His head was still filled with cobwebs but he knew where he was. The mists the gentle landscape, the single stone marker, he looked around. They'd turned the valley into a giant garden, rivaling anything he'd ever seen. The blooming flowers the vines, the graveled paths circled the marker and the spokes of the circling path centered in on it.
He walked forward, his feet crunching on the gravel. He looked up at the sky. The flames and the screams and rage and the suffering it was done. Time itself was still like a melted chocolate chip, in flux, shifting uneven, but at least it was holding together. A minor miracle maybe, he thought to himself.
He could smell the sharp berry smell of Dardox blooms, and turned looking at the iridescent flowers. He looked around himself again. They had turned it in a garden. A memorial to the Time War a garden full of life, of species that from this point in history had long been lost, and in the center of this memorial to the fallen, a child's grave. An innocent killed by a soldier in a war that happened and didn't.
He continued forward towards the center. He stood before the stone marker, and fell to his knees. His arms dangled from his sides and he bowed his head.
"I wish…" he said, and for the first time heard his voice. A northern accent, the universal northern accent caught his throat by surprise. He closed his eyes. "I wish it hadn't been this way. I never meant to come back here." A tear fell from the corner of his left eye and rolled down his cheek and dripped to the ground. "I was going to end it, but I wasn't…I couldn't. It was out of my hands…" He lifted his hands, looking at the new, seamless flesh. "Everything seems to fall out of my hands, at some point." He reached into his leather jacket and drew out a small cube. It glowed silently in his hand. He gently pressed on the sides and a small image flickered into existence above the cube, a world, a globe, aflame. "But still, no more, this is all that's left, a picture, a simple image before the end. It's gone now, lost forever, don't worry, the universe is safe though. It's a shame that you can't see it, you'd love it, the lights, the skies, worlds you never got to see."
He reached forward and dug with his hand into the soft soil. A small divot became a hole and then he slowly placed the cube into the soil and covered it.
"Sir?" A voice behind him called. He turned quickly, surprised. It was a young, 51st century human woman, "Can you help me? I'm afraid I am lost."
"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'm not terribly sure as to where I'm at either." He said quietly. He slowly got up to his feet and brushed the dust from his knees. "I'm not even…entirely sure who I am anymore…" He smiled to himself slightly and looked around at the flowers. "It's amazing…"
"Yes, it is. There was a lot of work on this place, the survivors did their best." The woman said as she walked towards him looking at the foliage of the plants. "The Third Zone governments and the Time Agency really did their best getting the plant species before the war closed in on itself. Each plant here; is from one of the worlds lost in the war. Well, except for Skaro and Gallifrey."
"You lot are such ingenious little primates." He said, reaching up and grasping a small berry from the Dro(r)nidian Norvafloom. "Capable of such subtle notions, that so many others would overlook or think tedious. A kind of sentimentalism that most higher species simply aren't any longer capable of…" He stopped the woman was giggling. "I'm sorry, did I say something funny?"
"No, it's just, you speak as if you're some kind of god, looking down at the actions of us mere mortals." The woman said, looking at him with large brown eyes. He returned the look at her and she gulped slightly and took a step back. "I mean, that's…that's absurd right?"
"I'm not a god, was never a god." He said quietly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't…I didn't think…" the woman took a step back, clutching herself defensively. "It's just they don't normally come around here, like you said…it's sentimental."
"No, it's ok," He smiled softly at her and then looked to the plants. "I always liked this place. It's really calm. I've always liked humans, maybe for the same reason, maybe for different." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry…I just had a very long day…my mind's…" He lifted his hand to his head and fluttered his fingers since he lost the words that he was going to say. "I just came to pay my final respects."
"Did you lose someone?" The woman asked, edging closer.
"Yeah, you could say that." He replied nodding.
The woman came to a bench and patted the seat. "Would you like to talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about…" He said, smiling a false smile, a transparent mask of happiness. "The war happened, and terrible things were done, and some of us did more terrible things than some others."
"Did you fight?" The woman asked.
"In the war?" He asked, and when she nodded affirmative he thought for a few minutes, and then sat down next to the woman. "I was there; I saw a lot of it. I did everything I could, I helped where I could, but in the end…"
The woman put her hands on his. "You're just one person…no one could expect you to save the universe."
"I had to try…" He said quietly, more to himself than to the woman. "In the end though, I gave up, I made a decision, a decision I have to live with."
"But you survived, though, you got out before the end." The woman smiled carefully looking at him.
"I survived, I wasn't supposed to, no one was supposed to, that was the point, but I survived." He looked up at her. "It told me that I had to survive, that this was my penance."
"No, no, dear," The woman reached up and patted him on the back, rubbing her hand over his leather jacket. "There's no penance, you can't feel that way."
"You don't understand…" He said quietly, he looked up at her. "You're so willing to forgive, but you don't know who I am. Who I should've been, when I wasn't." His eyebrows crunched together. "Who I could be…"
The woman sat back and looked down. "I'm sorry, I just…you're right, I don't even know who you are."
"I didn't either, but I do now." He said, he stood up and turned quickly to the woman and smiled.
"Well, that's good!" The woman smiled back, and then narrowed her eyebrows. "But who are you?"
"I'm still the Doctor." He said. "Only the Doctor can fix the damage, I caused during the war."
The woman giggled slightly. "Oh, now, well that's an aspiration to have!"
"I'm sorry?" He said looking at the woman quizzically.
"Well, we all know that the Doctor died…" The woman replied. "With all the other Time Lords, in the war. They all burned, honey, none survived, they're just a legend now."
He looked at her. She was still giggling slightly, but he wasn't laughing. She stopped laughing and tilted her head slightly, her eyes widened slightly.
"You're right; the Time Lords died in the flames of war, but let me tell you this." He said; he knelt down in front of her and looked her straight in the eyes. "The Doctor survived. He walked away from the war and he survived, where everyone else burned, he survived, and he's going to do what he has to, to make things right again in the universe. He has to help where he can, to restore the universe to peace and sanity, after all the chaos and rage."
The woman sat there agog. The man stood up and then in seconds had disappeared. She sat there and shook her head, disbelieving. He must have been nuts, and after a time she was thanking herself that he had only been delusional and not dangerous. Still though, she thought, he seemed to know an awful lot. However, she finally nodded assuring herself of the man's insanity. She stood up and prepared to make a decision as to which was the best way to leave and get to the Crux of Tharix when she heard the sound that was impossible to hear. A sound she refused to believe she was hearing. The sounds of the ancient grinding wheeze of engines pushing against a universe, the rumbling of cosmic forces that should not be rumbling anymore. The sound of hope in a universe that had lost so much roared in her ears as a cold breeze swept through the garden.