Author's Note: I am trying to write smaller chapters for this story than I had in She Burns as those larger chapters led to longer delays in posting time. These first two chapters were already "in the can" so to speak, which is why I was able to post them so quickly I am hoping to post a new chapter every 1-3 weeks at the longest, but RT will of course sometimes have an effect on this timeframe.
I hope that I can stick to this schedule pretty closely! As always, I love your comments and pm's, they're food for the soul!
The halls of Torchwood One were once more filled with people going about their various routines as the world continued to rebuild after the Cyberman Wars.
Alec Noble smiled to people that he knew in passing as he made his way down to his lab in the basement, his hands clenched tightly in his pockets as he thought once more about how much Pete's world had changed in the years since he had come to this universe.
He had moved out of Pete Tyler's home shortly after Jack had been named the new Director of Torchwood and had rented a small flat by Torchwood One with money that he had been saving during the previous two years.
Pete had become something of a father figure for him over the years, but the continued strain of his botched relationship with Rose Tyler had been the final straw that had led to him striking out on his own. He could never thank Pete enough for all that he had done while he was struggling to find his place in the universe, a universe in which he had never been meant to exist.
He sighed when he came to a stop by the elevator, fidgeting slightly when he felt the considering stares of some of his colleagues as they bade him a good evening. He forced a smile onto his lips, raising his hand to wave good-night before the lift arrived and he was able to step into the relative safety of its confines.
He spent most of his nights at Torchwood now that the worst of the crisis had passed and the planet was slowly rebuilding itself from the ravages of war. He had been surprised how quickly humanity had banded together to help the countries that had been hit the hardest; supplies had flown in from every conceivable corner of the earth to help the British Isles rebuild as they had been the epicenter of the storm.
Alec leaned back against the wall of the elevator while it descended into the depths of the building, his eyes closing as he let out the breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding. It was sometimes hard to remember that he was only technically a few years old and that all the memories that continuously boiled within his mind were not his own.
He still had frenzied fever dreams some nights, dreams where he swore he could hear Donna screaming and begging to not be destroyed. Sometimes he dreamt of the madness of the Doctor as he ran through the universe, always running to try to escape from his many failures.
Alec shook his head to chase away the dark thoughts that would only send him into another bout of despair and tried to focus instead on the life that he had built at Torchwood. He was well liked within the Torchwood organization but he found that he never really fit in anywhere, he just couldn't seem to find any happiness with the mundane lives that they seemed content to lead now that they weren't in a struggle for their everyday lives.
The lift dinged softly when it arrived at its destination, the doors slid open to reveal a short corridor that ended in a single door. Alec sighed happily when he felt a warm presence that was pulsing just behind that door, a presence that seemed to press gently against the barriers in his mind before receding once more.
He reached into his pocket, fingering his key for a moment before he quickly unlocked the door and slipped inside. He quickly threw the latch before he turned around and looked out over the large lab space that spread before him.
There was a small unmade bed in the corner over which he had thrown several different shirts in the morning before he had hurried out to start his work upstairs for the day while a large duffel bag sat in one corner. There was a dual sink set into a counter along one wall on which rested a bag of toiletries and various other necessities as well as a kettle and several bowls and eating implements.
Alec leaned against the door, dropping his key into a small bowl set on a counter beside the door before he pushed off and quickly made his way to the large computer console that dominated one end of the room. He was excited to see how much progress had been made today while he had been away, concerned as he always was to be apart from his experiment for too long. The warm presence that was lurking just below the levels of his conscious mind were reassuring him that the long years that he had been waiting would finally be rewarded.
He had done everything exactly as Donna had suggested, he had cobbled together every system that he could from the innards of Torchwood as the building had been nearly broken during the war years in order to help speed his project to its desired end.
The small piece of Tardis that the Doctor had left with him had grown tremendously over the last few years, but it had yet to attain consciousness in any form. He smiled when he gazed at the growing Tardis before him, it was nearly half the size of its parent and was already starting to exhibit mechanical qualities as the coral shell was slowly melting into a metal casing.
"How was your day, Girl? I know it's getting harder to be separated every day, especially as you're approaching sentience, but one day you'll remember what it meant to have responsibilities and that unfortunately sometimes you can't let those responsibilities lapse."
