Disclaimer: I own nothing; you know the drill
Feedback: Always appreciated
AN: Just had this idea and couldn't shake it; Rose might have had that fan touch for the modern series- and there was the obvious practical handicap of Nicholas Courtney being dead- but for me, if the War Doctor is going to talk to the ultimate weapon, it should have manifested to him as the best soldier he ever knew…
AN 2: Just to confirm, this story will primarily look at the scenes featuring the Moment; everything else happened just as it did in the original course of events. Timeline-wise, I make reference to some of my theories regarding how the Eighth Doctor's adventures fit into what we now know about the Time War, but I'm not going to elaborate on them; the essential points are clear enough.
AN 3: I apologise in advance for how I refer to the War Doctor; it is surprisingly difficult to think of names for him to think of himself as (Since he probably wouldn't actually call himself 'the War Doctor')
The Soldiers' Moment
As he stared at the object in front of him, sitting in a desolate old barn on a planet that had once been little more than Gallifrey's junkyard before the Time Lords claimed all of its resources for spare parts, the man who had once been known as the Doctor pondered its mysteries.
He was sure that he had the right weapon, of course- it might look like an elaborate bit of clockwork, but there was definitely something in there that was far more developed than that- but the question lay in how to turn it on…
"How do you work?" he muttered, crouching down to examine the object thoughtfully. "Why is there never a big red button…?"
The sound of something booming outside drew his attention away from the box, prompting him to get up and walk over to the door.
"Hello?" he called out. "Is somebody there?"
"It's nothing," a familiar voice, prompting the Time Lord to spin sharply around and stare at the man sitting on the box, dressed in the familiar green uniform that he'd worn in the last few years of the man's third life. "Just another training exercise."
"Alastair…" the soldier said, almost smiling automatically at his oldest human friend before he shook his head firmly. "What are you doing here?"
"Where else would I be?" the man said, standing up and looking warmly at his old friend, still as young as he'd been when they last met in Avalon, in those last days when the Doctor believed that war wouldn't touch Gallifrey for a while at least. "You're preparing to end the greatest war of all, Doctor; you need a soldier's perspective."
"I've had that all this life…" the old soldier said, resisting his traditional urge to deny his old title as he reflected on this body's past, instincts wired for battle from the beginning and thinking in a purely tactical manner…
"Knowing how to be a soldier doesn't mean you have a soldier's perspective, Doctor," the Brigadier said, smiling sympathetically at the Time Lord before his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Of course, then you went and parked that other old box of yours miles away from us… You didn't want her to see this, did you?"
"Want who to see?" the soldier asked.
"The TARDIS," the Brigadier replied. "All that walking… the most simple activity of them all, but one you so rarely seem to do… and all the while, thinking the same two words… No More."
"Thinking…" the old man said, feeling almost every one of his four hundred years in this body (He'd started re-counting his age after he'd restored Gallifrey and his memory, but even if he hadn't aged much during his subsequent centuries on Orbus, this war really wore on a soldier in more ways than one)…
"Who are you?" he said, looking more intently at the figure as he stopped to actually think about the situation facing him. "You… you're not Alistair…"
"Of course not," the thing that looked like the Brigadier said, smiling back at him as the Moment suddenly started to click. "He is back on Earth… or is it Avalon…?"
The man shook his head. "Anyway, this man is on Earth; I am… something else."
"It's powering up…" the soldier said, crouching down to examine the box once again.
"Of course it is," the Brigadier said. "That's why I'm here."
"There's a power source inside…" the old man said, his scientific routes coming to the fore once again, before he processed what he'd just heard. "You're… the Moment created you?"
"Your oldest friend contained in a box," the Brigadier-thing said, smiling at him. "Isn't that the way it always is, Doctor?"
"You know me?" the soldier said, not bothering to argue with the name right now.
"I hear you," the man-who-was-the-Moment said, looking at him with a slight smile. "All nine of you, knocking around up there, showing up whenever you're needed most and then departing once again. It's why I chose this form; this man has been important to you in all of your faces, and will continue to be dear to you even afterwards."
"He was always a good soldier…" the soldier said, smiling slightly at the box projecting this image.
"But a better friend," the projection said, staring at the old man with a smile. "And that's why I chose him to be here for you now; the only man who's been so important to all your lives that you knew him before you even met him."
