Something About Stars (14/20)
Title - Something About Stars (14/20)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, Master, 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 - Ch 12
Chapter Thirteen
Their father never talked about the Time War. That had been a constant throughout their lives. He did not want to talk about it now, either, and they didn’t push him on it. It was enough to know what he had told them. The details of whatever else had happened between him and the Time Lords that now made him think they would use his kids to get back at him were not important. What was important was that, as much as the Doctor thought he had to protect his kids, his kids were of the opinion that they had to protect their father. Rose watched her family mobilize itself into determined warriors and wondered if they had been heading for moments like this all along. As much as she had tried to keep them out of the fray, her children were fighters, and frighteningly good ones, she thought.
Brem was out of bed and dressed. He and Matt had had a row over it, which had effectively ended when the Doctor had admitted that Time Lords healed more quickly than humans, especially with the benefit of good, strong, hot tea.
So Brem was up and dressed and pulling on his freshly cleaned and repaired coat when the TARDIS landed on Cunodys.
The Doctor was studying the read-out on the monitor. “What time period did you say this was?” he asked.
“It’s late 32nd century,” answered Athena.
“It’s too advanced,” murmured the Doctor. “It’s far too advanced for them. Something’s been mucking with the timelines here. Should have realized that.”
“It’s not supposed to look like that?” Athena looked out at the snowy spires, so familiar from her visits during her relationship with Lim.
“No. It’s not. They’re Ood, they don’t-”
“Lim wasn’t an Ood, you know,” Athena said.
Her father looked at her in surprise. “Really? What was he?”
“He was a Cunodysian. We’re on Cunodys, that’s what lives on Cunodys.”
“No, Ood live on Cunodys,” corrected the Doctor, confused.
“Well, it’s a big planet,” noted Rose. “Maybe they both live on Cunodys.”
“It’s an almost completely uninhabitable planet,” said the Doctor. “There’s this city, that’s it. Am I right?”
Athena nodded.
“Well, I don’t know what to make of that,” remarked the Doctor. “There were Ood on this planet when your mother and I were last here.”
“When was that?” Athena asked.
“Long before the late 32nd century,” admitted the Doctor.
“Well, anything could have happened in between then,” Athena pointed out.
“Maybe,” allowed the Doctor, and kept looking at the monitor.
“What’s the plan?” asked Fortuna.
“We’re four Time Lords, in a TARDIS, with a white-point star. Last time Brem was here, didn’t seem to take them long to find him with a few sonic blasters, I’m guessing it will take them even less time to find us now.”
“And what will we do when they find us?”
“Chat about the weather,” said the Doctor, and moved then, because it flickered in his head, the consciousness of another Time Lord, and it was time to go. He grabbed his coat from the coral strut.
“Dad,” his kids said in unison, as they felt it, too.
“Stay here,” he told all of them, stepping out into the snow of Cunodys, and they ignored him and stepped outside beside him, ringed around next to him, and as much as he wished they would have obeyed him, he had to admit it was nice to have a small entourage of his own to face the small army of vehicles moving out to meet them. “Look at that,” he said. “Such a large welcoming committee.”
“I don’t understand,” said Athena. “Nothing like this ever happened when I visited Cunodys.”
“No. Because I think what happened when you visited Cunodys was that you called this all into being.”
Athena didn’t have time to ask him what he meant by that, because the cars pulled to a halt, and soldiers piled out, ringing around them with steadily pointing guns, although the Doctor ignored all of them except for the platinum-haired man wearing a black hoodie who leaped lightly to the ground, sent him a ferocious grin, and said, “Isn’t it good to see each other after all these years, Doctor?”
“Welllllllll,” replied the Doctor. “Depends on your definition of ‘good.’”
“You never can just answer a question, can you?” His eyes roamed over the rest of the contingent. “Oh, look at all of you. This is just delightful! It’s a little Doctor,” he exclaimed, in delight, pausing before Brem. “It’s adorable! You’re like a set of salt and pepper shakers. A tall set. I think you’d be pepper.” He pointed to Brem.
Brem put his hands in his pockets.
He looked back at the Doctor. “Aren’t you going to introduce me? Where are your manners? Tut, tut, tut,” he said, shaking his head.
“This is the Master,” said the Doctor.
“Hello.” The Master waved at them, then looked at the Doctor. “Aren’t you going to tell me their names?”
