Haunted Series One
Episode Eight
The Gates of Elysium
Written by the Genie
Foreword – by the Genie
The first series of Haunted - well, the first three - was completely serialised, told in bitesize sections with mini-cliffhangers. I've removed these cliff-hangers and the sections for smoother storytelling in all the others, but with The Gates of Elysium I wanted to leave open the option to read the episode as originally told (if you want to read the updated version - which has the same content but can be read better in one go - I refer you back to here). As a piece of storytelling, the finale ultimately depended on the suspense and resolution of mini-cliffhangers, and the way each imagined set-piece tied into the next. The parts were so carefully divided that they were even named, and when I look over it today, reading a section, taking a break, reading another, taking a break, I think it reads better this way.
The Gates of Elysium - Serialised Version
Part 1: The Other Story
Three men surrounded the triangular table.
The first was a round-faced man. He had – how would you describe it? He was normal, in superficial examination: a man of his time; healthy, sanguine; short, tidy hair; a moustache. But there was something else about him – perhaps a more familiar quality to me than to the other participant. It was, as I could best describe it, an unintentionally patronizing characteristic. The man was a good man; this was undisputable. But he had seen a lot, and, alas, knew I had not. I was a philosopher; dreaming of fantastic notions that I may one day experience. This man had been out there – he had met the great and good, he had experienced the impossible. My fields of knowledge were limited; clouded by my Victorian values. He wasn’t just a man of his time. He was beyond his time. He was commonly known as H.G. Wells. I called him Herbert, to avoid the formalities.
The second had, perhaps, a harsher countenance. He was sharp; incisive. You could see it in his eyes. He was ‘analysing’ you. He eliminated the impossible, examining what remained, however improbable, and labelling it as truth. He had written about this in one of his books. This man was Arthur Conan Doyle. Just Conan Doyle to me – just Conan Doyle to Herbert.
As you may have gathered, I was the third; the other. I liked to keep my identity as secretive as possible – as I did then, and as I am doing now. I led people on under false suspicions; never openly lying, but being obliquely deceitful. I would put out a clue: an idiom, to give a false impression of my background; or a rhetorical question, to indicate a philosophical value. They thought: where had I learnt this? Where did I stand with it? And I would sit back, calculating what to say next. The less people knew about me, the better.
“Goodnight, Gentlemen,” I began. They looked around sleepily; inspecting their surroundings. Their surroundings – my surroundings – were not what we would generally call surroundings. There was the wooden triangular table. There was a blue hue. There was a teapot on the table and a portion of afternoon tea for each participant. Beyond this there was nothing; a transcendental blend of a heavenly white and a hellish black, diverting the eyes back to the table. There was nothing. Nothing to be seen, nothing to be noticed.
“You must be wondering by now where exactly you are. And I can confirm.” I smiled enigmatically and sat back in my chair. “You are at home. You are where you were only moments ago. An old friend of mine, known as the Great Detective, left me her research in her will. This is what she called a ‘Conference Call’.” I stretched my arms out above me. “Direct communication across time and/or space.”
Conan Doyle shifted in his chair. “By the Great Detective…”
“I mean Madame Vastra, yes.” I paused; held my breath hesitatingly. “You may also be wondering why I have called you here today. And the answer is a question. And the question is a man. A man called the Doctor.” A shiver passed through the room.
“Doctor who?” asked Herbert.
“I think you are all aware of whom. The Doctor. I have selected you two individuals because you have both met him. He inspired your great work, The Time Machine? Am I correct?”
“Yes,” nodded Herbert. “Though I don’t see what concern it is of yours.”
“The concern, Herbert,” said I, “relates to time travel. A concept, I am sure, you are highly familiar with. And the question is this: is it possible? Did the Doctor allow you to witness time travel?”
“Yes.” Herbert adjusted his tie. “I saw it with my own eyes. I saw another civilisation. And I knew Madame Vastra also. She told me of the Doctor’s origins – in her final days. I visited her. She told me of a land known as Gallifrey.”
“The heavens,” said I. “I have sought to find this place for aeons. I have heard whispers. Only whispers. Rumours passed down through generations. I needed confirmation, Herbert. You have met this man. Did he speak of his ancestry?”
“A little. But very little.”
“I am aware,” I continued, “that time travel is – a, err – convoluted business. The Doctor may not have ‘happened’ yet. But I have heard legends of this figure – appearing through history; different men, but all with the same title. I wish to find him. To meet him. To see his society. An uncorrupted society; a society with decent moralities, where status is cast aside, where venality is truly frowned upon, where politics are sincere, where reaching paradise has not meant the sacrifice of innocents. I say: I would need no Bible. I am a scientist, but the Bible provides moral support; moral support, and hope. But this ‘Gallifrey’… it would qualify as a heaven for me. I wish to find it. And I think I may have found the key.”
“Why am I here?” asked Conan Doyle. “Why am I necessary in this?”
“I needed you asleep. My servant, Lumusi, is currently operating some highly specialised equipment, and in your very home.” Conan Doyle looked alarmed. “You see, I located you. I discovered traces of a strange particle – a particle I decided to christen artron energy. I used the findings of the Great Detective to construct an artronometer, and I located this ‘artron energy’ on you. It is now being extracted.”
Conan Doyle jumped up furiously. “This is absurd!” he bellowed. “Ungodly! I may have witnessed the impossible, but you are reckoning with nature! One day, nature will well reckon with you!”
“Perhaps you are right,” I said calmly, sensing a message in my subconscious. “But Lumusi has finished her work now. I hate to keep you. Thank you for your time, Herbert." Herbert nodded. “Thank you for your time, Conan Doyle.”
Conan Doyle shook with fury. “And what do you exactly plan to do with this artron energy, hmm?”
“Conan Doyle,” I laughed, “what would you expect? I’m going to build a time machine.”
***
The journey had been arduous, but it has been mesmeric. The time machine was a small vehicle; a long, rectangular thing with a chair and a slot-machine-like control panel. Behind it spun a large golden dish.
I had managed to find Gallifrey. It had not been easy. But in my time machine, I had been able to move throughout space. I had searched until I found what had been described in my sources: a red, mountainous world, orbiting two suns. I had found six worlds, and from there I had to deduce which were inhabited, which were habitable, how old each was. The one I found was evidently the genuine article. It seemed to call to me throughout space; almost wanting me. The mysteries of science thrilled my imagination. Everything has a reason, I told myself. I sought to find those reasons.
The landscape was almost underwhelming. The sky was a burnt orange, and the two suns blazed down with the power of God’s own hand touching my soul. Yet the civilisation was underdeveloped; mere huts; scattered across the mountains: a palace in the distance, but no citadel. No mighty civilisation. Nevertheless this was Gallifrey.
I was able to find a job soon enough. I told them I had come from a faraway land (somehow, my words were understood – perhaps this was a gift of Gallifreyans); that I was looking for work as a scientist. This was how I met Rassilon.
Rassilon had travelled through time, using embryonic time-travel technology akin to my own. We exchanged knowledge; he told me about how Gallifreyans used psychic technology to translate alien languages; in return, I told him about my home in Victorian England, about my culture, my ethics, and my findings. He was particularly curious about artron energy. I seemed to have invented it; he had made use of it, yet did not understand it. I was able to enlighten him. I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of pride.
We both knew our situation. As long as the Pythia reigned over Gallifrey, we would forever be trapped in dark times; unable to advance because of primitive ideas about ‘magic’. Rassilon, a fellow scientist who joined us later on called Omega – a valiant, prosperous man – and I, realised what had to be done: that a new order had to be formed. And we would call ourselves ‘the Time Lords’.
***
As the months went by, I lost myself. I became embroiled in Rassilon’s plans for supremacy, and when I realised, it was rather too late.
Omega was killed. A noble gesture; he died in the process of creating picture-perfect, cutting-edge time travel. I was aware of the risks – I had told Rassilon to warn him. Rassilon said he did, but that Omega said it was ‘worth the risk’. I am still not sure what to believe there.
The truth of the matter was that I had defied my own principles. I sought to make a better world, a world free of corruption, yet I corrupted myself in doing so. Is it not always the way? – that one can only achieve peace through war? Only achieve success through failure? Only achieve compassion through compunction? Only achieve moral purity through iniquity?
We had set our ways on overthrowing the Pythia, and this we did. But to replace it with what – a tyranny? Rassilon had imperialistic ideas. And he was a fascist; a malignant narcissist. I knew my days were limited; that I did not fit his ‘master race’. I thought then that an equal, honourable society could never develop: that someone must always be in power, and that power must always debase, sometimes unbeknownst; until the rupture reaches its way down to one’s heart, and envelops it in darkness.
