And Then There Was One
They were agreed.
As the finality of the decision sunk in, the Doctor felt strangely lighter, even though he knew what it meant for himself. It had been his idea after all, he wasn't about to allow any of them shoulder this burden. It would be enough that they were complicit in its execution; he alone should be responsible for the final act. Not that any of them had tried that hard to talk him out of it; their sympathy for his role in this only went so far. Ultimately, what they were proposing was horrific, means justified solely by the incalculable costs to the rest of the universe should the final Battle of Gallifrey be allowed to continue to its inevitable conclusion. If Koschei's suggestion worked, perhaps some of them might survive this, but he doubted any of them would truly thank him for this mercy. They would be the ones left to live with the guilt, after all.
It occurred to him, as he stood there, shivering in the cold winds that were a constant feature of this tiny, inhospitable moon that they'd used as their meeting place - speaking treason and plotting the end of everything they'd ever known and held dear - that if everything went to plan, he was looking at the very last of the Time Lords. Their once great and ancient society would soon be nothing more than the stuff of myths and legends. That it would be his hand that pressed the button made him feel ill. As a rule, the Doctor was the last person you'd expect to wax nostalgic regarding Gallifreyan society, but even he had trouble imagining a universe without it. For all its faults, it was still his home. At least he wouldn't be there to feel its absence.
The details decided on, there was little else for it but to say their goodbyes. Haste was the order of the day; Arcadia had already fallen. By now, Rassilon knew that he had the Moment and would be looking for him. It was unlikely that the Time Lord President suspected a conspiracy - yet - but any of them might have been traced here. The Doctor had only involved those he could trust, but consequently, they were all known associates of his to some extent. The notion of needing to hurry while in possession of a time machine would ordinarily seem paradoxical, but the war had done so much damage to the fabric of spacetime in this region, it was a legitimate concern. The only thing preventing reality from unravelling entirely was the time lock that had been implemented around Gallifrey. Because of it though, they were all moving rapidly toward a fixed point.
Their plan would use the chaos of the Dalek Crucible's attack on Gallifrey as cover while the Doctor and Koschei piloted his TARDIS to the Eye of Harmony at the centre of the planet, deep beneath the Citadel. Each of the others would use their own time ships to ensure that none of the Dalek or Time Lord ships within range interfered until the Moment could be activated. Those that could, would make their escape to the vortex at the last possible second and use their chameleon arch devices to alter their biological signature enough to avoid being caught up with the rest. Anything Dalek or Gallifreyan still alive when the Doctor used the Moment would be destroyed.
Long ago, before the Time War changed everything, the Doctor recalled lamenting, after preventing a nuclear war at the cost of many lives, that there should have been another way. His words then echoed in his mind now. It should not have come to this. But the Daleks were not going to stop and the High Council had become desperate enough that they were prepared to enact what Rassilon called "the Final Sanction" and rip apart the very fabric of time and space to end the war. It was madness, but after everything he'd seen, after everything they'd done to him, he knew they would do this too. And to prevent it, the Doctor was prepared to do the unthinkable. If saving the universe meant sacrificing his life and the whole of Gallifrey, then he had little choice to act otherwise. He and the others had gone over the scenarios relentlessly, trying desperately to find another answer, but every option in the timelines led to more death. This was their best hope to prevent the end of time itself.
His fate hanging grimly over his head like the fabled Sword of Damocles, the Doctor walked through the group, clasping hands with his friends and comrades one final time. Few of them could look him in the eyes, barely disguised pity lurking in their features. He couldn't blame them. He came to Romana last.
She, like many of them, had regenerated during the war and met his gaze with sympathetic honey brown eyes. Eyes that seemed far too old for her youthful face. When he saw understanding, not pity, in them, his throat burned as he suddenly felt himself teetering on the edge of real tears. Not wanting to break down here in front of everyone, the Doctor instead seized upon another impulse entirely and pulled the startled Time Lady into a tender kiss.
Thrown together by circumstance and meddling Guardians, they'd travelled together for many years, settling into an unlikely partnership. Though there'd been a few tender moments of mutual admiration, perhaps attraction between them, after their quest to assemble the Key to Time was finally completed, they'd been friends for so long that the idea of their relationship ever becoming anything different seemed unlikely. That is, until the war.
They'd been sitting in Romana's damaged TARDIS, too fatigued to begin processing the horrors they'd just witnessed after the first wave of Skaro Degredations devastated the Gallifreyan fleet, when it happened. The Doctor still wasn't quite sure which of them had initiated it, but somehow he ended up with his arms wrapped tightly around her, and things escalated from there. The shift from friends to lovers commenced without a word. Afterwards, Romana, ever the practically minded of the two, had insisted it was to be a one-off and made him promise that under no circumstances would he infer anything other than friendship from all of their future interactions. Then, naturally, as these things tend to, it happened again the next time they met.
It became almost a ritual nearly any time they found each other alone after a battle. It was easier than talking about what the war had done to them. Outside of these brief encounters, Romana maintained a strictly professional demeanour toward him. Respecting her wishes, the Doctor refrained from any public displays of affection and did his best to dismiss any and all romantic notions from his mind. They were fighting an impossible war, that had to be their first priority at all times. She'd been correct that emotional entanglement would only serve as a distraction on the battlefield. Had things gone differently, perhaps there might've been more for them, but as it was, mutual comfort amidst the storm was enough.
