AN: I know you all wanted Father's Day, but I wanted it to hurt. I'm heading out of town to Colorado for some nature stuff, so don't expect an update for the rest of the month.
==CON==
It was 'night time' on the TARDIS. Rose had gone off to bed. I wouldn't need to sleep for another day or two, so I was only delaying the inevitable. The Doctor was fixing things up under the console.
I was back in my hoodie, though I was working on adding upgrades to it. Just little things, like stitching up tears and adding these cool nanobots I invented. Even if I could regulate my body temperature, I still wanted to be cooler than that. The nanobots would turn the hoodie into a walking freezer. It would take some time, maybe a day or two. There'd be some issue getting them into the lining of my hoodie, and my other clothes. Not to mention I'd have to make them from as little metal as possible so as not to alert metal detectors.
Okay. I might start going a little overboard with my inventions now that the Doctor knows what kind of alien I am. There was just so much I could be honest about now. I could talk about all my jobs and not get the usual confused stares, or distrust. I could say I've met other aliens, and talk about all the cool things I've done and not feel ashamed. It was a new feeling.
It had been hours since we kicked Adam out. I avoided the Doctor, sticking to my room, the library, and the kitchen. Idris knew just what food I was craving. We were avoiding each other, as whenever he entered the kitchen he promptly turned and walked out. It didn't offend me. I did the same when I saw him in the library.
Once Rose was off to bed, I knew there was no point in prolonging it. The Doctor and I needed to talk. A part of me thinks Rose even went to bed early because she could see how bad it was. Pops' home box would have to wait, I was too nervous about my conversation with the Doctor.
He was beneath the console, twisting various wires unlike he was during Unquiet Dead. He seemed not to have a particular thing to fix, he was just doing it for a distraction.
I cleared my throat.
The Doctor's response was almost comical. He hit his head on the metal grating, and accidentally crossed two wires to create sparks. "Ouch!" He yelped, waving his hand as most of the sparks landed on him.
Even with my hesitation, I smirked. Seeing him be his usual idiotic self made me feel less anxious.
When the Time Lord climbed out from his hole, he went to the console. He actively avoided eye contact. "Terra. Surprised seeing you up."
"Don't need to sleep for a few days." I supplied, nervously shifting on my feet.
The Doctor nearly asked why, until suddenly remembering. Looks like both of us would have some time getting used to this.
"So. I bet you've got questions." The Doctor said, downtrodden.
He had told me about the Time War, that we were the Last of our kind. Recently he went round the bend attacking the last Dalek, and admitting to being the one that killed everyone. It...it wasn't a great place to start. So, I went with the one that seemed most important.
"Everything I know about my old life on Earth I learned." I explained, not wanting to straight out admit my theories of Time Lord banishment. "Anything from before I regenerated about my home life is gone. I remember all of my adventures, and those but any time I try to remember my Earth family, or the...other one, I just get this blankness."
The Doctor paused a while before answering. He knew the explanation, but just didn't want to voice it. "Like someone took away your memories." I nodded. His voice lowered. I had to walk a bit closer to hear what he was saying. "And it's been like that since you regenerated?" I nodded again.
He was quiet for a long time.
"I take it there's nothing good about that." I commented, on the line of dry and worried.
He let out a dry snort. "It was a punishment on...on our old planet." It seemed he had trouble saying it too. Or maybe he was avoiding it for my sake. "For only the worst of crimes."
I blanched. So I was right, I had committed a crime. "How big does it have to be?" I asked, unable to keep the tremor of fear out of my voice. "Whatever I did, I wouldn't even remember doing it."
"There's interference, which was a big no-no." The Doctor explained. I smirked, snorting. "Yeah. I know. I wasn't well liked. They sentenced me with a memory wipe of how to fly the TARDIS-"
"Never gave it back, did they?"
"Hush you. They did give it back, but...I wasn't that great a flyer to begin with. Barely passed my exam." The Doctor explained, that somber tone in his voice. "She's meant to be flown by six, not one."
"Only the Time Lords can bring them back?" I asked, voice soft.
He paused. Yeah, that was the main thing I picked up. "Yes." The Doctor said. Though I could tell he really didn't want to be saying it. "More specifically, the High Council."
