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Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Fragmented Memory

Fragments were coming back. 

Her little fingers were clenched tightly in front of her, torn skin around the nails showing the fear she was desperately trying to hide; her knuckles were white from how fiercely she fought the need to pick at the skin once more. Her black hair was braided in an effort to keep it out of her face, and her dark eyes were unfocused, blinking thoughtlessly through the trees. 

Sweat beaded on her brow, but Magna refused to focus on it, turning instead to look at the woman walking beside her. She wore the traditional ceremonial red robes of their people, with a high red collar. Her grey eyes were hardened. Magna couldn’t help but wonder just what the woman had seen in her time here. How many other children had she escorted? What had she seen? Words of desperation nearly trickled out: cries of pain, questions, and requests for comfort barely scratching the surface for what she wished to utter, but the walk had to be made in silence. 

Magna swallowed hard, steeling herself to bear with the suffering. It couldn’t be much longer. They’d been walking for hours. Surely, the caldera must be close. 

Magna’s older brother had already done this. She hadn’t seen him since, but he had written to her: he’d told her that she wouldn’t survive, that she’d die staring into it, never to prove herself useful to their civilisation. She felt sick. 

The trees were thinning. They’d been walking for so long that the suns had set, and the darkness had become oppressive, meaning that Magna welcomed the extra space gained from losing the trees. She didn’t realise how close they were until they reached the tip of the mountainside they’d been climbing. Her thighs quivered at the prospect of going downhill now instead of uphill, and her hearts were beating hard after the long walk uphill. 

The footpath beneath her feet was worn, and it tipped downwards now in front of her. There were no trees in the centre, only a large metal hoop with a stepping stone in front of it, and within the hoop swirled something Magna couldn’t quite concentrate on. Surrounding the hoop were four braziers, alight with fires that brightened the entire clearing. 

The woman didn’t pause. With her gaze fixed firmly to the ground, she stepped into the clearing and led the way. Magna had no choice but to follow. She had to succeed. She had to be admitted to the academy. 

Each footstep into the clearing was agonising as Magna fatigued quickly, but she held back each whimper with sheer determination. She refused to fail at the last hurdle. Despite the exhaustion clinging to her limbs, Magna kept pace with the woman escorting her, until they stopped next to the circle. Magna knew what to do. The woman stood to the side, observing passively. 

Hearts pounding harder than ever, she stepped onto the stepped stone. Her eyes teared up in fear, but she blinked them away and looked into the Untempered Schism.
It was a gap in the fabric of reality, and through it, Magna could see...everything. Everything that had been, and that would be, and that could be. The fundamental truths of the universe became easily understood, and she saw how to manipulate them to create new. From anti-matter to macro-galaxies, Magna comprehended everything in existence. And through that, Magna saw the Time Vortex. A swirling mass of unknown substance that throbbed with life, ever changing and growing and shrinking. It called to her, it wanted her, it needed her, she-

Magna’s hands lifted involuntarily, as if she were going to touch the surface of a pond. The escort watched, unconcerned. Long gone were the days that they threw novices’ into the schism, but if they desired to touch it for themselves, they’d soon learn why it was a bad idea. As Magna’s hands passed the barrier, the escort was too late to prevent it; she had always been too late, and would always be too late. Time suddenly became meaningless to Magna. 

As her hands entered the Untempered Schism, infinitesimally small and incrementally deep tears appeared across her hands, up to where her wrists had entered the schism. As these slices started to bleed, the Time Vortex reached out to the child, and Magna screamed as her blood dripped from the numerous cuts and, in its place, the Time Vortex slipped in. 

Her voice curdled the escort’s blood, and she rushed forward to pull Magna back, but the damage was done: had been done, will be done, would always be done. Magna slipped into unconsciousness as the fraction of the Time Vortex bonded intrinsically with her mind, body and soul. 

Magna could see every choice she would ever have the option to make, and every choice she chose not to make, and every choice she could make, and not make, and create. Infinite timelines spanned out in front of her, unseeable and known only to her, but so clear and definite. She knew that every uncertainty she saw could happen. 

After her look into the Untempered Schism, she’d woken up in the Academy with sterile bandages wrapped around her hands up to her forearms. Her hands ached and felt heavy, like they carried more than they had before, and her skin was itchy. She was told that she must have gone mad, reaching into the schism as she had, but the professors only became confused when, in speaking to her, she remained perfectly coherent. As every novice who survived the Untempered Schism did, she joined classes shortly after, and despite being unable to make notes, she excelled in every class. Knowledge seemed to come easy now, despite her difficult upbringing, and her teachers soon realised that she had not gone mad, nor had she run away. 

As the following days turned into weeks, Magna began to understand what had happened, as she dreamed of events before they occurred. The night after her bandages came off, her hands turned golden, and light poured from the healing scars littering her hands to create a scene: her Matron was clearly distinctive, yelling at a child cowering in a corner. Knowledge poured into her mind as she watched the light move: this scene would occur if she did not make her bed that next morning. Breathless, Magna made the choice to make her bed, and the scene changed: Matron came by to complete her inspection, and smiled at Magna. 

Vitalised by this discovery, Magna spent weeks writing. She theorised possible scenarios for the future, with knowledge coming to her from beyond her comprehension, and she began to craft a timeline. The joy this brought her was immense, and she thrived on discovering new possibilities for her days. How much could she change? 

Until she saw one of her possible futures. Her husband would kill her for the sake of war. 

The knowledge haunted her, and she didn’t sleep for three weeks. She spent those nights hunting for ways to change it: how many decisions did she need to change in order prevent her own death? This continued until she was shown them. 

It was some silly early hour in the morning. She knew she would be exhausted for her first class in two hours time, but she was as restless as she had been for three weeks. Her hands were cupped in front of her, cradling the fading image of another possible death. The tears on her cheeks were familiar. Magna thought her teachers had been wrong: she must have been driven mad by the schism, because surely this was insanity. 

She thought back to the series of choices she’d selected. She had already seen the war that would end her home planet, and she had already reacted and moved past it. It wasn’t relevant to her futures. She needed to know every possible outcome. She had to find the best one. She changed one choice. 

Her hands glowed once more, and she watched as the light formed two shaped. A woman was stood too close to a man, in the way adults often did when they were affectionate towards each other, and she playfully flicked an item of clothing attached around his neck. The light-portrayed man soundlessly laughed, throwing his head back and running a golden hand through his messy golden hair. A second woman with more hair than head rested her arms on the first woman’s shoulders, affectionately leaning their heads together. 

The image disappeared, and Magna’s hearts ached. Her mouth was ajar, and every cell in her body yearned to experience that moment. The light started to fade, and her eyes stung at the prospect of losing the image. As fast as she possibly could, she did her best to memorise the series of choices leading to that moment. She didn’t care about the husband; she didn’t care about the war; she didn’t care about the endless regenerations; she didn’t care about the pain; she wanted that moment. 

She skipped her first class. And every class that day. And the next. Instead, she gathered as much paper from the library as possible and created a timeline, starting from that first day, the day she’d entered the Untempered Schism, and leading to that moment; that goal. Every single choice that impacted that goal was written on the paper. It had started on her desk, and soon she had to tape it to her wall and move around her room, taping up more paper to continue drawing every choice and branch and opposite decision until she ran out of wall. And then she made a new line underneath, with more paper, and more choices, and decisions. 

When her Matron checked on her a week later, after she’d claimed sickness one too many times, she could only gape at the long, consecutive timeline that circled Magna’s room, not once, not twice, but three times. 

Magna was decreed an inspired one from that moment on. 

Despite her work to remember every molecule of that moment she desired, the knowledge drifted from her mind over time. Her timeline helped, but eventually, while she knew she had wanted to make certain choices at pivotal moments, she couldn’t recall the exact reason why. 

“It took you boys long enough,” she complained, pushing off from a wall behind her to join the steps of her two friends. “Did you get stuck figuring out whose plain, white button up shirt was whose?” She teased, and the two boys rolled their eyes. “Or were you talking about your crushes?” The use of the human word was uncommon for Magna, but given Theta’s interest in that race, she wanted to show how she’d been keeping updated on his interests. 

“Shut it, Magna,” one of them snapped. “It’s not really any of your business, anyway. You’re a girl.” 

“You’ve been spending too much time off-world, Koschei. Remember, you could become a girl one day,” Magna grinned at the short boy, and he glared at her. 

“And you’ve been too contained to this world, Magna. Does your daddy not let you leave?” 

“Guys, please, can we not? Can we please spend this day not fighting? Just one day?” The second boy asked, and Magna looked at him, her hearts softening in remembered affection, although she wasn’t sure why. 

“I’m sorry, Starboy,” Magna murmured, knocking her shoulder against his. The use of his nickname made the boy smile gently at him. 

“It’s not my fault Magna’s an ass,” Koschei muttered under his breath, and Magna immediately hardened again. 

Her words were difficult to chew, but she spat them out. “Suck my cock." 

Unfortunately, that was the moment their teacher walked close by. “My office, now.”

“Sir-“ Magna tried to protest, but Borusa sent her a harsh glare. She bowed her head. “Okay, I’m coming.” 

Koschei chuckled behind her, but Magna sent him her cruelest glare. He smirked at her despite how his hearts seemed to stutter slightly in fear. Magna walked away from them, following Borusa to his office. 

“Magna, you know you can’t antagonise him forever,” he scolded. He wasn’t even really angry with her, although how she knew that, she wasn’t sure. 

“I know,” she kicked the carpeted ground behind her feet, frustration in every pore of her body. “I don’t want to marry him, sir.” 

“It’s not your choice, child. Unfortunately, due to the nature of your birth and livelihood, you must obey your parents in this.” 

“He’s going to be cruel,” Magna murmured, her voice low as knowledge came to her. Her hands started glowing, but her eyes were far away, distracted by the thoughts she was having. Borusa was struck silent as he watched the golden light portray an older man striking an older woman before leaving her strewn across the floor. Magna’s eyes burned with tears, knowing this was her future, and the image disappeared before Borusa could draw attention to it. “It will be a long marriage, Borusa. You will hate him too, before the end of all.” 

Magna looked into his old eyes, surprised at the fear and sadness she saw in them, and she fled. 

Theta read stories of human Greek myths, from Perseus to Hercules to Artemis, but Magna’s imagination fired when he spoke of a minor Goddess from the mythos; a sorceress called Circe. She had been a witch, who used magic and herbs to turn men into animals, but when asked for help, she willingly gave it, safely guiding the Greek hero Odysseus back to his home and wife. Magna pondered over the name, rolling it over in her mind before she interrupted him, asking, “do I suit Circe?”
Theta looked up from his book, surprised at the question, but he frowned, studying her carefully. Magna felt as if he was studying her soul with how open she was being, but he didn’t judge her for it. He’d never judged her. The thought sent her hearts aflutter. 

“Why do you think it might?” He asked. 

She pursed her lips, thinking to the golden dust futures she’d seen and conjured, and the pathways she’d seen and how to make them come true. She thought about her studies, and how she’d assisted students without being seen to do so, and even aided the troublemakers as needed without being caught. 

“Just a thought,” she mused, giving nothing away. 

He continued to study her. Magna quite enjoyed how she felt under his scrutiny, and despite herself began to feel a blush rise in her cheeks. After a long moment, he nodded.
“I think it could,” he finally said. 

Theta sighed into the air above them, his brown eyes alight with contentment. The cool air condensed when hit with his hot breath, and the water vapour spiralled into patterns that attempted to mimic the spectacle above their heads, yet only paled in comparison. 

Magna wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, but she laid next to him, his fingers wrapped in her own, and her eyes beheld a sight unlike anything she’d ever experienced on Gallifrey. He’d timed it perfectly, as the moment they’d laid on the cold stone, the sky erupted into fire: colours Magna hadn’t seen danced across the stratosphere like pebbles skimming water, and multicoloured sparks rained down harmlessly where corona jets fired into the planet’s atmosphere, like highly dangerous, unpredictable fireworks. So used to a sky of red, she was in awe of the deep purple the night sky of this planet saw regularly, and each flash of colour only accentuated the deep richness of the new sky. Theta hadn’t told her where they would be going, but he’d promised that her first trip would be something really special. 

A dart of gold raced across the sky, and she followed it, bittersweetly reminded of her own gold dust that flowed through her body. The reminder only served to sober her, as she recalled how the night would have to end in order for the best outcome to occur. 

“I have to tell you something,” Circe murmured, not brave enough to look at him while she spoke. The words felt dirty and unwelcome in such a beautiful, serene place. The Doctor seemed to sense that. He rolled onto his side, resting his head on his hand to look at her properly. 

“Okay, sure,” he prompted when she didn’t continue. “What is it?” 

Circe bit her lip, hating how her eyes stung with tears. She was better than this: her emotions would not overcome her this time. Without looking away from the sky, she said, “Koschei and I are to be wed.” 

She didn’t want to keep track of how long it took him to respond, but her body’s innate clock made it impossible. He was silent for four minutes and thirty-seven seconds. They breathed together in the cooling air, the sky alight with the passion they had felt for each other for years. 

“I don’t even get a chance,” he finally whispered. Circe still didn’t look at him, despite how his eyes begged her to. “I never had one,” he realised. 

Circe blinked, accidentally releasing a tear. His hand raised to touch it, before he remembered what she’d said, and it stopped a hairs’ breadth from her skin. He pulled away. “I never had a chance, did I?” 

Circe couldn’t breathe. 

“Doctor,” she broke first, “how are you?”

“Magna, please,” his voice was soft, desperate, but Circe couldn’t bear it.

“My name is Circe, and I’d thank you to use it.” She didn’t mean to snap, but the words came across harshly, and if she hadn’t been so well trained, she might have winced. 

His sharp exhalation was loud in the silent room. “Are you,” he interrupted himself with a sharp laugh, “no, you’re not joking. I’m sorry, I forgot what you’re like for a moment there.” 

Circe clicked her tongue, still refusing to turn to face him. “How long were you away?” She asked, as if she hadn’t been counting the seconds since she’d last seen him. 

“Too long, apparently.” His words were humourless now, and they seemed to cut more than his laugh had. 

The silence fell again, and Circe wanted to itch her hands, to take away the ache that was building under her skin, but she wasn’t allowed to. She heard his weight shift before his hand landed on her shoulder. “Circe, please, just look at me.” He was beside her, his presence comforting and strange. 

It had been six years since she’d last seen him; since she’d told him of her relationship to their mutual friend; since he’d shouted at her and stormed out. Any familiarity they’d shared had long since evaporated.

At least, it should have. 

“I didn’t intend to be gone for so long.” He didn’t force her to look at him, but his hand stayed firmly on her shoulder, his thumb brushing tantalisingly close to the collar of her shirt. She was forced to remember nights spent curled next to him watching astronomical events across the galaxies, touches with bated breath as they’d worried for the other’s reaction. His breath fanning her cheeks. The soft fingertips brushing across her neck, as if he’d been painting an intricate portrait on her skin. 

She stood suddenly, her head erupting in pain, and she moved away from her seat, and him, as she rubbed her forehead. 

“Magna, what is it? What’s wrong?” He asked, and Circe threw a hand out to him, still not looking at him. 

“I’m fine,” she insisted. She took a deep breath, forcefully throwing aside the pain, and finally looked at him. “It has been six years,” she pushed the words out, despite how she longed to say something else. His hair was slicked back, and his brown eyes were so immensely worried and familiar. He was watching her closely, far too intelligent to be subdued by her words. “Why did you come back?” She asked instead of letting him dwell on her. “Why are you here?” 

Something flickered across his face, and he ran a hand through his hair, messing up the style he’d put it into. Indecision appeared, before he seemed to gather the courage to speak. Moments passed while he did so, in which Circe refused to lessen the still air between them. 

“I heard about you and…him.” His eyes narrowed slightly with the words. “I suppose I should be offering you congratulations, then?” The word was spat from his mouth, and his tone made Circe’s spine stiffen in offence.

“I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself,” she sniped, rolling her eyes at his immediate reaction. He had never hidden his dramatics well, despite how much she had told him it revealed. “Honestly, what did you think was going to happen, Doctor? After years of silence, what could I do?” 

“But even before I left, you’d made your choice.” His face had shut from her; his voice gone cold. 

“Do you know what I’ve been through?” She whispered. She wanted to look away, but she had to see the truth in his face. 

His eyes darkened, and anger and understanding came as quickly as they left. He gave a brief nod, regardless of it being unnecessary, and Circe nodded. She pursed her thin lips.

“He’s still in here. I have spent my entire life trying to find the best timeline, the best solution, the best resolution: the one that brings me back to you quickest. And I’m sorry, Theta, but you’ll have to wait again.” She stepped towards him, her scarred hand trembling with tension as she placed it against his cheek. He leant in for the briefest of moments, the hint of vulnerability only reminding Circe of why this was the most fragile moment in the timeline. 

“What do you need?” His voice was gruff, but his words were his consent. 

Using her fingers that were already placed against his temple, Circe entered his mind and erased his short term memory. The tampering of his mind caused him to fall unconscious, and Circe caught him easily, lowering him to lay on the floor. 

“No, please. It’s the least I can do,” she smiled at him, and John found himself momentarily captivated by her striking blue eyes. He felt he could spend an eternity swimming into their depths, such was the vivid colour of them. 

“My name’s John. John Smith,” he finally said, breaking eye contact with a blush and clear of his throat. She smiled, heart stuttering. 

“I’m Florence Reagan, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Smith.” She handed the clothes she’d folded to Martha, who packed them into the suitcase while keeping an eye on the two. Florence then reached out to the clothes balled in John’s hand and gently took them, folding them neatly. “You should make sure to fold your shirts carefully, else you’ll be dealing with wrinkles for months to come.” 

John’s mouth gaped momentarily, and Florence chuckled. 

“Thank you, Miss Reagan,” he murmured, heart stuttering. 

“Do I really look like that?” She murmured, half a laugh already on her lips. She glanced up to John to see his face closer than she’d anticipated, and she wet her lips in shock before looking back down. She looked back to the book to try and hide her nerves, pointing to a drawing of one of his creations he’d made. “Are you sure that’s not me?” 

His chuckle was low, but he confirmed, “definitely this page.” 

“She’s…otherworldly. Ethereal,” Florence whispered.

“Well, that’s how I see you.” 

She swallowed. His hand came up to push back a curl from her face, and she glanced up at him again, to see his eyes studying her. 

“Spinsters aren’t supposed to be beautiful. Sometimes I think the world would rather we stopped.” She looked at the drawing again, seeing how distant the drawn portrait seemed to be. “Is that fair? That we stop.” 

“No,” he murmured, and Florence looked into his eyes, seeing once again the age and wisdom he held, despite his youthful face. For a moment, she almost thought she’d stepped into one of her dreams. “That’s not fair at all.”

With those words, he carefully, as though afraid of overstepping, placed his lips to hers.

“Seeing the sights, waiting on some old friends, meeting the locals, a bit of everything,” Jack Harkness grinned. “Bit of an adventure chaser, and heard you’d had a bit of trouble around here a couple decades ago. Wanted to check it out, have a look around.” He glanced at Joan, sending her a wink. “Broad like you might be able to help me, hey?” 

Joan pursed her lips, “when were you looking at?” 

Florence and Joan knew exactly what event he was asking about. 

“I think it was 1912, or 1913? Old guy called Hutchinson reckoned he fought alongside a man called the Doctor.” Jack watched as both women’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Heard of him?” 

“Oh boy,” Joan muttered, which Florence steadily ignored. 

“Oh yes. We’ve heard of him,” Florence said stiffly, piquing the Captain’s interest. 

“You know of what happened here?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“We were there,” Joan said, and she hushed Florence when she protested. “Both of us were there.” 

Jack looked over Florence, disbelief clear on his face. “You sure about that? Unless you’re implying you and Doc…-“ Jack glanced at Joan, eyes wide and twinkling in shock and humour. 

Joan’s eyes widened, “oh no! No, God, no!”

“Speaking of, how many years has it been since-“ Martha started to ask, but Florence interrupted her before she could finish it. 

“56 years.” 

“And you don’t look a day older,” Martha finished, now scrutinising the woman. 

The Doctor waved it off, “Time Lord biology - she might be completely human right now, but her body is still Time Lord enough to stay alive for longer than any human could.” He still didn’t look away from her. 

Florence placed the three mugs of tea on the table in the centre of the kitchen and took a seat. 

“Alright for some,” Martha laughed, sitting at the head of the table. The Doctor sat opposite Florence. 

Florence huffed a laugh. “Yeah, alright to see all my friends die.” Martha stared in shock. 

“Joan?” He asked tentatively, and Florence shook her head. 

“Joan died in ’63, I think. She got married, had two kids, and they’ve now had kids. Her husband never knew who I was, so I had to leave about 10 years after they married. We met up in secret every now and then, but it wasn’t the same.” Florence’s heart twisted as she remembered the funeral, where she must have looked crazy to be sobbing over a woman she couldn’t have known. 

“And Timmy?” The Doctor asked, almost nervous. Florence laughed, smiling at him for the first time. 

“He’s so alive, still kicking,” she laughed for joy. “He must be 71 now, god. And no signs of slowing down, either. He wants you to know he’ll be in Farringham on Remembrance Day 2000, says he’ll see you then.” 

“Florence, darling!” David Bowie exclaimed, embracing her tightly. Florence hugged him back, then quickly pulled him into the apartment. “How are you?” 

“I’ve been better, honestly,” Florence laughed. “Are you well?” 

“Very!“ He sat at her kitchen table, and pulled out his extraordinary make up kit and compact mirror. “Ready to be fabulous!” 

“I’ll catch you downstairs in 20?” She checked, and he nodded. 

Florence turned to run downstairs, except at that moment, the hallway door opened, and the Doctor poked his head out. 

“Hang on, is that David Bowie?” He exclaimed, making Florence groan. 

“Not now, Doctor, please!” 

“He really does it,” she murmured, “my best friend becomes an international, no, intergalactic success!” Her eyes slid to the Doctor, who stayed watching David Bowie interacting with the blue aliens around him in both fascination and curiosity. 

“I mean, his music spreads as far as humans do, so…he keeps living through his legacy.” The Doctor smiled, “of all musicians for you to find and befriend, though, I think you picked one of the best.” 

Florence smiled brightly, her blue eyes glittering in pure joy. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t pick a bad one,” she nudged his side with her elbow, and when he glanced at her, she beamed. “I don’t pick bad friends.” 

The Doctor frowned in confusion for a moment, before his eyes lit up in understanding and happiness. “No, I suppose you never have,” he grinned. 

“Come on, Flo. How was it? To see him,” Timothy asked, his voice low. He reached across the table to pick up her hands, which had been fidgeting in front of her. Her hands stilled in his, and she smiled at him. 

“He was so…different, and yet there were parts of him I knew,” Florence murmured, “his face was so much John, but…even the way he smiled was different. And his voice I knew, but his words were strange. But he was incredible,” Florence pursed her lips, reluctant to admit it despite its truth. “I think, despite what happened, we could be friends one day.” 

Timmy smiled, his old face warm and relieved. “And here I was, worrying you might have thrown them out on the street,” he laughed and Florence rolled her eyes. 

“I nearly did,” she admitted to his shock. “Martha literally turned up in my bar, basically demanding that they stay! What else was I going to do?” Florence insisted. 

“You’re an idiot,” Timothy teased, and Florence laughed. “But seriously, Florence, are you okay? Arnie said you were devastated. I came as quickly as I could drag Marie away from work.” 

A familiar bittersweet twist pulled at Florence’s heart as she stared her brother in the face, and he squeezed her hands upon seeing the conflict in her expression. 

“I wanted to hate him,” she murmured carefully, weighing her words, “but he was so John and so not John, and I couldn’t blame him for wanting to come back to life. Plus, it’s been 56 years, or something,” Florence laughed as if she hadn’t been counting the days since she’d first met John. “It’s way past time I moved on, surely.” 

Timmy squeezed her hands again, making Florence want to cry. “What’s holding you back?” He asked. 

Florence wasn’t going to tell him that the primary reason she was still persisting in her humanity was him. 

“Well, as first impressions go, I’m always willing to make a strong one.” River was smug, and Florence was confused, until the hand at the back of her head was pulling her in, and suddenly the mysterious woman’s lips were on hers, and Florence stood frozen as she was kissed, her eyes frozen half closed. Her lips were cool against Florence’s, and they moved ever so slightly in encouragement. They stayed there for a few seconds before the woman finally pulled back, licking her lips in smug amusement. “I’m Professor River Song, love. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” 

Florence reared back, a laugh leaving her slightly hysterically. She reached up to touch her lips, still staring at River Song in shock. 

“Florence, I can help,” River tried to approach, but Florence just screamed at her, the sound ripped from her throat in an instinctive, animalistic manner. Her eyes welled up with tears, and Florence frantically tore at her wrist, ignoring her bleeding hand to rip off the watch Jack had given her. 

“Get out of here,” Florence groaned, throwing the watch towards Princeton and River. 

“I won’t leave you-“ River tried to say, and Florence shook her head, stilling her movements to look at River.

As Florence spoke, realisation filled River, and her expression gradually grew more horrified. “He’s in my head. The Master is in my fucking head, River! Get the fuck OUT OF HERE!” Florence screamed.

“I don’t need to punish you yet. Either you’ll punish yourself, or I’ll be able to do much worse.” 

Florence glanced back to the watch, and understanding dawned on her. 

He grasped her uninjured hand and wrapped it around the meat tenderiser. 

“Here’s your choice: either you, Florence, die, and allow Circe, the conniving bitch, to return to life and I get to play with someone much more capable of taking my blows, or you destroy any chance that she has of ever coming back. You use that hammer to beat that watch into a metal pretzel, and I get to frame it as the masterpiece of metalwork it will be and continue to play with you instead! Either way, I get to continue having a plaything.” He shrugged. 

Florence’s eyes teared up, and she dropped the hammer to the countertop once he released her hand, unable to hold the grip. “I-I can’t,” she muttered, “I can’t do that.” 

“Which one?” He asked, faking sympathy. 

“I can’t kill her,” she felt the tears start to fall, but her mind started to slip into the disassociation she’d come to be familiar with when around the Master. “I can’t.” Her voice broke, and the Master groaned. His palm hit the table in front of her, and she jumped, her eyes snapping up to lock onto his brown eyes. Unfettered resentment swam in his eyes, and Florence cringed. 

“There was no third option, Florence,” he growled. “Kill, or die! Just choose already!” 

Florence laughed, the sound maybe more panicked than she’d have liked it to be, before the beast was moving towards them, and she and the Doctor ran out from the tables to the back door. 

As they ran past the door, Florence sent a prayer up to a God she scarcely believed in and flicked the light switches. The explosion behind them threw them both forward, shattering glass windows. 

“Let’s go, come on, Mrs Saxon!” The Doctor cried, pulling her up. He started running, but Florence grinned at him, shaking her head. 

“It’s Florence to you, Doctor! Always Florence!” She backed away, much to his confusion, but the beast was already moving again, and she ran the opposite way to the Doctor, leaving the Doctor with no choice but to leave her behind. 

“How am I alive?” Her voice was hoarse, but he still heard her. 

“Oooh, very good question, let’s see…” he paused, as if he was actually pondering the words instead of reciting a speech he’d already planned seven different ways. “Well, after my property threw herself off a bell tower, I had to get those goons to collect you. Scooped you up, broken bones and all, and brought you back here. And I hadn’t told you to kill yourself, so I didn’t let you die.” She winced as his finger landed not-so-gently on her nose. “Bit of regeneration energy, and Bob’s your uncle! Well, not actually. I do hate human sayings, they never fit quite the right way.” 

“‘M not a time lord,” Florence murmured. He laughed at her.

“Clever bit on my part, you see, the real you, you as a Time Lady, was a bit special. She had access to the Time Vortex,” his voice changed, envy or fury twisting him, “which gave her special treatment. And that means your body contains just a teensy, tiny amount of the same specialness.” 

Harold’s arms were tight around her shoulders, and his lips brushed her ear as he said, “this old man is the Doctor.” 

The words sent ice down Florence’s spine. Her skin quivered, and she tried not to burst into tears. She didn’t remember why she feared the Doctor, but the title caused pure fear to coil in every molecule of her body. She couldn’t stop a sob from escaping, and her husband caressed her hair softly, cooing like one might to a frightened animal. 

“It’s okay, my love, he can’t hurt you now. I’m here. I’ll protect you from the big bad doctor,” his words didn’t soothe her, although Florence couldn’t figure out why. 

“What have you done to her?” The cuffed man yelled, and Florence heard some commotion. When she peaked out from her husband’s chest, the man was knocked out, a guard stood behind him with the butt of his gun aimed meaningfully at the man’s head. 

“You’ve still got so much to go, so much life to live. And I don’t know if you remember, but I promised River-"

The name River sent a shock through Florence and her head shot upright. Her blue eyes, bloodshot though they were, were burning into his. 

“It was you,” she murmured, and his eyebrows burrowed down in confusion. 

“What was me?” He asked, an unsure sly smile on his face. “I haven’t done anything to you that you haven’t asked me to.” He winked, but Florence didn’t react. 

“You’re the reason he found me.” The words tasted like dirt in her mouth. “You and River. You told me I’d be safe.” 

“It’s not your fault.” His words carried across the space, and Florence wanted to weep. 

“Yes, it is. I did this,” she whispered. “I couldn’t see a man take his own life, so I saved him.” The memory of that day drifted forward, and she smiled, despite how tears welled in her eyes. She stood upright, looking at the Doctor. “I refused to be like Circe. I would not be a warrior, or a soldier, or a fighter. I would save the one man I could. But I’ve given myself an eternity of pain, and in doing so, I’ve destroyed any chance Circe had of being free.” As she blinked, a few tears fell, and she wiped them away quickly. “He made me destroy her.” Her voice broke, and she saw the Doctor’s eyes darken. 

She wondered if he would care for her now that he knew she could never return as a Time Lord; now that she would live on forever as a human, unable to move on and unable to die and unable to live. Would he leave her, if they ever escaped from the Master? 

Maybe, given she’d killed one of his people, he’d kill her. 

“I was ready, you know?” She murmured, revealing what she had never told a soul. “I was ready to go. I’d lived a century, and Timmy was nearly gone. Once I’d buried him, I was going to open the watch.” 

“Rescue me,” she clarified, seeing the confusion on Oswin’s face, “from what?” 

Realisation dawned on Oswin’s face, and Florence got confused when she also saw worry and hurt. “I think I remember this,” she murmured, her eyes suddenly far away in a vagueness that felt familiar to Florence. “I think…he told me…warned me, about this.” 

“My husband?” Florence asked, her breaths coming shorter. “Why would he warn you about anything?”
Oswin smiled, but it wasn’t as pure as her laughter had been. It was twisted, cutting in a way that even the pain in her side could’t replicate. “Yes, I suppose it was your husband,” but her voice was unsure, even despite the confidence she’d spoken with. “And I’m also saving you from…your husband,” Oswin turned away for a moment, her face obviously conflicted, before she turned back to Florence, her previous flamboyance returned. “So let me save you!”

“I begged, didn’t I?” She murmured amid everyone else’s screams. “I begged you to stop, once upon a time.” She reared her hand back and slapped him. His head whipped to the side, and Florence watched the red handprint bloom on his cheek. His eyes burned with tears, and Florence pushed her hand harder into his chest. 

The fob watch against the right side of her chest burned, spurring her on. The rage Circe felt only exacerbated Florence’s own, and even though they both knew that the Doctor would dislike what they wanted, they kept on. 

“We begged you to have mercy, Master.” 

“Please, Circe, please, the Doctor wouldn’t like it-“ 

“But the Doctor is distracted.” Another slap, this time backhanded so that his head flew to the other side. The smile on Florence’s face would’ve disturbed anyone who could stop for long enough to view this chaos. “And you trained me in the art of pain.” 

“It was so good to see you again, Doc.” 

“Don’t talk like that, Flo,” he begged, but Florence shook her head. 

“I’ve spent a century running away from you, and now look at me: I took the equivalent of a nuclear bomb to save your life. How many people can say that?” She laughed, but the action obviously caused her pain. The Doctor smiled bitterly at her: he didn’t want her to have taken the blast, he wanted her to be alive. If the blast had hit him, he might’ve been able to regenerate. As it was, she was still human. 

The fob watch, still hidden within her bra, started to burn uncomfortably against her skin. Florence strained to pull it out to show the Doctor. His dark eyes, already wet with tears, only became shadowed at the sight of the destroyed fob watch. 

“He made you do this?” The Doctor murmured. 

Florence only watched as the Doctor took the watch from her hands and shut his eyes in pain. 

“She’s still alive, in there,” Florence revealed. “Turns out she’s not dead, just trapped, forever.” Her head fell back into the crook of his elbow, her breathing quickening. Her eyes locked with his, studying the pain in his expression. “She’s not lost, Doc. One last chance.” 

“Captain, it’s time for you to go back into the ship,” she warned calmly, even as she stepped further out into Japan. 

“What date is this?” He asked suddenly, understanding dawning on his face. 

“August 9th. This is Nagasaki, and this is the safest place for me to regenerate.” She turned to face him, and as people around them started running for shelter, her skin started glowing gold. “You will die if you stay.” 

The Captain shook his head. “I know why you hate me, and if this can in any way make up for it, I’ll do it. I won’t let you die alone.” He stepped up next to her, looking up to the plane. He sent her a smirk. “Anyway, I’m hardier than you think. I might even survive this with all my limbs in tact!”  

“Theta.”

Circe woke up. 

Chapter Text

Her body knew it had been 3 days before she even opened her eyes. Every cell in her body felt alive in a way it hadn’t for one hundred years, and for a long moment, she revelled in that feeling. Her mind sang with knowledge she hadn’t known to be possible since the day she’d entered the chameleon arch. She analysed her body, checking each system for any maladies or inconsistencies, but a preliminary check showed everything physical to be working. 

When she opened her eyes, she was in a bedroom, and she instinctively knew she was in a TARDIS. The surroundings weren’t hugely important, given she knew she was safe within the walls of a familiar technology, so she mostly ignored them. She stood, rising further than she remembered doing last time she had stood. Her limbs felt…longer than she remembered. She brought her hands up to her face, inspecting them. The skin was tawny, a golden undercurrent to the warm colour, littered with brown spots that she recalled to be named ‘freckles’, and the silvery scarring littering her forearms familiar from every body she’d known. She frowned, long fingers reaching to trace the visible freckles that ran along her skin. Looking up, she found a full length mirror directly opposite her. She sent a wave of gratitude to the TARDIS matrix telepathically, appreciating the warmth she felt in response. 

The woman in the mirror was tall, with gangly limbs that almost seemed too long for her body were her torso not also stretched. She had striking green eyes, and Circe took a moment to study them, noting the flecks of golden brown within them. Her eyes were slanted slightly, bringing attention to a pointed nose, and upturned lips. Her face was also speckled with freckles, most prominently across her nose and sharp cheekbones. Framing her face were ringlets of dark brown hair, falling to below her shoulder blades. With an odd twinge of amusement, she noted that the silk pyjamas she wore only brushed her forearms and the middle of her calves. The waistband of the pants was visible beneath the risen hemline of the shirt, and hanging loosely to her hips. The sight was confusing to her, until she realised that her wrists were also too slender, and her darker skin clung tightly to the bones there. 

A tentative telepathic brush against her exposed mind was enough to send her into panic. She mentally collapsed down around the foreign intruder, forcing it into a corner of her mind to be examined. Outwardly, she didn’t react, but her hearts beat faster in her chest, and she refused to recall the centuries she’d spent feeling this way. The intruder was trapped, but suddenly there was only one sound filling her ears: four beats. 

He wasn’t dead. How was he not dead? Her breathing sped up, and her knees collapsed, bringing her to the floor. She fell onto her hands, but fought to stand. 

If he wasn’t dead, she was going to kill him herself. 

There was another Time Lord approaching, fast. She couldn’t even rise to her knees, with the four beats drumming away her mind. The door slammed open, and she looked up to the man stood there. He had a light blue button up shirt on, and brown dress suit pants. His chestnut hair was stuck up in every direction, and his eyes were warm, even as they took in her new appearance in fearful curiosity. Two names for him warred in her mind, and she struggled to figure out who was who. 

“Circe, it’s me! It’s the Doctor, it’s okay! You’re okay!” He exclaimed, one hand holding the door open and the other held out to her, palm open to her. “It’s the Doctor, it’s okay. It’s just me.” His words slowed as he spoke, and she stared at him, her eyes watering but she kept his gaze. 

It took her mind a moment to comprehend the situation. She could hear the trespasser in her mind calling out to her, saying the same words the man in her room was. The drumming was slowing, but it was persistent, circling her mind inescapably. 

“Circe…” she murmured, registering the name. “That’s me.” 

“Yes,” he cried, warily joyful, “yes, it is!” 

“You’re the Doctor.” She eyed him carefully, and he nodded slowly, face lighting up easily. 

“I am, yes.” 

She took a deep breath, which seemed to help the drumming and her hearts calm down, and lifted a knee to help stand. She caught the Doctor’s reaction to it as he crouched further, as though preparing to duck or grab her, but he didn’t move; he only relaxed into his crouch and sent her a wide grin. 

“Did you try to invade my mind?” She asked outright, still feeling the telepathic intrusion trapped in her mind. 

He grimaced, looking away from her for a second. She…Circe took the moment to shift her weight and stand once more, resting a hand against the wall as she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. When he looked back, she was upright, one long arm pressing her hand into the wall beside her. He looked surprised at her height; if he was right in his approximations, she would stand a few inches taller than him. 

“I might have tried to communicate telepathically, but I wanted to make sure you were awake and decent before I came storming in…”

“And instead, you triggered a trauma response and stormed in anyway.” 

His eyes bugged out of his head for a moment, and he raised the outstretched hand to rub the back of his neck in chagrin. “Ahh…I suppose I did, I-yes.” He licked his lips, unsure what to say. “Can, uh - can you let me go?” 

Circe realised that she had been holding his mind in her own for too long, and released the barriers immediately. In their place, she built a long path, avoiding any sensitive material of her mind, and led him out. The moment he was out, Circe locked her mind up tightly, sewing together any seam that was less than perfect and chaining it together with the mental equivalent of a padlock. The drumming still pounded in her mind, filling up too much of her mental capacity. 

He sighed in relief once he’d been released, and sent her a big grin. “I apologise for that. I didn’t think you would react quite so…” 

“Extremely?” Circe supplied with a raised eyebrow, and he nodded, happy that he didn’t have to say so. 

“Yeah, exactly!” He took half a step into the room, and her door finally clicked shut behind him. “So, uh…hello!” He looked her over again, and grinned. “You look great!” 

Circe frowned, glancing down her body herself. “I will need to eat more before I am capable of returning to my usual training schedule, but it shouldn’t take long.” She didn’t notice his eyes darken, busying herself with examining the lack of muscles on her arms and legs and her sunken hips and collarbones. “I estimate a few weeks of increased intake should suffice.” 

His eyes were already dark, but something darker swirled within them. His voice was lower when he spoke next. “Circe, you don’t need to return to a training schedule, not if you don’t want to.” 

She looked at him, confused. “Well, what am I supposed to do?” 

He released a long breath, clicked his tongue a few times and rocked back and forth on his heels. “That’s the question we all have to deal with, hey? What do we do with ourselves?” His tone was jovial, but his words didn’t assist Circe’s understanding. 

“But, do you not need me to continue fighting?” 

“The war is over, Circe. The fighting is done.” His words were urgent, but they didn’t line up with what Circe thought she knew. 

“But I-Florence-was fighting someone. She was furious, and hurt, and scared. I-I-I-“ Circe was glad she’d thought to keep hold of the wall, as she suddenly was attacked by an onslaught of memories, and her body swayed dangerously side to side. 

The Doctor was beside her in a moment, hands hovering but reluctant to touch. “Circe, what is it? What can I do?” He spoke quickly, as if aware that Circe might collapse at any moment. 

She drifted to the side, closer to the wall. “Too many memories, I-I think I regenerated too close to my return,” her words were slurring, and the Doctor could only watch in concern. “John, where’s John?” She looked to him in fear, but before the Doctor could respond, she was looking beyond him. Her eyes shone gold for a moment, and her thin frame shook as she viciously coughed regeneration dust into the air. 

“The impossible man!” Circe suddenly exclaimed. She grabbed the Doctor’s shoulder, her grip tighter than her weakened muscles should have been able to do, and she stared deeply into his eyes. Her green eyes were speckled with spots of golden brown, and they seemed to shine as she intently stared into his eyes. “Is he alive?” 

“You mean Jack?”

“The Captain!” 

The Doctor nodded quickly, and Circe released him. 

The memories had stopped momentarily. She could think clearly, but she knew she would have to spend at least the next week of spare time sifting through every memory she didn’t have full understanding of. She would not be caught unaware because of a weak mind. 

“I request to see him,” she asked, standing upright. She released the wall, her hands moving to rest comfortably together at her lower back. The Doctor could only recognise it for what it was: a soldier at rest. 

“You don’t have to request anything. If you wish it, this could be your home too. You can see Jack anytime.” The Doctor wanted the words to be comforting to Circe, to prove that his intention wasn’t to kick her out, but she looked viscerally uncomfortable with the idea. 

“With respect, no. This is your home. You are my superior. I must make requests, not demands. It is within your right to allow or deny them.” Her voice was hardened now, and any trace of emotion that the Doctor had seen before was gone. He couldn’t find any trace of the fearful Time Lord who had just awoken. 

The Doctor sighed through his nose, exasperated. “The war is over, Circe. You’re not a soldier anymore.” 

She looked confused. “But I am. They made me a soldier. That doesn’t go away.” His expression crumpled into one she couldn’t read easily; his emotions moved so quickly and were so visible that she was having trouble reading him. 

“They made you a weapon.”

“Soldier, weapon; what difference does it make?” 

“A soldier has a choice!” He snapped, backing away from Circe. “A choice to fight. A choice that you never had, Magna.”

“Don’t call me that.” She didn’t mean to snap at him, but the words were edged with anger, and she could clearly see the Doctor’s surprise, even through her struggle to understand his emotions. “The last eight centuries before I became human were spent fighting. The two before that: training. I have been a solider for longer than most species are alive. I am a soldier, that a commander may choose to deploy if they require it!” Her voice rose when he tried to interrupt her, until she was yelling at him. When she took a breath to continue, he finally spoke over her. 

“A weapon is crafted for the purpose of war! A soldier is trained to prevent it,” in direct contrast to how she’d spoken to him before, his words started loudly, and then softened, and his eyes softened, and Circe watched as understanding and something else dawned in his eyes. “Yes, you fought in the war for too long, but you were never given the choices of a solider.” 

“But a commander will craft a soldier into the perfect machine.” 

“But you are a Time Lord, not a machine.” 

She shrugged, as if that remained to be seen. “I still request to see the Captain. I can sense him: his aura is skewed.” She looked away from the Doctor towards the doorway, and he finally allowed himself to feel the terrible sadness that had been building. The Doctor scowled, annoyed with how their conversation had gone. 

“Then I give you my permission to find the Captain,” he mocked, but Circe only nodded. She'd gotten what she wanted. 

It took her a moment to get used to the distance she could travel with such long legs, but she didn’t let her surprise show. Allowing her body to follow the trail of skewed energy, she allowed her thoughts to drift. She didn’t think that regeneration used to be so disorienting, but upon analysing the memories she did have of regeneration, she realised that almost every regeneration had been carefully done, under supervision with a specified goal in mind. This regeneration had been arguably under duress during the process, and there had been no specifics to focus on. There was no wonder she was so malnourished: she had been under attack while regenerating. Her husband’s bastardised regeneration energy had compromised the integrity of her own, causing her own regeneration to almost fail.

She had nearly died. 

The Doctor followed her closely, his hands in his pockets with a dark expression brewing. That conversation hadn’t gone how he’d wanted it to go, but then again, when had anything ever gone the right way when it came to Circe? They’d spent so much time apart, not even including the century she’d just spent as a human, despite how their childhoods had been intrinsically linked. 

The Doctor observed her as she walked ahead of him, in a way he hadn’t done so obviously for fear she might have noticed it earlier. She had been right in saying she needed to increase her intake, but only because the Doctor could see just how much energy the regeneration had cost her. Despite appearing frail and weak, she walked with strength and purpose, with no apparent physical issues or gait troubles. His next concern was for her mind, with how she had complained of her memory not being whole, but there was no way for him to analyse that without her letting him, and she doubtlessly wouldn’t trust him enough to do that for a while. She seemed to at least remember most of the important things, even though a lot of that included the training the Time Council and Koschei had given her. 

If there was only one thing the Master and the council had agreed upon, it was the training of Circe, or ‘the Sorcerer’ as they’d decided to name her during the war. He hoped she didn’t remember too much of her time during the war; he didn’t even know everything, and he knew it had been bad. He didn’t want to imagine what he hadn’t heard from rumours. 

As a pair, the two came upon the source of skewness. Captain Jack Harkness was sat in the kitchen, laughing with Martha harmlessly. His coat was strewn over the chair beside him, and his blue button up shirt was partially unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up. Martha was sat opposite him, facing the doorway. She wore a dressing gown, but the Doctor couldn’t tell whether she was going to bed or just waking up. He hadn't been very aware of much beyond Circe since...well, since they'd escaped the Master and Florence had laid dying. 

“Oh, umm, hi Flo-…or, I guess you’re now Circe, huh.” Martha interrupted the conversation she’d been having to greet the Time Lord who’d just walked in. 

Circe stopped in the doorway and clasped her hands behind her back. She nodded once at Martha. “Yes. Miss Jones, am I correct?” 

Martha gave a bewildered smile at the use of her surname but nodded. “Yeah. It’s good to see you up and about.” 

“Yes,” Circe responded, only serving to confuse Martha with her response. “I believe I remember you waiting for me to awaken before I regenerated. Thank you. I know Florence appreciated the sentiment.” 

Circe looked to the Captain, who had turned in his chair to observe her. She couldn’t stop the swirling whirlpool of emotion as she stared at him, and she did her best not to reveal it. “Captain Harkness, I wished to thank you for staying with me, and express my admiration for your withstanding a nuclear explosion.” 

“It was the least I could do,” he smiled with a twinkle in his eye that seemed to imply he wanted to say more, but Circe continued speaking, unintentionally preventing him. 

“I also wanted to inform you that I have discovered the truth behind my hatred of you.” 

The Doctor could only stare at Circe in confusion, while Jack frowned and seemed to visibly slump. 

“Ah, I see. It wasn’t enough, was it?” His voice was jovial, as if he was making a joke, but everything in his posture said otherwise. 

Circe shook her head once. “This extreme hatred is foreign; a byproduct from being brainwashed. I have not yet fully recovered from regenerating, but as soon as all of my faculties have returned, I will endeavour to remove all aspects of foreign control from my psyche.” 

Jack’s eyes shone with unfettered hope. “If you’re anything like Florence, I know you can do it.” 

Circe nodded sharply once, and then looked back to the Doctor. He was leaning against the doorway, keeping a careful eye on her. He raised an eyebrow, and Circe wondered for a moment what he was thinking about.

“You know,” Martha started, “I didn’t realise quite how…different you would look after regenerating. You must’ve grown a foot!” She grinned, and Circe studied her for a moment. 

“Regeneration has been quoted to be a lottery by a previous colleague of mine,” she started, and the Doctor laughed loudly. 

“Ha! That was me,” he exclaimed, walking forward with his hands in his pockets, a smug expression on his face. “God, Engin was furious with that comparison.” He laughed, but the name triggered something in Circe, and she lashed out. 

Her hands moved before her mind could catch up the sensation of moving. She found herself pinning the Doctor to the wall, the soft skin of his throat underneath the palms of her hands. Fear coursed through her, and the drums in her head only beat harder in time to her terror. His hands scrabbled at her wrists, and for a moment, Circe wasn’t sure she was capable of letting go. 

Then someone smashed a plate over her head, and her grip finally relinquished, Circe falling forward into the Doctor’s arms. 

Jack stood in front of them, shards of ceramic in his hands and staring in fear at the Doctor. “That’s not just a case of trauma from some mild torture,” he guessed. 

The Doctor frowned, adjusting Circe in his arms. “It’s not for me to say.” 

Martha stood to help him support the newly unconscious Time Lord, grasping under her left arm while the Doctor shifted to her right. “Let’s get her back to her room.” 

“Maybe I should be heading out, soon, Doc. I don’t want to get in the way of her recovery,” Jack mused as they walked. Even though the thought of leaving the man he loved just a little bit and the place he’d spent literal centuries trying to come back to was significantly painful, he knew that Circe couldn’t recover properly if he was on board, reminding her of their abuser. “Plus, I got people to check up on. This vacation has been nice, but it’s time to face the music.” 

The Doctor nodded, “if you’re sure.” The door to their left suddenly opened, and the Doctor started leading them in that direction. Martha followed easily, the extra weight of another person familiar. “Maybe it’s time your family got home too, Martha. I didn’t want to travel when Florence had been in such a delicate situation, but now that Circe is here, that’s no longer a problem!” 

Martha nodded, carefully lowering Circe onto the bed in the room they’d entered. The tall woman looked almost peaceful in sleep, her handsome face still and smoothed out. Medical instinct taking over, Martha traced her fingers across the back of Circe’s head, where Jack had struck her with a plate. To her surprise, she only felt smooth scalp, with no trace of injury. 

“How-“ Martha asked, looking to the Doctor. 

He grinned at her unfinished question. “She’s still freshly regenerated, brimming with the potential to heal. When I regenerated into this body, I even got my hand cut off and it grew back!” He lifted said hand to wiggle his fingers, and Martha gaped at him. 

Thinking quickly, she asked, “are all Time Lords always able to heal so quickly?” 

The Doctor smiled, “no, only in the hours following a regeneration.” 

Suddenly, Martha had moved closer to him, standing on her tiptoes and manhandling his chin to manoeuvre his head in different directions. He gave a small noise of surprise, and Jack laughed, but she sternly persisted. His neck was obviously tender to her touch as he winced during her physical examination, and his pale skin was red, with obvious bruising becoming apparent beneath. “She really wanted to hurt you,” she mused sadly, stepping away. The Doctor just looked away, not wanting to pursue that conversation any further. “But what caused her to lash out at you?” 

The Doctor folded his arms across his chest, his eyes dark and far away. Hurt flashed in her chest as Martha couldn’t help but wonder what memory he was enveloped in, and how he would never willingly share it with her. “I have my suspicions,” was all he said. 

“Right, then. I guess I’ll help my family gather their things, get ready to leave,” Martha wondered whether he’d see through her words to her meaning, but he remained as oblivious as he had throughout their entire friendship, as Jack and him pulled ahead of her, walking faster on their longer legs. She stopped just by Circe’s door, watching them walk. 

“Now, Doc, I wondered if we could have that discussion now…” Jack was saying, pulling the Doctor’s attention from her. 

“I know what you’re going to say,” the Doctor interrupted. Even from behind, Martha could see the disapproval coating his body language, despite his voice being teasing, “and the answer is no!”

For a long moment, Martha looked over her shoulder, to where the sleeping Time Lord lay. She marvelled at how peaceful she looked, despite the abject terror that had tensed every muscle in her body when she’d attacked the Doctor. She wondered what kind of relationship they would have had if Martha had planned on staying. She hoped it would have been an easier start than her friendship with Florence had been. 

“But imagine what I could do with it!” 

“Yeah, and even some things twice! The galactic gossip column couldn’t handle it!” He joked, glancing back to Martha to try and share in the humour, only to notice her pause. “Martha?” He called to her, and she jumped slightly, pulled from her thoughts. When she looked back at him, he was obviously concerned, with his heavy brows pulled down to frame his eyes. “Coming?” 

Like a dog, Martha obeyed, as always. 

Chapter Text

Martha had gone with her family, as Circe had known she would. The insecurity already present within the human doctor would only perpetuate itself with the presence of a new person on the TARDIS, especially given Martha’s obvious feelings for the Doctor, but Circe was proud when she heard that Martha had told the Doctor in no uncertain terms exactly why she was leaving. Circe hadn’t woken up in time to say goodbye, but she supposed it was better for the Jones family to believe that Florence had died. Besides, it wouldn’t be long until she saw Doctor Jones again. 

She hadn’t been awake when Jack left. 

When Circe next left her room, she spotted the damage she’d caused to the Doctor’s neck. Wordlessly, she approached him; his posture careful, showing his distrust in her actions. Despite this, he allowed her to touch the bruises on his neck, even if he then raged at her for using her remaining active regeneration energy on them. She had walked away silently, emotions she couldn’t identify swarming through her. The Doctor had silenced when it had become clear she was focused inwardly, ignoring his words. When she saw him next, the bruises were entirely healed. 

The Doctor was insisting on her doing activities for fun. When she’d told him that she only wanted to experience happiness from a successful mission, his eyes had welled up and darkened in a concoction of emotions that she didn’t understand anymore, and it had taken him a while to calm down. They’d agreed on her cooking being a fun activity, so long as she made more than just Gallifreyan cuisine. When she agreed, he’d come into the kitchen the next morning with six cookbooks balanced on each hand, a stupid grin on his face and a blue TARDIS apron over his blue suit. 

“I will not wear that. It is unnecessary for people with sufficient motor skills to have to wear something so…” she had said, her face grimaced involuntarily, but the expression only made the Doctor more insistent. In his eyes, any form of decision or emotion was a step in the right direction. 

The cookbooks had been from across the universe, but her favourite one was by a human male called Paul Hollywood. While the food itself wasn’t overly creative (another cookbook had encouraged the reader to pour caramel onto raw asparagus as a side dish, despite the congruent flavours), there was something familiar about it, and the small part of Circe that she recognised had once been Florence felt at home. 

Eating the food also made the drumming dim in her mind, and anything to diminish the reminder of that man was good to Circe. 

She was making a minestrone soup today. The higher quality nutritional content of the meal would assist in her regaining the weight she’d lost during regeneration. She heard the Doctor coming before he was even in the corridor leading to the kitchen. He’d taken to announcing his presence in small ways that wouldn’t set her off: having the TARDIS announce it for him, singing, talking to himself, the list was endless. 

Today, he was humming. It was a tune she scarcely recognised, but she still knew that she’d known it somehow. She wondered if he was humming it on purpose, to drag up a memory he thought she might need to process. She kept her back to the doorway on purpose, showing just enough trust that he would recognise it, and kept chopping her carrots. His presence paused in the doorway, and he made a noise that interrupted his humming, as if he was surprised to see her there; in the kitchen cooking, in their weird routine they’d created while he tried to figure out how best to help her, while she tried to remember what made her who she was, whether she could be more than a soldier like he wanted. She didn’t acknowledge his presence. It wasn’t necessary. Their minds were always aware of each other, regardless of how tightly she tried to close herself off. His mind was as closed off to her as hers was to him, and she was grateful for it, even if it meant that she couldn’t decipher his intentions anymore. 

The Doctor lingered in the doorway, observing her. He’d stopped humming, which made it easier for Circe to ignore his presence. She wondered why he was hesitant. He normally burst in with energy and enthusiasm, talking far more than one man should be allowed to in any given moment. He didn’t do silence. It wasn’t in his vocabulary. Circe recalled scattered moments from their shared time in the Academy where he couldn’t keep quiet, even if it inevitably got them into trouble. 

So why was he so quiet now?

“What’s wrong?” She asked, punctuating the end of her phrase with a sharp chop of her knife into the wooden chopping board. The knife stayed horizontal, indented into the wood as it was, and it shook slightly from the force she’d just applied. Scarred hands collected the carrots while she waited for his response, dropping them into her simmering stock. She moved onto the potatoes spilled next to the chopping board. 

He seemed surprised that she’d spoken first, and he moved into the room, standing at the other end of the kitchen within her peripherals. He was still watching her. “With me? Absolutely nothing. Not one thing in the universe,” he blathered, but then shook his head in disbelief at his own words. “Well…there’s an issue with Casanova, but Tom Hanks promised he’d fix it, and…” he laughed. “Nothing’s wrong. What made you think that?” 

“You’re staring at me.” 

She glimpsed his mouth moving in her peripheral vision, trying out the shape of words as if she might react differently depending on his chosen words. She pretended not to notice. 

When he finally had decided on his words, there was a shift to his mind that was evident even through both of their shields. 

“I’ve kept the body preserved for long enough. We need to bury him.” 

The knife in her hands slipped, and it sliced easily through the tip of her thumb instead of the potato’s crisp flesh. She stared at it, the blood familiar as it poured from the top of her finger. The Doctor moved forward quickly, encouraging her towards the sink and running a tap. While he rinsed the area, Circe focused on the potential energy stored in her body, and brought it forward. As he rinsed the blood off her hand, the damaged skin stitched itself back together, glowing gold in a way they were both intimately familiar with. 

“What are you doing?” He asked, his voice low. 

She shrugged out of his grip, returning to her board. She cleaned the knife off and returned to her cooking. “All fixed.” As if to prove it, she flexed her thumb at their eye line. “Why bother patching it up when I can heal it quicker?” 

He shook his head, eyes dark. “We only get so many, Circe. Don’t waste it.” 

“Well, the man you haven’t disposed of yet refused to let me die, even while I was human. Do you think he was going to let such a thing as limited regenerations get in the way of keeping me around? In the way of experimenting with pain?” She glanced at him, still only showing a blank face.

The Doctor frowned. “How many?” 

She huffed, stalling. She wasn’t sure why she was so reluctant to tell him. The more she tried to analyse her reluctance, the further the answer seemed to drift from her. It only served to infuriate her. “Does it matter?” 

His hand came down hard onto the countertop next to them, and Circe sternly held her flinch in. No weakness. “Dammit, Circe, of course it matters! How many regenerations were you forced to go through because of the Council? Because of him?” 

His face was too close, but Circe had her body firmly on lock. She refused to lash out again, to strike unthinkingly as she had previously. Despite the stubborn stiffness with which she held herself, she remained very aware of exactly how far she was from the knife struck into the chopping board, and how quickly she could grasp it should the worst happen. 

What worst? What would the Doctor do to her? Why did she almost want him to try something? 

To prove her vigilance right. 

The thought was unwelcome, but now that she’d realised it, she could only see how true it was. 

“They’re technically two different numbers,” her words only made his face darken, but Circe hurried to continue, not wanting to linger on this conversation any longer, “but between them, it was close to 100 lives.” 

With her words came a stillness that she wasn’t accustomed to seeing in the Doctor. She prised herself away from him, leaving him to slump against the countertop beside the sink in defeat, or desolation, or misery. The Doctor was so open with his emotions that Circe had grown familiar with the meaning of some of his facial expressions, but she often looked away when she saw this particular one come up. She didn’t want to know how he was feeling at that moment. 

She returned to her potatoes, ensuring no blood had contaminated her food, and continued cooking, waiting for the Doctor to respond. 

It took him a minute. His big brown eyes were staring at her, flickering between emotions too quickly for Circe to decipher any of them. Before he had the opportunity to annunciate one syllable about her too-numerous lives, she said with a false indifference, “do what you will with him. Personally, I’d cast his body into the burning heart of a supernova and then trap that supernova in a time box, so that he will burn for eternity, but we all hate differently.” 

The Doctor stared at her. It seemed he couldn’t stop staring at her. She wondered if it was her new face causing this reaction. She’d have to see how other people reacted to her face when they finally stopped somewhere. “You don’t have any wishes for him? For his body? His rites?” He asked in disbelief, and Circe felt her spine straighten. 

A memory from her time as Florence came to mind; the Doctor had forgiven him. The Doctor had forgiven him of every deliberate crime he had committed, against her and against all of humanity and the universe. He had made that choice for all of them. 

“I refuse to give last rites to the man who spent over eight centuries torturing me.” She glanced up at him, her green eyes frozen over. “I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit with the image you had after you forgave him on my behalf. On humanity’s behalf. If I have permission to speak freely, I wish he was still alive so I could take apart every cell of his body and show him exactly how well I studied his teachings in the art of causing pain.” The Doctor’s eyes only hardened, watching the hidden pain attempt to push through her stony expression, past her glacial green eyes. She refused it, instead returning nonchalantly to her potatoes. “Burn him, dissect him, castrate him; do as you wish. My wishes would be impossible to fulfil.” 

The Doctor stayed for a long moment, but he saw the truth in her hard eyes; in the downturned corners of her lips; in the stiffness that presented in her shoulders. Despite how he wished to change her mind, he saw the lost fight for what it was. He left the room with a sharp burst of energy, leaving the taste of bitter disappointment and anger in his wake. 

When he had left the room, and Circe could feel his presence dissipating as he walked away from her, she dropped the shield she’d held tightly to her, and her forehead dropped to the countertop. Her breathing quickened, coming in gasps that aggravated her throat and caused tears of prick at her eyes. She gripped the knife in her hand tightly, and even the feeling of the warmth of the TARDIS circulating around her couldn’t pull her from the precipice of pain she felt. 

He’d been on the TARDIS this whole time? 

No wonder she still heard the drumming. He was still here, he was still alive, he had to be. The Doctor must have been keeping him alive. His death must have been an illusion, some trick they’d discussed to hurt her further. 

But why hadn’t she felt his presence? 

Maybe they’d used a chameleon arch to disguise him from her. The Doctor obviously had access to one via the TARDIS, and all of them had shown their willingness to use the machine for their benefit. Her hearts stammered in her chest, threatening to burst through her newly formed rib cage. 

But why had he waited to tell her? Why hadn’t he told her the moment she’d awoken properly, to best take her off guard and overwhelm her? It must’ve been part of some plan to distract her. 

A painful zap of electricity shocked her forehead, and Circe leapt away from the countertop, mind spinning as she tried to assess the threat. 

But the only thing surrounding her was the TARDIS, and in her mind, the warm encompassing embrace of her was slowly drowning out the powerful rhythm of the drumming. Her breathing slowed as she allowed the TARDIS to comfort her, and when she was finally calm, she realised that the TARDIS had shocked her, to snap her out of the spiral of anxiety she’d wrapped herself in. 

The Doctor was not in league with him. He had actively fought against him during the Year That Never Was, and had always actively fought to try and keep Circe safe before the Time War. He’d always come back for her. He had always protected her. 

Maybe he really had thought she would want to help bury him. Maybe he just wanted to give her the choice. 

Circe wrapped her arms around her middle, fingers digging into the skin beneath her shirt, and she rushed from the kitchen, ignoring the saucepan that she’d left on the hob. The TARDIS helped her, directing her down only two corridors before the entrance became visible.
She’d not been back to the medical bay since she’d returned to her body. The sterile environment remained unchanged, and the corner of the room that she hadn’t even acknowledged while she’d been Florence was exactly as she remembered. The bed was covered with a long white sheet, indented in the obvious shape of a bipedal life form. Circe gripped her sides, trying to contain her anxiety, but the drumming was only increasing in speed and her hearts were pounding again. She swallowed her fear and reached forward, pulling back the sheet. 

The Master was laid on the bed, as Circe had known he would be, looking more peaceful than he had ever been in the 3 years she’d known that face. His white shirt had been straightened, but Circe could see the blood stains that disappeared below the sheet, and she felt more than a little pride, knowing that Florence had been the one to make him bleed. The sight of his face caused so much conflict to build inside her, but she couldn’t deny that it absolutely released any fear she had of him still being alive. She reached out to place a trembling hand on his cheek. His skin was cold.

“You really are dead,” she murmured, but there was no response. She almost had expected one. “It may not have been me, but at least someone killed you.” 

Her hearts hurt, and her mind ached in confusion with the pounding drums, but she pulled the sheet back up to hide his face. The sheet did nothing to prevent the fear that his mere presence brought, despite the fact that he was dead, and Circe left the room as quickly as she’d come. 

Chapter Text

Circe sighed at the open oven in front of her. It was as cold as it had been for the last thirty minutes. Her uncooked loaf of bread sat in the dim oven light, a sad metaphor for the unresolved challenges in her life, waiting to rise with the warmth of determination. 

What had the Doctor been ‘fixing’ this time? 

She shut the oven door as she rose, knocking off all the settings she’d switched on before she left the kitchen, in pursuit of her meddlesome childhood friend. 

The Doctor was lying underneath the console, darkened goggles covering his eyes with a blowtorch in hand, the fire aimed upwards towards the console’s circuitry. Circe, grateful she was wearing her red jumpsuit instead of the dress she’d considered, stood over him, hair falling down around her face as she looked down through the grating at him. As the gas powering blowtorch dialled back, and the fire dissipated, the Doctor jumped when he spotted her. 

“Circe!” He exclaimed, eyes wide. “How’s it going?” 

She pursed her lips, eyes narrowed at him. The golden flecks in her eyes shimmered dangerously. 

“You told me to find something I enjoy doing; to get a hobby. And I did,” she tilted her head slightly, and the Doctor wasn’t sure where she was going with her words, “you made me actually start to enjoy cooking.”

The Doctor swallowed hard. “T-that’s great, then, isn’t it?” 

Circe let out a sharp breath. “It would be, if my bread would actually cook. What did you break?” 

The Doctor looked at the area he’d been working, trying to spot any item he’d somehow broken. “Nothing that I can see,” he muttered, reaching up to touch the wiring. 

“Don’t touch the metal you’ve just held a blowtorch to,” Circe interrupted his movement, and the Doctor sheepishly lowered his hand. “What did you break?” She asked again. 

“I really don’t think I broke anything,” he said, sliding himself out from underneath the console grating. He brushed off his hands and moved to the top, standing next to Circe. She crossed her arms, watching as he switched on the monitor and a warning appeared in Gallifreyan. “Oh,” he said cleverly. 

“Oh, indeed.” Circe mimicked. “I recommend you run a diagnostics scan. Otherwise we’ll be dissecting the TARDIS to find the error.” 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her, gesturing to the TARDIS console. “Why don’t you give it a go?” 

Circe stiffened fractionally, unease shifting through her. “It’s not my TARDIS. I won’t step on any toes,” she pursed her lips, but the words obviously didn’t appease the Doctor. 

“As your ‘superior officer’,” he mimicked her voice, but Circe ignored the jest, “I command you to run a diagnostics check.” 

She stepped forward, following the command despite her own uncertainty. Her hands drifted across the controls, and she shut her eyes, taking a grounding breath. “Sir, I have to tell you something-“ Circe tried, but the Doctor just smiled at her, leaning against the console next to her. He was so close that she could feel the heat of his body warming the air between them. 

“You’ve got this, Cece. We’ve been flying TARDIS’s since we were barely a century. We could probably take this old girl apart and put her back together again more easily than we have a conversation. Come on, it’s in your body.” He reassured, but Circe shook her head. The use of her nickname only set her on edge, too, and she shifted uneasily once more. 

“Sir, please, why can’t you just do it?” She asked, hesitating on entering any code. 

“No, Circe. You can’t hide from who you are forever. Now, run a diagnostic scan, soldier.” Circe could see how he hated to issue the command, but it worked. 

Circe’s left hand pulled down a lever as she typed a series of lines of code into the TARDIS’ mainframe, but as she went to push the input and run button (a large red button directly in the centre of the keyboard), the entire TARDIS shook uncontrollably, gears grinding and sparking dangerously beneath them. 

The Doctor immediately gripped the console, nudging Circe out of the way. “What did you do?” He yelled over the noise of the TARDIS, but Circe shook her head. 

“I didn’t even enter the command yet!” She called back, as the console column above them sparked, sending a rain of sparks over their heads. 

The TARDIS shook again, sending the two Time Lords away from the console, down the metal grating stairs, and into the corridor. Circe was on her feet before the Doctor had chance to recover, but the entrance to the console room was shut off by a door that had newly appeared. 

“The TARDIS has locked us out of the console room,” she told him, her voice stiff and hard. When she turned back to him, he was immediately frustrated to see every ounce of emotion stripped from her face, leaving only traces of the Sorceress in its place. 

He groaned and stood upright. “Well, that’s just rude.” He rubbed the back of his head in confusion, looking around the corridor the TARDIS had thrown them into. “What code did you write?” He looked at her, but the Sorceress shook her head, green eyes hard.

“I told you, sir, I never had a chance to submit the code to the program. Whatever set this off, it wasn’t my doing.” The Sorceress looked away from the door. If the TARDIS wanted to keep them out of the console room, then they had no chance to getting through. “Where do you think she’s leading us?” The corridor behind them was dim as the TARDIS routed power towards something unknown. The Doctor followed her gaze, to the darkness held within the corridor. 

“Maybe the heart? The engine room? Perhaps there’s been an intruder gotten onboard.” He looked to her, and he grinned. “Let’s find out!” 

With those words, he was running down the corridor, following the weird energy they both were able to sense. The Sorceress scowled, but started following, keeping pace easily with the other Time Lord. 

Into the depths of the TARDIS they ran, passing new and old rooms. The corridors gradually became darker, until the only light source came from a single lamp in the centre of each stretch. Any life support that had been protecting them was stretched thin, and they encountered pockets of space where they had to rely upon their respiratory bypass systems to traverse it. The TARDIS was pulling more and more power into protecting them, but from what? 

The Sorceress found the gym, disused and dusty, and she glared at the Doctor, who merely grinned back. “But you like cooking now, don’t you?” He teased innocently, despite the Sorceress not returning a reaction or response. 

The corridors got more windy, twisting as if the TARDIS was reluctant to take them forward. Still, they pressed on, even as the time passed from minutes to hours. They gradually stopped running, the energy permeating the air to such a degree they could no longer follow it from feeling alone. The Doctor had to pull out his sonic screwdriver and scan their surroundings to find the origin of the energy. The Sorceress waited patiently, making no comment. Once he’d pinpointed their direction, he led the charge down the corridor, back the way they’d come. The Sorceress wasn’t surprised. There was so much energy in the air that the odds of them not having already walked past it was far too slim. 

The Doctor was ahead, and so didn’t notice at first when the Sorceress froze. Her green eyes were wide open, staring at something in front of her, and it was only when she finally let out a tiny whimper, that echoed across the space, did the Doctor notice her pause. He whirled around, the vulnerable sound so unnatural sounding from her mouth, and saw it. 

In between them stood the Master. Not how he had been only a few months ago, but as he had been before the Time War. He stood, literally larger than life, staring down at the Sorceress, his blue eyes piercing with disappointment. He was silent, only looking at the Sorceress. The Doctor approached her cautiously, circling around the Master to hopefully maintain the man’s stillness. 

“But he’s dead. He is dead. I saw his body, how is he alive again?” Circe was back, and the Doctor didn’t have time to adjust to the change. “I killed him,” she whispered, but shook her head. “I will kill him, I am killing him, I kill him,” her head twisted with each change of tense, and the Doctor floundered beside her, his gaze switching between Circe and the image of the Master in dangerous befuddlement, “I was killing him, I have killed him, I was killed by him, I am killed by him, I," she gasped, her body leaping away from the vision. “My head aches,” she moaned, grasping at her forehead with desperate hands. 

“Circe,” the Doctor followed, neither of them focusing on the image of the Master behind him, “he is dead, not you. You’re still here, it’s okay. You’re on board the TARDIS,” but his words were falling on deaf ears, and just as he’d seen her switch before, he watched as her face hardened into one of pain, and her posture straightened, and she forcibly pushed the Doctor to the side. He hit the side of the corridor with a bang, his head thudding painfully against the wall. He groaned as his vision blurred. 

The Sorceress raised her hand to the Master, who still stood there with an all-too familiar maniacal grin on his face, and her eyes flashed gold. The image of the Master stumbled backwards, his face switching to one of surprise, before he disappeared into a flurry of golden particles. The Sorceress watched the particles dissipate, a cold fury obvious across her entire frame, as the Doctor finally regained control of his senses and stood beside her. 

“Circe?” He asked carefully, his brown eyes cautious and filled with worry. He frowned when she shook her head. 

“Whatever’s going on is pulling from my mind: I can feel its presence there. I’d say we’re going to see more of him.” Her voice was cold, and the Doctor just nodded. 

“Well, I’d say we’re getting closer to the source of the energy,” he stated, turning away from her to the spot the Master had stood. She hummed, and suddenly her long legs were walking forward, drawn forward by something the Doctor couldn’t see. The Doctor had to rush to catch up, else he risked them getting separated in the labyrinth that the TARDIS had become. He wondered for a moment whether this was how his companions sometimes felt; confused and lost as they raced after him following a bizarre event. Despite the confusion, though, excitement was bubbling up in his chest; this was something he had no chance of knowing the origins of. He had some guesses, obviously, but there was no way of knowing whether they were true without exploring. 

The Sorceress slowed finally when a door came into view. It was gold, tarnished with age, the handle worn from use. The Doctor didn’t recognise it, but the Sorceress obviously did. With familiar movements, she placed her fingertips to the door and pushed it open. 

“Where are we?” The Doctor murmured. 

The room was ornate. A large chandelier hung from the roof, at least 10 metres above their head, and the flooring changed underfoot to plush red carpet. An opulent bed sat in the centre of the room, untouched by any corner, and the walls were held back by desks and bookshelves, covered in scraps of paper, all littered with writing. In the centre of the far wall, a very decorated desk held only a letter, writing unclear, with the envelope and a sharp knife beside it. The Doctor studied the knife from where he was; he couldn’t see it very clearly, but he thought he recognised it. 

“My house,” the Sorceress replied. Her green eyes were narrowed, however, and there was nothing in her stance to imply that the room brought any comfort to her. 

The Doctor laughed slightly. “When did you live here? This looks like it came from the Capitol.” 

“When we first got married.” Her words were emphasised by the opening of the door they just came through, and a cold breeze cut through them as two images were dispelled into golden dust by their forms, and came back together in front of them. 

It was the Master again, his dark skin dewy from perspiration that reflected in the bright chandelier light. His eyes, filled with lust and something darker, stared at his partner with warmth and hope. He wore a floor length red robe, with ceremonial neck garb matching that of his partners. 

The Time Lord with him was short, with spiky blonde hair and stormy grey eyes. She held his hand in her own scarred hand like it was delicate. When she carefully pressed her thin lips against his knuckles, she missed the way his eyes darkened. 

“Congratulations, beloved,” the Master murmured, before he led her to the bed, leaving her sat in the middle of the room while he moved to the desk overlooking the Capitol. “I can’t believe we made it this far.” His words were distant, but she made the mistake of believing they were for her.

She fidgeted with her scarred fingers on the bed, patterns familiar and foreign traced in the air, before she spoke. “The President himself even came,” her words sounded joyous, as if she couldn’t believe they’d been so blessed. Her face was blank, grey eyes staring at her husband’s back, waiting for him to turn. “Did you understand what he meant by ‘this won’t be easy for you’? He can’t have meant our marriage; our betrothal was arguably more simple than most.” 

The Doctor watched the emotionless woman as her voice showed every colour under the sun, but her face remained unchanging. His eyes flickered to the Sorceress, and he was surprised to see the fear filling her expression. 

“So-“ the Doctor tried, but she shook her head minutely.

The Master laughed, even as he picked up the piece of paper from the desk. When he turned back to the bed, the woman’s face had changed, matching perfectly the confusion she’d expressed verbally only moments before. 

“You told me that you hadn’t heard from him.” His voice was dangerous. The woman flinched, fear immediately filling her eyes. He stepped closer. “You told me that you refused to contact him, that his marriage had ruined any chance he had of even being your friend.” 

The Doctor looked back to the Sorceress; her green eyes were dark and her hands were curled into fists beside her legs. She didn’t acknowledge his gaze, and the Doctor was forced to look back at the scene unfolding before him. 

The woman scowled, trying to hide her fear. “He sent the letter to arrive this morning. After so many years of no contact, how was I to know that he would attempt contact today? Of all days?” She persuaded, but the Master shook his head. He turned to lower the letter to the table, and while the woman on the bed didn’t see him pick up the letter knife, both the Sorceress and Doctor did. 

“You’re a liar, Circe.” The woman flinched, the accusation cutting more than she’d expected it to. “You swore to me, no more lies.” 

The Master punctuated his words with one swipe of the knife. It cut easily through her flesh, leaving behind a clean incision across her upper arm. The Sorceress flinched with the slash, as if the injury was happening to her in real time. 

“I did not contact him!” She yelled, her face dark with the anticipation of more pain, and the betrayed confusion her voice expressed easily. “You-you just struck me!” She attempted to stand, to leave the bed he’d taken her to, but the Master stood in the way of every attempt. Her breathing came fast, and the Sorceress’ increased to match it. “Koschei, let me go. I will endure a lot, but I will not allow this.” Her voice was a warning, but her body was still in what appeared to be fear. The Doctor couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t already running, or why she hadn’t struck back. 

“Oh, Magna, you may only call me Master,” the Master chuckled, the insanity they had all come to know well finally releasing to the surface, “and this marriage will be the worst decision you ever made.” 

The knife plunged into one of her hearts, and the scene changed along with the start of her regeneration, in a burst of golden dust. 

Chapter Text

The bedroom was gone, but when the golden dust spiralling around them settled, a young Circe was on the floor of a darkened corridor, curled against the wall behind them. She flinched when the Doctor attempted to touch her, hands coming up to defend herself. Something about their positions felt intrinsically familiar to the Doctor, but he forced himself to focus on the current situation. The Doctor stood beside the Sorceress realised that these two regenerations were from just after their time in the Academy. They’d had their naming ceremony, and then had come the worst news.

“Circe,” he whispered, “it’s me, it’s the Doctor.” That hadn’t been what he’d intended on saying, but the words spilled from his mouth like water, and they obviously affected the cowering woman in front of him. 

“Theta?" The use of his true name was automatic, habitual. "When did you get back?” 

He smiled at her, sitting beside her. “About three minutes ago,” he revealed, and he grinned when she laughed, despite how the sound was clogged with tears. “I came as soon as I heard.” 

His words only served to quieten her laughter, and the Doctor’s hearts hurt. 

“I don’t have a choice,” she whispered, and the Doctor shut his eyes hard, squeezing away the tears he also wanted to shed. “I can’t disobey my parents.” 

“Yes, you could.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself, but they echoed through the darkened corridor they sat in. “We could leave.” 

“No,” Circe spoke before he could try and entice her once more. “This is my duty; to my people, to our people. I have been called to help him, and I won’t let our people down.” 

“You could help someone by healing them, or training them. They want you to marry him!” The Doctor exclaimed. 

He remembered exactly how he’d felt that night. The exact emotions seemed to cycle within him now, and he fought as hard as he could to pull himself from the cycle, from saying those words. 

“I am a Custodian for our people. This is what I am meant to do, otherwise…” she squeezed her eyes shut. Beside him, the Sorceress murmured the words alongside her younger self. “If you’re just going to try and talk me out of it, maybe you should just leave. Go and do something good for our people, instead of gallivanting across the universe, pretending you’re helping when you just cause more trouble.” 

The words obviously hurt the Doctor, but he still tried to reach out and grasp her hands. When she pulled away from him, his face shuttered closed. 

“At least I am doing something, instead of stagnating alone on an island, like your namesake.” 

The Sorceress spoke as the gold dust changed the scene around them. “If we don’t find the source, this won’t stop.” 

The Doctor struggled to find his words for a moment. “Why is this focused on your memories? Or is it really him?” 

“Whatever this is, I think we’ll see worse than my being killed before we reach the centre.” 

The Doctor nodded. “Somehow, I think you’re right.” 

And she was. 

They stumbled across nice days, where Circe had laughed with various people from her life, primarily focused on the Doctor and the Master, but the bad days stayed with them long after the golden dust had settled. The Doctor had seen the first battle Circe had experienced, with death surrounding her and commanders screaming at her through her earpiece to finish the job, to ignore every inch of suffering her comrades were experiencing. He had to watch as she made the choice to disobey, and ended the suffering of someone she’d trained alongside. Her disobedience led to her target killing one hundred children before she had the chance to reach them. Suddenly, the Doctor could understand where her unwavering desire for orders came from. If that was consolidated each time she made her own choice on the battle field, of course she would never want to make her own choices. 

With the Sorceress shivering beside him, the scene shifted. The Doctor didn’t need to know what was coming to know it was bad when the Sorceress shifted, and her hand was gripping his. 

Circe, a face that the Doctor didn’t know, was behind bars. They’d restrained her body with metal cuffs on all limbs, including her neck. As workers in white and red robes walked past her barred entrance, she bared her teeth at them, eyes wild and spit flying from her mouth. She looked feral. 

A familiar voice approached. “Has the Sorceress been amenable to our probing?” 

“Yes, sir,” another spoke.

Engin walked to the door of the cage, a grim smile on his face. “Circe, my favourite experiment. How are you enjoying your reward?” 

“Eat shit, dickbag,” Circe spat, and Engin chuckled. 

“Ahh, that’s such a shame. We crafted it specially for you.” Engin knocked against the bars, as if ensuring they were stable. “Now, I have to ask you to bear with us for just another day. See,” he spoke over any protestations she had, “we believe that we can extend your abilities beyond your current prowess. And in this war to end all wars, we need every weapon available.” 

“My husband will destroy you,” she growled, but Engin laughed. 

“Your husband signed you away to us. He actively participates in discovering new ways to further your training. Your husband will not destroy us.” His voice was patronising, as if she had lost her grip on reality. In hindsight, the Sorceress wondered if she had gone insane. 

