ARC OF DISCOVERY
It was while Romana was teaching him to play chess in the library that Adric first noticed something amiss between the two Time Lords. The three of them had escaped the terror of the Great Vampire several days ago and had been luxuriating in the TARDIS since, but Adric had felt a strained sort of tension between his companions. The Doctor claimed to be trying to pinpoint the location of the Starliner, so he could return Adric to it, but as little as they saw of him in the Console Room, it seemed he wasn’t working very hard.
Adric was calculating moves in his head, determined to master the Earth game, when the Doctor strode into the library. Despite their reprieve, the Doctor was still dressed in his usual manner, having only abandoned his scarf and hat while he prowled about the TARDIS halls. He ignored Adric and Romana, stalking past them to peer at the books upon the shelf.
“You ought to come and join us,” Romana cheerfully called.
The Doctor didn’t reply. He pulled a book out, flipped through it rather despondently, and shoved it back in place. “It must be in here somewhere,” he muttered to himself.
“Stop fussing and come and play with us,” Romana said. “Adric’s getting quite good.” At the Doctor’s continued absorption in his books, Romana sighed, set her hands in her lap and twisted in her chair to look at him. “Doctor!”
“Confound it all, Romana!” the Doctor shouted. “Can’t you see I’m trying to work?”
Instead of rising to the bait as Adric would have expected, Romana brushed the Doctor’s brashness aside. “Nonsense!” she replied. “Come over here and play with us. You’re not going to find anything useful in those books to help us get back to N-Space anyway,” she added offhandedly.
The Doctor snapped the book he was holding shut, peering owlishly over it at Romana. Then he put it away before striding to the chess table. He took one look at the board, reached out to quickly rearrange the pieces, and in three moves had Romana’s white king in check. “Please leave me alone.” He turned to walk back to the book stack.
Romana gave Adric an exasperated sigh. “You’re setting a poor example for the boy, you know,” she chided without looking at him. “Absolutely dreadful. He’s not got a family anymore now. We’re it.”
The words obviously had an affect upon the Doctor, as he turned back to them, his eyes wide. “Preposterous!” he roared. “I’m not running an orphanage, you know!”
“Oh, have a little compassion, Doctor!” Romana returned. Addressing Adric, she kindly said, “He really doesn’t mean it.”
“I do!” the Doctor boomed. “As soon as I figure out how to get you back to your Starliner, I will.”
“You will not,” Romana confidently stated. To Adric, she explained, “This is how he admits he likes people: through insults.”
“I see,” said Adric, though he didn’t.
Romana was speaking again. “You know perfectly well that if you wanted to take Adric home, all you’d have to do is materialize the TARDIS on the ship before it took off, just in a different place than where we were originally. Even a Time Tot could figure that out.”
“Poppycock!” the Doctor bellowed. Fixing his wide eyes on Adric, he wagged a finger. “Don’t listen to a word she says. She’s delusional, that one.”
“It isn’t so bad,” Romana casually said, beginning to rearrange the chess pieces to start the game anew.
Drawn in by the ambiguous statement, the Doctor hesitated, trying to figure out where she was going with such phraseology. “What isn’t?” he asked, rising to the bait.
“Our being Adric’s family. You’re a wonderful father figure, and I’ve always fancied being a mother.” Romana absently smiled as she set her white king and queen chess pieces back in place. “He can’t go back to that Starliner anyhow, and you know it. It’s much better for him here on the TARDIS, with us.”
Very hotly the Doctor retorted, “I am not the boy’s father, you are not his mother, and he is not staying on my TARDIS.” A little more politely, he said to Adric, “No offense, of course. You’re a wonderfully sweet boy and all that, but really, this is all much too much!”
“You make it sound like you don’t like families at all,” Romana sullenly said.
“I don’t,” the Doctor answered. “They nag and lie and stifle you. Trust me, we’re all much better without them.”
Adric held his tongue.
“Not all families are like that, Doctor,” Romana protested. “I, for one, wouldn’t be like that.”
And that was when it occurred to Adric what the conversation was really about. It wasn’t about him at all. Romana looked over her shoulder at the Doctor and he peered back at her with a strained expression on his face, and it all made sense. Romana wanted this family—with the Doctor. She wanted to be his wife, or whatever the Time Lord equivalent of that was, and she was using Adric to facilitate that desire. From the way the Doctor was rebutting her, it was fairly obvious the feeling was not mutual.
