If any Who fans want to KILL me for this fanfic, go right ahead. I described it from the first as "an abomination unto the Dr. Who canon." I'm just fooling around with it. And if my idea isn't quite as cracktastic as I think it is, review, tell me, I might continue. If its bad, review, and throw a few tomatoes. I absolutely love Dr. Who, and if I ruin it I will never forgive myself. ;
I came up with it when I'd finished watching "Journey's End" for the 4th time and "Doomsday" for the third and was right in the middle of Torchwood series 2 ep Adrift (and Ianto and Jack getting walked in, BUCK nekkid on by Gwen is CLASSIC by the way) for the third time as well.
The Title "Succession of Forest" comes from the main character's name, "Mori" which means "Forest" in Japanese. And Mori's brother Damon is my attempt at creating Jack's dream boyfriend. His name is from the myth "Damon and Pythias" after the character who waited behind to die in Pythias' place if he didn't return. Kinda sets the tone for how he got where he did in the story.
Full Summary: Still mourning Donna, the doctor discovers a centuries old secret of his people, and the key to uncovering it lies with sibling timelords Mori and Damon, heirs to a story the Doctor's people forgot. The discovery parts ways for the siblings, Mori following Doctor to the stars, Damon staying behind to defend earth with Torchwood. Neither able to fight a destiny written over a thousand years before...
Anguished, broken, the Doctor rode the tardis through time. He'd lost Donna, he'd lost Donna and there was nothing he could do.
Even if Darvos was dead, the damage he had done to the Doctor's psyche had the last of the timelords deeply depressed. As always, the Tardis responded to his thoughts, bringing him through time and space to where he needed to be. A place so strongly burned into recent memory that he could find it asleep or unconscious or dead.
Battle, two of the greatest enemies of the timelords and the universe clashing over a beautiful, clever, innocent young world. The day that Rose was ripped from his life. The day the world almost ended, and didn't because she sacrificed her happiness, her future, for the planet's protection.
Sadness, so much sadness...
The Tardis came to a stop, and the Doctor almost didn't respond to its urge to rise. He was too tired, he just needed time to absorb the biggest battle he had ever fought, and the hot tempered redhead who had been its greatest casualty.
Just like Rose, Donna had paid a horrible price for his company. And after a very old and bitter enemy calling him a destroyer of worlds, Doctor was very, very close to blaming himself for what had happened to both of them. It was stupid, maybe 48 hours earlier he wouldn't have thought the same. But so much had happened that had brought the Doctor just shy of the breaking point inside of one day. Losing Donna had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.
He was depressed enough, the noise around the Tardis, laser fire, cries of "Exterminate! Exteeerrrrminate!" and the whirring of cybermen limbs didn't rouse him.
But something did...
It was a familiar whirrrrr of a sonic tool. And an unfamiliar yell of. "OY! BUCKET HEADS!! Turn and run or I'll use this thing!!"
"Any human who defies us must be EXTERMINATED!"
That startled Doctor out of his stupor. "What in blazes?"
He threw open the tardis door. It took all of ten seconds for him to process what he'd walked into.
Dahleks vs. Cybermen, the death of rose, doubled back on himself, new york city, brooklyn.
A girl about high school age with long, rippling black hair and wild pale gold eyes, yes gold eyes, was leveling a sonic tool at a trio of dahleks. "I don't know what the hell this is or what it does, but I know you don't like it! Stay back or I'll use it!!"
"Dahleks do not fear sonic weapons. Dahleks do not fear foolish humans. Dahleks will /exterminate/ humans!!"
"Not without given yeh a FIGHT!!" Whhhhrrrrrr! WHAM! The girl's eyes blazed, as she aimed a kick, a savate snap that would have punctured a human voicebox, to knock the dahlek over. The sonic pen clasped in her hand scrambled its suits processors, it /stayed/ down.
"Sonic weapon... how did a human get a sonic weapon?" The Doctor waited at the door, ready to bolt as soon as it was safe to find out.
The girl leapt, whirling a capoeira kick to whack another out of the way. She leveled her sonic tool again the instant the third dahlek fired, and the feedback sent the girl flying backwards with a CRACK!! and hit the pavement, fallen limp.
"Not another..." The doctor's eyes darted over the scene. There had to be something he could do here...
"Target has been exterminated, returning to main Dahlek forces." The Dahlek moved on, and the Doctor bolted for the crumpled form on the ground.
Fingers to the pulsepoint showed no heartbeat. "She's gone..." The doctor sounded depressed, disappointed. Just one more tragedy in million. One more death in an existance of deaths and destruction.
What point was there?
And then adventure showed itself in one of a million, billion trillion, INFINATE faces and puzzles.
The girl's body glowed golden, and then the gold faded away, evaporating into a pale mist. The girl's body began to heave, deep ragged breaths straining for existance.
"Heeeellooo what are you?" Doctor asked as he knelt by the broken form on the ground.
The girl simply let out a groan, tears forming at the edges of her eyes. Laboring for breath, body shivering violently.
"I'd better get you someplace safe... whatever you are. I can hide the tardis but you need to rest." The Doctor scooped her up. "Small, but not light." The sonic tool fell from her grasp. "Woops, better get that too." He grabbed it, pocketing the item quickly.
He brought the girl into the Tardis, finding a pillow and blanket and setting her down where he could monitor her.
He placed a hand on her chest. "Breathing is ragged, has a pulse." Then he pressed his stethoscope to her chest. "Oh no, oh no no no no no way." Babump heart one, heart one is good because humans have one heart. Babump...
Two hearts, two hearts is bad, because only timelords have two hearts. He would have /sensed/ if there were others besides him. Why didn't he sense them until now?
The Doctor Donna
Human metaphasic crisis
"Can't be..."
the girl groaned.
"No way."
half conscious, she shook her head, trying to clear it.
"Its impossible."
The sonic tool crashed to the ground, he'd dropped it in surprise, triggering a holographic message. A woman with equally black hair, and glimmering sapphireblue eyes appeared. "Morigan my dearest daughter. I'm sorry that its come to this. If this message has triggered, then you have begun on a very cruel destiny, and I am not here to protect you any longer. If this message has triggered, then the world must be in grave and horrible danger. You need to rest, this message will only trigger if the Right of Incarnation has begun. Your body is literally changing from human into something new, and you'll be exhausted and weak for a long time. And there is a long, long story that you need to absorb, a story eons and eons long and filled with pain, emptiness, and triumph.
"Ages, and ages, and ages ago there was an ancient order, no, an ancient race, known as the Timelords. But in order to save everything, they had to make the ultimate sacrifice, there are only two left, one a bringer of infinate potential, the other a master of chaos and destruction. They warred for millions and millions of lives and loves and dramas that spanned existance.
