Chapter Text
“...and then it’s not so bad,” Loki said gently. “See?” She lifted a spoonful of ration pellets out of her glass of water, holding it out for the crying boy next to her to examine. “Once you soak them a bit they’re a lot easier to eat. My mama figured it out. She says the Vinvocci have a buncha things like that except on purpose. They have to be soaked in fruit juice and then they’re really good.”
Geldred frowned. “Fruit juice?” he echoed, voice cracking.
“It’s water made out of plants,” said Loki.
Geldred was so horrified he forgot he was sad. “You eat that?”
“That’s what mummy said, when we went to mama’s planet the first time,” she said, with a conspiratorial smirk.
Geldred thought about that for a nanospan. “Ew,” he said.
Loki pushed the spoon into his hand, nudging it toward his mouth. “Mama says Time Lords are silly,” she whispered.
Geldred’s eyes went wide as he looked quickly around to make sure they weren’t about to be executed for heresy. When no assassins sprang out of the walls, he cocked his head thoughtfully.
“Your… your other donor’s a Time Lord?” he said hesitantly. “Mine’re just Technicians. Well, they were , ‘til the Daleks.” His eyes filled with tears again and he pushed his packet of ration pellets away.
“Yeah,” said Loki. “My mummy grows TARD-- timeships. She doesn’t like it when people call it the other thing. She says it’s ‘pandering to criminals’. I met the Doctor once, though, and he didn’t seem like a criminal. He gave me sweets!”
Geldred didn’t seem to know how to respond to that.
“The Doctor’s a Time Lord,” he finally muttered. “I don’t like Time Lords. ‘cept for yours.”
“I don’t like a lot of Time Lords too,” she said. “They say mean things.”
The little Arcalian nodded, pulling his knees up to his chest. “I’m tired,” he whispered.
“Finish your pellets,” Loki insisted.
“You’re worse than my new guardian,” he complained, but he picked his ration packet up again. Loki wanted to hug him but remembered in time that he wasn’t a shobogan or a Cousin so he probably wouldn’t like it.
Everyone in the camp was starting to get ready for the day except for Geldred, but she knew he hadn’t slept last night. It would be good if he could have a nap. He was a lot bigger than her but her mama said he was only three spans old. And he wore green, which Loki had decided meant that they had to stick together.
She took her pellets and glass of water and tried not to bump into anybody crossing the room. This place was dark and gloomy and a lot more crowded than Arcadia had been, but they had to stay here now. Loki knew why. She didn’t like thinking about Arcadia. Sometimes she still cried a lot because she knew Eke and Cavis and Aperi and a bunch of other people hadn’t made it. There weren’t a lot of them anymore and everyone who was left was a lot meaner. And all the Loomlings were nervous and cold and bigger than her.
She didn’t like it here. She was alive, though, and a lot of other people weren’t, so she was being good and not complaining.
“I helped Geldred eat his pellets,” she said when she found their corner. “Why are Gallifreyans scared of plants, mama?”
Her mama didn’t say anything, which was strange; she usually always had an answer for Loki’s questions. Now she wasn’t even looking at her.
“Mama?”
A sharp-edged white cube slipped between dappled green fingers and clattered to the floor, and Lotivver made a sound like when Culsu had forgotten where Granny was once and walked into a wall on accident. It wasn’t a happy sound.
Lotivver looked up at her. Her eyes were blue-rimmed and her face was wet and she was making little hiccoughing sounds, biting her lips together to muffle them. Loki didn’t know why she bothered. Lots of people were crying.
“What’s wrong, mama?” Loki asked.
Lotivver opened her mouth, and then closed it again, folding in on herself. She pressed her arms tightly against her belly, and her shoulders heaved as she gasped for breath.
Loki sat next to her and hugged her mama’s arm tightly while she sobbed.
She didn’t like it here at all.
They’re alive.
The words rang oddly in her head, chasing themselves in circles as she tried to comprehend the meaning behind them. They’re alive, they’re alive, they’re alive, hypercubes won’t send if the recipients are dead, they’re alive…
“Er,” she heard someone say. “Miss?”
Culsu squinted up at them. “Me?” she asked. Her voice was cracked.
“Er. Yes, miss,” they said, a gallery of nervous tics. She would have never let them near a staser, but she supposed they’d run out of competent Guards since the war started. Well. Slightly-less-incompetent Guards, anyway. “You’re wanted by the Cardinal, miss.”
There were a lot of things Culsu could say to that. She settled on, “I have higher priorities than meeting with the Cardinal.”
The guard looked to be at a loss. “Miss, it isn’t an optional summons,” they said finally.
“I’m a renegade,” said Culsu harshly. “Everything is an optional summons.”
The Guard’s expression was a strange mixture of reluctance and anxiety. “Miss, please don’t make me arrest you. We have bigger problems we’d rather deal with.”
“So do I,” she snapped. The worldline was drawing to its end around them; they had spans left, now, and the Cardinal wanted to waste her last ones in some sort of bureaucratic debriefing.
