by Cour M.
“I am standing behind you,” Martha swore, “I promise. I just… this is complicated now. You are afraid of going to Gallifrey.”
“The Time War, Martha,” Eight explained, “I refuse to return, because Gallifrey and the universe are burning. The Time War is still being waged.”
Chapter 10
A Window to the Past
Martha looked at Ten.
“The Time War?” She asked, “so it really is happening?”
“Yes, and I am not going there,” Eight refused, “you know that I will not.”
“Yes, I know why,” Ten comprehended, “but please, for me. Can you do this?”
“No, I will not,” Eight refuted.
“Doctor,” Martha implored Eight, but he grew irate.
“No, I will not,” he then banged his fist against the consul unit, “no, I will not!”
Martha shuddered, out of fear, but then she recovered.
“But why not?”
Eight turned to Ten.
“He knows.”
Ten placed his hands in his pockets and then looked away from Martha.
“What happened?” Martha pursued Ten, “what is he talking about?”
“He’s talking about the war itself and what it is doing to the universe,” Ten responded, without looking at her, “while Timelords fought the war, the damage done on our planet began to seep through time and space. Our conflict created tears in the universe, more singularities, black holes, stars fading, and supernovas destroying planetoids—everything. We didn’t mean for it to, but that’s the problem with being lords of time. We are directly linked to it. And when Gallifrey bleeds, so does the universe.”
“You could have destroyed creation itself,” Martha summed up.
“Yes, we could have. I know that I told you some of this, but I didn’t tell you everything.”
“And it’s worse than that,” Eight added. “If we return to Gallifrey, we will be dragged into this war. Our TARDIS will be used as a weapon. More than it already is. And we would have to lose our name. I am the Doctor, and I will always defend things when need be, but not like this. I cannot do this.”
“You don’t understand,” Ten urged, “I need to go there.”
“Why?”
“Because I… I need to see our home again.”
“Gallifrey is being destroyed; it’s not a lovely view! Besides, just go there yourself.”
“That is the other problem,” Martha confessed, “we should have told you before. We are stranded.”
“Stranded?”
“His TARDIS… it was broken up. The reason that we were caught by the Mecrellans was because we encountered some sagriens in space. They were trying to re-awaken some of their brethren.”
“Brethren?”
“Yes, it was an ark of some kind. They tried to use the Doctor’s regeneration energy to wake them up.”
“Martha!” Ten exclaimed, implying for her to keep quiet.
“Let her speak,” Eight countered, “and stop ordering her around. For god sakes, we’re not her father.”
Martha smiled at this.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Well, the reason we encountered them was because we were trapped amid space—with a broken-up TARDIS. We only had the consul unit to protect us in its barrier.”
“Just a consul unit? What broke the TARDIS apart?”
“We don’t know,” Ten admitted.
“The last time that we encountered something like that, it took incredible mind control energy.”
“The threat will present itself over time.”
“Whatever it is that caused it,” Martha magnified, “we will be stronger and more able to face it if the TARDIS were intact.”
“Precisely.” Ten took a few steps toward Eight. “I know that you don’t wish to return to Gallifrey, and I understand why. Because it’s the same reason that I did not wish to go back. And you’re right not to. I know I’m asking for much. But what is our name? It’s the Doctor. And your future self has a wounded TARDIS. What would either you or I be if we did nothing to change that?”
Eight looked ahead.
“If you take us,” Martha inquired, “what would be the danger for you? Tell me how much?”
“We could be captured by either the Daleks or the Timelords,” Eight listed, “and we could be shot down.”
“Our TARDIS can survive much damage before it dies,” Ten argued.
“You ask me to care for your TARDIS, but you are careless in thinking of mine.”
“It’s the same TARDIS.”
“Not at this moment. Not to me. I’ll think of your TARDIS when you begin to think of mine.”
“I am thinking of yours, but we have more problems. Something destroyed my TARDIS, broke it in two. A force out there with that strength makes me uneasy. So please, I know I’m asking you to fly into the heart of the Time War. But just fly through the skies, and then take us to the hyper-looms where the other TARDISes are being grown. They will be connected to the Eye of Harmony and I can harvest some of their energy and components. I can rebuild my TARDIS. Please, I will not see my TARDIS die on my account.”
Eight looked away from them both, torn. He knew he was going to say yes, because he could never abide the TARDIS suffering, no matter which incarnation flew her. Yet the fear, the abominable fear that struck within him! They were asking him to fly into the very thing he had been running away from.
He remembered the cries.
The terrible cries.
And the death.
The destruction.
And the idea of going and seeing it.
Of seeing Gallifrey bleed.
⌛
He was taken from out of his thoughts by the feeling of a touch on his skin. He looked down and saw Martha’s hand covering his own.
“Hey, are you all right?”
“Yes, I am. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Your pupils are a little dilated, which means that you suffered a shock of some sort.”
She drummed her hands against the consul unit.
