The Eighth Doctor Adventures
The Doctor Dyad
Written by ADAM CUTHBERT
I am watching the picture swirl and dissolve into focus: a four-dimensional holographic representation of a Scottish countryside park surrounds me. The TARDIS console disappears from view, although I still feel it underneath my fingers as it continues to execute a series of algorithms that generate the scene before me. I am simultaneously in two places, or so the impression stands. I am not visible to anyone in the park nor could they comprehend that the TARDIS is photographing them millions of times per second from millions of miles away, across uncharted regions of space that I purposely chose so that there could be no distractions.
Conceptually, the illusion of simultaneity that I experience is akin that of the cinemagoer, when a film captivates our imagination to the extent that we become virtually lost within another world yet aware of the room around us. Our mind does not perceive the cuts that separate the individual segments of the total film. Rather, it is one seamless flow: from scene to scene, sequence to sequence. So it appears to me now: a continuous long take, shot in real time. I can partially manipulate the footage, homing in on particular parts with the casual flick of a switch, the press of a button; pulling out, zooming in. I am not limited to visuals simply. I can experience faint sensations: one of the more immersive features of the TARDIS Hologram Display Unit. The crisp smell of the first frosty air, the crackling of brittle leaves, the ghost of a burger van cooking steak and veal; the sound of running water, the cries of ducks and swans on the lake. Gradually, the picture becomes clearer, sharper. It is as if I was actually there, though I cannot touch anything. Colours are richer, more vibrant and intense than actually possible, like a blown-up microscopic view. The world seen under a petri dish, filtered through high-definition cinematography. Everything is made more meaningful by virtue of its radiance and hue. Foliage shines golden yellow and caramel brown, the last of the autumnal decay, leaves cascading like the softest feathers to the ground. I could be watching a scene straight out of Forrest Grump, but the technical sophistication of the illusion rings truer with the effects in The Truman Show. I am isolated from a world that is extraordinarily vivid and detailed, down to the minutest touch.
A rabbit burrowing under a holly bush, it has albino patches on an ashen grey-brown body. It stops, perks up, peers through gaps in the greenery. The wet nose twitches, then sniffs hungrily at the freshly excavated earth, digging up roots. A couple walking on the grass, they share a sloppy kiss. New lovers, I would guess early twenties, huddling against the cold breeze. The man has coppery-brown hair and ache. The woman wears a coat of regal red with a white furry collar. She daintily brushes back black locks over her shoulder, teasing the man with a prod on the arm and a coy glint in green eyes. A veneer of condescension forms over her lenses. The man removes her glasses. The woman blinks myopically, blushing, as the man cleans them with a spare tissue. He smiles nervously, as if half-awake, replacing her glasses. He rubs his gloved hands together (embroidered with white lace stitching), shivering. The couple interlock arms, the man drawing the woman tighter. She responds by wrapping her other arm around his wrist, bringing him in for a hug.
Another kiss, perfect this time. I catch a whiff of the woman's perfume - pungent, redolent of distant summers and exotic worlds. My mind turns back to the perfume shops of eighteenth century France: the scents and concoctions worn by the citizens of Paris, male and female alike, fabricated by an artist of singular strength of smell - so powerful is the sensation that I experience now; how intensified becomes the scent! Smells and sounds: a computerised simulation, however advanced - nothing more.
Focus! I chastise myself for getting distracted. My train of thought must absolutely be on the scene that is to come. It is paramount that I formulate a decision now: it is my burden alone, not one for the future. I suspect that my time is running out, sooner than I had anticipated. There have been signs, intimations of a larger pattern or scheme forming. I cannot dismiss them as coincidences anymore. I never asked for this. Sadly, there is - as there has always been - "unfinished business", before the end.
I glance at the illuminated face of my wristwatch. I am satisfied to be on schedule, allowing myself the luxury offered by a moment of solitude and repose to grin smugly and contentedly, despite the growing pregnancy of the decision that I face. I am usually not so thorough or rigorous with short-term plans. I prefer to extemporise as and when something happens. I have to be cleverer, more like the past, looking ahead. There is only one outcome: everyone loses, especially me. It would be irrational to pursue this action further. There should be no decision to make at all. It was a final choice, closed off. But I have never been one for rational thought. I have listened to the heart, sought its counsel over the mind. It was the heart that encouraged me to take on companions I had every reason to abandon or distrust, and yet they proved themselves to be faithful and invaluable. As then, I have followed my instincts. Nothing is ever final. I shall continue to believe that when presented with two options, a third course will unveil that is the best of all possible worlds - even if it strikes some as counterintuitive, or means that there must be sacrifices; whether it is in the name of the greater good or some personal achievement of happiness.
I am acting selfishly. I am prepared today to sacrifice the universe to the greatest evil just to get back what I lost, so suddenly. Our time was too brief, we barely knew each other. If I set upon this course can I win? Can I save the universe? It would be a small measure of gratification indeed if I failed. I would be the last to die, forced to watch everything die around me first in that case. I don't know what to do. No, I am being senseless. I know exactly what I should be doing, but I won't obey reason. It was unfair. What I didn't know I couldn't miss, and then we met. We loved each other like family in the sparsest of seconds that we could afford for anything so comparatively trivial as love in that moment. It was a dark time. There have been so many lately that they have begun to blur. I could almost forget any other life. I could be mistaken for thinking that I was watching one of my buried memories, experiencing dreams from an absent life. A day in the park without a care in the world, enjoying the simple pleasures of life: a reprieve from the constant dangers and thrills. I am there again, and I am not.
I pan the footage across the park in a wide shot, surveying three hundred and sixty degrees, before reversing the direction, stopping abruptly. I zoom in on a wooden bench by the lakeside, shadowed under the canopy of barren trees. A figure approaches the bench, sitting down. A woman. Her back is towards me so I rotate the perspective. We stand within touching distance. I am to her an unseen ghost walking on water, the birds passing through me.
From her perspective eight years have passed. I feel a pang of sympathy. I remind myself that the circumstances of her 'exile' are very different. Not a punishment, but nonetheless a life sentence. I know her to be in her late thirties. She could pass for younger. I notice that she no longer wears glasses. She would be considered very beautiful. She has lively, intelligent heterochrome eyes (one hazel, one green), and blonde hair in a neat bob, like a 1960s pinup model, rebellious yet mature. She wears a dark-grey business suit (jacket and skirt) under a brown winter coat, with black-blue stockings and black heels. Her nails are cut short, unpainted. A necklace, what could be a locket. Blue eye shadow and scarlet lipstick accentuating full lips complement her look: sexy and powerful, aloof yet flirtatious. A leather purse is slung across her breast. She smoothes out her skirt, seated comfortably, crossing her ankles. She flexes her wrist, lowering the sleeve to glance absentmindedly at a golden wristwatch. In the distance, the peal of church bells announce the hour. She drums her fingers on the bench arm, keeping time with the bells. She flinches at the fourth note, continues uninterruptedly: nine, ten, twelve. She hums softly to herself, it sounds almost like purring.