"The conscience of the Moment manifests as the man who destroyed the Silurians?" the old man asked bitterly (He and Alistair had grown past that disagreement over the years, but it still smarted to think back on those dark days of his early exile).
"And the man who stopped what he was doing even after two decades of open war when you helped him see that he was wrong," the Brigadier said, looking pointedly at the old man. "You and he have had your disagreements, Doctor, but you both know that you have changed him for the better."
"Stop calling me that," the old man said; for what he was about to do, recalling those old days at UNIT wouldn't help.
"That's the name in your mind," the projection said.
"It shouldn't be," the old man said solemnly. "I've been fighting this war for a very long time… I've lost the right to be the Doctor."
"And now you seek to save us all," the Brigadier projection said.
"Yes," the man who was once the Doctor said solemnly.
"If I ever need an ego, you're certainly in the running for the job," the projection said, talking like the Moment more than the Brigadier.
"If you have been inside my head," the former Doctor said, standing up and walking over to face the projection directly, "then you know what I've seen. The suffering… every moment in time and space is burning. It must end. And I intend to end it the only way I can."
"By killing them all?" the Brigadier projection asked, looking solemnly at the man who had once been the Doctor. "And you once condemned me for viewing that as a solution…"
"It's not the same," the Time Lord said solemnly, as he moved over to sit down on a low box, feeling every one of his years and lives as he stared at the moment. "The Silurians could have seen another way, but the Daleks…"
He shook his head. "They will never surrender, and there is no way to save my people from what they will unleash."
"So you use me to kill them all," the Brigadier projection said thoughtfully. "Daleks and Time Lords, in one massive assault… mutually assured destruction at its finest."
The warrior didn't respond to that statement.
He'd done it once in the heat of the moment, but he'd still had time to save the Matrix and he could excuse it as he had so little time to think of an alternative; none of those excuses applid here…
"I can do it," the Brigadier projection confirmed. "But there will be consequences for you."
"I have no desire to survive this," the warrior said solemnly.
"Accepting your death like every good soldier, mmm?" the projection said, looking thoughtfully at him. "He thought that way back in Avalon, you know?"
"Your point?" the soldier asked; he didn't want to think about the last time he and Alistair had worked together.
"Your punishment will not be death," the Brigadier said, as he sat down beside the other man. "If you do this- kill them all- then you will survive… even if everyone else goes. You can accept the Daleks, naturally- this isn't like that mess on Skaro; they're actively trying to kill others now- and maybe some of the Time Lords deserve it if they're planning that 'Final Sanction' thing… but what about the children?"
"I don't want to think about that," the warrior said grimly.
He'd seen a few children back on Gallifrey as he prepared to leave, crashing the TARDIS through the wall just to save them; the thought that it was nothing but a pointless attempt to ease his conscience… to act as though he was still the man he'd been…
"You'll count them one day," the Brigadier said. "One terrible night… what do you think that will do to you?"
Tired from so long at war, he couldn't answer, until a strange vortex, like a golden whirlpool in the air, opened above them.
"What…?" he said curiously.
"I'm opening windows on your future," the Brigadier projection said. "The man you will become if you make this choice is on the other side of that vortex. If you want to see him…"
The projection's explanation was cut short when a red fez fell through the portal to land at their feet, leaving both men staring at it in surprise.
"That was unexpected," the Brigadier projection noted as the warrior reached down and picked up the fez, brushing some of the dust off it as he stood back up.
He could hear voices on the other side, but right now he wasn't interested in what they were saying; his priority was to get through this rift before he changed his mind. Taking a deep breath, he stepped towards the portal…
He emerged in a forest- Earth, sometime around the Elizabethan era based on the scent of the air, he guessed- with two men standing before him, one wearing a brown suit and the other wearing a purple coat with a bow tie.
"Anyone lose a fez?" he asked, trying to sound jovial; the less he thought about what he was leaving behind himself, the better.
"You?" the man in the suit said, staring at him incredulously. "How can you be here? More to the point, why are you here?"
"Good afternoon," the warrior said, deciding to ask for clarification on that issue later. "I'm looking for the Doctor."
"Well," the man in the suit said as he exchanged glances with the other man, "you've certainly come to the right place."
"Good!" the soldier said, smiling. "Right! Well, who are you boys? Oh, of course! Are you his companions?"
"His companions?" the man with the bow tie said incredulously.
