Ariana sat on a bench at the park watching the people pass by. She enjoyed people watching in spite of it making so little sense given that people were not generally kind to her. Perhaps it was simply that watching these humans allowed her to dream. They all had lives and families and a planet to call home. She could barely remember her own world, Galifrey. Ariana had been only a child when her parents sent her away to earth. They had said that earth would
be a safe place away from the Daleks and the time war. They had promised to bring her home when the war was over but they never came. Ariana knew what that meant. If they didn't come for her it was because they had not survived.
The human parents who had adopted her had been kind at first. They were a peasant family, having no lands or property of their own. But they willingly shared their tiny cottage with her and treated her like their own child. Eventually her human brother became a page, working his way toward knighthood. When the king called his men to war, Ariana could not stand by and watch her brother die. She dressed as a knight and went into battle. It was then that humanity showed how cruel they really were. She died in battle that day, only to have her Time Lord DNA regenerate her back to life there on the battlefield. The humans were terrified. Some believed her to be a witch, others a monster. The king ordered her imprisonment and that no one was to speak of the matter ever again.
In the prison they brought physicians to examine her, inquisitors to discover what heresy she was guilty of, and common guards to beat, rape, and torture her. And when they grew tired of that they left her in the dungeon for years on end. Alone. Years would go by before some new ruler took an interest and then the cycle of torture and examinations would begin all over again. One hundred and twelve years passed until she was able to escape.
For a short time after escape, she found some happiness in life. She married a sailor and traveled with him all over the european world. After just three years there was a terrible storm at sea. The ship was lost and as there was no land in sight, the entire crew was lost as well, including her husband. Ariana washed up on the shores of the New World before Christopher Columbus ever sailed there. The native people welcomed her, treated her as if she were a god. She took no husband among them, they did not think it right to marry a god. Nothing she could say to them convinced them that she only wanted to be their equal. They had seen her regenerate on the beach. And so, she was surrounded by people and still totally alone.
When europeans began arriving, more than one-hundred-fifty years after Ariana did, they immediately hated the pagan god of the natives. She was forcibly taken back to europe and put into a new prison cell. For nearly two hundred years she languished in their prison. They tried many experiments on her to see if she would die, fire, spears, new gunpowder weapons, even vivisection. The majority of that time however, she was left utterly alone. In 1703 she managed to escape again. This time she fled straight to Northern Russia. It was cold there, so cold that no one would want to look for her there, she hoped that perhaps it would be a place of safety. It was safe, lonely, but safe. The only time she ever left the cold north, was to sell furs in the city which she used to buy books. The books kept her almost sane. They occupied her mind and made her loneliness almost tolerable. She was not what could be called happy. In fact, she wished quite often that death were possible for her. But having something to read distracted her mind from such thoughts and gave her the strength to continue without raging out against all the humans.
In 1781, Ariana married a trapper named Petri. He didn't know how old she was or about her imprisonments. She never told either of her husbands. It was simply too painful, and too much of a risk. But she was lonely and marriage was a temporary cure to that loneliness. Of course Petri died after twelve years. Too much vodka, and too much cold, eventually stopped his heart. Heartbroken, Ariana left Russia and went back to Britain. She wasn't sure what she expected to find there. Earth was certainly not her home, and those prison cells in London were not where she wished to be. Perhaps there was just something about London that reminded her of Galifrey. She took a job as a housemaid, although she was far too intelligent and well read for the job, she hoped to eventually work in the royal household. If a means to travel to other worlds existed, it would be kept secret and only known to royalty.
It wasn't easy, but after many jobs, and many years, Ariana secured a job in the right place. It was there that she learned about The Doctor, the man who saved the Queen from werewolves. She searched far and wide for information about this doctor and the more she learned, the more convinced she was that they came from the same world. In 1884, while working in the Queen's household, there was an accident. A fall down the stairs which ended in impalement on a bayonet. Ariana's regeneration got the attention of the Queen, who immediately turned her over to the custody of the newly formed Torchwood.
