The Time Ship.
Leaving Gallifrey.
" Qqaba," Omega said, pushing himself up from his chair to face Harry, who was standing next to him, expecting the human to be enthusiastic about the prospect of blowing up a sun. The young human, young in Gallifreyan terms of course, had been rather withdrawn as late. Omega knew it had to be because of Rassilon's never ending persecution. Since his public humiliation Rassilon had been quiet, but Omega knew enough about his fellow Gallifreyan to know Rassilon was not the type to leave it at that.
Omega had spoken to him afterwards, but his speciality was in engineering not diplomacy. Omega knew he'd been blunt, but it had been the only way he knew how to speak. He'd quickly torn Rassilon apart, telling him he was stupid and racist. Harry was giving them help when he didn't have to. Of course Omega and any other Gallifreyan with a modicum of common sense could see only too well that Rassilon was being this way because he felt threatened by Harry.
Harry Potter had developed time travel single handedly, as far as the Gallifreyans knew, Harry didn't exactly explain how he'd come across time travel, much to the Gallifreyans collective disappointment; their telepathy may have been able to glean enough from Natalie's surface thoughts, but even Rassilon balked at the prospect of looking into anothers mind without permission. Despite his fellows shameful prejudices towards their guests, Omega knew they would never rape either Natalie or Harry's minds. It went against everything the Gallifreyans believed in. Not even Rassilon was stupid enough to carry out such a shameful deed, though he was capable of other things.
" One of the oldest stars in the cosmos, consuming its fuel many times faster than its later compatriots," Harry whispered, snapping Omega out from his thoughts. The human sniffed, and looked down at Omega. " I trust you know what you're doing," he said.
Omega was disappointed his friend was a little bit cynical. " Everything's prepared, the manipulator is working perfectly-"
" That's not what I'm talking about," Harry interrupted, " I'm talking about the steps you plan to take. They seem a little too rushed."
" Our projections say otherwise."
Harry's eyes closed. " Omega, I'm worried," he said honestly. " It's one thing entirely to rely on projections. Yes, I've seen them, but I still think you should try your techniques out on a smaller sun on a smaller scale. I've seen them already, and they work. Working on a smaller scale's better, gradually you'll work to attain your goals. Suppose something happens?"
" Like what?"
" Have you ever stood next to a sun about to go bang?" Harry asked rhetorically, he knew Omega had stood next to unstable stars, but this was different. They were talking about actually blowing up a sun to drill into space/time itself! Hardly small potatoes, though Harry knew the Gallifreyan engineer would not understand the phrase, so he didn't even bother saying it. " Omega, you're rushing all this too fast."
Omega let out a breath. " Harry," he began carefully, " do you know how long my people have been developing time travel, and gaining our mastery of it?"
" I don't care about the length of time. There is infinite time, Omega," Harry said, " you and the other Gallifreyans can lay the building blocks for a temporal power, but you can't do that so quickly. On one hand, you are developing quickly the sciences of matter transmission, space/time physics, and that's excellent. On the other hand, however, you're taking information from other races, me included, and you're just rushing ahead of other potential peoples in the race. You're not stopping to see if you can develop from those ideas. What makes the Gallifreyans so special over others? There might be other races in the universe with greater or equal potential to create a time travel technology of the standards you're trying to achieve." He pointed at the screen showing the picture of the Population 3 star, not letting his friend speak. " Omega, detonating a small sun is one thing, but that sun's too powerful, and I agree its perfect for your purposes; its one of the oldest stars in the cosmos, it's got the power to make your job easier and simpler. It's an incredibly rare sun as well, there are few of them and their life expectancy is limited. But its perfect for your plans to create a black hole to power your time travel technology, and it will help you create that wormhole you intend to build. But I think you're rushing it."
Harry took a deep breath in the aftermath of his rant. Omega looked thoughtful as he considered what Harry had just said.
" Harry," Omega sighed, " whilst I agree with you about this, I have to also agree with my people. The Council are putting pressure on the programme to create the vortex."
Harry couldn't believe it; he'd assumed Rassilon and Omega were trying to rush things for their own gain. Whilst he liked Omega, thought he was a kindred spirit, Harry couldn't help but feel he himself was taking things without asking and rushing through them. Now he wasn't sure.
" I'm sorry, Omega," Harry whispered. " I didn't know-"
Omega chuckled, taking it good naturedly. " Harry," he said gently, cutting through the humans' apology. " It's fine. You're trying to help me, you've already done that. Hell, I've even learnt things from you I'd never have learnt from the fops you get at the Academy."
" Yeah," Harry murmured. " Has Rassilon learnt anything from me?"
Omega sighed. " To be honest with you, I'd say the answer was no. Rassilon has never hidden his disdain of you and Natalie."
" I know," Harry muttered darkly. " I also humiliated him publicly, and if he tries anything else with Nat, he will discover what I did to him was nothing compared to what else I can do to him."
