12/13 x Missy (Twissy) - Stand With Me

1 - I'm Here

A/N: Trigger warning. This takes place before and during Series 10 - L x

He could hear her voice, a tiny telepathic message which spoke to him across time and space. "Doctor, are you there?" A sigh of relief escaped his lips before he had chance to catch it - she was okay, well, alive at least.
He always had an inkling that she had, though a horrible feeling came in his stomach when she never turned up on Gallifrey. Time Lords were empathetic, you see. It was one of the reasons why he never tried to remember what happened originally on the last day of the Time War. All of that pain, all of that suffering, as the Gallifreyans ran from the destructive rays of The Moment, The Doctor felt everything. All it did was add to his guilt.
He waited on Gallifrey for many months for Missy. Either her arrival or her death. Unlike most other Time Lords, whose death met the Doctor as just a horrible feeling or dull ache, Missy's would be like The Doctor was experiencing it first-hand. A telepathic link like theirs meant that if such situation occured, then the other shared the same distress, the same cutting pain. He left after seven months, disappointed to say the least. He thought she had changed, obviously he was wrong.
While he sat on the edge of a hill on the planet Floras (one of their favourites when they first started travelling together) waiting for his Koschei to find him, he thought about the link they shared. It had brought them so much grief, but brought them closer than ever. He looked over the golden fields that interlocked, bordered by white, picket fences. They were peppered with little crimson barns and a river meandered through the gilded surroundings, reflecting the burnished orange of the sky. It reminded him so much of Gallifrey that he almost felt like a child again, when things were simple. There wasn't a good side or a bad one, there wasn't any responsibility or feeling like the weight of the universe rested on your shoulders. It was just the two of them. What or who else did they need?

:/:
The Academy, Gallifrey, Around 2000 years prior

Theta sighed, looking to the seat beside him. Another lecture on dematerialisation circuits without Koschei. The lecture hall stretched far in front of him, with deep red drapes slung over the rafters and bulbous oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. He looked at the book in front of him, the circular Gallifreyan curving beautifully over the paper. He had spent an entire summer copying out the works of their lecturer on TARDIS mechanics, thinking that they would all be given a TARDIS to travel the universe. Six months later, he was still here, being told about the galaxies, instead of seeing them himself. Boredom was not enough to describe it.

"Right class. Look sharp", a booming voice echoed through the hall. A few rows in front of him was a grand-looking Gallifreyan, clad in scarlet robes embroidered in gold, and a gilded collar sat on his shoulders - the mark of a Time Lord. "So..." He started, flicking his hand forward. A blue light glowed slightly and then constructed a dematerialisation circuit as a hologram. Theta recognised it from the lesson before. "Dematerialisation circuits. What do we remember from yesterday?" Not a single hand raised, until a dark-haired girl in the front row eventually did.

"Yes, uh", he began, looking at his register. "Romanadvoratrelundar". The student chuckled. "Is there something funny, Miss Dvoratrelundar?"

"No, it's just you're probably the first person to actually be able to pronounce my name", the pupil answered in a lilted voice. "Most people just call me Romana".

"Well then, Romana. What do you remember from yesterday?"

"Well, Madame Llorvartasian said that the dematerialisation circuit is one of the most important components of a Type 40 TARDIS and, if it is missing, the vessel cannot take off. If..." Romana continued for quite some time, reciting the knowledge that she had gained, and Theta promptly switched off. Where was Koschei? It wasn't like him to skip lessons, though dematerialisation circuits weren't exactly his favourite topic after the incident with one of his old teachers. Theta always thought that she was a little harsh holding him against a wall. But in The Academy, genius sparked the next generation of Time Lords that would serve and protect Gallifrey, and they went to often extreme lengths to create it. And they got results, they always got results, even if it meant breaking the students in the process.
Staring at the wall, the entire situation seemed to just merge into noise around Theta, until he felt a sharp pain in his forearm. He turned his arm over to see no mark or indication of why it suddenly started occuring. It grew in intensity, making him wince audibly.