"The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality.
The more stupid one is, the clearer one is."

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky ~

No one likes to be told they're stupid.

Regardless of whether it is true or not, we all like to live in the fallacy that we are smart enough. That is, comparatively smart. Sure we may not be Einstein or Beethoven, but were are hardly stupid. Compared to our peers we might even seem intelligent.

And it is a comparison.

We build our entire self-identity out of comparisons. Out of 'in relations'. It's our inherent competitive nature. It is why consumerism thrives, and why Capitalists and Communists can never get along. We don't need to be the best, we just need to be better than our neighbor.

I never believed I was stupid. Growing up I always had this unwavering faith in my own intelligence. I believe the laymen call it "pride". To some degree it was unfounded, my intelligence was untested and therefore unproven.

l was never pushed to surmount anything.

On the other hand, however, that lack of strain was exactly why I felt so confident, so secure in my own knowledge. Everything just came so easy. So fast. Surely this was the work of a gifted mind?

Or so I thought.

I can now say with complete, and utter certainty, that I was wrong.

Intelligent?

Please.

I was barely above average.

Sure I had mastered the ability to regurgitate information. Mastered the tricks of the trade; trial-and-error, context clues, elimination, etc. Mastered the formulae and structures. But the content? I was lucky if I internalized even a quarter of the things taught to me.

And yet I had the gall to label myself as anything less than ignorant?

Naive?

No.

If there was one thing I had learned during my many, many humbling experiences at the Academy it was that whether I wanted to hear it or not, whether I wanted to accept it or not, compared to my peers...I was stupid.

And it took me even longer to realize that this was a good thing. To put it in the Grand Words of my once-upon-a-time Professor, "stupid is good. Stupid I can work with. Lazy, however..." It was a good thing because in my humility I found something far more prudent than Pride.

I found passion.

People always bring up Einstein when trying to motivate others. "Look at this famous mathematician," they'd say, "he failed mathematics in high school." (A myth in its own right.) It was meant to encourage one to not give up. It painted the illusion of a Bright Man rising up in-spite of all of his set-backs.

I've always been of a slightly different opinion.

To me it was not in spite of but rather because of his set-backs that Einstein found the Passion to delve into science. To revolutionize the world. Although his set-backs were quite different than portrayed (almost ending with a life of obscurity as a school teacher). Einstein abhorred regimented structure, and authoritarian regimes. He questioned everything and never let a chance to solve a problem his way slip through his fingers.

He was a brilliant mathematician. But in the ways of social graces he was rather poorly educated. Stupid, some might say. But it mattered not, for his short comings were by-and-large eclipsed by his passion.

For it was his passion that never allowed him to give up. Not when he first failed the entrance exam to ETH. Not when he wasn't offered an apprenticeship after graduating with a Fachlehrer diploma. And not during his (countless, I'm sure) setbacks on working on his four famous postulates.

When you find the one thing that you can do better, and know better, than anyone else. You never let it go.

I say that the label was a blessing growing up because it was the one thing that motivated me to stick with language. It was the one thing that lead me to arcane magic. Which is great! Seeing as that is probably the only reason I'll be able to get out of this place.

Now there are few things more frightening, I've found, than waking up in a place that you neither remember falling asleep in, nor remember period. I mean, my heart starts racing if I wake up in a different position than I'd expected. Head facing West as opposed to North. How much more so a completely different-unfamiliar-room?

Yes, there are few things more terrifying than that.

But the slow realization that the "unfamiliar room" was aboard the Ship of one of the most certifiably insane villains of Science-Fiction? Well that may have been a wee bit more petrifying.

So was it any real shock that I immediately acted on my primal instincts and began pacing around looking for an exist?! (There were no visible doors). Checking every nook and cranny for a switch that I knew wouldn't be there? Feeling along the walls for a nonexistent secret passageway?

I didn't think so.

And apparently he didn't think so either, seeing as the entire room was very carefully void of anything immediately useful. Just a twin bed-blankets folded military style-and a table, with plain bread, and a glass water, resting on it. But then again, the key word was 'immediately' I still had the upper-hand in that I had the time to prep my most powerful weapon.

My Magic.

Now I only needed to figure out the optimal numbers...

One. Two. Three. Four.

It is exactly two hours and thirty four minutes before his charge awakens. He knows the exact moment she realizes where she is, because her thoughts practically broadcast terror.

"...aboard the Ship of one of the most certifiably insane villains of Science-Fiction."

He can't help but laugh at how her thoughts read like a novel. A natural rise-and-fall to them. No disjointed arguments trying to be heard over each other (The Doctor) and no stream-of-consciousness, with brutal numerical interruptions (himself). Even the terminology she so casually flings out 'Science-Fiction' 'primal instincts' 'secret passage way' all lend themselves to the particular...cadence that is her mind.

