Chapter 9

The Doctor and the TARDIS did some research, and were not too surprised that the Time Lords had made themselves very easy to find.

"Where are they?" Martha asked, stepping out of the Police Box in a lavender bathrobe, and into her flat. The Doctor stepped out behind her, fully dressed, carrying the baby in one arm, feeding with the other.

They had decided to go back and have a good-night's sleep before rushing into the belly of the beast. Or, rather, before the Doctor rushed in. But what constituted a good-night's sleep these days was relative; it was now five-thirty-six in the morning, and according to CJ, it was time to get up and at 'em.

"On a planet called Kremásmatos Metá, in the spring of 2441," he answered, rather flatly.

"So it's been over four hundred years for them."

"Yep," he answered, equally flatly.

"Not looking forward to going in, I take it," she commented, heading for the kitchen.

"Nope, not in the least," he answered, following her. "Plus, that planet..."

She waited for him to finish as she filled a teapot with water. When he said nothing, she craned her neck to see him standing behind her, absently staring out the window. "What about that planet?"

"I think I know it. It used to be called Kremastoús Kipous, it was named by its discoverers, the so-called Spartans, who revered the ancient cultures of Earth."

She moved across the kitchen and plugged the teapot into the wall. "Okay, with you so far."

"Kremastoús Kipous means hanging gardens in Greek, presumably because there was something, I don't know, Babylonian about it. It was ripe with resources, and managed to stay fairly pristine. It used to be a place where different peoples would come, stay for a generation or two, and move on. It became an unwritten rule that if you were going to go there, you would not stay long enough to deplete resources noticeably, and you would vacate so that others could have a chance at it."

"Wow," Martha marvelled. "How did that work?"

"Well, apparently, it didn't," he told her, looking down at CJ. "Because now, it appears that the Time Lords have set up shop there. As of 2441, they have been there for over two hundred years. That's way too long to hold out hope that they have any intention of vacating."

"And they... renamed it?"

"Slightly. They're calling their planet Kremásmatos Metá, which means hitching post in Greek, I suppose, hoping that no-one will notice it's changed."

"I don't understand the significance."

He squinted at nothing, thinking. "If I understand Time Lords, and I do, most of the time, they think that by calling it a hitching post, they can give the impression that it was a pit-stop... that no-one would have had any particular attachment to it. That it was no more than a widening-in-the-road, and it was free for the taking."

"Really?" she asked, sceptically. "They think no-one will notice?"

"Or maybe that no-one will mess with them. Last anyone heard, the Time Lords and Daleks were destroying the universe in a hail of fire and mayhem. Who's going to tell them to move?"

"Even though there's only a few of them?"

"Yeah, well, we have no idea how many of them there are."

"So, if everyone's afraid of them, why did they bother to change the name?"

He shrugged, jostling the incredibly alert infant lying between his left forearm and chest. "Time Lords are shifty. Everyone thought they were peace-loving to a fault, until the war happened, then they were war-mongers. But most of them would probably still tell you they are peace-loving, and they would want to project that to the world." He took a deep breath, and then, "But, this is just a theory. Based on the coordinates, I think it's the same planet, but I can't be certain until I get there."

"I see. Cup of tea before you go?" She turned and pulled a box of good black loose-leaf from the cupboard, along with a box of silk sachets.

"Sure," he said. "I have a feeling that by the end of today, I won't want to identify myself as a Time Lord anymore. Why not go British?"


To the Doctor's dismay, but not surprise, Kremásmatos Metá was, in fact, the same as Kremastoús Kepous. The "Hanging Gardens" had become a "Hitching Post," counterintuitive as it may seem. Whatever the reason, the name-change did not sit well with him. Either way, it indicated that the Time Lords had no intention of keeping the unwritten promise of the resource-laden planet. What other promises were they going to break?

He had targeted the correct date, roughly, but found that he could not materialise inside the planet's atmosphere. There was some kind of safeguard against unauthorised TARDIS arrivals. He decided to see if he could fly it in manually, though he doubted it.

Sure enough, there was a barrier round the outer stratosphere.

"Damn," he whispered. He had wanted to come in unseen, and find Michelangelo on his own terms. Now, it was clear that he'd been naïve to believe he'd ever be able to do that; obviously, he'd have to get in touch with the New Citadel and ask permission to land.

"Hello, Doctor," said a voice, as the TARDIS hovered, stuck, in the stratosphere, unable to descend any further. The voice was sharp and gravelly, almost as though the owner had something caught in his throat.

