The Doctor was in a prison. This was a normal turn of events. He was often in prison. He had a tendency to annoy people in power who shouldn't have power. One of the Doctor's hobbies was to topple evil empires. The evil empire of the moment was called, 'The Dark Domain' with bolded font; typically camp and grandiose. There's evil empires for you.
The evil emperor a flamboyant fellow who made people think things like 'that Caligula guy wasn't so bad,' and 'in comparison Angelus was a nice person'. Suffice it to say he and the Doctor did not get on. Well, that's not true—they got along like a house on fire; Screams, flames, people running for safety.
It took the Doctor exactly three hours to arrange a rebellion. He picked out a leader; a young man who in other circumstances would have become a pastry chef who had the unlikely (and unfortunate) name of Louisa Byron (his friends called him Butch), a CI2 and future wife for Butch, her name was Emma Harris (descendent of one Xander Harris. It's of no real bearing to the story but isn't it nice to know that the future is in good hands) who in another life would have been a cat burglar.
When the revolution (Viva La Revolution!) was going to his satisfaction the Doctor snuck into the main planetary communication center and took over all channels. Calling himself DJ Dizzy Freedom Man ("No, no, no, no. Don't call me that. That's embarrassing, that is. If any of my companions ever found out they'd hold over me forever. Call me…hmmm. Hullo! My name's the Doctor!"). The Doctor pulled no punches he aired out all the governments' dirty laundry. And there was a lot. He told the people of the planet Florence (The Dark Domain was not the planets actual name) about all the varied and imaginative atrocities their tax dollars were paying for.
And being the Doctor he did not stop there. He introduced the population to all the literature that the government would find 'unsuitable for public consumption.' Music was outlawed so he introduced listening ears to the great operatic composer Giacomo Puccini, to the king of rock 'n' roll Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin and all the greats.
The students in the classroom of Miss. Delia Lupin smashed their indoctrination units after hearing 'Hound Dog.' Miss. Lupin after hearing Aretha Franklin's R.E.S.P.E.C.T would go down in planetary history as the founder of the equal rights for women movement.
Then finally he composed on the fly a twelve stanza sonnet in honor of the Emperor. It touched on the man's utter vileness, personal hygiene, love life and fashion sense (this poem would be carved on the Emperor's grave).
When the guards came and pulled him out of the communications hub he could be heard exclaiming, "Was that rude? 'Cause that's me. Rude and not ginger." He went on in this vein for some time before he was knocked unconscious.
He was summarily taken to the Emperor for judgment. The court transcripts went something like this:
Emperor: You have roused the people against us and disparaged our name. What have you to say for yourself?
Prisoner: Why is it that royalty everywhere feels the need to speak of themselves in the plural? I supposed it could be that they mean 'we' like myself and the family, or 'we' as in myself and the nation. What are you thoughts?
Emperor: You shall be punished for your sedition, alien interloper!
Prisoner: You can't see me from up there on your dais but, I'm rolling my eyes. All tyrants are frustrated drama queens at heart. Why couldn't you have gone into theater? You already have the puffy shirts.
Emperor: I will leave you in the capable hands of Count Rugen while I crush the uprising.
Prisoner: All the world over, so easy to see / People everywhere just wanna be free / Listen, please listen, that's the way it should be / Peace in the valley, people got to be free…No wait. Those are lyrics from the Young Rascals.
Emperor: Take him away.
Torture chambers are rarely decorated with any taste and this one was no different. When the Doctor awoke he found himself looking at a mirrored ceiling. That was just tacky.
"So it's to be torture. I can cope with torture." In the past he had indeed coped with torture. The Doctor was a lot tougher than most humans and if he wanted to he could turn off his pain receptors.
There was a coughing noise and the Doctor turned his head to see a very pale nondescript servant shaking his head.
"You don't think so?" The Doctor asked.
The servant regarded him out of pale eyes, "You called the Emperor frumpy on interplanetary holo-comm so you're brave. But, nobody withstands the machine."
An hour later Count Rugen, a man who wore too much purple velvet leaned close to the Doctor's ear and whispered, "Remember this is for posterity so please be honest…how did it make you feel?"
The Doctor let out a whimper.
"Interesting," said Rugen and wrote it down.
