Chapter 7: Judgement Day
A year ago...
The Doctor awoke to a tingling sensation. He felt stiff and confused. His memory had deserted him. He was cold, and an agonizing pain suddenly shot through him. He attempted to open his eyes, but a rough blindfold obstructed his view.
"What?" he thought aloud, "I can't move! I'm paralyzed!" His limbs refused to obey him, no matter how hard he willed himself to stand.
Shooting pain terrorized his mind. The time vortex, the mind of the Tardis, all the knowledge of what was, what is, and what will be, had been viciously ripped from his mind.
For the first time in his life, he was truly alone.
"Clara." he groaned, "Where is Clara?" He laid on his side against some freezing surface, moaning as the cold slowly froze him from the outside in. He felt something on his back, a new weight, and his entire body felt like it weighed ten times heavier.
A new pain suddenly stabbed through his back. It snaked around his muscles and spine and fixed itself there. He attempted to cry out in agony, but no sound came.
He managed to gain power to his arms. He attempted to lift himself off the ground against the onslaught. He gritted his teeth and shouted, his scream echoing endlessly.
He was lifted off his feet in an instant. Something had grabbed him and hauled him upwards. He tried to remove the blindfold with his newly-working hands, but he could not force any kind of dexterity into his fingers to even come close to untying the knot.
A blast of energy hit him full on in the chest. He gasped, the wind knocked out of his lungs. Even through his blindfold, he could make out a blinding yellow light. The energy filled him and slammed him back into the ground.
The Time Vortex reestablished itself in his mind. It ran rampant through his body until he was teeming with energy. He clutched at his hearts. They were beating so fast, he was afraid that his body wouldn't be able to handle this amount of stress and would give out.
Blackness clouded his mind in a fog. The pain dissipated. A billion voices suddenly cried out in his unguarded mind. He screamed.
His hearts gave out, his mind collapsed, he crumpled into himself.
And merciful unconsciousness surrounded him in its quiet embrace.
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The Doctor stirred. Light chatter echoed around him. Arcs of lingering pain still coursed through him, but had now dissipated greatly. He groaned and realized that the blindfold had been removed.
"He is complete," he heard someone whisper.
"What?" The Doctor rasped back, not daring to open his eyes. He wasn't quite ready for what he was about to see, but he would recognize his own mother's voice anywhere.
"Arise, Doctor. Gaze upon what you have done." a different voice boomed. Anger laced the gruff voice.
Another voice the Doctor could never forget.
He squinted his eyes open against a blinding light. He gasped and staggered back. "No. No. This can't be." he murmured in disbelief. "This can't be true."
The High Gallifreyan Council surrounded him on all sides. He stood in the middle of the enormous arena, thousands of Weeping Angels filling the stands, all with their hands over their faces, a sign of disgrace in Gallifreyan society.
"No..." He choked out. "No…" tears brimmed his eyes.
He gazed down upon his body. He seemed normal, all skin and bone, fully healed, except for a pair of wings now on his back. He felt unbalanced with the new weight and stumbled. He extended the new muscles, testing their strength. He experimentally spread out his new limbs.
The beautiful new wings spread out over eight feet on either side of him. The feathers looked to be skillfully crafted in perfect detail. They were silver, white, and gold, sparkling in the blinding lights. They were heavy, but light enough to not be unbearable.
"No..." the Doctor squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face into his hands.
Billions of voices suddenly shouted at him all at once, accusing him, berating him with hateful words in their native Gallifreyan tongue.
"You destroyed us all, Doctor. Here are all the billions of lives you ended on that day."
He snapped open his eyes and the voices stopped. All the Angels had their eyes shut and their fingers extended accusingly in his direction.
He closed his eyes and the cacophony resumed.
"See the truth, Doctor. See what you have condemned us to for all eternity." The voice grated out.
"No..." the Doctor cried, crumpling to the floor with tears streaming from his eyes. Overwhelming guilt pummeled his spirit relentlessly.
"Time Lords can never truly die. The Time Vortex flowing through us restores us partially and forces us to stay alive for all eternity. We can never rest. We can never gaze upon another's eyes ever again. Every being in the universe runs from our presence." Rassilon's harsh voice spat at him.
"We are our own gravestones. We are forever trapped in the Void, the limbo between life and death."
"We were forced to displace innocent people in time and space in order to gather their time energy. We believed that if we could store enough energy, the Vortex would restore us completely and release us from our stone hell, but all attempts have been in vain," Rassilon's seethed, crouching down to hiss in the Doctor's ear.
