Hannah
As the Doctor slowly climbed up the two flights to the roof, dreading the upcoming scene, he thought again of those first incredible, heady days after Christmas three years before, when Donna had snatched his mother out of the Time Lock, and suddenly there were three Time Lords left alive instead of one. Hannah had seemed to settle so quickly and happily into her new life, bringing such balance and perspective, and true respect, between himself and Michael, that for the first time since Mike's odd 'birth', the two brothers were truly at peace with themselves and each other.
Tragically, her part hadn't lasted.
One of the many odd quirks of the huge old summer house was that the stairs to the roof with its two cupolas actually came out onto the widow's walk between them, rather than into one of the cupolas themselves. The Doctor turned and walked slowly to the far end and knocked on the door of the northern tower. No answer.
"Hannah?" he called out with another knock. Still no answer.
He sighed, and managed to keep his voice level. "Lady Toshana?"
"Enter!" came the reply – in Gallifreyan.
As he opened the door, the smell of oils and turpentine hit him with an almost palpable jolt, and he walked into the center of an art gallery. Well, the storage room of one, anyway. At least sixty paintings were stacked against the walls and furniture and propped up on tables and chairs all around the outside edge, spread out as far as they could be, so that silvers and oranges and bronzes and reds jumped out at his eyes from every side.
For every single one was of their lost home, Gallifrey.
As the wonder at the miracle of finding herself alive against all odds had worn off, and the reality – and the finality – of the loss of her entire civilization had sunk into Hannah, she had retreated within herself, trying to recreate her lost world through the only art form both peoples had in common. She'd been an accomplished artist of many facets previously, and quickly came to pouring her entire soul onto her canvases – the majority of which had made the trip from Chiswick.
The artist herself stood at an easel in the center of the room, working steadily on the details of yet another canvas. With a stab of memory, he saw it was of their own long-lost home, perched on the side of the red-gold mountain.
"Do you remember the gariolis vines on the side of the house, Cavrio?" she asked without turning, and he saw she was adding those very plants, painting in the bright yellow blooms and red leaves in impossibly tiny brushstrokes.
"In English, please, Lady." He ignored both question and her childhood nickname for him.
Her brush paused midstroke, she looked over her shoulder at him. "You no longer speak the language of your birth?" she asked, obstinately continuing in that tongue.
He sighed again. "Out of practice, actually. There's been no-one to speak it with for several centuries. Besides, you need the English practice."
She gave a disdainful sniff. "I need no such practice. I speak every language I need to perfectly well."
"Since most of what you do say comes off as arrogant and sneering, I'm don't think that's precisely true." The continuing alternating languages would have been amusing if the underlying subtext hadn't been so serious.
"Arrogant?" she sneered.
"That's how it sounds, Madame. Since I'm sure that's not your intention, perhaps a bit more attention to your delivery would serve to correct the impression." Diplomacy had never been the Doctor's strong suit, but he was sure giving it the old college try.
It wasn't working. She turned back to the painting again, peering closely at the miniscule flowers. "Why should I be concerned about that?" she sniffed.
"Because my brother and - "
She cut him off. "He's not your brother," she said flatly.
Jaws tight, he started again. "Since you decided to leave the TARDIS, my brother and his wife," the words were ice-cold this rendition, "have been providing you with shelter, food, clothing, and every brush, canvas, and tube of paint you desire, at not inconsiderable expense to themselves. If you cannot manage any hint of gratitude for Donna having saved your life, Madame, you would be well advised to at least acknowledge their continued support of your existence, and not trespass so baldly on their good natures. They are under no obligation whatsoever to continue it."
She threw down the brush and whirled on him, furious. "I have lost everything!"
"So have I!" he thundered in return. "More than once!" He took a deep breath and forced calm again. "And I learned to pick myself up again, just as countless billions of others have done, and start again from scratch, building a whole new life."
"Why do you insist that I give up what little comfort I have, that of my memories of my home and my people?"
"I'm not insisting you give them up! But you cannot continue to live exclusively for them. You've got to start living a new life. Gallifrey is GONE, Madame!"
"Thanks to you!" she hissed, and he recoiled as if she had slapped him. She went on, relentlessly. "You are the reason our people are gone, our planet! You did this!"
"Yes, I did." His voice had dropped to a low, level seethe. "I took the final step of putting the sector under the Time Lock. But you cannot lay anything more than that at my door, Madame. I didn't start the war with the Daleks. Time and again, I tried to end it. I didn't produce the nightmares that came from that war. I didn't call down the wrath of hell upon our planet. And most certainly, I didn't plan the Final Sanction, nor vote for it, that would have ended time itself. If I am to carry the title of Destroyer of My Own People, it is only because I beat Rassilon to it by mere seconds. But in doing so, I prevented the destruction of all life, all time, everywhere. One planet, two civilizations, in exchange for all of creation.
"Do not think I relish the memory of what I have done, Madame. But neither will I allow anyone, even you, to pile on more guilt than I deserve. I took the final step. But I am not the one who led Gallifrey to that point, and forced my hand."
"Neither am I!" she cried.
"No, and I did not say you were. You voted against the Final Sanction, and much more besides, I know that. The point is, it is done. Gallifrey is gone. And you are not. Whether you like it or not, you will be spending the rest of your life among other species, not Time Lords. But if you cannot learn to accept that, and them, and meet them as equals, then you will sentence yourself to naught but endless misery and loneliness. And I do not wish to see you so reduced, Mother." His voice had slowly lost its heat during the last speech, and he ended it almost tenderly, surprising even himself with the unconscious switch from Madame to Mother – a term he almost never used.
Something sparked at the back of Hannah's eyes, and he thought for a moment he'd gotten through – but then her back stiffened, and she turned disdainfully back to her painting once again, picking her brush back up and returning to her task without a word.
He watched her silently for a few moments, then wearily went back to the door. On reaching it, though, he stopped, and without turning, said "There's an old Earth saying, which frankly I never cared for very much, but that is quite appropriate in certain circumstances." He paused. "Get busy living, or get busy dying." His sensitive hearing picked up the pause in her brushstrokes, and her slow, quiet gasp, and knew he'd made that point. But he had one more.
He looked back over his shoulder one final time. "Keep a civil tongue in your head, Madame, or you may find yourself on the street." And then he let himself out, closing the door quietly but firmly behind him.