Title: Daughter of Time
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel
Story Summary: The Doctor wasn't ever expecting an Eternal to present him with a small child she said was his granddaughter, particularly since he'd never had children.
Setting: Follows canon, more or less, apart from series four of New Who. Takes place before the very first Old Who episode ever.
Author notes:
*smiles mischievously* This is set in the same universe as one of my other stories. It occurs both well before, and well after, that fic – time is so subjective.
The idea for this first came to me in October last year, but the idea of the Time Stamp Meme prompted me to actually write it, even if no one had asked for it. I like the idea too much. References Old Who, but I think they're written so that even people unfamiliar with the concepts can understand okay.
DAUGHTER OF TIME
When he was two and a half centuries old, the Doctor was called for a personal audience with the President of Gallifrey.
Feeling rather nervous, and aware of some trepidation – it could only be for a matter of immense importance that he would be called to audience with the President, even if he had no idea why – he followed the members of the Presidential Guard into the chamber.
"My lady –" the President was saying placatingly but with, the Doctor noted immediately, a certain amount of pompous condescension in his tone.
The woman with the glowing gold eyes and streaming hair interrupted him.
"I'm not going anywhere til I know it's all alright," she snapped. "There's nothing you can do about it, so you should stop bugging me. Do I need to get Rassilon in here to tell you I mean it?"
"Er –"
"The Doctor, Lord President," the guards announced fortuitously. The President looked around, faintly relieved even through his carefully-maintained composure. The Eternal – for the Doctor had studied enough about them to know one when he sensed them – turned as well.
Burning fire looked into his soul. The Doctor tried not to wince as the energy of the Vortex met his gaze.
She smiled.
"Doctor."
"We have been graced with the presence of the Flower of Time," the President said officiously. "She requested your presence specifically, young man."
The Doctor's eyes widened in shock in recognition at that name. According to ancient lore, the Flower of Time was the Eternal above all Eternals, with a true power over all of space and time. Uniquely, she never personally involved herself with the timelines
…except that she was here.
To talk to him.
He met the burning gaze again, hearts clenching with barely-controlled terror.
To his surprise she gave him the kindest, most gentle smile he'd ever seen.
"Don't worry, I don't bite." She spoke with warm, fond amusement and a touch of sympathy. "It's just it involves you, is all. You're so young, too." She smiled wistfully.
The Doctor swallowed.
"My lady?"
But she turned away from him, frowning.
"Susan?" Her tone turned stern. "Susan Foreman, get out here now!"
She was staring at the President's chair. The Doctor found that he and everyone else was staring at it too.
A small, big-eyed face framed by messy dark hair peered around the side of the chair in alarm.
The Eternal continued to frown.
The little girl hastily clambered out from behind the chair and stood guiltily, one finger in her mouth. She was very young, no more than five or six years old. She stared at the Flower of Time apprehensively.
But the Eternal smiled reassuringly.
"It's alright, Susan. Come on, come to your grandmother."
The little girl ran across the room to take the outstretched hand while the jaws of everyone else in the room dropped.
The Flower of Time turned to the Doctor, smiling apologetically.
"This is Susan. I'm sorry to foist the responsibility on you, but you're the closest family she has left. You're her grandfather."
He just gaped, first at the little girl – grandfather?! – then at the Eternal. If she was the child's grandfather, did that mean –
"Madam, am I to infer that –" he began indignantly, but didn't know how to continue that sentence.
She sent him a look of pure mischief.
"We were, yeah." She gave him a naughty grin.
The Doctor felt himself blushing. The President was clearing his throat.
The Doctor took refuge in ire.
"You think that you can turn up and as you so aptly put it, foist upon me the guardianship of a small child, who may or may not be related to me, no matter what you claim?" he demanded.
Unexpectedly the Flower of Time just sighed.
"Rassilon," she said to thin air, "I could use a bit of a hand here."
And suddenly the great Lord Rassilon was standing there.
He glared at the Doctor.
