by Cour M.
“Riley,” Martha pressed, “you must never tell him.”
“Tell him?”
He followed her eyes and saw her looking at the Doctor.
“You must never tell him that he is not the last one.”
“Right.”
The sixth and unknown Doctor was the first to leave the Papal Mainframe, not even showing himself as he let the victims emerge from his TARDIS. Due to their timelines being too much interrupted and thrown into disarray by them seeing each other, the remaining Doctors also knew that they shouldn’t remain near each other for very long. Therefore, as all the people filed out of their TARDISes, Eleven, Eight, Seven, Six and Five briefly met and exchanged a few words.
From the TARDIS doors, Martha and Riley watched them.
“What do you suppose they are talking about?” Riley asked her.
“Probably small things. For they can’t bear to talk about larger things. They could ruin their lives that way. Amazing, isn’t it? That they are all the same man?”
“Yes, I still can’t take it in. Does that one really wear a celery stick on his lapel?”
“I guess,” Martha laughed, “but truth is, I still can’t get past the one with the Technicolor Dream coat.”
“It looks tacky.”
“Something tells me that that was the point, for some reason.”
“Riley!” General Davidson called to him, “we need to return to the settlement so that we can check in with the base and can discover how much harm has been done.”
“I better come with,” Martha said walking alongside Riley, “because I sort of blew up a part of it.”
“Ah, did you?” He smiled.
“I was angry and I had a screwdriver, you know. Things escalated.”
“Sorry, Martha,” Eleven rushed out, appearing by Martha’s side, grabbing her hand and pulling her away, “but you don’t have that time.”
“But Doctor!” Riley urged.
“The problem is not over yet, Riley,” The Doctor said, still pulling Martha along, “I’m sorry.”
“But—” Martha tried to say, but she saw the urgency in his eyes, so she turned to Riley. “I will see you again. I will see you again!”
“I know,” Riley assured her.
“Doctor,” Eight said to Eleven. Eleven turned back. “Good luck.” Seven and Five also nodded to him.
“Thank you,” Eleven said, shoving Martha into the TARDIS and closing the door behind them.
“You didn’t even let me say goodbye properly,” Martha stated angrily.
“Goodbyes are overrated anyway,” Eleven said, rushing past her, then turning on the TARDIS where they began to travel back to Marinus.
“No, they mean something. They mean something to me!”
“If we do this, then you’ll have all the time in the world to see him again and say goodbye properly.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what do you suggest? That I had let you remain there so that you could break his heart more? Really, Martha, what do you think the sight of you does to him?”
Martha slapped Eleven, who flinched only a little, but saw it coming.
“Just because River had to leave you at this time, doesn’t mean that you take it out on me,” Martha spat.
“I know,” he sighed, “and I am sorry. It’s just, Martha, where she’s going…”
“She’s going to help you, she said.”
“She’s going to die.”
“What?”
“Martha, you gave me one last moment with her. When I see her again, it will be when I am Ten, he will not recognize her, and then she will die for him. For me. We keep meeting in the wrong order. Doing it wrong from day one. The first day that I meet her, is the day that she dies.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. And I just had to let her. My wife is now going to die for me.”
Martha placed her hand on top of Eleven’s and he closed his around hers.
“Thank you, Martha,” he almost began to weep, “thank you.”
Martha held him as he lost his strength.
“And we have to do this.”
“Do what?” she asked, “what do we… wait, Doctor, why are we going back to Marinus?”
The TARDIS came to a halt.
“We’ve made it. We’re back,” the Doctor said, sounding ominous.
Chapter 19
The White Witch
In Boxen, the next day came, but it was not the sunlight that woke Amy and Rory. Rather it was the sound of many feet stomping past the lodge. They both opened their eyes to see Ten looking ahead, focused.
“Doctor?” Rory said as they got up from the spot they slept in on the ground of the Beaver’s Lodge.
“You are perhaps not used to it, but I’ve heard these sounds before,” Ten said, “that’s the sound of a passing army. The others are already awake if you want to go out and look at the spectacle.”
Amy and Rory rubbed the sleepiness from their eyes and they emerged from the Lodge to see the soldiers, C.S., Mr. Tumnus and Mrs. Beaver standing there and watching an army of fawns, centaurs and talking animals marching off to war just a sixth of a mile away through the trees.
“Where is Mr. Beaver?” Amy noticed.
“He’s marching with them,” Mrs. Beaver pointed at the army. “He’ll be fine. He’ll survive. Of course he will.”
Mr. Tumnus looked out at the army, fear running through his eyes. Ace took his hand in her own and held it.
Eventually the Doctor emerged from the Lodge and looked at C.S.
“Have you had enough of your dream yet?”
“This is not my dream,” C.S. argued, “It’s real.”
He began to follow after the army and eventually, Henry, Oliver, John, Kenneth, Jason, and James could not resist and followed after him.
Rory walked up to Ten.
“We have to get to the soldiers, Doctor. Remember that this is why we are here.”
“Right.”
“If it’s any consolation, this is not a real battle, Doctor,” Jack said. “This is just one man’s imagination.”
“Precisely,” the Doctor said, “you can’t fight an idea.”
“One thing I have to ask, why does the Dream Lord pick on you?”
“I don’t know for sure, but the truth is, I think I’m beginning to find out what he fully is.”
The Doctor walked forward, alongside Mr. Tumnus, who was going to watch the battle.
Jack turned to Amy and Rory.
“He’s going through a phase.”
The army of C.S. Lewis’s imagination marched onward, toward the mysterious Ice Fortress. The army consisted of non-humans and despite it all, the Ponds, Ace and Jack could not help but be amazed at the sight of them. Yet this was nothing compared to the reaction of the soldiers. Oliver, Kenneth, John and Jason were enraptured by the sight of it, while C.S. Lewis immediately immersed himself in the army, prepared to fight a battle that he both did and didn’t know the origins of. Of course he would give his army a reason. But since a part of him was so much in denial that he was the sole creator and that this world sprang from the imagination of a little boy who craved for a happy ending to the reality that was life, he also did not know the reason. Why would he?
Eventually the army reached the fields before the fortress and the White Witch’s army was already assembled. Then the doors of the fortress opened and the White Witch emerged from it, on a chariot that was being pulled by the soldiers that she captured from the battlefields of World War I. They were forced to bear yokes like beasts of burden, and they looked broken and demoralized. The sight of them sickened Jack, Ace, the Ponds and the Doctor just looked like stone, too angry to do anything.
Once more however, their reactions were nothing compared to the soldiers and C.S. Lewis. The sight of their captured comrades now being humiliated in a fantasy world after they had endured so much already was too much to bear. Their natural prid
e, both the one stirred from their nationality and the one created from their inherent compassion that was attributed to their qualities since they were born, arose the spirit of the fight. They quickly asked other soldiers in the army to borrow some spare weapons and joined the army. As John Henrickson passed him, the Doctor grabbed his arm.
“John, what are you doing?” He asked.
“What does it look like? I’m fighting. They have our soldiers.”
“You don’t have to fight. I can find a way to solve this.”
“But you haven’t found anything. So what can I do, Doctor? What can I do? You may stand there and think of a way to save us, but this is all I know.”
“All you’ve been trained to do.”
“More or less.”
The Doctor let John go, and a little distance away, Ace looked on C.S. Lewis as he beheld the White Witch. He was amazed, horrified, but she also noticed that he was enraptured. And there was no wonder why. The White Witch was mesmerizing. She was neither beautiful, nor ugly. She was striking, handsome, and undefinable. She had a dress that showed her strength, her hair was long, blonde and thick, while her weapon choice was a sword in one hand and a spear in the other. Magic seemed to erupt from her where there was no sight of it.
“Lose something, did you!” Her voice, magnified by magic, called over the fields for all to hear. She gestured to the soldiers that she used as her horses. “Human soldiers, you’re little more than fit to pull a chariot, and not even good at that.”
“If I had a gun, I would shoot her,” Ace declared, and Jack, who was standing next to her, looked down at her.
“I love you,” Jack said.
“I know.”
The leader of the Boxen army, who was a centaur, came forward.
“White Witch,” it said, “for a century, you have tormented us, and we have suffered under the weight of your tyranny. And now you have crossed lands into other worlds, and torment them. We now see the error of our passivity. By never standing against you, other worlds are suffering. No more! Release all of your prisoners, both the humans and ours, leave Boxen, and we will let you live. But if not, we will lay waste to your army here and you will die.”
With the world now called Boxen, it did not escape the Doctor’s notice. How C.S.’s imagination had reached full effect.
“Something smells like horse,” She replied, “oh wait…”
Her army laughed at this.
She had all the soldiers of the World War pushed back into the fortress while she changed chariots.
“You offer me terms,” she continued, “I offer you none! Boxen is my Queendom. Victory will not belong to you this day. I would say that if you leave my fortress now, then I would spare your lives, but you know it’s not true. The second you set foot on this battlefield, you signed your fate. You will lose this fight. And those who live afterward, I will arrest you all and kill you with my bare hands. Then I will walk over your cold corpses and revel in it.”
She raised up her arm to signal for her army.
“Forward!” She cried.
“Forward!” The centaur cried, then the armies rushed to each other and the battle began.
Chapter 20
Parting of the Ways
“Now,” Nine said to Clara as they were flying underwater, “For my next trick.” He went under the consul unit and began to redistribute the wire setup under the dashboard.
“And am I allowed to ask what that is?”
“You would be daft if you didn’t. Each TARDIS has a defense system, a set of chameleon circuits where the TARDIS can blend in to its environment.”
“So that’s why it’s a police box?” Clara deduced, “but police boxes of that sort are practically extinct in my time, so why wouldn’t it update itself to a newer version of one, or something else, like a news stand, or something?”
