When the ship finally stopped all its shaking and throwing them around the crew onboard all fell into an uneasy silence. The three humans glancing to the Doctor for guidance, but she looked just as uneasy and clueless as the rest of them.
"What happens now?" Yaz asked her after the silence dragged on for a few moments too long.
"Now, I go out there, and if there's nothing out there then the anti-matter rushes in, if it isn't already trying to destroy the outer shielding."
"And if there is something?" Graham followed up nervously.
"Then I need to go and find Omega, and somehow convince him to help restore my memories. And hope he doesn't kill me." She started stepping away from the console towards the doors before a thought occurred to her and she spun back to them, "oh!" She took hold of Yaz's hand and pulled her towards the monitor, "I need you to keep an eye on that." She pointed to a levelling graph on the screen that was firmly in the yellow territory. "If I do get out that door, and this gets to red, call me back immediately. Otherwise we're actually stuck here. The Eye will be held open but only for so long."
"Are you trying to keep us in here?" Yaz asked bitterly, raising a questioning eyebrow to the Time Lord who shrugged and answered honestly.
"Yes. Because I'd rather you were safe in here. For however long that would be. I don't know what to expect out there."
"You don't get to make that choice for us." Yaz had more bite to her voice this time, "stop making decisions for us. It's not fair."
"Yaz, I'm about to step out there, possibly face first into a wall of pure anti-matter. It will rip me apart in seconds. The TARDIS following afterwards. It's shielding can protect you, even for a while. She'll try her hardest to keep you lot safe, maybe even get you home. And if by some miracle I do get out there and there is solid ground, it will have been moulded by a man who shaped Gallifrey, who's mind and inventions still stump people far smarter than I am even to this day. I don't know how receptive he's going to be to see me here, considering I'm the one who put him back here, but he is my only chance of getting my memories back and no longer being two separate consciousness living inside one head. I'd rather he had no leverage over me. If it came down to my memories or you lot, I'd pick you in a heartbeat. But I'd rather that option wasn't there for him. If he agrees to help, then I'll need you lot there to make sure there's no funny business but please, until then, make sure we aren't trapped here. For me." The Doctor looked between them, her face and voice pleading and one by one they reluctantly relented.
"You come and get us as soon as, alright?" Yaz told her firmly and the Doctor nodded in agreement and finally stepped up to the doors. She hesitated behind them, hands coming to rest on both the handles. Finally she pulled them open, sucking in a deep breath and squeezing her eyes shut with a wince, trying to prepare herself for an assault of anti-matter energy that never came. She opened one eye, then another and her whole body sagged in relief at the fact that the world outside looked solid enough.
She stepped out of her ship not knowing what she would find. She'd expected either darkness or, if indeed Omega had survived their last encounter, the antimatter universe to be back up and running. He would've had more than enough time to get everything sorted again. Or he should have. She stepped out onto solid ground. Which was a plus. She looked around. The walls of Omega's once beaming palace were decrepit but holding. The earthy tones were peeling away to a grey untouched wall, the foundations beneath. She eyed it warily, reaching out a hand to touch but jerking it back when flecks of it flew away, the colour now black. She backed away slightly, the feeling that something was very wrong stirring in her gut.
When she found Omega, he was strapped up to all manner of machines, his breathing shallow and pained. Now that she knew what it was, she recognised the gold armoured shoulder piece that hung down over his chest and up towards his neck. The recognisable mask of Omega slotted into the armour like a perfect piece of the puzzle and the Doctor let out a low breath, her memory moving back to the woman she'd met back with her other selves. The one who'd threatened wiping her memory in the first place. The one behind all of this. To think if he'd mentioned it before, millennia ago, she would've known to start searching back then. Even a hint of something, a throwaway line somewhere that might've sparked interest, but even now as she looked through her own memories she could think of nothing Omega had said that could've made her think anything other than he was a madman.
She had always found it strange, his obsession with her, but again, strange things always just seemed drawn to her. She'd chalked it up to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She hesitated in the doorway, wondering what she should say. How she should approach this. She honestly hadn't truly believed that she'd even actually get this far.
"Peylix?" She spoke up and heard the man's steady shallow breaths turn stuttered. His head turned slowly to look at her and she took a few steps closer to him.
"Doctor?" the word was weak, pained sounding. At once any malice she might have felt took a back seat to the pity she held towards him. She took in a deep breath and nodded.
