Misty Grey
Some years before, somewhere in the Galaxy.
It had been a bitch of a day.
The TARDIS had landed, groaning, off the main square in a very small city on some nameless planet – OK, it wasn't nameless, but she couldn't remember what he'd called it, and now didn't really want to – and shuddered to silence with an ominous CLANK-rattle-clinkety-clink as something fell off somewhere and rattled into the depths. The Doctor had immediately started tearing into the ship's innards, concern all over his face, all thoughts of the sightseeing trip he'd promised Rose forgotten. It had taken him half an hour to trace the problem, then two hours scouring the shops nearby for something he could use to fix it, and another three greasy, sweaty hours installing it with the help of his trusty sonic screwdriver and a few other tools – including the sledgehammer as a last, noisy resort.
Grumpy as she was, even Rose couldn't resist his delighted, grease-smeared grin as he checked the TARDIS out again, flipping a few switches and listening to the once-again smooth, steady pulse. And when he wolfed down the small, late lunch she'd contrived in the meantime from the local market, stopping to admire the green-purple striped fruit and complementing her choices, she decided to forgive him.
By then, it was late afternoon, but he still insisted they had time to get to the famous Cardasol Cliffs to see the fantastic crystal sunset – it was only 20 kilometers away! And look, they can rent a car – of sorts – to get there and back in style. Of sorts. So off they went.
And the sunset was as mind-bendingly spectacular as he had promised, the dancing rays bouncing off the crystals in the cliffs to send rainbows charging madly this way and that like a huge flock of startled, technicolor pigeons. Would have been just that tad better if they'd thought to bring a picnic supper, perhaps with some champagne... But, nevertheless, the sun duly set and they started back, placating their complaining stomachs with thoughts of the ship's well-stocked kitchen.
And then the car broke down. CLANK-rattle-clinkety-clink.
"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!"
Surely they were more than halfway back, weren't they? The town was just over that ridge, wasn't it? A short walk and they'd fall into the TARDIS still in time for a late supper, no?
Only they weren't, and it wasn't, and they didn't.
The top of the ridge, two kilometers from the car and several hundred feet up, was strewn with boulders, long ago cracked off the backbone of harder rock outcrop. Beyond the ridge was only darkness now, so long after sunset; no sign of the city. Turning around, they saw its lights off in the distance beyond the ridge on the other side of the valley – far, far too far away now.
Rose collapsed in a heap, tears threatening. "I'm sorry. I just can't walk any further. I can't." She had tripped more than once on the way up, and wrenched her ankle, which was steadily growing more painful than she had wanted to admit.
It was too late, even, to try to climb back down to the car for the night. The broken ground and rolling scree guaranteed major bodily damage had they tried to descend in the dark. The Doctor poked around till he found the perfect pocket a few yards from Rose. Helping her up, he led her over, then propped her against a rock momentarily. He took off his overcoat and sat down in the pocket with his back to the rock spine, then beckoned her in to sit between his knees. After she was settled, he draped his overcoat over them both for warmth – the temperature was really beginning to drop – then for the final touch, pulled out the sonic screwdriver and buzzed it against each of the two watermelon-sized rocks at their feet till they began to glow, warming the pocket and its new temporary inhabitants.
(This may not have been such a good idea said a tiny voice in his head as she was shifting around getting comfortable. Shut up he told it, ignoring the intriguing way her hips were moving against him. Riiiiight it snickered back.)
After a bit, Rose sighed and relaxed. "I don't suppose your screwdriver could whiz us up a couple of marshmallows for this campfire, could it?"
She felt the Doctor grin behind her. " 'Fraid not. Not even a hot dog. Why do they call them that, anyway? No, don't tell me, I don't think I want to know. Hold on a tick, though." He rummaged around in his overcoat pockets and managed to come up with some biscuits and a banana, not too old, which they shared. "Not much, but enough to keep from starving."
Determined not to put a damper on the night by incessant grumpiness, Rose said "It's only one night. As long as there aren't any werewolves here, we'll be fine. Kind of like camping out."
"Did you ever camp out?"
"Not really, no. The closest I ever did was once me and Mickey went down to the seashore with a group of mates and had a bonfire. With marshmallows."
"Well, sorry for the lack of marshmallows. Tell you what, though. Shall I tell you a campfire story?"
