The Doctor had come back to them with a gasp, her hands curling tightly around the arms of the chair. Her chest was heaving, her breathing coming in pants as a lifetime of memories rushed to the forefront of her brain. A thought of Lee's face appeared in her head and the pain struck her harder than she thought it would after all this time. The grief washed over her like a tidal waved and she barely managed to throw a hand over her mouth as a sob tore its way out of her throat.
"Doctor? What's wrong?" Yaz's concerned cry cut through the grief and the Doctor desperately tried to pull herself together. It seemed it was a losing battle. "What's wrong with her? What have you done with her?" Yaz's shouts were no doubt aimed at Omega, but the Doctor couldn't get herself together enough to speak up yet.
"A lifetime of memories means a lifetime of emotions to relive alongside them. The Doctor's life has not always been happy. Even more so in her past life." Peylix explained through laboured breaths.
"So, she's just having to relive that life in her head?" Graham asked.
"Yes. Give her time. She will get through it."
"I've never seen her cry before." Yaz said quietly, staring down at the Doctor and the tears streaming down the other woman's face, falling from eyes that were staring out into the distance blankly.
When she finally shot upright, coming back to here and now, it was with a dazed expression. She began wiping frantically at her face, trying to rid herself of the tears.
"Ugh, gods." She dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, taking in a watery sounding breath before she cursed softly, surprising herself when it came out in Old High Gallifreyan. The Fam all stared, none of them ever having heard the language before. Peylix's laughter dissolving into a painful sounding coughing fit brough attention back to him and the Doctor rushed over to his side, "Peylix."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry old friend." He was apologising through the painful hacks and the Doctor was desperate for him to relax, shaking her head as she spoke.
"It's okay. Peylix, I forgive you. Calm yourself old friend. It's all in the past. It's okay."
"I shall be honoured to be permitted to die with a friend at my side. I had stopped thinking myself worthy of either."
Getting Peylix and all of his equipment into the TARDIS took more time than the Doctor was altogether comfortable with considering their time limit. But they managed right as the meter on the console monitor hit red. The ride back through into their universe was even more bumpy than the one into it. The Doctor called out to them as she threw herself around the console, trying to explain.
"The Eye of Harmony is still a black hole at its centre. And those are used to things being pulled into them, only reason we're being able to escape at all are those stabilisers. They're holding open a little gap for the TARDIS to escape through." The TARDIS gave another particularly violent shudder, and the Doctor continued in a slightly more frantic tone, "Also, since we're bringing Peylix through, and Peylix is the one who's will is keeping the universe together, it's collapsing at a… frankly alarming rate behind us. But it's fine."
"How little a gap are we talking?" Graham asked, sounding slightly panicked.
"Uh," She threw him a shaky expression, "Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Since you don't wanna tell me, I'm just gonna say no and wish you good luck." Graham said quickly, looking back to the pillar he was holding onto.
"Smart choice!" She called over to him, stumbling as the ship gave a particularly violent veer to the side. Peylix let out a pained groan at the feel of it and, watching as the Doctor distractedly looked over to him – causing another bump, Yaz made her way over to the man, dropping herself down next to him in order to ensure that he was alright and that his comfort could be looked to whilst they were in flight.
"Peylix!" When they finally came to a stop, parked in the vortex for the time being, the Doctor raced to the man's side, crouching next to him and slipping her hand into his. Yaz backing away to allow the two their privacy.
"The equipment is keeping me alive. Please." She nodded sadly, squeezing his arm with her free hand before she started to get to her feet.
The Fam watched, standing around the console, as Omega reached for the Doctor's hand before she could pull too far away. He motioned for her to come closer and she leaned in despite her confusion. They couldn't hear what was shared between the two. When the Doctor pulled back, she had tears in her eyes. She nodded to him and reached out the hand not in his to reach the equipment at his side, flicking at a series of the buttons. She hesitated at the final one, Omega gave her hand a squeeze and she turned the final switch. Peylix gasped in a shallow sounding breath, body seizing before he went still, the hand holding hers going limp and they knew he was dead. The Doctor took in a shuddery sounding breath, her body posture slumping as the only friend she had left from back then died.