Her teeth gleaming white against the lighting, she laughed. The sound echoed across the laboratory-made-prison, silencing all chatter from the scientists in that room. When she stopped, her eyes flashed gold, and all emotion had been stripped from her face. Her hands strained against the metal cuffs, but as they couldn’t come together, the golden dust that rose from them hung meaninglessly in the air. “My wife will tear you, limb from limb. But my husband will make you beg for true death, Engin.” 

Her words sent a chill down the spine of every person who heard them, but Engin just smiled them off. He pulled out a small pen from his pocket, and pushed a button at the top of it. Electricity pulsed through every metal surface within the makeshift cell, and Circe threw her head back in agonised rage. Golden light flew from her eyes and hands, sending the memory into the abyss. 

The Doctor was watching her. He was always watching her, but his eyes were hard and boring into the side of her head, and the Sorceress could feel emotions that she didn’t want to feel clawing their way back into existence, despite her insistence on stamping them down. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and the Doctor squeezed her hand. When had she grabbed him? Part of her, the same part that was desperately trying to ignore their surroundings and just reach the centre of whatever the fuck was messing with their TARDIS, wanted to rip her hand from his grip and push onwards, and the other part of her was so grateful for the familiar warmth of his grasp. Her breathing came hard. 

“I knew they tortured you, but…just how far did they go?” He whispered, and the Sorceress wished he would shut up. 

“How far? You just witnessed the beginning of three regenerations of conditioning using psychological, physical and philosophical torture, and you want to know how far it went? How about forcing me to kill myself to ingrain the obedience they beat into me? Maybe forcing me to kill the one assistant who dared to offer me water, under the falsified belief he was a Dalek sympathiser? Oh, what about the time the Master came in, having regenerated to a face that looked like your third, and made me believe you were finally coming to save me, only to kill me one last time?” She tried to pull her hand from his, but he held it steadfastly, refusing to let her run. “Every time I had an ounce of hope that it might end, they didn’t just take it from me; they eviscerated it. They spent 200 years destroying me, and creating the Sorceress, and then I was sent out at the start of the Time War, to fight in every single battle. And when I reached the end, the day before they finally decided on the destruction of all, they sent me back. Time and time again, I went through the Time War. I went to every single battle at least once. Humanity has a saying, something about not being able to be everywhere at once. In the Time War, I was.” 

They couldn’t be sure how much time passed, sifting through memories in the depths of the TARDIS. The Doctor could only watch as the Sorceress and Circe flickered back and forth, unable to maintain a consistent psyche with the psychological stress she was undergoing. She gripped his hand like it was her lifeline, and the Doctor was grateful that she at least had him next to her. 

The golden dust rose again, surrounding them in a world of shimmering yellow. The Doctor brushed his hand through the particulates, the action causing the dust to spiral away from them, and he felt something pull on his memories briefly before the dust exploded into colour. 

The Doctor and Circe looked at their new surroundings, exhausted but curious. 

It was the Citadel, as it had been at the end of the war. The suns were setting together, a rare occasion due to their slightly different orbits, and the red glow cast the ruined Citadel buildings into shadow. The street they stood on was lined with bodies of all ages, and dying fires had the scent of smoke hazing through the air. Opposite them stood a form they both recognised. 

The War Doctor stood atop the crest of the road, his tattered coat buffeting in the breeze. In his hands was a metal box, and he gazed over the surroundings with mournful eyes. 

Circe bit her lip, trying to recall if this was her memory. “I don’t - I don’t think this is mine. I don’t remember this.” She spoke quietly, afraid to break the scene. 

The Doctor squeezed her hand, his hearts tightening in his chest. He couldn’t break his gaze from the man in front of them. “I think it’s mine,” he whispered. Circe looked across to him, and, despite all the emotional distress she’d been through, despite reliving some of the worst moments from her long life, she released his hand to wrap her arm around his back, pulling them together until their sides touched, and she helped hold him upright. “I think this was the Moment.” 

And although Circe didn’t know what the moment was, she helped him walk forwards, her hearts thundering in her chest. They stopped beside the distraught Time Lord, and Circe and the Doctor looked at him. 

“She’s still out there,” the old man grumbled, talking seemingly to himself. The Doctor winced, and Circe wanted to smirk and tease him for his isolated habits, but he’d been so kind to her throughout all of her memories. She didn’t want to hurt him. “I have to find her.” 

The old man frowned, glaring to the air beside him. Circe wondered what he was seeing. “I have to try,” he insisted, but the fire that thrived within his eyes died down as he looked across the landscape once more. “Today is the last day. No more, I say. No more.” 

“No more what?” Circe asked, glancing at the Doctor. He sighed against her, turning away from his memory to rest his forehead against the side of her face. 

“War. No more war.” He murmured finally, his breath fanning across her cheek. 

Circe’s eyes widened. Understanding immediately dawned on her, and part of her wanted to step away from him, to absorb just what he was implying. Her hand, pressed as it was against his back, could feel his racing hearts, beating almost in time to her own. 

“It was you?” She whispered, her eyes staring at the familiar, manufactured scene around her. The world she had called home, destroyed not by war, as she had assumed, but by the only other last surviving Time Lord. He nodded briefly against her cheek, relishing in what he could only imagine would be the last moments he had with his best friend, but instead of her recoiling in revulsion, the hand pressed against his back curled into him, pulling him closer. 

“Oh, Theta,” she murmured, squeezing her eyes to stop them burning with tears. 

The War Doctor next to them stepped back, away from the destruction. “I will find you, Magna. I won’t let war be the only thing you know. I won’t let him be the end of you.” His voice was dark, filled with pained promises. Circe smiled truly, her green eyes shimmering gold over the Doctor’s head. 

“You do find me,” she whispered to him, and the Doctor she held shook his head. 

“I searched for you until I was worn to exhaustion in my TARDIS. I didn’t even remember falling asleep.” He sighed heavily. 

She grinned, pulling him up from his hiding spot. He stared at her in confusion, but she reached out to the space in front of them, and the golden dust reacted immediately, recognising the wishes of the Time Vortex swirling inside her. 

The scene shifted. They were standing in his TARDIS, as it had been during the war. The War Doctor lay slumped against the far wall, his brows furrowed even in sleep. Running wildly around the TARDIS was an older woman, blonde. Circe smiled, recognising herself. 

Together, the Doctor and Circe watched as the war torn woman piloted the TARDIS to an insignificant planet, to a tiny town in the early 20th century. When she landed, the woman crouched in front of the sleeping man, and her fingers carefully brushed against his eyelids. 

“Live well, Theta,” she murmured affectionately. Her eyes shone gold for a moment, and she smiled for the first time in 300 years. “You will find me soon.” 

Pulling down the chameleon arch helmet, Circe screamed, and the gold dust swarmed them and the scene disappeared. 

“You did find me; you saved me,” she whispered, her green eyes softening. As if the memory had finally resurfaced within her own mind. Even Circe was unsure what she had forgotten and remembered prior to this malfunction or invasion of the TARDIS. 

“Why don’t I remember it?” He asked, his hand on her shoulder tight and reassuring. 

Circe had intended on replying, but a pulsing of the energy they’d been following distracted her. The room they were in now was dark, an empty room that ordinarily held the possibility of being any room that the TARDIS decided. Instead, the darkness was pierced only by pulsating glow, emitted from a small gilded container atop a plain wooden table. The rectangular container was wooden, with old Gallifreyan words carved into its sides. The words seemed to emit this golden ethereal light, that seemed to pulse in time with their heart beats. 

“It’s a Time Capsule,” the Doctor murmured, stepping forward. “It’s a Time Lord Time Capsule.” His voice was reverent, as if the box could contain answers to questions he’d had since the beginning of time. Circe supposed that if he believed he’d destroyed all of the Time Lords, then he had every right to cling to any surviving remnants from them. Circe stayed behind, and watched as the Doctor approached it. The glow only grew stronger with his approach, as if it was emboldened by his presence. Sonic screwdriver already in hand, the Doctor scanned it, and Circe waited with bated breath for the results. 

“This was emitting the time energy,” he explained, “and it messed with the TARDIS’ reconfiguration of rooms, so she couldn’t directly lead us to it. But how did it get in? Who sent it?” 

Satisfied that it was an authentic capsule, the Doctor reached out to open it. When his fingers brushed the surface of the box, the golden glow erupted, casting the same golden glow around them in entirety. As the dust settled once more, the scene developed into the space around them. 

It had obviously been a battlefield at one point, with destroyed machines and bodies littered across the horizon. The red suns above told them it was Gallifrey, but the landscape wasn’t immediately recognisable to the two Time Lords. Looking around her, Circe jumped when she recognised the woman beside her. Her red hair, cut into a misshapen bob, was pinned back with golden slides. She wore a black robe, similar to Greek togas, which billowed in the wind. Her brown eyes were narrowed in on the object in her hand. She held the capsule. Circe knew that face, but she had no recollection of the capsule, nor creating the contents. 

“I, Circe of Gallifrey, known also as the Sorceress, send this to the Doctor of Gallifrey, to be received when I am beside him.” Her voice was hard, and Circe remembered the time her commanders had spent cultivating a voice that garnered fear. “To my Doctor, I know it took a long time, but I am with you now. And I know not what you seek forgiveness for, but know that you have never needed it.” She smiled harshly, like the action was unfamiliar. “I know that the woman with you is confusing in her unfamiliarity, but know that she has always been, and will always be, your best friend. She needs you right now. In the same way you needed your Bad Wolf.” 

The Doctor had stiffened, Circe noticed, his shoulders hunching in as he took in the words. She wondered with purpose what those words meant to him, and why they had caused such a strong reaction. She frowned during her observation. “This canine, did it hurt or help you?” She asked, feeling dumb, but the words made the Doctor laugh, even if it was hollow. 

“She, uhh…she was the best of humanity.” His voice shook, but he was too far for Circe to attempt to reach out. 

She’d never fidgeted during this regeneration, but her fingers now moved over her skin, finding minute imperfections and taking her anxiety out on them. 

“Magna needs you, Theta.”

“I need you,” the real Circe spoke, her eyes darting up to his surprised brown ones. She only had the courage to hold them for a second, but the Doctor could see how that action had cost her. Her fingers glided over the smooth skin of her forearms, finding bumps or tags of the skin to scratch. Her eyes were glued to the floor, despite how confident she’d been prior. Her lips were held tightly, pursed into a tiny mouth that could’ve made him laugh in different circumstances. “I don’t know how to come back from this alone. I thought I could, but I realised that I don’t want to be his, no, their puppet, anymore, and I don’t think I know how to be anything but that. I need a Doctor.” 

The Doctor stepped forward, his dark brown eyes searching her green eyes intensely. His expression was stone, and Circe wondered if he would turn on her. The time capsule in his hands shone brighter in the presence of its owner. He studied her intently, as if surveying her for truth, and Circe wasn’t sure what he found. Whatever he saw, he grimly smiled at her, and pushed her capsule into her hands. Immediately, the space surrounding them lit up with golden dust, and, just as quickly, it dissipated into nothing. Circe’s eyes shone brightly in conjunction with it, and the Doctor’s expression shifted to one of clear surprise, but he said nothing, watching as the TARDIS corridors around them began to fix themselves. The energy that had led them to that place had disappeared, and Circe and the Doctor only stared at each other while the TARDIS returned to normal. The darkness seemed to deepen before it lifted, revealing the familiar coral corridors they knew so well. With the TARDIS’ familiar presence fully restored in their minds, Circe had assumed that the Doctor would run down the corridor to the console room, ready to fix whatever error had broken the oven, but he stayed in front of her. His eyes were carefully guarded. 

“I haven’t been the best at caring for you, Cece,” he murmured, breaking the silence that hummed between them, “I could’ve done more to help, to-to stop them, stop him-“ he cut himself off, and Circe watched as he seemed to pull his thoughts in line. “I should have been there. Not just during the war, but before that. I should have stopped our marriages, done more to fight it.” 

Circe tilted her head slightly, watching as the guilt built across the Doctor’s face. She burrowed her eyebrows. “It’s not your fault.” 

He tried to protest, “but I could’ve done more-“

“No. You couldn’t have done more. We chose our paths with the information we had available at the time. This was not your fault.” She pursed her lips, hearts bubbling with anxiety. She couldn't stop herself from asking, “is-is it really gone?” She didn’t need to elaborate. 

He nodded grimly, stepping away from her. “I had no choice, Circe. The Time Council, what they had planned-“ he winced when she lifted her hand, as if expecting her to strike him. With how volatile and violent she’d been towards him recently, she wasn’t surprised. Even so, she placed her hand gently on his chest, above his second heart, and she pressed gently to feel its beat beneath his suit. 

“This heart has always held too much kindness. Are they dead?” She looked to his eyes again, seeing the tears gathering there. 

“It’s locked in Time.” He saw her eyes flash gold, the words obviously pleasing her. 

She smiled. “Without you, the universes would have been destroyed. No, I never could blame you, Doctor. Not for this, not for anything.” 

She broke the hung stillness they’d cultivated abruptly, turning on her heel and walking towards the console room. “Now, let’s find out just how a break in the TARDIS mainframe can remove any functionality of a kitchen oven.” 

The Doctor grinned, racing to catch up to her.

Chapter Text

Circe was fidgeting. 

She was a soldier: she wasn’t supposed to let emotions slip through like this. And yet…her fingers were twisting in motions both familiar and foreign, manipulating the digits until the knuckle joints cracked, rubbing her palms together, picking at the skin surrounding the short nails. She was anxious. 

She’d been alive, really, actually alive, for two months, and her body was finally beginning to feel like her own. Memories were returning in fragments, incomplete and confusing despite their consistency. She sometimes looked at the Doctor and saw John Smith, from her time as Florence. Her memories of her human life as Florence were precious to her, as they were the memories she had most of and the happiest she could recall feeling…well, ever. But with her memories came emotions that she hadn’t experienced as Circe for centuries. Guilt, anxiety, shame, fear, to name a few, and they all seemed to centre around one man. 

The Doctor walked in, making noise on his approach so that his arrival wasn’t a surprise. They’d learnt quickly after her regeneration that, as well as still believing she was a soldier, she had the reactions of a soldier. Despite the tentative approach, his face was warm and open, with a curious expression on it. Circe took a moment to observe his brown eyes. They were so kind. 

“I want to request permission to go out,” Circe stated, placing her hands at rest behind her, the militaristic position familiar and comfortable. 

The Doctor’s eyes saddened, and Circe hated the reminder of how different they were, despite their closeness in childhood. “You don’t have to request anything, this is your home too. We can go anywhere you want.” 

Circe shifted, uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the idea, and then regretted the show of emotion when the Doctor caught sight of it and it only seemed to upset him further. 

“Okay,” Circe didn’t argue, but she wouldn’t agree. “I would like to go out.” 

His eyes lit up, and Circe almost envied how easy expression came to him. She wondered, not for the first time, if he purposefully exaggerated his expressions, or if he truly was this expressive unintentionally. She wondered if the Daleks had taken advantage of his emotions before to gain advantage against him. 

“Where do you want to go?” He asked, running up to the console. He shrugged on his long brown coat and stood, primed and ready at the coordinate input console. Circe pursed her lips, the movement feeling…human. “We could go anywhere, see the Library, explore Braxos, be the first to see the new Moon of Koon,” the suggestions rolled off his tongue quickly, and Circe somehow knew that he’d been carefully planning these suggestions for a while.

Subconsciously, she picked at her fingers behind her back, the anxiety showing itself despite how she wanted to remain absolutely still in the presence of the commander of the TARDIS she inhabited. 

“Did you know Timothy spoke to me when he was a child?” She asked, ignoring his suggestions for now. Her hearts beat fast in her chest, and she couldn’t seem to activate her respiratory bypass system to force them to calm down. The drumming kicked off again, only serving to spike her fear. Behind her back, she started picking at her skin once more, the fear forcing her body to move. 

A fond smile crossed the Doctor’s face, and he put his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels slightly. “It doesn’t surprise me. You remember he had telepathic capabilities?” The Doctor checked, and Circe nodded sharply once. “Ah, good!” The smile still didn’t hide his confusion. “Why’d you mention him?” 

Her hearts beat harder, and she felt her cheeks warm involuntarily. She grimaced, and then scolded herself for such an outward reaction. She was embarrassed, she realised. The Doctor watched her, curious and concerned, but he didn’t interrupt. 

“I,” Circe hesitated, her green eyes flickering away from his for a brief moment, “I want to see him.” 

She remembered conversations with him, moments where he bared his soul to her in a display of affection she hadn’t expected from a human. Flashes of colour had punctuated her century of darkness, and he’d been there every time. The Doctor’s face seemed to brighten with understanding, and Circe wondered briefly how everything this man did seemed to make him lighter. The thought was distracting, but once it had occurred to her, it was all she could see about him. “I-Florence never said goodbye. I don’t think he’d recognise me, but I think I owe him thanks.” 

The Doctor smiled, but Circe could see his confusion. “Thanks?” He clarified, and Circe nodded once. 

“He kept us safe, didn’t he?” That blasted warmth was returning to her cheeks, and Circe forced herself to remain impartial, despite how the heat was such an obvious tell of her emotions. “Without him, Florence may not have survived as long as she did, or she might have lost me.” Without her permission, she suddenly recalled Florence’s last years alive, and an involuntary shudder ran through her. Her scars came alive in itchiness, and she fought to keep her hands placed where they were behind her back. “Or he might have found us sooner than he did.” 

The Doctor moved away from the console, each footstep slow and calculated. Circe knew she didn’t mention him at all, and it was on purpose. Not only did she vividly recall the three years of torture he put her through as Florence, but she still remembered all of his lessons when she’d been his wife, even if she didn’t remember learning them. She hated the Time Capsule that she and the Doctor had found and the memories it had chosen to reveal. Those memories had been private, and some of the worst moments of her life. 

“It’s not your fault, what happened to him, to her,” he tried to console, but Circe just frowned, the motion minuscule and involuntary. The Doctor stopped his approach, concern obvious in his expression. Circe wanted to hate his face, but the memories she had of John Smith still held lingering emotions, and she was struggling to differentiate the Doctor from John Smith, which meant that even if he had the most expressive face in all the known universes, she would care for it regardless. 

“We’ll have to agree to disagree, sir.” The honorific caused him to obviously deflate, but he stepped back, his head held low in submission, before he turned back to the console, piloting the last TARDIS with ease. The machine shook in protest at the use, but with its newly familiar wheezing sound, she landed. Circe hadn’t flown a TARDIS in years, not even including the years she’d spent as a human, and didn’t trust herself with the machinery to assist him. Even still, she knew that they’d landed instinctively, her mind telepathically intertwined with the TARDIS as all Time Lords did with the machinery. 

“Timothy Latimer dies in 2002, in Faringham General Hospital, at 104 years old. Captain Jack Harkness is with him until an hour before his last breath. He falls asleep half an hour before his time of death.” The Doctor was speaking, but Circe could barely focus on his words. 

Her nails tore into the palms of her hands, and her breathing came short and fast. Her hearts - still vaguely unfamiliar and comforting - were pounding a strangely loud rhythm, echoing up to her ears until all she could hear was the rush of her own blood, and that infernal drumming. She didn’t even realise that her eyes were burning until the Doctor was stood in front of her, gesturing at her to breathe. 

Circe breathed. In and out. Brought her breath back to a calm pace, to ease her rapidly beating hearts. The Doctor’s strange and familiar hands brushed the backs of her hands, and Circe felt herself unclench her fists in respond. Tiny cuts now added to her cacophony of scars on her hands, but the pain was irrelevant, or deserved. She couldn’t tell. 

A tentative knock came on the door, and Circe moved, striking like a snake. She pulled the door open to come face to face with a young nurse, his hand raised as if to knock again. His face was almost as expressive as the Doctor’s, as uncertainty and confusion cleared to show surprise and bewilderment. Circe used her body to block his view of the interior, distantly remembering that humans had minimal capacity of understanding dimensional physics. 

“Here to see Mr Latimer?” He asked, and the biggest smile adorned his face when she nodded. “He’s been looking forward to this day all year. Come through.” 

Circe was flooded with fear. She watched the nurse walk a few steps into the, otherwise empty, white corridor before he looked back to check she was following. She felt the presence of the Doctor at her shoulder, and allowed him to grasp her hand and guide her out. The door clicked shut behind her, and she jumped involuntarily, her free hand checking for a weapon on her person in a non-existent sheath. The Doctor squeezed her hand, and gently pulled her into following the nurse ahead of them. 

“He talks about you non-stop when he’s awake, Miss Latimer. He’ll be so glad you made it,” the nurse was saying, “I have to be honest, I wasn’t sure you’d make it in time. I’m sorry to say it, but I think his final days are here.” 

“Can you be quiet?” Circe snapped, and the Doctor squeezed her hand. 

“That was what we call rude, Circe,” he reprimanded gently, but secretly he was thrilled that she was showing so much emotion, even if it was anger. Circe frowned. 

The nurse looked back to them, confusion clear in his expression. “Umm, sure, I’ll be quiet. He’s just through that door.” Instead of walking them the rest of the way, the nurse pointed down the hallway and walked backwards, leaving them to find their own way. 

“Why can’t I be rude again?” She asked, moving forward at a firm pace. “I don’t need to hear that my brother - no, wait, yes? - anyway, I don’t need to hear that he’s on his final days. It’s an unnecessary comment to make to visitors, regardless of any familial relationship, or lack thereof.” 

“Humans don’t appreciate it,” the Doctor’s voice was different, and when Circe glanced at him, he appeared to be coughing. “They like politeness and kindness.” 

“They must talk themselves in circles, then.” Circe decided. 

They reached the doorway, and before Circe could change her mind, the Doctor had knocked, and a familiar voice called out, “come in.” 

Circe took a step back, but the Doctor caught her in his arms, having expected the reaction. 

“Oh, no. I can’t do this,” Circe muttered, but the Doctor held her firm. “I would like to exercise my free will now and leave.” 

He laughed at her, his voice low in her ear. “That’s not going to work.” 

With no choice, Circe moved into the doorway. 

Gods, but he was old. Timothy was lying in bed, that stupid, knowing smile on his stupid, wrinkly face, and his brown eyes sparkled with amusement. Seeing him only sparked the recollection of a century of memories from a different woman, of a life lived with him. Fondness swelled within her, and she was by his bedside before she could react. Her eyes burned, and tears slipped out before she could scold herself for the reaction. 

“Mr Latimer, I-“ Circe licked her lips, picking at her fingernails behind her back. “I know you won’t recognise me, but-“

In the way that Timothy had always done, he smiled knowingly and said, “Circe, I’ve been waiting for you.” 

Her lips parted in shock before she jumped slightly when the Doctor spoke behind her. “Telepathic, with just a hint of precognition. He probably saw you coming here before Florence even left.” 

“Doctor, it-“ Timothy coughed, and Circe felt her heart jump to her throat. She automatically reached out to grasp the old man’s hand, and was rewarded with his brilliant smile turned to her. “It’s good to see you both.” His voice was hoarse, but Circe smiled back, tentative and fearful and calm. “And I know what you came here for, Cece. And it’s okay. You don’t have to apologise, or thank me.” 

“You always were far too clever, Tim,” Circe murmured, and her fingers instinctively gripped his hand in a way that both of them recognised. She laughed, the sound almost choked. “I planned what I wanted to say! This isn’t like me, I don’t know how to-“ 

“This is the remnants of Florence,” Timothy whispered, a knowing sparkle to his eyes. Circe, her eyes wide and vulnerable for the first time in this body, nodded once. 

“My regeneration was…difficult. Circe is hard to remember, but Florence is…so familiar.” Circe hadn’t revealed this much to anyone - ignoring the fact that the Doctor was the only person she’d seen - likely since before her marriage to him, and she could only assume that the reason she was talking now was because of the bond she already held with Timothy. Still, to be so vulnerable in front of the Doctor was…unsettling, to say the least. 

Timothy seemed to sense that, as he glanced to the Doctor. “Do you mind giving my sister and I some privacy?” 

The Doctor floundered for a moment, obviously having not expected the question. He stuck his hands in his pockets, feeling awkward as he said, “good, yes of course! I’ll…just, find a nurse to bother.” He turned on the ball of his converse and walked promptly out of the room. 

Circe sniffed, ashamed at how her emotions were overcoming her, but Timmy squeezed her hand and she suddenly didn’t feel so alone. 

“I’m sorry, Tim,” Circe whispered, bringing his hand to her forehead. She didn’t have the courage to maintain eye contact with the man, even though she could feel his resounding care for her despite her avoidance of his gaze. “I’m sorry you had to spend your last years alone without her. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more information, teach you more, help you more. I’m sorry Florence was so tormented by my life, by our memories, that she was distracted by discovering the past for most of her life. You know, I almost wish I hadn’t chosen this path, that I’d found another way. The sheer amount of pain I have put us all through-“ Circe stopped, finally breathing in a gasp of a breath. Her hands shook in his, and she kept her face hidden, unwilling to show him the tears that had started trailing down her face. “I’m sorry that, despite promising to keep you safe as both myself and Florence, we left you at the end.” 

“Oh Circe, stop blaming yourself,” he said simply, not an ounce of hatred or disgust in his voice. 

Circe looked up to him, her green eyes bright and wet, and she got confused at the sight of his smile. It was bittersweet, and warm and loving. 

“It is not your fault that you trusted someone and they failed you. It is not your fault that your past haunted Florence, and it is not your fault that she felt echoes of your pain. You were never a burden, or a problem, and you know that Florence never wished the worst on you, and I certainly never did.” His words were kind, but Circe wanted him to yell at her, to scream until both of them were reduced to tears. “You want me to hate you so that you can validate and affirm your hatred of yourself, and I won’t do that to you. You were my sister, just as much as Florence was, Cece.” 

Circe barely managed to hold back her sobs, but she did lift her head to see the truth within Timmy’s face. For the first time, she wasn’t envious or distrusting of the open expression held on other faces, but instead she allowed it to encourage her own. “You are my brother, Timmy. I-you were the best of what I knew as Florence.” 

“Gosh, you become a Time Lord and suddenly you’re an emotional sod! Stiff upper lip, remember?” He joked, making Circe roll her eyes. “Now, tell me all about the Doctor, and the TARDIS.” His brown eyes glittered with excitement, and Circe nodded obediently. 

The time passed too quickly, but Circe and Timothy spoke quicker, catching each other up on their lives since they’d departed. And when their words dried up, they sat in silence, looking at the other with as much love as true siblings held for each other. Circe felt his pulse slowing beneath his skin, saw the life leaving his eyes. 

“It has been a good life,” he whispered, and Circe nodded. She fought back her tears, instead sending him a smile with as much emotion as she could bear to reveal. “Don’t waste yours, sister.” The grip on her hand tightened momentarily, until his eyes slipped shut, and his fingers slackened.

Resolve building within her, Circe stood, hit the emergency call button at Timothy’s bedside table, and left the room. Her hands were tight in front of her, clenched so tightly that her knuckles were white. As two nurses rushed past her, presumably heading to Timothy’s room, she smiled slightly, and the weight that had been bowing her head and curving her shoulders lightened, if only fractionally. 

The Doctor stood beside the TARDIS, leaning against it with his brown hair sticking up against gravity, and an understanding expression already present. She didn’t say anything, her face hard despite how her green eyes shone brightly in the stark white care home lighting. 

“Alright?” His voice was low, and Circe said nothing, just stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Without hesitation, his arms came around her back, squeezing her into his chest. She pressed her face into his neck, the soft cotton of his suit comforting against her cheek. She took a deep breath, inhaling his newly familiar scent. When had she begun to take comfort in his smell, in his presence? She couldn’t be sure, but she was definitely grateful for him in that moment. His voice was low in her ear as he said, “I’m here. You’re alright, I’m here.” She squeezed her eyes shut. 

“He said he forgives me,” she whispered. Her hearts constricted tightly in her chest, and she sucked in a sharp breath. “How can he forgive me? We left him behind. We promised never to leave him, how can he just forgive us like that?” 

The Doctor’s chest vibrated beneath her as he hummed. “The capacity of humanity to forgive, to love, never fails to amaze me.” 

“And Timothy is the best of humanity.” She replied, voice hoarse. The Doctor squeezed her again. 

Silence permeated the air for a long moment, but the sound of it was comforting to Circe. Behind them, a doctor called out Timothy’s time of death. 

Chapter Text

Circe had been minding her own business, trying a new attempt at a ravioli dish that was supposed to be three of five stars in difficulty. Given her last attempt had ended in self-inflammatory pasta sheets, she wasn’t sure the difficulty rating was entirely accurate. That, or the Doctor had mislabeled powders in his kitchen that were not supposed to be used in combination with flour. 

She was kneading the new pasta dough when a shockwave caused the TARDIS to shake violently, and the ravioli dough was thrown against the wall across from her as Circe tried to ascertain the origins of the threat. She heard the Doctor yelling at something, and, her hearts pounding in her chest, she ran towards the console room. The drums beat harshly against her mind. 

“Doctor?” She called as she ran up the metal stairs, only to see a bizarre sight. “Umm…how?” 

Opposite her lay the bow of a ship, crashed through the wall of the TARDIS, and the Doctor held a lifesaver ring labelled, Titanic. 

“What?” He murmured, looking between the ring and the bow of the ship. The bells on the ship were ringing loud enough to make Circe’s head spin. 

“What did you do?” She asked, jumping up the last few stairs to stand next to him. Together, they stood looking at the metal hull. 

He looked at her finally, an expression of frustration on his face. “Why do you think I did anything?” 

“You always did do something,” she shrugged. Her memories of their childhood together only backed up her statement. “Let’s fix the shields.” Circe moved to one side of the console, and the Doctor to the other, and like they were reeling in a fish on a fishing pole, they started sewing back together the TARDIS shields. Slowly, the walls fused seamlessly once more, pushing the hull of the boat out of the console room to the exterior of the TARDIS. 

“Right, ravioli attempt number three,” Circe sighed, but the Doctor pulled a lever instead, causing the TARDIS to shake as they moved through space. She paused at the top of the stairs, looking at him in confusion. The pounding of the drums only caused that confusion to start to spiral into fear. “What are you doing?” 

“Well…” he licked his lips, nervously refusing to look her in the eye, “I think we should have a look around. It’s not often the TARDIS is broken into by a boat!” He grinned at her, and came around to stand in front of her. “Come on, Cece! Let’s explore?” 

Circe pursed her lips. Part of her wanted to refuse purely to revoke him, but another part of her was drawn in by the Doctor’s charm, as it had always been drawn in. She shrugged, pulling off her flour covered apron. Plus, as he was technically commanding officer of this ship, he had the right to decide what they were to explore and what they were to leave alone. 

“Okay,” she agreed reluctantly. The Doctor finally seemed to clock the dough still covering her fingers and the flour that coated her in a fine layer. 

“What were you making this time?” He asked conversationally as they approached the TARDIS doors. 

“Oh, just self-combusting ravioli.” 

He laughed at her, but Circe wasn’t sure what was funny. When he saw she wasn’t smiling, he asked, “really?” 

She nodded, straight faced as ever. She hung the dusted apron over the railing beside the door and wiped her fingers on it. 

He teased, “well, I’m kind of glad we crashed into the Titanic then. Can’t have you blowing up the kitchen,” but Circe ignored him to step outside the TARDIS. 

“It’s remarkably impressive for anything to penetrate the TARDIS’ shields, let alone something as flimsy as the bow of a ship” she remarked. “The shields were functioning as normal, yes?” 

The Doctor sheepishly didn’t reply, instead leading the way through a brown wooden door into a scene of elegance. There were servers wearing black dresses with white aprons, men in naval uniforms, green wreathes hung on the wooden walls, and golden statues draped in white cloth. As they walked past the statues, shaped in the form of an angel, they moved, causing Circe to jump ever so slightly. The Doctor placed a careful, calming hand on her forearm, even as he kept his focus on their surroundings. 

Circe was terrified, but she was never going to admit that to anyone, let alone the Doctor. There were so many people around her; people she didn’t know, had no profile on, and no foreknowledge of how they might react or behave. None of them seemed alarmed to have the Doctor or her appear, but there was no telling what they each might have hidden under their formal attire. 

Circe was so overwhelmed by the number of people she was newly surrounded by that she didn’t look out the window that the Doctor stopped next to, staring out into the world beyond them. 

“Ah, right,” he murmured, a small smile on his face. 

“Attention all passengers,” the tannoy called above them, “the Titanic is now in orbit above Sol 3, also known as Earth, population: human. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Christmas!” 

Circe desperately ignored the panicked drumming beat in her mind and bounced lightly on her feet. She estimated they were around 250 miles above the surface of the Earth, from what she could feel of its gravity, but that might have been slightly skewed from the artificial gravity on the ship itself. She allowed herself to access the Time Vortex, for just a blip, her eyes flashing gold so quickly that nearly no one noticed, and realised they hadn’t left 2007. Excluding their trip to say goodbye to her brother, had they really been drifting above Earth since the Year That Never Was? 

The Doctor’s hand slipped into her own, the contact startling Circe from her thought process, and he grinned at her. “What say we get into costume?” It was the first normal contact he’d initiated since she’d awoken. 

Circe remembered a time when she would have grinned back, and nodded and run to the TARDIS with him laughing. But all she could focus on was his hand in hers, and how her hearts beat faster for it, only egging on the drumming that was starting to overwhelm her mind. The only visible sign of her conflict was her breathing, which increased ever so slightly. 

“As you wish, sir,” Circe’s response was automatic, despite the fact that he’d repeatedly told her not to call him any honorific or rank, but she couldn’t focus to amend the error. 

The Doctor frowned at the words, using his grip on her hand to turn her to face him. Her vivid green eyes were stiff as they looked at him, and her expression showed no signs of what she could have been thinking. Her fingers were tense in his grip-

“Oh, I’m an idiot!” He exclaimed, dropping her hand immediately. 

There was an immediate effect, with Circe’s shoulders dropping fractionally and her lips becoming minutely less tense. 

“I’m sorry, Circe. It was, well…instinct. With Martha, and Rose, and…” he trailed off, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he promised. 

Circe watched him, internally frowning. “There’s too many people.” She said slowly, hoping he would realise the second meaning behind her words. In that moment, she trusted him as much as she hated him, and she hoped he would understand what she meant. “Too much unknown.” 

His brown eyes widened, in what she understood to be realisation, and he nodded looking around. There were crowds of people moving around, with no stable base for them to establish and no easily accessible exit strategy. He allowed himself to remember how he had been after the war, when he’d first returned to the universe. How angry, and terrified, he’d been at all times. From that frame of mind, he could understand why Circe was suddenly so stiff when she’d started to loosen up on board the TARDIS. 

“I know,” he said in consolation. “Let’s get changed and get the floor plan of the ship, then find a spot to sit and do some surveillance?” He suggested, and even though it was the barest hint of a plan, the mere fact that one existed was enough to assuage Circe of some of her worries. She nodded once. 

The Doctor grinned, looking back out the window. At least he hadn’t crashed into the Titanic in 1912. Time had enough trouble keeping in check without him throwing things off balance. 

The ballroom was busy, but Circe had found a corner of the room to place herself in that meant she could cover all entrances and exits, and was close enough to the server’s door that she had a reliable exit. People were drinking and dancing merrily, with cheesy Christmas music playing over an expensive sound system built into the room. She fiddled with the green of her dress. The lace was distracting, but bizarrely familiar in a way that made her comforted and worried. The Doctor had changed into his black tuxedo with the bow tie. While Circe remained in one spot to survey the room, the Doctor walked around, observing different people. 

Circe had noticed how those golden angels they’d seen earlier were within every room of the ship. Keeping track of the moving bodies, she studied it carefully. She was pretty sure that she could cross off weeping angels, given it looked to be made of metal and people touched it safely in passing and while communicating with it. 

As if sensing her thoughts, the Doctor turned to one angel now, close enough for Circe to listen in. 

“Evening, passenger 57: terrible memory! Remind me, you would be?” The Doctor prompted, and the angel moved to look at him. 

“Information: Heavenly Host, supplying tourist information,” the robot replied. 

“Good!” The Doctor smiled. “So tell me, because I’m an idiot, where are we from?” 

Circe could not believe that this man had ever partaken in the same war that she had. 

“Information. The Titanic is en route from the Planet Sto in the Cassavalian Belt. The purpose of the cruise is to experience primitive cultures.” 

“Titanic, ehm…who thought of the name?” 

How did he ever expect to gain meaningful information from such obviously stupid questions? 

“Information: it was chosen as the most famous vessel of the Planet Earth.” 

Circe tutted as a memory suddenly jumped out at her; Theta explaining to her in the Academy Library why the Titanic had been so important in human innovation and exploration. She shook her head, trying to clear the memory. It was a distraction. She had to ensure they were safe; she wouldn’t allow anything to threaten her or her Doctor. 

“Did they tell you why it was famous?” The Doctor asked, one brow raised sardonically. 

“Information: all designations are chosen by Mr Max Capricorn,” the angel began. Circe recognised the name from a fairly large interstellar vacation company of the same name. The angel continued, “president of Max…max…max…max…max,” it began to glitch, head twitching to the side, drawing the attention of one of the workers on the ship. The Doctor moved to pull out his sonic screwdriver as the worker began to manhandle the angel. 

“Oops, bit of a glitch!” He remarked, glancing at Circe. She raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Sorry, sir, we can handle this,” the worker promised. Circe observed as he performed a manual shutdown on the angel, noting his hand positioning and the approximate strength level he’d used. The angel tipped sideways into the arms of another worker. “Software problem, that’s all! Leave it with us, sir. Merry Christmas!” He reassured, giving the Doctor a polite smile. 

They began to take the angel out via the exit Circe was seated near, and she listened intently as the same worker said to his colleagues, “that’s another one down, what’s going wrong with these things?” 

Circe watched as they took it out of sight, and she wondered just how many had gone down and in what time span? What was causing the glitch? Or, more likely, who was causing it? 

“Oh, for Tov’s sake, look where you’re going!” Circe heard a man yell, and her head whipped around.

That tone was so familiar. It haunted her nights, prevented her from sleeping. But the face it had come from was unknown, and the voice unfamiliar. The Doctor stood on the other side of the man from her, and he watched the panic leaving her eyes, even as they both observed the altercation. 

“This jacket’s a genuine Earth antique!” He criticised. 

The blond woman, a worker, Circe assumed based off her outfit, said, “I’m sorry sir!” But the words didn’t appease the man.

“You’ll be sorry when it comes off your wages, sweetheart.” He scoffed as the woman bent down to clean the glass. “Staffed by idiots! No wonder Max Capricorn’s going down the drain.” 

Circe frowned. What had happened to the Capricorn company? Why was she struggling to remember this? 

While Circe thought it over, the Doctor moved to assist the woman. 

“Careful, there we go!” He said, picking up shards of glass for her. 

“Thank you, sir. I can manage.” 

“I never said you couldn’t!” He glanced up at her. “I’m the Doctor, by the way.” 

“Astrid, sir. Astrid Peth.”

“Nice to meet you Astrid. Merry Christmas!” 

She smiled gently, as if being wished a joyous holiday was something she wasn’t familiar with from the guests of the ship. Her voice was endearing as she said, “merry Christmas, sir.” 

“Just Doctor, not sir.” 

Circe wondered what his plan was, to instigate conversation with a worker. It was fairly common knowledge that workers tended to have the best knowledge of the inner workings of a company, but the Doctor didn’t usually play by those kinds of rules. 

“You enjoying the cruise?” She asked. 

He sucked in a breath. “Um, yeah, I suppose, I dunno. I’m with someone, Circe,” he pointed to her, and she had to watch as the woman, Astrid, turned to look at her obviously. When the woman smiled at her, she merely inclined her head in acknowledgement. “But she’s shy, so...we’re figuring it out.” He glanced at her, sending a brilliant smile. She didn’t react. “What about you?” The Doctor asked instead, directing the conversation. “Long way from home, Planet Sto.” 

“Doesn’t feel that different,” Astrid admitted. She stepped in closer, and Circe could tell from her body language that she meant no harm, only that she intended on not being overheard. “Spent three years working at the spaceport diner; travel all the way here, and I’m still waiting on tables!” 

When Astrid moved to collect more glasses from the large windowsill by Circe’s table, Circe had to pretend she wasn’t listening by looking out to the crowd, but she heard their conversation easily.

“No shore leave?” 

“We’re not allowed: they can’t afford the insurance. I just wanted to try it, just once…” Astrid paused, and Circe could almost imagine the wishful expression on her face. “I used to watch the ships heading out to the stars, and I always dreamt of…” She cut herself off. “It sounds daft.” 

“She dreamt of another sky,” Circe murmured, causing the Doctor to grin at her and steal her words. 

“New sun,” he continued, “new air, new life; a whole universe teeming with life. Why stand still when there’s all that life out there?” The Doctor sighed, turning his back to the window, his gaze falling onto Circe’s back. She hadn’t turned, fulfilling her surveillance duties as dutifully as any soldier might have, but she couldn’t hide how intently she was listening. He wondered what she might have been thinking. Was she remembering the moment when he’d first taken her off Gallifrey? Or their first time seeing a meteor shower from above? 

Astrid tore her gaze from the depths of outer space, heart filled with forbidden longing. “So, you travel…a lot?” She asked, breaking the Doctor’s train of thought. 

“All the time! Just for fun.” The Doctor laughed at himself. “Well, that’s the plan, never quite works.” He looked away from Circe, back to Astrid. 

“You must be rich, though.” The words weren’t said callously, but curiously, as if she wanted to know more about the strange man in front of her. 

“Haven’t got a penny.” He glanced at Astrid with his brown eyes gleaming with humour. “Stowaways,” he whispered. 

“Doctor, stop!” Circe whispered, finally relenting and turning to face the two. 

“Kidding?” Astrid glanced between the two of them.

“Seriously.” 

“No!” 

“Oh, yeah.” 

“How’d you get on board?” She asked, and Circe sighed heavily. 

“Accident! I’ve got this sort of ship-thing, I was just rebuilding her, left the defences down, bumped into the Titanic, here we are!”

“I knew it,” Circe stated, crossing her arms victoriously. The Doctor grinned at her, and she kept her stern expression for a moment, not wanting the Doctor win that moment. But the Doctor was thrilled to win or lose if it meant Circe’s attention wasn’t hyper-focused on their surroundings. 

“Bit of a party, I thought, why not? Dragged Circe along for the ride, didn’t want her to miss a thing!” 

Astrid smiled kindly at Circe, but the Time Lady just pursed her lips. 

“I should report you both.” Astrid commented. 

“Go on, then,” Circe dared, to her own surprise. She’d intended it to be threatening, but the words came across as playful, and Astrid obviously thrived in the implications of the words. 

“I’ll get you both a drink, on the house” she teased instead, walking away with her tray. 

The Doctor grinned at her retreating figure, and sat himself next to Circe. His arm came to rest around the back of her chair; not touching her, just resting. Circe startled at the movement, but it only caused her to notice that his dark eyes were focused on their surroundings, tracking the entrances of the passengers and workers as well as keeping an eye for suspicious activity, despite how his body was turned towards her, implying his focus was on her. It was a simple body language trick that could prevent potential enemies from knowing they were being watched. It was an artful deceit, that Circe hadn’t been sure he’d had to learn during the war. Evidently, he had. And he had learnt well. 

Was he doing that for her? 

“Coping?” He murmured, and Circe nodded stiffly, still almost unable to tear her eyes from his profile. When his eyes next passed to her face, his brows dipped into an amused well of confusion. “What are you staring at? Something on my face?” His free hand came up to touch his cheek even as his lips upturned at the tease, and Circe wanted to push his hand away and tell him not to be ridiculous in a potentially dangerous situation, not to joke around like he usually did, but she was so shocked by his simple act of kindness that she was struggling to formulate words into sentences. He finally looked at her for longer than a second and saw the confusion in her face. He grinned knowingly, making Circe roll her eyes in exasperation. 

“Ah, I see!” He exclaimed, his voice full of humour. 

She finally rewired her brain enough to hold a conversation. “Shut up, Starboy,” she murmured, the old nickname making him laugh in shock. 

“We’re breaking open coffins now? I thought we’d buried Starboy next to Grounded?” His fingers at her back brushed the fabric of her dress absently, barely skimming the clothed skin of her shoulder, but Circe found herself relishing in the playful nature of the seemingly thoughtless touch. Able to focus resolutely on her friend, she twisted in her seat purposefully, leaving his fingers pressed against her upper back as she faced him fully. If he was surprised, he didn’t let it show. Inwardly, he thrilled in the feeling of soft satin against his fingertips, and the hint of firm flesh underneath. 

“Only because Starboy is such an apt nickname for you,” she retorted. “And what kind of nickname is Grounded? It’s nearly as bad as that Earth superhero you told me of once: Wondrous Women, or something to that effect. Inane and stupid.” The Doctor spluttered out a laugh of shock. 

“Stupid?” He exclaimed, his brown eyes wide. “That seems a bit childish an insult, don’t you think?” 

“Well, your nicknaming skills were and still are stupid.” Circe smirked, her green eyes glinting deviously in the dim dining room lighting. “Do I even need to mention ‘timey-whimey’? Or perhaps the machine that goes ding? It wasn’t hard to come up with that name, I remember it well!” Circe teased, grinning widely at the Doctor. His expression had shifted gradually from shocked to amused, despite the clear offence he took. 

“What would you have called it, then? It was a machine that went ding!" He exclaimed. Circe rolled her eyes. 

“And about 4 other noises, too. I probably would call it a Time Displacement Detector, TiDiDe for short.” She smirked at the outraged scoff he gave in response. 

There was a sense of familiarity that came with teasing the Doctor, from their centuries as children together. It made her hearts beat fast in her chest, the drums in her mind responding equally but not in a way that caused her pain or fear. It was…pleasant.  Her body’s reaction to their friendship was pleasant. 

“But that makes too much sense,” the Doctor sulked, his fingers playfully pressing into her back to draw her back into the conversation. He glanced at her again, and his hearts beat hard at the warmth in those green eyes, and how her new face already held so much more life than when she’d awoken. His eyes had quickly grown familiar with the lines of her face, but they were also changing as she discovered herself. He believed that he could study her and her changes for a century and still find something new and exciting to delve into. His eyes flicked away again, tracking the movement of one of the maintenance workers at the back of the room. “It’s just boring then. It’s a boring maker.” 

She shook her head, narrowing her eyes at him playfully. “No, its purpose hasn’t changed. It doesn’t become boring because it has a boring name.” 

The Doctor scoffed. “Sure, and when have you ever met an interesting person called Bob? The name gives meaning! It has to be a good name!” 

Circe made an offended noise, and stated, “and yet you called me Grounded!” 

The Doctor stammered for a moment, struggling to recover. After a few seconds, Circe hummed, the lack of surprise evident in her raised eyebrow, and she leant against the back of the chair, forcing the Doctor to remove his arm. She crossed her arms over her chest, resuming her self imposed duty of scanning for danger, ignoring the beginnings of an itch that originated under the scars on her hands. The charter guests had obviously moved around the room, but no one seemed to be demonstrating any suspicious activity since she’d allowed the Doctor to observe them. The only real change in behaviour was a group of high class gossips, who’d started laughing raucously at a couple seated at a different table. The couple were dressed in royal purple cowboy outfits. 

“Go on, then,” she encouraged when he didn’t move. 

“What?” He asked in surprise. He had to drag his eyes away from the scenario as it was unfolding, and Circe rolled her own. “Nah, it’s nothing, I’m sure.” He shrugged, but his eyes were drawn to the couple wearing royal purple once more. 

Circe tutted, and pushed him upwards. “Go. I appreciate what you’re doing, but this ship is named after a cursed human naval vessel. There’s bound to be a problem, especially if you’re wearing that suit.” She glanced him up and down, and he made another offended face, but dramatically had to concede. 

“I told Martha this suit is cursed.” He shook his head sideways, and amended, “well, she thought it was just me, but…” 

“Martha was far too smart to have travelled with you for so long,” Circe remarked, making the Doctor’s face twist into offended annoyance once more. She sighed, gesturing for him to go. “Go on, then. Find the problem and solve it, Starboy. Like you always do.” 

“You’ll be alright?” He checked, and Circe scoffed, which was confirmation enough for them both. The Doctor smiled slightly, hands instinctively lifting to adjust the bowtie at his neck, and he turned towards the couple being teased. 

As the Doctor was distracted, Circe grabbed a random glass of wine from her table, moved to the window that the Doctor and Astrid Peth had looked out of, and sat on the sill. Confirming that no one was watching her, Circe lifted her hands before her and twisted that living part that swirled inside her.

It responded, satiating the itch she had been waiting to scratch. 

Her eyes flashed gold, and the scars on her hands began to tingle. She saw from within the gold of her eyes timelines beginning to form, developing from twists and turns of unseen and seen choices like threads wrapping and uncoiling from around each other. Like threading a needle, Circe selected the same thread she always had, and made a choice. The breath that left her was shaky and sensual as she felt the timeline solidify. From her hands emanated golden dust that defied gravity as it rose to form a picture. The unending sorrow that filled her would have left her collapsed in a flood of tears had she been anyone else. 

She watched as Astrid fell into an explosion. 

Her green eyes dimmed as the timeline faded, and she gasped as if she’d run ten miles. She’d only looked out of curiosity, and now she would have to live with one more death on her hands. Despite the dread, the rush of the vortex flowing freely through her only made her want to try again. Maybe she could find a new timeline; change Astrid’s end, while not sacrificing the result. She’d surprisingly grown rather fond of the woman, despite only talking to her briefly, and she’d wondered, possibly in vain, if the Doctor might consent to a new companion, despite the TARDIS not being her ship. Circe remembered how it felt to be on the receiving end of the Doctor’s show of wonder, and she almost wanted to share her own wonder with someone new.

She made a new choice, and it showed the same result. And a new one, and a new one, and a new one, and it all showed the same answer. Why couldn't she find a solution? Why were her choices not affecting Astrid's premature demise? There had always been a solution. She had always found the perfect way to finegal the timelines. Time was hers to play with, not the other way around. Destiny had meant nothing when she could determine exactly how her decisions would impact the timeline. 

She raised her hands to try again. 

A tannoy system spoke then, and the Doctor and his new friends rose, snapping Circe out of her spiral of hatred and spiteful hope. “Attention, please; shore leave tickets Red 6-7 now activated, Red 6-7 now activated.” 

The Doctor looked over to her, a wide grin on his face. The distance evidently hid her angst as he showed no signs of acknowledging the conflict she was sure must be obvious. Although, she wondered if she’d gotten so used to hiding her emotions that they didn’t show even when she was highly distressed. He gestured her over, and Circe stood to follow. 

“Morvin, Foon; this is Circe, my travelling partner!” The Doctor introduced, and Circe nodded her head politely to the two dressed in costumes. 

“Oh, it is a pleasure to meet you! Your partner sure is a keeper,” Foon winked, her large face bright with undisguised joy. Circe hoped she was allowing some bemusement to cross her face, glancing between the trio. 

“Quickly, we don’t want to miss our spot!” Morvin exclaimed. Circe glanced to the Doctor again, confused once more. 

She asked, “where are we going?” 

“We’re going to Earth!” Morvin exclaimed, and Circe pursed her lips, but nodded. 

Hearts thudding in her chest, she wondered how many more new environments the Doctor was going to test her in. 

The teleportation deck wasn’t far from the ballroom, and people walked through it casually as if teleportation itself wasn’t risky in this time period. If someone was teleported to a location where another person was walking through, the risk of the particles of the teleported merging with those of the formed was incredibly high. It was a dreadful oversight that, in 10 galactic standard years, would lead to a very complex and difficult legal battle with two living merged defendants fighting against the technological companies that had developed the technology and spread it galaxy wide. Circe had read about it at the Academy. 

“Red 6-7, Red 6-7, this way, fast as you can!” Someone called closer to the teleportation deck. Morvin and Foon rushed forward, their excitement palpable in the air. Circe followed behind the Doctor, the lace of her gown swishing around her legs as she walked. She was reminded of why she’d chosen not to wear the traditional Academy uniform when she graduated, as she endeavoured now not to trip on the layers of gown. She wondered how Florence had managed to wear almost exclusively skirts and dresses for at least 6 decades, and wished the skill hadn’t left her now. 

Astrid came up alongside Circe, silver tray in hand. “I got you those drinks,” she said easily, but Circe brightened, grabbing the tray from her before the Doctor could.

“And I’ve got a treat for you, come.” Circe didn’t extrapolate, and she didn’t look at the Doctor as she gently grasped Astrid’s wrist, pulling her forwards alongside them. 

“Red 6-7, departing shortly,” the escort called, holding a large red ticket above his head. He was an older man, wearing a checkered white shirt and a dark red bow tie beneath a three piece suit. 

Circe stopped beside Foon, and glanced at the Doctor hopefully. He grinned at her, pulling his psychic paper from his pocket to show the scot. “Red 6-7, plus two.” The Doctor had his usual charm on, and no one blinked at the bizarre request. 

“Er, quickly sir, please; and take three teleport bracelets, if you would!” The escort prompted, handing over the items. 

Circe smirked, taking two from him and turning to Astrid. 

Astrid looked at her in warning, her eyes wide. “I’ll get the sack!”

Circe took her wrist gently, hearts pounding like a stampede in her chest, and she whispered, “brand new sky!” She clamped the bracelet on and looked up to Astrid through her eyelashes. The woman’s breath caught, as if enraptured in her spell, and Circe stepped back. “Gotcha,” she whispered, a flash of gold sparking through her green eyes. Circe would find a way to change her fate. 

The escort was speaking, and Circe and Astrid focused in, while the Doctor could only grin at his friend. 

“To repeat, I am Mr Copper, the ship’s historian, and I shall be taking you to Old London Town in the country of Yookay. Ruled over by Good King Wenceslas.”

Circe wasn’t overly fond of humanity. She found them violent and speciesist and ignorant at the best of times, but she at least had a better base understanding of their history than this historian seemed to. After all, know your enemy, and whatnot. So, as Mr Copper spoke about the Great God, Santa, and the Christmas dinner containing the country of Turkey, the Doctor and Circe glanced at each other in bewilderment. 

“Excuse me, sorry, sorry, but…” the Doctor interrupted, “but where are you getting all this from?” 

Mr Copper puffed up slightly, as if confused to be confronted. “Well, I have a first-class degree in Earthonomics.” 

Circe had noticed the Zocci when he’d entered, despite being short enough to likely go undiscovered. He called out, “and me! Red 6-7,” and rushed forward to get a teleportation bracelet. 

“But hold on, hold on…what was your name?” The Doctor asked, and the Zocci looked him up and down before responding. 

“Bannakaffalatta,” he said simply. 

“Okay, Bannakaffalatta, but it’s Christmas Eve down there; late-night shopping, tons of people, he’s like a talking conker,” the Doctor exclaimed, causing the red Zocci to turn to him in offence. Circe wondered if this wasn’t what the Doctor would call rude. “No offence, but you’ll cause a riot, because the streets are going to be packed with shoppers and parties and…” the teleportation bracelets activated before the Doctor could finish his sentence, and they appeared on an abandoned street. 

Circe took a deep breath, looking up and around her. The night sky was dark, with only the brightest stars visible. Still, Circe could pinpoint Sirius and Canopus, the two brightest stars in Sol 3’s viewing capacity. She adjusted to having two feet back on the ground, noticing how disorienting it was to feel the spinning of the planet once more. When she’d visited Timmy at the end of his life, she’d been too distraught to notice. Now, she couldn’t do anything but notice how quickly they accelerated through the universe, and feel the tumbling ground beneath her, and how the star was spinning in a greater circle beyond them within the galaxy, and how that galaxy span within the vastness of the universe. She felt the strength of each planet within the solar system pulling on the mass of Sol 3, to create the carefully curated movement of the planet through space. 

She breathed the air in, an ecstasy in the action that the Doctor watched with glee, in spite of his pressing concerns about the lack of humans on the street. 

“Now, spending money!” Mr Copper said, holding up something. “I have a credit card in Earth currency, if you want to buy trinkets or stockings of the local delicacy, which is known as beef, but don’t stray too far; it could be dangerous! Any day now, they start boxing!” 

Circe looked at Astrid finally, and saw the wonder on her face. Her skin, now lit by humanity’s inefficient street lights, seemed to shine with joy. She took in the shops along the pavements, and the lights that were strung to be a stand-alone Christmas tree, and she grinned. 

“It should be full,” the Doctor murmured, “It should be busy. Something’s wrong!” 

“But it’s beautiful,” Astrid breathed. 

“Really?” The Doctor asked, looking at the buildings around them. “D’you think so? It’s just a street. The pyramids are beautiful, and New Zealand…” 

“But it’s a different planet! I’m standing on a different planet!” The excitement in Astrid voice only made Circe want to grin. The three of them walked forward together, away from the group. “There’s…concrete! And shops! Alien shops!” She jumped and span in a circle, looking at Circe. “Real alien shops! Look,” she said suddenly, pointing upwards, “no stars in the sky. And it smells…it stinks!” She exclaimed, “oh, this is amazing! Thank you!” She leapt onto Circe, who tensed, having not been excepting it. It didn’t last long though, and she was darting off to look at one of the only open stores. It was a small, white wooden box, with union flags strung up on the back wall, and newspapers along the front. The man sat within it made Circe's insides sing, and she struggled for a moment not to twist and find out what it was that made this man important. 

“Hello, there, sorry,” the Doctor said, rambling the same way he had with the Heavenly Host, “obvious question, but…where’s everybody gone?” 

The man chuckled, “oh, ho, scared.” 

The Doctor nodded as if it made perfect sense, and then asked, “scared of what?” 

“Where’ve you been living? London!” The man prompted, and Circe raised an eyebrow. He turned to her to say, “At Christmas! Not safe, is it?” 

“Why?” Circe asked quietly, worry worming its way into her hearts. What if this was the year that World War Three started and they’d not realised? What if...he…had somehow wormed his way back to life and was causing mayhem? 

“Well, it’s them!” The man pointed to the roof of his box, but Circe understood his intention. “Up above. Look, Christmas before last, we have that big bloody spaceship. Everyone standing on the roof! And the last year,” he pointed to a small red television box showcasing an alien spaceship being blown up above London skyline, “that Christmas star, electrocuting all over the place, draining the Thames.” 

Astrid breathed in wonder, “this place is amazing!” 

“And this year, Lord knows what!” The man finished. “So, everybody’s scarpered. Gone to the country. All except me, and Her Majesty.” The television showed an image of a reporter stood in front of Buckingham Palace, confirming what the man was telling them. He saluted the air, saying stoutly, “God bless her! We stand vigil!” 

The Doctor wavered, his body moving with his words. “Well, between you and me, I think Her Majesty’s got it right. As far as I know, this year, nothing to worry about!” He said confidently. 

The teleport activated, and Circe wanted to scream. “No, I disagree with Martha. It’s that suit. It’s definitely that suit,” Circe exclaimed, striding away from the group in frustration. “What in the name of the Seventy Stars happened?” She turned to Mr Copper in anger, as did most of the people they’d been travelling with. Her hearts were beating fast in her chest, and the drumming, which had been relatively quiet up until that moment, beat against her skull furiously. 

“I was in mid-sentence!” The Doctor exclaimed alongside her. 

Mr Copper stepped down from his pedestal, saying, “yes, I’m sorry about that, bit of a problem. If I could have your bracelets?” The group Red 6-7 started handing their bracelets over with minimal fuss, despite the interruption. 

Circe noticed one of the crew members walking over, and she stepped discreetly in front of Astrid, hiding her from view. Now that they were back on the ship, her vigilance that she’d dropped on the planet returned with a vengeance, as if her failure to do her duty on Sol 3 meant she had to make up for lost time now. Whatever the reason, she ignored the drumming in her mind and scanned every person in the teleportation deck for threats. 

“Apologies, ladies and gentlemen and Bannakaffalatta,” he was saying, “we seem to have suffered a power fluctuation. If you’d like to return to the festivities, and on behalf of Max Capricorn Cruiseliners, free drinks with be provided.” The crowd around them murmured their agreement with this new arrangement. 

Astrid gripped the back of Circe’s skirts in anxiety as the crew passed them by, but the tall woman easily hid her small frame. Once she was safe from being caught, Astrid moved to the front of the Doctor and Circe, and gripped both of their forearms. “That was the best,” she whispered, “the best!” 

The Doctor smiled at her, but his incessant need to poke a sleeping bear had perked up, and Circe pursed her lips as she watched him approach the crew. “What sort of power fluctuation?” He asked quietly, not wanting to alarm anyone. 

The man smiled falsely, one intended to placate and not truly inform. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, sir. I suggest you head to the ballroom. The band is due to start shortly.” The words were clipped, and he didn’t give the Doctor a chance to respond. 

Circe frowned at the Doctor as he moved back to her side, his arm wrapping around her waist easily. She stiffened ever so slightly, but easily manipulated her expression into one of ease. Anyone observing them might have thought they were simply going to join the festivities. 

As they moved, Circe murmured below the hearing of most lifeforms, “I didn’t sense a power fluctuation; did you?” 

He shook his head minutely, and, with both of their suspicions on high alert, they moved to gather intel. 

Chapter Text

The ballroom was filled with cheer. Folks danced in the centre of the room to songs Circe didn’t recognise, and games of intergalactic poker and pool were played at the edges of the room. She spied Foon and Morvin having more of their fill of the buffet, and inclined her head in greeting to them. She walked the edge of the room, analysing the best exit strategies in the event of several hypothetical attacks, as well as her best response to varying hypotheses. Passing one of the Heavenly Host, she kept half an eye on it as she returned to the Doctor. Together, they’d made a lap of the room, and from glancing across at him, she could tell that neither of them had noticed any particular oncoming threat. They crossed at a portrait of Max Capricorn, and it spoke, “and I should know, because my name is Max.” It showed an uncomfortably close portrait of his face, and it created the logo for Max Capricorn Cruiseliners. As they stopped beside the portrait, the Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket while Circe kept an eye out for any worker or crew member. 

“The fastest, the furthest…” the portrait was saying as the Doctor lifted it from its holding. Circe helped him move it out of the way, and together they accessed the wiring beneath it. 

“Now what’s going on with the Titanic…?” The Doctor murmured, and Circe flicked a switch within the wiring panel, changing the display. The Doctor pushed his rectangular glasses onto his face as he looked over the screen that now displayed a radar and a concerning message below it. 

‘Shields offline,’ the message read, and Circe groaned. 

“What is with you and shields today?” She exclaimed, causing him to scoff at her. 

“You can’t blame this on me!” He protested, and Circe tilted her head, reaching up to fix his bowtie. 

“No, but I think I’m going to have to disagree with Martha on this one. This suit is absolutely cursed. There are three meteors heading straight for us. You realise that normal outings aren’t always supposed to be this dangerous.” She pointed to the radar, and the Doctor squinted at it, his eyes widening when he saw it. He looked through the window beside the portrait, and he frowned when he saw that the radar showed the truth; two large rocks hurtling for them. His sonic screwdriver was buzzing once more as he activated the intercom within the portrait. 

“Is that the bridge? I need to talk to the captain. There’s a meteoroid storm coming in…west zero by north two,” the Doctor explained urgently. 

“Who is this?” The Captain’s voice came through clearly, and Circe stiffened as she saw the crew that had ended their trip to the planet approaching. She persistently tapped the Doctor’s shoulder to warn him, her hearts beating hard when he insisted on remaining on the intercom. She slid away from him, circling around silently to the platform. She could not let Astrid die. She could save Astrid, and have her chosen future. She would have both. 

“Never mind that, check your scanners, Captain!” The Doctor exclaimed. “You’ve got meteoroids coming in and no shielding!” 

“You have no authorisation, you will clear the comms at once.” 

Foreboding sank into Circe’s stomach as she vaguely recalled why the company had sounded familiar. Hadn’t the first owner been voted out and then went rogue…? 

“Yeah?” The Doctor’s voice was raising in volume, and he yelled out, “just look starboard!” 

The crew members took the Doctor by the arm, “please come with me, sir,” dragging him away. He didn’t go easily though, tugging against their restraining holds, and trying to convince them of the truth as well.

Circe’s hearts were fluttering in anxiety. She would not fail. As the Doctor was dragged out of the ballroom, she pushed her way through the crowds moving with more and more urgency, until she’d finally managed to push her way onto the stage. Despite how vulnerable a position she was now in, she pushed the singer out of the way and yelled down the microphone, “everyone listen! This is an emergency. There is a meteor shower headed for the ship! Evacuate to the life-,” and despite her best efforts she couldn’t force the metallic hand of one of the Heavenly Host away from her mouth, as it dragged her off the stage to follow the Doctor. “Windows!” She yelled over her shoulder as she was manhandled to follow the Doctor. The hands bruised her arms, and she thrashed against them, but as the host passed her onto two men, who held her tightly against them, she had no hope of escaping. 

“If you don’t believe me, then check the windows yourselves!” The Doctor yelled.

Astrid appeared beside Circe, and Morvin and Foon were following the Doctor. 

“I can vouch for them, sir!” Astrid exclaimed, desperately trying to get their attention. 

“Steward, he’s just had a bit too much to drink,” Morvin tried to reason.

It was no use, as the Doctor and Circe were dragged through a Crew Only door, followed still by Morvin, Foon and Astrid, into a maintenance corridor with pipes and steam along the walls. Circe kept trying to pull her arms out of the grip of the men holding her, but was failing. The Doctor desperately tried to reason with the stewards, but the two men ignored him.

One of the men from before rushed in behind them, calling out, “oi, steward! I’m telling you, the shields are down!” 

“Listen to him, listen to him!” The Doctor yelled. 

Circe felt the final shift in gravitational waves around them and she ordered, “drop, now!” 

The impact shook the entire ship. Circe and the Doctor dropped to the floor, keeping their limbs pulled into their bodies in a habitual manner. The rest of the people with them stumbled around with the impact, falling against each other and into the surrounding wall and pipes. Circe reached up to pull Astrid down beside her, the woman falling gratefully into her. Together, they gripped a pipe as their world exploded. 

As the ship stopped shaking, the Doctor stood slowly, keeping his balance as much as possible. Small fires were burning all around them, and smoke was starting to fill the air. He stopped beside Circe first, his hand coming to rest atop her forehead. She could’ve been mistaken as peaceful with her eyes closed like that. Gently, he sent a mental probe to confirm she was alive, and he received a spike of pain in response as her eyes cracked open to glare at him. He winced, but sighed in relief as he stood upright. “It’s stopping,” he murmured. 

Circe scoffed as she stood. “Of course it’s stopping. It was three meteors, at a time where no meteors were due to occur.” She told him quietly. “This wasn’t an accident.” 

The Doctor nodded in agreement and then reached beside Circe to help Astrid up. “You alright?” He asked. 

“I think so,” she groaned, standing with his help. Once she’d stood, she brushed off some of the debris from her apron. 

“Bad name for a ship,” the Doctor said quietly. 

“It’s as cursed as that suit is,” Circe poked the shoulder of the suit jacket. “We’re burning this in the twin flames of Sirius after today.” 

The Doctor looked at Circe, with her green eyes bright despite the impact they’d just experienced, and her brown hair pulled from her neatly twisted hairdo into disarray, and he grinned at her. “Whatever you want, Cece,” he agreed, because to see her actively interacting with their first adventure was more than he could have hoped for. She could’ve asked for anything, and if it had been in his power, he would have granted it. 

Moving onwards, he bent down to check the still body of the steward that had been holding him.

“They’re gone,” Circe whispered, confirming what he was checking. She looked to those still standing, counting six people as still alive, not including herself, the Doctor or Astrid. That was nine people to keep track of. She could do that. Her hearts beat hard in fear, but she would do it. 

The last steward alive was speaking, “I must apologise, on behalf of Max Capricorn Cruiseliners. We seem to have had a small collision.” 

Circe scoffed, but Morvin was already talking back. 

“Small!” He exclaimed.

The man who’d joined them at the last minute yelled, “do you know how much I paid for my ticket?” 

Circe realised he had been the man who had sounded like Koschei when he’d yelled, and her spine stiffened. The drums beat viciously in her head, as if victorious that she’d mentally sworn to protect anyone who might remind her of that Time Lord. She clenched her fists against her sides as everyone started yelling at once. It didn’t go on for long, as the steward yelled, “quiet!” 

Circe moved to the door they had been heading towards while the steward placated the group, investigating the seal carefully. Placing an ear against the door, she focused her hearing, blocking out the life sounds of the 8 lifeforms she knew to be with her. There was no sound on the other side of the door. She stepped back, confused but suddenly distracted by Astrid calling the Doctor over to check on Mr Copper. Circe made half a step in that direction, before realising that the steward intended on opening the door she’d just inspected. 

“Don’t!” Circe yelled, reaching to stop him, but the wheel had already been twisted, and the vacuum outside sucked the door and the steward outside into space. As everyone grasped for a hold, Circe turned to the console behind her and began typing. Her hearts were speeding, and she could feel the temptation to become the Sorceress overtaking her, the drumming only spiralling that temptation further. There was too much unknown, and she couldn’t control the environment, but she couldn’t allow Astrid to get hurt, and the Sorceress would only care for one person.

Fighting to breathe and to hold on, Circe used one hand to grasp a handhold and the other to type furiously on the keypad. Her eyes flashed gold, and the Doctor appeared beside her just as she fixed the oxygen shield, sealing the doorway to outer space. The gravity returned, and everyone dropped back to the floor. The Doctor grasped Circe’s shoulder, his deep eyes searching her own for any sign of a problem, and he wasn’t reassured by what he saw. 

“Everyone alright?” He asked instead. “Astrid, Foon? Morvin, Mr Copper? Bannakaffalatta?” 

“Yes,” the Zocci stated, nodding beside Circe. 

“You, what was your name?” The Doctor asked the unknown man. 

“Rickston Slade,” he said smoothly. Circe shuddered, not turning to look at him. 

“You alright?” The Doctor checked, and Rickston adjusted his suit shirt. 

“No thanks to that idiot,” he referenced the steward. Circe swallowed hard, her breathing shallow. 

Astrid cried, “that steward just died!” 

“Then he’s a dead idiot.” 

Circe’s grip on the console tightened, and the metal creaked underneath her fingertips. The Doctor eyed her in concern, placing his hand atop her own. 

“All right, calm down!” He called when Astrid went to snap at Rickston. “Just, stay still, all of you. Hold on.” He looked at Circe, ducking his head to catch her gaze. She was glaring at the console, fighting to stay in control. “Whatever you need, I’m here.” He whispered. Her hand shook, but she changed the way their hands were positioned until she was grasping his hand tighter than she’d held the metal. Her green eyes were glassy, as if she was struggling to get through to him, and the Doctor nodded in understanding. If she was struggling to stay present, he would do his best to ground her. 

The Doctor and Circe moved to the open doorway to space, looking out over the destruction wrought upon the Titanic. Bodies were floating across the vacuum alongside burnt debris. Astrid moved to join them. 

“What happened?” She asked, “how come the shields were down?” 

“It was done on purpose,” Circe murmured in response, her voice dark. 

“How many dead?” 

The Doctor glanced at the human. “We’re alive. Let’s focus on that.”

“And let’s keep it that way.” Circe squeezed the Doctor’s hand, the drumming kicking up a storm in her mind. 

“We will get you out of here, Astrid. I promise.” The Doctor grasped Astrid’s shoulder across Circe. “Look at me.” 

The distraught woman tore her gaze away from the destruction, tears in her eyes. She stared at the Doctor, breathing hard. “I promise,” he swore. She nodded. “Now, if we can get to the reception, I’ve got a spaceship tucked away. We can all get on board and…” Circe silenced him with a tug on his hand. 

Floating very much away from them was the TARDIS. It drifted contentedly through the debris, harmlessly missing any projectiles, and headed to the closest planet. 

The planet they couldn’t get to. 

“Where?” Astrid asked, hope back in her voice, but Circe shook her head. 

“That’s it. That little blue box.” 

The Doctor laughed slightly at the irony. 

“That’s a spaceship?” Astrid asked, disbelief obvious in her tone. 

“Oi, don’t knock it!” He protested. 

“It’s a bit small,” was all she replied. 

“A bit distant,” Circe commented dryly. 

“Trouble is,” the Doctor continued, “once it’s set adrift, it’s programmed to lock onto the nearest centre of gravity. And that would be the Earth.” 

Circe wondered where it would land. She wondered whether Martha would find it, and wonder what had happened to them, or if Jack would try to pilot it back to them. 

“What’s the plan, then?” Rickston asked, noticing how Circe seemed to tense up with his approach, but not caring enough to bother worrying about it. 

The Doctor hummed, rocking back on his feet. He glanced around the space, at the resources he had to hand. The people were unlikely to be of much use; Rickston didn’t look like he’d done a hard day’s work in his life, and Morvin and Foon had won their tickets in a competition. Circe would’ve been able to help ordinarily, but she appeared to be locked in an internal struggle between her own mental state and the Sorceress’. “We need to find out if anyone else survived,” he decided, pulling Circe over to the console once more. He took a second to marvel at the strength it had taken her to dent the metal siding of the machine, before he pulled the intercom microphone around from the side, and used his sonic screwdriver to change the interface from technical to communicative. 

“Deck 22 to bridge, deck 22 to bridge,” he called, “is there anyone there?” 

It took a moment of silence, but just as the Doctor was going to call again, it crackled to life. 

“This is the bridge,” a new voice called, different to that of the Captain. 

The Doctor grinned, “oh, hello sailor! Good to hear you! What’s the situation up there?” He asked. 

The voice, a young voice from what Circe could focus on, replied, “erm…we’ve got air! The oxygen field is holding. But the Captain…he’s dead. He did it, oh, my Vot, he took down the shields… There was nothing I could do, I tried, I did try.” He was trying not to cry, but it was obvious that the situation was overcoming him. 

“All right, stay calm, just tell me your name,” the Doctor eased. 

“Midshipman Frame.” 

“Nice to meet you, sir. What’s the state of the engines?” 

“They’re, umm…hold on,” he said, and then there was silence for a long second. A cry of agony caused Circe to flinch. 

“Have you been injured, Midshipman Frame?” She asked immediately, and the Doctor hummed. 

“I’m all right,” the boy winced, “oh, my Vot. They’re cycling down,” he explained. 

“That’s a Nuclear Storm Drive, yes?” The Doctor asked. On confirmation, he then asked, “the moment they’re gone, we lose orbit?” 

“The planet,” Midshipman Frame murmured, and the Doctor confirmed it. 

“If we hit the planet, the Nuclear Storm explodes and wipes out life on Earth.” The Doctor ran a hand over his face. 

There was too much spiraling out of her control. Circe was gone but the Sorceress took the microphone, her voice hard as ice as she ordered, “Midshipman, fire up the Engine Containment Field and feed it back into the core.” 

“That’s never gonna work, ma’am,” he replied.

“That was an order, sailor.” 

“No, that’s good. It’ll keep the engines going until we can get to the bridge!” The Doctor reassured, glancing at the Sorceress in concern. Gone was the fear or empathy from her expression, and in its place was the soldier. 

He almost missed Foon’s exclamation of, “we’re going to die,”, which led to the dissolution of the calm he’d carefully placed over the Stovians.

“Are you saying someone’s done this on purpose?” Mr Copper asked. 

“This was supposed to be a cruise ship!” Someone exclaimed. 

Other voices chimed in, until the Sorceress ordered, “silence.” Her voice whipped the group like one lash, and they obeyed. All eyes were on her, instinctively afraid. 

“Okay, one, we’re going to climb through this ship,” the Doctor took over, “B - no, two - we’re going to reach the bridge. Three, or C, we’re going to save the Titanic. And coming in a very low four, or D, or that little ‘iv’ in brackets they use on footnotes,” The Doctor started rambling, and the Sorceress turned to glare at him, her green eyes flashing gold once. He carefully noted it as he returned to his final point. “Why?” Was that the third time he’d seen her eyes flash? If he wasn’t busy trying to keep a group of cruise ship passengers alive, he might’ve thought about the coincidence. 

Rickston opened his mouth to speak, but the Sorceress stepped into his vision. With the Doctor now behind her, she allowed part of the vortex to slip into her eyes and voice as she said, “he is the Doctor. I am the Sorceress. We are Time Lords, from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. We together are older than two millennia, and he is the man who is going to save your lives, and all six billion people on the planet below. I am the soldier who is going to protect him. Any questions?” She pulled back the vortex energy as the Doctor stepped up beside her. 

When Time Lords had been more numerous, there had been myths, stories, artworks, songs created about a Time Lord’s eyes; the inconceivable depths that one could find if one stared into them. It used to permeate mythology across the universe. There were great poems written about the universes trapped within the eyes of a Time Lord, and how, if you looked for too long, you might be driven mad by the stars you found there. As the group of seven looked at the two Time Lords stood in front of them now, they realised those long forgotten stories were true, as the hazel glittered with unimaginable profundity and the green shone with something otherworldly. 

“You got a problem with that?” The Doctor asked after a long moment studying Rickston Slade. 

“No,” the man said, hiding his step back with bravado. 

“In that case,” the Doctor grinned at the Sorceress beside him. She stared at him, awaiting orders. “Allons-y!” 

The Doctor led the charge, directing the group through the wreck using the floor plans he and Circe had studied before they’d changed outfits. The group struggled behind him, but he refused to allow their pace to wane. They were walking on a ticking time bomb of a spaceship, and they needed to hurry. 

The Sorceress took the rear, after a heated stare between her and the Doctor. She had orders to keep him safe, and she couldn’t do so from the rear, but he was her commanding officer. She wouldn’t disobey. 

Astrid and Mr Copper followed the Doctor directly, with Rickston Slade next in line. Bannakaffalatta, Foon and Morvin were close behind. 

As the Doctor pushed open a door, Foon turned to the Sorceress, curiosity crossing her features. 

“So, is your title the Sorceress?” Foon asked, her wide cheeks plumping to create a wide grin. “It does work with the name Circe, too. Sorceress Circe, has a certain ring to it.” 

The Sorceress’ hearts wrenched, recalling the last person who’d said nearly those exact words to her. She helped Morvin step over some debris as she answered. “Yes. No. No.” 

Morvin chuckled as his hand left her own. “Well, you’re certainly a bit lost for words, now, aren’t you, dear?” Morvin joked, but the Sorceress didn’t react. “I know it’s a bit of a dire situation, but the Doctor seems to have it all handled. Surely you must trust your husband to get you out safely? He seems the type to be very capable of doing so!” 

The Sorceress tensed minutely, her eyes immediately finding the back of the black suit jacket the Doctor wore. She watched as his shoulders tensed underneath it, lifting a broken door from its frame, before he ushered the group through. 

“He’s not my husband,” she stated, but the drumming pounded against her temples, as if it thrived off the idea of the Doctor being her partner. She scowled at the prospect. “I could never marry him. He killed my husband.” 

If the Doctor heard her words, he didn’t show it. His body language was tense regardless, muscles shifting and pulsing as he worked to create a safer pathway for the fragile group with them. 

Foon gasped, and she grasped the Sorceress’ hand in sympathy. “Oh, my dear Circe, I’m so sorry!” The woman exchanged sympathetic looks with her own husband. The Sorceress deciphered them within seconds. 

The Sorceress stated coldly, “he is the only one capable and willing to lead you to safety. Don’t judge him.” Her eyes flashed gold as she assisted Foon and Morvin through the doorway, over a stray broken stair. “He’s been through more in one year of life than either of you will ever experience in both of your lifetimes.” Neither knew how to respond to her words, and so they silently moved ahead. 

The Doctor was already halfway up the stairwell by the time the three of them were at the bottom. Mr Copper was talking incorrect nonsense about the traditions humanity kept at Christmas time, but the Sorceress didn’t care enough to correct him. The information wasn’t relevant to her keeping the Doctor safe, as both of them knew the truth. 

The Doctor made eye contact with the Sorceress, as if he was saying to her, ‘can you believe this guy?’, before he responded to the man, “actually, that’s not true. Christmas is a time of peace and thanksgiving and…” he paused to reevaluate, and forged on as he muttered, “oh, what am I on about? My Christmases are always like this!” As he spoke, he pulled up a metal grate, and a Heavenly Host was revealed, obviously offline and pinned beneath some more debris. “Ah,” he exclaimed, “we’ve got a host! Strength of ten! If we can mend it, we can use it to fix the rubble.” 

Morvin spoke up, “we can do robotics, both of us!” If it would keep his wife away from a potential murder, he’d do anything.
“We work on the Milk Market back on Sto, it’s all robot staff.”

The Doctor nodded, moving up and past the Host. “See if you can get it working,” he commanded. He glanced back to the Sorceress, and she understood his command immediately. As the main group forged on ahead, Foon and Morvin moved to the Host, prying up the metal plate on its head. While Morvin worked on the wiring within the head, Foon took to fixing the wiring on the plate they’d removed. The Sorceress stood, back to the wall behind them, and eyes on every exit she could trace. Her hands remained in an easy resting position, but her body was tense. She would be ready to strike, should anything attempt to harm her charges. 

The conversation above her was irrelevant, as was the conversation the martial couple were having about their financial irresponsibility, which meant the Sorceress tuned out focus on verbal communication. Instead, she turned her attention to her inner senses, and to the balance she felt between the gravitational energies of all surrounding substantial celestial bodies, and how that balance might’ve been shifting. Simultaneously, she observed each noise the ship made around them, as it creaked its way gradually out of orbit, towards planet Sol 3. 

The couple started laughing, causing the Sorceress to startle imperceptibly, and she watched as they kissed lovingly. Her hearts stuttered, seemingly with hope, but she squashed that feeling. 

