His mother was putting together her own small collection of chosen ones. Their once empty house was now filled with more familiar faces, some of which assisted the other woman with her endeavours to put together a school to educate the masses of Gallifrey. She'd always been staunchly against the religion and beliefs held by the rest of the population of their planet and endeavoured to use the information she'd discovered throughout her travels and through her experiments with him to bring them over to the name of science. He was still the youngest here, at 8 years old he was very small for his age, often being mistaken for someone a few years younger than he was. He didn't know why, but he'd heard his mother and her friends discussing it once. Considering that her experiments had something to do with stunting his growth. That his constant regenerations gave his bodies little chance to settle back into a proper growing routine. He'd wondered why they didn't stop. But he had little idea on how to question them as he'd slinked back into bed.
Peylix was the closest to his age at just 12 years old but she'd had very little interest in interacting with him outside of her times standing in at Tectuen's side during their 'experimentation' days. That didn't mean the small ginger boy didn't try to get her attention, to try and get her to interact with him. In fact, a great way for him to keep the girl's attention on him was to mess with her things. She was very attached to her notes and he had no problems sneaking into her room to look over them. To maybe take them so that he could study them himself sometimes. He wasn't able to read all of it, not yet anyway, but it never failed to bring her focus out of her books as she tried to stop him.
"Get back here!" Peylix cried out, her face flushed in anger, something that doubled down as she heard his giggles as he raced down the square staircase, her notebook in hand. "Give it back to me!" He just threw his head back and laughed.
The small girl hadn't tried to lag behind the others as they made their way through the busy marketplace, but she'd caught sight of the collection of women dressed in deep red robes with white face paint splashed across each of their faces, and she couldn't help but stop to look. They looked like something out of a story book. The Sisterhood of the Pythia. The worshipers of the Menti-Celesti, the gods who gifted them their perceptions through time. Her mother scoffed at them. Felt herself and the rest of her new selective few should be above blindly worshiping gods who weren't there.
The girl, however, did think the prospect of having that sight into what was coming was fascinating though. She would've liked something like that. Just to see if there would ever be a day where she would no longer have to face her mother's experiments.
One of the sisters caught her eye from her spot watching in the crowd, she smiled at her. The girl smiled back, even waved. She got a friendly nod in response before the woman looked head once again.
The girl jumped as she heard a voice calling her name and she whirled around as a hand gripped her arm in a much too tight grip and she was all but dragged away, back to her mother's home and to the regular grind of her mother's endeavours to expand the Time Lords.
The Doctor. That was his name now. That was the name he'd chosen once he'd entered the academy. His mother had thought it important that they change everything they'd been before as they started their journey towards becoming Time Lords. He preferred it. It felt right.
The library had become his new home away from home. Home meant hurt. It meant experimentation. It meant deep dives into his very DNA which left him with a new face and a new body to get used to, and he'd rather have the chance to stick with one body for longer than a few days if it could be helped.
The library held books about different planets. The shelves surrounding him held his mother's journals about her travels. They held information about what they knew so far about the universe. The first TARDISs had been built. Slowly but surely the shelves were beginning to be built up by information from all across the universe and he'd been reading as much as he could as fast as he could.
He couldn't help but dream of a day where he could finally leave the planet's surface. His mother told him that she'd found him on another world. Maybe one day he could find his way back out there. Find out where he came from. Meet other people that were like him. People who could change their faces when they died. His scribbles into his notebook paused as he heard a familiar voice speaking up to the left of him.
"What are you up to Doc?" He made a face at Peylix's use of the nickname, as she slid into the seat next to him. He'd just opened his mouth to insist on her not calling him that when a hand reached down from his right and snatched his notebook up out of his reach. He whirled around, ready to tear into them, hands reaching out to try and get it back, only to freeze for a moment as he found Rassilon stood over him, holding the notebook out of his grip.
Rassilon was another of his mother's favourite. He was a few years older than Peylix and he… he made him uneasy. There was something about the older boy that made the Doctor regret the fact that his mother wanted to give the boy the ability to regenerate. Not that he'd ever say as much.
"Head buried in more books about anywhere else?" Peylix teased and the Doctor looked back to her.
"They're interesting." He said quietly, half ducking his head only to jump when Rassilon dumped the notebook back onto the table in front of him and hopped up to sit on the table. As the Doctor flipped the notebook open, the other two leaned in to look at what he'd been writing about.
"Which one's this?" He eyed them both suspiciously for a moment, wondering why they seemed so interested but eventually relented and tried to explain.
"It's Valdoon. Thremix just returned from there. He was writing about everything he saw. It sounds wonderful. The people there have four separate languages depending on where on the planet you are."
"I thought he said they hadn't even figured out basics of condensed matter physics yet." Omega made a face of pure judgement and the Doctor frowned at her.
"Not every civilisation moves at the same pace. I'm sure if you jumped forward a few centuries they'd be travelling the stars just like us."
"You really have so much interest in lesser species." Rassilon snorted slightly, flicking through a bunch more pages and the Doctor forced back a scowl at the use of the term. 'Lesser species' there was no such thing. He'd been about to argue his point when his mother's voice echoed over the room.
"Doctor." The three of them turned, the woman was stood in the doorway, her eyebrow raised, and she crooked a finger at him. He paled, feeling his hearts begin to race. He'd thought he was done for the week. Apparently not. He reached back and slid the notebook over to Peylix who took it wordlessly, kind enough to keep a hold of it for him until he was done because it would do him no favours to walk around sporting his want to leave for the elders to see.
She leaned over the incubator tank and smiled, reaching in a hand towards the growing TARDIS within. It was still only a few years old; it would be a long while yet until it was fully grown but the Doctor could barely wait. If she could leave without needing to devote her life to the Division she would, but as it stood this was her only chance at freedom. She wasn't about to throw that away, not for anything. She'd get her own ship, raised from infancy to be hers and hers alone.
Her first trip off planet was for the Division, a simple exploration. But it had afforded her more freedom than she'd ever had before. To be able to see colours other than the oppressing red of Gallifrey. To visit a sky that was bright pink and sparkled with tiny specs of what were actually bacteria in the atmosphere reflecting the sun, but it looked magical all the same.
