Some Are More Equal (12/15)
A sequel to The Guardians of Time by
sensiblecat
Previous Chapters
RATING: G
SPOILERS: Set in a post-Doomsday AU. S3 spoilers throughout. If you haven't yet seen Human Nature onwards, read at your own risk. I have also borrowed liberally from several Big Finish productions, mainly "The Apocalypse Element", "Omega" and "Gallifrey:Weapon of Choice."
CHARACTERS: Ten/Rose, Romana, OCs
DISCLAIMER: Based, rather loosely by this stage, on characters and a planet originally invented by the BBC. Variations on a theme, not for personal profit.
Cross-posted to
dwfiction
tennant_love and
time_and_chips
Thank you to
whowhore for the picture. Thank you very much to my beta readers,
aibhinn,
kalleah and
joely_jo. They have all made a huge difference to this story.
The TARDIS had not been designed as a family home. If she had been, a number of issues would have been addressed. Such as how you got a five-year-old and a seven-year-old through the Control Room and out to school without them noticing that the Doctor was talking to a Dalek.
How do you say to your child in the night
Nothing's all black, but then nothing's all white?
How do you say it will all be all right
When you know that it might not be true?
What do you do?
Stephen Sondheim - From “Into the Woods”
“Where’s my mum?” demanded Brax.
Rose noticed the “my” and the proprietorial tone of voice. Breakfast had not got onto a good start with the children. It was obvious from the grease congealing on the plates that earlier there’d been a fry-up, but they were being fobbed off with Cheerios. But she’d a nasty feeling that this was the least of Brax’s issues. Brax had a poor boy’s attitude to food; when it appeared, he ate it uncritically, and as much of it as possible.
“She’s busy,” Rose stalled, turning away and suppressing a yawn. She was absolutely knackered, and the last thing she needed was to be talking to a bright young Time Lord who was usually several steps ahead of her.
“Is she with the Doctor?” Brax’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Yep,” Rose replied, pouring herself a second black coffee. “Sorting something out in the control room.”
“Can I see?” demanded Ida.
Rose shook her head. “You need to get ready for school.”
“It’s only twenty past seven,” she pointed out. “Are we going in the TARDIS?”
“We’re already in the Citadel. We can walk from here.” Rose was silently grateful for Polly’s forethought. They’d lined everything up before commencing the attempt at transmission. It put them at far greater risk of Dalek interception, but she really didn’t relish explaining why they had to travel in by bus today. And she was pretty sure that she could rely on the TARDIS to open a door - sorry, a transdimensional portal - direct from the kitchen under the circumstances.
Although with the TARDIS, you never quite knew.
“What’s she doing with him?” asked Brax.
“I don’t know!” Rose snapped, and immediately regretted it. Lying to intelligent children was both pointless and against her principles. However, her own tiredness and Brax’s jealousy had caught her on the raw. It brought back memories she’d rather not have. Memories of getting her own breakfast and fishing unironed school shirts out of the washing machine, and her mother emerging from the bedroom in a dressing gown.
Brax was younger than she’d been in those days, of course, and there was no guarantee that he - or Ida, for that matter - had any clear ideas about what was going on between Polly and the Doctor. But sometimes, when you were small and you were used to your mum’s undivided attention, just seeing her with an unfamiliar adult was enough to really bother you.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t in any fit state to comfort him right now.
“He’s gonna find your dad,” said Ida, thoroughly matter-of-fact as she shook out cereal from the pack. “My dad can do anything!”
“So can mine!” Brax shouted back. “He’s just as clever as yours - he’s a Time Lord and he went off in a TARDIS, and he could drive better than anybody else on the planet.”
“He still got lost,” Ida pointed out.
“He’s not lost!” Brax’s face went red and tears began to glisten in his eyes. “He’s doing something really brave and clever and one day he’ll come back. You think your dad’s the only brave Time Lord there ever was!”
Ida’s lip trembled. She was not used to falling out with her beloved friend. “You’ve never seen your dad,” she pointed out. “You don’t even know….”
“Eat your breakfast, Idie,” Rose interrupted, feeling deeply uneasy about the turn the conversation had taken.
“My dad isn’t dead,” Brax declared. “My mum talks to him with her watch every night. She tells me he’s really proud of me and he’ll come back one day and see me grow up.”
Rose wondered if she knew the lad well enough to hug him. She contented herself with a brief squeeze of his shoulders. “That’s right,” she agreed. It might be premature to say it, but she’d expressed confidence in the Doctor’s abilities equally readily in the past, and at times the consequences of his failure would have been just as serious. “The Doctor’s going to find your dad, and your mum is helping him.”
“Is it dangerous?” Brax asked, gulping hard and stiffening in a way that suggested that Rose’s arm had been in contact with his body for long enough.
Rose looked him in the eye. “It’s difficult,” she said. “Most important things are.”
“He’ll find him, Brax,” Ida promised. “You can borrow my dad until yours comes back.”
“I don’t……I don’t want……” Brax faltered, and the tears stinging in his eyes began to overwhelm him. “I want my mum,” he stammered.
Rose’s heart went out to him. Of course he did. His life had changed out of all recognition in the last few days. Changed for the better, but change of any sort wasn’t necessarily easy. This time last week, he and Polly had been the world to one another. And now he was torn between loyalty to his dad’s memory and his growing attachment to another father figure.
This is life, she thought. Whether it’s the Powell Estate or another universe, it boils down to breakfast, a blended family, and a whole lot of messy stuff - and that reminds me, where’s Ida’s games kit?
“You can borrow my mum as well,” Ida offered.
******
The TARDIS had not been designed as a family home. If she had been, a number of issues would have been addressed. Such as how you got a five-year-old and a seven-year-old through the Control Room and out to school without them noticing that the Doctor was talking to a Dalek.
They couldn’t see the Dalek, but the Doctor’s style of interaction left very little to the imagination. And the replies came back loud and clear.