I recognise the tune immediately. My heart gasps. On the stream of time, it comes back to me, a song carried over the ages: the lullaby that my mother played for me. She had no talent for oration or singing, but she could hum it. I would picture animals and all pedigrees of Wonderland creatures tattooing to the beat: flutes and harps, recorders and strings, and a woman's voice, soprano. The Cat Queen (I decided), leading her charge over the Hush-a-Bye Mountain back to their domicile. Conquerors and victors all, everyone a king in the eyes of others: respected and proud, humble yet fearless.
(Meanwhile, she has been unclipping her purse, removing a plastic bag that contains half an un-sliced loaf. She tears the loaf apart, tossing crumbs into the water. She watches amused as the birds gather, scrambling and squabbling for the crumbs, until the bread is gone.)
Suddenly, a misty film covers her eyes. She brushes away the tears hurriedly with the back of one hand. She looks ashamed, frightened, and almost innocent, unselfconscious of her surroundings. Her face scrunches up, features twisting as she cries, silently. She bows her head, as if trying to disappear down her neck. She sobers up, breathing exhaustively. She looks strained, her eye shadow smeared. All of her strength fades for an instant, before she pulls herself together. She stares sternly out and across the lake, wiping away the last tears. A flicker of recognition registers in her eyes: the cause of her pain, which I know she cannot articulate or fully comprehend. She might surmise that she feels lonely. That would only be glimpsing the edge. I know that she has no children. No partner (she ended her last relationship), a small unit of friends. She doesn't have a proactive social life. She would prefer to stay at home and watch late-night television, or read a good book with a glass of white wine (the works of Patricia Cornwell or James Joyce). It was the life I chose for her. A mixture of different women's habits and demeanours: a brave heart, a tomboyish adolescence; a computing prodigy, an investigative and altruistic spirit. I just wanted her to be as happy and strong as possible, not reliant on the kindnesses of others to define her sense of self, to give her life meaning and contentment. I didn't want her to too much resemble the person I knew she must have been, the life I knew intimately.
(She begins to fix her face, wiping off the eye shadow in order to re-apply it, examining herself in a hand mirror.)
It dawns on me that I have also been crying, slowly and bitterly. The tears are stinging my eyes. I am sharing her pain, only it is much greater. I regret that her life has been wrought with loss and trouble. She has been attracted against her better judgment to the "wrong people", heckled political protesters on the streets, commotions that ended in police intervention and local media attention. She alienates her exasperated but good-natured friends with heterodox ideas stepped in continental philosophy. At heart, she is a daydreamer and romantic. She feels unloved. I have often thought that we live as we dream - alone. Together, we could have avoided that, escaped loneliness forever.
(She finishes her face, replacing the mirror and makeup in her purse. She sniffs, sighs, tapping her nails upon the wood. A jogger and her dog dart past, the dog racing ahead. The jogger smiles friendlily. She reciprocates, waving. One of her workmates, I presume. She follows them for a few feet, before returning her attention to the lake. She checks her watch again, holding it up to her ear. Yes, it's still working.)
Subconsciously (my eyes remaining always on the scene), I search for it within the depths of my inner coat pocket. I feel it: the warm lump of metal, running my fingers over it. I trace the contours etched into the metal, a lattice of symbolic ley lines that when transcribed speak of an ancient and powerful kind of knowledge sealed within. I remove it, carefully, placing it in my open palm. My eyes are diverted from the scene momentarily to scan the inscription, as I turn the device over: an epigraph on the surface of the silver fob watch. The inscription is in gold and bronze. It would be unintelligible to anyone else, written in the dead language of the Time Lords. She knew only I could understand it. She knew many things about me. The words were a promise, one that I have never broken, although I am strongly tempted to do so now.
It wasn't an ordinary Chameleon Arch. It didn't simply convert a Time Lord into a human being, biologically and mentally, suppressing their original memories and implanting false ones of an entire history lived upon the Earth within the designated time period. The watch didn't just contain her Time Lord consciousness. It was the prison of something that we both feared; that connected us across distant worlds and times, an intrinsic aspect of our beings. It was something so horrific that its name could not be uttered because words were the source of its strength: words that expressed fear, anger, misery, remorse, or repentance. Words gave it form, allowed it to exert some influence on the world of the living. It had compelled us towards monstrous acts in moments of heightened anxiety and rage. We could not dissociate ourselves from it, for it was the Doctor through and through. It was the seed of the Valeyard, and the potential for worse. The creature had existed since the darkness of my earliest childhood, the years before the Academy and the Untempered Schism. I remember that it had manifested in the Schism: an atavistic horror that had traumatised a sensitive young boy, who had no recourse to friendships or family. It looked like a dragon on leathery wings with ossified reptilian features. (Years later, I discovered that its countenance surfaced in the masks worn by the Faction Paradox, in fact the hollowed skulls of Time Lords from an alternative future. The creature was a distant relation of the Carrionites, a species that originated from the same future.)
Few were aware that the Schism was a portal to other dimensions, in addition to past and future times. It brought apprentice Time Lords into synchronicity with a parallel universe: they were mentally bonded to one of their counterparts from another reality. So it was for us. The creature existed at first for me alone, before it knew about her. Fortunately for myself, the creature had decided to settle in her mind entirely. She conjectured that it had responded to the portent of her impending death (as her life was moving faster than my own): the echo of four resounding knocks - a signal of sorts transmitted from an unknown source, across time and space.
I found her TARDIS on the surface of Mars, emitting a distress signal. She was dying and needed urgent assistance. There had been an explosion on the surface, a momentous aftershock that broke the visor of her spacesuit, exposing her to the planet's atmosphere. I saw no evidence of any explosion. She explained that her TARDIS had somehow passed beyond the boundary between realities in her desperate escape from the planet. A wormhole or dimensional rift had pulled her TARDIS through, which returned to its last destination. She spoke about water monsters that reproduced like a virus or plague, how one had chased her back to the TARDIS, the only survivor. It sounded incredible even to my ears.
