I don't own anything except the Guardian and a couple of other surprise characters...
GD~GD~GD~GD~
The Guardian landed the TARDIS, then glanced around the empty console room. Adam was gone already. She had taken him to a quiet planet, only to find that he had stolen a few pieces of technology from the aliens, with the intent of selling them once he got back to Earth.
She had taken him directly to his house and wiped his memory of having ever met them. As far as he knew, he had simply been fired by Van Statten and been luck enough to get away with his identity.
She walked down the corridor to the Doctor's room.
He hadn't been seen since they had dropped Rose off—threw her out, more like. The Guardian had been forced to deal with Adam all by herself. Though, that might have been a good thing. She wasn't sure how the Doctor would react to two betrayals by his favorite species in such close succession.
At the Doctor's bedroom door, the Guardian hesitated. He had mentally closed himself off. Perhaps he didn't want to see her. Did he not like this new her?
She pulled her new red hair in front of her. Other than her physical appearance and a slightly less prickly personality—despite her new Scottish accent—not much had changed. She still preferred a black leather jacket and combat boots. She still carried more guns than the Doctor would approve of if he knew.
She still loved him.
But did he think that she had changed too much?
Or was he just that angry about Rose?
The Guardian knocked on the door, her confidence restored. A moment later, the Doctor opened it, looking tired.
"Yes?" He nearly snapped the word.
The Guardian raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "We just landed. I thought you needed an adventure, so I told the TARDIS to take us someplace exciting."
The Doctor nodded too quickly. "Of course. One moment." He disappeared into the room and reappeared a moment later carrying his jacket. He took her hand as they walked to the doors. The TARDIS had landed in a space station.
"Looks like the year 200,000." The Doctor looked around, then pointed at a gate. "Let's try that."
The gate lead them to an observation deck, surveying a much-changed Earth.
"The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire," the Doctor said. "And there it is, planet Earth at it's height. Covered with mega-cities, five moons, population: ninety-six billion."
"And the humans were saying that the Earth was over populated when it was only 7 billion," the Guardian murmured.
Seven billion. Such a tiny number compared to the eight trillion Time Lords that had been on Gallifrey before the War. Earth was such an empty planet.
"Guardian?"
She ignored the Doctor's voice to stare at the planet. She wrapped her arms around herself, despite the heat. While the last her hand been perturbed by the quiet in her mind, it seemed that the new her couldn't bear it. The only other Gallifreyan in the Universe was beside her.
No one else.
They were alone in a universe filled with life.
She jumped when arms circled her waist, pinning her jacket to her, cutting her off from her guns.
'It's okay, Amadahy,' the Doctor whispered in her mind.
She didn't relax. So she still hated surprises. 'It's so empty.'
He pulled her back again his chest. 'I know.'
The Guardian squeezed her eyes shut. No, he didn't. As guardian of the Lord President, her life had been carefully arranged. She had very little contact with her people, except in her mind. During the loneliest, most painful nights of her training, she had listened to the 8 trillion voices in her head. Unlike most Gallifreyans, she had actually learned how to listen in on unguarded thoughts. She was by no means a telepath, but those skills had helped her save the Lord President multiple times, just from picking up an assassin's stray thoughts.
Now she had nothing to drown out her own thoughts.
She pulled away from the Doctor, forcing a flirty smile. "You promised me a history lesson."
He looked reluctant to drop the subject, but followed her back to the main room. "Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire—fantastic period of history. The human race at its most intelligent. Culture, art, politics. This era has got fine food, good manners—"
The Guardian cut him off to push him aside as a man hurried by with a shout of "out of the way". Suddenly, the room was filled with people as food vending stations opened up and patrons began pushing their way towards the front, to purchase something called a "kronkburger".
The Doctor looked around, confused. The Guardian made her way through the people to get a look at the food—if the mysterious meat patties could be called that. She slipped back over to the Doctor.
"I knew your taste in food was strange, but I thought you at least understood that." She wrapped her arm around his and pulled him away from the crowd. It seemed that this body was even more nervous around crowds than her first had been.
The Doctor frowned. "My watch must be wrong." He glanced at it. "No, it's fine. That's weird."
"Hm… Seems your history wasn't quite so accurate as you claim it is." The Guardian smiled.
"My history's perfect!" The Doctor defended, his eyebrows raising in offense.
The Guardian raised an eyebrow of her own. "Oh, really? Says the man who believed that the entire population died in Vesuvius's eruption. Even I knew that it was only a tenth of the population."
