Kudos to madis hartte for the headcanons about Gallifrey, especially in this chapter.
oOo Doctor, oOo
Now they've got him, you can let your mind flood. You don't even have to concentrate on hiding the streak of blinding power, the name, for a while. You're focused so hard on Theta, on letting yourself remember him, that anyone trying to attack your mind would simply find confused bursts of love and devastation making a thick wall around the subconscious.
But no one is attacking you anymore.
You miss her, too, the loved one that no one thinks of. Where is your TARDIS? What have they done with her? Do they even know she's here? Maybe not.
Yeah, and maybe they'll let Theta be.
That's sarcasm, but your breath catches and you clutch at the thought. Why would they take him out of stasis? You don't answer yourself, repressing the knowledge of their cruelty, logic-ing Theta to life.
Not like you ever thought he was dead.
You'd know. Even if you can't touch his mind because of your weakened state, you believe you can still tell he's alive.
Right?
Yes.
And why would they kill him?
.
Something like hope lifts the corner of your mouth.
.
Sit there for a few more minutes - not that time means much in this never-changing insane asylum - then realize that there's something small, lying in a corner of your cell, black on the whiteness.
Slowly, you inch over to the corner. Thankfully, it isn't far away, and your injuries aren't acting up too very badly - you make it there with only a small amount of pain.
And find a strip of cloth - dark red, now you see it up closer.
Well, it will match the stains on your shirt and pants, as well as the natural colour of your suspenders.
Red it is.
And so you tie your bowtie back around your neck, and it feels good to have it. Something everyone used to laugh at. But that's just the thing - you could use some laughing, laughing like that.
oOo
It's a beautiful day, ten times better because you haven't seen the outside world in a week. The sky is the perfect tone of vivid orange - almost neon. The suns set fire to it, fire that rushes down the mountains, veins of sliver flickering in the waving crimson grass.
You stand in front of a window, circular and rimmed with black iron, a window so huge that you almost forget your troubles standing in front of it. It makes you feel so small. Like you don't matter. In which case, you won't be able to hurt anything.
You won't be hurting anything anyway.
Through the next room is the Gallifreyan council chamber, which is assembling again, debating among themselves, preparing something or other.
You don't really know.
Nor, for the first time in six days, do you care.
You press your cheek to the glass. It's somewhere between warm and cool, like water from a tap, and if you closed your eyes you might imagine yourself bathing some of your cuts in that water. But you can't shut your eyes. The mountains, so sharp, rearing up like waves, so much higher than the Everest the humans look to - you have to keep staring.
"It's so beautiful," you say, hearing a step behind you. A robe slithers on the stone floor near your shoulder, but you keep staring out.
"Doctor."
It's a cracked, female voice, and you turn to see a figure, bent with age but still quite tall, standing there, a folded piece of red cloth in her hands. Her hair and eyes are wild, and your first instinct is to back away. But you stay, wait for her to speak.
"Come to get you dressed," she says.
"What?"
She lets the cloth she is holding unfold, falling and resolving into the shape of a Gallifreyan ceremonial robe.
"They say you should wear this before the council," she says. "Before they tear you apart."
The last bit is said so matter-of-factly that you shiver, but you let it be. Look the robe up and down. Yes - now that you think of it, it was probably considered a bit rude to come into the council with Earth clothes on. Not that you could help it.
"What, no hat?" You say. "I love a good hat."
"Come on, get that silly thing off," she says, and you tug your bowtie off a little regretfully. Then she gestures for you to continue, so you slowly peel your shirt off, gritting your teeth when the dried blood tugs at your chest.
"Ah, they could have done so much more," the woman says, eyeing your injuries. "Look, I can still see skin they didn't bruise. We could still take you in, get you fixed up a bit. So many things I can think of."
Your flesh prickles in the bare cold.
"Going to ssskin you."
You take a deep breath, holding your hands tight in fists, stiff and straight. Staring ahead.
