Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. I do not own anything, nor do I get paid for it.

A/N Thank you for the wonderful response on the last chapter. I am so glad you liked it.

I was initially going to take a break before I posted this but since it was done, I am posting it before my birthday on the 27th. Spoilers for the Eighth Doctor Adventures.

Happy Reading!

Chapter Ten

"There should have been another way," said Susan, pacing angrily. "Twenty two billion people is not just a number to be written off, Braxiatel."

Irving Braxiatel, known to everyone else as Cardinal Braxiatel, frowned at her. "It was not my decision, Arkytior," he said, ignoring her scowl for not addressing her by the Earth name she had chosen for herself. "The War Council…"

"Grandfather had it in hand!" interrupted Susan shrilly. "The Skaro Degradations would have been trapped into the void and the planets would have remained safe. Face it, Braxiatel, this had nothing to do with the War Council. These are Narvin's machinations."

Braxiatel raised an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that Coordinator Narvin sanctioned the deaths of twenty two billion people for his own ends?" he asked, in a tone that suggested he had never heard anything so preposterous.

Susan bristled at the condescension in his voice. "Do not take me for a child, Braxiatel," she snapped. "Narvin and the CIA's goals are very well-known."

"You talk as if their goals are harmful," said Braxiatel, sitting up.

"If they are willing to go to such lengths for something so…"

"So what? Simple?" asked Braxiatel, glaring at her. "Nothing about this matter is simple. All previous efforts have failed. I personally…" he trailed off and glared at the floor for a few moments. "I may not approve of Narvin's methods," he said, with forced calm. "But I certainly approve of what he is trying to achieve. This war is nothing to be scoffed at, and if you do not approve, then you would do well to remember that it was you who came to me in the first place."

Susan glared at him and looked away. "I-I…"

"You did not expect this to be as bad as it really is," said Braxiatel, with some kindness. "Arkytior-Susan, I assure you, Narvin is doing what is best for Gallifrey and for all of us. You must have faith, child."

Susan's mouth twisted bitterly and she looked away to hide the tears brimming in her eyes. "I don't know if I can," she said in a low voice. "Vermillion was one of the planets sucked into the void. I personally spent an extended amount of time there. I knew people on that planet, Braxiatel."

"Attachments are not good for us, Arkytior," said Braxiatel calmly, though with no apparent sympathy. "You need to learn how to separate your emotions from your work. This is not a time for weakness."

Susan chuckled without humour. "Oh, how easy you make it sound, Braxiatel. I would rather cut off an arm than turn into an unfeeling monster that all Time Lords seem to be becoming," she said.

Braxiatel stood up, the anger on his face making Susan flinch a little. "I have matters to attend to," he said in a barely restrained voice. "You should reconsider whether you wish to associate with this war, Arkytior, and decide where your loyalties lie. Good day."

He turned around and stalked off, leaving Susan alone with her thoughts.

Rose examined her nude form in the full length mirror and prodded softly at the violently pink skin. The Doctor had healed the scars and then showed her to an enormous water tank that he said contained sentient water from Davidia known for its healing properties.

Three hours ago, he had left her inside it so that her newly repaired skin could heal properly. Rose had a vague memory of being immersed in the water but everything had gone blissfully blank after that. The timer had gone off after three hours and the water had drained out of the tank, leaving the door open for Rose to step out. She hadn't felt so calm in her life, but she knew it had little to do with her peace of mind and more with the slight sensory deprivation that was the effect of the Davidian water.

Her skin was still a little too pink and sore but the Doctor had told her that she would be fine. She couldn't bring herself to put on her heavy clothes just yet so she picked up the soft fleece robe that the TARDIS seemed to have left for her and hissed slightly as she put it on. When she returned to her room, she saw a tall glass of cool water and a small saucer with six tiny cubes the size of sugar cubes but in different colours waiting on the bedside table.

The Doctor had left a note telling her to eat each of the cubes and finish the whole glass of water before she got some sleep. Rose had been planning to sleep straight away but the mention of food reminded her how hungry she was, and despite not knowing what the cubes were, she picked up the bright red one first and tasted it cautiously. It didn't have a taste, and it rather felt like she was eating warm ice. With a shrug, she finished it off and followed it up with the other cubes, getting surprised when she started feeling rather full by the fourth cube. She finished the last two off and drank the water greedily. Her stomach now full, she was reminded of how exhausted she was, and she took off the robe and snuggled under her covers.

She was asleep within moments.

