Between Man and God (4/?)
Title: Between Man and God
Characters: Ten, later Ten/Rose
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst (I love how this will surprise no one) and Fluff *watches people die of shock* and existentialism of potted plants.
Spoilers: Through JE and then spoilers for other stories of mine, but nothing major there.
Word Count: 3176
Summary: Because that's what she does, my Rose. She lives everything so fully that the rest of us can't help ourselves. As we move into the Vortex--and by 'we' I mean the TARDIS and I--a thought strikes me and I start to laugh, even as tears leak out of my eyes. Even when she's universes away, on the other side of that damned white wall, she's still saving me.
A/N: As I promised, the ending of this particular bout of angst! Now comes confusion! I have a choice to make here. I can either pause here and start posting the companion to this story--so that you aren't completely lost as to some things--or I can finish this up, then post the companion one. Thoughts?
There are three and a half violets on my window-ledge.
I say three and a half because there’s a small bloom, a strange mix between mint and lavender in color, that hasn’t sprung open yet. It’s not fully out, nor is it fully in. It’s stuck in the middle, between the dark, safe world it knows and the brightly dangerous one it doesn’t. It’s a dangerous line to walk, but so far it’s been able to balance. That’s more than most of anything can manage, but I still call it a half.
That seems a bit callous of me, doesn’t it? Is it callous to call a bud half if it isn't real? If it's no more than an illusion created for my benefit; my distraction? It probably is, but I suppose that’s to be expected. I am only a programme after all.
That’s what my problem is, She said. She told me so and She is never wrong. She said I’m just a computer; granted a very, very advanced one, but a computer nonetheless. She says that’s why I know so very many things-facts, dates and names-but with no memory of learning them. It’s because I’ve always known. They were programmed into me. They are me. She told me that there had been a systems malfunction. I had been the personal assistant model of a computer used by the governmental elite. Each unit was psychologically imprinted on their owner, for security reasons. Even the best clone wouldn’t have the proper imprints and so I was safe.
When my system fractured in what She called an isotropic storm, it caused a loop. It’s why I kept seeing looped visions of that woman. The pretty blonde had been my owner. The psychological imprint had been holding my systems together until I could be repaired, but before I could be taken to a certified technician, our vessel was attacked and my imprint was killed. She tells me that’s why I feel wrong with just two beats. I was programmed to monitor her life signs, to always listen for that third beat. I apparently simulate heartbeats to trick military scanners into believing I was alive. It’s quite a clever concept actually. I can’t help but be impressed with myself. Is that vain? Is it vanity to be impressed by yourself; by the creation of someone else that just happens to be you?
That’s too philosophical for me. I’m just a complex set of codes after all.
She says that I’ve been repaired as much as I can be, but that I’ll need to imprint again before I can operate at optimum parameters. She found the perfect candidate for me, you see. It’s a young female-very young by their species reckoning-who lost her home, her family, her entire world in the climax of a great and terrible war. They’ve put a memory block on her for now. It lets her get up in the morning and get on with her life without the terrible burden of such horrendous memories. Some might call it unfair, but I’d say it’s a mercy. A child should never have to deal with such things. Once she’s older and can handle it better, the block will slowly melt away, leaving her hale and whole. At least, that’s how She explained it to me.
My physical appearance is apparently too close to that of the child’s lost people. Seeing me would trigger too many painful memories, but She says they can make the imprint without any physical contact. It seems her kind are already primed for telepathic communication. Just a little push in the right direction, She said. I’m alright with a little push. For now, the child is still in her formative stages. I’m to be…a tutor of some sort to her as well as a companion. Someone to watch out for her even when no one else can be there. She says in order to make this as easy as possible, that She’ll have someone programme me with a set of false memories. Being able to draw information from a memory as opposed to raw data will make the transition of data easier and it will augment my programming into something her mind will accept rather than reject as foreign. That makes sense I suppose, but…
I have to wonder how it will feel to be someone else…to have memories that weren’t ever mine but will feel like mine. I can’t really tell her no, now can I? I mean, She was the one who saved me, pulled me from the hull of my transport ship and stabilized me before my entire circuitry could fail. Someone will be in shortly, She told me, to do the reprogramming and to pull the ghost of my mental circuitry to apply to the girl’s own mind.