The Guard drew their staser warily, but after everything she’d been through since leaving Gallifrey last Culsu couldn’t possibly have cared about the little weapon any less. She pushed herself onto her feet. “Listen, where are the refugees from Arcadia? This is important .”
“I’ll take you there, miss,” the Guard said, taking a half-step back from the whirl of emotions Culsu was only barely bothering to contain. “After you meet with the Cardinal.”
Culsu spent several moments debating her chances of finding the survivors on her own before a Guard who actually knew what they were doing managed to stop her. A meeting with the Cardinal could take spans, the man was so fond of hearing himself talk, and the thought of wasting that much time when she could feel they had so little left… but the only other option might very well have her in a cell when the end came, without having seen them at all. And the very idea of risking that--no, absolutely not, not when they were alive.
“azreyizas Cora,” she hissed, ignoring the shocked look on the Guard’s face.
“I understand you’re frustrated, miss, but lashing out won’t solve anything,” they said, sounding very uncertain.
“You don’t understand anything,” Culsu growled, turning on her heel and stalking in the general direction of her Cardinal’s office. “Or you’d know exactly where you could shove that staser you don’t know how to use.” She’d spent her entire deployment around people who knew, really knew, how to use stasers. This Guard looked like they could barely find the trigger with a map for reference. It occurred to her that possibly the crowd of Shada inmates had been a bad influence on her social skills.
Now she’d never work in politics. Her House would be ever so disappointed.
“Oakdown wasn’t the only House with children on Arcadia,” the Guard said, their voice for once perfectly even. “I will show you the survivors’ camp. Once you’ve done your duty to Gallifrey, and let me do mine.”
“I’ve already done my duty to Gallifrey. There’s nothing left to be done for Gallifrey. You’re wasting my time.” She made to push her way past them.
They grabbed her wrist, surprising the both of them. Even with gloved hands, touching wasn’t something people did. “Miss,” they said. “Come with me before I have to call for reinforcements. And if I have to do that, you will be detained. I’m sorry, miss,” they added.
Culsu had a brief, burning desire to snatch their staser away and find her family on her own before she reminded herself yet again that she wasn’t actually a violent criminal. She settled for yanking her arm free, and walked off to meet with her Cardinal while fighting to ignore every instinct she possessed screaming that she was making a horrible mistake.
Culsu had worried, at first, that she would be stopped by more Guards en route; that the Loomlings and their caretakers had been so thoroughly hidden even their telepathy had been blocked from the Citadel at large suggested a high-security arrangement. But her guide appeared to have been right; there were more important problems now. There was a small contingent of Guards outside each entrance, and a genetic scanner, but that was all. Anyone who shared biodata with a Loomling was granted entrance.
On another day, such lax security might have scared her. Today it meant that she wasted no more time. The Guard who’d shown her the way started to say something as the doors opened. She’d already all but forgotten they existed.
There were so few people left.
It was an odd thought to have, given how crowded the cavernous room was; there was space to walk between the cots and no one was bumping into each other, but the quarters were undeniably tight. Still; Culsu had seen the statistics on the Loomling evacuation project. The number of people in this room… the loss was staggering. They’d just been children. Physically mature, most of them, as per custom; Loki had been unusual in a number of ways. But mentally, emotionally, they had only been children.
She felt the loss in her gut; really, truly, she did. She just had trouble focusing on it, because now she was inside the telepathic dampener no longer affected her, and Gallifreyan instinct took over and reached out, brushing lightly across the minds of everyone surrounding her until it found one that rang out over all the others…
There.
She didn’t have to look, didn’t have to search at all. She knew, before she’d managed to seek out the bright spots of green surrounded by Prydon-orange robes. They were a part of her. She always knew where to find them.
Lotivver was crying.
Culsu didn’t have to look to know that, either; grief was etched on every inch of her mind, she could hardly have missed it. But seeing her like this, curled up and sobbing while little Loki--she’d grown--clung to her arm, visibly miserable and taking great care to cuddle her mother without poking her with her forehead spikes… it was almost too real, too close to handle. She very nearly wanted to run away again. What did you say to the love of your lives, the mother of your child, when only millispans ago you thought them both dead? When in only a few more you all would be? How could she even start that conversation?
In the end it was Lotivver who broke the spell, quite without realising it; whatever had caused her shattered, overwhelming heartbreak, it was leaving raw scars over her mind and all of the surrounding Gallifreyans--Patricians all, Culsu noticed, some of them Time Lords and all of them more than capable of helping--were studiously ignoring her pain.
Typical behaviour. For a hivemind, Gallifreyans were pathetically bad at dealing with others’ emotions, or others’ much of anything at all.
But Vinvocci weren’t, and Lotivver’s mind responded instinctively to a sympathetic presence, trying to protect her by latching onto the only thing it could find that was familiar and safe; and despite the misery flooding every inch of her mental touch Culsu couldn’t help but revel in it, just for a moment.
Lotivver’s head snapped up half a heartsbeat after her entire mind went white with shock. Joy went flooding through the psychic link, racing through her synapses, but she wasn’t in any state to process it. She stared at Culsu like she didn’t even recognise her, trembling as her throat worked around vaguely-formed words that never quite managed to become actual coherent thoughts.