"They get younger all the time!" the old man said, smiling at this proof of his return to the good old days; if he felt comfortable taking on companions once again, at least the universe would be slightly safer now. "Well, if you could point me in the general direction of the Doctor…"
His initial smile faltered as both men reached into their pockets and pulled out an object that he instantly recognised; they'd made some changes, but those were definitely sonic screwdrivers.
And now that he was actually paying attention, everything around them was just a bit too still… the same stillness he'd encountered when he was meeting his other selves early in his last body…
"Really?" he said.
"Yeah," the one in the bow tie said.
"Really," the other confirmed.
"You're me? Both of you?"
"Yep," the one in the suit said.
"Even that one?"
"Yes," the one in the bow tie said indignantly.
"You're my… future selves?" the old soldier said.
He couldn't believe this; he'd been young in the past, of course, but considering how old they'd have to be by now, the thought that these men were his future just seemed ridiculous…
As he took in the cell, the old man tried not to appear too off-balance at this turn of events; considering the nature of his enemies recently, he hadn't spent much time in a position where he'd need to escape from cells, so he could only hope that his future selves had some ideas about how to get out of this particular mess…
"Three of us in one cell," the man in the brown suit- the younger version of the two, apparently- said, looking contemplatively at their surroundings. "That's going to cause some nasty anomalies if we don't get out soon… What are you doing?"
"Getting us out," the older Doctor in the bow tie said, from where he was using a discarded nail to scrape something into the wall.
Stuck for anything else to do, the old man pulled out his sonic screwdriver and began to scan the door, just in case there was some kind of weakness in design that the builders had missed, but everything seemed to be secure.
"The sonic won't work on that," his closer successor said (Apparently there was another body between him and the man in the suit; he wondered why the Moment hadn't brought that one in, but it probably wasn't worth thinking about right now). "It's too primitive."
"Shall we ask for a better quality of door so we can escape?" the older Doctor asked.
"OK, so the Queen of England is now a Zygon, but never mind that, why are we all together?" the Doctor in the suit said, turning to look at the old man. "Why are we all here?"
Lost for anything else to say, the old man simply stared contemplatively at his future, waiting for them to elaborate on what they had just asked.
"Well, me and… Chinny, we were surprised," the Doctor in the suit said, indicating himself and his future self. "But you came looking for us; you knew it was going to happen. Who told you?"
The old man had no response that he could give to that statement; considering the strange looks both of them were giving him, he was almost apprehensive about how they might react if he told them where he was and what he was about to do.
"Time enough for that later," he said, turning back to the door and resuming his scan. "Now, in theory, I can trigger an isolated sonic shift among the molecules, and the door should disintegrate…"
"We'd have to calculate the exact harmonic resonance of the entire structure down to a sub-atomic level," the Doctor in the suit said in exasperation. "Even the sonic would take years."
"No, no, the sonic would take centuries…" the old man said, sighing in frustrated acknowledgement of his future self's point as he sat down on a nearby bench; he really was out of practise with this way of doing things. "Oh, we might as well get started; help to pass the 'timey-wimey'."
Now that he'd said that term, he was reminded of something he'd been meaning to ask them both. "Do you have to talk like children? What is it that makes you so ashamed of being a grown-up?"
As both of his future selves turned to look at him, he was suddenly struck by the manner of their stares; they were both looking in his direction, but neither of them were looking directly at him…
"The way you both look at me… what is that?" he asked at last. "I'm trying to think of a better word than 'dread'."
"It must be really recent for you," the Doctor in the suit said.
"Recent?" he repeated.
"The Time War, the last day," the oldest Doctor said. "The day you killed them all."
"The day we killed them all," the other Doctor corrected (He wasn't sure what he preferred; his future self's ability to distance himself from the past, or the earlier one's willingness to acknowledge it).
"Same thing," the Doctor in the bow tie said, as he turned back to his work.
"It's all history for them," the Brigadier suddenly said from beside him; the other two didn't react, so the projection must have been focused to only 'target' him. "All decided. They think that everything's set and written down; they don't know that you still have to make the final call."
The old man said nothing as he studied the men he would become, lost in contemplation…
"Ask them," the Brigadier said. "You came all this way to find out, so do it."
"Did you ever count?" he said, taking a moment to steel himself before speaking.
"Count what?" the older Doctor asked.
"How many children there were on Gallifrey that day," he elaborated.
"I have absolutely no idea," the oldest Doctor said, pausing in his work as he turned around to look at the other man.
