What happened? Had she died? Sorley wasn't that oblivious. She did have a tendency of acting oblivious that allowed people to underestimate her. The ginger girl looked back at her in the mirror. Her wet hair hung plastered to her body, her skin was very pale, far paler than she had remembered it to be. She was still Sorley. She was, wasn't she?
Oh the dying did that. The memories. They weren't churning and scrimmaging in her mind anymore. She was the old Sorley and the new Sorley. Two sets of memories overlapping. Contradicting and not. Familiar and not. Both at once and neither at all. Forming, melding, separating. Like emulsion. Tiny drops of oil dispersing by soap. The old and the new.
Emulsion.
Would that be the correct term? The old Sorley scoffed. The new Sorley was apparently a dunce. Memories weren't like drops of oil and soap. They were bits of data, copies of files or books, filed into large boxes, slotted and categorized. Everyone had a method of filing that was created and modded when they grew up. The new her didn't have the time to do so. Her filing was haphazard and thus created an illogical filing pattern.
"I am Sorley Morin," she said to no one. Her head pressed against the mirror. "I am Sorley Morin." She banged her head against the mirror. Who was she saying it to? Was it to the new Sorley or the old Sorley?
"I am Sorley Morin." She banged her head harder this time. Her voice wasn't a whisper anymore. It was a yell. Louder and louder, harder and harder. She repeated it over and over again.
"Sorley?" a voice called out tentatively.
She looked up from her reverie, startled. "Doctor?"
"Are you okay?" The Doctor entered the wardrobe hesitantly. When he saw her enter with all the blood, he felt his heart stop. There was some off about her. He didn't know what. He really didn't have much to go by in fact. She had been asleep for a year and three weeks. It's hard to remember what's a person was like when you hadn't interacted with them for that long. But something just wasn't right and no matter how much he tried to push it to the back of his mind, it nagged at him. He had to see if she was alright. That was went he heard her banging and almost yelling the same phrase over and over again. Was it the wall in her mind? Did it break?
He pulled a towel over her wet hair, gently rubbing it dry. "You're bleeding." He glanced at the broken mirror.
"I am Sorley Morin." She replied.
"Yes you are." He pulled her face up, his hands cupping her face. "Sorley? What's wrong?"
"Who am I? I am Sorley Morin. But I'm not. I'm not Sorley Morin."
"You are Sorley Morin. Twenty six years old. From an alternate universe. An older brother called Thomas Morin. You like stars and nebulas and apple juice. You think apples are the tastiest food on earth and the only thing that can make it better is a dash of cinnamon." He lightly touched the wound on her forehead. "Your favourite colour is sea green. Specifically 32, 178, 170."
"That's rubbish." Sorley looked at him with an odd look on her face. "My favourite colour is red. And I don't like stars." She bit her lip. "No that's not correct either."
"Are you remembering? I can help you. Me, I deal with it every time I regenerate." He paused in mid-thought. "You didn't seem surprised that I'm different."
"Thomas made me watch every beginning and ending of each series. I know you're the Eleventh. You look a bit different though." She looked thoughtfully. "The Eleventh on my TV had blonde hair with somewhat Asian looks. Droopy eyes they called him. Although why is there the Master?"
"Ah yes. The telly." He had planned to talk about it, although that was a year and three weeks ago. Right now all he wanted to do was hug her and thank the Stars that she was finally awake. He didn't want to care about the telly thing.
"There was no Master. No." Sorley blinked. A strange look overtook her face and she stared at him intensely. "You're the Doctor."
He looked at her quizzical. This was a conversation that was very familiar. "Yes… I am the Doctor…. This is the Tardis."
"Why am I here? This was some kind of drama on the TV show. You're not supposed to be real." She pushed him away and ran into the hallway. "This isn't real. Why!? Why am I here!?"
"Sorley?" The Doctor chased after her. "Sorley? Calm down."
"Why am I here!?" She whirled to face him. "Why!?"
She wasn't crying, something the Doctor breathed in relief. He hated the idea of Sorley crying. "Calm down. What do you remember?" He said calmly.
