Chapter Four – Past Regrets
Susan sat and stared into her teacup as though the mysteries of the universe could be read within. Her TARDIS, like her grandfather's once so long ago, had a tea nook off to one side, a bentwood hat stand by the door, and comfortable chairs neatly placed. They were, of course, molecularly bonded to the floors, a TARDIS trip could be a bumpy ride and having furniture flying about was dangerous. Above her, the sylvan pillars of her ship arched and twined, cool greens and blues trying to sooth her, even as she fretted.
Her grandfather and his wife were off asleep and she was ostensibly working on a search program that might help them find the others. One of the curses of being a Time Lord was that you hardly needed to sleep, so she lacked the solace of pleasant dreams just then, she was left wide awake and with too much to contemplate, such as, her grandfather.
When she'd scanned his mind there were things that he'd hidden from her, but there were also things that he'd made no effort to conceal at all. He had not even tried to bury his guilt and agony over the death of their home world. She'd know that he would face that choice, she'd seen it in the Final Vision, but she hadn't been able to warn him about it. It would have been both too cruel and too dangerous.
At the time, the joy and relief of finding him, of not being alone anymore, had been overwhelming. She'd pushed all thoughts of the end of her world out of her mind. But now, sitting in solitude, she had time to think about what it had done to him to have to destroy Gallifrey.
He had always been the one to make the tough choices, while others went along like sheep, or refused to face the truth. Everyone had always depended on him to fix things, make them right again, but none of them had been willing or able to act. She was furious at all those who through their inertia had forced him into actions that haunted and tortured him.
Great Gran had voted against the plan, but she'd been one of only two council members to do so. Like her renegade son, she'd been one of the few able to act. In their defense, the Time Lords had been trained to inaction for so many millennia that the war had found them deeply unprepared. They were no longer the warriors who had fought the First and Second Great Time Wars. They were weaker, more frightened, and ineffectual. Thousands of years of being button pushers, only ever observing, detached, smug, and lazy, had taken their toll.
Closing her eyes, Susan could see it again, the fleets of Dalek ships blotting out the suns, the deaths of her friends and family, echoing in her mind, and feeling every moment of their agony and despair. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The Doctor was sitting in the chair across from her, his eyes filled with the same bitter wisdom that lived in her as well. She had no need to speak; he knew where her mind had wandered. He was wearing a white shirt and blue striped slacks, suspenders over his shoulders, and his tie undone, his hair was rumpled and his eyes were tired and sad. He looked resigned, which wasn't something she'd expected to see.
"I owe you an apology, grandfather," she murmured and his brows went up in surprise.
"Oh?" Those brown eyes in that thin angular face, they were incredibly expressive, giving a great deal more than she was used to. His mind was only partly open to her in this body, he was harder to read mentally, but so much more was written across his features, he was an open book now and it disturbed her how much pain she could see.
"I had a Vision, while I was in the Tower. I saw what your choice was going to be. I wanted to tell you, I hated keeping that secret from you, but I thought it would be cruel to burden you with that fore-knowledge. I was also scared that Rassilon would see it in your head and that the universe would be destroyed. I am so sorry, grandfather, I really am."
He closed his eyes and she could see his suffering hit him again, followed by a release, a sudden moment of peace.
"You knew and you still didn't hate me? You forgive me?" he asked, his voice barely audible, but edged with a terrible longing.
"If you can forgive me for keeping silent for two hundred years, I can most certainly forgive you for doing what was needful," she answered and he reached out and took her hand in his own, holding it almost painfully tight.
"Of course I forgive you, Susan, honestly, I am really glad that I didn't know from the beginning, it would have eaten me alive knowing something like that. I've just been so scared. So scared that I was wrong, that what I did was unforgivable, that no one would understand…" he trailed off and the raw anguish on his face made her heart contract, even as the relief of his forgiveness eased the long familiar pain in her heart.
"Oh, grandfather," she breathed out, feeling his pain as her own. He was just Time Lord enough to project his feelings, but human enough to have trouble containing them. The deep bitter loneliness that was slowly passing out of him was terrible, far worse than she had felt when she'd touched his mind before. He'd hidden it well, she realized. He'd been brutally suppressing it all and now it was welling up in him. She'd lanced the boil of his anguish, but full healing would take time and care.
She rose and went to hug him tightly. There was a part of her that wanted to bring Rassilon back to life just so that she could shoot him herself for what he'd done to them all.
