This felt...different.
The closest the Singer had come to this emotion was how she'd felt directly after her regeneration; a release, a rush of exhilaration. But this time, there was joy there too, buried under everything.
Because there were people here. Actual, real-life, living and breathing people.
The Singer didn't recognize three of them who were looking at her with a combination of surprise and confusion, so she didn't pay them much attention.
The mind of another pulsed against hers, recognition breaking across that woman's face. It took longer for the same to come across the Singer. It took effort for it to break through the now perpetual TARDIS song, but it was there. It was the Doctor, regenerated and wide-eyed, and the Singer was thankful to see her sibling again.
But it was the final two whom the Singer focused on the most because it took no effort to recognize her twins.
They were o much bigger. So adult. So tall. Teenagers now. Centuries had passed.
"Mum..." Nella whispered. The Singer couldn't see her eyes through her sunglasses, but her voice made it clear she was close to tears.
Even though the last time the Singer had seen her children when they were small children and their faces had changed, they each had a bearing that the Singer recognized from her spouse.
They were the Master's children, a fact that made the Singer hurt with the reality and the familiarity. But they were here. They were back. They'd come back to her.
She'd survived, and her twins had found their way back to her.
The Singer took a step towards them. She'd been barefoot for some time now. "It's you..."
Nella rushed forward, grasping the Singer's hands before pulling her mother into a tight embrace. The Singer clung to her and to Rikou when he joined them. She did not cry, as all of her tears had dried up long ago, but she held them with all the strength she had left.
She just held them, buried her face into them. Could never dream of letting go again.
They were so big now. So strong on their own.
She pulled back, but it was only to put hands on their cheeks, to know they were real, and here, and in front of her, and her children.
"How are you..." the Singer stroked her thumbs on her children's cheeks. They were old now, over two hundred if she remembered how Gallifreyans aged correctly. Two hundred years of their lives that the Singer had never seen. But they were here, they had found her. They could talk about those two hundred years later because they were here. "Where are we?"
Rikou frowned. "You don't know where you are?"
"I haven't been able to leave." From the moment she had woken up however long ago it had been, her sibling's TARDIS had refused to open for her, or turn on any of the devices that could actually tell her their location. She had actually begun to doubt that she was alive at all and would instead be existing the rest of her life in perpetual purgatory, locked inside of a TARDIS.
Granted, it had been a long time since she'd been able to spend extended time within her sorella, but even that grew incredibly tiring after a while. Particularly when she knew that, if she was alive, her children were out there, being raised by the Master. She wanted to be able to leave to find them, resulting in quite a few shouting sessions at the Doctor's TARDIS, to no result. Thankfully, they had found her.
"It doesn't matter where we are, we're leaving now," Nella said, bringing up one hand to touch the Singer's. Given both her and Rikou's sunglasses, the Singer could not see their eyes, and it pained her, though she knew recognizing her and the Master's past regenerations in them would hurt even more. "How long were you here?"
"Never been that good on years. The ship has been in phase the entire time. Like she was panicking." The Singer closed her eyes, letting the TARDIS song trickle back into focus. She had to fight to keep it back after so long not resisting, so it was an effort not to let her entire focus be taken up by the TARDIS. It reminded her of her youth on Gallifrey when TARDISes had been too loud and too strong without the methods to keep the songs contained. "She's still settling." When she opened her eyes again, she was looking at the Doctor. "You were supposed to be dead."
The Doctor had tears in her eyes. "So were you." She rushed forward, and the twins parted so that the siblings could embrace. "Oh, Singer. I don't believe it." They pulled apart again, the Doctor moving to the Singer's side apparently just so that she could grin at the three strangers.
"And who are you?" the woman of the strangers asked.
"This is the Singer." The Doctor wrapped an arm around the Singer's shoulders. "My little sister."
"I thought you said everyone else was lost."