"I was at home. No. I was going home. I had a fight with Tommy and he told me to walk home myself. Some guys tried to mug me and I beat the crap out of them. I saw Tommy waiting for me, then. Then. Then there was this light. What happened? I shouldn't be here! This place shouldn't even exist!"
"What's going on?" Koschei asked. He had been making tea in the kitchen when he heard Sorley's yelling.
She spun around to face him, appalled. "You're supposed to be in Gallifrey. Not here! You're not supposed to be here. The time lines are skewered. They changed too much. Too much. Too much, too much, too much, too much, too much."
Koschei choked on his tea. "Sorley, calm down. Which Sorley are you?"
Her panic stricken face fell expressionless all of a sudden and a calm stillness overtook her. She blinked Koschei then at the Doctor who hovered nearby. "I am Sorley Morin. Is there any other Sorley?"
"No… but," he too glanced at the Doctor.
"No. There is more than one of me. I apologize for that disturbance. Would you see check my wound, Koschei?" Her voice was too calm, too expressionless.
"I can-" The Doctor started. Sorley waved him off.
"Amy's waiting for you in the console room. Her first trip is it not?"
He huffed. "Well I promised her a trip. Do you not want to come?"
"Well.. considering we just trekked in the water and in the jungle. I'm rather tired. I'll probably go to bed after Koschei takes a look at my wound. Perhaps the next one." Her face morphed into the relevant emotions as she explained.
The Doctor's face fell but he understood. She was only human after all. Humans seemed to sleep their lives away. "Well we're going to explore that giant UK ship and be back," he said reluctantly.
"I'll be around…" Koschei raised his mug of tea.
The Doctor rolled his eyes and went away.
The duo walked to the med-bay in silence. "You're not really Sorley, are you?" Koschei said as he pulled the healing lamp out. He had noticed the rather stiff expressions on her face, it was a clear tell-tale sign to him now that he knew exactly what she was. He wondered if the Doctor had noticed. If he had, the Doctor had not shown any sign of it.
"No. She needed some time to sort out between the two memories and I wanted to talk to you."
Koschei shook his head in disbelief. "I still can't believe it.." He motioned at the med bed. "I saw the equation. It shouldn't have worked. The binomial distribution was too dependent on too many variables. It would have collapsed. I know Rani attempted it. No one succeeded that way." His hands stilled in its work with the healing lamp. "That entity. He said you… she wasn't natural. Is that true?"
She laughed. "It depends on what you define as natural. I am as natural as it comes. But I am special."
"Will she ever know?"
Sorley nodded. "When she is done assimilating with the old and the new memories, she'll be ready for mine. Not too far from now in fact." She gazed blankly at the healing lamp.
"Koschei? You're not ready yet," she said carefully. She placed her hands over his two hearts. "You cannot leave the ship for too long. Right now, all you have is the vortex energy I gave you that is stabilizing you."
"You gave me the vortex energy? It was you! Why?"
"Without it, your body would have died three hours. We have changed the timelines far too much. There is no way of returning. The only way is to move forward. We need you to preserve the timelines. To save us all. Don't doubt yourself."
"What would I need to do?"
"The end of the beginning has passed, the beginning of the end has come. The skies will rise and the songs will echo. They've been lost a long time ago, never to return. Never can return."
"Do you always talk in riddles?"
"Do you always not pay attention?"
"Not pay attention?" Koschei repeated affronted. "You-"
"The answer is there." She placed a finger over his mouth, silencing him.
They lapsed into silence with only the light buzzing from the healing lamp as Koschei roved it around the wound. The break in the skin was finally sealed up. When Koschei wiped the blood away, there was a light pink skin where the break had been. He frowned at the equipment. "I got my work cut out for me. This healing lamp is three centuries outdated."
Sorley chuckled. "Right, I'm going to head to bed."
He waved her away, still mulling over her words and the archaic med equipment. From an outsider's point of view, the equipment was very far advanced. Not to Koschei. He had built and designed equipment that were far more efficient than this. Then there were the broken parts of the Tardis. The Doctor had done his best in up keeping the Tardis however he was the Doctor. However brilliant he was, he was no match for Koschei's engineering skills.