"Who is this?" asked the Doctor.

"Ah yes, my voice was different when last you heard it. I'd almost forgotten that it's been such a short time for you. Much longer for me, as I'm sure you'd noticed."

"Michelangelo," said the Doctor. "You've regenerated. By the way, what the hell am I supposed to call you?"

"Michelangelo suits me fine. It's the moniker I have used ever since meeting you at the Pecclates Carnival."

"Seriously?"

"It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but it's one that stuck. I found that I enjoyed being equated with the Renaissance painters of Earth."

"So I saw," the Doctor muttered. "Regenerated, and yet still painting."

"Sometimes, the strongest of our strengths do not leave us, from one regeneration to the next."

"Very true," the Doctor agreed. "You got lucky."

"Indeed, though I did, to a certain extent, have to re-train my new eyes and hands for the art," said the voice. "Would you like to come into the fold, my friend?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes with tedium. "I'd like to land, yes."

"I'll send you coordinates for the New Citadel, just check your interface."

"You're in the Citadel?"

"Of course," said Michelangelo. "Where else would the President spend his time?"


When the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, it was into a round, cavernous space. There were gold columns for three hundred and sixty degrees around, and the walls in-between alternated between black and deep red. The floor was beige marble, and covered in black Gallifreyan lettering, hailing the power of Time, the eternity of the Time Lords. They were slogans from the Old Days, and for just a moment, the Doctor's stomach lurched with homesick nostalgia.

And then he remembered himself.

"Welcome," said the gravelly voice.

The Doctor turned to find a man standing near the wall, dressed from head-to-toe in gold, red and black robes that matched the room they were in.

"Hello," said the Doctor. "I see you did away with the bat wings."

"Bat wings?" asked Michelangelo. "Oh, the headdresses. Yes. Too gauche for my taste."

"Right," the Doctor answered. He shoved his hands in his pockets coolly and rocked back on his heels. He looked Michelangelo up and down, assessing.

The man before him was tall - taller than the Doctor by at least three or four inches, which put him at six-foot-four or five. He stood with a slight stoop, as though his back pained him. His Adam's Apple stuck out from the throat of an extraordinarily long neck, like a cricket ball under a handkerchief. His hair was cropped close all the way around, half grey, half jet-black. The cool, clear blue eyes that had been so striking in the average-height Michelangelo they had met at the carnival were now gone, and had been replaced by two beady black blots, surrounded by eye sockets and eyebrows that seemed to naturally squint. The nose was long like the neck, and the mouth was thin and guarded. The old beatific, hypnotic demeanour had been replaced by a vulture-like presence, big and bony enough to loom over even the Doctor.

"So," the Doctor said, clapping his hands, his voice and clap reverberating off the walls like a pinball. "I came to get Haruka. Where is she? You can just tell me - I'll just grab her and show myself out. No need to trouble yourself."

Michelangelo smirked. "You're irreverent."

"Yep. It's kind of my thing."

"So tell me, how is Martha?"

"She's doing well," the Doctor replied, not wanting to offer much information. "She's at home."

"Ah yes. The birth is getting close," said Michelangelo with a wide smile. His eyes sparkled with an excitement that was wholly unsettling to the Doctor.

The Doctor did not respond to the comment. Instead he asked, "Did you lure me in here just to make small talk?"

"Of course not. You know very well why I've invited you here."

"Invited?" the Doctor asked, with a laugh. "Interesting word for it. But we're in your home, so... as you like."

"The word choice is not, after all, the point, Doctor."

"No. The point is that you're holding an innocent little girl hostage. You are depriving a loving mother and father of their daughter until you get what you want from me."

"Now, see, that's where you're wrong, Doctor," said Michelangelo. "We have no intention of returning Haruka to her parents, ever."

"You don't?"

"If all goes the way we think it will, she will remain with us," Michelangelo said, matter-of-factly, his hands clasped calmly in front of him.

"So you're not looking for a trade?" the Doctor asked, confirming. Again, he was not terribly surprised. "One baby for the other?"

"I think not."

"So, if you're not looking for us to give you CJ in exchange for returning Haruka to her parents, then what motivation could we possibly have to give him up? The Fujikawas are devastated at the loss of their daughter, and will never be the same again, for the rest of their lives. If that's going to happen either way, then why should Martha and I meet the same fate, if there's no hope for the Fujikawas? Why two sad, childless couples?"

