We Don't Walk Away

by VeritatemInVerbum

"We don't walk away." The Doctor once said that was the most important thing to know about traveling with him. No matter how great the danger, he could never walk away from the suffering of others. But when secrets are revealed which could change everything, can he hold to the ideals that have made him who he is? T for violence, suspense, death, and mild language.

1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. I don't claim to. I seek no profit.

"She just keeps repeating herself, from the looks of it. One word. The same word, over and over. 'Doctor'."

"Doctor?" a strange man asked, appearing in the doorway. He flashed a rather impressive set of credentials nonchalantly and leaned over Frank's shoulder to look at the screen.

"I figure she must have died in some kind of hospital," he said.

"She didn't."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm the Doctor. And she isn't dead."

"Hang on, what'd you mean 'she's not dead.' Yeah she is. It's in the footage. Twelfth minute of the twenty-ninth hour of the sixty first day of the fifth and final month of their seven-hundredth recorded year of the third magnetic cycle. Clara Oswald, serial number 01090241 transitions from semi-comatose to completely and officially deceased."

"Ah, well, yes, but she still might not be dead."

"But she is."

"But she doesn't have to be."

"How–"

"Listen, do see that blue box over there?"

"Y-yeah. . ."

"Right, well that's not just a police box. It's something different entirely. It's a TARDIS, and it's a lot more of an antique than you realize. It's one of only two of its kind in existence. And you know what?"

"What?" Frank's expression was now clearly beyond confused, and more than a little skeptical.

"Not twenty-four hours ago, I thought it was the only one in the universe. That just shows you how quickly everything you know can be rewritten." The man in the bow tie snapped his fingers here for emphasis.

"But I saw her die!" Frank insisted, choosing to focus on something he could more easily grasp.

"Haven't you been listening? Time can be rewritten. And if that's true, and I have anything to say about it, then she's no more dead than I am human, or that is a telephone box. Listen, uh. . ."

"Frank." By this point, Frank just stood there, dumbfounded, his eyes unblinkingly locked with the Doctor's.

"Listen, Frank," the Doctor's voice was now at its most urgent, "There's one thing you need to know. It's not that I'm an alien from Gallifrey; it isn't that this planet is about to explode; it isn't even that everything you know about the universe is completely inaccurate. If there's one thing, just one thing, you need get clear in your head right now it's that I don't walk away!"

With that he dashed off to the police box, placing his hand on the door before Frank called to him, and he froze.

"Aren't you walking away right now?"

"No," he said, glancing back with a manic smirk. "I'm running. Out of the shadow."

With that, he pushed the door open and rushed into the box. Within, Frank seemed to see the impossible. An entire room concealed within the phone box.

He followed the Doctor in and stood gaping as the madman practically flew around the room, flicking buttons and switches.

"Ah, Frank, excellent. Come along for the ride, have you. Close the door behind you, then."

"But- but it's- it's,"

"Frank, the door, if you please."

"Bloody thing's bigger on the inside!"

The Doctor, rolling his eyes in exasperation, shoved past Frank and pulled the door closed as the TARDIS began to shake.

"What is it?" Franks demanded.

"The best ship in the universe," the Doctor said, well dashing around to console to pull some lever and then reaching over to press a distant button. "Well, I have a friend who might disagree with that."

"A ship. Like a space ship? That little box is a space ship?"

"And a time machine."

"Space ship. And time machine. And it's bigger on the inside."

"Yep."

"How much bigger?"

"Hm. . . Virtually infinite. Did I mention it's alive?"

"I think I need to sit down."

"There's a comfy chair over there, help yourself. No, wait, don't help yourself; don't sit down. We're in an emergency." With that, the Doctor returned to the doors and pulled them both open, stepping out into the very prison cell that been displayed on the recovered footage.

"We're there, aren't we?" Frank asked. "Actually there, thousands of years ago, in the room where she . . . appeared to die."

The Doctor nodded silently, approaching the dimly corner were a familiar figure lay on a small, plain bed. The Doctor moved some of her dark hair from her face and muttered something Frank couldn't hear before sitting down next to the sleeping woman.

"So what do we do?"

The Doctor hung his head and let out a small sigh.

"We wait."