The Doctor's Diary - Part 13
The Doctor throws a party, and Rose's interview at Cambridge doesn't go quite as expected.
CREDITS :
aibhinn for BR, and
swankkat for the picture, "Letters from the Other Side"
Disclaimers as before.
Cross-posted to
time_and_chips
Dear Rose,
It’s difficult to be so far away from you. Wondering how things are working out with the new treatment, and how you’re doing. Doesn’t help that if anything was going seriously wrong, you probably wouldn’t tell me. We’re still trying to set up that messaging link, but at least we can get hold of your Owen on the e-mail and buy you time. Please, eat well, get lots of rest and don’t overdo it. I know you won’t listen to any of that, you’re stubborn and you don’t want an old man going on at you. None of this should ever have happened, and sometimes when I think about it I want to throw something across the control room for being such a fool. For underestimating you. I’ve even shouted at the TARDIS a few times for letting you rip her open like that, but all she seems to say is “Bad Wolf.” Textbook enigmatic, that is.
Oh well, I wouldn’t have this nice new body if it wasn’t for you. The ears are definitely better. I got a new suit, it’s blue and I feel it makes me look like a bit of a dictator, it’s probably just a bit too neat. Martha likes it, but she’s gone off to Torchwood for a few days so I’m back in the brown one. It’s just more comfortable. The TARDIS seems to be going through a bit of a redecorating phase. Probably has some spare energy, I’ve been travelling a bit less lately. I came in after breakfast yesterday and found she’d put a carpet down in the control room - told her not to be silly, it’ll only get covered in oil and all the mud and green slime that gets walked in. Besides, Adric was driving me nuts sharpening his claws on it. In the end we compromised on one of those zig-zag wooden marquetry jobs that you get in 1950s houses. Sometimes I just get tired of arguing with her.
We had a great time in the 1950s, didn’t we? Remember that little scooter, and your frilly pink skirt and those wonderful shoes? Remember going to Las Vegas and dancing to the Rat Pack, and when I played drums for Bobby Darin at the Coconut Grove? Jack says that every time-traveller finds a decade where they feel at home. It’s the Forties for him, of course. He has a lot of that stuff in his office. It took me a while to figure out that he actually lives there. Seems rather sad, in a way. He’s had a long time of not belonging anywhere, a hundred years or more, never getting close to anyone, never telling anyone who he really was. Well, you can’t, not really. Wish I’d been there for him, Rose.
Martha’s very keen to get a job at Torchwood; I’m just a little concerned about her motives, whether there’s a bit of revenge or romance in the mix, but I’m hardly the expert on humans. Wish you were here. Her Dean of Studies back at Bart’s isn’t happy with the idea of her taking a longer career break, so she’ll probably hang around here until the New Year and then go back to medical school. And then there’ll be a vacancy. Jack won’t leave his work, and that’s fair enough. I used to think that you little humans would be so thrilled to travel around with me, you’d give up anything just like that. I suppose I had a lot of growing up to do.
I told Jack to think of the TARDIS as home, and he moved back into his old room, at least part-time. I think that’s the only time I’ve seen him cry.
What else? This might surprise you, but it was Hallowe’en last week, and somehow I was talked into throwing a party. It’s hard to argue when people point out you’re the one with an infinite number of bedrooms and a home that cleans itself up! I thought I’d have nobody to invite, but in the end over 20 people came. The Torchwood team, Martha’s family, Donna Noble and her new partner (a girl), Elton and Ursula (they’re getting married, they’re a bit strapped for cash so they were quite pleased when Donna gave them her old wedding dress), and Sarah Jane with her three. She doesn’t actually have three children, just Luke, but it feels like that because the two girls from over the road are round at her place all the time. It’s been so good for her - they have some amazing adventures, and they always seem to get the species with slimy tentacles, which the kids just love. Oh, and she managed to rustle old Harry Sullivan up from somewhere. She even invited the Brigadier, but he’s getting on a bit, retired now. You humans have such tiny little lives.
