Episode 1 - Time Lost

The whirring of engines slowed as the TARDIS came to a relatively smooth (only a little bumpy) stop.

"So, where are we this time then?" Martha Jones asked, the light of new adventure filling her eyes and lighting her grin.

"Near future Earth, by the looks of it… 2012. Good year." The Doctor replied, readjusting a screen.

"Is that all? That's not very exciting. What can happen in five years?"

"It may not be exciting for you, but all time is relative to me…" she straightened up, hands buried deep in his trouser pockets. "Besides! With my luck just wait five minutes, something exciting is bound to happen. Olympics are this year."

"Who knows? You might get to carry the torch." Martha joked, walking to the door. She smiled at the Doctor's knowing grin. "Meet the Queen?"

"Well… Never know."

The air that hit them on the other side of the TARDIS doors was hot and muggy, but a faint breeze that smelled lightly of city streets and fresh chips stirred their hair. Bright green summer leaves glowed like lit emeralds with the sun shining bright behind them.

"Why here, Doctor? Where are we? …Doctor?" She turned to see him frozen; as if stopped in time. Only his wide brown eyes moved, jumping from one direction to the next, searching. "Doctor, what is it?"

"Something is wrong. Something is here that shouldn't be here."

"What is it?" She repeated.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself against the weight of the words. "A Time Lord."

She froze, her eyes scanning him as he looked everywhere else. "But… how?"

"I don't know… It's impossible." Ignoring what he knew, he took off at a run, his long brown coat billowing behind him. It was all Martha could do to keep up, her shoes not being as qualified for long runs as the Doctor's white converse. The streets of a bustling city passed them by in their dash to wherever the madman led them. People yelled at them to slow down in an accent that betrayed their location as somewhere in Ireland. When several city blocks had passed and Martha was finding it a bit hard to breathe the Doctor finally came to a stop, sudden and halting. In front of a cast iron fence, he stood like a frightened statue.

"Excuse me, sir," The Doctor, barely winded, stopped a man walking by. "where are we and what is this place?" He pointed to the brick building beyond the fence.

"This is Dublin. You lost?"

"…Kind of. And this building, what is it?"

"Saint Mary's. It's a government funded boarding school for orphaned and troubled girls. It used to be a school of some worth, but you never hear anything good about it anymore." The Doctor thanked him for his time and the man strolled away. Martha watched her Doctor stare at St. Mary's with eyes so full of hope and fear, curiosity and confusion that it seemed the place—or time and space—should have melted before his unyielding gaze. The face that could be so many masks now barely contained the fervor and the fury of hope he didn't dare to hope for. A twinge of fear all her own bubbled up in her. The Face of Boe said the Doctor was not alone. If there was another Time Lord around, would he still need his human companion?

"Doctor…?" She spoke up when he hadn't spoken for a few minutes; always a warning sign.

"We're going in." and he was off again at a brisk walk through the gate.

"So, it's a boarding school for girls. Does that mean we're looking for a female Time Lord? What do you call those, anyway?"

"They were called Time Ladies."

"Oh, I guess I should have known."

"Yeah. It may not be a student, though. It may be staff… Or just a fluke. Or a trap."

"Always looking at the bright side…"

"Easier to know when to run." He opened the doors to the expansive school, startling the receptionist. "Hello! Surprise inspection." He said in a dashing Irish accent, flashing his psychic paper. "I'm from the school board. We've been hearing some things about this place—things we aren't too happy about. I'm here to make sure St. Mary's is running to our standards. I will need a complete list of your classrooms, staff, living areas, and your student roster, with the especially troubling cases highlighted. Expect I will be doing some interviews while I'm here." The poor receptionist never got a word in between his barrage of demands and no-nonsense glare, so she set to work acquiring all the documentation. The Doctor winked at Martha, and they shared a smirk while the woman's back was turned.

After some time, the papers found their way into the Doctor's hands and he started looking over names, mumbling them as he read.

"What did you say your name was?" The receptionist asked.

"John Smith, and this is Martha Jones. Thank you for this." He waved the papers and started walking down the corridor to the right.