" He's not going to let that go Harry," Omega replied; he was becoming frightened by the threatening tone in Harry's voice. Whilst he was pleased the other Gallifreyan had gotten what was coming to him, sometimes Rassilon annoyed Omega more than anything else, he also knew there were limits. Rassilon was a powerful figure, and he was gaining more and more influence every day. Omega also knew Rassilon, deep down, was jealous of Harry. Harry was intelligent, obviously very powerful with whatever he was, knowledgeable with time travel, but Harry didn't know wormhole physics on this scale, though his knowledge was considerable anyway.
Harry clearly had no idea how dangerous Rassilon could be, at least that had been what Omega had thought, until Harry tortured him in front of nearly every member of the council's line of sight. What Omega had no idea was that Harry was growing tired of Gallifrey, that he was fed up with the whole lot of the Gallifreyan scientists. He liked Omega, they had much in common, but he just didn't feel comfortable exposing Natalie to such danger. What Omega and Rassilon had no idea about was Harry could read minds, and he'd been picking up on various plots to hurt the humans. It sickened Harry that such an advanced race, one trying to master time and space itself, to remake itself, was so backwards in its thought processes towards other species.
Harry had seen arrogance like it before. From thousands of species, thousands of worlds distanced millions of light years, billions of galaxies away, and yet arrogance and bigotry seemed to sweep through the cosmos like solar winds. Having grown up in an abusive home, later growing up in a foster home inbetween time on the streets of a city, Harry had recognised bigotry the moment he saw it whether and whenever he'd travelled. There was always, always a minority on the planet with the mindset of ignorance.
Natalie had no idea how lucky she'd been, growing up in a loving home, having friends. The kind of childhood Harry had always wanted but never had.
Natalie was having such a strange dream. Well, she had until she found herself being shaken by a pair of rough hands. Blearily she woke up in the Gallifreyan version of a bed. It was more like a hammock. She rubbed her eyes in the dark, trying to focus and to see ahead of her.
" Natalie," Harry hissed.
Natalie blinked again. " Harry, what's going on?" She yawned.
" No time," Harry stood up and grabbed her clothes, chucking them over Natalie's head, ignoring her moans of protest. " Get dressed. We're leaving."
Natalie stopped, her brain waking up despite the lateness. " What d'you mean, leaving? Just like that?"
" Just like that," Harry replied. " Get dressed. I'll explain as we go."
Harry waited by the door as Natalie got dressed, listening to the sounds outside. He waited by the door for a few minutes 'til Natalie put her hand on his shoulder. Together the pair of them left the room, and left the city to the land outside.
" What's going on?" Natalie whispered as they tracked across the ground, the dim light from the moons casting strange shadows across the land they were walking along.
" I've had enough of the Gallifreyans," Harry replied. " Omega's warning to me that Rassilon planned to take some form of revenge for what I'd done to him was the last straw. I've been thinking about it for a while."
" What do you mean?"
Harry sighed. " The Gallifreyans, to put it mildly, are idiots. They're rushing in, and they're gonna explode a star."
Natalie didn't get it until Harry explained it more. " They plan to explode a sun, to rip a hole in space and time to create a wormhole, and to send it throughout the universe. Their theory is sound, its just they're rushing into it."
Natalie now saw the problem. " Why did you help them in the first place?" That was something she'd never been able to work out. Normally Harry wouldn't let her tell anyone they met on their travels that they had the TARDIS, but on this occasion he'd not only told them, but he'd helped them with their own time travel experiments.
" I dunno," Harry replied with a sigh as he led the way. " Have you ever..." he fought to find the correct words to string together in his question, but he found it difficult. " Have you ever gone someplace and found yourself doing things that seemed like they should be?" He asked at last.
Natalie frowned at him.
Harry sighed. " When I first met Omega, I couldn't help but answer his questions. The words, they felt like a river flowing through my mouth. It was like destiny."
" Do you believe in destiny?" Natalie asked, her nose wrinkled as they trudged back to the TARDIS.
Harry looked away as he led her closer to the time machine. The ship was closer now. He didn't automatically answer Natalie's question. It pissed her off. For a long while they didn't speak, then Harry finally answered her.
" I believe, I believe that people's lives are mapped out more or less for them," he said at last. " Look at you. You work in a hospital, then you met me, now you're a time and space traveller. Before that I had no one travelling with me, 'cause I was a loner. I still am, but I love your company." He smiled at her. Natalie flushed.
" The point is when I first came here, I felt something like something important was meant to happen here."
" Then we were kidnapped." Natalie felt the need to point out.
Harry nodded. " Yeah, that too. But you have to admit I did help them."
" Was it worth it, though?" Natalie asked. Harry didn't answer. They'd just found the disguised TARDIS. Harry opened the door and stepped back to let Natalie inside. She smiled and walked inside the welcoming time machine. Harry moved to follow, but he couldn't resist. He looked back at the Gallifreyan vista. He could see the moonlight reflect on the silver leaves, making the forest look like it was glowing in the dark sky.
It was certainly beautiful, but when Harry finally re-entered the time machine after what felt like a millenium, he couldn't help but ponder on what Natalie had asked. Was it worth it?
Author's note. I'm sorry its been so long.