Well, everyone dressed up - Jack came up with the theme “Monsters we’ve known”, and offered a prize for anyone who managed to scare me, but nobody did. Maybe if you’d turned up in a pink tracksuit, Rose…..and one of those mud packs on? How’s the baby, by the way? Jack and Martha disappeared into the wardrobe for a very long time and came out dressed as two halves of a Venus fly trap - make of that what you will - it seemed to involve a lot of rumpled hair on both sides. Almost back to his old self, is Jack. Harry and Sarah Jane did the Sontorans - easy enough with a space suit and a bit of prosthetics, and Elton and Ursula came as Dracula and his bride. Surprising how scary Elton can look in the right get-up. I just dressed up as my seventh incarnation, and if you’ve any fashion sense at all you’ll know how frightening he could be. We played Sardines and Murder in the Dark - both very TARDIS-friendly games, and then we put the lights out and told ghost stories. Most of them have a logical explanation, of course (usually involving me or one of my people), but it’s all in the delivery. Just to make sure everyone was truly spooked, I nipped back and picked up Charles Dickens. It was nice to see the old boy again.
Funny, isn’t it? After you’d gone, I felt more alone than I had for a long time. If anyone had told me I’d have enough friends on the same planet at the same time to have that good a party, I’d have been rather surprised. Don’t quite know how it happened, either. Just seems to be a skill I’ve picked up, somehow, since you went away. Wonder if we were a little too wrapped up in each other sometimes? I missed you, you’d have loved the whole thing, but we managed to have some fun. Might do it again at Christmas.
You asked about Romana. Romanadvoratrelundur, to give her full name. She travelled with me, not willingly at first - she was imposed on me by the Council as a kind of punishment. They didn’t know what to do with strong women, and she had a mind of her own. A very good mind, especially when it came to calculations. She could also control her reincarnations, which made me very jealous. Her second one was much less stuffy than her first. Would be nice to think that was my influence. I remember we had great fun in Paris together, sorting out some trouble with the Mona Lisa (that Da Vinci Code stuff isn’t at all original, you know), and eventually she went off to another universe to help a race called the Tharils free themselves from slavery. I regenerated soon after that. Don’t suppose she’d know me if she fell over me in the street now. We met again, briefly, under less happy circumstances. No need to go into all that. But yes, she was a dear friend, and probably the only one of my people I would unhesitatingly trust with your life. I remember her with great fondness.
Rose, I have to say this - are you quite sure you should be leaving home? Are you really up to it? It’s not the end of the world if the house-share doesn’t work out. Said as someone who’s seen the end of the world more than once, so I should know. It’s an old cliché, but it’s true that when one door closes, another one usually opens. Between you and me, Ianto sounds like a pain in the neck. Your Ianto, anyway. The one over here has at least one redeeming feature - he makes the best coffee in the universe. And it’s decaf.
I’m delighted to hear about your interview - again, I wonder if the strain might be a bit too much, but that’s for you to decide. Let me know the date, won’t you, I’ll try to keep track of it and wish you all the best. Might even manage to get the Superphone working again, with a bit of jiggery-pokery.
And now, I have some pumpkin soup to eat up.
All my love,
D
********
Dear Doctor,
Had the interview last week. All came up rather suddenly, they called and said there was someone coming over from Italy who was particularly interested in my CV (tell Jack that’s what we call a resume). And it was…..interesting, I think that’s the word. We had to write a 5000 word essay, under what they called Controlled Conditions. That means they take your phone and your laptop away from you and lock you in a library, basically. Then they give you a topic in a sealed envelope. I felt like Stephen Fry at the BAFTA awards. “And the nominations are…..” It’s unbelievably nerve-wracking, you know absolutely nothing about what they’ll throw at you. They just look at your exam scripts and come up with something. Then you stay in the library for three hours and write about it. The idea is to make you think independently. Had lots of practice at that, anyway.
