Chapter 10 – Overwhelming Adie

"Remind me to tell you what our daughter and her friends have been up to, by the way," Rose grumbled. "Right now though, I'm here so what did you need?" she told him and he explained the problem to her. Her eyes unfocused and the curious doubling of her energy intensified. There was a shift and her energy changed completely, in a way Adie had never seen before. The brilliant pillar of light was gone and a subdued, rather elegant pattern emerged. Her eyes focused and she began speaking in Gallifreyan.

"An interesting problem, rather deep," she murmured and her voice was lower, softer, the accent different.

"Can you do it?" the Doctor asked and the teasing tone was gone, he was speaking to his wife as though she were a respected stranger, shifting to a more formal mode.

Adie, recognizing she was looking at someone else, bowed politely.

"Of course I can, but it will take time." She bowed back to Adie, her eyes coolly assessing, but not unkind. "I will need an hour or two, I think, to begin framing the equations. It may take days though to get a final answer." She nodded and settled herself gracefully into a chair. She pulled a sort of abacus device from her pocket and began muttering to herself, clicking beads.

"Right, we'll let her work, shall we? We should start working on the next bit, finding a way to keep Adie here and not have her recalled to wherever the Master is," the Doctor murmured and hustled them from the room. "She'll need to concentrate."

"Of course. Will she require anything? Refreshments? Tea? It seems so rude to leave her sitting all alone. And… who is she?" Adie asked in confusion.

"Oh! Terribly sorry, that was Malla, my dear," he told her, as if it explained everything, and hurried them off to the kitchen. "No, food and drink will only distract her; we'll save all that for when she's done." Jake leaned in and smiled at Adie.

"Susan used a pocket watch to turn Rose from human to Time Lord somehow, don't ask me how," Jake cautioned. "Because every time Susan tried explaining it to me, my eyes crossed. Something about how Rose opened a TARDIS console and looked into it and it scrambled her biology so that she was practically a Time Lord already and just needed a template thingy to finish up. Malla volunteered, or something, and now there are two people in Rose's head, but the upside is that she is now a Time Lord."

"I see," Adie replied, though honestly, she really didn't. She'd never heard of a human being turned into a Time Lord before and she was wondering if Jake had gotten it wrong somehow. "Very well, Doctor, what do you need me to do?"

"I need you to bloody well sit down and eat something before Susan skins me alive for not taking care of you, is what I need you to do!" he barked and put a plate of food in front of her. "Eat something, anything, just please do it now, because I live in mortal terror of my granddaughter's Eyebrow of Doom!" he told her, fetching tea and cookies for them as well.

"I'm really not very hungry but… I suppose I mustn't risk the Eyebrow of Doom," she reluctantly took a cookie and looked at Jake. "Are you all right?"

"I dunno, I'm still in a bit of shock, I think. I'll be okay, once we get her back though. I know that much," he told her and grabbed a sandwich and put it on her plate. "Here, right, eat something, a stiff wind would knock you over." He then grabbed a sandwich for himself and started eating, his eyes distant and thoughtful.

"She'll be all right. She has a converter for water and rations to last for some years."

"Yeah, lots of Chips shops there too, eh? Plenty on the telly to watch, libraries full of books, yeah, it's a bleedin' paradise," he snapped and then took a breath. "Sorry. Not your fault, I shouldn't take it out on you. I just saw how happy she was with a bloody bathtub and how she nearly cried over lights and running water. She was finally somewhere safe, she had a job, friends, she was respected and cared for and we sent her back to hell." He set down the half-eaten sandwich and pushed away from the table. "I'm going for a walk."

"Jake," Adie said.

"Yeah, yeah, all going to work out, sure, sure," he muttered and left the kitchen, the door shutting behind him.

"Leave him be, Adie, he's gone through a lot and he needs time to process it all. I don't think he realized that he'd fallen in love with her, until she had to go, you see," the Doctor sighed out. "I'm too good a matchmaker sometimes."

Adie pushed her plate away too.

"She chose to go back," she said. "I'm so sorry. Omega, I am so, so sorry."

