The Daughter of Gallifrey

8: The Thing Not Mentioned

The Doctor watched her ascend the stairs before turning to Rory with a giant grin across his face. He rubbed his chin with his hands, shaking with silent laughter.

"Mr. Williams? That's quite funny. She's brilliant, that Caroline Thomas, isn't she?" The Doctor twirled around the room to get a good look before collapsing into a sitting chair. Rory took several quick steps over to him and lowered his voice.

"But, Doctor, who is she?"

"You heard her! She's Caroline Thomas-"

"Doctor, seriously. I mean, who exactly is she? You don't usually pick...companions quite so, um, young and-and...oh, I don't know, small?"

"Rory, she's a Time Lord." The Doctor's grin grew even wider, very nearly stretching to his ears. Rory's overwhelming shock was apparent; his jaw would've hit the floor had it not been hinged properly onto his face.

"A-a Time Lord? Are you sure? She's a little girl! I don't understand. How? You were supposed to be the last! She's not your-" Rory gave him a funny look that the Doctor didn't quite understand. He raised his eyebrows in confusion. Rory continued to stare at him with a quizzical look. "Is she-is she your, you know?" The Doctor suddenly comprehended what Rory was trying to say, and his eyes grew incredibly wide, and his cheeks burned red.

"NO! No, no, no, no! She's not my-no, no. Of course not. Why would you-" His face was contorted in not disgust but something similar, like even thinking about what Rory meant made his stomach churn.

"Well, you get awful lonely in that TARDIS of yours, and if River-I mean, I thought maybe you-" Rory shrugged his shoulders and put his hands up to show he had just been speculating.

"Well, I didn't. We didn't," the Doctor assured him, his eyebrows raised, still recovering from the surprise of Rory's accusation that Caroline was somehow his daughter.

"Sorry, Doctor," Rory said, still standing in front of the sitting chair, his arms spread in the question he was about to pose. "But how does that work? How, Doctor? I mean, are you good and properly sure that-" The Doctor leaned forward suddenly in his seat, his excitement and anxiety displayed openly.

"She is a Time Lord, Rory, and I haven't got a clue how it's possible." He leaped up abruptly, causing Rory to step back just as quickly. "I've barely been able to think of any else besides it. How? How? She was a human, according to her mother, who I believe. There was this book-I'll explain later-and now she's Time Lord enough to regenerate. She's still in the first twenty-four hours of her first regeneration. The Caroline upstairs doesn't look like the original Caroline. She was blonde and a bit shorter, I think. But HOW?" The Doctor began to pace rapidly, tugging his hair, rubbing his chin, pulling at his ears and collar and sleeves.

"Doctor, just tell me what's going on! What book?" Rory insisted, swinging his arms out wider. The Doctor froze mid-step and faced Rory.

"You've gotten louder, you have. It must be Amy rubbing off on you," he stated plainly, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Doctor," Rory said, still waiting for an explanation. So the Doctor began Caroline's story. He continued to pace, words pouring from his mouth.

The energy signature picked up by the TARDIS. The crying Katie Thomas. The bookshop that had never been there before. Katie's scream. The discovery of Caroline, the glowing girl on the floor. The burning of Katie Thomas.

The Doctor paused for a few very long moments. Rory knew better than to say a word.

Then the unmarked black book.

His voice became strained. It took so much effort to get the words out.

That book he should've remembered. Caroline trying to comfort him. His plan to save her. The burning inside his body. The pain that boiled in him. Falling over. Caroline saying she'd save him. Closing his eyes. Accepting death. The familiar sound. River's whisper. Then waking up in the infirmary, aboard the TARDIS. Trying to find the bookshop. Caroline's breakdown and operating of the TARDIS.

He specifically left out how they wound up at Rory and Amy's, that the last place he had been was just across the road. He felt it was for the best, but mostly to protect his pride and hide that fact that he, the Doctor, the great traveler of all time and space, missed Amy and Rory Williams incredibly so.

When the Doctor's lips stopped moving and the room fell silent, Rory fell back on to the couch, a flabbergasted look on his face.

"Oh," was all he was able to get out. The Doctor reseated himself in the chair, forehead crinkled in thought. "So she-Caroline, I mean, she'll live like you now? Regenerate more and eventually stop aging?"

"That is my theory. But there's no way to know until then. This has never happened before. Nothing like this. Human to Time Lord. It simply isn't possible. She's impossible."

"Have you scanned her with the TARDIS or something?" Rory asked, "You know, like you did with Amy to see if-" He stopped and shifted on his cushion. "-when she was Flesh."

"No, no I haven't. Hasn't even occurred to me." He slapped his forehead with his palm. "Why wouldn't it? I don't know. Stupid." He hit himself again, jumping up, his eyes wide with realization.

"THOMAS!" he yelled, turning to leave the room. Caroline appeared around the corner, obviously having been sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

"Yes, Doctor?" she replied, a cheeky grin spread across her round face.

"It's rude to eavesdrop, Caroline Thomas," he scolded, wagging his finger, but with a grin just as big as hers. He turned his head to call over his shoulder. "Mr. Williams, it's been quite fun!"

The Doctor opened the front door, Caroline close behind. Rory hesitated, his eyes darting uncertainly. He opened his mouth to say something, closed it, cleared his throat, and opened it again.

"Oh, no, no, you're not leaving," Rory said sternly, scribbling with a pen on the back on an envelope laying on the coffee table and racing to the door. "Not without me." He grabbed his jacket off a hook. The Doctor chuckled and patted him on the shoulder.

"Good old Rory."

The door shut sharply behind them, locking with a click.

Next to the hook where Rory's jacket had been, a picture frame hung on the wall. The frame held a crisp new photograph. In it, Amy sat on a park bench, showing her teeth with a huge smile that made her sparkling eyes crinkle at the corners. Beside her sat a little boy with black hair and a crooked grin.