"How did you know that anyway?"
The Guardian shrugged. "Studying the human reaction to advance warning in a disaster." She frowned, noticing something. "Speaking of humans—this is the year 200,000. So why aren't there any aliens?"
The Doctor looked around again, noticing what she did. "You're right. So where are they?" He pulled her over to a pair of well-dressed young women. "Er, this is going to sound daft, but can you tell me where I am?"
"Floor One-Three-Nine." The Guardian and one of the women spoke at the same time. The Guardian rolled her eyes and gestured to the numbers painted on the wall. "Darling, what have I told you about paying better attention? This is like the London Eye all over again."
"Oi! I suppose you know where we are then, don't you?"
The Guardian started to shake her head when she heard a tiny voice whisper "Satellite Five" into her mind. She frowned. How…? She hadn't heard any stray thoughts from the two women—humans weren't telepathic enough for her to do that. And it hadn't been a stray thought…
"Satellite Five," she told the Doctor. "Am I correct?"
"Come on, how could you get on board without knowing where you are?" The same woman as before spoke again.
The Doctor shrugged. "Look at me, I'm stupid!"
"Sometimes..." the Guardian muttered.
'Oi!'
The other woman spoke. "Hold on, wait a minute. Are you a test? Some sort of management test kind of thing?"
The Doctor nodded, pretending that they had been caught. "You've got us. Well done. You're too clever for me." He showed the women the psychic paper. The Guardian glanced at the paper to see that it identified them as management staff, John Smith and Allegra Shannon.
The two women suddenly looked nervous. "We were warned about this in basic training," the cleverer woman spoke, more to her companion. "All workers have to be versed in company promotion."
The other woman straightened. "Right, fire away. Ask your questions. If it gets me to Floor 500, I'll do anything."
The Guardian frowned. "What happens on Floor 500?"
She looked at the Guardian strangely. "The walls are made of gold. And you should know, Miss Management. So, this is what we do." She walked over to a collection of wall monitors.
The other young woman gave them a shy smile before the three of them followed her.
"Latest news: sandstorms on the New Venus Archipelago. Two hundred dead. Glasgow water riots into their third day. Space Lane Seventy-Seven—"
"So, you broadcast the news," the Guardian interrupted, a little annoyed that the woman couldn't just say so.
The woman laughed a little. "We are the news. We're the journalists. We write it, package it, and sell it. Six hundred channels all coming out of Satellite Five, broadcasting everywhere. Nothing happens in the whole human empire without it going through us."
GD~GD~GD~GD~
The two women, Cathica and Suki, as they discovered, brought them into one of the newsrooms. Seven people, including Suki, sat around an octagonal desk with Cathica in the center beside a chair with wires connected. The Doctor and the Guardian took their place to one side.
"Now, everybody behave. We have a management inspection." She turned back to them. "How do you want it, by the book?"
"Right from scratch, thanks." The Doctor smiled at the Guardian as Cathica turned away.
"Okay. So, ladies, gentlemen, multi-sex, undecided, or robot, my name is Cathica Santini Khadeni." She turned back to the Gallifreyans again. "That's Cathica with a 'c', in case you want to write to Floor 500 praising me, and please do."
The Guardian barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. 'She really wants that promotion.'
The Doctor nodded stiffly at Cathica.
"Now, please feel free to ask any questions. The process of news gathering must be open, honest, and beyond bias. That's company policy."
'I doubt I'll ever see the day when humans are capable of being unbiased.' The Doctor spoke into the Guardian's mind, his voice bitter.
"Actually, um," Suki spoke. "It's the law."
'That sounds more like humans,' the Guardian replied to the Doctor. 'Making laws and assuming that they will actually stop the actions.' She looked at him carefully, concerned. He seemed so bitter again his favorite species now, thanks to Rose's actions. And he hadn't even asked about Adam. This wasn't the Doctor that she knew.
Frowning slightly, the Guardian moved closer to the Doctor, taking his hand, and turned her attention back to Cathica.
"Here we go." She sat down in the central chair. "And engage safety."
The seven people around the desk held their hands over the palm-shaped cradles in front of them. Lights around the room came on, and whatever machine they were using powered up. Cathica clicked her fingers.
A portal in her forehead opened.
The Guardian winced, while the Doctor frowned. 'That's not right,'he muttered.
The seven people put their hands in the cradles, all of them seeming to go limp as they did so.
"And three...two….and spike." A beam of energy shined into her portal from the machine above, bending slightly to hit its target.
