Episode: Forest of the Angels

Chapter: It Will Get Better [4/4]

Summary: Amy Pond wanted to get out of this mess alive and stay with her Doctor. River Song wanted to keep Amy safe and have the Doctor accept her. Father Octavian wanted to complete the mission. The Master still wanted everything to make sense again… until he got the answers to his questions. Or the one where miracles happen, secrets are revealed and people break.

Rating: M

Warnings: Implied mind rape

The TARDIS purrs contently as she floats in the Vortex, humming a soothing song that almost feels like a lullaby, but Koschei feels apprehension grow with every step that takes him closer to the console.

And then, there he is, in front of the screen, with only a single command separating him from the truth.

"Right. Here goes nothing," he whispers to himself as he takes a deep breath, before opening the search engine for the TARDIS' databanks.

It never felt like this before, looking at the profiles the TARDIS compiled about the Doctor's companions. But then again, he had only been searching for possible threats and obstacles to his plan to create a new Time Lord empire, and he hadn't had any actual connection to any of them.

But now…

River had called him Doctor, when she first boarded the TARDIS. She had said she knew the Doctor was dead, that Koschei had killed him. But…

"It will be hard, my love, but don't lose hope. We won't."

It had been a good speech, filled Koschei with hope… But it's a false hope, a hope he can't take because it isn't real.

River said the Doctor died. But her words had implied that he was not, that he was hiding instead. But that, eventually, he would resurface, when something big enough happened, when enough lives were threatened, because the Doctor could not accept that people died.

"I'll see you at the Pandorica, alright? Take care of yourself until then."

The Pandorica. A stupid legend about a box, a prison, where the most horrible creature of the universe was trapped. It was nothing but a legend, but legends, as the Master knows well, can be brought to life.

The Toclafane hadn't been the actual Toclafane, but they were no less real for that.

And so, this Pandorica might yet prove itself another fairy tale come true, even if it is at the hands of a madman.

But first things first.

"Who is River Song?"

Instead of a file, as he'd been expecting, a video appears onscreen. Koschei blinks, startled, before looking around to make sure Amy is still resting in the infirmary—and to try to see if Theta has anything to say, but the ghost stays mysteriously absent—before turning once more to the screen.

And then, before he can doublethink himself anymore, he presses play.

Koschei's breath gets caught in his throat.

Theta—the Doctor is onscreen, hunched into himself and staring at the floor, fidgeting with his hands. It's his latest regeneration, the one with his ridiculous spiky hair and in a pinstripe suit, though this one is blue instead of brown.

The reason Koschei stands stock-still, holding his breath, is that the Doctor looks even worse off than Koschei is right now. Seeing how Koschei has been through radiation-filled catacombs, faced an army of Weeping Angels, dealt with spatiotemporal rifts, and gone back through the same radiation-filled catacombs, all the while dealing with a vulnerable twenty-first century human girl, a woman who claimed to know his future, and a bunch of Clerics, that's saying a lot.

Just what has this Doctor been through?

"Yes, I know what you're thinking. I look awful, don't I?" the Doctor huffs, still not looking up from the floor, but even though his suit is pristine, nothing can disguise the slump in his shoulders, the bags under his eyes and the darkness in their brown depths. "Yeah, well, that's the whole reason I'm doing this," he adds with a sigh, running a hand over his face, before finally looking up. "If you're watching this—If I'm watching this, it's because you've met Professor River Song and you have no idea why she knows you as well as she does. Truth is, I don't know either. But that's what this video is for. We will meet her in the future, multiple times, and we'll grow closer – don't ask, I seriously don't know. But eventually, one day, you'll turn up on her doorstep, with a new haircut and a suit. You'll take her to Darillium to see the Singing Towers for a night, just one night. And you will cry, but you won't tell her why. Instead, you'll give her your screwdriver. Quite like this one, but with a handle and red settings and dampers and—" he explains, pulling out his screwdriver, but cutting himself with a wince. "And a neural relay hidden inside, so her data ghost can be uploaded to the Library's data core when she dies in your place."

This time, Koschei is the one to flinch, and the Doctor meets his eyes, solemn and tired and hurt, far more than his words can attest to, far more deeply, and Koschei dreads to know what happens next.

The Doctor breaks the stare first, looking down at the screwdriver in his shaking hands.

