Author's Note:
Hello all! Hey, how cool was 'Asylum of the Daleks'? Isn't it great to have Doctor Who back again? Now all we need for perfection is the addition of the Simm!Master!
Thanks very much to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter: gallifrey calls now, TheGreatWhite, MayFairy, Daughter of the Master, sailormajinmoon, SawManiac211, Lexy Summers, GuesssWho, MountainLord-92, Theta'sWorstNightmare, EDZEL2, Guest, Lost Moon (x3), Aietradaea, yulicee and EmmaMarie.
To sailormajinmoon: Thanks so much. As I've said to some of the other reviewers, I wasn't sure whether people would like this angle or not, but I've always been fascinated by Gallifrey, so it's something I really wanted to write. It's just so lovely that there are some readers who are prepared to come with me on the journey ;)
To guest: Thanks, so glad you are liking it. Yep, it's the Doctor - he was known as Theta Sigma back in his Academy days.
To Lost Moon: So happy to have you back again, thanks for all three reviews :)
- CHAPTER FOUR -
"I swallow the sound and it swallows me whole, Till there's nothing left inside my soul. As empty as that beating drum, but the sound has just begun..."
- 'The Drumming Song' , Florence and the Machine.
For the first time in a long, long while, Tejana was at a loss for words. She was aware that people were stopping and staring at them, and at Dyoni on her knees weeping amongst the shattered crockery, but she didn't care. She just gazed at the young man who would one day become her father and she had absolutely no idea what to do. As ridiculous as it may seem, it had never once occurred to her that she might have strayed this far from her own timeline. She had prepared herself for the possibility of meeting the people from her own past - Damon, Tabor, Borusa, even Councillor Rohan. But for some strange reason, she had never considered bumping into her father.
"Are you all right?" he asked, tightening his grip on her arm to steady her. "You've gone as white as a sheet."
"I...I..." she stammered helplessly.
Then Dyoni came to her rescue. "You must forgive us both for being so distressed, Lord Theta," she said, wringing her hands together, her eyes red from crying. "But we will probably both lose our places over this. Once Fionnula finds out..." Her voice trailed away into despair.
"Fionnula?" Theta queried. "Is she the one with a face like a half-sucked lemon? Always looks like she's been drinking acetic acid?"
Despite her shock, Tejana found herself stifling a laugh. She had to give him due credit – that was exactly what Fionnula's face looked like.
"She's the Head Housemaid, my Lord," Dyoni explained hopelessly. "She'll never accept any excuse for this."
"Oh yes, she will," Theta said. He inclined his head towards Tejana. "Don't worry...er...what was your name?"
At last, Tejana managed to find her voice. "Tej...um...I mean, Kat. My name is Kat."
"Don't worry, Kat, none of this was your fault. Here's what we're going to do. Your friend...?"
He looked inquiringly at the other girl.
"Dyoni, my Lord," she supplied hurriedly, the words tumbling over each other in her eagerness.
"Dyoni will return to the kitchen and rustle up some more afternoon tea for Lord Borusa," he instructed. "In the meantime, Kat will come with me to his study, where I promise I'll sort all this out. All right?"
"Oh yes, my Lord. At once, my Lord," Dyoni gasped, rising to her feet and bobbing a grateful curtsey. "Thank you, my Lord."
With that, she disappeared back in the direction of the transmat terminal, almost at a run.
"Whew, that's better," Theta remarked. "Any more of that 'my-Lording' business and I might have done something drastic."
"You don't like being called 'my Lord'?" Tejana asked, still watching his youthful face with an almost hungry fascination. In outward appearance, he didn't look much younger than the Doctor she had left behind in the Underhenge. However, that Doctor had old eyes – eyes that had seen too much, too many terrible things, too much darkness, over the long centuries of his life. They all had them, those ancient, world-weary eyes – she, the Doctor and the Master, the last three survivors of the Time War – the one thing they couldn't disguise, the one small clue that gave them away as Time Lords, no matter how many times they regenerated. But Theta's eyes were so young, so fresh, so unspoiled. As she looked at his innocent smile, the thought of all that lay ahead of him wrenched bitterly at her hearts.
