Chapter 7 – Can't Go Home Again
The Doctor stood on the bridge of the Battleship and worked his magic with her shields and engine power. All around him the Naval officers and ratings were flying the huge ship into battle, the controlled chaos of combat making a din that he was hard pressed to ignore.
"Dalek units coming up on one three seven point six, sir!" shouted someone to the Captain behind him, but the Doctor was under a console, too busy rewiring the temporal stabilizers to be able to pay too much attention. If he couldn't get the system to work, they'd be dead no matter what, so it hardly mattered to him where the Daleks were coming from.
"Probability cannons to bear on incoming Dalek ships!" Captain Gurgaon was shouting and the Doctor could feel the ripples in the Time Stream as the cannons began to fire. "Doctor, now would be good!"
"Almost there, Captain!" he called back and sonic'd the last component in place. "Done!" he shouted and pulled himself out from under the console.
"Temporal Stabilizers on line, Captain," one of the ratings confirmed and the Doctor grinned. A job well done.
A shock ran through the ship, knocking him down and he found the deck tilting in an alarming manner. Scrabbling for a handhold, he barely kept himself from becoming a Doctor shaped stain on the wall. The rest of the crew were all in slings in front of their boards and he deeply wished he was in one too.
"Damage?" the Captain called out and the stations began reporting back to him.
"Temporal Stabilizers off line, sir!" the rating called out. The Doctor began to curse as he went back under that damn console to fix it again. The Daleks seemed to love to break things just after he'd finished repairing them. It was a conspiracy.
Leela, dark hair hanging lank around her face, looked up wearily from her mug of coffee as Andred threw the data pad down on the table with a frown.
"Bad news?" she asked, her voice rough from the day's shouting of orders.
"Is there any other kind?" he asked with a bitter twist to his lips.
"No," she sighed out. "Not lately, anyway." She sipped the coffee and looked up at him with blue eyes that looked bruised in her face. So tired, he thought to himself, they were all of them so tired, but she was human. She lacked the stamina of a Time Lord, yet insisted on pushing as hard as the rest of them did. It scared him to see how thin and worn she was getting. He rose and went to sit beside her on the camp couch, pulling her into his arms, and burying his face in her hair.
"Oh my love," he whispered to her. "What I wouldn't do to get you out of this mess."
"You'd leave your people to fight without you?" she asked in surprise and he looked at her, seeing the bravery, the loyalty, the unstoppable force that made his wife so incredible and knowing that the High Council valued her life far below his own. He knew quite well that she was worth a thousand of him, but his people would never see that.
"The High Council left the Doctor's granddaughter to the Tower's 'mercies' for nearly a year, Leela," he snarled. "If you could have seen her! She was thin as a rail, a half-starved feral creature who stared around at everything like she was waiting to be hit. I formally protested and was told to mind my own business in no uncertain terms. It was all very politely worded, of course, with all the right sentiments being expressed; "So unfortunate that it was necessary", "the dreadful requirements of the war effort", and all that garbage. As though harming a member of our own race, a descendent of… well, that shouldn't matter, but a girl that young, to be so treated! It was wrong, Leela."
"You didn't answer the question, love," she prodded him.
"I am not certain just now, that my people are worth defending. I will fight the Daleks, because the rest of the universe needs to be kept safe from them, but I cannot say that I much care right now if the Time Lords fall or survive." It was a bare statement of fact, a glacial recitation of his disillusionment and anger and Leela burrowed into his arms, holding him very tight.
The Master stared at the read-outs and began to curse. The controls that Rassilon had woven into his neurological system were not responding to the Nanites he'd programmed to destroy them. This was a more complex problem than he had originally assumed.
He'd just have to get really tricky about it.
He was going to be free of the High Council, free of Rassilon, and once he was, he'd find a way to kill them all and dance on their smoking corpses. Then, oh then, he'd go and find that girl and there would be no force in all of time or space that could prevent him taking her away from them.
"My Lady Susanatrevalar, good day!" The lanky young man addressing her, with his horse's face and watery eyes, was a member of a powerful line, so Susan smiled politely at him, despite her hurry, while trying to indicate that she had places to be. However, Findarian wasn't very bright and couldn't seem to take a hint.
"My Lord Findarian," she replied with a cool nod and kept walking. She'd finished her last class for the day, but she had at least three papers to write before the end of the week and one of them was for Professor Chronotis. She'd taken his history class to round out her requirements, but also because the Professor was a friend of her grandfather's. She wasn't sure she was learning much history, the man could barely remember what century they were presently in and certainly couldn't remember what he was supposed to be teaching them, but she was drinking a lot of tea.
"My Lady, are you going to be attending the cotillion ball at Lady Harrimanian's?" Findarian continued and Susan blinked at him in confusion.
"Why ever would I want to do that?" she asked, beyond puzzled.
"Why to dance, to see, and to be seen, of course!" he replied, equally puzzled by her apparent aversion.
