The Final Season of Doctor Who
Episode Twelve "Eclipse" Part One of Two
Intro
It was the end of the universe. Or an end of the universe. Perhaps it wasn't the actual universe at all, just some anomaly that could, however, be easily reached by an enterprising space vehicle. Regardless, at that moment a very old and hardly benevolent entity was making his move.
The entity felt like a himself today, and "he" called himself Time. He was not exactly the only entity that conceived himself that way, but at this moment he was looking at something that made his claims particularly special.
"The Flux. At last! Rassilon is dead. Admittedly he will not actually die until billions, trillions, quadrillions of years in the future. But I sense his death, and now I can make my move. No longer do I have to play a part in his drama. No longer need I worry about keeping the Doctor in the dark. The Flux may have only pretended to destroy most of the universe. But now in my hands I am on the verge of complete and absolute…"
"Hey, Mac! Do you always talk to yourself?"
Time turned around and saw a handsome male human dressed in a military costume that he did not really have the right to wear.
"Who dares to intrude upon the majesty of Time?!" Time bellowed.
"Captain Jack Harkness, obviously. And why shout? I'm only about ten feet from…"
"Die, you insignificant worm!" And Time flung a power blast that immolated Harkness. "Now where was I? Now the Flux can show its true purpose! Dominion over all things is in my grasp!" Time smiled and stared closely at the strange energy, which in front of him appeared as a series of shifting polygons. Then a thought occurred to him. "A computer right now would be really helpful."
"You mean this thing back here whose wires I've just cut, and whose hard drive I just erased?" Harkness said cheekily, with much of his clothes blasted away.
"Begone, you miserable vermin!" And Time blasted him again. "Now, do I have a backup computer?" Time opened a cupboard. "Here's one. Oh wait, it turned to dust 27 million years ago. Maybe I can use an abacus."
Time rifled through the cupboard to see if he could find something. Maybe he could go to a planet and find someone to help. Or better yet, he could create an overelaborate plan to force someone to help. Just then Harkness spoke up. "Could you lay it off with the power blasts? These clothes are kind of pricy. And you're leaving me next to nothing."
Time attacked Harkness again. "What do I have to do to get rid of you!?"
Somewhere nearby was a spaceship. It was Harkness' and inside was a woman. She was very beautiful, she was very voluptuous, she was very scantily clad, and she looked very much like a human woman except that her hair and skin were a dark blue. And also that her ears squeaked every thirty seconds. She was sprawled on what was a surprisingly luxurious bed in what was an otherwise compact spaceship, and nervously waited for Harkness to arrive.
Just then there was a noise outside. She stood up and saw Harkness returning in triumph. He was smiling, he was carrying a small crystal tetrahedron which he tossed up and down in the air. And he was naked. Or about as naked as, say, a BBC censor would allow one to be.
"Ascension Sunday, baby!"
The woman, whose name was Coitissia, happily let him in. "Piece of cake, Tish," Harkness said, giving her a kiss, before sitting down in the cockpit. Soon the ship was back in our universe.
"What next?" Coitissia asked.
"We should take a break. A long break. A very long break." But just then an alert sounded.
"Who's that?" Coitissia asked while getting him some clothes.
"Let me see. Yeah, it's my next location. It's really serious. I have to get there ASAP."
"Oh."
Harkness smiled a very broad, cheerful smile. "Well, thank heaven for autopilot."
Act One
At that moment, the Doctor was having an infinitely less amusing time:
[From "Spencer and Associates, 13 Matthew Parker Street"]
Martin Heidegger was speaking to Petronella Osgood in 1935 Freiburg: "But the pathetic thing isn't that you cannot imagine something worse than Operation Reinhard. It's that you don't understand the irony."
[From "The Array"]
The Gentleman King of the Vampires was holding Petronella Osgood and Mel Bush hostage, only to be enraged that the Doctor had escaped. "Find the Doctor! Get him back here immediately! And make it clear that that one of his companions will pay with her life for this impudence! Make it clear he must choose which one dies or I will kill both of them!" But just then a helmeted figure, dressed entirely in black, materialized right behind the Gentleman King and shot him through the heart.
