Crystal Bay
Two mornings after the Night of the Miracle (as they continued to call it), Corin and Rose were enjoying a leisurely breakfast, watching Donna experience her very first spoonfuls of pureed peaches. The day before had been utterly blissful, even more wonderful than their anniversary, because the shadow of the Doctor had at long last been exorcised from between them. That evening, after putting Donna to bed, they had re-enacted the formation of their Time Lord life bond, strengthening it even further, and flinging open all the doors in their memories. Not all those doors were stepped through, but the knowledge that there was nothing left to hide was joyfully liberating to them both.
So it was that they were startled down to their toes when they heard, again, the last sound they expected: the old familiar whoosh coming from the front hall. Rose scooped Donna out of her high chair, wiping her face of the last bit of peach, and padded with her down the corridor after Corin. They stopped just inside the hall, staring apprehensively at the big blue box that had appeared in the same spot as two nights before.
The door opened, and the Doctor leaned against it, crossing arms and legs. Tanned. Relaxed. Smiling like he hadn't smiled in decades.
"Oh, now that's better!" exclaimed Corin, voice full of satisfaction.
The Doctor's smile got even broader, and his Rose peeked, equally tanned and grinning, around from behind the other door. Characteristically, the Doctor jumped past the pleasantries and started right in. "Two things! Weird – I'm always saying 'two things!' Anyway! One." A dramatic pause, grin dropping, and then he said, straight to Corin, with quiet emphasis, "Thank you. For everything." The grin slid back on. "That's the best vacation I've ever had."
"You're welcome," came the smiling reply. "Two?"
"Two. We've come to issue an invitation, to take one last very special trip with us in the TARDIS."
"Where?" He knew there had to be something going on.
The Doctor looked straight at him for several beats, then said, so sincerely and plaintively that it caught their hearts, "I want to go home." He tipped his head sideways at his Rose. "She said you found Kasterborous on the Hubble star charts."
Corin's eyes were wide. "Yeah, but it's way too far away to tell if the planet exists in this universe."
The Doctor nodded. "I know. But even if it doesn't, even if all we do is just hang in space for a few minutes and see the twin suns, it would be worth it." He turned to Corin's Rose. "You can't even get that close in our universe. The whole sector's locked." He turned back to Corin, and simply tipped his head, asking.
Corin took a deep, shaky breath. "Yeah."
The Doctor turned to Corin's Rose and tipped his head again, eyebrows raised. "I promise, no matter how long we're actually gone, we'll have you back here ten minutes from now." He nodded back towards Jenny, standing by the console. "She really is that good."
Rose smiled. "Yeah. OK. – Is it safe to bring the baby?"
Her twin answered: "Yep. Just grab the car seat, along with the diaper bag!" She laughed at Corin's questioning eyes, pointing her finger at him like she used to, "Just wait till you see this!"
"This" turned out to be a newly-built section of the control room, against the wall opposite the Captain's chair. A large rectangular open-faced box of the metal grating had been welded into place, with web belts for securing infant car seats inside. It even had a section of grating across the top, so nothing could fall on the precious cargo, and the entire box was lined with thick padding. On either end of the box a pair of adult-sized bucket-type car seats had also been welded in for passengers.
"I'm not taking any chances with my niece," the Doctor told Corin, grinning. "Ready, Rose?" he called.
"Ready!" both women answered together.
The Doctor, already turning towards the console, spun back around, amusedly irritated. "No, no, no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-NO! This is NOT going to cut the program!" He thought a moment. "Just for today, YOU" and he pointed towards Corin's Rose "are – Marion," he decided, using her own middle name. "And YOU," he added, pointing to his own, "are... Rosita. Don't ask," he said quickly to Corin. Then, startling everyone, he suddenly spun around and pointed at John, waiting beside Jenny at the console. "THAT'S who you remind me of! It's been driving me nuts for eighteen months!" He grinned. "Are you related to the Lake family, by any chance?"
John smiled, still confused. "My mother was a Lake!"
