Fic: Memories of a Time Lord (4/5)
Aug. 7th, 2008 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
measiAuthor’s Notes: Obligatory I don't own Doctor Who, the BBC does disclaimers apply. The rest of the headers/prompts/etc. can be found on part one.
[chapter one] [chapter two] [chapter three] [chapter four] [chapter five]
CHAPTER FOUR
The world around her was in flames. Screams of terror filled the air. Explosions shook the ground, causing quick, sudden flashes of light against the darkened sky. Was it nighttime, or dark due to the maelstrom around her? Disoriented, Rose rushed to the nearest doorframe – a sturdy stone structure with enough space for her to pull her entire body into the shadows. Not knowing what hell she’d transported into, she didn’t want to risk being seen.
Where was she?
From her hiding spot, she took in the surroundings. It appeared to be the remains of a residential street, still lit dimly by streetlamps imbedded in the walkways. Bombs had ripped open some of the buildings, revealing living rooms and bedrooms, their contents fluttering into the street with every strong gust of wind. But the architecture was all wrong, even if some of the furniture was oddly familiar in an Ikean structure sort of way.
Hearing footsteps in the nearby rubble, she spun around, gasping as she saw familiar brown eyes wide in shock, staring back at her. He was dressed in his standard brown suit and trench coat, his new off-white trainers looking entirely out of place in their brightness against the grime.
The Doctor grabbed her hand. “Rose? What the hell are you doing here?”
Rose flung herself at the Doctor, hugging onto him tightly. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“But... but what are you doing on Gallifrey?” His voice was panicked, pulling her out of the hug so he could search her eyes. “You can’t be here. It’s impossible!”
Rose opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a commotion a few blocks away. She heard yelling and weapon fire, followed by screams.
“We need to get out of here,” the Doctor interrupted with a hiss, grabbing her hand. “Follow me.”
He led her through twists and turns of the alleyways, moving quickly yet quietly through the debris. Building after building provided cover, the narrow paths curving into an impossible maze. And then suddenly, Rose saw sunlight – bright, beaming sunlight from the end of their current path. The Doctor turned to her, putting his index finger over his lips, begging her silently to remain the same. She nodded, adjusted his grasp on her hand, and waited for his move.
Once at the end of the corridor, the Doctor positioned Rose to remain in the shadows. He peaked out, taking a quick scan of the area in front of them, then pulled back, rubbing the ridge of his nose in frustration. Rose had noticed that despite looking like the Doctor she knew, there was something different about the way he carried himself. The inherently gangly movements were gone, replaced with an unnatural grace she’d never seen him use. This was her Doctor, yet somehow… he wasn’t.
“We need to find another place to hide. Back down that corridor, quickly. But stay quiet!” he hissed.
Explosions continued to rattle the ground as they searched, checking each door and ground-level window latch as they made their way down the street. Finally, they found a door that opened and scurried inside. The Doctor quickly shut the door, shuffled them into an interior room, and closed that door as well, leaving them in blackness.
“Doctor? Where’s the sonic screwdriver? We need some light in here.”
“They’d find us if I used the sonic. I’m digging for a torch. Have one somewhere in my pockets,” he muttered.
“Who’s they?” She heard a click, and then blinked as a sharp light blinded her.
“Sorry!” the Doctor said as he pulled the light away, pointing it toward a far wall. He gasped, walking forward, his trainers creaking on wooden floorboards. “Wait – how did we end up here?”
Rose blinked several times to move the black dots out of her field of vision, and then moved forward to join the Doctor. The light illuminated a large, multi-faceted object framed by six latticed metal girders – a piece of furniture, perhaps? It was an odd combination of Victorian and Industrial architecture. Made of metal and wood, it was scorched and scarred in many places – clearly the victim of the war outside. A wooden flip calendar sat on the desktop, its measurement sitting halfway between January and February. Two television sets hung by their power cords, ripped from their mountings on the wall. Books and papers lay scattered across the floor.
Then she looked up, her jaw dropping open as she recognized the object’s central transparent column, hairline fractures creating spider web patterns on its surface but still recognizable.
“We’re on a TARDIS,” she whispered.
“No, not any. This is the one you know,” he replied absently as he circled the console. “Just a long time ago.”
“What happened?”
“The Time War.”
She looked across the console at him, shocked at how old and tired he looked. His shoulders slumped as he traced his fingers along the wood.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to save her after this. It was horrible – realizing that the dream of traveling with her forever might very possibly be just that… a dream. It took years to heal her.” He looked lovingly up at the vortex column. “Took me long enough to feel well enough again to care for her,” he added.
Rose walked over to him and wrapped herself around one arm. “Tell me.”
He looked at her mournfully. “I can’t, Rose.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Either. Both. It… doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does, Doctor!” she shouted. She winced inwardly as he recoiled. “Doctor, it’s important you tell me. You’re on the TARDIS…”
“I can see that, Rose.” He gestured around at the ruins.
“No, not like this,” she snapped. Stopping before she said anything further, she took a deep breath, calming herself. “Doctor, you’re on the TARDIS. You’re in the infirmary. We were on Metax, and you were helping heal their people of an illness. I don’t know exactly what it was doing or specifically what it does, but it’s affected your mind – your telepathy, your memories, and your ability to move.”
He wrinkled his nose in disbelief, studying her. He had no recollection of such events. But when her concerned expression didn’t break, he swallowed. She wasn’t joking.
“In your notes, you said that the medicine had to be administered psychically.”
“I’ve never come across such an illness, or that type of cure, Rose.”
“Yes, you have, Doctor,” she said, exasperation that she didn’t think was her own creeping into her voice. “Stop interrupting and listen to me!”
She felt a gush of warmth run down her spine, gasping with its strength. The TARDIS was connecting with her, a sense of urgency pushing through her mind.
Talk to him. I will get his attention. the ship whispered.
“Doctor, the TARDIS is dying,” Rose pleaded. She noticed his head snap up in shock. “And she said you would too if I can’t administer this medicine. You must listen to me!”
