Time Lords

The Doctor spun around the console in the process of telling what he believed was a very interesting story to Rory. Adelaide had tried to convince him against it, but he had been quite determined to tell Rory the tale of the Robot King, especially since the man seemed like he wasn't believing the Time Lord.

Amy and Adelaide had just shaken their heads, though while Amy had wandered off into the TARDIS, Adelaide distracted herself with attempting to work on fixing some aspect of the TARDIS.

She'd never been overly interested in the technical side of things; she knew how to use most things, of course, but actually fixing anything tended to escape her. And that included TARDISes. Particularly TARDISes of this degree; she'd gotten used to piloting it, eventually. But she tended to leave fixing it to the Doctor, especially when he claimed that the TARDIS could only be fixed by him.

Adelaide hadn't quite believed him, but she'd let him continue thinking like that.

However, it did appear he was partially right, or maybe she was far more rubbish at it than she'd thought because nothing she did actually seemed to do anything.

She waited for a particularly exciting bit of the Doctor's story to throw a spanner against the wall in outrage.

She'd always been more interested in the scientific side of things, always focused more on that. But even she had needed to learn something about how technology worked.

The only problem was that now she seemed to have forgotten anything she'd once known.

She blamed the faulty Chameleon Arch.

The fact there was so much of her in Caroline was evidence enough that something had gone wrong, but the fact Adelaide hadn't returned to her normal self was even more of a sign. She was similar, yes, close enough that it almost felt like simply a new regeneration, and maybe it was.

But something felt…different. Off.

Too human.

She was used to logic and removing emotion and somehow knowing how to anticipate how someone would act. She was used to how she'd been the moment she'd been freed from the Chameleon Arch: calm, collected, and admittedly slightly crazed when faced with an adventure.

Not…whatever she was now.

Not to say what she was now was bad, it was nice, it was a change. But it didn't feel like…her. It wasn't the her she'd known for centuries.

And it wasn't just how she acted. It almost felt like there were holes in her memories, things locked in the fob watch that hadn't back come out. Like she wasn't complete, not yet.

But she would never be, not anymore. Even when she regenerated she'd be stuck like this.

She supposed she could also blame the Doctor for turning her into a manners-obsessed-theory-spouter. If she had been left on her own after opening the watch, it's far more likely she would have returned to normal.

All Adelaide could do now was hope that regeneration would fix her problems, but she had the strong suspicion it wouldn't. And her suspicions tended to be right.

Not that she wanted to regenerate. She wasn't looking forward to that. She kept telling herself she wasn't looking forward to that.

That, certainly, was the influence of the Doctor.

The Adelaide she'd been had known that regeneration - at least not the ones she was on - did not mean the end. She'd just been injured and was getting healed, that was all. A natural part of her biology. But the Doctor was terrified of death.

Now Adelaide was too.

She didn't like it.

"Something wrong?" Amy said, making Adelaide look up. She'd just been staring at what she'd been trying to fix without actually doing anything.

Adelaide smiled. "I'm fine." She looked more up at the console above them, where the Doctor's voice was still drifting down to them. "Shall we go rescue Rory from him?"

Amy laughed, and the pair walked back up to the upper section of the TARDIS just as the Doctor finished. "And then we discovered it wasn't the Robot King after all, it was the real one. Fortunately, I was able to re-attach the head, but that didn't stop Adelaide from being furious at me."

Her smile fell, but she forced it to return. Yes, she'd always been slightly obsessed with manners, as she didn't like having to rely on the Time Lords protection when she ran into danger, especially when they said they wouldn't do anything to help her. If you were polite, there was at least some chance whomever you were facing would treat you a bit nicer.

But how she was now just felt…strange. It made her feel more like a mother protecting the Doctor over a fellow adventurer. As though she couldn't fully enjoy the adventure because she was so worried about keeping everyone else safe and out of trouble.

Maybe it was just this regeneration, she didn't really know. She had spent some time in this body before the Chameleon Arch, but she hadn't gone on adventures; the Time Lords had taken care of that. She didn't know if how she was acting now was how she would have anyways, or because of the Arch.

Rory looked over at Amy, shaking his head. "Do you believe any of this stuff?"

Amy sighed. "I was there."

"Oh!" the Doctor spun again as an alarm started. "It's the warning lights." Adelaide came beside him to look. "I'm getting rid of those. They never stop." He kicked it.

"Kicking things doesn't make them stop."

"Doesn't stop me from doing it." To prove a point, the Doctor kicked the console again.

They both paused when there was a knocking sound from the door, looking over at it with a frown.

