Chaos Theory on Dimensionally Stable Objects on Earth College Campuses (26/26)
Title - Chaos Theory on Dimensionally Stable Objects on Earth College Campuses (26/26)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, Jackie, OCs
Spoilers - None
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary - Brem goes to university.
Author's Notes - Because this is the last chapter, it's the authorial privilege to write an A/N a bit longer than the typical. It's kind of like my version of an Academy Award acceptance speech.
First, a hugely massive thank you to my beloved beta, jlrpuck. One should always pick a beta whose strengths are your weaknesses, and jlrpuck spent 26 chapters and hundreds of pages keeping me completely honest about the little details that I totally fail at, and did it all with grace and aplomb while I was busy being a basketcase and keeping to nothing that resembled a schedule. Kate owes her her red coat; I owe her more than I can write in an A/N. And probably a couple of lost bets, too.
A second massive thank you to Kristin, who still refuses to get an LJ, despite the fact that she would be bloody awesome with the LJ comment zinger. Many, many months ago, I came home from work one day and IMed Kristin and said, "I have an idea. I think Brem should go to college." She and I then spent several IM conversations doing nothing but throwing ideas around (she probably talked about My Chemical Romance a bit, too; that is how our IM conversations go). I saved those conversations. They stretch more than twenty pages. And almost everything in them ended up in the fic at some point. It is to Kristin that you owe Digger, so send your thanks her way.
I must also acknowledge everyone else who had a role in the fic: bouncy_castle79, who read the earliest draft, and arctacudaand chicklet73, who cope with my off-the-wall e-mails about what Brem would and wouldn't do in a given situation. Someday, chicklet73 will be the first receipient of the Tour of Brem Tyler's Harvard Square.
And, finally, I must thank all of you, for several things. First, this fic was posted mostly at a very curious time in my life, when I spent six weeks so severely depressed that there were days that the only thing making it all worthwhile was the lovely comments from you lot, and my poor friends who patiently read and replied to e-mail after e-mail of CAPSLOCK RANTING. And then it all culminated in that nervous breakdown period where I stopped posting, and you all patiently waited me out, and for that I can never express enough gratitude.
Second, and even closer to my heart: Thank you for reading. An author tells you, from the outset, that she's got this massive fic to post in which every canon character is quite tangential and the stage mainly belongs to her OCs...and all of you stayed and read it. You cannot imagine how...touched that makes me feel. Every time one of you expresses affection for Brem or Athena or Fortuna or Kate or Matt, I grin with delight. And, since I was in the middle of a large amount of Very Bad Days all strung together, every time one of you said that a posting from me had improved your day, I felt immeasurably better myself. I am so very honored that you have let me and Brem, et al., into your lives to that extent. It is the most humbling, most wonderful thing. Thank you again.
It is an odd, lovely little world, this world of fandom.
And as for the Chaosverse, well, I had an idea not long ago that provoked another 20-page IM flurry with Kristin. And I've got so many fic ideas in the queue that it ought to be alarming. My Time Kids, it seems, will never stop demanding center stage.
(As always, the gorgeous icon was created by swankkatfor me, commissioned by jlrpuckfor my birthday.)
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Chapter Twenty-six
Fortuna was making them the feast to end all feasts in the TARDIS kitchen, blushing every time Matt complimented the flavors of the dishes. Athena was fooling around with music, convinced that a day such as they had just had required an enormous celebration complete with dancing. Brem had left Kate slicing various vegetables for a stir-fry dish and slipped out and went in search of his parents.
Their bedroom door was standing open, which he knew was an invitation, from both them and the TARDIS, for him to enter it. His father was sitting in a chair by the bed, watching his mother, who was curled up under the covers.
Brem looked at her. “She’s…?”
“Sleeping,” his father answered. “I’ve been counting every one of her breaths.”
Brem pulled up another chair and watched her. “We used to do this all the time, remember? All of us. Not Fort as much because she didn’t remember, but…When did we stop doing that?”
“I’ve never stopped,” said his father.
“So, you know what it is, right? I should have realized it long before we reached this point. She’s held the Vortex inside of her. She’s always been more connected to this ship than any of us, really, and that’s saying something.”
“I took the Vortex out of her, though, Brem. I took all of it out of her.”
“Wow,” said Brem, and his father looked at him.
“What?”
“I don’t know, I’m just wondering if it’s possible that you could have been…wrong? Is that actually possible?”
“Okay, if we’d had a less amazing day, I think I’d box your ears for that,” said his father.
