Somewhere in the dark reaches of space, a burning object soars through the darkness, fire erupting at the seams, smoke pluming.

"I can't do anything!" Screamed a man as he struggled with the controls while another worked on them from the other side. "Everything's locked up!"

The temperature rising, the smoke hanging over them, mini explosions in the distance that rung out in echoes, everything going south, as the two men attempted to wrangle the situation.

What started as a simple adventure quickly turned sour, things of unimaginable horror unleashed themselves, it's a miracle the men survived, at all.

"Jamie, help me!" He heard his name and he quickly abandoned his post to help his longtime friend and mentor, the Doctor.

Through the blanket of smoke, Jamie reached his side, and helped the Doctor with trying to rewire part of the control panel as the Doctor struggled with the multicoloured wires.

"We gotta get out of here!" Jamie saw the futility trying to salvage the TARDIS from the firefight it was put through when he and the Doctor fled their latest adventure.

Daleks, the lot of them, have somehow gotten wiser than before, enough they've tracked and started opening fire on the TARDIS throughout space.

Couldn't escape them if they tried and they're doing considerable damage to the TARDIS unseen before, even the Doctor couldn't believe his eyes.

Desperate, the Doctor attempted to rewire the TARDIS, the fires creeping closer, Jamie shouting for him, but the wiring got too hot, the Doctor yelped as he pulled back his wrinkly fingers, the wiring melted to the point the protective coverings turned into liquid, hot enough that the Doctor screamed in pain as he clutched his hands, Jamie pulling him away from the burning controls.

The TARDIS was burning from the inside out, there was nothing they can do, but now they're faced with a daunting task, escaping with their lives.

A terrible thought, the Doctor losing his TARDIS, but there was nothing he could've done, everything's on fire, the heat has ruined the controls, but the worst was they're trapped in space.

There's no way they can land the TARDIS, if it descends a planet, they'll likely burn up in the atmosphere.

"No, it can't… it can't end like this!" Cried out the Doctor, desperate for a way out of their situation.

If the fires reach the TARDIS's heart…

"Oomph!" Jamie's struck by a piece of the arch hanging over the console room.

Hit him square in the back as he fell to the unbearably hot grated flooring.

"Jamie!" The Doctor screamed as he ran towards his companion, attempting to lift the arch off Jamie proved difficult, the Doctor's age and the heat of the arch made it difficult for him to so much as touch the arch.

"Jamie!" The Doctor screamed his name, but Jamie fell unconscious from the arch striking him, and the Doctor sees that the grate is starting to burn his clothes and leaving burns in his face and hands.

Falling backwards as he tried to force himself to lift the arch, the Doctor cried out in pain as he felt something stab through his leg.

It's a piece of the ceiling, broken apart from the intense heat.

The pain shot up through the Doctor's leg as he cried out in pain.

It felt like the end for him and his longtime companion.

"It… it can't end like this!" The Doctor cries out as he felt his tears evaporating in the intense heat.

Waiting for the inevitable as he couldn't move an inch, the Doctor's fate grim, something happened, something unexpected.

The fire, the smoke, all of it stopped, frozen in time.

Everything's frozen in time.

Sensing a presence, the Doctor turned his head, there a man stood next to him.

Wore a navy-blue suit, a red tie that stood out from his white dress suit, and had illuminating blue eyes.

"Who… what…?" The Doctor's amazed at the sight as he forgotten the injury to his leg.

He heard the man talk to him, it didn't sound like the man was human, only looked like one, but even that's a stretch with his pale skin and the black veins that poke through.

"An… angel to some… a… demon to others," the man replied to the Doctor's question, though it didn't exactly answer the Doctor's questions.

Despite everything happening, the Doctor still carried his wit, asking the man, "No name, hm?"

The man acknowledged this with a subtle head nod and said, "Not… exactly…"

His attention refocused on Jamie, the Doctor cried out to the man, begging him, "Help me, then, Jamie doesn't have time!"

Though the man didn't share the same urgency as the Doctor, causally stating, "We have… all the… time…"

It seemed as though the man had come not to help the Doctor and Jamie, but instead for his own reasons.

His dark eyes narrowing, the Doctor asks, "What do you want?"