He looked at her terrified. “You… you speak Gallifreyan. You’re not Rose! Who are you? What are you doing here?” He continued to yell at her, backing away as his voice became louder. When Rose tried to grab his arm, he jerked away, knocking himself off balance. He stumbled backward over an overturned chair, landing hard on the floor.
“Doctor, please!” she cried. “Just listen to me. How would you administer a drug psychically?” The TARDIS’ hum in her mind grew to a steady pounding, a heartbeat that drove her forward. She would reach him. They would reach him.
“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” he screamed, scurrying to his feet.
Rose gasped at the wild look in his eyes. He was panicking; she didn’t doubt he felt the same pounding in his head from the TARDIS. He jerked his head wildly, desperately trying to find an escape route in the shadows.
And then he bolted to his right, disappearing entirely after only a few metres.
Rose followed, her direction determined only by the sound of rapidly repeating footsteps as the darkness enveloped her.
~ ~ ~
The footsteps stopped at a large oak double door. Streams of light poured through the cracks in the doorframe, outlining the elegantly curved shape. Rose slowly pushed it open, squinting as bright sunlight hit her face.
The golden light slowly settled into the peaceful image of a cliff side. She gasped at the beauty and the realism of her surroundings. Grey granite cliffs loomed sharply above her, their sheer faces glittering against the sunlight. Warm red grass covered her feet, tickling against her calves with the breeze. A sweet but unfamiliar scent wafted in the air. She looked up, seeing the thinnest of white clouds against a burnt orange sky, and felt a happy flutter from the TARDIS in her mind.
“Gallifrey,” she breathed. “I’m on Gallifrey.”
“Yes, but how did you get here?“ a familiar Northern voice demanded.
Rose whirled around to see the Doctor – her first Doctor – quickly approaching her, all of the anger and pain he’d worn as armour when she first met him barricading him from emotional connection.
“Although one wonders how you would not know what planet you were on, given you have no TARDIS nearby,” he sniped.
“I didn’t…”
He interrupted her. “Didn’t what? Mean to follow me here? Go on then, laugh. See how much I care about the Council’s decision. “ He hugged his arms to his chest, one of those odd little quirks she remembered about this Doctor. She recognized it as the protective reinforcement he needed, either when he was in sharp emotional pain or when he was exceedingly proud of something – but too uncomfortable to allow someone “in.”
“What decision, Doctor?” she asked, softly, approaching him but careful not to touch.
“Oh, as if you don’t know. Romana had it in for me this time. Tells me that because I’m different, I have to be the one to press the button. That if the Daleks come here, I need to be ready to end everything.” He stared at her, through her, and then frowned at the thoughts streaming through his head, his attention snapping back into focus. “But wait a minute. Humans are rarely allowed on Gallifrey, and most certainly not out in the environs of the Houses. How did you manage to find yourself at Mount Lung?”
“I… I don’t know, really.” Rose frowned. “Mount Lung? Blimey, that’s a depressing name.”
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. “That’s my home I’ll have you know. Named after my family.”
“So your surname is… Lung?” Doctor Lung? No wonder he just goes by ‘The Doctor’.”
“House of Lungbarrow. And no, no surname. Just – “
“The Doctor, I know,” she interrupted, completing his sentence and ignoring the responding glare from him. She looked around at the mountains around her, their peaks capped with bright white snow, as if it were just recently fallen, despite the relative warmth she felt at her current elevation. Fiery red tall grass swayed and rippled in the wind. The air was sweet, filled with the warm, rich smell of sun-kissed grass and the slight crispness being carried from the snowcaps.
“It’s so beautiful here. I wish you could have taken me here,” she said wistfully.
“Could have?”
Rose took a deep breath. “Doctor, do you know why you’re here?”
He looked at her as if she had two heads. “The Council called me back to Gallifrey.”
“They did that a long time ago. That’s not what’s happening now.” She knew she had to keep pushing him back toward what was actually happening, rather than these images and environments in his mind. She wondered if her repetition of reality were equally for her benefit, however. She could feel her own ability to remember her current goal drifting away.
“I just arrived yesterday,” he said.
“No, you came to the infirmary in the TARDIS yesterday. The Time War was years ago.”
“Are you seriously telling a Time Lord that he’s lost track of time?” he asked with an arrogant smirk. He crossed his arms as he leaned back against a rock.
“Yes,” she said.
He laughed. “I’m sorry… miss?”
Her heart sank. He didn’t know her anymore? “Tyler. Rose Tyler.”
“Miss Tyler,” he continued, speaking down to her like a little child. “I suggest you go back to the port near the Academy and find a ride home. I don’t know how you know me. I certainly don’t remember meeting you. But I’m very busy, and I’m needed at the Council tomorrow, so if you don’t mind I’d prefer to spend my last afternoon here in peace.” He pushed her toward a path leading down into the valley. “Off you go.”
She ignored him. “I don’t understand. How can you be here - this you. You told me that the Time War forced you to regenerate.”
It wasn’t the truth. He’d never told her about who he’d been before, and she didn’t honestly know when he regenerated, but looking back at their conversations, she knew he’d done it before. ”It’s a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you’re gonna end up with.” If their encounter with the Daleks on Satellite Five had caused him to regenerate, the devastation to the TARDIS she’d witnessed today had to have caused his regeneration into the Doctor standing before her now.
She gasped as he moved quickly, so inhumanly quickly, grabbing her arm and pulling her close to him. She felt the TARDIS’ touch flare up within her, buffering her against a mental onslaught from the Time Lord. His emotions bled into her mind.
A side effect of you being here, the TARDIS whispered. You will be all right.
“How do you know about the Time War? You’re a human. You couldn’t possibly know!” His eyes burned angrily, the normal self-created buffers between his inner emotions and exterior behavior completely stripped away.
“You told me!” she cried, her voice slipping into Gallifreyan syllables once more with the help of the TARDIS. “You told me there was a war. That your people fought the Daleks. And everyone lost. That you were alone in the universe – the last of the Time Lords. That your planet had burnt.”
The Doctor let go of her in shock and backed away, staring at her in horror. Gallifrey gone? The Time Lords gone? Impossible! But even as he discounted her, he felt a niggling in the back of her mind, the slightest twinge from a source so familiar that it shocked him that he hadn’t detected it before. The TARDIS was trying to tell him something, reaching out to him despite their bond being horrifically weak.