Michelangelo's thin lips went even thinner. He was annoyed.

The Doctor smiled. "Aren't you about to proselytize? 'Cause if you are, you might as well get on with it. I don't have all day."

Michelangelo took a deep breath and began orating, somewhat reluctantly. "Doctor, you and I both know, perhaps better than anyone, that not all Time Lords are alike. Those who live here in the new civilisation of Kremásmatos Metá were travellers, like you and me, or they are the children of those travellers. They were the ones - we were the ones - who couldn't stand the old regime, who took off and left those stodgy old Time Lords to their own devices. The individuals here, well, they are... individuals. I won't say it's a motley crew, but... it's a much more interesting place to live than Gallifrey was."

"I'll bet."

"But one thing comes through loud and clear from all sides: hope. When we first settled here, we had nothing. Nothing material anyway - just each other and whatever meagre possessions we'd been travelling with. But we had hope, and that is what kept us going."

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest, and got ready to hear what he had really come here to confirm.

"We were so grateful just to be together, so grateful to have survived. And as our population grew, and we found more and more Gallifreyans scattered across the universe, our gratitude and hope grew. It was like a living organism; something inside wanted to burst. So many folks were tired of being nomads, had been called to a calmer life by the destruction of our planet, had been looking for a home, a place to settle. When they learned they were not alone... well, all that emotion almost boiled over."

"I can imagine that," the Doctor told him, expressionlessly.

"Folks were grateful to me, for coming to find them, putting it all back together again. But I did not accept that gratitude. I didn't feel I deserved it. Rather, I asked them to transfer that gratitude onto someone else."

"And who might that someone be?" asked the Doctor with a scowl.

Michelangelo smiled sheepishly. "Come now, Doctor. It must go without saying that my freedom from slavery is entirely due to you and Martha. If I had not met you, there would be no hope for the new Time Lords, for Kremásmatos Metá, for any of this."

"Mm-hm, keep talking."

"And within that adventure with you and Martha, within that whirlwind, the thing that gave me the most hope, the thing that awakened my senses again, the thing that let me know that there was truly a chance that a new vision of Gallifrey could be realised... was Martha. Or rather, the child growing inside of Martha."

"Right. The first Time Lord born after the war."

"All that war, all that destruction, and yet... life emerges. Something survived to bring new life. It's beautiful. So yes, your son was the first conceived, and until all of this rose up here on Kremásmatos Metá, the only. For a long while, I believed he would be the only, ever. Though, as it turns out, our former travellers are having no trouble conceiving as they like, now that they don't have to live in a TARDIS, right on top of the Vortex."

"Good, glad to hear it."

"But Doctor, it does not matter how many children are born after him. He is the first. He is the Child that gave me hope enough to start a new Time Lord colony. He is the Child of Promise. He reminded me, Doctor, of life and love and the possibilities that lie therein. Your son gives rise to all that you see here," Michelangelo said. "The whole planet and every single Time Lord or Lady, every single ideal that we hold dear. None of it is possible without his spirit to buoy me, and by extension, everyone else."

"He's your Messiah."

"If you like. And he should be yours, too. Has he not saved you from a solitary existence?"

"No, his mother did that. And if I'm honest, some people before her had some success at that."

"But they are not Time Lords. Even without us, without me and the new haven of Kremásmatos Metá, he would be your salvation."

The Doctor took three steps forward and scratched behind his ear. "Are you a father, Michelangelo?"

"No, I have never had the pleasure."

"Then you wouldn't understand that any child of mine is a saviour to me. It wouldn't matter if Gallifrey were still alive and well, teeming with life - he would still be my salvation. I could be human or Sontaran or Time Lord or an otter... my son would be my salvation."

Michelangelo smiled. "Then why are you resisting my... I'll use your word: proselytizing? Why deny others of that joy that you feel when you look at him?"

The Doctor tried to think rationally about this question, but his mind was being pulled in a million different directions. The strongest thought was: the Time Lords want to raise CJ like a Chosen One, exalted like a king. This came through the din very crisp, like a great big, neon, flashing sign.

And at that moment, something switched in the Doctor's brain. He replied, "You said some things I had never thought of before specifically."

"Well, think about them."

"Don't rush me," the Doctor snapped. "I'm going to need time. And some discussion."

Michelangelo smiled softly. "All right. And Martha?"

"I'll talk to her. But she's going to need time too, and there are no promises."