"A psychic connection?" I asked, unsure what the Doctor meant by that.
"That's right. I expected you to get one eventually, being my grandson, but I didn't expect you to have one right away. That shouldn't happen." I think that explanation made me even more confused than I had been before. It certainly gave me more questions than I had before. "The TARDIS is sentient," the Doctor continued, "Normally, she does not like my companions very much. I didn't understand why she liked Jack so much at first. She let him fly her, and do repairs, everything. It was because she knew something I didn't. She knew that he was my son. Usually, you don't form a psychic connection with her unless you have been traveling with me for a long time, and she likes you. To have one when you first walk in..."
"I've been here before" I interjected.
"Yes, but for no more than an hour or two, several years ago." True, but I felt like I had been here after that. I just got this feeling, I couldn't remember anything about it but... this place seemed more famillar than it would if I had only been here the day my father left. "Not enough time to form a connection with her," the Doctor continued. "Even I didn't form a connection with her for at least a hundred years."
"Took longer with me. Maybe she knows something we don't, again" my father suggested.
The Doctor shook his head and crossed over to me "I am going to remove the mental blocks I put up when you were here before," he informed me. I still wanted to know why I had a connection with the ship, and what exactly that meant, but I did not argue with the Doctor. After all, I had been trying to get passed the botched mental blocks for years. I had been trying to remember what happened that day. I had been trying to figure out what was so important that my father left.
The Doctor placed a hand on either side of my face and closed his eyes. My father was standing by the console, laying a hand on it, looking away from us. All at once, the Doctor broke down the mental walls he had put into place. All the things about that day I could never quite remember, all the things I had tried so hard to remember, they all came back to me, all at once as the walls in my mind were torn down. I remembered it as if it had happened five minutes ago. The Doctor lowered his hands, and took a few steps back. I stared at him, eyes wide and watering. I couldn't say anything, couldn't form the words. I looked from the Doctor to my father, who was still looking away from me. It must have been at least a full minute before I managed to speak again. "You left us to go off... adventuring," more anger came out than I had meant.
"It was more complicated than that, Loki" he said, without even turning to face me. He just stared down at the console, petting it. I noticed that the singing in my head had changed. I still couldn't understand the words, in the strange language the Doctor had called Gallifreyan, but the tone was different. It was calmer, slower, like the ship was trying to soothe me. I ignored it and went over to my father, standing next to him I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him to face me.
"Then explain it" I demanded. I deserved to know, after all. Didn't I? Even if it was 'complicated'.
"When I told your mother what I was, she said she never wanted to see me again. She didn't want me around you or her."
"So you thought the best course of action would be to erase our memories and leave?" I interrupted, surprising even myself with the anger in my voice.
"I erased your memories, Loki, not Jack" the Doctor said. His voice was calm, seemingly unfazed, which only made me angrier, for some reason. I only glanced at him before looking back to my father, who was still facing me but looking at the ground.
"You always planned to leave us, didn't you? You never planned on telling us what you were. You were just going to leave with the Doctor in a few years," I remembered him telling the Doctor that.
"You remember it now. You remember how your mother reacted when I told you. She would have reacted the same way no matter when I told her. And you two would have figured it out when you were old and I looked the same. She already suspected something."
I didn't say anything. I only glared at my father who was still looking at the floor. I wasn't sure how long we stood there. The Doctor was leaning back against the railing that surrounded the console, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
When I did spoke again, I changed the subject. "What does having a psychic connection with the TARDIS mean?"
"Well, for one thing it means that she like you," the Doctor answered, "I don't know how you can have one as soon as you walked in, like this. The only people who have ever had it, out of everyone I've traveled with me are me and Jack, and with both of us it took at least a hundred years".
"Ok, I am immortal, my father is to, the reason he left was to go adventuring, and the bigger on the inside ship really does exist, and I have a psychic connection with it. If I didn't know better I would think I was dreaming." No way this was a dream, as I had though before. "This is to crazy to be a dream, no one could make this up. It has to be real."
The others both smiled, "definitely my grandson" the Doctor smiled proudly, my father nodded, the same proud smile on his face.
I crossed back over to the door, "Get this thing out of my house". I turned the doorknob but it did not open.
The singing in my head had changed again, the tone, it sounded almost like a protest. Though I could not understand the words, I knew the ship was telling me not to go.
"Let him go, dear" the Doctor said, so quietly I could barely hear him. The doors reluctantly opened and I went out, back into my apartment. They closed behind me, without me touching them, and it slowly began to disappear, with the noise that I had heard before, not just on the day my father left, but other days to. Once every couple of weeks or so, I would hear it. My mother thought I stopped hearing it long ago, but I hadn't, I just stoped saying anything about it. At first when I heard it, I always thought my father was going to come back and apoligize for leaving, and have a very good explaination why he had to go, even though he didn't want to. I kept hearing it, but I stopped hoping it. I stopped thinking my father was going to come home. Still, that noise, it seemed to become more frequent. Like it was haunting me, almost. Now I knew what it was, but there was still one thing I didn't know about it. Why had I heard it. The noise was the TARDIS landing, so had the TARIDS been landing near me all along? Why didn't my father come to me then? Or, had I been imagining it. No one else seemed to hear it, after all.