"So many things I'll need to fix…" he wandered into a workshop room and begun the unenviable task of bringing all the equipment in the Tardis up to date.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
He sloshed into the Tardis with Amy behind.
"You're dribbling sick all over the console," Koschei glowered at the duo.
"I saved the last Star whale!" The Doctor giddily replied.
"And I helped!" The ginger girl chirped.
"Yes, I just fixed your directional unit and you're dribbling sick on it! Now move away from the console, or Stars help me, I will kill you."
"He's a grumpy one isn't he?" Amy said to the Doctor, hurrying down the hallway.
The Doctor snorted though a small grin remained on his face. Grumpy Koschei. That reminded him of the days during the Academy years. The Doctor paused just outside the sick bay. It was somewhat dismantled, parts of the equipment had been taken apart and left there. "Koschei? Koschei! What did you do to my sick bay!?" He stomped back into the console room.
"Ah. I though the mending gel could do with an upgrade. It's four centuries too old. The pinocytosis wasn't working as well it should. There was degradation in the cellular build up." Koschei wiped down the sick from the directional unit and looked exceptionally pleased at fixing it. He buzzed his screwdriver at it, making final checks with the unit. "Perfect. All fixed. Now we'll always get to where we want unless you're driving."
The Doctor folded his arms and glared at him. "What's that supposed to mean."
"That you failed your driving test."
"Like you passed it."
"Actually I did. With flying colours and would I mention, I didn't need to steal my Tardises to get one because I was incapable of passing my driving test."
The Doctor sulked. He had totally forgotten about that. Koschei had been one of the best at driving the Tardis in Deca. He cleared his throat loudly. "What else have you decided to upgrade?"
"I have made some blueprints to overhaul the healing lamp. Your Tardis tells me the Vortex shields are in desperate need for repair and so are the subneutron circuits." He cocked his head at the time rotor. "Yes I did notice the drift controls are a bit off. Oh? It's linked to the gravitational circuits? Why?"
"Are you talking to my Tardis?" The Doctor questioned.
"Oh no. I'm talking to myself," he said sarcastically.
The Doctor was surprised. Back on Gallifrey, none of the Time Lords him included, had considered their TTC non-living, non-thinking. They were a mass of profound coding that gave a resemblance of living but it was really just the program talking. It was only centuries of travelling with the old girl that he had decided otherwise. Koschei had most definitely been one of those, yet he was talking to his Tardis. Why was old girl talking him and since when Koschei had a change of heart? He watched his old best friend duck under the console, fixing probably the drift controls, all the time muttering to his Tardis. The Tardis never spoke telepathically to anyone but their owners unless requested. Why now? Why him? The Doctor pondered over such questions as he took a slow bath. He rested his feet on the foot rest, letting the warm water wash him. At the end of the forty minute bath, the time lord was still unable to come up with any conclusive reasoning.
Now he had three mysteries on his hand. He did really love mysteries, but three? That was far too much. He popped his head into Sorley's room. Mystery number one. Oh she was a far more interesting puzzle than those two. The strange familiarity, the ability to save Donna, the ability to see the future. How? He ran into the Tardis after she had rebuilt herself and hadn't even had a moment to touch the new console before it lurched into the vortex, carrying him directly to Koschei and Sorley who were both stuck in a pocket universe. A pocket universe! It would have taken him quite some time to search for them then mount a rescue yet the Tardis had done it all by herself. Was it for Koschei or Sorley? Or was it both? The Doctor leaned against the door frame, watching the rise and fall of her chest.
"Who are you?" he muttered. He made a mental note to ask her about the telly again when she woke up.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
They strode down the corridor, at the head of the group was The Doctor and Churchill. Amy shuffled beside Sorley, unsure how to take the girl. Sorley hooked an arm around Amy's, still grinning wildly. "The Doctor hasn't realized it yet." She caught Koschei's eye who was just behind them. He glanced at them, a look of realization shone on his face. He laughed loudly, a single loud chuckle before joining Sorley in her mad grinning.
