oncoming_storms Prompt 53
“You really should be revising, you know. I’m not going to help you this time!”
Romanadvoratrelundar surveyed her best friend with her hands on her hips, but the other girl - dark haired, bright eyed, smiling widely - merely laughed. She was sitting on the Academy roof with her legs dangling over the edge, as if she was some kind of bizarre gargoyle, and Romana was not particularly happy about having to climb through the skylight to join her.
(She wasn’t too happy with the ‘Romana’ either, actually, but her friend had always insisted that Romanadvoratrelundar was too much of a mouthful. The shortened version had, to her chagrin, started to stick.)
“You said that last time,” she pointed out, watching Romana scramble over the tiles with barely concealed amusement, “And the time before that. You always help me. That’s what friends do.”
“My tutor says I shouldn’t be friends with you,” commented Romana, sitting down beside her at last, “He says you’re a bad influence.”
“Oh, that’s only because Cardinal Braxiatel thinks so little of my grandfather. I’ve never even met him!”
“Your grandfather? The librarian?”
“He isn’t a librarian,” her friend replied defensively, “He works in the archives. It’s a respectable job.”
“Rather dull, though.”
The suns were setting and the Citadel, stretched out below the Academy like a piece of jagged amber, shone like a jewel in the dying light. It lent her friend’s face an eerie orange glow, and, when she smiled, her teeth looked far too white.
“I know. Grandfather could have been so much more.”
“A Chancellor, you mean? Or perhaps even the President?”
“No, no. Something more. More than Gallifrey.”
Romana laughed. “You have such strange ideas.”
“So did he. Once.”
***
She didn’t really remember her father’s interment. It had been an endless parade of solemn faces and heavy robes, with the magnificent sunrise obscured by sonorous speeches and heavy pyre smoke. It was too hard to connect it to the man who had read her stories from somewhere called ‘Earth’ and taught her how to build snowmen in gardens of the Capitol, so she did her best not to think about it at all.
Her grandfather had remained at her side throughout the ordeal, of course, as steady and unmovable as the oldest and strongest of the great silver trees. She had rested her shoulder against his side and twisted the fingers touching his hand until she could feel the soothing double pulse in his wrist.
In had been a day of unfamiliar sights and faces, but, when she woke up the next morning, the only thing notable about the day was her Grandfather’s absence. The rain was beating down on the roof of their quarters, and, although his bed was empty, the surrounding heap of books was untouched.
In a few months, she would be taken from her parents - or, at least, from her grandfather, who was all she had left now - and sent to the Academy. At the moment, however, she was still a child and she was still allowed to act like one. Tired and confused, she untangled herself from the bed sheets and padded down the corridor in search of him.
To her great surprise, she found him out past the TARDIS bays, in the warehouse were old and damaged ships were storied prior to recycling.
“Grandfather?”
He looked tired, far too tired, but he gave her a ghostly smile when he turned to face her, and that was something.
“Good morning, my dear. I hope I didn’t wake you?”
“Oh, no. I just wondered ...”
She paused. The truth seemed terribly childish, now they were standing in such a dusty old hall, surrounded by the remains of dead time ships. I just wondered where you were. I worried that you had left me as well.
Her grandfather, who seemed, as always, to understand, turned away to gesture at the nearest capsule.
“What do you think?”
She followed his gaze, padding across the filthy floor to join him. It was, outwardly at least, no different to any of the other broken ships in the room. She placed a hand on the side, making a print in the dust, and saw that her Grandfather had done the same before she’d arrived. For some reason, that made her smile.
“Is it a TT capsule?” she asked. For the first time since her father’s death, she was turning her gaze outwards, temporarily forgetting her own internal pain.
“Yes,” he confirmed, “An old Type 40. A bit outdated, I'm afraid. She’s been here since I was a boy.”
“She’s beautiful!”
“What?” He looked down at Granddaughter’s open, earnest face, and smiled at her. “I suppose she is, isn’t she?”
“Does she still fly?” she asked, and her Grandfather shook his head. “Do you?”
