2. Returning Through the Dark
Even after a rather clumsy landing in 2013 Cardiff, Amy would still not wake up. The Doctor narrowed her eyes at her sleeping companion, sure something was amiss. But the TARDIS' bioscans were showing nothing wrong, so she shrugged off her concern and pulled open the control room doors. A light Atlantic breeze drifted across the plaza.
Still in the TARDIS doorway, the Doctor breathed in deeply. Ah, that's a nice Welsh smell. She raised her eyebrows. Do I care about smells now? I guess I do. Never used to.
With an air of decisiveness, she strode out onto the pavement, closing the doors behind her. She took another deep breath. Suddenly, she heard a man shout from by the harbour.
"Hey! Hey, you!"
Unusual to hear an American accent here. She turned around. A man in a long blue coat was running toward her at full speed.
The Doctor put the pieces together in a split second. Good old Captain Jack. She folded her arms and waited for him to stop, panting, in front of her.
"That's a nice outfit you've got on," breathed Jack Harkness. He looked the same as ever—well, perhaps a gray hair or two, but the same handsome build and alluring face. He grinned. "The Doctor must have one weird fetish."
"Ha, ha, Jack, you haven't changed a bit," the Time Lady replied, smiling.
Captain Jack's grin stretched even wider. "Oh, really? Have we met, Miss…"
"I think you've figured it out, Jack. It's me."
"Oh, what does that mean, 'me?'"
The Doctor giggled. (Do I giggle now? That's very new.) "I'm the Doctor. Trust me."
"I would trust you to the end of the universe," said Jack, grasping the Doctor in a bear hug.
The Time Lady reached her arms around Jack's waist. He was close to a head taller than her now. "Just regenerated. Never been a girl before."
He looked down at her. "Not a girl, Doctor."
"What?" she asked nervously.
"You're a woman," he gently replied. He took her by the shoulders and looked her up and down. "And hell, you are a knockout."
The Doctor was taken aback.
"A knockout? No, I will have no violence, I don't care how I look, there will be no knocking out on my watch. I'm the Doctor, the oncoming storm… and you basically meant that as a compliment, didn't you?" She broke down into laughter. Jack joined in.
"So, what brings you to Cardiff, Doctor?" he inquired.
The Doctor leaned in close. "I'm on a very important mission."
"May I ask what?" Jack asked.
"I need new clothes." She straightened up.
The captain chuckled. "Can't say I blame you, Doctor, the fez is getting a bit passé."
"I'm a nine-hundred-and-eleven-year-old Time Lady from Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous, and I say fezzes are cool, Jack," she said. "But this one's nearly been singed right off. Plus, I'm not exactly cut out for this type of clothing now."
"That much is obvious," Jack said.
"Oh?" replied the Doctor. "And what do you recommend I do about it?"
"I suppose you'll have to go down to the shops." He started walking toward the city proper. The Doctor hurried after him.
"You're coming with me, then?" said Captain Jack.
"Well of course," the Doctor said incredulously. "I'm the one who needs clothes."
Jack laughed. "You'll need me. Knowing you, Doctor, without me you'd wind up with something utterly ridiculous. And then, not even the damn Judoon would be afraid of you."
Two hours later, the Doctor and Jack Harkness marched back onto the harbour plaza, the former having successfully recovered her style, the latter never having lost his.
(AN: Gratuitous wardrobe description. I apologize profusely—though this is fanfiction, after all.) The Doctor clacked along on tight-fitting, knee-high black leather boots, with wide two-inch heels and eight buckles each, out of which extended sheer black stockings. She wore an olive green dress with elbow-length sleeves, which ended mid-thigh, just below the top of the stockings. It was full in the back but the front parted into a long V that reached down to her stomach, revealing a white blouse underneath the dress. A small black underbust corset adorned her torso, ending on the bottom in a metal-studded dark brown leather belt onto which her sonic screwdriver and TARDIS key were holstered. Over the whole ensemble, she wore a thin, two-inch-wide rawhide sash.
