Chapter 29 - Mad Love

Tomoko paced around the room as Diana spoke.

"I don't know what to do," Diana finally said. "Zoi and those of us like her would do better in a civilized society. But Neveah? It'll be years before she is ready for civilization. And I have no idea what we are going to with Moira or some of the others.

"Damn it all," Tomoko paced around the room, rubbing her forehead, then turned to Jake. "What is your evaluation of all of this?

"That you're going to need a horde of therapists," he sighed. "Moira-3 is barely sane most days, Devorah-4 can't function outside of a wartime footing, Maureen-65 is several cards short of a full deck, Nikki-69 is holding it together, but just barely. Honestly, once they are somewhere safe, I expect that they will all fall apart completely."

Tomoko closed her eyes, thinking.

"Can you put together a… a list? Of the people that need the most help?"

"Yeah, start at 3 and work your way down," Jake grumbled.

"But, skip 37," Diana added.

"No, don't skip 37," Jake frowned. "You need help too. All the crap you've gone through?" He shook his head. "You're reckless and self-destructive most days, its the way you express your anger and sense of betrayal."

"But," Diana looked almost bewildered, "Ever since I found you… I've been happy."

"Which doesn't negate all the trauma you went through! You think that being happy with me is going to cure all the damage? No, sweetheart, it doesn't work that way. You all need to sit down and work through all this, really come to terms with it all. You've had hundreds of years of systematic abuse, trauma, and been stuck in highly stressful situations all that time. That doesn't just go away!"

"But…" Diana said, and looked very doubtful.

"Yes, point taken," said Tomoko.

"Hey!" said Diana.

"Don't 'hey' me, he's quite right," Tomoko said.

Diana grumbled but desisted.

"All right, so, need to find about eighty therapists, how hard can it be," Tomoko sighed.

"I'm looking at you too, Tomoko," Jake muttered.

"I realize that and I appreciate the sentiment. However, I am not in a position to indulge in therapy for myself until some sort of options have been secured for the rest."

"Indulge?" Jake asked, eyebrow rising. "Yeah, that's exactly what I am talking about. None of you has the slightest grasp of the most basic elements of self-care!" He shook his head. "Therapy is a necessity for all of you, not an indulgence, and you can spare an hour a week to bloody well take care of yourself!"

"An hour with whom?" Tomoko countered. "I'm not saying that I don't need therapy or that I wouldn't go. I am saying that until I am certain we have the resources nailed down for the others, I wouldn't feel comfortable going. Once we have people lined up… then yes, it would probably be a good idea."

"Some of the Torchwood shrinks, or the UNIT ones, we have a whole slew of them on Gallifrey for the War Orphans and the other Time Lords, who are all pretty traumatized as well," Jake explained. "First rule of leadership though, Tomoko, 'Put your own mask on first, before helping others on with theirs'," he quoted with a sigh. "If you're not holding it together, you can't help anyone else."

"Ultimately correct," she agreed, but then frowned. "Is it your opinion that I am not holding it together now?"

"What do you think? Are you able to function at peak efficiency right now?" he asked instead.

"No," she replied after a moment of intense thought. "However, I believe I am operating at an efficiency which is suitable to secure a… a place in which such matters could be pursued. It will be sufficient for the time being."

"Then there's nothing to say." He shrugged and turned to read his notebook. "Look, this is your future. You lot discuss it. I'll pitch in if you need me, but you all have to decide for yourselves what you want."

Diana turned to Tomoko.

"What are our options?"

"The Doctor has given us a large number of options. With a TARDIS, we can go anywhere," she said, "He's also suggested Karn. It's a pristine world right next to Gallifrey. I'll present the various options to everyone, and we will see what they think."

"Okay, sounds good."

Tomoko nodded and left without another word; she recognized the look in Diana's eye when Diana looked at Jake. She resisted the urge to bang her head on the nearest wall. She considered pacing around in the cooling chamber, then discarded that too. More thinking wouldn't help: she needed data. It was late, but a chat with someone like the Doctor might be helpful: she decided to go to the console room and check to see if he was there.

Therapy. She had been so occupied with trying to secure some sort of physical place to live that she hadn't even considered what to do once they got there, wherever "there" was, either Karn or wherever the Mashas finally chose. The request was obvious, but staggering in its ultimate complexity. Even with the resources that Jake had named, the idea of trying to arrange it all was daunting.

