Against the Universe (book 2 of The Doctor and Sloan series)

Music Cures Everything

*Hey look an update! It's been a very long time since I've written anything with Sloan and the Doctor. I figured maybe reading back and seeing where I started would help me with my writers block. New Earth might be a while yet I don't know how to fit Sloan into it, but I wanted to give you something so here it is! Enjoy!*

Staying past Christmas wasn't something the Doctor wanted. He longed to be on the move not stuck in the same place, but he wouldn't dare go against Rose, Sloan and Jackie. Mostly Jackie, that woman terrified him. However that wasn't what the Doctor was most concerned about. He'd been a little put off since Sloan hadn't really been around. It seemed she was avoiding the man and he couldn't understand why. After all, she'd returned to her Time Lady self though she prefers being called a Time Lord claiming that she'd get more respect from men more so in the past than if they called her a lady.

Sloan meanwhile kept herself away from the Doctor as she was still so unsure about everything. All her memories, while regained, were all jumbled in her head. Everything she was as Sloan Elizabeth Pond was... distorted. It was like she was a mix of both human and Time Lord and it was very disorienting. So she kept her distance trying to make sense of it all. She knew that he'd wanted to talk to her about Bad Wolf and the past but she really didn't know what to say. Sloan knew she couldn't talk to Amy about this. After all she was traveling with the Doctor and while he wasn't their Raggedy Doctor, at least not yet, she didn't know anything about Time Lords or her real past and true identity.

"UGHH!" Sloan groan throwing herself on her bed rubbing her temples. This was all too much turning to her iPod she turned on her favorite playlist and smiled when her favorite song came on, instantly Sloan relaxed slightly and started to sing along. While she got lost in her playlist she didn't hear the knock on the door nor the Doctor when he let himself in after not receiving a reply.

"Sloan?" The Doctor questioned after the raven haired woman nearly fell over.

"AHH!" She yelped before turning her attention to the Doctor, "You can not go scaring people like that! Scaring people half to death. Do you know what happens when you do that to people twice?!"

He couldn't help the laughs that escaped. That sounded a lot like the Sloan he used to know, but that wasn't what he was here about, "You've been avoiding me," he accused.

"Of course you aren't sorry for scaring me," She said before sighing, "Not so much avoiding you as... Well trying to come to terms with who I am. I'm stuck in the middle of two lives here, I can't just identify with one or the other. Rassilion really screwed me over Theta, it's like being torn in two. Time Lord and Human fighting to be dominant. My mind is so all over the place and I can't... settle."

"Why didn't you come to me?"

"And say what? I knew who I was before and during the war, and I knew exactly who I was when I was human. Now though? Now I'm not sure. As human Sloan I didn't talk because I didn't trust a single person not even my sister and I was so, so very shy to utter a single word. Time Lord Sloan in each and every regeneration, she was so confidant and a free spirit who would stop at nothing to help anyone who needed it. I'm at war with myself and I don't know what to do."

The Doctor pulled the woman into his arms as he laid beside her in her bed, but he didn't know what to say. Honestly he didn't know what Rassilion did to Sloan and because of that he didn't know how to fix it. The Time Lord noticed Sloan relaxing more in his embrace and it made him happy on the inside knowing that it seemed that him being there seemed to help her, if only a little bit.

"Did you know that Sloan the way I spell my name is actually the masculine way? Technically my name is supposed to be spelled S L O A N E. I just didn't want the extra letter to my name so I dropped the E." Sloan said randomly after a few minutes.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. The E is unnecessary, Mother was furious when she learned I changed it. 'Why are you always so set on acting like a man?' Mainly it was because women on Gallifrey were to be seen and not heard, even as Royalty, I was supposed to find a Gallifreyan Time Lord of high class. He'd take over the title. I couldn't stand it, and while there were woman who held high positions it's because they were men first."

"You never cease to amaze me you know? Human or Time Lord I'm amazed by you Sloan."

"Shut up... I want to take a nap. Take one with me?" Sloan asked her voice more vulnerable than he'd ever heard from her, and though he wasn't really tired her couldn't say no to the woman in his arms.