"What hasn't the Doctor realized yet?" Amy asked, slightly put off by the fact that she wasn't able to follow the conversation. The two apparently had shared a conversation that didn't require words. It made her wonder how close they were in order to be able to do so. Even she and Rory had difficulties understanding each other and they had known each other throughout their childhood. Rory didn't treat her badly, it was just that he practically worshipped the very floor she walked on and that made her uncomfortable.
Instead of moving to the back of the lift, Sorley held Amy in front of the Doctor with that maddening grin of her. The Doctor stared at them, realizing something crucial (to him). "This is not fair!" He sulked. "You two are Gingers!"
Amy eyed Sorley. "I'm not really following."
"The Doctor always wanted to be Ginger," explained Koschei.
"Why?"
Sorley shrugged and pointed at the Doctor with a large smile. "Ask him."
The Doctor decided that he would not be taunted into it and turned back to Churchill. Churchill puffed on his cigar, unperturbed by their conversation. "We stand at a crossroad, Doctor." He puffed his cigar smoke at the Doctor who coughed and waved the noxious smoke away. "Quite alone, with our backs to the wall. Invasion is expected daily. So I will grasp with both hands anything that will give us an advantage over the Nazi menace."
"Such as?"
"Follow me." The Doctor waved the smoke away again, following Churchill out of the lift. They were on the roof top. Piles and piles of sandbags were stacked everywhere.
"Very 1940s," Sorley commented. Amy stared at the view in awe.
"Doctor, this is Professor Edwin Bracewell, head of our Ironsides Project."The Doctor held the 'V for Victory' sign at the Professor.
Koschei sauntered to the edge, his hands tucked behind his back. "History! Brilliant!" There was no gleam of joy in his words. It had been hundreds of years for the Doctor, but for him, it still felt recent. He couldn't say much about it. He had been a coward, fled the war to the end of the universe. How ironic that after all the blood on his hands, he had fled at a time when blood on his hands were needed.
Above the fighter planes began their incursion into the London's sky. However before they could attack , a series of laser beams shot them down.
"That wasn't human technology." The Doctor and Koschei turned to where the laser beams had originated from.
"Show me! Show me what that was!" The Doctor demanded, climbing the stairs to stand by Professor Bracewell.
"That's impossible." Koschei muttered. "He said he destroyed them in the war. He sacrificed Gallifrey to destroy them! Sorley? Sorley!" He rounded up to Sorley. There was an indiscernible look on his face. "Tell me Sorley. Tell me they were destroyed."
He shook her. "Tell me!"
"Koschei, you're scaring her." Amy curled her hands over his angry fists, gently trying to pry them away. The fierce look on his face did scare Amy, but she wasn't going to let it deter her from stopping him shaking Sorley so angrily.
"Yes…" his hands sprang open and he backed away quickly, his chest heaving for breath. Koschei turned to the horrifying Dalek, forcing himself to take deep and slow breaths until he was in no danger of hyperventilating. He trailed behind them. Worried, Sorley slipped her hand into his, offering comfort to the time lord. His body shook as the Doctor and him pored over the diagrams. Why didn't the Professor notice it? The equations, the statistics, none of them made sense. His mind picked apart the blueprints, the theory was acceptable but the flow of thought was eons beyond a human's imagination. It was like finding a caveman creating and manning space shuttle; ludicrous and utterly absurd.
"They're Daleks! They're called Daleks!" The Doctor insisted.
"They're Bracewell's Ironsides, Doctor! Look! Blueprints, statistics, field-tests, photographs. He invented them!"
How could a human be so ignorant? Koschei didn't even need to delve that far into the diagrams to notice the discrepancies. "Invented them? No way in bleeding stars that could have happened!"
"Yes! He approached one of our brass hats a few months ago. Fella's a genius."
"Is that what you're thinking? Genius?" He fisted the blueprints. "Look. Really look." Koschei jabbed at the 'blueprints'. "Where is the power? How is it generating power? How are the laser beams working?" He scoffed at the laser beam diagrams. "The equation doesn't tally. The numbers are all faked."
