Lately I'd been following him. He hadn't really thought much of it—at least, hadn't done anything to suggest so. Many of the low-ranking soldiers followed him. One more didn't make a difference. Especially when his mind was busy with other things.
He had left for a few hours. He was summoned to speak with the High Council. I thought he'd return shortly, but eventually I had to return to base. Being human, I tired more easily than the others. At base I could store my ship safely and rest. On my way to the bunkers, I saw the Doctor sitting outside the TARDIS, leaning against the wood. His head rested on his hand, fisted in his hair as though he'd been pulling it in deep thought.
"Everything alright?" I asked from the doorway. I tried to keep my distance, still pretending to be a stranger. He looked, pulled out of whatever he had been thinking by the soldier in front of him.
He shifted and wrung his hands before nodding. Yet his brows remained knit together, a crease on his forehead and a frown etched onto his face. His eyes focused on the ground near my feet, as if it displayed the memories that clearly troubled him. His lips moved with only the slightest visibility, likely biting and gnawing at the insides of his mouth.
I'd seen the Doctor this way many times before. He looked like this when plagued with the inevitability of an outcome he didn't like. The Doctor would often ignore things he didn't like, preferring to run away from the problem as though an adventurous distraction would make it disappear. We all have our ways of coping. The Doctor's was running.
But the Doctor couldn't run away from a war. Not when his entire species was at risk. Not when his family was in danger. So he stayed. He fought. And he tried to run away in the only way he could—by not thinking about it. Now the not thinking about it had caught up with him. This was the point when he had to make a choice.
So I did what the Doctor's friend could do. I walked over to the wooden box and sat beside him. He seemed a bit confused, of course, but I knew he needed someone. If only to hear his thoughts.
I waited a moment, for him to say something. If I tried to force him into speaking, he'd never say anything. He sat for a while, staring at the ground. His face remained worn and aged, but it had almost gone slack—the face of one who has thought too much, so simply stops. When he did speak, the breaking of silence surprised me.
"I don't know what to do," he admitted. His head shook slightly.
"That's a first," I mumbled, earning a small, upwards twitch at the corner of the Doctor's mouth. The echo of a smile stayed for only a moment before fading into that engraved frown.
The Doctor sighed, whatever silent resolve he had dissipating. "The Council…" he began, rubbing his brow with one hand. He grimaced. "I shouldn't be telling you this."
That stung a bit. I mean, I understood his hesitation, of course. But he was still my best mate.
I breathed a small laugh. "I won't tell anyone," I promised. "Besides, it's not like I can really go back anyway." He looked up with a hint of confusion. A pleasant exchange from the grimace. "I stole a ship." Alright, I probably shouldn't have told him that. But it's not like he would turn me in to the Council. He knew I wasn't the only one breaking the rules.
A strange sound came from his mouth. Was it a laugh? "You stole a spaceship?" he repeated. I gave a small nod. "You stole a spaceship?" He broke into laughter now, his body shaking with the humour of the situation. I couldn't help but join him. It was strange, our laughter. To this day I have no idea why we found it so funny. Maybe a human, under the guise of a Gallifreyan, stealing a ship from the Chancellery Guard of Gallifrey really was hilarious.
Whatever the reason was, we needed it. Species aside, we were both soldiers in the middle of battle. I suppose it was hysterics, but neither of us would admit it.
Eventually the laughter died down and he returned to a slack face. The humour had left and the severity of the situation returned to us.
"The…Ultimate Sanction—what they're planning," the Doctor began. "They want to kill everyone."
"Isn't that what war does?"
"No, not—" The Doctor sighed again. I could tell that he was pained by the Council's plan. "They want to destroy everything—sacrifice all of time, sacrifice everything, even Gallifrey."
That was not in the book.
"That's suicidal! How can they do that?" High Council. Stupid question. "Doctor, you have to stop them."
"Someone on the Council opposed Rassilon and he killed her," he explained. "They're doing this with or without approval. They think it'll raise them to a new level of consciousness."
"They're mad." How could that even make sense? "You're Time Lords! You're supposed to be smart—what they hell are they thinking?"
"They've been corrupted by power." His voice was soft, not of anger, but of mourning. He mourned for the loss of his people—his people as he knew them.
After fighting the war for so long, I had forgotten how much it must have affected the Doctor. Pretending to be a soldier had made me think more collectively, about Gallifrey as a whole. I spent a lot of time here, yes. But this was the Doctor's home. What would it be like if this happened to Earth?
"I'm sorry," I whispered. I don't know when or why we had started whispering, but normal volumes seemed too much in the silence of night.
He nodded and bit his lip. He wasn't crying—this Doctor would never cry in front of me. But there was so much sorrow behind those eyes. He had given up on any happy ending long ago. Now there was only resignation.
"There has to be some way to stop them." How had he done it? I knew everything was destroyed, and the Doctor spoke of burning, but how? And why had this begun anyway?
"It's odd how much Rassilon has changed," I mused. He had once been the Doctor's friend—a good man.
The Doctor's head snapped up. "What did you say?"
I furrowed my brow before repeating myself. "It's odd how Rassilon has changed."
"That's it!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet.
"I'm sorry—what?" The bloody hell is he going on about?
"The Rod of Rassilon!"
More confusion from me.
"The Great Key—it can be used on the De-Mat gun," he explained. "That's what they want to use to destroy time. If I get the key I can make the gun remove masses from time and stop the Council."
He rushed to unlock the TARDIS and open the door. He left the door open and I began to follow before he quickly returned. "Stay put," he ordered, and shut the door. The TARDIS soon began to dematerialize.
To hell with that.