"The child is your granddaughter and you will look after her!" he snapped, while the Doctor stared at the hawklike visage he'd seen carved with its expression of customary arrogance all over Gallifrey, "I'm not in the mood to deal with your intractability, so you will do as the Flower of Time has commanded!"
Rassilon's force of personality was a fearsome thing. The Doctor found himself nodding mutely.
Rassilon turned to the subject of the argument and smiled kindly at her. His annoyance had been impressive, but his affection was like being hit by a wall of sunlight. The Doctor blinked, rather dazed, and it wasn't even being aimed at him.
"Hello Susan," Rassilon said warmly. "So you're going to live with your grandfather now, are you?"
Susan nodded solemnly, watching him with big eyes.
"Well, he can be a bit grumpy, and he might seem rather scary at first, but he's a nice old man really."
The Doctor frowned in indignation. He wasn't even three centuries old yet, and this body no more than middle-aged!
Susan giggled.
"He's not old," she chided Rassilon, "you and Grandmother are the old ones."
"Oi, watch it with the personal remarks," the Flower of Time scolded teasingly.
Rassilon smiled at her with fond mockery.
"The truth hurts." He stood unmoved by the light swat she gave him. "If I'm not needed, I'll go now."
The founder of Time Lord civilisation ruffled the child's hair and kissed the other Eternal on the forehead before vanishing.
Susan pulled on the Doctor's robes politely.
He stared down at her.
"I'll be good," she promised him earnestly.
In spite of himself the Doctor smiled.
"I'm sure you will, young lady, but the fact remains –"
"My Mummy and Daddy are dead," Susan said simply. "Grandmother says that you're going to look after me now. I don't want to be alone any more, Grandfather."
The Doctor hesitated, looking at the Flower of Time, feeling torn.
She smiled sadly.
"She's four Earth-years old, she's spent most of her life in early 21st century Earth, and her name is Susan Rose Foreman. Look after her, Doctor."
She crouched down, to kiss the child's forehead, stood, and was gone.
oo o0o oo
He became used to having her in his life startlingly soon, even taking into account the fact that he'd started to love her within days of first seeing her.
There was the way she followed him around, asking him questions everywhere they went.
"Why's my name different now?" she asked when they first got home, after his guardianship had been made official. There had been surprisingly little bureaucratic nonsense to go through, mostly because children were always born to a House with a static number of people in it and thus assigning guardianship was a new concept in the Conceptions Permissions Office, one without any associated paperwork, and because the guardianship had been demanded by the Flower of Time and Rassilon themselves. "Why's the sky orange? And why is there glass in the way?"
The Doctor had found himself explaining first about Houses and why contrary to the usual order of things he didn't have one, then about Gallifrey, before going on to educate Susan about different foods when he tried to feed her dinner, and finally telling her a bedtime story when he put her to bed.
"A what?" he repeated.
"A bedtime story," Susan repeated. "Mummy and Daddy always read me one before I went to sleep."
"Hmmph, well, I don't think that would be appropriate," he tried to say. This was Gallifrey, not Earth, and he wasn't about to encourage his granddaughter in their peculiar cultural habits.
But Susan said stubbornly,
"Even Grandmother read me a story, and she has to look after all of time and space," and so the Doctor had sat on the edge of her bed and told her about the beginnings of Time Lord society, which she enjoyed a lot, especially the bits about Lord Rassilon.
It was evident to him, even during that first evening, that raising his grandchild was going to be both a lot more trying and a lot more involving than he'd first thought.
-
It soon became clear to the Doctor that Susan wasn't like other Time Lord children. She was questioning, and sought intellectual stimulation, but she could equally be tempestuous and passionate and quite irrational, which led to some rather embarrassing displays when she wanted something or disagreed with something else or simply felt cross for no particular reason at all, while passersby stared in shocked astonishment as she screamed and yelled and kicked.
Koschei found her both fascinating and amusing.
"She reminds me awfully of you," he remarked, after witnessing one of Susan's tantrums one day.
"I beg your pardon?" The Doctor regarded him with a frosty eye.
The other Time Lord just grinned.
"Cares about things," he added in explanation. "They might seem trivial at times to everyone else, but she's not going to repress her feelings simply because of what everyone else thinks."
