Something About Stars (13/20)
Title - Something About Stars (13/20)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs
Spoilers - Through the specials.
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 - Four Time Lords and a Bad Wolf human, gallivanting through time and space. What could possibly go wrong?
Author's Notes - Huge thanks to Kristin and chicklet73 , who talked through plot points. Special thanks to Kristin for coming up with the title. And even more thanks to jlrpuck and c73, who so graciously beta'd.
The icon was created by swankkat , commissioned by jlrpuck for my birthday.
Prologue - Ch 1 - Ch 2 - Ch 3 - Ch 4 - Ch 5 - Ch 6 - Ch 7 - Ch 8 - Ch 9 - Ch 10 - Ch 11
Chapter Twelve
The Doctor was watching Brem sleep. Except that Brem was about to wake. Athena and Fortuna had been sitting with him, but the Doctor could tell, by the flickering of Brem in their heads, that he was going to wake up, and he’d wanted to have him alone for a bit, and he had sent Athena and Fortuna to make Brem fresh tea. There was no need for both of them to go, but they had sensed he was really emptying the room and they had not protested, and so the Doctor sat and watched Brem sleep and wondered when the last time was he had seen Brem so still. Brem had been a bundle of energy from the moment the Doctor had pulled him into the world, back when he had still been no more than a terrifying miracle. Well, considered the Doctor. He was still terrifying and he was still a miracle, but he could never have predicted, not in all of his lifetimes, how much else Brem would turn out to be, how he could possibly have been responsible for the creation of, well, Brem.
Brem stirred, making a small noise and shifting under the blanket Fortuna had pulled up to his chin, and then his eyes fluttered open.
The Doctor smiled at him.
“Dad,” he said, and then drowsily closed his eyes again. “Hello.”
“You stupid, stupid boy,” the Doctor told him, and then abruptly leaned forward, laying his ear to Brem’s chest, listening to the double heartbeats, just making sure.
“It’s okay,” said Brem. “I’m fine.”
“You’re so very lucky. You should have regenerated. Your body must have been screaming at you to regenerate.”
“But I’ve got this great hair,” said Brem.
The Doctor either laughed or sobbed, it was unclear to him. He thought of the white-point star in his hand, he thought of Gallifrey, he thought of how Gallifrey would have killed his children’s spirit, he thought of how Brem and Athena and Fortuna were the sort of creatures you could never have comprehended on Gallifrey, he thought of how he would fight through his last regeneration to keep his children safe from feeling the way he had always felt on Gallifrey. He shifted abruptly, and pressed a fervent kiss to Brem’s forehead, drawing back to say, “I love all of you more than anything else in the universe.”
Brem looked bewildered by him. “I know,” he said.
The Doctor exhaled. “Good.” He sat back down in the chair. “Because we need to talk about this.” He held up the white-point star.
“You’re holding it,” marveled Brem.
“Why?” asked the Doctor, in confusion. “Can’t you?”
“I…My head gets full, kind of. I can’t…I can’t think. There’s all this noise and light and it’s terrible.”
“Yes,” realized the Doctor. “It would feel like that for you.” All those other people, suddenly in your head for the first time. The Doctor could see how it would be terrible.
“It hurt,” said Brem.
“I believe you. Where’d you get this?”
“Why doesn’t it hurt you?”
“We’ll get to that. You’re telling the story right now. Where’d you get this?”
“Cunodys,” he said. “I let the TARDIS pick a time period on Cunodys at random. When I stepped out, a meteor flew over my head. I followed it, and the meteor turned out to be that. When I picked it up, I, you know, as I described. So I forced myself to put it in my pocket, because I figured it had to be important. I don’t understand what it does.” He lifted his eyes from the white-point star to the Doctor, curious. “What does it do, Dad?”
“I promise, we’ll get to that part of the story. You put it in your pocket, then what happened?”
“I really don’t know. I was very…dazed. Even before I got shot, I was very dazed. I was trying to get to the TARDIS anyway, because I was trying to get to you, and then suddenly I was being shot at and…I don’t know.”
“You told Matt it was Daleks.”
“Oh. No. It wasn’t. I didn’t see who shot me. That was what I saw, when I held onto that thing.” He nodded toward the white-point star. “Daleks.”
“Why’d you go to Matt’s? Instead of here?”
“I didn’t trust myself to be able to land inside another TARDIS. I figured Matt’s was the safer bet, and you’d be able to come to where I was.”
The Doctor half-smiled. “Good thinking.”
“So what is it?”
“It’s called a white-point star.” He over-enunciated the words.
“I’ve never heard of it before,” said Brem.
“No, you wouldn’t have. Because they only existed on Gallifrey.” The Doctor tried to sound casual about it, but Brem’s eyes still flew to his in alarm.
“Then how did it get on Cunodys?”
“That’s an excellent question. How did a white-point star fall to Cunodys while you happened to be standing right near it? And why was someone trying to kill you over it? You see, these are excellent questions. I don’t have any answers.”
“I think we have to go to Cunodys.”
“I think ‘we’ are not doing anything.”
“Dad,” he complained.
