"Savna-!"

I sighed impatiently. Susan was calling me from down the museum's hall. Yet again. If the Doctor hadn't said himself that he wanted to actually see anything in this museum, I might have easily thought he was a security guard patrolling the exhibits with the amount of careless disregard he had for most of the things contained here. We'd gone through two sectors already without stopping at all, the Doctor briskly striding toward something apparently special buried deep in the newer TT Capsule archives. I was lagging behind, trying frantically to read anything I could. The nostalgia was overwhelming. I knew this place like the back of my hand. I'd been here time and again in a previous regeneration; at least one of me had been fascinated by history, but the memories were clouded as if by a fog that lifted only when I saw the actual displayed artifacts. We were hurrying through primitive, extraterrestrial land transportation at this point. Most of the museum was filled with alien tech, things brought back by temporal expeditionary crews from the junk yards of other worlds, studied, revitalized, and fixed by the scientists of Gallifrey, then donated once every bit of information had been gleaned from them. Beside every display was a small holographic screen that contained the cumulative effort of those studies as free information for any of the public to learn for his or her own pleasure. Every few displays I tried to pause a moment to scan some pages with my eyes, fingers rapidly moving in a practiced fashion across the holograms, manipulating the data display to steal back as much memory as I could from this collection of days long gone, but every time I did the Doctor pushed farther and farther ahead, stopping only at the doorways between exhibit halls and waiting stubbornly and impatiently for me to catch up. Susan stayed about halfway between us, constantly calling after me, each time with a more pronounced note of apology in her tone than before.

This hall was a particularly large one. I remembered that a while ago it was up for consideration to be split and subdivided by galactic sector or relative developmental time period or some other criteria, but that hadn't happened yet. The Doctor was nearly out of sight though the halls weren't crowded with many visitors, and Susan was getting more and more anxious about leaving me behind. I understood that I was the guest here, but apparently the Doctor's compassion for distraught women extended only so far as they continued to be distraught. I was thoroughly immersed in data recollection at this point, lost in trying to remember who I was, and I'd left my worries about the technician secretary outside. Now I was just a stray, apparently. A third wheel in this preordained journey of the Doctor's. I felt that I would have just told Susan to go catch up with him and left them at that had my amnesia finally lifted by now, but despite their irritating urging and pressing denial of my desire to sightsee, I wanted to stick with them for a while yet. The Doctor's sense of purpose was keeping me level-headed and solution-focused, and he and his granddaughter still formed a solid, normal point for me to base my slowly-reconstructing life on.

At another call from Susan, I gave up my valiant efforts in this hall and quickened my pace to catch up with her.

"Where is he going?" I finally asked as we walked side-by side.

"To the TARDISes. He likes those best."

"The whats?" I frowned at her. I'd never heard that word before.

"The TARDISes," she repeated with a cheery smile. "It's the name I made up, from their acronym. T-A-R-D-I-S. The Time and Relative Dimension in Space. The TT Capsules."

"Ah, that makes sense. Time and Relative...TARDIS." The name was strikingly more familiar than "Savnarae" when I said it myself. I almost wished I had a notebook to write these little things down in. "But I figured we were going to the capsules anyway. Is that the only exhibit he wants to see, though?"

Susuan nodded. "They're the only thing he cares about. All the time, he tells me how much he wants to take one and just go."

"Go where?" There was something about this topic, this conversation. It was heading into familiar territory. I was a captain of a TARDIS crew. This was what I did for a living. I explored planets. Yes. Yes I did, that was what I did for a living. That explained a lot. I felt a small amount of relief at my first real, satisfying answer. A few pieces of information had just fallen into neat, logical place.

"Anywhere." Susan didn't seem to notice anything different despite my realization. "Doesn't matter. Just plug in coordinates and go."

"It's not that simple, you know."

Susan nodded. "It's only a dream," she said, watching her grandfather down the hall with a wistful look in her eyes.

I watched her quietly, nodding. Compassion. There was a new feeling. Or was it pity? No, I could relate to this young Time Lady, it was definitely compassion. I knew what it was like, being trapped on Gallifrey when all I wanted to do was explore. To go anywhere, see new things, be completely free.

"It must be hard for you to be stuck here."

"Oh no, I'm happy right here." Susan shook her head quickly. "I just wish Grandfather was happy on Gallifrey, too."

Oh. Maybe it was her grandfather I felt compassion for, then. I followed her gaze to him. He was standing pointedly with his back to us, his hands somewhere around his chest, elbows out, probably holding the vertical stripes of the robe he wore. It seemed to be a habit of his when he was impatient. Susan sighed beside me.

