Disclaimer: BBC created Doctor Who, not me, so don’t sue!

Hope you enjoy! R&R please!!

-Seiya’s Star

Tardis’s Journal

Chapter 8

“Well of course I do! I couldn’t do everything I do by myself! Her name is Arcainia, and she’s the only one allowing me the energy to stay on this planet and right the wrongs done by the Master!”

This surprising revelation would have probably turned into a long conversation if it weren’t for me having to interrupt it. But it was rather important actually…

I’m sorry to have to interrupt you: Doctor, Rose, but there is a pertinent situation arising which you all should know! I don’t know how, but somehow Ireyona has found us, and she’s gotten in! I said, very worried, and wondering how it happened!

“It’s because she is linked to the Tardis, from the blood that the Doctor still had of hers in his body, that allowed her to be able to come inside the locked doors. Anyone linked to the Tardis can come inside her, and notice her when no one else would. But why and how did she come to us!” Rasciana spoke out loud.

They all rushed down the many halls that led from the kitchen to the main control room, except Rasciana who was too weak still to run, or even walk unassisted. The rest ran into the control room to find Ireyona walking around the Tardis in utter astonishment. She spun around to look at the doorway to the rest of the Tardis when the whole group ran to the door and stopped, planning on what they should do and say.

Ireyona beat them to it, “I was on my way to visit the University early, to look in on some of the classes of where I might be working, before giving a visit to the man who was suppose to interview me instead of Professor Kientko. I was walking toward the building when I realized that there was a strange blue box that I didn’t recognize standing in the middle of plain site, and no one seemed to notice it except me. Being the usual curious person, I just couldn’t resist seeing what in Rassillon it was, and so here I am. I was already quite astonished to realize that it is a TARDIS, camouflaged in the shape of the weird blue box, when I walked inside, and not just any TARDIS but one that is out of date, not made any more. But seeing some of you, whom I recognize from yesterday, is even more befuddling. What would an angry fiancé of Professor Kientko, and two colleague friends of Kientko’s boss, be doing together inside a weirdly camouflaged, out of date Tardis, together with other people, in the middle of plain site but with no one able to see them but me, I have to wonder. “

The 3 Doctors were speechless, which is usually unusual for them, but in this case, they were just too stunned by the site of their beautiful wife, who they still weren’t used to seeing again, showing up in their lives again after her horrible death so long ago, acting in her typical fashion that they had fallen in love with so long ago: super intelligent, like himself, even for a Time Lady, and fiercely curious, which

was unusual for Time Lords or Ladies, who had gotten very used to just following routines and obeying old laws, and had no curiosity whatsoever anymore.

The Doctor had never admitted it to anyone, but it was this beautiful, fiercely intelligent Time Lady and future/past wife, that had sparked his own fierce curiosity about the Universe. It was she and the beliefs that she had sparked in him, that had led him to seek the life of a traveler after most of his family had died so long ago. And it was her “outside of Gallifreyan laws” attitude about the Universe that had changed his mind about following the system and starting his journeys against the laws of his own people.

Seeing her now, again, after so long, acting like herself so very much right now, that made all three doctors have to do everything they could not to cry. None of them had enough energy to speak. Rose realized this quite quickly, and decided that if anyone was going to answer it was going to have to be her!

“Well, uh… yeah, I guess we are a most curious lot, aren’t we?” Rose said as she laughed nervously, trying desperately to come up with what to say next, “ But ya don’t have to worry about anything dangerous goin’ on or anythin’. We’re just here to help ya, is all!” Rose said, inwardly cursing herself for her lack of cunningness with her reply. If the Doctor were his normal self he would have come up with something much better than this!

Thankfully Rose was not on her own much longer, as Rasciana, using the walls of the hallways for support, had managed to come up from behind her and grabbed a hold of her shoulder for support as she heard what the two of them had said.

“She is right, Ireyona, we are not here to hurt anyone. But I know this must seem rather strange to you,” Rasciana said, smiling warmly.

“Now I know I haven’t met you before, and yet you know my name. I’m assuming one of the others I’ve met has told you. It does seem like a rather odd coincidence to me that three of you all had something to do with getting me upset with Professor Kientko, and willing not to continue to be angry with his boss. That can’t be a random coincidence, especially with all of you congregating together in an old Tardis in the middle of usually plain view. Add to that the fact that the two men are acting totally different from before, almost like they have seen a ghost and are choking back on tears or something, and this all adds up to the fact that none of you are what you appear to be at first sight. I’m guessing, given the presence of an old Tardis, that you are not from this time. I’m imagining that you must be Time Lords from the past, but the question is, why are Time Lords from the past trying to interfere with Kientko, his boss, and our relationship with each other? That is the only thing I can’t figure out…” Ireyona finished, looking at all of them carefully.