“The device is in your possession! You will deliver it or the prisoner will be exterminated!”
“He’s just sorting something out….” Rose said frantically, almost bodily pulling Brax towards the door. What the heck was the matter with the TARDIS? Why was she putting them through all this?
Then she remembered that the TARDIS was not a human ship. That should have been blindingly obvious, but it couldn’t be, because here she was assuming that a Time Lord’s ship would have a human attitude to children.
Damn her. It was like living with his bloody mother.
“Who’s the prisoner?” asked Brax, rooted to the spot. His mother’s expression was a model of composure. She could have been listening to a telephone directory being read out.
The Doctor, on the other hand, was absolutely in his element. He’d not had a good set-to with a Dalek for years, and the only audience impinging on his consciousness was the one with an eyestalk.
“Ooh, you aren’t doing too well with the human nature stuff are you?” he challenged the Dalek. “Still trotting out the same old clichés, eh? You could have exterminated him any time - and why didn’t you? Because you don’t know what to do with him, do you? You’re scared to even touch him! All you can do is stick electrodes into him and see when he screams!”
Rose gestured frantically to Polly. Somehow, she had to reach the door without the children hearing what was going on. Considering they were both standing transfixed by the whole exchange, it looked as if they’d need a memory wipe to achieve that objective.
The Dalek, of course, was oblivious to the little human drama unfolding behind his interrogator. “The subject is of interest to us. His DNA does not compute with established Time Lord genetics. Suggest hybridization has taken place.”
“I know, I know.” The Doctor paced the floor of the control room like Laurence Olivier working up to a soliloquy. “It’s outrageous, isn’t it? We’ll be marrying them next.” He spun on his heel and glared. “But that still doesn’t answer the question. What do you want?”
You could always rely on a Dalek to give a straight answer to a question like that. “The Daleks will recolonise the planet of the Time Lords. The destruction of Skaro will be avenged.”
“Don’t you want to take over the universe any more?” the Doctor taunted it. “Lost your ambitions, have you, out there in the Void along with the Genesis Ark?”
“The Genesis Ark will be avenged.”
“You’re like a cracked record, you lot. How many of you are there?” He glared at the monitor. “The Fantastic Four, like last time? Is that the best the Mighty Sons of Davros have to offer, four of you to guard one prisoner who isn’t a proper Time Lord anyway?”
Brax opened his mouth to argue but Ida had the foresight to slap her hand over it in time. After that they switched to psychic communication, and Rose managed to pick the gist of it up. What she heard reminded her that Ida’s understanding was far beyond the capabilities of a human five-year-old.
He’ll offer to give them something. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve got it or not, ‘cos by the time they find out he’ll have thought of something else. They’re too stupid to realise how much he hates them.
“See, the mighty Time Lords aren’t what they once were,” the Doctor went on, striding up and down again. “Frankly, you lot could walk in and take this place over if you felt like it. They’ve gone soft. They probably need another good war to toughen them up. But us, the old guard, we’re a different matter. Put us together with some clever device or other - ooh, a stellar manipulator, maybe, and maybe track down an old friend or two and - bingo! One universe, ready and waiting for you.”
The Dalek seemed confused, as well it might. “You propose an alliance?” it rasped.
“Weeell……I know you turned the Cybermen down, but you’re playing with the big boys now,” replied the Doctor. “We’re level pegging, you and me. Both down to our last two or three, but you have to start somewhere. Can’t just give up.” He sat down, folded his arms with a smirk and resumed his glaring into the Dalek’s eyestalk. “So, why don’t you tell me a bit more about this little gizmo you went to get hold of?”
There was a pause. “You will meet with us?”
“Oh, love to,” sighed the Doctor, scratching the back of his neck, “nothing like a bit of the old tea and biscuits, but I’m a busy man and I really don’t fancy having my brainwaves extracted and being suckered to death. And you can’t come here, it’d frighten the kiddies. Although I suppose they could always hide behind the sofa until you went away.”
The children seemed to relish this suggestion. They began to bounce up and down with excitement and Rose didn’t know whether to haul them out of the place by the hair or go up and slap the Doctor’s face.
“I suppose you’ve already asked Peter about this?” the Doctor said.
“The subject has not co-operated.”
“Funny, that.” The Doctor wasn’t joking any more and woe betide anyone who made that error of judgement. “Maybe you should start being nice to him. People can be picky that way. And, while we’re on the subject of Peter, let me make one thing absolutely clear. That man has a family waiting for him, and they want him back in one piece. And if you harm so much as a hair of his head, you’ll have me to answer to and I’ll wipe every last stinking one of you out of the sky. I did it before and I’ll do it again.”
“Daleks do not respond to threats! Daleks do not respond….”
The Doctor switched to his most chilling grin. “Me neither. They’re just rude and unnecessary. I have friends here. I’ll find out about this device you’re after. And if you want it, you play nice. Do I make myself clear? Right, see you around. I’ll be keeping an eye on Peter.”
He broke the connection and swung around to face Rose.
“What the hell are the kids doing in here?” he demanded.
“Don’t look at me!” argued Rose. “You told me the TARDIS would put in another door! Whoever heard of a spaceship that’s only got one exit?”
“Didn’t you explain to her?”
“Yes, and she told me she knew exactly what was going on in the control room right now and she was on top of it! You know what she’s like when she takes things the wrong way.”
Brax went up to Polly, who pulled him into a frantic hug. “Mum, has the Dalek got Dad?” he asked.
Polly couldn’t speak for a minute. The Doctor looked at her. “Tell him the truth,” he said.
“What?” cried Rose in horror.
He spun round to face her. “He’s a Time Lord. He’ll be staring into the Untempered Schism in a year’s time, so why protect him now?”
“You…..you…..” Rose was incoherent with fury, but she wouldn’t stoop to calling him a bastard in front of the kids.
