Chapter 1
Sullivan peeled off his sweat soaked gloves and dumped them into the recycler. Everything on Skaro was recycled. He'd learnt that and many other things quickly.
He shakily removed the bloodied gown he was wearing that covered up his Medical Elite clothing and dumped it into another nearby bin.
He was used the the shaking, he'd been on another 30 hour work period. Saving lives. Kaled lives in this never ending war against the Thals.
Moving from the windowless room to a windowless corridor he passed some bodies on stretchers being supervised by one of the nurses.
"More for the harvesting Tarak old chap?" He asked, although he wasn't very interested. They were still living and breathing Kaleds.
"Yes Healer Elite Sullivan." He said snapping to attention using Sullivan's full title.
Tarak had been one of the potential harvesting candidates, except he had higher than expected intelligence. Higher than expected for a soldier.
Sullivan had interjected in the harvesting process. Something he had wished to do many other times since he had arrived here.
Sullivan nodded, he didn't have anything further to say. "Carry on Tarak," he paused, thinking to say more and then decided he just couldn't.
He walked without thinking out of the Medical Elite building that he worked within on the edge of the dome to the sleeping space he had within the nearby building.
As a Medical Elite he was given some modicum of space within the building, but even what he had; two rooms space for sleeping and whatever else was luxury compared to some.
Sullivan collapsed onto the bed within the sleeping space, passing out from sheer exhaustion as he had done almost every day.
Almost every day working and living in a war zone.
Living with the Kaleds.
Living on Skaro.
-/ - \\-
Sullivan woke, somewhat rested, to hear Valyes moving around their 'flat' as Sullivan sometimes thought of it as.
It was hardly even as luxurious as that. There wasn't even anything like a kitchenette. Just somewhere that cold water came out of. There was no need for an Elite such as him to be concerned about food, all that and very little more was provided by the Medical Elite.
In here in his sleeping space he had access to some foods that others in the dome did not. Food he could choose to eat, when he wished. Nutrient bars and a fruit concentrate drink. Luxuries that most of the population did not have access to. Their food was gained in the food halls across the dome.
He did have access to bathing facilities with what might called hot water. Occasionally.
"You shouldn't be up and moving Valyes." Sullivan said pushing himself up off the bed and walking out.
Valyes coughed. His 'burns' had started to get worse. His cough had been with him since he'd first encountered him.
3 years ago.
-/ - \\-
They'd all been standing around those blasted transmat balls.
On Earth.
Earth of the future, after the solar flares.
How he wished he was back there. Even with that Sontaran and the Earth ruined.
How he wished he was back on Nerva.
How he wished...
-/ - \\-
"I won't ask Valyes," Sullivan said.
"Good. Sullivan." That was how their conversations went.
Valyes had regenerated 3 times since he'd met him. Each time was worse.
"At least you're conscious." Sullivan said as he ripped open a nutrient bar.
Valyes coughed or maybe he laughed. There was no blood present. That was something to be counted for.
Sullivan had become quite knowledgable. Valyes' needed someone to assist him. Some of the time.
"Yes. Sullivan. Conscious. Such few pleasures to be had. Unconsciousness comes so rarely, rare. Still a respite." He spat something into the sink.
Sullivan didn't bother to look, not at whatever was in the sink or at the crippled man. Time Lord.
This, their conversation so far was a good day.
-/ - \\-
He'd arrived on what he knew now to be Skaro in a rush of pain and light and found the Time Lord he now knew as Valyes in pain, burnt and scarred by weapons unknown to him.
He'd not learnt the full extent of who Valyes was and why both he and Sullivan were here until they had integrated themselves into Kaled society.
That had been easier enough. The Time Ring. This thing that could grow to the size of a bracelet or the size of a finger ring. It allowed Valyes along with some other things to insert himself and Sullivan into the lives of the Kaleds.
It was fortunate that Sullivan had some useful skills, Valyes had said. So few of the Doctor's companions did.
-/ - \\-
Sullivan exhaled, chewing the nutrient bar in thought. "Do you need anything Valyes?"
Valyes looked at him, his face blackened and scarred; temporal weapons damage. Not even regeneration helped.
Valyes shook his head in short bursts. Sullivan was aware that even doing that was painful for the injured Time Lord. Although Sullivan wasn't sure the extent of the pain. Few pain modifiers he and the Kaleds had access to could work on a Time Lord.
None could kill a Time Lord.
"No, Sullivan. I am..." He paused. "Feeling better," he paused again and looked at Sullivan. "I fear that means another rejuvenation is pending."
Sullivan nodded. 'Rejuvenation' or Regeneration. Valyes had called them different things in his different bodies. The different faces he wore after such events. The men he'd been so far.
This one had been a little more forthcoming than the first Valyes he had known.
