Disclaimer: Still don't own Doctor Who
I collapsed from my great scream. What was merely minutes afterwards, I heard a strange noise. This whooshing that was oddly familiar. And then on the water a few feet away from where my boat was anchored, appeared a blue box.
Oh, goodness, did humans travel on water? Did they live under this water? How strange. I don't want to have to be a human. I could feel the tears coming again as the door opened.
"Doctor!" exclaimed a girl with yellow hair exclaimed, "We're in the middle of the ocean!" She seemed surprised and excited.
Maybe this wasn't an everyday occurrence? But then, if people weren't normally in boxes on the ocean, then how could they not have known that that's where they were? Oh but look at her. She is only about as tall as I am, and has even shorter hair, and even shorter eyelashes! And let's not forget that yellow hair. It seems that I don't even fit as a human. I crouched down, afraid. I was only 22 years old, barely into adolescence. This was far too much to take in.
"Oh? OH! Yes! I've always wanted to walk on water. I mean, I figure if it could be-" the man who was talking stopped short.
I peered up at him. He was about as tall as my father. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown suit. So much brown. I hardly ever saw brown things back home. My father had brown hair. Reminded me of him... ah, queue more tears.
The man was staring at me, seeming to be utterly baffled. Well maybe he wasn't staring at me. Maybe just at my boat. Maybe the boat wasn't allowed to be here. Should I try to communicate with him? I didn't know that humans could speak such fluent Veristalessian. I had never tried to use my mouth to make the words, though.
Before I could begin to even make an attempt, they were talking again.
"What are you looking at?" the girl asked.
After a moment of hesitation, the guy... the Doctor? turned to the girl. "Well, what do you think I'm looking at?"
"Oh, well I bloody well know there's a boat there, but why're you lookin' at it like it's an elephant?"
"An elephant?"
"Oh you know, like an elephant in a room full o' people? Maybe that's the wrong one, but either way, what's wrong with a boat in the ocean?"
"I don't know about you, but for one thing, I don't think it's passenger is anywhere near where she belongs." Before I could even register that he was talking about me, he leapt over and landed right next to me on the boat!
I leapt back in fright. Oh no no no I don't want to be human food! Or prey, or... oh hell, I don't know anything about humans but I know he knows I don't belong and that is bad bad bad. Oooh what if they're civil? I hope they're civil and just you know... imprison me or something.
"'Ello then. Who are you?" the Doctor asked.
Oh okay, I can do this. I opened my mouth and made a bunch of noises. Alright okay, strange feeling. I can do this.
"Eh...Eeeeeee...ugh. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhuuuu. Wwu...duuu...tuuuh. Tuuuuu. Teeeeeeeeuuugh." I looked at him and furrowed my brow. This is very very difficult.
"Oh can you talk?" he asked. I felt the tears welling up again. This is terrible! I can do this, I know I can. I saw my father do it.
"Teeeee...ugh...buuu...kuuuuuh...guuuh. Teeeegaaaaaa...luuuuuuh...muuh... nuuh...nn! Teegaaan. Teagan. Teagan!" I said my name triumphantly. Speaking! I was speaking! The joy was only momentary. My mouth soon fell back to a frown as I stared up at the Doctor.
I felt the boat shake as the girl joined us. I missed how she got on, I was too focused on the speaking business.
"Your name is Teagan?" she asked, seeming to fully look at me for the first time. I could feel my hearts pounding. Oh, my hearts. A tear fell as I realized that my families great secret was finally assured to be kept forever. That I had two hearts.
"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked.
I just shook my head. I couldn't tell him, not unless I could tell him in his head, and I've heard that non-telepathic creatures do not react well to telepathy.
"So can she talk?" the girl turned to him, asking as if I wasn't right here.
Well, I might as well not be, since I can't communicate with her properly. I wonder, if I started making all of the sounds in order of letter...if I could figure out all of those sounds I should be able to speak. Hurriedly and at different octaves I began to make all sorts of noises. The Doctor never answered the girls question, he just looked at me, and was... smiling? Why on Veristala is he smiling? Well... I guess I can't very well swear on Veristala anymore what with it not existing, can I? I finished up the noises quicker than I'd imagined.
"Ohhh. Oh wow this is raay...this is reeeally speaking." Okay I wasn't perfect at it, but good enough.
"Oh! No...but yes! Rose, these are her first words! Her first words, Rose!" the Doctor was now jumping up and down in excitement, making the boat slosh.
"D-don't do that!" I scolded, putting my palms down on the hatch on the floor. I don't wanna remember what's inside there, but I certainly don't think he should break it by sinking the ship. Both the Doctor and Rose were giggling, but the Doctor apologized and sat down.
"So, Teagan, where are you from?"
"From..." I found it difficult to even say the name, so I ignored the question, "wait, but where am I now?" I asked.
"You're on Earth," Rose answered, before turning to the Doctor and double checking.
"Yup," he replied, popping his p in a very strange manner, "planet Earth."
"That's what I thought," I replied looking around, "there's so much... is this really water?"
The girl looked confused. The Doctor got excited. "Ooooh planet where the water isn't blue. Narrows it down!"
What? Is water normally supposed to be blue? Oh forget that, it doesn't matter what colour the water is.
"Where are all of the teleport beaming bridges?" I asked, staring up at the sky and noticing that it wasn't covered in those comforting clear light tubes.
