Chapter 6 – Finding Balance
Leela was scything through the Dalek's human shock troops with terrifying efficiency and Andred had time to wonder if she'd stayed in training all along and just not mentioned it to him. He shot down one soldier coming at her from behind and she grinned at him.
"You're learning, sweetie!" she complimented him.
"Taught by the best, my love!" he called back and kept watching her back.
There was a wrenching feeling, like they were falling, and suddenly the battlefield had changed. Lizard-like creatures were swarming them and Andred felt a few months younger than he had been.
"Time Line collapse?" Leela asked him, her lack of a time sense making these shifts far harder on her than they were on him.
"Yeah, we lost about two and half months," he answered. He'd give her the precise time later, when they weren't up to their arses in lizards.
"About the Doctor's request... are you going to go?" she asked him during a lull in the fighting.
"Of course!" he replied, somewhat surprised by the question.
"That was the correct answer," she replied and he leaned down and kissed her softly. "But be careful! You haven't the sense of a child sometimes and I worry about you." He gave her a swift hug.
"I'll be as careful as I always am," he chided her and she shook her head in disgust.
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"You are free to go." Susan looked up at the words and frowned. One of the Guards stood in the doorway, holding it open for her.
"Is this a joke, or perhaps a trap?" she asked. Nearly a year of constant attempts on her mind and now they were just letting her go?
"By order of Lord President Rassilon, you are to be freed," he answered with a "hurry up" gesture at her. She rose from the floor and stepped towards him and he flinched as she passed. His palpable unease made her frown. She'd wanted the Seekers to fear her; she hadn't counted on the Castellan's Guards feeling that way as well.
"My Lady Susan?" She turned at the surprised tone and saw a rather tall blonde man in a military uniform, standing in the hallway. "I am Captain Andred, of the Third Gallifreyan Legion, your Head of Family sent me to see to your requirements," he informed her. He was worn and disheveled looking, just in from the Front, no doubt. He was eyeing the guards like he was seriously considering just shooting them all right there. It made her feel warm and happy inside.
"How kind of her," she answered and smiled. It was the first genuine smile of pleasure she'd worn in a very long time.
"She's being released. We are to escort her to new Quarters in the Citadel, Captain," Susan's guard informed him, rather nervously, indicating the six guards that awaited her in the hallway and Andred frowned, with his blue eyes hard.
"The Lady Professor was expecting her to be sent back to her home," he commented and his eyes were hard and angry. Susan watched the exchange in interest. Apparently, her great grandmother had known that she was to be released, though it seemed that she wasn't really being released at all, only moved to a different cell.
"The Lord President has instructed that Lady Susanatrevalar is to attend the Academy and therefore she will be lodged in the student quarters there," the guard answered, and his eyes were flicking back and forth between Captain Andred and Susan, as though not sure which one was more dangerous.
"Where precisely?" Captain Andred enquired and it was obvious that he was now furious. The guards all took a step backwards from him and Susan suppressed a smile. She was very much starting to like the good Captain.
"She will be in room 17, section 8," the guard answered and Captain Andred's frown grew deeper.
"That room backs onto the Tower does it not?" he asked in a deadly tone and Susan saw what was happening. She was being lulled into a false sense of security. She wasn't going to be freed, they would never free her, they would just keep changing tactics until they broke her.
"I believe so," the guard answered and his eyes were filled with nervous anxiety.
"My Lady, if I may I act as your escort, for the honor of your line?" Andred requested with a formal bow.
"Captain Andred, I would be grateful for your kind escort," she replied with equal formality. He bowed again and extended his arm to her. She curtsied and put her arm through his with a gravity that matched his own.
"Then, since the Lady is now my duty and charge, I shall escort her, and the rest of you are excused," Andred commanded and while the guards looked a bit flustered, they also looked relieved and scattered with alacrity.
"The prospect of your escort is far more appealing, I must say," Susan teased and he looked down at her from his greater height with a frown.
"What the hell have they been doing to you, my Lady?" he snarled, obviously still rather upset and she looked up at him in surprise.
"Trying to turn me into a Visionary," she answered and his low-voiced swearing taught her a few new words she hadn't heard before.
"Soldiering gives one such an extensive vocabulary," she commented with a considering air, just so she could watch him color up and stutter.
"Sorry about that, my Lady," he muttered and she looked up at the earnest blue eyes and smiled.