With her hearing so attuned to far-off sounds, of course the Sorceress noticed the screaming. Her eyebrows burrowed in confusion. She tried to analyse the sound, but it was too far away, and moving through too much metal, for her to understand why the sound was being produced.

Seconds ticked past, and she realised the screaming was being cut off. People were dying. No. This was different. 

People were being killed. 

“Almost done!” Morvin yelled to the Doctor, replacing the plating they’d removed. The Sorceress startled visibly, scolding herself for the action immediately. She stood at attention, body coiled like a snake. 

“Good, good, good!” The Doctor yelled back. He turned to a console he’d found upstairs, and the Sorceress listened in, darkly curious about the screams. “Mr Frame, how’s things?” 

“Doctor, I’ve got life-signs all over, but they’re going out, one by one,” Midshipman Frame worried. 

“What is it, are they losing air?” The Doctor theorised. 

“One of them said it was the host. It’s something to do with the host.” 

The Sorceress jumped to action. The Heavenly Host had started moving, lifting its closest arm to grasp the neck of Morvin. As it stood, it lifted Morvin’s feet off the ground, and the man dangled in the air like a shopping bag in the breeze.

“Kill…” the Host intoned. 

The Doctor was racing down the stairs, yelling urgently, “turn it off! Turn it off!” 

Before the Doctor could make it even halfway down, the Sorceress was striking the exposed wiring in the Host’s brain, ignoring the inane screaming of Foon that threatened to give her a headache, and twisting a wiring that she was fairly sure controlled the movement of the robots fingers in a way she was almost definitely sure would not kill Morvin. When the Host relaxed its fingers and the man dropped to the ground, the Sorceress ordered, “run!”

The couple ran, blowing past the Doctor who turned tail as soon as he saw the Sorceress running up to him, with the robotic angel on her heels. With the Doctor ahead of her, the Sorceress turned to block a strike from the angel aimed at her head. She ducked under another strike, twisting her body out of the way as it reached out to pull her closer.

Its call of “information: kill, kill, kill,” was set on a loop, and the Sorceress narrowed her eyes as she saw it rearing up to strike again. Instead of immediately blocking or ducking, she gripped the railing behind her, and, hoping it was strong enough to support her body weight, she lifted herself onto her elbows and swung her feet around, using the momentum of the angel’s swing to force it to fall back down the stairs. The Doctor had stopped beside her, which she glared at him for, and once it was obvious that the angel was still getting up to attack them, he pulled the Sorceress further up the stairs, to where a pile of fallen debris had caused a narrowing of the path. 

“It’s the host,” the Doctor warned over the console he’d discovered earlier, “they’ve gone berserk! Are you safe up there?” 

While he did that, the Sorceress assisted Foon with moving through the narrow gap in the debris. Analysing the structure of the fallen metal, wood and plastic, she released Foon’s leg, where she’d been pushing inches of flesh past the blockage, and instead grasped a metal beam. Bracing herself, she lifted the beam, and widened the gap enough that Foon was able to move through far easier than before. 

“Morvin, now,” the Sorceress commanded, her breathing beginning to come harder now. Her physical body wasn’t used to such strenuous exercise, even if her mind remembered every moment of activity she’d ever been put through.

With the Host coming up the stairs behind them once again, it’s inane cry of, “kill, kill,” a never-ending loop within the Sorceress’ own mind, the Doctor came beside the Sorceress, his hands moving to the same beam as she held, lifting it just that fraction higher. 

It likely saved them seconds, and Morvin was through just quick enough. 

“That’s it, we’ve got you!” Astrid called, pulling Morvin into the safer space beyond the groaning metal. “Doctor, Circe, come on! Get through!” 

The Sorceress glared at the Doctor, her eyes making it clear that she would be the last through the narrow hole, but he grinned at her in rebuttal. As the Host came to the platform they stood on, the Doctor turned, hand outstretched as if that might stop any oncoming attacks. 

“Information override! You will tell me the point of origin of your command structure!” He called out. 

The host paused temporarily, as Mr Copper, who was holding the other side of the metal beam, cried, “I can’t hold it!” 

“Information: deck 31.” The Host provided simply. The Doctor grinned, and moved through the gap.

The Sorceress dropped the beam, and had barely enough time to push her way through the narrowed gap before the override had completed its program and the host’s primary command took control once more. She slid up into the platform, and pulled the metal bar from Mr Copper’s hands, collapsing the debris behind her. 

And on top of the angel, which had started climbing into the debris to follow them. 

The Sorceress panted, her arms wrapped around the Doctor’s back and arms, as if she had been ready to pull him away from harm if it came to it. Astrid was three feet behind her, at her 4 o’clock, and Mr Copper was standing at the head, staring in shock. The angel’s head was destroyed, wiring spilling out from half its head and metal scattered around the edge of the beam that had squished it. 

The immediate threat prevented, the Sorceress released the Doctor, but her eyes scanned their new environment with more scrutiny that she’d used before. An active threat meant she would have to actively protect her charge, and, secondarily, his charges too. 

The drumming beat hard against the walls of her mind, thrilling in the violence of it all. 

Chapter Text

The group moved onwards. They wouldn’t be safe anywhere in the ship until they’d reached the bridge. The Sorceress took lead, refusing to allow any of their group to move ahead of her without ensuring the route was safe. The Doctor agreed, taking the rear without overly much complaint. 

The Sorceress peered through a doorway, glancing around a destroyed kitchen, and checked the corners for any signs of a threat. When she was sure none existed in the shadows, she stepped through, allowing Foon and Morvin to step in behind her. 

“Morvin, look,” Foon exclaimed, “food!” The married couple immediately moved to the table holding the nutritional items, causing an unsurprised scoff from the man the Sorceress refused to acknowledge.

“Oh great,” Rickston belittled, “someone’s happy!” 

Morvin rolled his eyes at the man. “Don’t have any, then.” 

The Sorceress took guard next to the console as the group began to divest themselves of the hunger they’d accumulated by climbing through the shipwreck. The Doctor didn’t wait long to move to the console, grabbing her hand even as he attempted to contact the bridge. 

“Midshipman Frame, are you still there?” He asked. 

The response was almost immediate. “Yes, sir, but I’ve got Host outside.” He paused. “I sealed the door.” 

“They’ve been programmed to kill, why would anyone do that?” 

“That’s not the only problem, Doctor.” The Sorceress’s stomach dropped at the words. What else was going to go wrong on this cursed ship? “I had to use a maximum deadlock on the door. Which means…no one can get in. I’m sealed off. Even if you can fix the Titanic, you can’t get to the bridge.” 

The Sorceress felt the Doctor’s frustration growing with each beat that pulsed through his hearts. “Right, fine! One problem at a time. What’s on deck 31?” He asked instead. 

“Uhh…” the Midshipman replied cleverly, “that’s down below, it’s nothing…” Some beeps came over the communication system as he obviously looked up the deck information. “It’s the Host Storage Deck, where we keep the robots.” 

He’d sent the information to the console, and the Doctor nudged the Sorceress to move around and look as he put his rectangular glasses on. She watched as the information crossed the screen, showing the location of the deck as well as the official description of its purpose. But part of the deck was redacted, as if someone had hidden part of the ship from the system. 

“What’s that?” The Doctor asked, “that panel of black, it’s registering…nothing. No power, no heat, no light.” 

The Midshipman muttered, “I’ve never seen it before.” 

“100% shielded,” the Sorceress whispered, scanning the information at the same time at the Doctor. 

“What’s down there?” They asked together, looking at each other in confusion. 

“I’ll try intensifying the scanner,” Frame informed them. 

The Sorceress looked away, to observe Astrid as she came closer. The woman had a plate in her hands, and a warm smile on her face. 

“Let me know if you find anything,” the Doctor commanded, “and keep those engines going!” 

“Saved you both some,” Astrid said, coming to a stop beside the Doctor. She handed him the plate and sent the Sorceress a warm smile. “You might be Time Kings from Gaddabee, but you still need to eat.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” the Doctor accepted the plate, sitting onto a fallen bench beside the console. The Sorceress stayed standing, but she angled herself to be involved within the conversation. 

“Though you both look good for being a millennia each,” Astrid teased. 

“You should see us in the mornings,” the Doctor said offhandedly, and something flickered in Astrid’s face as she looked up to the Sorceress. 

“Okay,” she said softly, her eyes warming something that the Sorceress hadn’t felt in years. “So, is Sorceress, like, your title?” 

She stiffened, her green eyes solidifying as she stared at Astrid. The Doctor watched them both carefully, eating slowly, as if ready to leap between them should something happen.

With a deep breath, the Sorceress forced her body to relax. “No. It was forced upon me. My title is Circe.” 

Astrid’s honey eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head at the Time Lord. She was far too observant for the Sorceress’ liking. “There’s something different about you, though. You even stand different to when we went to the surface.”

The Sorceress shifted minutely, something only the Doctor picked up on, her expression stony and her silence prickling for a long time. She wondered how Astrid might respond if she admitted to being different to Circe. 

The Doctor grasped her hand, the touch familiar and comforting, and it enticed her to finally respond. 

“I am different. Circe and I are not the same people,” the Sorceress finally whispered. Astrid nodded encouragingly, and her eyes were so kind that the Sorceress couldn’t stop. “I protect her by following orders. I have done since she created me.” 

Astrid’s face softened in understanding, but not in such a way that felt pitiful.It made Circe's hearts stammer, kicking off the unrelenting drumming.  

Their conversation was interrupted by Mr Copper as he came over, saying, “Doctor: must be well past midnight, Earth Time. Christmas day!” 

“So it is! Merry Christmas,” the Doctor responded, releasing the Sorceress’ hand to face Mr Copper. 

Astrid interrupted, glancing between the Doctor and Mr Copper. “This Christmas thing, what’s it all about?” She asked, all curiosity.

The Doctor looked away into the distance, and the Sorceress wondered if he’d interfered in events again. “Long story,” he murmured, “I should know, I was there. I got the last room.” He glanced in humour up to the Sorceress, who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“But if the planet’s waking up, can’t we signal them?” Mr Copper asked, “they could send up a rocket or something!” 

The Sorceress spoke up before the Doctor, “humanity don’t invent Intergalactic standard 2 spacecraft until the 22nd century. This is still far too early in their history.” 

Mr Copper looked at the Sorceress in confusion, not understanding what she’d meant. “Standard 2…?”

“They don’t have spaceships,” the Doctor eased.

Mr Copper protested, “no, I’ve read about it, they have shuffles. Space shuffles!” 

The Sorceress looked away from Mr Copper to resume scanning for threats. She wouldn’t be part of an inane conversation with an idiot. 

As the conversation went on, she was unsuprised to find out that Mr Copper’s degree was from Mrs Golightly’s Happy Travelling University and Dry Cleaners. 

“I wasted my life on Sto,” he admitted, sitting opposite Astrid. “I was a travelling salesman, always on the road, and I reached retirement with nothing to show for it, not even a home.” He glanced down for a moment. “And Earth sounded so…exotic.” His words sent a flare of humour spiking through the Sorceress, a hint from the part of her that had been Florence that found the idea of Earth being exotic outrageously funny. 

But in the context of the universe, with all the species and cultures that existed across time and space that she knew of, she supposed he just might’ve had the right idea. The Doctor verbalised his agreement. 

“How come you two know it so well?” Astrid asked, glancing up to the Sorceress.

“We were sort of…um,” the Doctor paused, and he looked up to the Sorceress. She stared at him impassively, and let him continue on. “A few years ago, we were sort of made, well…sort of homeless, and um…there was the Earth.” 

The Sorceress whispered, “I chose it because he loved it.” His eyes burned into her own, and he grinned at her in that manic way he did, where his mouth was all teeth and his eyes showed the multitudes of galaxies trapped within them. 

Flashes of memories from their time spent in the Academy library, studying under that great glass domed ceiling all that they could find about planet Earth, all for the Doctor’s final project. How much knowledge had Circe accumulated about Earth and humanity just because he’d asked for help? 

“Well, if we survive this, there’ll be police, and investigations. And the minimum penalty for spaceman fraud is ten years in jail.” He gestured to his face as he said, “well, I’m an old man. I won’t survive ten years.” 

The Sorceress had been distracted by her memories. Banging started up from the way they’d come, and she immediately was on alert once more. The Doctor stood, pulling the group to him with his call of, “Host, come on!” 

The direction the Doctor led them was through a maintenance door, and the Sorceress had just sealed the doors behind them when they realised the only way beyond was to cross a thin platform of creaking metal. Steam hissed around them as gases shifted to accomodate the fragile atmosphere being maintained around the ship, and the metal bodywork was still noisily creaking as it settled after the impact. Below them, the engines were open, with the nuclear storm drive clearly visible and clearly going haywire, with the proton rings far distorted beyond their usual capacity. Fire already bubbled visibly across the surface. 

Rickston exclaimed, “Is that the only way across?” 

“On the other hand, it is a way across,” the Doctor snapped. 

Astrid worried, “the engines are open.”

“Nuclear storm drive,” he murmured. “As soon as it stops, the Titanic falls.” 

Morvin had seen the obvious flaw in their plan. “But that thing…it’ll never take our weight!” 

Rickston glanced in disgust at the married couple. “You’re going last, mate,” he told them, and the Sorceress narrowed her eyes at him. 

“It’s nitrofine metal. The nitrogen bonds present between the nitrogen and magnesium have a covalent strength of 14.2,” the Sorceress informed, eyeing the walk between platforms. 

“Meaning?” Bannakaffalatta piped up from next to her. 

“It’s stronger than it looks,” the Doctor translated easily. 

Morvin looked uneasy, leaning over the edge of the metal side. “All the same, Rickston’s right, me and Foon should go la," he leant too far, and the metal gave way from under his feet. The Sorceress tried to reach out and grab him, but she tripped over Bannakaffalatta, and ended up sprawled on the metal floor, arm over the edge of the platform as if she could grab him even as he fell through the air. Foon knelt beside her, and the Doctor on the other. He gripped the back of her dress as if she was going to slide off at any minute too. 

“I told you, I told you!” Rickston was yelling, but his eyes were wide with shock and fear. 

The Sorceress slowly rose, allowing the Doctor to prevent her from going too far over the edge. Once she was safely on the metal platform, she placed a gentle hand on Foon’s shoulder, and then turned to Rickston. 

“You bastard,” she said emotionlessly before she clenched her fist and struck out, landing her knuckles squarely into his nose. He reeled back, hands lifting to clutch his newly broken nose as he cried out in pain. She turned away from him before he could retaliate. 

“Bring him back!” Foon was crying. 

The Sorceress’ hearts were used to this pain. Losing someone in this kind of life or death scenario had been her bread and butter in the war. But something about being with the Doctor had led her to hope that, maybe, it wouldn’t be all death and pain. He was supposed to save everyone, so that she could just focus on saving him. 

“Can’t you bring him back? Bring him back, Sorceress!” Foon gripped the Time Lady’s skirts with desperate, shaking hands, while the Doctor watched on helplessly. The Sorceress stood beside the desolate woman and only placed a hand against her head as she lost the man she had so clearly loved. 

“We can’t,” the Doctor murmured in response to her command, and Foon turned on him.

“You promised me!” She growled. 

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He consoled gently. 

The Sorceress sensed the vibrations in the metal. “Mauve in 40 rels,” she said, the words only making complete sense to the Doctor. Instead of translating the words for the benefit of the group, she then took the hands grasping her skirts and used it to help pull Foon up to a standing position.

The rest of the company seemed to get the gist though, as Rickston said, his voice hostile and afraid, “I’m not waiting!” 

“Careful!” The Doctor warned, leaping away from Foon and the Sorceress to observe. 

The Sorceress placed her hands on the woman’s shoulders, forcing her to keep eye contact with her. “Morvin is dead now, Foon. We are in hostile territory. You can mourn him if you’re still alive on Sto.” 

While she’d been encouraging Foon, the Doctor moved to the doors, using his sonic screwdriver to shut the doors more securely than just wrapping a metal post around the hinges and handles as the Sorceress had. 

“I’ve got to seal us in,” the Doctor explained, keeping some of his attention on Rickston as he attempted to cross the bridge, and the rest of it on the Sorceress as she helped talk Foon down. 

“Leaving us trapped, wouldn’t you say?” Mr Copper asked. 

The Doctor shook his head, hearts pounding as he tried to think his way through the situation. “Never trapped, just…” he paused before saying his next words, “inconveniently circumstanced!” 

The Sorceress scoffed at his words, leaving Astrid to help Foon as she went to ensure the door would be secure enough to prevent an attack. “30 rels, Doctor,” she warned. She heard Foon trying to reason Morvin back to life, and knew she couldn’t do anything to help emotional delusion. Astrid seemed to be handling it well, though. 

“Yes! Oh yes,” Rickston cried victoriously, “who’s good?” 

If the Sorceress had worn her pistol under her dress, she would have been sorely tempted to shoot the man across from them. As it was, she settled for a strong glare. 

“Bannakaffalatta, next,” she said instead, and the red man jumped. 

“Bannakaffalatta, small!” He agreed, moving quickly onto the bridge. 

The Doctor cautioned, “slowly!” The red man nodded in surprise. With another bang on the newly sealed door, the Sorceress looked around for stray scraps of metal. “Astrid, get across, right now.” The Doctor reached for the woman. 

“What about you and the Sorceress?” She fretted, but the Doctor shook his head. 

“Just do it, go on!” He encouraged. 

The Sorceress found a metal bar in a corner and hefted it in her hands. She estimated it was heavy enough that, if swung with enough newtonian force, she could likely decapitate at least two hosts in one well-aimed swing. Given the size of the doorway, at least two hosts would attempt entrance at the same time, so she could expect to be swiftly outnumbered if she didn’t angle the swings correctly. 

“Mr Copper, we can’t wait, after you!” The old man tried to protest greatly, but the Doctor shushed him. “Don’t argue!” 

The door was bending under the pressure as the Doctor ran to Foon. The Sorceress stood between the door and the bridge, hearing as the group made their way across as quickly as they felt comfortable doing. 

“Doctor, I can’t open the door,” Rickston yelled. “We need the whirring key thing of yours!” 

“If you’re going to be a fucking dickhead, you could at least be useful!” The Sorceress yelled back, and she smirked at the offended scoffs he made. 

The Doctor just looked at the Sorceress over his shoulder, while he embraced the pain filled Foon. The hosts were still banging on the door, and Foon was no closer to moving.

“I can’t leave her!” The Doctor replied, choosing to ignore the comment the Sorceress had made. 

“She’ll get us all killed if we can’t get out!” Rickston tried to convince. 

The Sorceress tested a swing of her improvised metal bat, using a conjured image of Rickston’s head for incentive, and she nodded at the Doctor. She held her hand out to Foon, who rushed over to grab it. Her fearful eyes swung from the Doctor to the Sorceress.

“I will keep you safe,” the Sorceress said, metal bat in one hand and Foon’s hand in the other. The Doctor locked eyes with the tall Time Lady over Foon’s head, and the Sorceress nodded in acknowledgement. 

She recognised the silent change of order, and the transfer of care, immediately. She was to protect Foon first, effective immediately. 

As the Doctor started to cross the bridge, backed up by the three people in front of him, gradually the beatings on the door came to a slow, until they stopped. The metal dents were manifold, but still showed no signs of breaking through. The Sorceress felt the metal floor vibrations diminishing until they’d entirely vanished, telling that the hosts had left them alone, but why? 

The group on the bridge stopped, looking around. If the Sorceress had been Circe in that moment, she probably would have shot the Doctor a sharp glare to incentivise movement. 

Astrid wouldn’t let herself hope, “they’ve stopped!”

“Gone away?” Bannakaffalatta wished.  

“Why would they give up?” The Doctor asked, worry coating his voice.

Rickston said something that the Sorceress wished she didn’t have to agree with. “Nevermind that, keep coming!” 

“But where have they gone?” The Doctor persisted, his eyes locking with the Sorceress’. “Where are the Host?” 

“They’re angels,” she whispered, and he read her lips just as Mr Copper figured it out. 

“I’m afraid we forgot the traditions of Christmas,” he called, looking upwards. The Sorceress followed his gaze, and her hearts settled into a war beat as the drums in her mind called for violence. “That angels have wings!” 

The Host were floating from the heavens, much like human folklore said they did, their hands pressed together in front of their chests. There were five of them surrounding the bridge, and the Sorceress wished that she had all of the group on the one side, to better protect them. As it was, she yelled, “soldiers, at arms!” 

The group found whatever weapon they could, picking up metal from the bridge they stood on to fight back against the angels. As they did so, the Host took their razor sharp halos from atop their heads and reeled back to throw them forward. 

The Sorceress readied her bar and took position in front of Foon, predicting the timing of the throw, using the arc of the throw and the velocity with which it came towards her to calculate the arc of her swing based off the ideal trajectory she wanted to best collide with the oncoming projectiles aimed at the group on the bridge. And if, in doing so, she could best prevent the Doctor from also getting hurt, well, she was just very good at following every order given to her. 

Even still, she couldn’t predict every projectile, and when one slipped past her, it sliced through the Doctor’s upper arm, and Astrid slipped and fell onto the bridge in fear. She looked nearly defeated, and the Sorceress nearly called out to her, but Bannakaffalatta stood upright, baring his chest bravely to the world. 

“Bannakaffalatta, stop!” He called, throwing his weapon down. “Bannakaffalatta, proud!” He ripped open his shirt, revealing the metal work beneath it, “Bannakaffalatta, cyborg!” With the reveal came an electromagnetic pulse that knocked down every Host within the vicinity. The Sorceress didn’t try to calculate the energy that must have taken, too concerned that the force might have physically knocked each person from the bridge, but once the shockwave had passed, and the angels had fallen from their heights, she took note that each person seemed to have braced themselves on the bridge safely. 

“Electromagnetic pulse took out the robotics,” the Doctor explained, while Bannakaffalatta fell to the bridge, exhausted. Astrid rushed to help him. “Oh, Bannakaffalatta, that was brilliant!” 

“He’s used all his power,” Astrid realised, crouching next to him. 

“Did good?” The small red man asked. Astrid nodded. 

The Sorceress didn’t realise she was gripping Foon’s hand, and the woman was gripping back equally as strongly. The Doctor watched on sadly, his face hard and grim. 

“Bannakaffalatta happy.” 

“We can recharge you, get you to a powerpoint, plug you in!” Astrid exclaimed optimistically and naively, but Bannakaffalatta shook his head.

“Too late.” 

“But you’ve got to get me that drink, remember?” Astrid teased fruitlessly.

“Pretty girl,” the cyborg murmured, before he powered down for the last time. 

Mr Copper crept forwards, reaching for Bannakaffalatta’s chest. 

“Leave him alone,” Astrid exclaimed, but Mr Copper kept moving fowards.

“Forgive me, it’s the EMP transmitter. He’d want us to use it.” The old man explained. “I used to sell these things, they’d always give me a bed for the night in the Cyborg Caravans. Good people!” He grinned at Astrid, but the woman remained fairly unresponsive. “But if we can recharge it, we can use it as a weapon against the rest of the Host! Bannakaffalatta might have saved us all.”

Rickston interrupted, “do you think? Try telling him that!” He pointed to the robot that had fallen on the bridge. It was beginning to stand, grabbing its fallen halo. 

“Information: reboot.” It spoke. 

As everyone panicked, the Sorceress watched the Doctor slowly back up, wishing she was on the other side so that she could help him. He fumbled his way through every number of security protocol, before finally landing on the number, “one!” 

“Information: state request.” The Host finally relaxed. 

“Right, you’ve been ordered to kill the survivors, but why?” The Doctor demanded. 

“Information: no witnesses.” 

“But this ship’s gonna fall on the Earth, kill everyone. The human race has got nothing to do with the Titanic, that contravenes your orders!” 

“Information: incorrect.” 

“But, why do you wanna destroy the Earth?” 

“Information: it is the plan.” 

“What plan?” 

“Information: protocol grants you only three questions, these three questions have been used.” 

The Sorceress wanted to knock the Doctor into the nuclear storm drive. For a man who had successfully stopped the largest war in the universe, he acted like he had no idea how to successfully interrogate a hostage.

“Well, you could’ve warned me!” He protested, as if he had just been slighted. 

“Information: now you will die.” 

Before the Sorceress could stop her, Foon had gathered a rope, tied it around her waist, and leapt to wrap her arms around the Host. 

“You’re coming with me!” She decreed, wrapping the rope around the Host and tying it off. 

Foon didn’t give the Sorceress a chance to grab her before she jumped off. The Sorceress’ hearts sank into the pit of her stomach. The drumming pounded at the edges of her consciousness, and for a moment, the Sorceress was overcome with a dizzying darkness. That hesitation was all it took. 

“No!” The Doctor yelled as he and the Sorceress ran to the edge of the bridge. The Sorceress reached out as far as she could to try and grab the edge of the rope that hadn’t fallen as far, but it slipped out of her reach before she could graze it. 

“You died bravely,” the Sorceress whispered, locking eyes with Foon before the nuclear storm drive took her. 

The Doctor gripped the Sorceress’ hand as he stood, pulling her up with him. He was panting, and the Sorceress was sure that between the two of them, they must have looked insane. She gripped him as tightly as he held her, and they locked eyes. 

“No more,” he whispered, hazel eyes hard. 

Her eyes flashed gold as she nodded. He felt her hands warm in synchronicity. The group behind him noticed the golden sand-like dust falling between the two Time Lords. As if she were sensing the danger passing, the Doctor watched as the Sorceress’ body language shifted, and the hard green eyes warm to the newly familiar shade he’d started seeing aboard the TARDIS. She shifted on her feet, reminding herself of her body, and she finally grasped his hand, almost breathless. 

“No more,” Circe agreed, and wordlessly, they ran. 

The group followed them, breathless with worry and confusion and hurt. They didn’t question why they were running backwards, as Circe recalled the exact floor plan of each deck. 

“Right, get yourselves up to reception one!” The Doctor ordered, “once you’re there, Mr Copper, you’ve got staff access to the computer; try and find a way of transmitting an SOS.” 

Circe turned, her green eyes sparkling effervescently at Astrid, holding out the EMP that Mr Copper had pulled from Bannakaffalatta’s body. “Astrid, take this: once it’s powered up, it’ll take out Host within 50 yards,” she informed the woman, who reached out to take it. Circe pulled it back, warning her, “it needs 60 seconds at least to recharge! Understood?” 

“Good to have you back, Circe,” Astrid grinned, her honey eyes reflecting the shine. Circe couldn’t ignore the fluttering of her hearts, but she turned to the Doctor. 

“Rickston,” he said, pulling out his sonic screwdriver, “take this. I’ve pre-set it, just hold down that button. It’ll open the doors. Do not lose it, got that?” He paused for a moment, ensuring he had been understood. Circe didn’t look at the man, but she felt his acceptance. “Now, go and open the next door.” 

He hesitated, and Circe scoffed. “What are you waiting for? Go!” 

The Doctor turned finally to Astrid, asking, “where’s the power points?” 

“Under the comms.” She ran to show him. As the three of them knelt under the comms, he held the EMP to the power point, watching as the charging light came up. 

“When it’s ready, that blue light comes on, there,” he demonstrated. Astrid looked between him and Circe. 

“You’re talking as if you’re not coming with us,” she frowned. 

“There’s something down on deck 31, and we’re going to find out what it is,” the Doctor told her. 

“What if you meet a Host?” Astrid worried, looking up to Circe. 

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Circe smirked. 

“Sounds like you two do this thing all the time,” Astrid murmured, looking down. Her heart was pounding hard, from fear or excitement, she couldn’t tell. 

“Not by choice!” The Doctor rebutted, and he looked up to Circe, watching her reaction. “All I want to do is travel with my best friend. That’s all we are; just travellers.” 

Circe broke eye contact with him, looking at Astrid. “Imagine it; no tax, no bills, no boss.” Her hearts thrummed with longing. She couldn’t help the hope that oozed into every cell of her body at the wonder on Astrid’s expression. Or, at least, what she thought was wonder. “Just the open sky. Every open sky.” 

The Doctor grinned, looking back to Astrid. She bit her lip, glancing between them. “I’m sort of…uh, unemployed now. And I was thinking, that blue box is kind of small, but…I could squeeze in it. Like a stowaway.”

Circe stood to her full height, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s not always safe,” she warned. Astrid took the intimidation for what it was, and she just smiled. 

“So you need someone to take care of you. Both of you. I’ve got no one back on Sto, no family. Just me.” She gazed imploring between them, her desire tangible in the air. “So what d’you think? Can I come with you?” 

The Doctor’s hearts were worried when he initially glanced up to Circe, with her intimidating stance and crossed arms and seemingly terrifying expression, but on closer investigation, he realised that it had been her own way of testing Astrid, as his way of testing companions was to give them new experiences and view their reactions. Circe’s expression was already warming again, and her posture shifting by the second. He realised that she wanted this, and he would’ve given her anything, if it meant she might find enjoyment in life again. 

“Yeah. I think we’d like that, yeah,” he said, smiling brightly at his newest companion. 

The ship shook once more, as if reminding them of their current state of near doom, and the Doctor failed to keep his balance. Circe helped him back to his feet, and Astrid afterwards, while the Doctor tried to reach the bridge. 

“Mr Frame, are you still with us?” He called over the comms. 

The young voice responded immediately, “it’s the engines, sir. Final phase! There’s nothing more I can do, we’ve only got eight minutes left.” 

The Doctor was easily confident, even if Circe wasn’t, as he replied, “don’t worry, I’ll get there.”

“But the bridge is sealed off!” The sailer exclaimed. 

“Yeah, yeah, working on it! I’ll get there Mr Frame. Somehow!” 

With the EMP fully charged, the trio of Stotians regrouped, and the Doctor and Circe brought everyone back together. 

“Mr Copper, look after her. Astrid, look after him. Rickston, erm…look after yourself?” The Doctor suggested, and the man’s expression flickered in distaste that everyone else ignored. “And I will see you again! Circe, take care of them all!” 

Circe scoffed, and it made the Doctor look at her in confusion. “Not a chance in hell, Starman.” The amended nickname made the Doctor’s eyes flicker, a remembered affection for their youth brought forward, despite her refusal to follow his orders. “I’m with you, to the end.” 

He kept eye contact with her, but she remained firm. “Even if that means you disobey my orders?” 

She pursed her lips, the knowledge squirming into her hearts. She didn’t like it, but her primary objective appeared to be complete, with Astrid safe and coming to travel with them once they were safe, and her secondary objective was still at risk. “Even if I have to disobey you.” 

He nodded, and he couldn’t hide the joy that made him feel, even though he felt like he was taking her to some untimely death, as he did with most of his companions. But Circe wasn’t just a new companion: she was a Time Lord. Maybe he could trust her more because of that. 

The Doctor and Circe turned to run, but Astrid interrupted them. “Wait, there’s an old tradition on planet Sto,” she exclaimed, grabbing a box from the side. 

“We have really got to go!” The Doctor urged, but Astrid shook her head, placing the box in front of him and Circe. 

“It’s an important tradition,” she scolded him, and she stepped on the box. Without giving herself time to think, she took Circe by the back of the neck and pulled her in, her lips fitting tenderly to the Time Lady’s. Circe floundered for a moment, hearts beating fiercely in her chest in time to the violent rhythm pounding on the drums, before her hands finally came to rest on the woman’s hips. Her lips moved gently over Astrid’s, before the Stovian woman moved away, turning to the Doctor. She didn’t give him a moment to refuse her, either, as she grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled his lips onto hers. Circe watched, shocked, as their lips moved together in a breathless synchronicity that left her fingertips tingling and lips buzzing. Astrid pulled away from him, looking between her and the Doctor. 

“Yeah, that’s a…very old tradition, yeah,” he mumbled, obviously dazed. He looked at Circe, seeing the warm confusion in her eyes and wondering if it was mirrored in his own. Unable to wait a moment longer, he grasped Circe’s hand and pulled her out of her haze of confusion, into a run, leaving Astrid stood on the box staring after them, panting. 

“See you later,” she called.

“Oh, yes, you will,” Circe promised, glancing at her over her shoulder. In the depths of her mind, she knew she’d beaten the timeline. Astrid would be safe in Reception One, and her chosen future was still possible. 

Together, the Doctor and Circe descended into the pits of the ship, crossing the bridge over the nuclear storm drive where they’d lost three people, and climbing down stairs until they reached an abandoned kitchen. As they walked in, Host started to appear from the opposite doorway. Circe pulled the Doctor away, back the way they’d come, only to run into more Host appearing behind them. She hadn’t heard them coming, which meant they’d flown around to corner them. She reached for a frying pan from the trolley beside her, lifting it threateningly over her head. 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” the Doctor called, trying to grab their attention. “Security protocol one, d’you hear me? One, one!” The approaching Hosts stopped in their tracks, waiting to hear his questions. 

Circe gradually lowered her frying pan when she saw they weren’t imminently attacking. 

“Okay, that gives me three questions.” He started speaking, and Circe could only watch the train wreck as it happened. She didn’t have time to stop him. “Three questions to save my life: am I right?” 

One host stepped forward. “Information: correct.” 

The Doctor’s smug expression shifted into outrage. “No, that wasn’t one of them, I didn’t mean it, that’s not fair! Can I start again?” 

Circe’s mouth opened wide in shock, and she wanted to hit him with her frying pan instead of the Hosts. 

“Information: no.” 

“Doctor, shut the hell up!” Circe yelled, smacking his shoulder instead with her empty hand. He immediately reacted by reaching up to rub his shoulder, pouting at her. 

“That hurt,” he bemoaned, and Circe scoffed. 

“It’ll hurt more if the Host kills you because you ask one more stupid question. You have wasted two. Stop phrasing your monologues with questions, and get on with it!” She glared at him when he had the gall to act offended. 

“Blimey,” he stated, turning back to the Host. “She’s a tough one to handle, did you kn-"

“Doctor,” Circe interrupted before he could finish his thought, her voice growling and he span in a circle, looking at the Hosts. 

“So! You’ve been given orders to kill the survivors, but survivors must therefore be passengers or staff, but not us! We’re not passengers, or staff. Go ahead, scan us.” He spread his arms out, as if that would assist their scanning process. Circe rolled her eyes. “You must have bio-records, no such people on board; we don’t exist. Therefore, you can’t kill us. Therefore, we’re stowaways! And stowaways should be arrested and taken to the nearest figure of authority, and I reckon the nearest figure of authority is on deck 31.” The Doctor winked at Circe before he stepped towards the Host he was addressing. “Final question - am I right?” 

Circe hated him. She swore she hated him. 

The Host answered, “information: correct.” 

She hated that he made her hearts stammer against her ribcage.

“Brilliant,” the Doctor grinned, straightening himself up. “Take me to your leader!” He paused, licking his teeth as he grinned. “I’ve always wanted to say that,” he admitted. 

She hated that he made her want to laugh in amazement. 

Circe threw the frying pan into the back of the room, where it crashed harmlessly against the wall and knocked over a row of plates, which likewise crashed onto the floor in a cacophony of noise. The Doctor flinched and turned to look at her, his hazel eyes wide. 

She breathed heavily through her nose, pushing her dark hair out of her face. Her green eyes glittered with the promise of anger as she stalked to the Doctor’s side. “I swear, I hate you,” she growled, and the Doctor laughed, now understanding where her anger was coming from. He easily swiped her hand from her side, and swung it between them as the Host escorted them to Deck 31. 

“You never had a hateful bone in your body,” he teased, unsure but uncaring of whether it was true or not. 

Circe bit her lip, glancing at him out the corner of her eye. She still felt the remnants of Astrid’s lips on her own, and that physical contact seemed to have initiated bodily desires she’d not felt fully for a very long time. She wondered briefly how the Doctor’s might compare, and taste, and she almost wished that Astrid had kissed them the other way around. Still, as the Host led them to their leader, she forced herself to focus on her surroundings, driving out any distractions (including the thought of grabbing the Doctor’s hand and allowing him to drag her into a dark corner to have his way with her). 

There were four Hosts at their backs, halos ready to strike. She couldn’t afford to be distracted. 

Deck 31 had been equally as destroyed as the rest of the spaceship, with destroyed metal littering the decking, and torn apart, incomplete Host bodies that had obviously been undergoing construction or maintenance. The space they walked into was closer to the nuclear storm drive than they’d been when they’d lost Morvin, Foon, and Bannakaffalatta, which meant they could hear the noises of the imminent combustion. In front of them, a repair table remained upright, and the Host forced them into the centre of the room beside the table, before dotting themselves around the edges. 

“Wow, now…that is what you’d call a fixer-upper,” the Doctor commented, looking into the wreckage above them. Circe pursed her lips, moving forward to look at the engines as they entered critical failure. Analysing the rapid movement of the proton rings, she wondered whether adding non-reactive material might prevent the explosion for longer, or accelerate the already rapid progression. Her scientific mind, one she hadn’t properly accessed since long before the war, wanted to test it, but she reminded herself that the Doctor’s newest companion was waiting for them upstairs, and she pulled herself back from the edge. 

“Come on, then, Host with the most!” The Doctor called, looking around at the Host. “This ultimate authority of yours, who is it?” 

Circe watced as the doors in front of her opened, and the Doctor came to stand by her side. He made a noise of appreciation, and Circe rolled her eyes as he began to explain the technology to an invisible audience. “That’s an Omnistate Impact Chamber,” he commented, obviously impressed. “Indestructible! You could survive anything in there, you could sit thorugh a supernova. Or a shipwreck.” 

From the chamber, a cyborg rolled out. The clunky lifesupport system was rigged to a bodyless man, wiring connecting to the vital parts of his neck and glass doming over his head. Circe recognised him as Max Capricorn, and she raised an eyebrow. 

“But only one person could have the power and the money to hide themselves on board like this. And I should know, because…” The Doctor finished his monologue, and Circe added one more item to her list of reasons why she hated the Doctor. 

She hated how much he loved the sound of his own voice. 

“My name is Max,” the cyborg grinned, and Circe watched as his golden tooth glinted in the dim lighting. Absently, she wondered whether he’d paid for a light to hit it just right every time he smiled. 

“It really does that?!” The Doctor whispered. 

“That must be some kind of real life special effects,” Circe murmured in response. 

“Who the hell is this?” Max demanded.

“I’m the Doctor and this is Circe, hello!” He introduced them, grinning at him and licking his teeth. 

The host closest to them said, “information: stowaways.”

“Well…” 

Max didn’t have time to bother with stowaways. “Kill them!”

Circe sighed as the Doctor did what he did best and talked.

“No, no, no, no, no! But you can’t, not now, come on! Max!” He implored. “You’re giving me so much good material!” Circe’s mouth slowly slid open as she heard his next words. “Like, how to get a head in business.” 

She smacked his stomach, and he bent over in pain at the action. Still the amused grin was present on his face when he straightened to standing again, and Circe couldn’t keep looking at him without breaking into a smile herself. Despite being bent in half from her strike, he checked, “d’you get it? Head? Head? No?” He even glanced at one of the Host, and Circe wanted to hit him again. 

She probably would have if she didn’t think he would manage to talk them out of this. 

Max just smiled sardonically at them. “Oh, ho! The office joker! I like a funny man. No-one’s been funny with me for years.” 

The Doctor straightened, adjusting the collar of his shirt. He glanced at Circe, sending her a smirk. “I can’t think why.”

“176 years of running the company have taken their toll.” 

“Yeah, but,“ the Doctor scratched his head, “nice wheels.” 

“It’s a life support system, idiot,” Circe scolded, and she stepped forward to inspect the device. “Fairly obsolete one, honestly. I think the galaxy Ares makes much more state of the art support than this one. I thought Sto was supposed to be modern in this century?” She glanced at the Doctor to make sure she had her dates correct, and he was grining at her stupidly. She rolled her eyes in frustration, but stepped away from the cyborg when he glared at her. “Just saying!” She held her hands in the air. 

“It is a permanent life support system, in a society that despises cyborgs,” Max spoke as if Circe hadn’t, and she supposed that must make him the office misogynist. “I’ve had to hide away for years, running the company by hologram.” He glanced at the robot beside the Doctor, “Host: situation report!” 

“Information: Titanic is still in orbit.” 

Frustrated confusion crossed the man’s expression, and he said, “let me see…” He rolled through the Doctor and Circe, the Time Lords jumping to either side of him, as he approached the viewing platform for the nuclear storm drive. “We should’ve crashed by now, what’s gone wrong?” It was clear to see when he reached the edge of the platform. “The engines are still running; they should have stopped!” 

The Doctor interrupted his monologue; “when they do, the Earth gets roasted, I don’t understand…what’s Earth got to do with it?” 

Max scoffed, “this interview is terminated!” and he rolled away from them. 

“Aww, come on Maxie, it’s not as if we’re going to be alive to tell on you. So let us work it out. Like interns!” Circe turned to the Doctor, ensuring he was on board with her plan, and he grinned, nodding. 

“We’re your apprentices! Just watch…” The Doctor glanced at Circe, who nodded. “Business is failing, you wreck the ship, that makes things even worse.”

“It isn’t failing; it’s failed, past tense!” Circe prompted, and the Doctor grinned.

“My own board voted me out, stabbed me in the back!” Max confirmed. 

“If you had a back,” the Doctor snipped. Circe pinched him, and he winced. 

“Remember telling me off for being rude?” She told him, and he winced. 

“But-“ he tried to interject, but she glared at him. 

“So!” He distracted her once again. “You scupper the ship, wipe out any survivors, just in case anyone’s rumbled you, and the board finds their shares halved in value.”

“It always comes back to money,” Circe grumped. “And it’s still not enough, is it? Because if a Max Capricorn Cruisliner hits the Earth, it destroys an entire planet. And on Sto, they destroy Max Capricorn Cruiseliners.”

Max moved forward slightly, his eyes flickering between hers and the Doctors. “And the whole board, thrown in jail, for mass murder.”

“While you sit there, safe inside the Impact Chamber.”

“I have men waiting to retrieve me from the ruins, and enough offworld accounts to retire me to the beaches of Penhaxico Two, where the ladies, so I’m told, are very fond of…metal.” 

“So it’s a retirement plan,” the Doctor figured. “2,000 people on this ship, six billion beneath us, all of them slaughtered, and why? Because Max Capricorn is a loser!”

“I never lose,” Max moved forward threateningly. 

“You can’t even sink the Titanic!”

“Oh, but I can, Doctor!” Max grinned. “I can cancel the engines from here.” 

He obviously did, as the ship started to rumble. Circe suddenly noticed movement on the outskirts of the room, and she hid her instinctual response at seeing a head of blonde hair ducking into a forklift. Astrid caught her eye and grinned, but ultimately ignored Circe’s swift shaking head. She hadn’t saved her. Astrid was going to die. The certainty of that knowledge filled Circe will absolute fear. 

“You can’t,” Circe cried out, but she wasn’t sure who it was to. 

“Host, hold them!” 

Circe couldn’t move in time before two robots were holding her individual arms. The Doctor was grabbed simiarly beside her, and they were dragged backwards. 

“It’s a shame we couldn’t work together, Doctor, you’re rather good. All that banter, yet not a word wasted.  And you were pretty good too, Circe. Useful for at least one thing if not...well, anyway.” He grinned salaciously at her, before he finally said. “Time for me to retire. The Titanic is falling. The sky will burn. Let the Christmas inferno commence.” 

The words he used incited Circe’s imagination, and suddenly all she could remember and visualise was Astrid, falling into fire. And she realised that it wasn’t fire, or an explosion, but the nuclear storm drive. The drums liked that image, and they sent it circling around her mind on repeat, the vortex energy within her responding to the incitement. 

“Oh, Host! Kill them!” 

The two Hosts opposite them lifted their halos, which shone in response to their programming, but a familiar voice halted them.

“Mr Capricorn!” Astrid had managed to turn on the forklift, and she sat within its mesh compartment with steel on her face. “I resign,” she stated, putting the forklift into drive and accelerating into the life support system that supported Max. 

“Astrid, don’t!” The Doctor cried out, straining against the Hosts that held him. He looked helplessly to Circe, who was watching the proceedings with tear filled eyes. She glanced at him, her eyes shining gold in memory of what she’d seen, and the Doctor could’ve sworn that he saw Astrid falling within her eyes. But he was looking at Astrid again, and Circe’s eyes returned to their usual green a moment later. 

Astrid rammed his machine only a second later, and they seemed to be at a stalemate for power, neither gaining nor losing ground. A host lifted its halo and threw it, the strike perfectly slicing into the brake lines. 

“He’s cut the brake line!” The Doctor warned, shaking his head. 

Circe finally began to struggle, fiercely tearing at the hold that the robots had on her arms. She didn’t care whether they bruised her; she wouldn’t let Astrid die. She thought she’d saved her! 

“Astrid,” Circe yelled, and she made eye contact with the woman. Within her eyes, she saw every possibility that could have been, had this future not come true, and her hearts broke. The drumming beat furiously in her head like war drums. 

She finally tore her way from the Hosts grip as Astrid lifted the life support system off the floor, her arms aching furiously but her feet pounding against the ground to try and reach the forklift before it fell. She had to save her, she had to save her, she had to-

The mesh of the forklift grazed her fingertips as it zoomed away, taking Astrid and Max Capricorn into the nuclear storm drive. She rushed to the edge, falling to her knees to watch as the Stovian woman fell into the engine.

Unlocking her consciousness took too long, undoing padlocks and circumnavigating the mazes she’d erected, but she finally pushed her mental shields away to embrace Astrid’s mind, feeling how alive the woman was, and so that she would know she wasn’t alone when she died. What shocked Circe the most wasn’t the overwhelming fear, or the slightly foreign bodily systems of the Stovian body, but the unending care and wonder the woman held for the universe. As Astrid realised the presence in her mind was Circe, she pushed love into the Time Lord’s mind, wordlessly meaning more than a dictionary could ever describe. 

The Doctor knelt beside her, yelling something, but Circe was too encompassed in Astrid to hear him. He broke down, his own mental shields still erected and thusly unable to sense Circe’s open mind. She was grateful. This moment was between her and Astrid. 

She felt Astrid burn. 

Circe hadn’t wanted to save the Titanic. She had only wanted to save Astrid. She was selfish, so much so that it had bled into Florence and tainted what she had done as a human. But the Doctor was good. His hearts held so much kindness that he could never stand by while people were at risk. He took the elevator, by means of Host lift, while Circe followed the maintenance signs to the engine room. 

As a Time Lord, she was infinitely more capable of surviving critical weather conditions than most other intelligent life in the universe, but as she descended into the control room beside the engines, she had to tap out fires that started to smoulder on her green dress, and her skin felt alive with fever. The ship was shaking with entering the atmosphere of Sol 3, and she almost wasn’t sure whether the controls would even function due to the damage sustained in the meteor strikes. Despite this, she moved to a computer and input the command for the heating sequence. It wouldn’t fix the problem, but it would certainly assist the Doctor in their discussed solution. 

As the command started, Circe slid down a hot metal wall, feeling exhausted and vulnerable with her mind so exposed. She didn’t have the mental energy to close it, with the image of Astrid falling to her death so vivid in her memory. It was all she could picture. The beautiful blue of her eyes, the blond coifed hair, the black servers' dress. The orange nuclear engine. The feeling of her burning alive before she had disintegrated in the molten nuclear material in the centre of the engines. 

Circe painstakingly, layer by layer, rebuilt her mental defences to be stronger than before. She would be able to take them down, but it would take far too long for her to dismantle them next time. She didn’t want to dismantle them, ever again. 

As the Titanic’s shaking finally came to an end, Circe had made her next choice. Her hearts hardened, and she dried her eyes impassively. She had experienced and survived loss before, but it was this loss of hope that was nearly demolishing her. Being with the Doctor was supposed to mean everyone lived. 

Her eyes flashed gold as she brought her hands to her sightline and chose. 

A Host was waiting for her when she left the engine control room, and she allowed it to take her under her arms and fly her back to reception one. The feeling of weightlessness was unfamiliar, but largely ignored as the Host flew her through a hole in the ship to land easily beside Mr Copper, who was looking in concern at the Doctor. 

“Mr Copper, the teleports, have they got an emergency setting?” The Doctor was yelling. 

Circe could understand logically where he was going, but she’d felt Astrid’s death. There was no hope. She stood to the side, watching the events unfold impassively. 

“I don’t know…they should have.” Mr Copper walked forwards, watching the Doctor work.

“She fell, Mr Copper, she fell!” The Doctor growled, urgently pulling apart the control panel for the teleport bracelets. He pulled wires from the side of it, and started using the sonic. 

“What’s the emergency code?” He demanded. 

“Let me…” Mr Copper reached around the console to input the code. 

“What the hell are you doing?” A familiar voice called, and Circe recognised him to be Midshipman Frame. He was holding his side, with flashes of red cotton apparent under his jacket. So he had been injured. 

“We can bring her back!” The Doctor crowed, sonicing the wires he held.

Mr Copper turned to explain, “if a passenger has an accident on shore leave and they’re still wearing their teleport, their molecules are automatically suspended and held in stasis, so, if we can just trigger the shift…” 

“It won’t work,” Circe muttered bitterly at the same time as the Doctor yelled, “there!” 

Astrid appeared across the room from Circe, and the Time Lady froze, watching as the teleport bracelet tried to function as intended. Her form was hazy, blue and intangible. “I’m falling,” her voice came through softly, and Circe’s hearts begged to break all over again. 

“Only halfway there…come on!” The Doctor exclaimed. 

Astrid whispered, “I keep falling.” 

“Feedback the molecule grid. Boost it with the restoration matrix. No, no, no!” The Doctor yelled in frustration as the console sparked in protest. “Need more phase containment!” 

Mr Copper tried to intervene, “Doctor.” 

“No! If I can just link up the surface suspension,” he crouched to pull more wiring from the console. 

“Doctor, she’s gone,” Circe added, her voice hard as she stared at the ghost of Astrid. 

“I just need to override the safety. I can do this, I can do it!” 

Mr Copper grabbed his shoulder, begging, “let her go!” 

The Doctor finally turned, looking at the ghost of Astrid Peth. He stared at her for a long moment, before the anger grew too much and he kicked the console. “I can do anything!” He screamed.

Mr Copper flinched away, but Circe just turned to look him in the eye. He stared at Circe, his hazel eyes filled with so much pain. “Say goodbye, Doctor,” she advised. 

“Stop me falling,” Astrid begged. Her eyes were filled with tears. 

Circe didn’t want to be drawn in, but the Doctor wouldn’t move forward until she did, so she held a hand out for him and, without breaking eye contact with him, she pulled him forward, until she was stood beside Astrid, with his hand in hers. He finally looked to Astrid, and his hearts broke. Circe studied his expression as he crumpled. 

“There’s not enough left, the system was too badly damaged,” Mr Copper explained. “She’s just atoms, Doctor.” 

He already knew this. He’d know it from the moment he’d had the idea to attempt to save her. But he had to keep hope. 

“An echo,” Mr Copper continued, “with the ghost of consciousness.” 

Circe squeezed the Doctor’s hand. “She’s Stardust.” 

“Astrid Peth, citizen of Sto. The woman who looked at the stars and dreamt of travelling.” She finally focused on him, her blue eyes losing the haze that had been present before. “There’s an old tradition,” he murmured. 

He leant forward, placed a tender hand on her cheek, and kissed her. Circe watched, her hearts squeezing in her chest, the drums pouding hard enough to give her a headache, until he released her. 

“Now you can travel forever,” he whispered. He glanced at Circe, offering her the sonic screwdriver. 

Circe had wanted no part in his goodbye, but despite the impartiality she was trying to maintain, she couldn’t relinquish this opportunity to send off the woman who had cared so deeply, regardless of Circe’s initially dismissive behaviour. If her hand shook when she raised it to point the device at the floating consciousness, no one mentioned it.  

The remaining atoms dissolved into thin air, and Circe sniffed. 

“You’re not falling, Astrid. You’re flying,” the Doctor consoled. 

“Fly amongst the stars, and know you always meant more than every star combined.” 

The Doctor gripped her hand, knuckles white with obvious tension. Circe felt numb. 

“The engines have stabilised; we’re holding steady until we get help, and I’ve sent the SOS,” Midshipman Frame was saying. “The rescue ship should be here within twenty minutes. And they’re digging out the records on Max Capricorn. Should be quite a story.” 

Mr Copper looked away, across the room for a moment. “They’ll want to talk to all of us, I suppose?” He asked. Circe recalled that he had been fraudulent. He was up for jail time back on Sto.

Midshipman Frame nodded. “I’d have thought so, yeah.” 

The Doctor hadn’t moved, and he hadn’t relinquished his grip on Circe’s hand. Mr Copper came to stand beside him. “I think one or two inconvenient truths might come to light,” he said with a false ease. “Still, it’s my own fault. And ten years in jail is better than dying.” 

Then the man Circe had been avoiding walked forward, a grave warmth on his face. Rickston Slade said, “Doctor, Circe, I never said… thank you.” He suddenly embraced the Doctor, and when he released him, he turned to Circe, embracing her before she could stop him. He sniffed, as if he’d just finished processing the scenario they’d been in, and released Circe. “The funny thing is,” he said to them both, “I said Max Capricorn was falling apart. Just before the crash, I sold all my shares. Transferred them to his rivals. It’s made me rich. What do you think of that?” His phone rang, and he stepped away to talk. 

Circe didn’t realised she’d been gripping the Doctor’s hand so tightly until he was also gripping her in return. Mr Copper’s words brought them out of their thoughts. 

“Of all the people to survive, he’s not the one you would have chosen, is he?” He said, gravely. “But if you could choose, Doctor, if you could decide who lives and who dies…that would make you a monster.” 

The words struck Circe hard, but she didn’t let it show. They swerved every ounce of logic she held and dug into her psyche, burying themselves underneath the knowledge of what she had done for her entire life. She ignored it, content to be safe in the knowledge that she was doing the right thing. Her chosen future was the best for everyone. 

“Mr Copper,” the Doctor finally said, reaching behind him, “I think you deserve one of these.” He handed the man a teleport bracelet. The fraudulent Earthonomics professor gratefully took it, excitement filling him at the prospect of evading his jail time. Circe took one without a word, relieved at the prospect of being back in the TARDIS. The sailor looked on in confusion, but decided to honour the survivors by not protesting. He saluted them as the Doctor activated the teleport, and the three of them teleported back onto Sol 3. 

It was snowing. They’d landed in a field, and, as if she’d known where they would land, the TARDIS stood not too far away. Such relief filled Circe that she rushed ahead of the Doctor and Mr Copper, ignoring their conversation about the incorrect politics of Sol 3 from Mr Copper’s fraudulent degree in Earthonomics, and she tried to open the door, to no avail. Frustrated, she scratched at her arms as the Doctor sauntered along, taking his time pulling out the key and unlocking the TARDIS. As soon as the door had been opened, Circe didn’t wait to say goodbye to Mr Copper. 

The TARDIS enfolded Circe’s mind like a mother, wrapping her mentally into the warmest hug she could imagine. The console room was exactly the way they’d left it hours ago, and the moment Circe stepped into it was the moment she felt every ounce of exhaustion seeping into her bones. She gripped the railing to the centre platform, and allowed the TARDIS to lead her forward towards the wardrobe.  

Her progress was slow. Despite being a Time Lord, she had been pushed to her mental and physical limits, and it had all been for naught.

Astrid had still died. 

She pulled her mind away from that terrifying thought and instead focused once more on taking off the singed green dress. The lacing in the back was giving her trouble, and she was almost to the point of tearing the previously beautiful fabric when gentle hands touched her shoulder blades. Her muscles instinctively tensed before she relaxed, allowing her arms to drop to her sides. 

“Let me,” he murmured. His fingers easily unlaced the ribbon holding the dress together, and it only took a moment for the garment to fall away, revealing the white undergarments traditional with that style of dress. Even if she hadn’t been wearing the correct undergarments, Circe didn’t care if he saw her body. To Time Lords, the body didn’t matter overly much due to their inherent changing. The intimacy wasn’t in viewing the body, given that they could shape their regeneration into any form they desired, provided they focused. Time Lord intimacy was held elsewhere. They hadn’t seen each other’s bodies yet, but it was only inevitable given they lived in such close proximity aboard a TARDIS. 

“I felt her die,” Circe whispered. She’d wanted to remain distant, but the words poured out of her. She stepped out of the dress, kicking the tattered remains away from her. “I wouldn’t let her die alone.” 

The Doctor’s fingers brushed her shoulder blade in his attempt to understand, but the touch only made her tense up. He gently directed her to sit at the wardrobe dresser. The TARDIS had tinted the mirror, preventing either of them from seeing each other’s face.

“She was terrified. She’d never felt so much fear. She was so scared and yet so desperate to help, to prove herself.” Circe wrapped her arms around herself, only beginning to loosen her muscles when she felt the Doctor’s nimble fingers begin the arduous task of removing the remaining hair slides from her curls. He didn’t speak, taking the most care to prevent pulling on her hair as he listened intently to her words. “Maybe I could’ve done more. Maybe I should have gone with her instead of you, stopped her from teleporting to the deck. Or stopped her from kissing us, or only allow her to kiss you, and then she wouldn’t have had such a strong impulse to help us. There were so many choices and I didn’t make one right.” 

Her hair was slowly falling to brush the back of her neck. Circe didn’t know what he did with the slides, but his hands never left her head. With each gentle tug on her hair, his fingers deftly massaged her scalp to ease any pain, and the act of kindness made Circe want to cry. 

“I wanted to show her the universe,” she admitted, “I was going to take her to the Library, and to the Cerberus Galaxy to see the dust. I wanted her to see the tri-coloured skies of Axel, and breathe the sweet air of Dulcaelum. She wanted to explore everything, and I wanted to be the one to show her.” Circe felt his hands stop, resting for a moment entangled in her hair. She wondered if he was going to say something. “I made the choice to not prevent her attachment, and now she’s dead. People die when I make choices. I can’t be trusted.” Circe couldn’t tell whether these words were her own or had been ingrained into her psyche during her forced regeneration cycles. 

Circe knew that the Doctor was angry from the way his hands tightened on her hair, but she didn’t look up to see his face. She knew he must have been furious at her from the accelerated breathing that had started about 39 rels ago. 

Which was why she was so surprised when slight pressure came at the top of her head, when he gently kissed her hair. His hands fell to rest on her shoulders, bringing the rest of her curls to fall around her face in a tangled mess, and he rested his forehead against the crown of her head. 

“One day, you will understand that not everything is your fault. Astrid made her choice, and we can’t change her choice for her,” his words were whispered into her hair, tiny puffs of breath hitting her back beneath it. “You didn’t choose to kill her.” 

Circe frowned, recalling the future she’d seen multiple times. She may not have killed her, but she essentially enabled her death. She hadn’t looked hard enough. Any number of alternate choices would have changed her future, and while she’d followed one timeline of events that she hadn’t had time to follow, she could have insisted on staying on the spaceship, and using the time the Doctor and Astrid had been on the surface to choice hunt. Her choices were limited only by her imagination, and the future was limitless with that in consideration. There would have been a future that kept Astrid alive and retained her perfect future. But with Astrid gone…

She would leave nothing to chance. Nothing would threaten her future again. 

Chapter Text

Penny Carter had always dreamt of being a journalist. She’d spent every year of her life working towards it, and when the Observer hired her, she took it immediately, using her scientific mindset to curate purpose built articles to challenge the mindset of their readers. She wasn’t the most successful journalist because of it, but she wrote what she believed in. 

And this month, she believed the Adipose pill was impossibly effective. With the recent onslaught of alien encounters and attacks, she was sure that there must be an underlying extraterrestrial threat. She was going to find out exactly what it was. 

Which was why she was standing in the Adipose building for their first major PR event since their inception 12 months ago. 

Her hair was nearly tied back into a ponytail, and she wore her best brown skirt suit, with a small blue scarf tied neatly around her neck. She kept her legs crossed with her notepad propped on her knee as she listened intently to the Adipose CEO speaking. 

“The 21st century way to lose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pain. Just lifelong freedom from fat, the Holy Grail of the modern age.” 

The auditorium was packed with reporters, journalists and scientists, all trying to understand the logic behind the newest health fad: the Adipose Weight Loss Pill. The woman up front had her blonde hair tied up into a French knot, and her square glasses framed her face nicely. She stood at the raised podium, speaking plainly for ease. Behind her, the Adipose industry logo flashed around on the screen. 

Penny shifted in her seat as the woman, Miss Foster, pulled up a small white and red pill. 

“And here it is. You just take one capsule. One capsule, once a day, for three weeks. And the fat, as they say,” she smiled at the collected audience before turning to the screen, where the Adipose slogan appeared. 

“The fat just walks away,” the voice of their advertising campaign echoed in the auditorium. 

Penny piped up, “excuse me, Miss Foster, if I could?” When the woman turned to face her with no recognition on her face, she said, “Penny Carter, Science Correspondent for the Observer. There are a thousand diet pills, a thousand conmen stealing people’s money. How do we know the fat isn’t going straight into your bank account?” There were murmurs of agreement around her, and Penny sat back to wait for her answer. 

“Oh, Penny. If cynicism burnt up calories, we’d all be thin as rakes!” Miss Foster joked, sparking a few laughs from the group. She looked back at Penny, and took off her glasses. “But if you want the science, I can oblige.” 

On cue, the logo began to move, beginning a video that showed the silhouette of a fat man that was taking the Adipose capsule. 

“The Adipose capsule is composed of a synthesised mobilising lipase, bound to a large protein molecule. The mobilising lipase breaks up the triglycerides stored within the Adipose cells, which then…” the film continued on, but Penny raised an eyebrow, entirely unconvinced by the scientist. She’d studied biology as her university degree. She knew when jargon was being used simply to sound clever. Something wasn’t adding up here. 

“100% legal, 100% effective,” Miss Foster finished the presentation with a bright smile. It reminded Penny of a viper. 

“But can I just ask,” she interjected, her curiosity driving her to find out more, “how many people have taken the pills to date?” 

Miss Foster obviously didn’t appreciate the interruption. “We’ve already got one million customers within the Greater London area alone. But from next week, we start rolling out nationwide. The future starts here. And Britain will be thin.” She looked over the auditorium, seeing the pleased professional faces peering back at her, except for one. 

Penny stared at Miss Foster, a plan already formulating in her mind. She hadn’t been successful as an investigative journalist by playing by the rules, after all. 

The sales floor was packed full of half private cubicles with salesmen in each one, attached to a headphone calling their daily list of numbers, trying to convince each one to give it a try. After all, the fat just walks away. 

Penny smiled as she passed a security guard, flashing her clearance badge that she’d nicked from one of the salesmen on her way in that morning. He nodded her past, and she walked into the sales room, picking out her target. Calls of “good morning, I represent Adipose Industries,” came from across the room in varying pitches, and Penny analysed the best angle to view the room while also maintaining cover. She chose a booth in the far side, computer facing away from the main room, and approached the man sat there. He had pinned up on his half-wall a certificate of study, awarding ‘Adam Smyth’ an excellence in sales pitches. She rolled her shoulders back on approach, sliding into the entrance of the booth with an intelligent smile. 

“Mr Smyth, how are you today?” She interrupted his phone call. Her stance within his booth caused him to put the call on hold as he stammered to respond to her question. She spoke over his words, however, and she said, “I’m from HR, and I am afraid Miss Foster has requested you in Meeting Room Three. Something about an overdue performance review?” The panic in his expression was obvious, and Penny discretely kept his attention away from her stolen clearance badge that clearly stated she was a sales representative with an exaggerated raised eyebrow and waving of her hand behind her. “Well, Mr Smyth? Miss Foster does hate to be kept waiting.” 

With that prompt, he jumped away from his computer, pushed off his headset and ran down the corridor. 

Penny smiled at a passing sales representative before seating herself in Adam Smyth’s booth. He’d left in such a rush that he’d kept his computer logged in, and Penny used that to her full advantage. 

She dove into the company’s hard drive, identifying files that were restricted from sales representatives and working to crack them open. Once she’d done so, it was only a matter of printing them off to discover the hidden secrets of Adipose. She swiftly closed all applications that she’d opened, and cleared the cache of the computer. Curiously, she opened the drawer beside her and saw a stash of gift boxes. Unsatisfied, she glanced above the privacy wall to see a confused Adam Smyth returning to his desk, and quickly stood, leaving the rolling chair exactly as he’d left it. She smiled at his confusion as he came to stand beside her.

“She wasn’t there,” he stammered, glancing between her and the meeting room he'd just run to. 

Penny tilted her head, concern crossing her expression. “Oh? You must have waited too long. That certainly wouldn’t look good on your performance report. Too late now; here she comes!” Penny shrugged, kind of enjoying the fear that crossed his expression. 

But she had been right; Miss Foster was certainly entering the centre of the sales room, her two ever present guards standing a few feet behind her. Penny ensured that she was unseen, shifting to stand behind Adam. “Excuse me, everyone!” Miss Foster announced. The general chatter of the room died down as everyone listened to their boss. “If I could have your attention.” 

The sales representatives stood to listen, masking Penny even further. 

“On average, you’re each selling 40 Adipose packs per day. It’s not enough: I want 100 sales per person, per day. And if not, you’ll be replaced.” She looked across the room, and bizarrely, Penny noticed two people who jack boxed between standing and crouching, as if they couldn’t be seen at the same time. On further inspection, she noticed it was a brown haired man and a ginger woman. Her curiosity flagged, she observed them further as Miss Foster finished, “because if anyone is good at trimming the fat, it’s me.” With her threat in place, she smiled and said, “now…back to it!” She strode away powerfully, and with her presence gone, the entire floor sat back down. Penny nodded at Adam once, seeing how his entire being seemed to quiver as he overanalysed Miss Foster’s words as if they had been directed at him personally, and she walked to the printer. She noticed the ginger woman walking that way too, and sped her stride up to meet her. Slightly changing her gait, she smiled enthusiastically at the ginger woman, her green eyes sparkling. 

“It’s my first day here; it’s so incredible to be part of a company doing so much good for the country, don’t you think? My name is Penny,” she enthused, while also eyeing the woman suspiciously. The ginger woman smiled at her, as if dismissing her immediately. 

“That’s what I’m here to find out,” the ginger replied, “I’m Health and Safety.” She pulled out a wallet, flashing a piece of paper that did indeed state Health and Safety, but Penny noticed something wrong with the dates. The woman had put it away before she could identify what, however. “Donna Noble.” 

“Oh, wow. That’s such an important job,” Penny whispered excitedly. She was grateful for her youthful face as they reached the printer. “I have to admit I’m worried I won’t meet the new quota. 100 sales per day is so high!” 

Donna glanced at the young woman again, before looking down at the printed documents. Penny had picked up her own papers first, and Donna caught a glimpse of graphs and charts that she hadn’t seen during the CEO’s presentation, but the files were put into Penny’s bag before she could investigate further. 

“Those looked like some interesting documents,” Donna commented, picking up her list of customers. Penny caught the names on Donna’s papers and narrowed her own eyes. What did a Health Inspector need with the personal names of the company’s customers? 

Penny paused before responding. “As do yours.” The two women made eye contact, and understanding passed between them before Donna made a swift departure. Penny watched her go, walking straight passed the brown haired man who was now walking towards the printer. Penny started walking away, but noticed that he was also printing off the same list. 

What was he doing with those? 

Penny swiftly put away her newly acquired files, and made her way out of Adipose. She had study to do, because the hard part would come tomorrow. 

Tomorrow, she would put her skills in espionage to the test: she was going to sneak into Adipose Industries and do some private investigating on her own. 

Her flat was close by, so it didn’t take Penny long to walk home. She lived on the Powell Estate, next to a lovely woman called Jennifer, and, as she'd been pointedly told, not Jenny. She wasn’t sure what had led her to live there, but the flat had been abandoned a few years ago, and Jennifer had graciously given her the keys. Apparently, there used to be a mother and daughter that lived there, and rumour had it that they’d gotten into some gang trouble, because the daughter had gone missing for a year back in 2005, and then they’d both disappeared in 2006. Still, it suited Penny’s purpose. 

Unlocking the door, Penny let out a sigh of relief as, like a coat, she shed the foreign personality, and the perception filter along with it. 

Circe stepped into the flat she’d taken over a week ago. The real Penny believed she’d won the lottery (the Doctor’s doing), and was on an anonymous trip to CERN in Sweden, to talk about setting up a fund with the money to encourage young women of colour into STEM. A mild perception filter and some old tricks she’d picked up from the Time War meant Circe easily tricked everyone into believing that she was Penny. Impersonating the human was fairly simple, given she only had to do it for a few days. Humans weren’t very complex creatures at a base level. 

It didn’t take her long to realise that she wasn’t alone, and she was certain that the Doctor wasn’t nearby, as she couldn’t sense his presence. Which meant that someone else was inside her flat. Circe gave herself a moment to recall what choices she’d planned to make before acting. 

She placed her keys on the table in the hallway as she usually did, and toed off her shoes. Swinging her briefcase casually by her side, Circe stepped through her hallway and into her lounge, a small smirk on her face as she observed the petite blonde woman staring at her walls. Information of this future returned to her as the scene played in front of her.

“What is this?” Rose demanded, not looking away from the decorated walls. 

Circe scoffed, coming to stand beside her. “Can’t you recognise an ongoing investigation?”

The blonde looked at the woman beside her. She was tall, with darker skin than just the UK sun would’ve allowed for, messy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and sharp green eyes. Rose’s frown deepened. 

“Who are you?” 

“Calm down, little wolf,” the words obviously didn’t help, but Circe kept speaking over her angry fear. “I’m here on orders.” 

“Whose orders?” The human demanded, and the curiosity and slight fear that shot through Circe was quickly ignored. A flicker of recognition crossed the woman’s face as they eyed each other distrustfully. 

“On the Doctor’s orders, if you must know.” Her words caused the short human to huff and turn back to the wall. 

There were case files and studies and pictures attached to the wall, with string tied between different pins that held everything up. Penny had already intended on investigating Adipose Industries before the Doctor had sent her to Sweden for a month, which had made it easy for Circe to slip into her mindset and personality. Penny was at least somewhat intelligent, which was more than most humanity could say.

“What were his orders?” Rose demanded, crossing her arms. 

Circe sighed and raised an eyebrow at the human. When the blonde stubbornly continued to expect an answer, Circe indulged. 

“To investigate Adipose Industries and discover any alien technology behind it. To assist him in preventing irreparable harm to as many humans as possible by stopping any potential alien threat. To not directly attack unless in self defence, and not just from a perceived threat. I need to be actually attacked in order to fight back.” 

Rose nodded, sighing a breath of relief. “Okay, at least you won’t go on a killing spree,” she muttered spitefully. 

“Why are you here, Rose?” Circe asked finally. 

“This was my flat first!” Rose defended, her eyes narrowed on the Time Lady. She softened a little when the Time Lady didn’t respond similarly. “I-well, the stars are going out. Across the universes. And we’ve figured out that it centres on one person from this universe, and we just need to find out who. Find out how to make sure they save everyone.”

Circe pursed her lips. “That’s a big ask for a human.” 

Rose scowled in return. 

“And I guess dimension jumping has become common place in your alternate universe?” When Rose nodded sharply, Circe sighed. “I’ll make a cup of tea; we have a lot to talk about.” 

As Circe turned to walk into the kitchen, she noticed the weapon strapped underneath the human woman’s denim jacket, just as she’d seen in her choice hunting. Her suspicions raised, she flicked on the kettle and made two cups of tea. She was disappointingly unsurprised when she heard the click of a weapon loading. 

“Don’t do this, Rose,” Circe murmured as she poured their tea. “Certainly not in this kitchen. You’d ruin the cabinets.” 

Rose’s voice was steady as she spoke. “I’ve met you before,” she muttered. “You’re the Sorceress, chosen name Circe. You have killed the Doctor in every universe where you are still alive, because you are driven mad by your husband’s torture. I won’t let you do it again. Not while I’m here to stop you.” 

Circe’s smile was sharp as she turned with two mugs of tea in hand. “Unfortunately, Rose, I saw you coming. If even one of my hearts stops tonight, it sets off a chain reaction of explosions that will destroy every building within a mile radius. You won’t have a chance to escape, not even with your void-walk. This flat will be the first to go. You would be atoms before you could hit the button.” Circe tilted her head at the certainty and the fear in the young woman’s face. “I told you, I can’t directly attack unless attacked first. Don’t make me retaliate. You can’t win.” Rose lowered the pistol, unloading the chamber reluctantly. Circe continued, “anyway, I wouldn’t want to ruin what progress I’ve made since regenerating. The Doctor wants me to work on being not-a-soldier. Hopefully, tea-making is a skill of not-a-soldier.” Circe once more held out the mug in her hand, taking a sip from the other one. After holstering the weapon, Rose tentatively reached forward to take the mug. 

“You know that it’s not very not-a-solider to threaten to blow up the centre of London?” Rose commented, her eyes narrow. 

Circe smirked. “As if I actually had the time to rig an entire 1 mile radius of bombs just on the off chance that you might threaten me.” 

Rose couldn’t help her laugh. “Ah, but you do have precognitive abilities. You probably figured out the best response to my pointing a gun at you before you knew you were coming here,” she realised. 

Circe raised an eyebrow over her tea. She offered, “spoilers?” 

Rose wrinkled her nose, “ah, so you met this universe’s River Song?” 

The surprised snort that left Circe caused a sharp sting of tea to shoot up her nose, and Circe hacked out a cough as she tried to breathe normally again. Rose really laughed now, full body quivering with humour. “Yes,” Circe exclaimed when her breathing was back under control. “Yes, I met River. I assume she also is present across alternate universes?” 

Rose nodded, and she finally took a sip of her tea. “If it makes you feel any better, your tea isn’t the worst I’ve ever had before,” she commented afterwards. 

The two woman migrated to the couch, where Circe finally asked, “I know you from what I learnt through seeing this day before, but I don’t actually know you. Information is erased from my mind after I choice hunt until the event occurs, but I remember the choices that will lead me to that event. So while I recognise you, I don’t know you.” 

Rose smiled sadly into her tea. “I’m Rose Tyler. An old companion of his. I became Bad Wolf, ruined the life of my friend, saved the Doctor’s life, and then caused him to regenerate to his tenth face. And then, after stopping Cybermen and Daleks from destroying this world, I slipped and fell into the alternate universe.” 

Circe frowned. “You were more than a companion.” 

“Oh, how I wanted to be.” Her eyes were hard, but her smile was bittersweet. She changed the subject quickly. “I have to find him; there are cracks in the universe. It’s how I’ve been travelling across dimensions. And in the other universe, and so many others, the stars are going out. Reality is being destroyed, and we don’t know how.” 

“You noticed cracks in the fabric of the universe and thought it would be a good idea to throw yourself at it?” Circe demanded, sitting straighter in her seat. “That’s so fucking stupid, Rose. How many holes have you punched through space?” 

“If I don’t, universes will be destroyed. Potentially every universe!” Rose rubbed her forehead, looking exhausted. “There has not been one universe that has not been affected, and I’ve been to a lot.” 

“You are destabilising the fabric of the universe-" 

“It seems,” Rose interrupted, “like the destruction centres from something in this universe. And the timelines are converging on one person. That’s what I’m here to find. We have to stop it.” 

Circe shook her head. “No, you have to let the grown ups handle it. Humans never have been and never will be capable of handling delicate time and space material, and this is proving it.” She scoffed, “throwing yourself at the fabric of space-time, the very nerve.” 

“But I’m here, and whoever it is that can stop this thing is here. I’m so close to finding them, I can’t stop now,” Rose protested. “I won’t stop. I need to find them, and I need to find him. The Doctor will know how to fix all this.” 

Circe couldn’t stop the scoff, or her outright dismissal of the human’s thoughts. “The Doctor is a moron who flys by the seat of his pants. You want to know how to fix this? Stop jumping. Did you even consider the possibility that it could be your hole-punching the walls of reality that causes them to crumble? Let the adults deal with this, child.”

“I am not a child,” Rose tried to protest, fury racing through her. She tried to remember how she'd felt when she had been Bad Wolf, the power and confidence she had held when she offered the universe to the Doctor. 

But Circe stood, looking down at her, with her green eyes slowly emitting a golden light that fell onto Rose’s face, and, too late, Rose remembered that Circe wasn’t just precognitive. The Time Lord held the power of the Time Vortex in her body, had done for longer than Rose would ever breathe, and she knew and saw more than Rose could ever understand. The golden light shone into Rose’s soul, and she wanted to weep at the form the sandy dust took in that moment. 

It was Bad Wolf Bay again, in the alternate universe, but the Doctor was leaving without her. He didn’t take her back. The TARDIS disappeared, and she was stood alone on the all-too-familiar beach. 

“That is your path, if you continue down this road, Miss Tyler. He will never take you back on the TARDIS. He will leave you stranded, and the cracks in the universe will seal themselves behind him. You will never be able to escape, trapped in a universe that has never and will never contain a Time Lord.” 

The gold light stopped, and seemed to be pulled back inside of Circe. The Time Lady stepped back, and watched as Rose processed what had been her worst fear. 

The blonde woman shook her head minutely, tears in her warm eyes, and she whispered, “no,” defiantly before she pushed her button and faded out of existence. 

Chapter Text

The toilets hadn’t been Penny’s original plan, but they were convenient, far away from the exit and close to the managerial offices. She sat with the cubicle door shut and her legs kicked up onto the metal assistance bar within the stall, reading some of the files she’d printed off yesterday. She’d heard another woman enter the bathroom some time ago, and not leave, and she wondered if it was the same woman who’d been printing the list of names the previous day. 

A bang echoed through the toilet, and Penny stuffed the documents back into her briefcase, hurrying to remove all traces of her from the floor of the bathroom. With her feet kicked up onto the bannister beside her, she held her breath tightly in her chest. 

“We know you’re in here,” the familiar voice of Miss Foster came through the bathroom, and from the sounds of the footsteps, she wasn’t alone. Penny cursed silently, wondering if she should reveal herself or risk Miss Foster’s bodyguards dragging her dead body out kicking and screaming. “I’m waiting!” She paused for a second, her voice still warm as she said, “I warn you, I’m not a patient woman. Now, out you come.” 

Penny didn’t hear the other woman move, and readied herself for confrontation. The other woman had chosen a cubicle further down, and Penny wondered at the odds. She almost wished that she had picked the last cubicle of the toilets, but remembered her plan required this specific cubicle. She didn’t remember why, but the third cubicle was where she had to be. Had she planned on being captured? Why couldn’t she remember properly? 

“Right,” Miss Foster decreed, “we’ll do it the hard way. Get her.” 

There were footsteps, and then the sound of the cubicle being kicked in. Penny held back a whimper, telling herself she had nothing to be afraid of. The worst they could do was arrest her for trespassing, and then she could go to the police, tell them why she had been in their offices overnight. She tried to keep herself calm as he kicked open a second door. As the kicks kept coming, she composed herself, slinging the shoulder strap of her briefcase over her head, and planting a superficial glare on her face. 

Finally, the last kick came, and she was greeted by the sight of two armed bodyguards and Miss Foster, stood looking far too smug. She adjusted her glasses to look at Penny. 

“There you are,” she said warmly as her guards pulled Penny from the cubicle. The hands on her shoulders were tight enough to bruise, which Penny was grateful for. If they weren’t tight enough, she might’ve been able to escape. 

Wait, why would she want to escape at this point? She needed as much information as she could get, to stall for as long as possible until the D-

Who?

Her confusion only lasted seconds, but she quickly snapped out of it, twisting it to anger at the woman in front of her. “I’ve been through the records, Foster. All of your results have been faked!” She accused, and she allowed Miss Foster’s smug smile to further ignite her anger. “There’s something about those pills you’re not telling us!” 

Miss Foster’s eyes were alight with joy. “Oh, I think I’ll be conducting this interview, Penny.” 

Penny struggled against the man’s grip on her, trying to prolong their walk to the offices, but it was no use. He was almost…superhumanly strong. But that was impossible, right? He looked human enough…

Her hearts beat fast in her chest, and she protested, “you’ve got no right to do this; let me go!” 

She was beginning to regret this little escapade as the trio silently led her into an office. Across from them, a line of windows looked directly onto the street, and Penny debated for a moment whether screaming might help her cause.

Instead, as the men strapped her into a chair that faced the main desk, she said, “this is ridiculous.”

“Sit there nicely, child,” Miss Foster encouraged softly. 

Penny strained against her new bounds as she exclaimed, “I’m phoning my editor!” 

Miss Foster’s voice turned glacial immediately, “I said sit nicely.”

“This is abduction, you can’t tie me up!” Penny squirmed. The ropes were tied off underneath her bust, and one of the men leant down to tie her feet to the chair legs. She lamented the fact that she had to go along with this farce and couldn’t kick his brains out. “What sort of a country do you think this is?” 

Miss Foster had sat down at her own desk, and was facing Penny as her guards finished their knots. “Oh, it’s a beautifully fat country. And believe me, I’ve travelled a long way to find obesity on this scale.” 

Penny stopped struggling, wondering if Miss Foster might open up now that she appeared helpless. “So come on, then, Miss Foster. Those pills, what are they?” If she wasn’t going to immediately escape, she would dig. 

“Well, you might as well have a scoop, since you’ll never see it printed.” She picked up the white and red pill, holding it carefully. “This is the spark of life,” she declared, almost lovingly. 

