The Doctor, Inferno
this is survival
A metal box. One side scraping metal spinning away, opening into a darkness.
Rose struggled to her feet, instinctively backing against the wall. Dizzy. And, no, she was not going to throw up. Whatever it was she was-
"Rose!"
She choked back a sob of relief. From the darkness, the Doctor. And he held her now, and would never let her go.
"Let me see her."
Rose knew that voice, looked up to see the others emerge. Jack, and she smiled at him over the Doctor's shoulder, and Livia and another that she did not recognise.
Livia took her away from the Doctor, helped her sit down. She found the strength to stop Livia's hand as it came towards her neck, a hypodermic needle clasped in her fingers.
The Doctor by her side, crouching, her hand encased in his again. "It's alright, she's a doctor." A strange little smile. "She's going to help you, alright? Got to make sure the treatment's sorted you out."
"Right," whispered Rose, with the smallest nod. She didn't flinch as she felt the metal sink into her skin. The Doctor was here and her fingers tightened around his.
She felt Livia's cool fingers on her wrist, her neck. A light in her eyes and she tried not to blink. "See if you can drink this," she said, offering her a flask. Rose drank, and it tasted like stale water.
And perhaps she dozed a little then, sleeping easily as the Doctor held her close.
"How is she?" asked the Doctor.
Livia nodded, tidying away her equipment. "As well as can be expected. She'll be a little drowsy for a day or two. Stamina, strength and so forth, all depleted." She looked up, smiled. "Bed rest, Doctor, is what's required." She glanced back at the airlock, now closed and sealed again. "And since we have found her, can we return to Earth now?"
The Doctor didn't look her in the eye, said, "No, we can't. I have to finish this."
She sighed, exasperated. "For pity's sake, we've found the girl. This station is bound to be crawling with Cybermen. The safest course of action-"
"Don't you get it?" snapped the Doctor. "We've found her. Right here, at the airlock. All safe and sound, no guard, no security. Don't you want to know why? Aren't you curious?"
"No," she said.
The Doctor stood up, releasing Rose's hand, checking to make sure he did not disturb her light sleep. "I was practically invited to come here, and I'm not leaving until I know why."
"You'd walk into a trap knowing it was there," said Livia, not bothering to hide her contempt. "You arrogant fool."
"What about your memories?" he said.
"I don't-"
"You were a very convenient addition to Bambera's resistance group. Lucky that a Time Lord with the skills to save Rose just so happened to be in the right place and time, isn't it?"
"Doctor, I have helped you in good faith," she said. "I don't appreciate you implying otherwise."
"Yeah, and I believe you. But I don't think you being there was a coincidence." He stepped forward. "Don't you want to know the truth?" he asked her, voice sharp as a knife.
Still, Livia did not relent. "My first duty is to my patient. Rose is in no condition to go wandering around this place."
But Rose had heard them, and her eyes were open again, watching. "I want to stay," she said, struggling to her feet. Jack moved to help her. "I'm staying with the Doctor."
"And what about you?" the Doctor asked the Master.
"Oh, I intend to see this through, Doctor. This invasion has been a hindrance to my plans and I will see it ended."
The Doctor nodded. "Good. Then let's get one of these doors open then."
"Who's he?" Rose asked Jack, keeping her voice low as the Master and the Doctor attempted to open one of the locked doors.
"Old friend of the Doctor's, I think," Jack murmured back
"They went to school together," Livia told them, watching the other two Time Lords work on the door's circuitry. In tandem. A team. No need to talk, barely even looking at one another. "And they fought together in the Time War. I believe they tried to kill each other in-between." Rose stared at her, disbelieving. Livia shrugged. "Wouldn't worry about it. Not when there are hundreds of Cybermen on this station."
The door rolled back. The Doctor and Master exchanged a short lived congratulations. But the Cybermen on the other side were swiftly cut down by Jack, glitter gun in hand. "Let's be a little more careful, shall we?" he said, stepping forward, checking the corridor ahead.