“The TARDIS could have protected them if she’d wanted to,” he pointed out. “She’s put in doors before - if she hadn’t we wouldn’t both be here today.”
Rose wanted very much to argue with the logic of that, to say something rude about unreliable, stubborn old space junk and heartless, child-abusing Time Lords. More than anything else, she wanted to be home on Earth and have someone human to pour out her feelings to. Mickey, her mother or, better still, Jack.
Ida spoke up. “You were awesome, Dad. You so totally kicked ass.”
His eyebrows rose at that, as did Polly’s. “Friend of ours,” Rose apologised. “He’s nice, but he’s American.”
“More likely to be South Park,” said the Doctor. “I really wouldn’t say that at school, Ida.”
“I wouldn’t say anything about any of this at school,” warned Polly.
Brax looked at her again. “So they have got Dad? Are we going to save him?”
“Yes,” said Polly, struggling not to break down. “Oh, we are so going to save him, Brax. I don’t know how, but we are.”
Ida sat alone on the sofa, obviously turning something over in her mind. “Maybe the TARDIS wanted you to see how totally awesome the Doctor is,” she suggested.
“He’s not the only one,” said Rose, quietly. She flopped down next to Ida on the sofa and all the stress and emotion of the previous night seemed to slam into her like a crashing breaker. She wasn’t far from losing it herself, and she’d rather face a Cabinet Room filled with the Slitheen than the school playground right now.
She looked at the Doctor. “Would you do the school run this morning?” she asked.
He nodded. “’Course I will,” he agreed, already putting on his coat. “Come on, you two.”
Brax grabbed his hand and held on tight. The Doctor looked at him - a long, thoughtful meeting of minds, without the slightest hint of condescension.
“We’ll get this sorted out, young man,” he promised. “All you need to do is keep your mouth shut, and trust me.”
Brax nodded.
Ida nuzzled into Rose’s lap for a goodbye kiss.
“No fights in the playground today, sweetheart - all right?”
“Promise.” Ida twined her fingers with Rose’s in their special salute.
“There’s a good girl. Off you go now.”
When they’d left, and the door had closed behind them, the two mothers looked at each other. Rose wasn’t quite sure whether her next words were spoken aloud or not, but she knew that Polly responded to them.
“When you came onto this ship, we were two families. I don’t think that’s true any more.”
“No,” agreed Polly. “We’re one.”
“And that includes Peter.”
“I know.”
“What happened?” asked Rose.
*********
Polly watched the tender way the Doctor rubbed his fingers over Rose’s cheek and her head drooped and rested against him.
“You,” he said with mock-severity, “are shattered. Silly little human. When are you gonna realise you can’t stay up all night? Come on.”
He picked her up as easily as if she’d been a bag of sugar, and she didn’t protest, just rested her face against him as he carried her down the corridor to what, Polly assumed, was their bedroom. She followed him at a discreet distance, and hovered in the doorway as he reached the room and laid Rose on the bed. As he drew back, with a last squeeze of her hand, Rose reached out, already half-asleep. With a slightly childish gesture, reminding Polly how very young she still was, she put both hands out and clutched at the edges of his coat.
He chuckled gently and shrugged it off, laying it over the bedclothes and tucking it around her neck to keep out non-existent draughts. Rose snuggled into it and smiled, already practically asleep. Polly noticed what a tatty old thing it was, really. He wore his wealth very lightly, she thought. Or, rather, he knew which things to value most. He’d had a long life to figure that out.
“Works like a charm, every time,” he said, creeping away and returning to her. She smiled. “Better than knockout drops, and she never takes kindly to being medicated without consent.”
“She never really had a dad, did she?” said Polly.
“Nope,” he agreed. “Me neither. Not the human variety, anyway.”
“And your mother?” she asked. “If you don’t mind me…..”
“Human,” he said, tersely. “Ancient Greece, Earth, early fourth century BCE. Her name was Penelope. And his was Ulysses, the Roman name for Odysseus, the greatest wanderer in human mythology. Gave me a lot to live up to. Fancy a stroll in the garden?”
The question seemed to be rhetorical, and she fell into step beside him. “So you’re half human?” she asked in surprise. “It’s never mentioned publicly.”
“That’s because technically, it’s incorrect,” he replied, rubbing at the corner of his eye. Polly had noticed he tended to do that when he wasn’t entirely at ease in a discussion. “I was forcibly aborted on Council orders, but I turned out to be viable. Human gestation is only around forty weeks. I was a bit too interesting to be disposed of, so they stuck me in the Looms and rebuilt me.”
He told the unpleasant story with impressive restraint. Polly did not mistake it for indifference. “Did it work?” she asked.
“There were one or two rough edges. I don’t do regenerations awfully well. The last one had me flat on my back for fourteen hours. Luckily Rose was around to tell her mother not to give me aspirin.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Just after she ended the Time War.”
“What?” Polly froze and gaped at him.
“She ended the Time War,” he repeated. Polly would have been very careful to avoid saying anything to diminish Rose at that moment. “That little girl tucked up in bed back there. All on her own.” Then he told her a story she could barely believe, yet knew was true. He couldn’t have made it up.
“The last act of the Time War was love,” he finished. “Romana’s always claimed she was there in the TARDIS at the time - after all, she did travel with me for a few years - and she took a hand in it. But I think it was all about Rose. My Rose,” he added, after a moment.
Appropriately, they were standing in the rose garden when he said that. It was beautifully laid out in what she remembered from her research was the classic European style, formal and restrained in a manner that her Guardian soul found deeply soothing. “I always think of this spot as my real home,” he told her. “You’d think it would be the old Gallifreyan bit with the red grass and the enhanced orange sky, wouldn’t you? But no. It’s as if something was leading me home to her, five hundred years before she was even born.”
“Time isn’t just linear,” Polly observed, running her fingertips around the weathered and lichened stone of a sundial.