He shrugged in answer to her question. "Not a lot. I'd much rather you called me Theta, if you don't mind."
"All right then...Theta," she said softly, testing the name out on her tongue. She had called the Doctor many things before in the past, but never 'Theta'.
He nodded, a pleased expression on his face. "Come on, let's pick this all up and then we'll get on to Borusa's study, before someone else gets in first and tells him what happened."
Together, they knelt and began loading the broken shards of crockery back on to the tray. Around them, the curious onlookers finally realised that the show was over and began to drift on about their own business again.
"How did you know...that I was new?" Tejana queried, her fingers closing around a particularly jagged fragment.
"Careful, you'll cut yourself," he warned, taking it gently but firmly from her. "Here, let me. Actually, it was easy. Firstly, because I'm a genius." He gave her a cheeky grin. "I'm only telling you this because you'll find out soon enough anyway. And secondly, because you do tend to stand out."
"Stand out?"
"Your hair..." he said with an inquisitive sidelong glance. "It's the most amazing colour, especially against the black of your uniform."
Again, Tejana almost laughed aloud at the irony. Always with the red hair, Doctor, even this far back!
"My father always called it ginger," she said, her green eyes dancing.
"Ginger..." Theta repeated, looking thoughtfully at her bundled-up tresses. Retrieving the last broken pieces, he dusted off his hands, picked up the tray and got to his feet. "Ginge...gingety gingety ginge. Hmmm...nice word, I like it. Clever man, your father, is he?"
Tejana also rose, brushing off her long, black dress. "Oh, he has his moments," she said with a secret smile.
"Borusa's study is this way," he told her, carrying the tray and leading the way up the grand staircase. "And if you see Ushas coming again, warn me, all right?"
Stiff and lifeless, the right arms of the Roman soldiers extended in the direction of the Doctor, their fingers flipping down, as though on a hidden hinge. Sinister black laser pistols extruded from their hands, each of them aimed at the oblivious Time Lord.
The Doctor still had his back to them. He was busy scanning the exterior of the Pandorica with his sonic screwdriver, frantically trying to estimate how long they had until it fully opened, revealing what was inside. The communicator lay on the ground beside him.
River's voice echoed tinnily out of the microphone. "Doctor! Doctor, I've landed her, but I can't open the doors!"
Hastily, he bent down to pick the communicator up, only to see the phalanx of soldiers advancing slowly towards him.
"AMY!" he yelled, realising he had inadvertently sent her into deadly danger up on the surface. But it was much too late to warn Amy – he had too many problems of his own. The communicator fell back to the ground, lying abandoned as two of the soldiers seized him under the elbows and bodily carried him away from the Pandorica. The Doctor struggled, but he could feel the tensile strength of their fingers contracting against his flesh and he knew it was useless.
"Plastic Romans!" he exclaimed, knowing for sure now exactly what he was dealing with. "Duplicates, driven by the Nestene consciousness, eh? What are you doing? What's in there, eh? What's coming out?"
The soldiers stared blankly straight ahead. One by one, they turned to face the Pandorica, as if responding to an unspoken command. The Doctor was left facing the other way, imprisoned between two of the duplicates, unable to see what was going on.
"The Pandorica is ready," one of the Romans announced in an expressionless voice.
"What, you mean it's open?" the Doctor asked.
Then another voice reverberated through the cavern, a voice so familiar in cadence that it made both the Doctor's hearts turn cold.
"You...have...been...scanned. A-ssessed. Un-der-stood. Doc-tor!"
Craning his neck over his shoulder, he saw the shape that haunted him, the thing he saw over and over again in his nightmares, always amid fire and blood and death.
A Dalek.
This one was pure white, an almost offensive colour, as if it was meant to be some gross caricature of an angel. As he watched in horror, a red Dalek and a yellow Dalek materialised to the right and left of it, in an arrow-head formation.
With robotic grace, the Nestene duplicates spun him around until he faced his tormentors, leaving him no opening for escape.