Brem laughed. “I was reading in the library, about the heart of the TARDIS. You look into the heart of the TARDIS, and it grants you your heart’s desire. Do you know what that was, Dad?” He looked at his father, who was looking at him in confusion. “It was you. She looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and her heart’s desire was you.”
“I know,” he said, still confused. “And the TARDIS brought her to me-”
Brem shook his head. “No. You’re not understanding. She wanted you. But, more importantly, what she wanted was you to not be alone. Never alone. Her wish was not just that she would be with you, but that you would be with her, that you would have her, loving you, always. I don’t even think she could have articulated that, but that’s what it was. When she got trapped in the parallel world, and I managed to pull you back through the Void, I made a mistake that should have been fatal-”
“I remember,” the Doctor interrupted him, suddenly, staring at Rose on the bed. “The gravity thrusters gave way, and we should have-”
“But you didn’t. Because the TARDIS got you back here. She did it. Because Mum was always meant to come back to you. You are always meant to have her. You’ll have her until the day you run out of regenerations.”
His father was silent for a long moment. “Do you think so?”
“I know it. My research skills have always been impeccable. Think you can handle a few more centuries?”
His father smiled and reached out to push a few strands of blonde hair off his mother’s face. “I’m looking forward to the seven-hundred year itch,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Brem, and stood up. “Fortuna’s cooking.”
“I’m going to wait until your mother wakes up to leave her. I’m not so much in favor of letting her out of my sight just now.”
“I think we could have guessed that.”
“Brem,” his father said, and Brem paused at the door and looked back. “Your impeccable research notwithstanding, I’m not entirely sure that it wasn’t the TARDIS granting all of us our hearts’ desires.”
Brem smiled suddenly. “Do you know what you get, Dad? At the end of the day? At the end of your story? Your story, such as it is, with all the things you’ve done that I know you think you shouldn’t have done, or should have done differently. Everything you did during the Time War and all those years of loneliness since then, and do you know what you get?”
“Your mother?” he guessed.
“Almost better than that,” said Brem. “You get a happy ending.”
********
Brem arrived back in the kitchen to see that the TARDIS had magically expanded the room so that it included a dance floor, and Athena was forcing a reluctant-looking Matt to dance with her to an Amy MacDonald song. “Let’s start a band, let’s start a band!” Athena was singing along, bouncing.
“This is your celebration music?” Brem asked, wrinkling his nose at her.
Kate looked up from where she was still helping Fortuna by the stove and smiled at him. He winked at her.
“Wellll, what would you have?” Athena asked him.
The TARDIS decided for him, and he almost laughed at the inevitability of it.
“Kylie!” exclaimed Fortuna, clearly pleased with the TARDIS’s choice.
********
Rose woke slowly, aware that the Doctor was in bed with her, which happened so seldom that she smiled with pleasure and stretched against him and snuggled into him.
“How do you feel?” he murmured into her ear.
“Fine,” she said, surprised he would ask, and that was the moment when it all came bursting down over her, the building exploding behind her, flying through the air, moments of utter, terrifying darkness, a song she’d heard only once before in her life, a blinding, golden light, her Doctor, tears streaming down his cheeks as he smothered her in a hug, and she gasped.
His arms tightened around her. “You’re here,” he said. “You’re absolutely, indubitably here.”
She clung to him and breathed in his scent. “What happened?” she asked, pulling back finally so she could see him. “Do you understand?”
“I don’t. Not entirely. But Brem has this theory, about looking into the heart of the TARDIS and having it grant you your heart’s desire, or something like that. I don’t know. All I know is that you have a tendency to make impossible things possible, and I have never been happier.” He kissed her fiercely.
She kissed him back briefly, but she had too many questions. “Does it mean I’ll never leave you?”
“That’s what Brem thinks. And Brem is almost never wrong, I can’t imagine he’ll start now. I mean, you may leave me for a much younger man at some point, but, for the time being, I intend for you to be stuck with me.”
“I’ll never leave you.” She traced her fingers over the contours of his face. “I need you safe,” she whispered. “My Doctor.”
“How did I get this?” he breathed, suddenly.
“What?”
“The happy ending.”
Rose smiled brilliantly. “I think it may be because you’ve got a ship that’s crazy about you. Where are the kids? I’d like to see them.”
“Can’t we have I’m-so-glad-you’re-never-going-to-leave-me-yay-you’re-alive sex first?” asked the Doctor, nibbling at her neck.
“We can have that once I make sure the kids know I’m okay. And I’m very much looking forward to that sex, let me tell you.”
“Oh, it’s going to be spectacular,” he promised her.
She grinned as she rolled out of bed and then caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. “Huh.”
“What?” he asked, anxiously, studying her reflection with her.
“I…I…look great.”