Jack had wondered about that sash. The Doctor explained:
"Of course, its express purpose is to hold a bit of celery—it's a remarkable restorative—but I figured, if something wants to grab me from behind, the first thing they'll think of catching on to will be this sash. Which I can easily unclip from the front, allowing me to escape their clutches losing nothing but a bit of decorative vegetable."
"That's brilliant," the captain had said. "How'd you think of that?"
"Oh, I'm very clever," she replied. "But for this specifically… I lost my jacket once, in a daring escape from the Weeping Angels a few years ago. If the same thing happens again, I don't exactly want to have to strip off my dress."
"I'll have to find some way of getting that sash off you, then," the ex-Time Agent said mischievously.
"Buy me a drink first," muttered the Time Lady as she firmly buckled the sash.
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again," said Jack. "You're such hard work!"
The Doctor had grinned. "But worth it!"
The pair arrived back at the TARDIS. "Hold on a second, Jack, I've just got to do a bit of spacey-wacey stuff to these little pockets," said the Doctor as she unlocked the door. "That's why I don't need a purse or a bag, by the way. I can make these tiny holster pouches much bigger on the inside. It… will take a bit of time…"
"Don't worry, I'm not going to watch you work your spacey-wacey tech," Jack said.
"I know you'd want to get your hands on that level of Time Lord science."
"Oh, there's only one thing I want to get my hands on in this TARDIS, Doctor," he said with a wink. "Besides, you haven't even repaired my vortex manipulator." Captain Jack leaned into the TARDIS. "I'll be at the new Torchwood hub. I'd love to show you around the place later…"
"I'd love to, Jack," the Doctor called from by the control console.
"I'll take that as a promise, Doctor. Tonight?"
"For you," she said. "I've got a functional time machine. I'll be there in ten minutes."
The captain chuckled. "You know where to find me, then?"
"Please, the TARDIS can lock onto you from the other end of the universe—well, geometrically speaking. I'll find you."
"See you tonight, Doctor," Jack declared. He closed the door, a smile spreading across his face. In fact, he couldn't stop smiling all way back to Torchwood.
x x x
The Doctor had just wandered into the TARDIS when Amy Pond whacked her across the back of the the head with a cricket bat.
A few minutes later, the Doctor awoke, one wrist handcuffed to the TARDIS console railing.
"So," said Amy, leaning back against the console.
"Did you just hit me with a cricket bat?" the Doctor said incredulously.
"Mmhmm," replied Pond. She seemed to have made a full recovery.
"Where did you even get a cricket bat?"
"Oh, there was this box-thing, and it said 'in case of intruders.' Not sure who exactly could break into the TARDIS—"
"It has happened, Pond," said the Doctor. "Can you please unlock me?"
"Not until you give me some answers."
The Time Lady looked away in frustration. "Well, then," she said. "Ask away."
"You used to be the Doctor, yeah?"
"No, Pond, I am the Doctor."
"How can that be true?"
"Bloody hell, Amelia, you've seen me do it before!"
"Do what?"
"Regenerate!"
Amy was taken aback. She was breathing heavily. "But… the last time it stopped. It didn't finish. The Doctor just stayed… the Doctor. And there were two of you." She sighed in apparent resignation. "Don't tell me he's gone forever."
The Doctor bit her lip. "Amy, I need you to understand this. I've been the same Time Lord for over nine hundred years." She looked into Amy's eyes, where long overdue tears were gathering. "I've never stopped running. But across those nine hundred years, Amelia, I've been twelve different Time Lords. I'm the Doctor. Now I'm number twelve, and the only thing that's really changed is…"
"You're a… a…" whispered Amy, wiping her eyes.
"I'm a Time Lady," the Doctor finished.
Amy knelt, looking deep into the Doctor's eyes.
"Oh, Pond. You can see it, can't you?"
As Amy peered into the Doctor's pupils, past the dark green irises, she knew what the Doctor meant. "Fish fingers—"
"And custard, Amelia." The Doctor raised her eyebrows. "Not those bad, bad beans."
Amy kept looking for a few moments, before breaking down and burying her face in the Doctor's shoulder.
"He's not gone, Pond, not really," said the Doctor softly, patting her companion's arm. "But I look like this now."