Ah! Here he is now.
He’s a pleasant-looking fellow, with sandy-blonde hair and warm eyes. He doesn’t introduce himself or…say much of anything really, but he does offer me a friendly smile, and his touch is gentle as he affixes the cold metal to my temples.
“Close your eyes,” he instructs me softly. “It’ll make this easier.”
I obey and he presses a sequence of keys on his handheld device. Suddenly, I fully realize what he meant. Had my eyes been open, the juxtaposition of all of these flashes, memories, numbers and names and…feelings would have been too much. They are all quite overwhelming as it is.
A blink later, it stops and he pulls the metal from my skin. Check a few readings, he does, then leaves without so much as a glance behind him. Something in the data must have upset him, but I don’t have much attention to spare him, even though he was nice. I’ve got it all playing back to me now, slower-like a film. With a gentle sigh I turn myself to recline back on the couch in my chambers and let it all play for me. She told me to let it scroll over on repeat for a while. It will help integrate the information into my memory cortex, She said and it will also help them seem…more real, more intimate and personal to me.
The more I watch, the more I come to understand and things in my head that up until now had only been facts suddenly make much more sense with a story, with context to go with them. Odd how it all fits together so well, like pieces of a puzzle. These technicians really do know their stuff.
Tomorrow I’ll get to meet my new imprint-my pair-bond She called it. I suppose different species have different names for it. Who am I to judge? I can feel my adrenal mimicry units kick in, a fluttery feeling in my stomach that I can identify only as excitement. I suppose that’s only to be expected. The mimicry units will take some getting used to, I think. But when working with a mind that links first on a primal, empathic level, I have to be able to at least simulate these emotions. 24. Twenty four short hours; no. Less than that. Less than twenty four hours until I can be a whole unit again. Just one day to wait until that gaping, swirling void inside of me is sealed up, forever. Yes, She promised me forever. It seems this species-Time Lords they’re called-is uncommonly long-lived. Considering that with the proper maintenance, I’ll never decay, it’s sort of a nice thought.
It ends up taking a hell of a lot more time than twenty four bleeding hours. Two weeks. Two weeks I’ve been trapped down here, absorbing these memories until it feels like I’ve never been without them. I am them and they are me. What a change it’s had on my temper, too. I can’t stand much more of this, this being cooped up without even the child to look after, to teach. Pacing back and forth and to and fro I’ve about worn an indentation in the floor.
All these memories, all these stories…
In some of them, I’m called by my rightful designation; Theta Sigma. But those are some of the earliest ones. Some of the happiest ones too. Some of them. But then…it’s as if everything changes. There’s a new designation to go along with that. It’s…simple and yet… It’s as if it fits, but chafes.
The Doctor.
My name, but not my name. Theta Sigma isn’t even my name. That much I can tell. But no matter how far back I go into these memories I can never grasp quite what my true name is, my original name. All of these designations, these titles, but no true name. How can I identify with a person who has no name?
They really did a job on these though. This person, this Doctor I’m supposed to be…he’s brilliant and terrifying. He’s an angel and a demon all in one body. He’s got two hearts, like I’ve simulated two hearts. No problem there. His mind is massive and complex, quite like my own memory circuits, actually. It’s such a perfect fit that I think they must have custom designed all of this, just for me.
I thought that with these memories, I’d be more whole, feel closer to a solid unit again. But it’s like…the memories just drop off. I suppose that’s where my programming ends and so they didn’t feel the need to continue further. No matter. I’m an adaptive software. I’ll learn. I can fill in the gaps that matter and ignore the ones that don’t, yeah?
It aches though. I suppose that’s the lack of imprint. She told me there were negative side-effects to being without for too long. Damn it all but She was right. Ever since that boy came in and touched the metal bits to my head, I’ve felt like I’ve a hole somewhere. It’s like the entrance to a tunnel, but the other end’s just dangling there, useless. It hurts, the dangling. It’s like someone cut a cord and it’s just been left there. The ache gets worse every single day. It’s like…arthritis of the soul or something.