Culsu was vaguely ashamed to realise that she’d completely forgotten their daughter when Loki looked up and exclaimed “Mummy!”, scrambling off their bench and colliding with her mother’s abdomen spines-first.
“Ow,” she muttered, managing a pained smile as Loki squeezed her happily. She hoped she wasn’t disappointing her; she would greet her properly in a moment, once she’d gotten her mother to stop shaking like she’d seen a ghost.
...Lotivver…? she offered tentatively through the mental link. Lotivver, are you--
SHUT UP!
Culsu winced at the mental shriek. Lotivver?
Lotivver’s mind was beginning to bubble up with near hysteria. Shut up, shut up, don’t talk to me, I’m going to murder you Culsu I’m going to strangle you I’m going to rip out your intestines and set them on fire shut up I thought you were dead don’t ever do that to me again I’m going to murder you.
Um, said Culsu. Okay?
Okay. Culsu hadn’t realised it was possible to hyperventilate mentally. Of course, she didn’t know much about hyperventilation in general, but it seemed like the sort of thing that was restricted to a physical plane. Lungs were weird. Okay! Lotivver repeated, sounding slightly manic. I thought you were dead Culsu after everything else you disappear and send me that and walk in and expect everything to be okay you can’t just--I thought--you--
She was trembling enough that Culsu was starting to be concerned. She tried to guide Lotivver to at least sit back down, but her wife was having none of it. For a moment Culsu thought Lotivver might hit her; but half a heartsbeat later Lotivver had torn free and flung her arms around Culsu’s neck.
“You’re alive?” she whispered. “You’re real?”
Yes, Culsu said, hugging her as tight as she could. I’m sorry I scared you, I thought… They didn’t tell me you’d made it off Arcadia…
“Mama?” Loki said sadly. “Don’t cry. Please?”
Lotivver made a very strange sound against Culsu’s shoulder. It was part sob, but mostly laughter; and she was smiling when she pulled back just enough to look at their daughter.
“Okay, sweetheart,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I’ll try. Your mummy’s back,” she added; then, almost like she couldn’t believe the words, “You’re back.”
Culsu couldn’t hold back a dazed grin at the tentative, incredulous joy beginning to swell up in Lotivver’s mind. “Lokrnothale Oakdown,” she said sternly. Loki looked taken aback, as if she was afraid she’d done something wrong, but Culsu just swept her up and squeezed her and relished how right this felt, after everything; how perfectly the three of them still fit together. "You got bigger without me!”
Loki giggled with delight and hugged her. “Sorry,” she whispered happily. “I won’ do it again.”
“No, you won’t,” Lotivver mumbled against Culsu’s neck. “You won’t have to.”
Never again.
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
“Er,” someone said. “Miss?”
Culsu stared up at them. Dread churned in her gut. “What?”
“I… You’re wanted by the Cardinal, miss. It isn’t an optional summons this time either, miss.” They shifted nervously. “Please just come with me, miss.”
She was going to throw up. “I have to--”
“Your Loomling will be aware of the loop as well, miss, please. I’m trying to do my job.”
“What job?” Culsu snapped. “What is your job, exactly? What does it fucking matter now?”
“I understand you’re frustrated, miss,” the Guard started, the same script from before.
“Do you?” Culsu asked through her teeth. “Do you? ”
“Please just talk to the Cardinal, miss.”
Her hands clenched into fists.
“Oh, I’ll talk to the Cardinal all right,” she growled as she shoved past the Guard.
By the fifth loop the Guard was reflexively drawing their staser before Culsu could even look up.
“I’ll do it this time!” they yelped. “It’s not my fault! Just talk to the Cardinal!”
“No.”
“I don’t understand the harm,” the Guard insisted. “It’s not like your wife is going to know the difference--”
“Please don’t shoot me this time, miss,” the Guard said dejectedly.
Culsu ignored them.
Culsu wasn’t sure how time-sensitive the Guard caste was, if it was anything like Time Lords. She hoped it wasn’t, if only because she was starting to feel sorry for this one having the same, pointless summons at the start of every loop, again and again and again because Gallifreyans were nothing if not sticklers for protocol.
She’d given up fighting the summons two loops ago because she’d gotten tired of being arrested. As she’d suspected, the Cardinal’s briefing had taken the entire iteration of the loop--probably out of spite. He hadn’t been at all interested in hearing that there was simply no way to modify timeships to allow them to escape a closed loop on Inner Time--no way at all. No, not even with a thousand paradox machines, as perversely excited by the idea as Shada seemed, that was just because she was herself, not because it had any chance of working.
“Let me guess,” she said, leaning back against the wall without opening her eyes. “I’m wanted by the Cardinal.”
“You’re wanted at your post, miss,” the Guard corrected her. “Working on the escape project.”
“There is no escape project.”
“I’m sure you could arrange to be transferred to a military posting if you prefer…”
“Stop trying to help,” Culsu snapped, shoving herself to her feet. “I’m going.”
She did, actually. Reported to the research bay as ordered. And then she turned around, walked back out, and broke into a run toward the passages that led under the Panopticon.
