A/N: Shoutout to the anonymous user who left me a hate comment! I was so excited when I read it! I've always seen other people receive anonymous hate, and I wondered if I would ever rise to a level of Internet Usage worthy of such an honour. Thank you, anonymous. This is a proud moment in my life, a day I will remember for the rest of my days. I may even print out your comment and post it on my wall. You have let me arise to a new level of existence. Thank you.

Don't judge, Mail System Void.

I can physically feel you not being here. My back and my legs contain a physical sensation of absence that should not be possible because biology doesn't work that way. If I think long and hard and desperate enough I'm back at the Academy half asleep with you filling the sensation of absence on my body and the impossible biology makes sense, because it's just the struggle to physically draw you back to me.

I'm starting to sound like a Sol III human but it's 02:00 and I don't care. It's all really to do with fatigue and hormones but it feels like reality... Like a form of pain coated in memory of bliss to let it be inflicted without protest. You are a mess of a person just like I am but somehow the lack of you is causing more of a disaster on me. I have tasted bliss and it has been taken from me so I try and replace it with ink on paper that flies into the air and doesn't come back in any form. This is all such a waste of paper maybe I'm a waste of paper this is all just so... Futile. Everything is futile in reality, so I might as well sit here scribbling about being lonely and cold. This letter doesn't have a point. Telekinetically bring me to wherever you are and we'll preserve my sanity.

Love,

Theta

###

Quences has him dressed up in a semiformal whatever the heck for no good reason (according to Theta), dragging him away from his usual suspiciously long trips to the city in favour of being coached on what not to mention yet, and going back into the city. This time with a fiancee in tow.

He keeps his shirt rolled down to his wrists, thankfully black because white does nothing for him (if mirrors say anything), white pants he didn't know he had being produced from a closet without a stain anywhere. They have become rather convenient to remove with technology of the day, but given Theta's history as a General Prydonian Child, the prospects of him owning a pristine white anything tanked at the age of eight.

Patience sits across from him in a dress that curls and fades from purple into white and then thins into the air all over the place, giving her a light, wispy effect to normal people. Theta only sees it as high-maintenance and something that would get in the way. He rather hoped she'd favour Generic Masculine Clothing as a simple effect, but he could not be so lucky. He's wondered if he developed a preference towards masculinity, or if it's just Koschei he's grown up with.

He pretends to think it's Koschei to have fewer problems than he has already. He actually makes himself eat his sandwich despite having eaten a rather odd meal somewhere between three in the morning and the breakfast he skipped, which was big enough to take him until at least 14:30, but not with his fiancee around.

"I hear you're House-schooled now?" she asks, or comments, either one.

Theta nods, scowling slightly at his sandwich.

"And how's that going?"

He shrugs. "Alright, I suppose."

"Bit lonely?"

He looks up at her properly, in some capacity surprised she recognises any emotion. He reminds himself she is actually a person and has a brain, despite his highest ideas of her. "It is, really. Compared to the Academy."

"I'd think so." She takes a delicate sip of her tea, elegance completely lost in euphemism. "How many people are even in the House over the year?"

"Me, Quences, Owis, off and on cousins that have grown up, everyone else going to school out here. It gets busier around the breaks, but other than that…" she looks sympathetic, like she tends to a lot, but Theta recognises it as not something cruel or mocking, for once. The thought has always been yelled at him, sternly suggested to him, even crossed his own mind, but he'd never been able to equate his version of the embodiment of stuckness with a potential friend for too long.

"Look," she starts, ignoring her own intentionally cold soup in favour of addressing Theta very directly, bending but not yet breaking her usual lighthearted demeanour. She takes a deep, shaky breath as Theta realises with a bit of a pang she's scared of him. He does not dare interrupt her now. "Like it or not, we're in this together. For a long time. We can go about being all cold and lying and pretending, but it's not going to do us any good." She remains seated at her chair, but raised slightly, hands curling on the table and still managing to stare right despite her apparent fear. "I hate this as much as you do, but you and I both need to try a bit." Her fingertips press into the table, food momentarily forgotten, arranged by their superiors but decided upon themselves.

