Hello everyone, my dear readers! I hope you are all okay! I apologize for the updates coming every two days, but as I'm working 10h a day, I can hardly find time to write a chapter a day! So I hope you don't mind, I do my best. And apologies for last Author's Note: I was in a rush.
Thanks to Positively Stubborn Angie, RiddlersJoker, WeepingAngels626, KyBD, Esme-chan12, Dementra, AliciaRoseFantasy, 08bdovea for the faves and follows! And reviews too.
Turtle: a thousand thank yous for your wonderful reviews that keeps me writing and being so dedicated, and also for your concern. My situation hasn't changed, I hope it will, but anyway thank you!
Guys, I give you my Twitter for those of you who are in guest mode (or just if you want to follow me), just to know when I update etc, tweet me for follow back so I know it's you! :) Plus, we'll be able to talk by dm, which is impossible with guests here! I mean, if you like lol. = MelodyDbn
Sooooo. Here's Chapter 23! We're getting to it.
Oh and, one last thing: sorry if you find some typos or mistakes, my proof reader is at a comic-con today (the lucky fella) so I wasn't going to make you wait one more day. I don't usually make many mistakes, mainly typos, but it can happen if I'm distracted. Plus I'm French, I'm not a native English speaker. So, sorry if you find some!
Enjoy!
Melody - x.
Chapter 23
"Oh it's not so bad really. As long as they get your box the right way up." said Dorium. "I got a media-chip fitted in my head years ago and the Wi-Fi down here is excellent, so I keep myself entertained."
"I need to know about the Silence." the Doctor cut him in.
"Oh." let out Dorium, his smile leaving his face. "They're a religious order. Great power and discretion. The sentinels of History as they like to call themselves."
"And they want me dead."
"No." said Dorium rolling his eyes. "Not really. They just don't want you to remain alive."
"Oh that's okay then, I was a bit worried for a minute there." said the Doctor with sarcasm.
"You're a man with a long and dangerous past." cut Dorium in seriously, weighting each of his words. "But your future is infinitely more terrifying. The Silence believe it must be averted."
The Doctor walked up to Dorium's box, quite angry at him:
"You know you could have told me all this the last time we met."
"It was a busy day and I got beheaded!" said the blue head for his defense.
"What's so dangerous about my future?" asked the Doctor, definitely wanting answers before dying.
"On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely, or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never ever be answered."
The Doctor took out a little notepad from his pockets and looked through what he had written.
"Silence will fall when the question is asked..."
"Silence must fall would be a better translation." corrected Dorium. "The Silence is determined the question will never be answered. That the Doctor will never reach Trenzalore."
"But I don't understand, what's it got to do with me?" asked quickly the man in a stetson.
Dorium looked at him as if it was such an evidence that a man as clever as the Time Lord would be really dumb to not get it.
"The first question. The oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight. Would you like to know what it is?"
"Yes" the Doctor immediately answered, an anxious look on his face.
"Are you sure..?" asked Dorium as whispers started to rise from the skulls surrounding them and as they turned their empty orbits in their direction. "Very, very sure...?"
Now anxiousness started to turn into fear on the Doctor's face.
"Of course." he said, his words clearly not matching his expression.
"Then I shall tell you. But on your own head be it!" said Dorium, laughing at his inside joke.
The Doctor rushed into the TARDIS while Dorium's head was speaking inside the now closed box.
"It's not my fault. Put me back!"
The Time Lord abruptly put the box on a seat making Dorium exclaim in pain:
"Ow! I've fallen on my nose!"
He quickly pulled a lever, making the TARDIS take off and turned on the screen, displaying the day, date and place of his death: 22nd April 2011, 5:02pm, by Lake Silencio, Utah.
"Have you got wi-fi here? I'm bored already and my nose is hurting." complained Dorium. "We all have to die, Doctor, but you more than most. You do see that, don't you? You know what the question is now. You do see that you have to die."
