Working in the television industry's a strange thing Herman came to understand during the introductory period. Commanding people on the set like he's a general, maneuvering paperwork like one, so much papers that came through on his desk, it's a miracle there's any trees left standing!
Yet, here he was, making scripts, directing them, commanding his fleet as he worked bringing his scripts to life, with the people above him pleased with the outcome, seeing as there's a rating boost.
Going into the far trenches of his mind, Herman found inspiration for his scripts, so many things, poor keyboards couldn't keep up with his typing.
He'd gone through twelve of them because he broke them from typing so much that they no longer functioned properly.
Or he typed too hard.
Can't figure out which.
Eventually, River just got him an old keyboard with an adapter, figuring that it survived twenty years, maybe it'll survive three more under Herman's use.
It's holding up, surprisingly well, and he's able to continuously type out the scripts as he gets inspiration.
Don't know how many scripts he's up to, now, but he's got plenty that'll please the people above him.
Interconnected in every way possible, with enough room that people who catch an episode or two out of order aren't left with confusion, mildly, but enough there's interest following along his stories.
River joked that once he's done with the show, he'll move onto becoming a writer, maybe he'll set a record for totaling the most keyboards.
Ah, River, the apple of his eyes, but the thorn in his backside most times.
Today, she's elsewhere, on her own little adventure, causing problems of her own, surely.
For Herman, he's in a restaurant with paperwork near him and a plate of food in front of him, his wooden pipe sticking out on the side of his mouth.
They're not fond of him smoking, apparently that's not kosher anymore, but they're nice enough to let him keep the wooden pipe in his mouth, so long as he doesn't light it.
Good, he can't focus without it.
Looking over paperwork in between eating from his plate of shepherd's pie, complete with mash, mushy peas, and the gravy, Herman's dark eyes slowly moved over the paperwork as he went through the pages.
The joy of working in the industry, paperwork, plenty of it.
Obligations, tallies, you name it, he's seen it more than once, trying to sign the right lines, stamping what needed stamping, whatever the case may be.
Since River isn't here, he's on his own, he couldn't be trusted in the kitchen, River says he couldn't cook to save his own life, so he's in the restaurant.
Honest, Herman can cook, but the way humans' cook's far different than putting in codes and turning dials, waiting for their foods to materialize before them.
River said it didn't count and that humans wouldn't survive having access to that type of technology, purely because they wouldn't have to go outside or pay outrageous fees.
They'd drop like flies if they gotten their hands on pizzas and whatever edibles the size of their flats without having to worry about costs.
… It was a nice thought, but perhaps the power of the replicator couldn't be trusted with humans.
Oh well, they're missing out on not having to think about dishes, the dish ware the food materialized in easily turned into beneficial plants with only a drop of fresh water and a planter.
This'll do, though, not bad for a human cook, even if they can do with less salt, but Herman isn't looking a gift horse in the mouth, however that expression went.
Gift horse, intriguing those humans gifted each other horses, like flowers?
Stranger and stranger, these humans.
The waitress went past his table after refilling his cup, checking on him, before moving on to the next table.
Strange concept overall, back home, nobody's tasked refilling drinks or serving food, one button did it all, but Herman's trying to understand.
River had it easy, given she's human, born on Earth, and knew the customs.
Flipping through the paperwork, signing what needed signing, praying the tenth pen didn't break on him, and as he shunted the finished paperwork aside to take a bite out of his shepherd's pie.
A concept that perplexed him that they called it the shepherd's pie, but it didn't belong to a shepherd.
He heard something he hadn't heard in ages, something that even River didn't know.
"Hermonculus," he heard.
Instantly, he became frantic, his dark eyes darting until he saw someone standing beside him wearing a cream-coloured sweater with red question marks.
"H-headmaster," Herman coughed as he attempted to swallow, but the air's trapped in his esophagus.
It's Headmaster Ham.
They called him that when they were school as a joke because of his nose.
The sight of his former headmaster made Herman queasy and he felt his body at odds with his mind, trying to come up with answers and strategies.
Thankfully, his former headmaster quelled these fears, by telling Herman that he isn't here to punish him, he's just surprised seeing him, again, as he is him.
"You shouldn't call me that," Herman warned that his former headmaster shouldn't call him by his true name, else he risked punishment from the Council.
Dryly laughing as he sat in front of Herman, his former headmaster rebutted, "You shouldn't call me headmaster."
It's been years since he was the headmaster of their school.
