Susan and the Lieutenant

Susan Campbell stumbled to her knees onto the cold, hard earth, her stomach churning from the lack of capsule. Her mouth tasted of cotton. She had never really gotten used to travelling via Vortex Manipulator; every Time she went through the Vortex without the familiar warmth of the Eye of Harmony guiding her around the console. Her hearts gave a twinge of dulled- but never quite faded- agony as she recalled the fact that she was, very much, the last of her kind. The Time Lords had been destroyed ten years ago, but for one of their species, that was a blink of an eye.

She still didn't know what had happened to her people. She had been forced to flee into her chameleon circuit- Rassilon's people had been after her, and she figured that a few decades in hiding would be sure to shake them off her trail. Then, she could return, and fight every monstrosity of the Last Great Time War, covertly.

But she had never gotten that chance. When she, at last, opened the pocket watch that contained every ounce of memory, all she heard from her people was silence. For days, she had screamed and raged and eventually sat for weeks, motionless, in the base of the people that had found her- that telepathic link had been a part of her for her whole life. It was like losing a sense, a sense that told her all was well with her people, and the loss nearly drove her mad.

Susan drew in a quick, short breath, shaking off the memories. It was cold. She had to get up. As always. Her fingertips on the cobbled ground came into contact with icy, wet frost, clearly a snow that had fallen days ago, and it had frozen over again. She could see her breath in the streetlight, and when she looked up, she saw the little houses that were reminiscent of some tiny village in the English countryside.

Drawing herself up to her full height, Susan took a deep breath, inhaling ice. She felt a presence behind her, and her hand drifted to the staser on her belt, ready to fire if necessary.

"To whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?" she asked stiffly, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling up, her light accent lightly trilling the R in what could be defined as an Earth Scottish accent. "I'll warn you now I am armed, and I'm quite the shot."

The Lieutenant walked around his console, piloting his TARDIS, trying to decide where to go. He had decided he wanted to kill some Time Lords. He loved to kill. So he did a search through his TARDIS hologram system to find Time Lords currently active and which planets they were on, in what time. He came across the Doctor's presence in Antarctica on Earth and not one but two of him! He came across the Master on a ship from Mondas, not one but two of them too, both dying. He came across the Heart on Earth. The Professor was on Gallifrey, he wondered why. "Oooh, that's interesting," he said. On a planet called Athieria, a Time Lady called Susan was showing up. The Lieutenant, of course, knew who she was. He set the co-ordinates for Athieria and materialised the TARDIS.

Once materialised, he left the TARDIS, he was still armed from the last time he had set off on an adventure, a gun in one boot, a knife in another. He stepped out of the TARDIS. Susan was not too far away. His aim was getting better! He walked over to Susan. "The Lieutenant," he said, answering Susan's first question. "So am I," he said to the second.

Susan's hearts nearly stopped when he introduced himself using the title, the words rolling off his tongue so easily that Susan was nearly convinced that he was one of... her people. She quickly shook off that tantalizing thought. He couldn't be. The Time Lords were... dead, most likely, but certainly gone. The chances of Susan meeting another Time Lord in this post-war universe were infinitesimally small.

She turned around, not liking having her back to someone who could very well be her enemy. This slight, quiet paranoia of hers was a trait that had carried over with this regeneration from her previous, and the trait was one of the many things that caused her to avoid sleep whenever possible.

Her hand still near her gun, Susan smiled dryly at the man before her. "Pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant," she said, her voice never leaving the tone that was too loud to be a murmur, but it was too soft to be defined as a regular speaking voice. "I think you're a safe enough person to ask the date and planet? You're reeking of Artron energy. You must practically live in the Vortex, hm?" Her voice was light, but it was guarded. One could never be too careful. Especially after the War.

The Lieutenant looked at this girl in front of her, the Doctor's grandaughter, undoubtedly, the Doctor assumed her dead but here she stood in front of him. He smirked at his find. "Pleasure," he said to himself. "Yes, pleasure. The planet is Athieria, Time Girl, but I have no idea what date. I have just arrived. Anyway, my target wasn't the planet, it was you. I do not live in the Time Vortex, as it were, in fact, I am quite wholly involved in Gallifreyan affairs of today, although, in a bad way."

