She Wants

The Doctor set up the chess board for Adelaide and the Cyberplanner before stepping back, staying by her side. A few times, when Adelaide flashed back, her hand would twitch towards him.

The Cyberplanner made the first move. "There, that was easy. The game has just started." Adelaide said nothing. "I must ask, why is there no record of either of you anywhere in the databanks of the Cyberiad?" She smirked. "Oh, you're good. You've been eliminating yourself from history. You know you could be reconstructed by the hole you've left?"

"As a story."

"Some stories are true."

|C-S|

"The rules of chess allow only a finite number of moves, and I can use other Cyberunits as remote processors," the Cyberplanner scoffed. "You cannot possibly win."

Adelaide didn't look overly bothered. "Inconsequential. Are you aware that very early versions of the Cyber operating system could be seriously scrambled by exposure to things like gold or cleaning fluid? The Doctor explained it to me once; you know well I never bothered with code. And something I've just learned is that you're still running some of it."

"Really? That's your secret weapon? Cleaning fluid?"

|C-S|

"Gold, actually." The Doctor, thankfully, understood exactly what she meant and slapped the golden ticket to her cheek. Adelaide closed her eyes, twitching, but he knew it had worked. "Thank you," she breathed, opening her eyes and reaching for his hand for a moment, before turning to Webley and the children. "You three, follow us. We'll bring the chessboard."

The Doctor gathered it quickly, somehow doing it one-handed because Adelaide did not seem willing to let go of him right now.

|C-S|

The Time Lords, with Webley and the children following, hurried towards where Clara and the soldiers had set up base. The soldiers instantly raised their weapons, but the Doctor used the chessboard as a sort of shield. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot, we're nice! Please, don't shoot!" the soldiers lowered their arms as Clara hurried over. "Hey, Clara, you haven't let them blow up the planet. Good job."

"Did you get the kids? Are they alright?" Clara paused, noticing the gold stuck to Adelaide's face. "What's going on?"

"Er…a bit of a good news, bad news, good news again thing going on." The Doctor squeezed Adelaide's hand. "So, good news, Adelaide's kidnapped the Cyberplanner and right now she's sort of in control of that Cyberman."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Bad news?"

"The Cyberplanner's in my head," Adelaide said.

The Doctor nodded. "And, different bad news, the kids are, well…it's complicated."

"Complicated how?"

"Complicated as in…walking coma." The Doctor hid behind the chessboard again, the Time Lords stepping to the side to reveal the children.

Clara hurried forward, studying them, before looking back at the Time Lords. "Please tell me you can wake them up."

"Hope so."

"Other good news?"

"Well, in other good news, there are a few more repaired and reactivated Cybermen on the way…"

"And the Cyberplanner's installing a patch for the gold," Adelaide said. "Neither of which is good news."

The Doctor winced. "Okay, so, good news…Adelaide has a very good chance of winning her chess match."

Clara shook her head. "What?"

"We'll explain later. In a bit of a hurry."

Adelaide nodded. "Get me to a table and restrain me." The Doctor frowned. "Only hands free, Doctor. I won't let the Cyberplanner hurt anyone."

|C-S|

The Doctor really didn't like having to tie Adelaide up, but she kept reminding him that she didn't want the Cyberplanner to do anything, especially since she wouldn't be able to stop it with the gold again. "Everything will be fine," she told him, taking his hand for the last time before he stepped back. "I can handle this."

"I know you can," he nodded. "But I'm still worried…"

"If I need to, I will regenerate and burn the Cyberplanner from me. Everything will be fine." The Doctor squeezed her hand again before stepping back, letting Adelaide test the restraints. "Very good. Hands free, but unable to move."

Clara stepped up, looking nervous, beside the Doctor. "You're playing chess with yourself?"

"And winning." With a nod, Adelaide pulled the gold from her face, becoming the Cyberplanner instantly. Clara actually leaped at the change, spotting it too.

"Actually, she has no better than a twenty-five percent chance of winning at this stage in the game. Some very dodgy moves at the beginning." She smirked at Clara. "Hello, flesh girl. Pleasure. I'm the Cyberplanner."

