Chapter 1: The Parting of the Ways (The Party of the Ways)
Hello. Regular disclaimers apply; I don't own nor claim to own any characters, plots, settings, etc from the BBC's 'Doctor Who.'
This is a Doctor/OC story featuring Amadaliætalunar (pronounced Ah-mah-da-leah-tah-lunar). If it helps, you can call Them Ama until They get a new nickname/title, which will happen soon! Ama's current regeneration looks a lot like Felicity Jones with bangs.
It was supposed to be a simple rescue mission. In and out. The Daleks were attacking the Academy, leaving the hidden refugee camp open for the taking, and it was Their job to gather the women and children and get the hell out of there before the Daleks found Them first.
Of course, things were never that easy. Nothing had ever been that easy.
The Gallifreyans were struck down one by one. There was no order to it, no pattern, just stray shots from a dangerously handled weapon. Surely, the Dalek that had found them was absolutely and utterly insane, being on its own away from the squadron, and yet it had somehow found the weakest of them all.
"No!" They screamed as two more fell – a mother and her terrified son – and rushed forward despite the enemy. "You didn't have to kill them," They sobbed, dropping quite ungracefully to Their knees before the pair on the sand, doing Their level best to ignore the pain of the mother's quickly dying hearts hollowly echoed by Their own empathetic soul. The son died immediately.
There was no wound to heal, of course, since Dalek weapons target the nervous system, but that didn't stop the young – well, They supposed they were a woman in Their current body – woman from snatching up the fallen mother's headscarf and gently bundling it up to press it against the impact point. Maybe, They figured, it would at least mute some of the pain. It didn't. But in a world of war, it was nice to hope for even the smallest amount of peace.
"You must regenerate," They begged the Time Lady in their mother tongue, who had since forced herself onto her side to cradle her son – he was barely within the first 50 years, far too young to regenerate himself. "Please, regenerate!"
"Stop that sniffling of yours, now," the Time Lady softly ordered her crying companion. "We are at war. We knew this would happen sooner or later." She reached up a shaky hand to wipe away the tears on Their face, and the salty wetness on her finger tips also wiped away a thin layer of grime and dirt. "You look after yourself, Amadaliætalunar."
What little light was left in the Time Lady's eyes faded, leaving them hollow and grey, as her hand dropped to the ground. Behind Them, they could feel the Dalek's glee radiating off of it in waves as it watched the companions' intimate final moments.
"Fuck!" Amadaliætalunar screamed in Earth English. They turned to the Dalek, pulling a small blaster out of a concealed pocket in Their robes. "You, Dalek! I'll kill you!"
The Dalek swivelled its eye stalk to face Them. "Scans indicate your blaster is useless against the Daleks!" it cried mechanically, just as They knew it would, the disgusting hate-filled tin can.
It was just the two of them now, two large angry eyes glaring deeply into the bright lens of the Dalek as the Citadel of Gallifrey burned to the ground around them, in parts exploding and in other parts sinking into the sands of Amadaliætalunar's beloved planet. Of course, it was not only Their people that fell in the chaos. The loud, haunting screeches of dying Daleks also rode the wind to the two of them in their little corner of the battle.
Their hearts thumped loudly, threatening to burst, as They suddenly began to chuckle. "Listen to it Dalek!" Amadaliætalunar gestured wildly with Their blaster, spinning around rather dramatically as Their mental shields finally began to crumble under the weight of a million dying Gallifreyans and Daleks. "Listen to them scream! Isn't it wonderful?!"
"You are insane," the Dalek stated.
"It's over," They said. A smirk tugged at the left side of Their mouth. "The war is lost for both of us, Dalek. And it was all for nothing. NOTHING!" And for a moment, the Dalek and the Gallifreyan came together in sympathy, sharing a feeling of great loss.
The enemy was the first to recover. "The Daleks will reign supreme! Exterminate! Exterminate!"