“Don’t worry,” she reassured him, “you don’t have to take us if you don’t want to.”
She turned to Ten.
“And we’re not going to pressure him. He’s frightened, and so are you. I can see it in your eyes. You are both scared. So, let’s just find a different way.”
Martha gave Eight a sympathetic look and was removing her hand, when he grabbed it and held her hand firm.
“Do you need me to do this?” He asked her.
“It doesn’t matter, if you don’t want to do it.” Martha closed her fingers around his a little tighter.
Eight looked at Ten.
“For our TARDIS,” Eight voiced.
“For our TARDIS,” Ten echoed, “what wouldn’t we do?”
“Yes, what wouldn’t we?”
Eight moved along the consul unit.
“Martha, remain by the consul unit, and always do as I say,” Eight ordered, “I might need you to help us fly this beauty.”
“No problem,” Martha replied, and she remained holding onto the dashboard.
“Flying the TARDIS into the war without being killed ourselves,” Eight looked at Ten, “it’s going to take some incredible flying.”
“Well, there are two of us.” Ten then looked at Martha, “Actually there are three.”
“Ah, good,” Eight jabbed, “because for a second I was wondering if you didn’t know how to count.”
Eight winked at Martha.
“Cheeky blighter,” Ten insulted Eight.
“So?”
Together, they all flew through the vortex and were headed to Gallifrey.
Ten felt his heart lighten.
He was going home.
He had just taken the long way around.[8]
⌛
“Hang on!” Eight cried.
The TARDIS was groaning and felt as if any moment it would spontan
eously combust.
“I don’t understand,” Eight cried as they were all doing their best to keep it stabilized, “the TARDIS is angry, I can feel it. She doesn’t want to land. Even she doesn’t wish to return to the war.”
Martha hung on for dear life as she made her way to Ten. He was also pulling some levers.
“It’s not the Time War the TARDIS is avoiding, is it?” She whispered, “it wants to return to Gallifrey. It just doesn’t want to take you there?”
“Yes, and it’s fighting me,” Ten confessed, panicked as some sparks emerged from the wall of the TARDIS. “Martha, below the unit, there is a fire hydrant. Please put those flames out.”
Martha leaned down to get it.
“It’s resisting me,” Ten said to himself, then he leaned into the consul unit and began to speak to the TARDIS, “Please, I know you’re trying to shake me off. But I promise you, I will cause us no harm. Please, don’t be afraid. I just want to save you. Please, do this—for me.”
He placed his hand against the consul unit, trying to emotionally connect himself with the TARDIS.
“You know I’m the Doctor,” He continued to whisper, “and you’ve saved me so many times. What’s one more time, eh?”
After a few seconds, the lights in the TARDIS changed and then it stabilized.
“There we go,” Eight reassured them, “she’s working perfectly now! That’s my good ole’ TARDIS.”
Ten sighed out in relief as they continued to fly onward through the vortex, and Martha was putting out the flames.
“Can you land us above the neighborhood of the Time Academy,” Ten asked, “it’ll give Martha the best view.”
“The Academy is at the heart of the conflict!” Eight continued, “it’s one of the main reasons that I sent the Hand of Omega to Gallifrey rather than taking it there myself! I didn’t want to see what it would look like.”
“Please,” Ten pleaded, “I want Martha to see it.”
Martha looked between them both.
“The Time Academy?” Martha asked, “did you both go to school there?”
“Yes,” they both responded.
“Where you had to stare into the vortex? The place that inspired you to run away?”
Eight looked at Ten.
“You told her?” Eight asked.
“Yes, I did.”
“I want to see it,” Martha assured them, “if you didn’t run away, then you would never have had to run to Earth.”
Ten smiled.
“You asked me once if I could take you to Gallifrey,” he brought up, “and I lied to you. Well, now you get to go.”
Eight looked between them both.
“Rule 1,” Eight confirmed, “the Doctor lies.”
The TARDIS stopped.
“Well, here we are.”
“We are?” Martha asked.
“Yes, we are now hovering in front of the Time Academy, above Gallifrey.”
⌛
He was home!
Ten was home!
Unable to control himself, Ten rushed to the TARDIS doors, and opened it.
There was a rush of emotions for him.
There was happiness.
There was sadness.
There was heartache.
There was awe.
And sadly, there was also disappointment.
Gallifrey was partly in ruins.
And so was the Academy.
But it was still Gallifrey.
And it was home.
“I can’t,” Ten gasped, awestruck, “I just can’t…”
Ten fell to his knees, for the spectacle was too much for him. As was the weight of all that searching. Martha slowly came up behind him, knelt and held him as he leaned on her, using her for support.
“Oh, my god,” she sighed, “you were telling me the truth. The sky does burn orange.”
“Yes, it does.”
“And that’s the Time Academy?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Or rather it was,” Eight clarified, “as you can see, it’s almost destroyed now.”
“The Daleks!” Ten hissed, “yes, they had destroyed our school.”