Rose moved away from the open TARDIS door with a smile and silently punched the air. He'd been so desperate for forgiveness. It was the one thing he had been unable to give himself all these years. The thing he'd needed most of all, after her love.
Susan was now her second favorite Time Lord.
Grinning, tongue stuck out and eyes crinkled in amusement, she trotted back off to bed.
The next morning she had to shove him hard to get him to wake up. He grumbled and tried to pull her back down, but she wriggled free of his seeking hands and evaded his amorous advances with a laugh.
"No dancing for you this morning, Doctor!" she mock scolded. "We have work to do!"
"Rose…" he whispered her name invitingly, letting his eyes seduce her. She could feel herself weakening, but forced herself to turn and move away from the bed.
"No, no, get up! Susan is waiting for us!" she shot back and he groaned in disappointment. Before she changed her mind, Rose dragged on her jeans and jacket and fled the room. She was very proud of her self-control, but also knew it was rather fleeting around him.
Laughing at herself, she went down the hall to Susan's room and through the wardrobe, stepping into the TARDIS control room.
Susan was tapping equations into the main computer with a frown on her face and her tongue stuck between her teeth. Her hair was coming out of its neat bun again and it curled around her face. Her hands moved with competent swiftness and Rose could see the family resemblance quite clearly.
"Morning!" she caroled and Susan looked up and smiled.
"Morning, grandma," she teased and Rose chucked her jacket at the Time Lady.
"Not funny!" she shot back.
"It's what you get for marrying an older man," Susan laughed and Rose shrugged.
"Well I figure me being in my 20's and him being in his 900's the age difference isn't so bad…"
"On Gallifrey you couldn't have legally married him, you know. The Meta-crises is the only reason this works at all," Susan explained with a sympathetic look. "I mean when Leela married Andred, that was a huge scandal, but he wasn't from one of the High Families, so it wasn't so bad for them, but Grandfather…" she shook her head and Rose got the idea that it would certainly have been a big problem, though Susan's expression was more amused and anticipatory than condemning. Rose wondered if she would have enjoyed the scandal and chaos, or if she would have sided with the conservatives, but another thought hit her at the same moment, derailing that one.
"That reminds me; you call him 'grandfather' and seem to have no problem with the split. Does this sort of thing happen on Gallifrey a lot?" Rose cocked her head and studied Susan, who was looking at her with a pleased expression.
"Well, you have to remember that for us, physical form isn't particularly important. We regenerate, changing our appearance and body completely. What's important is our mind. This version of grandfather still 'feels' like my grandfather, his mind's the same, you see? So, to me there is little difference, or only as much as there would be in a regeneration anyway." Susan was watching to see if she understood, but Rose was trying to process the idea that bodies mattered so little to them. "You loved grandfather just the same, even after he regenerated," she pointed out and Rose paused to nod.
"It took some getting used to…" she sighed, remembering the awkwardness of those first few days.
"It does for us too," Susan assured her with a smile. "When I regenerated the first time my parents had a very hard time dealing with the changes in me. I went from sweet and rather polite, to fierce and a bit rude."
"My Mum had problems dealing with all the changes I went through, traveling with the Doctor, and I didn't even regenerate," Rose laughed and Susan nodded in understanding.
"So, what regeneration is this for you?" the Doctor asked as he entered the room.
"Fourth," she admitted with a rueful look. "The War was hard on us all," she explained to Rose.
"Well, he's on his tenth," Rose replied and the Doctor shook his head.
"Eleventh," he corrected and they both looked at him in surprise. "Even a universe away I can feel when I have died."
Rose felt as though she'd been punched. He'd regenerated again, died, and she hadn't been there to help, to take care of him.
"Oh God, I hope he wasn't alone," she gasped out and saw the carefully neutral expression on the Doctor's face.
"So, how's that equation going, Susan? Shall I check your sums?" he teased, changing moods and subjects with a studied nonchalance that hid nothing from her.
"You might as well, though I think the TARDIS would have corrected me if I'd been too far off," Susan replied and Rose watched her turn to give privacy to them both. She looked into the Doctor's eyes and saw the echo of grief and pain in them. Whatever had happened to his other self, he'd not shared it with her and that meant that he'd been certain she would have been hurt by it.
It wasn't a thought that gave her much joy.