Amadaliætalunar closed Their eyes tight, awaiting the blast – what an awful way to go, They thought, listening to the shouts of a crazed Dalek – that never came…
What?
Opening Their eyes answered the multitude of questions. A blinding golden light had enveloped them completely, shielding Them from the Dalek, and where the sounds of battle should have been ringing in Their ears, there was instead a gentle humming, a most wonderful song Amadaliætalunar hadn't heard in centuries, not since They were 8-years-old and gazing into the Untempered Schism.
"Hello, again," Amadaliætalunar greeted the Time Vortex. "Are you taking me somewhere?"
Swirls of golden dust – starlight – pushed into Them forcefully; it was in Amadaliætalunar's eyes, Their nose, Their mouth, and rushed through Their veins. They screamed. This wasn't right. Something was very, very wrong. Their bare feet left the sands of Gallifrey as They were suddenly and violently lifted into the air. Their skin burned, blistering from both a scorching heat and a stinging cold, and Their hearts raced at an unnatural speed, but behind it all – it was but a whisper, barely audible – was a voice.
A girl.
Young, from what They could tell. An Earth girl from somewhere in the 21st century, probably the early 2000s. No, definitely from the early 2000s.
Rose Tyler was her name; Amadaliætalunar knew that much. They also knew that the silly little girl – really, barely even a toddler in Gallifreyan years – had allowed the heart of a, frankly unstable, TARDIS to consume her, and now here she was, picking her up from a fixed point in time, to carry her across time and space like the laws of Time suddenly didn't apply.
"Oh, fuck!"
Amadaliætalunar exploded into a blazing, fiery light as the power of the vortex ripped through Their body, dragging Them, unconscious yet still protesting furiously, through centuries of time, and through a million-million miles of space to the other end of the universe, all the way to him. To the Doctor and his time machine.
When the Vortex finally spat Amadaliætalunar out the other side, squeezing Them through a tube not even half the size of Their body, the golden light and burning sensations had finally dissipated. On impact with the cool metal of the space station's floor, They began to slowly wake up, and the humming of the vortex faded, replaced by conversation. A man and Rose Tyler speaking Earth English.
"Ah, my head," They muttered, having just noticed the painful thrumming on the right side of Their head, like a jackhammer against concrete.
"My head," echoed Rose Tyler, pain laced through her voice. "It's killing me."
Amadaliætalunar watched silently from Their place on the floor, and while the Time Lord did spare Them a brief glance with wide eyes that rivalled his strangely enormous ears, he quickly turned back to his human charge at the sound of a desperate groan.
"I think you need a Doctor," he told Rose softly. Amadaliætalunar tilted Their head in fascination when the Time Lord – the Doctor, They mouthed, testing the feel of his chosen title on Their lips – pulled young Rose Tyler close and planted his lips on hers. She appeared to melt into his kiss, though that could've been the Vortex transferring into his body from hers.
She fainted as the residual energy left her.
"Where have you come from?" he asked. He held out a hand to Amadaliætalunar and helped Them off the ground. "Why has Rose brought you- Argh!"
He lurched forward slightly. His eyes were scrunched tight, as was his nose, and his lips parted to reveal gritted teeth; he was in great, unimaginable pain. Without a chance to observe Their new surroundings, They assisted him into the Type 40 time machine – aptly named the TARDIS – and helped him gently lower Rose Tyler to the floor.
"You're dying. You mustn't wait any longer to regenerate or you'll risk causing serious damage to yourself." The Doctor nodded but moved to the central control point of his ship, anyway, carefully inputting various coordinates and preparing for to take flight through the Vortex. "You should know better than anyone that regenerating in the Vortex is dangerous."
"Yes, well, I've always been told that 'danger' is my middle name," he replied, his Earth English jarring and hard compared to the delicate cadence of Gallifreyan, but his northern voice and clever tongue made the words sound like the finest silk the universe had to offer. It suited him.
