A/N - Not much action in this bit, but a lot of character development. Thanks to my reviewers for inspiring me and also for asking questions and pointing out areas that could be fleshed out more. You are all amazing and I adore you.
Chapter 21 – So Many Regrets
Koschei kissed Susan and tried to ignore the worried look in her eyes as he released her. Dar and Hedia were already stepping into Susan's TARDIS and it did feel strange to be going somewhere in it without his wife beside him.
Baby Jenny was tucked into a carrier on Susan's chest, she'd be watching the infant while Rose and the Doctor were off dealing with the Shadow Proclamation, and it twisted something inside him to see how gently she stroked the baby, her obvious affection and affinity for something they couldn't have for themselves right then. He patted the child gently and Rose and the Doctor dropped kisses on her tiny head.
"Be good to your niece Susan, now Jen-jen," the Doctor instructed the baby, who looked up at him with an expression of disbelief.
"As if," was the mumbled baby reply and Susan grinned at him.
"I've got a lot of baby wrangling experience, Grandfather, don't worry," she assured him and he nodded.
"Don't drive Susan completely mental, Jenny," Rose told the infant with a pointed eyebrow and Jenny appeared suitably angelic for a moment or two.
"Yes, Mummy," was the more subdued answer, but Koschei suspected that Jackie Tyler's granddaughter was unlikely to remain docile for long. He kissed his wife over the baby's head and gave her a confident smirk.
"Come home safe," she pleaded and he kissed her again.
"The Doctor, Dar, and the Scout Commander will all be watching me like hawks, I'll be fine," he grumbled, still a bit irritated, but if it made Susan feel better, it was a small price to pay.
The Doctor and Rose waited patiently for Susan to say her goodbyes to him and he appreciated their forbearance. It was hard for him too. He'd nearly lost her so many times, been forced to be without her for such long stretches that he was a little paranoid of being separated from her as well. He held her for a while, her head tucked against his shoulder, with the baby complaining about the restrictions on movement and air, before releasing her.
"You be careful too, those terrorists are still out there," he reminded her and she nodded, eyes still troubled, but her chin up. He turned his back on her and went into the TARDIS, he didn't dare stop or look behind him, or he knew he wouldn't go.
Susan watched the TARDIS dematerialize and tried not to imagine a thousand horrible things happening to him. It was hard though. Lately it had seemed as though the whole universe was out to get them. She bounced Jenny in the carrier and checked her nappie with an absent motion.
"Sleepy," the baby informed her and snuggled against her.
"Just rest, then, I'll get you back to the lab and make up a bottle for you, okay?" Jenny murmured some affirmative babble and she hugged the baby very gently. She still ached to have a child of her own and as wonderful as it was to have Jenny for a few hours, while her parents ran their errand, it wasn't a real substitute for raising a child of her own. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what her children with Koschei might be like. She remembered the sweet little boy that Shay had been so long ago and smiled. It would be a joy to raise a child like that, to see him grow up without the trauma and grief his father had gone through. She would like that.
She headed back towards her lab and a tall figure stepped out into the road to intercept her.
"Father," she addressed him with far more courtesy than she had shown him in many years. He'd saved Koschei's life; she could be polite at least.
He was a good looking man, close to how images of grandfather had looked when he was quite young. Blond hair, blue eyes, a straight carriage, he was dressed with impeccable neatness and Susan wondered if he ever really just relaxed. Her mind flashed to an image of Koschei seated on the floor of the workshop, grease on his cheek, eyes filled with laughter, in jeans and a black t-shirt. The differences were profound.
"Daughter," he answered. "Could I speak with you?" She blinked in surprise. She had barely seen him since the wedding and rarely before that. He'd certainly made no effort to seek her out before this. On her chest, Jenny murmured and settled down to nap, she rocked lightly as she stood, and taking a deep breath answered him.
"It is your right," she conceded, which wasn't the most welcoming of responses, but it was still well within the formal gamut of polite behavior. He winced.
"Thank you." He took a deep breath and then gave her a formal bow. "I have come to beg your forgiveness, Susanatrevalar, for things done to you by myself, that were unforgivable." She bit down hard on her first response, which was that he was four hundred years too late with his apology, and made herself calm down, she didn't want to disturb the baby with her distress.
"I want to forgive you," she answered, abandoning the formal phrases and looking at her father with all the sadness and hurt inside of her. "I do," she told him and realized it was true. "But, it's hard. I lost my childhood because of you. I was homeless and exiled, an alien in every place I lived, for two hundred and eighty years. I spent all those years afraid, always looking over my shoulder, terrified that the Tower would catch up with me." She shook her head, trying to let go of that old fear.
"I know and I am so very sorry for that," he replied, his eyes dark with sorrow.