“Wellllll, for someone who just died-”
“No, no, I mean, I look…Don’t you think I look, I don’t know, years younger?” She looked at him.
He shrugged. “Rose, you always look gorgeous to me.”
She looked back in the mirror. “Apparently, your heart’s desire that the TARDIS was granting you was a permanently young, hot wife.”
The Doctor pulled open the door and looked back at her. “Quite right, too,” he said.
********
Dinner had been demolished by the kids in the kitchen, and they were sitting around the kitchen table, laughing hilariously while munching on a spread of several different desserts.
“You gave her a sonic device for Christmas?” Athena was scolding Brem, when her parents appeared in the doorway, and a sudden silence fell over the kitchen.
Athena and Fortuna both jumped up at the same time and barreled into their mother, who caught them and hugged them fiercely. Matt and Kate, suddenly feeling like they were intruding, looked away and both fiddled with silverware.
Brem waited until Athena and Fortuna had gotten their fill of hugs, when his mother looked over to him and smiled.
“Ah, Brem,” she said. “You always do hang back when I make a big homecoming.”
He smiled back and stood up and hugged her, tightly and fiercely, and she ruffled his hair. And then she let go of him and looked beyond him to the table.
“And what are we having here?” she asked. “A feast?”
“More dessert than we’ll be able to eat in our next three regenerations,” Athena answered.
“I may have gone a bit overboard,” said Fortuna, sheepishly.
“We need a fresh pot of tea,” his mother commented, and his father instantly leaped over to fill the kettle. “Hello, Matt,” she continued, pleasantly, sitting down, and then she smiled at Kate. “And you must be Kate. It’s so lovely to meet you finally. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you guys, too,” replied Kate.
“Did he tell you all about the TARDIS?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes,” she answered. “Actually, I thought it’d be bigger in here.”
The Doctor and Brem both looked at her with mouths agape. Kate winked across the table at Rose.
“Oh, you’re fabulous,” said Rose. “You and I are definitely going to have tea together.”
“I may have oversold it a bit,” Brem told his father’s accusatory glance.
The TARDIS saved him, launching into the opening notes of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, and the Doctor lit up. “Top banana,” he said, and reached for Rose and pulled her out of her seat into one of those jaunty, overenthusiastic dances he was prone to.
“What is this song?” asked Kate, bewildered, as Brem moved to sit next to her and draped an arm over her shoulders.
“Oh, a ridiculous song,” he said, fondly. “My father loves it.”
“He probably seduced your mother with it once,” she commented, snuggling into him.
“Oh, please don’t talk about things like that,” he complained, and she laughed, and he brushed a kiss over the top of her head.
“I should go,” Matt said.
Brem looked at him. “You don’t have to. Really.”
“I know I don’t, but I…” He glanced at Athena, then back to Brem. “But I should go.”
“Okay,” said Brem, after a second. “Thank you. Really. So much.”
“It was nothing,” Matt said, dismissively. “I’ll see you next year, right?”
“Definitely. We’re living together, aren’t we?”
“I didn’t know if you were just going to disappear in your spaceship here and never be seen again.”
Brem smiled. “I’m coming back. And if you’re very, very good, I might even take you for a whirl in this spaceship of mine.”
“Oi,” his father called, from where he was in the progress of dipping his mother. “Whose spaceship is it?”
“Concentrate on not dropping her,” Brem called back, and turned back just in time to watch Athena plant a thorough kiss on Matt’s lips.
She pulled away. “Thanks for everything,” she grinned at him. “You’ve been great. See you next year, yeah?” Then she winked.
“Yeah,” he answered, dazedly.
“I’ll show you out of the TARDIS,” Fortuna said, sending a short glare Athena’s way.
“That was a bit…” Brem said to Athena, at a loss for words.
She shrugged. “He deserved it. I’m a good kisser.”
“Really not talking about this,” Brem told her.
“She is just like you,” his father told his mother.
“I know,” his mother laughed, as his father twirled her away.
Brem turned back to Kate. “You must have a million questions.”
“I do. But you’ll tell me the answers eventually. We’ve got time, you and I. So much time. Because you’re the lord of it, aren’t you?” She grinned.
He grinned back. “And I use it wisely.” He leaned forward and kissed her, as the TARDIS’s song choice switched, and then he pulled back and started laughing.
Kate was bewildered. “What?”
“We’re dancing to this,” he said, and pulled her up out of her seat.
“I can’t really…salsa,” she protested.
“It isn’t salsa,” he frowned at her. “Juanes is rokero with cumbia influences. And I love this song. I brought my mother back to Juanes, all those years ago, and we danced to this song on a beach in the Caribbean.”