“Because the circuits are busted. Have been since I first stole a TARDIS and ran away from home.”
“And you can’t fix them?”
“Permanently no, but temporarily, yes. You see, it’s all about power redirection. If I adjust the power into the chameleon circuits, they would repair, yes, but the power needed to keep it going would drain the energy out of the TARDIS over time, which means that there was no point in me risking it just to blend in. Better to roam the universe with a police box disguise… like your Doctor does.”
“But now you’re about to do something about that.”
“Yes, we just need a disguise for a few minutes. Surely not too long to give her any lasting damage, so time to disguise her again. And Clara?”
“Yes?”
Nine smiled at her giddily.
“This has got to be the first time that I have done this in centuries!”
“Then make it worth it.”
“Oh yes!”
Nine finished the wiring and the circuits were set.
“So what does she look like?”
“Take a look for yourself!” Nine laughed as they both rushed to the monitor. Clara looked at the image that the TARDIS turned into and she laughed.
“Seriously?” She gasped, “it can do that? Your TARDIS can actually do that?”
“Never did this sort of disguise, but yes it can!”
In the monitor it showed them how the TARDIS looked like a semi-grown humpback whale.
With their disguise intact, the TARDIS was able to fly straight toward the colony, unsuspected. All they saw was a whale swimming toward them, and that was to be expected, for it must have happened before to the colony.
As they neared it, Nine felt a sudden pang of guilt, so he turned to Clara.
“With all that I am asking of you now, with all that this plan will require, am I asking too much from you?”
“John, I honestly don’t know.”
“Actually, that was the right answer. If you said anything else, then you wouldn’t be human, would you?”
Clara smiled knowingly and then they looked at the monitor as they came closer and closer to the colony, aiming precisely for the room that the Doctor’s machine was in and the TARDIS crashed into it.
As it did, water rushed in all around them while Sea Devils tried to evacuate the room. The majority of them did so, closing the doors behind them, sealing the room in. Those who were not so fortunate fell out to the ocean, but the Doctor knew that, due to their internal systems and evolution, they were equipped for being able to navigate themselves back to any bay station in the colony.
Thus the TARDIS emerged in the room, and the crash was enough to throw the chameleon circuits offline and the TARDIS was returned back to its original state.
Within the TARDIS, the Doctor went to the doors and then turned to Clara.
“Ready?”
“Yes,” she replied, and she looked down at the ropes they had attached to themselves that was anchored down to the command room.
The Doctor opened the door, and the TARDIS did not allow any water in, using her internal system to create a bubble around them. Yet at her doors, the water was like a wall without. She and the Doctor had to swim to the computers so that the Doctor could use his sonic screwdriver to hack into the computer and repair the room’s exterior hull.
They both put on scuba diving masks, braced themselves and then swam out of the TARDIS. They swam to the computer system of the Sea Devils, which due to Silurian technology was water-resistant, the Doctor removed his sonic screwdriver and then began to work on the computer. Clara assisted him by following the instructions that he gave her before they crashed into the colony.
Yet just as he was finished, his lifeline broke and he was about to be sucked out of the room, but Clara finished the last bit of information input, pressed the finalization button and the walls to the room resealed just as he was about to be sucked out of it. She then pressed the button that would drain the room of its water and push it out to the ocean again, due to oxygen compression.
“John!” Clara exclaimed, rushing to him. He scrambled to his knees as she cradled his face. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, thank you,” he breathed, removing his mask, “well, I never hatched a plan where so much had almost fallen apart so quickly. And I never want to do that again.”
He pressed her chin affectionately, stood up and rushed to the computer, happy that his plan had been partly successful. He knew that he needed to get into the room where his machine was, and it be empty, therefore the only thing to be done was to breach the room, get everyone out for fear of drowning, and have the room sealed from without and within. Yet what he did not foresee was that Clara would have to save him—and that the chameleon circuits would break again so quickly. He had hoped that it would look like a rogue whale had simply collided into the place, but now it was visible. And Clara noticed this too.
“John, if the TARDIS is back to what it was, then their monitors will be able to notice us.”
“Yes, they will.”
“How long have we got till they break open the doors and we are discovered?”
“No more than ten minutes at most.”
“Right.” She picked up his dropped screwdriver and handed it to him. “So get on with it then.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nine rushed to the computer he had designed while Clara rushed back into the TARDIS and came back out with some large wires that were attached to the Eye of Harmony that was within the TARDIS. She did not know what it was fully however, and did not ask, due to time being of the essence. She handed it to Nine who inserted it into the machine, then he began to locate the other devices that were going to activate under the ocean that would cause the earthquakes on the continents. He finished imputing the equation and the wires from his TARDIS activated the energy from the seven points in time going off at once, and Clara read him the results of his efforts.
“One device has been demolished,” she reported from the monitor, “now another, there’s a third… oh my god, there’s a fourth and fifth down. You’re doing it, John! The sixth one is dead. And the seventh—”
