"That watch? Where is it now?" His words were fast and serious, quiet but very hard. It almost scared Isabelle as she noticed him refraining from grabbing hold of her.
"The watch? It's in my room I think. Why?" Without another word, the Doctor took off running towards her house, flying straight through the front door. He acted so suddenly, Isabelle jumped and then hesitated before actually running off after him.
An idiot would have guessed where he was going and she ran up the stairs as fast as she could, seeing the ladder to the attic already pulled down. She climbed the steps carefully, peeking her head through the hole in the floor first before lifting herself through.
"Hey, excuse me sir!" Isabelle called out when she saw the man going through her things without a care. "What are you doing? This is my room!"
"Where is the watch?" Rolling her eyes when she didn't get an answer, Isabelle walked over to a small table by her bedside and pulled open the top draw. It wasn't there, causing her to frown, so she moved on to the second draw and then the third where she eventually lifted the watch out by the thin silver chain and held it in her hand while the Doctor stilled.
"Here, I don't know why it is so important." Isabelle whispered, seeing the mans eyes widen. "Are you some sort of collector? Is it valuable?" Some money would be welcomed, even just a few pennies to keep for herself.
"You said you were found with this watch?" He asked, but she only nodded. "Have you ever opened it?"
"No it's broken, I told you it didn't even work when I came here twelve years ago." Isabelle frowned.
"How do you know it's broken if you've never opened it?" He questioned, looking up and meeting her eyes.
There was something there behind his eyes as if he was silently asking her something, or searching for something inside of her. He looked desperate as his hand reached out, but just as his fingers were about to graze the silver, he pulled away.
The markings on the top cover seemed to capture his attention more than anything, they were what pushed him away. But they were just strange silly scratchings, they didn't mean anything and they certainly weren't anything to be afraid of.
"I don't...know." Isabelle finally took a second to look down at the circle of silver lying in her palm and frowned. Had she really never opened it? That didn't make sense. All she ever wanted to know was what happened to her own family so why would she have never opened the one thing to which may have gave her an answer. "It's just broken, you can't hear anything. And it...it's old and ...." She didn't even believe her own words. Her head started to pulse harder as she looked at the Doctor and tried to listen to all of the questions swirling around her mind.
"Why don't you open it?" Isabelle looked at the Doctor, frowning at how eager he sounded, and then back at the watch.
"No." Immediately she shook her head. "No, I don't think I should..." As she went to take a breath, her head went dizzy and all too quickly her knees give way. Before she could hit the floor, the Doctor leapt forward and caught her, holding her up.
'Time Lord. Doctor. Save Them. Time War. The Last One. Time War. Doctor.'
"Doctor? You're the Doctor?" She muttered breathlessly, staring up at him. "Who are you? Why? Why are you in my head?" Isabelle cried, putting her feet to the floor and pushing his hands off of her.
"How old are you?" The Doctor asked, looking over her face.
"What? Why does that matter!" She yelled at him. "I...don't know...I don't know!" She shook her head as tears began to fall from her eyes. There was no reason for them, nothing had happened and everything was over now, all the families had returned but something was still wrong with her. "I guess...30....40?....I'm sorry Doctor, I told you, I really do not remember."
"I think Isabelle..." The Doctor started but paused. "You should hold the watch and listen, see if it really is broken." She didn't understand. This was all nonsense. Stupid stupid nonsense.
And the Doctor saw all this going through her head. So ever so slowly, he crept forward until he stood only inches away and then wrapped his hand around her own as well as the watch.
What flashed behind her eyes next was so much more than the pain or the voices she had heard over the past few days. There were images, sounds and smells and pictures like a dream. She was in a house, a pretty little white house with gardens stretching as far as the eye can see. Then it changed and she was in a library, at least it looked like one but it was old and large and full of colour with a glass ceiling and massive golden statues. And then there was the room, the one she had mentioned, the one which lived. Dark blue lights shone out of the floor illuminating a hollow glass column, wires hung from the ceiling randomly and gold details glimmered in the soft light from all around. It hummed, right there in her mind it hummed as if calling her home.
Then, the lights dimmed before they eventually went out one by one and the humming turned to screams and the walls of the room began to collapse, revealing the fire all around. And then she was running, running across the rubble. Running until it all went black.
The Doctor let go before she did and his eyes bore into hers. He looked terrified, devastated, as his eyes turned glassy and cold. Had he seen it too, just then? Had he seen what was in her head?
She looked down at the watch again before lifting it to her ear, quivering. She didn't even have to bring it against her completely to hear the soft whispers flowing from what she had always assumed to be junk.
