The Doctor's euphoria bloomed once he was back in his TARDIS. He gave the console a fond pat with his palm, stroked her smooth surface, and slowly walked a circle, running his finger-tips across the roundels. He checked a few of the outer rooms, but found nothing had really changed. The CIA had put a spy-sensor on a few of his rooms on the reasoning that he might use whatever was in them to break the TARDIS free of her moorings. The Doctor didn't believe that cooked-up tall tale for a nanosecond as it dated to after Sardon passed the torch to Goth. One of the rooms had been staffed with his collection of art from various parts of the Galaxy—mostly from his First self. Goth was not an art lover if it wasn't Gallifreyan.

Blast that idiot, anyway.

Ttoth had an agenda in getting the Council to accept that the bond between Time Lord and Time Ship was no longer legend. The Doctor didn't know what that agenda could possibly be, and he intuited it wasn't that important to him personally. So he told himself not to mind the fussings about and he settled back with the business of setting the TARDIS to the Odeon's Homeworld and pulled out his reading material from the Libraries to pass the time.

Time was relative, and the TARDIS could spend weeks in the Vortex to get from a jump as short as Earth to the Andromeda System, or half a minute to get from one side of the Universe to the Edge of Night. As a boy on his first field trip outside Gallifrey he had once had the perniciousness to ask his teachers about the incongruity, but their answer had been puzzling: the capsules were programmed to get from Point Alpha to Point Beta as quickly as possible, and it was only their minds that found a difference in the time travel.

Now that he was much older and considerably wiser from personal experience, he knew what the teachers hadn't wanted to tell their impressionable students: The craft traveled in the safest paths, and those paths were never static or still. If Space was full of dangers, those dangers went to the Vortex to nap, eat, and have fun (often the last two being the same thing, to the dismay of incidental victims in their way). Those telepathic circuits were vital in finding a large portion of those threats.

The Doctor's face was too mobile to be still for very long. It was currently wearing a folded-in expression of deep thought. He couldn't stay here forever. If there was anything worse than being forced into a regeneration, it would be staying on Gallifrey. They'd destroy him in increments by re-absorbing his sense of self into their homogenized Mind.

No one in their right mind would like the fugitive life. The Doctor's collective-total memories of his two lives were anything but flattering about that. But in the years of loneliness he'd learned things too precious to un-learn. In some aspects, he wasn't even a Time Lord. He loved his planet even if his people made him ache to the bone, but now that he was "home" his sense of peace was wracked. The only time he felt he was himself was...when he was exploring with the TARDIS.

Being himself was more important than accepting a placebo life among Gallifreyans. They could promise happiness—but never contentment.

The small man didn't like where his thoughts were going. It was just the loneliness, he told himself. Loneliness could get to anyone, and after fifty years, he still wasn't used to being alone. It made thoughts boil and ferment in his head, and aggravated his natural slant to philosophy. That had certainly come to a head with his future self over Omega! He regretted his words with the Dandy; he hadn't known he would be so sensitive about his personal identity.

But I should have thought about it... The Doctor's fingers slid over the loose pages of his notes, unthinkingly memorizing the patterns. ...he doesn't remember all of the Trial, but he remembers how I protested his face. And suggesting we were both imposters of our Original was just...icing on the cake.

Would things have been better for his mind if he'd regenerated naturally, among his people? Changing out in the open without the presence of another Time Lord was not a common event. Most Time Lords died if they tried such a thing for the first time—if there were any inherent biological flaws that would keep a successful Change from going through, it would show up that first time. The Doctor shuddered at half a hundred recollections. Regenerating solo was the Terran equivalent of being caught out in a frozen wilderness and being forced to remove one's amputate a limb or pull a bullet out of a rib because the nearest physician was back in civilization: You heard of people doing it. You heard of people dying from it or even surviving it. But you never expected to find someone who actually did it. Since returning to Gallifrey the Doctor had found himself something of a sideshow celebrity by the curious-minded and (to be so bold) those with the...macabre...turn of mind.

Another reason to be glad he was off Gallifrey. Gallifrey was too dull and stultified, too settled and far, far too safe. He'd only been gone a few hundred years—half of Susan's life—but in that period of time the divisions between the classes had gotten worse instead of better.

((Really? Or is it just seeing things in a new light, hmn?))

The Doctor nearly dropped his papers. He did drop his book; it clapped to the floor with a heavy flutter of paper. It had been a long time since he'd last heard the voice of the Original in his mind.

"You certainly could have the right of it, there, sir." He said aloud, and softly in the aloneness of the room.

There was no answer, but he didn't expect there to be one. The old Patrician was orthodox enough to sleep in his mind more often than not; he didn't approve of all the dilly-dallying of past, present and future tenses amongst oneselves, for it was naturally quite dangerous.

The Doctor stayed put a moment longer, waiting and listening, but he was still alone.

Suddenly restless, he leaned back and took in the confines of the TARDIS. Oh, but he hated being alone. It felt...dangerous, somehow.

But better to be alone than with a bad companion, and all of the CIA's attempts to saddle him with a partner had ended very badly.

His mouth set, making him look much older than his 500 years.

500. He shook his head at himself, facing the fact that he had lived 50 years without Jamie and Zoe. They would be old, if they were still alive in their natural timestreams. Humans changed in proximity to a TARDIS, especially his (so he'd noticed). Ian and Barbara had stopped aging but that might have been from one of the mis-adventures on their travels. Jamie and Zoe and Victoria would by neccesity be longer-lived than what would be normal for their time-lines. Ben and Polly as well but not to that great extent; they were older and the younger a human was, the more malleable their selves.

He had faith Jamie and Zoe would be alive; they had so much life in them that it was unfathomable to imagine them dwindled and diminished...but they had lived their lives without each other and without him.

50 years.

Time passes no faster for a Time Lord that is aware than it does for a Human. Are we really an immortal species...or do we just sleep away our days?

He was still considered young for a Time Lord (embarrassingly so and he had resigned himself to the status of "baby of the bunch"), but at least when he was the Original, he'd the comfort of being a prodigy. That had afforded him the comfort in the name of private space, both social and academic. But now he was fully grown and into his first Regeneration. He was still playing the Outsider, and his people were growing less and less amused.

And I with them.

Humans were better company. They were short-lived, fractious, argumentative, and they did an awful lot of killing each other, but their capacity for violence and destruction never once approached the levels of Gallifrey's in the past. Gallifrey had been a lush world once; now she was dry and desiccated, her people with her. Only the outcasts had any life, and while they would have welcomed him with open arms, he didn't know if their ways were meant for him.

The Doctor blinked and looked down. He had re-read his entire book of notes on the Pythia without knowing it.

I'll probably dream of it all tonight, he thought darkly.

With the poor grace of a man faced with unpleasant events, the Doctor rose and turned to his bedroom. A bit of sleep inside the TARDIS would make all the difference in his health.

And then perhaps he could review his notes about the Pythia with a clear head.

The Odeon was fantastic.

It was the hub of the trading factions of the City and one of the few places on the planet that never slept. The CIA report had been factual about the populations of Old Ones: they were certainly the governmental body for the world. The Doctor had landed his TARDIS comfortably outside city limits and walked on foot in the cool of morning to the outer gates which was built in the approval of the Elder species. The first thing that took his attention was a large, respectfully painted sign reminding all newcomers that this territory was shared by the Old Ones, and to please respect their rights as equal citizens. After signing a covenant promising not to litter or spit on the native vegetation (as most offworlder saliva and mouth-based fluids smothered the chlorophyll process), he exchanged a payslip from one of the CIA's "frontal" agencies into what was a ridiculous amount of native scrip.

All right, then...?

The Doctor accepted the transfer politely, collected his receipt (hanged if he'd spend a cent of his own funds), and swallowed the beginnings of a warning chill in the back of his neck. It was a good thing crime was almost non-existent on this planet, because he was carrying enough disposable wealth to buy his own weight in Domol Figs.

The Doctor knew from personal experience that he could get a higher degree of generosity out of a Cyberman or better yet, an Ice Warrior on the verge of heatstroke before he got anything resembling kindness from Goth. He'd even pointed this out on one of his shorter-tempered days early in his "probationary evaluation" and Goth had not been amused when given the proof of this observation out of the Doctor's Diary and TARDIS tapes.