Penny scoffed, “and what’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Officially, the capsule attracts all the fat cells and flushes them away. Well, it certainly attracts them. That part’s true.” 

Something in Penny shifted, and she leant forward, as if learning a secret. “And unofficially?” 

Miss Foster grinned, her eyes gleaming uncomfortably, “it binds the fat together and galvanises it to form a body.”

Hearts pounding, and something vaguely sounding like drums appeared in the back of her mind as she said, “well, what do you mean ‘a body’?” 

Miss Foster squinted in disappointment. “I am surprised you never asked about my name. I chose it well.” Penny watched her curiously, brows furrowed in confusion. “Foster, as in foster mother. And these…” she reached into a drawer to pull out a small cuboid creature, no larger than a head, completely white coloured and slightly slimy in appearance, “are my children.” 

Penny flinched in disgust, “you’re kidding me. I don’t- what the hell is that?” 

Miss Foster looked prideful as she strode around the desk to stand in front of Penny. “Adipose,” she said, “it’s called an Adipose. Made out of living fat.” 

“I don’t understand-“ Penny kept saying, confusion fluttering and feeling like she was short circuiting. 

“From ordinary people, human people,” Miss Foster kept on. “We take living fat cells and use it to create my Adipose.” 

“But that’s impossible-“ Penny was saying, and Miss Foster shook her head. 

Ultimately, the action caused her to look to the side, where she noticed something unusual. She stopped the interview, crossing her arms and glaring. “Are we interrupting you?” She asked simply. 

Penny fell away like falling snow, and Circe stayed exactly as Penny had left her, squirming against the bindings holding her but not allowing them to shift too far to cause concern for the armed guards. As the woman at the door ran, Miss Foster ordered, “get her!” 

The armed guards ran for the door, only to find it had been locked somehow, allowing the woman at the door to get away. Circe turned to glance at the Doctor, and when he nodded at her, she knew their plan was still on. 

“And him!” Miss Foster encouraged, pointing to the Doctor. 

The guards shot at the door, and Circe flinched, using her shoulder to protect her ear closest to the noise, and she cried out uselessly, “what about me?”, as the three left the office. 

Gratefully alone for the first time since discovery, Circe smoothed out her expression and rolled back her shoulders. Tentatively testing out her hyper-flexibility, she was relieved to feel her wrists bending in the right way to reach the knots tied by the guards. It didn’t take her long to undo them, and it was only a matter of ripping away the ones on her legs before she was free again. She rotated her joints, bringing fluid and movement back to her limbs. Not sure how long she had before Miss Foster would return, Circe sat herself in the woman’s chair and woke the computer, ready to hack into whatever program she needed to. 

It turned out to be buried under lays of software, but whatever species of alien Miss Foster belonged to, their technological capabilities were far below that of the Time Lords. As she delved into the programming, Circe realised that they hadn’t activated the pill to its full potential. A morbid curiosity gripped her, and her hands lifted from the keyboard as she felt the Time Vortex swirl temptingly in her mind. Her eyes shone gold, and she chose to fully activate the pill. 

She watched as the death toll started stacking in her mind, as humans who had ingested the pill that day fell to the ground, and dissolved into alien lifeforms; the same lifeforms that Miss Foster claimed to be caring for, Adipose. She pulled herself out of the choice, and wondered what she could do to best follow the Doctor’s orders; to prevent the deaths that he would probably detest. 

Her hands flicked through several choices, all ending in various amounts of a death toll, before she came across one timeline that kept the Doctor, and the 1 million people alive. She tilted her head as her eyes stopped glowing, and her fingers began to type into the program, overwriting the previous coding to change its final product. 

With the programming changed, Circe turned the computer off once more, and her hands instinctively flexed to search for more choices. She needed to know how tonight could go. 

She caught glimpses of the future as she delved into various timelines, and different possibilities. Saw Miss Foster live and die and suffer and win, and saw Donna Noble fall and die and laugh, and the Doctor weeping. Circe didn’t stop choice hunting until she was sure of her next move. 

When she finally lowered her hands, she had only a few seconds before the anticipated banging came from outside the window of the high rise office building. It reminded her that, while she’d been actually finding the best way to resolve their current predicament, the Doctor was just hanging around with some ginger woman who might become the most important woman in the universe. Circe moved to the window, glancing upwards to see the same basket the Doctor had occupied previously now two storeys above her. She sighed in frustration, but grabbed the chair she’d sat in as Penny and threw it to the window. The reinforced glass shattered easily under the metal chair legs, and the chair fell out the window to the street below. There was another crash as it hit something beneath them. Circe didn’t particularly care about that. There was a loud bang and the wiring above them snapped, and Donna fell into Circe’s sights. The ginger woman swung down, her legs flailing and her hands gripping a metal bar. She screamed something incomprehensible to the Doctor above, but Circe ignored it. It wasn’t relevant to keeping the woman alive. 

Circe leant over the broken window to grasp her legs, grunting when the woman kicked her face. Ignoring the shards of glass digging into her abdomen, she held on tighter. 

“Don’t panic, I’m a friend!” She yelled to the woman, and she helped Donna into the office. 

“Oh my god, thank you!” Donna gasped, until she saw the blood blooming on Circe’s stomach. “Oh crap, you’re bleeding!” She yelled, and Circe rolled her eyes. 

“I won’t be for long, now we have to wait for the Doctor,” she told her, and Donna looked at her confused. 

“Wait, but you work here! Penny, wasn’t it?” Donna exclaimed, and Circe rolled her eyes. 

“I’m not Penny, my name is Circe. Keep up, Donna Noble,” she dismissed, moving back to the computer. While she was facing away from Donna, Circe used some of her spare regeneration energy to heal her stomach wounds. She winced, feeling micro shards of glass sliding out of her skin, but sighed in relief when it was finished. 

Donna pulled her blazer down, looking at the woman in bafflement. “But you were here yesterday!” 

“Searching for information, just like you. The Doctor-“ Circe tried to explain, but Donna interrupted. 

“Oh, you’re with the Doctor?!” She exclaimed, and she rushed to stand beside Circe at the desk. 

The man himself appeared in the doorway, grinning wildly with his hair stuck up in several different directions. His brown eyes gleamed joyfully as adrenaline obviously coursed his body, and he winked at Donna and Circe. “Come on ladies, off we go!” He called, and Circe immediately leapt into action, following him out the door and into the hallways. Donna rushed behind her, still completely bewildered. 

“You know what, I think it’s always like this with you!” Donna yelled to the Doctor, and he looked back at her over his shoulder. 

“Oh yes, it is!” He crowed. 

As the trio ran through the halls of Adipose, they turned a corner and had to abruptly stop upon sighting Miss Foster and her two guards. The boss frowned distrustingly at Circe. 

“I should’ve known you were with them,” she said haughtily, and Circe rolled her eyes but refused to respond to the incitement. Despite Miss Foster’s intent gaze, Circe did her best to keep Donna hidden behind her taller body. 

“Well, then,” Miss Foster zeroed in on the Doctor, taking her glasses off, “at last.” 

“Hello,” Donna poked her head around Circe’s shoulders. The Time Lady sighed in frustration and pushed her back into hiding. 

“Nice to meet you, I’m the Doctor!” Her commander exclaimed, grinning at their enemy. 

“And I’m Donna,” the human woman poked her head around again, causing Circe to turn to face her with a dark glare in her green eyes. Donna flinched back, unsure why she felt like she had to be afraid of this woman when she obviously knew the Doctor, but the brunette had turned around before Donna could analyse the look in her eyes. 

“Partners in crime,” Miss Foster commented, only mildly amused. “And evidently off-worlders, judging by your sonic technology.” 

Circe stiffened in front of Donna, sending a harsh glare to the Doctor, who glanced worriedly between the two women. 

The Doctor suddenly patted down all of his pockets, and Circe wondered what plan had come to his mind. Part of her was tempted to open her mind, to link with his to better help whatever scheme he’d conjured up, but she kept herself locked down. “Oh, yes,” the Doctor exclaimed, producing a black pen from his front right pocket. “I’ve still got your sonic pen.” 

That explained how Miss Foster had cut through steel cables while threatening Circe’s commander, then. 

“Nice,” the Doctor continued. “I like it. Sleek, it’s kind of sleek.” 

Donna put her hands on their middle shoulders and leant into the conversation. “Oh, it’s definitely sleek,” she affirmed.

“Yeah,” the Doctor agreed.

Circe stiffened under Donna’s hand, unnoticed by most of their social gathering. “Please stop complimenting the weapons of our opponents, Doctor.” 

The Doctor scowled, “oh, you never let me have any fun.” Gesturing to Miss Foster with the sonic pen, he asked, “and if you were to sign your real name, that would be?” 

“Matron Cofelia of the Five-Straighten Classabindi Nursery Fleet. Intergalactic class,” Miss Foster elaborated. 

Circe understood now. Miss Foster had been hired by an Adipose family to find a breeding planet, and had erroneously selected a level 5 planet. She wondered whether the glorified wet nurse had realised her crime, and morbidly wondered whether the family would bring the wet nurse back into their home, or leave her to rot on Earth for the Shadow Proclamation to claim.

“A wet nurse,” the Doctor murmured, allowing Donna to understand the spacial phrases, “using humans as surrogates.” 

Miss Foster explained, “I’ve been employed by the Adiposian first family to foster a new generation after their breeding planet was lost.” 

“What do you mean, lost?” Circe interrupted, eyes narrowed on the threats. 

“How do you lose a planet?” The Doctor remarked, and he cleared his throat awkwardly when Circe raised an eyebrow at him, a particular memory jumping out to both of them. “Uh…well…” he struggled to continue, but Miss Foster shrugged. 

“Oh, the politics are none of my concern. I’m just here to take care of the children on behalf of the parents.” Miss Foster stated simply. 

Donna’s face creased in confusion, and she realised that confusion had been her primary emotion that evening. “What, like an outer space Supernanny?” 

“Yes, if you like,” she encouraged, a warm smile on her face. 

Circe pursed her lips, seeing why this woman had been made a nanny. 

“So, those little things, they’re made out of fat, yeah?” Donna asked nervously, stepping between the Doctor and Circe. The Time Lords parted, allowing the human her moment to understand the situation. “But that woman, Stacy Campbell, there was nothing left of her.”

Miss Foster nodded understandingly, “oh, in a crisis, the Adipose can convert bone and hair and internal organs. Makes them a little bit sick, poor things.” She pouted slightly, her voice turning to be filled with worry for her charges. 

“What about poor Stacy?” Donna whispered, shock and disgust obvious in her voice. 

“You realise that, without the direct consent from humanity’s world leaders, you are in direct violation of the Shadow Proclamation,” Circe informed, and she kept talking before Miss Foster could respond. “And you probably could have done this legally if you had just asked for consent. Humanity is so vain in 21st century that they’re willing to do almost anything to look a certain way. However…”  

The Doctor glanced at Circe, a twang of pride and disappointment coming in. He couldn’t identify which was for what, however. She looked back at him, waiting for him to finish her threat. 

“Seeding a level 5 planet is against intergalactic law,” the Doctor finished their point, looking back to Miss Foster. His eyes had darkened considerably, but Miss Foster just looked over the rim of her glasses. 

“Are you threatening me?” She asked carefully. 

The Doctor stepped forward slightly, putting Circe behind him. Circe took the subtle command easily, and pushed Donna behind again. “We’ll probably have to run soon,” she warned, and Donna’s eyes widened. 

“I’m trying to help you, Matron,” the Doctor informed her. “This is your one chance. Because if you don’t call this off, then I’ll have to stop you.” 

Circe waited, watching as the Matron analysed the situation, but she was either blindly following her orders, or so certain of her position with the Adipose first family that she was never going to believe that they might harm her. 

The Matron retorted, “I hardly think you can stop bullets.” With the subtle command, the two guards beside her cocked their weapons and aimed them at the Doctor and Circe. Donna was very effectively hidden behind Circe. 

“Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on!” The Doctor cried, putting his ahnds in the air. Circe spied the item in his left hand and sighed. “One more thing, before dying!” He reached into his jacket with his spare hand to grab his own sonic screwdriver, and Circe scowled at his back. She turned her back on the hostiles, and gave Donna an expression she hoped was reassuring. 

“Do you know what happens if you hold two identical sonic devices against each other?” The Doctor asked blasély. 

The Matron sighed in frustration, and Circe could feel her pain. “No.” 

“Don’t worry,” was all Circe said as she cupped her hands around Donna’s ears. 

“Nor me, let’s find out!” The sonic devices buzzed against each other, and the reverberations caused the brain of every organic creature in the building to fizzle, wobbling like the microseconds before glass shatters when a sound hits its resonant frequency. The intense pain in those unprepared for it caused them to collapse, and the three hostiles shouted in pain against the noise. 

Circe was glad she had covered Donna’s ears. The pain was excruciating, even for a Time Lord, and she did her best to cover one ear with her shoulder, as Donna’s hands clamped over Circe’s to better block the sound out. As glass sheets around them shattered, Donna pushed the Doctor down a hallway, stopping the noise, and yelled, “come on,” to them both. Circe ran behind them both, ready to give them cover if the guards managed to recover before they’d turned a corner. 

The Doctor led the way, taking them to ground level maintenance corridors, and Circe sighed as he stopped by one particular cupboard and started emptying it. 

“Well, that’s one solution!” Donna exclaimed optimistically. “Hide in a cupboard: I like it!”

“I’ve been hacking into this thing all day because the Matron’s got a computer core running through the building, triple-deadlocked.” The Doctor spoke rapidly as he opened the console hidden within the cupboard. Donna and Circe approached carefully, watching as he put his rectangular glasses on and pulled out the Matron’s sonic pen again. “But now I’ve got this, I can get into it.” 

Circe leant against the doorway, watching the Doctor and the human interact. She wondered when he would realise that she had spent around 10 minutes unsupervised in the Matron’s room, where the command computer was. While she hadn’t found the core, the computer had been more than enough for her to implement her own programming. Donna leant against the wall behind her, watching the Doctor working. She almost couldn’t help the feeling of uselessness. Donna had never been very tech-savy with human technology, which likely meant anything from outer space was well beyond her reach. 

“She’s wired up the whole building,” the Doctor murmured, crouching to mess with the wiring of the console. 

“Hostiles incoming,” Circe informed him, hearing the footsteps behind her. She was stood in the doorway for a reason. 

“I think we need a bit of privacy,” the Doctor grunted, sonicing a wire he’d just stripped. 

Circe felt the electricity sharply flow to a column, allowing them to strike the guards painlessly, stunning them to prevent any further action. 

“Just enough to stun them.” He stood again, looking up at the top of the console. “But why’s she wired up a tower block?” 

Circe cleared her throat, and the Doctor looked back to her. “There’s a failsafe to increase the level of parthenogenesis,” she explained, “I’d bet the tower is to broadcast the larger signal more effectively.” 

The Doctor nodded sharply in understanding. “Circe, I need you to find another console, see if you can circumvent her attempts to bring this online.” 

Circe nodded sharply, and turned on the ball of her foot to do that. 

“You look older,” Donna mumbled as Circe began to leave. Her hearts stuttered, and she hid behind the wall, eavesdropping on their conversation. The need to follow her orders were overwhelming, but she ultimately knew that the failsafe had already been circumnavigated, and her instincts were begging her not to trust Donna. 

“Thanks,” the Doctor laughed shortly. 

“Still on your own?” 

“Not anymore,” Circe could hear the smile in his voice. “I did have this friend, Martha, she was called, before-“ The Doctor didn’t say Circe’s name, but Donna seemed to understand. “Martha Jones, she was brilliant.” There was a long pause before he continued. “And I destroyed half her life. But she’s fine, she’s good. She’s gone.” 

The mention of Martha caused Circe’s hearts to pang with pain. She didn’t like to think of the human much. Remembering Martha came just before remembering him and Florence, and Circe didn’t want that. But Martha had been good, for a human. The rare exception. Circe didn’t think she’d ever care for another human in the same way as she’d cared for Martha Jones. 

“What about Rose?” Donna whispered, and Circe froze. What connection did Donna have to the human tearing apart the fabric of time? 

“Still lost,” whispered the Doctor.

“And when did you find Circe? How long has she been travelling with you?” Donna asked softly. 

The Doctor’s voice was warm when he responded, “she’s a very old friend, whom I never should have left behind.” There was a long silence where neither of them spoke, and Circe felt the tension building, even being outside the cupboard. 

“I thought you were going to travel the world,” the Doctor redirected, and Donna laughed softly. 

“Easier said than done.” 

The Doctor had met Donna before? Had he planned to meet Donna here tonight? Or had she planned it? What if Donna and Rose had already met, and had been scheming against the Doctor this entire time? 

“It’s like, I had that one day with you and I was going to change. I was going to do so much.” Donna’s voice filled with longing. “And then I woke up the next morning, same old life. It’s like you were never there.” 

God, but Donna sounded so human. 

“And I tried, I did try! I went to Egypt. I was going to go barefoot and everything.” Donna laughed at herself. “And then it’s all bus trips and guidebooks and ‘don’t drink the water’, and two weeks later, you’re back at home. It’s nothing like being with you. I must’ve been mad, turning down that offer.”

Circe’s spine straightened, and she wondered what Donna meant. 

“What offer?” The Doctor obviously was wondering the same thing. 

This was the moment where Donna revealed she’d met Rose, and refused to jump across space-time with her, or refused to reintroduce her to the Doctor, or refused to do something that Rose wanted. 

“To come with you.” 

And somehow, that sat like a sinking stone in Circe’s hearts. 

“You’re coming with me?” The Doctor asked, confused. 

“Oh, yes please!” Donna exclaimed. 

Circe’s back was up against the wall, hearts drumming with complete fear as the drumming pounded away in her mind. All she could see was spies infiltrating their TARDIS, her TARDIS, and she would never be able to relax again. The enemy would always be around them now. What if Donna manipulated the Doctor into something worse? Donna could convince the Doctor to leave Circe behind, or give her a key to the TARDIS, or destroy the fabric of the universe. They had no idea of Donna’s intentions with space-time travel, and here the Doctor was just giving away the spot that Martha had fought tooth and nail for. 

Did Circe not even get a say? Wasn’t he trying to convince her that this was her home too? 

“Right,” the Doctor murmured, obviously shocked by the blatant manipulation that had just occured. Circe waited for him to counter the proposition, to deny his acceptance, but the console started speaking. 

“Inducer activated,” it announced. 

“What’s it doing now?” Donna asked quickly. 

Circe manually forced her hearts to start racing as if she’d been running, and she began panting as if she’d run from far away. 

“She’s started the program!” The Doctor exclaimed, but before he could act on it, Circe jumped into the doorway, acting as if she’d run from the other console. 

“The failsafe that I mentioned, I managed to tweak,” she explained breathily. “It will no longer convert beyond the safe levels for percentage of body fat for a human body composition. So long as she doesn’t realise, you are in no rush to stop the broadcast.” 

The Doctor grinned at her, not stopping to realise that she hadn’t been gone for long enough to have reached another console, let alone reprogrammed an integral part of the Matron’s plan. Donna looked between the two Time Lords, and stumbled back when Circe pushed her away to better access the console. 

“The Matron is overwriting the programming. See how long you can hold her back!” The Doctor ordered, and Circe obeyed. Meanwhile, he soniced wiresbelow her as he explained to Donna what was happening. “So far they’re just losing weight, but the Matron’s trying to go up to emergency parthenogenesis. Circe’s program overwrites that, but the Matron won’t let that stop her for long.” 

“So then they convert?” Donna asked, worried. 

“Skeletons, organs, everything. A million people are going to die!” He exclaimed, pulling more wires out. They sparked out onto Circe’s legs, but she held in her pain as her fingers flew across the keyboard. 

“Gotta cancel the signal, this contains the primary signal,” the Doctor showed Donna and Circe the pill capsule necklace he’d stolen the previous day, unscrewing one side of it to showcase the microchip in the centre. “If I can switch it off, the fat goes back to just being fat.” 

"Doctor, she's gotten past me," Circe shouted, and she hit the computer in anger just as it announced something.

"Inducer increasing." 

"No, no, no, no, she's doubled it! I need..." he turned to look around the maintenance cupboard, but he couldn't think. "Haven't got time. It's too far, I can't override it. They're all going to die!" He was starting to panic. 

Circe stepped away from the console, crossing her arms uncomfortably in front of her to watch the Doctor at work. 

"Is there anything I can do?" Donna asked softly, trying to be helpful in more ways than just holding stripped wires. 

"Sorry, Donna, this is way beyond you. Gotta double the base pulse... I can't-!"

Donna firmly demanded, "Doctor, tell me, what do you need?" 

Circe glared at Donna, but the Doctor turned to face her, his body exposed and vulnerable, and he said, "I need a second capsule to boost the override, but I've only got the one. I can't save them!" The Doctor went back to the console, trying to reprogram the parthenogenesis, but was obviously still failing. 

To Circe's surprise, and horror, Donna's face lit up, and she conveniently pulled from her pocket another capsule. The glinting gold necklace caught the Doctor's eye, and he turned to face Donna slowly, his expression brightening up as he made eye contact with Donna. Together, they grinned, laughing at the chances, before the Doctor grabbed it and inserted it into the console, rearing back as it sparked and then powered down. 

Circe's head was pounding, pain ricocheting from the drumming that relentlessly told her Donna was bad bad bad bad bad. She wouldn't be able to stop the Doctor from being manipulated, it had already begun when she hadn't been around. As Donna and the Doctor celebrated, Circe stepped out of the maintenance cupboard, the ramifications of what was happening spiraling out of control in her mind. She desperately needed to find a moment alone to look into the future, to see how to get rid of Donna, but she couldn't leave the Doctor alone with her. Who knew what she might convince him to do? 

A sudden noise made the foundations of the building shake, and Circe recognised it as a size VII spacecraft coming to hover outside their building. 

Donna whispered, “what the hell was that?” 

Like a warning siren, the spaceship sent out a blast from its horn, informing the Adipose children that it was time to leave. It shook the building they stood in. 

“That is the nursery coming to collect the new children!” The Doctor explained, leaning against the wall. 

“When you say ‘nursery’, you don’t mean a creche in Notting Hill?” 

Circe scoffed, and explained, “nursery ship,” when Donna turned to look at her. 

The console powered back up, powered by the mothership’s arrival. “Incoming signal:” it informed them, and then the Adipose language came over the air. Circe narrowed her eyes. 

“Hadn’t we better go and stop them?” Donna exclaimed, but the Doctor shushed her.

“Hold on,” he dismissed. “Instructions from the Adiposian first family.” He watched the information flash across the screen. “Hang on, she’s wired up the tower block to convert it into a levitation post.”

“What’s that?” Circe asked, pointing to a new line of information. 

“Ooh,” the Doctor murmured intelligently. “We’re not the ones in trouble now. She is!” The Doctor pushed off of the console, and lead the way through the building. 

So Circe had been right in her assessment of the Matron’s misplaced belief in her employers. They really did plan to kill her. 

“Wait, what’s going on?” Donna yelled as they ran. 

Circe took the rear, the venom in her glare to Donna strong enough that Donna would’ve been long since dead if looks could kill. Still, she explained, “the Adiposian first family are giving orders to kill the Matron for her part in breaking intergalatic law, and they’ve come to collect their children.” 

Donna glanced back at Circe in worry, but her focus quickly landed back on running, as they rushed up the stairs to the roof. As they came out onto the roof, the Doctor and Donna rushed to the edge to observe the sight of thousands of levitating Adipose children. Circe took her time, watching the little globules of fat flying up into their nursery. Her orders had been fulfilled, even if the Matron was currently in danger. And while the Doctor and Donna tried to convince the Matron not to ascend alongside her children, Circe stayed back, partly to observe but mostly to make a choice. 

Her decision made, Circe allowed her eyes to shine gold and the dust to rise from her palms. As she watched, her hearts beat in terror, and the drumming kicked up in her mind. As the blow struck, she threw the sand away, her eyes watering as the golden glow faded and her hands shaking. 

“No,” she whispered harshly. “No, it won’t end like that. That can’t be the way.” 

She made another choice, well aware of how pushed for time she was, but desperate to find a new path. When it ended in another strike, she flinched, the sand falling coarsely between her fingers before fading back out of existence. 

Her hearts were racing, and she vaguely caught a glimpse of Matron Cofelia falling to her death, but she made one more choice. 

Circe had experienced many lifetimes of pain, but what she saw in this timeline made all of it pale in comparison. When the sand fell and faded, she didn’t recall what had happened; only that she could never have any intent to harm Donna, or else the Doctor would raise hell. How quickly did Donna manage to manipulate him to her cause for him to react so viciously? 

Circe frowned sharply as they walked through the alleyway to where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS. They walked past a blue car, which Donna immediately informed them was her own, and then she started talking about destiny, and pulling out 6 suitcases and duffel bags, and Circe was holding a hat box while Donna moved to the door of the TARDIS. Her hand gripped the door handle when she turned back to the Doctor, having barely stopped to breathe. 

“I don’t need injections, do I? You know, like when you go to Cambodia, is there any of that? Because my friend Veena went to Bahrain, and…” she finally paused, and noticed the Doctor’s expression. She glanced at Circe, whose anger was barely being contained beneath her skin. “You’re not saying much. Neither of you.” 

“No, it’s just…” the Doctor struggled to find his words. “It’s a funny old life, in the TARDIS.” 

“You don’t want me.” Donna didn’t intend on sounding entirely dejected, but her face fell, and Circe studied it intently, watching carefully for any sign of lying or deceit. 

“I’m not saying that.”

“But you asked me.” Donna glanced over both of them, understanding crossing her expression. “Would you rather be on your own?” 

“No,” the Doctor said first, before he glanced at Circe. When he couldn’t see any immediate sign of refusal from her, he continued. “Actually, no. But…” the Doctor dropped the duffel bag he’d been holding, and Circe watched as his expression dropped into such desolation. She wondered how he managed to create such a perfect imitation of a kicked puppy. “The last time, with Martha, like I said…it got complicated. And that was all my fault. I just want a mate.” 

The instant that the Doctor said those last words, Circe watched as Donna’s facial expression shifted, the horror and disgust palpable from her face alone. She shifted defensively, worried about an attack, but Donna just raised her voice. 

“You just want to mate?” She clarified loudly. 

“I just want a mate!” The Doctor explained in return, but it didn’t help. 

“You’re not mating with me, sunshine!” Donna yelled, hiding in the doorway of the TARDIS. Despite herself, Circe snorted unwillingly, and she had to turn away to stop from laughing at the absurdity of the situation. 

“A mate, I want a mate!” He reiterated, and Donna slowly stepped out of the TARDIS. 

“Well, just as well, because I’m not having any of that nonsense!” She exclaimed, gesturing generally to the Doctor. “I mean, you’re just a long streak of nothing, alien nothing!” Donna glanced at Circe, suspicion in her eyes. “Same for you, I hope?! I don’t want no probing nonsense from either of youse!” 

“There we are, then. Okay.” The Doctor affirmed, and Donna nodded defensively, until she realised.

“I can come?” She whispered, and the Doctor waved his arms around, looking to Circe. 

“So long as my Co-Captain is happy with it?” He asked, and Circe wanted to strangle him. 

She couldn’t say no. He was her captain. She was bound to follow his commands, not the other way around. To disagree with his decision would be insubordination, regardless of her opinions around the ginger human. And remembering the absolute fear she’d felt after making the choice to prevent Donna from boarding the TARDIS, Circe lifted her chin, her green eyes hard as stone, as she said, “yeah.” 

“Course you can, then. Yeah, I’d love it.” He said easily, turning back to Donna. He made a mental note to check in with Circe when they had a moment alone. He hadn’t liked the look in her eyes when she’d looked at him hollowly. In fact, she hadn’t seemed to be herself since…they’d stood atop the roof. But for the time being, the Doctor and Donna laughed in joy, grinning at each other in elation. 

“Ohh, that’s just…!” Donna exclaimed, running forward for a second until she felt the weight of something in her pocket. She dropped her arms, yelling, “car keys!” 

“What?” The Doctor asked, his own face falling. 

“I’ve still got my mum’s car keys! I won’t be a minute!” Donna yelled back, running down the alleyway. 

Circe’s suspicions rose, and she eyed Donna’s retreating form. The Doctor looked between her and the human, and she sighed in frustration.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Circe confirmed, “you move her…belongings…in. Didn’t you tell her the TARDIS has a wardrobe?” Circe criticised as she followed the human at a distance. 

“Oi, don’t you be-“ the Doctor yelled after her, but Circe ran too quickly. 

Donna was on the phone the second she believed herself to be out of sight, and Circe followed at a closer distance to overhear her conversation.

“I know mum! I saw it, little fat people!” She was saying. “Listen, I’ve gotta go. I’m going to stay with Veena for a bit.” There was obviously another phrase, because Donna said, “yeah, I know! Spaceship! But I’ve still got the car keys. Look, there’s a bin on Brook Street, 30 feet from the corner, I’m going to leave them in there.” Donna did exactly that, stopping before the police line in front of the Adipose building. “Yes, I said ‘bin’,” she confirmed. “Oh, stop complaining! The car’s just down the road a bit.” 

Circe froze as she saw Rose’s newly familiar form, with her blue leather jacket, leaning against the police railing, observing the spectacle in front of her with feigned interest. Her ear was turned towards Donna in interest. 

“Gotta go, really gotta go! Bye!” Donna told the person on the phone before hanging up. She glanced around, and Circe leant discreetly against a car across the road. Her hearts were pounding with the drumming in her head, and they only beat harder when Donna approached Rose. This was it. The moment she’d been waiting for. 

“Listen, there’s this woman that’s going to come along, a tall blond woman called Sylvia.” Donna explained to Rose. “Tell her that bin there!” Donna pointed to it. “Alright, it’ll make sense. That bin there!” 

What kind of code was that? Just what had Rose sent Donna to do? 

Donna rushed past Circe, oblivious to the Time Lady, and Circe rushed forward as Rose walked away, before she had the chance to push the big yellow button that Circe knew Rose had. 

“What are you planning?” Circe demanded quietly. Her hand was placed on Rose’s bicep, so she felt the woman tense from the new threat. 

Rose lifted her nose, glaring up at Circe. “Nothing. Donna is going to save the universe. She’s the one.” 

Circe shook her head, almost unable to hear over the drums pounding away in her ears. “No, no, you’ve told her to do something, you’ve told her to infiltrate the TARDIS, haven’t you? What have you asked her to do? What is she looking for? How are you planning to hurt him?” Circe’s grip tightened, and she watched the flicker of fear cross Rose’s expression. It only lasted a moment, because her words registered in Rose’s mind, and Rose’s eyes hardened like ice. 

“I wouldn’t hurt him. I will never hurt him. In every universe I have travelled to, I have never hurt him.” Rose tilted her head at Circe, and she glanced her up and down. “But it’s like I said; in every universe where you survive, you kill him.” 

The words sent ice down Circe’s spine. “Is Donna here to hurt me, then?” Circe tried to theorise, but Rose laughed, even as her expression filled with fear. “Who do I need to protect him from?” She yelled. 

“Oh my god, it’s happening. You’re going insane.” Rose laughed again, the sound echoing cruelly in the dark streets, “the only person you need to protect him from is you.” 

Rose managed to shock the Time Lady into letting her go, and she pushed her button before Circe could recover. Rose disappeared before Circe could grab her again. 

No, Circe would never hurt the Doctor. Magna had never been able to hurt Theta. They hadn’t always cared for each other, but they had never tried to hurt each other. Her primary directive was to protect the Doctor, and she would use whatever was necessary to do so. 

Rose was lying. She had to be. Circe could not trust a word that left that woman’s mouth. She would find out why Rose had sent Donna into the TARDIS, and what Donna wanted from them, and she would put a stop to whatever plan Rose was concocting. 

“Tell me about Rose.” 

The words were cold in the stark warmth of the TARDIS, slicing through the air like microscopic knives aimed at the Doctor’s weakest spots. They hit their target, as her projectiles always did, and the Doctor almost felt physically winded, the air stolen from his lungs. His hearts beat in a furious samba, and the spike in adrenaline had nowhere to go, lingering in his shaking fingers and weakening knees. 

She had chosen her timing well. Donna had just gone to bed, after her all-inclusive tour of everything the Time Machine had to offer, which meant that the two Time Lords were guaranteed at least six hours of human-free time, given they had both slept sufficiently within the last week. The Doctor would be forced to have this discussion with her, to tell her about how he’d failed a wonderful person, how he’d ruined yet another life; how he’d nearly…

“What do you want to know?” The Doctor asked, feigning ease. 

Circe scoffed. She crossed her arms, leaning against the railing circling the centre console. “Everything. Tell me how Donna knew her. Tell me what happened to her. Tell me how she ended up trapped in an alternate universe when the Time Council sealed them off. Tell me why the mention of her name has sent your biological fear and guilt reactions haywire. Tell…me…everything.” 

The Doctor tore his eyes from the Time Rotor in the central column, and looked into Circe’s piercing green eyes. They dove into his eyes relentlessly, digging for information he wasn’t sure he would ever be willing to give. 

He cleared his throat, eyes welling up in remembrance of the other woman. He raised his eyes to the roof, cleared his throat again as if it might’ve made the words easier to speak. 

“Rose was the first friend I made after the war, and she was fantastic.” He smiled slightly as his previous regeneration’s accent came out. “She was passionate, curious and kind. She always asked the right kind of questions, that most humans and even higher intelligence species don’t think to ask. She…um...” He cleared his throat again, hearts pounding so hard he was sure that Circe must’ve been able to hear them. “She looked into the Heart of the TARDIS to save me, to save a future humanity, even after I forced her to go home. She used it to wipe out a fleet of Daleks, and revive Captain Jack Harkness.” 

Circe’s eyes flickered in recollection of the impossible man; that certainly would explain why he was so strange. She nodded slightly to acknowledge her understanding, and the Doctor continued. 

“I saved her, and regenerated, and she still…she…her feelings were strong. She always felt strongly. Do you-do you understand what, what I’m trying to say?” He looked into her eyes again, begging her to realise, and she slowly did. 

Rose had loved him. Of course she had. The Doctor had taken a young human, decades before their first real space exploration, and shown her the beauty of the universe. How could she not have fallen for him? Circe certainly remembered a young Time Lady who’d done nearly the same. 

And looking into his eyes now, Circe wondered why he was asking for forgiveness. His hazel eyes were desperate, desolate, lonely, hurt. Her brows burrowed when she realised. 

“Oh. You loved her too.” 

The Doctor flinched, and he couldn’t stop himself from walking away, his hands pulling down on his face and then yanking on the top of his hair as he tried to manage the stress and recalled fear and the unprocessed regret. “I-I…” he stopped on the opposite side of the console to Circe, staring at her through the Time Rotor. The central column rose and lowered to a time neither of them could understand, and it was the only thing that interrupted their eye contact. “I never told her,” he whispered, slumping against the railing. “I couldn’t. Not even…”

“Not even what, Doctor?” Circe asked, her worry for her commander enticing her to step forward. 

“Not even when she fell through the cracks in the universe, to a parallel universe, and I burnt through a supernova to keep the crack open just a bit longer, to say goodbye. And I still couldn’t-.” 

The only sound in the console room was the Time Rotor, whirring away between them. Circe frowned, knowing the amount of energy he would have used up, just to not speak to a woman, and then to leave her there. 

“Her family were on the other side. She was so young…19 when I picked her up, closer to 22 when…when I…”

“When you left her.” 

Circe was beginning to understand what she had gathered from her espionage on Earth, from her conversation with Rose. She could almost understand the desperation that Rose had, to come back to this universe, to be with the man she still loved. 

“And she was your Bad Wolf?” Circe asked, causing the Doctor to flinch. Both of them took a moment to remember the Time Capsule one of Circe’s previous bodies had sent them, to remember how she had seemingly predicted Bad Wolf before it had happened. 

The Doctor nodded briefly. “Like I said, Rose was my first friend after…well, after everything. She put up with me, and made me want to be better, to be more than what the war had wanted me to be, had tried to make me.” 

Circe hummed, taking a step back so she was back against the railing. What had she meant by the Doctor being her Bad Wolf? She didn’t need him to make her better, she was doing just fine on her own. Right? 

“And Donna? How does Donna come into it?” Circe couldn’t help but allow her suspicions to leak through. Maybe, if she hinted at the link, the Doctor might see how Donna was filled with too many coincidences to be safe. 

Confusion overtook the Doctor’s expression, distracting him from his hurt. “Donna? Other than her being teleported onto the TARDIS immediately after the supernova burnt up, nothing. It’s just a coincidence that we’ve met twice, is all.” The Doctor frowned, as if he also didn’t appreciate his last sentence. “She saw a top that Rose had left here, and assumed the worst.” 

Circe pursed her lips, glancing to where the Doctor had glanced unintentionally. She almost imagined that she could see the top still lying there. 

Some dark, hidden part of her mind wondered why the human girl had left a top strewn in the console room, but she refused to allow that thought to come to full fruition. 

“Thank you,” the Doctor interrupted her thoughts, and Circe gratefully looked back to the Time Lord, “for listening.” He fidgeted with his sonic screwdriver, and then ran a hand through his hair. “I know that caring feels kind of artificial for you at the moment, but…I appreciate that you’re trying.” 

Circe wondered where he’d gotten the impression that she cared. 

Chapter Text

Her head was aching. A throbbing she couldn’t identify the origin of reverberated through her brain, bouncing off the edges of her skull, interfering with the next wave of throbs that only caused her more and more pain, rhythmically causing a syncopation that just made her feel wrong, even though the pain took precedence. 

Despite awareness being present in her mind, she had to struggle to bring awareness to her body. She certainly couldn’t identify her surroundings, so instead she focused on her physicality. Her hearts were still beating, albeit rapidly, and in a stuttering tempo alongside the distorted throbbing in her mind, and her torso, abdomen, and back were in tact and unharmed.  Tracing her consciousness along her long limbs, Circe realised she was tied down in several places, with bruising across her arms and legs. She hoped that, even unconscious, she’d made them hurt for…whatever they’d done to her. 

What had they done to her? Scrutinising her memories only brought to the forefront a vague recollection of being in the TARDIS console room with-

The Doctor; where was the Doctor? 

She’d been yelling at him, something about him interfering with her preparation times for her latest bake when he’d tried to fix another mechanical part of the TARDIS. The oven had become superheated, somehow - one day, Circe was going to find out exactly why the oven was repeatedly affected by mechanical parts that should’ve been kept on a very separate circuit from the kitchen, but she’d have to find the Doctor and keep them both alive to find the answer to that question - and her banana bread had burned, which is when she’d stormed to the console room to find the Doctor, only for the room to become bathed in emergency mauve lighting. Her memory seemed to stutter and skip there, like a damaged VHS tape or scratched vinyl disc, at the exact moment something struck her over the back of the head. 

But - surely they wouldn’t play their hand so soon? It was the only culprit Circe could fathom. They were attacked the night after allowing a foreign entity to join them on the TARDIS. It was only reasonable to assume the foreign party might have had something to do with it. 

So where did that leave Circe? 

Firstly, she had to escape her own bindings. She’d be no use to anyone tied up like this. Secondly, she had to find him, and get them safely back to the TARDIS. Finally…well, she wasn’t sure how to break it to the Doctor, but he’d understand when she explained her side. He’d been through the same war she had; he would understand why she had to be ruthless in her primary mission objective. 

She would protect him from every threat.

Expanding her awareness beyond her body, Circe monitored and examined just where she’d ended up. Based on the slight echo she could hear of her own breath, the room she occupied was large, with likely stone or marble walls. The sound echoed almost perfectly, implying a carved structure rather than naturally occurring. However, she also sensed that she was underground, based off how the infinitesimal gravitational waves were radiating through her surroundings. The cavernous quality to this structure also meant that Circe could hear the echo of another breathing, but she struggled to identify how close or far they might be. 

Deciding that it was safe enough to open her eyes, Circe did so. 

She was met with a uniform stone wall, and a glance around showed it had been perfectly carved out on all sides, ceiling and floor included. The stone was unfamiliar to her, but there was a taste of sulphur in the air that she hadn’t managed to identify the source of. She wondered if the stone was it. It was polished red, the same red that had flashed through the TARDIS earlier. 

Inspecting her bindings, Circe noted they were made of an iridescent black metal. She would be unlikely to be able to break them without breaking her own wrist, and while she knew she could just heal, she didn’t want to reveal that to any potential threats. 

There was a door to her left, she noticed; not exactly a door, more a series of sharpened spikes protruding from the floor preventing entrance or exit, made from the same black metal as her bindings. The only light source came from just beyond it, and just beyond that, Circe could glimpse another set of spikes blocking in the opposite doorway. She wondered if that was where they’d put the Doctor. 

Seemingly with no instruction or command, the bindings holding Circe to her chair released, and she pulled her wrists and legs away from the restraints, rolling her hands to return blood flow instinctively. Standing carefully, she glanced around to ensure none of her environment her changed from her initial scope. Certain she was safe for the moment, Circe’s hands started flicking through possible futures, scanning her choices and assessing their impacts. Golden images flickered to life in her hands, before the next sweep of her fingers cast them aside when they proved fruitless, dangerous or unimportant. Frustration bubbled inside of Circe as she struggled to find any series of choices that successfully kept her and the Doctor safe.

Footsteps echoed from beyond, and Circe immediately ducked to the side of the doorway, crouching to hide from her captor while also attempting to plan a surprise attack on them. She patted her thighs, trying to locate any weapon she might have on her, but her usual spots had been picked clean. She noted that whomever had captured her had left her in her own clothing; a button up white shirt and mustard trousers. 

Her choice hunting had proven fruitless, and there was a certain anxiety she felt going into this potentially dangerous situation blind. It was unfamiliar. 

When was the last time she’d not known how to proceed?

Hearts thrumming in fear, and the drumming kicking off in response, Circe crouched, flexing her fingers and wondering what was going to come into her cell. 

“Come out, Circe. I know you’re there.” The voice hadn’t even reached her doorway, causing the hair on the back of Circe’s neck to stand in end. It was gravelly, with bitten consonants, like the owner had a mouthful of teeth. Circe wracked through her knowledge of intergalactic species based off the minimal information she had. If she could find out the species, maybe she’d know how to fight back best. “Honestly, you’re more stubborn than the Doctor, and that’s saying something.” 

Her spine stiffened, and Circe stood, stepping into the light of the doorway just in time to see the owner of the voice step there too. 

With the majority of the light behind him, Circe struggled to clearly distinguish the exact facial features, but the appearance still shocked her to her core. He stood taller than her, probably closer to seven feet tall. His skin was scaly and shimmered incandescent red, with the smallest scales tracing over his spiked cheeks and chin. From each temple rose a curved horn, with minuscule spikes running along the edges until the horn curved back into a razor sharp edge. His hair was long and dark, falling easily around his horns. He wore leathers that strapped across his toned chest and legs, and spikes ran down his bare arms that hung carelessly by his side. Within his shadowed face lay two glowing golden eyes. When he next spoke to her, Circe caught glimpses of sharpened black teeth and a purple tongue. 

“Hello Circe darling. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Are you ready to go to trial?” 

Immediately, Circe stepped away from the entrance, tensing her body to attempt to push past him. But his eyes shone brighter for a second, and he smirked. 

“Don’t try anything stupid. My scales are razor sharp and you’ll end up a bloody mess. And an extra seven charges for resisting your enforcer.” He tilted his head at her. “Or do you want to do this the hard way?” 

Circe clicked her tongue in frustration, desperately trying to find a way to get around him or through him or deceive him. If only she could figure out what species he was, maybe she could understand what she was on trial for. 

“Look,” he interrupted her train of thought, “let’s make this easier for you. Either you come with me now, or they try you in absentia and you can’t defend your case. If you try to escape, it is your declaration of guilt. If you try to resist, it is a declaration of guilt.” He crossed his arms, filling the doorway easily. “And don’t even attempt deception. I am telepathic, and even your mental shields can’t keep me out.” 

Circe’s shoulders hunched forwards, hearts beating furiously against her ribcage, as she tried to make herself look smaller, less threatening. She theorised that if he perceived her as less of a threat, he might be inclined to give her more information. But even as she had the thought, his eyes shimmered again, and he laughed loudly, the sound harsh like rocks crashing to the ground. 

“I know you, Circe. Better than you know yourself. You won’t garner sympathy from anyone here, least of all me. Don’t debase yourself trying,” his voice was filled with humour, but Circe felt none of it. 

Finally, she straightened. She understood now why her choices hadn’t come to fruition. She never had a choice in how she behaved in this moment. There was no alternative route to take. Placing her hands in the familiar at ease position, she straightened and schooled her face into neutrality. 

She asked, “if I am to go on trial, does this planet have the concept of a lawyer, and am I entitled to one?” 

He relaxed, seeing her compliance. “We don’t have lawyers, here. It’s an unnecessary occupation given our species has evolved to uphold specific values.” 

“Such as?” Circe interrupted, only to receive a glare. 

He reluctantly added, “such as truth. Truth above all. Regardless of pain, regardless of feelings. To lie on the planet of Emeth is the gravest of crimes, punishable by our most extreme rites.” 

The hallway outside Circe’s cell was sparse, the same polished red stone along every wall, ceiling and floor. They walked past more cells, some filled with fellow prisoners, and others empty, with remnants of previous occupants left behind in specks of blood or rags. The hallway was occasionally lit by cerulean torches, but the patches of light were few and far between. The darkness that encroached each time they left a torch behind seemed to thicken with each reentry. 

Her guard was comfortable with the silence, and his slow, long stride uncomfortably kept Circe at a fast walk. She still hadn’t seen his face properly, but she knew that his appearance directly correlated with how humans believed a devil might take shape. Given his silence, Circe was content to strip every ounce of knowledge she’d ever accumulated to recall the inhabitants of Emeth, and how she might escape the charges against her, but it was very little. 

What Circe did recall was not promising. Emets valued truth above all. When humans had discovered the planet early in its history, they had seen this reverential approach to truth and named it and its inhabitants for the Hebrew word. As her guard had said, anyone proven to have lied would be given capital punishment, and they had no need for lawyers, as the species were all at least mildly telepathic. The Emet race was a fascinating case study for being a species that were so telepathically linked without ever evolving a hive mind. Their telepathy meant that, to find the truth, all they had to do was delve into the accused mind. Some Emets were so skilled at telepathy that they could detect a lie from beyond their planetary bounds. 

But Circe hadn’t lied to any Emet. She’d never even seen an Emet in person, only sketches and graphical imaginings in the Academy’s library. How could she have so offended them that they went out of their galactic jurisdiction to capture the Doctor and her from their ship?

The hallway came to an end, the same black metal from her cell now formed into a full door in front of them, but without a handle. Her guard paused, and the door opened from the other side. As he stepped through, and as Circe followed, she noted an Emet guard stood by the door holding a handle on that side. The door came to a close behind her, and she focused on her new surroundings. 

It was carved from the same stone once more, polished to shine a bizarre reflection. More Emets were stood around the edges of the perfectly carved walls, Circe counted more than twenty that she could see. Each Emet had slightly different curvature of horns, and a different array of spikes protruding from their arms, horns and face. Their skin colours ranged from a translucent baby pink to mauve red, and the darker skin colours seemed to correlate to larger horns and more spikes. Circe posited to herself that the darker colour might relate to their age, causing the perceived correlation. At the back corner, Circe was relieved to see the TARDIS, guarded by several Emets. 

In the centre of the room, a familiar man stood in a long trench coat, his back to her as he whistled a nonsensical tune. His hair stuck up in every direction, and he had his hands in his pockets. 

Circe’s guard brought her to stand behind him, and she glanced at him, her green eyes wide. The Doctor glanced at her, and his face broke into a grin.
“Circe, good to see you!” He exclaimed, eyes sparkling. “I was just learning about the justice system here, it’s fascinating.” 

Circe hummed nonchalantly. 

“Presenting Circe, otherwise named Sorceress and Magna, for case Dei Opus, Your Honour,” her guard bowed, but stayed by her side. Circe almost scoffed at the use of her True Name, but at least the Doctor was already aware of her name. 

In front of them sat an Emet atop a perfect throne, carved out of the wall behind her. She had the darkest skin of the room, and her horns curled so far around that they had created several loops. Her hair was uncut, wispy black strands that streamed back between her horns like a river of ink. Her eyes shimmered an ethereal green. Circe shivered as her eyes roved her form, but made herself stand at attention. 

The Doctor frowned then, confused. He looked at Circe, and then towards the Emet that had escorted her, and the up towards the judge. His mouth formed words that he couldn’t articulate, and when he finally looked back to Circe, his brown eyes glittered with confusion. She could only mirror his confusion. 

“Circe, you stand accused today of the most heinous crime in our recorded history. What say you?” The female Emet was still staring at her, and Circe wondered if she was scanning her mind, even then. 

The Doctor was watching her carefully, puppy dog eyes narrowed and hard. Her hearts hammered to a rhythm she wasn’t privy to, even with the drumming beating her mental faculties to death. 

“It might help, Your Honour, if I could know what I stand accused of, exactly,” Circe replied. 

The judge tilted her head to the side, observing her carefully, unblinking. “You have been accused of lying, Circe. While we do not usually hold intergalactic beings whom are unfamiliar with our laws to our standards, your lies have been so egregious that we were forced to interfere. If we hadn’t arrived at your ship when we had, you would have spoken the most abhorrent lie that we ever had the displeasure of experiencing. It is our duty to Emeth to, firstly, prevent this crime, and, secondly, punish you for your prior sins. Are you understanding of the charges against you?” 

The crowd of Emets within this court room were murmuring now, gasps of shock and words of hate being echoed around the room. The Doctor couldn’t seem to make words form, as he looked between Circe and the judge in shock. 

“I was unaware that the Emet held the power of foresight, Your Honour,” Circe commented instead of answering the question. The slight didn’t go unnoticed. 

“Don’t antagonise them, Cece!” The Doctor whispered in concern, but Circe didn’t look at him. 

The judge frowned, unblinking eyes boring into Circe. She held herself stiff, grateful for her training in that moment. “This lie,” the judge finally spoke, “sent ripples across the fabric of space-time, such was its gravity. Your intention to lie sent our spikes quivering, such was its deceptive nature. The mere possibility of you ever muttering the words caused our most experienced telepaths to weep. So I ask you again, Circe, are you understanding of the charges brought against you by this court?” The judge lifted her chin, and Circe sharply exhaled. 

“This is not a cohesive list of charges. Exactly which lies do you expect me to repent for?” 

Her words caused the crowd to grow in volume, none of them pleased with her manner of speaking. The judge, however, smiled, her black teeth gleaming in the blue torchlight. She gestured to someone beside her, and a pale pink Emet read from a small handheld device.

“The accused has lied on Gallifrey through not only words, but also body language, manipulation and omission. The accused has lied in intergalactic jurisdiction in similar manners. The accused intended to lie in intergalactic jurisdiction on questioning.” The young Emet looked up from her handheld device and accidentally caught Circe’s eyes. Her purple eyes blazed furiously. 

“How do you plea?” The judge demanded finally. 

The Doctor reached out to grip Circe’s hand, and she couldn’t deny that she was grateful for the grounding presence. 

Circe inhaled slowly through her nose, wondering what their capital punishment was. “Obviously, I have lied. I won’t apologise for it. I did what was necessary.” 

There was raucous noise behind them, and Circe glanced over her shoulder to see the crowd had drawn closer, fury the primary emotion coating their faces. She exchanged a worried glance with the Doctor. 

“These allegations didn’t happen within Emeth territory,” the Doctor exclaimed, trying to understand what was happening. “She can’t be tried over crimes that occurred outside of your territory!” He looked to the judge, to attempt to plea with her, but her gaze remained locked on Circe. 

The judge didn’t waiver, saying, “you will cease interrupting,” only for the Doctor to continue speaking. 

“She hasn’t even been in full control of her faculties! You can’t try her for actions that weren’t entirely hers; that’s immoral, at best!” He continued, steamrolling over anything the judge tried to interject with. He ran his hand through his hair again, frantically looking between the guards, judge and Circe. “And she spent a century living as a human, with no better understanding of the universe! You can’t do this!” 

“Actually, Doctor,” the judge finally shouted over him, “I can.” He stared at her in shock, which she took full advantage of. “Your own crimes certainly come close to hers. Would you rather my attention turn to you? And trust me, Doctor, you want to hear what she has to say. Who do you think she intended on lying to?” 

The Doctor’s spine stiffened, and he slowly looked at Circe. She steadfastly kept her gaze on the judge, but she saw the doubt and hurt creep into his gaze. The drumming was furious, battering away at her mental defences, demanding retribution. 

“Your words will be taken as an admission of guilt, Circe of Gallifrey. Do you accept?” The judge narrowed her eyes, shifting in her throne to lean closer. 

“Yes, Your Honour.” 

The judge smiled, mouth filled with razor sharp teeth that glinted in the pale blue light, and she sat back in her seat smugly. The crowd behind jeered and cried out and yelled, but they were easy background noise. The guard that had escorted Circe grasped her upper arm firmly, and Circe allowed it. 

“What is my punishment to be, then?” Circe demanded, “death? Mind wipe? Promise not to lie?” She scoffed. 

The judge chuckled. “We both know any promise made by you would only further incriminate you.” Circe inclined her head, accepting the words. “No, the Doctor is correct. You are not Emet,” her words were met with cheers, the people obviously grateful for that fact, “and therefore cannot meet our capital punishment.” Something eased in Circe, and she nearly looked at the Doctor, but sheer determination kept her facing forward. Only his persistent grip on her hand allowed her to know that he hadn’t abandoned. “I have, however, devised an alternative plan. Your intention to lie killed one of our most devout telepaths, and you cannot go unpunished. We cannot keep you on Emeth, due to the Shadow Proclamation’s ruling on intergalactic law and peacekeeping, although I do query that in the face of an orphan race.” The words were obviously intended to hurt, striking as they were at their lost home planet. Circe didn’t let it show, but the Doctor’s eyes burned with rage. If the Emet had lost the myths of Time Lord optical universes, they would be revived after this trial. “No. I think your punishment is fitting.

“Circe of Gallifrey, you contain more secrets and lies than criminals in even the most corrupt political employ. Today, for the man you had intention of lying to, you will tell three truths that were unknown to him prior to this trial.” 

The judge had been kind, Circe was able to see. She could’ve given much crueler punishments, pain or torture or banishment. She had even granted Circe and the Doctor the semblance of privacy within a side room. It was only a farce, given the Emet were all telepathic, but it meant they could pretend, and that would have to be enough. So yes, the judge had been kind, but it didn’t make the next steps any easier. 

The room was light by a central blue flame, suspended from a black chain above a table that seemed to have been grown from the floor. Two chairs sat on opposite sides of it, and Circe and the Doctor occupied them.
He’d taken off his trench coat, and it was draped over the back of the stone chair casually, as if he’d stopped in for a cup of tea instead of being knocked unconscious to witness the trial of the only other Time Lord. He sat leant against the back of the chair, his lips moving around his teeth as if he couldn’t form words. Circe supposed he didn’t have to. 

Circe’s escort stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest as he said, “given my pre-existing telepathic link to Circe, I will be monitoring your conversation. Circe will not be granted release from this room until three truths have been spoken. The Doctor may leave anytime he chooses.” Circe pursed her lips, hating the thought that he might leave without her. If he wanted to, he could leave her on Emeth, never able to carry out her punishment. She didn’t think he would, but there was something terrifying about trusting the Time Lord, who notoriously ran across the universes, to not run. 

Before the guard shut the door, the Doctor asked, “what’s your name, by the way?” His eyes were hard in the blue light. 

Circe turned to look at the guard, and he sent them a hard smile. “I’ve been known to go by Lucifer.” 

Chills ran down Circe’s spine. The comparison between the devil that occupied humanity’s religions and his species was only too obvious, and from the glint in his eyes, he was all too aware of this fact. Circe supposed if he was her devil, this was her personal hell. He grinned before he left them alone, the stone door creaking shut behind him. 

Circe looked back to the Doctor, stiffly sat upright with her hands in her lap. Her skin itched fiercely, and she fought against the impulse to pick at the skin around her fingernails, or, even worse, to choice hunt in front of the Doctor. 

The Doctor took a second to study her, watching her fidgeting fingers from where he could see them, how she sat right at the edge of her stone chair, her spine as straight as physically possible. Her jaw was tight, and her lips were pursed forward as if she could keep herself from saying anything if she held them closed hard enough. But despite all the tension in her body, her green eyes were desperately looking for a way out, flittering about the room like a trapped bee. 

“Where do you want to start?” The Doctor finally said, and Circe looked at him, eyes wide in a moment of vulnerability that she hadn’t intended on sharing. 

“I don’t,” she snapped, her eyes flashing gold, and the Doctor sighed. “I shouldn’t be forced to share my thoughts just because some egotistical race believe they have the right to imprison us!” 

He frowned then. How he longed to peak into her mind, to see what the Emets saw; he wanted to observe the complexities of her neural pathways, and discover why they fired impulses that he struggled to trace using his own logic.

The Doctor was desperate to regain the intimacy that Time Lords were so familiar with; to feel another consciousness brush against his own and know that he would never be alone again. But it was an aspect of his biology that had so long gone ignored that he would persevere until Circe was ready…despite how he felt the bubbling resentment that another being had that connection with her now. 

Circe’s hands rose from her lap, fingernails pulling along the skin of her hands and palms in that way he was becoming familiar with seeing. As she placed them atop the stone table, he reached across to still her movement, forcing her eyes to meet his. 

“The sooner you speak, the sooner we can get into our TARDIS and leave,” he saw the way her eyes shimmered gold at the mention of our TARDIS. 

“But you’ll never forgive me,” she whispered, pursing her lips. The same golden light seemed to shine underneath the scars littering her hands and wrists, and the Doctor frowned. Carefully, he picked up one hand in both of his, fingers tracing the glowing scars like they were dots of a puzzle he had yet to solve. 

“I didn’t think you’d forgive me for what I did,” he murmured, looking away from her hands to watch her face. “Let me help; why do your eyes glow? Why do your hands glow? What is this?” 

Suspicions bubbled within him, but he dared not to voice them, for fear that doing so would mean it couldn’t count as one of Circe’s three mandated truths, if his theory even proved true. Circe tried to pull her hand out of his grip, but the Doctor tightened it fractionally; not so much to hurt, but enough to let Circe know that he wasn’t letting go of her. 

She scowled, and her emotions started changing so quickly that the Doctor had trouble keeping track of them. He noted that the effort it had taken her to appear emotionless must have been enormous, as she changed from scared to furious to sarcastic in moments. And all the while, her green eyes shimmering that familiar golden light. 

Finally, she settled on disinterest, leaning back in her stone chair with a false expression of monotony across it, as if she were telling the same item of news to the hundredth person. “When I looked into the Schism, it tore open my skin, took my blood and replaced it with vortex energy.” She sniffed, as if the information dissatisfied her, and leant forward again, the hand that he wasn’t holding clenching tightly into a fist. “When I’m struggling to stay in control, sometimes it reacts; shines through the places where the barrier is thinnest.”

Theories immediately pushed their way to the forefront of the Doctor’s mind, as he watched the vortex energy shimmer underneath her skin. Now that he was aware of it, he could feel the slightest increase of vortex energy in Circe, imperceptible unless he was looking for it. It was only fractionally increased from the level in an adult Time Lord, but it obviously had had an effect on Circe and her body. 

“That explains why the M-“ seeing Circe’s immediate reaction to the possible mention of her husband’s title, the Doctor reframed it. “That explains why you were able to survive and utilise the regeneration energy forced into you as human Florence. The vortex energy within you was able to utilise it in a way that a human body shouldn’t have been able to.” 

Circe’s chuckle was harsh, coarser than the stone around them. “I was Time Lord enough,” her smile could have pierced diamond. 

The Doctor wanted to ask more, but he wouldn’t risk stealing one of her truths by uncovering it with his questions. He took a deep breath, steeling himself against the endless monologue in his mind that craved the information, and nodded. “First truth done then?” 

Circe glanced at the door, which showed no signs of opening. “I believe so,” she murmured before she looked back to him. “I never learnt to fly a TARDIS. The energy within me can link with the vortex energy of a TARDIS and allow me to telepathically control them. It takes…more effort than I’m willing to admit,” she scowled at something in the air, and the Doctor wondered what she was angry with. “This is a separate truth!” She suddenly shouted, jumping up from the chair to storm towards the door. She smacked her hand against it, a flash of gold energy splaying outwards from the impact, and then she hissed, grasping her head. Her green eyes swivelled to the Doctor, watery and gold and hazy with pain. There was a long pause as she struggled to find the words, or the energy, to speak. When she did, the words were cold, spat out harshly. “Apparently, my truths have to be unrelated to each other.” 

“Which means anything to do with your vortex energy is considered one truth,” the Doctor murmured, nodding. Tentatively, he stood, and moved towards Circe. She was blinking away her tears, teeth bared in ferocious anger at the Emeth that presently shared her mind. “Okay,” he said, grasping her tightly clenched hands and easing the tension out of them, “what’s next?” 

He observed as her eyes flickered, as if trying to decide what to say. Her mouth moved slowly as she struggled to form the words. She winced again, and the Doctor almost wished Lucifer was still in the room alongside them, so that he might pay the Emet back for the pain he was allotting to the Time Lady. As it was, the Doctor waited impatiently for Circe to finally relax some. 

“What was that?” The Doctor demanded. 

Circe glared at the door again. “He wants a specific truth. He wants the truth I wasn’t going to tell you. And he can demand that because they never specified that I would be able to choose.” 

The Doctor growled, “they’re changing the rules as we go.” The frustration was bubbling inside him. 

“Don’t be mad,” Circe suddenly exclaimed, gripping his hands as tightly as he was gripping hers. “Please, don’t get mad.” 

The Doctor immediately was on the defensive, wondering what was so bad that she was desperate for his promise of even temper. “What is it?” He asked cautiously. 

Circe seemed like she wanted to hit the door again, but instead, between gritted teeth, she said, “I don’t trust Donna.” 

The Doctor pulled away, shocked by the admission, “wait, what?” 

“Don’t make me say it again!”

“But-what?” Despite Circe’s grip on his hands, he pulled away from her, stepping back. Her green eyes flashed gold again, and her fingers started scratching at the backs of her hands, which had begun to glow the same gold as her eyes. “She’s…human, she’s just human…why don’t you trust her?” 

Circe stood very still, eyes boring into the Doctor’s. She had switched into that hyper-vigilant mode that the Doctor recognised was a protective behaviour. Did she believe that he would hurt her for whatever this knowledge was? Did he want to know this? Was there a good reason for why she would have lied? 

“There’s too many coincidences. She has appeared near or in your TARDIS twice now. Some people barely even get to see you once. And didn’t you even notice how quickly she had you wrapped around her finger? How could I trust someone human who so quickly manipulated her way onto the TARDIS?” Circe ran her hands through her hair, pulling on the ends nervously. She almost couldn’t look at the Doctor now, as the anxious energy in her built upon the heightened stress of their situation. “What if Donna was sent to you to hurt you? What if she’s part of some…masterplan to…to…kill you, or worse?” 

The Doctor swallowed, watching as she finally pushed away from the door, choosing instead to pace the length of the small room, her path never bridging the gap that he’d put between them. His hearts hammered in his chest as he wondered if the distance he’d put between them would remain. He hadn’t meant it to be so literal.

The Doctor pushed it behind him, instead softly saying, “she’s human, Cece.” 

The Time Lady rounded on him, her green eyes glowing fervently now. “Exactly!” She almost yelled, “she’s human, and they are deadly, harmful apes that infest any safe haven they can find and poison it from the inside. Predictable, stupid and violent, she will hurt you, and ruin you, and I don’t know how to stop it.” Her words trailed off into a whisper as her eyes filled with tears again, hazy in the golden light emitting from them. “Humanity will kill you. She will kill you. And I have to keep you safe.” A tear fell unwillingly, slowly sliding down her cheek as if reluctant to part from her. Circe, surprised, reached up to wipe it away. She blinked away the remainder quickly, sniffling in any evidence of emotion. “I don’t trust her, and you can’t expect me to.” 

The Doctor breathed heavily, hearts hammering in his chest as he realised her distrust ran deeper than just a mild dislike. 

“Not all of humanity is like that,” he murmured, “you know that, right?” When she didn’t respond, the Doctor repeated the question. “You know that, right? Humans are not all ignorant apes. They aren’t all violent and stupid. But you know that…” 

Circe scoffed. 

“But you know Martha, and Jack! The people you knew when you were Florence; Timothy!” None of the names caused the harsh glint in her eyes to dissipate. “They’re not all bad,” but the words fell against deaf ears. 

“They’re all human. Give them enough time and they’ll prove it, one way or another.” 

The wall in front of him was suddenly very interesting. He didn’t know how to stomach and process the second truth she’d given, and he wanted to get them both out of that room and off the planet so that he could escape to the library and be alone, be away from Circe, until he could wrap his head around her reasoning. He couldn’t escape the feeling that there was still something she wasn’t telling him. 

The urge to leave grew, and he turned, walking to the door. It opened for him. 

“Please don’t run,” she begged, against all her instincts screaming at her. 

The Doctor paused, his hazel eyes dark. With his hearts heavy, he left the room. The door slammed shut behind him. 

Circe stared blankly at her newest prison walls. The red stone gleamed like someone had run a fresh coat of polish across its surface, and Circe wondered how such a pretty material could create such a concrete cell. 

His coat was still on the chair opposite her. 

She tried to flick through possible futures, but she couldn’t seem to see past the thick red walls, and the blue firelight was only giving her a migraine. Her hands ached as she pushed her fingers through another possible future, flicking the sands of time aside to look for an alternate reality. 

Why had he run? 

She wanted to curse Lucifer for forcing her to speak that truth. Yes, she didn’t trust Donna. Yes, she thought humanity were wilfully ignorant at best. But the Doctor didn’t need to know that. How could Circe help him if he thought she was on the opposite side to him? How was she supposed to keep him safe?
Did she really think she could trust the Time Lord who ran? Trust him not to run? Not to leave her? 

He wouldn't leave his coat behind, surely. 

She knew what her third truth would be. The words were on her lips even though the room was empty. She’d practised saying them for when the Doctor returned. 

If the Doctor returned. The TARDIS had plenty of coats to give him. He didn't need to return for her, or for his coat. 

Her hearts were beating hard enough to cause her body to subtly sway back and forth, and the drumming in her mind was only too excited to exacerbate the issue. Her fingers beat the same tempo of fear in the air, tapping one two three four against the golden sands of vortex energy. Her stomach churned as she saw only more futures of red. 

If her stomach was already empty from her futile search through time, there was no one around to know. 

How long had it been? Long enough that he had time to process her mistrust of Donna and return, surely. Unless time moved differently in this room, but Circe was sure she would have detected the separately running time stream. 

The stone door slid open, grinding noisily against the stone floor, and Circe immediately dismissed the vortex energy, sitting up to look behind her. 

Lucifer stood in the doorway, looking like he had every intention of marching into the cell to drag Circe back to the prison he’d taken her from. Circe stiffened, ready to fight back, but he stepped aside, revealing the Doctor. 

His expression was stone, and his eyes hard and avoiding her gaze, but he’d come back. His posture stiff, he shuffled into the room sheepishly, looking anywhere but Circe. 

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, pacing the length of the room much like she had done before. “Alright, let’s finish this. What’s your third truth?” 

Her hearts stumbled, and she whispered immediately, “the drumming.” 

He finally looked at her. Shock in his brown eyes, he murmured, “what?” 

“It’s still there. I can hear it, beating away at my defences. It’s how I know he can’t be dead, because I can still hear him!” She covered her mouth with trembling fingers, and spoke through them. “The drumming is always there. He’s always going to win. I’ll never be rid of him.” 

The Doctor frowned, remembering the pyre he’d built to send his childhood friend to eternal rest. He remembered watching the flames die, until all that remained was ash. He remembered feeling the Time Lord’s presence dissipate before Florence had been shot. 

“He’s dead, Circe, I promise,” the Doctor said, stepping towards her. 

Circe’s jaw tightened. 

“But the drumming is in my head!” She exclaimed, and if her fear made her smack the stone table in front of her, she couldn’t exactly be blamed. The man she hated and feared most in the universe was still alive, and the only man who understood why she might be afraid didn’t believe her. 

The Doctor sighed, putting his hands in his pockets. He suddenly looked all 907 years of his age. 

“The only way I’ll be able to help, to know whether he is alive, is to hear it myself.” He frowned at her. 

Circe scoffed. “You just want to get in my head. You want to know more about why I don’t trust Donna. She’s turning you against me,” Circe stood, but lost momentum. She floundered for a moment there, as the Doctor eyed her carefully. “If I let you in my head, there will be no barrier between me and him. If he’s alive, he’ll take that chance.” 

The Doctor couldn’t help but soften his stance. He took a step forward, noting Circe’s minute flinch away from him, and he reached out to grasp her hand. She allowed him, although she shook like a leaf, and she allowed him to pull her towards him. 

“Do you trust me?” He asked quietly, and she hesitated. Although the hesitation hurt, he amended his question. “Do you trust me to help you?” 

The response was instant. “Yes.” 

“So let me help you. After all, weren’t you the one who said you needed a Doctor?” He smiled at her, and her green eyes swam with water that refused to fall. “Let me in.” The command was subtle, but Circe took a steadying breath, and, tensing, dropped her mental shields. 

The immediate presence of another Time Lord overloaded her senses, and she became intimately aware of every sensation he was broadcasting. Had his mental shields been down the entire time? Had she been so tightly wrapped up that she hadn’t noticed? She didn’t even have to skim the surface of his consciousness to understand his emotions, or his train of thought, and she was enthralled to observe the methodology of his neural pathways as he theorised and thought and created within his mind. 

And that was just the surface. 

The drumming was almost desperate to leap out of her mind, to embrace him and join him and be him, but Circe stopped it, restraining the noise within herself and the boundaries of her own mind. She felt the barest of brushes against her consciousness, the familiar foreign presence overwhelming and home. The sheet comfort that the shallowest contact brought her caused her hearts to ache with longing. Remembering the days that her mind was in contact with, at minimum, ten other consciousnesses; recalling the chatter and noise and vibrancy that came with it. She missed it. 

The contact carefully swam deeper, purposefully like a fish in an ocean that surpassed the volume of Jupiter, until it came across the restrained noise. A flicker of hollow sadness and heartache came from the contact, as well as a reluctance, before it withdrew, and Circe pulled her barriers back up with every ounce of courage and preservation she could muster. 

With her mental shields in place once again, she shivered at the sudden desperation she felt to open up to him again. She swallowed, looking back to his hazel eyes. He was already watching her, compassion swimming within his puppy-dog eyes. 

“It’s not drumming, Circe,” he whispered, squeezing her hands. 

She shook her head. How could he have heard it and still not believe her? He heard it. He had to believe her. There was no one else who could even understand, let alone believe her. “No, it is. It is drumming, I swear, please, Theta,” she gasped, panic overcoming. 

“Magna, it’s your heartbeat.” 

Badum badum. 

One two three four. 

Badum badum. 

One two three four. 

Chapter Text

Circe didn’t pout. 

She was a Time Lord; from a noble family with lineage from the first Presidents, when Gallifreyans first decreed themselves to be Time Lords. She had married strategically for the benefit of their race, and had manufactured her own perfect future, spiting the hundreds of deaths she’d seen for herself. She had ensured her race’s survival through one of the most dangerous wars in the universe until its unforseen end, and she had survived centuries of torture, physical and mental. 

She did not pout. 

But if she stood against the metal railing with her arms crossed, glaring at the Doctor, then she had a very good reason to do so. 

“So,” the Doctor exclaimed, “first adventure!” He was running around the console, his brown trench coat flapping in the nonexistent breeze of the TARDIS. 

Donna was sitting on the pilot’s chair, wearing a dark blue chromatic tunic with leggings and her ginger hair tightly pulled back atop her head. She was grinning brightly, unrelenting awe and wonder in her eyes as she watched the Doctor work. Circe was stood opposite her, watching her through the time rotor, waiting for her to slip up. She was in her red pant suit with a white button up shirt, an outfit she was beginning to feel most comfortable in. It allowed practical movement, while still being stylish enough to unsettle any enemy on striking first. 

The Doctor paused on a lever, his grin almost infectious if Circe hadn’t been so focused on Donna. His smile almost wavered, remembering the previous night’s events. Remembering the truths she had uttered. His own hearts were beating hard in his chest from his nervousness, but he glanced at Donna, saw the wonder, and knew his own truth. He pulled the lever. “I know just the place!” 

“It better be good, Spaceman!” Donna teased, glancing away from the spacious console room to the alien in question. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this!” 

Each word Donna spoke only seemed to trigger every suspicion Circe held against her, but she grit her teeth, pursed her lips and kept her green eyes strictly on the human. 

Violent, ignorant and stupid. That’s all humanity was. She just needed to keep those tendencies away from her Doctor-

Her Doctor? Since when had the Doctor been hers? She’d given him up centuries ago, when she’d agreed to marry him, when he’d agreed to marry his own wife. 

The familiar whooshing of the TARDIS was comforting to Circe. While she’d been aboard the ship for nearly three months, the Doctor and her hadn’t exactly travelled anywhere. At least, not willingly. Their expedition to Earth was only due to the Doctor sensing alien tech while they’d been a satellite of the planet, and he’d insisted on exploring the reason behind it. Circe was grateful that he’d given her time to readjust to life as a Time Lord, but she still wasn’t sure she could be trusted around…well, anyone. Her opinion of Donna surely only proved her point. 

But their conversation last night on return to the TARDIS had only driven him further into keeping the human on board. He seemed to believe that she needed a friend. 

All she needed was him to stay alive, and to stay aboard their TARDIS, away from any other form of civilisation. 

Instead, he had managed to trick her into joining them on a trip to the history of Sol 3. At least, the history in comparison to when Donna lived. 

As the TARDIS’ noise dissipated, the Doctor sprang to the door, and carefully opened it. Donna wasn’t far behind him, eager to see all that lurked beyond the door on her first mystery adventure. Circe lagged behind. 

He’d given her an order for this trip, and Circe was inclined to agree with this one. 

Keep an eye on Donna. Don’t let her get into trouble. 

If Circe had her way, not getting into trouble would involve staying on board the TARDIS, but apparently that loophole was ridiculous and not to be observed. 

Still, Circe watched as Donna stepped out into the dry, clean air and observed the street. 

Vendors of all sorts called out for attention across a dusty street as the Doctor drew back a rough spun cloth curtain hiding the TARDIS from view. As Circe stepped from the TARDIS, she wondered why something felt slightly out of place. It was as if she were walking at a greater angle to the tilt of the Earth than she’d expected, but it was such a minuscule difference that she couldn’t properly identify what might’ve caused it. 

“Ancient Rome!” He decreed as Donna’s gaze drew across the cityscape. As the duo stepped into the street, the Doctor began to talk, and Circe followed. Her eyes drifted lazily across the street, eying up every potential threat. Including Donna. 

“Well, not to them, obviously. To all intents and purposes, right now, this is Brand New Rome.”

Donna exclaimed, “oh my god, it’s…it’s so Roman!” Circe raised an eyebrow in unimpressed bemusement. “This is fantastic!” Donna, apparently so overcome by emotion, threw her arms around the Doctor, and Circe couldn’t stop her mouth dropping. Even knowing Circe’s protests, the Doctor wrapped his arms around Donna’s back, returning the hug. 

“I’m here,” Donna cried, moving further down the street. Circe scanned the Doctor visually for any potential harm that she might have done to him, but he followed Donna easily. “In Rome; Donna Noble, in Rome!” 

Donna spun, grinning at the Doctor before she looked once more at the people surrounding her. “This is just weird. I mean, everyone here’s dead.” 

Circe rolled her eyes. “Humans and their linear thinking,” she scoffed, only heard by the Doctor. 

“Well, don’t tell them that,” he scolded lightly. 

“Hang on a minute, that sign over there is in English,” Donna pointed to a vendor behind the three of them, disapproval clear in her voice. “Are you having me on, are we in Epcot?” 

“No, no, no, no, that’s the TARDIS translation circuits, it just makes it look like English,” the Doctor explained. 

Circe leant against the wall behind her, carefully watching the busy market street behind the Time Lord and human, while she kept track of Donna.  

“Speech as well! You’re talking Latin right now. 

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah.” 

“I just said ’seriously’ in Latin,” Donna enthused, laughing at the bizarre absurdity of it. “What if I said something in actual Latin? Like ‘veni, vidi, vici’?” 

Circe scowled as they kept walking through the marketplace. They’d long lost sight of the TARDIS, but Circe could at least trust the TARDIS to remain in the same spot. The Doctor’s orders running through her mind, she followed them. 

“My dad said that coming back from the football. If I said ‘veni, vidi, vici’ to that lot, what would it sound like?” She asked, and the Doctor frowned, glancing back to Circe in question. Circe sped up to walk in the middle of them. 

“While I’ve never tested it, I imagine they’d believe you were speaking a foreign language, or maybe with a strong accent. Imagine someone speaking English as a second language, but only having learnt it through reading. They wouldn’t know how to pronounce things correctly,” she theorised, glancing at the Doctor to see what he thought of her theory. 

“You do think of difficult questions, Donna,” the Doctor nodded, now curious himself. 

“I’m gonna try it!” Donna exclaimed, and before Circe could stop her, she was rushing over to a vendor, and the Doctor gripped Circe’s upper arm before she could follow. The two Time Lords kept a close eye on the conversation, even as they spoke.

“She really isn’t all that bad,” he whispered to her, hand gentle on her upper arm while still being firm. Circe scowled at him. 

“I don’t need you to prove this to me,” she insisted, ripping her arm from his grip with maybe more force than was necessary. They watched as Donna tried her Latin words with the Roman vendor, and the Doctor sent her an encouraging grin, even as Circe crossed her arms over her chest again, green eyes impassive. Both caught that the vendor didn’t understand the words, even as they kept their own conversation going. 

The Doctor sighed. “But if she’s making you uncomfortable…” 

She tore her gaze away from the confused Donna, looking the Doctor steadily in the eye for a long moment. “You didn’t consider that when you invited her aboard.” 

A flicker of remorse crossed the Doctor’s gaze, but he didn’t get a chance to reply. 

“How’s he mean, Celtic?” Donna asked, moving back to their side. 

“Welsh,” the Doctor realised, but the thrill of new knowledge was undermined by the words Circe had spoken. “You sound Welsh. There we are, learnt something, hm?” He forged the way onwards, leading Donna through the busy street. 

The hair on the back of Circe’s neck rose, and she glanced behind her, scanning quickly to see what had caused the reaction. 

“Circe?” Donna called ahead of them. They were nearly lost in the crowd to Circe. 

She quickly moved to obey her orders, but the flash of red that she hadn’t managed to see clearly left her hearts beating slightly quicker. Was something following them? 

Circe tried to keep an eye on the flash of red that she’d seen, but they were turning the corner quicker than she had realised, and she had to keep an eye on Donna. 

Speaking of which, Donna was still asking questions. “Don’t our clothes look a bit odd?” 

“Naaaah, Ancient Rome; anything goes!” The Doctor crowed, leading the way down the street. “It’s like Soho, but bigger.” 

“Have you been here before, then?” Donna asked. 

Circe rolled her eyes hearing his response. “Mhmmm, ages ago. And before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me! Well…a little bit!” He defended needlessly. 

“And you, Circe? Have you been here before?” Donna glanced back at her, distracting her from her vigilant observation of the crowds following them. 

The Time Lady stared at Donna, almost surprised to be asked. “No. Never.” 

“Well, I never had the chance to look around properly, or show Circe!” He continued, pulling Donna’s attention. Circe wondered if he was aware that she was grateful for the distraction of the human. “The Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Circus Maximus…you’d expect them to be looming by now.” 

As the Doctor listed the famous sites, Circe realised suddenly why she’d felt infinitesimally off-kilter since stepping off the TARDIS. 

“Where is everything?” He asked the universe as they walked through a carved archway. 

“Doctor, this isn’t Rome,” Circe murmured, stepping through after him. He hummed, not letting Donna notice their suspicions. 

“Let’s try this way!” He said as a response, taking them to the left. As they walked further, they came upon wider streets, offering better views of the surroundings outside of the city, and Circe watched with a mounting sense of dread as something didn’t line up. 

And with each second that ticked by, her skin crawled, not only with the desperation to choice hunt, but also with the overwhelming feeling that they should never have come. 

Donna almost sensed it too, as she looked beyond the short buildings, to the horizon. “I’m not expert, but there’s seven hills of Rome, aren’t there?” She glanced at the Doctor and Circe, before she looked back to the horizon. Clearly, against the blue hazy sky, stood a lone mountain, cresting into the heavens. “How come they’ve only got the one?” 

Circe sensed the tremors as the planes of the planet moved before the humans did, and she grabbed Donna’s arms to keep her stable against the sudden earthquake, leaving the Doctor to balance himself. Someone in the street called, “here we go again,” as the foundations of the world around them seem to unravel, and everything shook. The locals were mostly unconcerned, holding any fragile wares or bracing against the wall, while Circe and the Doctor looked on the lonesome peak with dreadful unease. 

“I swear, if I could fly her…” Circe spat quietly, and the Doctor frowned, glancing away from the mountain only for a second. 

