Wildthyme
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The old man grunted as he felt the twinge in his back. Around him the smoke and acrid fumes of war twisted on the wind. Flames of a cosmic conflict beyond the minds of men roared across the very surface of the planet and he slowly walked to a blue box on the edge of the catastrophe. His tired gray eyes looked out over the landscape. Broken armored travel machines cracked open, tentacles flailed with vestigial neurological responses as electric screams echoed in the broken streets. The bodies of others like him were strewn on the ground, some still burning with latent, pointless, futile regenerative energy. Other alien forms were crushed between the two. A twinge snapped his right heart as he looked at them. Poor creatures that had aligned with him, in the hope that they could somehow change the course of history. His hand limply fell against the corner of the blue box.
The box was cold, distant, the hum of it thin and hissing. He closed his eyes, knowing the box's feelings. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a key. He moved toward the lock of door of the blue box. The key slid in, the door opened and the old man pushed into the box. The inside of the box was massive, but dark, the lighting flickered as he walked towards a console in the middle of the dingy room. He flicked some switches pulled a lever. The box groaned and sparked and shuddered. There was a chair, an old Louis armchair, in the corner of the room and he slowly skulked to it and dropped.
The old man's eyes drew closed, heavy with exhaustion. His head drooped. A moment passed that was all. A moment was all it took. The world tilted. The chair toppled with him in it, his back pinched in pain as he landed with the chair elbowing him in the spine. He wrestled with the chair and eventually tossed it away. He heard the splinter of a chair leg but did not care as he struggled to his feet and staggered to the console. The monitors were flailing in confusion. He twisted a knob and pulled a brake. The machine screeched in protest as it tore itself out of the vortex, finding itself unceremoniously formed on the surface of some planet with no name. The old man leaned forward and glared as the monitors settled and he saw for the first time what had awoken him. He frowned, narrowing his eyes. He turned, pulled a lever and the doors of the box opened and he stoutly, resolutely stalked outside.
Outside of the blue box on the planet's surface the old man glared forward. His eyebrows pinched together as he glared at the red double-decker bus, the number 22 propped up on its overhead, Putney Common was the destination. The doors of the bus hissed open and a woman staggered out. She was wearing a large black sun hat with too many feathers stuck in it. She was in a red dress that swept around her as she walked haphazardly forward. Behind her a black and white stuffed animal hopped down out of the bus.
"Oh look, Panda, it's *hic*, it's 'im, 'imself!" the woman said as she pointed at the old man, her fingernails painted a clashing shade of chartreuse.
"I am sorry, she's gotten into the bottle again." the stuffed animal said looking apologetically at the old man. "We'll obviously pay for-"
"What are you doing!?" the old man growled glaring at the woman.
"Well, me and the ol' companion were thinking about seeing some old friends, you know as you do…and-" the woman started.
"You time-rammed my TARDIS!" the old man growled loudly, glaring at the woman.
"Oh, well you wouldn't answer any of my texts!" the woman retorted angrily as she fished around in a small purse and pulled out a smart phone. "I haven't heard from you in centuries!"
"Did you not think that maybe there was a reason for that!?" the old man growled. "Or have you been too busy with martinis and bloody maries to see what's going on around you!?"
"Oh, oh dear, Panda, I see we've gotten another grumpy one." the woman said frowning. She shook her head. "Like that other little one, the Scottish one, not the skinny Scottish one that tries to talk like he's not Scottish or the big eye-browed Scottish One that pretends he's not a hugger but he's totally a hugger…"
"The one that wears the brown coat that rolls his R's then?" the stuffed animal asked.
"Bingo, that's the one…Radagast without the magic mushrooms and cute animals." the woman said as she tried to touch her nose but missed horribly. She turned and looked at the old man again. "Ugh, you've gone all Hellboy's father…or what's-'is-name from Alien…what happened to the other one, the cute one with the Whitnail and I looks and the auburn hair?"
"He died." the old man fumed, glaring at the woman.
"Oh, pity, I quite liked that one…he was like a big, man-shaped Labrador Retriever." the woman said slouching slightly and sighing.
"And that's what got him killed!" the old man growled. "Now, why are you here, Iris!? You should be in the Obverse, where it's safe!"
"Ha! Safe? You don't know half of what's going on if you think it's safe!" the woman laughed as she staggered back towards the bus. She leaned on the hood. "It's all on fire!"
"What?" the old man growled.
"She blew it up…all of them, Clockworks, Sentients, Recursives, Modulars…the other one…" The panda explained.
"Binaries?" the old man asked.
"Oh, yes, them too…ha…two…cuz they're binary…" the woman said shaking her head.