"You never have to apologize for defending me, Captain Andred," she informed him.
"My Lady, the Doctor is one of my oldest and dearest friends, had I known that you were being held against your will, I would have done something about it!" he snapped, obviously furious, and she sighed out.
"Rassilon and the High Council ordered this, Captain. I doubt that there is much you could have done." His face went white with fury as she spoke and she patted him gently on the arm as they walked down the hallway towards the Arch that led from the Visionary's Tower into the main bulk of the Citadel. "Get me to my new quarters safely and you will have done more for me today than has been done for me in nearly a year by anyone else."
"My Lady, I would escort you safely through hell itself," the Captain vowed and she looked up at him quite earnestly.
"Let us hope that will not be necessary," she answered.
Captain Andred escorted her through the citadel and she tried to ignore the stares. She was still barefoot, still dressed in the white acolytes robes, though her hair now tumbled down her back. It was a walk of shame, she knew, designed by Rassilon to humiliate her.
If only he knew that Susan had worn miniskirts and tank tops on Earth, danced barefoot on Mars, and run through the rains of Venus in little more than a jumpsuit and socks, he'd not have imagined that her clothes could possibly embarrass her. It was chilly though.
The Captain felt her shiver and instantly removed his jacket and settled it across her shoulders. She looked up at him with a grin.
"Your wife is a lucky woman," she told him and he blushed.
"I'm lucky to have her," he insisted and she smiled even more broadly at him.
"You are, actually, Grandfather always says so, you know," she teased and he laughed.
"Then we completely agree," he answered with a gentle smile.
"They aren't actually freeing me, are they?" she asked in a low tone and he shook his head.
"Doesn't seem that way, my Lady," he responded.
"Susan," she insisted and he nodded his eyes gentle on her.
"Susan, we will need to keep in touch, I don't want you going in there alone, without any sort of back-up," he murmured and she was hard pressed not to dissolve into hysterics. She'd been fighting this lonely war for so long, nearly a year, or possibly sixty now, and she'd been alone in it this whole time.
Well, not the last few weeks. The Master was there in her head, his presence never quite absent from her consciousness. She wasn't sure if he constituted 'back-up' though. Probably not, at least not in Andred's book. She forced down the hysteria again, refusing to be broken now by this man's gentle kindness and concern.
"That would be nice," she admitted. "Thank you, Andred."
They reached the rooms assigned to her and she saw that her name was already on the door. She pressed her palm against it, the door scanned her, and swung open.
He stepped in first, and she noted that his hand was on his gun and his eyes were scanning the room. She doubted that Rassilon intended to assassinate her, but she appreciated Andred's care of her.
The room was quite a change from her cell. A small kitchen and dining area were visible through an arch. She was currently standing in the living room area, which was well appointed, if not exactly sumptuous, while next to the arch was a second door that probably let to the bedroom. All in all, it was a distinct improvement on her tiny cell.
"Clear," he told her and she smiled at him. She stepped into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. Six identical acolyte's robes hung in it and she slammed the door with a growl.
Andred ran in with gun drawn and she waved him off.
"No one's attacking," she ground out. "I'm just being insulted." She opened the closet door and he glared at the robes, putting away his gun, but looking as though he'd much rather be shooting someone with it.
"The code phrase for "put the damn gun down, you idiot, Andred!" is "shore leave," he informed her with a small tight smile.
"Did Leela come up with it?" she asked with a dimpled smile and he shook his head.
"Actually, the Doctor did," he admitted, his expression chagrined, and she burst out laughing. His mood darkened as he looked around the room. "Will you be all right?" he asked and his eyes were filled with worry.
"They usually wait until I am falling asleep to attack me," she told him with a shrug and he growled. "There's nothing to be done about it, Andred," she told him gently. "I just have to fight them, that's all."
"I was told to protect you, Susan," he told her, his face despairing and she laughed, a rather sad, bitter sound. He looked at her with hurt in his eyes and she shook her head.
"No one can protect me, Andred," she sighed out. "I have to fight this war all by myself. It's being fought in my head and while I may be outnumbered, I have a major advantage over them," she told him with a grim smile.
"What advantage?" he asked in confusion.
"I'm the granddaughter of a very clever and very brave man and he taught me everything I know," she answered and Andred nodded, his face clearing.
