Chapter Five: Looking into the Untempered Schism

Today was the day, Irving sighed looking at his little brother. Today was the day he'd be changed forever.

He didn't want to remember his own Academy Initiation ceremony. Not now.

-Do I really have to go?- his brother pleaded with him as he helped him put on his ceremonial robe, and Irvng sighed as he saw himself, judst newly loomed, pleading his father not to make him go. He squeezed his eyes shut and hard, trying to make the memory go away. -I don't want to go.- he saw himself plead, and heard his brother pleading the same. -I don't want to go.-

No.

No. No, history mustn't repeat itself, he told himself.

-I didn't wanna go either,- he confessed to his little brother. -I wanted to run, in fact. I wanted to run away so badly.-

-And did you?- his brother asked, and Irving shook his head, as if trying to shake away the sadness that had resurfaced. -No. I didn't . The...They made me stand still in front of the Untempered Schism the whole time, I wanted to run so bad but they held me still.-

His little brother looked at him sadly and hugged him, whispering:-I'm sorry.-

Irving gently detatched him and looked at him in the eye, blue reflecting blue, blue seeing blue, blue into blue, sky into sky. -I want you to promise me not to repeat my error, Brother.- he told him sternly yet pleadingly. -If the Schism will make you want to run, just run. Run. Never let anything hold you back. Run. Run and never look back.-

The boy nodded, a seriousness in his reyes too steel-like to be found in a child that young, and Irving wordlessly led him to the ceremony.

No more words were shared between the two. There was nothing else that could be said, afterall.

The Master of Ritual took the boy from Irving, and made him swear the Oath on The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey.

Then the Master of Ritual led him to the Untempered Schism, the tear in the fabric of reality that sat encased in a gold circle just on the outskirts of the Academy, and made him gaze into it, into the endless swirl of the Time Vortex.

The boy gazed, and saw again the little odd man with the question mark umbrella and pullover telling his father and mother to name him after him. He saw the child run away into space, and flee into the Old Time of Gallifrey as his life neared its end. He saw the child, now a man, with dark hair and burning grey eyes, wrappef in a black hooded cloak, helping Rassilon overthrow the Pythia and Omega create the Hand of Omega. He saw him defy Rassilon and flee into the looms with the Hand of Omega.

Why be a player when you can be just a pawn in the board of a bigger game? Why bother with observing and scheming, when you can act ? We have so much power: why waste it in keeping boring lists, instead pf seeing the Universe and make it better?

The man dissolved with one last cryptic smile, turning into a mirror and then into a crotchety old man with piercing blue eyes, stealing an old Type 40 TT capsule with his granddaughter, and coming to confront two human-looking teachers.

He held himself with an air of superiority and gave of an air of ruthless intelligence, but held in his eyes the sadness of a fugitive, of an outcast, of an exile.

Have you ever thought what it's like? To be wanderers of Space and Time, exiles in the Fourth Dimension. But one day, we shall go back. Yes...we shall go back.

Then the old man fell to the ground, dead and alone, and morphed in a younger, shorter man, wearing baggy crumpled clothes, playing a recorder with a young man in a skirt and a jumpsuit-wearing girl beside him, coming to face a moving metal suit. -When I say run, run!- he shouted, and the image dissolved to show the little man alone,facing the wrath of a Time Lord tribunal with the defiance of the most radicated of renegades.

There are creatures out there-creatures of death and destruction, a danger to all of creation and to the most everyday of men-and they must be fought.

Then the little man screamed in agony, being forced to regenerate, and grew tall and velvet-wearing, his features older and sharper but retaining his powerful blue eyes. The man was facing another man, with a black suit and a black beard, pointing a weapon at him-they stared at each other like the best of enemies. Then the image shifted too the man talking to a blonde-haired soldier, as if biding goodbye.