[From "The Vasari"]
Petronella was explaining to the 13th Doctor in Xanadu that she had seen someone pretending to be her. The 13th Doctor considered this. "No, that makes sense. Just before the Master died, he said he met someone looking exactly like me who poisoned him. And if I'm here now, it's possible my doppelganger is here as well. But hold on a moment."
"What?"
"Why are you telling me this? Remember you told me I only spend an hour in Xanadu, and when I come back to Neptunia I'm not going to remember any of this. Why don't you tell my successor?"
[From "The Last Companion"]
The current Doctor and Petronella were on opposite sides of the console, and the Doctor was trying to create a force field to prevent Fenric's agents from taking control of the TARDIS several days earlier. But now revisiting the scene, it was clear that Petronella was quickly pushing some buttons so that the field wouldn't simply keep the agent out, but actually incinerate her.
[From "Auld Lang Syne"]
Petronella and Lady Vastra were facing Reptilian Guards on the strange space station the former had materialized on. Petronella reached for her inhaler, only for the reptilian Guard to step on her hand. Petronella managed to suppress a scream, and then another one as she looked up at the barrel of the Guard's weapon. She couldn't see the cunning move Lady Vastra was about to make to rescue her, which was unfortunately forestalled when the guard aimed his weapon at the Silurian.
"Back three steps. Now." Lady Vastra had no choice but to obey. "And now for you," he said to Petronella.
But instead of firing the weapon at her, he abruptly jerked it toward his head and pulled the trigger. The weapon did not turn his head into a gory mess, but it definitely did kill him.
[From "It had to Happen, A Doctor Who/Futurama crossover"]
Petronella was explaining to the Thirteenth Doctor where she was. "I'm in some sort of space resort. It's all full of glass and windows and it's dark outside. And there's a sign in front of me saying you should absolutely not break the glass." But now the scene enlarged, and it was clear that Petronella was on the planet of Midnight.
Petronella sneered at the Doctor, who had just experienced her memories in his own mind. "Now I hope that makes everything clearer."
"All this time, you've been controlling her."
"More I've been resting in her unconscious. Getting oriented. Seeing the larger picture. A few times I made my presence evident when she was threatened."
"You can move in time. That's how Petronella appeared in the TARDIS after the Master's funeral. But why didn't you do that to leave Midnight in the first place?"
"It's a fairly large universe and most of it is empty. I needed more information to understand where I would be going. And one thing I learned from my encounter with Mrs. Silvestri was that taking control immediately raises a lot of suspicions."
"I don't deny our last encounter was a very distressing experience. But part of your power was that I didn't know what you were. My ignorance was your best weapon."
"Is that so, Doctor? Not necessarily. Lenin learned everything that would happen to his Soviet Union before he died. And he was powerless to stop it. And it wasn't simply ignorance, Doctor. It was your arrogance as well, because you didn't have a human companion to help you, to run interference with the other humans. And now you are actually facing your companion, doing what all your companions have wanted to do. To humiliate you, to crush you, to kill you."
"Petronella, please, you have to resist."
"Oh, we're doing that, are we? The old plot device where the character, usually a supporting one, is tempted with power and turns to 'the dark side,' but her friends all appeal to her better nature and she triumphs. And often goes back to being a fundamentally boring secondary character. Not this time, Doctor. I could pretend we're doing that. We could spend forty-five minutes to an hour acting that out. We could happily go on our way and then I kill you later. How does that sound?"
"Why her?"
"Oh, you're learning quickly, Doctor."
"Yes, Spencer set this up. It wasn't a coincidence that the Cephestian time jumps had Ryan Sinclair running into Phrropox, so it also wasn't a coincidence you met Petronella on Midnight."
"Spencer heard her plan to kill Stalin. That in itself means little. But they realized that she was both (a) willing to do it and (b) not really thinking of the consequences of what happened if she did. They realized there was something that made her very amendable to my influence. Ah poor pathetic Petronella. Your very final companion. The unappreciated scientist looking for the opportunity to show her true genius and courage. Hasn't really been doing that recently, has she? Hasn't really been much of a help at all, actually."
