"Hey. Hey, Adalyn."

I started at the Doctor's voice. "Huh?"

He was squinting against the sun and wind. "You good?"

"Yeah!" I turned my attention back to ground I was crouched over while he came over and squatted next to me, looking curiously between me and the object of my interest.

"Did I miss something about grass?" he finally asked.

"I did."

I glanced up at his confused silence. "The water! The life and the veins! And above all the color." I looked back at the lush hill grass.

The Doctor pondered silently for a moment.

"I guess I'd forgotten." He admitted. "I treasure human companionship in part for how they still see the world anew. I forgot how much you lot can't see."

"Hm." I hummed my smile. "I'm the luckiest, then, since I get both."

"Yeah," the corners of his mouth turned up, "I guess so."

I fell back into quiet admiration, until my vision suddenly blurred. I closed my eyes and leaned back on my heels for balance.

Instantly the Doctor's arm supported me.

"Is it your head again?" His voice was tight with worry.

I shook my head slightly, struggling, "Just my eyes."

"I've kept you out too long." He fretted. "Come on."

He helped to my feet and I held still, waiting for the usual burning in the front of my head. It came and passed, I nodded to the Doctor, and he walked me back to the TARDIS.

"Let's go ahead to the infirmary."

I sighed but didn't argue.

Once in the infirmary I got up on the examination table, lay down, and pushed my hair behind my ears for the Doctor, who put the small earbud-like medical sensors in my ears. I took deep breaths through my nose as the instruments started their scan. Every action had become rote months ago.

After several minutes the Doctor removed the devices and gave me the usual injection for the pain. I pushed myself up to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Anything new?" I asked dully and unexpectantly.

He sighed, "Nothing new, no emergence of a pattern, nothing."

He turned the large screen to face me. The graphs I'd spent so much time staring at still read like a mystery novel.

"The parts of the brain that initially rejected the new information forced on it have obviously adapted brilliantly over the last five months, but even as you've learned to live with the intensified sensory awareness, eidetic memory, the tiny bit of temporal awareness," he took a deep breath scrunching his hair in frustration, "and all the rest: something is pushing your brain harder and faster than it can keep up."

I nodded, biting back tears. "Yup. Great."

He put a hand on my shoulder. "We'll figure it out."

Part of me believed I should just tell him that I wasn't ok. That emotionally I would never be ok again. But it wasn't my nature to tell. Not my way to be vulnerable when I could push through.

So I just nodded.

I moved like a ghost through the TARDIS halls until I came to my room, but when I opened the door it was not the comforting bedroom the TARDIS had made for me, but the sterile cell I'd lived in on the Valiant. I wanted to turn and run, but I was compelled to enter the room. I floated in and toward a full length mirror that had never been there in reality. I looked at my reflection and tried to scream. Cuts – long, straight and clean, covered my arms, legs, and face. The Master came into the reflection. "This is just the beginning."

I woke in terror and cried.

Later that day after my nap we went to the library. It had become our daily ritual to go there together and read our separate books. We sat close, shoulders touching, just enjoying the quiet company. A few hours later, when I finally set down my book, he was waiting for me.

"Let's practice controlling your eidetic memory."

I sighed. "Doctor, I don't want to learn to control it; I want it to stop."

"I know," he sympathized, "but it won't. This is the best I can help you. Please."

I didn't look at him, but I nodded.

"Deep breath."

I closed my eyes, following his instructions.

"Find a memory from a couple months ago. Focus on a specific moment."

"Got it." I said.

"Ok, you know what to do."

I took another breath. And dive.

Like going underwater; like entering a new world; I fell into my past.

I could see it all clearly: The Doctor in front of me, hands outstretched, smiling at me.

"You can do it!" He encouraged enthusiastically.

I felt one foot shuffle unsteadily forward. I hadn't remembered being that shaky.

"Keep coming!"

I wanted to collapse. I wanted to die. I was overwhelmed.

"Next step!"

I looked up and saw the Doctor's expectant face.

"Stop."

The picture before me froze like a film.

"Rewind."

"Rewind?" I mumbled with difficulty.

"Go back a few seconds and find something you didn't notice the first time around."

Frowning into focus, I turned back the clock. The Doctor's mouth moved strangely as he mouthed his words in reverse.

