Chapter Text
It all begins after one of those adventures with an awful lot of running. With our lives at stake and when the web of time is about to disintegrate. Once again. When the universe is about to tumble. When we have whole armies against us. One of those days, the Doctor turns at me in the Tardis, pointing one single, threatening finger at me. All displeased, angry and at the end of his wits with me.
"You've been reckless! To the core. Again!"
I lean against one of the handrails, still catching my breath. I've heard his scolding before. Again and again. His warnings, his worries about me acting irresponsibly. Being careless. Reckless.
It's not like I disagree. The Doctor is right. "I know," I whisper.
It's not the answer the Doctor likes to hear, but it is the only one I have. Why lie?
We've been running together for a long time now. It's been four years since I said my goodbyes in the Chapel of Sorbonne to the man I met during my adventure to save the Doctor. The man you know as the First Minister of France and history knows best as Red Eminence. Cardinal Richelieu. The man I simply call Armand, in all those moments, nobody is listening. In all those moments, I catch my breath and try to at least do as if I want to stay alive.
Carrying his ring still around my neck, I hold the faint memories of closeness in my heart, of his mouth against my skin. The time we had. Years for him, a couple of weeks at best for me.
I can see how the Doctor bites the inner of his lips and his eyebrows frowning at me, regarding me. He has done that before, and usually, it ends there. Giving me a shout, remembering about my responsibility, about my safety. He cares about me and could never forgive himself if something terrible happens. Then he usually throws me a smile and proposes another trip. Another planet or another time period on earth.
We've been everywhere by now — that's how it feels, at least. The Tardis has run up, and down the timeline of the earth so often I sometimes forget which time I come from.
I address Beethoven by his first name, have had dinner with the Wright Brothers, and spent hours discussing philosophy with da Vinci. We met the Beatles before they were famous. I shook hands with George Washington and received damehood by Richard I the Lionheart and knighthood by Queen Victoria — how that happened, I might tell another day. We walked into palaces like we owned them; we fought the good fights and ran the long ways. I've seen it all, done it all, but I never coped.
With the past, which lingers in the back of my mind and is also hovering inside the Tardis, and my rooms like an unseen mist of the events.
This time, the Doctor won't let go of it. It's how he begins to pace up and down in front of me, which gives it away. He stops abruptly, peering down at me, at the silver ring, with the red diamond and the engraved Fleur de Lis around my neck. Armand's insignia ring.
I realise this is not the beginning; this will be the end.
We never spoke of it. About the time the Doctor died, and I was in charge of the Tardis. The time I travelled the timeline to collect all those pages, the Doctor had scattered himself for me to find them due to his death. In all the men carrying his face.
At first, I assumed he couldn't remember, and maybe that was true. With time it seemed, he did remember. Because even if you don't, you can recreate the missing events by the hole they leave. The Tardis and browsing some history books probably helped too.
Standing up, I find myself stepping in front of the Doctor. He looks at me, and his eyes travel down to my neck. Carefully he reaches for the ring. Weights it in his hands, appraising it and recognising its sentimental value for me. He had never done that before.
Without letting go of the ring, he turns his gaze back at me. "You loved him."
I reach for the ring, and for a moment, I let my fingers come around his. "I still do."
His hand holds briefly onto mine before he turns around with a huff of frustration and realisation. "I told you, you can't do this to yourself! Told you to let it go. Grief, five minutes a day, but then you have to move on!"
I chuckle, trying to subdue the sadness which is rising in me. Overplaying it, like I did before. "Don't you think I've tried? I did what you told me all those years ago."
He turns back at me swiftly. "So?"
Sometimes I do wonder if the Doctor is a little dense at times. "Didn't work."
A groan escapes him. Like I am that one promising experiment of his, who he never thought would fail. "Try harder!"
It's the fierceness of Richelieu I see in him now and the rudeness of Malcolm Tucker. I am used to it. To all those traits of all those men. As I have met them all, I am at an advantage at times when we have a row like this.
He swings around, about to leave for the library or God knows where.
I won't let him. "No!" The Doctor stops. "I can't try harder. There is no more room for trying harder."
He returns and stops right in front of me. I can feel the air push against me. "There is always a little more wiggle room for trying harder."
There are moments I want to strangle him, tackle him, and make him realise how arrogant he is. Remind him of being an alien and me being a human. And humans break occasionally.