"Scanned?" he demanded, refusing to show any fear, even though it was obvious that River had been right. This had been a trap all along, designed especially for him with clinical efficiency. "By what? A box?"
"Your limits and capacities have been extrapolated!" another voice boomed out sonorously.
The Doctor's head spun around, trying to identify where the sound was coming from. Shocked, he saw three Cybermen manifest out of thin air. Behind them, a troop of Sontarans also appeared, and even further back, he saw Judoon, Chelonians, Silurians, Drahvin, Blowfish, Zygons, Weevils, Draconians and many, many more. All his enemies, gathered together in the same place, filling the room, with him helpless in the middle of them all.
"The Pandorica is ready," one of the Sontarans said with evident satisfaction.
The grey cube was fully open now, with two sides fully retracted. Inside, amongst a bewildering tangle of technology, the Doctor could see a padded chair, complete with arm, leg and neck restraints. It look almost like a dentist's chair, only about a million times worse.
"Ready for what?" he asked apprehensively.
The shadows of the Underhenge stirred one more time and someone else stepped forward to take centre stage in front of the Pandorica. Someone with a thatch of white-blonde hair, dressed in a black hoodie and black jeans.
"Oh, Doctor," the Master grinned. "Ready for you, of course."
"Ready?" Theta asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Tejana replied, pulling a face.
He gave her a reassuring smile. Then, raising his hand, he gave three sharp knocks on Borusa's study door.
"Come," a cold voice responded.
Tejana activated the latch mechanism and the door swished open. As they stepped inside, she realised the study was just as she remembered it – the luxuriant silk carpet on the floor, the walls lined with exotic artworks and treasures, the double glass doors leading out on to the rooftop garden with all its sweet-smelling plants. And, in the middle of it all, the enormous carved wooden desk, its polished surface gleaming in the late afternoon sunshine.
Tejana shifted her gaze down to the floor, colour tinting her cheeks. She couldn't look at that desk. She had too many embarrassing memories of an intense dream-sharing session she had once experienced with the Master, involving this very room and that very desk and a lot of hot, passionate sex. It had certainly never crossed her mind that she might ever be physically standing here once again.
"Ah, Theta Sigma," Borusa said, his tone faintly puzzled. "I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you. Did we have an appointment?"
Tejana sneaked a look at him, only to avert her eyes again when she saw his lizard-like gaze swivel towards her. This was an earlier incarnation of the man than the one she had known in her day. Here he was much younger in appearance, middle-aged rather than old, with handsome features and a neatly-trimmed blonde beard. But he still had exactly the same knack of seeming to see right through to your soul, his gaze piercing like an ice-cold sword.
"Er...no, Sir," Theta replied. "It's just...well, there's been an accident, Sir."
"An accident?"
Tejana could feel both her hearts beating uncomfortably fast. She could feel his eyes on her like a physical weight. If anyone was going to see through her disguise, it would be Borusa. He had always been adept at spotting any incongruity, any inconsistency. Decades of being in charge of an Academy full of unruly students had taught him many things. She knew from experience that it was almost impossible to tell a direct lie to him, not while those gimlet eyes were boring into you.
"Yes, Sir," Theta continued. "I'm afraid I was breaking the rules and running in the Great Hall, Sir. I collided with this servant and caused your tea-service to be smashed. So I came here with her to own up, because I can't let her be dismissed for something I did."
As he spoke, he carefully placed the tray of smashed crockery on Borusa's desk, as if entering it into evidence in a court of law.
Tejana shot a startled look at him, about to protest. She couldn't let him take the blame. Especially when it had been Ushas's fault. If anyone was to be punished, it should be that haughty bitch. But before she could speak, she felt a sharp pain in her foot as Theta purposely trod on her toe.
"You did this?" Borusa asked. Even without looking up, Tejana could tell he was still gazing at her, although he was actually speaking to Theta. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Sir," Theta nodded firmly. "It was me."
Borusa stood and majestically strode around his desk to stand in front of Tejana. That was something else he had in common with the later version of him she had known – Borusa never merely walked anywhere. He always 'strode' or 'swept'. That was the kind of man he was. She continued to stare at the floor, feeling the nervous perspiration beginning to gather on her skin under his steady regard.
