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Not The Last: Who I Am.
And this is the part where the Seeker surprised me hugely by suddenly turning into a fully fledged 3-D character in his own right. That's never happened to me before. At some point I'll write down his story... give it a few years! (Trust me, there are A LOT of stories to tell!)
Setting: AU-post 'Sound of Drums'. This part takes place 200-300 years later.
Spoilers: Everything. S3 especially! (Also won't make sense if you haven't seen S3.)
Rating: PG-13.
Characters: OC, the Doctor, the Master, Jack.
Wordcount: This part 2050. (Whole fic altogether just under 8700.)
A/N (12th Nov. 2008): Edited a few things, to reflect revelations in 'Journey's End'. No spoilers for that episode.
As usual a big thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kathyh. For anyone who wants to read how my Timelord came about, the main fic is here. I think this might stand on its own, but it'd probably be a little confusing.
Who I Am.
My name is the Seeker, and I am the last of the Timelords.
Well there are three of us, but I am the latest and there will never be any more - I decided that long ago.
The Doctor discussed it with me - laid his fears and hopes on the table, but never asked me to choose one way or another. But I knew what he felt, and that he couldn’t help his prejudice... How long would it be before we became less than what we were?
He worried - but I studied. Took apart our DNA, searched every atom to see what exactly we are. I discovered that despite my mother being human, I truly am a Timelord through and through - my father’s race overrode the human traits completely (apart from the tiniest, infinitesimally small, flaw). And through laborious research I found out how long it’d be before the chain became too weak, how many generations before we would be nothing but a hybrid. And despite never having set foot on Gallifrey, I could not live with that compromise either. We were the oldest, the most mighty... it had to be a clean cut. So much for humility and love of my mother’s race.
I didn’t tell the Doctor what I discovered, just told him my decision. Saw the relief on his face.
For a while I considered using the Chameleon Arc and make myself human - trying that life, since that is after all how I was brought up, more or less. Have human children as a middle way. But knowing that I would have to see them age and die stopped me. I saw it happen to my mother, to my childhood friends - to every human I've known and loved, and I couldn’t bear it again (but worse). Also I can still see pain blossom in the Doctor whenever the talk turns to his companions or Gallifrey.
So the line will stop with me.
Of course that doesn’t mean that I’ve been exactly celibate... for a start I spent a good long while travelling with Jack (two young immortals, travelling the galaxies and looking for hot alien babes - sounds like a dubious C-movie plot now I think of it. Ah well, we had a great time). And what that man doesn’t know about sex isn’t worth finding out, trust me. Not that we ever...
It’s funny, actually, because he will screw anything and everything in the entire universe, but not me. Says that it’s because I’m like a surrogate younger brother - just can’t think of me that way.
And anyway, I am a terrible date. It’s true. The number of potential hook-ups I’ve ruined by asking ‘are those real?’ is phenomenal. But I just need to know - with all the different species out there, and all the different ways they attract partners, the endless variations forever thrill me. I have to find out, and nine times out of ten end up quizzing them in great detail about their reproductive cycles and mating habits, rather than experiencing them. It’s always about the why and the how. About seeking answers.
Jack thinks I’m crazy. I think he’s a slut. He’s my best friend, and I love him.
Also - to be perfectly honest - I’m rather relived that sex isn’t a part of our relationship, since it might complicate things somewhat... I'm not sure how I'd cope with him seeking solace in my arms every time he lost someone he loves. (Which happens with heartbreaking regularity. I sometimes wonder if my solitary nature came about, in part at least, as a sub-conscious way of shielding myself from the pain I saw around me as I grew up.)
So, all in all, our brotherly relationship suits us both perfectly.
That said, I think he quite fancies my latest regeneration. My first one (when I was born, I mean) was blonde - and by the way, I think the blonde hair might have been the only [physical] thing I inherited from my mother. My second (cut tragically short by an unfortunate explosion that we will mention no more) was ginger. I liked being ginger - partly, I admit, because the Doctor always wanted to be ginger and never has been. But I was also somewhat reckless then... This time round my hair is black and very unruly, and my eyes an unsettling green. Thankfully I am also less intense, although I have a strange partiality for the colour purple.
