Wow, my first season 3 fic! Doctor-centric, because he's fun to get inside the head of, and I don't think I've quite got the feel of Martha yet. Anyway, this is based on episode 3, "Gridlock," so spoilers, obviously, and basically what I think may have been running through his head, Timelord Speech-wise.
And I wrote it at about one in the morning. Normally I'm quite alert at one in the morning, but just a heads up.
If I owned it, it wouldn't be worth writing about, I'm afraid.
It had been a welcome relief to lie.
He knew, of course, that he'd just been putting off the inevitable; that every companion would have to be told sooner or later. But he liked the feeling of pretending he was just another eccentric alien, zooming around the galaxy. I can take you anywhere, pick a where, pick a when, and off we go…Like there was nothing out of the ordinary about this vagabond, wandering, haphazard life. He savoured the strangeness of talking about the sky and the grass as if they were all still there. It was surprisingly easy to scoot around her questions. Home? Why would I want to go there? Like a rebellious little boy just testing his wings, flaunting his independence—like life had once been. Long ago, so very long ago and far away. Ironic, really, the way the only timeline he couldn't travel in was his own.
He liked playing along, being enigmatic just because he knew she thought he was. She seemed to like him, the way a new companion should; and who wants to hear about their hero's tragic past when he's only saved your life twice? He thought of every excuse in the book to keep from telling her, but had to face up to it, in the end—he liked being this man with a blemish-free past and a bright, exciting future; this manic mad scientist who knew so much and just enough; the dashing hero who appeared out of nowhere and spirited young maidens to the moon and the stars and back.
He almost snapped at the Face of Boe and its wise old one-track mind. Oh yes, do feel free to expose whatever you please. Never mind that some people present might not have heard the story. Or that certain other people had been trying to forget. Forget 43…what a blessing those mood-patches would have seemed, back then. What would it be like, he wondered, what would he be like now with no memory of it, none at all?
Confused and useless, probably.
But the show must go on, the dance must continue, whirling and twirling, wormholes, blue lights, sunlight, laser lights, blue light sunlight lasers flashing flashing flashing under a burnt orange sky…and always a new partner in crime and a new pair of beautiful curious searching eyes.
In the end he admired her determination, as he knew he would. It was sort of Rose-like, the way she just wouldn't let it go, like a puppy with a bone—but he had to push that thought away; with all the time in the world to spend, there was no time to remember her now.
It was funny how it was beginning to feel routine, giving people the Timelord Talk, as he'd begun to call it. It always managed to be different. Mickey, sitting despondently in a lifeless TARDIS, with Rose outside in a different universe. Jack—had he ever gotten around to Jack? S'pose he must have one day, just floating around when the inevitable questions arose. Rose; jiggery pokery with a mobile phone and the smell of chips as he tried to make her understand what it was to see your world burn.
And now a new face in a new place was asking the same old time-honoured questions, and he decided to switch directions. He'd been lying. He was going to be honest.
He'd pretended life was fun, except for that silly business at Canary Wharf last year, and how Rose was—anyway, and that home was back there waiting for him like it should have been, and how he'd take her for just one short spin around history and drop her off ten seconds later if he didn't find another excuse to keep her for just one more.
Now he'd tell her he was alone, and how home wasn't there for him any more, and why tall grey mountains with their green grass lit by one lonely sun were so alien, and all the other things about home that he missed; and he'd look into her eyes, so dark like his own, and show her with all his might that he wouldn't be telling her all this if she was going back home to her mum and dad in ten seconds' time. He would tell her the truth—how that second sunrise made you feel like you had two lives for the price of one; the endless mountains that cradled a civilisation, how they made even the Lords of Time feel small. He'd come clean, and just like with the others he would try to explain what it meant, that one small syllable that began with a breath like a sob, and ended in happy comfort, warm blankets round a tired body on a cold night.
He would tell her its name and show her why he wanted to pretend it was still there.
Gallifrey.
Home.