I was aware that there was only one way out. A way that might, somehow, inspire generations after me to act against Rassilon’s order. I had come here in search of the Doctor, the mighty hero, but I knew that he too may have a heart of darkness – that perhaps only I could be the one to make a difference. I knew that what I was doing would end my life, but that someone would perchance take my title: the one who said no; the Other.
I knew that eventually Rassilon and his disciples would meet their end, but I did not know that one figure, a name carved into Gallifreyan history, someone who had changed my life – would make it out of this alive, and their presence would be felt millions of years in the future. And afterwards, the universe would not be the same.
***
Part 2: Storm Before The Storm
“SILENCE!” bellowed the Doctor. The room fell quiet instantly. “Take Zau to a holding cell. Keep an eye on Ruby. Mother…”
He looked at her in a way that no one in that room had ever seen him look at anyone before. It was a sort of bewildered admiration; his mind recognising her existence being beyond possibility, yet his heart relieved at the impossible. It was haunting. Like lovers in the afterlife; embracing each other in a spiritual fashion which no human mind could comprehend. “Mother…” he repeated; unable to string a sentence together. He returned to a childlike frame of mind; barely comprehending the world around him, and above all the woman in front of him. His eyes sparkled with wonder.
“I know…” she spoke gently. “I know I must have scared you. But I was bleeding into this world. Like I was standing behind a glass wall, unable to communicate with the other side. But I am here now. I’m not sure I understand…”
“I do,” remarked the Doctor, open-mouthed. “Yet I don’t. I know how you can be here… but why you? I feel like the universe has blessed me. And why me?”
“Who else would she bless?” The impossible woman turned away, heading in the direction of the door. “I’d imagine you need some time,” she said. “Time to explain how I could possibly be here!” She chuckled softly. “I’m here if you need me. When you need me.”
Phil blocked the door warily.
“You can let her go,” laughed the Doctor. His expression then turned sombre. “I know why she’s here and nothing is her fault.”
“Doctor?” enquired Olivia. “Is this… safe? Is my life in danger here?” She realised the Doctor’s bewildered look and gestured to the door. “Look, my mum is in hospital. I need…”
“I understand,” smiled the Doctor. “Time can wait for you if necessary. I just need you to promise me this…” he bent down slightly to reach her height. “I need you to come straight back here. Whatever happens. Even the worst.” They shared a knowing moment of pathos and parted.
“Now then,” he began once Olivia left. “Ruby Rose. What are you doing here?”
“You know Ruby?” queried Alex confusedly.
“I know of her,” explained the Doctor. “Ruby Rose. The Sister of Saint Ava. She was sent to blow up the Cyberiad. Her mission was successful, and she was presumed dead. Years later, she was sighted in a marketplace. She was a time traveller – but she had aged. Aged years. Aged how she is today. It was said that Ruby Rose was the only woman ever to find Elysium.” Ruby looked down modestly.
“What is Elysium?” asked Alex. “I keep hearing about it. I know it’s like heaven or something… but what are these gates? Doctor, just this once; tell me. What is going on?”
***
She was a wreck. Sprawled across the bed, staring at a horror that no one else could see.
“I’m so sorry that you had to see this,” said the nurse funereally. “This illness is relatively new but it always ends the same way. This won’t be pleasant – for either of you. You can go, if-“
“I’m staying,” demanded Olivia. “That’s final.”
“No!” cried Vivian. “Stay away from me!” She pulled the sheets on her bed to her and curled up in a ball, sobbing.
“What’s happening?” murmured Olivia uneasily. “Why is she scared?”
“It’s what happens at the end,” sighed the nurse grimly. “They hallucinate. I’ve seen ones who have seen the most terrible things. They say that sometimes, just sometimes, the presence of a loved one spares them of the worst visions. All you can do for her is to be with her.”
“I’m here.” Olivia approached the bed, sat down and squeezed her mother’s hand. It was shaking, and freezing cold; fluctuating, as if her soul was jumping in and out, trying to find somewhere permanent to stay. “Mum, it’s me. You’re going to be fine.”
“Stop hurting me!” wailed Vivian. “Tell them to stop. It just hurts too much!” she let out another cry of pain and winced. Olivia turned her mother’s head to face her. Suddenly she stopped. She was still shaking; still so cold, but she seemed content – if content were ever possible in her state. She beamed.
“Olivia!” she cried happily. “You’re back! Where did you go?”
“Mum…” Olivia picked up her mother’s hand and kissed it softly. “It doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter… I’m here now.” She smiled too. Her smile was like her mother’s; still, at peace – like she was reliving a precious moment, over and over.
“Olivia,” Vivian moaned. “Your father said he’d put up that fence panel two weeks ago. We’re going to get chickens coming into the garden again!”
Olivia laughed affectionately. “He’s getting it fixed, Mum. He’s getting it fixed right now.”
“You’re a good girl Olivia.” Vivian stroked Olivia’s face softly with her trembling hand. “You’ve always been a good girl…”
And she left with that smile.
It was like a breeze had passed over; carrying the last echo of life away with it. The shell was left, the blissful grin, but the eyes were darkened and empty. She had gone away in peace. That was something. The universe had spared her some mercy.
***
Part 3: The Price of Trust
“Doctor Zau.” The Doctor’s mother opened the cell door and slipped inside discreetly. “I see you’re a man of your word.”
“Do you know why I’m here?” he replied. He sat upright on the bed, loudly breathing – no, rasping. She regarded him with revulsion. “You know…” he continued. “If I sicken you this much, I don’t know why you summoned me.”
“Because,” explained the woman, “you were needed. You were needed to get everyone here, now. Elysium would only happen under circumstances. It was the same way the first time. And you may be of use later on. But my focus is on the Doctor – not you.” Her tone changed from venomous hatred to mild admiration. “But there is something you can do for me.”
“And what would that be?”
“Distraction.” She put emphasis on the word and waited to give Zau a chance to speculate over her ambiguity. “If the Doctor is to open Elysium, he needs to be forced. He needs to have nothing left to live for – but something to die for. Can you do that?”
“If it means I get to carry out my plan,” he said greedily, “I’ll do anything.”
“Good,” she said simply and walked out, purposefully not shutting the door fully after her.
***
“Doctor!” called Kate. “Why did you say your mother is here again?”
“It’s a long story,” he repeated, “and it might not need telling.”
“And you say she’s an innocent in all this?”
“Yup.”
“Not involved?”
The Doctor realised she was suspicious about something and jogged over to where she was standing. Her eyes were fixed on her tablet.
“Because we have CCTV footage of her visiting Doctor Zau in his cell.”
“Oh no,” gulped the Doctor. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
***
The corridor leading to the main area was ridiculously vast. The further you moved along it, the more it seemed to stretch, and tire the soul; the pallid walls imprinting themselves on the mind and twisting its thoughts. Olivia Quinn didn’t want to be thinking now. She had just witnessed one of the worst moments of her life. She’d lost her father the same way; slowly, painfully. And again she’d run away.
Suddenly, she felt a knife at her throat and was dragged into the lab. The man secured his grip on her and shoved her onto the floor. She stood up and looked at the Doctor on the other side of the glass. He stared back at her; just as horror-struck, just as powerless. She turned to face the man next to her – Doctor Zau. He grinned sadistically.
Alex was at the door, pulling with all her might to get it open. Everyone had crowded around the window now to see what the commotion was about. Suddenly, Zau pulled out a revolver and pointed it at her head.
“What do you want?” she breathed. “Why are you doing this?”
“It’s necessary,” he wheezed in his perverse cackle of a voice. “You see… I need the Doctor to open Elysium. Do you know what Elysium is?” He edged closer to her and pulled her in. He smelt of burning iron. He whispered into her ear. “It’s the land of the dead. Why would the Doctor want to open it? Well, with motivation…”
The first series of Haunted - well, the first three - was completely serialised, told in bitesize sections with mini-cliffhangers. I've removed these cliff-hangers and the sections for smoother storytelling in all the others, but with The Gates of Elysium I wanted to leave open the option to read the episode as originally told (if you want to read the updated version - which has the same content but can be read better in one go - I refer you back to here). As a piece of storytelling, the finale ultimately depended on the suspense and resolution of mini-cliffhangers, and the way each imagined set-piece tied into the next. The parts were so carefully divided that they were even named, and when I look over it today, reading a section, taking a break, reading another, taking a break, I think it reads better this way.
The Gates of Elysium - Serialised Version
Part 1: The Other Story
Three men surrounded the triangular table.
