You're What?: Chapter Twelve
Jun. 4th, 2008 02:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocus
Chapter 11: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/77463.html
Past Imperfect
“I’ve been a father before, Rose. When I was a relatively young man, I had children. A son and a daughter,” he began.
“You were married?” she asked.
“Not as you understand marriage. My…the mother of my daughter was selected for me by a computer program. We were genetically matched, we each contributed genetic material, and from this our daughter was created. Her name was Suriahnel and she was perfect in every way, as are all children who come from the looms,” the Doctor said.
“Looms?”
“Most Time Lords and Ladies were sterile and thus carrying a pregnancy in the female’s womb was impossible. The looms were sort of a false womb where a fetus came to term once genetically woven together from the contributions of both parents. The day my daughter came off the looms was an odd one. I expected to feel…something when I looked at her, but there was nothing there, no connection that this infant was a part of me.”
He sighed. “That didn’t improve as she got older. She was raised by her mother. As a Time Lord with some status as a top researcher for the Academy I had important work to attend to. I saw the girl maybe once or twice a year. She was growing up to be the perfect little Time Lady, pretentious, cold, not easily swayed and I’m ashamed to say I felt nothing for her other than a growing discomfort that this person who had been created from me was nothing like me in character. By the time she reached adulthood, I didn’t like her at all.”
“Your own child?” Rose asked in surprise.
“I tried, Rose, but there was no warmth in her. Even her own mother thought there was something wrong with her. We are taught to hide our emotions from an early age, but it was like Suriahnel didn’t even have any emotions to hide.”
“You said you had a son?” Rose reminded him.
“Ashtifen,” he said bleakly. “My son was not a product of the looms. He was the product of my union with an Outcast.”
“Outcast?”
“There were those on my home planet who rejected the ways of the Time Lords and they were not allowed to live in the citadel. They were cast out into the wilderness, banned from the city and not protected as citizens by its laws. The Time Lords considered them a lesser people, almost a lesser species, though the only difference between them and Time Lords is that that most of them could not regenerate. In exchange though, they were not sterile. They continued to procreate and bear children in the natural fashion.”
He scratched his fingers against the bristles of his hair and frowned. “I met Alethe when I was on a research trip, studying ancient runes. I loved her almost from the day I met her. She was brave, strong, clever, and funny and despite no Time Lord background, no training, no formal education beyond reading, basic math and basic science, she was one of the brightest people I’d ever met. There was an instant connection from the moment I met her. We just…matched.”
Rose fiddled with one of the strings on her hoody. She’d felt like that when she’d met the Doctor. They’d matched, too, despite being from completely different worlds, literally. It was hard hearing him say he loved someone else, but she swallowed it down. Alethe was long dead. The Doctor had never opened up to her before and she wasn’t going to say anything to make him stop.
“Go on,” she managed.
“Her people accepted me and we had a ceremonial bonding ritual and it was…consummated. Turns out I wasn’t sterile, though…well, you know that, don’t you, Rose?”
“All too well, but this isn’t about me. Go on.”
“Alethe was pregnant and fifteen months later Ashtifen was born. I tested his DNA and the ability to regenerate had passed him by but it was dormant in his cells. It was possible his children would be able to, and so I knew I’d have to keep an eye on him as he grew to adulthood and bred. Time Lord abilities in an Outcast could cause considerable issues in the citadel.
“I was back and forth between the citadel and the village, as often as I could get away and everything that had been wrong in my relationship with Suriahnel was right in my relationship with Ashtifen. I loved him and he loved me and we were close, so close for many, many years.”
He looked down at his hands. “When Ashtifen was about twenty, he took a wife and they had a child, my granddaughter Susan. And when I tested her DNA, I found the regenerative gene dominant in her. I knew I’d have to spend even more time looking after my little family. It was only a matter of time before people began to become suspicious. But it was Suriahnel and her jealousy that…” He stopped and Rose saw anger in his eyes.
“That what?” Rose asked.
“Despite the fact that our relationship held no warmth, Suriahnel did admire my research and she wanted to study in the same fields I studied in. I encouraged this, of course, thinking that maybe I’d find a way to bond with her as I had so automatically done with Ashtifen. I made the mistake of trusting her with my secret, that I’d had a child with an Outcast. And maybe it wouldn’t have turned out the way it had if she hadn’t seen the affection I showed Alethe, Ashtifen and young Susan.”