'It's time. He's back, he found you. She can return. Open the watch...the Doctor returns. Please, open the watch'
"It's speaking to me, but it can't be! It can't!" Isabelle stood, throwing the watch down onto the bed and turning away from the Doctor. "It's a watch! Watches can't talk!"
"It can, it's possible. Everything's possible." The Doctor whispered, standing with her and taking her by the shoulders to turn her back to him. "And I'm the Doctor, I...I'm a Time Lord. It's a hard thing to explain but I'm not human, I come from Gallifrey." He smiled when her face changed and she looked up to him, a smile showing itself for a second before it disappeared.
"That sounds familiar. Isn't it Irish?" He began to laugh at her question and could only begin to shake his head slowly.
"Oh no." Isabelle watched his smile, it was warm. He was comfortable, this Doctor. Even though it was like he was from a different time and so strange and so unfamiliar. "A little further than that." He watched her for a few moments.
The way she flinched as the door downstairs slammed. The way her eyes kept glancing about, waiting to be scolded. She didn't look happy, the Doctor knew what happy looked like, and he could see sadness in her. She had become distressed looking at the watch and he needed to take a different approach if there was any chance of getting her to consider opening it.
"You're not happy here?" Isabelle shrugged her shoulders and wiped her eyes, sitting down on the bed.
"As I said, it will hopefully be much better now Mr Connelly has left." Shyness, she was such a shy girl. But he knew, if his suspicions were right, which they had to be, then there was a completely different person hiding inside that watch.
He couldn't get too eager or excited at an idea or a hunch. He couldn't let himself believe he wasn't the only one until the living proof was in front of him.
"But you still don't feel right? You've never felt like you fit in, have you? All you can remember is feeling like you weren't the same, like you were different. Like...like you were the only one?" The Doctor rambled but it hit her like a tone of bricks.
"Right...Mr Connelly made sure to tell me I wasn't right in the head." Walking around the bed, she took the notebook out from under her pillow and held it out to the Doctor with slight hesitation. He looked at it questioningly."It's my diary. I write down what I dream, or at least what I remember of them. And things that come to me." The Doctor took it, never taking his eyes off Isabelle, and then began flicking through the pages, adjusting the way his glasses sat on his nose every few seconds. "It's strange. I only become interesting in my dreams. No wonder they all say I'm mad." She forced a chuckle as the Doctor stopped on one particular page.
A tin machine. She had obviously been sewing a little too long that day as it resembled a dimpled thimble, just little bits stuck on, a whisk and a couple of wheels.
"What's wrong with me Doctor?" She was weak, barely speaking. "Why are those things in my head and who are you?"
"I think Isabelle, that you need to come with me." He seemed to sigh through his teeth and picked up the watch, putting in his coat pocket as well as the diary.
"What? Where to?"
"Oh, just around the corner. Nothing to worry about, I'll have you back home before the party's over." The Doctor walked over to the ladder which would take him down to the second floor of the house. She stayed however, stuck to the floor. "I'll answer any question you have Isabelle, you have my word, just please, please come with me." She didn't say anything then, just silently followed him.
They walked out of the house calmly as if there was nothing wrong even though both of their minds were running at one hindered miles an hour. Half way down the street, Rose joined them as she began walking by the Doctors side and Isabelle stayed slightly behind the both of them, constantly glancing around for anyone watching. The girl kept asking questions to the Doctor, wanting to know what was going on and where they were going. But he didn't say anything much, or if he did Isabelle couldn't hear it.
It took a few minutes for them to walk down several streets, all the while Isabelle never questioned where she was being taken too. She only faintly smiled when the Doctor turned back and grabbed her hand half way through the walk, squeezing it just enough to reassure her. Her heart had began to beat faster and it almost shattered completely when they turned into an alley and it stood there.
"The box?" The words fell from her mouth before she could register thinking them. A blue police box stood in front of the three of them in the middle of a slim alley, just there as if it should have been there. The only shock to her was the recognition, otherwise she probably wouldn't have given it a second glance.
"You know about the TARDIS?" Rose asked, her face twisting unpleasantly.
"Rose." Shaking his head after the Doctor caught her attention, she silenced. Then he went to Isabelle's side, whispering to her. "You recognise it?"
"Yes but...I've never seen it..." She trailed off, unable to explain it and put a hand to her head as it pulsed with pain. You couldn't recognise something you had never seen, it was impossible.
