Disclaimer: I'm from earth and just a human. So no, I don't own.

Home

(Interlude S.5 ep.9 & 10)

The definiton of that word in gallifreyan differs painfully from the human view of it.

-o0O0o-

Lady Storyteller was the keeper of many secrets.
Not only because of her (even for a Timelord) extremely good developed ability to see what is, could be and could have been in the movement of the Timelines, or … this other thing. Because of the Stories she had seen, the Stories she had told and had been told by strangers, friends, students, family and life. The Doctor may have known things in the universe to painful, terrifying and dangerous to even think of, but she had a load of them, too. And they were as important and big in their own way.

And the most painful, biggest secret (even bigger than her) wasn't even one, until she realized on her first trip with the Doctor, it was.

She didn't hate adventures.
Yes, she preferred the calmness of a library to running down corridors with a angry mob on her heels, but being able to see all the different species, all those Stories on a interplanetary Market?
She was curious, even more curious than the doctor. Hah! The marks on her right hand, the thing she was, proofed she was the most curious Timelord ever existing! But the fear had made her keeping her head down, keeping the mask of a normal, detached, strict and orderly, a proper Timelady, stilling her curiosity only through the knowledge and books of Gallifrey, surprising the desire for more until it was gone. Until the mask she wore became her face. So no, she didn't enjoy, but either hate adventures.

She hated Planets.

She hated stepping out of his Type 40 and stumbling over the wrong gravity.
As if the slight disharmony in the music of the spheres wasn't enough to remember her constantly of her loss. That missing tune, the song of Home. And the ting bothering her most was how easily it's overheard, how easy one missed the gap not knowing where to look for. How little and unimportant they actually had been and still so impactful.
And a Timelord always listened to that tune, which left her searching and hurting every breath she took, longing for home.

Home.

Home is the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household, the district or country where one was born or has settled on a long-term basis. Shortly :A place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates. For a Timelord there is another componente to that definition.

There was a reason, why for the Timelords Gallifrey meant home. Not the place, the planet. It was an unspoken truth, so obvious to everyone, there was no reason to speak about it.
It was the only difference between her motherthounge and the terrestrial- human- languages she valued.
Because when Roderick and Amelia asked her for stories from home, she used the differing definitions as a loophole to tell from silver leaved forests and an orange sky. From the sight of Pazithi Gallifreya and Lunasi over the snowy tops of the Solitude Mountains. From young children running carefree over meadows of read grass and old, dignified Timelords carefully watching over them, calling them to behave. From whispering students in the high-ceiling halls of the Academy and the greeting nods to acquaintances while passing by in the Panopticum.

They were mentally not able to understand it otherwise.
No other living being except one was. And out of her many secrets, this was there most painful.

Every time she stepped out of his TARDIS, took a moment to breath in and adjust to the turning of this new/alien/different… wrong planet before she followed him and his 'companions' in another adventure he swayed them all to, he never noticed.
Not a word, not a glance, not even a spark of recognition for her behavior.

Oh, she could feel his senses, stretching and brushing the gravity of that planet but was he still able to feel the difference? Or did his countless wandering, hopping from world to world dulled them and therefore made it this easy for him to destroy… Stop. She never allowed these thoughts to finish, always banished them back behind the dark wall she kept her in her mid. She respected him too much for this. And Timelords never talked about it, after all.

And then, one day after Amelia went to sleep, he punched in some coordinates, but didn't rush down immediately after the drop of the landing-drum. Instead he grinned and gestured for her to open the door.
She rose a suspicious eyebrow. "What is so dangerous out there for you sending me fist?"
It was always amusing how easy you could rile him (although she kept it for herself). This time however, he just spluttered once and threw her a look. It wasn't funny. Not after what just happened to Roderick.

"Home", he said, before realizing his mistake as she froze.
"New! New home. Your new home, I mean. Different Planet, I know you think I'm crazy enough to go back there, but of cause I'm not. And there's the time-lock…"
He realized his ramblings and stopped, wringing his hands. He scratched his head, before he directed her again to the door with an inviting sway of his arm. "Please."
His eyes sparkled with real excitement and his smile was genuine, even a bit.. nervous. It was important for him. Well, so it may be.

She rose from her chair, came down the stairs from the gallery and stopped before the door. She suppressed the nagging, little hope deep down inside a tiny corner of her left heart, but could not help herself to avoid throwing a doubtful glance at the Doctor, who joined her. He urged her silently forward and so she opened the door.

