A/N: This is my attempt at SI/OC into the Doctor Who Universe where the SI/OC is reborn as a Time Lord (or Lady in this case). Very ambitious, I know. This is not a romance. As, comparatively, my SI/OC would be 14 to the Doctor's 90 when they first meet. In fact a running gag is that she cannot understand how human's are so quick to over-look the Doctor's age.

As this is Doctor Who, and the main character in this fic is a human-reborn-Time Lord, it is going to get confusing. I tried my best to explain things in such a way that they are comprehensible and yet don't compromise the...conceit...of my character and her society in general.

I only ask you give the prologue a read from beginning to end before you judge.

Thank you, for your time.

"Time is a sort of river of passing events,
and strong is its current;
no sooner is a thing brought to sight
than it is swept by and another takes its place,
and this too will be swept away."

~ Marcus Aurelius ~

Time is an odd concept.

In the Beginning-as I've come to refer to it-I used to think of it as a construct of sorts.

Time didn't actually exist.

Not in the same way as air, or light, or sound. No, it was simply a man-made invention. A way to quantify relationships, to make sense of the senseless. What was a day? A week? A year? Nothing but artificial constructs used to define an artificial concept.

Thus, Time was a construct.

Or so I had thought.

Not that I ever told anyone, mind you. In the Beginning, I was more than content to keep such theories to myself. What use would discussing it with others have? At the best they would nod along understandingly with an "I see" and a patronizing smile, at worst they could've had me committed.

Such was our archaic society. Where genius and madness had no distinguishable differences aside success.

Not that I had been a genius.

Far from it.

I had been smart, sure. But I had most definitely not been a genius. Not by my then-society's standards, and even less so by the standard's of my current society.

So In the Beginning, I had kept my thoughts on Time to myself. Which I now greatly appreciate. After all it is one thing to be proved wrong in the sanctity of one's mind. And something else entirely to be proved wrong a theory that you had gallantly shared with others.

Time wasn't a construct.

Rather Time was.

It was the Beginning and the End, and yet possessed neither a Beginning nor an End. It was the string that wove the fabric of the universe together, and yet, conversely, the weaver of the string of space.

Einstein said it best when he said that "the only reason for Time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

Time prevented Chaos, pure and simple.

And if that sounds almost...religious in nature, well then I must apologize. But the fact of the matter is that my now-society does view Time with a nearly celestial eye. They do regard it as something transcendent, something deserving of Rules and Regulations.

Something on which to build a society on.

To build our society on.

And while this conflicts directly with beliefs I had carefully cultivated In the Beginning, you can forgive me for occasionally falling back on social conditioning. Especially when my consciousness was completely void of those memories for the first eight years of my Now Life.

This must all seem rather confusing. I wish I had a way to simplify this further, but the fact is that a culture only develops a language to match their level of understanding. It would be a moot point otherwise. And while this is perfectly acceptable for intra-species communication, it does tend to put a...damper? on any inter-species communication.

There is nothing quite like trying to explain a foreign concept to a race that has yet to invent the words needed for the explanation.

But I shall endeavor to try.

Now it is my understanding that your race views everything in linear progression, and your language has evolved to match this. Nothing I have experienced since my transition from In the Beginning to my Now Life has been linear, but I shall endeavor to explain it as such.

If Time was a line (it is not. But for the sake of your understanding we shall refer to it as such) then each, individual, life would be but a line segment. A connection between point A (birth) and point B (death).

In the Beginning I had always functioned under the assumption that I too would live according to these parameters. My line segment, however, didn't run from A to B but rather from A to D.

It began at point A (birth) ran through point B (death) continued on to point C (rebirth) and will, theoretically, end at point D (final death). I have since come to refer to the segment running from point A to point B as 'In the Beginning' and the segment running from point C to point D as my 'Now Life.'

They are both separated, quite cleanly, by the segment that runs from point B to point C which I have come to refer as 'The Void' and, to the best of my knowledge, this segment was meant to act as a wall of sorts.

A sort of Infinite Time, during which my mind would forget the Time spent 'In the Beginning' so as to be prepared for my 'Now Life.' I don't believe my memories were to be erased, but rather I was to be held for such a long time that they were to fade into nothingness. The way an adult has no recollection of their infant years.

