Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Your regeneration is unexpected, but feels good. You let it come naturally, immediately, rather than resisting and causing explosions when you let go. Quickly, quietly, painlessly. Alone. You expect to be a middle-aged man, maybe blonde this time, and you are blonde – you’re just not a man. You’re thin, and wobbly, and your centre of gravity has shifted, and suddenly balancing is odd, because there’s weight up north rather than down south. Long blonde hair cascades down past your shoulders, curling at the ends, lightly brushing the top of your breasts, and you slowly walk out of the console room towards your bedroom.

Everything seems different, from the perspective of a woman, and you frown lightly as you see a book resting on your bedside table about timelady physiology. I’ll read it later, properly. Probably. You don’t feel quite as bookish as your last regeneration, though calculations are beginning to spin through your head, whirling in spirals and soft waves. You feel…creative, maybe. You kick off your shoes, wincing at your old man socks, peeling them off with a severe “No.”

Stripping off your suit, you hang up the main articles of clothes, patting your ‘magician coat’, before hanging it up on a handy rail. Already, your room is changing around you, morphing and experimenting with new styles. You like the dark blue of the ceiling, and mentally request to keep it, and the charcoal walls and spongey, carpeted floor, as they pass by. You let the TARDIS decide the rest of it, pushing open a door that appears, to discover a bathroom. Going inside, you find a mirror and still, observing yourself.

Young. Mid-thirties, late twenties. You have green eyes and ivory skin and you wonder when you’ll be darker – it should have happened at least once by now, statistically, though seeing as you’re a woman for the first time, and that’s statistically more likely than changing ethnicity, well…

Sweeping a hand through your hair, you pull it back, just knowing you needed a hairband, or this would just get out of hand. Multiple shades of blonde. A spectrum. You twist your face side to side. It seems more triangular without your hair framing it. Ears aren’t as big as nine’s by far, but stick out as much, if not more. You drop your hair, endeavouring to have a shower instead of finding the wardrobe. When in the shower however, it becomes apparent that you’re going to need more practice with this body – shampooing at least. Exploring and experimenting went fine. Also, apparently you have to condition, too, because the TARDIS wouldn’t let you out of the shower cubicle until you had. Three times. To be quite fair though, each time you tried you didn’t get the entire part of it.

Afterwards, you dry off, then walk into the waiting wardrobe only covered with a towel, and a new problem is presented to you – picking clothes with one hand, because the other one is too busy holding up the towel. Tying it off like you used to do around your waist didn’t work because of the new obstacles on your chest. The TARDIS helps out by picking out a selection of underwear early, labelling each different type. You know what most are by looking at them, what they do – River had needed supportive ones, with underwire. From previous companions’ complaints about running, you take note to wear sports bras when you plan on saving the world.

Of course, it’s only once you actually get a set on, that the TARDIS starts ringing out a distress bell, and you run to the console room to see what’s wrong. When you get there, the bell stops ringing, because someone is pressing a button. You stop in the doorway, both taking in your new console room – light and airy, but with dark wooden floors and glass gates around the centre console, which is this beautiful cream and gold masterpiece that looks something between your eighth body’s console and the original interface, in a smooth hexagonal shape – and keeping a sharp eye on the robot dog that is currently recalling a long antenna from it’s head from beneath the TARDIS console.

“Mistress,” the dog’s mechanical voice is altogether familiar and scratchy. Something niggles in your mind, a memory resurfacing from thousands and thousands of years ago. “Mistress, the TARDIS has informed me that you require a new companion, while you get used to your new body.”

“…K9?” You ask mutedly, quiet as you stare at him, shocked. “K9, is that really you?”

“Yes, Mistress.” K9 trundles over, bumping against your leg. “If Mistress would get dressed, it would be much appreciated.”

“…yes, of course,” but you crouch down first, setting a hand on his metal head, revelling in the fact that one of your oldest buddies is in front of you. “Would you like to come help me pick, treasure?”