So be careful when you tell the story, hm? Don't make war sound like an exciting and thrilling game. Don't glamourise it. Tell them about the comrades that didn't come back, and never will. Tell them about the fear. Tell them about the death. Tell them about WAR.

Then the man fell to the ground out of a tall blue box,his face tearfully changing to a younger one, all teeth and curls and blue eyes, with the longest multicolored scarf ever and a brown coat, holding two wires together. His eyes were filled with true madness and wanderlust, but as he held those wires, his blue eyes held only fear of what he'd turn into if he made them touch.

Yes-if these wires touch , I'd make the Daleks disappear altogether from history, saving countless lives-but committing genocide in the process. Do I have the right? Tell me, if someone pointed you out a child to you and told you that child was going to turn into an evil, ruthless dictator that would kill billions of lives in the future, would you kill him? Would you kill him, Sarah Jane Smith?

Then the man fell off a tall scientific structure, pushed by a man in black so much similar to the other bearded one the velvet-wearing man had fought with before, different and yet at the same time the same. Dying, the man smiled as a white ghost merged with him-the Moment had been prepared for, afterall-and made him regenerate into a younger, blonde man in a beige coat and panama hat with a vegetable on his left coat-lapel and a bat in his hand. He still had the blue eyes of his predecessors.

When did you last have, now please tell me, the pleasure of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, or eating a well-prepared meal? You don't remember, eh? I'm sorry, because for some people, small, beautiful things are what life is all about!

Then the man fell to the ground of his TT capsule once again, his face morphing into a fuller one, encircled by blonde curls and still holding those blue eyes, this time filled with arrogance and superiority once outfit had changed too, becoming a tasteless multicolor monstrosity that could make bleed any observer's eyes out. He seemed to have become more aggressive and violent, and assessed the whole of a Time Lord Inquisition trial with the utmost outrage and defiance.

This, this is what we've stooped too. Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans-they're all in the nursery compared to us! Ten million years of absolute power-that's what it takes to be really corrupt!

Then the man was left weak and dying, banging his head on the TARDIS console, and changed into a little, dark-haired man. His eyes were still blue, but were far darker than they had ever been before. He had a question mark pullover and umbrella, and a panama hat-it was him! The man that had told his parents to name him after him! He recognized him-those dark eyes, full of secrets and lies and schemes, tangled in a Game of Gods-playing the fool and hiding his real nature, the nature of the most ruthless of chess players-the Champion of Time himself. He drew a finger to his lips, and smirked unreadably.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

And, indeed, he hadn't seen anything yet. The horrible vision of the man, dying with a terrible scream, scarred him for all of his lives, and he was even more shocked whe the little man defied death itself, breaking a morgue door ofits hinges in a younger, taller body. With blue eyes growing warm and bright once again, this man donned a bottle-green frock coat and dressed (and looked) like Byron and went on countless adventures of the strangest sort, his life plagued by paradoxes and amnesia till he grew scruff and weary and middle-aged, helping the wounded and the refugees in a Great Time War, the Last of all history, until he died in a spaceship crash trying to save a girl that didn't want to be saved, but was revived by the Sisterhood of Karn and given a potion to regenerate into someone that could end the War.

Get out, GET OUT! The Universe no longer needs a healer, but a warrior...Lucie, Molly, Charley, C'rizz, Tamsin, Alex...friends, companions, treasure of this life...I salute you. And Cass...I'm sorry. Physician, heal thyself.

The man then drank the potion, and fell to the ground screaming in pain as golden light erupted from his face and hands, becoming young and robust, the eyes changing from a warm blue to a dark, hard green-brown. The eyes of a soldier. Of a warrior. He watched the man fight for centuries, eventually growing old and tired, full of bitterness and regret as the blood of billions soaked his hands. He ended the War. He made both sides disappear, like a magic trick. Of the great armies that had composed the two sides of the war, he left nothing.

What I did, I did it without choice. In the name of peace, and sanity.

