Author's Note: Another day, another chapter. Well, another few minutes, another chapter. Or...whatever. You get the point.

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"All of us get lost in the darkness, dreamers learn to steer by the stars." - Rush, The Pass



It was a strange name to choose, she knew, she had always known.

Most, if not all the Time Lords had seen humor in it, chalking it up to all the eccentricities she hadn't failed to show in each and every one of her regenerations. Traveling across time and space was a different story altogether. After all, if was a little more than difficult to introduce herself to any person on Earth as simply 'Bad Wolf.'

On most occasions, she would simply use her usual pseudonym 'Jane Smith', or if she was feeling particularly cheeky, she'd find a way for them to just call her 'Wolf.' After all, most everyone could have a little nickname or the like, so it usually wasn't that odd.

Still, the Bad Wolf chose her name for a reason, and despite what her people and many of the friends she'd collected among the years thought, that reason was not because she was one olive short of a cocktail.

When she'd first heard the old little earth story, she'd been but a child first stepping into this universe. It was a cute little saying, 'here comes the big, bad wolf', but one she'd somehow grown affectionate of. She'd always been a bit crazy, that she never denied. If you knew her well enough, you could tell she positively relished in it sometimes. Gave her an edge, it did. Never knew what to expect from her.

She couldn't say herself why the saying kept with her through the years, or why it felt so important. But then she'd chosen it, marked herself as it, and embodied it. When she'd chosen it, it had been as it should always should have been. When you chose your name, it was you. It told a story. It's like searching your whole life for the right puzzle piece, and when it snaps in place it just feels right.

The people she'd grown close to, and even those having only met her once, would say that there was nothing more true than her own title. As a woman, as a Time Lord, she was so full of life. She'd been ridiculed by those on her planet for being so utterly human. She could cry and scream and be completely touched by such trivial things. Yet as her name went, it was so very accurate. Big Bad Wolf, indeed. People would see her as she faced her enemies. Like a snake, slithering in with mystifying words and trapping those opposing her with iron fists and sharp claws.

She was amazing and brilliant, clever and remarkable. She was also dangerous. So very dangerous when she knew an injustice. Such fire was there in her gaze when she knew she was about to do something that no one else could or would do for the greater purpose.

And that was precisely what she was doing now.

How long it had taken for her to finally lift herself off the grille of the floor and sit herself into the captain's chair, she would really never know. Ironic, she thought bitterly, that she was now the last of the Time Lords, those pompous people who did nothing but watch as time flew by and monitor all of the universe, and she couldn't even properly time how long it had been since she'd had a coherent thought.

She felt that familiar old hum again, and she glanced up at the central column as the lights somewhat flickered. At this she smiled a bit. The first of anything close to a smile she'd given since…

Her smile wavered. Still, at this she forced herself to jump off the comfortable spot she had on the chair and walked around the TARDIS console, hand running over the controls lightly.

I know luv, she mentally whispered to her ship, unable to have anger at her urge to fly once again, instead of lingering in the vortex where they'd both been mourning. She could still hear the faint echo of the TARDIS's song running through her mind, trying to soothe her. The moments in which she'd hated her ship for forcing her to live on while the others could not hadn't lasted long once she'd realized that they truly were the last of their kind, and all that was left of Gallifrey was held inside these walls.

The Bad Wolf knew, regardless of how long she waited, there would never be time enough to erase the raw pain that would now live on through her forever as the destroyer of her own world. Time, as she'd learned as a mere child in the Academy, would never stop for her. It could go forward, and she could go backwards, but there would always be worlds out there that needed saving, people crying for help when all seemed lost, and beings still fighting their own war, even if not as epic as her own.

She wasn't too proud to stay in the TARDIS and cry. But she was too proud to stay when the universe needed her. She was, after all, the last of the Gallifreyan people. The only one left to watch over time as others threatened to destroy it. That she would do. That she would carry on, so that her people would live on. And maybe, maybe one of these days, so far in her future that it would have to be, she might just find herself able to think about them without devastation, but with a fond smile.

But not now, not today. Most definitely not today. For now, all she could do was move on, same as she always did; running until the road ran out, and then still only changing course. That was all she could do now, all she could bare to do. She'd remember later. For now, all she needed was to forget.

Heaving a sigh, for better or for worse, she turned and leaned toward the monitor as she braced the console.

"All right, love, what have we got?"

Huh. New voice. Oh, right, regeneration. Sounded a little old, not too old. Maybe mid forties? Possibly thirties? She could never really tell just to hear herself. She'd have to see a mirror-

The Bad Wolf held tight, one hand on a lever and the other flailing for a moment as the ship shook violently. Attempting to make out the readings among the chaos, she managed to read out the swirling text on the monitor that would make no sense to anyone other than herself. Half cursing and half chuckling, she couldn't help the slightly manic grin that spread across her face.

"Well old girl, looks like we're back in the game!"

She decided not to care that her laugh sounded more hysterical than jovial. The TARDIS hummed in agreement.