Places like this sometimes had her doubting her mother's insistence that the Gods that Gallifrey looked up to didn't exist because how could science create this? She knew it had, the ship had sailed centuries ago on her trying to lean into the religion, plus she dreaded to think what her mother would do if she even thought that the Doctor had any kind of belief in it. Still though, she was coming to love the beauty of the universe. She wasn't sure anything could bring her down from the high of travel and the freedom it brought.
The gun felt wrong in his hands, but he hadn't been given much of a choice. He'd gotten too into his freedom with his TARDIS. It was times like this that always reminded him that, as far as he could go in his ship, he'd never get far enough to be free of his mother, to be free of the hold that Gallifrey had over him. He had no choice.
He crawled towards the edge of the cliffside, hidden by the foliage as he looked down over the celebrations down below. The new President had been fighting the Time Lords the entire way, causing uproar against the rules and regulations they'd put in place upon introducing the man's species to the base level instructions that came with allowing his species to begin researching time the same way the Time Lords had. The Division had made the decision that he needed to be dealt with and here the Doctor was. Not for the first time with an innocent person's life in his hands. He had no choice and couldn't even close his eyes as he took the shot.
The day the vampires broke through a tear that appeared in the universe was the day everything changed. The planet went to war in order to protect Gallifrey. To try and protect the rest of the universe. And to the Doctor, that had felt like a worthy cause. As someone who could already fight, who could already work the advanced weaponry that the Time Lords had created, he'd been put in charge of training up the cadets until Rassilon took over, the man's military mind meaning it was obvious to appoint him as general in charge of the armed forces of Gallifrey. The Doctor had never taken to violence, had never enjoyed it, but he understood when it was necessary. Peylix and Rassilon were both working hard developing newer and more destructive weapons, their inventions as innovative as they were deadly. Peylix had even used her research into creating her Eye of Harmony to create weapons that could utilise the power of entire black holes. Those were hard to stomach using. The Doctor tried to avoid using them where he could, the unparalleled destruction they caused was unlike anything the universe had seen before. Entire star systems could be wiped out. Whole planets were destroyed, whole species were wiped from history. It was horrifying. But the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few at this point. If the Yssgaroth weren't stopped, then the whole universe would be wiped out. All life either wiped out or enslaved and used as live stock for creatures who seemed to know nothing more than how to kill and get inside someone's head.
Her mother was gone. When news had finally reached the Doctor, she hadn't believed it. She'd rushed back to Gallifrey, only to have it confirmed by Rassilon before he ordered her back out to the front once again. She'd tried to argue, tried to speak with Peylix who was meant to have been there at the time it happened, but the other woman had withdrawn from public eye and refused to speak with anyone. Claiming the trauma of what had happened had caused her anguish. Even with the brief glimpse of her that the Doctor had gotten, she didn't truly buy it.
Something had happened during their trip off world. The Doctor, as she slowly made her way back to her TARDIS, was still struggling over the fact that she was halfway stuck between relief and grief over the woman's death/disappearance. She may have made her life a living hell growing up, but she was all the family she knew. She'd taken her in, brought her into the Gallifreyan world rather than leaving her to die. Without everything she'd done to her the universe would suffer without the Time Lords' advancements there to take out the Yssgaroth.
Rassilon and Peylix had let the vampires in on purpose.
The King of the Yssgaroth's words rattled around in her head. It's truth of how they came into being in this universe. The tear in reality that was opened for them that led straight to Gallifrey. To the Caldera. Not in space. Not at the sight of Omega's Eye of Harmony experiment. The first Great Vampire had come through on the surface of Gallifrey itself. She'd been on the planet's surface, elsewhere, when it had. She'd felt the tremors, had heard the otherworldly snarls. She'd fought it face on. She'd watched men and women she knew fall to it. Her quick thinking had been what killed it. The service medal took pride of place in her belongings. And now she found out it had been allowed in on purpose.
She'd watched the conversation between the King and Rassilon, hidden by the trees of the half-destroyed forest of Lindrick. Another world gone in the endless battle against these creatures, another few million lives lost to Rassilon's thirst for power. He was using the war to build himself up in the eyes of Gallifrey. To make himself out to be a war hero. To be the man who stopped the Great Vampire scourge. And he was the one who released it in the first place.
She'd been heard as she'd scrambled to get back to her ship. Normally each bowship had a whole crew but she was part of a crew of smaller ships crewed by one person each. She'd had to leave her beloved TARDIS behind in favour of the more easy-Vampire-killing design of the bowship. With the mighty bolt of steel at the front meant for piercing a Yssegaroth's heart and heavily enforced armour intended to keep its pilots safe. Not that it always worked. So much needless death.
Upon being heard the King Vampire had let out a hiss, teleporting away into the eternal darkness that the vampires hid within when not assaulting entire planets and bleeding them dry. Rassilon ordered his men after her and soon enough she found herself being shot out of the sky as she'd raced to get to the nearest outpost at the edge of this system. Her ship had plummeted back onto the planet's surface, tearing down more trees on its way until it finally came to a stop, now an unflyable flaming wreck.
She'd let out a cry of pain as her injured shoulder hit the wing of the ship after she slipped and lost her footing climbing out of the cockpit. The pain reverberated throughout her body. She could feel her very DNA beginning to boil from the regeneration energy beginning to build. She knew it far too well after the childhood she'd been subjected to. After the experiments she was still subjected to. After the pain of fighting a war that may have never happened had Rassilon and Peylix not been given power after her mother's disappearance.
She heard the rumbling of another bowship's engine and craned her neck to look over and see, her face paling further at the sight of which ship had landed just across the clearing from her. She struggled around in the mud, forcing herself to get up and as she struggled the other bowship opened and Rassilon climbed out, surrounded by his personal guard. His face like thunder but still snared with victory as he stomped his way over to her. She'd just managed to get onto her knees, weakly snapping at him with her face pinched and her throat feeling tight from tears threatening to overcome her.
"How could you? All those people, our people-" she didn't get to finish her sentence as the back of his hand connected with her cheek and, in her already hazy and injured state, threw her back to the ground before standing over her.