"They were. But we found her again." The Doctor brought the Singer forward, gesturing with her free hand to the three of them. "This is Yasmin, I call her Yaz, this is Ryan, and this is Graham. They're my new friends. Came along because of an accident, namely my fault, but we found the TARDIS again, so everything is going to be fine."
The Singer nodded to the people, though she quickly turned her focus back to the twins. They were at her side in an instant, reaching for her outstretched hand.
They were so old now. She could only see glimpses of the children she remembered. So much had changed. Like they were almost strangers.
"Now," the Doctor said, stepping away from the Singer to go up to the console, "let's get back to Earth!" She held out a hand to the controls, which the Singer approached with a grin.
Finally. She had spent far too long just rummaging through the Doctor's ship and flicking things on the console just to see what they did, even though nothing would happen. For someone who had never truly cared about piloting TARDISes on Gallifrey, she had become quite obsessed with doing so now.
She blamed those years of traveling with the Doctor.
And being trapped inside of one that refused to do anything she said.
The Singer wanted to spend all the time she could with the twins, but that could wait until they got rid of the humans. Besides, the twins were still close to her. They were still real.
The TARDIS shook as they piloted, but the siblings very quickly began to understand how the ship operated. The Doctor found a biscuit from somewhere in the console, tossing another to the twins. When they landed, it was Rikou who darted out to look out the door, though he quickly looked back at them, eyebrows raised. There was something so distinctly Master-like in his expression that the Singer felt her hearts stutter.
"Nope," he said. "Right planet though. Just a bit off." He held open the door more, revealing a dinosaur attempting to fly right at the ship. Rikou just managed to close it before it flew inside.
"Oh, my God," Ryan gasped. "Is that real?"
"Quite. And very dangerous," Nella said, coming to fill an empty space around the console.
"Never hurts to try again," the Doctor said, and they went through the process again. The twins were not wonderful at flying TARDISes, but better than the Singer knew most Gallifreyans would be, particularly at their age.
The Master must have taught them.
After quite a few more failed attempts, landing extremely briefly in various places throughout Earthen history that the Singer barely recognized, the Singer stepped away from everyone to just listen to the ship attempt to communicate through her song.
"There's something distracting her..." she breathed, stumbling as the ship landed again. "Oh, she's found it."
Nella darted back to the TARDIS doors. "Still not Sheffield."
The Doctor frowned at the console. "What's wrong here? What have you found?"
"Who are you talking to?" Yasmin asked.
"If it's me, I haven't touched anything."
The Doctor gestured at her ship. "I'm talking to the TARDIS, because this is our ninth attempt."
"Fourteenth," Graham corrected. "You can't control this thing, can you?"
The Doctor spun to him. "Excuse me, yes I can. Most of the time. Just sometimes, like now, it has a mind of its own." She nodded back to the Singer. "Just don't dare accuse the Singer of not being able to control it. I think she would slap you."
"Not a question about it." The Singer walked back to the console, typing quickly. "Someone is being sloppy."
"So where are we, actually?" Yasmin asked, looking back at Nella, who still stood in the doorway.
Nella stuck her head outside again. "Earth, United States." Back inside the ship. "1955, Montgomery, Alabama."
"1955?" Graham's eyes went wide. "Elvis. Could we see Elvis?"
The Doctor nodded at him. "I think he's in New York this week. I could give him a call."
"You haven't got Elvis' phone number."
The Doctor tapped her nose. "Don't ever tell anyone I lent him a mobile phone."
The TARDIS made a noise, which made the Singer cheer. "Found it!" the Doctor rushed to her side, taking in the results with her. "Traces of artron energy."
"Should we know what artron energy is?" Yasmin asked.
"It's the same type of energy the TARDIS runs off," the Doctor explained. "There really shouldn't be traces of artron energy here, unless they're one of ours," she looked to the twins, who shook their heads, "which they're not."
"Too sloppy for a TARDIS anyways," the Singer stepped back from the console. When she looked to the twins, they both had a certain glee in their eyes that, again, looked like the Master.