Their quarrels never really ended—he was forbidden the freedom of giving the puffed-up tinplate the full brunt of his tongue, but he was at least allowed to take his "Alien Ape Lip Whistle" on his assignments offworld. While in direct custody, he was expected to repair his hopefully not permanently brain-damaged Gallifreyan sensibilities with forays into proper Gallifreyan music.

This grudging compromise (the terms of which being drafted, written, and signed for both of them by Goth while the Doctor was in a recuperative stupor following a CIA job after Sardon had stepped down for a more relaxing post with the Temporal Web Redress Committee), at least gave the hapless guards and staff within earshot a thirty-percent reduction in their stress levels, but of late the Doctor had managed to revenge himself upon Goth by sneaking Vivaldi, Bach, Telemann, Gullah-rooted chorals and Mozart sonatas into the Music Dispensory with ever-so-slightly altered labels. For all his posturing, Goth didn't know a fipple flute from a Gallefreyan Non-Transposed Woodwind from Cardinal Zorac's cousin's latest concert.

One day, though...one day Goth might actually figure it out. He was still a Prydonian, and they weren't stupid—short-sighted with their own cleverness, and they played long games at every chance, but Goth had plans for the Doctor that meant using him for a rung in his social climb. The Doctor hoped to be in another recuperative coma if and when that happened.

He wants the President's Chair, and he'll do anything to get it...and wouldn't he just love making me one of his allies... Anyone else would have the sense to give up, but Goth was no ordinary Prydonian. He never gave up on anything.

I was better off when Sardon was my supervisor. Sardon didn't mistake me for a weapon on his rise to power... The Doctor weighed the money in his hands, guessing the base value of the metals, and it felt suspiciously like bribery. Comport himself with the dignity of his office, was it? Get used to Lording it about as a Time Lord, get used to the other comforts of the post. And once you're comfortable...you want to stay that way.

There was enough money to be comfortable and then some. Troubled at this latest twist with Goth's financial largess, the Doctor distributed four handfuls of coins into various pockets about his frock coat. They sank without a trace to the very bottom of the hem. He made a mental note to take extra care not to fall into one of the planet's legendary canals with his newfound weight, and continued on his way to the Market-Heart. A few native Repeater-birds stirred with the morning mists, and he pulled out his recorder, defiantly answering their calls with his own.

The birds were delighted to be acknowledged in their own language, and he passed his morning easily.

Fresh air that didn't smell like Gallifrey or an airlock...an open sky and colorful forests...alien species that would never be allowed on his home planet...The Doctor was actually starting to feel better. Physically he could almost claim to be back to what passed for normal in his Temporally-static body. Mentally and physically he was still worn thin and his mind wanted to turn morbid. It was probably just the loneliness, he told himself. Time Lords weren't really good at being by themselves. Even from one side of the Galaxy to the next one over, they could know there were other Time Lords.

Living as an exile had been poignant for a lot of reasons, but he and Susan had been together and eased the psychic losses of living in hiding. It was never easy to subliminally lower themselves so that they could remain under the figurative Radar from Gallifrey. But they hadn't been alone and they had been able to talk about it. Susan had grown into her ability to hide under their minds; he'd be prouder of her accomplishment if he wasn't bitter about the cause. Susan had been faced with a terrible choice: send her mind underground to heal or leave it raw and exposed in the open. If he hadn't taken her away from Gallifrey she would be in an asylum.

For centuries they'd wandered and explored, argued and laughed, and finally found peace in a wild little planet that was so amazingly set in its primitive ways there was little chance of any Time Lord coming around. So that had been reason enough to settle. Just to be on the safe side, they'd kept to the earliest moments in history. Never had they gone past the emerging Space Age of Earth and it had worked well for them (Professor Chronotis notwithstanding).

Humans were nice to be around, once you (finally!) got used to the fey music of their minds. He had and it was delightful. They'd picked up on it sometime after they'd fled to Coal Hill. If they'd remained full-fledged Time Lords they wouldn't have even noticed. Over time the presence of Humans became comforting. The Self that he was now positively loved them, for he'd learned what Susan had realized long ago: the longer a Human was in the presence of a Time Lord, the more...familial...their minds grew.