“You ever read a book called ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden?’ he asked. “It’s only a little tale for human children, but it’s written with a touch of eternity. Little lad comes to stay with his aunt and uncle, and one night the grandfather clock down in the hall strikes thirteen. He creeps downstairs and the back yard’s been transformed into a beautiful garden. The sort we all remember playing in, even when we didn’t.”
“And whom does he meet there?” she asked, knowing that the question was important.
“Hattie,” he replied. “An orphan, or some such. Poor relation, snubbed by the grand children of the house.” He sighed and looked into the distance. “Two lonely children, a boy and a girl. Every night, he creeps down when the clock strikes and they play together. Until she grows up, and she meets a young man and fades away from him.”
“That’s very poignant,” she remarked, beginning to see the relevance of the story. “Is it a spontaneous chronomaly?”
“Not quite.” He sat down on a rustic bench and she joined him, carefully leaving a couple of feet between them. “There’s an old lady in the flat upstairs. Every night she remembers her childhood, and an imaginary playmate she had. A little boy in pyjamas.”
He smiled.
“The power of memory,” she said. “How subtle, for a human writer.”
“Don’t underestimate humans, Polly.” His smile was still warm.
“I won’t. Peter is half-human, after all.”
“Happened with our two,” he said after a minute. “Ida started talking about Brax two years before we came here. It was amazing how much she got right.”
Polly wasn’t entirely comfortable with that. She wondered whether Brax had told Ida things he would never tell her. She remembered the bruises he refused to explain, the ripped trousers and hidden shoes, and how the next day he’d had to go in wearing his trainers with a note. Principal Emeldris had come up with a mysterious stock of second-hand uniform; after that, it stopped for a while.
He was never completely alone, she thought. And neither was I.
“So, he’s on track for the Academy next year?” The Doctor’s voice cut into her thoughts.
“I hope so.”
“Do you?”
What a strange question. “It’s the way things work here,” she reminded him. “The only chance he has.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, lightly. “I’ve very mixed feelings about the Academy, myself. He’s not been institutionalized. He’ll suffer.”
“He’ll be all right.” She said it more to convince herself than anyone else. “He can’t stay with me for ever, it wouldn’t be good for him.”
“There are alternatives.”
She waited for him to enlarge on that.
“You know why the TARDIS has a hexagonal console?” he asked, with an unexpected shift of topic. “It’s because six was the optimal crew size.”
“That’s interesting.”
“We’re almost there now,” he added.
“Isn’t he a little young to be crewing a TARDIS?” Polly asked.
“The TARDIS doesn’t seem to think so. And if he’s old enough to leave you and go to boarding school…..”
“It’s not for a while yet.” She wondered what he was working up to. Something, she was certain. It occurred to her that when he turned up in the playground with her son this morning it might well have provoked some comment. Also that Peter hadn’t sounded entirely at ease with the idea of this powerful man in her life.
“I thought I might stay around the Capitol today,” he said. “I’ve some business at the Registry. Perhaps you’d care to join me?”
“Depends what it is.” Polly looked at his dishevelled suit and hair. “You’re not robed for it,” she observed, pointlessly.
“I’ll go back to wearing a robe when you’re allowed to wear one, too,” he said. “Although a shower and a fresh suit might not be a bad idea.”
She was growing weary of circling around the truth. “Has there been gossip?” she asked.
“It’s beginning. Emeldris had a word in private about regularising Brax’s position. I took the liberty of mentioning in confidence that Peter was back in the frame. I think we owe it to both of them to move on with the formalities.”
“The reinheritance?” she ventured. “You appreciate how controversial this is?”
“Oh yes.” He folded his arms and grinned wickedly. “It’ll be all over the news channels by lunchtime. I’m afraid you’ll just have to be prepared for that. And there’s something else I need to arrange.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“A marriage licence,” he replied. “There are one or two other things I’d like to regularise, now I’m back home.”
“Home?” The word surprised her.
“Yes. You know what they say about the human holy book? Well, one of them. It starts in a garden, but it ends in a city. I always rather liked that.”
“Congratulations,” she said, with the feeling that she wasn’t just alluding to him and Rose, and their overdue nuptials.
“Thank you,” he said, with a smile. “And then I want to do a little poking around at the Café, ask a few questions, and arrange a chat with Romana.”
“Busy schedule,” she said.
“Yes. And, this being Gallifrey, I’m not allowed to cheat.” He stood up. “So we’d better get going.”
**********
“That reminded me why I ran away from this lot,” grumbled the Doctor, as they headed back to the TARDIS for a late lunch.
It was hard to recognise him as the tender husband of a few hours ago. He hadn’t eaten since his very early breakfast, and the formalities at the Registry had been tedious in the extreme. Hours of waiting about, filling in forms that any other developed race would have let you do online, and repeated complaints from petty officials that he wasn’t correctly dressed. The last, in particular, had resulted in rather more shouting than Polly was entirely comfortable with.
Worst of all, Romana had declined to see him on the grounds that she was closeted with Torvald, who had asked to see her urgently. Polly had a nasty feeling that she knew the reason why.
She was right. They rounded the final corner and saw her father’s TARDIS parked beside the blue box. Torvald himself was dressed to impress in his ceremonial robes and stood outside the door, tapping his foot impatiently with a look of cold fury on his face.
“Turning out to be quite a day, this is,” the Doctor remarked quietly to Polly. He noticed the colour draining from her cheeks.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “Leave your dad to me. I’m responsible for you now. And I haven’t had a really angry Time Lord on my hands for years. This is going to be fun.”
“If you say so,” Polly answered nervously.
“I’ll do the talking,” he said. “If I want to ask you anything, there’s this.” He tapped on his temple and Polly nodded.
Then he stepped forward, arm extended and an ear-splitting grin on his face.