"How old are you now?" the old man asked (He could at least be sure that they'd know what he was referring to; starting over after Gallifrey's restoration might seem vain, but their memories from before waking up in that railway carriage could sometimes seem more distant than everything that had happened afterwards).
"I don't know; I lose track," the oldest Doctor said with a brief smile. "Twelve hundred and something, I think, unless I'm lying. I can't remember if I'm lying about my age; that's how old I am."
"Four hundred years older than me," the old man said thoughtfully, "and in all that time, you've never even wondered how many there were? You never once counted?"
"Tell me," the older Doctor said, pausing in his scratchings as he turned to look at the old man with a grim glare. "What would be the point?"
"Two point four seven billion," the other Doctor said, staring coldly at his future self.
"You did count!" the old man said, even as the other Doctor just returned to his work.
"You forgot?" the middle incarnation said, walking angrily over to his successor. "Four hundred years; is that all it takes?"
"I moved on," the older Doctor retorted.
"Where?!" the younger said incredulously. "Where can you be now that you can forget something like that?"
"Spoilers," the older responded, in a tone that suggested that word was meant to mean something to them both.
"No," the younger replied. "No, no, no; for once, I would like to know where I'm going-"
"No; you really wouldn't!" the older countered, the two staring intently at each other.
"I don't know who you are," the old man said, staring at his future as it came face-to-face. "Either of you. I haven't the faintest idea…"
"They're you," the Brigadier projection said, reminding the old man of his presence. "They're the men you'll become if you destroy Gallifrey; the one who regrets… and the one who forgets."
Looking at his future, the old man wasn't sure what would be worse; being tormented constantly by the memory of what he'd have to do, or moving past the recollection of his greatest sin…
"The Moment is coming," the Brigadier said promptingly. "I'm already here, but it's up to you to make the call. Do you give the order… or do you let it all continue?"
"No," the old man said firmly.
If this was what he would become, he couldn't do it…
"No?" the Doctor in the suit said curiously.
"Just… no," the old man repeated, only for the moment to be slightly let down when the oldest Doctor chuckled slightly.
"Is something funny?" the Doctor in the suit asked. "Did I miss a funny thing?"
"Sorry," the older Doctor said. "It just occurred to me; this is what I'm like when I'm alone."
"Except it isn't," the Brigadier projection said, suddenly standing near the Doctor in the suit as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, tossing it up into the air as though he was looking for something to do with his hands. "You're the same man at three different points in his life… each one of you changed by your experiences while remaining te same at your core… and you have the same tool in the same circumstances."
For a moment, the old man wondered what kind of point the projection was trying to make, but then the explanation came to him.
"Four hundred years…" he said softly, staring at the screwdriver in his hand.
"I'm sorry?" the Doctor in the suit said, looking curiously at him.
"At a software level, they're all the same device, aren't they?" the old man explained, standing up to indicate the tools. "Same software, different case."
"Yeah; so…?" the Doctor in the suit said, as the other one drew out his own sonic screwdriver and joined them in facing the door.
"So, it would take centuries for the screwdriver to calculate how to disintegrate the door," the old man explained, scanning the door as he spoke before turning to his future selves. "Scanning the door, implanting the calculation as a permanent subroutine in the software architecture and... if you really are me, with your sandshoes and your dicky bow, and that screwdriver is still mine... that calculation is still going on."
"Yeah…" the Doctor in the suit said, turning on his screwdriver and holding it up to his ear. "Still going…"
"Calculation complete," the oldest Doctor said, as he repeated the action with his own screwdriver.
"Remarkable as always, Doctor," the Brigadier projection said, grinning warmly at the old man, who couldn't resist the temptation to briefly nod at his old friend before turning his attention back to his other selves.
"Four hundred years in four seconds," the oldest Doctor said with a grin. "We may have our differences, which is frankly odd in the circumstances, but I tell you what, boys, we are incredibly clever!"
The old man just wished that their epiphany hadn't been undermined by the arrival of a small woman in a red dress and a leather jacket who apparently travelled with the oldest Doctor present.
He'd really hoped that he'd have learned not to overlook the obvious as he got older…
Back in the TARDIS- he wasn't wild about the new interior, but he supposed he'd get used to it in time; the Doctor in the bow tie seemed to like it- the old man wasn't sure how he should feel about the situation they were heading into.