Slow play.

"Keep coming!"

"What do you see?" the present Doctor asked.

"A lot? Myself, you, the med bay." I was getting exasperated.

"Look for details. What else?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

"Rewind again."

"Keep coming!"

"What can you notice?"

"Um," I scrambled, "You're holding out your hand?" I pulled out of the memory in frustration. "I can't do it."

"Yes you can! Look for…" he wiggled his fingers, looking away as if for something intangible, "you're looking for something you don't even know you saw. It was only for a second, or out of the corner of your eye.

I huffed, discouraged.

"You need to disconnect yourself from it. You're not living it: it's a memory. You control it, not the other way around… Can you go back in?"

I hesitated, then nodded.

"Good." His look might have been pride. "Close your eyes."

I took a deep breath and found the memory again.

"Keep coming!"

I looked down and saw the white hospital gown I'd worn those first few weeks I'd lived in the med bay. I lifted my arms like I would in a dream and turned them over and over, seeing how lack of sunlight had rendered them almost as pale as my gown; seeing how the scars he had made on my left arm hadn't faded in the slightest since the night I got them.

"What do you see?"

"I…I see…" I started panicking, then I had the memory-me look up and I saw him.

His old face full of desperation painted over as hope.

My breath caught.

"Yeah?"

"I see you." I whispered.

"Your hair is greasy. You have…" I focused on his tired eyes, "dark circles under your eyes. Your hands are chapped. Your shoulders are slumped. You look like crap."

"Thanks a lot," the Doctor chuckled nervously.

"And you're smiling at me."

He was quiet, then said, "I think that's enough practice for today."

I faded back into the present.

As soon as he came into focus, I pulled him into a hug.

"Thank you."

I could feel his discomfort, but after a moment he relaxed and his arms returned the hug.

I gripped my head – mouth open in a silent scream of pain. Red. Daleks. Death. Fire. Gallifrey on fire. Children screaming. I couldn't do anything.

Then it was over. Just like that the memories had come and just like that they stopped. I stood shakily just as the Doctor came around the corner.

"Dinner?"

I forced a smile. "Let's go."

"'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,'" the Doctor read aloud. "'it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,'" his voice rose and fell with feeling, "'it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.''

I smiled softly at my Doctor – his lanky legs propped up on the table, be-spectacled face peering down at his first edition copy of A Tale of Two Cities. We frequently retreated to the TARDIS library on the days I needed to recuperate from traveling, and the Doctor had suggested we read a book together.

He continued through several pages while an insistent throbbing in my head grew steadily worse.

Finally I let out an involuntary groan of pain. The Doctor was instantly at my side.

"Is your headache getting worse?"

I nodded; face pinched with pain. The Doctor put his fingers on my temples and closed his eyes. Gradually the pain was reduced to a dull ache.

"Thank you," I murmured.

He nodded. "Have you been having pain anywhere else?"

I was accustomed to this question. "It's just the headaches."

And the nightmares. And the flashbacks.

The Doctor squeezed my hand. "Let's take your mind off of it."

I hesitated, then nodded in agreement. "Ok."

He picked up the book again and settled in next to me.

I sat in my room this time and practiced alone.

It was my first day up and about, and I was still shaky.

"So what do things look like now? I mean, are we back to running from Him?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, I don't think that's necessary. Remember how I said there was some sort of temporal block over the ship keeping me from getting through? Well it's still there, and there's no more in or out for now. So we're safe from him. I can't really explain what it is –"

"I think I know what you mean actually."

"Oh?"

"Like I can… feel it? which doesn't make any sense. But I know almost intuitively that there's a…" I fumbled for the right word before finishing lamely, "a bubble."

His gaze intensified.

"It feels untouchable? Unmovable? I don't know."

"Somehow you are basically right. Wow, you really did get your senses messed up. But yes, although it won't last forever, we're safe for now."

"What I don't understand is why? I mean, of course while I was there, he didn't want you to reach me, but why hasn't he taken it down?"

"I don't think the Master put it there," the Doctor grimaced.

"Oh?"

"Which concerns me."

I frowned, "Why? I mean for sure it's odd, but why concerning?"

"Because it means that something else is going on, and that it's big."