"Our people?" he let out a cruel sounding laugh, reaching out a hand for his spear that was placed easily into it by one of his men. All of whom she knew. All of whom stood there and did nothing. "My people. You were never one of us. You were a tool, used to create the future. You're an alien to us, just as you are to the rest of the universe. You're nothing. We have what we need from you. We let you live as a mercy. You've surpassed your welcome. Gallifrey stands. It no longer requires the Doctor. Let the truth die with you." A grin fell across his face as her hearts shattered. He raised the spear above his head. She let the regeneration burst forth, throwing her hands up to protect herself as he brought the spear down.
The energy exploded upon Rassilon like a fireball, tearing off chunks of flesh until he stopped screaming and fell back and the energy turned on his lackeys who all rushed forward to assist him. When it finally stopped, the Doctor fell back against the mud, a new person once again. Someone new with a new face and new voice and new body that she'd have to get used to all over again. Rassilon's words fell about her head in a vicious cacophony of all her childhood fears confirmed and she let out an almighty scream of anguish, tears falling from her eyes just as quickly as the anger and hurt rushed around her whole body. She managed to force herself up and onto her feet, a hand coming to her mouth to hold back another round of sobs as she took in the destruction around her. As she took in the bodies of the men around her who she'd known and who she may have killed. The men who'd tried to kill her. She turned, fully prepared to make her way through the wilderness around her, forge a path through abandoned battlefields to find another way to Homm, when she heard the unmistakable roar of a Yssgaroth. She scrambled backwards as she spotted shadows moving behind the tree line. Reaching for Rassilon's dropped spear as she backed up all the way until she reached his bowship. She looked up to it for just a moment, debating her decision, knowing that they'd find her quicker than ever when taking this ship, but it was better than being ripped apart by the Vampires coming out of the woodworks. She dumped the spear and climbed aboard.
As the ship began to lift into the sky, she spotted the telltale golden shimmer of regeneration as Rassilon began to glow in the darkness, right as the shadows moved in closer from the trees. She had to find her TARDIS. Maybe the Time Lords would cast her out, but she still needed to warn the people of Gallifrey. The Pythia had placed the planet under Rassilon and Peylix's protection. Exactly as they had wanted.
Emergency Temporal Shift had nearly torn her TARDIS apart, but it had been the only way to escape. The Doctor was sat, near despondent, with her back against the trashed console that was still sparking lightly every so often. She had blood running down one side of her face from the cuts at her temple. Her whole body was aching. She hadn't really thought that was possible. Usually the first twenty hours or so after regenerating were pretty painless. The leftover energy meant she could probably jump off a cliff and still pop right back up at the other end totally fine. Her ship wasn't any better, and all she could do was sit there and stare into nowhere into the distance, images of Rassilon and his words rushing through her head. Images of her fellow Time Lords trying to hunt her down at Rassilon's word, refusing the listen to her. They used her and threw her away. Her sacrifices for the creation of the Time Lords were bathed in blood now. Hers and the rest of the universes. All of it leading to this, to beings corrupted by the power that her DNA had provided. She'd made this, even out of her control as it had been. Her jaw clenched as a lump welled up in her throat, a sob threatening to escape her, but she pushed it down, finally forcing herself to move as she wiped the moisture away from her eyes and used the console behind her to hoist herself to her feet. She had to figure out where she was.
She took one step towards the doors and staggered suddenly to the left as a wave of dizziness hit her. She clutched her head, giving herself a light shake to try and get rid of the sudden double vision and stumbled into the ship's doors. She winced at the light that shone in as she pulled the doors open and she reached a hand up to shield her eyes as she stepped outside. The temperature was cooler than she was used to on Gallifrey and, as she looked up, she could spot only one sun in the sky. Everything was blue in opposite to Gallifrey's red.
She was between two buildings, a narrow gap that her ship had slotted itself into when landing. The TARDIS had disguised herself the best she could, using the surrounding environment for ideas so the blue box was surprising, but the Doctor could spot another just like it on the corner of the street further down. She'd just stepped out when someone crashed into her and she'd almost gone crashing into the ground when hands had rushed out to catch her, her world pitching sideways suddenly despite them keeping her upright as her vision swam. She looked up, blinking through the fuzziness to take in the person before her. He looked Gallfreyan and for a moment she panicked, wondering if at random she'd been taken back to Gallifrey. But as she looked down, she saw what he was wearing was nothing like anything on her home planet. He spoke to her, concern on his face as she seemingly started to pitch to the side, blood still running down her face. She frowned at him, confused, unable to understand anything he was saying. He wasn't speaking any kind of language that the TARDIS knew how to translate, and the Doctor had never heard anything like it.
She saw his gaze snap to the side suddenly and she followed his line of vision to the TARDIS with its doors still lying open revealing the console room from within and she saw his eyes widen and come back to her, shock written clear across his face. Her own eyes widened, and she scrambled away from him, panic over him perhaps trying to get inside overcoming her as she all but threw herself towards the doors to pull them shut. They'd just clicked closed when she finally pitched backwards, and she heard the man scrambling forward to catch her with a gasp before the world went black.
She shot upright with a gasp, her eyes wide and searching around the room that she found herself inside of. It wasn't a large room, with cream-coloured walls and a single rectangle window covered by curtains that had geometric patterns in red and yellow that barely seemed to keep out the sunlight. The bed was small, the sheets red with some kind of logo on the top of it. It looked like some kind of tree, it was green though, unlike Gallifrey's red and silver. She didn't recognise the writing. The TARDIS wasn't translating for her yet again. Meant it was a so far unassimilated language. Which also meant she was in uncharted territory as far as Time Lord travel went. There were some pictures hung on the wall, in frames on the table and she leaned over to inspect the one on the small table next to the bed. In it was the man who'd found her outside the TARDIS, so she could only assume he was the one who'd brought her here. He was smiling with his arms around the shoulders of two other men. It was strange, again she thought, they looked Gallifreyan. Same basic bipedal form. Two arms, two legs, one head. Everything in the right place. But he hadn't spoken Gallifreyan. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility for another life form to evolve with the same shape, but it was still strange, to see yourself mirrored in a person from another world.
