He came and stole Her in the night, promises of adventure. The universe and all worlds She could lead him to, the people to enchant; the promise of time, women and song, such beautiful songs and beautiful women.
At least he thinks that is their story. She knows the story too and in Her story She called him forth. Her humming engines and Her song drew him in to a promise of worlds and escape from his collar of obligation.
'Come with me, young one,' She called, 'and together we can charm the universe, cradle time in our hands. Hold on tightly and I will lead you through your dreams.'
And he came, Her Time Lord, Her Doctor, and Her friend. She adored him instantly, his touch on Her walls and his steady hand over Her controls, still the same through every life, every rebirth, through his wild ways and his never ending, flowing mind. His touch on Her was always the same and She allowed only his to pick direction, to change the course.
She cared for him, carried him, protected him, but love was not the word for how She felt, for how She desired. The people they met, the people who came through Her doors into his life and Hers, well, those choices really belonged only to Her.
First comes Barbara, the puppy who followed Susan home. Human, a Human woman and instantly She leaps, flies them backward in fear and surprise. How can so small a creature, so young, and so far from their home, spark such curiosity?
Her Doctor may protest, may fear as he himself hides now in their supposed exile, but She controls their fate and Barbara steps into Her belly. The TARDIS has always preferred females, their look, their smell, the way they move, connect with the space around them, curves and curls and caution combined with courage. Yet this first time surprises Her; Barbara starts the pattern, her strong will growing into desire for adventure and the universe opening before her eyes.
The rush of showing all of space and time to one who does not expect as Her Doctor does; to see the look on their beautiful faces, pink cheeks and flowing hair, hearts which tick in time to Her Eye of Harmony down below. Perhaps it's a chance, but when Barbara touches Her console a different feeling rises deep in the TARDIS.
Her taste grows, Her desire strong to bring more to Her, more excited faces and eyes of gorgeous hues.
They meet new people together, aliens of a thousands worlds, and a million eras, linear times suited to them just waiting to be turned upside down and backwards to the turn of Her column. The Doctor acts in control, tries to pick destinations and people but in the end it's the same. She wants women inside Her, flying with Her, touching with awe and yearning for the TARDIS to lead on.
They fly through places and people, English fields, barren moons, Vicki and Katrina and Sara, then wars to be stopped, Daleks to eradicate, and people saved, a new body for him and a breath of fresh air for Her. Then Polly and his Jamie (because he does have choices too) and Victoria and castles with centuries old stone only a blink to Her and Zoe before they're grounded.
But grounding doesn't stop Her; the Time Lords cannot really control Her completely. Even if She's bound to earth, to one time – She's chosen Her Time Lord and will stand by him – nothing can stop what She wants, what She feels.
She gazes forward and backward, time going linear and time looping around. She sees time stopped and fixed then fluctuating and changing. She sees the different paths each person can take, when Jo steps through Her door as UNIT and before her feet lies the path of happiness or death or seven children and twelve grandchildren. When Sarah Jane sneaks through a crack with all her daring and cunning, a cleverness to match Her Doctor's and turn Her own cosmic head – a pathway to Gallifrey or a quiet reporter or the woman who never really leaves taking pieces and robot dogs with her.
She sees their own future, the ferocity of Leela turned from supposed savage to guardian; Her Doctor with a growing penchant for umbrellas and a fiery girl called Ace; Darling Donna who She'll lose as soon as She gains her. These women She has yet to meet don't even know already She sees their faces, adores their smiles, and guides their footsteps so one day in their own futures, along Her path, they will step right through Her doors.
Romanadvoratrelundar. The Time Lady's name alone slips like a song, a current through Her innards. This woman holds the reigns of time as a birth right of her race and She gives her the universe as a chariot to anywhere.
At first Romana is a child, another Time Lord with their history and knowledge creating arrogance. she tilts her head, brown curls and a face carved like the great halls of Gallifrey. She had hoped for more, for a companion who could feel the universe move uncontrolled as She and the Doctor do, one who could step on worlds and just breathe the air. At first she's trapped in her mind but sometimes for a Time Lord all it takes is one regeneration and love becomes as easy as opening Her doors.
When Romanadvoratrelundar flips through bodies like cards in a deck, pages of her precious books, and lands in a swirl of blond hair Her heart swells in an instant. Romana smiles at the doctor from under his hat then she looks up, reaches out from inside in a way only the TARDIS can feel. Right away She thinks it might be love.
Unlike the others, the smiles, the beauties, the laughs, and the aliens who see Her only as a ship, as a vessel, Romana sees Her life. Romana controls Her carefully, requests permission in one look, asks Her opinion in the way she turns a knob. Romana knows life in them both.
"I believe you have charmed the TARDIS, Romana," Her Doctor says, scarf between his fingers and amused grin full of teeth, "She's listening to you over me yet again."
