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Song of the Schism
Part One: Return to Gallifrey

Chapter One
Back in Touch

Aislynn tapped her stylus thoughtfully against her teeth as she frowned at the figures displayed on the screen. The screen was normally two-dimensional; but today she had several layers of screens stacked on top of each other, rather like a deck of cards.

Her study was a roundish and, at the moment, a rather disheveled room. Like so many of the rooms in the Elysium, it was earth-toned, with plants in pots here and there. It had a round couch and soft carpeted floors, and, at the moment, its main feature was the large holographic screen being displayed in the middle of the air.

The Elysium, where she lived, was an eclectic mix of themes, but the sorts of architecture that might have been found in 1960's London featured prominently. The couch was recessed into the floor, the light fixtures were the height of Mod, and there were several round "egg" style chairs. It smelled delightfully of delicate Jasmine and Vanilla, for Aislynn had a cone of incense burning in a wall sconce dedicated to the purpose: but today she hardly felt soothed.

"Aislynn!"

She looked up, realizing that this was not the first time had been called, and saw Taydin in the doorway. He was tall and proportionately muscled, graceful instead of being bulky: his dark hair always looked a bit tousled, no matter how he tried to comb it to behave; and his eyes were dark and quiet, as if better suited to reading than to the outdoors. He wore a cotton shirt, soft blue jeans, and loafers.

Aislynn was wearing one of the sensible silverish jumpsuits so common on 51st century Earth. She had hair the color of fine wine, which at the moment was getting in her eyes, and she pushed it back impatiently, pushing her reading glasses to the top of her head, and regarding him with leaf-green eyes.

"I didn't realize it had gotten so late," she said, as her Time Lord senses caught up to the current moment and told her exactly how late it really was. "I wasn't paying attention." She came to him and kissed him gently.

He lingered over the kiss a little, as he always did, as he always had, since Azari Bal.

"I see so," he teased gently. "Have you come up for air at all today? Have you eaten? Had tea? Anything?"

"I meant to," she confessed as her stomach growled.

"You don't eat if I am not here," he scowled at her.

"I do!" she protested, but not very strongly. Abashed, she went to the replicator in the next room, and a few minutes later had returned with hot plates for them both.

By the time that she had returned, Taydin had expanded her deck-of-cards configuration, and had screens all over the room.

Aislynn was surprised. "I didn't realize I had stacked them that deep," she said, looking at just how many screens she had filled with her earlier computations.

"The schism?" he turned to her in some surprise, indicating the screen he had been studying. By now he had his own reading glasses on.

"You know you look especially fetching when you wear those," she teased him.

"Stop it," he teased back, but looked pleased as he took his own plate and moved to the table. "You've been working on the Schism?" he repeated.

"I did most of the work earlier," she said, sitting down across from him.

"You mean on Azari Bal," he said and she looked at her plate.

"Yes," she said, and took a bite almost defensively.

"You don't have to talk about it before you're ready," he said gently. Aislynn felt a sudden surge of gratitude to him.

"He died," she said after a brief silence, "That boy. Davian. Ultimately, he died because he couldn't regenerate. He couldn't regenerate because he hadn't been exposed to the Schism," she gestured at the mathematical notation on the scattered screens.

Taydin ate in silence for a while.

"And you were trying to find a way around the fact that it takes more than two Singers in order to create it?"

She nodded. "And having no success whatever, I might add."

"I was afraid of that. Setting aside everything else, I don't know how only two Singers would be able to recreate the Schism. The Doctor has some of the tools, I believe, but even that won't get us past the maths," he agreed.

"I know," she said sadly.

They ate in silence for a while.

"Does that mean that you're ready for the big day tomorrow?"

"My bags are all packed," she smiled at him.

"Good, because otherwise I would think you didn't want to move in with us," he teased, then relented, and put one of his hands over hers. "It will be all right." he soothed.

