Notes: Based on "The Day of the Doctor." AU (especially in the sense of not quoting all the dialogue word-perfect.)
The Moment is coming.
What will you choose?
Will Gallifrey fall...or will the universe burn?
When people say the Moment developed a conscience, no one expects...me. I always take the form of someone dear to them, and I always show them their future. And there is always a consequence.
And when the Doctor pilfered me, stole me away in a burlap sack as if I was nothing more than a sack of potatoes, I already knew what his consequence would be.
"You will live," I whispered to him, my eyes glittering at the look on his face. So worn-down, so defeated. "That is your consequence. Billions will die, Gallifrey will fall...and you will live."
Oh, how my heart tripped when he fell head-long into his own future, when the question of pushing the big red button flashed in his mind like a blinking sign. The only one who can see me-who's afraid of the big bad wolf?-and the Moment is coming.
The future isn't a set thing. How did the Doctor put it? Wibbly wobbly timey wimey...stuff. It's more accurate than even he knows. The future can always be changed. And sometimes-so can the past.
Even the Time War.
Oh, not all of it-there has been far too much bloodshed, far too much meddling with time on both sides. There is a reason this conflict is time-locked. Except for a single Moment...
I've had eons to think about this. So many people, prodding my box with worn fingertips, with the toes of dusty boots, with the tip of a bulbous antenna. Most so flushed and eager, ready to take hold of the world and win. Anything, at any cost, to win.
And then the Doctor...
His eyes are so young when I see him this time, when I propel him through time and space. How he's aged, when he thinks the universe will burn. So many children. That's the rub, you see? It's easy to justify the burning of grown men and women. They have chosen to be here, they have chosen to fight. How can you claim that of so many children?
But in the end-oh, how it seemed all would fall. And my heart fell with it, shattering on the straw-strewn ground as all three of them made their decision. No, I whispered, but could not say. Can't you see? Can't you choose? This is not the moment for burning. This is not-
And then she spoke, that small, impossible girl with teary eyes, and my heart lifted and I showed them, I showed them the world around them-that world has not stopped, that world has not burned-
And the Moment came, and the Moment passed.
And that clever, clever boy did the impossible.
Gallifrey falls, no more-
And all is lost, in a single Moment.