A Different End
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"There you go boys…my last secret squeezed out of me…" He said as he leaned against the wall, the crack glowing with an impossible light. "That's my name, no lies to be had here…"
"DOCTOR! YOU WILL FACE US!" The Dalek over the loud speaker roared.
"I thought you said you had a plan!" Clara shouted as she looked at him.
"I did, this is it." The old man said looking back weakly, with his fade blue eyes. "I can't protect these people forever, Clara, I am dying. As we speak my body is dying, and the Daleks will burn this world, one way or another and there's no one else to stop them. I have only one option left, the worst option in the universe, but it's the only one left. The only chance anyone has is if the Time Lords return, and destroy the Daleks."
"But Tasha said the war nearly…"
"Yes, I don't do this lightly." The old man staggered to his feet, bracing on his walking stick. "I can only hope that near destruction has taught them a lesson on how to treat the rest of the universe…"
"DOCTOR! IF YOU DO NOT FACE US WE WILL IGNITE THIS PLANET'S ATMOSPHERE!" the Dalek screamed.
"Fine…" The old man growled as he staggered forward. "Trouble with Daleks is that they take forever to say anything. I may die before they explain how they intend to execute me."
He took another wavering step forward, turned to Clara. "Stay here."
"But…"
"Stay…give me one last victory, hmm? Give me this…plea…"
The crack slammed shut. The old man turned his head slowly and looked at the now undesecrated wall. The light had disappeared completely. There was a loud cracking outside. Flashes of light, the whole of the clock tower shook the bell struck chaotically as bits of dust and building rained down on the old man and Clara. He instinctively grabbed Clara shielding her from the debris.
"ALERT ALERT TEMPORAL RIFT DETECTED! IT IS THE AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!" Whatever it was that the Daleks were being alerted to silenced them. Explosions thundered.
"Is that them!?" Clara asked looking up at the old man.
He simply looked at her morosely. A slow nod from him was all that was needed to know the truth of what he felt inside his ancient hearts. Clara pulled away from him and turned to run outside, but the old man's weathered, leathery hand clasped hers, holding her with a strength she did not think possible.
"Stay here…"
That's when the wall in the back of the basement ripped open. Light roared forth from it like water through the breach of a dam. The old man stiffened and weakly clutched the lapels of his over-coat doing his best to straighten himself as he turned to it.
"At last, Doctor, finally we are free of our prison!" the voice shouted, almost merry in its tone. A shadow formed out of the light. The shadow quickly solidified stabilizing in the form of flowing red robes hanging on the frame of a thin, middle-aged man. His face sharp with angle cheek bones, his hair thinning but clearly red, his face adorned with an orangey Van Dyke beard and moustache. His eyes were a glacial blue. In his left hand was a scepter, and hung around his neck a golden sash, and clipped the chest of his robes a seal with an emblem Clara had seen multiple times in the TARDIS. The man strode forward smiling at the old man. The smile then faded and an orange eyebrow ticked upwards. "Oh, Doctor, why so glum? You've been coming to this your entire life; wanting absolution, the man to save the Time Lords from himself…you should be ecstatic!"
"It had to be you, didn't it?" The old man said, smirking in derision. "I should've guessed. The only one out there madder than old Rassilon himself. Shoulda known Time Lords jump from one madman to another…"
"Well, I remember you were elected to the position as well, so there is some truth to that madman talk!" the newcomer said with a smile as he walked towards the old man and then past him. He looked to Clara. "I see you haven't lost your eye for pretty, young Earth girls…she gives Jo Grant a bit of a run for her money don't you think? She may even give Ms. Perpugilliam Brown a run for her money…"
"What have you done with the rest of them? Where is Gallifrey? I suspect you ate them all, hmm? That was your thing wasn't it the last time I saw you, trying to stabilizing that festering corpse you called a body…" the old man growled, not turning to look at the newcomer.
"No need…let's say I got the supply at the source." The newcomer chuckled as he circled the old man.