The first was a round-faced man. He had – how would you describe it? He was normal, in superficial examination: a man of his time; healthy, sanguine; short, tidy hair; a moustache. But there was something else about him – perhaps a more familiar quality to me than to the other participant. It was, as I could best describe it, an unintentionally patronizing characteristic. The man was a good man; this was undisputable. But he had seen a lot, and, alas, knew I had not. I was a philosopher; dreaming of fantastic notions that I may one day experience. This man had been out there – he had met the great and good, he had experienced the impossible. My fields of knowledge were limited; clouded by my Victorian values. He wasn’t just a man of his time. He was beyond his time. He was commonly known as H.G. Wells. I called him Herbert, to avoid the formalities.
The second had, perhaps, a harsher countenance. He was sharp; incisive. You could see it in his eyes. He was ‘analysing’ you. He eliminated the impossible, examining what remained, however improbable, and labelling it as truth. He had written about this in one of his books. This man was Arthur Conan Doyle. Just Conan Doyle to me – just Conan Doyle to Herbert.
As you may have gathered, I was the third; the other. I liked to keep my identity as secretive as possible – as I did then, and as I am doing now. I led people on under false suspicions; never openly lying, but being obliquely deceitful. I would put out a clue: an idiom, to give a false impression of my background; or a rhetorical question, to indicate a philosophical value. They thought: where had I learnt this? Where did I stand with it? And I would sit back, calculating what to say next. The less people knew about me, the better.
“Goodnight, Gentlemen,” I began. They looked around sleepily; inspecting their surroundings. Their surroundings – my surroundings – were not what we would generally call surroundings. There was the wooden triangular table. There was a blue hue. There was a teapot on the table and a portion of afternoon tea for each participant. Beyond this there was nothing; a transcendental blend of a heavenly white and a hellish black, diverting the eyes back to the table. There was nothing. Nothing to be seen, nothing to be noticed.
“You must be wondering by now where exactly you are. And I can confirm.” I smiled enigmatically and sat back in my chair. “You are at home. You are where you were only moments ago. An old friend of mine, known as the Great Detective, left me her research in her will. This is what she called a ‘Conference Call’.” I stretched my arms out above me. “Direct communication across time and/or space.”
Conan Doyle shifted in his chair. “By the Great Detective…”
“I mean Madame Vastra, yes.” I paused; held my breath hesitatingly. “You may also be wondering why I have called you here today. And the answer is a question. And the question is a man. A man called the Doctor.” A shiver passed through the room.
“Doctor who?” asked Herbert.
“I think you are all aware of whom. The Doctor. I have selected you two individuals because you have both met him. He inspired your great work, The Time Machine? Am I correct?”
“Yes,” nodded Herbert. “Though I don’t see what concern it is of yours.”
“The concern, Herbert,” said I, “relates to time travel. A concept, I am sure, you are highly familiar with. And the question is this: is it possible? Did the Doctor allow you to witness time travel?”
“Yes.” Herbert adjusted his tie. “I saw it with my own eyes. I saw another civilisation. And I knew Madame Vastra also. She told me of the Doctor’s origins – in her final days. I visited her. She told me of a land known as Gallifrey.”
“The heavens,” said I. “I have sought to find this place for aeons. I have heard whispers. Only whispers. Rumours passed down through generations. I needed confirmation, Herbert. You have met this man. Did he speak of his ancestry?”
“A little. But very little.”
“I am aware,” I continued, “that time travel is – a, err – convoluted business. The Doctor may not have ‘happened’ yet. But I have heard legends of this figure – appearing through history; different men, but all with the same title. I wish to find him. To meet him. To see his society. An uncorrupted society; a society with decent moralities, where status is cast aside, where venality is truly frowned upon, where politics are sincere, where reaching paradise has not meant the sacrifice of innocents. I say: I would need no Bible. I am a scientist, but the Bible provides moral support; moral support, and hope. But this ‘Gallifrey’… it would qualify as a heaven for me. I wish to find it. And I think I may have found the key.”
“Why am I here?” asked Conan Doyle. “Why am I necessary in this?”
“I needed you asleep. My servant, Lumusi, is currently operating some highly specialised equipment, and in your very home.” Conan Doyle looked alarmed. “You see, I located you. I discovered traces of a strange particle – a particle I decided to christen artron energy. I used the findings of the Great Detective to construct an artronometer, and I located this ‘artron energy’ on you. It is now being extracted.”
Conan Doyle jumped up furiously. “This is absurd!” he bellowed. “Ungodly! I may have witnessed the impossible, but you are reckoning with nature! One day, nature will well reckon with you!”
“Perhaps you are right,” I said calmly, sensing a message in my subconscious. “But Lumusi has finished her work now. I hate to keep you. Thank you for your time, Herbert." Herbert nodded. “Thank you for your time, Conan Doyle.”
Conan Doyle shook with fury. “And what do you exactly plan to do with this artron energy, hmm?”
“Conan Doyle,” I laughed, “what would you expect? I’m going to build a time machine.”
***
The journey had been arduous, but it has been mesmeric. The time machine was a small vehicle; a long, rectangular thing with a chair and a slot-machine-like control panel. Behind it spun a large golden dish.
I had managed to find Gallifrey. It had not been easy. But in my time machine, I had been able to move throughout space. I had searched until I found what had been described in my sources: a red, mountainous world, orbiting two suns. I had found six worlds, and from there I had to deduce which were inhabited, which were habitable, how old each was. The one I found was evidently the genuine article. It seemed to call to me throughout space; almost wanting me. The mysteries of science thrilled my imagination. Everything has a reason, I told myself. I sought to find those reasons.
The landscape was almost underwhelming. The sky was a burnt orange, and the two suns blazed down with the power of God’s own hand touching my soul. Yet the civilisation was underdeveloped; mere huts; scattered across the mountains: a palace in the distance, but no citadel. No mighty civilisation. Nevertheless this was Gallifrey.
I was able to find a job soon enough. I told them I had come from a faraway land (somehow, my words were understood – perhaps this was a gift of Gallifreyans); that I was looking for work as a scientist. This was how I met Rassilon.
Rassilon had travelled through time, using embryonic time-travel technology akin to my own. We exchanged knowledge; he told me about how Gallifreyans used psychic technology to translate alien languages; in return, I told him about my home in Victorian England, about my culture, my ethics, and my findings. He was particularly curious about artron energy. I seemed to have invented it; he had made use of it, yet did not understand it. I was able to enlighten him. I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of pride.
We both knew our situation. As long as the Pythia reigned over Gallifrey, we would forever be trapped in dark times; unable to advance because of primitive ideas about ‘magic’. Rassilon, a fellow scientist who joined us later on called Omega – a valiant, prosperous man – and I, realised what had to be done: that a new order had to be formed. And we would call ourselves ‘the Time Lords’.
***
As the months went by, I lost myself. I became embroiled in Rassilon’s plans for supremacy, and when I realised, it was rather too late.
Omega was killed. A noble gesture; he died in the process of creating picture-perfect, cutting-edge time travel. I was aware of the risks – I had told Rassilon to warn him. Rassilon said he did, but that Omega said it was ‘worth the risk’. I am still not sure what to believe there.
The truth of the matter was that I had defied my own principles. I sought to make a better world, a world free of corruption, yet I corrupted myself in doing so. Is it not always the way? – that one can only achieve peace through war? Only achieve success through failure? Only achieve compassion through compunction? Only achieve moral purity through iniquity?
We had set our ways on overthrowing the Pythia, and this we did. But to replace it with what – a tyranny? Rassilon had imperialistic ideas. And he was a fascist; a malignant narcissist. I knew my days were limited; that I did not fit his ‘master race’. I thought then that an equal, honourable society could never develop: that someone must always be in power, and that power must always debase, sometimes unbeknownst; until the rupture reaches its way down to one’s heart, and envelops it in darkness.
I was aware that there was only one way out. A way that might, somehow, inspire generations after me to act against Rassilon’s order. I had come here in search of the Doctor, the mighty hero, but I knew that he too may have a heart of darkness – that perhaps only I could be the one to make a difference. I knew that what I was doing would end my life, but that someone would perchance take my title: the one who said no; the Other.
I knew that eventually Rassilon and his disciples would meet their end, but I did not know that one figure, a name carved into Gallifreyan history, someone who had changed my life – would make it out of this alive, and their presence would be felt millions of years in the future. And afterwards, the universe would not be the same.
