Realisations and then resolutions come to the Dalek and the Doctor, as they hunker above the weeping wound in the side of the universe; the Dragon's Eye.
DOCTOR (curious)
How bad is 'very bad?'
CAAN (considering)
You remember all that mischief you got up to before?
DOCTOR (looking rather unsettled)
Which never happened.
CAAN (staring intently)
Which never happened because I undid those timelines, yes that mischief.
A look of something that could have been shame or something else passes over the Doctor who is not the Doctor's face.
DOCTOR (somber)
Yes, I remember.
CAAN
Well, everyone else is going to start remembering too.
The Doctor visibly goes a shade or three paler.
DOCTOR (childlike dread)
But what I've done...
CAAN
But not just what you've done, they will remember all-things, every thing real and imagined.
A sad and weary look crosses the copy's face as he realises the full temerity of what the Dalek is implying.
DOCTOR (grim)
That's it then, we have lost.
The imitation Doctor's implied 'we' being everyone in existence losing. However, the little mad Dalek offers a shred of scant, bitter hope.
CAAN (reproachful)
Cheer up, we still have to track down the late Dr. Donna Noble, irregardless of the circumstance. After all, we haven't lost per say...
The Doctor looks up, hoping and expectant for some miracle words from this tentacled sage of space-time.
CAAN (wry)
...We're only losing.
The sound of maddening mechanical laughter drifts off towards the Dragon's Eye as the gathered vestiges of the Dalek's sanity slips away.
--
A door opens and reveals a bright light beyond, it's both exhilarating and blinding in it's luminosity.
DONNA (reacting to the brightness)
Blimey!
There is an audible, albeit uncomfortable clearing of the throat, as the figure in white steps forward, taking the loud redhead forward by the hand that still grasps his.
FIGURE (hesitant)
Come. Look. See.
DONNA (alarmed)
Oh. My. God.
As the two cross the threshold and leave the square room behind them, the light is no longer blinding, it's... normal!
FIGURE (reciting)
I wouldn't know about that, but a polyphotic differential is to be expected with trans-extant travel. People are always finding lights at the end of their tunnels, but that's because the nature of 'light' is different to each plane of existence. When you become a part of that existence, light becomes 'normal' for you, and you see it as inhabitants of the plane see it.
DONNA (agitated)
Bloody hell!
Regardless of the figure in white's technobabble, as their eyes have adjusted to new light, they find that beyond the door is...
DONNA
Blimey, it's another bloody door!
As Donna Noble is so libel to eloquently put it in her state of surprised annoyance, beyond the door is another door. Many in fact. The two appear to be in a long white hallway filled with many white doors, stretching in either direction as far as their eyes could see.
FIGURE (soft spoken)
Um, er, there's more than one door, you know.
DONNA
I can see there's more than one door, Charlie man. That's not the point, the point that there's even one more door is one too many, never mind the rest of these blasted doors.
The figure in white, or 'Chuck,' is caught up by the fact that he's a 'Charlie man' again and not a 'Charlie boy,' and forgets to try and correct the fiery redhead about his name. Chuck's as good a name as any other, names meaning very little in his line of work at the very least.
CHUCK
Doors, rooms, and hallways are quite natural for this part of the abstract. It's one of the easiest ways of understanding it.
DONNA (still annoyed)
Great... I lose one blathering nut, (albeit a wonderful and brilliant nut,) only just in time to find another.
The figure in white, the newly christened 'Chuck,' looks crestfallen, taking the wily woman's words a little too close to heart.
DONNA
Oh relax, I don't mind that much, not really. I've got at least as bad a blathering running around my head, several in fact.
Chuck starts to look a little better.
CHUCK
Really?
DONNA
Yeah. Thankfully they each drown the rest out, little more than a muddled buzzing now, leaving me with some sense of peace. And truly, I don't mind the company. Still better than being trapped.
The figure seems to relax, enough to crack a tentative smile.
CHUCK (nodding)
Better company too; company that can even open doors.
Donna laughs out loud at the last, starting to gain a shine for this odd but enlightening lad.
DONNA
Did you just crack a joke there? There might be some hope for you yet Chuckie.
'Chuck' says nothing but offers a shy smile, pleased with himself. This Donna Noble is different than anyone he's ever met, but he thinks that he likes it that way, even if it will take a lot of getting used to.
--
There is the calamitous braying of sonic gunfire, angry red sound waves lashing into the side of an old communications building. A fractured city scape is sprawled across the pockmarked face of Old 'New Earth.' Detonation sites being behind those 'pock marks' as likely a guess as any, and a more likely guess than many. A young recruit and a grizzled old veteran are pinned down against a wall, using it for cover against the lethal braying barrage.