“You just almost died, Brem.”
“But I feel just fine,” he reasoned.
“Yeah, wait until you try to sit up.”
“There’s no way Mum’s going to let you go off and deal with Gallifrey angst on your own,” Brem pointed out.
“It isn’t ‘Gallifrey angst,’ what sort of melodrama are you writing in your head anyway-”
“We need to have a family meeting.”
“A family meeting?” squeaked the Doctor. “I’m the head of this family and-” He cut himself off as the infirmary door swung open.
Fortuna entered, holding a tea tray, and she beamed at them. “Thought I heard you two rowing. It’s good to have things back to normal.” She set the tea tray down and said to Brem, “I made you tea and some soufflé.”
“What kind of soufflé?”
“It’s called Ingredients-Mum’s-TARDIS-Happened-To-Have-When-We-Thought-Brem-Was-Dying Soufflé.”
“Good name,” said Brem.
Fortuna hugged him fiercely. When she straightened, the Doctor had stolen a piece of soufflé.
“That’s for Brem,” she scolded.
“The tea is more important, anyway,” he said. “Tannins and free radicals.”
“Where’s Athena?” asked Brem, wincing a bit as he tried to sit up so he could drink his tea.
“She went to get-”
“What are you doing?” demanded Matt, walking into the infirmary. “You’re going to disturb your stitches.”
“Uh-oh,” said Brem, as Matt walked over to him. “Are you going to fuss?”
“Yes, I’m going to fuss,” said Matt, pulling on a stethoscope. “Lay back down, let me check you out.”
“Matt,” complained Brem.
“You know what’s shocking to me?” remarked Matt, listening to both hearts. “I cannot believe that you’re going to turn out to be a difficult patient. Who would have predicted that?”
“Your bedside manner needs work,” Brem told him.
“I get that a lot,” replied Matt. “Take a deep breath and hold it. Exhale. Alright, well.” Matt removed the stethoscope. “I hate to say it, but you seem to be in perfect health. Other than the gaping gunshot wound in your side.”
“Well, nobody’s perfect,” said Brem.
“Can I hug him now?” asked Athena.
“Yes,” said Matt, and Athena immediately gave Brem a warm hug.
“You scared me,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he responded.
“Here.” Fortuna handed him an extra pillow. “You’ll be able to sit up enough to drink the tea.”
“Thank you,” he said, arranging himself. “Where’s Mum?”
“She was sleeping, I think,” said Athena.
“We need to wake her up,” said Brem.
“Brem,” said the Doctor.
“We need to have a family meeting,” said Brem.
“We’re not having a family meeting,” said the Doctor.
“Matt,” asked Brem, mildly, “do you think it’s good that people argue with your patient?”
“I think I’m staying out of this one.”
“I’ll get Mum,” said Fortuna, and the Doctor sighed.
The room lapsed into an awkward silence.
“Your sister was wearing one of Matt’s shirts and no knickers,” announced the Doctor.
“Dad!” exclaimed Athena.
Matt looked at Brem, who looked back at him.
“I had nothing to do with it,” said Brem.
“No, it was Fortuna,” Matt replied.
“Good for her. Good for you.”
Matt’s head tipped toward the Doctor. “Not right now,” he said.
“Yes, really not,” added the Doctor.
Fortuna and Rose walked in, and Rose rushed immediately to Brem’s bed.
“What are you drinking?” she asked him. “Tea?”
“Yes,” he affirmed.
She took it out of his hand, putting it gently on the tea tray, and then sat on the bed next to him and gathered him up, hugging him tightly and kissing the top of his head. Then she released him and studied him critically. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” he said.
“You’re very pale,” she said.
“He lost a lot of blood,” said Matt. “He’ll improve.”
“I feel fine, really. We all need to talk.”
“Yes,” agreed Rose. “About who tried to kill you? We definitely need to talk.”
“I don’t know who tried to kill me. I only know why.”
“Why?” asked Rose.
Brem looked pointedly at the Doctor.
“What?” he asked, trying to look innocent while he rubbed the back of his neck.
“Dad,” he said.
“We don’t know that that’s why. It might not have anything to do with-”
“What are the two of you talking about?” demanded Athena.
“Show her,” said Brem.
The Doctor sighed heavily but held up the white-point star. It gleamed in the bright lights of the infirmary.
“What is it?” asked Fortuna.
“It’s a white-point star.”
“And what’s so special about that?”
“Matt, touch it,” said the Doctor, holding it out to him.
Matt, looking confused, laid a finger on the white-point star.
“Is something supposed to happen?” he asked, doubtfully.
“Now you touch it, Theenie,” he said, shifting to hold it out to her instead.
Athena, looking as confused as Matt, laid a finger on the white-point star and immediately gasped and let go.
“What just happened?” asked Matt, in alarm.
Athena stared at him. “You didn’t feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“He won’t feel it. Neither will your mother,” said the Doctor.
“Why not?” asked Athena.
“We can feel it because we’re Gallifreyan, and this is a white-point star.”
There was silence.
“We don’t know what that means,” said Fortuna, confused.