The idea of she, herself, going to a therapist was even more daunting. But he was correct, she wasn't operating at peak efficiency. There was nothing to be scared of. She had read about therapy; the therapist would ask her how she felt and they would talk.

How would she answer the question if it were asked? How did she feel? That thought brought her up short and she considered it carefully.

Lonely. It was the truth, but she was shocked to realize it. She didn't really have anyone to talk to… and then she shook herself out of it. Ridiculous girl, that would be what the therapist would be for. Rolling her eyes at her own silliness, she headed back to work to think it over.


Guinn stood in the middle of his new rooms and tried not to feel 'd asked for two and been given five. A private bedroom, a study, a bathroom, a sitting room with an entertainment console, and a storage room for whatever he wanted to put away out of sight.

"I hope it's okay?" Susan asked tentatively and he put an arm around her, holding her against him and trying to speak.

"I'm feeling a little lost, I guess," he admitted.

"I'm feeling hungry!" Koschei interjected and made a sad face at his wife, who laughed and dropped a kiss on his pouting mouth.

"Shall I fetch you something?" she asked and he nodded. She gave Guinn a kiss as well and then headed off, smiling.

"What did you want to talk about?" Guinn asked Koschei.

"You know me too well," he snorted.

"That was inevitable," Guinn pointed out.

"I wanted to talk to you about that," Koschei said and pointed at the wardrobe.

"Ah."

"Look, I went looking for clothes, I found the box, I looked inside. Once I realized, well, I put it all back, but it was a violation of your privacy and I'm sorry," Koschei confessed and Guinn breathed out.

"I'm relieved. I'd thought the Doctor..." he trailed off.

"I know, it's why I wanted to tell you."

"But not around Susan?" he asked.

"Do you really want her knowing about it?" Koschei asked, head cocked and eyes unreadable.

"Omega, no!" he retorted. "I don't ever..." It hit him then. It him him that he'd lost her, that he'd found her again, but it was a different her. This Susan had gone on suffering, striving, growing, and she'd gotten a future that his had lost. It wasn't just his loss, Susan had died, she'd lost out on the future he saw around him and the pain of that rose up and ambushed him.

He was crying, sobbing, huge, wracking, painful gasps that shook his whole body. Koschei caught him up in his arms, holding him as the wall he'd erected between himself and his pain collapsed.

"I'm ... sorry... I don't know why ... now..." Guinn gasped, trying to get control, but Koschei shook his head.

"It's okay, just get it out. You lost Susan. She died. I don't think I'd ever get over that, not completely, even if I got another version back, it would never erase that original loss."

"She didn't just die," he said. "I killed her. With my own hands."

"Oh Stars, I'm so sorry," Koschei gasped out, and his eyes were shut tightly, tears welling up, his face agonized. "Oh Guinn..." The words seemed wrenched out of him, his shoulders hunching with pain.

Guinn didn't know what to do, but he hugged Koschei back, clinging to him like he was a liferaft in a storm.

"I…" he took a breath, "failed her. I should go away and let the two of you have your future. I destroyed mine."

"You're wrong. There's nothing for me without her and I know it's the same with you. You might as well take some aspirin and be done with it, because life without her isn't worth living. Besides, if you think, even for a moment, that she'd let you go, then you must have missed the last few days. Did you have any intention of getting near her at all?" he asked ruefully.

"Yes. No. Yes." Guinn sighed. "I'm not going anywhere, Omega help me, I don't have the willpower."

"I'm intimately familiar with that problem." Koschei groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. "She looks at me and I'm on my knees."

"Tell me about it," he said ruefully. "I just…" he shook his head, thinking about what to say. "Worry. Worry about what my Susan might think, I killed her and now I am… off having fun with her replacement? And I worry about you and her, you two had a good thing going, and I am disrupting all of that, I just…" He closed his eyes. "The important thing is that she is happy."

"Look, I know her. I know her soul, her mind, and I can tell you that she'd never begrudge you an instant of joy. She would have died worrying about you. Susan... I was dying... I couldn't regenerate. She shot herself in the head, killed herself to trigger her own regeneration, and then gave me half."

Guinn stared at him, shocked into silence by the images evoked by Koschei's words.

