Prologue - The End

‚I love biographies. You need a good death. Without death there'd only be comedies. Death gives us size.'

The Tenth Doctor, from ‚Silence In The Library'

He followed her to the end of the Universe. If that didn't say more than a thousand words ever could about him, he didn't know how to make it any clearer. Oh how often people had told him that despite two hearts beating in his chest he was a creature without love, without compassion. Yet he followed an absurd, impossible message, a lifeline, out into the great, vast nothing that is space. His two hearts had no love for others left because he had given all of it to her. And now here he was. Clinging to the pathetic hope that she had survived the Time War, that she had escaped it, somehow, maybe. That she had found shelter away from it all and was now waiting for him, somewhere out here, so they might finally share the life she had always wanted. A simpler life. Just the two of them, a small house on a little moon, a huge library. Children. Oh, children. Now that he might have wasted his last chance, he realised how much he would have liked to have children. The only adventure that he had been denied. The only adventure his old friend, the Doctor, had embarked on where he never dared. He had been too scared. Now it was, perhaps, too late.

He had left Earth one last time. The laughter of his... well, dare he call them friends? Their voices, their songs, their laughter, still hanging in the air on his ship yet now there was just painful silence. He had left behind the roaring 1920ies, jazz music, flapper dresses, and cold smoke. He had said farewell to the two he left behind there, one Captain Jack Harkness and one Sally Sparrow. Strangers in that time, just like he had been. He offered to take them back to their time – Jack to the 51st century and Sally back to the year 2007. Both had refused. They had their lives here, they were happy enough. Jack was waiting for 'his' Doctor, who he knew would come eventually. And Sally had family in this new life of hers, where the Angels had taken her.

After leaving them, he had returned to 2013 just once, just briefly, just to check on them. Abby and Lee. He hadn't shown himself, hadn't spoken to them, just watched to make sure they were alright. They were doing great. A little house in the suburbs, a cat, a dog, a child on the way, Abby was writing again and Lee was keeping everything in the house in order. They were fine, they'd have a great life. He left them a note, one they might find within hours, maybe days, maybe it would be years. Letting them know he was happy for them, so very happy. Then he left.

For the first time he really understood the Doctor. When the adventures were lived and the friends, the companions, moved on with their lives, the Time Lord was who stayed behind alone. Forever. Yet no matter how lonely one was, the memory of such friendships was worth the pain. It took him nine regenerations to understand what a child like the Doctor had known all along. But finally, he did understand it.

He approached the coordinates transmitted by the glowing hypercube he had received. The signal was stronger out here and he could determine without a doubt that the writing was Circular-Gallifreyan. The beautiful language of his people, one he had not thought to ever see again. The complex words, like the complicated and delicate insides of a watch. Or – as an Akhaten poet had once put it – 'The Lords of Gallifrey write in time'.

The hypercube he had intercepted had only one message written in it. 'Find me'. He had dropped everything he had been doing and set course to find her at the end of the universe. He knew it had to be her.

It had been a moderately uneventful journey until he was caught in turbulence. The Ouroboros – his loyal TARDIS – was heavily shaking in the currents, sparks flying from the main console and he realised once again, painfully so, how difficult it was to navigate a ship like her alone. Over thousands of years he had developed a certain routine but he still remembered the time when they had been two pilots. It had been so much easier. How much more comfortable it would have been to have a proper crew, he could barely imagine, it had been so long ago. But no one had been crazy enough (with one exception) and now it was too late. They were all gone. Or almost all of them, as it would seem.

A heavy explosion shook the ship, he cursed under his breath, and moments later, the lights died.

"What the-?!"

The consoles were down, all those blinking lights had risen in one last, desperate sigh and then she was gone. With a curse he leapt towards the console, his sonic-multi-tool in hands and he opened the main control panel. The circuits were fine, no cables burned, no wires ripped. Everything in order. Then why were they in free fall? The ship was leaning disastrously and he stumbled halfway through the bridge, catching a pillar to hold on to for dear life. On impact, he hit two ribs painfully, all air pressed from his lungs. They were tossed in the tides of space, intergalactic storms, chaos, no up and no down, just...

She was dead. His TARDIS was dead. The realisation hit him like a punch in the stomach, nauseating, even before he crash-landed with his ship. The last flight of the Ouroboros came to an abrupt, cruel end.

Silence fell. A small eternity passed before he trusted his knees enough to stand. He approached the main console, gently brushing his fingertips over it. He felt no life, no warmth, no soul in it. She was gone. So many aeons had she been his one lasting, faithful companion and now she was... As if she just vanished. Abandoning him somewhere. That consciousness that made a TARDIS so much more than any other ship was just... gone.

He turned away and quickly, light on his feet, jumped up the few steps to the door. Time to figure out where he was.

He stepped outside. Beyond the ship lay a dark, barren, uncomfortable landscape, rough rocks, the darkness of space in the sky – no stars, no signs of direction. He could make out the hollow bones of ancient ships, technology from long before he was born and from far in the future. A bone yard of ships, lost in time, neither here nor there, neither now nor then.

He stepped away from his own ship and turned towards it, looked at the blunt, plain exterior, just a large, grey cylinder with a door, the raw state of a TARDIS, as cold and dull on the outside as she now was on the inside. The chameleon circuit had failed, his usually fancy ship was reduced to just its parts.

He raised his tool above his head, taking measures. The atmosphere was good enough to breathe without concerns – not brilliant, but acceptable – but he could not make out any coordinates. It was as if...