"Can't you see?" I hiss. "This doing, is me trying harder. This being reckless, is me trying harder."
With a dramatic motion, he turns to the console, facing the core. This time, not even the Tardis will provide the answers.
"I've tried!" it breaks out of me. "For five years, I've tried. Five minutes of grief, as you said, and at first, it seemed this was enough to honour him and to keep me in check. Till the wound in my heart would heal. But it never did. Not one day passes in which I do not wish to see him again. In which I do regret not having stayed."
It's the first time I say it out loud, and it takes off a burden I was unaware of carrying on my shoulders.
"I thought this feeling, this urge, would leave me. I've tried to bury this with the memories you and I made together. I've tried to burn it with all the adrenalin and delete it, but every morning, when I wake up, it's all back. Like a Phoenix rising out of ashes."
The Doctor doesn't know what to say at first. He seems to sense there is more in me that finally needs to be let out. All those repressed thoughts and feelings. So I indulge the stage he unbeknown offers me.
"You said I became careless, and you are right. Because what kind of life is this when there is no life with him?"
"It's impossible!" His hands gesture high and wide into the room. "Not with him. He is a fixed point in time. Allowing you to have even the slightest chance with him could and will lead to a complete change in France's future. Which will impact all of Europe and all of history. Let alone, you'd run into yourself."
"I'd rupture the timeline where I safe you." I figured out that dilemma many adventures ago.
"Yes," he breathes. "We'd create a paradox and, at best, find our own in an endless loop going back and forth between Trenzelore and France in 1625."
"I know all that, but… can't you understand at least a little? What am I supposed to do, Doctor? Every day I look into your face, the face of Armand. Looking back at me, not seeing me. Because you are, of course, not him." I don't know what kind of reaction I expect from him. Not the kind expression he gives me, those eyes holding all the secrets in the universe, now gentle and teary.
"I know," he finally says, his hand motioning in a circle in front of his face. "And I can only imagine how cruel that must be."
Nodding, I walk up to the Tardis; my fingers trail along the console, the metal, over the buttons and levers. I can feel soft vibrations and a soft hum inside myself. We've come to terms the Tardis and me. After all the low times, we came to reasonable terms. "When the times were dark and hopeless, she tried to comfort me. Soothe the pain."
The Doctor brushes his hand over a part of the console as if to clean off some invisible dust. "I was faintly aware of your connections."
In the Tardis's effort to comfort me, I find courage. "There is more you should need to know, Doctor."
One eyebrow cocks up, and his face tilts in uncertainty. "I thought that was already enough."
It makes me laugh genuinely before I say, "I am losing my mind, Doctor. Worse, my scruples and my righteousness. At times I feel like burning alive with all those feelings."
The Doctor leans slightly back, taking in my stance and the tone of my voice, which is not so much filled with emotions as before. "What do you mean?"
This does not come lightly, but it has to be said. "You are my friend, I trust you with my life, and I think you trusted yours into my hands too. Not always voluntarily, but you have. Nevertheless, the truth is, Doctor, if I could make a deal with God, or the universe or time itself; I'd do it. I'd betray you instantly if it gave me a chance to see Armand again."
I can see the shock in his eyes. Maybe he had guessed but always ignored the possible outcome. Had trusted that this friendship between us would keep me away from the danger of falling to the menace of a broken heart.
"Sometimes I look at you, steering the Tardis, and I think, why not make him go to France 1627 or 1634 — whatever. Not only make you. Urge you. Force you!" I cry out and add in shame, "no matter the cost. I woke up one day, having realised that I am willing to destroy the universe, you and everyone we've ever met for one minute with him."
"You wouldn't!" He stops me. "You think you do it, but I know you. You wouldn't!"
I protest, shaking my head vigorously. "I'd do it! But you are right; I knew I shouldn't, so I tried to be reckless. Tried to find death rather than damnation. I've been reckless because death can only be so gentle when living has become my personal hell."
I don't even believe in an afterlife, but anything is better than following the Master or the Valeyard in their steps. I've heard those stories. I studied them well, and the Doctor warned me about their misbehaving with strict words.
"Why did you never tell me this?"
I don't want to answer, but I have to as I owe it to the Doctor. "You'd bring me home. Leave me behind," I say.
He nods. It would be the only reasonable thing to do. Keeping everyone safe.