“Trust me, you’d have as much trouble as I do,” he murmured, and for the short second that they locked eyes, they shared in a moment of certain unsurety. 

Donna was speaking again, leaning into Circe’s stable hands. “Wait a minute, one mountain…with smoke!” Circe’s hearts beat hard enough to echo through her mind, and she had to take a long moment to remind herself that it was not the drumming, but her own, long forgotten, heart beat. And with each second that passed, Circe was sure she felt an oncoming fixed point in time. “Which makes this…” 

“Pompeii,” the Doctor surmised. “We’re in Pompeii. And it’s volcano day.” 

Circe, with that confirmation, was on autopilot. Her grip on Donna’s arm was already established, so she grasped the back of the Doctor’s coat, pulling them through the streets before either Time Lord or human had a chance to realise. The Doctor certainly wasn’t complaining, and once his mental faculties were back to fully functioning, he was running alongside Circe. Donna took a moment longer, but she quickly picked up the pace, negating the need for Circe to pull her quite so strongly. Still, not trusting that Donna wouldn’t attempt something foolish, Circe ran behind her fellow travellers, keeping an eye on them. 

Despite all her attempts at controlling everything in her surrounding, and being aware of every detail she came across, she could never have predicted this. 

The TARDIS was missing. 

The Doctor had thrown back the rough spun cloth curtain to reveal an empty corner where the TARDIS had stood, and as he and Donna stood gasping for breath, Circe immediately span in a circle, turning to track where it could have gone. 

“You’re kidding. You’re not telling me the TARDIS has gone?” Donna exclaimed, dread and exasperation in her voice. 

“Okay.”

“Where is it then?” She demanded. 

The Doctor looked to her, almost deliberately obtuse. “You told me not to tell you.” 

Meanwhile, Circe had followed tracks in the dirt ground, leading to the stock area of a nearby merchant.

“Excuse me,” she interrupted his present conversation in a haughty voice, one designed to make others assume she was of a higher authority than they were. “A blue box. To my rear. You’ve stolen it.” 

He licked his teeth, looking her up and down in a manner that made Circe viscerally uncomfortable. “It was on my patch, love, weren’t it?” He grinned, “I got 15 sesterce for it, lovely jubbly.” 

“Who purchased?” She demanded, but he got distracted looking at her chest. Circe supposed she must have filled out with her new nutrition plan, but she’d never intended to be distracting. As the Doctor rushed over to her, she grabbed the front of his apron, pulling him uncomfortably close to her and lifting him from the floor. She bared her teeth as he flinched away from her, surprised by her sudden display of strength. “Who did you sell it to?” She demanded slowly, and his eyes widened as he stared into her green eyes flickering with unearthly golden light. 

“Gods save me,” he whispered. 

“Who?” She demanded as the Doctor reached her side. 

“Old Caecilius! Don’t argue with me! Take it up with him!”

The Doctor looked between Circe and the merchant, and nodded at the Time lady. She gradually lowered the human to his feet once more, hands straightening out the wrinkles she’d made in his cotton outfit. 

“Where?” She asked, eyebrow raised.

“Foss Street, b-big villa! Can’t miss it,” he exclaimed, glancing at the Doctor as if he could keep Circe contained. 

“What did he buy a big blue box for?” The Doctor suddenly asked, but the merchant only pointed away from him, down the street. 

Once he’d pointed the direction, the Doctor grabbed Circe’s hand, a firm tug meaning she couldn’t stay behind to intimidate the merchant further, and the three were running towards Foss street. 

The merchant had not told the truth, and Circe was glaring at the Doctor as he led them down street after street, trying to find the correct one. He’d told Donna to go one way, and before Circe could follow her, he had grabbed her hand and dragged her with him, directly disobeying his own orders. She wanted to rage against him, but she was sure he must have a plan, even if she didn’t trust Donna not to attempt to wreck the timelines. At least the Doctor knew the rules of time enough not to mess with a fixed point. 

“We need to find the TARDIS, and it will be quicker split up,” the Doctor said again, seeing the anger in Circe’s expression. 

She growled, “because Donna knows the rules of time and how not to completely destroy the universe, doesn’t she?” Even so, her own feet were swift behind the Doctor’s, looking for any indication of Foss street. 

“Donna won’t do anything drastic,” the Doctor theorised, although he couldn’t hide the uncertainty in his voice. “At least, not without one of us noticing first.” 

“The Roman Empire didn’t have a word for volcano until today. If she utters the word to the wrong person, she could overwrite history. She could destroy her own future. She-“ Circe pulled on the Doctor’s hand, yanking him to a stop. “Can you not feel the fragility of this day? Every molecule in me is screaming. We are not meant to be here. We need to make sure Donna doesn’t ruin the timeline more than our presence already has, and get out of here.” 

The Doctor rounded on Circe, his hazel eyes burning in passion. “You think I’m not acutely aware of how delicate this is?” He groaned harshly, squeezing Circe’s hand. “Donna doesn’t know. If she messes up, that is…it’s on me. For not teaching her. For bringing her here. For never piloting right. It’s my fault. But you don’t get to assume that Donna will do harm.” When Circe tried to protest, he spoke over her, his eyes commanding her silence. “I know you don’t trust her, Circe. I know. But trust me. Trust me to teach her. Trust me to know the rules. Trust me.” His eyes were swimming, constellations bright and alive within them. Circe grit her teeth, reluctantly nodding slowly. 

“I do not trust her. She is too human, too reckless, too loud,” she informed willingly, to the Doctor’s disapproval. “But I trust you to keep her, and myself, in line. I have to.” Circe’s skin itched, and she wished she could remember why she had to make this choice, but the consequence of her choice hunting meant she never would. She only knew that this was the correct path to go down. Trust in the process. 

The Doctor smiled at her, bright and full of vibrancy that Circe hadn’t felt since Astrid. She wondered if this was why Martha had believed that he needed someone, but that thought only led to the knowledge that her presence wasn’t enough to do the same. 

“Foss Street!” He exclaimed suddenly, focusing on a wooden sign behind her. Circe looked over her shoulder to see the written word comically hanging above her. “We have to find Donna!”

Circe wished he had never convinced her to start cooking. If she’d maintained her training regime, she wouldn’t be struggling so much with the running he was insistent on. Thankfully, it was only a few street corners before the Doctor literally ran into Donna, and they grasped each other as they spoke quickly.

“Ah, I’ve got it! Foss Street, this way!” The Doctor exclaimed, ready to grab Donna and Circe’s hands and lead them onwards, but Donna was firm in planting her feet.

“No, but I’ve found this big sort of amphitheatre thing, we could gather everyone together there,” Donna was saying breathlessly. 

Circe crossed her arms, breathing heavy but anger and self-righteous confirmation filling her. She glared at the Doctor, who sent her a bewildered gaze as he glanced from Donna to her. 

“Then maybe we’ve got a great big bell or something we could ring. Have they invented bells yet?” Donna kept talking, a great, big plan coming to her mind, and Circe felt the warning alarms going off inside the part of her that was intrinsically linked to the vortex. 

“What d’you want bell for?” The Doctor demanded, leaning in closer. 

“To warn everyone,” Donna said it like it was obvious, but she had no idea. “Start the evacuation. What time does Vesuvius erupt?” 

“Volcano day is tomorrow, Donna,” Circe stated harshly, stepping into the conversation. Donna looked up at her in shock, but her stubborn determination was apparent. 

“Plenty of time to get everyone out, easy!” 

“Except we can’t,” Circe ruled, watching as that determination grew in Donna. That kind of insubordination was exactly what Circe had been expecting. 

“But Doctor, you save people! That’s what you do!” Donna turned to the other Time Lord, who frustratingly grabbed her hand, shaking his head. 

“Not this time,” he said urgently. “Pompeii is a fixed point in history. What happens, happens. There is no stopping it.” 

Circe’s hearts beat fast, and she saw the rise of dissent in Donna. Where Martha might have stopped, Donna only fought onwards. 

“Says who?” 

“Says me.” 

“What, and you’re in charge?” 

“TARDIS, Time Lord, yeah!” 

Donna waved her head, exasperation and anger obvious. “Donna, human, no! I don’t need your permission! I’ll tell them myself!” 

Circe gripped Donna’s shoulder tightly, and the human flinched to look at her. She ground out, “no one will believe you, Noble. They’ll call you a mad soothsayer. Now, you are going to follow us to the TARDIS, and get in like a good little human. Understood?” When she saw the wave of disobedience rise in Donna, Circe allowed the vortex to shine through, only cowing Donna through fear. “Understood, human?” 

Donna shook for only a moment, but her sense of righteousness overrode her, because she snapped, “I’ll have something to say about this.” 

The Doctor groaned, pulling Donna out of Circe’s grip and down the street. “Oh, I bet you will!” 

The ground was shaking again, and Circe rushed into the marble house as the Doctor caught a falling statue just before it shattered on the marble ground. 

“Whoa!” The Doctor exclaimed, righting it as the earthquake stopped. “There you go,” he turned to grin at the man stood before them. 

He appeared middle aged, with dark hair that was greying and kind eyes. He wore similar clothing of the middle to upper class of Roman society, with a red cloak tied at his shoulders. 

“Thank you, kind sir,” he said breathlessly, nodding to the Doctor. “I’m afraid business is closed for the day, I’m expecting a visitor.” 

The Doctor leapt on the opportunity, surging forward to shake the man’s hand. “Oh, that’s me! I’m a visitor. Hello!” He allowed himself in, moving into the centre of the space. The man followed. 

“And who are you?”

“I am…Spartacus.” 

Circe’s mouth dropped open. Of all the names in Roman history, he chose Spartacus? All the neural pathways firing on every dimension that Circe had seen the night before, and he couldn’t be more creative than…Spartacus?

“And so am I!” Donna exclaimed, and Circe turned her gaze to Donna. 

She could almost forgive Donna. She was only human. 

Meanwhile, Circe moved towards the household shrine to the Gods, recalling from her studies how important religion was for the majority of Sol 3 history. She bowed her head, murmuring a false prayer, listening to the inquisition aimed at the Doctor and Donna.

Or rather, Mr and Mrs Spartacus. 

“Oh, no, we’re not married!” The Doctor vehemently corrected. 

Donna confirmed it, “we’re not together.”

“Brother and sister?” The man of the house assumed instead, and Circe finally turned away from the Gods.

“I apologise for my wards. They are of a…peculiar sort, not all there in the mind. I am Circe Caesar,” she bowed her head towards the man, whose gaze turned astounded. 

The woman seated beside a young man stood in astonishment, bowing deeply towards Circe. “Lady Caesar! You honour us with your presence,” she exclaimed, nudging the boy beside her to do the same. 

“It is an unexpected drop in,” Circe elbowed the Doctor as she passed him, leading him to cough to hide the grunt of pain. “I apologise for the lack of notice. Caecilius, I presume?” She held a hand out to the man in front of her, and he eagerly took it and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Circe, ready to improvise, smirked as if she had expected it. 

“Absolutely, my lady.” He bowed as well. “I must apologise, but I am afraid we are closed for trading today.”

The Doctor interrupted, peering over Circe’s shoulder. 

“And that trade would be…?” 

Caecilius glanced from the Doctor to Circe, as if wondering who he should answer to. Circe nodded slightly, encouraging him on. 

“Marble!” He explained. “Lobus Caecilius. Mining, polishing and design thereof.” He patted his chest proudly. “If you want marble, I’m your man.” 

“As a matter of fact, Caecilius, I am in the market for marble. And my wards just so happen to be inspectors. Would you mind terribly?” Circe gestured for the Doctor to show him the psychic paper, which the other Time Lord did happily before pushing through. 

Caecilius’ wife flushed. “By the gods of commerce, an inspection!” She took the golden goblet that her son was drinking from as the three of them entered the main sitting area, tossed away the wine, and said, “I am so sorry sir, Lady Caesar, I do apologise for my son!” 

“Oi!” The son in question protested, following the goblet with greedy eyes. 

“This is my good wife, Metella. I must confess, we’re not prepared for a…” Caecilius tried to speak, but the Doctor shrugged it off.

“Nothing to worry about, I’m sure you’ve got nothing to hide.” He glanced around the open air space. Circe was doing similarly, trying to find where the TARDIS might be hidden, but the Doctor found it first. “Although, frankly, that object looks rather like wood to me!” He moved quickly towards the blue box, and Circe spun around to follow him. It was surrounded by blooming flowers, and had been blocked from view at the entrance by them.

Metella hissed to her husband, “I told you to get rid of it!” 

“I only bought it today,” Caecilius defended himself, following the Doctor. 

The Doctor shrugged, “ooh, well, caveat emptor.” 

Circe rolled her eyes as the Roman man said in confusion, “you’re…Celtic. Lovely.” 

The Doctor continued as if there wasn’t an issue. “I’m sure it’s fine, but I might have to take it off your hands for a proper inspection.” 

Donna looked meaningfully between the Doctor and Caecilius as she said, “although while we’re here, wouldn’t you recommend a holiday, Spartacus?” 

The married couple glanced at each other in confusion as the Doctor’s voice dropped an octave in warning. “Don’t know what you mean, Spartacus.” 

“Well, this lovely family. Mother and father and son, don’t you think they should get out of town?” 

Caecilius demanded, “why should we do that?” 

Before Circe could stop her, Donna stated, “well, the volcano, for starters!” 

“What?” The man asked, confused. 

“Spartacus, silence,” Circe snapped, and Donna glanced at Circe, but forged on, emboldened by whatever sense of rightness she held within her. 

“That great big volcano right on your doorstep…” Donna hinted, and Circe glared at the Doctor. He caught her hint, gripping Donna’s shoulders. 

“Oh, Spartacus, for shame, we haven’t even greeted the household gods yet!” He exclaimed, driving her towards the shrine that Circe had stopped by before. “Lady Caesar?” 

As Circe followed the Doctor and Donna over to the household shrine, she listened to the Doctor trying to fix Donna’s knowledge gap. “They don't know what it is. Vesuvius is just a mountain to them. The top hasn't blown off yet. The Romans haven't even got a word for volcano. Not until tomorrow.” He dipped his fingers in the water at the shrine and flicked water towards the carved images.

“Oh, great, they can learn a new word as they die,” Donna muttered spitefully. Circe watched them both carefully, keeping a watchful eye on Caecilius and Metella to ensure they weren’t too confused or worried by their behaviour.

The Doctor snapped, “Donna, stop it.”

“Listen, I don't know what sort of kids you've been flying round with in outer space, but you're not telling me to shut up.” The words reminded Circe of Martha, of Florence, of Timothy. Of every time they had forged their own path forward, ignoring the correct path to find their own. “That boy, how old is he, sixteen? And tomorrow he burns to death.”

“And that's my fault?”

“Right now, yes,” Donna accused, and she glanced at Circe, turning her nose up at her. “Don’t think that doesn’t include you. You’re as much to blame for anyone’s death as he is!” 

Circe stiffened, not enjoying how bold Donna was being in feeling comfortable enough to insult both her and the Doctor, but part of her was almost glad she was acting this way. Maybe the Doctor would see beneath her thinly veiled facade and send her home after this trip. Maybe Circe didn’t have to worry about Donna. 

Her skin itched as if insects had crawled into her scars and were crawling about beneath them freely. She wondered if she might get a moment alone, to search for possibilities. 

A household servant spoke over everyone, calling, “announcing Lucius Petrus Dextrus, Chief Augur of the City Government.” The words set the spine of Metella, who straightened herself and her husband to greet their guest. 

Caecilius moved forward to welcome the Augur, saying, “Lucius, my pleasure as always!” 

Metella snapped quietly to her son, “Quintus, stand up!”

Quintus sighed in frustration as he stood from sitting beside the fountain. 

Caecilius continued, “a rare and great honour, sir, for you to come to my house...” He extended a hand to shake, but Lucius stared him down. 

He wore a white cloak draped over his right shoulder. When he spoke, his words were measured and careful. “The birds are flying north, and the wind is in the west.” Circe tilted her head, watching the family’s reaction. 

As if the words were the wisest wisdom they’d heard, Caecilius murmured, “good, absolutely! That’s good, isn’t it?” He seemed uncertain. 

Lucius continued as the Doctor and Donna moved closer. “Only the grain of wheat knows where it will grow.” 

“There now, Metella, have you ever heard such wisdom?” Caecilius exclaimed, and Metella came to his side, nestling close. 

“Never. It’s such an honour!” She exclaimed. 

“Pardon me, sir, I have guests! This is Spartacus, and Spartacus. They are wards of…Circe of Caesar.”

Lucius eyed the three of them disdainfully. “A name is but a cloud upon a summer wind.” 

The Doctor tilted his head, returning, “but the wind is felt most keenly in the dark.” 

“Ah!” Lucius stepped forward, hearing the challenge. “But what is the dark, other than an omen of the sun?” 

Circe pursed her lips. “We concede that every sun must set…” The Doctor murmured. 

“Ha!” The Augur exclaimed, believing he’d won their battle of words. 

Her eyes slid to the Doctor. “And yet the son of the father must also rise,” the Doctor finished. The Augur’s smug smile dropped. 

“Damn,” he scowled. “Very clever, sir. Evidently, a man of learning?” His eyes slid to Circe, piercing in their distaste. “And the great-granddaughter of an Emperor. Why, we are…blessed.” 

“Oh, yes, but don’t mind us. Don’t want to disturb the status quo,” the Doctor said nonchalantly, rocking backwards on his heels. 

“He’s Celtic,” Caecilius explained as an excuse, although he wasn’t sure how that excused his behaviour. 

“I am glad the Gods brought you here safely, Augur,” Circe inclined her head. “With their anger shaking the ground, who knows what they will cause?” 

The Doctor smiled, “we’ll be off in a minute!” He pulled Donna away, leaving Caecilius to discuss with Lucius. 

Circe stayed a moment, watching the Doctor and Donna but observing as Caecilius unveiled his marble work. 

“It’s ready, sir! The moment of revelation…” Caecilius built the tension well, hand primed over a piece of red fabric hiding his creation. Circe stood far enough back to not intrude, but she couldn’t stop herself from moving forward to inspect the handiwork. “And here it is! Exactly as you’ve specified.” 

The marble had been intricately designed to appear like a circuit board, well beyond the technological scope of any civilisation at this time period on Sol 3. Sharply carved lined turned in ways foreign to what should have been traditional Roman marbling. 

“It pleases you, sir?” Caecilius asked, eagerly. 

The Augur replied decisively, “as rain pleases the soil.” 

“Oh, now that’s…different. Who designed that, then?” The Doctor asked, moving forward curiously. He came to a stop beside Circe, both of them inspecting the carving curiously. 

“My Lord Lucius was very specific!” Caecilius enthused. 

Circe probed, “where’d you get the pattern?” 

“On the rain and mist and wind.” His eyes bored into her own, and she allowed a sliver of the vortex to slip through. His eyes narrowed in warning. 

Donna whispered, “but that looks like a circuit.”

“Made of stone,” the Doctor confirmed.

“Do you mean you just dreamt that thing up?” 

He snapped at Donna, “that is my job, as City Augur.” 

“What’s that then, like the mayor?” She mocked, and the Doctor played it off well enough.

“Oh! You must excuse my friend. She’s from Barcelona!” He fumbled, and then turned to have a quiet word with Donna. “But this is an age of superstition, of official superstition.” He glanced back to Lucius, “the Augur is paid by the city to tell the future. ‘The wind will blow from the west’, that’s the equivalent of their Ten O’Clock news.” 

Circe stiffened as a new presence came into the room. A young girl, pale with sunken eyes, in a silken yellow dress. There was something more to her, a shimmer of inhumanity that caused Circe’s hackles to raise. 

“They’re laughing at us,” the girl muttered in anger. The room all stopped to look at her, and she continued. “Those three, they use words like tricksters. They’re mocking us.” 

Circe carefully moved closer to her, sniffing the air discreetly while the Doctor tried to diffuse the situation. “No, no, no. I meant no offence.” 

Metella rushed forward, brushing past Circe. “I’m sorry, my daughter’s been consuming the vapours.” She came to tenderly wrap an arm around her shoulder, like a worried mother should. 

Quintus scowled, “by the Gods, mother, what have you been doing?” 

“Not now, Quintus,” Caecilius commanded, but Quintus ignored him.

“But she’s sick, just look at her!” He exclaimed, worry coating his expression. 

Circe was close enough then to reach out and try to touch the girl, but she flinched away from the Time Lord, her darkened eyes filled with fear. 

“I gather,” the Augur began, “I have a rival in this household. Another with the gift.” 

“Oh,” Metella explained, “she’s been promised to the Sibylline Sisterhood. They say she has remarkable visions.” 

Her eyes met Circe’s once more, and Circe allowed the vortex through once more, reaching out again. When her fingers brushed the girl’s skin, she had to retract, the tips of her fingers burnt like she’d touched molten lava. She hissed discreetly, pulling away from the girl. 

The Augur was speaking, “the prophecies of women are limited and dull; only the menfolk have the capacity for true perception.” 

Donna scoffed, “I’ll tell you where the wind’s blowing right now, mate.” 

And the ground rumbled beneath their feet. 

There were too many people around. Circe hadn’t found time to choice hunt since Donna had awoken. It had been too long. She knew what choices to make, but she couldn’t remember what those choices led to. She could plan based on her choices, but she couldn’t predict new outcomes if she didn’t know the perfect outcome of her choices. Her hearts were beating quicker, and for a long moment, she was certain that the drumming was back, pounding away at her defences, beating her into submission. 

When her panicked green eyes glanced to the Doctor, he moved to her immediately. He grasped her hand, interlocking their fingers and gently squeezing rhythmically. Anything to ground her, to remind her that this reality was true, that the drumming was gone, that he was dead. 

The Augur spoke over the rumbling earth. “The Mountain God marks your words. I’d be careful, if I were you.” 

The Doctor, once Circe nodded that she was more in control again, stepped forward, inspecting the girl carefully. “Consuming the vapours, you said?” He confirmed. 

“They give me strength.” 

“It doesn’t look like it to me,” he countered.

“Is that your opinion…as a doctor?” 

Circe made to step forward, but the Doctor blocked her, instead gently probing, “I beg your pardon?” 

“Doctor, that’s your name.”

“How did you know that?” 

The girl was failing in strength, leaning more and more against her mother. 

“And in our presence is a Lady, running out of Time. You’ve even seen it yourself.” The dark gaze once again pinned Circe to where she stood, but this time, instead of allowing fear of him to overcome her, she raised her chin slightly, meeting her equally. 

“I’ve seen things you could never imagine, child.” 

“And you,” the girl finally gazed upon Donna. “You call yourself Noble.” 

Metella finally intervened, saying, “now then, Evelina, don’t be rude.” 

“Let her talk,” Circe insisted after a shared look with the Doctor. Something wrong was happening here, and they needed to find it out. 

“You come from so far away.” Her eyes burned with tears. 

“The female soothsayer is inclined to invent all sorts of vagaries,” the Augur dismissed, but Circe turned her gaze back onto him. He stilled. 

“As a matter of fact, she speaks more truth and sense that I’ve heard all day.” And if Circe’s eyes passed harshly over Donna, she didn’t make it obvious. 

“I reckon you’ve been out-soothsayed,” the Doctor said casually. 

“Is that so, Gentille from Gallifrey?” Lucius challenged, and Circe whipped her gaze back to him. 

“What?” The Doctor muttered. 

“A home lost in fire, is it not?” He declared, and Circe didn’t need her mental shields open to feel the spiral of guilt and shame coursing through the Doctor. A spike of hatred made Circe move forwards, until his piercing gaze pinned her. “Your part in the fire is not insignificant, either.” The Doctor gripped Circe’s wrist before she could move to strike the man, the rage coursing through the both of them equally shameful. “And you, daughter of…London.”

Donna exclaimed, “how does he know that?”

“This is the gift of Pompeii. Every single oracle tells the truth.” 

“That’s impossible,” she whispered. 

Lucius continued, “Doctor, she is returning.” 

Ice cold fear struck Circe through every fibre of her being. Her hearts stopped, and she stumbled back in fear. 

“Who is?” The Doctor asked, but Circe didn’t need to. “Who’s she?” He demanded. 

How?

“And you, daughter of London…there is something on your back.” 

How did he know? 

“What’s that mean?” Donna asked, words filled with terror, but the Doctor couldn’t help. 

“Even the word ‘doctor’ is false,” Evelina spoke, not to be outdone by the Augur. “Circe no more than a title. Your real names are hidden. They burn in the stars, they burn the stars, in the Cascade of Medusa herself. You are Lords. Lords of Time.” 

As the earthquake returned, whatever had possessed the girl seemed to pass, as she lost all her strength. The Doctor rushed to her side, but Circe watched impassively, anger spiralling through her. 

Rose had orchestrated this, and Circe would not let her harm her Doctor. 

Chapter Text

Metella and Donna had laid Evelina out in a darkened room away from the crowded living space. Circe stood against the back wall, carefully watching as Metella sat beside her daughter.

“She didn’t mean to be rude,” the mother said quietly, “she’s ever such a good girl.” She began to unravel the cloth on Evelina’s forearm, a bottle of oil beside her. “But when the Gods speak through her…” 

“What’s wrong with her arm?” Donna asked quietly, moving forward with that innate human curiosity. 

“An irritation of the skin,” Metella pronounced, as if that actually explained anything. Circe tilted her head, looking over the girl’s forearm. Just below her elbow crease, her smooth skin turned grey, the texture becoming rough, but returned to skin before it met her wrist. Upon initial examination, Circe almost believed it to be Petrifold regression, but if that had been the case, then the girl would likely already be completely turned to stone, alongside infecting her family. As it was, it appeared the stone was a much slower infection. 

“She never complains,” Metella continued, “bless her. We bathe it in olive oil every night.” The mother stopped, and she turned to face Donna and Circe. “Evelina said you’d come from far away. Please, have you ever seen anything like it?” 
Donna looked back to Circe, her eyes confused and worried. Circe sighed, stepping forward. 

“It doesn’t look to be hyper-infectious, else you, as her family, would also be infected,” Circe told Donna and Metella reluctantly, “but I assume it has been growing, even if slowly?” Circe made eye contact with the woman, who nodded sharply. Donna reached out to touch the patch of infected skin, and she inhaled sharply upon realisation.

“It’s stone,” the human informed Circe. Circe knew the choices she had to make here, but she would be lying if she said there wasn’t a cell in her body that detested the prospect of leaving Donna alone. Who knew what the human would get up to once she’d gone? 

She nodded, and pulled Donna away from the unconscious girl, bringing her close enough that they could talk without Metella overhearing.  

Circe whispered, “I need to inform the Doctor about this, but, Donna, I mean this from the very bottom of my hearts: do not spread trouble. Do not mention a volcano. To do so would be to tip the scales of time out of our favour, and may cause a very significant problem here.” Donna’s stubborn nature clashed against her. 

“But we could save so many lives!” She hissed, but Circe’s eyes flashed gold once more. “Why do your eyes keep doing that?” She then muttered angrily. 

It hadn’t subdued her. 

“You are not like other people, Donna,” Circe murmured, but Donna overheard it. She started to grin, but Circe frowned deeply, her gaze accusing. “It is not a good thing.” The hurt that flashed across Donna’s face was ignored. 

Circe stepped back, saying to Metella, “I must consult the…Spartacus.” Circe wasn’t sure just how much of their cover had been blown. “He is surprisingly knowledgeable about ailments of the skin. Please, do excuse me.” Circe bowed her head to the woman, who only looked back to her daughter, thoughts of what exactly may be wrong her with filling her mind. 

The sun had set as they’d spent more and more time at the household, and the living area they’d occupied earlier was now darkened, lit only by lanterns hung on the walls and a central smoking vent, lit from underneath. As Circe strode into the room, the Doctor was crouched over the vent, the metal grating to the side, with Caecilius sat beside him. The Doctor ducked his head into the vent just as Circe came to a stop behind him, and a roaring sound echoed from below, up through the vent. Circe wasn’t sure whether she wanted to drag the Doctor back from the precipice, or push him in. 

“What’s that noise?” She asked instead, surprising both men. The Doctor poked his head back up at her words, turning to stare at her in confusion for a moment before he looked to Caecilius, as if the local man might know. 

“Don’t know!” He said uneasily, “happens all the time. They say the Gods of the Underworld are stirring.” 

Circe frowned, leaning her head over the edge of the vent, catching a whiff of the smoke that drifted lazily from underneath. There was something…earthy about the haze, almost metallic or dirty to the taste. It made the time vortex in her body sing with energy. When she made eye contact with the Doctor, his hazel eyes glimmered in mutual understanding. He scented it too. 

“But, after the earthquake,” the Doctor continued their conversation from before Circe had interrupted, “is that when the soothsayers started making sense?” 

Circe wondered if perhaps an earthquake could have uncovered some ancient meteorite that had been buried millennia ago, and it now was spreading atoms and minerals and compounds into Earth that had no right to be there. 

Caecilius confirmed, “oh yes, very much so.” He frowned, glancing to either side of him before he said conspiratorially, “I mean they’d always been, shall we say, imprecise? But then the soothsayers, the augurs, the haruspex, all of them, they saw the truth, again and again!”
As Caecilius listed the soothsayers relatively new-found merits, Circe found herself with a growing dread. Humanity had never been graced with any amount of time energy in their existence, across all of space and time. Only a tiny percentage of the population even had the potential for psychic capabilities, let alone accurate future-telling. Time energy pooled at Circe’s fingertips and she knew she’d have to find a quiet moment to do her own soothsaying before too long. The energy itched around her body, eager to be active. 

“Have they said anything about tomorrow?” The Doctor asked nonchalantly, and Circe not so discreetly thwacked his shoulder. When he turned his confused gaze to her, she narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. 

The interaction did not go unnoticed by Caecilius, even as he answered, “no, why, should they? Why do you ask?” 

Circe coughed harshly, “no reason. No reason at all.”

The Doctor, eager to move the conversation forward, “but the soothsayers, they all consume the vapours, yeah?” 

“That’s how they see.” 

“Ipso facto…” the Doctor murmured the Latin phrase thoughtlessly, earning another whack on his other shoulder. “Oi, aren’t you supposed to be watching Donna?” He accused, rubbing his shoulder. 

“I have something to report,” was Circe’s response, eyes hard as emeralds. 

“Anyway…” the Doctor continued, and he leant into the vent and pulled out particulate rocks, letting them fall from between his index finger and thumb, “they’re all consuming this.” 

“Dust?” 

“Rocks, tiny rocks that have been ground into dust,” Circe explained as the Doctor moved to lick his fingers. The action only incited a scowl. 

“They’re breathing in Vesuvius,” he breathed in realisation. 

“Will you hear my report now?” Circe said forcefully, and the Doctor looked at the dust for a moment longer before he turned to her once more. She kept the scowl on her face, which he quickly understood was intended for him. 

He leapt up, nodding. “Sorry, Caecilius, this is…strictly marble inspection business; have you a private corner we can move to?” Circe was fairly sure that their cover had been blown with the Augur and Evelina’s soothsay-off, but she sighed and went along with the excuse for privacy. 

Caecilius frowned again, his forehead creasing with the expression, but he nodded and gestured to their left, a dimly lit lounge chair curled behind an ornate screen. The Doctor thanked him, grabbing Circe’s hand tightly and pulling her over. She allowed him to drag her. She may have been unhappy with his conduct - it seemed that she was doomed to be unhappy with his conduct on most of these misadventures - but this was an important choice. 

Once they were both secluded behind the privacy screen, Circe pulled her hand from the Doctor’s and adjusted the white shirt she wore underneath her red jacket, not sure she’d chosen the most apt outfit for this excursion. When the Doctor turned back to face her, he had his hands in his pockets and an unabashedly concerned expression painted across his features. 

“Could you feel the time energy in the steam?” She initiated, attempting to brush off whatever frustration she felt at him to keep their conversation on track. 

He nodded, “it felt like trace amounts, though. Did you-?” His eyes lit up at the prospect of new information coming from her. “Does the energy in your body react to external sources? That would help explain why the TARDIS reacted to you touching the console, why you can only fly her telepathically."

“Yes, I can feel external sources of vortex energy. It’s rampant in the vapours coming from Vesuvius. My energy sang when I breathed it in,” Circe revealed, the Doctor noting each word like they were vital components to his research. She almost could picture him as he had been in his final days at the academy, when he’d enjoyed researching with her, seeking new information.

Before he’d left her. 

“That makes sense. It’s like different density liquids, oil and water won’t stay mixed without continuous shaking,” the Doctor was explaining, and Circe frowned. 

“I don’t need you to explain it to me,” she scoffed, “especially if you’re going to use analogies that are just inaccurate. I’m not human.”
 The Doctor stopped, his cheeks turning slightly pink as he stared at her, and Circe waited impassively for him to continue. He coughed, “yes, sorry, I…still getting used to having both.” 
Both her and Donna. A twang of misplaced hurt shot through Circe’s hearts (hearts that sounded like the drumming, but were indeed not the drumming), and idly she wondered why. 

“One more thing: the girl-child, Evelina, her right forearm has started transfiguring into stone. It isn’t petrifold regression, it can’t be, no one else in the family has the disfigurement. It is a slow growing irritation that doesn’t appear to be affecting the function of the skeletal and muscular masses beneath, but it’s impossible to tell if this is only the first stage.” Circe reported simply, resting her hands behind her back in her most comfortable pose. “The ailment first presented after the first intake of vapours.” 

He hummed, worry overtaking his features. Circe just observed, watching him think for a long moment. Neither spoke. 

His eyes shifted, turning to study her. “Donna may be human, but she has good intentions. She doesn’t want to let all these people die.” 

Circe stiffened, wondering when Donna had had the chance to twist the Doctor to her side. “She wants to ruin this universe by subverting a fixed point in time. She has no idea of the implications of that action, and even upon being informed of this error in thinking, she still insists on trying to bend the rules. In that way, she reminds me of you.” 

The Doctor seemed to preen for a moment before he realised she hadn’t been complimenting either of them. He sighed heavily, but Circe had seen a plan come to mind as they’d been talking, and she allowed him to grab her hand once again. 

“I think we need to have a chat with our dear friend, the Augur,” the Doctor pulled her along, Circe helpless to follow. 

They’d roped the son into showing them the way to the Augur’s house. Well, they being the Doctor, and roped being bribed. Circe didn’t necessarily have anything against the unethical use of someone’s greed to assist in their plot to uncover the truth behind the dust in Vesuvius, but she wasn’t sure it was entirely necessary to bribe someone who would be dead within 24 hours. Either way, when the Doctor held a hand out of the window he’d just climbed into, Circe took it, leaving the human boy to debate whether or not to follow them. 

“Don’t tell my dad,” Quintus fretted, and Circe rolled her eyes. 

“Only if you don’t tell mine,” the Doctor muttered jokingly, gesturing obviously with his head to Circe. 

She narrowed her eyes at him threateningly, head tilted just slightly. “What happened to this being covert, meaning secret, meaning shut the fuck up?” She whispered, only for the Doctor to grin at her. 

The house was opulent, with the same hypocaust from Caecilius’ home in the centre of the room. Circe hopped off the desk to explore further into the room, the Doctor grabbing the torch from Quintus before following her. It didn’t take long for them to find their target, covered by a long beige sheet. Circe had already removed the cloth by the time the Doctor came to stand beside her, and she hadn’t realised that Quintus had decided to follow them until he spoke, his hushed words angry.

“Liar! He told my father it was the only one!” 

The Doctor slid on his glasses, handing Quintus the torch once more, and Circe carefully grazed her fingers over one of the many stone plates. The resemblance to a circuit board was too strong to be anything but intentional, but nothing was connected correctly. There were nine stone slabs. 

“Well,” the Doctor mused, “plenty of marble merchants in this town. Tell them all the same, get all the components from different places so no-one can see what you’ve built.” 

Sensing movement behind her, Circe whispered almost imperceptibly, “incoming.”

“Which is what?” Quintus asked, unaware. 

The Augur was stood in the doorway, two guards behind him. “The future, Doctor! We are building the future, as dictated by the Gods!” He decreed. 

The Doctor grinned, seeing a way through forming in his mind. “Oh, but what good’s the future if you can’t even use it?” He challenged, clapping his hands together.

“These slabs…you certainly don’t have the know-how to put these together in any form that will have function beyond avant-garde!” 

The Augur obviously didn’t appreciate the implication, but Circe narrowed her eyes. “Which is why,” she interrupted before he could speak, “it’s a good thing we’ve come along. Marble inspectors, see?” She almost didn’t care that he knew they weren’t, the irony in maintaining the false title enjoyable. “Now, boy, take this slate and…just don’t drop it,” Circe commanded Quintus, and he rushed to obey, holding the marble slab as if his life depended on it. 

A flash of time energy surged through Circe, and her hearts pounded as she froze in fear. Her vision obscured, for a moment all she see was Quintus clinging desperately to the marble pillars in his home as the lava surged in, all she knew was the inevitable death the boy would face.

But just as quickly, it passed, and only the Doctor and the Augur saw the flicker of fear, anger and hate. The Doctor leapt to distract her. 

“And if we rotate this one…” he narrated himself as he went, “Circe, 270˚ left, please,” he commanded, and Circe rolled her eyes. She picked up the heavy stone slab, made eye contact with the Doctor, and turned it 90˚ to the right. He frowned, “oh, go on, then, ruin all my fun!” 

Circe grinned, almost tempted to poke her tongue out at him as she might have in her first regeneration, but the impulse faded before she could act on it, leaving behind confusion and a hollow sadness. The Doctor didn’t seem to notice it this time, as he said, “put this one…here,” and finally, taking the last slab off of Quintus, he grunted, “this one…there!” 

Circe tried to shake off the lingering melancholy as she joked, “sure, keep one of the components upside down, why don’t you?” 

“So, what have you got?” The Doctor winked at Circe, and her hearts almost stammered, but he was looking at the Augur again and she almost couldn’t keep track of her wayward emotions and his. 

The Augur commanded, “enlighten me!” 

Circe scoffed, grinning, “the soothsayer doesn’t know?” 

His harsh eyes turned to her. “A seed may float on the breeze in any direction. And there are a lot of seeds sown by a Magician in the dark.” 
Circe shifted, anger bubbling in her stomach. She almost wanted to push the man into his own hypocaust and listen to him scream. Surely that noise would be more comprehensible than the feathery crap he was spouting. 

“I knew you’d say that,” the Doctor teased easily, “but it’s an energy converter.” 

“Of what?” 

“I don’t know.” He grinned at Circe, “isn’t that brilliant? I love not knowing. Keeps me on my toes!” 

“Keeps you humble,” Circe corrected, and he flashed her a smile. 
“I have you for that!” He was moving before Circe could register the words, “it must be awful being a prophet, waking up every morning; ‘is it raining? Yes, I said so,’ takes all the fun out of life. But who designed this, Lucius, hm?” The Doctor looked at the energy converter again, studying it. “Who gave you these instructions?” 

Lucius snapped, “I think you’ve babbled enough.” 

“Tell us, honestly; we’re on your side. We can help,” the Doctor offered, but Circe didn’t need to look into the future to see that the soothsayer would reject his offer. 

“You insult the Gods. There can be only one sentence. At arms!” In an instance, the two soldiers behind Lucius were unsheathing their swords, and in the same breath, Circe was pushing the Doctor behind her and crouching, preparing to fight unarmed against two armed guards. 

“Morituri te salutant,” the Doctor muttered, and Circe rolled her eyes.

“Celtic prayers won’t help you now,” Lucius smirked. 

Quintus was quick to rat them out. “But it was him, sir, he made me do it! Please, Mister Dextrus, please, don’t!” 

“At least die with dignity, if you won’t live with it, Quintus,” Circe spat, flexing her fingers as she eyed up the length of the swords. 

“I respect your victory, Lucius. Shake on it?” The Doctor offered from behind Circe, and she felt the familiar flicker of frustrated rage flare up her spine, even as Lucius stared at the hand, even as the realisation clicked into place for her as well. “Come on, even Circe will agree to this! Dying man’s wish?” 

And when the Doctor made his intention to move forward known, Circe stepped to the side, allowing the Doctor to reach forward and break off the stone arm of the city Augur. 

“Now,” the Doctor breathed, “show me.” 

Lucius’ fury was obvious, but the guards backed off and he flicked his cape back over his shoulder, revealing his right arm was entirely stone, now broken off short with cracks trailing up his shoulders underneath the toga. “The work of the Gods,” he revealed.

Quintus stammered, “he’s stone!” 

“Armless enough, though,” the Doctor teased, but Circe didn't have time to be angry at the black humour. Circe saw the flicker of a plan rush through his body language before he was throwing the stone arm towards Lucius. She yelled wordlessly in frustration, fist reaching out to smack the shelving that held the marble circuit boards hard enough to topple them so that they clattered harmlessly on the floor, and she grabbed Quintus, pulling him from the room behind the Doctor. 

“Run!” The Doctor cried.

Lucius, meanwhile, held his stone arm and looked helplessly at his fallen marbles. “My carvings!” He yelled. 

Out the way they’d come in, the Doctor reached back through the window to pull Circe through first, and then Quintus, before they were all running back through the streets. Circe kept a strict eye behind them, and it wasn’t long before she knew that they hadn’t been followed. 
“No tails,” she told the Doctor as they stumbled to a stop. She breathed hard, hands sat high on her back to better expand her ribcage. She would never pass up her training regime again. If she really planned to stay with the Doctor, she would need to maintain better physical form. 

“Nice bit of allons-y; I think we’re all right,” the Doctor encouraged Quintus, who was bent over on his hands and knees. 

Circe seethed quietly, “have I mentioned, yet, how much I hate your harebrained plans?” 

The Doctor grinned at her, his eyes sparkling with the thousand suns that shone behind them, and Circe pursed her lips fondly, still glaring at him. 

“But his arm!” Quintus interrupted, “is that happening to Evelina?” 

Unfortunately, they didn’t have time to unpack that question, as a horrible rumbling sound echoed from beneath them, without the seismic tremors that occurred with an earthquake. The Doctor and Circe exchanged a worried glance. 

“What was that?” He muttered. It almost sounded like…

“The mountain?” Quintus offered fearfully. 

“No, it’s closer,” Circe dismissed. 

Footsteps. “Footsteps,” the Doctor confirmed. 

“No, it can’t be,” the boy denied. 

But items were falling in the street, and the sound and tremors were getting closer. Circe grasped the Doctor’s hand and the boy’s elbow, pulling them slowly away from the sound, even though none of them could quite draw their eye away from the encroaching sound. 

But Circe realised the footsteps weren’t occurring at the surface. 

“Underground,” she whispered, and she turned tail and sprinted. The men followed her. 

The footsteps followed them, it seemed, all the way back to Caecilius’ home. Circe thanked the stars that all of them were out of bed at the late hour, and she yelled, “out of the house, now! Get out!” 

The Doctor echoed her sentiments, coming into the house behind her. 

“Doctor, what is it?” Donna exclaimed, grasping his arms. 

He explained, “I think we’re being followed.” 

The metal grating of the hypocaust popped off, and Circe cursed, glancing around the living space for a weapon of sorts. The family were lingering, almost waiting to see what kind of demonic creature could possibly emerge, instead of running for their lives. While the Doctor fruitlessly urged everyone human out of the front door, Circe found a sheathed sword placed upon a weapons rack on the wall, and she threw the leather sheath away, hoisting the sword up and twisting it in remembered motions until she was familiar with the weight of it. 

And not a moment too soon, as the ground surrounding the hypocaust entrance soon began to break, large cracks and fissures giving away to more light and steam from the underground caves. A roar reverberated the ground beneath them, and everyone watched as a creature made of stone and lava climbed out from the hole it had created. It was bulky and steaming, every limb sharp and brittle. It towered above them, and stood on two legs, appearing to have at least similar bipedal body structure to humanity and Time Lords. It occurred to Circe then that the sword in her hand was more likely to melt and harm her than it was to penetrate living stone, so she dropped the weapon and backed up, preparing to defend the front line to give her first priority time to escape. 

Evelina panted fearfully, “the Gods are with us.” 

The Doctor suddenly seemed to realise the creature’s components, and he yelled, “water, we need water! All of you, get water!” Donna and Quintus ran from the room. 

One of the servants that Circe hadn’t met yet stepped past her, reverence encapsulating his voice. “Blessed are we to see the Gods.” 

The creature did not spare him. Circe was glad she’d dropped the weapon, the sword melted by its’ breath alone beside the ashes of the dead servant. The Doctor, unfortunately, did not seem to possess a survival instinct, as he stepped beyond Circe. Every instinct in her was yelling to pull him out of harm’s way, but she restrained herself, moving backwards until she was in the shadows. There were two primary objectives fighting within her; firstly, she had to obey the Doctor, and secondly, she had to protect the Doctor. Ultimately, she knew that if she didn’t rescind into the shadows, she would fail in both objectives, even if she didn’t remember how it would pan out. 

“Talk to me, that’s all I want!” He exclaimed from before her. His hands were raised open-palmed to it, trying to show peace. “Talk to me! Just tell me who you are. Don’t hurt these people!”

As he spoke, Donna and Quintus returned, Quintus carrying two buckets and passing them forward. After Donna passed her own off, two women wearing red robes with eyes painted onto their hands grabbed her tightly, covering her mouth to prevent any protestations being overheard. As they dragged Donna away, Circe followed discreetly, even as she longed to ensure the Doctor’s safety behind her.  At least she could trust the Doctor’s prior experience in escaping dire situations. Donna was still so green. She would need Circe more than the Doctor might. 

Chapter Text

To Donna’s credit, Circe reluctantly noted that the human did not stop resisting, even as the two women dragged her down the street into a darkened alleyway. When they had moved far enough away from the house, Donna’s unveiled threats were numerous and imaginative, including using Circe as a threat, and her own colourful language. Circe crept after them, her footfalls light and silent on the dusty paved streets. They were easy to follow despite the darkened night, as Donna clearly let them know her displeasure with being kidnapped. 

They finally arrived at a temple, the large marble structure intimidating for most who crossed into it’s territory, and Circe kept her eyes sharp as she noticed the unguarded entrance, despite the last furtive glance one of the women sent into the night just before entering. 

“You will not be tying me up anywhere, lady!” Donna yelled, her voice echoing into the street. 

Circe kept an eye out as she snuck in through the archway, hoping that she hadn’t missed a look out. The main temple was blocked from the entrance by hanging gold curtains, shimmering faintly in the dim light. A handful of red silks were resting atop a table beside the door, and Circe carefully wrapped her head in them, draping the rest of the cloth over her white shirt. Hopefully, her red suit would match close enough that she would blend in sufficiently. She stepped through the curtains.

The room was lit by torches, held by members of the Sibylline Sisterhood sporadically. The curtains continued around the edges of the room, hiding any potential exits or unseen threats. Circe bristled, her muscles stiff and ready to react should anything happen. The centre of the room held an altar, and Donna lay atop several fur pelts, her purple dress contrasting to the red surrounding her. Sisters of the Sisterhood stood, hands connected, facing her, where a priestess held a long knife, the hilt made from a horn that curled around the wielder’s hand. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” Donna groaned in frustration. 

Circe adjusted her stance, pulling her shoulders back and wishing she had time to apply the same markings every other woman in the room had. She strode forward, reaching the edges of the circle of sisters. Suspicion curled within her. They’d let her in far too easily, and even now did not protest her presence. 

The priestess cried, the knife held towards the sky, “the False Prophet will surrender both her blood and her breath.” 

“I’ll surrender you in a minute,” Donna yelled, squirming in her restraints. “Don’t you dare!” 

“You will be silent!” 

Donna laughed, “listen, sister, you might have eyes on the back of your hands, but you’ll have eyes in the back of your head when I’ve finished with you!” 

“It’s okay, False Prophet. Once your lifeblood has been sacrificed to Our Lady Sibyl, your friend shall join you.” She looked up from Donna sharply to stare Circe in the eye. Time energy rushed through the air, setting Circe’s bones alight. “The False Goddess shall perish under the White-Point Star.” 

“Your prophecies are meaningless, Priestess,” Circe stated simply, pushing into the circle. The sisters allowed her, rejoining hands once Circe was ensconced within their sacrificial ring. “Release her.” 

“Or what?” The priestess bared her teeth, but Circe just smirked. 

Pompeii was a cooking pot of time energy given the upcoming fixed point; it saturated the air, and Circe felt it in every molecule that brushed her skin, in every crack of the earth, in every vibration she felt. It only served to heighten the strength of her own time energy, and her hands and eyes started glowing gold as she stared at the priestess of the Sibyl. The priestess' hand slowly drooped, as if her fear were overtaking her. 

“Or she’ll turn you inside out,” Donna interrupted, her voice shaking even as it grew in volume. “Now let me go!” 

The priestess focused back on Donna, foolishly looking away from Circe. “This prattling voice will cease forever!” She decreed, raising the knife once more.

Circe hadn’t been sure what her next move was going to be, and she belatedly realised that she’d acted foolishly, rushing in with no plan except ‘stop them’. It reminded her of the exact behaviour she was trying to stamp out of the Time Lord she travelled with.

The Time Lord who spoke now, “oh, that’ll be the day!” 

The priestess and Donna gasped, turning to look at the Doctor. Circe just raised an eyebrow, glancing behind the priestess to see him casually leaning in the back of the temple, as if he hadn’t just had to fight off a carapace of molten rock and lava. The time energy surging through her simmered beneath her skin, itchy but powerful, waiting to be used. 

“No man is allowed to enter the Temple of Sibyl,” the priestess scolded, and Circe rolled her eyes.

“Do you really believe that we’re the kind of people to follow that kind of rule?” She muttered, moving to untie Donna’s feet as the Doctor distracted the Sisterhood. 

He pushed off the wall, walking forward as he spoke, “well, that’s all right, just us girls! Do you know, I met the Sibyl once, hell of a woman.” He groaned in remembrance, “blimey, she could dance the Tarantella!” 

Circe scoffed, ignoring how that sent a coil of something green into her belly. 

“Nice teeth,” the Doctor mused off handedly. “Truth be told, I think she had a bit of a thing for me.” 

The green twisted deeper, and Circe roughly released Donna’s feet, the woman immediately pulling them away. 

“I said it would never last, she said, “I know,”. Well, she would.” He finally reached Donna’s head, looking down at the human as he asked, “you alright there?” He glanced up to Circe as she responded.

“Oh, never better.” 

“I like the toga,” he commented breezily, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. 

“Oh yeah, and the ropes?” Donna teased, waving her arms up at him. The screwdriver was buzzing before she could finish speaking. 

“Yea, not so much.”

As the priestess watched, she asked in fear, “what magic is this?” 

Instead of giving her answers that she wouldn’t understand, the Doctor put his screwdriver away and instead began to lecture the Sisterhood. As he spoke, Circe helped Donna back into a seated position, massaging her chafed wrists and helping return blood circulation. From what Circe could tell, they were not at risk of being attacked at that moment, despite the still present threat of a knife near the Doctor and Donna. 

“Let me tell you about the Sibyl, the founder of this religion,” the Doctor began, “she would be ashamed of you. All her wisdom and insight, gone sour. Is that how you spread the word? On the blade of a knife?” 

“Yes, a knife that now welcomes you!” 

As she spoke the last words, Circe saw the incoming threat and, leaving Donna stood beside the altar, she grasped the priestess’s wrist tight enough to leave bruises, the blade inches away from the Doctor’s chest. She fought against the priestess for a long moment until a new voice spoke from behind them. 

“Show me these people!” 

The priestess’ violent expression dropped, and she turned to the voice. The sisterhood dropped to their knees around the altar. 

“High Priestess, the stranger and False Goddess would defile us!” She denounced. 

“Let me see. These are different.” Circe, Donna and the Doctor moved towards the curtained off section, and the voice continued, “they carry starlight in their wake.” 

Circe would not deny that she shifted to ensure the Doctor and Donna were both covered by her body before they all approached. 

“Very perceptive,” the Doctor complimented, “where do these words of wisdom come from?” 

Someone moved behind the curtain. Circe thought she glimpsed stone. 

“The Gods whisper to me.” 

“They’ve done more than that,” Circe warned beneath her breath. “I would beg an audience with the High Priestess!” 

The shimmering golden curtains were pulled back, revealing a woman made of stone, dressed in the red silks of the Sisterhood of Sibylline. 

Donna gasped in shock, the sight more than a bit terrifying, “what’s happened to you?” 

The High Priestess exclaimed, “the Heavens have blessed me!” 

Circe approached slowly, glancing back to see the Sisters circling the room behind them, but she still rose to the dais where the stone woman sat. Her fingers reached out tentatively, and the woman nodded. She brushed her fingers across the rough texture, analysing the porous nature to it, and the minerals she could spot within the structure from touch alone. 

“It’s andesite, mixed with something else. Something not from Sol 3. The majority of the stone is definitely comprised from Vesuvius, though,” Circe whispered to the Doctor as he stepped up to investigate beside her. 

“Does it hurt?” He asked the High Priestess, who let her head drift to the side for a moment. Circe wondered at the benefit of asking such a question. 

“It is necessary.” 

“Who told you that?” 

“The voices.” 

Donna piped up behind them, “is that what’s going to happen to Evelina?” She turned to the sisters, fear and confusion rampant in her voice. “Is this what’s going to happen to all of you?” 

“The blessings are manifold,” the priestess extended her own arm, which had the same affliction that Evelina's had had. 

“They’re stone,” she whispered, horrified.

“Exactly.” The Doctor stepped away, finished analysing whatever he’d intended on searching for. “The people of Pompeii are turning to stone before the volcano erupts. But why?” 

The High Priestess whispered softly, “this word, this image in your mind, this…volcano…what is that?” 

Circe frowned, leaning into the woman. “More to the point, why don’t you know about it? Who are you?” 

“High Priestess of the Sibylline!” She defended, but Circe shook her head slowly. 

“No. Oh, no,” she laughed hollowly, “I’m not asking you. Who else inhabits this body?” 

“The creature seeding itself into a human body, in the dust, in the lungs, taking over the flesh and turning it into…what?” The Doctor intercepted. 

“Such knowledge…impossible.” 

“Oh, while you can’t read Circe’s mind, and trust me, no one can if she doesn’t wish it, you can read mine. You know it’s not.” He swayed back on his heels before he surged forwards once more, “I demand you tell me who you are!” 

The High Priestess shook, pain evident as something else came forward. Circe stepped away, watchful of any sudden movement. 

“We…are…awakening.” 

The Priestess cried, “the voice of the Gods!” And all the sisters began to chant.

“Words of wisdom, words of power.”

Seeing how the situation was spiralling, the Doctor commanded, “name yourself! Planet of origin. Galactic coordinates. Species designation according to the universal ratification of the Shadow Proclamation!” 

But the High Priestess and whatever else was controlling her refused to listen, standing from her dais to say, “we are rising!” 

“Tell…me…your…name!” 

“Pyrovile!” 

This incited the sisterhood to chant the creature’s name, a monotone drone that grew in volume and intensity. 

“What’s a pyrovile?” Donna asked quietly. 

“Well, that, growing inside her, she’s the halfway stage.”

“And that will turn into the adult pyrovile we saw in the villa,” Circe finished, “now can we leave?” 

“And the breath of a pyrovile will incinerate you, Doctor!” It threatened. 

He grinned slightly, reaching into his coat, “I warn you, I’m armed!” He pulled out a water pistol. 

Circe wished she could have expected anything else. “Donna, open that grill!" She ordered. 

She looked to Circe, about to protest, but the Time Lady’s eyes were glowing softly again, and she slammed her mouth shut and moved to the hypocaust, while the Doctor aimed his water pistol at the Pyrovile. 

“What are you doing here?” Circe demanded next, stood firmly beside the Doctor as he floundered about with aiming the toy at the priestesses around them. 

“We fell from the heavens. We fell so far and so fast that we were rendered into dust,” the pyrovile explained. 

“That explains the foreign minerals,” Circe realised. “When was that, 17 years ago?” 

“We have slept beneath for thousands of years!” 

The Doctor narrowed his gaze, keeping his aim fixed firmly on the alien. “Okay, so 17 years ago woke you up, and now you’re using human bodies to reconstitute yourselves, but why the psychic powers?” 

“We opened their minds and found such gifts!”

“Okay, so you force yourself inside a human brain, use the latent psychic talent to bond, I get that.” 

“Humans will pack bond with anything,” Circe muttered in disgust, and the Doctor almost smiled. 

“But…seeing the future, that is way beyond psychic. You can see through time.” The anger that leaked into his voice surprised even Circe. “Where does the gift of prophecy come from?” 

The time energy raced throughout her veins, even as Donna informed them of her success. The Doctor ushered her to climb down it, despite her protests. 

“Now why can’t this lot predict a volcano?” He continued, “why is it being hidden?” 

A dark realisation dawned on Circe. Whatever their plan was, they needed to convert energy, given that Lucius was already halfway to being stone. They had been living underground, in a dormant volcano while they waited for enough disciples to rise from their shattered forms. What if the gift of prophecy came because, in this current timeline, there was no eruption tomorrow? What if the soothsayers were right, and Vesuvius never erupted, throwing the fixed point in time out of whack? That would certainly send enough of a backlash of time energy on the timeline as it tried to self correct unsuccessfully. It would even explain the prevalence of psychically inclined humans in this area. 

How in the vortex were they going to fix this mess? 

“Sisters,” the priestess proclaimed, “I see into his mind! The weapon is harmless!” 

The Doctor shrugged, looking at it in bemusement. “Yeah, but it’s gotta sting.” He fired a few shots of water at the Pyrovile, yelling, “go, Circe!” 

“You better be right after me!” She threatened, before jumping down after Donna. 

The cave was lit by flowing magma, which was a good and bad sign. Donna had only moved so far to prevent being landed on, still in shock at the Doctor’s method of fight. As he landed beside Circe, Donna murmured in amazement, “he fought her off with a water pistol. I bloody love you!” 

Circe grinned, wondering for a short second how Donna might react to hear other stories she had of the Doctor, before her mind caught up to her. The grin dropped quicker than it had formed. Neither human nor Time Lord noticed, moving away quickly, but Circe had to take a moment to remind herself what was at stake. 

Donna had the potential to ruin them. If Rose came back, she would ruin him. She would never let herself forget that. There were too many coincidences. 

“Into the volcano we go!” The Doctor cried, leading the way around a corner. 

“No way,” Donna exclaimed, moving to follow. 

“Yes way,” Circe muttered. 

The Doctor twirled the water pistol before sheathing it once more. “Appian way!” 

The deeper they climbed into the volcano, the smokier their surroundings got. Circe tore off part of her sleeve to give to Donna, to cover her mouth for the areas with poorer air quality. But even the threat of lung damage from smoke inhalation wouldn’t stop Donna’s quest for the greater good. 

“But if it’s aliens setting off the volcano, doesn’t that make it all right, for you to stop it?” Donna was asking as they slipped down a crack. The Doctor forged on, following the light from a brazier. 

“It’s still part of history,” the Doctor urged, deadpan and too emotional at the same time. 

Donna still didn’t understand. “But I’m history to you. You saved me in 2008, you saved us all! Why’s that different?” 

Circe shivered despite the superheated air around them. The time energy present around them was only serving to hyper-activate her own time energy. She was struggling to stop her fingers from glowing, trying to keep her own versions of prophecies inside her. She didn’t need the Doctor or Donna to see them. 

“Some things are fixed, some things are in flux. Pompeii is fixed,” the Doctor took the time to explain. 

Donna sighed, “how do you know which is which?” 

They came to a stop with the Doctor, who turned back to face Donna. His eyes flickered to Circe, noting her eyes glowing and the pain that simmered just beneath the surface of her expression. 

“That’s how we see the universe,” he finally admitted. “Every waking second, I can see what is, what was, what could be, what must not.” He took a moment to ensure she understood.

“That’s the burden of the Time Lord, Donna. And we’re the only ones left.” 

The Doctor grasped Circe’s hand, and together they forged ahead, up another stony path. Donna scrambled after them, scared and desperate and hopeful. 

“How many people died?” She demanded. 

Circe had memorised this number. She’d wondered in her second regeneration why she couldn’t use her choices to save countless lives. She’d tried, once. 

But the universe has a way of righting its wrongs. 

“Stop it,” the Doctor spat. 

Donna persisted, reaching forward to grab Circe’s hand. “Circe, how many?”

“You really want to know?” Circe allowed her time energy to swirl into being in front of her, the sands of time falling from her hands into shapeless forms.

“How many people suffer in less than twelve hours because we can’t stop it?” Donna didn’t hesitate. 

The Doctor relinquished the information. “20,000.” Donna’s desperation only seemed to increase. 

“Is that what you can see? All 20,000?” She scowled. “And you think that’s all right, do you?” 

Circe scowled. “Do you want to know how many people die if we do stop it?” 

Donna’s confusion and fear was palpable. 

“A universe’s worth. Every single death has purpose, has meaning. You prevent it from happening, and the universe will get its’ own back, tenfold, maybe more.” Circe scowled. 

A roar shook the foundations of the ground they stood on, and the Doctor grabbed Circe’s hand again, urging Donna ahead of them. “They know we’re here. Come on!” 

As they pushed through the paths, Circe hissed at the Doctor, “energy convertors and the most explosive volcanic eruption in humanity’s history? Did I guess correctly?” 

The Doctor glanced at her briefly as they turned a corner. Her golden glow was quickly becoming unsurprising. In the smoggy tunnels, it was even comforting to see. So that Donna didn’t overhear, he whispered, “I think we’ve had the same thought, Cece.” 

Subtly straightening her spine, Circe commanded, “so when we find the controls, you’ll take Donna out of here and get to the TARDIS. I’ll make sure the universe doesn’t spiral out of control.” 

The Doctor pulled her to a stop, ignoring Donna’s confusion ahead of them. “What? No,” he exclaimed, despite Circe’s stubbornness. “Absolutely not. You are not allowed to do that.” 

Circe’s brow furrowed, and she tilted her head. “Why? You’re my commander. My primary is to keep you safe. If that means sacrificing myself to protect you, I will.” 

The Doctor visibly became angry, and he bared his teeth at her, an action she noticed he only did when he couldn’t take his anger out physically. 

“No, Circe! You don’t get to become self-sacrificial on me! You don’t get to choose to save me over you.” He heaved in a huge breath, glancing momentarily at Donna, who only looked more confused, but seemed to understand not to interrupt, for the first time ever. “I will not be alone again, do you understand me, soldier?” 

She frowned at him, wondering if he would sense the lie she wanted to tell him to appease him. She figured he probably would. “But you’re rarely alone. You always have your companion. My orders are to keep you safe. And ensure Donna stays out of trouble.” She only mentioned Donna to endear him to the idea of leaving her behind, but it didn’t work in the way she’d expected, and he’d seen straight through her false ignorance.

“Don’t be deliberately obtuse,” he snapped, his hazel eyes thrumming in pain, “it doesn’t suit you.” He leant in close to her, so that his breath fanned over her cheeks as he looked across to her instead of down at her. “I can’t do it again. I can’t think I’m the last. I can’t know I’m the last. Don’t ask me to.” 

His hand was gripping hers so tightly, she was fairly sure she’d lost blood supply in three of her fingers, but she wouldn’t complain. His eyes bore into her own, and she studied the contours of his face illuminated by her time energy’s golden glow. She investigated the earnest fear in his expression, and she nodded. 

“Together, or not at all?” She supplied instead, and the relief that crashed over him was almost strong enough to crash through her own mental shields. Donna had questions, as she always seemed to, so Circe just grabbed her hand as well and pulled her into a brisk walk, ignoring the seemingly never ending curiosity of the human.

Ignoring her internal acknowledgement that, maybe, Donna wasn’t entirely wrong about this being wrong. 

The volcano only kept heating up, ash and smoke filling their lungs with each intake of breath. The trail of braziers led them deeper into the mountain, streams of molten lava occasionally forging its path beside them, and they kept silent as they entered a cavern, the ceiling far above their heads. Heavy footsteps shook the very ground beneath them from all directions, and Circe was unable to identify how many there might be, or which indeed direction they came from. Within the cavern’s centre was a stone ship, magma pooling around its edges. It had been there for millennia, just as the High Priestess had informed them. 

The Doctor pulled them to crouch behind a fallen boulder, whispering, “it’s the heart of Vesuvius.” As a pyrovile walked away from them, he murmured in fascination, “we’re right inside the mountain.” 

“Too many hostiles to count,” Circe warned under her breath. “All directions. I can’t calculate the odds of being spotted with so much stimuli.” She made eye contact with the Doctor in warning.

“There’s tons of them,” Donna confirmed, eyes tracking a few that she could see. But there were far too many for her to follow, and she couldn’t follow that which she couldn’t see. 

The Doctor pulled out a monocular eyeglass, peering into the Pyrovile’s crashed ship. Whatever he saw obviously displeased him. 

“What’s that thing?” He murmured curiously, passing the monocular to Circe, who imitated his direction as precisely as she could. 

“Oh, you better hurry up and think of something, Rocky 4’s on its way,” Donna glanced over her shoulder worriedly. 

Inside the ship, Circe could see the marble circuitry that Caecilius and the other marble craftsmen had created for Lucius, and she cursed that she’d not been more effective at destroying at least one of the stone slabs. 

“That’s how they arrived,” the Doctor was telling Donna as Circe handed back his monocular eyeglass, “or what’s left of it. Escape pod, prison ship, gene bank?” He theorised, glancing at Circe. 

She scrutinised the door of the ship, investigating as best she could if there was a locking mechanism or safety net that would ordinarily be present on a prison ship or gene bank. “Impossible to tell from here,” she informed him. 

“But why do they need a volcano?” Donna breathed. “Maybe…it erupts, and they launch themselves back into space or something.” 

The Doctor and Circe exchanged a look that Donna missed, neither wanting to burst her bubble, before he frowned, looking back to the ship. “Oh, it’s worse than that.” 

Donna probed, “how could it be worse?” Circe nearly thanked Jupiter or whatever Gods were listening that the pyrovile on their tail had nearly caught up, as Donna instead fretted, “it’s getting closer!” 

As it turned out, they didn’t have to fear the encroaching pyrovile, as Lucius spotted them from across a magma stream. “Heathens!” His voice echoed across the chamber, “defilers! They would desecrate your temple, my Lord Gods!” The attention of every pyrovile was drawn to the augur, and Circe was already on her feet, yanking the Doctor and Donna to their own and pulling them into the cave. 

“We can’t go in!” Donna protested, even as she willingly followed. 

“Do you see a better route?” Circe prompted, absently leaping over an unexpected boulder that lay in her path. She froze for a moment, looking down at her body in remembrance. 

“I didn’t know you could do that in this body,” the Doctor commented, grabbing her hand on the way past.

Circe shook her head slightly, “neither did I.” 

With the water pistol in hand, the Doctor took offensive charge, while Circe scouted ahead and created safer paths for them to take. Her hearts were pounding fiercely in her chest, but the rush almost wasn’t incited by fear, but…excitement. She reached the ship before the Doctor and Donna, ducking into the entrance to check for hostiles. When she exited once more, they’d reached her side again. 

“There is nowhere to run, Doctor, Circe and daughter of London!” The Augur cried, lit by the brazier of magma that burned in front of him. 

“Now then, Lucius, my Lords Pyrovillian, don’t get yourselves in a lava!” He glanced to Donna, “in a lava? No?” 

“No.” Donna’s quiet reply was absolute. 

“No,” he acquiesced, “but if I might beg the wisdom of the Gods, before we perish,” he spoke again to the pyroviles, who were gathering before them, their stony faces unreadable, “once this new race of creatures is complete, then what?” 

Lucius was happy to oblige. “My masters will follow the example of Rome itself. An almighty empire, bestriding the whole of civilisation!” 

Donna stepped forward, “but if you’ve crashed, and you’ve got all this technology, why don’t you just go home?” 

“The Heaven of Pyrovillia is gone.” 

Those words sounded almost familiar, and they set alarm bells of in every corner of Circe’s mind. 

“Gone? What do you mean, gone, where’s it gone?” She yelled from behind the Doctor and Donna. The Doctor glanced at her as her next words triggers a memory for them both. “How do you lose a planet?” 

The steam was gone from her line of questioning, even while Lucius answered. 

“It was taken; Pyrovillia is lost. But there is heat enough in this world for a new species to rise.” The threat was clear. 

Circe wondered what they would have done had the pyroviles been benevolent. Yes, Vesuvius did need to explode, but…

No. Donna would not worm her way into Circe’s mind, too. She would remain strong. Rose was not going to win this battle. Fixed points in time were far too unstable. 

The Doctor argued, “I should warn you, it’s about 70% water out there.” 

Always with the one chance, Circe was noticing. He had to give one last chance. He’d done so with Max Capricorn, and now was doing so with the Pyroviles, even though they seemed so insistent on their current path; he was offering one last chance. 

“Water can boil, and everything will burn, Doctor,” Lucius threatened.

The Doctor glanced to Circe, confirmed with her the information they’d found, and stated, “then, the whole planet is at stake. Thank you, that’s all I needed to know!” He turned Donna around and ushered her into the ship, Circe pushing the button to close the stone door behind them. 

They were sealed inside, with the energy conversion circuit. 

Circe leant against the door, both out of exhaustion and to feel any vibration that might tell her whether the Pyroviles were attempting to force entry. She wasn’t entirely sure what her plan would be if they did, but she preferred to know if she had to make a plan rather than be surprised at the door sliding open. 

“Could we be any more trapped?” Donna’s sarcasm was very much unappreciated. 

There were footsteps outside, and Circe recalled then that the pyroviles had superheated breath. She leapt away from the door as it started heating underneath her, accidentally bumping into the Doctor in the cramped space.

“We’re engulfed in flames. The air inside this pod will only last us minutes before it starts to burn the inside of our lungs.” Circe gestured for Donna to return her sleeve, and to Donna’s disgust, she spat into the centre of the fabric. 

When she handed it back to Donna, the human exclaimed, “uhh, what’s that for?” 

Circe rolled her eyes. “It’ll at least keep some of the air cool. I’m trying to keep you alive.” 

Meanwhile, the Doctor was studying the circuit boards, and he began to explain them to Donna. Circe leant over him, wrapping an arm faux-casually around his shoulders in an effort to stay standing upright. Her eyes were glowing again. Something big was going to happen in this tiny spaceship, and Circe had a feeling that she knew what it was. 

“See? The energy converter takes the lava, uses the power to create a fusion matrix, which welds Pyrovile to human. Now it’s complete, they can convert millions.” 

As the air grew hotter, Donna found herself grateful for the small relief that the slightly damp cloth from Circe gave her. She breathed through it as she spoke. “Can’t you change it? With these controls?” 

The Doctor sighed, shifting to wrap an arm around Circe’s waist. He carefully looked her over, seeing how the time energy was leaking from her fingertips, cascades of unused time sand drifting harmlessly to the floor before winking out of existence. 

“Course I can, but don’t you see?” The Doctor replied urgently. 

Donna didn’t want to. 

“That’s why the soothsayers can’t see the volcano. There is no volcano! Vesuvius is never going to erupt.” 

Circe hadn’t felt this tired since she’d been Florence, possibly even before then. But she still reached out, pointing to the little lever sitting innocently in the centre of the pod. “If we don’t push it, the pyrovile win,” she simplified for Donna’s sake. 

“The pyrovile are stealing its power; they’ll use it to take over the world.” 

Donna urged, “but you can change it back?” 

The Doctor squeezed Circe against him, and she frowned, feeling the loneliness course through him as if it were her own. 

Wait, it was her own. This was the curse of the Time Lords. Only they could make these decisions. Only they could understand every ramification. No one creature in the universe would truly comprehend the weight of these choices. 

They were alone. 

The thought only served to make Circe even more tired, but she straightened, moving forward to crouch where the circuits were connecting to the ship. “We can invert the system and set off the volcano instead. Blow up all the pyroviles.”

“But that’s the choice,” the Doctor continued, watching her sadly. It was as if he knew what realisation she’d just come to. “It’s Pompeii or the world.” 

It finally seemed to click in Donna’s mind, as she murmured, “oh my god.” 

“If Pompeii is destroyed, then it’s not just history, it’s me. It’s Circe. We make it happen.” 

Circe’s mind was already made up 

“But the Pyroviles are made of rock, maybe they can’t be blown up!” Donna was scouring for alternatives, other ideas, possibilities. 

All of which Circe had already seen coming. There was a methodical rhythm to her movements as she worked below the console, whereas the Doctor frantically rewired the circuits above her. 

“Vesuvius explodes with the force of 24 nuclear bombs,” the Doctor explained. “Nothing can survive it.” 

Circe looked up to Donna, catching the redhead’s gaze with her own glowing eyes. “That most likely includes us, Donna.” She wasn’t sure if her words were supposed to be comforting, or a test, or what, but Donna’s gaze hardened, flicking between the two Time Lords. 

“Never mind us.”

Circe’s resolve hardened. Maybe Donna was working with Rose, and maybe she was trying to hurt the Doctor, but what if she could stop it? Yes, Donna was hardheaded and ignorant and foolish, but maybe that was Rose’s influence on her. Perhaps Circe could counteract that, help Donna understand the universe just a bit more. If there was a chance that Circe didn’t kill her like she had Astrid, maybe Donna could help her stop Rose. 

Because Circe knew that the choices she’d made here led her to her chosen future. She had not yet been led astray. Somehow, they would not die today, not matter how unlikely the odds. 

“Push this lever and it’s over,” the Doctor grasped it, the weight of the universe falling to rest on his shoulders, along with the lives of…”20,000 people.” 

Circe didn’t stand from her seated position, but she reached up to cover his hands with her own, and simultaneously allowed her mental shields to creep up as she reached out to brush against his consciousness in companionship. The relief she felt in return nearly overwhelmed her, but she kept the connection open just enough to share this moment with each other. Every other aspect of her mind was locked up tight. 

And then Donna’s hands were on top of theirs, and Circe marvelled at the camaraderie she suddenly felt with this human that she barely trusted to walk through history. 

They pulled the lever, and chaos ensued. 

They’d survived, somehow. The ship had been an escape pod, capable of surviving immeasurable force, and the door opened once they’d stopped moving. Circe hadn’t had time to ground herself, or anyone else, within the pod, so she took a quick moment to use her regeneration energy to heal the cuts and bruises she’d garnered. With the Fixed event restored, the time energy present in the air had returned to its usual trace amounts, and Circe was relieved to feel her own energy calming down, agitated but simmering. The Doctor was already off, rushing out the door to witness the explosion. Once Circe finished, she helped Donna stand, leading her out of the escape pod. 

“It was an escape pod,” the Doctor informed them, and Circe rolled her eyes. 

She glanced Donna over, checking for any major injuries, before she was once more ripping off her other sleeve. “Wear this. Volcanic ash can have severe impacts in the lesser respiratory system of humans,” she instructed, observing as Donna tied the make-shift mask into place on her face. “We’ll have to go back into the city to retrieve the TARDIS.” 

Finally, she turned to the explosion. The massive blast was still ongoing, shaking the ground beneath them, even as the skyward column of ash started to move towards them, the pyroclastic flow falling down the mountain side way ahead of the rivers of magma that began to make its steady descent into the city. 

“We have to go, now,” she murmured to the Doctor, hearts thrumming. 

The city was already in chaos when they arrived. The ash cloud had moved faster than they could, blocking out the sun as the volcanic ash started to fall, dusting every surface and human in its cloying weight. The people were running in confusion, some turning to their temples and Gods to save them, and others running out of the city, towards the beach. Circe was striding ahead of their trio, but she heard Donna’s desperate cries behind her. 

“Don’t go to the beach, don’t! Go to the hills, listen to me!” 

No one was willing or able to listen. 

The Doctor grasped her hand, pulling her along gently. “Come along,” he said. 

Caecilius’ home wasn’t hard to find, and Circe was quickly moving towards the TARDIS. The sooner they got Donna out of there, the sooner they could move on. Maybe the sooner she could find out how Donna and Rose were linked. 

“God save us, Doctor!” Caecilius cried upon seeing them.

The Doctor hesitated, but forged onwards, following Circe to the TARDIS. He opened the door for her, and she strode in, even as her hearts cried otherwise. There were rules they had to follow, rules that were in place to prevent the destabilisation of the universe! 

But Donna cried, “no, Doctor you can’t!” 

Caecilius’ family glanced between each person in confusion and fear, curled up against the opposite wall. 

But Circe was already inside the console room, leaning against the archway that led to the bedrooms, and the Doctor was stood at the console waiting for Donna to enter. They had one moment where they shared in their mutual pain, the mental connection still wide open and flaring in absolute pain and self-hatred, before the Doctor continued working. 

The door opened and closed, and Donna shrieked, “you can’t just leave them!” 

“Don’t you think I’ve done enough?” The Doctor demanded, twisting a lever and pushing a button. “History’s back in place and everyone dies.” 

Donna stumbled forward, almost delirious in her pain. “You’ve got to go back, Doctor. I’m telling you take this thing back!” 

But the Doctor pulled a lever down, and the TARDIS shook into flight. 

Ash still dusted Donna’s hair and tunic as she steadfastly followed the Doctor around the console, her face wet with tears. She leant in, begging him, “it’s not fair.” 

Circe spoke up for him, “no, it’s not.” 

Donna turned to her then, and the devastation in her face made Circe wonder whether her analyses of humanity had been entirely correct. “But your own planet, it burned.” Her voice broke, and Circe surged up the stairs the mention of their home burning through her. 

“We couldn’t save them,” Circe whispered, “it was my job, my…responsibility, and I couldn’t…and I can’t go back, we can’t go back.” Circe stammered the words out, feeling the anger devouring her but unable to bring it to the surface. “There are some things that you can’t change.” Circe reached a hand out to brush away a fresh tear from Donna’s face, but the human flinched. 

Circe’s face shuttered, and she dropped her hand, stepping away from Donna to attempt to hide her reaction. Donna didn’t even register it, but the Doctor, with his mind still receiving Circe’s emotions, saw everything. He felt her shut down, and felt her emotions cycle through rage and sorrow and pity and fear, until they settled one long moment later. Circe turned and walked away, leaving Donna and the Doctor stood in the console room. 

She had nearly been tricked. Donna had been so clever, but then Circe supposed that she’d been trained by the best. Of course Donna was an expert manipulator. Everything she was doing was calculated, part of some master plan to ensnare the Doctor. 

And as the TARDIS took off once more, Circe’s theory was only further confirmed.

Chapter Text

Circe wasn’t aware she was gritting her teeth until her jaw was aching with fatigue. One hand was gripping a glass bowl against her side while the other whipped a whisk swiftly through the beaten egg whites. The kitchen was warm, with two ovens switched to high temperatures in order to facilitate the requirements of her bake. 

But her hobby, which ordinarily allowed her to ignore the rapid-firing neurones in her advanced mind, brought her no peace today.  

Circe hadn’t slept, not since they’d returned from Pompeii. She had been so overcome by her anxiety and terror that she’d instead spent the past two days alternating between researching the lives of the 20,000 people who had perished in the fires of Vesuvius, and scanning the future. She had explored every possible choice that she could theorise, regardless of its veracity, and had dictated to herself exactly what choices she needed to make in order to formulate the most ideal future for her and her primary, for the universe. Once she’d exhausted all choices that she could imagine (or maybe she’d just exhausted her imagination, she wasn’t sure), she decided to try and distract herself from her fears with a recipe that supposedly would test her multitasking abilities and her capacity as a chef. But even the complexity of authentic French macarons from Sol 3 couldn’t overpower her anxiety. 

Her skin was itching, and she had to consciously remind herself that her hearts were beating, causing the unfamiliar sound to echo in her mind like drumming. She’d spent so long as Florence that her body and mind had forgotten what four hearts would sound like. It was normal. It was understandable. But...

It was weakness. 

The golden sands of time scratched beneath the surface of her skin, irritating the thin membranes of scar tissue on her hands. She moved the whisk faster, absently dissociating as she stared into the walk in pantry across the kitchen from her. 

Circe had been so close to allowing herself to care for Donna, for a woman who was so blatantly manipulating her primary. She had almost fallen for her tricks, and let her in. If Donna hadn’t reacted so fearfully to her at the end of their trip to Pompeii, Circe wouldn’t have stopped herself from giving Donna a chance. She would have comforted Donna. And then there would be no one able to stop her, stop Rose, from destroying the universe, or worse, killing the Doctor. Or even…whatever it was that Rose was trying to accomplish. 

“You have killed the Doctor in every universe…because you are driven mad…”

The words were haunting her. But Rose was wrong. Circe was protecting the Doctor. She was creating the best future, for him. She was. No one else would ever be as important as him. 

With so much internal stimuli, and mental timers for her first batch of macaron shells, there was no wonder that she didn’t hear the Doctor’s approach. 

“I don’t know what the eggs did to you, but when you find out, let me know? I’d hate to make you that angry with me,” his voice came from the doorway, and Circe immediately stopped her movements. She took a long moment to look into the bowl, seeing the white egg mixture had become grainy, clumpy and watery. She glared at the bowl, as if she wasn’t to blame, and threw the bowl into the sink beside her. 

Instead of responding to his words, Circe opened the cupboard next to her, only for it to be suspiciously empty. The TARDIS hummed meaningfully in the back of her mind, the machine obviously intending for her charge to talk to her pilot, but Circe slammed the cupboard shut and opened another one. This was almost entirely empty, save for one white mug, inscribed with black text. 

Talk. 