"We need to take a break," said the Doctor.
"Doctor-" The Master controlled his irritation with an effort.
"Rose is tired."
"And she's going to stay tired until she is allowed to rest properly," Livia told him.
"Can't you give her anything?" asked the Doctor. He glanced at Rose. "I mean, if you want something-"
"S'alright." She nodded. "Please?"
"Here." Livia passed a blister pack of pills to her. "Take one."
"What are they?" asked Rose, popping one onto her mouth.
"Caffeine pills." She sighed at Rose's look. "Best I can do, I'm afraid. At least you'll be able to stay awake."
"This place is far too quiet," said Jack.
"Naturally," the Master said. "After all the trouble they've taken to get the Doctor here, they don't want to kill him. Not when he's so eagerly taken the bait."
Jack frowned. "We've found Rose."
"But it's curiosity that's always been his weakness."
The Doctor sat down next to Rose, and she was warm beside him. A little feverish, a little flushed. And she was very tired. "You going to be okay?" He stole a look at Livia, spoke very quietly. "You don't have to stay."
She smiled, an effort but it reached her eyes. "Yeah, but I want to." Her eyes fell, but her hand reached out to him. "I thought I'd lost me. I thought I'd lost you, because I couldn't remember. And I still don't think I can. Like, there's bits missing. Inside my head."
He squeezed her hand. "When we get out of here, you'll get all the rest you need. I promise. However long it takes."
They walked, they rested. The silence never stopped and nobody dared compare the station to a tomb.
Jack leaned back against the wall. "I feel like we've been wandering these corridors for days."
"We are not wandering," the Doctor said. "We are following the shortest possible route to the centre of this station."
"And what's at the centre?" asked Livia.
"The Cybercontroller," the Master told her.
The Doctor held up his hand, drawing the little group to a halt. "Almost there," he said. He pointed to the next ramp, leading to a sealed door, no different to any of the others they had passed without comment. "I'd expected some sort of welcoming party."
Quietly, the Master dropped to the back of the group. Not a coward, but his own survival was his highest priority. Careful now.
The Doctor knocked on the door. An almost farcical action, but his expression was perfectly serious.
"Hello! Anybody home?"
The door rolled back, and the Doctor, Rose by his side, stepped inside, followed by Jack. Livia hovered by the opening, stared into the dim light as a figure emerged from the shadows. Silhouetted, an arm and hand, at least, shone with a dull gleam of silver.
"At last," the figure said.
And Livia recognised the voice. "That's not possible," was her quiet protest, before the figure moved far too quickly and the flash of a red energy bolt shot from the blaster it held in the silver hand..
But the impact she felt was not in her chest. Instead a solid weight pushed her to one side as the door spun closed. She hit the metal decking, cried out in pain as she heard the crunch of her bones.
The Master stood up, dusted himself down. "If we are going to work together, you are going to have to learn discretion."
"I…" She winced as she moved her arm. Not broken, but badly bruised. "Thank you."
"A temporal lock. I don't think we'll be joining the Doctor," said the Master, examining the sealed doorway.
Livia stood up. "I remember," she said. "The voice I heard, I remember what it said."
"Well, better late than never, I suppose." The Master glanced at the door. "Though I'm sure the Doctor would disagree right now."
The Doctor stepped forward, his eyes adjusting to the dim lighting, all his attention focussed on the control room's single occupant.
A flash. White bright.
Lights.
The reveal.
The controller stepped forward. Not like any other Cybercontroller he had ever seen. Flesh one side, metal the other and the face a grotesque mask of skin melted into the living machine. Neatly dressed, such a strange thing, and still thoroughly identifiable.
"I don't understand," the Doctor said, head shaking, and suddenly it was Rose who was supporting him. "Romana, what are you doing here? Where's-"
"I am the controller, Doctor. And I have been waiting for you a very long time indeed."