“White-point stars were only found on Gallifrey.”
“So you kept that one?” said Fortuna.
“No.” The Doctor shook his head. “Your brother found it.”
“Found it how?” said Fortuna.
“Found it where?” said Athena.
The Doctor looked at Athena. “Cunodys.”
Athena looked at the white-point star in her father’s hand and nodded. “So is that what’s causing them? The time skips? I haven’t had one in a while, maybe because Brem had the white-point star.”
“I don’t know if the white-point star is causing the time skips. But I think the existence of a white-point star on Cunodys and the sudden affliction of time skips in a Time Lord who visits Cunodys fairly often must be connected.”
“So we have to go to Cunodys,” said Athena.
“Exactly,” said Brem.
“No,” said the Doctor. “’We’ are not doing any such thing. All of you are going to go sit in another TARDIS and, I don’t know, knit or something, and I am going to Cunodys.”
“You’ve absolutely lost your mind,” remarked Rose, flatly.
“Rose-” began the Doctor.
“No.” She stood up. “All signs point to this being much bigger than you. You think I’d let you go in there alone?”
“You think we should put the children at risk?”
“I think none of us are children anymore,” retorted Athena. “What does she mean, it’s ‘bigger than you’? What do you think this is?”
He looked from Rose to Athena. “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “All I know is that I went to Cunodys, and there were Ood there, and they told me songs would be ending around me. And I will not have that happen. No one goes to Cunodys but me.”
There was a long, tense silence in the TARDIS.
“Brem,” said Athena, finally, “what time period were you in when you went to Cunodys?”
“It should be in my TARDIS’s log,” he answered.
“Fine. I’ll get it. Fortuna, set the coordinates. We’re all going to Cunodys.”
***
Athena stepped over the stain that was Brem’s blood on Matt’s living room floor and felt the fury grow more congealed within her. Whatever was going on with time skips and white-point stars and shooting at her brother, it was going to end now. She, Athena Rose Tyler, had had quite enough. So she thought, as she stepped over her brother’s bloodstain and walked determinedly into her brother’s TARDIS and over to her log.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Matt said.
Athena looked up from where she was studying Brem’s pilot log. “What?”
“Rushing off to Cunodys, all of you. I think it’s possible none of you are thinking clearly right now-”
“This is how it works, Matt. There isn’t time to stop and ‘think clearly.’ Things that are not us are shaping events. If we don’t like the shapes-which we don’t-then we have to move now or time will freeze itself into place and we won’t have another chance.” Brem had been very close to her last visit to Cunodys. She wondered if she was supposed to have been the one to find the white-point star, if she was supposed to have been the shot-at one. She straightened away from the pilot’s log and looked at Matt. “You don’t have to come.”
“Well, of course I’m coming,” he said. “I just think, you know, a few hours ago you’d never even kissed me and I would have liked a little more time before you run off and get yourself regenerated.”
“I’m not going to get myself regenerated,” she said, walking over to him where he was standing on the other side of the console.
“I’m really a bit concerned the next you will have hideous teeth or something,” said Matt.
Athena stepped closer to him and pressed her face into his chest. She felt his arms come up around her to hold her, and she allowed herself the luxury of a moment of silence. She needed more moments where she got to pretend she was normal. She realized now what a feat it had been for her parents, to make them feel as normal as they had felt when they had been growing up.
She stepped away from Matt. “We’re pros at this, you’ll see.”
“I will see. I’m going to change into proper clothing now, and if that TARDIS disappears and leaves me here, I swear to God, Athena-”
“We won’t,” she cut him off. “We won’t. We’ll wait. I promise.” She leaned up and gave him a quick kiss. “Of course, I’m going to make you stay on the TARDIS once we get to Cunodys.”
“We’ll have that argument later,” he said, and he squeezed her hand as they walked out of Brem’s TARDIS and then he headed into his bedroom and she walked back onto her parents’ TARDIS.
The control room was silent and tense. Fortuna was needlessly fiddling with knobs. The Doctor was standing against one of the coral struts, arms folded, watching the scene with an expression of intense displeasure.
“I have Brem’s readings,” Athena told Fortuna. “I promised Matt we’d wait for him, though.”
“There is no bloody way Matt is coming,” snapped the Doctor. “I don’t think anyone should be coming.”
“Isn’t the rule that we do things together?” retorted Athena.
“What rule is that? I don’t remember it being a rule-”
“It’s been a rule ever since Mum and Fortuna fell through to the other universe. It was Brem’s rule, remember? You needed us then and you need us now, you have always needed us.”
Silence fell again. And then, to her amazement, her father suddenly half-slumped, and Athena realized that she not quite grasped how terrified he was. He ran his hands over his face.
Athena glanced at Fortuna, who looked equally alarmed.
“Dad,” Athena ventured. “What’s the deal with the white-point star? Really? You know more about what’s happening here than you’re telling.”
“I don’t,” he answered, wearily. “I have no clue what’s happening.”
“You know more than you’re telling.”
He stood, staring at a point on the grating of his control room, for a very long time. It was Fortuna who moved to him and hugged him, and he hugged her back tightly.