A smile on those pale thin lips, though nothing suggesting anything good, the man responded with, "I… believe… we can… come to a… mutual… agreement..."

He'll only help the Doctor, if the Doctor's willing to agree to his proposition.

Unflinching, the Doctor asked, "What's that?"

He may be old, but he certainly wasn't senile, and he knew the man was angling for something tangible.

Unfortunately, the man's answer wasn't what he expected.

"We… both know… you are… not long… for this world… Patrick… but… it doesn't have to be… for him," the man tells the Doctor.

Stunned, the Doctor lost his composure as he wanted to know how the man knew his name.

His real name!

A chuckle, the man explained, "A demon… to others…"

Snapping out of it, the Doctor immediately asked, "Why should I trust you?"

If he knew his name, what else may he know?

A casual shrug.

"You have… no other… choice…" the man pointed out that the Doctor didn't have any other way out of this situation that he'd be foolish to decline the man's proposition.

Thinking it long and hard, the pain in his leg worsening as blood squirted out of the wound with the piece of metal jutting out, the Doctor asks, "But Jamie lives?"

A stiff nod.

"I see… no reasonwhy he… would not…" the man answers.

He wasn't stunned when the Doctor then demanded to know, "What do you want with the TARDIS?"

The Doctor figured out what he was angling for and the man wasn't so much as impressed as he was waiting for the Doctor to draw his own natural conclusion for the reason he is here and now.

"There are… events that… have yet… to come… to pass," the man explained to the Doctor, his illuminating eyes cutting through the frozen smoke.

Understanding this, the Doctor summed, "And you need it to start them."

Another stiff nod.

"Correct," the man responded.

Pointing at him agitatedly, the Doctor insisted, "Swear to me!"

He heard back, "He ….and the… machine… will live."

Chewing on his inner lip, the Doctor thought long and hard about what he was doing, but seeing the unconscious Jamie across from him, the TARDIS on fire, his wound grim, he utters, "Fine."

He committed a cardinal sin, but he hadn't any other choice, the man said as it as such.

"… But he… will never… remember you…" he heard the man interject his thoughts.

By saving Jamie, his memories of the Doctor will no longer hold true, it'd be as though he was in a dream of dreams, nothing more.

"What?" The Doctor's mouth dropped at this, but the man wasn't finished as he then also added, "And… his sisters…"

Not only would Jamie forget the Doctor, but his two adopted sisters, as well.

"But…" the Doctor stammered, not understanding what the man was getting at, but he explained his reasoning.

"It's… for his… own good… he has… changed… Doctor… he cannot… go home… again… he cannot… see… them… again," the man summed why it had to be this way.

There's more to this than met the Doctor's eyes, but they've become irritated from the smoke to the point he couldn't focus on the man.

"That's not what we agreed on!" The Doctor pointed out that they only agreed that Jamie would live, but the man was quick to point out that the Doctor never said anything about Jamie remembering him or his adopted sisters.

Seeing the look on the man, the Doctor knew he couldn't barter for a better outcome, that he asked, "But his sisters?"

If Jamie doesn't remember them and they certainly remember him, what then?

"It's… for the… best," the man summed.

Curious and knowing his time is coming, the Doctor wanted to know what happened to Jamie's beloved sisters, but the answer the man gave didn't inspire confidence.

"Events… beyond… their… control…" the man summed to the Doctor.

Looking over to who he considered as his son, the Doctor lamented, "Jamie…"

Stiffly turning his head towards Jamie, the man goes, "It's… for the best…"

Seeing the despondent look in the Doctor's face, the man offered a rare glimpse into Jamie's future.

"He will… live… a long… fulfilling… life…" the man gave this to the Doctor.

There were no tricks, no lies, the man told the truth.

Though Jamie won't remember, he will still live a long life, and that's as much as the Doctor could hope for.

Acknowledging this with a stiffening nod, the Doctor sees the blood continuing to ooze, his strength disappearing by the second, his eyes growing heavy, until they closed on their own.

Blood soaked through the grate, dripping through the holes to the bottom floor below.

Moving towards the unconscious Jamie, the man effortlessly pulled the arch off him, like it was paper, before picking him up, carrying him through the opened door of the TARDIS.

"Iterum…incipit…" the man said as he disappeared through a bright light.

THE END