Know what you said about destiny? Or was it me? Can’t remember. But anyway, as soon as I opened that envelope, I knew, just knew, there was something going on. The question was:
“Imagine that you are preparing a safe legislative framework for use by a highly advanced species which has acquired the ability to travel in time. Discuss the moral and philosophical complexities raised by the possible alteration of histories, both personal and political and draft a series of appropriate laws covering such problems as the need for non-interference and the avoidance of paradox……”
Well, that wasn’t too bad. Wrote about the Laws of Time, and the Reapers…..bit of a doddle really. Not like the interview. That went on for three and a half hours, and that was just The Professor. He wanted to know exactly where I’d got all those ideas from. Or should that be Who?
Then his friend arrived in a TARDIS. It’s a bit bigger on the inside, but it looks kind of thrown together from little bits and pieces, and it doesn’t always work too well - we’ve had a few near misses already. The French Revolution was interesting. I just kept my head down and did lots of knitting. She was off storming the Bastille and delivering cake to the starving masses. She does seem to like feeding starving masses and liberating people from slavery. Reminds me of you, except she likes to hang around and organise a democratic government afterwards. You just want to get back and have tea and crumpets, usually. You’d make a good team.
The carpet in her control room is a bit of a mess. It’s got a few holes in it; on my first night I tripped up and cut myself, and that was when she found out about the white blood cell count problem. I told her about the Time Vortex, and she said she could just imagine you doing that, and if she’d been there she’d have had a firm word with you about leaving a TARDIS lying around in London where any idiot could come along and write Bad Wolf on it. I told her you were a bit busy with the Daleks at the time. Anyway, she said we’d soon have my medical issues sorted out with a bit of Time Lord technology, and would I like to stay around a while until I feel better? I said, “’kay, I’ve done the companion thing before, we could sort of share.”
Some things stay the same whatever universe you end up in. And I think one of them is the look on a Time Lord’s face when you say something like that to them.
Sorry, got to go now, and help The President Elect of the Gallifreyan Government in Exile fly through a nebula. (She thinks she sounds so impressive, but there’s only ten of them.) I do the steering while she does the calculations. I’m getting quite good.
I’ll write again soon. I think I just heard someone shout “WHAAT?” from right across the Void.
Love,
Rose
***********
Rose,
Have you gone completely out of your mind? You can’t just go off with any Tom, Dick or Harriet who swans into your life and offers you adventures in time and space! How do you know she is who she claims to be? Having a TARDIS means nothing - the Master had a TARDIS and I certainly wouldn’t want you to be travelling with him. I really am surprised at you. You used to be so sensible.
Tell this character you are travelling with that I want to hear from her IMMEDIATELY, preferably in an obscure dialect of old Gallifreyan with a page of complicated equations attached. And call her Fred, and see how she reacts. I repeat IMMEDIATELY, Rose. You really don’t want to see me when I’m angry.
The Doctor
*********
My dear Theta Sigma (or Doctor, if you prefer)
It is difficult for me to find words, at least words in our native language, to express the great pleasure I feel at renewing your acquaintance after so many years. You have rarely been far from my thoughts. The circumstances of our last meeting were distressing almost beyond even our people’s power to endure. I can offer little in the way of consolation, other than the news, which may or may not be welcome to you, that a small number of us survived our escape and have remained as exiles and wanderers in a universe not our own, a way of life with which you have long been acquainted, and we have had sore need of your resourcefulness at times. No words are adequate to express our gratitude for your courage and your devotion to duty. I know you well enough to be aware that you will have struggled with the human emotion of guilt, to which you were always somewhat prone, and I can only assure you that, insofar as the fate of our species is concerned, it is utterly misplaced. The fact that you remained to carry out an emergency procedure agreed long before, and to bear its consequences alone, has made me uneasy for many years. I would have spared you that, had it been in my power to do so.