The staff at Torchwood, freely answered her questions about The Doctor. As far as they were concerned, she was never leaving their prison and so it mattered very little how much she knew. They kept her inside the walls of the Manor with the use of a bracelet which would electrocute her if she passed outside. The bracelet they said came from another world, found in a crash of an alien ship. At night, Ariana wandered about the manor reading all the files, learning all about the worlds beyond earth. By day, they asked her to remain in the library. There was no torture, no invasive examinations, but they were clearly afraid of her and did not consider her an equal or a friend in any way. Often, one of the staff members would come with a roster of questions for her. She would answer them to the best of her ability. They always got irritated with how little she knew of alien life and technology. She couldn't seem to make them understand that she had only been a child when she was sent to earth. She knew very little about other worlds. And so it was that she was a prisoner again,alone. She didn't even try to escape Torchwood. Why bother, she thought. She knew that she might as well wait until they acquired the means for her to leave the planet entirely.
Then, in 1969, there were rumors that The Doctor was in London. It was finally time to leave the Torchwood manor. Ariana knew that she could survive the electrocution. She waited until night to make her escape. After the pain passed, she picked herself up and headed for London. The city was much larger than it had been since she last visited. It wasn't easy to track down the doctor. By the time she got to his blue box, it was just fading away, leaving for another time period. Ariana screamed in agonizing disappointment. She lay on the ground where the TARDIS had been, sobbing. She had been so close to meeting the one being left in the universe who could... then she realized she didn't even know what she expected The Doctor to do for her. He already had human companions. She doubted he suffered from loneliness. He didn't even seem to share her mistrust of the human species. Torchwood's files indicated that Galifrey was lost so it wasn't as if he could bring her home. No, her home was with him wherever that was. That's when she realized that she loved him. She thought herself pathetic for loving a man she'd never even met. But he wasn't a man, he was Time Lord. And she was of the Time Lord race as well. She had to find him, no matter what it took.
Ariana remained in London, hidden from Torchwood. She lived on the streets for a while, went to the library often, and eventually wrote a novel. Publishing it enabled her to support herself. The publisher was amazed at her historical accuracy, never knowing that she had been a part of history. Every day, she went to the park and watched the people. Early in the twenty first century she heard the sound of the TARDIS on more than one occasion but she never found The Doctor. Then one day, he just walked by. Walked past her in the park as if he'd lived in London all of his life and belonged there. Overwhelmed with emotion she could hardly speak and almost lost her chance entirely.
"Doctor!" She called out after him, finally finding her voice.
He turned to see who was calling him. One look at her and he knew. One Time Lord always knew another. He stopped in his tracks, staring at her in disbelief. She approached him, almost hesitantly, though she didn't know why. She was close enough to touch his face but she held back.
"It's true." Ariana told him.
"How can it be? It's impossible." He choked.
"My parents sent me to earth's past to save me from the war. I have been looking for you for a very long time." She said, tears in her eyes.
He reached to touch her face. "May I?" He asked, wanting permission to read her mind.
She nodded, putting her hand on his face as well. It took only moments to exchange all their thoughts and all their history, the essence of who they were. Ariana was surprised to learn that the Doctor was as lonely as she herself was, she felt overwhelmed with all that he was. The Doctor was equally overcome. They didn't know how long they stood staring at each other in that park. Time seemed to have lost all meaning.
"I am coming with you." She finally said, it was not a request.
"Yes. Yes you are." He agreed. "But first..." The Doctor took a step closer to her and wrapped his arms around her. She accepted the embrace, warmly hugging him in return. Unexpectedly, they both began to cry. It was just too unbelievable, they had thought themselves to be alone in the universe and had found each other. When they parted, The Doctor took her hand and brought her to the TARDIS.
"So this is it?" She said, stepping inside.
"It is. Isn't she beautiful?"
"Yes she is. Where will we go?"
"Anywhere in all of time and space."