Chapter 9
Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England, sat on an ornately carved, upholstered chair, and gazed out of the window across the lawns and gardens towards the trees in the distance where earlier today, her love had asked her to marry him. She may have been a ruling monarch, but she was also a woman, and like any woman, she longed for her husband to return.
The wedding guests were standing about in an awkward silence, punctuated by the gentle murmuring of gossip and speculation. Elizabeth dragged her eyes away from the window, and searched the room for her trusted advisor. "Sir William," she called to Lord Cecil. "I would be alone with my thoughts at this time."
"Of course you're Majesty." He quietly went around the room, speaking to the guests and explaining that it was time for them to leave. He advised them not to speak of today's events, lest they incur the queen's displeasure. None of the guests wanted to do that, as they were rather fond of their heads, and were quite keen to keep them attached to their necks.
Elizabeth returned to her vigil, watching a pair of peacocks strutting across the lawn, vying for the attention of a hen. Gradually, that sixth sense which tells you that someone is behind you, watching you, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
She glanced away from the window, and instinctively jumped when she saw a young, blonde pauper standing silently in the middle of the room. She was immediately on guard. How had this waif and stray gained access to the castle, and what did she want?
"Who are you? How did you get in here?"
"You need to make preparations for events that are yet to pass," Bad Wolf said in answer.
"What do you mean, what do you know of these events?"
Bad Wolf's eyes flashed with a golden light. "Everything. The Zygon threat seen today will manifest in the future. You have it within your power to warn the Doctor of the impending danger."
"Those red demons! What must I do?"
No sooner had she finished speaking, when she was standing in the dungeon of the Tower of London, where the Zygons had been translated into the stasis cube paintings. Except now, there was another three dimensional painting, larger than the rest, that depicted a city of beautiful towers and spires that reached for the sky. That beauty was marred however, by the pall of smoke that hung in the air, smoke rising from the flames of an inferno that blazed in the heart of the metropolis.
"The painting is called Gallifrey Falls," Bad Wolf informed her.
"Is that where he has gone… my husband?" Elizabeth asked.
"Yes, he is there at the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city," Bad Wolf told her.
Elizabeth put her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. "Does he… does he survive?" She was afraid to ask, because she was afraid of the answer.
"He survives," Bad Wolf said simply.
"Oh, thank God! Then I will see him again, my Love. Lord be praised."
Bad Wolf remained silent on that particular subject. The Moment would not provide information that would affect established events and cause a paradox. It knew that she would see the Doctor again in thirty seven years time, and she would be less than pleased to see him, and so Bad Wolf continued with her task.
Elizabeth found herself standing in front of the oak desk in her study back at the castle. "You really must give me warning when you do that, it makes one's head spin."
"I won't be doing it again," Bad Wolf said.
"Thank you."
"No, I mean this is the final act that will complete the time line."
"And what act is that?" Elizabeth asked, slightly miffed that an apparent pauper was telling the queen of England what to do.
"That is up to you, you're Majesty. How will you alert the Doctor to the danger contained within the paintings?"
Elizabeth thought about that. How would she get the Doctor, who was now her husband, to come to her here in what was his past?
"The paintings must be secured; hidden away so that the red demons cannot easily escape." She moved around the desk and sat in the chair, reaching for a sheet of paper and placing it on the inlaid green leather desk top. "I will write a letter explaining the peril, and the painting of his home under attack will prove that it is I who is writing to him."
She lifted the lid on the pot of ink, took one of the quills from the holder, and started to write.
'My dearest love, I hope the painting known as Gallifrey Falls will serve as proof that it is your Elizabeth who writes to you now. You will recall that you pledged yourself to the safety of my kingdom. In this capacity I have appointed you as curator of the Under Gallery, where deadly danger to England is locked away. Should any disturbance occur within its walls, it is my wish that you be summoned. God speed, gentle husband'.
She folded the paper, and sealed it with red wax, pressing the royal seal into it. The letter would be kept with the painting until the day it would be opened by her Love.
"There, it is do…" She looked up, and saw that she was alone in her study.
Over the following weeks, she busied herself with the affairs of state, to occupy her time whilst she waited for her husband to return. She planned the occupation of La Harve with help from the French Protestant Huguenot allies, in the hope of exchanging it for Calais which was lost four years previously.
She received a visit from a courier from the court of King Eric XIV of Sweden, who had sent a letter with an offer of marriage. Had she not already have been married, she may have considered the offer. But as it was she sent a polite refusal. She also received a similar proposal from Archduke Charles of Austria, which received a similar polite thanks, but no thanks.
As the weeks turned to months, her longing became disappointment when there was still no word from her love. There had been no sightings of him, and no travellers had heard stories of the Doctor. She knew that the mysterious woman who had been dressed as a pauper said he had survived the fall of Arcadia, but was he injured? Was he lying in a hospital or monastery, being tended to by nuns or monks?