Aw, how sick is that? I don’t even have a soul!
I’m getting maudlin. Is that a side-effect of not having an imprint, you get all mopey and soppy? I really, really don’t like that. I mean, really.
I can’t pace anymore. It’s doing me no good and I think it might even be making me dizzy. How stupid is that? A computer getting dizzy… Still, a bit of a lie-down can’t hurt. Maybe I’ll drift off and idle until someone activates the other end. That’d be nice. A bit of a break from the pain, a bit of hush from all of the noise filling my heretofore empty head. I can feel my systems slowing down, my ‘heart rate’ settling, my ‘breathing’ easing into a resting pattern. My eyelids slide and flutter shut and I can feel myself begin to lose awareness of the world around me and then comes the slow tilt to my head that comes right before…
Fuck!
Just as I nearly hit sleep-or what passes for sleep with me-I feel a jolt of electricity race through my systems. It’s neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but I’m most certainly awake now. As if a live wire… A cord; that’s it! That gaping, shredded tunnel in my head is being yanked on. That bit of dangling connector is being pulled and stretched and the ends of it lined up towards another piece of wire until the two meet. It’s strange just how nicely they fit together, no pushing or mashing needed. It just…fits.
And then it hits me.
Like a freight train rushing down the tracks and ninety miles an hour, the massive amounts of thought, of feeling of being fly towards me, hit me and soak into me, into everything I am. It’s like a drug, this wave, filling every empty hole and crack and dent and crevice until, for the first time I can remember, I feel no pain. It goes beyond that, though. It’s not as if everything has been magically healed, but it’s like there was never any damage to begin with. There’s so much pleasure, so much joy and fullness inside my mind that it’s literally brimming. I want nothing more in this moment than to let it flow, let it spill over and share it. I want to give some of that which I have hungrily received.
I can feel it flowing down the connection; mental backwash, but it only makes it so far before it stops. It doesn’t slosh back to me and it doesn’t flow over to her it just…stops. I try to send more, force it through, but I can’t. The block-I can see it now-is the same one holding her from the nightmare that is her past. I can’t break that, not without doing irreparable damage to her mind and I can’t. I won’t. Not with these memories. Not now that I know what she is.
She is the last of a dead world. She is my-his-my-his people. She is all that is left. Pulling all of that energy back into my own mind, where I do my best to lock it up tightly, I feel her open up, just a little. What I can sense of her, just from that crack in the door, is an echo of the liquid energy locked up in a corner of my mind. Molten gold she is, pure and untainted by…by anything. How rare that is…how beautiful. Her mind is without a doubt, the single most beautiful thing I have ever seen, in my own memory or in the ones that…I suppose are mine now. She’s scared, I can tell. Not the sort of scared that means a real threat, but the kind that haunts you all day after a nightmare. Poor child.
“Hello!” I say as brightly as I can. I’m grinning like a loon now, I can feel it.
“Hello,” she replies, hesitant and in tones barely more than a whisper.
“Hello!” I do it again, just to see if I can make her laugh. It’s an old trick I used to use with Susan. Well, he used to use with Susan, anyway. She doesn’t seem to take the bait and I laugh, glimpsing a hint of her confusion. “I’m the-Theta by the way, pleasure meeting you, Alpha.” That much about her I did know from She. Eerie how close I came to using the designation from my dream memories. I stopped myself in time though. I can’t start off this imprint with a lie-and that name is quite clearly a lie-and…her designation is like mine, a letter of the Greek alphabet. That ought to make her a bit more comfortable anyway. “I’m to live in your head for the next while, teaching you all the nifty ins and outs to being a Time Lord."
That’s what we are, see. Well, what she is, anyway. Time Lords.
“Time Lady,” she corrects me and I quickly wrack those memories for any sign of that term. It’d make sense I suppose to have that designation differ by gender, but I can’t find a trace of it.