A mental command helped the Doctor ease open a panel and the Vortex bled back into the TARDIS' centre. Amadaliætalunar observed the peaceful look upon the face that had looked so angry before; angry and sad and hiding a powerful feeling of grief, though not from Them. His carefully crafted words and charming looks did nothing to placate the emotions that oozed off of him in waves – a dark aura of purples and black tendrils that lashed out periodically, sending shivers down Their spine and causing the little hairs on Amadaliætalunar's arms, thankfully concealed by Their robes, to stand straight.
He's in so much pain, Amadaliætalunar thought.
Rose regained consciousness during the silence that followed. "What happened?" she asked as she stood. "It's like there was this singing, and I remember this light… Oh! It was like I was suddenly in another place with her," she pointed, "and I remember bringing her back with me. But that's it."
"That's right," the Doctor encouraged. "I sang a song and the Daleks ran away."
"You looked into the Vortex, Rose Tyler, and it consumed you," Amadaliætalunar corrected. "The Doctor took all of your pain away. Don't worry if you can't remember it," They added, seeing the fearful confusion on the human's face. "Memory loss should be normal. You had the entirety of time and space running through you."
"All of that potential energy. Events that could have been but never were, events that have yet to come," the Doctor explained. "Ah, I was going to take you to Barcelona – the planet, not the city – and maybe we will go, someday, but not with this daft old face.
"I wonder what I'll look like," he continued, thinking aloud to himself. "I could have two heads. Or no head! This process is always a bit dodgy. Better concentrate then; don't want to lose any limbs, huh?" He turned his attention to his newest companion and opened his mouth to say more, but he suddenly doubled over in pain before he could.
"Doctor!"
"Stay away," Amadaliætalunar said.
"Don't tell me what to do," Rose retorted angrily. "Who are you to waltz in here and start giving off commands like you know us?"
The Doctor, who was leaning quite heavily against a y-shaped beam, sighed, a wisp of golden light releasing into the air as he did. "She's right, Rose. You need to stay back. Every cell in my body is dying because I absorbed the energy of the Time Vortex.
"I can fix it, though. Time Lords have this little trick, kind of like cheating death, except it means I'm going to change. You won't see me like this anymore," he gestured broadly at his own body. "So, Rose Tyler, before I go, I just want to tell you that you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I."
The human, who had begun to cry, couldn't get another word in before the Time Lord stumbled back, having used up all of his time, and erupted, rays of golden light bursting from every pore of his dying body as his cells burned up. He cried out – so did the empath when They were suddenly attacked by a tidal wave of the Doctor's emotional and physical pain – and collapsed to the metal grating, on his knees, arms still spread to the side and eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling.
Suddenly, it was over.
There was a new man where the previous Doctor had been kneeling.
"Where- where was I? Oh, new teeth. That's weird." He looked up at his companions, his eyes focused on Rose in particular, and gave them a little smile, reassuring them he was alright in his own way.
Amadaliætalunar carefully shuffled closer to the newly regenerate Doctor. His body was bursting with unreleased energy, his hormones raging unnaturally even for a regenerated Time Lord, and They blushed ever so slightly as ripples of oxytocin and testosterone reached out to Them, begging for even the slightest touch. Apparently, the Doctor was one of the few Time Lords that reacted quite pleasantly to regeneration energy – so pleasantly, in fact, that the residual energy was working through him like an aphrodisiac.
He grinned saucily, as though incredibly pleased with himself. "Hello! What's your name then?"
If the previous regeneration's voice sounded like silk, then this Doctor was like velvet. His voice oozed sex – probably the hormones at work – and produced a slight southern London accent even when he spoke in their mother tongue.
"Um, Amadaliætalunar Delta-Three was my Academy name. Amadaliætalunar for short."
"Delta-Three? Oh, dear me, you're one of the Time Servants aren't you?" he asked, familiarity sparkling in his shiny brown eyes. Their response was a nod.
