Run Away

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"They say there is a Tharil safe haven out there somewhere." The Corsair said. He took a long drink from the glass and winced as the fluid burned the back of his throat; he dropped the glass back on the bar. "They say that's where Lady Romana fled after the fall of the citadel to Rassilon's coup."

The Doctor didn't say anything. He simply looked at the mirror in front of him. 1852 New Mexico, he hadn't expected to find the Corsair in a sideshow circus, but then again trying to expect anything from the Corsair was risky business. The Corsair had regenerated since he'd last saw him, and was now a hulk of a man far beyond seven foot tall with Paul Bunyan shoulders. He had a simple but robust moustache trimmed neatly. His Ourosboros tattoo was displayed on his right forearm and was tight against the bulging muscle. He was wearing a ten-gallon hat and snake-skin boots with silver spurs.

"You realize that stunt you pulled in the Medusa Cascade has got them enraged," The Corsair cupped his hands around his whiskey glass, "and by 'them' I don't mean the dust-bins." The Corsair's green eyes looked at the Doctor from the mirror. "You saved an entire super-cluster from a horde of vampires released in that battle near Dronid, but they only see the strategic loss of the D-Mat Gun."

"It isn't lost, you know." The Doctor finally said. He gave the Corsair a side-long glance. "I have it, a weapon like that shouldn't be in the hands of the people running things now."

"With that weapon the Time Lords could finish this war instantly." The Corsair took another drink.

"And then what?" The Doctor looked down at his own drink. "I know Rassilon. I've dealt with his brand of egoism before. He won't stop at the Daleks, he won't even stop at the Universe. There was a reason he was trapped in that tower by us. He's no better than the Daleks, in some ways he is worse. The Daleks for all their bluster and bombasticity are trivial compared to Rassilon and his New Time Lord Empire."

"So what's your plan then?" The Corsair turned and looked at the Doctor intently. The Doctor was smaller, frailer than the Corsair remembered. Dressed in an emerald green jacket and gilded vest with a small fob watch hung lop-sided from the chest pocket. His hair was shorter now, still curly but noticeably thinner. "How long do you think you can hide? I've had to shut down my TARDIS power matrix; they tried to hijack me through the Eye of Harmony."

"Type 87's have a leaky backdoor through the singularity control software. I told you to downgrade when I last saw you." The Doctor replied taking a deep breath. "Plus, the old girl is so jerry-rigged and cross-wired even if they tried to get control the poor bastards would get lost in the internal control matrix, it'd take ten technicians to get the first technician's mind out, and then they'd need someone else to get the ten technicians out."

"You think that will stop them?" The Corsair smirked.

"No, no, I don't, but I'm working on a more permanent solution." The Doctor replied. He looked up at the Corsair. "You said something about a Tharil safe haven?"

"There are rumors." The Corsair nodded. "After Romana's presidency ended the Tharils pulled out of the military treaty with the Time Lords. They retreated back across the CVE. It's said they've been shuttling people who want to escape into E-Space. We could go. You and me, we'll find other Time Lords who believe like we do, believe that this is insanity; we could retreat to E-Space help build some kind of Time Lord society from the smoking remains of the madness that is on Gallifrey."

"The last I heard the Time Lords have destroyed all the active CVEs. Even if there was a Tharil safe haven, there'd be no way to it." The Doctor replied; he looked back to his glass.

"The Tharils are clever kitties." The Corsair put his huge arm around the Doctor's shoulder. His arm was almost as thick as the Doctor's head and neck. The arm's weight caused the Doctor to bow slightly against its weight. "I'm sure they've got some secret spot out there, we've just got to find it."

"You are welcome to search." The Doctor said, a finger tracing the edge of his glass. "There are still things I have to do here."

"If you want I'll find that granddaughter of yours, take her with me." The Corsair smiled hopefully.