VETERAN
How much charge you got left in that blaster ah yours, child?
RECRUIT
I'm not a child! I stopped being a child when the red bastards got June!
VETERAN
All right kid, settle down, I see your point. Still, how many shots?
The former child looks resigned, and remains silent.
VETERAN
How many!
RECRUIT
Six! All right, I've got just six damned shots left.
VETERAN
Six, eh? An unlucky number, we might have made it with seven, but six?
RECRUIT (giving a knowing look)
Come off it old man.
VETERAN (considering)
All right, I guess you really aren't a kid, child. Six or seven, makes no lick ah difference gainst the likes ah dem.
RECRUIT
So what do we do?
VETERAN
Innit obvious? Taint nothing else ta do, we keep fighting, die like men, least ways all we can do.
A resounding sonic boom like the braying laughter of a thousand red donkeys hammers into the side of the remnant communications building.
RECRUIT (rueful)
Die like men? Ha. No one dies like men with the red dogs. Even I know that. Looks like they've gotten tired of trading shots with us and brought in the cannoneers.
VETERAN (wry)
Heh, guess you're right, girly. Still, let an old man hope, rather go down blazing with a blaster in my hand then in a red bastard's breeding pit.
The grizzled old veteran of the Time Agency says this last wish, well knowing that the 'red dogs' will only disable their motor-functions, leaving them immobile, but still very able to be taken by the 'red bastards.'
RECRUIT
I just wish Junius was with us, so I could see him one last time.
VETERAN
So do I, kid, so do I.
RECRUIT
We're almost out of blaster charges, do you think for once in your miserable old life you could use my real name?
VETERAN
If you like. But only if you call me-
The sound of thumping boots in formation echoes round the corner, as the 'dogs' are now marching down on them after the cannon fire.
VETERAN (determined)
Ready, Julia?
RECRUIT (blinks at the sound of her name)
Ready!
Six shots to make a stand with, plus four more charges in the old soldier's blaster. They are, barring perhaps one other, the last of their unit, sent to Old 'New Earth' to stop the Crimson from ever happening, here where it all begins.
RECRUIT (shouting a battle cry)
For June!
VETERAN (echoing the girl quietly)
For June.
They shout and mutter respectively as they pop around the corner, blasters screaming death upon the enemy. Once, twice, thrice, four, five, six, seven, eight... Eight times those blasters scream out death, felling an incoming marcher with each. Eight out of ten shots fired, eight out of a hundred 'red bastards' killed. The veteran has saved his last two shots.
VETERAN (whispering)
I'm satisfied with dying as an August, if only because I cant die as a man with a blaster in hand.
RECRUIT (missing the words)
What?
The veteran has saved his last two shots. The 'red bastards' sonic barrage disables motor-function only, the Crimson take their prey alive. One. Two. The Veteran's last two shots are fired, but no more marchers are downed.
--
DOCTOR
I'd say don't laugh, it cant be as terrible as your laughing makes it out to be, old buddy. But then if we're dealing with what your implying, then it's worse then your laughing you possibly ever underline; and that's saying a lot, because you are an atrocious laugher.
CAAN
I don't know whether to be pleased or insulted, creature. Not that it matters. There is still a chance that it might all come right in the end, if we find the Doctor Donna. Barring that...
DOCTOR
Barring that we're more doomed than a Time Agent trapped at the end of the Fifty-second century...
The Doctor trails off and the Dalek stares at the chrono-copy queerly.
CAAN (edgy)
What did you say that for? Nothing happens at the end of the Fifty-second century, the Time Agency is disbanded in the Fifty-first anyway. I changed the timelines, I made sure that the Crimson never happens. You never burned New Earth, you never stole the Rod of Suns, and you never gave the Neos the Paradigm.
DOCTOR (staring)
Oh, dear.
CAAN
Hmmm?
DOCTOR (clearly looking back at the Vortex, at the representation above them for all of Time and Space)
It's the changing Constant, it's... rippling.
CAAN (now looking up)
By Davros, it's not rippling, it's bleeding! It's bleeding!
The universal Constant, that part of the ever-changing Vortex that never changes (like how pencils never fall up, why the good guys get to win Armageddon, and why the Doctor is always British) was changing. Not only that, but it was causing a ripple across the Vortex. All the timey-wimey bits around the piece that represented the Constant were rippling outwards in a uniform pattern. But it was more than that, all those rippling bits, they were all the same colour, the crimson of blood. It looked exactly like when someone wearing a white shirt is shot in the chest, the telltale redflower appears. Well the Time Vortex, that Time-Lord marvel connected to virtually ever bit of space and time, was actually suffering a redflower. What was done had become undone, dark destinies averted were seeing the new timelines reverted.