Oh, but of course! A separate universe! Which meant that his TARDIS was not per se dead but had lost the energy she needed to fly, had lost the connection. She was drained. With the right tools he might be able to fix her. And where better to find the tools than on a bone yard? He didn't need much, just enough for one little jump out of this messed up parallel universe, back to his own.

He pulled his brows down. What could have motivated the Time Lords to come to a place like this? Had they been searching for something? Was she still here?

When he turned to look around, he spotted them. Two humanoid looking creatures approaching slowly, reluctantly. He could guess they were wearing rags and as they came closer he could see their faces, scarred and strange.

"Who goes there?" he called over at them. In one quick move, he had his sonic gun drawn and pointing at the strangers.

"A new fellow. There's still some out there, Uncle. House will be pleased," the female mumbled.

"I am armed! I am here to speak with the Librarian. Immediately."

"Librarian? We have no Librarians here. There is no one here. Just us. And House," the male called back at him.

"I followed her hypercube, I know she's here. Let me speak to her and no one will get hurt!"

He didn't like this situation. Something about this place made him increasingly uncomfortable. And these two figures did not make it easier to relax. His hopes of finding her, of having that peaceful future she had always envisioned, was beginning to fade. Instead he was quite certain now that she had called him here to save her. That it had not been an invitation, but a distress signal.

"Hypercube? Hyper... oh, he comes to find a Time Lady? How romantic."

"Look at him, Uncle. He is so tall and so strong. Such broad shoulders. Such a handsome face. He'll be good. We'll put him to good use, this one."

"Yes, Auntie, yes, we will."

The female came closer and with every step she took, he realised how strangely she moved. As if the parts didn't fit. The scar on her face split her in two and he realised the skin on one side was paler than on the other. And one side had freckles. One eye was brown, the other green. Her hands... one was that of a woman, the other a man. They were assembled from parts. Stitched together hastily, like the messy clothes they were wearing. His gaze wandered to the male quickly. He, too, was a compilation of parts that didn't fit, with whatever material they had available.

And then he realised. The material that was available... the scarps they used to fix themselves... they were pieces of the other people who had shipwrecked here, just like him. He took a step back, the female another step towards him and suddenly, surprising her just as much, her hand shot forward, reaching for him and touching his cheek.

And his hearts shattered into millions of pieces right there and then. He knew this hand. He knew these fingertips, gentle on his skin. The most bizarre, most terrifying moment of his long existence. That her hand, the only thing left of her, still remembered him. He closed his eyes, feeling the impossible pain in his chest as he felt everything he thought worth living for die right there. He fell to his knees, couldn't breathe, held on to her hand, squeezing it, holding it to his cheek to never lose that last touch. How far he had come for her. Survived the Time War, the terrors of all of time and space... only to lose her after all. As spare parts for vagabonds. The memory was destroying him. When he looked up he gave in to the illusion that it was her face smiling at him, that it was her voice. He could hear her, the words she had always said to him when he had secretly come to see her with yet another new face.

"I would always recognise you, my Corsair."

Who would have thought that it could hurt so much to lose her again. Just when he had gotten over the idea that she had been lost on Gallifrey, with all the others.

The female just stood there and he didn't even really see her. He just held her hand, brought it to his lips once, almost certain he could still feel the warmth of her touch, the memory so clear as if it had been yesterday.

"What are you doing, foolish Time Lord. Shoot us. Kill us and run for your life," the female whispered, shaking her head, confused by his reaction. Why would he lower his weapon, why would he resign so easily? He knew what they were, she saw it in his eyes. He knew why they had lured him here. When he looked up again he saw the male pulling a huge butchers knife. The lips of the Time Lord curled up into that smile. That smile that could disarm empires and charm Kings and Queens alike.

"What for? What life? My people are gone, my ship is dead, the woman I love is dead... There is nothing left for me in all of time and space. Kill me. Go ahead, don't hold back. So at least we can share death, if we couldn't share our lives."

For one moment, just a glimpse, he saw pity in the female's eyes. A look he did not want to see, a look he didn't deserve. "Kill me!" he screamed at them, pulling her closer by the hand that wasn't hers at all. The male grabbed him by the shoulder and he saw the knife flash before him as it struck down and –

Just Names. Anju. Doctor. River. Halim. Oswin. Rory. Hedwig. Jack. Sally. Lee. Abby. His Abby. And Flavia. His Flavia. The last memory he saw. Red hair and green eyes, and her smile, and her voice.

"I would always recognise you."

And so it ends, the legend of the Corsair of Gallifrey.

Author's Note:

I am being brave. I am trying to write a Doctor Who Fanfiction centring on the Corsair as he was characterised by Neil Gaiman. i want to look at his adventures, his role in the Time War, his friendship with the Doctor, his various regenerations - male and female - and the people whose lives he touched. Neil Gaiman said the Corsair never took companions the way the Doctor did but saved people and never stayed long enough to receive their gratitude. I am changing this a bit, just a bit, in that he will have three people he would consider 'friends'. The Doctor, the Time Lady Flavia (I have NOT seen most of Classic Who, so bear with me), and a human girl named Abby, my OC, who will be the closest thing to a permanent companion he ever had and who is a writer, so in a way, she tells his story...

If you want to know the main headcanons I am using for this fic, check out Neil Gaiman's 'Eleven things you probably didn't know about the Corsair' - it's a lovely read and insanely inspiring!

This is basically something I wanted to write for quite a while now and when I have the time, every now and then, I will update with new adventures. But because I don't want 'Blinding' to suffer from it, it might not update so regularly. Still, I'd love comments and messages and maybe let me know what you imagine the Corsair to be like. Also, I will introduce each new regeneration on my tumblr, so keep an eye out for that!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Doctor Who (duh) or the Corsair.