"Time Lord High Council?" I tried to joke. "Already pompous jerks, even more pompous?"
"Oh, so you remember them?" The Doctor joked with me.
The two of us chuckled, anything to avoid the really depressing facts he just told me.
"So...Time Lords." I began.
The Doctor sat up, eyeing me carefully. "What about them?"
I paused, nervously adjusting in my seat. "What...what were they like?"
The Doctor seemed curious about this. "What do you mean? They wiped your mind."
"Tell me anyway." I said with a shrug, but my voice was determined. "Only one race is pure evil, and they're Daleks. Our people may be total assholes, but not all of them. Some of them had to be nice. I'm nice. You're nice...ish."
"Oi!" The Doctor sounded offended, but he was smiling.
"Stupid apes." I said, mocking his accent. "'Are you plastic? No. Just thick.'"
"I'm not always calling that lot apes." The nine hundred year old alien argued.
Holding back a snort, I nodded at him. A smug smile on my face. "You're right. You haven't called Rose an ape in a while."
He had the decency to blush. "Yeah, well, she's smarter than the others."
"Oh." I teased him. "Someone's getting attached to his concubine."
"You can stop calling her that." The Time Lord reminded, annoyed.
"Nah. She likes it." I smirked, walking over to the pilot seat. "She calls me Doc Junior so it evens out-"
"Why does she call you that?" The Doctor asked, confused. He turned to me, pausing on his flight path or reconstruction or just idle tinkering.
He was the one who deflected the words off us, how does he not remember? "It was what Jabe called us on Platform One." I said, not sure why he wouldn't remember. "Remember? Kept calling Rose your girlfriend and I was your ward?"
For a moment, I thought I would have to explain it to the Doctor again. He looked confused about what I was saying, but not like he didn't remember the event. It was like the idea itself confused him.
Of course. He would remember all his children, and if they were banished with memories cleared or otherwise. I wasn't his daughter, and I had just slammed that loss in his face flippantly.
"Shit-storydammit-I'm sorry!" The words fumbled out of my mouth. My hands covered my mouth, in hopes of keeping me silent. "I didn't mean to be-Story fucking damn it-"
The Doctor was staring at me intently, the corner of his lip upturned.
"I was just-We weren't-" It dawned on me that he was grinning. "You jerk."
"Least I'm not swearing every other syllable." He pointed out with glee. "What was your original title idea, The Sailor?"
"Title?"
"Time Lords pick their names, a title." The Doctor explained, still laughing at his Sailor joke. "Whatever they'd like. I picked the Doctor, you picked Terra Johnson."
"Yeah, but, to be honest, I didn't pick Johnson. It was picked for me." I said. "I mean, the Luna-Johnson's died, and I didn't want to be Terra Luna, so."
"You named yourself after them, still counts." The Doctor said, looking smug about it. "But, not picking Terra Luna was a good choice. You don't look like Terra Luna." He finished, proudly crossing his arms over his chest.
I didn't dignify that with a response. The only logical option was to change subjects. "I can't sense another Time Lord, and you can't either."
The teasing grin fell. It was the 'oh yeah, she's right' face.
"Time Lords are a telepathic race." The Doctor began. "Your memories being blocked could just be a part of the punishment." He looked down at his hand, then my head. "The other could be so that no other Time Lord could find you. Whatever you did in the past, the Time Lords didn't want a chance of you doing it again."
There it was. Another blunt reminder that I did something so horrible not even Time Lords wanted me.
'-children screaming for parents-'
'-a man screaming at me for Turning him-'
'-my face on posters, though with orange eyes-'
The TARDIS cut me out of my thoughts. She sent a warm humming into my mind, like a friend passionately arguing that you're the best and no one should make you feel less. It made my eyes water in joy.
"The TARDIS can get inside my head, for translations." I told him, in realization. "So, can't we do something with that?"
"That's a good point, actually." The Time Lord mulled over it. "But it doesn't explain why I can't sense you to begin with. The TARDIS, if she could, would've fixed that ages ago. Your four feet away from me and you might as well not be."