'Compressed information?' The Guardian asked.
The Doctor nodded. 'She becomes part of the software. Her brain is the computer.'
'And as soon as her portal closes, she forgets it all.' The Guardian's frown deepened. 'Doctor, the last time we saw anything like this, it was a hundred years ago.'
'I know. Something's wrong.'
Suddenly, Suki pulled her hands away as if she had been shocked. Each of the light panels went out as the other six people lifted their hands. The information beam stopped and Cathica's portal closed.
She blinked a few times, as though waking up, while Suki rubbed her hands in pain. The Guardian frowned.
"Come off it, Suki." Cathica snapped. "I wasn't even halfway. What was that for?"
"Sorry, it must have been a glitch," Suki whispered.
The Guardian walked over to the woman and held her hands so they were palm up. There were no visible markings. A shock like she had received should have left slight burns. Unless….
'Don't they have chips in their hands and the backs of their heads?' She asked the Doctor, glancing back at him.
He frowned, realizing the same thing she had.
"Promotion."
The Guardian looked up to see a screen open up on the wall. She heard Cathica begging for her name to be called, as if the management on Floor 500 could hear her and make their decision based on that.
"Promotion for Suki Macrae Cantrell. Please proceed to Floor 500."
Suki's mouth dropped open and she stood, making the Guardian release her hands. She walked towards the screen. "I don't believe it. Floor 500!"
"How the hell did you manage that? I'm above you!" Cathica snapped.
"I don't know. I just applied on the off chance. And they've said yes!" Suki smiled excitedly.
"So not fair. I've been applying to Floor 500 for three years."
The Guardian watched Cathica sigh in disgust, her arms crossed. This was most definitely not good.
'First Suki's chip shocks her, then she gets a promotion?' The Doctor spoke.
The Guardian nodded, frowning.
GD~GD~GD~GD~
The Guardian and the Doctor followed a giddy Suki and angry Cathica to the lift that would take Suki to Floor 500. Despite Cathica's clear body language, Suki still gave her a perky good-bye before turning to the Doctor and the Guardian. "Floor 500. Thank you."
"We didn't do anything," the Doctor replied.
"Well, you're my lucky charms." She smiled, and moved to hug them.
The Guardian forced yet another smile as she and the Doctor hugged the girl, who laughed again.
She suddenly pulled away, her eyes wide. "I've got to go! I can't keep them waiting. I'm sorry!" She hurried towards the door, shouting behind her, "Say good-bye to Steve for me. Bye!"
The lift door closed.
Cathica crossed her arms again. "Good riddance."
The Doctor frowned. "You're talking like you'll never see her again. She's only going upstairs."
"We won't. Once you go to Floor 500 you never come back."
The Guardian felt her eyes widen a tiny bit. That really did not sound good. But what could be going on up there? "Have you ever been up there?" She asked Cathica and they turned and walked back through the cafeteria.
"Can't. You need a key for the lift, and you only get a key with a promotion. No one gets to 500 except for the chosen few," she finished bitterly.
GD~GD~GD~GD~
The Doctor, in his typical manner, kept asking Cathica questions about Floor 500. All she knew was the nonsense about the walls being made of gold and that it was the top floor of Satellite Five. The highest job level.
"Look, they only give us twenty minutes maintenance. Can't you give it a rest?" Cathica asked as they walked back into the newsroom.
"But you've never been to another floor? Not even one floor down?" The Doctor sat in the center chair.
"I went to Floor Sixteen when I first arrived—that's medical. That's when I got my head done. And then I came straight here. Satellite Five, you work, eat, and sleep on the same floor and that's it, that's all."
'Out of the chair.'
Cathica sighed. "You're not management, are you?"
"At last she gets it." The Guardian muttered, pushing the Doctor's shoulder to get him up.
"Yeah, well, whatever it is, don't involve me. I don't know anything."
"You don't even ask." The Guardian snapped. What was it with humans and their selective blindness?
"Well, why would I?"
The Doctor stood, finally listening to the Guardian. "You're a journalist!"
Cathica finally looked up from her paperwork.
"Why's all the crew human?" The Doctor asked.
"What's that go to do with anything?"
"There's no aliens on board. Why?"
The Guardian couldn't stop a tiny smirk. Technically, there were aliens on board. Not that anyone knew that.
Cathica shook her head. "I don't know."
The Guardian sighed in frustration.
"No real reason. They're not banned or anything."