“If Mistress wishes for me to help.”

“Oh, I do, K9,” you say assuredly, nodding.

“I would like to express my sentiment for what you have chosen so far, Mistress,” K9 adds. You chuckle, looping a thumb under your dark blue bra strap, pinging it lightly.

“Thank-you, I like it too. Now,” you stand straight, “keep up.”

“Yes Mistress.”

You eventually choose an outfit. It’s decidedly plain, and twenty-first century. Your French navy trousers come up to your waist, held together with a line of buttons, and your crisp, soft, white button-down is tucked into it tightly. You roll the sleeves up after barely a moment’s thought, and you tug a thin, brown leather watch onto your wrist, alongside a few black hairbands – one of which you immediately use to tie up your hair.

“K9, where were you all this time?” You ask as you walk around the console, bare-footed, plucking your new sonic screwdriver from a cylindrical tube. You eye it – your new sonic is thinner than you’ve had it in a long while, shiny, silver, and with a soft green light on the end. There’s a clear screen, above the button, which seems to be at the same time a kind of touchpad, probably for the screen for settings and suchlike.

“I was in the storage room, Mistress,” K9 replies clearly, “My previous model is still with Master Luke and Miss Sky at Bannerman Road.”

“Just Luke?” You glance at K9, frowning. “What about Sarah? And who’s Sky?”

K9 pauses before answering in a rather slow voice, “Mistress Sarah-Jane passed away in two thousand and eleven, Mistress.” You flinch unexpectedly. You hadn’t known. “Miss Sky was Mistress Sarah-Jane’s second adopted child, whom she adopted a year before her death. She is now in the custody of her brother, Master Luke.”

“How did she die?”

“Cancer, Mistress. She passed away peacefully, however.”

“Good,” you breath, before looking for a pocket to tuck your sonic screwdriver into. “Oh, no pockets. That was…unexpected.” You stand still, not really knowing what to do with your new sonic now you don’t have pockets. Donna had mentioned a lack of pockets before, in her dress. Was this what all female clothes were like?

“Mistress could put her sonic screwdriver in her hair,” K9 offers, and you glance at him before taking his advice, finding the sensation odd, but not unpleasant.

“It’ll do,” you decide, before inputting coordinates. “Let’s park you somewhere – that’ll give you some more time to settle, while I have some fun.” You use the stabilisers for once, not wanting to cause any undue pressure on her systems while she was still calibrating. Landing with a dull clang, you go to the doors, K9 at your heels, and open them up to thirty-eighth century Pablova. Why someone would name a planet Pablova escapes you.

“Let’s explore,” you say to K9, exiting and locking the door after making sure K9 was clear, tucking the key in your bra beside your psychic paper, stealing the trick from River. It wasn’t like you were going to let anyone in there any time soon. Walking into the crowd, you look around, playing with your wristwatch as the lack of pockets causes your hands to find something to do.

Soon, you come to a public stage-play, sitting down with the locals – two-headed beings who lived rather like the aplans, but with eight arms in addition to the usual two – watching the benevolent ruler in the drama knight a commoner for saving her sons from cybermen. You watch with interest, and when it finishes, you wish you had pockets as you leave, so you could have dug out a coin or something to throw at the stage like many of the others around you.

You continue to explore the city. You join in a group tour that’s going around soon enough, enjoying the commentary on the history of the city, buying a pair of thin, sturdy boots to pull on your feet as you do. It’s only when a cyborg on holiday mentions the lack of androids and robots that you realise that K9 is nowhere to be found.

“K9?” You call, turning your back on the group. There’s no mechanical voice calling out to you, muffled or otherwise, and you turn back to the group as the tour guide replies.

“That is because Pablova has a strict ban on any conscious robotics, after the Great Invasion. After the cybermen were defeated, the Empress made it illegal for any robotic entities to roam the streets – cyborgs, of course, fall under the local galaxy laws of non-hostility towards other lifeforms, and are of course, exempt.”

