Title: Fall of a Time Lord
Authors: Gillian
Taylor
Rating: PG
Characters: Eighth Doctor,
Ninth Doctor
Summary: I was there at the fall of
Arcadia. Some day I might even come to terms with that. - Tenth
Doctor, Doomsday
Spoilers: None, really
Disclaimer:
Don't own them. I just like playing with them...a lot.
Archive:
Sure, just let me know.
A/N: Thanks, as always, to my fantastic beta WMR. This was written for Dave7 because he asked for Nine in the War.
Fall of a Time Lord
by Gillian Taylor
There's something relaxing about Arcadia, he thinks. Something beautiful, peaceful. Something that everywhere else in the universe isn't.
He's not sorry that he let the Daleks live all those years ago. Not sorry that he didn't destroy them before they became a galactic menace. He knows that the others blame him – the ones who know. Even Romana, though she's always been good at hiding her emotions.
He knows that if he had committed genocide, he'd lose the most fundamental piece of himself. The one piece that makes him the Doctor rather than anyone else.
The universe is at war and he could've stopped it before it began. That's the curse of the Time Lords, he knows.
But really, that particular curse belongs to him.
His conscience.
His fingers are marred with cuts, his body aching as he stumbles into the TARDIS. He just needs to reach the controls, to reach the one place he knows is safe. The last place the Daleks will find him.
It takes seconds to set the controls as the slow burn of regeneration starts to claim him. They'll know what to do when he reaches Arcadia. They always know what to do, except when they don't.
His laughter is hoarse, echoing through the cavernous console room. He thought that he'd never see this day, the day when even the Time Lords went to war. He was at the front lines and moved past them. He destroyed the Black Dalek and he dared consider the what-ifs.
War isn't pretty, it isn't kind. It just kills. There were too many deaths today, too many final deaths. Too many young Gallifreyan lives cut short by Dalek bolts. What if he had destroyed the Daleks? What if he had obeyed?
"I'm the Doctor," he tells himself, as though that is a valid reason, just before he doubles over in agony.
What he doesn't know is when that answer became such a lie.
It's strange, he thinks, as he prepares the final battle. He never thought of himself as a warrior, a killer. This was what regeneration had wrought, he decides. His last incarnation was too kind-hearted for this.
This time they'll take the war to the Daleks. No other planets will fall. He'll see to it himself.
This is, after all, his fault. If he'd just… No. He'd made his choice a long time ago. He has to deal with the consequences.
Ace hands him his sonic screwdriver, a sad smile on her face. Of all his companions, all his friends, she knows what this moment means. He wishes that she hadn't chosen to fight, to join the Time Lords. But she knew that without help, even the Time Lords will fail.
That's why this mission is so important.
But it doesn't make the goodbyes any easier.
"Leather suits you, Professor," Ace – no, Dorothee – says, fingering his leather jacket. "Just do me a favour?" She pulls him into a strong embrace and, for the briefest of moments, he lets his eyes close as he savours the comfort. "Come back."
That's one promise he knows he can't keep, so he says nothing at all.
Arcadia burns.
The image is seared into his mind, visible every time he blinks his eyes. The planet, that beautiful, peaceful, fantastic planet is gone. Destroyed in an instant by a Dalek weapon. That was where their training grounds were, that was where their new recruits were, that was where Ace used to be.
All gone now.
He grips the console tightly, his knuckles turning white from the effort. It'd been a ploy, a bloody ploy. Their master plan, once so bullet-proof, now shown for the farce that it was. They'd been played by masters. The Daleks have learned.
That scares him. Terrifies him, really. They're thinking now, imagining. He doesn't know how this is possible, but they are. No more military precision, now it's guerrilla attacks and, with Arcadia's fall, he knows where they're going next.
Gallifrey.
No choice.
The High Council's plan is the only thing left. Even the trans-temporal shields are failing. Gallifrey is, for the first time in millennia, a part of time itself. The mighty Bow-ships, once created to fight the vampires, can't withstand the Dalek onslaught. Every one of the Dalek Emperor's ships is here.
He knows what they want. They want Gallifrey. They want the Matrix. They want the Eye.
He can do that. Give them the Eye; let them see Omega's triumph first hand. He can give it to them. It's simple enough. One press of a button and it'll be done.
But does he have that right? Once, he refused to commit genocide, insisting that it was wrong. This time he knows what will happen if the Eye is unleashed.
This is the ultimate kamikaze action. He can kill them all to save the universe from the blight of the Daleks. He can wipe their filth from the face of the universe. He can do that. He can stop this.
His fault. Only right that he be the one to sort it.
"Do it!" Romana's command is filtered through the TARDIS's communications system, broken by interference. "Now!"
He presses the button and unleashes Hell.
The TARDIS hovers in the darkness of space, surrounded by the remains of the place where everything began.
It's only right that it ends here, he supposes. In his mind's eye, Arcadia and Gallifrey burn.
He waits for the burn to claim him too.
THE END