"We're in the midst of a war," she reminded him with a sudden savage fury rising in her hearts. "I hardly have time to waste on frivolous entertainments, when I am trying to master the skills that might one day save our soldier's lives." She turned on her heel and stomped away from the stunned young man, so angry she could barely speak. A cotillion? In the middle of a war? When thousands died daily? Unbelievable!
Behind her, unnoticed in the crowd, another young man, who looked rather like a stick with glasses stuck on one end, watched her go with a smile of purest adoration. Terelinian, whose family wasn't quite as exalted as Findarian's was, but who had three siblings in the Navy, had just fallen in love.
Susan tossed her study pad on the desk and stepped into the shower with a sigh. She loved her studies, but so far her classmates were far less appealing.
She was sick of young men sniffing around her, hoping to use a relationship with her to launch them to greater social heights. None of them attracted her anyway, so she didn't care. A couple of the girls had even tried with her, when they'd seen her lack of interest in the boys, but she'd also put them off as politely as she knew how.
She had a one track mind as far as physical desire went. She only wanted him, which was frustrating as hell and stupid to boot.
The Master had been sent away to the Front. This news, delivered to her by a gloating secretarial type was received by her with very mixed emotions. On the one hand, she was relieved not to have to deal with a psychopath stalking her through the Capital. On the other hand, he'd been dispatched off to war and combat. It had been obvious by the hints the oily secretary was dropping that he hoped that the Master would be killed in action.
She had not been amused. Her glare had been enough to make the scabrous wretch scuttle away, confused by her reaction. He wasn't alone in that confusion.
She just didn't know how to feel about the situation. Yes, she was filled with longing for him, she got flustered just thinking about that fevered kiss, but she didn't even like him. Her body might respond to the mere thought of him, in a manner that was both embarrassing and alarming, but her mind wasn't so easily led.
He was a psychopath and probably a sociopath as well. He'd killed innocent people, done horrific things, and yet… she'd seen what they'd wrapped around his brain. She knew that it wasn't his fault. He was a puppet, a toy that Rassilon had made and then casually released. Even so, he was definitely crazy, that much was obvious. Even if she were ever to be in a room with him again, she was knew she couldn't act on her desires. He was dangerous and she was afraid of what his madness might drive him to, even as she pitied him.
Strangely, she didn't feel afraid of him exactly. She was afraid of what he might do, of what he couldn't stop himself from doing. It was like he was two people, the gorgeous brilliant heart of him and the black webbed monster. She was aching inside for that true self, hidden behind the sneering villain, but she was nervous about the villain himself.
She stepped out of the shower and wandered into her bedroom, pulling clothes from the wardrobe as she went. The liquids used in the shower dried instantly, which was convenient, but always left her hair in a tangle. She dressed, combed out it out and stared at herself in the mirror.
She was still getting used to the lighter hair color. She'd had a mop of black curls for two hundred and forty years; the long wavy dark brown hair had only been there for a few weeks. Wet, it had looked nearly black, but as she turned in the light she could see that it was a deep chocolate color. It was okay, but she didn't much like her face. It was just a bit too sweet looking. High round cheekbones, huge emerald green eyes, brows that arched in permanent surprise, a pointed chin, she looked like the heroine of some silly romance drama. It attracted too much attention. She wanted to go unnoticed, to just slip quietly through Gallifreyan society, but between her family's rank and her face, that didn't seem likely.
A muted beeping interrupted her thoughts and told her that there was a message in her in-box. She read the circular letters with joy; her grandfather was coming home for a week's leave! She'd see him soon! It had been so long and she'd missed him so much.
She realized suddenly that she couldn't tell him what had happened to her. The Visions concerned too much of his future and much of it was grim and unpleasant. How could she tell him that he would be forced to destroy Gallifrey? How could she tell him that he would spend long centuries alone, believing himself to be the last of his kind? How could she tell him he very well might end up being the last Time Lord, if she could find no way to save her loved ones from the coming destruction.
Most importantly, how could she reveal any of this knowledge to a man that was often called before the High Council? She couldn't stop any of this if Rassilon were to have knowledge of the future. She sank her head into her hands, mind whirling with too many questions and very few answers. There had never been anything she hadn't felt she couldn't tell her grandfather and she hated the idea of holding things back from him.
Forcing her mind off of her troubles, she pulled her study pad towards her and plugged into the archives to research her next paper. She had to learn everything she could as fast as she could. There was less time than anyone imagined.
The Doctor stepped into the reception area and looked around. A reed slender girl with brown hair and startlingly green eyes waved to him and he recognized it as Susan. She ran into his arms and he hugged her hard, feeling the changes in her with a terrible sense that he'd failed her again somehow.
"You've regenerated," he accused, mouth turning down in worry. "What happened, are you alright?" She frowned and dropped her eyes, before leaning close into his embrace.
"I'm alright, now, Grandfather. Oh please, let's not talk about anything upsetting just now. I have missed you so much!" He could sense tears in her voice and nodded, still not able to let her go, needing the feel of her against him to reassure himself that she was alive and sane.