"What's your name, child?" he inquired. His voice was smooth, with no hint of suspicion. But Tejana knew enough not to be fooled. Borusa never revealed anything he didn't want you to see.
"Kat, milord," she replied, in her best provincial accent, giving him a deferential curtsey.
"Look at me, Kat," he commanded.
Summoning every mental defence she had ever learned, she raised her chin and met his eyes. For a brief moment, she felt a hideous burning pain inside her head as he tried to probe her mind. Once, back when she had lived on Gallifrey, even her unusually strong psychic talents would have been no match for his hard-learned skill. But she had lived through a lot since then and somehow she managed to keep her nerve, presenting him with nothing but a blank wall, an impenetrable illusion of psychic nothingness, just as if she was the unremarkable Shabogan she was pretending to be.
"I see," he said enigmatically, turning away to resume his seat behind the huge desk. "Very well. I see no benefit in punishing the blameless. Theta Sigma, you will report to Prefector Zorac and inform him that I have given you three weeks of detention. That is all."
"Thank you, Sir," Theta replied, while Tejana curtsied again, relief coursing through her veins. That had been a very close call, but she didn't appear to have given herself away. It was very lucky that maids were not generally expected to say much. When it came to Borusa, the less attention she drew to herself, the better she would like it.
They were just about to leave when there was another knock on the door. Borusa gave a faint sigh of exasperation and again said, "Come."
Again the door swished open and this time Fionnula hurried in, carrying a fresh tray, her face drawn and anxious.
"Forgive me, Lord Borusa," she gasped. "I heard what happened and I can only apologise. Kat is a new servant. I should never have entrusted her with your tea service. I can assure you, she will be severely disciplined."
Borusa raised his hand to halt her breathless flow of words. "The matter has been dealt with," he said with cold dignity. "No further action is to be taken, unless you wish to incur my displeasure. Thank you for the tea. Please leave it on my desk before you depart."
"But..." Fionnula began, shooting a furious glare at Tejana.
"Don't let me detain you," Borusa continued. "I'm sure you all have work to do. I know I have."
Fionnula did not dare to say any more, although she clearly wanted to. Instead, she put down the full tray and snatched up the one laden with all the broken fragments, before following Theta and Tejana to the door.
Once they were standing in the passageway outside, Fionnula turned to Theta. "Thank you for your assistance, Lord Theta," she said in a sticky-sweet voice, which was completely at odds with the anger in her eyes. "But I think we can manage from here. Kat, thank Lord Theta for his assistance. Then we must return to our tasks."
Tejana curtsied again, peeking up at him through her eyelashes, to see how he would deal with the overt dismissal. She could tell he was having some difficulty keeping his face straight.
"Thank you, Lord Theta," she repeated obediently.
"My pleasure," he grinned, watching with some sympathy as Fionnula marched her away like an over-conscientious prison guard. "I'll see you again, Kat. Count on it."
An hour later, Tejana's ears were still ringing from Fionnula's enraged lecture as she and Dyoni scrubbed out what seemed like a never-ending stream of enormous, filthy pots down in the kitchen. Despite being forbidden to punish them by Borusa, the Head Housemaid apparently had no intention of allowing them to get away with their transgression scot-free.
"The Time Lords are meant to be one of the most advanced races in the Universe. Haven't we got some sort of machine to do this stuff?" Tejana asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste as she submerged her arms up to the elbows in the scummy, luke-warm water.
"Of course we do," Dyoni replied. "But are you going to argue the point with Fionnula?"
Tejana sighed. She wasn't sure which had taken more self-control – the psychic tussle to keep Borusa out of her head, or having to fight back the urge to strangle Fionnula every time she saw her.
"I still can't believe Lord Theta took the blame for you," Dyoni said for the hundredth time.