Then, the old man regenerated once again due to old age, becoming a man in his forties with really short hair, a big nose and giant ears. His eyes returned blue, but were full of melancholy and regret. He was a simple man, the simplest of them all, wearing a black leather jacket, but was a force to be reckoned with, believing himself to be the last of his kind, with nothing to lose. He found redemption in a pink and yellow human, sacrificing himself to save her life.

All of this, Rose...you, Jack, the things we've shared, the things we've seen...It was fantastic. And you know what?I I was, too.

Then the man burst in flames, becoming slightly younger and matchstick-like thin. He had wild brown hair and sideburns, wearing a brown trench coat and pinstriped suit, eith white sandshoes. His eyes had become brown, sign that he hid his sadness and melancholy under a cheerful, manic facade, ruthless and emotional at the samr time, far more dramatic than all his predecessors. A true narcisist, he wasted a regeneration to retain this face and create a human clone of himself for his pink and yellow human, eventually sending Rassilon himself back in the Last Great Time War to stop him from destroying all of creation. He sacrificed himself for an old human man, dying by fatal radiation poisoning but still managing to bid goodbye to his most loved companions, but still unwilling to go.

Why me? Why must it always be me? I could do so much more! And yet I always have to dir for you, all of you...Why? Why? I don't want to go.

Then the man regenerated once again, seemingly for the last time-almost destroying the interior of his ship in his explosive regeneration. The result was a younger, boyish man, a mess of gangly limbs and tweed, with a bowtie to booth. His hair remained brown, almost black, flopping on the side of his face. His eyes became green-blue-and had never held so much sadness, so many centuries of regret. His losses made him go darker, distrustfu, manipulating and deceitful. Though he found redemption again in a mysterious, impossible girl-who helped him save his home world from the Last Great Time War, with the help of his previous self and the warrior one. However, the joy of being relieved of the guilt was short-lived, because, over 300 years into this incarnation, he was forced to spend its remaining 900 fighting to protect his grave. However, as he grew old and frail, the impossible girl from before helped grant him a new cycle of regenerations, and he was restored to youth just in time to bide her goodbye.

Time is changing...and so must I. But I swear, I'll never forget the promise I made. Never cruel nor coward. Never give up, Never give in. I'll never forget all the people I've been. I'll never forget when the Doctor was me.

And with that, he was replaced by an older, thinner man. His eyebrows could open bottle caps, and he looked like an owlish magician. But his eyes, once again blue, were truly terrifying.

I' ain't no general nor soldier. I'm just an idiot, with a box and a screwdriver, helping and learning.

He drew a guitar and walked up to the boy, an unextinguishable fire burning in his millennia-old eyes. The child backed away from him, scared, terrified to his core. He screamed at the man:-Who are you?-

I am the man who stops the monsters. I am the Doctor-and I name you DOCTOR!

The power of the oldest and most powerful word that Old High Gallifreyan had ever produced hit the child. This was the word with the power to hold back entire armies, give life to the stars and turn off the Universe. This was rhe most powerful word of the Universe-but also the one that brought forth the most dangerous question of all, tat which shall never be answered. The First Question.

-Doctor...WHO?-

The man smirked unreadably at him, and crouched to whisper his name in his ear. It was his own. And when he heard it, the boy RAN. He ran away, never looking back...and never stopped running, ever since.

TS

AN:Perhaps one of the longest chapters so far (or actually the longest? I don't know for sure, you know), and the pnly one in this story that will ever show all Doctors together, with a cameo from the Other too. The replay of the first chapter was to make the young Doctor AKA Theta Sigma question his true origins like he did two chapters ago, and explain why he ran away from the Untempered Schism the day of his initiation like the Tenth Doctor said in the TV story The Sound of the Drums, and add mystery (or more likely (and, sadly), an ontological paradox) on how he came up with the name "Doctor" and the Promise.

Please R&R-constructive criticism is appreciated, too.

DW