It had been fourteen loops, and she was out of patience. She needed to see her wife.
Once again, the Guards at the door didn’t stop her--either they assumed she had clearance to be there, or they didn’t care. She had her biodata scanned, and hurried through the doors.
Lotivver’s head snapped up half a heartsbeat after her entire mind went white with shock. Joy went flooding through the psychic link, racing through her synapses, but she wasn’t in any state to process it. She stared at Culsu like she didn’t even recognise her, trembling as her throat worked around vaguely-formed words that never quite managed to become actual coherent thoughts.
Culsu’s grin faltered, and the hand she’d half-raised to wave to them lowered slowly back to her side.
Lotivver? What’s wrong?
Lotivver’s mind against hers was a maelstrom of shock, grief, confusion, and searing joy.
...you’re alive…?
What do you--of course I’m alive, you know that...already…
She never realised she was stupid enough to forget that Vinvocci weren’t time-sensitive.
She was going to personally murder the Doctor.
No I didn’t! She caught Lotivver instinctively as her wife stumbled over herself. Culsu, I’m going to strangle you, I thought you were dead--
“Mummy?”
“Loki, n-not now, sweetheart--Lotivver, I...I can explain, it’s not how you think…”
Loki tugged at her sleeve. “Mummy,” she said, sniffling. “You didn’t come back, why didn’t you come back? Mama’s been really sad every time and she doesn’t remember when I explain!”
“I know,” Culsu whispered thickly. “I’m sorry, I’m--they wouldn’t let me see you--Lotivver, everything’s fine, sit down, listen...please, there’s...it’s a time loop.”
“What--Culsu, what’s--”
“This is…” She took a moment to make sure she was remembering correctly. “Not counting the iteration before the loop took effect, this is the fourteenth repetition. As best we can figure, the Doctor took it upon himself to seal us, and...possibly the other Factions, we’re working on figuring that out but it’s difficult when our equipment resets every few spans...in an isolated loop.”
Lotivver, wiping at her eyes and looking horribly, horribly vulnerable and alone, stared blankly at her. “What are you talking about?”
“To contain the damage of the Time War, apparently. It’s…” Realising how badly Lotivver’s hands were trembling, Culsu gave in and pulled her close. “Shh. Shh, love.” She held Lotivver’s temple against her forehead before pressing a kiss just above her ear. “It’s...it’s like being sealed in an alternate dimension.” The scientist in her cringed. “It repeats every six spans.”
Lotivver was quiet for a long time.
“And this is the fourteenth?”
“Yes.” Culsu closed her eyes. “I’ve been fighting to be allowed to come and see you, to tell you what’s going on.”
“How do you know that? If the loop resets, I mean...shouldn’t we just...not know?”
“I told you, mama,” Loki said in a tiny voice. “I remember.”
Lotivver gave a low, mirthless laugh. “Of course. Gallifreyans. How many times have you explained this to me?”
“This is the first,” Culsu assured her, and tried to ignore the dread caused by the question.
“Well,” Lotivver whispered. “That’s something.”
On the fifteenth loop, the Guard apologetically escorted her to the mind probe.
“‘Ey, Clouts. Was wond’rin’ when ya’d finally get it in yer ‘ead to show up.”
Culsu took an unsteady breath. Everything hurt, and Shada’s existence grated horribly, like nails on a chalkboard.
“Mind probe, then? ‘S a bit ‘arsh, ain’t it.”
At least, Culsu thought, she wasn’t pretending to care. She collapsed into her station, pressing hard at her temples and blinking rapidly. Her telepathic centers felt raw, nearly flayed. She mumbled a greeting that referenced the Great Lord Rassilon far more than she normally would.
Shada raised an eyebrow. “They got ya right fucked,” she said cheerfully. “This ‘cos of that alien chick ya n’er shut yer trap about? Ya know, if it were me--not that it ever would, yer an Otherdamned sap, ya know tha’?--I’d just see ‘em any’ow.”
Culsu looked up at her without moving her head. “What do you think I’ve been doing?” she said.
“Gettin’ caught.”
“And how,” Culsu sighed, “do you suggest, exactly, I not get caught, Cabinet 453?”
“You’ll figure it out eventually. Yer a smart one.” She laughed once, sharp. “Or maybe ya ain’t. I mean, come on, Clouts, are ya really tha’ oblivious? If ‘Is Very Red Lordliness wants ya to suffer, ‘e should just let ya see yer girl.”
Culsu frowned in spite of herself. “That’s what I want,” she pointed out. “She’s--” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say I love her to Shada of all people. “That’s my family.”
Shada sighed and shook her head. Culsu wasn’t sure if the vague, multifaceted projection she sensed was amusement or something like pity.
Lotivver’s head snapped up half a heartsbeat after her entire mind went white with shock. Joy went flooding through the psychic link, racing through her synapses, but she wasn’t in any state to process it.
I’m alive, Culsu said quickly. I’m fine. I’m fine, sweetheart. Grief was still thick in Lotivver’s mind, clinging to her emotions, and it broke Culsu’s heart. Shh. I’m alive, you’re alive. We’re fine.
