So this is just me testing my own half-formed ideas on the Doctor right near the beginning, on Gallifrey. As such, a lot of it is postulating, some guesswork and invention, usage of characters and broad concepts from the series. We'll see how it goes. Enjoy!
Dobby's Polka-Dotted Sock
All This She Is, They Were
She is to meet the man to whom she will be wed. He has met with her family and they have deemed him worthy of courtship. They feel it a good match for her; he is a well-spoken man, and well off with estates to be inherited. He is shorter than might be expected, but of a sturdy build, with dark, trim hair and beard. She is to call him Master, and so will others besides her, for that is the name he has chosen. She is to open the door for him promptly when the shadows are at their shortest. All this she has been told.
But he is not the one to which she answers the ringing of the bells when the shadows have already cast their long arms over everything. Instead, a man who does indeed seem smaller than most and very slight, with hair of brown stands in her intended's place, with a flower and a stiffness that comes from unfamiliarity with such formal robes.
"Good day, my lady, good day," he begins before she can even think to ask him for what purpose he is here. "I've come on behalf of- of the Master. He's unable to visit with you today and sends his sincerest apologies." The flower is held out to her in offering, and she takes it, brushing a petal with a thumb. The touch is not as pleasing as it had first appeared; the petal is dry and aging.
"You'd do best to put that in water, it would keep longer," the messenger speaks again, the words falling from his lips like thoughts fresh and imprudent. He hastens to correct himself. "Not that I would presume to tell you—"
"I thank you for the advice," she says calmly, his remarks inoffensive to her. The counsel and commands of others she is used to hearing; his embarrassment at something so trivial, however, is far more amusing.
"Yes, well. Good, good." He shuffles, or perhaps stumbles, two steps away. "I must beg your pardon then, my lady—"
"You are not staying?"
"Staying?"
"Yes," she answers plainly. "You say you come on my intended's behalf. It must follow, then, that you eat, drink, and make conversation in his stead." He looks to regret his adherence to propriety thus far, so she coaxes, "I have been waiting long for news of him, and have been left here alone for this day. I am grateful for any company."
She could sense him wavering, and so presented the smile she had been taught by her mother. "Very well, very well, if you insist."
The door is opened wide to him, and she lays the flower aside, forgotten on a table until it withers and it is too late for her to follow sensible advice.
OoO
Gallifrey has not turned for long in the sky before she is next greeted with this messenger's face and a flower. It joins the first one. "To what do I owe the pleasure of a second call from you?"
"Well it's customary, or so I've read, that the suitor make a second, unannounced visit. This is to—"
"Demonstrate his desire to be with his intended always," she speaks the words with him, and then smiles her own smile. "Are you my suitor?"
The messenger grows pale with wide eyes, a picture of frightened shock. "No, no, my lady, but he was unable to leave his work—never mind the work I have myself, of course. Hmph!"
"Then why did you agree to deliver this? Surely it could have waited until a time when he was not occupied elsewhere. Or has this meeting, too, been arranged with my family?" They had all had excuses that she had thought nothing of to leave the house today and she is once more on her own.
"I think there may be a schedule, yes, but I am hardly any more knowledgeable of it than you," he answers, an injured note to his tone, and she knows he can feel her suspicious and accusatory mood.
Letting such thoughts drift away, she instead focuses on the messenger. He has been left here as surely as herself. "Of course. Please, stay a while if your work permits."
He enters her home, but then stops. "My work. Yes, yes…well, perhaps if I leave it for a time, it shall come to me like penicillin to Fleming." Having thus reasoned, he follows her again with greater confidence.
"Fleming," she repeats in momentary confusion. "He was- an Earth scientist, was he not?"
His surprised yet pleased nature is so palpable in that instant that she turns back to see him smile. A laugh is contained between his pressed lips, though it still seems to her the sweetest sound she has yet to hear. "He was, my lady, he was indeed!"
OoO
"An impressive collection, impressive," the messenger remarks. She had been taking a meal alone in the library when he comes to call and a third flower is now resting with its fellows. "And you say you've collected most of it yourself?"
"Reading is one of the few activities I am permitted to indulge in freely," she states, unashamed. He has to know by now that this strange courtship is entirely out of her hands, just as it has been unfairly relegated to his. Still, she is met with a frown when he faces her again. "You have yet to see my prized collection," she says before he could speak, and he allows himself to be led to another room.