She smiled at him. “That’s a lovely memory,” she said.
“You know,” he realized, musingly, “I have a lot of those. A lot. They far outweigh the bad.”
“Which is good,” she told him.
He pulled her a bit closer, so he could lean forward and sing the words in her ear, dimly aware of his father’s voice singing to his mother only a few steps away. No se va la herida grande que mi queda…
“Brem,” she said. “You do know that’s Spanish, right?”
He laughed.
********
“I don’t care,” said Brem. “I still look completely ridiculous, and it was an enormous waste of time, and it rained, and I was cold-”
“Brem,” his grandmother cut him off. “You graduated from Harvard. It’s time to stop complaining. And what was your major? I didn’t understand that part.”
“My degree is in General Studies. Because I qualified for too many different concentrations.” Brem, sulking, took off his cap and mortarboard and felt his limp hair. “And that bloody hat ruined my hair.”
“Yes, you are in dire need of some product,” his father told him, gravely.
“You look fine, Brem,” his mother told him, and then hugged him fiercely. “I am so, so, terribly proud of you. Have I told you that today?”
“Several dozen times,” Athena pointed out.
“You’ll get told several dozen times when you graduate, too,” Rose promised her.
“I’m changing,” Brem announced, and headed down the TARDIS hallway to his bedroom, where he removed the silly graduation robe and the soaked clothing underneath it and replaced them with a dry outfit: jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt topped by a short-sleeved T-shirt, then he carefully did his hair, and then he stood for a second, looking at this bedroom with all his stuff from college back in it, waiting for the next decision that he had to make, about where he ought to go and what he ought to do. He reached out and brushed his fingers over the journals that represented his college years.
“Going to publish them as your memoirs?” drawled his father.
Brem looked at where he was leaning in the doorway, arms and legs crossed, and smiled, remembering. “Yes. I shall call them Chaos Theory on Dimensionally Stable Objects on Earth College Campuses.”
“No one’s going to buy anything with a title that long, you know.”
“Why not? It’s going to be an entire Chaos series. Certainly an apt word to describe our life, don’t you think?”
“I’ve got a gift for you,” he said.
Brem blinked, surprised. “You do?”
He nodded. “Follow me.”
Curious, Brem followed his father down the hallway, to a door he’d never seen before, that opened into a large, blindingly bright garden. Brem squinted through the brightness.
“Sorry,” his father said. “They need these growing conditions. This way.”
In the center of the garden stood three separate tables, each of them with a piece of lovely coral suspended in a jar. Brem stopped short and stared.
“I thought…” he began. “But I thought…”
“Wow,” said his father.
“What?”
“I don’t know, I’m just wondering if it’s possible that you could have been…wrong? Is that actually possible?”
Brem laughed. “But how did you…?”
“When your mother told me she was pregnant with you, I sliced a sliver of coral out of the console. I read every book I could about how we grew them, and I attempted to do it. And we’ve made real progress from that sliver. There’s one for each of you, you see.”
Brem studied them. “Two of them are pink.”
“Yes. Welllll. This TARDIS spoils you lot.”
Brem chuckled.
“So, Bremsstrahlung,” his father said. “Do you want to hold your TARDIS?”
Brem looked at his father and then at the non-pink piece of coral and nodded.
“Well, go on,” his father said. “She’s your TARDIS, you should be the first Time Lord to touch her. It’s a lovely moment, you know, the first time you bond with your TARDIS.”
Brem reached forward, slowly, and picked up the jar as carefully as possible, cradling it in his hand. It glowed golden for a long, shimmering moment, with just the faintest of songs, a new little hum in his head. He stared in amazed delight, studying the contours of her small piece of coral. His TARDIS. He had never even allowed himself the possibility, and now it washed over him in a wave of jubilation.
“D’you like her?” his father asked.
“Oh, I love her,” he breathed. “She’s…she’s brilliant.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad. I can’t give you Gallifrey, and I’m rubbish at knowing anything about the rest of our heritage, really. But a Time Lord should have a TARDIS. And that TARDIS there is very lucky, considering I’ve never seen such a brilliant pilot as you.”
“But I learned everything from you,” Brem told him, honestly.
“Then isn’t it funny how much better than me you turned out?” his father commented.
Brem felt himself blush, looked back to the TARDIS in his hands, and then abruptly hugged his father tightly. “Thank you,” he said. “Really. Thank you so much.”
“Thank you,” his father responded. “For everything.” Brem felt him brush a kiss over the top of his hand, and then slowly extract himself from the hug. “Now then,” he said, jovially. “Be careful with her. In another eighty years or so, she’ll be ready for you to pilot.”
