Archive of Our Own ^beta

He shouldn’t be here. That’s the first thought that comes to the Time Lord’s mind as he walks slowly down the middling, cobbled streets of late Victorian London, leaning heavily on his cane. The middle-aged man reaches up to the bowler hat on his head and removes it politely, inclining his head to the pair of pretty young women who pass beside him, light Autumn capes draped over their bustled, ankle-length gowns.’

The two young women inclined their heads in response and The Doctor placed his hat back on his head, trying not to think about how much the shorter of the two young ladies looked very much like a dark-eyed, young woman of his acquaintance…

Acquaintance? Really? The Doctor mentally berated himself as he hobbled along, Clara is a little more than that, isn’t she? Not to mention the way she looks at us…

“Yes, but would she still think that way?” The Doctor mumbled under his breath with a sigh, glancing aside at his cane. He hadn’t used the ebony walking stick since he was only four-hundred and fifty, in his first incarnation. Well, that was the last incarnation we actually grew old in, wasn’t it? Can’t say I actually missed the dratted old thing…although it’s good for poking at things with…

The Doctor knew where he was heading, Kensington Gardens. Which at this time of the year was full of rugged-up Victorians, mostly gathered around chestnut carts.

The smell of chestnuts was always a comforting smell, The Doctor would have to take a bag back for Barnable, his friend on Trenzalore, in the town of Christmas where he was now stationed indefinitely. The Doctor knew shouldn’t have taken the TARDIS off-planet, but he’d located a weak point and had stolen away while he should have been getting ready for duties as a godfather to Barnable’s little daughter.

The centuries were adding up now. The Doctor’s time was running out and there was still so much more he should be doing, and yet still more he should have done. There was only one person he knew he could talk to, now he was nearing the end of his life. Someone he hadn’t spoken to in over a thousand years.

Though it had been that long, The Doctor still remembered everything about this day, this very moment. And there they are, right on schedule, he thought with a sad smile as he walked over to the park bench. Whereupon the bench, was a small, dark blond-haired boy in a navy sailor suit, holding the leash of a black and white Border Collie; the boy was sitting beside a pale, slightly plump, red-haired woman in a light blue gown.

A darker blue hat was pinned into the red-haired woman’s curled up-do, and a light cloak, the same colour as her hat, was about her shoulders. The Doctor’s eyes crinkled in the corners as he watched the woman intently studying the interior of a mechanical device, a small screwdriver in her hand as she frowned into the insides of the device.

“I swear, my darling, your father might be the most brilliant of men, but his mechanics are atrocious. I’m nowhere near his knowledge and I could have crafted something much cleaner, look at this mess,” the woman tutted and the boy looked down at the device. “Promise me you will do much better at your studies of mechanics, my darling?”

The little boy nodded, “Yes, Mother. May I take Hubert for a walk now?” He asked and his mother nodded. The boy hopped to his feet and eagerly rush down the grassy bank in front of them, Hubert barking enthusiastically as he kept up with his young master.

“Not too far, mind!” The red-haired woman called after her son, returning to her studies of the interior of the device in her hands, so intent on her work that she didn’t notice The Doctor walking around the back of the bench and taking a seat beside her.

Turning to his side to face the muttering woman, The Doctor cleared his throat, “May I be of any assistance?” He offered with a wide smile.

The woman glanced aside at the older man with a polite smile, “Unless you happen to be a genius of mechanics, sir, I don’t know. I’m a scientist myself, but this is my husband’s work and I’m not quite sure–”

“Please,” The Doctor propped up his cane against the bench and reached out with his hands, “I do happen to know a little bit about these things.” He encouraged.

The woman raised an eyebrow, but something in the older man’s voice made her think and she passed over the device. The red-haired woman watched as The Doctor looked at the interior, “Do you need this?” She offered out her screwdriver, but The Doctor waved her off.

“Not necessary,” The Doctor reached into his dark maroon coat pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, “I brought my own.” He saw the woman’s eyes widen in shock at the alien-looking construct, as The Doctor flicked it on and glided its lit tip across the mechanics. “A communication device. Primitive in my day, but even for now, Ulysses was never the best at these things. More a thinker and explorer, than a mechanical engineer.”

