Author's Note: Final Chapter. After this, there is an epilogue. :) I hope you've had a pleasant read! I always hope someone will be tickled by my fics, fluff or otherwise.
Here's a song for this marshmallow fic: watch?v=RgFWkKaZPhY 'Lullaby' by Josh Groban and Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Enjoy?
8.
The planet was tropics on one side and tundra on the other, the climatic division much more apparent than on Earth. There was plenty of water on either hemisphere, plenty of prosperous cities, and plenty of uncharted territory. The people of the planet were all high-level telepaths and had governed themselves in independent factions for many years without major civil or military unrest. Their attitude toward children was very positive, and adoption was considered a great honor. Interplanetary adoption had only become possible for the inhabitants of the planet in the last decade, but many people had chosen to add alien children to their families.
"In other words," The Doctor announced to his crew, "this planet is perfect for Peace."
"The vital statistics certainly look promising," Nyssa said, as she viewed the information pulled up on the TARDIS data screens. "And the social indicators are very positive. I think this could be the one."
"There's a city-state here that gives adopted aliens full legal rights," Adric said, in wonder. "That's practically unheard of, considering all the other options we rejected!"
"All I want to know is if she's going to be happy," Tegan said. She currently held Peace while feeding her a bottle of Adric's formula.
"Well, no statistics can tell us that," The Doctor sighed. "We'll just have to hope for the best."
Nyssa straightened from the monitor. "I think it's the best option we're going to get."
"Oh, undoubtedly." The Doctor leaned against the console and stared into space. "The coordinates are not difficult at all," the Time Lord said, to himself. "I could have us there in a matter of minutes."
"Minutes?" Tegan repeated, and instinctively cuddled Peace closer. "Hold on a minute, Doctor! It's been so long, surely a couple more days won't hurt anything?"
"Actually, they could," The Doctor said. "Watch." He stood and walked out of the doors leading into the rest of the TARDIS. His companions waited for several minutes, wondering what they were supposed to see. After fifteen minutes, Peace stirred fitfully in Tegan's arms. The baby pushed away her bottle and let out a healthy wail. Her cries grew louder as the minutes wore on without an appearance from The Doctor.
At length, Tegan yelled, "All right, you've made your point, Doctor! Please come back, would you?"
A door opened unexpectedly behind the three older companions, and The Doctor emerged. "There, you see. We've got to give her to her adoptive parents as soon as possible." He didn't sound smug or amused, as he usually did when he proved a point. Instead, he shut the door behind him and approached his friends quietly, with a pensive look on his face. Peace fussed until Tegan handed her to The Doctor. As soon as she felt his double heartbeats against her body, the baby stopped crying.
"This is going to be a lot harder than I thought," Tegan admitted.
"It's got to be done, though, hasn't it?" The Doctor said, his voice carefully neutral. "Peace needs to be with her new caretakers before she becomes too hard-wired to Nyssa and me as her primary telepathic contacts. The sooner we take her to Youana, the better."
"All right, all right!" Tegan took a deep breath. "How about one day? We can all say goodbye, properly, and then we'll take her there."
"That seems fair, Doctor," Adric said, hesitantly.
"I like that plan," Nyssa said, without equivocation. "I'll try to taper my own telepathic connection over the span of a day, although I'm not sure how."
"You can't," The Doctor said, grimly. "It's going to be all or nothing, Nyssa. We can't avoid it. Peace's connection to us will be snapped as soon as we leave the planet."
"What, like that form of punishment you told us about, that they use on Gallifrey? Yanking the rug out from under her?" said Tegan, in horror. "No, Doctor! That's cruel!"
"Now you see why I say we should do this sooner rather than later!"
"There's nothing we can do?" Adric asked, weakly.
"Nothing." The Doctor looked down at the baby in his arms. "I did try to warn you lot," he said. His face softened as Peace grabbed hold of his lapels. "We should never have let her get so attached to—to us."
"To you, is what you mean to say," Tegan said, sounding near tears, already. "And we should have listened. It's going to kill me to do this to her, Doctor."
"Well, think how I feel," the Time Lord answered, sharply. "At least you won't have to feel it inside your head, her panic and fear—" he cut himself off. "It doesn't matter; she'll have a new family. She'll recover."