"Teleport beaming bridges?! Oh well that's way far off... Teagan, this is planet Earth in 2006," he said slowly, as if it would give me a fright.
Huh. I forgot what my father said about the whole time bit. Already I'm forgetting things he told me. Oh god. I start sobbing. I know he'll think I'm upset about the date, but that's really not it, that's obviously not it. I don't care if technology isn't advanced. I don't need it, I need my family. I must admit, it's a long way back though, from the year 450,098. Yeah, a long way back.
"Shh... shh... it's okay! Is this the first time you've traveled in time?" Rose asked, soothingly patting my back, "I was a bit overwhelmed my first time, too."
What? I hiccuped a bit and stopped crying. They were time travelers? Oh but that's not right. That's not right at all.
"You...you're not to do that. I don't know what time you started, but time travel was made illegal before I was born," I wiped the tears from my eyes.
Goodness was I brought up well. Devastation of my people? Last Veristalian and I'm not even a pure Veristalian? Yeah, sure, but always time to enforce the rules. Guess it's too bad I don't have a kingdom now that I'm an Empress. More tears fell down my face, but silent ones this time.
"No no no no, they made time travel by vortex manipulator illegal! No one wrote any rules about the TARDIS," the Doctor said smugly, looking over at his box.
"Hmm... so that's a TARDIS?"
"I didn't think any of those Gallifreyan things survived," I said blankly looking at the box. It was weird. Wonder if he's one of those guys you like... obsesses over vintage-y antique stuff. Huh.
Now both Rose and the Doctor were staring at me as if I had two heads. I didn't ask them why. I don't feel I'm good enough with this human communication to make sense of their reactions to things, so I feel it's best to let them explain if they felt the need.
"You know of Gallifrey?" the Doctor finally asked, in a subdued tone.
"What?" Oh I know I look like I should be just heading into primary school, but I really am older and not stupid. Look at how young they look! Goodness. "Of course I know about silly old Gallifrey! I paid attention to my lessons, there was nothing around to distract me," I huffed, "I bloody well know my own binary system..."
I occupied myself with cleaning off my face while the Doctor and Rose exchanged looks. I wonder if they have a telepathic connection? They sure aren't using speech to communicate right now.
"How mu...how much do you know?" the Doctor asked.
"Not a whole lot... just that it's one of the planets in the system, really. And that the Gallifreyans called themselves Time Lords and Ladies. And that there were things called TARDISes... never knew what a TARDIS looked like, though..."
"Oh," was all the Doctor said in reply.
"So then that really narrows it down," Rose said, breaking the serious moment.
"It should, yeah," the Doctor seemed to be easily broken from his serious moments, I noticed. "But I've never known of a species quite like this..."
"I'm mostly Veristalian," I finally said, looking off into the distance. "Only one sun, huh?"
"You had two." Rose said this as a statement, but in a comforting way. She started patting my back again.
"Well, let's get you back to those suns!" the Doctor said with the most obvious fake cheer I've ever seen. Rose didn't seem to fall for it either.
"Doctor," she stopped tending to me and walked over to him. Time for comforting-fest part 3 then, eh? Wonder what has him all down in the dumps.
"Don't worry about going anywhere," I said sadly, bringing up the data on the little computer by the steering system. "There's no home to go back to. There's no Veristalians left, either. It's just gonna be me and the humans now, I suppose."
The Doctor and Rose stared, entranced, as they watched the destruction of my planet.
"Forever and ever..." My voice broke. Speaking is difficult when you're crying.
"Forever?" Rose asked.
The Doctor seemed to be thinking hard, staring at the screen and doing different things with the controls.
"Forever. You see, in the early days of my mother's rule, shortly before she met my father, a great war began. To protect the planet a very strong barrier was created. After the war, Gallifrey was just... gone. The Veristalians did not trust the Gal-... while I guess they're called Time Lords, aren't they... well, we... they... didn't trust them, so in the event of planetary attack, the barrier's emergency protocol is to create a space-time lock. That's why we couldn't evacuate in time... the explosion was a lot earlier than expected and it takes days to get the barrier to allow clearance..."
"A space-time lock? What does that mean?" Rose asked, her eyes locked with mine. She was a good listener, as hard as it was to speak about this, if at all. It was starting to feel more natural, mouth communication. Must be my human instincts taking over.
"It means that my people no longer exist, in any time, anywhere. I imagine that's why my father set the coordinates for any Earth, any time. Doesn't really matter, because I can't go looking for them. With two planets gone, I imagine the system's gravitation may just have collapsed."
The Doctor looked up from the computer to stare at me.
"You said mostly Veristalian, what do you mean mostly? You don't look like a Veristalian heiress."
"I know. Oh... but I'm not an heiress anymore am I? My mother died before the planet was destroyed... that makes me the Empress... hah." And then I laughed. I cried and I laughed at the same time and the Doctor and Rose shared a worried look.
"Let's get her into the TARDIS, yeah?" Rose suggested, reaching toward me.
"Yeah, probably better than sitting in the middle of the ocean," the Doctor replied.
I was shaking and crying and laughing still as Rose lifted me up and managed to get me onto the ramp of the TARDIS. I wiped away the tears of my cheeks and looked up.
"Oh no, not this again!"