"That's alright." He put a hand on the girl's shoulder and guided her forward towards it. The words came over and over, breathless voices talking to her and only her as he held her and unlocked the door. They were easier to ignore the longer they stayed and the calmer she remained.
Isabelle ran her eyes over the small details, such as the out of date poster on the door and the phone hatch on the side of the box. But then her eyes snapped forward when the door was pushed open and she was allowed to enter first.
Voices left, drowned out by shock. She stumbled backwards, out of the doors and then walked back through, up the grated ramp.
"What...it's impossible." It was almost identical, apart from a few changes here and there. It was a large room, a very strange and large electrical room with a column planted right in the centre of it, a board of controls surrounding it and wrapping around the glowing point of focus. There were weird columns around the rest of the room, all lit up. The floor was made metal grates that clinked under her feet no matter how light she walked and underneath looked to be stores full of bits and bobs.
She should have been shocked but it all evaporated very quickly and Isabelle took off running, straight over to the controls with the Doctor on her heels.
He never interfered, only observed. He watched as Isabelle ran her fingers over all of the buttons and switches, wrapping her hand around levers and brushing her fingers agains the scanner, always smiling. She took care, however, to be careful so that nothing was pressed or moved, she barely even disturbed the dust.
'TARDIS...TIME...SPACE...Doctor...TARDIS'
"Doctor?" She whispered breathlessly. "What is this?"
"This is the TARDIS. Stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It's my ship." He paused for a second to gage her but she was still walking slowly in circles, still smiling. "I can travel in time...to anywhere, past or future and to any planet in existence."
Isabelle's eyes turned glassy, but a front came down and against her will her lips pouted, smirking as she narrowed her eyes at the Doctor tauntingly.
"Oh, tell the truth." And then whatever it was lifted, leaving her stood there with a strange man, feeling like a fool. "That...that wasn't..." He began to chuckle but his eyes turned sad. Hearing a little bit of the truth made it all the more hard to withhold his hope.
"It's who you really are."
She questioned him, internally, but shook it off. She was her, she was her...and so she just chuckled along with him
"So if I wanted to see the stars? Then you could-"
"Right now, just say the word." The Doctor nodded, and although he was smiling at her she knew, she could tell by his eyes that he was deadly serious and it made her smile, until she noticed Rose stood by the door of the box, looking at her.
"No, I- I believe you. But...why did you bring me here?" Her eyes left the Doctor as they explored the room. A light humming could be heard ever since the Doctor had stepped aboard, keeping a well timed rhythm as the centre column glowed. She was dreaming, she had to be dreaming.
"To see if you'd remember anything." He answered slowly. "How would you feel about opening this now?" Taking the fob watch out of his pocket, he threw it to her and she caught it awkwardly, holding it in both hands like a child would hold a baby bird. A strong storm was brewing in her mind, she could feel it beginning to twist and spin and unbalance her. Only this time it wasn't painful, it was a force trying to drive her.
'Open the watch. It's time. He's back. Open the watch'
"I don't want to." Her face visibly dropped and twisted and the Doctor already knew why. He had no doubt a perception filter had been put on the watch, proven by the fact she could barely look at her hands for more than a second. The voices she would be hearing would be right though. She didn't belong here and it was time to return, no matter who she would turn out to be, no matter why she was hiding, it was time.
"Open the watch Isabelle." He spoke.
"Why?" Beginning to get defensive, she dropped her arm and let the watch hang by her side. "What is all this? I don't understand!" The Doctor took a step forward but stopped, he was trying so hard to contain himself; to contain the fear and the overwhelming emotions building in him. All of the evidence led to it being true. But she was starting to become stressed just like she had in her room.
"I know, I know...I know more than anyone how strange this all is. But trust me Isabelle, there is more to you...so much more. It's nothing to be afraid of, but the watch calls to you. It wants to be opened." Even though he tried to explain to her and calm her, it still made no sense to her and she ended up shaking her head, biting her lips anxiously and she fidgeted.
Isabelle looked down at the watch again and listened as the voice whispered to her. All these words, all these things she didn't know. Were they meant to make sense? Maybe this wasn't meant for her, maybe it was meant for another. Perhaps it was someone else's watch, perhaps this was all a mistake. It belonged to another who was smarter and better and knew things.
"There's been a mistake, this must be someone else's Doctor. It's not mine."
"No, it yours because it speaks to you. It only talks to you." He talked softly. "What does it say?"
"They want to be released...they...she-" She changed her words when the voice became clearer, it was a woman. "She wants to wake up." It didn't sound anything like her, the voice, she sounded different, older...
