"I have no idea why the life I have now…" the Doctor said with a hurt glare on his face. "…should be so decided to have in it not little boxes."
"You have not planet to go to?" Peri asked. She had a bite of a feeling that the Doctor was defenseless.
There was a question or two which floated in the doctor's mind. he tried to reason with himself about why he saw both Susan and Peri in the Tardis. Where did they come from? how did they get inside without him or Mithra finding out. unit was simple in the thinking given the time he could aloud himself for. yet, he waited to know the other reason why come in the first place.
Peri looked at the Doctor before saying, "What happened?"
The doctor felt like he was kicked in the head for a minute or two. He wanted to get to ask a for why. She looked like she wanted to ask the imposts sable for anyone about his present day life. The past was very easy for a time lord. The future could be any sort of path anyone could choice their own route.
"Why do you ask me?" he glanced at her. he knew there was an answer, yet was going to be a hard one to be had out there. It was the matter of asking the right questions.
Peri looked at him with a questioning glare now, it was so like Peri to get his goat. He was pushed by her to get fit and try to remain cheerful thought the whole idea of health and thinner doctor. She was still a human with feelings of her own. She liked the doctor and he liked her. Peri had a feeling, the after effects of Rose were still the doctor. What made Rose so spiel. Humans were different in their lives, yet the common goal of getting thoroughly their lives without problem was there.
"Grace?" Peri said out of the blue. She blinked for a minute or two as she looked at the doctor. She knew it sounded like she knew at first what she was talking about. Although, it sounded like she was going for something else in which case, her mind was still stuck on that word.
"What?" the doctor asked, baffled. He grimaced at her. He tried to make out what Peri was thinking about.
She shook her head slightly as her mouth felt it tasted a lemon for the first time. She tried to gather up some sort of word another than Grace.
"Grace…what…Grace who?" he asked. His mind was whirling as fast as it drew blanks. He remembered a little fragment of the time his eighth regeneration was in San Francisco and it was the year nineteen-ninety-nine. He had been shot by a gang of street punks. Then, after one of the punk who was really a nice kid at the end took him the hospital. His near death proved him to tougher than he gave himself credit. Then, he was nearly killed again by the Master whoa waited everything including the TARIDS for himself. In a last of the last ditch saves, he foiled the Master by letting the Eye of harmony take his foe. He remembered a young doctor who had saved his life in an odd way. She could be known for nearly killing him. It was going to be his own fate of crossing paths with her. He and Grace would have stopped the Master if only Grace did not have a weak moment. The doctor had mulled over why did she have that lapse of being weak. He had to shove that in a locked file in his mind. He wondered what or who had been the trigger.
"Grace…" Peri said slowly. It was like someone else from the time stream was pulling all the strings in Peri's mind. All that she could think of was Grace. "Doctor…Grace…"
"Doctor Grace?" the doctor asked with a surpassed look on his face.
"Who?" Martha asked. Sue wandered where the Doctor was working on the control panel.
"Doctor Grace Holloway. She was the one who nearly killed me by mistake," he said ibn a slow way. Everything seemed too hazy, too innocent. It was like a horrible dream which there was no way of getting out it.
"Uh?" Martha said looking at Peri with a surprised look.
"There is more to you…." Peri began to say as she stared at her once former friend and traveling companion.
"What else is so different about you?" Mithra asked. She barely scrapped the edges off of the doctor's past. He needed to open up more. She felt like there was more to him if he just opened up.
The bitterness was still inside of him. He raised his hands up to look at them. He felt like was being ripped open. He wanted to stop this madness of running from the pain and the loss. He did not want to lose rose. Rose was his realist of the world. She was a stable and self-sacrificing person in whom he could feel a real spark of hope. There were others like her. Grace was the same way like rose. Grace was a doctor, a healer of people. She had a child's one wish to keep death from hurting others. Rose was the same way in other reasons. Grace at first was cold and distance. Jose was bored and little fearful. Yet, the doctor had changed them for the better.
"There is too much to talk about me in a human's life time. You just have to trust in what I tell you," The Doctor said. He held everything to his own idea. He knew what was good and what was evil.