It would make no sense to completely erase past-experiences, after all.

And Time is not wasteful.

'The Void' seemed to have done it's job and I lived the first eight years of my 'Now Life' completely ignorant to the fact that it had begun, years, eons, before. Of course, then I looked backwards in Time.

I was brought before 'The Void' and told to peer into it. And so I did. How was I to know that I was peering into my past? And like an old photograph the longer I stared the more I recalled. Until I could quite clearly see 'In the Beginning.'

Now, I have managed to keep things fairly linear up until this point, but the fact of the matter is Time is not linear. And neither is my experience with it. So I shall simply relay to you the facts as I know them, and hope you understand that they do make chronological sense...just not linear sense.

The facts are as follows.

'In the Beginning' I had been born on a planet known as Earth around the end of the Second Millennium. I had lived my life mundanely, if happily, and spent ample time on a hobby known as "Science-Fiction" especially on the concept of Time Travel.

'In the Beginning' I had been quite happy to follow a show known as Doctor Who and watch as the main character, fondly referred to as The Doctor traversed Time and Space in his Big Blue Box. I had watched this show eagerly, until my untimely demise some months before the ninth season of the reboot was to air.

In my 'Now Life' I had been born on a planet known as Gallifrey around the Beginning of the End more commonly known as the Period of Peace, or the Time of Romana's Rule. In relation to Earth I had been born roughly 7 millennium B.P (Before Planetesimal). Putting me nearly Five Hundred Millennium before my First Birth.

Conversely I had been born a mere eight centuries after 'The Doctor' and a good millennium before the events of the reboot...assuming The Doctor tracked his age in relation to the year he was born on Gallifrey.

'In the Beginning' I had been a strong proponent of science, and yet a firm believer of the supernatural. 'Now' I was a firm believer of science, and a strong proponent of the supernatural.

Which, in a 'rational' world, was a very dangerous stance to take. I knew this, better than most of the initiates whom I had stood in line with. I knew that there were things my new society accepted, and things they didn't.

I knew this and yet, I ignored it.

For I knew more than my predecessors, and more than my successors. They were blocked by the confines of a singular universe. Yes, Alternate Universes exist, and yes they knew this, could go so far as to visit them. But it is one thing to visit a place, and something else entirely to live there.

I had a far better grasp of the idea of Alternate Universes than my Professors could ever hope to achieve. I knew that if Magic was the bases of understanding in other universes, had been the basis of our own Universe before Rassillon and Omega founded Time Lord Society and "banished irrationality" then it was.

If something existed, and I have knowledge of it existing, then it exists. That is one of the fundamental rules of the Universe (the very rule that saved The Doctor from extinction after Big Bang Two).

On virtue of me knowing and accepting it, Magic was.

And that was a far worse-crime in the eyes of the Elders than being an advocate of Magic.

I suppose one of the reasons I become an advocate of Magic in those Early Days was because I could use it. Not like a witch. Not 'say a spell and cast an illusion.' But rather 'see all that is, was, and could be.'

All Time Lords had a 'sense of Time' it was what looking into the Untempered Schism gave us. It, along with the ability to regenerate, is what separated us from Gallifreyans and from all other "lesser" life forms. But there was a big difference from being able to see a fixed point in time a casual nexus and a point of flux and being able to see the relative future of people and places.

The relative future of Time Lords and Gallifrey.

The memories I gained of that 'Other Time' affected my mind at a biological level. I was changed. And not in a way that was typical to our species. I suddenly found myself constrained in ways that my peers could not understand.

"You can't divide by Zero? Now really, what a quaint idea."

And yet freed in ways that they could never imagine.

"I'm telling you, it is possible for someone to survive jumping into another's Time-Stream, I've seen it."

I was both the Outcast and the Example. The opposite of a Time Lord, and the Model. After all, for all my faults I could most clearly see Time and in a society centered around that very thing, I was lauded.

With my faults, however, it was no real wonder that I strayed from Science and into the arms of Magic. I tired my hardest, I truly did, but I was constrained by the beliefs of my past. And while I could-through vigorous study-barely pass my subjects. There was simply no way I would be able to become a Temporal Engineer or anything with a science or mathematics background.