Theta regards her from a slightly tilted perspective, brain automatically making it straight in his mind's eye, science taking over again. "Are you scared of me?" he asks, thinking he knows the answer but wanting to hear it out loud so he can respond properly.

She looks taken aback, blinking rapidly before staring at him again, distraught he didn't answer her properly. "Have you seen yourself, ever? You terrify everyone."

Maybe he needs a mirror. "Sorry…" he says, trying to look sincere. "Sorry."

She draws her arms back, folding them against her chest and looking more worn than annoyed. "Don't need to apologise." Theta waits in the silence for her to carry on, picking again at the top piece of bread on his food. "Do we have a deal then?"

"To do what?"

"You're smart. I've already told you. Deal or no deal, because we're going to have to like it or lump it anyways."

He smiles dryly, watching her bite back a sort of smile at her own odd phrasing. He holds out an arm, seeing her more now as a person than he ever might have once. It almost feels like ignoring absent Koschei a bit more, giving her his hand in an agreement to get along, refusing years ago in favour of getting along with someone else. He's learning it doesn't work that way. A lot of things don't work the way he though they did.

"I will try." He enunciates every word, watching intently as Patience's hand takes his for the first time, bobbing up and down in the air that used to be full of negative ions. Not that it makes any scientific sense, but his marks in particle physics have never been very fulfilling.

"Then we have a deal, oh husband of mine." She sighs out sarcastically, words nailing themselves in Theta's head.

"Not yet, I'm not."

"Nine more years of freedom. Go nuts. Sleep with everybody."

"Traditional marriage does not signify 'sleeping together'," he retorts, sitting back in his chair and deciding to actually eat the sandwich in favour of going straight to dinner.

She shakes her head, looking unamused, but returned to the folly and unawareness their relationship has been composed of thus far. "Does for you, bio."

His knee hits the bottom of the table in the middle of a bite, controlling all his thoughts on swallowing properly and not choking before getting out "Who told you that!?"

She looks straight forwards over his head, focusing on some point on the wall and looking that sort of scared again. Probably because Theta is kind of angry. And confused. Emotional evaluation: yippee.

"Innocet. She's actually told me a lot."

He tries thinking back to any time she's been alone with Innocet, or to any conversation in which he missed something, wondering why Innocet would talk to her like that anyways…

"Which is convenient for the both of us, actually. I knew your mother." She doesn't look at him, or his reaction, but gives their flimsy outdoor ceiling a small smile. "Don't worry. I'm only a hundred."

###

There's finally visible grass now. It's all basically dead because the snow had just FINALLY MELTED but I'm outside. I have escaped the cousins. You'd think after being stuck here all year with like 5 people maximum at one time I'd want to actually socialise but. I'm socialising with you, technically, but not really because you don't get any of these anyways. I talk to the void. Or a mail worker confiscating them all for his amusement purposes. That and K'anpo the barperson. They're pretty cool.

It's actually freezing out, but it's been colder. Obviously.

It feels like I should ramble on about my life or something if we always used to know everything about each other but it sounds stupid put on paper. Like I have nothing else to do with myself than narrate every futile event.

Thing is, I don't really know you anymore. You could be someone completely different as your life moved on without me, and came to figure out my existence matched with yours is arbitrary. You would have found someone to be me if I didn't exist, and I would have found a replacement for you if Torvic killed you way back when.

Sol III humans love fantasising about destiny and soul mates and immortal love. I see why they do it. Reality is rather depressing.

I wish you were here. Whatever version of you I can get. Damn sentimentality. It's irrational, really...

I hope you miss me. The thought is fractionally comforting.

Theta

###

I don't even care who gets this the name's on the envelope.

I am actually hiding now. Remember Glospin? Well he's chasing after me with a fucking illegal laser thing trying to age my physical body so it's basically useless. I can't regenerate yet without something going wrong I don't know what it is with this body but some medicinal professional they brought in tells me not to try anything for another at least fifty years. I bet Glospin knows but doesn't care because he can easily pass it off as a joke. If he finds me I'm screwed. Innocet's not even here. I can't get her either.