"You know, I would," she says, and runs a fingernail sharp down your arm.
And you feel the whole bloody process - skin peeling away, alive until the last, every second - in a flash, real as the hours of torture you've already gone through.
With the shock of a man who has just had a bucket of chill water drench his hair, eyes open wide, you fold your arms around yourself. Try to rub away the horror. Unsuccessfully.
"Your mind is so open!" She says, laughing and putting her paper fingers on the nape of your neck - which doesn't help the fright. "So easy to get sensation down your throat."
"Stop, stop, please," you say, only half-caring about how lost and helpless you sound.
"You only had to ask," she says, and holds out the ceremonial robe. "Here."
You reach for it, but she snatches it away and pulls it over your head. Suffocating for a second, and then it falls over you, hem to the floor, resting so light on your shoulders that it doesn't hurt too very badly.
"Shame," she says, "This regeneration is gorgeous."
You wrap your arms around yourself again.
"Almost as lovely as your first one was, when he was young," she says, head tilted, finger on cheek.
Your head whips round to look at her. The way she said that - oh, sweet Rassilon, it - it isn't.
"Hi," she says.
"What have they done to you?" You say, reaching for her, catching her head (so ugly where it was once so, so lovely) in your hands, gentle.
"Sent her to fight. She went to fight and she never came back."
A moan rubs in your throat. "Please say you're in there somewhere."
"Your wife is gone," she smiles, teeth crooked. Eyes dim. Hair grey. Not the girl with gold on her head and sky in her eyes anymore.
"I thought they killed you years ago," you say, voice whispering, scraping, gravel on tears.
"They killed her more than twice," she says. "They know how to bring people back and back and back and back for this war. Not before. But during the war. They don't make people alive again for love, just for killing. Lovely boy, don't you know, dying drives the mind where it shouldn't go. You think you know regeneration? You do not know death, what death is."
"No. I know you're in there." And summoning a power of will you didn't know you had, you touch her mind, tear down her defences, flood in.
She is real - not some hallucination - that's for sure. No one could fake this insanity. It's horrible to feel - you shake it off, but keep searching. And it keeps clogging you down.
You've been in here too long, you have to leave.
You have to go.
Where is the girl with flowers in her hair, the flowers that smell like time?
You drop your hands.
"She's gone," you say, voice hardening.
"She is, for certain," she replies, and kisses you.
You pull away, disgusted, shaking your head. "She's gone. You're not her. No wonder I didn't recognize you."
"All the good is gone," she says, "And all the bad is mixed up with all the rest of the bad in the universe." Considers you for a second. "Bone," she says. "You'd look good all bones. I hope they kill you slowly."
oOo
You stand behind the doors into the council hall. They're closed, and you're in shadow, hot, stifling bodies pressing around you. They think such a beaten-down man needs this many soldiers to keep him from running?
But they're not worried you'll run.
Oscar Wilde. A scrap of human poetry - as if this is the time for poetry - darts through your head.
They watch him when he tries to weep, / and when he tries to pray, / they watch him lest himself should rob / the prison of its prey.
.
Any hope you felt earlier is gone - and that was probably the effect they were trying to give, sending her in to you. Seeing her - you got over your wife's death long ago. Eight hundred years ago. And she has been gone for that long - there is nothing left of her inside that crazy, ranting body.
So why does it hurt so badly?
No.
You cover your face.
That was before.
You are past her.
You are mourning River.
You are protecting Theta.
You are not in that life anymore.
.
The sound of Amy screaming in pain certainly gives that away.
.
She's saying something snarky to Rassilon now, the silly girl. Are they making you listen to this on purpose? Glorious Pond, who you haven't seen for days of nightmares - she'd be sunshine, but they make her another bad dream? She's in there, she's in there right now.
The doors open, and you hear the end of Rassilon's reply to her.
"You think your Doctor will be able to fight us?"
The Lord President laughs.
"Bring him out here."
.
