Sorry about the delay. Moving takes a bit more work than I thought and I've had to do a bunch of stuff. But here's the next update, enjoy.
Martha Jones looked at the tall dark-haired woman who was sitting across the desk from her. She had not expected the sudden admission but she refused to look surprised.
"I see," she said finally. The Rani looked thoughtfully at her. She had seen the temporal energy that radiated from her and known at once that she had been the Doctor's companion for a while. Only his TARDIS emitted the temporal energy, a flaw that had been fixed in later models. Of course, the energy emitted was harmless but it did tend to increase the latent psychic power of a Time Lord and bond them to the TARDIS permanently. Humans were not quite so affected, but it was easy to notice.
"I'm surprised you haven't asked me what that means," the Rani said, lying through her teeth. She wasn't sure if the human had a lie-detector on her, but if she did, it would be entertaining.
"Ever heard of the Doctor?" Martha said and smiled faintly. "I also met the Master and helped defeat him two years ago." She noticed the look that passed over the Time Lord's face at the mention of the Master.
"I know the Doctor," the Rani said and smiled. "I was a friend of his, but we lost track of each other a long time ago." She paused and added. "I don't suppose you know where he is? I thought he was dead in the Time War." Then she paused. "Do you know about the Time War?"
"The Doctor told me," Martha said. "As to the Doctor's whereabouts, I'm not sure where or when he is at the moment," she added apologetically. Then her eyes narrowed. "He also told me that all the Time Lords were wiped out," she said pointedly.
"Have you heard of a Chameleon Arch?" the Rani asked, clearly expecting a negative.
"Actually I have," Martha replied to the Rani's surprise. "The Doctor once used one."
"He what?" the Rani said and Martha saw utter shock in her eyes. "Who was it used on?"
"He used it to hide himself," she replied and the Rani relaxed slightly. "The Family of Blood were chasing us and so he wanted to hide."
"Why?" the Rani asked, puzzled. "I've heard of their species and the Doctor could easily neutralize them." Then she paused and sighed. "Never mind, I can guess," she said and shook her head. "He wanted to let them die of their own accord."
"Well, yes," Martha said. "You really do know him well." The Rani smiled and her eyes went distant.
"A good friend," she said and chuckled. "A rather strange person, even for a Time Lord, we aren't all like that," she added dryly. "The three of us got along well before the Master," she said the name with distaste and scorn. "The Master went wobbly and left. I was not very gregarious and when the Doctor left, it was a short time before I left Gallifrey as well." She swung her legs onto the desk. "Did he ever talk about me?" she asked curiously.
"He didn't talk about Gallifrey very much," Martha said. "I think it was the Time War." The Rani winced.
"Yes, that makes sense," she said and shrugged. "I wasn't there. The Chameleon Arch was used on me because of my independence." She looked at Martha. "That's why I was so surprised when you said that the Doctor used it," she explained. "It is the worst punishment that the Time Lords had." She shuddered.
"Sorry," Martha said reflexively. "But how did you recover?"
"A Dalek shot me," the Rani said flatly. The word 'Dalek' was filled with a dark emotion that told Martha that this Time Lord was not nearly as nice as the Doctor. "Unfortunately for it, the essence of Time Lord in my watch was quite deadly to the creature. After that, I recovered my mind, although some memories were damaged in the destruction. I cannot remember several years, but they were boring years anyway." She grinned and Martha blinked at the sudden resemblance to the Doctor.
"Tell me, are you and the Doctor related?" she asked suddenly. The Rani looked at her in surprise, and then nodded slowly.
"We were distantly related," she said cautiously. "Most Time Lords are cousins in some way. Why?"
"Because you very much resemble him," Martha said. "You even smile the same way." The Rani looked at her in surprise.
"Interesting," she said finally. "But I suspect that that has more to do with our friendship over – goodness, over centuries," she added, her mind thinking back. "I honestly cannot remember a moment in my childhood without him as my friend." The Rani frowned thoughtfully. "Of course, I know that we met only when I turned three but that is still a long time."
"And you were friends with the Master?" Martha asked and saw the flash of distaste again.
"Not the Master then," she said quietly. "But yes, I knew him almost as well." She looked up and her eyes bored into Martha's like gimlets. "You've been having dreams," she said flatly. "Dreams about him returning."
"Yes," Martha admitted.
"I think I can help defeat him if the Doctor is late," the Rani said firmly. "I will not kill him, I knew him too long, but I can and will contain him." She shrugged and then reached into her pocket. "The Doctor probably still has a sonic screwdriver," she said and pulled out a slim pen-shaped object that was very familiar. "So you know what this is."
"Yes," Martha said and eyed it cautiously. She had seen the Doctor do more than a thousand things with his tool and she was fairly sure that it could be used as a weapon. Then she blinked as the Rani pulled out a brown bag from a pocket that was definitely too small for it.
"Jelly baby?" the Rani asked, noticing the look. She held out the bag politely and Martha took a handful with a bemused smile. The Rani popped one into her mouth. "The Doctor was the one who got me hooked on these things," she said and took another. "They affect our metabolism a bit like coffee, Earth sugars, I mean. And they taste marvelous," she added with a grin. Martha couldn't help laughing.
"You really are like the Doctor," she said after subsiding. The Rani looked faintly sheepish but took another jelly baby from the bag.
"Yes, well I did say we were old friends," she said. "Even so, I wish I had been able to meet him before he left." Then she paused and looked at Martha Jones thoughtfully. "Why were you watching me?"