“Time Lord.” It’s just a simple statement. These memories, these things I know, I couldn’t honestly say much about them, but my knowledge is complete, that much I can say quite surely. I almost expect her to argue with me some more-she seems the type-but she doesn’t say a word. “Right then, shall we start?”
She considers this for a moment, I can feel the processes of her mind. She’s ready to agree. I know that before she even speaks and that gives me an idea… Hang on, there’s an interruption on her end. Something to do with a Resh or a Rush or someone being busy.
“Right! Course she does. Find us a place to start and we'll get moving, eh?” I’m talking fast, really fast. I apparently do that when something’s nagging at me. I can’t help it though. There’s something about her…I’ve no idea what she looks like, of course. Her mind doesn’t exactly have framed photos hanging on the walls, but at the same time… It’s the feel of her mind that’s familiar, how the ends fit without any change…
"Right, um...Theta, yeah? Have we met?" She feels it too! How odd…
"Anything's possible, I suppose. You do seem rather familiar...which regeneration are you on?" If she’s on a different regeneration, then sure her mind would feel at least a bit different, yeah? Might explain some of the oddities and if I could place her among all those Time Lords and Gallifreyans swimming about in my memories, we might have a starting point.
As if from behind a muffled wall, I hear a shocked “Theta!” She’s displeased with me and it only takes a split second to understand why. Not thick, me. If I can place the girl, what good would that do? All that stuff is locked up behind that block. How stupid am I? Honestly, I should have realized that before. There’s a chance I’ve met her before, somewhere in all these instances. But I just can’t say so.
Not yet.
"Ooh, right. Sorry, that was rude. I am a bit rude from time to time. Anyway, come on!" And as soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize they’re true. I am rude. Huh, my first emerging personality trait, how interesting.
At least she’s listening. And happy. I can feel that particular emotion bubbling up and spilling through that crack she’s holding open. Interesting… She has the block, but she can manipulate it a little. Not much, because quite a lot of it seems to be attached to the once severed connection, but enough of it that we can work with. I’m content with that, honestly.
It most definitely beats the pain.
Characters: Ten, later Ten/Rose
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst (I love how this will surprise no one) and Fluff *watches people die of shock* and existentialism of potted plants.
Spoilers: Through JE and then spoilers for other stories of mine, but nothing major there.
Word Count: 3176
Summary: Because that's what she does, my Rose. She lives everything so fully that the rest of us can't help ourselves. As we move into the Vortex--and by 'we' I mean the TARDIS and I--a thought strikes me and I start to laugh, even as tears leak out of my eyes. Even when she's universes away, on the other side of that damned white wall, she's still saving me.
A/N: As I promised, the ending of this particular bout of angst! Now comes confusion! I have a choice to make here. I can either pause here and start posting the companion to this story--so that you aren't completely lost as to some things--or I can finish this up, then post the companion one. Thoughts?
There are three and a half violets on my window-ledge.
I say three and a half because there’s a small bloom, a strange mix between mint and lavender in color, that hasn’t sprung open yet. It’s not fully out, nor is it fully in. It’s stuck in the middle, between the dark, safe world it knows and the brightly dangerous one it doesn’t. It’s a dangerous line to walk, but so far it’s been able to balance. That’s more than most of anything can manage, but I still call it a half.
That seems a bit callous of me, doesn’t it? Is it callous to call a bud half if it isn't real? If it's no more than an illusion created for my benefit; my distraction? It probably is, but I suppose that’s to be expected. I am only a programme after all.
That’s what my problem is, She said. She told me so and She is never wrong. She said I’m just a computer; granted a very, very advanced one, but a computer nonetheless. She says that’s why I know so very many things-facts, dates and names-but with no memory of learning them. It’s because I’ve always known. They were programmed into me. They are me. She told me that there had been a systems malfunction. I had been the personal assistant model of a computer used by the governmental elite. Each unit was psychologically imprinted on their owner, for security reasons. Even the best clone wouldn’t have the proper imprints and so I was safe.
