Author's notes: There is no canon. There's only "what I remember", "what I feel like changing", and "the story I happen to be telling today". That said, "The Timeless Children" was "Lungbarrow" all over again, only "Lungbarrow" actually had a story. It had interesting characters. It wasn't the Doctor standing there being exposited at while the Cybermen ran around pointlessly in the background. It revealed enough to be satisfying and held back enough to keep the mystery. It was weird. It had panache. If you insist on doing a "The Doctor is more than just a Time Lord" story, "Lungbarrow" is about as good as it gets. (Yeah, yeah, I admit it, I love "Lungbarrow". I bought it from the bookstore when it first came out, so nyah!) So here I am, writing my version,combining bits of both. (And the ascended Cybermen idea, which I think is from the comics, but I haven't read those.)
Of course, this is just going to be me doing endless exposition, but hey, I'm not being paid to write this stuff!
Samsara: the endless cycle of rebirth into the mundane world
Dukkha: the suffering and fragility experienced in samsara
.
Wait, wait, I know this place. This is Shada. The Time Lord prison! But the Time Lords are gone. Who else would send me here?
Never mind, obvious answer to that one. He's been dead before, it never sticks. The other questions can wait until you get out of here.
Think, Doctor, think. No doors, no windows, the walls are mirrors. One-way mirrors? Who's watching? Again, see previous point.
A room of mirrors. Ah! Nothing here to look at but myself. Self-reflection, is that the idea? Oh, very droll. Top marks for bloody literal-mindedness.
Fine, let's look at me, then. Timeless Child? So he's been digging around in the Matrix, I'll buy that much. He has past form for it, certainly.
Just as you have form for burying your own past.
You!
They called me the Doctor of War. No wonder you don't want to remember me. But do you think I'm the only one?
So not your common or garden one-way mirror then, but something more. A mirror that reflects memories rather than light? Gallifreyan technology, of course it would be telepathic.
That, or you've gone mad with boredom. But I doubt even you would succumb so quickly.
It's designed to torture the prisoner with their own guilt, is that it?
That's not for me to say.
No, you don't go far back enough. You can't tell me what I need to know. Come on, Doctor, concentrate. She said she was me, or I was her. No memory wipe can be that complete. Can it?
It depends on where you store your memories.
You. Why are you here? Question mark jumpers and umbrellas and chess games with evil from the dawn of time, I'm past all that.
I'm here to remind you. You think you're the first one to remember?
What? What did you remember?
If you're very clever—
If you're me—
If you're me. You don't keep all your memories inside your own head.
Then where?
Everywhere. Nowhere. Stitched in invisible thread in the fabric of time. Makes a heavy cloak, I can tell you that much. Not practical for everyday wear.
I don't understand.
I was the one who went home. Do you remember that?
House Lungbarrow.
Lungbarrow. And farther back than that.
Ancient Gallifrey. I almost remember. A memory of a memory. Was I there? Is it my memory? It could be anyone.
Farther back, farther forward, sideways in time...
You! I was hoping to see you again. You're in the blank space. The 'Division'. You worked for the Division, didn't you? It must have become the CIA in my time, but before that... what did they do? What did they make me do? The CIA with even fewer scruples? I need to remember what you remember.
Then remember. Contact!
Ah! Ah. All those lives. All those deaths. But I wasn't alone. There was someone else, someone with us. Him! The man who was with you — Lee. I know him. I remember. He's—
The Master.
Wait, how is that possible? Unless he's had more lives, too, which must mean... what does it mean?
In the legends of Ancient Gallifrey...
Tell me!
He's the Timeless Child. We were always the other one.
Other one?
Rassilon, Omega, and... oh yes, that other one. The one from elsewhere. The one it's safer not to mention.
Unless of course it's our Cousin Glospin. He could never shut up about it.
Rude little man. This isn't your time. Doctor, do you understand now?
You're talking about... you're talking about the Other? You're saying we were...
Does it matter? Did it matter when you thought you were the Timeless Child? What does it change?
Nothing. Because—
I'm me, now.
—I'm me, now. A madwoman in a box. What more do we need to remember? Everything else is just trivia.
Bravo, Doctor. Bit slow on the uptake, but you got there in the end.
You! I knew it. This /is/ your doing. How did you walk through the wall?
Is that all you have to say after sending that old man to kill me? I'm hurt.
Not that it seems to have slowed you down. You didn't even regenerate.
What, from the 'Death Particle'? *snort* *giggle*
Is it funny? Is genocide a joke to you!?
Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. How gullible are you? A single particle that destroys all 'organic' life. You may as well cast a spell! Whatever their achievements, the Cybermen have never been magicians.
But you, you must have convinced them somehow. They believed...