"What did he tell you?" Yaz asked, ignoring Graham's scalding nudge and glance. It took the Doctor a second or two before she answered, her voice quiet.
"He told me co-ordinates." The Doctor pushed herself up to her feet.
"Co-ordinates to what?" Ryan asked.
"I… I think he's told me how to find the way back."
"The way back to what?" Yaz asked next and the Doctor turned to them, her eyes wide, looking visibly startled over the information. She swallowed, stopping for a moment to think.
"To where I was found as a child. I was found near a portal, a gateway of sorts. My mother always said it was lost. When she disappeared, I always thought she must have found it. Peylix was the only one who knew, and he never told me. Refused to say."
"Your mother?" Yaz questioned, taking a hesitant step towards the Doctor.
"I'd forgotten. But now I remember. One last gift. My memories and my beginning." The Doctor turned back to the still form of Peylix and crouched down next to him once again. She reached out a hand to touch the mask that had protected her old friend's subconscious for all these years. She heaved out a heavy sigh and with slow but steady hands she reached for either side of the mask and pulled it away from the rest of the armour. The Fam all stared in shock as it revealed nothing beneath it. No person was there. Just empty air.
"What? How- Doctor, what the bloody hell happened to him?" Graham asked.
"He lost his corporeal form eons ago. The only thing keeping him alive was his own will. And that will power finally ran out." She stood, the mask still held in her hands, staring down at the eyes of it, only recently remembered memories of their childhood together rising to the front of her mind.
"What is it that you remember now?" Yaz questioned.
"Everything. Everything that happened, from being found as a child, right up until I threw myself into the prime distributer of the looms."
"The prime what-a-what?" Graham's face scrunched up in confusion and the Doctor couldn't help her amused hum as she finally headed back up towards the console and sat Omega's mask on top of it before turning to them once more.
"The looms. A uh… pet project of Rassilon and Peylix at that time. My mother, and Rassilon, and Peylix , all were very interested in keeping the Time Lords alive. Repopulation is key to keeping a species going, but they believed that natural reproduction was beneath a higher species. The looms were created. Essentially artificial reproduction."
"You mean like test tube babies?" Ryan asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion and the Doctor's face brightened in pride for a second, jabbing a finger towards him with a smile.
"Exactly like test tube babies. Go you. Anyway, they'd cherry pick the best bits of the parent's DNA to create a fully formed person. You'd come out already partially grown. Maybe around 4 or 5? You'd have three years at home and then you'd be packed off to the academy from the age of 8 for the next few centuries."
"You spent centuries in school?" Yaz asked, eyes wide and her face horror filled. The Doctor laughed again.
"How'd you think I feel? I had to do it twice. Thank the gods that I didn't remember when I did the second time around. I probably would've run away even sooner."
"And the distributer? What was that?"
"It was sort of like a big gene pool. Bits and pieces all floating around in one big farm… thing. I don't even know how to explain it. But me jumping in there, I got sort of… ripped apart. All the way down to a micro level. I don't really remember it. I remember jumping in and then… waking up. It's strange, I remember my life that came after through two sets of eyes. The one living it and the one watching me live it from inside my own head."
"And you think the co-ordinates that Omega gave you will show you how to get to where you came from?" Yaz asked and the Doctor nodded, the nerves clear on her face. Yaz grinned, "Then what are you waiting for? Let's go!"
The tower was somehow even larger than the Doctor remembered it being. The swirling patterns of the portal above threw energy out like a gust of wind through a narrow alley. When it hit her, she could feel it rattling around in her bones and she shuddered accordingly.
"I'm taking you home." She said, her voice quiet yet firm. The humans all turned to her, surprise on all their faces.
