Chapter VII: Gallifreyan Funeral


The Tardis was a bit more full than usual, but it also had rarely been so quiet. Rose, Martha, and Jack had decided to go with the Doctor as he gave his last respects to the Master. To be honest, they were not there for the Master, they were there to offer what support they could for the Doctor. All of them avoided looking at the covered body of the dead Time Lord. Instead, they busied themselves with cleaning up the last of the Master's modifications, under the quiet direction of the Doctor as he concentrated on piloting them wherever he was planning on going.

A few seconds, and a slight jolt from the Tardis later, they had landed.

Without a word, the Doctor stalked over to the Tardis door and pushed it open, giving the others a view of the alien landscape beyond. It was a barren and cold world, barely managing to get enough heat to make a human-tolerable temperature from the distant sun.

No, Rose realized, there's more than one sun. There are two of them.

She followed the Doctor outside. Like him, she was only mildly disturbed by the cold. Jack and Martha followed after them. Jack seemed to be fine, but Martha was bundling herself up.

"Where are we, Doctor?" She asked. "I've never seen a place like this."

"I've never been here." Jack said. "But I think I know where we are."

The Doctor glanced at him. "You are probably right. This is as close to Gallifrey as we can ever get. Same star system, different planet. Do you see that dust cloud in the sky there?" The Doctor pointed to a blurry streak of dust that was illuminated by the far-away suns. "That dust cloud is all that is left of Gallifrey. All Time Lords should have received their last rites on Gallifrey, but we'll just have to make due for the Master's."

Rose moved up to the Doctor's side, staring at the vast dust cloud that was now a part of her. She desperately wished that she could have seen it in its glory days.

It was beautiful, all right. The Doctor said in her mind, after reading her thoughts. But the people were a bit pompous. I never thought I'd miss them so much.

"You have me now, Doctor. I promise. Now and forever." Rose said, kissing him briefly.

"So… Time Lord funeral… what do you need?"

"We need wood." The Doctor said. "Help me build a pyre. Time Lords burn their dead. It's very important."

"Why is it important?" Martha asked.

"Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change form." The Doctor said.

"That's one of the laws of thermodynamics." Martha pointed out.

"You see, Martha, every Time Lord is born with a vast amount of Time Vortex energy within them. That's what separates Time Lords from human beings. If you could access the energy yourself, you'd become Time Lords… like Rose. Though I wouldn't recommend doing what she did. Highly dangerous. She could have died… it did kill me." The Doctor explained. "Anyway, some of that energy stays with the Time Lord, even after death. Call it a Time Lord's soul, if you will. Burning the body allows the energy of the soul to escape and rejoin the Time Vortex. It's sort of a Time Lord version of heaven."

"So… all the energy that we see in the Time Vortex...?" Jack asked.

"Are Time Lords past." The Doctor finished. "They are there, watching over things. They are the ones who pull the Tardis off course for me to fix things that I haven't noticed. The Master will join them now."

"And you are not worried about the Master causing trouble from the Time Vortex?"

"The collective consciousness of the Time Lords will stop him from causing trouble." The Doctor said. "The Time Lords as I knew them might have been static, but they would not what the universe to suffer." He glanced at his friends. "Help me." And they did.

It took a little longer than they expected to gather enough wood for a fire. In fact, by the end, they were forced to raid some of the Tardis' firewood stock. But the pyre was eventually built and Jack helped the Doctor lay the Master upon it.

The Doctor rearranged the red fabric over the Master's face. To the human's ears, there was nothing around them but silence. But Rose could hear the songs of Gallifreyan mourning inside the Doctor's mind. She did not fully understand Gallifreyan yet, but what she could understand brought tears to her eyes. The song did not just speak of sorrow, but it literally was Sorrow. The words awakened her emotions until there was little else she could do but sob quietly. Jack pulled her into an embrace, confused by her reaction, but willing to offer her comfort all the same.

Finally, the song ended and the Doctor grabbed the last piece of wood, which was alight with fire. He paused before setting the fire to the pyre, but he eventually did so. The wood caught surprisingly quickly, and it only took minutes for both the pyre and the Master to be fully engulfed in flames.

The Doctor stood back; watching with a frown on his face, as the flames quickly consumed his friend. Before their eyes, the golden energy normally used for regeneration rose from the pyre, hovered over the Master, and then disappeared into thin air. The Master's soul had rejoined the Time Vortex.

The Doctor said a Gallifreyan word that Rose took instantly to be the Master's true name. "I hope you find the peace in death that you were denied in life." With that, he turned and started to walk away from the burning pyre.

The others glanced after him and then turned to follow, leaving the lonely pyre of one of the last Time Lords in existence to burn itself out on the dark and lonely world that used to be the sister to Gallifrey.