"The Library's data core contained four thousand and twenty-two people, saved from the Vashta Nerada that invaded it, brought as eggs in the pages of millions of books. Four thousand and twenty-three, counting Donna. But the Library was going to self-destruct, and there was no memory left to beam all the people out of the data core and reset the computer, stopping the countdown. I was going to use my own memory space. River knew it would kill me, burn out both my hearts, no regeneration. So, she knocked me out and took my place," he adds, sad and frustrated at being unable to save someone, and Koschei can only watch with bated breath as the Doctor looks up again, more haunted than any other time before. "She knew my name. River knew my name."

"Impossible."

"I know, but she did!"

"But that's impossible!"

"Yes, I know that," the Doctor huffs, shoulders dropping once more as he stares down at his screwdriver with despair, clinging to it like it was a security blanket. "But there's something else. When we first met, when she first arrived, she said 'hello, sweetie' and she – she trusted me. Told her companions to do so too, and she listened to what I told them. And then she took me aside to ask about future situations we will meet at, before realizing I didn't know her. I still don't know her. But at the end, after she handcuffed me so I couldn't stop her, before she sacrificed herself…" the Doctor explains, voice lowering before he finally looks up again with a sigh and pain in his eyes. "She said… Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die. All the time we've been together, you knew I was coming here. And our first meeting—what I thought was our first meeting… You really had me scared there for a moment, Sweetie."

"Just who do you think you are? Coming in here, into my TARDIS, and barking out orders as if I'm nothing but your servant! Well, newsflash, I have had enough of people thinking they can do whatever they please with me, I have had enough of being ordered around like a good little soldier! I am no one's tool and no one's puppet, and you can't use me anymore!"

"Doctor—"

"Don't call me that!"

"I didn't know what she meant," the Doctor continues, once more looking down, and Koschei can feel himself trembling as he realizes he does. "But then… Donna and I decided to take a break. We went to Midnight. She stayed at the spa and I took the shuttle to see the sapphire waterfalls on my own. Well, not on my own, there were some humans there too," he explains with a dismissive shrug, hands clenching around his screwdriver, and Koschei gasps an inaudible 'what'.

There were some humans there too.

Since when does the Doctor call humans 'humans'? He never did, they were always 'people' unless he really needed to specify.

But Koschei can't dwell on that further, because the Doctor continues his story and he really doesn't want to miss a word.

"We had to take a different route, first time through that one, due to a rockslide. And… Well, turns out the reports about Midnight being lifeless are greatly exaggerated."

And, before Koschei can wonder about that, the Doctor unfolds.

Now, in a normal human recording device, it would be impossible to record anything beyond the three dimensions it is made to perceive, but this was the TARDIS doing the recording. And, while a tridimensional being wouldn't see a difference in the image of a second ago and the one currently onscreen, Koschei can do so clearly.

Too clearly.

Koschei gags as he stumbles back, eyes wide and shaking his head in disbelief, feelers lashing out with a quick burst of fearhorrordisgustnonononononono that makes the TARDIS' song turn to a pained moan followed by scared whimpers.

Onscreen, the Doctor curls into himself, not looking up, but doesn't fold back.

"We got away. I d-don't know if the creature died, or if there are more out there, but… They cancelled all tours and the Leisure Palace was abandoned in two weeks," the Doctor continues with a chocked voice, pain and terror rippling visibly through him, tridimensional shell shaking harshly, and Koschei hurries back to the controls to rest a hand against the screen, almost as if that would allow him to go through, to teleport to the Doctor's side and—and do something.

Because those injuries, the extent of the damage done to his multidimensional aspects… Feelers ripped off, dimensions shredded like they were nothing… And the burns all over that could only be the result of an unbalanced energy exchange, or one that went on too long – or one that was forced.

Time Lord telepathy is not of the mind, but from their multidimensionality. This means that it's impossible for a tridimensional telepathic race to break into a Time Lord's mind unless the Time Lord establishes a link, because they don't have the dimensions to do it themselves. However, if this Midnight creature was not tridimensional, but multidimensional instead…

Multidimensionality in this universe is rare when not tied to temporal or spatial phenomena. Most races went extinct in the Dark Times, when the Yssgaroth targeted them as the best feeding sources for their own multidimensionality, anti-structural as it was. The survivors isolated themselves, either by scaring the universe enough that they would not dare approach them, as was the Time Lords' case, or by moving to sequestered or isolated parts of their universe, or even to different ones. Some others simply did not have ties to the 'basic' three dimensions, and so lived on unbothered and undetected.

The Time War changed all of that. Gallifrey is gone, parallel universes are sealed off, isolated parts of the universe collapsed or turned into pocket universes, with their destruction being imminent. Other species were caught in the crossfire or joined the fight, and died long before the Time War ended.