They couldn't understand one another. The TARDIS had never heard his language before, it wouldn't know how to translate unless she brought him into the ship and ran a full scan. Which was an awfully personal thing to do to someone before you even knew their name. It would need to be done and it wasn't too invasive truly. She'd like to be able to thank him, to learn his name. She also needed to get back to the TARDIS, check out the damage, see what she could do to fix it. She had no clue where she was going to go next, but she hadn't been about to let her only friend remain suffering if she could help it.
She'd jumped when the door to the room opened and the man from before stepped inside. Both their eyes widened in surprise, like he clearly hadn't been expecting her to be awake. He spoke again, she again couldn't understand him, and he started stepping closer, but she'd flinched back, memories of Rassilon swimming about in her mind. He froze in place, immediately backing up until she could relax once more. He tried to speak once again, clearly dragging out his words slowly, but she just shook her head at him with an apologetic frown.
"I can't understand you." He looked wonder filled for a moment but clearly also couldn't understand her. He made a face of frustration for a moment then held a finger up to her, indicating for her to wait, and moved towards the little table next to the bed and reached into one of the little drawers. She'd leaned backwards slightly as he got closer but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially as he pulled out a small book with white lined paper. The writing on the top page she again had never seen anything like it, but he quickly turned to the next blank page and then reached back in to pull out something to use to write on it. He went through a few different kinds, scribbling on the page until he found one that worked. It was strange because he simply tossed the duds back into the drawer rather than throwing them out.
The conversation that followed was the strangest one she'd ever had, that involved a lot of crude picture drawings until she realised that he'd taken her to where he lived and patched her up to the best of his abilities. She'd responded with a smile of gratitude and had drawn a quick sketch of what she'd remembered the TARDIS had disguised itself as. The box shape crude and probably not an exact recreation, even with her memory, but he seemed to understand. His face lit up, a grin spreading across his face that had her hearts momentarily beating faster. She got to her feet, indicating that she wanted to go now, and he was quick to jump up, setting the notebook to the side with a quick nod as he realised what she wanted. He led her through his home and back towards her ship.
She made motions with her hand, bringing it up to her mouth and making it like a mouth that opened and closed, miming that he should start talking. It took him a second or two to understand but eventually it clicked, and he was quick to begin speaking out loud, making sure to stick to the spot that she'd put him in after stepping into her ship.
He started speaking, the words seeming to come out slowly, like he wasn't entirely sure what to say now that he'd been put on the spot. When he paused, unsure if she wanted more, she motioned for him to keep going and turned to her screen. He kept watching her as he continued, and eventually it started coming through to her in Gallifreyan. "-I live in Guildford, in Surray. It's a town, South of London, which is the capitol. London is, I mean, not Surray. It's England, the country." He watched her as she smiled at him, stepping away from the monitor at the console and stepped towards him.
"Hello," he blinked in surprise upon hearing his own language coming from her lips and she smiled, letting out a huff of laughter at the clear shock on his face, pointing towards the central column, "it's my ship, she's able to translate for us."
"Oh," he realised quickly, "so, I'm just hearing English, you're not actually speaking it?" she nodded, "Do I sound like I'm speaking your language? You even look like you're speaking English though."
"It's a mental thing. I hope you don't mind. It's not too invasive, just skims the surface on your auditory and visual senses."
"It's in my head?" he immediately looked uncomfortable, glancing to the ship's console and she reached out a hand as she explained quickly.
"Not in a bad way! Sorry, I would have asked but," she shrugged, "couldn't exactly do that until I did it. It's not permanent. Once I leave, it'll stop."
"Oh okay."
"Quite a sophisticated language you have here." She glanced to her screen, "so many conjunctions and double meanings. Impressive! Congratulations!"
"Thanks." He laughed softly, "I mean, it's not the only language on Earth."
"Earth? Sorry, I only understood the last half of your first speaking there. Is that what this planet is called?"
"Yeah. I'm Lee, by the way."
"Lee?" she sounded out the name on her tongue, the simple name foreign sounding to her, "I'm the Doctor."
"The Doctor?" he asked, unable to keep his surprise back, "is that like a title?"
"No. It's my name. I chose it."
"You chose your name?"
"Don't you?"
"No, we're uh, we're given them by our parents when we're born."
"But how will they know if you'll like it?" She looked at him, eyebrows drawn together in just as much confusion as he was looking back at her with.
"They don't. What were you called when you were born?"
"No idea. It's a long story. Anyway, nice to meet you Lee."
"And you, Doctor."
"Can you teach me?" She asked him one day, taking a pause from the slow-going TARDIS repairs. She'd been on the planet for a few weeks now, and every day Lee had been coming back and spending hours with her, helping her best he could despite his primitive knowledge. He might not have much of a knowledge of advanced time-based physics, but he could follow instructions very well. And even if he wasn't helping, she found him to be good company.
"Teach you what?" He'd asked her, looking up from the book he'd taken from the library and had been slowly making his way through over the last few days, his expression confused.
"Your language. I want to be able to speak it, without needing the TARDIS."
"Are you able to do that? Could I learn yours?" He looked surprised but not against the idea. In fact, he looked like he would be excited at the prospect of learning hers. She hated to have to rain on his parade with her response.
"I could teach you to read it. I have all the vocal capabilities that you have, you don't have all of mine. So, you wouldn't be able to speak it." His face fell in disappointment for a split second before he sighed and then smiled again, closing the book with one hand and tossing it to the side as he turned to face her fully.
"Oh. Still though, that's a deal. Okay, I'll teach you English."
She didn't mean to get so side-tracked. She really hadn't. But then, the longer she spent around Lee, the longer she spent with him travelling Earth and exploring its wonders and history and meeting its people, the less she tended to think back on the world and people that she'd left behind. Gallifrey had been stifling. Just the thought of fun on that planet made the elders faces turn to stone. At least her version of fun. Though perhaps that was just their reactions to her, given as how she wasn't one of them. Humans were just… they were mad, creative and brilliant. Some of them were awful but she'd never hold that against the entire species. This was something she'd always tried to keep in mind of her own world, but they'd driven her out, they'd used her for her DNA, used her mind to do all kinds of despicable things in both the Division and the War, all of which seemed to be for nothing, nothing but corruption and hate and death. It was hard to think that there was anything redeemable about them.
