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Itself

Chapter Nine: The Two Doctors

Mas' gaze, much like the rest of his body, was flickering in and out of existence, like a faulty television signal. It didn't make it any less painful to look him in the eye, however.

"Can you hear me?" The Doctor sighed. "I wish that you could. Although I'm not sure if it would make a difference at this point."

He searched Mas' eyes, looking for some kind of acknowledgement, but got nothing but hatred and rage. The Doctor looked back to the space station and then back to Mas, rubbing his fingers against his palms, hands down by his side.

"When I modified the transmat and teleported you to the city, you were exposed to temporal background radiation. Harmless. Except it made you real, at least partially. It was radiation outside of what the children were creating with their minds, something to link you to the rest of the universe. So when the child died… you lived on."

He looked off into the distance and allowed the newfound breeze to brush past his face.

"Trey and Ona would have survived too, if they were alive. But Trey was dead already and Ona was so weak… she had seen so much. She didn't have the will to push herself into the real world."

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor forced himself to look directly at Mas. "But you did. You were probably on your way to save her. To save your family. I'm guessing someone told you about the children, about what you are. Shorn, or maybe your father…? I don't know. I don't think you'll even remember all the details. Your mind is half real, half mad with fear… no wonder you're going to be vague when you see me next time."

He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and held it up next to his head.

"When I scanned the area earlier and detected you, I also picked up something else. Something underground. Those black slug things… are the only indigenous life forms left on this planet. Probably the only ones who survived the attack all those centuries ago."

The screwdriver suddenly feeling very heavy in his hand, the Doctor let his arm drop to his side. "I've got to end it, Mas. You're keeping that child alive, suffering and in pain. I'm going to transmit a signal and point it at the space station. The child will die, and you…"

He tried to hide the pity in his eyes, but knew he was making a bad job of it.

"…you, Mas… you'll be stuck. Stuck in a temporal limbo, never moving, never ageing, but aware of every passing moment. Eventually you'll free yourself, but the strain on your body and mind will be immense. Your face will change, you mind will be damaged…"

The Doctor took a breath, searching once again for any signs of life, for something… anything that would show that, at this present moment, Mas understood. Even if he didn't forgive him or accept it, at least he would understand what was going to happen to him, and why.

"This planet. Stoarn… it used to be the Raston home world. When you escape, you'll think you're on a different planet, you'll find the Rastons… and this whole thing starts all over again. A time loop. An endless time loop."

He looked down at the sonic screwdriver, weighed it in his hand, his voice nothing but the slightest of croaks as he spoke. "Or I could leave you. I could do nothing, and walk away. I've earned that, haven't I? The right to walk away? Just once. Only once, and never again."

Mas stared at him. Seethed, raged. A cold wind blew past the Doctor, his jacket and hair fluttering in the breeze.

The Doctor sighed. "But that child would die suffering, and the part of your mind that is connected to it would become even more damaged. The events I remember could change for the worse."

He lifted the sonic screwdriver and found the frequency he had used when he had been with Ona in the city.

"I wish you could remember this, Mas. And I hope that, despite everything I know, that this is one of those occasions when time can be rewritten, that you'll remember… you'll remember that I'm sorry. I am so profoundly sorry."

As futile as it was, he waited a moment for the reply. He didn't get one.

"Goodbye, Mas."

He turned and pointed the sonic screwdriver at the space station. He switched it on. Nothing happened for a moment. But then he heard a distant rumbling, gathering in strength as it drew ever closer, until he found it difficult to stand.

And then the space station exploded from the inside out, one of the black slug creatures erupting directly through the centre. Keeping the screwdriver on, the Doctor saw another creature, then another, then another. He waited patiently, painfully, as they ripped the station to pieces, crushing and pulping anything living that was inside. Then, when there was nothing left, the Doctor switched off the screwdriver, arching his head back around to look at Mas.

Mas, who had once seemed so bright and full of energy and life with a mischievous glint in his eye that the Doctor couldn't help but empathise with… now so full of rage and anger and grief. And insanity.

He roared silently at the Doctor as he disappeared, crying out at the sheer agony of it all. And for the first time, in those final moments, he looked like the man the Doctor had met a lifetime ago.

The man called Xon.

The Doctor found Amy sitting under a tree, looking bored and sad at the same time, blank stare stretching out to the horizon. She was facing away from him, and didn't notice as he walked up and leant against the tree.

"All right, Pond?"

She leapt about ten feet into the air before whirling around on the spot, hands up in some attempt at what he supposed were martial arts.

"You're alive," she breathed, attacking him with a hug which he gratefully returned. Then she broke it off, glaring at him. "No, wait, hang on, get off! You're alive!"

"Yes."

"What about the missiles?"

"Funny thing about imaginary missiles. They don't tend to have much of an impact."

She threw a sideways look at him. "So they were imaginary."

"Depends what you mean by 'they'. If you mean the missiles, then yes. If you mean the people… also yes."

"So… Trey, Ona, Mas. None of them were real?"

The Doctor took a breath that he hoped wasn't too obviously pained and smiled. "No, none of them. The city, the people, the Nocs, the Diurs… all of it from the imagination of three children, believe it or not."

"Yeah, heard about that…"

"You did?"