"Ah…so you ate him all up, bones and all…clever…eat an immortal thing and you gain immortality…very primal…very you, I suspect." The old man said still not looking at the newcomer. "I still can't see the others accepting you as their Lord President, yeah the Time Lords like having a madman rule them periodically, and many of the powerful ones become insane, but not you, they'd never accept you."
"And why not?" The newcomer stopped and turned and got into the old man's face, glaring at him with those frozen eyes. "I led them through the shadow lands. I gave them hope when all you gave them was a prison in the penumbra of reality. We had to cannibalize…"
"HA!" The old man snorted involuntarily, looking back at Clara with a pivot of his cane and a smirking glint in his eye.
"..our own timescape to keep us from freezing so we could rebuild our power! Make ourselves ready for our return! And even then…we had to wait centuries, millennia for you to finally get around to saving us…you coward!" The newcomer growled, his mouth contorted into a sneer of utter contempt. "I made us ready! I was the one that paved the way for our ascent into the waking universe. You…you just dithered, as you always do, too afraid of home and hearth to save your own kith…too busy with these mongrel little apes of yours."
"I had to be sure." The old man said. "The universe was here, every major civilized species in the cosmos was here, and petrified of that signal you sent. Everyone agreed at least in practicality with the Daleks that you should not return. They were ready to burn this planet and everything on it, to stop the Time Lords…the Time War from returning, the only ones that protected you were the so-called mongrel apes you detest so much. You should be gra-" The old man tensed and grabbed his chest. His other hand gripped his walking stick as he leaned forward. He groaned.
"Oh, dear, we have been getting a little long in the tooth haven't we?" The newcomer said with a smirk. "Then regenerate…go on then…I'll wait."
"I…can't…" The old man gritted through his teeth.
"Ah, I see…" A gleam shimmered in the newcomer's eyes. "Burnt through all your lives didn't you? I know how that feels. Makes me feel nostalgic for the old days…"
"Feh, you know nothing, you ran from it all your existence. You killed people, raped other races, destroyed planets to avoid it. I at least am ready and willing to accept it…I don't have to like it, but I'm not going to pillage the universe just to tack a few more decades on." The old man gurgled as his knees buckled underneath him.
"Doctor!" Clara moved to run forward but the newcomer put himself between her and him and raised his staff, blocking her.
"Stay back girl…there's nothing you can do now." The man said and he turned to the old man.
"So, Doctor, tell me, how does it feel? Hmm? To feel the wick burning out? That slow simmer into oblivion?" The newcomer asked, kneeling next to the old man.
"If you're going to kill me, kill me, if you're going to leave me for dead, then do that too, don't gloat, I can't stand you gloating….that smug, snaky grin you get…bah…" the old man growled his face contorted in pain, his arm cramping as he tried to stand back up.
"No, no, no, it isn't fair to you, Doctor, on the cusp of your great victory against yourself, Gallifrey restored, the Daleks defeated, you can't just die. Where'd the fun in that be, hmm?" The newcomer swept around to the front of the old man and looked him deep in the eyes. "I should say where would the fun be for me? A universe without the Doctor, it's not worth considering, not yet anyways."
"Nothing you can do...I'll die listening to you talk." The Doctor chuckled to himself. "Clara, that's the problem with Time Lords, they take forever to say anything…probably die of old age before he gets around to killing me."
"Oh, Doctor, you are being naïve." The newcomer said smirking as he raised his hands to the old man's temples. "I told you, I got the supply from the source; I meant the whole kit and caboodle." The newcomer's hands glowed with a fiery orange light. "I burned through a hundred regenerations in a month before settling on this one…."
The newcomer pressed on the old man's temples and the old man gasped in shock as he was covered in orange light. The old man fell backwards and landed at Clara's feet she dropped down and knelt next to him and when she turned his head it was him, when he was young when she met him at the front door of the home she was nannying at.
"What did you do to him!?" Clara demanded looking up at the newcomer.