The Doctor tipped one edge of his mouth up in a mockery of a smile.
“Oh, be that way,” sighed the Master, and addressed the children. “Your father and I were mates as boys. Then your father kept trying to kill me, it was all very tiresome.” He turned to Matt. “Human,” he pronounced. “Boring.” Then he turned to Rose. “You, on the other hand…What are you?”
Rose smiled icily.
The Master looked at the Doctor in alarm. “She’s…she’s wrong.”
“I bet it hurts you to look at her, doesn’t it?” inquired the Doctor, smugly.
The Master frowned, displeased. “Well,” he said, loudly, “lovely as it’s been catching up with all of you, there’s only one of you I need.”
The Doctor said nothing.
The Master moved closer to him, studying him closely. “You don’t know, do you?”
The Doctor said nothing again.
“It’s the double-beat of a Time Lord’s hearts,” said the Master, looking now at Athena.
“What is?” she said, before she could stop herself.
“The drumming in your head.”
“What drumming?”
The Master snorted. “What sort of children are you raising? She doesn’t even know how to properly process a psychic link?”
Something occurred to the Doctor that should have occurred to him much earlier. “Athena,” he said, slowly, “come here for a second.”
The Master stepped back, to give Athena room to shift closer to her father, who lifted his hands up and placed an index finger on either side of Athena’s head. His head filled with a staccato drumbeat of four, and he dropped his hands immediately.
“What is it?” asked Athena, reacting to the look of alarm on his face.
He turned swiftly to the Master. “What is it? What have you done to her?”
The Master looked bored. “I haven’t done anything to her.”
“Whatever it is, I want it reversed, now, all of it.”
“And I want a pony,” exclaimed the Master. “Life is tough. She’s coming with me.”
“Oh, I really don’t think so,” said the Doctor.
“Aw, see, that was disappointing. I thought you were going to say ‘over my dead body,’ and then I was going to say, ‘that can be arranged,’ and it was going to be really witty and clever and I’ve missed our little talks, haven’t you?” The Master’s voice turned hard. “She’s coming with me.”
“No, she’s really not.”
“She’s coming with me, or the human dies.” The Master lifted his hand up.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw every gun swing to aim at Matt.
And he saw Athena step forward. “I’ll go,” she said.
“Athena,” said Matt. “Don’t.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” said the Doctor, not taking his eyes from the Master, who smiled at him.
“I’m going,” she said, and he watched her stomp over to the car the Master had exited. “Is this our transport?”
“For now,” said the Master, still looking at the Doctor, “yes. Where’s the white-point star, Doctor?”
“What white-point star?”
“The one the little Doctor stole from me.”
“Have you ever seen a white-point star, Brem?” asked the Doctor.
“I don’t even know what one is,” answered Brem.
“How could he have a white-point star?” the Doctor asked the Master. “They don’t exist anymore.”
The Master stared at him for a very long time. “Where is it?” he demanded, again.
The Doctor winked.
“We’ll find it. Wherever you’ve hidden it, we’ll find it.”
“It’s triangulating the signal, isn’t it? You need Athena, and you need the white-point star.”
“Tell me where it is.”
“If I had it, don’t you think I’d have destroyed it by now, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation?”
The Master narrowed his eyes. Then he spat out, “I think I will let the human live, it’s nice to have something to threaten to kill when I need something from you. And, as for the rest of you, I really don’t feel like sitting here and waiting for you to run out of regenerations. And, anyway, something tells me you might like to see what happens next, Doctor.”
It was Fortuna who asked the obvious question. “What happens next?”
“Some of your dad’s old mates are going to drop in,” said the Master. “Great, big, family reunion. Cheers, everyone!” He waved happily and practically skipped to the vehicle.
The Doctor watched the soldiers run back to their own vehicles.
“What are you doing?” demanded Matt. “Aren’t you going to stop them?”
“What am I going to do?” he asked. “He won’t hurt her, he needs her, she’s keeping the link alive, and the Time Lords need the link.”
“For what?”
The planet started rumbling. The Doctor did not seem surprised at all. “For that,” he said, watching the vehicles as they drove away. Then he turned his head, watching as the planet broke through the sky, enormous and orange and burning in places, not the Gallifrey he chose to remember but Gallifrey as it had been, at the very end of it all.
“What is it?” asked Fortuna.
And he answered, grimly, “Home.”
