Chapter 1: Vincere Est Totum (To Win is Everything)
He was the Time Lord Victorious – the winner of all winners, the sole survivor of the greatest war that the universe had ever seen.
Damn himself, if he had only realized this sooner! All the people he could have saved, all the events he could have prevented.
And when he finally did go and change something (and what a big and glorious and necessary event he had tried to prevent) he had failed. The base had still exploded, Abigail had gone and shot herself – did the two lives that he had saved really mattered? Would anything be any different if they were dead?
He shook his head, no – he knew the answer to that question. No, they would not be. They were little people, insignificant people. Their lives did not matter in the bigger picture.
Adelaide's words rang in his head. No one should have that much power.
His response, which he now repeated out loud even though there was no one around to hear him, had been "Tough."
And when she had asked if there was anything that could stop him he had said 'Not anymore.'
He really was the only one left – the laws governing time belonged to him. It was now his responsibility to be the caretaker of time itself and that put him in the position to do with them what he wanted.
There was a little voice in the back of his head telling him that he was wrong, that just because he was the only one left didn't make him the winner and didn't let him make up the rules as he went. Years ago, the Time Lords had placed these rules upon themselves for a reason. Unfortunately, he had pushed that voice into the far reaches of his mind so that he could only hear a faint whisper of argument and that was easy to ignore.
He was becoming someone he had never imagined himself becoming – he was a monster.
He slammed the palm of his hand into the metal that was the TARDIS control panel and heard her whir her worry. "No! Not now," he muttered through gritted teeth. "Damn it, not now!"
He punched in a location on the monitor and felt his ship hesitate. "Go, already!" He had never been nasty to her. He had never been nasty to anyone who didn't deserve it. Then again, he had never changed a fix point in time, either.
He didn't care anymore, he had lost absolutely everything...everyone.
And the Doctor was not going to lose now.
The vworp vworp filled the night as the TARDIS disappeared, leaving only a faint square shape in the snow on the street where it had once been sitting. In the morning, there would be no trace of his presence.
"It's a crude device," The female voice started, the sound of buttons clicking underneath her statement, "but we had to make do with what we had and in limbo, that's next to nothing."
"Well, I'm not sure people were meant to leave."
"And people in our situation weren't meant to end up here anyway." A strange sound, almost like a buzzing/whistling/mechanical noise was heard and a faint orange light illuminated the near darkness. The device was small yet bulky, being very much a box and appearing to be made out of the shell of an older handheld game system and a camera with some bits of mobile phone and other random trinkets attached in weird ways. "We just had to MacGuyver our way out of here...or try to. I've been here a hundred and three years and you've yet to see me escape."
"You said you didn't have the right pieces."
"Nope! I'm hoping your mobile makes the difference. I don't carry one, I never really had a need. Who was I going to call?"
There was a notable pause, both parties aware that she had set herself up.
"The ghostbusters?" The Welsh voice asked bemusedly.
The woman laughed. "While I bet they're top notch when it comes to the paranormal, which, by the way, isn't even paranormal in most cases, it's alien, I doubt they could rescue us from an outer dimension." More of the strange half-buzzing noise and the sound of someone messing with the Frakensteined device.
"Then who would you call?"
Making light of a difficult situation, that's what this was called.
"To save us from an outer dimension?" There was a pause as the female considered the question. "Superman probably has the ability but he's a pansy, Batman never really leaves his cave, I don't think any of the comic book heroes would really do us any good. I think I'd take the American General Robert E. Lee, born three hundred years later and pilot of one of the Superships that are so popular at the time. I think he'd be able to rescue us, if he had a little help."
There was silence. What would you even say in response to that?
The man didn't need to come up with an answer, because the strange noise stopped and the woman jumped up. "There! Done, the best we're going to get it, let's just hope this works. You can swim, can't ya? I have absolutely no idea or control of where this is going to land us. If we come around covered in plaster, well...scream and hopefully someone will hear us." She counted on her fingers, muttering under her breath and ticking off worst case scenarios - "Lava? Well, you'll be toast before you're even conscious. Considering that most of the planet is water, we'll have a more likely chance of landing there. Just remember, if the sharks get ya, punch them in the eye." She winked, whether he could see it or not she didn't know.
"And what if we don't come out whole on the other side? I'm not unfamiliar with all this...alien...stuff." He really couldn't find a better word.
"Well," He was right. What then? "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it!"
She grabbed his arm and looped it around hers in the dark, turning the device around to face them and extending her arm, like she was a high school student trying to take a picture of her and her best friend for her facebook profile picture. "Smile!" She added for dramatic effect, clicking the button before her companion had a chance to respond. The area was illuminated dramatically, followed by a wave of energy that hit them like a Tsunami.
And then they were gone and limbo, once more, was empty.