Brem looked up at him, startled, and said, “Eighty years?"
Finis.
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, Jackie, OCs
Spoilers - None
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary - Brem goes to university.
Author's Notes - Because this is the last chapter, it's the authorial privilege to write an A/N a bit longer than the typical. It's kind of like my version of an Academy Award acceptance speech.
First, a hugely massive thank you to my beloved beta, jlrpuck. One should always pick a beta whose strengths are your weaknesses, and jlrpuck spent 26 chapters and hundreds of pages keeping me completely honest about the little details that I totally fail at, and did it all with grace and aplomb while I was busy being a basketcase and keeping to nothing that resembled a schedule. Kate owes her her red coat; I owe her more than I can write in an A/N. And probably a couple of lost bets, too.
A second massive thank you to Kristin, who still refuses to get an LJ, despite the fact that she would be bloody awesome with the LJ comment zinger. Many, many months ago, I came home from work one day and IMed Kristin and said, "I have an idea. I think Brem should go to college." She and I then spent several IM conversations doing nothing but throwing ideas around (she probably talked about My Chemical Romance a bit, too; that is how our IM conversations go). I saved those conversations. They stretch more than twenty pages. And almost everything in them ended up in the fic at some point. It is to Kristin that you owe Digger, so send your thanks her way.
I must also acknowledge everyone else who had a role in the fic: bouncy_castle79, who read the earliest draft, and arctacudaand chicklet73, who cope with my off-the-wall e-mails about what Brem would and wouldn't do in a given situation. Someday, chicklet73 will be the first receipient of the Tour of Brem Tyler's Harvard Square.
And, finally, I must thank all of you, for several things. First, this fic was posted mostly at a very curious time in my life, when I spent six weeks so severely depressed that there were days that the only thing making it all worthwhile was the lovely comments from you lot, and my poor friends who patiently read and replied to e-mail after e-mail of CAPSLOCK RANTING. And then it all culminated in that nervous breakdown period where I stopped posting, and you all patiently waited me out, and for that I can never express enough gratitude.
Second, and even closer to my heart: Thank you for reading. An author tells you, from the outset, that she's got this massive fic to post in which every canon character is quite tangential and the stage mainly belongs to her OCs...and all of you stayed and read it. You cannot imagine how...touched that makes me feel. Every time one of you expresses affection for Brem or Athena or Fortuna or Kate or Matt, I grin with delight. And, since I was in the middle of a large amount of Very Bad Days all strung together, every time one of you said that a posting from me had improved your day, I felt immeasurably better myself. I am so very honored that you have let me and Brem, et al., into your lives to that extent. It is the most humbling, most wonderful thing. Thank you again.
It is an odd, lovely little world, this world of fandom.
And as for the Chaosverse, well, I had an idea not long ago that provoked another 20-page IM flurry with Kristin. And I've got so many fic ideas in the queue that it ought to be alarming. My Time Kids, it seems, will never stop demanding center stage.
(As always, the gorgeous icon was created by swankkatfor me, commissioned by jlrpuckfor my birthday.)
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Chapter Twenty-six
Fortuna was making them the feast to end all feasts in the TARDIS kitchen, blushing every time Matt complimented the flavors of the dishes. Athena was fooling around with music, convinced that a day such as they had just had required an enormous celebration complete with dancing. Brem had left Kate slicing various vegetables for a stir-fry dish and slipped out and went in search of his parents.
Their bedroom door was standing open, which he knew was an invitation, from both them and the TARDIS, for him to enter it. His father was sitting in a chair by the bed, watching his mother, who was curled up under the covers.
Brem looked at her. “She’s…?”
“Sleeping,” his father answered. “I’ve been counting every one of her breaths.”
Brem pulled up another chair and watched her. “We used to do this all the time, remember? All of us. Not Fort as much because she didn’t remember, but…When did we stop doing that?”
“I’ve never stopped,” said his father.
“So, you know what it is, right? I should have realized it long before we reached this point. She’s held the Vortex inside of her. She’s always been more connected to this ship than any of us, really, and that’s saying something.”
“I took the Vortex out of her, though, Brem. I took all of it out of her.”
“Wow,” said Brem, and his father looked at him.
“What?”
“I don’t know, I’m just wondering if it’s possible that you could have been…wrong? Is that actually possible?”
“Okay, if we’d had a less amazing day, I think I’d box your ears for that,” said his father.
Brem laughed. “I was reading in the library, about the heart of the TARDIS. You look into the heart of the TARDIS, and it grants you your heart’s desire. Do you know what that was, Dad?” He looked at his father, who was looking at him in confusion. “It was you. She looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and her heart’s desire was you.”
