Chapter Nine

In Which They Make a New Acquaintance, and Finally Get Some Answers

The Doctor frowned, and reached out to take Tyirasamovarien's hand, but she pulled back. She touched two fingers of each hand to her temples, and then crossed her arms across her chest and touched her shoulders.

He stepped back, slightly surprised. He thought for a moment before he returned the gesture, but reversed. Tyirasamovarien nodded slightly. "Well met," she commented.

"I suppose you must be quite the historian," he said dryly. "There aren't many who know that."

"You know it well enough, if it took you a moment to remember," she pointed out. "Shall we go to somewhere more...private?"

"Rose, would you care to go somewhere less public?"

"Sure, I guess," said Rose, rather confused. "Who's she?"

"You may call me Tyira," said Tyirasamovarien over her shoulder. "I know a room that should be empty." She led them away from the kitchen, into a dark room. They say down, and she began to speak. "You're probably here because of the disturbance in the time vortex, no? Well, I should tell you now, before anything else, I've got it covered. There's only one of them, and I don't need help."

"There's only one of who?" asked Rose, becoming very annoyed with all the mystery. "You've got what covered?"

"Your friend is most impolite," began Tyira.

"His friend is sick and tired of not knowing what's going on, and so's he!" Rose said. "We were hunted by scaly aliens through time and space, because of something called Chronis. He was chained to a wall because of this Chronis thing! I was chased through London by a Dalek, and someone sabotaged our ride, and we were trapped on some desolate planet for four days! I want to know what's going on!"

Tyira was taken aback. "The only member of Chronis," she said evenly. "Chronis is...how to put it? They're dangerous, very dangerous. We don't know what they want, but we—the Keepers—we've been working against them for centuries."

"Chronis," said Rose. "That's from Greek mythology. On Earth. Chronos. It's the root for chronological and chronic. It means...time."

"Clever girl," said Tyira, impressed in spite of herself. "For a human. Yes, it does mean time, or relating to time."

"So Chronis are the ones who're playing with the time vortex."

"That they are." It was clear the lady was pleased, but her face darkened. "They use forbidden technology to move through time and space. Forbidden by the Time Agency, forbidden by us. It's a good idea in theory, the shifters they use—technically they're called spatial-temporal shifters, but that's beside the point. The point is, in practice, the shifters are dangerous. They can jump a lot of people into the vortex at once, and then they sort of—rip up the vortex. Take a whole chunk of it out. It's bad enough when only one person's using it. Imagine a whole society of people using these things all over the universe, usually to transport massive groups over huge distances."

Rose could not imagine that, and had no idea what it might mean, but one look at the Doctor's face told her it was very, very bad. He'd gone pale, and his chocolatey eyes were very wide and very afraid and very, very angry.

"They're using these spatial-temporal shifter things to rip out a whole section of the vortex, as small as one person or as big as they bloody need it to be, and stick it somewhere else?"

"Yes, that's about it." She sighed, pushing her dark hair back from her face. "You wouldn't believe the mess it causes, and all I can say is I'm glad to be recon and retrieval, not repairs."

"Oh, I'd believe it, alright," he said darkly. "This is an absolute disaster."

"What I want to know is why you're a target," said Tyira. "You're just time travelers. Unless you've stumbled on some great secret of theirs, which you clearly haven't, I don't know why they would do this. I mean, if you accidentally, unknowingly messed something up, I can see them sending some henchmen. But a Dalek? Even form Anatrius, that's a bit extreme."

"Anatrius?"

"I've had the misfortune to meet him in person. He's a member of Chronis. Very melodramatic. No idea what he looks like..."

"But you just said you've met him," Rose protested. "How can you not know what he looks like?"

She rolled her eyes. "For such a clever little girl, you're very dense. A Keeper doesn't just walk away from a meeting with a member of Chronis. The more peaceful of us—her Ladyship, for one—still can't stand the lot of them."

"So you killed him?" asked the Doctor.

She laughed bitterly. "One can hope! I blew up the building, but he was too cocky, too confident. He's out there."

"You do realize I've got no clue what either of you is going on about?" Rose put in.

"How can you not understand?" asked Tyira.

