A/N; Not much action in this chapter. Well none at all really. Basically it's just a lot of Hailey and the Doctor catching up and discussing events of the years they were apart. It contains at least one very important revelation though, so I wouldn't recommend skipping over it. Chapter four is where it will really start to get interesting again.
Hailey tossed and turned in her bed on board the Doctor's TARDIS. She turned to look at the clock set to show standard London time, and she frowned and then groaned in frustrated annoyance. If they had been in England instead of somewhere in the middle of space near Pluto, it would have been four in the morning. She'd gone to bed not long after midnight, and not yet gotten a wink of sleep. Just the fact that she'd been laying in bed wide awake for close to four hours was enough to make her grab a handful of the fabric of her pillow and snatch it up angrily. In frustration she plopped the pillow back onto the bed the other way around and smacked it with her hand a few times, both to fluff it up and to express her annoyance at her wakefulness when she knew she should have a bit of rest.
She lay back down, and with her face half buried in the pillow and her blanket pulled over her, she tried once again to fall asleep. She enjoyed relaxing in her bed, and tried to let her body doze off. Another half an hour passed. That soon become an hour and she was still awake. Finally she made up her mind to simply give up and get out of bed all together.
When Hailey wandered into the console room fully dressed and carrying a glass of milk, she found the Doctor underneath the console tightening bolts with a wrench. She leaned on the railing along the back of the room, took a drink from her glass and set it down on the rail. After a second she got bored and walked toward the monitor. She looked intently at the image on the little screen. They were still in space, as they had been all night - but now it was obvious they were out of her home solar system. The TARDIS drifted slowly past three moons of a small planet with striped rings of colored mist around it. Slightly further away the metal framework of a man made structure, long abandoned according to it's condition, floated in it's orbit near the edge of the system.
"You're up early," the Doctor called from under the console. Hailey was startled by suddenly hearing him say something, when she hadn't even realized he knew she was in the room at all. "Couldn't sleep again?"
"I've been awake all night," Hailey answered. She sat down in a chair near a main bank of controls and finished her milk. "It's been getting worse, you know? The trouble sleeping I mean. When I was a small child I'd sleep about half as much as others it seemed. When I first met you years ago, I was still sleeping several hours every few nights. It's just gotten so strange lately even for me."
"Do you feel tired though?" the Doctor questioned. He climbed out from under the console and walked across the room to sit with her.
"Yes, of course..." Hailey answered. As soon as she'd said it though, she realized just how quick she'd been to answer without even really thinking about it.
"Actually not really at all, strangely," she said after a brief of simply noticing how she felt. "I haven't slept in days and still I'm wide awake.
"You'll sleep when you get tired," the Doctor said. The tone of his voice and the look on his face told her that he was ever so calmly brushing the whole matter off, with little real concern for it.
"I've not been able to fall asleep since I recovered from the crash," Hailey protested. "And that was three Earth days ago!"
"You're getting closer to adulthood now. Soon enough you may find yourself sleeping literally only a few hours a month."
Hailey laughed, and then stopped and only looked at him in confusion. "Wait... closer to adulthood? Doctor, I've been an adult for years now."
"An adult human yes," the Doctor explained. "In Time Lord years though you're about the equivalent of a young teenager."
"That's just weird."
"How long has it been for you since we last saw each other?" the Doctor asked casually.
"Just over five years now."
"Hmm... okay so then that would make you just about..."
"Twenty six. How long was it for you?"
"Two and a half years for me."
"Exciting couple of years?" Hailey asked slowly. With one hand she tried to fix up her hair, that seemed to do exactly what she didn't want it to. It was much shorter than it had been before, barely reaching to her chin, and far more untamable.
"You could say that." The Doctor laughed and right away he changed the subject. "How about you though. I was surprised to find you out there so far from your home on your own. I suppose I just assumed you'd stay on and near Earth for a lot longer."