I don’t travel as much these days - my research keeps me lab-bound for long periods of time - but I still adore my spaceship. It was a gift from my father and the Doctor on my 18th birthday. A beautiful sleek thing; black, graceful and very, very ‘alien’. But best of all, they had built a vortex manipulator into the controls, so I could travel in space and time. It wasn’t a TARDIS - far, far from it - but it was mine. My ticket to freedom.
I’ve had a lot of adventures in that ship... a lot of adventures, full stop, since I've spent a long time travelling with the Doctor too. Met creatures great and small and utterly fantastical; saw worlds of wonder and beauty and terror. It's difficult travelling with the Doctor though. Every time I discover something new and settle down to study it, he'll get caught up in something life-threatening and heroic. It's fun, of course, but I never get anything done.
Have yet to meet the Dalek(s) however. I know there was only one left, but given their history, I'm sure that sooner or later our paths will cross. And - if we're unlucky - we will yet again encounter an army. Which is why I spent a long time studying weaponry and warfare. First with Jack, then with my father - reaching back to re-discover how the Timelords fought during the Time War. I have an arsenal now, ready and waiting - just in case. (Will it be enough? Have I thought of everything? The possibilities are almost endless, and I worry that I could have overlooked something.) It is the one project that I keep returning to; refining, adding, expanding. The Doctor of course knows nothing of it, a fact which pleases my father immensely. And I can't help but be happy that I am fulfilling my father's ambitions, even if only in a small way.
It is strange, perhaps, to be happy to be the son of an evil, psychotic megalomaniac, but he has always been a wonderful father. And as a child I adored him. I knew, even if I didn’t really understand why, that he was dangerous, and it was the most wonderfully exciting thing. Of course it had a lot to do with the Doctor being there too - I knew the Doctor would never let father truly misbehave; so it was like looking over the edge of a cliff, feeling the rush and the pull of the abyss, but never jumping.
Later, when people (humans) asked, I’d often liken it to being brought up by Dr Evil and Austin Powers. That analogy worked quite well until the films became too obscure.
My childhood was brilliant. Until I was eight. Not that it wasn’t great afterwards too, but that was when everything changed. When I understood that I wasn’t just smarter and better than my friends, that my home life wasn’t just fabulously different, but that I, with every fibre of my being, was other. Not human. A master of that which rules humankind - forever set apart.
And yet it was the best day of my life - the day I saw eternity; gazed into the raw power of the universe and knew that it was my destiny to discover it all. The best description I can find is that it was like falling in love. Terrifying and wonderful - giving into something bigger.
I sometimes wonder why it affected us all so differently.
My father (still, always) wants to rule, to dominate, to master everything. Although I was tiny when the Earth was his, I can still remember how drunk he got off power, his pleasure in taking lives (The Master of Life and Death). What he saw in the Schism I’ll never know and I have never asked. (It gave him drums, the beat of war. Odd that maybe Jack is the one who understands that best.)
The Doctor ran. He is running still, I guess, but we share the same delight in the teeming masses of life everywhere. The joy in new discoveries. But the Doctor wants to help, to save, to make better... I want to understand. Sometimes I think I ought to have called myself the Professor, like my father when he was Yana, because I am at heart a scientist - I am sure I would have stood out even at the Academy.
Lately I have concentrated on resurrecting/recreating the knowledge of Gallifrey. It started quite simply because my spaceship - lovely though it is - really can get rather cramped. So I tried to make it bigger on the inside. There was a lot of trial and error (pockets are easy. Spaceships, not so much), but now it too makes people’s eyes grow wider when they enter.
The lessons I learned helped greatly when I decided to grow my own TARDIS. It is not finished yet, but - thanks to time travel - I visit it regularly, and soon (for me) it should be done.
I get distracted though - recently I’ve been playing with gravity, and almost sucked a whole solar system into a black hole. (My father thought it was hilarious. The Doctor looked worried. Jack was busy helping some humans in a war somewhere and I never told him. But I know he’d say I am crazy.)