"Excuse me, but who are you?" demanded a shrill voice from behind them. "The Doctor was just here and you've- you've gone and… I don't know, you've replaced him or something! Like a teleport or a transmat or a body swap, but you're not fooling me so bring him back!"
The two Gallifreyans raised their eyebrows, sharing a look of slight annoyance that said nothing other than: bloody humans.
"Rose, it's me," the new Doctor explained softly. "I changed right in front of you; I told you all the cells in my body were dying, so I changed, but honestly, it's still me." He got up from his knees with some assistance from Amadaliætalunar. "I'll prove it to you, then. First word I ever said to you, trapped in that cellar. We were surrounded by shop window dummies and I took your hand." He took her hand, like he did a year ago in Henrik's. "I said one word. Just one. I said 'run.'"
"Doctor?" Rose whispered.
"Hello," he replied cheerfully, dropping her hand to wave his fingers at her. "Now, let's get a feel of this new body then, eh? Let's see… two legs, two arms, ten fingers, ten toes… Slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle, but no matter."
Amadaliætalunar was quick to point out his hair.
His jaw dropped as he felt the large mass of hair on his previously bald head, following the – admittedly soft-looking – locks down until he reached the shapely sideburns that framed his cheekbones. The attention was solely on those for a moment until the Doctor's eyes suddenly widened. He rolled his shoulders.
"I have got a mole. I can feel it. Right between the shoulder blades is a mole." He continued to flex his body, trying to get a better feel of his most recent discovery, and Amadaliætalunar was eternally grateful for the big leather jacket he wore.
Gallifrey, give me strength, They thought, as another wave of hormones from the Doctor washed over Them.
"Right, then!" The Doctor snapped up, suddenly rigid, a dark look in his eyes. "Forget Barcelona, that's boring! Let's go see London! Good old London, full of life and hot chips and parties and sex and, oh, all those wonderful, brilliant humans. Consider it a Christmas present, Rose!"
And with that, the Doctor raced to the first control panel he saw, crazily going about undoing the careful work the previous Doctor had done. Immediately, the TARDIS began to rock, trembling, and the Doctor retched, another wisp of energy passing his twitching lips. Amadaliætalunar watched him warily as They tried to keep Their balance in the protesting TARDIS, Their thoughts clouded by the mess of chemicals that seeped out of the Doctor's body.
"What're you doing?" Rose screamed.
"Putting on a bit of speed, that's all!" he answered. "My beautiful ship. Come on, faster! 'Attagirl! Wanna break the time limit? Let's rip through that vortex!" he asked no one in particular. The Doctor retched again, even more violently this time, before he calmed for just a moment. "The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself… Oh, my head… FASTER! Let's open those engines!"
An alarm began to blare loudly.
"Doctor!" Amadaliætalunar shouted. "We're going to crash!"
He laughed maniacally.
It all became a blur for the two Gallifreyans and the human, one of them wild and uncontrollable, the other two helpless to stop him as they prayed to whatever deity they believed in for their lives. Not even a minute after they took off, they landed, heavily and very loudly, and they all tumbled to the ground.
I'm quite proud of this chapter. For those a little confused with the They/Them situation, don't worry! Ama will soon discover that They very much prefer Earth's he/she pronouns. I'm sure you're all wondering what a Time Servant is, and what's going on with the Doctor. You're probably a bit confused over why I've messed around with the show's dialogue so much in the last scene.
All I'm going to tell you right now is this: this is my story. As much as I love Doctor Who, I cannot stand OC stories that insert a new character with no/minimal change to the show and its dialogue whatsoever. It makes for a very boring experience and it makes no sense — a new character would drastically change things. This story is not Doctor Who with an OC added in for kicks, this story is about Ama and Their life with the Doctor in the TARDIS, which means some things will stay the same and some (many) will change. I hope you can understand that.
Until the next chapter!