“Excuse me,” you interrupt then, getting their attention, “does this law include robot animals? Because my dog isn’t here.” The guide’s eyes went wide.

“You brought a robot into the city?”

You glare, clenching your fists, “Where can I find K9?” Someone snorts in the tour group, but you’re too angry to join them – too angry at the laws, too angry at your own stupidity. You should have found out if either of you were in danger by coming here.

The guide looks at you warily, before pointing behind you. Turning, your eyes stop on a giant stone tower that emits a thick smog from its tip.

“We call it the Great Smelter. All robotic lifeforms are crushed and melted down.”

You suck in a breath, and start running.

“I’ve been alone too long,” you say out loud, staring at the ceiling of the TARDIS. You need a new Rose – a human who can bring you back to reality. You’ve travelled the universe for so many years, survived so much, but you’re back to that place – albeit a different sort of place – where you can’t recognise what you need to do or what you need to understand. Your eyes shift to K9, where he’s recharging in a little kennel under the console.

He nearly died because you were too used to not having someone to care for. As much as a robot can die, anyway.

Shutting your eyes, you kick off a little on the wall, your fabric hammock swaying a little, but not much, hair drifting in the breeze. You’d come back to find it here, a couple of feet from the corridor leading deeper into the TARDIS, and it was exactly what you needed while your thoughts were this weighty.

“I need a new human,” you state, wondering what they’d be like, once you found them. Would they be young? Old? An alien, rather than a human? Would they like running – would they like adventures? Opening your eyes, you get off your hammock, approaching the console, tying up your hair again from where you’d undone it. Sweeping over the console, you turn on the randomiser, leaving the stabilisers on as the TARDIS begins to fly. You grin, looking at the yellowed glass cylinders go up and down as you’re knocked sideways, only your experience saving you from dropping to the ground.

“Where are you taking me today, my beautiful one?” You call out, not expecting an answer as your journey through the vortex ends with a bang. Smiling wider, you rush to the doors, opening them wide, only to stop as you’re greeting with Darillium. “But…” you can see yourself in the distance, saying a last goodbye to River – not that your wife knows it. You go to shut the doors, but they refuse to budge as your past self steps into his TARDIS and disappears, leaving River to program her vortex manipulator.

One of the doors to the TARDIS suddenly moves, and the extra strength you’d put into closing it cause it to slam in place, a giant, giant noise echoing across the land.

River looks up.

You stare at her, eyes wide as you lose balance, falling sideways into the TARDIS, behind the door. You struggle to get up, and when you do, she’s already waiting in the doorway.

“Hi,” you breathe, staring at her, and oh, you’d forgot, you’d forgot how this felt. You’d forgot how beautiful she was – forgot how each of her curls reflected the sun, and how her smile could light up your entire life. “Hi.”

“You already said that,” she looks at the new TARDIS console. “I’m going to assume you’re not the Doctor.”

“Not?” You squawk, getting up onto your feet, the unexpected draft causing you to wriggle your toes. “Of course I’m the Doctor! Please, don’t do this with me again – I have no desire to hear you say anything like monoliths can’t love a person back, or anything silly like that.” River stares at you, at that, before quirking her lip.

“I never expected you to regenerate into a female.”

“Well, neither did I, truth be told,” you play with your watch, biting your lip. “Uh, I had the randomiser on. I don’t know why she brought me here to you…I wanted to find a human companion to travel with, actually.”

“Oh?” River looks around again. “You don’t have one hiding anywhere?”

“No,” you reach forwards, boldly taking her hand, pulling her lightly into the TARDIS, snapping your fingers to shut the doors. You motion to K9, shrugging. “He’s the closest I have to anyone right now.”

“You should never travel alone.”

“I know,” you say, and her hand is soft in yours, warm. It reminds you of your past, of all your history and friends. “Many of you all have told me this. But I’m older than Rassilon – I forget these things.”

