Darkness. Pain.
"They are coming."
Burning, fire, burning. Do the flames in his nightmares ever get extinguished?
The sound of boots on the floor marching to war.
Pain, darkness, pain, pain, pain…
"Your oldest friends, or are they your oldest enemies?"
Who could they be? He had to know, he had to…
The Doctor woke up in a fright, squinting at the light that suddenly seemed to envelop him. In the black of sleep, he had forgotten how bright light was, what hope was like.
The Time Lord stood up; his mind still racing with the question of who the Dream Lord had been saying was coming. The marching…
But now the man shuffled that thought to the back of his brain, trying to focus and calm himself down by figuring out where he was, a place far different from the darkness he had known for so long.
He looked at where the light came from, two binary suns winking back at him through clouds. Okay, that narrowed it down. The Doctor glanced at what he had been sitting in, almost unbelievably red grass there. The man then shifted his attention upwards, realizing his back was resting on the brown wooden trunk of what seemed to be a tree. Silver leaves blinked, almost as if they were on fire in the reflection of the suns.
"Ah, you should have seen it, that old planet. The second sun would rise in the south and the mountains would shine. The leaves on the trees were silver. When they caught the light every morning it looked like a forest on fire."
Something shot through the Time Lord's mind and he stood up so quickly, he almost fell down. Silver leaves, red grass, two suns. He knew a planet like this. It couldn't be.
But it was. The sights, the smells, even the feeling in his senile noggin of millions of souls like his own had brightened. The Doctor was just where he couldn't, shouldn't be.
Gallifrey.
Home.
The will to breathe almost immediately left him as the man came to this realisation. He didn't know whether to cry and fall into hysterics or to laugh with pure joy, jumping up and down like a small child.
After all this time!
Home.
But wait. He couldn't be here. The Time Lord felt like sweating. These events, this place, were Time-Locked! This was impossible!
But he had been in more impossible situations before, the Doctor reasoned, trying to calm himself down.
He heard a sound like rushing water, and suddenly realising that he was, in fact, pretty thirsty, the Doctor decided to head in the direction of what hopefully was a river.
As the man walked towards the water, he further surveyed his surroundings. The grass looked exactly as he remembered it in his childhood, tall and waving. In fact, the hot summer air and the brightness of the suns on his back felt almost as one of those carefree days he spent as a young Time Lord, running through the fields and playing with the leaves, drinking refreshing fluid from the creek just outside his estate.
The Doctor was shocked out of his memory as one of his feet was found unexpectedly underwater. Wiggling his toes in the liquid, the man grinned ear to ear and then carefully stepped out of the brook and lowered his body on the grass, now reaching his hands into the water. The Time Lord yet again smiled as he brought his cupped hands to his lips, sipping the fluid in them. He licked his lips and sighed, everything even tasted like home.
The man was about to put his hands back into the river when a sound came out of nowhere and bombarded his ears. Standing, he jumped across the creek and followed where the noise seemed to be coming from, a rhythmic beat of 1, 2, 3, 4… 1, 2, 3, 4…
Like the rhythms of soldiers' feet, marching to war.
Like the footsteps he had heard with the Dream Lord.
The Doctor felt himself paralysed with fear. The marching, the footsteps… the faux of himself had said it belonged to his greatest enemies.
His longest enemies…
Then, slowly, the Time Lord knew who the marching belonged to.
And so he was hardly surprised when ten or so humanoids in long red robes appeared on top of the hill in front of him.
Time Lords.
The Doctor had daydreamed before of what it would be like if he managed to step again on his home world. He'd see some of his old friends, perhaps, maybe even some of his family. They'd hug for hours, laughing, joking, and swapping stories. And then, he'd probably have to talk political logistics with the elders of Gallifreyan society, a simultaneously boring but endearing part of the Gallifrey he thought he had burned.
What the Time Lord didn't imagine was that angry-looking soldiers would be led by Rassilon himself, heading his way. But as the crowds of people neared him, the Doctor realised that was exactly the case.
When the party was about two metres away, they stepped to a halt, Rassilon holding up his hand to stop them. "Doctor," the founder of Time Lord society greeted solemnly.
The man had to choke through what felt like burning embers of coal in his throat to answer. 'Rassilon. To what do I owe this pleasure?" The Gallifreyan felt clumsy and awkward on his tongue, but he was in the presence of Time Lords and Ladies, he might as well speak it.
However, no straight answer was given as the elder man seemed to scan the area, even stooping down and picking up a patch of the red grass beneath. "Fascinating, wouldn't you agree? This planet is beautiful." Rassilon then let the grass fly in the wind as he let the pieces go. Folding his arms, he then looked back up at the Doctor. "Either you didn't realise that or you just didn't appreciate it, as I have heard you burn this place to the ground."
The renegade Time Lord clenched his teeth when he replied. 'What do you want from me, sir? How am I here?" The Doctor just wanted to be done with this, to know why he was here and what he had to do. No cheap shots about the genocide of his own people.
The Lord President stared at the man before him for a while until he opened his mouth to speak again. "My Doctor, surely you recognise this is your mind- an image of the Gallifrey you once knew."
The man in question started a bit at that statement, but almost immediately became worried rather than confused. "How can you be in my mind then?" the Gallifreyan asked. "The Time Lords' all of them, even you- are in a Time Lock. You shouldn't be able to sneak into here."
"Without some help, you're right, we wouldn't have been able." Rassilon retorted. "But thankfully, certain… figment of your imagination helped, what with lowering your telepathic barriers to an even more pitiful degree. Almost amazing really, how tattered and worn they are!" The man laughed darkly, before his frown returned once again. "And now we have you to save us."