"So did I," Hailey answered. She pushed away her feelings of uncertainty and doubt and wondered how much she should say about whole matter. "Things happen though when we least expect them too." She looked at the floor, suddenly overcome with sadness and trying to hide it.
The Doctor looked at her in concern. "Hailey, did something happen in the past five years? Something terrible?"
"Yes," the young lady admitted. She quickly added more to her thought, speaking with determination to get her point across. "It's not what you must be thinking. I didn't get myself into any trouble and go on the run or anything."
"I didn't think you did. So really though, what's happened to you?"
"The last few years, they've been bad," Hailey explained, forcing herself to keep her voice from shaking as she relayed the events of the last while. "I lived in the house with my mother and George after you left me back on Earth. They had a decent basement, that they fixed up as a little suite they rented out to me. There is such limited housing in the village, but I wanted to stay there instead of the city for a while. Anyway about a year after they got married, I found out Mum was pregnant. I guess she was so sure I'd be happy to find out I was going to be a big sister or something. It just made me mad though. I couldn't believe that she'd actually plan on keeping and raising a baby at her age. She was over forty and I was already grown up. We had our first huge family fight that night. I told her I had no reason to be excited about having a little brother or sister when I was already at the age when many people my own age had babies of their own. I called them both careless for letting such an accident happen, and she explained that the baby had been planned."
"The next few months were pretty bad in the house. I thought she was so selfish for wanting another child when she'd given up on me so young. Every issue we'd gotten so close to resolving between us came up again and finally George started hinting that I might be better off moving out. I just thought he was irresponsible for getting my mother pregnant at almost middle age. I told him so and he said that as much as he loved me like his own daughter, he'd evict me himself if I said such a thing again. The first months or so after they shared their news were the worst of our lives."
"She seemed so happy though. They both did. They were always such a perfect couple really, but for a while I kind of forgot that. Slowly though I warmed up to the idea of a tiny sibling. She took me out for lunch one day and said it was a boy. We went shopping after that for little blue clothes and blankets. I remember that she never could decide what she wanted to call him. She said she'd know what he should be called when he was born, and so we all just called him 'the baby.'"
The Doctor looked at Hailey with dread on his face. The tone of her voice and her use of certain past tense where things should have been said in the present, told him that something had gone wrong in his companion's family. But for all of his talent at reading situations, he found he couldn't guess what it might have been. He just sat quietly and let her go on relaying the incident to him.
"One night when Mum was about seven months pregnant she and George went out," Hailey continued on. "He had some work thing to go to that night. Some party or something. I remember I was at home by myself painting and the hone rang. I just picked it up calmly thinking it must be a neighbor or something. But it was the hospital in the nearest small city. They'd gotten into an auto accident on a snowy highway. I'll never forgot that slow careful drive to the hospital on those roads in the falling snow myself. I shouldn't have gone alone but I had to go and I couldn't get ahold of anyone else. It turned out Mum and George had both been dead on arrival, and no one had wanted to say that over the telephone."
Hailey tried to stop herself from crying, determined that one day she should be able to think about all that without any more grief over it all. Try as she might though she just couldn't stop her tears from starting to fall for another of countless times in the past few years. The Doctor wrapped his arms around her and for a moment she just sat where she was crying into the sleeve of his jacket. Eventually she looked up, with her face red and started speaking again.
"Mum was pregnant though so of course the baby had to be delivered as soon as she was pronounced dead. She was far enough along that there was some real hope he would survive. It turned out she'd been carrying twins and that had never been discovered. Not long after I got into the hospital I was taken to see the little girl no one had known a thing about. She was so tiny and in such poor health that she couldn't even be held, but she was alive. The boy was dead when he was born, but I asked to see him too for a moment. He was even smaller than our sister, but he looked just like our mother. I knew someone would have to raise the little girl, and I decided I would start the process of applying for custody of her. Three days after she was born though, she died too. She was just too sick and too small to ever really have stood much of a chance."