He smiled softly to himself, certain that soon he would feel the connection with a Tardis again just as he had felt for so many years before. The emptiness in his mind since his connection with Donna had been severed was almost more than he could stand at times and he found that he pulled further and further into himself in order to compensate for that loss.
He just felt empty without the touch of another mind, he felt that there was a gaping hole in his psyche that no amount of laughter or friendship would ever fill. Jack really seemed to be the only person who bothered to take any time to get to know him and what made him tick, and so he hadn't argued when Alec had all but moved into his lab and left his flat vacant six nights a week.
He thought back to the early days of the war, the day that he had frantically hidden the Tardis fragment deep in the basement of Torchwood before he went out to see if there was anything he could to help. In the ensuing two years of battle, he had only been able to check on the fragment sporadically and make sure that she was still connected to the power grid and that she was able to draw as much power as she needed at any time.
It had been hard to hide some of the larger spikes as her size had doubled and then doubled again in rapid succession and he would often wonder if the presence of so much off world energy being present in the atmosphere had led to her growth accelerating even more quickly than Donna had predicted.
It was hard to believe that it had been nearly five years since he had first begun to incubate this piece of the Tardis, five years that he had toiled late into the night making sure that all the connections were secure and that she wanted for nothing.
He'd made sure to keep his lab locked at all times in order to keep prying eyes out and also to avoid any uncomfortable questions about just what it was that he was doing. Most people would never understand and would just chalk it up to another strange thing that he was obsessed about.
Rose had only shown minor interest in the beginning when he had first wired up the tiny shard, her eyes shining when she spoke of them traveling through the universe and possibly finding a way back to the primary universe before he had cut her off with a flat voice. The walls between realities were forever sealed and no amount of wishful thinking would ever change that. She was stuck here in Pete's world, with him and with her family and she had better find a way to come to terms with reality.
It had been those harsh words that had severed the last tie between the two of them and had set them on the course that they were now travelling, and it was her complete inability to accept that fact that had led to some of the more spectacular rows that they had had over the years.
He scrubbed his hands across his face, his eyes sliding tiredly closed for a moment before he shook his head and pushed off the computer console that he had been leaning against. He stepped around the controls and made his way over to the infant Tardis, his hands reaching out to lightly stroke the glowing coral where it seemed to be melting into metal sides.
When he settled into a cross legged position on the ground, the Tardis was taller than he was by nearly half a metre and he could tell that she would soon be growing once again.
"I miss the traveling so much sometimes." He grimaced before he corrected himself. "Well, I never did the traveling but I miss the wonder that he knew when he would step onto a new world. Just because I didn't live those memories, doesn't mean that I don't cherish every single experience that he ever experienced. I may not be the Doctor, but he IS me and sometimes I just wish that I could have had a chance to prove myself to him rather than be dumped into this reality without even a chance to show that I could change."
He leaned back against the warm coral, his head resting against the join between metal and coral as he stared broodingly at the information screen on the far wall. "I wasn't the only one who ever committed genocide and even then, he knew that the Daleks had to be destroyed. Donna had created the feedback mechanism, I just figured out the best way to use it in order to make sure that another Time War didn't rage across the universe."
This was an old argument that he had had with himself many times over the years, an argument that never seemed to resolve itself and only seemed to make the pit in his soul deeper with each passing day. Yes Donna had wired the mechanism for the Daleks destruction, but he was the one that had chosen to use it for the final end and because of that, he had doomed himself to the half-life that he now suffered.
He wasn't a Time Lord, nor was he completely human, but he was a cross between the species that didn't belong in either universe and like Donna, he was doomed to wander forever alone, screaming at the injustice of the universes while he just struggled to find his own place in that same universe.
Gods, he hated moping, and hated even more that there didn't seem to be anything that he could do to stop the downward spiral of his thoughts now that he was alone once again. The crazy days of the war had kept his mind occupied for the most part and had kept the worst of his self–recrimination at bay, but now with nothing but time on his hands he found his dour moods were significantly harder to control.
"Will it be as simple as getting off this planet and traveling again? Can it ever be that simple?" He toyed with the cuff of his long sleeved shirt, his fingers flicking a piece of thread that had worked its way loose in a bid to find some focus for his raging thoughts. "I sometimes wonder if it would have been better if the Doctor had just let me die, at least then I wouldn't be so alone."
