Iota Xi was underneath the console of her older brother's TARDIS as he regenerated. Her only brother.
No. Braxiatel would always be her brother, even if he was dead. Even if everyone was dead.
The planet was gone. Everyone was gone.
By the time that Iota pulled herself back up through the grating that had appeared in the new background her brother's TARDIS had changed to, he and his new face were standing with his back to her. "Theta?" she asked him, laughing slightly.
He turned to look at her. "Hello, Iota." His eyes were sad. She would have expected nothing but from a man who'd just destroyed his planet. After all, even if Iota had been there, even if she had helped, it had mainly been him. She'd merely been an observer, a supporter. A bystander.
She pulled herself up properly and walked closer to him. "You regenerated," she informed him, reaching out to rub the small amount of hair he had. "I don't like the hair. Too short. And the ears are too big." The comment made Theta smile.
"Were you having fun beneath the console?" He moved to lean against the main console.
"Quite a lot. I've never actually been inside this TARDIS background before." She nearly smiled, but her face fell just as quickly. She couldn't just ignore what they had done, as much as she wished they could talk about anything else. "We didn't get Koschei out." She had made him promise, as they stood there looking down at the Moment, that they would get Koschei out first.
Theta nodded. "I know, he said softly.
She leaned against her own section of the console, breathing heavily. "I promised," she whispered. "I promised myself I'd get him out before everyone died."
Theta pulled her into his arms, holding her. "I know. I'm sorry."
Iota let him hold her for a long while before she finally stepped away, looking up at him. "I don't know what to do now." She hated how broken the statement made her voice. "I don't want to be one of the last without him being with me." It didn't matter that she'd been doubting their relationship and why she'd ever stayed with him and had been considering divorce. She still loved Koschei and she always had. Now he was gone forever and she'd failed to save him and it was her fault.
Gently, Theta took her hands. "Stay with me. I don't want to lose you too."
"I don't want to be alone." She felt a few tears and was so thankful to see the same in her brother.
"You aren't alone. I'm here and I'm not leaving. You never have to be alone. I'm not going to abandon you again."
Theta could never know how much that statement truly meant to her.
"We would fight. We would have to separate eventually."
He shrugged. "We're both adults now. Mature. We can make it work."
She squeezed his hands tighter. "Are you sure, Theta Sigma? You want your little sister with you?"
"I would never want anything else, Iota Xi."
And she nearly smiled.
-VII-
It was a few days later that Iota walked into the TARDIS console to find every single mirror or smashable reflective surface destroyed. She froze, hands part of the way into pulling up her hair, and looked for any sign of her brother. They'd stayed apart for the last few days, leaving his TARDIS somewhere safe, so that they could begin to process their grief separately.
"Theta?" she called out carefully. "Are you there?"
"Over here." His voice was nearly silent. Iota followed it. Her brother was sitting on the ramp from the door, head in his hands.
"Are you alright?"
He wiggled his fingers. Iota had the sense that he'd smashed everything with his fists. "There was enough regeneration energy left to heal the injuries."
She crouched in front of him, making her brother look at him. "Why?"
"I don't want to see my face anymore."
"Why?"
His head hung again. "All of the children. I don't even know..."
"The war needed to be ended. Gallifrey was doomed."
"But the children..."
"I know." She sat down properly, leaning opposite her brother. "I know." She wrapped her arms around her pulled close legs. "I hate myself for surviving. Why am I the one who was able to escape? Out of everyone, out of the entire planet, out of all of the people, why was it me? Why was it you?"
He could only shake his head. "I don't know."
"There are so many people that I was never able to say goodbye to. I left the TARDIS farms with so much anger, I don't even know who..." Her voice caught.
"I know." He looked up at her again. "He wasn't the Doctor." She knew who he meant. "This is my ninth body."
A lie. But Iota knew why. She wished she could repress the regenerations that fought in the war. The regeneration that left the TARDIS farms instead of trying to protect the TARDISes. But she couldn't. Her regenerations were too loud. They'd always been too loud.
Iota closed her eyes and focused on her brother's TARDIS's song. It was beautiful and old and the only song left in the universe.
Neither sibling spoke again as they sat there, but they didn't need to.
-VII-
It occurred to Iota a little bit later that she could count the number of times she'd traveled off Gallifrey on one hand. There had been the first trip to a birth of a star a little after her first ever time at the TARDIS farms. There had been the trip to save the Zouti at a little over a hundred. There had been the trip to Earth when she was around three hundred and thirty. There had been the planet that Theta and Koschei had brought her to in their final years at the Academy, one she'd named randomly one night as they'd sat looking at the stars. And a final trip to a star birth.