The Doctor had not moved the TARDIS from the sight of the carnage just yet. He was running diagnostics on the area, hoping despite what he had told Rose that there was a way to fix it. He didn't expect anything to turn up but he was doing it more for his sanity than anything else.

He toyed with the comm. link to Gallifrey, going over a thousand and one conversations he wanted to have with the Time Lords but realised the futility of such actions. He doubted there was anything he could say to them that would make a difference. In a rare moment of self-loathing, he wished that he was still like his previous self who would have commended the Time Lords' actions. Even now there was a part of him glad that the Skaro Degradations had been eliminated completely. Eight planets and twenty two billion people was a small price to pay in the larger scheme of things.

His mouth twisted in a snarl and he turned away from the console in anger. He was the Doctor, not Time's Champion. Not anymore. He had promised himself a clean beginning when he had regenerated into this life. No more the chessmaster or the man with the plan. Just the Doctor. The man who made people better.

Except, he had failed even at that. His companions, oh, he had lost so many of them. Try as he might, he could not bring himself to forget their faces nor the horrible fates that they had suffered. All because of him. Those that hadn't been killed, had been driven away by his terrible actions and he had no one to blame but himself. He thought of Charley and C'Rizz, of his years on Orbis, of Lucie Miller and Tamsin Drew and Alex Campbell, of Molly O'Sullivan and Liv Chenka, and he hated himself just a little bit more.

Then, he thought of Rose and his thoughts darkened with the future that he would no doubt be responsible for condemning her to. He could not be certain how much of it would change now, but the fact remained that it had all happened for her already, and he had a nasty suspicion that with how tenuous time already was, it would be difficult to change. For her sake, he hoped she got a kinder future than what she had suffered through.

A bright blue beacon lit up on the console and his eyes turned towards it. The diagnostics had yielded something and it was with surprise in his hearts that he typed in to see the results for himself. What he read made him pause, horror fighting with disbelief as the evidence was clear as day in front of him.

Eight planets had been sucked into the void, but something else had got out. Something quite dangerous.

Rose awoke, feeling slightly disoriented when she realised that she had been asleep for a very long time. With how hectic things had been lately, physically and emotionally, she knew she had been exhausted but fourteen hours of sleep was still new for her. She winced when her back cracked as she got out of the bed. The pinkness of her skin had faded and she got dressed in a pair of loose jeans and a long sleeved shirt out of habit before padding barefoot out of her room to look for the Doctor.

He wasn't in the console room, the kitchen or the library. Rose picked up an apple from the kitchen and munched on it as she looked for the Doctor. The TARDIS was quiet, her ever present hum sounding subdued. After exploring the first few doors in the hallway, Rose started to get a little worried. The TARDIS seemed to be leading her back to the console room and after the three doors she tried opened into the console room, Rose got the message and stepped into the console room.

It was still devoid of the Doctor and the controls were beeping away quietly. Rose checked the monitor to see where they were and was surprised to see that they had landed somewhere called Pazithi Gallifreya. Puzzled, Rose tried the door which opened onto a light coppery surface with breathable atmosphere that seemed devoid of life. Rose turned back to the empty console room and ran to the controls. To her surprise, the TARDIS was conducting scans on Pazithi Gallifreya, which she realised was one of the moons of Gallifrey.

She was debating whether to fetch her shoes and go in search of the Doctor when a beep indicated that the scans had been finished. Rose read the results and felt a chill shoot up her spine. There was only a single life sign on Pazithi Gallifreya, her own. Apart from her and the TARDIS, there was nothing else there.

The Doctor groaned lightly and tried to open his eyes that felt far too heavy. He had to blink a few times but the darkness did not disappear. He almost began to panic before he realised that his sight was just fine, and the unnatural darkness came from his surroundings. It didn't appease him for long though, since there were very few kinds of darkness that his superior eyesight could not see past, and he did not like the implications one bit.

He tried to feel around but the space around him felt empty. He was almost certain that he was on the floor, but the temperature gave no indication of where he was. The smell was oddly familiar though, and he was reminded of the seaside. There was no sound of water but as soon as he thought that, he heard the sound of a wave breaking over the rocks. Startled, he sat up straighter and realised that the smell of the ocean was getting stronger as well. The darkness remained as resolute as ever, but the ocean seemed very close now, almost like he was on the beach.

He felt something digging into the hand that he had pressed to the ground and as he pulled away, he realised that there was now sand below him. He could smell seaweed and the texture of the sand under him was more tangible than ever. It was as if the more he thought about something, the clearer it started to feel for him. The darkness remained steady and he was abruptly reminded of being trapped in the Divergent universe with Charley and the way they had walked through the tube for weeks and weeks without their senses.