"He gave me new regenerations…" The Doctor groaned his face started to glow orange. He winced and the glowing faded.
"Oh don't be that guy, Doctor." The newcomer said as he walked up to the Doctor. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and give it up."
"You're only doing this to extend some game, I won't play your games!" the Doctor growled pushing himself up to his feet. He jerked backwards as if someone had punched him in the stomach. "I won't…"
"You will though, because you know what this all means." The newcomer said. "And you can't bear to see it happen this way. The Time Lords, ruled by me, back in the universe. Oh, it'll burn in your head you couldn't possibly allow it to happen. No, you'll try some trick or devise some plan, knock together a ragtag group of misfits and ignored underperformers and cultivate them into a force to shake everything I built to the core. Except this time," He tapped his head with a smile, "…the drumming's gone." He smirked and sang in a not quite appropriate voice. "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone….I can see all obstacles in my way…"
"You're still mad though, and I'm not the man I used to be…" The Doctor growled.
"Ha, you won't be the man you are for very much longer, any minute now, he's a comin'," The newcomer said with a smile on his cold, thin lips.
"Who's coming?" Clara asked looking quizzically at the Doctor.
"The Doctor…" The newcomer said, as he looked at the Doctor. "Oh, he's trying ever so hard to cling to himself, can't you see it little human? He's fighting it every step of the way." The newcomer smiled and walked up to the Doctor and leaned into his ear. "But I wouldn't if I were you. You see, Gallifrey is emerging as we speak. A Time Lord armada ten billion strong is materializing in the region of the inner temporum. What Daleks are left will be routed in the first day…and in the second day…"
"A new Time Lord empire…." The Doctor winced, clutching his coat together as if he was trying to contain a bomb.
"Top of the class." The newcomer said. "Now for extra points, who do you think is going to be number one most wanted?"
The Doctor didn't respond, he simply glared forward, and then gave Clara a side-long glance and pursed his lips. Clara knitted her eyebrows. The Doctor took a deep breath. "Me, Clara, I'll be the first one they hunt down…"
"But…he just saved you from destruction, risked his life protecting you." Clara said looking back and forth at the two men.
"Saved us from destruction instigated by himself, he may not have called himself the Doctor…but it was still him." The newcomer said, stepping back, pointing at the Doctor. "And he didn't risk his life to protect us, he risked his life to keep us in the dark…he finally came around to calling us for help because he couldn't muster the juice anymore. If he could've kept us in that little pocket dimension he created, and saved the people of this planet, he most certainly would, wouldn't you have, Doctor?" The Doctor didn't reply, and the newcomer looked to Clara. "Clara, is that your name, you see the Doctor isn't what you'd call a home body, and despite what he may tell you, let's just say he and the Time Lords have a sort of maligned tolerance of one another. That is to say, the Time Lords more often than not have tried to arrest the Doctor for flaunting all of their laws with his TARDIS use, and the Doctor has tolerated it by hiding from them for a very long stretches of time…" The newcomer smirked, "and I see no reason to end that cycle at least for now. I'm going to give you a head start, Doctor. I'm going to let you get into your TARDIS and fly away, and then I'm coming for you, and your little Clara-bell, too! So I suggest you start…"
The Doctor grimaced as he looked to Clara and then to the newcomer.
"Doctor, you aren't moving…" The newcomer lifted the scepter and it glowed with a bright blue, before a burst of electricity fired striking the floor between Clara and the Doctor. "I SAID RUN!"
"Go…go to the TARDIS…" The Doctor said turning, sloppily pushing the TARDIS key into Clara's hand. "I can't control my hands very well, you need to go and unlock the TARDIS for me…"
"But…"
"GO!" The Doctor roared at Clara with a primal rage, and she fled. The Doctor turned to the other man. "I don't care what you do to the rest of the universe, but you leave my friends alone. You hear me?"
"Is that a threat? Brave, from where you're standing." The other man said with a beguiling smile. "Those new regenerations have given you a flare. This will be most fun…the final great chase across the universe. I can't hardly wait to see what you try next…I can see the gears turning…but time's running out. He's right there on the edge…I can smell him, the new Doctor."