“Older than Rassilon?” River’s obviously shocked, but she still steps closer, into your space, taking your other hand, your faces nearly touching. “Doctor, how long have you been alone?”

“Long enough that I’m having difficulty in knowing how to care. K9 nearly got destroyed because I forgot he was at my heels.” You swallow, feeling the guilt well again. River kisses you. Everything feels warm, and soft, and those specific feelings are River’s now, you can’t help it, the association. She cradles your head, and you grip her waist. She’s taller than you, but it doesn’t matter – it just gives you a different perspective.

This regeneration is all about a new perspective, it seems.

“I love you so much,” you whisper when you finally part, sucking in a breath. River clutches you, pressing your foreheads together.

“Mother sent you here to be with me, for a little while at least. You can’t go straight into the deep, my darling, you have to start at the shallow end.”

“And you’re the shallow end?” You smile a little, pressing a kiss to River’s lips before standing back, holding her hands tightly. “I highly doubt that.”

River laughs, rich and mellow, and you haven’t heard it in so long. Your eyes slip shut, and you bask in it, before lifting your eyelids only a touch, watching her through your eyelashes.

“Well, maybe that was the wrong metaphor to use. I’ve just spend over twenty four years being terribly happy with my husband, and now I get to spend another indeterminate amount of time with my wife. A lot’s going on.”

But you beam at her, not caring. Because she just called you her wife.

“My wife,” you murmur, smiling widely, tracing her cheek with your thumb, before hugging her tightly, laughter bubbling in your throat. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you too,” she replies, squeezing before letting you go, looking at your console. “Now, teach me how to fly with your new desktop.” You nod, pressing a kiss to the corner of her lips before sliding over to the controls.

“Randomiser – on,” you press your finger against the already-flipped switch. “Coordinates dial, unlocked and waiting,” you brush a knuckle around the cream border, before reaching over to flip a lever, causing the TARDIS to being to wheeze and tip. “And here we go!”

Chapter Text

River stays with you for another thousand years. You just…lose track of time. You haven’t seen River since your twelfth face, and that was to be your last meeting, before River went to the Library. Then she’s your companion for ten and a half centuries. You relearn how to care, how to understand, how to keep track of people – you have a third companion every couple of decades, for a relatively short amount of time, in human terms, which is something else you revisit. Human terms, human methodology, human morals. They’ve always influenced you, been important to a core part of your being that defied the Timelords and recognised that the morals and beliefs of your home world are corrupted.

Well. Not so corrupted anymore. River insists that you show her Gallifrey, when it comes up, and you spend eight decades there, you think, overall. No way were you spending that amount of time on Gallifrey in one fell swoop. The consequence of such visits, over the course of a century, is the deconstruction and reconstruction of a democratic government with minimal hierarchy, and Gallifrey’s actual reconstruction, clearing battlefields of dalek ruin and building on top of former civilisations.

In any case, you spend so much time with River, and it’s wonderful, but as with every relationship, naturally it’s suffocating, and you were never and will never be co-dependent on each other. So, every so often River would disappear for a while, but she would always return to you within a month, somehow, despite your constant adventures and time-travelling.

So, when she doesn’t return to you after a month and a half, that’s when you panic, and you begin to track her journey – with fate slapping you with in the face immediately, as you discover the last message she’d received was from the LUX Corporation.

River is finally gone, and you weep.

You grieve for a month, and then you create a fresh identity for yourself, crafting everything with a precision that takes all your attention. The life you make for yourself on Earth is complex, like every human life is, but careful uses of perception filters and Gallifreyan holograms let you make something for yourself.

To those that you ‘grew up with’, to those who had known you in foster-homes, and primary and secondary schools, and university, you’re Naomi Grey – later, Dr Naomi Grey. Naomi is a clever, solemn child who prefers books to socialisation, learning rather than playing pretend and dollies with her foster-sister, Kate. Naomi is a young, teen genius dyke who broke Steve Harold’s nose when he tried to kiss her date to prom. Naomi Grey is a university graduate with the strange mix of bachelor and masters degrees in fine art, teaching art to secondary students, particle physics, mathematics and social sciences, that got a PhD at eighteen and then did another six in different subjects, and has no friends but hundreds of colleagues.

