This story is a companion story to my Missing Time stories. It happens after Missing Time Part 2: Under NORAD. you might want to read the Missing Time stories (at least parts one and two) before this. If you don't feel like reading them, I'll give a brief description of what you need to know.

Daniel is a Timelord on Earth, sentenced to watch over his sister for the rest of their lives, without her knowing who or what she is, without anyone knowing he isn't human. He received a visit from his old friend, a traveler of his own kind known only as the Doctor, and now Daniel has wanderlust. He doesn't know what he should do about it. He has a TARDIS, so he could leave if he wanted to, but that would mean leaving his twin sister behind. His sister who is, as far as she knows, a human. She has no more regenerations left and her memories were removed before she was sent to Earth. Daniel was sent to Earth to watch his twin, to assure she never got into the type of trouble she had back on Gallifrey.

He thought about it everyday since they left, his old friend and his old friend's daughter, they were out there, somewhere, somewhen. They had all of time and space at their finger tips; he had some of space at his and none of time. He hadn't thought much about what he was missing until now, but the Doctor had brought back old memories, memories of the carefree life of the traveling Timelord, not the day to day life of an archeologist. He wanted to go into time again, return to that wild river he had once ran free in. But he could never leave Sam. She was his twin; he couldn't leave her, no matter what. Daniel looked at the clock, trying to will it to move back, but it just kept moving forwards, even seeming to go faster, as if to scorn him. He didn't know what to choose, but the choice was before him, he could stay here and help his friends, or he could go anywhere, anywhen, he could be the master of space and time, not having to worry about 'Gate malfunctions, just Daniel and his TARDIS. It appealed to him, just go, suddenly, just leap in his old time ship and go to Atlantis when the Ancients lived there, or even further back, he could visit the Furling Empire when they ruled benevolently over a hundred species from thousands of home worlds. He could watch the pyramids be built, or he could save Sha're. No. He shook his head. He couldn't have saved Sha're, that was his own past. He could not, by the binding rules of space and time and the Timelords, change an event in his own life. But what a temptation it was to save his wife. Sighing, Daniel went back to his translation. Not that he needed to think about it, he just rewrote the words in English.

No one had ever guessed that he had a reason for being able to translate almost every language; no one noticed how he was able to speak the languages fluently, even when he had just heard them for the first time. Daniel felt so alone, surrounded by humans, and not his people. He was so different from them; he didn't fit in among them in the least. There was one place where he had felt at home, and that was Abydos. Now all that made his life on Abydos worthwhile was no longer there, and he had no place where he felt accepted. He wished that the Doctor and Kara would come back, even as their presence would taunt him with half forgotten memories of what he could have had, it was better to have someone who understood him there rather than him being on his own. Daniel sat there, wondering how he could go do as he felt the need to do, how he could return to the vaulting span of time in his TARDIS. Daniel turned his gaze away from the object he was looking at and looked longingly at the filing cabinet in the corner, the one that no one could open, the filing cabinet that was really his TARDIS. He sighed; he couldn't go, not yet. Shaking his head, Daniel returned to his work, knowing only that when it was time for him to leave, he would know that it was time to return to the vaulting expanse of time.