"I'm very glad that she had the choice, Adie. This was the first time that the decision was hers, and even more importantly, that she knew why it was being made. She finally had some control over her own fate and she chose... rightly," he told her, covering her hand with his own.

"Is a cookie and a few bites of sandwich enough to avert the Eyebrow of Doom? I'm feeling rather ill right now," Adie asked rather plaintively.

"Do what I do then, my dear, grab a handful of nutrient supplements from the jar on the shelf over there, swallow them down, and lie through your teeth to Susan. The supplements will make her scanners tell her that you are eating well and that's what she'll go on," he told her with a weary smile.

"Right," Adie took a handful of the supplements and crunched them like candy. They tasted like fruit, which was an odd sensation. Fruit ought not to be crunchy. "Let's get back to work; I can't stand being idle right now."

"Well, we're going to need Koschei for that and he's... busy just now. So, let's go for a tour, shall we?" He stood up and smiled at her, taking her hand and tugging her gently after him, like she was a balloon being pulled along behind him.

"A tour? A tour of what…?" But then he opened the door to a dazzling light, and she was obligated to stop in her tracks, shielding her eyes. "Sunlight? I haven't stood in sunlight in two hundred years…."

"Well then, you are rather overdue," he told her and pulled her out into the plaza. They were on Gallifrey, in the Plaza that was in front of the Panopticon, she recognized the general shape of it, but everything was different. The Panopticon itself was smaller, but more beautifully decorated, the plaza was filled with people, but very few of them were actually Time Lords.

Both of her hands flew to her mouth. Her cheeks were suddenly wet.

"It's… it's really gone, isn't it?" She hadn't truly believed it until this moment.

"Gone, yes, but still here regardless," he told her gently.

She buried herself in his chest, for a moment, like a child seeking reassurance, and he wrapped his arms around her protectively, patting her back.

Donna watched Loren and Justinian carefully as they came out of the bath. It had taken Koschei quite a bit of time to get them down and to return the room to its previous state. They'd been surprisingly docile since then and Donna was suspicious.

Freeya and the others seemed merely relieved to not have the two boys teasing and harassing them at the moment, but Donna was a veteran of human schools and therefore had a nasty, suspicious mind.

Justinian put his head down and pulled away from Loren, who tugged at him, whispering in his ear. The jet black hair and sharp blue eyes of Loren contrasted with Justin's washed out grey eyes and limp brown hair. Donna kept her head down over her tablet, pretending not to notice them.

"Come on, we need to get her back! That Low House brat and her freak friends do not get to mess with us!" he hissed and Justinian shrugged.

"She's smart though, and the adults are on her side, it's not going to be easy," Justinian protested weakly.

"Well, we'll just have to be smarter," Loren muttered and dragged the shorter boy outside and away from Rose's hearing.

"A lot smarter, if you want to get past me," Donna grimaced and put her blackberry away, thinking hard.

Adie stood stock still, looking around her with a darting uncertainty.

"I can see that it's beautiful, but… I don't know if I am ready for this," she told the Doctor.

"I understand," he told her.

"Doctor! There you are!" a voice addressed them. "What have you done with my best agent?" Adie turned to look and met the gaze of a human male, balding with wisps of ginger hair, and bright blue eyes.

"'Ello Pete, yes, I'm sorry about Masha," he told him.

"Masha?" Pete blurted out incredulously. "I'm talking about Jake! You got him a perfect partner, someone who wasn't going to die horribly on him, and then you send her off somewhere and don't try to tell me it wasn't you, because I know you far too well!"

"Right. We found out that Masha was a focus for a deadly alien weapon that could potentially destroy Gallifrey, so we sent her somewhere she would be non-threatening, until we could sort that all out."

"We do hope to be able to extricate her… someday," Adie finished rather awkwardly.

"Well, get on it! Jake's my best agent and I can't have him moping about!" he snarked.

"Perhaps Jake ought to be assigned a new partner for the time being…?" She didn't sound very certain.

"He won't take one. He let Rose partner him because she was his friend, but he really hasn't had one since Mickey left. Before that it was him, Rickey, and Mrs Johnson, but those two are both dead now. Everyone he ever had died on him, you see, or left," Pete explained. "He won't get close to anyone else, not for a long while."

