Nocturne Nero

One century before the present

Panting heavily, the Doctor paused, leaning against the wall of the tunnel and listening hard. No sound from beyond the corner. He was just about to launch himself around it when he saw the weak flash of a torch, and threw himself into the doorway beside him, flicking off his own torch and hiding in the shadows. Seconds later, he saw his earlier self stagger past on his way down to the chamber of the Eye of Harmony. He grinned, and waited until the footsteps had moved on around the next bend.

At least he'd been able to catch his breath. He knew he was near the top of the maze – and sure enough, around the next corner was the bottom of the staircase leading up to the back door of the Council Chamber. Or it had been. A large wooden beam from the ceiling had fallen down and blocked the door at the base of the stairs – no wonder he hadn't been able to open that door before. He wasn't going to waste time now, either – his target was outside, anyway, not inside the Chamber above.

He sprinted on down the hall and found the stairs leading to the outside door. Mindful of his tumble down, he watched his step as best he could at a dead run, and only slipped twice – catching himself each time – on the debris-filled steps. He paused briefly at the top, peering out the door at the scene outside, which was just as horrific as he remembered.

Smoke and flames were everywhere. It wasn't as bad inside the Citadel as outside just yet, but that wouldn't last much longer. The Dalek fleet was visibly massing outside the dome for the final assault. Citizens were running everywhere in mass panic, trying to find a safe spot, or transport out, or their loved ones. The Doctor took a deep breath and joined them, dodging around flaming debris and other runners as he made his way back around the side of the Panopticon tower holding the Council Chamber.

He was about halfway back around when the sky split open and knocked him off his feet with the loudest explosion he'd ever heard – the end of the dome. Death and destruction began raining from above; huge shards of the dome along with Dalek incendiary bombs and death rays and pieces of the last few Time Lord defensive ships blanketed the Citadel, turning it into a death trap.

Up and running again, he saw the TARDIS finally heave into view, just a hundred feet away through the smoke. He put on a last burst of speed – but too late. A lateral trans-flyer wing crashed into the ground not two feet away, burning white-hot. The force of the impact threw him off his feet again, slamming him sideways into the remains of a rock wall, even as the extreme heat from the wreckage singed his side and caused his clothes to burst into flame.

He managed to roll over and put out the flames, screaming as the motion revealed several broken ribs, and a churning, stabbing pain inside hinted of dire internal injuries to match the severe burns on his skin. Clutching his crushed and bruised side, he used every ounce of willpower to force himself to his feet again and stagger the last few feet into the sanctuary of that beloved blue box and fall to the floor again.

Another huge explosion buffeted the box, and he crawled over to the control panel, his eyes fighting to see the switches through the haze of the regenerative vortex energy already beginning to cover his hands and face. He found the right one and threw it, sending the TARDIS into the void, and then collapsed for the last time, sinking into the blessed blankness of unconsciousness as the familiar agony of regeneration overtook that from his injuries.

^..^

He came to slowly, unwillingly, floating up through layers of mental wool and cotton, feeling as though the TARDIS were dragging him up through the seven levels of hell. Finally conscious, he kept his eyes closed, unwilling to get up and admit he was alive. He knew he'd regenerated, because this body felt different, in so many intangible ways – and because all his prior injuries were gone, only a mental echo of their pain remaining.

Worse, and growing ever more worse, and very real, was the pain of the memory of what he'd just done. Double genocide.

All the tens of millions of Daleks had been gathered around and above Gallifrey, so they'd all been caught in the Time Lock, never to be released.

But worse, the pitiful handfuls of his own people who had survived – but not for much longer – the terrible Dalek onslaught, had all just perished at his own hand.

The fact that in doing so, he'd saved all the rest of reality, all the uncountable gazillions of lives which would have been wiped off the books, all of Time itself, did little to counterbalance the weight of the new title he knew he'd carry for the rest of his unnatural life: the killer of his own people. The words washed over him again and again, staining his soul and every cell of his new body with the terrible, unbleachable crime.

He knew he needed to get up, to set course for Earth, and find his mother, the Time Lady Tis'hania. He had a pretty good idea where to begin looking. As he lay there, though, unwilling – unable – to move, a tiny bit of memory managed to make its way through the morass his mind kept trying to disengage from, and one particular frame from that last terrible dash to the TARDIS stood before his closed eyes in all its majestic horror.

Not a hundred feet from the TARDIS, a black flitter lay in ruins, crushed and smoking from the shards of the dome.

A black flitter.

Lord Presonne's.

Lady Tis'hania hadn't made it out.

"Nooooooooooooooooooo......."

^..^

At last the tears he'd spent eight lifetimes suppressing were spent, seeping through the TARDIS floor and into her depths, merging (he felt) into the soul of the Time Ship herself. He wondered fleetingly whether either of them would ever know happiness again.

He forced himself to his feet and stumbled to his room, running from the memories. He didn't want to remember. He never wanted to remember again. He knew he'd never be able to rid himself of the stain on his soul, or the knowledge of the broad outlines of his crime, but he didn't want to live with the details always hovering over his shoulder. Life was going to be hard enough from now on as it was.

So he blocked off his memory, packing up the details of the past few hours into a tight ball and burying it deep within the TARDIS, and slamming the mental door as tightly shut as if it were sealed in densest amber, throwing away the key and pouring superglue into the lock.

He took a shower, standing under the stream of water for over an hour, wishing it could wash away the stain as it took the last of the dirt and oil and soot from his dead home planet down the drain. He studied his new face in the mirror for a bit: could be worse. A bit daft, with those big ears. He flinched away from the terrible frozen depths of his new blue eyes – ice blue, to match their contents.

Then, turning away, he went down to the wardrobe to look for some new clothes. Something in black leather seemed about right. As he passed through the control room, suddenly he hated it all, the bright shiny look of the place. He told the TARDIS to change it; he didn't care what to. Just change it. Please.

He found the leather jacket he was looking for, and pulled it on over a nondescript jumper and slacks, and found some shoes to match. Then he made himself some breakfast, choking down the sawdust meal, and went back to the control room.

She'd changed, all right. Suddenly the walls were a soft rosy-orange, with coral pillars seemingly growing up through the floor up to the ceiling. She'd changed the floorboards to a metal grating, allowing him to see through to the various compartments underneath. All the hated white and harsh lighting on gleaming metal surfaces was gone.

He spun on his heel, taking it all in. Going au naturelle? he asked her, and she hummed a satisfied purr in his mind in response. She was tired of the white mess dress, too.

He smiled a grim little smile, gone as soon as it came. At least she could be happy. Maybe happy enough for both of them.

He walked up to the new console and slowly toured it, finding all the controls again – same places, just looked a little different. Coming back to the navigational array, he closed his eyes and lightly brushed his hand over the controls, not looking. Take me somewhere. I don't care where. Just away. Just away.....

The TARDIS whooshed, and they were gone.