The guards move forward as one, and you stumble along with them, into the the council hall. The sunslight smacks your eyes, shutting them for a second, then giving you only sharp, cruel, white-on-white images. You blink.
The little wetness still in your mouth goes down to stick in your throat - Amy's staring at you, the pink drained from her cheeks. You realize with a shock that tears are dripping off her chin.
You haven't, of course, seen a mirror since your torture, but from a little inspection your hands did, earlier, you figure you might be close to unrecognizable. You could only run your hands over your skin intermittently, jerking back when they hit a spot that hurt even more than the rest. But the fact that you couldn't even touch yourself without massive pain tells you a lot.
You wish the prickly shadow of colour on your chin and neck was long enough to cover the bruises, the raw skin, that you could hide your face. But they want her to see.
See you completely defeated. Mangled. Crushed.
And little Amelia Pond is looking at you. At her madman, her madman with a box - who has no box now, who is battered and whose fairytale has ended. She's looking at the dirt and the sweat and the places you've torn the scabs on your face all over, trying to wipe your running nose, the fresh and the crusted disgusting stuff from it covering your cheeks and gumming your mouth. Where you scraped your fingers over the delicate healing skin on your face far too hard, in your attempt to wipe away the tears … every degradation of dirt that can cover a person soaks some stain on your robe. Like the disgusting acid place where they starved you sick and all your food came up -
Oh, no. You put your hand up and, forcing your way through the sudden screaming of your skin, touch the place on your chest just above the robe's neckline. Move your fingers up, and the brutal bursts of fire that come with your heartsbeats fade slightly.
Right. So the burns end there. So she won't see them, really. A little gift.
.
"Doctor," Amy mouths.
You'd tell her you're sorry, but you're too ashamed to speak.
"Doctor!" she screams.
Leave me alone.
You look for refuge - you have - you need - someone who won't - you find Rory with your eyes. He understands. He won't be so devastated by the way you look. He's a nurse, he knows what a ruined body looks like.
His jaw is clenched, but his features are blank. He's got his arm around Amy, who is now fighting him - fighting everyone. Keep her there, Rory.
But she breaks free. Every one of your muscles tense - "No, Amy!" you scream.
She reaches your guards, and for a second, there's a little resistance, as she bumps up against the soldiers. You watch helplessly, breath heaving in your chest.
Heaven knows you'd do anything to stop their hurting her, but cold hard truth is that you're one hundred percent helpless. "Amy!" you gasp again.
But what do they care? She pushes through because they let her. She's there, she's close, she's only a foot or two away from you. She puts a hand near your face and then draws back. "Does it hurt?" She says. "No," you lie, grabbing her hand and then, realizing you're probably crushing her bones to pieces, loosening up, putting her palm to your cheek where she was about to place it.
"Oh, Doctor," she says, devastation written in the lines between her eyebrows.
She leans in close to you, laying her head on your shoulder, and even though it the contact hurts worse than you can bear, you take this as a signal that closeness, even given the state you're in, isn't something disgusting for her. Your arms turn to white-hot torture as you wrap them around her, but you only wince and hang on tight, shielding her from everything. Even though you might as well be holding a sheet of paper between her and the fire, for all the good you're doing. "Amy, Amy," you whisper. She wraps her hands around you, and you can feel how fragile her body is. Human beings. Made of china.
"We go down fighting," you say.
"What does it matter?"
You flounder. "Because it means they haven't beaten us," you whisper.
"But they have," she says. And you start to tell her she doesn't mean it. But then you look at her eyes.
"Come here," you say, pressing her closer, crushing her against you with all the strength you have left (which isn't much). Like she's your child, your charge, because this is your fault and you feel a pressing urge to make it better. To help her forget for a second. "When did the monsters ever scare Amelia Pond?" And you put a hand on her head, keeping her close, so she can't see any of the sharp shapes around.
She sniffs.
"Don't you cry," you say. "Brave heart, Amy."
"What's there to be brave about?" she says.