Well, none of that mattered. Now that I knew why they left, I wanted nothing to do with either of them. I was perfectly happy to live a normal life. Happy to, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. I had been told stories of what they did, and now that I knew for a fact it was all true, I knew nothing would go back to being normal again.
I had gotten no sleep that night. I lay in bed, trying to sleep, but I just couldn't. I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened that day. I had died, came back, met my father and grandfather, and remembered everything I had forgotten about when they left. I kept going over it in my mind.
My parents were cooking dinner, I was playing video games. The phone rang, and my father answered it. In fact, he jumped up to answer it, as if he didn't want anyone else to. I could hear what he had said, but when he hung up he told my mother a friend was coming over for dinner.
I noted how I remembered that so clearly and yet, I was sure I hadn't been paying attention to what was going on in the kitchen.
Just a few minutes later, the doorbell rang. My father went to answer it, telling me to turn off the video games and help set the table, witch I did, leaving the television on. The man, who claimed to be my father's friend from when they went to school together in London, said his name was Doctor John Smith. He was dressed oddly, and in the same clothes he had been wearing when I saw him the night before. The same long black coat, fedora hat, green scarf, blue tennis shoes, and even the same black pants and white shirt. And of course, the same piercing green eyes and black rimmed glasses. We all sat down to eat, my mother was obviously suspicious that my father was different, but at the time she didn't know how. She asked the Doctor lots of questions about my father, like she was trying to figure out what exactly it was that was different about him.
"I've never met anyone from Jack's childhood. I swear sometimes it's like he never had one," my mother had said, eyeing my father suspiciously.
"I used to think he would never get out of his. I lost count of how many times I had to ward off angry boyfriends at school."
"That I can believe."
"You're just jealous because all the girls were interested in me and not you, Doc," my father interjected.
"River was interested enough in me. Enough to marry me."
"You're married to Jack's sister?" my mother asked. "Where is she now? And why didn't you come see us when she did?"
I glanced at the TV when I realized I had left it on, but what was on surprised me. "What a cool movie" I said, going over to the TV so I could watch it. The others looked over at it, and the Doctor and my father both stood up sharply.
"Of course," the Doctor said, sounding exasperated "I can never go anywhere, can I? I'm sorry, I have to go," he rushed out, grabbing his hat, witch my father had taken and hung on the rack by the door when he arrived, on the way out.
"Doctor," my father called just before the door closed, making the Doctor stop and turn around, but instead of saying anything else to him, he turned to my mother, who was trying to make sense of what was going on.
"What are those things? What's going on?" she asked, looking horrified at the aliens on the screen.
"I will explain later," my father said, "You and Loki need to come with us."
My mother stood and crossed over to me, putting her hands on my shoulders, "We are not going anywhere with you" she hissed.
"Katharine, it's not safe here," my father said urgently. My mother didn't budge. "We don't have time for this," he insisted.
My grandfather took a few steps forward, so that he was standing just in front of my father. "I am not really Jack's old friend from school," he began, speaking very quickly, so quickly I could barely keep up."I am his father, and River is not his sister, she is his mother. Those things," he motioned to the TV, "are called Daleks. They are aliens, and they are very dangerous. The only emotion they feel is hate. Hate for anyone who is not a Dalek, particularly me. If we," he pointed back and forth between himself and my father, "don't do something about this fast, then they may well destroy the whole planet. You need to come with us to my ship, you'll be safe there until we can stop the Daleks."
My mother didn't react, she was trying to process all of the information, I guessed. "Those things are real?" I asked, pointing to the TV, up until that point I couldn't figure out why everyone was making such a big deal about a movie.
"That's right, Loki," the Doctor sad, not looking away from my mother, "They are real and very dangerous. You two need to get to my ship. Now."
"Ship? Are you an alien too?" I asked. I remembered thinking that was the coolest thing I had ever heard. My grandfather was an alien.
"You remember the bedtime stories I used to tell you, don't you?" my father interjected, "About the alien who traveled all over the universe in his ancient time machine, saving planets and rescuing people."
"Those were real?" I asked, not looking away from my grandfather, in disbelief.
"They were real," my father confirmed, "and we need to get to the time machine now. It's safe there."
"Cool," I exclaimed, easily breaking away from my mother and going over to them.
"Let's go, then, we need to stop those Daleks. I swear, they will be the death of me. And then the death of me again." the Doctor said, rushing out the door, my father and I followed, though I wasn't quite sure what he had meant about them 'being the death of him again'. I heard a weak protest from my mother, who ended up following after us.
A/N I am not quite happy with this chapter... Let me know what you think.