“I know,” he said, still confused. “And the TARDIS brought her to me-”
Brem shook his head. “No. You’re not understanding. She wanted you. But, more importantly, what she wanted was you to not be alone. Never alone. Her wish was not just that she would be with you, but that you would be with her, that you would have her, loving you, always. I don’t even think she could have articulated that, but that’s what it was. When she got trapped in the parallel world, and I managed to pull you back through the Void, I made a mistake that should have been fatal-”
“I remember,” the Doctor interrupted him, suddenly, staring at Rose on the bed. “The gravity thrusters gave way, and we should have-”
“But you didn’t. Because the TARDIS got you back here. She did it. Because Mum was always meant to come back to you. You are always meant to have her. You’ll have her until the day you run out of regenerations.”
His father was silent for a long moment. “Do you think so?”
“I know it. My research skills have always been impeccable. Think you can handle a few more centuries?”
His father smiled and reached out to push a few strands of blonde hair off his mother’s face. “I’m looking forward to the seven-hundred year itch,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Brem, and stood up. “Fortuna’s cooking.”
“I’m going to wait until your mother wakes up to leave her. I’m not so much in favor of letting her out of my sight just now.”
“I think we could have guessed that.”
“Brem,” his father said, and Brem paused at the door and looked back. “Your impeccable research notwithstanding, I’m not entirely sure that it wasn’t the TARDIS granting all of us our hearts’ desires.”
Brem smiled suddenly. “Do you know what you get, Dad? At the end of the day? At the end of your story? Your story, such as it is, with all the things you’ve done that I know you think you shouldn’t have done, or should have done differently. Everything you did during the Time War and all those years of loneliness since then, and do you know what you get?”
“Your mother?” he guessed.
“Almost better than that,” said Brem. “You get a happy ending.”
********
Brem arrived back in the kitchen to see that the TARDIS had magically expanded the room so that it included a dance floor, and Athena was forcing a reluctant-looking Matt to dance with her to an Amy MacDonald song. “Let’s start a band, let’s start a band!” Athena was singing along, bouncing.
“This is your celebration music?” Brem asked, wrinkling his nose at her.
Kate looked up from where she was still helping Fortuna by the stove and smiled at him. He winked at her.
“Wellll, what would you have?” Athena asked him.
The TARDIS decided for him, and he almost laughed at the inevitability of it.
“Kylie!” exclaimed Fortuna, clearly pleased with the TARDIS’s choice.
********
Rose woke slowly, aware that the Doctor was in bed with her, which happened so seldom that she smiled with pleasure and stretched against him and snuggled into him.
“How do you feel?” he murmured into her ear.
“Fine,” she said, surprised he would ask, and that was the moment when it all came bursting down over her, the building exploding behind her, flying through the air, moments of utter, terrifying darkness, a song she’d heard only once before in her life, a blinding, golden light, her Doctor, tears streaming down his cheeks as he smothered her in a hug, and she gasped.
His arms tightened around her. “You’re here,” he said. “You’re absolutely, indubitably here.”
She clung to him and breathed in his scent. “What happened?” she asked, pulling back finally so she could see him. “Do you understand?”
“I don’t. Not entirely. But Brem has this theory, about looking into the heart of the TARDIS and having it grant you your heart’s desire, or something like that. I don’t know. All I know is that you have a tendency to make impossible things possible, and I have never been happier.” He kissed her fiercely.
She kissed him back briefly, but she had too many questions. “Does it mean I’ll never leave you?”
“That’s what Brem thinks. And Brem is almost never wrong, I can’t imagine he’ll start now. I mean, you may leave me for a much younger man at some point, but, for the time being, I intend for you to be stuck with me.”
“I’ll never leave you.” She traced her fingers over the contours of his face. “I need you safe,” she whispered. “My Doctor.”
“How did I get this?” he breathed, suddenly.
“What?”
“The happy ending.”
Rose smiled brilliantly. “I think it may be because you’ve got a ship that’s crazy about you. Where are the kids? I’d like to see them.”
“Can’t we have I’m-so-glad-you’re-never-going-to-leave-me-yay-you’re-alive sex first?” asked the Doctor, nibbling at her neck.
“We can have that once I make sure the kids know I’m okay. And I’m very much looking forward to that sex, let me tell you.”
“Oh, it’s going to be spectacular,” he promised her.
She grinned as she rolled out of bed and then caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. “Huh.”
“What?” he asked, anxiously, studying her reflection with her.
“I…I…look great.”
“Wellllll, for someone who just died-”
“No, no, I mean, I look…Don’t you think I look, I don’t know, years younger?” She looked at him.