The Doctor closed the back of the bronze-coloured device and passed it back to the woman, “There you go. It should have three times the range now. Try it.” He encouraged.

The red-haired woman pressed a button on the side of the device, “Ulysses, come in Ulysses.” She spoke into it quietly.

First the green, then the blue light at the top of the device flickered to life, “Ulysses here. Hello love, where are you and the little one?” The jovial, deep voice was just as The Doctor remembered, and he smiled down at his laced boots.

“We’re in Kensington Gardens, 1883, November 12^th. Our bench.” The woman replied, glancing aside at where The Doctor was now regarding her with a soft expression. “There’s a man here who knows you. He fixed the device.”

There was a pause on the other end of the conversation, “Is he Time Lord?”

“Yes.” The Doctor replied simply and there was another pause on the other end of the conversation, obviously Ulysses had something to analyse voice patterns.

“I see. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” The lights at the top of the device switched off and the woman turned to regard The Doctor.

“Are you from the council?” She invoked, The Doctor shook his head. “Any Time Lord authority?” The woman pressed and again The Doctor shook his head. “Have we met?”

The Doctor nodded and smiled, “A very long time ago for me, only about nine or so years ago for you.” He rested his right arm on the back of the bench and his left hand on his knee. “Ancient Japan to be more precise.”

The woman pointed a finger in surprise, “It’s you, isn’t it? The Doctor?” She demanded and The Doctor bowed his head in acknowledgement.

“Hello, Penelope Gate.” The ancient Time Lord greeted and Penelope shook her head in surprise, looking him up and down.

“You told me all those years ago about your people and your regenerating, and it took me so long to understand. Now I’m married to one of your people,” Penelope pointed over at her son, running across the grassy bank with his dog. “That’s my son.”

“I know,” The Doctor said simply.

Penelope furrowed her brow, “He loves his dog very much. He loves all animals to distraction, really. Ulysses told me he’s never heard of you.” Gate suddenly changed the subject. “I asked and asked, but no one has ever heard of a Time Lord called The Doctor. Well, not yet.” She cocked her head to the side.

“All the information you gave me, including that sojourn into your mind of all places, led them to believe you were from the future.”

The Doctor nodded, “I am. I’m very old now, Penelope,” he unconsciously took the Victorian scientist’s hand, stroking the pale, soft back of it. “Do you remember I was only on my seventh incarnation when I met you–”

“I remember. A sly devil of a man.” Penelope interrupted, as she studied The Doctor more closely, “You’re more pleasant this time around. You remind me of an older version of my husband.”

The Doctor chuckled and squeezed Penelope’s hand gently, “I’ll take it as a compliment. But I am so much older than your husband. I’m on my thirteenth body,” he admitted and Penelope took in a sharp intake of breath, she knew.

“I see. Why did you come to see me after all this time, Doctor?” Penelope removed her hand from The Doctor’s grasp, her bright blue eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. “We hardly got along well enough the first time, almost like you were keeping me at a distance. And then you let me into your mind…I don’t understand you at all. You’re unlike any Time Lord I’ve met, and yet you’re exactly like them at the same time.”

The Doctor pushed back his hair with his hands and sighed heavily, “I’m here now because I need to talk to someone and that someone just happens to be you.” He revealed. “I need you to tell me that it’s okay. That she’ll forgive me.”

Penelope furrowed her brow, “That what is ‘okay’? Who will forgive you?” She repeated with concern. Something about this man always put her in a state of confusion. Despite the arguments they’d had in the past, she’d always wanted to keep talking to The Doctor and to comfort him…it frightened her.

The Doctor turned away and looked out over at where Penelope’s young son was lying on the grass, with Hubert lying beside him, guarding his young master. “I’ve been fighting in a war for over three hundred years. I sent the one person I care the most about, back in time to her home, so I could protect her from this battle I’m helping to fight, and not have to bury her in the process. She’ll never forgive me. I may never see her again.

“My time is running out and I may never see her again. I betrayed her, I said I wouldn’t send her away and I did.” The Doctor clutched his face into his hands with a shuddering sigh.

“Do you love her, Doctor?” Penelope’s solemn, kindly voice inquired.

Lowering his hands, The Doctor narrowed his green eyes in pain, “She loves me. She shouldn’t.” He murmured. “She might never again.”