"But that's never been the point of bravery," you say. "Bravery's about facing the dark like there's still something to give you steel. Think you can do that? No, I know you can. But here. Cry now and get it out."
There are a few tears, but she's so empty that after only a few seconds, she's silent again.
"You look terrible," she says, voice monotone.
"I know," you say.
Her fingers curl slowly over a rip in your shirt where fresh blood is still steadily staining the fabric. "What did they do to you?"
"Whatever it was, I swear it isn't happening to you. I won't let them touch you."
"How can you say that?" Her voice continues on one note.
"I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve," you say, lifting her chin.
"You're lying," she says, and you kiss her forehead slowly instead of denying it.
She leans away from you, but you keep hard hold of her hand. "Don't let me go," you say.
"I won't," she says.
You can be brave for her. Fish fingers and custard.
And then a hand closes around your shoulder, and you're yanked away from her. Pushed forward, through the crowd, into the centre of the marble floor. All's confusion for a second, then the same chain as before bites around your wrist, and you flinch, because your bones haven't healed and the manacle's weight shoves all their shattered bits into odd positions. You grab the chain and lift it with your other hand so it's not dragging on the injury.
The room falls quiet. Looking around, you see the council settling into their places, then turning still as stone.
"Before we proceed to Trenzalore, do you have any last statements for the court?" A Time Lady asks, voice ringing in the still hall.
"The child," you whisper.
"You will have to speak up," she says.
"The child," you say, voice scratching like sandpaper. "Where's Theta? Where's my son?"
There is a movement somewhere to the left - a Time Lady has got to her feet.
"Theta Tau is dead. He was taken out of stasis the evening past and died five hours later."
She sits back down, expression unchanging.
It hits you like a blow to your throat, and you're choking up blood and tears before you can even wrap your mind around the words. Collect your breath. "If you're lying to me, I -" But you break down again, because you can see on every face that it's true. Give a hollow, hopeless curse, and fit your open eyes into the heels of your hands. And start to sob.
Your whole body shakes in great wracking waves. Like it hasn't, ever. Not this body. The torture didn't do this to you. You didn't feel the tears burning the inside of your throat, and reaching deep to scar your stomach, no matter how much your skin withered and blackened in their fire.
"Pull yourself together, Doctor," some authoritative voice snaps. "You should be ashamed."
The tears do stop. Quick. Within a minute you're smearing them away, gulping down air.
Then you wrap your arms around yourself, closing your eyes and trying to hold on to what you've still got. Rory, Amy - and who else? Everyone else is dead.
Unexpectedly, a whiplash of hate splashes across the back of your eyelids, lighting them red and green and bitter gold. Why are they dead?
You can feel it rising inside you.
"You'll pay for this," you say, eyes squeezed shut, loud enough for the entire council to hear.
"You cannot do anything," the first voice replies. "You are powerless."
Your arms slowly loosen, and your eyes open as a scream climbs up the inside of your chest. Your muscles, tense with grief a moment ago, are filling with an iron of another alloy.
Your back straightens, jaw working. The tension has reached your throat. It's at your mouth. "I am powerless," you say. "I am powerless." Your words are harsh, full to the brim with rage. "Yeah, that's me, the one who's about to pull the universe apart with a word, that's me, utterly powerless. Who are you kidding." You half-turn, measuring the council up with your eyes. "You think what your torturers have done to me is bad. Oh, I'll put you through hell before the end. You'll all feel it."
Two guards come up, and you raise a hand. "Don't - touch me," you snap.
They don't.
You toss the hair out of your eyes, sending a little spray of red through the air, and address the council again. "I'd tell you all to run but I think you're past any kind of intelligence. Oh, and you can't go anywhere, that's right, I forgot, there's a time lock around you. 'Course, you know that. Did you know that someone put it on so he could burn your planet?"
A moment's shock, and then Rassilon speaks up. "You overestimate your ability to weave stories, Doctor," he says.