"There were a scarce few who knew that the timewar was coming, knew that the destruction of their world was nigh and that they could not avoid it. Their beloved world of Galifrey would die. But their people didn't have to die with it. In defiance of their own rules and conventional wisdom, they took stepts to ensure that someday, somewhere, somewhen, their species would be able to make a comeback. A few humans who had come to know of the timelords, oooooh, had to be too many centuries ago, sacrificed themselves to be ships, arks if you will, to preserve their people.
"It would take centuries to reach complete strength, but a gene was passed through the generations, gaining strength with each successive generation of humans after the original. When the time was right, the right shock, the right trigger, would stimulate a transformation from human to timelord. A complete transformation, because a hybrid is genetically unstable and impossible. There are others like you out there, if you want to revive the timelords, find them! Together you won't have a planet to return to, but you will have a people to protect, a banner to rally under, a pain and sacrifice to share and remember.
"My dearest lovely brave daughter, if I am not there to defend you, then let my love take you through the centuries to come. This pen is a sonic weapon. Its a perfect all purpose tool that you'll have eons to learn how to use. Let it be your sword. Let my love follow you into the stars, Morigan, Child of Time. Daughter of Galifrey's Ghost." The holigram faded, the tool going dark.
The doctor sat down, hard, on the floor of the Tardis. In one last final act of defiance before their destruction, his people had chosen humans, brilliant resourceful selfless dedicated humans, to return the timelords to life.
The girl took more, deep, shuddering breath, head shaking in confusion as she struggled to wake.
"I have to get you out of here... and i know somebody who will be /more/ than able to help me with you." The tardis faded out and away, making a beeline to Martha and UNIT. He would have to go to a point a few months after the Dahlek's stolen earth, giving Unit enough time to rest and rebuild and return to some semblance of normalcy.
The tardis sawed to existance in the storage bay for Unit's headquarters in Manhatten. Years forward, what? 3 years? Almost 4? About 6 months after the stolen earth should be safe.
Crossing his fingers that Martha would be on the other side the Doctor grabbed the girl, carrying her in his arms, pocketed her sonic pen, and hurried out. "MARTHA!!"
She was on the other side of the door, he had been accurate. But she was alone. Good thing, he'd rather not have to deal with military soldiers right now. "MARTHA!! Help me!!"
Martha had been looking forwards to some time alone, Unit was moving its headquarters after the incident with the Dahleks. The place had been ravaged, so she couldn't blame them. She had offered to take an inventory of what was left after the attack and decide what should be removed and salvaged.
And the Doctor came running once more, and she had never heard of him asking for help, and there was a girl she didn't know? "Doctor, calm down, bring her here." Martha rushed over to help him ease the girl to the ground. "There's a cot and some sleeping bags over there." She pointed, "Get them for me, and tell me what's happened."
"Its a long story." The doctor dragged the cot and bedding over, "Short version, she's another timelord."
"What? But isn't that a good thing?" Martha demanded, alarmed. "It means you're not alone anymore." She helped the Doctor transfer the unconscious girl onto the cot.
"Yes, but how it came about is the problem." The Doctor sat down on the nearest crate. "Here, this should explain most of it." He pulled out the girl's sonic pen. "When I was carrying her I dropped it, it triggered a message explaining what had happened, just no details." He pushed the button to replay the message.
Martha frowned, glancing over at the girl on the cot. "So she's the descendant of one of these arks?" She asked worriedly. "You're /sure/ you saw her regenerate?" She asked, eyeing the Doctor. "But her appearance stayed the same?"
The Doctor nodded. "I think, when she died it kicked the gene for the transformation in. That's the part of her that changed, not her outside appearance."
Martha nodded, glancing down at the girl worriedly. "Whatever happens, whoever she is, this isn't going to go well when she wakes up." Then something dawned on her. "Doctor, do you think there are others like her, not in /this/ era but in ages past in Earth's history?"
The Doctor shook his head. "From the message, it sounds more like... ooooh I think I've figured out what they did! The gene required wasn't complete with the first generation of Arks... they fixed it so that the gene required for triggering the transformation would form over several generations, several centuries. They meant it just for /this/ when, this place, this century."
"But why?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Look at human history? Ages past humans tended to be frightened of something beyond themselves. a timelord? He or she would have been burned at the stake if they'd surfaced anywhen else. The twentieth and twentyfirst centuries are when humankind finally begins to shine, your consciousness expands and human civilization gets more tolerant and more receptive to change. Its the perfect when and where for a comeback of the timelords."
"That doesn't help her though." Martha cautioned. "What would it be like for you Doctor? If you suddenly woke up and weren't a timelord anymore? That's the same thing that she's going to go through."
The Doctor sobered. "Its not going to be easy for her, no." and the two lapsed into silence. "What happened here?" The doctor asked, breaking the uncomfortable quiet. "Its deserted."
"Unit decided to move their headquarters." Martha explained. "Since so many people died here, they decided it was better if they left the place abandoned. I'm here to figure out what can be salvaged and what's broken beyond repair."
"I see..."
"I heard about Donna... I'm sorry. At least she's still alive, and... I really don't think I could have done what she did." Martha said with a gentle sigh, trying to reassure the Doctor. "You did the right thing, you saved her..."
"Somehow, it doesn't feel like I did." The Doctor sighed. "I went back, back to the battle that landed Rose in another dimension. Three years ago in calender time."
"You were needed." martha indicated the girl. "That's how it always happens, someone needs you, and you come." When the Doctor stayed silent, Martha worried even more, but she didn't push the issue.
The girl's body convulsed, gasping, struggling to breathe again. Martha quickly checked her pulse and breathing. "Shakey, but she seems to be alright."
"Her nerve centers are adjusting to having to move two hearts." The Doctor said softly. "That was what happened with Donna. Her body couldn't take having a Timelord's mind. Adrenaline kept her going through the battle, but once everyone was gone and that rush had calmed down, her mind started to overload. If I hadn't done what I did, she'd have developed the same trouble breathing, passed out, died. Her mind wouldn't have remembered which she was, the parts of her brain that controlled vital functions wouldn't have known which species she was supposed to be. A metacrisis between two genetically incompatible species always results in death. That's why what my people did with these... Arks, they could only have it one way or the other, both wouldn't have done anyone any good."
The girl shuddered again, then groaned. "My head..." She muttered weakly.
"Are you alright?" Martha demanded, alarmed.
"I could seriously use an asprin." The girl groaned. "And a soda, and a big mac with a shake. I'm starving. But being still alive is a start..." Her body slacked. "I'm so weak, I don't even have the energy to move." She said faintly.
"You're going to be fine, just rest, you're safe." Martha said gently.
"I know I'm going crazy." The girl groaned. "Your accent, brittish, you visiting New York?" She asked weakly.
"I work here in New York, I'm a doctor and I work with the military." Not the whole truth but close enough...
"A doctor huh? That's why I'm alright then? Well Doc? is it bad?" She joked.
"You'll be alright, you need to get a good rest but you're going to be fine." Martha said warmly. "I'm Martha, Martha Jones, and you?"