Which was exactly why he was still so bitter at his separation from Zoe and Jamie. They hadn't called him their family, but they'd treated him that way! The children had completed him in a way no one else ever had been able to brag. Zoe's innate sympathy for numerals had given him a knowing audience for mathematics that he'd craved since leaving Susan. And Jamie? Poor Jamie had been a poet of the master conceptionalist without knowing it. Full of life to a fault, the boy had undervalued his own gifts...his supple Highlander mind had easily grasped the concept of repeated lives, reincarnations, the spiritual cost of war and loss...he was an innate mystic with a multilevel ability to think; he'd understood so much more than what he'd known and he used his intuitive brain for most of his functions. Ironically, the intuitive brain saw the least attention under scan, so Jamie was restricted to the role of a "low brain," or "primitive" while he and Zoe got all the attention. It wasn't fair, and the Doctor had quietly taken pains to support the young Highlander to believe in his good qualities. Eventually he'd learned it was simply better to be true to yourself and let what others think go to hang. Of course he'd understood it on some level, or he would have never had the courage to quarrel or fuss with the Doctor. But it was good to reinforce that part of his self-esteem.

Jamie and Zoe may as well represented his two minds, the poetic/intuitive/primitive/creative leap forward and the advanced/logical/evolving—both had been learning from each other and he had learned from them both.

And even though he was older and smarter and stronger and (mostly) wiser, they had both been willing to die for him. It was still a humbling realization and while he had done his best for their safety, he had personally failed them as their role model.

The small man suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, his brain frozen up in shock.

What was he doing?

He stood on the path, his body unmoving but his mind racing. He'd spent two days of his freedom just...circling the same thoughts over and over! For whatever reason? He knew how he felt about Jamie and Zoe! He knew how Goth made him angry! And yet here he was, ruminating like a mental cow, chewing up and swallowing the same points over and over, just to regurgitate and start it all over again!

This wasn't good.

His face creased into a dark scowl. While it was possible he might be falling under one of the CIA's eternal and annoying mind-tricks, it was unlikely. His intellect was too high for most of that nonsense (no bragging there, just a fact). The memory-blockers might be acting up...that could very well be it. They were designed to divert his mind to "safe" channels when he got too close to areas their compu-censors deemed liable.

I'd better make a note of this, he promised himself. And hope I remember it...

Goth was a miswoven derelict, but he was patient. He knew the longer his "Agent" spent among his own people, the more he'd miss their absences. Goth was a Prydonian and a Time Lord. He knew all about waiting for the Right Time. The Citadel had been packed with minds, all humming at basic Gallifreyan levels...except for his.

Keeping his mind toned down on alien planets was one thing. Doing it on Gallifrey was gruelling. It taxed his nerve and his wits to tearing point; it added to his heavy strain and every day he was in that glorified, dreadful prison he had to fight not to overstep his limited freedoms. Goth would be happy to set up events so he would trip himself up all over again and either increase his punishment or drop him without warning back into his interrupted Time Stream, his sentence unmitigated and carried on to the next two, possibly three Regenerations.

Ugh! Did it again!

The Doctor clapped his hands over his ears, which did nothing but the distraction and the illogical action disrupted the circular thought. He breathed deep, relieved. Right. For some reason his mind was being directed into obsessing about his punishment, his exile, and how much he hated Goth. (Adding that to the mental file).

He paused, listening but caught nothing inside or outside his head for the moment.

Well, that is interesting... random and illogical acts break the spell so to speak... His eyebrow floated up, wryly amused that he'd just performed the mental equivalent of turning his jacket inside out to fool the piskies. Hmmn...

A Repeater-bird fluttered overhead with a sudden trill. He looked up with a smile, pulled out his recorder, and answered it back with a polite extra three-note geep on the end. The avian circled around his head in a courteous thanks and farewell with its song left open, which gave him the opportunity to return to the conversation the next time they met. He grinned at the bird as they went on their separate ways. Repeater-birds were really lovely beings. They knew any language they chose, but creating songs together was their chosen method of communication. There was no higher calling.