Adie looked thoughtfully at the Doctor.

"You know, I wonder if it would be possible to set up communication with that loop? We couldn't keep the large gate assembled, far too dangerous, but perhaps a small one? Maybe he would feel better if he could write a letter or send a care package or something?" She rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

"A sort of mail drop? Brilliant! Oh Adie, that's genius!" the Doctor enthused.

"Not yet it's not, we haven't the hardware. I'm permitted in Koschei's workshop without him, let me see what I can arrange." She turned and headed back into the TARDIS.

"Excuse me!" the Doctor called out, hands on his hips. "Aren't you forgetting something? I happen to be an utterly brilliant engineer!" he reminded her.

"Nice to meet you, Pete," she called as she entered the TARDIS, smothering a giggle with her hands.

"Oi! I am so going to tickle you, young lady!" the Doctor shouted and ran into the TARDIS, leaving Pete behind them.

"Nice meeting you too, Adie!" he called out and with a grin on his face, went off to find Jake.

Time ran much faster in the Loop and, while only a few hours had passed for Jake and the others, more than a week had passed for Masha.

It took Masha four days to scout the right spot to begin a shelter, and another four days to gather a suitable number of stones to begin it.

After extensive exploration in her immediate area, it seemed that Koschei had been quite correct; there was nothing here that could hurt her. There must have been people who once lived in a city this large: but there was no sign of anyone. No sign of bodies. Nothing.

She had been very discouraged to come back here, though she hadn't wanted anyone to know; the thought of slogging back through horror and death had been very disheartening. But now she realized that this was just a wilderness; harsh, and with a terribly frightening appearance, but nothing worse.

With a grim feeling of loneliness, Masha set about surviving.

The Master stared around the control room. He'd buried his unhappiness in working on his TARDIS, but she was fixed now and he was feeling... lost. For so long his goal had been to defeat the Doctor and take over the universe, but Gallifrey, and presumably the Doctor, were gone and dead. He was alone. He could take over this universe, but, without the Doctor there to see and despair at it, where was the fun? Besides... he frowned, trying to understand his sudden reluctance.

He was the Master, after all... wasn't he? He shook his head, trying to clear out the conflicting impulses in his mind. He had the urge to go to New San Martine, see if the house was still there, maybe lie in the bed and think about a woman long dead.

He jerked away from that thought and looked around the room desperately. His eyes fell on the screens and control panels for the Project. He could do something with it, he mused.

He turned on the screens, spun everything up, and was shocked at what the screen showed. He ought to have expected it, of course, it was bound to overgrow, but the whole thing was a tangled mess. He could just walk away from it, he supposed.

That thought stopped him cold. What would he do? No war, no Daleks, no Gallifrey, no Time Lords. No Susan. He envisioned the idea of endless and aching Time on his hands, time he would have to fill doing… something. Anything. How long could he bear to wander around the TARDIS, alone, with no direction?

He had technically never completed the project. Finishing it out would give him time, time to think, time to decide how to try and grind out the centuries allocated to an endless and empty life.

Fine, then, he decided, he might as well putter around with it for a while. He could start with a clean-up…

Suddenly he realized that he was looking at an extra seven network points.

And then he saw it, a door opening and closing into the Möbius Loops. Someone was mucking about with it.

Irritation flared in him at once.

"That damned Rat!" he muttered.

The workings of that damnable biological, the mess she would make out of his neat, precise designs, setting up false network points, and now she was opening damn doors! The Rat was one of the few things left capable of generating a genuine emotional response from him. His anger at her was all he had left, besides the endless aching regrets.

"I'll get you, anyway," he decided, and his hands moved over the controls with rather more force than he had intended.

Adie was accustomed to working quietly for days on end, but designing something with the Doctor was an entirely different experience than designing something with the Master or Koschei. The Doctor was boisterous and silly, but underneath it he had a keen mind, and with some careful study, she discovered she could begin making sense out of his rather unkempt presentation.

For all of their differences, Koschei and the Master had set up their workshops with some surprising similarities, and she moved easily around.

"The problem," she said, as they were assembling the final box which would be able to hold and transmit a small package, "Is that there is no way to get anything out. It would be nice if she could respond somehow, don't you think?"