I intervened before the regeneration itself could took place, which would have enabled the creature to dominate her consciousness as she slipped over the threshold between the world of the living and the creature's domain. I placed her mind inside the watch, entrapping the creature at the same time. It wasn't my choice but it was the only choice that could save her. The choice I would have made myself, if our positions had been reversed. "A better fate than most," she said (with a Scottish brogue). "The fate that the Doctor would have chosen for himself."
"No, not the Doctor," I corrected her.
Why I felt the need to do so I do not know. For all intents and purposes, I was the Doctor. There was no other identity. During the time when I had lost everything "the Doctor" was all that I could remember about the past. (Though, in my ignorance, I had initially assumed that the Doctor was someone else, someone important from my past, someone who could help me.) Any personal knowledge, any sense of personal history, had been obliterated. I was a blank slate, like a child exploring the world for the first time. However, I had yet to learn and recognise my own name for the knowledge eluded me. (There were those who had established a prior acquaintance and addressed me at once by the title. How I knew them, of course, I could not recollect. It seemed that the Doctor was an alias, no more.) When I regained that knowledge, I became a man of dichotomous mind. I had two distinct sets of memories that I could not, without difficulty, reconcile as the passage of a single person through time. There was the man known always and only as the Doctor, and there was the man who became the Doctor. The Doctor was born with the knowledge of other lives, the burden of their good deeds and crimes. He was a legacy all to himself, their successor and hope for the future; like a superhero passing down his mantle, in light of his inescapable end. I had become more attached to the one life I had known, indeed lived for much longer. It had brought me closer to a lifelong wish of the Doctor throughout his many existences: to know what it means to be human, to be unencumbered by the knowledge of your immortality, by the weight of thousands of deaths that disturbed your sleep, for which you were solely responsible. I had contemplated using a Chameleon Arch long ago, but what if I didn't want to go back? What if being human meant more to me than being the Doctor had ever been; I hadn't dared risk the possibility. So I felt then, split between two lives. While I had sought to recover my memories I also regretted the decision. Amnesia brought with it freedom. Now that I knew everything again I was haunted by old demons.
She looked at me gravely, then nodded curtly.
"No, not the Doctor," she repeated. "Then what do I call you?"
"John Smith," I answered flatly. I gave her a hard look.
"You know why, I imagine."
"Yes," she nodded sadly. "Yes, I do."
There was the sliver of a bright smile.
"It gets better, you know. Be honest, Doctor - no," she raised a finger, silencing the objection on my lips.
"No more lies. I..." she said hesitatingly. "Don't - Don't lie to yourself."
My response startled her. She cut me off.
"I..." she said slowly, "I haven't gone by that name in centuries."
Her eyes flashed behind oval lenses (one had fractured in her fall), as she craned her neck towards the lights, thinking back.
"I was under the impression that no one alive knew it. The last, the man who christened me..." she said darkly, closing her eyes.
She turned towards me, eyes flicking open. There was a single tear, you could have missed it. I caught it out of the corner of my eye, down her cheek.
"He got what he deserved in the end."
She paused.
In a low voice, she asked: "How did you know?"
I shrugged.
"A lucky guess."
She laughed. She pressed a hand against my face. She was studying my eyes. I matched her gaze. Was this, I asked myself, what it was like - for my companions? The Doctor expertly reading you through the emotion elicited by the eyes and mouth. She mimicked the straight line my mouth had formed, trying not to reveal anything of how I felt about the intimacy of the moment. She looked older, strangely enough, than the woman in the park. It was as if all those hidden years came forth, a century or two over me. I submitted to her seniority, allowed her to examine me at her leisure. She finished, retracting her hand. She smiled affectionately. Her voice sounded distant. There was a warm sort of darkness to it, like a mother reaching out for her child in the night. You weren't afraid of the voice, for it spoke from experience and age. You drew closer, gripping the hand that offered you comfort and solace, cupping it in both of your hands, bringing it up to your face.
"I remember you," she began. "This point in your life. Well, not you, me, but me when I was just like you."
She stopped herself. She could ramble on. Here she was precise.
"Yes, I remember."
Her eyes shone in the light, as she looked upwards, catching the burst of emotion in her throat. She continued:
"You've given up your title, and for what?"
She sounded angrier. (She eased her hand out of mine. I felt embarrassed; she brushed it off.) I was alarmed by the sudden violence of her speech.
"You are the Doctor, no matter what happens. You miss the life that you had, but what good can you do if you aren't the Doctor? I mean... If you aren't living in pursuit of the Doctor's ideals then it will just feel false, unworthy of your time. You must acknowledge that even when you had forgotten you still maintained the Doctor's beliefs, at your core. Intuitively, you sought out people capable of enormous potential - for goodwill, for friendship, and, yes, even romance; you loved more then you ever have."
"Think of it," she said more calmly, after a pause, "as a learning curve, preparation for the future, and not... a fissure in the Doctor's long life. A time before and a time after, when he no longer was the same man."
"You are the Doctor," she emphasised. "More than ever, in fact. You've changed, grown in larger ways. Yes, it wasn't possible without your... accident, let's say that; I'm lying, whatever."
She shook her head, sighing. She must have seen something in my expression.
"That's wasn't your fault, you know. Well... a little, a smidge. Kind of, yeah, but no, just - just listen to me," she said seriously. "You can't go on blaming yourself. Believe me, it doesn't help anyone." She had looked away. I realised that she was addressing herself. Her voice was quiet, as if whispering in a confession booth.
"I've lived through..."
She paused, pursing her lips, then said in the same small voice, offhandedly:
"It doesn't matter, you might even know of it already."
She turned towards me.
"You just..." It became hard for her to finish. "You just reacted badly, that's all."
She brightened.
"It's still early days for you. There's time to change."
She smiled widely.
"Focus on the positives, yeah?" she said enthusiastically. "You are brilliant, and the universe can't lose the Doctor, not over something as... slight as that."
There was a spasm and a scream. She gripped my hand, rocking. She rested her head upon my chest, looking me in the eyes. I was breathing fast, anxious, supporting her weight. She was tearful, masking her plead under a brave voice.
"You have to do it now," she said between painful breaths. "You know what to do. I won't be able... to hold it off much longer."
She choked, blind.
"I don't want to go..."
And she lay there in my arms. I laid the body gently on the TARDIS floor. She had already vouchsafed property of the watch to me. I was admittedly afraid that I would pursue my present course. I couldn't bear the thought that she would spend the rest of her life unaware of how special she was, how brilliant. An extraordinary mind, closed off forever. (She has not moved from the bench, only checking her watch. What time is it? It's been... ten minutes?)