***
Part 2: Storm Before The Storm
“SILENCE!” bellowed the Doctor. The room fell quiet instantly. “Take Zau to a holding cell. Keep an eye on Ruby. Mother…”
He looked at her in a way that no one in that room had ever seen him look at anyone before. It was a sort of bewildered admiration; his mind recognising her existence being beyond possibility, yet his heart relieved at the impossible. It was haunting. Like lovers in the afterlife; embracing each other in a spiritual fashion which no human mind could comprehend. “Mother…” he repeated; unable to string a sentence together. He returned to a childlike frame of mind; barely comprehending the world around him, and above all the woman in front of him. His eyes sparkled with wonder.
“I know…” she spoke gently. “I know I must have scared you. But I was bleeding into this world. Like I was standing behind a glass wall, unable to communicate with the other side. But I am here now. I’m not sure I understand…”
“I do,” remarked the Doctor, open-mouthed. “Yet I don’t. I know how you can be here… but why you? I feel like the universe has blessed me. And why me?”
“Who else would she bless?” The impossible woman turned away, heading in the direction of the door. “I’d imagine you need some time,” she said. “Time to explain how I could possibly be here!” She chuckled softly. “I’m here if you need me. When you need me.”
Phil blocked the door warily.
“You can let her go,” laughed the Doctor. His expression then turned sombre. “I know why she’s here and nothing is her fault.”
“Doctor?” enquired Olivia. “Is this… safe? Is my life in danger here?” She realised the Doctor’s bewildered look and gestured to the door. “Look, my mum is in hospital. I need…”
“I understand,” smiled the Doctor. “Time can wait for you if necessary. I just need you to promise me this…” he bent down slightly to reach her height. “I need you to come straight back here. Whatever happens. Even the worst.” They shared a knowing moment of pathos and parted.
“Now then,” he began once Olivia left. “Ruby Rose. What are you doing here?”
“You know Ruby?” queried Alex confusedly.
“I know of her,” explained the Doctor. “Ruby Rose. The Sister of Saint Ava. She was sent to blow up the Cyberiad. Her mission was successful, and she was presumed dead. Years later, she was sighted in a marketplace. She was a time traveller – but she had aged. Aged years. Aged how she is today. It was said that Ruby Rose was the only woman ever to find Elysium.” Ruby looked down modestly.
“What is Elysium?” asked Alex. “I keep hearing about it. I know it’s like heaven or something… but what are these gates? Doctor, just this once; tell me. What is going on?”
***
She was a wreck. Sprawled across the bed, staring at a horror that no one else could see.
“I’m so sorry that you had to see this,” said the nurse funereally. “This illness is relatively new but it always ends the same way. This won’t be pleasant – for either of you. You can go, if-“
“I’m staying,” demanded Olivia. “That’s final.”
“No!” cried Vivian. “Stay away from me!” She pulled the sheets on her bed to her and curled up in a ball, sobbing.
“What’s happening?” murmured Olivia uneasily. “Why is she scared?”
“It’s what happens at the end,” sighed the nurse grimly. “They hallucinate. I’ve seen ones who have seen the most terrible things. They say that sometimes, just sometimes, the presence of a loved one spares them of the worst visions. All you can do for her is to be with her.”
“I’m here.” Olivia approached the bed, sat down and squeezed her mother’s hand. It was shaking, and freezing cold; fluctuating, as if her soul was jumping in and out, trying to find somewhere permanent to stay. “Mum, it’s me. You’re going to be fine.”
“Stop hurting me!” wailed Vivian. “Tell them to stop. It just hurts too much!” she let out another cry of pain and winced. Olivia turned her mother’s head to face her. Suddenly she stopped. She was still shaking; still so cold, but she seemed content – if content were ever possible in her state. She beamed.
“Olivia!” she cried happily. “You’re back! Where did you go?”
“Mum…” Olivia picked up her mother’s hand and kissed it softly. “It doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter… I’m here now.” She smiled too. Her smile was like her mother’s; still, at peace – like she was reliving a precious moment, over and over.
“Olivia,” Vivian moaned. “Your father said he’d put up that fence panel two weeks ago. We’re going to get chickens coming into the garden again!”
Olivia laughed affectionately. “He’s getting it fixed, Mum. He’s getting it fixed right now.”
“You’re a good girl Olivia.” Vivian stroked Olivia’s face softly with her trembling hand. “You’ve always been a good girl…”
And she left with that smile.
It was like a breeze had passed over; carrying the last echo of life away with it. The shell was left, the blissful grin, but the eyes were darkened and empty. She had gone away in peace. That was something. The universe had spared her some mercy.
***
Part 3: The Price of Trust
“Doctor Zau.” The Doctor’s mother opened the cell door and slipped inside discreetly. “I see you’re a man of your word.”
“Do you know why I’m here?” he replied. He sat upright on the bed, loudly breathing – no, rasping. She regarded him with revulsion. “You know…” he continued. “If I sicken you this much, I don’t know why you summoned me.”
“Because,” explained the woman, “you were needed. You were needed to get everyone here, now. Elysium would only happen under circumstances. It was the same way the first time. And you may be of use later on. But my focus is on the Doctor – not you.” Her tone changed from venomous hatred to mild admiration. “But there is something you can do for me.”
“And what would that be?”
“Distraction.” She put emphasis on the word and waited to give Zau a chance to speculate over her ambiguity. “If the Doctor is to open Elysium, he needs to be forced. He needs to have nothing left to live for – but something to die for. Can you do that?”
“If it means I get to carry out my plan,” he said greedily, “I’ll do anything.”
“Good,” she said simply and walked out, purposefully not shutting the door fully after her.
***
“Doctor!” called Kate. “Why did you say your mother is here again?”
“It’s a long story,” he repeated, “and it might not need telling.”
“And you say she’s an innocent in all this?”
“Yup.”
“Not involved?”
The Doctor realised she was suspicious about something and jogged over to where she was standing. Her eyes were fixed on her tablet.
“Because we have CCTV footage of her visiting Doctor Zau in his cell.”
“Oh no,” gulped the Doctor. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
***
The corridor leading to the main area was ridiculously vast. The further you moved along it, the more it seemed to stretch, and tire the soul; the pallid walls imprinting themselves on the mind and twisting its thoughts. Olivia Quinn didn’t want to be thinking now. She had just witnessed one of the worst moments of her life. She’d lost her father the same way; slowly, painfully. And again she’d run away.
Suddenly, she felt a knife at her throat and was dragged into the lab. The man secured his grip on her and shoved her onto the floor. She stood up and looked at the Doctor on the other side of the glass. He stared back at her; just as horror-struck, just as powerless. She turned to face the man next to her – Doctor Zau. He grinned sadistically.
Alex was at the door, pulling with all her might to get it open. Everyone had crowded around the window now to see what the commotion was about. Suddenly, Zau pulled out a revolver and pointed it at her head.
“What do you want?” she breathed. “Why are you doing this?”
“It’s necessary,” he wheezed in his perverse cackle of a voice. “You see… I need the Doctor to open Elysium. Do you know what Elysium is?” He edged closer to her and pulled her in. He smelt of burning iron. He whispered into her ear. “It’s the land of the dead. Why would the Doctor want to open it? Well, with motivation…”
|
Track 3 - Breathe Me (Sia)
Very fundamental to the scene, this is the song of Olivia Quinn. Let it play until "The Doctor ran out of the lab", or, if you're reading the serialised version, the start of 'Part Four: The Identity Thieves'. |
Olivia realised what he was doing. Why he needed her. Why having her would make the Doctor open the gates to death.
“Oh, God…” she backed away. “No! You can’t be serious!” She hammered on the door, and Alex on the other side could do nothing but mouth ‘We’re coming to get you’ helplessly. She pushed, she pulled, and she smashed desperately at the glass. The Doctor joined her; fiercely attacking the door in alarm. The rest of UNIT fired at the window, but to no ado.
Zau moved closer, laughing maniacally. “So much for the Doctor being here for you now,” he cackled. He forced her onto the ground where she curled up to the door terrified.
“No!” she cried. “Please, no! Doctor! Doctor, help me!”
There was one last scream and then…
Silence.
The door opened, and the Doctor rushed in and crouched down next to Olivia. Her beautiful face was lifeless; staring unblinkingly into nothingness.
“No.” The Doctor shook his head disbelievingly. “No. No.” He held her to him and rocked her body in his arms. “No, no…” he wept; his tears dripping into a puddle of her blood. He looked through the window and saw Kate looking back at him helplessly. Her hand covered her mouth and she stared back compassionately; affected by the trauma nonetheless, but holding it together for his sake. She knew what the man had gone through in his time.
