Everything stood still, silence prevailed. For the first time in days, I could hear myself think. Not Rina and not Nari, me. I might be both of them, I might even agree with most of their thoughts, but in no way did we think the same. They were the polar opposite of each other, while I was the equator. The middle ground, the peacekeeper.
I opened my eyes, after a second of getting used to the silence to find myself face with someone I wasn't expecting. In front of me was none other than Rina Minoru in all her Asian and gothic glory. I almost jumped, she was so close. She smiled silently at my reaction, before pulling me into a hug.
"You're even hotter than I expected." She blurted out, using her eyes to check down my body. "Seeing it through your eyes in the mirror was something but damn, you're Meghan Markle hot but blonde."
"Give her some breathing space." Someone said from behind me, a voice I recognized from my memories.
I turned around to find myself face to face to the third Rani. The long dark hair, the slightly tanned skin, the green eyes at the sassy smirk. Hell, even her outfit brought back memories. The purple dress with the tacky black necklace made of bead drones I had used in an infiltration mission during the war.
"Nari?" I asked, because even if it looked like the Third it didn't act like her.
"Yes." She replied with a nod. "I'm taking this form because well, I really didn't feel like using the last two and having the same form as you would be too confusing."
"We're in my head right?" I deduced, glancing at Rina who had taken a seat on the sofa next to Nari. They were in the Library of the Time Academy, or at least a representation of it.
"Yes." Nari replied. "We've each secluded our thoughts to a region of your mind, we'll still be in here and quite active but it won't affect you. We'll still have our individual thoughts and emotions but I've put up a barrier between each subconscious."
"It's kind of cool." Rina added grinning. "It's like we're in the room of requirement from Harry Potter. I want a lolita dress and bam, I'm wearing it. Or if I want to rewatch Buffy episodes a television will just pop out of nowhere with the DVD set."
"I see." I nodded, understanding. "In here you have access to all our memories, books you've read and the like. Plus it's inside my head so the only thing stopping you is your imagination really."
"Oh, intelligence. The human part of her didn't ruin you after all." Nari said nodding at Rina.
"At least you got your emotional intelligence from me." Rina said, snacked back. "Unlike some dragon lady we know, you'll be able to get some for sure."
"Quiet." I hissed loudly before they could get on with yet another pointless fight. One month of this was enough already. They silently glared at each other before turning towards me.
"Good, there's no point in fighting." I said, feeling like a mother disciplining her children. "We're all in the same ship here if you've failed to notice."
"Worse than that, we're literally in the same ship as the Doctor." Nari said with a groan. "The little pest isn't going to let us out of his sight until he figures out what's going on. I can't believe you asked him for a favor, he's not going to let you forget it for at least five centuries."
"It was either that or forcing another regeneration which would not have fixed the problem." I replied with a shrug, not that worried about the Doctor.
"I can't believe we're in the Doctor's Tardis, this is so cool." Rina said in a giddy tone. "Maybe we can go on adventures together. Come on Rani you know you want to, and I want to see it live man."
"No way in hell." Nari growled, glaring daggers at the human. "We've got our own beautiful Tardis and there's plenty of planets and races I haven't experimented on yet."
"Yes, we know you're a female version of Dr. Frankeinstein Nari, no need to tell us twice." The goth Asian said with a chuckle. "But yeah we've got a Tardis, that's pretty sweet."
"It is." I said with a grin. All of time and space, next stop everywhere. "I'm not going to be one of the Doctor's companion pets Rina, but that doesn't mean I can't come to bother him whenever I feel like it."
"As long as you torture him a bit." Nari agreed with a small smile.
"And as long as you come to bother him during some of his adventures." Rina compromised, and I nodded in agreement. It was hard work pleasing both of them, but we were one so I knew exactly which buttons I could push.
"Now then, It seems I've healed and it's time to go face the Oncoming Storm." I said, pulling Rina into a hug while warmly patting Nari in the shoulder. They each gave me a nod.
"Don't forget, you might not be listening to us 24/7 but we're listening to you so if you need anything just think about it." Rina said before sending me a wink.
A fraction of a second later and I was back in the world of the living.
I walked into the console room and saw the Doctor leaning over the console checking the data readings until he froze like a statue, obviously having felt my presence in the room. He turned around and stared at me in silence with a blank expression in his face.
"Hello." I greeted, wiggling my fingers in his direction.
"The sleeping beauty awakes." He greeted back, still empty of emotion.
"I had a nice nap." I replied with a shrug. Nari was right, he really wasn't going to let this go which meant I had to go for distraction. "A girl needs her beauty sleep."
