So last week, I started sharing an idea I had a while ago for a Dr. Who story idea. It’s been rattling around in the back of my brain and it keeps getting louder and louder, so I decided it was high time to evict it.
To recap: the Doctor and his latest Companion have arrived on the planet of Atmaja, a victim of the Last Great Time War. The Atmajans have captured a Time Lord and are intending on executing her for her people’s crime. The Doctor volunteers to defend her, only to realize that the Time Lord in question is his daughter, Jenny.
Yes, this Jenny:
Upon seeing her, the Doctor rushes to her side but it’s pretty clear that Jenny isn’t ecstatic to see her dear old dad. She accuses him of abandoning her and lying to her. So far as she’s concerned, he can just hop on the TARDIS and leave Atmaja and her far behind. “I’m not going to let you hurt me anymore, Dad.”
The Doctor is stunned at her reaction. Theron, the Atmajan who helped the Doctor become Jenny’s lawyer, isn’t surprised. “She’s been like that since she arrived here months ago. It’s part of the reason why everyone is okay with what’s going to happen to her. She’s angry at the universe, which makes it a whole lot easier for us to be angry at her.”
The Companion demands to know what’s going on, so the Doctor fills him/her in on Jenny’s creation and how he thought she died on Messaline. That she’s alive at all is a miracle. But he can’t figure out why she’s so upset with him.
The Companion decides to find out why. S/he approaches Jenny by him/herself and finds out what happened to her. It turns out that Jenny thought that leaving Messaline would be a grand adventure. And it was.
At first.
But then Jenny too got caught up in the wake of the Last Great Time War. In a universe that was suddenly hostile to anyone who was even remotely connected to Gallifrey. She found herself hunted and hounded across time and space. She finally wound up on Atmaja with her husband.
The Companion is stunned. “You were married?”
That’s right, Jenny was married to a nice man she met on her adventures. He was the one thing keeping her going throughout all the pain and rage of the Time War. Unfortunately, he was killed when their ship crashed on Atmaja. And now she’s truly all alone.
“But what about the Doctor?” the Companion asks.
Jenny has nothing but derision for her father. He left her on Messalina for dead and he instilled a sense of wanderlust in her that got her husband killed. She wants nothing to do with him. She just wants to get it over with and be the Time War’s final victim.
But the Doctor isn’t done with her. Admittedly, this part of the story is a little fuzzy, but the Doctor proves to be, if not a good lawyer, then an entertaining one. He baffles the prosecution and does a good job of keeping the trial going until he does…something big. I have no idea what. Maybe he proves that the Atmajan government wasn’t so innocent in the Time War themselves, that they conspired with the Time Lords toward the end and so, technically, if Jenny is guilty and deserving of execution just for being a Time Lord, then everyone on Atmaja should be executed as well.
Something like that, anyway. If you have a better idea, share it in the comments. The upshot is that Jenny is found not guilty and she’s set free.
She’s absolutely stunned. Her Dad saved her. The Doctor apologizes to her and says that if he had known she was still alive, he would have moved time and space to save her.
Jenny smiles and says, “You not only saved me, but you saved my baby as well.”
Now the Doctor is stunned. Yes, it turns out that Jenny is pregnant.
But that little detail has to be set aside for right now. Theron, the Atmajan who helped the Doctor throughout this little adventure, points out that Jenny really shouldn’t stay on Atmaja. In spite of the case’s outcome, she won’t find any refuge there. The Companion and Jenny debate some different possibilities, but they can’t settle on one.
Finally the Doctor, who up until now has been very quiet, speaks up, “There’s really only one place she can go.”
So where is that? You’ll have to come back next week to find out! And once again, if you’re enjoying this little tale, be sure to share it with your Whovian friends on Facebook and Twitter.