"What are you studying?" he asked, forcing himself to talk to her lightly, avoiding the dark sorrow in her eyes. She smiled at him, gratitude in those feline green eyes that seemed to see into every nook and cranny of his hearts.
"Xeno-biology and Genetics," she enthused and dragged him off to the trans-mat station. They were going home, he guessed, to his mother's home on the mountain. They were going to spend a week pretending to be a normal family, having a nice normal visit, without the shadow of war, suffering, and death hanging over them. No doubt the Council would have the whole place under surveillance, but they could ignore all of that as well.
He was going to go along with it, he knew, and he would play his role to the hilt. Because, despite her bright smiles and cheerful chatter, he could see the cracks in Susan's hearts. He could see how close she stood to the cliff and he'd be damned if he was going to be the one to drive her over that precipice.
Susan sat down by her great-grandmother's desk and watched her work, mulling over how to give this woman her news. The Lady Professor was a legend, one of the three most brilliant minds in the history of Gallifrey and Susan was a trifle intimidated.
The Professor's office was one of the few memories she'd had of Gallifrey growing up, but she was never sure if it was simply having been here when she was little, or if it was just the many stories she'd heard from grandfather over the years. The glass domed ceiling above, the huge spread of windows that opened out to give a spectacular view of the mountain falling away from them, the warm, worn, comfortable furniture and the thick carpeting that felt like fuzzy moss beneath her fingers.
She recalled the carpet with particularly fond memories, she'd learned to crawl and to walk on this rug, and she'd played with dolls here, and lay on it, staring up through the dome for long hours, watching the clouds drifting by. It was a haven of peace and she found herself relaxing under the room's benign influence.
"I am reliably informed that you are doing well in your classes, are you enjoying them?" the great lady asked her and the sparkle in her eyes was so very much like Grandfather's that Susan smiled broadly in return. Susan hoped that one day she could have ginger hair, like her Great Gran's, it caught the light with copper and silver glints that Susan found fascinating.
"I love it! I had so much trouble finding complete medical textbooks on Earth! I spent ages sifting through bookstore basements trying to find what I needed. But here! All the books I could ever want to read and right at my fingertips, its wonderful!" she laughed and her great grandmother smiled back at her. The sharp gray-green eyes with their outer ring of blue were watching her and Susan felt as though nothing in her heart or mind was secret from the loving observation of the ancient professor.
"Yet, I see a shadow in your heart, Susan. Is it something you think you could share with me?" she asked with an arched brow and a look of calm patience.
"I think so, My Lady Professor…" she began, but was quickly interrupted.
"Great Gran will be more than sufficient, child," the other woman laughingly corrected.
"Very well, Great Gran, I would like to tell you, if fact I would really like to have your advice," Susan tugged at the brown wavy hair that tumbled over her shoulder and looked up at her ancestress with concern. "But it's not something I want to share with the universe, is it okay to tell you here?"
"This room is secured, child, not to worry, I have had it sealed and it's constantly being swept for bugs," she answered and Susan blew out her breath in relief.
"I never let the Tower find out, but I do have visions, Great Gran," she admitted and the Lady Professor looked sadly at her, sympathy and compassion in her ancient eyes.
"I suspected as much, my poor darling. I'm glad that you didn't let them find out, things would have been far worse if you had."
"I figured that," Susan answered with a wry smile. "Anything they wanted that badly wasn't something I felt comfortable giving them. The thing is, I have seen the Final Vision." Her Great Grandmother drew her breath in sharply and nodded.
"I'm listening."
"I saw the future and it's rather bleak. We're going to lose this war, but Rassilon is going to try to save Gallifrey by destroying the entire universe. Grandfather is going to stop him, but Gallifrey will be destroyed in the process. All the Time Lords will be killed, if we can't find a way to escape the coming holocaust, and if some of us don't escape, there will come a crisis later on where Grandfather will need our help and we won't be there to give it. If that happens, the universe will be erased from existence and never have been at all." She edited her vision a bit, not ready to tell her about herself and the Master tangled up in each other, reaching out across the Void to send a warning. She was far too uncomfortable with the thought.
"Well, that is a pretty bleak vision," she answered, frowning, but not looking particularly upset. "I suppose we will have to find some way to escape then, won't we? We'll probably have to do something rather clever." Looking up at the woman in front of her, Susan felt a great ray of hope bursting into her mind for the first time since she'd seen why Rassilon had done what he'd done to the Master.
"I also accidently ended up connected telepathically to the Master. I think that we might be bonded," she added, not about to go into the details with her. The Professor stared at her with a considering air, studying her for long moments before she spoke and Susan wondered just how much the ancient woman saw with those eyes.
"Now, that I can't help you with, Susan," Great Gran answered slowly and Susan nodded, she'd figured that as well. "But I am sorry. I imagine that it will be difficult for you."
Difficult? Yeah, that was probably the understatement of the last few centuries, Susan thought with a bitter sigh. She was desperately attracted to a psychopath, connected to his brain, but not really sure that she didn't hate him, just a little, for making her feel like this about him.