“We’re going to have tea,” ventured Rose, and Athena wondered when she had entered the control room, “in Brem’s room, and we’re going to take a few deep breaths here.”
She said it gently, but it had the nature of a command, and they filed out of the control room to Brem’s room. He had evidently moved from the infirmary while Athena had been in his TARDIS. He was looking much better, much more colour in his face, and his eyes were much brighter and much sharper. She would never have believed he’d make such a quick recovery when he had been lying lifeless and covered in blood in Matt’s living room. Then again, the number of teacups stacked up by his bed was alarming. He was clearly pouring free radicals and tannins into his body.
He was still in bed, looking annoyed about it, sitting up and scribbling furiously in his journal.
“Good,” he said, tossing the journal aside as they all filed in. “It’s deadly dull in here by myself, you know.” He caught the silence hanging over all of them, and looked between them warily. “What’s happened?”
“Your father’s going to tell us a story,” Rose replied, mildly. “Would you like more tea?”
Brem nodded, and took a cup off the tray his mother offered him.
“I don’t know what the story is that you all think I’m going to tell you,” protested the Doctor.
“You’re going to tell us everything going on in that head of yours right now,” Rose told him, “because we need to know all of it if we’re going to be able to defeat whatever this is. So we can start with the white-point star. What happens when you lot touch it?”
“It’s terrible,” said Brem and Athena, in unison.
“It isn’t,” said the Doctor. “Not really. It’s just that you’re not used to it.”
“What is it?” asked Fortuna, confused.
“It’s…It’s everyone. You can feel everyone. All their thoughts. You touch the white-point star, and you can feel what it was like to have an entire race of Time Lords in the universe.”
“Is that what that was?” said Brem, wrinkling his nose.
“Yes. It’s why it doesn’t bother me as much, it’s how I lived most of my life. You’re only used to us, you don’t need to make much room in your head, but you had to learn how to do it, when you were growing up, you had to learn how to clear space for yourself.”
“Why didn’t they clear space for you?” queried Brem. “Bloody rude of them to be pushing into your thoughts like that. They could have held back, we know how to do that.”
“Yes, wellll, the Time Lords weren’t exactly known for being polite.”
“No wonder you ran away,” remarked Brem. “I would run have farther than you did, trying to find space. It was very unpleasant,” he clarified, when his mother and Fortuna looked surprised at the statement.
“You’re all so different,” said the Doctor, tousling at his hair nervously. “This is the problem. You’re so…I gave you so much space, I really let you be whatever you wanted to be, much as you might think that I didn’t, I did everything I had to, to let you be happy, and they’re going to…This is why none of you can come, I can’t let any of them get near you.”
“Any of who?” asked Brem, slowly. They were all staring at the Doctor now.
“The Time Lords,” he answered.
“But there aren’t any other Time Lords, Dad,” Brem pointed out.
The Doctor looked at him.
Matt walked into the utter silence that followed, and realized he was interrupting. “Oh,” he said. “Should I-”
“How can there be other Time Lords?” asked Brem, looking genuinely confused. “You told us…”
“I know. I know what I told you. What happened, really, was that I stuck them in a time lock.”
“A time lock,” echoed Brem.
“Yes. The entire Time War, I time locked it. It removed it from space and time, it should be inaccessible, forever.”
“But?” prompted Athena, because it was hanging in the air.
“But that white-point star is maintaining a link to it. The white-point star should have blinked out of existence when I time-locked Gallifrey. The only Gallifreyan things that remained were the ones in the TARDIS, because I was the center of the time lock. I didn’t have any white-point stars, so that’s independent from me. And, worse than that, it’s broadcasting a link back to Gallifrey. Which should be impossible, because Gallifrey is time-locked. We shouldn’t be able to feel Gallifrey, Gallifrey never existed after I used the Moment.”
“What moment?” asked Rose.
“No, Moment, with a capital ‘M.’ You need to have the Moment, in order to be able to pull something out of time and space. That isn’t something easily achieved.”
“And you have it? This Moment?” said Rose.
“I have it. I still have it. I locked it up after I used it, but I was scared to get rid of it. Can’t have it falling into the wrong hands, after all. So I just…kept it. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Could it have been…wrong?” Rose frowned. “That’s not the word I mean, but maybe the time lock wasn’t complete, when you used the Moment?”
“Maybe. It’s possible. Welllllllll, it had to be, right? Or I wouldn’t have a white-point star in my pocket right now.”
There was a moment of silence.
“They are returning,” said Rose, suddenly.
Her kids looked at her. “What?” said Athena.
“It’s what the Ood on Cunodys told us. ‘They are returning.’”
“Yes,” agreed the Doctor. “And I’ve got a daughter skipping through parallel universes involuntarily. There’s a Gallifreyan stamp on things if ever I saw one,” he drawled.
“I don’t understand,” interjected Brem.
“Neither do I,” said the Doctor, grimly.
“No. You’re terrified. And I don’t understand why. What do you think they’re going to do to us? Why would they do anything to us?”
“Because,” said the Doctor, very sadly, “because you’re what I love most in the universe.”