Martha wanted to give him a hug. She had a feeling his mind was all piled up with experiences some too painful to even barely worth remembering. He was just wanted to have Rose standing there with her usually large convey grin on her face. She was just like him, a person who wanted to do good. Martha finally got the idea who Rose was like. Yet, was a strange turn of events which he had no idea of stopping unless he had found someone to aid in the helping.
"There is once a sentence that I heard from Grace. She was scared and mad at me…she was blaming me for her world, her planet being dragged from her. I was forcing her from her box and I was the force who did it. I in a way am still the bad wolf."
"What?" both Peri and Martha asked, as they glared at the Doctor.
"I have been thinking about my other half for so long. It was a fighting feeling. I would have no idea on how to stop it. Did I let rose down when she needed my help," he said as he looked around the tardis. There was everything he had collected from all the adventures he had in his long life span. He knew his missions were not all completed as would have he liked.
Martha and Peri looked at the doctor like they were just going to turn and walk away from him.
"What are you thinking of?" he asked them. He felt like glaring at them for being so hurtful. "I am sorry if I had cause any sort of pain or problems. I hoped that you would understand I don't know the countless times in which I was the blame or the outcome of my own meddling in other people's affairs."
Peri had not heard the Doctor apologized like that in a long time. Not since the trails of the Doctor, she heard him feel any sort of regret. It felt like he was going to be in trouble for her own actions. It felt incurably strange. She wanted to speak, to tell him she had to be her own foolish creature and follow him.
The doctor had known she was about to say what she was thinking, but he asked, "Was it you who followed me…or was me following you and your idea of being different."
"I did not want to go in the first place…." Peri said. The idea of going off with someone who was a complete stranger was not what she wanted to do in the first place. She had to connived herself when she had gone with the doctor it was a chance of a life time.
Feeling like he was handed a raw egg in his hand, the doctor snapped, "You came to me…look for away from you of your boring life."
Peri had to give herself a minute to think. Her life was dull, until she had met the Doctor. She was not longer considered a dull person afterwards, yet she had the biggest secret and she could not find any who wanted to believe her. She said, "It was having the latest doll and not even getting to play with because it was locked away."
"You make me sound like a very stingy Father Christmas!" he grinned slightly. he was still happy to get to know Peri. He had to give himself some thought all of his traveling companions, he wanted to be there for Martha, but Rose was still a sticking point. He had to move out, but not to forget Rose.
"What are you thinking about?" Peri asked the Doctor.
With everything that he witnessed and done, he had thanked at least one person. "Thank you…Peri!" he sighed, feeling his headache slowly leaving. He wanted to thank Rose for making him more human. He was still a time lord. He was still an alien drifting in the hugest of space. He did thanked people before. At times it was all the right feeling. Rose had changed that. She was a street wise girl who did not put up with any crap which came her way. She showed him a way of thinking people who were just plain and ordinary. He had tasted, shown and felt the thanks, but to actually say was really not him at the times he wanted to say. He wanted to show it, he could not because of his up bring. Humans were strange creature and showed their feelings more openly.
"For what?" Peri felt like puzzled at his statement. She gave the doctor a quirky glance. He had been use to his very strange ways of thinking. Just being around the doctor was a great learning tool on how others thought.
"For everything. You were a great champion and for putting up with the evil and the good of the whole universe," he nodded.
"I wouldn't trade it for the world!" Peri smiled. She knew there was still good in the Doctor. He should not be the fall guy for the rest of the universe's woes.
"And what about Rose?" Martha asked.
There was a still the bitterness of the loss, his loss. He wanted to be there for anyone's else woes. Rose was no expectations.
"Who's Rose?" Peri asked. She reached over to a plate full of jelly biscuits. She knew the Doctor's sweet tooth and the table was no exceptions.
"She was a friend!" the Doctor said quietly. He was going to be willing to move on.
"And?" Peri asked. Her smile was sad.
"Here is the story about her!" the doctor said. He had been talk about rose for a while. This was the first time he wanted to hear about Peri's life.
"I would like to see what happened to you as you travel!" she smiled.
