"Now you," The Doctor said as he pointed to John, "you're going to help me with something."
"Just lead the way."
"Actually the way is back to where this all started: At your stall."
They all made their way there swiftly.
"It's your turn. Take a seat."
"I hope you aren't planning to have me relive that nightmare."
"Not only to relive it, but to see what came before and after it. Let me see what I can do with the innards of this thing."
The Doctor walked around the back of the chair and started pulling out wires, cutting some, and twisting others together.
"That ought to do it. What kind of shoes are you wearing?"
"Shoes?"
"Well lets hope the soles are made of rubber in case I wired this wrong, or you'll be having an entirely different set of visions."
"I'm not so sure about this."
"Calm down my reasonably worried friend. We'll have some answers one way or another in just a moment."
With this he put the helmet on John's head.
All was black, followed by some brief bright flashes that show a sparsely furnished futuristic room, then plunge it into darkness again as quickly.
"The blackouts are becoming more frequent." A panicked voice states.
"Blackouts? We have only had brief flickers of light at all for the last half hour. I don't know how much longer we can stand these bombardments."
"Thats my voice," says John, "but I can't remember ever being here." (At which the Doctor comments, "You are remembering it now. Keep going it will become more familiar." He placed his hand on John's shoulder to reassure him, and his eyes close too as he begins to see the same scenes.)
"Have we heard anything more from the Grand Council?"
"Not since they deposed President Romana."
"It looks like our only hope is the escape plan."
"Rassilon will never allow it. Anyone who tries to leave will be seen as a traitor."
"We have to chance it. He'll destroy the whole world to maintain his power if he has to."
"What about ..."
"The Doctor? We've heard nothing. It's a little too late to rely on him now."
(The Doctor interjects, "No it's not. I'll be there. Just give me a little longer." And John replies, "You didn't say that back then. You didn't give us any hope.")
The lights came back up and stays on, with brief flickers.
"Do you have everything?"
"Everything I can carry. Just a few mementos of here, of her."
"Well we'll have everything we need on the ship. It was a xeno–archeological vessel. It picked up little oddities from the strangest corners of the galaxy. Not that they will do us any good, but there is plenty of food onboard."
"All that will give us something to occupy the journey with and, who knows, we may be able to trade such things later."
His bag over his shoulder they went to the door only to see a Gallifreyan guard outside, who puts up his arm signaling John to stop.
"I'm sorry senator Drax I am under strict orders."
(The Doctor can't help at interrupt at hearing the familiar name. "Did you say Drax?" he asks, but John (who was Drax) has no time for it and responds with, "Stop interrupting!" To which the Doctor whispers to himself, "I should have known from that accent.")
"Guard, where are those orders getting you now? You know as well as I do Rassilon is mad and will destroy us all."
"I can't abandon my post, he may be mad, but he doesn't tolerate any hint of disobedience from us."
"You are just a boy. What are you? 120? Come with us."
"I can't. My family is here."
"Well I'm leaving to be with the closest thing I have to family and I'll use force if necessary."
The guard pondered this for a brief moment.
"That's it. That's exactly what you need to do. If you could just hit me over the head, at least hard enough to make it convincing."
"Good lad. I hope the planet survive's long enough for you to feel the headaches and you get back to your family. Thank you."
The guard turned and John hit him square over the head.
The men run down a subterranean corridor, being shaken at the sound of booming explosions above ground. Part of the passage behind them collapses and they barely escape it, but make it to the doorway safely. They are followed shortly after by a glowing light, the same one that Preeti has seen lately, which enters the ship shortly before the door closes.
There were billows of smoke in a desert wasteland on the outskirts of the city, a loud boom, and a spaceship is seen rising from the ground, followed by the fire of it's engines until it disappeared into the stratosphere.
At this the Doctor interrupted, "Why didn't the Daleks blow you out of the sky, or even Rassilon?"
"As you can see they had a bigger fish to fry."
The two men were surrounded by many others in front of a port window from which they can see a mass of Dalek ships surrounding their planet and smaller Gallifreyan attack craft returning fire.
"Viewports close. We don't need to see this. We all know what comes next, and we don't have the time to wait and watch. We are jumping now to a safer place, far away enough they'll never find us."
Just before the ship disappears out of sight it is hit by a shot from a Dalek vessel, but it's only a minor blow, and it reappears somewhere else far away and continues on it's journey.
Drax, who the Doctor had been calling John up until now, wakes from the dream he shared with the Doctor, and begins to recall his past.
"We had some idea that the Daleks wouldn't rest until there weren't any Gallifreyan's left. So, It was after this we decided to take our watches, to put within them the essence of what made us Time Lords, and to destroy them. I was the last to do so, and in that short space afterward in which my history was draining away I closed the cathedral of memories and forgot what I had done."
"Then I took away from you that choice. But we will get back to that. Do you remember me my old friend? I had a different face back then, you knew me as Theta Sigma at the Academy."
"I do now. You've gotten older. Somehow I have too. It's so good to see you after so long. There is so much I still can't remember right now. I'm sure it will come to me. I know it seemed such a burden to carry all those memories, a lifetime of those we loved and lost, and regrets we could no longer put right."
"And since that time you have been content to live here?"
"Here goes everywhere. We collect curiosities from the farthest reaches of the galaxy and share them for just enough to cover our food and fuel costs. Here we don't have the burden of being the oldest race in the universe and one of the most feared and hated, just like the Daleks, but they have a better excuse for their behaviour. Here we can just be friends and family, and live every day fully."
"I tried giving up being a Time Lord once. I took a job as a teacher, I fell in love, but my past caught up with me and I had to return to being a fugitive."
"Here we have no past, so our future is what we make it."
All this led to the Doctor questioning whether being a Time Lord was such a good idea. Had he just been a prisoner to the past, to the legacy he carried with him, or a prisoner to the future, and his attempts to trying to escape it? He wandered off wondering to himself about these things, not noticing he'd left Drax behind, or that Preeti was following.
"Doctor, what is wrong?"
"Do you think, Preeti, that it is right for a man to live this long?"
"I think now that my grandfather was happier to die knowing I appreciated him, and I was happier to let him go, knowing I had the chance to let him know how I felt. What has kept you going all this time?"
"I can't quite remember now. In the past it seems there was a reason, but it seems very vague now. I've lost so much along the way."
Drax, who had been curious where the Doctor went, caught up to him, and heard the tail end of the conversation.
"There is a reason, Doctor, I remember even if you don't. When I last saw you you were saving a planet or what was left of it, because people meant the world to you, you wanted them to have a future, to have a chance against the forces that seek to extinguish life in the universe. That is what you are here for. The rest of us are lucky we ducked and dived enough to live this long, and that was enough for us, but the universe needs you to set right some of it's major mistakes, or it wouldn't be a place worth living in. That's why you are here Doctor, and why you must always be here."
"Drax, thats why you were such a good friend, you always told it like it is. I gave up my long life once, and I saw the life I would have had if I'd stayed that way. It would have been a good life for as long as it lasted, but it looked like someone else's life, that I was just being a spectator of. I could never stay still so long. It's not the length of a life that determines it's goodness. Some live a short time and love and are loved and thats enough. I admire that, but I'd never be satisfied with questions unanswered and places unexplored and leaving people without help. I can't leave the universe alone, there are enough malevolent forces playing with it, that I have to do a little tinkering myself now and again to give my friends a chance at a future. Thank you for remind me before I made the mistake of forgetting the reason why I'm here."
"You are most welcome. Now enough of such silliness. I have a lot of questions."
