Chapter 1

Harry's Choice

It was two days before Harry woke. With some strange resolve The Doctor hadn't moved the TARDIS the entire time.

He had gotten several things, including a plan, worked out. He brought Harry out a cup of lukewarm, no sugar or milk added, tea. Anything else would upset the child's stomach; he learned that much from Martha.

The child accepted it with a small smile that was reflected in his emerald green eyes, that was a good sign. The Doctor sat on the seat next to the chaise. He wasn't doing so well, the child, the chaise was the only thing keeping upright. The Doctor pulled out a small canister.

"What I have in here are called nanogenes, they repair injuries and cuts. Like tiny robots. Would you be willing to let them treat your ribs and that bruise on your hip?"

With a slightly unsure look, the child nodded yes. The Doctor opened up the canister and a cloud of gold floated out and over the child's torso and hip. In a moment the injuries were gone and The Doctor saw the relief spread over the child's face.

"I'm sorry I can't do anything for the starvation or dehydration. The nanogenes don't work like that."

"Thank you." It was barely a breath, but he heard it loud and clear. He gave the dying child a small smile.

"It doesn't hurt, dying." This wasn't a question; it was a statement of fact from the child. "I've almost done it before, a couple times in fact. But help would always come in the nick of time. I was one the first time it happened. I saw it, the green light. It killed my mother first. Then the killer turned to me and the green light sped towards me, everything hurt and then nothing. I was told later that the entire cottage had been destroyed with the backlash and the killer was forced to flee. But I guess my time is up now?"

One thought was clear in The Doctor's mind; the child had regenerated once already.

The Doctor held onto one of the child's hands. He hadn't felt this protective of anyone since he met his clone daughter Jenny or even his granddaughter Susan.

As he sat there, he told the child all about the Time Lords and Gallifrey, who they were, what they did and their duty to the universe. Many of the adventures he had been on and all the companions that had accompanied him along the way. He had never told anyone this much. Maybe it was the fact that the child was a fellow Time Lord or maybe it was the child was a listener, he didn't know.

"The life of the last Time Lord is a lonely one, so much beauty and so much death."

"I wish I could go with you." The child breathed. "I've already seen pain and suffering. This just lets me help people at the same time. This place holds nothing for me anymore." The Doctor covered his mouth with his free hand, unwilling to let the threatening tears fall. The child was fading fast.

"There's this thing about Time Lord that I haven't told you. In the utmost danger they can take what makes them a Time Lord and put it into a Time Piece and become human to everyone and everything and they wouldn't know otherwise." The Doctor pulled out his own Time Piece and the child's as well. He placed a Time Piece in each of the child's hands. The child's fingers automatically curled around the one The Doctor knew had the Time Lord memories in it.

The time for choosing had come. Harry's eyes began to droop. There wasn't much time left.

"Those Time Lord memories are yours." The Doctor said. He saw that caught the child's attention with that statement.

"You can die peacefully and move on. No more hardships, pain or suffering. You would be at peace and with your family. Or you can open it. The pain would still kill you but you will regenerate and get a new body, a different face. I- you won't be alone anymore." He knew it was selfish and vain but the child was just that: a Gallifreyan child. This was one of his own people, not spoiled by the war, a mystery to unravel at the child's very existence, a protégé to be shown the universe. But every blessing came with a curse. He himself only had two regenerations left and he was quite certain the child still had several. Leaving him like himself, a lone god and traveler without a home and no one else like him.

He heard the click of the Time Piece open and saw the golden mist of memories spill out and surround the dying child. The child let out a strangled cry of pain. There wasn't much The Doctor could do for the child once the regeneration began.

The old, sickly look faded away to a healthier, more angular look. Jet black hair faded too, to a dark brown with tight curls framing the child's face and emerald green eyes became sapphire blue. He still looked only sixteen which made The Doctor figure that was the child's actual age. Time Lords aged normally until they reach majority, then slowed and aged ten times as slow, but proceeded to age backward with each regeneration, so the older they got the younger they looked.

With a final blast of golden regeneration energy, the regeneration ended and the child fell unconscious. He brushed a lock of hair from the child's sleeping face. This was a start of a new adventure. He leaned down and picked up the both the Time Pieces which had fallen to the floor during the regeneration, and placed both in one of the pockets of his jacket with his sonic screwdriver.

If the Time Lord Child was going to stay, then there were some things he had to do.

It had been a long time since he had a child to take care of, his own wife and children died in the Time War.

The child would need to learn how to drive the TARDIS, and a sonic screwdriver and someplace to call his own. Brilliant!