"Wait," the Doctor interjected. "It must have been her maths that allowed Rassilon to find Fenric and his prison."
Petronella, or more accurately "Petronella," frowned. "I found something very nasty within her. The shy little girl who wanted to play the martyr. Oh, poor me, I'm the hardworking wallflower who my beautiful selfish sister walks over. Resenting her spinsterhood. Not telling you about Nova's divorce. Let alone the time she was sexually assaulted. And not just that. There were all those little resentments that she never forgot or forgave. How foolish of all seven to still be living in Milton Keynes. Nova, of course. The pompous pastor who told her to shut up when she had something intelligent to say when she was five years old. The first-grade teacher who berated her in front of the class for reading another book once she understood the basic lesson. The two students who in the final years of school saw her plain and ordinary self and dragged her into the lavatory to smear her face with lipstick. They thought it was just a joke and two years later there were the best of friends, but Petronella never forgot. And then there was the gym teacher she had a crush on, who totally ignored her and had a fling with the talented music student who became a rock star. And so while poor little Petronella was whimpering in your TARDIS awaiting the end of the universe, my Black Assassins appeared and killed all six of them. What do you think of that, Doctor?"
The Doctor looked around, trying to get his bearings in the darkness visible. "Six?"
"Yes."
"You mentioned seven people."
"Petronella" flinched. "Yes, I killed seven people. And not just them. The Zygon hierarchy wiped out to a man. The Zygon double killed in Ibiza wearing a bikini that really did not suit her at all. If I hadn't had to go there to find her after leaving Milton Keynes, I might have been able to wipe out Spencer's henchmen."
"Yes, Spencer! I have to stop them! They're threatening the entire universe."
"Oh, Doctor. Why understate the peril? They're not just 'threatening' the universe. And not just this universe. But come Doctor. You don't realize where you are, do you? Nor when you are. It's not just that you have no idea where you are, and no possible way of finding Spencer and stopping their plans. It's so much worse than that.
"Look behind you Doctor. Remember when there was forever winter with no Christmas? Look at the darkness behind you with no light. You can breathe, though there's really no air, as the wind always howls. And yet you can see, an endless sea of twisted metal and endless ruins and wreckage. The inevitable fate of those who thought they could conquer, or indeed even visit this place. I knew that if I took you to any place in the universe, no matter how strong the prison, you might find a way to escape. So I made sure you weren't in the universe. A place where no TARDIS can reach. The Howling. The Void. Hell."
It was a late-night BBC news report. "In other news, the police are still investigating the sudden collapse of a building in the City on Matthew Parker Street. Jonathan?"
The report shifted to the journalist at the scene, in front of a DO NOT CROSS line. "Before eleven this morning, the ruins behind me used to be the building of the law firm Spencer and Associates. The firm had a quiet reputation as a very effective firm. It's not yet clear what happened, but about thirty minutes before eleven, much of the firm fled the building. There are unconfirmed reports that some of them saw metal men, though members of the firm have spoken to me strongly denying this. At the moment, a rescue team is combing through the ruins for any survivors…"
Another BBC news report: "We have a further update on the building collapse yesterday in the City. Emergency crews have recovered six bodies from the ruins. So far they are unidentified, and Spencer and Associates, the owner of the building, claims all employees are safe and accounted for."
The report was playing on a giant videoscreen in Piccadilly Circus. Among the many pedestrians walking by it that evening was one Vislor Turlough. His cell phone rang and he answered it. "Ah, Mr. Raskolnikov, so good to hear from you. Preparations for rebuilding have already begun. And everything suggests that both sets of intruders are distracted."