"Neither one had a name, and I decided I just couldn't hand them over for burial without names. It just didn't seem fair to them, or to Mum and George. So when I had to file their papers, I named them myself. I called them Cathaleen and Jacob. I've so often thought to myself that the twins wanted to stay together and that's why Cathy died. I know it sounds crazy, but perhaps they knew they needed each other and they both needed our mother."
For many long moments the two of them just sat silently in the TARDIS console room, Hailey shaken up from the grief and misplaced guilt that still haunted her even then when she thought about her family too much, and the Doctor completely shaken up by the knowledge of what had happened.
"I just packed up and left not long after my family was buried," Hailey said after more silence and tears from both of them. She'd stopped crying then, and spoke and a clear but still slightly voice. "A lawyer and then the town hall phoned me within a week and a half. I couldn't stay in the house. The bank was taking it for resale because George had not finished paying it off and I didn't qualify for the mortgage on it. It's not like I cared much and I told them so, but still it seemed like that banker who started coming to the door after i'd talked the the town hall wanted to intimate and scare me away from the village. I started to feel unwelcome. Like people just didn't know how to react to the strange freakishly intelligent artist girl whose entire family was dead. I was fired from the grocery store just for taking time off to spend the days in the hospital with my baby sister before she died. It wasn't hard to tell I was no longer welcomed in the village. I took as much as I wanted to keep from the house, and decided to go off and find my place in the universe."
"Hailey, I'm very sorry to hear all that's happened. You seem okay though, so that's good news at least."
"Yeah. I'm okay now," Hailey said. "It's been over two years though since they all passed away. At first I was just so sad all the time. I felt horrible for being so mad at my mother for wanting a baby at first. For the first few months I just cried every night alone on my father's old ship. Then I got angry. Furious at myself and furious at any higher power that might exist. I didn't know what to do, or what to think of much of anything."
Hailey stopped speaking then abruptly, obviously wanting the whole subject to be dropped at that point. Wiping her eyes with the edge of the sleeve of her top and shaking her head a bit, she looked at the Doctor curiously.
"So what's your story?" she asked.
"How do you mean?"
"Well it's been a couple of years for you too. Things must have happened in that much time. You even ended up regenerating at some point during those years. How'd that happen?"
"I don't... I can't..." the Doctor muttered in a strange tone.
Hailey leaned forward in her seat with a look of both confusion and slight disappointment on her face. Her look turned then to concern as she spoke again. "Oh come on, surely nothing could have happened that was so terrible you can't even think or talk about it. You said you'd you'd tell me about that one day."
"It's just that it was such a confusion mess," the Doctor said. "I wouldn't even know where to start so that the whole story would make sense."
He stopped for a long moment and thought everything over. After a couple of minutes, he spoke once again, asking her a question, instead of directly answering hers. "Where you still on Earth the day a planet appeared in the sky?"
"Which time?" Hailey asked back. "A slightly similar thing happened twice. You mean the day everyone was suddenly seeing all these strange planets in the sky after the Earth was somehow moved?"
"No not... wait how did you know the Earth actually moved. I don't think that was ever officially stated in the news or anything. Government cover ups and things, of course."
"Well because it was kind of obvious," Hailey laughed. "I was telling people from the beginning that the Earth had moved and those planets hadn't just appeared in our solar system. They thought that was just silly. A whole planet couldn't just move. The stars were all different though and it was dark all the time. We were away from our sun. I still don't know why to this day no one just accepts that we moved."
"Earth was invaded too... again," the Doctor said. "Of course you know that. How did you do in the village?"
"Well the small towns and the villages were left alone mostly. I guess the cities were targeted first, in order to get the mass population under control. Everyone was still panicking though. No one could contact anyone in the cities and people were convinced it was the end of the world. I told the neighbors I knew the Doctor would save us, but no one listened. I tried to call you, but I couldn't get ahold of the TARDIS at all. I could only assume you already knew we were in trouble..."