For some reason, I think something like this has happened before. Not in my lifetime, though. Perhaps I am experiencing traces of her memories so long as I hold the watch. It is possible that her dormant consciousness is communicating with me. (I didn't know the full details of how the technology worked: it was a feature of the TARDIS I had never used before.)
I take my eyes off her, focusing upon the watch... There! A flash! It's gone. I saw... what did I see? There was a woman with red hair, coated in a shower of ash. I heard the sound of burning and dying, the fall of masonry, and time's livid flame, spurting. The eruption of Vesuvius, no! I - she - was walking away from the devastation. She wouldn't stop to help or rescue anyone. Her face was frozen, no different from the collapsing statues around her. A look of terrible pain, as if an old chasm had opened up and swallowed her whole. Her companion was begging, screaming. She wouldn't listen - to anything other than her own misery and guilt. The sky was a pitch-black panorama, torched by the fires of hell. The darkness was unlike anything seen by human eyes; she thought of a world without stars at all. She ignored the incessant cries of her companion, who stared at the sky with horror. Couldn't she understand that there was nothing she could do? It was history, in the making. For once, she couldn't interfere...
Jumping ahead - snow on London. The Dickensian city, smog and toil. Two women were talking in an underpass, where the TARDIS had materialised. I saw clearly that the white letters had worn away: P_L_CE_O. One of the women had black hair tied in a tight bun. She wore a dirty white dress with boots. Her clothes were designed for all purposes. She looked youngish, but her adventures had aged her significantly. There were scars across her cheek, where she had suffered burns, and her nails were chipped. From her neck hung a fob watch that was inscribed with initials: J.L. Her late husband, killed by merciless soldiers made of steel. She gradually accepted her husband's death with aplomb. He died a hero, saving her and their child, who had been separated from his mother for a short time. She thanked the Doctor for the gift of her knowledge and strength in averting a catastrophe, the destruction of the city. The Doctor pointed out that it wasn't without a price. The world had lost one of its greatest minds, corrupted by the malevolent influence of the metal men. A person who might have been a revolutionary, a visionary. The world became a little darker for the Doctor, with every death that could have been avoided. The woman inquired about the fate of the Doctor's companions. Some were deceased, others had left. The Doctor thought lamentably about the woman with red hair... A ripple effect, spreading - out from her. She felt like she was awakening from a deep sleep. For the first time, she understood how it really was...
There is nothing else. The memory ended before I could learn more, like film stock dissolving into flame and smoke. I find the memory frustratingly cryptic. I am unnerved, tensing. Is it my future also? I got the impression that she had lost more than she had gained; that it simply became too much for her. I could sympathise if the Chameleon Arch also enabled an escape from the past. If she returned... Of course, the creature would be freed, and the universe threatened by a Doctor under its control.
(I pocket the watch, returning my eyes to the scene. She is waiting for somebody to arrive, looking around her, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground.)
The regeneration couldn't be stopped (there were minutes left before it began). The only solution I can devise would be if the creature went back to me, transfered from her consciousness into mine, and that can only happen if the process is reversed in the same way. This would give us time to collaborate on another plan. I know how unlikely that is. Even if I could contact the creature telepathically it would not surrender what it had. I can only offer it a single boon: I fought the Valeyard, not her. That would perhaps strengthen it, giving us time while it could feed on the mental associations. At the back of my mind, I imagine that it has already exhausted that source. (I hadn't faced the real Valeyard, though, only a phantom of the Doctor yet to come. I dread the possibility - and it is just a possibility - of becoming the Valeyard one day.) What else can I do? I should leave. There is nothing here for me.
She was right. I would have done the same, a natural consequence of travelling with so many humans. Indeed, I dream sometimes about retiring and living amongst the human race, though in that scenario my memories are intact, so that I can renege on the decision at any time. I see myself as another man, a younger-looking man, who walks in the shadow of death. Whose death, I cannot say, but I am troubled greatly by his presence. There is the mark of the soldier around his eyes. He wears a brown suit with a bowtie. He is content in his new life, pretending to be like everyone else. He reads the paper, as he waits for the train; it embarks, heading through a tunnel. He broods. Occasionally he stirs from his trance - to check the time, to glance vacantly at the words on the page, or at his fellow commuters. He smiles insincerely at his reflection in the dark window, knowingly shattering the pretence of normalcy. There is a woman with red hair seated across from him, visible from an angle. He spots a wedding ring. The woman covers it with one hand, looking askew out of the window, her white face colouring ruddily. She leaves through an open magazine on her lap. Good Housekeeping, he reads the cover. The woman stares straight ahead, brushing long hair back over her ear, crossing her legs. She reminds him of someone he knew, long ago. Pained, he looks away.
My dreams aren't usually illogical or absurd. They reveal possibilities set in the future, the Doctors that I might yet become. In meditative or unconscious states what I thought later was just a dream turns out to be an insight into their lives, providing guidance for my own. Paths not to be taken, dangers to keep clear off, people to avoid; betrayals, love affairs, deaths. I have one recurring dream. It concerns a great war, a final crisis of the universe. It could be the Biblical Armageddon, or the War in Heaven. The vision is never lucid or stable, but always shifting and distorting, as if time was being rewritten over and over. A continuum of perpetual chaos, a war that has for its domain the vastness of eternity itself. I can scarcely believe such a battle is possible, unless it was fought amongst the Gods themselves - or beings that had usurped their power, and pride of place at the pinnacle of creation.
In the dream, I cannot always discern who I am supposed to be. Sometimes I see myself. I am older, with some silver hair, wearing a dark-blue coat with knee-high lace-trimmed boots. I have a broken rib or two. I stumble to scale a vantage point atop a hill, on a world with sulphur-and-brimstone skies. Milton's Pandemonium. Lakes of fire, and winged titans armoured in adamantine steel clashing with metal men in abysses of remorseless cold and emptiness. Blazing blue and green energy bolts firing through the endless solar night, the sky illuminated by blood-red fire. From afar, the storm of angels, and the unceasing mantra of the horde below. The angels wield spears of shimmering light, tearing up the sky, hurtling their artillery with lighting ferocity at the horde. The spears explode with such impact that I am thrown from my vantage point. I tumble headfirst to the depths, scraping hand and knee against stone and shrapnel. When I stand I am a new man, a younger man with short dark hair and long ears. There is the premonition of a young woman in his life. Like Penelope to Odysseus, she becomes the source of his power and faith. He is devotedly loyal to the vision, for it prognosticates brighter days; that the war is not forever, though it seems he has known no other life.
She made her choice - we made the choice, the only thing that could be done. She deserves privacy...