"Ah-HA! Founded by one Jackson Lake, who arrived in London from the south in... 1851, am I right?" John nodded. The Doctor's broad smile softened, as did his tone. "He was a good man. A very good man. I was honored to know him." Brightening again, "You come from good stock, John Gallifrey – on both sides!"
As nobody else in the TARDIS had any idea who he was talking about, they just smiled and let it go. The Doctor was being... the Doctor. Again. (If Jenny ducked her head and wiped away a sudden tear, nobody "noticed".)
Baby secured, they gathered around the center console – suddenly aware that they were six again. The Doctor gestured at Jenny, who grinned and took charge. "We're taking this in two jumps. First stop is in space, just outside the constellation, to take final readings. Ready?" She threw the switch and worked a lever, showing John beside her what to do at his console. Each of the two Time Lords did the same, directing their Rose. The flight, so reminiscent of flying the Earth home from the Dalek Crucible, was infinitely smoother this time without a planet in tow. Only a few moments passed before Jenny announced, "We're there!" and nodded to the Doctor.
He took a deep breath and walked slowly to the door, Corin a pace behind. He placed his palm lightly on the door for a moment, almost afraid to open it, then swiftly snatched it wide. Corin opened the other door beside him, and they both gasped at the achingly familiar sight.
Stretched across the space before them lay the awe-inspiring swirls and eddies of the Porterion Nebula, the dust and plasma cloud glowing in all the mind-bending hues of the rainbow, from purple to red and back again. Within the swirls were handfuls of stars already formed, flung across the sky like a giant's marbles, teasing the proto-stars still to be born with their dancing rays. And there, dead center, were the Twin Suns of Galloran and Gallissa, endlessly circling each other in their cosmic dance. Corin and the Doctor stared wide-eyed, drinking in the sight they thought they'd never see again save in dreams.
They would have stood gazing forever, but Jenny's voice came triumphantly from behind. "It's there!" They didn't have to ask what. With one reverent, long, last look, the two men silently closed the doors and returned to the console, nodding at the pilot to proceed. A few sways and bumps later, she looked up again and smiled, waving them back to the door.
The Doctor's hands were visibly shaking this time, as he slowly reached for the latch. Again, he hesitated, then swung the door wide. Fresh air flooded the console room as a prying wind swept inside, bringing tantalizing odors of woody, growing things, overlaid with a salty, metallic tang that spoke of a nearby sea. Eyes huge, tears already starting, the Doctor and Corin silently stepped out onto the soil of Gallifrey. Of Home.
As the others filed out behind them, the two Time Lords walked into the knee-high red grass and found themselves standing atop a rocky cliff, overlooking a huge inlet. Distantly, beyond the tumbled teeth guarding the entrance to the bay, huge waves could be heard crashing against the rugged shore, while beneath their feet the tamed remains of those same waves lapped gently over blue diamond sands. Overhead, the sky arched tawny gold from horizon to horizon, cloud-free.
Corin spun slowly on his heel, taking in the line of mountains running parallel to the shore some distance away, and came to a stop facing back behind the TARDIS. His eyes traveled up, and UP, and he almost fell over backwards as his jaw dropped with incredulous delight. "Rose!", he cried, forgetting the temporary renaming. He pointed back and UP. "THAT... is a corin tree!"
The others spun to see, and gasped in unison. The corin climbed skyward, reaching over three hundred feet in the air, and then gracefully poured its long leafy vines down again to the ground. The flashing leaves flung silver and gold lights in every direction, as the breeze tossed them around, reflecting sun and sky to the watchers below.
"That's not just a corin," came the Doctor's reverential voice. "That's a great-great-grandfather corin." He walked over to where the vines were just brushing the grass, silver amid the red, and reached out, gently grasping handfuls of vines and letting them trail through his fingers. He walked further in towards the massive trunk, gazing up into the canopy. Suddenly, his gaze sharpened. "And it's sprouting!" He spun towards the others. "Jenny, give me your knife!"