He shrugged. “Rose, you always look gorgeous to me.”
She looked back in the mirror. “Apparently, your heart’s desire that the TARDIS was granting you was a permanently young, hot wife.”
The Doctor pulled open the door and looked back at her. “Quite right, too,” he said.
********
Dinner had been demolished by the kids in the kitchen, and they were sitting around the kitchen table, laughing hilariously while munching on a spread of several different desserts.
“You gave her a sonic device for Christmas?” Athena was scolding Brem, when her parents appeared in the doorway, and a sudden silence fell over the kitchen.
Athena and Fortuna both jumped up at the same time and barreled into their mother, who caught them and hugged them fiercely. Matt and Kate, suddenly feeling like they were intruding, looked away and both fiddled with silverware.
Brem waited until Athena and Fortuna had gotten their fill of hugs, when his mother looked over to him and smiled.
“Ah, Brem,” she said. “You always do hang back when I make a big homecoming.”
He smiled back and stood up and hugged her, tightly and fiercely, and she ruffled his hair. And then she let go of him and looked beyond him to the table.
“And what are we having here?” she asked. “A feast?”
“More dessert than we’ll be able to eat in our next three regenerations,” Athena answered.
“I may have gone a bit overboard,” said Fortuna, sheepishly.
“We need a fresh pot of tea,” his mother commented, and his father instantly leaped over to fill the kettle. “Hello, Matt,” she continued, pleasantly, sitting down, and then she smiled at Kate. “And you must be Kate. It’s so lovely to meet you finally. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you guys, too,” replied Kate.
“Did he tell you all about the TARDIS?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes,” she answered. “Actually, I thought it’d be bigger in here.”
The Doctor and Brem both looked at her with mouths agape. Kate winked across the table at Rose.
“Oh, you’re fabulous,” said Rose. “You and I are definitely going to have tea together.”
“I may have oversold it a bit,” Brem told his father’s accusatory glance.
The TARDIS saved him, launching into the opening notes of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, and the Doctor lit up. “Top banana,” he said, and reached for Rose and pulled her out of her seat into one of those jaunty, overenthusiastic dances he was prone to.
“What is this song?” asked Kate, bewildered, as Brem moved to sit next to her and draped an arm over her shoulders.
“Oh, a ridiculous song,” he said, fondly. “My father loves it.”
“He probably seduced your mother with it once,” she commented, snuggling into him.
“Oh, please don’t talk about things like that,” he complained, and she laughed, and he brushed a kiss over the top of her head.
“I should go,” Matt said.
Brem looked at him. “You don’t have to. Really.”
“I know I don’t, but I…” He glanced at Athena, then back to Brem. “But I should go.”
“Okay,” said Brem, after a second. “Thank you. Really. So much.”
“It was nothing,” Matt said, dismissively. “I’ll see you next year, right?”
“Definitely. We’re living together, aren’t we?”
“I didn’t know if you were just going to disappear in your spaceship here and never be seen again.”
Brem smiled. “I’m coming back. And if you’re very, very good, I might even take you for a whirl in this spaceship of mine.”
“Oi,” his father called, from where he was in the progress of dipping his mother. “Whose spaceship is it?”
“Concentrate on not dropping her,” Brem called back, and turned back just in time to watch Athena plant a thorough kiss on Matt’s lips.
She pulled away. “Thanks for everything,” she grinned at him. “You’ve been great. See you next year, yeah?” Then she winked.
“Yeah,” he answered, dazedly.
“I’ll show you out of the TARDIS,” Fortuna said, sending a short glare Athena’s way.
“That was a bit…” Brem said to Athena, at a loss for words.
She shrugged. “He deserved it. I’m a good kisser.”
“Really not talking about this,” Brem told her.
“She is just like you,” his father told his mother.
“I know,” his mother laughed, as his father twirled her away.
Brem turned back to Kate. “You must have a million questions.”
“I do. But you’ll tell me the answers eventually. We’ve got time, you and I. So much time. Because you’re the lord of it, aren’t you?” She grinned.
He grinned back. “And I use it wisely.” He leaned forward and kissed her, as the TARDIS’s song choice switched, and then he pulled back and started laughing.
Kate was bewildered. “What?”
“We’re dancing to this,” he said, and pulled her up out of her seat.
“I can’t really…salsa,” she protested.
“It isn’t salsa,” he frowned at her. “Juanes is rokero with cumbia influences. And I love this song. I brought my mother back to Juanes, all those years ago, and we danced to this song on a beach in the Caribbean.”
She smiled at him. “That’s a lovely memory,” she said.