I have recently become acquainted with a remarkable young woman, Rose Tyler, who tells me that she travelled with you for a considerable time, at least by the standards of her species, and that you were separated in battle, and with regret on both sides. She is now accompanying me on my travels, at her own request - despite my initial scepticism, I have found her to be an invaluable asset and assistant - courageous, intelligent, resourceful and with a remarkable instinctive understanding of our history and character. She was brought to my attention by a colleague working as admissions officer at the University of Peterborough; certain inconsistencies in her personal statement attracted our interest and we took the liberty of setting her an essay question which, as we had suspected, revealed more than a passing acquaintance with the Laws of Time, and several memorable turns of phrase which I immediately recognised. Far from being daunted by an extremely challenging interview, Rose Tyler recognised my name and showed remarkable initiative in locating my TARDIS and greeting me upon arrival with the correct form of address. Any doubts that remained in my mind were dispelled at once by the calm and matter-of-fact way she responded to her first sight of the control room. I waited in vain for the commonplace remark that it was “bigger on the inside” and was, I confess, amused when she remarked on my improvised deployment of a bicycle pump and several other examples of “jiggery pokery”. I am afraid that the reduced circumstances of our people have made such contrivances the rule, rather than the exception, and it gives me no pleasure to confess that a certain amount of “doubling up” of TARDISES has become unavoidable; I alone have escaped such humiliation thanks to my distinguished position as President Elect of the Council of the Time Lords in Exile, but my poor little craft tries my patience sorely at times; she did not survive the journey across the Void well, and I have often envied your ingenuity.
Luckily, your erstwhile companion has proved to be an excellent navigator and she has already assisted me most ably with a number of technical problems. Her talents are manifold and I am sure that I shall miss her greatly when she decides to leave me. I am pleased to say that her physical health is already greatly improved; she is, however, quite determined to return to her native universe as quickly as possible, regardless of the risks involved. This presents me with a dilemma, and I must presume once again on your generous nature. It would appear that, as a result of events connected with a recent Dalek attack on her home planet, Rose Tyler will be almost entirely without family and friends after her return - an unenviable situation, even for a young woman of her courage and initiative. However, her continued presence in this universe has created a temporal anomaly which must be resolved without delay.
I write, therefore, to request a favour of you. Would you be prepared to renew your acquaintance with this remarkable young lady and offer her your support and guidance upon her return? I can reassure you that, far from being an encumbrance, she is more than willing to offer her services to you as a travelling companion. I would be honoured to arrange for her safe passage, and indeed to escort her on her journey, although I may need to presume upon your hospitality for a while whilst my TARDIS recovers from her exertions.
……dear me, Theta, Old Protodemotic Gallifreyan is such a cumbersome language, and I’m sure you believe me by now, so can we switch to English? It may be a while before conditions at the Rift are favourable - as I’ve already said, my TARDIS is not in the best of health, but now that you have my co-ordinates we should be able to set up a psychic link and work out a solution. I have also attached a sequence of equations which, when programmed into your computer, will hopefully allow us to communicate by telephone across the Void. (Might I respectfully suggest that you make use of the technique popularly known as cut-and-paste, since the accurate transcription of complex mathematical formulae was never one of your strong points?) It would be quite delightful to see you again, and to catch up on old times. Besides, our Matrix files were badly corrupted on the journey over here, and even with our current difficulties, I would have no problem convincing the rest of the Council-in-Exile that it would be a good idea to look you up and replace our missing copies. I suggest we make that the official reason for the journey; otherwise certain individuals will request that I make your bond-pairing with Rose Tyler and the rapid production of offspring a condition of her safe return……..and I know both of you too well to see you agreeing to that.
En passant, Miss Tyler has been kind enough to show me a recent photograph - very impressive, but you don’t appear to be eating properly, and are you sure that your choice of footwear is appropriate for a Time Lord? And might I suggest the occasional haircut?