When my system fractured in what She called an isotropic storm, it caused a loop. It’s why I kept seeing looped visions of that woman. The pretty blonde had been my owner. The psychological imprint had been holding my systems together until I could be repaired, but before I could be taken to a certified technician, our vessel was attacked and my imprint was killed. She tells me that’s why I feel wrong with just two beats. I was programmed to monitor her life signs, to always listen for that third beat. I apparently simulate heartbeats to trick military scanners into believing I was alive. It’s quite a clever concept actually. I can’t help but be impressed with myself. Is that vain? Is it vanity to be impressed by yourself; by the creation of someone else that just happens to be you?
That’s too philosophical for me. I’m just a complex set of codes after all.
She says that I’ve been repaired as much as I can be, but that I’ll need to imprint again before I can operate at optimum parameters. She found the perfect candidate for me, you see. It’s a young female-very young by their species reckoning-who lost her home, her family, her entire world in the climax of a great and terrible war. They’ve put a memory block on her for now. It lets her get up in the morning and get on with her life without the terrible burden of such horrendous memories. Some might call it unfair, but I’d say it’s a mercy. A child should never have to deal with such things. Once she’s older and can handle it better, the block will slowly melt away, leaving her hale and whole. At least, that’s how She explained it to me.
My physical appearance is apparently too close to that of the child’s lost people. Seeing me would trigger too many painful memories, but She says they can make the imprint without any physical contact. It seems her kind are already primed for telepathic communication. Just a little push in the right direction, She said. I’m alright with a little push. For now, the child is still in her formative stages. I’m to be…a tutor of some sort to her as well as a companion. Someone to watch out for her even when no one else can be there. She says in order to make this as easy as possible, that She’ll have someone programme me with a set of false memories. Being able to draw information from a memory as opposed to raw data will make the transition of data easier and it will augment my programming into something her mind will accept rather than reject as foreign. That makes sense I suppose, but…
I have to wonder how it will feel to be someone else…to have memories that weren’t ever mine but will feel like mine. I can’t really tell her no, now can I? I mean, She was the one who saved me, pulled me from the hull of my transport ship and stabilized me before my entire circuitry could fail. Someone will be in shortly, She told me, to do the reprogramming and to pull the ghost of my mental circuitry to apply to the girl’s own mind.
Ah! Here he is now.
He’s a pleasant-looking fellow, with sandy-blonde hair and warm eyes. He doesn’t introduce himself or…say much of anything really, but he does offer me a friendly smile, and his touch is gentle as he affixes the cold metal to my temples.
“Close your eyes,” he instructs me softly. “It’ll make this easier.”
I obey and he presses a sequence of keys on his handheld device. Suddenly, I fully realize what he meant. Had my eyes been open, the juxtaposition of all of these flashes, memories, numbers and names and…feelings would have been too much. They are all quite overwhelming as it is.
A blink later, it stops and he pulls the metal from my skin. Check a few readings, he does, then leaves without so much as a glance behind him. Something in the data must have upset him, but I don’t have much attention to spare him, even though he was nice. I’ve got it all playing back to me now, slower-like a film. With a gentle sigh I turn myself to recline back on the couch in my chambers and let it all play for me. She told me to let it scroll over on repeat for a while. It will help integrate the information into my memory cortex, She said and it will also help them seem…more real, more intimate and personal to me.
The more I watch, the more I come to understand and things in my head that up until now had only been facts suddenly make much more sense with a story, with context to go with them. Odd how it all fits together so well, like pieces of a puzzle. These technicians really do know their stuff.
Tomorrow I’ll get to meet my new imprint-my pair-bond She called it. I suppose different species have different names for it. Who am I to judge? I can feel my adrenal mimicry units kick in, a fluttery feeling in my stomach that I can identify only as excitement. I suppose that’s only to be expected. The mimicry units will take some getting used to, I think. But when working with a mind that links first on a primal, empathic level, I have to be able to at least simulate these emotions. 24. Twenty four short hours; no. Less than that. Less than twenty four hours until I can be a whole unit again. Just one day to wait until that gaping, swirling void inside of me is sealed up, forever. Yes, She promised me forever. It seems this species-Time Lords they’re called-is uncommonly long-lived. Considering that with the proper maintenance, I’ll never decay, it’s sort of a nice thought.