"My word," he turns to her, this time in wonder and excitement. "Are these—"
"Books, yes, carefully preserved. They are a rarity in this age, yet I find a certain joy in turning the pages over in my hands. You may do so as well, if you wish."
He takes a step, entranced as she has always been by them, yet halts. "No, I daren't, I simply daren't. Delivering a message is perfectly acceptable, but this would be for my own—"
"What would my intended think of them?" She asks of him and he considers the shelves.
"He would find them interesting. Perhaps worth a glance, but if they did not contain information he deemed useful, he would set them aside," he tells her in truth.
"Then this will be the only time I see another appreciate them. Please," she removes the nearest volume and places it into his hands. He holds it carefully, reverently. "Read to me."
She is unable to read him in that moment, for his thoughts and temperament are so muddled they possibly do not make sense to even him. "Dear lady," he said at last, "I would be happy to."
They sit side by side in her private room, amongst her treasures.
OoO
Neither says the name Master out loud after the first day, like it is an unpleasant truth they can forget in each other's company, pretending the present and their time will never run out.
OoO
He has had to leave his work in a hurry, she surmises. The outer robe he wears, less formal than his previous visits, is disheveled and as he straightens it she sees an odd checkered material fitted around his legs. A glimpse of the messenger himself; her messenger. The stalk of the flower from her intended is bent, and it joins the growing pile.
"My apologies, dear lady, I am afraid I lost track of the time. Absurd, really!" She wished to laugh with him but the sickly sweet scent of decaying flowers had permeated the air.
"Tell me of him," she demands instead, "the man to whom I am to be wed. You say he is a practical sort, and is often working."
"He is those things, but more, dear lady, certainly more," he touches her hand briefly, then seems to think better of the gesture. "I'm sure you will see that for yourself, ah, someday."
"I understand that he works very hard, and that he will certainly provide for me." Her family understands this; she has been told to understand. "I only wish I could know him, as you his friend does, something I can keep in my mind for myself to have." Her gaze falls to her hands in her lap, feeling the needy words to be selfish, yet the confidence she trusted in him not unwise.
His hand enters her line of sight and she lifts her gaze to see him standing before her, inviting. "Come with me."
She does not hesitate, grasping his hand in hers. He leads her from her home and away, away from the signs of settlement and ordinary existence until they are quite remote. "What do you wish to show me?" Her confusion asks it as loudly as her words, but he merely guides her to the edge of a hill.
Together, they look down upon fields of red, red grass, uninterrupted for seemingly immeasurable lengths. It is breathtaking. But what truly steals her breath is his voice in her ear, stirring her hair as he whispers, "Run."
They are crashing through the blades of grass before she can even think, and the wind feels somehow stronger than ever before as her hair let fly behind her. And there is only him in the sea of red as she works desperately to keep him in her sights and his hand in hers. Her shoes slip off one after the other but are left behind, and the robe is hot and heavy and weighted, yet he pulls her along, his own coming loose like a streaming red banner, showing that same strange checkered material underneath.
It is not until she was gasping, certain she will be unable to draw another breath, that they stop, and it is all so natural as he falls on his back in the grass and she is drawn down with him. The clouds and the sky are far off and unrivaled out here, and ever more beautiful.
"This is what we did." His voice comes soft, but so near is she that she hears. "Before graduation, before our lives 'began' and it was nothing but our work. The red grass, Koschei, and I."
"Koschei?" She murmurs the unfamiliar name, strange and presumptuous on her lips; the name of a man she has yet to see.
"That is what I called him then," he intones with an understanding smile, giving the name to her. No longer will he use it. She wonders if she will. Yet there is a name she is more anxious to learn.
"And what did he call you?"
"Theta." She leans just that much closer, as his voice seems unable to carry the words. "Theta Sigma."
Theta Sigma does not once let go of her hand.
OoO
She asks of him once, "What may I call you?" For he is not simply her messenger and not her intended's Theta Sigma, and has not been those things for some time. He is far more than that; the only one to truly see and hear her in her quiet isolation.