I was told that I could possibly, possibly become a Scrutationary Archivist, for the Bureau of Possible Events, and that with my abilities I may be able to rise to the very Top of the Bureau which could grant me-in a few centuries-a spot on The Council.

But that was all politics, and something I wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

If I'm being honest all I really wanted to do was pass my Examinations, Choose my Name, and get licensed to fly a TARDIS. Which I would then use to Outrun the Time War-I had yet to work out the how.

Unfortunately the Academy didn't accept that as a Career goal. So I ultimately chose something that my memories would in no-way affect.

Linguistics.

I hadn't expected this to lead me to Magic. As far as I knew that had all been lost with Omega-yet, after a good century of comparing Old High Gallifreyan to the 'Science' of the Carrionites I stumbled upon the fact that it was not lost.

The language of my people could still be used to manipulate the threads of Time and Space.

And with my ability to see different threads of possibilities I could self-correct.

If I could ever master it.

The years passed as I worked on my craft, and I managed to barely graduate the Academy and take on the name 'составитель чужих речей' or 'Wordsmith' which I shortened down to 'речей' pronounced 'Rechi'.

Which further ostracized me in the eyes of my Society. Why choose a Title if I was just going to shorten it? I very much wanted to bring up The Master, but I had learned early on that using future knowledge as the basis for my argument got me nowhere.

As 'Rechi' I got permission to travel to planets both Past and Future and collect information on their language, (under the guise of studying quantum mnemonics). A chance that I jumped on eagerly.

I was rather young, all things considered.

Barely into teen-hood by my society's standards (at roughly 140 years old). I had only been out of the Academy for thirty-two years. If I wasn't so singularly focused on getting my TARDIS license I may have gone the way of my peers and furthered my education. (Most spent at least another century specializing).

I really was rather young, in all honesty they shouldn't have agreed to let me onto the Type 102 TARDIS, sentient or not. (And it was rather odd realizing that a Type 40 TARDIS was so old that it wasn't even mentioned in my history books. Beyond 'the Type Piloted by The Lord President Doctor').

And being so young, I really can't be held responsible for panicking when I flew into the Time Stream and saw a GIANT RIP IN TIME.

Now, in retrospect I realize that what I saw was more of an echo of a possible future than anything. In human terms...a mirage...but I didn't know that at the time. So you can't really blame me for freaking out and effectively "flooring it."

How was I to know I'd end up at the End of the Universe? Wasn't a sentient ship meant to prevent things like that? I wasn't sure, none of this had been in the manual-the one I had actually read rather than chuck into the nearest Black Hole.

Whatever had gone wrong seemed to be correcting itself, though, as the Manual Recall was activated. And I began to phase back to Gallifrey...or that's what I'd assumed was happening when my TARDIS began to phase, apparently she had no intention of taking me with, though, as with a brush of consciousness against my mind, and a swirl of huon particles, I felt myself flung into the Time Vortex.

'War is no place for a Child.'

It was nice thought. That my TARDIS realized why she was being recalled and decided-sentience was a dangerous thing-that I didn't deserve such a fate, young as I was. Unfortunately she seemed to have overestimated my species durability (no small feat, that).

As, even with Huon Particles encircling me in a sort of bubble, there was simply no-way I could last more than thirty seconds in the Time Stream, if that.

Now, had the Time Stream been whole and un-fractured, the fact is I would have drifted in their eternally. Eventually a fellow Time Traveler may have seen me, and picked me up-but I would have been long dead.

Fortunately, or not depending on your definition, the Time Stream had a giant hole in it (almost a Worm Hole) that was only about a day or so off from where the TARDIS had left me.

In retrospect I could hit myself for being so oblivious as to what exactly had caused that hole, but in my defense I had been in 'survival mode' at the time. And it had been over a Century since 'The Beginning' so it wasn't as if every detail of that old show was pristine and ready to be called upon.

My sight was also being strangely affected by that Hole.

Which, I suppose, makes sense. Seeing as it was a self-contained paradox.

But that wasn't exactly my first thought when I saw it.

I can say, though, that I was rather quick on the uptake after the Hole spat me out in the middle of the ship and I heard a voice of nightmares question "and who is this?"

I instinctively flared up my mental shields and raised my eyes from the floor of The Valiant to meet those of The Master.

My last thought?

"I should have taken my chances with that War."