"Weaving stories, right. The Moment, just a big de-mat gun - but one pull on that trigger and the planet exploded. Yeah, and you all screamed. Rassilon, I could hear you, great mind like yours. And you were afraid." You stand, trembling. "Now, you know what I'm capable of and you know that you've just hurt me worse than you were even trying to. Enjoy yourself. The next few hours should be fun for everyone."
"We hope you enjoy it as much as we will," Rassilon says.
You nod, face still hard as rock. "Don't worry."
"It is time," Rassilon says.
The guards from before come up and unchain you, pulling the manacle off viscously so it dislocates more of your bones.
Suddenly, the pain needles you. Nibbles at your brain. Just makes you want to give it to someone else. Inflict it.
One of the guards jostles you roughly from behind, and then he's alongside you - and with the new pain and the new hate comes a sudden echo tearing through your ears. Nothing but a scream.
A scream made of agony.
Pure, molten agony.
You're disorientated, confused - and it's not till you see another Time Lord, striding in front of you, and hear another echo, that you realize what it is. (This time, you can hear words. "No, please, can't you let me live? I'm still young - first regeneration - please - please, just rescue me, just me, I -")
No. No. This is what you were scared of. What almost chased you off going to Gallifrey in the first place. Remembering. You shouldn't have dug up that memory of Rassilon's dying moments. Because, welling up like a flood, a Flood that infects, comes the chorus of pain that pressed against your mind the moment before your planet turned to dust, years ago and years ahead.
It's the face of a beautiful Time Lady, next, and you can't pay attention to where they're dragging you because all you can see are the tears, the names, and the screaming mouths of the people around you.
It's around the twentieth nightmare that you begin to ask the soldiers to kill you. Of course, they never would - first, they're not that merciful, and second, they need your name. But you can't help pleading all the same. And it all turns to desperate hate when they won't lop your head off and spare you the remembrance.
You're somewhere deep underground when you stop, and by then you're delirious, shaking and muttering who knows what. Oh, great, look, a jailer. Want to know how you died, jailer? You gave this little squeal when the fire came. That was all. But it hurt. That moment when your soul left your body drove you insane. Oh, I can feel it. No wonder you went crazy. I think I'm going crazy, too. Out of our minds, the both of us. Well, it's a big club, you know. We could get t-shirts.
Theta, daddy's gone.
.
They sit you in a cell, maybe in a TARDIS, maybe not, leave you. Thank goodness, thank goodness you'll all be dead soon. Planetfall will be so pretty with all the screams like singing. They've already got enough cries from you, though, you'll laugh instead, in the ash streaking down like rain. Here it comes, Trenzalore. Stupid Silence, thinking they could stop you, you toppled them like a child poking a peg doll over with a finger. You did that, or was it River?
When?
And they're going to fall.
(But was it you, or golden-hair-sad-sad-eyes laughing-flirting gone-dead-gone River Song?)
She isn't here, she's with your son.
Agh.
Bend over, arms wrapped around your middle, you'd throw up if there was anything left in your body besides empty black holes. If there is some kind of afterlife, you've a feeling you won't make it to the place Theta and River are - you've failed them and the whole of creation, and, actually, you don't care anymore. Oh, you care about them, of course, and that's what makes you want, want to put a knife in the belly of the universe. Revenge, best served cold as supernovas.
Cold, cool.
Bowties of blood traced out on the floor.
Haha! It's all so funny, an iron-tasting funny. You blink too much, it's coming back to you. Bowties and fezzes and stetsons.
But it never really left, this blindness, this terror, this sin. You could hide under hats, but it's coming back to sink its teeth into your neck and freeze your joy in the past.
