Thick snow blankets the Warwickshire ground, and carpets the rooftops of the buildings that line the street, in a thick blanket. Officially, records will show that this time was hot, warm, a time of drought – the man in the snow has seen to that. But for one week, one night, one Christmas night, it is snowy in Stratford-upon-Avon. A gift long overdue. Nobody walks through it, not at this time of night, not with the new Puritan officials cracking down on the sins and vices of the primitive peasantry. Not when only a few days before there were mutterings of animals dying of thirst. The superstitious – and there are many of them – believe it is God punishing them for various transgressions, real or imagined.
Nobody walks through this strange snow. Except for one man. Nobody opens their windows to watch him as he passes, shoes leaving shallow footprints in the snow, but an observer would say he looked young, deceptively so, and his clothes are strange – a purple jacket, a bow tie, and sitting on his head like a frog on a lilly, a fez. He pauses, looking around at the houses, getting his bearings – his memory is good, but even his needs refreshing occasionally. Hence the large map he has stretched out, "borrowed" from a tourist show. He's not as young as he once was. He counts the houses, noting the shape of the street and how many others turn off from it. And then, rolling his eyes at his own carelessness, he remembers to look for a street sign.
Chapel Lane. And only a little further down the unpaved lane, was Chapel Street. And a large, well-to-do house that the man knows is called New Place.
He smiles to himself. It's been a long time since he saw the occupant of the house, and it's been a long time since its occupant saw him. The two things are not always synonymous.
Gone is the long coat, the suit, the tie. Gone are the sideburns and the glasses, the spiky hair, and the wide eyes. But this is still the same man. All those fears, all those desperate fears of a kind of death, and still the Ship of Theseus has sailed through the maelstrom. Not unscathed, but...different.
The Doctor raises a hand to New Place's door to knock, and is surprised as it is opened by a woman who scowls at him.
"Aye? And what will you be wantin', then?" she asked, taking in the oddity on her doorstep.
"Hello, I'm the-"
"The Doctor, aye, I know who you be," she growls. "Will said ye'd come. You've picked a hell of a time." The door widened, and she beckoned the man in.
The Doctor frowns, stared for a second at the watch on his wrist, and grimaced. "Ah, sorry about that. I seem to have a thing about Christmases – the only time I have them is by accident. Just popped round for a visit, hope it's not too much trouble, won't stay too long."
Anne leads the Doctor into the house. Surreptitiously, he runs a wideband scan with his sonic screwdriver, hoping she doesn't notice the muffled buzzing from his jacket pocket. To his relief, he doesn't detect anything – he has been very careful to pick a time when absolutely nothing happens. No Sycorax, no Racnoss, no falling spaceships or Cybermen or weather control devices. Warwickshire, December 24th, 1615 – maybe the quietest time he's ever visited.
"Will, you've another visitor," she announces. To the Doctor, she adds. threateningly, "and don't exhaust him. 'Tis bad enough his friends from the theatre keep him up at all hours. He's not well."
"Madam," the Doctor said, reassuringly – or, at least, in an attempt at reassuring, "that is the very last thing I want to do."
Anne frowns as she leaves him, but the Doctor simply smiles unabashedly – it always works. She leaves, evidently still uneasy. And his smile becomes genuine as a man, in his early fifties and balding on top, enters the foyer and stops, eyes wide as the Doctor grinned widely, spreading his arms wide.
""Is this a ghost I see before me?"" Will says, returning the grin and grabbing him in a crushing bear hug.
"Misquoting yourself? You have gotten old! Good to see you!"
The former Bard releases him, laughing. "I wondered how long it would take, dear friend! Come, come! Take a seat by the hearth! I have some small business to attend to, but then we have much to speak of!"
The Doctor coughed, still getting his wind back, but gasped out, "Sorry about the delay. Time streams, non-interference policies, it was hard enough to keep it all straight when the Time Lords had to deal with it, and now it's hard to find any moment you can't alter."
He was guided to the house's He took a seat by the roaring fire, making a show of warming his hands. "I did look in on you a couple of times, though-"
Shakespeare nodded. "I thought I saw you. The night the Globe burned down, and again when we staged Cardenio."
"Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me," the Doctor said, pre-emptively. "Not much to do with – okay, so I was tracking down a rogue Tamandran Hellhound, it was either that or King James has to wear a furry coat and eat rare steaks during a full moon."
Shakespeare chuckled. "I wondered why you didn't stop to send your greetings. I put it down to ill manners."
The Doctor affected mock hurt. "Shakespeare, if there is anything I am, it's polite," he blatantly lied. Leaning forward and steepling his fingers together thoughtfully, he asked, "How'd you know it was me?"
Shakespeare smiled. ""How can a man so young have eyes so old?" I said that to you once, so many years ago. It wasn't hard to work out. A stranger, dressed in strange attire, knocking on my door in the middle of the night?"
"Okay. I may be polite, but I'll admit to a lapse in subtlety."
"The clothes look as…unusual as ever. The hat is a nice touch."
"Thank you," the Doctor said, lifting the fez politely. "I got it from Suleiman the Great."
Shakespeare looked into the fireplace thoughtfully. "Might I ask how it happened?"
"Well there was a Sontaran fleet and-"
"I meant the change."
The Doctor sighed, knowing exactly what it meant. "Badly. You know how sometimes the hero can save the princess, slay the dragon, and get the kingdom and live happily ever after? I'm not a hero, and if I were, I wouldn't be that kind. But, you know, life goes on. Of a sort."
Shakespeare nodded at the Doctor, smiling wryly. "And how many years have passed you by now?"
"Since we last met? About, oh…three hundred."
Shakespeare shook his head. "And how old does that make you now?"
"Oh, about twelve hundred!" the Doctor said easily enough.
Shakespeare shook his head. "You're not fooling anyone, you know. Even by whatever standards you Time Lords have, you must have been some ancient thing even when I first met you. And yet you are blessed with youth, while my time dwindles each year."
The Doctor blinked. "You want the honest truth?" he asked. "Time travel is a tricky business. It's hard enough getting events in the right order, nevermind remembering when they happened. You lose track after a while. Maybe that's why I bring people along?"
"Like Martha?"
He paused for a moment, before he said, "You haven't asked the question."
Shakespeare frowned. "Which question? There are so many!"
"Why I didn't bring you along with me."
He shrugged. "I just assumed that it was not meant to be."
The Doctor shrugged. "I could have, you know. Turns out – and you have no idea how much of a shock it was – you weren't a fixed point after all. If you'd suddenly dropped out of the world, history would have bent to compensate. Suddenly the rather unpleasant Earl of Oxford discovers he has a creative streak. Or Francis Bacon turns his hand to playwriting. Christopher Marlowe turns up alive in France, sending his work back in secret for some reason that eludes me. Or a half dozen others are ready to step in, fill your extremely large historical shoes. And the legacy, and the name attached to it, would go on."
Will was silent a moment. "A "but" sits atop your tongue…"
The Doctor smiled. "Call it vanity, but maybe I couldn't bear to see those pretenders share a part of your greatness. Bacon's a good enough sort, but his legacy will be remembered for other things, just as important. Oxford was a misogynist amateur at best. And I think you of all people would have had strong words to say if Chris Marlowe took your name for his own."
"Too bloody right," Will muttered.
"Elizabeth, she was a fixed point, something I couldn't change even if I'd wanted to. But you…well, let's say I wanted to make sure the legacy you leave was well earned. You know, there's a planet out there that's a library. An entire planet. And about a quarter of the shelves are prints of your works, new editions and republications, reinterpretations, essays about your life, some nutters insisting you didn't exist. Fascinating stuff. Recordings of a hundred thousand performances. I didn't want to take that away from you."
Will nodded in gratitude.
"So…how's your life been?"
"Oh, good, good. I'm retired now. All's Well That Ends Well was my last play. I thought, some days, of penning one more, one last play for history to puzzle over. An ancient man wandering the worlds, righting wrongs and protecting the small. But somehow there was always something else to do. My daughters are married. My oldest to a doctor, called John," he said, smiling knowingly.
"Good name, John," the Doctor said. "And your youngest?"
"She married too. A tavern-keeper called Thomas Quinley." He growled the name out.
