2. Did you ring?
"Doctor, did you give this ring to my mother?" Chloe sports a ring on her finger that her mother had given her before she died. Second generation companions haven't happened that often before, and the Doctor has given many presents to her mother to help her overcome various obstacles over many outings.
The Doctor takes her hand in his and kisses it gently before examining the ring.
"That's quite likely," he says. In all his lifetime he can't be expected to recall everything he ever did, can he? He's hoping not, but he can recall giving such a ring.
"It has special powers, of course," he says, trying to make light of it. "Had you noticed?"
"Yes," Chloe claims. "It seemed to calm others down and give me more confidence." (Ref. 51.)
"Correct! Its proper name is - A Ring of Confidence! At least, that's what's written on the box when you buy it! There's a lot of other stuff, too, but they are the main powers it has."
"Wow, where can you possibly buy this stuff?"
Annoyingly, the Doctor taps his nose three times. He's not going to tell! Or is he?
"Where's that?"
"Oh, a little shop on Gallifrey," he grins playfully; but annoyingly for Chloe. "It's not there now!"
Chloe nearly asked What happened to it? but stops herself in time. Of course, it was destroyed when the Master destroyed Gallifrey (TV Episode The Timeless Children)! Not everyone made it to the underground shelters in time (ref. 9).
"Doctor, could you teach me how to use it?"
The Doctor looks at Chloe sharply, as if such a thing ought to be forbidden. Then he relaxes.
"That's a very good idea," he says. "It might get you out of more scrapes than you imagine. The people you're talking to will suddenly feel much more compliant to your thinking and you'll feel confident about what you need to ask them to do. It doesn't make people into zombies, though! And it won't work on every species! Sontarans aren't prone to be compliant and Daleks are totally resistant." The humour on resistance when the Daleks say resistance is useless goes unnoticed. .
"It still sounds extremely useful! Did you really give it to my mother?"
"Actually, no. I gave it to my late wife. She must have donated it on." (Ref. 24.)
"Doctor, do you have these powers even without a ring?" Chloe moves swiftly on.
"I have different powers, shall we say. I'm not going to list them all, but we all spent quite a lot of School time learning how to use and control them! Simply having some exposure to a powerful ring can leave the wearer with some permanent powers."
"Can you teach me?"
"Of course. There's a knack to using the confidence without alarming or riling others. You can also use the calming effect over tele-conversations, too!"
Handy! .