"She…she's dead," said Livia. "The President is dead."
"Apparently not." The Master seemed wholly unconcerned, but Livia refused to believe his expression.
"And that technology in there…it looked…it looked Gallifreyan."
The Master raised an eyebrow, and amusement twisted his lips. "But did you recognise what it was?"
"Doctor, what's going on?" Rose held him, he held her, and he was going to fall but she couldn't, wouldn't, let him.
Jack stepped forward, the glitter gun drawn and aimed. "Right now, I'm not that bothered. I want that door open."
The controller, Romana, stared at him a moment, shook her head. "Do you see a cybernetic breathing unit, Captain Harkness? I use my own lungs. That gun will not harm me."
"Romana…" The Doctor, and an appeal.
She was gentle, helped him to sit, though Rose recoiled from her. "You are as tired as the girl," she said.
"What's happened to you?" he asked.
"Where should I start?" replied Romana. "You and I have been friends, Doctor. I don't want to lie to you, not now. What do you want to know?" She held up a hand, silencing his question. "Tell your friend to put away the gun."
The Doctor glanced at Jack. Request reluctantly granted, Romana stood back, surveyed the three of them.
"Tell me," said the Doctor.
Romana nodded, began, "Time is such a very difficult thing to deal with when one is forced to work with a linear sequence. But I knew how careful I had to be. A handful of scattered survivors, Doctor. And none of us what we used to be." She indicated her left arm, her cybernetic arm. "I made what I could of the situation. I…survived."
She turned away, taking the platform above the sunken floor where the Doctor sat with Rose. "It came as something of a surprise when I discovered you were alive, Doctor. Alive and well and still travelling with your TARDIS, your companions, still interfering. No different to all that had gone before."
"That's not true," he whispered. "I…I grieved."
"Did you indeed?" she said, her voice ice cold. "So you grieved for the world you destroyed? The world you abandoned? The world that even dared to call you home once a lifetime?" She looked down at him. "How gratifying it must have been to finally be free."
"It wasn't like that," he insisted.
Romana's voice softened. "I suppose not. After all, the rebel must have something to rebel against. Instead, you were orphaned. The last Time Lord. The coward. The traitor." And then, gentle as a caress, "The murderer."
The Doctor pulled himself to his feet, letting Rose's hand slip from his. The tiredness swept from him, cast back by righteous anger. "The past. It's happened. Deal with it."
"Like you did?" She cast a disparaging look at Rose. "Should I adopt one too, take it to see its own world die? Risk its fragile life at every opportunity I get because I'm too afraid to stop running, to look back, because I might see that my causes have had some effects I find unpalatable?"
"It has a name." Rose, and her own justified anger.
"I'm sorry," said Romana. "Miss Tyler, Rose, I have nothing but sympathy for you. I did not mean to insult you."
"Keep it," Rose snapped. "What the hell are you doing to my planet?"
Romana almost laughed, and perhaps she intended to, but the situation required gravity. And she had been a politician, after all. "Ah, the crux of the issue." She half-turned to a control panel, caught a movement in her peripheral vision, swung round, levelling her blaster. "Stay back," she warned Jack, quite calmly.
"You invaded Earth," said the Doctor. "You killed millions, enslaved tens of thousands."
"Hundred of thousands, actually."
"How could you? Romana…how could you? This is Earth, this is…we were here, together, don't you remember? Doesn't that matter to you? All of those people, all of those people and you, sitting up here, watching over it all. What's happened to you?"
"Doctor-"
"What gave you the right to play god?" He took a step forward. The anger rippled through his voice. "Why are you doing this? This planet…billions of people…"
"You hypocrite," she snarled. "How dare you, Doctor. Healer of the sick, but your solution was to kill the infection by killing the patient. You took it upon yourself to condemn our entire species to death."
"To save everything! It wasn't a choice, Romana."
