Gallifrey, a very, very long time ago…

The Doctor and Susan both hurried through the corridors of the Capitol, the home of Time Lord civilisation, trying to reach the room where the Doctor had placed his TARDIS.

They were both going to run away from Gallifrey, their home and from their people, the Time Lords. The duo had been witnessing the steady increase of violence as the revolution tried to take root in Time Lord society, and while Susan was aghast her grandfather had involved himself in the violence, she knew it stemmed from the days when he had left Gallifrey temporarily after he'd been granted his old Type 40 TARDIS and ventured out beyond the transduction barriers and the domed cities of Gallifrey.

What he had seen was a progressive universe, and the Doctor had wanted to see Gallifrey become just that. Susan had kept to the background, watching as her grandfather worked with others to try to make Gallifrey great once more. Only the High Council had too many of the old guard at their beck and call, and they'd found ways of undermining the revolution so it fell apart.

Illegal T-Mail tapping.

Spy drones, robots so small, unobtrusive they would never be seen, filming and recording their activities.

Faked evidence, such as carefully planned sabotage, was designed to frame the Time Lords taking part in the revolution.

The last one was what the Doctor had gone through, and he was currently racing for the TARDIS after the last meeting was broken up by the Chancellory Guard. The Doctor and many of his old school friends had only just managed to escape just in time; some of them had escaped using vortex manipulators, teleport portals or some of them had smuggled in TARDISes, whose chameleon circuits had been programmed to disguise the time vessels as something small an unobtrusive as possible, and were now travelling through the Vortex right now.

Susan and the Doctor both wished the TARDIS they were using was equipped with a chameleon circuit which would do the same job, so they weren't rushing through Gallifrey like this.

There was one good thing about the revolution, though; with it going on, there would be lots of protests, and they had both decided it was time for them to leave the planet in confusion.

Physically the two were opposite to each other.

The Doctor, still in his first incarnation, was a tall, thin old man with long white hair immaculately combed back. He wore a black frock coat, a white shirt with a cravat with a mustard yellow and grey waistcoat, and check trousers. Susan was much younger, with short black hair and a grey jumper.

"Are we going to make it, Grandfather?" Susan gasped.

The Doctor was struggling to move and breathe at the same time, but he forced the words out of his mouth, "I think so, my dear. We should be there at my quarters soon enough."

"Was it a good idea to place your TARDIS there? Won't it be the first place they look?" Susan panted.

"Not with the perception filter on, no," the Doctor gasped out, exhaustion making him less tetchy than normal, "It was the only way of making sure the Council couldn't lock my ship down, especially with the help I've given the revolutionaries."

Susan bit her lip, unsure if her grandfather's decision to join the revolutionaries was a wise move. "I wish we weren't rushing through the corridors like this," she wheezed. She was a young girl who was lithe and strong, but even the strongest person had limits.

"I know, my dear," the Doctor panted, "but the Council can track down transmat portals and teleportation wormholes. We'd have never made it back to the Ship. And we couldn't have used my second TARDIS, as the other ship is synched with the Type 40."

Susan accepted this, and the journey was soon silent as the duo rushed towards the Doctor's living quarters. The duo had finally arrived at the door when someone yelled.

"STOP!"

Susan's hearts went cold when she saw it was a member of the Chancellory Guard, but her exhausted state dimly noted the armour the guard was wearing.

The Doctor, too, saw the guard and he summoned what remaining strength he had left in his ailing body. "Quickly, Susan!" He pushed her through the door after he'd opened it, and Susan shot in.

But the Doctor was too late.

"GRANDFATHER!" Susan screamed when the guard shot the Doctor in the chest. The Doctor coughed and spluttered as the staser blast hit him in the chest.

"I said, STOP!" The guardsman shouted, while Susan grabbed hold of her grandfather, and pulled him inside, slamming the door shut behind them. The Doctor kept coughing as he pulled her towards the TARDIS standing in the corner while the guard pounded on the door. Susan grabbed hold of her grandfather, looking for the tell-tale signs. She didn't have to wait long, as she slipped her hand under her jumper, for the chain of her key. She could see that her grandfather was just too weak to do it himself. It was a struggle, to fish her TARDIS key out from under her jumper, and hold on to her grandfather.

It got worse as she struggled to open the TARDIS door. Why did her grandfather have to be bonded to a TARDIS that required a physical key? As her hand shook, Susan listened to her grandfather whimpering in pain. His body was beginning to glow.

"Su-san," the Doctor managed to whisper.

Susan had to stop her grandfather from falling in through the TARDIS door, and she eased him in slowly before she rushed to the console and closed the door.

The interior of the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS timeship was currently in a library configuration, with the shelves stuffed full of books, DVDs, holocrons, holobooks and info-spikes along with assorted bric-a-brac. In a corner stood a tall grandfather clock, but Susan could see the chameleon circuit of a Type 50 TARDIS. Her grandfather had bonded with two TARDISes, and he'd chosen them both, as he felt a strong bond with them both, and he'd synched them together as a result.

Turning her gaze away from the second TARDIS, Susan studied the console for a moment. The Type 40 was not a time machine she was used to, but she knew how her grandfather's ship worked well enough to understand how to set the TARDIS going.

Quickly she drew her knowledge from previous jaunts, and she closed the doors and activated the randomiser the Doctor had installed to help hide from the Time Lords.

As she engaged the time drive, listening to the sound of the dematerialisation circuits working to break the TARDIS out of Gallifrey's dimensional pocket, Susan noticed her grandfather's glowing form.