"How will the names help you? There's hundreds here!" Martha commented, taking the map of the grounds and the list of student names from him.

"Names are very important, Martha. Have you forgotten Shakespeare already?"

"No, but… There's so many! Nedder, Sarah…"

"I don't expect it to be a student. The Time Lords have been gone too long… It's probably a member of the staff." He said, eyes boring through the aforementioned staff's names.

"…Niland, Dora… North, Ender—Oh, that poor girl."

"What was that?" he stopped and looked at her page.

"Ender North. See, there. She's even highlighted."

"North, Ender. North-ender! It's just a hunch, but we're checking it." He checked the building she was housed in and the room number to the map in Martha's hand.

"How is that a hunch?"

"Lots of planets have a north..." The Doctor's gait was more measured this time, more calculating. Why was something here now? He had been to this time before. Better than 'why' was 'how.' There were none left…

"The clock says its only one, yet. There's a good chance she may still be in classes." Martha said. The Doctor nodded, looking a little too intently at the map. Through another set of doors was a courtyard, sparsely occupied by clusters of girls. Eyes of many different ages looked up at them as they passed, whispering, wondering. Another white-trimmed brick building welcomed them in.

"157 is that way." Martha pointed down the left hallway. Sweat was building on the Doctor's brow: And then suddenly, there was the door. "Are you alright?" Martha asked, placing a hand on his arm as he took out his sonic screwdriver.

He took a deep breath "Yeah…" There was a flash, a whirr, and a click and the door swung open to a small, bright room and the startled green eyes of the room's sole inhabitant. She sat beside the one large window in the room's only chair, finger holding her place in a novel. Pictures covered the walls, all hand drawn landscapes and people and places.

"That door was locked." Was all she said in a voice of unusual calm.

"You sure?" The Doctor looked back at the door, nose crinkling. "Why aren't you in class?"

"I was. But I started feeling poorly, so I came back here. Who are you?" Her unflinching eyes never left the doctor: Eyes that betrayed nothing about their owner but a desire to understand. They were a little too wide, like her whole world was out of focus.

"My name is the Doctor, and this here is Martha Jones, medical student and top of her class. Martha, do you still have that stethoscope I lent you?"

"Did you break into my room to give me a checkup?" The girl asked, getting a faint edge to her voice.

"I'm sorry; I'm being terribly rude, aren't I? No, that's not why we're here. …What is your name?" The Doctor asked in a kinder tone.

"Ender." She replied flatly.

"It's nice to meet you, Ender. We, ah, we're looking for someone; Someone different, not from around here."

"I can't help you, then. I was raised in this school. I've been here since I was eight."

"And before then?"

"I don't remember. I always assumed adoption agencies and orphanages."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"That's all?"

"That's enough for me. You are in a school dormitory—I'm one of the oldest ones here, so if you're looking for age, you've come to the wrong place."

"Right… You don't have a fog watch by any chance do you?"

"…No… I use my cellular as a timepiece."

"Are you sure? Not even a broken one? You may not notice it or have forgotten."

"Doctor, I am an orphan in a girl's home. I do not know how much stuff you think I have that I might have forgotten something."

"Oh… Right… Sorry. Please, just let Martha check your heart. It will only take a moment…?" The Doctor asked. She smelled of Gallifrey, but she was too young: It could still be a trick. In response, Ender only nodded gravely toward Martha.

First Martha listened to the left side of Ender's chest as so many years of medical school had taught her to. She closed her eyes, hearing the truth before even moving the stethoscope. Four beats, two hearts. She turned her dark eyes back on the Doctor and nodded once. The Doctor caught his breath and was silent.

It was Ender who spoke next. "You were looking for someone with two hearts."

"Yes." The Doctor replied. "And we found one. Who else knows?"

"No one. I never let anyone examine me, just told them my heart is a little too fast. It's just a birth defect, but it's… weird."

"So why did you let us?" Martha asked.

Ender looked from Martha to the Doctor, "Him. He's different. He smells different. Time does not recognize you, Doctor."

"No, no… No, I guess it doesn't. Your hearts, you know, aren't a defect. I have two, too. I mean, as well. …I also have two hearts."