Circe slammed the cupboard shut with a frustrated shout, to the concerned amusement of the Doctor. 

“Circe, what’s wrong?” 

The emotions were bubbling inside her in ways they hadn’t since the beginning of the Time War. She was losing her indifference, had been ever since she’d joined the Doctor on the TARDIS. It was infuriating and terrifying. How was she supposed to protect him when she couldn’t control her baser biological reactions such as tears?

Circe pushed her face into her hands, tearing itchy fingers through her hair to distract from the unending cycle of thoughts, from the awful way her eyes burned. 

“Tell me what’s running through your mind,” the words weren’t a command, but Circe made herself react as if they had been. 

“20,000 people dead, and all I can do is try to create reasons why you still trust that human.” The words were callous, and Circe ignored the Doctor’s immediate frown. 

The two Time Lords studied each other, optical universes dull behind darkened eyes. The Doctor stepped forward, the kitchen door swinging shut behind him. “Do you remember my final project from the Academy?” He asked, diverting her thoughts away from its present spiral. Suitably taken off guard, Circe couldn’t notice the diversion for what it was, and she frowned at him. 

“Of course I do. I remember you begging Koschei and I to help you research.” The memory came to her, and she pushed down her smile, even through her surprise at how the mention of Koschei didn’t trigger any level of upset within her. “Patience refused; said you needed to do it yourself.” The mention of the Doctor’s first wife seemed to dampen his mood, but only for a moment. A bittersweet smile curled his lips upwards, and he leant against the kitchen counter opposite her.

“Well…I can’t be blamed, can I? We were so busy then,” he drawled, and Circe scoffed. 

She insisted, “I was so busy keeping the academy and government functioning. You were off galavanting across the universe, doing who knows what to who knows where!” The familiar frustration at the Doctor’s youthful, and even ancient, antics threatened to cause amusement to flicker across Circe’s face. 

The Doctor’s expression flickered into disbelief, and he scoffed, exclaiming, “that wasn’t my question! You remember that my final project was an in depth study into the proliferation of humanity; just what was it that allowed them to persevere from the earliest flickers of intelligent life up to the end of the universe?” 

Circe sighed. She did remember, of course she did. She helped him find every source mentioning humanity in the academy’s library, sacrificing her own research time to aid him, despite his regular lack of sufficient timekeeping. It had been one of those sessions that had enabled her to find the name she loved dearly now. 

“Yes, of course I remember,” she acquiesced. 

His brown eyes swam with warmth, and Circe met his eyes reluctantly. “Humans have this…wonder that they see the universe with. Even among humans, there aren’t many that see the horrors and find beauty in them. And even then, fewer still who want to help, who will stop me if they think I’ve gone too far.” The Doctor smiled brightly. “Astrid was one of the few non-humans I have encountered who fit every requirement.”

The mention of the Stovian woman jolted Circe, and she wrapped her arms around her stomach, hearts aching in pain. 

“She was good,” Circe murmured. Her mouth moved for a moment, trying to find the words. “I-I wish…” she bit her lip. “I wish Astrid had lived to come with us.” 

The Doctor nodded. “I know.” 

Her eyes burned, but she looked up, allowing the TARDIS kitchen’s harsh lighting to burn the tears away. Tears that she hadn’t shed for the woman since they’d come back to the TARDIS after the Titanic. 

While she’d regained her composure, the Doctor had crept forward, until she was cornered into the edge of the kitchen, the counter at her lower back. Circe knew that if she pushed past the Doctor, he’d allow her to leave. She knew that he wasn’t pinning her into a corner to trap her, but she couldn’t help the fear that flared up.

“I heard a rumour,” she whispered, watching him carefully. He didn’t react, expression cautious. “In every other universe, you are dead.” She allowed a moment for the gravity of those words to sink in. 

“How?” 

“Doesn’t matter,” she held the words carefully, hoping he would trust her, in spite of her struggling to show the same. “It doesn’t matter, because I won’t let you die in this one. If I have to track every threat against your life, real or imagined, I will. If I have to lie and trick and manipulate, if it keeps you safe, I will.” 

The Doctor was staring at her, eyes wide, and Circe laughed slightly, a twist of mania registering in the hand she rose to cup his cheek. 

“I will not allow anyone to hurt you while I’m here.” 

His face under her palm was rough with the barest amount of stubble, but the warmth that radiated from him seemed to fill a void within her, and she found herself longing to embody as much of his heat as she could take from him. His eyes were pinned on her own; Circe couldn’t identify the emotion swimming in his hazel eyes, couldn’t pinpoint any constellations she’d recalled tracking as a young Time Lady, couldn't find her home within those eyes. And yet, she longed to dive into his universe, to protect every star that shone within him and keep him safe inside of her for the rest of their lives. The desire throbbed within her, the desperation to keep him safe thrumming her heartbeats until it no longer sounded like the drumming. Instead it was the musical rhythm that pulsed through their universes and drove them to passions and new heights. 

Then, the moment was over too soon.

Donna breezed into the room, obliviously chattering about something inane and nonsensical, and the Doctor immediately stepped away from Circe, unable to look her in the eye. Circe stayed in her corner, pinned there by the fading heat from the Doctor’s presence. 

“-but that used to depend on when Wilf was going up to the hill. He couldn’t exactly leave his telescope out there, could he?” Donna laughed as Circe forced herself to click back into the conversation. After the laughter had rung out into the TARDIS, and Donna had flicked on a kettle, she turned to face Circe, a tentative warmth in her bright eyes despite her obvious nerves. “Did you ever stargaze on…” Donna didn’t need to name the planet, “before it burned?” 

The question was obviously intended for Circe, as her eyes burned into Circe’s face, and she found herself stuck. Her own eyes stung as she forced down her tears, and she glanced at the Doctor. He was looking at her again, impassive and unreadable. Circe wondered why he couldn’t identify the question as prying and digging for vulnerable information. 

Even so, Circe found herself answering, but her gaze didn't stray far from the Doctor. “Yes. The planet existed within a gaseous constellation, and at night, the sky would light up with colours and gas and stars. It was the kind of spectacle humans could only see in the most extreme of solar storms through your auroras. Imagine a backdrop of red, darker than what you might call mahogany, splattered with dazzling streaks of greens, blues, and purples as the stars shone through them, creating patterns and shapes. The earliest of our kind used to imagine the most vivid stories from our skies.” Circe allowed a slight smile to grow as she remembered the sight, but it disappeared too quickly. “Yes, it was a prominent aspect of our culture to stargaze.” 

Donna beamed, seemingly content that she had received a response at all, and poured out three cups of tea. “So, where to next?” She asked suddenly, handing the Doctor and Circe a mug each. 

Circe had watched Donna make the tea, and hadn’t noticed anything being slipped into her drink. Still, she discreetly inhaled the steam, checking for trace amounts of any chemicals that might cause either of them harm. When she couldn’t scent any, her initial sip was tentative. Other than the familiar flavours of Sol 3 tea, there was nothing extraneous. 

Silently, Circe settled into the corner of the counter where she stood, observing as the Doctor and Donna debated their next location. 

Why had Circe allowed this? 

She should have stopped this the minute they’d stepped out onto a planet with a surface temperature close to freezing by Sol 3 standards. Sure, Time Lords were relatively unaffected by most temperature differences, but they weren’t just protecting a Time Lord anymore. Human’s homeostasis was much less capable than a Time Lord’s, given their home planet had significantly less drastic temperature fluctuations. Now, Circe was walking beside Donna, feeling bizarrely guilty in her monochrome grey jeans and t-shirt, unaffected by the literal snow storm they currently stood in. She had left her leather jacket behind in the TARDIS, oblivious to the low temperatures until after Donna had exited wearing a large, furry jacket.

They were crossing a snowy desert, with minimal signs of life in all directions. They had seen a rocket before, and were heading towards the place they’d estimated it had taken off. 

The Doctor cocked his head to the side like a puppy and glanced back to the two women, a question in his eyes. 

“Hold on, can you hear that?” He asked, and a flicker of annoyed humour flashed across his face when he noticed Donna hadn't heard him, as he exclaimed, “Donna, take your hood down.” 

Donna did so, only asking, “what?” 

“That noise,” he elaborated, “it’s like a song.”

Circe raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was hearing. But the Doctor didn’t have time, or the patience, to wait any longer, rushing in the direction he’d heard the song coming from. 

Circe watched as Donna rushed after him, and she walked slowly, trepidation causing her footsteps to slow at the sight of a body partly buried in snow. 

“What is it?” Donna exclaimed in fear. 

“An Ood, it’s called an Ood!” The Doctor explained hurriedly, pulling out a stethoscope, but he tried to listen to its heart in the chest cavity. 

Circe shook her head, finally rushing over to the creature. “You’re looking in the wrong place,” she scolded, holding her hand out expectantly. The Doctor reluctantly handed her the stethoscope, and Circe inserted it into her ears before placing the drum against the Ood’s lower stomach. 

Donna stuttered, “but its face!” 

Circe sighed in frustration, listening carefully to the failing heart with fear. “His heart is failing. Even if we healed him, his heart is too weak to continue much longer. It sounds like he’s lost a lot of blood.” 

Circe realised then that her telepathic shields had been so tightly bound, taut against her own mind, that she couldn’t hear the Ood singing. While she didn’t lower her shields, she did make them more transparent. And through the newly transparent shields, she heard the song. 

The song hadn’t been attempting to breach her mental shields, which was why she’d been unaware of its presence. Instead, it caressed every surface it touched, the beauty all encompassing and leaving its trace on everything it passed, while also taking traces of all it encountered. 

Donna dropped to her knees beside the Ood, attempting to comfort him despite her initial fear, and Circe closed her eyes to listen as the Doctor and Donna spoke to the Ood. 

“The circle,” the Ood spoke simultaneously with the song, the word harsh and cruel in both spoken and sung medium. 

“No, don’t try to talk,” Donna urged, but the Ood had a message to give. 

“The circle must be broken,” the Ood begged, becoming frantic in voice and song. Circe wrenched her eyes opened, meeting the Doctor’s across the prone Ood. 

“Circle? What do you mean? Delta 50, what circle?” The Doctor asked, desperately trying to find any information. 

Circe heard the song change tune before they caught sight of the physical manifestation, and she was gripping the Ood’s shoulders, preventing him from rising, although he screamed in rage beneath her. The Doctor ripped Donna away from the Ood, pushing her behind Circe. The Ood’s eyes switched to red, fixed onto Circe’s face with such pained fury, before he exhaled and finally relaxed. He fell into his final sleep uneasily. The song dissipated into the wind, but Circe kept her shields clear, taut around her mind, keeping her mental observations up. 

“He’s gone,” Donna whispered. 

Circe leant back onto her haunches, flexing her fingers carefully. To her surprise, Donna came back beside her, removing a glove to caress his face. 

“There you are, sweetheart. We were too late,” she murmured mournfully. Circe, almost unsure what to do, laid a hand on her shoulder. Donna leant into it, grateful for the comfort. “What do we do, do we bury him or…?” 

She looked to Circe first, and then at the Doctor. It was the Doctor that responded. “The snow will take care of that.”

“Who was he? What’s an Ood?” 

Circe scowled, rising to her feet as she recalled the research she’d undertaken in her post academy studies. 

“They’re servants of humanity in the 42nd century,” the Doctor answered again. “Mildly telepathic, that was the song. It was his mind calling out.” 

Donna shook her head, “couldn’t hear anything.” 

Circe frowned. “You wouldn’t want to.” 

“He sang as he was dying,” Donna mourned. 

“His eyes turned red,” the Doctor observed. 

“And his song changed,” Circe added. 

Donna looked between them. “What’s that mean?” 

Circe wanted to laugh and scream. What did it always mean? 

“Trouble. Come on,” the Doctor lead the way forward, renewed passion to find that shuttle’s take off site. Along the way, he explained to Donna what the Ood were. “The Ood are harmless, completely benign. Except, the last time I met them, there was this force, like a stronger mind, powerful enough to take them over.”

Donna frowned. “What sort of force?” 

“Long story,” he dismissed. 

Circe raised an eyebrow at him. “Long walk,” she countered, her curiosity also peaked. 

“The devil,” he almost smirked at his old friend’s shock as her jaw dropped thoughtlessly. 

Donna didn’t seem to realise that he’d been serious. “If you’re going to take the mickey, I’ll just put my hood back up!” She threatened. 

“Must be something different this time, though,” he theorised, “something closer to home.” 

The three of the crossed over the crest of a snow dune, and Circe pursed her lips at the sight they found. It was a factory, seemingly for livestock if she correctly guessed the silos at the rear end of the facility. There were also a number of rockets ready for launch scattered across the grounds. 

“Civilisation,” Circe muttered. 

It didn’t take much to get the three of them into the tour that was currently taking place across the grounds. The Doctor flashed his psychic paper and suddenly their names had fallen off the list, and they must accept the Ood’s Sphere sincere apologies for such an indescribable oversight. Then, they were ushered into the Executive Suites to the sound of an alarm. 

“Oh, it’s just a siren for the end of the work shift,” the woman, Solana, explained. “Now then, this way, quick as you can!” 

As they entered the facility, Circe noticed the way Solana shifted uncomfortably, glancing over to where the alarm was sounding. She narrowed her gaze, wondering if she might be able to slip away to investigate, but the executive suites were filled with too many people, with too few doors, and Circe couldn’t find an opening to split from the Doctor and Donna. Instead, she leafed through the welcoming packet, absently listening to Solana describing the level of care and dedication they as the parent company held in protecting the Ood under their control. 

Once Solana’s presentation had finished, she stepped out of the room, leaving the potential customers to browse their display goods. And inadvertently giving her and the Doctor access to a computer terminal near the far wall. The terminal was touch pad, and the Doctor went to work, hacking into the software easily while Circe kept an eye out for trouble. The screen in front of them lit up, showing the surrounding galaxy. 

“The Ood-Sphere, I’ve been to this solar system before, years ago, ages!” He said offhandedly. “Close to the planet Sense-Sphere.” With a few pushes of a button, he widened the view, showing three spiral galaxies with a cluster of spacial gases in the centre. 

“Year 4126, the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire,” Circe identified. 

“4126,” Donna marvelled. “It’s 4126, I’m in 4126!” 

“Good, isn’t it?” The Doctor grinned, glancing at the human. 

“What’s the Earth like now?” Donna wondered.

The Doctor inclined his head in thought. “Bit full. But you see, the Empire stretches out across three galaxies.”

“It’s weird,” Donna admitted. “I mean, it’s brilliant, but…back home, the papers and telly keep saying we haven’t got long to live. Global warming, flooding…” Donna looked back to the map of the galaxies. “All the bees disappearing.” 

“Huh?” Circe murmured, the words striking her oddly, but she couldn’t identify why.

“Yeah,” the Doctor replied, “that thing about the bees is odd.”

Donna kept going, her train of thought still moving. “But look at us! We’re everywhere!” She frowned quickly, “is that good or bad, though? Are we like explorers, or more like a virus?” 

Circe pursed her lips, humming in agreement. 

“Sometimes I wonder,” the Doctor mused. 

Donna noticed something new, “what are the red dots?” 

“Ood distribution centres.”

“Across three galaxies?” Circe confirmed, moving to type her own code into the console. The command only confirmed their assumptions. 

“Don’t the Ood get a say in this?” Donna asked, decisively moving up to an Ood that was stood absently to the side. “Um, sorry, but…” The Ood was relatively unresponsive until Donna tapped its arm. “Hello. Tell me, are you all like this?” She asked, almost insensitively. Circe propped her hip against the console they’d been using to control the screen, watching the interaction unfold. 

The Ood raised its communication orb, “I do not understand, Miss.” 

“Why’d you say miss; do I look single?” Donna panicked suddenly, and Circe almost laughed. She would almost say that Donna was disarmingly charming at times. 

“Back to the point,” the Doctor prompted, and Donna had the decency to look slightly sheepish. 

“Yeah,” she muttered. “What I mean is, are there any free Ood?” She asked instead. “Are there Ood running wild somewhere? Like wildebeest.” 

Circe could see that the intent was in the right place, but she wasn’t sure it was worded in the best way possible. 

“All Ood are born to serve,” the Ood replied factually, “otherwise, we would die.” 

Circe frowned. That mindset felt…familiar, in a convoluted way. 

“But you can’t have started like that,” Donna protested. “Before humans, what were you like?” 

There was a hint of the song that Circe had heard before, and she watched as the Ood flinched. “The circle,” it offered, and fell silent. 

“What do you mean, what circle?” The Doctor exclaimed, but the Ood offered nothing new.  

“The circle, the circle is…”

Solana returned, interrupting the Ood, and Circe moved to the Doctor and Donna. “I’ve had enough. Wanna get out of here?” She eyed Donna carefully. 

“Last time anyone asked me that, I ended up without my shoes in Oxford Circus,” Donna teased, obviously still upset that the Ood had immediately identified her as single. Circe smirked, linking her arm with the human. 

“Shall we head off the beaten track?” The Doctor offered, waving the map in front of the two women with a tantalising grin. 

“Rough guide to the Ood-Sphere? Works for me,” Donna smoothly replied, grabbing the Doctor’s arm and taking the lead. 

Circe caught the Doctor’s eye as they exited, and he grinned at her. There were no expectations in his face, just sheer joy, and Circe realised that she’d initiated contact with the human she didn’t trust. She glared at him, but her grip on Donna didn’t slacken. 

With her clear mental shields, she noticed the Doctor’s mind brush against her own, sending a short message. 

Maybe you do care. 

She stubbornly ignored him. 

The compound was much larger than Circe had predicted. The buildings numbered more than 20, with a maze of alleys and paths between them, and that wasn’t even accounting for the rocket launch pads around the corner. With the Doctor sonicking and entering restricted sections within the facility, Circe took up the rear, ensuring they weren’t followed or at risk of being spotted. The trio stopped at an elevated walkway, peering over the railing to watch lines of Ood walk. Circe felt their song, filled with absolute sadness and acceptance, circling her mind. 

“Servants?” Donna corrected, “they’re slaves.” 

One of the human workers cracked his whip at a fallen Ood, and Circe agreed wholeheartedly with her initial assessment. 

“Humans,” she scoffed. 

Donna frowned at her, and the Doctor didn’t look away from the abuse. 

“Last time I met the Ood, I never thought. I never asked,” the guilt was evident in his voice. 

“That’s not like you,” Donna murmured. 

He defended, “I was busy.” But his eyes got this distant look that made Circe wonder just what had happened with this devil and the Ood. “So busy, I couldn’t save them. I had to let the Ood die. I reckon I owe them one.” 

A new group walked out from the shadows of a building, and Circe tensed looking over them. “Reckon that’s the boss man?” She’d identify a self-conceited gait anywhere. She’d seen it often enough. 

“Let’s keep out of his way, come on,” and the Doctor was pulling them off, down some more metal stairs towards warehouses. They were moving closer to the rocket launch areas, intent on investigating how the Ood were cared for prior to their purchase. Circe reckoned that the warehouses 18 through to 21 were close enough to the transport area that they could be feasible storage facilities. Once they were in the right area, it was only a matter of Donna finding a door and signalling, with an absurdly loud whistle. That, and Circe had followed the sound of the songs spinning past her mind. It had been so long since she’d used her psychic abilities, however, that she was finding it unnerving to maintain focus in the physical and psychical world simultaneously.

“Where’d you learn to whistle?” The Doctor muttered in shock. 

“West Ham, every Saturday,” Donna breathed proudly. 

Circe rolled her eyes, “barbaric practise.”

‘Whistling?” Donna exclaimed, nearly offended as the Doctor used his sonic on the locked door. Circe glanced at Donna, noting the offense that coated the human’s expression, and she smirked.

“No,” she retorted, “football.” 

The Doctor unlocked the warehouse, and they walked in silently, unsure what sights they might encounter. 

Stacks upon stacks of multi-coloured storage units filled the warehouse, lit by harsh strip lights at random intervals. The harsh concrete floor echoed their footsteps across the spacious room, and Circe instinctively slowed her steps down, reducing the sound she created with her grey loafers despite the fact that Donna’s slightly heeled business shoes clicked obviously against the floor. 

Was Donna trying to get them caught? Why wasn’t she quieting her footfalls? At least the Doctor wore converse shoes, which, at most, would occasionally squeak. 

Hanging overheard, a crane claw was remotely operated, swinging gently as it moved across the building. 

And with each step further into the warehouse, the more songs that circled through the air. Circe was glad her shields were still raised. She doubled checked her fortifications, not wanting to risk the sheer volume of noise from overwhelming her mind. 

“Ood export,” the Doctor explained to Donna as they moved further in. “D’you see? Lifts up the containers,” he pointed to the claw, “takes them to the rocket sheds, ready to be flown out, all over the three galaxies.” 

Donna looked around in shock, horror muting her voice. “What, you mean these containers are full of…” she wouldn’t finish her sentence. 

Circe nodded, approaching the door of one of the shipping units, while the Doctor said, “what d’you think?” ‘

Circe pulled up the handle, swinging the door open to reveal at least one hundred Ood, stood with their translation ball in hand. She held in her body’s natural reaction to gag or cover her breathing as the scent of the cattle-packed Ood wafted over them, but Donna wasn’t able to do the same. 

“Oh,” Donna breathed, “it stinks!” 

The three of them stood at the entrance, taking note of the humid air despite the freezing temperature, and the sweat that beaded on the bare brow of each and every Ood that lined the container. They had been crammed to brim, so much so that they couldn’t take one step into the container without encroaching on the space of an Ood. Circe pursed her lips, green eyes flickering gold in outrage. 

“They’re crammed in like mindless cattle,” she ground out, hearts pounding to a furious rhythm. 

“How many of them do you think there are in each one?” Donna asked offhandedly, the curiosity a morbid one. 

“A hundred? More?” The Doctor guessed, glancing to Circe, but she shook her head. He didn’t want to know the actual count. 

Donna scoffed, “a great big empire, built on slavery.” 

“It’s not so different from your time,” Circe muttered viciously, recalling her Sol 3 history. 

“Oi, I haven’t got slaves!” Donna defended, but the Doctor considered it. 

“Who do you think made your clothes?” He reasoned.

Circe sensed Donna’s raising anger before the Doctor, and she turned her gaze to observe how the human would fight against them. 

“Is that why you travel around with a human at your sides?” She argued, “it’s not so you can show them the wonders of the universe, it’s so you can take cheap shots?” The genuine anger in her voice, and the words she had said, struck Circe. 

It occurred to Circe that the universe was infinitely large, with an infinite number of possibilities, and futures, and choices. Obviously, she knew that, being a self-appointed authority in ensuring the universe maintained the correct path, but she also knew that coincidences were possible. They were not common, especially not in her experience, but there was a certain possibility of their occurrence, and it wasn’t entirely implausible that the Doctor’s prevalence across the universe increased the chances of him stumbling into one. Perhaps, just maybe, Donna really was just one big coincidence. Maybe Donna really wasn’t out to hurt the Doctor. 

But even with every chance that Donna was a walking coincidence, Circe hadn’t survived so long by allowing them to continue breathing. The risks were too great. 

With her realisation and choice made, Circe vowed to make sure she found a moment alone on the TARDIS before their next life and death situation, to make sure that her choice was the right one, that her future would be preserved and that the Doctor would understand. 

He had to. 

The Doctor had glanced at Donna, seeing the anger richocheting through her, and he said earnestly, “sorry.” 

“Well, don’t,” she snapped, and then she softened slightly, her anger receding like an ocean wave, “Space Man.” Donna’s eyes flickered to Circe, but the unreadable expression on the Time Lady’s face caused whatever nickname had occurred to her to die before the word could form. 

And as Donna looked back to the Ood, Circe saw one side of the Doctor’s lips curl upward, and it made her insides roil in an emotion she didn’t fully recognise. 

“I don’t understand,” Donna was saying, “the door was open, why don’t you just run away?” 

One of the Ood in the first row responded, lifting its held ball, “for what reason?” Its artificial voice sounded genuinely baffled. 

“You could be free!” 

“I do not understand the concept,” the Ood explained. 

It lowered the ball as Donna asked, “what is it with that Persil ball? I mean, they’re not born with it, are they? Why do they have to be all plugged in?” 

Circe wondered why the words struck home, flashes of being strapped down inside a metal cage coming to the forefront of her mind, but leaving only a desolate confusion behind. 

“It’s a translation orb,” Circe explained instead of analysing that feeling or image. “The Ood don’t speak, being telepathic instead, so they attach the orb to make sure the Ood can communicate with their Lords and Ladies.” 

“Ood,” the Doctor interrupted before Donna could question further, “tell me, does ‘the circle’ mean anything to you?” 

Every Ood lifted their orb to speak, and Circe pulled Donna halfway behind her, hands raised to strike if need be. But all they said was, “the Circle must be broken.” 

“Whoa, that is creepy,” Donna exclaimed, poking her head out from behind Circe’s shoulders. 

“But what is it?” The Doctor pressed, “what is the Circle?” 

The Ood only repeated their last action, “the Circle must be broken.” 

“Why?” Circe intercepted the Doctor, hoping a different angle might yield more answers. 

As the Ood all raised their orbs once more, the song circling her mind crescendoed, “so that we can sing.” 

Circe heard the boots slapping against the concrete floor only just before the alarm sounded, and she grabbed Donna’s arm, pushing her out of the Ood container. The alarm sounded immediately after, the Doctor following them out. “I think that’s us, come on!” He called, grabbing Circe’s hand to pull her along with him. 

The three ran between shipping containers, their footsteps loudly announcing their location as they went. The Doctor turned a corner quickly, but Donna slowed down, looking to her right. Circe glanced between the Doctor and Donna, hearts tugging in both directions as she quickly analysed which order was more important to follow. 

“Doctor, Circe, there’s a door!” Donna yelled, but the Doctor ran on, having not heard it over the alarms. Donna looked helplessly at Circe before running to the door, trying to open it. 

Circe sighed heavily, moving to follow Donna when the door opened to let in more soldiers. She grasped the back of Donna’s coat to yank her backwards, trying to take her out of the line of fire, but the barrels were already pointed at Donna before Circe could swap their places, shouts of “don’t move,” echoing through the space. 

Circe froze behind Donna, watching the weapons with a trained eye. Each soldier had obviously used a weapon before, so she couldn’t rely on them being potentially unwilling to fire on two women, and they skilfully entered the space and circled Donna and Circe. She grit her teeth, not spotting a flaw in their offensive tactics. It led to Donna and Circe being shoved inside a shipping container, the door banging shut behind them. Circe stiffened, seeing the Ood stood opposite them. They stood unnaturally still, in a way that the other Ood had not. Circe observed visually and mentally, and she pushed Donna behind her as the song spiralling around her mind changed, becoming violent and aggressive. 

“Can you help us?” Donna asked from over Circe’s shoulder. Circe turned to glare at her. 

“Why is it that no one shuts up and takes cover when I move them behind me?” She exclaimed in frustration, and when she looked back at the Ood, one had opened its eyes, a familiar red gleam shining in the dimly lit space. “Now shut up, and stay hidden,” Circe commanded, bending her knees to get ready for any possibility. 

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, you…Time Lady!” Donna protested, stepping out from behind Circe. The Time Lady just watched as Donna started fighting their case to the red-eyed Ood. “And what have I done? I’m not one of that lot, we’re on your side!” 

Circe tutted, pulling her away from the threat so that she was at least level with the woman. “You’re still human, and still an active part of the empire, according to them,” Circe reminded. 

Their words obviously had no effect on the Ood, as more Ood started waking up, their eyes shifting to glow red as more and more songs changed to the violent chant Circe could hear from them. They started approaching, and Circe glanced behind them quickly, trying to see if they could get out the way they’d come in. But the door had been locked tightly behind them, and there was no handle inside the container. Absently, she wondered what they expected to happen if an employee had gotten trapped within the container prior to them, but she shook off the thought, refocusing on the advancing threat. 

“Just, stay where you are,” Donna tried to sound threatening and look harmless, and the dichotomy did not work. “That’s an order” 

“Do you really think they’re going to be accepting orders?” Circe yelled, snapping in her anger. She couldn’t think with the human woman constantly talking. Why had the Ood been so focused on the circle? What circle must be broken? From her studies and experience with the Ood, she knew they were at least mildly telepathic, which meant, given their lack of natural external communication organs, they were most likely all linked. And she could imagine that linking would be a hive mind of some sort, which meant they had to have an external control. But where did the circle come into it? Circe wondered if it were the buildings, but from what she remembered while they’d been running around, the buildings weren’t exactly set up in a circular manner, and she couldn’t theorise exactly why that would cause the Ood to flare up in such an aggressive manner. 

“I said, stay,” Donna still tried, backing into the corner and pulling Circe with her. She banged one hand on the door, hoping against all the odds, “Doctor! Doctor!” 

“Now would be a wonderful time to do something incredibly stupid and clever, Starman!” Circe called, her hands joining Donna in thumping against the metal container. 

As the Ood came within touching distance, the door opened behind them, and Circe and Donna stumbled out. Donna ran straight to the Doctor, who had multiple weapons trained on him, while Circe squinted in the brighter surroundings. 

“There we go,” the Doctor soothed, “safe and sound,” he embraced Donna before he glanced to Circe, grinning at her. His grin fell, seeing the oncoming threat behind her. 

Circe didn’t need telling twice. One look at the Doctor’s face and she was moving toward him, grabbing his and Donna’s hands and pulling them along. “No time to reunite, we need to go!” She urged, as the first Ood struck a guard that stood too close. 

While the soldiers stayed behind to take care of the Ood threat, the Doctor, Donna and Circe ran back out into the snowy world, Solana following behind. They turned a corner and paused to breathe while Circe and the Doctor ducked their heads around it, making sure they hadn’t been followed. 

“If people back on Earth knew what was going on here…” Donna panted, glaring at Solana. 

“Oh,” the sales representative scoffed, “don’t be so stupid. Of course they know.” 

Donna shook her head, “they know how you treat the Ood?” 

“They don’t ask, same thing!” Solana defended. 

The sound of bullets being fired was getting closer, and Circe glanced to the Doctor. She reckoned they had maybe 45 seconds before their position would be revealed purely through the methodical spread of the soldiers. 

“Solana, the Ood aren’t born like this. A species born to serve could never evolve in the first place.” The anger in the Doctor’s voice only grew with each phrase. “What does the company do to make them obey?”

The woman exclaimed, “that’s nothing to do with me!” 

“Because you don’t ask?” Circe muttered spitefully, causing Solana to turn her dark glare to her. 

“It’s Doctor Ryder’s territory.” 

The Doctor latched onto the new information. “And where’s he? What part of the complex?” He pushed open the map they’d received on arrival, holding it out towards her. She frowned, looking down at the map in shame. Her hesitance only made Circe scowl. 

“Humanity, always trying to cover their own asses, always looking for a scapegoat…” she muttered, lip curling upwards at Solana. 

The Doctor ignored her, trying to convince Solana to help them. “I could help with the red-eye, now show me!” 

Solana finally pointed to a building near the rear end of the complex, within the restricted section. “There, beyond the red section,” she finally said, some form of conscience forcing her to act. 

Circe went to move, but the Doctor stayed put, his eyes intensely staring into Solana’s own. Was he-was he really going to ask…? 

“Come with me,” he beseeched. 

Yes, he was. 

“You’ve seen the warehouse, you can’t agree with all this!” He persuaded, and the three of them watched as her dark eyes shifted, guilt and confusion swirling obviously inside her. 

“We don’t need this,” Circe muttered at him, words that he ignored. “Let’s just go save the Ood already, yeah?” She placed a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder, but he just glanced at her, willing Solana to accept, and willing Circe to…she couldn’t tell. 

“She knows this place better than us, she-you can help!” He insisted, looking back to Solana. 

Circe saw her decision, saw the shame flicker through her expression long before she witnessed the first intake of breath. But as Solana breathed to shout, “they’re over here,” Circe couldn’t help but feel marginally disappointed. 

Maybe she’d wanted to see that capacity to help that had the Doctor so enthralled with humanity, to see the wonder and beauty beyond the pain through the eyes of someone who was discovering it for the first time. 

She didn’t stop to analyse the feelings. She pushed Donna and the Doctor ahead of her, and whispered one final phrase to Solana. “You could’ve been so much more.” 

Chapter Text

At a certain point, Circe was no longer following the Doctor or the map. She found she was able to follow the song that swam in front of her mind like the most beautiful, heartwrenching choir in the universe. 

“Oh, can you hear it?” The Doctor exclaimed finally, turning suddenly to face a door. Circe was already there, typing into the access point before he could even pull his sonic screwdriver. Donna followed her, anxiously looking over Circe’s shoulder as the Time Lady covered the entrance, not entirely sure what the other side would reveal. 

“We didn’t need a map, Doctor,” Circe teased, glancing at him over Donna’s head as the door slid open. He grinned at her as she got the door to open, kicking it in to reveal a dark warehouse, cages and chains and restraints left around the place.

The Doctor and Donna fought over being trapped within the warehouse, but it was unimportant compared to the song that made both of Circe’s hearts break. It circled her mind, spun from hope and devastation and loss and servitude. It pulled at her hearts, reminding her of her own days of service, of days when she didn’t decide when she woke, or ate, or slept. Days when she’d killed, both because she had been ordered to and because maybe she enjoyed the control it gave her. 

“Shut up and listen,” Circe snapped at the Doctor, and he stepped up beside her. Circe closed her eyes to embrace the song, but she sensed the Doctor taking it in, felt Donna’s confusion as she took in only darkness. 

They moved into the space, walking down a set of stairs to see more of the same.

The Doctor frowned, murmuring, “oh, my head.” 

“What is it?” Donna asked in concern. 

“Can’t you hear it? The singing?” 

Circe pursed her lips, glancing at him. She wondered if the song was overly affecting him, if he’d left his mental shields too low. “Doctor, she’s human. Not telepathic, remember?” She prompted. 

He waved her away with a brush of his hand, moving to a console he could see within the small circle of vision they had. Pushing a button, he switched on a light in front of them. 

Ood, so many Ood, trapped within small metal cages within the darkness. Circe saw them first, recognised them from what she’d experienced. The light only shone within one cage, but from the refractions of it, she saw countless more cages just like it, stretching further than the eye could see. These Ood were crouched together, holding something hidden within their hands, all wearing the same dirty coveralls, with a label of identification on the back. 

“They look different to the others,” Donna mused sympathetically. She raised a hand to the barred cage, as if she could aid their cause simply by touching it. 

The Doctor crouched by the door as he spoke, “that’s because they’re natural-born Ood, unprocessed, before they’re adapted to slavery. Unspoilt.” 

The word hit Circe, and she made to take a step back. 

Was that…did he see her like that? She related to the Ood, having been trapped and forced into service that they never actually consented to. Was she…spoiled? 

“That’s their song,” the Doctor continued. 

Donna whispered mournfully, “I can’t hear it.” 

Circe shook her head. “Trust me, you don’t want to.” 

The Doctor watched Donna carefully, “but do you want to?” He offered it tentatively, and Circe crossed her arms above them. 

Donna thought hard for a long moment, and swallowed. “Yeah.” 

“Don’t be stupid, Donna. It’s the song of captivity, of hope and death and pain.” Circe caught Donna’s gaze as she looked back to the Time Lady, her blue eyes filling with determination and hurt. “It is a song to cope with the suffering they have been dealt. It is a song that you will never have to hear,” Circe hadn’t intended on her words becoming so spiteful, but they had, and the human’s stubborn will only rose in response. 

“Let me hear it.” Donna’s words echoed in the otherwise quiet space. 

Circe shook her head, stepping away. The Doctor glanced at her, his gaze searching for…something, but he looked back to Donna once more. “Face me,” he instructed, and he lifted his hands to place them on either side of her face, index fingers on her temples. He shut his eyes, focussing. “Open your mind, that’s it,” he coaxed. 

Circe knew what she was hearing, could see her face slacken in disbelief and pain, could see the pity take form before she’d even been listening for more than a minute. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and she gasped for breath. She looked to the Ood, to the Doctor, to Circe… 

“Take it away,” she gasped, as if she couldn’t breathe, “I can’t bear it.” 

Circe didn’t pretend that she hadn’t hoped…well, either way, she placed one hand atop Donna’s head, the contact gentle, and with the song floating between both of them, she returned Donna’s natural psychic defences. The Doctor placed a hand on Circe’s leg, trying to reassure her, but Circe just stiffened. 

Donna shook her head, erasing any lingering traces of the song from her mind. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered, now looking up to Circe. 

The Doctor reassured her, “it’s okay,” but he glanced up to Circe’s hard green eyes, and wasn’t sure how okay she would be. 

“But you can still hear it…” Donna realised. 

“All the time.”

The Ood in front of them shuffled, as if they could sense the lingering tension. Circe supposed they likely could, given how strong their psychic capabilities seemed to be.

Metallic thuds suddenly sounded over their heads, and Circe turned to face the way they’d come, waiting to defend against the oncoming threat. 

“Hostiles in 10 rels,” she warned, estimating the time it would take for the humans to breech the entrance. 

“They’re breaking in!” Donna exclaimed. 

Circe heard the whirring of the sonic screwdriver, and she wanted to hit the Doctor. That was his plan?

“Ah, let them!” He encouraged, moving into the cage. Circe turned back around to encourage Donna inside as well, shutting the door behind her to leave the three of them inside.  The Doctor was already kneeing before the Ood, none of which could meet his eyes. 

“What are you holding?” He asked gently, “show me.” 

Circe hovered near the door, both to cover the exit and to prevent her presence from intimidating the Ood before her. Their song span her mind in circles; she felt nauseous and weak. Her skin itched, and the Time Energy in her body seemed to beg to be released, to search for answers. Even still, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the Ood’s hands as they moved forward uncertainly, unsure if they could trust the newcomers. 

“Friend,” the Doctor encouraged, “Doctor, Donna, Circe, friend.” His words were soft, and Circe found herself nodding along with them. “Let me see, look at me…” he coaxed, and the Ood lifted its head, glancing between the Doctor and Donna, before his amber eyes landed on Circe. 

Friend.

The telepathic word sang out from the song, reverberating into Circe’s very being. She heaved in a breath, feeling the unspoken connotations the Ood felt behind that word. Friend was one who understood; one who had been through a similar experience. Friend was one who cared, who saw and felt not pity, but anger. Friend was one who was also…spoilt. 

The Ood’s gaze moved back to the Doctor, but Circe felt the burning telepathic attention of every Ood in their hive mind, and she understood. She had not been a slave, but she had been trapped under the thumb of someone who hadn’t cared for her wellbeing, who had actively tortured her. She had been crafted into a product and sold to the highest bidder. Her duties hadn’t been housekeeping and service, but strategy and war. 

Similar enough that the Ood, a species who had been bred into subservience, with no education beyond the necessary, could recognise it in someone foreign. 

Was her spoilage so evident? 

The Ood crept forward, and his hands cracked open, revealing a palm sized brain, connected by a fragile tentacle to their minds. The pink flesh was covered by a semi-transparent membrane, keeping the wrinkled organ moist. 

Donna gasped, “is that…?”

The Doctor breathed, “it’s a brain. A hind brain.” 

“They’re born with a secondary brain,” Circe whispered, drumming or hearts pounding in her ears, in her veins. For Donna, she explained, “like the amyglada in humans, it processes memory and emotions. Without it, you would be a shell of a human, barely even Donna. You…well,” she shrugged then. 

The Doctor took over, glancing back to Circe, surprised that she’d offered the explanation to Donna. “You’d be like an Ood, a processed Ood.” 

“So the company cuts off their brains?” 

Circe scowled, shoving her hands into her trouser pockets. Her fingers clenched and released the fabric there, needing the movement to unleash the emotions that raged within her. 

“And they stitch on the translator.” 

The Doctor’s words echoed the knowledge she’d known the moment she’d seen the hind brain, but the confirmation wasn’t pleasant. 

“Like a lobotomy,” Donna murmured, horrified. 

If the Doctor was to be believed, some humans were capable of seeing the worst of the universe, and wanting to help in spite of that. 

As Donna spoke, Circe’s hearts sank. Even in trying to understand the Doctor’s beliefs, his faith in humanity, even as she tried to work on her distrust of Donna, Circe couldn’t marry up anything to her next words. 

“I spent all that time looking for you, Doctor, because I thought it would be so wonderful out there.” The containment cell was silent, before her next words echoed out. “I want to go home.” 

Circe’s mind span, this time not from the song, but from the dichotomy those words presented when she thought about it compared to her understanding of Donna. If Donna was working with Rose to bring about the end of the Doctor, she wouldn’t ever suggest going home. Rose would never let her puppet risk the mission like this. Donna should be wide eyed, taking in the sights, learning as much as she could; thrilled to be part of the bigger picture. 

But Donna’s eyes were sullen, downcast. Her face quietly devastated. Donna didn’t want to travel with them for whatever plans Rose had in store. Maybe, it was possible that Donna just…wanted to travel, to experience, to learn; but some things are too big for a human. 

Circe would never admit it, but what if she’d been wrong? 

There was a crash from the entrance, and a soldier called to someone they couldn’t see yet, “they’re with the Ood, sir.

Circe leapt into action, any nausea and vertigo gone. She firmly held the cell door shut as the Doctor jumped next to her, his sonic screwdriver doing what it needed to on the lock. 

“What you gonna do, then? Arrest me?” He taunted, and he rattled the door manically. “Lock me up? Throw me in a cage? Well, you’re too late!” 

As a balding man wearing a tuxedo and a scientist approached, along with several armed soldiers pointing weapons at them, the Doctor poked his chin through the bars, a wild look to his eyes. Circe lowered into a steady stance, ready to defend against the threat to her primary, even with her paradigm shifting before her. 

The bald man just sighed, commanding, “get them to my office.” 

Circe was quickly realising that the Doctor had a concerning habit of getting purposefully captured by their aggressors. As two of them were handcuffed to heating pipes in the CEO’s office, Circe scowled at the Doctor, jangling the handcuffs towards his face from where she stood at the desk, separated from her travelling companions. Her handcuffs were jerked backwards, and she was attached to the desk that had been screwed into the floor. 

The balding man was talking, self importance dripping from every word. “Why don’t you just come out and say it? FOTO activists!” 

There were two armed guards beside the Doctor and Donna, and two behind Circe. 

“If that’s what the Friends of the old are trying to prove, yes!” The Doctor fought. 

“The Ood were nothing without us,” the man explained callously, “just animals roaming around on the ice.” 

“Because you can’t hear them,” Circe scoffed, pushing herself up to sit on her hands. Her legs swung under the desk, to the annoyance of the two guards stood behind her. 

He turned to face her, his face screwed up in frustration. “They welcomed it! It’s not as if they put up a fight!” 

Donna, whose eyes had been dull and mouth silent on their walk to the main compound, finally pounced. “You idiot!” She spat the word out, savouring the consonants to emphasise her point. “They’re born with their brains in their hands, don’t you see? That makes them peaceful, they’ve got to be, cos a creature like that would have to trust anyone it meets!” 

Circe tilted her head, mouth open slightly as she registered the truth in the words. 

“Oh,” the Doctor intoned, “nice one.” 

Donna whispered, “thank you.” 

The businessman rolled his eyes. “The system’s worked for 200 years. All we’ve got is a rogue batch.” He stepped forward, leaning intimidatingly into the Doctor and Donna’s face. “But the infection is about to be sterilised.” He lifted his watch to his mouth, using it as a walkie-talkie. “Mr Kess? How do we stand?” 

A crackling voice came back, confirming, “canisters primed, sir. As soon as the core heats up, the gas is released. Give it 200 marks…” Circe and the Doctor exchanged worried looks over the head of the businessman, “and counting.” 

“You’re going to gas them?” The Doctor exclaimed. 

“Kill the livestock. The classic foot-and-mouth solution from the olden days. Still works,” he raised his eyebrows, like the solution was clever or funny. 

Circe winced as the song that had circled her mind since their arrival began to swirl in uncontrollable patterns, smacking against her shields as if it were trying to break through. Her eyes widened as she realised it was. It was trying to destroy her shields, to show her the absolute rage and fear and desperation the Ood were feeling. It was only one more moment that passed before the compound alarms were blaring, and the bald man muttered, “what the hell?” 

“The Ood are finishing this,” Circe whispered, wincing from the next attempt to gain entrance to her mind. “One way or another.” 

While the bald man, scientist and his Ood went outside to check on the beginning sounds of fighting, the Doctor and Donna began to fidget with their restraints, sharing fearful glances. Circe just began to smirk, her legs freely swinging beneath her. 

“Change of plan,” the man exclaimed as he rushed back into the office.” 

The scientist shared his report as they returned, “no reports of trouble off-world, sir. It’s still contained to the Ood-Sphere.” 

“Then we’ve got a public duty to stop it before it spreads.” 

The Doctor interrupted, “what’s happening?” 

“Everything you wanted,” he responded spitefully. “No doubt there’ll be a full police investigation once this place has been sterilised, so I can’t risk a bullet to the head. I’ll leave you to the mercies of the Ood.” He made to move away, but Circe chuckled. The sound made his spine stiffen, and he slowly turned to look at her. 

Her green eyes swam with golden Time Energy as she said, “but there’s something else, isn’t there? Something we haven’t seen!”

He glared at her, despite the fear that flickered across his expression. 

“What d’ya mean?” Donna asked.

The Doctor took over, “a creature couldn’t survive with a separate fore brain and hind brain, they’d be at war with themselves. There’s got to be a third element.” 

“So clever!” 

“It’s got to be connected to the red-eye, what is it?” 

A threatening gleam entered the man’s eye, and he stepped towards the Doctor, looking down on him. “‘It’ won’t exist for very much longer.” He glanced to Donna and Circe. “Enjoy your Ood.” 

He left, striding out with purpose as his scientist and guards followed. Circe smirked at his back, knowing what minefield of Ood waited for him outside. The Doctor and Donna began to struggle with their handcuffs. 

“Well, do something!” Donna snapped, “you’re the one with all the tricks! You must’ve met Houdini!”

The Doctor grunted, “these are really good handcuffs!” 

Donna muttered sardonically, “well I’m glad of that! I mean, at least we’ve got quality!”

Meanwhile Circe swung her legs harder, stretching the muscles, before she managed to swing on leg up onto the desk, knee pulled up to her chin. Sat as she was on her hands, she wriggled them to the front of her, and slid one leg free. Swinging the other leg up, she did the same process, rotating her wrists in relief now that she could see her hands. The handcuff chain was attached to a small metal link fused to the desk, and she crouched before it to work at pulling herself free. 

Donna paused in her struggles to gape at Circe. “How’d you do that?” 

A door in front of Donna and the Doctor swung open, and Circe renewed her efforts, trying to find a loose link in the chain to twist free. Three Ood entered the room, their orbs held up, ready to attack, red eyes shining clearly in the light. 

“Doctor, Donna; Circe, friend!” The Doctor exclaimed, trying to convince the Ood that they meant no harm. 

“The circle must be broken!” Donna offered. 

Once Circe had successfully twisted the link, she pulled the chain from the desk, and leapt in front of the Doctor and Donna, standing defensively. Her green eyes shone with the time vortex swirling through her, its energy showing through the scars on her hands as she raised them to fighting positions. The Ood didn’t even glance at her, only approaching with fixed gazes on the Doctor and Donna. 

“Doctor, Donna; Circe, friend!” The Doctor called out again, hoping it might break through the song. 

Donna yelled, “the circle must be broken!” 

As the Ood approached, Circe bent her knees, preparing to strike the enslaved Ood, despite how it made her hearts hurt, but the Doctor and Donna’s rambled desperate words must have broken through, because the song changed, and the red eyed Ood paused, orbs hovering a fraction past Circe’s temple. With her breath held, she watched as the Ood lowered the orbs, and their red-eyes faded to their usual pale gold. They held their head in their hands as their anger receded, and they were able to see clearly through their fury. 

“Doctor, Donna. Circe Friend,” the first Ood stated. 

“Yes!” The Doctor cried, “friends, oh yes!” 

“That’s us!” Donna confirmed. 

Circe lowered her hands, knocking them back to stretch them out. “Care to help out?” She stretched out her hands, showing the separated handcuffs still encircling her wrists. 

Once they’d been uncuffed, Circe grabbed Donna’s arm, whispering to her, “we are about to walk into an active battlefield. Do not leave our side, do not walk away, do not invesitgate. You follow quietly, and if you find yourself in trouble, scream. One of us will come.” Donna’s eyes were wide in fear, and she nodded sharply. Circe eyed her for only a second, to ensure her instructions had appropriately sunken in, before she was taking the lead. The Doctor and Donna followed her down the metal staircase into the frozen world outside, ducking behind cement buildings when required. 

A quick fire from a weapon in front of them had Circe pulling the Doctor from open space, holding Donna against the wall, even as the Doctor yelled, “I don’t know where it is! I don’t know where they’ve gone!” 

“What are we looking for?” Donna yelled from beside Circe, but she didn’t move. 

Not until the Doctor was again sprinting across the open space, and Circe tugged Donna into a run, keeping the fragile human to the side of her. 

“We’re looking for the third element, Donna, a sort of hive mind that keeps the Ood connected,” Circe prompted. 

“Might be underground,” the Doctor theorised, “like some sort of cave, or a cavern, or…” 

They pushed on, until an explosion at their backs had the three of them falling to the ground. Donna yelled, and Circe moved to cover the two of them with as much of her body as she could. She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder, but ignored it. At least it hadn’t been Donna’s, or worse the Doctor’s, head. 

As the smoke from the explosion cleared, Circe stood to check for hostiles, only to see a familiar Ood stood on the stairs, its head tilted in curiosity at them. She eyed it cautiously, wondering if it recognised them. It didn’t speak, but Circe realised its song had swam forth, through the wrathful revenge chants previously circling her mind, and it tapped gently on her shields, offering knowledge. 

“He can show us where to go,” she said, but she didn’t turn her back to the Ood while the Doctor helped Donna stand. “He knows where it is.” 

The song was nearly overwhelming by the time they’d entered Building 15. It tightened around Circe’s shields, vying for entry, begging her to help. She ignored it, ignored how it reminded her of her time in the war, ignored how ignoring it made her feel traitorous. She wasn’t an Ood, and she was more help to the Ood when she was keeping the Doctor alive. It wouldn’t help anyone to drive the Sorceress out to kill every human on the surface of the Ood-Sphere; especially because she would kill every human. 

This warehouse was tainted in a red light, and as they walked downstairs, Circe had to hold her breath from the smell of stale flesh. The Doctor hit the bottom floor first, and he moved straight to the rail, peering over the edge. Donna wasn’t far behind, and Circe watched as the horror and wonder conflicted on her face. 

“The Ood Brain,” the Doctor confirmed, awe in his own expression. 

Circe moved behind Donna, peering over her shoulder to see. 

The brain was massive, larger than a small human bungalow, with deep wrinkles that gave away more knowledge than the Ood had shown since they’d arrived. It was hooked into wires as thick as an arm, possibly diverting power or energy from the brain to prevent Ood from thinking too deeply, and an electrical shield circled the entire field. 

Circe understood then. 

“Now it all makes sense, that’s the missing link, the third element,” the Doctor exclaimed, “binding them all together. Fore brain, hind brain, and this - the telepathic centre.” 

Circe placed a hand on Donna’s shoulder. “It’s a shared mind, connecting all the Ood in song.” 

A rattle of chains had Circe moving forward, the pistol in the bald man’s hand immediately setting her hackles to rise. She glared at him, ignoring how the defensive position was putting tension on her injured shoulder. She didn’t have time to heal it.

“Cargo,” he was saying, “I can always go into cargo. I’ve got the rockets, I’ve got the sheds. Smaller business, much more manageable, without livestock.” 

The scientist was still with him, and he warned, “he’s mined the area.” 

Circe didn’t outwardly react, but she did reach back to push Donna slightly further away from the mines laid around the brain. Whether it was to protect her from them, or prevent her from using them to harm the Doctor, she wasn’t sure. 

“They’re gonna kill it?” Donna asked her, and Circe nodded once. 

The bald man continued, “they found that…thing centuries ago, beneath the Northern Glacier.” 

“Those pylons…” the Doctor realised. 

“In a circle,” Donna did too. “The circle must be broken!” 

Circe glanced to the Doctor and confirmed his thoughts. “Damping the telepathic field.” 

The Doctor frowned. “Stopping the Ood from connecting for 200 years.”

The bald man looked to his favourite servant, frowning sadly. “And you, Ood Sigma, you brought them here. I expected better.” 

There was a shift in the song of Ood Sigma, as if his rage wasn’t a rampant beast, but a cat lying in wait. He stepped forward and raised his orb, “my place is at your side, sir.”

He laughed, “still subservient. Good Ood.” 

The words made Circe shiver, far too familiar for comfort. 

“If that barrier thing’s in place, how come the Ood started breaking out?” Donna asked, stepping out from Circe’s back. 

One day, Donna was going to get killed because she’d ignored Circe’s protection. 

“Maybe it’s taken centuries to adapt. The subconscious reaching out,” the Doctor suggested.

“It’s almost like an immune system needing exposure to a virus to build a response against it, but much darker and crueller, and not really like that at all,” Circe supposed. Her words made the Doctor choke back a laugh. 

The scientist began to speak then, stepping out from the bald man. “But the process was too slow. Had to be accelerated,” he explained to the three travellers, before he looked to the man. “You should never have given me access to the controls, Mr Halpen. I lowered the barrier to its minimum. Friends of the Ood, sir,” the scientist explained smugly, “it’s taken me ten years to infiltrate the company. And I succeeded.” 

It suddenly occurred to Circe that she was about to watch a man die, if she remembered her choice hunting correctly. She wasn’t allowed to interfere with his death; it would cause too many issues with her timeline. 

“Yes,” Mr Halpen conceded, but he didn’t look upset. “Yes, you did.” 

With one arm, he threw the scientist over the railing, and he fell into the brain, becoming absorbed by the mucus and tissue fibres there. The Doctor and Donna rushed to try and grab him, but he’d fallen too far before they could. 

“You…murdered him!” Dona whispered, looking back to Mr Halpen. 

The weapon was pointed at them again, and Circe pulled Donna back, the human easy to manhandle from her shock. 

Mr Halpen commented, “very observant, ginger.” 

Circe firmly positioned herself in front of the Doctor and Donna, despite the other Time Lord’s unvoiced dislike of the situation, keeping her shoulders wide to create the largest physical shield that she could. “Well then,” the bald man was saying, “can’t say I’ve ever shot anyone before. Can’t say I’m gonna like it.” He smiled at Circe, “but it’s not exactly a normal day, is it? Still…you seem to be volunteering yourself to go first…” 

Circe prepared to move, to absorb the first bullet into a less vulnerable area, but Ood Sigma spoke then, interrupting the man on a power trip. 

“Would you like a drink, sir?” 

Circe’s brain spun as she absorbed the new information. Ood Sigma’s song was different, had been so different from every other Ood on the Sphere. Why? And why offer the human asshole a drink now, at the end? Had it gone mad in its servitude? Unless…

Mr Halpen laughed, looking to his servant. “I think hair loss is the least of my problems right now, thanks.” 

Circe’s eyes widened, and she glanced between Mr Halpen and the Ood in surprise. The Doctor followed her sights, and his own eyes met hers in understanding. Ood Sigma moved, standing in front of Circe, and she frowned, worry coiling in her gut. 

“Please have a drink, sir.” 

“If…if you’re going to stand in their way,” Mr Halpen threatened, but his skin was beginning to perspire, and Circe noticed that his breathing was beginning to grow heavy, as if there was an obstruction in his airway, “I’ll shoot you too.” His words were slowing, eyes blinking slowly, consistently. 

The Ood just tilted its head. “Please have a drink, sir.” 

Circe placed a hand on its shoulder, prepared to move it out the way if Mr Halpen overcame his sudden medical issue, but it was unnecessary. 

“Have…” his eyes widened, and his words were hoarse. “Have you poisoned me?” 

Ood Sigma was kind. The Doctor had figured it out at the same time as Circe, and he covered her hand where it lay on Ood Sigma’s shoulder. He looked to Circe, his warm rough fingers gently squeezed her own, as if lending her support, his hazel eyes glittering in emotions too big for her to understand. 

“Natural Ood must never kill, sir.” 

“What is that stuff?” The Doctor asked, looking back to the drink Ood Sigma held. 

The Ood was happy to comply. “Ood-graft suspended in a biological compound, sir.” 

“Oh,” Circe murmured, voice high in surprise. That…hadn’t been what she’d expected. 

“What the hell does that mean?” Mr Halpen demanded, raising a hand to his head. He cradled it, as if in pain. 

“Oh, dear,” the Doctor whispered. 

“Tell me!” Mr Halpen yelled, shaking the pistol in his hand. 

The Doctor smirked slightly, “funny thing, the subconscious. Takes all sorts of shapes. It came out in the red-eye as revenge. Came out in the rabid Ood as anger. And then…” he looked at Ood Sigma, squeezing Circe’s hand in command. She took over then. 

“There was patience,” her words were soft, wondering if her own patience would pay off one day. “Intelligence, mercy, kindness, all focused on Ood Sigma.” Her green eyes flickered gold as she flashed them up to look at Mr Halpen, whose facial features were beginning to convulse. “Been experiencing some hair loss, Mr Halpen?” 

He reached up to his receding hairline in shock, and his gloved hand came away covered in shed hair. Trembling in fear, he couldn’t keep the pistol held aimed at one person, the sights swaying haphazardly across all of them. Circe frowned, unable to predict whether a shot might be fired. 

“What have you done?” 

“They’ve been preparing you for a very long time,” the Doctor taunted, his expression filled with fascination for the metamorphosis occurring before them. “And now you’re standing next to the Ood brain…” 

Circe, feeling the song wrapping around her mind, spat, “hear their pain, Mr Halpen? Their suffering? D’ya hear their song, yet?” 

And the man’s wide eyes, tearing up in fear and confusion, were drawn to the Ood brain, the telepathic calling overcoming his baser human instincts, even as he tried to resist it. “What…have…you…” his words were becoming distorted, and Circe reached a hand back to grab Donna’s. 

Without turning around, she warned the last human in the warehouse, “you might not want to watch this.” 

Donna, for possibly the first time since they’d met, listened. She burrowed her face into Circe’s back, fingers clutching at the Time Lady’s scarred fingers. Circe had to ignore how the grip made her fingers burn, how it only served to remind her that she needed to find somewhere to choice hunt, and soon, how it caused the Time Energy lingering under her skin to grate against the underside of her skin.
“I’m…not…!” Mr Halpen tried to keep speaking, but something was raising up his throat, and he dropped the weapon, as pain drew his hands to his scalp. He bent over in agony, fingers tearing at the skin on his head, and instead of bringing away just hair, he tore the skin of his scalp in half, pulling his skin off his face as he stood up once more. With wordless gags and moans of pain, tentacles were spilling from his mouth, freshly grown organs ready to meet the world. And when he stood upright once again, he had become an Ood, the human skin previously covering his face now on the floor before him. He blinked in shock, his telepathic voice now joining the song, as Donna lifted her head. 

She gasped, “the…they turned him into an Ood?” 

The Doctor popped his lips, “yep.” 

Her eyes traced his new features, from the slanted yellow eyes to the wrinkled nose, to his newly formed tentacles. “He’s an Ood,” she emphasised, making Circe chuckle. 

“We noticed,” Circe offered, not sure how to help Donna process this any further. 

As if to drive the point home, the Ood that had been Mr Halpen proceeded to cough up something new into his hands, and Circe’s eyes widened in shock as she saw the hind brain, now sat in his gloved fingers. He straightened again, now a fully formed Ood. 

“He has become Oodkind,” Ood Sigma explained. 

Circe frowned, “someone should tell him to keep his hind brain safe. People around these parts tend to cut them off.” She gnashed her teeth in anger, but the Doctor and Donna’s hands on her own squeezed, as if they both were attempting to reassure her, and she took a breath. Instead of focusing on the anger, she instead moved to the wire fence, dropping the Doctor and Donna’s hands. She carefully walked the length of the fence, disarming and removing the explosives while the others continued their conversation. 

“We will take care of him,” Ood Sigma reassured, looking to watch Circe work.  

Donna stepped away, raising her hands to squeeze her head in confusion. “It’s weird, being with you two, I can’t tell what’s right and what’s wrong anymore.”

“It’s better that way. People who know for certain tend to be like Mr Halpen,” the Doctor commented dryly, before he looked to Ood Sigma. “And now,” he crowed, rushing over to the control panel. He paused, looking back to Ood Sigma. Circe, the explosives successfully disarmed, stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching the Doctor work. His words were circling in her mind, but she knew that she was doing right. Didn’t he? How could he say that when he was always so certain he was doing the best thing for the universe? How could he save anyone and claim to be doing right, when he disregards anyone else who has that same belief?

What would happen if he ever found out about her choices; about her future planning? 

“Sigma, would you allow me the honour?” He asked, and the Ood confirmed. 

“It is yours, Doctor.” 

He exclaimed, “oh yes!” And turned to get to work. “Stifled for 200 years. But not anymore! The circle is broken, the Ood can sing!” The Doctor pushed the lever, and suddenly Circe couldn’t focus on the physical realm around her. Her mind drew her inwards, to listen, to experience, to discover:

Freedom. 

The song was freedom. 

Instead of circling her mind, it was a haphazard concoction of individual thoughts and hive mind collections that strummed against her mental shields like they were musical instruments. Not intrusive, and not unwelcome, but loving and celebratory. The song of the Ood was release and joy and mourning, combined into one. It was an orchestra of harmonious melodies that played every note in perfect tune, with interweaving countermelodies that Circe followed from start to end over and over again. It was desire and longing and adventure and terrifying. 

Her eyes burned, and her skin itched. She had never heard the song of freedom before. Not properly. 

“I can hear it,” Donna whispered in awe, overcome by the song. 

The Doctor came to stand beside Circe, his hazel eyes watching her cautiously, even though she could see his own thrill in hearing the song behind his own eyes. “Alright?” He asked softly, tearing his eyes away to look back at Donna, make sure she wasn’t about to fall into the brain, and in doing so he gave Circe then space to answer in her own time, in her own way. 

Wordlessly, she wrapped her arms around his waist, burrowing into his chest as if she could hide her truth from the universe, so long as she stayed beside him. The Doctor didn’t move for a microsecond, but then his arms were surrounding her, and his chin rested atop her shoulder in the same way her face hid within his, and if there were tears shed into the dark fabric of his suit, neither would admit to it.

Her breathing never changed, but she whispered to him, “I’ve never heard this song before.” 

And if the Doctor’s own tears dripped down his face onto the dark cotton of her shirt, neither would mention it. 

Circe didn’t leave immediately. She convinced Donna and the Doctor to celebrate beside the Ood, and to give her a moment alone. Donna hadn’t understood, but the Doctor had looked at her with his stupid puppy-dog eyes that saw and understood far too much, and he sent her a blinding smile filled with emotions too big to analyse. He’d run upstairs to spread the news, Donna not far behind him. The song that now filled the human’s head had brought all of her energy and wonder back, and she was again nearly as energetic as the Doctor was. 

Ood Sigma had stayed, with Ood Halpen beside him. Circe didn’t mind. They would have seen what she was about to do anyway through the Ood brain below them. 

Circe clenched and relaxed her fists a few times, hearts beating a rapid rhythm in her chest, before she slowly unclamped the mental shields she’d had on ultimate lockdown since the Titanic. If the Doctor was to be entirely believed, the Master was dead, and thusly could not attack her mind again. She was safe.

Safe to hear the song in its entirety.

With each unlocked clamp, with each gate opened, more of the song trickled into Circe’s mind, and the foreign feeling was almost overwhelming each time. She took the time to acclimatise to each new onslaught of telepathic communication, not wanting to give herself whiplash by unlocking everything and leaving her mind wide open. As she did so, the new emotions sank into her very being, and when her mind was finally unprotected, open and vulnerable, she finally found what she had been looking for. 

Their liberation was a victory, and worthy of celebration and joy and wonder, but there had been 200 years of slavery, 200 years of Oodkind who had suffered needlessly. Underneath the liberation was a simmering rage and terror. Rage that it had happened, that Oodkind had been lost and hurt. Terror that it might happen again. 

That was the song that Circe understood, that she had experienced day in, day out, since regenerating into this body. 

But, if she could believe the Doctor, surely she was free? The Master was dead, Gallifrey destroyed, her safety assured. She was undoing the centuries of brainwashing and programming drilled into her, however slowly she had to. 

There was a dark part of her that she was terrified to leave exposed that held her jealousy. The Ood had been freed, and their liberation instantaneous. So why couldn’t her own have been that way? 

The Ood saw every emotion she shared, and Ood Sigma raised its arms, and she heard its distinctive voice join the song. Telling her story, telling her pain, telling her torment. 

And telling of her future. And the joys she would feel one day. The love. 

Circe wept. 

“The message has gone out,” the Doctor explained on the snowy plateau they’d parked on. “That song resonated across the galaxies, everyone heard it. Everyone knows.” Opposite them stood a semicircle of Ood, with Ood Sigma in the middle. “The rockets are bringing them back, the Ood are coming home.”

Ood Sigma held its translation orb up, saying “we thank you, Doctor-Donna, Circe Friend. Friends of Oodkind. And what of you now, will you stay? There is room in the song for you?” 

The Doctor swayed on his feet, unsure how to turn down the kind offer. “Oh, I’ve…” he stammered, “sort of got a song of my own, thanks.” 

Ood Sigma tilted its head, “I think your song must end soon.” 

Circe knew it wasn’t a threat, but her entire body stiffened and her eyes burned into Ood Sigma’s in warning. 

“Meaning?” The Doctor asked quietly. 

“Every song must end. Even Circe’s melody changes soon.” 

The Doctor glanced to Circe, who looked to the Doctor in shock. 

What did Ood Sigma mean? Circe memorised each phrase, promising to spend time analysing the words and choices and meanings when she had a moment alone. 

“Erm…what about you?” The Doctor changed subject, looking to Donna. “You still want to go home?” 

Circe eyed Donna suspiciously, and she had to hold in her derision when Donna said, “no. Definitely not.” 

“Then,” the Doctor looked to Circe, “we’ll be off?” 

“Yeah, that’s us,” she confirmed. 

The Ood nodded its head, its song knocking sadly against Circe’s once again lifted mental shields, as if asking her something itself. “Take this song with you,” it offered.

“We will,” Donna promised. 

Circe’s eyes burned as she heard her own theme now weaving its way through her shields, and she murmured, “throughout time and space.” 

“Always,” finished the Doctor. 

“And know this, Doctor-Donna,” Ood Sigma finished, “you will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the Doctor-Donna, and our children’s children, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names, forever.”

The Doctor and Donna smiled, and began walking to the TARDIS. The Doctor stood by the door as Donna disappeared, and he turned to look back at Circe, who hadn’t moved yet. Her dark hair was greasy, tangling in the wintry winds, and her freckled skin only seemed to stand out from her dark clothing against the white surroundings. She closed her eyes, and she slid open her mental shields, sending her voice into the song for just a moment, winding through the theme Ood Sigma had created for her, and for a moment, she could imagine what freedom might look like. 

When she came to the TARDIS door a minute later, the Doctor’s eyes were shining at her, his mouth open as if he was going to speak. 

For the first time since she’d been Florence, Circe’s lips turned upwards. It was small, but…

Circe smiled. 

Chapter Text

“Martha called!” The Doctor came running into the exercise room, his hair astray and his eyes alive with excitement. He wore his blue suit today with a maroon tie that complimented his light brown eyes. “I just spoke to Martha, she just called me!” He panted in the doorway, and then he straightened for a moment, looking visibly confused. “This isn’t the kitchen.” 

Circe, taking heavy, controlled breaths, kept her pace as she ran along the moving track. The room was currently designed to look like an outdoor track field from Sol 3 (apparently, even the TARDIS was a fan of the humans), with a running path that moved under her like a treadmill. It was a small room, but the walls held views of a large outdoor space, lavender skies overhead and the surroundings dusty and orange. Despite knowing she was in the TARDIS, Circe felt like she could feel the heat of a foreign sun shining on her back. Her brown hair was knotted into two long braids that merged into one along her back, and she wore a simple sports bra and shorts. Her feet hitting the dusty path below her was comforting, and seemed to relieve the persistent desire to scratch at her hands. “I’m glad your observational skills are still functional,” she teased. 

The Doctor shook his head slightly, focusing back on Circe. “Martha called!” He held up the phone Martha had given him on her departure, and Circe raised an eyebrow. 

“Incredible. Martha used human technology for its intended purpose.” If she had used more sarcasm than intended, it wasn’t her fault. The Doctor was interrupting her first proper run since before she’d been Florence. “For a human, she continues to impress.” 

The Doctor sagged, sighing in frustration. “She needs us,” he prompted. 

Circe rolled her eyes. “Well, she did say it was emergency use.” 

The Doctor laughed shortly, despite the worry that coated his expression for his previous companion. “We have to go back to Earth,” he guided, and she finally allowed her steps to come to a stop.

She’d run another mile while talking to him. If her calculations were accurate, then she hadn’t lost a huge amount of her run pace despite her century-long break in training. If she kept her new regime up, she could return to her peak physical condition and maintain her higher quality of nutrition, all while still ensuring the Doctor and Donna were safe and healthy themselves. Even with the improved health benefits, she frowned as, with her hearts slowing down, the itch returned. Her fingers twitched uncomfortably. 

“I did think that might be the case. I don’t recall humans getting space-travel capabilities for another century at least.” She grabbed her bottle of water from beside the door and walked past the Doctor. “Let me shower, and then I’ll meet you at the console.” 

The Doctor watched her walk past, and unconsciously his gaze drifted across her toning back and legs, and…other…aspects of the physique that might be appreciated. He’d not seen so much of…Circe since after the Titanic, and while Time Lords didn’t hugely care about the appearance of bodies, he could certainly enjoy just how well Circe had filled out since her regeneration. 

“Are you going to stand there and stare, Starman, or pilot us to Sol 3 safely?” She snapped, pausing at the bend in the corridor. 

The Doctor started, his gaze rising to see her green eyes electrifying him from over her shoulder, and he, to his own surprise, blushed and turned his eyes to anywhere but her. He tried to stammer an excuse, but the TARDIS shut the door on him before he could, whacking his arse with enough force to push him forward into the corridor. With a grumble, he muttered something about being outnumbered on his own spaceship, and went to do exactly as Circe had ordered. 

Even as the thought of her ordering anything sent a smile to his face. 

The Doctor gave Circe time to shower and dress, although when she emerged into the console room 20 minutes later, the picture of unhurried ease, he did give her a half-hearted glare, tapping a non-existent watch on his left wrist in a manner very human-like. She shrugged, brushing off invisible dust from the shoulders of her red blazer. She’d dressed the blazer down today, with a white t-shirt underneath and simple blue jeans. 

“We have a Time Machine, Doctor. I can take as long as I need to get ready,” she challenged simply. He had the audacity to chuckle. 

The Doctor had already prepared the TARDIS for take off, so all he had to do was flick a lever and they were shaking through the Time Vortex. Circe took the short flight to recall exactly what choices she needed to make in the next part of the timeline. There was a lot of feigning ignorance, but she wasn’t sure yet what she was supposed to ignore. Then, very sternly, she’d memorised that she had to lie. About what, she couldn’t recall, but she would make sure when the time came that she was the best actor in the universe. That had been absolutely pivotal in all the timelines she’d searched. She hadn’t found one good timeline where she didn’t make the choice to lie. 

They landed with a soft thud, and the Doctor raced to the doors, throwing his brown coat on as he went. Donna smiled at him despite the nerves that littered every aspect of her body language. It made Circe wonder whether Donna’s desire to go home on the Ood-Sphere had been a farce. She’d been so willing to stay, even after saying the contrary. All her words had done was make Circe doubt her own perception of reality. If Donna was bright eyed and bushy tailed to see the universe, then shouldn’t that mean she was working with Rose? Perhaps her words in the Ood cells had been a trick to manipulate Circe into trusting her. 

Circe urged Donna forward first, ignoring her own nerves that began to flit to the surface. 

She hadn’t even said goodbye to Martha. 

If Circe remembered correctly, and she did, then she hadn’t said goodbye to Martha as Florence, absorbing Circe from the watch without a thought to the careful human doctor who had watched over her tenderly, and then Circe had made the choice not to be present when Martha decided to leave. Florence had been so angry at Martha, for so many years. And Circe, she hadn’t thought about the woman properly since she’d left. She was only human; it wasn’t like she could make a massive impact on the universe, regardless of how special the Doctor perceived her to be. 

Even so, there was some small part of Circe that had been Florence that hurt at the thought of Martha disliking her. She wondered where that had come from, whether that had always been present or if that had developed recently; a need to be liked. 

The Doctor stood in the street they’d landed in, and faced someone Circe couldn’t see outside the doors. “Martha Jones,” he said, unspoken emphasis in each syllable. 

Circe heard her voice, unchanged and unbending. “Doctor?” 

There were noises of greeting, and Circe could almost see the joy on Martha’s face. She fidgeted with her fingers. She’d looked into the future after she’d taken a shower, but her fingers were itching like mad. Her nails dug into her palms, trying to find the source of the itch. When Donna looked back, she made herself still her hands, and her palms stung where she’d scratched. “Coming?” Donna asked, with a hint of uncertainty. Circe nodded slightly, moving forward. 

“How’s the family?” Circe heard the Doctor ask. 

Martha replied, “not so bad, recovering!” Her voice was optimistic. 

Circe had forgotten about the family. They hadn’t been important after the Master had died. That was…that wasn’t a good thing to admit to humans, though. They valued remembering familial relations, didn’t they? 

“What about you?” The Doctor asked, voice slightly more serious. 

But Donna stepped outside the TARDIS, and the topic was left forgotten. Martha said, “right. I should’ve known.” She was almost teasing in her tone. “Didn’t take you long to replace me, then.” 

The Doctor groaned, “don’t fight! Martha, Donna. Donna, Martha. Please,” he begged, “don’t fight, I can’t bear it!” 

Circe smirked, stepping out beside Donna and leaning against the doorframe to watch Donna approach Martha, any nerves gone. “You wish!” She grinned, “I’ve heard all about you. He talks about you all the time.”

Oh, but Donna was good at this. It didn’t really matter in the end how much the Doctor had actually talked about Martha, because Donna gave off the vibe that Martha was a regular topic of casual conversation. 

Speaking of, the human hadn’t changed a bit. Her hair was straighter, but she stood with the same easy confidence that she’d always held. She dressed entirely in black, but Circe couldn’t see much wrong with that itself, other than it appearing a bit like a uniform. Beyond that…the only new thing she could see was a shiny rock sitting nicely on her left ring finger. 

Martha laughed, “I dread to think!” 

“No, no, no, no,” and there Donna was ruining it. “He says nice things! Good things! Nice things. Really good things.” 

Circe laughed as Martha muttered, “oh my god, he’s told you everything.” Her laugh drew Martha’s eyes, which widened as she exclaimed, “Circe! Look at you!” 

Circe finally approached the group, nodding at Martha in greeting. They didn’t hug, but Martha was sending her a broad grin that implied she wanted to. “It’s good to see you so well, Martha,” Circe said stiffly, not sure how the human would react to her. 

“Me well? You were basically on death’s door last I saw you. I’m so glad you’re doing better, you look…you look incredible!” Martha exclaimed, but still she didn’t reach out to touch Circe. “Go on, Circe, you’ll tell me straight; what’s he been saying?” She tilted her chin up sharply, grinning at the Time Lady. 

Circe smirked, teasing “oh, it’s what I’ve been saying that you should be worried about.” 

Donna scrambled to recover from her earlier words, “didn’t take you long to get over 'im, though. Who’s the lucky man?” 

“What man, lucky what?” The Doctor asked, completely oblivious. 

“The ring?” Circe prompted, holding a hand out. Martha, to her credit, was happy enough to extend her hand to Circe, allowing the Time Lord to examine the engagement ring in the grey light of London’s midday. It was three diamonds set into a platinum gold ring. Circe supposed it was nice enough, by human standards. 

“She’s engaged, you prawn,” Donna scolded, moving in close to Circe to check it out as well. “Beautiful rock, that is!” 

The Doctor’s voice rose several octaves as he asked, “really? Who to?”

“Tom, that Tom Milligan,” Martha prompted. Circe vaguely recalled that she’d encountered a man of the same name during the Year that Never Was. “He’s in paediatrics, working out in Africa right now.” 

Circe went to speak, almost wanting to tease Martha over the apparent similarities, but Martha beat her to it, already aware. 

“I know - I’ve got a doctor who disappears off to distant places. Tell me about it,” she rolled her eyes good-naturedly. 

Donna grinned, “is he skinny?” 

Martha shook her head, and her eyes grew slightly distant as she spoke of her fiancé, “no, he’s sort of…strong.” 

And suddenly, Donna was set off, ranting about their mutual friend, “he is too skinny for words! You give him a hug, you get a paper cut!” 

The Doctor murmured under his breath, “oh! I’d rather you were fighting!” 

Circe smirked at him, but she could see the relief in his eyes that the women were getting along so well. She wondered if Rose had ever met any of his previous companions; she could almost guarantee that Rose would have fought tooth and nail to make sure the Doctor’s attention stayed on her. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Doctor,” Circe chuckled, rolling her eyes as she watched him consider it. 

“Speaking of which…” Martha said, just as a walkie-talkie attached to her hip began to speak. 

“Dr Jones, come in. Over.” The voice commanded. Circe’s spine straightened, recognising the authority of whomever had spoken. The Doctor glanced between Circe and Martha, confused and surprised. 

Martha lifted the device to her mouth, saying, “this is Doctor Jones. Operation Blue Sky is go, go, go. I repeat, this is a go!” 

“Martha Jones, what have you done?” Circe demanded, immediately reevaluating the human. 

But she was turning to walk, and the Doctor and Donna followed her with far too much trust. 

They had landed one block away from an active infiltration of a factory. Circe wanted to bash Martha’s head into the pavement, and then her own for not seeing it, but the Doctor seemed content to observe the soldiers in red berets as they ran into the wired fence before them, as cars and large black trucks led the way inside. Well, content was too positive a word when the Doctor was surrounded by soldiers, but he wasn't furious yet. 

The soldiers all carried a rifle, but it was mostly unnecessary as the workers cooperated easily. Martha was issuing commands over the walkie-talkie, easily commanding whatever troops she had under her authority. 

“What are you searching for?” The Doctor called over the noise of the troops. 

Martha said casually, “illegal aliens.” 

Circe raised her eyebrows, looking over Donna’s head to the Doctor. There was conflict in his expression, as Martha ran to join a set of troops running past. 

Donna, to Circe’s surprise, asked quietly, “is that what you did to her? Turned her into a soldier?” 

The Doctor couldn’t answer, but Circe did. “She had that in her all along, Donna.” 

The siege didn’t take long to finalise. Circe watched as high value prisoners were taken in for questioning and low value workers with minimal knowledge kept on the compound. There had been no resistance, after all it appeared to be a civilian factory. Once Martha ran back over to the three of them, the Doctor asked, “and you’re qualified now? You’re a proper doctor?” 

Martha smiled slightly, “UNIT rushed it through, given my experience in the field.” She gestured for them to follow her, and Circe fell into line. “Here we go! We’re establishing a field base on site. They’re dying to meet you both!” Martha looked over her shoulder, making eye contact with the Doctor first before she looked at Circe. 

“Wish I could say the same,” the Doctor muttered to Donna. Circe stayed silent, trepidation filling her despite how easy it had become to follow orders. 

Martha led them to the long black 8 wheeler truck they’d seen entering the premises, and Circe couldn’t help but appraise the set up with the eye of analysing a potential threat. 

The walls of the truck were lined with computers that analysed the entirety of the compound, every entrance and exit, and the perimeter. Analysts sat along control centres, each wearing a headset that Circe could hear was linked to each line of communications happening outside the truck. 

“Operation Blue Sky complete, sir,” Martha reported, standing at ease in the entrance of the truck. Circe copied her, hands resting at the base of her back despite her eyes tracing every screen, absorbing every scrap of information that she could from the screens as well as approximating the strength of the false wooden panels that lined the truck, wondering if she could bash one through as a makeshift escape route if need be. “Thanks for letting me take the lead.” Martha was approaching the only ranking officer in the room, wearing the traditional Sol 3 military regalia in a green officer’s uniform without the service cap. From his shoulder caps, Circe figured he was likely a Colonel, or a General. “And this is the Doctor, and Circe.” 

The man looked at the Doctor, and swiftly saluted him. 

“Doctor, Colonel Mace.” Martha introduced. 

“Sir!” Colonel Mace acknowledged. 

The Doctor grimaced, “oh, don’t salute.” 

“But it’s an honour, sir,” Colonel Mace protested. “I’ve read all the files. Technically speaking, you’re still on staff. You never resigned.” 

Circe stared at the Doctor with no small amount of shock. When had he worked for a military organisation? How had she not known? Was…did she defer to him as her superior because she’d sensed it? There was admiration, yes, but anger as well, and hurt. He’d spent all these months convincing her that the mindset of a soldier was bad, telling her to make her own choices, and yet he’d…how long had he worked for them? 

“What, you used to work for them?” Donna asked, her voice rising. 

The Doctor’s voice was low as he watched Circe carefully, as if he was aware that she might be feeling upset with him. “Yeah, long time ago. Back in the ‘70s. Or was it the ‘80s? It was all a bit more homespun back then.” 

