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A few months post-‘All Breakages Must Be Paid For’ Epilogue
He found his mother in the ‘sitting’ room. She was standing in the middle of the room, silently looking around, and the Seeker could tell that she was deep in thought.
When she noticed him, it took a moment before she spoke. Then: “It’s very empty.”
Taking a deep breath, he counted to ten very slowly. Arguments that he could kill with a single word if he was speaking with his friends, were un-winnable when it involved his mother.
“Mum,” he said eventually. “I have already moved all your furniture here, I really don’t want more stuff in the house.”
Indeed, he’d re-purposed a whole suite of rooms specifically for his mother, doing his best to keep the rest of the house clutter free. Especially his lovely circular sitting room, its walls still adorned with maps of the planet.
However his mother shook her head in slight irritation.
“I don’t mean the house, I mean the planet!”
For once stumped, he hesitated. Morning light was filtering through the windows, the second sun creating twin shadows on the floor. “I don’t follow.”
She gestured at the maps. “Are these accurate?”
“Yes…”
“But you haven’t named anything.”
He wanted to say how he had been working very very hard for many years to re-create all the wild life, making sure the biome was correct, and sitting down and making up names for all the mountains, say, hadn’t really registered as a priority. Or at all.
“Everything is labelled,” he replied. “Like roads on Earth? It’s a very simple and effective system, if you look at these mountains-”
“That’s not the point,” she cut him off. “You know how the Welsh re-named Snowdon to something Welsh?”
“Yr Wyddfa,” he supplied and she waved her hand, not caring about the specific example, only the idea of it.
“Names are important. You should name all these places. Gallifrey had names for everything.”
He felt himself wilt. Flora and fauna he could create, but history was something else.
“Gallifrey was named over countless millennia. And I’m not about to name my continents things like ‘Wild Endeavour’ — or my mountains ‘Solace’ or ‘Solitude’.”
“You have copied everything else, why not the names?”
Her gaze was steady and penetrating, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
“Names are… important, as you said,” he said, slowly. “But I don’t want to re-use Gallifreyan names the way colonising humans were forever naming stuff after the place they came from. Like ‘New’ York or ‘New’ Zealand or any of the other examples. It feels… tacky. And weird. And… a bit macabre if I’m honest. Like… I’ve not called this place ‘New Gallifrey’ or ‘Gallifrey II’.”
He wasn’t sure how to explain it. Re-creating the planet had felt important, bringing back the extinct species a complex and worthwhile project. But a flubble didn’t care about names, as long as it had a suitable habitat. And — as Dante had said — names were the consequences of things.
The planet was a consequence of him. And he was no Rassilon; not someone looking to create a legacy. He was simply a youth without a home — carving out his own, personal place in the universe, nothing more.
“Have you given it a name?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“What would be the point? Should we have a naming ceremony and break an over-sized bottle against a big mountain?”
“Don’t be silly darling,” she admonished. “However you must show up on maps of this sector? The planet should have a name at the very least.”
“Fine. What would you suggest?” he said, slightly desperately, and she tilted her head, humming softly to herself.
Then a small smile appeared on her face.
“Alexandria!” she declared. In response he opened his mouth — and paused.
“That is… rather good,” he said after a moment, beginning to smile, before taking in the implications.
“Did dad-” he started, and then caught himself.
It was entirely possible his father had put her up to this, at some point, but how would she ever know?
“Darling,” his mother said, laying a hand on his arm. “You need to stop worrying what your father will think or do.”
He found himself frozen, looking at her hand. The hand of an old woman. So much more frail than the strong hand he remembered clutching a gun as she shielded him.
I can’t shield you from death, he thought. What does it matter what dad thinks? I can make you happy now.
He lifted his eyes to hers and brought back the smile he had lost, even if he felt hollow.
“You’re right mum. And I think your suggestion is great. Alexandria it is. And — if you want, you can name anything else you like.”
He flung his arm out at the room. “I’ll get you some sharpies.”
She tutted and shook her head. “How can I name things from a topographical map? Let’s make a trip out of it. I have only seen a tiny bit of your planet so far.”
And that is how the Seeker ended up travelling across his planet with his elderly mother.
The place had been a gift from his father, but it was his mother who would be forever woven into his memories; imprinted upon mountain ranges and valleys, on oceans and lakes and winding rivers; her designations written into maps and archives.
She had danced when one world fell; but now she was helping to write another.
But then… she was a new Eve; his father’s designated mother of a new race of Time Lords. It was fitting that she should be the one to name his world.
That year, for Christmas, he created a photo album for her. Criss-crossing history, he salvaged photos from her childhood; found newspaper clippings from when his father had won the election; pestered various UNIT officials until they let him have footage from The Year That Never Was (their archives were annoyingly Time Lord Proof and he didn’t feel like staging a heist); and then an easier task — pictures from his own childhood and beyond.
But he could also add a final section: Images from his planet, his mother standing in canyons and on cliffs and in wide valleys, a walking stick in her hand and a wide-brimmed sun hat on her head as she pondered which name to bestow. The final image was from on top his tallest mountain, both of them wrapped up as snugly as could be against the cold as they gingerly stepped out of his spaceship — the hovering droid perfectly capturing the moment she decided that the mountain should be called ‘Olympia’ and the way he had creased up in laughter.
As she studied the photo, she shook her head. “I still don’t see what’s so funny.”
He chuckled.
“Like I said then — if we were gods, our species wouldn’t be almost extinct.”
She shot him a significant look and closed the album. “There is time.”
“I love you mum,” he said, kissing her cheek and closing the argument, as she closed the album.
“Love you too, darling. And thank you, this was a lovely present.”
He looked around at the room — his mother had insisted on several Christmas trees and countless decorations, so the sitting room looked festive and colourful and almost cluttered — and felt extraordinary fondness well up. If Time Lords had a future, it would be because of her. And this strange mishmash of history and culture and traditions from two different species would be the foundation.
He swallowed against the emotions brought on by his introspection, and topped up his mother’s wine glass. She then began explaining where he had gone wrong in his menu choices, and how he had overcooked the sprouts, and he made sure to make notes, to show he took her criticism seriously. This time was precious.
She was human, and he knew she would die, time stealing her away with every moment: But he had found a way to stitch her into his world, her legacy (for better or worse) as enduring as the planet.