“How?” he didn’t complete the sentence as reality crashed in around him. “Who are you?”
“Rose Tyler. I travel with you. You met me two years ago in the basement of Henricks, where I worked. You took my hand and told me to run,” she said. She struggled to keep her focus steady as she heard her voice sounding the Gallifreyan words and phrases she’d never before heard. “And I did. We’ve been running ever since. And I need you to again, Doctor. Your life and the TARDIS’ life is at stake. And I don’t know where we’re going because we’re in your bloody mind. You wrote in a journal that this virus – the Burning these people call it – needs to be healed by going into the sick person’s mind. So I’m here. The TARDIS helped bring me here. But I don’t understand what to do. None of this makes any sense to me. But we’re heading somewhere for a reason, and we need to keep moving before time runs out.” She approached him, taking his hand in hers. She smiled as he grasped it instinctively, searching his eyes for any recognition. “Doctor, please…”
Both of them gasped as the mountains around them burst into flames, the grasses and trees evaporating in the wall of fire that consumed everything, swirling around them. Rose began to shake as the flames came closer, grasping on tightly to the Doctor, hiding her head against his chest.
“It’s okay, Rose. I’ve got you.” He hugged her, pulling her into a protective crouch and braced them both against the oncoming flames as he pressed his forehead to her shoulder. But the heat never came. The roar of the firestorm surrounded them, causing the rocks beneath their feet to crack and shatter under the onslaught.
And then it ended, filling their ears with painful silence.
“I think it’s gone,” he said after a few minutes. The timbre of his voice had changed, the Northern sharpness mellowed into the warm Estuary she now found more familiar.
She peeked up at his face, seeing the freckled, pale face of her current Doctor glancing worriedly down at her. His own timeline was blending together. He still wore the battered brown leather jacket and black jeans of his predecessor. Although her first Doctor had not been a broad shouldered man with his strong, swimmer’s physique, the jacket and jumper hung far too loose on this incarnation. She hadn’t realized just how thin he was until just now.
“What just happened?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he replied, loosening his hold on her as he frowned and tightened the belt on his jeans. Satisfied that they now would remain above his hips, he scanned the area around them slowly, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees. “We’re in some sort of nowhere place. You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. You?”
“Fine, I think. But what just happened? I can’t remember,” he said with a shudder.
Rose noticed that he seemed to recognize her again – a small amount of relief. She worried, though. What if they didn’t get to the place where supposedly the Doctor would recognize what needed to be done? Nothing so far had made sense.
The Doctor pointed at a flashing light off in the distance. “Let’s see what that is.”
They walked for some time in silence. Rose noticed, though, that he never let go of her hand. In fact, he squeezed it tightly several times, each time giving her a small smile. She was still afraid, and knew he was as well. But he remained his Doctorly self, grabbing her hand and taking off for adventure, wandering into the unknown.
~ ~ ~
A long white corridor, institutional and harshly lit, greeted them after what Rose guessed were hours of walking. Fluorescent lights buzzed angrily above them as they took in the scene – a seemingly endless corridor of identical grey doors on both walls, all cracked open slightly, the sounds and smells from within blending in the centre of the corridor in a cacophony of sound and scent.
As they walked by the first set of doors, Rose heard the laughter and excited shrieks of a child at play. She stopped and peeked through the crack. A young brown-haired boy, somewhere between eight to ten years old, ran around a garden in full bloom, kicking a large blue rubber ball. The grass beneath his feet was the same deep red colour she’d seen on Gallifrey.
“Look, it’s Snail!” Rose’s attention switched to a threesome of teenage boys who approached. The biggest of them wore a look of complete loathing on his face.
The little boy’s eyes grew wide as he backed away. He realized the older boys were gaining ground, and promptly turned around and. ran as fast as he could down a nearby hill. To Rose’s surprise, the view stayed with the boy – the scenery moving alongside of him as if a film camera were following him – stopping only when the boy was forced to stop. In front of him was a lake. The boy winced as he looked at the water, swallowed and turned around, prepared to meet what was coming head-on.
“So, Snail. I heard you ran way yesterday,” the biggest boy taunted. His two friends snickered as they fanned out, making escape impossible.
“Lots of kids run away,” ‘Snail’ replied defensively.
“Not like you did. I heard you ran away crying, and that you didn’t stop running until you got back to the House.”
‘Snail’ glared up, attempting miserably to make himself look bigger. “That’s not true!”
“Such a crybaby, Snail. Not surprised. You’re different. I don’t understand why you were invited to look into the Untempered Schism anyway. It’s not like you’re worthy of the Academy.”
“I’m just as worthy as you!” Snail retorted. “Anyone who takes the test could go to the Academy.”
“Not crybabies like you!” one of the other boys chimed. “They don’t take freaks.”
The Doctor kicked the door sharply, breaking the vision. “Imagine a series of doors,” he mumbled, scowling.
“What?”
He shook his head. “I’ve said that to so many people over the years when I entered their minds. Imagine a series of doors, close the ones you don’t want me to see. But that last part apparently doesn’t quite work, does it? I don’t want to see this. I don’t want you to see this.” He turned his face away in disgust.
Rose shrugged. “I’m sorry. I won’t look, then.”
“Just like that?”
She nodded. “Just like that. If you don’t want me to look, I won’t.”
The door cracked back open, and the sound of the older boys taunting Snail rang into the corridor once more. The Doctor pushed on it again, but this time it wouldn’t budge. Stuck open, it rejoined the cacophony of sound that echoed around them.
“I can’t close the doors,” he said, frowning. “Why can’t I close them, Rose?”
“I don’t know. It’s your mind, not mine,” She tugged on his hand as she continued walking.
“So what are we looking for?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Commander Somilo said we needed to reach a place where you’d know what the medicine was.”
A door blew open, debris flying into the hallway. Rose screamed.
“Doctor! Do it now!” a female voice screamed over the intercom.