The girl grinned. "Mum named me Morigan. But Mori is fine." Mori mumbled. "Mori means forest... Mori Leigh Warren. Martha, my brother Damon is out there somewhere... can you... can you try to find him? Please?" She sounded desperate.
"Sure Mori..." Martha looked helplessly at the Doctor. She /hated/ having to lie, but what could she say? Mori you traveled forwards in time three years and we don't know where your brother is? "... you've been having trouble breathing, are you feeling alright? Beyond the headache..."
"My whole body is tingling, like its waiting for something." Mori said quietly. "Its a... dizzying feeling. Does that even make sense? I got shot, but I'm feeling euphoric?"
"Yeah. It doesn't." Martha looked up at the Doctor for some kind of cue. "You have my friend here to thank for even being alive."
The Doctor smiled, even though Mori's eyes were closed. "You scared me a bit there Mori. You're safe though."
"He was visiting New York to see me. He's a Doctor too..." Mori groaned, cracking her eyes open and struggling to rise. "Easy!" Martha warned, mildly alarmed.
Mori gasped, then squeezed her eyes shut. "I don't know what hurts more, my head, my eyes or my chest." Slowly she became more and more aware. "Its quiet out, is it all over?"
Martha and Doctor looked at each other, "Can you stand Mori?" The doctor asked at last. "I want to show you something."
"If I stand up I'm going to fall over." Mori groaned. "That thing, that tool mom gave me, I lost it."
"I didn't." The Doctor said with a smile. "Here." He held it up, before pressing it back into Mori's hands. "Don't lose it. Now, Martha take one arm, I'll take the other." He nodded in the direction of the Tardis.
"What's a phonebooth doing here?" Mori asked. "Superman?" She said sarcastically.
"You'll see, here, lean on me." Mori groaned, threatening to topple over.
"My head... my arms and legs won't work right..."
"its alright, you just need to go a little ways..." The Doctor coaxed, Mori gulped and set her jaw, focusing on each step. "Heeeere we go?"
"What the fucking hell?" Mori demanded. "its huge in here..." She sat as soon as the Doctor helped her to a seat against the wall. "What is this place?"
"Its a ship..." The Doctor said with a grin. "My ship, that's how I pulled you out of there. Its a timeship."
"A /timeship/ as in a time /machine?/ HG Wells that kind of time machine?" Mori appeared ready to faint the instant there was no sign of danger. The instant she had a place to lie down and rest she was going to sleep for a week.
"aaah, sort of. When you were attacked, I brought you inside the Tardis and brought you forwards a couple of years. I thought it was safer. Besides, Martha didn't know me then, i needed her to keep an eye on you in case something bad happened."
"And I need more equipment to be certain Doctor. You said that a human timelord hybrid would die? We don't know if there's any danger to Mori either, I need to monitor her condition. And I want to make sure Jack's team is alright after the Dahleks. All I got from him was a brief written message that the Hub for Torchwood had been damaged and they were starting repairs." Martha said worriedly. "Besides, Owen has more equipment than I do at the moment. The infirmary I practiced in looks like a disaster area. And even if it were usable, my people were slaughtered inside it. I won't treat somebody where people were... murdered by the dahleks, it wouldn't be right."
"What are you two talking about? The attack you pulled me out of?" Mori asked, not quite tracking.
"No, there was a massive incident about six months ago. The dahleks, the... pod shaped creatures that attacked you, had returned. They pulled the Earth literally out of time and space, transferring it to another dimension. They slaughtered humans indiscrimenantly, and took out every military base they could find. That includes this one."
"Do you /really/ want to subject her to Jack... look at the shape she's in." The Doctor demanded.
"He's perfectly fine, he might even be the best thing." Martha avowed. Then she decided to tease. "Tell me, Doctor, did Jack hit on you?" Martha's eyes glimmered mischiviously.
The Doctor sputtered, as close to a blush on his face as Martha had ever seen him "He did not. I simply think he's a litttle too... trigger happy?" The Doctor tried to find a polite term.
"I'm surprised he didn't. Jack hits on everyone." Martha giggled. "What makes you think you'd be any different?" She said with a mischievious grin. "He's changed a lot since you first met. Don't worry. But they have equipment I might need if she..." she indicated Mori. "Takes a turn for the worse..."
"Who's this... Jack?" Mori asked.
Doctor and Martha gave each other a look, and Martha started laughing. "He's a friend of mine, leads Torchwood down in Cardiff."
"As in Wales?"
"Yeah, that Cardiff."
Mori glared. "I've spent my whole life in this godforsaken glass tower city. I feel like crap, they have an infirmary, and its anywhere but here. When I'm feeling better, I'll try to come back for my brother but..."
"Alright." Doctor sighed, a small smile curling his face. "I'll take you there."
Mori grunted, then cried out when the Tardis first started to lurch. Tensing she hung on to the nearest cable and shook. There was the... the sense of excitement, and the faintest, faintest feeling of familiarity. she was clinging for her life, in an alien time machine, she shouldn't be familiar with anything, but it felt more like deja vous than anything else. "Its alright." Martha bent next to Mori to make sure she wasn't going to pass out. "Are you okay?"
"My head is going to split open." Mori muttered. "I'm gonna need to lean on somebody to stand, I think I might pass out." Her body and senses were completely disoriented.
The Tardis began to appear in the exact spot it had their /last/ visit. Gwen looked up and called. "Jaaack! Visitors!" As if it were a common occurance.
Jack Harkness peered over the railing and then bolted to greet the Tardis. "Well this is a surprise. Here I thought he didn't like me." Jack said amiably. "Only been six months since the dahleks, I'd have thought he'd show up before now."
"He probably has Martha with him." Owen had looked up from his work, then entered the room to greet the Doctor. "I never got to meet him you know."
"neither did I." Toshiko entered from a different direction. "I got an e-mail from Damon. He's going to be late, he said not to worry." She grinned. "You know Jack, you two were made for each other."
Jack laughed, as the team gathered around to meet the doctor. Damon made two boyfriends that Gwen had walked in on him having sex with. "Hey, you know what he said. Damon's not a morning person."
Finally solid, the Tardis stood still for one moment before the door opened.
Mori struggled to hang on to Martha, the instant she got to her feet her knees buckled, her head swum and her eyes focused just on the floor beneath her feet. "I think I'm gonna pass out..." Mori mumbled as Martha guided her out of the Tardis.
She heard the Doctor calling to Jack to help him. "She's conscious but she's very weak. Martha said you guys had medical equipment she needed."
"What's happened to her?" A tall thin man reached out to help Martha guide Mori through a series of corridors. For the raven haired girl the world was swimming, up was down, down was up. Her body was rebelling against any effort she made to move it.
"A genetic transformation, its not harmful to others but we're not sure what it will do to her. We need medical scanners that I don't have. The infirmary all my equipment was in was demolished when the Dahleks stole Earth." Martha explained. "Owen, this is serious. She's transforming into a timelord. Somebody put a genetic trigger in her ancestry. When the doctor found her she'd been shot by a dahlek. It triggered the transformation to save her life but I'm not sure what's going to happen to her beyond the final result. She's very weak and disoriented right now. I'm amazed she's even conscious."
