CHAPTER TWENTY

Face to Face

The Doctor's mind was racing faster than he was - through the halls and around the corners. He could hear the creature behind him, could feel it closing in. But what was it?

He knew where he was. Well, not specifically where he was. But he understood it conceptually. These halls were his memories - the ones he kept secret and locked up. The ones nobody belonged anywhere near - not even him. But here he was, a virtual hypostasis of his mental faculties, running through the halls of his own mind. It didn't seem possible, but he had no time to ask questions. Until he could get a grip on what was going on here, he had only one thought: get to safety.

He had five women running with him. And Jack. Six companions, if he had to guess, from all different periods of his life. He didn't even recognize two of them. Who had brought them here? It must have been him. And there must have been some sort of logic to it - something they all had in common, even in the two he didn't know. But how did they even exist here? And why these six? Seven, if he counted Rose, though he could guess how she'd ended up here. She would've been first to come, if he knew her. But the others...

The screechy roar from behind him stole that thought from his mind. No time to think about that either. But one thing was for sure. They weren't going to outrun this thing, whatever it was. He slowed, looking back over his shoulder. The shadows were moving - the vague outline of something monstrous. He wracked his brain for possibilities. This was his mind. Therefore, it wasn't a creature dependent upon its molecular structure. It was an energy signature of some kind - a thought-based creature. And what did it want?

"Come on!"

Tegan had noticed he was falling behind. At her cry, the others looked back as well. But he slowed more. They weren't going to outrun this thing, and he was beginning to put the pieces together.

"Keep going!" he yelled to the companions, coming to a complete stop and turning back to face the shadows that were closing in.

"Doctor!"

Feet planted, he stood with his shoulders back, eyes fixed on the shifting shadows as they slowly took shape. It wasn't in the shadow, it was the shadow. "Like the Vashta Narada," he muttered to himself.

"The what?"

He did a double take at the redheaded girl standing beside him. "Was there something you didn't understand about 'keep going'?"

"Ha!" She grinned wickedly. "You were the one who told me I couldn't die in here."

"Did I?" Amused, the Doctor turned his attention back to the shadows as they gathered into one gigantic, spiraling black hole. "I sure hope I was right."

"You and me both."
"It's called a Quiescenary," Jack said, approaching and standing on his other hand. "It's a lab creation."

"Mutation?"

"A parasite. It feeds off of dormant psyonic energy until it kills its victim."

"Ah! Which explains why it's here."

"You sound like that's good news," Amy said warily.

"Oh, yes."

"It sure doesn't look like good news," Sarah Jane said, coming in closer behind them. Tegan and Susan stepped forward as well.

"Well, comparatively speaking, it's a lot better than what I was thinking it was. Mind you," he glanced at all of them, standing on either side, "I would still really appreciate it if you all took a big step back."

Fully formed from the shadows, the creature in front of him screamed again, and he turned his attention fully to it. It had no eyes - in essence, it was a swirling mass of dim colors fading to black. Ignoring the attack on his senses - the acrid scent and the burning in his eyes, the feeling of nausea that came from being so very close to a living, sentient equivalent of a black hole - he took a step forward.

"If you can scream, you can communicate," he called loudly. "Though to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how you do either."

The creature stilled. He watched it, standing tall, not flinching. It was listening. And for what it was worth, it seemed to understand.

"You want the energy," he said flatly, eyes fixed. "Dormant psyonic energy, is that right? Is that what you need? What you're here for?"

He could feel the remnants of the consumed energy all around him. Memories he would never regain. Memories that had been consumed by the thing in front of him.

"You want the memories. The secrets." He rocked on his heels as he studied the swirling figure. "Mind you, I don't think I'll really miss them. If it were as simple as that, I would've sent you a personal invitation a long time ago instead of constructing so many endless hallways of locked doors."

It still wasn't engaging. It was listening, but it was making no attempt to respond. He could only assume that it didn't disagree thus far. But that was likely to change in another minute or two.

"Unfortunately, you picked the wrong feast," he said seriously. "I'm a Time Lord. The psyonic energy that you're gorging yourself on is not only what sustains my life, it's what reminds me of how the timelines of this universe fit together, and the things I can and cannot freely change. Take away my memories of what fixed points exist, and I'm liable to inadvertently unravel the fabric of space and time."

"That would be assuming you live long enough to do so."

The voice was low and rumbling. Probably, if he had to guess, it was telepathic even though he was certain he heard it with his ears. After all, a mass of shadows hardly had a set of vocal chords. In any case, the response made him smile.