“Hello, Torvald, old chap! What a nice surprise! Come on in.”
sensiblecat
Previous Chapters
RATING: G
SPOILERS: Set in a post-Doomsday AU. S3 spoilers throughout. If you haven't yet seen Human Nature onwards, read at your own risk. I have also borrowed liberally from several Big Finish productions, mainly "The Apocalypse Element", "Omega" and "Gallifrey:Weapon of Choice."
CHARACTERS: Ten/Rose, Romana, OCs
DISCLAIMER: Based, rather loosely by this stage, on characters and a planet originally invented by the BBC. Variations on a theme, not for personal profit.
Cross-posted to
dwfiction
tennant_love and
time_and_chips
Thank you to
whowhore for the picture. Thank you very much to my beta readers,
aibhinn,
kalleah and
joely_jo. They have all made a huge difference to this story.
The TARDIS had not been designed as a family home. If she had been, a number of issues would have been addressed. Such as how you got a five-year-old and a seven-year-old through the Control Room and out to school without them noticing that the Doctor was talking to a Dalek.
How do you say to your child in the night
Nothing's all black, but then nothing's all white?
How do you say it will all be all right
When you know that it might not be true?
What do you do?
Stephen Sondheim - From “Into the Woods”
“Where’s my mum?” demanded Brax.
Rose noticed the “my” and the proprietorial tone of voice. Breakfast had not got onto a good start with the children. It was obvious from the grease congealing on the plates that earlier there’d been a fry-up, but they were being fobbed off with Cheerios. But she’d a nasty feeling that this was the least of Brax’s issues. Brax had a poor boy’s attitude to food; when it appeared, he ate it uncritically, and as much of it as possible.
“She’s busy,” Rose stalled, turning away and suppressing a yawn. She was absolutely knackered, and the last thing she needed was to be talking to a bright young Time Lord who was usually several steps ahead of her.
“Is she with the Doctor?” Brax’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Yep,” Rose replied, pouring herself a second black coffee. “Sorting something out in the control room.”
“Can I see?” demanded Ida.
Rose shook her head. “You need to get ready for school.”
“It’s only twenty past seven,” she pointed out. “Are we going in the TARDIS?”
“We’re already in the Citadel. We can walk from here.” Rose was silently grateful for Polly’s forethought. They’d lined everything up before commencing the attempt at transmission. It put them at far greater risk of Dalek interception, but she really didn’t relish explaining why they had to travel in by bus today. And she was pretty sure that she could rely on the TARDIS to open a door - sorry, a transdimensional portal - direct from the kitchen under the circumstances.
Although with the TARDIS, you never quite knew.
“What’s she doing with him?” asked Brax.
“I don’t know!” Rose snapped, and immediately regretted it. Lying to intelligent children was both pointless and against her principles. However, her own tiredness and Brax’s jealousy had caught her on the raw. It brought back memories she’d rather not have. Memories of getting her own breakfast and fishing unironed school shirts out of the washing machine, and her mother emerging from the bedroom in a dressing gown.
Brax was younger than she’d been in those days, of course, and there was no guarantee that he - or Ida, for that matter - had any clear ideas about what was going on between Polly and the Doctor. But sometimes, when you were small and you were used to your mum’s undivided attention, just seeing her with an unfamiliar adult was enough to really bother you.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t in any fit state to comfort him right now.
“He’s gonna find your dad,” said Ida, thoroughly matter-of-fact as she shook out cereal from the pack. “My dad can do anything!”
“So can mine!” Brax shouted back. “He’s just as clever as yours - he’s a Time Lord and he went off in a TARDIS, and he could drive better than anybody else on the planet.”
“He still got lost,” Ida pointed out.
“He’s not lost!” Brax’s face went red and tears began to glisten in his eyes. “He’s doing something really brave and clever and one day he’ll come back. You think your dad’s the only brave Time Lord there ever was!”
Ida’s lip trembled. She was not used to falling out with her beloved friend. “You’ve never seen your dad,” she pointed out. “You don’t even know….”
“Eat your breakfast, Idie,” Rose interrupted, feeling deeply uneasy about the turn the conversation had taken.
“My dad isn’t dead,” Brax declared. “My mum talks to him with her watch every night. She tells me he’s really proud of me and he’ll come back one day and see me grow up.”
Rose wondered if she knew the lad well enough to hug him. She contented herself with a brief squeeze of his shoulders. “That’s right,” she agreed. It might be premature to say it, but she’d expressed confidence in the Doctor’s abilities equally readily in the past, and at times the consequences of his failure would have been just as serious. “The Doctor’s going to find your dad, and your mum is helping him.”
“Is it dangerous?” Brax asked, gulping hard and stiffening in a way that suggested that Rose’s arm had been in contact with his body for long enough.
Rose looked him in the eye. “It’s difficult,” she said. “Most important things are.”
“He’ll find him, Brax,” Ida promised. “You can borrow my dad until yours comes back.”
“I don’t……I don’t want……” Brax faltered, and the tears stinging in his eyes began to overwhelm him. “I want my mum,” he stammered.
Rose’s heart went out to him. Of course he did. His life had changed out of all recognition in the last few days. Changed for the better, but change of any sort wasn’t necessarily easy. This time last week, he and Polly had been the world to one another. And now he was torn between loyalty to his dad’s memory and his growing attachment to another father figure.
This is life, she thought. Whether it’s the Powell Estate or another universe, it boils down to breakfast, a blended family, and a whole lot of messy stuff - and that reminds me, where’s Ida’s games kit?
“You can borrow my mum as well,” Ida offered.
******
The TARDIS had not been designed as a family home. If she had been, a number of issues would have been addressed. Such as how you got a five-year-old and a seven-year-old through the Control Room and out to school without them noticing that the Doctor was talking to a Dalek.
They couldn’t see the Dalek, but the Doctor’s style of interaction left very little to the imagination. And the replies came back loud and clear.