"You want to watch out for him," the Doctor warned darkly.
"I've adjusted my will accordingly."
The two old friends sat there, in momentary silence, which was broken by the owner of the house.
"So when does it happen?"
"When does what happen?" the Doctor asked, nonplussed.
"My death."
The Doctor gaped, and Shakespeare smiled wryly. "This is what it is, is it not? One last visit at the end of my life, a little bit of nostalgia, some words of comfort?"
The silence was answer enough.
"You don't need to say anything, Doctor. I've lived an…interesting life. Straddled the boundaries between two eras, seen things I'd never thought possible. And from the sounds of it, I leave a respectable enough legacy. And I have my two girls married and secure, hopefully to lead good enough lives of their own. I'm fairly happy."
The Doctor smiled warmly at him. "Oh, you've got a bit of time left. Enough for a comfortable retirement, ol' Shaky. But before you do, there's one question everyone's going to ask, and I intend to get an answer. Something to lord over them. Historians have always puzzled over the bed. What's the deal, eh?"
Will whispered in his ear. And the Last of the Time Lords, the Oncoming Storm, turned bright pink as Shakespeare's laughter echoed loudly through his own house, and his wife clipped him behind the ear with a wooden spoon.
Well, this was a bit different.
The streets of New York were just like he remembered them from last time, when he'd brought Martha Jones to see the Statue of Liberty. And then there had been that nasty bit of business with the Daleks and the Central Park homeless and the Empire State Building…frankly, he wondered whether even the Daleks tried to forget that whole business themselves. Half-Dalek tentacle hybrids and zombie human/Dalek hybrids, all a bit Frankenstein if you asked him. And he still had trouble figuring out what the pig-men were for exactly.
That was sixteen years ago, linearly speaking. Nonlinearly it might as well be a century. Somewhere out there, Lazlo and Tallulah might still be around, and Frank might have found work and a good life. He wished he had time to go looking, but considering his track record, they probably wouldn't thank him. Strictly speaking, he shouldn't be here at all. Not temporally – the shattering of the timelines his older self had warned of hasn't happened yet, a complicated temporal event triggered by a monumental series of paradoxes triggered by Weeping Angels. That isn't one of the memories that will fade, he knows – he'll remember that he shouldn't be able to travel to that time and place. And he'll feel a bit apprehensive about taking his other friends there. But he'll assume he can save the day, like he always can.
He won't. Because he can't always be right.
But he can have at least one small consolation prize.
The Doctor raised a hand and rapped out a brief knock, then stepped back from the door, taking care not to be too close to the steps. New York stoops…you could break your neck on-
"Right you kids, I've warned you!"
The Doctor nearly lost his balance in surprise as a hose sprayed past him. He leaned his impossibly skinny body out of the way, practically climbing on top of the stoop.
A male voice from inside called out, "Who is it this time?"
A young woman peered out, frowning at him. Red hair, pale skin, and large round glasses that don't look like they belong on her face.
"Sorry, we've been getting a real bunch of hooligans lately."
"Well, New York in the forties, what are you going to do?" He nodded at the hose. "Could you turn it off, by the way? Janis Joplin would kill me if I ruined this coat."
"I bet she would," she said, still frowning, like she was trying to fit an odd-shaped puzzle piece. "Sorry about that. Figure it'd scare 'em off."
"Oh, I bet it would! And then when you hit the next heat wave, you'll get people practically knocking on the door!"
The male voice called out again, "Who is it Amy?"
"I dunno yet," Amy Williams nee Pond growled back, which made the Doctor grin. "I didn't catch his name while I was trying not to soak him for nothing."
"You still haven't by the way," he pointed out. "It's okay, really. Better than setting the dog on them."
"Well, that was the idea. And you still haven't introduced yourself."
"So I haven't. I'm the Doctor."
There was a moment of shocked silence as Amy dropped the hose, and there was a loud crack from somewhere within the house as her husband dropped something. The Doctor waited politely for them to recover from it.
And then Amy went to grab the hose and the Doctor brought his hands up defensively.
"Whoa whoa whoa! I'm an earlier Doctor! Not your Doctor."