"Then awaken her." His face didn't change apart from an eyebrow raising slightly as he spoke. The Doctor still looked on a borderline between sad and happy, his lips were turned up in a small smile but his eyes looked sad and that's what scared her.
"What will happen? Will...it's me isn't it?" It was like a penny dropping in her head. "Whatever is in here talking, it's going to go into me isn't it? I'm going to..." Isabelle couldn't bring herself to finish what she knew.
"No, you'll still be in there somewhere. But you'll be so much more." The Doctor watched as she stared hard at the watch, her slender fingers playing with it, going over the engravings. "Everything you are, everything you're capable of now you'll be able to do. It'll just be better, bigger..." Isabelle looked up to him, smiling for only a second before she nodded and smiled and then without warning, without giving herself a chance to runaway, she flicked open the watch.
A dark golden light was unleashed into the air from the open watch as it fell from her hand and landed on the ground. The clash of metal however, couldn't be heard over the high pitched ringing which accompanied the rush of light threatening to blind Rose and the Doctor. It swirled and danced around the girl, running up from her fingers to her around her torso and head until her features could no longer be seen. She was a wrapped in gold and released in a song.
"What's that? What's happening?" Rose rushed forward to stand next to the Doctor who outstretched a hand to keep her back. "She looks like you when you...regenerated."
"She's a Time Lord....This..." He whispered, unable to take his eyes of the woman's glowing form.
"But I thought you said you were the last. That they were all dead?" Rose frowned.
The Doctor nodded but couldn't help but grin when he felt a gentle hum in the back of his head as she started to return to her true Time Lord form. The hum which told every Time Lord when they were looking at another, which helped them distinguish species from species; the hum he had believed he would never hear again.
"I thought I was but...one has been in hiding."
"In a watch?" Rose scoffed but got no reply. "Do you know her?" The question came but it was a hard one to answer.
"Not now, she's put herself into a human form. That's why I couldn't feel them, before in my head." He spoke and tapped his temple with one finger. "I don't recognise her but she could have regenerated, I'll only know when..."
The Doctor failed to finish as the watch snapped shut and the golden mist faded away, floating down into the lower decks of the TARDIS. It left only a woman stood there, the very same woman as before. Same dark brown hair falling down her back, the same gentle face falling back so she took low, long breaths, the same pale skin. But she already held herself differently, taller and stronger, her shoulders were pushed back and when she finally allowed her head to drop forward even her face was different. She wasn't nibbling on her lips nervously or sucking uni her cheeks or frowning uncomfortably, she looked like a completely different person in exactly the same body.
She opened her eyes, stepping back when she saw the two figures stood a metre away and then her eyes darted about the TARDIS.
"Not mine..." She spoke, mostly to herself. "Wh..." She looked at the girl, frowning at her poodle skirt and high heels and then the man with slicked back hair. 60s? No, 50s? It was an era of bad taste wherever it was.
As her eyes ran over them both, she slowly started allowing her mind to open. She welcomed the warm buzz and accepted the telepathic request to reach out to her, before gasping and freezing.
She recognised it, her mind recognised it. It let him right on in, into the very core of her mind and being.
And the Doctor mirrored her expression after he felt the rush.
It couldn't be. There must have been some mixed signal, some old lingering message in his mind. He had hoped too much and wished for too much and his wishes were complicating the reality because...it was impossible. It couldn't be her, not her. It couldn't be. She was dead.
He had left her on that planet and watched it burn. He had left her to burn; her along with everyone else, so it couldn't be her. It couldn't be her because every day, for millenniums, he had tortured himself for letting her die.
His eyes glossed over within seconds and Rose noticed but stepped back, giving him space. Then just as a tear left the corner of his eye, leaving a trail down his cheek, The Doctor summoned the courage and held on to that low buzz in the back of his head for just a second, never taking his eyes off the woman.
'Laila?' He reached out in his mind, his lips slightly parted as his eyes searched her hopelessly, trying to find anything, just one thing which would confirm it.
And he got his wish as her eyes snapped up sharply. She ran her eyes over The Doctor in fear, she looked scared of her own thoughts and scared of him, watching him as if he was a ghost.
Her breathing became rapid and hitched as her head begun to spin with new and old thoughts, thoughts which could have well have been memories but they blurred so quickly she couldn't make sense of them. She thought she was going to collapse but this man kept her fighting it, this familiar man with a strange face kept her standing long enough for her to catch her breath and calm herself.
Finally, after countless dragged out seconds of her standing there just staring at him, the girl struggled to hold back a sob and after three attempts of trying to speak, she only managed to nod.