He picked up a pencil and started angrily correcting the equation. "If A as stated here is the power of 256 then kurtosis here does not support the variance. So that means-" he blacked the rest of the equation furiously. "None of this would work. X and Y axis will never coincide. Never!" He ripped the entire blueprint up. "Get that into your tiny cranium of yours. Your 'professor' couldn't have come up with this and made this work even if you gave him a hundred years."
"Do you realize what you've done?" he exclaimed. "You just destroyed highly classified military papers!" Churchill picked up the pieces. "Your companion just destroyed the blueprints!"
"The blueprints don't matter! He didn't invent them! They're alien!" The Doctor waved Koschei's transgressions away.
"They're not alien!"
"Did you just not pay attention to when I was explaining?" The human's ability to ignore anything inconvenient was beyond Koschei's imagination. He looked over his shoulder, just at the doorway, the Dalek was there, listening. There was something far bigger than just Daleks on Earth.
"I have to go back." Koschei told the Doctor and grabbed Sorley.
'Theta, there's something far more than just a handful of daleks here. Step wisely. I'll monitor from the Tardis.'
The Doctor nodded at his message. His eyes falling onto Koschei's hands intertwined with Sorley's. A flash of heat rushed through him. He returned to his mission at hand, finding why the Daleks were on Earth, but the thought of Sorley's hand in Koschei nagged at him from the back of his mind and he had no idea why.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Sorley wasn't sure why Koschei had dragged her back to the Tardis. She watched the blond man hurry to the scanner, not even bothering to fling his leather jacket over the jump seat. Koschei flicked the scanner on, hurriedly typing in his search functions.
"The red levers next to the quantum foam manipulators." Koschei said without lifting his eyes away from the monitor. Sorley hurried to the levers he was pointing at and pushed the up. "No. Move two steps to the left and pushed them again."
She took two steps to the left and pushed them again. How the position where she stood affected the equipment puzzled her. "You know it doesn't really matter right?"
"And you'd know this because..?"
"Just because." She folded her eyes and matched his stare. Green eyes matched the brown eyes. There was a twinkle of amusement underneath the cool brown eyes, his lips twitched in response though he said nothing, choosing to hold his peace.
A low hum rose and then a holographic map of the entire earth materialized beside her. He fiddled with the typewriter and the map zoomed out further, allowing the moon to appear as well. Just outside the orbit was a large ship. No rewards to whom they belonged to. Something was happening. The Daleks, they were starting up! The build up in the energy of the certain of the ship indicated some sort of activity. He had to notify the Doctor. Koschei hurried to the door, slamming straight into the Doctor who ran in.
"I didn't mean to!" The Doctor exclaimed, clutching his nose as he worked the console.
"Their ship was in orbit." Koschei told him.
"Yes. They were waiting for me. They wanted my testimony."
"Testimony? We're going to them?"
"Of course."
The Tardis landed on the dalek ship and Koschei slammed the door shut as the Doctor tried to open it. "Why aren't you using the Arton cannons? I'm sure you have them. I saw the circuit boards in the workshop. You used this Tardis during the Time War, did you not? They would have refitted your Tardis."
"I'll never use those blasted cannons again." The Doctor coldly responded. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Daleks to deal with." He shoved Koschei aside and slammed the door shut behind him.
"He's going to get himself killed." Koschei did a hurried circuit around the console. All the battle fixtures had been removed. The Artron Cannon, the energy beams. There was nothing offensive left on the Tardis. The fool was going to get himself killed then everyone else. He sprinted down the hallways, skidding into the workshop.
Artron filament on the abaxial rotation. Plasma buffers hotbinded to the modulator.
The screwdriver slipped in his hand. His hands were slippery from the sweat that beaded his forehead. Koschei swore fervently, wiping his hands onto his jeans and picked up the screwdriver again, welting the fragments into the plating. The weapon wasn't going to work more than a few times, there wasn't enough time to fashion a proper buffer to intercept the correct frequencies and carom them back. The plasma buffers would just have to do.
He scrambled out into the console room, pausing just a moment at the communications panel. He frantically prepared the console, turning the scanners to the conversation that was occurring right outside. "Sorley. If and when it seems that we're not coming back. Just push the red levers. It'll bring you back to Amy and then these buttons," Koschei placed his hand on the large handbrake and pointed to several buttons, making sure Sorley knew exactly which. "send you two back home, wherever the Doctor has programmed the emergency protocol one to." He burst into the white room and shot the first one closest to him.