"Goodbye... Doctor."
The TARDIS engines roar.
Conceptually, the illusion of simultaneity that I experience is akin that of the cinemagoer, when a film captivates our imagination to the extent that we become virtually lost within another world yet aware of the room around us. Our mind does not perceive the cuts that separate the individual segments of the total film. Rather, it is one seamless flow: from scene to scene, sequence to sequence. So it appears to me now: a continuous long take, shot in real time. I can partially manipulate the footage, homing in on particular parts with the casual flick of a switch, the press of a button; pulling out, zooming in. I am not limited to visuals simply. I can experience faint sensations: one of the more immersive features of the TARDIS Hologram Display Unit. The crisp smell of the first frosty air, the crackling of brittle leaves, the ghost of a burger van cooking steak and veal; the sound of running water, the cries of ducks and swans on the lake. Gradually, the picture becomes clearer, sharper. It is as if I was actually there, though I cannot touch anything. Colours are richer, more vibrant and intense than actually possible, like a blown-up microscopic view. The world seen under a petri dish, filtered through high-definition cinematography. Everything is made more meaningful by virtue of its radiance and hue. Foliage shines golden yellow and caramel brown, the last of the autumnal decay, leaves cascading like the softest feathers to the ground. I could be watching a scene straight out of Forrest Grump, but the technical sophistication of the illusion rings truer with the effects in The Truman Show. I am isolated from a world that is extraordinarily vivid and detailed, down to the minutest touch.
A rabbit burrowing under a holly bush, it has albino patches on an ashen grey-brown body. It stops, perks up, peers through gaps in the greenery. The wet nose twitches, then sniffs hungrily at the freshly excavated earth, digging up roots. A couple walking on the grass, they share a sloppy kiss. New lovers, I would guess early twenties, huddling against the cold breeze. The man has coppery-brown hair and ache. The woman wears a coat of regal red with a white furry collar. She daintily brushes back black locks over her shoulder, teasing the man with a prod on the arm and a coy glint in green eyes. A veneer of condescension forms over her lenses. The man removes her glasses. The woman blinks myopically, blushing, as the man cleans them with a spare tissue. He smiles nervously, as if half-awake, replacing her glasses. He rubs his gloved hands together (embroidered with white lace stitching), shivering. The couple interlock arms, the man drawing the woman tighter. She responds by wrapping her other arm around his wrist, bringing him in for a hug.
Another kiss, perfect this time. I catch a whiff of the woman's perfume - pungent, redolent of distant summers and exotic worlds. My mind turns back to the perfume shops of eighteenth century France: the scents and concoctions worn by the citizens of Paris, male and female alike, fabricated by an artist of singular strength of smell - so powerful is the sensation that I experience now; how intensified becomes the scent! Smells and sounds: a computerised simulation, however advanced - nothing more.
Focus! I chastise myself for getting distracted. My train of thought must absolutely be on the scene that is to come. It is paramount that I formulate a decision now: it is my burden alone, not one for the future. I suspect that my time is running out, sooner than I had anticipated. There have been signs, intimations of a larger pattern or scheme forming. I cannot dismiss them as coincidences anymore. I never asked for this. Sadly, there is - as there has always been - "unfinished business", before the end.
I glance at the illuminated face of my wristwatch. I am satisfied to be on schedule, allowing myself the luxury offered by a moment of solitude and repose to grin smugly and contentedly, despite the growing pregnancy of the decision that I face. I am usually not so thorough or rigorous with short-term plans. I prefer to extemporise as and when something happens. I have to be cleverer, more like the past, looking ahead. There is only one outcome: everyone loses, especially me. It would be irrational to pursue this action further. There should be no decision to make at all. It was a final choice, closed off. But I have never been one for rational thought. I have listened to the heart, sought its counsel over the mind. It was the heart that encouraged me to take on companions I had every reason to abandon or distrust, and yet they proved themselves to be faithful and invaluable. As then, I have followed my instincts. Nothing is ever final. I shall continue to believe that when presented with two options, a third course will unveil that is the best of all possible worlds - even if it strikes some as counterintuitive, or means that there must be sacrifices; whether it is in the name of the greater good or some personal achievement of happiness.
I am acting selfishly. I am prepared today to sacrifice the universe to the greatest evil just to get back what I lost, so suddenly. Our time was too brief, we barely knew each other. If I set upon this course can I win? Can I save the universe? It would be a small measure of gratification indeed if I failed. I would be the last to die, forced to watch everything die around me first in that case. I don't know what to do. No, I am being senseless. I know exactly what I should be doing, but I won't obey reason. It was unfair. What I didn't know I couldn't miss, and then we met. We loved each other like family in the sparsest of seconds that we could afford for anything so comparatively trivial as love in that moment. It was a dark time. There have been so many lately that they have begun to blur. I could almost forget any other life. I could be mistaken for thinking that I was watching one of my buried memories, experiencing dreams from an absent life. A day in the park without a care in the world, enjoying the simple pleasures of life: a reprieve from the constant dangers and thrills. I am there again, and I am not.
I pan the footage across the park in a wide shot, surveying three hundred and sixty degrees, before reversing the direction, stopping abruptly. I zoom in on a wooden bench by the lakeside, shadowed under the canopy of barren trees. A figure approaches the bench, sitting down. A woman. Her back is towards me so I rotate the perspective. We stand within touching distance. I am to her an unseen ghost walking on water, the birds passing through me.
From her perspective eight years have passed. I feel a pang of sympathy. I remind myself that the circumstances of her 'exile' are very different. Not a punishment, but nonetheless a life sentence. I know her to be in her late thirties. She could pass for younger. I notice that she no longer wears glasses. She would be considered very beautiful. She has lively, intelligent heterochrome eyes (one hazel, one green), and blonde hair in a neat bob, like a 1960s pinup model, rebellious yet mature. She wears a dark-grey business suit (jacket and skirt) under a brown winter coat, with black-blue stockings and black heels. Her nails are cut short, unpainted. A necklace, what could be a locket. Blue eye shadow and scarlet lipstick accentuating full lips complement her look: sexy and powerful, aloof yet flirtatious. A leather purse is slung across her breast. She smoothes out her skirt, seated comfortably, crossing her ankles. She flexes her wrist, lowering the sleeve to glance absentmindedly at a golden wristwatch. In the distance, the peal of church bells announce the hour. She drums her fingers on the bench arm, keeping time with the bells. She flinches at the fourth note, continues uninterruptedly: nine, ten, twelve. She hums softly to herself, it sounds almost like purring.