He looks up from the book she had suggested to him, filled with all sorts of science that holds a precursory interest to her but a fascination to him. His eyes she can tell, though, are still so unaccustomed to reading the paper pages that he squints terribly; she feels a guilt that not only is he here as an errand for his friend, but that also he might soon require eyeglasses.
"Your intended and I both were part of the Pyridion Chapter, and so I have chosen a name for myself as well, you see?" She nods and he sits straighter in his chair, the first stirrings of pride beginning in him as he announces, "I am the Doctor."
And oh! how that name brings hope and wonder and something so indescribably beautiful to the forefront of her mind. She feels she could never grow tired of it, not in all her lives.
She thinks he must have sensed it, too, as she smiles. "I am so very pleased to know you, Doctor."
He lays his hand over hers, something in those straining, searching eyes sparkling like the stars. "And I you, my dear."
OoO
He's stopped bringing the flowers, those tokens of disinterest, somewhere along the way, and she finds she doesn't mind at all.
OoO
He often looks to the sky, face full of wonder and longing. She says before she can stop herself, "You are drawn by what is out there." It is a fond yet sad observation, that he can be so enthralled by something so much bigger than her.
There is no attempt on his part to persuade her otherwise. "We've so much knowledge, you know, and nothing to do with it! Why are TARDISes something to be found only in museums or seldom run repair shops? There is so much more waiting, my dear, than I can ever find by staying on Gallifrey."
"Wouldn't you feel lonely at all?" It is a pitiful appeal, yet he does not laugh at her weakness.
"Are you lonely while you read? No? Then just as you, I will not be so lonely. And," he rekindles her hope with a single smile, "there are many things left here for me yet."
OoO
"Bring me something you are working on," is the request she makes. She knows already that he dabbles in science, is well read on various histories, and likes to practice other languages, though there no one to hone his skill with. It is a pleasing image to her, picturing him at work before a desk well into the night, consulting some text for a moment, muttering to himself the same words in different tongues before setting aside all aides, deciding to solve whatever complication has arisen in his tinkering on his own.
On his next visit, he humors her. It is a thin, metallic device he presents her with, and it lights up on one end with a soft warbling when he shows her how to activate it.
"And what is its purpose?"
"Must it have a purpose?" He dances around her question, and she can see now that it hasn't worked like he intends and he is ashamed. When she lays it on his palm, briefly brushing her thumb over the skin, he sighs and states, "It's a screwdriver."
He scrutinizes her face, and though he senses it she hides her laughter well. "You might soon run into difficulty, then. I think it incapable of completing the task, designed as such."
"Ah, but there you are wrong, my dear. It is not the screwdriver itself that will do it." He activates it once more. "You hear that noise, hm? That is what it does. Using sound waves to generate motion, achieve results. The light is just the release of energy, you see, but I have found that it makes a very effective torch when necessary—"
"Doctor!" She grabs his arm, eyes fixed to the table where he has absently pointed his invention.
"Yes, yes, what is it, my dear?" But it is a loud crash that informs him. He whirls to look at the collapsed table, which had become unsteady on only three legs for the fourth has lost all its attachments to the floor. "Good gracious!"
"It works!" She looks from the table to him, and it is as if her words, not the evidence of his own eyes, are what convince him of the success, for he laughs that silly laugh and pulls her up from the couch to twirl about in his arms. She is released before her blush can color her cheeks too deep a red as he bends to examine the results.
"Amazing, simply amazing."
"It certainly is," she praises, a warmth filling her at being here in this moment to share in his achievement.
"Yes, but…dear me, I haven't quite worked out how to reverse the process yet. You wouldn't happen to have tools on hand, would you? I'd hate to leave your table like this."
Her smile only grows even as her head shakes, a strange mixture of fond admonishment that she knows now will be reserved only for him. "They are kept in the utility room."
"Thank you, my dear," he imparts to her softly; his smile is abashed yet sure. He leaves her briefly to retrieve what he needs, but if anything she is happier for the realization that he knows her and her home so well.
OoO
She opens the door to find him with a basket, and he refuses to be shown inside. "Come, it's too beautiful a day to be wasted. Join me." How can he not see she already has?
They find a place beneath a silver-leaf tree that shimmers in the light, and she watches as he rummages through his basket. "Dear me, I've forgotten a blanket." He makes a sort of tutting sound that warms her heart despite its scolding tone. "No matter, no matter." And he pulls his robe over his shoulders.