“Do I what, my dear?”
“Fly, of course!”
“Oh, no. No. There isn’t much opportunity for that in the Captiol.”
“That’s a shame,” she said, “I think you’d like that.”
***
“We could do it, you know.”
“Do what?” Romana asked, without looking up from her book. Her roommate had been restless all evening, but that was nothing new. Visiting her grandfather always seemed to unsettle her and she was lively at the best of times. She was currently sitting on the edge of her bed, watching Romana intently, which made it rather difficult to study.
“Leave Gallifrey.”
Romana burst out laughing. “Why in Rassilon’s name would we want to do that?”
“To see the universe, of course! There’s so much out there Romana! Is this really all you want? The Capitol and the Citadel. The mountains. Maybe the outlands, if you feel particularly adventurous. There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea is asleep. People made of smoke and cities made of song ...”
“Cities made of song? Oh, don’t be ridiculous!”
“You know what I mean!” her friend exclaimed, shaking her head in exasperation, “Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to wander in the fourth dimension? To see birds wheel in an alien sky? Wouldn’t that satisfy you?”
“I’m perfectly satisfied here, thank you,” said Romana, turning defiantly back to her book. But a seed had been planted in her mind. When she finally drifted off to sleep, she dreamt of blue skies and metal monsters and a rather strange woman with no eyebrows.
***
“Wake up! Wake up, my dear!”
She’d been dreaming of tomorrow and of what she might see in the Untempered Schism, but her grandfather was shaking her by the shoulders, pulling her away from the future and into the present.
“Grandfather?” she exclaimed, eyes heavy with sleep. “What is it?”
“We have to leave.”
“Leave?”
She sat up, hair sticking in all directions. The grey robe she would wear to enter the Academy were folded carefully on the back of her chair, but she knocked it off as she reached blindly for it. She wouldn’t receive her real robes until she had been sorted into her appropriate house, and the idea of arriving too late for that was, at the moment, the most terrifying thing in the world.
“Have I missed it?”
“No, no. It’s still night time. We have a few hours yet.”
“A few hours for what, grandfather?” she asked, pulling on her robes and trying to flatten her hair with a pale palm.
He didn’t answer and instead took her hand in his, leading her out of their quarters and into the Capitol. It took her a few minutes to orientate herself, but she soon realised where they were going.
“The TARDIS bays, Grandfather?”
“Shush, my dear. We don’t want to wake the Chancellery Guard.”
Which meant they were doing something they shouldn’t be doing. If it hadn’t been dark and cold and damp and, if Susan hadn’t been so confused and so frightened, it might almost have been exciting. An adventure.
***
“How dare they?”
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset!” exclaimed Romana, chasing after her friend as she stormed through the corridors of the Capitol and out into the snowy sunlight of the main square, “Coordinator Vansell was offering you a remarkable opportunity…”
“A remarkable opportunity? Joining the CIA? Ha! Who do they think I am? I know what happened to my father ...”
“Those were just rumours,” Romana interjected, grabbing her friend’s arm, “No one knows what really happened.”
“I know that my grandfather hasn’t been the same since. I know that the CIA were the ones who sent him to that forsaken planet in the first place.”
“You’ve just insulted one of the most influential members of the High Council,” Romana snapped, “Do you know that?”
Her friend smiled, humourlessly. “Of course. I rather enjoyed it.”
“Please don’t do anything rash.”
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” She stopped so abruptly that Romana almost crashed into her, and turned to face her with shining eyes. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“I’m leaving Gallifrey. Come with me.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“Completely serious. There’s nothing left for me here.”
“Your Grandfather ..?”
“My Grandfather wanted to do this a century ago!”
“And he changed his mind,” said Romana, desperately. “What will running away achieve? Gallifrey will always be there! You’ll never be free!”
“I’ll be able to travel. I’ll see the universe.”
“You’ll be alone.”
“Not if you come with me.” She tugged urgently on Romana’s sleeve, her eyes glittering wildly. “They’re waiting for us, Romana. Those alien birds. That alien sky ...”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Only if you want it to be.”