"Yes, it was very nice of him," Tejana agreed absently. Actually, it had been wonderful, although she couldn't say so. Even though the circumstances were completely bizarre and he had no idea who she was, to spend some time with her father without any of the usual tension or conflict that characterised their current relationship...to feel like, for the first time in a long, long while, he was really on her side...it was an amazing emotional buzz. It almost made the whole 'being erased from time' thing worthwhile.
Her companion gave her a sharp glance and flicked some soap-suds at her. "Don't go getting all moony over him, Kat. You'll only end up getting your hearts broken."
Tejana snapped out of her reverie with a shock. "Moony? Moony?" she snapped incredulously. "Over the D... over Theta? Don't be ridiculous! For Gallifrey's sake, he's my... I mean, he's not my type, believe me."
"Well, I wouldn't kick him out of bed," Dyoni giggled. "And neither would Lady Ushas, from what I've heard."
"Ushas has a thing for him?" It was the first Tejana had ever heard about the Doctor and the Rani being anything more than classmates when they were younger. It made her wonder what else she didn't know about her father. "How do you know?"
"We're servants and servants know everything," Dyoni responded with a sly wink. "They all treat us like furniture and say things in front of us as if we're not even there. According to gossip, it's all a bit one-sided. He was supposed to take her to the Otherstide Ball last year. She spent absolutely ages getting ready and then he just didn't turn up. She was totally furious. Apparently, he got this brilliant idea for some new sort of gadget - a screwdriver, I think it was – at the last minute and got so caught up in it he forgot all about the Ball. She still hasn't forgiven him."
Tejana couldn't help smiling at this story. "Oh yeah, that sounds so like him," she said. Then, at Dyoni's speculative glance, she amended hurriedly, "From what I can tell so far, anyway."
"Well, anyway, that's why Ushas did what she did today. Because she saw Theta looking at you in the Great Hall and she got jealous," Dyoni shrugged. "You'd better watch out for her. She's not a good person to upset."
"Neither am I," Tejana said darkly. "Maybe she'd better watch out for me."
To her surprise, Dyoni stopped scrubbing, all the laughter suddenly draining out of her face, as if Tejana had just said something frightening. Her eyes held an anxious, almost hunted expression. "Don't be foolish, Kat. You shouldn't say that sort of thing. We're just servants, we can't change the way things are. The best thing you can do is to keep your head down and avoid being noticed. Not all the Time Lords are as harmless as Lord Theta. And some of them are even worse than Lady Ushas. Much, much worse."
With that, she turned back to scrubbing the pots at a frantic rate and refused to say any more.
The door to the Deca common room stood slightly ajar. Koschei pushed it open and entered, looking around to see which of his friends were also present.
The room was slightly shabby, furnished with cast-off odds and ends that no-one else wanted any more, scavenged from other rooms in the Academy. It was tucked away in a forgotten corner of the Endless Library. Magnus had found it one day, dusty and abandoned and, under his leadership, they had appropriated it for their regular meeting place. No-one else ever came here, except for the members of the Deca. There were ten of them, the best and brightest of their year. Each of them brilliant and yet each of them outcast in some way. Each of them always slightly different from their classmates, finding it difficult to fit in, to find a place in the teeming world of the Academy. So they had been drawn together, almost out of necessity, forging a closely-knit alliance, not because they had anything particular in common, but because they were all uncommon, each of them extraordinary in some way. Banding together in a group hadn't made them any more popular with their more conventional classmates, but at least it tended to protect them from victimisation, by sheer dint of numbers. Everyone knew that if you messed with one member of the Deca, you messed with them all. And, given their individual reputations, taking them on as a group was something no-one in their right mind would do.
Some days their common room buzzed with animated conversation, which often turned into debate and from there into heated argument. None of the group were exactly backward in coming forward when it came to stating their point of view. But today, all was quiet.
Rallon and Millennia sat on a couch near the door. They were kissing passionately, their arms intimately entwined around each other. Koschei grimaced in disgust. They never seemed to be doing anything else, these days. He liked sex as much as the next person, but honestly, those two never even seemed to come up for air.