The news that Alistair was dead in the time they were heading for was somewhat uncomfortable when the projection of the Moment was still standing in the console room, looking like his old friend when they'd all been at their best- things had been so much more enjoyable in that body, even when the TARDIS had been grounded- but the more immediate shock facing them right now was what they were listening to via the space-time telegraph.
Zygons in the Black Archive was terrifying on its own, but just hearing Alistair's daughter preparing to destroy London…
"To save the world?" the woman his future self had identified as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart said (He could almost picture her now, as calm and collected as her father even when facing the worst that the universe had to offer, first thought to the safety of the world she was dedicated to protecting even if she clearly needed some time to think about alternatives). "Yes, I would."
"You're bluffing," another voice said (Most likely the voice of Kate's Zygon 'double', given how similar it sounded to her own).
"You really think so?" Kate responded. "Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. I'm his daughter."
"'Science leads', Kate," the oldest Doctor said, stepping forward to activate the radio at their end at last. "Is that what you meant? Is this what your father meant?"
"Doctor?" Kate replied, clearly not expecting this new voice.
"Space-Time Telegraph, Kate," the Doctor clarified. "A gift from me to your father, hotline straight to the TARDIS! I know about the Black Archive and I know about the security protocol. Kate, please, please, tell me you are not about to do something unbelievably stupid!"
"I'm sorry, Doctor," Kate said, her non-response confirming that she wasn't bluffing. "Switch it off."
"Not as sorry as you'll be," the middle Doctor said, stepping forward to address the woman on the other end. "This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with!"
"Your father's goal was always the preservation of human life," the old man interjected; he might have let his other selves take point, since they clearly knew what they were talking about, but seeing Alistair standing in front of him inspired him to step up and speak as well, trying to save whatever was left of their old friend in his daughter. "Whatever else he did, he never forgot that human life matters; don't break that streak now!"
His desperation only increased when the TARDIS shook around them, sending them all briefly staggering before they grabbed the console to regain their balance.
"Kate!" the oldest Doctor yelled. "We're trying to bring the TARDIS in; why can't we land?"
"I said switch it off!" Kate said, before the radio audibly died on them.
"No, Kate, please, just listen to me…!" the Doctor yelled, before he was forced to give up the call with a groan. "The Tower of London; totally TARDIS-proof."
"How can they do that?" his companion asked him.
"Alien technology plus human stupidity," the eldest Doctor said grimly. "Trust me, it's unbeatable."
"We don't need to land…" the old man said, eyes falling on the cube they'd stolen from the Zygon technology earlier as the epiphany came to him.
"Yeeeeah we do; tiny bit," the Doctor in the suit said, looking sceptically at him. "Try to keep up."
"No, we don't," the old man said, reaching over to pick up the stasis cube. "We don't. There is another way… Cup-a-Soup!"
He didn't entirely understand the analogy, but the idea was sound, so long as they could find a suitable picture…
Everything after they put the plan together had to move quickly. With the Tower secured against direct TARDIS access, they'd chosen to leave the ship outside the Tower itself after the oldest Doctor had made arrangements for a suitable painting to be transferred to the Black Archive (They'd work out how a painting of the Fall of Arcadia had arrived on Earth when they had the time) so that they could intercept the painting and send themselves into it before it was moved into the Archive itself. After that, all they needed was to insert a quick little time-delay setting to their moment of temporal stasis so that they could get out after their younger selves had made their call on the telegraph but before the countdown finished- it worked on the defaulter planet; there was no reason for it to fail now- and wait in the painting…
The attempted Dalek attack as they 'woke up' had been unexpected, but with all three screwdrivers acting as one, generating a suitable sonic field to repulse the attack was childishly simple, and had the added bonus of clearing the path to the painting itself. With the companion close behind them, all three Doctors had emerged from the painting into the archive, swiftly walking up to the central table to confront the three sets of 'twins' present.
"Hello," the old man said, feeling as though he should start the introductions.
"I'm the Doctor," the one in the suit said, continuing on from him.
"Sorry about the Dalek," the third added, indicating the battered machine in question before glaring at one of the blonde women before them. "Kate Lethbridge-Stewart; what in the name of sanity are you doing?"
"The countdown can only be halted at my personal command," the other woman said (Evidently his older self had been addressing the Zygon Kate). "There's nothing you can do."
"Except," the Doctor in the suit added as he stepped forward, "make you both agree to halt it."
"Not even for three of you," Kate said firmly.