Next Chapter
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs
Spoilers - Through the specials.
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 - Four Time Lords and a Bad Wolf human, gallivanting through time and space. What could possibly go wrong?
Author's Notes - Huge thanks to Kristin and chicklet73 , who talked through plot points. Special thanks to Kristin for coming up with the title. And even more thanks to jlrpuck and c73, who so graciously beta'd.
The icon was created by swankkat , commissioned by jlrpuck for my birthday.
Prologue - Ch 1 - Ch 2 - Ch 3 - Ch 4 - Ch 5 - Ch 6 - Ch 7 - Ch 8 - Ch 9 - Ch 10 - Ch 11
Chapter Twelve
The Doctor was watching Brem sleep. Except that Brem was about to wake. Athena and Fortuna had been sitting with him, but the Doctor could tell, by the flickering of Brem in their heads, that he was going to wake up, and he’d wanted to have him alone for a bit, and he had sent Athena and Fortuna to make Brem fresh tea. There was no need for both of them to go, but they had sensed he was really emptying the room and they had not protested, and so the Doctor sat and watched Brem sleep and wondered when the last time was he had seen Brem so still. Brem had been a bundle of energy from the moment the Doctor had pulled him into the world, back when he had still been no more than a terrifying miracle. Well, considered the Doctor. He was still terrifying and he was still a miracle, but he could never have predicted, not in all of his lifetimes, how much else Brem would turn out to be, how he could possibly have been responsible for the creation of, well, Brem.
Brem stirred, making a small noise and shifting under the blanket Fortuna had pulled up to his chin, and then his eyes fluttered open.
The Doctor smiled at him.
“Dad,” he said, and then drowsily closed his eyes again. “Hello.”
“You stupid, stupid boy,” the Doctor told him, and then abruptly leaned forward, laying his ear to Brem’s chest, listening to the double heartbeats, just making sure.
“It’s okay,” said Brem. “I’m fine.”
“You’re so very lucky. You should have regenerated. Your body must have been screaming at you to regenerate.”
“But I’ve got this great hair,” said Brem.
The Doctor either laughed or sobbed, it was unclear to him. He thought of the white-point star in his hand, he thought of Gallifrey, he thought of how Gallifrey would have killed his children’s spirit, he thought of how Brem and Athena and Fortuna were the sort of creatures you could never have comprehended on Gallifrey, he thought of how he would fight through his last regeneration to keep his children safe from feeling the way he had always felt on Gallifrey. He shifted abruptly, and pressed a fervent kiss to Brem’s forehead, drawing back to say, “I love all of you more than anything else in the universe.”
Brem looked bewildered by him. “I know,” he said.
The Doctor exhaled. “Good.” He sat back down in the chair. “Because we need to talk about this.” He held up the white-point star.
“You’re holding it,” marveled Brem.
“Why?” asked the Doctor, in confusion. “Can’t you?”
“I…My head gets full, kind of. I can’t…I can’t think. There’s all this noise and light and it’s terrible.”
“Yes,” realized the Doctor. “It would feel like that for you.” All those other people, suddenly in your head for the first time. The Doctor could see how it would be terrible.
“It hurt,” said Brem.
“I believe you. Where’d you get this?”
“Why doesn’t it hurt you?”
“We’ll get to that. You’re telling the story right now. Where’d you get this?”
“Cunodys,” he said. “I let the TARDIS pick a time period on Cunodys at random. When I stepped out, a meteor flew over my head. I followed it, and the meteor turned out to be that. When I picked it up, I, you know, as I described. So I forced myself to put it in my pocket, because I figured it had to be important. I don’t understand what it does.” He lifted his eyes from the white-point star to the Doctor, curious. “What does it do, Dad?”
“I promise, we’ll get to that part of the story. You put it in your pocket, then what happened?”
“I really don’t know. I was very…dazed. Even before I got shot, I was very dazed. I was trying to get to the TARDIS anyway, because I was trying to get to you, and then suddenly I was being shot at and…I don’t know.”
“You told Matt it was Daleks.”
“Oh. No. It wasn’t. I didn’t see who shot me. That was what I saw, when I held onto that thing.” He nodded toward the white-point star. “Daleks.”
“Why’d you go to Matt’s? Instead of here?”
“I didn’t trust myself to be able to land inside another TARDIS. I figured Matt’s was the safer bet, and you’d be able to come to where I was.”
The Doctor half-smiled. “Good thinking.”
“So what is it?”
“It’s called a white-point star.” He over-enunciated the words.
“I’ve never heard of it before,” said Brem.
“No, you wouldn’t have. Because they only existed on Gallifrey.” The Doctor tried to sound casual about it, but Brem’s eyes still flew to his in alarm.
“Then how did it get on Cunodys?”
“That’s an excellent question. How did a white-point star fall to Cunodys while you happened to be standing right near it? And why was someone trying to kill you over it? You see, these are excellent questions. I don’t have any answers.”
“I think we have to go to Cunodys.”
“I think ‘we’ are not doing anything.”
“Dad,” he complained.
“You just almost died, Brem.”