Next Chapter
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, Master, 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 - Ch 12
Chapter Thirteen
Their father never talked about the Time War. That had been a constant throughout their lives. He did not want to talk about it now, either, and they didn’t push him on it. It was enough to know what he had told them. The details of whatever else had happened between him and the Time Lords that now made him think they would use his kids to get back at him were not important. What was important was that, as much as the Doctor thought he had to protect his kids, his kids were of the opinion that they had to protect their father. Rose watched her family mobilize itself into determined warriors and wondered if they had been heading for moments like this all along. As much as she had tried to keep them out of the fray, her children were fighters, and frighteningly good ones, she thought.
Brem was out of bed and dressed. He and Matt had had a row over it, which had effectively ended when the Doctor had admitted that Time Lords healed more quickly than humans, especially with the benefit of good, strong, hot tea.
So Brem was up and dressed and pulling on his freshly cleaned and repaired coat when the TARDIS landed on Cunodys.
The Doctor was studying the read-out on the monitor. “What time period did you say this was?” he asked.
“It’s late 32nd century,” answered Athena.
“It’s too advanced,” murmured the Doctor. “It’s far too advanced for them. Something’s been mucking with the timelines here. Should have realized that.”
“It’s not supposed to look like that?” Athena looked out at the snowy spires, so familiar from her visits during her relationship with Lim.
“No. It’s not. They’re Ood, they don’t-”
“Lim wasn’t an Ood, you know,” Athena said.
Her father looked at her in surprise. “Really? What was he?”
“He was a Cunodysian. We’re on Cunodys, that’s what lives on Cunodys.”
“No, Ood live on Cunodys,” corrected the Doctor, confused.
“Well, it’s a big planet,” noted Rose. “Maybe they both live on Cunodys.”
“It’s an almost completely uninhabitable planet,” said the Doctor. “There’s this city, that’s it. Am I right?”
Athena nodded.
“Well, I don’t know what to make of that,” remarked the Doctor. “There were Ood on this planet when your mother and I were last here.”
“When was that?” Athena asked.
“Long before the late 32nd century,” admitted the Doctor.
“Well, anything could have happened in between then,” Athena pointed out.
“Maybe,” allowed the Doctor, and kept looking at the monitor.
“What’s the plan?” asked Fortuna.
“We’re four Time Lords, in a TARDIS, with a white-point star. Last time Brem was here, didn’t seem to take them long to find him with a few sonic blasters, I’m guessing it will take them even less time to find us now.”
“And what will we do when they find us?”
“Chat about the weather,” said the Doctor, and moved then, because it flickered in his head, the consciousness of another Time Lord, and it was time to go. He grabbed his coat from the coral strut.
“Dad,” his kids said in unison, as they felt it, too.
“Stay here,” he told all of them, stepping out into the snow of Cunodys, and they ignored him and stepped outside beside him, ringed around next to him, and as much as he wished they would have obeyed him, he had to admit it was nice to have a small entourage of his own to face the small army of vehicles moving out to meet them. “Look at that,” he said. “Such a large welcoming committee.”
“I don’t understand,” said Athena. “Nothing like this ever happened when I visited Cunodys.”
“No. Because I think what happened when you visited Cunodys was that you called this all into being.”
Athena didn’t have time to ask him what he meant by that, because the cars pulled to a halt, and soldiers piled out, ringing around them with steadily pointing guns, although the Doctor ignored all of them except for the platinum-haired man wearing a black hoodie who leaped lightly to the ground, sent him a ferocious grin, and said, “Isn’t it good to see each other after all these years, Doctor?”
“Welllllllll,” replied the Doctor. “Depends on your definition of ‘good.’”
“You never can just answer a question, can you?” His eyes roamed over the rest of the contingent. “Oh, look at all of you. This is just delightful! It’s a little Doctor,” he exclaimed, in delight, pausing before Brem. “It’s adorable! You’re like a set of salt and pepper shakers. A tall set. I think you’d be pepper.” He pointed to Brem.
Brem put his hands in his pockets.
He looked back at the Doctor. “Aren’t you going to introduce me? Where are your manners? Tut, tut, tut,” he said, shaking his head.
“This is the Master,” said the Doctor.
“Hello.” The Master waved at them, then looked at the Doctor. “Aren’t you going to tell me their names?”
