Everything Has its Time….
Disclaimer and authors note: everything familiar and the general situation belongs to the BBC. The rest is me! Inspired by vids on youtube, this is my version of events of the last battle of the time war. Strange that my first Doctor Who fanfic doesn't include my fave; Ten! Oneshot. Please r+r! Please note, even though I'm a Whovian, I don't know much about Romana's character history or Time War canon so please forgive any errors.
{The Time War has raged for centuries, although as it spans the forth dimension, it is unclear how many. Like the tentacles of a great sea creature, the horror and chaos of it has pulled many of the so-called higher races in, including the once-peaceful Time Lords. It has many sides, but most of them are positioned against the Daleks, the merciless, cyborg race that started it all.
The Time Lords have fought valiantly, and few more so than the Doctor, a pacifist at hearts, But now the Daleks have taken the war to Gallifrey and it becomes clear that this will be the final battle. But the Time Lords have a secret weapon….}
"Steady on, old Girl" the figure told the console of his TARDIS as she spun wildly through space. An angry spark from somewhere near the Helmic Regulator told him what she thought of that statement. In truth, the Doctor realised, it had been more to calm himself than her.
Gods, I hate this thought the part of his mind that wasn't focussed on flying the TARDIS around debris and weapons fire from other ships surrounding the amber orb of Gallifrey, that had been slowly laid waste to over recent weeks. His granddaughter, Susan came to mind. Last time he had seen her, in the few special moments they had spent together, her dark eyes, unchanged from her first regeneration even though she was in her forth, had still been full of hope. He tried to hold that hope in himself too, but hope for what? The end of the war would certainly be a start.
Another explosion rocked the TARDIS. Another Kisarian ship, from another peaceful race dragged into the black hole of war. Their benevolence was still apparent. No other race had come to Gallifrey's aid.
The monitor made a loud, incessant beeping. "Yes, I know, TARDIS, wait a minitue" he said, shaking his mop of wavy brown hair before realising this was not yet another alarm, it was a priority message from Gallifrey planetside, whitch could be from only one person.
"I'm a little busy, Romana" he said, strained.
"I'm quite aware of that, Doctor but you're going to have to fit me in, I'm afraid", she replied, her voice like steel. A tone that made the Doctor pay attention. She took a deep breath, the burden of her next order obviously weighing heavily on the President's mind. "I'm activating Protocol 42".
The Doctor felt his blood run cold "Surely it hasn't come to that? We can fight, there's still-"
"Hope? Come on Doctor, you know how hopeless it is as well as I do!"
"Its not-"
"LOOK AROUND YOU!" she shouted, "look at it!"
A tense silence hung in the console room for a few seconds. Suddenly the battle that had consumed the Doctor moments before felt very far away.
"Doctor, if there's one thing I learnt from travelling with you, to all those planets, the Earth that you love so much, it's that everything has its time and everything dies, including us. Some of us arrogantly believe we are gods. But we're people. People who have to make a choice. And I'm making it, for the good of the rest of the universe. How long do you think Earth would last against the Time War, for instance, for all their resourcefulness? I don't want to order you but I will if it comes to that…"
The moment the Doctor had been dreading had arrived. Protocol 42, the last solution, the destruction of Gallifrey and the surrounding ships, including the entire Dalek race. "Do we have a right?" he asked, half thinking, half whispering "to commit a double genocide?"
"Probably not, but we do have a duty to it"
The Doctor felt time stop around him, looking out of the viewscreen at the battle. His brain slowly came to agree with his old friend everything has its time…
"I'm so sorry you had to be the one Doctor" she said, more gently.
"No, quite right, old friend" he said "start the sequence"
Nothing more seemed to need saying, one look was enough. The Doctor took one final look at his planet, ignoring the countdown, like an incessant cliché on the other screen where Romana's face had been. The planet he had grown up on, run away from in this very stolen ship to see the universe, been put on trial by and finally had fought for, hanging there, accepting its coming death. It was deeply strange, how he wanted so much to cling on the home and people who he had wanted to run from as a younger man, in another life, who, at times hadn't treated him very well, thinking of him as by turns an eccentric and a dangerous criminal. His hearts went out to his family, especially Susan, who he hoped was at peace. He wondered, too, about the Master. Where had Koschi gone? He would have liked to make peace with his old friend-turned-enemy before the end. I'm certainly getting old he decided and now it's the end. "Very well, TARDIS, shall we…?" he asked his ship sadly, his throat tight and depressed the correct button.
The universe seemed to convulse. The Doctor had no time nor space to absorb the sheer enormity of Gallifrey's destruction. The extinction of two great races and him the cause of it all. The Doctor felt his hearts quicken as the regeneration cycle started. The TARDIS doors were thrown open by Gallifrey's death throes and the Doctor barely had time to think dear Gods, what have I done? Before passing out of consciousness…
The Doctor opened his eyes, new eyes, he realised. He tried to remember why he felt so drained.
Then the enormity came crashing down on him. His home and people were gone. He dragged himself onto a chair in the TARDIS's ruined console room, head in his hands and cried. "I wasn't supposed to survive!" he shouted at the ceiling some time later in a new, harsher voice. He also seemed to have developed a regional accent that amused him despite himself. "Well, just you and me" he said to his ship "were the only ones left…".
He sat for several moments, taking in his situation. "Right, onwards" he decided at last.
{Exactly five years later in the Doctor's life…}
The Doctor gripped the cringing girl's hand, she turned towards him, myriad emotions passing over her pretty face as her blonde hair whipped round it. He was struck how little of the expression was fear. "Run!" he said with a half smile and pulled her away from the advancing autons. They sprinted down the corridor and descended the lift shaft. He pushed her out of the door, chatting inanely. "…never mind me, though, you go home and have your fish and chips. What's your name?"
"Rose"
"Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!"
{And they kept on running. The Doctor was given something to run for…}