His eyes flashed as his mouth twitched in a grimace before he crossed the room in large strides until he was a step away from me. "What did you do?" He demanded. "Whatever happened to you wasn't a normal bad regeneration."
"It was probably the bad regeneration mixed in the caffein addiction." I replied with a fake smile. "Better stick with tea next time."
"Look at me." He demanded, growling in my face. "Stop avoiding the question and tell me the truth."
"Where's your human?" I asked, avoiding the issue, as I stepped around him and carried on into the room. "We wouldn't want the human the see this, would we?"
"Rose is home." The replied with a quick nod, obviously impatient. "Stop avoiding the issue here, what did you do?"
"Why do you keep insisting I did something?" I asked loudly, clenching my fits as I turned towards him in anger.
"Because I scanned you before I put you in the zero room, your readings were off the charts." He said pointing at me. "I've never seen readings like that, not even in Time Lords. I'm worried, please tell me."
"Really?" I asked, crossing my arms. "You're worried? About me? Wow, am I suppose to believe you?"
"Yes!" He declared with wide eyes as if he wasn't believing what I was saying. "Because I care."
"Well, that's new." I replied with a mocking half-smile. "You never cared before, you never even pretended to care."
"What gave you that stupid idea?" He howled back, closing in on me, as he aggressively ran his hands through his hair. "I get it, you're mad at me and you have every right to be. What I did, when I used the Moment... I can never take it back but I didn't have a choice. I really didn't, it was either Gallifrey or the universe. I had to make the call because no one else could. No one else would. So punch me if you must, scream at me, tell me what a horrible person I am for destroying our planet but don't you dare keep whatever is affecting your health from me because you're the only one I've got! And I'm the only one you've got, so trust me!"
I blankly stared at him for a second before I swung my right hook into his idiotic face. He wasn't expecting me to actually punch him because he straightened himself after the shock passed and touched his bruised face with wide eyes. He gapped at me for five full seconds until he finally shrieked out. "Owwww."
I rolled my eyes at his theatrics, as if he never had been punched before.
"You think I'm angry about the Moment? You think that why I don't trust you?" I asked with a forced laugh. "I'm not stupid, I knew about the Final Sanction. They all went mad, but then again they were following a mad messiah. Are you telling me that if the humans were in a war for their existence and somebody brought back their bloody Jesus from the dead they wouldn't follow him to hell and back? Because Rassilon was our Time Lord Jesus, a crazy pants Jesus mind you, but a Messiah all the same. The apes would have probably been worse than us. You think I don't understand your actions but, unlike you, I was there for all of the war."
He stood in front of me, still touching his cheek, but he had long since closed his mouth. His breath was shallow and his hands were closed into fists but he remained there, just staring.
"Romana let you gallivant around the universe because you refused to fight but the rest of us weren't given such a choice. I understand perfectly well why, and I can also see why you want me to scream and hate you." I continued staring at his glittering eyes as I noticed his slumped shoulders.
"You want to feel guilty because you've seen monsters, because you know monsters don't feel guilt and deep down the possibility of not feeling it frightens you more than anything else in the universe." I touched his cheek as a tear slid down his skin. "But that's not why at all."
"Tell me why." The Doctor whispered, practically begging me.
"Coward." I replied because he didn't dare ask the question. "You don't really want to know because you're afraid of the answer."
He stared at me for a second until he chined up to look at me with a resolved look in his face. I almost smiled because, really, the mopping and the crying didn't suit him at all. He was meant to stand with a confident smile when facing adversity, now this was the Doctor.
"Tell me why you don't trust me Rani." He demanded and this time I could barely hide the smile, until I got serious because what I had to say had to be heard. It had to be said. I didn't want to carry Nari's grudges with me so it was time for brute honesty.
"Two reasons really." I started preparing myself for the raw wounds I was about to open. "They actually also give you an answer that I know you have been wondering about."
He pulled down my hand from his cheek but kept it in his own, putting pressure on it as if to tell me to get on with it.
"Do you remember our time in the academy?" I asked, this time letting out a chuckle as I remembered our misadventures. "Me, you and him. The inspired, the runaway and the mad. Quite the trio if I don't say so myself."
"I remember." He replied quietly, but I could see the small twist in the corner of his lip.
"You two mostly spent your time doing two things." I recalled. "You tried to prove that the other was wrong about the most absurd things and each of you tried to make me decided the victor. But I never did, because you were both equally idiotic. Both stupid idiotic brats with your little spars that everybody knew was just your weird way of flirting. I was the middle ground that made sure you never took it too far. Until you took that away from me."
He listened and his shock grew, as if he had never really thought about it.