“Oh,” the Doctor breathed, his attention drawn to the doorway. He gripped Rose’s hand tighter, pulling her to him, both for comfort and reassurance that he wasn’t in that room.
“Open the Eye!”
The rondelles on the TARDIS walls exploded, sending glass flying through the cavernous control room. The entire ship pitched sharply, bookcases tumbling forward and the candelabras on the shelves crashing to the floor. Broken live wires landed on the papers, setting them ablaze.
Gasping, the Doctor clung onto the console, pulling himself back to his feet. A large gash on his forehead bled freely.
“Romana, I can’t!” he cried. “You’ll be destroyed!”
“It doesn’t matter, Doctor. Gallifrey is lost. Our lives are forfeit. The Daleks must be stopped now before they take control of the Schism. Do it now!”
The pause lasted for eternity. But then, with a bowed head, he spoke, bidding farewell. He knew what Romana demanded was the only action left. The Daleks must be stopped here. With the Time Lords weakened beyond repair and the other higher races obliterated, this was their last chance. Failure now would lead to the Daleks destroying the entire universe. No other races had the ability to stop them.
He rushed into action, flicking switches and spinning around the console furiously with a grace that Rose had never seen. Even as his ship disintegrated around him, he fought on.
Rose stared in horror. “Oh God, this is it, isn’t it?” She watched the man in the long foppish coat and wavy long hair finish his calculations. And then he stopped, staring up motionless at the central column.
“Goodbye old girl,” he whispered.
The world exploded around him, the insides of the TARDIS filling with flame.
Grasping onto Rose, the Doctor refused to look away. He remembered this, remembered the terror and the fear that screamed through his head – and the horrifying silence that…
wasn’t silent.
He gasped. He could hear them! All of them screaming as the Eye of Harmony ruptured, sending a wave through space destroying all of the Time Lords, all of the Daleks, for eternity. He felt the frayed timeline snap in his head, connecting to his memories to rewrite them, and fell to the floor in pain.
“Doctor! Please, we need to keep moving. Please! We can’t stay here. You’re getting worse!” Rose’s voice was no longer purely her own, and he recognized the singing tones that underlined her speech. The TARDIS was connected to her, helping her and guiding her. That could only mean that she was telling the truth – that this sickness she spoke of was real.
The smoke from the room filtered into the hallway. He realized that the walls that separated his memories were beginning to break down. Soon the damage from the Time War would bleed everywhere, and he wouldn’t be able to tell reality from memory, memory from possibility, and possibility from hallucination. Through the middle of the smoke, he saw it - a silver-blue tendril snaking out from the central column of the TARDIS, so fine that he worried he’d lose sight of it if he were to turn his head a fraction to the side. It sang to him, a soothing lullaby that beckoned to a life that somehow seemed right.
And he remembered.
It all fell into place. He remembered the Metaxians, his observations, and thought through Rose’s insistence they keep moving to find this place. The medicine. The tendril was the medicine. He’d know when he saw it. It was a lifeline – the largest of the frayed strands of his connection with the TARDIS, coated in something to maintain the end.
“Rose, help me.” He grabbed onto her. “We need to go in this room and get to the console. Please.”
Rose looked at him, eyes red from the increased smoke.
“You were right, Rose. And we’re here,” he whispered. “Please. We’re here. We just need to get into the room.” He staggered to his feet, then helped Rose find hers. They stumbled into the room, making their way through the burning piles of machinery and furniture that blocked much of the floor space.
Rose whimpered as they reached the console, looking down at the unconscious form of his previous incarnation. His former self had not yet regenerated to the body Rose had first met, instead lying silent on the floor, dying slowly. He didn’t want Rose to see the regeneration.
He climbed on the console, wobbling as he found his footing on the sloped panel, and leaned forward to touch the central column. As he did, the blue tendril coiled around his arm, seeping under his skin, and he jerked straight.
“Doctor!”
“No! Stay back! It’s okay, Rose.” And it was. He felt the end of the tendril work its way up his body, touching his mind. And then a wide smile spread across his face. He felt the TARDIS, exhausted but elated, just on the edge of his mind where she should be. And just to the side, where all of the Time Lords had once chattered away in the background, he felt Rose, her thoughts terrified and full of love for him.
He sighed, feeling the memories fall away and into nothingness, managing to beam broadly at Rose once before everything disappeared.
~ ~ ~
Rose sputtered awake, sitting up so quickly she nearly fell off the medical bed.
“Woah! Careful there, Miss Tyler!” Somilo rushed to her side. “Are you all right?”
Out of breath, she nodded furiously. She wasn’t sure what had just happened; she’d been with the Doctor on the old version of the TARDIS, and suddenly everything had dissolved into nothingness, leaving her as disoriented as she might be when waking up suddenly from a nightmare.
“Oh my head,” a raspy voice gritted from the bed next to her.
She turned to see him smiling weakly at both of them. He looked utterly exhausted and even paler than she remembered him before beginning the ordeal, but his eyes were bright. She could already see that his thoughts were returning en masse, zipping around his head in the chaotic fashion he’d once described to her as a permanent, security blanket din.
“Hello,” he said.
“Doctor!” Paying no attention to the wires and tubes he’d been stuck with, Rose leaned over and hugged him tightly. When she felt him raise his arms slowly but steadily to return the hug, she started crying. “I’m so glad to see you!”
He chuckled. “But we’ve been together the entire time!”
Rose frowned, looking at his amused expression. He remembered it. All of it. He had to. “Thank you,” he whispered in her ear.
Somilo came into view, checking the security of the IV tube. “Good to have you back, Doctor. Rose, we should let him rest. Doctor, if you need me, I’ll be in the office next door.”
Reluctantly, Rose gently untangled herself. But before she left his bedside, the Doctor pulled her back down briefly to whisper in her ear.
“We’ll talk later. I promise.”
She kissed him on his cheek. “I’ll hold you to that. In the meantime, want a cup of tea?”
“That would be brilliant.”
She left the room, and the Doctor stared at her in awe. Their brief interchange had just been in his native language, and she didn’t seem to have noticed.
“What exactly have you been up to, old girl?” he asked, looking toward the ceiling.