I left the memory. The anxiety was creeping in again and I just wanted to stop thinking about Him. The TARDIS commiserated with a low whir and I let her song soothe me to sleep.

The next day my headache returned with a vengeance. I laid on my bedroom floor with my head in the Doctor's lap. My head on fire, I barely registered him saying, "I'm here for you," as he gently rubbed my back. It meant nothing to me. The TARDIS tried to reach me but I shut her out. My stomach was threatening to rebel in response to the intensity of the pain, and although my best friend was nearer than breath, I'd never felt so isolated in my life.

It had been almost six months since the Doctor had rescued me from the Valiant, and as painful and difficult as it was adjusting to my new life, there were nearly equal joys. Somehow, strangely, the world was new and bright and I found delight in everything I saw and learned. The world was even more huge and beautiful and I was experiencing even the smallest things with new sight.

While I was still frequently confused by my conception of time, the Doctor was my steady guide, and as someone who loved to learn, it was beyond exciting to understand the world through a whole new lens.

Although I still suffered debilitating headaches and had frequent flashbacks to my time on the Valiant, I'd come a long way from my time in the infirmary. The Doctor was patient and compassionate in his caretaking of me and we were gradually getting back to our adventures. Meanwhile, our bond grew stronger even than it had been when we first traveled together before the nightmare of the Master started.

On one outing we were sitting on a high, grassy hill between the twin rivers of Glourpa on the Rlourle home planet. He'd finally started opening up about Gallifrey and he had been talking about his Academy days. I hadn't realized he and the Master were once so close, but the way the Doctor talked about him they could have been brothers.

"There was this hill not far from my home that we used to go to – the Master and I – and we would climb the giant tree there and sit and talk for hours and hours. God, we were such kids." He got a faraway look. "He had such big plans for us then."

I couldn't take it anymore. "I really don't want to hear about the Master." I hadn't said his name since I'd last seen him. "Not after what he did to me."

The Doctor seemed thrown, then abashed. "I'm sorry. I won't talk about him anymore."

I swallowed. "Thank you."

We occasionally spoke of my home. I mentioned going back to visit, but he would only say "maybe later".

"Tell me more about you." He changed the subject abruptly.

I looked at him quizzically. "You know about me," my mouth twitched with a smile.

"Tell me more. What was family life like growing up?"

"Oof," I leaned back, "let's see." I thought a moment.

"Well, our childhoods were very academic. My parents took any and every opportunity for us to learn. When Cas and Aleah were super little our dad would take them into his home lab and show them everything. By the time they were ten they were going to work with him and learning from some of the greatest scientists in the country."

"Seriously?" The Doctor looked impressed and I swelled with pride on behalf of my sisters.

"Seriously. We all devoured books from an early age. We couldn't get enough knowledge. Growing up together was great. We'd do experiments together, spend hours mapping stars, make presentations for each other – Yes," I slapped the Doctor, who was smirking, "we're huge nerds."

"I wasn't going to say that!" the Doctor rubbed his arm where I'd hit him.

"You were thinking it!"

"Well you've got to admit most kids don't do school in their free time."

"Yeah." I smiled, but my voice betrayed some bitterness. "We figured that out."

The Doctor frowned. "What about you?"

"Well, three years ago, my mom and I started writing a book together – my first major work – on the effects of the Napoleonic era on France and the surrounding countries."

"Ooh! Very nice."

The corners of my mouth turned up. "I always liked history."

"So you're the history one, your sisters are the science-y ones –"

"Aleah has the theories; Cassie tests them."

"—And what about Dan?"

My smile grew. "Danny is special. He hasn't really chosen a pet topic yet – I mean, he's young and still exploring – but we can all tell he's going to be great."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

"It's not like Cassie's academic brilliance or Aleah's ingenuity," I tried to explain, "It's his thoughtfulness. He's so unlike other children – sort of set apart. He just… understands things that the rest of us don't." A shadow of sadness fell over me.

The Doctor and I shared a moment of silence before he asked, "So what happened? I mean, why isn't your whole family working for the president or something?"

I kicked a pebble and watched it roll down the road. "Like I said, we're different."

"What happened?" He repeated.

"What makes you think anything happened." I knew I was being prickly, but I didn't want to talk about it.

"Your voice. I do know you a little."

I sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just not something I talk about."

