A/N: It's been a long time since I posted in this fandom...I fell out of it for the first time ever in my life the last few years but in celebration of the news of RTD's impending return, I was inspired to post again. Enjoy!
The results were posted on all the holo-emitters the evening of the last day of exams. After a full month of examinations, one day for each student, the current class of hopefully soon-to-be- Time Lords gathered around their stations to see the rankings.
Well, Theta Sigma didn't so much gather as hang back. It was much more fun to watch everyone else act like they'd never taken a test before than see his own results. One of his classmates left in tears, crying, "a First? A First?! I thought I'd get Double First for sure!" Her friends took her out of the room, talking in soothing voices. Another student, a boy who always made a point of giving too-long answers in class, pumped his fist in the air and crowed, "Triple First! I did it!"
Koschei came by after glancing at his results, looking almost bored. "Not interested at all in how you did, Thete?"
"Hmm? Oh, it's all a bunch of fuss for nothing. You see Rado over there, going on about his Triple First? When's he ever done anything interesting?" Theta said. "I suppose you passed then?"
"Passed? Triple first, Theta, as I expected," Koschei said, a proud smirk appearing on his face.
"I suppose you-" looked at my score as well? was what Theta was about to say, when Rado took another look at the results.
"Theta failed! Theta Sigma, genius of geniuses, failed?! Oh, this is too good!" he said, laughing.
"Hmm. It's all a load of nonsense anyway. I could have answered those questions in my sleep," Theta said, sweeping out of the room with Koschei. He didn't much like Gallifreyan robes, but they did make for a good dramatic exit.
"Aren't you embarrassed, Theta? To have done worse than puffed-up imbeciles like him?" Koschei asked.
"Why should I be? Doing better than them isn't very impressive. I could have passed that exam when I was ten," Theta said.
"It was rather easy, wasn't it?" Koschei said. Theta humphed. He'd had more fun giving nonsense answers than taking the exam seriously. "Still, I consider it a point of pride to prove myself better than this lot."
"That's your trouble, Koschei, you're too concerned with them," Theta said. "You know, and I know, that we're much cleverer than they'll ever be. What do I need with an exam score to tell me that?" He firmly believed that the respect of his classmates was pointless. Exam scores were arbitrary anyway. Easily thrown, as he'd shown.
"You might be right," Koschei said. "Well, I suppose you'll come to the ceremony?"
"What ceremony?" Theta asked.
"When I become a Time Lord," Koschei said. "It's in two weeks, they already announced it for everyone who passed."
"Oh. Yes, of course," Theta said.
"I suppose it doesn't bother you at all that we'll all become Time Lords while you're still just a Gallifreyan," Koschei said.
"Not in the least. Who wants to be one of those stuffed robes anyway?" Theta said. "It isn't as if they'll let you pilot a TARDIS anytime soon. You'll probably have to regenerate oh, five times or so before they allow that." A dark look crossed Koschei's face. He and Theta had complained many times about the harsh laws governing Gallifrey, keeping them trapped here. "There isn't any point in becoming a Time Lord when you can't do anything with it," Theta said with an air of finality.
But that wasn't the end of it. First Theta had to endure the sighs and eye rolls of his teachers, all of whom had been subjected to his intellect and couldn't believe he'd failed with a 38%. His family, too, all shouted at once that he'd embarrass them to no end if he was the first Prydonian in centuries not to make Time Lord. Or at least that was Theta thought they'd said. They were all yelling at once, after all.
"I'll do it in my own time," Theta said to Koschei. "I won't be pushed around to something I didn't want to do in the first place."
But even his friends weren't the same. Theta had gone to Koschei's ceremony like he'd said. All his friends had passed the exam, even Drax, and ever since they seemed different. Millennia said seeing and feeling the time streams was almost enough to make up for not traveling them ("Preposterous," Theta said, knowing how many times she'd railed against Gallifrey's strictures as much as he had. "Becoming a Time Lord really does turn you into a boring, philosophical toad like Borusa.")
"You really ought to get it done," Koschei said. "I'm sure you'd see things in the time streams I wouldn't dream of." It was a rare admission that Theta was cleverer than him, and Theta pretended to think it over.
"No, I won't," Theta said. "You all think you've become so much more than you were. You're still stuck here, still trapped, only now you can see what it is you're missing. No, thank you. Not for me!"
He rescheduled his exam and purposely tried to see how badly he could do, just for fun. 12%, said the results when they came back. "I wonder if anyone has ever done worse?" Theta said, laughing as he showed Koschei.
"Theta, it would be a travesty if you, of all of us, are known only for the lowest score ever achieved out of the Academy," Ushas said one day. "And now you've got me admitting that too."
"And why would it be? It would show for all eternity that they're all full of themselves and there are more important things than getting your DNA scrambled," Theta said.
"Until you die at the age of 1200 and we're only starting our second regenerations," Ushas said bluntly. "On your own head be it, Theta. Go and join the Outsiders, why don't you?"
"You know, I just might," Theta retorted.
"You won't do that," Koschei said. "You can't live without all your books and music and holoprograms."
"I could," Theta said stubbornly. Koschei remained silent for a second, then said,
"You really ought to just do it. We all know passing it would be child's play for you, Theta."
"Just for them to bury me in the archives?" Theta asked. The traditional place for burying troublesome Time Lords so they wouldn't bother anyone or get ideas "unbecoming to their house or station."
"You aren't going to leave me alone after my first regeneration, are you?" Koschei asked cheekily.
"Hm. I quite like myself the way I am. Who says I want to regenerate?" Theta said.
"Well, you'll lose any chance of flying a TARDIS then," Koschei said.
"They'd never let me pilot a TARDIS anyway. They know I would only…" Theta trailed off, and Koschei, knowing exactly what he had been about to say, smiled.
"You'd never have even that chance without the symbiotic nuclei to fly it," he said before getting up to leave.
Theta grumbled a bit as he made himself some tea but he had to admit that Koschei had a point. Only Time Lords could pilot a TARDIS. He often said he knew he'd never get the chance, so there was no point trying. But secretly, it was Theta's longest-held dream to be chosen to pilot a TARDIS. Or, failing that, to steal one.
It would never happen, of course. TARDISes were too well guarded, and Theta knew he'd never be chosen to pilot one. Too prone to disobedience. They liked people they could control. Or better, people they didn't have to control, because they didn't have an original thought in their heads.
But Koschei was right too. He'd never have any chance at all if he couldn't pilot a TARDIS because he didn't have the symbiotic nuclei necessary to pilot one in the first place. He sighed. Making a point to show the Time Lords how pointless they were wasn't as important as keeping that hope alive. Even 1200 years on Gallifrey was too long.
So Theta rescheduled his exam, sat down for it for the third time and thought. Not about the answers, since he could tell from the first few questions that it was just as easy as the previous two times he'd sat for it. But about whether he really should just give all the right answers and score higher than anyone else in Academy history.
He knew he could. But that, he thought, would be playing right into their hands.
So instead he carefully calculated, answering some wrong purposely, some right. He made sure that he got enough right to get exactly 51%. A Time Lord was a Time Lord, whether they passed by one point or 100. It would make the point that being the high and mighty rulers of time, reveling in their intelligence while doing nothing with it, was pointless. But he'd be a Time Lord, and no one could take that away.
And someday, he would get his TARDIS.