So, in a 'lifeless' planet, surrounded by humans, and with no reason to suspect any kind of multidimensional aspect from a lifeform that had slipped under the Time Lords' highly accurate radar for such…

The Doctor was defenseless, or unprepared to react when he finally realized just how dangerous the creature was.

And that monster ripped into him and—

This time, Koschei pushes away from the controls, stumbles until he can grab onto the railing, and doubles over it as he heaves. Fortunately, his depleted body is holding tightly onto the nutritional rations he pilfered from the Clerics, refusing to let him throw them up. Unfortunately, he knows that, even if he had, he wouldn't have felt any better after.

His hands clench tightly on the railings, so much that, if this ship was anything other than a TARDIS, he would have dented them at the least, and crushed them at most. Probably. Maybe he would have gone even further if he'd been able to get anything from his efforts, trying to dissipate the rage building in his chest and his heartsbeat enveloping his mind in a red haze not unlike that brought about by the drums.

"I'm sorry."

Koschei freezes, not even breathing for a moment, before he forces the rage back and slowly makes his way back to the screen.

The Doctor has folded back, even tighter than he would have usually done, making himself so small in his efforts to protect himself from further harm that Koschei feels electricity crackle all around him as his rage builds in his feelers once more, ready to be discharged to fry the bastard that hurt Theta so badly that I'm going to make them wish I killed them long before I actually do it, if I ever kill them at all.

"I'm so sorry," the Doctor repeats, uncurling slowly, and Koschei rests his hand on the screen once more, rage replaced by desolation and helplessness as it finally dawns that he can't help, can't do anything, and, when he could have done something, he was too maddened by the drums to realize there was something he needed to do.

How much of the damage had been radiation breaking the Doctor's body down, and how much had been old scars ripping open?

"It's in your hands now," the Doctor continues, looking up so his pained and sad and pleading eyes meet Koschei's. "Don't forget River. Please, don't forget River. Because if you do, she dies. And she can't, not if she's going to be as important to me as to know my name. Don't forget her. Don't forget about the screwdriver, and the Library, and don't forget River. Please, don't. Because you have to save her, you are her only chance. I don't know if—if it will be these scars, or something else, but if that first meeting she mentioned is because I forgot her… Please, I beg you, don't. Don't forget River Song. She is too important to forget."

And, after a moment staring into Koschei's eyes, as if awaiting a promise that he's too shocked to even process, the Doctor looks down at his sonic, fiddles with it – and the screen goes black.

Koschei shakes his head, takes a step back – and his legs fold under him, too weak and tremulous to sustain him anymore, leaving him sitting on the floor.

"I don't know if—if it will be these scars, or something else, but if that first meeting she mentioned is because I forgot her…"

And that's the crux of the matter, isn't it? The Doctor didn't forget River Song. The Doctor died.

There's a soft beep over his head, and Koschei looks up on autopilot.

There's a file on the screen. River Song. Encountered in The Library in the fifty-first century. Time travelling together, four hours and fifty-two minutes. Encountered again in the theme park Asgard, fifty-second century, this time for six hours and thirty-three minutes.

And that's it. No other encounters.

The Doctor met River Song twice, and one of those encounters was on the day she died. River knew the Doctor, had known him long enough to be important enough to be given his sonic screwdriver, to learn his name.

But the Doctor is dead.

And River knows Koschei.

"I'm not the Doctor. I'm not – I'm not the Doctor, I can't, I'm not, I can't—He has to come back, he's not-can't-he's dead, he's not dead can't be he has to come back I'm not him I'm no one the Doctor has to come back hehastocomebackThetepleasecomebackcomebackcomeback—"

And Koschei curls up and screams.

Amy wakes up slowly, as if walking through a warm cloud made of all things nice and comfy and beautiful. But eventually, Amy wakes up and opens her eyes.

She's in the infirmary after the ordeal with the Angels, but feels as well rested as if she'd slept in her own bed for ten hours. It takes her a moment after she gets up and stretches to notice that her ankle doesn't pain her anymore, though it's still sore, as if she'd been sleeping in a weird position. Knowing that's not the case, she can nevertheless feel amazed at the efficiency of future medical technology. The last thing she wants is to go to her own wedding with her foot in a cast.

And that's when everything else crashes down on her.

Wedding. TARDIS. The Doctor.

Amy looks around and calls for him, but the Raggedy Man is nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, that insufferable stubborn alien! River was right, he is a frustrating man to look after. Worse than a toddler! I swear, if he hasn't had his injuries looked after, I will give him a reason to be sorry," she huffs to herself, slipping her feet in some comfy pastel yellow slippers that appeared by her bed overnight, and wrapping a thin jacket over the medical pastel blue scrubs she slipped into so she wouldn't have to sleep in her Church uniform.

