Adrift upon a sea of time, the lonely god wanders from shore to distant shore, upholding the laws of the stars above. The trickster, the riddler, the keeper of the balance, he of the many faces who finds life in death and who fears no evil; he who walks through doors.

After five years of caring for Alice, the Doctor was positive she was an alien. While her growth rate was slower than that of a healthy human child, she possessed an acute awareness of the Doctor's every thought and feeling. He was beginning to think that she could do more than simply sense his emotions; the Doctor suspected that Alice could hear his thoughts.

Something that nettled at the Doctor throughout his jaunts through space was that Alice could not or would not talk. At the rate that her intelligence was developing, she was definitely capable of understanding and mimicking his speech. She had started teething after the third month of being with him, and had a full set of teeth within a week. And yet, whenever he tried to get her to talk, she just stared at him with her haunting blue eyes. Her sole form of communication was through ambiguous sentences that she scribbled in tiny handwriting on bits of notebook paper. These were often accompanied by stunningly detailed sketches of various alien creatures that she found in books stolen from the TARDIS's library. These and her musings unnerved the Doctor. Both her drawings and writings conveyed wisdom and a world sick, bitter attitude that was impossible in one so young.

###

She first spoke when she was (the Doctor estimated, seeing as he didn't know her exact age,) six years old. The TARDIS was orbiting a star going into supernova. As the Doctor stood, staring out the open doors at the light, he was struggling and failing to keep his thoughts from Rose. As the exploding star grew brighter and brighter, the Doctor was remembering the last time he saw Rose, and the words that she would never hear.

"You love her, don't you?"

The Doctor gasped and turned around.

"Rose?"

"Doctor…"

The Doctor frowned, realizing that the voice sounded nothing like Rose's. It was lower and had a hard edge to it. The Doctor's eyes widened.

"Alice?"

"Yes Doctor?"

"But…you're talking. Why are you talking?"

"Because my question was too personal to write down."

"So you could talk this whole time?"

"Of course. From your thoughts, I gathered you already suspected as much."

"So you can hear my thoughts?"

"Your thoughts, yes. I don't know if it works the same way with all species, or just with you, seeing as you're alien."

"So you know."
"Well, obviously. I mean, what human flies through time and space in a blue box? And anyway, I can hear your heartbeats. Definitely alien."

The Doctor bit his lip. Alice knew he was an alien, but did she know her own species? And what other abilities did she have?

"Alice, I'm a Time Lord. The last Time Lord. You know that, don't you?"

"Of course."

"Do you know…what you are?"

"Well, yes. I'm human."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

"That's impossible."

Alice cocked her head to one side.

"Not at all. I'm completely human."

"You can't be. Trust me, I've traveled with humans. They don't have white hair unless they're very old, they can't read minds, and they can't hear heartbeats. Alice, you are not human."

"Doctor…if I'm not human, then what am I?"

The Doctor sighed.

"I don't know, Alice. I really don't. But we're going to find out."

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A/N: the lines at the start of this chapter are borrowed from Brisingr by Chris Paolini~