"Then why isn't he here?" she asked angrily.
"Because it's impossible for his TARDIS to cross the timestreams to this time and place. It's physically, literally impossible. Oh, he's tried. He's burned up a sun trying to crash it through, nothing. The built-up paradoxes just did too much damage. But me? I'm from a point in his timestream when none of that has happened yet. I've been here before – a bit earlier, but roughly the same time. Showed Martha Lady Liberty. So I could make the trip. We just wrapped up a bit of an adventure involving crossed timestreams ourselves, and we kind of made a deal with each other on the side…and this is part of my half of the agreement."
Amy stared at him, listening. And then she smiled slightly.
"You really are him. But so much younger. And you're wearing the shirt I first saw you in."
"Really?" he asked. "Oh no. This is my favourite shirt. Don't tell me I ruin it, do I?"
"Well, uh…is this the part where I smile knowingly and go, "Spoilers?""
"Please don't," he said, shuddering, drawing an amused laugh out of Amy. "I'm not going to remember this until the temporal snapback smoothes over the overlapping Blinovitch temporal wavelengths – once I get my own timestream back on track and off his, I mean. But once I do, he'll remember giving this to you as me. So if you have anything to say, just-"
The hand came up, fast and hard, delivering a slap that made the Doctor freeze in shock.
"That is for making me choose between you and my husband, raggedy man."
"Ah, w-well, I can't say I didn't deserve that, since I don't remember doing it…" he said, rubbing the reddening skin. "Still, after having the paradoxes explained to me, there's something he always wanted to know, and I have to say, I'd like to know too. Why didn't you just leave? Get out from under the temporal barrier the paradoxes created? Just…get on a ferry, head to England somewhere, make a crop circle that gets photographed, wait for me to turn up?"
The man from inside, Rory Williams, joined her at the door, and gently slipped his hand into hers as he said, "Maybe because it's…well, it's not so bad here. You don't have to worry about phones or credit cards or social networking, and the people here are actually really nice, and…"
"And what my daft husband is trying not to say is that we agreed that maybe it was right that we retire. Permanently." She sighed sombrely. "We'd all been thinking it for a while – after a few years, travelling with you feels like it's a chore for you and an obligation for us, and that's not how it should be. So we thought about doing all that, and we decided it would never end, you'd always be there to offer one last adventure, and we'd always be willing to go on one more trip to keep you happy, and you would never be able to just move on. So we thought we'd just…stay here, and make a new life for ourselves. And he's right, the people around here are pretty nice once you get past some of the accents."
The Doctor smiled brightly. "Well, you haven't done too badly for yourselves. Amelia Williams, famous children's author, and her husband, the Green Thumb of Philadelphia – I always wanted to meet you, never realised I'd be crossing my own timestream to do it!"
Amy raised an eyebrow. "I haven't written anything for kids yet. I'm still trying to get the paper I write for to believe I can write about more than makeup tips and how to get a man."
"Oh, but you will. And you will be brilliant, both of you." To Rory he said, "Try a bit of zinc on the tomatoes, should clear those blemishes right up."
"I was thinking of zinc already, thanks," he said, but sounded impressed.
There was another moment of silence as the Williams' and the Doctor smiled together, relishing the odd moment of reunion, with a Doctor they'd never known and companions he'd never met.
"Look, we were just about to put a kettle on, if you wanted a coffee or a tea."
"Oh, I really shouldn't. I was going to pop in on the Lost Moon of Poosh, see if they've decided to rename it the Found Moon of Poosh yet. And then I was going to see the Galactic Eclipse of Andromeda, and then go and see if I could find the Chupacabra and take it home."
"Sounds like you've got a full schedule," Amy said.
"Oh yes."
"So is that black, white, sugar, no sugar?"
"Oh, Amy Williams, you know me so well! I wish I'd known you. I'll look forward to it!"
"Call me Amelia Pond," she said, whacking him on the shoulder. "Only my husband's embarrassing friends call me "Mrs Williams"."
"Hah! Sounds like a name from a fairy tale."
"They're not embarrassing! Okay, they're a bit old fashioned, but-"
"They ask me if it's a new sweater every time they come around."