The Doctor cheered tremendously when Koschei stood beside him. In his arms was a really weird looking object.
"Hello Daleks." Koschei greeted. "Like my Plasmatic Artron Blaster?"
The Doctor's mouth twisted, his grin widening, matching Koschei's smirk. "Well then, as I was saying. Don't mess with me, sweetheart!"
"WE ARE THE PARADIGM OF A NEW DALEK RACE. SCIENTIST, STRATEGIST, DRONE, ETERNAL AND THE SUPREME."
"Which would be you, I'm guessing? Well, you know, nice paint job. I'd be feeling pretty swish if I looked like you. Pretty Supre-mee. Question is what do we do now? Either you turn off your clever machine or I'll blow you and your new paradigm into eternity."
"AND YOURSELF ALONG WITH YOUR FRIEND." The white Dalek said.
"Occupational hazard."
"SCAN REVEALS NOTHING! TARDIS SELF-DESTRUCT DEVICE NON-EXISTENT!" The blue dalek said.
"All right," he rescinded, taking a bite of the cookie. "It's a Jammie dodger, but I was promised tea!"
"The Tardis self-destruct device might be non-existent, but do you think you can withstand my blaster?" Koschei questioned. He didn't wait for an answer and shot the blue dalek.
"EXTERMINATE! ALL TIME LORDS MUST BE EXTERMINATED!"
Koschei slid the unlock slider, this time taking the yellow dalek down. He threw himself behind the panel, burying the glee that bubbled in his throat. "Two down and three to go!"
"Are you going to turn off your clever machine or shall I let my fellow time lord blast you all back to extinction?" The Doctor asked from behind a pillar. He had to do something. If he could disrupt the shields, he might be able to destroy the ship with his sonic screwdriver.
"DOCTOR! CALL OFF YOUR ATTACK!"
"Ah-ha! What? And let you scuttle off back to the future? No fear. This is the end for you. The final end!"
"CALL OF THE ATTACK OR WE WILL DESTROY THE EARTH."
"I'm not stupid, mate! You've just played your last card!"
"BRACEWELL IS A BOMB."
"You're bluffing. Deception's second nature to you. There isn't a sincere bone in your body. There isn't a bone in your body!"
"HIS POWER IS DERIVED FROM AN OBLIVION CONTINUUM! CALL OFF YOUR ATTACK, OR WE WILL DETONATE THE ANDROID."
"No! This is my best chance ever! The last of the Daleks! I can rid of the Universe of you, once and for all!"
"THEN DO IT. BUT WE WILL SHATTER THE PLANET BELOW! THE EARTH WILL DIE SCREAMING!"
"And if I let you go, you'll be stronger than ever. A new race of Daleks."
"THEN CHOOSE, DOCTOR! DESTROY THE DALEKS OR SAVE THE EARTH. BEGIN THE COUNTDOWN OF OBLIVION CONTINUUM! CHOOSE DOCTOR! CHOOSE! CHOOSE!"
The Doctor and Koschei exchanged looks. 'Go Theta! I'll handle it from here!' The Doctor nodded and set the coordinates for the Earth.
"Guess what?" Koschei stood up and shot the orange one this time. "I'm still here. I never got to fight much in the Time War. Do you know me?" He cocked his head and leapt away in heartbeat. "I'm the Master. And I'll kill every one of you."
He bounced away from the pillar he was hiding behind, trying to fire. The blazer short circuited and he chucked it at the red dalek before it blew up, causing the red one to go up in flames. He pulled out his laser screwdriver and ducked another series of beams from the last two dalek.
"TIME LORD WITH ONLY A PROBE. HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO DESTROY ME?" If Daleks was able to change their voice pitches, Koschei would have betted on that being sarcasm.
"It's a laser screwdriver." He corrected, he hurled beside towards the dalek, screwdriver in his hand and fired the laser at the red dalek. It wasn't doing as much damage as he would have liked, but it was better than nothing. The damage from his short circuited blaster had done enough to take the shields down which then allowed his laser screwdriver to give it its death.