Clara frowned. "Adelaide?"

"Afraid not. I'm working the mouth now." She chuckled. "Oh, you should see the state of these neurons. She's had some cowboys in here. Five complete resets. Betrayed almost every time, apparently. She's not that good at making friends. Debtors, yes, but not many friends. Oh, if she wanted, she could have half the universe bowing at her feet…"

The Doctor clenched his fists. "Stop talking and play."

The Cyberplanner fixed her attention on Clara. "And you, the impossible girl, are her current mystery. Oh, she's very interested in you. Maybe even a bit jealous?" She looked at the Doctor again. "Worried you're Aligned to someone else?"

She was lying. He knew she was lying. The Cyberplanner just wanted to rile him up, wanted to distract Adelaide. But it wouldn't work, he knew it wouldn't.

Clara, who didn't understand what Aligning was, shook her head. "Why am I impossible?"

The Cyberplanner's gaze snapped back to her. "Haven't they told you? The sly devil, that cold woman…oh, dear me. Listen, soon we'll wake. We'll strip you down for spare parts, then build a spaceship and move on."

"More Cybermen."

She nodded. "They're waking from their tomb right now. You can either die or live on as one of us."

Clara shook her head. "The Doctor and Adelaide will stop you."

"Please? She can't even access the lips and he can't bear to see her in harm's way."

She was cut off by the Doctor surging forward to kiss Adelaide quite soundly. The Time Lady was the one to pull away, gasping, but he knew it had worked.

Sudden kissing did wonders to shock someone.

"Neural surge…" Adelaide breathed, her face going slightly red despite herself. "Thank you."

"Took inspiration from Donna," he nodded.

Clara frowned. "Why am I the impossible girl?"

"We'll explain later," Adelaide told her quickly.

"Chess game…stakes?"

Adelaide took a breath. "If she wins, I give up my mind and she gets access to all my memories, along with knowledge of time travel and some very dicey secrets about some very powerful people throughout history. But if I win, she'll break her promises to get out of my head and kill us all anyway."

Clara frowned, looking between the Time Lords. The Doctor looked worried, even more so now, but Adelaide somehow still looked rather calm. "That's not reassuring."

"No, but it's the situation we're currently dealing with."

Clara looked over at the children, who were standing there motionless. "Please tell me you can fix whatever happened to the children."

The Doctor waved a hand, still focusing on Adelaide. "Children, yeah, they're fine. I mean, right now their brains are just in standby mode."

"That is not fine!"

"Right now they have a much better chance of getting out of this situation alive than you do," the Cyberplanner scoffed.

Clara tensed. "Which one of you said that?"

"Me. Cyberplanner. Miss Clever. Now, if you don't mind, I have a chess game to finish, and you have to die, pointlessly and very far from home." She waved. "Toodle-oo."

Before Clara stepped away, the Doctor held out his hand for the remote trigger. The woman paused for a second, looking at Adelaide, before pressing it into the Doctor's hand and hurrying off. The Time Lord slid it into his pocket before turning back to Adelaide, who was watching him.

|C-S|

Adelaide flinched, frowning at the Cyberplanner. "What are you doing?"

The Cyberplanner just smirked. "It's time to get up. Wakey, wakey, boys and girls. Wakey, wakey!"

|C-S|

Adelaide, pausing the game, looked up at the Doctor. "What's wrong?"

"I don't like this."

"And neither do I." She met his eyes for a second. "But it's the situation at the moment, and unless I regenerate there's nothing I can do about it."

"Why don't you? You could get rid of the threat right now."

"I'm not certain what would happen to the children if I destroyed the Cyberplanner. How connected they are. I don't want to risk them unnecessarily."

He nodded. "You're certain you can win?"

"Are you doubting me?" the small smirk made the Doctor pause. He knew Adelaide could look like that, he'd seen her look like that, but not recently, not in a long time. Not in front of him. "You're not certain if I'm me or not." He didn't nod, but he didn't contradict her. "Ask me a question. Something only I would know the answer to."