I recognise the tune immediately. My heart gasps. On the stream of time, it comes back to me, a song carried over the ages: the lullaby that my mother played for me. She had no talent for oration or singing, but she could hum it. I would picture animals and all pedigrees of Wonderland creatures tattooing to the beat: flutes and harps, recorders and strings, and a woman's voice, soprano. The Cat Queen (I decided), leading her charge over the Hush-a-Bye Mountain back to their domicile. Conquerors and victors all, everyone a king in the eyes of others: respected and proud, humble yet fearless.
(Meanwhile, she has been unclipping her purse, removing a plastic bag that contains half an un-sliced loaf. She tears the loaf apart, tossing crumbs into the water. She watches amused as the birds gather, scrambling and squabbling for the crumbs, until the bread is gone.)
Suddenly, a misty film covers her eyes. She brushes away the tears hurriedly with the back of one hand. She looks ashamed, frightened, and almost innocent, unselfconscious of her surroundings. Her face scrunches up, features twisting as she cries, silently. She bows her head, as if trying to disappear down her neck. She sobers up, breathing exhaustively. She looks strained, her eye shadow smeared. All of her strength fades for an instant, before she pulls herself together. She stares sternly out and across the lake, wiping away the last tears. A flicker of recognition registers in her eyes: the cause of her pain, which I know she cannot articulate or fully comprehend. She might surmise that she feels lonely. That would only be glimpsing the edge. I know that she has no children. No partner (she ended her last relationship), a small unit of friends. She doesn't have a proactive social life. She would prefer to stay at home and watch late-night television, or read a good book with a glass of white wine (the works of Patricia Cornwell or James Joyce). It was the life I chose for her. A mixture of different women's habits and demeanours: a brave heart, a tomboyish adolescence; a computing prodigy, an investigative and altruistic spirit. I just wanted her to be as happy and strong as possible, not reliant on the kindnesses of others to define her sense of self, to give her life meaning and contentment. I didn't want her to too much resemble the person I knew she must have been, the life I knew intimately.
(She begins to fix her face, wiping off the eye shadow in order to re-apply it, examining herself in a hand mirror.)
It dawns on me that I have also been crying, slowly and bitterly. The tears are stinging my eyes. I am sharing her pain, only it is much greater. I regret that her life has been wrought with loss and trouble. She has been attracted against her better judgment to the "wrong people", heckled political protesters on the streets, commotions that ended in police intervention and local media attention. She alienates her exasperated but good-natured friends with heterodox ideas stepped in continental philosophy. At heart, she is a daydreamer and romantic. She feels unloved. I have often thought that we live as we dream - alone. Together, we could have avoided that, escaped loneliness forever.
(She finishes her face, replacing the mirror and makeup in her purse. She sniffs, sighs, tapping her nails upon the wood. A jogger and her dog dart past, the dog racing ahead. The jogger smiles friendlily. She reciprocates, waving. One of her workmates, I presume. She follows them for a few feet, before returning her attention to the lake. She checks her watch again, holding it up to her ear. Yes, it's still working.)
Subconsciously (my eyes remaining always on the scene), I search for it within the depths of my inner coat pocket. I feel it: the warm lump of metal, running my fingers over it. I trace the contours etched into the metal, a lattice of symbolic ley lines that when transcribed speak of an ancient and powerful kind of knowledge sealed within. I remove it, carefully, placing it in my open palm. My eyes are diverted from the scene momentarily to scan the inscription, as I turn the device over: an epigraph on the surface of the silver fob watch. The inscription is in gold and bronze. It would be unintelligible to anyone else, written in the dead language of the Time Lords. She knew only I could understand it. She knew many things about me. The words were a promise, one that I have never broken, although I am strongly tempted to do so now.
It wasn't an ordinary Chameleon Arch. It didn't simply convert a Time Lord into a human being, biologically and mentally, suppressing their original memories and implanting false ones of an entire history lived upon the Earth within the designated time period. The watch didn't just contain her Time Lord consciousness. It was the prison of something that we both feared; that connected us across distant worlds and times, an intrinsic aspect of our beings. It was something so horrific that its name could not be uttered because words were the source of its strength: words that expressed fear, anger, misery, remorse, or repentance. Words gave it form, allowed it to exert some influence on the world of the living. It had compelled us towards monstrous acts in moments of heightened anxiety and rage. We could not dissociate ourselves from it, for it was the Doctor through and through. It was the seed of the Valeyard, and the potential for worse. The creature had existed since the darkness of my earliest childhood, the years before the Academy and the Untempered Schism. I remember that it had manifested in the Schism: an atavistic horror that had traumatised a sensitive young boy, who had no recourse to friendships or family. It looked like a dragon on leathery wings with ossified reptilian features. (Years later, I discovered that its countenance surfaced in the masks worn by the Faction Paradox, in fact the hollowed skulls of Time Lords from an alternative future. The creature was a distant relation of the Carrionites, a species that originated from the same future.)
Few were aware that the Schism was a portal to other dimensions, in addition to past and future times. It brought apprentice Time Lords into synchronicity with a parallel universe: they were mentally bonded to one of their counterparts from another reality. So it was for us. The creature existed at first for me alone, before it knew about her. Fortunately for myself, the creature had decided to settle in her mind entirely. She conjectured that it had responded to the portent of her impending death (as her life was moving faster than my own): the echo of four resounding knocks - a signal of sorts transmitted from an unknown source, across time and space.
I found her TARDIS on the surface of Mars, emitting a distress signal. She was dying and needed urgent assistance. There had been an explosion on the surface, a momentous aftershock that broke the visor of her spacesuit, exposing her to the planet's atmosphere. I saw no evidence of any explosion. She explained that her TARDIS had somehow passed beyond the boundary between realities in her desperate escape from the planet. A wormhole or dimensional rift had pulled her TARDIS through, which returned to its last destination. She spoke about water monsters that reproduced like a virus or plague, how one had chased her back to the TARDIS, the only survivor. It sounded incredible even to my ears.
I intervened before the regeneration itself could took place, which would have enabled the creature to dominate her consciousness as she slipped over the threshold between the world of the living and the creature's domain. I placed her mind inside the watch, entrapping the creature at the same time. It wasn't my choice but it was the only choice that could save her. The choice I would have made myself, if our positions had been reversed. "A better fate than most," she said (with a Scottish brogue). "The fate that the Doctor would have chosen for himself."
"No, not the Doctor," I corrected her.