They had made the mistake of asking the Doctor to tell them all he knows and three months later they were still on A. When they weren't torturing him, he enjoyed the comforts of prison cell ten. The walls were a dreary beige and it was furnished with a lot of hay, if hay was vermilion and smelt of three day old asparagus surprise.
In the corner was a bucket.
He'd had two visitors. The Doctor would have thought they were hallucinations were they not so familiar. The first one looked like a deranged fourteen year old girl. She had mismatched eyes, and her hairstyle looked like something Edward Scissorhands did while drunk. Also, she had the unfortunate tendency to turn into fish.
"ANd I coulD'T finD MY DogGIE. MY SISTer / BroTHer saId THat thE pounD goT HIm. AnD tHen I aTE FriDay. It TastED LiKe FIre HyDants and BreeN…"
And to think people accused him of babbling.
The other one was older, grayer and more naked. The Doctor was sorry to say he knew her quite well (not that way Jack!). She didn't speak much but sometimes she'd jab her hooked ring into his hearts.
His last torturing session had elicited a sound that the immortal S. Morgenstern would have called 'The Sound of Ultimate Suffering.' He had made this sound after the Time War and found to his dismay that he survived. His hearts had made that sound after—well, he wasn't going to go there...
So now, dressed in prisoner stripes and chained to the wall by one ankle, he waited for the gray women. Maybe this time around he'd get her to laugh.
She didn't come. Neither did the other one.
"Oh, Daddy, you certainly get yourself into trouble don't you?"
"What?" The Doctor blinked and turned blurry eyes towards the source of the voice.
It was a girl of about sixteen years. She wore brown corduroy trousers, a fuzzy blue sweater and green trainers.
The Doctor forced himself to focus on her face. It was pale with a wide mouth and a sharp nose and golden brown eyes all of this was topped off by wild brown curls. All in all she was vaguely familiar.
"I'm afraid you've mistaken me for someone else," The Doctor pushed himself up by his elbows.
The girl laughed gently and knelt to peer into his eyes. "No. I'm not at all mistaken. How do you feel?"
The Doctor thought about it. "Let's see I've been tortured by a man who considers the giving of pain a kind of art form, I haven't eaten anything in a month and I've been hallucinating. First there was a girl looking for her dog, and then a naked, gray lady with no sense of humor. Other than that… just peachy bloody keen."
The girl sat down cross legged in front of him. "So having some problems?"
"You know instead of commiserating with me you could do something useful and let me out or at least find and return my sonic screwdriver," The Doctor snarked.
"I'd help you if I could. But, at the moment I'm afraid that I'm only here in a cheerleader capacity. Besides, you always save the day." The girl said this with a, to the Doctor's mind, entirely unfounded faith in his abilities.
The Doctor then noticed two things about the girl. One she was human. Two she wasn't entirely human.
"You're a Time Lord." The Doctor could feel the psychic echo that reverberated through the empty space ware Gallifrey should be.
"Oi!" The girl wrinkled her nose in indignation. "I'll have you know…I'm a Lady." She smiled blindingly at him, a hint of pink tongue poking out.
"You are an impossibility," rasped the Doctor. Suddenly, he knew why she was so familiar.
The girl sighed, "No, Daddy, that's just it. I'm, currently at any rate, a possibility."
The Doctor Blinked. "Daddy?"
"Someday I might be your progeny. As I said before at the moment I'm just a possibility," The girl gave a careless shrug and grinned at his entirely disbelieving expression.
The Doctor gave her a level look, "What's your name?"
"You named me after your mum."
The silence that followed that was profound.
So this is what going mad feels like.
The girl pulled her knees up under her chin. "I've always wondered…when you stole the TARDIS and left Gallifrey you went to earth. Your mum's home planet, but you never looked her up. Why didn't you?"
The Doctor frowned. "It never occurred to me." And it hadn't. His father never spoke of his mother. If the subject was ever brought up he'd disappear for a few days. He shrugged that aside and looked at the girl.
All Time Lords had over five hundred senses. He turned most of them towards the child in front of him. The girl was right. She was only partially here. She looked solid enough but to eyes that see various timelines she was as see through as a hologram.
"A possibility?" The Doctor digested this idea and came to the conclusion that it needed a dash of sanity.
"Uh-huh," The girl smiled at him awkwardly. "We're something that might be."