"What did you tell me the first time we met?" She frowned, but he knew Adelaide would have remembered. And he knew that Adelaide wouldn't have allowed the Cyberplanner access to any memories of Gallifrey. "Don't lie to me. Don't pretend to be her when you're not."

The Cyberplanner smirked. "Hard to tell the difference though, wasn't it? Gave you a moment of doubt."

She twitched, more than she had before. "Where am I?" But it wasn't Adelaide speaking, or the Cyberplanner. "Help me!"

It was Caroline.

It pained the Doctor, but he slapped Adelaide - as lightly as he could and still be effective - to force her back into her own head. "How…" she breathed, barely able to focus on what had just happened before her left hand leaped up, grabbing the Doctor's arm. "No!"

The other reached into his jacket, grabbing the trigger before he could stop her, before she could stop herself, and threw it against the wall. It shattered.

Everything softened, but Adelaide was shaking. "She got what she wanted. She destroyed the trigger." Her expression darkened, and the Doctor stepped back. "My move."

And then she smirked, the Cyberplanner back. "Good news, boys and girls! They're here!" They heard the sounds of battle and the Doctor ran to the window, watching it. "I've learned so much from you, Adelaide. It's been an education. But now, it's time for the endgame. They're nearly here." She focused on the chess game again. "Now, you can take my bishop and keep limping on for a little longer, or you can sacrifice your queen and get the children back. But it's mate in five moves, and I get your mind."

The smirk shifted, becoming Adelaide's, becoming pleased and subtle, something instinctive when something was going her way.

It had always annoyed people on Gallifrey, particularly when they were playing chess.

"Take my queen and return the children," she said calmly.

The Cyberplanner scoffed. "Emotions. So unbecoming on you. Can't you see what a foolish move that was? You've lost the game."

Adelaide didn't seem that bothered. "Children?"

The Doctor turned as Angie and Artie fell to the ground, hurrying over to remove the devices from their temples.

"Emotions, Adelaide, all for two human children you barely know. Seems to happen to you a lot recently; you let your people die, but you risked the universe to save Amelia Pond. Doesn't it pain you, to sacrifice something you hold so dear?"

"You know nothing of sacrifice."

Webley started walking forward. "Welcome to Webley's World of Wonders, children. Now presenting delights, delicacies, and death."

"Doctor!" Angie cried.

Porridge, who'd run into the room, grabbed Webley's leg with a pulser, deactivating him, but the blast sending him flying across the room to land under the chess table.

The Time Lord squeezed Angie's shoulders. "Angie, look after Artie, okay?"

"Your move," Adelaide told the Cyberplanner. "But, before you take it, you might be interested to know that sacrificing my queen was the best possible move I could have made. The Time Lords invented chess; it's our game. And if you don't avoid my trap, it gives me mate in three moves." She looked up at the Doctor, the man starting to smirk now too.

It wasn't an ideal plan, but Adelaide was willing to do it.

"How?" She didn't answer the Cyberplanner. "How?"

"I thought you were a chess-playing robot?"

"How!"

"I have confidence that you'll figure it out. Or perhaps you don't have the processing power…" she flinched. "Thought you'd do that."

"Three million Cyberbrains are working on one tiny chess problem. How long do you think it's going to take us to solve it?" A second, and the Cyberplanner frowned. "There's no way you can get to mate in three moves."

"Would you like to know what they are?"

"You're lying!"

"I've just been spending a few centuries with a 'sly devil'." Adelaide picked up Porridge's pulser. "Move one, turn on sonic pen." She flicked it on. "Move two, activate pulser." She soniced it. "Move three, amplify pulser. It's been fun!" she slammed it against her face, breathing hard, but the metal implants fell from her face and she fell forward. When she straightened, she was grinning. "You can be wonderful inspiration sometimes, Doctor. Now, can you untie me, please?" The Doctor ran over, hurrying to do just that, and then gave her quite a hard hug. That contact was precisely what she needed at the moment. "Thank you."