Then the man started to cackle as he turned and walked towards the shining gash in the basement wall. It echoed as he faded into the light. It was a deep haughty laugh, the kind of laugh that could only be gotten away with by western fairyland witches, maniacal pulp movie science fiction villains and on occasion vice principals. The Doctor staggered backwards struggling with every step to hold his body together before the big one. The townspeople circled around him and he screamed at them to hide in their homes, shouting in a way that they had never heard him do before, even during the worst of the 900 years war he never screamed with such primal fear and they heeded it and fled.
He could feel his face burning, and could see the flares of orange around his peripheral vision and flowing from his hands. It was now in the emptied streets, he couldn't hold it anymore, no time for memory lane, no time for rewinds, no time for a victory tour. He whipped his arms back and his head up and released it all. The town shook; the hillsides experienced avalanches and the clouds overhead were swept away. He stumbled forward after it was done. A puddle in the war-rutted street revealed his new face, older, grayer, tougher looking, still not ginger. Colors were vivid and new, as were his kidneys. Not a time for speeches, his mind was filled with terror and nightmare things as he half sprinted, half staggered towards the TARDIS. The door was slightly open and he barreled into it.
"Who are…?"
"Not now…" He said; his mind filled with a billion questions he didn't need more from someone else. He searched the console, he knew the console. Red button, blue button, green switch, turn the dial, and…there was something else…something important, purple fiddly bits? Large depressor switch? He knew he knew this, he just couldn't seem to convince his brain that he did.
He looked up at the girl, he wasn't sure who she was, then again he wasn't entirely sure who he was. She had to know she'd been here longer than he had. "How do you fly this thing again?"
"The…TARDIS…"
"Yes, yes…oh what difference does it make; I'm just going to smack the shuffle setting anyways!" He said as he clenched his fist and hit a big button next to a screen with a bunch of crisscrossing arrows on its face.
"Wait, shuffle setting? I have to go to work tomorrow?" Clara shouted.
"HA! Work? You're not going home! I don't even know where we're going!" He giggled and laughed as the TARDIS jerked out from underneath them. He stopped laughing and looked at Clara mournfully. "We may never see Earth again."
Then he burst out in giggles as the TARDIS console sparked and they were both flung towards the railings.
"What are you doing!?" screamed as she clung to the railings.
"Crashing…probably…can't remember how to fly this thing! HAHA!" He guffawed as the TARDIS did another tumble as it tore randomly through the vortex….
In the distance the vast new monstrosity of the Time Lord military popped into existence. The planet of the Time Lords, Gallifrey, dragged into position in orbit of its twin stars. In the rebuilt citadel of the Time Lords, on the throne of the High President, the Master sat, surveying the universe below. A Time Lord in all the regal frills and robes strode towards the throne.
"We've lost him, sir, the TARDIS you're searching for has totally disappeared into the vortex. Its movements were too erratic to track. I'm sorry, my lord." The Time Lord said bowing before the throne.
"That's fine…let him go for now." The Master said looking at the sky depicted above him with glacial blue eyes. The orange Van Dyke twitched upwards as a snaky smile played across his lips. "Prepare, for launch, target all known Dalek powerbases, simultaneously, in all time frames. I want them destroyed this time. Then we can look for him, he can't stay hidden for long, he'll show up, just give it some time…."
The Master's grin became wider and soon it broke into laughter. A broad mad maniacal laughter, but one clear of thought, without the incessant sounds in his head. He was a Master truly reborn and better than before. If the Doctor thought he could trifle with him, he had another thought coming….
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Yes, I know, I'm not Moffat and it's not as endearing and emotional as seeing Pond. But it is A Different End. And yes, it is a bit of a sequel to my chapter in Where I Can, that features a similar 'Time Lord President' rebuilding post-war Gallifrey in the pocket universe….but it isn't just similar.