Chapter 1
The Doctor angrily dropped the Black Guardian's hand. "What's going on, Black?"
"I told you. You're dead. This is the afterlife. And I'm God."
"You are not God."
"Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out, or smite you or something."
The Doctor was unamused. "I don't know what game it is you're playing, but I am not going to participate."
"What an ego," Black said sarcasticly. "Did you think the great Doctor would never die?"
"Whatever you've done to…"
"I haven't done anything. Check your hearts rate. Go ahead."
The Doctor hesitated, then put a hand to his throat… he reacted with shock as he found nothing.
"No pulses? What a surprise."
Try as he might to deny it, the Doctor was coming to the realization that the Black Guardian was on the level. But he still fought against a facile acceptance of Black's word.
"How do I know this isn't another on of your tricks?"
"Think, Doctor. Why would I go to all the trouble of faking your death when I could simply kill you whenever I felt like it?"
"Is that what happened?"
"I wouldn't want to steal the credit, it was a rather disgruntled Foamasis actually."
This struck a chord with the Doctor. He began to remember what happened… "The conference."
"Yes, yes," said Black impatiently. "The conference, the unexpected attack, the compressed Tachyonbeam… the bottom line is, your life ended about five minutes ago under the inept ministrations of Carolyn."
The Doctor took a moment to think about this. He pushed away the idea that the Black Guardian might be telling the truth. "No. I am not dead. I would have regenerated. I refuse to believe there is an afterlife which is run by you. The universe is not that badly designed."
The Black Guardian gave a bored and frustrated sigh. "Very well. If you really require more evidence of your post-mortem status, I'll just have to provide some…"
Suddenly, the Doctor heard a deep voice coming from behind him.
"Doctor…"
The Doctor froze in place at the all-too familiar voice. The Doctor slowly turned around and saw his father, Ulysses standing behind him. Ulysses looked like an eighty-year old human, but seemed healthy and vital.
The Doctor was shocked. "Father…"
Ulysses was clearly disapproving. "I told you not go running off. I told you that it would bring you to a bad end. But you wouldn't listen. Now look at you… dead before your time."
The Doctor's words were meant for the Black Guardian, but he couldn't take his eyes off of his father's face. "All right, Black… enough."
"Enough what?" Black asked innocently.
"Why couldn't you listen? Didn't you understand that I was only looking out for your best interests?"
The Doctor turned to the Black Guardian in rage. "Black, stop this."
"Even now, after all these years, you still manage to disappoint me, Doctor."
The words knifed through the Doctor. He turned back around, but Ulysses was gone. The Doctor stared out into the white emptiness for a moment. "I hope you're enjoying this, Black."
"This isn't for me. This is for you, Doctor… I wanted to give you an opportunity to make peace with your sordid past."
The Doctor turned back to the Black Guardian after a beat, determined not to let Black call the tune. "I find it hard to believe that you're doing this for the benefit of my soul."
"Now that you've finally shuffled off the mortal coil, we're free to spend some time together. I simply want you to be at peace with yourself."
"'Some time together?'… how much time?"
"Eternity."
"So I'm in hell."
"That's the spirit, Doctor. Don't let a little thing like death slow down that rapier wit. Now you're sure you don't have any regrets or feelings of guilt about your former life? I can't have you whining and complaining through eternity."
"If I'm truly dead, then my only regret is dying, and finding you here."
"You wound me, my dear Doctor. After all, I wasn't the cause of your death."
He held up both hands, and an organ appeared in each one. They were about the size of a softball and part of each was burnt. "…these were."
The Doctor recognized the forms, but it was still a shock. "Are they…"
"Your hearts." Black tossed one of the organs to the Doctor, who caught it. The Doctor looked down at it with a sort of horrific wonder. There was something very strange about holding one's own heart. He examined it closely.
"You might have lived if you'd been in an earlier incarnation. How did you manage to go through so many anyway?"
The Doctor paused, looked at the organ for a long moment. "Mistakes."
The Black Guardian immediately sensed that he was onto something here. He pressed the Doctor further. "Something you regret?"
"I regret a great many things from those days."
"Really?" The Black Guardian looked off to one side.
In the direction the Black Guardian was looking, there were now two people: The Master and a younger Doctor. The Master was dressed in black and had a black moustache and goatee beard. The Doctor was in his fourth incarnation and was wearing his maroon outfit and scarf.
The following happened very quickly:
The Master had been pretending to co-operate with the Doctor, but it had been a ploy. Holding the Doctor at gunpoint with his Tissue Compression Eliminator, he transmitted a message to the peoples of the universe, saying that if they did not acknowledge his rule, he would send a signal to close the CVE and restart the collapse of the universe. Realising that the Master had control of the CVE only while the cable held, the Doctor climbed onto the radio telescope's gantry to disconnect the power cable and the Master tried to prevent him by tilting the dish. The Doctor disconnected the cable, but fell off the tilted gantry. Losing his grip, the Doctor plummeted to the ground.
"It wasn't very smart of you to climb out onto that gantry like that."
The Doctor walked over and stood above the still form of his younger self which was lying on the ground.
"No, it wasn't." The Doctor couldn't take his eyes off the image of his younger self. "I was… a different person in those days… an arrogant, undisciplined, young man with far too much ego and far too little wisdom. I was more like you."
"I'm sure you were far more interesting in those days. A pity you had to change."
"The only pity is that I had to fall from a great height before I learned my lesson. I started that fight with the Master… I started it because I was young and cocky." He looked down at the heart he was still holding. "If I had been more responsible at that age, I would have stronger hearts now, and I wouldn't have died from a random energy surge thirty years later."
"So if you had it to do all over again?"
The Doctor looked thoughtful as he recalled the events of his youth. "Things would be different."
Suddenly a woman's hand slapped him across the face.
The Doctor was dressed in a maroon overcoat and striped scarf and he was standing in stark white TARDIS console room. A woman was standing in front of him.