“Yes, they did.”
Eight looked at Ten in confusion. Why was he looking at Gallifrey as if he had not seen it in so long? They were two separate incarnations, but it was clear that Ten had not seen Gallifrey for quite some time. How long had he been running?
“Well,” Martha complimented, “even in ruins, it’s clear. It was beautiful. It still is perhaps.”
“Yes, it is,” Ten responded, “despite it all, it is.”
“It’s time,” Eight offered, “time can make all the bad memories into better ones. Or at least make it hurt the least. I can tell that with your incarnation, time has softened your memory of that place.”
“Oh,” Martha replied, knowingly, “yeah, well, school can always have its painful moments.”
“It does,” Eight admitted, “and both him and I recall it differently. For me, that’s the place that we couldn’t wait to run away from.”
“We didn’t know what we had at the time,” Ten argued.
“Yes, we did. But you forget, we ran away, because we had to. We failed half our classes, we were ridiculed a lot, failed a great many things, had public embarrassments, and had lost friendships.”
“Lost friendships?” Martha repeated, “did you mean…”
“Martha,” Ten interrupted.
“Do you mean the Master?”
“Yes,” Eight answered, “and that’s where it began.”
“When he went mad.”
“Oh, it was more than that. That was where we both learned that we had a lot to prove. And that’s enough to either make someone the very best of people, or the very worst.”
They all turned back to Gallifrey, but the scene was quickly interrupted.
Suddenly, there were three ships that appeared around the TARDIS, casting a spotlight on it.
⌛
“Blimey, where did they come from!” Martha cried.
The monitor of the TARDIS began to give off sounds, so Eight rushed to it, followed by Martha.
“What is it?” Martha asked, “are they trying to communicate?”
“That’s precisely what they are doing. For lack of a better term for it, we are being hailed.”
Eight turned on the monitor and another Timelord from one of the ships that had surrounded them appeared. Martha’s first thought was admittedly not charitable, and she knew it: they had dreadful hats!
“Doctor,” one of the Timelords, named Dienophiles Grevorian greeted.
“General Grevorian,” Eight began, “hello, this is my companion, Martha.”
“Hello,” Martha greeted the General, “Nice to meet you.”
“Doctor, you brought a human to Gallifrey during a time such as this?!”
“Am I getting you in trouble?” Martha whispered to Eight.
“Don’t worry,” Eight reassured her, “I’m always in trouble. General, I just came to Gallifrey briefly.”
“Our scans indicate that you come with another incarnation of yourself?”
“You are still interfering with the surveillance on my TARDIS?” Eight bellowed. “That is inexcusable!”
“It’s necessary. Just be glad that we do not exert our brainwave energy to control your actions. Yet it remains that you are on board with another version of yourself.”
Eight bit his lip.
“I am.”
Ten looked away from the doorway with a view of the ships still behind him.
“Can your other incarnation please come toward the monitor?”
“Why? You all have the spying software to see him from any part of my TARDIS, or anything that happens around it for that matter.”
“We could, but we are merely trying to be less intrusive. We’d rather not exert our influence, and request, that for once, you merely cooperate.”
Eight looked at Ten. Martha rushed to Ten and whispe
red in his ear.
“Doctor, why do I get the sense that this is a bad thing?”
“Because it just might be.”
Ten walked up to the monitor and looked at General Grevorian.
“Good day, General Grevorian,” Ten greeted, “we merely come in peace.”
“What number incarnation are you?”
Ten’s eyes dropped at the question and Martha noticed his anger.
“I am the Seventh Doctor,” Ten lied, “I am his past incarnation.”
“Doctor, that is an egregious lie, and you offend us with such a deception. We have all your faces on file.” A hologram image of the Doctor came up, from the first Doctor, to the Eighth one. “And your face is not here. So, I repeat, what number are you?”
Ten’s jaw tightened.
“I’m Ten.”
“Ten? You’ve come to Gallifrey out of sequence.”
“Yes, I have.”
“That is an offense enough for you to be questioned even if we don’t have reasons as it is.”
“Oh, that’s right! That’s the good ole’ ways of my home. Every action is an offense, even if there is no written law to state so. Any sort of change, and you can’t stand it!”
“We are amid war now, Doctor! Therefore, we shall order you to allow the TARDIS to be towed to the Head Council where you will be questioned.”
“Questioned?” Ten started, and then he leaned in, “you mean that you will link me up to the Matrix and discover what I know about the future! You’re going to use me to influence the outcome of the Time War. I know your future, and therefore I will be a tool to you.”
“Doctor, no more of your insolence! For once, you will obey, and you will come!”
Ten’s eyes turned venomous as Eight leaned into Martha.
“See, I told you both… coming here was a mistake.”
“We should have listened to you,” she whispered.
“Yes. He forgot—what home was really like for us.”
“Doctor,” General Grevorian threatened, “must we apprehend you all, or will you do the right thing, for once?”