You’re older than dirt, to use the Earth phrase.

You can afford to spend two and a half decades creating this charade.

And if you get bored and do exceptionally well while doing it, well, no-one’s figured out you’re an alien despite investigations from every department and organisation that tried.

In two thousand and eight, you move from Oxford to London, and write a few books during a year of solitude, before starting a career in teaching. You start as a substitute, going from school to school, never staying too long. When the Year That Never Was comes, you simply live in your TARDIS at the bottom of the Atlantic, and return to London once Martha’s done her good work, and the Master has – temporarily – died. For once in your long life, you follow the Timelord tenants to never interfere – but when the time finally comes, you do what you’ve been planning for the entirety of your ‘human’ life.

You go to teach at Coal Hill Academy.

The teenagers your twelfth face had narrow-mindedly told to protect the Earth from what come through the cracks are gone – have been for two years, despite the continuation of alien visitors. The Governors have a taskforce for those now. Andra’ath of the Quill still teaches, helping out occasionally, and while you have no intention to interfere with the life of she or her daughter, you do get drawn to her.

…you’re older than dirt, however, and that means you have apparently forgotten how to watch someone without them noticing.

She stands in your doorway, shoulder resting against the doorframe, arms crossed. “You know, it’s impolite to stare.”

“My most humble apologies,” you reply, not looking at her, analysing at your students’ folios instead. Ronan needs to work on his shading. He doesn’t understand how a light source changes the colouring of a painting, it seems. Jo’s very good at planning, though.

“Do you even care that I’m offended?”

You look up at that, frowning slightly, “Are you really, quite that upset, Miss Quill?”

She shrugs, stalking over, picking up a painting by one of your fourth years, sneering at the football players. “What even is this class?”

“Art,” you reply, pausing, “I teach it for personal enjoyment.”

Andra’ath snorts, setting the painting down, “That’s a lie. Teaching is horrid.”

“Well, if the rumours about your physics classes are true, then maybe you should think about a career change,” you state honestly. “I’m surprised you’ve not been fired already.”

“Oh, I have,” she says it like she’s bragging, a small smile appearing, “multiple times.” You shake your head fondly, smiling, before she meets your eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Grey,” you hold out your hand over the desk, “Dr Naomi Grey, PhD times nine.” Andra’ath’s eyebrows rise as she shakes your hand.

“Well, aren’t you interesting? Andrea Quill.”

“I know,” you state, getting a light roll of her eyes in response.

“If you didn’t, I would be disappointed in your stalker abilities.”

“I’m not a stalker,” you disagree.

“Yes, you are,” she argues, letting go of your hand, “For one, you stare at me. Second, you follow me around sometimes. Third, you make no attempt to not stare fascinatedly at my daughter whenever she comes in to school.” She lifts her chin, looking you up and down. “Now, you might be pretty, but I don’t know if you’re benign enough in your intentions for me to ask you out on a date.”

You refuse to let yourself blush at the compliment, or flush in horrified embarrassment, as you reply honestly. “I’m not a stalker. I just find everything about you…” you have so many words lined up in your head, but none in English, and the closest you can get is intriguing, but that’s still not the right word. You change tactics. “And to be quite honest about the staring at your daughter thing…well, you’re a Quill. She should have eaten you. And you should have had a litter of them. I’m trying to figure out what kind of hybrid she is.”

Immediately, Andra’ath narrows her eyes, and there’s a knife at your throat. “What the hell do you know about my daughter?”

“Probably just the right amount for your taste,” you reply steadily, calm, “I know she’s half-Quill, I know she’s yours. I know her names and how old she is. I know what she looks like, and what her favourite snack is. I could probably list more observations, but that would turn out to be more of a character profile, and that’s…not something you say when a protective mother has a knife to your throat.”