“The device is in your possession! You will deliver it or the prisoner will be exterminated!”
“He’s just sorting something out….” Rose said frantically, almost bodily pulling Brax towards the door. What the heck was the matter with the TARDIS? Why was she putting them through all this?
Then she remembered that the TARDIS was not a human ship. That should have been blindingly obvious, but it couldn’t be, because here she was assuming that a Time Lord’s ship would have a human attitude to children.
Damn her. It was like living with his bloody mother.
“Who’s the prisoner?” asked Brax, rooted to the spot. His mother’s expression was a model of composure. She could have been listening to a telephone directory being read out.
The Doctor, on the other hand, was absolutely in his element. He’d not had a good set-to with a Dalek for years, and the only audience impinging on his consciousness was the one with an eyestalk.
“Ooh, you aren’t doing too well with the human nature stuff are you?” he challenged the Dalek. “Still trotting out the same old clichés, eh? You could have exterminated him any time - and why didn’t you? Because you don’t know what to do with him, do you? You’re scared to even touch him! All you can do is stick electrodes into him and see when he screams!”
Rose gestured frantically to Polly. Somehow, she had to reach the door without the children hearing what was going on. Considering they were both standing transfixed by the whole exchange, it looked as if they’d need a memory wipe to achieve that objective.
The Dalek, of course, was oblivious to the little human drama unfolding behind his interrogator. “The subject is of interest to us. His DNA does not compute with established Time Lord genetics. Suggest hybridization has taken place.”
“I know, I know.” The Doctor paced the floor of the control room like Laurence Olivier working up to a soliloquy. “It’s outrageous, isn’t it? We’ll be marrying them next.” He spun on his heel and glared. “But that still doesn’t answer the question. What do you want?”
You could always rely on a Dalek to give a straight answer to a question like that. “The Daleks will recolonise the planet of the Time Lords. The destruction of Skaro will be avenged.”
“Don’t you want to take over the universe any more?” the Doctor taunted it. “Lost your ambitions, have you, out there in the Void along with the Genesis Ark?”
“The Genesis Ark will be avenged.”
“You’re like a cracked record, you lot. How many of you are there?” He glared at the monitor. “The Fantastic Four, like last time? Is that the best the Mighty Sons of Davros have to offer, four of you to guard one prisoner who isn’t a proper Time Lord anyway?”
Brax opened his mouth to argue but Ida had the foresight to slap her hand over it in time. After that they switched to psychic communication, and Rose managed to pick the gist of it up. What she heard reminded her that Ida’s understanding was far beyond the capabilities of a human five-year-old.
He’ll offer to give them something. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve got it or not, ‘cos by the time they find out he’ll have thought of something else. They’re too stupid to realise how much he hates them.
“See, the mighty Time Lords aren’t what they once were,” the Doctor went on, striding up and down again. “Frankly, you lot could walk in and take this place over if you felt like it. They’ve gone soft. They probably need another good war to toughen them up. But us, the old guard, we’re a different matter. Put us together with some clever device or other - ooh, a stellar manipulator, maybe, and maybe track down an old friend or two and - bingo! One universe, ready and waiting for you.”
The Dalek seemed confused, as well it might. “You propose an alliance?” it rasped.
“Weeell……I know you turned the Cybermen down, but you’re playing with the big boys now,” replied the Doctor. “We’re level pegging, you and me. Both down to our last two or three, but you have to start somewhere. Can’t just give up.” He sat down, folded his arms with a smirk and resumed his glaring into the Dalek’s eyestalk. “So, why don’t you tell me a bit more about this little gizmo you went to get hold of?”
There was a pause. “You will meet with us?”
“Oh, love to,” sighed the Doctor, scratching the back of his neck, “nothing like a bit of the old tea and biscuits, but I’m a busy man and I really don’t fancy having my brainwaves extracted and being suckered to death. And you can’t come here, it’d frighten the kiddies. Although I suppose they could always hide behind the sofa until you went away.”
The children seemed to relish this suggestion. They began to bounce up and down with excitement and Rose didn’t know whether to haul them out of the place by the hair or go up and slap the Doctor’s face.
“I suppose you’ve already asked Peter about this?” the Doctor said.
“The subject has not co-operated.”
“Funny, that.” The Doctor wasn’t joking any more and woe betide anyone who made that error of judgement. “Maybe you should start being nice to him. People can be picky that way. And, while we’re on the subject of Peter, let me make one thing absolutely clear. That man has a family waiting for him, and they want him back in one piece. And if you harm so much as a hair of his head, you’ll have me to answer to and I’ll wipe every last stinking one of you out of the sky. I did it before and I’ll do it again.”
“Daleks do not respond to threats! Daleks do not respond….”
The Doctor switched to his most chilling grin. “Me neither. They’re just rude and unnecessary. I have friends here. I’ll find out about this device you’re after. And if you want it, you play nice. Do I make myself clear? Right, see you around. I’ll be keeping an eye on Peter.”
He broke the connection and swung around to face Rose.
“What the hell are the kids doing in here?” he demanded.
“Don’t look at me!” argued Rose. “You told me the TARDIS would put in another door! Whoever heard of a spaceship that’s only got one exit?”
“Didn’t you explain to her?”
“Yes, and she told me she knew exactly what was going on in the control room right now and she was on top of it! You know what she’s like when she takes things the wrong way.”
Brax went up to Polly, who pulled him into a frantic hug. “Mum, has the Dalek got Dad?” he asked.
Polly couldn’t speak for a minute. The Doctor looked at her. “Tell him the truth,” he said.
“What?” cried Rose in horror.
He spun round to face her. “He’s a Time Lord. He’ll be staring into the Untempered Schism in a year’s time, so why protect him now?”
“You…..you…..” Rose was incoherent with fury, but she wouldn’t stoop to calling him a bastard in front of the kids.