Everything is your fault. The word "everything" is thrown around too lightly in the world, think about it. Everything, every broken thing in all of time and space, was, is, will be snapped by you. You've destroyed so many people that mangling all of reality is just finishing the job. And you can't take it anymore! It's not something anyone could take. The only option is to meet what you're about to do with open arms, show it how to inflict pain, and then point it towards the Time Lords and watch it do its work with a bowl of popcorn. Make them scream.
oOo
If you cared, you'd wonder why they chose this place for executions. Maybe it's dramatic effect. Ruined stone with blood-red glass spiking up alongside blades of glass - a half-paved courtyard, surrounded by low, jumbled walls.
Most likely, it saves them the trouble of carrying the bodies away.
The grass is so red.
Maybe it's blood.
Maybe it's health from the morbid feast of a thousand Time Lords turned dirt.
It's a nice place to go, grass. Lucky to feed it, they were, the ones who were snapped here.
But you were snapped before, and they're just finishing off your body, catching the run-off from your soul as it spills.
Only they won't.
.
You look up, suddenly, to see if the world has changed. No. The Time Lords are still screaming their deaths away in your ears, like they will be if you hold out. And they will be if you don't.
But it's changed because you've realized that you have to fight.
.
Good thing that's when they push you down on a rough piece of cobblestone, because you want to cry from sheer exhaustion. What, you? Fight? Now? Why? Because you have to? What kind of rubbish answer is that?
.
"Can you just leave me alone?" You mumble.
No one listens.
.
You put your face in your hands, careful not to rub the raw, sticky skin, and press your fingers into your eyes until a city of lights sparkles in front of you, all gold and red.
"Get over with it," you say.
.
Rassilon's deep voice replies. "It doesn't have to go so slowly, Doctor," he says.
You open your eyes, look around at the Time Lords surrounding you, putting pieces together instead of deliriously floating from one face to another in death agonies like snowflakes (so many, each so unique). The whole council is here, standing around, robes flapping in the wind, the whole council here to see Silence fall. If you were an ordinary criminal, it would just be you and the executioner (you know from personal experience. Not that you ever came near Trenzalore, but a sentence somewhere was pending. Long story, and the law, once looked up, had a nice little loophole that someone had scribbled in, along with an apology and "you know, it's not a crime on Earth - you really should update these things").
.
A Time Lord comes up and jerks your hands behind you with a piece of rope.
"The formal question," someone says. You can tell they're reading from something by the flat tone of their voice. Dip your head, close your eyes, sink back into your mind. Not deep enough to block out the reader's words. "What is the Doctor's true name?"
You blink. But what about -
"Doctor who?" Someone says, beside you, and you close your eyes once more. You can hear the smile in their words. Judging by the voice, it's your torturer, and you hate him worse than you hated him before - he had to add that? Extractor: job description: act friendly, get information from prisoners, and make snide jokes that unintentionally but conveniently make them feel like they're doomed.
But did you hate him before?
No, you didn't. And you don't.
Even though that comment betrays the insubstantial respect he played at having for you.
You crack your eyelids open and look at him, neck stiff and slow to move.
He cried when he found out he was going to die. Innocent, child-tears.
You feel them filming your own eyes.
You don't hate him.
.
"Answer?" the reader says.
You shake your head.
A group of guards moves forward, into your field of vision. One soldier takes Rory by the upper arms and forces him along until he's right in front of you. "Answer?"
.
So this is where it really ends. You stare at him, not blinking. He doesn't look scared, he probably believes you'll save him - but no. He's too intelligent for that.
If you could just explain -
"I'm sorry," you say. "I'm -"
.
It turns into a cry, as they stick the knife in his stomach. You look down, mouth half open, at where he's fallen, so close that the blood shines your shoes. And have nothing to say. Nothing to do, as he lies there, curled in on himself.
"Amy," he whispers.
.
Your eyes are wide. Look anywhere but him.
You tilt your foot just slightly and watch the red drip off your leather boot. A thousand bruised years and you still don't know how to deal with pain. Twenty decades running from death, leading to a place where suicide looks like paradise.
That's your life.
.
And then it's Amy in front of you, the girl who waited just to die. Should have left her on Appalapachia.