As the Doctor spoke, Colonel Mace had turned his attention to Circe, noticing her distraction. He gestured to two soldiers who lingered at the edge of the room, and they came to stand at either shoulder. Circe stiffened upon feeling them, and her green eyes turned to the Colonel, anger and fear spiralling down to trigger the vortex to rise within her. Her eyes fought to glow, but she tamped it down. The soldiers grasped both of her arms tightly, and she pulled on it, testing the grip. They held firm. She swore. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” The Doctor yelled, and Colonel Mace finally turned his cold gaze away from Circe. 

Martha looked on in concern, but she didn’t try to stop them. She just stared at Circe, almost as if she wanted Circe to forgive her for this. 

“We’ve heard of Circe, the Sorceress. We know what she’s capable of.” The Colonel gestured to another previously unseen soldier, and he stepped forward, holding a tracker injector. Circe growled, hearts pounding; glaring at the soldier, at the Colonel, at Martha. 

“Don’t you fucking try it,” Circe threatened, but suddenly she was shocked by electricity, the painful zap rending her muscles almost useless. She cried out, panting hard as she tried to remember how to ignore the pain, how to filter through it. Wasn’t she supposed to be safe? 

“Let her go!” The Doctor yelled, but another soldier had come to push him and Donna against the wall, restraining them from interfering. 

Martha called out, “Circe, please don’t resist! They insisted on this. It’s to keep the planet safe!” 

And if that wasn’t a dagger to the hearts, Circe didn’t know what was.

“If this is how UNIT treats their friends,” she ground out, but the Colonel wasn’t listening to her.

He was beside the Doctor, explaining what was being done to her against her will. “It’s a tracker. An informant told us that she has the potential to do irreparable damage to not only the Earth, but to our most valuable asset.”

The soldier was approaching, and Circe couldn’t stop the vortex now as it shone freely from her eyes and hands; tiny lasers of golden light that wanted to rampage through anything it touched. Her vision was switching from present to past, and she couldn’t stop comparing this moment to when she’d been powerless in her cage, unable to stop their experiments, unable to stop their torture. 

The barrel of the injector was pressed into her bare skin on her lower right abdomen, and Circe glared into the blue eyes of the solider holding it. She swore under her breath, “if you do this, I will find you. No one will be able to stop me.” 

He pulled the trigger, and Circe cursed as she felt the tracker implant under her skin. The vortex energy raced to the wound, seemingly with a mind of its own, but they’d somehow accommodated for that as the capsule fused itself to her abdominal muscles. The vortex energy couldn’t distinguish the tracker from her own cells.

The soldiers released her wordlessly, stepping back with their hands on the holster of their pistols, carefully watching her as she dropped to one knee, a hand over the implantation site. The soldier restraining the Doctor and Donna didn’t release them, waiting for his orders. Martha came over instead, crouching in front of Circe with an apologetic expression on her face. 

“I didn’t know,” she whispered, “I didn’t, I swear. They said they had protocols to prevent any risk, but I never would have let them-” 

Circe’s eyes flashed gold again in warning, but Martha didn’t move, although she did quieten. She held her hand out instead, an offer of trust, and Circe took it.

The human helped her to stand, Circe’s limbs trembling with the aftershocks of the relatively severe electrocution, as the soldier finally released the Doctor and Donna. The Doctor immediately came to Circe’s right hand side, pulling up the white t-shirt to find a small white patch of skin where they’d implanted the tracker, but no blood or blemish. 

“When did you start greeting off-world visitors with tracking devices injected into their skin?” The Doctor growled, glaring up to Colonel Mace. 

The Colonel lifted his chin slightly. “Times have changed, sir. There is not enough precaution we can take with her.” 

“Yeah, that’s enough of the ’sir’,” he dismissed. “Who told you that hurting my friends was a good way to make me want to help you?” There was venom in his eyes, but Circe grasped his hand, finally finding the strength to stand unaided. His eyes connected with hers, and she firmly shook her head, despite the rage surging through her still, despite the aftereffects of the electricity still lingering in her fingers. Her fingers shook as she scratched at her palms again, digging deep enough to cause herself some pain. 

Martha, in an effort to distract from what had just occurred, led the Doctor and Circe over to front row of consoles as she said, “come on now, Doctor, you’ve seen it! You’ve been on board the Valiant. We’ve got massive funding from the United Nations. All in the name of homeworld security.”

The Colonel interjected as he followed, “a modern UNIT for the modern world.” 

Donna spat out, “what, and that means arresting ordinary factory workers? In the street? In broad daylight? It’s more like Guantanamo Bay out there! Not even to mention assaulting the aliens who came to help you?” She glared at him, “Donna, by the way. Donna Noble, since you didn’t ask. I’ll have the salute.” 

Circe smirked, leaning against the console behind her. She tried to pass it off as smug indifference, but she wasn’t sure she could hide how her legs were shaking. At the very least, it didn’t matter how much she disliked Donna; she was grateful that the human had stood up for her. 

The Colonel glanced away from Donna, looking to the Doctor for instruction. He nodded once, and then sent Circe an almost unnoticeable wink. The Colonel saluted, “ma’am.” 

Donna kept her cool, saying only, “thank you,” as she turned back to the screen. 

Circe analysed the screens quickly, covering the statistics quickly and moving on to find out the purpose of the siege just from observing the information. They weren’t interrogating the factory workers, just the executives present, which meant that it was unlikely to be any kind of alien coop or uprising. However, they were investigating materials, Circe could tell from a diagram of a machine she’d never seen before. She moved closer to the screens, leaning between two human analysts (noting how they both shifted away from her, uncomfortable or uneasy) to see their computers as well. The machine was called ATMOS, and as far as Circe could tell, it had been integrated into cars across Sol 3. Her best guess as to the purpose of the device was to cut the emissions of what humanity dubbed, ‘greenhouse gases’, with a few added perks. Alongside the diagrams and factory schematics, there were flashing images of what Circe estimated to be 52 people, with seemingly no connection to each other. 

“So tell me, what’s going on in that factory?” The Doctor asked from his seat at the end of the row. 

The Colonel responded, “yesterday, 52 people died in identical circumstances. Right across the world, in 11 different time zones.” 

The screen they were looking at changed, to show the eleven locations of deaths, along with their respective times. Circe tilted her head as she noticed the deaths were all simultaneous. 

“You mean they died simultaneously?” The Doctor noticed, his chin resting in his fist as he watched. 

“Exactly. 52 deaths, at the exact same moment, worldwide.” 

“How?” Circe interjected, not wanting to reiterate the basic facts. The Colonel shifted behind her, and Circe rolled her eyes. “I’m here, so let me help. How?” She snapped. 

Incompetent, stupid, authoritative human commander. She wouldn’t believe Martha could ever follow this guy. 

He stammered, “t-they were all inside their cars.” 

Martha corrected, “they were poisoned. I checked the biopsies, no toxins. Whatever it is left the system immediately.” 

Circe ran through the list of Sol 3 toxins that were 100% lethal to humans without a trace, but came up short. Maybe, if the Doctor had studied human poisons instead of human wonder for his final research at the Academy, she would have known. Circe scowled, unknowingly beginning to scratch at her palm again as she faced the television once more. 

“What have the cars got in common?” 

Circe scanned the information crossing the screen, unintentoinally interrupting Martha. “They’re all fitted with ATMOS,” she marvelled, leaning further forward as if she could check the information by moving closer. 

Martha confirmed the information, “exactly! And that is the ATMOS factory.” 

The Doctor glanced to Circe in confusion, but she just pointed to the screen containing the information. Instead of coming to her side to read it, he asked, “what’s ATMOS?” 

Donna spoke before anyone else could. “Come on, even I know that. Everyone’s got ATMOS!” 

Martha took them into the factory, their feet clicking along the floor. Thanks to the forced fitting of the tracker, Circe was allowed to roam supervised by only Martha or the Doctor, instead of an entire squadron of elite soldiers. The information had made her vortex energy flare up, but Donna had given the soldier informing them a mouthing off before she’d grabbed Circe’s hand and left the truck. Without Martha or the Doctor. A pointless feat, given they then had to wait for Martha and the Doctor to follow them, but still...

It made Circe’s hearts warm. She knew it shouldn’t; knew it had likely been Donna’s own commander who’d told UNIT about her, but she couldn’t help it. 

“It stands for Atmospheric Omission System.” The factory was all shut down, but Martha was obviously leading them somewhere specific as she explained, “fit ATMOS in your car, it reduces CO2 emissions to zero.” 

“Zero?!” The Doctor exclaimed in shock, “no carbon, none at all?” 

Donna grinned, “sat-nav and 20 quid in shopping vouchers if you introduce a friend. Bargain!” 

Circe snorted, glancing to Donna, but she was surprised to find her already looking at her. “What?” Circe asked.

Donna smirked. “Is this the part where you insult humans about how we’re all stupid and ignorant to be so capitalist focused? You aliens were probably raised in a bloody socialist democracy where every martian gets a say in the politics of the planet!” 

To Circe’s surprise, she laughed. Donna grinned, and the Doctor barked out a short laugh as well. 

“I didn’t realise I’d become so predictable,” Circe wondered. 

Donna shrugged, saying offhandedly, “only to me!” 

The Colonel interrupted gladly, saying, “this is where they make it, Doctor. Shipping worldwide.” They stopped to overlook the factory floor where lines of conveyor belts had obviously moved individual parts along the factory floor. Workers were still be transported across the floor, in their blue hazmat suits. “17 factories worldwide, but this is the central depot - sending ATMOS to every country on Earth.” 

“And you think ATMOS is alien?” The Doctor clarified. 

The Colonel inclined his head. “It’s our job to investigate that possibility.” The Colonel began to move again, requesting them to follow with a simple, “Doctor?” 

They were led across the factory again, past several arrests still occurring, to the end of one of the belts. There sat an ATMOS, unwrapped and prepped to be examined in depth. The Colonel gestured to it, saying, “here it is, laid bare. ATMOS can be threaded through any and every make of car.”

“You must’ve checked it,” the Doctor confirmed.

Martha stood opposite him. “We did, we found nothing. That’s why I thought we needed an expert, maybe two if we were lucky.” 

Circe came to stand beside the Doctor, still absently scratching at her palms as the Doctor said, “really, who did you get?” 

Circe slowly turned her gaze from the ATMOS to the Doctor, frowning as he put his glasses on before he looked up, bewildered at everyone’s gazes on him. His eyes stopped on Circe, and he raised his eyebrows in confusion. 

“Are you being deliberately obtuse again?” She asked, and his eyes widened. 

“Oh, right! Me! You! Yes, good!” He exclaimed, making Circe roll her eyes. She moved to the ATMOS device, picking up wires to begin analysing it for non-Sol 3 components. The Doctor came beside her as Martha and the Colonel left, picking up the computational component attached to Circe’s wiring. 

Donna stood opposite them, asking, “okay, so why would aliens be so keen on cleaning up our atmosphere?” 

Circe mused, “very good question.” 

“Maybe they want to help,” she theorised, “get rid of pollution and stuff.” 

The Doctor sniffed as he mulled it over, before he said, “do you know how many cars there are on planet Earth? 800 million. Imagine that.” He glanced at Circe, and she nodded. They were thinking along the same lines. 

“If you could control 800 million cars, you would have 800 million weapons.” 

The Doctor and Circe got to work, disassembling and reverse engineering the ATMOS device. It was nice to work on something physical with the Doctor, to use her hands for something productive and monotonous while her brain ticked over. When Martha and the Colonel came back, they had managed to discover the component that gave the ATMOS its primary function, and the Doctor held it up to their eye line. 

“Ionising nano membrane carbon dioxide converter - which means that the ATMOS works,” the Doctor explained, “filters the CO2 at a molecular level.” 

The Colonel demanded, “we know all that, but what’s its origin? Is it alien?” 

“No,” the Doctor admitted, “decades ahead of its time.” The Colonel tried to lean in close, to examine what the Doctor was doing, but he waved him off. “Do you mind? Could you stand back a bit?” 

The Colonel glanced to Martha before asking, “sorry, have I done something wrong?” 

The Doctor tilted his head. “You’re carrying a gun. I don’t like people with guns hanging around me, all right? Not to mention the lack of trust for the only other person intelligent enough to work through this stuff faster than I can. And you know what, let's not even begin to talk about the physical attack against her.” 

The Colonel scowled, looking mighty unimpressed, but he acquiesced. “If you insist.” 

Martha waited until the Colonel had left the room before she commented of the Doctor, “tetchy.” 

Circe scowled at Martha. “He authorised the forcible implant of a tracking device that could have other capabilities we haven’t been informed of.” 

Martha shifted slightly, her face remorseful, “because he doesn’t know you. He wouldn’t tell anyone who this informant was, just that they were more trustworthy than anything you could say.” 

Circe tutted, “ouch, Martha. Here I thought we had been friends.” There was a flicker of surprised hurt that crossed Martha’s face. Circe supposed she might not have verbally confirmed Martha had been a friend until this betrayal. 

The Doctor interrupted, handing Circe the filter to hold, “people with guns are usually the enemy, in my books.” He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and Circe handed it back to him. “You seem at home.” 

“If anyone got me used to fighting, it’s you,” Martha reminded, causing the Doctor to play defensive. 

“Oh, right, so it’s my fault.” 

Martha’s voice raised slightly, “well, you got me the job! Besides, look at me.” She waited for him to do so, only speaking again once his eyes had looked over the rim of his glasses. “Am I carrying a gun?” Circe didn’t need to scan her eyes over the human, already aware of precisely how many weapons she was carrying, as well as those that she could wrestle away from her given her approximate strength in comparison to Circe. 

The Doctor muttered, “suppose not.” 

Circe leant back, watching Martha defend herself curiously. She resumed scratching at her palms, the itch only growing. It was almost as if the Time Energy was sand that grated the deepest layer of her epidermis.  

“It’s alright for you," Martha continued. "You can just come and go, but some of us have got to stay behind. So I’ve got to work from the inside, and by staying inside, maybe I stand a chance of making them better.” 

Circe smirked at that. There was Martha Jones. That was the woman who had staunchly fought Florence to bring the Doctor back; who had walked the surface of the Earth to protect humanity; who had left the Doctor before he could break her spirit entirely. 

“Yeah?” The Doctor smiled. “That’s more like Martha Jones.” 

She grinned back at him, “I learned from the best.” 

“Well,” he blathered, falsely humble. 

Donna burst in through the plastic flaps, and Circe jumped. When had Donna left? How long had she been gone? Why hadn’t she noticed? She dropped her hands, palms beginning to sting, but at least it was a reprieve from the constant itching. The redhead was carrying a blue folder, but Circe couldn’t see any documentation within the hard covers. 

“Oi, you lot!” Donna yelled on entrance, “all your storm troopers and your sonics...” The Colonel reentered, wondering what Donna was talking about. “Rubbish! You should’ve come with me.” 

“Where’ve you been?” Circe demanded, more than a little bit worried. 

“Personnel. That’s where the weird stuff’s happening - in the paperwork. Because I spent years working as a temp - I can find my way around an office blindfold, and the first thing I noticed is an empty file.” 

She put the folder onto the workbench they’d stood at, and Circe immediately opened the file, seeing the veracity in the words. 

“Why, what’s inside it? Or, what’s not inside it?” The Doctor asked. 

Donna smirked. “Sick days - there aren’t any. Hundreds of people working here and no one’s sick; not one hangover, man flu, sneaky little shopping trip, nothing. Not ever! They don’t get ill.” 

Circe murmured, “Donna, you clever, clever woman.” 

Donna’s expression flickered for a moment, as if she couldn’t process the unexpected compliment. 

The Colonel strode forward to take the file from the table before Circe, as if she might taint the data, or lack thereof, and Circe backed away, raising her hands. “That can’t be right,” he exclaimed, opening and closing the file as if that might change the outcome. 

Donna glanced at Circe with a smirk. “Stupid human?” She offered quietly, and the words took a moment to register. As if her neurones had needed a moment to restart, Circe then couldn’t stop herself from laughing again. Donna continued again, on a warpath, “you’ve been checking out the building; should’ve been checking out the workforce.” 

Martha and the Doctor looked over Donna appreciatively, while the Colonel only looked shocked at the oversight. Martha mentioned, “I can see why he likes you. You are good.” Donna hummed in agreement. 

The Colonel interrupted their moment, ordering, “Doctor Jones, set up a medical post, start examining the workers. I’ll get them sent through.” Then he was moving away. 

“Come on, Donna,” Martha offered, “give me a hand?” 

The Doctor raced after the Colonel, asking, “so this ATMOS thing, where did it come from?” Circe hesitated, weighing up her commands and her choices, but the situation changed all too quickly. 

There was a shift in dimensional space directly in front of her, and suddenly Rose stood there, her blond hair hanging to her chin around her face. She looked determined at first, but as she finished materialising, she saw Circe, and a flicker of fear crossed her expression. She tried to hide it, but Circe zeroed in on it, smirking in amusement. She leant forward, feeling the itching under her skin only increase at the sight of the stupid human. 

“Been doing more dimension hopping, Rosie?” Circe asked, hopping herself onto the workbench behind her. She smirked as Rose glanced around them, hoping for any sign of backup. But there were no UNIT soldiers, and the Colonel had made an oversight in assuming that Circe would follow either the Doctor or Martha immediately. Circe was alone with the human she despised more than herself. 

“This damn hopper keeps malfunctioning,” Rose exclaimed in frustration, reaching up to push the button, but she paused, analysing the Time Lady in front of her. “Huh,” she said smugly, and Circe’s confidence cracked. 

“What?” Circe demanded, glancing over herself in confusion. 

Rose’s eyebrow raised, and she clicked against the chewing gum in her mouth. “You don’t even realise yet,” there was another glance down Circe’s body, and the smug expression only seemed to build. “Oh, I can’t believe it. You have no idea!” 

Circe jumped forward, moving into Rose’s space, but Rose showed no fear. She didn’t even step back. “I once dug out a man’s heart straight from his chest using only my nails. Tell me.” Circe was not above mildly exaggerated threats if she had to. 

Rose’s courage faltered until she glanced once more down Circe’s body. “Your hands,” she laughed. “Have you been feeling…itchy lately? Scratching at your scars more? How about the little device we put into you? You haven’t even seen what that can do, yet.” 

Circe lifted her hands between her and Rose, but the backs of her hands were clear, still littered with the pale scars but unmarred by any other imperfection. As she flipped them over, however…

Her palms had three red lines the width of her fingernails, and blood had started to scab over on her left palm. Her eyes widened as she realised she’d done this to herself, without realising. How had she scratched herself so hard that she’d not even noticed she’d drawn blood? In inspecting her fingernails, she found specks of blood under the nail as well. 

With her hands so perfectly raised, Circe used them to wrap around Rose’s throat in a movement so fast that she couldn’t react to it. Her grip wasn’t tight, just enough to hold Rose still, but the human gripped at her wrists as if she were already being choked. 

“What did you do to me?” Her palms throbbed against the human’s throat, her mind suddenly aware of the pain. “How did you do it?” Rage thrummed through Circe’s veins, underpinned by the fear of the unknown.

Rose laughed despite the clear threat to her life, “I told you last time we met, Sorceress. You will go insane, and then you’ll kill him.” 

Circe shook her head, hands starting to tighten around Rose’s throat. “You’re a liar. You want to hurt the Doctor, or destroy this universe, or something; you’re too human to be anything but a threat, and a liar. I won’t let you hurt the Doctor!” 

Despite the tightening grip around her throat, Rose smiled. “You’re crazy, Sorceress. The vortex is going to make you go insane, and then you’ll kill the Doctor.” 

Circe was so distracted, so certain that Rose was sufficiently restrained, that she didn’t realise Rose was reaching for a device in her pocket until she felt searing pain. Circe’s immediately dropped to the floor, clutching at the right side of her abdomen as Rose, laughing like she was insane, pushed her dimensional hopper, escaping Circe’s grasp once more. 

Circe’s hand lashed out, trying to catch her fading leg but ultimately smacking against the metal table beside her. She yelled, “fuck,” smacking it against the floor in rage. Her hand, already scratched to the beginning of being bloody, broke against the concrete, inspiring another curse shouted out into the void. There were only a few more seconds that passed before Circe heard the familiar squeaking shoes on concrete, and then the Doctor was pushing his way through the plastic flaps, his coat flapping in the wind he’d made from his speed. His eyes scoured the small room, and then pinpointed on Circe, bent over in the corner. 

“Circe, what happened?” He demanded, rushing over to crouch in front of her. “What was it? What happened?” 

Circe’s brilliant mind thought quickly. She could never tell him about Rose. But how could she explain her hand, which now throbbed in pain before her? She needed to be cleverer than he could be. 

“I…I think the tracker did something to me,” she muttered, and the venom in the Doctor’s eyes swiftly turned on the Colonel, who had entered a moment before. The commander stared knowingly at Circe, realising just what had happened, but he then forced it to false concern, approaching her with all the care of a man who had done no wrong. It seemed to fool the Doctor, even though he was staring between both the Colonel and Circe in suspicion, even as he scanned her with his screwdriver and declared he couldn’t find anything wrong; declared he couldn’t even find the tracker. 

Circe eyed the Colonel, and the Doctor seemed to understand what she was trying to say. 

“Leave,” he ordered without looking at the human. 

The Colonel seemed to want to protest, but he was a military man through and through. “I won’t go too far, s-Doctor,” he said. 

Once the Colonel was far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to see through the distorting plastic flaps, Circe finally unlocked her regeneration energy, letting it sing through her body. With any luck, the Doctor won’t have seen the scratches on her hands, and she would remain hyper-vigilant in preventing new ones forming. Her breath came fast, and her hearts were pounding in her chest, and the Doctor-

The Doctor was calling her name, not insignificant worry across his face. 

“Circe, what did you do?” He demanded, and Circe frowned as she started to glow with regeneration energy. 

She said simply, “I used regeneration energy.” 

His face seemed to break, and his hands came up to cradle her face, the tightness of his fingers on her face worrying. She watched as his eyes darkened, and watered and he swallowed hard. 

“What’s the matter? It’ll all be fixed soon,” she said. 

The Doctor shook his head, and his optical stars shone brighter than she’d ever seen them. “You can’t leave me, not yet,” he whispered, “don’t go, not now.” He closed his eyes as he bent his head forward to touch his brow to hers. 

“I’m not dying.” 

His head shot up, and his hands slackened on her face. “What?” 

Circe rolled her eyes. “When did you get so dramatic? I’m not dying, I was healing whatever the tracker did to me.” She cleared her throat, brushing through the pain that hovered at the back of her mind. She paused, realising how it might have looked. “Oh.” 

The Doctor scowled, but the relief in his face ruined it. “Please, don’t use your regeneration energy for the small things, Circe. I…I really thought you were dying. I thought you would lose this face so quickly.”

Circe registered his order, taking it on board slowly as she considered the pros and cons of it. The golden glow was dimming under her skin, and her broken hand had now healed. She tentatively flexed it, but there was a lingering pain within her skin. She frowned, worry seeding itself in her heart, but she looked back up to the Doctor to find him watching her closely. She sent him a raised eyebrow and he suddenly backed away, looking everywhere but her as he tried to pretend he hadn’t just panicked over her losing this face so soon. 

“Why?” She asked. 

He scoffed. “Why what? Why shouldn’t you waste your regeneration energy on small injuries?” He took a quick breath to continue, but suddenly paused, considering her circumstances prior to the end of the war. Initially her question had seemed stupid, but… She hadn’t had to worry about regeneration cycle limitations before; the Time Council had given her however many she needed to fight through the war. She had never had to worry about rationing out her cycles. “Because…the Council is gone. They can’t grant you any more cycles. However many regenerations you have left…that’s it. There are no more.” 

Circe nodded, swallowed hard. She rose to standing, and the Doctor came back to her side to catch her in case of any regeneration sickness. She accepted his hand, only barely concealing her hiss as her…still open wounds brushed his skin. She pulled away from him suddenly the moment she felt stable, something the Doctor perceived as Circe’s regular behaviour, rubbing her palms together in concern. They felt…rough, as if they were still grazed. Had her regeneration not worked properly? She refused to look, in case the Doctor caught sight of her eye line, and instead half listened to him ramble about a boy they had to visit, “Luke Rattigan is a genius,” he was saying, “and somehow related to this ATMOS machine.” 

Circe followed him as they encountered the Colonel once more, and she kept following him out of the UNIT base. 

Donna approached, and Circe listened with half an ear as she stood at the side. Part of her was thrilled that Donna wouldn’t be coming with them; it meant that she couldn’t get in trouble wherever they were going now, and the other part, larger than it had been, was entirely focused on how not-healed her hands felt. While the Doctor and Donna spoke, Circe cast a quick glance across her palms and felt her hearts stop.

The regeneration energy had healed whatever injury had been caused or toxin released in her abdomen, significantly reducing the amount of pain Circe was in, as well as the break in the bones of her hand, but she realised with a shot of fear that it had avoided her palms. As raw as they had been while Rose was around, the wounds she’d caused herself were still ingrained into her skin. 

Why hadn’t her regeneration energy healed them? It was a self-induced injury, but Circe had been there and healed that before. Maybe there was lingering damage from the Master’s bastardised regeneration energy, maybe it didn’t work as well, Circe theorised. But if that was the case, her regeneration into this body would have had problems, and apart from a mind that initially struggled to differentiate between Florence and Circe, the Doctor and John Smith, she hadn’t had any major issues. 

The Doctor was rambling on about Donna, when the realisation dawned on his face. “You’re just popping home for a visit, that’s what you mean,” he clarified, suddenly looking sheepish. 

Donna whispered mockingly, “you dumbo.” 

“Then you’re coming back,” he continued. Circe, brought back to the conversation by the Doctor’s sheer idiocy, rolled her eyes. 

“Know what you are?” Donna asked, “a great big, outer-space dunce.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor agreed, rubbing his chin in frustration. 

“Ready when you are, sir,” the soldier assigned to them offered, sending Circe a wary glance, “ma’am.” 

Donna smirked, “what’s more, you can give me a lift. Come on!” 

Circe rubbed her palmed together, following the Doctor and Donna into the jeep they’d been given. As they climbed in, Donna asked, “broken moon of what?” 

The Doctor groaned, “I know, I know!” 

“The coral reefs too?” Circe piped up from the back, poking the Doctor in the side. “You promised to take me there for my 300th birthday.” She muttered as they began to drive, although the intended harshness didn’t fully manifest, as she became distracted. 

The feeling of something staring at her caused the hair on her neck to rise, and she turned back to see two guards staring at their truck driving away, holding two large weapons. Her amused frustration dropped, and she sent a wave of Time Energy out towards them, as if she was waving goodbye. There was something wrong with those soldiers, and it was setting her warning bells off. 

Chapter Text

They’d dropped Donna off, and the soldier had taken the shotgun to give the Doctor directions. Circe didn’t hugely mind. The back of the truck was spacious, and she wasn’t confined to one seat, which meant she could keep an eye on all windows, watch all directions and check for anyone following them or ambushing them. There was, however, something that absolutely terrified Circe about the soldier with them; something in her gut that told her to keep a strict eye on him.

Even so, the soldier, Ross, was very knowledgable on all necessary information about the Rattigan Academy, their destination. Circe kept an eye on the windows and horizon even as she listened carefully. “UNIT’s been watching the Rattigan Academy for ages. It’s all a bit Hitler Youth - exercise at dawn and classes and special diets.”

The ATMOS featured in the centre console spoke then, giving directions, “turn left.”

“Ross, one question,” the Doctor piped up, his brain working faster than he could comprehend, “if UNIT think ATMOS is dodgy…”

Ross predicted his question easily, “how come it’s in the Jeeps?”

The Doctor nodded, “yeah.”

Ross scoffed lightly, saying, “tell me about it. They’re fitted as standard in all government vehicles. We can’t get rid of them until we can prove there’s something wrong.”

Circe studied it; the unreliable navigation system, as well as the motion scanner and system function menu. Its user interface was poorly designed, and the product design itself was bulky and very Sol 3 2000s, a design period that humanity would later try to pretend never happened. The interface changed, showing the new directions.

“Turn right.”

“Drives me round the bend,” Ross admitted with a shit eating grin.

The Doctor grinned, “oh, nice one!”

“I timed that perfectly,” Ross agreed.

They had turned onto a gravel pathway, leading up to a grey stone building that appeared to be an old manor house repurposed into a school. There was a front courtyard that was blocked from upcoming cars with a large sign detailing the location as, ‘Rattigan Academy’ . Circe frowned, following the Doctor and Ross up the path to the courtyard. The grass was all perfectly green, and cut immaculately to frame each pathway. Students dressed in red tracksuits were obviously undergoing their physical training, and Circe observed them as they passed. There didn’t appear to be immediate physical issues with the students, certainly none that would peg them as extraterrestrial immediately.

“Is it PE?” The Doctor asked, hands in his pockets. He glanced back to Circe, his hazel eyes bright in the dimming sunset. “Fancy a kick around? We could play that game you made up as a kid.” He smiled at her.

Circe rolled her eyes, crossing her arms as they came to a stop behind a young man stood watching the sunset. “You couldn’t keep up with me when we were kids. What makes you think you stand a chance now?”

The man turned to face them, and Circe was momentarily struck by how normal and human he looked. Certainly didn’t strike her as an alien, let alone an alien clever enough to plot the destruction of an entire planet.

“Suppose you’re the Doctor, and Circe,” he said, avoiding the usual human introductions.

“Hello!” The Doctor replied.

“Your commanding officer phoned ahead,” Luke informed, coming to stand in front of them. His hands rested at ease behind him, and the familiar pose only made Circe move to stand at attention.

“Ah,” the Doctor couldn’t help but correct, “but I haven’t got a commanding officer. Have you?” The question seemed to hit the boy, because his eyes darkened, but the Doctor moved on far too quickly. “Oh, this is Ross. Say hello, Ross.”

“Afternoon, sir,” Ross said from behind Circe.

The Doctor was off, then, pacing towards the front doors with an eager curiosity. “Let’s have a look, then. I can smell genius! In a good way.”

Circe stood to the side to allow Luke to pass in front of her, while Ross walked in front. She took a moment to survey him as he walked, noting his reluctance and dislike of the situation, before she glanced around their surroundings. Other than the children doing their military drills, there was nothing incredibly disconcerting. She followed them inside.

The entrance way was fairly standard, but Luke explained that the exciting stuff happened further in, and led them behind some yellow plastic, denoting the research labs at the back of the manor house.

The Doctor was immediately enamoured, “oh, now!” He exclaimed, moving towards an experiment underway. “That’s clever, look!” Circe came to stand beside him, ignoring the children surrounding them, to investigate what had caught his attention. “Single molecule fabric - how thin is that?”

Circe glanced at the closest equipment and placed a guess. “I believe it is graphene, which usually estimates to be 0.45 nanometers thick.”

Ross whistled lowly beside her, impressed.

The Doctor stood then, joking to Circe, “you could pack a tent in a thimble!” But he saw something new that excited him, and he was off, dancing between children and tables to look at the next experiment, and leaving Circe wondering why he would want to pack a tent in a thimble. “Gravity simulators…” he marvelled, but then he was running off again, distracted once more, “terraforming, biospheres, nano tech steel construction,” he listed, and when a blast of fire shot beside him, he laughed in amazement.

“Want to know what you could do with equipment like this, Ross?” Circe asked, scanning over the experiments that the Doctor had skimmed over, such as microfine particle filters for soils, genetic splicing in plant and animal life, and excitation of water for the formation of artificial clouds.

Ross scanned it as well, even from where he stood stoically. “Not sure, ma’am.”

Circe nodded, moving to the Doctor’s side. “Move to another planet.”

The Doctor nudged her with his elbow, smirking, “or something.”

She acquiesced, “or something.”

Their gazes landed on Luke Rattigan simultaneously, and he was almost visibly sweating. Circe subconsciously was itching her hands once more, even as she stared him down. “If only that was possible,” Luke stated firmly, gaze moving to the floor.

Circe tilted her head. “Were.”

Luke looked to her, his eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Conditional clause. Wrong verb conjugation,” the Doctor explained.

And this human was supposed to be a genius.

His gaze snapped between the two of them, and his eyes were wide as he said, “I think you’d better come with me.”

He was moving before any of them could realise, leaving the Doctor, Circe, and Ross to glance at each other before they were following him.

Luke led them through recreational areas of the academy, including by a pool table and an indoor pool. Circe wrinkled her nose at the chlorine scent filling the room because of it, and the distinct scent of teenage boy that seemed to permeate the residential area of the manor, but they were beyond it soon enough.

Luke spoke as they walked, “you’re both smarter than the usual UNIT grunts, I’ll give you that.” They stopped in front of a black and bronze device that centred the hall. They hadn’t moved far enough away from the pool for the chlorine to have entirely dissipated from the air, but Circe supposed Luke had to keep the children under control with some form of entertainment.

The Doctor turned to Ross as Circe approached the device in front of them, saying, “he called you a grunt! Don’t call Ross a grunt; he’s nice. We like Ross.”

Circe shrugged slightly, muttering, “well…we appreciate a grunt who follows orders well enough.” The Doctor shot her a look, but Circe was already focusing on the bizarre engineering before her. It was a cube, lit up inside with purple LEDs. Without tearing the metal apart, she began to inspect the control console within the walk-in circle. Suspicions only building in her mind, she was careful not to hit the obvious activation button, but instead crouched to access the wiring underneath it.

“What exactly do you want?” Luke tried to demand, but neither Time Lord was listening.

“I was just thinking, what a responsible 18-year-old!” The Doctor cried as he walked. “Inventing zero carbon cars, saving the world…” he paused, glancing out the windows within a recreational side section of the hall.

Luke shrugged, “takes a man with vision.”

Circe scoffed, “blinkered vision.”

The Doctor grinned, exclaimed, “exactly!” And then continued her thought; “ATMOS means more people driving. More cars, more petrol - as a result, the oil’s going to run out faster than ever. The ATMOS system could make things worse.”

Circe smirked, about to speak when Luke interrupted. “See, that’s tautology. You can’t say ‘ATMOS system’ , because it stands for Atmospheric Omission System, s-s-so you’re saying ‘Atmospheric Omission System system’.”

Circe wasn’t sure she could dislike someone as much as she did Luke on first meeting. Being pedantic over things such as whether the Doctor was right about the sky on the planet Brazil being azure or cobalt was only valid. Criticising someone for repeating a word that had been used within an acronym only spoke to the designer’s incapability of understanding that the general public tended to name things systems, or machines, regardless of whether they had already been named so. Take the Sol 3 ATM - the automated teller machine; Circe could recall far too many references to it across most human literature.

“Do you see, Mr ‘Conditional Clause’?” Luke snapped.

Circe tutted gently, realising it had been less about the use of the ineffectual word but more about striking back for the slight against his intelligence earlier. She wondered if maybe they should have let the grammatical error slide, given they’d pointed it out in front of his students. After all, they allowed Donna onto the TARDIS, which meant that grammatical correctness wasn’t high on the Doctor’s list of priorities.

The Doctor was staring at Luke, his mind in a much darker area. “It’s been a long time since anyone said no to you, hasn’t it?” He mused.

Luke persisted, “I’m still right, though.”

“Not easy, is it? Being clever.” The Doctor moved towards him, looking down to him like a benevolent father might, explaining, “you look at the world and you connect things, random things. You think, ‘why can’t anyone else see it?’ The rest of the world is so slow.”

“Yeah,” Luke agreed.

“You’re all on your own.”

“I know.”

Circe leant back against the curved surface, smirking at Luke as the Doctor pulled out the ATMOS.

“But not with this! Because there’s no way you invented this single-handed. Might be Earth technology, but that’s like finding a mobile phone in the Middle Ages.” He threw the device to Ross, who caught it despite the unexpected throw.

Circe rapped her knuckles against the inside of the bronze cube, interrupting, “it’s like finding this little beauty in the middle of someone’s front room.”

The Doctor tilted his head towards her as he joined her, “it is, albeit, a very big front room.”

Ross asked, “why, what is it?”

“A thing. Just looks like a thing. People don’t question things. They just think, ‘uhhhhh just a thing ?’” The Doctor made a stupid face, and Circe jammed her elbow into his side, the not-so-subtle hint to shut up well received. Luke was already riled up, there was no need to dig his grave for him.

“Leave it alone,” Luke demanded, but Circe shrugged, running her fingers across the smooth metal surface.

“Unfortunately, you led the two smartest people in the universe to your,” Circe glanced at the Doctor and reluctantly said, “very big front room.” The words brought a huge smile to his face, and Circe would not admit that it had made her hearts stutter. “And these two very clever people immediately recognised a teleport pod.”

And the Doctor pushed the button, activating the device that began to whir as it powered up. They disappeared in a blur of molecules.

They reformed on a spaceship, and Circe immediately pushed the Doctor to her back, using her body to cover his front. The lifeforms aboard the ship were immediately recognisable, and Circe wasn’t sure whether to smirk or scowl. The technology was hackable, but the species would be expecting that from Time Lords. However, were they aware that two Time Lords were working alongside the UNIT team to uncover the secrets of ATMOS? Circe couldn’t be sure that they hadn’t already heard of them; after all, as a clone race, they could have already infiltrated UNIT.

“Orbit now holding at 556.3, sector 270,” an announcement said overhead.

The short, armoured lifeforms turned to face them both, and Circe bit her tongue, half laughing at their slow uptake.

“We have an intruder!” They proclaimed. Their helmets were all attached, and only a few of them held weapons.

Circe was almost certain that she could take them on, giving the Doctor enough time to get to safety. She scratched at her hand, ready to step forward should the need arise.

“How did they get in?” The Doctor asked, and Circe felt her body’s defences drop as she sighed in exasperation at the coming joke. “In-tru-der window!” The approaching army didn’t even acknowledge the joke before the Doctor was hitting the teleport once more, sending both him and Circe back to, hopefully, Sol 3.

Circe was running before her molecules had enough time to properly reform, her grip on the Doctor’s hand tight. “Ross, move!” She ordered, grabbing Luke’s arm as she came to a stop beside him. “Luke, you’re with us.” Ross didn’t entirely follow her orders, but he did pull his weapon and point it at the teleport pod, standing firmly behind the Doctor and Circe.

The Doctor, with his free hand, used his sonic screwdriver to prevent hostiles following them through. The teleport pod sparked, but only after the first hostile had already materialised. The short stack looked back once, but faced his enemy head on. “Sontaran!” The Doctor decreed, giving the hostile pause. “That’s your name, isn’t it? You’re a Sontaran. How did I know that, eh? Fascinating, isn’t it? Isn’t that worth keeping me alive?”

Circe clicked her tongue in disbelief. How many enemies did he expect to trick into leaving him breathing just because he knew their species? How many alien species were so stupid as to fall for it? If it had been Circe in her peak days of combat, any adversary dumb enough to stop fighting to talk about species and planetary homes would have been struck down.

Ross, the stupid human he was, demanded, “I order you to surrender, in the name of UNIT.”

“Not gonna work, Rossie,” Circe whispered him, “stand down.”

“Cordolaine signal, am I right?” The Doctor asked the Sontaran, before he explained to Ross, “copper excitation stopping the bullets.”

The robotic voice of the Sontaran came through then, “how do you know so much?”

Circe had to add, “it really is a wonder, given he didn’t attend half of our assigned classes in the Academy.” She scowled at him, but he just winked at her and squeezed her hand.

The Sontaran addressed Luke next. “Who is he?”

“He didn’t give his name,” the reply came immediately. If Luke had wanted to pretend he was still working alone, he’d just lost any argument of reasonable doubt.

“But this isn’t typical Sontaran warfare,” Circe interrupted as the Doctor meandered to sit at the desk behind them. Circe’s focus was kept on the Sontaran, meaning she didn’t see the moment that the Doctor inspected his hand, the one that had been holding Circe’s own, and saw her blood on it; she didn’t see the anger and worry that cascaded over his expression so quickly that it was untraceable for the Sontarans.

The Doctor wiped his hand with a handkerchief and pocketed it, choosing to focus on the problem at hand, instead listing the usual behaviours exhibited. “Hiding, using teenagers, stopping bullets…” he exclaimed.

Circe straightened her spine, snapping to attention as she said, “a Sontaran should face battle with dignity. Shame on you!”

“You dishonour me!” He snapped, and Circe scoffed.

“Yeah?” The Doctor challenged, “then show yourself!”

The Sontaran lifted his arms to his helmet, decreeing, “I shall look into my enemy’s eyes!”

The helmet was lifted, slowly revealing the cracked brown skin covering the lump of a head. Deep set eyes and a heavy frown were the primary features of his face. Circe heard Ross mutter, “oh my god!”

“And your name?” The Doctor asked.

The Sontaran was quick to offer it. “General Staal of the 10th Sontaran Fleet. Staal the Undefeated!”

“Ah, that’s not a very good name, though. What if you do get defeated?” He asked, disappointed.

Circe suggested, “Staal the Mostly Undefeated.”

“Not Quite So Undefeated Any More, But Never Mind?” The Doctor bounced, and Circe nearly smiled.

Ross had to let out a chuckle as he said in disbelief, “he’s like a potato. A baked potato, a talking baked potato!”

Circe gently whacked his arm, scolding, “don’t be rude, Ross.”

The Doctor added on, “you look like a pink weasel to him.” He moved to grab a tennis racket, and Circe had to wonder at whatever concoction his brain had planned. “The Sontarans are the finest soldiers in the galaxy, dedicated to a life of warfare.”

Circe recognised this spiel, and she took over, her voice taking on a similar tone to one of their lecturers during their Academy time. “A clone race, grown in batches of millions. With only one weakness.”

General Staal snapped, “Sontarans have no weakness!”

The Doctor hummed, “oh, it’s a good weakness.”

“I thought you’re meant to be clever?” Luke exclaimed, “only an idiot would provoke him.”

The Doctor rested an arm on Ross’ shoulder as he spoke. “The Sontarans are fed by a probic vent on the back of their neck; that’s their weak spot, which means they always have to face their enemies in battle.”

Circe muttered, glancing to Luke, “it’s a stupid weak spot, if you ask me. Means they’re hyper vulnerable to any attack they can’t see.”

“Isn’t that brilliant?” The Doctor enthused to Ross, “they can never turn their back.”

General Staal was proud of his race, however, defiantly stating, “we stare into the face of death!”

“Yeah?” The Doctor laughed, “well, stare at this.” He threw up a tennis ball, and Circe watched as it ricocheted off the wall behind General Staal and into his probic vent. As the Sontaran yelled in pain, stunned, Circe grabbed the Doctor and Ross’ arms and pulled them from the room. They needed no convincing to flee the academy, jumping into the Jeep where they’d left it to race back to the UNIT base. With a squeal of tyres, they were tearing down the road.

Circe was in the back again, but this time she kept her head between Ross and the Doctor. She ordered, “we need to remove the ATMOS from the car.”

Ross glanced from the road to her briefly. “Do you think they could get remote control of the system?”

Circe laughed harshly. “It’s what I would do in their shoes. It’s already proven effective.”

The Doctor was on the radio, trying to communicate with the UNIT base, so Circe just reached into his trench coat pocket and dug around, scowling when he tutted at her.

“Greyhound 40 to Trap One. Repeat, can you hear me? Over!” He called down the radio. Circe finally found the sonic, and she began to use it on the ATMOS, trying to find the correct setting to at the very least block the Sontaran’s signal.

“Why’s it not working?” Ross asked the Doctor.

“Must be the Sontarans.”

Circe confirmed it when she found an external signal, “they’ve already shut down the comms. We need to close off any signals, block all transmissions. If they get control of the car, we are sitting ducks.”

“Turn left,” the ATMOS ordered, and the Doctor had a thought.

“Try going right.”

“It said left.”

“I know, so go right.”

Ross tugged at the steering wheel, but it was already too late. “It won’t turn, I’ve got no control!” He panicked. The column, indeed, did not budge.

Circe redirected the sonic screwdriver, but she scowled at it and threw it back to the Doctor. “Useless thing,” she muttered, leaning forward to pry away the plastic cover from the steering column. Ross moved his knees to accomodate her, and Circe began to pull at the wiring that powered the car.

“It won’t stop! The doors are locked!”

The Doctor tried with the sonic screwdriver, but he growled, “ahh, it’s deadlocked! I can’t stop it!”

Ross then decided to smash the screen of the satnav, sending small shards of glass to rain down onto Circe. There was too much movement, and despite the wires she cut, she couldn’t seem to find the wire that powered the ATMOS. She wasn’t even sure if the ATMOS would power down upon the correct cord being cut, or if it would simply retain power within a battery to prevent cases like that occurring.

“The sat-nav’s just a box wired through the whole car!” The Doctor told Ross.

The Jeep squealed around a corner, and Circe slammed into the Doctor’s side, groaning as she did so. He helped her forward to sit beside him, and she heaved in a huge breath as she considered what to try next.

“We’re heading for the river!” Ross exclaimed.

“ATMOS, are you programmed to contradict my orders?” The Doctor asked hurriedly, and Circe’s eyes brightened. That…might work. It would depend on what the Sontarans had programmed, if they’d been stupid enough to code it that way.

Circe bit her lip to contain her relief; the Sontarans were stupid enough.

“Confirmed,” the system stated.

“Anything I say, you ignore it?” He confirmed, but Circe smacked his chest, shutting him up.

“We don’t have time for you to triple check your work!” Circe snapped, “ATMOS, drive into the river!”

“I order you to drive into the river!” The Doctor parroted, and finally the car squealed to a stop.

Circe pushed the Doctor out of the car, and didn’t let him stop there. The machine was beginning to malfunction, and she pushed him and Ross further up the river bank, not trusting the car to safely self-destruct.

Once they were a safe distance away, Circe turned, body braced for an explosion, but the car just released some gas, and then shut down.

“That was anti-climactic,” Ross said, brushing his hands off like he’d been any help inside the vehicle. Circe narrowed her eyes at the soldier.

She straightened her shoulders, brushing off invisible dust from her red jacket and turning back to the soldier and the Doctor. Ross was looking at her as if he was expecting orders, and the Doctor’s eyes were scanning over her body, as if he expected her to self-combust any moment. When his dark eyes met hers again, he frowned deeply. Circe stared at him, impassive and waiting for him to make the next move.

“Donna, she’s not too far from here,” Circe said when it became clear that the Doctor wasn’t going to.

The Doctor’s face brightened, and part of Circe was relieved it had, but there was still a part of him that she sensed was frustrated with her. She didn’t understand why, but she vowed to find out.

“You would not believe the day I’m having,” the Doctor had exclaimed in exasperation.

Donna had been home, and more than happy for the Doctor and Circe to have a proper examination of an ATMOS within her mum’s TARDIS-blue car. The Doctor stood hunched over the engine, while Circe examined the underbody of the car. The ATMOS wiring was easy to spot, as it went to every single aspect of the car, but it seemed like it was wired in such a way to make it more difficult to remove. She frowned, scooting herself further under the car and rolling up her sleeves.

While Donna tried to call Martha, Ross had contacted base, and he finally told them, “I’ll requisition us a vehicle.”

“Anything without ATMOS,” Circe ordered from underneath the car.

The Doctor added on sternly, “and don’t point your gun at people!”

Ross was walking away then, and Circe, wishing she had her rolling board from her youth, got to work, pulling down whatever ATMOS wires she could find and making educated estimates as to which function they controlled. The first wire appeared to connect to the steering column, so she was quick to tear that one off, but the next was directly connected to the sat-nav, and wasn’t necessary to remove. Any wire that connected to a function that Circe could imagine causing them trouble, she tore out, but she left any wire that only attached to the primary ATMOS.

While she was working, an old man ran out from Donna’s house, calling, “is it him? Is it him? Is it the Doctor?”

Footsteps stopped beside where Donna stood, and he exclaimed, “ah, it’s you!”

“Who?” The Doctor asked, but he obviously recognised the man, as he murmured, “oh, it’s you!

“Who?” Circe called from under the car. She swivelled to poke her head out, and caught a glimpse of an elderly man she recognised. He had been the man she’d known would be important on their Earth trip from the Titanic. How was he here? Was he related to Donna? Had Donna been so involved, so twisted in their lives, that they met him before Circe had even known Donna existed? “It’s you,” she muttered, and he glanced to her and his eyes widened again, bright eyes with confusion and recognition. There was something…paternal and warm in his gaze.

Donna looked between the three of them, and she demanded, “what? Have you met before?”

“Yeah, Christmas Eve! They both disappeared right in front of me!” The old man explained.

Donna’s expression flickered into anger as she emphasised, “and you never said?”

He raised his hands, “well, you never said!” He looked back to the Doctor and said breathily, “Wilf, sir, ma’am, Wilfred Mott. You must be them aliens!”

“Yeah, but don’t shout it out,” the Doctor said fondly. “Nice to meet you properly, Wilf.”

“An alien hand!” He murmured.

“Donna, anything?” The Doctor redirected, aware that they were running out of time.

Donna, phone still to her ear, was having no luck. “She’s not answering. What is it, ‘sonteruns’?”

“Sont-ar-ans,” Circe told her, bringing Wilf’s attention to her.

The old man must have looked confused, because the Doctor was explaining, “oh, and her name is Circe. She’s not usually under cars, she’s just rude.”

Circe had slid under the side of the car, meaning her legs were at the perfect angle to kick the Doctor’s ankles. She smirked when she heard him yelp. Wilf laughed and asked, “is she an alien too?”

“As alien as they come,” she murmured, finding very Sontaran technology underneath a small hub cap.

“Martha,” Donna suddenly interrupted, “hold on!”

As the Doctor updated the human doctor, Circe unscrewed the hub cap, finding a miniature container with a substance she couldn’t identify. It was a milky white liquid, but pressurised in such a manner that Circe wasn’t entirely sure whether it would form a liquid or gas at atmospheric pressure. Without the proper tools, Circe began to see if she could find a way to detach the unknown substance without triggering the decompression sequence.

Circe heard the Doctor begin to sonic the system as Donna spoke.

“You tried sonicking it before at base, but you didn’t find anything,” she said without asking her question.

“Yeah, but now I know it’s Sontaran, I know what I’m looking for!” He explained.

Wilf, the loving grandfather that he was, began to say, “the thing is, Doctor, that Donna is my only grandchild. You gotta promise me that you’re going to take care of her!”

Circe choked on a chuckle. The Doctor was about as good as that as she was, as evidenced by the numerable dangerous situations they’d found themselves in together.

The Doctor laughed his reply, “she takes care of me!”

Wilf’s voice was warm with affection. “Oh, yeah, that’s my Donna! She was always bossing us around even when she was tiny! The little general, we used to call her!”

“Yeah, don’t start,” the woman in question protested.

“And some of the boys she used to turn up with! Different one every week,” Wilf was explaining, and Circe rolled her eyes. Her fingers finally found the latch that would release the substance, and hopefully not have it all explode in her face. She didn’t particularly want to be permanently scarred for the rest of this face’s life.

“Possible hazard in aquaeous form stored in a highly pressurised container down here hidden within a temporal pocket,” Circe warned loudly. “I’m going to try to detach the depressurising compound, but you might want to clear some distance. Especially the humans.”

Wilf and Donna took a few steps away, and the Doctor gave an affirmative to start.

Circe had barely touched it before the Doctor was shouting in surprise.

“Whoa,” he yelled above her, and Circe was pushing her way out from underneath the car. She came to her feet beside the Doctor and stared in surprise at the spot where the ATMOS had been. The fitting now had 40 spikes sticking out of it. Circe carefully knocked the back of one with her fingernail.

“They’re hollow,” she murmured.

“Temporal pocket, I knew there was something else in there!” The Doctor explained to the humans, who came forward to investigate. “It’s hidden just a second out of sync with real time.”

Donna leant in slightly, leaning into Circe’s shoulder. “But what’s it hiding?” Donna asked her, and Circe pursed her lips.

“Likely, a distribution method for whatever liquid I found below,” she mused. “Whatever you do, do not get into any car with an ATMOS fitted.”

There was a woman coming up alongside the humans, but Circe quickly identified her as not a threat, with her lack of weapons and how she addressed Donna, the least threatening of them, first. She said caustically, “I don’t know - men and their cars! Sometimes I think, if I was a car…”

The Doctor glanced to her, distracted, only to do a double take when her expression shifted from bemusement to shocked anger. “Oh, it’s you! Doctor…what was it?”

The Doctor waved her off with a finger wave, “that’s me!”

“Have you met him as well?” Wilf asked, and the woman tutted at him.

“Dad, it’s the man from the wedding, when you were laid up with Spanish flu!” The woman, who Circe now pinned to be Donna’s mother, exclaimed. “I’m warning you; last time that man turned up, it was a disaster.”

The Doctor buzzed the sonic screwdriver, and he and Circe were more focused on listening to the reverberations of the sonic frequencies as they vibrated along the frame of the ATMOS fittings. Circe suddenly heard a small click , like something had been released, and she pushed Donna and her family back, grabbing the back of the Doctor’s shirt as well to make sure he didn’t get a face-full of potentially poison gas.

“Get back!” He yelled out as the white plume of smoke clouded the air in front of them.

Circe tasted the gas in the air, and she could only frown. Was she right to suspect that it tasted of…clone feed?

Ignore the obvious. Was this one of those moments?

The Doctor was quick to point his screwdriver at the car, disarming the gas dispenser, but Circe had a sinking feeling that this car was not the only one equipped with this gas.

“That’ll stop it,” he said, moving to put away his screwdriver. Circe tapped his arm and held her hand out, palm up expectantly. The Doctor looked at her over the rim of his glasses, and Circe felt a momentary flash of heat before she realised that he was eying the wounds on her hand with more than a little concern. She scowled, but kept her hand there.

So much for keeping that from him.

Before he placed the screwdriver in her palm, his fingers brushed over the scabbing wounds, and Circe couldn’t help the slightest hiss that she released.

“We are going to talk about this,” he swore, and Circe glared at him.

“Sir, yes, sir,” she offered callously. His eyes darkened a fraction. “Can I have the screwdriver to check the ATMOS in-built computer system for localised threats?”

He half rolled his eyes, but her tone brought out the smallest of smiles on his face, and he placed the screwdriver in her palm carefully.

Donna’s mother was raving over the car, believing it had proven her point, “I told you! He’s blown up the car! Who is he anyway? What sort of doctor blows up cars?”

Donna batted her off, “oh, not now, mum!”

Circe rolled her eyes and entered the drivers side of the vehicle, closing the door behind her. The ATMOS was switched on, despite the car being turned off, which proved her earlier hypothesis that the ATMOS likely had an internal power source separate to the car. Using the screwdriver, she navigated to the system operations screen, and hacked into the server. Almost impressed at how easy it was with the screwdriver, she twirled it between her fingers. She could nearly understand why the Doctor carried this around everywhere. Unsurprisingly, the ATMOS was installed into every single local car, which was why they hadn’t seen Ross in a while. She’d be surprised if he could find one within the county.

Wilf suddenly opened the door next to her, saying, “it’s not safe, I’ve got to get it off the street!”

Circe raised an eyebrow at him, and he paused, as if waiting for her to get out. “What did I say, Wilf: 'do not get in an ATMOS fitted car'? Were you listening?” She scowled at him, and he blinked back.

“But it can’t sit here like a…ticking time bomb!” He protested, and she sighed heavily.

As it turned out, the ticking clock had run out of time, as the car began to leak smoke from every available hole and gap. Circe tilted her head, looking at the console once more. The screen displayed the words, ‘deadlock applied’, and Circe leapt from the car just as the door swung shut, trying to trap her inside. She pushed Wilf down, while the Doctor ran between cars in the street, trying to comprehend the magnitude of the problem, and the gravel scraped her already torn palms even more.

Wilf looked around, disoriented, and Circe belatedly realised that perhaps she didn’t have to knock the man to the ground to prevent him from entering the vehicle. Donna was beside him in an instant, however, and she didn’t feel too guilty about potentially saving the man from a death by choking on clone feed.

“Get inside,” the Doctor ordered once Wilf was back on his feet. “Try to close off doors and windows.” The Time Lord knelt beside Circe where she sat dusting the gravel from her palms, and he gripped her elbow to help her stand. She accepted the help gratefully, even though once they were stood upright, he didn’t let go of her hands.

Once Donna and her family were safely inside, he refocused back onto Circe, onto the hands he held in front of them. His fingers brushed over the scrapes, new and old, and his hazel eyes were clear and hurt as he said, “how did these happen? And don’t try to trick me again.” She sucked in a sharp breath, cold despite the fog around them, at the flash of hurt in his expression. “The regeneration energy didn’t heal whatever these are, so tell me what happened.”

Circe didn’t want to, but she would never ignore a direct order from her superior. “I am experiencing a period of hypersensitivity. The time energy within me is particularly aggravating, and I am trying to find ways to cope with that. One method is…literally scratching the itch.” She shrugged, trying to pull her hands from his grasp, but they tightened momentarily.

“To the point of bleeding?” He exclaimed. She wasn’t sure if he was horrified or angry. 

Circe’s eyes flashed gold, and for a moment, she wondered if she should show him where these questions would lead. Maybe, if she showed him the future, he would understand.

A car pulled up beside them, and Ross called out, “Doctor! This is all I could find, but it hasn’t got ATMOS.”

Circe glanced at him, and saw a black taxi cab. She decisively pulled her hands from the Doctor’s and moved to the passenger side. Hand on the door handle, she glanced to Donna, stood watching them on the doorstep to her house.

“Coming?” She offered, and the redhead smiled.

“Yeah,” Donna exclaimed.

Her mother had something to say about that, and Circe was beginning to see where Donna might have gotten her mouth from. “Donna, don’t go! Look what happens every time that Doctor appears. Stay with us, please!” The older woman pleaded, but Wilf turned to grin at Donna.

“You go, my darling!” Wilf encouraged, coughing slightly in the thick air.

“Dad!”

“Don’t listen to her,” Wilf dismissed, “you go with the Doctor. That’s my girl!”

Donna eagerly followed the Doctor into the backseat of the taxi, and Circe got into the front.

“Bye!” Wilf yelled at them, and they were off.

The UNIT base was on lockdown, but Ross took them up to the gate.

“Ross, look after yourself. Get inside the building!” The Doctor instructed, to which the soldier replied with an affirmative.

The air was foul with the smoke, and Circe hated the bitter taste of heavy metal on the back of her tongue. Still, she tore off part of the sleeve of her red blazer for Donna to cover her mouth with, making a mental note to start carrying around a handkerchief or scrap cloth so that she didn’t have to continue to ruin the TARDIS’ clothes.

“The air is disgusting,” Donna coughed, even through the cloth.

The Doctor said sympathetically, “it’s not so bad for us. Let’s get you inside the TARDIS.” He suddenly seemed to leap out of his skin for a second as he reached into his jacket, startling Donna and Circe. “ Oh , I’ve never given you a key. Look at that, that’s yours,” he held the small metal object up, grinning at Donna. “Quite a big moment, really.”

“Is now really the time?” Circe asked at the same time as Donna spoke.

“Maybe we can get sentimental after the world’s finished choking to death,” she prompted, and the Doctor sheepishly nodded.

Donna took the key, and the Doctor was off, rushing past the soldiers ahead of them. “Where are you going?” She called after him.

Not at all dramatic, he replied, “to stop a war!”

Circe rolled her eyes and looked at Donna.

“Will you make it back to the TARDIS safely?” She asked, wondering if this would be the moment that Rose had been waiting for. Regardless of the chip now installed in her side, Circe would be ready to stop whatever crazy plan Rose had. She would defend the Doctor from all possible threats.

Possibly even from himself, if necessary.

Donna nodded, and pushed Circe away. “Go on, you!” She exclaimed, moving away from the Time Lady. “Go stop your Martian from being a diplomatic buffoon!”

Circe chuckled and nodded.

“Oh,” Donna exclaimed suddenly, “and make sure you tell Colonel Mace what a stupid, ignorant pig he is!”

That made Circe explode in laughter, but she turned and ran after the Doctor, eying the soldiers stood around them suspiciously as she did so.

The Doctor burst into the command room with an explosion of words and sound, Circe silent behind him.

“Right then, here I am! Whatever you do, Colonel Mace, do not engage the Sontarans in battle,” he commanded, “there is nothing they like better than a war! Just leave this to us.”

“To you, maybe. To her?” The Colonel scoffed, “so what are you going to do?”

The Doctor kept talking, “I’ve got the TARDIS, I’m going to get on board their ship.”

Circe sternly eyed the personnel present in the command room, suddenly aware that there were more than a few hairs stood on end at the back of her neck. Her eyes scanned the faces she’d memorised, including the guards stood behind them, and Martha’s.

Martha. What was wrong with Martha? Why did Circe’s skin tingle (beyond the itch that was becoming far too painful to be a simple neurological issue) when she looked at the human? Every cell on the human’s body was the same, except…

It was her expressions. There was an unfamiliar distance within Martha’s eyes that Circe didn’t recognise. It was like looking at a mirror with one freckle out of place. Martha’s humanity was as intrinsically a part of her as her brown hair and skin, and she wore that humanity on her face for all to see.

That it had disappeared now was most concerning.

Circe’s expression slackened for just a moment, and she recalled her own directive from choice hunting. Ignore the obvious. Pretend everything was normal.

Martha Jones had been cloned, and she had to pretend to be none the wiser.

How many others around them had been cloned?

What if…she’d been with the Doctor the whole time, right? There was no possibility that he’d been-

No. Rose had appeared at just the wrong time, and she’d left the Doctor alone with the useless human Colonel, and if she remembered Sontaran cloning technology, the short time span didn’t even matter because they had the capability to clone in such a length of time. But then it wouldn’t make sense as to why the clone would be trying to stop the Sontaran’s, unless…

What if this clone was trying to delay the humans?

Where was her Doctor?

Circe’s fists tightened, nails cutting into the wounds already present on her palms, but the pain only grounded her, allowed her to sharpen her senses.

The Cloned Doctor gripped Circe’s hand then, forcing her to relax her fist to grip his back (she would not give him reason to believe she suspected him), before he was tugging her over to Cloned Martha. “Come on,” he enticed, pulling the clone away from her work and dragging the two of them outside, towards the TARDIS.

The TARDIS had gone, with Donna inside it. How had everything gone so wrong? The Doctor was missing, Donna had stolen the TARDIS and Rose was winning. Circe let the Cloned Doctor run ahead, trying to hide her shaking as her nails marked long red lines of fire up her arms.

Clone Martha protested, “but, where’s the TARDIS?”

The Doctor clicked his tongue against his teeth, saying, “taste that, in the air!” He made a disgusted noise, and Circe would’ve agreed had she been able to think beyond her terror. “That sort of metal tang. Teleport exchange. It’s the Sontarans, they’ve taken it.” The Doctor came to stand beside Circe, looking out beyond her into the soldiers running amok behind.

Rose was working with the Sontarans? That stupid, stupid human. How did she not see how damaging that would be to her plan? The Sontarans would have their own wishes for a TARDIS, they wouldn’t care about loyalty or following through on a promise.

The Cloned Doctor looked to Circe, his eyes blank with pain and worry. But beneath that, his eyes twinkled with the promise of revenge, and a plan. “We’re stuck, Circe. On Earth, like… like an ordinary person. Like a human! How rubbish is that!” His voice twisted in disgust, and Circe flashed him a smirk.

“Stuck on Earth, whatever shall we do?” She muttered sarcastically, even as she tried to work out how to get back to the teleport at the Rattigan Academy without raising the suspicions of the two clones beside her.

“No offense, but come on!” The Doctor apologised to Martha, who seemed entirely nonplussed about it.

“So, what do we do?” Martha asked, pushing ahead.

It then didn’t matter how Circe span the following conversation in her mind; she couldn’t understand the motives behind the Doctor’s clone.

“I mean, it’s shielded, they could never detect it,” the Doctor was saying of a mysterious weapon, purposefully tricking the clone.

“What?” She snapped.

“I’m just wondering; have you phoned your family and Tom?” The Doctor then asked, and Martha’s face shuttered in frustration, wanting her answers.

“No, what for?”

“The gas,” Circe prompted, leaning in slightly to see the sudden remembrance cross Martha’s eyes.

“Tell them to stay inside,” the Doctor teamed up with Circe.

“Course I will, yeah,” Martha stammered slowly, “but what about Donna?” The redirection was cheap and obvious. “I mean, where’s she?”

“Oh,” the Doctor murmured, “she’s gone home. She’s not like you, she’s not a soldier.”

The Doctor moved as if he was about to run off, but Circe backed up slightly, hoping this wouldn’t pull too much suspicion to her. The Doctor immediately stopped, his gaze looking confused for a second.

She hypothesised that the Doctor was fighting to get control back of his memories, used so carelessly in such a basic clone body. She didn’t think about the fact that a Sontaran clone wouldn’t have the storage to hold the Doctor’s memories inside a clone body, didn’t acknowledge that the clone’s behaviour was contradictory to the Sontaran’s strategy, even if they intended on fooling Circe first. She even refused to acknowledge that they had just had the perfect opportunity to subdue her in the isolated alleyway.

Instead, she offered, “I think it might be worth another look at the Rattigan Academy. I’m going to find Ross and head back to infiltrate and investigate.”

The Doctor’s eyes brightened, and Circe felt her hearts stutter, even as she had to remind herself that he was a clone and not the real Time Lord. “Right, good idea. Martha, avanti!” He crowed, and ran out the alleyway.

Martha looked from the Doctor to Circe, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Even though Circe knew that this wasn’t the real Martha, she felt the hurt ricochet through her. “Colonel Mace said you need supervision,” she frowned.

Too late, though, as Circe was moving away from the cloned woman. She waved her fingers at her. “I’ll be with Ross! Technically not breaking any rules.”

Martha scowled, but Circe was already running down the alley, to the other side of the UNIT compound. The gas wasn’t affecting her, so she easily ran past the UNIT soldiers that had to wear clunky face masks to protect their weak lungs. The taste of the heavy metal feed in the air was bitter on her tongue, and Circe made her legs move quicker. The Doctor needed her; he had been kidnapped, cloned and kept by the Sontarans, by Rose , for some nefarious plot that would surely end in the universe’s destruction.

The itching had long since become a burn, but Circe was grateful to find some relief as she relentlessly picked choices along her way, striving to recall the exact choices she had to make in the next pivotal moments.

It took Circe far too long to find Ross within the compound. She had lost so much time to the vastness of the factory, and when she finally stumbled across the correct troops, she sighed in relief.

“Ross,” Circe called out sharply, but a strike of concern shot through her as she saw the same vacant expression of Martha on one of the men within the troop Ross commanded. “We need to talk,” was what she said instead of her initial command.

The man obeyed well, Circe had to give him that. He immediately came to stand beside her, allowing them both to keep an eye on his squadron, Greyhound 40 . With a careful eye on the clone, Circe said to him, “your squad is compromised.”

His expression didn’t even shutter as he replied, “who?”

Circe told him, and he nodded sharply. Underfoot, she was certain that she felt the telltale sign of ground shaking with synchronised military footfall. She reached out to grab his arm, adding quietly, “have you got a weapon for me to use?”

Ross’ blue eyes darkened, but he handed her the butt of a pistol. “I’m not technically allowed to do this,” he said regardless.

Circe took it, clearing the chamber and checking the safety had been applied correctly before she lifted it to confirm the balance and sights suited her. Aiming down the corridor, she spotted the first of the Sontaran squadron. “Doesn’t matter now. We have hostiles incoming.”

Ross whirled around, yelling, “enemy within! At arms!” He took cover around a corner, dragging Circe with him. Over the radio, he communicated, “Greyhound 40 declaring absolute emergency. Sontarans within factory grounds, east corridor grid six.”

The soldiers before her started firing, but their weapons were useless. Circe knew a lost battle when she saw one, but in that moment, she did what she had never had the strength to do before. She grabbed Ross by the hand and whispered, “retreat, commander.”

Sounds of a Sontaran weapon firing came from the corridor behind them, but Circe didn’t stop. Ross called over the comms, “tell the Doctor it’s that Cordolaine signal. He’s the only one who can stop them.”

Another shot was fired from behind them, and Circe pulled Ross into the corner of a doorway, the shot just skimming his leg. He cried out in pain, but Circe pulled him into the room, shutting the door behind her and jamming it with a chair she found with the automatic lighting above. Ross fell against a metal table, grunting at the effort.

Circe panted as she glanced around, looking for a first aid kit. Didn’t humans have to keep them in every room because they were so fragile? It was usually red, or green, wasn’t it?

Her fingers were in agony as they brushed against any surface, and she glanced to Ross as she hesitated in her hunt to find him a first aid kit. She paused, fingers habitually moving to occupy the space before her.

She made a choice, and the impact of it sent shivers down her spine.

Chapter Text

Circe didn’t know how long she spent in the room, barricaded inside like she had something to fear. Her hearts had long since stopped beating rapidly, and now felt steady in her chest. She could breathe easy now, right? Her future, something she had spent centuries curating, was now safe. Safe from men like Ross, and women like Rose. Whatever plot Rose had planned, supplanting the Doctor with a clone and stealing the TARDIS and working with the Sontarans, Circe would stop her. She would always win, just as she had in the Time War. Rose was just human, whereas Circe was Time Lord. She could create universes, design cultures, falsify species, and more with a mere thought. She could take the Universal Code, hack it, and rewrite the universe. She could choose which lives were sacred and decide who should die, so long as her timeline was preserved. 

And the Doctor would always be safe. Even if she had to protect him from himself. 

The door rattled. Circe realised her hand was still wrapped around the handle of the pistol Ross had given her. In a moment of genius, her mind whirled to create the perfect cover story. She had already dipped her hands into his blood, to give the illusion of someone who had attempted to stop the bleeding, and some of it had gotten into her clothes in the process.

“Circe!” The Doctor’s voice called through the door, “we know you’re in there. Let us in!” 

Circe manually released the door, moving the chair she’d used to barricade it aside. The door swung open to reveal the Doctor stood there, his optical universes shining in relief until he took in her appearance; the pale face, blank expression and bloodied hands and clothes. Circe had to consciously remind herself that this was the cloned Doctor, not her Doctor. He glanced to the room behind her. 

Ross was slumped against a chair, a hole in his leg and head. Blood had dried to his face, and the grotesque splatter of blood on the adjacent wall was disconcerting, to say the least. There were imprints in the dried blood beside the body to indicate that Circe had knelt there in her attempt to save him, and a smudge of it beyond, as if she’d attempted to get away quickly. 

The Doctor’s gaze fell to the pistol that Circe held in her hand. All too swiftly, she had flicked the safety on and unloaded the weapon, which did assist the Doctor in feeling more comfortable, but she could feel his distaste for her holding one. It didn’t matter, anyhow. This Doctor was a clone. Circe just needed to find her Doctor, and then she could get rid of this clone and keep the real one safe. 

“He was a clone,” Circe explained shortly, “tried to attack me. I did what was necessary.”  

Beyond the door were sounds of warfare moving closer while cloned Martha gazed in surprise at Circe, as if seeing her for the first time. The Doctor extended his hand towards Circe slowly, as if she might spook, but Circe took it in her unarmed hand. Absent eyes blinked at him once, before he was pulling her into a run, Martha following behind. 

“UNIT have gone to war with the Sontarans,” the Doctor explained to Circe, “but the Sontarans didn’t attack UNIT until after UNIT had taken over this factory, which means…”

“There’s something the Sontarans want to protect in this building,” Circe finished.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver then, scanning for alien technology. Circe wondered why he bothered with the lie when he and Martha were both clones, but she pushed onwards, knowing this was her best way of finding the Sontarans’ base, and thusly the real Doctor, without decimating the local population. 

They moved into a white corridor which lit up with their movement, and Circe carefully observed as the Doctor and Martha feigned glances up and down the corridor, as if they didn’t know exactly where they were going. 

“No Sontarans down here,” the Doctor commented, “they can’t resist a battle.” He turned to the left, and the sonic screwdriver finally started responding. “Here we go,” he said, leading the way. 

The end of the corridor was a white metal door, locked by an electronic configuration lock. Circe watched as the Doctor unlocked it, as Martha glanced around for other observers on his behalf. Her grip tightened on the weapon she still held, and she allowed the Doctor and Martha to enter the room first, quietly loading the weapon with a soft click of the magazine sliding into place. 

“Oh, Martha,” the Doctor was lamenting, “I’m so sorry.” He came up beside the prone Martha, who was attached to the Sontaran cloning machine in a hospital gown. The Doctor had his hand around Martha’s throat, muttering, “still alive,” as the cloned Martha approached behind him, cocking her own pistol. 

Circe walked away from the two clones putting on the show, trying to find another door, another hidden machine. There had only been one bed to lie in, so where was the Doctor? They couldn’t have stashed him on their ship, as clones had a maximum distance before the continuous memory transfer was rendered inept. So where had they put the Doctor? 

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” He asked snidely.

Cloned Martha didn’t flinch, but she did ask the cloned Doctor, “wish you carried a gun now?” 

He smirked, “not at all.” 

The clone began to brag, “I’ve been stopping the nuclear launch all this time.” 

“Doing exactly what I wanted,” the Doctor countered. “I needed to stop the missiles as much as the Sontarans. I’m not having Earth start an interstellar war. You’re a triple agent!” 

The clone frowned, “when did you know?” 

“Right from the start!” The Doctor began to walk around the clone, smugness coating his posture. “Reduced iris contraction, slight thinning of the hair follicles on the left temple. And, frankly, you smell. You might as well have worn a T-shirt saying ‘clone’. Although, maybe not in front of Captain Jack. You remember him, don’t you? Because you’ve got all her memories. That’s why the Sontarans had to protect her, to keep you inside UNIT. Martha Jones is keeping you alive.”

The Doctor, having circled back to Martha, the real Martha, finally unplugged her, and the clone dramatically gasped in pain, falling to the floor. The Doctor gripped the real Martha as she gasped awake, exclaiming, “there was this thing, Doctor, this alien, with this head…” 

She was interrupted by the Doctor’s phone ringing, and he exclaimed as he picked up the phone, “blimey, I’m busy. Got it?” 

Circe moved over to Martha, and leant down to whisper in her ear, “The Doctor is a clone. I can’t find the real one. You were cloned, but there should be no lasting major side effects.”  

Martha glanced to the side and saw the clone, “oh my god, that’s me!” 

Circe placed a steadying hand on Martha’s shoulder, looking at her meaningfully. “Whatever happens, this is not the real Doctor, okay?” She intoned carefully, and Martha frowned. 

“Wait, but Circe-“ she tried to stop her, but the Time Lady lifted the weapon to point at the Doctor, where he was now stood within the teleport talking to Donna. His back was to her, but the audible click of the weapon cocking made him stiffen. 

“Tell me where the other machine is,” Circe demanded, green eyes frozen as she stared at the imposter. 

The Doctor slowly turned to look at Circe. His blank eyes were filled with what Circe knew could only be guilt. “There isn’t another machine, Circe. This is the only one the screwdriver can detect.” 

“You may have his memories, but you can’t properly retain a Time Lord’s mind. Your technology doesn’t have the capability. You’ll end up blowing up this entire factory if you keep his mind streaming for much longer,” Circe warned, “let alone what I’ll do to you if you don’t return my Doctor to me.” 

The fake frowned deeply, as if he were concerned for her. “I’m not a clone, Circe. I promise you, it’s me,” he reassured, but when he tried to take a step towards her, she fired a bullet at him.

The cordolaine signal prevented the bullet from actually firing, but the action had been clear enough. The genuine fear in the Doctor’s expression made Circe pause for long enough that Martha was able to disarm her easily. Even so, Circe, now disarmed and terrified, exclaimed, “you have to be!” 

With hurt and anger coating every movement he made, the Doctor demanded, “why?” 

Circe stammered, trying to remember reasoning that suddenly seemed flawed, “y-y-I left you alone for two minutes, and Sontaran’s have the capability to clone functional spies in under 30 seconds if they have to. You allowed the TARDIS to be stolen by Donna, and the universe is going to be destroyed despite me doing everything right!” Circe’s hands had flounced around in front of her, but for a moment, they gripped at her hair, nearly wishing she could pull it out to relieve her tension. “I have to protect the Doctor, so tell me where you’ve put him!” 

Martha was watching her in mounting concern. The Doctor lowered his sonic screwdriver from where he’d been trying to reconnect the teleport and he moved towards her. “Circe, there are no more intelligent clones. There is only…one…” he looked around the room for a second, and Circe suddenly realised something at the same time he did. “One cloning machine.” 

“N-no, no no, no. Ross, he was-Ross was a clone,” Circe stuttered, hearts breaking at the agony on the Doctor’s face. “Wasn’t he?” She couldn’t remember. Why had she killed Ross? Had that been her choice, or had it been his, or had it been from necessity? Her nails dug into her skin, trying to strip back layers to better see the vortex energy swirling beneath it. 

Only the Doctor could look so devastated, Circe realised, and all of a sudden, she understood. 

How much had she fucked up with one choice? 

The Doctor refused to allow Circe near the teleport controls, which hurt her more than she’d cared to admit to herself, and while he and Martha spoke to the dying clone, Circe sat on the floor, numbly observing. How had this happened? Her fingers sat in front of her, drifting through the golden sand, the only thing that relieved the itching. 

Donna returned, the Doctor likely saving her from some life or death situation that she should never have been part of in the first place, and sending the TARDIS back to Earth with a press of his sonic. Then he was standing in the teleport, Martha and Donna beside him, and his eyes held a world of pain and concern as he looked at Circe. She watched him absently, the impassive face of the soldier present despite the fear she felt coiling inside her. Donna, always asking questions, asked, “are you coming, Circe?” 

The Doctor shook his head once. “Circe, you are to stay put until otherwise informed. Am I understood?” His words held the authoritative tone she knew he hated. 

Her own words were nothing but obedience, “sir, yes sir.” 

Circe sat there for an hour. No one walked past the door, and the Doctor didn’t return via the teleportation pod. For a long moment, Circe wondered if he’d decided to leave her there alone as her punishment. There was no indication that the Doctor had succeeded in stopping the Sontarans, given that the factory had not contained a significant amount of the clone feed. 

Her thoughts were confusing, even to her. She couldn’t seem to finish one train of thought before another had started. In one second, she went from believing once again that every person she’d spent time with had been a clone, to knowing that it was impossible; from seeing how Donna and Rose were intrinsically intertwined and interwoven, to understanding that the universe is filled with impossibilities and flawed logic. 

The scariest thoughts were about the Doctor, however. How she could almost convince herself that she was the only person who would be kind to the Doctor, who could show him mercy. She would be gentle; kill him quickly instead of the drawn out death every single enemy of his wished upon him. 

But then she would catch herself, and horror would overtake her at the knowledge that she had been ready to pick up her useless weapon once more, to strike the Doctor down in the kindest method possible before someone else could hurt him more. Because, if she wasn't careful, her logic almost sounded sensible. 

What if Rose had been right? Was she truly insane? Was her destiny truly to kill the Doctor?

Her skin burned alive with desperation, the sands of time grafting deep grooves into her skin. She almost likened it to being turned inside out, from the inside. Her skin wanted to peel away from her bones to escape the torturous golden sand. But a small part of her was terrified of what she might see if she chose to choice hunt. Just how much had she fucked up?

This would be the worst timeline, she decided. Somehow, she hadn’t anticipated every choice, and now she had ruined her life's work. 

He walked slowly, his feet scraping across the metal floor to announce his arrival. Circe, surprised, scrambled to stand at attention. She didn’t, couldn't, look him in the eye, instead keeping her gaze fixed firmly above his head. Her hands and arms stung with newly formed gouges across them. She felt more than saw his gaze trace over her, and wondered how he saw her presently. 

“Follow me,” he ordered, his voice breaking with pain. Circe nodded sharply, but he didn’t see it before he turned on his heel and led the way. Circe obediently followed, feeling more like a soldier now than she had, even upon waking from her regeneration.

The march out from the factory felt like purgatory. Circe was almost mentally begging the Doctor to turn around, to look at her, but she wasn’t sure that she could handle it if he did. Their footsteps were silent across the floors, even the telltale squeak of his converse gone. Circe wondered how much of his behaviour was a farce, and then scolded herself for thinking such a thing. The Doctor had not led her astray, and he never would. Any issues were solely because Circe had not yet adjusted to his style of living, even as she matched her marching feet to his own. 

The TARDIS was parked out front. Its familiar blue exterior was comforting, even though, as Circe entered into the box’s telepathic field, the usual brush of the TARDIS’ consciousness held less warmth than it had before. The Doctor glanced back to her, and Circe had been correct. The venom his gaze held caused her hearts to freeze, stammer, stutter, fail and restart all at once, but it softened after a moment, revealing the momentary fear and concern he was feeling. Circe nearly broke down, but she kept her spine straight. She would not break in front of him. 

Martha was there, and the Doctor silently directed the TARDIS to the human’s home to drop her off. A conversation between the two occurred, one that Circe didn't listen to, before Martha left without a word. Neither Time Lord moved. 

The Doctor finally looked at her again, shrugging his coat off and leaning against the centre console. He crossed one foot in front of the other as he slid his hands into his pockets; the picture of ease, despite the tension she saw coiled into his limbs. 

“What happened?” He finally asked.