And so the Doctor went inside and had coffee with two old friends he would someday know very well, shared some embarrassing stories about himself that he hoped his older self's cheeks would burn to remember, and had a night he wished he didn't have to forget.
He could have swapped the Shakespeare thing for this. He'd wanted to. Oh, how he'd wanted to. But when it came down to it, there were just some goodbyes you couldn't fob off onto an older self.
There were some goodbyes you had to make yourself.
The Queen was "retired to her bed chambers."
Officially, the court was not worried. God had preserved the Virgin Queen for 69 years, surely it would allow her one more? And of course, her ministers tried hard to convince Parliament that it was all business as usual – that this was a dark spell which would pass, as others had before. She had pined long and hard after the death of Essex, had she not? And with her advanced age (though time touched her not, of course) and the death of so many of her close and fond acquaintances, surely it was to be expected that it would take a toll on her?
Privately, of course, no one was more worried than Robert Cecil, who filled the role that would in centuries to come be called the Prime Minister.
There were so many issues to deal with – for one, England remained technically at war with Spain, who might see the weakening of the Queen as a divine sign of approval for an invasion. His diplomats were already downplaying it, but skilful as they were, it kept him up at night.
And that was nothing compared to the disaster that her actual death might cause. The succession crisis would be a monumental nightmare, not to mention the appalling thought that some member of the nobility with enough money and support might actually try to seize it by force, as the foolish Earl of Essex had. God's peace depended upon the Queen's laws, and the ironclad obedience of them. Anything else was trouble.
And on top of all that, the Blue Box had reappeared.
A man had stepped out of it, wearing strange attire and demanding to see the Queen. He had been rudely ejected, as was right and proper, but Her Majesty had a way of finding things out that defied even Cecil's understanding and through her decline had shined that fiery rage that had burned so brightly in her youth. So, shamefacedly, he had been forced to find the man, who had already busied himself solving the mystery of the disappearing churchmen (some nonsense about stone angels, as if he would ever believe such rubbish) and told him that Her Majesty had requested his immediate presence.
And to top it all off, she had soundly ejected him from the room, to his horror, to speak alone with this "Doctor." So he continued to pace outside the room, while within, two old acquaintances eyed each other warily.
The Queen was confined to her bed. She coughed weakly, but nevertheless managed to keep her look of rigid imperious as she glared at her old lover. The Doctor meanwhile, stood by her bedside, saying nothing, hands thrust into his coat pockets, looking at her with…what, pity? Understanding? Sorrow?
Finally, after what had seemed an age, she grunted, "So. You came."
"Yeah," he answered. No drawling the word out, as he once did. Utterly serious.
"As young as ever."
"Yeah."
"To gloat, we presume?"
"Why would I gloat?" he asked, frowning. "What have I got to celebrate?"
"The destruction of an old foe," she grated out. "Someone whose affections you toyed with and then cast aside like so much refuse."
The Doctor looked pained at that, and drew a sharp intake of breath. "I deserved that. Really, I did. But I had my reasons."
"You left a young girl waiting for you on her wedding day," she growled. "So many times I thought I might find another, but always, in my heart, the hope that you might come back for me…and as the years wore on, I lost even that hope as my beauty withered along with it."
The Doctor paused for a moment. "Could you really imagine me as King? Ruling people, giving orders? And then there's the whole question of an heir…"
Elizabeth chuckled darkly. "Cecil thinks I don't know, but he's been writing to James. Good luck to him. Better luck than I had."
"But really, did you really ever think that I would settle down and rule with you?" he asked.
"No. But I thought…" she paused but pressed on. "I thought you could take me away, take me with you. Show me the stars. All the things you've seen, all the places you've been."
"I could never do that," he said. "England needed you."
"THEN ENGLAND COULD HAVE LEARNED TO GET BY WITHOUT ME!" she roared, enraged. "Think you that my life has been FUN, DOCTOR? Balancing wars, rebellions, assassins, devout Christians forced to choose between God and country? You think I would want to STAY in this life, knowing no other?"
She glared bitterly at him, tears shining in the corners of her eyes. "You trapped me here in as terrible a prison as any you could devise."