“Don’t I get a say in all this?” Adric asked.
“No,” the Doctor quickly replied.
“Of course you do,” Romana said at the same time.
Adric pushed his chair back, getting to his feet. “I’m not looking for surrogate parents. I consider you both friends, and that’s it. If you don’t want me on the TARDIS though, please take me somewhere else—I can’t go back to the Starliner. There’s nothing for me there.”
“So you can join the Great Vampires?” the Doctor countered.
“No,” Adric replied, raising his chin. “I’ve learned. I’m better than that.”
“He’s not going to harm anyone,” Romana said. “Give him a chance. He’ll learn best with our personal tutelage and you know it.”
“Teachers and parents! What next, zookeepers? We can’t take him to Gallifrey, Romana. We can’t traipse all over time and space with a boy who shouldn’t even be in our universe.” The Doctor was scowling.
“And why not?” Romana countered. “You shouldn’t have stolen this TARDIS in the first place then, Doctor. Now is hardly the time for you to pick to be noble! You’re so selfish!”
“Talking to me like that in my own TARDIS!” the Doctor yelled. “I won’t stand for it!” He pushed past them, stalking out of the library.
The door slammed shut behind them and Romana gave Adric an apologetic smile. “He gets like that, sometimes. He can be so terribly stubborn, but he’ll come around eventually.”
“I like you, Romana,” Adric said simply, as he rose to his feet, “but please don’t use me to further your own agenda again.” He met her astonished gaze a few moments longer before turning on his heels and chasing after the Doctor.
--
Adric found him in the Console Room, though he didn’t appear to be working on any sort of project. The Doctor simply stood with his hands stretched out before him, leaning into the TARDIS console, staring blankly into the switched off viewing monitor embedded in the machinery. The Doctor’s shoulders sagged slightly when Adric entered, but he otherwise did not acknowledge the arrival.
“You shouldn’t lead her on like that,” Adric said.
“This is my TARDIS and you’ve no right to tell me what I should do in it.” The Doctor straightened immediately, turning to face Adric with a curious expression gleaming in his eyes. “How did that seem like leading her on?”
“She’s awfully fond of you.”
“And I her,” the Doctor replied.
Adric absently ran his hands over the controls on the panel before him as he circled the console. “But in a different sort of way.”
The Doctor scrutinized Adric carefully. “Did she send you in here to talk to me?”
Lifting his eyes, Adric met the Doctor’s gaze. “No,” he replied as honestly as possible.
The Doctor seemed to relax at that. “You’re very perceptive Adric. I don’t like it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Mm, what for?” the Doctor mused.
“For being perceptive.”
“Always a good trait to have, if I do say so myself. Which I do,” the Doctor said calmly. Reaching into his pocket absently, he withdrew a small paper bag of sweets. He ate one himself, before offering the bag to Adric. “Jelly baby?”
Adric cautiously took one. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Watching the Doctor chew through his thoughtlessly, Adric tasted it and found despite its unconventional texture, he quite enjoyed the flavor. “Thank you.”
“What I don’t need,” the Doctor was saying, “is someone telling me how to run my ship.”
“She’s only trying to help,” Adric said, swallowing the juicy morsels the sweet had dissolved down into.
“At your expense, you realize. That’s manipulation.”
“Did you really steal the TARDIS?” Adric asked.
“Oh, so you were listening,” the Doctor mused. He ate another jelly baby before crumbling the bag up and hiding it away in one of his many pockets.
“Of course.”
“I suppose we’re all running from something, Adric. Running from or running to.” He shifted his weight so he could lean back against the console, but he kept his pale blue eyes fixed on the Alzarian. “If I don’t take you back to the Starliner, where would you like to go? I’m not even sure where a young man like yourself could possibly fit in.” Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he clearly was contemplating planets in his mind. “Quite a lot don’t take well to off-worlders or children.”
Adric chose not to rebuke the statement that he was a child. “Must I really go anywhere, Doctor? I wouldn’t even know where to choose to go. I’d much rather stay here on the TARDIS, with you.”
“Now you sound like Romana,” the Doctor chided.
“Would you rather be alone?”