"Does it have werewolves? Or ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night?"
"Well, not precisely. But I think you'll like it anyway."
"Go on, then." She snuggled down closer under the overcoat.
"How do campfire stories start?"
"'Once upon a time'? Or you could go for 'a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away'." She giggled.
He, though, was perplexed. "Well, it was long ago and far away. The constellation of Kasterborous, in fact." He paused, but she didn't react. He must not have mentioned that name to her before. Good. He went on, adopting the cadence of the born storyteller.
"In the middle of this constellation were two twin stars, endlessly circling each other in the darkness. And around these two stars, in a very complex orbit, there was a planet. Oh, it was bare, molten rock at first, all lava and gases and constant swirling winds, but it settled down at last, as planets do, and began the business of creating life.
"And oh, what life it made! Bounding oceans teeming with it, from the tiniest single-celled beasties to gigantic carsarons lifting their sail fins above the surface. And on the land, all manner of animals, crawling and running and flying about, living and eating and dying and creating more life. And plants, too, of course: tall red grasses bending in the wind on the plains, and mushy bogjams floating in the ponds, and trees with leaves of shining silver gleaming in the sunshine, reflecting the orange skies.
"And the very largest of these, the ancient grandfather trees, came to be known to the later inhabitants as corin trees. They lived for hundreds of years, soaring two hundred feet high, with long trailing vines of those silver leaves, swaying in the breeze. It looked rather like Earth's – what do you call them? The trees they say are crying?"
She thought a moment, then "Weeping willows?"
"That's the one. The corins looked like willows, only thirty times bigger than the biggest willow on Earth. To those later people it became the symbol of strength, and steadfastness, and endurance, like your oak. In fact, it became tradition to plant a corin sproutling in the front yard of a new house, as the symbol of all those good wishes and ideals for the family being established within. You see, the people didn't move around like you humans do, but families stayed and lived in their House" (she could hear the capitalization in his voice) "for generation after generation, each one building on and making it their own."
"Bet it got crowded after a while," she quipped.
"Well, as with most societies, it was usually the eldest child who married and brought their new spouse into the House, and their children continuing. Younger children might marry or they might not. If they married an eldest child, they would of course move to their spouse's House. If neither of the couple were eldest, sometimes they'd live in one House or the other, whichever might have room, or sometimes they began building their own House, planting the corin in a High Beginning ceremony the day they moved in. But often... Oi! This story has gotten far off track!"
He leaned over and whispered in her ear, "But remember that digression, Miss Tyler; there will be a quiz later on!"
She groaned, "No, no quiz!"
Grinning, he settled back again and continued. "Where was I?
"Over the course of the eons, intelligent people did evolve on our lovely planet. And as they did, they discovered that many among them had an extra sense – they could sense the flow of time itself."
Rose stilled and came to attention at that. Of course, he was talking about the Time Lords. Duh.
"After a while, some of them began to see further and further, into the past, into the future, and far across the universe – and they even began to manipulate time. And they discovered corals, and made matrixes, and vortexes, and all manner of things to help them do these things. And they taught each other, and their children, all they learned.
"After a long time, they made another discovery. As each individual began his studies, peering into the heart of the Vortex and learning to shape and use it, if he were very still, he would hear a whispering in his head, as if the Vortex itself were speaking to him. And the syllables seemed to cut through their skin and their head and their hearts, and they realized that they were the sounds of their very soul. They called the words their true names, and it became a rite of passage to proclaim one's true name in a ceremony, and use only it afterward, putting aside the family name their parents had given them at birth. Well, even Time Lords name their babies something!
"But, as always happens everywhere in creation, evil crept into the shining world of Gallifrey, and one Lord of ill intent discovered the power of the true names, that if used by one such as he, he could bend the owner of the name to his will. And so he did, and the world was nearly wrecked by this one man before he was brought down.
"Of course, the rite of passage was immediately stopped, and all new Time Lords began keeping their true name strictly secret, never telling it to any other living soul save one he trusted utterly, and always would, throughout their long lives. And you can guess how often that might happen. At the beginning, they went back to using their family name, but those weren't quite right, not anymore. So they began to take their own names, calling themselves this or that, sometimes a name, sometimes more of a title, but something that they nonetheless felt reflected their natures, or at least the nature they wished to project."