Another BBC news report, September 1, 2022, "Police have confirmed that one of the six dead in the collapse of a building at 13 Matthew Parker Street was renowned American billionaire Jack Robertson. Mr. Robertson, who was 67, had not been seen since January 3, 2021 and…"
October 3, 2022, a final BBC news report: "Today an inquest concluded its examination of the death of six people in the collapse of the headquarters of the law firm Spencer and Associates at 13 Matthew Parker Street. It has been clear for a month that one of the dead was American billionaire Jack Robertson. The inquest confirmed that the other five were his bodyguards. Mr. Robertson had been in hiding from American, European and International authorities since early 2021. In her report, the coroner established that Robertson had contacted the law firm, who had served as his solicitors in several cases in the previous decade. When it became clear that Spencer and Associates would not and could not assist him in removing his legal troubles, his bodyguards attempted to hold the firm hostage. In doing so, they discovered the firm's chemical labs. Although the coroner made clear that Spencer had properly stored all materials as part of their services for industrial clients, the bodyguards deliberately released several gases. Spencer replied by immediately evacuating the building. One gas had mild hallucinogenic qualities, which caused some people to make wild claims that the building was being attacked by aliens. The inquest further made clear that in the course of events, the bodyguards and Robertson accidentally locked themselves in a room, until gas build-up led to the explosion that killed them."
"Look about you, Doctor. No source of light in the Void, and yet a plentitude of shadows. That reminds me of the Vashta Nerada. My Assassins had no trouble defeating Cybermen, Weeping Angels and the Vampire King. But for a few seconds the Vashta Nerada actually gave them pause.
"Have you ever been to the Philippines, Doctor? Ms. Osgood read a most interesting anecdote about that country. During the glorious decades of peace, which now seems to be winding down, Earth was full of slums. Especially in the Philippines. When developers want to get rid of squatters, they lit an animal on fire and set it through the neighborhood to burn their miserable huts down. They couldn't use dogs: they die too quickly. Better to use a cat, or rats." A Black Assassin materialized beside "Petronella." "Get moving, Doctor."
The Doctor dashed ahead, into the eternal night of the Void. There was the aura of moonlight, but no actual moon. Nor was there really a sky, although the Void somehow intimated a dark and foreboding one. "Faster," "Petronella" shouted. The Assassin fired a warning shot very close to the Doctor to intimidate him.
Soon the Doctor was running over plates of metal, apparently the remains of destroyed spaceships. Although there should not be water in the Void, or for that matter any soil or ground to walk on, the Doctor found himself running through the mud, through water, with the odor of march gas everpresent. He noticed a couple of skulls on the ground as he passed, though they were not human. "Perhaps the peridot Rassilon tossed me can help." He extracted it from its pocket, only to see it merge and vanish into his hand. "Apparently not." Up ahead he heard noises. Perhaps there was something in all the ruins that could conceivably help him.
He came to the edge of a particularly wrecked piece of metal, and then ran down several feet to find himself in what looked like a small junkyard. The noises were nearby. And then he saw them. Two aged Daleks appeared in the wreckage. The Doctor recognized them as Daleks he had banished into the Void in the battle of Canary Wharf. But they had clearly spent millennia in the Void, far longer than the sixteen years that had passed on Earth. They were obviously severely damaged. The Doctor did not think they could actually move. But they both saw him. "WE SEE THE ENEMY! HE IS AMONG US!" The Daleks aimed their weapons at him, as "Petronella" laughed behind him. "WE MUST ATTACK! WE HAVE NO CHOICE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
Act Two
The Doctor knew that at this distance, he could not avoid the fatal weapons, though he instinctively tensed. But the Daleks fired not at him, but right behind him, at "Petronella." Something about Newton's laws of motions still worked in the Void, because the blasts forced "her" back at least ten meters into the surrounding wreckage. There was a silence for perhaps a minute, and then "Petronella" emerged from the metal rubble around "her", dusted "herself" off and adjusted "her" glasses like the real Petronella would have. The Black Assassin appeared and promptly fired two shots at the offending Daleks, reducing them to burning garbage cans, their scorched bodies stinking like rotten sausages.
"Now that's annoying. Where has the Doctor gone to?"
September 15, 2022, and there was a metal fence around what had been the headquarters of Spencer and Associates. On it was a sign: "FUTURE HOME OF SPENCER AND ASSOCIATES."
December 15, 2022, and a severe blizzard was ravaging London. Notwithstanding that, construction workers were busily working on the seven stories of the future building.