"Of course it was," she said, her voice suddenly light. "There's always another choice, another option, always something else that you can do. You taught me that, Doctor. You taught me that and I trusted you implicitly." Her mouth tightened into a smile. "I trusted you to come back to Earth eventually. No-where else ever quite attracted you so much."
"No." He shook his head. "You didn't do this…not all this…not for…"
"All for you, Doctor," confirmed Romana. "I broke humanity to find you. And, oh, you haven't made it easy. I gave you old friends, a resistance with a fighting chance, and your favourite planet on a precipice. And still, you'd have let it fall. Because of the girl. I hadn't realised just how damaged you had been by the fall-out, by your regeneration."
"I'm in a perfectly sound state of mind, thank you very much."
"Oh no, Doctor. You'd have given up the world for her, I think. I offered you a simple problem, but you chose to stay back, to keep from direct interference - some penitent streak that you've developed? - and I was forced to take direct action. Tempt you with a far more obvious bait." She stepped forward. "And you came to me. Finally. I've been waiting such a long time."
"So now what?" asked the Doctor. "What you've done to Earth, you'll never undo it…what you've become…"
"Not quite correct. Don't you recognise this place? Don't you know what it is?"
And so the Doctor understood at last. "You can't possibly-"
"You played god, Doctor. And it is the people that create gods. I am the last representative of the Gallifreyan people, I am their President, and I will unmake you."
The bodies of dead Cybermen lay around them. The Master was a very efficient shot.
"I don't think we're welcome any longer," he said when no more of their enemy appeared. Livia lowered the Cybergun she had been forced to use.
"So now what? What was it in there?"
"I believe the official term is the Oubliette of Eternity. At least, that was what they called the one on Gallifrey. Rather poetic, given its function."
"That's…no, she wouldn't. She's the President…"
The Master regarded her distress with indifference. "Whatever that woman's intentions, there is little we can do about it. We haven't any way to get through that door."
"What about the wall?"
"Unless you happen to be carrying explosives with a temporal yield in that med-pack, there is no way into that room from out here."
"So what do we do now?"
"If she really does intend to use the Oubliette, then I would rather not be here."
Livia felt drained, wanting to let go of the gun, too afraid of the danger to do so. The President was on the other side of that door. The President was alive, and the President had sent her to Earth.
Romana had not even bothered to ask her. Did she believe that Livia would have refused her orders?
"It doesn't matter where we are. Where anyone is," she said. "If she executes-"
"Not unless one has possession of a TARDIS," the Master told her. "And hopes for the best with whatever effect there is on causality. He does tend to get involved rather a lot."
"The Doctor's TARDIS is back on Earth, underwater…there's no time to… " Livia looked back at the door. "But," she continued, "she'd need Gallifreyan technology to construct the Oubliette."
"Precisely," said the Master, producing his scanner from a pocket.
"Didn't Captain Harkness have that?"
"He did," confirmed the Master. "But I don't imagine he needs it now."
"If she's kept her TARDIS, surely it would be with her, in there?"
"Not if she actually intends to use the Oubliette, the temporal interference would not allow it to function properly…ah! Here it is."
Livia joined the Master, looked at the scanner readout. "Six levels down."
"Then I suggest we go immediately. Even the Doctor cannot keep talking forever."
They ran.
But despite his words, the Master paused at the end of the corridor, taking one last look back at the sealed door.
"Doctor, what's she talking about? What's she going to do?" Rose struggled to her feet, took a step forward.
"Stay back, Miss Tyler," warned Romana.
Rose paid no attention, reached for the Doctor. The flash of red from the blaster knocked her back.
And the air rippled between them. The Doctor started forward, pushing uselessly against the force-field Romana had activated between him and Rose. "Jack!"
He held Rose, looked desperately at the Doctor. "She's not breathing."
Turned, not thinking. Turned and struck out at Romana.
But she said nothing, merely caught him with her cybernetic arm, held him back. "You can still save her, Doctor," she said quietly.