“The TARDIS could have protected them if she’d wanted to,” he pointed out. “She’s put in doors before - if she hadn’t we wouldn’t both be here today.”
Rose wanted very much to argue with the logic of that, to say something rude about unreliable, stubborn old space junk and heartless, child-abusing Time Lords. More than anything else, she wanted to be home on Earth and have someone human to pour out her feelings to. Mickey, her mother or, better still, Jack.
Ida spoke up. “You were awesome, Dad. You so totally kicked ass.”
His eyebrows rose at that, as did Polly’s. “Friend of ours,” Rose apologised. “He’s nice, but he’s American.”
“More likely to be South Park,” said the Doctor. “I really wouldn’t say that at school, Ida.”
“I wouldn’t say anything about any of this at school,” warned Polly.
Brax looked at her again. “So they have got Dad? Are we going to save him?”
“Yes,” said Polly, struggling not to break down. “Oh, we are so going to save him, Brax. I don’t know how, but we are.”
Ida sat alone on the sofa, obviously turning something over in her mind. “Maybe the TARDIS wanted you to see how totally awesome the Doctor is,” she suggested.
“He’s not the only one,” said Rose, quietly. She flopped down next to Ida on the sofa and all the stress and emotion of the previous night seemed to slam into her like a crashing breaker. She wasn’t far from losing it herself, and she’d rather face a Cabinet Room filled with the Slitheen than the school playground right now.
She looked at the Doctor. “Would you do the school run this morning?” she asked.
He nodded. “’Course I will,” he agreed, already putting on his coat. “Come on, you two.”
Brax grabbed his hand and held on tight. The Doctor looked at him - a long, thoughtful meeting of minds, without the slightest hint of condescension.
“We’ll get this sorted out, young man,” he promised. “All you need to do is keep your mouth shut, and trust me.”
Brax nodded.
Ida nuzzled into Rose’s lap for a goodbye kiss.
“No fights in the playground today, sweetheart - all right?”
“Promise.” Ida twined her fingers with Rose’s in their special salute.
“There’s a good girl. Off you go now.”
When they’d left, and the door had closed behind them, the two mothers looked at each other. Rose wasn’t quite sure whether her next words were spoken aloud or not, but she knew that Polly responded to them.
“When you came onto this ship, we were two families. I don’t think that’s true any more.”
“No,” agreed Polly. “We’re one.”
“And that includes Peter.”
“I know.”
“What happened?” asked Rose.
*********
Polly watched the tender way the Doctor rubbed his fingers over Rose’s cheek and her head drooped and rested against him.
“You,” he said with mock-severity, “are shattered. Silly little human. When are you gonna realise you can’t stay up all night? Come on.”
He picked her up as easily as if she’d been a bag of sugar, and she didn’t protest, just rested her face against him as he carried her down the corridor to what, Polly assumed, was their bedroom. She followed him at a discreet distance, and hovered in the doorway as he reached the room and laid Rose on the bed. As he drew back, with a last squeeze of her hand, Rose reached out, already half-asleep. With a slightly childish gesture, reminding Polly how very young she still was, she put both hands out and clutched at the edges of his coat.
He chuckled gently and shrugged it off, laying it over the bedclothes and tucking it around her neck to keep out non-existent draughts. Rose snuggled into it and smiled, already practically asleep. Polly noticed what a tatty old thing it was, really. He wore his wealth very lightly, she thought. Or, rather, he knew which things to value most. He’d had a long life to figure that out.
“Works like a charm, every time,” he said, creeping away and returning to her. She smiled. “Better than knockout drops, and she never takes kindly to being medicated without consent.”
“She never really had a dad, did she?” said Polly.
“Nope,” he agreed. “Me neither. Not the human variety, anyway.”
“And your mother?” she asked. “If you don’t mind me…..”
“Human,” he said, tersely. “Ancient Greece, Earth, early fourth century BCE. Her name was Penelope. And his was Ulysses, the Roman name for Odysseus, the greatest wanderer in human mythology. Gave me a lot to live up to. Fancy a stroll in the garden?”
The question seemed to be rhetorical, and she fell into step beside him. “So you’re half human?” she asked in surprise. “It’s never mentioned publicly.”
“That’s because technically, it’s incorrect,” he replied, rubbing at the corner of his eye. Polly had noticed he tended to do that when he wasn’t entirely at ease in a discussion. “I was forcibly aborted on Council orders, but I turned out to be viable. Human gestation is only around forty weeks. I was a bit too interesting to be disposed of, so they stuck me in the Looms and rebuilt me.”
He told the unpleasant story with impressive restraint. Polly did not mistake it for indifference. “Did it work?” she asked.
“There were one or two rough edges. I don’t do regenerations awfully well. The last one had me flat on my back for fourteen hours. Luckily Rose was around to tell her mother not to give me aspirin.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Just after she ended the Time War.”
“What?” Polly froze and gaped at him.
“She ended the Time War,” he repeated. Polly would have been very careful to avoid saying anything to diminish Rose at that moment. “That little girl tucked up in bed back there. All on her own.” Then he told her a story she could barely believe, yet knew was true. He couldn’t have made it up.
“The last act of the Time War was love,” he finished. “Romana’s always claimed she was there in the TARDIS at the time - after all, she did travel with me for a few years - and she took a hand in it. But I think it was all about Rose. My Rose,” he added, after a moment.
Appropriately, they were standing in the rose garden when he said that. It was beautifully laid out in what she remembered from her research was the classic European style, formal and restrained in a manner that her Guardian soul found deeply soothing. “I always think of this spot as my real home,” he told her. “You’d think it would be the old Gallifreyan bit with the red grass and the enhanced orange sky, wouldn’t you? But no. It’s as if something was leading me home to her, five hundred years before she was even born.”
“Time isn’t just linear,” Polly observed, running her fingertips around the weathered and lichened stone of a sundial.