She gasps. He still wears the strange checkered cloth over his legs, but his torso is clothed in some strange white material, with a darker layer that has no sleeves buttoned overtop. Another strip of cloth is tied in some sort of knot or bow around his neck. She recognizes it as a type of off-world attire that is at once startling and yet fitting for him.
He seems unaware of her momentary alarm, or simply chooses to let it be, for he lays his robe out over the grass and steps back. "There you are, my dear."
Meeting his eyes, a smile unbidden turns her lips and she lowers herself down, watching and then helping him unload the various items he has gathered in his basket. "This is a picnic," she realizes, a light laugh escaping from her.
"Yes, I thought you would like it," he smiles, pleased with himself and his success.
"Does my intended know what I might like? Does he care to?" The questions make themselves known before she can quell them, not wishing to ruin this tranquil, happy day.
He is like stone for a time before he licks his lips and answers, "I'm afraid I don't know. He asked me to visit with you, you see, at the times he arranged with your family. But I haven't seen him for- for some time. He's very absorbed in his work, won't let anyone see it, not even me."
"You are losing him," she states simply, and after a moment he nods. "But I do not want to find him. Am I never to meet him until the day we are bound? I tremble at the thought!"
He takes her hands. "There is no need for fear, my dear."
"And yet I am afraid. I have lived so often in fear and solitude. My family decides my life without my consent and I am powerless to stop them. But there is a time when I am unafraid and not alone: when I am with you, Doctor." He is still once again, yet quivering ever so slightly with a kind of awed disbelief. She grasps his hands tightly with one of her own and dares to place the other to his cheek. This moment is of too much importance, the only chance she might ever have, to let her courage fail. "You must know my feelings and mind on this matter, and see how we have grown together, brought warmth and happiness to each other."
But it is dismay with which he gazes at her. "What have I done?" His hands are torn from her and he turns from her. "You fool, you wretched fool!"
"You call my feelings foolish?" She demands, unprepared for this utter rejection.
He looks back at her with a sharp eye, "No, it is I who is the fool. All this time I have presented myself the faithful errand-boy, merely carrying out a favor to a friend. I am not so weak as that; I only intended to come the once!"
"Then why did you return?"
He nearly reaches for her hand, but stops. "For you, my dear. I was captivated by your beauty and your mind, as I still am. But I cannot take advantage and steal you away like this, much as I feel your intended has left you like an offering. He won't ever understand what he has, but it is you he has and I cannot change that."
It is a shock to her as much as to him that she begins to weep. "You tell me such awful truths and expect me to accept them?"
"You must, my dear, you must! But I have said too much, and stayed too long. You will have to forget me, and I you." He flees from her, leaving everything behind.
She is found later sitting under a tree on another man's robe with a basket of food, sobbing and despairing as she wonders if he is now gone to see what is out there for him.
OoO
Her family startles into action, futile as their efforts will be. The Master is summoned at once, and she does not know nor does she care if he's been interrupted in his work for she refuses to see him.
"I would speak with the Doctor; he has earned the right to my attentions and affections. I have never met this supposed suitor in my life, nor do I wish to."
Voices not quite insulated by her shelves of books are raised outside her room, the Master's and her family's. She worries that her rash words will bring her more trouble than she can handle, and have certainly ruined any semblance of friendship between the two Time Lords she brought unintentionally into conflict.
But the break is meant to happen, she knows. They are two so very different men who value so very different things. She has only been the realization of it. And they have been the realization of her own break, into liberation. She's inspired to take this step for herself, because despite all his encouragements and defiance he ran rather than choose between a friend and a love. He is too, too good for these choices, and that itself might someday break him.
When the door to her family's home slams behind her family's chosen suitor, she knows she has won this battle for her life. If she had only won the battle for her heart.
OoO
The Master is gone, no one knows where. Many think he has left Gallifrey entirely. She does not pay much attention to such rumors, but only listens for stories of any other renegades, any Time Lords said to have left for the stars.
OoO
It is long before her family is content to leave her on her own again, and she finds herself angered by it. It is far too late for them to think their concerns mean anything to her. So when she is at last left in the home by herself she is irritated to hear someone at the door moments later.