Voices around her, an American replying. "Doctor you don't do anything halfway."
"This wasn't /my/ idea. All I know is that when she got shot, her body healed itself. I saw the same glow as when I regenerate. Her physical appearance didn't change at all. Either that comes later or her insides are being completely rewired."
"I'll run a genetic analysis and a full biological and neurological scan. Doctor are human and timelord DNA compatible?"
Silence.
"Doctor." The thin man said urgently.
Jack spoke for him. "No Owen, they aren't. The Doctor lost a very good friend because the two species weren't. If our visitor is to survive, she has to be transformed entirely one way or the other, and she has to /stay/ that way."
Mori felt herself being set on a hospital bed, and she closed her eyes and lay there. She could feel monitors being attached. "can you hear me?" The voice she identified as coming from the thin man who'd helped Martha carry her. "Can you say something?"
"Mori..." The girl murmured. "Call me Mori. You're hurting my head. And if I had enough strength to move my arm I would bean you with the nearest bedpan." She mumbled, the sound of somebody clinging to consciousness. "Because your voice is spliting my skull in half and really I just want you to SHUT UP."
"I need you to stay with me a moment longer, can you describe for me what you're feeling, physically? It might give me a clue where to start."
"I'm burning..." Mori said, half asleep. "Its... painful and reassuring all at once. My head is swimming. I can actually hear my own heartbeat." She muttered disjointedly. Her breathing spasmed again, struggling to compensate. "Its... i can't even tell up from down..."
"Mori, nice name." Jack crouched near the girl's head. "Mori, you're going to be okay." Mori felt a gentle hand touch her arm briefly, reassuring. "Martha and Owen will take care of you. Just conserve your strength alright?" The hand tightened on her arm. "I'm Jack, I'm the leader of Torchwood. This is my base you're at. When you wake up, if you need anything, just ask one of my team, they'll do their best. For now, rest."
"Then shut up and let me sleep..." Mori murmured. "And git your hand off before I bite it."
"lovely attitude." a female voice commented.
"Sarcasm isn't helping Gwen."
"Leave Owen and Martha to work." The voice Mori identified as Jack withdrew from hearing, steering the others out of the room. "Doctor, you've got some expla..."
"youve got some explaining to do." Jack ushered the rest of the group out. "We have a new member coming in today. Good time to meet him but."
"You mean your little boyfriend?" Gwen asked innocently.
Toshiko giggled as Jack said sardonically. "I thought we covered this Gwen."
"Yes, we've covered that nekking in a closet is a fling." Gwen teased. "Maybe a better term than boyfriend is friends with benefits? He's pretty smitten with you idn't he? Really nobody else could keep up with you. If anything he's even more reckless than you are. Not to mention he's as loyal as static cling."
"Oh wonderful." Jack had Gwen, Ianto, /and/ Toshi giving him a 'look.' "I'd like to get your visitor settled before he arrives."
"I'm not even sure what happened myself." The Doctor explained, not really getting the joke between Jack and his teammates. "I went back to the battle where Rose was pulled into the alternate dimension. But I went to New York instead of London. I wasn't going to go out, I'm not even sure why I ended up there. Then I hear shouting and the sound of a sonic tool being used. When I looked out, Mori was actually attacking a trio of dahleks. She knocked over two of them, but when she fired the sonic tool at the third, at the same time it fired a death ray bullet, it broke through the sonic attack. The bullet hit her, and the feedback sent her flying. The Dahlek got careless, and went on its way. When I got to her, she glowed gold, the way I do when I regenerate. but it was... quieter, weaker. The gold dissolved in a mist it..." How does a Timelord explain the physical sensation of regeration to a human? "She started breathing again, but she was having trouble. When she died, got shot, I think it triggered the transformation. What she described, feels almost exactly like a slowed down version of my own regeneration."
Images of Donna's smiling face went through his mind. If anything they made what was happening to Mori even more tragic. "If I knew, something about how Mori..."
"Doctor." Jack broke the Doctor out of that line of thought. "There was /nothing/ you could have done to help her. Erasing her memory was the kindest possible thing and its the only thing keeping her alive. And nothing will change that."
"That's not fair Jack, you didn't give up on Owen." Gwen chided. "Why on this friend of Doctors?"
"Because I don't know any way that he could have prevented or stopped what was happening." Jack said stubbornly.
"We've got a basic assessment Doctor, Jack." Martha and Owen entered from the infirmary. "She's about 50 percent through the transformation to timelord. But I'd appreciate a sample of your DNA to compare. Martha already gave a sample of hers so we can compare a normal humans. But I need test samples from a human, a timelord, a close relative of Mori's, and another person with the same trigger that caused the... change in your friend Mori." Owen reported. "I want to isolate the trigger gene so we can identify this /before/ it happens."
"I..." The Doctor paused. "Its probably not a good idea."
"Owen, forget a DNA sample from him." Jack told the lean medic.
"I need it for completeness, so I can develop an accurate test fo..." Stern glare from Jack. "Fine. I'll forget it. What's /with/ you?"
"This is the Doctor we're talking about Owen. I'm not about to make him do something he doesn't want to do. He has a reason for doing anything he does, and he's private about his past. Not even Rose bothered him about it unless something from the Timewar, like the Dahleks, showed up to make trouble." Jack was saying this in the doctor's defense, in his hearing, and if he'd stopped there it would have been fine. But then the part that REALLY hurt. "Donna was the only one who /really/ got him to come out of his shell, in a way not even Martha was able to do. Then Donna nearly died saving all of us and to save her life he had to ERASE months of memory. And they weren't the kind of memories you'd want to have erased. And she nearly died because hybridization accidentally occured when Donna saved the Tardis from being destroyed, because of something so simple that was part of the tardis's systems that he didn't even think it would be a hazard. Human and timelord is one hybrid that ISNT compatible. As soon as the adrenaline wore off Donna's brain went berzerk. The change almost killed her. The Doctor doesn't give up samples of his DNA, because he doesn't want to leave a trace of him behind that a human could mess with. He doesn't want to leave a trace of his people behind that could be used against him or that could be used to cause someone else harm. Don't push him to do something if he says 'no.'"
The Doctor turned and walked back to the infirmary.
"See what your big mouth did?" Martha asked Jack sharply. "The sentiment is appreciated but you just rubbed salt into an open..."
"I"m heeeeeeeeeeerrreeeee!" A blur of black hair, brilliant green hairdye, greeny gold eyes, and huge grin almost tackled Jack Harkness against the nearest wall.
The new recruit had arrived, Damon's typical huge dopey grin breaking up a tense scene.
"OOF! Damon, damon down, off ack!" The rest of the Torchwood team started laughing.
