"Come on!" The Doctor's fist hits the console with a metallic bang. When she only gets grinding gears and hissing sparks in reply she sinks down to the floor. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I am, but p-please… "

You must calm yourself my Doct

"Don't tell me to calm down!" the woman hollers. Her voice, like thunder, booms off the walls painfully. It only cuts through the silence and goes right back to her, hurting her ears. The skin around her eyes is burning raw from rubbing. The salt of her tears makes it feel tightly drawn.

Quiet falls, save the humming and grinding of the old girl's usual workings. She gives her Doctor some time. The minutes pass slowly, painfully. If the TARDIS silenced herself you could hear two sad heartbeats, crying with each beat.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor whispers to the ceiling. A slight vibration behind her back assures her that there is nothing to forgive. "I need him."

I am searching for him, Doctor. He has been pulled through realities.

"Well," the Doctor stands. She swipes at her tears just once more before grabbing hold of her controls again. "I suppose we'll just have to pull harder."

Doctor

Calling the Doctor

The Doctor forms an odd expression at the telepathic tap on the shoulder. She pulls the psychic paper out with one smooth hand and flips it open. "John?"

Turn Left

Shadow Proclamation

Calling the Doctor

"Okay, you've found me, Earthboy, now tell me where you are…and how can you use the psychic paper?"

Turn Left

Shadow Proclamation

Turn Left

"You heard the man, love," the Doctor pushes a lever. Rumbling rises through the interior like smoke from a volcano.

What did I tell you?

"Yeah," the Doctor rolls her eyes and draws out the word at length. "Don't get cocky with me, Veera Duckworth."

Turn Left

Shadow Proclamation

ShadowProclamationShadowProclamationShadowProclama tionShadowProclamationShadowProclamationShadowProc lamationShadow

"What's wrong with you?" The Doctor smacks the leather against her arm a couple times.

ShadowProclamationShadowProclamationShadowProclama tionShadowProclamationShadowProclamation

"All right, calm down." The Doctor sets the technology open on the console beside her working hands. She spares the surface, now blank again, a grateful little smile. "Can you get a read on him?"

His signature is headed for the Shadow Proclamation.

"In our reality?" asks the Doctor. When she receives the telepathic translation of an eyebrow raise she huffs. "All right, I just asked."

The grinding sound of TARDIS and her Doctor's arrival sounds through the Shadow Proclamation hangar. The doors are all but thrown open, allowing a dramatic entry for the red haired woman. Security swarms to her like bees around fresh pollen but she brushes past them. She walks with such a stride that her coat flies out behind her, and the wind seems too voluminous for her average sized steps. It were as if reality were whisking past her, rushing like a river around a rock by her presence.

"Shadow Architect!" the Doctor calls upon/announced her arrival. The woman in question is a frightening humanoid. Her appearance is wholly white, with a light greenish tint. Her eyes and fingernails are the color of fresh blood. Her hands are held with unsettling stillness.

"The rogue Time Lord, come at last," the creepy woman greets. "You belong in the myths and whispers of the higher species."

"Yeah, more importantly, I've got transdimensional retroclosure overlapping with a reality metacrisis." The ginger woman breezes past the much more alien looking one with the psychic paper. "Got a message from another dimension of reality."

"Parallel worlds are sealed off;" despite her skepticism the Shadow Architect does look at the gadget. She sees some words pixelate into view. "I'll be back soon…with a…with an 'x'?"

"It's a kiss, actually - we've all done that before - and it's from a human who has been pulled through the realities as a biological temporal anomaly. He sent me the message on the psychic paper because we're linked." The Doctor works in a flurry, deliberately turning her back on the Shadow Architect as she speaks.

"A human cannot over reach timeline dimensional blocks."

"This one can!" The Doctor snaps at the alien. She has had just about enough of her. "He can interweave realities around himself like a universal dimension warpfold manipulator."

"No mortal is capable-"

"I told you, this one is different!" The Doctor snarls at the Shadow Architect, sparing only a whip of her hair over her shoulder in disgust as she throws a lever dramatically. "I went to The Library-"

"So, you continue to endanger worlds through time as well as space," the Shadow Architect doesn't back down from the Time Lady. "I suppose you didn't learn your lesson when you lost your 51st century human companion."

"Stop it," the Gallifreyan snaps with a controlled fire.

"The second one now consults with UNIT, knowing of the technologies of your kind, does he not? You used a chameleon arc to conceal your genetic code and used a human as a shield. You hid like a coward, using the human to concealed your one of a kind," the Shadow Architect lets a hint of acid leak from her tongue as she says "scent."

"I offer them a choice to come," the Doctor offers weakly.

"Then you abandon them and dare not look back to face the truth. The truth is that you destroy their lives, leave them in ruin, as you continue travelling through the universe." The red eyed one begins circling the one from Gallifrey. Her gaze measures the synapses of the Time Lady's thoughts. Every biomedical element that feeds into her signature in the universe is at the mercy of the Proclamation head. As long as her unblinking eyes stay analyzing the Time Lady is helpless to move. "Your mind holds the convergence of time and resulting astromolecular flux. Your mind is a matrix of the universe and its fate, and you enjoy that, don't you? You enjoy playing God with your little humans, and their timelines, but when it is over you nothing but a thief. You stole the TARDIS, left your planet to burn through the loops of time and abandoned your name for your title. You, the Doctor, the healer and knower of fates. I name you, Doctor; I name you the destroyer of worlds."

