Author's Note: My other story, "The Void" is refusing to be written right now, so here's another chapter for this one.
The Matrix I mention in the first scene is not the same thing as the Data Matrix mentioned previously. This Matrix is a part of Time Lord technology, which was heavily referenced in the classic series. It effectively makes Time Lords immortal, taking their consciousnesses when they run out of regenerations, and they live in the Matrix. It is also said to hold the entirety of Time Lord power.
Fire was everywhere, burning, melting, cutting, maiming. Rivers of lava flowed steadily across the blackened ground, turning dust to particles in the air, banishing them forever from the planet's surface. Screaming, echoing through the huge buildings, across the landscape, up the mountains, reaching into the heavens to where he was.
The Doctor's hands were moulded into the rail he was holding, so tightly did he grip. His breath was coming in gasps, if they even made it out of his lungs at all. His chest felt like it was about to implode; something was crushing it, constricting his hearts and cruelly twisting them.
He could see ant-like figures moving across the shell of the planet, running from the flames. None of them made it, and their screams echoed inside his head.
Waves of death exploded out of the blue tipped mountains, rushing down the sides, crumbling through the slopes of red grass, moving steadily towards the Citadel.
He could see the Outsiders, pressed into service when the war had come, now betrayed and left outside the protective case of the force shield. They were screaming, running, but the lava was too fast. It took them, one by one, until there was only one left. It chased the remaining man, snapping at his heels like wild dogs, before tiring of the game, and swallowing him whole.
The Doctor's hands unclenched from the railing as it turned back towards to the Citadel. He raised his eyes to the sky, taking in the silver ships that sat there. He could feel the power of their weapons powering up. They weren't going to wait for the lava to do the job for them. They wanted to wipe out the Time Lords themselves.
He could imagine the Supreme Dalek grating out orders on the bridge, his underlings rushing to obey. There were two small pods suddenly jettisoned from the head ship. Time Lord prisoners, returning home for the final time.
It would have to be now, he thought. There's no time for anything else. He has to do it now.
The voice of Rassilon echoes in his head. "You will join the ranks of Time Lords defending our home world. You will lay down your life for our race." What he had meant was 'lay down your life for me'.
But he had tried. He had fought on the front line. He had been there when the Crucible fell. He had seen the hopelessness of it all. They were never going to win. The Daleks were going to destroy them.
The words he remembered from Romana are stronger. As a deposed President, the only way she could ever return to Gallifrey was in a body bag, which she did in the first few weeks of the war. She had given him the device and told him, "This is a trigger. It's set to detonate a bomb, buried in the Matrix. It will destroy Gallifrey, and anything within ten million miles of it. If we fall... use it. Don't let them take us."
The Doctor clenched his fists together, tears free falling down his face. Why him? Why did he have to be the one? Why couldn't he have been like any of the other children? Why had he been different, and longed for the stars? If someone else had been chosen, then they might have had the courage to destroy the Daleks on Skaro before they were even created. If someone different had stolen a TARDIS and run off to the stars, maybe they would have found a way to save the Time Lords, long before this was made necessary. If...
Looking down at the button that would end everything, he found himself laughing at how inconsequential it seemed. It was tiny, lost in a mass of levers and screens. Would that button really destroy Gallifrey, not only taking the Time Lords with it, but also the Matrix? He really would be committing genocide. Double genocide, he reminded himself. The Daleks were here too.
That's what makes his finger finally stab down. If the Daleks are destroyed, then there will be no more exterminations. So he puts the universe ahead of his beautiful planet, just as he has always done. Always will.
Crossing back to the observation platform, he resumes his grip on the railing. He watches as bomb after bomb rains down on Gallifrey from the Dalek ships. Before they can make contact though, everything stops, just hanging in time. The Matrix is imploding, reaching out and drawing every Time Lord into it, hungry.
He can find it tugging at his mind, but within the TARDIS he is protected. Otherwise, the Matrix would discover the bomb switch and save itself. It matters not to the Matrix that its creators would be destroyed. All it can think of is survival. The Doctor can relate to that.
The lava turns green, as the Matrix moves through it, sliding upwards towards the Citadel. The Doctor closes his eyes, feeling the screams of people he once would have called brothers and sisters, who now die in the raging inferno.
He turns away, glancing at the Dalek ships, fighting for control as they too are sucked towards the planet. He won't stay to the end. He never has in the past, and he likes it that way.
Even so, at the other end of the universe, the scream of Rassilon as he dies, rising above all the others, will haunt him for the rest of his lives.
"Doctor! You traitor!"
"Stop!" The Doctor's arms were once again stuck to his sides, as he fought a hopeless battle with the thing in his head. "Stop! Please!"
"Mer'zaz apshes arapsst mere l'ua. Arapsst'vae lae'zaz endis." You will not reveal your life. Reveal and we will stop.
The Doctor tried to stop the tears that were flowing down his face, reigning in his emotions with a sob, but his speech was still fractured. "Tell me... who you are. Then... maybe I... will."
"Lae'mu sendas." We are animals.
"What does that mean?" he screamed.
The voice paused, the eyes dimming a little.
"Chemi dou'ka mer'apshes larai Gallifreya?" Why do you not speak Gallifreyan?
The Doctor screamed again, lashing out with his mind, putting all his strength behind a blow that should fell every sentient being within the complex. At the last second he remembers the Master, and reigns back the energy focused on him, but not before a small sliver escapes.
The eyes in his head are now the ones roaring in pain. He holds them where they are, forcing more and more energy onto them, before throwing them out, locking his mind tightly, and curling up into a rigid ball, letting the tears return.
Lucy was sleeping when the guard rapped on the bars of the door to her cell. She pulled herself into a standing position wearily, staring straight ahead.