She was having fun and enjoying life. For the first time in her entire life, she felt like she belonged in some strange way. Even if it was just with Lee. Humans seemed to have this strange habit of getting caught up in the moment. A habit she'd picked up on. They also tended to invite you to join them, even when you were a complete stranger who'd only said hello. Some thought her a little strange, but it never seemed to put them off being kind. And that, she'd realised, was the biggest difference between them and Time Lords. Kindness. Whereas Gallifreyans were predetermined to follow logic and cold hard truth, humanity strived for kindness. They strived for compassion and love. Their whole lives spent just trying to find a place where they could fit in and love and be loved. She adored it all.
The only thing was, she had realised how short her time with Lee was going to be. Realised just how short the human life span was. It would start and end, normally, within one single century. It was a heart-breaking fact for her. That she'd somehow have to live on after he was gone. She wished she could give him some of her regenerations, find a way to give him as immortal a life as she had, anything to keep him alive longer. To not have him leave her. And humans were so vulnerable compared to her, compared to Time Lords. They could be killed so easily. She worried about him constantly. Every year she spent with him he'd be another year older and she wished time would slow down.
The thought occurred to her to try and do what Tectuen had done. To isolate the strand within in her DNA that allowed regeneration again. To make sure he stayed with her forever. But then she thought of all the pain and hatred that that strand of her DNA had brought about the universe. She thought of the corruption rampant across the Time Lords and then the mere thought of doing that to someone as good and as kind as Lee terrified her. She'd take this one century with him over slowly losing him to the hurt that overtook someone any older than that. Cheating death invited pain. She couldn't do that to him.
The great Vampire King had finally emerged. While she hadn't been paying much attention to the war, her TARDIS was still occasionally receiving mass communications sent. She hadn't felt the need to check them any more seriously than glancing at them briefly to see if they ever mentioned her. However, when the news showed up about the King, the TARDIS had begun blaring alarms. The Doctor had scrambled to her feet from where she and Lee were sitting in the doorway, looking out onto the Earth from space, rushing over to the console, Lee hot on her heels. This message she'd paid a little more attention to, considering the alarms. She read through the Gallifreyan script, her eyes widening the more she read and eventually, she found the location given and then spotted the fact that Rassilon was leading the charge and her blood ran cold.
"Doctor?" Lee questioned, concern written across his face as he reached out a hand to squeeze her upper arm gently, "What is it?"
"The King's emerged." Understanding hit Lee almost immediately, she'd told him her story in pieces throughout their years travelling together. "Rassilon's leading the charge."
"You don't need to go." He told her and she immediately shook her head.
"But I do. This could end the war. No one else would have to die, if I don't go, Rassilon might end up letting it go. Extend the war even longer. I need to go, and help them."
"They tried to kill you!" Lee exclaimed, "They tried to kill you and told you that you didn't belong with them, why would you wanna help them?"
"Because if I don't and the Yssgaroth King escapes, then it's not just the Time Lords that suffer, it's the whole universe. Entire worlds could be killed, destroyed, left as barren wastelands where life could never again return. I can't do nothing." He stared at her, the panic clear in his eyes but eventually he dropped his hand from her arm and stood tall with a nod. Then said something that had her hearts skipping a terrified beat.
"Then I'm coming with you."
"You can't. It's not going to be safe. The Time Lords can barely stop these things. If you're there then you might get hurt, or worse." She argued with him, frustratedly torn between wanting to keep him safe and never letting him go.
"Doctor, I'm sticking with you. No matter what. I don't have to take on the King, bloody, Vampire, but I want to be there for you. Because I know how much you don't wanna see your people. I don't want them doing something to you and I'm not there to help."
"I don't want them doing anything to you either, so please." She closed her eyes, head tilting against his chest as she pleaded with him, resisting the urge to press closer to him. She had to be strong here. She had to be firm. To keep him safe from the evil that her people brought about. To keep him safe from the destruction and death that the Yssgaroth caused everywhere they went.
"We'll look after each other, alright?" She pulled back to look him in the eye, wondering what she did in this universe to deserve him. Perhaps it was payback after all the pain she'd been inflicted with as a child, for centuries. For Gallifrey's betrayal.
"I don't want to lose you."
"Neither do I." He retorted and her resolve to send him home shattered. It had never been sturdy in the first place.
The Doctor had made a big mistake coming back. He slumped forward slightly in the chair he'd been stuffed into after awaking from his regeneration, confused as to what the shrill sounding alarms were and why he seemed to be alone in this room. He felt the thrumming of post regeneration energy rushing through his veins and the events leading up to the regeneration and how he ended up strapped to this device were hazy. He remembered rushing back to Gallifrey after the King Vampire disappeared, intending to warn the high council about what Rassilon and Peylix had done. Only for Rassilon's guard to apprehend him as he'd rushed into the council chamber and he'd heard Lee cry out as the blaster was fired into the Doctor's back and he was dragged away. This was what he got for helping. Almost the second the King was locked away; the Doctor had been swarmed by the Time Lords and had been unable to escape. Dragged away to face the council who'd refused to believe him about Rassilon and Peylix's betrayal.
"Lee?" he dragged his eyes around the room, feeling the tightness of clothes now too small for him, but still more worried for the human in such an unforgiving and unfriendly place without him. He didn't know what had happened to him. He didn't know what had happened to himself. He had something strapped to his head and he was sure he had vague memories of Peylix and Rassilon doing something to him that had hurt. For the second time after a regeneration his whole body hurt, and he didn't know what went wrong this time for it to hurt like this.
He heard the sound of a door opening and he turned his head the best he could, his heart leaping for joy at the sight of his travelling companion as he poked his head into the room and searched about, clearly looking for him. It took the Doctor a moment to remember that Lee wasn't accustomed to regeneration. He wouldn't realise that it was him.
"Lee?" he croaked out, watching the other man's eyebrows furrow in confusion as he stared at him.
"Doctor?" his words were hesitant, his face the picture of confusion and fear.
"Lee." He repeated the word again, terror settling around his hearts that this would be too much, that Lee would leave him here. He knew this would be strange for him. It had been strange for Gallifrey as well. It was still strange for non-Time Lord Gallifreyans. "It's me. I'm sorry.