Why I felt the need to do so I do not know. For all intents and purposes, I was the Doctor. There was no other identity. During the time when I had lost everything "the Doctor" was all that I could remember about the past. (Though, in my ignorance, I had initially assumed that the Doctor was someone else, someone important from my past, someone who could help me.) Any personal knowledge, any sense of personal history, had been obliterated. I was a blank slate, like a child exploring the world for the first time. However, I had yet to learn and recognise my own name for the knowledge eluded me. (There were those who had established a prior acquaintance and addressed me at once by the title. How I knew them, of course, I could not recollect. It seemed that the Doctor was an alias, no more.) When I regained that knowledge, I became a man of dichotomous mind. I had two distinct sets of memories that I could not, without difficulty, reconcile as the passage of a single person through time. There was the man known always and only as the Doctor, and there was the man who became the Doctor. The Doctor was born with the knowledge of other lives, the burden of their good deeds and crimes. He was a legacy all to himself, their successor and hope for the future; like a superhero passing down his mantle, in light of his inescapable end. I had become more attached to the one life I had known, indeed lived for much longer. It had brought me closer to a lifelong wish of the Doctor throughout his many existences: to know what it means to be human, to be unencumbered by the knowledge of your immortality, by the weight of thousands of deaths that disturbed your sleep, for which you were solely responsible. I had contemplated using a Chameleon Arch long ago, but what if I didn't want to go back? What if being human meant more to me than being the Doctor had ever been; I hadn't dared risk the possibility. So I felt then, split between two lives. While I had sought to recover my memories I also regretted the decision. Amnesia brought with it freedom. Now that I knew everything again I was haunted by old demons.
She looked at me gravely, then nodded curtly.
"No, not the Doctor," she repeated. "Then what do I call you?"
"John Smith," I answered flatly. I gave her a hard look.
"You know why, I imagine."
"Yes," she nodded sadly. "Yes, I do."
There was the sliver of a bright smile.
"It gets better, you know. Be honest, Doctor - no," she raised a finger, silencing the objection on my lips.
"No more lies. I..." she said hesitatingly. "Don't - Don't lie to yourself."
My response startled her. She cut me off.
"I..." she said slowly, "I haven't gone by that name in centuries."
Her eyes flashed behind oval lenses (one had fractured in her fall), as she craned her neck towards the lights, thinking back.
"I was under the impression that no one alive knew it. The last, the man who christened me..." she said darkly, closing her eyes.
She turned towards me, eyes flicking open. There was a single tear, you could have missed it. I caught it out of the corner of my eye, down her cheek.
"He got what he deserved in the end."
She paused.
In a low voice, she asked: "How did you know?"
I shrugged.
"A lucky guess."
She laughed. She pressed a hand against my face. She was studying my eyes. I matched her gaze. Was this, I asked myself, what it was like - for my companions? The Doctor expertly reading you through the emotion elicited by the eyes and mouth. She mimicked the straight line my mouth had formed, trying not to reveal anything of how I felt about the intimacy of the moment. She looked older, strangely enough, than the woman in the park. It was as if all those hidden years came forth, a century or two over me. I submitted to her seniority, allowed her to examine me at her leisure. She finished, retracting her hand. She smiled affectionately. Her voice sounded distant. There was a warm sort of darkness to it, like a mother reaching out for her child in the night. You weren't afraid of the voice, for it spoke from experience and age. You drew closer, gripping the hand that offered you comfort and solace, cupping it in both of your hands, bringing it up to your face.
"I remember you," she began. "This point in your life. Well, not you, me, but me when I was just like you."
She stopped herself. She could ramble on. Here she was precise.
"Yes, I remember."
Her eyes shone in the light, as she looked upwards, catching the burst of emotion in her throat. She continued:
"You've given up your title, and for what?"
She sounded angrier. (She eased her hand out of mine. I felt embarrassed; she brushed it off.) I was alarmed by the sudden violence of her speech.
"You are the Doctor, no matter what happens. You miss the life that you had, but what good can you do if you aren't the Doctor? I mean... If you aren't living in pursuit of the Doctor's ideals then it will just feel false, unworthy of your time. You must acknowledge that even when you had forgotten you still maintained the Doctor's beliefs, at your core. Intuitively, you sought out people capable of enormous potential - for goodwill, for friendship, and, yes, even romance; you loved more then you ever have."
"Think of it," she said more calmly, after a pause, "as a learning curve, preparation for the future, and not... a fissure in the Doctor's long life. A time before and a time after, when he no longer was the same man."
"You are the Doctor," she emphasised. "More than ever, in fact. You've changed, grown in larger ways. Yes, it wasn't possible without your... accident, let's say that; I'm lying, whatever."
She shook her head, sighing. She must have seen something in my expression.
"That's wasn't your fault, you know. Well... a little, a smidge. Kind of, yeah, but no, just - just listen to me," she said seriously. "You can't go on blaming yourself. Believe me, it doesn't help anyone." She had looked away. I realised that she was addressing herself. Her voice was quiet, as if whispering in a confession booth.
"I've lived through..."
She paused, pursing her lips, then said in the same small voice, offhandedly:
"It doesn't matter, you might even know of it already."
She turned towards me.
"You just..." It became hard for her to finish. "You just reacted badly, that's all."
She brightened.
"It's still early days for you. There's time to change."
She smiled widely.
"Focus on the positives, yeah?" she said enthusiastically. "You are brilliant, and the universe can't lose the Doctor, not over something as... slight as that."
There was a spasm and a scream. She gripped my hand, rocking. She rested her head upon my chest, looking me in the eyes. I was breathing fast, anxious, supporting her weight. She was tearful, masking her plead under a brave voice.
"You have to do it now," she said between painful breaths. "You know what to do. I won't be able... to hold it off much longer."
She choked, blind.
"I don't want to go..."
And she lay there in my arms. I laid the body gently on the TARDIS floor. She had already vouchsafed property of the watch to me. I was admittedly afraid that I would pursue my present course. I couldn't bear the thought that she would spend the rest of her life unaware of how special she was, how brilliant. An extraordinary mind, closed off forever. (She has not moved from the bench, only checking her watch. What time is it? It's been... ten minutes?)
For some reason, I think something like this has happened before. Not in my lifetime, though. Perhaps I am experiencing traces of her memories so long as I hold the watch. It is possible that her dormant consciousness is communicating with me. (I didn't know the full details of how the technology worked: it was a feature of the TARDIS I had never used before.)