The Doctor stood up and kicked at the cabinets and tables violently. He ran his arm across the worktop viciously; knocking glasses and equipment and papers to the floor. “Nooo!” he howled. He collapsed to the floor and sobbed against the table. “Olivia…” he stroked her face. “My beautiful Olivia Quinn.”
No one even noticed Alex; weeping silently in the corridor for the most loving, innocent woman she had ever known.
Elysium had gained an angel.
***
Part 4: The Identity Thieves
The Doctor ran out of the lab. He ran straight past Doctor Zau, the man he hated more than any living creature in the universe. He ran past poor Alex; past friends, colleges, strangers. He ran because he knew that there were even more important things at stake.
His mother stood alone in the centre of the room. Everyone else had crowded around the window and door to the lab; no one had noticed her sneaking up. There was silence now. You could have heard a pin drop. The Doctor marched up to her; his footsteps reverberating through the room.
His mother had a new quality now. She was victorious; she conveyed an element of pretence and callousness. Her facial features were curved; directed inwards like a glare.
“Who are you?” challenged the Doctor quietly.
“You’re going to open Elysium,” she replied heartlessly. “If you want her back, you’ll do it.”
The Doctor dashed forwards, gripping her neck threateningly.
“Do you think I’m just going to let you control me?” he asked. He was gravely serious now. His eyes were penetrating; perceptive. His jaw was clenched tightly. “I have nothing left to live for. If you’re going to torture me to open Elysium, I’ll just let you finish the job.” His grip got tighter; it nearly strangled the woman. “Who are you?” he growled bitterly.
He released his grip and stood back in anticipation of an answer. All of a sudden, her face changed; morphing, its shape growing more slender; the features de-ageing, creases fading. Her eyes turned to an intense sky-blue and sunk further back into their sockets. The woman was beautiful; young and sophisticated, but she was bewitching; fallacious, scheming. Swathes of long black hair curled around her face. She still wore the red robes. They gave an impression of majesty.
“I am the last Pythia of Gallifrey,” she hissed. Her voice had an icy quality.
The Doctor was disconcerted. He was crushed. Lost.
The only person who dared do anything was Doctor Zau. He swaggered forward, straight past all of the guards, and stood an equal distance away from both so that they made a triangle.
“This has been an enjoyable evening,” laughed the wicked old man.
The Doctor dashed up to a UNIT guard and whipped a gun out of his pocket. He held it up to Zau’s head, breathing rapidly, but not shaking; his grip was firm, his intentions resolute.
“Why did you do it?” asked the Doctor softly. His voice rose suddenly. “WHY DID YOU KILL HER?!”
“You know why,” he replied. “I want to unlock Elysium.” He held his arms up to his chest. They shook excitedly. “When I open Elysium, I’ll see the true extent of the universe’s powers. I will have control over everything – ascending to a celestial level of power! Then, only then, can I defeat humanity. And I won’t be human any more. I will be so much more.”
The Doctor put his finger over the trigger. “I understood your intentions,” he said. “However twisted they were, I got your motives. But you’ve made this personal now. I thought you’d have known better.”
“Go on then!” he dared the Doctor, apparently unalarmed by his position. “Could you do it? Could you prove how human you really are?” The Doctor tightened his hold on the weapon. “Do you want to know a secret?” Zau continued as if he were talking to a child. “I enjoyed it. It wasn’t convenient. I liked watching her scream. Knowing she was mine and mine alone. That I decided her fate, that I shaped her actions, her movements, her sentiments… I enjoyed that with all of them. All those pretty little girls Blackwell brought me. I enjoyed tainting them.” The Doctor couldn’t take it anymore.
He pulled the trigger.
Zau fell to the floor. Blood poured out of his chest. He rested his bloody palm against the TARDIS door.
The Doctor stood stationary, as if he was frozen in the moment. He started onwards as if Doctor Zau was still standing there. Still daring him. Kate covered her mouth in horror.
“I was told,” coughed Zau, “at the moment of my death, I was told that I had to do this…”
“Do what?” asked the Doctor, instantly snapped out of his trance. “Told by who?”
“By my parents.” Zau choked for a few seconds.
“You never met your parents…” commented Alex. She had waited for Olivia to say it, but realised that it rested on her now.
“They said I had to open this.”
“Open what?” demanded the Doctor. “OPEN WHAT?” he yelled. Zau pulled a watch out of his pocket. It was a fob watch. The markings were different, but the Doctor recognised them.
Before the Doctor could intervene, Zau clicked open the watch, and an overwhelming golden light shone around the room.
“What’s happening?” exclaimed Phil.
The light dimmed, but shone in Zau’s eyes. He looked…
Delighted.
Before anything could be done, he kicked the TARDIS door open and ran inside. The Doctor followed, then five UNIT guards.
The chase was on.
They were chasing a Time Lord.
***
Part 5: The Fall of a Time Lord
“I’ll find you,” vowed the Doctor through the intercom. “And when I find you, I will kill you.”
The UNIT forces had made their way into the TARDIS (whilst others outside guarded the Pythia). They patrolled the vast corridors; they penetrated every shadow, stepped in every footstep. It would only be a matter of time before Doctor Zau was found.
The Doctor had activated the communications, meaning that he could locate Zau quicker. Zau responded occasionally, with a cackle or a cough or just muffled sound. Perhaps he wanted to be found; to be brought back out to the base he had surrendered himself in – or perhaps he was taunting them.
“Doctor Zau was shot, wasn’t he?” queried Kate, following the Doctor as he rotated around the console. “So isn’t he dying?”
“He’ll be able to buy himself time. That was regeneration energy stored in there. But eventually…” he hesitated warily. “He will be in a state of dying.”
“A state of dying?” she repeated. “Why put it like that?”
“Because as you know from me,” he explained, “Time Lords can regenerate. When he dies, he’ll swap that old body for a new one. He’ll avoid it, if he can. It’s a nasty process.”
“How is he a Time Lord?” Alex persisted. “I don’t get it.”
“That watch,” continued the Doctor, “contains Time Lord DNA. He’s been hidden – either he’s veiled himself, or someone else has done it for him, for some reason. His memories are all back now. We don’t know what his motives are or what he is trying to do.”
“But we know he’s evil,” said Alex. “And dangerous. And I know that one of us will kill him. Whether it’s one of them-“ she gestured to the door “you-“ she addressed the Doctor “or me.”
“Well, well, well…” came the voice of Doctor Zau from the intercom. “You really are quite determined.” He chuckled. His chuckle went too far; it developed into a cough; then into a paroxysmal outbreak. He cleared his throat.
“We will find you,” growled the Doctor. “We will find you.”
“Why?” asked Zau mockingly. “Is it because I killed your favourite pet?”
The Doctor threw the intercom on the ground and attacked the TARDIS; kicking it, punching it, scratching at switches.
“Don’t even talk about her!” he cried. “DON’T YOU EVEN SAY HER NAME!”
He stopped, rested his head against the central column and placed his hand up to the glass. And he cried. As he cried, the tear fell onto the column; cascading down slowly as the TARDIS purred back affectionately. She was in pain. As the Doctor felt it, so did she. Her unearthly, celestial presence acknowledged his, somehow. There was a wall between them, yet they were connected more than any two beings that ever lived. Kate, meanwhile, felt for the Doctor – yet she was just as unable as the TARDIS to reach out and comfort him.
“I will find you, Zau,” he reiterated. “And you’d better hope someone else finishes you off before I can get my hands on you.”
***
Zau propped himself up against the side of the staircase. He was afraid – yet he was strong-minded. His primary intention, when the Pythia had approached him and told him of his significance, was to reach Elysium and gain full control of the universe. Zau had never been a religious man, but he believed in a greater power – and he believed he was entitled to it. He wasn’t going to let a sentimental old fool deny him of that. Nonetheless, he felt there was something more than sentimentality involved here – it was as if God himself had looked down on what happened to Olivia and decreed ‘enough’.
Zau felt a belt around his throat. It tightened, squeezing him in agony until he was forced back as far as he could go. He could smell… perfume.
“You want to get to Elysium,” said the voice of Ruby Rose, “but bad news. You’ve possibly ruined everything.” She paused. “I don’t tend to get connected to these things, but I liked Olivia. I was fond of her. And she respected the Doctor, and therefore, so do I.” She released him but turned and aimed a gun to his head. “Back through the arch,” she demanded cheerily. “I don’t have all day.” Zau tried to turn and look around, but she stopped him. “Ah!” she commanded. “I want this to be a surprise. You should be pleased. I’m only sparing you the Doctor’s treatment. Mind you…” she cocked her head contemptuously. “I’m not sure which is worse.”