She reached down to her boot and drew a stiletto from the sheath, tossing it to her father hilt first. He snatched it out of the air and grinned, then put it between his teeth, turned and sprang up, catching hold of the lowest branch and swinging up on top of it, then stretching and climbing further and further up. Corin laughed, "Show-off!", then ran himself the few steps to the branch, jumped up, and began climbing up after his twin.
Some forty feet up, the Doctor came to a large branch splitting off the trunk almost parallel to the ground. Nestled against the trunk, growing from the joining, was a pale grey shoot, just two feet long. The Doctor sat on the branch, hanging his legs down on either side, and gently pried the shoot loose with the knife, then turned it and began peeling the outer fibers off from the lower end. When he had several inches peeled, he cut it off, and was about to pop it into his mouth when Corin called up from two branches below, "Oi! Don't get greedy!"
He grimaced, then grinned down, and used the knife to split the section end to end, carefully dropping one piece down into Corin's waiting hand. Corin settled himself on his own branch, and slowly, lovingly placed one end of his shoot in his mouth, closing his eyes with a blissful smile as he began chewing. Laughing, the Doctor copied him, gesture for gesture.
"Oi!" came floating up from below. They both looked down into grinning faces, 'Rosita' crossing her arms and tapping a foot, expectantly. The Doctor laughed and cut off another long section, peeling it, then leaned far out to drop it down. "Share that out, and I'll find some more. Chew it like sugar cane, but don't swallow the pulp! It's good for teething youngsters, too, so pop some in Donna's mouth and let her enjoy a taste of home!"
The two men spent the next several minutes clambering about the tree like schoolboys, gathering a couple dozen more shoots. They dropped half of them down to the others, then found a pair of comfortable perches a few feet apart and settled in, peeling shoots and chewing, drinking in the memories that the spicy, woody sticks tugged out.
The Doctor broke the long, comfortable silence. "Corin? The things you told me that night? … You were right. About everything." He paused, looking wistfully off into the distance. "I wish..."
Corin watched him for a minute, then his mouth quirked. "The Lonely Angel," he intoned, quoting Reinette.
The Doctor grimaced, and shot him a dart. "You know, I finally figured that out. It's Renaissance French for 'sucks to be you!'" He grinned, lopsidedly, then turned serious again. "Anyway, thank you. Again."
Corin smiled. "That's what brothers are for!"
The Doctor didn't smile. "'Brother'? After what I did?"
Corin was genuinely puzzled. "You think you pushed me into staying here? I saw what was coming! I saw my chance and grabbed it, with both hands. Didn't you see my hatbox in my back pocket?" He shook his head, and added, a little softer, "I wouldn't trade this life for anything. I have exactly what I want. Especially now."
A beat. Then, tentatively, "You don't hold it against me?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No... no." They looked at each other for a long minute more, then they both smiled simultaneously. At long last, able to be friends.
^..^
Down below, the others had dragged out some blankets and spread them in the grass beneath the corin canopy, peeling shoots and chewing on the surprisingly delicious pulpy cores. Donna was cooing her approval, too – apparently the texture was perfect for sore gums.
John was staring around him in delight, eyes wide with wonder. "I'm actually on another planet! Amazing!" Jenny laughed with him, realizing that he alone of the group had never had been planet-hopping before. "But where are the people?" he continued.
She shook her head. "None in this universe. Eons ago, when the Time Lords had the ability to hop universes, they discovered that the planet didn't even exist in many of them, and in the ones where it did, it was uninhabited. No, the Time Lords only arose once, in all of creation."
Donna fretted, having lost her twig. The two Roses leaned over her on their shared blanket, laughing. They caught each other's eyes, then, and paused, both caught by the same thought; the memory of that night they had been split apart. Silently, they asked each other if they were OK; reading the answers in each other's eyes. Seeing their own fulfilled joy reflected in their twin.
They smiled, and turned to greet their men as they dropped from the tree.
^..^
Corin stepped towards the cliff again. "Where are we, anyway?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know. Jenny, where did you put us down?"
