Me

There was a story during the Last Great Time War of a Time Lady with the ability to change the tide of the war. No one knew her name or any of her faces, but they all knew of her.

Particularly when the Time Lords started losing.

Because she was blamed, at least by some of them. Not only had she been gallivanting across the universe, interfering in ways Time Lords were not meant to, but she'd refused to help rescue her own people. She'd turned her back on them.

They cursed her. Some even called her the Betrayer when they'd want to give her a name. Because she had. She'd betrayed them. She'd known the fate of Gallifrey if she ran, and she did anyway.

Almost no one believed she actually existed, of course. It was foolish to think that a single Time Lady had that much power. If she was real, the most she could have done was help the Time Lords win a few battles, sure, but not the entire war.

She was just someone to blame as Gallifrey fell.

But she was real.

She didn't have as much power as the story claimed she did; sure, a few planets were indebted to her, but not much could help against the Daleks.

But she'd always known that she could have done something, she may have been able to do something, if she hadn't run away.

|C-S|

An older woman, staring across the surface of the planet, watched as a ship fell from the sky. She didn't flinch when it crashed with a sound that shook the mountains around. With a small smile, she glanced at the younger women behind her, before looking back at the wreckage.

"And here he is at last, the man to end it all. My sisters, the Doctor has returned to Karn. We have always known in our bones that one day he would return here. Such a pity he's dead." The woman sighed.

|C-S|

The Doctor, clearly not as dead as the woman had believed, woke with a gasp. "Cass!"

"If you refer to your companion," the woman said, and the Doctor looked at her, the slight recognition clear on his face, "we are still attempting to extract her from the wreckage."

He rubbed his chest, taking a deep breath. "She wasn't my companion."

"She's almost certainly dead. No one could survive that crash."

He shrugged, grinning. "I did."

"No, we restored you to life," the Doctor's face fell, "but it's a temporary measure. You have a little under four minutes."

"Four minutes? That's ages. What if I get bored, or need a television, couple of books? Anyone for chess? Bring me knitting!"

The woman crouched so that she was at the Doctor's eye height. "You have so little breath left. Spend it wisely."

The Doctor frowned, seeming to finally focus on exactly what the woman was wearing. "Hang on…is it you? Am I back on Karn? You're the sisterhood of Karn," he stood, using the alter he'd been leaning against as a support, "Keepers of the Flame of utter boredom."

"Eternal life," the woman corrected.

"That's the one."

"Mock us if you will, but our elixir can trigger your regeneration, bring you back. Time Lord science is elevated here on Karn. The change doesn't have to be random. Fat or thin, young or old, man or woman?"

He eyed her carefully. "Why would you do this for me?"

"You have helped us in the past."

He lifted his eyebrows. "You were never big on gratitude."

"The war between the Daleks and the Time Lords threatens all reality. You are the only hope left, now that she has abandoned it."

He frowned. "She?"

"The protector who could have turned the tides of the battle with the armies of the universe. The one who ran."

"Sounds nice. Maybe I should try it."

The woman tilted her head. "You can't ignore it forever."

"Apparently I can."

"She was not able to fight. But you have the chance to."

He shook his head. "I will not fight."

"Because you are the good man, as you call yourself?"

The Doctor's jaw clenched. "I call myself the Doctor."

"It's the same thing in your mind."

"I'd like to think so."

The woman stepped back, gesturing to the side as Cass, the one rescued from the crash, was brought in and placed on an altar. "In that case, Doctor, attend your patient." The Doctor rushed over, scanning her with his sonic, looking for any chance he had to help save her. "You're wasting your time. She is beyond even our help."

"She wanted to see the universe," he mumbled.

"She didn't miss much. It's very nearly over."

"I could have saved her. I could have got her off, but she wouldn't listen."

"Then she was wiser than you. She understood there was no escaping the Time War, not even for the protector. You are a part of this, Doctor, whether you like it or not. There are some points even you can't escape."

"I would rather die," he snapped.

"You're dead already," the woman reminded him. "How many more will you let join you?" he was quiet. "If she could speak, what would she say?"

"To me?" he shook his head. "Nothing. I'm a Time Lord. Everything she despised."

"She would beg your help," the woman corrected, "as we beg your help now. The universe stands on the brink. One has already made her choice, but will you let it fall? Fast or strong, wise or angry. What do you need now?"

The Doctor let his hand hover over Cass's belt, considering it.

He didn't know the other woman, this protector. He didn't know any other Time Lord who'd been able to escape the war, who'd tried to run from it. Every one of his people had been swallowed by the war, drowned by it. Only he'd been able to escape the pull and even that hadn't lasted forever.