"How… how?" Lee reached out a hesitant hand, tears pricking at the other man's eyes as he sat his hand against the Doctor's cheek. The Time Lord leaned into the hand, peering up at the human, feeling immense guilt over those tears.
"I can't help what I look like. Regeneration doesn't really offer a choice."
"I thought you were dead." Lee sucked in a heavy breath, the terror of the last few hours, of his panic over the Doctor, finally bubbling over. He clearly tried to distract himself as his hands busied themselves undoing the straps that kept the Doctor tied to the chair. As soon as he was free the Doctor was quick to pull the helmet off of his head, hissing out in pain at the marks that were left by it. Then he was quick to start undoing buttons to relieve his body of the pressure of being squeezed into clothes far too small for him. "What are you doing?" Lee asked, bemused through his tears.
"Human clothes, they don't alter with you." The two shared quick smiles, then the Doctor got to his feet, stumbling forward and into Lee's grip as he caught him.
"We need to get out of here. I dunno how long that woman bought us."
"What woman?"
"I never got her name. She was dressed in red, big headpiece? White face paint?"
"The Great Mother of the Pythia?" His eyebrows furrowed, confused over why any member of the Pythia, let alone the Great Mother would bother helping him. Perhaps they had noticed him after all. Perhaps they'd had a vision telling them he was needed further. He almost snorted audibly at that thought. Really, what else could the Doctor be fated for? He wanted to get as far away from Gallifrey as possible.
The two of them ran away again. The Doctor getting them as far away from Gallifrey as was possible, wanting to get them both to safety as quickly as he could. The regeneration energy was still swirling around his veins, it was making him feel dizzy, but he was running on pure adrenaline and a need to get Lee as far away as possible from the evil that permeated the entire planet. Lee had stayed back whilst the Doctor moved, the man clearly uneasy about the change the Doctor had gone through. When the ship finally came to a stop, the two finally had a chance to properly look at one another. The Doctor's hearts thundering in his chest as he swallowed nervously and sat against the console, trying to hunch his now much bigger frame to seem smaller as he spoke.
"I, um, I suppose you have some questions?"
"Yeah." Lee answered quickly, nodding just a touch too much before he sucked in a heavy breath and began to pace back and forth in a small circle, pushing his hands through his hair before he looked back to him, pointing with a panicked looking expression, "How- How are you like this? What happened? They shot you! I thought you were dead. That woman- the priestess lady, she told me to expect a change, but I didn't think-" He stopped talking for a moment, his voice raising a few pitches as the panic started to take over, "How are you a man?!"
"I can explain." The Doctor held out both his hands, desperate for the man to calm down before he ended up hurting himself through the panic, "I… I can do this thing called regenerating. I can't die. But… if I'm injured enough to be dying, then my whole DNA restructures itself. Everything changes, at least physically, mentally everything's the same. But… gender, skin colour, voice, features. Everything changes."
"Why didn't you say something about this before?"
"I didn't think I would die again any time soon. I'd just regenerated after we met. My time on Earth has actually been the most peaceful time of my life."
"People have tried to kill us on Earth."
"Not… not in the way I'm used to." Silence fell over the two and the Doctor was the one to break it, swallowing nervously again, "Do you want to leave? I under-" The words got caught in his throat for a moment, but he forced himself to get through it, "I understand if you want to."
"Do you want me to?" Lee's voice sounded small and the Doctor was quick to shake his head.
"Gods no. I want you to stay forever, but I understand if this," he motioned down over himself, "is too much."
"No. I just…. God I don't know. This is a lot. I knew you were an alien, but I just didn't…" Lee trailed off again, letting out another heavy sigh before he looked over the other man again, "You should… You should get some clothes that fit you on, and then we can talk and you can tell me everything." The Doctor's eyebrows furrowed for a moment, before he glanced down over his body, startling for a moment as he finally realised that he was still wearing the half undone, much too small clothes of his previous body.
"Right. Yes." He nodded a few times and pushed himself up and turned to make his way further into the TARDIS.
"Doctor." He paused, looking over his shoulder when Lee called out to him, his eyes wide, "I'm not going anywhere. I promise." A smile blossomed across his face, relief spreading across both his hearts and he turned once again to seek out better fitting clothes.
"Peylix please!" he cried out towards her, voice desperate for her to listen to him, to come back from the viewing plaza because he knew that Rassilon had something set up. The rumours had spread. The distrust having grown between the two over the last few decades until even the Doctor had caught wind of it. An anonymous message sent to him had had him racing to land on Peylix's Starbreaker starship, the Eurydice, to warn her. The ship was almost fully self-operating at this point, not requiring a full crew as it used to. It was only Peylix and a small skeleton crew onboard. Omega, as she still insisted on being called, spun to him, fury alighting on her face.
"You should have stayed away, Doctor! I am about to create history! I will change the universe!"
"You're going to die. This place isn't safe, just please, come with me."
"You expect me to believe you?"
"You betrayed me! You tried to attack me. But I can't just let you die, please. All we've done together; we were raised together. Our years at the academy. They have to mean something to you. Even enough for you to just come away." She simply rolled her eyes, turning her back to the large viewing screen as she smiled, mocking him.
"I will do nothing of the sort. I don't know what plan you've concocted up, but you will never tear me from my work."
"I don't have a plan, Rassilon does!" At once her smugness fell, a crack giving way to confusion as her eyebrows furrowed, concern quickly taking its place after that.
"What?" As though on cue the implosion of the star behind them happened and the glass of the viewing screen began to crack. She'd taken in a breath to say something else and the Doctor could do little more than race to grab onto something close as the glass burst outward and the force of the blackhole hit them. He reached out a hand towards Omega with a cry out for her, distraught over everything that was happening.
"Peylix!" He felt the pull begin to drag him up, trying to pull him out towards the giant entity being created outside. He could still see Peylix, her face the picture of terror, reaching out for him getting further and further away. The Doctor's feet were lifting off of the ground from the force of it and the air was all but gone from the room. His fingers had just started to slip when he heard the sound of a door opening from behind him and a hand gripped onto his collar and he was pulled backwards, a door slamming shut between them and the vacuum of space outside. He just stared, distraught towards the door as Lee worriedly patted him down, checking for injuries, his own breathing heavy from the momentary lack of oxygen.