"Oh, clever child!" he exclaimed as he noticed the emerald green time trail leaving the TARDIS. He jumped up and scanned it with the whirling sonic screwdriver. Just a quick nip out for the child's personal belongings and he would be back before he was missed. He grabbed his coat and raced out of the TARDIS, one hand still holding the sonic screwdriver and the other struggling to get his coat on.

"Oh!" The Doctor stopped suddenly realizing that he had forgotten to close the TARDIS door behind him. With a click of his fingers it closed and beeped locked behind him. Once again he was off.

The screwdriver scanned the time trail which leads back down the road labeled 'Magnolia Crescent' and turned onto the road labeled 'Privet Drive'. The time trail stopped right outside the house labeled '4'. The Doctor frowned as the sonic screwdriver went haywire. There was no one in the house, and no car in the drive. He sonic-ed the door open and the usual blue light of the sonic screwdriver blipped red. It was all very strange.

He looked at the readings again and then whacked the thing against his palm several times before looking at it again. All it read was something bad. Not metal, not alien, not unusual, just bad. He signed and spun in a circle on one foot, head hung back, hands falling to his sides. Then he stopped. The photos! How could he have been so stupid? There weren't any pictures of the child, yet the time trail lead right up and into the house. He scanned the area again. Upstairs.

He took the steps two at a time. The first door on the landing was thrown open: Master bedroom. Second door: Guest room. Third door: Bathroom. Fourth door: Linen closet. Fifth door: Boy's room, but not the child's. Too many sweet wrappers litter the floor and the clothes were several sized too large. Not that the rags that the child was wearing were any smaller. He slammed the door behind him and approached the last door. There were three dead bolts, a slide lock, a chain lock and a cat flap. He undid the locks and pushed the door open.

The room was bear except for a single brass framed bed that would have toppled over at the slightest touch. It was topped with a thin mattress and an even thinner blanket. One of the floorboards under the bed was pulled up. He went over to that side of the room and the sonic screwdriver went crazy. He carefully pulled the floorboards up the rest of the way and inside there was a hard bound blue journal made out of parchment paper that looked fairly expensive considering the state of everything else. There was also a cheap pen and a piece of folded up cloth that was silvery and flowed over his hands like water.

"You are beautiful, you are." He said. "Clever, clever, boy." He waved the sonic screwdriver over it, it didn't make a sound, but it did read as alien technology. He continued to admire the fabric for several more minutes. He flipped through the journal next. The child's story was not a happy one.

He would have to dig deeper later, the child's trunk lay in the cupboard under the stairs. Carefully wrapping the journal in the fabric, he stuck both objects into a pocket of his coat and left the room in search of the trunk. The journal mentioned a cupboard under the stairs, that's where he headed next. Sure enough the trunk was there, with a quick scan it was deemed perfect safe. He was still unsure as to what had made the sonic screwdriver go haywire, as he wheeled the trunk out.

It was easy going back to the TARDIS; the trunk hardly weighed anything at all.

As he approached the blue police box, he snapped his fingers and the door to the TARDIS opened.

"You weren't gone long." Came a voice as The Doctor closed the door behind him.

"I've got your personal belongings." He waved at the trunk. The child's eyes grew wide.

"You shouldn't have. You didn't need to."

"I did. I believe these are yours as well." He pulled out the fabric wrapped journal. The child took them reverently. "What is that? I've ever seen anything like it before."

"This?" The younger Time Lord held up the fabric. "An invention of my parents. How did I know that? Awesome! Genetic memory. Anyway, it's an invisibility cloak." The child placed the journal on the control console, unfolded the cloak and swung it over himself. His body disappeared and his head still remaining seen.

"Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!" The elder said, sliding on his glasses and circling around the child.

The Doctor knew the body spasm was going to go through the child before he saw it. He caught the invisible arm and gently lowered the child back on to the chaise, whilst sliding the cloak off him.

"Take it easy, you're only three hours into your regeneration cycle. You aren't finished yet. You need, you need, you need…..Food! Yes! If you don't like something you used to, its 'new mouth, new rules.' I'm gonna have to remember that one!"

"As long as it's not fish fingers…..or custard." The child added.

"Don't be ridiculous! That's awful regeneration food. You'd have to be mad to mix the two. Well…" The Doctor made a strange face and the child couldn't help but laugh. "I'll be back with something, or things."

And sure enough, an hour later The Doctor swaggered in with his arms loaded with food.

