"Doctor? Doctor!"
The sound of his name finally penetrated his thoughts, and the Doctor blinked, turning his befuddled gaze back to Martha, who was clicking her fingers in front of his face. He blinked again. "I'm sorry—what was that?"
She was frowning, eyes dark with concern as she lowered her hand. "You were telling me about Devlorkian greeting customs, and then you just stopped in the middle of your sentence and stared into space."
"Ah." Yes, he had done that. The sensation was not one he'd ever believed he could feel again, after all. His hearts were still racing.
"And you stayed like that for a long time."
"I'm sure," he said distractedly. His mind was still wrapped up in the awareness that had just taken him by the metaphorical shoulders and shaken him soundly.
No, he couldn't have felt that. It was impossible.
"Your mouth was just hanging open, like you'd seen something that utterly shocked you."
"Probably." But then again, how impossible was 'impossible', really? He'd become much more careful about using that word, lately. He moved around the console to the monitor screen, punched a few buttons.
Rassilon. The TARDIS had felt it as well. He felt a shimmery sensation just underneath his hearts, a sensation he hadn't felt in longer than he cared to remember: hope.
"You were drooling."
That got his attention. His head shot up and he glared at Martha, who glared right back. "I most certainly was not. Time Lords," he said with dignity, "do not drool." His mind presented him with a memory of a time when he had, indeed, drooled, but seeing that much milky-pale skin at once would have set any male in the vicinity drooling….
He shoved the thought away.
"Time Lord or not, wipe your chin."
Self-consciously, he did. His hand came away damp, and he dried it on his suit coat. Well, perhaps he had dribbled a little. After what he'd just felt—or not felt—or thought he'd felt—what the TARDIS herself had felt—
But it couldn't have been.
Could it?
"We're not going to Devlork," he said abruptly, turning back to face the console and adjusting its controls with more force than was strictly necessary.
Martha was still frowning. "We're not?" She'd been with him long enough to be familiar with his mercurial mood shifts, but not long enough to be resigned to them—or excited by them.
"No."
"Then where are we going?"
The TARDIS began her rhythmic music as she changed course. It sounded as though she were singing. Well, it always sounded as though she were singing, at least to him, but for so long, her song had been one of loneliness and grief. Now there was hope. He grinned, full of that hope himself. "We're going to Sector 4.4/Gamma/Mu," he told her, delighted.
She shifted, folding her arms and leaning her hip against the railing. "And what's there?"
"I don't know!" he said enthusiastically, flipping and spinning and pumping controls with abandon. "Could be nothing. Well, not nothing," he amended. "The only place you can really get nothing is the Void, and we can't get into the Void. Or through it. Or anywhere near it, really, thanks to—" He paused, feeling the familiar flicker of loss. "Well, thanks to me, actually," he finished a bit lamely, then the grin was back. Really, this was well worth grinning about. Hope! Who'd've thought it? "But it might not be what I expect. Though it could be. It could be a planet, or a ship, or a largish asteroid, even. We won't know 'til we get there."
"And why," Martha asked in the tone he'd come to associate with her feeling rather put upon, "do we want to go to a sector where we don't know what we're looking for?"
"Not what, who. I know who I'm looking for. Well, not exactly who, but more or less. I just don't know where to find him."
"Him? Who's him?"
The Doctor turned fully to face her, and she blinked in the glow of his best, full-on my-God-isn't-the-universe-wonderful smile. "We're going to see whether I've just gone completely nutters," he announced, "or whether I really did feel the presence of another Time Lord."
Sector 4.4/Gamma/Mu was rather a big place, the Doctor reflected, as sectors go. Well, mathematically, sectors were all the same size, as three-dimensional space was measured, but 4.4/Gamma/Mu just seemed bigger when one was looking for the proverbial Time-Lord-in-a-very-great-deal-of-space.
"Just making sure I've got things quite clear," Martha was saying as he watched the monitor carefully and listened for even the slightest change in the sound of the TARDIS. She was sitting on the bench surrounding the console, her mocha-coloured skin turning odd shades of puce in the flashing lights of the controls. "You're the last of the Time Lords. The rest of your people were destroyed in a war. And yet, you think you've found another one?"
"Not found, precisely," he corrected, pushing his specs back up his nose with one hand. "Detected. Well, sensed, really. A sort of fleeting flash of light. Up here." He tapped his right temple with two fingers.
"But if any of them had survived, why hadn't you—sensed—them by now?"