“But I feel just fine,” he reasoned.
“Yeah, wait until you try to sit up.”
“There’s no way Mum’s going to let you go off and deal with Gallifrey angst on your own,” Brem pointed out.
“It isn’t ‘Gallifrey angst,’ what sort of melodrama are you writing in your head anyway-”
“We need to have a family meeting.”
“A family meeting?” squeaked the Doctor. “I’m the head of this family and-” He cut himself off as the infirmary door swung open.
Fortuna entered, holding a tea tray, and she beamed at them. “Thought I heard you two rowing. It’s good to have things back to normal.” She set the tea tray down and said to Brem, “I made you tea and some soufflé.”
“What kind of soufflé?”
“It’s called Ingredients-Mum’s-TARDIS-Happened-To-Have-When-We-Thought-Brem-Was-Dying Soufflé.”
“Good name,” said Brem.
Fortuna hugged him fiercely. When she straightened, the Doctor had stolen a piece of soufflé.
“That’s for Brem,” she scolded.
“The tea is more important, anyway,” he said. “Tannins and free radicals.”
“Where’s Athena?” asked Brem, wincing a bit as he tried to sit up so he could drink his tea.
“She went to get-”
“What are you doing?” demanded Matt, walking into the infirmary. “You’re going to disturb your stitches.”
“Uh-oh,” said Brem, as Matt walked over to him. “Are you going to fuss?”
“Yes, I’m going to fuss,” said Matt, pulling on a stethoscope. “Lay back down, let me check you out.”
“Matt,” complained Brem.
“You know what’s shocking to me?” remarked Matt, listening to both hearts. “I cannot believe that you’re going to turn out to be a difficult patient. Who would have predicted that?”
“Your bedside manner needs work,” Brem told him.
“I get that a lot,” replied Matt. “Take a deep breath and hold it. Exhale. Alright, well.” Matt removed the stethoscope. “I hate to say it, but you seem to be in perfect health. Other than the gaping gunshot wound in your side.”
“Well, nobody’s perfect,” said Brem.
“Can I hug him now?” asked Athena.
“Yes,” said Matt, and Athena immediately gave Brem a warm hug.
“You scared me,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he responded.
“Here.” Fortuna handed him an extra pillow. “You’ll be able to sit up enough to drink the tea.”
“Thank you,” he said, arranging himself. “Where’s Mum?”
“She was sleeping, I think,” said Athena.
“We need to wake her up,” said Brem.
“Brem,” said the Doctor.
“We need to have a family meeting,” said Brem.
“We’re not having a family meeting,” said the Doctor.
“Matt,” asked Brem, mildly, “do you think it’s good that people argue with your patient?”
“I think I’m staying out of this one.”
“I’ll get Mum,” said Fortuna, and the Doctor sighed.
The room lapsed into an awkward silence.
“Your sister was wearing one of Matt’s shirts and no knickers,” announced the Doctor.
“Dad!” exclaimed Athena.
Matt looked at Brem, who looked back at him.
“I had nothing to do with it,” said Brem.
“No, it was Fortuna,” Matt replied.
“Good for her. Good for you.”
Matt’s head tipped toward the Doctor. “Not right now,” he said.
“Yes, really not,” added the Doctor.
Fortuna and Rose walked in, and Rose rushed immediately to Brem’s bed.
“What are you drinking?” she asked him. “Tea?”
“Yes,” he affirmed.
She took it out of his hand, putting it gently on the tea tray, and then sat on the bed next to him and gathered him up, hugging him tightly and kissing the top of his head. Then she released him and studied him critically. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” he said.
“You’re very pale,” she said.
“He lost a lot of blood,” said Matt. “He’ll improve.”
“I feel fine, really. We all need to talk.”
“Yes,” agreed Rose. “About who tried to kill you? We definitely need to talk.”
“I don’t know who tried to kill me. I only know why.”
“Why?” asked Rose.
Brem looked pointedly at the Doctor.
“What?” he asked, trying to look innocent while he rubbed the back of his neck.
“Dad,” he said.
“We don’t know that that’s why. It might not have anything to do with-”
“What are the two of you talking about?” demanded Athena.
“Show her,” said Brem.
The Doctor sighed heavily but held up the white-point star. It gleamed in the bright lights of the infirmary.
“What is it?” asked Fortuna.
“It’s a white-point star.”
“And what’s so special about that?”
“Matt, touch it,” said the Doctor, holding it out to him.
Matt, looking confused, laid a finger on the white-point star.
“Is something supposed to happen?” he asked, doubtfully.
“Now you touch it, Theenie,” he said, shifting to hold it out to her instead.
Athena, looking as confused as Matt, laid a finger on the white-point star and immediately gasped and let go.
“What just happened?” asked Matt, in alarm.
Athena stared at him. “You didn’t feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“He won’t feel it. Neither will your mother,” said the Doctor.
“Why not?” asked Athena.
“We can feel it because we’re Gallifreyan, and this is a white-point star.”
There was silence.
“We don’t know what that means,” said Fortuna, confused.
“White-point stars were only found on Gallifrey.”