The Master finds it delectable that she chose to wake up right as the Doctor succumbed to sleep. As this gives him ample time to get a feel of her thoughts, of her thought process.

And just how young was she, that she didn't immediately raise her mental shields upon finding herself in an unknown location? Or was it less a matter of age and more a matter of experience? Had she been so sheltered that she didn't immediately assume that an enemy would take her thoughts and use them against her.

"I had the time to prep my most powerful weapon."

'Well' he thought to himself, 'that will just have to be my first lesson to her.'

"My Magic."

'That one never leaves their mind undefended.'

"Now I only needed to figure out the optimal numbers..."

'I can help with that.'

Seven.

Seven three times...

Which was twenty-one...

and two and one makes three-

The number of stanzas-for a total of nine lines.

Perfection.

Seven syllables per-line.
Three lines per-stanza.
Three Stanzas per-fection.

The door was steel.

Deadlocked.

No going through the lock-would have to go through the molecules. Words started flowing from my brain to my mouth. Uncensored. Almost instantaneously. Sight to thought, to idea, to words. Eyes focused on the door, my only way out.

"Steel; an alloy, iron comprised of one percent of carbon."

Carbon. What did I know of Carbon? Think, think. This was basic. This was Third-Dimension Stuff. I could do this. I could do this.
"Carbon; the building block of life. Cornerstone of Organic Chemistry. Creates stable chemicals."

My eyes flashed around the room.

What to bond? What to bond?

Magic was just another form of science after all, bending the universe to my words was always easier when I followed preconceived notions. Rules.

"Carbon bonds. Carbon bonds to Hydrogen. Tetravalent; four Hydrogen to each Carbon...Methane."

Methane at a 1 to 5 ratio.

My eyes darted to the glass of water next to my bedside.

"Breaking apart Covalent bonds. Water Molecules. Free Radicals bouncing around. Oxygen meet Oxygen. Highly flammable."

My eyes darted back to the door.

"Steel sans Carbon...Iron."

Iron was weak. Relatively. Would relatively work? Would relatively be enough?

One way to find out.

Before I could think through all the holes in my plan, before I could remind myself of the unreliability of magic. Of the fact that I had never tried it outside of a laboratory setting. Before I could, in a word, chicken-out.

I acted.

Seven.

Three.

Three.

Five atoms in Methane.

One sigma bond.

All Prime Numbers.

Luck was on my side.

I grabbed the glass of water and threw it at the door with one hand, while tracing Gallifrayian Sigils in the air, with the other. The glass shattered against the door and I began to sing. A song of deconstruction. Reconstruction. And then, destruction.

Three words long.

Seven syllables in each line.

And three lines.

That's nine words in total.

Perfection.

"Σhiφ Krϋvye ΞHile"

"One-by-one matter falls to ruin."

First the bonds through space, each molecule of water was ripripripped apart. Then the intermolecular forces. The Polar Covalent bonds. Hydrogen to the left, Oxygen to the right

With the flick of my hand.

Rip the Carbon from the Steel.

"Ą'дкiE Gjљάΰļ 'Xyi"

"Brick-by-brick empires reform."

Re-attach; Carbon and Hydrogen.

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed.

No destruction.

Each bond broken becomes another bond formed. Methane floats through the air. The Oxygen bands together, Pure Oxygen Gas, diluted by the methane gas...an explosion primed and ready.

Finally, a spark.

"VΰΘЯ Zÿphiф 'ШæĦlet"

"Ashes-to-ashes, energy flows. A circle."

I snap my fingers.

Friction.

Two contrasting forces.

Notenoughnotenoughnotenough.

I take a deep breath. Step back. Need more energy. Need a new plan. Combustion. Combustion. What can cause a spark?

Bread.

My eyes dart to the table by my bed.

"Under certain conditions, in warm climates, bread has been known to spontaneously combust." I grab the loaf, concentrate my energies on it. Saturated. It needs to be saturated with water. Seventy-Percent.

This needs to work, this has to work.

"Check the atmosphere. Fifty-percent humidity, check. Only need forty-percent. Excess molecules pulled together. Pressure. Increase pressure. Gas to liquid. Water on the bread."

The words flowed through my mouth faster than I could compute. Meaningless White Noise, just another bi-product of my thoughts. A third layer to the song. The background vocals. Coalescing into perfection.

"Now Time." I had never done this before. Never linked myself to an object like this before. Linked my time-sense like this before.

I knew it could be done. Had seen it done. Both in the Now and the Then. The Doctor had done it back on the Observation Platform. On a much smaller scale. Had slipped through the rotating fans in the split-seconds they had offered a path to safety.