It had been three different incarnations of Valyes and more than two years before Sullivan pieced together everything of how he came to be here.
Valyes at first had not trusted him.
A mere human.
Especially now, one working with the Time Lord's enemy. Working and saving the Kaled's lives.
-/ - \\-
He remembered the smoke, the fire, the guns, the gas. The Wastelands.
That was what he remembered upon arriving on Skaro.
Peripherally he remembered getting through the minefield and Valyes doing something to the guards who'd let them into the dome.
Valyes he now knew had been in immense pain during all of that.
For Sullivan it remained something of a blur. Something he'd walled up in his mind.
Some of it, the techniques for coping, for keeping his mind sorted, Valyes, just not the first one he had known had taught him.
-/ - \\-
The Time Lords were at war with the Daleks.
That was a word Sarah had said, something she'd encountered.
Something evil.
Sullivan didn't often admit it to Valyes.
But he felt both sides of this war were evil.
The Thals were just as bad as the Kaleds.
They both had nasty genetic politics at play.
Davros and the Scientific Elite definitely had that.
Davros was part of why he was here. Why both he and Valyes were here.
The Time Lords were at war with the Daleks in the future.
Valyes had been tasked with disrupting them somehow.
He had decided, with his leader's blessing, or at least that's what Sullivan had gathered, to intercept the Doctor and send him on a path to disrupt the Daleks' development or even avert their creation.
But something had gone wrong.
Valyes and whoever he was working with had intercepted the Transmat beam on Earth. Valyes had also been en-route to Skaro. But he'd been hit with some sort of temporal weapon by the Daleks.
Valyes and Sullivan had been shoved out of the beam here and now.
The Doctor and Sarah would have continued on.
Something about the Doctor and Sarah's "biodata" being more in sync. Or something about Sarah having travelled more in time meaning she was more protected.
Valyes had been closest to the weapons hit.
Sullivan had just been the unlucky chap in the middle.
The worst thing was Valyes couldn't tell him how far or how long the Doctor could turn up. He'd said when they'd first arrived that it'd be less than 6 months.
After his second regeneration he'd said the figure was more likely less than 5 years.
-/ - \\-
Finishing the nutrient bar he looked at the Time Lord. "Will you still be you when I return?"
Valyes laughed a short bark, coughing as he did so. "Probably."
Sullivan gave the Time Lord a smile. "Good. I'd miss our chats."
-/ - \\-
Only 20 hours.
Sullivan thought to himself as he made his way back to his sleeping space.
There was blood on the pot marked floor. At one point it had been white, probably, from what he'd seen within other spaces it was all the same. These medical sleeping spaces had been like the other medical buildings, white with purple highlights. But that was over 500 years ago. Still a long time into the war.
"Sullivan." Valyes croaked.
Sullivan rushed in to find Valyes had deteriorated a lot. He was weeping blood and other fluids from everywhere.
Sullivan didn't bother to rush, to get anything. He just took Valyes' bloody hand in his.
The last time had been bad.
The first time Valyes had yelled at him.
Humans couldn't withstand being near a Time Lord when they regenerated.
The second time he had stood by his bed, Sullivan had felt the energy wash over him. It had been painful, it felt like the energy had washed and ripped through him and then it abated and a new man, skill battle scarred was sitting on the bed beside him.
The last time he had sat with him and again, he had felt the energy rip through his body.
"It changes you. Being exposed to a Time Lord regenerating Sullivan." Valyes croaked, but didn't try to force his hand out of Sullivan's soft grip.
"I've already changed, you said, wearing this Time Ring for so long." Sullivan said. "I wish sometimes we could just override it and leave."
Valyes coughed. Sullivan realised it was a laugh. "And leave your beloved Sarah Jane Smith and the Doctor here?"
"If they arrive." Sullivan commented darkly. Valyes had assured him the Transmat beam would protect them and they'd arrive when and where they were meant to. It was the two of them that were dispensable.
"They will, their biodata will unlock the time travel facility of the Time-" He coughed and he gripped Sullivan's hand.
Light started to envelope Valyes' body as the changes, the rejuvenation, the regeneration of the Time Lord's body began. Rewriting and changing him.
Then it was over and a new face, a new man was lying on the bed.
Still scarred, even more so than he had been previously.
With, if Sullivan understood it even less life than the last.
That was the curse of the weapon the Daleks had used on the Time Lords.
Sullivan gathered if Valyes survived this regeneration his next few would come in the coming months, if he was lucky.
The light and energy died down and Valyes let go of Sullivan's hand.
Sullivan looked down at it, the blood was left on his hand but on Valyes he had been restored to some semblance of health.
Sullivan made to get up when Valyes spoke.