“So you kept that one?” said Fortuna.
“No.” The Doctor shook his head. “Your brother found it.”
“Found it how?” said Fortuna.
“Found it where?” said Athena.
The Doctor looked at Athena. “Cunodys.”
Athena looked at the white-point star in her father’s hand and nodded. “So is that what’s causing them? The time skips? I haven’t had one in a while, maybe because Brem had the white-point star.”
“I don’t know if the white-point star is causing the time skips. But I think the existence of a white-point star on Cunodys and the sudden affliction of time skips in a Time Lord who visits Cunodys fairly often must be connected.”
“So we have to go to Cunodys,” said Athena.
“Exactly,” said Brem.
“No,” said the Doctor. “’We’ are not doing any such thing. All of you are going to go sit in another TARDIS and, I don’t know, knit or something, and I am going to Cunodys.”
“You’ve absolutely lost your mind,” remarked Rose, flatly.
“Rose-” began the Doctor.
“No.” She stood up. “All signs point to this being much bigger than you. You think I’d let you go in there alone?”
“You think we should put the children at risk?”
“I think none of us are children anymore,” retorted Athena. “What does she mean, it’s ‘bigger than you’? What do you think this is?”
He looked from Rose to Athena. “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “All I know is that I went to Cunodys, and there were Ood there, and they told me songs would be ending around me. And I will not have that happen. No one goes to Cunodys but me.”
There was a long, tense silence in the TARDIS.
“Brem,” said Athena, finally, “what time period were you in when you went to Cunodys?”
“It should be in my TARDIS’s log,” he answered.
“Fine. I’ll get it. Fortuna, set the coordinates. We’re all going to Cunodys.”
***
Athena stepped over the stain that was Brem’s blood on Matt’s living room floor and felt the fury grow more congealed within her. Whatever was going on with time skips and white-point stars and shooting at her brother, it was going to end now. She, Athena Rose Tyler, had had quite enough. So she thought, as she stepped over her brother’s bloodstain and walked determinedly into her brother’s TARDIS and over to her log.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Matt said.
Athena looked up from where she was studying Brem’s pilot log. “What?”
“Rushing off to Cunodys, all of you. I think it’s possible none of you are thinking clearly right now-”
“This is how it works, Matt. There isn’t time to stop and ‘think clearly.’ Things that are not us are shaping events. If we don’t like the shapes-which we don’t-then we have to move now or time will freeze itself into place and we won’t have another chance.” Brem had been very close to her last visit to Cunodys. She wondered if she was supposed to have been the one to find the white-point star, if she was supposed to have been the shot-at one. She straightened away from the pilot’s log and looked at Matt. “You don’t have to come.”
“Well, of course I’m coming,” he said. “I just think, you know, a few hours ago you’d never even kissed me and I would have liked a little more time before you run off and get yourself regenerated.”
“I’m not going to get myself regenerated,” she said, walking over to him where he was standing on the other side of the console.
“I’m really a bit concerned the next you will have hideous teeth or something,” said Matt.
Athena stepped closer to him and pressed her face into his chest. She felt his arms come up around her to hold her, and she allowed herself the luxury of a moment of silence. She needed more moments where she got to pretend she was normal. She realized now what a feat it had been for her parents, to make them feel as normal as they had felt when they had been growing up.
She stepped away from Matt. “We’re pros at this, you’ll see.”
“I will see. I’m going to change into proper clothing now, and if that TARDIS disappears and leaves me here, I swear to God, Athena-”
“We won’t,” she cut him off. “We won’t. We’ll wait. I promise.” She leaned up and gave him a quick kiss. “Of course, I’m going to make you stay on the TARDIS once we get to Cunodys.”
“We’ll have that argument later,” he said, and he squeezed her hand as they walked out of Brem’s TARDIS and then he headed into his bedroom and she walked back onto her parents’ TARDIS.
The control room was silent and tense. Fortuna was needlessly fiddling with knobs. The Doctor was standing against one of the coral struts, arms folded, watching the scene with an expression of intense displeasure.
“I have Brem’s readings,” Athena told Fortuna. “I promised Matt we’d wait for him, though.”
“There is no bloody way Matt is coming,” snapped the Doctor. “I don’t think anyone should be coming.”
“Isn’t the rule that we do things together?” retorted Athena.
“What rule is that? I don’t remember it being a rule-”
“It’s been a rule ever since Mum and Fortuna fell through to the other universe. It was Brem’s rule, remember? You needed us then and you need us now, you have always needed us.”
Silence fell again. And then, to her amazement, her father suddenly half-slumped, and Athena realized that she not quite grasped how terrified he was. He ran his hands over his face.
Athena glanced at Fortuna, who looked equally alarmed.
“Dad,” Athena ventured. “What’s the deal with the white-point star? Really? You know more about what’s happening here than you’re telling.”
“I don’t,” he answered, wearily. “I have no clue what’s happening.”
“You know more than you’re telling.”
He stood, staring at a point on the grating of his control room, for a very long time. It was Fortuna who moved to him and hugged him, and he hugged her back tightly.