"You know he doesn't mean to be like this. He doesn't like waiting on people much. I'm not sure why he thought it was a good idea to drag you along with us, you know. You don't have to follow us, if he's being too much..."

I smiled. I really didn't mind, when it got down to it. I understood it, in its convoluted way. Sort of, at least. "It's fine, I promise. I would like to stay with you, though. I'm a bit alone at the moment," I finally admitted out loud. "I'll try not to keep holding him up, though. I should apologize for that. I don't mean to annoy him, I just...I used to come here a lot in a previous renewal, it holds a lot of memories." Renewal. Why did I use that word. There was something about it...

Susan's face lit up, and she looked sharply up at me. "You've renewed?" Her tone was pleasantly shocked.

I smiled. "Quite recently, in fact." I knew why. Regeneration implied a violent or foolish death. Renewal, by sharp contrast, suggested a peaceful passing by old age, and a dignified continuation of life. A regeneration was a waste. A loss of the rest of a life that will never be given back. A renewal was something...not quite necessarily to be proud of in peace times, but something like an accomplishment. It was certainly a notch on the belt, so-to-speak. You've taken care of yourself for an entire lifespan, and you've been rewarded with another; a new life that came precisely when it was supposed to, and not a moment before its time. "Have either of you?" I looked between Susan and her grandfather.

She shook her head. "Neither. We're both on our first lives."

My smile widened into a grin. That explained much about both of them, particularly the Doctor. Oh, to be young and full of longing once more. The sad part was that I didn't yet see him as a proper TARDIS captain. Perhaps his next life would see a more mature, patient man. As fun as it would be to wander the fourth dimension freely, that was simply not how the Time Lords did things. We were methodical, careful. We planned and documented all of our trips and submitted what we expected to recover per expedition. We didn't just vault off into the wild orange yonder in search of adventure. But it was a similar dream of my own that had led me to where I was now, so I certainly related to the Doctor. I foresaw good things in his future, if he was any bit as persistent and passionate as I was.

He was already off, after a stern glance over his shoulder at us. He was certainly persistent and passionate in getting to the TT Capsules. We'd almost caught up to him by now, and that was close enough for him to start walking again.

"I do wish he'd give me a few moments, though," I mentioned after a small silence punctuated by a sigh. "I haven't been back here in ages..."

"I think we'll have time once he's seen the TARDISes again," Susan replied. She hesitated for a second, then, "What's it like?"

"The capsules?" I didn't understand. "I thought you said you'd been here often before." As far as I knew, they were open to the public. They were mostly boring boxes on the outside. Not particularly interesting.

"No, I meant the renewal process. What's it like?"

"Oh." I thought back to the pain, the splitting headache, the total and complete fatigue of death, when the body no longer responded to even the most desperate pleas of the mind to carry on. I thought about the chilling isolation of waking up alone and confused, the haunting questions, the scattered and unaccounted-for knowledge. I realized I hadn't found a mirror yet. I didn't know what I looked like.

"I've been told it's very unique to each Time Lord," I explained with a smile. "So even if I told you what mine was like, you couldn't expect it for yours. I've heard of it described as a tunnel slightly too small to squeeze through, like a gasp for air after holding your breath too long, like waking from a dream, like being in zero gravity and suddenly returning to weight. It's different for each of us." That sounded general enough to evade the answer. I was a bit concerned about finding a mirror. Well, I wasn't really, but I was at least more interested in finding a mirror than I was in lying to a young Time Lady I liked. I wasn't entirely sure it was a lie, either. It sounded familiar, as though somneone had told me a similar thing in my first life. It's one of those things that all Time Lords wonder about at least once before it happens. Sort of like lesser races and death.

Susan didn't seem particularly satisfied with that answer, and made a small noice of reluctant acceptance, apparently opting not to push her luck and press for more.

We walked through the rest of the exhibits somewhat quietly, trailing a few feet behind the Doctor but keeping up with him despite several emotions growing more and more difficult to contain in the region of my chest. It was maddeningly difficult to ignore half of the things we passed, and nearly impossible to ignore the other half. Everything called to me, begging me to stop and read about it. Hundreds of memories flitted just beyond the edge of my conscious mind, each display teasing me with its almost-remembered significance and a name always just at the tip of my tongue but never any closer. That one was called...Oh this one, that planet it came from was...I was there once, I knew it! Oh, these! These were my favorites! What were they? After land-based transportation came flight vehicles, and short-distance spacecrafts. Some of the designs were clever, others bizarre, but all had served their purpose on their worlds, each crafted to the unique ideals of its people and conditions of their planet.