It felt right for the only one reason, rose wanted to be happy. she, wherever she might be, Rose Tyler was giving back to the Doctor a certain mount of forgiveness. she knew he was not the only to blame for her choice of coming to the TARIDS and sharing all the good and bad of time travel.
he had a feeling inside of him for a long time. he could not place a finger on it. he was sad for loosing out on so much if he did not stop. time was a strange woman in his life. it was not physical creature or an object in which a person could measure it. this was a plain of the mind set from which people had drawn out for many thousands of years. he was hoping to capture lighting in the prevail bottle when he had started fixing the universe.
"And what else you wanted for my happiness?" he asked.
"Nothing. You are you. You tired to fix the world and the world kind of rejected you…." she sighed. She felt his pain of the last times they were both in the same mind set.
"You can't fight the humans?" he said. He knew when Peri was telling him the truth. He had a feeling she was so much like Rose. "Rose was not only human…she was in touch with the heart of the Tardis. She saw what was the Tardis was like."
Both Peri and Martha was stunned as they mulled over what the Doctor had spoke of. The heart of the Tarids was never even breathed as the doctor spoke.
"She was just a normal girl…in fact she was just a down on her luck shop girl who I took in at the time!" he said as the memory of the great battle between the last of the time lords and the dreaded Dakels could have horrenous endings. "She was like Leela…so brave. She was conkey and she let you know it, like Ace. Yet, she was beautiful like every woman that I have run across in my life!"
Both Martha and Peri were surprised and touched. It was something the Dcotor always had a sticking point iwht showing his feelings. He could be aloof and cold as he tried to save the world. learning was the only thing he had going for him. He learned on how to be kind and nice.
"And she was terriblely sharp…" he said. "I know there are a few people like that in my many advertures!"
"she knew who you really were and still are?" Peri asked, giving that same look that Ace had so many years ago when she asked the Doctor who he was.
"I'm just a fixer, a meddler, mediator and a complete mad man running amok!" the Doctor said as he pursed his lips a little, with his mocking sourness he had used time and time again. he realized a little surprise was the Tardis showing people in an automatically go about in front himself and Martha. First ir was Susan and then, Peri. he felt a little out of sorts. He felt like he the time he had nearly died in turn over in the millennium big bang. Everything was totally out if his hands. He knew when he was shoot, he needed medical attention, but he was not in the state of compensation or complacence. He was in a very dangerous state when they were going to operator on him. The regeneration took longer and nearly cost him his memories.
"She knew who you really were and still are?" Peri asked, giving that same look that Ace had so many years ago when she asked the doctor who he was.
"I'm just a fixer,a mediator and a complete mad man running amok!" the Doctor said as he pursed his lips a little, with his mocking sourness he had used time and time again. he realized a little surprise. Was the Tardis showing people in an automatic go about in front himself and Martha. First it was Susan and then, Peri. he felt a little out of sorts.
"You have something to add?" Peri asked. She smiled with a slight tilt of the head. She looked at the Doctor with the same look she had for years.
"About what…" he asked. He knew Peri had a few idea that never come to pass. It was like that with him as he traveled all around the universe. He had always left more than his share of unfinished business.
"You…in all of your long life…didn't you feel you should be just be happy. You have given many people hope. That's a rare gift!"
"A rare gift?" he asked himself out loud. He did wanted to think about the millions who had never even seen him but thanked him anyways.
Martha was getting Peri's idea. She could understand what Peri had in mind. "What happened with Grace?"
"I was in San Francisco during the millennium…Ace was no longer traveling with me…I was alone with the Master's remains. He was put to death from a high courts review which included the Daleks. I was foolish enough to trust the box he was sealed up in. He in an oozy worm like state took control of the Tardis and I ended up in Frisco. On a very bad hunch I went exploring. I got shot…I met Grace in twice chances at hospital…"
"And what happened?" Martha was asking like a kid on the edge of her seat.
"Grace and a kid named Chang Lee…who were natives of the town were tricked into giving up everything by the Master. He had changed over from swapping out a paramedic's body. He was stronger and more deadly than any other regeneratuoins that I have faced. I had my hands not only full, but I nearly dyed for a thrid time while the whole of the universe was in great dangerous peril of complete and utter collopse!" the Doctor sighed with a painful look on his face.
"You died?" Martha asked. She was surprised to hear The Doctor had died. She had an understanding that he was not going to die. She stared at him in shock, 'When did you died?"
