Last Child of Arcadia
Prologue
The [11th] Doctor's Narrative
"So much for stepping back into the shadows," I thought after closing the TARDIS door behind me, holding an overloaded fallback quasar engine.
Today didn't go the way I planned. To summarize what happened in one sentence, I would probably put it as this: I found a damaged fallback quasar engine underneath the Royal Albert Hall in 2010 that would potentially destroy half of London, but I managed to prevent it from detonating by improvising a solution with the help of a member of the audience that day.
One of the many things I didn't get about the assembly in the concert hall was that some, or rather most, of the people wore fezzes (fezzes are cool), long colored scarves and also held replicas of my sonic screwdriver, both the current and past versions from my previous incarnations. Plus, I noticed that the programs for the concert were in the shape of a Dalek; and I had no idea who the hosts were: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill. I had no idea whatsoever of how these people knew about me in the first place, but I still had the damaged engine to deal with. After delaying, not stopping, it from doing a wibbly wobbly explodey wodey thing, I knew that it would blow in the next hour or so. I had to get rid of it fast.
"Right," I said to myself, breaking the usual quiet inside the TARDIS, except for the hum it made. "OK. Now... What to do with this?"
About a minute later...
I ran to the door, still holding the explodey wodey thing, after typing in the coordinates and flying the TARDIS to the first black hole, threw open the door and tossed the quasar engine to the event horizon. The mechanism came to a halt at the black hole's boundary and delayed the time it would take to explode for almost an eternity. I gave out a sigh of relief once the engine was suspended at the horizon.
"Thank goodness," I mumbled to myself.
Shortly after I closed the door, I let my mind wander while I looked at the TARDIS console for no real reason. Before the mishap at the Royal Albert Hall, I faked my death at Lake Silencio (thanks to the Teselecta) and I began erasing myself from history since the universe believed that I was dead. It felt odd to be roaming around all of time and space knowing that everyone accepted my "termination". I would still be fighting my alien enemies and go on adventures, but I would be doing it by myself.
"God, I'm so old," I sighed, feeling distressed.
Suddenly, I received a message on my psychic paper. I hesitated for a second before I pulled it out of my pocket. These were the words that first appeared on the paper:
23 April 2011
Sacramento, CA: Sacramento County Main Jail
Find her
"Who's 'her'?" I wondered to myself as I unconsciously walked to the TARDIS console. "And why does it say 'Sacramento County Main Jail'? Someone wants me to break an inmate out of jail, probably as a pra-"
Two new lines, this time in Circular Gallifreyan, bled into the parchment under neath the words "Find her". My eyes widened as I read the double memo. According to the written words, there was a completely alive Time Lady in the Sacramento County Main Jail that escaped from Gallifrey before I destroyed my home planet during the last day of the Time War. This Time Lady had been locked up as long as she's been on Earth and there were witnesses on her first regeneration.
I was at the navigational area when I read the message. What confused me about the notice was that the date was one day after I "died". Maybe something happened to this unnamed Time Lady that caused her to end up in that prison in California (which I hadn't been to yet). Enthusiastic about finding another member of my own kind, I typed in the space-time coordinates and piloted the TARDIS to my next destination.