I could be dead in a day if one of my hearts fails I don't know how well that laser works.

Funny, I actually don't want to die. After all these years, I want to live. I can hear him oh Rassilon please no. Quences can't be so cruel if I scream he'll find me. So will Glospin. But I might live if Quences is fast enough.

WHY AM I NARRATING THIS ON PAPER YOU WONT EVEN READ ITS NOT LIKE YOU CAN HELP I'm screaming now.

Nice knowing you.

###

"It's been four minutes, just laugh at me already."

Theta sits next to K'anpo at their usual table in the corner, the off-work barperson never knowing quite where else to go. "No, no it's not that funny." They bite back an obvious mocking grin at his wrinkly frame, to which Theta leans back in his chair.

"The cousins didn't bother holding it in."

"How did that even happen?"

Theta sighs, but it sounds different, like some membrane has appeared to make his breathing sound gruff and old. "That one cousin that tried to kill me?"

"Owis?"

"No, Glospin. He tried again. I got Quences to stop him."

The grin fades, thankfully. "Your own cousin did this?"

Theta nods. "Just about killed me. Then we'd have two extra Loomlings running around." He takes a sip of 'whatever you gave me the first time'.

"Your House was the one with the dead kid, right?"

He nods. "Theta Sigma. Didn't really know him."

"What did he look like?"

Theta is taken aback. "Uh, black hair? Sort of medium skin? Short, mostly."

"You sure about that?"

He rolls his eyes. "I didn't know him. Kept to himself."

"But you're the same age. Exactly."

"N— no… he's a bit younger."

K'anpo smirks. "It's you, isn't it?"

Theta immediately turns his head to see if anyone reacts to this information, hurting his neck in the process and feeling his shoulder complain. "Hush."

"It really wasn't that hard to figure out. You forgot that bit in your alibi." They lean into the table, as if divesting a grand secret. "So who is Koschei?"

Theta doesn't know why he has told so much to K'anpo. "Omega Xi's real name." Probably because he has only Owis and Quences to talk to.

"Did he ever reply to your letters?"

Theta snorts. "Of course not." The drink he ordered doesn't actually taste that great, but the aftertaste and effects are prime. "He doesn't even get them."

"How do you know? The mail system's still marginally functional."

"And guess who gave them all orders to burn mine before I even wrote them?"

K'anpo chuckles. "Your cousins are absolute assholes."

"You could say that again."

"Your cousins are absolute—"

"A figure of speech, K'anpo."

They fix their hair by intentionally messing it up, coloured parts somehow falling into their correct orientation after the fact. "Can he get Glospin to reverse it?"

"Glospin doesn't know how. Someone's regenerative energy might fix it up. Or if I just regenerate. Which I can't do."

"Why not?"

"I'm still too young, technically. I passed my Juniors but my body won't produce it yet. I tried."

K'anpo raises one bold dark brown eyebrow. "You need to be just about dead for it to work, Thete."

He is startled, for a second, at the name. "Don't… don't call me Thete."

"Alright, Thete."

"I mean it."

They sit back in their chair, sipping from the rugged old tumbler. "Suit yourself."

"In the presence of injury, you can coax it out. That's how most kids at the Academy can tell. Then there's faculty running around discussing a regeneration safety course they'll never manage."

"So where'd you get injured?"

Theta pauses. "Practically everywhere. Have you seen my body?"

They grin, raising their glass a small amount. "That is true."

He's lying, and for once nobody guesses.

###

Koschei runs through stacks of information that tingles under his fingertips, such a large onslaught of knowledge being downloaded into the slate and hidden away for people concerned not to find, the pages he starts reading only being skimmed before put in anyways. Everything from fine-tuned poison he won't make to reports of legal cases that have been shut away too quick and too sloppily to escape publication. He has always tossed around the idea of completely trampling the government, Magnus's wonderful maps giving him something to work off.

