Time moved in a blur.

Numbly, the Doctor, the not-so-last of the Time Lords, the one who destroyed his own world, allowed the human David to pick Susan up. The minute she left his arms he felt the absence in every facet of his soul, and he almost violently put his telepathic shields back in place, staring at the ground, half of his mind replaying the scene he had just witnessed, and the other half wondering in bewilderment how she was still alive.

He had left Susan on Earth with David hoping she would be safe. That was what he told himself, at least. Back then, he had been so utterly petrified of regeneration, and he knew that his body was wearing down. He didn't want her to have to go through that with him. And he hoped that she would be able to start a new life with David, a man who had proven his worth when he had protected Susan during their time during the Dalek invasion. He thought that he was successful in all of that.

Until the Time War.

The Time Lords had made it clear that they required every able-bodied Time Lord to fight. He realized, of course, back when he was still running from his fate, that this would include Susan. The Sweepers- the ones in charge of returning every Time Lord and Lady, wherever and whenever they were in the universe- had made several attempts to take back Susan, and the Doctor's Eighth form had been hell-bent on stopping them. No way on Gallifrey was his granddaughter going to fight in the bloodiest war in the history of the universe.

But eventually, they were one step ahead of him. They brought her back to Gallifrey. He had seen her before the High Council. Oh, he had been so furious with Romana when he saw what her administration had done, but there was nothing he could do. He was still fleeing the War at that point. He thought that his Susan was under a death sentence. They would send her to the front lines, and then, she would die. And if she didn't die there, she surely must have died in his inferno.

His frame gave another shudder. Clearly, everything that he thought had happened didn't. He blinked, and looked up. Rose stood above him, the pink and yellow human not having the faintest idea, not a single fathom of what was possibly going on, but she touched him gently on the shoulder.

"Doctor, who…" she seemed uncertain. "Who is she?"

Several tears were blinked away from his eyes before he responded in a voice barely above a whisper.

"She's… my granddaughter."

He was shell-shocked by his own words; he never thought he would utter them again. Not after he left her in 2165, and certainly not after the Time War.

He heard Rose's voice call after him, the tone completely incredulous, but he couldn't find it in him to care. He rushed after David, his hands trembling as the human lay Susan down on a bed that was clearly the one that they shared. He felt a numb pang of relief that she had settled down with the 22nd century man. He hadn't failed her too much.

"Doctor," David said as Rose caught up to the Doctor, the human woman standing halfway in the doorway, listening quietly. "What's happened to her? She just… collapsed. Screaming about… her head, being empty. What's…?"

"Take a seat," the Doctor said, gesturing to the armchairs that were beside the bed.

"I'd rather stand, thanks-"

"Take a seat." His voice held all the authority of the old grandfather he had been so very long ago. David looked up briefly in surprise, and then he did as he was told.

"I don't know how much Susan told you about our people, but-"

"The Time Lords?" David's face twisted in disgust. "Oh, we know them all too well."

The Doctor raised his head, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. David shook his head, restraining his temper as his eyes flickered over to where his wife lay, unconscious.

"It was five years ago, and five years after you left her with us, after the invasion. We had begun the rebuilding process just two years before, and everything was fine. We built this house from the ground up, and helped with most of the sector too. The Daleks were still a threat in some places, so we were very careful about who we let in. You see, they'd begun to hide their spies amongst us even more carefully than with the Robomen. We don't see them as much anymore, but the Daleks- they would graft one of their eye sockets into a human's forehead, and a gun in their hand. Roboheads, we started calling them. No one knew the wiser, until they slaughtered twenty people in sector twelve. That made all of us more suspicious of everyone."

"Where do the Time Lords come into this?" the Doctor asked a bit rudely, the mention of his people agitating him.

"Sorry, sorry. Anyways, five years ago, we found out that Susan and I… well, we were going to have a baby." David's mouth quirked up ever so slightly, his eyes shining with the pride of a father. The Doctor's hearts tightened when it dawned on him that the small boy from before- Alex, he remembered- must have been his great grandson. A little half Time Tot.

"We were ecstatic, and… and we were getting everything ready, with the house, and the nursery, when… they came. The Time Lords." David's eyes darkened. "They took her. Told me about some war or another they needed her for. Left without a trace. I didn't see her for two months. I thought I'd lost her." He swallowed, blinking back the tears. "They returned her, and the look in her eyes… she looked as though she'd seen the end of the world."

"They brought her back," the Doctor muttered, unable to tear his eyes from his granddaughter. "Why would they bring her back?"

"No one stuck around to explain anything," David murmured, lost in his story. "It took her weeks to say more than a few words to me. She told me… eventually, she told me about the Untempered Schism. How they tried to make her become a proper Time Lord by looking into it so she could fight in that war, and how every time she ran away, terrified. They tried to force a regeneration cycle onto her, but her body kept rejecting it."

"Every… time?" the Doctor questioned, his voice cracking slightly. "They made her look into it more than once?"

"She said they had her for a month," David said quietly. "And she said that she was made to look once every day."

The Doctor felt sick, horror forming in his throat. His granddaughter- they had done that to his granddaughter. She should have gone mad.

"I suppose they gave up, eventually," David said bitterly. "But she was so scarred afterwards- when she finally did start talking again, she talked about how awful that war was. All the travesties, and the devastations, and-"

"Yes, I know about the war," the Doctor said shortly. "Believe me, I know."

David looked at the Time Lord closer now. "Susan, she… told me she knew Gallifrey wouldn't win. She didn't know how she knew, but she just… felt it. Was she…"

"No one won," the Doctor said mournfully, swallowing hard. "No one left to do any winning."

"No one left?" David asked incredulously. "How do you mean-? Surely, there must be…"

"There isn't," the Doctor snapped, causing David to draw back slightly. "There's no one left. I made bloody well sure of that."

His voice echoed in his ears, and suddenly, the emptiness in his head filled with another presence. His eyes shot over to Susan, her eyes open wide with horror.

"Grandfather?"

Her voice was as broken as his hearts.