"Well then, just you now." He tilted his head to the white dalek, a sinister smile spreading his face. "Any last words?"
"EARTH WILL DIE SCREAMING!"
"Yes yes. Don't worry about that," he said placidly. "The Doctor will fix it." He deflected the dalek's laser beam with his screwdriver and quickly changed the settings to boost the laser. It took him five shots later and a lot of jumping around to destroy the last dalek.
Koschei stood at the progenitor. Take it down, destroy the last dalek ship.
"What are you thinking?" The Doctor asked.
"On the irony of me running from the war." Koschei said sadly. "We might have won if I had stayed. Us together. We'd have been unstoppable."
"We will never know. You didn't have a choice. By then you were too far gone. The drums' purpose had been to stay outside the timelock."
"I could have fought harder against the drums. I should have." Koschei gripped the Doctor's arm, tighter. "They're all dead because of me."
The Doctor looked grimly at him. "It really wasn't you. It was me. I killed them all."
Koschei laughed.
Like the wind, the dust I will leave,
Never turning back, there is no grief.
I hope to be like the wind, the dust,
Floating into the sky in a gust.
Leaving nothing behind,
But the sound of the wind.
Koschei quoted an old time lord poem. Time lords weren't interested in poetry. They were too mighty to talk about such frivolous things. He turned to the Doctor. "We don't have to be defined by the things we did or didn't do in our past."
"That's a good line! Where did you get that from?"
"The Old girl quoted it. Apparently it's from the book 'I am Number Four'."
Koschei shook the memory away. Take down the progenitor, destroy the last dalek ship. He spun the screwdriver in his hand, not really noticing the motion; his mind working hard to figure a way to destroy the progenitor, the dalek ship and get out in time. All it drew was a blank.
"I suppose everything has its time and place." He laughed a mirthless laugh. "Time to die."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The Doctor slammed the door open, sprinting to the console room. Sorley, who had already pre-empted in advance, pulled the lever that Koschei had told her to pull the moment the door behind the Doctor shut. The time rotor went into motion and the dematerialization begun before the Doctor could reach the console.
"Koschei pre-programmed it to go to Amy."
The Doctor nodded, already inputting different things onto the typewriter. The moment the Tardis landed with a thud, he had ran out of the Tardis and into the war room and punched Professor Bracewell hard, knocking him to the ground. He shook his hand in pain.
"Sorry professor, you're a bomb." Sorley told the man, arriving just shortly behind the Doctor.
"Yes. An inconceivably massive Dalek bomb." He motioned, then waved his hand in pain.
"There's an Oblivion Continuum inside you – a captured wormhole that provides perpetual power. Detonate that, and the Earth will bleed through into another dimension." The Doctor took his sonic screwdriver out, kneeling beside him and opened up the professor's shirt. "Hold still. Koschei should be working on the Daleks up there."
The skin shifted open, revealing a strange circular pad. "Well?" Amy asked.
"I dunno, I dunno, I dunno!" He scanned the pad and shook his screwdriver for the results. "I've never seen one up close before!"
"So what, they've wired him up to detonate?"
"Not wired him up! He is a bomb. Walking, talking," he motioned and made the exploding sound. "exploding! The moment that flashes red." The Doctor pointed.
"You're scaring him." Sorley half-scolded, knowing the Doctor really didn't mean it. She knelt beside the professor, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You'll be alright."
"You don't know he'd be alright," snapped the Doctor. "We could all go BOOM!"
"You're not helping!"
"Well neither are you Sorley. Was there an episode on this? What did the episode say?"
"An episode? Are you talking about the telly? Now? Is that really the time?" Amy asked critically and folded her arms, giving the Doctor the evil eye. "Isn't there like a blue wire that you have to cute? There's always a blue wire. Or a red wire."
The Doctor groaned. "Look it's the Oblivion Continuum. It's a wormhole." He noticed the blank look on their faces. He palmed his face with a loud sigh. "Never mind. Telly. Was there or was there not an episode on this?"