'Th...Theta?' Her voice was a whimper even over their telepathic bond, and he only just managed to nod before she ran the few small steps to him and jumped into his arms. He caught her easily with arms which had been prepped to grab hold of her since the moment he had whispered her name. His fingers gripped into her clothes with a death grip, one hand quickly moving to burrow into her hair, holding the back of her head into his neck.
They stayed there for and undistinguishable amount of time, just holding one another and holding into that hum, slowly focussing on it more and more into it was roaring in both their minds, blocking out the outside world. A meteor could have collided with them and they wouldn't have been any the wiser. And even when they pulled back, it was just enough to only look into the others eyes.
"It's you." That's all the Doctor managed to whisper as he ran his eyes over her face over and over and over again, mentally encoding each feature to his memory. "It is...it is you...?" He was still questioning himself and his sanity until she smiled and ran her thumb over the line of his jaw. Something so simple but so familiar, it was what she had done every time he came home.
"Ha Ha!" The Doctor laughed manically, screaming as he picked her feet off the ground and swayed them both side to side while pulling her back in even tighter.
"Doctor?" She whispered so happily into his neck. He could feel her tears wiping off on his skin and shuddered. All these years he had dreamed and imagined what it would be like to just hold her again one more time, to feel her next to him and know that she was safe. Now that she was here those dreams didn't match up to reality in the slightest.
"Yeah, it's me." He grinned, finding he could do nothing but chuckle in glee. "It's okay I'm here." He closed his eyes and held her until she stopped shaking with the tears and kissed the top of her head. "I'm here." The Doctor kept repeating the words, but it was mostly for himself. He was here for her again finally, he had been given a second chance. And he was here for her now, just like he should have been back then.
"How?" The Doctor felt her hand cling to his coat with an almighty grip but there had never been a better feeling. "How did I...I found you?" She was still catching up with herself. She had been a fresh regeneration when she had used the chameleon arch, her body still felt foreign to her true self and she was not quite sure what or who she was. Her thoughts were still not hers.
"Well...technically I found you." He managed a smile and she too laughed at the childishness which was so unique to him, in every form. "How long has it been? For you?" The woman pulled her head back and looked up into the Doctors eyes. There was no pain anymore, no whispers or words or flashing images. There was just him.
"Years..." She swallowed hard. "Centuries...I don't know. I lost count after one hundred and...fifteen....no twenty...one hundred and twenty...maybe..." Her eyes rolled to the side as she tried to recall, but her attention was brought back by the a Doctor laughing at her lightly. "No idea!but too long. Too long to keep running." The Doctor's hand moved from the back of her head to her cheek, cupping her face.
"We're you the only-"
"Yes." She cut him off before he asked. She already knew what he was going to say and she didn't want those memories to arise just yet. It was after all, part of the reason she had hidden herself from...well...herself, in the first place. "I'm sorry I-I couldn't. It was too late." The Doctor didn't fail to notice the sadness creeping into her eyes, so he just nodded and pulled her back into him.
"It's alright." He whispered, "This is all that matters right now."
"Ahem!" A load cough broke their tranquillity. She felt the Doctor almost jump away from her but at the last second he stopped himself. It was the she who squeezed him one final before letting him go and stepping back out of his arms, out of his reach, to face the girl who was and had been watching them for the past five minutes, completely clueless. "What the hell's going on?"
"Oh right! Sorry! Le-" The Doctor caught himself just in time, he couldn't remember the last time he had needed to introduce another Time Lord, especially to a human. "Sky...this is Rose Tyler, she's a friend of mine." Rose smiled and waved a little, awkwardly. "Rose this is Sky, or The Sky if you want to be formal." The woman visibly cringed upon hearing her own name, more so when the girl repeated it.
"The Sky?" Rose repeated, looking over the woman skeptically.
"Just Sky, please." She smiled at the younger girl. "The Sky sounds so...pompous." She joked and met the Doctor's gaze, eyeing him up and down. "Not like The Doctor." Winking, he found that to be his only reply. He was still a little speechless, for once his brain running out of words.
"So who are you to each other I mean..." Rose looked between them both, settling on the Doctor, expecting him to answer this one. "Obviously you recognise her."
"Right..." He started and both women saw how he started to trip over his words. Although while Rose's face fell into a frown while trying to listen to him, Sky smirked and crossed her arms over herself smugly. "Well...Eh Rose this is....she..." Her smirk grew until she had to bite down on her lip to hide it, eyes alight. "She's my...wife."