I hope the TARDIS is well, and await your reply with somewhat unseemly interest,
With affection and gratitude,
Romanadvoratrelundur,
High President-Elect of the Gallireyan Council in Exile
CREDITS :
aibhinn for BR, and
swankkat for the picture, "Letters from the Other Side"
Disclaimers as before.
Cross-posted to
time_and_chips
Dear Rose,
It’s difficult to be so far away from you. Wondering how things are working out with the new treatment, and how you’re doing. Doesn’t help that if anything was going seriously wrong, you probably wouldn’t tell me. We’re still trying to set up that messaging link, but at least we can get hold of your Owen on the e-mail and buy you time. Please, eat well, get lots of rest and don’t overdo it. I know you won’t listen to any of that, you’re stubborn and you don’t want an old man going on at you. None of this should ever have happened, and sometimes when I think about it I want to throw something across the control room for being such a fool. For underestimating you. I’ve even shouted at the TARDIS a few times for letting you rip her open like that, but all she seems to say is “Bad Wolf.” Textbook enigmatic, that is.
Oh well, I wouldn’t have this nice new body if it wasn’t for you. The ears are definitely better. I got a new suit, it’s blue and I feel it makes me look like a bit of a dictator, it’s probably just a bit too neat. Martha likes it, but she’s gone off to Torchwood for a few days so I’m back in the brown one. It’s just more comfortable. The TARDIS seems to be going through a bit of a redecorating phase. Probably has some spare energy, I’ve been travelling a bit less lately. I came in after breakfast yesterday and found she’d put a carpet down in the control room - told her not to be silly, it’ll only get covered in oil and all the mud and green slime that gets walked in. Besides, Adric was driving me nuts sharpening his claws on it. In the end we compromised on one of those zig-zag wooden marquetry jobs that you get in 1950s houses. Sometimes I just get tired of arguing with her.
We had a great time in the 1950s, didn’t we? Remember that little scooter, and your frilly pink skirt and those wonderful shoes? Remember going to Las Vegas and dancing to the Rat Pack, and when I played drums for Bobby Darin at the Coconut Grove? Jack says that every time-traveller finds a decade where they feel at home. It’s the Forties for him, of course. He has a lot of that stuff in his office. It took me a while to figure out that he actually lives there. Seems rather sad, in a way. He’s had a long time of not belonging anywhere, a hundred years or more, never getting close to anyone, never telling anyone who he really was. Well, you can’t, not really. Wish I’d been there for him, Rose.
Martha’s very keen to get a job at Torchwood; I’m just a little concerned about her motives, whether there’s a bit of revenge or romance in the mix, but I’m hardly the expert on humans. Wish you were here. Her Dean of Studies back at Bart’s isn’t happy with the idea of her taking a longer career break, so she’ll probably hang around here until the New Year and then go back to medical school. And then there’ll be a vacancy. Jack won’t leave his work, and that’s fair enough. I used to think that you little humans would be so thrilled to travel around with me, you’d give up anything just like that. I suppose I had a lot of growing up to do.
I told Jack to think of the TARDIS as home, and he moved back into his old room, at least part-time. I think that’s the only time I’ve seen him cry.
What else? This might surprise you, but it was Hallowe’en last week, and somehow I was talked into throwing a party. It’s hard to argue when people point out you’re the one with an infinite number of bedrooms and a home that cleans itself up! I thought I’d have nobody to invite, but in the end over 20 people came. The Torchwood team, Martha’s family, Donna Noble and her new partner (a girl), Elton and Ursula (they’re getting married, they’re a bit strapped for cash so they were quite pleased when Donna gave them her old wedding dress), and Sarah Jane with her three. She doesn’t actually have three children, just Luke, but it feels like that because the two girls from over the road are round at her place all the time. It’s been so good for her - they have some amazing adventures, and they always seem to get the species with slimy tentacles, which the kids just love. Oh, and she managed to rustle old Harry Sullivan up from somewhere. She even invited the Brigadier, but he’s getting on a bit, retired now. You humans have such tiny little lives.