“Wow, you’re just as smart as the Doctor! Nothin’ gets past you, does it?” Rose said, feeling just a bit jealous of this previous wife of the Doctor’s fierce intelligence, especially as she had been rather lame at coming up with a response earlier. Rasciana must have sensed this and squeezed her hand in reassurance.

Rasciana was about to reply back, but then the 9th Doctor surprised everyone by beating her to it, as he took a few steps forward, “It was 38 days ago, this time exactly, that is what you told me. That’s when you decided for sure, after years of feeling things weren’t right, that Time Lords were not doing what they should be doing, that they were wrong in their ways. You said that you were teaching a class of students at your previous University, about the ethics of non-interference of races, of why we watch and don’t touch, don’t get involved. You said you hated that class, you were forced to teach it but you hated it every time.

“Then, when watching those students looking at you as their source of wisdom, suddenly you couldn’t do it anymore, you couldn’t tell them something you didn’t feel, didn’t believe to be true. So you went off the curriculum. You taught them if people were suffering, if a regime were getting out of control, that it was our moral duty to protect them, help them, save them, no matter what.

“You said that you gave a long and passionate speech, and it reached your students. You said it showed in their eyes. After your class they all left talking excitedly about your sermon, and how they would make a difference in the Universe, and you had never seen any students leave like that before, from any class, and you felt like you had finally done the right thing.

“Then you cried, and you continued to tell me that word of your sermon and the effect it had on students reached the parents of the students, and then quickly the Dean and the President of the University, and they stripped you of your professorship and shunned you, and had all your students watch and see what a wrong influence you were, what the upper echelons of Time Lord society thought about such things. You had to watch your students be sucked back into the bureaucratic, arrogant, dullness and mindlessness of what was now Time Lord Society. It broke your heart, you cried to me.

“When you told me that, that was when I turned completely over to your side. It was that story that brought out my own doubts about our society, and that was when I played every trick in the book to make sure you were allowed to teach what you really wanted to teach, without anyone finding out.

“I sent out official letters to every student you taught to keep it a secret, what they learned from you. They would have homework that fit in the curriculum, but their real work would be done in college, so that no one would know what they were really being taught, and who was teaching it to them. We also had to keep tabs on all your students after their first ‘new’ class with you, and if it sounded like they did not believe things our way, then we wiped out their memories of that class, and placed them in another class, all to keep your teachings a secret, so that it could continue. And for awhile it worked.

“Then things went horribly wrong. A student in your class, a passionate one for believing in the current ways of the Time Lords, he ran out of his first class of yours before anyone could know or do anything to stop him. He went right to the dean and told him about what you were teaching. The Dean came to your class and berated you in front of all your students in that room. I knew nothing about it, it had all happened so fast. He ordered you to leave the room immediately and go to his office, and you refused.

“You continued to give your lecture, and the Dean then ordered all the students to leave, threatening them with failed grades in every class if they refused. Many of them didn’t want to leave, I found out

from you, but gradually they all left, too afraid of Time Lord Rules and regulations to fight the system after one sermon.

“By the time they all left The Dean had me, the Department Head of Universal Ethics, to come to the classroom immediately. The Dean had no idea that I was in on it. He told me what you had done, and that you were fired, and I said that if you were fired, then I would quit. He looked at me as if I were insane. I then told him that I knew about it all along, and I condoned it, and if he kicked you out, then I would leave too.

“I expected for the both of us to just be thrown out after that, but I would not leave you to be punished without me, when I had been in on it, to be still sitting pretty at my job. Our relationship, which was real close friends but nothing more, then turned into much more, after you saw how far I was willing to go to stand up for you and our mutual beliefs.

“It turned out that I had much more influence with my long years at the University, then even I knew. Kientko and Mythandren, two of my closest friends, found out about our mutual firing, and organized a huge rally on our behalf. The rally was incredible, and it soon formed a big following to our names and our ideas. The University became a place of revolution, for awhile, and we were hired back on fairly quickly, to keep riots from breaking out.

“Probably things would have continued to work out that way and all kinds of good Time Lord societal changes might have occurred. But alas, that was not in the big plans for our race, and eventually things went horribly wrong and all that was reversed, for good. But it was some of the best years I had ever had, working to change Gallifreyan Society by your side! You made every effort worthwhile and every downside have a light at the end of the tunnel! You were my conscious, and you were my hope for a world of people that I never quite felt I fit in with. I would never have become what I did if it weren’t for you… So none of us can stand to lose you!” the 9th Doctor finished quietly, just standing there looking at her, his eyes shining with held in tears.

Ireyona stared at the 9th Doctor, then looked at the other two Doctors that also looked like they were holding back tears.