"Sorry about the kiss," he whispered.

"It was effective." She pulled back, forcing herself to separate. "We don't have much time to waste."

Clara, who'd run into the room at some point that Adelaide didn't really know, frowned at her. "What happened to the Cyberplanner?"

"Out of my head and redistributed across three million Cybermen, and preparing to wake them all up, kill us, and begin constructing a spaceship."

The Doctor nodded. "We need to destroy this planet before they can get off it." He hurried over to the bomb, Adelaide joining him. "Okay, it has a fallback voice activation."

One of the soldiers shook his head. "The Captain, but she's dead."

"I think you should ask Porridge," Angie said.

"Why?"

The girl shrugged. "Well, he is the Emperor. I bet he knows the activation codes." Everyone else but Adelaide looked between Porridge and Angie. "Oh, come on, it's obvious. He looks exactly like he does on the coin, and on the waxwork, except they made him a bit taller, but…look, am I the only one paying attention to anything around here?"

Adelaide smiled. "I like you, Angie." The girl grinned at her, pleased.

Clara shook her head. "You are full of surprises. Porridge?"

The man sighed. "She's right."

"So you can save us?"

"We all die in the end. Does it matter now?"

A soldier frowned. "What do we do?"

"I don't want to be Emperor. If I activate that bomb, it's all over."

"And if you don't," Adelaide told him, "three million Cybermen will spread across the galaxy."

The Doctor nodded. "Isn't that worth dying for?"

"But…"

"Three million Cybermen!"

Porridge clenched his jaw, stepping forward. "The bomb, the throne, it's all connected. I just have to say this is Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick, called Longstaff the forty-first. The Defender of Humanity, Imperator of known space. Activate the Desolator." The device activated. "And it's done. It'll blow in about eighty seconds. Easily long enough for the Imperial Flagship to locate me from my identification, warp jump into orbit, and transmat us to the State Room."

A second he finished speaking, they were teleported into a room Adelaide recognized, though it had been updated since the last time she'd visited.

The Doctor spun as he took it all in. "Oh, yeah, nice ship. Not blue enough."

"There's a blue police telephone box at coordinates 6-ultra-19P. Can you transmit it up here, please?"

Porridge nodded, glancing at the woman sitting at the control panel. "Right. Did you get that?" The panel beeped once the task had been completed. "And that's that. Seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine…" the planet below exploded, rocking the Imperial ship. "Farewell, Cyberiad. You know," Porridge sighed, "it was good to get away. Good to be a person and not to be lonely, or Emperor of a thousand galaxies with everyone waiting for me to tell them what to do."

"Can't you run away again?" Artie asked.

"They'll be keeping a close eye on me this time. That's what happens when you're Emperor. Loneliest job in the universe."

Clara shrugged. "You don't have to be lonely."

"I don't…" Porridge turned, dropping to one knee before Clara. "Clara, will you marry me?"

The woman's eyes widened. "What?"

"He said…" Artie whispered.

"She heard what he said," Angie told him.

"You're smart and you're beautiful, and I've never met anyone like you before. And being Emperor won't be as hard if you're by my side. And you'd rule a thousand galaxies…"

The Doctor, who had yet to let go of Adelaide, frowned. "This sounds like an actual marriage proposal. Tricky." He leaned forward. "Now, if you want my advice…"

Clara held a hand up behind her, not looking. "You, not one word." Adelaide pulled the Doctor back beside her. "This is between me and the Emperor. Porridge, I don't want to rule a thousand galaxies."

Porridge sighed, nodding. "Yeah. Silly of me."

"I'm really sorry."

Angie crossed her arms. "But that's stupid. You could be queen of the universe. How can you say no to that? When someone asks you if you want to be queen of the universe, you say 'yes'! You watch. One day, I'll be queen of the universe."

Porridge laughed. "Of course, I could have you all executed, which is what a proper Emperor would do. Especially you, Adelaide."

The Doctor's eyes widened, looking at Adelaide, but the Time Lady just shrugged. "You're not actually going to do that, though, are you…" the Doctor said. Porridge smiled. "Oh, you're…hey!"