"Then where are they?" The Guardian nearly snapped.
"I suppose immigration's tightened up. It's had to, what with all the threats."
"What threats?" The Doctor pressed.
"I don't know!" Cathica took a breath. "Usual stuff. And the price of space warp doubled, so that kept the visitors away. Oh, and the government on Chavic Five's collapsed, so that lot stopped coming, you see. Just lots of little reasons, that's all."
The Guardian walked over to stand in front of Cathica, blocking her from heading towards the door. "Adding up to one great big fact. You didn't even notice."
Cathica rolled her eyes. "I think if there was any kind of conspiracy, Satellite Five would have seen it. We see everything."
'Unless Satellite Five is involved.'
'Exactly, Amadahy.'
"We can see better," the Doctor said to Cathica. "This society's the wrong shape—even the technology."
"It's cutting edge!"
"It's backwards!" The Guardian responded. "There's a hole in your head. You should have moved on from this years ago."
The Doctor moved over to join them. "It's not just this space station, it's the whole attitude. It's the way people think. The Great and Bountiful Human Empire's stunted. Something's holding it back."
"And how would you know?" Cathica snapped.
"Humanity's been held back about a hundred years."
"Specifically ninety years," the Doctor added. "When did Satellite Five start broadcasting?"
Cathica thought for a moment, then her expression froze. "Ninety-one years ago."
The Doctor and the Guardian exchanged a look. There it was. Even Cathica seemed to understand that.
GD~GD~GD~GD~
"We are so going to get in trouble," Cathica hissed.
The Guardian glanced over from where she was helping the Doctor break into a computer cupboard. "Button it." She said.
"You're not allowed to touch the mainframe." Cathica continued. "You're going to get told off."
"I'd like to see them try."
"You can't just vandalize the place. Someone's going to notice!"
The doors to the cupboard unlocked. The Guardian smirked at her. "You'd be surprised how often people fail to notice us. Especially humans."
The Doctor pulled one door open. He used the sonic to make things sputter and spark.
"This is nothing to do with me." Cathica moved away. "I'm going back to work."
"Good," the Guardian replied. "We don't need you."
Cathica turned back with a sigh of frustration. "I can't just leave you, can I?"
"Tell us what's wrong with the heating, if you want to be useful." The Doctor said.
"I don't know. We keep asking. Something to do with the turbine."
"'Something to do with the turbine'," the Doctor repeated mockingly.
"Well, I don't know!"
The Doctor turned away from the cupboard. "Exactly. I give up on you, Cathica."
"Why is it so hot?" The Guardian snagged the sonic screwdriver.
Cathica sighed again. "One minute you're worried about the Empire and the next it's the central heating!"
"Well, never underestimate plumbing," the Doctor replied, proving that he had not, in fact, given up on Cathica. "Plumbing's very important."
GD~GD~GD~GD~
Several minutes of fiddling later and the Guardian was able to pull up the interior schematics of Satellite Five, specifically those of the plumbing, on a monitor.
The Guardian frowned, looking closer. "Look at that layout."
"This is ridiculous," Cathica said. She moved over to do as the Guardian said. "You've got access to the computer's core. You can look at the archive, the news, the stock exchange... And you're looking at pipes?"
"There's something wrong." The Guardian replied.
Cathica looked again. "I suppose."
"What do you see?" The Doctor asked.
'Why are you still trying?' The Guardian asked him.
'She can see it. She's connected to the computer. If anyone can shut it down, it's her.'
The Guardian gave him a tiny nod. She had to agree. For once, the human was completely necessary. They might not be able to fix whatever this problem was without Cathica.
"What do you see?" She repeated.
"The ventilation system. Cooling ducts, ice filters. All working flat-out channeling massive amounts of heat down." She looked up. Finally, she seemed to be getting it.
"All the way from the top. Floor 500."
The Doctor said, "Something up there is generating tons and tons of heat."
"So, anyone feel like a trip upstairs?" The Guardian pulled one of her guns out to check it.
Cathica's eyes widened. "You can't. You need a key."
"Keys are just codes," the Guardian replied, putting away her gun. "And hacking codes happens to be one of my specialties." And one of the few things that she appreciated her training in. After nearly a hundred years of training and another fourteen hundred years of practice, she could hack into some of the most advanced computer systems in the Universe.
She moved forward to try and hack in some more, but a code was already displayed on the monitor.
215.9976/31
"How come it's giving you the code?" Cathica asked.
The Guardian looked up in the camera. "Someone on Floor 500 wants to meet us."