"What was that?" Amy asked, her and Rory having stepped to the side to talk about something.

"The door," the Doctor said quietly, walking closer. "It knocked."

"Right." Rory paused, frowning. "We are in deep space…"

The Doctor nodded. "Very, very deep." He knocked on the door and whatever was outside knocked again. "And somebody's knocking." The Doctor opened the door to see a cube of light floating right outside the door. "Oh, come here. Come here, you scrumptious little beauty." He held out a hand but the box just flew past him, circling the people in the TARDIS before coming back to hit the Doctor in the chest.

"A box?"

"What is it?"

The Doctor looked at Adelaide with wide eyes, both of them recognizing what this box was, what it meant. "We've got mail!" He leapt up from the ground and towards the console, joining Adelaide in piloting the TARDIS while holding onto the box. "Time Lord emergency messaging system. In an emergency, we'd wrap up thoughts in psychic containers and send them through time and space. Anyway, there's a living Time Lord still out there, and it's one of the good ones!" he showed Adelaide a symbol on the box and when her eyes widened he knew she recognized who the message was from.

"You said there weren't any other Time Lords left."

"There are no Time Lords left anywhere in the universe," the Doctor corrected. "But the universe isn't where we're going. See that snake?" he held out the box to the companions, not noticing how quiet Adelaide had gone. "The mark of the Corsair. Fantastic bloke. He had that snake as a tattoo in every regeneration. Didn't feel like himself unless he had the tattoo. Or herself, a couple of times." He laughed, running around the console. "Ooo, she was a bad girl." He hit a lever that made the TARDIS spark.

Rory grabbed on to keep from falling. "Oh, what is happening?"

"We're leaving the universe!"

"How can you leave the universe?"

"With enormous difficulty. Right now we're burning up TARDIS rooms to give us some welly. Goodbye, swimming pool. Goodbye, scullery. Sayonara, squash court seven." The humans shouted as the TARDIS jolted even more, nearly throwing all of them around the console, until it stopped.

Adelaide was just frowning, thinking, and the Doctor didn't really notice.

"Okay, okay," Amy said, pushing some hair from her face. "Where are we?"

"Outside the universe," the Doctor grinned widely. "Where we've never, ever been."

The lights in the TARDIS started to fade, which didn't make Adelaide feel any better. "Is that meant to be happening?" Rory asked.

Adelaide shook her head, answering for the Doctor. "The power is draining."

"But it can't…that's…that's impossible." Apparently, it wasn't, because the room went completely dark. Adelaide gripped the console of the TARDIS and had to take a deep breath to keep calm.

"What is that?"

"It's as if the matrix, the soul of the TARDIS, has just vanished." The Doctor looked around carefully. "Where would it go?"

"Well, let's go find out then!" Amy grabbed Rory's hand and pulled him from the TARDIS.

Adelaide touched the Doctor's arm before he could follow. "We'll need to be careful, Doctor. Something doesn't feel right about this."

"But the Corsair…"

She raised her eyebrows. "I knew the Corsair too, Doctor, and that doesn't make me feel any better. Just…be careful."

"I'm always careful." He switched to holding her hand. "Don't tell me you don't want to go on an adventure?"

"I never said that." She let him pull her out of the TARDIS. They seemed to have landed in the middle of a junkyard.

"So what kind of trouble's your friend in?" Amy asked once they'd stepped outside.

"He was in a bind, a bit of a pickle," the Doctor whispered. "Sort of distressed."

"Ah, you can't just say you don't know."

"But what is this place?" Rory looked around. "The scrap yard at the end of the universe?"

"Not end of, outside of," Adelaide corrected.

"How can we be outside the universe? The universe is everything."

"Imagine a great big soap bubble with one of those tiny little bubbles on the outside," the Doctor began, miming it with his hands.

"Okay…"

Adelaide shook her head. "It's nothing like that."

The Doctor turned and touched the side of the TARDIS. "Completely drained. Look at her."

"Wait. So we're in a tiny bubble universe, sticking to the side of the bigger bubble universe?"

"No," Adelaide said, at the same time the Doctor said, "yeah." Adelaide glanced at him before continuing, "but if it helps, yes."

The Doctor stepped back from the TARDIS, looking around again. "This place is full of rift energy. She'll probably refuel just by being here. Now, this place. What do we think, eh?"

"Gravity's close to Earth normal, the air is breathable, but it smells like…"

"Armpits," Amy finished for Adelaide.

She nodded. "Armpits."

Rory touched a nearby light. "What about all this stuff? Where did this come from?"