Well, everyone dressed up - Jack came up with the theme “Monsters we’ve known”, and offered a prize for anyone who managed to scare me, but nobody did. Maybe if you’d turned up in a pink tracksuit, Rose…..and one of those mud packs on? How’s the baby, by the way? Jack and Martha disappeared into the wardrobe for a very long time and came out dressed as two halves of a Venus fly trap - make of that what you will - it seemed to involve a lot of rumpled hair on both sides. Almost back to his old self, is Jack. Harry and Sarah Jane did the Sontorans - easy enough with a space suit and a bit of prosthetics, and Elton and Ursula came as Dracula and his bride. Surprising how scary Elton can look in the right get-up. I just dressed up as my seventh incarnation, and if you’ve any fashion sense at all you’ll know how frightening he could be. We played Sardines and Murder in the Dark - both very TARDIS-friendly games, and then we put the lights out and told ghost stories. Most of them have a logical explanation, of course (usually involving me or one of my people), but it’s all in the delivery. Just to make sure everyone was truly spooked, I nipped back and picked up Charles Dickens. It was nice to see the old boy again.
Funny, isn’t it? After you’d gone, I felt more alone than I had for a long time. If anyone had told me I’d have enough friends on the same planet at the same time to have that good a party, I’d have been rather surprised. Don’t quite know how it happened, either. Just seems to be a skill I’ve picked up, somehow, since you went away. Wonder if we were a little too wrapped up in each other sometimes? I missed you, you’d have loved the whole thing, but we managed to have some fun. Might do it again at Christmas.
You asked about Romana. Romanadvoratrelundur, to give her full name. She travelled with me, not willingly at first - she was imposed on me by the Council as a kind of punishment. They didn’t know what to do with strong women, and she had a mind of her own. A very good mind, especially when it came to calculations. She could also control her reincarnations, which made me very jealous. Her second one was much less stuffy than her first. Would be nice to think that was my influence. I remember we had great fun in Paris together, sorting out some trouble with the Mona Lisa (that Da Vinci Code stuff isn’t at all original, you know), and eventually she went off to another universe to help a race called the Tharils free themselves from slavery. I regenerated soon after that. Don’t suppose she’d know me if she fell over me in the street now. We met again, briefly, under less happy circumstances. No need to go into all that. But yes, she was a dear friend, and probably the only one of my people I would unhesitatingly trust with your life. I remember her with great fondness.
Rose, I have to say this - are you quite sure you should be leaving home? Are you really up to it? It’s not the end of the world if the house-share doesn’t work out. Said as someone who’s seen the end of the world more than once, so I should know. It’s an old cliché, but it’s true that when one door closes, another one usually opens. Between you and me, Ianto sounds like a pain in the neck. Your Ianto, anyway. The one over here has at least one redeeming feature - he makes the best coffee in the universe. And it’s decaf.
I’m delighted to hear about your interview - again, I wonder if the strain might be a bit too much, but that’s for you to decide. Let me know the date, won’t you, I’ll try to keep track of it and wish you all the best. Might even manage to get the Superphone working again, with a bit of jiggery-pokery.
And now, I have some pumpkin soup to eat up.
All my love,
D
********
Dear Doctor,
Had the interview last week. All came up rather suddenly, they called and said there was someone coming over from Italy who was particularly interested in my CV (tell Jack that’s what we call a resume). And it was…..interesting, I think that’s the word. We had to write a 5000 word essay, under what they called Controlled Conditions. That means they take your phone and your laptop away from you and lock you in a library, basically. Then they give you a topic in a sealed envelope. I felt like Stephen Fry at the BAFTA awards. “And the nominations are…..” It’s unbelievably nerve-wracking, you know absolutely nothing about what they’ll throw at you. They just look at your exam scripts and come up with something. Then you stay in the library for three hours and write about it. The idea is to make you think independently. Had lots of practice at that, anyway.