But this was different. This wasn't slowing time it was accelerating it.

I'd never done this before. But I had no choice. I was running out of Time.

I had to try.

I'm fading. Fading fast. The song is ending.

"Count the beats of my hearts. For each beat the bread's been left undisturbed for a week." One. Two. Three. Four. "It's been left to ferment, and age." One. Two. Three. Four. "It's been left to decompose. To fester."

I drop the bread by the door, overturn the bed, and hide.

One. Two. Three. Four.

I can almost see the reaction. The bacterial fermentation giving off heat, the spark caused by the rapid oxidation around it. That spark transferring energy to the methane. A chain reaction. A combustion reaction. The pure oxygen feeding the raging inferno. The door warping under the sudden influx in heat.

Creaking.

Groaning.

Snapping.

And falling.

That's my chance.

I sprint through the inferno, hurdle through the door, and don't stop running. I'm ecstatic. Elated. I'mfreeI'mfreeI'mfree! But I'm naive. Careless. Magic cannot create energy. Energy is needed to destroy bonds. Energy, my energy, Time Lor-

-I make it ten steps before I pass-out.

Exhausted.

The Master watches as the girl collapses at his feet.

And he can't help the frown that slowly mars his face.

That was sloppy.

Not on her part-he's more than willing to admit, on a purely professional level, that he was impressed with her escape attempt-but on his. He'd left a very obvious trace of his meddling.

He had intended to leave a trace, of course, what good was a lesson on vulnerability if one didn't realize how vulnerable they truly were? But his trace was to be subtle, the slight shift of her 'inner voice' from that of a story-teller to his 'inner voice' (if you could call that disjointed mess a 'voice'.)

It had seemed like the perfect tell as it was a mistake even the most professional of Mind Artists still made. Not altering the way they presented information to better 'flow' with their prey's thoughts. He intended to get her to instantly recognize the second her thoughts didn't sound like her.

But he had slipped up.

It was the over-use of numerology.

It hadn't presented itself in her passive mindset, and so he had foolish thought that that part of his thought process wouldn't bleed over with the hypnosis.

Of course, it was his own fault. He should have realized that her mind-set would shift once she tried to enact this 'magic' of hers. After all, didn't his thought process change while utilizing his hypnosis?

It had slipped in.

The endless round of the drums.

The, One Two Three Four that plagued him continually.

The only string of numbers that he couldn't bury deep, deep, in his subconscious.

They had slipped into her thoughts. And she was bound to notice. Like a sledgehammer to the head. Nothing subtle at all. (Not when she had been working exclusively with prime numbers before).

'There was nothing to it,' he thought, as he picked her up and placed her in the room right next to her old-one (identical in style). 'That was sloppy. I need to do better next time.'

He then left and locked the door behind him. Wondering, briefly, how long it would take his charge to learn her first lesson. He was rather interested in teaching her, if not better then cooler skills. She needed to get the basics down first, though.

Twelve.

It had taken me twelve attempts to realize his game. His angle. And I felt disgusted-not at him, I didn't hold him in a high enough regard to feel such a thing-but, rather, at myself.

Twelve?!

It had really taken me twelve foiled escape attempts to realize that someone was purposefully foiling them? That said someone needed information to do so? And that said information was locked up tightly in my mind?

The very mind that I had forgotten to lock up.

The safe that I had left wide open. The door that was just swinging on its hinges. The armor that was sitting back in the armory.

Like I said, disgusted.

What did it say about me, that I hadn't even realized that someone had been telling me while not what to think, how to think it? That someone had been playing inception with my subconscious? What did it say about me that I didn't pick up on this instantly when I had started to repeat the numbers one, two, three, four? What had I been thinking?

The answer?

I hadn't.

I'd been so tired, and hungry, and gorram done when I'd arrived, that I'd taken the natural-out exhaustion had offered me. I'd stopped thinking. Or, perhaps, I should say I'd never started. It just...it's just so hard. To constantly think, to try and predict every possible outcome, to try and account for every variable in your prediction. So hard to try and compete with these people that had years of experience on me.

I was tired. I was hungry. And I was suffering from a hair-splitting migraine (curtesy of Sir-Hypnotizes-A-Lot, no doubt). And I just...just wanted...well, if I was being honest, I just wanted an excuse. An excuse to curl up in bed. An excuse to give up and sleep. An excuse, in a sense, to not think.

But I couldn't afford to.

Couldn't afford to close my eyes and cover my ears. Couldn't afford to run and hide under the covers. Couldn't afford to do anything but trytrytry. Not when I had just landed myself in a paradox. Not when I was a good couple billion light years away from my home planet. Not when I wasn't even sure if I still had a home planet.

