oOo Doctor, oOo
The Healer is frozen for a second, then gives the baby back to you. "He's your son," she says. "Save him."
You open your mouth in shock, trying to say something - then realize why she isn't helping him. Amy and Rory start to protest, but you cut them off - sharp, quick, and loud.
"Shut up, shut up," you say. "Not now." Fall off the chair onto the floor, lay Theta flat on the low table in front of you. Tear through thousands of years of memories, memories you really don't need right now, because there's only one thought that you have to have -
There it is, you've done this before -
Hands trembling like they haven't for centuries, you slide a finger into Theta's mouth, flattening his tongue down, then tilt his head back slightly. Your two middle fingers pump thirty flashes of pressure on his chest, then you bend down and fill the child's tiny lungs. Twice.
Thirty more beats, trying your best to be gentle through the panic. Two breaths. Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
It's not working -
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Left hand index finger on his wrist, which is lifeless.
Repeat.
Repeat.
A pulse.
Oh thank you. Thank you.
You drop your right hand, which is aching, but continue the rhythm, breathing into his nose and mouth for two seconds each minute. Until you feel his hand brush your cheek.
Fall back, dizzy. Probably more the fear and adrenaline than giving your oxygen away …
Rory and the Healer dive toward Theta - quite right too. There's probably something else you should do, but truth is it's been so long since you preformed anything of the sort on a Time Lord that you can't remember if there's anything else. The Healer will help with that. And Rory's a nurse.
Amy kneels down next to you. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," you say.
"Is she your mother, then?" she says in a low voice, glancing over at the Healer.
You give a small smile but don't answer.
"Good," the Healer says, sitting up from where Theta is. "Seems to be alright."
"Rory?" you ask.
"He's fine," Rory says.
Give a long sigh.
"Right," the Healer says. "Putting him in stasis."
"Alright."
"Until we work out something better."
"Thanks," you say, feeling the planet's gravity on every inch of your body. Does Gallifrey have a stronger pull than your TARDIS? You don't remember any place ever tugging on the pit of your stomach like this. Must be relief then.
"And you," she says, "Are bleeding quite badly."
"It's nothing," you say.
"No," she says, "You're getting too pale. No wonder you've regenerated since last time, if you can't take care of yourself."
"It's just a little scrape!" You protest.
"Might need stitches," she says. "Quick."
"I don't -" but a wave of black dizziness covers your vision and suddenly you're sitting back hard against the chair above you.
"Thought so," she says. "Come, we're going downstairs. To the healing room."
You blink back the darkness, well as you can. "Theta first."
"Where do you think the baby needs to go?"
"Right," you say, feeling stupid.
"Not the humans, though," she says, and, taking Theta, sets off across the room, purple robes catching the air she leaves behind.
"Alright," you say, and, after hauling yourself up, start after her, crossing the smooth polished floor to a sunken stairwell on the opposite side of the room.
You have one foot on the top step (a dark, murky, marble thing) when you realize the Ponds are still sitting in their former positions - Rory kneeling on the floor, Amy on the edge of a seat - looking awkward.
"Well, come along, Ponds," you say. They think you're going to leave them behind while their grandson's life is on the line? Since when have you obeyed rules at their expense?
They hurry towards you, and together you descend - your feet getting tangled in your anxiety. And since the stair curls in a descending circle, your dizziness reaches a high. You don't slow, though.
The lower level has just as many windows as the upper one - sweeping ones that make up an entire wall. The ceiling isn't quite as high, though. The healing room takes up the entire space, dotted symmetrically by shelves that fuse with the ground.
Theta's lying in a metal contraption, and, even though you recognize it as a stasis chamber, you have to stumble over and give it a scan with your screwdriver before you can let it be. Even then, you have to stand still, looking at him, purposefully loosening one tense muscle in your body after another.
"What are you planning on doing?" You ask the Healer.
"Nothing, while the humans are here."
You look at her sharply. "That isn't fair. They're family. Family is allowed in here, right?"
She stays silent.
"Right?" you demand.
"Sit down," she says.
"What?"
"Sit down, and I'm going to see to that cut on your head."
"No!" You pocket your screwdriver. "Forget it! I'm not -"
"There's nothing I can do for Theta until I get some proper readings from him. Just like back upstairs, where I couldn't resuscitate him, because I didn't know what his human biology required. The same principle applies to general healing, so I need scans. That may take a while. So sit down and, for Rassilon's sake, stop whining."