But this protector, she'd managed. She'd abandoned them to their fate. She'd known there was no way to save a people that had been tainted by blood.

He wondered if he would have been given this choice if she'd still been there. If the protector hadn't abandoned Gallifrey. Would his decision, his involvement, still have mattered?

He wondered if she'd ever seen war before. If the woman understood what it was like to stand on a battlefield, to command, to change the course of a battle.

No, she didn't. She wouldn't. She'd had the chance to do it in this war and she'd refused.

She didn't know what it was like to fight. Only to run and hide.

"Warrior," the Doctor said quietly. She was no protector; she'd left everyone to suffer. She'd betrayed them all. The Time War didn't need someone to abandon it, it needed someone to end it.

And that someone needed to be a warrior.

"Warrior?" the woman asked, clarifying, ensuring he was certain.

"I don't suppose there's a need for a doctor anymore. Make me a warrior now."

The woman took a goblet from someone who was standing to the side of the room, holding it out to him. "I took the liberty of preparing this one myself."

He took it, breathing deeply. "Get out. Get out! All of you." All of the women left, but the eldest took a moment longer, pausing before she left. "Will it hurt?"

The woman didn't turn back to look at him. "Yes."

"Good." He looked into the goblet again. "Charley, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly…friends, companions I've known, I salute you. And Cass…I apologize." He held up the goblet. "Physician, heal thyself."

A second after drinking the contents, he dropped the goblet, his hands already glowing gold. The light encompassed him, surrounded him, turned him into what the war, the universe, needed.

Turned him into what she'd refused to become, what she would always refuse to be.

What he was, what he hated himself for being.

No more.

|C-S|

The Time Lords sat side by side reading their individual books on one level of the TARDIS steps. The Doctor had chosen one on Advanced Quantum Mechanics that Adelaide had recommended, while she'd taken the TARDIS manual in another futile attempt to learn how to pilot the Doctor's version of the ship. She could manage to do it quite effectively but it was rather annoying when she'd go for something that wasn't there because his stupid TARDIS was a few generations behind her own.

At one point, after she'd spent about twenty minutes looking for a very specific function, she'd considered drugging the Doctor, hunting down her old TARDIS wherever it landed and forcing them to use that one instead. Then, at least, she would know how to pilot it and he wouldn't.

Though, knowing him, he'd probably figure it out in five minutes anyway.

But the fact she both didn't know where her TARDIS actually was and that it was most likely too destroyed and damaged to allow anyone, even her, inside – most likely phasing in and out of existence, attempting to repair itself but unable to really do it – convinced Adelaide that she shouldn't do that, at least not yet.

Instead, she just found the TARDIS manual where the Doctor had hidden it and decided to properly learn. He'd offered to teach her but she'd reminded him he wasn't actually the best teacher.

The Doctor had pouted at that, but she'd promised that one day, in the future, she would let him try.

Neither of them looked up when the TARDIS doors burst open as Clara rode in on her motorbike, having gotten their message.

"Manners," Adelaide called. Clara just smirked, clicking her fingers to close the TARDIS doors behind her as she pulled off her helmet. "Ever heard of knocking?"

The Doctor spun standing, pointing at Clara. "Remember, always be polite, otherwise Adelaide won't like you, and…"

"…and you want Adelaide to like you," Clara finished, having heard him say that many times. "Sorry, Adelaide."

"Apology accepted." The Time Lady stood as well, catching the book that the Doctor threw at her before going to put them back.

"Fancy a week in ancient Mesopotamia followed by future Mars?" the Doctor asked Clara, spinning around the console.

"Will there be cocktails?"

He nodded. "On the moon."

"The moon'll do."

The pair laughed, embracing quickly, before Clara turned to Adelaide as the Time Lady returned to their level of the console. "Are you enjoying being a teacher?" When Clara had first told Adelaide that she wanted, she'd sat the woman down and ensured she properly understood the responsibilities surrounding becoming a teacher.

Clara had been a bit shocked, as despite having realized Adelaide had been a teacher - you couldn't act like she did and not have been - that level of confrontation was not something Adelaide did. She'd been able to convince Adelaide, thankfully, that she properly understood everything involved.

It had been strange, even for Adelaide, to do something like that, but she'd still felt some responsibility for the teaching profession…even if she'd only been doing it officially to bide time before she could travel. But Clara was doing it for a different reason, she actually liked it, and Adelaide liked that.

More likely than not, Clara would be a better teacher than Adelaide could have ever hoped to be simply because she actually liked her job.

Clara grinned. "Loving it." Adelaide smiled.