But the TARDIS, as exhausted as the Doctor, had already drifted off to her sleep mode. The Doctor soon followed.
- End Chapter Four -
[to chapter five]
[chapter one] [chapter two] [chapter three] [chapter four] [chapter five]
CHAPTER FOUR
The world around her was in flames. Screams of terror filled the air. Explosions shook the ground, causing quick, sudden flashes of light against the darkened sky. Was it nighttime, or dark due to the maelstrom around her? Disoriented, Rose rushed to the nearest doorframe – a sturdy stone structure with enough space for her to pull her entire body into the shadows. Not knowing what hell she’d transported into, she didn’t want to risk being seen.
Where was she?
From her hiding spot, she took in the surroundings. It appeared to be the remains of a residential street, still lit dimly by streetlamps imbedded in the walkways. Bombs had ripped open some of the buildings, revealing living rooms and bedrooms, their contents fluttering into the street with every strong gust of wind. But the architecture was all wrong, even if some of the furniture was oddly familiar in an Ikean structure sort of way.
Hearing footsteps in the nearby rubble, she spun around, gasping as she saw familiar brown eyes wide in shock, staring back at her. He was dressed in his standard brown suit and trench coat, his new off-white trainers looking entirely out of place in their brightness against the grime.
The Doctor grabbed her hand. “Rose? What the hell are you doing here?”
Rose flung herself at the Doctor, hugging onto him tightly. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“But... but what are you doing on Gallifrey?” His voice was panicked, pulling her out of the hug so he could search her eyes. “You can’t be here. It’s impossible!”
Rose opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a commotion a few blocks away. She heard yelling and weapon fire, followed by screams.
“We need to get out of here,” the Doctor interrupted with a hiss, grabbing her hand. “Follow me.”
He led her through twists and turns of the alleyways, moving quickly yet quietly through the debris. Building after building provided cover, the narrow paths curving into an impossible maze. And then suddenly, Rose saw sunlight – bright, beaming sunlight from the end of their current path. The Doctor turned to her, putting his index finger over his lips, begging her silently to remain the same. She nodded, adjusted his grasp on her hand, and waited for his move.
Once at the end of the corridor, the Doctor positioned Rose to remain in the shadows. He peaked out, taking a quick scan of the area in front of them, then pulled back, rubbing the ridge of his nose in frustration. Rose had noticed that despite looking like the Doctor she knew, there was something different about the way he carried himself. The inherently gangly movements were gone, replaced with an unnatural grace she’d never seen him use. This was her Doctor, yet somehow… he wasn’t.
“We need to find another place to hide. Back down that corridor, quickly. But stay quiet!” he hissed.
Explosions continued to rattle the ground as they searched, checking each door and ground-level window latch as they made their way down the street. Finally, they found a door that opened and scurried inside. The Doctor quickly shut the door, shuffled them into an interior room, and closed that door as well, leaving them in blackness.
“Doctor? Where’s the sonic screwdriver? We need some light in here.”
“They’d find us if I used the sonic. I’m digging for a torch. Have one somewhere in my pockets,” he muttered.
“Who’s they?” She heard a click, and then blinked as a sharp light blinded her.
“Sorry!” the Doctor said as he pulled the light away, pointing it toward a far wall. He gasped, walking forward, his trainers creaking on wooden floorboards. “Wait – how did we end up here?”
Rose blinked several times to move the black dots out of her field of vision, and then moved forward to join the Doctor. The light illuminated a large, multi-faceted object framed by six latticed metal girders – a piece of furniture, perhaps? It was an odd combination of Victorian and Industrial architecture. Made of metal and wood, it was scorched and scarred in many places – clearly the victim of the war outside. A wooden flip calendar sat on the desktop, its measurement sitting halfway between January and February. Two television sets hung by their power cords, ripped from their mountings on the wall. Books and papers lay scattered across the floor.
Then she looked up, her jaw dropping open as she recognized the object’s central transparent column, hairline fractures creating spider web patterns on its surface but still recognizable.
“We’re on a TARDIS,” she whispered.
“No, not any. This is the one you know,” he replied absently as he circled the console. “Just a long time ago.”
“What happened?”
“The Time War.”
She looked across the console at him, shocked at how old and tired he looked. His shoulders slumped as he traced his fingers along the wood.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to save her after this. It was horrible – realizing that the dream of traveling with her forever might very possibly be just that… a dream. It took years to heal her.” He looked lovingly up at the vortex column. “Took me long enough to feel well enough again to care for her,” he added.
Rose walked over to him and wrapped herself around one arm. “Tell me.”
He looked at her mournfully. “I can’t, Rose.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Either. Both. It… doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does, Doctor!” she shouted. She winced inwardly as he recoiled. “Doctor, it’s important you tell me. You’re on the TARDIS…”
“I can see that, Rose.” He gestured around at the ruins.
“No, not like this,” she snapped. Stopping before she said anything further, she took a deep breath, calming herself. “Doctor, you’re on the TARDIS. You’re in the infirmary. We were on Metax, and you were helping heal their people of an illness. I don’t know exactly what it was doing or specifically what it does, but it’s affected your mind – your telepathy, your memories, and your ability to move.”
He wrinkled his nose in disbelief, studying her. He had no recollection of such events. But when her concerned expression didn’t break, he swallowed. She wasn’t joking.
“In your notes, you said that the medicine had to be administered psychically.”
“I’ve never come across such an illness, or that type of cure, Rose.”
“Yes, you have, Doctor,” she said, exasperation that she didn’t think was her own creeping into her voice. “Stop interrupting and listen to me!”
She felt a gush of warmth run down her spine, gasping with its strength. The TARDIS was connecting with her, a sense of urgency pushing through her mind.
Talk to him. I will get his attention. the ship whispered.
“Doctor, the TARDIS is dying,” Rose pleaded. She noticed his head snap up in shock. “And she said you would too if I can’t administer this medicine. You must listen to me!”
He looked at her terrified. “You… you speak Gallifreyan. You’re not Rose! Who are you? What are you doing here?” He continued to yell at her, backing away as his voice became louder. When Rose tried to grab his arm, he jerked away, knocking himself off balance. He stumbled backward over an overturned chair, landing hard on the floor.