You clench your jaw, but move over to her and drop into the chair she offers. It faces the door, as well the Ponds standing there. "Well, sit down too," you tell them, and they take places near the door, chairs flowing out of the wall.
The Healer rummages in a drawer. You can hear opening and shutting noises, cupboards full of medical supplies.
You look over at Theta. The Healer takes your head in a strong hand and turns your face to the front again, using your hair as a grip.
"Right, so -" you try to start, but a cry of indignant pain from your own mouth breaks through. "Ow! No anesthetic, nothing?" From what you can feel, she has pulled a needle through the skin on the back of your head.
"You don't require painkiller," she says. "You'll be fine without it."
You grumble quietly, but she doesn't comment, and keeps on tugging the broken edges of your cut together with some kind of surgical thread.
"What happened?" she says after a minute or two.
"I just hit it on my TARDIS, somewhere. I don't know why -"
"Been too long since something Gallifreyan hurt you, I think," she says. "Human-built things, it's not like they could injure you too badly."
"Oh," you say, feeling stupid (a rather novel sense) for the tenth time today. "Of course."
"Honestly, Doctor," she says, tugging the needle through your skin.
.
"Right," she says, after five minutes or so. "Don't hit it again, and you should be fine. It'll heal within a few days."
You stand up. "Thanks," you say.
"I'm simply doing my job," she replies.
"Yeah, well." You shrug. "What now?"
"I suppose you don't have anywhere to stay?"
"No, of course not," you say. "I don't - I mean - I don't know if everyone would be really pleased to see me."
She looks at you, scrutinizing, measuring you up. "Well, there's enough room for one."
"Healer," you say, "Where they go, I go, and vice versa. You can't just throw them out in the city."
"What's stopping me?" she says, and turns away.
"You're not going to," you say. "You're going to give them a room. I don't care if it's in the basement, but if it is, then that's where I'll sleep. You'd think - your own son - but of course, what with the Peace Crime last week and all, maybe the basement would work best."
"Are you threatening me?" she says.
"I never would," you say, honestly. "It was a Peace Crime. What could I do with that on Gallifrey? Plant a garden?"
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying - I'm just saying that you should treat them better than you treat me. They're guests, I'm a failure. Right? That's what I am, right?"
"But you're still a Time Lord."
"That doesn't matter," you say. "Species doesn't matter. Look, it's not like they're not sentient." You wave over at the Ponds with a smile. "They can hear everything we're saying, too, so keep it polite, eh?"
There's a long moment of silence. "I don't know why I'm doing this," she says, "But here I go. Your friends can have a room on the lowest level. You can have one beside them, if that's what you want." The last bit isn't a request, it's a jab at your willingness to share status with humans, but it doesn't bother you.
"And Theta?" You say.
"I don't know why I'm doing this," she says again. "Theta can stay. You'll help me build a better life support for him, tomorrow, and you'll tell me what in Rassilon's name you're doing here."
"Thank you," you say, striding forward to grasp her hand. "Honestly, thank you, I can't believe -"
"Stop, just stop," she says. "Go upstairs, get refreshed. Take the human female - if you must - but the male stays with me. If I'm going to build a proper life-support for your baby, I'll need advice on human genetics."
"They have names, you know," you say. "Amy, Rory, meet the Healer. Healer - Amy, Rory. Rory, d'you want to stay?"
"Is it safe?" He says, eyes scanning the Healer.
You laugh. "'Course it's safe! Bark/bite ratio's nice and large."
The Healer's face remains stony. You wet your lips, not feeling your smile around your eyes.
"It's okay, then, I suppose," Rory sighs, "I can stay."
"Good man!" You clap him on the shoulder. "Thank you," you add, then head out the door with Amy, looking back many times.
.
It takes you a few hours to get to a place where you can take the larger part of your mind off the Healer and Theta. You reassure Amy so often that your own logic beats you down; Theta will be fine while you're here. And the place is so familiar that you can't help but begin to brighten up. In everyday life, you often try to lose yourself in details and forget about all the things that beat you down, and this once you're actually able to. For the most part.
And really, it feels so good to just share, share and enjoy.
So good to be home.
.