March 15, 2023, and the new building that looked exactly like the old Spencer and Associates was not only open, but Spencer and Associates was hosting a gala reception to marks its reopening. As champagne flowed and caviar was served to the cream of the financial community, the legal profession, and all four parties in Parliament, the guests marveled at the achievement.
"I was here a year ago, and it looks completely identical. You'd think nothing had happened to the building at all."
"Extremely impressive. To get the building constructed so quickly, and then again three months ahead of schedule."
"And all this, and while still maintaining a busy law firm from contingency offices. To win the biggest case in Anglo-Dutch commercial relations since William III while the police were still finding bodies. And while the Conservative Party hasn't really had good news since the Queen died, it would be so much worse for them if Spencer and Associates hadn't saved the government's bacon in those three Brexit cases."
"And so efficient as well. I don't really know who that strange gaunt man with the Irish name was, but he arranged my contacts with the lawyers perfectly."
"There's rumors that Spencer will be led by a former prime minister," one woman said.
"To be fair, it's not as if there was a shortage of them," a friend of hers laughed.
The first woman took a glass of champagne one of the many waiters conveniently offered, and walked around the reception area. "I don't think I've seen you before."
"No, you wouldn't," said the clean-shaven man with dark hair and an American accent. "My name is Greenman. I help deal with the firm's American concerns." Just then a waiter showed up carrying a tray with a lid on it.
"Mr. Greenman, the management especially wanted to ensure your dietary needs were met." And the waiter removed the lid.
The woman was struck by the aroma. "What are those?"
"They're roasted lamb sandwiches…"
"They smell delightful."
"…covered in peanut butter and jelly."
The woman winced, when Greenman received the equivalent of a page. "I'm afraid I have a very important engagement and must leave. What a pity we couldn't talk more." He turned to the waiter. "If you could provide a doggie bag with three of them, plus a cocktail of sauerkraut vindaloo within the next five minutes, I would most appreciate it."
"Petronella" was walking through the Void. "The Doctor. It's the name of a man who has saved countless people and planets while wearing many faces… In doing so, he was helped at crucial points by a long line of associates, friends and companions. I have a 'name' as well: Petronella Osgood. This is the story of how I was his last companion, from the moment he regenerated to when he finally fell….
"We had just left the planet Neptunia. The Doctor had regenerated to save me after we had both been poisoned by the Dalek agent Lytton. Just before we left, the Doctor's old companion, Romana, had appeared. I couldn't hear her as she whispered something into his ear. In retrospect, the whole point of this is now much clearer, in the quest for the Master's paradox machine. But the next few minutes were very confusing indeed. In less than half an hour we would actually meet the Master himself in the court of Charles II. How odd were those days, where it seemed that everywhere we went, we would be stumbling over old enemies. There was Margaret Blaine. The Silent. Just another piece in the puzzle the Doctor would not be able to complete in time. Also the King of the Vampires. The Cybermen. Fenric. The Reapers. Rassilon. Not to mention Melanie Bush, an old 'companion' who had taken one of the Doctor's lives."
"Petronella" stopped to take off the real Petronella's glasses, and threw them away. "She" bowed her head. Then "she" jerked it up again straight upright. "As opposed to me, who will take all of them!" There was an expression of wrath on her face. But she now she had no eyes.
A considerable distance ahead the Doctor was running. He was rubbing his hands in the cold, noticing the silver ring he'd been wearing throughout his regeneration, when he heard a voice. "Doctor!" it said in a cold weak mechanical timbre. "YOU CANNOT PHYSICALLY SEE ME, I AM SOME DISTANCE FROM YOU. I WAS ABLE TO OVERRIDE THE ORDERS OF THE DALEKS SO THEY WOULD ATTACK THAT ENTITY, INSTEAD OF YOU."
"As well you would, being a Dalek general."
"YOU RECOGNIZE ME?"
"Admittedly, you are not screeching at the top of your voice. But yes."