The guard entered a second later, gesturing with a gun. "Move."
She obeyed. At first she had resisted them, but after a few beatings, she had realised that these were the worst of humanity, and they felt no pity for her. When she told them what she thought of them, they laughed, and said she was being a hypocrite, what with all the things she did when on the Valliant.
The guard took her down a long corridor, ending in the exercise room, which was also used as an interrogation room when members of the government needed something. She had spent a long, hard week in here, answering endless questions, and was now kept. Not even the lower regions of the government knew she's here, let alone UNIT or Torchwood. She had been forgotten.
The guard motioned roughly towards a table at the far end of the room. She walked over to it, keeping her head bent, only glancing at the man who is sat there when she too was seated. It wasn't bright to give any indication that she was threatening these people.
The man wore a charcoal grey suit with a red tie. He had his hands neatly folded across his chest. His eyes were icy blue, but somehow held a friendly quality. When he spoke, his voice was deep and he seemed to consider his words carefully before speaking.
"Lucy... may I call you Lucy?"
She nodded. This was just another government agent, trying to lull her into a false sense of security.
"Good... Lucy." He smiled, seemingly undiscouraged when she didn't return it. "I heard about your little... tryst with Harold Saxon. And I was wondering..." Here it comes, thought Lucy. The questions, the threats, the barely concealed hostility when he didn't get what he wanted. "Do you know where he is?"
She remained silent, knowing she would be merely wasting her breath if she were to say no.
"Hmm. Of course you do not." He was silent for a few moments, then spoke again. We will just take you then." Her eyes snapped up at this, but his were fixed on the guard over her shoulder.
He lent forwards, elbows resting on the table top between them, and smiled again. "Tell me, Lucy. Would you like to escape?"
The Master's POV:
I've crossed my arms over my chest in an act of defiance. Unfortunately, suspended as I am, I know it probably just looks silly. I've tried to free myself from the jaws of the wolf, but every time I get anywhere close the jaws shunt down a fraction, which quickly puts a stop to that idea.
"Where are you taking me?" I demand, swinging dangerously close to a wall as the wolf holding me bounds round it.
There's a muffled response that I can't make out. I'm about the ask again, when we round another corner, and all thoughts of killing all canines (including that infernal mechanical one of the Doctor's) leave my head.
In front of me, I sees the wolf that took the Doctor. It's standing in the centre of the corridor, paw raised. Its paw is resting on the Doctor's chest. The Doctor's arms resting at his sides like a robot, fists clenched. He's hanging in mid-air, simply floating.
Tears are running down his face, which is twisting, his eyes dancing beneath his eye lids.
"What the hell are you doing to him?" I shout.
"We are revealing life. We are taking it."
I begin fight savagely to get away as the wolf holding me brings me closer. "Get off--" My threat is cut short. The Doctor opens his mouth and screams. And I don't mean a normal scream. This scream is bone chilling. His hands unpin themselves from his sides and fly to the wolf's paw on his chest, tearing it off.
I expect the wolf to leap right back, but instead it folds to the ground, as does the one holding me. Dropping to the floor, I roll quickly away, and feel the energy of a Time Lord's mind pause. The Doctor's mind.
It looks at the wolves, lying motionless, and then turns its attention to me. I winces as it moves around me, but a second later it's gone, sweeping down the corridor and away.
I rise shakily, not trusting my legs, and lean against the wall. Maybe the Doctor finds it easier to hurt things if they're in animal form. If they had been humans, he would never have done what he just did. I can't help the shiver of excitement that runs through me at the Doctor's anger, and I'm not even sure I wants to stop it.
Turning my head to the side, I watch the Doctor, who's still hanging in the air, unmoving. The wolf behind him is twitching. When it stops, the Doctor starts to drop like a stone towards the floor. I lunge forward automatically, hoping to catch him. He won't be of any use to me if he's got a broken leg, after all.
But before I can get there, a red light slices over me. I see the machine on the floor, encompassing half of the corridor in its dark light. That part of the corridor is the part that holds the Doctor and, now, me.
It makes me freeze, and the Doctor meets the ground with a sickening thump.
Because of the drums, I don't notice it at once. If I could, then maybe I could have fought it off. Two spots of light appear in front of my eyes, blinking at me. It's looking through my head, and there's not a thing I can do to stop it. It moves through my defences like they're not there, and it's terrifying. Whenever I've had someone in my head, they've hurt me, and this is no exception.
The eyes become brighter, and are moving into the drums. There's a cracking noise as they merge with them, and the next thing I know, the drums have exploded.
I scream with pain, as white hot needles shoot through my head. I feel myself fall with a bang onto the floor. I can't move. Rassilon, I can't move!
There's a pause in the eyes, and then:
"You will travel."
Author's Note: The Outsiders I mention is the first scene, is a reference to a group of Gallifreyansin the classic series. They rejected the Time Lord technological way of life, and instead chose to live outside of the Gallireyan Citadel, leading a more primitive life.
The mention I make of the Doctor destroying the Daleks before their creation, is a reference to a 4th Doctor classic series' story, where the Time Lords select him to go to Skaro (the Dalek's home world, which was destroyed in the 7th Doctor's reign) and stop the creation of the Daleks. He manages to place a bomb there, but stops himself at the last moment, because he believes he doesn't have the right to end a species' existence.
I modelled the interrogation room Lucy is in on the one Tosh was kept in before Jack rescued her, which gives those who've seen Torchwood a point of reference. :)
The line: 'Rassilon, I can't move!', thought by the Master, is the same as saying: 'God, I can't move!', as Rassilon was worshipped as a god in the classic series. I've used it here as an exclamation of fear.
Phew! There was a lot I had to explain in this chapter. I think I got everything, but if there are any questions you want to ask, don't hesitate to ask them. :)
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