… Church uniform. Heh.

The infirmary, fortunately, is in the same spot as it was when they entered it, meaning the first door on the right of the central corridor, just after leaving the control room.

So, Amy goes to it first, to see if the Raggedy Man is working the controls or doing maintenance or something, before she tries to check the kitchens. If he's not in either of them, she'll have to ask the TARDIS for help, but she's fairly sure that, unless he has something urgent to tend to in the control room, he'll be stuffing himself in the main kitchen.

Maybe, if she's lucky, she'll catch him just starting, and he'll make her breakfast too. He is a really good cook, after all. And Amy deserves it after the mess that was the Byzantium.

But first, the control room.

"Raggedy Man?" she calls as she steps inside, looking around.

No answer. He's not at the controls, and she can't see him on the lower level either, though the reflection on the glass makes it a bit hard to be sure.

If he's wearing headphones, they'll have words.

"Raggedy Man?" she calls again, louder, as she moves further inside so that the lights don't reflect on the glass floor and she can—

He's not in the lower level. Having moved, Amy can now see that he is at the controls. Only, instead of operating them, he appears to be under the console.

And the ball of black cloth that she can spot looks too much like the leathery clothing he wore under the armor, the last clothes she saw him in, to be anything else.

"Ugh, seriously? Were you awake all night? I can't believe you! What were you doing that was so urgent that you couldn't—Raggedy Man? Hey, are you alright?" Amy asks, cutting her rant short when she kneels down in front of him to see he is curled into himself, head bowed behind his knees and arms tightly wrapped around his legs.

He isn't running maintenance.

Amy would say he was crying, but that would imply he is not anymore. And, if she is to judge by his shivering and the muffled sniffles she can now hear, he is still crying.

"Raggedy Man? Please, say something? What's wrong, are you hurt?" she asks, scuttling to his side and, carefully, resting a hand on his arm.

He shivers and tenses, but slowly, he uncurls enough that his eyes can meet Amy's.

They are red, puffy, and shining with the same tears that left visible tracks on his cheeks.

"Oh my God, what happened? Are you hurt? Please, please, say something," Amy pleads, trying to keep her voice soft to not startle him even as she grabs his shoulder tightly.

"I can't… I am not… The Doctor is dead," he croaks, voice as teary and devastated as his eyes, and Amy can do nothing but stare and listen, hoping he'll say something she can use to help. "Amy, the Doctor is dead. He's dead, I killed him," he sobs, hiding his face once more while Amy observes helplessly, rubbing his shoulder in an attempt to reassure him.

"What are you talking about?" she asks softly, remembering the times he has claimed to be the Doctor, and all those he refused that same claim.

But most of all, she remembers River's words.

"What name is he using? I know he didn't go by Doctor this far back, so what name is he using now?"

"Stay with him. He needs people around, something to focus on, someone to remind him to live. It will get better, but it will be hard before that. Be there, give him an anchor so he can figure out who he is again."

It looks like meeting River, meeting someone who knows him in the future, was the straw that broke the camel's back.

She can only hope he can recover after this…

He will. Of course he will. He's the Doctor. He just needs to be reminded of it.

But how? How can Amy remind him of who he is if that is the very thing he refuses?

"Amy, the Doctor is dead. He's dead, I killed him."

"I just wanted to save Gallifrey, I didn't realize s-someone else was using me. I just wanted the pain to s-stop," he sobs again, and Amy throws caution out the window and pulls him into a hug, awkward as it is with his curled position. "I messed up, always messing up. They're dead, everyone is dead. I could have saved them and I killed them instead and I—I killed my best friend. My best friend, my only friend, the only person to ever be by my side even when I-I ran. I killed him. I killed him and now everyone is dead," he whimpers, and Amy starts to rock them as best as she can, humming that song Aunt Sharon used to sing when she woke up screaming from a nightmare, back when she was young. "And everyone else I ever touched, I hurt them too… Donna lost everything, she's as good as dead because of me, and she was so strong… A-And Rose is gone, and Martha left and—"

"Martha?" Amy repeats, startled at the name and remembering at last about the other Doctor, stuck in 1969 with Martha.