Aislynn sighed. "I am sure Susan will appreciate the end of the slumber party," she said, "And I did enjoy spending a couple of extra days on Apalapucia, just the two of us."

"But now you're faced with the prospect of parking the Elysium on Gallifrey and moving into an actual house, with a new husband and two newly-adopted children whom you barely know and whom you are afraid you won't love properly. It'll be your first full-time day on the job as Mum, and you're petrified of bollixing the whole thing. Plus, the last time you were on Gallifrey it was during the War, where your superiors betrayed you, and the people who took advantage of the nanite programming abused you, and you haven't set foot on the planet since. Does that about work the sums?"

"You're too discerning by half," said Aislynn, and pushed away her plate.

"It's going to be all right," Taydin soothed, for what was easily the thousandth time. "You'll make a brilliant Mum."

"I don't bake," she pointed out ruefully. "Susan's very gifted in the kitchen. Freeya will be in cookies up to her ears."

"Not all mums bake," he laughed. "I know you are worried, but just treat them like you did on Apalapucia, and everything will be fine. In the meantime," his eyes sparkled at her, "How long has it been since we have danced?"

Her vague, unformed fears still lurked at the back of her mind; but she felt a glowing pleasure at the suggestion. "It's been all day."

He stood and extended his arm to her, and she took it. He had found her a new piece of music, as he so often did; and they spent the entire evening doing nothing but waltzing and talking, enjoying each other's company.

Gallifrey

One Day Later

"A bit further… a bit further…" prompted Taydin.

He hadn't let Aislynn turn on the scanners when the Elysium had landed: he had just insisted she close her eyes. He was leading her step-by-step, standing just behind her, with his hands over her eyes.

"Can I look yet?" she prompted.

"No, not yet, a few more steps," he teased, and led her into the brilliant sunshine. "All right," he prompted when they had gone far enough, "Now."

The Elysium hadn't materialized in Taydin's house; instead it had been parked in a plaza on top of a hill. It was a beautiful day, and the Panopticon was in its full splendor, the sun glittering off of its windows. The Central Plaza was full of wanderers and shoppers of every description. A variety of races were represented, from the humans to the Tpydgs. In the background were rolling hills, and on top of them were windmills, their bright colorful sails spinning slowly in the wind. The trees were were in full splendor, their silvery leaves reflecting the sunlight, so that they seemed to glitter. It was cool and fresh, and the sky was filled with bright and fluffy clouds.

Aislynn caught her breath. She hadn't seen Gallifrey since the War, hadn't known what to expect, and truthfully had been leery of seeing it. Even without the influence of the Nanites, her experiences had left her feeling very shy. Taydin had showed her pictures, but it wasn't like seeing the real thing, in person.

"Oh, Taydin," she breathed. "It's beautiful."

She looked at his face and saw that his eyes were sparkling. The keen pleasure in his face made her regret staying away for so long. She had resisted coming here; perhaps that had been a mistake. "Show a girl around?" she prompted.

"With pleasure." He took her arm and they walked together down the sidewalk.

Aislynn was deeply grateful to Taydin for sticking so close. The Time Lords who had betrayed her had not survived the War, and she knew it better than anyone; but it was not to be denied that, even though it was so lovely, she was nervous and horribly vulnerable, testing waters where she had been badly bitten earlier.

"What would you like to see first?" He prompted.

She thought the matter over carefully.

"The Central Plaza, I think," she said slowly.

The Plaza was in the center of the burgeoning city. It was just in front of the Panopticon, a large open space, tiled in patterns and with swirling colours running across every surface. Curving walkways branched out from it in every direction; shops lined the edges of the Plaza as well as restaurants.

"The Quonset Huts were here originally, but they were shifted a few years back to the west side of town," Taydin told her. "To make room for festivals to take place here."

They spent some time just looking around. They spent pleasant time looking at the Library where Taydin worked as the librarian; visited a restaurant and a couple of stores; and toured the windmills and some of the areas under construction. In a few hours, she had visibly thawed towards the planet and its inhabitants. She felt more relaxed and at home than she had previously, and it showed in the set of her shoulders and the frequency of her smile.

