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What does the free fall feel like?
Asks the boy with a spark in his eye
Know why the nightingale sings
Is the answer to everything


He has long learned to keep his real questions to himself. A condescending smile, a mocking glance, a dismissive retort; that is what he will receive, and he needs none of it. Instead, he asks himself, and dreams of the answers.

Instead, he inters himself in the philosophy of other worlds, the history and mythology and expression of aliens his peers could never understand, simply because they don't want to. Through them, he grasps enlightenment.

"The boy has his head in the clouds. He's not fit for Prydon, and certainly not to be a Time Lord."

They think he can't hear them bickering over his fate, or they don't care. All it does, really, is confirm his success.

Theta Sigma is a rebel without a cause, a callow layabout, a tragedy of wasted potential.

Taking a step to the world unbound
Spinning my fantasies all around
Freed from the gravital leash
I swear the heaven's in my reach


He does just enough to pass muster, just enough to gain what he needs. It's a step towards a goal they cannot comprehend, towards freedom they cannot grasp.

"I've noticed that your grades are consistently…"

"The bare minimum?" His grin, bright and large and nonchalant, has convinced many a person of his apathy. Borusa has long realised it looks out of place.

"What do you hope to achieve?" Always so frustrated, so bewildered, which puts him above the rest who simply accept.

"I like my free time."

He maps the universe in his head, highlighting every planet he wants to visit, every wrong he wants to right, every wonder he wants to see. He plans a revolution with his best friend, turning his world into what it ought to be.

He reaches for the stars.

Dancing with the spirit of the air
In this ocean so open and fair
Making love to the gods above
On my maiden voyage so bold


For too long, he cannot find them. They're dimmed by despair as his dreams are smothered. All that's left, in the end, is darkness.

Isolation becomes his only comfort when the last ties to his ideals wither away.

Then his granddaughter is born, and she asks why the nightingale sings.

"Grandfather, are we really going to do it? Can we really run away?" She's so filled with the awe and enthusiasm he used to know.

"Of course we can, my dear! The question is if we want to. It's going to be very difficult. We can never come back."

"I know."

Together, they soar into the stars he'd almost forgotten.

Landing safely to the blue lagoon
Don't know if this is the earth or the moon
Joy of living is no more a mask
The Eden I found will forever last


He doesn't have a destination in mind, really. The old TARDIS is barely under his control; they're spiralling aimlessly through the Vortex, and it's the best feeling in the universe.

It will take some time for the barriers to weaken, for the bitterness to fade; he lost the child he was to the languor of Gallifrey, but Susan won't have to.

They land roughly, but harmlessly; they step onto alien sands, and hear the cries of strange birds, and walk beneath their sky.

Sometimes, he regrets. Sometimes he gets so frustrated he can't stand it. Sometimes he ponders simply going back and damn the consequences.

Yet he never does. Long after a human woman revives who he once was, after he leaves Susan to a steady life, he continues on, living the life he craved for centuries.

Migrating with the geese
My soul has finally found peace
Doesn't matter that man has no wings
As long as I hear the nightingale sing
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Curt: We set out to change the world and ending up… just changing ourselves.
Arthur: What's wrong with that?
Curt: Nothing! … If you don't look at the world.

(Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine)




"Why didn't you take it?" The Doctor looked up from the console, bewildered surprise softening his features and making him look young; the wayward child running away from home again.

Turlough strode from the inner door, where he'd been leaning with impressive nonchalance even if he did say himself, until he gazed at the Doctor across the controls. He could name some of them, now, even understand their purpose. Trion wasn't nearly so far behind as Earth.

"The Presidency," he clarified, less because the Doctor needed it and more to press him into words, any words at all.

The Doctor was silent for a moment, of course, that easily affected confusion slipping away as he straightened. Perhaps he would give an actual answer, for once.

"Because I didn't want it." Or perhaps not. Turlough managed, barely, not to roll his eyes, settling for a raise of his eyebrows. For some reason that drew a faint smile from the other man. Inscrutable to the last, irritating and thrilling all at once.

"I would be horrible at it."

"Worse than Borusa?" It was the wrong thing to say; the smile faded abruptly, into something fixed and cool. Turlough shook his head, hands falling from the console.

"You don't approve of Gallifrey, that’s obvious, so if you could fix it –"

"But I couldn't." Quiet, low, and even with that mask still in place he could see a very old grief.

No, grief wasn't the word. Disappointment. Regret. Resignation, and he'd certainly never seen that from the Doctor before. It made him curious, and…it was odd, but it saddened him.

He didn't speak, only listened, because he knew if he waited the Doctor would continue.

"Gallifrey doesn't change. Goodness knows I tried, when I was young…" The words trailed off and left a faint, wry smile in their wake, and bitterness, Turlough decided, didn't suit the Doctor at all.

"For decades I tried. I even had help, for a while. Activists are rare among Time Lords, you see, and most of them left."

"Including you." Too soft to be an accusation, too flat to be a question. The Doctor seemed to understand, and nodded.

"Yes. Railing against the aristocracy gets tiring after a while, you know, especially when the majority are perfectly happy with the way things are."

"So you…"

"Gave up?" His smile was too bright to be real, and Turlough couldn't say anything to it, and the Doctor didn't seem to want to add on. He fiddled with his pockets, Turlough fiddled with his tie, and it was all painfully familiar. Comfort in avoidance, that was a lesson they'd both learned very well.

Except the Doctor spoke again, and his hands rose to rest, once more, against the console. Turlough's hands fell as well, and once more, he listened.

"I spoke out against everything I could manage, in the Capitol or to anyone who would listen. Consorted with the Outsiders. Flaunted doctrines and statutes and unspoken rules – there weren't many, Time Lords like their rules set down in neat letters." That drew a faint smirk from Turlough; he imagined it clashed with the rapt attention.

It faded soon enough.

"Nothing I did made very much difference, slight or spectacular. I ended up ostracised, and quite ineffective. A very tired rebel locked in a society in love with its own stagnancy. Of course I left."

The Doctor shook his head, and his hands slid from the console to dangle at his sides.

"I tried to change the world, and all I ended up changing was myself." Turlough studied him for a moment, and then he smiled.

"Well. I wouldn't call it a waste, then." The Doctor's eyes widened, and then his brow furrowed, and then he smiled back, and it was real.

"No. No, I suppose it wasn't."
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...Well. That's certainly...interesting.

Really, Romana, I would expect better from you.

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