The Time Lord formerly known as the Doctor stood alone. He'd walked for many miles until he reached the abandoned barn that he had hidden in so many years ago, before he had even chosen his name.
His name, his promise, had been a mistake. He had been cruel and cowedly. He'd given up and given in. The Time War didn't need a Doctor - there was nothing left to mend or heal.
And it was time he ended it.
He'd renounced his name, his title, when he found he could run from the War no more. There was nowhere left in the universe safe to hide. Instead, he'd become a warrior. One of so many billion fighting an unwinnable battle across all of Space and Time.
And it was time it was stopped.
He had no intention to survive what he was about to do.
He crouched in front the Moment, a large wooden box with an intricate brass panel.
"How do you work?" he wondered aloud. He turned it over, studying it closely for any type of mechanism that might open or activate it.
The metal interface suddenly burned hotly, and he pulled his hand away with a hiss of pain. Obviously there was a power source inside. The Moment was the final work of the ancients of Gallifrey, something trapped within the casement and chained to an N-form, churning behind the dimensional wall.
"Why is there never a big red button?"
A red crystal on a golden plinth rose from the box. Perhaps the legends were true. The Moment was sentient. It could hear him. It was said to pass judgement on whoever dared to use it.
An echo of children's laugher floated through the air.
'How many children are on Gallifrey right now?' he thought. Deep within his mind he knew he could count them into the billions if he tried. By pressing that button, he would burn Time Lords and Daleks alike.
But it was the only way to end the War.
Gallifrey would stand no more.
No more.
He'd burn all the fragments of the Time War, broken reefs of Gallifrey and Skaro washed up into this backwater. He'd burn the million copies of Earth, Skaro, and Gallifrey, as well as all the duplicated planets used as bullets to destroy the Nightmare Child. He'd burn the mutations of the War, the things that never should have existed that spawned in this terrible War.
He stood up and looked around as it suddenly went dark. The barn faded into a projection of the streets of the Citadel. He was surrounded by screaming and crying. Gallifreyans cowered in fear as death rained down upon them. The children cried.
Once, he'd believed that there always was always a choice - that if he was the great man he had once believed himself to be, would have found another way. But the Warrior who stood before the Moment knew that there wasn't another way. There never was. He had to destroy his own people or let the universe burn.
He wouldn't let the children cry.
He'd made his decision. He could only hope it would be quick.
The moment had come.
He stepped forward and rested his hand on the button. The man who would soon no longer exist wondered what his last words should be. He decided that last words are useless. He pushed the button down.
The Moment happened.
The universe screamed for the last time.
The War ended.
Gallifrey convulsed. It collapsed in on itself.
The Doctor fell.
Then every atom around him was sucked upwards as the planet exploded. White hot flames of pure energy shoot out as the Daleks continue to fire upon the planet. But none touch him. He's protected - or dammed - by the dark shadow of the Moment. It had passed judgement on him and decided his punishment should be to survive what he had done. To live alone.
Above him, he felt the Time Lock solidify, sealing off the war from reality, and as his body tumbled out of existence, into plasmaspace, then foulspace, then beyond. The Doctor relaxed into the fall, headfirst, arms wide, diving into infinity. It was almost as if he was flying.
It was over.
Except…
There.
Something else.
Falling.
Flying.
Spinning...?
A whirl of blue. That faithful blue. Then a rectangle of white, widening, a doorway, that came closer towards him. And as the wheezing grind of ancient engines reached a crescendo, he thought 'that sound brings hope wherever it goes, to anyone who hears it, however lost. Even me.'
He comes to on the floor of the TARDIS. He doesn't remember how he got there. His body is still tingling with the remnants of Regeneration - the pain that comes after his nuclei turned into stars and every pore in his body had blazed with light as the thick, viscous energy exploded from his neck, his hands, his feet, his guts, his hearts, his soul.
He must have Regenerated after falling into the TARDIS. Most of his bones must have broken on impact; that body had been wearing a bit thin. He briefly wonders what age he's finally reached. The Time War had used years as ammunition; at the Battle of Rodan's Wedding alone, he'd aged to five million and then regressed to a mewling babe, merely from shrapnel. But when he'd stood alone in the barn the ache in his bones had felt at least one thousand years old?
Well. Call it nine hundred. Sounds better.
The Doctor sits up. The new Doctor, next Doctor, now Doctor, the Doctor once more. He lifts up his new fingers to touch his new head. His new chin. His new nose. His new ears. He had hoped they'd be a bit less conspicuous if he ever Regenerated again, but they seem to be larger than before. He'd have to find a mirror at some point to check.
'They probably feel worse than they look,' he reminds himself. He takes a deep breath into his new, dry, wide lungs. He says his first word.
"Blimey!"