And even while expecting it, it still hurt to see the wide landscape of soft hills stretching to the horizon with this strange green grass under a surprisingly bright sky for its alien cerulean color.
The air smelled salty and somewhere an ocean roared while sea- birds flied screaming overhead. She stuck her head out and blinked up to the sun.
Sun's, a twin sun system, but so far away, they merged to one on the first impression.
She searched for careful words when he suddenly pushed her and in order to catch herself she stepped outside.

… And breathed in sync with the planet.

When her people danced, they danced in this pace to include their Gallifrey in their festivities.
Every ritual they hold was cycled with these steps to symbolize the harmony between them and their home.
This was the turning comforting and steadying her steps while walking through the academy with her head down, trying to be invisible to the other students. And also about two hundred years later, as she prideful marched through the same halls as the new headmaster of her academy, hiding her nervousness as the other teachers and students bowed to her.
This was the tune lulling her to sleep in every regeneration until the last.
This was the turning she concentrated on to find peace for her mind in times she still discovered her abilities, whenever the humming of the spheres and the stories of the Multiverses and Time got too much.

Except, the sky was blue.

It was gruesome and so wonderful at the same time.

"Dandelecan IV," the Doctor said, leaning in the doorframe.
The infamous theory of the twin-world.
Sol III has Mondas.
The constellation of Kastoborus has the Dandelecan-Systems, although the live forms of the seven habitable planets differ.
They still sang the same tune, moved in the same speed through the universe, had the same gravity and size. Only this mattered.
Once the Timelords were offended by the thought of a planetary system so similar to their own as different as their species were, but in the Time-war they shamelessly used this multiple times as a bait or even double which got destroyed instead of home.
Hold that thought.

"Wasn't it destroyed in the Time-war?"
The Doctor chuckled. "Not in this timeline."
"Oh. Right."
And she ignored the facets of what will and could have been in the corners of her eyes and grounded herself fin the familiar feeling of the planets turn.
And for the first time in ages she could see properly, standing in the here and now of this one timeline.
Home.

She cleared her voice. "I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "Happens. Even I have problems to sometimes stay in the same Timeline, can't imagine how hard it has to be for…"
"That's not what I meant," she interrupted. "Apparently, you're not the only one forgetting you're not alone."
The Timelords don't speak about it.
"Well. You always complained about traveling in the TARDIS, so I thought you'll comfortable with a place you can return to or stay if you're not in the mood for other planets."
Planets.
So he did noticed after all and understood.

She bowed. "Thank you, Milord Doctor."
He beamed. "So ya like it?"
"It is considerable."

He laughed and shook his head. "Oh Tella. You haven't even seen the best. See that hill?"
He pointed somewhere behind her. "Behind it, there's a little cottage. Right at the sea, just like you told about your family's house back there."
She allowed herself to show that sad but grateful smile. "Thank you."
He straightened his bow-tie "Well, I'm the Doctor, that's what I do."

Why, why was he so afraid of being serious.
Because here and now, this planet and her were the reminder of what he had done.
So she grinned and stretched out her hand in the traditional gallifeyan gesture of the invitation to join her.
"You may?"
And this time, it was him taking a break as he stepped into the soft green grass, before linking arms with her and strolling up the hillside.

-o0O0o-

Do you know like we were saying about the Earth revolving? It's like when you were a kid.
The first time they tell you the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still.
I can feel it.
The turn of the Earth.
The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling round the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour,
and I can feel it.
We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…..

That's who I am.

-Ninth Doctor, Rose


AN: Hey!

Here I am, typing another Oneshot instead of learning for my exams. I hope it's worth it.

It was the ninth Doctors monologue about how he's able to feel the spinning of the earth that kept me watching the show, I didn't and still don't like the episode Rose. But this few sentences kept me watching, paired with the scene where he manipulates time in Worlds End, and here I am.

I think all Timelords have the ability to feel the movements of the universe. So they must develop a special bond to their origin planet. In fact I have the theory, its one of the reasons they actually hate to leave Gallifrey. In my heads it feels like entering a ship. You are able to walk and live there normal, but it feels different than walking on dry land. For somebody this deeply connected and suddenly loosing this? No fun and one of the real reasons why Tella is this angry at the Doctor. She can't understand how somebody with the similar connection still can destroy the planet. So him bringing her to a planet with a similar feeling, is a big step of earning her forgiveness.

And writing Lady Storyteller is a pain.

Thanks to Chimmicherry for following that collection.
As always read and review and please tell me if you like the way this is going.

Greetings
Alkatie

29012017