"You're the Doctor's grandaughter, aren't you?" he asked, changing the subject.

The hairs on the back of Susan's neck stood on end, and she swallowed hard, her eyes darkening when he brought up Gallifrey, then further when he mentioned her identity. What he was insinuating he was... it was impossible. She couldn't sense anyone after the War, and she couldn't sense anyone now. He could have had his telepathic barriers up, but Susan had spent ten years grieving her people. Up until recently, she had never stopped searching for that familiar presence in the back of her mind, and nothing had ever made its presence known.

"Sir, I don't believe you understand what you're saying," she muttered, her voice thick, mostly with sadness, but slightly in anger. How dare he imitate someone of her people? "You're familiar with Gallifrey? Well, I regret to inform you that Gallifrey... is gone. Somewhere. I don't know. But there are no more 'Gallifreyan affairs of today,' at least from my Timeline."

She became even more on edge when he mentioned her grandfather. "The Doctor?" she asked, hoping she could feign ignorance. If there was one thing she had learned during the War, it was that it wasn't always a good thing to know her grandfather. "I... know of him. I fought in the Time War, it was almost impossible to not hear of the renegade turned soldier."

The Lieutenant smirked slyly at the girl. "No, no, listen here, girl, shut up for a minute. I am many things. Many many things but I am not stupid and that is what you are making me out to be. In 4420 years, you pick up a thing or two and I am certainly not, of all things, stupid," he snapped at her. "I am currently involved in affairs on Gallifrey, not was, AM. Well, I was too but that's not relevant, they are who gave me my 2nd regeneration cycle but that's a story for another day."

"Years away from your Doctor. He is a very different man now, Susan, no need to speak of him like you don't know him," said the Lieutenant. Then he realised he had accidentally said Susan's name but thought nothing of it.

Susan did not flinch when he bit out these words at her, keeping her expression level and unrevealing, until he mentioned his regeneration cycle, and her face shifted, a lump rising in her throat. Technically, it was possible. It was... incredibly unlikely, given the decade she had spent searching for another one of her kind in the universe after the Time War, but it was still possible. Forgetting the Lieutenant's hostility towards her for a moment, she hesitated.

"How..." her voice cracked slightly. "How did you survive the Time War? I thought... well, I couldn't sense anyone. I thought everyone had died."

Then, she realized that he had called her by her name, and it wasn't even one of the Gallifreyan nicknames she had acquired over the years like Arkytior or Lady Larn. No, he knew her Earth name, the one she had taken on in 1963 so very long ago when she went to Earth school.

"How do you know that name?" she asked sharply, remembering his hostility again, regaining her senses as she also remembered that just because he was a Time Lord didn't mean he was one of the nice ones. "I never told you my name."

The Lieutenant exhaled, thinking he had got away with calling Susan by her name. "I escaped that war in my TARDIS after very nearly cocking it all up for the Doctor, although, I didn't do it deliberately, I was nice back then. I was sentenced to vaporisation by the Time Lords but on the day I was to be killed, I ran away and kept running until kidney failure killed me in my 13th incarnation, I was then revived at my funeral, pardoned of my mistake, given a new cycle and then regenerated. This is my second incarnation of my second cycle," he said. "This is my very first evil incarnation, believe it or not."

When Susan then questioned her Earth name, the Lieutenant went red. He stuttered while trying to answer the question. "I... er I... Well, I just know the Doctor well, that's all, that's all," he said. Although this was true, he hadn't sounded very convincing.

Susan stared at the man like he might disappear if she blinked. This was the first Time Lord she had met since the Time War, and she wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. That being said, she knew that this Time Lord before her had the possibility of being one of the bad ones. One of those with ties to Rassilon in the High Council, or even simply one who had gone mad, driven to insanity by the never ending horrors of the War. He further confirmed these dark suspicions when he himself admitted he was evil in his current incarnation.