"It's me." She hesitated for a second and then spoke once again, "hello, old friend." Omega's chuckle was broken up by a bought of harsh coughs.
"Old friend. I find it impossible that you could refer to me in any such way."
"Yeah, well. Lived this long without the memories, at least now I know they're there." There were a few seconds punctuated only by the shallow breaths that Omega took, like someone on a respirator.
"You still don't remember?"
"It was your invention that did it. Did you ever think it wouldn't work?"
"I apologise. I was wrong to have created such a thing." The Doctor blinked in surprise at the man's words and she finally closed the large gap she'd left between them, giving him an appreciative nod.
"Thank you. I forgive you." She meant it. "Besides, from what I've been told, you only created it. You had nothing to do with it when it actually happened."
"No. I assume Rassilon told you?"
"Rassilon implied. It was actually… that me. The me that knew you, he's still in my head, but he's trapped. Unable to escape. He told me some things, but neither of us know how to help him escape. That's why I came here. You were my last hope."
"He's-" Omega cut himself off, clearly overwhelmed by disbelief of her words. He even struggled to sit up further, the Doctor wincing at the pain the mere movements seemed to cause him, "that you, my friend, is still alive?"
"Yes." She hesitated once again before asking him softly, "I thought you would have healed yourself by now, you're still dying."
"I cannot die while in this universe. My own will perpetuates the universe, it cannot die until I do. But I cannot die while it still exists. A paradox of living hell. And I am too weak to attempt to send myself back into our original universe. But never mind that," he tried to wave off her pity, "I have had centuries, millennia even, to think back over my actions and their consequences. All of which have led myself here. Siding with Rassilon, betraying you. Even if I had still ended up here, if I hadn't created the machine that took your memories, you may have been more willing to help me escape this hell all those times I tried to. Still, however, I knew you sending me back that second time, you'd tried to give me mercy. An escape from death. Now I wish it more than anything. It is my own foolishness that brought me here." She wanted very much to not believe him. To think this some kind of trap. A way of him to take advantage of her better nature. The way the Master and everyone else always seemed to. She had a kind heart and it was hard to have it taken advantage of, over and over and over. But, damn her for it, she believed him.
"If you help me, Peylix, then I'll help you. I've brought my ship through. The Eye of Harmony I created should stay open for a little while longer. I could…" she trailed off. She wouldn't be able to save him. She couldn't promise that. The man took in another shallow sounding breath and nodded.
"I can finally die?" She could only nod. He sounded happy at the prospect. It spoke volumes to the pain he was in, "Then I shall be happy to do so, with a friend close by once again." He reached out for her hand and she hesitated in giving him it but ultimately chose to sit her palm in the cold material of the gloves covering what would have been his hands if he'd still had a true form.
"I'm sure that me can't wait to see you either."
"If we could get to Gallifrey, it would be simple to just-"
"Gallifrey's gone." She cut him off before he could continue, the pain in her own voice mirroring the same inside Omega, once the confusion cleared and he understood her words.
"Gone?" his voice was weak, still confused and hurt sounding, "and its people?"
"Gone." She repeated quietly.
"How?" his voice betrayed the tears he would have shed, had he had a true corporeal form beneath his mask and robes and armour.
"The Master discovered the truth. About who I was, about how the Time Lords truly came into being. He really didn't like that. In fact, he found out way before me, waved it in my face. Lording that information over my head."
"Then that may fall on my shoulders as well. If only you'd known already, had you known your place within Gallifrey's history. Perhaps you could have explained."
"This one's not on you. That's on him. And he's… gone. Or, I think he is. He might be." She sighed heavily, rubbing her hand down her face, "I never know with him. He'll probably pop back up sooner or later. That blood is on his hands, though." They fell into a silence, both grieving the loss of their planet and their people. "Please tell me there's a way to get my memories back that we don't need Gallifrey for?"
"It makes things more difficult admittedly. But there are ways."
"Tell me what I can do to help." The man watched her in a heavy silence for a few long moments. Long enough that she started to grow self-conscious and raised an eyebrow at him. "Peylix?"
"You may not have your memories, but your heart stays the same. Your temperament remains unchanged. It seems no matter what happens, the Doctor will remain the Doctor." She smiled softly.
"Okay Peylix, how do we start?"