Memories

“And the brave prince took her away to a quiet planet where they lived happily ever after.”

The Doctor sat back in the armchair as the last few notes of the music box echoed away into the warm air of his daughter’s room. From the tender age of four she had point-blank refused to go to bed without a story at bedtime and he had happily obliged.
In truth, he’d surprised himself, night after night as he read and recounted stories of witches, princesses and fairies to his little girl, his Romana. They had exhausted every single Sol-3/Earth origin myth and legend in their first year of ‘story time’ alone. Now five and a half years old, thanks to the TARDIS, he could read her stories from any planet in the universe in its original language.

As the last note died, the ambient lighting dimmed until only the faintest glimmer remained to light his way.

The Doctor knelt next to the bed and lighted kissed his dark-haired daughter on the cheek before moving quietly across the deep carpet and pulling the heavy curtain slowly along the rail to cover the doorway as he left.

He made his way across the hall to the other room, where Rose was listening to their son chattering on about everything and nothing.

“Right then, young man” the Doctor sat at the end of the bed and addressed the sandy-haired ten-year-old. “What have we discovered today?”

“The library is categorised by genre, temporal placement and author’s surname. And there are always a pile at least thirty books high on the desk because you never put them back!”

“Cheeky”. The Doctor swiped jokingly at his son, grinning widely.

“Time to go to sleep now, Mickey” said Rose, who interrupted them by yawning loudly

“I agree…” the Doctor accepted a hug and waited at the door for Rose to finish tucking Mickey in. He absentmindedly read the new notice on the door.



Michael ‘Mickey’ Adric (Smith)

Michael – “he who is like God” – Mickey - Mum’s friend from Earth *Picture*

Adric – Alzarian name - Dad’s friend from a long time ago.

Knock first; you don’t know what I’ll do…



He laughed quietly at this last point; Mickey usually did do something random when people entered unannounced. Although how he found out about Adric was something he’d have to take up with the TARDIS later.

~oOo~

Rose had joined him.

“Say goodnight…” she prompted.

“Sleep soundly and wake in good time” the Doctor intoned softly, the words springing to his lips. Then he closed the door and faced his love.

“So then, Theta” Rose using his old nickname, “we have two hours before I want to be in bed.”

Somewhere deep in the TARDIS, a clock chimed.

“What’s it to be then?” smiled the Doctor “A film? Television? Or do you want a bedtime story too?”

“If you’ll let me, I’d like to find out what life was like before I met you underneath Henriks.”

“It’s not all sweetness and light, are you sure?”

“That’s why I need to know”

~oOo~

The Doctor led the way through the domestic levels to a little used room with blue and silver drapes and a floor that appeared to entirely consist of cushions. He sat himself down cross-legged against a wall and Rose sat down in front and laid her head on the Doctor’s ankles, cushioning them with a pillow.

“Any open door?”

The Doctor smiled, and gently put his fingertips against her temples, and lowered his mental barriers.

~oOo~

Rose was in a circular room with eleven doors around her. One was unmarked, and locked, but the others were numbered and slightly ajar.

“Start with number one” the Doctor’s voice echoed in the stillness.
“Thanks”

Boldly she stepped towards the first door and stepped inside.

An old man, white-haired and tottering, collapsing onto the floor of the console room next to his companions, close to exhaustion.

Through the second door, a shorter man with dark hair, playing what seemed to be a recorder.

The third door, another old man, flooring three guards in army uniform with some very smooth martial arts.

“You really need to teach me some of those moves” Rose said as she re-entered the round room.

“Another day perhaps” said the Doctor as Rose left through the fourth door.

The Doctor again, crazy-eyed and grinning (where have I seen that before, thought Rose) wearing that scarf, accompanied by a tall woman in a white gown.

“The original Romana” said the disembodied voice of the Doctor in her ear.

Next, a younger, blonde regeneration (Blonde!) in cricket whites, watching helplessly as his young, brown-haired friend was left behind and blown apart by a bomb on some god-forsaken freight ship. So impossibly far away from home.

“Adric” whispered the voice as if on the brink of tears.

A flash of blonde frizz (Blonde again!) and colourful jacket as the Doctor was put on trial at the Citadel of Gallifrey, falsely accused, as a scapegoat for the misconduct of those in power.

Another short man, with a straw hat and umbrella, trying to stop his friend from blowing something up.

A moment of amnesia and a jubilant cry; ‘I Am the Doctor!’ Brown hair and a happy smile as he celebrated the turn of the millennium.