"Sullivan. Harry." He began in a new voice, a new tone. "Stay, please." He said haltingly. "I want you here." He said, his voice full of worry, maybe even terror.
-/ - \\-
6 months.
That's what Valyes had said to him. When he'd been on his tenth regeneration.
That's what he estimated he had to live.
Sullivan looked through the diary Valyes had left him. As a member of the CIA, the Celestial Intervention Agency, no one was meant to see this dimensionally transcendental book.
So much had changed in 6 months.
Sullivan had discovered from Valyes that he'd changed.
-/ - \\-
"You've been in far too close contact Sullivan when I've regenerated." Valyes was sitting up against the bed eating a nutrient bar. He was also far more talkative that his previous life.
"You've said that before Valyes old thing. I don't know what that means." Sullivan paused. Valyes looked at him expectantly. "I've felt some pain. But..."
"It's nothing to serving with the Kaleds." Valyes said.
Sullivan shook his head. "They're both bad," Sullivan sighed. "I can't help have some compassion for the Kaleds." Valyes stared at him. "They have been under constant attack for a 1000 years. Whoever started the fight." Sullivan paused. "I see the damage it's been doing," he said. "And the choices made," he finished thinking on his own choices that he'd been forced to make.
Organ transplants from those deemed to be 'recycled', too injured or beyond the rehabilitation facilities to keep alive. Transplants into those in the Medical or Scientific elites. All able bodied Kaleds were part of the military or those associated with it. Anyone else worked to keep Kaled society going and alive.
"You will have changed Sullivan. Your biodata will have warped by exposure to a Time Lord's..." he trailed off. "Changes."
-/ - \\-
Sullivan flipped open the diary. Most of the entries were Valyes' in Gallifreyan. Some of it was in English and some was a mix of the two. His new found capabilities, bequeathed to him by Valyes.
Valyes had been preparing him, Sullivan knew that, and readying him for what he wanted him to do.
Valyes had indicated that going beyond his 12 regeneration would not just end his life in the most excruciating pain but do something destructive here to the timelines and the physical location.
Sullivan had thought surely that was good?
He'd asked why he couldn't go and kill Davros? If he was the man who created the Daleks and began all this.
According to Valyes it couldn't be that way.
There were 'complexities to the web of time'. It had to be the Doctor because he was the Doctor.
He was the one who might be able to change things.
"It is one of the things you should know Sullivan. Going forth into the future." Valyes had said.
Sullivan wrote the entry in carefully and slowly, in Gallifreyan. It was difficult, though not as difficult as it should have been.
Valyes had indicated he had some vestiges of a Time Lord called Salyavin within him. Whoever that was, it seemed to amuse him.
Finishing the entry he stood up and walked into the other room where Valyes lay, waiting reading a report that Sullivan had from the Medical Elite.
"Ah, Sullivan." He said as brightly as he could. Valyes' whole face was blackened like he'd been burnt with something high intensity.
Sullivan smiled weakly.
"Have you decided?" Valyes pressed.
Sullivan took his seat opposite the bed. "You leave me with an terrible choice old chap."
"I am old." Valyes said. "But a Time Lord." He coughed, cringing.
Sullivan told Valyes that he would do it. Do what Valyes requested.
The relief on the man's face, his whole body was evident.
Sullivan wasn't sure how much pain he was in, but when he'd...touched minds or whatever it was he'd dickied around with, he'd felt something and it made him shudder to think about.
-/ - \\-
Sullivan understood what Valyes was asking him to do.
But he knew he was suffering and in immense pain.
But this wasn't something he'd ever been prepared to do.
He'd never been prepared to travel in time either.
Or be stuck in a war zone.
But this.
To take a life.
A mercy killing.
This...
"Sullivan. Thank you. My friend." Valyes said. He was bleeding internally. The next regeneration could be his last and that might be fatal for everyone.
Sullivan punched out hard.
There was a nerve cluster under a Time Lord's shoulder. It would render him unconscious for the next part.
He'd kept it hidden and rolled up.
Two spikes to stab into the Time Lord's two hearts. It would prevent regeneration.
Valyes had instructed him exactly how to do it, to remove them and to trigger a 'small amount of regenerative energy'. Enough to vaporise his body.
None of the Kaleds could find his body. That would cause unimaginable damage to the timelines.
-/
When it was done and there was nothing but blackened ash left Sullivan sank to the floor and sobbed.
He hadn't done so since his first months arriving on Skaro.
Now, the only man who knew the truth, the only individual he could speak openly and honestly with was dead and gone.
Sullivan didn't know how long he sat sobbing and wishing for a drink.
-/
A/N:
Valyes, the Time Lord here is the Time Lord dressed all in black who appears at the start of Genesis of the Daleks.
Thanks for reading.