“You ever read a book called ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden?’ he asked. “It’s only a little tale for human children, but it’s written with a touch of eternity. Little lad comes to stay with his aunt and uncle, and one night the grandfather clock down in the hall strikes thirteen. He creeps downstairs and the back yard’s been transformed into a beautiful garden. The sort we all remember playing in, even when we didn’t.”
“And whom does he meet there?” she asked, knowing that the question was important.
“Hattie,” he replied. “An orphan, or some such. Poor relation, snubbed by the grand children of the house.” He sighed and looked into the distance. “Two lonely children, a boy and a girl. Every night, he creeps down when the clock strikes and they play together. Until she grows up, and she meets a young man and fades away from him.”
“That’s very poignant,” she remarked, beginning to see the relevance of the story. “Is it a spontaneous chronomaly?”
“Not quite.” He sat down on a rustic bench and she joined him, carefully leaving a couple of feet between them. “There’s an old lady in the flat upstairs. Every night she remembers her childhood, and an imaginary playmate she had. A little boy in pyjamas.”
He smiled.
“The power of memory,” she said. “How subtle, for a human writer.”
“Don’t underestimate humans, Polly.” His smile was still warm.
“I won’t. Peter is half-human, after all.”
“Happened with our two,” he said after a minute. “Ida started talking about Brax two years before we came here. It was amazing how much she got right.”
Polly wasn’t entirely comfortable with that. She wondered whether Brax had told Ida things he would never tell her. She remembered the bruises he refused to explain, the ripped trousers and hidden shoes, and how the next day he’d had to go in wearing his trainers with a note. Principal Emeldris had come up with a mysterious stock of second-hand uniform; after that, it stopped for a while.
He was never completely alone, she thought. And neither was I.
“So, he’s on track for the Academy next year?” The Doctor’s voice cut into her thoughts.
“I hope so.”
“Do you?”
What a strange question. “It’s the way things work here,” she reminded him. “The only chance he has.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, lightly. “I’ve very mixed feelings about the Academy, myself. He’s not been institutionalized. He’ll suffer.”
“He’ll be all right.” She said it more to convince herself than anyone else. “He can’t stay with me for ever, it wouldn’t be good for him.”
“There are alternatives.”
She waited for him to enlarge on that.
“You know why the TARDIS has a hexagonal console?” he asked, with an unexpected shift of topic. “It’s because six was the optimal crew size.”
“That’s interesting.”
“We’re almost there now,” he added.
“Isn’t he a little young to be crewing a TARDIS?” Polly asked.
“The TARDIS doesn’t seem to think so. And if he’s old enough to leave you and go to boarding school…..”
“It’s not for a while yet.” She wondered what he was working up to. Something, she was certain. It occurred to her that when he turned up in the playground with her son this morning it might well have provoked some comment. Also that Peter hadn’t sounded entirely at ease with the idea of this powerful man in her life.
“I thought I might stay around the Capitol today,” he said. “I’ve some business at the Registry. Perhaps you’d care to join me?”
“Depends what it is.” Polly looked at his dishevelled suit and hair. “You’re not robed for it,” she observed, pointlessly.
“I’ll go back to wearing a robe when you’re allowed to wear one, too,” he said. “Although a shower and a fresh suit might not be a bad idea.”
She was growing weary of circling around the truth. “Has there been gossip?” she asked.
“It’s beginning. Emeldris had a word in private about regularising Brax’s position. I took the liberty of mentioning in confidence that Peter was back in the frame. I think we owe it to both of them to move on with the formalities.”
“The reinheritance?” she ventured. “You appreciate how controversial this is?”
“Oh yes.” He folded his arms and grinned wickedly. “It’ll be all over the news channels by lunchtime. I’m afraid you’ll just have to be prepared for that. And there’s something else I need to arrange.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“A marriage licence,” he replied. “There are one or two other things I’d like to regularise, now I’m back home.”
“Home?” The word surprised her.
“Yes. You know what they say about the human holy book? Well, one of them. It starts in a garden, but it ends in a city. I always rather liked that.”
“Congratulations,” she said, with the feeling that she wasn’t just alluding to him and Rose, and their overdue nuptials.
“Thank you,” he said, with a smile. “And then I want to do a little poking around at the Café, ask a few questions, and arrange a chat with Romana.”
“Busy schedule,” she said.
“Yes. And, this being Gallifrey, I’m not allowed to cheat.” He stood up. “So we’d better get going.”
**********
“That reminded me why I ran away from this lot,” grumbled the Doctor, as they headed back to the TARDIS for a late lunch.
It was hard to recognise him as the tender husband of a few hours ago. He hadn’t eaten since his very early breakfast, and the formalities at the Registry had been tedious in the extreme. Hours of waiting about, filling in forms that any other developed race would have let you do online, and repeated complaints from petty officials that he wasn’t correctly dressed. The last, in particular, had resulted in rather more shouting than Polly was entirely comfortable with.
Worst of all, Romana had declined to see him on the grounds that she was closeted with Torvald, who had asked to see her urgently. Polly had a nasty feeling that she knew the reason why.
She was right. They rounded the final corner and saw her father’s TARDIS parked beside the blue box. Torvald himself was dressed to impress in his ceremonial robes and stood outside the door, tapping his foot impatiently with a look of cold fury on his face.
“Turning out to be quite a day, this is,” the Doctor remarked quietly to Polly. He noticed the colour draining from her cheeks.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “Leave your dad to me. I’m responsible for you now. And I haven’t had a really angry Time Lord on my hands for years. This is going to be fun.”
“If you say so,” Polly answered nervously.
“I’ll do the talking,” he said. “If I want to ask you anything, there’s this.” He tapped on his temple and Polly nodded.
Then he stepped forward, arm extended and an ear-splitting grin on his face.
“Hello, Torvald, old chap! What a nice surprise! Come on in.”