So I’m beginning to understand why the Timelords had such a hands-off approach to the rest of the universe. Our powers are frightening when not carefully controlled. Which is another reason I am grateful for my father - I have seen what we can accomplish. The Doctor told me about the Rani, and I can feel the same impulses... without the upbringing I had, I might have turned out the same way. Timelords are hopelessly arrogant.
Speaking of arrogant (is it arrogant to state the truth?) I am, as far as I am aware, the most intelligent being in existence now. Sometimes the responsibility of that gets to me. I feel that I owe it to all the worlds out there to share what I know. What I discover. What I create. Then I worry what they’d do with it.
And sometimes... I wonder if maybe I can find a way to save the Toclafane.
They amused me for hours when I was an infant - better entertainment has never been invented. Their lights and voices fascinated me and I recall trying to reach out and touch them, but they’d always slip just out of reach. And then they just vanished. For a long time (eight years) I didn’t know whereto.
I still don’t have a clue what to do with them. And yet I feel I ought to do something - they are, after all, the only thing that my father has ever cared for, except me and my mother (and the Doctor. Always the Doctor). But whenever I think too deeply about the problem, the words mercy and killing begin to sound too much alike for my liking. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have all this power.
And I worry what will happen if (when) one day there’s only me left...
At least I’ll always have Jack. But I know he’ll not always have me - not even if (when) I work out how to create new cycles of regenerations. And how long can you live before you stop being who you are and become someone else?
How long before he stops being my Jack?
(5 billion years the Doctor said he’ll live. Too long, by far, for me.)
But this is all very depressing. And I’m not prone to this sort of introspection, honestly. As I said, I get distracted. I’m still trying to talk Jack into letting me try to discover how he works. Of course I know the ‘why’ - but it’s the ‘how’ that I’m fascinated by. What exactly did Rose (the TARDIS, the vortex) do?
Although I should probably back off. Because that right there is my problem - the ease with which my thoughts lead me astray. It is my nature, my defining characteristic, it’s who I am - the one who seeks. Seeks the answers to every question ever.
I know it’s impossible; but I can dream, can’t I?
Not The End
Setting: AU-post 'Sound of Drums'. This part takes place 200-300 years later.
Spoilers: Everything. S3 especially! (Also won't make sense if you haven't seen S3.)
Rating: PG-13.
Characters: OC, the Doctor, the Master, Jack.
Wordcount: This part 2050. (Whole fic altogether just under 8700.)
A/N (12th Nov. 2008): Edited a few things, to reflect revelations in 'Journey's End'. No spoilers for that episode.
As usual a big thank you to
kathyh. For anyone who wants to read how my Timelord came about, the main fic is here. I think this might stand on its own, but it'd probably be a little confusing.My name is the Seeker, and I am the last of the Timelords.
Well there are three of us, but I am the latest and there will never be any more - I decided that long ago.
The Doctor discussed it with me - laid his fears and hopes on the table, but never asked me to choose one way or another. But I knew what he felt, and that he couldn’t help his prejudice... How long would it be before we became less than what we were?
He worried - but I studied. Took apart our DNA, searched every atom to see what exactly we are. I discovered that despite my mother being human, I truly am a Timelord through and through - my father’s race overrode the human traits completely (apart from the tiniest, infinitesimally small, flaw). And through laborious research I found out how long it’d be before the chain became too weak, how many generations before we would be nothing but a hybrid. And despite never having set foot on Gallifrey, I could not live with that compromise either. We were the oldest, the most mighty... it had to be a clean cut. So much for humility and love of my mother’s race.
I didn’t tell the Doctor what I discovered, just told him my decision. Saw the relief on his face.
For a while I considered using the Chameleon Arc and make myself human - trying that life, since that is after all how I was brought up, more or less. Have human children as a middle way. But knowing that I would have to see them age and die stopped me. I saw it happen to my mother, to my childhood friends - to every human I've known and loved, and I couldn’t bear it again (but worse). Also I can still see pain blossom in the Doctor whenever the talk turns to his companions or Gallifrey.