Penelope put her hand on The Doctor’s shoulder, “If I tell you she’ll forgive you if you explain what you did was for love, will you do so, if you do see her again?” She questioned softly. “There is always time to ask for forgiveness. What is her name?”

The Doctor smiled softly, “Clara.”

“Clara,” Penelope repeated with a smile. “It’s a beautiful name. A very human name,” she pointed out and The Doctor nodded slowly.

There was silence for a moment, and then Penelope turned her gaze over to her fair-haired son, who was now in a seated position and cuddling his dog. “My son is about to enter the Academy,” she revealed and The Doctor inclined his head. “Will it hurt, what he’s about to go through?”

The Doctor rested his hand atop Penelope’s, “Yes. He may not be the same boy afterwards, all Time Tots have a different reaction to staring into the Untempered Schism.” He revealed to Penelope, whose fair features turned even paler.

“I see,” Gate replied. “They’re going to separate him from me. I’m only going to be able to see him twice a year if I’m lucky,” she turned sharply on The Doctor. “It isn’t fair. He’s just as much my son as he is Ulysses. Why shouldn’t I have a say?”

The Doctor’s face became stone-like as he looked over at the Time Tot, “He’s a Time Lord. Two hearts, Penelope. He’s a child now, but he won’t be for long.” He knotted his fingers together. “The curse of the Time Lords is also the curse of their parents–”

“What about your own children?” Penelope interrupted, her blue eyes blazing.

The Doctor knitted his fingers together. “How do you know I was a parent?”

Penelope smiled slowly, “Your hands, a mother knows,” she lifted the worn right hand of The Doctor. “Their touch shows that you’ve held many infants.”

The Doctor nodded slowly, “Many children, including my own and my grandchildren,” he lowered his eyes. “I was with my son and daughter after they stared into the schism. My son was quiet for a very long time. My daughter…” he sighed and glanced across at Penelope.

“…it’s difficult and different for all Time Tots.”

Penelope paused a moment, before venturing another question, “Do you remember your own encounter with the Schism?”

The Doctor nodded slowly, “I do. My Grandfather was one of the ones who escorted me, my Father waited for me to return. I remember running back after I stared into the Schism, but I didn’t suffer, and my Father was there to hold me afterwards.” He recalled, trying to forget the sight of The Master screaming nearby and his parents standing stoically beside him.

Penelope sighed and pressed her hands to her face, “I expect it’s the burden I must bear for having a Time Lord child,” she lowered her hands and glanced slowly back over at The Doctor. “I must have been crazy to have fallen in love with a near-immortal being, who calls himself a Lord of Time…no offence,” Penelope gazed over at her son as she clutched her hands together and rested them on her lap.

“But I love my son. I’m not going to ever leave him. Even if I can only see him a few times a year, because I’m some sort of corruption to his studies, being human and all. I won’t ever leave him.”

The Doctor swallowed hard, patting Penelope’s clutched hands and trying to repress the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. “A mother always knows. And no mother could be braver than you are.” He assured her. Penelope turned her head and smiled bravely at The Doctor, tears flooding her blue eyes.

The son of Penelope suddenly sharply turned his gaze, and a bright smile appeared on his face, “Father!” He called out, rushing up the bank and past the bench, (Hubert close on his master’s heels,) and the boy flung himself at a tall, brown-haired man, (dressed in an outfit virtually identical to The Doctor’s.) who effortlessly picked up the small child and hugged him.

“Ah, my son.” Ulysses kissed the top of his son’s fair head and lowered him back to the ground, he then leaned over to Penelope. “The capsule is just behind us, it’s camouflaged as the third tree on your right.” Ulysses’ brown eyes darted over to The Doctor, but he made no other acknowledgement of his fellow Time Lord’s presence.

Penelope smiled and patted her husband’s arm, “All right.” She got to her feet and offered out her right hand to The Doctor, who took it and kissed the back of it gently. “It was lovely seeing you again, Doctor.” Penelope grasped The Doctor’s hand with her free hand.

The Doctor shakily smiled, “The pleasure was all mine.” He reluctantly let go of the red-haired scientist’s hand, and Penelope reached out to take her distracted son’s hand, (the boy untangling his dog’s leather leash.)