“You … talk as if you are from the future, yet you are inside of an old Tardis. Yet you know things about me… at least one thing… though you could have heard it from someone else, but… you speak so sincerely…” Ireyona responded, finding it hard to know what to say to someone who seemed to know her and love her so much, and yet she didn’t know who they were.

Then something he had said clicked, and she put together the last puzzle piece, “Wait… you said in your story that the Dean had you,” she said, pointing to the 9th Doctor, “who are the Department Head of Universal Ethics, come to see him in my future classroom. But I’ve seen pictures of the Department Head of Universal Ethics, and you and he don’t look anything alike! And you were one of the ones, along with him, “she said, pointing to the 10th Doctor, “who tried to keep me from yelling at and refusing a job from that same Department Head man. But still… it is asking a lot for me to believe you are future reincarnations of a man I hardly know, trying to get me to do something different from whatever it is I’m

doing right now that you don’t like…” she said, though she couldn’t get over the sincere, sad faces on the three men in the Tardis.

The 4th Doctor then spoke up, but first to Rasciana, “Have we then decided that it won’t dramatically mess things up to let her know who we really are beyond a shadow of a doubt? I would think that that would mess up the time continuum even more,” he pondered out loud.

“Time is already messed up, badly, as you know, and it is essential that we set things all back to rights, and that includes your past. I know that we can trust her, as a Time Lady, and a smart one at that, to help us and not to mess things up further. We just have to be careful not to impart too much, so that she won’t accidentally do anything to mess things up further along the future.” Rasciana finished.

“Well in that case…,” the 4th Doctor said, “I know one thing that will settle our identities beyond a shadow of a doubt,” he said, and went over to the same compartment on the far wall of the control room that he had previously gotten, and then put back, the Marital Blood Communion Transfuser and held it out to her to take.

“You gave me this to use for our wedding, it had been passed down your family line for centuries you said. I’ve kept it all these years, as a reminder of you…” he said quietly.

Ireyona took the machine from the 4th Doctor, and looked at it carefully, knowing exactly where to look to discover if it was hers: the back. Sure enough, she found the plaque that had been engraved on it way back when her great, great, great, great grandpa had made it and included the name of the family line on a plaque on the back of it. She gasped.

“So…,” she was having trouble formulating words, “I… we… you… all three of you? All three of you…,” she said, looking at the three Doctors, “are future incarnations of my… future husband… who is the man I was suppose to interview with… and so you had to stop me from falling for Kientko, you’re friend apparently, so that our marriage would still happen? But… if it was suppose to happen, what has stopped it? And why aren’t I with you in some future regeneration? Or is she,” she said, pointing to Rose, “My future self?!”

Rose spoke this time, “No, I am not you; I am not even Gallifreyan. I am human,” she finished.

The 10th Doctor finally joined the conversation, “I’m afraid we can’t exactly tell you why you aren’t here with us, as well as many other things about the future, though you are smart enough about the workings of time to know why… Believe me we all wish we could tell you, but we can’t.” he said quietly, his eyes still as teary as they and the other Doctors’ had been since this meeting had started.

Ireyona nodded understanding; she was very familiar with the problems he spoke of, as that was one of the major things Time Lord Professors in her field taught, part of the ethics of the Universe, and how not to ruin the Time/Space Continuum. It didn’t make it any easier for her to be in the dark though.

Then Ireyona remembered something after hearing that Rose was a human, “Oh Dear, I just realized that I heard on the news last night that a black human woman was found with amnesia on a road near

here, by a member of the University’s faculty! She was thought, naturally, to be a lost Gallifreyan, but when she was taken in for medical examination by the faculty member, it was found she was human. She was immediately taken to the High Council who found out her time period and location of residence and sent immediately back home with her memory of being here whipped away. I do hope she was not part of your crew, cause if she was she is back on Earth now…” Ireyona said, taking in everything that was going on very much in stride.

“No, she was not with us, thankfully, and I’m glad she was sent back to her home before she could get attached to a life here. That would have done just about as much damage to the time/space continuum as you not marrying your destined husband. Speaking of which, I’m assuming from his,” Rasciana pointed to the 9th Doctor as she came out from between the rest of the crew standing in mass around the doorway and over to where the 9th Doctor stood, a few feet out into the control room, “knowledgeable assessment of your character, that you WILL be able to not only keep all that you have discovered here secret from your soon-to-be husband’s knowledge, but also that you will be able to make that future with him happen, even after having discovered this future of yours?”

Ireyona studied this other strange female, who she thought also wasn’t Gallifreyan, though her demeanor was as confident and authoritative as that of the High Council, but her skin color, and her general aura that somehow psychically flowed around her, hinted at some other lineage as yet unknown even to Time Lords, who knew about all species throughout most of time.

