Disclaimer: I don't even think there is any alternative Timeline where I own Doctor Who.

Taking first steps
(S.5 Ep.4 Prt.I)

An unusual piece in a museum leads to a new Adventure.

-o0O0o-

It was a cathedral. Gothic, with massive yet fragile looking pillars reaching way up to impressive heights and showcases, lining up in the middle of the room.
Oh come on! Amy volunteered to see planets, not some dusty old artifacts. And the Doctor didn't even watch them properly, just jumped from showcase to showcase. "Wrong. Wrong. Quite right, mostly wrong. I love museums!"
Museum? A Museum!

"Yeah, great. Can we go to a planet now? First a spaceship, then a bunker… You promised me a planet!"
"This isn't just a random asteroid; this is the Derilium Archive, the resting place of the headless monks. The biggest museum of all times!"
She rolled her eyes. "You have got a time machine, what do you need a museum for?"
He didn't answer, just pointed at an artifact with an outrageous "Wrong! Completely Wrong!"

"Time-meddler," murmured a quiet voice behind them. Amy whirled around and really, there the Storyteller bent over the second showcase with a hint of interest. She hasn't seen the Time Lady since she stormed off into the depths of the TARDIS. She noticed Amy's eyes on her and looked up in a reserved silent greeting, before returning to the artifact in the showcase. She still followed them, even if she and the Doctor were... well.

Honestly, Amy had been shocked by the Storytellers unexpected behavior in London, but then, she had clearly hated the Daleks. Even the Doctor had flipped when first faced with them. And her being here know, it became more and more difficult to believe she was always this cold. She was not Sheela, yes. The purple bruise on the Doctors right cheek proved that. But Amy had noticed her reaction back when she had asked Bracewell about his love. Unlike the Doctor.

Said man pressed his nose at a showcase completely ignorant of the Storytellers presence, before he jumped up and pointed at another. "Oh, mine. Mine, too!"

Amy leaned over the showcase. "Oh, I see. That's how you're keeping your scores!"

The Storyteller stepped next to her. "Fascinating. Meddling around while still following the laws of time."
"That's the Doctor," Amy confirmed, absolutely convinced that it was the truth. "Right?"

But the Doctor was quiet. Never a good sign. Especially how he slowly circled that showcase with that old dusty box in it.

Definitely not a good sign. She didn't like that blank face as he leaned himself on that showcase, either.

With a smile she mimicked him and carefully observed the thing. "Wow. An old Box."

"This is impossible." The Storyteller stepped between them and furrowed her eyebrows as in trying to understand the strange signs carved in the surface. No, Amy really did not like this box. The Doctor starred at the Storyteller surprised she was there, but she completely ignored him, so he turned to explain that thing.

"From one of the old Starliners. It's a home box."
"What's a home box?"
"Like a Blackbox from the airplanes, except if something happens to the ship the Home box fly's straight home, with all the data."
Oh great. "So?"
"The script. The graffiti. High-gallifreyan. The lost language of the Time Lords."
"In fact," Tella continued," It is so old that even the most of us can't understand it anymore."
The Doctors eyes sparkled. "There were Times, these Word were powerful enough to burn out Stars, rise empires and even bring down gods."
Amy's exited gaze switched between the two. "But, you are able to read it. What does it say?"
Tella clasped her hands together. "Of course, I am. Well, I was. Apparently, I am a little bit out of practice. Well, nobody would, dare to use this sacred language to write something propane as …ehm…hello sweetie after all."
The Doctor rubbed his hands. "Somebody did. There's only one way to find out who."

Her eyes went wide. "You do not dare!"
But he already slammed down the sonic screwdriver like a hammer, breaking the space-glass-cover into small bits and pieces. Instantly an Alarm rang through the building. He grabbed the box and ran back to the TARDIS followed by a laughing Amy. This was what she wanted. Tella splat the Doctors name like a curse, then realized the two security men, gathered up her skirt and started to run, too.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Amy grabbed her arm, pulled her into the TARDIS and slammed the door shut. This was close!
Still giggling she jumped up the stairs to the control, where the Doctor already fiddled with the stolen -the stolen!- Home box.