"What?" Yaz took a step towards her, "You can't do that. We want to help you."
"You let us help you find Omega. Why won't you let us help you now?" Ryan asked, and the Doctor winced slightly, giving them apologetic looks.
"I know. But this is different. I genuinely don't know what to expect. This might kill me. I don't know what's going to be on the other side. If anything's on the other side."
"All the more reason to let us come along." Yaz pleaded and the other woman sighed heavily.
"Yaz-"
"You don't get to just drop us off at home and disappear again! I won't let you!"
"Enough Yaz!" The Doctor snapped and the human flinched back. Her voice got quiet again, "I will not let anyone else throw their lives away for me. Not again. Not even if you, for some reason, think you want to."
"Stop making decisions for me. This isn't your choice." Yaz snapped, angry, her temper rising to the surface and the Doctor just shook her head.
"You don't know enough to make decisions for yourself."
"And who's fault is that?!"
"Yaz! You don't know what you're asking. I don't even know." The Doctor finally snapped back, throwing out a hand in frustration. Graham and Ryan both watched, both clearly uncomfortable with the ensuing argument, both also slightly more on the fence than Yaz was. "Going through that" She pointed up to the portal at the top of the tower, "might be a one-way trip. I will not let you do that to yourself."
"Well, what about you? What about what you're doing to yourself? What's the rest of the universe supposed to do if you disappear? What are we supposed to do?"
"What about me? Why does the rest of the universe have a say in my knowing my past? I have spent almost 3000 years carrying the weight of this universe on my shoulders, pushing back the forces of darkness. Why can't I do this? Why do I have to live the rest of my life in service to it? Especially when I have my own mysteries to solve. I need to know where I came from." Yaz faltered in her argument for a moment, clearly searching for the words to bring the Doctor around to her way of thinking.
"Of course, you're allowed to, I'm not trying to stop you, but I don't want you to have to do it alone." The Doctor let out a heavy sigh, letting out her breath slowly, her anger slipping away into a frustrated sadness. She looked over all three of them, tears gathering slowly in her eyes as her shoulders dropped.
"Yaz, the last person who travelled with me before I met you three got turned into a Cyberman because I was too late to save her. The one before that tried so hard to act like me that it got her killed. She took a chronolock from someone, trying to be as smart as I always am, and it got her killed. I spent four and a half billion years getting her back, and all I succeeded in doing is bringing her back without a heartbeat. Before that, Amy and Rory's daughter got taken from them to be raised as an assassin to kill me. They lost their only daughter so someone could get back at me. And then they were both trapped back in time. Stuck in a fixed point by the Weeping Angels. Trapped away from everyone they ever loved. Their friends and their family. Me. Donna, I had to wipe her mind before it burned. Martha, her entire family was trapped and tortured for an entire year by the Master while she travelled the Earth on foot to save everyone on her own. Rose, trapped in a parallel universe. I could go on, and on, and on." The tears slipped down her cheeks, the Fam's eyes all watering as well. The Doctor stepped forward quickly, her hands reaching for Yaz's face as she stared desperately at her, "Yaz, please, don't throw your life away. Not for me. Go home. Go and live a brilliant life. Don't let me screw it up like I do for everyone else. I'm not worth it. Please, go home and let me let someone escape from the chaos and death that surrounds me. I have two lifetimes worth of pain and loss inside my head, I cannot take anymore. Let me save you. Let me save someone."
They fell silent, the Doctor's expression pleading while Yaz just stared back at her. The men both watched, both standing with bated breaths, both unsure as to what they wanted to do. Ryan was certain he would really rather go home, and he knew his grandad would just follow him if he didn't go. This was Yaz's fight.
"No." She grit her teeth and shook her head and the Doctor pulled away from her with a noise of frustration and Yaz reached out to her. "I can't just let you go off on your own. You need someone there to watch your back."