Finally Ireyona replied, “Yes, I will be able to carry on with my destiny of marriage to an earlier version of these men, the man whom I am going to go interview with, hopefully today. And in that interest I better go and get ready for my interview, even if it isn’t for awhile yet, but there are some things I must take care of here at the University before I’m ready for the Interview. And it’s also way to tempting, inside here with 3 later versions of my future husband, to try and find out what my future is. So go I must. But before I leave I really have to… just look… at… “ she trailed off, as she walked right up to the 9th Doctor, who was at this point holding up Rasciana who had come to stand beside him while she had spoken.

She gently placed her hands on the sides of his face, noticing that he did not resist, and that even more tears had welled up behind his beautiful blue eyes, and some tears were escaping unnoticed. She thumbed them off and looked into his eyes, wanting to remember every aspect of his face, a face she could tell was filled with love for her. She kissed his forehead before she then walked over to the 4th Doctor, did the same thing, memorizing his face, thumbing away tears that escaped his eyes, and kissing his forehead. She wanted to do the same thing to the 10th Doctor, but was apprehensive due to psychically reading a connection between him and the human woman standing next to him holding her hand.

“Oh don’t ya worry, I am not jealous of ya or anything,” Rose said, “and how can I deny him a chance to see you again! Go on!” she said, and stepped back a pace.

“Thank you! Like I said before, it is so hard to resist, and I want to remember all three of them as I carry on with my life!” Ireyona said, and she walked up to the 10th Doctor, whose face also had escaped tears, and she held his face and thumbed away his tears, and studied his face for as many minutes as she

dared, like she did with the others, before kissing his forehead and walking back towards the Tardis’s doors.

“I thank all of you for giving me a chance to experience a tiny bit of my future, and to save it. Somehow I don’t think I will regret it one bit!” she said, and with that she left the Tardis, closing its doors behind her quickly so as not to have it be noticed where she was coming from.

“Well, with the one human brought back to where she came from, and Ireyona on the path that she belongs, our best move now is to keep going back and fixing everything the Master did to mess things up!” the 10th Doctor said, nodding to the 4th Doctor, who’s Tardis it was that they were currently on.

“Yes, I sense that nothing else is amiss here now… But I can’t help but wonder exactly how much messier things are going to get as we keep going back, and if we can save everything in time to keep all from falling apart!” Rasciana said as Doctors 4 and 10 started moving around the console to send the ship to its next location.

Rose joined the 9th Doctor and Rasciana, “Don’t worry! With 3 Doctors here, plus you and me, we can’t help but be a winning team! We’ll put everything that the Master made wrong back to rights again, you will see!” she said, her hands holding Rasciana’s.

“I just hope I didn’t make a huge mistake in my job of protecting Reality! Not that I want to take what I gave you and the Doctor away, but so much is at stake and I had no idea, and with all the times I’ve had to do things like this, nothing bad like this has ever happened that I didn’t know for sure would be fixed, until now. Now everything is so uncertain, and that scares me more than I care to admit! If everything falls apart it’s my fault. My fault for not making absolutely sure the Master was not around to know of anything going on. I don’t know why I didn’t see this, why I didn’t know it could happen…” Rasciana broke off, silently starting to cry.

Unaware of the distress from Rasciana, and very much preoccupied by odd distortions in the time/space continuum that shouldn’t be there normally, the 4th Doctor cut into the conversation, “9, I think we’re going to need your help with this one. There are crazy fluctuations that really should not be here, and we’re going to need as many great minds and pilots as we can get to navigate through them.”

Rose, seeing that the 9th Doctor was reluctant to leave Rasciana in such a distressed state, nodded to him, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her! They need ya!”

As the 9th Doctor joined his other 2 counterparts, Rose looked at Rasciana, “I don’t know about you, and I know they meaning the Doctors don’t need food to eat that often, but I’m starvin’. How about you and I just do some quiet girl talk as I make us something for breakfast, eh?”

Rasciana smiled and Rose took her arm and they walked back to the kitchen together. Rose sat Rasciana down at the table while she went about getting eggs and other ingredients out and made a delicious meal of pancakes, eggs, and bacon for the both of them. When it was done they ate together, sharing mutual experiences of seeing awesome places throughout the Universe.

When they were finished Rose put away the dishes in the high tech washing machine, and made steaming cups of coffee for both of them, getting out some biscuits to go with it. She set it all out in front of them, sat down, and took one of Rasciana’s hands which was on the table. Rasciana was still looking worried and forlorn and doubtful, and Rose, so much like her mom, was determined to make her feel better, even if it meant getting down to the root of all the things that Rose thought were bothering this poor woman.

“You love him don’t ya? The Doctor that is? All 10 of them I imagine, from how you look at all three of them present here with us?”

Rasciana silently nodded her head, a tear escaping from one of her eyes to fall into her coffee cup.