It ends up taking a hell of a lot more time than twenty four bleeding hours. Two weeks. Two weeks I’ve been trapped down here, absorbing these memories until it feels like I’ve never been without them. I am them and they are me. What a change it’s had on my temper, too. I can’t stand much more of this, this being cooped up without even the child to look after, to teach. Pacing back and forth and to and fro I’ve about worn an indentation in the floor.
All these memories, all these stories…
In some of them, I’m called by my rightful designation; Theta Sigma. But those are some of the earliest ones. Some of the happiest ones too. Some of them. But then…it’s as if everything changes. There’s a new designation to go along with that. It’s…simple and yet… It’s as if it fits, but chafes.
The Doctor.
My name, but not my name. Theta Sigma isn’t even my name. That much I can tell. But no matter how far back I go into these memories I can never grasp quite what my true name is, my original name. All of these designations, these titles, but no true name. How can I identify with a person who has no name?
They really did a job on these though. This person, this Doctor I’m supposed to be…he’s brilliant and terrifying. He’s an angel and a demon all in one body. He’s got two hearts, like I’ve simulated two hearts. No problem there. His mind is massive and complex, quite like my own memory circuits, actually. It’s such a perfect fit that I think they must have custom designed all of this, just for me.
I thought that with these memories, I’d be more whole, feel closer to a solid unit again. But it’s like…the memories just drop off. I suppose that’s where my programming ends and so they didn’t feel the need to continue further. No matter. I’m an adaptive software. I’ll learn. I can fill in the gaps that matter and ignore the ones that don’t, yeah?
It aches though. I suppose that’s the lack of imprint. She told me there were negative side-effects to being without for too long. Damn it all but She was right. Ever since that boy came in and touched the metal bits to my head, I’ve felt like I’ve a hole somewhere. It’s like the entrance to a tunnel, but the other end’s just dangling there, useless. It hurts, the dangling. It’s like someone cut a cord and it’s just been left there. The ache gets worse every single day. It’s like…arthritis of the soul or something.
Aw, how sick is that? I don’t even have a soul!
I’m getting maudlin. Is that a side-effect of not having an imprint, you get all mopey and soppy? I really, really don’t like that. I mean, really.
I can’t pace anymore. It’s doing me no good and I think it might even be making me dizzy. How stupid is that? A computer getting dizzy… Still, a bit of a lie-down can’t hurt. Maybe I’ll drift off and idle until someone activates the other end. That’d be nice. A bit of a break from the pain, a bit of hush from all of the noise filling my heretofore empty head. I can feel my systems slowing down, my ‘heart rate’ settling, my ‘breathing’ easing into a resting pattern. My eyelids slide and flutter shut and I can feel myself begin to lose awareness of the world around me and then comes the slow tilt to my head that comes right before…
Fuck!
Just as I nearly hit sleep-or what passes for sleep with me-I feel a jolt of electricity race through my systems. It’s neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but I’m most certainly awake now. As if a live wire… A cord; that’s it! That gaping, shredded tunnel in my head is being yanked on. That bit of dangling connector is being pulled and stretched and the ends of it lined up towards another piece of wire until the two meet. It’s strange just how nicely they fit together, no pushing or mashing needed. It just…fits.
And then it hits me.
Like a freight train rushing down the tracks and ninety miles an hour, the massive amounts of thought, of feeling of being fly towards me, hit me and soak into me, into everything I am. It’s like a drug, this wave, filling every empty hole and crack and dent and crevice until, for the first time I can remember, I feel no pain. It goes beyond that, though. It’s not as if everything has been magically healed, but it’s like there was never any damage to begin with. There’s so much pleasure, so much joy and fullness inside my mind that it’s literally brimming. I want nothing more in this moment than to let it flow, let it spill over and share it. I want to give some of that which I have hungrily received.