He waved goodbye, thinking wistfully of the times in which he would have been glad to communicate only friendship. It would have made so many times much simpler.

For almost a day, the Doctor could put aside his mission and have some fun. It was long overdue, and the Time Lords thought it was a tiresomely necessary part of the assignment for their Agent to wander around and gather information and atmosphere. He wasn't about to dissuade them of the notion.

For hours he drifted through the marketplace, taking mental notes on anything interesting—well, the Market was interesting. He was looking the way he always did: for elements out of place or not in sync. That would alert him to any trouble faster than a thought.

However, there was little to alert.

The Odeon's topics were a commonplace fact. The kiosks for information posted copious notes and speeches on the upcoming debates and the Doctor contentedly collected free copies for his personal study. On the personell's side of things, he went looking for opinion on the street, and there things got a little strange.

"The debates? We love them. They're a fascinating use of language in their own right—it's what happens when you have all of those sharp minds together in one room!" A plump grocer wrapped up his order of dessert-fruits in soft paper as she spoke. "And anyone is invited to attend, but I haven't since oh...it must have been five years ago. They were working on new concepts for comestibles. Brought the entire Market in on that one!"

"Did you enjoy the debates?"

"Certainly. You always learn a lot. It also keeps our language from getting dull, don't you know." She grinned at him. Her genes were an interesting creation of tigrish stripes of melanin over her soft brown skin.

"Well, is there anything about the upcoming debate that would bring your interest?" He tucked his supper under his arm and made a show of fishing for coins—it let him pull out the right amount whilst giving the impression he had very little money. He really didn't want anyone to know he was walking around with about five extra kilos in currency!

"Not as such, no. I'm sure the young ones will go—they always have a good showing."

"What are the new concepts this year?"

"Diplomacy this time. I believe being a commercial trader I already know all there is...and what I don't know, I'll learn soon enough by the young ones when they come to my stall! Thank you, sir, and do come again."

Diplomacy, was it?

His eyebrows going skyward, the little Time Lord continued his random wandering across the Market. He paused at a drinks-stall and bought a Market-cup, paying extra to have the extra tallies marked into the side. That done, he took it to the local well where the wellkeeper pleasantly filled the cup with cold artesan water and cheerfully marked off the first tallymark for him.

"Don't forget, the tallies double in worth when the suns are up," he was cautioned. "You don't want to overdo it when it gets hot."

"Thank you, I'll remember that." The Doctor sipped and chatted a bit, asking the man the same questions as he had done the grocer. The answers were the same. No echo of unpleasant words or topics; just...diplomacy.

Variations of the same continued to happen no matter where he went. He visited an art gallery, stopped to watch a parade on its way to the Odeon's heart, threw a coin to an Aesthetic Beggar playing a decent double-drum, circled the Venomous Lizard-Charmer with a great deal of trepidation, and finally bought a quick dinner at a fisher's stall. The aroma of fried fish and chipped vegetables reminded him too much of London for his powers to withstand nostalgia.

The little man found a shady spot where four or five different species were drinking a spectrum of waters, and took a seat. He ordered the Artesan Water for his now-empty cup. The first sip was chalky and pleasant on the tongue; he sipped slowly, glad to feel the living dynamics of water again. Everything was so stale and bland in the Citadel, the Wall, or Xenobia, the CIA's personally funded space station.

The day would get much warmer before it finished. He temporarily doffed his large coat and leaned back with his glass, to all appearances a traveler waiting for an appointment. He was wearing long sleeves for once, but he was gratified to note that many bared arms were adorned of tattoos similar to his own—and the CIA bracelet would not be out of place in style and form. A few of his drinking-mates were clearly reformed convicts from other planets. Minyans, mostly, and they wore the clothing of penitents on Walkabout. So long as they lived quietly they would be treated with courtesy.

What Minyans were doing all the way over here was anyone's guess, but they did tend to voyage in teams for extra protection. They were a slightly paranoid race. Just look at Dastari, who, nice as he was, still seemed to think the weight of his intellect alone was holding up the weight of the Universe.

The water gave him new energy and he smiled as he watched the ebb and flow of living beings. Most Time Lords would be claustrophobic in this atmosphere, which was doubtless why they'd sent him. He was willing to "get his hands dirty" and consort with other species.

