The Doctor didn't notice the elderly woman come into his TARDIS until she spoke, and then he overreacted just a little bit, almost falling off the stairs he was sitting on reading his book. Theoretical universes and how they would theoretically work. Rather important nowadays.
She slipped quietly in through the doors, which he had been leaving unlocked more often than not. The TARDIS wouldn't let anybody in that she didn't like, anyway – he'd found that out when the General was in the same room alone with her and she had decided it would be a good idea to project random people and sounds from in the corner of his vision. It made him paranoid, or more paranoid, at any rate, for weeks on end, driving them all insane.
"It's a fascinating theme that you've chosen," she said in a gentle tone. The Doctor yelped, started, fumbled with the book and just barely avoided dropping it before losing his balance and nearly getting tangled in his robes.
"Um... thank you?" he said weakly, looking at her in confusion. He didn't recognize her. She was old, wore gray robes instead of the traditional red. Well, maybe he recognized her a little bit, but he couldn't think from where. He was so old, he didn't know anymore. He didn't know how old he was, either, but that was a different matter. "Can I help you with something?"
He put the book down and stood up quickly, remembering that Time Lords had that odd obsession over politeness and conduct and other ridiculous things such as that.
"Those names... they are names, right?" She nodded up at the gray panels encircling the time rotor in layers. "Friends of yours?"
"Some of them," he sighed softly. "Susan, Ian, Barbara, Jamie... Tegan, Adric...Melanie, Sarah, Alastair, Harry..." Trailing off, the Doctor shook his head. So many names. He couldn't fit them all up there if he even tried, and sometimes if he didn't look at the words for long enough he couldn't remember them.
"Lost?" she murmured.
"Some of them," he repeated, and then again, "Can I help you with something?"
She turned to look at him, although there was an underlying hint of... something. Confusion? Hurt? "I was in the medical wing, and I wanted to thank you, my dear boy, on behalf of the people that you saved."
My dear boy. Nobody called him that, not on Gallifrey, not on any planet. The words made his hearts ache.
"I..." He swallowed. "I'm sorry. Have... have we met? I'm afraid... well, the memory's going a bit these days."
There it was again, definitely confusion and hurt, but also pity and unfathomable... unfathomable love...
"My dear boy," she repeated, still in that same gentle tone, but her voice was shaking ever so slightly. "My dear Theta..."
He might have actually pitched forwards onto his face had she not been there to steady him, and mother and son stared at each other for the longest time.
The Doctor was the first to move, letting out a shuddering gasp and burying his face in the crook of her shoulder, and he felt like a tiny boy again as she murmured old comforts in his ear. So long, so long... and he hadn't recognized her. How couldn't he have recognized her?
"Don't be sad, my dear," Imala said quietly. "Don't be sad. You are here, now, and I am here, and Gallifrey still sings her song to the stars. Don't be sad. Don't be sad."
"Why- why would- you can't just forgive me, I was- I would have burned all of you, two and a half billion children and billions of others-"
"I'm your mother," she said, still quiet, but firm in her words. "I will always forgive you whether you want me to or not."
"I didn't recognize-"
"Your face is unfamiliar to me, and it has been many centuries since we last met. You never took any photographs, I don't think. Or perhaps you did, but it hurt to look at."
That was exactly what he had done. He had myriads of photos of old friends and family and places he had once been. He had books from home and videos and much more, but they were all locked away in the depths of the TARDIS collecting dust. He hadn't gone looking for them in ages, he doubted he could even find the room again.
"I didn't look at photos of your father until after you left the Academy," she countered. "It is nothing to be ashamed of, my dear boy. You have nothing to be ashamed of, and your perceived slights require no forgiveness. I am proud, Theta, I am so very proud of you..."
No one really bothered to question the Doctor being late for the meeting. The man was still a madman to most of them who didn't like him, and questionably sane to those who did. No one really bothered to question the Master being late to the meeting – he was insane and not to be trusted and it had gotten to the point where as long as he was out of their way then they didn't care.
The doors opened several minutes late, and surprisingly enough, the two walked in together, glaring sullenly at one another but not voicing any complaints.
"My Lord Doctor," Romana greeted. "My Lord Master. How kind of you to join us."
"The children wouldn't leave me alone," the Master said after a pause. The Doctor's lips twitched slightly as he repressed a smile. Romana's eyebrow arched upwards, but she made no comment, and they resumed their typical discussions that quickly descended (per the norm) into arguing and the dressing-down of one another's plans until it finally fell into petty insults at their pride.
Time Lord politics. Horribly dull and incredibly inconvenient when they started arguing.
The Doctor looked over at his former friend turned former enemy.
"This was one of the reasons I left," he said, nodding towards the chaos. Romana was attempting to regain order, but it didn't seem to be working. "I hated politics. Never understood how my mother could stand it."
"She was a patient woman, your mother," the Master agreed, not looking once towards the other Time Lord. A moment in which neither spoke. "Still is."