(I couldn't just assume. Just because it survived in one universe didn't mean it would here. Time wasn't static like that. It was always changing...except when it wasn't.)

I couldn't afford any excuses. But I wanted so bad to give them. To rage at the unfairness of it all. To complain about his ridiculous expectations. After all, didn't he know I was only human?!

Except, I wasn't.

I'm not.

I am a Time Lord. And we don't have the luxury of excuses, of "I can't"s or "I'm not able"s. Not anymore. Not when it was literally us against the universe. And not when our numbers had just been reduced to a psychopath, a coward, and a little girl.

So, I didn't give up. I got up. And I took the Master's lesson to heart. Raising my mental shields with an almost 'come get me, I dare you' kind of surety.

If nothing else I had to give him credit, if he wanted me to 'learn my lesson' then he wouldn't be disappointed. I would never forget this lesson. My mind was my treasure. To let someone in like that? To not even suspect?

It shook me.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

But not enough to shake off the rage. He wanted to chat with his newest crew member? That's fine. I had plenty to say.

Next Time: "Hey, what's your problem anyway?!"

A/N: Well there we have it! Chapter 2. Sorry for the wait, but, unfortunately, school happens to the best of us. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, as disjointed as it was. Thanks to all who read/alerted/favorited/reviewed. The feedback was enormous. I was shocked. So thank you guys so much!

Onto Review Responses!

michaela .page .77: Thanks! Here's the next chapter :)

time-twilight: It'll be a bit before the Doctor and Rechi get to have a heart-to-heart, unfortunately. But I already know what they're gonna be saying to each other! The Master doesn't believe he's being nasty...but then again...he's a "little" insane, too. (Part 2): Well, the Doctor doesn't normally introduce people based on their race (saying things such as "my companion") but how he'd introduce her to people...it'd probably go something like this;

"And this is Rechi, my...ward."

"-Excuse me. What did you just call me?!"

"Yup. My ward. Poor thing. Abandoned by her parents off the coast of Paramecia. Couldn't very well leave her. Humans were not made for Paramecian Winters after all. Far too Rubbery for them."

"-Human!"

"Yes. I know. You hate it when I use that term. Find it degrading. But it's what you are, Rechi. And the sooner you accept that fact, the better."

Or something. Well, thank you for both reviews! Hopefully you liked this chapter too!

scarlet: I'm sorry I can't update that often :( I have other stories to update, and-sadly-university takes up a large chunk of my life. Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter too! There are conflicting accounts on whether Time Ladys can get pregnant outside of their species. According to the Audio: An Earthly Child Susan (the Doctor's granddaughter) marries and has a child with a human-David. (Other accounts hold that they couldn't have a child together.) For the purpose of my story I hold that certain species are indeed compatible with Time Lord genetics.

Marissa: Thank you! Hope you continue to enjoy it!

galita: Yay, and I'm excited to hear your feedback :)

SilverMarkings: What the Doctor did-and didn't-hear, along with his thoughts on this whole matter will be more thoroughly explained in the coming chapter. (Where we will also get some actual face-to-face communication.) In a way Rechi will not be easily manipulated, she's not nearly as immature as the Master or the Doctor would believe her to be. (In fact she's far more mature than either of them). But when it comes to sheer experience she is, sadly, out classed. (As demonstrated in this chapter). Martha decides to leave at the end of Season 3 in Canon and the Doctor travels alone until he bumps into Donna. Whether Rechi changes anything, we'll see. (And yes, the Doctor will most definitely be smothering her with unwanted affection.)

Lady Shagging Godvia: Thank you very much! That is incredibly kind of you to say :) Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter too.

CalicoKitty402: THANK YOU :D

Glasoo89: Thanks :)

twinbuster2: Thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed this chapter just as much as the first two, and hopefully you'll continue to enjoy the entire fic!

safranbrod: Haha, she's technically a little too old to be called a Time Tot, but the Doctor's so old that her youngness, seems, well, extra young.

EmiliaKyuchi: Thank you! Hopefully you'll continue to enjoy it :)

Provider of odd things: Haha, yeah, it was pretty cruel to end there. Unfortunately the idea for the fic hit me right when my life got really busy. Hopefully the fic will live up to your expectations though! And thanks for the compliment, I've found that the vast majority of DW fics are romances or Action/Adventure, and there is nothing wrong with that (at all) but I kinda want to make mine more Sci-Fi? I don't know. Lol, I'm just having fun with it. Thanks for the review, though! Hope you continue to enjoy the fic!

Janus: Lol, I didn't even realize I had left you all off on a cliff-hanger. Well, I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations, then. And that the story continues to hold your interest :) Thanks for your kind review!

Well. Until Next Time!

Ja Ne!