It had been a daunting task when the Doctor had finally gone to scour his library for information on pocket universes. Oh, he certainly understood the theories and the work behind it, but the majority of information about Gallifrey had been destroyed in the war considering that all the information about Gallifrey was on Gallifrey, and what information he had was few and far between.
To begin with, there were the rows and rows and rows of bookshelves that made up the TARDIS library. He had a copy of almost every single book written in Earth history, thousands from other planets, the Encyclopedia Gallifreya and then the book he himself had written – The History of the Time War. That was just in the library he knew about, there were thousands of other books floating around in odd places. He found a book about cake decorating in one of the bathrooms the other day.
He should probably rewrite that when he got the opportunity. The History of the Time War, well, the Time War wasn't over yet, and now the information he had wasn't even accurate. Gallifrey had never fallen. He could call it a book-in-progress! When he found Gallifrey he'd need to put that in there, too, to explain what happened after the war. That sounded like fun. A book-in-progress. He could be an official author some day, how cool was that!
Adjusting his bowtie, he nearly bounced through the room, tugging books off of shelves at random and setting them down on one of the tables scattered about. Once several piles of books, that were at least a few feet tall each, had accumulated, he sat down in a chair, pulled out his reading glasses, and started to pour through the words like he had never read a book before in his life. There was so much information- and, oh, he had all the time in the world, and he was fairly sure that the euphoria would die down within a couple decades or so, but he couldn't just not look. What else could one expect him to do?
And it became clear that his own library wasn't enough, even as he wound up with two more books of his own notes, and he was bounding off towards the console room, letting out a whoop of laughter when he saw coordinates already inputted into the screen.
He went to several backwater planets where information was the sole source of trade. He paid a visit to Dorian's head down in the catacombs, he flew off to Earth in the far future and hacked into their databanks – he was fairly sure one of his incarnations might have gotten banned during that century, so best lay low for now, yeah?
He went to talk with the Shadowers of the Schism, a race well-known for ridiculous prophecies, but they could accurately predict the future and provide information, for a price. He dug out an old crystal ball he'd gotten from them in the future and traded it for quite a bit of useful knowledge. They'd probably give it back to him in a couple centuries for them, a couple decades ago for him.
He went to the Library, which hurt more than he'd had thought it would have, but he could focus on the good right now and it eased the heartsache just a little bit. It was a planetwide booksource, surely they had some information they could use. And they did, they certainly did, and the Nodes stationed around were more than helpful, so he checked out a few dozen more books and lugged them back to the TARDIS and poured over those just like he had done with the mounds of books stacked around him.
He fancied to think that if Clara had been on board, and she had walked into the TARDIS library right then, she would have only seen a book fort on one of the tables and bypassed him entirely, he was nearly buried in all the paper.
He couldn't really bring himself to care.
And finally, he went to go and visit some people that knew a good deal about planets gone missing.
The Shadow Proclamation was not happy to see the Doctor. They never were, but this probably had something to do with the last time they had met, and he had defied a direct order from the Architect. That kind of put him on their bad side.
The moment he had stepped through the TARDIS doors he found himself face to face with a platoon of Judoon all aiming their guns at his face.
"Right!" he said brightly, smiling and shutting the door behind him with a snap of his fingers, making sure his hands stayed above his head and in sight at all times. "I don't suppose you'll be taking me to see the Architect, will you?"
They grunted and motioned for him to walk.
His smile never dimmed. "Oh, well, I suppose I had to ask."
They took him to a small room, and he did get to see the Architect eventually, although technically it was more her coming to see him and not vice-versa. She glared at him with piercing red eyes, and he smiled, waving a cuffed hand.
"Hello!" He jangled the handcuffs pointedly. "Do you mind letting me out of these? This regeneration has rather sensitive skin. Also, I've asked for a cup of tea, but nobody's brought me anything."
"You're hardly in a position to be making demands," the Architect responded coldly, glaring down at him with blank indifference bordering on anger.
"Ah, but I am!" He smiled, leaning forwards and lowering his tone of voice so she had to lean forwards as well to hear what he was saying. "I've got wonderful news," he whispered in a sing-song tone of voice. "You won't believe it when I tell you."
"Doctor, you are facing charges, this is hardly the time to be making jokes-"
"I broke through the lock surrounding the Time War." He cut her off, still smiling and whispering in that sing-song voice, a smiling playing on his lips. "Thirteen of me, if I'm being specific, but they're still all me, and I am them, so really it's just me. I broke into the Time War, and Gallifrey is saved. Considering I've prevented the extinction of a Level Nine species, I believe I have some leeway here."