Martha took several steps back, eyeing the newcomer warily in alarm. "Your... new teammember?" She asked warily.
"Yeah, he found us, or... found Jack, clung, and didn't let go since."
"I'm sorry I'm late!" An attractive man, suave black hair greased and dyed bright lurid green, greeny gold eyes like a cats, and a huge grin, Damon Leigh Warren was an energetic and excitable new recruit to the Torchwood team. A botany major at one of the local universities, on a fast track to early graduation with high honors, Damon was an exchange student from America with as many different colored hairsprays and scents of colone as days of the week. He met Jack shortly after the Dahleks Stole Earth, during the cleanup. The attraction on Damon's part was almost immediate.
Jack would have ignored him and gone on with cleanup. "WAIT!" and something that automatically caught his attention. "Three years ago those things killed my mother and sister. I WANT to know what they are!"
Uhhuuuuuh, and then Damon wouldn't let go, and about two months later Damon's knowledge of botany saved the team and solved a case involving an invasive, poisonous plant that had an appitite for people into the bargain. Another case Damon had been captured, using the symbolism associated with plants to leave a message for the team. Damon had left a message by dropping local foliage with specific meanings that they were able to piece together to find the badguys and save the "little hairsprayed clingbug." Damon begged and begged and begged to be allowed to join the team, and about a week ago Jack relented.
Of course, about a month ago Gwen had caught Damon and Jack in a supply closet, in a compromising position involving kissing, groping and when she walked in Jack's hand was reaching for Damon's belt. The black haired woman's screech of surprise at what she walked in on was heard as far away as the laboratory Owen was doing research in. Damon's hyperactive and ebullient spirits and clingy overproteciveness where Jack was concerned was a running joke among the team, though they DID encourage the partnership between the two.
And sometimes Damon was just plain funny. "I'm so sorry I was late! The traffic was bumper bumper! And the coffee pot..."
"you broke it again." Toshiko finished.
"It doesn't like me! Every other appliance in the house likes me, the coffee pot doesn't!" Damon gave his usual excuse. Of course, Damon was also trying to convince Jack to move in with him. The leader had explained that he was romantically interested, but had issues with commitment. That was already obvious to the botanist, who had repeatedly told him that he didn't care about commitment.
"Damon, we have visitors." Jack was trying very hard to keep a straight face. "This is Martha. I told you about her."
"Martha Jones, voice of a nighting gale! Of course I remember!" Damon said charmingly. "You saved Owen's pretty neck when Jack brought him back from the dead."
"I have /never/ been described as pretty." Owen's face twitched. Damon hadn't just hit on Jack, he'd once made several passes at Owen, who obviously was more interested in women than in Damon. The American had finally gotten the message and stuck to complements aimed at showing his appreciation of the lean, rangy looking medic. Whatever the circumstances, Damon had hit on all three male members of the team at least once.
But while he did so, they had learned a bit about Damon's personality, something that put off most people. Damon acted ditsy, girly, effeminate, and clingy. It was, for the main part, an act. His IQ was extremely high, the 99th percentile. He had a sensitive side, sometimes oversensitive and so far, even though the other four knew about it, Damon had only shown Jack the diary he kept. "Dear Morgan," a letter to a sister believed dead for three years. Laughter was Damon's way of grieving, eccentricity his coping mechanism. He clung, because he wanted to cling to someone warm and calming and protective to make up for the loss of his mother and sister. The effeminate side was heart felt and genuine. He really did write poetry to his dead sister, he really made flower arrangements for his apartment. Damon really did knit, and sew, and cook with the same manners that a housewife might.But underneath that laughing mask there was a crying jester begging for comfort and struggling to make some sense of his world and his past.
"So this Doctor of yours showed up Jack?" Damon asked, curiously. "What'd he come for? I thought he only showed up if something bad was happening?"
"No, not always. He doesn't have an infirmary and Martha's got wrecked. He found a girl injured on his travels. She needed an infirmary. And I think Owen just drove Doctor back to it." Jack eyed Owen through gritted teeth. "By insisting on obtaining a DNA sample."
"How was I supposed to know?" Demanded Owen. "I knew humans sometimes didn't like it, but how was I supposed to know timelords didn't either?"
"easy Owen," Martha sighed. "Come on, he's probably keeping watch over the girl he rescued. I"ll introduce you." Martha motioned for Damon to follow. "so what do you do around Torchwood?" She asked him. "Whats your specialty?"
"I'm a botany major at one of the local colleges. I'm nearly 23 but I'm almost finished with my degree already." Damon said cheerfully. "I graduate this January."
"congratulations." Martha said with a smile. "A colorful man like you will make a great addition to the team." Martha said with a laugh.
"Why thank you. I do my best to have a sense of humor." Damon said with a smile. "Why cry when you can laugh? At least laughing makes you feel better." The botanist said with a smile.
"here's the infirmary. doctor are you in here?" martha called the otherwise empty room.
"I'm here." The doctor said quietly. "Did Jack's new man come in yet?"
"yeah, I wanted to introduce you. Doctor, Damon Leigh Warren. Damon? Doctor, doctor..." as the Doctor turned and reached out his hand to shake Damon's the botanist caught sight of a familiar raven haired form laid out on the medical bed. "MORI!!" He wailed, the shout carrying down the hall to Jack.
Five Torchwood members, one Jack harkness at the fore, bolted in to find the normally happy Botanist clinging to the bed's occupant and sobbing. "Mori mori mori mori!!" He wailed. "Wake up! Mori get up!" Damon sobbed.
"You two know each other?" Martha asked, but the Doctor had a look of realization on his face. Mori had briefly mentioned a brother.
"Her name is Mori, my sister!"
The doctor was and wasn't happy with this turn of events. His curiousity had been piqued by Mori's transformation and the appearance of her older brother at Torchwood. He was, however, not happy with what his fellow timelords had done. Admittedly it did save his people. Even if there was no Galifrey there were still Timelords. But he still felt somewhat like they were using the humans. He also had the memory of Donna still fresh in his mind.
He also remembered Jenny insisting that she also was a timelord. Genetically, yes, Jenny was, and Mori would be. But the Doctor had said and would repeat. Being a timelord was a spiritual thing as well. Shared experience. Shared suffering. They had the body but would need at least a century of teaching. Nothing good could come from this. Maybe he was thinking negatively, but doctor didn't predict an easy transition for Mori, and the appearance of her older brother was going to complicate the whole affair.
He really missed Donna. She knew how to beat some sense into his head. She'd have been a big help here. Maybe, maybe something could eventually be done to fix her, so that she could at least remember him.
"Her name is Mori, my Sister!"
"Damon, aaaah, before she passed out Mori told me to look for you." Martha said awkwardly. "Owen and I sedated her, she'll be asleep until around dinner."
"Then I'll stay here until she does!" Snapped Damon. "She's been missing for 3 years! Everyone thinks she's dead!"