"It would, but there is absolutely no way. That's strictly a one-way trip. Koschei had to work miracles just so we could see through Masha's gate."

"Well, perhaps he'll still be happy with it…" She closed the lid and was satisfied at the firm 'click' it made. "Would you like to present it to him, Doctor? Or shall I?"

"We'll do it together, eh? And I can give you that tour of Gallifrey on the way! If you are ready, that is…"

Adie nodded. "I think… I think that maybe I am," she said shyly.

"Well then," the Doctor picked up the box and put it under his arm, then offered his other arm to Adie. She took it shyly, and they headed out.

Donna slipped out of the Trans Mat station and headed for the school, thinking hard. Justinian was a weak boy, who followed after Loren with the air of a whipped dog following it's master, so she concentrated on keeping track of Loren.

Justinian broke off from him suddenly and ran away, his face splotchy. Donna paused, wondering which one to follow and finally she turned to follow Justinian. Loren might get up to no good, but Justinian had been crying and Donna felt a tug of sympathy for the skinny, weed-like boy.

She followed him into the grove of silver leafed trees and watched as he threw himself on the ground, looking despondent, tears leaking down his face.

She sank down beside him and he jerked up, looking at her with a frightened expression.

"You all right, there?" she asked and he hastily wiped away his tears.

"Yeah," he mumbled.

"So, you're crying alone out here, because everything is perfectly fine?" she asked softly and brushed the hair from his face with a gentle hand. He looked up at her and something inside of him just broke. He threw himself into her arms and began to sob.

Donna knew that the Doctor joked that she was like a cat lady, only what she took in was stray Time Lords, but she also knew there was some truth in it. She had a big heart and hated to see people in pain and suffering. No one around her was suffering more than the Time Lords right now, so that's where she found herself helping the most. Now, she wrapped her arms around the sobbing child and comforted him.

"It'll be all right,' she soothed.

"I don't know," he told her.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" she asked and he shook his head. She could tell that he wasn't ready to talk, so she just rocked him, holding him against her, letting his sobs quiet slowly. He was only ten years old and he'd gone through more than many people five times his age. She didn't know what was eating at him, but she knew that he needed her and that was enough.

Adie stopped at the threshold of the TARDIS for a moment, looking around, then took a breath and set foot onto this new Gallifrey. She had the Doctor's arm and unknowingly she was clinging to it very tightly.

"Strangely enough, Adie, my arm actually requires blood to circulate for proper functioning," he told her in a gentle tone, eyes dancing. She jumped and let go, nodding, and swallowed hard.

"Er… sorry," she said. "It's… really beautiful," she said shyly. "You built all of this?"

"Not by myself, no," he chuckled. "The thing is..." he looked around frowning. "Most of it was here already."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when we got here, the Panopticon, most of the city, a proto version of the Academy, it was all here already, half destroyed and long abandoned, but here. We found traces... well, we have no idea really what happened to them, why they died out, if they died out..." He frowned even more deeply looking down at the exquisite mosaics that covered the walkways. "It's a mystery. I keep meaning to go back, but... things keep happening." He shrugged and she nodded, seeming overwhelmed at everything she was seeing.

"The Master took me to Gallifrey many times. It always seemed as if it was burning. This seems… almost cool."

"Well, you should see it at dawn, when the suns come over the horizon and the silver leaf trees reflect that light, making it look like the forest is on fire," he told her, his eyes alight.

"It's all gone," she murmured. "It's really all gone. But this… doesn't seem so bad. Perhaps it's not as different as it first appeared." She had been all but pressing herself into the Doctor's ribcage when they first walked out, but now she was gaining some confidence, looking around at buildings and plants. "I think… I think I could learn to like it here," she offered shyly.

"Well, I hope so," he chuckled. "It's the only home I can offer you, unless you want to live in a really nice flat in Chelsea," he mused and she smiled.

"Well, how does one go about… applying for residency, as it were? I can't just stay in Koschei's workshop," she gave him a rueful smile, "It's full of spanners. He'll be too terrified to sleep."

"Well, you could always ask your Head of Line to give you back your old bedroom, you know?" he replied gently.