"Martha Jones," the Raggedy Man elaborates, so lost in his grief and pain that it's almost as if he went off topic of his own volition, instead of being prompted by Amy. "The Girl who Walked the Earth. She was strong, she was so strong, and I didn't realize, and I hurt her, and her family, and all the people she loved, but she still came back, even knowing she could die. And she left, because she was strong and she didn't need the Doctor, so she left and she was good, she was magnificent, and I hurt her, I hurt everyone because I was selfish and I'm not sorry!" he roars, tensing so much that Amy fears he's going to explode, but he doesn't uncurl from his trembling ball of pity and grief and rage. "I am not sorry! They used me, they used everyone, they wanted their planet to be safe and their people to live and they mutilated and tortured each other and I just wanted my planet back," he sobs, deflating back into Amy's hug, and she tries to wrap herself more completely around him, humming once more. "I broke it. I broke it, I was cast aside, but he was there, he chose me, he wanted me to live and I killed him. We were the only two left and I hurt him and I was selfish because I didn't want him to die but he died in my arms with a bloody smile on his face and now he's gone. I'm the only one left. I'm the last of the Time Lords, but I'm not even that because they rejected me, I ran away and I destroyed my planet and I killed everyone and I failed. And I didn't see the gun, I didn't even know there was a gun, they wanted me alive, why would there be a gun, but there was a gun and he got shot and he died," he sobs, and, before Amy can react, he lifts his head and meets her eyes with his own, full of grief and hopelessness and a loss so deep she can't even begin to understand. "I begged him to stay, I begged him to regenerate, I promised I would stop and it would be the two of us in the TARDIS but he smiled and he died. He smiled and he died in my arms and I couldn't do anything. I'm not the Doctor, Amelia, I am not. The Doctor made people better, he didn't-didn't do the things I did," he sobs once more, curling around Amy this once, hugging her tightly but without hurting and burying his face in the crook of her neck.

Amy hugs him just as tightly and doesn't bother holding back her tears.

Her Raggedy Doctor, her poor, kind, wonderful and broken Raggedy Doctor.

If only there was something Amy could do to help…

At least the other Doctor and Martha are safe, if Martha managed to walk away, so maybe it's something that, with Amy accompanying the Doctor into the catacombs instead of staying in the TARDIS, has changed and avoided their becoming stranded in 1969.

But her actual Doctor, her Raggedy Doctor, is still broken and hurting.

How can she help? How can she help the Doctor remember who he is when he's refusing it so vehemently, when he's hurt so badly from it all? How can she remind him to live when he feels he can only wrong the people he cares about?

Oh. Oh.

Amy resumes her humming and rocking, caressing the Doctor's back as he sobs his grief out, and thinks that mad idea through more purposefully this time.

She goes over it, again and again, and, by the time the Doctor has calmed down, no longer crying but still leaning heavily on her, Amy is convinced her plan will work.

She can no longer travel with the Doctor; her trips have run out. But the Doctor can't travel alone. So, what better way to remind him how to live than by showing him the joys that come from actually living?

"Raggedy Man? I have a question, a very important question. Look at me, please?" she asks first, trying to make sure he really is as calm as she thinks, and back in the present once more.

It takes him a couple minutes of sniffling and shuddering, but eventually, he pulls away from Amy, even if he's still clinging to her shoulders.

His eyes are still red and puffy and full of grief and loss, but they focus on her easily enough and he makes an effort to wipe his face clean of tears, even if it is with his sleeve. He looks like he hasn't slept in a hundred years, ashen and disheveled and exhausted, but Amy still manages to give him a sincere smile at finally seeing his face.

He looks like Hell, but he actually did as she asked. There's still fight left in him, even if he himself doesn't know it, and Amy is not going to give up on him, not now and not ever.

"There you are. So, tomorrow is a really important day for me, and you are a really important person to me. You, the Raggedy Man, not any of those fake names or titles. My Raggedy Man," she emphasizes, cupping his face when he looks away and waiting until he meets her eyes again. "You are important to me, and I really want you to be there in my big day. So, here's my question. Raggedy Man, will you walk me down the aisle?"

AN: This episode's title is a nod to Forest of the Dead, the last episode of the two-parter of Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead, River Song's first appearance. Her speech to the Master, everybody knows that eveybody dies, is taken from there.

And… I broke the Master. I didn't mean to, I swear! I thought River would give him hope, but he really is too clever not to notice, and then of course he had to check and I had to add that line to River's words in Forest of the Dead so it would make sense for the Doctor to leave a message to his future self after he realized there are things in the universe that can mess with his head.

Midnight is the most terrifying episode I've seen yet. With this headcanon it's even worse.

And it's time to get Rory in the team, which means all-new-stories, no longer following the series (much, or, at least, they'll be different enough).

Next time: The Master gives Amy and Rory their wedding present and they all learn to never mess with a mother, no matter the species.