"You left!" I accused, using my free hand to stab my finger into his chest as I continued to look him in the eye. "You stole a Tardis and left to see the stars. No goodbye, no letter. Hell, not even a bloody post-card. We searched for you, we were desperate to know where you went. Hell, we kidnapped some CIA agent that was hired to find you to figure out where you were. But you? You didn't care! In the long list of companions you abandoned, The Master and I were the bloody first."
"I'm sorry." He said, looking at me as if he was looking at me for the first time in a long time.
"Shut up, I'm not finished." I said, shutting him up.
"For being selfish, for leaving to search for something that made you happy in this vast universe, for breaking the chains that suffocated us in Gallifrey, I could have forgiven you. It was something all of us wanted, I understood. But for him, I can't forgive." I declared, pulling away from him and turning away from him.
"You never listened, he told you so many times but you never believed him. The noise in his head was real, It wasn't part of his madness it was the cause. You misdiagnosed Doctor. But I'm rational above all else, I don't blame you for his actions. That was all him, but I blame you for pushing him over the edge much quicker than it should have been." I growled out, letting out all the rage that Nari had kept hidden for centuries.
"You left and he fell, even I couldn't help enough." I finished with a heavy sigh. "If you had remembered us, your friends, we could have figured a way to help him. But you didn't, and you left me no choice. You left and I had to stay, I had to choose. So I choose him, I helped him with his plans time and time again even if that meant going against you."
I controlled my shaking hands, closing them into fists, while taking a large breath to reign in my emotions before I turned to look at him.
The Doctor stood a meter away from me looking at me with tears running down his face, more broken that I had ever seen him. Because deep down he knew I was right. The three of us had made a promise as children, to travel the universe together, and he had been the oath breaker.
He finally moved from the spot where he had been frozen, bypassed me and reached the console with his back to me. He lifted his head as if he searching for inner strenght until his fist punched the console, fulled with hate and rage. I looked at him but remained silent, he needed a minute.
I heard him let out a shaky breath until he turned towards me, this time with understanding. He digested what I just told him and knew what was coming. I could have already left, and he would never see me again. I could see my Tardis in the corner of the room, she was ready to go, but I stayed because neither of us wanted to end this conversation like this.
"If I apologize again will you punch me?" He let out with a grim smile.
"What do you think?" I asked with a lopsided smile. I didn't want an apology, I didn't want anything really. Just what he had just given me was enough, understanding. We had hurt each other enough already.
"I think you're going to walk into that beautiful red box of a Tardis." He said, leaning against the console with a tired look. "I checked, she's ready to go off into the universe. By the way, I might have broken her chameleon circuit. It's a box, I thought he could match."
I silently glared at him, before glancing at my Tardis in the corner. It really had a beautiful shade of red, even if it had a primitive and ape design.
"Well..." I replied slowly, as I walked towards it. "It does have a lovely shade of red."
I reached her and softly patted the front door with my hand before I calmly turned to look at the Doctor. He was crying again, the baby, but this time he had a huge smile plastered on his face.
I rolled my eyes at him and arched my brow. "What are you crying about now?"
"You're leaving." He replied, nodding towards my Tardis. "I've just found you and you're leaving."
"It's not the end of the universe you idiot." I said, putting my hand on my hip. Really talking to him was like talking to a time tot.
"I'm going to miss you." He admitted sheepishly.
"You've grown dumber, must be the ape company you keep." I snarked with a tight-lipped smile. "I'm the only one left to stop you from imploding all of time and space. I have a stupid detector that will go off when you're being a menace to the universe."
He stared without blinking for a whole second until the smile on his face turned genuine. Idiot, took you a whole second to understand that?
I stepped into my Tardis and glanced behind my shoulder.
"See you later, Theta."
A/N: Ok, so probably one of the most emotionally draining chapters I've ever written in my life. I'm literally dead. I've never watched Old Who but I did research the Rani, the Doctor, and the Master's relationship enough to realise there was some deep emotional baggage there that I needed to write down.
I've decided to imagine the Third Rani as Hannah John-Kamen who's British and awesome in the Killjoys. I'll have some very lovely, and rates violent ideas, for a few chapters featuring her. I'll also possibly borrow some ideas from Killjoys. It still just an idea.
There's also Rina, who I imagine as Lyrica Okano. She's awesome in the Runaways.
I've been updating this fic daily for the past few days because I'm full of inspiration. However, I'm returning home tomorrow and my computer is broken. I've been basically hijacking my aunt's computer so I'm not sure when I'll update again. Keep vigilant mates.
By the way, someone questioned what a zero room was so I've decided to leave here a brief explanation: Zero rooms were used by Timer Lord in times of difficult regenerations or to rapidly heal. Inside the Time Lords were cut off from the random electrical and radiological influences of the rest of the universe. Which made them ideal for neurological healing.