Abruptly, the blackness transformed into the blinding white light from that time and he realised that he had stood up without realising. Unlike before, he was still alone, though he could faintly smell Charley's perfume. As he focused on the scent, it intensified until he felt like he would pass out from the overpowering fragrance. The smell disappeared abruptly and he was left in the whiteness again and he felt a stab of fear in his hearts. His thoughts were being manipulated into reality in a way that should not be possible. He couldn't remember how he had come to be where he was, and with it came a chilling realisation that he had no sense of how much time had passed.

For a Time Lord, losing their sense of time was akin to losing a limb and the Doctor could feel his panic building when he realised that he could not feel how time was passing or whether it was passing at all. Almost as an answer to his panic, he felt calm settle over him. His time sense was still gone but he wasn't feeling as agitated as before. He opened his mouth, to scream or just to see if he could even scream but if he screamed, he didn't hear it. He couldn't be sure if he was making a sound and wasn't hearing it, or he was simply unable to make the sound.

Unnerved, he tried to move his hands. He wasn't tied up, he was certain of it, but if he was moving his hands, he couldn't feel them anywhere. He remembered that he had felt sand digging into his hands before and he crouched to the ground and touched his hands to the ground but there was nothing there. He was numb, with all or most of his senses gone.

His mind was still working, but he was not sure if it really was working or if he was just thinking that it was. It would be easy enough to decide, he realised. He just had to think of who he was and he would know that his mind was still working. The thought comforted him and he waited for it to come to him.

Who was he again? He had to have a name. Everyone had a name, didn't they? Did he have a name? Was he called something? Anything?

Frustration grew within him when he couldn't remember. The closest he could come to was that he was a...no, he had remembered his species when he'd realised that he had lost one of his vital senses. He couldn't remember it anymore, nor could he remember his planet. He had to have come from somewhere and had to belong to some race in the universe. He had to have a home.

The whiteness began to dissipate and he focused on his surroundings. The smell of ocean came back in full force and he realised that he was in a thatched hut on the side of a beach. He could see the ocean through the open door and the machinery inside his hut which rather looked like a half-built spaceship. His hands were holding a spanner and he was apparently in the middle of fixing the spaceship.

"Old Doctor! Old Doctor, are you there?"

Doctor, he realised with a start. That was what he was called. He was called the Doctor. Of what, he wasn't sure but it was a start. He focused on the voice and saw a floating jellyfish coming towards him.

Selta. The name came to him very easily and he wondered if he knew her.

"Old Doctor, I am so glad I found you," said Selta, sounding a little breathless even for her jellyfish-like body.

"I'm not old," he said automatically. "What do you want?"

Selta paused for a moment. "Don't you remember me, old Doctor? It's me, Selta. From Orbis. Do you not remember me?"

He did remember, he realised. Selta was a Keltan from the planet Orbis and he was helping her people fight against the Molluscari who were waiting to consume the Keltans. Except, all of this had already happened.

"You do remember, don't you old Doctor?" asked Selta. "Do you remember how you left us all to die?"

He flinched back as the breathy voice turned furious.

"The Molluscari fried us in front of you but you just left us to die, didn't you old Doctor?" asked Selta, her voice echoing around him. "You and your friend, Lucie, wasn't it? You just left us to die."

"Oh, don't worry!" came a Northern voice and he flinched again when he recognised it.

"Lucie," he breathed as she appeared next to Selta. She had her arms crossed over her chest and legs in those awful contraptions that served to keep her upright.

"He left me to die too," said Lucie, her eyes blazing in anger as she looked to the Doctor. "First, he didn't come as I lost my sight in one eye and use of both me legs. Then, he stood by and watched me blow myself up."

"Is that what you do, old Doctor?" asked Selta. "Do you leave your friends to die?"

He opened and closed his mouth, hoping for words that wouldn't come.

"Nothin' to say?" mocked Lucie. "Hear that, Alexander the Great? Your beloved grandfather's got nothing to say…"

"I can't say I am surprised," said Alex as he appeared behind Lucie. "He abandoned mum first, before anyone else. What do you expect from a man who abandons his own granddaughter?"

"You are dead!" snapped the Doctor, surprising himself how loud his voice had become. "You are all dead! This is an illusion!"

"Hark at him!" laughed Lucie. "It's an illusion, it isn't real," she mocked.

"A place for the dead then, is it? My invite must have got lost," came another familiar voice and the Doctor's hearts went cold.