"Still one more thing left to see," Taydin said that afternoon, after a very pleasant morning.

"The house, is it?"

"Be it ever so humble," he smiled at her. "Come on."

They returned to the Elysium and Aislynn looked mortified. "Oh, I didn't even notice!"

The Elysium waited for them on top of the hill. It had taken its favorite shape of a floating spherical ball, in which it had undoubtedly materialized, but Aislynn hadn't even given it a glance once she had caught a sight of Gallifrey. The plaza where they had landed had sidewalks that were decorated in more of the colored tiles, wavy lines and circles in blues, reds, greens, and gold, and this was the texture that the Elysium had selected, so that the floating ball was bumpy with brightly colored patterns floating across it.

"She does seem to prefer that shape," Taydin said bemusedly. "I've got to get around to tracking down the fault. Not today, though." He took out his key.

A portion of the previously-perfect surface of the Elysium slid open, revealing a door. The piece then rotated downwards to become a ramp, and Taydin took Aislynn's hand, and led her inside. The first room in the Elysium was the airlock. It was plain white and had no corners, as if a rounded cylinder had been set on its side. There they waited to be allowed inside.

"Do you want to get rid of it?" Taydin asked her, as it cycled.

"The airlock?" She was surprised. The question hadn't even occurred to her.

"Do we really need this sort of extreme protection now that you are cured?" he pointed out. "Now that you are no longer Infected?"

"I hadn't thought of it," she admitted.

His hand went to hers again. "Still not used to it, are you? Being cured?"

"No," she confessed truthfully over, leaning into him. "I was Infected for so long… when I wake up in the mornings, I often don't remember for several minutes. Usually not until I see your face."

He stroked her hair gently.

"It'll come," he assured her. "You'll get used to it."

"It seems impossible. But then again, I had given up hope of a cure," she admitted, and the door opened into the console room.

The Elysium had been decorated in a tasteful, yet eclectic, mix of styles. Different rooms were decorated in different themes: stone in one, adobe in a second, metal mesh in a third, and so on. The rooms and corridors often featured plants of all kinds, nearly all of them installed before the War. There were interesting cubbyholes and wall sconces; around every corner peeked hopeful fronds and leaves. There was even a certain amount of wildlife, though this was limited mostly to flutterbyes, and a few small songbirds.

However, there were no plants in the console room. The main feature of the room was the console itself, with smooth, jewel-like buttons. Over the center of the console were golden, formless, floating blobs, giving the entire thing the appearance of a lava lamp. The "Sixties Mod" feeling of the room was increased by a couple of "half egg" chairs. The room, as so many of the rooms in the Elysium, was round, without corners, and a few inches away from one curved wall floated four small round spheres, the size of golf balls.

"Shall we, then?" said Taydin. Aislynn's hands moved over the controls, setting the craft in motion. It wasn't a long flight; just from the plaza to Taydin's home. In a moment they had materialized again.

After they had landed, she stood at the controls for a long moment, thinking.

"What is it?" Taydin said.

"I believe it is time to put up the screens," she said softly, and moved to touch the requisite buttons.

All over the ship, screens rose up over the plants. The type of screen varied from point to point; in some places they were mesh, in others wooden slats, in yet others frosted or colored opaque panes. With the screens up, the Elysium looked much less like an arboretum, and much more like a ship. Aislynn normally tended her plants herself, by hand; but now she was going to be away. Behind their screens, the plants would be tended automatically, receiving the proper amounts of water and light, and growing just as contentedly as before. Aislynn, in the meantime, would be busy with a new home.

"A momentous occasion," teased Taydin, knowing what it meant to put the plants away for a time. "Are you ready for this?"

"Yes, I think so," she smiled back. He picked up her valise and took her hand, and she followed him into her new home.