"Aaah, well that's the thing, she needed special care, and at that time I didn't know anyone I could take her to." The Doctor explained. "But I knew martha, and I knew torchwood. The only way I could get her the help she needed was to take her here. To /this/ time."
"What's wrong with her? A bullet from a dahlek?" Damon demanded. "She doesn't look shot!"
"Its... its a long story Damon." Martha edged away from him, and the Doctor's eyes never left the botanist's face. "She was shot, but there something genetic under that, it was triggered when she was hit. It saved her life but..."
"STOP beating around the bush and tell me what's WRONG!" Damon's face had gone from happy, to anxious, to pissed off very quickly.
Jack grabbed Damon's shoulder. "Damon calm down. and sit down."
Damon was still wound tight, "What. Happened?" He ground his teeth.
"Short version, she's turning into a Timelord." Martha was saved having to answer by Jack. Harkness was leaning on Damon's shoulder, kneeding the tense muscles with one hand.
"WHAT THE HELL?" Damon looked ready to punch both martha and doctor. He got as far as standing out of his chair before Jack hauled him back into a sitting position.
"Don't start shrieking until they've FINISHED." Every ounce of confidence and charm Jack possessed went into breaking through Damon's emotional wounds and getting him to listen to common sense.
"What we /have/ been able to find out," that was martha. "was that the gene was passed down in your family for centuries without your knowing it. When Mori got shot by that dahlek it triggered the genetic transformation to save her life."
"Can't you reverse it? Can't you stop it?" Damon demanded. "There must be something."
"Damon, if you halt the transformation she will die." Martha told him urgently trying to keep the American from going hysterical. "Owen and I did a thorough scan. Timelord and human DNA aren't genetically compatible. She will die if even a shred of human DNA is left in her."
Martha really did feel sorry for Damon. He lost his mother. He thought his sister was dead. His sister reappears, but isn't human anymore. And if she was transforming what did that mean for him? Would Damon eventually make the same transition? Would he eventually become a timelord like his sister?
"What does that mean, for Mori, for me... what's going to happen to us?" Damon asked pathetically.
"I don't know," The Doctor was silent, and Martha noticed he was looking from Mori, to her brother, and back. "There has never been a hybrid between humans and timelords before. We don't even know what the genetic trigger was." Silently Martha urged the doctor to say something.
"I'm not particularly happy about this." Doctor said at last, walking over to Damon. "She'll be alright, but Martha's correct, if the transformation isn't completed she will die." He looked the boy in the eyes. "What's happening to her is not bad. I understand your distress, but there's no need for you to be frightened. And when she finally wakes up, she'll need a lot of teaching to get her comfortable in her new body. She's going to need you to accept this, because if you think of her as a freak, or with pity, or with disgust or fear, then she will start to think that there's something wrong with her. And that isn't true at all. You are her older brother, and to a certain extent you are responsible for her. SHOW her that there is nothing wrong. Come to grips with this in your own way, but remember that she will be watching what you're doing and saying. She'll think she's a freak or a woman born anew and which one depends on how you look at her when she wakes up." Those who knew him could tell that the Doctor was not in a good mood.
Damon fell silent, glaring at the Timelord. "And you would expect me to just accept this? She's going to be traumatized, pissed and angst ridden in turns, probably all at once. The only reason why she hasn't started screaming is because she's too weak and tired to raise a protest or even process what's going on around her!"
"SHUT UP." Martha hissed, the Doctor wasn't moving, but his glare could have withered anything it fell upon. Damon looked ready to swing fists. "Both of you this isn't the time to be fighting. COOL IT."
Damon turned on his heal and strode away. "Keep away from my sister. Witchdoctor." He snapped. "Or I'll raise hell. And if you ask Jack, he knows I'm capable of doing it."
Speak of the Devil, Jack's blood was slowly starting to boil, and as he left the room he hauled Damon away from the infirmary and into a broom closet, and it WASNT to make out. "What the HELL are you doing??" He spat.
"She never came BACK Jack! She's alive here, she never came BACK. Something happened between here and there!"
"Like what? What? You're NOT going to treat the Doctor like that! Turn around and apologize. Its not your fault, its not his fault, its not Mori's fault. Its the culmination of things /he/ never knew about, and things that YOU had no control over." Jack all but hauled Damon around on his feet and dragged him back into the infirmary. "Damon wants to apologize, he's rather out of sorts if he doesn't have his morning coffee."
"Sorry."
My hands are going to be full with this pair. The Doctor thought, "Accepted, I suggest you get that coffee then."
Mori dreamed, the day that she and Damon were seperated. "I hate you Damon! Why can't I wear it??"
"A civilized teenage girl doesn't wear hairdye." Damon's appearance back then, neatly groomed, cleancut, hairdye free. No piercings, no jewelery. Black slacks, black boots, blue belt, white t-shirt. "you'll have all the wrong sort of friends knocking on your door if you do dye your hair. Besides... green?"
"They say its the in color this year." Mori wanted to scream in frustration.
"You'll thank me later, green hair, honestly." Damon shook his head, holding the can of colored hairspray out of her reach. "Besides, it gets all over your thumbs and your clothes, its such a mess!"
"I HATE YOU DAMON!! DROP DEAD AND GIVE ME MY HAIRSPRAY!!" Mori sputtered, throwing a pencil case at the door as it closed behind her. "Now I'll look like a total dork. Thanks a lot. Plain old Morgi the Borgi that's me, none of the cool girls will talk to me now. I'm just plain geeky little Morgi." She grumbled. "Sucks. Now everybody will see my eyes, everybody will stare and make fun of me." She stared out the window at the pouring rain. Mori the freak with the golden eyes. Nothing about me is right, my eyes get me picked on, even by the teachers. They tell me to take out the colored contacts, they're against the school dresscode. And then I always have to tell them that these are my normal eyes. I'm not wearing anything... and then the girls talk, and the boys look at me like I'm creepy. And nobody likes me, because the way I look at the world is the wrong color.
The busride to school, not the school bus, never the school bus. It was the funniest thing, the school buses were so cramped, so tiny that she always felt trapped. But if anything, the buses through New York were fuller and thicker and even more cramped. But she loved nothing better to hang onto the pole in the lurching vehicle and look outside at the rain and the cold and those infernal ghosts that had been wandering around.
That day didn't even feel like anything special, classes and rain and wads of paper chucked at the back of her head and the teacher asking questions she didn't know the answers to and the cool girls giggling behind her back when her hair poofed out from the humidity.
Cutie little Mori, doooorky little Morgi, the class geek, the one girl picked on most because after all normal people didn't have golden eyes. They weren't even contact lenses, they were REALLY gold. It was freaky that's what!
Then the anonymity of the busride home, ennervated and exhausted and upset. "Maybe if I had hairdye, they wouldn't notice that my eyes are the wrong shade."
Almost home, almost safe home so that she could rest. She'd /just/ closed the door to the apartment when the world blew up.
Cybermen marched the streets, Dahleks swarmed over the sky. Mori was safe, Mori was trapped but safe, but what about mom? What about Damon? They were still out there!