"We gave you all the energy we had on Trenzalore, not because we wanted to save you, but to use you. All the time energy you possessed pooled with the energy we gave you, magnifying both. If an Angel could have found you, it may have been able to restore thousands of us with your energy. You owe us that."
Rassilon rose again and towered over the Doctor. "You have made the Time Lords and the Weeping Angels one and the same. You have betrayed your own race again by sending that energy into that girl. You gave her our last hope. You have killed us all once again."
The Doctor wept, running his hands over his face in shame. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I was just trying to save her." He tried to curl himself into a tight ball, using his new wings to shield him from their unseeing view.
"Is it true, Grandpa?" he heard a small voice say. "Is it true that you caused all this?" his youngest grandson whispered.
The Doctor lifted his head and managed to open his eyes. The other Angels immediately stopped, frozen in stone. As long as they all always had their eyes shut, they could gaze upon each other one at a time, but they could never look each other in the eyes. He squinted up at his stone great grandson through a haze of tears.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He choked out. He scanned the room, recognizing hundreds of people instantly; his father, his mother, his many brothers and sisters, his children, his children's children, and their children.
Everyone, friends, family, neighbors, teachers, the repairmen he stole the Tardis from, everyone glared at him from behind closed eyes. Their stone faces were contorted in silent grimaces. Their arms were extended towards him, as if trying to claw at him. The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut again in raw grief.
"The killer of his own kind." Rassilon whispered in his ear.
"The killer of his own kind!" Rassilon reared up to his full height, spreading his wings, broadcasting his anger through the shared Angel telepathy. "Killer! Killer! Killer!" he chanted.
"Killer! Killer! Killer!" billions of Angels chanted. The roar was deafening, a great symphony of hate latched itself onto him. Angry tendrils of spite curled into his mind and crushed his spirit. The Doctor screamed in agonizing pain, but no sound came from his mouth.
"And what do we do with killers?" Rassilon yelled. "How do we kill an immortal murderer?"
"Mark him!"
"Banish him!"
"Please." the Doctor begged, "You don't know what you're doing. I can help you."
Rassilon stepped over him, spitting on him. "You've done enough."
"You've heard the verdict. The people have decided."
A sudden blast of lightning struck the Doctor in the back. He screamed, coughing violently with the air once again knocked from his lungs. He struggled for air, feeling smothered. White-hot pain shot through all of his over-sensitized nerves. He clenched his teeth, certain that he would break a tooth with the amount of pressure he was exerting on his jaw to keep from crying out.
His new Angel genetics were being rewritten manually by the minds of a billion judges. His wings were now stained black on the topside, with a vibrant blood-red coating the underside.
"You are The Oncoming Storm, The Bringer of Darkness, The Most Feared Being in the Universe. It's about time you were branded as such," Rassilon roared vehemently. "May you wear the spilled blood of a billion galaxies. May your evil be brandished for all to see."
"Remember Amy and Rory?" Rassilon growled. "Didn't you ever wonder how that one Angel survived the paradox? Why it appeared in that exact spot at that exact time to rip them from your life?"
Rassilon bent down and grabbed the Doctor by the chin, lifting his face to become level to his. The Doctor could not see him, but could feel the heat of his body, the anger in his mind, the stench of his breath. "Consider their little trip a gift from me. No charge. We benefited greatly from their abundant Time Energy."
"You are banished, Doctor," Rassilon screamed into his ear, releasing him. "If you love the Earth so much, you can stay there for all eternity. See how it feels, Doctor. When everyone runs at your presence. When you drive away all those you love. Feel it, Doctor. Feel our pain."
A blinding light shot from the sky, forcing the Doctor to open his eyes. All the Angels in the room stood frozen in stone, pointing upwards.
"No..." he whispered.
The light wrapped him in a tight hold, cocooning him. He was snatched from the ground, shot into the sky, dragged through the void, and dumped into the land of the living.
A bout of lightning and a hole in the fabric of time and space spat the Doctor out onto the pavement harshly. He landed with a dull thud, his body spent. He shakily attempted to pull himself up with a grunt, collapsing once again onto the rough pavement.
His vision swam. He groaned. A random person who had heard the noise opened her window, gazing confusedly at the statue lying on the sidewalk.
The human saw him. He felt himself freeze instantly. When seen, Weeping Angels literally ceased to exist.
The Doctor clawed fruitlessly in his own body, feeling himself becoming wiped from reality.
His limbs turned to stone. The statue on the sidewalk laid motionless.
And the Doctor ceased to exist.