She felt a flare of hurt and fear and confusion, and winced. She should have known better than to try to lie.
Culsu?
It’s all right. She finally reached Lotivver, held her close and tried not to let her own despair leak over as she tried to reassure her wife. I’m here.
“I…” Lotivver’s fingers tightened belatedly in her robes. “Culsu, I don’t understand…”
“I know,” said Culsu. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Lotivver’s head snapped up half a heartsbeat after her entire mind went white with shock. Before she could process anything, a sobbing Loki had collided with Culsu’s legs.
“She’s sad,” the little girl cried. “She’s sad all the time even when I explain!”
Guilt twisted in Culsu’s stomach. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right for Loki to bear the brunt of her mother’s pain like this. She was just a Loomling. She was just a child.
“I know.” She rested a hand in her daughter’s hair. “I know, sweetheart, I’m--I’m trying…”
“You don’t like us,” Loki sobbed. “You don’t like seeing us because it makes you sad too but we miss you! We miss you lots! Mama’s happy when you come!”
I love you. That much, at least, Culsu could give her without reservation. I love you both, I love you both so much…
She was running out of time, normally she had spans when she visited but this time she’d only managed to duck out of her station when the loop was already starting to close.
Culsu…? You’re alive?
I love you, she said miserably. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do--
“Don’t go,” Loki pleaded, but the loop reset and Culsu had no choice.
Culsu’s console beeped. She heaved a long sigh, looked up blearily, and tapped it. The screen lit up, displaying the exact same string of quantum calculations that it had shown for the past two thousand fifty-seven loops.
It wasn’t possible. Rassilon could threaten and shout all he wanted. They were never getting out of this.
The entire “escape project” was a waste of time. But of course, saying that, or implying it, or thinking it too loudly, or in fact simply failing to emphatically insist to the contrary, was treason. So here she was, Culsu Oakdown, making slow but steady progress, my lord, it’s a delicate operation that can’t be rushed, but a solution will be found. It is--ha--only a matter of time.
Admittedly what little progress could be made would be made much faster if the terminals had more than six spans at a time to run calculations and simulations. Even the Matrix wasn’t infallible.
For lack of anything better to do, Culsu had the data transferred to a holographic projector. If they were inspected--and they were inspected often--it went better for everyone if the research center appeared busy and...well, scientific. With nothing new to say, to pass inspection they had to find different ways to present the exact same data they had the last time. The number of advancements being made in visual projections were already in the hundreds. A few dozen loops ago, one of the Patrexes had invented a new type of pie chart.
“I don’t suppose we’ve tried hitting the Eye of Harmony with a hammer until the timeloop breaks?” Culsu suggested dully.
There was a sigh from one of the Dromeians. “Twice.”
“Could we throw everyone’s biodata into the Doctor’s TARDIS’ Eye somehow? I think the Master did that once.” That was a half-asleep Patrex, mechanically scanning the frayed ends of the severed timelines for the nine-hundredth time.
“And how are we going to do that?” the Dromeian asked. It was a statement to how miserable they all were that it was an actual question.
“There’s a link to every Eye in the Matrix, isn’t there? Just copy over the whole APC Net.”
“That’ll never work,” said Culsu. “We’ve been cut off from the Web, there’s no way to reach the Doctor’s timeship.”
“His Lordship doesn’t need to know that. It’ll give us at least thirty cycles.”
There was a general murmur of pleased agreement as several of them started bustling around preparing a report. Culsu rubbed her temples and switched off the projection, shoving irritably at one of the many maps, diagrams, datapads and stacks of hard-copy printouts she kept at her station so as to look appropriately busy.
“I’m sick of this,” she muttered, shoving herself onto her feet.
There was a derisive snort from the station next to her; she jumped, but by this point she wasn’t surprised anymore when Shada turned up unannounced.
“Ya ‘ave got to be shittin’ me.”
Culsu didn’t have the patience for her right now, but, against her better judgement, she looked over and said “What now?”
Shada made a languid, all-encompassing gesture in her direction. “Figured even you’d’ve come to yer fuckin’ senses by now. Do yerself a favour, Clouts, let i' go. Or keep goin’ nutty one visit at a time. ‘S fun to watch.”
“I want to see my wife and daughter,” Culsu snapped. “I don’t expect you to understand that.”
Shada snorted. “Only thing more pathetic than talkin’ to a grave if ya ask me. Always thought ya too soft for a masochist.”
The Guards didn’t even look up at her when she got to the entrance, although they must have been told she wasn’t supposed to be there. She scanned her biodata and walked into the near-empty chamber. Lotivver and Loki were as alone as ever, sitting on their little bench amid the small group of Prydonians.
Culsu took a deep breath.
She turned around and walked back out, without once dropping her shields.
“Ya know,” said Shada from her perch on Culsu’s workstation, “ya could’ve jus’ told me if ya liked the mind probe tha’ much. I probe on request.” She grinned broadly. Winked. “An’ I only brainwash ya if ya ask real nice.”
Culsu stared at her for a long moment, trying to figure out if she was joking.
“What is wrong with you?” she finally managed.