"Hmmm."
"Has a strong sense of morality, too," Koschei continued cheerfully, "and feels that's more important than lofty Time Lordian ideals. Has no respect for rank, either."
" 'Time Lordian' isn't a word."
"Reminds me of someone."
The Doctor glared at him, but Koschei's eyes sparkled.
"I haven't forgotten what you were like at the Academy, you know," he said. "I still remember exactly who dragged me into half the pranks that got me in trouble."
"Hmmph," the Doctor hmmphed. "Nonsense."
Koschei just laughed at him and went off to encourage Susan's very definite sense of mischief. The Doctor smiled faintly to himself.
-
The two things he loved most about his little granddaughter, besides her wonderful capacity for emotion, were her little affectionate mannerisms, and the way she went around singing and laughing, a tiny shape full of joy and life.
She would come up to him and embrace him, never bothered by his irritable expressions or tetchy remarks, or grab his hand and lead him off to show him something, bubbling over with enthusiasm. Sometimes she would unexpectedly climb into his lap and cuddle into him. The first time she did it he sat frozen in astonishment as she settled down sideways, her head tucked under his chin and a small chubby arm loosely around his neck, and proceeded to tell him a bout a pretty bug she'd found with an iridescent carapace. Perhaps it was a human thing. The Doctor didn't know, but he rather liked her unusual need for touch.
She sang a lot, too. The Doctor would walk out to find her twirling and dancing, singing in her pretty childish voice. At first they were mostly Earth songs, simple but catchy and pleasant to listen to. As time passed however they were often complex, sweeping Gallifreyan compositions, mostly ancient ones, or alien pieces with peculiar rhythms. Her favourite thing to sing was one he wasn't familiar with at all, a haunting, delicate melody, something to do with a goddess and a wolf.
"What are you singing?" he asked her.
"I'm singing the Hymn to the Bad Wolf," she replied. "Do you like it?"
"It's very nice," he agreed. "Where did you learn it?"
"Mother taught me," Susan told him. "She used to sing it when I was very small. She said it's sung by the priestesses at the Temple of the Moon."
The Doctor nodded.
"Well it's a great pleasure to hear it," he told her. Susan smiled, and went back to dancing, her high, sweet voice reaching poignant, unsettling combinations of notes as she sang about the goddess protecting her lover through time.
-
When she was eight years old Susan was taken to look into the Untempered Schism. The Doctor was allowed to attend, as one member of the child's House usually did so – as a boy the Doctor had utterly mortified the representative of his own House, when after looking into the Schism he'd bolted in terror and it had taken three grown Time Lords and two building-lengths to catch him – and watched as Susan stepped forward.
She proceeded to have a long one-sided conversation with the Schism to the great mystification of the watchers, and eventually rejoined her Grandfather quite happily with the remark that Grandmother said hello.
The Doctor was fairly certain that the observers had never seen that particular reaction to the Schism before, no matter how many years or children they'd been in the job. Himself, the Doctor was amused, once he'd gotten over his initial startled reaction. To see the grave, dignified Guardians of the Untempered Schism in their full ceremonial regalia gaping in shocked consternation at a small girl had simply been too ridiculous.
"Good girl Susan," he told her as they made their way home. "You did very well."
"It was just Grandmother," Susan said; she couldn't understand why everyone had made such a fuss of looking into the Schism. For her it had simply been a pleasant opportunity to converse with a favoured-if-rarely-seen family member. In a different form, maybe, but still her Grandmother.
The Doctor told Koschei about it later. His friend found the entire thing hysterical.
-
Susan came home from her first day at the Academy with a stormy, brooding look.
The Doctor's heart sank. He'd hoped, despite her differences, that Susan would enjoy her time at the Academy.
She burst into tears when he gently questioned her.
"They all think I'm an imbecilic emotional primitive," Susan sobbed. "And someone found out that the Academy physician said I have human genetics, and one of the girls in the same developmental grade as me called me an uncultured barbarian and said I shouldn't be there. I hate it there, Grandfather, I hate it!"