"But," I continue, "without the Tardis, there would be no chance — and if it is just so small —" I hold up my fingers showing a gap impossible to make out, "to see him again. And so, every damn day, I try to come up with a possibility. A trick, a paradox. To find a way back. Me, a human, a pudding brain. Reaching for the impossible."
Here in the Tardis, my heart laid out; this is where it ends. Dissected by myself, for the Doctor. It may be best, I think. Sending me home, back to the real world. That harsh decision may finally heal the wound I carry. There is also a chance I will end up with insanity. After all, I have seen and experienced, how to return to normality?
"You've betrayed my trust!" the Doctor hollers. "Are you aware of what kind of position you put me in with everything you admitted?"
There is no response I have; he knows I am aware.
Suddenly the light begins to flicker from blue to white, long and short, and the Doctor turns his attention from me to the room, to the Tardis. A silent dialogue is happening.
"Doctor?"
"No!" he doesn't mean me. "We can't!"
To my discontent, something is going on, and I am not part of it. "Doctor? What is going on?"
Turning, he pushes his back against the console as if to hide something. "Nothing," and repeats toward the space of the console room, "nothing!"
When the Tardis enters your thoughts through the mental link, you feel a faint nudging at the edge of your brain. You'd miss it, but I am familiar with it. It's not words, just a vague idea flickering at the margin of your perception.
"How do you know that?"
The Doctor knows what the Tardis does before I know it, yet he needs more context. "What do you mean?"
I can almost see it, the answer, feel it, on the tip of my tongue. "You said it would impact France's future and all of Europe. How'd you know for sure? Because that's how it sounded, very certain."
Instead of answering, he rants at the Tardis, "how dare you give her the ideas! We agreed not to try!"
"Try what?" I demand to know. I step up and grab his arm, making him face me. "Try what? What are you talking about?"
He doesn't want to answer, but I can read the emotion of guilt in his eyes. Sad, big puppy eyes. That's an emotion I remember seeing in Doctor Pete's eyes.
"Doctor? Please!" I mouth.
At this point, there is no way back to the usual status quo, so the Doctor surrenders. "I've known, of course. Not in depth you just laid out, but I figured a while ago that you had trouble forgetting about the Cardinal."
So, I wasn't mistaken when I found him looking at me at times. His eyes filled with sorrow one moment, only to veil the emotion the next.
"Do you really think I want you to be in pain like this? That I did not want to help? Make it all stop?"
It dawns on me, I don't know what exactly, but I have a wild guess ready, "you've tried to find a way?"
"The Tardis, when needed, can calculate any outcome of history. Like a chess computer, she can predict the future. She can predict the consequences of almost every move on the board. It's not 100% accurate, but it was possible with an important and powerful man as Cardinal Richelieu."
I look to the core, all those plates with the names of companions, and then back to him. "You let her run predictions?"
"Yes." His hands ruffle his hair before holding his head, seemingly trying to rip it off himself. Here comes the truth. "And no scenario allows your intrusion. No matter what time frame I chose. Even way before 1625, your presence would ruin the timeline. Stop you from saving me, and erase what happened. Figuring I stay dead, and you never even met him. So I tried bringing you in between one of your meetings, which resulted in chaos. For him. For France and half of Europe!"
"How can I have such an impact? It's just me!" I protest, not able to grasp why I have such an influence on the web of time. "I am nobody."
The Doctor brings his hands in front of me as if it is he who wants to strangle me this time, and maybe he will, but instead, he groans out loud and lunges forward to run up one of the stairs. Reaching one of the bookshelves, he pulls out the well-known history book. Flickering through the pages frantically, he returns, holding the book in front of my nose. On the right is the portrait of myself, the drawing Armand once did of me.
"History objects! So, stop selling yourself short. You are obviously the only person able to make Cardinal Richelieu stray from his path in history." He closes the book with a bang and presses it into my hands. "Yes, it never should have been. If I had been around, I had never allowed it, but I wasn't, and things happen, and important people fall in love with the wrong century," he points at me with a mischievous smile, "and they hit it off! You would have stayed if it hadn't been for me, causing ripples. The same ripples you'd cause when you return. We both know I can't allow that!"