“You know,” he realized, musingly, “I have a lot of those. A lot. They far outweigh the bad.”
“Which is good,” she told him.
He pulled her a bit closer, so he could lean forward and sing the words in her ear, dimly aware of his father’s voice singing to his mother only a few steps away. No se va la herida grande que mi queda…
“Brem,” she said. “You do know that’s Spanish, right?”
He laughed.
********
“I don’t care,” said Brem. “I still look completely ridiculous, and it was an enormous waste of time, and it rained, and I was cold-”
“Brem,” his grandmother cut him off. “You graduated from Harvard. It’s time to stop complaining. And what was your major? I didn’t understand that part.”
“My degree is in General Studies. Because I qualified for too many different concentrations.” Brem, sulking, took off his cap and mortarboard and felt his limp hair. “And that bloody hat ruined my hair.”
“Yes, you are in dire need of some product,” his father told him, gravely.
“You look fine, Brem,” his mother told him, and then hugged him fiercely. “I am so, so, terribly proud of you. Have I told you that today?”
“Several dozen times,” Athena pointed out.
“You’ll get told several dozen times when you graduate, too,” Rose promised her.
“I’m changing,” Brem announced, and headed down the TARDIS hallway to his bedroom, where he removed the silly graduation robe and the soaked clothing underneath it and replaced them with a dry outfit: jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt topped by a short-sleeved T-shirt, then he carefully did his hair, and then he stood for a second, looking at this bedroom with all his stuff from college back in it, waiting for the next decision that he had to make, about where he ought to go and what he ought to do. He reached out and brushed his fingers over the journals that represented his college years.
“Going to publish them as your memoirs?” drawled his father.
Brem looked at where he was leaning in the doorway, arms and legs crossed, and smiled, remembering. “Yes. I shall call them Chaos Theory on Dimensionally Stable Objects on Earth College Campuses.”
“No one’s going to buy anything with a title that long, you know.”
“Why not? It’s going to be an entire Chaos series. Certainly an apt word to describe our life, don’t you think?”
“I’ve got a gift for you,” he said.
Brem blinked, surprised. “You do?”
He nodded. “Follow me.”
Curious, Brem followed his father down the hallway, to a door he’d never seen before, that opened into a large, blindingly bright garden. Brem squinted through the brightness.
“Sorry,” his father said. “They need these growing conditions. This way.”
In the center of the garden stood three separate tables, each of them with a piece of lovely coral suspended in a jar. Brem stopped short and stared.
“I thought…” he began. “But I thought…”
“Wow,” said his father.
“What?”
“I don’t know, I’m just wondering if it’s possible that you could have been…wrong? Is that actually possible?”
Brem laughed. “But how did you…?”
“When your mother told me she was pregnant with you, I sliced a sliver of coral out of the console. I read every book I could about how we grew them, and I attempted to do it. And we’ve made real progress from that sliver. There’s one for each of you, you see.”
Brem studied them. “Two of them are pink.”
“Yes. Welllll. This TARDIS spoils you lot.”
Brem chuckled.
“So, Bremsstrahlung,” his father said. “Do you want to hold your TARDIS?”
Brem looked at his father and then at the non-pink piece of coral and nodded.
“Well, go on,” his father said. “She’s your TARDIS, you should be the first Time Lord to touch her. It’s a lovely moment, you know, the first time you bond with your TARDIS.”
Brem reached forward, slowly, and picked up the jar as carefully as possible, cradling it in his hand. It glowed golden for a long, shimmering moment, with just the faintest of songs, a new little hum in his head. He stared in amazed delight, studying the contours of her small piece of coral. His TARDIS. He had never even allowed himself the possibility, and now it washed over him in a wave of jubilation.
“D’you like her?” his father asked.
“Oh, I love her,” he breathed. “She’s…she’s brilliant.”
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad. I can’t give you Gallifrey, and I’m rubbish at knowing anything about the rest of our heritage, really. But a Time Lord should have a TARDIS. And that TARDIS there is very lucky, considering I’ve never seen such a brilliant pilot as you.”
“But I learned everything from you,” Brem told him, honestly.
“Then isn’t it funny how much better than me you turned out?” his father commented.
Brem felt himself blush, looked back to the TARDIS in his hands, and then abruptly hugged his father tightly. “Thank you,” he said. “Really. Thank you so much.”
“Thank you,” his father responded. “For everything.” Brem felt him brush a kiss over the top of his hand, and then slowly extract himself from the hug. “Now then,” he said, jovially. “Be careful with her. In another eighty years or so, she’ll be ready for you to pilot.”
Brem looked up at him, startled, and said, “Eighty years?"
Finis.