The Doctor tipped one edge of his mouth up in a mockery of a smile.
“Oh, be that way,” sighed the Master, and addressed the children. “Your father and I were mates as boys. Then your father kept trying to kill me, it was all very tiresome.” He turned to Matt. “Human,” he pronounced. “Boring.” Then he turned to Rose. “You, on the other hand…What are you?”
Rose smiled icily.
The Master looked at the Doctor in alarm. “She’s…she’s wrong.”
“I bet it hurts you to look at her, doesn’t it?” inquired the Doctor, smugly.
The Master frowned, displeased. “Well,” he said, loudly, “lovely as it’s been catching up with all of you, there’s only one of you I need.”
The Doctor said nothing.
The Master moved closer to him, studying him closely. “You don’t know, do you?”
The Doctor said nothing again.
“It’s the double-beat of a Time Lord’s hearts,” said the Master, looking now at Athena.
“What is?” she said, before she could stop herself.
“The drumming in your head.”
“What drumming?”
The Master snorted. “What sort of children are you raising? She doesn’t even know how to properly process a psychic link?”
Something occurred to the Doctor that should have occurred to him much earlier. “Athena,” he said, slowly, “come here for a second.”
The Master stepped back, to give Athena room to shift closer to her father, who lifted his hands up and placed an index finger on either side of Athena’s head. His head filled with a staccato drumbeat of four, and he dropped his hands immediately.
“What is it?” asked Athena, reacting to the look of alarm on his face.
He turned swiftly to the Master. “What is it? What have you done to her?”
The Master looked bored. “I haven’t done anything to her.”
“Whatever it is, I want it reversed, now, all of it.”
“And I want a pony,” exclaimed the Master. “Life is tough. She’s coming with me.”
“Oh, I really don’t think so,” said the Doctor.
“Aw, see, that was disappointing. I thought you were going to say ‘over my dead body,’ and then I was going to say, ‘that can be arranged,’ and it was going to be really witty and clever and I’ve missed our little talks, haven’t you?” The Master’s voice turned hard. “She’s coming with me.”
“No, she’s really not.”
“She’s coming with me, or the human dies.” The Master lifted his hand up.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw every gun swing to aim at Matt.
And he saw Athena step forward. “I’ll go,” she said.
“Athena,” said Matt. “Don’t.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” said the Doctor, not taking his eyes from the Master, who smiled at him.
“I’m going,” she said, and he watched her stomp over to the car the Master had exited. “Is this our transport?”
“For now,” said the Master, still looking at the Doctor, “yes. Where’s the white-point star, Doctor?”
“What white-point star?”
“The one the little Doctor stole from me.”
“Have you ever seen a white-point star, Brem?” asked the Doctor.
“I don’t even know what one is,” answered Brem.
“How could he have a white-point star?” the Doctor asked the Master. “They don’t exist anymore.”
The Master stared at him for a very long time. “Where is it?” he demanded, again.
The Doctor winked.
“We’ll find it. Wherever you’ve hidden it, we’ll find it.”
“It’s triangulating the signal, isn’t it? You need Athena, and you need the white-point star.”
“Tell me where it is.”
“If I had it, don’t you think I’d have destroyed it by now, and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation?”
The Master narrowed his eyes. Then he spat out, “I think I will let the human live, it’s nice to have something to threaten to kill when I need something from you. And, as for the rest of you, I really don’t feel like sitting here and waiting for you to run out of regenerations. And, anyway, something tells me you might like to see what happens next, Doctor.”
It was Fortuna who asked the obvious question. “What happens next?”
“Some of your dad’s old mates are going to drop in,” said the Master. “Great, big, family reunion. Cheers, everyone!” He waved happily and practically skipped to the vehicle.
The Doctor watched the soldiers run back to their own vehicles.
“What are you doing?” demanded Matt. “Aren’t you going to stop them?”
“What am I going to do?” he asked. “He won’t hurt her, he needs her, she’s keeping the link alive, and the Time Lords need the link.”
“For what?”
The planet started rumbling. The Doctor did not seem surprised at all. “For that,” he said, watching the vehicles as they drove away. Then he turned his head, watching as the planet broke through the sky, enormous and orange and burning in places, not the Gallifrey he chose to remember but Gallifrey as it had been, at the very end of it all.
“What is it?” asked Fortuna.
And he answered, grimly, “Home.”
Next Chapter