I quickly dragged her to the TARDIS and turned back to turn with a grin. "Here is where you'll be living."

"….It's a box." She looked a bit uneasy, but not skeptical.

"Yes it is."

"You live in a box….." Statement, not a question. More to add to her mental file…..which is quickly turning into a filing cabinet at this rate.

"Weeeeellllllll, not just any box. Go on. Go on in." I opened the doors and shooed her inside. I loved the awe emanating from her before she set her stuff down and calmly walked out to scrutinize the outside. I couldn't help but feel amusement as she walked back in only to pop her head back out.

She sort of nodded to herself and I prepared myself to hear my favorite words when, "Okay, dimensception, but…cool."

My jaw dropped a bit. "No bigger on the inside?"

She shrugged. I'm disappointed and she just shrugs. "I assumed you have probably heard it multiple times and would appreciate a variant in answer."

I shook my head in amusement. Oh, she's going to be a handful. Quiet, but able to roll with the punches and thinks outside of the box. That mixed with curiosity means I'll have to keep one eye on her at all times….two if I can wrangle it. "Right, well we can find you a room to put your things before heading to med-bay to fulfill condition 3. If you head down that hallway, take 2 rights, a left, the second left, and the 7th right, you can have any room that is unlocked down that hallway. When you are done, follow the orange streams."

She headed off and I went to med-bay to prep a few things before she got there. Along the way I noticed Sexy had lead her closer to where my room was. In fact, it was right next door. Smart girl. I sent to her. As I made it to my destination and started piling the necessary items on a tray, my thoughts then drifted to curiosity on what her room looked like. What Sexy decides to do for each guest says a lot about who they are as a person and I wanted to see what she had to say about Maura.

After a bit of fiddling, I felt the bond grow stronger as she got closer. With each step near, her nervousness grew before I felt it jump into almost terror as she paused outside the door.

This is it. The moment of truth - for the question of my species that is, not that it's difficult to tell.

I could feel her steel herself and walk in. I looked up and smiled in an attempt to put her at ease. "Great, come on over here. Like your room?"

That got a grin out of her. Now I'm even more curious about it.

"I love it. It's amazing." She gushed as I motioned for her to sit on the bed. She complied while asking, "So what does this all entail?"

"Well, I figured a DNA test would be the best and depending on the results and how much you believe them we could go from there." I held up the needle and immediately her terror increased again.

She shakingly held out her arm and looked away. I grabbed it and rubbed circles into her wrist and tried to send calm through the bond while I tied a band on her bicep and rubbed alcohol on the crook. She slowly calmed down and I picked up the needle. I felt her pulse jump in anticipation and did my best to do the whole thing quickly with no pain to her. It was over within a minute and I picked up a dermal generator to heal the small bruise and the break in the skin, which was when she got the courage to look up. I smiled as I finished and she grimaced back. I grabbed the vial and slid it into the slot I had prepared to analyze the sample. I turned on the corresponding screen and explained, "Here is where the results will appear." After a few seconds they showed.

Time Lord

Her panic increased as her voice caught. "I….I can't be. I-It must be lying."

Still in denial. I walked forward and grabbed her hands and placed them so she could feel both of her hearts. "Do you feel that?" I knew she could when I felt her shock.

Two hearts.

But I didn't have two hearts before. How could this have happened? One doesn't just go around randomly changing species on whim?!

She teared up and I held her in my lap as she broke down once more. I whispered nonsensical words of comfort until my shirt was no longer getting wet.

We sat in silence until, "What does this mean now?" was mumbled into my shirt.

"That you're welcome to stay with me for as long as you like. If you want, I can teach you about your heritage. We could also try finding out what happened to your parents. And I also suppose I should probably tell you this now and get it out of the way.

"Maura, you have been treated like a young adult because that is what humans would have believed you to be. In reality, you're not a young adult. Time Lords live for thousands of years. And 18 years old, in Earth years that is, is considered to be the equivalent of a 3 year old in human terms. I will try to make adjustments in how I treat you but please don't snap at me if you feel like I'm babying you.

"Now, any questions yet or is it still a bit too much?" I could sense she was bursting with them, but I wanted to give her a chance to hide for a bit if she wanted to.

"How old are you then?" She whispered.

"A lot older than you."

"That's not much of an answer."

I debated on which age I should tell her before deciding it didn't really matter as she would see me as old no matter what. "900."

"Meaning you're ancient." I could feel her smirk. Oh yes, definitely a handful.

"No, you're just an infant." I retorted.

"Before, you mentioned me trying to reach out telepathically." Did I? Oh, yeah. Whoops. I was hoping to hold this off till later. I just got her, I don't want her to hate me for something I can't control. But I don't want to lie or not answer her question. She does need to know and if she thinks I'm withholding information….

"Yes, Time Lords are touch telepaths but we don't need to be touching other Time Lords to communicate. Most Time Tots have a special bond with their parents from an early age. They instinctively reach out and make the connection. If, for some reason, the connection is severed before puberty, they will reach out to whomever their minds deem a suitable parent or guardian. By law, if a young Time Lord connects with you, you can't turn them away."

"….the only Time Lord nearby was you." I gripped her tighter as she put the pieces together. "What does it entail?"

"Maura, we don't have to-"

"What does it entail?"

I was silent for a moment before I sighed in defeat. "I know when something is wrong no matter how far you are from me. If you are projecting your thoughts, I can hear them though I tried to block them out when you were doing so earlier as you didn't realize at the time that I could hear them." I felt her freeze at that. "It causes my instincts to recognize you as my child and to treat you as such whether or not you are mine biologically. I can also pick up on your mental and emotional state. And how are you doing so far?"

"Fine." Liar.

"Maura, I know you are not fine so don't try and persuade me you are."

"….I don't know how I'm doing."

"It's okay to be confused."

"Why did I pass out?"

"I think you hadn't been around another Time Lord for so long that you panicked a bit and tried to stop the connection process." I could feel her working hard at blocking her thoughts about that. I wonder why.

"So we have two hearts and are telepathic. Anything else of note?"

"Welllll, at some point you're going to start noticing your Time Sense. We have a little trick for cheating death. We are tougher than humans and have better senses. We don't need to sleep as much." Full grown Time Lords, that is. "We have lower body temperatures, more complex brains, 2 more ribs and darker blood than humans. We also have a respiratory bypass, another liver, and a few other organs humans don't. Our DNA is also a triple helix." That's enough biology for now. She really doesn't need to know about the others and might as well have a back-up plan in case it's necessary.

We sat in silence while she took it in and I could feel her getting more and more stressed the longer we sat, so I decided that that was enough for today. "Right, well why don't we take you back to your room and you can have time to process and take a short nap and then when Rose gets back, we can head off. Sound good."

Nodding gratefully, she moved to get up but I quickly grabbed her up. Might as well start getting her into the proper mindset.

I'm not a child!

"Yes you are."

I can walk.

"Yes, you can."

That was an attempt at getting you to see that you don't have to carry me.

"True, I don't have to."

Great, so you can-

"Humor me."

She huffed, but she stopped protesting mentally and physically. I walked to her room and walked in. It was gorgeous. I was definitely going to have to sneak in and look closer, but I didn't want her to know I was snooping around. "When you're ready, just follow the orange lights again and Old Girl will lead you to me."

She nodded in understanding and I left to allow her time to process. I walked up to the console and waited for Rose.

This will be fun to explain.


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