"You know him well," Susan stated flatly, her face unimpressed, an eyebrow raising. "Right, let's assume that is true. Let's assume that you do know him well, that he's told you his whole life story, with Time enough to mention his granddaughter who he likely believes died in a 22nd Century Earth infested with Daleks. Why are you here?" Her voice was void of emotion, a sort of uncaring that she had learned to master over the years. "My grandfather... he's dead. I watched his TARDIS fly into the Gates of Elysium after Dalek Caan. It would have been nearly impossible for him to escape that. Especially with that old Type 40. And I can't sense him. I can't sense anyone." Her voice nearly broke at that, but she continued on. "So why? Why do you care about me? Hm?"

The Lieutenant cocked his head a little, looking at her. "No, girl, he doesn't think you died on Earth, he assumes you died in the Time War. As for him being dead, he's not. Oh, well, I hope he's not dead, I was talking to him not long ago. He was dying though, tricky stuff, regeneration," he said. He folded his arms. "In the Academy on Gallifrey, so so long ago, the Doctor excelled in areas I didn't, let's be clear, I am older than the Doctor so I was there before he was, but I excelled in Telepathy. Be very careful what you think, it is like a shining beacon to me, I can hear your thoughts, be very careful, even when you do put up a guard, be careful, for someone as telepathically advanced as me and as old as me, it is easy to break down a flimsy barrier. As you had questions on your mind that I heard, I shall answer them. I am nothing to do with Rassilon, I would want nothing to do with that crackpot. As for the High Council, I am under surveillance of them at the moment. They think I don't know it but I do. Finally, I was NOT driven to insanity, I only had a slight pain in my head shortly following my regeneration, apart from that my evil nature literally only came with regeneration. It is a lottery and I have not learnt yet how to control it."

"So, now, back to questions you actually voiced. I don't care about you. That's the trouble with an evil incarnation. You have very few feelings for anyone. I still have feelings for my wife, I have very few for my son who is now part of the High Council, believe it or not, but I couldn't care less about the Universe that I once used to care so much about. Your name came up on my hologram, that's my version of a scanner, I don't have a scanner, I decided I would come here and have a good go at killing you but seeing as you have more or less come straight out of the Time War and are still terrified by what you saw and what happened, I show pity, I dunno, maybe you just managed to hit on one of my lighter, nicer days, maybe you're lucky. That doesn't mean I am not evil, by the way. The Master. Does that name ring a bell? The Master and I had a number of fights recently while competing to be more evil and we firmly established, after I stabbed her a couple of hundred times, that I am."

"So, let's talk history and what we've been up to since the Time War ended, tell me a bit of history about yourself, you go first, then I'll tell you a brief history of mine. Are you sure you have never heard of me?" he asked.

Susan scowled bitterly when she realized that he was in her head, shoving into place another attempt at barriers, though she didn't have Time to strengthen them fully. She thought she was fairly decent at Telepathy in most of her regenerations, but she supposed that a full decade of having no one around to practice with had made her a bit rusty.

"Unwanted Telepathic intrusion is rude," the Time Lady huffed, not at all fazed by the Lieutenant's graphic description of what he had done to the Master. "And while I am still grieving the loss of our people, I am in no way terrified." Her voice was cold. "I fought in that war a little over ten years ago, and I am still very much in tune with my war incarnation. You might be evil, but I am a strategist. I have been for all ten centuries I fought that war, and my instincts have more often than not led me to a correct assumption. And my instinct now tells me," she paused, scanning him over quickly, "that you mean what you say." Susan smirked. "History, it is, then."

"No, I've never heard of you," she responded, shaking her head. "You know Koschei- the Master, that is? He was akin to my uncle when I was a child, he and my grandfather were that close. From what I hear, he went insane. As for myself, my grandfather stole a TARDIS and me when I was young. I hadn't even been initiated into the Academy yet. I wanted to see what life was like on Earth, so I went to Earth school. After that, we traveled for a while with some humans, before Grandfather dropped me off in 22nd Century Earth with a man I ended up marrying. David. We had a nice long life together. Had children. They all withered away before my eyes. I was summoned to Gallifrey. Fought in the war for ten of those miserable centuries, before Rassilon came after me for being loyal to the former Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar. I managed to Chameleon Circuit myself on Earth for a good ten or twenty years before some Earth organisation- Torchwood, it is- found my energy signatures, and I came out of hiding to feel no one." Her voice grew solemn. "I worked for Torchwood after that, for a few years. I had no place to go. There was no one up here," she tapped the side of her forehead, "and I thought I was the last. But I grew restless on Earth. So I stole the Time Agent's Vortex Manipulator and ran away." An acerbic smile twisted onto her lips. "Just like my grandfather."

