Lady in Black

Authors note:-

I've been playing with this idea for a while, but it never quite worked. First with one character, then with another. Something didn't ring true, or in character. Then, like so many inspirations I turned it on it's head and boom. So here's a short story before I get back to my others. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer

I own non of the characters here. They belong to The BBC, Mutant Enemy and others respectively. I make no profit from their use and don't intend to. This is just for fun.

It was a dream. The dream. It came so often it was familiar, but it wasn't her. She just played her part, the words weren't hers. Or they were, just not this her.

There were differences, little ones she only noticed because she had done the role so often. Sometimes she knew the name of where she was, her name, everything's name. Not this time.

She was in one of the great Galleries, they crossed the great city like giant spiders webs. Cavernous with walls so high the echoes never reached them. In happier times they would be filled with Acolytes, Lords and Ladies. Hundreds of people with thousands of trivial tasks to while away the centuries. The peace of a monastery. Now the gallery was empty. Except for two people, one her the other one of her oldest and closest friends.

He strode down the walkway, his old face set in an expression as if carved out of diamond. She stepped, deliberately, in his way. He looked awful. Long gone was the bohemian grandeur, the smart suits, even the relaxed leisure of a comfortable jacket and chequered trousers. In it's place was a scuffed and battered leather jacket, mud caked brown pants. The only hint that this was the man she knew was a waistcoat, hidden beneath an almost visible regret and a bombarders belt strapped across his chest. Gone was the clean shaven features of old, replaced with age, an iron grey beard and an implacable will.

He came to a stop in front of her, she was half surprised he'd even noticed she was there. 'Hello, old friend.' she said sadly. Knowing all the mistakes and arguments that had brought them here.

'Old friend.' he repeated, his voice gravelly. Horse with experience and pain. High above an explosion shook the walls, raining aeons old dust over them. Neither moved.

Even before the war he was a legend. Not only amongst their own people but across all of space and time. There were those that considered him a god and the war had done nothing to limit that. He'd had victories and losses, so had everyone, but his, he would go to extremes for his men. For strangers. Inspiring an almost fanatical loyalty. In those few that survived at least.

Now, after all that had happened, she stood there. Between him and his objective. 'I know what you want. I have to stop you.' She told him 'There must be another way.'

'What?' he asked her plainly.

A million ideas came and each one died in her throat. Each one more impossible than the last. 'I have to stop you.' she repeated. 'I know you, you can't have changed that much. You can't do this. You're not.' She had wanted to say strong enough. She wanted to convince him he was too weak, that the price would be too high. Even for him.

Even for him.

She stepped aside.

For a whole terrible second he didn't move, then some of the tension left his shoulders and she recognised that look on his face. He had wanted her to convince him. To plead, to beg. To somehow stop him from doing what had to be. He couldn't afford to stop himself.

All those times they'd argued; When she stepped aside for the President to take over and he'd told her it was a mistake. When he first proposed opening the Omega Arsenal and she warned him it could never be closed again. When she'd launched the attack on the Nightmare Child and he told her she was throwing lives away. Each time they had been looking for the other to convince them not to and each time they had failed. Now, when it mattered the most, now all she could do was step aside. 'You'll never be able to live with this.' she told him simply.

'Whoever said I'd live with it?' he asked, his voice hollow and almost drowned out by another explosion above. 'Goodbye Romana.' As he walked away she knew it was inevitable. He was going to use it, no one could stop him now. Even if he didn't the walls of the Citadel would fall eventually and then so would they. The enemy would slaughter all of them and then go on to butcher the Universe. His plan at least stopped them as well. With that he walked past, heading for the Time Vault and the last Moment.

It was her duty, her oath, to warn the High Council. To tell them what he had done, what he was doing. Combined they could still stop him, or try. But she couldn't. The Council wasn't what it once was. All the blood and suffering, all the horrors they had been responsible for. A seed of madness grew within them. She'd seen it long ago when this war started, corruption had never been a stranger in the court but in the war it had flourished. It had been her hope Rassilon would have the strength she lacked, he would have crushed that seed and lead the Council to the greatness it needed to fight the horrors of the War.

Instead he'd fertilised it, he'd embraced it and used it to rot what goodness had remained until there was nothing but greed, fear and madness. Perhaps the endless millennia he'd spent in the Tower, nothing more than a disembodied mind, had destroyed the man. Or perhaps the rumours were true and he was not the great champion the history texts had made him out to be. Either way the Council was not what it once was and if the rumours were true, if they truly planned to destroy everything just to save their own lives, then her old friend's plan was that much more important.

Still there was one thing she could do.

Run.

She could leave, escape the War, escape the politics, the endless suffering. If she was right the instant the Moment was used the time lock would open and real time would assert itself. In that fraction of a second, if she timed it right, she could slip through the crack. She might spend the rest of her lives running, but something would survive.

It was better than nothing.

Faith jolted awake, her heart racing. For a moment it almost sounded like she had two. Looking around her small cell she remembered. Only for a little while. Eventually she'd forget and she'd be herself again, but in these first few horrible seconds she remembered. Looking out of the bars of her prison she saw the early morning sky and those last few stars that shone bright enough to still be seen. 'Oh Doctor, I hope you were right. I hope you didn't survive.'

With a blink and a badly disguised yawn the dream faded, as it always did, and the Vampire Slayer rolled out of bed ready for another crap-tastic day in prison.

End