The Doctor patted her on the back and stroked her hair. He told her that she was a very intelligent girl and that the other children had no capacity to make such judgements, and shared a little of what he himself had gone through at the Academy.
Later that night he saw a golden light shining from underneath her bedroom door. He thought about going in, but decided against it, leaving the Flower of Time to comfort and advise Susan in any way she could.
The Doctor told Koschei about it.
"The little bastards," he said. "I remember what they were like to you, Thete, and this sounds worse." The Doctor had lost the right to his name when he'd been disowned by his House, but Koschei continued to use the shortened version anyway. "If they're going to make her life hellish, they deserve some hellishness back."
The next thing the Doctor knew, Susan had earned demerit marks for setting a booby-trap for her grade-mates halfway through her third year.
The Doctor had to sit there and listen to an idiot tell him about how his granddaughter's behaviour was disgraceful, all the while treating him with a supercilious disdain.
The Doctor went home furiously angry at the condemnation he'd read in the tutor's eyes. There had been no tolerance, no acknowledgement even of Susan's brilliance. Only the same cold rejection she got from the other pupils.
-
The Doctor took to teaching Susan himself whenever they had the time, giving her a chance to learn that she was being denied by the bullying from the students and tutors. During these times the Doctor was glad to see that she became almost her old happy self.
"Grandfather, what do you call an open paradox loop?" she asked him one lesson.
"What?"
"A nuisance." She giggled.
The Doctor gave her a look of disapproval, but knew that his eyes gave him away.
"Who taught you that?" he asked her.
"Koschei."
That made sense. Koschei only seemed to know very bad jokes. Worse, he thought they were funny.
"I've got another one."
"Indeed? I resign myself to hearing it."
"Why did the Blinovitch Limitation Effect come into existence?"
"I'm not sure that I wish to know the answer," the Doctor murmured.
"Because even Time itself thought that no one should have to deal with more than one Borusa at once."
The Doctor's lips twitched. During the Doctor's time at the Academy Borusa had been a tutor, and was now head of the Academy, but what he was principally infamous for was being both seemingly omniscient and highly unnerving.
Susan gave an impish, naughty smile as she saw her grandfather's eyes twinkle.
"Did Koschei teach you that, as well?"
Susan nodded.
"Very well, but no more learning pranks from him, hmm?"
Susan flushed and cast her eyes down, instantly miserable. The Doctor regretted puncturing her good mood, but it had to be said.
"No, Grandfather."
"If he teaches you anything else of that nature let me know, and I'll give him
a good thrashing, eh Susan?"
Susan giggled at the idea.
oo o0o oo
On the morning of her fifteenth birthday, Gallifrey-years, the Doctor came downstairs to find her deeply immersed in a set of printed and bound books.
"What are these?" Most people didn't bother with printed books.
"Oh, they're Lord Rassilon's journals," Susan said without looking up from her reading, "he writes here of how he discovered how to make a thing's internal dimensions exceed its exterior dimensions."
"And where did these priceless artefacts come from?"
"He and Grandmother left them as a birthday present," Susan said absently.
The Doctor cleared his throat. He didn't approve of these silly Earth rituals, but Susan was always so unhappy these days.
"I may also have a present for you."
Susan looked up, surprise written all over her face.
"But Gallifrey doesn't celebrate individual birthdays!" she exclaimed.
"Perhaps not, but I am aware of how much this Earth custom means to you, and I thought that perhaps we should celebrate it from now on."
"Oh Grandfather!" and Susan impulsively flung herself at him in a hug.
He patted her on the head and smiled fondly.
"Very strong emotions for a present that hasn't even been revealed yet," he observed.
Susan laughed up at him.
"I don't care. What is it?"
In reply the Doctor pulled something out of his pocket and fastened it around her neck. When she took hold of it and twisted it to look at it better, she found it to be a holographic crystal which, when she looked very hard (to see it properly she'd have to attach the crystal to a light source) contained an image of her and her grandfather together.
The Doctor found himself engulfed in a hug again as Susan burst into tears.
"My my, we are emotional today," he murmured, but he understood.
