A Planet Called Gallifrey

Disclaimer: Is it clear? Are we being bugged? Will they know? No? Then it's mine, all mine!

A/N: Started this very late at night. I'm not quite sure why I wrote it...it does contain some slash. A very, very little bit. A tiny, weeny bit. I had a bad day today so I decided to cheer myself up by finishing this off. I should be revising. But I wrote this instead, so I hope you enjoy this.

John Smith dreams about another school, sometimes. A school that is not Farringham, in a country that is not England, on a planet that is not Earth. John Smith is not a teacher there, and never was. He dreams he was a student there, many, many years ago.

It is an impossible planet, this Gallifrey. The grass is scarlet red and the leaves on the tall, thin trees shine silver. There are two beautiful, glowing golden suns and the sky is burnt orange, like fire or the heart of a crocus.

There are impossible people on this planet, too. Time Lords, who can see the whole of time and space, and are sworn never to interfere with what they see- only to observe. And they do. They observe life and death and the turn of the universe. John Smith can see it too.

But he is not called John Smith here. He is Theta Sigma, or something close to it. He is free spirited and disobedient and intelligent, though he does not let his tutors know about the last one. He comes to this other school, the Academy, when he is eight years old. He has just looked into the Untempered Schism, a tear in the fabric of reality, and he is terrified.

His roommate is a dark haired boy with the widest, bluest eyes Theta has ever seen. This other boy's name is Koschei. When they first meet there is a bruise flowering delicately across Koschei's neck, purple and blue and black, like the night sky.

Theta cannot sleep that night, and he crawls out of his bed and into Koschei's. He curls up against his roommate's back, clinging onto his nightclothes for dear life.

"Why are you scared?" Koschei whispers through the dark.

"…I miss home."

"Oh. Here." And Koschei turns and opens his arms and holds the tiny blonde boy tight as he cries onto Koschei's shoulder.

This boy, John or Theta, grows. He makes friends with a girl called Ushas because he is bored and a boy called Drax whom no one else really likes. He finds himself included in the Deca, a group of incredibly intelligent students who spend their time slacking off and playing with filched bits of TARDIS machinery and odd trinkets collected from around the Academy. A great number of things blow up, catch fire or melt. Ushas manages to lose her entire room after playing with part of a Type 30 TARDIS that she should never have laid eyes on, let alone touched. Her roommate is not pleased.

When Theta is fourteen years old, he finally plucks up the courage to kiss Koschei. Then loses his nerve at the last minute and goes running down into the Academy courtyard.

Koschei hunts him out and entices him back to their shared room with the substance from Earth called tea that rather appeals to them both, and then they kiss.

They spend quite a lot of their time at the Academy kissing. And quite a few other things besides. Theta has long ago given up on doing homework and even turning up to many of his classes, and he and Koschei sneak out to the mountains behind the Academy. At sixteen Theta is unsurprised to find he has fallen in love. Koschei is slightly more surprised, and it takes him a while to work out his true feelings for the strange, brilliant blonde boy he has had the privilege to know for eight years. Theta supplies him with all of this before kissing him soundly and leading him back to his bed.

The next few years pass in a blur of detentions and explosions and sex. Drax and Ushas get together, then spilt up, then get back together again until Ushas sleeps with Koschei and Theta in quick succession. They eventually sort things out between the four of them and everything goes back to normal.

They choose new names. Ushas becomes the Rani, and this makes Koschei and Theta laugh. Until Koschei decides to call himself the Master, and Ushas and Theta laugh at him instead. Theta asks him that night why he chose to call himself the Master.

"I want to be in control for once." Theta can feel the soft flesh of another bruise on Koschei's hip. "And…I could be your master, Thete." Koschei pushes Theta back into the mattress and shows him what he means.

Theta finally decides, two days before they graduate, to call himself the Doctor. Koschei asks him why the Doctor.

"There's an Earth tradition…in universities, you get a thing called a masters…and then, you get a doctorate. And…I want to be a doctor, Kosch."

"Of what?"

"Everything."

Drax just tells them to keep calling him Drax, and they leave it at that.

Finally, they graduate. And they can leave. They are fully fledged Time Lords.

The four of them buy a TARDIS together, and travel round the universe for a time, causing more explosions and saving planets and watching others die because there was nothing they could do. They have fun, until they are forced to return to their old home and things fall apart between them a little bit.

Koschei runs, exiled. It is a long time until Theta sees him again, and by that time they have both changed beyond recognition. But the Doctor finds that despite it all he still loves this other, stranger, darker man because he is still Koschei, no matter what he says.

The centuries spin on, and the Doctor grows old. He still sees the Master, and the Rani and Drax, very very occasionally. Friends become enemies and enemies become friends, but when the war comes suddenly everything is as it was.

There are, for a brief time, just four Time Lords united by their shared wish to travel and held together by wit, courage, audacity and loneliness. Then Gallifrey burns and the Doctor is truly alone for the first time in his long life. It is not a nice feeling.

He hopes he will see the Master again some day. Soon. Because after everything that's happened and everything he's done, the Doctor still loves him. And only him. He realises it has only ever been him, and will only ever be him. And he knows they will never see each other again. Because the Master is dead and it is the Doctor's fault.

These dreams puzzle John Smith, and scare him and excite him, all at once. They make no sense and yet they make all the sense in the world.

He forgets about them in the morning, caught up in his teaching and the charms of Nurse Redfern. And every night the strange dreams come again, and John even finds himself hoping he will dream of the planet with red grass and two suns. And of the boy, Koschei, even though it is wrong.

He waits for the nights when he dreams of Koschei, and tries not to feel guilty when he sees Nurse Redfern. Because no matter how much he loves her, it will never be enough.

A/N: There you are. I thought there had to be more about Gallifrey in John Smith's journal than he let on. So, there you go. If you enjoyed it, tell me. If you didn't, tell me why and I'll improve it.