With her back to her, the Doctor took in heavy breath and let it out slowly, her shoulders slumping as if in defeat and she turned, nodding slowly. She threw a hand up, "Yeah. Yeah, alright." She reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose and then looked to Graham and Ryan, "You too?" Both men glanced to each other, Ryan motioning his head for Graham to speak and the older man huffed slightly before looking back to the Doctor with a grimace and an apologetic expression.
"If it's all the same to you Doc, I don't think me, and Ryan will be coming along on this one."
"Yeah."
"It's been the best time of my life Doc and if you do make it back, as I'm sure you will, you better come back and let us know, okay?" She nodded, giving him a soft smile.
"Course." The Doctor stepped back towards the TARDIS, pushing open the doors before motioning them all inside. "Come on then, Sheffield. Let's get you home." Ryan and Graham both stepped inside, and the Doctor looked back to Yaz who'd planted herself on the spot with her arms crossed and a glare sent the Doctor's way, "Yaz?"
"You're not leaving me behind." She informed the Time Lord firmly.
"You've made that very clear. But I don't want to leave you here. With my driving who knows if I'll make it back?" When the joke fell flat the Doctor sobered slightly, "Yaz, if you don't want to leave the TARDIS when we land, then there's not much I can do to force you out, is there?"
Yaz seemed to relent slightly at that, her crossed arms falling to her sides. "I suppose." The Doctor stepped back, motioning for Yaz to step into the TARDIS and the human did so after another suspicious look thrown the Doctor's way. The flight back to Sheffield was quieter than the TARDIS had been in a while. And smoother. A lot smoother. The Fam all looked to her with questioning expressions.
"Maybe I'm wrong here, but that flight felt a lot easier than usual." Graham piped up and the Doctor smiled, reaching up a hand to brush it against the central column.
"I raised her. Grew her up from a little seedling. That bond is open again." The Doctor laughed softly at the playful chime she could hear clearly in her head, "I used to always wonder why she was so attached to me. It was unusual. Usually, it never happened when someone used an older model that they hadn't raised. Now I understand. I did."
"I suppose a lot of things are gonna make more sense for you now." Ryan suggested and the Doctor threw him a grin.
"Or maybe it'll make less sense. Either way, we'll just have to wait and see."
"Guess this is it." Ryan said softly, hesitantly glancing towards the doors once they'd landed.
"You better let us know that you're alright when you get back. Cause you will get back." Graham said, before turning to speak to Yaz, her smiling at him and stepping forward so he could draw her into a tight hug. He murmured to her, for only her to hear, "I told you that I thought you were the strongest person I know, and I do believe that, but you don't know what you're walking into this time, so please take care of yourself love. Call us, as soon as you're back."
"I will." She pulled back from him with a reassuring smile, "You don't have to worry about me."
"You won't be able to stop me until you're back home safe and sound." Yaz's smile grew into something more touched and she finally turned to Ryan to let him pull her into a hug as well.
"It's gonna be weird not travelling together anymore." Ryan said with a small smile as the two of them pulled away from one another.
"I know. But I bet you're gonna love being at home again."
"Finally get a lie in." He joked and Graham piped up, joining in.
"And regular mealtime." The group all laughed in amusement and the Doctor grinned, playfully grumbling about humans and their strict schedules getting in the way of adventures. She finally stepped forward to them and Graham addressed her softly, "Guess this is it Doc."
"I'm gonna miss you guys." She took in a deep breath before speaking.
"You too." Ryan said, before giving her shoulder a playful nudge, "Go learn who you are. I hope you find out." She smiled, reaching up to give his wrist a squeeze before he could pull it away.
"Thank you, Ryan." She looked to Graham and the older man pulled her into a hug before she could say anything and, thought wasn't much of a hugger this time around, she returned the gesture with a tight squeeze. He pulled away, giving her a nod.