Simple minds, easily manipulated. Just like the Judoon. You, on the other hand — I expected more of a challenge! You're slipping, Doctor...
Then Ko Sharmus died for nothing.
He died for you. As I said, simple minds are easily manipulated. It doesn't take a Master — even a mere Doctor could do it.
I didn't touch his mind!
And here I thought you were finally being honest with yourself. Ah well, I should have known self-reflection was wasted on you.
Honesty! Yes, let's talk about honesty. You lied to me. I was never the Timeless Child.
No. You were always the monster from the shadows. The Destroyer of Worlds. If people use you, it's no more than you permit them to.
I...
Don't you dare deny it! Not after everything. You destroyed Gallifrey far more thoroughly than I ever have. Three times by my latest count.
No, no, I brought it back. I changed—
You changed your mind. Well, there will always be a next time. That is your nature.
I... maybe you have a point. But you've made it your nature! You don't have to...
It's what they made me. Do you see that, Doctor? Can you?
You... you were an innocent child. Vivisected, mutilated, killed again and again in the service of someone else's ambition. You didn't deserve any of that. But—
But now you know what it feels like. I wanted you to understand.
That much rage, it burns. Coerced into birthing a new race, no wonder... no wonder you repeated the pattern again and again, taking control of what had been forced on you. I know, I do know.
I wanted to know what you would do if it was you. I haven't been sane for a long, long time, Doctor, but neither have you.
But you could have chosen a... a different response. You had a choice! You brought death to Gallifrey.
You did the same, or thought you did. Oh, you didn't push the button yourself, but you walked away from another conflagration, another sacrifice. That's always the way with you. Bringer of death? That's you, Doctor.
They were Cybermen. I had to protect the rest of the universe from them. It was YOU who killed our people and converted them into that horror!
No, no, that's where you're wrong.
I thought we were being honest today. I was there, remember?
But I didn't turn them into Cybermen, because THAT'S WHAT THEY ALWAYS WERE!
No. No, that's not...
Are you so blinded by a bit of metal? Under that oh-so-organic skin, they're the same heartless monsters, however many lumps of muscle they have in their chests. You know what they did to me. What they did to themselves. To survive at any cost, they cut and sliced and augmented until they could call themselves the ultimate lifeforms in the universe.
It's not the same.
Then they inflicted their oh-so-benevolent vision of order across all of time and space. Beginning to see the similarities, Doctor?
...
All I did was make it harder for them to lie to themselves.
Is this... is this why you hold such a fascination for the Cybermen?
*mad laughter* Oh, I hold far more than that. I hold the Cyberium in my head now.
And that's how you're controlling the Cyber-Gallifreyans?
I'm not CONTROLLING them, Doctor. They obey because it's logical to display unity in the face of the enemy. That's you: the greatest threat to their existence.
Unity... under your leadership?
Because I have the best chance of defeating you.
And that's what the pursuit of survival leads to? Submitting to a madman consumed with rage?
Ironic, isn't it? This, this is what they've striven for all their lives.
No. It's not worth it. It can't be.
Stop deluding yourself! It's what everyone wants. To be untouchable, to be the top dog in this pathetic universe. Granted, the DOOSH DOOSH DOOSH quickly becomes tiresome, but it's not kind to kill someone for something so trivial. Weren't you the one who begged me to be kind? This is the ultimate kindness.
A universe full of soul-less cyborgs is the opposite of kindness. But it won't happen. Humanity will fight back. They always do.
And you always drive them to it. And so it goes. But now that I remember how damned LONG we've been at it, I find I'm ready for a change.
When? When did you remember? Was it in this life, or...?
Remember my little excursion back into Time War hell? Desperate times call for desperate measures, including turning the Matrix inside-out in search of salvation. Easy pickings, if you know what you're doing.
You escaped the time lock.
And when I ended up on a Mondasian colony ship, the parallels with our own history were inescapable.
Because you're letting your pain distort your perceptions!
What else is pain for? Your perceptions are just as distorted by spurious morality.
You want me to tell you you're right? That you're justified? Is that what this is about?
I stood with you, did you know that? As Missy, on that ship. It got me shot in the back by myself.
Oh.
That's me!
I didn't know. I'm sorry... I thought...
Doesn't matter. Today, I'm asking you to stand with me.
But where is that? After so many lies, is today the day I'm supposed to believe you?
Yes.
Fine. Let's talk about ancient history. In the legends, it was Rassilon who brought the Time Lords the gift of regeneration. Darker rumors have him stealing it from the Great Vampires, but nowhere is Tecteum mentioned.
She experimented on herself. Experiments not as successful as she hoped. What she hoped for was bodily immortality, in herself, because she didn't want to become someone else, as she feared.
The Sisterhood of Karn have something like that.