As the months turned into years, her disappointment became annoyance that he hadn't sent word to her. Surely he could find some way to send a message. There were plenty of noblemen, traders, and pilgrims that came to London who could carry a letter to their queen and receive her favour. What if he had lost his memory in the fighting? He could be wandering the land as a lost soul, not knowing that he was Prince Consort.
As the years turned to decades, hope faded and her annoyance turned to sadness as she suspected that the mysterious pauper had lied to her, perhaps as an act of kindness so that she wouldn't have to mourn her husband on her wedding day.
It was one evening in 1599, when Lord Bentham came to her and raved about William Shakespeare's latest play, Love's Labours Won at the Globe. Apparently he had outdone himself with the stage effects. She decided that she would go and meet her favourite playwright the next day and request a private performance.
"Will!" Burbage called to the playwright, who was sitting on the stage.
"Will, you'll never believe it. She's here! She's turned up!" Kempe told him.
"We're the talk of the town. She heard about last night. She wants us to perform it again," Burbage said.
"Who?" an attractive, dark skinned woman asked.
"Her Majesty. She's here." As trumpets played a fanfare, Elizabeth was escorted onto the stage by two of her pikemen.
"Queen Elizabeth the First!" a familiar voice said.
"Doctor?" Elizabeth said in disbelief. He wasn't dead, he wasn't injured, and after thirty seven years, he hadn't aged a day.
"What?" the Doctor said, apparently surprised to see her.
Betrayal! Her sadness turned to anger as she realised that her husband had abandoned her all those years ago. But it didn't stop there. Her anger turned to fury, as she saw him with a young, attractive dark skinned woman. It was the worst kind of betrayal. He had abandoned her and taken up with another woman.
"My sworn enemy," she declared, any love that she had felt for him evaporating in a fog of rage.
"What?" he repeated.
How dare he pretend that he didn't know what she was angry about! "Off with his head!"
"What?" he said again.
"Never mind what, just run! See you, Will, and thanks," the dark skinned woman said, tugging the Doctor's arm and running off the stage.
Oh how he had hurt her. All those years of pining, yearning. "Stop that pernicious Doctor," she commanded her pikemen.
Hell may hath no fury like a woman scorned, but the universe has no fury like a jilted queen.
The tenth Doctor ran up the ramp to the console and activated the Time Rotor. "Okay, next stop National Gallery, and then on to Gallifrey."
"Er, Doctor?" Clara said.
"Yes," the two Doctors said together.
This was getting annoying now. "You Doctor," she said, pointing at Ten. "Not my Doctor."
"Yeah?" he enquired.
She looked him up and down. "Don't you think you should get changed?"
"Eh?" He looked down at his Elizabethan outfit that Clara found so 'sexy'. "Oh, right. Yeah, I suppose I should." He made his way out of the console room, and headed for the Wardrobe.
Clara watched him go before turning to her Doctor. "Do you think you can stop him?"
"What, from changing out of that outfit? Why would I want to? He looks far too good in it," Eleven said with a lopsided smile.
"No, not him. The old Doctor. Do you think you can stop him from destroying Gallifrey?"
Eleven took a deep breath and gave a sigh of resignation. "It's already happened Clara. It's a fixed point in time; we couldn't change it even if we wanted to."
"But it hasn't happened," she protested. "He hasn't done it yet. There's still time. You're Time Lords for God's sake… You have a time machine… What am I on about, you've got two of them."
"Clara, do you know how you were born?" Eleven asked her.
"Of course, procreation is pretty standard stuff," she said.
"A leaf!" he told her.
"What? I've heard it called birds and bees, but never a leaf."
"A leaf blew into your father's face, and he didn't see the car coming. Your mother pulled him out of the path of the car, and they met."
"Wha? How do you know that? Have you been stalking my family?" she asked suspiciously.
"What do you think would have happened to you if I had plucked that leaf out of the air?" He held her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Neither me or him want this to happen," he said, nodding towards the doorway. "But it has happened, and maybe… just maybe we can share the burden of guilt and ease his suffering."
"But..." She wanted to protest. She wanted him to be brilliant and come up with a way of changing things like he normally did. But she realised that even he had his limitations. He would still be with Rose Tyler if he didn't, and Donna Noble would still have her memories.
"Right then, that's better," Ten said as he walked into a subdued and ominously quiet control room. "What's up?"
"Nothing," Clara said sadly.
"I was just giving Clara a lesson in temporal physics, about non-linear progression of cause and effect," Eleven told him.
"Ah, she wants us to stop him," Ten said as he landed the TARDIS. "There we are, side by side. I'm slaving the TARDIS to yours so that we go together."
Eleven held out his hand. "Come on Clara, we have a date with destiny."
They walked reluctantly down the ramp and out of the door, to find their own TARDIS. Once inside, Eleven set the coordinates and activated the Time Rotor.
"Hmm, that was an unusually smooth ride to say we've just passed through a Time Lock and overridden the Backtime Field Buffers," he said as he studied the monitor.
"We're here then?"
"It would seem so, yes."
Clara hurried down the ramp and opened the door. "I told you. He hasn't done it yet," she said as she stepped outside.