"No, Susan has already made her decision. She's going to help as many people on Earth as possible." The Doctor replied. "She was always braver than people gave her credit for. In some ways she is braver than I am. She's been on the front lines of this for decades now, while I've sulked on empty worlds and monastic asteroids."

"You were there when it was important!" The Corsair encouraged, rubbing the Doctor's shoulders, which amounted to something very similar to shaking him like a doll. "You swooped in and saved that Draconian colony from that N-Form. That Bandril colonial fleet would've been eradicated in the battle of Kuvantru if you hadn't opened that dimensional warp gate using the Hand! I heard you were at the Eye of Orion shuttling people out when the Time Lords and the Daleks started lobbing black holes at each other. They hold parades for you at Karfel, for what you did stopping that Time Lord bombardment of their time corridor."

"And for every Kuvantru, every Draconian colony, every Eye of Orion, every Karfel…there's an Arcadia." The Doctor sloughed the Corsair's arm off his shoulder. He sighed, and held his head in his hands. "I can still hear them. Praying to their gods as the Time Lords detonated that weapon. It was immaterial; the Daleks would have never succeeded there. I had already poisoned the well…they were praying to the Daleks to save them from us! I watched the Time Lords slaughter an entire world for no reason other than the fact that the Daleks were there. I watched the Time Lords become demons."

"You can't blame…"

"I CAN!" The Doctor glared at the Corsair, a dagger's blade slicing from each iris. "I had the opportunity to stop this. I was there…I WAS THERE! The wires were in my hands!" The Doctor lifted his hands and held them in front of his face. "I hesitated. I second-guessed myself, and the universe suffers from MY decision." The Doctor sighed and turned back to the bar and cupped his hands around his glass. "I often think of what would've happened if I had gone through with it. How much different the universe would be."

"The universe would be a darker place." The Corsair said quietly, looking down at the Doctor. "A universe without the Doctor would not be a universe worth living in. If you had done it, you would've become someone darker, someone who would've set a dangerous precedent for himself and for the universe as a whole. You are a good man, Doctor; you can't be everywhere, every-when. This war is pervasive to the very core of reality itself, you won't be able to save everyone. You can only do what you can, and if you came with me you could shape a brand new era, teach a whole new civilization how to be good."

"No…" The Doctor said, shaking his head. "For too long my instincts have been to run away. I've fled so much in my life. I fled Gallifrey, I fled from my responsibilities as Lord President, even now rather than face my demons I have hidden. I have to stay here and for once in my long life see this out."

"You will die, everyone will die, Doctor." The Corsair said his eyes stern on the shorter man. "This war, no one will win, you can't stop it."

The Doctor lifted his glass. He gulped the drink down and placed the glass back on the bar and dropped three silver coins next to the glass. The Doctor looked up at the Corsair.

"I've always been prepared to die for a cause." The Doctor said. "Not even large causes. If I die saving a single person, then my death would be worth it." The Doctor smiled and patted the Corsair on the chest; he had aimed for the Corsair's shoulder but couldn't quite reach. "Go, find this safe haven, and get as many as you can there. It doesn't matter what species. Time Lords that think like us, Draconians, Sunari…if you can find an impossible pacifist, inclusive Dalek, bring them with you. You found your new civilization, and if we survive this, if I live to see the end of the war, I will find you and bring you and your civilization to help rebuild the universe."

The Doctor took a step back and then started to walk towards the swinging door of the saloon. He put his hand on the wooden panel.

"Where are you going now?" The Corsair asked.

The Doctor turned and looked back. "I never know until I open the TARDIS doors. She takes me where she wants to go; I'm just along for the ride."

The Doctor pressed on the doors and slid through them leaving them swinging as he disappeared onto the streets of Santa Fe. It would be the last time the Doctor saw the Corsair. Though it would not be the last the Corsair heard of the Doctor. The stories of heroism, of the stranger that showed up at the most dire hour and saved colonies, saved refugees, saved a crying child on the shores of destruction, the man who disappeared as suddenly as he arrived.