Most Time Lords considered Gallifreyan Colony peoples the radical extent of the spectrum; Minyans were the opposite side, but Outsiders and Shobogans were just as "bad" depending on the circumstance. The Doctor was not happy about the entrenched prejudices for they seemed to get deeper and deeper the more he watched. He knew it was all about the self-imposed isolation of the planet.

There had been a time when he'd been just as hidebound as the worst of them, but life has a way of battering down stale notions—if you actually go out and live. What would his people think if he even tried to tell them of his studies in Tibet? They wouldn't understand. They never understood why he'd made friends with the old hermit half-up the mountain! An old fossil, they'd said. Silly old man, no head for science. The world's passed him by-and it'll pass you by, my boy, if you keep spending your time with him!

They'd sniff at the spiritual science and demean the humans for adopting another alien race's philosophy, unable to believe humans could come to their own conclusions on something. My old teacher, he would have understood.

One of the worst issues was the capacity for violence. The Doctor had stopped counting the number of times a Time Lord like Magnus comfortably recited a "well-known" fact that humans were the most violent species in the Universe. The Doctor never stopped responding with, "Now that's simply not true." The other Time Lords never knew what to do when he failed to agree—the Doctor was speaking against Fact as they knew it, in the comfortable shield of Temporal Web Screens that recorded action but precious little motive. All they saw was violence; they never stopped to ask themselves what was the motive behind the violence; what was the understanding?

This was making him gloomy, and it reminded him that he was without the humans who had known him best. His face shadowed and he glanced down, studying his glass of water. So much of the fun of exploring had been taken away from him with his isolation. It just wasn't the same when it was only yourself and always yourself. The few Time Agents were dull, dry, and paranoid. He was often rude to them, impatient with the uselessness of their knowledge.

Jamie and Zoe would have been just as happy to be here. They would clamor for something to eat or a place to explore, and bicker and quarrel and laugh and they would tease him for being childish but they would have stayed with him. Eventually, he knew they couldn't have spent their whole lives with him—they lived so briefly, but they lived so well.

Jamie especially...The Doctor hoped that Jamie had not only survived, he'd gone on to introduce his excellent genes back to the human race. After encountering a certain soldier who was clearly Jamie's descendent in both biology and psychic stamp, the Doctor had known that someday he would part ways with the boy, but knowing a tiny bit of the ending soothed his loss a great deal. Earth needed more Jamies; the Universe needed them as much as they needed more Zoes—calculators who weren't satisfied to be just pure mind. She had chosen to be more, and had been willing to risk herself for it. She reminded him a little much of himself in that phase of his youth...

He wondered how she was doing; she was still a child when they parted ways, not finished with growing and she would never be a large human.

His thoughts were not cycling as badly as they had been (being aware of it seemed to help), but they were making him restless, and that usually made him rash. The Doctor sighed, quaffed his second glass of water (this one was a lighter, sharper bouquet with a floral tang of deep-earth minerals), and rose to his feet. A top clinked to the table top loudly, as was polite for the Odeon, for the ring proclaimed the metals true and not counterfeit. He shrugged back into his coat, knowing he'd be grateful for the shield against the sun very soon.

He was just walking out of the cool shade of the tent and planning his supper at an open-air balcony so he could eat and observe at the same time, when he collided nose-first into the broad chest of a huge man caught tripping over an elder's fallen cane. A wave of sickening emotions swept over him by the accidental contact: hatred, self-hatred, darkness, cruelty, depression, joy in destruction, and trickery. The holster of an energy-stunner prodded against the Doctor's hip for a moment then large paws pushed him roughly away to crash against the sold stone table.

"Watch it, you old fool!" The big invader was snarling to the hapless old man, who was quite blind as well as deaf. In rage he glared, his ice-cold brown eyes sweeping like murky floodlamps back to the Doctor. "There you are!"

"Oh, my giddy aunt," he gasped and, not surprisingly, took off like a rabbit with the Hound of the Baskervilles howling at his ankles.

The Valeyard growled to himself, stuffed his weapon back into hiding, and took off in pursuit.