The Lieutenant listened to everything he was being told. Something touched him that reminded him of his War Years but he brushed them away. Noticing her barriers going up, he said, "Stronger than that, girl, come on." When she finished her story, the Lieutenant looked somewhat downcast which was very rare for him now, in this incarnation anyway. He sighed before beginning his story.

"Well, let me properly introduce myself to you for a start. I am the Lieutenant. I am a Time Lord. I was born in Arcadia on Gallifrey. Well, I say born, I was actually generated in a special machine during the Time War. These machines, I don't know if you knew of them, existed to quickly generate brand new Time Lords within a matter of seconds, usually ending up with the brand new Time Lord already in their teens and ready to fight. I was an exception, I emerged as an 8-year-old and a guard who was guarding the machines risked his life to send me back in time to before the Time War so I could grow up and gain maturity. I still don't know why I was an exception but that's what happened. I'd love to know where he is now. I pray he is still alive. My first incarnation was female. I was originally female. In that incarnation, I taught Time Tots in schools. When the Time War did finally take hold, I led Arcadia in battle whenever the Doctor couldn't be there. I was Lieutenant and Executioner of Arcadia which meant it was also my job to execute Time Lords who committed War Crimes. I have to say I hated it to begin with and then I just got used to it and I never actually resigned from the position so that is still technically my job description. My, how I've changed. Anyway, in the end, the pressure that was on me in this war was too much for me and, by now, I had acquired my TARDIS, I found some Earth pills on board and I took them to my bedroom in the house I had grown up in and I overdosed on the pills, causing me to regenerate into my second incarnation.
  "My second incarnation was male. My stress levels were still sky high so I went to my TARDIS and left Gallifrey for the first time to get away from it all. Until now, I had only used it to help me fight the War. So, I left Gallifrey and ended up in the Vatican, of all places, and I have a gun fight with Pope Benedict XVI. Whether it was accidental or not, he shot me and I regenerated again.
  "My third incarnation was female again. I was much calmer in this incarnation and after wounding, not killing, a lot of the Pope's Cardinals, I decided to get back to fighting the Time War. It was back on Gallifrey that I met a companion of mine that would make a big difference in my life. She claimed to be a future companion of mine. It was nice to know I had a future. This gave me hope my own personal policy, except in exceptional circumstances, was to bring no companions with me in case I got them killed so this gave me hope that I survived the Time War or that the Time War ended in the future and I had begun to travel with companions again. I travelled with Kellie a lot, it helped take away from the stress of the War which did catch up with me again. Eventually, her and I went on an adventure on Earth, we decided to fly from one airport to another, wherever it was, but someone had let deadly snakes loose on the plane and they killed the pilot and co-pilot and the crew and a number of the passengers, they came for me before Kellie, not sure why as I had made my way into the hold but anyway, I regenerated before they had a chance to get to Kellie, allowing my regeneration energy to fly back at them and kill them.
  "My 4th incarnation was also female. When I had stabilised, I climbed back into the cabin and rushed to the cockpit where I performed an emergency landing at the nearest airport I could safely. Once I was re-united with my TARDIS, I brought Kellie and I back to the Time War but Kellie said it was time for her to return to "her Lieutenant" so she left and I continued to fight. Meanwhile, I'd had this brilliant idea to involve all my incarnations in the saving of Gallifrey from the Time War but it was a massive failure and nearly lost the War for the Doctor, I was sentenced to vaporisation for the crime but I ran away. The stress of running away made me suicidal again so I landed on some alien planet and took to swallowing rocks until I regenerated.
   "My 5th incarnation was also female. I spent much of this life running from the Time Lords and not doing much else. The stress of this caught up with me also though and I ended up putting my hand into a toaster, putting water into this toaster and then turning it on. I regenerated, of course.
  "My 6th incarnation was male again. I forget what it was I did but I managed to destroy whatever links the Time Lords had with me so they couldn't find me so I relaxed a little more. I travelled more. I forget what happened, I am told that I was bitten by a rabid dog on some planet and this drove me mad, that I materialised my TARDIS on the Doctor's TARDIS and tried to kill him but regenerated and regained my memory before I could. Thank goodness, I remember thinking at the time.
  "My 7th incarnation was female again. I still have no memory of what happened leading up to this regeneration. I really was quite ignorant of the rules of the road around the world on Earth and I assumed all countries of the world drove on the left so Geraldine, my companion at the time, and I went to Spain on holiday but I crashed while I was there. Geraldine was fine, she survived with minor cuts but I was badly injured and regenerated.