The Storyteller cleared her throat annoyed and dusted her clothes. "You are completely mad! Even something normal and peaceful like visiting a simple museum turns into an adventure with running and... breaking things, for time's sake. Just one calm day, one day is that so much to give. No, instead we steal an artifact from the collection of the headless monks. The headless monks! Do you even know who they are?" She climbed up the Stairs to sit down on a chair up there on the gallery.

At least they talked to each other again.

"I do. But somebody on that spaceship tried to communicate with me, so let's see if I can get the security-cam! Ah here we go."
And they did. Before Amy knew what happened they suddenly picked up another woman, who apparently could fly the TARDIS, knew the same techno babble and brought them to a Planet. A real Planet.

-o0O0o-

"How come you can fly the TARDIS?"
The woman who still hadn't introduced herself picked up her shoes from the monitor. "Oh, I had lessons from the very best."

The Doctor grinned. "Well, yeah."

She shot him a glare. "It's a shame you were busy that day."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes accusingly. "Tella?"
The woman froze on her way to the doors and whirled around, noticing the Time Lady up in the gallery for the first time.

The Storyteller didn't move but her watchful gaze hadn't left the woman for one second.
Her cocky behavior disappeared into something softer, more respectful. Interesting. "Oh."
Then she gathered herself and stepped forward. "Dr. River Song. Luck and precious times, my Lady."
The Storyteller rose and bowed, clearly interested now. "Luck and precious times."
The Doctor looked from one to another. "You know each other."

"Not personally," Dr. Song swiftly corrected. "There're stories. You're talking quite often about her. The other you."
"The other him," Amy asked. The Storyteller rose one eyebrow while coming down the stairs and stopping next to Amy.
"Oh, we have some weird time traveling shenanigans going on here," Dr. Song waved dismissively.
"The bane of every TTC Pilot," countered the Storyteller and Dr. Song grinned coyly, clearly back to her old self.
"Oh, it wasn't you, either."
"And there I was worried for a second."

What was going on? The two of them clearly talked over the Doctor's and Amy's head, but how could that even be possible. They've just meet!
The Doctor didn't like it either. "Right. Back to the giant crashed ship out there."
"Crashed," River asked surprised.
"You should've checked the Home Box."
River rose her eyebrows and searched her purse for a tablet- like device. Then she nodded to the Storyteller and left the TARDIS.

"Interesting," the Storyteller mused, eyes still on the door.
"Yeah," nodded Amy. "Explain. Who is that and how did she do that museum thing?"

The Doctor waved dismissively. "It's a long story and I don't know most of it. Off we go."

"Wait. We're leaving? Are you running away?"
The Doctor pushed around at the consoles. "Yep."
"Why?"
"Because she is his future, is she not", the Storyteller guessed. Correctly by his reaction, so she added: "He is always running away from that."
"I can run away from anything I like," he dismissed defensive, "Time is not the boss of me."
"Is it? "
The Storyteller looked to Amy. "Besides, if I understood correctly, you promised Ameila here to visit a real planet, just like the one outside."
Amy rose an impressed eyebrow. " You did. Five minutes?
"Fine. Fife minutes," he pressed through his teeth. "But I'm telling you, I won't be dragged into anything by this woman!"
And with that he left the TARDIS.

Yes! Amy turned to the Storyteller and stopped in her tracks under that piercing gaze. What the hell was she supposed to say?
"Your planet is waiting."
"Yeah, right, thanks. Uh, you're coming, too?"
"Do you wish me to?"
Amy didn't expect that. So, her impression of the Storyteller not allways being like that was right?
"Yes. Of course. But. You don't need to."
A strange smile flickered over her face, sending shivers of discomfort down Amy's neck. "I do. It is the chip."
"Which chip," Amy wanted to ask, but the Storyteller had already left the TARDIS. And with the view of a burning spaceship crashed into a huge building on a different planet simply blowing her mind, she forgot the question.