Five trips. And now she was here, with her brother, in his TARDIS, a man who loved to travel beyond everything else.
She couldn't decide if she hated him or not for completely abandoning her. She was angry, definitely, but he was all she had left. She couldn't stay angry forever.
She wanted to. Oh, Iota really wanted to.
But hating him, the more that she thought about it, seemed so little after the war. So childish. After everything he'd done and everything she'd been through, how could she hate him for not visiting his little sister?
"I want to see a planet," Iota told her brother, entering the console room. While she wandered his TARDIS, listening to the song and finding places that required healing, her brother stayed mostly in the console room. It was easier for him there, it seemed. Iota didn't dream of forcing him to leave it.
He looked shocked. "Really? Any one in particular?"
"I don't know." She ran a hand along the console as she passed it. "I never had a reason to consider it." She stopped in front of her brother. "Show me the reason that you two left Gallifrey."
"It's not that simple."
"Then begin to try. We're all the other has left, Theta. I want to...I want to understand." She watched his expression. "If you're ready, that is."
He was quiet for a moment. "I think I am. Something small."
She nodded. "We have to move slow. Ensure that we won't hate each other."
"That's quite a lofty thing to attempt." He moved, reaching out a hand for the console, and paused. "Help me pilot."
Iota raised her eyebrows. "Why don't you help me pilot? I am the one who was in the TARDIS farms."
"Healing them. Not piloting them. Key difference."
She mimed exaggerated listening, cupping a hand behind her ear. "Your TARDIS agrees with me."
"You can't know that."
"I'm the one with a bond to TARDISes." She flicked her hands at her brother. "Now, let me pilot. You pick the location. I will steer."
Thankfully, Theta did not debate that further. Iota almost wished he would. Everything would be better if he pushed it further. It would be normal if he pushed it. They were siblings. Every time they spent extended time together, they argued. They needed to argue to be normal.
Without arguing, it felt like they were ignoring the problem. Hiding from it. Pretending that it wasn't there. Iota wished that were possible, effective, but she knew it wasn't. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew that avoiding a problem didn't make it go away.
She'd tried, on Gallifrey, in the Academy. Every moment she'd been confronted she'd tried to avoid the problem. Even now, after the war, she'd considered...she wouldn't think of that anymore. She couldn't.
But it was still so appealing.
The journey was rougher than the other flights Iota had worked on. Iota knew that was because, like Theta had said, she'd been healing TARDISes, not piloting, so she was a bit out of practice, but she refused to tell that to her brother.
She wished he would mention it again. They would be normal if he mentioned it again. Like they were on Gallifrey, when their greatest worry was a test or a friend. When they could just run through the grass and be together and be happy.
Not anymore. No more.
They stayed still a moment, even after the TARDIS had landed. Theta seemed to be waiting for Iota to decide that she didn't want to do this, that she didn't want to see exactly what had pulled her brother and husband away from her. She did know, at least in theory. She'd known both of them for centuries, after all. She'd heard all of their dreams of seeing the universe, of bouncing among the stars.
What she didn't understand, what she wanted to understand, was why that pull had been so strong that they'd forgotten about her. Or, if they hadn't forgotten about her, why they'd never come back.
There had to be something out there, in the universe, that had pulled them. That had to be what it was. Iota had to believe that.
And now she would be able to see it and maybe she'd be able to lose herself in that and forget that her entire planet had been turned to dust by her brother with her help.
Iota went to the door. Her brother followed close behind. She did pause, one hand on the door, taking a breath, before she opened it.
This was her life now. This was all that was left. They were all that was left.
When she opened the TARDIS door, Iota expected a planet surface. A new sky. People that Theta had abandoned her to walk among.
Instead, she found stars.
Different stars, stars she didn't recognize from Gallifrey. Stars that looked like they belonged to an entirely other universe.
"This," Theta said, stopping at Iota's side, "is why we left Gallifrey."
"There are stars on Gallifrey."
"Not like these." Theta pointed at a cluster. "Remember the planet that we took you too, back at the end of the Academy?"
It looked so small from here. "I remember." She remembered those one-inch tall creatures, wandering a planet filled with two hundred foot trees, sky yellow and streaked red above them. "You just wanted to see the universe."
"We'd planned to see them together, me and him."
"I remember."
Iota always would.
A/N: I always did wonder what would happen if Iota stayed with her brother after the Time War. Now we have a chance to find out ;)
In case you need a refresher, this regeneration of Iota, her seventh, resembles Alexandra Moen.