Know what you said about destiny? Or was it me? Can’t remember. But anyway, as soon as I opened that envelope, I knew, just knew, there was something going on. The question was:
“Imagine that you are preparing a safe legislative framework for use by a highly advanced species which has acquired the ability to travel in time. Discuss the moral and philosophical complexities raised by the possible alteration of histories, both personal and political and draft a series of appropriate laws covering such problems as the need for non-interference and the avoidance of paradox……”
Well, that wasn’t too bad. Wrote about the Laws of Time, and the Reapers…..bit of a doddle really. Not like the interview. That went on for three and a half hours, and that was just The Professor. He wanted to know exactly where I’d got all those ideas from. Or should that be Who?
Then his friend arrived in a TARDIS. It’s a bit bigger on the inside, but it looks kind of thrown together from little bits and pieces, and it doesn’t always work too well - we’ve had a few near misses already. The French Revolution was interesting. I just kept my head down and did lots of knitting. She was off storming the Bastille and delivering cake to the starving masses. She does seem to like feeding starving masses and liberating people from slavery. Reminds me of you, except she likes to hang around and organise a democratic government afterwards. You just want to get back and have tea and crumpets, usually. You’d make a good team.
The carpet in her control room is a bit of a mess. It’s got a few holes in it; on my first night I tripped up and cut myself, and that was when she found out about the white blood cell count problem. I told her about the Time Vortex, and she said she could just imagine you doing that, and if she’d been there she’d have had a firm word with you about leaving a TARDIS lying around in London where any idiot could come along and write Bad Wolf on it. I told her you were a bit busy with the Daleks at the time. Anyway, she said we’d soon have my medical issues sorted out with a bit of Time Lord technology, and would I like to stay around a while until I feel better? I said, “’kay, I’ve done the companion thing before, we could sort of share.”
Some things stay the same whatever universe you end up in. And I think one of them is the look on a Time Lord’s face when you say something like that to them.
Sorry, got to go now, and help The President Elect of the Gallifreyan Government in Exile fly through a nebula. (She thinks she sounds so impressive, but there’s only ten of them.) I do the steering while she does the calculations. I’m getting quite good.
I’ll write again soon. I think I just heard someone shout “WHAAT?” from right across the Void.
Love,
Rose
***********
Rose,
Have you gone completely out of your mind? You can’t just go off with any Tom, Dick or Harriet who swans into your life and offers you adventures in time and space! How do you know she is who she claims to be? Having a TARDIS means nothing - the Master had a TARDIS and I certainly wouldn’t want you to be travelling with him. I really am surprised at you. You used to be so sensible.
Tell this character you are travelling with that I want to hear from her IMMEDIATELY, preferably in an obscure dialect of old Gallifreyan with a page of complicated equations attached. And call her Fred, and see how she reacts. I repeat IMMEDIATELY, Rose. You really don’t want to see me when I’m angry.
The Doctor
*********
My dear Theta Sigma (or Doctor, if you prefer)
It is difficult for me to find words, at least words in our native language, to express the great pleasure I feel at renewing your acquaintance after so many years. You have rarely been far from my thoughts. The circumstances of our last meeting were distressing almost beyond even our people’s power to endure. I can offer little in the way of consolation, other than the news, which may or may not be welcome to you, that a small number of us survived our escape and have remained as exiles and wanderers in a universe not our own, a way of life with which you have long been acquainted, and we have had sore need of your resourcefulness at times. No words are adequate to express our gratitude for your courage and your devotion to duty. I know you well enough to be aware that you will have struggled with the human emotion of guilt, to which you were always somewhat prone, and I can only assure you that, insofar as the fate of our species is concerned, it is utterly misplaced. The fact that you remained to carry out an emergency procedure agreed long before, and to bear its consequences alone, has made me uneasy for many years. I would have spared you that, had it been in my power to do so.