Zau stepped back hesitantly and fell straight into a puddle. He spat the mud out of his mouth and pulled himself up, still holding the gunshot wound. He appeared to be in a forest. There was a layer of mist shrouding his view. The trees were widely spaced-apart and few.
“I suppose you’re wondering where all the trees are!” The Doctor taunted Zau. His voice had no direction: it came from all around, and could be heard like an echo in a vast hall. “They’re nearby,” he teased. “I shan’t say where though. I’m sure you’ll work it out.”
There were footsteps. Or perhaps… what was it? It was heavy. Like clunking; as if weighty boxes were being bounced towards him. In the spaces between the crashes, a mechanical laughter could be made out from the distance. Zau moved as fast as he could to the edge of the forest, nearly backing into a seemingly endless waterfall; his wide, perturbed eyes encapsulating his sentiments.
“I considered finding you myself,” thundered the Doctor, “but I thought – why not leave it to my pets? You see, I never realised what happened to all the beings – the malevolent beings – that got lost in my TARDIS. I thought: what would they become, hmm? What would they do with aeons of solitude? What would they make of a new arrival?”
“Please!” begged Zau. “I can explain! Release me!”
“I don’t need you to explain,” clarified the Doctor. He was addressing the whole group now. Zau could tell from his voice that he had company. He was in his element. “Because I’ve worked out the whole truth. What’s happening with Elysium, why and how the Pythia is here, how she used my mother as a mask, and, above all, why you, a Time Lord, are where you are now. Would you like to know about your inheritance?”
As the noise became unbearable, Zau dived into the cavernous depths of the waterfall and ended his life as swiftly and painlessly as he could attempt.
The Doctor turned to face Kate and put his hands on her shoulders affectionately. “I’ve kept you in the dark for so long, Kate. Alex. All of you. It probably cost Olivia her life. Now it’s time I told you all the truth.”
***
Part 6: The Truth
The centre of the main hall of the UNIT base was now inaccessible.
A whole circle over the mat was shrouded by dense layers of smoke which spiralled around it aggressively – forebodingly. Everyone stood around the circle: the Doctor, Alex, Phil, Ruby, the Pythia, and the rest of UNIT. The cloudy ring shone a dazzling yellow which reflected on their faces enchantingly.
“What’s Elysium?” asked Alex breathlessly. “What does it mean?”
The Doctor started circling the area. “According to the Ancient Greeks, Elysium was the land of the dead. And the Greeks weren’t the only ones that had that idea. The New Order 5153, the Natives of Calderdæ…” he let out a momentous sigh. “The Gallifreyans…”
“The Time War was a terrible thing. I should know.” He stood upright like a solider, fastening an imaginary badge. “I was on the front line. I fought. Killed. Butchered.” He put a brutal emphasis on that final word. “The circumstances of the Time War were nothing like anything the universe had ever known. It was… like hell itself.” He winced at the memory. It was a painful image to evoke – buried deep within the mind; locked in a figurative cabinet – the key to which he’d tried to hide. “The sky was torn like an open wound… acids of time rained down like dripping blood. Time itself had distorted. People died, and were resurrected; their whole lives re-written in a second, as if they were so insignificant.” He left that sentence with a sarcastic ‘Ha’ – as if mocking Time’s idea of importance.
“The Gates of Elysium opened. Like a literal gateway to heaven. The light was so… blinding. Alluring. It waited for you. It was the easy way out – die again and again or step into the kingdom of the dead. No one knew what was there, yet thousands sacrificed themselves…” he had bowed over now; hiding shamefully from the truth. “My mother was among them. When I ended the war, the gates closed. Ancient Gallifreyan legends said that the Gates of Elysium would open one more time, at the End of Days – all religions state it somewhere, however obliquely. This is what the Pythia has done.” He glared darkly at the Pythia who glowered even stronger. “She found out when Elysium would open again and altered my timeline until I was here at just the right time. And why…?” He smirked sinisterly. “Because only a Time Lord can open the Gates of Elysium. And I’m the only Time Lord left in the universe.”
“What about Zau?” questioned Alex, half-listening to the Doctor, half-gazing at the amazing illumination.
The Doctor bit his lip. “Doctor Zau is the Hitchhiker.”
Everything stopped. The whistling of the spinning clouds, the Pythia’s serpentine breathing, the wheezing of the UNIT air-con… everyone just turned to the Doctor, realising the inevitable truth.
“A Time Lord who can’t remember his past,” he continued, “conditioned with only subconscious messages. He grew up isolating himself from society because deep down he knew he was different. And he was abandoned. Unloved.” He susurrated bitterly. “His only chance of power was Elysium. The Pythia selected him because she knew he was pivotal in getting me here. I took that away from him. He was stuck in my TARDIS, falling down the waterfall into the TDS and into my past… he’s confused; vengeful. So he takes it out on the one person who’s ruined his life: me. Gradually, he remembers more of his mysterious past, until his rise to power becomes his downfall.” He shook his head forlornly. “I almost feel sorry for him. The scorned enigma. And I’ll never really know the answer – I’ll never know what he was like before he was Zau. Sometimes I’ll wonder if he ever did.”
“So hang on…” began Phillip, trying to keep up. “If you open Elysium, will Olivia come back? If it’s the land of the dead?” Alex tuned in here. The Doctor just looked at him unresponsively. “Are you going to open it…?”
“No.” he replied harshly.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what Elysium really is. How the Pythia got here. What opening it could mean.”
“You will open it,” confirmed the Pythia. She threw her hand up and struck the Doctor with a blast of green light. He fell to the floor and clutched his chest.
“You’ve been cursed,” she spat fiercely. “If you don’t open the Gates of Elysium within the next hour, you WILL die.”
***
Part 7: The Darkness of the Doctor
“Pythia,” muttered the Doctor. “And your bloody curses.”
“What?” asked Phil. “She can actually do that? Like magic?”
“Yes,” replied the Pythia pretentiously. She looked daggers at Alex. “So don’t try anything clever!”
“Any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” corrected Ruby. “Saint Ava always believed that logic was at the heart of the Creator. Things don’t just happen.”
“So what’s your choice then, Doctor?” teased the Pythia, approaching him as he scrambled around on the floor. “Open the Gates to Death or die. What will it be?”
“Why do you want them open?” re-joined the Doctor. “What do you get out of it?”
“My suicide,” answered the Pythia, “remember that?”
“What Time Lord doesn’t?” The Doctor smirked.
“I didn’t kill myself. It was all a lie. But I buried a part of my consciousness in Elysium.”
“What for?” chuckled the Doctor. “Safekeeping?”
“So that I could transform it into something on a celestial scale. I split my soul in two. I am safe now – but I want to see what I became. I want to ascend.”
“Ha-ha!” laughed the Doctor sarcastically. “I know exactly what you want.” He stood up until he was at an equal level with her and whispered. “You want to punish me for what I didn’t do.”
“Didn’t do?” she cackled acerbically. “You are the Other. You know you are. You condemned me to death!” She turned to the others. “Would you like to see?” she asked them. “See what the Doctor has done? What he is really like?”
Before anyone had the chance to answer, the room transformed; evanescent clouds of mystical black smoke twisting the surroundings. They were now in another hall – this one far bigger; still circular; still completely white. But there were no tables, chairs, windows, stairs or rooms above like the UNIT base. Instead, there was just a woman in the middle of this cage-like facility. It was the Pythia. She was unchanged – if anything, she looked older. She wore the same red robes. She was fatigued; stressed. Jaded. She was meditating on the ground, but she fidgeted distractedly.
“The Pythia were soothsayers,” explained the Doctor, apparently unfazed by their sudden transportation. “They overruled Gallifrey before the Time Lords.”
“Days of peace,” retorted the Pythia.
“Oppression,” argued the Doctor. “Only this one couldn’t really master it all.” The Pythia hadn’t noticed them. It was as if they weren’t even there. “Her predictions were wrong. Her reign brought chaos upon Gallifrey. She had to be stopped,” he declared contritely. “And so a man – known only as the Other – played a part in her downfall. Apparently he was me.”
“How?” asked Alex.
“The Time Lords were born from Looms – genetic chambers which created fresh beings. This is how we could regenerate. Lord President Rassilon was good at his biology. The Other committed suicide, throwing himself into the Looms. His DNA got mixed up with them and apparently most of it is in me.”
“Wait a minute,” queried Phillip, “if you’re ‘Loomed’, how come you have a mother?” The Doctor looked away secretively.
“Ahhhh.” The Pythia smiled evilly. “She is not the Doctor’s mother. She is the Other’s mother. Yet the Doctor had a connection to her. A special connection, as if-“
“It was just a coincidence,” interjected the Doctor.