The comment caused the Doctor to hem and haw a bit. He twisted dials on the console, though what effect they had, Adric didn’t know. The Doctor paced around the column then stood and stared at the hat rack. “There’s always someone out there who wants to go exploring the universe.”
Adric crossed his arms. “Like me?”
The look the Doctor gave him was a scowl. “Yes, well, but you don’t even know . . . well, anything.”
Affronted, Adric retorted, “I know lots of things!”
“Lots of Alzarian things, perhaps! But what about this?” With a wide gesture, the Doctor drew a large letter ‘E’ in the air between them. “What’s that?”
Adric shook his head. “Some sort of Gallifreyan letter, I suppose?”
“Wrong!” the Doctor replied. “That’s the fifth letter in the Arabic alphabet, commonly in use on Earth in the English language.”
Exasperated, Adric threw up his arms. “Well, what difference does it make whether or not I can read Earth letters? The TARDIS translates anything I need to know automatically, anyway.”
The gleam in the Doctor’s eye was almost frightening. It was a mixture of maniacal glee and insanity. “Will it always though?” he asked deviously. Flipping another switch on the console caused the lights to flicker. When they came back up, the Doctor was still leering, smiling his frightening smile. “Tell me Adric, can you understand me now?”
“That isn’t fair!” Adric protested, aware that somehow the Doctor had just shut off the TARDIS translator. Whatever language the Doctor was now speaking was foreign to Adric’s ears. “Change it back, Doctor.”
“Aah, see, you know nothing,” the Doctor mused, smiling and rather pleased at Adric’s furrowed brow. Of course, the trick was doubled-edged: Adric couldn’t understand the Doctor’s Gallifreyan words, but it wasn’t as though he’d bothered to learn Alzarian while he’d been planet side. Adric’s words were just as meaningless to him as his were to the boy. “Run along now. Go and play.” He shooed Adric away. Perhaps now he could get some peace and quiet.
Adric stomped his foot angrily, but seeing he was getting nowhere fast with that method, he turned away, storming out of the Console Room. He’d show the Doctor just what he knew.
--
The next day, after having resisted looking as though both men had peeved her, Romana found the two of them sitting in the kitchen, conversing together in halted English over tea. It was the strangest thing to hear: accented English. The Doctor was fluent, of course, but Adric’s words were slightly fumbled, like a child’s, and it took Romana several seconds to figure out exactly why that was. “You’ve turned off the neural translator!” she exclaimed.
“Penny for the bright lass,” the Doctor said in his smooth baritone. “Adric’s really quite remarkable at this, Romana. He’s just learned English this afternoon.” Glancing around curiously at the lack of a sun to dictate time, he amended, “Well, today at any rate.”
“Hello, Romana,” Adric said. His words were accented, but still very clearly English.
“Oh, Adric, that’s wonderful.” Turning to the Doctor, she continued, “Why is he learning English?”
“Well why not!” the Doctor shouted. “It isn’t as though I could teach him Gallifreyan!”
Adric seemed unmoved by the Doctor’s outburst. “I like Earth numbers,” he said casually. “They’re so much more malleable than the Alzarian system.” He turned a piece of paper he had out before him toward Romana. On one side were neatly printed Earth numbers—clearly not written in the Doctor’s hand—and on the other side were a series of dashes and dots, which must have been the Alzarian writing system. “We have so many strokes it’s hard to keep track of them, sometimes.”
Romana smiled tightly at Adric before looking back to the Doctor. Speaking in Gallifreyan, she said, “But how could he possibly learn English so quickly?”
Smiling broadly at Adric, the Doctor replied in chipper English, “He’s a remarkably bright boy, Romana! That’s all.”
“Won’t you join us, Romana?” Adric asked. His tone was exceedingly polite as he spoke in the foreign tongue, but his syntax was flawless. “The Doctor’s been teaching me a game called Numbers.”
The game, Romana realized, was an ancient one that had originated on Gallifrey. It involved using numbers and letters to create complex mirror equations that could only be solved by borrowing the inverse digit of the solution from the mirror. Extremely talented Time Lords could build upon their mirror equations so they reflected on the paper (or more commonly, computer screen) like snowflakes, often in multiple dimensions. The sheet the Doctor was working on was up to twenty-six two-dimensional mirrors; Adric was at eighteen and half way finished with another. It was much more complicated with Gallifreyan numbers and letters, but the two men seemed quite engrossed with their game. “I thought you were working,” Romana protested.