Shada threw her head back and laughed, lying down across a set of completely useless star charts. “There used to be a pool, ya know? For when the littlest Oakdown’d snap an’ get a cabinet on ‘er very own,” she said in a sing-song. “Sure, ya went all soft, but ya got potential. I ne’er would’ve bothered wiv ya if ya didn’t.”
“Thanks,” said Culsu. “I think.”
Shada grinned, sharp. “Mind probe’ll do the job, sure. No class, though. It’s not organic. Or as fun. All the practice you’re gettin’, ya might jus’ be able to take i’.”
“Take what?” she asked without thinking. Shada’s grin turned feral as she lunged and seized Culsu by the wrist.
Culsu reflexively reached for a weapon and successfully grabbed a pen. She shouldn’t have bothered; if Shada had planned to hurt her she’d have been dead either way. As it stood, arguably the most dangerous Time Lord criminal in the universe--at least the most successful one--held her immobile for a cluster of frenzied heartbeats before letting her go with a careless flick.
Culsu clutched her pen and pretended her hands weren’t shaking. Shada hadn’t even tested her shields, but that brief physical contact had brought their mental barriers pressing up against each other and--it was enough, more than enough, to make it clear that if Shada’s razor-sharp tangle of a mind ever wanted to, it could shred Culsu’s before she even had time to realise her shields were broken.
“I’m married,” she pointed out reflexively. “H-happily married.”
Now Shada projected. Culsu didn’t dare drop her shields enough to make her opinion of the wave of skepticism clear.
“Think on it,” Shada said lightly. “I don’t mind sloppy seconds.”
Culsu flinched reflexively the moment Lotivver’s mind touched hers. She immediately regretted it as the surge of hope and vulnerability stuttered, but she couldn’t take it back.
...Culsu?
I’m alive, she said. She wasn’t sure what about the tone of her thoughts made Lotivver draw back, but she couldn’t control it. I’m alive, we’re in a timeloop, this is the three thousand seven-hundred and fiftieth time we’ve had this conversation, I’m sorry about the hypercube, they told me you died on Arcadia. I’m fine. We’re fine.
Oh. Lotivver’s response was subdued, but her shielding had never been good enough to hide the hurt and confusion as she tried to stop herself from reaching for comfort that wasn’t there. All right. Sorry.
Lotivver’s mind responded instinctively to a sympathetic presence, trying to protect her by latching onto the only thing it could find that was familiar and safe.
Culsu took a deep, shuddering breath, and tried to smile.
Hello , she said. I’m here.
Lotivver stared at her.
You--I thought you were dead--!
I know. I’m sorry, I’m here now. You’re safe.
It took a moment, but Lotivver finally cracked and flung her arms around Culsu’s neck, clinging to her and crying into her robe.
Loki tugged on her trouser leg. “It’s okay, Mama,” she said hopefully. “We’re just inna time loop, nobody died. Don’t be sad?”
Lotivver looked down, then up at Culsu again with a frown. “A what…?”
The loop would draw to a close within a span. Lotivver deserved to know--but what was the point anyway, she would only forget again, and hearing about the timeloop only ever upset her.
“It’s not important,” Culsu said gently, guiding her to sit down on the bench. “Tell me what you and Loki have been doing.”
She received a shaky but recognisable version of the skeptical look she’d fallen in love with. “Culsu,” Lotivver said, mockingly stern. “How many times have we had this conversation?”
Culsu’s smile faltered, but only for a moment.
“This is the first,” she promised.
Lotivver’s head snapped up half a heartsbeat after her entire mind went white with shock. Joy went flooding through the psychic link, racing through her synapses, but she wasn’t in any state to process it.
Culsu made her best attempt at a smile, and hoped she wasn’t projecting the dread she felt.
Culsu? Lotivver said hesitantly.
So much for that.
I’m sorry. I shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry. I can't do this.
Culsu? And she couldn’t ignore that, she couldn’t turn away from that kind of fear and doubt. Not from Lotivver. But she couldn’t--do this, watch the love of her lives forget every six spans.
It’s not your fault. Lotivver reached for her and she flinched back. It’s not your fault, I just...please, Lotivver, just this once, please just talk to me like you remember.
Remember what? Culsu, please, I don’t --
Culsu threw the datapad against the wall. It shattered, which would have been immensely satisfying if it wasn’t going to reform in a few spans like it was never broken. Which, in a way, it never would have been.
“I should have left her,” she choked.
Shada had once more apparently gotten bored with the Rani’s experiments, and was sprawled across a workstation drawing lovingly detailed Genitalia Of Rassilon all over the printouts she was sitting on. She gave an uninterested hum.
“What’re ya on abou' now?” she muttered, circling a random group of temporal coordinates that, when enclosed in an oval, vaguely resembled a particularly foul curse in Circular.
Culsu ignored her.
“I should have left her,” she repeated to the blank wall. “This is my fault, I should have locked her out of the ship and left her.”