“It ate at her as she studied the runes and ancient civilizations of Gallifrey and stayed amongst the villagers. Eventually, she turned me in for the crime of reproduction without license, which was very serious to my kind. I got wind of what was going to happen before it did and I made it to the village just in time to warn Alethe.”
“Warn her of what?” Rose asked. “What were they going to do?”
“They would take Ashtifen and Susan in for genetic testing. If they were shown to have regenerative capabilities they would have that capability stripped from them,” he said.
“Stripped from them? How?”
“They would have forced them through all of their regenerations in rapid succession. The only problem with forced successive regeneration is that sometimes you can’t stop the process on the last life. It continues on and it kills the person. It’s a horrifically painful process. Ashtifen had nothing to fear, but Susan…she was only thirteen years old. Can you imagine the horror of such a fate for a young girl?”
Rose shuddered. “Why would they do such a thing? It’s not her fault!”
“No. It was my fault. All my fault for daring to break the rules and love someone, and that someone was an Outcast. If I could have brought myself to love Suriahnel, shown her some affection, maybe…” He frowned. “I made sure that Ashtifen, his mate and Susan were well hidden. But I made the fatal mistake of trusting Suriahnel and when she found out where they were, she betrayed me.”
A single tear strayed from the Doctor’s left eye and hesitantly Rose brushed it away. “Ashtifen fought hard and in his fury and rage he killed two soldiers and Suriahnel. The soldiers regenerated. But Suriahnel…he decapitated her. You can’t…you can’t come back from that and a true kill…well, it’s a crime that carries immediate execution.”
Tears welled up in Rose’s eyes and overflowed down her face, but the Doctor didn’t notice. He was lost in his memories, his eyes on a distant horror. “Alethe tried to get between them and the laser shot went through her and into Ashtifen. They both died instantly. Then they took Susan and tested her and put her in the chamber to regenerate her. I couldn’t allow it and I managed to break in. I interposed my own body between her and the beam of energy that would have triggered the process. She didn’t get hit, but I did. I got out of it in time that I didn’t regenerate but it aged me, made me look like an old man well before I would have.”
He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Still, I was able to outwit the idiots around me and make it to the junkyard where an obsolete TARDIS had been abandoned. I’d learned in school on an old Type-40 and this was one. For some reason she protected me, let me start her up and we escaped, fleeing Gallifrey. There I was, suddenly in the body of a very elderly man, quite near the end of what was my first incarnation, with a very young girl who’d seen her father executed and had nearly had all of her regenerations violently stripped from her, and not a clue what to do next.”
He sighed. “I tried to straddle two worlds when I should have chosen one. But I wanted what I wanted and my family paid the price. I killed them all. Both of my children, my Alethe. They’re dead because I was a very bad father, Rose. And…I don’t see how I can be a good one to Charlie. I could destroy him. I did in one time line by sending you away.” Finally his eyes had refocused on her and he saw how badly she was crying. “I’ve upset you. This horrifies you.”
“No, Doctor, I--.”
“I’ll go.” He stood up, his hand tearing from hers, and he scrambled from the room.
“Doctor, wait!” Rose called after him. But he didn’t come back. She stared at the empty space for a long time, willing him to return. So much about the Doctor made sense now. She was still mad at him for what he’d done to her, but she almost understood why he had.
She needed to talk to him more. This wasn’t something they could work out between them if he was going to run off in the middle of it. Rose started. She wanted to work things out. She really wanted to work things out. Despite everything he’d done, she yearned to comfort him.
With grim determination Rose swung her legs around to the side of the exam bed and sat up. She grabbed a hold of her IV pole and got unsteadily to her feet. Holding tight to the pole for support she made her way out into the corridor on shaking legs. She had only made it a few steps when she collapsed on the floor in a weak heap.
“Doctor!” she called out. “Doctor!” When there was no response she bit her lip and called out for the man she’d had to rely on since this whole mess began. “Jack?”
“Rose!”
The response was instant. And that was the difference between the two men. Maybe the Doctor had been right. If she had to depend on Jack to take care of her all the time, maybe he was the right man for her to be with. She stared up at the handsome man who lifted her up in his arms and carried her back into the infirmary. But it wouldn’t be fair to Jack. Because she’d never love him the way she loved the Doctor.
Chapter 13: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/80953.html
