Over the centuries

-o0O0o-

One would think centuries would fly by for a Time Lord. They do, but simultaneously don't, at least not when spent on earth.

-o0O0o-

It's 1879 and she is freezing. She only spent 54 minutes on this planet and already hates the rain.
True, it's nothing compared to the floods crashing down in the rain seasons on Dandelecan IV, but the soft constant dipping has a way of clawing through her clothes and rendering her umbrella useless.
She marches on, down the muddy road in the direction of the thick clouds of dirt and smoke on the horizon. It's about four more hours until she will reach London. She wasn't able to land closer, due to the temporal consequences if someone had seen the ship she chartered touching down. Travelling via TARDIS was way more comfortable. She will be again, soon.
That's what she thought until she sees the Doctors eyes.

-o0O0o-

It's 1883 and she takes another cup of tea to calm her mind. Madame Vastra had helped her to acquire a small apartment three blocks down Paternoster Road, yet here she sits in their winter garden between all their plants waiting for an explanation to why a rocket of all thinks took off a night ago near Yorkshire.
Their surprised smiles once they see her remind her of the Ponds and cause a small pool of warmth in her belly, calming her enough to allow herself to raise an amused eyebrow at the tale they spin. At least it wasn't his fault this time.

She later takes the girl, Ada, home and has a short discussion with her landlady after which offers the blind young woman another apartment.
Ada doesn't hug her as she has dreaded -a trait she had encountered way too often for her taste. Instead she expresses her thanks in a dignified nod and then simply starts to explore the three small rooms with her hands and cane.
This distance is refreshingly familiar for the Time Lord and a component to their later friendship they never loose, don't want to lose. They're too similar in spirit and mind, bearing the same scars, even if the Storytellers regeneration turned hers invisible.
There's nobody in her life understanding her pain better than this human woman, never was and never will be.

Yet, it's Vastra who climbs up to the roof five months later, placing a cucumber sandwich and another pot of tea on the tiles. She continues to stargaze, listening to the universe for any small change, but there's nothing.
She is completely and utterly alone.

"Storyteller," Vastra's eyes are knowing. Well, she doesn't really know, there are other Siluirans left, but she is left stranded and alone in this age without any of her kind. So, she does have an inkling on how it feels.
"I knew it would happen eventually," she whispers, her voice surprisingly rough from its unuse.
She checks the time. Oh, that's where the concern in these beautiful eyes comes from. It had been fifteen days.
Fifteen days on this roof with nothing but tea and the stars.
Fifteen days since they returned.
She had been worried back then, the traces of the break in clearly visible. How foolish of her to worry about something so mundane.
"He was in his thirteenth Regeneration, I am in my seventh."
"He's not dead, yet. He's still somewhere out there."
"So is Kelliox. Myrilja. They all are, if you know where to go. You know that. No, my dear Madam Vastra: I am the last of my kind. I am the last Time Lord."

There's determination in her eyes, duty. For the Doctor this title had been a burden, and yes, yes it was a terrible one. For him it was a reminder of what he had done while for her it was something else, something to be proud of.
And yet, what did it truly mean to be a Time Lord?
That question haunted her form the moment she had returned out of that fob watch. She had stumbled and followed the Doctor, the only other left, everywhere to find a solution but was only left with more questions.

"The kind of questions you ask, define who you are," encourages Vastra quietly.
Oh yes, she knows.
That and they know each other well enough now to follow each other's thoughts. And she is right. The Storyteller takes a bite of the sandwich, just like Ada had shown her to do it. The more questions asked, the clearer the answer.
The next day she enrolls in the London School of Medicine for Women, taking her degree as a Medical Doctor and Physician in honor of old and new friends.
She adjusts, and starts to live.
It's harder than on Dandelecan IV and she often thinks back because Sol III, Earth's tune is so different.
She leaves London, settles down near Cambridge but whenever there's a problem or she's just to overwhelmed by humanity, she returns.
And then, there's Vastra, refreshingly non-human and old and while not a Time Lord, still a member of an equally wise species. Perhabs wiser.
There's Ada, who simply understands and has equal difficulties to fit in after being rejected by those who created her for what she had become, what they turned her into.
There is Strax whom she sees as a pet, even if the others insist he actually has a purpose and perhaps it is for them to remember how to laugh.
And Jenny, dear beautiful wide eyed Jenny, further teaching her about humans and sponging up every lesson she offers in return.
She adjusts.

-o0O0o-

It's 1907 and Vastra gifts her the House. She vanishes the next day and all that's left are two tombstones and old memories echoing in the wide halls.
She keeps it, nevertheless. It's her purpose to tell the stories of the lost and forgotten ones and that was exactly what their little ragtag group had been.
She returns to Ada and her grandchildren and sits down for Tea. She will die, too, before hell breaks loose and people will slaughter themselves all over the world. The Storyteller has seen enough of that for all her thirteen regenerations, so she flees to Australia out into the wilderness of a small farm working as a governess.
She gets flashbacks from the news but the faces she has to visualise now are countless and dead, and yet, she manages. They aren't mutilated and twisted, they died happy and old and it helps. The Doctor is still among them.
The house survives, both wars mind you, but she never lives there, only cherishes its memories.

-o0O0o-

It's 1936 and she needs a lot of discipline not to simply jump into the next train back to New York. She's one of the few the crisis has missed and she has no regrets about having cheated with her knowledge because she does everything to help.
And she can. For the first time she can use her abilities to help, without condemning others as a prize for it.
In the beginning she walked though the Hovervillles in the central park, offering her services as a physician and teacher and a kettle of soup for free.
Then that incident with the Daleks – Daleks, for time's sake- happened and she fled to New Orleans that encounter with a too young version of the Doctor being a bit to close. Martha Jones saw her, but as long as they never met again, she won't think anything of the well clothed short woman pulling her under a table and fighting a Dalek off with a coking spoon and curses in an unknown language.

But now, nine years later she has a reason to return to this city. But she does not.
She helps anonymously, buys a pair of shoes here so the shoemaker has enough coin to get himself a new book written by that new Author coming out of nowhere. Gives a Blanket there so that weary man can later exchange it for a train ticket to New York for his nephew who will find rare work these days at the printing press of the publisher printing those new novels.
Her influence, She, is invisible just like a Time Lord is supposed to be, and yet she misses her friends. But no, Rory needs still to arrive. So she waits and founds an orphanage in the mean time with the money she had saved from the crash.

-o0O0o-

It's 1966 and Rory won't let go. She smiles into his hair and endures the way longer than necessary hug, because this is Rory. Besides Kelliox, Amy and him (and sometimes Jenny) are the only ones permitted to do this.
Also, Anthony's face is worth it. She scared the boy nearly to death with her sudden appearance on their Doorstep.
Well, Amy did invite her and gave her their address.
It takes a long talk to convince him of the truth of all his mothers stories and Rory's still working Smartphone on which he recorded messages back when Tony still was a baby. He throws Tella a guilty look when he pulls it out but she only smiles. She trusts them not to break time like their daughter did.

Rory quits his job at the central hospital and opens an office with her instead.
Amy uses her as an inspiration for a new series of novels and she gladly tells her about everything she asks. When they're alone she calls her by her old name and at first it's uncomfortable. Then she learns that Amelia Pond trusts the person with that name just as completely as the Time Lord trusts her.
In fact, there is only one thing she never tells either of them in the many decades they spend together: the truth about Tranzelore.

-o0O0o-

It's 1999 and she feels the whole molecular structure of the planet shift. It's not, but standing in the cemetery and staring into the open grave with the coffin it should. It's certainly not the first grave she stands over and neither the first of a beloved one.
Yet, for the first time she doubts, finds a truth in the Doctors bitter words. She remembers how he reacted when the Ponds died for him, left him, and she feels very much the same bitterness. But she doesn't stop. She finally begins.
Every life has a beginning and an end and is worth everything. A short passing through the ever present, creating a future and a past.
This is time, this is what she's supposed to protect. This is what she will protect.

-o0O0o-

Its 2007 and she runs into herself. Not literally, but she finds herself sitting in a small coffee shop at the other side of the street.
This encounter haunts her for nearly three months, because it was deliberate. She would never cross her own time stream as obviously like that. She greeted herself, for time's sake!
But what was she trying to tell herself, beside the obvious?
Her future self read one of Kelliox journals, and she knows that he described an easy ways to construct a heavily modified vortex manipulator for a lot more save travels. But she doesn't have all the necessary parts.

The answer to all that brings Martha Jones, standing on her doorstep on behalf of UNIT.
It's an awkward conversation, even if she offers her biscuits and tea to take. She can neither tell her her name nor true age or planet of birth, only that she's a friend of the Doctor. Who does not know her, yet.
Martha Jones doesn't trust her, but she remembers their fight against the Daleks and so she gives her the benefit of the doubt.
Three days later she brings none other than Jack Harkness. Her eyes hurt and everything in her screams to end this abomination but she reigns herself in. Fixing this mess would only create an even bigger one. Besides, she doesn't have enough control without a time travelling device for the precision this needs to work. So she tries to ignore it.
To her amusement and Martha's frustration he can't figure her out either. Tea is a bit like one of those quiz shows where the candidates stumble from question to question though the dark to the viewers enjoyment, until she notices the old Vortex Manipulator on his wrist.
Really? Well, he is a Time Agent, and considering who she is, it's more than necessary to reintroduce herself.
So, she smiles, leans forward and offers her name in exchange for borrowing it. He laughs and leaves shortly after. She smiles and starts to plot his murder.

-o0O0o-

It's 2012 and she visits the Melburns for the last time. She didn't recognize them when they first met again a year ago. It had been literal ages and they ran into each other in Cardiff. Since then she regularly came for lunch or a barbecue in their small garden.
They live two towns away from Leadwood so there's no chance to run into a younger pair of Ponds or herself.
She loves the pair of old humans treating her like their grandchild, even if she spent the amount of years their age combined trapped on this planet alone.
She finishes her glass of vintage, kisses their cheeks and leaves. That truck should have run that annoying Time Agent over by now.
She needs to hurry, the first time she overestimated the time he needs to wake up again and was barely able to dodge under a table in the morgue before he spotted her. But this time it works as it's supposed to be.
She commits the timecoordinates to memory to be able to bring his underdeveloped Vortex manipulator back.
She returns it five seconds yet nearly seven years later. Then, she readies her own and when the white shield flares up around her before softly sliding unharmed into the Vortex she knows, she can finally be free again to follow her purpose.


AN:
Yup, the time of rewrites and confusion is over, we ended the eleventh arc. The next few chapters are about Tella tingling around in the universe and finding a place for herself, becoming the person river and the clerics admired and were frightened of way back at the Byzantium. If you want to know what she's up to as the last Time Lord now that the Doctor is dead, stay tuned. Especially for her reaction when she finds out he's of course not. I have waited so long to finally be able to write those chapters and I'm so happy this is really happening right now. And with Corona giving me way to much free time, I'm positive I'll not just update twice a year. Hopefully.
Seriously, I'm so happy about every single favorite and follow this story gained, especially considering how chaotic this all was and my extreme slow writing pace. But, I also finished Leviathan, so I at least have an excuse.

Please stay safe and healthy everyone.

Greetings

Alkatie

17042020