I take my eyes off her, focusing upon the watch... There! A flash! It's gone. I saw... what did I see? There was a woman with red hair, coated in a shower of ash. I heard the sound of burning and dying, the fall of masonry, and time's livid flame, spurting. The eruption of Vesuvius, no! I - she - was walking away from the devastation. She wouldn't stop to help or rescue anyone. Her face was frozen, no different from the collapsing statues around her. A look of terrible pain, as if an old chasm had opened up and swallowed her whole. Her companion was begging, screaming. She wouldn't listen - to anything other than her own misery and guilt. The sky was a pitch-black panorama, torched by the fires of hell. The darkness was unlike anything seen by human eyes; she thought of a world without stars at all. She ignored the incessant cries of her companion, who stared at the sky with horror. Couldn't she understand that there was nothing she could do? It was history, in the making. For once, she couldn't interfere...
Jumping ahead - snow on London. The Dickensian city, smog and toil. Two women were talking in an underpass, where the TARDIS had materialised. I saw clearly that the white letters had worn away: P_L_CE_O. One of the women had black hair tied in a tight bun. She wore a dirty white dress with boots. Her clothes were designed for all purposes. She looked youngish, but her adventures had aged her significantly. There were scars across her cheek, where she had suffered burns, and her nails were chipped. From her neck hung a fob watch that was inscribed with initials: J.L. Her late husband, killed by merciless soldiers made of steel. She gradually accepted her husband's death with aplomb. He died a hero, saving her and their child, who had been separated from his mother for a short time. She thanked the Doctor for the gift of her knowledge and strength in averting a catastrophe, the destruction of the city. The Doctor pointed out that it wasn't without a price. The world had lost one of its greatest minds, corrupted by the malevolent influence of the metal men. A person who might have been a revolutionary, a visionary. The world became a little darker for the Doctor, with every death that could have been avoided. The woman inquired about the fate of the Doctor's companions. Some were deceased, others had left. The Doctor thought lamentably about the woman with red hair... A ripple effect, spreading - out from her. She felt like she was awakening from a deep sleep. For the first time, she understood how it really was...
There is nothing else. The memory ended before I could learn more, like film stock dissolving into flame and smoke. I find the memory frustratingly cryptic. I am unnerved, tensing. Is it my future also? I got the impression that she had lost more than she had gained; that it simply became too much for her. I could sympathise if the Chameleon Arch also enabled an escape from the past. If she returned... Of course, the creature would be freed, and the universe threatened by a Doctor under its control.
(I pocket the watch, returning my eyes to the scene. She is waiting for somebody to arrive, looking around her, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground.)
The regeneration couldn't be stopped (there were minutes left before it began). The only solution I can devise would be if the creature went back to me, transfered from her consciousness into mine, and that can only happen if the process is reversed in the same way. This would give us time to collaborate on another plan. I know how unlikely that is. Even if I could contact the creature telepathically it would not surrender what it had. I can only offer it a single boon: I fought the Valeyard, not her. That would perhaps strengthen it, giving us time while it could feed on the mental associations. At the back of my mind, I imagine that it has already exhausted that source. (I hadn't faced the real Valeyard, though, only a phantom of the Doctor yet to come. I dread the possibility - and it is just a possibility - of becoming the Valeyard one day.) What else can I do? I should leave. There is nothing here for me.
She was right. I would have done the same, a natural consequence of travelling with so many humans. Indeed, I dream sometimes about retiring and living amongst the human race, though in that scenario my memories are intact, so that I can renege on the decision at any time. I see myself as another man, a younger-looking man, who walks in the shadow of death. Whose death, I cannot say, but I am troubled greatly by his presence. There is the mark of the soldier around his eyes. He wears a brown suit with a bowtie. He is content in his new life, pretending to be like everyone else. He reads the paper, as he waits for the train; it embarks, heading through a tunnel. He broods. Occasionally he stirs from his trance - to check the time, to glance vacantly at the words on the page, or at his fellow commuters. He smiles insincerely at his reflection in the dark window, knowingly shattering the pretence of normalcy. There is a woman with red hair seated across from him, visible from an angle. He spots a wedding ring. The woman covers it with one hand, looking askew out of the window, her white face colouring ruddily. She leaves through an open magazine on her lap. Good Housekeeping, he reads the cover. The woman stares straight ahead, brushing long hair back over her ear, crossing her legs. She reminds him of someone he knew, long ago. Pained, he looks away.
My dreams aren't usually illogical or absurd. They reveal possibilities set in the future, the Doctors that I might yet become. In meditative or unconscious states what I thought later was just a dream turns out to be an insight into their lives, providing guidance for my own. Paths not to be taken, dangers to keep clear off, people to avoid; betrayals, love affairs, deaths. I have one recurring dream. It concerns a great war, a final crisis of the universe. It could be the Biblical Armageddon, or the War in Heaven. The vision is never lucid or stable, but always shifting and distorting, as if time was being rewritten over and over. A continuum of perpetual chaos, a war that has for its domain the vastness of eternity itself. I can scarcely believe such a battle is possible, unless it was fought amongst the Gods themselves - or beings that had usurped their power, and pride of place at the pinnacle of creation.
In the dream, I cannot always discern who I am supposed to be. Sometimes I see myself. I am older, with some silver hair, wearing a dark-blue coat with knee-high lace-trimmed boots. I have a broken rib or two. I stumble to scale a vantage point atop a hill, on a world with sulphur-and-brimstone skies. Milton's Pandemonium. Lakes of fire, and winged titans armoured in adamantine steel clashing with metal men in abysses of remorseless cold and emptiness. Blazing blue and green energy bolts firing through the endless solar night, the sky illuminated by blood-red fire. From afar, the storm of angels, and the unceasing mantra of the horde below. The angels wield spears of shimmering light, tearing up the sky, hurtling their artillery with lighting ferocity at the horde. The spears explode with such impact that I am thrown from my vantage point. I tumble headfirst to the depths, scraping hand and knee against stone and shrapnel. When I stand I am a new man, a younger man with short dark hair and long ears. There is the premonition of a young woman in his life. Like Penelope to Odysseus, she becomes the source of his power and faith. He is devotedly loyal to the vision, for it prognosticates brighter days; that the war is not forever, though it seems he has known no other life.
She made her choice - we made the choice, the only thing that could be done. She deserves privacy...
"Goodbye... Doctor."
The TARDIS engines roar.
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Next Time
The Infestation
A Christmas gift turns carnivorous and on her first Christmas since she met the Doctor, Robin Moon finds herself in a place she's never been before. Will she be able to save everyone on board the TARDIS? And how long will it be before Autumn's plan become's clear to the Doctor? Episode list: 1. Shattered Time 2. Run 3. Rebirth 4. The Doctor Dyad 5. The Infestation 6. On Air |