"Go away now, all of you. This is for me," the gruff voiced old man said.
Ten stepped out of his TARDIS and had the same realisation as Eleven. "These events should be time-locked. We shouldn't even be here."
"So something let us through," Eleven reasoned.
"Go back. Go back to your lives. Go and be the Doctor that I could never be. Make it worthwhile," the numberless Doctor pleaded. He was so loathed and despised that he wasn't even worth a number.
"All those years, burying you in my memory," Ten confessed.
"Pretending you didn't exist. Keeping you a secret, even from myself," Eleven continued.
"Pretending you weren't the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else," Ten said.
Eleven looked at the numberless Doctor. "You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right."
"But this time…" Ten started.
"...You don't have to do it alone," Eleven finished, as they put their hands on the big red button with his.
"Thank you," the weary numberless Doctor said
Ten wanted to justify their actions. "What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way."
"And it is done in the name of the many lives we are failing to save," Eleven said. They'd had days before when they couldn't save everyone, but never where they couldn't save anyone.
He glanced over at Clara, who was standing there, slowly shaking her head, silently imploring them not to do it.
"What?" Eleven asked her. "What is it? What?"
"Nothing," she said in that typically human way of meaning 'everything'.
"No, it's something. Tell me."
"You told me you wiped out your own people. I just... I never pictured you doing it... that's all."
Suddenly, the barn went dark. "What's happening?" Clara asked, looking around in a panic.
"Nothing," the numberless Doctor told her. "It's a projection."
They were standing in a war torn street in Arcadia; people were running past them in panic. Mothers were trying to protect their children. Fathers were trying to lead them to a place of safety, but no where was safe on Gallifrey that day.
She saw a child's cuddly toy burning on the ground. Out of all the death and destruction around them, that sight affected her most. "These are the people you're going to burn?" Clara asked, tears starting to trickle down her cheeks.
"There isn't anything we can do," Ten said in sad resignation.
"He's right. There isn't another way. There never was. Either I destroy my own people or let the universe burn," Eleven told her.
"Look at you... The three of you. The warrior, the hero... and you," she said, looking at the Numberless, Ten, and Eleven.
Eleven walked forward and stood in front of Clara. "And what am I?" he asked, more of himself than of Clara,
"Have you really forgotten?" She nearly cried the question.
"Yes," he replied. "Maybe... yes."
"We've got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero," she told him.
"Then what do I do?" he whispered, desperate for her to tell him he was wrong and that there was another way.
She closed her eyes in despair. He really was lost. When she opened her eyes, she saw the look of a little lost boy in his eyes. "What you've always done... Be a doctor."
Somehow, when she reminded him of that, the darkness seemed to lighten. The sounds of battle faded, and an eerie silence fell on the scene.
"You told me the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?
Ten looked over the scene in sadness. "Never cruel or cowardly."
"Never give up," the old warrior whispered. "Never give in."
They watched people come out of hiding and look up to the clear sky. Children ran to their parents to be enveloped in loving embraces before the scene faded and they were once again standing in the barn. Eleven looked at them from under his eyebrows with an expression of expectation, as though he was waiting for them to make a connection.
Ten realised that Eleven was thinking of something very risky. "You're not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?" Rose had tried that once with her father, and it had not gone well.
"We change history all the time," he whispered, as though time itself were listening. "I'm suggesting far worse."
"What, exactly?" the old, numberless Doctor asked hopefully.
"Gentlemen, I have had four hundred years to think about this," he told them. Clara could feel the mood changing. He'd done it, he'd come up with a brilliant idea.
Eleven took his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket. "I've changed my mind." He 'sonicked' the big red button back into the Moment.
"There's still a billion billion Daleks up there, attacking," Numberless said as Ten and Eleven started pacing excitedly.
"Yeah, there is... There is," Eleven agreed. Clara was bubbling with excitement.
Ten had picked up on the idea. "But there's something those billion billion Daleks don't know."
Eleven pointed at Ten, acknowledging the point. "Because if they did, they'd probably send for reinforcements."
"What? What don't they know?" Clara asked. What had her Doctor realised?
"This time, there's three of us," Eleven said with a conviction that would make the attacking Dalek army run for the hills.
Numberless looked up to the roof and clasped his head. "Oh! Oh, yes, that is good... That is brilliant!"
As Eleven's idea radiated from his mind through time and space, Ten caught it as well. "Oh, oh, oh, I'm getting that too! That is brilliant!" He leapt into the air and slapped his TARDIS in excitement.
"Ha, ha, ha! I've been thinking about it for centuries," Eleven told them. All of those 'what ifs' floating around in his head, occupying his thoughts and haunting his nightmares.
"She didn't just show me any old future, she showed me exactly the future I needed to see," the old warrior told them in realisation.
That stumped them. "Eh? Who did?" Eleven asked.
"Oh, Bad Wolf girl, I could kiss you," he said, blowing a kiss into the air.
"Sorry, did you just say Bad Wolf?" Ten asked. What did Bad Wolf have to do with saving Gallifrey?