So the line will stop with me.
Of course that doesn’t mean that I’ve been exactly celibate... for a start I spent a good long while travelling with Jack (two young immortals, travelling the galaxies and looking for hot alien babes - sounds like a dubious C-movie plot now I think of it. Ah well, we had a great time). And what that man doesn’t know about sex isn’t worth finding out, trust me. Not that we ever...
It’s funny, actually, because he will screw anything and everything in the entire universe, but not me. Says that it’s because I’m like a surrogate younger brother - just can’t think of me that way.
And anyway, I am a terrible date. It’s true. The number of potential hook-ups I’ve ruined by asking ‘are those real?’ is phenomenal. But I just need to know - with all the different species out there, and all the different ways they attract partners, the endless variations forever thrill me. I have to find out, and nine times out of ten end up quizzing them in great detail about their reproductive cycles and mating habits, rather than experiencing them. It’s always about the why and the how. About seeking answers.
Jack thinks I’m crazy. I think he’s a slut. He’s my best friend, and I love him.
Also - to be perfectly honest - I’m rather relived that sex isn’t a part of our relationship, since it might complicate things somewhat... I'm not sure how I'd cope with him seeking solace in my arms every time he lost someone he loves. (Which happens with heartbreaking regularity. I sometimes wonder if my solitary nature came about, in part at least, as a sub-conscious way of shielding myself from the pain I saw around me as I grew up.)
So, all in all, our brotherly relationship suits us both perfectly.
That said, I think he quite fancies my latest regeneration. My first one (when I was born, I mean) was blonde - and by the way, I think the blonde hair might have been the only [physical] thing I inherited from my mother. My second (cut tragically short by an unfortunate explosion that we will mention no more) was ginger. I liked being ginger - partly, I admit, because the Doctor always wanted to be ginger and never has been. But I was also somewhat reckless then... This time round my hair is black and very unruly, and my eyes an unsettling green. Thankfully I am also less intense, although I have a strange partiality for the colour purple.
I don’t travel as much these days - my research keeps me lab-bound for long periods of time - but I still adore my spaceship. It was a gift from my father and the Doctor on my 18th birthday. A beautiful sleek thing; black, graceful and very, very ‘alien’. But best of all, they had built a vortex manipulator into the controls, so I could travel in space and time. It wasn’t a TARDIS - far, far from it - but it was mine. My ticket to freedom.
I’ve had a lot of adventures in that ship... a lot of adventures, full stop, since I've spent a long time travelling with the Doctor too. Met creatures great and small and utterly fantastical; saw worlds of wonder and beauty and terror. It's difficult travelling with the Doctor though. Every time I discover something new and settle down to study it, he'll get caught up in something life-threatening and heroic. It's fun, of course, but I never get anything done.
Have yet to meet the Dalek(s) however. I know there was only one left, but given their history, I'm sure that sooner or later our paths will cross. And - if we're unlucky - we will yet again encounter an army. Which is why I spent a long time studying weaponry and warfare. First with Jack, then with my father - reaching back to re-discover how the Timelords fought during the Time War. I have an arsenal now, ready and waiting - just in case. (Will it be enough? Have I thought of everything? The possibilities are almost endless, and I worry that I could have overlooked something.) It is the one project that I keep returning to; refining, adding, expanding. The Doctor of course knows nothing of it, a fact which pleases my father immensely. And I can't help but be happy that I am fulfilling my father's ambitions, even if only in a small way.
It is strange, perhaps, to be happy to be the son of an evil, psychotic megalomaniac, but he has always been a wonderful father. And as a child I adored him. I knew, even if I didn’t really understand why, that he was dangerous, and it was the most wonderfully exciting thing. Of course it had a lot to do with the Doctor being there too - I knew the Doctor would never let father truly misbehave; so it was like looking over the edge of a cliff, feeling the rush and the pull of the abyss, but never jumping.
Later, when people (humans) asked, I’d often liken it to being brought up by Dr Evil and Austin Powers. That analogy worked quite well until the films became too obscure.