"Well, there's a rift. Now and then stuff gets sucked through it. Not a bubble, a plughole. The universe has a plug hole and we've just fallen down it."

"Thief!" someone shouted in the distance, making all of them look around in surprise. "Thief!" a woman in a light blue dress ran towards them, pointing at the Doctor while two others chased after her. "You're my thief!"

"She's dangerous," the woman running after her called to them. "Guard yourselves!"

The first woman reached the Doctor, grabbing his arms as she looked at him in wonder. "Look at you! Goodbye! No, not goodbye, what's the other one?" And then she hugged him quite tightly, nearly knocking him over. She pulled back from him suddenly, spinning on Adelaide, eyes even wider than before. "Mermaid! It's the mermaid!" She hugged Adelaide, nearly actually lifting her off the ground.

"Watch out, careful, keep back from her!" the man said, pulling the woman off Adelaide once he got close enough. Both Time Lords were just looking at her in shock, taking a step back. "Welcome, strangers, lovely. Sorry about the mad person."

Adelaide shook her head. "Why am I a mermaid?"

"Why am I a thief?" the Doctor frowned. "What have I stolen?"

"Me," the woman said, looking around. "You're going to steal me." She paused, thinking. "No, you have stolen me. You are stealing me…oh, tenses are difficult, aren't they?"

"Oh, we are sorry, my doves," the older woman said. "She's off her head. They call me Auntie." She stepped up to the Doctor and shook his hand.

"And I'm Uncle." The man shook Adelaide's hand. "I'm everybody's uncle. Just keep back from this one," he gestured at the woman, who was trying to study the Time Lords, despite them keeping back from her. "She bites!"

"Do I? Excellent." The woman leapt forward and bit the Doctor's ear, making him shout. Adelaide pulled the Doctor back while Uncle and Auntie pulled back the woman. "Biting's excellent! It's like kissing, only there's a winner."

"So sorry, she's doolally."

The woman frowned. "No, I'm not doolally. I'm…I'm…it's on the tip of my tongue. Oh! I've just had an idea, come here!" she ran for the Time Lords, but they ducked out of the way as Auntie and Uncle grabbed her.

"No, Idris, no."

Idris, which was apparently the woman's name, calmed enough to frown at the Time Lords. "Oh, but now you're angry. No, you're not. You will be angry. The little boxes will make you angry." She looked towards Adelaide. "Even you, sweet mermaid."

"Sorry?" the Doctor shook his head. "The little what? Boxes?"

Idris turned her gaze to the human companions, particularly Rory. "Oh, ho, no. Your chin is hilarious." She paused again. "It means the smell of dust after rain."

"What does?"

"Petrichor."

"But I didn't ask."

"Not yet." She nodded. "But you will."

"No, no, Idris," Auntie grabbed Idris again. "I think you should have a rest."

"Rest, yes, yes," she nodded. "Good idea. I'll just see if there's an off switch…" and then she collapsed, Rory just managing to catch her before she hit the ground.

Uncle sighed. "Is that it? She dead now. So sad."

"No, she's still breathing," Rory said, having checked on her.

"Nephew, take Idris somewhere she cannot bite people," Uncle said, and they all turned to see an Ood standing there with green eyes.

"Oh, hello!" the Doctor said, grinning.

"Doctor, Adelaide, what is that?" Amy said, backing away from the Ood.

"It's fine," Adelaide said. "It's just an Ood. We like Oods."

The Doctor nodded. "Oods are good. Love an Ood." He walked over to it. "Hello, Ood. Can you talk?" the Ood gestured at the translator orb in its hand. "Oh, I see. It's damaged. May I?" the Ood nodded and held it out to the Doctor, letting him pull off the top. "It might just be on the wrong frequency."

"Nephew was broken when he came here," Auntie said. "Why, he was half dead. House repaired him. House repaired all of us."

The Doctor put back on the top and Adelaide came to stand beside him as the orb glowed green, various voices being projected from it. One was louder than all the others. "If you are receiving this message, please help me. Send a signal to the High Council of Time Lords on Gallifrey. Tell them that I am still alive. I don't know where I am. I'm on some rock-like planet." The voice blended in with the rest and the Doctor stepped away, looking around, until they finally stopped.

"What was that?" Rory asked the Time Lords. "Was that him?" he pointed at the Ood.

"No, no. It's picking up something else." The Time Lords reached for each other without looking, grabbing each other's hands as they looked around the planet they'd landed on. "But that's…that's not possible. That's…that's…"

Adelaide looked sharply towards Uncle and Auntie. "Who else is here?"