This answer caused the Doctor's skin to prickle, but he was still a little blurry on who this figment was that had allowed these Time Lords access to his thoughts, and to be in such a tangible, physical form here. "Who helped you?" he finally managed to ask.
"I did, Doctor," a red-robed figure stepped out from among the people gathered behind Rassilon, and the renegade paled as he saw his faux persona- the Dream Lord- glare back at him "Ta-da!" the thing mocked, spreading his arms out in mock celebration.
As the true Gallifreyan took this in, Rassilon began to speak. You see, with your little friend playing his… mind games with you," the Lord President explained, "We were able to feel your mental presence on Gallifrey itself. Though at first, we didn't understand what sort of physical being was allowing you to have such a stable link with us, we soon tracked the signal to the Dream Lord, who was more than willing to help us in our… venture."
"Venture?" the Doctor repeated, wondering if he would ever stop asking questions.
At this question Rassilon's face spread into a malicious smile. "Well, Doctor, we hope to use this single from you to bring Gallifrey out of its Time Lock, out from the chaos that will surely take place."
This took time to register in the man's already-jumped brain, but then he realised exactly how crazy, how absurd this notion was.
"You can't do that," the Time Lord snapped, angry beyond belief. "I'm physically on Earth! Gallifrey coming into the real universe through my mind would knock Earth off its course! Billions of innocent people would die!" The Doctor cut off on his tone a bit, before realising what his true sacrifice would have to be. "I… I would have to die." He whispered.
"Precisely!" the Dream Lord spoke up again, jumping up and down like a child. "You will save your own people though, and that's really more than your own life, isn't it?"
Ignoring the faux, the Doctor turned to Rassilon and the other Time Lords and Ladies. "Pick another planet to take the place of Earth. Get me out of this dream state and let me go to another planet. An abandoned asteroid, an uninhabited moon, for god's sake!" Then you can all come back, and I will help you, I promise. But those humans are innocent. Please." The man begged."I have friends there," he choked out, thinking of his poor companions.
But the Lord President did not look one bit persuaded by this petition. "Yes, yes, Doctor, we know of your infatuation with the human race. But there is no time to save your precious Earthlings. For we have sensed the timelines, and we know that tomorrow, we will be burned. The Doctor will use the Moment, and the Time Lords will be no more." The elder man looked into the renegade's eyes. "You must help us now, Doctor."
"Tick tock, goes the clock, even for the Doctor…" the Dream Lord sang, smug.
The Doctor closed his eyes. He wanted, so very badly, to save his race. He had often prayed for a second chance and here this was. But he couldn't kill another race to make the one that in his own timeline, had already burned. The Time Lords had lived their lives. There was also still the threat of the Final Sanction, the possibility that his people might still go through with it. He couldn't do this.
"I won't do it," the Gallifreyan stated, his voice cracking despite his stern look. "I'm sorry, but I won't."
Though Rassilon appeared shocked at first, his face settled into a harsh frown. "Well then, Dream Lord?" the President called, and the fake persona came forward, rubbing his hands together as if excited for what neck he would wring next. "I sincerely wish you would've agreed differently, Doctor. For this is your mind, still. And we will control it, until you do our bidding."
"I will not do anything for you! Anything!" the Oncoming Storm seethed.
"Not after I'm done with you," the Dream Lord smirked, flicking his wrist-
And the Doctor's world exploded into flames.
When he came to, he noticed he'd woken up in Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city. And judging by the metallic robotic sounds of Daleks, the battle equipment on the ground and in the air, and the screams of frightened people, the Time Lord knew he was in one of the last days of the Time War.
There was blood, so much blood, the stink of dead corpses threatened to gag him. He felt so many minds extinguishing, golden lights all around. His people, just trying to survive another day, whatever body they had be damned.
There was a reason he had ended this war.
Over to his left, he saw a bundle of people, some poor Gallifreyan family, scamper out from behind a building. As they came towards him, and he could see their features a bit, his heart stopped.
A woman, with three teenage-or-so kids. Her beautiful ginger locks, grimy with ash and dirt. The children, two boys, one girl, all raggedy, but still utterly precious in a way only a father can understand.
The group caught sight of him, their eyes lighting up as they recognised someone familiar- him. His wife. His children.
Though his rational mind knew this scene could not be real, it had to be the Dream Lord messing with his memories, trying to produce an emotional effect- his family died a lot earlier in the war- tears came to his eyes. They shouldn't be here.
They ran towards, him, but then the Dalek came down the street as well.
He could see his wife's arms, flung out to hug him. His children, the word daddy on their lips. But with a blue laser, the cry of exterminate, his family was no more.
The Doctor ran still to greet them, his hands clutching at their corpses. Tears spill, and he screams, yells, cries at the harsh world around him. All there is is death. All he wants to do is to join in death with them, his flesh and blood, his people, his family.
The man knows he has to stay strong, however. No matter what nightmares he is forced to relive, he will have to get through them. This Time Lord can, and will, fight.
But for now, he sobs and sobs and sobs as he whispers love to his wife and children, clutches their hair and hands, sings lullabies, and curls himself into a ball so as not the face the living hell around him.
I'm sorry for this.
So here you go. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and that you forgive me for uploading it so late. Hopefully some of my other stories will be updated soon too, so you can take hope in that. I hope that this chapter clears up a bit about the current situation at hand.
I am expecting that there will probably be about six-nine more chapters that I will upload of this story. Amazingly, this fic is more near the end of its life than the beginning, which is simultaneously good, but sad for me.
Next chapter will focus on the TARDIS gang again and what they found on the other side of that portal. And a certain character you've all been clamouring for will make her debut. I'll give everyone a cookie who guesses this person correctly if you leave your answer in a review.
Well, thanks for reading! Please be sure to share your comments and favourite and follow. I really appreciate you guys keeping up with this fic, it really means the world to me.