  "My 8th incarnation was male again and had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This meant that I was unable to stand or support myself. I had invented for myself a speech machine linked with my brain so I could talk and had Geraldine build me a special wheelchair that would support me. I had it hot wired with the help of the TARDIS. I was disabled for this whole incarnation and paralysed for much of it too. I learnt how to fly the TARDIS via mind control in this incarnation. I was very sensitive to sidden movements back them and while I was flying the TARDIS one day, an advert popped up on my scanner and made me jump, causing a regeneration.
  "My 9th incarnation was also male. I got my movement back with this incarnation and could speak independently again. I lost any sense of humour I had in this incarnation and formed an addiction to kitten huffing which eventually led to a regeneration due to an overdose.
  "My 10th incarnation also male. I got my humour back in this incarnation. This was my first proper youthful male incarnation. I managed to get past my addictions and suicidal thoughts in this incarnation, thinking myself weak for having allowed that sort of stuff to happen in my lives. I decided to use this life to push myself on a bit from my past, to toughen up and start to become that brave Time Lord that the Universe needed so badly. I was eventually mauled by Grue and I regenerated.
  "My 11th incarnation was female again. This has been my final female incarnation to date. I was re-united with Kellie in this incarnation, although, for Kellie, this was the first time she had met me. I was particularly skilled at avoiding death in this incarnation, even Old Age when it came around but I was so good at avoiding time that I fractured time itself and the only way to fix the fracture was to regenerate so I regenerated to fix the fracture in time.
  "My 12th incarnation was male again. This was my oldest incarnation in appearance and still has been. I required a stick to keep myself upright, I was that old! I spent much of this incarnation breaking the laws of Time and Non-Interference and just generally having fun with Kellie. Although, after encountering two of my younger incarnations under similar circumstances, Grue forced cannibalistic vegetarians to attack me and I regenerated.
  "My 13th incarnation was male again. Reality hit me in this incarnation that if I wasn't careful, I would die. I was out of regenerations so I was actually vulnerable to death. I decided to settle down, live a relaxed life and retire. I retired to a small village on an alien world called Cadmium where I served as their protector until I died. I met Jeck while I was there, the village mayor, and took on three more companions in Sandy, Catina and Ann. I eventually became aware that my kidneys were failing me but I kept it secret so that no-one would be upset or no-one would worry and I died then one night after doing my day's work of Kidney Failure. The next thing I remember, I awoke in a chapel on Gallifrey, in my coffin, feeling very very dizzy and sick, I had been revived and given a new regeneration cycle and a pardon of my vaporisation sentence, I went on one last farewell journey alone before I regenerated.
  "My 14th incarnation was male again. I had a thing for regenerating into younger bodies by now. I resembles a man in his early 20s in this incarnation. I did have an eye for new adventures in this incarnation but I had depression too. Not sure why, maybe it came with the departure of Kellie from the TARDIS. but Sandy, Catina and Ann stuck around. I became the Lord President in this incarnation. One day, we visited Planet One, which has a poisonous atmosphere and I warned everyone about going outside but I watched what was going on on my hologram. When I saw a certain turn of events, however, I forgot what I had just said, leaving my TARDIS to to go and help, leaving them behind inside the TARDIS. I contracted Stage One Planet One Poison but I didn't know it at the time because there are no symptoms for the first stage. I hoped I had got away with it. When I advanced to Stage 3, Sandy Catina and Ann reluctantly left the TARDIS. I think they were worried I wouldn't survive without them. When I advanced to Stage 5, there was no Stage 6 I could advance to, I was at my worst and about to die any second so I finally regenerated, however, my regeneration got stuck half-way through and I accidentally created Bigfoot in this mid-regeneration incarnation but I managed to complete the rest of the regeneration.
  "My 15th incarnation, as you can see, is male again. Also as you can see, I regenerated into a body that resembles that of a young teenage lad, of legal age, of course, I could feel it when I regenerated into this body, it was only just the equivalent of 18 when I did, it would be the equivalent of 19 now, about to turn 20. I became evil and shortly after my regeneration, my TARDIS crashed down below the Pacific Ocean, where I wiped out a kingdom of crabs. On my return to Space, I brought 5 Earth horses with me to a spaceship where I killed them and left them to be found by the crew. After the High Council found out about these, they formally impeached me from the Office of the Lord President. I re-united with my wife not long ago. She's old now. The Master tried to kill me and I tried to kill her. I think I did, I'm not sure though. The Iron Demon was supposed to be keeping an eye on me but when he was caught doing other things, he was forced to regenerate as punishment. I killed my companion not too long ago, a girl called Penelope Pratt. She was annoying me and getting in the way. That's about everything to bring me up to this encounter. I understand I said brief history but history is never brief when there are 4420 years of it. Anyway, enjoy having biological relations. I have none. The only person I ever considered my parent was that guard who saved me. I sent him a mental message telling him this once and he replied but I haven't seen nor heard from him again since."