Hailey stopped then and thought for a second, trying to piece together everything in her head. "If that's not the day you meant though then you must mean the second incident the next year. That huge orange and red planet that looked like it was about to knock Earth right out of orbit."
The Doctor nodded hesitantly, and Hailey went on recalling the day from her point of view. "The entire population was already in shock over something no one could quite remember then, but so many people were outside and everyone just sort of regained awareness. Suddenly everyone was looking up at this planet that had just sort of appeared out of nowhere and most people started screaming and crying and trying to find their families. I remember there were a few crazies outside too with their camera phones, trying to film it. That's humanity I suppose. Everyone panicking that the world is about to be destroyed and those crazy few decide to get it all on camera."
"Did you manage alright that day?" the Doctor asked, in honest concern.
"Yeah." Hailey nodded confidently. "Mostly I just sat on the roof of the house, because I could see everything from up there and no one could bother me. I stayed by myself most of the day, and I thought of you and could only hope nothing terrible had happened to you. I just knew that you must have come back to stop whatever was happening, and I remembered then everything you'd said about how you knew you would die soon after you sent me home that last time. I had my family then but of course you had no one. I wanted to find you and eventually I tired."
The Doctor looked at her seriously for a second before he started laughing a little. Quietly he muttered, "I tell my friends, to never wander away from where I left them and on no account to ever try to follow or find me. I tell them not to try to come and to save me from trouble because that's just too dangerous. Do any of you ever listen."
"I thought maybe I could help you," Hailey said, undeterred. "I figured you might need me. I never could lock onto your TARDIS though. Nothing was working properly. There was so much interference from various unknown energy sources."
"I'm glad of that,' the Doctor answered, speaking with complete seriousness. He looked at her with a mix of compassion, sternness and more than a hint of admiration. "Hailey, when I said back that I didn't want you involved in that situation, I meant it."
Hailey nodded her head, and gave a look of silent compliance, and an agreement to respect his wishes in sure important situations in the future. Her expression quickly turned then to one of curiosity as she began to question out loud A thought that had been in her mind for several years. "Doctor, I thought nothing of this at the time, but later I realized... that planet that suddenly appeared in the sky, I've seen that before. I've seen pictures just like it in my textbook. But it couldn't have been, could it..."
Still sitting her her chair, now looking up at him wide eyed with confusion and curiosity and wonder. "Was that really... our home?"
The Doctor slowly muttered confirmation, all the while unsure exactly what he might say next. He'd known full well she would have most likely guess correctly at the planet's identity years before. Still though, now that the subject was out and in the open, he had to admit he was unsure how he might expect she would react to the whole thing.
"So then that means the Time Lords came back, for a short while at least?" Hailey's words were partly a question but mostly just a statement of something to her her would already be obvious.
"They tried to, yeah," the Doctor said. He couldn't hide either his sadness or his anger over it but of course he tried anyway.
Hailey, reading his expression well, was confused. "But... isn't that a good thing?"
Standing up from her chair she flew instantly into a flurry of thoughts, all of which she voiced out loud in her excitement. "Well if they succeeded once, they can do it again. I have no idea how this would work but someone must have locked onto a something that was already outside the time lock... an object maybe, perhaps even a person. Of course the planet should never been so close to Earth, but that must have been an accident, because whoever or whatever, they were locking into was on Earth. All we should need to do then is give them something else to use to pull themselves back into this dimension again. This time we'll put it on a planet far away. One with no life on it. I think we can save them."
"Hailey!" the Doctor said, louder than he'd intended to, in an effort to interrupt her intent plotting. "Don't you think I've thought of such things so many times before. You're right that it would probably work. But Hailey, I can't bring the Time Lords back. They'd probably destroy the universe if we did that."
Hailey stopped instantly and for a moment she stood frozen in her tracks where she was standing in the middle of the room. "What?"
