Work Text:
Over the years, Carling had had many names. He'd been Charles, Charlton, Chad, and Charles again; this time as his last name. And he'd had many years.
His species, the Ouray, were a relative of Gallifrey's Time Lords, genetically engineered by a band of fifteen Kaled survivors, stranded and disoriented on a stolen space-faring airship, until the time that they came across a dying Time Lord. Alanza had given them her last remaining months, and they'd given her kind a future, though she would never know. The Ouray were birthed of a combination of Time Lord and Kaled genetic material, affording them long lives and the ability to regenerate in certain death situations, coupled with Alzurian genetics for accelerated healing. Their changed genetics, however, meant that instead of the Gallifreyans' twelve regenerations, they were restricted to six.
In 1203, Carling had been born on Earth; his parents had been living on the planet for twenty years. The family was blessed, five years later, with the birth of a baby girl, whom they named Milu.
Carling and Milu had grown into adulthood and grown old together, time and time again, their Alzurian genetics affording them longer lives than others around them, in the order of 250 years; then, in 1749 Milu was lost at sea, and Carling thought he'd been lost, too. Without his little sister, he was alone, adrift in a friendless, enemy world.
Milu had been too young to die.
His father, who'd survived his wife by 300 years, gifted him his mother's time craft with the promise that he not go back to save his sister.
He'd given up his baby sister, but he could not give up his son. His father was long gone, and he'd been separated by his family for so, so long. He was not asking for perfection, all he was asking for was his family, his wife and their children.
Kyle's death was not a part of his personal timeline; theoretically, he supposed that made it okay to go back in time to save his son. Of course, such an action might have ripped a hole in the fabric of Space/Time, but upon his birth, his mother had entrusted into his care a very special gift, the token of life, just one token. Milu had had an identical token, which had been lost to the sea, as well as her body.
Carling's father had told of tales of Carling's mother's work, before she'd come to Earth; the tokens were a relic of that past.
Carling's token would save his younger son, and together, they'd save their family.
They'd save the future.