He walked past them without sparing them another glance. Ushas was sitting in one of the comfortable armchairs, her head buried in a book on neuro-chemistry, a surly expression on her face. Not that a surly expression was much of a surprise when it came to Ushas, since that was the look she usually chose to wear. Koschei ignored her as well. He and Ushas maintained a combative relationship most of the time, which could be very amusing, and occasionally even stimulating, but he wasn't in the mood for her dramatics today.
The only other occupant of the room was Drax. He was sitting at the table, carefully constructing an intricate model of a skimmer, one of the sky vehicles that were used for transport inside the Citadel. Knowing Drax, it would be exact down to the last detail, perfect enough to fly exactly like the real thing, only in miniature. He was an expert in tinkering with any kind of technology. Unfortunately for him, he had no aptitude whatsoever for Temporal Theory and was therefore struggling to pass any of his courses. As a child, he'd had an unfortunate tendency to habitually get into trouble, and that hadn't improved as he'd got older. Whenever he tried to carry out a prank, no matter how well-planned and brilliant it was, he always got caught. It was always his experiment that blew up in Borusa's face, or his underwear that ended up the flagpole at the Festival of the Timewright. As a result, whether it was deserved or not, he had managed to make quite a name for himself as the class clown, much to the disapproval of his tutors.
Koschei sat down beside him, marvelling at the dexterity of his friend's fingers as he put the finishing touches on the model. He knew he would never have the skill or the patience to build something like this. However, his own expertise covered all forms of engineering and he quickly noticed that Drax had installed one of the tiny fluid links upside down. He was about to point the error out, but then decided it would be more fun to see what happened when Drax tried to test his creation.
"Have you seen Theta?" he asked instead, wondering where his best friend had got to. He hadn't seen him for hours.
Drax raised his head and was about to answer, when Ushas suddenly cut into the conversation. "He's probably still chasing around after his new little girlfriend."
Koschei raised his eyebrows in surprise. This was the first he had heard about Theta having a girlfriend. As far as he knew, his friend hadn't been seeing anyone since he and Ushas had split up. But something was obviously going on. Ushas's voice was bitter enough to curdle milk.
"What are you talking about?"
Drax started to laugh, but then turned it into a cough as Ushas glared at him.
"I think she's referring to a little incident that happened in the Great Hall a couple of hours ago," he said, his lips still twitching in amusement. "The way I heard it, Ushas here took exception to the fact that Theta had rather obviously noticed the arrival of a new maid-servant. So somehow, just by coincidence I'm sure, she managed to collide with the girl and knock Borusa's favourite tea-set flying. Which in turn inspired Theta to do his usual knight-in-shining-armour trick - you know what he's like, Kos. Apparently, he went with the girl to see Borusa, to make sure she didn't lose her position over it. And I think we can safely say that Ushas is not happy."
"Shut up, Drax!" she said in poisonous tones. "I couldn't care less what Theta Sigma does, so there."
Both boys grinned at each other, knowing this was a blatant lie.
"So what did she look like, this maid-servant?" Koschei asked, as Ushas turned huffily back to her book.
"Scrawny little thing," she sniffed disdainfully, without raising her gaze. "Built like a little kid, all carrotty hair and big green eyes." A small malicious smile touched the corners of her mouth. "She won't last long, once Anzor sees her. She'll end up like the other one."
Koschei's eyes narrowed, a thread of worry tugging at him. From her description, the girl did sound the exact type to attract Anzor's attention. Somebody who couldn't fight back. And if Theta had gone and got himself involved, it could only lead to trouble.
Abruptly, he got to his feet.
"Where are you going?" Drax asked.
"To find Theta," he answered, heading for the door.
His hand was on the panel that activated the opening mechanism when he felt someone standing close behind him. A shiver ran up his spine. He turned around quickly, but neither Ushas or Drax had moved, and Rallon and Millennia were still trying to find each other's tonsils with their tongues.
"Well, are you going or not?" Ushas snapped waspishly.
Oh, terrific, he thought. First a symphony of drums pounding in my head, now invisible people standing behind me. That's all I need.
"Yeah, I'm going," he said, with one last suspicious glance around the room.
And the door slid shut behind him.