The Doctor and were already bickering around, with the Storyteller silently watching from the sideline. The awkwardness between the two women seemed to have resolved completely, because Dr. Song ignored Tella and was teasing him merciless. Seriously, who was this?
Amy was fascinated.
"How did she do that? She left a message in the museum," she asked the Doctor who had his hands stuffed in his pockets and a clearly uncomfortable expression on his face

"Two things you will always find in a Museum. A Starliner's Homebox and sooner or later our friend. That's how he's keeping the records." Dr. Song answered for him.
Amy laughed. "I know!"
"Funny, isn't it?"
Amy really liked this woman. The Doctor apparently not so much as he interrupted them hat he wasn't a Taxi-device what let them into bickering until she dropped that something immortal lived in the ship. And then she just ran off phoning someone with that device which apparently was a communicator. And then the Doctor soniced her. Yes, she liked her. It was amazing how that woman commandeered him around and it was even more amazing that he followed. As If she… no. The Doctor wasn't married, was he?

And then she pulled out that Diary and suddenly all made sense. As much as meeting each other in the wrong direction makes sense anyway. She was his future, the Storyteller had said. So, she really could be his wife. How domestic.
And then those military men turned up and told them that there was something called a Weeping Angel in the building.

-oO0Oo-

Marc didn't like the woman. Something about her just felt wrong. But the Pater told them that she was traveling with the Doctor, so maybe she had to be a little different.
Simply thinking about being in the same room as this man sends shivers down his neck. The Pater told them that they would get an army as back-up, but this man turning up here was a sign of the almighty himself. The mighty Doctor, one of the most fearsome and dangerous Creatures in the Universe.
And still, the time Marc saw him, he simply was a man in strange clothes. He has smiled and bounced around like a gumball, graced with seemingly never ending energy, but also a dark, serious glint in his eyes, just like Marc thought he would have. But more surprising was the fact that he told him and his brothers to simply ignore the woman in the dark dress from the 1900 with the light brown hair in that strange hairdo.
Don't talk to her unless she spoke first, don't serve her food because she would see it as surrender or even courting. Just leave her alone, and she won't bother you either.

But now she was sitting on the exact pair of boxes he needed acces to. Admittitly out of the way, but ther was something in the way she disdainfully watched them assembling their gear and preparing to enter the maze that caused him gosebumbs. Even the Doctor didn't seem to be comfortable with her, she ignored him for the most part. But he needed that box.
"Ma'am?"
Her eyes shifted to him but there was no other change in her stiff posture or blank polite face.
"If you don't mind, please, I need access to this box, ma'am."
Her eyes shifted from him to the box she was sitting on and back to him. Then she stood up and took two steps to the side in one fluid motion.
That was surprisingly easy. He nodded respectfully. "Thank you, ma'am."

Or not, the whole time he opened the box and went through the gear to find the adapter he searched he felt her gaze on him. And when he found that thing, nodded her good bye and left she followed him. Her steps were barely audible but the feeling of being watched combined with the looks his brothers sent him were unmistakable and he slowly started panicking.
She was a travelling companion of the mighty Doctor and he personally had warned them to ignore her. He was nothing like Marc has expected, so what cosmically power or horrors did this woman process? Was she even a woman? They were hunting a statue able to kill, for god's sake. The steps stopped abruptly. All right, so he only needed to continue walking to loose her. Or not, she was back, faster this time. So he started to walk faster, too.
Except she caught up to him. Oh, God almignty.