"Why not?"

"Because everything was ruined." I stuffed my hands in my pockets, "Eventually our differences became too much for other people. We all faced bullying in school. Even the scientist community began to shun our father for his theories. We were getting too much attention."

"What happened?"
"A teacher at our school accused Dan of being a sociopath."

The Doctor stopped walking. "You're kidding me."

I barked a short laugh, "I wish. Anyway, my parents had had enough. They decided a family like ours needed a place far away from suspicious and narrow-minded communities. And honestly, by that time we'd been so scarred that all we wanted was to be alone."

"Thus, house in the middle of nowhere," the Doctor nodded, suddenly understanding.

"It was everything we needed," I shrugged. "We could continue our work in peace, shut away in this corner of the world until the outside world could finally accept us."

The Doctor wrapped his arm around my shoulders comfortingly. "I'm so sorry."

I put my arm around his waist. "It's ok." We continued walking like that.

"You know, the only thing that I miss is them. I love being with you – seeing the world—"

The Doctor squeezed my shoulder.

"—but they were my world. They still are."

He didn't say anything so I looked up at him. His face showed worry.

"Hey," I poked him and he looked down at me in surprise. "So serious," I teased.

"I'm going back eventually, but not like tomorrow." I grinned cheekily, "Though it's nice to know I'll be missed."

The Doctor smiled weakly and I wondered why.

I was nudged awake by an excited Doctor.

"I want to take you somewhere special." His eyes glinted in my dimly lit TARDIS bedroom.

I yawned hugely, "Isn't it the middle of the night?"

The Doctor looked sheepish. "It depends how you look at it."

"So yes."

"According to your body's clock, yeah. But there's an asteroid that's only in this system for a few hours."

I grumbled jokingly as I pushed the covers off, "What's the point in a time machine if you can't wait until morning to see a space rock?"

"We can come back –"

"Nope," I chuckled, taking his hand, "I'm up and I want to see it."

The TARDIS was already parked so I stepped out with him onto a red, crystalline surface.

"What—" I looked up and gasped.

Around us was a blue and purple nebula, swirling into a fiery red nebula. The colors were stunning in their vividness. Stars sprayed across the expanse like sand and planets sparkled like diamonds in the distance. Around our small asteroid spun a circle of shimmering green dust.

I spun slowly, breathing in the beauty.

"What…" I couldn't take my eyes off the expanse, "is this place?"

"We're standing on the Red Asteroid in what is most commonly referred to as the Fire Galaxy." He came to stand right behind me. "It will never be more gorgeous than it is right now because that star," he pointed at a particularly bright light, "is going to supernova in approximately three hours. It will burn the galaxy and shatter this asteroid into ten thousand pieces, but right now, it's giving… a luminescence to everything within a lightyear."

"It's wonderful," I murmured.

Finally I looked at the ground again. "What is this asteroid made of?"

"No one knows." The Doctor grinned.

"It's amazing." I crouched and put my hand against the blushing rock. It was freezing. I stood, and my hand left a dark mark like breath on glass.

We looked out at the stars.

"'It was the best of times,'" I quoted.

"'We had everything before us,'" he returned.

For a long time we were silent. Despite the TARDIS' oxygen bubble surrounding us, it was cold, and I began to shiver. The Doctor stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me and I leaned my head back against him. We stood there silently for a long time, letting ourselves become lost in thought.

Finally the Doctor cleared his throat and said, "I'd better go get you a coat."

I turned to look at him, but he only smiled a little and went into the TARDIS as if he was afraid of betraying something.

He came out a moment later with his long coat. I took it with a smile. "Thank you."

The silence had been broken, but we still stood hand in hand, looking at the skies that looked scattered with diamonds.

Hours of joyful laughter and easy conversation followed – sharing of deep, meaningful things on both sides.

"I've been in love," he admitted.

I looked at him in surprise.

"More than once actually."

"Wow."

We were quiet.

"You want to tell me more?" I asked. He shook his head. I nodded.

We shared our dreams and hopes and private pains. We sat squished against each other in peaceful silence, simply finding comfort in each other's company.

"I didn't know friendship could look like this."

"Like what?" the Doctor asked.

"Like… complete and explicit trust. No barriers. No doubting the other."