“We’re going to have tea,” ventured Rose, and Athena wondered when she had entered the control room, “in Brem’s room, and we’re going to take a few deep breaths here.”
She said it gently, but it had the nature of a command, and they filed out of the control room to Brem’s room. He had evidently moved from the infirmary while Athena had been in his TARDIS. He was looking much better, much more colour in his face, and his eyes were much brighter and much sharper. She would never have believed he’d make such a quick recovery when he had been lying lifeless and covered in blood in Matt’s living room. Then again, the number of teacups stacked up by his bed was alarming. He was clearly pouring free radicals and tannins into his body.
He was still in bed, looking annoyed about it, sitting up and scribbling furiously in his journal.
“Good,” he said, tossing the journal aside as they all filed in. “It’s deadly dull in here by myself, you know.” He caught the silence hanging over all of them, and looked between them warily. “What’s happened?”
“Your father’s going to tell us a story,” Rose replied, mildly. “Would you like more tea?”
Brem nodded, and took a cup off the tray his mother offered him.
“I don’t know what the story is that you all think I’m going to tell you,” protested the Doctor.
“You’re going to tell us everything going on in that head of yours right now,” Rose told him, “because we need to know all of it if we’re going to be able to defeat whatever this is. So we can start with the white-point star. What happens when you lot touch it?”
“It’s terrible,” said Brem and Athena, in unison.
“It isn’t,” said the Doctor. “Not really. It’s just that you’re not used to it.”
“What is it?” asked Fortuna, confused.
“It’s…It’s everyone. You can feel everyone. All their thoughts. You touch the white-point star, and you can feel what it was like to have an entire race of Time Lords in the universe.”
“Is that what that was?” said Brem, wrinkling his nose.
“Yes. It’s why it doesn’t bother me as much, it’s how I lived most of my life. You’re only used to us, you don’t need to make much room in your head, but you had to learn how to do it, when you were growing up, you had to learn how to clear space for yourself.”
“Why didn’t they clear space for you?” queried Brem. “Bloody rude of them to be pushing into your thoughts like that. They could have held back, we know how to do that.”
“Yes, wellll, the Time Lords weren’t exactly known for being polite.”
“No wonder you ran away,” remarked Brem. “I would run have farther than you did, trying to find space. It was very unpleasant,” he clarified, when his mother and Fortuna looked surprised at the statement.
“You’re all so different,” said the Doctor, tousling at his hair nervously. “This is the problem. You’re so…I gave you so much space, I really let you be whatever you wanted to be, much as you might think that I didn’t, I did everything I had to, to let you be happy, and they’re going to…This is why none of you can come, I can’t let any of them get near you.”
“Any of who?” asked Brem, slowly. They were all staring at the Doctor now.
“The Time Lords,” he answered.
“But there aren’t any other Time Lords, Dad,” Brem pointed out.
The Doctor looked at him.
Matt walked into the utter silence that followed, and realized he was interrupting. “Oh,” he said. “Should I-”
“How can there be other Time Lords?” asked Brem, looking genuinely confused. “You told us…”
“I know. I know what I told you. What happened, really, was that I stuck them in a time lock.”
“A time lock,” echoed Brem.
“Yes. The entire Time War, I time locked it. It removed it from space and time, it should be inaccessible, forever.”
“But?” prompted Athena, because it was hanging in the air.
“But that white-point star is maintaining a link to it. The white-point star should have blinked out of existence when I time-locked Gallifrey. The only Gallifreyan things that remained were the ones in the TARDIS, because I was the center of the time lock. I didn’t have any white-point stars, so that’s independent from me. And, worse than that, it’s broadcasting a link back to Gallifrey. Which should be impossible, because Gallifrey is time-locked. We shouldn’t be able to feel Gallifrey, Gallifrey never existed after I used the Moment.”
“What moment?” asked Rose.
“No, Moment, with a capital ‘M.’ You need to have the Moment, in order to be able to pull something out of time and space. That isn’t something easily achieved.”
“And you have it? This Moment?” said Rose.
“I have it. I still have it. I locked it up after I used it, but I was scared to get rid of it. Can’t have it falling into the wrong hands, after all. So I just…kept it. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Could it have been…wrong?” Rose frowned. “That’s not the word I mean, but maybe the time lock wasn’t complete, when you used the Moment?”
“Maybe. It’s possible. Welllllllll, it had to be, right? Or I wouldn’t have a white-point star in my pocket right now.”
There was a moment of silence.
“They are returning,” said Rose, suddenly.
Her kids looked at her. “What?” said Athena.
“It’s what the Ood on Cunodys told us. ‘They are returning.’”
“Yes,” agreed the Doctor. “And I’ve got a daughter skipping through parallel universes involuntarily. There’s a Gallifreyan stamp on things if ever I saw one,” he drawled.
“I don’t understand,” interjected Brem.
“Neither do I,” said the Doctor, grimly.
“No. You’re terrified. And I don’t understand why. What do you think they’re going to do to us? Why would they do anything to us?”
“Because,” said the Doctor, very sadly, “because you’re what I love most in the universe.”
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