-
In her tenth year at the Academy, Susan decided that when she was old enough she wanted to major in temporal manipulation.
"An excellent idea," Koschei said approvingly. He'd come to pretend to congratulate the Doctor on being introduced to the experience of growing white hairs for the first time. The Doctor had suddenly developed a streak of them, standing out in a bold white line against the black. "And when you graduate, you can help me conquer the universe, or at least Gallifrey."
Susan laughed, while the Doctor frowned.
"Why would you want to do that?" she asked him, a bright smile on her face.
"I just think we could do something better than sit around watching less advanced civilisations mess up. Use our brilliance for more than standing around feeling superior." Koschei said this unusually seriously.
"Why would you want my help?" Susan wanted to know, still smiling.
"Because you're like the little sister I never had!" he exclaimed.
"As I recall, you have two younger sisters," the Doctor said dryly, making Susan laugh again.
Koschei shrugged.
"Yes, but I've never had one like Susan."
The Doctor shook his head.
"Your grasp on sanity is debatable."
Something indefinable flashed in Koschei's eyes, but a moment later he was smiling again.
"It's why you like me," he said cheerfully.
"Of course it is, don't listen to him," Susan told him. "We wouldn't want you any other way."
"Why temporal manipulation, if I may ask?" the Doctor said.
Susan looked thoughtful.
"I don't know, really, I just seem to have an instinctive grasp of the subject," she answered. "I've been reading ahead, you know, and it all makes perfect sense to me. What did you major in, Grandfather?"
"We majored in being utterly troublesome but too brilliant for them to kick us out," Koschei cut in proudly. "That's why we know Borusa so well."
"Besides that," Susan said with a straight face, eyes dancing.
"Technological engineering," Koschei admitted, "and I minored in telepathic psychology, as well."
"Grandfather?"
"I majored in advanced temporal mathematics, but also hold a degree in xenobiology," the Doctor replied. "When I am called in for consultations, it is usually on temporal mathematics."
"He invented a new branch of it by accident when he was still at the Academy," Koschei mocked, "only time I've ever seen Borusa flabbergasted. They would have made him a junior-Cardinal when he graduated for that, if he hadn't been so anarchic."
Susan went very thoughtful, and didn't talk much after that. She knew that her grandfather had been disowned by his House just after graduating, and the Doctor was afraid she'd put the pieces together.
oo o0o oo
One day Koschei turned up on the Doctor's doorstep unexpectedly, while Susan was still at the Academy.
The Doctor knew instantly that something was horribly wrong. Koschei was smiling, but in a queer, glittering-eyed way that didn't look right.
"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked. "I though that you would be working on that engineering project of yours."
Koschei laughed strangely.
"Koschei?" His friend's mind was completely walled off.
Koschei turned that glittering-eyed smile on him.
"I did it," he said. "I finally gave in to the lures, the temptations of the lesser species. I could feel the blood flowing, the power… it was glorious."
He looked quite mad.
"What have you done?" the Doctor asked sharply.
"I killed Elara," Koschei admitted, and smiled.
For a moment that hung, suspended, in time, they just stood looking at each other, there on the stoop. The Doctor could feel the twin beats of his hearts, the warmth of the sun on his face, could see the way the light glinted off Koschei's hair.
Normal time resumed.
"You need to leave."
The smile snapped off in an instant.
"You're turning me out?" Koschei demanded, with a threatening glower. "Doctor, together we could change the world!"
The Doctor met his eyes, his own fierce.
"You have committed murder. Perhaps, if you had shown remorse, I could have come to accept that fact in time. Yet you have shown only elation in this obscene act, and for that you have only my condemnation."
Koschei stared at him with a very ugly look, but after a tense moment simply turned and walked away without a word.
The Doctor sank into a chair and let his head rest in his trembling hands. Koschei had always been a bit mercurial, a bit lacking in conventional morals… but this, this was madness. Madness and evil. How could he have done such a thing?
