Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, I don't own Doctor Who. Fortunately for most of the characters I take an interest in, I don't own Doctor Who.
Thanks to Brownbug, MayFairy and Son of Whitebeard for your reviews! And ta to MayFairy particularly this time for adding this fic to her C2, "President Romanadvoratrelundar of Gallifrey", a collection of Doctor/Romana and Romana genfic.
Time Lords had known for thousands of years that the Matrix could be limitless – and yet, there were still boundaries, limits they imposed on themselves…or was it that the Matrix imposed limits on them? Dangers, limitations, cost and consequence…
The Valeyard had known this once. Or he might never have known it. Or he would come to know it.
He had spread his will across the entire virtual reality, filling it, shaping it as he saw fit.
"A door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction…"
Someone had said that to him once, hadn't they? Perhaps they would say it. Perhaps they would never say it – so many possibilities, so many futures that could be engineered, so many memories…the Doctor's memories past, the Valeyard's present impression of life, the Doctor's memories yet to come – he could no longer distinguish. And even as he filled the Matrix, the Matrix filled him.
Outside the Matrix, time moved, but not for him. Outside, he was little more than the illusions he created in his domain – he was an uncertainty, a possibility, nothing more while the Doctor retained his essentially benevolent, selfless nature. He was incapable of feeling the flow of time around him, and there were moments when he came to realize that time had passed and he had been unaware, simply because he did not exist.
And outside time was the Matrix.
He could have chosen any physical form to appear to Romana – he supposed it was still the Doctor's unfortunate tendency to fixate on a particular appearance for each regeneration that kept him returning to the form he wore in reality, along with the attire of the identity he had chosen, determined to cast off the mantle of "the Doctor" in every way possible. But he was so much more than a physical form here – he was the Matrix, and the Matrix had shaped itself to him. He was aware of Romana's every movement as clearly as if he walked beside her, and he saw the steps she had already taken, the paths she could choose – if he allowed her to, of course.
He controlled the Matrix – it would not control him. And Romana was deluded when she said he was dependent on it – the Matrix belonged to him.
...
Romana's nails tore into the mouldering cardboard, ripping back the lid of the box and splitting the old, brittle sellotape that had held it closed. Leaning forwards, she plunged her hands into the crumbling, yellowed papers it contained, barely glancing at the grey faces that stared balefully from photographs as she swept them aside.
If there was anything left that might help her, she couldn't think where she might find it.
Through chinks in the wood of the slanted ceiling low above her head, narrow beams of a watery, insipid light filtered through, the only light in the dusty little attic room. Stacked against the walls and strewn across the creaking floorboards, cardboard boxes were strewn about the room, ancient boxes sealed up sloppily with long strips of tape and stashed away, hidden in the dark like shameful secrets.
She started in surprise at a glimpse of her own face, and raising a handful of the loose papers to the dim light, she was met with the sight of her first incarnation smiling haughtily back at her. With a sigh, she set them aside.
She understood where she was now. It was more than the Matrix, and it was more than an illusion in a dreamscape. Perhaps the Doctor had long since forgotten his Academy lessons about the Matrix, if he had ever learned them, or perhaps the Valeyard was just past caring, but Romana remembered. Spend too long in the Matrix and the walls between the mental universe and one's own mind would wear thin. A Time Lord's very soul could become fused with the dreamscapes they created as the inner recesses of their self were drawn out. It was like the legendary Game of Rassilon, she thought – "he who wins shall lose" – the closer one became to the Matrix, the greater the control achieved but the more exposed one became.
In the archivists and technicians, the signs were usually spotted from early on – a data store taking the form of one's childhood home, a record speaking in the voice of a feared Academy professor. The Valeyard was clearly well beyond that point; Romana was practically walking around in his head. It was obscene, and it put her in even more danger – but at the same time, she realized that it might be a double-edged sword in the hands of the Valeyard, whom she was beginning to suspect wasn't entirely sure what comprised his own psyche. Some part of him had left her that escape route back in the railway tunnel, which had led her through a narrow passageway and up a flight of stairs into this attic.
Pushing herself to her feet, she looked around the room once again, her eyes involuntarily darting upwards to the beamed ceiling to where she still almost expected to see chronarachnids spinning their webs. It was bare, but moving downwards, her gaze alighted on a wooden door in one wall, half-concealed by a stack of boxes. Curious, she moved forward, picking up the hem of her robes to step over the boxes. At closer inspection, the door had been a familiar shade of deep blue once, although the paint was now faded and peeling. She braced her shoulder against the stack of boxes and pushed them aside, and then lifted a trembling hand to the silver doorhandle and pulled.
Seconds later, she had to stifle a scream as the door swung open and with a dull rattle, the contents of the cupboard behind were dislodged. Entire skeletons, many humanoid but plenty besides – old skeletons; dry, white bones, some with scraps of fabric still hanging from their empty ribcages. The skulls teetered on the tops of their spines, hollow eyesockets seeming to lower their gaze to her as they tilted forwards, grinning mouths gaping open as the jawbones came loose – and then they collapsed forwards, clattering as they fell, more pushing forwards from behind, more than could possibly have fit into the small cupboard behind the door. Staggering backwards, Romana recoiled, raising her arms to fend off the cascade. Blindly, she groped with one hand until she felt the edge of the door, and then she pushed hard, forcing it shut in the face of a smaller skeleton with tattered yellow, green and red fabric draped over its fleshless frame.