"It was the first time was nearly when I was still with Susan. Ian and Barbara were gone. I believe… " he said. He was very quick piecing his back lives together. He looked at a small table which was littered with may treasured objects. It stood off to the side of the control room. "No…" he place a finger up his lips as he studied the table. "I believe Susan was gone as well. It was a girl named Polly and a young man named Ben. They were scared of what was going to happen to me. I told them to go into the TARDIS and I will be in soon!"
"It was so long ago..wasn't it?" Peri asked. She had some stories from the Doctor, but others he never wanted to tell anyone.
"Yes..there was so many afterwards. I have been around that I feel I have wore out my welcome!"
Peri smiled as she walked over to the doctor and gave him a hug.
"I want to say is this…I'm sorry!" he sighed. He knew he needed to get his feelings of pained loss to her. How many years was it. Nearly ten he thought, or was it nearly thirty. He had lost count.
She stared at him with an utter look of surprises.
"I'm sorry...for what I had done!" The doctor said for a second time. He had a pained gaze as he glanced at Peri. He was carrying guilt for long time. It finally came out.
"What happened to me was not a mistake, although it was a learning experience on What real trust was like!" Her eyes were gentle in their gaze. She was not accusing at all.
The doctor had to stop himself from thinking too hard. What was Peri talking about? He asked, "What did happen to you?"
She smiled a little shy at first, "I got married."
The Doctor had to stopped himself short. He placed a hand up his chin. On thinking, the doctor wondered in a slight gasp, "When did you get married?"
Peri recalled the whole story about the time she was kidnapped by Zalgon and was going to a guinea-pig for a horrific experiment. When she was still unconscious, she was taken to a king of an alien race. She was still slice and doing extremely well. She was not mad at all.
She said, "I was not to be killed by those creepy scientist if by fate I had been carried off by some handsome king!"
The doctor had been thinking he was a mediator between fate and history. He was relieved to see Peri was not dead or transformed into a monster. There was a small, bright glow of hope. It was Rose. Her life, her free will and her soul had made the doctor stop and given the opportunity for change.
"What are you thinking?" Martha asked, turning her attentions on the Doctor.
"I am not sure...I need to be the cloister room," the Doctor said with a gentle,sad look.
The two broke away from the hug. The Doctor looked around the control room. He could stay, but he needed sometime with the heart of the Tardis. He was going to alone or so he thought.
The Cloister room, the Doctor walked around the edge of the eye of harmony. He knew the power of the universe was fully contained inside of the eye. How many times the eye told him about an oncoming danger heading towards the TARDIS. To break open the eye was a totally foolish experience he, the Doctor would not wish on his worst enemy. He remember the battle for the very lives of the galaxies hung on as the battle between the Master and the Doctor raged in the Cloister room.
On stopping in front of one of the four columns which held a small outlet from the main power source. On raising his one hand to brush with fingertips the deep carvings of the post. He wondered if he would have saved more lives. Of course how many did he saved throughout they whole time and space. The thing about that made the headache come back. He heard a foot scraping along the flooring. On turning towards the direction where the sound was coming from.
A young Asian man stepped from a corner of the room. He seemed to be someone the Doctor had a hard time in figure who this man was. It took the Doctor a few seconds of thinking before saying,"Lee Chang?"
The Asian man lifted a corner of a pair of sunglasses. He smiled,"Yes...it's been a while. I want to tell you something!"
The Doctor asked after hesitation for just a minute, "Are you mad?"
Lee gave a minute or two of thought before he shook his head. After he met the Doctor, Lee had taken the Doctor's advice and was not in San Francisco on the following New years. Instead he went back to school of places Seattle. He somehow tested in a highly recommend classes in computers. He found he smarter than he thought. Lee was given a taste of brighter brush of intelligence from the TARDIS. It was shortly thereafter he own shadow of death from the hands of the Master. In a nerve wrecking race for time in time, the Doctor reversed the paths of events. He restarted the point before he ended up in San Francisco. It was the Doctor's final decision as he tried to finish off the Master. The Doctor did have given the Master a second chance. The Master's choice death or life was the last time the two time lords saw each.