"She said she watched over you after you killed Rassilon."
"You finally spoke to her?"
"Hard to speak to her when nobody told me she was alive."
Androgar made a bold comment towards the General, who promptly turned and started berating the younger man. Romana pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.
"Look at us old fools." The Master sighed, shaking his head ruefully. "Silence, Doctor. Noise is what kept us sane, wasn't it? And I remembered and you never forgot."
The Doctor gave him an odd look. "Sane is still a very loose concept here, I would think."
They ducked in unison when the spare object or two started flying through the air towards targets across the opposite side of the table.
"Quite possibly."
"No, I'm quite certain on this one."
"And who was the better one in their studies?"
"I seem to recall I built a sonic device my first year in the Academy-"
"While running from Ushas, your ulterior motive in that case was avoiding people, not getting proper marks on your exams."
"Shut up."
"No."
They drifted back into a mildly uncomfortable lapse in conversation.
Imala had told the Doctor that the Master seemed to be doing better, and he ought to seek out his former friend. That and he also ought to visit the medical wing sometime – the children would love him, she was sure. Such a dear old woman. A bit absent-minded, but weren't they all? She was kind and caring and when the situation called for it, her words and wit were sharper than knives. She couldn't have made it far in her line of work otherwise.
The Master, already in a sour mood due to the children he had been pushed into interacting with, was further annoyed at the summons to a meeting. They had talked to him for hours and hours every day for multiple weeks on end, finally determining that pinpointing his mental state really wasn't their top priority at this rate, and since he hadn't done anything for months, now, as long as someone kept an eye on him, he was free to do as he wished. Of course, because he had a way of thinking out of the box and was generally regarded as brilliant, if insane, they would drag him back again to look over different theories for terraforming and rebuilding and actually moving Gallifrey back out of the pocket universe.
Of course, then they told him that he was going to be working with the Doctor, and wasn't that just going to be a recipe for disaster. Honestly, whoever had come up with that idea needed to have their mental state evaluated.
Friends turned enemies turned not-quite friends with a very brief, temporary truce over a common enemy, and now here they were again. It had been hundreds of years for the Doctor, for the Master, a meager seven or eight months. And, oh, the Master could hold a grudge. Not that he was particularly inclined to anymore, for one reason or another, but that could be pondered later.
"Your hair looks ridiculous." The Master eyed the Doctor's floppy brown hair critically. "And your chin."
The Doctor glared. "I would say the same for you, but unfortunately your taste in fashion is impeccable as ever." The Master smirked, but the Doctor kept going. "Dull and boring, but at least you can say it's formal. Seriously, do you wear anything other than black?"
The Master huffed, but didn't argue.
"Do you think that we could use a set of... oh, say, a dozen TARDISes, positioned at equidistant points around the planet?" he asked instead. "Lower atmosphere, since we can't really go too much further past the outer atmosphere and it's better to play it safe. Run the coordinates through all ten TARDISes at the same time, have them calculate the exact equations for opening a rift in time by the constellation of Kasterborous and the force it would take to move Gallifrey through."
The Doctor nodded slowly, starting to smile. "Background equations on fields to keep the planet from shaking apart in the cosmic winds, not to mention we'd need gravitational stability and more force to get it spinning at the proper speed. We aren't orbiting anything here, or rotating, everything is just in stasis, but once the planet gets put back between the suns it's going to be a tricky bit of science to make sure it stays put."
"Oh, pah." The Master scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "Child's play. The Time Lords invented black holes, or have you forgotten?"
"Good point."
"You'll find I tend to have many, unlike yourself."
The Doctor glared.
The Master offered a triumphant smile and looked back at the arguing Time Lords. None of them were paying the two proclaimed wayward children of Gallifrey any attention.
"Head to my TARDIS?" the Doctor asked.
The Master held a hand up and snapped his fingers. One of the dozens of columns lining the hallway hissed, a rectangular crack appearing in the side, and then slid open like a door to show a dark room inside.
"You think I took my own TARDIS when I left?" he asked incredulously in response to the Doctor's surprised expression. "You're more stupid than I thought. If they'd caught me, they'd have quarantined my TARDIS after they brought my back. Nobody's going to notice an extra column in an empty meeting room, however."
"Huh."
Shrugging, the Doctor pushed his chair back and got to his feet, ducking as one of the Time Ladies waved her arms about, gesturing furiously. The Master followed, and they went into the column, lights flickering on and ancient console slowly grinding and creaking to life. The Master tossed a large ream of paper and one of the elaborate calligraphy pens that Time Lords seemed to have in abundance.
"I'll man the computer, you write."
The Doctor rolled his eyes, settling down into a chair and pulling out a pair of reading glasses that had once belonged to an old friend, pushing them up on his nose. "Fine then," he muttered, but as most of their jibes had been lately, it lacked most of its bite and anger that it might have once carried. "No need to get snippy with me."
Sorry this one's up so late, homework and I was very busy doing birthday things today. Review? We can call it a belated present.