"If you want anything cooked, you're going to have to do it yourself and no, you can't use my sonic screwdriver."

A dinging sound came from the quietly parked TARDIS. The Doctor dropped everything he was holding with a crunch and raced over to the console, flicking levers and pushing buttons. She sparked and whirred and dinged again. The Doctor leaned over and grabbed a blinking green lever. He pulled it and it popped out.

"Would you look at that?" It was a silver sonic screwdriver with a green light at the end and a wire curling around it to make a grip, very different from The Doctor's own. "She likes you already!" The Doctor stroked the console appreciatively with his free hand.

"Here." He handed the sonic screwdriver over to the child, who took it and wiggled it in front of the older Time Lord's face.

"It's nice but…"

"But what?" The Doctor looked offended that there was anything cooler than a sonic screwdriver. "Ah, yes. Food. I've got beans and gravy and bread and celery and chips. Oh, I love chips. And Almonds! Look!" He held up a package of the nuts before opening them and popping once in his mouth. "What else have I got here?"

The youngster had enough and snatched the almonds out of The Doctor's hand and bit into one. He chewed it indecisively before swallowing it and glaring at what was left of the offending nut.

"Well then, I suggest you try something else." The Doctor said, snatching back the bag.

It took a couple of tries but they finally found something that the younger Time Lord would eat: fish and chips.

"Child after my own hearts." The Doctor muttered amused, yet sad at the same time. "How long had you been hiding as a human?"

"Pretty much my entire life, my parents too. They had been hiding since they left the Academy. Something was chasing them and now chasing me. They were killed as humans nearly fifteen years ago and I wasn't able to look into the Untempored Schism until I was eleven. That was exciting. The daft headmaster of the boarding school I was attending didn't even know what it was. Light Lord my arse."

"What?"

"That's what he calls himself. He's nothing more than a manipulative old man with dilutions of grandeur. He knew that my parents and I were something different, something special. That old man tried everything to get me, us, under his thumb. But I had a friend that figured it all out.

"Oh beautiful, brilliant, loyal Hermione. Always one step ahead of the rest of us, a force of her own. I had another friend but he worked under that conniving old man. She was the one that figured out what was going on. This society we were part of, hidden amongst everyone else. They called themselves 'wizards'. It's not really magic, but technology. All stored in a piece of polished wood. Triggered with specific words and slightly psychic, all recorded in the Ministry they call a government. Bias and corrupt, beliefs so set in stone and technology so advanced it's been forgotten.

"When I was human I never really felt like I belonged and even when I was introduced to this 'magical world' something was still wrong. My brilliant Hermione figured it all out. We planned to elope. As a married couple we were granted adulthood, so if we skipped town no one would be any wiser. Her parents agreed whole heartedly. They never wanted her to go anyway. So anything to get her out of the situation, they gladly agreed to as long as they knew their daughter was safe and happy. That wise ass old man not only fooled with my life but hers too. That was the last mistake he was ever going to make.

"I promised her the stars, if, when, we got out. That was the thing with Hermione; there were two things that she loved most in the world, her books and her stars."

The Doctor hadn't taken his eyes off the child the entire time the child was speaking. The child rubbed his face tiredly. "She'll take forever to convince now, my best friend, even after all we've gone through."

"Would this help?" The Doctor asked, pulling out a thin stick of polished wood from a pocket in his jacket.

"Not really." The child took the stick, broke it in two and threw it across the TARDIS.

"Well then." He said, fully ending that part of the conversation. "Where do you want to go first? We have all of time and space. There's the newly refound Moon of Poosh and the Seas of Genali. Oh! The Forests of Xia, they're supposed to be in bloom soon." The Doctor bounced up and started weaving around the console, pushing buttons. The TARDIS started to whirl.

"Someplace with a wardrobe?"

Someplace? Someplace. With. A. Wardrobe. You have all of time and space! That is the most-"the Doctor stopped midsentence as his eyes fell upon the rags that he earlier noted that needed replacing. "Down the corridor, take the third left and keep going until you can't go any farther. Just make sure you find something that is appropriated for any era."

You doubt my fashion skills?"

"Looking like that? Yes."

"Fine then." The child replied as he ripped off the still damp sweatshirt and threw it at The Doctor, who then caught and threw it behind him.

"Go get dressed." The child stalked off.

Maybe there was time for one more adventure.

A/N: This story starts after the Planet of the Dead but before The Waters of Mars and The End of Time. I will, but not until much later, work them in. I know I threw a lot of information at you and much wasn't very clear but feel free to leave any questions in the review box.