"This one is different," the Doctor chokes out through her paralysis. She came knowing the power of the Shadow Architect and her all knowing gaze. Same as a Time Lord can see the matrix of timelines the Shadow Species sees an organism's life makeup—every bit of physical compound and amygdalous pattern that makes up a being's existence. "He knows the risks, he made his choice."

"You chose him." The Shadow one finally releases the Doctor from her analysis.

"I do choose him," the Doctor says firmly and captures the Architect's intrigue. "Every time, through all time, I choose him."

"That is why you have a link," the pale woman approaches again but doesn't lock the Doctor in place. "You have chosen this human as your mate."

"Don't make it sound so romantic." The Doctor rolls her eyes and goes back to working, deliberately avoiding interaction again. "I have found a more lasting companion, yes."

"You plan on telling him your name," the Shadow Architect scoffs at the notion.

"He knows it already," the Doctor murmurs, not entirely enthused. "He doesn't know he knows it yet, but he does."

A convergence of energy is projected and a dimensional backfed insertion portal is activated, interrupting the flow of physical chronological energy. In equation, it could be simplified as dimension versus time denominated by (quantum looped) reality signature equals stabilized dimension matrix fed through quasar theory chronology within isolated transdimensonal energy walls.

Physicsphysicsphysicsphysicsphysics: the Abridged Version, written by the Doctor, edited by wibbly-wobbly and illustrated by timey-wimey.

"John!"

The man named jumps up off the floor like a spring in a gun barrel. He looks exhausted, and harried, and unbelievable happy to be here. "Doctor!"

The Shadow Architect watches disapprovingly as the Time Lady leaps into the arms of the human. His arms wrap around her waist and he lifts her, spinning her around luxuriously. The female laughs with delight and wraps her arms around his neck. It is a sickening display of humanoid, singular brained affection. "This is impossible!"

"Not impossible," the Doctor says just above whispering, still staring rapturously at John's happy face.

"Just a bit unlikely," John beams back at her, still holding her above him, securely in his arms.

"Doctor, you will remove yourself from the male!"

John sets the Doctor on her feet more gently than necessary and glances at the frightening woman in dark green robes. She certainly looks like a woman but is also certainly not a human one. She doesn't look too pleased with him, that's for certain. "John Smith; I'm a human."

"Maybe not an endangered species but every bit as important as a Time Lord," the Doctor glares at the other female in the room.

"Who is he, then?" The Shadow Architect tries to get a proper read on the human but finds nothing. His genetic signature is blocked from her; she can't even render him still.

"Oh, I'm just an Earthboy," John smiles, unable to be brought down even by this creepy bag of skin and bones. "Travelling the stars with my Spacegirl."

"So, you really have chosen him as your mate," the pale one says, once again with a distinct tone of disgust.

"Mate in which sense of the word?" John raises an eyebrow but doesn't see anyone appreciating the attempt at humor. "Either way, yes, that's me."

"John, this is the Shadow Architect, of the Shadow Species, also gone, like mine. She runs the Shadow Proclamation." The Doctor runs a hand over John's arm as she speaks.

"Oh, good, so you did get my message," John nods.

"Cry for help," the Doctor smirks, "with a kiss?"

"We've all done that," John shrugs un-apologetically.

"How did you know how to send me a message through the psychic paper?" The Doctor lets John take it from her and watches as he tilts it towards her. In his hands, it goes blank and rewrites itself.

Doctor

I helped John get from his parallel hybrid universe back to yours

The reality of The Library broke down

Every reality is breaking down

You know what that means

I'm sorry

I want you to know I was happy in the life you programmed for me

I want you to know I was happy

That you made the right decision

I'm sorry

Goodbye

Love Lee

The Doctor sucks in a slow breath. She does know what this means. She and Lee found the prophecy of the reality bomb. They knew about the danger of z-neutrino energy. They knew it meant the end of reality. She had thought they had stopped it by tearing from The Library's virtual reality and defeating the last of the Cult of Skaro would prevent this.

"He helped me get back to you when I was folded into a mix of different realities. He said I had pulled different unstable realities around me to stabilize the universe I was in." John strokes the Doctor's hand with his thumb as she stares down at the psychic paper. "He wanted you to know that you made the right decision. He said that he had a really good life in The Library, and that he never regretted travelling with you. He…he still loved you, when we met."

"Doctor, what is this regarding?" The Shadow Architect interrupts.

"It's nothing, its just a-a blip, just a blip, but I've got to go." The Doctor keeps her head down, taking John by the hand back to the TARDIS.

"Doctor, I cannot allow you to leave!" the Shadow Architect shouts. "You are the last of a species, and your control of the time matrix means that you must be pursuing the temporal rifts originating in the Medusa Cascade! By the writ of the Shadow Proclamation you cannot interfere in the interweaving of realities strung around your own timeline! You will cause the collapse of reality!"

"I am trying to save this reality's future!" she shouts as she shoves John inside. "I am this world's only hope because this world is wrong."

"You know what the only way to rewrite an interwoven matrix is."

The Doctor lowers her voice dangerously: "the death of a multi-dimensional timeline."

"The Shadow Proclamation cannot permit the acknowledged extinction of a species, especially not the species of Gallifreyan/Time Lord." The Shadow Architect makes no move to approach the newly materialized TARDIS, honed in on the human's signature. "This is suicide."

"Don't worry, you'll still have a Time Lord, in this reality or the next. Just stay in here, within the time lock, you should be safe." The Doctor spares the other endangered species a nod of solidarity. "I have to."

"By the holy writ of the Shadow Proclamation," the Architect watches the Time Lady turn her back and enter her ship. "I order you to halt."

The TARDIS fades from sight, on its way to the Medusa Cascade.

"The death of the Doctor has come."