The Doctor backed up, as if he'd been physically hit, eyes wide and pained. "That's not fair."
"Fair?" she laughed angrily. "Life isn't fair, Doctor, as you well know."
"I couldn't take you," he said. "I thought you were a Zygon, or I would never have interfered in the first place! Your life is too important for me to interfere with. Hell, I've been to hell and back to fix the damage of what I've done!"
"Is that what I am?" Elizabeth asked in a surprisingly small voice. "Am I just damage?"
"No," he said firmly. "You were so much more than that."
For a moment he looked torn. And then, making up his mind, he asked, "do you want to know what history makes of you?"
She was silent for a moment. "Will I like what you say?"
"Some of it."
She paused again. "And it will not affect history, me knowing?"
"You don't have long left," he said regretfully. "I'm sorry. But I can at least give you a look at the legacy you leave behind, as a comfort and as an excuse."
She slowly nodded. He smiled slightly.
"You think King Arthur's big? You think your dad was big? That's nothing compared to how history remembers you, Elizabeth. "The Virgin Queen," "Good Queen Bess," the Queen who oversaw the worst time in England's history – invasion from the continent, rebellion at home, an empty treasury and still you stayed strong. The Christian World is fragmenting, shattering, and in that mess you keep England strong. Explorers went out, naming places after you. The greatest writers in English history write plays for you. In time, England becomes Britain, and then becomes the greatest empire on the face of the Earth." He waved dismissively. "It doesn't last, and it leaves its damage, but all empires do. And the roots of it all are laid down under your reign.
"You think you're so small, Elizabeth. Sitting here on your little island for a few short decades, on a planet that's mostly water, around one star among rillions. But you're not. I'm going to let you in on a secret, and it's a big one – some day, you're going to become The Queen. Not just a Queen. You will become the Queen. The original article. England personified. Wars come and go, invaders will launch their ships and founder, but you remain. You will become a part of England's soul, and you are not forgotten – hundreds, thousands of years from now, you will be remembered. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Because to get there, you had to lead the life you did. All that loneliness, all that pent-up rage. It's all needed to make you who you are. A giant."
He paused a moment. "Can you blame me for not wanting to deny history you?"
Tears slid down her cheek. "I wanted to see those stars."
"I know," he said sombrely.
She sniffed, raising a weak arm to brush away the tears. "Did you think that would be a comfort to me, Doctor?"
"Maybe. I hoped so."
"What use have I for a legacy, when I could have spent my life seeing such wonders." She pointed at him. "The worst thing about you isn't that you leave, Doctor, reappearing as young as you ever were while we age. The worst is that you show us, for one brief moment, a life that we can never have. After meeting you, life loses its sweetness."
The Doctor said nothing, his own tears sliding down the curve of his nose.
"Damn you, Doctor."
The Queen fell silent.
"Elizabeth?"
Silence.
Sombrely, the Doctor reached out, gently shutting her eyelids. And then he went outside of the room, and told Robert Cecil the bad news.
Not everyone gets a happily ever after.
The Queen is dead. Long live the king.
The Doctor opened the door to the TARDIS, hanging his long coat on the hatrack next to the door, found the chair in front of the console and his dropped into it, utterly emotionally exhausted.
He was so tired. Tired of saying goodbye, tired of seeing what effect his appearance has on the people he meets. When he set out from Gallifrey, he never wanted to be that kind of man – he just wanted to see amazing things, and help amazing people. He'd never realised it would come with such a cost.
He stares ahead, at the console screen, at swirling Gallifreyan symbols.
A dead language, in the last TARDIS, with the last Time Lord.
Ouch.
He sets his shoulders, finally standing as he fiddles with the TARDIS' console, flipping a few switches, dialling knobs, sliding a set of sliders he's not sure were there before and banging the big red bell with the big hammer. The TARDIS detaches itself from reality, fading out of Richmond Palace, and hurling itself into the Time Vortex, howling through it. Glaring, he hovered over the last button, and reviewed his coordinates…
The Oodsphere. 4226. He wasn't sure how long after he'd left them it was, but it should be long enough for them to have recovered from their time as humans slave workers, an enslavement the Doctor still felt physically sick anyone could go along with. But…
He hesitates for a moment.