He pointed at Sorley. "I don't know! I didn't watch every episode. I-" Sorley looked at professor Bracewell. It was true that she didn't remember every episode but there was a feeling, an instinct and it urged her to talk to the man. No, it didn't urge her, it demanded her to talk to the man. "Positronic brain," Sorley said though she did not know what it meant.
"Positronic brain! Brilliant!" He clasped his hands together and pointed at professor Bracewell. "Tell me about your life!"
"Doctor, I really don't think this is the time!" he protested.
"Tell me and prove you're human. Tell me everything." The Doctor insisted, this time kneeling beside him.
"My family ran the Post Office. It's a little place just near the abbey. Just by the ash trees. There used to be eight trees but… but there was a storm."
Irritated by his slow place, the Doctor pressed on. "And your parents? Come on! Tell me!"
"Good people. Kind people. They… they died. Scarlet fever."
"What was that like? How did it feel?"
"Please…"
"How did it make you feel, Edwin? Tell me! Tell me now!"
"It hurt. It hurts, Doctor, so badly. Like a wound. It was worse than a wound. Like I'd been emptied out and there was nothing."
The second section of circular pad turned red, then the third turned yellow. Whatever the Doctor was doing, it was speeding things up. "How about a girl you like?" Sorley interrupted. "Someone you love but can't be with?"
"W-what?" Professor Bracewell stammered.
"It hurts too. But a different kind of hurt. A good kind of hurt." Amy added.
"I really shouldn't talk about her."
"Oooh! There's a her." Amy smiled, seeing the last section revert to blue.
"What was her name?" The Doctor prompted.
"Dorabella."
"Dorabella? It's a lovely name, it's a beautiful name."
"What was she like, Edwin?" Sorley asked.
"Oh… Such a smile…" The professor's eyes took on a faraway look, envisioning her. "And her eyes… Her eyes were so blue… Almost violet. Like the last touch of sunset on the edge of the world… Dorabella." All the sections turned to blue, then white and became inactive.
They whooped in delight, excitedly hugging each other. "Welcome to the human race!" The Doctor beamed at them.
"Oh, no!" He got up, spinning around hurriedly. "Koschei! Got to go!" He grabbed Sorley's hand, tugging her along. "Come along Pond!"
He worked the consoles, all the time talking to them. Sorley didn't think he was talking to them and that he was really comforting himself. "Koschei's the most brilliant engineer in the universe. The best of the best. He wouldn't die so easily. We fought for so many centuries. I always pursued him. We went through so many regenerations through that. He wouldn't die so easily." They had barely entered the dalek ship, when the Tardis jerked violently, the sound of the cloister bell chiming away. "NO!"
He flung the door open. There was no more dalek ship. The ship had exploded around there, breaking apart, disintegrating into tiny bits. Burning, crackling, fracturing into smaller and smaller pieces. The sight would have been almost majestic. The death of the daleks. No more daleks.
The war finally had ended in a flurry of flames and crumbling metal pieces.
The final end.
"No no no no no!" The Doctor fell to his knees. A plethora of emotions clashed underneath the time lord's face. He gripped the doorframe so tightly that the two girls could see the white beneath his knuckles. They held each other's hands, unsure of how to comfort the time lord. "Why do they always take everything away from me?" He whispered.
He ran a hand through his hair, a sob escaping his tight throat. "I didn't ask you to die. You didn't have to die!" He punched the doorframe in anger. "You weren't supposed to die. Not today."
He banged the doorframe again, this time with less anger. Exhaustion seeping into him as the anger left. "Not now," he said hollowly. Sorley and Amy held him in their arms. He took a stuttering breath. His arms hung heavily on his sides.
He was so tired, so very old.
He was the last time lord again.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Author's Note: I'm sorry! This wasn't supposed to happen. I realized that there have been quite a few senseless character deaths in these 2 chapters, but I've decided to move several things forward and by forcing forward, I'll have to do trigger big things to create the situation I need or maybe I just like writing character deaths. We're moving into the final story plot and well, I'm moving things a little faster than I planned to as I'm condensing the story.
Please review. Feedback is very much appreciated.