***
They stopped in front of the old Type 40 capsule. She was still silent, but this time in seemed to Susan that she asleep rather than dead. Waiting.
“Grandfather?” she whispered, and despite her restraint her words echoed horribly around the warehouse. “Why are we here?”
“We’re leaving Gallifrey,” he said, brusquely, wiping away cobwebs to free the door handle. Susan stared at him.
“Leaving Gallifrey? But I thought you said she couldn’t fly? I thought you couldn’t fly?”
“I wouldn’t. That isn’t the same thing, my dear. But times have changed.”
“Because I’m leaving for the Academy tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
At least he was being honest, although the monosyllabic answers were rather infuriating.
“You’re really going to leave?”
“We are really going to leave, yes.”
“You can’t make a decision like that for me!” she exclaimed, astonished, “Grandfather, surely ...”
“My dear, you don’t understand. We have to leave. It isn’t safe for you on Gallifrey. Not now your father ...” He stopped and shook his head. Not too honest, then.
“But what about your work? What about your friends?” She thought about her grandfather’s best friend, with his piercing eyes and almost frightening intelligence, and the scientist who they'd known since their Academy days. She worked for the Lord President now and was a little in love with both of them. “Will you really leave them?”
“To keep your safe?” Her Grandfather’s face was set, and his expression unreadable. “Yes. Your father would have wanted us to run.”
“My father would have wanted me to go to the Academy!”
His face crumpled at that, his defences as weak and insubstantial as a handful of snow. She was right and they both knew it. Her father had been a staunch believer in the superiority of the Time Lords. He’d flown through the Academy, excelling in the challenges he’d found there. (Unlike his father, whose intelligence, although vast, had never translated well to standardised tests.)
“It’s up to you, my dear,” he said, softly. “I’ve lived out my life on Gallifrey. I’ve loved and I’ve lost and I’ve grown old. Your life is stretching out ahead of you. I can’t make your decisions for you anymore.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.
“It’s quite simple. Do you want to leave? Or do you want to stay?”
She closed her eyes. She could see the future, rolling out in front of her like a carpet. She saw planets and stars and alien races. She saw loneliness and wandering and loss. She saw joy and sorrow, side by side, pain and wonder, with her grandfather trapped in the middle of it. She saw eternity and their only chance to grasp it.
“I ...”
***
She slipped, unseen, into the echoing warehouse, and her bare feet made strange patterns in the dirt. She’d shed her Prydonian robes as soon as she’d finished arguing with Romana, replacing them with a shift of nondescript grey. She hadn’t been able to find suitable shoes yet, but there was something rather exciting about feeling the deep red grass between her toes. She wondered what the grass would be like on other planets.
(Worrying about that was much easier than wondering about whether or not she’d made the right decision. It was certainly much easier than replaying the argument with Romana. Things had been said that couldn’t be undone and their friendship had unravelled with terrifying speed. Her last memory of the woman she’d loved would forever be a face twisted with hate, spewing angry words that she did her best to returned in kind. It shouldn’t have been like that. She wasn’t a traitor and she certainly wasn’t betraying Romana ...)
It had been over one hundred years and nothing had changed. The battered Type 40 capsule was still there, still silent, with only a few extra layers of dust to mark the passage of time. She should have been destroyed long ago, but had been forgotten instead, which was probably worse.
The door made a painful scraping noise when she pushed it open and stepped into the console room, and the air was like ice. For one terrible moment, she wondered if she’d chosen the wrong ship. Perhaps this one had given up waiting for her grandfather and faded away instead.
“Hello,” she said, softly, and, to her surprise and delight, the lights on the console flickered. She pressed a palm against the central column, feeling it throb with warmth and life beneath her fingertips. “We’ve got a long way to go, you and I. Our destiny is in the stars ...”
And no one - not Romanadvoratrelundar, not her father’s memory, not the head of the CIA - was going to stop them from searching for it.
Prompt: What is your 'turn left' moment?
Word Count: 2399