"Doctor we need to go." He told him, sitting a hand on his arm, "the ship's starting to get sucked in." When the Doctor continued to look through the glass of the door, to the disappearing figure of his oldest friend, Lee gave his arm another tug, "Doctor, come on. We need to get to the TARDIS!" The Doctor let himself be pulled back towards his ship but refused to let his eyes leave the picture of the black hole.
"I need to turn myself human." The Doctor rushed into the TARDIS, still brimming with fresh regeneration energy and shrouded in too big clothes, calling out her words to Lee who followed her in, the human immediately looking shocked and confused. She dropped the gun she'd used to help them escape and hurried over to the console to begin flying them away from the assault happening just outside the doors.
"What?" she turned to him, reaching up to grip his face and look him in the eye.
"What just happened? They will never stop. The Time Lords, the Division. They're blaming me for what happened to Peylix. They'll hunt me down forever. Maybe you as well, and I can't let that happen." For a moment Lee leaned his face into the hand cupping his cheek, frustration over their situation visible across his entire being.
"But how would you even turn yourself human? Why won't they just listen?"
"Rassilon holds all the cards. I'm just playing with what I have."
"What happens next?"
"I- I don't really know. But I don't think I'll remember much. A fake backstory, the TARDIS will take us to Earth." She paused at the hurt that entered his eyes and she tried to be as reassuring as possible as she tugged him in close, "We'll be together. They don't know where Earth is. I'll mask the TARDIS. They won't be able to find us."
"Homing in near your TARDIS signal. Can't get too close. Imagine the temporal feedback loop. I'll drop you off at the docks near my flat. How's that?" The Doctor spoke, trying to keep her voice level while the blonde in the rainbow t-shirt just stared at her, confusion written across her very being.
"You can't be me. I know what I've done, I know my own life."
"One of us has to be wrong." There was a light shudder from the ship as she landed and the Doctor looked to the blonde and tried to make her tone as serious as possible, tried to hide the grief she was starting to drown in, to hide the panic she felt for Lee, "I'd quite like it if you got off my ship now."
The blonde hesitated for another few moments, watching her with clear frustration on her face over the mystery of neither knowing who the other was but the Doctor could barely care less at this exact moment. Finally, though, she turned with a shake of her head and exited the ship. The Doctor barely waited for the door to close behind her before she set in the co-ordinates to take her back to the flat.
She pushed open the door to the flat slowly, still hoping against all hopes that maybe the door would open, and he'd still be in there, alive somehow. She found instead, an empty flat and a pile of ash on the floor next to her combat medal which she now knew had drawn her people after them. Tears rushed to her eyes and she let out a cry of anguish, dropping to her hands and knees as pain coursed through her body.
It was worse than anything any near death that had happened to her yet. Worse than any pain that post-regeneration troubles had caused her. Worse than anything else her home had done to her before. She'd take centuries more torture and experimentation from her adoptive mother if it meant Lee could come back.
She ended up staying there for hours, surrounded by images of them and the home they'd built together. She knew it hadn't been fully alright for him, she knew he felt guilty because she hadn't been able to remember all their years together before turning herself human. She wished she'd been able to remember before it happened. Maybe they could have just kept running? If she'd given herself up before then he would still be alive.
She let out another choked sob. This was all her fault. The only person in the entire universe who'd ever cared about her. Ever loved her for her and she'd gotten him killed. She should have sent him home. Should have kept him safe.
She spent months drowning in her grief, unable to make herself do much of anything as the guilt over Lee's death smothered her. She was finally pulled from it, or at least distracted by it, by the TARDIS letting out a beep, letting her know that there was another mass communication sent. She almost ignored it, almost just let it become another logged message that she'd never look at. But something in her said she should look at it, and so she pushed herself over to the monitor and clicked to open it. The news it shared was horrifying. Rassilon was organising a coup over the Pythia, intending on using his power and influence to finally rid the planet of their religious leaders. Alongside this message, was a decrypted message sent from the Sisterhood, begging her for help. Calling in a return in favour for having helped save her the last time she'd been on Gallifrey. That wouldn't have done it normally, but she remembered how they'd kept Lee safe, and so she set the co-ordinates, even with a heavy sinking feeling in her heart telling her that she would almost certainly regret this.
The statues were new. That much she knew as she stepped into the grand ceremony hall, shrouded in a black hood to try and stay in the shadows as much as she could. She was a wanted woman on Gallifrey, it wouldn't do good to go around showing her face, especially during the mess that was this military coup.
She locked eyes with the Great Mother, the leader of the Pythia on her knees at the head of the great hall with Rassilon ranting about his power and about how he would bring Gallifrey ahead into an era of science and leave behind the religious shackles that the Sisterhood had kept Gallifrey trapped with. Break its people free. He would be forcing them into a tyranny under his control.
The Great Mother gave her a nod, something discreet, Rassilon too busy with his own self-righteous speech to notice. The Doctor glanced to the huddled group of sisters near her at the back of the room and was quick to capture one of their attentions, motioning for them to begin making their ways over with her. They were quick, albeit cautious, throwing concerned glances over to Rassilon every few steps as they all followed the Doctor's instructions to leave the room. Once the last one left the great hall, the Doctor looked up once more at Rassilon, deciding at that very moment that she had to come back. The Time Lords might be power mad and corrupt but the rest of Gallifrey didn't deserve to fall under this monster's control.
She moved out the doorway with the sisters and began leading them through the maze of the Pythia's temple, helping them stick to the shadows and they all stopped dead when, about halfway there, every torch in the hallway they were walking through went out all at once. The girl's all gasped, one or two of them yelping in fright and the Doctor was quick to shush them. They fell silent, the Doctor's hearts racing in her chest as she waited to see if anyone was approaching. Looking ahead told her that every torch in the whole building had gone out. When she decided the coast was clear she simply ushered the girls into continuing going and used her memory to get them back to the TARDIS in the darkness that now shrouded them. She should have been glad for it, but something told her that they'd want to be out of it as soon as possible.