Circe hadn’t thought she’d get this far, hadn’t thought he’d give her the chance to explain herself. There wasn’t time to lie, either, and the TARDIS was so carefully observing her thoughts that Circe knew she couldn’t attempt to. She responded on autopilot. “I didn’t tell you the entire truth on Emet.” 

“Tell me,” he ordered, every bit of him the President of Gallifrey that he had been, once upon a time, “and this time don’t skip anything.” 

She obeyed. She told him of the visions she’d seen, how she could manipulate the future by changing the choices she made in the present. She could identify possible branch points within a timeline, and search the future for how an individual choice might impact the timeline. She spoke of how the Time Council found out about this, how they used the information to influence their decisions in the Time War and how they manipulated her perception of reality so that she was reliant upon Koschei to exist; how they trained her by burning through regenerations to create the perfect soldier. She pushed through when her voice got stuck in her throat, and when her eyes burned, she just blinked away the tears and ignored any that escaped. 

The Doctor had been silent for Circe to more easily tell her story, and it took him a long minute to bring his voice back into his body. Circe waited patiently. “And Ross?” 

“Ross?” Circe’s body physically jolted, and she remembered what had happened. Her fingers shook with the effort to keep her hands at attention by her sides, but she maintained it. She nearly began to lie to him again, but his eyes darkened as if he foresaw her intention, and she closed her mouth slowly. When she next spoke, the Doctor didn’t attempt to stop her. “Ross! Yes, of course.” Her palms were sweating, but Circe nodded sharply. “I saw that his continued life would have unwanted ripples across time, in a way that I could not control. I won’t allow for unknown consequences when it comes to this.” 

The Doctor sighed heavily through his nose. “How could he cause unwanted consequences? Did these visions account for other people?” 

Circe frowned, confused. “Other people?” 

“You know, the general population who don’t have the ability to see how their words might manipulate a conversation? Do you see other people’s choices? How they might change the result?” 

Circe chuckled shortly, “that doesn’t matter.” 

After a long pause, the Doctor sternly said, “everyone’s choices matter.”

“I refuse to feel guilty just because my choices make an impact in the universe!” Circe snapped, not sure where her anger was coming from. 

He scowled at her. “How about you acknowledge that everyone’s choices have an impact?”

She stared at him, shocked and off-put. His expression was honest and angry, and she wondered if her words really had caused such rage in him. The Doctor watched as her own renewed blank slate cracked, and something trickled to the surface. Their minds were so tightly closed off from one another that he had no chance of understanding how she might be feeling until she revealed it. 

“Of course they do,” she breathed, but he shook his head. 

“No, you don’t agree,” he interrupted, and, as if he had just calculated the meaning of the universe, he kept going, ignoring her attempts to contradict his words. “You think that just because you can see how your choices will impact your timeline, only your choices matter! But you’re blind, Circe! Blind to the fact that everyone gets a choice in that same moment, that anyone could change what you’ve meticulously planned.” 

She took half a step backwards, involuntary vulnerability coating the movement. He took the advantage, stepping into her space until his furious brown eyes were above hers due to the sloped entrance to the TARDIS.

“You are arrogant enough to believe that your choices are the only things that will cause a difference to the timeline, and you refuse to see how other people might affect that. You refuse to understand that every single other living being you encounter has the same free will you do: they just don’t have the luxury of seeing how their free will can impact their lives!

“I understand, now. Our whole lives, you’ve made choices to affect every moment. Circe, you’ve been so desperate to control everything that you were willing to spend centuries with a psychopath getting tortured just to control how you were perceived.” He ran his hands down his face, staring at her in shock. “But what is so important that you were content to go to any length to get it?”

“I am not some villain for you to analyse, Doctor,” Circe glared, her green eyes sparking with golden energy in reaction to the violent emotion roiling through her. “I do not need to control everything; just-“ she grimaced, her anger turning inward at her slip up. Her hands shook. 

“Why, then, Circe? Help me understand. You killed someone…” he trailed off, his eyes filled with sadness, but he continued on. The commander came back, and it made it easier to respond. “Explain it to me; tell me why.” 

“I don’t do it for narcissistic reasons. I don’t need to control how people see me. I don’t care about them.” She paused, her lips tight and her stance stiff. She didn’t want to reveal anything to him. She couldn’t show him. She couldn’t tell him. But what could she say to help him understand? “I was eight when I looked into the schism, and it gave a part of itself to me.” He nodded impatiently, waiting for the moment when she told him something new. “The Time Vortex is inside of me, and when I was eight years old, it showed my death at the hands of my husband." He knew that, and he went to say something, but Circe interrupted him by saying, "do you know how many nights I spent awake, terrified of every decision I could make that might lead me to that moment?” She watched him for a moment, but he was silent, studying her, observing. She wondered what he was thinking. For the first time since she’d awoken, their roles were reversed, and she couldn’t identify his emotions. “23 nights, laying awake, wondering what I could change, seeing every possibility for every tiny choice I could ever make. Do you know how exhausting that was? How many times did I hear his cruel words thrown at me? How many times did I see myself die? How many times did I see our planet destroyed?” 

Circe laughed, but the sound was cold. She brushed a hand over her forehead, pushing away stray strands of her brown hair so that she could see his face properly. He still stared at her, unmoving. She hated feeling like she was his next mission: his latest adventure to solve before moving on. She took a deep breath. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she lamented the torn sleeve of her red jacket, part of the fabric used to protect Donna from the clone feed. The lamentation felt...bizarrely human, almost normal. 

“Until I saw them,” her smile was real. “I saw one possible future, if I made a very specific set of choices, and it was everything I had ever wanted. I don’t remember exactly what I saw, but it was beautiful. I made a promise to myself then that I would do whatever I needed to in order to achieve that future.” Her eyes burned again, but she didn’t let the tears fall this time. “I didn’t want him to die, but if he hadn't, I would have ruined what I have spent every year of my life building. Centuries of torture would have gone down the drain, all for one life.” 

The Doctor growled in frustration. Her answer hadn’t been good enough for him. “But what could he have done? One human, what could he have done to change your timeline so drastically?” 

She smiled sardonically, eyes glittering in irony. “I don’t know.” 

He moved away from her, pacing around the centre console in frustration. “I don’t understand.” His words were quiet, but they stabbed just as painfully as his shouting had been earlier. She shifted uncomfortably, unseen, as he turned away from her. “One life, that you didn't have to take, for the sake of a possible future that you don’t even remember.

"You didn’t even try.” He glanced at her, brown eyes simmering in fury. “Who are you? I don’t think I recognise you anymore.” 

She stayed where she was as he walked out of the console room, into the depths of the TARDIS. Hearts beating hard in a rhythm she knew not to be the drumming, but her own hearts, she took a sharp inhalation, pushing down the self-hatred thrumming through her veins. Her hands burned to search for the future, to find out just how Ross’ death had affected the timeline, but the stinging words of the Doctor seemed to quell the desire for now. 

The air was cool outside, but Martha was still there, watching. The surprise wasn’t unexpected, but Circe felt the familiarity of Florence rising in her, and she didn’t even make it to where Martha leant against the brick wall. Her feet fell from under her, and she fell onto her hands and knees, skin breaking against the gravel underneath. 

“Circe!” Martha exclaimed, rushing to be next to her. “What are you doing?” 

“He doesn’t want me. I can’t stay there.” Swallowing her pride, she asked, “can you help me?” 

Martha nodded, and she grabbed one hand and helped pull the Time Lady up onto her feet. “Of course. You can stay with me for a bit.” 

Her hearts ached as they walked away from the TARDIS, and Circe wondered if this was how Martha had felt when she’d walked away all that time ago. The sorrow was all encompassing, and if a tear slipped from her green and gold eyes, neither woman would mention it. 

The wooden table was smooth beneath her fingertips, and she could feel the age of it. She probably could’ve correctly named the forest that the tree came from, and how long it had been growing before someone tore it down. The tea was similar; the cloying scent aged and warm, and Circe wanted to identify when those scents had been born from the leaves. But every time she tried, she remembered the warm eyes of Ross, the shock and the fear that had filled him, before he’d died. She recalled how easily she’d made her choice, once she’d seen the consequences of the opposing one, and she wondered how she hadn’t seen this reality coming. 

Martha’s phone was blowing up between them, but Circe recognised the number and told her to ignore it. She glanced up at Martha, seeing the exasperation and frustration evident in her expression, and looked away again. 

“What happened?” Martha asked, her voice thick. “You chose to leave the TARDIS. What happened once I left?” 

So Circe told her; all about her recovery since the Year That Never Was, and her ventures into baking; her first time leaving the TARDIS to say goodbye to her brother; her doomed trip aboard the Space Titanic, and how they’d met Donna; how she’d seen Donna for the manipulative mastermind she must be, and how Rose must be involved with her. 

And finally, how she’d seen how she could save poor Ross, and didn’t. 

“Circe, do you realise how psychopathic that sounds?” Martha said carefully, her brown eyes searching the Time Lord’s carefully. “And, excuse me, seeing choices? How?” 

Circe told her. Her voice was low, grating against the lowest pitches of her range. She spoke in a monotone, and she couldn’t tell whether or not she was disassociating from the reality of what had occurred. When Circe stopped speaking, the kitchen fell into silence. Circe picked at the scabs along her wrists, not caring about the blood.

Martha had stood at some point, leaning against her kitchen counter on the opposite side of the kitchen from Circe. She cradled her cup of tea like it was precious. She wasn’t looking at Circe anymore, instead focusing on something outside her kitchen window. 

“Jesus…fuck, Circe. Do you understand what you did?” Martha finally broke, and the vulgarity of the usually polite human caused Circe to flinch. “Do you even understand why that was wrong?” The former companion finally looked back to Circe, and her eyes were angry. 

Circe looked at her, eyes burning with tears. The false drumming beat hard in her mind, and she had to consciously remind herself that it was the beat of her hearts in her ears, and not the drumming in her mind. 

“I thought I was doing the right thing.” 

“And that’s probably even worse!” Martha put her tea down to run a hand through her hair. 

“I was fulfilling the purpose I have followed for longer than humans have had written history. I was maintaining the ideal timeline that I have curated so carefully after centuries of torture and pain and suffering. I was not going to let one little life ruin what I have spent all this time protecting.” 

“One little life?” Martha exclaimed, her voice exasperated and confused. “Is that all humanity is to you? Pointless little lives, to be used and snuffed as required for your great masterplan for the universe?” Martha laughed, but the sound was harsh, cold. “Do you hear yourself? Do you know who you sound like?” 

Circe flinched, anger and confusion settling in her bones like a heavy fog. “I was preserving a timeline for the best of everyone!” 

“Everyone? Listen to yourself,” Martha shook her head, eyes like fire as they burned through Circe’s defences. 

Circe frowned deeply. The scrutiny was heated, and Circe wasn’t sure she wanted to know where Martha was heading. Still, she asked, “go on then, who do I sound like?” 

Martha whispered it, the words filled with the fear and hatred they both still felt acutely. 

“The Master.” 

Ice shot through Circe. She demanded, “Martha Jones, you take that back.” 

Martha shook her head, and such fury was currently racing through Circe’s body that she didn’t notice her hand slip behind her back, wary and waiting. 

“You have been carefully plotting for a specific version of the future, deciding who to kill and who to save, whispering the right word into the right ear to present yourself in the best way.” Martha’s eyes softened, and she implored her, “don’t you see, Circe? You are acting just like him. How do I know that our friendship wasn’t based on lies? That your friendship with the Doctor isn’t just as fabricated? That your mistrust of Donna isn’t the same?” 

“I couldn’t access it while I was human,” Circe tried to explain calmly, but the words came out with an agressive flash of golden light from her hands and eyes, conveying the anger she was trying to contain. But, she didn’t want to be angry at Martha. She’d thought that, maybe, Martha would understand. Martha had always been logical, rational. She stood slowly, and took one step towards Martha. And her hands shook with rage at the sight that greeted her. 

Martha had lifted a human-made pistol, with the barrel aimed directly between Circe’s eyes. She had narrowed her gaze, expression set into stone. “Don’t come any closer.” Martha’s voice left no room for argument. 

“I was doing what was best for the timeline,” Circe exclaimed, her low voice breaking under pressure, “what was best for him, for me, for you-“ 

“And for Ross?” Martha’s voice broke. “Best for him?” 

Circe stared at her, mouth open and eyes unblinking. She couldn’t answer. 

Martha kept going, her pistol unshaken. “Was this timeline really the best timeline for him? Or did it just fit the timeline you wanted?” 

Circe couldn’t move, pinned in place by the piercing gaze of her friend, and the sights trained on her. 

“I…I…Martha,” Circe begged, her green eyes shifting. The anger was disappearing, and in its place came the guilt sodden confusion as she tried to process what she had done. “This was supposed to be the best, and I…I don’t know how to disobey.” 

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, but Martha’s eyes softened in acknowledgement. Circe desperately dug into her confusion, trying to make Martha understand, trying to understand herself. 

“I am a soldier! I am trained to obey without question, even if that obedience is to myself. I’m not like you, or the Doctor. I don’t know how to be good. I only know how to be a soldier.” Circe exclaimed, her words slowing as she spoke. She had been a soldier since her first century. She had married Koschei - for some reason, his true name was easier to think than his assumed name - and her life hadn’t been her own since. “The Doctor, t," she still couldn't bring herself to say his title, "my husband, Engin, Borusa, my parents: I have followed every order meticulously, with lethal precision. But always in deference to the first order. I really tried, I promise. I tried to be a person, like you. 

“But I gave myself orders as a child, and I’ve been following them ever since.” 

Martha lowered the pistol, her mouth rounding to a soft ‘oh’ shape, as horror began to pool in Circe’s gut. 

“You saw all the pain you’d go through, and decided that was acceptable? What future was so incredible that it was worth so much pain?” Martha whispered, and Circe shrugged, smiling wetly. 

“I don’t remember,” she breathed. “But if I stop obeying, if I stop following this path, then what was it all for?” Both women stood in silence for a long moment. Martha’s pistol lay on the countertop behind her now, and Circe wanted to cry. “How could I go through so much and give up on it now?” 

The sound of the TARDIS coming from outside caused both women to jump. Martha’s hand instinctively gripped her pistol, but it relaxed as the sound registered in her mind. Circe crept to the kitchen window that overlooked the road, and saw it. But it wasn’t his TARDIS: the blue was wrong. 

The door opened, and out stepped a short woman, with dark skin and hair, and pale eyes. Circe didn’t recognise her face, but knew her soul as intrinsically as she knew her own. She wore blue dungarees, with a smart button up shirt underneath. Her black hair was cropped short around her face, which was rounder than she’d known her faces to be in the past. She made eye contact with Circe through the window, and nodded. 

“That’s…impossible,” Circe breathed, and Martha joined her.

“That’s not the Doctor,” Martha commented in confusion. “Who is she?” 

Circe scoffed lightly. “It’s me.” 

Circe rubbed her scratched palms together nervously in front of her, her brunette hair tied up out of her face. Her green eyes were shimmering, threatening to flash gold any second. Her hands burned to search through the choices, to find the best outcome from this reality, but she restrained herself. There was no use flicking through choices if she ended up fighting herself: her enemy would have the same capability, meaning neither could gain ground by knowing their futures. 

The future Circe leant against the side of the TARDIS, which was a lighter blue than Circe knew the Doctor kept it at presently. She had her arms crossed in front of her, the cuffs of her sleeves rolled to her elbow. The two selves said nothing, only staring at the other. 

The door opened again, and Circe felt the familiar presence burst into her space, unrestrained and wild in comparison to what she was used to. Circe had to batten down her mental defences to protect against his barrage of energy, however unwitting it might've been. She almost felt as if she could barely look into his face, so strong his aura was. 

"I told you, Doc, you gotta pull yourself in." The future Circe's voice could only be described as dainty, each syllable careful but clear. "You'll overwhelm me." 

“Oh, whoops! Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve been around any Time Lord other than my Cece!” 

The effect was immediate. His mind rescinded to a more comfortable boundary, and Circe finally felt like she could relax. She heaved in a breath of air and pushed it out. Despite how she felt, she maintained the extra cautious defence in her own mind. 

“Who are you?” She asked, finally looking at the man. 

His hair was almost bigger than her Doctor’s, and he wore an obnoxious red bow tie, that he was currently fiddling with. He wore it with a tweed blazer over a white shirt and similarly coloured pants. “Can’t you guess?” He grinned at her, all teeth and chin. “Whaddya think?” He winked at her then, and Circe almost took a step back in shock. 

The whiplash she was experiencing between the conversation she’d been having with Martha and this one was extreme, and Circe wasn’t sure whether Gallifreyan minds could snap, but she figured she might’ve been close. 

Maybe this was finally what would push her over the edge. 

“You look like a teacher. Not from the Academy, though. From that planetary conference of Geography teachers that happens every 6 months in the Aspen galaxy,” Circe stated dryly, and the man startled, as if he hadn’t expected the comment, or the humour, or both. He smugly looked back to the woman leaning against the TARDIS. “But who are you?” 

He tutted, hands finally dropping to his side in exasperation. “It’s me! The Doctor,” his voice did something strange when he said his name, dropping in pitch as if he thought the answer should've been obvious. "And this is my Cece!" He gestured to the woman, who just inclined her head in acknowledgement. “No one else’s! Henry did want to have a try, though, didn’t he?” He turned back to the woman. She sent him an endearing smile, but when he turned back to Circe, the smile turned into an exasperated one that was obviously meant for Circe, as if they shared exasperation. Circe supposed they probably would, one day. 

“This is dangerous. You should leave,” Circe stated, suddenly wanting to end this interaction. “You know you can’t cross time streams!” 

He took a few steps forward, towards Martha’s porch. Circe stayed on the step, safely behind a gate. If he tried to get through, she could easily escape into the house. The joy and humour on his face shifted, and he spoke lower. “I know, but this was important. Listen: Cece wanted me to come here. Said I said some things that made her realise just what she was doing when she was in your shoes. Now I’m kind of guessing, because she didn’t exactly tell me what it was, but given it’s 2007, the air tastes like burnt clone feed, and you’re in Martha’s home - hello Martha -“ he paused to wave excitedly at the human through her kitchen window, “I’m assuming the Sontaran’s have just lost, and you made a choice that I really didn’t like. And instead of discussing it properly, we both decided to close off and run away from it.” His green eyes seemed to twinkle in spite of the midafternoon sun, and he nodded despite receiving no affirmation. “Yeah, I’m just that good.” He smirked at her, hands contently resting on the lapels of his blazer. 

“He’s not, really,” the future Circe murmured in humour, but they all heard it. The Doctor’s expression dropped minutely, but present Circe watched him, saw how he decided to impress the other Time Lady, and he kept talking. 

“And now I think you need to hear this,” he paused, and he smiled at her. His eyes shone in the sunlight, and despite all her defences locked down, she still felt the tender caress of his mind against her outer barriers, intimate and foreign and familiar, “it was not your fault.” He stepped forward, through the gate, but Circe was too shocked to move away. He stopped in front of her, and he lifted his hands to cup her cheeks. His thumb brushed away a tear before it had chance to fall. “My dear Cece, how could you have known better?” 

Her breathing sped up, and despite how unsafe she felt on that porch in front of a Doctor she didn’t know, she still felt most safe in his arms. With his palms gently pressed into the olive skin of her face, she leant into him, squeezing her eyes closed. The unfamiliar curves of his hands still fit with the contours of her face. The rough pads of his thumbs brushed over her cheekbones with a tender emotion that Circe couldn’t name, out of fear. 

“You were trained to never disobey for a war that has passed. Now, Magna,” his voice lowered to a whisper for her name, and the use of it caused a shiver to run down her spine, “will you grow beyond what Koschei made you? Beyond what you made yourself?” 

Her eyes flew open, and he held her gaze for a long moment of silence. What he saw in her eyes, she had no way of knowing. 

“What do I do if this happens again?” She whispered finally. 

He smiled grimly. “Make the right choice. I know you will.” He stepped away from her, and she immediately missed the feeling of his skin on her own. She scowled at him, inciting a laugh. 

“But I spent centuries living through hell for one thing. How can I let the only good future I know of go?” She demanded, and he smiled at her. 

“Who says you only got one?” His eyes spoke of forbidden knowledge, that Circe desperately longed to take. Her fingers itched to claw the information from the air, and her scars started to burn. 

“Do you promise?” She called, just before he entered the TARDIS. 

“Cross my hearts,” he turned to do so, and Circe just narrowed her eyes at him and nodded. “I’ll see you soon, Cece!” 

The Doctor disappeared into his TARDIS, leaving the two Circe’s alone on Martha’s street. 

Future Circe pushed off from her place leaning against the TARDIS and stepped forward. She kept her arms crossed over her front, hands hidden away, and her hip cocked out to one side. They studied each other for a long moment. 

“Word of advice; don’t go choice hunting again,” Future Circe finally warned, causing Present Circe to frown. 

“What? Why wouldn’t I?” 

Future Circe pursed her lips, obviously unable to say much. “We don’t realise how much…damage it can do.” 

“You could cause a paradox if I choose to follow your advice,” Circe warned, and the other one laughed. 

“Oh, trust me, I know us. We won’t cause a paradox. Because no matter how much we try to fight it, the itch always comes. And we always scratch it.” Her voice, despite its lightness, was dark. Present Circe desperately wanted to ask more questions, but Future Circe spoke before she could. “And I will warn you now; he’s not dead.” Future Circe’s eyes teared up, pale grey shining up at green. “He lived.” 

Circe’s mind panicked and immediately thought of the worst option, until she remembered the reason she had let a man die today. 

“No,” Circe whispered, hearts kicking off again. “No, I saw his dead body. I saw both of their dead bodies. You’re lying. Which one lived?” 

The shorter Time Lady shrugged, indifference coating her handsome features. “Look, you don’t have to believe me; I lived it, so I know you won’t. He isn’t dead.” 

“Can you be more specific?” 

The shorter woman laughed, the sound cold. “You know I can’t.” 

They stared at each other. It wasn’t the first time Circe had met her future self. The Time Council had allowed her to cross her own time stream significantly when she’d fought for them in the war, after all, but this was the first time she’d encountered herself while still being free, while the Ood’s song of Freedom sang so close to her hearts. They both kept their minds tightly locked down, not risking an accidental paradox with the brushing of consciousnesses or sharing of memories. 

“If I change paths now, how can I help him trust me again? I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve what he gifts me, us.” She tried to find the right words, and the older woman smiled. 

“I don’t trust us. But I trust him. And his mind. You will, too. One day. Trust him to be better than we are. Trust him to forgive you.” 

The future Circe turned then, her sharply cut bob spinning out from the speed, and she disappeared into the TARDIS. Disappeared into Circe’s future. 

Chapter Text

Days passed in a blur. Circe spent most of them sat at the old wooden table, fingers finding new cracks in the grain of the wood and mind mostly blank. As her mind cleared of fog, she began to realise where her thoughts had been heading. It hadn’t taken much to go from keeping the Doctor safe to saving him from more pain, and that thought scared Circe shitless. When Martha went to sleep, Circe usually would move to sit outside, on the steps. The cold air was refreshing. It helped her think. 

It also relieved the new injuries she would discover each morning. 

She couldn’t help it. Underneath her skin bubbled an enemy she didn’t know how to fight. The Time Energy was furious at being ignored, thrown aside like this, but Circe was terrified to use it. She began to find her hands raised as if to use her power, and she would force herself to stop, although the action made her sob in agony. In punishment, one week into her self-imposed exile, she found herself stood over the kitchen stove, trying to alleviate the itching sensation through the heat of a gas flame. 

Martha had arrived home just in time, saving Circe from potentially mutilating herself beyond help. 

The morning after found Captain Jack Harkness sat opposite Circe in the kitchen, his older face openly horrified as Martha explained what was happening. The anger that Circe had once felt at the mere sight of him had faded, leaving only the burning reminder that he was the one who forced Florence to explore a new world; a reminder she was more than capable of ignoring with her more recent experience of the Time Energy surging through her. 

“He kicked you out?” Jack asked, but Circe shook her head once. 

“I left.” Her voice was dry from lack of use. “I’m not good enough for him. I don’t, I can’t,” her voice broke, and Martha poured a glass of water and placed it on the table before her. 

“That’s not true, Circe,” Jack insisted, but Circe just shook her head. The impossible man sighed in frustration, his fingers twitching in front of her on the table. Circe started at them, envious of his obvious pain-free movement. Her own hands sat clenched before her, fingers twisting around each other in fiery anticipation. Jack reached forward to stop her anxious twitching and his fingers felt older than Circe thought they should’ve been for this time period. 

She narrowed her eyes at him, and his gaze sparkled with amused knowing. 

“You’re older than you should be,” she stated, pulling her hands from his. 

He gave a roguish smile as he winked. “I had to intercept Martha’s message so that my younger self wouldn’t come. As much as I’d love to see his handsome face once more, I’m sure you can agree the crossing of time streams to be pretty unwise.” 

Did he think his knowledge of the rules of time travel might impress her, might even endear him to her? 

Circe rolled her eyes, muttering, “of course I agree with the basic laws of time travel. I was there when the Time Lords created them.” 

Jack grinned at her, his eyes wrinkling slightly, before he glanced back to Martha. “We’ll go for a walk around the block, Jonesy. Back in an hour!” 

Circe frowned, leaning back in her seat. “Do I not get a say in this?” She demanded, and Martha scoffed. 

“You get a say when you stop trying to mutilate your limbs or self harm,” she insisted, and, even though she had opened her mouth to fight back, Circe had to acquiesce. 

Jack had tucked her hand into his elbow like they were on the Regent in Palentia Paradise, where every occupant and visitor was able to immerse themselves into aristocratic society based off a regency period of fashion and social norms that had occurred across several galaxies. The sun was shining bright, and the residential streets of Martha’s home were mostly void of other humans. 

The immortal human was silent, his non-judgemental quiet a balm to the wound Martha had unintentionally opened with her words on that first day of exile. Circe found herself beginning to breathe properly, for what felt like the first time since her regeneration, possibly even before. His gentle pace certainly made talking possible, but he seemed to show no interest in her, instead content to look around at suburban London. It was his quiet that helped Circe quieten her own mind, and while her first words were slow, it didn’t take long before they began to pour out of her, like a river of consciousness that burst through the dam of her lips. 

“I killed Ross. I watched him bleed out because I knew that he would destroy everything I have lived for, and I lied about him being a clone, because I knew the Doctor wouldn’t like it.” Circe admitted, hearts pounding in her chest. She didn’t look at the impossible man, but he didn’t respond, and his continued silence only furthered the impulse to speak. Despite her mouth being dry, she burst out, “my skin feels like it’s peeling from my bones. I keep finding myself tearing at my own skin in ways I have never had the urge to do, just to relieve the pain. I need, I can’t,” she gasped, speaking about the feeling only exacerbating the sensation. “The time energy - you know about that, right?” She didn’t let him respond, even though he seemed like he wouldn’t have, as her words tumbled over one another in her urgency to release them. “The time energy inside me is tearing my insides apart, and I am terrified to release it, but I need to let it out. It hurts so much,” she nearly sobbed the words, “but who was I? How could I let a man die because of my desires?” But there was only a moment of reflection before she was contradicting herself, exclaiming, “but I spent centuries being tortured at his whim for the preservation of my future! What is one life compared to centuries of suffering? Why did I go through all of that, just to nearly lose it to one man?” 

Circe didn’t realise she’d pulled them to a stop, but Jack came around to face her, his eyes empathetic and understanding and caring. He still didn’t say anything, and Circe kept talking. 

“Martha said I was acting like him. But I’m nothing like him! He wanted to command everything and control everyone; all I wanted was my one good future. How does that make us alike in any way? My future was good, safe even! I am not th-the-HIM!” 

Shivers ran down her spine at the insinuation, and she took half a step away from Jack. His handsome face was watchful, dark eyes scanning her face for…something. She scowled at him. Why hadn’t he spoken yet? 

“Who are you and what did you do with Captain Jack Harkness?” She demanded suddenly, narrowing her eyes and prodding at his chest. 

He laughed then, pulling Circe forward to wrap her in his embrace. Her chin reached his ear, but her arms wrapped around his shoulders and she pressed her cheek against the top of his head, squeezing shut her eyes. His arms settled around her waist, and she let hers rest easily. There was something…healing about how he held her. He seemed able to soothe her innermost pain with just that embrace. 

“This will pass, Cece,” Jack promised as he pulled back. His hands moved to grab hers, and then hung between them like lifelines. He didn’t deny or agree with any of her statements, and Circe wondered if he knew that she would’ve rebuked any comment he made, just because she didn’t understand herself anymore. 

She sniffed, muttering angrily, “only the Doctor can call me that.” 

His laugh boomed out of him, which only served to make Circe roll her eyes to disguise how much she appreciated his diffusion of tension. 

“You’re from the future,” she didn’t ask. She could feel the age of him, like the wrongness of his youth had diffused over time. “How can he forgive me?” 

Jack smiled then, and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “So the next Doc came to see you, I suppose?” 

Circe nodded sharply, skin tingling as she remembered his words. 

It was not your fault. How could you have known better?  

Maybe she would have known better if she’d searched more, if she’d thoroughly gone through every single choice imaginable, and more. Maybe, if she’d revealed the truth to the Doctor, he would have helped her. Maybe it was her fault; after all, she was the one with access to the infinite cosmos-

Jack yanked on her hands, and she stumbled out of her thoughts to find her hands held firmly down in front of her, fingers straining with the effort to push against Jack’s hands. Horror filled her, and she pulled herself away from Jack, backing up and tucking her hands under her armpits. 

“Why can’t I stop myself?” She wanted to yell, but part of her was terrified that the Doctor was watching, that he would see every action and judge her based off it. “Why do I have to? Why am I so torn apart?” Her words were bitten between her teeth. “It’s like…” desperately, she searched for the right word, “it’s like an addiction.” 

Jack was watching her carefully, and Circe could see how he was posed to strike at any moment, in the event she became a danger to anyone else, and she was so grateful for it. She couldn’t tell where her mind was going, but seeing how ready Jack was to help her, despite how she’d treated him at the start of this regeneration…she was able to ground herself off that emotion, that stability. 

“So how would you treat an addiction?” She mused instead of focusing on Jack’s reaction to her, “cold turkey almost never works, the withdrawal almost causes worse symptoms than the actual substance, and the patient usually ends up relapsing worse than if they’d just kept taking whatever substance it was.” This was helping her to avoid thinking about the itch, using her mind to intellectualise the problem. She kept going, “But…there’s no one who can manage the dose of energy I use except myself, and I’ve already proven that I’m willing to go too far.” All she could think about for a moment was how she had genuinely believed the Doctor would be safer, better off, if she killed him first. “I can’t keep doing this. So how can we help cold turkey patients?”

Jack nodded, observing her thought process with a warm smile, as if he’d missed her. Her eyes widened as she realised something.

“The tracker, the thing that UNIT put into me…it’s still there.” Circe’s hand dropped her to her right side, where it had been injected. Jack’s brows furrowed, but not in confusion. He’d known about it, then, whether he’d learnt about it before or after was irrelevant. “It fused to the Time Energy inside me, probably to prevent the energy from ejecting it.” 

Jack’s eyes widened as he caught onto her train of thought. “We could hack it,” he interjected, a brilliant smile growing on his face. “We could hack it, use it to keep track of the fluctuations of energy within you, have someone near enough to you that when you try to use it, it alerts us and we can stop you!” 

Circe appreciated that he obviously cared enough about her to care for her well being, but she scoffed, “how unreliable is that? I’m not going to be coddled while we find a way to remove this energy. No, have it electrocute me whenever I go to use it.” As if the energy could hear what they were discussing, it surged through her, as if it was trying to break free from her skin. She cursed, rubbing her palms over her bare arms to try and relieve the sudden sharp stabbings happening under her skin. 

“Jesus, that’s insane, Circe!” Jack protested, “I’m not going to torture you for the foreseeable future! Isn’t that the opposite of what we want?” 

She scowled at him. “Don’t be so soft-hearted, Jack. You’re a big boy, I'm old enough to handle a bit of pain.” She ignored his own scowl, and began to stride back to Martha’s house. “We’ll need a UNIT laptop with the right permissions. Martha should have one at home.” 

Martha had objections to the plan, albeit different to those that Jack held. “Are you trying to kill yourself?” She’d demanded the second Circe had finished explaining her plan. Circe frowned at her, green eyes flashing gold in response. The human rephrased it, “look, you’ve spent a week here, and I’ve been on suicide watch the entire time. Is this another way you’re trying to punish yourself for what happened? How much of this is self-harm, and how much is this genuinely trying to stop yourself from, what did you call it, choice-hunting?” 

Circe supposed it was a valid point. She did nearly melt off her own hand in an effort to release some of the pain, but she hadn’t thought about it being a release of guilt as well. It occurred to her then that, perhaps this was partly a guilt-ridden punishment, but the logistics of her plan worked better than any other would. 

Circe sighed, crossing her arms to avoid the itching again. The sheer emotional depth of the woman across from her was overwhelming, to say the least. “Martha, I appreciate that you’re trying to stop me from doing more harm, but I can’t tell you the thoughts I had while I was so…delusional. If I told you, you would probably want to finish what Rose is trying to start.” 

Martha rolled her eyes then. “Rose isn’t here!” She insisted, “she’s trapped in an alternate universe, Circe. Have you considered that maybe she was another figment of your imagination? A distortion of your reality? A trick that the time energy was playing on you to make you even more obsessed with the future?”

Circe didn’t listen. “No, this is not an elaborate attempt to return to self-harming,” was all she responded with. “Laptop, Martha. Now.” Her tone left no room for argument, and all Martha could do was hand over the UNIT-issued laptop with a reluctant frown. 

Two days after they’d reprogrammed what they could of the tracker, Circe was already fed up of being zapped. It happened in the most bizarre, frustrating moments. Sometimes, it occurred when she was lost in thought, wondering and worrying about the future. She was beginning to expect it in those moments. The weird times were when she was talking, and she got carried away, and suddenly she’d be shocked with a powerful electric zap that sent her sprawled onto the floor, shaking with the aftereffects. 

Part of Circe wondered if she should reverse the programming. Surely, it would be easier for someone else to keep an eye on her? 

But another part of Circe, that dark part that had been jealous of the Ood’s easy freedom, felt she deserved this. These controlled shocks were simply the punishment she should’ve been given for killing Ross, for even contemplating a future where she killed the Doctor. 

Martha had diagnosed Circe with paranoia, anxiety and delusions, possibly including hallucinations. Circe wasn’t convinced about the last part, but that could’ve been due to the paranoia. Rose had come back, and she had threatened Circe directly. However, Circe could understand how hard that might be to believe, given that the Doctor had told everyone the walls of the universe snapped shut behind Rose, but Circe knew what she’d seen. She’d hallucinated before, and Rose was not a hallucination. She hadn’t had the chance to explain why she was so certain of Rose’s return, only that she believed Rose was the leader behind this conspiracy. 

Which led them to the park. Circe had insisted on the neutral territory. There was a part of her that didn’t trust any of the technology around Martha’s home, given UNIT appeared to be in cahoots with Rose. 

Circe scuffed her borrowed trainers on the concrete pavement beneath her, squeezing her scarred hands onto the old wooden bench - 38 years old, from the aging grain of the wood - as Martha paced in front of her. Martha’s stupefied expression didn’t inspire confidence in Circe. 

“You saw Rose.” It wasn’t a question. 

Circe persisted, “yes, she made up some crap about the universes dying, and that she was trying to find the person it all centred on!” 

“Rose is trapped in an alternate universe, though.” 

“She was using a dimension hopper, but a very crude one, obviously human made. She’s destroying the universe by tearing holes into the fabric of space time. She is directly causing the issue she is trying to prevent!” Circe ranted. 

The park they sat in seemed to juxtapose both of their emotional states. Sun shining through green leaves illuminated the grey pavements and explosions of colourful flowers. 

Martha sipped her coffee, now just staring at Circe in bafflement. “Are you sure?”

Circe scowled at her. “Ignore the important information, how human of you!” She snapped, but a flash of Donna’s voice, some comment she’d made about Martian’s insulting other species whenever the two Time Lords were mildly upset, made her draw back. “That-that was unnecessary,” she hesitated, seeing the surprise in Martha’s expression. “I’m sorry. Donna says that I seem to insult humanity when I’m confronted by the inadequacies of my own people, or myself.” 

Martha chuckled in surprise. “The Doctor used to do something similar, but don’t think it’s going to stop me from pursuing this further. Tell me when you saw Rose.” 

Circe explained her encounter with the human on Earth, during their stake out of Adipose Industries, and then how her reappearance beside Donna later that day solidified Circe’s belief in Donna being too coincidental. How Rose had reappeared in the ATMOS factory and hurt her. 

Circe didn’t mention that Rose was certain she would kill the Doctor. There was already enough evidence to back that up, thanks very much, and the last thing Circe needed was refusal to re-board the TARDIS because of concerns over her mental health. 

“And you’re certain this isn’t a delusion?” Martha sighed, running a hand across her forehead. Circe frowned in concern. Humans weren’t designed to keep up with Time Lords; what if she was pushing Martha into overdrive in staying with her? She pushed the worry aside, remember the months Martha had spent on board the TARDIS and with Florence and the Doctor in London. If the human hadn’t already been driven insane, she would survive this time with Circe. 

“This is not a delusion! She’s following me, tormenting me!” Circe felt her fingers twitch, and she tensed, wondering if the newly familiar electric shock would follow. When it didn’t, she pushed on. “Whatever she’s planning, I have to stop her.” 

“And just how do you plan on stopping a human currently in an alternate dimension?” A new voice added to their conversation, familiar as it curled into Circe’s ears and settled easily within her hearts. 

She tensed, eyes flashing gold as she spotted the curly haired woman. Martha turned to look as well.

River was stood, her curly hair wild and all over the place, a bright lipstick adorning her curved lips. Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief, but Circe noticed an unsurety buried within them, almost unseeable. She wore a skintight black bodysuit, lined with a dark grey seam. If Circe hadn’t been so prepared for an attack, she might have smirked at the sheer sight of the woman. 

“And what would you know of dimension hopping, archaeologist?” Circe snapped, recalling the vivid taste of fear on Florence’s tongue as she’d screamed at River to abandon her. 

But the woman in front of her smirked. “Oh, spoilers, my love,” she purred. “When do I become an archaeologist?” 

Something that Circe hadn’t realised in their first meeting, but could now put together being a Time Lord; River Song knew her, but not with the intimacy that she’d known her at their first meeting. “Oh. I understand, now,” she scowled. 

River’s answering grin was enough.

Martha interrupted, “I don’t think I do!” The woman looked between the other two, confused. “Who are you?” She demanded of River. 

Circe muttered, “she’s part of the reason Florence isn’t around anymore.” 

There was a flicker of hurt that ran through River, but Circe watched her cover it up with bravado and confidence. “All the more room for you, love.” 

“Wait, what?” Martha asked, crossing her arms. River came over to pat Martha on her shoulder before she sat beside Circe, resting a long arm over the Time Lord’s shoulders.

“Don’t worry about it, Jones. Go home, I’ll take care of this one,” River promised, squeezing Circe gently, affectionately. 

There was anger rising in Circe that she didn’t want Martha to see, so she nodded once when Martha turned questioning eyes to her. 

“I’ll explain who she is when I get home, even though I don’t completely understand myself,” she swore, and, although the human wasn’t happy about it, she nodded. 

Martha said quietly to her, “any trouble, and you call.” 

Circe silently agreed. 

Martha walked away, and River’s arm dropped to her side, fingers still reaching out to grasp Circe’s hand. But Circe pulled it away from her, not wanting to be touched by the woman. There was a level of anger and mistrust that had built within her during her time as Florence, and Circe couldn’t find it within her to forgive and forget. 

“When are you?” Circe asked, trying to orient herself with the other woman. 

River laughed as if the answer should’ve been obvious. She reached into her pocket to pull out a blue TARDIS diary, but Circe shook her head. 

“No, when are you? Do you know Princeton yet?” She asked, and River’s eyes widened. 

“I do! He’s some first year at a university with me. He’s an older gentleman, but he’s a number of years below me academically. Why?” River asked, reaching again to grasp Circe’s hand. 

Circe stood, moving away from her. 

“What’s wrong, love?” River asked instead of following her, and Circe squeezed her eyes shut, unable to stop remembering how scared Florence had been trapped underground. Remembering the choice she’d had to make, and the knowledge that she wouldn’t survive it. 

“We meet in the wrong order,” Circe ground out between her teeth. “Which means I can’t even explain to you the fury racing through me, which means I really shouldn’t act on it, which means you need to leave before I create the universe’s largest paradox."

She clenched her fingers, an action that River noticed and moved to react to, but Circe just stepped further away. The hurt was becoming more serious on River’s expression, but Circe didn’t care. 

“Sorry love, I’ve been to the universe’s largest paradox; we had a blast,” River winked at her, which only incited a scowl in Circe. “Would it help if I prove you can trust me?” 

Circe’s fingers moved to pick at the imperfect scratches on her palms, anxiously waiting for the words. “Most likely no.” 

River softened, seeing something familiar and it made Circe boil. She moved close to Circe, warmth and care filling every spare scrap of space within her gaze. “You’re not delusional. Well, you are, but not about this. Rose is hopping between universes.” 

River knew everything. The curly haired woman who had destroyed her human life knew Circe more intrinsically than Circe knew herself. She knew the future in greater depth than Circe could hunt for. With her witty comments and flirty eyes, River was giving her crumbs, leading her down a path she didn’t know how to follow. 

What would the Doctor do?

River laughed, as if she could read Circe’s mind, and her voice caressed her as she said, “love, I know your every face. I know your first face, to your last.” She raised a rough hand to cup Circe’s cheek, thumb tenderly brushing across her cheekbone. “You really think I can’t see it in your eyes when you’re thinking too hard?” 

There was so much emotion that Circe couldn’t - wouldn’t - identify in River’s gaze. Instead of trying to dive deeper into River’s universe, she pulled away, pretending she didn’t see the flash of hurt flicker through those beautiful blue eyes. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped, pulling the large cardigan closer to her frame. The itching had stretched across every inch of skin, and it only caused more and more irritation and pain and anger.  

River chuckled, as if she’d expected that reaction. “Why? Scared you might enjoy it?” She teased, and Circe shivered as she felt River run two fingers across her covered shoulders. River didn’t touch her again, but she did lean close into her, her lips hairs breadth away from her ear as she whispered, “or maybe you’re afraid that I know more than you? Afraid of what I know, what I might tell the Doctor?” 

Circe snapped, whipping around to land a punch to River’s face, only for the woman to stop her hand in its place, taking the impact of the blow in her palm. There was a moment where Circe took in the quick response and River just smirked at her, her eyes still kind and understanding despite the attack. And then Circe was moving, desperate to land any strike onto the woman, to make her stop taunting her, but River was always there. She never took the offensive, only ever defending, and the understanding in her face stayed present despite what kicks and fists Circe threw her way. 

At one point, Circe managed to sweep River’s feet from under her, and she was straddling the woman only a moment later, but instead of using the opportunity to strike, Circe stayed hovering above River, hands either side of her bushy hair as she panted, upper body heaving with the movement. River smiled, lifting a hand to cup Circe’s cheek. Circe’s eyes darkened before the time vortex began to shine through them, her limbs quivering at the way River’s eyes looked through hers. Circe hesitated, feeling her eyes burn as her skin started to burn in the most familiar way. River seemed to notice it, because she reached up to either side of her head and grasped Circe’s wrists, thumbs gently brushing against the inside of her wrists, quelling the burn wherever she touched. Surprised, Circe sagged down, collapsing onto the woman in relief. River smiled, keeping Circe’s hands in her own as she comforted the Time Lady. 

River murmured, “I know, my darling. I’m here.” She carefully pulled Circe’s hands to rest on River’s shoulders, close to her neck, before she was wrapping her arms around Circe tightly, persistently applying pressure where she could without restraining her. 

Circe hadn’t felt such relief since she’d last given in. The pressure was deep enough that it scratched the itch everywhere it touched, while not reaching so deep that it disturbed the sands of time underneath her skin. She completely relaxed into the other woman, melding into her body with a comfort she hadn’t found with many others, maybe ever.

She didn’t cry, but her voice broke when she asked, “what’s wrong with me? If you’re from the future, what is wrong with me?” 

River swallowed, adjusting her legs beneath Circe to make them both more comfortable. “You know I can’t tell you everything,” she began, and Circe shifted, ready to protest. River continued, “the energy from the vortex needs an outlet. It’s designed to be used. There is no way I’ve found to remove it, and no way to change its purpose without causing you harm.” 

Circe interrupted, “it is already causing me harm.” She hesitated, unsure whether to reveal this. “I…I can’t stop thinking about the man I ki - how he fell and I did nothing, about the Doctor’s face… And the Doctor, my commander, my…friend, he was so angry. And I think he was scared of me. How did I make him scared of me?” 

There was a significant part of Circe that worried about why she felt so comfortable telling this to a woman she hardly knew, but her instincts told her that this was right. 

River’s hand brushed her spine, an action that Circe discovered made her entire body dissolve into relaxation. When River spoke next, her voice was low, filled with conviction and promise. “He doesn’t know why you did it. He doesn’t yet understand just how sick you are.” 

Circe lifted herself up and off River, throwing herself away from the other time traveller as quickly as she could, despite how it made her skin light up in fire. “I’m not sick!” She protested as River stood in response. “I am perfectly healthy! My body functions as normal; all organs are in perfect condition.” 

River tilted her head, watching as Circe began to rub her fingers across her forearms, the skin underneath turning bright red from the unconscious force. As Circe followed her eye line, she noticed her movements and stopped, squeezing her hands into fists at her side instead. She took a heavy breath in, suddenly wondering if her words had been true, if she was functioning at optimal health. 

Instead of moving towards her or taunting her again, River said, “you are sick. I am not allowed to tell you the precise details,” which made Circe scoff, but River snapped, “a rule that you created, but I can say that the more you scry, the worse your paranoia becomes.” River smiled slightly as she said, “you once told me that you used to believe that Rose was going to kill the Doctor.” 

Circe scowled, protesting, “but she is!” 

River laughed then, shaking her head. “Oh, darling, no, she isn’t. She loves him almost as much as-“ she had to stop herself speaking. 

“As much as what?” Circe demanded, focusing on the end of the sentence instead of the start, because that only enticed far too much rage in her hearts and she didn’t have the energy to analyse that. 

River smirked, her blue eyes teasing as she looked at Circe. “Spoilers,” she spoke the word with a caress over every consonant, care taken to annunciate every vowel correctly as if it were the most delicate word of affection she could give. 

Circe had her suspicions, but she was beginning to learn that River was as stubborn headed as a mule, so she just narrowed her eyes. River would not tell her the truth, so she would have to go the long way round, despite how it prickled her to do so. In that case, Circe forged onwards, pressing, “but I’m not paranoid!” 

River’s laugh boomed across the park they had walked through, startling more than a couple of birds. “Oh, delusional too?” 

Circe scowled, starting to walk away from the woman, but River didn’t follow. She frowned, not turning back to face the woman. “If I am paranoid, or delusional...will it…will I ever get better?” The words were softly spoken, but there was no pitying sound from behind her. 

Instead, River whispered, “it will get worse, a lot worse, before it gets better. Not the paranoia, but…you described it once like a burning itch that you couldn’t scratch, that only got worse the longer you went without scrying. I’ve seen you get into fights that you couldn’t win in order to feel something other than the pain, among other…methods.” River’s eyes sparkled in amusement, but Circe couldn’t figure out why. “But you will find a way to manage it; a way to relieve the tension without causing the paranoia to return. There is a balance.” 

Circe couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out, “like the tracker?” 

Circe couldn’t face her, because hearing about the itch only made the sensation worse. She was hyper aware of every inch of skin that lined her body, and the prickling sensation seemed to focus on her hands, on her scars, while still radiating outwards. Her eyes burned, and not for the first time, she raised her hands, the energy calling out to her. Didn’t she deserve to know the future? If she had to experience this mind numbing pain, why couldn’t she see it? 

But River was there, her cool fingers gently pressing against her palms, and her skin seemed to soothe where she pressed. River gently applied pressure to her hands, clasping them lowly in between them instead of raised to chest height, and Circe turned her burning eyes to her, begging for…for…something, anything, to relieve the agony that tore at her skin. There was only one method that Circe knew would relieve her suffering. 

“I have been through torture worse than this in theory. I have been killed and tortured and given new names and destroyed, but this pain…I need to look. River, I need you to let me look. Please,” Circe whispered. She watched the sorrow, the pain, crossing River’s own face, and she persisted, hoping that River might release her. She wasn’t sure why the tracker wasn’t activating, but the delusional aspect of herself hoped that it was malfunctioning, allowing her to choice hunt. “I can keep the universe on the right track, I can protect you, protect myself, protect the Doctor! But I can’t do it properly if I don’t know what choices to make!” Circe squeezed River’s fingers, wondering if that flicker in those beautiful blue eyes was understanding. “I can stop Rose from destroying the universe, keep Donna from potentially hurting my Doctor. I could even take care of whatever you want into the future. If I made the right choices, I can make anything happen.” 

River’s eyes were filling with tears, but Circe couldn’t understand why. 

“This is a good thing, River.” 

“No.” Her voice was hard, like she was talking through a stone in her throat. She cleared her throat, words breaking her heart. “No, it is never a good thing, my darling.” Instead of letting Circe’s hands go, allowing her to scry, River lifted them to place them against her cheeks, closing her eyes tightly at the feeling of her skin. “You can make as many choices as you like, but they will never make happen what I yearn for. It is impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible,” Circe tried.

“This is.” 

River looked at her again, and Circe was surprised to see a tear had fallen, and it slid down River’s cheek to meet where Circe’s hand was held. Circe used her thumb to brush away the tear, but it seemed River was too upset, as another quickly joined it. 

“No, don’t cry, why are you crying?” Circe asked, but River shook her head. “This is a good thing, I know it is. I am over one thousand years old, after all.” 

One of her hands was released, and Circe pulled it away, thinking River had accepted Circe’s words as truth. But River’s hand moved towards her temple, and Circe couldn’t pull away fast enough, didn’t understand what was going on, before River had placed a finger to her temple. It was as if River had a key perfectly sculpted to unlock Circe’s mental shields, because her usual defences were powerless to River, and, suddenly, Circe’s vision turned dark.

River caught her as she fell, one arm around her shoulders and the other easily picking her up below the knees. She was still crying as she walked back to Martha’s home, and she was still crying when she lay the Time Lady on her bed inside the house. Martha held back to watch, not entirely trusting of the newest time traveller, but the future Doctor had promised her she was safe. He’d been waiting for her when she'd returned home alone.

Well, the Doctor had told her that River was safe enough for being a woman who had been imprisoned for killing a man. He’d then rambled on about them meeting in the wrong order, and how River had turned it around, before he'd slammed his mouth shut and said through closed lips something about how he never knew when to shut his mouth. 

River joined Martha in the downstairs kitchen, where River explained exactly what had happened to Circe, why she had been acting like this, what they could do to help. 

“Why can’t you stay?” Martha asked, and River smiled sadly. 

“I have an appointment to keep with a Doctor.” The words made them smile, all on the inside of the joke. “My ride should be coming anytime now.” 

They heard the telltale sound of the TARDIS landing, and River nodded in farewell to the human before she rushed outside. 

He stood there in his stupid tweed suit, adjusting that blasted blue bowtie, and the blonde woman beside him was curled into his side. When they saw River in the doorway of Martha’s home, the blonde woman immediately brightened, and her small hand raised to indicate that River should join them. Her blue eyes sparkled with a warmth that River had desperately needed, and she smiled in understanding. 

River came to a stop beside them, and she became wrapped in the blonde’s embrace, the petite woman on her tiptoes to rest her ear on River’s shoulder. Her lips gently brushed River’s neck, and it sent shivers across her skin even as she pushed her own forehead against the crown of the woman’s head. The Doctor, his universe’s stars shining from his green eyes, wrapped his arms around both of them, his forehead coming to rest against River’s. 

She whispered into River’s ear, “she’s sick. She doesn’t understand what she’s doing.” 

River heaved in an agonised sob, even as the Doctor, through their private mental bond, shared River’s own grief. She knew that only the Doctor truly understood how devastating this was, how much this hurt to witness. And even as Circe squeezed her tighter, and River felt so grateful that she could be comforted by the woman she loved, that she knew she would get better, it didn’t take away the agony of knowing how much pain she had to suffer to become the woman she loved. 

One day, she will be so grateful that you stopped her, the Doctor’s voice echoed through her own, one day, she will hate that she ever asked you. Yes, the next time you see her, she will hate you for it, but she wouldn’t be our Magna if she didn’t feel everything fiercely.

River scowled, sending back, you get to be with a healthy Magna. The words were more spiteful than she cared to admit. I never know who I’m seeing until she’s either hugging or yelling at me. 

The Doctor understood, because of course he did, but he replied, at least you know why it’s happening, you know she won’t die from it. There was an anger in his mind that simmered, and she couldn’t stop the reply from being spoken out loud. 

“You never have to see it again,” she snapped, and Circe immediately froze under them. Both the Doctor and River comically stilled as Circe pulled out from their embraces, her blue eyes as cold as ice. River shivered to see the reminder of their friend, to see just how many of his characteristics she’d picked up on. 

“You never felt it,” her words were selected carefully, precisely aimed to strike at their intended target. “The micro-shocks of each day; the agonising desire to strip skin from bone to remove every grain of sand digging in; the organ-piercing need to analyse every future possible.” She tilted her head at them, pursing her lips and accentuating her sharp cheekbones. “I am grateful that you both were so caring and understanding, and I would not have lived through it without you, but how dare you start this fight over who had it worse? Only one of us will win, and you will hate yourselves for fighting it.” 

The Doctor and River shared a minuscule look, a plan forming, but Circe caught it and she scowled, trying to hide her laughter. “No, don’t you dare,” she tried to keep the serious tone to her voice, but the growing smirk on the Doctor’s face and the heat in River’s gaze were almost overwhelming. “I swear to God-“ she had to laugh as the Doctor rushed in to throw her over his shoulder, and he and River made their way through the TARDIS, River eying the perfectly formed rear atop the Doctor’s shoulder. “Put me down, Theta,” she gasped for breath, propping herself up on his back with a particularly sharp elbow. Despite the sudden intake of breath, the Doctor’s step didn’t falter.

“But after such an inspiring speech, we need to beg for forgiveness,” River teased, adoring the view she had down Circe’s shirt with her current position. 

“And there’s only one way I want to beg,” the Doctor threw back to them, and River watched as he trailed his free hand up the side of Circe’s thigh, as her blue eyes fluttered at the sudden physical sensation. Her breathing stuttered, but she couldn’t regain her focus before the Doctor was carefully placing her on the supersized bed they’d designated their bedroom. She huffed, blowing a stray strand of blond hair out of her eyes, and scowled at the new position River and the Doctor had taken up. The Doctor was on his knees before her, palms facing upwards in his lap, with River standing over him, hands on his shoulders. Both wore an expression of repentance, and Circe couldn’t help but crack a smile. 

“You…” Circe searched for a phrase, but the only word she could find was overwhelmingly human, “Neanderthals!” 

“Whatever could we do to help our dearest Lady Magna forgive us?” River whispered, voice low and full of promise. 

The Doctor turned his head slightly, grazing a kiss across the fingers of River’s hand that he could reach. “We’d do absolutely anything.” His tone, usually impossibly ridiculous, was intensely seductive. River knew, from having seen those eyes directed at her, that his charm was turned up way past 11. 

Circe bit her lip, drawing her eyes up from the Doctor’s kneeling form all the way to the tips of River’s hair in a way that left both of them feeling beautifully exposed and studied in the most arousing way. 

But the moment passed, and Circe’s eyes, which had been filled with sultry delight, began to dim. The Doctor and River immediately recognised it and leapt up, despite the Time Lady’s protests. Where her eyes had been brimming with love and warmth, now only showed cold pain. 

“Come here, love,” River murmured as she moved the two of them into the centre of the bed. The Doctor bustled around them, taking first Circe’s boots off, then River’s, then his own, before he joined them on Circe’s other side. Meanwhile, Circe had begun to shake, in that restrained way she did when she tried to disguise the pain. 

“I-it’s okay,” she murmured, despite how she curled into River’s warmth. “I’m okay.” 

“We’re here, Magna,” the Doctor shushed her softly, curling around both River and Circe. “Just breathe.” 

Circe slipped into oblivion, ignorant to the fearful looks of her lovers overhead.

Chapter Text

Donna wasn’t stupid. 

She knew that a lot of people liked to assume the opposite. She hadn’t gone to university, and she’d always struggled to hold any meaningful employment down. She’d never had a long term relationship, and she’d been friends with the same vapid women all her life. 

But Donna Noble was not stupid, and she was tired of pretending like she was. 

Being with the Doctor had opened her up to a whole new universe of possibilities and knowledge, and Donna had been ready to take that step forward, except…she hadn’t been. 

She’d turned down his offer to travel. 

And that was okay! She began to really study the Earth, find the curiosities in the home she lived on, discover the intricacies of each moment. She tried to delve into the history of life, find the reason humans evolved and explore the wonders of this planet! 

But after a few unresponsive job applications, it became apparent that she wouldn’t be able to ‘sink her feet into the sand’ in the traditional way. Regardless, research by academia had never been her strong suit. 

And then, while she’d been investigating a local abnormality in London, she found them. 

The Doctor and Circe; the dynamic, and significantly bizarre, duo that were investigating the same case as her. And he, against all the odds, offered her one more chance. 

Well, Donna Noble was not stupid. 

And while most of the universe seemed to think she was, there was something about the anger which Circe interacted with her; how she always took the time to explain something Donna didn’t understand. The Doctor certainly didn’t think she was stupid, but he never gave the impression that she might be clever. Circe, however… Even in her rage against Donna, even though she had never wanted her aboard the TARDIS, Circe saw something burning within Donna. 

Circe knew Donna was brilliant. 

And that was why, after a few trips without the Time Lady, Donna followed the Doctor into the console room as he rambled, a plan and a stubborn nature readying themselves to work in cohesion. 

“…which is when Tolkien said to me, ‘you’ve not seen war, boy.’” The Doctor was saying. Donna wasn’t sure when she’d stopped listening, but as the Doctor moved to flick a switch and walked away from it, Donna casually reversed his action, unseen. “So I said to him, ‘I’ve seen people fighting over limited editions of your books; I’ve seen war!’”

The Doctor rotated a cog, moving on to push three buttons, and Donna undid all his work, until his words and movements gradually stopped. He slowly turned back to face Donna, wary confusion in his expression. 

“Why are you avoiding Circe?” She demanded, immediately combative against the defensive mechanism she saw in his eyes. 

He scoffed, turning away from her. “I’m not.” He flicked another lever, and Donna flicked it back. His hazel eyes turned to her, filled with the unstable rage he’d been pushing away all week. 

“So let’s go pick her up,” she said casually. 

“No.” He pushed the lever again, but Donna moved quickly, covering his hand and pushing it down. “Donna-“ he growled in warning, but she glared at him. 

“Don’t ’Donna’ me, spaceman,” she warned, “now tell me what is going on. Why did you kick Circe off the TARDIS?” 

There was a flicker against the rage that waged ceaselessly, a slash of pain through the anger, and Donna wondered what had happened. 

“I didn’t kick her off,” he ground out, as if the words hurt him. 

Donna hesitated, and the pause allowed the Doctor to push the lever once more. He went to move away, Donna’s hand falling to the console in confusion, but the lever flicked back on its own. She attempted to hide her smug expression, but she wasn’t remotely successful, based off the frustration in the Doctor’s. 

“Don’t you gang up on me!” The Doctor threatened the TARDIS, but he seemed to be losing energy to fight this. For a moment, Donna wasn’t sure whether he would push through the wane of energy and take her wherever he’d planned, or if he would collapse in the console room, and she’d have to find a way home with an unconscious Time Lord. Thankfully, neither situations occurred, as he glared at the column in the centre before he turned to Donna. Suddenly, it was as if she could see his age within his eyes: a universe of stories written in those stars. “She left me - us. She left us.” 

Donna’s lips parted soundlessly. She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but it seemed she didn’t need to, as, now that he’d said the words, the Doctor couldn’t seem to stop speaking. “She killed Ross because of an order from centuries ago, about crafting a perfect future for herself. She chose to kill him, knowing he didn’t have to die, to preserve that timeline. A timeline that she spent eight centuries being tortured for. And she chose that torture, for a future she doesn’t remember choosing!” The Doctor stepped away from her, and it seemed the movement made him restless, because then he was pacing back and forth in front of Donna. She settled back against the console, watching him cautiously. “She genuinely believes that, because she can search for possible futures based off her choices, other choices don’t matter. Your choices, my choices, anyone’s! Not even mentioning the fact that she believes you have too many coincidences. She thinks you’re part of some plot to kill me!” He almost laughed at the absurdity, but for Donna, this explained all of Circe’s behaviour. Of course, Donna must have been suspicious from the first minute! No wonder Circe had been so cold and distant! 

“And to top it all off, she tried to shoot me. She thought I was a clone. My oldest friend thought I was a Sontaran clone!” The Doctor did laugh then, but it hinged on hysterical, and his hazel eyes shone with unshed tears when he finally looked back to Donna. “She tried to kill me.” 

Donna knew they were missing something. They had to be. Circe wouldn’t attempt something so drastic without empirical evidence, at least, not the Circe she’d met in the beginning, right? Circe had her head screwed on; she was too intelligent to make claims like that without evidence or proof or at least a credible theory. 

“But?” Donna prompted when the Doctor was silent for longer than 30 seconds. 

“She’s my friend. My first friend. She…we…” he swallowed hard, and Donna said nothing, giving him the room to share. “We were married to other people before we had a real chance to explore the universe together. She was the academic to my adventure, and we never got…”

Donna could piece together the rest. Whatever relationship they’d developed when they were young had never had a chance. Maybe the Doctor had hoped, after all this time, that there was a possibility. Donna wasn’t a hopeless romantic, but something within her could’ve swooned from the grandeur of it all. 

Pushing aside the emotional aspect of it, she forged on with, “her behaviour…could it be PTSD?” Donna was wracking her mind for reasons why Circe could have done this. She didn’t want to believe the woman could actively wish the Doctor harm, could have actively harmed anyone purposefully. “She was a soldier; I once read about a veteran who had violent blackouts and had a service dog to keep the people around him safe! Could it be something like that?” 

The Doctor frowned, shaking his head. “I-I, I don’t know,” he murmured. “Maybe. I thought she was getting better.” His whispered admission brought tears to Donna’s own eyes. She watched as he ran a hand over his face, patted his cheeks until they were tinged pink, and then squeezed his eyes shut. “How can I let her back on the TARDIS?” As if the words hurt him, his eyes flew open and he gazed at Donna, begging silently for advice. “But I can’t leave her on Earth, with no one to protect her…or the humans…if anything happens.” 

Donna squeezed her arms tight to her body, hating the dichotomy and confusion. “She is good, Doctor. I know she is.” 

He stared at her sadly. “I don’t know anymore.” 

For some reason, this whipped up a righteous fury within Donna. When had she grown to care for the Time Lady so much? She wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t stand by and let the Doctor talk himself out of finding the cause of Circe’s actions. 

“How dare you?” She exclaimed suddenly, surprising the Doctor. He went to speak, but she was talking now. “You have spent all this time working to bring her back; to bring back the Time Lady you knew before. You have spent all this time showing not only me, but Circe the joys and pains of the universe. She has been in situations she’s despised, climbed through a volcano after you, gone undercover on Earth for you, and had a tracker implanted by the company you used to work for so that you could help them for you! Circe is good!” She was yelling, and she didn’t care. “She is good in her hearts, god damn you, and if you don’t see it, how the hell can she hope to?” He blinked at her. She took a deep breath to bring her rage back, and she emphasised each word as she said, “Circe is good. Let her prove it to you by not abandoning her when she needs you most.” 

It had been three weeks since Circe had fallen out of the TARDIS and asked for help, but Martha hadn’t been expecting the TARDIS to return so soon.

Martha was washing their dishes from dinner. Circe had gone for a run pretty shortly after, claiming the exercise helped with ignoring the pain. After her run, Circe and Martha usually discussed any thoughts Circe was willing to unveil, as well as delving into the philosophical implications of choice. It was becoming a routine; a routine that Martha wasn’t sure her fiancé would appreciate when he came home in a week. Except…

A routine that might be disrupted again, based off the familiar sound from the street. 

A glance out the window revealed that yes, the TARDIS sat there once again, and it was Donna and the Doctor emerging, not the future Doctor, whom Martha hadn’t recognised. The Doctor was in his pinstripe suit, and Martha could read the confusion on his face plain as day, even though he tried to disguise it as nonchalance. Donna’s expression was set in stone, determination clearly sculpted into it. With a heavy sigh, Martha put the sudsy bowl back into the sink and walked out to greet them. 

Martha studied the pair of them with more than a small amount of anger. She didn’t invite them inside yet, but she noticed at the Doctor lingered closely to his TARDIS, ready as ever to escape any conversation he wasn’t willing to entertain. 

“She’s out for a run,” Martha said by way of greeting. Donna’s expression brightened, as if she’d been expecting worse news. 

“How is she?” Donna asked, instead of the Doctor. Martha sent him a meaningful stare, but he looked away, down the street. 

She looked back to the other human, smiling slightly. “She’s been doing well. We’ve been working on decreasing the constant state of paranoia she was living in, as well as discussing her delusions.” The Doctor seemed surprised, so Martha took it upon herself to explain. “A person from your future came to explain what’s been happening,” Martha held her hand up to stop the Doctor from interrupting, “no, you can’t know who it is. Circe is sick; scrying for the future increases the level of paranoia she experiences, which in turn means she creates these impossible scenarios in her head that she believes to be real.” 

“Such as me being a threat,” Donna realised, glancing between the Doctor and Martha with such hope in her eyes. The Doctor just looked at Martha, eyes dark. 

“Such as me being a clone. Such as trying to kill me to save me from my clone self,” the Doctor interpreted. 

Martha nodded, remembering what she had promised to Circe. “And others. She is mostly clear headed now, but there are moments, usually as she gets lost in thought, that she tries to convince the people around her to let her scry. You can’t allow her to.” 

The Doctor looked unimpressed. “What’s her plan, moving forward?” He asked, instead of prying into her supposed delusions. 

Martha sent him a harsh look. “She believes you won’t allow her back on the TARDIS, that you don’t want her there. But, given how you were willing to protect the Master, I’m fairly certain you’d rather her safe on the TARDIS than astray on Earth.” 

Martha watched conflict arise in his expression, and he burst out with, “but she left me!” Donna didn’t seem surprised by the words, leading Martha to believe she’d heard them before, but the Doctor kept talking. “I didn’t tell her to go! I didn’t say that she couldn’t stay! She left me, not the other way around.” He took in a huge breath, as if the repeated words had stolen the air from his lungs. In a moment, he suddenly appeared smaller than Martha had ever seen him. “I just…I don’t understand why.” 

Donna and Martha shared a warm glance, a sudden shared understanding of his animosity. Martha offered, “come inside; I’ll put the kettle on. I think you need to talk to her.” 

The borrowed trainers had been more trouble than they’d been worth, so Circe had removed them in favour of running almost barefoot. The mild padding of the cotton running socks were enough to prevent most of the discomfort Circe felt, but a few particularly sharp rocks did their best to pierce through the cloth to her skin. Circe didn’t care. She was using the pain to distract from much worse suffering that she couldn’t control. 

At least running gave her control. It allowed her to set a tempo, create a rhythm in which she could fall into. She could choose to sprint and push her muscles to their screaming point, the burning lactic acid a relief; she could maintain a steady stride, her endurance having returned within a few miles, and let the world fall away under the soles of her feet; she could pull back, take it as slow as she needed to feel every infinitesimal degree of rotation of the planet as it rocketed through the galaxy, as the atmosphere created resistance to the rocketing, which in turn created the wind she felt on her face. 

Anything to stop from feeling the itch. But even with the relief that running gave her, Circe couldn’t leave Martha worrying about her for too long.

She wasn’t panting by the time she was back on Martha’s street, and she took the length of road to stretch out her legs, lunging and pulling her knees high into her chest with each slow motion. Every movement was focused, each muscle group targeted, to best release the lactic acid build up. Circe was so focused on her body that she nearly didn’t notice the blue police box until she was at Martha’s gate. The blue was faded, familiar, chipping in some places. Circe stumbled. 

Her hearts had been slowing after the exercise, but now they jumpstarted once more, as if she’d been electrocuted. She allowed her mental shields to slip, and felt his own closed mind close by. 

What if he’d come to…

No, she interrupted her own thoughts. She would not allow the paranoia back in. She would do what the bow-tied Doctor had told her to.

Trust the Doctor. Circe could do that. Trainers in hand, Circe made her way into Martha’s house. She brushed her socks along the fibrous mat, the sensation prolonging the distraction she’d sought with her run. She followed the chatting noises into Martha’s kitchen, leaving her borrowed trainers on the stairs in the entryway. 

Donna was talking animatedly, “-and the Vespiform broke into the room and attacked me! Of course, skinny minnie over there,” she gestured to the Doctor, who lent against the wall behind her holding a mug of tea, “only went and got himself poisoned, but once we sorted that out, turned out it was the Reverend who was the Vespiform, seeking revenge on his mother, the Lady Eddison!” 

Martha laughed, dark eyes bright. “Wait, his mother?” 

Donna was about to launch into a further explanation, but she paused. While her expression dropped minutely, her eyes scanned over Circe’s exercise-worn frame, and she smiled. It warmed Circe’s hearts, settled them in a way she hadn’t known she needed. Eagerly, Donna pointed to the chair opposite her, saying, “come on in, sit down!” 

Martha stood quickly, a flicker of concern on her face. The two women caught eyes, and Circe sent Martha a cautious nod. She appreciated the human’s concern, but she could handle this. She was a Time Lord; she had confronted the Cult of Skaro in their homes, driven Cybermen insane from fear, and fled the grip of the Time Council despite copious brainwashing and surveillance. She could cope with this. 

Hopefully. 

There was a small zap of pain that was all-too familiar in her abdomen, and Circe hissed as she lowered into her usual seat, lifting a hand to rub where the tracker had been implemented. It didn’t minimise the lingering pain, but it helped her ignore the knowledge that the Time Energy within her still longed to control her actions, her thoughts. 

Circe could almost feel holes forming where the Doctor stared at her face. She forced her expression to look pain-free; she didn’t want him to think he was being manipulated to help her. It was bad enough that Martha had even posited the idea into the universe. 

She…If Circe was being honest with herself, and she was trying to be, she missed her best friend. 

Martha placed a cup of tea in front of Circe, the steam wafting pleasantly in front of her face. She gratefully took the distraction while Martha returned to her seat. 

“How was your run?” Martha asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room. 

Not normally one to be fearful of conversation, Circe thanked Martha silently for beginning it and said, “I ran 30 miles with minimal physiological issues, strain or exhaustion.” At Martha’s sharp glance, she added quietly, “I enjoyed it.” 

If the quantification of her enjoyment for an activity surprised the Doctor, he didn’t show it. He remained leaning against the wall of the kitchen, a watchful eye disguising the hurt Circe saw within him. A twang of pain pinged her hearts, but she knew she’d been the one to cause any hurt he demonstrated. Her actions, as much as they had been led from good intentions, had directly caused him harm; hell, she nearly killed him. He was allowed to hurt, and no amount of guilt or regret from her end would change that. 

Meanwhile, Donna’s mouth dropped. “30 miles?!” She exclaimed, and Circe narrowed her eyes to look at the ginger human. 

“…yes?” Circe confirmed. “I wanted a decent run to…” She paused and glanced at Martha, who nodded encouragingly, “I run to help resist the temptation to scry. It helps me clear my mind, and…” her cheeks flared up in embarrassment. “I am not weak,” she insisted after a moment, and Donna reached across the table instinctively, her hand grasping Circe’s fearlessly. 

“No, you’re not,” Donna agreed. Her words were easy and intentional, as if she couldn’t imagine any scenario where Circe might’ve been. They warmed Circe’s hearts. The casual friendship, the easy knowledge; Circe wasn’t sure she’d experienced that since her childhood. Her gaze dropped to the dark brown depths of her tea, how the steam swirled through the air. 

Afraid to look up, Circe continued, “running helps me figure out what is paranoia, and what is a genuine fear; what was delusional thinking, and what was rational. It gives me space to clear my head, my thoughts, before I act on them.” Circe lifted her gaze then, meeting Donna’s warm understanding. She wasn’t sure that she could stand to look at the Doctor, but unwillingly, her eyes slid over to him. 

He was wearing his brown pinstripe suit, his hair swept casually to the side. Hands in his pockets, he leant against the wall as if he had all the time in the world, but his eyes were a dark maelstrom of furious hurt. His lips were pressed into a thin line, turned down slightly. 

Circe shuddered and looked away. 

Martha spoke up, voice professional, “we’ve been working at dismantling the paranoia and unrooting the delusions.” 

The Doctor nodded, finally joining the table but not sitting down. He asked, “what delusions?” 

Martha looked to Circe, an eyebrow raised, and Circe decided to answer. “A big one was that the Master was coming back, but I saw his body; the empirical evidence dictates that he cannot be alive. One that sometimes prevails is a theory that Donna is plotting against you.” Circe paused when she saw the look on Martha’s face, reluctant. 

“Tell them,” Martha prompted, and Circe glared at her. The human didn’t look phased. 

“I think…thought that Donna was being commanded by Rose Tyler. I thought I saw Rose following us around, and I thought that Donna was getting instructions on how to infiltrate the TARDIS and earn your trust quickest.”

Donna didn’t seem terribly shocked by the idea, but the Doctor’s expression dropped into a dull neutrality. Circe recognised it as a defense mechanism. 

“Rose?” He clarified, and Circe nodded once. The Doctor ran his hands over his face, breathing out a heavy sigh of frustration. “Why-but why wouldn’t you tell me?” 

Circe scowled at him, “would you have believed me?” 

She watched the indecision flicker across his expression, before he slumped into the chair beside her. “Probably not,” he acquiesced, voice muffled by his hands. 

Circe did her best not to let show how this hurt her, but she wasn’t sure how well it worked as Martha reached to hold her hand. Circe sucked a breath between her teeth before she continued, “Martha believes that this is a delusion. That I never actually saw Rose, but an image that the vortex impressed upon me. That it was a further way for the time energy within me to maintain control.” The Doctor’s eyes were unreadable, but Donna’s face was open and warm and caring, and Circe sent the human a shaky smile that had Donna beaming back at her. “We had a visitor from the future, as well. She was someone I met before, as Florence,” Martha sharply looked at her, having not heard that, and Circe winced slightly and sent her an apologetic glance. 

“Who was she?” The Doctor demanded, but Circe glared at him. 

“The Laws of Time still apply, Starman,” she snapped.

Her blasé use of his nickname sent a wave of bittersweet relief through the Doctor, despite the conflicting pain and care he still felt about Circe. Everything that he felt about her seemed to be conflicted in that moment; had been conflicted since she’d tried to pull that trigger; since he’d realised Ross hadn’t been a clone. 

Circe continued, “I can’t tell you who she is. Only that she keeps showing up, and I don’t trust a word she says. She was part of the reason I-Florence-ended up with the-th…” Circe trailed off, hating that she still couldn’t make herself say his title. “Anyway,” as if that could take the taste of his title from her mouth, she wiggled her fingers, allowing the sensation to distract her, “I don’t trust what she says, which means that Rose was a delusion. I trust Martha infinitely more.” 

It had taken Circe a long time to get to grips with the idea that she had imagined the conversations with the human, but she knew that she couldn’t even trust her own thoughts from before, let alone her senses. No one else had seen Rose, and the idea that Donna or Colonel Mace had been collaborating or working under her was absurd. There was no evidence to back it up, so Circe had to conclude that she had been more unwell than any of them had realised. 

“So this…woman from your future told you…?” Donna asked in confusion. 

“She said that Rose is hopping between universes,” Circe confirmed, shaking her head. “It’s absurd, because the universe is sealed, and humans don’t have the capacity to build a reliable way of transporting a living person through the borders of space. The sheer technological capacity is well beyond this century, let alone the next four, and even then, it would require far more protective measures to ensure safe passage for the traveller.” 

Circe wasn’t sure why she was trying to convince them, but she forced herself to stop. She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders again, and she looked to the Doctor. 

His face was impassive. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. 

The silence lasted too long. Circe could tell that the information was overloading Donna, that the Doctor was still processing it. Even so, there was an overwhelming part of her that shook with relief; the Doctor had come. He had come and he had sat and listened, and not shouted. He was still here. Maybe, just maybe, he would help her again. Maybe he wouldn’t abandon her. 

He shifted, and suddenly all Circe could focus on was the intensity with which he stared at her. His dark eyes finally cracking open to reveal the universe swimming within. Her hearts hammered within her chest as he asked, “but how are you?” 

As if the question were a hurdle she couldn’t jump, her mind stuttered and had to restart as she said, “what?” 

“How are you?” He asked again. “You’ve spoken about your running, and this woman from the future, and Rose and your delusions, but you haven’t spoken about you.” He leant forward, and Circe unconsciously gripped Martha’s hand, grateful for the grounding support she offered. “How are you?” 

Circe tilted her head, wondering how to respond. “It’s still there,” she admitted reluctantly, “a constant niggle, itch or burn that keeps trying to wear me down. It…sometimes it hurts, and sometimes I’ve tried to make it not hurt.” She sniffed, and gave a crooked smile. “Jack came by in the first week to help when I tried to take it too far. I think I worried Martha too much.” She let out a chuckle, but no one else was laughing. Her eyes were wet when she admitted, “it hurts not to scry, but I…I can’t trust myself if I do. It’s like an addiction,” she explained through a thick voice. “I need it, but I can’t do it without hurting people, and…” Her eyes shimmered as she stared into the Doctor’s starry eyes. “I don’t want to hurt people,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to kill him, I really didn’t. I didn’t know, I mean I knew, but I didn’t, I wasn’t, I-“ she gasped in a breath and threw her face into her hands, her skin suddenly alight with the familiar burn. “I have killed so many people, but he…

“I don’t get to choose who lives and who dies. I see that. I realise now that I’ve spent all my lives thinking of my timeline; because I could plan my choices, they were the only ones that mattered. Not only was that selfish, but it was wrong. Wrong to deny everyone their own freedom. I can’t take it back, but I want to get better. I want to…be better. A better Time Lord, a better friend.

“So, no. I’m not good. I’m sick, and I don’t think I’ll get better any time soon, but I’m really, really trying. I want to be worthy of being a Time Lord, of being a real friend again. And I know that you have no tangible reason to believe me, but I never should have aimed that weapon at you, Doctor. Yes, it was in the midst of delusion, but I never should have gotten so sick that I aimed it at you.” 

Donna was wiping her eyes, and Circe frowned. She hadn’t wanted to make anyone upset. Was this evidence that Donna was angry too? Had she threatened to hurt Donna as well? How could she ever make it up to any of them? She wasn’t worth this, wasn’t worth their friendship, their- 

No. Circe could not let those kinds of thoughts creep in, if only to keep herself at least somewhat sane. If she began to think like that, what reason would she have to keep on the path of healing? 

“I’m sorry.” 

There was silence for a long time, each person absorbing Circe’s stream of consciousness however they needed to. 

The Doctor’s face was almost readable; Circe wasn’t sure, but she thought she could spy hope in his darkened eyes. He opened his mouth, froze, and closed it again. Circe wondered if he wasn’t sure how to articulate his question or thought. 

Donna spoke first, surprising all of them. Her voice was quiet, but filled with a nervous optimism that Circe found she was beginning to appreciate. “So, does this mean you’ll start baking again?” 

As if that was the snap they’d all needed, Martha laughed in bewilderment while the Doctor chuckled, turning to look at his current companion. Circe gladly sent Donna a warm, shy smile once more. 

“Because I don’t know about Martha,” Donna continued, “but the Doctor doesn’t know how to cook to save his own life, and the TARDIS meals are fine,” she exaggerated in humour, “but there’s nothing like a good home-baked brownie when you’re gallivanting across space and time.” 

Uncertain, Circe joked, “is this your official declaration of command for me to come back?” 

But Donna was relatively serious, a warm smile on her face as she deliberately said, “yes. And this time, instead of you not being asked, the Doctor isn’t being asked. I want you on the TARDIS, and if he wants me to stick around, he doesn’t get a say.” She sent him a stern glance, to which he raised an eyebrow but stayed silent. Almost nervously, Donna looked back to Circe. “So, whadaya say?” 

Circe stared at Donna in bewilderment, seeing the human’s eager excitement for her return, but, despite what she’d said, Circe glanced to the Doctor. Their eyes met, and for a split second, Circe was reminded of their last fight, before he’d left her on Gallifrey; he’d done something stupid and she’d yelled at him, saying unrepeatable things until they had both been furious at the other, and he’d asked her one more question before she’d walked away from him. For a split second, Circe wondered whether the reverse was happening now. Did he even want her on the TARDIS anymore? Hadn’t they both already walked away from each other? How many times did she have to say goodbye to him? 

Circe swallowed hard to say, “I didn’t know if you’d want me back.” With a glance at Donna, she elaborated, “either of you.”