"ONE MUST CONSERVE ONE'S POWER. I HAVE BEEN IN THE VOID THOUSANDS OF YEARS. MOST TRAPPED IN THE VOID COME THROUGH A SUDDEN GASH. EVEN WERE THEY TO REOPEN IT, THEY WOULD STILL BE TRAPPED IN THE VOID. BUT THAT ENTITY BROUGHT YOU THROUGH A GATE, AND HYPOTHETICALLY YOU CAN RETURN THROUGH IT."
"What sort of gate?"
"IT IS NOT A LITERAL GATE. IT IS MORE A ZONE OF PROBABILITY. I HAVE THE MATHEMATICS TO ANALYZE IT, BUT CANNOT GO THROUGH MYSELF. BUT I CAN HELP YOU THROUGH IT, IF YOU PROMISE TO RETURN AND RESCUE ME."
"There were millions of Daleks in the Genesis Ark I plunged into the Void. I could hardly let them out again."
"YOU HAVE NO REASON TO TRUST ME. I COULD TELL YOU THE TRUTH AND SAY THAT MOST OF THOSE DALEKS HAVE LONG SINCE DIED. I COULD TELL YOU THE TRUTH THAT I CANNOT LEAVE WITHOUT YOUR ASSISTANCE. I COULD TELL YOU THAT IN THIS ANALOGY YOU ARE THE SCORPION AND I AM THE FROG. ORDINARILY A DALEK NEVER RELIES ON OTHER SPECIES. AND CERTAINLY NOT ON THEIR SENSE OF CONSCIENCE. IT IS A THIN REED FOR ANY SENTIENT BEING. BUT I HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO TRUST. START WRITING THIS DOWN, DOCTOR." The Doctor pulled out a notebook and jotted down the coded sequence the Dalek transmitted. "ONE MORE THING, DOCTOR. WE DALEKS HAD SOME INFORMATION ABOUT MIDNIGHT. THAT ENTITY IS NOT INDIGENOUS TO THAT PLANET. HOWEVER BROADLY ONE DEFINES LIFE, IT IS NOT ACTUALLY IT. MATTER AND ANTIMATTER ARE BOTH MATTER, EVEN THOUGH THEY ANNIHILATE THEMSELVES ON CONTACT. THE ENTITY IS NOT EVEN ANTI-LIFE, BUT SOMETHING MUCH WORSE."
Coitissia woke up and was immediately cross that she had only slept a few hours. She turned and saw Harkness finishing putting on his clothes. "We've arrived."
"Where are we?"
"We're in the early fifth millennium on the planet Vashti in the Mayall II section of the Andromeda Galaxy. I'm going to leave and when I do the ship will be cloaked. Do you remember the password I gave you?"
"Of course."
"Well, in case I'm caught, there's another person I gave it to. Here's a picture." And Jack showed Coitissia a picture of Romana.
The Doctor was running towards another desolate junkyard, full of misshapen metal. Perhaps there was some technology that could conceivably be useful. "Now that's striking," he said as he rummaged through one pile. After some work, he took out what was clearly a Cyberman head.
He looked around. There were other signs of Cyberman technology and ruined Cybermen. That was hardly surprising since the same incident that had brought the Daleks here had also sucked in all the Cybermen who had invaded Earth at the same time. Soon he had dusted off the remains of three Cybermen, all in various pieces.
"Ordinary rules of time and space don't work in the Void. That's why TARDISes can't navigate it, and only specially designed timeships can. Sixteen years have passed on Earth, but those Daleks who attacked Petronella were thousands of years old. However, these Cybermen, despite entering the Void at the same time, are clearly much younger." The Doctor probed the trio with his screwdriver. "Indeed, examination would suggest they've spent much less time than the time passed on Earth. Yet they've clearly been destroyed. But by what?" He probed two of the heads and found the solution. "That is not good news."
Just then he heard a strange, deep, threatening voice. "There you are, Doctor. I was wondering what other life might be in the Void. It turns out the answer is not much."
The Doctor looked behind and above him and saw "Petronella" standing on a small hill. As he did so, he gasped.