"Because of Donna Noble," Martha said before she could think and then winced. The Rani was altogether too easy to talk to and her resemblance to the Doctor was unnerving.
"What about Donna?" the Rani asked without even a hint of her knowledge. Martha looked at her and tried to think of her without bias. She was a Time Lord, a friend of the Doctor's but so had been the Master. On the other hand, aside from the mention of Daleks, she had been perfectly pleasant and nice.
"Donna is a bit complicated," Martha said in an understatement. The Rani narrowed her eyes, clearly trying to put things together. Then her eyes widened.
"Hold on," she said. "She reminds me a great deal of the Doctor. Is she his daughter by any chance? Because I don't think she told me what happened to her dad."
"No," said Martha with a smile. "The Doctor called her a metacrisis." She hoped desperately that the Rani would know what that meant.
"From what?" the Rani asked and then stiffened. "I thought I felt a regeneration," she said thoughtfully.
"I don't know the details," Martha said apologetically. "The Doctor stored his regeneration energy in a hand that he had lost during the first 24 hours of his last regeneration and Donna touched it."
"Then she should be a Time Lord," the Rani said and shook her head. "I would have sensed that on her."
"She only received part of the energy, gaining a Time Lord mind without a Time Lord body." She noticed the Rani winced at that. "The Doctor removed that portion of her memory that would activate them after he learned this. She saved the world and she can't remember or she would die."
"That explains a great deal," the Rani said and inwardly shook her head. It explained everything, but also meant that her machine would still work. She debated telling Martha and decided to keep it quiet.
"I will be careful around her," she said finally. "You don't mind if I work on the problem a bit though, do you?"
"The Doctor had no ideas," Martha began but the Rani cut her off.
"I am not as brilliant as the Doctor in some areas but I know at least a bit more than him about in the software of minds." She seemed rather amused and Martha got the feeling that the two had a slight rivalry about their fields.
"Alright," she said and resolved to tell the Doctor as soon as she could. The Rani was a lot less deranged than the Master, or the Doctor for that matter, but she still seemed odd. "Why the lightsaber?" she asked finally.
"I went there once," the Rani said and grinned. "I've got no talent with the Force but I was quite good at compensating for that with my skills. I built the lightsaber from memory and know how to use it very well." She shrugged. "The Doctor was there as well and we sparred a bit but he was able to use the Force slightly." Martha looked at her in utter surprise and the Rani smiled. "He never told you?" she asked. "He always was modest about those things. He was good enough to be a Jedi Knight if he'd wanted to be but he was too filled with wanderlust."
"It's not hard to imagine that," Martha said slowly. "Odd to think about it. So the movies are accurate?"
"No," the Rani said. "They are old stories that got to Earth through a very odd route. The Doctor saw them on a trip to Earth and persuaded me to go investigate." The Rani suddenly seemed embarrassed. "You should ask him about that."
"Why?" she asked, wondering at the sudden reluctance. "Was it like the movies?"
"No," the Rani said and coughed. "It had been, apparently. I found out about the conspiracy that the Sith were planning and acted." Now she looked very embarrassed. "The Clone Wars were derailed by that." Martha looked at the Rani, who was looking very uncomfortable.
"You meddled with time as much as that?" she asked incredulously. "You destroyed the Empire before it existed?" She slumped back in her chair. "And the Doctor didn't stop you?"
"We had only watched the first three," the Rani said defensively. "How was I supposed to know the Sith Lord who was running a war was the Emperor? All I knew was that there was someone who was trying to get a lot of people killed and the Doctor helped me stop them. And then we found out the Emperor's name." She shook her head in remembered shock. "The Doctor laughed himself to the floor," she added defensively. Martha couldn't help laughing weakly and the Rani gave her a look.
"I can easily picture you doing that," she said finally. "So why are there the movies?"
"Because we handed the stories directly to the people who talked to the director," the Rani said and shrugged. "We got away with it easily, since the Time Lords were ignoring their problem children."
"I wouldn't mind hearing some more about that," Martha said and the Rani beamed, then looked at her watch and hissed in irritation.
"I should be getting back," she said and Martha realized that they had lost track of time. "I'll send you an e-mail for a protective shield. It should repel even Dalek weapons and I'll have a few particle cannons built for you. If the Earth is threatened again, I think that UNIT should be able to stop it." She stood up and bowed. "I've got a few projects on the boil," she added. "But I think that after Christmas, we can sit down and I can tell you some of my stories."
"Ever meet anyone famous?" Martha asked with a smile. The Rani nodded.
"You've heard of Joan of Arc?" she asked. When Martha nodded, the Rani grinned. "That was me." She exited the room before Martha could ask her for more information.
"How did it go?" Donna asked as the Rani walked in.
"I talked to Martha Jones," the Rani said and saw the memory flare in Donna's eyes.
"And what did she have to say?" Donna asked. The Rani sighed.
"Okay," she said and sat down. "This is where it gets complicated."
The pieces were in place. The Master was returning from his death and soon the Doctor would join the battle, beginning their freedom from the Time War. All was as planned. Unfortunately, the one who thought this was unaware of the presence that lurked in darkness for now.
The End of Time was coming fast, but the power that was marshaled against it was far greater than even those who watched could realize. Three Lords of Time would be there, one was coming, one would come and one was there, the three renegades who refused to die, three old friends who had been at odds for a long time. The countdown of eternity has begun.
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