I have recently become acquainted with a remarkable young woman, Rose Tyler, who tells me that she travelled with you for a considerable time, at least by the standards of her species, and that you were separated in battle, and with regret on both sides. She is now accompanying me on my travels, at her own request - despite my initial scepticism, I have found her to be an invaluable asset and assistant - courageous, intelligent, resourceful and with a remarkable instinctive understanding of our history and character. She was brought to my attention by a colleague working as admissions officer at the University of Peterborough; certain inconsistencies in her personal statement attracted our interest and we took the liberty of setting her an essay question which, as we had suspected, revealed more than a passing acquaintance with the Laws of Time, and several memorable turns of phrase which I immediately recognised. Far from being daunted by an extremely challenging interview, Rose Tyler recognised my name and showed remarkable initiative in locating my TARDIS and greeting me upon arrival with the correct form of address. Any doubts that remained in my mind were dispelled at once by the calm and matter-of-fact way she responded to her first sight of the control room. I waited in vain for the commonplace remark that it was “bigger on the inside” and was, I confess, amused when she remarked on my improvised deployment of a bicycle pump and several other examples of “jiggery pokery”. I am afraid that the reduced circumstances of our people have made such contrivances the rule, rather than the exception, and it gives me no pleasure to confess that a certain amount of “doubling up” of TARDISES has become unavoidable; I alone have escaped such humiliation thanks to my distinguished position as President Elect of the Council of the Time Lords in Exile, but my poor little craft tries my patience sorely at times; she did not survive the journey across the Void well, and I have often envied your ingenuity.
Luckily, your erstwhile companion has proved to be an excellent navigator and she has already assisted me most ably with a number of technical problems. Her talents are manifold and I am sure that I shall miss her greatly when she decides to leave me. I am pleased to say that her physical health is already greatly improved; she is, however, quite determined to return to her native universe as quickly as possible, regardless of the risks involved. This presents me with a dilemma, and I must presume once again on your generous nature. It would appear that, as a result of events connected with a recent Dalek attack on her home planet, Rose Tyler will be almost entirely without family and friends after her return - an unenviable situation, even for a young woman of her courage and initiative. However, her continued presence in this universe has created a temporal anomaly which must be resolved without delay.
I write, therefore, to request a favour of you. Would you be prepared to renew your acquaintance with this remarkable young lady and offer her your support and guidance upon her return? I can reassure you that, far from being an encumbrance, she is more than willing to offer her services to you as a travelling companion. I would be honoured to arrange for her safe passage, and indeed to escort her on her journey, although I may need to presume upon your hospitality for a while whilst my TARDIS recovers from her exertions.
……dear me, Theta, Old Protodemotic Gallifreyan is such a cumbersome language, and I’m sure you believe me by now, so can we switch to English? It may be a while before conditions at the Rift are favourable - as I’ve already said, my TARDIS is not in the best of health, but now that you have my co-ordinates we should be able to set up a psychic link and work out a solution. I have also attached a sequence of equations which, when programmed into your computer, will hopefully allow us to communicate by telephone across the Void. (Might I respectfully suggest that you make use of the technique popularly known as cut-and-paste, since the accurate transcription of complex mathematical formulae was never one of your strong points?) It would be quite delightful to see you again, and to catch up on old times. Besides, our Matrix files were badly corrupted on the journey over here, and even with our current difficulties, I would have no problem convincing the rest of the Council-in-Exile that it would be a good idea to look you up and replace our missing copies. I suggest we make that the official reason for the journey; otherwise certain individuals will request that I make your bond-pairing with Rose Tyler and the rapid production of offspring a condition of her safe return……..and I know both of you too well to see you agreeing to that.
En passant, Miss Tyler has been kind enough to show me a recent photograph - very impressive, but you don’t appear to be eating properly, and are you sure that your choice of footwear is appropriate for a Time Lord? And might I suggest the occasional haircut?
I hope the TARDIS is well, and await your reply with somewhat unseemly interest,
With affection and gratitude,
Romanadvoratrelundur,
High President-Elect of the Gallireyan Council in Exile