The Doctor likes to travel with an entourage. Sometimes humans, sometimes aliens, sometimes tin dogs. All of these are mortals- they flash momentarily in the darkness and then fade. The Doctor knows he will soon have to say goodbye to them. He doesn't allow himself to get too attached to them. The only companions that were always there for him, and will stay with him forever, are the Endless. They are in his head, in his hearts, all around him.
Destruction, the red-headed giant, swung his sword over Gallifrey. The Doctor sighed and pressed the button that turned his world into a ball of flames, killing everyone, friends and foes alike. The last cries of the Time Lords and the angry screaming of the Daleks mingled with the roar of Destruction's laughter. The TARDIS caught flame, and there was nothing the Doctor could do for it. Then everything went very still.
Time lock. Gallifrey is lost.
Death, as beautiful as ever, looks at him with her good, clever, shining eyes. "We meet again," she says, and her voice offers comfort and peace. He longs to go with her, longs for the mighty wings that will take him to his people. Him, the rebel, the outsider. Him, who ran away from them with disgust but came back to grant them final grace. He saved the universe, but lost them.
"Don't think about it now," she says. "This isn't your time yet."
"But I don't want to go back," He says. "Everything's dead, everything has ended. My hearts are broken and there's no point left in anything."
"You're still alive," she says. "And where there's life, there's hope."
"And where is this hope, then?" he asks, but Death isn't there anymore. Her bell-like laughter echoes in his ears, and her silver ankh fills his mind's eye. And then the pain begins.
He wakes up on the floor of his TARDIS. His old, burned TARDIS, now the only one in existence. The echo of Death's laughter is the humming of the dying ship, wrecked almost beyond repair but still clinging stubbornly to life. The awful pain and burning in his bones tell him that he had regenerated again. He should have died with them. He didn't. He turns and starts fixing the TARDIS, the only TARDIS remaining in the universe.
They are with him, anywhere he goes. Poor Delirium, who used to be Delight when the universe was much younger, sits beside him as he works. She blows bubbles, butterflies and tiny fish at him. He laughs together with her: a humourless, insane laughter, until the butterflies get entangled in her colourful hair and she's screaming, screaming… he buries his head in his hands and wishes to put an end to it all.
From the broken mirror in the wardrobe, Despair gazes at him with her dead eyes. She carves the flesh of her face with her hook-ring, and the blood flows, dark and thick. He looks down at his greased hands. That blood will never wash away.
"Not yet," says a dark figure behind his back. Its face is hooded, but the Doctor doesn't need to see it to know Destiny. He had known him since childhood; every step he took was followed by him. Always a silent, transparent presence, setting him apart from the others, making him lonely among his own kind. The Doctor doesn't want this weight on his shoulders right now, but somehow, Destiny seems less dour, less dark.
"Even in the ruins there is still life. My siblings will come to you, when the time comes. Despair will go and Dream and Desire will take her place. You shall yet know joy and sorrow, roses and wolves."
The Doctor wants to ask him when will that happen. But it's a foolish question: Destiny, who is Time, doesn't give away his secrets that easy. The Time Lords used to dedicate their entire long lives to his riddles. He's the only one left. He will have to carry their load, too.
The Endless are always with him. Death follows him anywhere he goes, collecting those who loved him and fell for him. She's there when his hearts break, just a little bit more every time. He yearns for her, waiting for the day when she will finally take him in her arms and allow him to sleep. He will do everything it takes to make this day come sooner.
The Doctor sets the TARDIS to London, Earth, 2005.