Inspired by a video by Ellym3lly on tumblr (I cannot for the life of me remember which one).
He steps foot on the rocks, ignoring the blathering of the person beside him.
The dais stands in front of him.
He can see its function in seconds.
"I know how it works." He says solemnly.
He wishes he didn't have to. He'd spent years researching it, decoding every component of it.
There is nothing- nothing- that he can do.
There is no way he can fix this- save her.
He'd even taken a copy to a past her- him then- and asked for his advice after explaining everything.
She'd always been a genius. Especially with a price put on his own head by it the Doctor had hoped his oldest friend would be able to find a way to save them.
He hadn't been able to.
The Doctor had wiped his mind as a courtesy, kissed him softly as he left him laying on that bed.
So now he's here.
With one option and more than enough sorrow for all his lifetimes.
The Doctor watches as they bring her out from her prison.
He listens to that voice again, barely hearing it for the pounding of his desperate hearts.
Rasillon he loves her. He always has.
She apologises for his loss and he says nothing.
They'd both lost their spouses again and again. It was an awful pain and one that could never leave them.
He says nothing for her, knowing that it's a pain he wants to save her from as much as he does every pain she faces.
Let her pretend she doesn't hurt like he does. Let her pretend she's truly evil.
Be kind. Just at the end. Just for the end. Be kind.
One of the killers speaks but he doesn't hear the words.
She doesn't either.
Their gazes remain fixed and he can read every word of the hope and hurt and want and love in her eyes.
He hopes that she can't read what's in his. Knows despite this that she will- she always has been able to read him better than anyone else.
Her eyes glimmer with unshed tears as she is brought forwards.
She kneels and the Doctor wants to take her in his arms and promise her the universe like he did when they were children.
Her voice is beautiful. Beautiful like stars and dreams and everything he has ever wanted all wrapped up in the hurt she has faced which lets it quake. She sounds like a star sputtering out- the cooling of a white dwarf into a black dwarf.
He has already fixed the death machine when he faces her, hands on the lever.
There is only one thing he can do now. One option. The last option.
"Please. I'll do anything. Just let me live." She begs.
The Doctor really wants to- wishes he could. He forces himself to look at her- to watch her face, honest and open and hopeful that he'll be able to find a way out.
One of the robed men asks if either of them had requested a priest.
The Mistress hasn't. Neither has he.
"Apparently, I have." He says, watching the figure beckon him.
He doesn't take his eyes from this person before him. He must know them. There's something about them that tickles the back of his mind.
He hears the Mistress sit back behind him. He hears the shudder of a light breath as it rips through her, so alive.
The man behind him makes his calculations.
"There are four hundred and twelve precedents in the Fatality Index. Divine intervention, therefore, is permitted for a maximum of five minutes." He says.
"Five minutes." The Mistress breathes out. A prayer.
"The executioner may now discuss his immortal soul and any peril thereunto." Says the man. His voice is cold, as dead as his job.
The Doctor walks over the even ground to stand before the 'priest'. He knows it can't be a priest- it never would be.
The figure who the Doctor can't quite place yet although he's sure it's from his relatively recent past greets him.
"I never sent for you." Says the Doctor. Voice rough, just wanting to get on with what he must do.
"Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis. This is what he believes, and this is the reason above all, I love him. My husband. My madman in a box. My Doctor." Says the man. He closes the book he's holding. The Doctor recognises it, eyes widening as he looks up.
Nardole pulls back his cowl.
"Your missus wouldn't approve." He states.
The Doctor swallows, gaze meeting the ground. He wants to cry for seeing this wonderful man- one of his good friends- before this decision- someone who shares memories of River and twenty-four years of night.
"I know." The Time Lord says, meeting the android's eyes.
"You're going to do it anyway, aren't you?" Nardole says, frown clear on his face, the skin between his eyebrows creasing.
"Yes. I am." The Doctor whispers, eyes closing.
His old friend lays a hand on his shoulder. The weight is somehow comforting even now.
"You're a good man." He says. The android swallows.
"Is she worth it?" He asks after a pause, looking past the Doctor to the Time Lady staring off into the distance.
The Time Lord does not hesitate, steel in his gaze as he looks into Nardole's eyes.
"She is. Always. Forever. She always has been." He states.
"A universe without the Master. Without the Mistress. It does not bear thinking about." The Doctor says.
He is certain of that fact. He has been since they first met. Since they were both children who ran through the fields of the Master's family's property. Since everything that happened between them. Since their first kiss. Since their last.
So he gives Nardole instructions. He removes the Tardis key from his pocket and his sonic screwdriver and presses them into the man's hand firmly.
They cry out for him and he apologises through his mind to everything left in the universe that can feel him.
"You're really going to do this sir?" Asks Nardole, tears shining in his eyes.
"I'm sorry." Says the Doctor, "I can't. Knowing she's dead I couldn't- not now. Not ever." And Nardole wraps him into a hug that is uncomfortably tight but the Doctor just holds the other man.
"Give the universe my love." He says, patting the other man's back.
They part.
"I will." Nardole says, standing tall, not caring about his tears.
"I'll be the Doctor." He says sniffing, "I'll look after the universe until you figure a way out of this. I won't be a good Doctor- I'll probably invent the black market on Earth. I'll try though." The bald man says, placing the Tardis key around his own neck and tucking the sonic into a pocket near where his heart used to be.
"I regret, gentlemen, this consultation is over." Calls out one of the killers sounding anything but regretful.
"I regret it, too." Says the Mistress solemnly, meeting the Doctor's gaze with tears in red-rimmed eyes. The Doctor steps away from Nardole, giving him one last, sad smile.
"The sentence must now be carried out." Calls out one of the robed men.
"Please take a few more minutes. Knock yourself out. Please. Actually do. Do that please. Knock yourself right out. Please, Doctor!" The Mistress pleads, pained eyes locked with his as he steps towards her- towards death.
The Doctor knows she saw the whole exchange- heard his apologies echo through her own mind.
"I'll be good, I promise. I'll turn, I can turn good. Please. Teach me, teach me how to be good. Anything. Anything but this. Please. Anyone but you, Doctor." She is almost sobbing, voice catching and jaw set in sorrowful anger. Her eyes are soft, lit by tears like stars.
"Without hope. Without witness. Without reward." He says gently, whispering to her. Her gaze turns accusing.
"No. I am your friend and I say no. No Doctor. You can't. No!" She shouts, hands fisting in her skirts as she screams at him.
The Doctor closes his eyes, swallowing.
"Makes no difference." His voice trembles anyway. He closes his eyes, feeling the lever beneath his hands.
"I know it doesn't, you idiot. That's what I'm saying. I know I'm going to die. I have to say it, the truth. Without hope. Without witness. Without reward. I am your friend. I once said that a universe without you doesn't bear thought and that is still true Doctor. Please, Doctor. Please, Theta, don't do this." Her voice is softer, broken and damages but gentle for him as it dissolves into tears.
The Doctor pulls the lever and gasps at the brief pain as he feels before his hearts and brainstems stop, completely numbing the cellular shock wave.
In the milliseconds before his death he feels the Mistress' mind reach out to his and clings to it for the forever they can stretch time to before their minds give out, taken by death which had split them apart in the first place.