The Doctor didn’t look up; he was jotting down another string of digits.
“Weren’t you busy doing something, Doctor?” Romana crossed her arms. “Doctor?” she repeated, this time in English.
“Mm?” The Doctor looked up, setting the tip of his pencil on his tongue to wet it. “Oh, yes. Well, that can wait, Romana. We are Time Lords, after all.”
Adric’s mind had dulled when Romana had entered the room. The equation he’d been working on had scattered into Alzarian numbers, and then he’d lost it altogether. He couldn’t concentrate on the game and speak English all at once. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes trained on his paper and worked his pencil, trying to appear like he was engrossed in what he was doing. It was easier to concentrate that way, but it also meant he didn’t have to see the upset look on Romana’s face. Perhaps the Doctor couldn’t tell, but Adric knew without a doubt she was unhappy with them, and he knew why, too:
He had convinced the Doctor to play Numbers without ever asking, where as Romana had failed to get the Doctor to join in a game of chess with her, despite nearly begging.
He knew it was rotten behavior, but he smirked anyway.
--
“Fetch your coat, it’s cold out there!”
Adric hadn’t been aware that they were landing, but the sound of the Doctor’s voice booming down the hall convinced him to surface from his room. He didn’t have a coat to wear, however, so instead he just followed the sound of the Doctor’s footsteps deeper into the TARDIS. He found him a short while later, standing in Romana’s doorway.
“We’ve landed on a lovely planet which K-9 says is called Needa, Romana. It’s very cold out, so bundle up.”
“I’m not going,” Romana said, her tone petulant.
“What! Not going!” the Doctor cried. His eyes went wide. “What do you mean, not going!”
“I’m busy,” she retorted.
Turning suddenly tender, the Doctor eased into her room. “Oh, come now, Romana. It’s a new world! Probably never even explored by Time Lords, being in E-Space and all. You can’t leave me to adventure out there all alone, can you?”
“You’ll have Adric,” Romana pointed out. “And K-9.”
“Yes, well,” the Doctor mused, “we work better as a team. All of us.”
Creeping to the doorway, Adric peeked inside, just in time to see Romana turn away from her desk at last, looking up at the Doctor. “You really think so?” she asked.
“Don’t brood, Romana. It’s unbecoming. Come on then, up. Up! Fetch your coat.”
“Oh, all right,” she said, rising with a sigh. She paused when she spied Adric eavesdropping. “What is it, Adric?” she asked.
The Doctor turned too, smiling when he saw the boy. “Finish your equations?”
“No,” Adric replied. Then he straightened. “I’ve not got a coat, Doctor.”
“Well you can’t go out dressed like that!” the Doctor announced. “Come on then, off to the wardrobe with you.” He grabbed Adric by the arm, preparing to drag him off. “Five minutes Romana.”
Adric donned on a soft, furry brown parka, snow boots and fleece lined gloves in the wardrobe. He and the Doctor met up with Romana again in the Console Room. She had pulled on a sky-blue frock coat and wore fuzzy white earmuffs and knitted white mittens. The Doctor had his scarf wrapped tightly around his throat and held his hat in his hands. All three were terribly hot, standing there in the Console Room.
On the view screen, however, huge snowflakes flurried to the ground, in the distance. The world was blanketed in white and a low wind seemed to blow, sending the giant snowflakes scattering and swirling from time to time.
“All right, K-9?” the Doctor asked, resting his hand over the door lever.
“Systems are functioning at optimal operation, Master,” he replied.
“Good, good.” Turning his attention to his two bipedal companions, he put on his hat and said, “Shall we?” After their encouraging nods, he opened the door and the four of them stepped out into the world.
--
“It’s beautiful,” Adric said, watching his breath as it crystallized in the cold air. His awe was genuine and complete as he turned a full circle, taking in the wonder around him.
“Doesn’t it snow on Alzarius?” Romana asked. She dimly noticed she was speaking Gallifreyan again, and that Adric understood her—the Doctor must have reinstated the neural translator.
“No,” Adric replied. “Leastways, not like this.”
“Imagine that,” Romana smugly said, “having never seen snow.”