"You're about to murder millions of innocent people-" the old man began, looking at her in a pleading manner, not wanting to see Alistair's daughter come to this.
"To save billions," she countered firmly. "How many times have you made that calculation?"
"Once," the oldest Doctor said, briefly glancing at him in a manner that was clearly referring to Gallifrey (He thought briefly about that mess with Agent Orange and other examples, but discarded it as irrelevant; in those cases he'd been faced with no alternative and limited time, but here and back with the Moment he had the time to consider other options and was just choosing not to in case delaying made it worse). "It turned me into the man I am now… not even sure who that is any more."
"You tell yourself it's justified, but it's a lie," the other Doctor said, walking over to stand at the head of the table and lean over it as he spoke. "Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong."
Looking over at one corner of the room, the old man noticed the Brigadier projection watching him reproachfully, but then he looked back at his other selves and focused on the matter at hand; they'd only briefly discussed what to do in this situation, and he didn't want to risk missing something important.
"And," the oldest Doctor was saying, as he walked over to join his other self at the head of the table," because I got it wrong… I'm going to make you get it right."
"How?" Kate asked, as the other two Time Lords moved wheeled chairs from either side of the table and sat down in them, propping their feet up and crossing their arms in unison.
"Any second now," the Doctor in the suit said, looking firmly at the two Kates, "you're going to stop that countdown; both of you, together."
"Then you're going to negotiate the most perfect treaty of all time," the older Doctor added.
"Safeguards all round, completely fair on both sides," the Doctor in the suit said as he leaned over to his other self.
"And the key to perfect negotiation…" the older said promptingly to the younger.
"Not knowing what side you're on," the younger finished, before they both pushed away from the table and stood up.
"So," the older continued, as they both pulled out their sonic screwdrivers, "for the next few hours, until we decide to let you out…"
"No-one in this room will be able to remember if they're human…"
"Or Zygon."
With that said, the two Doctors leapt onto the table and aimed their sonics at the memory filters that served as the Archive's main security system, the old man joining them as he raised his own sonic.
As a bright flash filled the room, followed closely by both Kates cancelling the detonation after a panicked look at each other, the old warrior couldn't remember the last time he'd felt that good about a victory…
Standing in front of the modified Moment, a large red control before him that looked more like a jewel than anything else, the old man wondered how it done that, but decided it wasn't important; something capable of the power this object was said to possess could probably do a great many things, and he'd seen first-hand evidence of its more remarkable feats already.
"You said you preferred them with a big red button," the Brigadier projection said, smiling at him before he assumed a more solemn manner. "Press that, and it's all over; Time Lords and Daleks, all finished. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I was sure when I came in here," the old man said, enthusiasm for the earlier victory gone as he faced what he was about to do. "There is no other way."
"Even after seeing the men you will become?" the projected Brigadier asked.
"Those men?" the old man asked, smiling slightly at the memory. "Extraordinary."
"They were you."
"No," he corrected. "They were the Doctor."
"You are as well," the projection said, looking warmly at him. "Your faces change, and your methods alter at times, but you're still the most… complicated… yet exceptional friend I've ever had."
"No," he repeated. "Great men are forged in fire; it is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame. The Doctor is a man who seeks peace, and while soldiers such as Alistair, Sergeant Benton, Captain Yates were all the finest military men I have ever known… all I was in this war was a warrior seeking the end."
"And you think that we don't want that?" the Brigadier projection asked, his tone giving no indication of his deeper thoughts (It was easier to just think of the man standing before him as Alistair for the moment, rather than worry about the finer details).
"You sought to end the war to save lives," the old man said grimly, briefly lost in the memory of the glimpses he'd caught of the Future War, so long ago in his previous body, before he'd destroyed and rebuilt Gallifrey just to spare them from all that horror… "I just want it to end so that I don't have to watch my people fall all over again…"
Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the big red button before him, slowly raising his hand towards it…
"You know," the Brigadier said thoughtfully, "whenever I heard that box of yours leaving, I was always so frustrated with you for abandoning your post… but when I heard it coming back, I knew that there was hope for us all. That ship of yours, with its wheezing, groaning sound, brings hope for assistance and support wherever it goes."
"Yes…" the old man said, smiling slightly at the thought. "Yes, I like to think it does. Thank you, Alistair."