"Like 'the Doctor'," she said.
"Exactly. So now you know, Rose Marion Tyler. Time Lords have three names as well. Though, I must confess, if you take it over an entire life, some of us have had many more than that. There's no law saying you must go by the same moniker all your life."
Diverted from the question she had almost thought of, she asked: "Yeah? What else have you called yourself?"
He chuckled. "Well, at the beginning, when I started school – you might not believe this, but I was rather a scamp."
"No! Say it ain't so!"
"Yup. I told the Masters my name was Hey You."
She spluttered, "Oh no you didn't!"
"Yup. Did too. For the first, oh, twenty-odd years of school, I was Hey You. The Masters didn't have much of a sense of humor about it, but I stood firm, and they had no choice. It was Tradition.
"I got tired of it after a while, and when I finally found a teacher who actually inspired me, and finally gave me the love of learning, I became the Seeker - even if I never did become a very good student. Not terribly original, either: there was usually a Seeker or six around the Academy, but it fit me well enough, too. And I stayed the Seeker for a long time, until the First Dalek War began."
He fell silent. Rose let him be, sensing the cloud of memories engulfing him, none good. Then, "I won't tell you the name I took during the war. Let the Oncoming Storm of the Daleks stand – it tells the story well enough. After the war was over, I didn't use any name at all for a long time. I was nobody. Even after I came to Earth and slowly began to recover my own – humanity, if you will pardon the term, I remained nameless.
"Finally, one day, I patched up somebody's scrapes, and they called me 'Doctor'. And I liked it. It fit. So 'the Doctor' I became, and 'the Doctor' I've remained ever since."
They were quiet for a time, each thinking and digesting. Then Rose remembered her earlier question. "Were family names secret, too?"
"No."
"What was yours, then? If you don't mind my asking?"
Silence. She waited. "Doctor?" Still silence. Shit. Gingerly, sure she'd crossed some boundary and angered him, she straightened up and turned to face him to apologize, prepared for the wrath in his eyes, or worse, the cold remoteness she'd come to associate with the Time Lord at his most Lordly.
Instead, amazingly, she found him biting his lips, holding back a grin, eyes dancing with merriment. At her "WTF?" look, the grin struggled harder to escape, but he managed to keep it down, and merely raised his eyebrows at her, significantly, waiting.
Suddenly she recalled the "quiz", and the light dawned. "Corin? That's your family name?"
His grin at last escaped, pulling a delighted laugh out with it, and then a nod.
Her brilliant smile spread across her face, and she laughed back. "Corin. I like it!" She turned again and settled back. "Corin. It fits you." He laughed again.
Suddenly she sat up and faced him again, but shyly this time. "Could... could I call you that sometimes? When it's just us – I wouldn't ever say it publicly, I promise!" She bit her lip, tentative, pleading.
He looked at her, wonderingly. He seemed to start to speak once, twice, then, softly: "Yeah. I'd like that."
Another brilliant smile, and she settled back again, and they both drifted off into their thoughts in a comfortable silence.
On the surface, at least. Inside, the Doctor was at war with himself. As always.
Tell her. Silence. Tell her! Silence. He couldn't move. TELL her, you stupid bloody coward, that's what you started the bloody story for in the first place! Tell her your true name! On and on it went, his intense longing for that closeness, that trust, battling his silent fear, sending spear after arrow after rope into the black hole of despair and loneliness and torment and the endless, empty, aching years with nothing to hold on to but memories.
Fear won. As always.
Sighing, giving up, he opened his eyes to the world to discover Rose had drifted off to sleep, head tilted endearingly on his shoulder. Unfortunately for his equilibrium, doing so had exposed the corner of her jaw and the hollow behind it to the night, tantalizingly close to his lips. He stared at her skin, mesmerized by the soft curves seeming to glow in the starlight, beckoning him on. Closer and closer he drifted, till his lips were a hair's breadth away. And froze. Fear came roaring back out of the black hole, raging over his tentative desire, leaving bleak destruction in its wake.
Defeated again, he slunk back and leaned his head on the rock behind, a little harder than he had intended. So he did it again twice more for good measure, then winced. "Owwwww." He sighed again and forced muscles he hadn't realized had tensed to relax, then pulled out the sonic screwdriver and buzzed the rocks hot again.
It was going to be a bitch of a night.