"Go on, get out of here, all of you," Porridge waved a hand, "before I change my mind."

Adelaide pulled the Doctor back to the TARDIS, waving at Porridge as they left.

|C-S|

Artie shook the Doctor's hand quite vigorously, having just stopped doing the same to Adelaide. "Thank you for having me. It was very interesting."

The Doctor grinned. "Our pleasure. Thank you for coming. Now," he pointed at Angie, "I've got something for you."

"It's not from him, it's from the TARDIS," Adelaide corrected as the Doctor plucked a new phone from somewhere in the console.

Angie grinned. "Thanks."

The Doctor stopped beside Adelaide, slinging an arm over her shoulder. "You're welcome."

"Sorry I said this box was stupid."

"We appreciate the apology," Adelaide nodded. "Goodbye."

"Bye! Thanks, Clara," Angie nodded at Clara as she left the TARDIS.

"Thanks, Clara's friends!" Artie called, following his sister.

Clara laughed. "Thank you, Doctor, Adelaide."

"For what?"

"Kid's day out, getting us off the planet alive, whatever you were doing with the Cybermen. Goodnight." She gave them a small salute and left the TARDIS. "See you next Wednesday!"

"Well," the Doctor shrugged, "a Wednesday, definitely. Next Wednesday, last Wednesday. One of the Wednesdays."

Once Clara closed the door, Adelaide leaned back against the console, taking a breath. "I've had quite enough of being trapped in my head, fighting for control," she sighed.

The Doctor moved to lean against the console beside her, taking her hand again. "I won't let it happen to you anymore."

She chuckled. "That's an impossible promise."

"I don't care. I'll make it true." He squeezed their hands. "I promise."

Adelaide said nothing more for a moment, just rested her head against the Doctor's shoulder. It was nice to just stand there, as much as Adelaide could sometimes abhor physical contact. But the Doctor was different. The Doctor was nice.

The Doctor had changed her.

Before the war, Adelaide wouldn't have thought to do what she did to get rid of the Cyberplanner. Really, she didn't know what she would have thought of. But she hadn't been lying when she'd said that the Doctor had inspired her. His way of thinking, of improvising and taking chances and sometimes not thinking out the outcomes, had filtered into her.

When she'd regenerated into this body, she'd tried to return to the logical way of thinking she'd once known. She'd tried to become the person she'd thought she'd be most comfortable in.

But she'd changed. The moment the war had happened, the moment she'd been forced to make the choice between her people and the rest of the universe, the moment she'd been offered the chance to really run, she'd changed.

And as much as she might have wanted to, Adelaide couldn't go back.

She couldn't become the woman who'd looked out at her from the Cyberplanner's eyes because Adelaide knew that, once upon a time, that version of her would have been the optimal. Emotionless, calculating, logical. It had always been what she'd wanted to become, what she'd started out as in her first regeneration. It still was, at the core of her identity.

But every regeneration since she'd lost some of that. Every interaction she'd had with the rest of the universe had shifted something inside of her. She'd still been able to put on a front, still been able to think like that, to weigh everything properly, but it grew more difficult as time went on.

The version of Adelaide the Time Lords had wanted had been that logical one. And she'd refused them. She'd run from that.

Then she'd met the Doctor and he'd ensured she'd stayed away.

She could try to regenerate again, try to reset herself, but it wouldn't work, not anymore. Not like she wanted it to.

But just because Adelaide could admit it, just because she could acknowledge it, didn't mean she liked it. Didn't mean that her pace didn't quicken, her jaw didn't tighten, at the thought that she couldn't maintain the walls between her emotions and her decisions anymore.

"Is something wrong?" the Doctor asked her quietly, frowning. He'd watched the shift in her expression, but he wasn't privy to the thoughts in her head.

"I'm not her anymore…" she breathed.

The Doctor didn't know exactly what she meant, but he had enough tact to know not to say that to her at the moment.

A/N: A very important episode for Adelaide and her identity.