The son of Penelope and Ulysses suddenly turned his huge blue eyes upon The Doctor, staring up at him curiously. “Hello.” He said simply.

The Doctor’s eyes crinkled in the corners as he smiled, “Hello.”

The Time Tot furrowed his brow, looking like he wanted to say something more, but Ulysses gently nudged his seven-year-old child with a hand on his thin right shoulder.

“Run along, son. Escort your mother to the capsule,” Ulysses ordered, and his son nodded quickly, taking his mother’s offered hand. The boy continued glancing back every so often over his shoulder, as Penelope led her son and his dog across the lawn.

The Doctor got to his feet and felt a heavy hand on his right shoulder, he lifted his gaze to face the solemn, bearded features of the younger Time Lord, who looked caught between worry and surprise.

“What are you doing here, son?” Ulysses questioned the future incarnation of his youngest son, looking The Doctor over in concern. “You know the penalty for crossing your own timelines…not to mention the paradoxes…unless they’ve changed things in the future?”

The Doctor rested his hands atop his ebony cane, “You could say that.” He paused, glancing aside at where Penelope was departing with the boy. “I had to see her. I had to talk to her one last time…I needed to talk to her.”

Ulysses hesitantly withdrew his hand from his son’s shoulder and folded his arms as his Time Lord senses immediately detected the truth from the previous touch of his son’s shoulder. “I didn’t even need to smell your forehead, you’re practically radiating it...you’re on your last incarnation?” He queried.

The Doctor inclined his head and Ulysses inhaled deeply, eyeing off his son with a pained expression as more information was revealed.

Sighing, Ulysses rested his hands on The Doctor’s shoulders. “I can’t ask you what will happen…but you’ve lived, my son. Please tell me that you’ve lived.”

The Doctor smiled widely, “I did. Oh, I’ve seen things, Father, so many things. The rise and fall of planets, Guardians and Eternals…things even Rassilon could never have dreamed of…he's been back for a while, now, actually. Horrid old goat–”

Ulysses chuckled, “You sound like your mother.” He rested his forehead against The Doctor’s. [I will let you go, now. I will see you again.] He spoke in Gallifreyan and The Doctor nodded.

[Farewell,] The Doctor pulled back and rested his hand on Ulysses’ broad shoulder. [Father.]

Smiling, Ulysses turned around and departed, leaving The Doctor to sit back down on the park bench, wiping his ancient eyes with the back of his right hand as he gazed out over the riverbank, shaking his head slowly.

“Silly old Doctor, of all the places to go…you should have gone to see Susan, instead…maybe Sarah–”

There was a tap on The Doctor’s shoulder, and he turned to see Penelope standing beside the bench, her hands clasped in front of her. Silently, the red-haired woman leaned over and kissed the side of The Doctor’s cheek, brushing her hand along his jaw.

“A mother always knows,” Penelope murmured, leaning forward again to kiss The Doctor’s forehead, before pulling back and cupping his face gently in her gloved hands. “I’m always here.”

The Doctor reached out and hugged Penelope close to him, clutching tightly to his mother and pressing his face against her shoulder, inhaling that painfully familiar scent of Gallifreyan roses. “Mother.” He said simply, slowly letting Penelope go after a moment and smiling up at her.

“Thank you.”

Penelope grasped her grown son’s hands, before gently dropping them and pulling away, before strolling backwards for a moment, “I love you.” She called back, turning around and lifting up her blue skirts as she hurried back across the lawn. “Find your Clara, Doctor!”

The Doctor quickly turned back around, the pain too much to watch his mother depart again. After a moment of pondering, the old Time Lord finally came to a conclusion as he heard the wheezing sound of his father’s Type-40 TARDIS. I don’t think I ever told River why I leave on the brakes just to make that sound. Father never did read that manual…that’s why he got stuck in Ancient Egypt for half a century…

“I think,” The Doctor suddenly announced, as he got to his feet resolutely, and began hobbling along the path, the late-afternoon sun grazing across his worn features.

“I think I’d better get to one of those chestnut carts before they close… I wonder if Barnable’s ever had a chestnut before…I’d better get an extra bag to nibble on my way back, they smell delightful…”

Thank you for reading.