The Doctor swung an arm over Adelaide's shoulders. "Teach anything good?"

"Learn anything good?"

He pointed at her, spinning away from Adelaide to move to the console…only for an alert to sound a second before the entire box actually jolted.

"What's happening?" Clara asked, having a guess that this was not what was supposed to have happened.

"Whoa, whoa!" the Doctor grabbed the console. "We're taking off, but the engines aren't going."

Adelaide sighed, pulling out her old phone from her pocket. Despite what she'd claimed to the Doctor multiple times, she had not in fact lost Caroline's phone. Honestly, it had fallen out of her pocket a few times, but after a few nights of tinkering with it, she'd been able to set it to teleport to her pocket if they were ever apart for too long or too far apart. It wouldn't work if she was no longer in the time period, but it was effective in most instances it was required.

She knew this because she almost never noticed it was gone, even after many circumstances where it most certainly should have been lost.

As she dialed, she opened the door to look out, the Doctor running over to look as well.

The TARDIS was flying…via the helicopter carrying it.

"How rude," Adelaide mumbled. She had a guess who was responsible, given what time they'd landed in.

After a second, someone answered. "Hello? Kate Stewart's phone."

"Yes, hello, this is Adelaide. May I speak to Kate, please? Thank you."

"Oh!" the woman on the other side gasped. "Hold on!" Her voice went faint but Adelaide could hear her running somewhere. The Doctor didn't even bother attempting to take it from her; he'd given her control of the phone long ago. "Excuse me! Ma'am. Ma'am!"

"The ravens are looking a bit sluggish," Kate said, in the distance. "Tell Malcolm they need new batteries."

"It's her! Sorry, it's your personal phone, but, well…I recognized the ringtone." Adelaide made a note to jump back in the timelines and ensure Kate had her personal cell phone number. "It's her. And him, I should guess." The woman sounded quite out of breath.

"Inhaler," Kate said, louder now that the phone had been passed to her. "Adelaide, hello. We found the TARDIS in a field. I'm having it brought in."

She sighed. "Does no one know how to knock?"

"Where are you?" Kate asked. Adelaide just held her phone out, letting Kate hear the helicopter above. "Oh my God! Adelaide, I'm so sorry. We had no idea you were still in there."

"Precisely why you should knock." She turned, walking back up to the console. The TARDIS swung, knocking the Doctor soundly out of the TARDIS. Clara just managed to grab his feet before he tumbled out. Adelaide turned. "Well."

"I'm having you taken directly to the scene." Kate paused, seeming to realize what Adelaide had just said. "Adelaide, is everything alright?"

"The Doctor has fallen out of the TARDIS. See you soon." She hung up, putting her phone away before she hurried to help Clara pull the Doctor back into the TARDIS, despite the man's shouts that he quite liked it out there, lots of fresh air.

|C-S|

The Time Lords stepped out of the TARDIS together, Clara right behind them, into the group of UNIT soldiers that had gathered around where the TARDIS had been placed.

"Attention!" a soldier shouted, Kate and another young woman joining the group.

Instinctively, the Doctor saluted before frowning. "Why am I saluting?"

"Doctor, Adelaide," Kate nodded, "as Chief Scientific Officer, may I extend the official apologizes of UNIT…"

The Doctor interrupted her. "Kate Lethbridge Stewart, a word to the wise. As I'm sure your father would have told you, I don't like being picked up."

Clara winced. "That probably sounded better in his head."

"And," the Doctor continued, not stopped, "now you've gone and made Adelaide cross with you, and that's never good."

"I'm not cross."

Kate raised her eyebrows. "I'm acting on instructions direct from the throne. Sealed orders from her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the first." She held out a faded parchment envelope.

The Time Lords, without thinking, tensed.

They always did when an adventure between him and Caroline was mentioned.

Clara shook her head. "The Queen? The first? Sorry, Elizabeth the first?"

Kate nodded. "Her credentials are inside." The Doctor took the envelope from her, preparing to open it when Kate stopped him. "No. Inside." She gestured back at the national gallery they were standing in front of.

The whole group began to move towards the building, though the Doctor did pause beside the young woman, who was wearing quite an impressive scarf. "Nice scarf." The girl's cheeks went a bit pink.

|C-S|

Once inside the gallery, Kate and a soldier took the lead, with Clara hurrying up to walk beside the Time Lords. "Did you know her, Elizabeth the first?"

"Unified Intelligence Task Force," the Doctor said instead, rather hoping to avoid any more discussion of Elizabeth than absolutely necessary.

"Sorry?"

