“You don’t understand, Miss Rose!” hissed Miss Tarae.
“Understand what?” asked Amy.
“I spent 90 years alone with my thoughts after our last encounter, thanks to Ganondorf’s magics! Many more years after that, after my prison was destroyed throughout Hyrule’s many temporal resets as I drifted in space-!”
“And now that you’ve had a little think about it, you’ve decided to mend your ways.”
“A little think?! …Ninety years! Do you have ANY idea?! You must think death impossible for a Time Lord! You most likely believe 90 years must be nothing to us! Believe me, when you’re a Time Lord stuck in a crystal prison without the ability to time travel, it is a lifetime unable to move! I was in complete sensory deprivation! I wasn’t breathing! I couldn’t even feel my hearts beating! I stood utterly alone…I thought I would go insane!!”
“No comment,” remarked Amy.
“…I wondered if I really HAD died after all. How would I know? …I started hearing voices!” By now, Miss Tarae was looking fearful at what she was forcing herself to recall. “I started imagining things out there in the darkness! Terrifying things! Larger than me! All around me! It was like I had been cast adrift on a raft in the middle of the ocean! I heard all my former allies there! The Cybermen! The Autons! The Daleks! Every one of them calling out my names in unison! All the names I had, even my birth name! …They sounded so faint.”
“It feels like you’re demanding an apology for what YOU used them for,” said Amy.
“Then I saw the face of the Timeless Child! Tormenting! Sneering! Cruel! Cowardly! Just as it is now! Just as it had always been! Their true face! Not the one they happen to be wearing today as the current Doctor! …Then there was nothing. …A near…century…of nothing. …I turned inward. My mind, consumed by memories, forced me to live and relive every single experience from the moment I was born! Maybe even before that! I was LOCKED in my past! Unable to change my mistakes! Condemned to relive them over and over and over! Every death, every failure, every lie, every betrayal! Even those I thought I had completely erased from my memory, like-!”
“…Like?” ventured Amy.
“…Every one of the foul deeds I thought I had buried…rose up…taunting me! …I felt so ashamed…so naked. The process stripped me of everything. It showed me how small I was! How insignificant my achievements had been! I was NOTHING! The mere dreams of a Time Lord who should have died millennia before! I passed through eternity! Imagining every possible theory! Every possible book! Every possible idea! And then, as I had exhausted every combination in that moment…I felt myself transcending! I felt myself starting to lift away from my body to join with something greater than me! Greater than ALL things! …And then…I felt my hearts beat. …That had just been the first second of my imprisonment. …And I was back at the beginning! Utterly trapped! Cursing those who had imprisoned me! A mere deformed, unfinished mind! Before the next hearts beat, the process was repeated in every detail! The third second was the same! As was the next! AS WAS THE NEXT!”
“As I only have a watch synced to Mobius and the TARDIS,” said Amy, “and I don’t have the life-span of a Time Lord, maybe you should skip to the end.”
“…The end?” asked Miss Tarae. “…Very well. I came to realize that I could count myself the queen of an infinite universe were it not for my bad dreams! That there was more in heaven and on Gallifrey than was ever dreamt of in YOUR philosophy, Amy Rose!” By then, the Doctor announced her presence by laughing in the doorway, causing Miss Tarae and Amy to yelp in surprise.
“Eternity?!” asked the Doctor between giggles. “And the best you could manage is to misquote Shakespeare?! Any non-Mobian monkey with a typewriter could do that! At least THEY would have managed to write something down!”
“My point precisely, Doctor!” hissed Miss Tarae.
“Good night, Sweet Prince,” countered the Doctor. “I need to check on something. The bio-data induction channel is very fragile. Amy, I trust-.”
“She didn’t lay a finger on it,” assured Amy.
“Good to know. Now, let’s see-.” The Doctor was interrupted by someone approaching. That person was Romana.
“Doctor, we need to give the Thanakians sanctuary,” said Romana.
“What?” asked the Doctor. “But with so many inconsistencies-!”
“A Rutan fleet was discovered making their way to Gallifrey!” replied Romana. “They’re in attack formation!”
“…The Rutans aren’t so ham-fisted!” argued the Doctor.