"When they did catch up with me Father, they tortured me, they ravaged my mind, they tried to break me apart and kill my soul. It was a thousand times worse than anything I'd imagined in my most terrible dreams." She took a deep breath. "I killed myself to keep them out of my center, Father, I stabbed myself through the throat with a knife and bled out my life on the floor of my cell, all alone." She hadn't told Grandfather that, she'd even hidden it from Koschei, afraid of how it might hurt him, but she had to make her father understand why forgiving him wasn't going to come easily to her.
"Oh, Susan," he whispered, his eyes gone desolate with the understanding of how much she'd suffered.
"Then Rassilon sent the Master in to break me. I had to fight for my life against him." She smiled and it was a pained twist of her lips. "That something so wonderful could come from something so terrible, still amazes me." She shook her head in wonder. She looked up then, meeting her father's eyes. "I then spent the next two hundred years fending off Rassilon's attempts to marry me off to some crony of his, to have me bound up and used as a vehicle for the Arkytior. I barely escaped being mind-raped by him. Only Darginian's breaking me out of prison saved me." He looked away from the raw agony in her eyes and in her mind. "Nowhere in all of that did yo ever raise either hand or voice in my defense. You never protested my treatment, nor offered me protection. So, I hope you will understand that it may take a while for me to stop hating you." It was a harsh thing to say to him, but it was the truth and she didn't have it in her to soften it just then.
"I can accept that," he told her in a voice that held regret, pain, and an understanding of his failures that would have made her feel better if there was any room in her for that. She was so tired of pain; she just wanted a peaceful life with the man she loved.
"Let's start with being civil, Father, and then see where that takes us, okay?" she asked, hoping he could see how hard she was trying to make an effort.
"That's a generous offer, Daughter, I accept," he answered and bowed to her again. She returned the bow with equal politeness and continued her journey to the lab.
It was a start, but she didn't know if she would ever be able to have any sort of father-daughter relationship with him. Too much time had passed and too many terrible things lay between them. Maybe though, she could start to put the past to rest.
Jenny's soft snores made a gentle counterpoint to her agonized thoughts.
The Doctor looked over at Rose and smiled. Five pilots at the console, it made him so happy he could barely speak. After being the only one of his kind for so long, to have other Time Lords to be around was still such a delight to him.
Especially these Time Lords. Koschei, the childhood friend he'd thought he'd lost forever, that sly smile on his face, as he teased Darginian about his haircut, sane and healing, and happier than he'd ever dreamed to be. Darginian, who had spent centuries being someone he didn't like, and who now finally had the opportunity to be on the side of the angels. Hedia, a woman he'd met only briefly during his travels, but had always found to be calm, sensible, and brave and of course, Rose. His Rose. There at his side, as she was always meant to be, and who would be at his side for the rest of their lives.
Not bad for a man who'd once thought he had no one left in all the universe.
"What exactly is wrong with my haircut?" Dar groused, glaring at Shay.
"Nothing, of course, nothing, Dar, it's the best example of modern art that I've seen in a very long while," Shay assured him with a guileless look.
"Modern art?"
"Well, actually more like a bit of Picasso, with just a touch of the Impressionists," he answered with a considering air, tilting his head from side to side, as though he were an art critic analyzing a new piece.
"I should have let those Daleks shoot you!" Dar grumbled and Shay propped his elbows on the console and grinned up at the ex-CIA agent with a winsome look.
"Aw, Dar, you do love me!" he shot back and Dar rolled his eyes.
"Tit," Dar growled, but his lips were twitching and his eyes were merry.
"Are they like this often?" Hedia asked with an arched eyebrow and Rose grinned.
"Honestly they don't get to be themselves much. Andred is always watching Koschei and gets a bit twitchy when he acts silly," Rose explained and Shay frowned at her.
"I am never silly, Lady Rose," he assured her in a pompous tone, sweeping her an elegant bow. "My wife, who is never wrong, assured me that I am 'ridiculous', so please use the correct terminology!" he insisted and Rose grinned back at him.
"My humblest apologies, my Lord Koschei!" she replied and swept him an answering bow in return. "I should, of course, have said 'when you act ridiculous'!"
"Your gracious apology is accepted, my dear Lady Rose," he returned with another sweeping bow and Rose laughed at his antics.
The Doctor was grinning too, but he was a little uncomfortable with the truth that Rose had voiced. Even after more than a year, Andred still had a repressive effect on Koschei. His natural ebullience, and his rather warped sense of humor, all had to be toned down around some of the others and it wasn't fair. It was understandable, but still not fair.
They were working the console, Shay covering two positions, since he was the best pilot amongst them, but the laughter and teasing wasn't even slowed by their concentration on flying.
"Susan doesn't mind your jokes, though, right?" the Doctor asked Koschei suddenly, still worrying. Shay looked up at him with a serious expression, as though he could see the Doctor's concerns and shook his head.