Amy stopped crying, but didn't move.
"This doesn't have to be goodbye. But it can be," the Doctor whispered.
Without warning, the TARDIS shook violently, and the lights dimmed and started to flicker.
x x x
What am I?
That single thought had tormented it for what seemed like aeons. Trapped in an infinitely empty cage, a soul tossed and turned through the winds of Time. That was what it knew. It had no sense of identity, of location, of being other than the ultimate question—who am I? How am I? Where am I?
And yet, it had not given up hope. It knew the power of thought—indeed, it knew that thought was what brought it to this not-place. It knew that if there was a way into the un-universe, then there must be a way out. There would not be a physical method of egress, rather, a mental one.
At this particular moment, it had just made an important discovery. In every direction stretched endless blackness… every direction except one. It had noticed the speck of light, so faint and precarious that it had taken quite some time for it to decide that the bright point was not merely a trick of its imagination.
The nameless, formless thing reached out toward the speck with its mind. Almost immediately, the minute light grew larger—though not so large as to illuminate its body. If it even had a body—that might also be a trick of its imagination.
It considered resting briefly, a moment's respite after this truly remarkable sighting. But the speck of light had changed the thing. As it drew closer to the light, it was overcome with an enormous voracity. It could not stop. It had to consume.
Suddenly, the source of the light blew up around the thing. Bright whirls and eddies surrounded it, finally revealing the thing's form.
The structure—for it indeed had a shape—was just out of the humanoid's reach. It felt a strange sense of dominion as it gazed upon the tube of light, one that the never-ending darkness never provided. This vortex of swirling radiance had been tamed, subdued and traveled. It had travelled in that vortex. It had flown through it.
The humanoid remembered that the tube broadening out before it was not of light and wind. No, those elements were much more primitive. That vortex wove its way through time and space, connecting all moments and all places.
The Time Vortex. That was its name.
The nameless thing had fallen out of Time, into the non-location it found itself in. Aeons did not mean anything there. Everything there was confined to a single moment, one primal point that lacked motion through time.
The humanoid did not belong there. It should be in time, not without it.
A Lord of Time, especially. Yes, that was what it was. Its people had conquered the Vortex. They held dominion over Time.
The thing struggled to move closer to the brilliant structure.
Surprisingly, it found it could. It could almost touch the Vortex, but for some reason, it just couldn't. There was still a mental piece missing.
It knew what it was in general—one of the Time Lords. It didn't know its name.
I must remember, it thought urgently. I am the master of my mind. I must remember!
It was overcome with hunger.
I am the master of my mind, it repeated. I am the master of myself.
Its hand drew closer to the radiant Vortex. I am the Master of my mind!
It did not know why it had emphasized that word. But in an instant, its identity returned. It threw itself into the Time Vortex, screaming and writhing in clutches of the Time Winds.
Buffeted and drained of energy, the Time Lord was thrown into a large object by the Winds. The Vortex melted away, leaving it lying face down on a cold stone surface.
Almost immediately, it realized that its humanoid form was merely a mental projection of what it might have once been. But as a Lord of Time, it had the power to generate into a new form. A new body, to give itself a physical presence in the universe.
Bright, fiery energy exploded around its placeholder form. It was not aware that it was drawing power from the TARDIS it was still touching, causing a violent disturbance within.
The regeneration cycle—or more accurately, generation cycle—came to a dazzling conclusion seconds later. The thing suddenly had flesh, bones and muscles and nerves, for the first time in aeons. It took a gasping breath, feeding the first bit of oxygen to its two lungs, getting its two hearts beating.
Its eyes flew open and inspected its naked body.
"I have returned," he whispered slowly. He breathed deeply, sucking in air.
"I have returned," the Time Lord said softly, getting onto his knees.
"I have returned."
He stood up and thrust her arms out, looking up at the blue Earth sky.
"I have returned," he shouted, for the fourth and final time. "People of Earth, rejoice," he continued quietly. He chuckled and turned to face the TARDIS. "Rejoice, Doctor.
"Your Lord and Master has returned."