"You must remember that there was a reason they had to be stopped in the first place. I didn't only shut my entire race into the time lock to stop a war. I was trying to save all of reality." the Doctor stood up slowly and went to his companion. He pulled her into his arms and for a moment he hugged her, before he led her back to sit down again.
"There were times in the years before they came back, that I thought it might be okay if they did," he explained slowly. "I'd hoped everything had changed and those years of finding themselves stuck in there would have been enough to end their new train of selfish thought. But I saw that day that not only had it not stopped any of that, it might have even made it worse. As for Gallifrey rematerializing so close to the Earth, that was not accidental at all. It could have been placed anywhere. Just like you said, there are plenty of uninhabited worlds on which no one would have been killed if the planet was knocked out of orbit."
"Doctor," Hailey questioned quietly. "Is that why you refused to let me help you?"
The Doctor nodded slowly. "I had a good idea of who and what was returning soon. Of course you understand that the Time Lords become more and more corrupted near the end. Still though, you rely on that hope that they can all still be good people. I couldn't destroy your hope and your faith in that. If you had been found you'd have probably been killed. How could I risk you being destroyed by anything, let alone our own people."
"I suppose one of the Time Lords tired to kill you then," Hailey guessed. "It's so hard to really wrap my head around that still, but I guess I could imagine how that might happen."
"Oh a few of them wanted to, yes. But they failed entirely. Strange, I thought for sure that's how it would end. I was ready to just give up and accept defeat."
"So what went wrong after all?"
"Ever notice how sometimes life has ways of just knocking us right off our feet just as we think we've done something amazing," the Doctor said. He stopped for a moment to think and then went on. Sort of like, oh I don't know... running a ten kilometer race, finding yourself actually coming in first with several meters between you and the next runner and suddenly slipping on a banana peel fifteen paces from the finish line?"
For several seconds Hailey laughed out loud at his example. Composing herself she looked at him, with at least a partly serious expression on her face. I honestly can't say I've ever had that happen. I can imagine the basic idea though."
"Well basically," the Doctor said slowly picture a situation a bit like that. Only there was no running involved, had nothing to do with bananas ,and was far more serious than just falling down. Hmmm... okay actually I suppose that example was way off then wasn't it..."
Hailey found herself laughing again, much harder than before, without any real idea of exactly what it was the found that funny. For a couple of minutes though she sat in her seat with her hands over her stomach and trying hard to stop her laughter.
"I'm sorry," she said, looking up again. "I know none of this is a laughing matter. I just forgot for a second we were discussing such serious topics."
"That's okay," the Doctor said, laughing as well. "Can't just stay serious for too long at once. Or at least I hope not."
"Seriously Doctor," Hailey said next, still trying to stop laughing. "That analogy is just crazy. Who in heaven's name would drop a banana peel onto a running track?"
"Someone who wanted the lead runner to lose the race?"
"Well yeah... I suppose. But that would just be mean."
"True, but if someone had money bet on the race..."
"Who gambles on track and field events?" Hailey shook her head.
The Doctor shrugged. "Isn't that a common human pass time? Betting on the races?"
Hailey got up from her seat and wandered across the control room. She continued to shake her head in disbelief for another moment, completely unsure whether he was trying to be funny at that point or not.
He jumped to his own feet seconds after her and for a second or two he leaned against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. It was as impossible to tell if he was truly annoyed, or only pretending to be.
"What?" he finally questioned innocently enough.
"When people say they like to bet on the races, they tend to mean dogs or horses," Hailey said. She had stopped laughing by that time, but once again she shook her head slightly.
"Human beings," the Doctor muttered. "They are just never specific enough about those sorts of things."
"It's great to be able to talk seriously sometimes, but I certainly needed to have a good laugh too," Hailey said.
The Doctor nodded his agreement. He sat back down again.
"I'm getting bored though," he mumbled in a way that was almost childlike.
"Me too," Hailey said. Still on her feet, and almost childlike herself, she gently pulled him up by the hand. "Let's go find something interesting."