"Bye Doc." He looked to Yaz, nodding to her as well as he back up towards the doors, "Bye Yaz." With that the two men turned and, with one last glance each backwards to the TARDIS, they stepped outside its doors. An awkward atmosphere settling between the two women still inside and the Doctor turned to walk to the other side of the console.
"Why are you trying to get us all to leave? Don't you enjoy travelling with us?" Yaz questioned with a raised eyebrow, trying to catch her eye as she moved.
"Course I do! You're my Fam."
"Then why do you want us to leave? Why'd you make Ryan and Graham leave?" Yaz watched as the Doctor looked down at the console, clearly choosing to look at that rather than at her, "Is this something to do with the memories you've remembered?"
"Course it-"
"Don't lie to me." The Doctor faltered, unused to being called out this time around. She nodded, head ducking as thoughts of both Lee and her mother awash in her brain.
"I'm tired of losing people. I remember the first. I remember how much it hurt." Yaz rounded the console to perch on the edge of it next to the Doctor. The Time Lord turned slowly and matched the human's position with a soft sigh.
"Who were they?" Yaz asked, giving the Doctor's shoulder a nudge gently with her own.
"You met him, actually. We all did."
"Really? Who was it?"
"Lee. Do you remember Ruth? We met them both that day with the Judoon, and you lot meeting Jack. Well, Ruth was me. I'd turned myself human."
"You can do that?" Yaz stared at her in shock.
"Yeah, it's possible."
"Why?"
"I was being hunted down by the Time Lords. Rassilon had blamed me for what happened to Peylix, used it to make me Galifrey's most wanted."
"What was that like?"
"I had to turned myself human. Take from that what you will." The Doctor stood then, moving to start the return flight. She hesitated with her hand on the take-off lever, looking back up to her companion, and Yaz gave her soft reassuring smile.
"Let's go then, get a shift on." The Doctor's her face fell suddenly into something sad before she spoke.
"I'm so sorry about this Yaz." The Doctor pulled the take-off lever as Yaz looked to her in confusion.
"Sorry about what?" She barely got the words out before she realised what was happening. The TARDIS was taking off, but she wasn't being brought with it. Sheffield started to come into view as the TARDIS got more transparent. "No!" She cried out in anger and alarm, betrayal settling in her gut and spreading across her entire being. The Doctor's apologetic expression was the last thing she saw before she was left standing alone near her flat in Sheffield. "Doctor!" She clenched her fists, angry tears pricking at her eyes as she yelled out the woman's name into nothing.
Getting into the tower wasn't difficult. The doors to get inside were stiff from age but a good few shoves with her shoulder got it opened. It creaked open, her whole weight put into getting it so, causing a billowing cloud of dust across the room. The energy from the portal got stronger the further up the huge spiralling staircase she got.
It felt like the energy from the gateway would swallow her whole and she wasn't even in the room yet as she reached the top. She stood in the doorway, bracing herself against it, her hair whipping across her face and her jacket billowing out behind her.
She pushed forward, her arms still up, protecting her face. Grimacing like she was pushing through a snowstorm. The closer she got the harder it got to move. She was having to close her eyes against the light of the portal as it seemed to increase in brightness as well as force. It felt like it was trying to force her backwards, she was having to lean in against it.
When she finally reached the centre, it was like everything stopped. Not just the light and the energy, but the whole world around her shrouded into darkness and silence. She could hear nothing and see nothing around her. She could feel her hearts beginning to race in her chest, but she couldn't even hear the blood racing in her ears.
She whirled around in a circle, trying to find her way out. The way she'd come in was gone. Her eyes widened. She stepped forward, trying to see if it was just invisible. Her footsteps made no sounds. There was no exit. Just nothing once again. She yelled out in alarm, but no sound came out. Panic rushed over her. Everything was so dark and still that it was almost difficult to breathe. The Doctor started to run. Racing through the darkness around her, unable to tell if she was even actually moving.
But then, as she dropped to her knees, she looked up and saw the light shining ahead. She pushed herself up and shielded her eyes and walked through the light.