“As if,” continued the Pythia vituperatively, “you could remember being him!”
All eyes turned towards the Doctor.
“Yes!” he confessed. “OK. I remember being the Other. That’s fine. But that’s all it is; a memory. You must all have memories that you regret.” Alex bowed her head remorsefully, calling to mind her own. “Besides, it was never proved that she was his mother. The Other wasn't even said to be of Gallifreyan descent. And I’m a new man now. I’ve been a new man about twelve times over since then.”
“The truth begins to unfold,” narrated the Pythia poetically. “Do you think your friends will stick with you towards the end? Or will they too push you to open the Gates of Elysium?”
“I’ll stay with him,” verified Kate.
“And me,” from Phillip.
And finally from Alex.
“Will you though,” continued the Pythia, “when you see what else that man has done in his life?”
The environment transfigured again. This time they were on a barren landscape. Jagged rocks pointed up for miles and they sky was a bloodshot red; unifying with the spectral black in the distance. There was a chill to the air, and the atmosphere felt different. It felt transcendent, perhaps; beyond human – or even mortal – understanding. The aftermath of events on a godlike scale - or, conceivably, the very end of all things.
They were next to a man – the only man that could be seen. He wore a shirt, a leather jacket and jeans, but the colours were impossible to discern under the ash and beyond the murkiness of the air. He was old; grey-haired. He frowned sourly.
“This is the Doctor,” commented the Pythia. For once, everyone was silent. “And do you know what he’s just done?”
The Doctor stood before them then like, like –
Like a phantom. It was then that they could see it. The older Doctor’s eyes were ablaze with fury; they were soul-sucking, dream-crushing – they shone like sentient pits of darkness, pits that never ended, darkness that never ceased; consuming, shattering darkness. The ‘Doctor’ who they had known – with whom they had conversed, and watched in wonder, and idolised – he seemed suddenly to be like a spectre. Like a mere echo of this new man; a shadow left over from his wake. Occasionally there was a glimmer – occasionally he seemed like more than just a man – but whatever divine force had possessed him before – whatever overpowering impression he had borne – it died then, somehow fleeing into some insignificant corner of creation.
Fleeing from itself.
“He’s just become the greatest killer the universe had ever known,” murmured the Pythia. Even she spoke with respect – no, not respect. Fear. “Using a weapon. He wiped out his own species. Can you imagine? His friends, his family – his culture, his home… gone. By his own hand.”
The UNIT soldiers who’d tried to hitherto stay formal exchanged glances. Some were shocked. Some confused. Some revolted. Some…
Inspired.
Both Alex and Kate, meanwhile, were defeated. She had been proven wrong about the Doctor. The man had just lost their trust as well. As science was indistinguishable from magic, she realised, an intense darkness could maybe be indistinguishable from an intense light.
“Enough,” growled the Doctor. “This is enough. This – ends – here.”
“What is your choice then, Doctor?” taunted the Pythia. “Will you open Elysium? Because I think you may have just said goodbye to your followers. The universe is no longer in the shadows with you. You are in the limelight, old man – and what an impression you will bear.”
***
Part 8: When Elysium Opened
Elysium had actually formed a slight gate now. They weren’t exactly the Pearly Gates – but the Doctor wasn’t exactly Saint Peter either. Instead, there was a portal shining visibly beneath the smoke. It was the same heavenly light as before, but somehow even more overwhelming.
“Do you want to see it, then?” asked the Doctor. “Do you want to see what happens if Elysium gets opened? Hmm?”
He held out both arms towards the portal and lightening blasted from it, ricocheting around the room. Suddenly, unearthly spectres emerged from the gates.
At first, they could have been water vapour.
They were made up of light – like stars, in a way; bright, dotted, seeming close and distant at the same time. They spiralled around the room like a storm, making a strange noise that had been inconceivable before today. It was ambiguous. It could have been a cackle, or a hiss, or even a scream of agony. They encircled a UNIT officer and he shouted out for help. As the cloud of spectres became denser, they parted, except the officer was no longer there – he was just… gone.
The Doctor laid down his arms and the spectres were sucked back into Elysium in the same fashion in which they had left.
“That’s Elysium,” explained the Doctor heartlessly as everyone looked at him in dismay – other than the Pythia, who looked unimpressed. “That’s what I’d be letting out. You all think you’re reuniting with your families, do you? Ha. If only. Because if that were the case – “his voice softened, reaching a relatively high pitch. “I would. Without thought.”
Alex’s phone rang. The ringtone was a contrast with the dismal yet numinous mood. She answered it quickly. Her eyes widened disbelievingly and she hung up.
“My brother’s just been seen,” she said. “Are you so sure about what you said? Because Olivia saw her dad before too. What if it’s… like an echo? If the event was so big that our dead came back early. Doctor, please!” Her eyes were so imploring. It pained the Doctor to see her naïve desperation.
“I’m sorry,” replied the Doctor. “I really am. But that could be a trick. That could be what makes me open it and cause the end of time itself. Anything from the Time War stays in the Time War. If my only other choice is to die, then I will have to die. That’s that-“
A figure emerged from the gates as the Doctor finished his sentence. She was perfect; glowing, in white robes. Her hair curled perfectly around her neck and she addressed the Doctor directly. She was more alive than he had ever seen her.
“Olivia Quinn…” he wiped a tear from his eye and held his hand up to her face. He stroked her cheek. She shed a tear too. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so – so – sorry…” About to break down, he turned away and closed his eyes. “NO!” he boomed. “I will not do it. And you know what…?” He didn’t even look defeated. He was just tired. Tired of all those who’d tried to defeat him his whole life. “So what if I die?”
It hurt Kate to see how he’d given up.
It was Ruby who had been most affected. She’d spent years focusing her future around her ego: around finding peace for her, around reaching her goals. It was then that she’d seen someone else – someone she was fond of – saved. The beauty of Elysium struck her then more than it had in any of her fantasies. That the true secret to life was not rewarding one’s self, but being rewarded through the joy of others. Olivia bestowed that joy onto her. Ruby Rose had felt the need to show off – to be something she wasn’t. What she really wanted in her life was love, and she saw it then. Religion had been so blind. People didn’t have to try to be good. If those who were bad stopped trying to be bad, no one had to try to do anything.
And so, knowing that it was her final chance, she took a step forward and threw herself into the light, ready to embrace her fate.
She hoped the Creator was kind.
***
Part 9: Judgement Day
The Pythia was desperate now. The Doctor was not going to open Elysium. He was unwavering until his final breath, and she knew that. But she wanted it so desperately.
“I know why you want Elysium,” crooned the Doctor ominously. “I’ve been making up excuses. So have you. But it’s not me you want to punish. And you don’t want to retrieve your ‘lost soul’. And you don’t want to go into Elysium. I’m sorry, but the truth hurts.”
“What do mean?” she hissed. “What truth?”
The Doctor wiped his face. “I am sorry, you know. I am genuinely sorry.” The Pythia wasn’t moved. “But you know what’s on the other side. You knew. You weren’t surprised to see those things there.” Alex had pieced it together and didn’t know how to react. She just stayed quiet and pretended she didn’t know for a while longer.
“And you used the face of my mother. A face lost to time. You were confused as well – I could see it, sometimes. It was like you weren’t even sure why you were there. And you never had the gift your predecessors had, ever. Yet today you cursed me with death, you transported us into a time-locked event and let us stand alongside like… ghosts. Your powers are otherworldly.”
“No,” started the Pythia; hopeless fear in her eyes. “No! Don’t do this!” The Doctor advanced maliciously. “You can’t! Don’t!”
The Doctor reached out his arm to touch her and it went straight through her. She faded slightly; the light now shone directly through her instead of around her.
“I am sorry. But you… are dead.” Phil was shocked. The other guards, shocked. Pythia… desolate.
“You threw yourself into Elysium – the first time it ever opened. That’s how you killed yourself all those years ago. And the moment I opened Elysium, just slightly, just for a moment, some of the dead escaped. Olivia’s dad was one of them. And he appeared way before I opened the gates. It was the same for you – you appeared before anyone else. You’ve been an echo the whole time. And when Elysium closes fully – when its natural time here ends, when the never-again to open gates fade away –“he smiled sensitively “-so will you.”
“No, you can’t. Please.”
