Chapter Eleven

In Which There Is Confusion, Too Many Rs, and Altogether Too Little Productive Discussion

Izzy shouted something even harsher and spikier, which definitely was not one of the musical not-words. The Doctor looked astounded, Tyira merely looked confused. Izzy glared at the room in general. "What?"

"Where did you learn that?" asked the Doctor, somewhere between impressed and shocked.

"I've never even heard that language," said Tyira. "And I know a lot of languages."

"I—er--well--" faltered Izzy, looking guilty.

Tyira shook her head. "I thought I knew more languages than any other Keeper, and it turns out I'm beaten by a—by a—a young girl."

"Yeah, 'cause you're too good and proper and dignified to say "tensie,"" said Izzy. "Anyway, I don't...er... actually know very many languages. Only about two hundred or something."

"Only?" asked Rose.

The Doctor turned to her, doing a very god job of keeping a straight face despite the laughter in his eyes. "Rose, there are trillions of languages in the universe. Hundreds of trillions, and you think two hundred is a lot?"

"Well, it's very good compared to one!" Rose defended.

"Oh, that's very like you, Izzy," moaned Tyira. "I bet you know two hundred languages fluently, and a smattering of words in every language you could make someone tell you, is that right?"

That, Rose understood. She snorted with laughter. The Doctor snickered. Then, Rose thought of something. "What's a tensie, anyways?"

"Means I'm not a hundred yet," said Izzy. "I'm still too young to be a proper Keeper. We aren't proper 'til we're a hundred fifty. And some of us aren't even then."

"You have to be responsible, reflective, reasonable, reserved--" began Tyira.

"--Restrained, resolved, and re-spect-ful," Izzy finished. "Yeah, I know."

"And doesn't that sound familiar?" murmured the Doctor. "I suppose you must have been old enough to know something about how official things worked."

Tyira shook her head. "Not really—I was a—a tensie myself. Barely," she added to Izzy. "But her Ladyship was old enough, and the twins..."

"Old enough to know that every little boy and girl will eventually have to learn to be all the Royal Pain-in-the-rear Rs," Izzy clarified. "Because some people really were respectful and responsible and restrained and reflective and reasonable and reserved." She frowned. "The only one I buy is resolved."

The Doctor folded his arms and grinned. Tyira's face paled and her eyes widened. "Izzy! You can't talk about people that way! Some people are in this room!"

Izzy looked at the Doctor and her hands flew to her mouth. "Sorry!" she cried, her voice muffled. "I didn't mean—that is--"

He laughed. "'S alright," he said. "Not everyone has to be repetitive and routine and regular." He thought for a moment. "Some of us need revitalized with renewing revolutions."

Izzy stuck her tongue out at Tyira. "Can't argue with that, Rien!"

Tyira glared at the Doctor. "Don't encourage her!"

"She's already resolved to resist the reuse of rusty remembered rules," he taunted.

"Shut up," said Tyira, scrunching her face up.

"Who's she?" asked Izzy, looking at Rose. "What's she do?"

"Rose reclaims reality from the rivals and relentlessly renders them ruined."

"Will you stop it?"

"Rasa regularly reprimands a role model on the repetition of Rs."

Tyira closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Rose was laughing silently. "Do you want a slap?" asked the lady Time Lord.

The Doctor grinned. "You wouldn't slap me."

"Thank you!"

"You're too restrained, reserved, respectful, reasonable, responsible, and even reverent."

Thwack! Surprisingly, it wasn't Tyira who slapped him across the mouth, but Rose.

"Rose, on the other hand," he mumbled, putting a hand up to his face. "You slap as hard as your mother does."

"Thanks," said Rose cheekily. "Sometimes you need that to take you down a notch. And make you shut up."

"Does he always talk that much?" asked Izzy, quite impressed, both at the Doctor's gob and at Rose's bravery.

"No," Rose said honestly. "Usually, he talks a lot more."

"Alright," said Tyira. "If we're quite through?" This was accompanied by a glare at the Doctor.

"Absolutely," he said, rather more seriously than necessary.

Tyira looked at him suspiciously. Rose rolled her eyes. "Anyways." She crossed the room to lean against the counter and watch them all. "What now?"

"Well, I, for one, am taking Izzy back to where she's supposed to be," supplied Tyira.

"Not if I can help it," said Izzy lightly, and no one bothered to respond.

"Now, I have some advice for you two," said Tyira. "There are Keepers who will be far more suspicious, and who will be far less likely to care who you are or what you've done. There are members of Chronis who won't be so quiet, who know far more than Anatrius. As much as I hate him, he's not the biggest threat."

"No," agreed the Doctor. "Daleks, Cybermen, Autons, Slitheen—I can think of half a dozen more off the top of my head."

"Yeah," said Tyira. "But have you ever asked yourself who brings them into times they don't belong in?"

He looked at her, and Rose shivered. There air had become electric. Izzy backed into the wall, her eyes flicking between the two Time Lords.

"Doctor," said Tyira, "there are things more dangerous, more painful, than, I think, even you have ever seen."

Suddenly, he straightened, his eyes deadly. "You don't understand," he spat. "No one understands. No one can ever understand, and that's the curse of the Destroyer, my curse. No one has seen what I've done; there are choices I've had to make that no one else has ever had to make and no one else will ever have to make, and everyone thinks they understand, and I'm the only one who knows they can't!"

Tyira cowered back and watched as the Doctor stalked away. Rose glanced at Izzy and Tyira, then ran after him. Then, Tyira shouted, "If you sense the shifter disturbance in the vortex, don't go near it. Stay away, far away, because they're waiting!"

He didn't turn, didn't answer, didn't even stop walking as they vanished.