"I'm not sure I'm understanding, and I'm ten times as smart as she is," said the Doctor.

"You're not."

"Am, too." He saw the look on Tyira's face—disapproving and irritated—and cleared his throat. "Anyways. Rose, Tyirasamovarien...and, I suspect, most of Chronis...are Time Lords."

She swallowed hard, opened her mouth, tried and failed to speak. She took a deep breath, swallowed again, and gave it another shot. This time, she managed, "Impossible."

"You doubt it?"

"There aren't any Time Lords," she said. "Well, only...one. Him. The Doctor."

"Which brings me back to my question," said Tyira. "Who are you, Doctor? Why are you a target? What have you done to anger them?"

"I'm the protector of the universe," he said quietly. "I'm the lone guardian, the single protector. I'm their worst nightmare. That's what I've done to anger them." He stood, walked off, then turned around abruptly. "How old are you, Tyirasamovarien?" He walked slowly closer to her. "Younger than you act. Old enough to remember the Time War?"

She froze. "Yes," she said after a moment. "Old enough to remember that."

He nodded. "I know. I can tell. It's in your eyes. You saw what happened. Can you tell me how it is you escaped? How you managed to flee without anyone knowing? How the destruction of Gallifrey didn't kill you with the rest of us?"

"Not really." She looked at the floor. "I know that someone—her Ladyship—helped us to get away. There weren't that many of us—she was the oldest, and then the twins, Valin and Jynna. The rest of us were young, only children. I was one of the older ones, maybe right after Valin and Jynna. There must have been, oh, fifteen of us, maybe twenty. We were trying to escape, and then..." She trailed off.

"And then?" prompted the Doctor.

"We were found. There was...a fight. I never was sure who we were fighting. We all tried, we did, so hard...you wouldn't believe a bunch of little kids could put up such a fight. But they were—were too strong. Valin and Jynna..."

At this, her voice broke, and she dropped her head to her chest. The Doctor looked uncertain, awkward, and not a little bit alarmed. Rose rolled her eyes at him in exasperation, then cross the room to sit next to Tyira.

"'S alright," she said softly, feeling very sorry for the Time Lord lady. "You don't have to tell us."

"They tried to protect us," she whispered. "They tried. And they died for us. Both of them. I can still remember it..." She swallowed. "Valin, they got him with some sort of concentrated beam. Two concentrated beams, actually. Stopped both his hearts at once. He was dead, really dead, before he hit the ground. First life, and he didn't even stand a chance." She bit her lip. "Jynna kept fighting—she wanted to avenge him. But some part of her died when he did. She didn't want to live. She was like a storm, it was insane—but they got her, too. A cut on her throat. She bled out, could have regenerated, chose not to."

"I'm so sorry," said Rose. "That must have been terrible."

"But the way they looked—after it was over—she, her Ladyship, I mean, she got us away from the planet, and then we had a right funeral for the pair of them. They were both in their best clothes for the ceremony, and they looked so perfect, lying there next to each other, so peaceful. They weren't the only ones who never saw the destruction."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, sounding like a faint echo of Rose. "I'm so sorry."

"There was only one person there, fighting us, that I knew the name of," whispered Tyira. "He was called Anatrius."

"Anatrius," said Rose, and suddenly, her eyes widened. "Andrew!"

"Who?" asked Tyira.

"Oh, no," said the Doctor.

"He works in the kitchen," Rose explained rapidly. "He was in there when that girl, the one with the cinnamon allergy, collapsed. It is an awfully odd coincidence that there just happened to be cinnamon in her water, isn't it?" She thought. "And I'm sure I heard someone—one of the usual staff—say there were three newcomers tonight. That means someone else just showed up, tonight. Psychic paper gets you past the security, you know, but it doesn't get you past the real memories of real people."

"Of course," said Tyira. She sounded angry. "That is his style—his very personality is poisonous.

"In that case," said the Doctor, "it seems like we know our enemy. Now it's time to get him."

A/N: This is the chapter you've all been waiting for, I'm sure! Finally, we have an idea what's going on! Poor Tyira (that's Tie-EE-ar-a, by the way). She's sort of an important character.

And did you notice? Chapter names! I'll go back and do the other ones, too. :P