Chapter Text
The Doctor rubbed his face with both his hands and sighed. Slowly he walked around the console, pressing buttons and flipping switches. He didn’t have a destination in mind, so he just set the TARDIS to hover in place.
The main control room felt so empty. Even when Rose had been sleeping he’d still been able to sense her. Now there was nothing. He’d indulged himself, allowed himself to get close to another human, and look where it’d gotten him.
He was passing the monitor when something caught his eye. Squinting, he leaned in closer.
“What’s that?” he wondered out loud. “There’s a blip in the wardrobe, why would there be a blip in the wardrobe?” It wouldn’t have shown up if it was inanimate….
Suddenly his eyes widened, and he took off down the hallways of the TARDIS. He sent a loving, thankful thought toward his old girl when the door appeared closer than it should have been. Pushing through the door, he slipped inside and began walking around quietly, peering between racks for whatever had caused the blip.
He was just about to give up when he heard a sneeze. He froze for a moment and then turned around slowly. There was another sneeze, and he tracked it to a pile of new clothes he’d acquired but hadn’t bothered to put away yet.
Carefully, he began sifting through the heap.
What he saw almost made his hearts stop.
A bundle of gray cloth was tossed carelessly into the mix, laying on a green 1780s dress. It was bulged as if something was inside. Reaching out, he peeled back the blanket.
Wrapped haphazardly inside was a wide-eyed baby.
Mouth open, he picked the bundle up and held it out in front of him, staring. The baby looked back at him, eyes appearing to glow with something otherworldly. It had been so long since he’d held something this small, he couldn’t quite remember….
And then he did. He pulled the baby closer to his body and rested it against his hip, discovering it to be a girl in the process. Bouncing her lightly, he murmured, “Who are you, then, eh? Where’d you come from?” He reached into his suit jacket and grabbed his screwdriver. “Let’s take a look, shall we?” He ran it over the child.
He frowned at the results. “Inconclusive? You’ve never been inconclusive!” Looking down at the baby, he sighed. “Well, let’s get you to the control room; maybe the TARDIS will know how you got here.”
They reached the large space quickly — again, thanks to the TARDIS — and the Doctor plopped himself gently down on the jump seat, placing the baby so she lay on his legs, staring up at him. For the first time, he actually looked at her.
Back in the wardrobe, he’d thought her eyes were just reacting weirdly to the lights; now he saw that they were actually bright amber, and they did indeed glow a bit, almost as if there was some sort of backlight behind them. Her hair was long, longer than it should have been for a child of her age — almost a year, he reckoned — and a blonde so pale it was nearly white. Electric blue streaks ran through her locks at intervals. Her fair skin was flawless and soft; her face was dotted with freckles, and there was a tiny beauty mark near the outside corner of her right eye.
He also noticed that the only thing she had on was the blanket.
A trip to a long-forgotten storeroom in the way back reaches of the TARDIS found the child dressed in soft white dress and tucked into an old cradle. The Doctor stared down at her as he rocked the bed from side to side.
“You know, that was my daughter Zeta’s dress,” he told her quietly. “She wore it the day we officially named her, in front of all the other Time Lords. Didn’t have a clue what was going on, but then again, she was barely even one.”
He sighed. “I suppose you’ll have to have a name, then. I don’t know what you are, my sonic screwdriver doesn’t know what you are, the TARDIS doesn’t even know what you are, and that sort of scares me because she should. I can’t let you loose in the universe without knowing where you come from and what sort of threats you could pose someday. Don’t suppose you talk, do you?”
The tiny girl had hardly made a sound since he’d found her, other than the occasional sneeze (the screwdriver had worked that out as a common cold, at least). Now, though, she gurgled and blew bubbles at him.
“Didn’t think so.” He tilted his head a bit to the side. “Hmm…. Well, since I don’t know what species you are, you’re just going to have to deal with a human name.”
A list of female names ran through his head: Katarina, Polly, Zoe, Sarah Jane….
No, no, no, he scolded himself. Do not go there. None of those. No naming a child of an unidentified species after companions. Bad Doctor.
He looked around the control room, hoping for some inspiration. His eyes glanced over the monitor once before flicking back to it and locking on to the screen. It was showing a live feed of everything outside the TARDIS. Using his screwdriver to broaden the view, he realized he was hovering perfectly between the constellation Andromeda and the constellation Cassiopeia. Odd. He didn’t remember parking there. In all honesty, though, he had been a bit preoccupied with finding a sun to burn up.
The Doctor’s eyes turned back to the baby. “Between Cassiopeia and Andromeda, huh? They were mother and daughter, you know, according to the Ancient Greeks. Cassiopeia boasted that she and Andromeda were more beautiful than all the Nereids, and it angered the Sea God, Poseidon. He sent the sea monster Cetus to destroy the kingdom of Ethiopia. To appease him, Andromeda was chained to a stone and left as a sacrifice. But the brave hero Perseus saved her. So that Cassiopeia did not escape punishment, however, Poseidon tied her to a chair in the heavens, in such a way that she would spend of half of each year upside down for all eternity.”
The Time Lord sighed. “I loved the Greeks. Great civilization, although some would argue Rome was better. Too trigger-happy for my taste, or as I should say sword-happy.” He tilted his head to look at the girl in the cradle. “I wonder if that’s what happened to you. A sacrifice, I mean, like Andromeda.”
He stopped talking, shocked, when he saw her smile. It was the first time she’d done that, the first time she’d really even changed her facial expression at all.
“Andromeda?” he repeated.
This time she smiled and giggled.
“Alright, then, I think we’ve found you a name. Andromeda Cassiopeia Freya — the Freya because, well, if you’re going to stay with me you’re gonna to have to get used to Time Lord stuff, and that’s a traditional Time Lord name so it stays.” He jumped to his feet and went to the monitor. “You got that, old girl?”
The screen flashed and then displayed an image of the girl with her name beside it.
The Doctor frowned. “No, no, it’s three names. One first, one middle, one Gallifreyan.” The words remained. He sighed. “Ah, well.” Turning to the baby, he said, “Looks like you have four names, now.”
He walked back over to the cradle, crouched down, and, smiling, said,
“Welcome to the TARDIS, Andromeda Cassiopeia Freya Kasterborous.”