thoughtformed | [Locked to Rose//Time Lord Security.]

I don't hate him. Can't. I've tried. And he... well. It's more complicated than that, but he does hate me. That's just not all.

[Heavy sigh. And then, slowly, just the tiniest quirk of a smile.]

Still. We're not the last two any more. Just two of the last three. The obselete models, at that.

[Have a small smile back and an acceptance of that nonverbal 'change the subject now' vibe. She never pushes about his home and past. ~~Except on rare occasions involving jealousy~~ As much as she's fascinated by it, she hates dragging him through that pain. Now she's got a lifetime for him to open up about it on his own, anyway.] Did you just compliment the Doctor back home? Cos I'm sure he'd love for me to forward that to 'im. [It's less likely she forgot about the daughter thing and more likely just a reminder there's four, not three. Which is better, right? And yes, also to get him not to be so self depreciating.]

Edited 2012-03-01 20:04 (UTC)

He's different. Not bad different, but not... well not the same.

[Normally he gets uncomfortable, thinking about his other self, his human doppleganger metacrisis, but not now. Not when he's already thinking of Jenny.]

I said I could feel the presence of other Time Lords. He's not on the radar. And, well... not on the island, either.

[Which certainly implies that his daughter is.]

[She scoffs] Right, don't let him hear that one. [Moving on though...] Right, cos...different reality. [And he can stay there, she doesn't want to worry after two Doctors at once. Also it's safer there.] So the one that's on the island...that's...you've...you've got a daughter?

That I do!

[There is absolutely no mistaking either the pride or the merriment in his voice at the thought.]

Jenny's my daughter! You've met Jenny, haven't you, even if you haven't really spoken to one another? Not... something I was ever looking to happen, exactly, being a Dad again, but she is brilliant.

[There certainly isn't. Even if she's allowed to be silly and jealous about it, it's good to see him happy.] Wait...Jenny...she's the blonde, right? But she's grown up! [How long has it been? Evidently long enough for him to find someone to have kids with, but...grown children?] Is that how Time Lords age?

What? No, not at all, or not usually anyway. She's just above a year, give or take a few months. I didn't....

[He gestures vaguely for a moment, searching for the words.]

I didn't exactly have her the usual way. But that's life, I suppose. One moment they're holding you at gunpoint for a DNA sample, and the next, there she is! My very own Generated Anomaly. There was a bit of a... well, a hostage situation involving a cloning machine, I suppose is the easiest way to put it.

[She blinks. Oh. Well. Now she feels a little bit silly.] ...Oh. So she's...sort of like a clone, then? Have you been making a habit of cloning yourself, Doctor? Cos I'm not sure how many more of you the universe can take.

Yes, we're just about at capacity. It was worse a few months ago, though, when we still had the next one here.

The next one?

My next version.

Your next...clone? [Yeah no, she's pretty sure she knows what he actually means. Call her crazy, though, but she's still not happy about the idea of that face changing, even if she has one at home still.]

My next regeneration. 11.0, I suppose you'd say.

[Right...well...he's a time traveler, that could be from any time, right? She's being silly worrying about it.] You've...had eleven?

I've just had ten. He's had eleven.

So you've...changed like that...ten times? [She offers a small smile after a moment.] Get bored every hundred years?

Every hundred years? Nah. First couple centuries were pretty boring. I didn't leave Gallifrey until I was well into my two hundreds, and still on my first iteration. Actually, I've gotten right reckless in my middle age, keep spending them faster and faster. Still, there's two more left after Bowtie.

H-how do you mean left?

Time Lords get to regenerate twelve times. Thirteen chances at life, and that's it. More than enough, really. Twelve more than most people get. And in between them, if nothing kills us, we age very slowly. Four centuries a pop even under high stress, no problem. So don't worry about me. I could still have millennia left.

[She purses her lips tightly. How long have your last few lasted?

Last time was only a few years. Unlucky, that. All the others have been decades at least. Past that... it's a little hard to keep track, you know, bouncing about the way we do.

[Decades. So that's...twenty or thirty years, three times over, sixty to ninety more years? Maybe that's not so bad...]

Right...no more burning through them, then.

That's never exactly been the plan!

Besides, this island's likely to give us all a nice long vacation, whether we like it or not. Plenty of time left for me.

I thought the plan would be 'get off the island as quickly as possible'?

You've got me there. It's just that, with one exception, that plan's been sort of a.... miserable failure's the words I'm looking for, I think.

You sound out of practice, Doctor, it's always a miserable until it works. [She offers a small grin.] What one exception?

For one day in December, the TARDIS worked perfectly. Twenty-four hours of bouncing around the universe again!

...The next morning, we were parked right back in my flat.

Christmas? Which universe were you in?

Good guess! No, it wasn't Christmas, but the island seemed to be handing out seasonal miracles for most of the month. All of them only lasted one day.

As for which universe... I'm not sure. I couldn't find anyone I knew, anywhere except on the island. Figured we were going back, after what we saw then.

Oh, right, that's when you popped out to the future? But if you weren't in your universe, then...at least that must mean there's a vortex to connect to that the TARDIS can process here, yeah? Otherwise she wouldn't move...or I s'pose she wouldn't have any power at all unless they had something else hooked up to keep her lit? [Hoho, if she didn't pay attention when she traveled with him, she certainly did when UNIT studied it to make their own time machine.] So there must just be...something keeping her away from it? A barrier or something...I don't know, could they keep her out of synch with it, like the planets were in the Medusa Cascade?

Tried resynchronizing. Tried... well, everything I knew, really. Five of us flying it, and we still couldn't suss it out.

Still. Awfully smooth ride, that was.

Maybe it's something hidden in plain sight, then. Or...something we'll be able to get from them. It's always something, y'just stop numbering the plans eventually, right?

Stopped numbering a long time ago, yeah.

Never going to stop trying, though.

Until it works, anyway. [She chews her lip thoughtfully] If we're in a universe, not between them somehow, that means time is still going back home, doesn't it?

Probably. Almost certainly. There were dimensions that worked by different rules, but as far as I can tell, they've all been cut off since the Time War.

And we can't be in one of those now? [Okay then...] If time is going, then that means the Doctor--the other you--he's at home and will know I've gone missing. So you'll be working on the outside and the inside to find a way to get us all back.

Molto bene! That's the spirit.

[Fff. So that's not a Donna term!] Course it is. Never met a prison that could keep us in.

[Locked to Rose//Time Lord Security.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject