What Dreams May Come
Chapter Thirty-Two
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"No, no, no…" she whispered, fighting with the handle. She pressed her palms against the door and tried to ignore the heat radiating off of it. "TARDIS. Please. Open the door. I really don't want to burn." Again she tried, and again the door didn't move. "I'll die in here! Please!" Still there was no movement.
Molly thought she'd be crying, though the heat was so intense the tears may have evaporated before she could feel them. She looked at her skin, already easily marked and turned pink, and saw it turning red and blistering in some places. The pain made her gasp. This was worse than the wildfire. Worse by far.
How long had she been in there? A few seconds? A minute? Two? How many more seconds before she burned to nothing?
Then she heard it: footsteps. Quick, heavy. Eleven.
She didn't really have a choice.
Molly looked through the window, and began to bang on the door, first with her fists, and then with her uncovered foot, knowing her kicks would be louder. "I'm in here! Get me out! I'm trapped!" she screamed. "Eleven! I'm in here! Please!" She still didn't see him, but heard him getting closer. "I'm trapped in here, get me out!"
She finally saw a flash of him, the purple suit, the hair – but only for a second before he ran right by her. No, no, no! "Come back! Come back! I'm trapped in here! ELEVEN!" That was it. That was her last hope. He'd come, he'd gone, and now she would die, painfully.
She wanted to rest her head on the window and cry, but it would only burn her more, and she wasn't able to cry. It was too hot. So very, very hot.
But then she saw movement outside the window again. The bowtie, his hair, then his green eyes. A look of panic came over his features as he reached into his pocket. She saw him pull out the sonic, and stepped back so he could get the door open. As soon as it swung open, he reached in and grabbed her wrists, and pulled her out of the room.
The cool air was like a bath of aloe vera, and the instant relief made her knees go weak. He wrapped his arms around her before she could fall. "Molly!" he exclaimed. "Molly, what were you thinking? You must have felt the heat the moment you got the door open!"
She inhaled sharply, again and again, to fill her burned lungs with the cold oxygen. Though there was no smoke in the room, it felt like her throat was filled with it. She tried to speak, but could only cough. She pressed her head against his shoulder. Cotton. Mint. Earth. Honey. He smelled the same as her Doctor.
When she was steady on her feet, he pulled back some, still holding her shoulders. "You could have died in there! Would it have been worth it? What was the point of this?" He tried to meet her eyes, but she refused to look in his. They were so exactly like her Doctor's. "Are you okay? The burns don't look too bad, but they must hurt."
Molly still felt vaguely like she was burning. She took another deep breath of air, and pressed her hands against his chest, pushing him away gently so he would release her shoulders. "I'm okay," she said, though her voice sounded harsh with the ache in her throat. "Thanks for getting me out of there."
"Of course I got you out. I wouldn't leave you to burn. I promise, I'm just like him. I am him," he insisted.
She looked at his face for a moment, how earnest his expression was. She nodded. "Well," she said. "Anyway." And she turned and ran.
She barely made it a few steps before she felt his arms go under hers, then pull back and up. Her arms were painfully wrenched above her head, and trapped there. "Would you stop running?" His voice was a perfect example of the word 'exasperated'.
The scrape of the fabric of his coat against her skin was like sandpaper, and the pulling in her shoulders was excruciating. "Ow! Ow! Ow!" She shouted, fighting to pull out of his grasp. When that proved useless, she leaned back to push against him, and tried to reach to tap his wrist. "Okay, okay! Uncle! Uncle! You win!"
"No more of this ridiculous running?"
"No more running!" She wriggled, still trying to get loose. "I know I can't get away now. Let go!"
He released her, and she breathed a sigh of relief, rolling her shoulders back. "Ow."
"Sorry," he apologized. "Didn't mean to hurt you. I just needed to make you stand still."
"Whatever," she muttered, looking down at the bits of red in her skin, and the few lighter parts that were beginning to form blisters, then down to her feet. She lifted her bare foot to see the same redness underneath. That pain would start registering when the adrenalin started to wear off. Still, she carefully hopped down the corridor to grab her boot and slip it on. She realized finally that throwing her boot down the hall hadn't been the best plan, and maybe what caused him to pause and go back. Who loses both a boot and a sock while running like Cinderella lost a heel?
"Molly-" he began, but she didn't want to hear a word from him.
"Let's go back to the main control room," she said. "There's burn cream in there. I keep getting burned." And losing shoes.
She hid her relief when Eleven nodded, and turned back down the corridor. At least she'd still found a way back into the room. How she was going to do anything else, she wasn't sure. She wasn't even sure what it was she could do with Eleven watching her.
Molly limped after him, grateful that he seemed to know the way. Maybe the layout of the TARDIS hadn't changed much since before it had changed in season 7. Or maybe he remembered the way they took. That was more likely, she thought.
"Molly," he started again, and she made certain her heavy sigh of an objection was heard. "What was all that about, really?"
"You got the Doctor killed and stole the TARDIS and kidnapped me. That's what it was about."
"You know why that happened," he said, his tone hurt. "You know I had no choice. I would have hoped you'd be able to understand."
She shouldn't have felt shame, but she did a little. She was his favorite character, like she was her Doctors favorite character, like the Doctor had been hers. She remembered the fear that he'd find out she'd left her mother to her death, the sick feeling of dread at his judgement.
Eleven had been tortured. She shouldn't blame him for what he said and did because of it. But that didn't change the fact that the Doctor was – that he could be – that he was probably dead, and that she'd lost the only person she had. And Eleven had planned on pretending it never happened, on impersonating her Doctor, and traveling with her while letting her believe he was her best friend, when she didn't know this Doctor at all.
She decided to call him out on it. "You chose to lie about it. You chose to try to trick me. You chose to hope I just didn't notice while you took me around the universe, thinking you were my friend instead of a stranger I don't actually know." She turned to look at him, but he wouldn't meet her gaze. "You still made choices that were hurtful, that you weren't under duress to make. You could have told me the truth as soon as we were away from them."
Guilt flickered across his features. "You're right," he confessed. "I shouldn't have pretended. I should have told you the truth once it was safe. I wanted…"
"You wanted to pretend it never happened," she supplied when he couldn't finish the sentence. "You wanted to go on as though you were really the exact same Doctor without facing the consequences of what happened. Believe it or not, I get that." She had to admit that to herself. "There's a lot I've been running away from, too. But my choices didn't deceive anyone else, not in a way that hurt them."
He didn't respond at first, and she'd nearly given up on any reply at all when finally, "I'm sorry. I am sorry. For what I did to him, for what I did to you, for lying to you." He looked at her, and she knew he wasn't lying about this, at least. "And I didn't know they'd attack you. They promised me they wouldn't hurt the Doctor's companions, that there was no reason to. I'd expected Amy and Rory."
They walked into the main control room, sooner than she thought they should have. She took a seat on the stairs as soon as she could, to relieve her burns rubbing against each other. She watched him walk down past her, and then he came back up with the burn cream. She took it from him and began applying it, as she thought about what he'd said.
Amy and Rory. Should she tell him? She looked up at him, and something in his face told her that he was waiting for an answer. Maybe he was owed one. This him hadn't married River, but they were still his family.
"Amy and Rory aren't here," she finally said.
"Yes, I noticed that," he replied dryly. "I suppose I'm…he's…he was moving on from them. Or that they left. I'd started to think that would never happen, that we'd always…but never say never, I suppose." Though it technically hadn't been him they'd left, he still sounded disappointed, sad. All that time being tortured, he'd probably thought that at the end he'd get to see them again.
"Well…" she started, and then sighed. He deserved the truth, at least. "If it helps, they're happy."
She saw the ghost of a smile on his lips. "They are?"
"Yeah," she said, closing the lid on the burn cream. "Well, they were. Technically, for the Doctor, at least, it didn't end well. Rory was taken by a Weeping Angel, and Amy decided to let it take her, too, just in case it sent her to the same place and time and they could still be together."
"Sounds like Amy all over," he said, almost wistfully. "Rory would have done the same thing."
"It worked," said Molly. "They found each other. Amy became a writer and publisher in the 40s. After Demon's Run – where Amy was being kept after they switched her out – she couldn't get pregnant, but they adopted. Rory sent a message to his dad about how happy they were. Sent the message with his son. It all worked out, in the end."
"Happily ever after." He leaned against the center console, hands in his pockets. "The girl who waited, the girl with the fairytale name, and the Last Centurion who kept her safe for her two thousand years. They always deserved a happy ever after."
Molly nodded. It had taken her a little while to warm up to Amy, but she'd always supposed that was because they were too much alike. She didn't really think they were so alike now that she was in Amy's old position, as the Doctor's companion and best friend, but –
This was a painful train of thought, so she hopped off of it. "He traveled a bit with someone else, but they ended up leaving, too," she explained. He didn't deserve to know all the details of his life, so she left most of it out, but if he was really the only Doctor the universe had left, he needed to know a few things. "After that he spent a hundred years alone, went a bit...you know, how you usually get when you travel alone. And then I showed up on the TARDIS."
Now he looked at her with somewhat of a calculated expression. "And you have no idea how that happened?"
"None whatsoever," she said. She wouldn't tell him about the wish on the crack in the ceiling. That was between her and her Doctor, the real Doctor. She'd been brought to him, not Eleven.
The thought of him, of the reality that he was most likely dead and there was nothing she could do about it, made her heart ache fiercely. She looked down at the floor, then closed her eyes, trying to hold the hopelessness off. He must still be alive. He had to be.
"What was the end of your plan?"
Molly looked up in confusion. "What plan?"
"Hit me over the head, run off, and then…?"
She shrugged. "I didn't really have a plan."
"You always do."
"On TV maybe, not in real life," she said. "That's one of the things he learned about me, I guess. I don't usually have a plan. I'm always making things up as I go."
"Me, too," he said, smiling. "But you had a plan."
"First I'm hearing about it."
"Lose me in the TARDIS, come back around, ask the TARDIS to help you get back and find the Doctor."
Molly wasn't able to keep herself from looking up at him with surprise. But of course he'd know. He was the Doctor. There wasn't much chance she'd be able to stay any steps ahead of him whatsoever. "It was worth a try."
The mirth left him. "Why do you think the TARDIS would have taken you back at all?"
"To get the Doctor?" That seemed obvious to her.
"I'm the Doctor," he insisted again. "The moment I stepped onto the TARDIS, I told you. The TARDIS recognizes me as the real Doctor, because I am the real Doctor."
"Maybe," was the best she could give him. "But not the only one."
He stared back at her. "We can't go back. It's too dangerous."
"It's dangerous no matter what," she insisted. "Do you really think they'll just…let you go?"
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
Her anger was flaring back up again, now that this thought had finally come to the surface. "You don't think they'll come for you next?" She wanted to stand, to look him as directly in the eye as she could, but her skin still burned and she didn't want to move. "You know your name, too. They'll come for you, too. They have to. There's no point in killing the Doctor if they just let you go."
Eleven turned and began looking at the controls, an avoidance tactic Molly was now well familiar with. He brushed his hands over the top of them. He didn't turn back as he spoke. "I don't, actually."
"…don't what?"
"Know my name," he confessed. He turned toward her now, and something in his eyes made her heart ache again. "They took it from me."
Rather than using the anger as she'd hoped, she found her voice soft. "What do you mean?"
"All the torture and hypnotizing and brainwashing and breaking and remaking me, all those years," he began, turning back to the controls. He walked around the center console, looking up at its light with an almost worshipful expression. "They took it from me. I don't remember my own name anymore. No matter how I reach for it…" He paused, and she saw him close his eyes for a moment as though he were reaching for it now. He sighed with frustration a moment later, and opened his eyes again. "It's gone."
He couldn't remember his own name. The Silence had taken his own name from him.
Finally, all the anger and hurt and disgust with him that she'd used as a wall to keep them separate, to keep what he'd done at a distance, crumbled. Just the simple pain from the gash in her leg had given her a better understanding of torture. She knew she couldn't blame him entirely, no matter how much she wanted to. What he'd endured was heartbreaking, and now knowing just how much they'd taken from him, she couldn't hate him. She couldn't.
"You know…" she started, then hesitated. Maybe it was better if it wasn't brought up. But he deserved the choice. "There's that book. With your name in it. I haven't read it, but I know it's there."
She saw him nod. "I thought about it, from the moment I got back onto the TARDIS. I could go and have a look, I could. I could know my own name again. But then I'd be a danger, and they'd come for me, and I can't…" His voice cracked, and it hurt her all over again. "I can't risk that happening. I can't go back. Not after what I did to make it end."
She finally set the burn cream down on the step beside her. "Would they do that to him? Brainwash him so he doesn't remember his name?" She couldn't help but hope.
Those hopes were immediately dashed. "No. There's no reason to. They don't need him to draw another Doctor in like they needed me. And I'm not a threat anymore, so there's no reason to try to bring me back in, either."
Again, her heart ached as she fought to remain in denial. It hurt so much her vision went black for a moment, and she didn't notice Eleven move until he was right in front of her. She looked up at him, and found his eyes full of confusion and concern. "What?" She wouldn't let him tell her she wasn't allowed to grieve.
"Did the Doctor tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"Flickering."
She frowned, and opened her mouth to ask what he meant, when –
"Molly! That's not me!"
His voice came from the other side of the console. She leapt to her feet as fast as her heart leapt to her throat. "Doctor?!" She moved to the right to look around the console, only to find he'd moved to the left. She darted that way and saw him standing there, in what had been Eleven's clothes, still soaked in her blood. "You're alive?!" The were no words for the bright white light of joy and relief that went off in her head.
"Of course he is," she thought she heard Eleven mutter.
"Course I am!" the Doctor insisted with a smile. "I wouldn't let a few – a lot of few – Silence kill me. I've outwitted them enough times."
"How?" She wanted to run to him and hug him, but the shock frozen her in place.
"Soon as the TARDIS disappeared with you two in it, the house disappeared, but the basement remained. All the technology that was used to create the house was right there, begging to be stolen," he said, excitedly rubbing his hands together. "I dodged the Silence a few times, grabbed what I needed, stitched together a transmat, used my DNA to lock onto Eleven since his arrival on the TARDIS made him fully a Time Lord and not made of Flesh anymore, bing bang boom, Bob's your uncle, here I am."
Molly giggled, the relief making her giddy. "Thank goodness you're wearing different clothing so we don't have to do the stupid 'I'm the real Doctor', 'no, I'm the real Doctor' trope, I hate that stupid thing," she said, knowing she was practically spouting nonsense. But it didn't matter. The Doctor was alive. Her Doctor was still alive, and here.
She took a step towards him, intending to rush to him and fling her arms around his shoulders, but Eleven took a step, too, standing between her and the Doctor, facing him.
Her Doctor shifted, as he did so often in the show. She'd loved it on the screen. In person, seeing his friendly face, relieved at being back at the TARDIS, shift to the Dark Doctor, darker than she'd seen him even when she first arrived, was unnerving.
"Get away from her," he demanded.
"I should have known you'd find a way out," said Eleven bitterly. "I would have, and you're me, with an extra hundred or so years' experience on me."
"Thousand, actually," the Doctor corrected. "I lived our whole lifetime again, fighting every enemy we ever had, in order to keep the Silence from hurting anyone. I fought to protect innocent people from them. I died for them."
"You…" Molly heard the confusion in Eleven's voice. "We don't have any regenerations left. You couldn't have. How?"
The Doctor shrugged that off with a wave of his hands. "Doesn't matter how. The point is, I was willing to do whatever it took to keep innocent people from being hurt by the Silence, including growing old and dying for them. And look at you. Look at what you've done."
"It had to end," Eleven insisted. "Even if it cost you your life. The universe would still have a Doctor."
"I don't mean me," the Doctor said, his eyes narrowing as he took a step closer. "You tricked Molly. You kidnapped her and stole the TARDIS away. And look at her!" He pointed past Eleven to Molly. "Why is she covered in burns? What did you do to her?"
"I did nothing! That was her," Eleven insisted. "She ran and hid in the room with the Eye of Harmony and couldn't get the door open. I got her out!"
"That's true," said Molly, though uncertainly. Something was very wrong. Why was Eleven standing between them? Why was he clearly upset the Doctor had survived?
"And why was she running?"
"I didn't touch her."
"You tricked her, you kidnapped her, you stole the TARDIS. You tried to kill me, the only person she has to protect her in this universe."
"She has me, now," said Eleven, and she heard his voice shift to the same dark tone the Doctor had. "She doesn't need you. You're a threat to the whole universe. You have to die, Doctor, and you know it."
Molly quietly shifted to her right, hoping she could get far enough away that she could dart around Eleven and get to the Doctor. She took one small, experimental step, and Eleven didn't seem to see or hear her.
The Doctor kept his eyes on Eleven, though he must have noticed her movement. "If I was ever a threat, it was on Trenzalore, when the crack opened and all I had to do to stop the constant attacks of every enemy we've ever had was to speak my name. Or when the Great Intelligence took our friends and was going to kill them if I didn't speak my name. I never did. I never gave in." He paused. "Remember that? 'Never give up. Never give in.' You gave in. You broke the promise."
She watched Eleven shift his weight as she took another step. "I'm still the Doctor. More than you, even."
The Doctor's voice was chilling. "You aren't the Doctor at all."
"If sacrificing myself had been an option, I would have taken it." The bitterness in Eleven's voice was starting to burn, as the Doctor's tone began to contain ice. "If I had to die to save the universe, I would. You should have died, Doctor! You shouldn't be willing to risk the safety of the whole universe."
"And what about the risk you pose?"
"What risk? I don't remember my name. They took it from my mind," said Eleven. "I'm not a risk at all. You're the only threat here."
"Am I? Let's find out," said the Doctor, and he glanced at Molly.
She knew her cue. She ran right, to dart around the center console away from Eleven and towards the Doctor, but only made it a couple steps before she felt Eleven's arm go around her, pulling her back. She fought against him until she felt his hand wrap around her throat and squeeze. She could still breathe, but only just.
He jerked her around to face the Doctor again. "NO!" he screamed, the sound making her eardrum throb. "No! This isn't how it's supposed to be!"
"How is it supposed to be?" the Doctor asked, his voice low. She saw the darkness building in his eyes. "How did you imagine this would go? You'd tell Molly you killed me and still get to run around the universe with her? That she'd just let someone like you take the TARDIS?"
"The TARDIS belongs to me!"
"No, she doesn't," said the Doctor, taking another step closer. She felt Eleven's grip around her pin her arms to her sides even tighter.
"She does. I'm the Doctor. I'm the Doctor," he insisted. "I'm real now. She knows it's me. You're supposed to be dead. You should be dead. They promised me I'd get to be the Doctor, the real Doctor, the only Doctor! There can be only one Doctor!"
"Why is that? We're scattered all across time, all across space. We've run into ourselves more than once. There's already more than one Doctor."
"There's only one TARDIS. Who is the Doctor without the TARDIS? And she's mine, now."
"I told you," said the Doctor, as he gestured to the console. "She's not."
A thought occurred to her, and Molly made an attempt at speaking. "Doctor." It was choked, but the word was clear.
"Not now," he dismissed her.
Even in this life-or-death situation, she managed to roll her eyes, then tried a different angle. "Eleven," she choked out. "Pineapple."
"What?" he snapped.
"My safeword," she said. "It's a little tight."
"Let her go," the Doctor said, holding a hand out towards her as he took a step closer. "We don't have to involve her in this."
Eleven dragged her back a few steps. "Don't come closer."
"You don't have any weapons, there's no-"
"I'll snap her neck," Eleven said, and the wild note in his voice made her blood go cold. "I have the strength to do it. You know I do." Hearing those words in the Doctor's voice was a nightmare.
The darkness left the Doctor, leaving the expression in his eyes to settle on solemn. "The same way I know that you won't."
Eleven's grip tightened, and now she could only get the barest bit of oxygen in her lungs. "I will. I'll do it, if it's the only way."
"Only way to what?"
"To show you you're a threat to everyone. Most of all to those you care about. We always have been," said Eleven, and the hurt in the Doctor's eyes hurt Molly almost as much as the hand wrapped around her throat did. "You have to go back. You have to let them keep you from hurting the entire universe. You have to die. Set the TARDIS to go back, let the Silence kill you, and I'll take Molly to the Star-Echo lab and she can go home. I swear."
The Doctor stood still a moment, then shook his head. "No."
"I'll do it. I'll kill her." Molly believed him, as darkness was creeping into her vision.
"You won't."
"I'll do whatever has to be done to keep the universe safe. I'll be a better Doctor than you."
"Who is the Doctor without the TARDIS?"
"I have the TARDIS!"
"No, you don't. That's what I've been trying to tell you," said the Doctor.
"You said it yourself. I'm a real Time Lord now. The real Doctor. She'll listen to me."
"Not now that I'm here."
"That doesn't matter. There have been two of us on a TARDIS before. She'll still listen to me."
The Doctor shook his head, and Molly saw a measure of pity in his eyes. "She knows you're not the Doctor."
"I AM THE DOCTOR! I am as much the Doctor as you are!"
Her oxygen was completely cut off now, and she started to struggle instinctively against him, which only made him hold to her tighter.
The Doctor's eyes flickered from her face to Eleven's. "You could have been. Not anymore." Now he looked pointedly at Molly. "If there's only one thing the TARDIS knows about me, it's that the Doctor would never hurt his friends like this. Never."
She felt every muscle in Eleven's body go tense. Her vision was blurred by tears, building in her eyes and spilling over as she choked, a horrible, consuming, imploding pain forming in her head. He had to let go. He had to, or he really would kill her.
Molly fought for a few more horrible seconds, and then felt his grip around her throat loosen. He still held her tight, but she could breathe again. She took deep gulps of air to fight the oxygen deprivation headache off and tried not to sob from the pain.
"I…" Eleven began, but his voice broke. "It's all I've ever wanted to be. The Doctor. I…I'm the Doctor. I have to be."
"You're not," Molly said, her voice rough. "Think about it."
"Molly," the Doctor said as a warning.
"No. Listen to me," she insisted, trying to force some strength into her voice. "You're the twelfth Doctor to claim the title. The War Doctor relinquished it, more or less."
"And?"
"At the same time, because of the existence of the War Doctor, you're still technically the thirteenth."
"So what?"
"And, also technically, he was supposed to be the last one." She indicated to her Doctor with her head, the best she could.
"What's your point, Molly?"
She took a deep breath. "Don't you remember? Between the twelfth and thirteenth regeneration. Or the final regeneration in the cycle. An amalgamation of the Doctor's darkest parts."
The Doctor froze at the same time Eleven did.
Eleven trembled a moment. "No. Please. No."
"You're not the Doctor," said Molly. "You're the Valeyard."
She felt the hand around her throat begin to shake. "No. No. No." His voice began to shake as much as his hands did. His grip around her middle relaxed, and she thought about trying to fight her way out of his grasp when both of his hands fell to his sides. She felt his forehead press against her shoulder. She heard him gasp through tears. "Please, no…I can't. I can't be the Valeyard. I just…I just want to be the Doctor. That's all I want. To be the Doctor. To help people. To have friends. To not be in pain and alone anymore. That's all."
Molly's gaze met the Doctor's. He seemed to feel the same confusion she did, to have the same, muddled feelings. But of course, in the end, the Doctor was the Doctor, and she was still Molly Quinn. So when Eleven's tears turned to cries, she saw the tension leave the Doctor, and a look of helplessness cross his features. And she turned and wrapped an arm around Eleven, gentle as his grip had been rough, and put a hand at the back of his head, letting him cry into her shoulder.
After a moment, she heard Eleven say, "You really shouldn't comfort me."
"Tough cookies." Her voice was still rough from the crushed vocal chords.
"I almost killed you."
"I know, I was there."
"I'm the Valeyard. Everything horrible."
"Right now, you're still Eleven."
"I'm-"
"Would you shut up? Stars, you're so much work, the both of you."
She felt some relief when she felt the vibration of a chuckle. She watched the Doctor take something from his pocket, and pass it between his hands.
Eleven took a deep, tearful breath, then pulled away and looked to the Doctor. "I can't. I won't be him. I promise I won't."
"You have to," the Doctor said, his voice almost infinitely sad.
"I don't have to," Eleven insisted eagerly. "I don't have to be the Valeyard, or even the Doctor. I could just be Eleven." When the Doctor's expression didn't change, Eleven pleaded, "Just let me be Eleven. Please. Put me on Earth. I won't be any trouble. Maybe Jack will let me join Torchwood, or I could go back to UNIT. Work with Martha. I can still help people. I can be good."
The Doctor slowly shook his head. "You know that you can't do that. You know that there must be a Valeyard. The trial must take place. You can't change our timeline."
"We change our own timeline all the time!" said Eleven, now stepped away from Molly and moving towards the Doctor. "The trial doesn't have to happen. I don't have to be…that."
"The trial has to happen. And everything else we experienced with the Valeyard," said the Doctor. "It's not just our timeline that will change."
"You can't make me be evil, Doctor. We both know you can't."
"No. No one can make you be evil," the Doctor said, stepping up to Eleven. "Now we both know that's not what the Valeyard ever was."
"All the terrible things the Valeyard did, to us, to others…how can you say he wasn't evil?"
The Doctor took Eleven by the shoulder. "We know now that the Valeyard was doing what he had to do. That he hated it, but he had no choice. The things he did helped shaped us, helped mold us, helped to make us who we are. He changed our life; he changed the lives of those around us."
"By hurting them," said Eleven, frowning, his voice almost a whisper.
"Yes. He hurt people. He hurt us. But it wasn't out of evil, it was out of obligation. Out of a dreadful duty." She saw the Doctor squeeze Eleven's shoulder. "I know the Valeyard isn't evil now, because you're the Valeyard. And you aren't evil. You are about to make a sacrifice that's deeper than any we have ever had to make before - to give up your identity and your values and everything you want to be, everything you are, to do things that you hate because you have to in order to do the most good." He paused, tilting his head forward as he looked Eleven in the eyes. "What could possibly be more like the Doctor than to sacrifice himself for the good of the universe? What truer self-sacrifice is there than the sacrifice of self?"
Eleven stared back at the Doctor for a long moment. She saw the torment in his eyes and it made her ache. He'd already endured so much torture, so much pain, and now he had to become one of his own oldest, darkest enemies.
But Eleven seemed to accept his fate. As the Doctor released his shoulder, Eleven nodded to him, and smiled weakly. "One final reckless act of Doctor-esque heroics." He made an attempt at a laugh, but it was too weak to make much sound. "I guess this means I'll be seeing you again later."
"And maybe I'll get to see you again. As you. As Eleven."
"That would be nice," said Eleven. "We could have tea. And jammy dodgers."
"Ah!" the Doctor stepped up to Eleven and reached into the purple coat's pocket. He pulled out a package of jammy dodgers. "Along with Molly, the sonic, and the TARDIS, you also nicked these." But he held them out to Eleven.
Eleven smiled and took them. "Told you I would." He opened the package and took out a cookie, and took a bite, closing his eyes to enjoy it. Then he offered one to Molly, who took it, and one to the Doctor. "At least after a thousand years we still have good taste in biscuits."
"We always do," said the Doctor, before eating his.
Eleven put the package back in his pocket, then pulled out the sonic screwdriver and held it out to the Doctor. "You'll be needing this back."
"Yes, thank you," said the Doctor, taking it and holding some mechanical device Molly couldn't recognize out to Eleven. "And you'll be needing this."
Eleven took it. "And your clothes?"
"Keep them," said the Doctor. "Purple's our color."
Eleven turned towards Molly. "What do you think? Purple?"
"I always liked it better than the other one."
Eleven looked offended. "What's wrong with my clothes?"
"Nothing," she said, and shrugged. "They both look good. Purple's a bit more suave."
"Suave," repeated Eleven with a smile. "Well, then. I'll keep them."
"You'll need to go somewhere we normally wouldn't think of," said the Doctor, his tone more serious now. "And you can't tell me where. The next time we run into each other should probably be the first time. Well, first time for me, that is. Or…old me. Old us. Younger us. You know what I mean."
Eleven nodded in agreement as he strapped the device to his wrist. "Looking back on it now, it turns out I'm an excellent actor. We really should try it as a career someday. Again."
"I'll think about it," the Doctor smiled. "I'm glad you're alive. It was good to see you again."
Eleven looked at him incredulously. "It was?"
"I mean, minus the trying to kill me and steal the TARDIS and kidnap Molly bit."
"And the freaky as fuck house," Molly added.
The Doctor pointed at her. "That, too."
Eleven looked from him, to her, then back to the Doctor. "I'm pretty glad I'm alive, too. Even if it means I have to play the bad guy for a while." He stepped forward and offered the Doctor his hand. "And I'm very glad you survived, Doctor."
"Thanks, Doctor," said the Doctor, taking Eleven's hand. "I'll be seeing you. Or…you'll be seeing me. Maybe both."
"Hopefully both," said Eleven, then he turned to Molly. "The Doctor was right. I really wouldn't have killed you, I swear. And I'm really, very sorry about hurting you, Molly."
She shrugged and smiled. "No worries. I'm pretty sure I hurt myself worse getting stuck in the same room as the Eye of Harmony."
"Did you know what it was?"
"Yep," said Molly. "It was all in the show. I'm just an idiot."
"Well then, you're the smartest idiot I've ever met," said Eleven, clearly meaning it as a compliment. "You knew who I was even when I didn't."
"Not completely. You kept trying to tell me you were still the Doctor. And though you'll be going by another name now, you were definitely right." She stepped up and hugged him. "You'll always be the Doctor. Don't forget."
"I won't," Eleven promised, hugging her tight. He pulled back after a moment, resting a hand on each shoulder, grinning. "Molly Quinn. The actual, real Molly Quinn. I can't believe how good my luck is, to actually meet you."
"Hey, I got to meet you. I'm the lucky one," she said. She took his hands off her shoulders and gave them a small squeeze. "Take care of yourself. That's an order."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, squeezing her hands back. He sighed, then took a step back. "Well. Off I go, then."
The Doctor folded his arms. "Keep safe. No dying - you're out of regenerations, remember."
"Am I?" asked Eleven. "I don't have this face at the trial, or any other time we meet. Technically, I just became a Time Lord." He gestured to himself. "This might be my first."
The Doctor thought about it a moment. "You have a point. But no dying to try to find out."
"You're no fun at all." Eleven gave a small wave. "Goodbye, Molly. And I'll see you later, Doctor."
"Goodbye, Eleven," said Molly, as the Doctor waved. Eleven pressed a few buttons on the makeshift transmat, and after an odd shimmer around him, he disappeared.
She heard the Doctor release a slow breath, then felt his hands on her shoulders as he turned her. Then he took a step back and looks her up and down. "How do you always manage to get covered in burns?"
"Hey, according to you, the wildfire was not my fault," she said. "Getting trapped in a room with the Eye of Harmony, maybe, tiny bit my fault."
"Where's that burn cream?" he wondered, moving towards the stairs down to get it.
"On the step," she said. "I already had him get it for me."
The Doctor turned back around. "Okay, then. Open up."
"Sorry, what?"
"Let me check your throat," he said, and pulled out what looked like a pen light.
"What are you, my doctor?"
The edges of his mouth turned up. "Yeah. I am your doctor. And your Doctor. Now, open up."
She rolled her eyes, but opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, even said 'ahhhh'. She closed her mouth when he put the pen away. "So, am I going to be fine, or should we start planning my funeral?"
"You're good," he said. "You're very good. I'm impressed."
"Thanks, I really worked hard on keeping my throat looking healthy."
"No, no, I mean with Eleven. You knew who he was before he did. Before I did, even."
"Outside perspective," Molly replied, moving to sit back down on the stairs. "It helps to have watched or read all the background information from a distance."
"I'm sure it does," the Doctor said, sounding a bit distant for a moment. He moved to sit next to her. "I always thought it was going to be me. That something would happen, and someday I would…" He ran a hand down his face. "Is it horrible that I'm grateful? That he has to be the Valeyard, and not me?"
Molly shook her head. "I don't think so. It's okay to be glad to find out that you aren't going to be evil, after all. No form of you, even, because Eleven isn't evil, either, he never was. He was just confused and scared and alone."
Alone. Maybe that was the main difference between the Valeyard and the Doctor – the Doctor, usually, wasn't alone.
As Molly looked over at the Doctor, she thought about how he'd been alone those hundred years. His stories of how he'd been becoming darker, more ruthless. How, in a detached way since she'd believed it all a dream, she'd been afraid of him when she'd first arrived. And how different all that was to now. He'd faced one of his oldest enemies with compassion. And while that was just like the Doctor she knew, the Doctor she knew always had a Companion. If he'd still been alone, would that have changed the ending of this story?
It finally settled into her, all his claims that he'd been as excited to see her as she'd been to see him. How like magic, his favorite character had appeared on the TARDIS when he'd needed her most. How he must have hated being alone, but didn't know how to end it, and then he didn't have to. How she must be as important to him as he was to her.
What a strange moment to finally be able to accept that.
She hooked her arm in his, and rested her head on his shoulder, and felt him rest his head on top of hers. "It must be good," she said, finally finishing her thought, "To know that it isn't in you."
"You know it's not in you, either," replied the Doctor.
She closed her eyes a moment, not wanting to correct him, but knowing she needed to. "It is, though," she said. "In me."
"I don't believe that for a second."
She sat up then, and leaned forward to catch his gaze. "When I was thirteen, during my father's trial, the press would crowd in around me whenever I walked into the courthouse. Sometimes they hung around outside my foster home. No one would let me talk to them, but of course they always asked me the same questions, and when I was alone I'd think about how I'd answer them. Often, they asked me if I wanted Cillian to get the death penalty. I thought about it, and figured out that my answer was no, even though that wasn't exactly the popular opinion in Texas, despite the fact that he was clearly…mentally unwell."
"See?" said the Doctor, a proud look in his eyes that was painful.
"No, you don't understand," she said. "It's not that I didn't want him to die, I did. But it was too clean, too quick, too merciful. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him stuffed into the smallest cell with the biggest, strongest, meanest cell mate who beat him within an inch of his life every single day for the rest of his life, and I wanted him to live a long, long life. I wanted him to seek alliances, friends, anyone sympathetic, and be mocked and shunned instead. I wanted him to be so alone and in so much pain that…" And she thought of Eleven, alone and in pain and not quite sane. Now she could see what that kind of pain would do. Yet, still. "Even now. I don't know if he was dead or alive when I left, but even after seeing what Eleven went through, in pain and alone, and knowing Cillian was mentally ill…I still want that for him. There's been no growth or change in character for me in this. No forgiveness. I still want him to suffer for as long as he possibly can. I don't believe in hell, so this is all the punishment he'll ever get. And I'm not ashamed, either." It was strange that it was the tiniest bit of a lie. She'd never been ashamed of it before. But now, with the Doctor's eyes on her, she felt pinpricks of it on the back of her neck. But only pinpricks. "It's in me, alright."
He was silent for a long, awful moment. "I don't think so," he said, finally, slowly. "Your father…he might be ill, but he still hurt people, tortured and killed innocent people, killed your mother, and scarred you deep and permanent. Wanting that justice – even if it isn't justice I'd agree with, or even if it is – isn't the same as evil. It isn't the same as finding joy in hurting innocent people. That's not in you. Not even a drop of it."
Molly wasn't sure she agreed. Wanting that much pain for someone – surely that made her a little evil. But she appreciated his reassurance all the same. "Thanks," she said, and in his eyes she saw that he knew she didn't fully believe him. She also knew he saw that this wasn't an argument he'd win.
He sighed, and stood again. "I suppose this means I'll have to keep a lookout for the Silence again."
"Which sounds like a load of fun," Molly muttered. She picked the burn cream back up, and began reapplying. These burns were stinging more than the ones in the wildfire or on Everywhere had. But she'd piled the burn cream on the bottom of her foot the thickest and it was feeling significantly better. "Anything that can be done, you know, more preventably than reactionary?"
"I don't think so," she heard the Doctor say from the controls. "Except maybe figuring out why the crack is back, and what those voices coming from it were."
"Gallifrey?" Molly suggested.
"Could be. Most likely," said the Doctor. "But some of the things we heard don't seem to match up to what I'd expect Gallifrey to be saying. I'd thought they would just repeatedly ask for my name, but they said other things that appear…concerning."
"So," sighed Molly, closing the jar and wiping her hands on her shorts. The sting was already gone, and the blisters were disappearing, too. "The Silence, the crack, and me appearing on the TARDIS. Any other mysteries to solve?"
She caught an odd look in his eye when he glanced at her. "None that I know of yet."
"Any ideas where to start looking for clues?"
"None at all."
"So-"
She was interrupted by a ringing sound. The Doctor spun around a few times, then ran for the door. "I've really got to fix this so it patches through," he noted to himself. Molly tried not to look when he opened the door to space, leaned out, and grabbed the phone. "Yes, hello? Ah, yes, hello again, Most High and Gracious Emperor. What's that?" He paused, and Molly stood to try to get a look at him, though she clung tight to the bar to fight off the feeling she was going to float right out the door and into space. "Oh, really? Well, of course. Be glad to. I'll be bringing a friend of mine, I hope that's – yes. Yes, the more the merrier, I say. Certainly. Be seeing you soon." He hung up the phone and came back into the TARDIS, closing the door behind him.
"What was that?" asked Molly, bewildered.
The Doctor grinned. "Fancy a birthday party?"
Author's Note: I really wanted to play with a Classic villain despite not having watched any Classic episodes. I read every wiki page I could find about the Valeyard, and I did my best. Please forgive any inconsistencies.