Being at the limit of my understanding, I feel like bursting. My hands become fists. "Why are you telling me all this? To make me feel better? Because, honestly, it doesn't work?" Another nudge is teasing my brain, pushing me in the right direction. I have trouble grasping it, but I decide to follow its lead. "I never can see him again; why be so precise about it?"
The Doctor suddenly considers his prospects and the prospects of me and the odds of the universe.
"We've known each other so long already," he slowly begins. "And you are aware I've broken almost every timelaw there is."
My head comes up with the word almost. "Doctor?"
I don't get an answer, but an action from the Doctor. He runs to the side of the console and feeds the Tardis with commands over the keyboard. The machine buzzes, wheezes, flickers and groans under his swift hands. It's her way of showing protest.
"She doesn't like it because it is against her Gallifreyan programming," he explains and presses a few more buttons. "An ethical code, which should prevent anyone meddling with time. Of course, it has corrupted over the last 2000 years, but there is still a line or two doing what it should do."
I give the monitor a look. The lines are all cryptic nonsense to me. "And that is?"
The Doctor hammers down three times the Enter-key before he turns to me, eyebrows up and an expression telling me it will be soon time to run again. "Stopping me from risking everything."
His words make me shudder. It sounds so final this time that I fear the unknown consequences. "Then don't do it, Doctor! Not for me!"
The Doctor is no being who has much patience. This time, for once, he grants me with an explanation. "Myself has risked the integrity of the universe for my own pleasure more than a dozen times, and when I hate one thing then it’s being called a hypocrite." He flashes me a smile and before I can say something or stop him, he yanks the lever down.
The abrupt decision brings the Tardis into sheer chaos. The machine roars in such a protest I have never heard before. It bucks like hoarse, throwing the Doctor and me into different corners of the room. I end up under the console, clinging to my dear life there, while the Doctor tries to steer the Tardis through whatever we go through. Everything rumbles, moans, and aches. One of the staircases comes crashing down, making sparks fly, and I can see flames spark, but before a fire can break out, the Tardis gives pressured gas into the direction, extinguishing the fire.
"Doctor!"
"Hold on tight!" he only yells, and I can hear him pull the lever back into its original position.
As if being drunk, the Tardis begins to turn around itself and tumbles with much uproar out of the time vortex. Then, we crash. I can feel the forces tearing at me and how we hurtle down to the ground. In case there is one. Then everything goes blank. We crashed before, but not like that.
While the interior of the Tardis lies in chaos, the Doctor and I lay unconscious on the floor. It is me who retains consciousness first.
Covered in debris and parts of bookshelves, I find the Tardis in almost darkness.
"Doctor?" I pant while checking if I can wiggle my toes and move my hands. Both seem to work just fine. I hear him groan a few feet away and rob over. "What the hell have you done?"
With a puff, he raises his head slightly, eyes still closed. "I haven't regenerated, have I?"
"Don't you dare!"
He laughs, and I can't join him.
"Are you completely insane? For a moment, I thought the ship would burst!" I am actually furious inside, just too exhausted to voice it properly.
The Doctor pushes himself onto his forearms, looking around, taking in the damages. "She hasn't. Stop complaining."
"But all the damage!" I blurt, still startled by the crash.
Scuffing, he waves my worries away. "Don't you worry; she'll repair herself. It shall not be your concern."
Bringing himself and myself onto our feet, the Doctor checks some readings on the monitor and enters a few more commands. It brings back some more light and elicits a satisfying hum from him.
"What did you do? Where are we?"
Gesturing for me to follow him, we both stagger through the rubble of steel and wood to the door. As it is jammed, the Doctor needs to put a bit of force into his doing, but then he gets it open. Taking a peek outside, he gives another hum, leaving me in the unclear. Then he steps out, and I follow quickly to get some answers.
Over the years, I have developed a good sense of figuring out on which side of the universe we land by taking in minimal information like my surrounding, tree formations, stone appearance, the way the ground feels under my feet and how the air tastes on the tip of my tongue. That's why I know with the first step outside and the first whiff of air I breathe, we are on earth.
In a forest, to be precise, green and full of birches and oaks. It's warm, and the air is fresh. It's summer. The treeline is not far away, ending in a vast field of corn and grass. In the distance, a little further down, I can perceive the beginning of a city. Not just any city. A growing metropolis and one building, however, does stand out even from a distance. It's not just any building. It's a palace. The court. The Parisien court.