"But what was the question?" asked Churchill as him and the Doctor walked into another big room covered in marble and decorated with columns and more banners. "Why did it mean your death?"
"Suppose there was a man who knew a secret." started the Doctor, rubbing his hands. "A terrible, dangerous secret that must never be told. How would you erase that secret from the world? Destroy it forever before it can be spoken."
Churchill thought for a second before answering:
"If I had to, I'd destroy the man."
"And silence would fall." finished the Doctor. "All the times I've heard those words, I never realised it was my silence… My death… The Doctor will fall." he continued before looking around him. "Why are we here?"
"This, this is the Senate Room." Churchill said, walking around.
"Why did we leave your office?"
"Well… we wanted a stroll, didn't we?"
The Doctor looked at his right forearm while the Emperor noticed he was holding his gun.
"I think I've been running" said the Time Lord before looking at Winston Churchill. "Why do you have your revolver?"
"Well…" started the man in answer. "You're dangerous company, Soothsayer."
He seemed to answer as this was all perfectly normal when it actually looked odd. The Doctor looked at his left forearm where a small black mark had been traced.
"Yes… I think I am…" he said, unsure.
"Resume your story."
"Doctor, please." pleaded Dorium's head, his voice muffled by the fact the box was closed. "Open my hatch. I've got an awful headache - which to be honest means more than it used to."
The Doctor was flapping his hands and walking up and down, stressed. He finally opened the hatch to see Dorium's head all upside down, eyes closed.
"It's like some terrible weight pressing on my-" he stopped, opening his eyes. "Oh. I see."
"Why Lake Silencio? Why Utah?"
"It's a still point in Time. Makes it easier to create a fix point." explained Dorium. "And your death is a fixed point, Doctor. You can't run away from this."
"Been running all my life, why should I stop?" asked the Doctor like an insolent child.
"Because now you know what's at stake, why your life must end."
"Not today."
He looked away, his gaze meeting the telephone unit on the console. He took the phone and started to dial a number.
"What's the point in delaying? How long have you delayed already?"
"Been knocking about." the man - or more like the child - in a stetson answered waiting for his correspondent to pick up. "A bit of a farewell tour, things to do, people to see! There's always more! I could invent a new colour, save the Dodo, join the Beatles!" he enumerated. "Hello! It's me, get him. Tell him, we're going out and it's all on me, except for the money and driving." he said to his correspondent at the other end of the phone line. Then turning back to Dorium: "I've got a time machine, Dorium. It's all still going on. For me, it never stops! Liz the First is still waiting in a glade to elope with me, I could help Rose Tyler with her homework, I could go on all of Jack's stag parties in one night, and I could go back pick Melody up at Amy and Rory's and go on an adventure with the three of them! Even invite River for even more fun!"
"Time catches up with us all, Doctor!" Dorium cut him in, still upside down and starting to get quite angry at him.
"Well it has never laid a glove on me!" the Time Lord shouted back. He then smiled and with the most polite voice said into the phone: "Hello?"
"Doctor I'm so sorry, we didn't know how to contact you. I'm afraid Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart passed away a few months ago." a nurse answered. After a moment of silence from the Doctor she asked: "Doctor?"
"Y-yeah hum err...Yes, yes…" he answered, troubled, shutting his eyes closed.
"It was very peaceful. He talked a lot about you, if that's any comfort. Always made us pour an extra brandy in case you came round one of these days."
"Doctor, what's wrong?" Dorium's voice spoke up."
"Nothing, nothing, it's just…" he mumbled, putting the phone back to its place, realising that Dorium was right. It was the time. He sighed and took out the four TARDIS blue envelopes from his pockets. "It's time. It's time…"
Calisto B - Space bar:
The Doctor gently put the four TARDIS blue envelopes, ready to be delivered, on the table.
The Teselecta posing as Gideon Vandaleur looked up at the Doctor:
"Surely you could deliver the messages yourself."