Cathica followed them to the lift, almost begging them not to go.
"Come with us," the Doctor offered.
She shook her head. "No way."
"Then good-bye." The Guardian stepped inside, followed by the Doctor.
"Well, don't mention my name. When you get in trouble, just… don't involve me." She ran off.
The doors closed. The Guardian took the Doctor's hand and rested her cheek against his shoulder.
'Just us again.' He said.
'Yeah. Adam was a terrible choice for a companion.' She admitted.
The Doctor squeezed her hand. 'We all make mistakes. Like I did with Rose.' There was silence between them for several moments as the lift continued to move.
'How about, if we survive this, we get married?' He asked suddenly.
The Guardian blinked with surprise. She had been hoping the subject would come up soon, even before she regenerated, but hadn't wanted to rush him. It had been nearly seventeen hundred years since his first wife died, but remarrying was a huge step, even when you had been talking about it for a thousand years.
'That would be fantastic.' She purposely used his favorite word.
He grinned broadly, just as the lift doors opened. They walked into the cold room. Ice and frost covered every surface. The Guardian noticed footprints in the frost, and they followed those to a room filled with computers. A pale man stood over half a dozen staff, all of them covered in frost as well. Suki was among them.
"I started without you," the pale man breathed a laugh. The Doctor and the Guardian walked into the room.
"This is fascinating. Satellite Five contains every piece of information within the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Birth certificates, shopping habits, bank statements, but you two, you don't exist." He chuckled. "Not a trace. No birth, no job, not the slightest kiss. How can you walk through the world and not leave a single footprint?"
"It's a gift." The Guardian moved over to one of the workers. "They're all dead. But the chips in them keep going."
"Like puppets." The Doctor's disgust was evident.
"Oh!" The pale man exclaimed. "You're so full of information. But it's only fair we get some information back, because apparently, you're no one. It's so rare not to know something. Who are you?"
"It doesn't matter," the Doctor replied. "Because we're off. Nice to meet you."
They started to move away, but the worker the Guardian had been examining grabbed her arm. She easily broke the dead worker's arm and freed herself, only to see that two of the other workers had grabbed the Doctor.
'Amadahy, we can learn something.'
The Guardian glared at him and allowed two more workers to grab her.
"Tell me who you are." The pale man insisted.
"First rule of interrogation: you're the only indispensable person in the room." The Guardian recited. "Since the floor happens to be ours right now, we're really not interested in giving up the information that is keeping us alive."
The man smirked. "Well, perhaps my Editor-in-Chief can convince you otherwise."
"And who's that?" The Doctor asked.
The Guardian began looking around. Something was off. Freezing cold level, while all the other ones were overheated with the heat being pumped down. She glanced up and froze.
"It may interest you to know that it is not the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. In fact, it's not actually human at all. It's merely a place where humans happen to live."
The giant, gelatinous lump hanging from the ceiling growled and snarled, revealing a set of very nasty teeth.
The pale man reacted to the growling as though he was being told off. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry." He refocused on the Gallifreyans. "It's a place where humans are allowed to live by kind permission of my client."
The Guardian heard a snap and the creature snarled again.
"That thing's in charge of Satellite Five?" The Doctor asked, his voice horrified.
"'That thing', as you put it, is in charge of the human race."
The Guardian finally took her eyes off the creature to look at the pale man. In the corner of her eye, she saw the Doctor do the same thing.
"For almost a hundred years, mankind has been shaped and guided, his knowledge and ambition strictly controlled by it's broadcast news,edited by my superior, your master, and humanity's guiding light, the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy HadrojassicMaxarodenfoe." His voice dropped. "I call him Max."
The Doctor forced a smile, and the next thing they knew the workers had forced them into two sets of very strong manacles. The Guardian couldn't even get out of them without breaking her hands.
"Create a climate of fear and it's easy to keep the borders closed." The Editor explained. "It's just a matter of emphasis. The right word in the right broadcast repeated often enough can destabilize an economy, invent an enemy, change a vote."
"So you've turned the human race into slaves." The Doctor stated.
"Well, now, there's an interesting point. Is a slave a slave if he doesn't know he's enslaved?"
"Yes," the Guardian replied immediately.
The Editor frowned in disappointment. "Oh, I was hoping for a philosophical debate. Is that all I'm going to get? 'Yes'?"
"Yes." She didn't need to debate that particular point. She knew its truth all too well. She hadn't realized that she was a slave until the High Council had demanded she stop seeing the Doctor, forbidding any interactions between them.