The Doctor heard later that Koschei had escaped, by stealing a time capsule. He'd already been disowned by his House in the few hours he had been a fugitive, and as the Chancellory Guard pursued him, ranted about how his name was now the Master and how he would rule Gallifrey, before dashing into the nearest TARDIS and taking off before they could stop him.
They tried to recall the TARDIS, but Koschei had always been utterly brilliant and technology his forte, and somehow in the time it had taken to put the request through to the TARDIS engineers he'd done something to the controls that stopped them from tracking or recalling him.
The Doctor had to explain to Susan the terrible crime Koschei had committed.
Susan shook with silent sobs.
"I thought he and Elara were going to get married," she said in a small voice. She'd met Elara several times as the woman was an old friend of both Koschei and the Doctor, and had quite liked her. The idea that she had been murdered, and in a manner that prevented regeneration, was horrendous.
"I know," the Doctor said sadly.
"Why would he do that?"
"I'm afraid I don't know, my dear."
Susan wanted to sleep in bed with him that night, distressed and frightened to the core that one of the closest and most trusted people she knew could murder a friend. He let her snuggle into his side and wrapped an arm around her small form.
"I love you very much, Susan," he murmured as she drifted off to sleep.
"L'y't', G'n'fa'er," came the sleepy mumble.
The Doctor didn't sleep at all that night, torn inside by betrayal and grief, confusion, and above all terrible pain. He was infinitely grateful for the shining, loving child asleep beside him.
-
They tried to continue as usual after what Koschei had done, but a source of joy had withered and died for both of them. Koschei's lighthearted, joking presence was sorely missed, and without his companionship the Doctor and Susan were lonelier than ever before. The unspeakable horror of his act hung over them both, like a dark cloud. The Doctor knew that he was far more crotchety and irritable, and Susan became thinner and more withdrawn. He rarely heard her bubbling laughter or gay singing anymore.
A year passed, the worst year either of them had ever known, and then the Doctor was notified of an incident at the Academy.
Susan had never been accepted by her peers. She had been marked out as different from the very beginning, and then ostracised for her part-human parentage. As time passed and the students grew, Susan proved to be more and more clever, and never seemed to age properly. At twenty-two, she looked much the same as the other pupils in her grade had at fourteen. Her differences festered and burned in the minds of those who had been taught to believe that they were Time Lords and superior, until the day that Susan received the highest academic ranking in her entire developmental grade. That day, their resentment finally translated into action.
Borusa assured the Doctor that for assaulting a fellow pupil that way, particularly a high-achieving one like Susan, the children responsible would be expelled. They would never be allowed to attend the Academy again, never be granted the opportunity to achieve the status of Time Lord.
The Doctor listened very, very calmly. It was important to be calm. Finally he collected a shaking, white-faced Susan from the infirmary.
She had invoked the name of Rassilon.
And Rassilon had come.
Not that Borusa had known that part, of course. As far as the disgraced students knew, Susan's scream had simply attracted the attention of a passing Time Lord. He burst in as a towering inferno of fury, his anger as terrible as his affection was wonderful. He'd been in such a rage that to the children his eyes had been two blazing pits of blue fire in his face. Terrified, they had run for their lives.
"Pack your things, Susan."
"Grandfather?"
He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes, making sure he established mental contact as well as physical.
"My dear child," he said softly, "you should never have had to put up with this. I should have made this decision the day you first came home form the Academy. We're leaving Gallifrey."
Susan gave him a puzzled look, but tinged with hope.
"But how can we?"
"The same way that Koschei did," he said grimly. "By stealing a TARDIS."
That night they entered one of the docking bays and broke into a TARDIS, Susan asking under her breath for Rassilon and the Flower of Time's help. It was perilously close to prayer, but if you had a god and goddess who might be willing to help you, why not pray?
The TARDIS was an old Type 40, scheduled for retirement.
"She's so sad," Susan said, just as sadly. "Can we take this one, Grandfather? Please?"
So they did. As they dematerialised the Doctor saw a brief golden glow around the console for only an instant, and sent silent heartfelt thanks to the Eternal responsible.
oo o0o oo
They visited Earth first, of course.