"Maybe she knew if she did, we'd both be too scared to accept it." I offered. "I mean, come on. You knowing I was...I was apparently like you, don't tell me you would've believed 'I can't remember'."
"So...what do I have to do?"
"I don't think it's something you do." The Time Lord said. He looked down at his hand again. "I think it's something I need to do."
"Woah. Hold up. I was talking about making us aware of each other. You have to go inside my head?"
The mere idea of him coming in here, searching for memories that might not even exist anymore. He could find Doctor Who easy as a blink. Beyond that, he could see I wasn't a Time Lady until two months ago. He could see his future self, and the TARDIS.
He could see them. Darcy, how she was a killer and that I've helped her hide. My dark side, that I even let her exist in the first place.
"I wouldn't go into your memories." The Doctor stressed, voice calm and comforting. "I would only be in there for less than a minute. I'll make the connection, with the TARDIS' help, and then I'll come back out."
His words nearly convinced me. I glanced up at the green glowing rotor in worry.
"But...but what if I'd like...privacy?" I asked, getting anxious again.
The Doctor was beaming as if I already said yes. It was good seeing Nine so happy, you didn't get that much. "I won't be in your head all day. That's just rude. It'll be like talking. You can stop the conversation whenever you want. I won't stay in there any longer than you don't want."
Story dammit that sounded good. It would be good to talk mentally, in case we were separated. It would be fun to talk telepathically again, I hadn't done that in some decades. Either way, I owed the Doctor something. I wasn't a proper Time Lady, with any memory of the planet.
'A Time Lord is so much more. A sum of knowledge, a code, a shared history, a shared suffering. Only it's gone now, all of it. Gone forever.'
Giving him telepathy was something, right?
"How will you do it?" I asked, cautious.
The Doctor's smile widened. It was infectious, as I found my cheeks hurting with a smile. He came up to my side, hesitantly raising his hand to my temple.
"The TARDIS'll help me in." He began, back in lecture mode. "It'll just feel a little crowded." He gently put his fingertips on my temple.
I closed my eyes, and I felt him.
It was...odd. One second, I felt completely alone. The next, it was like walking into the middle of a college party.
I gasped as he pulled his hand away. The feeling was still there. It was like there was this small door in the back of my head, or maybe a string connected to something else.
"Woah." I said, lifting my hand to my head. "Trippy."
"You..." Magoo blinked. "That was easier than I thought. I thought I'd get lost without the TARDIS helping. You're head is just...organized."
'50 years trapped inside it does wonders to your understanding of mental landscapes.' I thought. I kept my mind shut from his, so he wouldn't hear about her.
Magoo shrugged. "It's a bit odd. Usually when we're young we don't have such control over our mental abilities."
"What else can Time Lords do?" I asked, excited.
==CON==
It was just sitting there.
The Doctor and I spent another four hours talking about Time Lords. I had an extra liver, apparently, and two more ribs. He had taught me how to regulate body temperature. There was also that cool thing I could do from Smith and Jones with radioactive material. Magoo spent twenty minutes explaining which of the ones on Earth were too dangerous.
It was close to 'morning' now. Doc had stopped the lesson, saying we could talk more later. Rose still thought we slept like her. Going back to my room, I found my home box just sitting there.
I had no reason not to open it. Except a billion. What if it was a trap? What if whoever brought it here wanted me to open it and be given fake coordinates for a trap?
With if not? What if it was actually my future self, creating a fake home box to help me get somewhere faster? This could be a call for help. It felt wrong though, it had to be from Pops' world.
The next thought it hit harder than a train. It was jarring, I had to take a step away.
What if it lead me to Reichenbach Falls?
There were too many theories running around my head, and too many unanswered questions. The only way to know for sure was to open it, and look.
My hands went to the sides, ready to heave the box up to the console room. There would be no turning back. Either this was from Pops, or it wasn't. Pops had either found his way here, or he hadn't. I would be seeing him again (and having to pretend I wasn't Mahina) or I wouldn't be. I would have to remember Hero-
"You know what Idris?" I hopped away from the desk, holding up my hoodie sleeves. "I should make those nanobots. I have a lot of clothes to get started on. Who knows what we'll get before Father's Day."
So I walked out of my room, the box untouched on my desk.