"You're no fun."
"Let me out of these manacles. You'll find out how much find I am." She could kill him in a second.
"Oh, so tough. I bet you like that," he said to the Doctor. "But come on. Isn't it a great system? You've got to admire it—just a little bit."
"And you use the chips to see inside their brains," the Guardian deduced.
The Editor nodded. "I can see the smallest doubt and crush it."
The Guardian saw movement beyond the computer room.
'Eltanin, Catica.'
'I see her.'
'Distraction time.'
"So," the Doctor finally spoke aloud, interrupting the Editor. "I take it being human doesn't pay very well, that's why you're helping the Jagrafess."
"But you couldn't have done this all on your own, so you must have financiers." The Guardian added.
"I represent a consortium of banks. Money prefers a long-term investment. Also, the Jagrafess needed a little hand to install himself.
"No wonder, a creature that size. What's his life span?"
"Three thousand years."
The Doctor nodded. "That's one hell of a metabolism generating all that heat. That's why Satellite Five's so hot. You pump it out of the creature, channel it downstairs. Jagrafess stays cool, it stays alive. Satellite Five is one great big life support system."
The Editor looked confused as to why the Doctor was explaining everything, but Cathica finally tore her gaze away from the Jagrafess. She gave the Guardian a single nod and moved out of sight.
"But that's why you're so dangerous. I really didn't want to do this, but knowledge is power, and you remain unknown."
He snapped his fingers and two of the workers walked out of the room. The Guardian stiffened, concerned for Cathica, but they returned dragging along a young woman with dark hair and pale, bruised skin.
"This is the Jagrafess's prize. She's a telepath. So unless you want her to tell me everything, you'd better tell me right now."
Both Gallifreyans were silent, staring at the poor girl.
"Three… Two… One…." The Editor snapped his fingers again and the bracelets around the girl's wrists surged with energy. She cried out. "Doctor…. Guardian…." She rasped.
"Who are they?"
"Leave her alone," the Doctor begged. The Guardian glanced over to see tears in his eyes as he looked at the girl. "I'm the Doctor. She's the Guardian. We're just wandering!"
The Editor smirked. "Who do they work for?"
When the girl didn't answer, he shocked her again. "Time Lords..."
"Show me!" The Editor shouted at the girl, moving closer. She carefully reached out and touched his face. They both closed their eyes.
A minute later, the Editor stood. "Oh, yes. The last of the Time Lords and his Immortal in their traveling machine."
"I don't know what you're talking about." The Doctor tried, but the Guardian realized it was useless. If that girl was the one that told her they were on Satellite Five earlier, then she was a powerful telepath. Every piece of information that they didn't want the Editor having was now in his head.
"Time travel!" The Editor smiled. "Through this girl, I know everything about you. Everything that she saw in your heads is now mine. And you have infinite knowledge, Doctor. The human empire is tiny compared to what you've seen in your T-A-R-D-I-S. TARDIS."
"We'd both die before letting you get your hands on it!" The Guardian replied.
"Die all you like. I don't need you. I've got the key." The Editor reached down and yanked the girl's necklace off her. He held it out to reveal that a TARDIS key dangled from a long chain.
The Doctor and the Guardian exchanged confused looks. How had this girl gotten a TARDIS key?
"Oh, didn't I mention?" The Editor laughed. "This girl is from your future. She's your...companion. Naughty boy." He waved a finger scoldingly at the Doctor, then put the key in his pocket. "Today, we are the headlines. We can rewrite history. We could prevent mankind from ever developing."
"And create a paradox as you do so," the Guardian snapped. "By stopping mankind from developing, you prevent yourself from being born. You would fade from existence."
The Editor smiled indulgently. "Such a lovely lie."
Just then, alarms went off. The Editor hurried over to the desks. "What's happening? Someone's disengaged the safety. Who's that?"
The Guardian smiled at the Doctor. It was Cathica at work, as the image on the monitor confirmed.
"She's thinking!" The Doctor said excitedly. "She's using what she knows."
"Terminate her access!"
"We told her everything about Satellite Five," the Guardian shouted at the Editor. "The pipes, the filters. Now watch her reverse it."
The icicles began melting.
"It's getting hot!"
"I said 'terminate'. Burn out her mind!"
The monitors and consoles began sparking and exploding. The workers collapsed. The Guardian's manacles broke open, and she immediately reached in the Doctor's pocket for the sonic screwdriver. He was free in a moment.