The Architect reeled backwards in shock, but he spoke before she could begin to gather her thoughts, holding up his shackled hands once again. "Now! Why don't you uncuff me, and we can happily exchange information about pocket universes. Also, terribly sorry about the last time we met, but you know me. Hardly one to walk into battle nowadays, this soldier's seen his last war and isn't going back. Brought the planets back, so really, you can hardly yell at me."
The Architect had turned a strange color, and she didn't seem to be able to speak past the odd choking noise every now and again, but she made a jerking motion with her hand, and a Judoon came in to unlock the Doctor's handcuffs.
"That's more like it!" he said cheerfully when the Judoon had left. "Now, let's get started!"
Perpetual twilight.
Romana decided she liked how the term applied to their situation, and had resolved to keep it. For Gallifrey was saved, yes, but they had no sun. Wherever they were, there was light shining through the cosmos, and somehow they weren't freezing to death despite the planet slowly cooling off, and according to the scans that had been run they were still rotating properly.
The shelters were the first thing, the first priority when it came to rebuilding. Individual buildings would come later, right now they needed shelters so the population had somewhere to sleep at night. They needed a bed to sleep in and a fire to keep them warm and food to eat.
The terraforming was coming along very slowly, although they had sent shuttles out with what basics they had managed to come up with. It had been so long since times of peace, even the scientists' minds were hardwired to war and had all but forgotten how to create something that wasn't a killing machine.
They hadn't gotten around to clearing out the wreckage, but that was next. Some people had fled from the cities to the wastelands in the first attacks, and now they were blocked by miles and miles of crashed Dalek ships and battle TARDISes alike. Many had no way to travel across the continent to begin with. They couldn't even know if it was safe to come back.
Perpetual twilight.
Then again, darkness had to come before the dawn.
Tianna wasn't feeling particularly good.
She hadn't mentioned it to Iota or Viram, although she was pretty sure they had picked up on it by now. They knew each other so well it was easy to notice when something was off. But she didn't point it out, if only in the vain hopes that they hadn't noticed anything and would be spared a little bit of worry. They already had enough to worry about, like where their next meal was going to come from.
It seemed that after the Daleks had all left, both food and water were slowly coming back into abundance, and with a little bit of luck she might be able to pull in double the amounts of food for them all. Just the day after she had only brought back a single bird (although admittedly larger than the ones she had been catching before) she brought in four of the same size, and they combined those and their leftovers to make a stew. The water was flowing through the rivers so it might actually be called a river now and she saw bits of red grass poking up through the blackened soil.
As the days went on, she brought more and more food back until there were times when she didn't need to hunt because of their leftovers from the day before. However, as the days went on, she felt progressively worse. Her tongue turned to leather in her mouth, her head was pounding, her eyes were gritty and eventually she was lucky to hit the broad side of a TARDIS when she was inches away.
It was getting rather difficult to make the mile long walk to the nearest river and back again. Sometimes she found herself curled up on the ground by a tree or in the middle of a field, stomach trying to twist itself into knots, and having no recollection of stopping to take a break.
"...anna... Tianna? ...Tianna?"
"Hm?"
She blinked a couple times and peered up at the two Iotas standing next to her. They doubled into three before shifting back into one again.
"Tianna, Viram and I want to go for a walk. Can we please? There's nothing outside, you've said so yourself, and we won't go very far, just a little bit outside the opening. You haven't been feeling good so I didn't want to bother you but I promise you don't need to worry and we won't go far." The toddler clung to the hem of Iota's dress, sucking on his thumb. They had a point, she didn't normally let them leave the den very often for fear of the Daleks finding them, but she wanted some quiet... and if they didn't go far...
"Okay," she told them, forcing her voice into something approximating its normal tone. "Okay, go ahead. Just keep the mouth of the cave in sight, okay?"
They happily jabbered out their thanks, sending spikes of pain through her aching head, and she pulled the tattered cloak off of her shoulders to act as a pillow for now. She just wanted to sleep...
So, the Doctor's back, as promised. We aren't going to be hearing from the Master for a few more chapters, but then he starts to be more of a main focus. We won't get much from Romana, either, but they're all slowly crawling towards each other.
Also, since I forgot to mention it before - credit to "The Wild Wild Whovian" for coming up with Imala's name. You should go read her Doctor Who stuff, it's really awesome.