My childhood was brilliant. Until I was eight. Not that it wasn’t great afterwards too, but that was when everything changed. When I understood that I wasn’t just smarter and better than my friends, that my home life wasn’t just fabulously different, but that I, with every fibre of my being, was other. Not human. A master of that which rules humankind - forever set apart.
And yet it was the best day of my life - the day I saw eternity; gazed into the raw power of the universe and knew that it was my destiny to discover it all. The best description I can find is that it was like falling in love. Terrifying and wonderful - giving into something bigger.
I sometimes wonder why it affected us all so differently.
My father (still, always) wants to rule, to dominate, to master everything. Although I was tiny when the Earth was his, I can still remember how drunk he got off power, his pleasure in taking lives (The Master of Life and Death). What he saw in the Schism I’ll never know and I have never asked. (It gave him drums, the beat of war. Odd that maybe Jack is the one who understands that best.)
The Doctor ran. He is running still, I guess, but we share the same delight in the teeming masses of life everywhere. The joy in new discoveries. But the Doctor wants to help, to save, to make better... I want to understand. Sometimes I think I ought to have called myself the Professor, like my father when he was Yana, because I am at heart a scientist - I am sure I would have stood out even at the Academy.
Lately I have concentrated on resurrecting/recreating the knowledge of Gallifrey. It started quite simply because my spaceship - lovely though it is - really can get rather cramped. So I tried to make it bigger on the inside. There was a lot of trial and error (pockets are easy. Spaceships, not so much), but now it too makes people’s eyes grow wider when they enter.
The lessons I learned helped greatly when I decided to grow my own TARDIS. It is not finished yet, but - thanks to time travel - I visit it regularly, and soon (for me) it should be done.
I get distracted though - recently I’ve been playing with gravity, and almost sucked a whole solar system into a black hole. (My father thought it was hilarious. The Doctor looked worried. Jack was busy helping some humans in a war somewhere and I never told him. But I know he’d say I am crazy.)
So I’m beginning to understand why the Timelords had such a hands-off approach to the rest of the universe. Our powers are frightening when not carefully controlled. Which is another reason I am grateful for my father - I have seen what we can accomplish. The Doctor told me about the Rani, and I can feel the same impulses... without the upbringing I had, I might have turned out the same way. Timelords are hopelessly arrogant.
Speaking of arrogant (is it arrogant to state the truth?) I am, as far as I am aware, the most intelligent being in existence now. Sometimes the responsibility of that gets to me. I feel that I owe it to all the worlds out there to share what I know. What I discover. What I create. Then I worry what they’d do with it.
And sometimes... I wonder if maybe I can find a way to save the Toclafane.
They amused me for hours when I was an infant - better entertainment has never been invented. Their lights and voices fascinated me and I recall trying to reach out and touch them, but they’d always slip just out of reach. And then they just vanished. For a long time (eight years) I didn’t know whereto.
I still don’t have a clue what to do with them. And yet I feel I ought to do something - they are, after all, the only thing that my father has ever cared for, except me and my mother (and the Doctor. Always the Doctor). But whenever I think too deeply about the problem, the words mercy and killing begin to sound too much alike for my liking. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have all this power.
And I worry what will happen if (when) one day there’s only me left...
At least I’ll always have Jack. But I know he’ll not always have me - not even if (when) I work out how to create new cycles of regenerations. And how long can you live before you stop being who you are and become someone else?
How long before he stops being my Jack?
(5 billion years the Doctor said he’ll live. Too long, by far, for me.)
But this is all very depressing. And I’m not prone to this sort of introspection, honestly. As I said, I get distracted. I’m still trying to talk Jack into letting me try to discover how he works. Of course I know the ‘why’ - but it’s the ‘how’ that I’m fascinated by. What exactly did Rose (the TARDIS, the vortex) do?
Although I should probably back off. Because that right there is my problem - the ease with which my thoughts lead me astray. It is my nature, my defining characteristic, it’s who I am - the one who seeks. Seeks the answers to every question ever.
I know it’s impossible; but I can dream, can’t I?