With those words, The Doctor swept off into the TARDIS, taking Peace with him. No one tried to follow him or asked where he was going. For once, all three companions agreed that their leader needed his space. Adric slumped against the console while Nyssa and Tegan gave one another a tight hug.
"It'll be all right, Tegan," Nyssa said, quietly, without her usual confidence. "It will all work out."
All too soon, twenty-four hours had passed inside the TARDIS and on the planet below it. Youana entered another morning. The TARDIS crew gathered in the console, dressed in the clothes they had worn the day before. None of them had slept. Tegan had a cup of coffee clutched in her hand as though it was a talisman to ward off evil. Adric had a satchel over his shoulder which was stuffed to the brim with bottles of his baby formula and the piece of paper on which he'd written his original findings. Nyssa had nothing in her hands but a scanner's data chip which contained Peace's DNA readouts and all the information on Thionic physiology she had found in the TARDIS computers.
The Doctor held Peace gently in his hands. He tilted her from side to side, cataloguing her appearance. For her part, the baby stayed trustingly still, only moving to tilt her head back at The Doctor. She was clearly studying him, too. Although Peace didn't understand exactly what was happening, she could feel the change in her Time Lord's telepathic signals. She was not distressed—not yet. The Doctor dreaded the moment when she would read his own distress and project it through her own emotions.
"Let me hold her," Tegan said, "just one last time." The Earth woman had taken the imminent separation much harder than she had expected. She was not a baby aficionado. She had no children of her own, and none of her close relatives had infants. However, being in such close proximity to a baby for such a long time had inevitably drawn her to Peace. She couldn't hold back the wrenching sense of loss she felt sweep through her as she held Peace in her arms for the last time. The baby felt Tegan's drop in calm and made a noise of discontent. "Oh, Lord," Tegan said, thickly, "I'm going to be a total ninny and cry, and it's going to upset you terribly, Peace." Tears dripped slowly down her face as she kissed Peace on the cheek and cuddled her tightly. "Goodbye, sweetheart. I hope you have the best life in the whole universe. I hope you get the job you always wanted, and you get to travel—" she swallowed, "and that you find whatever kind of love happens on this planet. I hope you find it all, Peace."
Before she could totally lose her composure, Tegan stiffly handed Peace over to Adric. The Alzarian fumbled with her for the first time in a long time until he could settle her in the crook of his arm. "Um," Adric said, still unnerved by Tegan's very Earthly display of emotion, "um, well, I hope all those good things happen to you, too, Peace. I mean, if you don't want to travel or get married—or whatever—that's perfectly all right. Just make sure you're productive and you're polite to everyone and—and—" the teenager found himself getting mired down by his feelings, too. "And you only remember us if it's going to be a nice thing, and it's not going to make you sad." He patted Peace on the back when the baby squeaked and passed her to Nyssa.
"Oh, no, I don't know what to say." Nyssa's eyes looked suspiciously red and glassy. "Do I have to say anything?" she asked her companions, somewhat desperately.
"No, no," Tegan assured her tearfully, "whatever you want to do is fine, Nyssa."
"I only did it because Tegan did," Adric hastened to add. "I thought it was a bit silly, really—yes, silly, th-that's it!" Tegan laughed in a watery voice.
Nyssa nodded mutely and pressed her forehead to the baby's face. She focused on her breathing, keeping her body's reactions under a tight rein. She wanted to keep Peace as happy as she could before they had to wrench all security from her little life. She knew The Doctor would try, as well, but also knew that his telepathic connection to Peace was stronger and would be affected more deeply by their parting. "Kindness will keep you, if you keep kindness," Nyssa said, whispering to Peace. The TARDIS would translate the phrase so her companions would understand, but she had spoken in her own language. She wanted to say goodbye to Peace in the manner that Trakenites had blessed their children for generations. With a final breath, Nyssa turned to The Doctor. "We're all as ready as we can be, Doctor."
"As ready as we'll ever be, you mean," Tegan said.
The Doctor didn't respond. He simply took Peace from Nyssa and reached over to trip the lever which opened the TARDIS doors. Nyssa's efforts to stay calm had brought Peace back to a tranquil state, and the baby giggled and flailed wildly in The Doctor's arms as he walked out of the time-and-space machine like a man going to war. Nyssa wondered if it hadn't been more cruel to reassure Peace when she was minutes away from being left alone on a strange planet with strange people.