"Well then, my Lady, I shall leave you to it then," he answered and she nodded.
After he left, she felt a little bit bad about lying to him. After all, not everything she knew had been taught to her by her grandfather. She'd learned a whole host of very dirty tricks from the Master, after all. But, she could hardly tell Andred that, now could she?
The Doctor lay down and wrapped an arm around Romana, being careful not to wake her. They'd been friends for a long time and he found her company to be delightful in every way, but as time passed, he was finding himself yearning for something a bit more lasting and deep. He loved Romana, always, but as his best friend. He knew that she felt the same way about him as well. He hoped that someday she'd find someone who'd appreciate her the way she deserved.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but found himself restless and a touch irritable. He slipped back out of the bed and headed to the sitting area of their quarters. He pulled a tablet towards him and began muttering as he got back to work on an evacuation plan for Rushmore.
There was always so much to do, and even for a Time Lord, never enough time to do it in.
There was a message waiting for him, with his mother's code next to it, and he opened it with mingled feelings of hope and despair.
"Susan has been released from the Tower, she is in room 17, section 8 of the student quarters," she told him and his initial elation was followed by a return of his despair. The Tower was keeping her close. "She messaged me from her new rooms, she seems in good spirits, though rather thin just now," the message continued and he took a deep breath. They hadn't broken her, she was still sane. "I hope that you will be able to come home soon and visit her, she misses you a great deal." The last part of the message nearly made him cry. She missed him. She wanted to see him. She didn't blame him; she didn't hate him for his failure to keep her safe.
He laid his head on his arms and finally let relief wash through him. The tears fell hot onto the desk, but he didn't much care just then.
The situation was surreal, Susan thought and not for the first time. She stood before the regents of the Prydonian Academy and considered pinching herself, just to make sure she wasn't dreaming. From prisoner to pending Academy student was a rather odd shift.
"Lady Susanatrevalar, we have received the results of your aptitude testing," an elderly regent, with white hair and a face that seemed to have frozen into a look of unpleasant surprise, informed her. "Surprisingly, you have a high level of education and an aptitude for a very large number of subjects." The man looked at the testing results with a sour expression, as though he'd have preferred that she be some ignorant Shobogan and Susan bristled.
"I was raised by the Doctor, Lord Regent," she reminded him. "He never neglected my studies, no matter where or when we were."
"No doubt, my Lady, but really, there are no decent centers of learning elsewhere in the universe, it is a miracle that you received any education at all!" a second Regent protested.
Susan thought of the Martian colony school where she had learned to read and write and of the Nova Venusian University where she had studied history, philosophy, and music. She considered the Library of Alexandria, where she'd spent many happy hours reading and absorbing the wisdom of ancient Earth, and of course, she pondered the Library itself, where every book ever written, and some that hadn't been written yet, were housed, and where her Grandfather and she had once spent six months working their way through the letter "C", just for the fun of it. Obviously the scholars of Gallifrey had a fairly limited view of the universe if they imagined that they were the only "real" place of learning in it. Prudently, she merely looked at them with an attentive smile.
"As you say," she answered cautiously. Even though a week had passed since she'd been freed, she was still tense and nervous, waiting for an attack that had not yet come. She knew that the Tower wasn't done with her and she couldn't be certain that all of this wasn't some elaborate trap designed to lull her to a false sense of security before attacking again.
"As a member of your line, you will no doubt wish to study engineering of some type or another," a third, somewhat more kindly regent, with bright eyes and a birdlike quality, murmured.
"Actually, no, I wish to study Medicine, with an aim towards studying Gene Expression and Xenobiology, I will also want to minor in Xenobotany and Pharmacology," she informed the Regents, who all stared at her in stunned silence.
"You family line has been studying engineering for over a million years!" the first regent gasped and Susan smiled sweetly at him and nodded.
"Then we are certainly overdue for a change," she assured them. Three sets of eyes studied her and she stared back, friendly, kind, and utterly unmovable.
"Very well," the little bird-like regent agreed, though he looked somewhat dubious. "If that is your choice, we shall enter you into the Medical Studies Program." He entered her information, as she stood patiently waiting, and then they dismissed her.
Head high and triumph singing in her veins, Susanatrevalar, newly minted Medical Student, marched out of the Regent's Chamber, leaving behind three rather flummoxed old men.