Auntie shrugged, gesturing between herself and Uncle. "Just what you see. Just the four of us, and the House. Nephew, will you take Idris somewhere safe where she can't hurt nobody?"

"The House? What's the House?" Adelaide asked.

"House is all around you, my sweets." Auntie smiled as Uncle hopped in place. "You are standing on him. This is the House. This world. Would you like to meet him?"

"Meet him?"

The Doctor nodded. "I'd love to."

Uncle grinned and gestured at them. "This way. Come, please, come."

Amy glanced at the Time Lords, seeing their expressions fall. "What's wrong? What were those voices?"

"Time Lords," the Doctor said carefully. "It's not just the Corsair."

"Somewhere close by there are lots and lots of Time Lords."

|C-S|

Uncle brought them to a grate with a green glow in the corner of a room. "Come, come, come. You can see the House and he can look at you."

The Doctor and Adelaide knelt beside the grate and Uncle. "The asteroid is sentient," Adelaide said, her eyes widening.

Auntie nodded, coming close to them. "We walk on his back, breathe his air, eat his food."

"Smell its armpits," Amy mumbled.

"And do my will," Auntie and Uncle said in unison, straightening suddenly. "You are most welcome, travelers."

"That voice…" Amy called as the Time Lords backed away from Auntie and Uncle. "That's the asteroid talking?"

Adelaide nodded. "Yes."

"So you're like a sea urchin," the Doctor said. "Hard outer surface, that's the planet we're walking on. Big, squashy, oogly thing inside, that's you."

"That is correct, Time Lord."

They looked at each other. "So you've met Time Lords before?"

"Many travelers have come through the rift, like Auntie and Uncle and Nephew. I repair them when they break."

"So there are Time Lords here, then?"

"Not anymore, but there have been many TARDISes on my back in days gone by."

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, there won't be any more after us. Last Time Lords. Last TARDIS." Adelaide swat the Doctor's arm. After what House had just said and what they'd heard from Nephew, it was quite a bad plan to tell him there were no more TARDISes or Time Lords, not until they knew what had happened to those who had been here.

"A pity. Your people were so kind. Be here in safety, Doctor, Adelaide. Rest, feed, if you will." House seemed to release Auntie and Uncle, letting them shake their heads.

Rory looked at the pair with raised eyebrows. "We're not actually going to stay here, are we?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, it seems like a friendly planet. Literally."

Adelaide glanced at Auntie and Uncle. "May we look around?"

Auntie smiled at them. "You can look all you want. Go, look." She walked over to Amy, running a hand through her hair, letting the Time Lords see that she had actual mismatched hands. "House loves you."

The Doctor clapped. "Come on then, gang."

"Let's go explore." Adelaide led the way out of the room, though the Doctor quickly ran up to stay by her side, especially given where they were at the moment. "In the future, let's not tell a sentient asteroid in a bubble universe that we're the last Time Lords until we know for certain that it doesn't mean us any harm."

|C-S|

Somewhere in the middle of the tunnel-like corridors that wound through the asteroid, the Time Lords paused, listening in the distance. They could just about hear someone shouting for "thief" and "mermaid", meaning Idris was somewhere within hearing distance.

"So, as soon as the TARDIS is refueled we can go, yeah?" Rory asked, sounding nervous.

"No," the Doctor said quickly, cutting him off. "There are Time Lords here. We heard them and they need us."

"You told me about your people," Amy said, "and you told me what you did."

Both the Doctor and Adelaide swallowed hard. The Doctor had doomed their people, but Adelaide had abandoned them. They were both responsible for the fall of Gallifrey. Both carried the weight of all those souls. "Yes, yes," the Doctor said, nodding, "but if they're like the Corsair, they're good ones and we can save them." He gestured between himself and Adelaide.

Amy raised her eyebrows. "And then you tell them you destroyed the others?"

"I can explain. Tell them why I had to," the Doctor looked towards Adelaide and knew that he couldn't count on the fact she hadn't blamed him. She had known the danger the other Time Lords had posed to the universe, but if they actually found other Time Lords, there was a high chance they wouldn't have seen it the same.

"You want to be forgiven."

"Don't we all?"

Amy nodded. "What do you need from me?"

"Our sonics," the Doctor said. "We left them in the TARDIS. Mine's in my jacket," he looked towards Adelaide.

"And mine is below the console."

Rory frowned. "You're wearing your jacket."

"My other jacket."

"You have two of those?"