"Are you all right, Savnarae?"

I tore my eyes from a brilliangly gleaming little number cased in a special blue thermospacial plastic made by creatures I knew I'd met before. I realized how despondent I looked as I turned my attention to the concerned young woman beside me. I fought to push it away, but it was like moving a snowball I'd let roll down the hill for too long. It put up a fight. I took a deep breath, and nodded. This was why I needed to keep talking, why I couldn't be alone. It didn't take much to overwhelm me.

"Yes, sorry. It's just...It's been a while. I want to look at so many of the exhibits, but I don't want to keep the Doctor any longer."

"Oh, it's all right. I can tell him you'll catch up, if you'd like," she asked helpfully. I shook my head.

"No, we're almost there." I wanted to see what he was so obsessed with in the TT Capsule section, or at least how he was obsessed with these capsules.

"All right, if you're sure."

I smiled. It took the edge off the anxiety. "I am. Thank you, Susan."

She smiled back. It looked fairly genuine.

I spent the rest of the walk-one more section on long-range alien spacecraft, manned and unmanned-calming my nerves. I told myself after we'd seen what the Doctor wanted to see, I'd find out what his plans were. If he had any, I'd decided I'd probably part ways with him for the sake of satisfying my slowly-becoming-controlled curiosity. If he didn't, I'd ask him to stay with me for a bit longer while I did so. Either way, I had to come back. And telling myself this was almost like bargaining with my emotions, helping to settled them back into place by placating them with promises of eventual satiation.

The TT Capsule room was a thrill in and of itself, though. The Doctor finally slowed down and disappeared inside an open capsule, and Susan wandered off from my side to another, signifying that apparently I as well was free to move about as I pleased. I drifted to the Type-40 first, of course. She had never been my first choice, but when I was assigned to my T-40's unit, I didn't complain. A job was a job, and she got us from point A to point B in one piece. I just wished I'd remembered who "we" were. It was coming back, though, my memory. The bits and pieces worried me a bit, though, like everything else. This wasn't the way amnesia typically lifted. It was usually one big rush; a trigger to set it off, then an explosion of backstory. I wondered if I was just naturally anxious as I stepped into the T-40's console room. It was hard to judge who I really was and what I was like under such muddled circumstances.

Oh, she was pretty, though. This T-40 was immaculate. Everything was gleaming and in working order. I immediately made my way to an open panel on the console, my fingers itching for adventure. She was practically calling to me. A perfect vintage, I could almost feel her contentment. There were big debates in my line of work as to just how "alive" these TT Capsules were. I would swear up and down they had their own personalities, their preferences. And this one just sat here, lovely and pleased, so happy to be living out her last days filled with the adoration of young minds and the nostalgia of old, kept up by the most passionate of curators, like living out a lovely retirement plan with all the amenities. I traced the edges between her console casing and the controls, naming every one in my head. There was the Vector Tracker, and the Vortex Loop nearby, here was the Gravitic Anomalyzer, and she still had her original Time Path Indicator, how impressive. Her Time Rotor in the center was magnificent, all spirals and pendulums and glittering golden spheres encased in polished glass, etched with the simple beauty of Old High Gallifreyan letters spelling out her make, model, years of operation, and past captains. What a lovely, lovely classic. It broke my hearts to see her so far down in the line of TT Capsules in this museum exhibit, but she was no spring chicken, not the T-40, not anymore. They had such nicer ones out these days. Maybe I would upgrade once this matter of identity was settled, if everything went well.

I smiled to myself and turned away, only to see my own gaze reflected back from the doorway, in the eyes of the Doctor. He wasn't looking at me, though, I doubt he even noticed me here. He only had eyes for the console. He walked right past me, and almost mimicked my motions perfectly, standing right where I had, his fingers tracing the console's grooves.

"Beautiful..." I heard him say. I smiled. He had the passion, all right. I watched him spend several minutes just gazing at the console and her vintage Time Rotor before recollecting himself once more. He straightened his back and nodded quietly to himself. "This one," he murmured. He turned, and was startled to see me there. I was busy frowning, wondering what "this one" meant, and he frowned right back at me.

"It's rude to eavesdrop, my dear," he said curtly. I couldn't help but grin at him. Here he was, this grandoise old man with all the stately regality of an elder, but his behavior, and my knew knowledge of his age relative to my own, just made him amusing.

