Lost in the Universe

xxvii

"Jesus Christ! Get a room!"

They broke the kiss. Nina laughed gently at Jack's reaction, while the Doctor pouted after being interrupted.

"We had a room," Nina remarked smugly. "You're the one who walked in." She started to stand up, placing her hands on the Doctor's shoulders for support, but he grabbed the collar of her shirt and pulled her back down, pecking her lips one last time. Nina chuckled, but then actually stood up and sat back down on her own cement block. Jack rolled his eyes.

Martha walked in a few moments later, and her and Jack settled down around the cement block they were using as a table. The Doctor had placed her laptop on it as he waited for information.

"Anything new?" She asked. Jack explained what he had done to his vortex manipulator. "I meant about my family," she corrected. The Doctor told her about how they had been taken into questioning, but there was no mention of Leo. "He's not as daft as he looks," she said with a smile, but soon her face fell and she frowned. "I'm talking about my brother on the run. How did this happen?"

An awkward silence fell between the four of them as Martha and Jack shared a look.

"Speaking about brothers..." Jack trailled off. Nina scoffed. Was this how he was going to introduce the subject? "No offence, Nina, but how come the Time Lords created a psycopath." Nina literally laughed at that question.

"Honnestly, that's a great question," she told him with a laugh that sounded way more like a scoff. The Doctor cringed at her new attempt to appear fine when she definetly wasn't.

"But all the legends of Gallifrey made it sound so perfect," Jack argued.

"Well, perfect to look at, maybe," The Doctor agreed. "And it was, it was beautiful," he said, leaning back. "They used to call it the Shining World of the Seven Systems. And on the Continent of Wild Endeavour, in the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, there stood the Citadel of the Time Lords..." Arcadia, Nina thought. "The oldest and most mighty race in the universe..."

Nina debated with herself on commenting about them being destroyed by the daleks, but decided not to. It would kind of kill the magic of nostalgia.

"Looking down on the galaxies below, sworn never to interfere., only to watch..." he continued. "Children of Gallifrey, taken from their families at the age of eight to enter the Academy."

"A bit young, if you ask me," Nina commented. She remembered her time at the Academy. She appreciated becoming a TimeLady, but her time in there was hell.

"Very," the Doctor agreed. "And some say that's when it all began. When he was a child... that's when the Master saw eternity," he said. "As a novice, he was taken for initiation, it's a gap in the fabric of reality through which could be seen the whole of the vortex. You stand there, eight years old... staring at the raw power of time and space, just a child. Some would be inspired... some would run away... and some would go mad."

Nina smiled. The Doctor had obviously ran away. He was still running away.

"What are you smiling about?" The Doctor asked her with an amused look on his face. Martha and Jack's eyes turned to her face.

"Nothing, dear," she waved off. "Just realising that you definetly ran away," she smirked. He scoffed lightly with a smile on his face.

"Of course I did," he confirmed. "Look at me, I still am."

"What about you?" Jack asked Nina.

"Was that what gave you the whole 'seeing the future' thing?" Martha asked. Nina didn't even know Martha was aware of that particulat ability of hers. The Doctor had probably filled her in.

"Yeah, actually," Nina nodded. "That's what gave me the 'future' thing," she said.

"You should have seen it," the Doctor continued, a dreamy look on his face. Nina smiled at him. "Beautiful, truly beautiful, that big old planet. The Capitol, Arcadia..." Nina scoffed and he paused, making the two humans look at her. "What?" He asked.

"Of course those were going to be the two cities mentioned by you," she scoffed again jokingly. "The Capitol, The Great Arcadia," she made exaggerated gestures with her hands. "Gallifrey's two biggest and richest cities. It's like describing the United Kingdom only speaking of London, or describing Brazil only speaking of Rio." Martha and Jack laughed at her exaggerated hand movements.

"I'm guessing you're not from either of those places," Jack asked. Nina shook her head.

"I'm from the Drylands. According to Rassilion, it was the place where nobody that mattered lived," she explained. "And yet, here I am," she winked at the Doctor. "It was, by far, the prettiest sight in that planet. You don't go to a new place to see buildings, that's what you get in Arcadia. You go to see the view."

"There was a view from Arcadia," the Doctor argued.

"Not like in the Drylands," Nina corrected. "I'm telling you. From my window, every morning, I'd see the second sun coming up in the horizon, it's red rays shinning on the silver leaves of the Quiet Groove, and the whole forest would look like it was on fire. It truly was... it was quite a sight." She sighed, her eyes dreamy.

"Okay, Geez," Jack scoffed. "We get it. Your palnet was prettier than ours." Suddenly, his manipulator beeped, and everyone's faces fell into seriousness once more.