"Isn't The Doctor going to say goodbye?" Adric hissed, to his female friends.
"Shhh," Tegan said, swatting Adric's arm.
"I just wanted to know," Adric muttered.
"Where are we?" Nyssa asked.
It took The Doctor far longer than usual to answer. "We're just outside the city-state of Leeara, on Youana's tropical hemisphere. Based on Thionic climates, I thought a warm part of the planet would be best. Plus, as Adric pointed out, this is the city-state where an adopted alien will have full citizenship and citizen rights."
Leeara was a grand metropolis, built high with grandeur and teeming with lifeforms. The balmy weather was intensified by the immensely tall metal buildings shooting up from the ground. The sky was filled with aircraft of every kind, and the streets were packed to bursting with people. No one noticed The Doctor and his humanoid companions as they traveled through the crowds.
Peace's mind was filled with wonder at the change in scenery. The Doctor could feel her blank astonishment as she watched the buildings, vehicles, and pedestrians. She kicked her short legs and let out infantile shouts of disbelief. The Time Lord held her closer to his chest. Home, The Doctor thought, fiercely, and did his best with his limited understanding of the term to paint a picture in Peace's telepathic landscapes. He had never felt much at home on Gallifrey, but he would try to make it enough to encourage the baby. Home for Peace.
The four older companions walked for several minutes, until they reached the spot The Doctor had found the night before on the TARDIS monitors. The area was open, small in the enormous city, but not small enough to be overlooked. There was a smooth square of shining grey metal all around a raised platform. The platform itself was barely one meter by half a meter, and on it rested an even smaller pod. On the platform, there was a plaque which the TARDIS translated: IF UNABLE TO CARE FOR BABY, PLACE HERE FOR GOOD HOME. The message was straightforward and easy to read.
"We're leaving her in a clamshell?" Tegan said, her voice rising.
"It's the only way," The Doctor said. "If we went through the regular channels, we'd have to wait for nearly three years."
"Doctor, we have a time machine! We could skip three years!"
"Oh, yes? And how would we explain the fact that Peace hasn't grown an inch in all that time? Here on Youana, a child is monitored and the adoptive parents have full access to them, but the wait time for official adoption is three years." The Doctor smiled thinly. "Paperwork is the same the universe over."
"Is it safe?" Nyssa asked.
"Of course. Once there's a baby inside it, an alarm will sound at the Youana Children's Protection Agency, and an agent will be sent out immediately to retrieve him or her. They could be with an adopted family within two days."
Nyssa was not convinced. "How can that be, if it takes so long to go through the proper channels?"
The Doctor sighed and adjusted Peace as she nearly rolled out of his arms. "Because any baby placed here is considered an emergency case, especially if they're telepathic. Therefore, they're expedited to an emergency adoption. Many prominent families on Youana have standing adoption status. They have applied to receive the first emergency child that is detected in their sector."
"That's very clever," Adric admitted, somewhat glumly.
"They're brilliant, the Youanai." The Doctor looked up at the adoption pod. "It's time."
"We've already said goodbye," Tegan said, and pushed lightly at his back. "You go on and get her settled, Doctor. We'll wait here."
"And take my bag of formula," Adric said. He slung the heavy cloth bag onto The Doctor's shoulder. The Doctor staggered slightly.
"Oh, yes," Nyssa said, "and her genetic readouts!" She stuffed the scanner data bank in the bag on top of the formula bottled.
"All right, yes, thank you," The Doctor said, swinging the bag to a more comfortable position. With the unbalanced weight on one side, he walked carefully toward the pod's platform.
The Doctor, knowing what would follow an abrupt telepathic disconnection, did not particularly want to be alone. But on the other hand, he wanted to be free to say goodbye to Peace in his own way, without observers. He tucked the baby under his chin and marched onto the metal square. Peace rubbed her head affectionately against his jaw. The Doctor felt a tickle from her hair and a bit of wetness from her lips. He smiled in spite of the circumstances.
