Chapter 8

The Doctor, Rory and Amy split up to interview the people who lived here. Only a very scared child could send him a message and therefore he was determined to find and help him. He had already managed knocking at each door of the second floor, when he suddenly heard someone call his name, "Doctor?"

He turned around and saw a young woman standing behind him. She had short, dark-brown hair and black eyes, wore tight, black trousers and a black blouse.

"Hello. Who are you and how do you know my name?"

"We just met...a few minutes ago. When you lost Rory to that lightening crack..."

"That was half a year ago," he said in surprise. "A few minutes for you? You seem to appear in another order through time and space. How often have you popped up somewhere, as long as you can remember?"

"I don't know...but you are The Doctor...from Gallifrey?" she asked and had a look around.

"How do you know about that?"

She turned back to him and wanted to answer, but then she suddenly disappeared again in golden energy, as if she regenerated.

"Everything okay?" Theresa asked when the Doctor suddenly bent forward and silently screamed in pain.

"I'm being rewritten. Someone's entering my time line, that's impossible. Well, not necessarily impossible, but very rare," he answered and held his chest. Were still both of his hearts beating?

"Shall we go back into the TARDIS?" she proposed.

"I don't think that is nece-aahh!"

"There you could run a diagnostic or whatever you'd call it."

"You convinced me," he answered and Theresa helped him walking down the street.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor started pressing all kinds of buttons and she doubted that he had read the instruction manual.

"Have you actually learnt to fly this thing?" she finally asked.

"Yes...well, more or less."

"Then how do you get it? Heritage or did you acquire it on an auction or whatever?"

"Well...actually..."

"Doctor?"

"I stole it, okay?" the Doctor said and continued reading whatever appeared on the main screen.

Theresa mouth first dropped open, but then she burst out into laughter. "You're the most clueless alien I've ever met," she muttered and walked around the main console as well. The Doctor had started the ship again so that they were inside the time stream now.

"So, what are you doing?"

"Try to figure something out." Suddenly, the TARDIS rocked and both of them fell to the ground. "Ah, that was a disruption in the time vortex. It's impossible, actually. But I often say that something's impossible when it actually isn't," he explained when he got onto his feet again. "I think one of my former me has figured out that something is changing history, including certain timelines. Whoever it is, who always appears, she is the sum of some other people.

"had enough energy to bring back a planet, but she has no clue herself what to do...so someone else is operating by remote control...and she is the remote control, but whatever she does, it's destined, so that someone else can be long dead, and she could bring him back to life. She's like a time bomb. But even if she does so, it probably blows a hole into the timeline and needs to be stopped – Theresa?"

While talking mostly to himself, he hadn't noticed that Theresa hadn't stood up yet. "You alright?" he asked and came over to her.

"What's this?" she asked and held up a golden watch with an engraved solar system. "It hang down here."

"It's nothing...just, a piece of memory," he said and quickly grabbed it. He remembered not only how he had made himself forget everything and become a human, but also how dangerous The Master had become right after he had figured out that he was an insane Timelord.

"But I've seen that watch before," Theresa said confused when she followed him around the controls.

"Impossible," the Doctor answered and landed the TARDIS again. "I'll probably have to figure out a lot about the TARDIS and the timeline and it's probably not really interesting, me talking to the TARDIS and talking to myself all the time."

"You're dropping me off?"

"Just until I know what's happening."

"But you really shouldn't be alone."

"I'm not alone, I have the TARDIS."

"Will you come back?"

"Of course I will," he said and hugged her deeply. "When I found out what's happening."

"Can you promise me something?"

"Yeah?"

"When you haven't figured out within a week, come back to me and I could help you," she said and smiled slightly.

"Okay," he answered after some hesitation and watched her leaving the TARDIS. He knew he was going to miss her and probably this feeling had made the decision. He couldn't lose her like he lost Rose, Donna, Amy and Rory and all the others. How many losses could a man like him bear?

Theresa quickly took the steps up to the third floor and knocked at the door of her flat. She didn't know how long she was gone but it seemed to be evening.

"You haven't met Rend, have you?" was the first thing Katie asked when she opened the door.

"Well...something has cropped up...angry?"

"No, not at all. Dave just called me and said they managed everything on their own and if you were interested in a little job this night."

"What did you say?"

"That you have time...you'll do it fast and then we'll have the rest of the night for us," Katie said and went back to the kitchen where she was already serving dinner.

"Valentina not here?" Theresa wanted to know when she had a look what her girlfriend was cooking.

"No, she's working late. And this Torchwood Institute seems to really mess them up and intervene in all of their cases."

Theresa raised an eyebrow. The doctor had mentioned Torchwood, but she doubted that anybody else knew that it had to do with tracking down alien life forms and protecting the human race.

After dinner, Theresa went to her room to change clothes. She had been travelling with the Doctor for some time, but here only passed hours. She still couldn't believe that she had ran into a time-travelling alien who showed her the most amazing, but also most dangerous parts in the universe.

Suddenly, she remembered this watch again. Theresa had seen it before, she knew she had. She stood up and started searching in her cupboard. It didn't take her long to find it. The golden watch was a gift her father had given her for her 18th birthday. Actually, she had only figured out four months before that he had been her father and since then, their relationship could be described as 'tense'.

"You ready?" Katie asked from the bathroom.

"Yeah, just give me a moment," Theresa answered and stared at the watch. As long as she knew, she had never opened it as her father claimed it to be broken.

She breathed deeply but then she opened it. Suddenly, golden-coloured energy was whirling out of the interior and was entering through her chest. She stopped breathing and felt it flowing through her whole body. She dropped the watch and fell back on her bed. She wanted to scream loudly, but no word was passing her throat.

It was amazing and horrible at the same time. So many memories, so many abilities entered her mind. Then, all of it was over and she sat up again. But she still remembered. She remember hundreds of years and everything until their final judgement. She was The Soldier, banned on a lonely existence on Earth while Gallifrey was destroyed.

She couldn't process all the data she had now and only few moments of her life passed through her memory. Slowly, she began to construct her actual life and began to understand that the existence she had as Theresa Riddle, living in San Francisco, was nothing more than a lie.

"Theresa?" Katie asked and knocked at the door.

Suddenly, she woke up like after a bad dream and hide the watch inside her pocket. "I'm ready," she answered and left the room.

She still processed her memories and couldn't believe all the things she had done and all the things she had seen. What would happen if the Doctor found out? After all, she had killed hundreds of Timelords and millions of Daleks...and even caused the Doctor to regenerate once. She was the most feared Gallifreyan of the whole universe, The Soldier, and together with her sister, The Warrior, she could do anything she wanted...even bring back her home planet.

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