"It would involve crossing my own time stream. Best not…"
"According to our files, this is the end for you." said the Captain. "Your final journey. We'll deliver your messages, you can depend on us."
"Thank you." simply said the Doctor, his eyes sad and, somehow, afraid. He walked away and opened the door, ready to go when the Teselecta got up:
"Doctor. Whatever you think of the Teselecta we are champions of law and order just as you have always been. Is there anything else we can do?"
The Time Lord just bowed his head a little, looking hopeless and got out of the bar, without a word.
"Why would you do this?" asked Churchill. "Of all the things you've told me, this I find hardest to believe. Why would you invite your friends to see your death?"
"I had to die." said the Doctor. "I didn't have to die alone. Amy and Rory, the Last Centurion and the Girl Who Waited. And Melody, my Mystery Girl, the Girl Who Knows. However dark it got, I'd turn around, and there they'd be." he continued. "If it's time to go, remember what you're leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me."
"And did you tell them this was going to happen?"
"It would help if you didn't keep asking questions." said the Doctor looking down at his left forearm where two more tally marks had appeared.. "We don't have much time." he whispered.
"And this woman you spoke of? Was she there?"
"Yes, River Song came." he said, remembering the picnic. "Everything was in place, I only had to do one more thing, I only had to die…"
He remembered himself, Amy, Rory and Melody by the lakeside, he remembered seeing the man up the hill and waving at him, he remembered turning to the lake to see the Apollo astronaut emerging from the water and walking towards it. He remembered talking to River trapped in the spacesuit, reassuring her, encouraging her to do it, to kill him. He remembered looking back at Amy, Rory and Melody. And he remembered her shooting in every direction but his, draining her weapon system and not killing him, creating a paradox. Making all History happen at once, dissolving reality.
"Well? What happened?" asked Churchill.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing happened" said the Doctor. "And then it kept happening. Or if you'd prefer, everything happened at once and it won't ever stop. Time is dying. It's going to be 5:02 in the afternoon for eternity. A needle stuck on a record…"
"A record?" said Churchill who had walked up to him. "Good Lord, man, have you never heard of downloads?"
"Said Winston Churchill."
The Emperor sniffed before exclaiming:
"Gunsmoke! That's gunsmoke!" And looking at his revolver: "Oh, I appear to have fired this."
The Doctor looked down to his hands and noticed he was holding a spear. Looking at it closely he said:
"We seem to be defending ourselves."
"I don't understand."
"The creatures that lead the Silence." he explained. "Remarkable beings, they're memory proof. You can't remember them. The moment you look away, you forget they were ever there." he continued as he looked down at his left forearm where only one mark had been added. "Don't worry, in small numbers they're not too difficult." the Doctor whispered. He held out his spear the other way, discovering his right forearm was covered in tally marks.
The Doctor and Winston Churchill slowly looked up to find a big cluster of Silents hanging from the ceiling as though they were bats. But right at this moment, a small grenade rolled on the floor, beeping. The Doctor knocked Churchill down and got away from the grenade who exploded, creating thick smoke invading the room.
Soldiers dressed in black and armed entered the room and aimed at the creatures on the ceiling, ordering each other to keep them on sight as two feminine shapes, dressed in black and holding a gun approached. One had long hair, the other short at neck length.
"Who the devil are you?! Identify yourselves!" ordered Churchill, still on the ground with the Doctor and looking at the newcomers.
"Pond" the long-haired one answered. "Amelia Pond."
"Williams." said the short-haired one. "Melody Williams."
The Doctor smiled and let out an excited laugh before screaming a panicked "No!" when Churchill aimed at them.
"They're on our side! It's okay!"
The two red-haired women came closer and as the Doctor turned back to look at them he froze, his smile leaving his face to be replaced with sadness when he saw both were wearing eyepatches. What did they do to them?
"No… No Amy, Melody…. No… Why are you wearing that?"
The girls looked at each other and without a word they rose their guns and shot the Doctor in the head.
Let me know what you think and see you next chapter! ;)