Frowning, Herman warned that his former headmaster shouldn't acknowledge him, either, it's against the rules.
Exiled and all that.
Shaking his head, his former headmaster told him that the rules became convoluted that nobody knew what they used to mean and he wouldn't treat his former student like this, it isn't right.
Especially the ones who did what they had to do and paid for it.
"The Council say differently," Herman pointed out as he temporary pulled out his wooden pipe, scratching the side of his face before reinserting his wooden pipe in the side of his mouth.
Exhaling sharply, his former headmaster, who said he went by a different name here because of issues with phonetics, Hamon, told Herman that the Council's judgement doesn't extend to Earth.
They can't punish either, even if they wanted.
"But they'll try," Herman pointed out that it didn't stop them before.
Shaking his head again, Hamon replied that he doesn't doubt that the Council might've had thoughts about exerting their rulings beyond Gallifrey, but they can't.
With his hands together, Hamon asks Herman how he's been.
"Oh, it's been an eventful hundred years," Herman yawned as he summed how he managed since the Council exiled him from the domed cities and had him live near the river.
He ended up vacating his old shack out of fear that the Council would've found another reason to wedge punishments against him and escaped Gallifrey all-together, deciding that it wasn't worth troubling himself.
Not like they'd notice him gone, probably threw a party when they found out he left for good.
Figured he'd try his hand elsewhere, why not, it isn't like he had a home to go back to and no one waiting for him.
Once more, after a hundred years, there's no point starting a relationship. It's just trouble after that point.
"I've heard you're the new show runner, now," Hamon pointed at him, saying that he heard that Herman became the new show runner for "The Doctor" and only when he saw his face during the adverts, did Hamon realize who he was.
Decades later and Hamon still knows every student by heart, still.
Nodding, his reddish-brown curly hair stiffly moving, Herman replied that it was River's idea, not his.
He just wanted to relax and remain a hermit like he was on Gallifrey.
River talked him into it, the scoundrel.
She's lucky she's his adopted daughter.
Looking at him quizzically, Hamon inquired about her, that's news to him, and Herman told him how he came to meet River.
River just lost her parents in a car accident, she didn't have anyone to take her in, and the courts ruled that she remain in custody of the crown until she's either adopted or grows out of the custody.
Her godfather and mother died four years before it happened, their children weren't anywhere for them to vouch for her, and she ran away from her childhood home when the officials came to take her into the custody of the crown.
Bumped into Herman while he worked a job as a delivery man and she begged him to take her in, a random stranger who was just doing his job when she barreled into him, she didn't want to go into the system. Her godmother told her stories about it and she didn't want to go into the system because of it.
She pointed out to him that she was thirteen, she wouldn't have a chance at adoption, just like her godmother didn't.
River begged and begged until Herman had no choice, it's hard saying no to someone who's basically gripping his waist like it's a pillow.
Using his impeccable mind, something dangerous as someone told him, Herman gained custody of River, much to his disbelief at the thought of him raising her as his daughter.
River claimed that he didn't have to worry, once she's of legal age, he didn't have to keep up the masquerade, by then, she's aged out of the system, and no one can lodge anything against him.
Things happened, as they do, and they ended up becoming a strange family, especially when River figured out that he wasn't human, and the fact she wasn't shocked surprised him more than it did her.
Still, he raised her to the best of his advantage, teaching her things that he probably shouldn't have, but he was there when she needed someone to spill her heart, when she grieved for her parents, and kept her spirits high, when no one else was there do it.
"I'd say you did a good thing," Hamon acknowledged that Herman did a good thing adopting River and he admitted that suppose, he saved River from the misery of staying in the system for five years only for her ending up outside with only the clothes on her back.
Shrugging his starchy white padded shoulders lightly, Herman replied that he didn't have much of a choice, she barely let him move until he agreed to become her guardian and those eyes of hers did a number on him.
"I asked her about her godparents' children, figured if I'd track them down, she'd go with them, but she said that they started hating each other after the death of their parents," Herman recalled that the night he took River in, he asked about her godparents' children, why they couldn't come to her hearing.
River told him that it started with her godmother dying in her sleep, snowballed into the brothers blaming each other for her death, and the youngest storming off while the oldest stayed with their father.
Their father died a year or two after her godmother from, basically, heartbreak, they were one of the closest people on earth, losing her killed him from the inside. He just regressed into a cold man who didn't smile anymore.
After he died and the younger brother hadn't returned from wherever he went, the oldest brother just left, didn't say anything, never saw him again, and none of the phone numbers she knew of worked.