"Um... it was the western edge of the largest continent, I think, about halfway up the side."
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Wild Endeavor?" he said, naming the continent. He looked east. "OK, then those are the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, and that," pointing to the highest peak, "is Mount Hope."
Corin was looking the other way. "Those look like the Singing Rocks, though I can't hear anything," he commented, pointing to the pieces of cliff broken away at the mouth of the bay.
"Too far away," answered the Doctor. "You're right, though. Which means that this..." sweeping his arm across the inlet, "is Crystal Bay!" They finished the sentence together, grinning.
Suddenly both grins got even bigger, and they shouted in unison, "Tassies!", then positively leapt down the thirty-foot cliff to the sand below.
"What!" cried both Roses, running after. "Oysters!" laughed 'Marion', picking the answer out of her bond mate's mind.
"Oi! You don't eat them raw, do you?" 'Rosita' called. "Nope, steamed!" she relayed the answer from her own mate. ('Marion' glanced at her and grinned, realizing just then that her twin and the Doctor had formed their own life bond.) "We're going to need a big pot! Jenny, is there one in the TARDIS kitchen?"
Jenny laughed, and went to find one, as well as a bucket for collecting the tassies, and other odds and ends. John realized a bonfire was called for, and went off in search of firewood.
^..^
A few hours later, the travelers were relaxing, sated and happy, around a cheerfully snapping fire between the TARDIS and the corin, watching the last of the brilliant purple sunset fade from the burnt orange sky. The Time Lords had proved themselves master chefs once again, shelling the tassies and wrapping them up in sweet grass and purple seaweed before putting them into the pot to steam. They had also dug up a dozen green potato-like roots, sliced them up along with a few more corin shoots, and put them into another pot to boil in the water from the fresh spring John had discovered nearby. There were even sweet yellow berries from the low bushes beside the spring for dessert.
"Look!" cried Jenny from the blanket she shared with John. "The stars are coming out."
All six adults lay back on their blankets to take in the awe-inspiring sight, as pinpoints of starlight began to shine through the orange, bringing along wisps of other colors from the fantastic nebula behind.
After a few minutes, Corin raised himself back up on an elbow. "You know, Doctor" he began, deceptively conversational, "it occurs to me that you're the patriarch of our little clan."
The Doctor looked across the fire, confused. Corin simply raised his eyebrows, then glanced deliberately at Donna, nestled in her mother's arms next to him, then up at the evening sky, then back at the Doctor, waiting.
The Doctor slowly sat up as he realized what Corin was asking. Eyes glistening, he rose to his feet and stepped over to their blanket. "May I?" he asked 'Marion', before taking Donna from her arms. He carried her a few feet from the fire, away from the corin, under the open sky. The others all gathered themselves up to watch, as he turned the baby in his arms so she was facing him, head supported by one hand.
He smiled. "Never thought I'd get the chance to do this. Hi!" he grinned as she smiled at him, then giggled as she gurgled back. Then he turned serious again, and pitching his voice so the others could hear, began the ancient Gallifreyan rite.
"Child of Gallifrey – Child of Earth:
"I give you your first name, Donna Marie. May you bear it in honor, until the day you find your own.
"I give you your Self, which you will never lose, no matter where the winds of time and trouble blow you.
"I give you laughter, and I give you tears, for both are required for a life well and truly lived.
"I give you fire and ice, earth and air, that you may know balance when you find it.
"I give you the love of beauty and of justice, that you may seek them both always.
"I give you the wisdom of your elders, and the wonder of youth, that you may joyfully seek knowledge all your days.
"I give you the dreams of the past, and the hopes of the future, that you may fulfill them both.
"I give you love and respect, that you may offer them always to whomever you may meet.
"I give you life, the most precious gift of all.
"And finally, Child of Gallifrey, Child of Earth, I give you the stars, the only thing greater than yourself." And he lifted her up, facing the heavens, holding her there for a long moment. The stars shone their gentle light upon her, and the heavens danced.