"She could have died permanently, we were trapped underground, I could have lost her and all she cared about was saving me! Me! The most wretched, worthless creature in the universe and she was willing to die for me! So, don't you dare insult her by even suggesting that she would ever do anything so damn petty as to be jealous that you were happy. If she thought it would make you happy, she'd die a thousand times over." Koschei turned away, his face messy with tears and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "I have never deserved her, never, but I'd do anything for her and that means that you're going to be part of our lives, because if you weren't happy, she'd be crushed. So I am going to bloody well make sure you're happy! Understand!" It wasn't the most cogent speech ever given, but it was heartfelt and sincere.

Guinn put a hand on his arm.

"Easy," he soothed. "I'm not going anywhere."

Koschei nodded and gave him a sheepish look.

"Sorry, I just can't think about that without getting ...upset," he admitted.

"I understand that," he said, trying not to remember the way that the light had died from Susan's eyes.

Susan bustled back in with a tray of food and a Thermos of tea, looking at them both with a smile.

Guinn could feel her happiness, the way she just glowed with joy and wondered at it. Here she was, lovely, smart, and wonderful, and she was happy with what? He looked at Koschei and then back at himself. The two of them were half-mad, broken monsters and yet, she looked up at them like they were princes in a storybook.

"I brought some of the lasagne for you both," she told them and Guinn found himself smiling back at her without realizing that he was doing so.

"Thank you, my love," Koschei replied and kissed her softly, before he took a plate and cup from her.

"Susan," Guinn started and something in his tone must have worried her, because her smile started to fade. "Thank you, I was starving," he said quickly, changing what he'd been about to say. He smile widened again and he took the plate and cup trying not to feel like a horrible fraud.

His new sitting room had a table in it, so they settled around it to eat. After a few bites, Guinn realized that he had actually been quite hungry and he ate it all.


"Well, things seem to be mostly done," the Doctor informed Adie, while wiping his hands with a cloth. "TARDIS self-repair functions should have the rest sorted shortly."

They were standing in the console room of her TARDIS and the Doctor was feeling a glow of satisfaction for having gotten the repairs done. His wife was curled up in a chair nearby, working on the equations that they needed, through occasionally she would look up and grin at him. He was just happy that she was alive.

"I think it won't take too long," Adie said, looking up with a nervous half-smile.

"Nope," he agreed. "So, Guinn thinks we ought to leave the Loop tomorrow and that will be well in time to stop the Manifold from getting too large. The time differential has really worked in our favour here."

"Yes," she agreed, all traces of happiness vanishing from her face. "We should be able to catch up to the Manifold quickly."

"Adie, don't fret too much," he soothed. "Susan and Koschei will protect you and if your young man is out there, we'll track him down, not to worry."

"You keep saying that!" she burst out suddenly. "Gallifrey is gone and the Time Lords are dead and what are the chances.." She stopped suddenly and clapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry, I'm sorry," she said.

"That's a good question, don't be sorry," he told her. "The chances? What were the chances that any of us would survive? Yet, we did. We keep finding more survivors all the time, too. There are so many places out there where someone could be hiding out, or trapped. We just don't know. I will tell you something though, Rassilon was mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but he wasn't stupid. He needed that young man, alive and intact, so he would have put him somewhere safe, my dear."

"Yes, you're probably right, I'm sure he's just between a set of gigantic couch cushions somewhere," she said with a slight smile, turning to her toolbox and dropping her sonic in it. Then she paused. "Wait… A Singer, you said?" Adie chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Does she have blonde hair?"

"No, it's as red as Susan's, though a shade brighter," Rose replied. "Or so Susan said."

"Huh," Adie said thoughtfully, closing the toolbox and wiping her hands with a rag.

"Why?" the Doctor asked.

"There was an Aislynn who visited the Command Centre once. I met her briefly. She and Farian were having… an enthusiastic discussion, I suppose, and when I came to investigate, he introduced me."

"How very odd," the Doctor muttered. "I wonder if she has anything to do with the Project. We'll have to ask her when we get back."

"No, I… I don't think so. I never saw her again and I was familiar with everyone who was working on the Project."

"Still, I wonder why she was there? It makes no sense." He frowned fiercely at the air, like he was expecting an answer to materialize in front of him.