"The universe is a big place, Martha," he reminded her, "even if you're just talking three dimensions. Toss in the fourth one, time, and you've got an almost infinite number of places and times one of my people could have been when our planet burned. And then, add in all the parallel universes and all of their different times, and—well, really, it's not so surprising that a few of us might have made it."
It was, though, despite his efforts to be somewhat offhanded in his explanation. No matter where in time or space the Time Lords were, if they were in this universe, he should have been able to sense any who had survived. And if they weren't in this universe, they shouldn't have been able to come back through the Void. Two of them working together, maybe, could do it, but if that was the case, one, why were two Time Lords working together in another dimension, and two, why hadn't they come back in all this time?
It was, as one of his favourite characters in Earth's musical theatre had once observed, a puzzlement.
"But why hadn't you sensed them before?"
"Dunno," he sighed, "and I wouldn't want to guess. There are just too many variables. I do know we're close, though—and so does she." He patted the console affectionately, feeling rather than hearing the pleased rumble his ship emitted. "If she weren't detecting his presence, I'd think I really was cracking up. But if both of us are sensing him—well, the chance of pure crack-up goes down significantly, while the chance of us actually finding another Time Lord goes up by the same amount. An inverse proportion, you see, very scientific and mathematical and all that rot."
Martha folded her arms over her breasts and he hid a grin. She'd never been particularly understanding of his occasional lapses into pure silliness. Not that she was staid or boring—far from it—but she didn't have quite the same sense of humour he did, and when she didn't get a joke, or thought he was poking fun at her (which, to be truthful, he sometimes was), she tended to get cross. "So we just wander around the sector until you meet up with this Time Lord?" she asked.
"Pretty much, yeah. I've got the TARDIS sending out a signal of her own, so if he picks it up, he could come to us, instead of us coming to him."
"Does he know you're out here?"
"Oh, yes," the Doctor said firmly, not entirely certain he was correct. "Absolutely. He probably doesn't know precisely where we are, though, any more than we know precisely where he is. It's rather like two people in a dark, empty warehouse, trying to find each other by tap-dancing in a specific rhythm at specific intervals. Not impossible, and certainly easier than just bumbling round hoping you'll smack into something softer than a support pillar, but not easy either. It just takes some time."
The TARDIS shifted, causing both of them to almost lose their balance. Martha clutched at the seat of the bench, clearly nervous at the unusual movement, but the Doctor righted himself and turned back to the monitor, beaming. "Aha!" he said, taking the monitor in both hands and leaning forward to give it a sound, smacking kiss. "She's brilliant, our TARDIS. She's tracked him down to a planetoid circling a small sun. It's even got an atmosphere, though it might be a little thinner than you're used to." He looked at Martha. "Ever been to Denver?"
"Denver?" She blinked. "Is that a planet?"
"No," he said patiently. "It's a city on Earth, in America. Built way up in the Rocky Mountains. They call it the Mile-High City, because it's about that far up above sea level. Air's fairly thin there—not unbreathable, of course, but thinner than pretty much anywhere else on the planet except other cities in other mountains. I just reckoned Denver would be a more likely place for you to visit than, say, Kathmandu. Anyhow, the air pressure on this planetoid is going to be pretty similar—that is to say, thin enough to be uncomfortable. D'you want to suit up?" He jerked his head toward the hallway leading to the rest of the TARDIS. There was a room filled with space suits back there, which they'd used while exploring a derelict ship a few weeks ago.
She cocked her head, contemplating the idea. "There's enough oxygen for me to breathe there, yeah?"
"Breathe, yes, if you're not doing anything particularly active. Wouldn't want to have you running for your life in that atmosphere, though." She continued to think, and he added, knowing that she was probably remembering all the times they'd ended up running for their lives, "Or you could stay in here. Perfectly safe, and the TARDIS will make sure there's enough air and everything for you. I shouldn't be long."
She looked at him sharply, but he was working the controls, getting ready to set the TARDIS down on the planetoid. He carefully kept his emotions off his face; he would never, ever have said anything to her, but he rather hoped she'd decide to stay. He wasn't certain what his reception would be, especially since it had been his action that had destroyed Gallifrey, and he didn't really want to put her in the middle of all that.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead with the back of a hand. "All right, yeah," she said reluctantly. "I'll stay here. I don't want to slow you down if you do have to run."