"To anyone who hears it, Doctor," the Brigadier said, looking pointedly at the old soldier. "Regardless of how lost they are… or even who they are…"
It was only as that sentence finished that the old man realised he could hear that same noise coming from behind him. Turning around, he watched as two TARDISes materialised behind him, the doors opening to reveal the Doctor in the suit from one of them (That Doctor was now also wearing a long brown coat) and the other revealing the Doctor in the bow tie with the girl in the red dress who had introduced herself to him as Clara.
"I told you, he hasn't done it yet," the girl- Clara- said to her Doctor.
"Go away now, all of you," the old soldier said, turning around to focus his attention back on the Moment before him; he'd learned what he needed to from meeting them, and he didn't want that memory tainted by having them witness this moment from the outside. "This is for me."
"These events should be time-locked; we shouldn't even be here," the Doctor in the suit said.
"So something let us through…" the other Doctor reflected.
"Remarkable chap," the Brigadier said, smiling as he looked at the old man. "All of you."
"Go back," the old warrior said; he just wanted to be alone with his shame for the rest of this life, then he could regenerate and try to get away from it all, since he clearly wasn't going to be lucky enough to die when he triggered this weapon. "Go back to your lives… go and be the Doctor that I could never be. Make it worthwhile…"
He fought down the urge to sob as he placed his hand on the button; this action would drive his future selves to struggle all the more to find some other way to prevent death, but it didn't make it any easier for him to do it now…
"All those years, burying you in my memory," the Doctor in the suit and coat said solemnly.
"Pretending you didn't exist," the other Doctor added, his voice grim. "Keeping you a secret even from myself."
"Pretending you weren't the Doctor when you were the Doctor more than anybody else."
"You were the Doctor," the Doctor in the bow tie said, as he walked over to stand next to the old man, "on the day it wasn't possible to get it right."
The Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right…
That sounded so much more noble than what he really was now…
"But this time…" the man in the suit said, taking up position on the other side of the old man as he placed his hand on the button as well.
"You don't have to do it alone," the other man said, as he placed his hand above the other two.
For a moment, the old man could only stare at the sight before him.
Two Doctors were joining him in this moment…
They knew what he was about to do and were still willing to join him…
They had told him that they considered him to have been 'the Doctor on the day it was impossible to get it right'…
Even with what he was about to do, he suddenly felt like the Doctor in a way that he hadn't felt since Cass chose to die instead of accepting his help.
"Thank you…" he said, closing his eyes to keep back the tears; what they were about to do would be difficult enough without that…
"What we do today," the Doctor on his right said solemnly, "is not out of fear, or hatred. It is done because there is no other way."
"And it is done in the name of the many lives we are failing to save…" the Doctor on his left said, his voice low and trembling, staring at the button for a moment before he looked up at something behind the old man. "What? What is it, what?"
"Nothing…" Clara's voice said, clearly trembling.
"No… it's something," the Doctor said, walking over to look at her. "Tell me."
"You told me you wiped out your own people…" Clara began timidly. "I just… I never pictured you doing it, that's all."
"Take a closer look," the Brigadier projection said. As the room around them darkened, the old man suddenly found himself standing in Arcadia once again, his other selves and Clara standing beside him as they watched the battle raging around them, helpless to stop anything.
"What's happening?" Clara asked anxiously.
"Nothing," the old man said grimly. "It's a projection."
"It's reality," the Brigadier projection corrected. "The fact that it isn't happening to you doesn't mean that it isn't happening somewhere."
There was nothing that could be done except watch as the conflict waged around them, families destroyed, Daleks firing on people as they fled, helpless civilians eliminated simply because they were Time Lords…
"These are the people you're going to burn?" Clara asked, looking at the three Time Lords in horror.
"There isn't anything we can do," the Doctor in the suit said grimly.
"He's right," the older Doctor- Clara's Doctor- said, his voice shaky as though he was trying to convince himself all of a sudden. "There isn't another way, there never was. Either I destroy my own people… or let the universe burn…"
"Look at you," Clara said, smiling through her tears. "All three of you… the warrior, the hero… and you."
"And what am I?" the oldest Doctor asked as he walked over to Clara, leaving the younger two to watch as their future self spoke with this companion who clearly meant so much to them.
"Have you really forgotten?" Clara asked.
"Yes," the Doctor replied. "Maybe, yes."
"We've got enough warriors," Clara said, indicating the old man (A sentiment that he fully agreed with; he'd only assumed this role because a doctor clearly wasn't needed right now), "and any old idiot can be a hero," she continued, indicating the other Time Lord beside him (He slightly resented that, but decided to let it stand; being called the hero wasn't a bad thing, after all).