"Ah! The observatory! Love this room." Walk in and look around, beaming. "Star maps, used to have those memorized. Oh!" You dash over, take various globes and spindly instruments off the shelves. You turn them over, then replace them, bubbly with excitement, before rushing off. Unroll a list of planet positions, run your eyes over it for a second, stuff it back its place. Pick up a lovely pen with a long attachment that sticks out from it at a forty-five degree angle. "Watch, watch, watch," you say to Amy. You move over to a table that is covered with a piece of paper, then place the spherical ending of the pen's attachment on the table. The little ball on the end magnetizes, gripping the table beneath the paper fiercely. Now, the pen is secured but free to move in rings. "Like so," you say, and draw a thick, graceful circle - perfect with the help of the magnet. Adjust the degree of the attachment to make a smaller circle. Gleefully pick the pen up and put it down in other places, covering the main circle in intricate mini-versions of itself. "Oh, I could spend hours doing that," you say. "Circular Gallifreyan! Gorgeous stuff. Devine."
Snatch the paper off the table and hand it to her. "I wrote your name! Keep it, I could make loads! I have to get some of this stuff for my TARDIS. No, that's not right, I just have to find the right room in there somewhere, I swear there was one but I lost it years ago. Not as brilliant as this place, though!" Spread your arms. "Oh yes!"
"Doctor!" Amy grins. "Calm down!"
"Oh, no, I don't think so, Pond! Look, look! The solar system we're in right now!" You pick up a fragile orange bubble made of some kind of spun, brittled liquid, and toss it in the air. Instead of shattering against the ground, it lands in empty space and rolls across a breeze, before splitting into a dozen separate globes. They resolve themselves into the positions that you know so well. "That's Gallifrey, and that all is Kasterborous. Those -" you poke each bubble - "are the two suns out there!" You look up to the roof to signal the sky. "See, Gallifrey is positioned between - oh, hello." You watch as another eddy of air causes the represented corner of the cosmos to swirl. "Oh, good, a window! I can show you for real." You throw open a carved set of wall-length shutters, to reveal a small room adjoining the observatory. At the end is a soaring window, which stands open.
Just the sight of the rolling land beyond makes your heartsrate slow down. Makes you want to just sit and look for hours.
"How can there be so many rooms in this tiny-" Amy stops at a look from you, then sighs with exasperation. "Don't you Time Lords ever get tired of 'bigger on the inside'?"
"Don't you humans ever get tired of 'smaller on the inside'?" You say, mimicking her tone.
She rolls her eyes the slightest bit. "So, you were saying?"
"Um, Gallifrey is positioned between two stars," you say, still looking at her. She has a glazed look already, the heel of her palm digging into her cheek as her elbow rests on the windowsill. Astronomy must not be her thing. You turn back to the sky. "Gallifrey's exactly in the middle. One sun rises in the South, and one comes up in the North." A smile slides your mouth open, and you take deep breaths of the thick, sustaining air. Calming down. Absorbing it all.
"And, Amelia Pond," you say, "We have the very best meteor showers here." Laugh for sheer joy one last time. "Imagine," you say giddily, "You people have green grass! That's so wrong. I forgot how strange it was." Finish the last two notes of the laugh, then sigh and look out toward the mountains.
"You must have missed it a lot," she says.
"You have no idea."
"And it must be hard. I mean… after everything."
There's a drawn out, uncomfortable moment, filled with nothing but the sound of the both of you breathing.
"To answer your earlier question, Amy -" you start.
"What?"
"You asked, a while ago, if it would be safer to simply walk here, instead of running."
"Oh." She frowns. "Yeah. I guess I did."
"Well, the reason we had to run was - Time Lords know each other. Whether they've regenerated since they last met or not. That's why my mother knew it was me. If I had gone slower, it wouldn't have tricked anyone into thinking I was someone different."
"Ah."
"Yeah."
"Okay." There's a pause, and then she says, "So she is your mother."
"You have a mother, I have a mother, ohh!" You raise your hands, then drop them. "Big deal."
"No need to get grumpy," she says. "Of course everyone has parents. I just never thought about yours before."
"Well, not everyone," you say.
"What?"
A voice startles you both. "It's traditional on Gallifrey to loom the children," it says.
She's there. The Healer. "Hi," you say, your voice suddenly going higher for no reason.
"Stop acting like I'm about to hurt you, stupid child," she says. Amy looks affronted, and opens her mouth to give a snarky reply, but you shake your head at her.
"She means you?" Amy realizes out loud. She laughs. "Doctor, being taken down a few notches today, huh?"
You frown and fold your arms. "What's… up?" You ask the Healer.
She shakes her head at your word use. "Time to eat."
"Ah!" Amy's eyes brighten. "Gallifreyan food. So, when you eat, what's that called, here?"
"Dinner," you say.
"Oh."
oOo
"Ugh. This is really bland."