“Whate’er she did, she already forgot abou' i’, so don’t go lookin’ for an apology.” She pushed herself upright suddenly. “Unless… oh, no. Ya didn’t,” she breathed, before baring her teeth and laughing too sharply to pass as friendly. “Ya did! Only took ya nineteen thousand cycles.” She tossed her stylus aside and said mildly, “I bet seven, myself, ya little overachiever. Third time I’ve lost credits o’er ya.”
Culsu squeezed her eyes closed and tried to block out Shada’s presence.
“I should have left her there,” she muttered. “I should have just let her hate me. She wouldn’t remember now anyway. She’s smart, her parents loved her, she’d be happy… ”
She could feel Shada rolling her eyes from a meter away and through two sets of full shields.
“Yeah,” Shada drawled, crumpling a printed star chart and bouncing it off Culsu’s head. “‘S about righ’.”
Culsu didn’t react. After a moment Shada gave a long-suffering sigh, dragged a stool over to Culsu’s station and sat down heavily, resting her bare tattooed arm on Culsu’s shoulder. At that Culsu twitched, more in response to the coiled serpent resting against her throat than any intention to start a conversation.
“It must be awful,” said Shada conversationally. She was nearly resting her head on Culsu’s. “I mean, I can’t e’en imagine what kind of pain yer goin’ through righ’ now. Yer stuck here,” and she waved with her free hand around the lab, “doin’ the same thing o’er and o’er and o’er, forever, c’mpletely pointlessly, while on the other side of the Panopticon yer little girl is stuck tryin’ eternally to explain to ‘er mother what’s ‘appenin’, no, she doesn’t know where Mommy is, she ‘asn’t been around in two ‘undred cycles… ‘S almost poetic, ‘onestly. I’d be takin’ notes if I didn’t like you so much.”
“What, do you want to feel the agony for yourself or something?” Culsu said dully.
“Oh, no. Sounds righ’ awful. I loathe all tha’ emotional stuff. An’, ah, family ain’t e’er exactly been my strong suit.” She chuckled. “I’d do i’ to somebody else in a pinch, though. Lovely idea.”
Culsu’s skin crawled, but she couldn’t be bothered to pull away.
“Must 'urt,” Shada murmured; she could feel the almost-cruel grin without having to look around. Fingers plucked at Culsu’s hair just over her temple. “Anyone could tell yer lonely. Lotta stress for one mind, ain’t it?”
“Thanks for the concern.” Shada’s shields, normally ten times more powerful than Culsu’s, had been left carelessly down--for how long? She wasn’t sure. It was hard to think about anything else. Almost a relief, that. Harder to picture Lotivver’s frightened, bewildered face when her entire mind was surrounded and buffered by one exponentially more powerful.
Three fingers rested gently against Culsu’s head. The slightest push would shatter her shields beyond recovery, but Shada didn’t seem interested in pushing.
“‘Course not.” It might or might not have been spoken. “Told ya already. Ya gotta ask nice.”
Rassilon, Omega, and the Other, she was just--so tired--
“Contact,” she whispered, covering her face with one hand.
She’d been wrong; her shields didn’t so much shatter as snap, with a suddenness that sent a nearly-tangible sting across the inside of her skull on the recoil. Her hand clenched convulsively at the sheer force of Shada’s consciousness, clawing bloody marks down her face.
She didn’t feel it, and wouldn’t for spans. She was a little distracted by the fact that Shada had just driven a steel lance through her skull and it pounded the beat of her Cousin’s drums.
It was beyond pain, it was destruction, she had to be dying, no one could survive this, her senses had been crushed and shredded on impact and she was bound to follow--something audibly cracked, the lance twisted like a screw and hit her pleasure center, and--
Somehow, Culsu still felt sore when she opened her eyes, and while it didn’t so much hurt anymore she wouldn’t be able to forget about the last cycle, not for a while. The Guard looked at her with a mixture of concern and horror, and she realised suddenly that her shields were completely down. She threw them back up, and it burned pleasantly at the point of contact.
“...Hello again, Miss.”
Hands shaking, Culsu drew her knees to her chest and rested her forehead against them.
What have I done?
“Been a while since ya snuck off to see yer girl.”
The careful, intricate insertion of a biodata projection into Culsu’s simulation fell apart as she fumbled the controls, catching herself against the console and accidentally throwing seventy-two copies of the Lord High President into the Eye of Harmony, which blew up the simulated Gallifrey eleven times in quick succession.
She swallowed. “Computer, reset simulation.”
Culsu was certain every single researcher in her assigned sector knew exactly why she had spent the last twelve thousand cycles throwing herself into the escape project with renewed vigor. None of them had ever said a word, though she’d gotten some pitying glances.
It wasn’t just looking for a distraction. She had to do something. She had to try. She’d failed her family too many times.
Her determination didn’t change the facts. Rassilon was delusional (yeah, yeah, and water was wet, and spherically symmetric black holes were nonstatic within a horizon). This was never, ever going to work.
One of the others, a Prydonian from a minor house who had been helping her seemingly more out of concern for her mental health than any real belief that they could accomplish anything, picked up on her muffled despair and carefully patted her shoulder.
“Take a break,” he said gently. “We’ll try something else. You’ll see.”
“Don’t patronise me,” Culsu said, with no heat whatsoever behind it. “I know we’re trapped.”