"Susan loved me even when I was a psychopath, Doctor, she's never wanted anything more for me than that I have the freedom to become the person I want to be," he answered and those crystal blue eyes were studying him, making sure he understood.
"I'm glad to hear that," he replied and Shay grinned.
"She would perhaps be a bit happier if I didn't make some sorts of jokes in public, but her worst form of censorship is that eye-roll of hers, which isn't exactly fierce."
"Yeah, it'd help her cause a bit if she wasn't giggling when you made those jokes, either," Rose put in and Shay smirked at her.
"There is that, as well," he agreed.
"Arrival at the Shadow Proclamation," Hedia announced, her face impassive, and the Doctor wondered what she thought of them all. She was so self-possessed it was hard to tell sometimes.
"Well, let's go face the music," Rose muttered and blew out her breath.
"Allons-y!" The Doctor grinned and bounced out the doors, wondering what brilliant thing he'd have to do today.
Rose was right on her husband's heels as they exited the TARDIS, with Koschei, Dar, and Hedia right behind them.
They were in a huge arboretum of some sort with high glass paned walls and ceilings that showed the endless depths of space outside. Inside plants from thousands of different worlds grew in terraces with white retaining walls, stepping downwards to a tiled plaza with inset mosaics of intertwined circles at the center of it.
Aliens of every conceivable type, and some that Rose had never actually conceived of, moved up and down the broad white staircases that passed through the terraces, or stood amongst the plants in clusters, talking to each other.
It was a lot for the ex-shop girl to take in and she clasped her hand around the Doctor's as she worked to adapt to her environment.
"You alright?" he asked.
"It's funny, you know. I can go for months or years dealing with the weirdest things imaginable and be quite fine, but then something like this comes along and I suddenly feel so very far from home," she told him and he nodded.
"We are very far from home, Rose."
"Not true," Hedia interrupted. She looked at Rose and touched her chest where her hearts were. "Home is right here." For a woman who looked like a thoroughbred race horse that had escaped from its pen and gone to live rough, Hedia, it seemed, had a poet's heart, Rose thought to herself.
"You're right Hedia, absolutely," Rose answered giving the Time Lady a broad smile.
"Let's go find the Shadow Architect," the Doctor murmured and they trooped off. It surprised Rose that no one seemed to be paying any attention to the Time Lords tromping through their base. They'd materialized in a public place and no one was even questioning their right to be there.
A glowing white circle of light appeared in front of her and Malla's swift warning made her step back, just as a bunch of four meter high marshmallow creatures appeared in the center of the glow. Apparently people beamed into and out of this place all the time without comment. How interesting.
"Adipose," Darginian murmured and rattled off something to the one in front that sounded rather like dolphin noises to her. The TARDIS translation circuits told her it was a greeting and that the sound like rubber balls bouncing was a return greeting, but it was just odd enough a language that even the TARDIS was reduced to vague generalizations.
"They're made of fat," Malla told her and Rose felt a bit ill as the creatures lumbered off, like huge Crisco sculptures, wobbly and a bit greasy.
"Ewwww," she replied in her mind.
"I have to admit that there are more appealing species in the universe, though they are really cute as infants," Malla admitted.
"Still ewwwwww." Malla laughed in the back of her head.
Malcolm Taylor was quite sure that Ellasiira was the most brilliant physicist he'd ever had the privilege of working with. However, he had noticed that her brilliance was mostly in the area of theoretical work. When it came to actual practical applications, she was far less able. His job was often to listen to her ramble, then steer her towards solutions that didn't involve detonating stars, lighting the atmosphere on fire, or collapsing the space time continuum.
"Well, if we streamed tachyon particles through a Feydor Archon Energy Collector and then magnified the graviton waves by a factor of 13.8536, I bet we could fast grow a temporal rift and use the energy to set up an oscillating dampener around the Eye of Harmony," she muttered and he blanched.
"What effect would a temporal rift have on the Eye itself," he asked her, doing the math with rapid strokes on the computer and coming up with an answer that made his heart stutter in fear.
"That's a good point," she conceded. "You're really smart!" Ellasiira smiled at him, her cheeks dimpling in the most adorable way, and he dropped his head into his hands. It was like having charge of an incredibly cute, but utterly destructive, puppy sometimes, he thought wearily to himself.
"How about if we supercharge the Archon energy and cycle it through a supernova?" she asked instead and Malcolm Taylor tried not to believe that the universe could accidently be destroyed by a freckle faced, three hundred year old girl, with the emotional development of a toddler, and an intellect that would shame Einstein, Feynman, and Heisenberg, but since it was all too likely a scenario, he couldn't convince himself.
He really regretted coming to this planet, sometimes.