She turned to the Doctor, to see what he thought of the fact that the all-knowing Alzarian was ignorant about snow, and was just in time to watch him break into a wicked smile, ignore her completely, and launch a snowball at Adric.
It hit Adric square in the chest, exploding into a powdery spray. The boy wore a priceless shocked expression for the first few moments, not understanding what had just happened, or why the Doctor had thrown something at him. Picking up on the brilliant smile he was given, he quickly realized it was another of the Doctor’s games. Ducking down, he scooped up a fistful of snow of his own, chasing after the now-retreating Doctor to pelt him between his shoulder blades. Their laughter filled the air.
Romana stood a few feet in front of the TARDIS doors, watching the two of them chase each other around. There was something sweet about the way they played together, but it didn’t quite make her smile. The game labored on until the Doctor, with height at his advantage, caught Adric around the neck and crushed a snowball into the Alzarian’s shaggy hair. The two then fell to their knees, still laughing.
Romana’s frown deepened. “Dash it!” she spat.
“Mistress?”
Eyes widening, Romana looked down to see K-9 standing patiently beside her. She quickly covered her mouth. “Forgive me, K-9. I was thinking aloud.”
“Apology not required,” K-9 said. Then, after a pause, he added, “Mistress?”
Romana was watching the Doctor and Adric again. They were still on their knees, only now the Doctor appeared to be pointing something out to the boy in the snow. Adric wore a confused and curious expression on his face as he followed the trajectory of the Doctor’s finger on the ground. “What is it, K-9?” she asked, growing exasperated.
“I am detecting anomalous readings.”
That was enough to warrant Romana’s full attention. She lowered herself to one knee beside him. “What’s wrong?” she asked, putting a hand on his back.
“Scans indicate severe weather irregularities.”
Around them, snowflakes nearly the size of Romana’s hand quietly fell. “It’s snowing,” she pointed out, raising a palm up to catch a snowflake. It poised for a moment on her glove before melting into water.
“Sensors indicate a regional thermal temperature of twenty-five degrees Celsius.”
Romana dusted her hands off, pushing back to her feet. “But that’s impossible. It’s snowing,” she repeated.
K-9’s scanners swiveled in the sockets on his head as a snowflake landed on him, then bounced off. “Confirmed,” he agreed. “Local temperature varies by up to sixty-three percent.”
“You’re saying it’s snowing here, but nowhere else in the area?”
“That is correct.”
Romana put a hand on her hip, scanning the snowy grounds around her. It all seemed quite evenly covered to her. If there was an area not far away that lacked a blustery sky and large flakes falling, she couldn’t see it. “Could your scanners be damaged?”
“All systems are functioning at optimal efficiency, Mistress.”
“Well, something’s not right,” Romana said, crossing her arms. She looked around the area again, before settling her attention on the only two other people present. “We’d better inform the Doctor.”
“Affirmative.”
“Which, as you’ll note here,” the Doctor was saying, as they approached, “is exactly the same distance from the source.”
“It’s very fascinating, Doctor, but I still don’t see its principal application,” Adric replied.
“Don’t see it’s—” the Doctor started, baffled at Adric’s words, then shook his head. “Its principal application is that it has no principal application!” He rose to his feet and tipped his hat at Romana. Snow fell off it. “Hello, Romana, K-9.”
“Hello, Doctor,” Romana replied. Then, without prompting, added, “K-9’s picked up some very unusual readings.”
“What have you picked up there, old bean?” the Doctor asked, kneeling down to listen to K-9’s report.
“Scans indicate severe weather irregularities,” K-9 repeated. “Sensors project a mean temperature of 25 degrees Celsius, but local reconnaissance return proof of snow. Illogical.”
“Well isn’t that odd,” the Doctor mused.
“What does it mean?” Adric asked.
“K-9’s saying it’s too warm to snow,” Romana replied. She took her glove off and reached her hand out, testing the air. “It certainly feels cold enough.”
“Yes, it does.” The Doctor’s voice was subdued as he thought. After a moment’s consideration, he said, “Tell me K-9, do you detect any technology nearby?”
“Affirmative, Master,” he replied.
“Good dog,” the Doctor replied, patting his head as he rose to his feet. Adjusting his scarf by throwing it over his shoulder he turned and said, “Lead on.”
--