"Lead me to the Doctor and your Bishop. It is urgent."
Her voice was soft and warm with a gentle hum. It was that lack of volume that sent him scrambling to obey immediately. He didn't think she ever had to raise her voice to get what she wanted in her life, she just had that specific aura of authority and command a lot of Bishops and Cardinals barking orders around couldn't dream to archive.
"Of Course, Ma'am. Please, follow me."

He told Brother Bob to get the adapter to Lewis and Stephen, and lead her to the Pavilion with the Landing Ship. In this moment the Doctor jumped out of the ship, followed by the Pater and the Archeologist, Dr. Song, if he remembered correctly.
"…I need to save you to all eternity."
"Sir, if there is any possibly danger for the local population…."
"There certainly is. That's why I am going to join you."

The Doctor spun around. "Tella! But… we agreed you're staying on the TARDIS! You pointed out yourself that the amount of time energy an Angel could get from two of us is…."
"Nothing compared to the energy leaking down out of this ship right now. Beside there is something really nasty waiting inside, and we need to stop it, even if all of the clerics will die. And they will; I involuntarily glimpsed their time-lines."
Her back straightened even more. "That is the deal, Doctor. A slightly higher change for the survival of maximal four individuals more against the clearly higher outcome of the Angels feasting on the lifetime of a Time Lord. So tell me, are they worth it. Because the risk that we all die will also rise even higher. Convince me."
The Pater raised his hand. "Stop. Stop, one moment please. What do you mean all the clerics are going to die?"
But Dr. Song stepped beside the Doctor, which wasn't this easy on the small plates forming the ways over the wet ground. "It would be a great pleasure and help if you join us, Milady Storyteller."

Marc froze and even the Pater turned white. The Doctor and the Celestial Storyteller. That explained everything. Now he wasn't sure anymore, if heaven or hell sent this little blue box to help them.

"Certainly. However, the risks are exceptionally higher than the benefit, of doing so, which is why I need you to convince me to make this highly irresponsible and irrational decision."

"Irrational? You are saving four more lives," Dr. Song interrupted.
Did she really try to convince the Celestial Storyteller with this argument? This would never work. And exactly like Marc expected, the Celestial Storyteller answered.
"Maybe. Maybe four, maybe three maybe two or just one. And a very, very huge possibility of saving none."

"You don't have to decide, because we won't go inside, ma'am," the Pater said suddenly.
"Sadly, this is not an Opinion, Pater Octavian."
The Doctor rubbed his forehead. "It... It is a fixed Point."
"Oh, somebody uses his time sense for once. The Angels have to be destroyed, or the whole Universe will suffer," the Storyteller explained. "You are going to die, but it is for a greater purpose. You are destined to save this Universe, Pater. You simply can't back down from that responsibility."
"Neither can you," the Pater shot back. "Our death may lead us to our great lord, and so we will accept it. But if you are able to save them, you have to do so."
"My only responsibility is time itself, Pater. None of your humans."
The Doctor placed a hand on his shoulder to prevent the Pater from stepping forward. "So, why do you ask in the first place, Tella. Why are you convinced that this is a bad idea but still leaving the choice to me?"

"They are humans."
Marc stiffened but kept silent.
"I don't understand", the Doctor admitted.

"You sacrificed the Prawostan-Galaxy with all the 86 allied Planets to the Nightmarechild to save the Milkyway, to save Earth, "the Storyteller explained matter-of-factly. "You doomed us with that, with the powers of those allies we could have been able to win. There are multiple Timelines we did. We ended it and Gallifrey would still be out there, singing her song along the other Worlds. You choose them. You always choose them, and I want to know why."

There was complete silence, everybody had heard her. "You shouldn't even remember this Galaxy!"
"Don't. Do not offend me by trying such a clumsy, shameful trick. Do not evade the question, not this time."
"Tella-"
"The name is Lady Storyteller," she interrupted. "Convince me!"