“Doctor, please!” she cried. “Just listen to me. How would you administer a drug psychically?” The TARDIS’ hum in her mind grew to a steady pounding, a heartbeat that drove her forward. She would reach him. They would reach him.
“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” he screamed, scurrying to his feet.
Rose gasped at the wild look in his eyes. He was panicking; she didn’t doubt he felt the same pounding in his head from the TARDIS. He jerked his head wildly, desperately trying to find an escape route in the shadows.
And then he bolted to his right, disappearing entirely after only a few metres.
Rose followed, her direction determined only by the sound of rapidly repeating footsteps as the darkness enveloped her.
~ ~ ~
The footsteps stopped at a large oak double door. Streams of light poured through the cracks in the doorframe, outlining the elegantly curved shape. Rose slowly pushed it open, squinting as bright sunlight hit her face.
The golden light slowly settled into the peaceful image of a cliff side. She gasped at the beauty and the realism of her surroundings. Grey granite cliffs loomed sharply above her, their sheer faces glittering against the sunlight. Warm red grass covered her feet, tickling against her calves with the breeze. A sweet but unfamiliar scent wafted in the air. She looked up, seeing the thinnest of white clouds against a burnt orange sky, and felt a happy flutter from the TARDIS in her mind.
“Gallifrey,” she breathed. “I’m on Gallifrey.”
“Yes, but how did you get here?“ a familiar Northern voice demanded.
Rose whirled around to see the Doctor – her first Doctor – quickly approaching her, all of the anger and pain he’d worn as armour when she first met him barricading him from emotional connection.
“Although one wonders how you would not know what planet you were on, given you have no TARDIS nearby,” he sniped.
“I didn’t…”
He interrupted her. “Didn’t what? Mean to follow me here? Go on then, laugh. See how much I care about the Council’s decision. “ He hugged his arms to his chest, one of those odd little quirks she remembered about this Doctor. She recognized it as the protective reinforcement he needed, either when he was in sharp emotional pain or when he was exceedingly proud of something – but too uncomfortable to allow someone “in.”
“What decision, Doctor?” she asked, softly, approaching him but careful not to touch.
“Oh, as if you don’t know. Romana had it in for me this time. Tells me that because I’m different, I have to be the one to press the button. That if the Daleks come here, I need to be ready to end everything.” He stared at her, through her, and then frowned at the thoughts streaming through his head, his attention snapping back into focus. “But wait a minute. Humans are rarely allowed on Gallifrey, and most certainly not out in the environs of the Houses. How did you manage to find yourself at Mount Lung?”
“I… I don’t know, really.” Rose frowned. “Mount Lung? Blimey, that’s a depressing name.”
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. “That’s my home I’ll have you know. Named after my family.”
“So your surname is… Lung?” Doctor Lung? No wonder he just goes by ‘The Doctor’.”
“House of Lungbarrow. And no, no surname. Just – “
“The Doctor, I know,” she interrupted, completing his sentence and ignoring the responding glare from him. She looked around at the mountains around her, their peaks capped with bright white snow, as if it were just recently fallen, despite the relative warmth she felt at her current elevation. Fiery red tall grass swayed and rippled in the wind. The air was sweet, filled with the warm, rich smell of sun-kissed grass and the slight crispness being carried from the snowcaps.
“It’s so beautiful here. I wish you could have taken me here,” she said wistfully.
“Could have?”
Rose took a deep breath. “Doctor, do you know why you’re here?”
He looked at her as if she had two heads. “The Council called me back to Gallifrey.”
“They did that a long time ago. That’s not what’s happening now.” She knew she had to keep pushing him back toward what was actually happening, rather than these images and environments in his mind. She wondered if her repetition of reality were equally for her benefit, however. She could feel her own ability to remember her current goal drifting away.
“I just arrived yesterday,” he said.
“No, you came to the infirmary in the TARDIS yesterday. The Time War was years ago.”
“Are you seriously telling a Time Lord that he’s lost track of time?” he asked with an arrogant smirk. He crossed his arms as he leaned back against a rock.
“Yes,” she said.
He laughed. “I’m sorry… miss?”
Her heart sank. He didn’t know her anymore? “Tyler. Rose Tyler.”
“Miss Tyler,” he continued, speaking down to her like a little child. “I suggest you go back to the port near the Academy and find a ride home. I don’t know how you know me. I certainly don’t remember meeting you. But I’m very busy, and I’m needed at the Council tomorrow, so if you don’t mind I’d prefer to spend my last afternoon here in peace.” He pushed her toward a path leading down into the valley. “Off you go.”
She ignored him. “I don’t understand. How can you be here - this you. You told me that the Time War forced you to regenerate.”
It wasn’t the truth. He’d never told her about who he’d been before, and she didn’t honestly know when he regenerated, but looking back at their conversations, she knew he’d done it before. ”It’s a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you’re gonna end up with.” If their encounter with the Daleks on Satellite Five had caused him to regenerate, the devastation to the TARDIS she’d witnessed today had to have caused his regeneration into the Doctor standing before her now.
She gasped as he moved quickly, so inhumanly quickly, grabbing her arm and pulling her close to him. She felt the TARDIS’ touch flare up within her, buffering her against a mental onslaught from the Time Lord. His emotions bled into her mind.
A side effect of you being here, the TARDIS whispered. You will be all right.
“How do you know about the Time War? You’re a human. You couldn’t possibly know!” His eyes burned angrily, the normal self-created buffers between his inner emotions and exterior behavior completely stripped away.
“You told me!” she cried, her voice slipping into Gallifreyan syllables once more with the help of the TARDIS. “You told me there was a war. That your people fought the Daleks. And everyone lost. That you were alone in the universe – the last of the Time Lords. That your planet had burnt.”
The Doctor let go of her in shock and backed away, staring at her in horror. Gallifrey gone? The Time Lords gone? Impossible! But even as he discounted her, he felt a niggling in the back of her mind, the slightest twinge from a source so familiar that it shocked him that he hadn’t detected it before. The TARDIS was trying to tell him something, reaching out to him despite their bond being horrifically weak.