But she does not let loose words of irritation or reproach upon answering it, for she is momentarily stunned. Like a dream, he is there before her in formal robes as before, yet the flowers he presents her with are smooth and have a pleasing scent.
"Good day, my lady," he states. "I've come on behalf of myself, the Doctor. And I extend my sincerest apologies for not doing so sooner."
"Why have you come, Doctor?" She puts the question to him, neutral.
He hesitates, wavering on a reveal that already reaches, unspoken, to her senses. "For you, my lady. If it pleases you, I wish to court you."
"No." The word acts almost like a push on him as he steps back. But she does not let it hang between them long. "The time is past for you to court me; we are already so known to each other. Why have we need of it? I would go with you now, if you desired it, to seek out what there is for us." It is a brazen declaration, because to think on it would give rise to doubts and worries and reality.
But he alleviates these, even as they come into being, with a tender smile. "In this instant all I seek is you, my dear."
"Then I am yours, my Doctor."
OoO
She is the first to say it, and yet she somehow knows she will not be the last. He is not hers, not anyone's, to keep.
OoO
These are the joyful, simple days, where nothing is expected of them and everything turns out right. Little faults are of no consequence, for any mistakes made are small and easily forgiven.
He lavishes such attention on her that might have before been reserved for his projects and experiments, of which she now knows all. Their minds are open to each other and every waking moment is spent in company.
He is to her like a book opened, his thoughts, his secrets, his name laid out before her for her eyes only. And she is his favorite study, an ongoing investigation to find every word, every touch to bring her the happiness he has promised.
Often he says he would never have had the courage or the fortune to approach her on his own, and she can't help now but be thankful for the circumstances that then seemed so terrible, for they have brought them here to this point. And she tells him so, and that courage is never found alone.
Just when she feels it can't be any more wonderful, the children prove her wrong. They are such delights, each a little miracle. And the way he takes to them, it is as though he was a father all his life and never knew it until now. Nothing brings her more bliss than to watch them at play, or to pour her love over them with him.
It is both never-ending and far too short, yet she would not think to trade it for anything. These memories will glow forever in her mind untainted by any future pain or tragedy, and she hopes they will in his. It is a life that living would be worth the losing.
OoO
When the children have grown and they are both feeling naively old in their aged first bodies, he looks more and more to the sky and its stars. They rest, ever present yet out of reach, above him and she knows his thoughts, that he feels the time has flown away from him and cheated him of his dreams.
He gives himself over to sullen moods and snappish words, softening only in her presence. But she, regretful and guilty of tethering him here, is not the one who breathes fresh life and hope and schemes; their precious flower, a granddaughter young and new in their late years, is drawn to his side and his care. The child dresses in that strange fashion as he does, listens raptly to his wild tales, fetches his cane or glasses or instruments scarcely before he has requested them, and she knows at last that he has found all that he needs from Gallifrey.
It is not as sad a realization as she has been dreading, fro there is a comfort and a sense of pride, too, that she gave him this.
She packs them food in a basket and forgets the blanket. It is a black coat she eases weary bones down onto this time as she tells him in plain words, "You needn't stay for me."
"My dear, I couldn't—"
"I will not hear it, Doctor. Long ago you inspired a strength in me to find my own way, my own happiness, and it is your turn to find yours. Go, it's too beautiful a universe to be wasted. Take her." The blessed child is her assurance that they will be safe and well, wherever their steps take them.
For there are mentions in her books, little words and phrases and the name Doctor littered across pages, that hint of what will come for him out there. And always there is someone at his side. It is her task to see that this starts now.
They share one last night under the stars.
OoO
She reads her books and he learns and experiences all that every time, every place, every thing has to offer. And they are neither one so lonely. Only when they really want to be, and even the loneliness is soothed with a warmth of having such a sense for each other and what was.
OoO
The books, the home, the silver-leaf tree, all are gone, and now she sleeps forever in his mind. She is and stays untainted; he does not. They is past.
All this she is never told.
So yeah…thoughts? If you're wondering why the style is a slight departure from my usual, I was sort of trying to give a sense of…translated Gallifreyan or something. I don't know if I succeeded, but there it is. Again, I would really, really love any and all feedback on this, so thanks very much for reading and please review!