She couldn't put a name to it, but as unease spread through her gut, she knew that there had to be a reason that Rassilon had come without his elite guards inside. When the TARDIS came into view, the light of the box's windows shining some light in the small room she'd landed inside of, the Doctor darted forward and pushed open the door. She stood to the side, ushering the girls in first and, as the final one rushed in, she turned her head to take one last look back down the hallway they'd just walked down. She could've sworn she saw a large figure shrouded in the dark, hunched over with their face hidden.
Fear sparked like fire inside her, burning through the uneasiness like it was paper in a pit, and she turned and rushed into the TARDIS, slamming the door shut behind herself before racing to the controls to take them away from the planet.
The Sisters had taken a good while to stop profusely thanking her enough through their tears to actually tell her about everything that had happened on Gallifrey since the last time she was there. They told her about Rassilon's trials, about his attempts to expand the reach of the Time Lords. About the virus that Thremix had concocted for him. A viral airborne version of what Tectuen had developed using the Doctor's DNA. They were willing to kill off however many millions of people, just for the minute few who may survive. When the Sisterhood had found out, that was when Rassilon had decided to act against them. The tension between the two had been mounting for a long while between then and now. It was clear Rassilon had had no choice, if the Sisters had announced to the public that he was planning, then everything the Time Lords had built would have gone to ruin. Though, how he was expecting to hide what he'd done once the virus was out, the Doctor had no idea.
What was he thinking? Tearing open a hole in time would destroy the whole planet. He seemed to think it was his only option to stabilise the affects of the Thremix virus. Instead of infecting ordinary Gallifreyans, the virus had spread throughout Rassilon's elite Time Lords, 10% were gone in a matter of days and the Doctor had watched it all from the shadows, desperately trying to come up with a cure before the man did something mad to try and fix it.
His solution? To tear open a gap in the Vortex and use the leaking artron energy to stabilise those suffering from the virus. She knew this would end badly. Anyone could have told him that, but he was desperate. Her mother, as devoid of feeling as she'd been, would have known better. Even Peylix with her mad experiments and obsession with the future wouldn't have gone this far. This wouldn't affect just the Time Lords. This would affect the whole of Gallifrey for the rest of time. Gallifrey would exist outside of time. It would be a singularity of the vortex, their lifetimes dramatically extended, the planet would blip out of existence in every reality but this one as a fixed point. The very DNA that gave them their immortality could be altered; she'd never thought that he would do anything to risk that. His immortality through regeneration had given the man a new lease on life in the worst possible way.
He ransacked the Pythia's archives, partnering ancient powerful objects with his modern technology and they had terrifying effects. He'd chosen to create the tear on the beachy banks of Lake Abydos. He'd gone there with his men, a few of the less sick feeling top advisors. She'd had no choice but to go to try and stop him. She'd raced there, flying out of her TARDIS and yelling that he not do this. He'd ordered his guards to hold her back and despite her fighting she'd quickly been closed in on.
She was screaming for him to not do what he was going to do as she was dragged away, kicking scrambling to gain her footing in the sand of the beach. She had a front row seat as she watched Rassilon bring the glowing devices together, and the resulting BOOM that accompanied sent everyone flying as a burst of white light blinded them.
The Doctor awoke in a shimmer of regeneration energy and sat upright with a gasp, immediately looking around the beach. Everyone around him seemed to be in similar states, a mass regeneration as everyone tried to get a hold of themselves, shaky from the sudden blast. A further look around had the Doctor's eyes widening as he saw what had happened. The spot in front of Rassilon's hunched over figure was cracked. Like a rip in the fabric of reality, inside the swirling terror of the vortex could be seen. He struggled to his feet, the first one up, the only one so used to regeneration that it wasn't much of a feat to push through the worst of the side affects. He stumbled forwards, eyes widening as he stared inside of it, almost hypnotised by the raw power of what he could see within. He finally tore his eyes away from it and looked down to Rassilon as the man was finally struggling to get to his feet. He looked pale, not well at all. The two locked eyes for a moment, then the Doctor spoke, his voice quiet.
"What have you done?"
"Secured the future for my people." Rassilon hissed back, "My people, you have no business on this planet."
"All those people dead. This isn't about me anymore. It stopped being a long while ago. This is about all the death you've caused, all the pain. All of it in some search for ultimate power. Now you've subjected Gallifrey to this!" He motioned to the rip in time and watched as Rassilon finally looked to it, the man's eyes widening. The Doctor watched him, watched as he got sucked into just staring at it, and he shouted, dragging his attention back to him. "Rassilon!"
The man startled, his eyes flickering back to the Doctor and his rage returned full force and he pointed towards the other man and called out with a growl, "Doctor! You won't walk away from here! You never should have returned!"
He could hear the guards close behind him as he stumbled his way up the hill towards the prime distributer of the looms. Rassilon's creation yet again. An attempt to create the perfect Time Lord. Natural birth outlawed as it had been and, now with Time Lords unable to have babies, it meant that he'd had to create a way to create new life. Tectuen's work in building up the Gallifreyan genome sequence meant that they could have their pick of the top DNA traits.
The Looms were laid out like a vineyard in the valley gorge of Time. Within the endless chasm that lay beneath the planet's top crust, it gave them all the space on the world to build up the future generation. Its light was bright, drawing the Doctor's stumbling body towards them like a moth to a flame. He knew he had only two options. He could either die by Rassilon's hand, be branded a traitor forever more, have his history written out as a monster and never have a chance to let his story, to let Lee's story, be told. Or he could give himself a chance. The Looms tore apart whatever touched them, seeping that DNA into it, churning it around until it was pure molecules and could be stitched back together into something new. It would seem impossible that his entire self could be put back together exactly the same someday. Maybe it would take millions of years, maybe it would never happen, but at least this way he could have some hope. He reached the edge, parts of the rocks beneath his feet crumbling down into the seemingly endless depths below. He looked down, then around to the guards still racing up the hill towards him, then back down again. He turned to face them as they finally approached, all their weapons raised towards him. He felt his hearts break for his people. Because they were. Whether they liked it or not. This is what they had driven themselves to in their mad lust for power. He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Good luck Doctor." He whispered to himself as he spread his arms out and let himself fall backwards. He took the last few seconds to tuck himself away in his mind, praying that it might save something of his memories. Hoping that something in him could remember some day and he could know all that really happened. He could let others know. Could let them know the truth of Rassilon if it wasn't already known by that point.