But Tecteum didn't have the benefit of their miraculous elixir. Immortality could only achieved by constant growth, constant consumption. Her experiments gave her an insatiable hunger. The other subjects in her initial test group fared no better. As the body count piled up, the cover-up became impossible to maintain. You see where I'm going with this...
She created the Great Vampires?
And Rassilon, the hero of the people, rode in on his shining bowship to destroy them. He also took over the experiments, naturally... though the bulk of the work was overseen by his mysterious advisor, skilled in the sciences and the 'dark arts'.
You're talking about the Other?
I'm talking about the one who ended the experiments. Eventually. Regeneration could only be stable with a complete genetic reshuffling, but too many changes led to monsters being created. So they limited the number to twelve. And the Timeless Child was granted the same gift, the only mercy possible after what he had become in the end.
Was that why Rassilon banished the Other?
Rassilon overthrew one corrupt empire with the aid of his mysterious advisor, then tried to ensure the same couldn't happen to him.
No, no, I almost remember. The Other walked away. Destroyed himself in the energy of the genetic looms.
And that was that. Dead and dead.
Obviously not.
The Division. Tell me about the Division. You know more than you're saying. A few blank spots in the Matrix? That wouldn't have stopped you.
Got me, Doctor. Yeah, I remember. Not everything, but I remember enough.
If we were dead, how did we end up working for the Division?
Death has never stopped us. Or the Time Lords when they think someone can be useful. The funny thing is, we volunteered.
What? Why? Why would you...?
Don't you see, Doctor? I had to believe in the Great Time Lord Destiny by then, or what was my suffering for? My mother's sacrifice, all the people who died for the secrets she extracted from the Timeless Child, how could it be for nothing? Ah, the folly of youth.
And me? The person I met, she was me. I've never been the joining-up sort.
Yes, I suppose your experiences in the Division had that effect on you.
No, but why? Why would I...?
You don't remember? No, I suppose you don't like to. You didn't remember then, either. No one recognized you. Rassilon was gone by then, being more convenient as a legend in the tower rather than a living icon breathing down everyone's necks.
But you knew who I was?
I always know you, Doctor. I don't know where you really came from, but I knew you had lost your home. So, so, lonely. So desperate to fit in somewhere. So desperate to belong. Reborn as a peon, destined to be a pawn.
A pawn in the thick of the game, when a player can only look down on the board.
Until you realize the game is rotten, and it's time to change it.
The two I met in Gloucester. They had run away, hidden themselves among the humans. He remembered who he was, but she didn't, not at first.
Not the first or the last time I kept memories for you.
The Time Lords caught up, shot 'Lee'. 'Ruth' got away that time, but I doubt the Division gave up so easily.
No. They decided we were too dangerous. They erased even their own memories, wiped the Matrix records. You died, knowing what was coming. I wasn't so lucky. They caught me and wiped my mind and locked me here on Shada.
So this...
This is my old cell.
You escaped?
No. Perhaps I was waiting for you. But you never came for me.
I was dead.
Yet here you are. I served the term of my sentence. But by then, no one remembered my crimes. A special directive left with the CIA was all that was left. Wiped again, sent to be reborn into Gallifreyan society as a model citizen. Well, that lasted until I met you.
...we were a pair of little troublemakers, weren't we?
Never stopped.
Look at us, Doctor. So many reflections. So many lifetimes. Is it enough? It's time we make our own path. Free of Gallifrey, free of the Time Lords.
But what they've become...
Is their choice. Cyberconversion can be reversed by regeneration. Yet you saw. They chose not to.
Do they truly have free will? I think you rigged the game.
And you'd burn the board before you let them win.
Their victory would be...
Be what? Do you truly know? You think cyberconversion is a dead end, but you're wrong, because where there's life, there's change.
A change for the worse.
Or for the better. Or simply different. I don't know, but we'll never find out unless we allow for the possibility. Let the Time Lords go, Doctor. Immortality is a curse. Everyone learns that, eventually.
And where does that leave us?
Immortality may be a curse, but the universe is far larger than Gallifrey and Earth. Don't be so narrow-minded.
You think I'm narrow-minded? You're the one who—
Free. That's where we are. We're free. And I'm saying yes.
What?
'We could travel the stars.' Remember that? You said that. Amidst an embarrassing gush of flattery, but it's the thought that counts.
It didn't end well, last time we tried it.
It's not about the endings, Doctor. It's never been about the endings. So. Ready to try again?
...
Come on, Doctor. You and me, whole universe. What do you say?
All right. Yes. This is me, saying yes.
Now that's decided, let's go fetch your little pets. Can you imagine the looks on their faces? It'll be brilliant. Though you should let me thin the herd. How about granddad? He's slow and useless, no one will miss him.
Don't you dare!
No? Right, then, time to blow this joint.