"Just… eat it, Amy." You give yet another apologetic look across the table to the Healer. You don't even want to think about how awkward it will be when the second course comes in. It's been bad enough so far. Rory has settled into the fact that Time Lords eat standing up without a comment, but Amy had to mention it. And then lean on the table. And then complain about the food. She's still resting her elbows on the soft, tall stone tabletop, making you curl and uncurl your fingers in silent embarrassment. Oh Rassilon, when will it end? But this is just beginning, right? Kill me now.
But see, you've slipped back into your old habits. You've already caught yourself using Rassilon's name as a curse, and everything at this meal is coming one hundred percent naturally to you.
"I like it," Rory ventures. You give him a small smile. Good man. Not that he's broken the ice - simply made it thicker, since it's plain odd to comment on the food you're served at a Gallifreyan table - but it was a brave try.
All you can think about is that Amy and Rory are representing the human race right now.
(Really, representing who River was).
Theta's downstairs, still, and of course your brain keeps attacking you, turning your throat dry and your mouth sour, when it remembers. But the rest of your body is moving by itself, and the patterns feel so beautiful - not that there's anything particularly enjoyable about drinking soup from a shallow bowl and passing it around, but it's all so familiar. Things you haven't thought about for centuries are coming back - the times you put up a fuss, as a child, about having this first, tasteless course, pouting through your mother's explanations of how good it was for your health.
The bowl's nearly empty now. You hold your breath, hoping Amy won't comment about her relief at the fact it's being taken away - she does. The Healer leaves, coming back with another, deeper bowl. She lifts the grating that covers the top of it, and you stand still as several tiny, flightless birds, stunted wings flapping against the unhelpful air, scamper across the table.
"Right," she says, settling at the table and eyeing the Ponds.
Well, you'll have to show them what to do by example. Though it's a bit obvious. This doesn't have to be so strange - here.
You grab one of the birds, and pull it from the middle of the table towards you, being as gentle as you can. Pick it up in your palms, holding it low.
Your mother gives a sharp, annoyed intake of breath. "Don't - kill your food, Theta!"
Theta? Honestly? "Mum," you shoot back, slightly offended. You weren't being that immature.
She squeezes her lips together. "Doctor," she corrects herself.
"Healer." You dip your head.
Under the edge of the table, you point the bird's head towards your wrist, holding it upside down.
Snap.
It flaps around, but you hold its wings to its body, and soon it goes still.
When you finally rest it on the table in front of you, you start plucking off the feathers and letting them melt in your mouth. Like a six-year-old licking the icing off a cupcake.
Oh, it is delicious.
You see Amy and Rory staring at you. "What?" you say. "It died a nicer death than half your Earth food does. Eat up, it's fantastic."
oOo
"So. The great civilization of the Time Lords."
"What are you saying?"
"You eat your meat raw …"
"You eat your vegetables raw."
"And alive!"
"Fresher like that."
"You're not seriously defending -" Amy shakes her head.
"Did I ever say it was a nice place to grow up?" You say. "Come on, though. Not that bad. Oh, it's just good to be back."
You're standing on the balcony, looking out at the fire in the sky. One sun has set and the other is simmering on the black, cutting line of the horizon. The air is a beautiful warm temperature, and the stars are coming out. Oh, glory, so many of them. Nebulas and supernovas and star-strung galaxies. They show you why you longed to run away and see them closer, but they remind you how lovely it is to be home, as well. The air smells like smoke, in the best way.
The smell stays with you when you go downstairs, lay your stiff body out on the bed - an alcove with a generous curve, like a hammock. You breathe the air deep as the darkness closes. Through the long, content hours of your eyes staying open but seeing nothing.
The time flicks by.
.
The dark turns the colour of spilled ink over the confused sky. It all reels round from safety to fear in a second. You expected it, in the end. Maybe not this soon. Oh, they couldn't have given you one night?
Someone stands in the door. If you put up a fight, it will just be worse for you, but you do it anyway, and you're right, it hurts. Wouldn't be surprised if your skull is half fractured.
"How did you know I was here?" You whisper.
"Healer's a good citizen," someone says. "Coming soft, now?"
But you still struggle, and so they hit you again and drag you up, out, into the streets, the wind blowing soft and warm on your skin, the gorgeous smell of time ruffling your hair and harmonizing with the relief that turns your bones to water.
They didn't stop for Theta, Amy, or Rory.
They don't know about your family.
And you give yourself a ray of hope for the stumbling journey through the silent streets to the Citadel:
They may only be intending to kill you.