"You'll have to forgive me, Doctor," I apologized, unable to hide the amusement from my tone. I wished him the best, I really did. I hoped he would find everything he desired in his life, and that it would be long and fulfilling and interesting. He reminded me so much of myself. I was so glad that he'd picked me up from that park. The serendipity couldn't have been more perfect.

"What is so funny, hm?" he asked, narrowing his eyes scrutinizingly. He wasn't pleased that I had witnessed a moment of personal intimacy between himself and a machine.

"Nothing." It was easier to lie than try to explain to him how I felt. I hoped dishonesty wasn't one of my characteristic features. It seemed like it was rapidly becoming one.

The Doctor stared hard at me for another distrusting moment, but if he was about to say anything else, he was suddenly distracted by something behind me. An instant later, I felt a light but pointy object hit my left shoulder. A small clear cube with a smaller white cube inside bounced into my peripheral view and settled, floating, before my eyes. It bore a thin-lined, black, traditional circle Gallifreyan seal of the Council of Exploratory Time Travel. The console room hushed for a brief moment as everyone noticed in a ripple pattern, but the silence didn't last long. Hypercubes were rare, but not unheard of. Only the Doctor's clearly-surprised eyes remained on the cube.

"Is that...the seal of the C-E-T-T?" he asked, any previous transgressions forgiven.

I took it in one hand from its hovering point in front of my face, and nodded, struggling to keep my face straight. Torn beteween apprehension over the message cube and jubilation at letting the Doctor discover what I did for a living, it was quite a feat. "Yes. My T-40's either been diagnosed or repaired, we just got back from a-"

"-You have a TARDIS?" the Doctor interrupted loudly, causing several nearby Gallifreyans to glance our way curiously. I flinched at the volume myself.

"Yes. I am a captain of an exploratory TT Capsule crew. I'd just returned from a mission when you found me in the park." Empty-handed and without my alleged crew. A chill ran down my spine as my apprehension grew stronger. I needed to know what this message said. "If you'll excuse me."

The Doctor didn't seem at all to excuse me, though. He followed me right down that ramp and back into the museum doggedly. I would have found him very annoying if I didn't understand exactly why he was acting this way.

In a corner away from the main crowds, I took the hypercube in both hands and closed my eyes, drawing its message into my mind. An unfamiliar, crisp voice spoke to me. Pilot Savnarae. We have had several technical issues diagnosing your TT Capsule; it seems to be heavily modified for self-sustained, autonomous use. We have had problems locating your registration, as well. Please return to the Council building to clarify your details and confirm your identity and ownership of your Capsule.

No signoff. The seal was the signature. I reopened my eyes and turned to see a very interested-looking Doctor behind me holding the vertical stripes of his robe at his chest again. Susan had joined him, looking curiously from him to me. She noticed the hypercube, and looked up at me again.

"I have to go," I told them, feeling a little unwell. I turned and started off quickly, but the Doctor called after me.

"Wha-wha-where are you going, now? Wait one moment, Savna!" I glanced over my shoulder. They were following, the Doctor taking long, determined strides and Susan half-jogging to keep up.

"I have to go pick up my T-40 from the C-E-T-T repair yard."

"Slow down! Bring me with you!" The Doctor caught up with me and matched pace beside me. I tried to walk faster. I could see his breathing growing a little heavy.

I didn't answer right away though. I wasn't going to go just pick it up. That message held a clear undertone that nothing was right and I had a lot of explaining to do. unfortunately, I couldn't explain any of it. I needed to figure myself out before I could confront the Gallifreyan government. However, I didn't want them to repossess my T-40 while I did that. I had to steal it back. Fingers of memories tugged at my peripheral vision as I passed again those achingly familiar displays that lined the hallways, retracing my route out. I ignored them. Maybe one day I'd come back. But not now. Now I had to figure out how to do the impossible, with barely scraps of memories and a wealth of knowledge just beyond my reach, and i had no clue what I'd do if I succeeded.

I took a sharp turn toward a side-exit. "Doctor, I can't. Go back to the capsule room, forget about me. I have to go." I pushed my way out the door. He followed my detour with rapidly tiring determination, but he had to stop at the exit. Apparently his body was every bit as old as it looked. Perhaps he himself was up for a renewal soon.

"Wait! Savna! Come back!" I cast a glance over my shoulder. He was leaning against the door frame, breathing heavily. Susan was looking up at him with helpless concern. He continued to call after me, but I looked back to my path and turned a corner.

This was obviously something I had to do alone. I stuffed the spent hypercube into a bigger-on-the-inside pocket and steeled myself for the worst.