As she'd been certain that she was about to die when she sent the twins off, she had not given much thought to how much of her spouse would end up in the twins. Even in all that time left alone in the TARDIS, she had not known if she would ever escape, let alone see them again.
And now, even in just these last few minutes, every second she looked at the twins, she saw their father. In the way they walked, the way they smiled, almost in the way they breathed.
The Singer had given the twins to the Master to ensure they survived. She could only hope that they retained some of those final lessons she, Missy, and the Doctor had tried to teach them.
Even as those lessons had been imparted while the Singer had been walking away from the Doctor arm in arm with Missy. She did wonder what the Doctor thought of that.
"And now you want to check it out," Yasmin said, but she was looking between all of the Time Lords.
The Doctor caught the grins from the twins. "Yeah, we should. Quick look, but quietly. History is very delicate." Again, a look to the twins, but this one seemed less purposeful, as if she was acting on instinct. "We stick together."
"Of course, Aunt Doctor," Rikou said, though he made a slight face at the name. He glanced down at the Singer's feet. "Mum, do you happen to know where your shoes are?"
The Singer frowned. "I knew at one point." She was still dressed in the clothing of her last regeneration, having not been able to change while on the expecting her impending doom on the Mondas ship or while trapped in the Doctor's TARDIS. Clothing had never been a particular concern to the Singer, a fact which the Master attempted to remedy every time they found each other.
Given the twins' quite impeccable appearance – including Nella's heeled boots – they had inherited their father's style.
Nella's gaze unfocused for a moment, staring at the Singer's feet, before she snapped back into focus. Rikou then ducked off into the TARDIS and returned a few seconds later bearing the boots the Singer remembered. They were remarkably similar to the Doctor's own in this regeneration.
"How did you do that?" she asked Nella, who winced, though the Singer was fairly certain she would not have noticed it if she hadn't spent so long with Missy in the vault. She was quite used to her spouse's ticks again.
"We are still quite prophetic and empathetic," Nella said, gesturing between herself and Rikou. "Mamaidh helped develop them."
The Singer sighed. "Of course they did." So much of her twins that she didn't know, and so little time to learn all she could. "Now that I'm properly attired, let's go."
When the Singer led the way out of the TARDIS, she was only vaguely aware that it was not something that she would have traditionally done. The Doctor and Missy were the typically adventurous sort, with the Singer an unwilling participant, even during that time spent with a previous regeneration of her sibling.
Now, she wanted to get out into the universe and see it.
An unknown time being trapped inside of a TARDIS after being certain you were going to your death would do that to you.
The twins joined her at the front. This close, she could almost feel their minds next to hers, even if they had never formally created a mental bond. As though the twins were so powerful, their mind was bridging the gap almost entirely without the Singer's consent.
There was something surprisingly comforting about stepping out onto Earth soil. Though the Singer had been far more attached to Gallifrey in her youth, she'd spent quite a lot of time on Earth since the Time War. Even when she'd been traveling with her sibling's previous incarnation, he'd kept coming back to Earth.
She loved her sorella, and always would, but the Singer could not help but smile the moment she was outside again.
This regeneration had never had an adventure. It had yet to make up its mind about how it felt, but the Singer was fairly certain about which way it would lean.
This would be fun.
A/N: The Singer is back! The family is back together, so it's going to be all happy sailing from here on out, right?...if only it was that simple ;)
Though this is called Part 10, I still see the Singer as Vanessa Kirby (the form she regenerated into on the Mondas ship).
Notes on reviews:
Purplestan: The Singer definitely didn't have the best time trapped inside the TARDIS. The reunion is happy now, but I won't say anything about what will happen between these siblings once they lose the audience of the humans...
ellidraco1014: Hopefully it was satisfying :)
Belle: Is it bad to say I'm glad that you were doubting it? ;)
Guest: I have given it some thought, but the Singer is already quite a non-binary/just not feminine person, so I don't know at the moment how much getting a male body would change. Still, will never rule it out as a possibility!