A jagged-edged laugh from the door made her flinch.
“Yeah,” Shada drawled, tossing something over her shoulder that looked worryingly like a finger. “Tha’s the rub, ain’t i’?”
“Go away, Shada.”
“Don’t be rude, Clouts, I’ll start thinkin’ ya don’t like me anymore.” Before Culsu could snap at her again, Shada gave an unconcerned shrug. “Get as clever as ya like, always comes back to i’. This sorta loop? Yer ne’er gonna break i’ from inside. Can’t be done.”
Culsu almost glared at her, but faltered as Shada’s face suddenly went blank.
“Loop like this,” she said again, slowly. “Can’t be broken...from the inside.”
The smarter researchers began backing away slowly.
“You!”
One of the Patrexes gave a high-pitched shriek.
“Give me your fucking pen. ”
Lotivver’s head snapped up half a heartsbeat after her entire mind went white with shock. Joy went flooding through the psychic link, racing through her synapses, but she wasn’t in any state to process it.
I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner, Culsu said. There’s not much time left in the cycle, I don’t have time to explain, I just need you to know.
Normally, when she jumped straight into explanation, it only ever made Lotivver more distressed. This time something was different.
This time Culsu was speaking to her as if they might someday have a tomorrow. Like she was alive, and real, and hers. Eventually she would have time to feel guilty that she’d allowed herself to forget that in her own grief. Never again. That much she would promise.
All right. The reply was weak, shaky, still confused; but Lotivver had always been stronger than she looked. Tell me.
Culsu reached down and pulled Loki into her arms.
I’m sorry, she told their daughter, privately, just for her. And then, reaching out again to Lotivver as well, I’m sorry I wasn’t here when I should have been, I’m sorry for everything, I’m sorry I--you deserved better. You deserve better, and… I’ve been working. I’ve been trying to do better. It’s almost over, you won’t have to go through this anymore.
Go through what? Lotivver squeezed her fingers. Culsu, what’s wrong? I’m fine, really, talk to me. What happened?
Culsu gave a choked laugh.
A lot. The loop was closing. But it’s almost over. One more loop and then--if this works, Lotivver, I love you, I know I can make this work and we’ll have a life again, we’ll have a future, I promi--
“I’d say yer just gonna get ‘er ‘opes up for nothin,’ but it ain’t like she’ll e’er remember ‘em bein’ up in the first place.”
Culsu took a deep breath. “We’re ready.”
“Finally.”
Her hands shook. She was glad it was one of the Patrexes who was in charge of the actual drop.
After what seemed like a lifetime, the order came from the war room.
“Release the anchor.”
There were few enough objects small, dense, and infused enough with the essence of Gallifrey to survive the Vortex unshielded for long enough to do any good. As the world held its breath, as perfect a white point star as could be found vanished into the timestream.
The heartbeat of Gallifrey began to thunder; for an instant it was glorious, it was life triumphant, and then the song of the universe turned sour around them and they realized what they had done.
Cantrell woke up with a start and the sudden, horrified realisation that yesterday she didn’t know her daughter’s name, didn’t know she had existed at all. As she pulled on her robe, all of the things she had forgotten settled into the back of her mind as if they had never been gone at all, and as she rifled through the mess of the storage closet in search of the box of letters and photographs she knew must still be in there, hundreds of lightyears away an alien woman stumbled over a decades-long explanation in the last few moments she had.
Harolld peered at her from the bedroom doorway. “Sweetie, what are you doing?”
Cantrell looked down at the box of old business cards, receipts, and junk mail she was going through. “I don’t know,” she said.
There hadn’t been enough time to explain everything. The only thing the Doctor could be trusted to do, regardless of iteration, was break everything he touched. There were things Lotivver wouldn’t know, and which Culsu, selfishly, wouldn’t tell her about, because as guilty as she felt keeping them from her, she knew that the look on Lotivver’s face as she explained, cycle after cycle after cycle, would be a hundred times worse.
And, of course, Lotivver would still start each cycle anew without knowledge or memory of the one before it. Nothing could ever change that.
But she might have changed enough, she might have, only she didn’t dare hope…
The loop began again. A brief moment of vertigo, a click in her mind like cracking her spine, the reset as her desperate grip on Lotivver’s shoulders disappeared.
For the first time in forty-two thousand, six hundred twenty-seven six-span cycles, Culsu did not find herself in an empty hallway. Lotivver looked at her with worry.
Worry. Concern. Anxiety. Not grief. Not confusion. Not desperate loneliness. She was right there, looking at Culsu like she was seeing her wife and not a ghost.
“...Culsu?” Mottled green fingers waved in front of her face as Lotivver gave a shaky, teasing smile. “Gallifrey to Culsu Oakdown? ...Is this another time loop thing? Some of us are linguistics majors.”
The Time War would never end, not now. They were quarantined with it. The loop could never be escaped, not by breaking it, at least. Lotivver would never be time-sensitive. Their daughter would never grow up.
Culsu caught Lotivver’s wrist gently and pulled it out of her face, folding her wife’s hand between her own.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine. We’re going to be okay.”