“How?” he didn’t complete the sentence as reality crashed in around him. “Who are you?”
“Rose Tyler. I travel with you. You met me two years ago in the basement of Henricks, where I worked. You took my hand and told me to run,” she said. She struggled to keep her focus steady as she heard her voice sounding the Gallifreyan words and phrases she’d never before heard. “And I did. We’ve been running ever since. And I need you to again, Doctor. Your life and the TARDIS’ life is at stake. And I don’t know where we’re going because we’re in your bloody mind. You wrote in a journal that this virus – the Burning these people call it – needs to be healed by going into the sick person’s mind. So I’m here. The TARDIS helped bring me here. But I don’t understand what to do. None of this makes any sense to me. But we’re heading somewhere for a reason, and we need to keep moving before time runs out.” She approached him, taking his hand in hers. She smiled as he grasped it instinctively, searching his eyes for any recognition. “Doctor, please…”
Both of them gasped as the mountains around them burst into flames, the grasses and trees evaporating in the wall of fire that consumed everything, swirling around them. Rose began to shake as the flames came closer, grasping on tightly to the Doctor, hiding her head against his chest.
“It’s okay, Rose. I’ve got you.” He hugged her, pulling her into a protective crouch and braced them both against the oncoming flames as he pressed his forehead to her shoulder. But the heat never came. The roar of the firestorm surrounded them, causing the rocks beneath their feet to crack and shatter under the onslaught.
And then it ended, filling their ears with painful silence.
“I think it’s gone,” he said after a few minutes. The timbre of his voice had changed, the Northern sharpness mellowed into the warm Estuary she now found more familiar.
She peeked up at his face, seeing the freckled, pale face of her current Doctor glancing worriedly down at her. His own timeline was blending together. He still wore the battered brown leather jacket and black jeans of his predecessor. Although her first Doctor had not been a broad shouldered man with his strong, swimmer’s physique, the jacket and jumper hung far too loose on this incarnation. She hadn’t realized just how thin he was until just now.
“What just happened?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he replied, loosening his hold on her as he frowned and tightened the belt on his jeans. Satisfied that they now would remain above his hips, he scanned the area around them slowly, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees. “We’re in some sort of nowhere place. You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. You?”
“Fine, I think. But what just happened? I can’t remember,” he said with a shudder.
Rose noticed that he seemed to recognize her again – a small amount of relief. She worried, though. What if they didn’t get to the place where supposedly the Doctor would recognize what needed to be done? Nothing so far had made sense.
The Doctor pointed at a flashing light off in the distance. “Let’s see what that is.”
They walked for some time in silence. Rose noticed, though, that he never let go of her hand. In fact, he squeezed it tightly several times, each time giving her a small smile. She was still afraid, and knew he was as well. But he remained his Doctorly self, grabbing her hand and taking off for adventure, wandering into the unknown.
~ ~ ~
A long white corridor, institutional and harshly lit, greeted them after what Rose guessed were hours of walking. Fluorescent lights buzzed angrily above them as they took in the scene – a seemingly endless corridor of identical grey doors on both walls, all cracked open slightly, the sounds and smells from within blending in the centre of the corridor in a cacophony of sound and scent.
As they walked by the first set of doors, Rose heard the laughter and excited shrieks of a child at play. She stopped and peeked through the crack. A young brown-haired boy, somewhere between eight to ten years old, ran around a garden in full bloom, kicking a large blue rubber ball. The grass beneath his feet was the same deep red colour she’d seen on Gallifrey.
“Look, it’s Snail!” Rose’s attention switched to a threesome of teenage boys who approached. The biggest of them wore a look of complete loathing on his face.
The little boy’s eyes grew wide as he backed away. He realized the older boys were gaining ground, and promptly turned around and. ran as fast as he could down a nearby hill. To Rose’s surprise, the view stayed with the boy – the scenery moving alongside of him as if a film camera were following him – stopping only when the boy was forced to stop. In front of him was a lake. The boy winced as he looked at the water, swallowed and turned around, prepared to meet what was coming head-on.
“So, Snail. I heard you ran way yesterday,” the biggest boy taunted. His two friends snickered as they fanned out, making escape impossible.
“Lots of kids run away,” ‘Snail’ replied defensively.
“Not like you did. I heard you ran away crying, and that you didn’t stop running until you got back to the House.”
‘Snail’ glared up, attempting miserably to make himself look bigger. “That’s not true!”
“Such a crybaby, Snail. Not surprised. You’re different. I don’t understand why you were invited to look into the Untempered Schism anyway. It’s not like you’re worthy of the Academy.”
“I’m just as worthy as you!” Snail retorted. “Anyone who takes the test could go to the Academy.”
“Not crybabies like you!” one of the other boys chimed. “They don’t take freaks.”
The Doctor kicked the door sharply, breaking the vision. “Imagine a series of doors,” he mumbled, scowling.
“What?”
He shook his head. “I’ve said that to so many people over the years when I entered their minds. Imagine a series of doors, close the ones you don’t want me to see. But that last part apparently doesn’t quite work, does it? I don’t want to see this. I don’t want you to see this.” He turned his face away in disgust.
Rose shrugged. “I’m sorry. I won’t look, then.”
“Just like that?”
She nodded. “Just like that. If you don’t want me to look, I won’t.”
The door cracked back open, and the sound of the older boys taunting Snail rang into the corridor once more. The Doctor pushed on it again, but this time it wouldn’t budge. Stuck open, it rejoined the cacophony of sound that echoed around them.
“I can’t close the doors,” he said, frowning. “Why can’t I close them, Rose?”
“I don’t know. It’s your mind, not mine,” She tugged on his hand as she continued walking.
“So what are we looking for?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Commander Somilo said we needed to reach a place where you’d know what the medicine was.”
A door blew open, debris flying into the hallway. Rose screamed.
“Doctor! Do it now!” a female voice screamed over the intercom.
“Oh,” the Doctor breathed, his attention drawn to the doorway. He gripped Rose’s hand tighter, pulling her to him, both for comfort and reassurance that he wasn’t in that room.
“Open the Eye!”