She'd told Damon to drop dead, she didn't mean it! I didn't mean it Damon! I swear I didn't mean it! I'll come for you... I'll come get you... I'll show you I didn't mean it! I didn't really want you to drop dead... Her mouth formed the words, no voice coming out as she wept. Tears flowing from the corners of her eyes. "I didn't mean it... brother I didn't mean it..." laughing, screaming, jearing in her ears. "... I just wanted to hide them..."
She had to find her brother! She had to find her mother! And something was calling her. Something she couldn't explain, pulse pounding in her ears Mori ran for her mother's bedroom. There was a carving, of a dragon and phoenix entwined and carved from oak and rowan wood that hid the safe that her mother thought she didn't know the combination to. The dragon stands for courage, valor, honor, the need to defend and the will to protect. The phoenix means eternity. It means rebirth and sacrifice and love and forgiveness. It is the bird that is born again after literally setting itself on fire. And together they form the essence of human nature and ingenuity. She found the small laquer box and the tiny tool inside it. "Its a... pen? No wait!" She pushed a button, hearing the buzz it gave off. "Soundwaves! Cool! Oooooh, but how do I use this?"
Pelting down the stairs. "Damon I'm coming for you!! Don't worry! I'll protect you!"
The Cybermen didn't like the noise it gave off, it looked like the tool stunned them. And the bucket heads DIDNT like the noise at all. As Mori pelted down the streets of new york towards the college that her brother went to, to try and find him and tell him she was sorry. She didn't mean it... Mori found ALL kinds of things that that little sonic pen worked on, reflexes allowing her to fight on sheer adrenaline until she finally ran out of strength and momentum. The Dahlek moved first, was faster, was stronger. Broken... Mori felt her body shudder, shake... Brother... i'm sorry... I didn't mean it... I didn't mean to tell you to die... The world faded into blackness, and then fire engulfed her body and the world was bathed in golden radience. It tore through her, but it was warm... comforting. Something whirled before her eyes, a flame engulfed bird, a vividly blue dragon, each parting company and screaming.
They say you see funny things before you die...
Babump, babump... \\The bird that sets itself on fire... and returns to life again anew...\\ babump... babump... \\Dancing with the dragon, valor, courage, honor...\\ Babump... \\Phoenix...\\ Babump... \\Dragon.\\ babump... \\I am the dragon and phoenix, in one body, in one existance, I never belonged, because I...\\
While everybody else found something to eat for lunch, Damon just stood there, looking over the railing down into the center of the control room. The Doctor was across the walkway, watching him. "She always hated school." Damon said quietly. "She got made fun of all the time... they called her Morgi the Borgi. After that stupid sci fi show. They thought she was cool they always did. Then the teacher would say 'take out your contact lenses, colored lenses are against school dresscode.'"
The Doctor looked up, listening.
"And they turned on her, they ate her alive. She wanted so badly to fit in, but the girls would talk, and the boys would treat her like she had some kind of disease, like she was some kind of leper."
He watched Damon quietly.
"She hated her eyes, she hated her own skin. She kept trying to show off, a different way every day. Piercings, henna tattoos, hairbleach, hair dye. Wild clothes and fishnets and doggy collars. Anything to make people think she was cool, that she was normal. I was stupid, pigheaded, I kept taking them away and mom kept telling her to stand on her own two feet, show her true face with pride in her own body. I wanted her to understand that there was nothing wrong with how she looked, she shouldn't EVER have to change HERSELF to make other people happy. She didn't get it, she was just miserable."
"She felt like an alien in her own skin..."
"yeah, she'd do anything to try and blend in with the crowd and disappear. She always felt she had to be just like the other kids at school. I wanted to scream at her that she didn't have to do anything. She was just FINE. I hated seeing her constantly trying to hide. I never said anything, just simple things like 'you'll get people staring at you' or 'you'll attract the wrong kind of company' and telling her to stand plain in front of everybody. She never got it, or cared, I don't think. And then one day... THAT day, I took away her colored hairspray. Green, the same color and brand I'm wearing now."
"Bet she didn't like that..."
"She told me to drop dead and give it back. I ran off with the bottle. I guess she..." He looked up. "That last thing I heard was her angry at me. Then she was gone. And mom... I guess anything she truely wanted to hide she hid in a safe in her room. It was hidden behind a carving mom had in her family for ages, a dragon and phoenix fighting each other. Mom had it on her wall to hide the safe."
Silence, as Damon refused to look the Doctor in the eye.
"The safe was hanging open, the tiny box hastily opened and left on the bed and whatever was in it gone. There was a CD running in the cd player and a pot of coffee waiting for me and that incense she liked so much, dragons blood, wafting the scent out of the censor. And she was gone. I never saw her again. They said she was dead but... for a long time I wasn't sure. I knew she was out there, somewhere. I never believed in that bonds of blood crap. But she'd left coffee hot for me, the incense was there and the music the whole scene sounded like an apology. An "i love you, I'm sorry I need to go." She wouldn't have done that if she wasn't going to come back. But a week turned into a month, a month into a year, and I knew she wasn't there anymore. The only things I brought with me when I transferred to the college here in Cardiff, were the box left on the bed, and the carving on the safe door."
"That's why you started spraying your hair, you wanted to say you were sorry."
"No, I was remembering. By then I really thought she was dead." Damon said quietly. "I thought, maybe whatever powers that be would forgive me for not talking to her. For not comforting her. For teasing her and not listening or caring to what she wanted, if I wore that color for her." He sighed. "I turned to Torchwood for answers, I stayed because it gave me comfort. I was a warrior. There's a difference between a soldier and a warrior doctor."
Their eyes connected. "Yeah, what's that?"
"A soldier does as he's told, he has no freedom, he has no free will. He fights because that's everything he's always known and anything else would just tear him apart because it doesn't make sense, it doesn't compute. But a warrior has a choice, she has freedom. She fights because she wants to defend something, because she believes in what she does. She stands for protection, she has people counting on her to be strong. She is their shield, she is their sword. She gives the defenseless a voice..."
Interesting that he aligns himself with the soldier, and his sister with a warrior. "A warrior still has the choice not to fight." The doctor said cooly. He was about to say more, but something went off on one of the computers down below.
Martha hurried out from one of the laboratories. "Doctor, Damon, that means that Mori has finished the transformation. We should hur..."
There was a yell from the infirmary. It was almost earsplitting, and the emotion that went into it... Anger, anguish, shock, terror all rolled into one sharp peal of sound. "MORI!" Damon completely forgot any thought of philosophy.
Sensing trouble, Jack ran from one of the storerooms and followed Damon to the infirmary. "Damon wait! Go easy on her she'll just have woken up..."
Damon stopped in the doorway. Mori was stirring on the medical bed, struggling to sit up. She shook her head, trying to clear it. Then she reached a seated position and leaned over, putting her face in her hands, slowly taking stock of her. "Mori..."
