I Must Finish This

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He was sitting in his rocking chair. His frame lit by the constant glow of the timeless void beyond the crack. His one of his gnarled hands clasping a small wooden train the other was lain on his chest half concealing a small witling knife. This had been where he'd taken up residence all those years ago. He'd sequestered himself up there, only allowing the children up to talk to him for many years. He orchestrated the entire standoff from the tower. Now there weren't many children left and fewer that risked coming up to the tower to see him. He'd spoke less and less to her and her officers, commanded fewer of the operations. Tasha walked slowly towards the old man. His head was bowed his eyes closed. His body didn't move. Slowly the Mother Superious reached forward her fingers extending out to touch the man's neck. Just as she was to touch him, the man leapt up and shouted in surprise.

Tasha stumbled backwards slightly but quickly reclaimed her papal poise and composed herself. She glowered down at him.

"I thought you were dead!" Tasha grumbled, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"Dead? Me, no, not yet." The old man chuckled slightly. "I've been awake for nine hundred years straight, the first minute I rest my eyes and you think I'm dead." The old man said as he looked down at the train in his hand. "No, I must finish this for Barnable."

"Barnable?" Tasha shook her head. "Who is Barnable?"

"The boy, the little boy, always asking questions." the old man replied, scrunching his wrinkled face up in exasperation. "I built a barn for his father, little bigger on the inside than the out…" He quickly lifted a finger to his lips. "Shh don't tell anyone it's a secret. Everyone will want one if it gets out."

"Doctor, that barn was destroyed, that boy is dead, long dead, he died many decades ago." Tasha said as she walked closer. "Are you feeling ok?"

"Hmm?" The old man responded, as he looked down at the train in his hands his faded blue eyes peering weakly through the spectacles perched on his nose. "Feeling, ok? Feeling ok? My dear, I'm in fine fettle. Yes, finest fiddler you could find…." He stopped looked into the middle distance slightly beyond the train in his hands, as if lost for a second, he shook his head and narrowed his eyes. "Now, Chatow, stop buggering me I'm busy…"

"Doctor, I'm not Chatow, I'm Tasha Lem…" the woman replied as she knelt in front of him. The old man's eyes lifted to her face and seemed to brighten.

"Ah, Tasha, I'd stand up but…these old bones…" the old man said looking at her as if she just now appeared to him. "I was just talking to…" He looked to where Tasha had been. "Just talking to….hmm, must've left."

"Doctor, please focus." Tasha insisted as she clasped her hands around his and the train within it. "It's the Daleks."

"Oh, it would be, wouldn't it." The old man said narrowing his eyes, the bushy white eyebrows bunching together. "Always doing some stupid thing, burrowing to the core of the planet to drive it about on a joy ride? Building a time destroyer? Chasing me about time and space….bah…what is it this time!"

"They are landing in the mountains on the far side of the pass." Tasha said, earnestly. "I do not know how long the Silents and the church can hold against them. I fear this is the final push. We haven't had supplies in months, the Daleks have the entire system blockaded. There are no reinforcements coming. What can we do?"

"I see." The old man said as he gently extracted his hand from Tasha's. He slowly lifted the toy train to his eyes and narrowed them. "It should be a horse."

"Doctor, please!" Tasha growled growing impatient with the old man.

"What will you have me do, Mother Superious?" the old man said, as he looked at her over the brim of his glasses.

"You fought them all these centuries, you must know some way of defeating them!" Tasha returned.

"I have been fighting the Daleks longer than your church has existed." The old man said as he turned his attention back to the train and started hacking at it with the knife. "The Daleks still persist. If I had learned of a way of defeating them, they would be defeated, don't you think?" The knife blows became erratic and angry. "I have fought them, and fought them, and they slowly have taken everything from me. My family, my home, my people, my time…" The old man looked up at Tasha. "Everything I've ever fought for, slowly, inch by inch, they've undid it." He pointed with the knife to the crack. "Even that, the one damned good thing I did in the war….and they'll take that, too, one day…soon."

The old man turned his attention back to the train and started carving it into a blunt equine shape.

"But you always win, even when it's impossible…" Tasha stated.

"No one wins forever." the old man murmured almost to himself as he whittled away. The old man stopped whittling. He winced and slowly put his knife down on the arm of the chair he sat in. He flexed his hand slowly looking down at it. "These hands, they've gotten so old. I remember when these hands were new…dipping fish fingers in custard. Long gone now." The old man sighed as he sat his head back in his chair. "No, in the end it comes too fast, even if it's taken centuries it still ends too fast. Every ending is sudden. All too sudden…"

"You're being melodramatic." Tasha said, shaking her head and smirking. "You could regenerate at any moment…"

The old man's eyes darted up to Tasha, almost scornful. "All that research, and you still think that?" The old man smirked and chuckled to himself. "Even Time Lords must end. Even amongst Time Lords, immortality is abominable." The old man lifted his hand. Tasha looked at it with the old man. There was a fading flicker. "Stubborn as I may be, this is the end. The cells are trying, but they just don't have the energy anymore…they've lost that spark, the mojo."

"Then you are giving up?" Tasha snapped, growling.

"No, not giving up." the old man said, as he lowered his hand and picked up the knife and started to whittle the wood again. "I have to finish this for Barnable…"

"Doctor!" Tasha shouted angrily. "The Daleks will be here soon!"

"And I'll be here waiting for them." The old man said, he stopped whittling and reached up into the breast of his overcoat and jangled his hand around and then slowly pulled out a key on a chain. "If you fear the end, go. I won't expect you or your armies to stay. I can hold the bell tower on my own. The TARDIS will return when you're done, she's a good old girl."

"You'll die here." Tasha said.

The old man chuckled as he looked up at Tasha. "Yes, I know. I saw the gravestone, remember. I won't let them take this from me without a fight." He winced slightly and then coughed several times. He lifted the key to Tasha. "Go on then."

Tasha took the key. She looked at it and then to the old man. He looked tired, and frail. Completely unlike the man she'd known in the past, any of them. It looked like a breeze could fell him easily never mind an army of Daleks. More importantly he looked alone. She gripped the key and knew what needed to be done.

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AN: Hey all, I know it's been a long while. Been busy and hadn't had lots of ideas. This is a bit of a departure from the normal themes of this anthology though it does technically count as a Time War story. Idea sort of just popped into my head so…there you go.