"Why?" the old man, shook his head and looked at the woman. The woman simply looked down at the ground, and didn't respond. The old man stomped forward. "Why!?"
"Same reason you do, I suspect." the panda said looking up at him.
"I wasn't talking to you, stuffed toy!" the old man growled as he didn't break his gaze on the woman. The panda simply stared at itself as if in some kind of existential shock. "Iris, why did you blow them all up!?"
"You heard the bear-" the woman said floppily waving a hand. "You think this little thing you're doing here doesn't have bigger consequences in the multiverse?" The woman lifted her head and looked at the old man with a clear gaze. "This war, shadows of it have fallen across the multiverse, not even the Obverse is safe…some mad life form calling themselves the Digitals…came out of nowhere, the Clockworks tried to delete them from reality…had me go into their past…didn't work. Their madman creator revamped them, they started a war across all of the multiverse, transtemporal war. The alliance went mad…I couldn't stand by and watch my friends and family killed, or worse turned into monsters. No matter what I did; tried to help without fighting, joined the ranks, fomented a rebellion against both sides. It didn't matter…there was only one choice left. The war went wild, it was a its own living thing feeding on-"
"You shouldn't be here." the old man said turning away from the woman.
"Have you met me!? I shouldn't be anywhere!" the woman shouted, her voice half rage, half sadness, with another half being the cheap liquor she'd gotten her hands on. "I came to the only place left in the multiverse that I felt comfortable. I came to find a friend, a person I could trust…"
"And instead you found me." the old man said, taking a deep breath.
"Oh, I see, you're in your self-loathing phase…" the woman grunted, and then half-laughed at herself. "Of course, why not…we've always been tethered, thematically speaking."
"I don't have time for this." the old man growled and he started walking towards the TARDIS.
"You have a time machine, you old boar, you've got all the time you'd ever need!" the woman shouted. "What have you got to do that's so damned important?"
"You've been to Gallifrey, you know exactly what." the old man said, looking back at the woman. "I have to end the war."
"No, you don't!" the woman said, pushing away from the bus and walking past the panda in an existential stupor. The woman strode confidently straight up to the old man and looked him straight in the eye. "You don't have to do this. There is another way, there has to be another way."
"You know that there's no other way, you just came from the only way!" the old man growled.
"Bullshit!" the woman shouted. The old man flinched slightly as the woman grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, mostly from the smell of alcohol on her breath but also the unexpected, minor expletive. "I know you, I know you in ways that you don't know you. I have see you from every direction, every context, I know you from outside and inside of time and space. I KNOW there's another way…you just have to listen to the damned wolf in the box!"
"You should go lay down, Iris." the old man said, as he gently pulled himself from the woman's grip. "You've had far too much to drink. Lay low, maybe, if you're lucky, when I end the war you won't get caught in the blast. You're connections to Gallifrey are tenuous at best, plus you're the most unfixed point in the history of creation, hard to delete something that has no causal nexus."
"Please, tell me you'll try to not do it." the woman asked quietly.
"I have to." the old man said as he started to stride away.
"Would you have listened to me if I looked like her still?" the woman asked.
"I always did liked Shirley Bassey." The old man stopped and turned to the woman. She looked so much like another face he knew, oh so many years ago, aged, undoubtedly but she had those same eyes. He chuckled to himself. "But I fear that Beryl Reid is more my speed nowadays…"
"Maybe someday, when I get around to reminiscing about those old faces, I'll revisit some." the woman said, as the old man turned and continued to walk towards the TARDIS.
"But maybe, just the old favorites." the old man said. He got to the door of the blue box and looked back to the woman. "Now, go, take your stuffed panda, and get on your omnibus, and run. Run like something very horrible is chasing you, because…very likely something very horrible will be chasing you."
The old man went into the box and closed the door. The box faded in and out disappearing into the ether. The woman swallowed a lump in her throat. She turned and walked back to the bus, snatching the panda as she passed. It was still staring at its sewn paws, not moving. She slid into the double-decker bus. The doors slooshed closed. She turned the key, the ignition fired. She released the parking brake and pressed on the gas. The engine revved and then she was gone. The woman looked in the side mirror, looking back into the vortex and saw the flames. She thinned her lips. She knew she wouldn't see the Doctor for a very long time now, but she was hoping that the skinny one with the dicky bow was still sweet on her when she found him.
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AN: Have to admit, this is one of those that sort of just wrote itself, and I wasn't even sure where it was going, I just had this nugget of an idea…I'm not terribly familiar with Iris Wildthyme, other than by reputation…so I hope I got it close (though with an obviously darker reprisal considering…). Although for those who are keeping track this is the second character the Doctor has suggested may survive his Moment in the war….because they aren't 'from' Gallifrey….