He stilled, and she let him go. Pushed him back off the platform. "How?"
"My first duty is, and always as been, to my people, Doctor. And if I can put right the damage that has been done, then I must, by any means necessary."
"More killing."
"Just once more, Doctor. It gets easier. But you'd know all about that wouldn't you? And without you there'll be no-one to send to Skaro. No-one to destroy that planet. No-one to start this war and no-one to finish it."
"Time abhors a vacuum. There'll be someone else in my place."
Romana shook her head. "There's never been anyone quite like you, Doctor. And now there never will." She stepped back, one hand reached out for the control console. "Gallifrey is gone, Skaro is gone, Earth is falling and thousands upon thousands of worlds were washed away in our war. How many lives did the Time War take? How many did it steal?"
"This is wrong, Romana. What you are doing, what you are about to do, it is wrong."
She nodded. "But I won't know."
"That makes it alright?" Vitriol, acid spat at her. "You've killed an entire world just to get to me!"
"And now I save it." She gestured, her arms spread. That room, her creation. "The Oubliette will take only you. Erase you from the time-stream. Every action, and inaction. Every life you've ever touched will be rendered innocent again. You'll be dispersed, and there'll be no record of it ever happening. Our world will be safe; Earth will be safe."
"And Skaro?"
"You were entwined with the history of the Daleks. Perhaps, without you, it will take a less destructive course."
"You can't know that!"
"Of course not. But I do know what exists now. I walk in the ashes of my civilisation."
"Then let it go, Romana. Everything dies, everything. People, worlds, stars. They burn out, and decay. All of them. Even Gallifrey."
"But that was never your decision to make. It was not our time, but you took the easy way out. Sacrifice a people to save-"
"Causality! The same causality that you're risking now if you go through with this."
She arched an eyebrow. "Arrogant as ever, Doctor. You are not the defining event of causality."
"You're mad."
"Doctor, this is the only thing I can do." She could not look away from him. She was pleading. "Isn't it better this way?"
"I won't salve your conscience."
"It's one life for billions, Doctor. One life for countless civilisations."
"You don't know that; you have no idea what will happen."
"Then it is a life for a life," she said. "Your life for hers." And she pointed a thin finger over the Doctor's shoulder, to Jack cradling Rose. He looked at the Captain; he looked at Rose. "She's dead, Doctor."
"No…"
"She is dead. And she would have been alive, but for you."
"It changes nothing," he said. His voice did not break. It did not.
Romana nodded. "I thought it might be a comfort to you. But comfort or no, she will have her life given back to her." Her hand grasped the lever on the console, the Gallifreyan console connected to the Gallifreyan machine. The Doctor stood tall; the Doctor was not afraid. "I play god now, Doctor. And I will remake the universe without your image."
There was no last minute reprieve. No last second, nor nanosecond, nor any other denomination of time.
Romana pulled the lever.
And the universe held its breath.
The tapestry unfurls, a great thread taken from it.
It will take - ah, forgive my use of the word - it will take time to reform and who knows what image it will take? A universe without the Doctor…
…and yet, one with such an influence, one who binds so many of the threads around him - twists and knots them to his own - surely that influence must remain somehow, somewhere? Can the universe really forget so very easily?
And Earth was his favourite planet, after all.
Perhaps someone, somehow, will remember.
But, listen, there is my sister calling. She has souls to reap and it would be churlish of me to deny her her pleasures. For though Time and tide wait for no man, Death will wait for me.
So here is your coat, your hat and your scarf. It is cold outside and I would not have you catch a chill. Here, take a playing piece to remind you of today - a knight, perhaps, or a bishop - though, had it been but chess, our time together would have been over so much more quickly.
Go back to your television, your job, your school. Back to your cups of milky tea and your beans on toast. Back to your life, wherever, whatever it may be. Until we meet again, dear friend, take care.
It was a good game though, wasn't it?