The Doctor started pacing, fiddling with his hands. Then stopped and turned to her. "I'm mad. Completely mad."
"I noticed. That is not the reason."
He scoffed and paced again. Then he stopped, gestured helplessly before himself before he started speaking. "I have made myself the rule that a live has the highest value above all. You don't treat one and you always try to save it, no matter how high the risk."
"And how do you distinct between the lives worthy of saving and the ones not?"
"I just told you, there's no difference."
"Then why do you not save the weeping Angel. It is a life, too. Have the humans priority?"

"The weeping angels are unholy monsters," the Pater growled annoyed.
"So am I," the Celestial Storyteller snapped and caused the Pater to involuntarily step backwards. "Even the Doctor, in some eyes."

The Doctor sighted. " Tella, we don't have time for this."
"It is Storyteller. And yes, we do. Convince me."
"I can't," he shot back. "I simply can't. There's too much, to different things. I just can't. I can't tell you."
"Of course you can."
"No...I ca-"
"Of course you do," she interrupted him shrill. She cleared her throat and continued in a normal voice. "You do. There was never a fact of any kind not been able to be described by the gallifreyan language."
"Gallifreyan is a dead language. Gone. Like everything else. Burned into dust, by me."
"Are you accusing me of not being able to speak my mother tongue anymore?"

He froze and turned with a strange new gleaming in his eyes. Then he straightened his bowtie and opened his mouth. The Sound was unlike any language Marc had ever heard, as if he talked without his voice and yet with it. And even while Marc couldn't understand it, the old language moved his feelings into a complicated and indescribable mix.

The Celestial Storyteller nodded slowly. "I see. I need to think about that and I maybe need a long time to figure it out. But I respect this even if it is not my opinion."
She turned to the Pater. "I will join you and do what is needed to be done. But, as I said before, my first priority is the web of time."
The Pater nodded. "I know. There are enough tales after all."
"There are? Interesting. Hopefully I can hear them one day."
"If god wishes, you may will. Marc will bring you fitting attire."
"Why? My current clothing is completely appropriate, thank you."
He blinked and looked down her clothing. "Ok, if you are able to move completely free in it, Ma'am. I didn't want to lose you because of non-useful clothing."
She smiled. "You never wore a skirt before, have you? Well, now where is Amelia. I have to get her the news, she will be not alone with this clumsy foolish Timetodd." And then she was gone.
"A skirt," the Pater asked carefully.
"Ah, just a little slip, you see. Wrong time period. Anyway, Bishop." He clapped his hands. "Load and unlock!"

-o0O0o-

To be continued….


AN:
So here we are, the first part of the rewritten episode Time of the Angles. It's the first and only time ever River and Tella meet each other. However it is as River said, she heared a lot from the Doctor and Amy about Tella. Which is why she's so ooc for the first few sentences of their interaction.

About that thing with the parking brakes, I have my own theory, which will be revealed in another story.

That thing with the galifeyan talking just happened. The barley met each other, and the Doctor often forgets that he is not the only one anymore. I don't know the exact facts, in my Headcanon it is a telepathic language using both, words and feelings to describe, it is therefore more accurate and defined. At first I actually had them have both of their arguments in the last and this chapter completely in Gallyfreyan simply because Tella currently doesn't care if the Humans understand her but well, the plot would be completely absent word he says is the gallifeyan word for human by the way. Tella is always complaining about the small Vocabulary of terrestrial languages.

The last chapter introduced some weird character dynamics between the Doctor and Tella. She knows her moral compass doesn't work quite right, she had slapped somebody, after all. So she wants to talk to a Time Lord who help her to do things the way of the Time Lords again. The only other living Time Lord is the Doctor, who definitely not follows those morals, but his own. She dos not want to be like the Doctor. That's why she's questioning him like that. All her questions will make sense when we come to her backstory later. that explains that Celestial Storyteller thing, too.

Next time we step into the labyrinth, and everybody gets annoyed with Tella.

As always read and review,

Greetings
alkatie

09102016
Edid 26102016
Edid 19042020