We need a new destination, because…I don't want to go.
No. He doesn't want to go to meet Ood Sigma. Not yet. No, not yet.
He's got a time machine. He can go back at any time. He's got so much more to see. There's still that trip to the Nameless Galaxy he was planning, something about a red carnivorous maw, or there's Sarah-Jane's wedding to see about (hah! Over his dead body, as if she'd ever get married). Or there's a time/space incident in Peru he could help UNIT with, catch up with the Brig! Stop Elton John being abducted by Changelings and making the 80s even worse. There's a hundred thousand things he could still do.
Gleefully, he punches the randomiser. Anywhere in time and space!
"Allonz-y!"
Yet has come and gone, and the man has knocked four times. Gallifrey returns no more, and the Man Who Regrets returns to his TARDIS, trudging through the snow.
He'd managed it, in the end. He'd finally managed to say his goodbyes, or make his arrangements to check on those he couldn't physically check on. He'd knocked out a Sontaran hunting down Mickey and Martha – he hoped they'd be happy together – and set Jack up with Alonzo. His final gift to the man who'd been through so much, one night with another lonely soul who'd seen so much and was feeling bemused and disoriented. There had been Donnas wedding, and the ticket from her father. He'd made sure Sarah-Jane was alright, after that wedding fiasco (no, but then Donna had once said 'alright' was Time Lord code for 'not really alright at all', so it could have been worse). Jo Grant was still missing. He'd tried looking for her, she just didn't seem to be anywhere. He hoped she was alright. He'd gone up to the hill, on that Cretaceous night, and said goodbye again to Adric. He could almost pretend he didn't see a few of his other selves on the nearby hills, paying their respects, trying not to cross the timelines. And there had been others, so many others. Including the descendant of the woman who had fallen in love with the man he could never be. She'd led a good life, but not with…him. And that had broken his heart.
And then there had been Rose.
Of course there had been Rose. There was always Rose, lurking in the bottom of his heart, at the root of his pain, taking it in her hands and uprooting it. She'd been there after his last regeneration, the first friendly human face he'd run into, still a bit numb from the regeneration and full of rage and self-hatred from his act of defiance and genocide that ended the Time War. And she had soothed his heart then, and he had repaid the favour – taken the pain that was killing her, making it his own, and dying to save her – a good death, all things considered, and a good rebirth, becoming a man he could feel happy to be.
A quick death too. The Doctor almost regretted the Victory Tour he'd made. Stretching things out for so long. It was getting harder now, more painful, holding in the energy coursing through every cell.
Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty, whispered a cruel, mean part of his mind, throwing his own words back at him. It's not the time that matters, it's the person.
He hadn't broken the laws of time. Not after Adelaide. But he'd…bent them, staying in the shadows to wish her past self a happy new year. It had hurt to see her. And he would have burnt up another star to talk to his Rose, the future Rose, to say goodbye, to tell her he missed her, that he always would, to make sure she was okay, just to see her, but then he would be there too. A version of himself, living with Rose in a parallel universe with a family and friends and a life that he didn't get to live, and it wasn't fair while he was stumbling in the snow…
What he wouldn't give for another spare hand lying around.
Everything has its time and everything dies, says a sterner voice, the voice of a Doctor who had a good death.
All is change, all is movement, comes an older voice, with a hint of Scottish brogue.
What can't be cured must be endured, echoes another voice, older, syrupy and mercurial.
Life depends on change, and renewal, comes a voice older still, impish and wise at the same time.
The Doctor hated it when his own words came back to haunt him.
Snow. He used to love snow. Frozen water, crunching underfoot, floating in the air, what wasn't to love? But he's seen snow in so many forms, and with so many meanings. The false snow created as the Sycorax burned, as his mercy was ruined by human fear. The fake snow of atmospheric excitation created when the humans brought down the Queen of the Racnoss' Star Ship. The vented coolant from the Starship Titanic. The cold, harsh, alien snow of the Ood world. The floating nanotech air scrubbers he had emerged into the night Adelaide Brooke died. The snow of the Ood again, bringing tidings of doom. And now his first real Earth snow, and he had no time, no time left to enjoy it.