"Then what do I do?" the Doctor asked.
"What you've always done," Clara replied, as the battle around them began to die down as people emerged from the rubble. "Be a doctor."
Be a doctor…
He wanted to return to that role again, but did he have the right?
Clara's words had him doubting himself all over again; after what he was about to do, could he even begin to make it right…?
"You can do it, Doctor," the Brigadier said, smiling over at him. "You inspired me to be better when you weren't trying; do you really think you can't change yourself when you know what you want?"
The more that projection spoke, the easier it was to imagine that it wasn't just a copy of his oldest friend, but the real person, somehow brought back to guide him onto the right path…
"You told me the name you chose was a promise," Clara said; how she could match what the projection was saying while completely ignorant of its presence was an amazing coincidence, but not one he was going to complain about. "What was the promise?"
"Never cruel or cowardly," the Doctor in the suit said.
"Never give up," the old man added. "Never give in…"
Whatever else had changed about him, that had remained the same; he'd just changed the focus…
As the illusion faded around them, leaving the three Time Lords standing around the Moment once again, the oldest Doctor looked thoughtfully at the other two.
"You're not… actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?" the Doctor in the suit asked, looking incredulously at his successor.
"We change history all the time," the oldest Doctor said. "I'm suggesting something far worse…"
"What, exactly?" the old man asked.
"Gentlemen," the Doctor said as he reached into his pocket to pull out the sonic, "I have had four hundred years to think about this… I've changed my mind."
With that, he stepped back and aimed the screwdriver at the Moment, the big red button retracting back into its box as the two older Doctors began to pace the barn, leaving the old man to look up at the ceiling.
"There's still a billion billion Daleks up there, attacking," he reminded his future selves.
"Yeah, there is, there is," the oldest Doctor said with a grin.
"But," the Doctor in the suit said, holding out a thoughtful hand, "there's something those billion billion Daleks don't know about."
"'Cause if they did, they'd probably send for reinforcements," the Doctor said, still grinning.
"What?" Clara asked. "What don't they know?"
"This time, there's three of us," the Doctor said firmly.
Three of us…
It might have been unnecessary thanks to Clara's discovery, but when they were trapped in that cell, what one of them couldn't accomplish, all three of them had almost achieved…
The whole reason they were allowed to come together with their other selves was that multiple Doctors could achieve what one could never accomplish; they'd done it before-
"Oh!" the old man said, hands clasping his forehead as inspiration struck him. "Oh! Oh, yes, that is good; that is brilliant!"
"Oh!" the Doctor in the suit said. "Oh! Oh! I'm getting that too; that is brilliant!" he concluded, jumping up to slap one hand against the TARDIS.
"I've been thinking about it for centuries!" the oldest Doctor grinned, adopting a pose that reminded the old man of a surfer…
"He didn't just show me any old future!" the old man said, realising what the projection had done for him. "He showed me exactly the future I needed to see! Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, you never cease to amaze me!"
"Brigadier?" the two future Doctors said in surprise, looking sharply at him.
"You're welcome, Doctor," the projection said, nodding briefly at him. "Splendid fellows… all of you."
"So what are we doing?" Clara asked, bringing the other Doctors' focus back to the crisis at hand as the projection vanished even from the old man's perspective. "What's the plan?"
"The Dalek fleets are surrounding Gallifrey, firing on it constantly," the old man explained; if he focused on the matter at hand, his other selves may not start asking awkward questions…
"The Sky Trench is holding," the Doctor in the suit continued. "But what if the whole planet… just disappeared?"
"Tiny bit of an ask," Clara replied, looking at them in confusion.
"The Daleks would be firing on each other," the Doctor in the suit continued, pointing his fingers at each other to clarify his point. "They'd destroy themselves in their own crossfire!"
"Gallifrey would be gone, the Daleks would be destroyed, and it would look to the rest of the universe as if they'd annihilated each other!" the old man finished.
"But where would Gallifrey go?" Clara asked, clearly excited at the thought but confused about the nature of the plan.
"Frozen," the Doctor in the suit explained. "Frozen in an instant of time, safe and hidden away."
"Exactly…" the oldest Doctor began.
"Like a painting," the old man finished, grinning eagerly at the thought.
He was going to save his people and defeat the Daleks…
For the first time in centuries, he felt like the Doctor again…