"Ah, hello! I was wondering how long it would take you to pipe up." Shoving his hands deeper into his pockets, he wandered closer, still smiling. "And yes, you're right. I am assuming that I will live through this. Because as big and scary as you are, I'm not going to stand idly by and let you feast on my recall of the Matrix for the next five thousand years."

"It would hardly take that long to consume your energies."

"D'you think?" His smile broadened, and he touched his tongue to his teeth as he considered just how much he wanted to tell this thing. "Have you ever seen the Matrix?"

He could feel the scrutiny, the probing as the Quiescenary searched for further explanation. And, apparently, found it. "I am not interested in a database of knowledge, Doctor."

"The Matrix is much more than that."

The Doctor's smile fell as the shadows shifted and condensed, forming colors, taking shape until finally, in a matter of only seconds, they formed into the image of a young boy with shaggy hair and a star pinned to his shirt, smiling as he stood straight and tall, eye to eye with the Doctor.

"I'm interested in you," the boy said, with all the innocence of a thirteen-year-old.

"Adric!"

"Don't," the Doctor ordered sharply, holding up a hand to stop Tegan's instinctive response.

Taking another step closer, he stared the boy in the face. "That's an impressive replica," he said dryly. "But what do you hope to achieve with it?"

The Quiescenary laughed - a familiar sound that might have made him smile any other time. But any other time, that laugh would have belonged to the boy he remembered.

"I don't need to achieve anything. I have already won."

Suddenly, there was cold metal at the back of his neck. His eyes widened in shock for the briefest of seconds before he set his jaw. He was steeled for anything by the time he heard Jack's voice. "What are you -"

"Nobody moves!"

It was Susan who interrupted him. Susan who was holding the gun. Standing very still, the Doctor's eyes remained locked on the image of Adric, jaw tight and eyes burning. He should have known. He should have seen it. Sarah Jane and Tegan - two of the most headstrong humans he'd met, in very different ways. He didn't know the other two, but what little he'd seen of them thus far should've been enough to tell him that they were the same. But Susan... She didn't fit.

"So now you've got a gun to my head," the Doctor said coldly. "And it seems we've reached an impasse. But at least I've got my answer."

"What answer, Doctor?" Susan's voice asked from behind him.

"That you're not going to end this willingly. And I'm going to have to stop you."

He felt the barrel press harder to his skull. The gun felt like a pistol, maybe from Earth. No telling where she'd gotten it, or what kind of damage it could do. None of this was real, after all. They were merely hypostatic energy signatures. Not unlike the thing looming before him. What could a gun do? What was it even made of?

"It seems you're in no position to be making threats, Doctor," Adric's voice said. The mere sound of it made the Doctor's blood boil. It wasn't just the image that elicited that response. It was all the memories and emotions that were swirling around him - the remnants and fragments of a boy who'd ceased to exist except for in his mind. The wounds had been ripped open so recently, and the sight of him now - the thought of that thing using his image - was salt.

"Go on, then," the Doctor growled. "Pull the trigger. But before you do, think very carefully. I am the consciousness that holds this entire world together. If you kill me, it all collapses. You die, too. Buried in a dead mind."

"You would die to kill me?"

"I'm not the one holding the gun. And besides. I'm no fool."

Jack moved. The Doctor hadn't been counting on it but at the same time, he somehow knew it was coming. He knew everything - every thought, every emotion - that existed in this hallway. He turned quickly, ducking out of the way although he didn't expect the figure behind him to shoot, or to even have a chance to do. Jack had one hand over hers and an arm across her throat, pinning her back against his chest. Without acknowledging Jack, the Doctor stepped forward, looking down at her eyes, glaring at his enemy from mere inches away.

"Anyone who gorges themselves the way you do wouldn't be able to stand the thought of all that tasty energy going to waste."

Jack blinked in surprise as her form disintegrated. The pistol clatter to the floor as the shadows scattered and clung to the walls, and Jack picked it up, struggling to regain his bearings. The Doctor still didn't look at him. Instead, he turned back to the wide-eyed figure of Adric and took an intimidating, angry step forward.

"I don't know how to kill you yet," he growled, coming closer as the image took a slow step back. "But unless you've got a plan for how to kill me, I suggest you run."

"Why should I run?" the figure asked. But the surety in its voice was lacking now. "If I've learned one thing about you, it's that you're a pacifist. Too much guilt over past mistakes, the violence you've witnessed and been guilty of. You wouldn't harm even me."

Close enough now to reach out and touch the boy, the Doctor's hand shot out and closed around his neck. Eyes going wide, the boy struggled as the Doctor turned and pinned him to the wall by his throat.