It clung. He hadn't expected that. It clung and seeped and sunk deeper into his skin. Or was it the radiation? He was confusing the two, and it was getting harder to hold back the regeneration now, and…and…
And his mind filled with calm as he heard the song.
It was familiar, and soothing, so soothing. So Song of the Universe. The song of the Oodsphere, reaching their minds back in time. He could see them – the vast choir of voiceless voices rising in harmony, to give him…well it was a bit late for hope, but a bit of an optimistic spirit filled him, lifting him up.
"We will sing to you, Doctor," said Ood Sigma. "The universe will sing you to your sleep."
He could feel new strength entering him, filling him up. He could straighten up, as he neared the TARDIS doors.
"This song is ending, but the story never ends," said Ood Sigma, tilting his head and arranging his mouthparts in what might have been a kindly Ood smile.
The Doctor tried to smile, but he couldn't. He just couldn't. Not like this. But he nodded his gratitude, and that was enough.
He made it to the doors, managing to slip inside, as the choir followed him – the impossible, ethereal, beautiful choir, still singing, still filling his weakened sinews with strength as they twisted dials and knobs, taking the TARDIS up and out, out into the stars, out anywhere.
One last adventure, maybe? He thought to himself. Let's finally go to Barcelona, see the dogs with no noses!
But no. The song couldn't go on forever, and it shouldn't go on forever. And as the TARDIS arced up and out over the Earth, it hit its penultimate breath…
Memories flood him. A man, a brilliant man, with a chin and a bow tie and no eyebrows and a wonderful companion. So old, so forgetful, but also so alive, looking at him, worried. Not for his sake, but for himself.
"I saw Trenzalore. Where we're buried. We die in battle among millions."
And he can feel the horror and the terror of it. True death, without even regeneration. Being there once must have been hard enough, like walking over your own grave.
But he was the Thirteenth Life. There had been the nameless one who had given up the name, and he'd used up one regeneration to save his own life and stopped the change that should have come then, so the Eleventh Doctor had become the Twelfth Self, the Thirteenth Life. The Last. The one whose destiny it was to be the one who falls. After that, there could be no more. No more time, no more regenerations. No more chances.
But maybe not. The universe was full of miracles, and sometimes they actually decided to happen.
But this Doctor…he still has that to come. And for a moment, one brief moment, he was able to remember – Gallifrey and the Time Lords, safe! A future, and a future self, and a companion, and cause to hope! But also, he still had Trenzalore to go, he still had that terror, and now he was becoming the Last, he could feel the regeneration coming, too hard to hold back anymore…
"I don't want to go," he whispers. Remembering his own words from all that time ago? A declaration of his own desperation to hang on, to persist? Even he can't tell anymore.
But he just can't hold on anymore. He's not strong enough, and he lets go, and the glow comes upon him and he burns, and the TARDIS burns with him, joining him to become his makeshift funeral pyre…
Oh, Leif Ericson eat your heart out! Says a tiny voice in the back of his mind. This is how you burn on your own ship!
And the face with the chin gives a yell, stretching, as he is born amid the flames. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
He doesn't remember Gallifrey either. His timestream hasn't caught up to himself quite yet. But as he checks himself, exploring his new body still dressed in the tattered rags of his predecessor, somewhere in his mind, he can remember Trenzalore, and the circumstances he will come to be there, and he does still have that to come, and he knows the day will come when it will simply terrify him, the very idea of it.
But first, he has to be the madman in a box, and save a little girl from the crack in her wall, and save her from the monsters, and then later find the Impossible Girl. And there will be laughter and tears and terror and amazing moments, moments that he wouldn't miss for all the worlds in the universe, and above all, an awful lot of running…
And somewhere out there in the universe, there are twelve other faces, including one who rejected the name, and one impossible one who shouldn't exist but will, all running about, with their own companions and monsters and stories, and there will be even more, Doctors Yet to Come, existing in potential. And they are all the Doctor, and they have just as much right to call themselves still alive as the next man, because the next man is probably him too.
So run. Run, you clever boys. And remember.