Outside the castle the flowers flushed blood red, bristling upright like goosebumps; standing tall. The Doctor stopped, hesitating. The whole field looked ready to pounce.
Omega was standing tense, too. Glowering. Totally still.
"You forgave them," he said, sharply.
The Doctor knew better than to pretend that she didn't know what he was talking about.
"How did you know?" she said.
"You could say a little bird told me," Omega replied.
"Well," said the Doctor. "Forgive and forget, I always say."
"Why did you help them?" Omega said, his voice rising. "You joined forces with the people who tortured you!"
"Dunno," said the Doctor. "I've forgotten. Second part of the sentence."
The flowers were darkening like blood rushing up to the temples. There was a low rumble of thunder in the sky, and now there were clouds.
"To me that sounds like an abdication of responsibility," Omega said as delicately as he could. "You joined the Time Lords willingly. You are complicit in their crimes!"
He wasn't shouting. Not quite. But suddenly he seemed far more like the masked figure he'd once been."
"Settle down!" said the Doctor. "I came to you for help, not your judgement."
"Perhaps the help you need isn't the kind I can give," Omega spat.
"Don't be like that," said the Doctor. "If it's therapy I needed, I'd've become a psychiatrist."
"Do you know what I think?" said Omega. "That you came here to be the judge. Of the man you thought I was, behind the mask. You wanted to pity me. To see yourself in my rage, vow that you'd never become it"—
He stopped himself. He took a very deep breath. The clouds had grown dark purple as bulging veins, but they parted now, if only slightly. You could pretend to yourself the flowers were red before. Everything could still be normal, perhaps. Lying to each other was still a possibility.
"Be honest," he said with a heavy sigh. "That's why you really came here, isn't it? "To see where your road might take you? What it might mean, to be blinded by rage for eternities?"
"You don't have to speak like that," said the Doctor. "Other ways of speaking, they are available."
"Answer me!" said Omega. "When you first met me there was no man under the mask. Don't act like you think that's still true."
The Doctor sighed. "It's not like you left a great impression, Omega," she said. "Remember Amsterdam? You'd've blown Yaz's planet sky high if you'd got the chance, just so it'd cause a bit of misery!"
Omega sighed as well. Despite everything, the Doctor had managed to move him.
"Perhaps I am a monster," he said. "But I'm still not willing to play one."
He threw up his hands.
"I will not help you," he said.
"What?!" said the Doctor. "You've got to!"
"No I don't," said Omega. "I don't have to do anything at all."
"Don't help me and I die," said the Doctor.
"Death is more honourable than capitulation, Child," said Omega. "Even madness is. I may have changed, but I do still believe that."
"This isn't capitulation," said the Doctor. "It's giving into rage! Isn't that everything you've fought against? It's what you're fighting now!"
The earth had turned umber and behind the clouds it was orange. Like on Gallifrey, the broken planet that had once broken them. The same sky for the first crimes of the Time Lords, and now the last.
Surrounded by orange, Omega was shaking his head.
"I didn't give in," he said. "I let my anger go. Saw there could be a whole world beyond it. That it could be beautiful."
It grew more serene again as he spoke. The flowers were yellow again. Briefly, they felt the gentle breeze.
"Do you know what happens when vengeance is put away?" Omega said. "Life, Doctor. You get to live. If you let it consume you"—
—he grinned—
—"you'll go insane."
And the flowers were red again, the wind was still. The Doctor did know he was angry, when next she spoke.
"Tell me, Omega," she said. "If it were possible. Would you do it again?"
"Do what?" Omega asked.
"Try to save me. To stop the torture of an innocent child, 'cause you knew that could never be right?"
Omega hesitated.
"What I did started wars, Doctor," he said. "It took billions of innocent lives. And for nothing!"
"It wasn't for nothing," said the Doctor. "It never is."
"I was a young man when I did it," said Omega. "Brilliant. But naive. To do it when I know what I do now?" He laughed. "Do I have the right?"
"Textbook non-interventionist," said the Doctor "You sound like them. Maybe they took more ideas from you than just time travel"—
"Don't try me," said Omega.
"You've told me you wouldn't save me. That doing that would make you good."
"I'm only saying there are fights that can't be won," said Omega.
"That's what you think, isn't it?" said the Doctor. "You'd've let me suffer. You'd let Yaz die. You'd watch her whole planet burn!"
"It isn't our fight," said Omega.
"Everything is our fight," said the Doctor. "You think you've got it all worked out, don't you? That sitting on your backside doing nothing is some sort of higher good"—
She glowered to herself, her eyes like fire.
"You know what, Omega?" she said. "That makes me really bloody angry."