“You’re very right about that,” she presses it enough to draw a line of blood, which she flicks a finger at, tasting it. You watch as she frowns, unable to place your origin, unlike how she had eventually been able to place the Governors. “What are you?”

“Timelady,” you reply, bringing a hand to her wrist lightly as she falters, “it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you properly, I must say. I used to look different. Act different. I was an old man, with grey hair, and a black coat with red inside it.”

Andra’ath steps backwards slowly, knife lowering.

“Doctor?”

You smile. “It’s nice to see you again, Andra’ath.” The Quill stares at you, before finally huffing and tucking her knife away.

“She’s half Lore – and I thought you knew everything,” her voice is vaguely petulant, but more subdued than from when she still had the ahn in her head, if you’re remembering correctly.

“I don’t know everything,” you reply, voice calm, tucking a stray strand of blonde behind your ear. “I’m not actually omniscient.”

“Could have fooled me.”

Your friendship grows from there. Sometimes even, when you aren’t terribly busy with marking and organising your classroom, and you don’t have a class and Andra’ath does – because the Governors pack her schedule for some reason, and you are one of over twelve art teachers – you’ll come in and talk with her students about physics. You have a degree, and they actually like you, unlike most of Andra’ath’s students. Andra’ath usually sits back in her chair watching you, or playing on her tablet doing nothing.

At one point, Andra’ath lets you babysit her little nestling, who doesn’t want to go to the party that the others in her class are going to. The sign of trust causes you to cry a bit after.

All in all, the two of you are good. As the months, years pass, you even take her and her daughter on adventures, trips in the TARDIS. Sometimes it’s just you and the little girl, sometimes it’s just you and Andra’ath. You get to stay over at their house whenever you like. Generally, everyone’s comfortable.

Then you get some guts and kiss her on the New Years Eve of twenty-twenty, and then the Governors make a comeback and kidnap Andra’ath’s daughter.

There’s a certain thrill to shedding your benevolent, human façade when you get in your TARDIS with Andra’ath by your side, tracking her down and piloting the TARDIS with deadly, silent precision. With the stabilisers off and the brakes screeching, blue police box outer-casing bold as ever, you appear in the Governor’s stronghold and hold up your sonic screwdriver at Andra’ath’s daughter, unlocking her cuffs and bounds. You don’t look away from the Governors and their Weeping Angel’s as Andra’ath kills the guards – gaze chilling them to the bone.

“Doctor…” the one that you knew as the Shopkeeper, from K9’s stories, from before Sarah-Jane had died, starts from his place in the council, not continuing as you turn away from them, picking up Andra’ath’s child, brushing their hair back and pressing a kiss to their forehead before putting down inside the TARDIS, shooing them away from the doors.

Andra’ath tells her to wait inside, before glancing at the Governors and nodding conspiratorially.

“Yeah – you screwed up. The Doctor isn’t exactly famous for letting people who kidnap children get away with things.” Then she ducks back into the TARDIS, and you step outside, shutting the doors. Your boot-heels click as you walk around them, not saying a word. The tension in the room rises. The Governors start talking, pleading. You listen to each and every one of them, but you don’t reply, instead stopping in the only gap at the table, and reaching over to take the device that the Governors use as their leverage on UNIT.

“As of today, you don’t exist anymore. Expect Kate Stewart at each of your doors very soon – and don’t think about running. It’s annoying when I have to go fetch runaways.” You go back to the TARDIS, leaving them behind, piloting the TARDIS before settling in the vortex, drifting safely.

“Bedtime,” you decide, as you glance at the time on the display, after hours of consoling and hugging and crying. Andra’ath agrees with you, and you help her get the small Quill-Lore ready for bed, tucking her in and reading her stories. After she’s safely asleep, you sit with Andra’ath on a sofa in the main console room, and look her in the eye.