I can feel it flowing down the connection; mental backwash, but it only makes it so far before it stops. It doesn’t slosh back to me and it doesn’t flow over to her it just…stops. I try to send more, force it through, but I can’t. The block-I can see it now-is the same one holding her from the nightmare that is her past. I can’t break that, not without doing irreparable damage to her mind and I can’t. I won’t. Not with these memories. Not now that I know what she is.
She is the last of a dead world. She is my-his-my-his people. She is all that is left. Pulling all of that energy back into my own mind, where I do my best to lock it up tightly, I feel her open up, just a little. What I can sense of her, just from that crack in the door, is an echo of the liquid energy locked up in a corner of my mind. Molten gold she is, pure and untainted by…by anything. How rare that is…how beautiful. Her mind is without a doubt, the single most beautiful thing I have ever seen, in my own memory or in the ones that…I suppose are mine now. She’s scared, I can tell. Not the sort of scared that means a real threat, but the kind that haunts you all day after a nightmare. Poor child.
“Hello!” I say as brightly as I can. I’m grinning like a loon now, I can feel it.
“Hello,” she replies, hesitant and in tones barely more than a whisper.
“Hello!” I do it again, just to see if I can make her laugh. It’s an old trick I used to use with Susan. Well, he used to use with Susan, anyway. She doesn’t seem to take the bait and I laugh, glimpsing a hint of her confusion. “I’m the-Theta by the way, pleasure meeting you, Alpha.” That much about her I did know from She. Eerie how close I came to using the designation from my dream memories. I stopped myself in time though. I can’t start off this imprint with a lie-and that name is quite clearly a lie-and…her designation is like mine, a letter of the Greek alphabet. That ought to make her a bit more comfortable anyway. “I’m to live in your head for the next while, teaching you all the nifty ins and outs to being a Time Lord."
That’s what we are, see. Well, what she is, anyway. Time Lords.
“Time Lady,” she corrects me and I quickly wrack those memories for any sign of that term. It’d make sense I suppose to have that designation differ by gender, but I can’t find a trace of it.
“Time Lord.” It’s just a simple statement. These memories, these things I know, I couldn’t honestly say much about them, but my knowledge is complete, that much I can say quite surely. I almost expect her to argue with me some more-she seems the type-but she doesn’t say a word. “Right then, shall we start?”
She considers this for a moment, I can feel the processes of her mind. She’s ready to agree. I know that before she even speaks and that gives me an idea… Hang on, there’s an interruption on her end. Something to do with a Resh or a Rush or someone being busy.
“Right! Course she does. Find us a place to start and we'll get moving, eh?” I’m talking fast, really fast. I apparently do that when something’s nagging at me. I can’t help it though. There’s something about her…I’ve no idea what she looks like, of course. Her mind doesn’t exactly have framed photos hanging on the walls, but at the same time… It’s the feel of her mind that’s familiar, how the ends fit without any change…
"Right, um...Theta, yeah? Have we met?" She feels it too! How odd…
"Anything's possible, I suppose. You do seem rather familiar...which regeneration are you on?" If she’s on a different regeneration, then sure her mind would feel at least a bit different, yeah? Might explain some of the oddities and if I could place her among all those Time Lords and Gallifreyans swimming about in my memories, we might have a starting point.
As if from behind a muffled wall, I hear a shocked “Theta!” She’s displeased with me and it only takes a split second to understand why. Not thick, me. If I can place the girl, what good would that do? All that stuff is locked up behind that block. How stupid am I? Honestly, I should have realized that before. There’s a chance I’ve met her before, somewhere in all these instances. But I just can’t say so.
Not yet.
"Ooh, right. Sorry, that was rude. I am a bit rude from time to time. Anyway, come on!" And as soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize they’re true. I am rude. Huh, my first emerging personality trait, how interesting.
At least she’s listening. And happy. I can feel that particular emotion bubbling up and spilling through that crack she’s holding open. Interesting… She has the block, but she can manipulate it a little. Not much, because quite a lot of it seems to be attached to the once severed connection, but enough of it that we can work with. I’m content with that, honestly.
It most definitely beats the pain.