Amy sighed. "Okay, I'll get them. But Doctor, Adelaide, listen to me. Don't get emotional because that's when you make mistakes." She pointed at Adelaide. "Even you, Adelaide, don't try to deny it." She pulled her phone from her pocket. "Do you still have yours?" Adelaide did the same; she'd kept Caroline's phone this entire time. "I'll call you from the TARDIS. Rory, look after them."

Amy walked off, and Rory looked after her. "Rory, look after her," the Doctor said, making Rory smile and hurry after his wife.

The Time Lords continued on for a short period of time in silence before Amy called. "Hey, we're here. Screwdriver's in your jacket, yeah Doctor?"

The Doctor nodded even if the humans couldn't see, pulling out his sonic. "Yeah, it's around somewhere. Have a good look."

"And mine's under the console," Adelaide said. Sending the humans into an empty shell of a TARDIS wasn't the best plan, but there was a better chance they'd be safe there than on the planet if any of the TARDIS's safety measures were still in place.

And there was the concern for others that her other regenerations had rarely had. It had always been there, honestly, but not like this.

The Doctor used his sonic to lock the TARDIS doors before they continued on, finally stopping finding a small room. "Come on, where are you? Now, where are you all? Where are you?" they could sense the other Time Lords, almost hear them close by.

Adelaide pulled back a curtain in the back of the room. "No," she mumbled, frowning at the fact there was just a small cupboard before her. The Doctor came to her side as she opened it and their hearts stopped.

Inside the cupboard were about ten Time Lord messenger boxes, all calling for someone to help.

There were no Time Lords left on this asteroid.

And while Adelaide was trying to convince herself that she had known all along, that she shouldn't be upset because she'd always known it would be too good to be true, she couldn't help but feel terribly hurt.

She didn't like that. She didn't like her emotions overpowering her logic, making her change her mind.

The Time Lords didn't need to turn around to know that Auntie and Uncle had walked up. "Just admiring your Time Lord distress signal collection. Nice job. Brilliant job. Really thought we had some friends here, but this is what the Ood translator picked up. Cries for help from the long dead." He turned around, leaving Adelaide staring at the boxes. "How many Time Lords have you lured here the way you lured us, and what happened to them all?"

"House," Auntie said simply, "House is kind and he is wise."

"House repairs you when you break," the Doctor snapped, striding forwards. "Yes, I know. But how does he mend you? You've got the eyes of a twenty-year-old."

Uncle grinned. "Thank you."

"No, oh, no, I meant it literally. Your eyes are thirty years younger than the rest of you." He pulled off Uncle's hat as Adelaide finally turned, her face hard. "Your ears don't match, your right arm is two inches longer than your left, and how's your dancing? Because you've got two left feet. Patchwork people! You've been repaired and patched up so often, I doubt there's anything left of what used to be you." He paused, his face still harsh. "I had an umbrella like you once."

Slowly, Adelaide moved forwards, taking Auntie's thicker arm and holding it up so that both Time Lords could see the snake tattoo.

"Oh, now, it's been a great arm for me, this," Auntie said, nodding at it.

"Corsair," Adelaide whispered, letting go of the arm like it poisoned her.

"He was a strapping big bloke, wasn't he, Uncle?"

Uncle nodded. "Big fellow."

"I got the arm and then Uncle got the spine and the kidneys."

"Kidneys."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "You gave us hope, and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows what it will do to me. Basically…run."

Auntie and Uncle turned, though Uncle looked back at them before he left. "Poor old Time Lords. Too late. House is too clever."

The Time Lords didn't say anything, just stood watching, the Doctor clenching his fists, until the phone rang again. "No sonics," Amy said. "Also, the doors seem to have locked behind us. Rory thinks there's a perfectly innocent explanation, but I think you lied to us."

Adelaide spoke before the Doctor. "Terribly sorry, but we wanted you to be safer."

"What," Amy scoffed, "we're not good enough for your smart new friends?"

The Doctor frowned. "The boxes will make you angry," he mumbled, looking back down the corridor they'd just come through. "How could she know?"

"Doctor, what are you talking about?"

"Stay in the TARDIS," Adelaide said, following the Doctor as he began to walk. "Goodbye."

"We don't have-" Amy said, but Adelaide hung up before she could finish.

A/N: Uh oh, Adelaide's started to notice the things that are different about her post-fob watch. In her timeline, it's really only been about a year or two since being released, so I see it as having taken some time for everything to settle and for her to realize that something isn't quite right. After all, two years isn't that long in the life of a Time Lord.

And why oh why does Idris call her mermaid? What else does Idris know about our two Time Lords? ;)