Lee explained how the Doctor and himself had met. He had in a gang at the time. He met the Doctor after the Doctor was in a gun firestorm. Then, it was fast trip to the hospital. When the Doctor had possibly dead after a near botched operation to see why the X-Ray he had done, showing two hearts. "I met the Master and Doctor Grace Holloway. Then, the Master tricked me into stopping you and Grace into fix time which the Master had real threw out of sync..."
Lee stopped himself in mid sentence. The doctor was listening to him. The Doctor asked a question of whether Lee was grateful or just bidding his time to seek revenge. Lee shook his head no. "I think you were sent for my benefit. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be driving a Porsche."
The Doctor had been floor. He was use by fate to give others a better start.
"You have given hope when there none!" A second voice said with a taste of highlands.
Both the Doctor and Lee turned to a young Scotsman standing in the cloister room. It seemed like the past was getting further and deeper to points of the Doctor's long life. The Scotsman was dressed in a knit and a plain white shirt. There was a smile on the Scotsman's face
A voice in the Doctor's mind spoke of a Jamie McCrimmon. The doctor's head coked to one side. The young Scotsman smiled with his weary smile, "It's been a while…Doctor!"
"Hmm?" the doctor gasped. He moved his head to get a better look at Jaime. Jamie had not changed for one minute. He was still the brash highlander as he always will be. He smiled at Jamie. "Jamie…I have been hooping you are not mad at me?"
"You remembered my name…Doctor!" Jamie said as he began to slowly walked towards the Doctor.
The Doctor did have a pension for some names and faces in his vast memory that would stick out. "You and ….Zoe and Victoria. You were so young, you kept me young as well when we traveled!' the Doctor smiled.
"And you taught me what a computer was and the food on Mars was like and how one people could change events in their own lives!"
"And what else…life and love…I think what you said when I was in Tardis was that one person…just a single person can effect the rest of the whole of the universe. It's like the time we were on earth and at a lake…just skipping stones."
Jamie had a smile on his face. He was really he was working on taking the Doctor's guilt. Jamie reached out a hand to take the Doctor by the hand. "I want to thank you for all that you have taught me and Zoe and Victoria. We know so much more…." Jamie said. He shook the Timelord's hand with the same firm, grip he had always.
The Tardis felt sorry for the Doctor. He knew she was part of the Heart. She gave the Tarids also a part of her. When she did look inside. She treated the ship like something other than just a space ship. It was other part of the doctor.
The Doctor felt the Tardis, his ship letting the memories of one living creature that was so dear to him surface for just a few minutes. On looking at both Jamie and Lee with a 'what was great about the human race' look. They were just living creatures who in some parts of the galaxy they were just livestock. Other times they were a very valued part of the whole meaning living. One creature looked into the heart of the Tardis for just a brief moment in time. He wished he knew. Yet, Was it rose, the Tardis was bringing back to the Doctor. Rose could have been his one and only . The Doctor wanted to let go of his anger, his pain of loss and his guilt towards loosing only true love. There were times when had loved other people before. The Doctor had saved countless lives. The Doctor was a time lord. If he wanted to be could take Martha back to the day he met rose. It would so incredibly easy to go back and find Rose. Why do it? He knew it would impossible. He had pulled many over the top stunts before. Although. Rose gave of herself when she stared into a heart of TARDIS. The second chance rose gave to the entire universe was a match to the life time he had gave in return. She was never had a moment to tell him thanks in giving her the opportunity to give such a gift.
Lee asked, "What are you thinking about Doctor?" He and Jamie knew the Doctor could be a little distracted.
"And who are you think of?" Jamie added. He knew without the Doctor, he would not have helped in saving countless lives of different species.
'Time has no concept on what life is like when people or other life forms live on. The Doctor knew about the lines of consistency and probability. There was many leads which crossed over to drop in a quagmire of messy results. The Doctor was one of those who could step in either fix or make a better solution to the breaks in time. What did time give the Doctor outside of the a million lifetime of adventures in which some people could given up everything for a tenth of what he had been through.
Was Rose that kind of a person who wanted to be stuck in the endless work a day of thousandth like her found themselves in or to have a life full of stories, places and beings which was beyond her wildest dreams.
The Doctor looked at Lee who was now a young man who turned his life around. After his chance meeting with the Doctor. Jamie was too changed, but he became a leader of his clan. The Doctor was a great and wise teacher for both Jamie and Lee.
