Title: Wanderer in the Fourth Dimension
Author: T'Lorie
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I own nothing, Doctor Who and all the characters, plots, and ideas associated with it are the property of someone else.
Summary: The Wanderer Returns Home A/N: I've been A fanatical follower of Dr Who most of my life. I love the Time Lords and the history surrounding them, the revelation in the New Series brought me to tears. This is a one-time fic that stands along, not written for a particular Doctor, but to fit into the DW timeline is most probably the Ninth before he picked up Rose.
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A tall, dark figure stood amongst the boulders on the highest tip of a wind bitten mountain. The soil was dead and lifeless as was the lands on which he looked out upon. There was nothing, had always been nothing and would forevermore be nothing.
Long he had wandered, to and fro through time and space, though universes newly born to those on the edge of destruction. He had seen countless planets rise and rall, their empires stretch forth, and then crumble into nothing. Yet always moving forward, changing, growing embracing the future. He had seen life; he had seen death; the very continuation of existence. But it didn't matter any more.
Sinking to a knee he took a handful of the dead earth and let the grains trickle through his fingers, waste away and fall back to whence they came. They meant nothing. Once he had believed that everything had a part to play, that everything was part of a bigger picture and it was just out of his reach. But now he could see that bigger picture and this meant nothing.
This planet was dead, it had always been dead and would forevermore be dead.
Looking over the desolate landscape as far as the eye could see was nothing; the great sun was high in the scorched sky, illuminating nothing but endless craggy outcrops and wastelands of rock and sand. There was no life anywhere on the entire planet, nothing but him.
Yet he was not looking at this nothing, he stared through it, the grains of sand running through his fingers. He stared into that which had never been, into the universal constant that no longer existed.
As the grains fell to the ground across the valley in front of him he remembered the beginning of the greatest of all civilisations, one that would triumph above all else. He remembered how it grew and expanded over billions of years, changing and embracing the future.
The Time of Chaos, when the universe cried out and matter was created. They were the first to walk among the stars.
Through The Dark Time as they awoke a dreadful enemy and as the Time Wars threatened the existence of everything they fought to restore the balance.
Of Rassilon, Omega and The Other and their toils in The Time of Legend. When the people realised they could no longer be a part of the universe and deliberately isolated themselves from Time.
The creation of The Eye of Harmony, the core of their civilisation, its power and energy, their life force.
The great towers of the Citadel climbing towards the sky, rivalling the might of the elements, the greatest city ever constructed.
The foundation of the Chapter Houses and the desolation of Pythia's Curse.
The Looms and the Cousins,
The transduction barriers and The Matrix
And the greatest achievement, the triumph over time and death itself.
The rise of the greatest civilisation, one that stretched back to the dawn of everything and now it had never existed.
The last grains of sand trickled through his fingers and he stood, squinting against the harsh light on the planet that had never yet always been home.
Gallifrey. The home of the Time Lords.
It had followed him, the Paradox Factor, unravelling his timeline, destroying everything he had ever worked to build. Every action was erased and when he returned there was nothing, the threads of his existence gone.
A wanderer in the fourth dimension
Now he, The Other, was the last Time Lord, survivor of a race that never existed.
Lord Theta of the House of Lungbarrow brushed the grains from his hands and turned away wearily from the nothing, walking alone up the path he had come.
For he was The Doctor, he had always been the Doctor and would forevermore be The Doctor; destined to alone…
…Forever.
Another A/N: I know that because of the Paradox Factor Gallifrey would no longer exist, but for the purpose of this fic, it was there.
Also If you're like me and you want to know more about the time war I recommend you read 'The Gallifrey Chronicles' by Lance Parkin. A brilliant 8th Dr story that fills in a few blanks and a good place to start.