Romana smiles at Her walls, runs a teasing hand along Her console and shrugs one shoulder at the Doctor. "Perhaps She needed the touch of a Time Lady, Doctor, do not be jealous."
The Doctor only 'hmms.'
She turns them around, picks a new destination, somewhere with historic significance just to please Romana. She knows the Doctor understands and he enjoys Romana as much as She, no jealousy for Her Time Lord, not for the woman of their hearts.
She tries to choose places Romana will enjoy, times to spark her wildly spinning mind. Romana likes a challenge and She likes to see Romana work, big, bright smile, synapses firing and internal catalog rolling, working away, growing more confident, more capable through every problem.
'Stay with me always,' She coos, She sings, She pours slow hums and vibrations and turns of time into Romana's head. 'My beautiful Time Lady, we can see the universe forever.' She weaves a story of dreams and cities and rivers and stars and planets all for Her lady inside Her.
She wants to keep Romana for Herself, selfishly guard her, build her rooms with test tubes, libraries with 5 million books, grassy hills and starscapes from every planet ever. She builds corridors so Romana becomes lost, touches more doors, to spike her curiosity, walk deeper inside toward Her heart. She adds new rows of books to Her vast library, titles Romana has never seen and can't ignore. She packages planets like chocolates and ties up timelines like flowers, anything for that golden hair and quick wit.
There is no denying She loves Romana. Romana recites Her the decimals of pi and She spins them around a supernova, doors open so Romana can feel the heated breeze; a perfect balance, give and take, love and love.
"I know," Romana looks up and smiles, "I love you too." she touches Her walls, leans back against them, her whole body connected to Her through skin and metal and the unending current of time.
She thinks The Doctor, Romana, and She make the perfect trio, the perfect connection together. No creature can touch Her soul, understand Her purpose quite like a Time Lord, like a Time Lady, like Her dear, Her darling, Her beautiful, genius Romanadvoratrelundar.
And when she goes, when the Time Lady walks away, it breaks more hearts than the Doctor's. It leaves an empty room deep in the belly of the TARDIS, a hole in Her celestial heart.
He sits with Her late in his own night, in Her endless time, when their companions sleep.
"You spoil me I think."
He crosses his legs in his leather chair, fiddles with his ridiculous celery stick pinned to his coat. He raises his eyebrows at the room She built around him, a warm summer day of Gallifrey just like sitting on a back porch. The ground grows red grass while the walls alternate with book shelves stacking Earth literature to open glass of planet views, a chandelier high above made of rainbow crystal.
"All this?" He smiles. "Feeling bad, are you, for choosing them over me?"
She laughs and so does he. She always spoils him no matter what and he knows She always chooses him. Perhaps, he just wants Her to love him the way She does them. He knows She fawns over their companions – clutches Nyssa close to Her as best She can to heal the Master's wake, runs invisible fingers through Tegan's short hair and shivers at the strength in so small a being. He knows Her, though, better than any beauty in their midst.
"You've been quiet." He glances up. "Don't think I haven't noticed."
'And so have you. You miss them.' He misses Leela and Romana and K9. They both miss the ones who leave.
"Who we've lost…" he says quietly, eyes on the grass at his feet, mind on his little Adric.
Yes, She's quiet when She thinks and he always knows Her mind and Her soul. He knows She wants him happy and with Her. She would keep them all, every one, to keep them both happy but they cannot control everything. All beings have their own will and the will of life is unstoppable.
He rests his head back against the chair and hums a quiet tune, notes dipping in Gallifreian chords unheard by any other species. She twists a tune right back made of the universe, galaxies lost and races remade, to intertwine.
She knows they will never leave each other. She will bring new companions through Her doors, always the women who please Her best. But beneath it all their bond is strongest. Because he loves Her like She loves their companions. The Doctor loves Her more than any living being to come into their lives and always will.
As he regenerates and She grows older, as they stack up decades through different centuries, She becomes more fine tuned. The TARDIS hopes to find a fit, someone who matches Her because the universe is as big as it is small and anything is possible.
Maybe, She thinks, perhaps sometimes She can make the universe as She wants. There lies Compassion; She makes Compassion into Her.
Compassion begins as any other being within Her walls, little and haughty and so sure of her own importance and intelligence. But she is one of The Remote. she works differently and with her The TARDIS signals the DNA to twist, the cells to morph and the very structure of Compassion to reorganize.
'I know what you're doing.'
She does not answer because at first it's a surprise to hear a voice like Hers.
'You're changing me, making me one of you, obviously'
She feels caught but She hasn't lived for hundreds of years to lie or to shirk back. 'You can be so much more.'
Compassion reaches out and She feels fingers, not like most beings have physical hands, but a touch over Her life, Her energy.
'Change me then,' Compassion says, 'I want to see the universe like you do, to feel time become part of me.'
'To flow through you.'
