The Doctor went to Gallifrey again, kicking aside a dusty orange rock as she stared out at the remains of the Citadel. Gallifrey was gone, she knew that. There was no point in returning to the rusty landscape, so why was she here? There was nothing to be learned from ash and bone.
Because I can't run, the Doctor thought under the burnt orange sky. I've spent all my life running away from here, and now that it's gone, I can't just run away. It took Gallifrey's destruction for her to finally stop running from her past, and something inside her still wanted to run away. I wasn't going to return. I wasn't going to go back, why am I here now? She had checked, hoping that it would be fine and the Time Lords would come running out to meet her and try to trick her into staying and running the planet. But this was all that had greeted her. And she had ran from the sight in her TARDIS, away with her fam to see their wonder at the universe. But she couldn't help it. She had returned.
The Doctor wondered if anyone survived. Rassilon had been exiled, and now she wished he hadn't been. Perhaps if he had stayed, he would have died with –
No, that wasn't it, that couldn't be it. She wished he had stayed because, despite his ruthlessness, he might have been able to protect the Time Lords. And how would he have done that? The Doctor didn't know how the Master had managed to destroy Gallifrey, killing every single one of the Time Lords. Each and every one of the children that the Doctor had counted, dead.
But not all the Time Lords were on Gallifrey. Rassilon could be alive, out there, biding his time. Perhaps he would attempt to save the Time Lords, and the Doctor would have to usurp his rule, and Gallifrey would be fine.
Was there anyone else? The Doctor thought desperately. Maybe Romana found a way to survive. She was always so intelligent; how could she have fallen at the hands of a single Time Lord?
Did Susan survive the Time War? I never checked. I should have checked. But no, I just ran, because that's what I always do. My own grand-daughter, and I didn't look because I was too afraid of…what? The Doctor couldn't even remember what she was afraid of anymore, just that there was always something behind her, catching up if she ever paused. The Doctor had spent all her lives running, and she had forgotten what she was running from. Had she ever known, even in the beginning when she first stole the TARDIS with Susan to travel the universe?
And Susan was her granddaughter. Her granddaughter. The Doctor had had a child once, back on Gallifrey. A child who had a child of her own – Susan.
But the Doctor couldn't remember them. Not a face, not a voice, nothing. The Doctor had fallen in love on Gallifrey and had a child, and all he could remember was the granddaughter. Susan, who she had never returned to. I promised. I think I promised that I would return one day, but I never did. Did I? Did Susan fight in the Time War? I never went back, I never checked, I never remembered.
Surely, she could remember Susan's parent, her child, if she tried hard enough, if she thought enough. The Doctor sat down on a rust-colored rock by the burning Citadel and tried. She tried to remember. But it wasn't enough, it was never enough.
Just a hair color of their first incarnation, thought the Doctor desperately, just a smile or a laugh or a name. A fragment of them, that's all I'm asking. But try as she might, she couldn't remember.
Her first incarnation had always been bad at names. Hadn't she been unable to remember the name of one of her companions? Who was that companion? He had travelled with the Doctor and Susan, he had climbed inside a Dalek casing on Skaro. Was he Barbara? No, that was a girl's name, the Doctor thought. I think it's a girl's name.
The Doctor thought, and thought, and thought. He had been a teacher, hadn't he? A teacher at Coal Hill School, like Clara, whom the Doctor had never searched for because it was too dangerous. What did he teach? Science? Some sort of science. Biology? Quantum Computing? No, they didn't have that in his time, he had been so astonished at the simplest technology. Chemistry? It might have been Chemistry, but she couldn't remember. The Doctor clung to those memories, afraid to lose them and forget.
Is that what I'm afraid of? Forgetting? Is that what I'm running from? That didn't sound right. Am I going to forget my fam, one day? Yaz, Graham, Ryan? One day, when they leave (they always leave) will I not remember their names or their smiles or their laughter?
There had been a girl, an immortal girl. The Doctor had met her, saved her. The Doctor had saved so many people, but she was special. She was angry at her, she knew, but she didn't know why.
She searched her memory, and then she could remember. A girl from a Viking village, a girl who had died and lived again, who had repaid the Doctor's help by betraying them to the Time Lords, by leading to Clara's death.
The Doctor had promised to try, she remembered. Promised that they would try to follow Clara's orders and not take revenge. What was her name? She was off somewhere, travelling with Clara, but one day Clara would go back and die.
Ashildr. Yes, Ashildr. Was she like Ashildr now, her memory fading with the fog of ages? Ashildr couldn't remember them. She had to write her conversations down, or else she'd forget. Am I going to forget everything? Will I forget Gallifrey one day?
The Doctor looked out at the burning sky and the burning Citadel and the burning sand. She threw rust-colored dirt to the wind, full of anger that she could never let go. It scattered, some of it blown back towards her. It entered her eyes, and she blinked, and her mouth tasted of iron and ash.
Turning her back, the Doctor walked back towards the TARDIS in silence. There was nothing for her here.
But she would go back, she knew she'd go back, return to her planet, because it was the one place she couldn't run from.
It was the place she went to remember.
000
Time Lords sleep, like all creatures do, but they have more control over their dreams. They live for a long, long time, and even on Gallifrey, the most boring place in the Universe, there are nightmares to be found. If they were forced to dream as other creatures do, they would never fall asleep.
But that night, the Doctor didn't know if she could control where her thoughts brought her. Every time she closed her eyes, Gallifrey burned behind her eyelids, children screaming in terror and pain. She tried not to fall asleep, doing repairs as her fam slumbered deep inside the TARDIS.
But she was so very tired from that day, and she drifted off.
She dreamed of the Time War again, Daleks pouring from the sky, guns firing everywhere, the orange energy of regeneration filling the orange sky. Time Lords screamed and Daleks screamed, and so did Time itself.
There was a girl, though, who was sometimes a boy, fragmented throughout the Doctor's nightmare. They had long orange hair, the color of Gallifrey's sky. Sparkling blue eyes, just like her mother's, that twinkled when they smiled, and their smile lit up even the sky darkened by the oncoming Dalek fleets.
Their name was gone, lost to the strands of time, but names don't matter. The Doctor remembered them, remembered their joy and their sorrow and their love.
And the dream went on, the sky trenches of Gallifrey falling, planets bursting, time constantly being re-written.
But sometimes, just sometimes, the Doctor would catch a glimpse of her daughter. Her smile seemed to stop Time, and maybe it did.
The Time War raged on, but the Doctor remembered. She remembered Ian, and Barbara, and Susan, and Vicki, and Stephen, and Sara, and Katarina, and Dodo, and Polly, and Ben, and Jamie, and Victoria, and Zoe, and Liz, and Jo, and the Brigadier, and Sarah Jane, and Harry, and K9, and Romana, and Adric, and Nyssa, and Tegan, and Turlough, and Kamelion, and Peri, and Mel, and Ace, and Grace, and Adam, and Rose, and Jack, and Mickey, and Donna, and Martha, and Astrid, and Wilf, and Amy, and Rory, and River, and Clara, and Jenny, and Vastra, and Strax, and Nardole, and Bill.
She remembered, she wasn't not so scared of the Time War and the orange flames licking at the Citadel anymore.
When she wakes, the Doctor doesn't remember her dreams. There are tears on her cheeks, salt water leaking out of her eyes, but she's not sad. These are tears of joy.
The smallest pieces stay with her, fragments of her past. Maybe fragments are enough.
She cannot remember her daughter's name, but she can remember a smile. A laugh. Orange hair under an orange sky.
Why am I running?
Does it matter?
No.