“When I kissed you earlier, was it unpreceded?”

Andra’ath watches you for a while, unblinking, before leaning over, twisting her fingers through your hair and kissing you deeply. You kiss back, hands grasping at the sides of her jacket. Then Andra’ath pulls away, staring at you, clutching at your head tightly.

“I think you need to go.”

You’re brow knits together, confused. “What? Go where?”

Andra’ath presses your foreheads together, and you can feel faint feelings of loss, of sadness, of guilt. You feel a foreboding, and hold onto her tightly.

“Andra’ath, why do you want me to go?”

“Because I’m just a Quill, my daughter is just a Quill-Lore hybrid – and you’re a Timelady.”

“You and that girl aren’t ‘just’ anything,” you swallow, before hugging her tightly, feeling tears come to your eyes. Because you know what this is about, you know exactly what this is about. May December romance. I’m a Timelady – I live as long as I have regenerations.

Quill don’t even live two centuries.

“I love you,” you whisper in High Gallifreyan, in a language Andra’ath won’t understand even with the TARDIS’ language filter in her brain. “I love you, Andra’ath, I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to be alone again.”

“I can’t tell what you’re saying,” she whispers back at you, wiping tears from the edges of her eyelids. “Doctor, take us home please.”

You bite back sobs, nodding into her neck, leaning back and kissing her one last time, before she pushes you away, disappearing down a corridor. You let out a quiet cry, before dropping to your knees by your desktop, gripping the silver bar around the edge with weak fingers.

Fifty three minutes and eighteen seconds later, you’re alone once more.

Chapter Text

You never quite believed that the Master who had organised the Year That Never Was would regenerate into Missy. You watch him go down to the bottom floor of the spaceship and turn into an unfamiliar man with a freckly forehead and that damn moustache he always gets, one way or another. Then, you return to Missy, directing the TARDIS with a precision your twelfth self doesn’t have yet – River was always the better driver, after all and she taught you all the tricks you’d forgotten, when you first learned.

“Laser to the back,” you crouch beside her, meeting her eyes. “Not a good way to go. The future is always female, however and women are always prepared for the worst.”

Missy sighs and sits up, as if nothing had happened – as if you were both at the executioners again and she’d just faked dying.

“Who are you?” she questions, accent stronger than you remember. Then, of course, she sees the TARDIS and raises an eyebrow, tilting her head. “Oh.” Her eyes flicker to you. “I did not expect that, my dear.”

You smile flatly. “You only served seventy-eight years of your sentence, Koschei. Time to return to that – though understand that I’m changing the terms of your imprisonment.”

“And do I get any input?”

“No,” you say, voice cold. Pulling her to her feet, you both make it into the TARDIS before the floor blows, the doors shutting to a reign of fire. “K9 will be your babysitter when we’re not inside the TARDIS. He will be with you at all times and if you go further than fifteen feet from him and or out of his sightline, you’re grounded to the TARDIS until he’s satisfied.”

“You’re assigning me the dog? Really?” Missy complains, before dropping down on a sofa tiredly, K9 making his way over to her.

“Mistress.”

“Dog. Go fetch.”

You pilot the TARDIS off the spaceship, a small smile growing on your face as Missy and K9 bicker.

Life with Missy is obviously difficult. She does her best, however and you take on more human companions, preferring older models nowadays in comparison to students and teens. You’re an older model yourself now, if only mentally. Missy likes to point out how you always pick up twenty-first century homosexual men and have a tendency to aromantic or straight as hell women.

“Falling in love with humans is easier than you’d think,” is your reply. Missy scoffs – and then promptly falls head over heels for a sarcastic bitch of a man who likes to make fun of Missy’s sense of dress, despite his snappy suits and borrowed Nikes. He has a heart-attack some two years after your travels, laughing the entire time that Missy apologises, faking his death – faking his death after having a heart attack – and prompting Missy to actually cry, causing him to let the act up. You think it’s somewhat cruel, but he does say sorry to Missy when he leaves a few days after, to live out the rest of his days in twentieth century Tokyo.