~oOo~

The memory of a blood-streaked face. He wields a large, evil-looking blaster, defending a small, unimportant planet against the millions of Daleks overhead.

~oOo~

A fatal choice. Either way would mean the loss of absolutely everything. A small blue button. Pressed. Empty space inside as the TARDIS flew on alone. The last of the Timelords. The end of an eon. Regeneration, painful and long. Steel blue eyes and improbably large ears.

‘Run!’

~oOo~

Rose returned to the circular room, her curiosity peaking at the sight of the locked door.
“Why is this door locked?”

“Didn’t know how far you wanted to see…” mumbled the voice.

“You saw me when I was only months old, but I know nothing of your life before you started travelling, other than those snippets you told me in Prague all those years ago.”

“Your choice.” A throb began in the background “Sorry, headache. Be quick!”

The unmarked door unlocked itself and Rose walked determinedly through.

~oOo~

She was in a corridor almost completely filled with doors, except for the spiral staircases at both ends and the two miniature mailboxes set into the wall outside each door. She read the name on the nearest.

“Maxil?”

“Became Commander of the Citadel guards” said the voice of the Doctor.

“And Drax…?”

“His closest friend and ally until Drax went AWOL”

She looked at the names on the other side of the corridor.

“Theta and Koschei!”

“Go inside.”

~oOo~

As she’d half expected, the dorms were spacious and dimensionally transcendental like the TARDIS.
The first room was a kitchen and living room, with two doors on opposite walls.

“Left-hand side”

The Doctor’s bedroom was so cluttered that the carpet was barely visible. Clockwork robots and open books littered the floor. An entire wall was covered with posters of Black hole mechanics and lectures on temporal disturbances. Another was a giant whiteboard which itself was covered with frantic calculations in his distinctive scrawl.

“This isn’t so bad…” Rose remarked. But she instantly regretted it.

~oOo~

The memory of looking into the un-tempered schism of the vortex, at the tender age of seven. The sheer terror not her own, but his, and its echoes throughout the years that followed, the nightmares and the screaming of the raw power that longed to be free.

Shouts of “Loser”, “Halfie” and “Human”: clamours of derision and contempt in the voices of children.

“I’m half human, Rose” said the Doctor by way of explanation, his thought voiced in a whisper. “My link with Earth, my past and my future, or part of it at least.”

A blur. A female voice ringing out, shrill and clear.
“You are monsters. Why can you not just leave us alone? He’s just a child!”
A painful, sorrowful thought. That was his mother, and he couldn’t even remember what she looked like.

The Academy clock booming. The golden light of the vortex. Flashes of the future in the memories of the past. The Last Great Time War. Living it again in seconds, centuries before the event. Explosions and the inevitable button…

Rose gasped. Staring at her, the future-memory within the memory, was herself.

~oOo~

Rose was crying when she forced herself back into reality. Sitting up slowly, she turned around onto her knees and enveloped the Doctor in the tightest, most desperate hug he had ever come across. Her tears flowed quick and hot down her cheeks as she buried herself in the Doctor’s shoulder.

“I love you…” she whispered, hoarsely.
“And I love you too, Rose, never forget that. You are the other reason I stuck with Earth.”
“Should never…have let…you show…” Rose hiccoughed through her hair. “You knew…about the War…what you had to do…Arcadia…Everything…”

The Doctor was crying too now, his silent tears falling slowly down his face.

“I did what I had to do.”
“But…”
“Sssh…Like you said to me all those years ago, in Prague, you’re here with me. And to me, you are what matters now.”

“Daddy, why are you crying?” a small voice asked from near the door. Rose released the Doctor to see who it was and sat next to him against the wall. Romana had heard them and come to investigate, with Mickey in tow. “Mummy, are you crying too?”

“Sorry” mumbled Mickey as he closed the door behind him.

The Doctor gestured for them to come over. Romana cuddled up to her father’s free side and Mickey sat down beside his mother.

“It’s too long a story for now, but perhaps another day.” Rose said softly, her tears drying.
Mickey gave her a hug.
“Tomorrow?” Romana asked, sleepily.
“Tomorrow.” The Doctor agreed.

They moved into the middle of the room, too exhausted to walk up the stairs to their own beds. They all lay back in the cushions and before long they were sound asleep.

~oOo~

A lullaby played deep inside the TARDIS, unknown to all but the machine herself. But in accompaniment, her voice drifted through the corridors:

And time flows forward, always on,
But under the Bad Wolf’s fiery gaze,
Although my planet may be gone
I shall be here ‘til the end of days