The rondelles on the TARDIS walls exploded, sending glass flying through the cavernous control room. The entire ship pitched sharply, bookcases tumbling forward and the candelabras on the shelves crashing to the floor. Broken live wires landed on the papers, setting them ablaze.
Gasping, the Doctor clung onto the console, pulling himself back to his feet. A large gash on his forehead bled freely.
“Romana, I can’t!” he cried. “You’ll be destroyed!”
“It doesn’t matter, Doctor. Gallifrey is lost. Our lives are forfeit. The Daleks must be stopped now before they take control of the Schism. Do it now!”
The pause lasted for eternity. But then, with a bowed head, he spoke, bidding farewell. He knew what Romana demanded was the only action left. The Daleks must be stopped here. With the Time Lords weakened beyond repair and the other higher races obliterated, this was their last chance. Failure now would lead to the Daleks destroying the entire universe. No other races had the ability to stop them.
He rushed into action, flicking switches and spinning around the console furiously with a grace that Rose had never seen. Even as his ship disintegrated around him, he fought on.
Rose stared in horror. “Oh God, this is it, isn’t it?” She watched the man in the long foppish coat and wavy long hair finish his calculations. And then he stopped, staring up motionless at the central column.
“Goodbye old girl,” he whispered.
The world exploded around him, the insides of the TARDIS filling with flame.
Grasping onto Rose, the Doctor refused to look away. He remembered this, remembered the terror and the fear that screamed through his head – and the horrifying silence that…
wasn’t silent.
He gasped. He could hear them! All of them screaming as the Eye of Harmony ruptured, sending a wave through space destroying all of the Time Lords, all of the Daleks, for eternity. He felt the frayed timeline snap in his head, connecting to his memories to rewrite them, and fell to the floor in pain.
“Doctor! Please, we need to keep moving. Please! We can’t stay here. You’re getting worse!” Rose’s voice was no longer purely her own, and he recognized the singing tones that underlined her speech. The TARDIS was connected to her, helping her and guiding her. That could only mean that she was telling the truth – that this sickness she spoke of was real.
The smoke from the room filtered into the hallway. He realized that the walls that separated his memories were beginning to break down. Soon the damage from the Time War would bleed everywhere, and he wouldn’t be able to tell reality from memory, memory from possibility, and possibility from hallucination. Through the middle of the smoke, he saw it - a silver-blue tendril snaking out from the central column of the TARDIS, so fine that he worried he’d lose sight of it if he were to turn his head a fraction to the side. It sang to him, a soothing lullaby that beckoned to a life that somehow seemed right.
And he remembered.
It all fell into place. He remembered the Metaxians, his observations, and thought through Rose’s insistence they keep moving to find this place. The medicine. The tendril was the medicine. He’d know when he saw it. It was a lifeline – the largest of the frayed strands of his connection with the TARDIS, coated in something to maintain the end.
“Rose, help me.” He grabbed onto her. “We need to go in this room and get to the console. Please.”
Rose looked at him, eyes red from the increased smoke.
“You were right, Rose. And we’re here,” he whispered. “Please. We’re here. We just need to get into the room.” He staggered to his feet, then helped Rose find hers. They stumbled into the room, making their way through the burning piles of machinery and furniture that blocked much of the floor space.
Rose whimpered as they reached the console, looking down at the unconscious form of his previous incarnation. His former self had not yet regenerated to the body Rose had first met, instead lying silent on the floor, dying slowly. He didn’t want Rose to see the regeneration.
He climbed on the console, wobbling as he found his footing on the sloped panel, and leaned forward to touch the central column. As he did, the blue tendril coiled around his arm, seeping under his skin, and he jerked straight.
“Doctor!”
“No! Stay back! It’s okay, Rose.” And it was. He felt the end of the tendril work its way up his body, touching his mind. And then a wide smile spread across his face. He felt the TARDIS, exhausted but elated, just on the edge of his mind where she should be. And just to the side, where all of the Time Lords had once chattered away in the background, he felt Rose, her thoughts terrified and full of love for him.
He sighed, feeling the memories fall away and into nothingness, managing to beam broadly at Rose once before everything disappeared.
~ ~ ~
Rose sputtered awake, sitting up so quickly she nearly fell off the medical bed.
“Woah! Careful there, Miss Tyler!” Somilo rushed to her side. “Are you all right?”
Out of breath, she nodded furiously. She wasn’t sure what had just happened; she’d been with the Doctor on the old version of the TARDIS, and suddenly everything had dissolved into nothingness, leaving her as disoriented as she might be when waking up suddenly from a nightmare.
“Oh my head,” a raspy voice gritted from the bed next to her.
She turned to see him smiling weakly at both of them. He looked utterly exhausted and even paler than she remembered him before beginning the ordeal, but his eyes were bright. She could already see that his thoughts were returning en masse, zipping around his head in the chaotic fashion he’d once described to her as a permanent, security blanket din.
“Hello,” he said.
“Doctor!” Paying no attention to the wires and tubes he’d been stuck with, Rose leaned over and hugged him tightly. When she felt him raise his arms slowly but steadily to return the hug, she started crying. “I’m so glad to see you!”
He chuckled. “But we’ve been together the entire time!”
Rose frowned, looking at his amused expression. He remembered it. All of it. He had to. “Thank you,” he whispered in her ear.
Somilo came into view, checking the security of the IV tube. “Good to have you back, Doctor. Rose, we should let him rest. Doctor, if you need me, I’ll be in the office next door.”
Reluctantly, Rose gently untangled herself. But before she left his bedside, the Doctor pulled her back down briefly to whisper in her ear.
“We’ll talk later. I promise.”
She kissed him on his cheek. “I’ll hold you to that. In the meantime, want a cup of tea?”
“That would be brilliant.”
She left the room, and the Doctor stared at her in awe. Their brief interchange had just been in his native language, and she didn’t seem to have noticed.
“What exactly have you been up to, old girl?” he asked, looking toward the ceiling.
But the TARDIS, as exhausted as the Doctor, had already drifted off to her sleep mode. The Doctor soon followed.
- End Chapter Four -
[to chapter five]