“I’d say the Rutans are desperate for a win,” remarked Miss Tarae.
“I have discussed this with Rassilon,” said Romana, “and it’s agreed that the Thanakian flagship may land, but that ship only.”
“What about the other-?!”
“The Thanakians have ship-to-ship teleportation, Doctor. They’ve already beamed over those that haven’t stayed behind. However, they are to stay in their time ship until proper accommodations can be made.”
“I don’t like this,” muttered the Doctor. “Everything is happening so fast!”
“Doctor, we’re still in a position to dictate terms,” said Miss Tarae. “Perhaps I should explain my deal with the Thanakians fully.”
“Yes, perhaps you should!” hissed Romana.
“As you know, the Thanakians have considerably primitive time-travel capabilities. Their power source is a more wasteful one compared to the Eye of Harmony.”
“What IS the Eye of Harmony?” asked Amy.
“Rassilon and Omega created a star,” explained the Doctor, “then suspended time around it as it exploded in the act of becoming a black hole, harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur. That energy was then imprisoned in a crystal that was connected up to all of Gallifrey and all the TARDIS’ ever made, including my own. It was lost during the Time War.”
“Then how-?” asked Amy.
“Rifts in space-time can refuel a TARDIS,” explained Miss Tarae. “The Doctor’s favorite rift is in Cardiff, Wales on Earth!”
“Let me guess,” muttered the Doctor, “you think a new Eye of Harmony can be created.”
“I know it will,” replied Miss Tarae. “And the Thanakians can observe how it’s done.”
“That’s entirely dependent on if Rassilon can pull up how she and Omega did it in the first place,” remarked the Doctor.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Miss Tarae.
“Come on, how long has it been since she and Omega made the Eye?”
“Rassilon can’t just forget something like that!”
“Well, she probably did and maybe the notes are in the deepest recesses of the Matrix,” remarked Romana. “I haven’t seen those notes when I was trapped in that dimension.”
“Oh, for the love of-! Are you REALLY going to make me look like a liar in front of Thanakians?!” complained Miss Tarae.
“What, did you give them a timetable?” asked the Doctor. “Come on, you can see the state of Gallifrey, the Matrix is probably at dial-up speeds right now.”
“And I’ll need to tell them that you, Miss Tarae,” said Romana, “jumped the gun as you forgot that the Eye is a proprietary secret.”
“But-!”
“But nothing! My decision is final!” said Romana. As Romana left, Miss Tarae snarled.
“Who does she think she is?!” she hissed.
“The current president of the High Council of Time Lords,” remarked the Doctor. “Currently consisting of you, me, Susan, her, and Rassilon. …Coincidentally, we make up the current population of Gallifrey.”
“And you have to admit, you DID promise them something that doesn’t exist right now,” remarked Amy.
“Gallifrey to Thanakian ship,” Romana said over the call she was setting up. “Thanakians, come in please.” The Thanakian ambassador appeared.
“Lord President,” said the ambassador fearfully, “the Rutans are moving in for the kill!”
“I sympathize with your plight and I wish we could save every Thanakian,” replied Romana, “but we can’t have every ship in your fleet landing on Gallifrey. Have your people evacuate to your flagship. We will lower the Transduction Barriers for that ship only. And until accommodations can be made on Gallifrey, I must ask that you stay aboard the flagship. Only then can we help you formulate a plan of campaign against the Rutans.”
“We are grateful for what you can realistically offer,” thanked the ambassador. “These terms are acceptable.”
“I’m sending you coordinates,” said Romana as she keyed in the coordinates for a landing site outside the capital. “There will be a beacon there to guide you to the landing site.”
“Thank you, Gallifrey!” replied the ambassador. The call ended. At that moment, Miss Tarae entered the room.
“What is this supposed to be?” asked Miss Tarae. “Your act of undoing the Master Restitution?”
“Keep silent about that, Monster!” hissed Romana as she stormed away to collect Rassilon and greet the Thanakians. Miss Tarae smirked.
“You can’t anyways,” she chuckled to herself. “Soon, I shall be in control of Gallifrey. I already wounded Rassilon, but never had the pleasure of wounding YOU, Lord President Romana!”