Panting, she slumped against the door, reeling in horror, hearts thudding painfully in her chest. She remained there for several minutes while little by little, her breathing calmed, even with the frightful images of what was contained behind that door flashing periodically before her mind's eye. Yellow, green and red…she had only caught a brief glimpse of that last skeleton, but something about it still resonated, nagging at her until she had to thrust the image away. She couldn't burden herself with what might be – she had to focus on what she could be sure of, which was so little.
Eventually, she managed to tentatively step back, wincing as she felt her foot pushing through the scattered bones. Lifting her foot to avoid stepping on one – now nothing more than a ribcage with what was left of a black and white maid's outfit partly covering it – the edge of her robe brushed a charred, blackened form; and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a vaguely humanoid form crumble into ash and charcoal, its once-rich clothes collapsing into shapeless gold and maroon fabric. To her relief, the door remained closed, and she backed quickly away to return to the boxes.
The first box she opened contained yet more papers and photographs – and the next, and the next. She saw a human woman with laughing eyes and hands on her hips, standing in the doorway of a house beside a greying old man in an anorak; a teenager in a leather jacket, clutching a battered backpack to her chest; a ruggedly handsome, square-jawed man in a greatcoat brandishing two machine guns…and then finally, she pulled back the lid of a box to meet the blue eyes of a welcome face: her Doctor, the fourth, grinning somewhat tiredly from a "WANTED" flyer.
"Doctor!" she exclaimed. She reached into the box and gently lifted out the flyer, holding it up before her.
"Valeyard, I told you," he corrected her, but not unkindly.
"Not you," she insisted. "You're the Doctor – it's you that wants to help me."
"Ah – but the Valeyard is the Doctor; and the Doctor is the Valeyard. We are one and the same, Romana – I am just another part of the Valeyard."
"A part he doesn't know about."
"Perhaps…" He looked uncertain, and Romana bit her lip anxiously before asking,
"So what's he doing?"
"Well, trying to kill you, I should imagine," the Doctor replied bluntly.
"Everyone dies, Romana," another voice cut in from inside the box. Romana leaned over and lifted out another flyer, this one showing the face of an older Doctor with a crew-cut and a bleak expression. "You'll learn that soon – all that life an' good an' hope…you could turn your back for just a moment an' it'll all be gone. Everyone an' everything – it all has its time." She couldn't help a shiver as she set the flyer aside, placing it face-down on the floorboards, and looked quickly back to the fourth Doctor.
"Why?" she demanded. "Why would he want to kill me?"
"He's trying to prove a point," said the Doctor grimly.
"But…he's the only one who knows I'm here."
"Precisely."
"Nothing personal," came a cheerful voice from the box – another flyer, an even older Doctor with a youthful face, a rakish, brown fringe nearly reaching his twinkling green eyes. "Well, no – no, I suppose it is personal. Bit more than personal, maybe…but not for you, mind."
"Well, that's very reassuring," she snorted, and turned back to the fourth Doctor. "So what's his plan? What are those 'schemes' he mentioned?"
"Oh come on, Romana!" The Doctor gave a short laugh. "Have you ever known me to plan that far ahead?"
"But he said-"
"Yes, I always have said that, haven't I?"
"Rule number one, Romana," said the green-eyed Doctor, his voice now low. "The Doctor lies."
"I must agree," a chillingly familiar voice spoke from off to her side, and Romana raised her head in alarm to see the black-clad figure of the Valeyard stepping forward from the wall as if melting out of the shadows. "I have that within which passes show."
"Do you really?" Gripping the fourth Doctor's flyer tightly in one hand, Romana rose to her feet. "You should take a better look around in here, then, shouldn't you?" His eyes were already darting about the room – almost nervously, she noted – but his voice remained as disdainful as ever.
"Inconsequential clutter. Worthless waste – it has no value to me. I could burn every last trivial scrap of it."
"I don't believe that, Doctor."
"I am not-" He was cut off; Romana had hesitated for only a split second before dropping the flyer, scooping up two handfuls of the papers and photographs from an earlier box and flinging them at the Valeyard, who flinched. But she didn't stop there – spurred by a sudden surge of anger, she whirled around and dug her fingers into the cardboard of a stack of unopened boxes at her back, ripping them open one after another, overturning them, hurling their contents at the dark-robed Time Lord, who paled, backing away.
"No! No, stop…" The musty air filled with fluttering papers; faces flashed before her eyes as she worked her way around the room but she paid them no heed, furiously tearing apart the boxes. Cowering against the wall now, arms raised to shield his face, he attempted to duck sideways from the onslaught, but Romana kicked in the fragile sides of two boxes that lay in his path, spilling their contents across his feet, and he stumbled back with a gasp. He turned just in time to see her place her hand on the handle of the blue door, and his eyes widened in panic.
"No – not that one…you can't-" She pulled, and then spun on her heel and ran for the door she had entered through, the clatter of dry bones and the Valeyard's terrified cry ringing in her ears. At the top of the stairs, she paused momentarily and glanced over her shoulder, before fleeing the attic. The last she glimpsed of him, he had fallen to his knees in the flood of bones pouring from the cupboard and appeared to be gripping the front of a ragged spacesuit and shaking it, the skull on top lolling sickeningly.
"I told you not to do it…" he was pleading in a choked voice. "There had to be another way – time could have been rewritten…"