He has been unevenly split into three parts: one sitting properly and passing school properly and graduating properly so he can get a proper job and steal his TARDIS in peace. The second, teaming up with Magnus, assassinating a few people, running a full coup of the government with a bunch of other idiots, as the maps will allow.

That and leave the chunk of godforsaken rock first thing in the morning, if he has any confidence in his hypnotism skills. He sets the slate on the desk once the amount of information pending for download is just under enough to make it crash (as some technology still does these days), surprised to see Ushas has snuck her way inside without a sound. Without any sort of warning, it seems like, not even mentally.

"Ushas?" the slate makes a small noise of some sort, and he shuts off the volume.

She sits with her legs crossed on his bed, feet long enough to touch the floor properly. Her hair falls around her shoulders, the once in a blue moon it is not tied at the back of her head.

"Remember my conspicuous rat?" There's a long cut down the side of her arm, underneath the rolled-up sleeve of her robe.

Koschei has momentarily forgotten whatever he was downloading. "What the—"

"Lab experiment gone wrong at the exhibition thing I was in." She purses her lips together, shrugging innocently in a way that is completely lost of Generally Ushas. "I killed the President's cat. Nearly him, too."

"But," he leans against his desk, bracing two hands against the edge. "aren't you at least expelled?"

"Oh, yeah. Going to some prison off in the South. Immediate arrest, trial to be had later, probably accused of first-degree murder, you know the drill. In fact, I've already been carried off."

"Then how did you—"

"You aren't usually so confused. It's fun to see." She grins maniacally, gesturing to the tall cabinet in the corner of his room, waiting.

It dawns on Koschei as soon as he figures out there has never been a cabinet of that shape in his bedroom. His jaw drops almost comically, Ushas springing up from his bed and laughing at him. "But this Academy is enclosed! You can't even get a TARDIS in here!"

"Is that what they tell you? It's only rules. Not to mention this ship can get into prison cells, which are properly blocked off."

"So you decided to pop into the Prydonian Academy to bid us all farewell?"

She pulls his forehead down and gives him a usually uncharacteristic kiss on the forehead, making Koschei jump back a bit. "Nah, just you. For old times' sake."

She gives him an enthusiastic pat on the back, pacing towards her stolen TARDIS, hesitating. She never actually signed him up for therapy.

"How'd you get rid of the guards?"

She turns only her head around, hand resting on the door handle. "Now that you'll have to figure out for yourself." She swings the door open, revealing a very metallic, official-looking machine inside. "I need to redecorate."

Never the one for sentimental farewells of any sort, she doesn't say anything along the lines of 'goodbye', favouring closing the door behind her and a minute later, disappearing with barely a sound. Fortunate she can work the muting device on these prison ships, else he'd be in for questioning…

The slate on his desk has stopped scrolling on its own, stopped on a page of security mechanisms most commonly found to ensure TARDISes remain within a set of coordinates. Koschei counts on his fingers how many out of ten have now left, one finger Vansell and one of them himself. They've gone down to half: half of a handful of students trying to be smarter or maybe just make learning a good time. Or were all perhaps too distracted by things and needed someone else to teach them everything.

He's trained himself not to wonder where Rallon and Millennia have gone, official reports marking them as deceased without bodies found, simply because they can't trace how they got off the planet. Which might be a situation if they miraculously make their way back. In reality they probably won't, but in reality he shouldn't have an incessant tapping in the back of his skull patterned after heartbeats that may or may not line up (and probably do).

Koschei starts sorting through the mess of information downloaded, categorising it into neat folders and sub-folders and sub-sub-folders that would be very nice to have inside his head. He can't get rid of the trees, and is too afraid to try and do so by burning them lest he suddenly forget his entire life.

A/N: There was originally over 50,000 words comprising the ten-year gap of the last two chapters (plus chapter 26). There's a deleted scene that's just Ushas and Koschei discussing eyeliner it's ridiculous I should go through it sometime.