Chapter Text
A teen looking for her memories bumps into a strange man called the Doctor, and finds out that she is really a Time Lord. Who is she, really, and what happens now when they are the only two left?
“Well, this is a change…” said Hope as she regained the feeling in her fourteenth and twenty-fourth senses. Two immediate things had occurred to her when her full consciousness had been awakened:
One, two hearts. It wasn’t so much that the awareness that she had two hearts was odd; it was the utter familiarity of them. There was something profound and comforting about the ba-ba-ba-bump of her twin heartbeats. Sort of like home, if that made any sense at all.
Two: Time. She could feel it, pulsing and pounding around her, a big ball of wibbly wobbly stuff around her. Oh and the possibilities! So many branching timelines and probabilities swarmed around her brain, each one vying for immediate attention. She attempted to shove that into one of the pockets of her consciousness and opened her eyes.
She was in a round room. Hold on…a round room that had a very complex piece of machinery in the center of it. Wait, a window to Time Itself was in that machine! That’s when Hope realized that of course she was also inside that machine, and it was called a TARDIS. Then the conundrum of how she came to be inside a TARDIS in the first place. As she shakily got to her feet, that question was answered for her by the man walking into the room.
“Oh good, you’re up. Give me a hand with these?” ‘These’ were the heaping armfuls of tubing and wire he was attempting to carry. She strolled over and took some from his arms. Suddenly, a staggering amount of data and memory rushed into her mind, and rubber tubing spilled everywhere as she dropped her arms.
“Wait. You’re the Doctor!”
“Yes…yes I am.” He said slowly, “Do you remember me?”
Hope scowled, “Nnnot, no. But I remember hearing about you!” she grabbed his shoulders, causing more tubing and wire to fall onto the floor, “What happened to the Time Lords? How does the War end? Is Rassilon still in power?”
He shrugged her off, instead choosing to collapse onto what looked like an old car seat. “You aren’t going to like it.” He said, staring at the central console. With that, something seemed to click within her.
Hope had graduated third in her class, she remembered. Her specialty had been psychics and empathetical awareness. She remembered her graduation day. She remembered her TARDIS. She remembered…the War. The Time War. The War where everyone was drafted into the Army of Gallifrey, whether they liked it or not. In fact, if you protested, you were sent into the front lines – the places where you died and died again as time reset itself and never changed or regenerated. The birthplace of such monstrosities as the Nightmare Child and the Eternal Cult. And…she remembered it…she was there. She was in the endless fire and pain, was there when Davros met his final demise, was there to see her fellow soldiers die and die and die again.
A flashback: She was chained in a low, dark, dank room. Hope’s wrists were rubbed raw from the manacles, her body breaking out in blooms of colorful bruises where they had beaten her. A trickle of something warm dripped down her forehead and into her eyes – most likely blood. Her eyes flicked down, and saw her own emaciated body and broken limbs. Light burst into the cell as a door slid open from the wall, and a figure hovered into her view. “IS THE PRISONER READY TO BE COMPLIANT?” It screamed with its shrill, terrible cadence as it moved forward, threatening her with its one blaster…
“No…no…no…” Hope realized that she was crouched on the ground in the fetal position, rocking slowly back and forth, her hands covering her ears. Wiry arms encircled her, holding her tenderly. Tears streaked down her face as she remembered everything. She hated it, hated how she could break under a storm like this instead of bending in the wind. And she hated letting the Doctor see her like this (which was irrational, right? Didn’t she just meet him?). Eventually Hope quieted, and raised her face to see him. His dark eyes radiated pain. “They’re all dead, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t feel them anymore, their minds. And how could they not be dead? After all that’s happened…All that life, all those brilliant sparks…I can‘t feel them. Except you.”
“Oh woe is me. To have seen the things I have seen, see what I see.” He murmured.
The Doctor helped her back up, and wiped her tears with the back of his sleeve. “The change from human to Lady of Time was a bit more jarring than normal. The flashbacks should be over for now, but the memory return will be a bit more…gradual. What you need is time. And food.” He took her hand and pulled her into one of the TARDIS’ many corridors, “Lots of food.”
He led her into a random room - which, luckily, happened to also be a kitchen - and started opening cabinets. “Ah-hah!” he said and pulled out a long yellow object. He plopped it in front of her.
“A banana?” She said, “That’s your magic cure?” He grinned, but she peeled and ate it anyway. When she was done, she asked, “So what now?”
“Well, I was wondering…if you have the time, if you would like to travel with me…?” His freakishly long legs were now propped up on the table now. She smiled.
“You know, I don’t think I have any plans. Perhaps I could fit you in.”
And that is how the last Time Lord and Time Lady met, and how the Doctor chose her as a companion to travel with. Thus begins their adventures…