Fixed in Time (Doctor Who Fanfiction)

A Humany Wumany Milestone

It was my twenty first birthday. I woke up groggily to find my mum shaking my shoulders. She always forgot that I was half human, and needed more sleep than she did. I glanced bleary eyed out the window to see the first sun barely shining its way outwards from behind the mountain.

"Happy birthday!" my mother exclaimed cheerily.

"Thanks mum!" I managed a smile as I looked up at her, before getting sleepily out of bed and letting her drag me into the front room. She'd laid out a fantastic breakfast feast, with a mixture of human foods like eggs and sausage and Gallifreyan foods that all have complicated time lord names and therefore cannot be written down. I stared down at all this deliciousness to then discover the added delight of a recently made cup of my favourite beverage, tea. I sat down in my seat before digging into my breakfast, and my mum sat beside me in her seat and watched me happily whilst nibbling at a small pastry she'd grabbed off the bench.

Once I'd finished eating and was peacefully drinking my cup of tea, my mum cleared away the plates and sat down beside me with a cup of her own.

"So what do you want to do on your special day, hon?" she asked, after a sip.

I sighed, placing my cup down on the table and turning to her. "Mum, I'm perfectly fine with doing the usual. It's not like birthdays even matter here anyway, as our people practically control time."

"Yes but twenty first birthdays are important for humans so I thought I'd spoil you for the day, since it's supposed to signify you growing up and finally becoming an adult, and I want my little girl to have a good time." Mum said with a small smile. She was definitely happier than usual today.

"Thanks mum." I gave her a hug, before pulling back and asking; "But since my life span is almost double a human one, shouldn't I actually be celebrating my forty second birthday instead? Isn't forty two an important number as well?"

She laughed, shaking her head no. "Maybe we can celebrate that too. But for now let's just stick to you enjoying your twenty first. The Doctor and Koschei are coming over later, and we're going to have a cake!"

"Really?" I asked in surprise, more at the fact that my best friends were visiting than that my mother had gotten a cake for me.

Mum nodded. "Yes, really! And you might be getting presents!" she added with a twinkle in her eye.

I smiled at this, and she ushered me back to my room to get dressed while she cleaned the breakfast things up.

After pulling on my usual Gallifreyan dress, a short red one with black trimming, I said goodbye to my mother and headed off to school. I know right, school on my birthday. But school was good, I really enjoyed it. My school was a small one, specifically for those Gallifreyans who aren't studying to become time lords at the Acadamy. We don't learn any temporal knowledge or how to fly the time machines, instead we learn basic subjects like Gallifreyan History, Circular Gallifreyan (which I wasn't very good at, I practised constantly but still couldn't perfect the strokes needed for the Galllifreyan writing) and of course Science. Some kids in my class liked to joke that it was 'Advanced Science' for me since it was way beyond humans but the joke's on them because I'm one of the best in the whole grade.

Today I had some good classes, and Science was particularly enjoyable because we got to put together a circuit similar to but nowhere near as complex as the one used for the Matrix in the Capitol. When I looked at it after, I was extremely proud of it, and copied down the plans to take home and work on later. I knew that, even if I could never be a time lord, what I wanted to do was use my knowledge of science to help people, and possibly advance the scientific research on Gallifrey. It was a big dream, I know, but I didn't want to spend my life just farming or working in a store. I wanted to prove that I was just as good as any time lord.