"You're startled. I can understand why." A closer look revealed that except for her hair, "Petronella" had none of her facial features. "Ordinarily when life forms speak they have a mouth."
The Doctor composed himself. "Actually, I've found something very important and directly relevant to our situation."
"Actually, I don't think you have." There was a cold chuckle, with little of Petronella's voice left within it. "You're curious. You always were. You want to know more about me. You think I'm a sadist?"
"Does that offend you?"
"You don't understand, Doctor. What I find interesting about sadism is that it is thorough. Thorough is important."
"So you say."
"Do you know what is worth than sadism? Nothing. Nothing is worse than sadism." The Doctor then realized the Entity's meaning. "But then you know who I am, Doctor. Fenric told you."
The Doctor nodded.
"The name is a bit of misnomer. 'The Ice.' In most of the universe, nearly all of it, actually, that is all that water can ever be. But then the name falsely implies that water has a future. But then names, or pronouns, cannot really define 'my' existence. Nothing can.
"Yesterday, one of Fenric's agents told Petronella a gnomic little parable, about a world in which poor pathetic creatures huddled and quarreled before a weak, cold fire. And then the fire went out and the wolves came and killed everyone. The little fire is the universe, all the universes, any conceivable form of existence. It is the tiniest section conceivable of the vast eternity that is nothing, when even the leptons have turned to dust, when even entropy and time will have no meaning. I am the wolves, I am the Ice that no fire can burn. I am beyond Good and Evil. Pronouns really have no meaning. They are as pointless as a gorilla suit, or dressed up in plasticine clothing with looking glass ties. And you are my prisoner, Doctor.
"I want you to conceive of what non-existence will mean, Doctor. A billion years is longer than any civilization. You've been 100 trillion years in the future, just to see the last humans watch the universe die. Now imagine, floating a couple of feet a second. It would take 500 million years to move a single light year. 10 sextillion years to float a distance the size of the universe you were in. Now imagine a googol years, imagine billions to a googol powers. Imagine Graham's Number and Rayo's Number. Imagine the infinity of numbers that the Time Lords have thought up in a billion years of the highest mathematics. You've met this metaphor before, the mountain millions of kilometers high, with one grain of sand removed every million years. And yet the infinitude of time to destroy that entire mountain would not be one instant of eternity. My eternity is not the eternity of imagined hells. No fires, nor torments of the senses, no intensities. Except for one, the eternal absence of light, of other life, of anything like hope.
"You are a lord of Time. What would that mean in the Eternity after Time is gone? Imagine to float or fall in the forever that is non-existence. Ordinarily one could not do that. One cannot exist in the vacuum of space. One could not breathe. There is no food or water. And the temperature, absolute zero is an inferno compared to that. But one is not in space, one is in nothingness. One cannot really imagine that, except the complete absence of light. Imagine something somehow alive. But there is nothing to do, to grasp, to conceive. Nothing to do, but to sleep. You met Robespierre several times. And with him, Saint-Just. Who once declared that cemeteries of the French Republic would bear the motto 'death is an eternal sleep.' To sleep Doctor. And perchance to dream? What, in that darkness, waits to confront you after eternity?"
And just then a Black Assassin appeared by the Doctor's side and shot him down.
"Oh, you thought I was talking about you. No, this was all about poor Petronella, explaining her fate for allowing me to escape Midnight. Unlike your enemies, I have no interest in keeping you alive. But I know how to seduce you, like a cobra entrancing its pray."
The Doctor tried to stand up from the dirt he had landed in. Although he could not move his legs, he had managed to push himself up on his arms, before he faltered and collapsed again.
"How odd. You're not dead yet," the Ice noted. "Oh right, your regeneration energies. Well, a second shot will be the coup de grace." The Assassin aimed at the Doctor, who gasped and struggled for breath.
Suddenly there was a shout from the Ice's right. "Stop!"
The Ice turned and was unpleasantly surprised. Quite extremely so. "You! But you're dead!"
The Ice was staring at a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties. She had short blonde hair, wore an overcoat, suspenders and a navy-blue T-shirt. "I suppose I am. And I understand why you might be annoyed," she replied.