Here at the end though, there seemed little point in denying that he was, in his hearts, a sentimental old fool after all. He withdrew his lips from hers slowly and opened his eyes cautiously, half expecting her to be angry with him. Instead, she looked sad.
"Doctor..." she began.
"I know." He gave her a brief sheepish smile. "Romanadvoratrelundar, it was an honour to travel with you, my dear. If you survive, do one thing for me; be magnificent." He clasped his hands firmly on her shoulders once more before stepping back.
"Of course, Doctor." She gave him a tight smile that didn't reach her eyes.
His unexpected behaviour had not gone unnoticed by the others. Drax and the Corsair were both watching him with faintly amused expressions while Koschei had a strangely clouded look in his eyes. The rest seemed surprised and vaguely embarrassed to have witnessed what was clearly a rather private moment.
The Doctor cleared his throat to speak, but an appropriate epitaph for such a dire occasion failed him. In this instance, he was both the executioner and the condemned; his traditional response of gallows humour could not save him this time. So he slid his hands in his pockets, nodded solemnly to them all, and turned to walk slowly into his TARDIS.
Koschei followed him and together they set the coordinates for Gallifrey. The Doctor manned the navigational controls in silence while Koschei set up the chameleon arch for his own escape once they'd gotten the Doctor safely to the Eye. So far, the plan was working; they'd made it past the sky trenches undetected and had yet to encounter any of the Capitol's customary temporal shields. His TARDIS landed reluctantly, groaning in obvious pain; she could sense what was coming. He stroked her console and gave the time rotor a final look, swallowing his fear and regret.
"It was wonderful while it lasted, old girl," he whispered and hefted the Moment in his hands.
It was smaller than he'd expected, but heavy; altogether unimpressive for a sentient device that could burn entire galaxies from time, given a strong enough power source. That's where the Eye of Harmony would come in. When they'd locked it away in the Omega Arsenal, it had supposedly been disarmed by removing its internal power circuits but he could hear it ticking quietly as he held it. The sound seemed to reverberate in his bones and just looking at it made his time senses reel. He fought a wave of nausea and set the weapon gently on the floor. He could feel the box watching him, even as he turned his back to it.
One more farewell remained. He turned to face his childhood friend, the boy with whom he'd grown to adulthood in the Academy, until distance and a difference in philosophies led to their falling out. Both had disagreed with the Time Lords' policy of non-interference, but for different reasons. While the Doctor simply sought to prevent injustice and tragedy whenever he could, Koschei argued that with their superior knowledge and intellects, the Time Lords ought to take a more direct hand in the development of more primitive societies. He adopted the name the Master and left Gallifrey to prove his case for benevolent dictatorship. His efforts were less than successful and in many instances led to the former best friends finding themselves on opposite sides of conflicts. It had been the Master's mistake on Logopolis that resulted in the Doctor's regeneration and finally instigated a partial reconciliation of sorts between the estranged Time Lords when they encountered one another in the Death Zone.
When they met again, it was on the battlefields of the Time War and by then, neither could claim to be the same man as he had been before. That it should be the two of them here, in Gallifrey's terminal moments, struck the Doctor as fitting, in a way. Koschei looked exhausted and hollow in his torn uniform jacket, a darker reflection of the Doctor's own pale appearance, no doubt; he cradled the chameleon arch in his hands loosely, eyes downcast and heavily shadowed.
"Koschei, we haven't much time," the Doctor said, surprising himself that his voice did not shake as he spoke.
"Indeed, old friend," he replied quietly and set the device gingerly on the console. Koschei stepped closer to him and cupped the Doctor's face with a hand. "Pity that it must end this way, I should very much have liked to have done so much more."
The Doctor blinked in confusion but before he could respond, Koschei's mouth was pressed tightly against his own and he was backed up against a railing. His friend released him with a decidedly predatory, if regretful, gleam in his eyes. He stared at Koschei in shock.
"Apologies, my dear Doctor, though I must admit I should have done that ages ago. I do hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me this," he said. That was when the Doctor realised that his wrists had been locked to the railing, holding him effectively immobile.
"Koschei! What... what are you doing?" he tugged against his restraints.
"What must be done." His gaze shifted to the Moment on the TARDIS floor. "You have forgotten that I owe you a debt. You've always been the tender hearted one, Theta; let's face it, if one of us deserves to live through this, it should be you."
"Koschei, no." The Doctor's voice was hoarse.
The Master ignored his pleas and approached him carrying the chameleon arch. "I've set the controls to human; you always were overly fond of that backward planet. The manacles will release in an hour, but by that time you will hardly be yourself." He slid the apparatus over the struggling Doctor's head.
"You can't do this, it's supposed to be me, this was all my fault!" The Doctor was becoming desperate.
The Master shook his head. "If some day you manage to regain your senses, remember me fondly, Doctor." He ran a hand through the Doctor's blond hair affectionately, still cropped short from where the field surgeon had clipped it to mend a wound weeks (or had it been years) ago, and switched on the chameleon arch. The Doctor's knees buckled instantly and he screamed as the device set about rewriting his biology.
Moving with brisk efficiency, Koschei flicked the programmed flight switch on the console, picked up the Moment, and walked to the door. He paused to cast one last look behind him before stepping out of the TARDIS to seal Gallifrey's fate.
"Au revoir, Doctor."