She nodded, moving back to the tree and sliding down to the ground, her back resting against it. "Yeah, Shorn said the expedition found three children and killed two of them, and the third one told them the truth. That's why Trey's dad killed himself."

The Doctor joined her at the tree, sitting at an angle from her with his back against it. "And why Shorn was so unstable… what about Mas' father? He was part of the expedition too, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, but he ran away before they went inside. Afraid."

"Afraid…" He sighed. "Fear. All of this because of fear. Fear of being forgotten, fear of dying, fear of losing your family… that's why there was an energy sphere around the planet, why aliens were forbidden, especially humans. Humanity was the basis of their civilisation, and if anyone clued them in on that, they would start to think about what they really were."

"So if they were afraid… they were real…" Her voice thickened ever so slightly. "I had Shorn's blood on my shirt, and it's gone now… all those people…"

The Doctor took a moment before replying. "No. They weren't real. Just an illusion of reality. They weren't real people. No need to mourn them anymore than you would characters from a book."

To that, Amy sighed, "I cried when Dumbledore died."

"Yes, well," he mumbled, clearing his throat. "I wouldn't know anything about that, I'm a Time Lord, I'm beyond such things."

An amiable silence hung between them as they looked out at the murky landscape, which was pretty much the same across the entire planet; not the bright shining sun of the Diur city, nor the ominous deep grey of the Noc territory. Just… grey and dull. Not at all different from what he remembered of Leadworth.

"So, fear, yeah?" Amy pondered.

"Sorry?"

"All of this was because of fear?"

"Indirectly, but yes."

"So…" Amy shifted around so she was looking at him, and he turned his head to face her. She had this worryingly sneaky smile. "What are you afraid of?"

He smirked. "Aside from you?"

"Well, obviously. What scares the great Doctor? What keeps you up at night?"

The Doctor looked out into the distance, back in the direction he had walked from. Towards the Raston space station, the Palace.

"The future."

"What, really?"

"Really, really."

"But you're a Time Lord."

"Yeah."

"With a time machine."

"Also yeah."

"But you know the future. You always know what's going to happen."

"No-one ever knows the future, Amy. Even what you consider the past is the future to me. Always mutable, shifting, changing. The outcome always uncertain, even when I think it isn't. Time can be rewritten, unwritten, self-written, co-authored, edited, printed, dated, sold, read, reviewed, critiqued, and then you end up berating yourself because you're meant to be a hard Time Lord in a leather jacket and you're crying because some fictional wizard died-"

He promptly clamped his mouth shut, and Amy laughed.

"I knew it!"

He sighed. "Yeah, got a bit carried away with the writing metaphor there…"

Her smile faded a little, and she looked back out to horizon. "Still… good to know even you can be surprised."

Slowly, sadly, the Doctor nodded. "Yeah…"

Xon had surprised him. But then, before he had even met Xon the Doctor had worried endlessly about the future, about what he would become. He had been haunted through two lives by how the war had changed the Time Lords, corrupted them, made them believe they were beyond reproach, and if he would ever become the same.

Regeneration was unstable, unpredictable, uncontrollable. Through all of his regenerations, he had never known what he would be like after the change. The only comparison he could think of that humans could understand was someone who had suffered a severe head injury, or a stroke. He was still the same person, and yet so much changed. A death for the unique individual that came before.

And he was never sure if his better instincts would survive. What if he became something closer to the Valeyard? The Time Lords had called him an amalgamation of his dark impulses, but… what was to stop the regeneration process from doing something to his mind, changing him for the worse?

And after Bowie Base One, a Time Lord Victorious… he had realised he was wandering down that dark path before his regeneration, which had multiplied his worries tenfold. If he was acting in such a way before the process scrambled his brain, what would happen when he regenerated, if he regenerated?

But he remembered it. The death, the rebirth. One moment he was one Doctor, the next moment he was another. It all flowed in that painful, jolting way that regeneration did. He remembered his sadness, his final words with that face… and then, suddenly, his muscles were shaking, his brain was on fire, unable to concentrate on anything… but there was that delirious, frantic happiness. He was alive, he had legs, arms, hands, fingers, lots of fingers… all of it made him happy. He was still him, but he felt new again, felt ready for more, for a fresh start.

And he really liked who he was now. Cool bowtie, 'Geronimo', fish fingers and custard… what was there not to love, honestly?

All of those terrifying thoughts Xon had recognised in his head; those niggling doubts about himself that had been festering since he had seen the corruption of the Time Lords during the war… they were still there. But he was more aware now. He was learning from his mistakes. He needed someone, and more importantly, he knew that he needed someone. Someone who would stand up to him, tell him he was wrong, would puncture his (only very super-occasionally) pompous 'Last of the Time Lords' attitude.

A smile crept across his face as he looked at Amy, a smile on her lips and that sparkle in her eyes that always made him laugh.

And yeah, someone to make him laugh. That was important.

Whatever his face, whatever his personality, he was still the Doctor. He just needed a second opinion now and then.

"TARDIS?" Amy asked.

The Doctor laughed, giving her a delighted slap on the thigh. "TARDIS."

The Doctor, and his companion, in the TARDIS. Next stop everywhere.