Since Susan shrieked with laughter at the idea of going around in their current clothing – she might have only been four Earth-years old at the time, she said, but she remembered enough to know that the humans would think them ridiculous – and the Doctor believed that a wardrobe change would be a good idea anyway to put off pursuers, their very first act away from Gallifrey was to buy clothes.
It was nineteenth-century England, so they got a lot of strange looks at their appearances, but found a seamstress. Susan ended up with a set of dresses and stockings, a pair of boots and a funny little jacket. The Doctor bought himself a sort of suit with a frock coat, and several shirts and pairs of trousers. He also bought a cane, because he thought it suited him. Susan found it almost as funny as the idea of parading around in Time Lord robes. The Doctor told her she was being disrespectful. Susan only giggled harder.
-
As they travelled, the Doctor teaching Susan as they went, they saw many places and cultures and people. People usually liked Susan, although they put her age at ten or eleven rather than the thirty she was in Gallifreyan, or the sixty-four she was in Earth years.
She hit puberty while they were living in the TARDIS, which led to a very embarrassing talk that left the Doctor mortified, and Susan rather confused and curious.
"You may find yourself developing strange feelings around men," the Doctor explained stiffly, "desiring their approval for no good reason, wishing to be perceived as intelligent and attractive, and being highly aware of certain physical characteristics that draw you to them."
Susan stared at him with a blank face.
"When two people have strong romantic feelings for one another," the Doctor continued desperately, "they may desire physical closeness, and indulge in behaviours such as caressing one another and kissing."
"I know about that," Susan said. "Mum and Dad used to do it all the time."
The Doctor wanted to mutter something incomprehensible and flee, but he couldn't turn his innocent granddaughter loose in the world, full of hormones, without guidance. The world had humans in it.
"If those two people love each other a great deal," the Doctor soldiered on bravely, "they may participate in the sexual reproductive act."
"Like in biology lessons at the Academy?"
"Quite so," he agreed, immensely relieved that he didn't have to explain that bit.
Susan thought about this.
"Why?"
"What do you mean, 'why?'"
"Why do they do it?" Susan was puzzled. "Is there an obligation?"
"Not as such, no," the Doctor said carefully. "Certain hormones make the prospect of such an act …desirable."
"Oh." Susan thought about this, as well. "Have you ever done it, Grandfather?"
"Susan!"
"Well, have you?"
"That is not an appropriate question!"
"Why not?" Susan was honestly curious.
The Doctor muttered something and went away before she could ask any more questions, feeling ready to burst with embarrassment.
-
Her thirty-third birthday they spent in Paris. Susan loved the language and the food, and found the history fascinating. They spent the day wandering, visiting the Louvre and strolling down the Champs-Elysée, seeing all the sights.
The Doctor listened in amusement as she spent half an evening debating philosophy with a man in a café. When they finally left, she received a round of applause from the crowd that had gathered either to listen or contribute to the discussions. The Doctor had been congratulated several times over the fact that his granddaughter was so brilliant at such a young age.
When they got back to the TARDIS, Susan turned to him.
"Grandfather?" she asked tentatively. He looked at her inquiringly. "I've been thinking, for a while now, well I mean, Earth is one of my home planets, you know, where I used to live, and –"
"Susan," he reminded her.
She took a deep breath.
"I want to go to school, Grandfather. Human school. Where I can learn human things and maybe make some human friends."
She looked at him pleadingly.
The Doctor didn't like the idea, not at all, but… Where I can learn human things and maybe make some human friends …did he have any right to refuse her? She was part-human, after all, and deserved a chance to know the people and planet that was her birthright. And she'd been so unhappy on Gallifrey; perhaps, on Earth, things would finally go right for them both?
"Very well," the Doctor agreed, with an inward sigh.
Susan's shriek of joy and impulsive hug made him feel that if only she was happy, it would be worth it.
FIN
AN:
The Master wasn't originally going to have the role he does, but I'd just read 3rd Doctor novel "The Face of the Enemy," which has a lot of him being hysterically amusing, and he somehow wormed his way into the story quite thoroughly.
Also, the puberty talk wasn't going to be in it, but I couldn't resist.