The Doctor raised an inquiring brow, "We."
"I'm the oldest of four." She grinned at his expression.
"Four! As in four children?"
"According to Mum, you fainted when she was giving birth to me."
"I did not!" The Doctor said indignantly. "I wouldn't faint. I've assisted in births before and I never even felt a twinge of discomfort."
The girl rolled her eyes. "You weren't married to those people. If it makes you feel better you didn't keel over like a big nancy boy when the others came." She paused thoughtfully, "Although, according to Uncle Jack you were a bit wobbly."
Uncle Jack? And Jack told her that he'd had gone all wobbly? He'd have to have a talk with Uncle Jack. Wait…no. This child was a living embodiment of the one adventure he'd never get to have. Having taken everything else from him the universe had decided to torment with this.
"Just go away," The Doctor said covering his eyes with a shaking hand.
"No."
The Doctor glared at her.
The girl shrugged, "You never leave me alone when ever I ask to be." Her lips turned up a bit at the corners. "Mum isn't gone forever. The walls of the universe may be cold but, who says they're the only way."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes and his lips thinned. "Even if that were true…which it's not, I've looked. There is just one problem. I am not in love with Rose Tyler."
In Cardiff, Wales and several centuries prior to the Doctor's currant incarceration, one Jack Harkness suddenly started laughing hysterically for no reason. He wasn't sure what was happening just that someone somewhere had said something very funny.
The girl laughed in his face. "Yeah, just like ohhh, Jack O'Neill and Sam Carter aren't in love. Or Dana Scully and Fox Mulder aren't in love or…" she went on in that vein for some time.
The Doctor glared at her. The examples she was heaping about the place were people who were famously in love…even if some of them had never done anything about it.
The girl sighed, "Daddy, I'm not here to cause you pain. I just thought you'd like the company. The rule about Time Lords and not falling in love was shit."
The Doctor felt like he should scold the girl for her language but he just couldn't find the energy. "There were reasons for that rule."
"Not any good ones. 'Sides its not good for Time Lords to be alone."
The Doctor sat up creaking in all the wrong places. "And even if I was…she's safe where she is and she's got her family with her."
The girl bit her lip. "Grandmum and Uncle Mickey had a gap they could fill. Rose Tyler didn't. She's had to squeeze into a space that's only big enough for a Yorkshire terrier."
The Doctor's widened as the ramifications of that set in.
"But don't worry." She smiled. "It's being taken care of. So, until the right time comes there's always the family business to keep you occupied."
The Doctor blinked, "The family business?"
"To guard growth and to ease pain," The girl smiled widely.
"That's sounds like a quote." The Doctor pursed his lips and a somewhat familiar one at that.
"It is. You'll find out about it when I turn eleven."
The girl's head went up at the sound of a commotion in the hallways.
She smiled widely, "That would be your rescue. Butch just led an assault force into the citadel of doom and Emma just killed the six fingered man who killed her father, in a duel."
The Doctor slapped a hand to his forehead. "That's what was bothering me about that Rugen fellow. Six fingers on his right hand. Must have been fun at parties."
"Now, I'm gonna go. There's a universe to save," The girl bounced up.
"The family business?"
"Yeah." The girl began to fade. "Before I forget when I'm nine I'll get marmalade on the Cloister Bells so go easy on me, 'kay."
She gets marmalade where?!
Now he could see through her.
The Doctor felt a twinge in his hearts. "I'll see you again?"
The girl shrugged, "It's possible." She brushed translucent lips against the Doctor's forehead. "I love you, Daddy."
"Quite right too," The Doctor said as she faded from view.
Notes:
Xander Harris is the property of the Joss
S. Morgenstern, The Sound of Ultimate Suffering, Count Rugen, the really pale servant and the machine are all from the Princess Bride.
The deranged girl looking for her lost dog is Delirium of the Endless and the fat naked gray lady with the hook is her sister Despair and both of them are chronicled by the fabulously weird Neil Gaiman.
Jack O'Neill and Sam Carter are from Stargate: SG1
If you don't know Mulder and Scully go forth from this place in shame!
"To guard growth and to ease pain" is from the Wizard's Oath that is central to Diane Duane's young Wizards series…I highly recommend them. And yes, Miss. Tyler's parents are not going to be happy when she tells them about it.