"This lot." He gestured around them. "UNIT. They investigate alien stuff. Anything alien."

"What, like you?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I work for them."

That shocked Clara more than anything else. "You have a job?"

He pouted. "Why shouldn't I have a job? I'd be brilliant at having a job."

"You don't have a job."

"I do. This is my job! I'm doing it now."

Clara shook her head. "You never have a job."

"I do. I do."

Clara looked at Adelaide. "He doesn't have a job."

She was stopped continuing to answer when the painting before them was unveiled. "Elizabeth's credentials," Kate said quietly, somehow grasping the gravity of the sight.

It was a 3D, a Gallifreyan, painting of a Gallifreyan city in the midst of war.

A city being destroyed.

A city Adelaide had abandoned.

Without looking, the Time Lords grasped hands, needing each other.

The Doctor had stopped the war, had walked in the blood-soaked streets and stopped it, but Adelaide had run away. Adelaide could have stopped it and she didn't. She didn't even try. And this city was what she'd made.

"But…" Clara breathed, stepping closer, "but that's not possible."

"No more," the Doctor said quietly.

Kate nodded. "That's the title."

"I know the title."

"Also known as Gallifrey Falls."

Adelaide swallowed heard. "This painting doesn't belong here."

"Obviously," Clara agreed, though the human couldn't possibly understand exactly what the painting represented.

"It's the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city."

Clara moved to the side, seeing how deep the painting went, how actually 3D it was. "But how is it doing that? How is that possible? It's an oil painting in 3D."

"Time Lord art." The Doctor shrugged. "Bigger on the inside. A slice of real-time, frozen."

"Elizabeth told us where to find it," Kate said, "and its significance."

Its significance to the Doctor, to the Time Lord who'd been there. To the Time Lord who had seen it.

Clara glanced at the Time Lords. "You okay?"

"He was there," the Doctor whispered.

"Who was?"

"Me. The other me. The one I don't talk about."

He'd told her, once, before they'd truly known they were Aligned. When they'd been discussing the War and their true roles in it.

Clara shook her head. "I don't understand."

"I've had many faces, many lives. I don't admit to all of them. There's one life I've tried very hard to forget. He was the Doctor who fought in the Time War, and that was the day he did it…the day I did it. The day he killed them all. The last day of the Time War. The war to end all wars between our people and the Daleks. And in that battle there was a man with more blood on his hands than any other, a man who would commit a crime that would silence the Universe. And that man…was me."

|C-S|

On the planet Adelaide had abandoned, in the city the Doctor had walked, two Time Lords were attempting to save the war. They hurried through the halls of the Citadel of Arcadia, one, the General, leading the way. Androgar, the other, was giving a report. "The High Council is in emergency session. They have plans of their own."

"To hell with the High Council. Their plans have already failed. Gallifrey's still in the line of fire." They entered the war room. "Any word on her?"

Androgar shook his head. The majority of Gallifrey thought the Time Lady a story, a curse, but there were a few who knew the truth.

Who knew there was – had been, by now – a Time Lady who could have helped but didn't.

"No, sir. It's believed she actually did it." Androgar said 'it' with a glare. Most Time Lords would never even dream of doing what she'd done for any reason, let alone to abandon their people.

The General clenched his jaw. He'd only met the Time Lady once, before the planet had truly reached the point beyond salvation. He'd been supposed to convince her to use whatever influence she'd been able to gather to bring more troops to aid her people, to help save them.

The Time Lady had said nothing, but he'd known that she wouldn't do as he'd asked.

But he hadn't thought she'd go this far.

"Very well. Leave her to the universe, if she loves it so much." He stepped up to the table in the center of the room. "He was there, then?" There was no need to give names to the two Time Lords they'd discussed. They knew what they meant.

"He left a message, a written warning for the Daleks." The image shifted to a wall with 'No More' written on it. "He's a fool."

"No, he's a madman." He glared at the image.

"As you can see, sir, all Dalek fleets surrounding the planet now converging on the capital," the image shifted to a map of Arcadia, "but the Sky Trenches are holding."

The entire building shook. "Where did he go next?"

"What does it matter? This is their biggest ever attack, sir. They're throwing everything at us…"

"Sir," a nearby Time Lady, one of the many there monitoring reports, rushed over, "we have a security breach to the Time Vaults!"

The General frowned, moving to a terminal that brought up a display of the vaults in question, with a blinking vault in one that made him pause. "The Omega Arsenal, where all the forbidden weapons are locked away."

Androgar shook his head. "They're not forbidden anymore, not since she vanished. We've used them all against the Daleks."

"No. No, we haven't."

A/N: The Time War has begun :)