There was a surge of warmth from behind him before an alarm blared on the computer console by the door, Alec looked sharply up from his morose ponderings and was just about to rise to his feet when he felt the wall shift behind him and he suddenly fell backwards into a portal that had just opened in the side of the Tardis.
Landing flat on his back, Alec oofed as his breath was momentarily driven from his lungs before he was able to focus on the sight in front of him. He was lying halfway in a large roughly circular space that stretched about five metres over his head. The walls were roughly hewn like the coral walls of the parent Tardis, but there were small rounded depressions set at regular intervals around the room. There was no equipment present in the space, merely a raised platform that looked like it was still in the process of being formed.
Alec rolled completely to his side in order to swing his feet in through the small opening that had appeared in the side of the Tardis before rising to his feet and running his fingers gently along the wall beside him. He shivered when he felt a warm tingle rise up his arm, light seemed to pulse gently beneath that touch before he very clearly felt a firm touch press for entrance into his mind.
Hardly able to breathe through the adrenaline that was suddenly pounding through his veins, Alec carefully relaxed the barriers in his mind, barriers that he hadn't even realized he had built over the years until this very moment when another presence asked for permission to enter.
It began as a warm sensation melting through the opening, the presence feeling more of instinct and curiosity then any real coherent thought before it finally completely connected with him. He gave a shout of joy when he felt the connection with that mind and suddenly knew that the Tardis had finally crossed over the threshold of sentience and had reached out to bond with him as her pilot.
The sensations were still new and fresh, the mind of a curious toddler that had just learned how to walk and was already trying to run. He could feel her sifting through his memories with near lightning speed, her thoughts driving him to distraction while he stumbled through the empty control room and up the few steps to sprawl on the platform while he let the Tardis dive into every corner of his mind so that she could learn the best ways to communicate with him.
He lost track of how much time he lay on that platform staring up at the gently glowing ceiling above him. His eyes would burn from time to time as the Tardis would touch on memories too painful to contemplate before she would move on to the next thing that caught her attention. He found that she was fascinated by the most mundane of things, while memories that had been shattering to him when they had occurred garnered barely a second glance.
She was learning fast though, faster than he had ever thought possible and already he could feel her presence growing, attaining a depth and vastness that surprised him as she soaked up all the knowledge that he still managed to retain in his limited human brain.
Alec felt tears streaming down the side of his face as the empty parts of his mind were suddenly filled to bursting with the inquisitive thoughts of the Tardis, her warmth filling the gaping hole that had been torn open when his connection with Donna had been forcibly severed. It would never be the same as the connection that he had shared with the Doctor and Donna, but finally, at long last, he wouldn't be alone.
There was a faint hesitation in his mind as it felt like the Tardis was trying out new pathways that had just been formed in the blink of an eye. Their bond was in its infancy and she was learning him faster than he had ever thought possible, he remembered vaguely the sense of wonder the Doctor had felt when he had first stepped aboard the Tardis all those centuries ago but he had never known the bonds of the Tardis from her infancy. In this, Alec knew that his experiences were completely new and wholly his own.
Hello. Alec shivered when he very clearly heard the word whisper through his mind, the hesitation vanished when it seemed that single word caused the final pathways to fall into place and the Tardis' sensations suddenly exploded into fully formed thoughts and images.
He burst out laughing as the ship began to babble to him about space, time and infinite probability and how she couldn't wait to travel the universe with him and how she would always make sure to protect him no matter where or when they travelled.
Alec rose to his feet and slowly made his way back to the hatch that stood open in the wall of the Tardis, his hand clenched into a tight fist to contain the emotion that was threatening to choke him. He placed a loving hand on the wall, his eyes slid closed and he rested his head against the warm wall before he whispered softly in response.
"Hello, Girl, it's so good to hear from you again. You're going to be amazing and I can't wait to show you everything this universe has to offer. We're going to be brilliant!"
The warm burst of affection was nearly his undoing, causing Alec to slide down beside the open hatch so that he could let the Tardis continue to tell him of the dreams she had experienced before she really knew what it meant to dream. She told him of the feeling of safety she had always felt when he was near and how she had yearned for this moment when she could finally connect with him and let him know how happy she was that the Doctor had given her to him.
He felt the adrenaline finally begin to drain from his system and with the soft babbling of the Tardis fading back into bright impressions, he let the consciousness of the ship cradle his mind in her embrace while he let himself drift off into the first restful sleep that he had experienced in years.