"Well, maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do," he growled low, leaning in close. "Prodding around all of those memories, you just might have woken up something a bit more than you bargained for. Now run!"

His voice was still echoing down the corridor as the body melted into the shadows and the shadows scattered. Breathing heavily, blood pounding in his ears, the Doctor's fist clenched against the wall as he swallowed hard, trying to stop it from shaking. One thing he had just learned: a Quiescenary was pure emotional energy. And the emotions were all his. Rage and grief and guilt and sadness, all wrapped up in a neat little package that had stared him down from mere inches away.

It was no wonder that he couldn't breathe.

"Doctor?"

"Out!" he yelled, spinning to the audience that was still watching him. "Get out of my head! Now!"

He fixed his eyes on each of them in turn, banishing them from his thoughts and watching them disappear. Sarah Jane. Tegan. Jack. The unfamiliar dark-skinned girl. And -

"Stop."

The exhausted, familiar voice from behind him made him spin around and take a stumbling step back, against the wall. The man was sitting on the floor, slouched against the beam, watching with half-lidded eyes. The Doctor stared at him for a long moment, wrestling with a thousand questions and ending on only one. He knew who the man was. He could feel it. He would've known him if he was blind, deaf, and dumb.

"Why?"

The man drew in a slow, tired breath. "Because you can't do this alone. And you know it."

"And you're here to help?" the Doctor shot with disdain.

"No. I can't stay here. You know that."

"You're damn right I know that. And the last thing we need is to collapse this entire structure with a paradox, so get out."

The man, his future self, shifted his eyes to the last remaining companion, standing nearby and watching with wide eyes. "Amy?"

She swallowed hard as she approached cautiously. "Yes?"

"I'll do everything I can to keep the channel open for as long as possible." She crouched down beside him, and he reached up to hold her arm weakly. "Help him. And trust him. Do whatever he says. Don't ask why."

She nodded. "Alright."

"And please. Be careful."

She smiled knowingly. "I thought you said this was like virtual reality. Nothing bad could really happen to me."

"I lied."

She sighed as she rolled her eyes. "Of course you did."

He smiled back as he moved his hand to the back of her head and tipped it down to kiss her brow. "Thank you."

Without another word, he was gone, dissolving out of existence. As the girl stood, she took a deep breath and turned, shoulders back. "Well, then," she said with firm determination. "I guess I'm here to help you."

The Doctor gave her a long look, up and down, taking everything in for the first time. He hadn't really given her much thought before now. High heels, short skirt, long sleeves, red hair, bright eyes.

"And you are?" he asked with genuine curiosity.

"Amy Pond."

She held out a hand to him and he hesitated just a beat before stepping forward and shaking her hand. He was less than thrilled, and didn't bother with a smile. But he was polite just the same. "Nice to meet you, Amy Pond. I'm the Doctor."

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: Alright, guys, I want your opinion, and now's as good a time as any to ask. When I started this series, it was with the intent of exploring the Doctor's guilty secrets and especially the most obvious one: the deliberate genocide of the Time Lords and the Daleks and half the known universe. The problem is, I'd originally (and stupidly!) intended for it to only be one book. Ha! But now that I'm writing it - as concisely as possible, mind you - it's turned from one to two to five. So my question is basically this: Do you want to see it in this series?

I have two options: 1. Open the door at the end of an upcoming book and see a snapshot of Gallifrey (nothing more than what we saw in End of Time), then the Doctor wakes up and the final book of the series posts. You read nothing about the war, only know that the Doctor relived it. The advantage is that the Quiescenary plot is resolved without a lengthy hiatus from the hallway. (The books about the war are going to take a while to post, and they are the story of the war, not the story of 10 or whoever WATCHING the war.) The disadvantage is that you, the reader, have to use your imagination on what the Doctor is actually going through as he's recovering from the horrors of what he's just (re)experienced, and the final book of the series will frankly lose a lot of its meaning. Also, the last book in this series is undergoing a complete rewrite... so there will be a bit of a gap in posting while I write it, assuming I can even shift my brain away from the war to write about the aftereffects of it. This is NOT the easiest option for me, but I'm willing to try and do it.

Option 2. Post the books about the war as planned, before posting the last book of the series. The advantage is that you, the reader, fully understand what the Doctor is going through in the final book and will appreciate the difficult decisions that must be made. The disadvantage is that you'll be reading over an entire plotline - several books that will take several months to post - with an earlier Doctor, no Rose, and no Quiescenary before THIS plotline gets resolved.

So. Anyone who has an opinion, it would be much appreciated. Post the war as part of this series, or don't?