The Editor was desperately trying to stop Cathica's work.
"Oi, mate! Want to bank on a certainty?" The Doctor shouted as the Guardian hurried over to the telepath. "Massive heat in a massive body, massive bang. See you in the headlines!"
The Guardian used the sonic screwdriver to free the girl of her bracelets, then helped her to her feet. "Doctor!" She shouted when the girl nearly collapsed again.
The Doctor hurried over and picked the girl up. They ran out of the room, through the halls as bits of ice began falling from the ceiling.
"This way!" The Guardian led them to a lit-up broadcast room, where Cathica sat in the chair, an information beam coming from her portal. Behind them, she heard the Jagrafess explode.
She snapped her fingers and Cathica woke up.
"You just set the human race free. Good job."
GD~GD~GD~GD~
"We're just going to go," the Doctor was telling Cathica.
Satellite Five had been badly damaged when the Jagrafess exploded. All over Level 139, those who hadn't been injured were helping those who had. The Guardian sat beside the young telepath, Elia, as the girl ate her first proper meal in a long time.
"You'll have to stay and explain it. No one's going to believe me," Cathia protested.
"You'll find that people will start believing a lot of things now that they're not scared into submission," the Guardian replied.
"What about you?" Cathica asked Elia.
She smiled. "I've already contacted a friend. They should be here any moment."
The sounds of TARDIS engines could be heard, as a big blue police box materialized. Elia stood and started to walk over.
"Elia," the Doctor called. She stopped and turned around. "I just wanted to say, I am so sorry for the future me letting you get captured by the Jagrafess."
Elia smiled sadly and walked back over. She hugged him. "The Guardian was right. You do feel like everything is your fault. But believe me when I say that it wasn't your fault. I was taken for my abilities, not my connection to you." Her smile turned to more a teasing, secretive one. "And besides, you won't even realize it's me when you first meet me."
"I doubt that," the Doctor replied. "The Guardian has an eidetic memory. She remembers everyone."
"Spoilers." Elia walked over to the future TARDIS and stepped inside. The TARDIS faded away with the sound of brakes left on.
GD~GD~GD~GD~
Inside the TARDIS, Elia ran over to a redhead who didn't look much older than her. "It worked. He thought it was his TARDIS from the future."
"Well, that's good. We can't implode the timelines too much, Mum would kill us." The ginger flipped a switch, transforming the TARDIS back into its proper, working-Chameleon Arch shape.
"You took a while finding me." Elia scolded, collapsing in the comfy chair beside the console. Just a few moments more.
"Sorry about that, Elia. Need I point out that you were the one to wander off?"
"I was with the Jagrafess for a hundred years!"
The ginger walked over and hugged her. "I'm sorry. But once you were captured and I realized you were at Satellite Five, I knew that you were the telepath that Mum once told us about. I couldn't save you."
"How long has it been?"
"A couple of weeks."
Elia grinned. "So I'm only seven years younger than you now?"
The ginger smirked. "You're still my baby sister, and don't you forget that." She stepped back, seeing the golden glow of regeneration energy in her sister's hands and eyes. "I wish you didn't have to regenerate before me."
Elia gave her sister a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. I was getting bored with this body anyway."
GD~GD~GD~GD~
"So, what should we do now?" The Doctor asked as soon as they were in their TARDIS again. He ran around the console, flipping switches and pushing buttons. "Name a galaxy? Save a species?" He turned to her. "Get married?"
The Guardian smiled. "Of course. Find us a perfect suns-rise."
While the Doctor piloted the TARDIS, the Guardian ran to her room to get ready. Gallifreyan weddings were always tradition-ridden affairs. Fortunately, they were eloping Old Gallifreyan-style, which was far more relaxed.
She dug through her wardrobe until she found a long white shirt. The handkerchief hem reached nearly to her knees. Technically, tradition said that a Gallifreyan bride wore a floor-length dress in her chapter colors, but the Guardian had no such affiliations. She was going to be married as herself, and that meant no dresses.
One fast shower and a change of clothes later and the Guardian stood in front of her mirror, observing her appearance. Everything about her seemed to scream in protest of Gallifreyan traditions. Trousers where there should be a dress. Her hair loose when it should be tortured into an elaborate style.
She was everything a Gallifreyan bride shouldn't be.
There was a knock on her door and she threw it open it a flirty smile. The Doctor stood there in a suit.
She raised one eyebrow. "Well, you make one half of a very smartly dressed couple. Are we going out to dinner first?"