The doctor shot out a hand at the doorframe. "Shush a moment! Let her speak first!"
"But..."
Mori was completely confused. The world was swimming, everything seemed... sharper. That was the first thing she noticed. And then there was the sheer overload of mental strength. She could definately tell, she 'felt' smarter. Just to test it, she closed her eyes, focusing on an algebra problem from school that had driven her crazy, about 48 hours before. Not only could she remember it crystal clear, but she could solve it quickly.
Math had never been her academic strength, language, science, art, and yes, history. But Math? She'd been straight F's almost all her life. And then... she tried something else, think think think, oh yeah. That difficult passage she'd busted her brain over in Latin class earlier in the year. It had taken her 3 hours to translate with just the textbook and dictionary. But if she thought hard, she couldn't just recite it, she could speak it.
"Right now her senses are on overload. Her brainpower has increased about tenfold, and she still has to sort out the physical sensation caused by the change. Trust me, you don't want to say anything until she does."
Not just Latin, she'd taken french and spanish so far too. It just... came... easier, than it had. Slowly, Mori massaged her head with her index fingers. Her body, it was... different.
The change in intellect, in her ability to think, had reached her first because it was strongest. The change in body was more subtle. She removed one hand away from her face and made a fist... that wasn't quite it... but her muscles did feel a little different. Mori held very, very still. She took deep breaths, mind carefully moving over her body bit by bit until. Her hand stopped over the left side of her chest and froze... one... that should be there... but there was...
babump, babump.
there were two... two pulses, two hearts... Mori started to shake, visibly.
She heard somebody argueing at the edge of the doorframe. "No, Jack let me through... damnit I have to get to her... she's my SISTER... let me THROUGH!!"
Damon! Damon! Mori started to tremble harder. "Don't... damon don't..." She said exhaustedly.
"MORI!!" Damon was starting to panic. Mori turned to face him. "Moriiiii!" Jack finally let Damon go and moved closer to the Doctor and Martha to watch the siblings.
Mori found herself swept up in Damon's grip. "Damon!" Mori whimpered, leaning against him. "I was so scared. I thought I was going to lose you! I ran out to find you and..."
"I came back as fast as I could! You weren't there... nobody could find you!"
"I didn't mean it... I didn't mean what I said... I didn't really want you to drop dead! I'm sorry..."
"This probably isn't going to go too well." Jack observed quietly. "Damon's been wound way too tight all day. Most of what got him this far is because... he thought he'd lost her. And he felt guilty about what he could have done, and didn't."
"She's not going to be in much better shape..." Martha shook her head. "You could see it in her body language. She was completely shaken, broken."
"Its not over yet." The Doctor told Martha. "Damon will just be a distraction, that's why I wanted him to keep back." The Doctor watched both siblings carefully. "The transition will be more than just the physical transformation."
"You think she'll be able to cope... with..." Jack hesitated.
"She'll have to..."
Mori was just barely registering the conversation beyond the two of them. "You... the... I mean..." Damon sputtered. "You were gone, for three years. Everybody thought you were dead. And then... the Doctor said you were going to..."
"Don't dance around it, Damon just..." Mori said quietly. "I can tell that I'm different, and I remember... bits and snatches of the conversation while I was half conscious I..." she reached up and whispered sadly, in Latin. /"/Aeneas was robbed of home and land, sailing for ages in search of Rome, a purpose, one purpose left to him after the destruction of Troy. Not returning to his people, making instead his own way, in doing so a legend was born and a new world began./"/ She murmured numbly.
"You're not Aeneas dumbhead." Damon chuckled. "I barely understood even half of that..."
Mori laughed quietly. "you should have taken the class when you had the chance." She was crying, a grin on her face and she was crying.
"You took hours to even compose one paragraph when you took it. How could you speak something that poetic that quickly?" Damon demanded, a little taken aback.
"Because she's a timelord now Damon." The Doctor told him, and Mori regarded him blankly. "Even though she would have had difficulty with foreign language as a human, she'd be able to speak any language she's learned before now quickly and fluently." And he could already see the gears working in Mori's head, from the look on her face.
Still clinging to her brother, Mori studied the Doctor carefully. "I remember, you're the one who pulled me out of the battlefield." She said quietly. "I could... feel and hear, what was going on for some of it. I..." She hesitated. "I could tell that I'd moved in time, even unconscious I could tell I'd been pulled. I... thanks." She said quietly.
"No problem." He said with a small smile. "you'll have a lot to learn, but you'll get the hang of it."
Mori chuckled. "I'd better. Feels like my head is gonna explode." There was a lazy, sleepy looking grin on her face. Then suddenly that gaze sharpened. "Damon... do you... feel any different?"
"Huh? No... and don't think that hasn't occured to me either." Damon said quietly. "It was horrible... for months you weren't there, I knew you weren't... logically. But in my mind, instinctively, subconsciously, some part of me kept thinking that you were still home. I kept thinking you were going to come running in the door again... any minute... I couldn't explain it... so I just forgot it. I just gave up, because I knew it couldn't be true."
"That's another thing..." The Doctor chuckled. "Timelords can sense each other... you may not have been fully transformed, but she's your own blood. You would have been able to sense her for at least half the time between then and now. But a lot of humans, if they can't consciously confirm that something is true, tend to forget it, to ignore it."
"Aeneas is accurate too... isn't it?" Mori asked, still clinging to Damon. She couldn't move from that spot, not now. She needed to sit for a bit longer. "There's only one reason, just one, to make a human who can change. You're the only one, well... we... if there were a whole bunch of timelords out there I'd be able to feel it, wouldn't I? But I can't. If you and I are the only ones, the only logical reason to make a human who can change into a timelord is to return the species to life."
"Yeah, you're right, well... almost. There's one... but he's evil. Always trying to destroy everything. So technically, yeah, the both of us are the only ones." The Doctor confirmed.
"And there could be one human who could, or there could be hundreds. There's no way of knowing." Mori said quietly. "Technically, Aeneas is an accurate metaphor." Her mouth turned in a cruel twist. "Tell me a story, Doctor, tell me about the history of... your people. I don't think I'll be up to full strength for awhile, give me something to think on."
The Doctor looked up, Martha and Jack were still in the room. Damon was still seated on the medical bed next to Mori. "Martha, Jack, go tell everyone else that we're alright in here."
"I want to hear too though." Martha spoke up. "You never talk about the timewar, or your people, or anything about where you came from." She sounded disappointed that she wouldn't get to hear it.
"It is a story... best kept between timelords. Sarah Jane knows some of it, you want details ask her."
"Come on Martha." Jack looked back over his shoulder and mouthed to Damon. 'temper' before he guided Martha out of the room.
Mori caught it and chuckled, in Latin again in Damon's ear, and he could understand this time. /"/Mind your manners brother./"/ She whispered. /"/You might anger the Son of Time into silence. And then we'll never know what cataclysm spawned Aeneas./"/