"Charley," he breathed. "No, Charley, you were alive…"

The blonde Edwardian adventuress laughed. "Was I alive, Doctor? Or was I always supposed to be dead? You took that away from me, remember? You took away my death from me and then you tormented with it," she said. "You couldn't even let me die like I was supposed to, for your own selfish needs."

"Don't know which is worse really," commented Alex casually.

"I'll tell you what's worse," said a new voice as Tamsin Drew walked up to them. "Being shot by a Dalek and dying for no reason at all. My death served no purpose. I died begging and crying. All because of you, Doctor!"

"Enough!" yelled the Doctor. "This is not real! I refuse to let whatever is holding me manipulate my memories and disrespect my friends."

"Such ego, eh Doctor?" said Lucie dryly. "Have you considered that maybe you are not a captive of anything?"

"Yes, maybe you are simply having a talk with your conscience," said Charley brightly.

The Doctor glared angrily. "Oh, no, no, no, something is definitely holding me," he said. He raised his eyes to the ceiling he couldn't see and shouted angrily. "Do you hear me? I won't be swayed by some conjured up memories meant to build guilt into my hearts!"

He got no reply but when he looked back down, he was alone once again. It had gone dark but he could see now that he was in a tiny cell with bars on his doors. With a grim sense of satisfaction, he sat down on the hard bed in his cell. "Come on then, now that the mind games are over, it is time to face me," he shouted. "Show yourself!"

There was absolute silence before he heard giggling. He sat up a little and peered into the darkness past the bars on his cell door. It sounded like a child, a very young child.

"Who's there?" he snapped.

The giggling got louder. "Who's there?" asked a childish voice that he couldn't know if it belonged to a boy or a girl. "Who's there, who's there, who's there, who's there…?"

"Stop!" he snapped, starting to feel dizzy at the echoing that followed the voice.

The child giggled again. "Stop, stop, stop, stop, who's there, stop, who's there…?"

The Doctor growled but the mocking and giggling stopped suddenly as the child spoke with almost a chilled sense of calm.

"You are mine, mine, mine now! Mine to play, mine, all mine," said the child, in a sing-song voice. "Been alone, alone, alone for so long. Mine now! Mine, mine, all mine. Sleep now, sleep, sleepy sleep sleep…"

The Doctor started to feel dizzy and the heaviness fell over him again, reminding him of the state that he had woken up in. Before he could ponder more upon it, sleep had taken him over.

Rose was going out of her mind with worry. The Doctor had been missing for three days and she was no closer to finding out where he was than she was three days ago. With a growl, she banged her fist on the console. Efforts to trace the Doctor had turned up useless and she was getting desperate. The comm. link to Gallifrey was mocking her and she remembered each of the times that she had reached for it, only to be reminded that she didn't need their sort of help.

But three days had passed now, and she was getting desperate. Desperate times called for desperate measures, she decided and pressed the comm. link to open communication to Gallifrey.

"This is Rose Tyler calling from the Doctor's TARDIS. If someone can hear me, I need help…"

He was woken up as he always with the sound of ringing cloister bells in his ears. He had no idea how many days had passed or how long it had been. He had a vague memory of hearing Charley, or was it Lucie, talking to him. Then someone had sung him a lullaby. Yes, he remembered falling asleep to a lullaby. He liked the lullaby, it reminded him of being happy.

And he was happy. He was so happy. He did not know his name or where he came from, but he was so, so happy. He wanted to be here. He wanted to play. He only wanted to play. He was happy and he wanted to play.

The darkness died down slightly and he heard laughter. He decided that it was his laughter, because he was happy. Only he could laugh and play and be happy.

NO

The sharp thought slapped him into focus. He was the Doctor, he was a Time Lord. He was not happy. He was a prisoner of this thing that took delight in tormenting him. He had been here for a few days at least, but since he hadn't regained his time sense yet, he couldn't be certain.

Every time, he would be woken up with cloister bells, not remembering who or where he was. Sometimes he would see his friends, sometimes he would be alone. The creature that was holding him continued to elude him, though he did hear it once in a while. Its chilling voice would call to him, and the Doctor shivered in terror when he remembered the hypnotic hold the creature seemed to have on him.

He had fought it off each time so far but he wasn't sure how long he could hold out for. He did not know what it wanted from him, nor what it looked like. Every time he refused, he would hear the lullaby and he would go to sleep. And then it would start all over again.

The Nightmare Child did not like to take no for an answer.

A/N End of chapter. Let me know what you thought.

The new chapter will be up soon, as the official Time Lords make an appearance, not just the renegades. See you then!