"Do you have any idea what it means to me to have a companion I can really share all of this with? It's been so long since I was with someone who understood it like I do."

Eventually I decided to bring up something that had been on my mind.

"I have to tell you something."

He turned toward me.

"I want to go home. Not now, but soon. As soon as I'm well enough."
His face had gone blank and I was afraid it was hitting him hard. I rested my hand briefly on his.

"My dear Doctor, you knew this was coming. We talked about it before the nightmare started and my missing my family hasn't changed. My invitation for you to meet my family still stands. But it's been long enough. I need to go home."

The Doctor didn't respond and his expression had turned grim.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Adalyn, there's no easy way to say this." He turned to look me straight in the eye. "You can't go home."

"What?"

It was the plainest of questions. So often such a question is tainted with anger or sarcasm or accusation. This "what" was pure confusion as my world came to a full stop.

"There's never been a human with Timelord consciousness. That means that everything is an unknown. It's not safe for you to be on your own."

"But… that's my choice if I want to take that risk."

The Doctor shook his head, "You are a potential danger to anyone you come in contact with."

I wrestled with the information – trying to process. "Ok, but that's just the unfortunate reality. It's not like I chose to be like this."

"No, you didn't choose it. And I'm so sorry," his eyebrows tightened, making my heart sink, "because it's not fair."

"But, I mean, what can you do, supervise me for the rest of my life?"

He didn't answer me, he just looked sorry.

"Wait, you don't – you can't mean…" I felt as if I'd been slapped in the face.

"It's the only option."

"You're kidding."

"Adalyn-" he laid a hand on my arm, but I stood up and stepped back putting my hands in front of me defensively.

"Wait…um, just give me a second." I closed my eyes, reeling with confusion.

"I understand how you must be feeling—"

"You understand?" I cut him off.

He stood. "Listen to me:" his attitude changed – hardened. "This situation is my responsibility. You are my responsibility."

I shook my head, "No, I understand why you might think that, but I'm not."

"I understand you not liking it, but that doesn't keep it from being true." He was stern. "I can't let someone with your abilities and lack of experience be unsupervised."

"No. No, you don't get to decide my life like this." I pulled further back, fear setting in.

"Adalyn—"

"Don't…call me that." I didn't notice his hurt expression. I turned away, "I need to think."

He fell silent and waited for me.

After a moment I spun back around. "Ok, explain it to me again."

The Doctor looked slightly relieved – like I was finally coming to my senses.

"It's like this: you're a wild card. We have no way of knowing what will happen to you – if there are effects of the Master's actions that haven't manifested themselves yet, or why he did this to you at all. I mean, there's a reason, but we have no idea what it is."

"To hurt you." I gestured in exasperation. "That was his reason for everything he did; he told me so himself."

"There are—" he shook his head, "a million ways to hurt me. This wasn't arbitrary, it was deliberate."

"He used me because he thought I was special to you."

The Doctor pulled back at my accusing tone. "You are special to me."

"But not as a friend." I shot back. "When you love someone you don't lock them up. You don't steal their freedom and take them from their family."

He scoffed in disbelief. "I'm protecting you!"

"You're betraying me!" I screamed, on the verge of tears.

We stood frozen, glaring at each other.

"I… was ready to give up everything for you. I did give up everything for you." I struggled to choke out the words.

His gaze stayed hard.

I lifted my chin, forcing back the tears,

"My mistake."

I turned my back on him and went back into the TARDIS, dropping his coat on the floor as I went.

The Doctor followed quietly, picking his coat up as he came in. He looked remorseful.

I sat in a chair, but he stood by the console, fiddling uncomfortably with the controls.

"Where do you want to go?"

I didn't look at him. "That's not really up to me, is it?"

He set coordinates in silence. As he came around the console, he gently put a hand on my back, but I shrugged it off angrily. He stood still and I could almost hear his hurt, but he didn't say anything and after a moment moved on.

When the TARDIS stopped, he came over again.

"Will you come out with me?"

I looked him full in the face.

"Do you think everything will be OK if you bring me on another adventure? That you can just make this all go away?"

The Doctor sighed. "I know it may take some time, but eventually you'll accept this and learn to move on."

I shook with anger.

"You think that only because you underestimate how important my freedom is to me. You only think that because you never knew me at all."