When Missy asks you why you picked him up rather than a gay man, you shrug.

“Humans change all the time. He was self-labelled gay when we picked him up. He was queer when he left. Take that as you will.”

Glasgow GSD Pride 2117 is fun. Missy goes out in a blue, yellow and hot pink swimsuit and daisy dukes with a pink and blue umbrella that you both share when it starts to rain.

“It’s Scotland, what do you expect?”

“It’s also July, which means actual heat – I think we missed the heatwave by a week,” you grumble, before inviting Missy to dance randomly. You waltz over to the ice-cream vendor and smile at the edible rainbow glitter, before getting Missy a sorbet. “I’m lactose intolerant in this body, don’t you dare,” you glare at her as she starts complaining, looking at the actual ice-cream wistfully.

Of course, the next day when you’re touring the city, cybermen invade the Conservatoire of Scotland. You are listening to a jazz performance in one of the classrooms when Missy sends you a telepathic message saying that K9 ordered her to inform you that said cybermen had started setting up conversion booths in the new auditorium. You set off the fire-alarm discreetly and keep it blaring as you head to the new auditorium, trying and failing to stop them.

Missy comes to the rescue.

You’re very proud.

So proud, in fact, that it demands you show your satisfaction and you kiss her, then and there, when she’s holding up a disruptor meant to short out cyberfunctions. Unfortunately, this leads to her being captured and the device destroyed – but oh well, Missy has a spare. She always has spares.

“Are you in wuv with me, Doctor?” she asks in a baby voice after, pouting, sliding around the TARDIS console to you, dragging her hands. You brush your thumb over her chin and a bright light appears in her eyes as she watches you contemplate something infinitely more complex than friendship. “Doctor…”

“I’ve always loved you, Missy. Am I in love with you? Far from it. I love you,” you start and subsequently finish in High Gallifreyan, as Missy kisses you, hands slipping up to your head as she enters your mind and you enter hers. Breath escapes you as that beautiful complexity comes to life, shared and reciprocated by your oldest of friends. Missy isn’t your wife – she isn’t River. Missy isn’t a maybe, a thing to be attempted and enjoyed for a short time, like Andra’ath, either.

Missy is your best friend and you love her with enough feeling that you should have transcended years ago into the universe as pure consciousness.

“We’re endgame,” Missy murmurs into your mouth when you part, her hands falling to your collar, resting gently there, on either side of your neck. “Don’t think I wasn’t watching, when you were travelling with that wife of yours. You loved her so freely as a man, but as a woman…she was me.”

“No, she was River Song. Nothing could replace either of you.”

Missy hums. She doesn’t believe you and she won’t ever, you don’t think, because maybe, River could be replacing Missy in another universe. Logic and statistic possibility dictate it’s happening, somewhere in the multiverse, or in some parallel world. No, that’s not right. Your eyebrows draw together and you stumble backwards, away from Missy as your memories clutter, your brain- expiring?

Oh.

Oh.

“Doctor?”

You sit down, feeling that- that old, familiar sensation of regeneration energy reaching up through your body that you haven’t felt in thousands of years. You smile at her.

“Expiring. I think my body is used to using up regeneration energy much faster than this. It’s gotten very determined, or maybe it has a life of its own now. I’m millions of years old, after all. Only Twelve was older than me – oh, this is very strange – though Twelve cheated.”

Missy comes to your side, crouching in front of you, “No, this you is good, it should stay.”

“Twelve wanted to stay, too and Ten. So many want to stay.” You smile at her, welcoming the regeneration energy. “The thing is though, Missy, I’m still the same person, every time. See you on the other side.”

And then you die and the you that takes your place is still the person who saves worlds and is millions of years old and who loves every damn human who steps into your TARDIS.

Except, the first face you see, this time around – it’s Missy.