He chuckled and shook his head.
"Then how about you change back into your leather jacket and that over-worn jumper?"
He looked at her in surprise. "But..."
The Guardian shook her head. "We're not on Gallifrey anymore. We should get married as ourselves."
"Thank you." He grinned and disappeared down the corridor to his room.
The Guardian went to opposite direction, to the console room. The doors had been left open, so the Guardian went to see where they had ended up.
The suns hadn't quite begun to rise, but the air was filled with mist. She stepped into the wet field. The grass came up to her knees. The planet was silent. No even a bird chirped.
She heard and felt the Doctor join her. "Where are we?"
"The Silent Planet. It's never been habited. At this point in it's history, no one has ever even stepped foot on it."
"We're the first." She leaned back against his chest.
"And this is the first morning of the second sun. The first time its light will shine on this planet."
The Guardian smiled. It was perfect. Only now it seemed like the weight of what they were about to do hit her.
They were truly going to form a marriage bond. Forever. Gallifreyans had no system of divorce. This could never be undone or broken, not unless one of them died.
And the Doctor would finally see everything that had happened to her when she was a child. Everything her instructors had done to her in training.
"Amadahy." He turned her in his arms so that she was facing him. "Are you sure?"
Her smile trembled a little. "Are you?" He was the one who had been married before, and from what she had heard, his first wife had been the opposite of her.
"Yes." He bent slightly to rest his forehead against hers. "I, Eltanin, younger son of the House of Lungbarrow, known as the Doctor, choose to bind my life and mind to yours from this day forward."
The Guardian felt tears slip down her cheeks. "I, Amadahy, daughter of Arcadia, known as the Guardian, choose to bind my life and mind to yours from this day forward."
"I swear to protect you with my lives."
"That's my job," she teased. They both laughed a little. "I swear to protect your conscience. You will never again have to make a choice between the Universe and a species, as long as I am here."
He sighed. "Thank you." Gently, he kissed her. And with that kiss, they opened their minds, allowing each other to see everything.
Behind them, the twin suns appeared over the horizon, bathing the field in golden light.
GD~GD~GD~GD~
First of all, I am sorry this is a week late. Some things came up that prevented me from readying the chapter to publish.
Now we have our first real look at this new Guardian!
And now they're married! But believe me, this is in NO WAY the beginning of happily ever after. Actually, quite the opposite. I feel like Steven Moffat for the things these two are going to have to go through. (And now you've been warned of the difficulties ahead... *evil laugh*)
So, I feel like I have to explain the lack of Adam... when I was originally writing this chapter, I meant for Adam to be there, but it just wasn't flowing right. Then came the idea of having it be only the Doctor and the Guardian, and their future daughter be the one forced to tell the Editor about them. That's when everything began to feel right, and so that's what you see.
Review Notes:
WonderfulWhovian: Glad you like it so far. To answer your critique, I was aware of the "Theta Sigma" thing, despite having only seen a couple of episodes from the classic series. However, from everything I have been able to find, "Theta Sigma" is considered nickname that he picked up while in the Academy, and is not his real name. Plus, I highly doubt that the writers would have done the whole "first question" saga thing and encouraged the "name of the Doctor will be revealed" hype towards the end of Series 7 if his name had previously been revealed. I am of the opinion that his name never will be revealed or, if there ever is a last episode, that it will be revealed on the very last episode. When you've got a show called "doctor who?", it makes no sense to answer the very question you asked. To paraphrase 10, "takes all the fun and mystery out of everything".
time-twilight: Thank you for your reviews! I can say that Rose will not fall in love with the Doctor, but she will still play a very large part in the complications to come. This is not the last the Gallifreyans will hear from her. As the question of "Father's Day", even if Rose had remained on the TARDIS, I could not imagine the Guardian letting the Doctor even land on the same day as Rose's dad's death, let alone actually go there. The Guardian is suspicious by nature, and I can't see her not realizing what Rose would do. And as for who is possessed by the Heart of the TARDIS... well, we'll just have to see...
And, since this fic has reached over a thousand views, over twenty favorites and follows, and fifteen reviews, I'm going to give you a tiny sneak peak into what is to come next week!
"Who the hell are you?" The man demanded, grabbing a sonic blaster out of a holster under the cramped piloting console.
The Guardian stood. "Captain Jack Harkness. Time Agent."
"Former Time Agent," Jack snapped back, looking slightly surprised that she had identified him, and fired.