You refuse to look at her and end up memorizing the colour of her iris (beautiful olive green).
Oh, my darling, make it go away.
Run.
Can't.
.
"Doctor," she says, drawing back fearfully, making herself small.
"Answer?" The reader talks over her.
You shake your head.
She's on the ground beside Rory, same knife spraying the floor with little rubies made of life. She moves her hand into his. His fingers curl ever so slightly over her palm.
.
Oh, you selfish, selfish man, rotten like a hollowed out apple. You could have died, on the beach, when you were supposed to. But you ran away. A chance at escape jumped in front your heat-pressed brain, and before you realized what you were doing, you were on the floor of the Tessilecta, laughing at death as you stared at the ceiling. Laughing at death. Death, that you should have embraced more fondly than River. Because you were meant to die and you knew - you knew this was coming! How could you, how could you be so arrogant, to think you could escape, so selfish, to choose a handful of borrowed years over the preservation of every grain of reality.
Over these beautiful people, totally ruined.
(You thought you could win.)
But maybe you have won.
And if you have, and the Time Lords let you go, you'll walk over and die with the Ponds. That's where you belong. In the dust with the human beings.
You can't tell if you're insulting yourself or wishing on a star.
.
"Is that all?" You say.
The wind's whistles don't give a good enough answer.
"I - have - nothing - left - to - lose," you say, honesty licking the jar of despair clean.
"That isn't quite true."
You don't bother looking for the speaker.
"What is it, then?" You say. "Get it over. Die and let die."
There's a little silence, and you wonder what the fastest way to kill yourself is.
One of the Ponds gives a moan.
Who are you, anyway? Is it even fair that a teenage rebel, a grandfather looking for adventure, a lost child, would have to fall, would have to become this? Is the price of seeing the stars always your soul?
.
A baby starts to cry.
Your eyes snap open, and even with the stiffness, the crusted wounds, the melted and missing skin, you stumble to your feet. "Theta!" You scream.
They bring him close, too close, stepping over the Ponds and showing you his face. His living, breathing body.
You lose something, and it takes you a second to realize what. It's the ability to touch other minds - it just falls away. The Time Lords around you have closed themselves off perfectly.
There is no way any of you could access one another's consciousness. Theta is real. For certain this time.
You try to hold out your tied hands on instinct, and end up just jerking your body forward in a sick lurch towards the only thing that matters.
The knife comes out again, and it's a haze, synapses shutting down, logic cracking and giving way under the weight of this dropped piano. You hear all the keys banging together as it falls, your mind splitting and splintering like violin strings; cut and whipping back.
"Answer?" The reader says.
One string still holds, and you scream as the pressure twists it another 360 degrees - another - another - so tight, set to spring free. Your last lifeline of defiance, of sense.
There's a silver flash where the knife was still a moment ago.
And you jump into Time. Calling it. Fear resounding like a cut cord.
You sing to time and it sings back.
Answer.
It's long, complex, harsh, mad with hate, and your self-detestation swamps everything as the Gallifreyan rolls off your tongue. You feel your bonds snapping, the raw power of time spilling out, stopping hearts.
The man holding Theta falls to the ground.
Cold sweat sticks to you like clammy plastic wrap. It's still coming, the name, you can't stop it.
You hear someone give a gasp at your feet.
No. Changing time. It's changing time. Some base instinct tells you you're messing with the streams and rivers and cataracts that shouldn't be touched, the fixed points and the not-so-fixed-points and the people you love and the people you hate.
It's guiding your tongue, time is, and you can feel its pain fly past. Don't do this to us. Here're the weapons. Don't kill us. Here's a nice big sword that you can't help but swing down on our skull.
And you sink into that pain, knowing what it will bring.
First it brings power, even more than you just had - it terrifies you - and then you fall into the place, the place where, right now, time is filling the empty spots inside you. The bit you can only reach by death and the the burnt burning pathways of "hello, my name is."
And you begin to regenerate.