And She does. She takes Compassion higher, makes her larger, makes her into a living, breathing, being of a machine who breaks through the confines of linear living and bursts into decades like opening doors. Compassion becomes the same as She. Together they are something else. Compassion opens her eyes, sees the universe, feels time bringing them together.
'I can see.' It's all she needs to say because the TARDIS knows just what she sees.
They dance around each other, hoping stars before their occupants, even the Doctor, can sense it. Compassion holds Her close, touches Her, swirls the two of them together. She pushes Compassion back, whirls her around, and they can flow into each other with the movement of space.
Sam is surprised, Fitz confused, the change not something which makes sense to them yet. The Doctor peeks up from curly hair, quietly jealous and quietly supportive and quietly surprised as well.
"Were you lonely?" he asks once, perhaps more hurt than She would have thought.
'I'm never lonely with you, my Time Lord, but there are different companions to be had and made.'
Compassion explodes with life, ecstasy between them, such feeling She never had before, a companion unlike any other. They don't need to speak to each other because in this way, on this level, they touch and know everything. Compassion's lips press on Hers in a way one dimension beings born of linear time cannot feel. Joy and passion and knowledge and connection and every level of life She'd forgotten how to feel after so many years as a ship alone.
'Thank you,' Compassion says holding Her close, 'thank you.'
She never thought their positions would reverse and Compassion would end up protecting Her as She had done so often for so many in Her personal past. When She became small and vulnerable, lost when Her Time Lord forgot Her, Compassion hid Her away to regrow, be reborn beside her Time Lord. Compassion saved Her life and She never felt protected in such a way before.
Compassion gave the same gift She gave.
When Compassion left to travel the stars and time, like She always had, the only feeling left behind was love. Unlike Romana, this loss left no hole. No matter how far apart they became She could always feel Compassion, remember her, touch her ripples through time and Compassion could feel just the same.
Rose is not her choice, the girl so young and her curiosity matching the Doctor's flair. She does not pick Rose but She keeps her, opens Her doors to pull Rose in with the promise of adventure beyond her quiet London. The Doctor's hearts need mending now, all his race gone and time so quiet.
She pours all of time into Rose's eyes, gives her power, takes her home, holds her fast and protects this golden flower all for the one man She adores forever; who knows Her soul if not Her heart. Rose is the bandage the TARDIS wraps around Her Time Lord to return him to the light.
Sometimes She marvels at who draws to Her doors, the children who arrive and the goddesses who leave. She would make each one immortal, their essence a piece of Her forever even if they should forget his name, forget Her. She would make each one the very best they can be.
"Just save someone..."
Donna with a piece of Her Time Lord and the savior of them all across every world and time.
"It's like in those films: if you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race."
Martha, defender of her Earth, who She hides under Her umbrella to beat back The Master, their enemy again.
"Hello, sweetie."
River Song.
"Oh, I've missed you both."
River is something else and even The TARDIS cannot quite put Her finger on it. River's future clouds, obscures from view with loops through time always crossing through Her. It may even be Herself who clouded River's timeline, leaving bread crumbs to the woman. River holds Her handles, turns Her knobs, and moves Her with the expert hands of a Time Lord even though she is not.
The Doctor stands mystified, confused; every time he sees a shade more but River exists as a true mystery to them both. It's thrilling. She likes the excitement of not knowing for sure.
"Ah, you've changed a bit since the last time." she flicks a dial on Her console. "I think that was a screwdriver before. He never does fix you properly, does he?"
River warms Her heart and the one thing The TARDIS can tell about this traveling enigma is her destiny lies firmly entwined with the Doctor from beginning to end.
"Don't tell him I said this," River looks at Her screen as though it's Her face, "but I think perhaps you're looking even more beautiful than him this time around."
Quite a charmer, almost Herself in a human being, this professor and doctor and prisoner. She's clever and a curiosity, perhaps a lover for them both.
Now, comes one more, one more child of time who represents more than the Doctor knows at first. Met as a baby and grown into a woman, the ginger hair he's become so enamored with since he never has his own.
"Amelia Pond…" He sighs her name like a story book, a young face to match his new one. "What do you think, old girl?"
She thinks yes.
'So beautiful, so sure, we'll bring you back to us, darling.' She sends words and secrets into Amy's head, into all her lives, all her timelines, all the versions of herself which splinter off but still meet together. 'Amy Pond, you are meant for us.'
The importance of this one already begins to blossom in Her eye.
A crack starts to grow, needs to be filled, and when the two of them fall together inside it will be Amy Pond who brings them back.
When She reappears, comes back to life, the sight of Amy Pond in her flowing white wedding dress leaping over the table toward them assures Her once again She's falling in love. This time She loves Amy Pond.
Amy so beautiful with her husband and Her Doctor.
'Come find the universe with me, little one.'
Another woman, another life together again and still with Her Doctor, adventure waiting, they fly.