When he stood before the pod, the Time Lord gave the baby a kiss on the top of her platinum-haired head. Peace cooed and a wave of sweet, uncomplicated love flowed from her mind into the mind of her caretaker. "Well," The Doctor said, nearly silently, "here we are, Peace. And here is where we were always meant to be. I can feel it: your timelines coalescing, wrapping around this spot. They're mostly pleasant. Some are sad, and some are dreary, but how would we ever learn to appreciate the pleasant times without the sad or dreary times? No, I wouldn't change anything about your future, my dear." Peace blew air through her lips, and The Doctor gave a very suspicious hiccup. "Well, the only thing I would change is the absence of me, Nyssa, Adric, and Tegan." He smoothed the cloth on Peace's back and shook his head. "But, I won't change it, Peace. I won't take that chance with your lifetime. I'll leave things well enough alone, for once."
Resting two fingers on Peace's cheek, The Doctor stilled his own plummeting emotions and tried to send his tiny charge into a light sleep. Peace wouldn't cooperate. She mumbled nonsense and swung her fist to dislodge her caretaker's fingers. After a second and third try, The Doctor gave up. He whispered a farewell, the last Gallifreyan word Peace would ever hear, and lowered her into the waiting pod. Even when he drew his hands away and pressed the button to close the lid, Peace did not realize The Doctor's intent.
The Doctor made it thirteen steps before he felt it: the panic that gradually crept into Peace's mind. He kept walking. He made it to his waiting companions before he felt Peace's mental alarm change to outright hysteria. The image of his own person in Peace's mind swept over him, tinged with an edge of questioning disbelief. Home, The Doctor thought, forcefully, home for Peace. The answering confusion and denial from the baby was a physical pain in the Time Lord's chest.
Not wanted, Peace's thoughts screamed, paired with a demand for The Doctor's voice, hands, and heartbeats.
The Doctor stumbled slightly as Peace's telepathic panic turned to agony. Home. Home for Peace, The Doctor repeated.
No! Peace couldn't articulate the word in her mind, but her caretaker felt it, nonetheless.
He managed to keep his thoughts steady, but failed at controlling his body. When the sharp sensation of abandonment cut through Peace's thoughts, The Doctor felt tears spill down his cheeks. The sensation hurt him, not only mentally, but physically.
When he reached his companions, they all reached out to steady him. "Doctor," Nyssa said, shocked at the tears on the Time Lord's face, "what's the matter? Are you in pain?"
The Doctor nodded, still focused on the mental bridge between himself and the baby in the pod. His telepathic connection to Peace had hard-wired him as well as Peace. As her primary caregiver, he had established a bond which was biologically difficult to break for the sake of the child. Biologically, he was supposed to stay with Peace—he was compelled to stay with Peace. Walking away from her when she was in obvious distress was like walking through a live current of electricity.
"Take me back to the TARDIS," The Doctor gasped.
His companions shared an uncertain look. "But—" Tegan tried to say.
"Please, do it now!" The Doctor seized Tegan's arm. "The telepathy—if I don't go now, I'm going to take her back. Her thoughts—she's abandoned—it's killing me—"
"We'll get you to the TARDIS," Nyssa said, taking The Doctor's hand. Tears were falling from her eyes, as well. She experienced the same telepathic feedback as The Doctor, but her connection to Peace was much less intimate. The pain was only as severe as a bad headache for her.
Peace continued to cry out in mental anguish, torturing The Doctor all the way back to the TARDIS. The Time Lord's companions tactfully ignored his completely reflexive, involuntary weeping and kept him hemmed in by a wall of supportive bodies. Through the whole ordeal, The Doctor kept thinking, steadfastly, Home. Home for Peace. But Peace would not be soothed.
Her final thoughts before the TARDIS doors insulated him from her mind nearly made The Doctor's knees give out. No! Father, don't go!
"Adric, help me," snapped Nyssa, as she programmed the TARDIS to return to the space around Youana. Silently, Adric complied.
Tegan stood to the side of the console and held The Doctor in an uncharacteristically sensitive hug. "You did the right thing, Doctor," the Earth woman told him, over his efforts to control himself. "She's going to have a family, and they're going to love her so much. Oh, cripes, I had no idea it was going to hurt you this badly—Oh, it's going to be all right, Doctor—"
"I know," The Doctor gasped, "I know—it's just—hard to break the connection—without side effects—I'll be fine in a moment-"
"For once in your life, just hush," Tegan said, but without any heat in her voice. "Nyssa and Adric have got the TARDIS under control. Let me take you to the kitchen for a cup of tea and some scones."
And, for once in his life, The Doctor listened to Tegan Jovanka.