The Gallifreyan Bloodline

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The aroma of grass immediately invaded Foreman's sense of smell. He couldn't see a thing, even though he was positive that his eyes were wide open. But he soon pieced things together as the rest of him regained its senses - he was lying face down in a patch of grass.

He. That was the first thing he needed to point out. The last time he had been awake, the last thing he could possibly remember, he had been, well, not a he. What had happened that whole time?

Foreman found his head pounding, aching as if he had been hit over the head with a rock. Certainly that wasn't what had happened, was it? No, no, no. He knew that couldn't be the case.

Finally, the answers came to him - he was in the computer database. He remembered. He had chosen to be taken here and uploaded. His long life had been ready to come to a close...or, at least, come to a save. Foreman didn't have anything left in the regular universe, so he knew he had to come to the Library and the virtual world.

There was only one thing waiting here for him, that much was sure - but Foreman knew it was the one thing he wanted most, and it couldn't be found within reality. Brook was here in the computer. She'd been saved years ago, from what he knew. He hadn't seen here in many years, but he felt positive that she remained there.

Perhaps her appearance had changed as well - he wouldn't know, he hadn't expected to look quite so different from his physical form and yet there he was. It was if he'd been reversed in regenerations, and he didn't know why or how it happened. All he knew was that it pleased him, and that the very same thing may have happened to Brook when she was saved.

But before he could manage to find out if such a thing had happened to Brook, he would have to seek her out first. Although it was clear that the only place he could really go was into the enormous white house behind him, he still knew he was going to have quite a time attempting to find her in the end. It might take hours trying to walk through that mansion.

Nevertheless, he'd waited years to even get this close to her. Hours meant nothing compared to everything else he'd been through. He hadn't been so close to her for years on end, and now he was finally managing to find a way closer to her. If he just continued moving forwards, then he would find her. It would not go to waste.

Foreman wandered into the mansion, glancing around. He felt awfully out of place, as if he truly wasn't meant to be around the area. He was an outsider, never truly meant to be there after everything. If he just managed to find Brook, perhaps he would feel like he belonged. But that still seemed to be a goal which remained out of his reach.

He began searching around the house, which, in spite of its size, seemed to be nearly deserted. The only reason he felt confident that even a single soul lived there was because of the distinct lack of dust. Then again, that might just be the computer playing a trick on his gullible mind.

Finally, he stumbled across a room where a woman stood looking out a window. This was the first person he'd stumbled across and he'd already managed to see something he'd expected would remain entirely out of his reach for ages on end.

A mound of curly hair. A very familiar mound of curly hair, for that matter. He knew those curls, knew how they used to frame his love's face every moment of every day until she regenerated. Was this really her, standing in front of him? If it was, he wasn't sure he was prepared for this moment. If it wasn't, he didn't want to deal with the devestation. No, he couldn't.

"Brook?" he asked softly, reaching out a hand towards her shoulder. She whipped around, and it only took him a moment to realise that the woman standing in front of him was not Brook - but she was still a Song.

Standing in front of him was River Song, her mother. Foreman again felt conflicted over this, wondering how he should feel about this new development. Perhaps he'd made an error in his thought process, made a mistake in his plan. Perhaps he'd managed to find only River, and Brook was somewhere else in a place he couldn't reach.