"A lot of things went on at the Command Centre that made no sense to me," Adie mused, "especially as the war gained steam."

"Well, did you ever see a kick-line of nuns?" he asked.

"Um… no?"

"Then it probably didn't get to be that fun sort of no sense," he complained. "Nonsense is only interesting when it's the fun sort."

"Doctor!" Rose sighed. "Not to worry, Adie, we'll just ask her when we see her again, that's all."

"If she can tell you… I heard, much later, that she became Infected. Farian was just inconsolable."

"Were they very close friends?" the Doctor asked.

"They must have been. He was just so upset, but… I never saw them together and never heard them talk to each other. There were also no letters or communications that I was aware of."

"Well, I doubt that you could have known every communication in or out, after all, they knew Rassilon was about, they'd all have been careful." The Doctor was looking pensive, his mind ticking over visibly.

"Yes, and it's certainly possible that she could have set up secret communiques, particularly as a Singer, they were almost always assigned to coded communications." He nodded his agreement and Rose cocked her head, her energy shifting suddenly to Malla's.

"The Lady Aislynn was no ordinary Singer either," she informed them with an arched brow and the rolling elegant tones of a Gallifreyan noblewoman. "She was very young during the War, the youngest Singer in the combat zones, but brilliant and exceedingly competent. I worked with her at the Academy, I tutored her in Block Transfer Mathematics. Mind you, she quickly moved beyond me. A Singer has an intuitive grasp that we computationists can but envy."

"There were a number of computationists involved in the project, but no Singers," Adie mused thoughtfully.

"Well, a Singer could have slipped in a few lines of code that might have altered reams of computations. You cannot induce a Singer to do anything they choose not to, they can warp the reality around you and that is not something that person would have allowed," Malla explained and the way she called Rassilon 'that person' conveyed a contempt and hatred that was no less impressive for it's coolness.

"Are you telling me that… that you think Aislynn may have altered the Lens somehow?" Adie sounded alarmed.

"My dear girl, she could have Sung the whole place into a different configuration and no one would have been any the wiser for it. Only a careful analysis of the maths might have revealed it, but even then it's doubtful. You must realize that the computations themselves, the Songs, change the very nature of reality! If you could Sing the correct Song, you could unmake reality. It would take the combined strength of a thousand Singers, but it could be done. Logopolis held back the entropic death of the universe for a considerable time! All through their computations and Chants! It's a power that we are very lucky that only a scant few posses."

"Why didn't they just sing away the War, then?" Adie asked with a frown.

"They would have had to Sing away the entire Dalek Army, my dear, and there weren't enough of them to do so. Destroying one fleet alone, nearly killed our strongest Singer and the Scout Commander was crippled by it, unable to Sing again. We only ever had a half dozen of them at any given time and it would have taken a hundred to rid us of the Daleks, or we would have ages ago." She looked at the Doctor with a frown. "We tried other methods, with limited success."

"I see… thank you for the clarification, Malla."

"Not at all, I have far more experience with this sort of maths than the Doctor or Rose do," she replied and then faded out as Rose's energy moved forwards again.

"Bugger, I hate it when she does that," Rose snorted, her strong cockney accent startling after Malla's elegant diction. "You know, she lost her bondmate too." Rose gave her a look of sympathy. "So, I do understand why you're nervous."

"Yeah, but he's in here," the Doctor replied, tapping his skull. "They're still together, regardless."

Adie smiled and tried not to look nervous. She failed spectacularly.

"Ah, not comforting, eh?" he sighed. "Sorry."

"It's all right," she tried to smile. "It isn't your fault."

"No, not my fault, yet still my mess to clean up," he chuckled. "Don't worry too much though, I have a knack for doing the impossible."

"That's actually true. He saved Queen Victoria from a werewolf, you know."

"Okay..." Adie replied, having no idea who they were talking about.

"Mind you, she was a bit stuffy, really," Rose complained.

"That was after Albert died, you should have seen her when she was younger! That girl could dance the night away!" the Doctor enthused.

"Ah, I see the mistake of the werewolf. He should have just asked her to dance," Adie suggested.

"No, he thought that if he took over her body, he could rule England, apparently no one had explained about the Magna Carta or what 'Constitutional Monarchy' actually meant to it," the Doctor muttered. "That's the problem with Mad Monks, they always forget the little details."