Disappeared off the face of the earth, nobody knew where the brothers went or if they were even still alive.
River hadn't seen the brothers in a long time, that she doesn't even know herself if they're still alive.
"Tragic," sighed Hamon after Herman told River's story to him, something she wouldn't tell him until a few years later after they became a family.
It caused Herman to ask about Hamon's family and saddened when he remembered Hamon's nephew's recently passing away.
"I'm sorry I couldn't go to the funeral," Herman apologized to Hamon about not attending the funeral despite Hamon asking him.
The exile prevented Herman from attending and he didn't want political nonsense getting in the way of what should've been a peaceful funeral if he decided to buck the rules and go anyway.
Hamon responded that he knew that Herman would've came if he'd asked, but knew that he didn't want trouble starting on his account because an exiled Time Lord went to the funeral.
"I heard they weren't fond of the wedding," Herman recalled that the wedding between Medikus and Sarah caused quite a stir among the Time Lords, since Sarah was human.
Herman already left Gallifrey by then, so he didn't get to see the looks on everyone's faces when Medikus gave them the two-finger salute when he married Sarah.
Hamon smiled as he proudly told Herman that he loved seeing their faces when he commenced the ceremony.
"Anything different since then?" Herman asks about the state of Gallifrey since he's been gone and a dull surprise on his face when Hamon told him that there's hardly anything different.
Regressing, what it seems.
"Such as it were," Herman sighs as he's hardly surprised that things haven't changed at all since, he used to live there.
Noticing a look in Hamon's eye, Herman asked what was wrong, and Hamon reached into his pocket, bringing out a coin.
Showing him, Herman looked at it with intrigued.
"I haven't seen this in… years!" Herman's nonplussed at the sight of the coin as he held it close to his eyes, marveling at it.
With his free hand he took out his wooden pipe briefly, before sticking it back in his mouth, resting on the opposite side of his mouth, while he marveled the coin in his free hand.
Hamon informed him that they've stopped using it sometime ago when Medikus was still in school.
Money isn't something that they're concerned with anymore, the ruling went, and they decided to move away from coins.
Noticing the look, Herman lowered the coin as he eyed his former headmaster, asking him, "You didn't come all this way to show me it, what's going on?"
Exhaling sharply as he held his hands together, Hamon responded that he's certain that something happened, something wrong, and he isn't sure how to proceed.
"I don't want them involved. It's not their fight," Hamon summed his displeasure at the thought of his nephews and niece becoming involved in his quiet fight.
Blinking, Herman's miffed, and inquired more about Hamon's fight.
Hamon wasn't the type like the others where he'd file paperwork and attend meetings, he was very hands on with tackling issues, that's why he was liked among the students.
If there was any fight, Hamon would've tackled it physically, if needed.
Uncomfortable, Hamon shifted in his spot, as he asks if Herman noticed anyone unusual, someone who stuck out like a sore thumb.
"Everyone's unusual here," Herman points out that he doesn't know what Hamon's talking about, to him, everything and everyone's unusual, and Hamon elaborated.
In a hush tone, Hamon tells him that something that the Council attempted to destroy all records of its existence, exiled anyone who dared talk of it, every attempt to control its mere existence, has come again.
Looking at the coin in his hand, Herman studied it, seeing how marred it looked on one side, and how pristine it was on the other side.
When he was a small child, every one of them scrounged for these coins, trying to earn enough to buy treats, now they've gone wayside.
He never brought any with him when he left Gallifrey, didn't see a point, nobody uses them outside it, and as a hermit, he didn't have any left.
Or any way of using it if he did, nobody would service him because of the exile.
He couldn't think of any reason for them ending up on Earth.
Hamon, well, even if he kept them as a keepsake of time that was, they wouldn't have marred backs like this coin had.
Medikus, wouldn't pass him that he didn't consider having a sack of it with him, rebel with two hearts and all that.
Since they transitioned away from using the coins, nobody would've known about them that weren't around Hamon, Herman, and Medikus' ages.
The Council had them melted down for other things and nobody kept them because they didn't believe their worth, so the younger generation wouldn't known anything about them.
As is the tradition.
Still, it's not explaining what's gotten into Hamon, who's usually coolheaded, looking like he saw death.
"What happened?" Herman noticed Hamon looking over his shoulders, unsure.
Looking back, Hamon responded with only one word in their native tongue, "Vivit."
THE END