them seriously."
"Then I'll see you again soon, grandfather." She reached up and hugged him.
-+-+-+-+-+-+
The Doctor let himself into the TARDIS, threw his coat over the rail and went to check the console. 'Yes,' he nodded to himself, 'this time he'd definitely be back.'
"How'd it go?" a voice asked from under the console.
"What are you doing down there?"
"Fiddling," Jack replied. "How'd it go?" he asked again.
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"Will you get out of there, it makes me nervous when people fiddle with my ship."
Jack climbed out the hatch and gave the Doctor a quizzical look. "So, was I right?"
"This is going to kill me," The Doctor muttered. "Yes, you were right. It was a good idea. She had the right to know."
"See, I have my uses."
"Not really," The Doctor only half joked.
Jack ignored him. "What I don't understand is why you chose now. Why not a year or two after you left her? Surely that would have better for her."
"She might have wanted to come with me and she's safer here. Now she's happily married and doesn't want to go anywhere."
That made sense to Jack. He knew better than to ask how she's taken the news about Gallifrey and her people though. He'd been worried the whole time the Doctor was gone that this would turn out to be a really bad idea. But when he'd been searching time for the Doctor (partly to hit him for abandoning him behind, but mainly because he needed the Doctor's help), he'd found another Gallifreyan when he thought none existed, and she'd been on Earth. He'd expected the Doctor to be shocked when he told him, but he was the one who ended up shocked when the Doctor said who Susan was.
"Have you finished your fiddling?" The Doctor asked.
"Yep and I know where we need to go."
The Doctor took the co-ordinates from him. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes, I have to know what happened to me."
"And you know you can't do anything."
"I was a Time Agent, I know the rules."
"And you broke them," the Doctor reminded him. "These are my rules. Under no circumstances, no circumstances, do you mess with your own timeline."
"I know," Jack agreed. "I promise. I just need to see, I don't want to change anything. I need to know."
The Doctor wasn't entirely happy taking Jack to find his missing years, but he had abandoned him on the Game Station and owed him for that, so he entered the co-ordinates and activated the time rotor.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Susan watched the TARDIS fade away before she turned and walked slowly home. He had promised to return, and she didn't doubt he meant it, it was just that he had a lousy sense of time. He may intend returning in a few months, but she was well aware it could be another 13 years.
When she got home, her husband was already there. She told him she'd been to get some milk, offered to make him some dinner, but he'd already eaten.
"Then let's go to the pub," she suggested.
"On a Wednesday?" he asked in mock surprise. "Are we celebrating something?"
"Being here together on this wet Wednesday in June."
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Yeah. I just heard that someone I thought was lost has turned up safe and well."
"Well in that case I'll get my coat. But soft drinks for you," he reminded her.
"Yes, yes, I know." She patted her stomach and wondered why she hadn't told her grandfather the news. Though she suspected he already knew, maybe that would give him a reason to come back.
END
Notes:
There's a lot of speculation and disagreement about Susan. This is the route I chose for this fic...
I've gone down the 'she's his grand-daughter' route (obviously).
The Doctor took her from Gallifrey when she was around 15, probably to save her.
As there's no canon to indicate that Susan is a Time Lord, I made her an ordinary Gallifreyan.