The Lieutenant stopped for breath after this, trying to avoid looking into Susan's eyes. The fact that Susan now basically knew just who he was was a tad too much so he dared not look up.

Susan sniffed lightly when the Lieutenant mentioned her new telepathic shields, making a mental note to work on strengthening them the moment she had the chance. She folded her arms over her chest, remembering how good she used to be during the War at keeping people out. But now, she was rusty and unpractised, and the fact that she hadn't slept in over a week absolutely had something to do with it as well. Still, she listened on to his story, and when he was finished, she spoke.

"That's all very well and good," Susan responded, her eyes narrowing as the her first question came to mind. "But you speak of Gallifrey... as though it survived the Time War. Or you ran away from the War, and went back to a different Time Stream, before all the... madness." Another possibility dawned on her then, one she felt incredibly stupid for not realizing until now. "Or you're from a Time Stream that's still entangled in the War. If that's true..." She hesitated, guilt teeming at her eyes. "I am so sorry. I've been careless with the Time Streams. It might be better for you to forget this, but I'm not going to force it."

"I've tried to get back to Gallifrey. The coordinates simply never work. At least, they don't on this awful thing." She gestured with mild disgust toward her Vortex Manipulator. "Are you saying it survived? It survived, and you found it?" Susan looked overcome by emotion, conflicted by the unwillingness to believe that such a thing was possible.

((So sorry this is so late!! I've been rather busy with school and work lately, but I'll try to keep up with it best I can.))

The Lieutenant looked at her but refrained from saying what he wanted to. "You won't find Gallifrey at the co-ordinates you have because it doesn't exist in that time and place anymore. I do have them and I am so tempted to let the Universe have them but the Lady President won't let me in case the Time War is triggered all over again. My TARDIS is a Type 30 TARDIS, it barely manages the journey to Gallifrey by itself. It's not a different Time Stream, the reality is that Gallifrey is moved, the Doctor saved Gallifrey and that is that. It is rare now though that you find young Time Lords and Ladies like yourself now. The Doctor, the Master, the Professor, the Rani and I, the lot of us, are oldies now. Anyway, why are we standing around? Am I going to kill you or show mercy and invite you back to my TARDIS?" he asked, wondering why he seemed to be so nice, maybe it's because he felt guilt towards the Doctor and this was his grandaughter.