Birth of a Time Lady

Silence

She could hardly believe it was actually gone. Even after staring for days at the empty space where her planet used to be, it still made her stomach churn every time. She should see Gallifrey. Not the black, empty space strewn with debris that had replaced it.

She didn't want to leave. Even if she did, she had nowhere else to go. She had no way of knowing where any sympathetic Time Lords might be, scattered around the galaxy and fighting their own battles. Or if they would even believe her, without any word from the Council.

She had tried every radio station, every broadcasting channel, and had been met with silence on each one. She had no contact from any Time Lord, anywhere. Not in this time zone. And likely not in any other. There was no telling how many of those Time Lords had been trapped on Gallifrey when it had gone.

What if it was all of them?

What if she was the last of her species?

The thought made her shudder and tremble. Her screams of pain and loss that had followed her initial discovery started all over again. She pounded on the console and cockpit of her ship, rebelling against her circumstances as much as she could. It did her no good. She was still painfully alive, and painfully alone. There wasn't a single creature in the universe who could hear her anguish.

When her screams died down to a whimper, and she curled into a ball in her seat, all she could do was feel sorry for herself. It would have been so much easier if the Daleks had just killed her. But no. She had survived their torture, she had escaped her prison, and for what? To see her home and her people destroyed before her eyes. And her ship had no provisions. If she stayed here, hovering in space above what used to be, she was going to die of starvation eventually anyway. And hell, that may be the case of she actually tried to go anywhere. Journeys took time, and time required nutrition. As things were, her fate was pretty grim no matter what she did.

The thought didn't bother her; she didn't care if she died. But by now, her survival instincts were too strong. They wouldn't allow her to just waste away into nothing, as she almost longed to do. Survival demanded action.

When she finally dragged herself into the cargo area, she investigated what she did have on hand. Parts, circuits, half destroyed tardises.

Hmm. Must have been a transport ship the Time Lords borrowed from their allies. That would explain the lack of provisions: it had never been intended to be used as a deep space vessel, just a recovery vehicle. But then, if it was to be used for recovery, wouldn't it be standard practice if...

She shoved aside a few chunks of material, and soon she found what she was looking for. A cryogenic sleep chamber. Used for recovering the pilot, in addition to the vehicle. And it appeared to be mostly in working order.

She had a way out now. With minimal repairs, she could get the chamber running, and place herself inside it. All she would need then was a destination.

It was two days more before she started to feel the effects of hunger. But by then, the repairs were complete. She had worked continually, almost without sleep, and now she had a working stasis room. As well as a little something else.

She hesitated before hard wiring the final piece in. The chameleon arch she had fashioned from the tardis wreckage would wipe her memory while she was in stasis, if she included it. And once she did include it, there was no way to remove it again. She was voluntarily giving up all memory of who she was, and where she came from, if she followed through on her plan. This wasn't a decision to take lightly.

But it was an easy one to make. She couldn't live with this pain any longer. To have any chance of truly surviving, of moving on, she had no choice but to forget. With a single use of solder, it was done. The pod first processed, then accepted its new hardware. Time to go.

She went back to the cockpit, looking out of the glass window as she went to enter the coordinates. That empty space still haunted her. Tears started to sting her eyes all over again and she entered the coordinates haphazardly before running back to cargo. Wherever she ended up, it would be better than here.

She slid inside the pod and flipped the switch to close it. Even as she felt the ship start to move, and fire its engines, she felt herself drifting to sleep. Her repairs had worked, then. Why was she leaving though? The tears in her faded, and she started to forget why she was crying in the first place.

Oh well. She would remember in the morning.