Just something that popped into my head after watching the finale of Season 8, Death in Heaven. One of the saddest episodes ever, in my opinion.
The red fields went on forever and ever under the twin suns. At least, that's what it felt like. Oceans of fluttering stalks rippled in the breeze like waves bobbing up and down, broken only by two solitary trees. The suns beat down. The distant mountains loomed like unfriendly giants. Far off- very far off- a mansion was built on the top of a hill, lavishly ornate and far enough in the distance that it almost seemed that he could pick it up between his fingers and keep it.
It was silent.
A wind not-quite-felt brushed past his left side. His coat fluttered slightly. His head raised just in time to see the dark haired boy, moving as if in slow motion, running past, through the fields and away.
Then another not-quite-felt touch brushed past his right side. A boy with light brown hair sprinted past- faster than the first boy but still slower than anyone on Earth would have moved. He seemed to stay in the air for several seconds before putting down another foot. Left. Right. Left. Right. Pounding on in silence, after the dark haired boy.
The stalks of the grasses all bent in the same direction very suddenly as a strong breeze rocked them, but he felt nothing standing in their midst. He didn't quite feel. He didn't quite think. He knew that one of those solitary trees was behind him. He could see the other in front. The two boys tore slowly toward it, like a video that had been slowed down.
He could feel the boys laughing as they ran, now a hundred feet in front of him. He couldn't move. He didn't try to.
A third figure passed him, not paying him any attention. This one was a girl. Unlike the boys, she wore the long Prydonian cloak that billowed out behind her as she raced after the boys. Her hair was a deep chocolate that slowly bounced out in waves behind her. He almost couldn't remember who she was. It had been so long since he had seen the Rani looking like that.
But she wasn't the Rani, he thought as the boys reached the tree in the distance. The Rani was gone, lost at the end of the universe. So she must be Ushas, he supposed.
No. She couldn't be Ushas. Ushas really was gone, lost years before the Rani. The Chemist had consumed the Student. Her chemistry had been just a hobby at first. A quirk. They had all had them- Rallon, with his love for teleportation, Mortimus, with his understanding of weaponry.
The girl met up with the boys at the tree and they turned to her. He couldn't focus on their faces. He didn't have to.
The dark haired boy… who was he? If the girl wasn't the Rani, then he couldn't be the Master. The Master was as gone as the Rani was. He had thrown himself after the Time Lords, into the rift, into the Time War, into Hell.
So was he Koschei?
He look at the boy, not seeing his face, and decided he wasn't. That boy over there didn't act as if he heard the drums. The beat of four, du-du-du-du, du-du-du-du, du-du-du-du. That boy over there had emotions. That boy over there had won the race. The Master always won.
The other boy was the one he knew least of all. He was laughing, silently but laughing and laughing and when was the last time that boy truly laughed? Really laughed, with meaning?
If that boy was laughing, then he certainly wasn't the Doctor.
He had never been Theta Sigma. Stupid name.
His real name? Did he dare remember it? Did he dare even think it? Did he dare attempt to attach that name to that boy who was laughing over by that tree even though he had come in second?
He did. And the silent world turned a deeper red, a deeper crimson than Gallifrey had ever seen. The mansion on the hill exploded and sprayed stone over the fields. The shining snowy mountaintops turned into flames and the mountains crumbled. The ground split, sucking in the sky and the suns and the mountains and all of it until it was all gone and he was standing on no ground, under no suns, just in space and the children were gone, gone, gone…
"Doctor!"
He hit the floor in the most ungraceful way possible and popped up on his feet.
"DOCTOR!"
His confusion faded quickly. "Yes! Pond! Ponds! No, one Pond. Pond!"
Amy frowned down at him through the glass floor. "I thought you were going to get tea, you moron! And here you are, asleep! Rory wanted to know where you'd got to!"
"Yes! I was…" The Doctor waved his screwdriver around, slowly remembering what he'd been doing. "Something was sparking… probably exploding… explodey-wodey stuff…"
"Tea, Raggedy Man. Now." Amy vanished.
The Doctor was still for a moment more. He remembered every bit of his dream. He had had it before. Would probably have it again. Again. He sighed. Again. He missed it so much, his planet. Gallifrey. Red and redder and golden. But it was gone- every last bit of it, every last child, every last Time Lord, every last… Time… Lady…
…
Maybe. It was a tiny chance, but maybe, just maybe…
Amy reappeared in the console room as the TARDIS engines fired up. "Oh, for God's sake! Is a cup too much to ask!"
"Amy," said the Doctor very seriously, "I just have one thing to do. And then I will make you some tea. And Rory, if he drinks it. I know, why don't you go ask him?"
"Earl Grey."
"That's not right. Go ask him again." Amy frowned at him but disappeared back inside the TARIDS.
The Doctor jumped out the door and into 22nd century Earth. Gallifrey was gone. All the Time Lords were gone. But maybe, just maybe, there was one Time Lady left.
The Doctor set off in search of his granddaughter.