Visited By An Old Friend

My old Trek fanfic character, the one in this usericon, started as Chief Navigator on the USS Heimdal, and eventually worked his way up the ranks to Captain of the USS Yeager. “Grin’elle Kriet” was half-human, half-alien, and spent most of his Starfleet career as a Chief Engineer.

Grin’s dark secret? He was also an exiled quasi-Time Lord from the Doctor Who universe. (The concept worked better in the fic than it does in this paragraph.) He and I haven’t spoken as author and character for many years; I wrapped up all the important bits of his story arc back in the Nineties. Grin helped me begin working out some personal issues, for which I’ll always appreciate him.

Without warning, Grin’elle woke up last night, after I’d wrapped up watching “Forest of the Dead”. The conversation, expanded into English sentences, went something like this:

Hey… hey, I just heard something I don’t know if I believe. Are all the Time Lords dead? Is Gallifrey gone?

“What? Oh… er, yes, apparently so. They were all destroyed in a Time War with the Daleks… The Doctor was the only survivor. Except a few Daleks, and the Master. But he’s dead now too, as near as we can tell.”

Holy… are you kidding? I lived there for decades… I had roots there.

“You hated them. They were embarrassed by you.”

Not all of them.

“You left their universe, left it for good. Heck, you’ve set up shop in a third one for the time being.”

I know. They show Who here. Just like Trek, I make sure never to catch an episode.

“So, what do you care?”

… I’m not really sure. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

… and then he was gone, and I was left wondering where the hell all that had come from.