"…Is he always like this?" Ender looked at Martha.

"No… Well, a little bit. I think he's nervous." She replied. Ender nodded sympathetically.

The Doctor sighed dramatically. "Look, I'm a Time Lord: A race of people from a planet called Gallifrey. I'm the last of the Time Lords. Or, I thought I was. I don't know who you are, where you came from, or how you got here. I don't know if you really are one of us… I doubt it… But I will find out. I promise you that."

"I suppose my life is complete now, then," Ender snarked, tearing her eyes away from the Doctor. At that moment a honey bee had landed on her window sill, lethargic and drained. Ender stood from her chair, setting her book down, and pulled an aluminum bottle-cap out of her pocket. A cup of cold tea sat on her desk amid piles of books and an open laptop, and she filled the bottle-cap with the cold, sugary liquid.

"What're you doing?" Martha asked incredulously as Ender went to open the window.

"Opening my window." She replied.

"Don't let that bee in here!"

"She's running out of energy; I'm giving her sugary tea so she won't die on my window sill. What did bees ever do to you, anyway?"

"Sting me, for one."

"There must have been a reason she felt attacking you was worth dying over." Ender said pointedly. The little worker bee crawled to the cap-bowl and started drinking with a long spike of pink tongue. Martha blinked and looked at the Doctor, who raised his eyebrows.

"Ahm… So… That was a little… Time Lordy. How is it that I openly confess to you that I am an alien from a different planet and you don't even bat an eye?"

"Maybe I don't believe you."

"Oh, now that can't be it. You sense something! You've lived your whole life with this empty feeling inside your head, like something has been missing for all these years, haven't you? That went away about a half hour ago." The fever of discovery was blazing in his eyes, but she held their gaze without burning. Her eyes, widened with surprise, betrayed this as truth. "That was us landing here in the TARDIS, my ship. That empty place, that loneliness, is the aftermath of losing the other Time Lords." His last sentence brought about utter silence to the room.

Blinking away some emotion, Ender broke the silence. "…A lot of things sound like truth when you're not trying too hard to look for the truth in them. Maybe you're just two wicked people come to pick on a day-dreamy, lonely girl. If I follow back to your spaceship do I get abducted and sold to the highest bidder?"

"No! What?" The Doctor's face pinched in horror. "No, of course not!"

"I know it's weird and sort of unbelievable," Martha added, "But I've been traveling with him for quite a while. No real harm done to me, see? I got all my fingers." She twirled the aforementioned phalanges. "And you get to see all of time and all of space and meet whoever you want and then more than you could ever imagine. I can see that you like space: you've drawn the Orion constellation there, and that looks like a nebula." She pointed two specific pieces of hand-drawn wallpaper.

"Horsehead Nebula, yeah." Ender gave her a guarded smile.

"Just come see the TARDIS." The Doctor asked, almost pleaded. "We'll stand ten feet back if you want, or inside, or whatever you want. But I promise, you'll be convinced."

Not willing to relent, Ender kept up the argument. "So you just parked a spaceship in the middle of Dublin?"

"She's really good at blending in."

"Cloaking device?"

"Chameleon Circuit, but you're not far off."

Ender stood at her desk, leaning her palms against the cool wood, and looked at the window. The bee, energy restored, flew into the room, once about her head, and back out into the open air. Because her back was turned, they didn't see her whisper so quietly, "You're welcome, little one." She turned around and sat on her desk—accidentally bumping her laptop, causing the screen to light up—facing them again. "Bees are industrious voyagers; intelligent martyrs feared but depended on. That is why I like them. The only reason I will go is because you remind me of them, somehow." She said to the Doctor.

His eyes flitted back to her from her computer screen. "I'm really, really happy about that. But can you tell me what that is?" he nodded to her laptop. The image was a popular one of a white skinned, one-eyed baby shark.

"Oh, that's Cyclops Shark. The internet thought he was a hoax for ages, but it's not: It's a genetic mutation."

"No," He frowned, brow wrinkling, "it's an inhabitant of the moon Europa."

The Doctor will return in Episode 2 - The Lunar Sea