He couldn't help but think, Rose would have suited up if she'd had to, but she'd have been right in the thick of it. Couldn't have held her back if I'd tried. He shoved the memory resolutely away (again) and said, "All right, fine with me. Like I said, shouldn't be too long. May bring him on board, if he's missing his TARDIS. See if I can drop him somewhere."
"You keep saying 'him'," Martha observed, crossing her legs. "How do you know it's a man?"
"He's not a man; he's a Time Lord," the Doctor said in his best pedantic voice and had the pleasure of watching her eyes narrow. Really, it was too easy to get her goat. "But if you're asking how I know he's male—well, can you tell by sight whether another human's male or not?"
"Most of the time. Depends on how they're dressed."
"Well, all right. If a human was naked, could you tell at sight whether it was male?"
"Of course."
He tapped his temple again. "Can't clothe your thoughts."
A look of understanding passed over her face, and she smiled. "Well, then, Doctor," she said, rising to her feet, "I think I'll go browse the library while you catch up on old times. Call me when it's time to go, hey?"
She wandered out, long legs in a short dress, and he wondered briefly why he never had the desire to watch her go, the way he'd always watched Rose.
Actually, no, he didn't wonder. He knew.
Taking a deep breath, he started the TARDIS on her rematerialization routine, listening to her familiar song and hoping against hope that his reunion with one of his people, after all this time, would be as joyous as reunions were supposed to be.
Black and rocky, that's what this place was. Black. Blackety-black-blacken. Black rocks, black sky. The sun was small enough that it didn't truly light the sky the way the Earth's sun did. Good job it was high summer, or even the Doctor would have had to wear a pressure suit just to keep from freezing to death. As it was, it was probably no more than two or three degrees Celsius out here. He buttoned his long coat, sticking his hands in his pockets as he walked carefully over the rocky terrain, watching his feet. This was igneous rock of the type found on Earth in Hawaii—black (as he had already noted) and anything but smooth. Why would a Time Lord want to meet another Time Lord here? Why not someplace civilised, like Arten III, where they could get a cup of the best tea in the galaxy and chatter away while Martha amused herself shopping?
Unless… this Time Lord didn't want to be found.
The Doctor suppressed a shiver, told himself it was caused by the ambient temperature rather than his nerves (Time Lords don't get nervous, he thought half-heartedly), and carried on. The sonic screwdriver had told him the ship was this way; ergo, he'd walk this way until he found it.
He came around a tall outcropping and stopped, frowning, then looked back the way he came. Nothing there, so he faced forward again. A big, blue box stood before him. A very familiar big blue box. The TARDIS. His TARDIS, with its police-box chameleon circuit. He'd know it anywhere. But how had he made it back here? He hadn't walked in a circle. Had he? He pulled out the screwdriver and checked his bearing. No, still going the right direction. So what was this?
He ventured forward slowly, screwdriver still out, just in case. "Hallo?" he called, scanning the area with both eyes and device. "Anyone there?"
A figure came round the TARDIS. He was tall and lean, with dark-brown hair that framed his face in soft waves. His eyes were large and deep brown, his face open and expressive. There was something familiar about him, something in the build, the face, the smile that spread across his face—
"Do I know you?" the Doctor asked, interested, as he stepped forward a little farther. "You seem familiar, somehow, but I can't quite place you. Of course, I hardly knew everyone on Gallifrey, but maybe I knew your parents, or someone else in your family. I'm the Doctor."
"Yeah, I know," the stranger said. Funny, he didn't have a Gallifreyan accent. It was more…. London? "I'm Alex," he continued, still grinning. "Alex Tyler."
The Doctor froze, feeling as though he'd just slammed into a brick wall. "Alex—who?" he managed.
"Tyler." Alex stepped forward, closing the gap between them. They were almost exactly the same height, the Doctor noticed mechanically between bouts of trying to breathe and not daring to believe what his senses were telling him. Same height. Same build. Same hair. But those eyes, those familiar, knowing eyes—those weren't the Doctor's.
But he knew whose they were.
"Alex—Tyler." The Doctor took in a deep breath again, let it out slowly. "So do I? Know you, that is?"
"Not yet, but you were right—you do know my family." Alex reached into the inside pocket of his brown leather jacket and pulled out a photograph, which he handed to the Doctor. The Doctor stared at it, feeling as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. "My mother is Rose Tyler," Alex continued. "And we have to go back to her time—to 2007 London, in the parallel universe—and save her, and Grandmum, and Granddad, and me."
The Doctor looked up. "We?" he repeated, hopefully.
"We." Alex flashed a grin. "You and me—Dad."