“It’s alright,” reassured the Doctor, “it’s not your fault. I have so many regrets, but my first was what I did to you. As a human, I was so arrogant. All those Victorian values. And I never realised what I’d done to you until it was too late. And as I thought when I took my own life: society is corrupt – but the people – they aren’t. Each individual is just sparkling with potential.” He looked over to Alex, who smiled back. “You were too. And I should have pitied you. Thrown into a role that you couldn’t manage, expected to create the future. No wonder you were angry.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asked the Pythia. “What do you want?”
“I want you to lift the curse,” said the Doctor. “Before I close the gates. You’ll ascend alright. But I don’t want to ascend with you. Please, Pythia. I’m not begging. I’m just asking you. Gallifreyan to Gallifreyan.”
She considered for a minute and let out an exasperating sigh. Then she looked horror-stricken, as if she’d done something awful.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I can’t lift the curse. It’s too late!”
With that, she faded slowly along with the gates, until they were gone in a final dazzling blaze of light.
“Does that mean…?” stammered Phillip.
“Yeah.” The Doctor shook his head but contained any emotions he was feeling. He embraced his past, and, realising there was no future, savoured the present. “Yeah, it does.”
“Is there anything I can do?” asked Alex. “Anything at all?” added Kate.
“If the Pythia had the TARDIS working to get to the Cyberiad,” he realised, “maybe it’s functional again!”
“Does that matter?” queried Phillip.
“Yes,” said the Doctor. He smiled – it was a sad smile, veiling his sorrow – yet, at the same time, it was happy; relishing in a hitherto buried memory. “Because before I’m ready to die, there’s something I need to do. Something very important. Something which I’ve spent half of my life preparing for…”
***
Part 10: When Towers Sang
River Song was free. It was a wonderful feeling. Free to live in a house, to read what she wanted, eat what she wanted, when she wanted, to travel, to meet new people – to lose the burden of a crime she wasn’t even guilty of.
It had been a few months now. She’d spent her time studying to become a professor. It was valuable time too – to just hear ‘Professor Song’ brought a smile to her face.
That sound returned. That familiar wheezing sound. It was so beautiful, yet so ghastly in concept. Perhaps that was the Doctor’s life in a nutshell – and perhaps it was her own. She rushed outside to find the Doctor standing at her doorstep. He had a new haircut and was wearing a top hat and tails.
“Professor Song.” He beamed at her. “You’re looking beautiful. And I’m taking you to see them at last.”
“You mean-“ River’s eyes lit up.
“Derilium. The Singing Towers. I’d been promising – and I always keep my promises.”
***
The Singing Towers really were a gorgeous sight. They were almost impossible to describe: magnificent spires that could have been man-made, but they were organic; erected from the ground after a natural disaster, swaying in the breeze and… singing. The Doctor and River stood on a cliff overlooking them. The grass was moist under their feet.
The stars twinkled in the sky, daring the Doctor to leave; to take one last look. There was still so much to see – a universe, constantly expanding, constantly changing, constantly… wonderful.
But he was most absorbed of all in River Song. His wife – he could hardly believe it sometimes. She walked with flawless elegance; spoke in a soothing purr. She smiled with enigmatic charisma. She was like no woman who had ever lived before – and when he saw her then, she lived more than he had ever seen her live. She appreciated, she pondered, and she loved. The Doctor didn’t need to see a supernova to understand the wonders of the universe: he could see them in her.
He broke down. His sentiments were a combination of unbridled bliss and unbearalble torment. He looked back on all his misdeeds; all the lives that had suffered because of him – all the colonies living in fear of him. And then he looked up at the stars, seeing an impossible, spectacular universe, intact – because of him.
“What is it, sweetie?” River enquired. “What’s wrong?”
The Doctor pulled out the screwdriver. “Take it,” he sniffed. “I want you to take it.”
“Why?” River was gravely concerned. “What’s wrong? What’s so wrong that you can’t tell me?”
The Doctor wiped the tears from his eyes. “Spoilers.” He turned away sombrely and River tried to follow. He lifted his hand to gesture she stopped. “No further,” he commanded harshly.
“What is it?” she questioned fearfully. “What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.” The Doctor tried to force a smile, but he couldn’t manage it. “Goodbye, River Song.”
“Bye…” she murmured, clueless.
The moment wasn’t how the Doctor had pictured it. He screwed up again – the foolish old man couldn’t even get his goodbyes right. And so he was left, as always, in solitude.
But this time it was indefinite.
“Oh, God…” she backed away. “No! You can’t be serious!” She hammered on the door, and Alex on the other side could do nothing but mouth ‘We’re coming to get you’ helplessly. She pushed, she pulled, and she smashed desperately at the glass. The Doctor joined her; fiercely attacking the door in alarm. The rest of UNIT fired at the window, but to no ado.
Zau moved closer, laughing maniacally. “So much for the Doctor being here for you now,” he cackled. He forced her onto the ground where she curled up to the door terrified.
“No!” she cried. “Please, no! Doctor! Doctor, help me!”
There was one last scream and then…
Silence.
The door opened, and the Doctor rushed in and crouched down next to Olivia. Her beautiful face was lifeless; staring unblinkingly into nothingness.
“No.” The Doctor shook his head disbelievingly. “No. No.” He held her to him and rocked her body in his arms. “No, no…” he wept; his tears dripping into a puddle of her blood. He looked through the window and saw Kate looking back at him helplessly. Her hand covered her mouth and she stared back compassionately; affected by the trauma nonetheless, but holding it together for his sake. She knew what the man had gone through in his time.
The Doctor stood up and kicked at the cabinets and tables violently. He ran his arm across the worktop viciously; knocking glasses and equipment and papers to the floor. “Nooo!” he howled. He collapsed to the floor and sobbed against the table. “Olivia…” he stroked her face. “My beautiful Olivia Quinn.”
No one even noticed Alex; weeping silently in the corridor for the most loving, innocent woman she had ever known.
Elysium had gained an angel.
***
Part 4: The Identity Thieves
The Doctor ran out of the lab. He ran straight past Doctor Zau, the man he hated more than any living creature in the universe. He ran past poor Alex; past friends, colleges, strangers. He ran because he knew that there were even more important things at stake.
His mother stood alone in the centre of the room. Everyone else had crowded around the window and door to the lab; no one had noticed her sneaking up. There was silence now. You could have heard a pin drop. The Doctor marched up to her; his footsteps reverberating through the room.
His mother had a new quality now. She was victorious; she conveyed an element of pretence and callousness. Her facial features were curved; directed inwards like a glare.
“Who are you?” challenged the Doctor quietly.
“You’re going to open Elysium,” she replied heartlessly. “If you want her back, you’ll do it.”
The Doctor dashed forwards, gripping her neck threateningly.
“Do you think I’m just going to let you control me?” he asked. He was gravely serious now. His eyes were penetrating; perceptive. His jaw was clenched tightly. “I have nothing left to live for. If you’re going to torture me to open Elysium, I’ll just let you finish the job.” His grip got tighter; it nearly strangled the woman. “Who are you?” he growled bitterly.
He released his grip and stood back in anticipation of an answer. All of a sudden, her face changed; morphing, its shape growing more slender; the features de-ageing, creases fading. Her eyes turned to an intense sky-blue and sunk further back into their sockets. The woman was beautiful; young and sophisticated, but she was bewitching; fallacious, scheming. Swathes of long black hair curled around her face. She still wore the red robes. They gave an impression of majesty.
“I am the last Pythia of Gallifrey,” she hissed. Her voice had an icy quality.
The Doctor was disconcerted. He was crushed. Lost.
The only person who dared do anything was Doctor Zau. He swaggered forward, straight past all of the guards, and stood an equal distance away from both so that they made a triangle.
“This has been an enjoyable evening,” laughed the wicked old man.
The Doctor dashed up to a UNIT guard and whipped a gun out of his pocket. He held it up to Zau’s head, breathing rapidly, but not shaking; his grip was firm, his intentions resolute.
“Why did you do it?” asked the Doctor softly. His voice rose suddenly. “WHY DID YOU KILL HER?!”
“You know why,” he replied. “I want to unlock Elysium.” He held his arms up to his chest. They shook excitedly. “When I open Elysium, I’ll see the true extent of the universe’s powers. I will have control over everything – ascending to a celestial level of power! Then, only then, can I defeat humanity. And I won’t be human any more. I will be so much more.”
The Doctor put his finger over the trigger. “I understood your intentions,” he said. “However twisted they were, I got your motives. But you’ve made this personal now. I thought you’d have known better.”
“Go on then!” he dared the Doctor, apparently unalarmed by his position. “Could you do it? Could you prove how human you really are?” The Doctor tightened his hold on the weapon. “Do you want to know a secret?” Zau continued as if he were talking to a child. “I enjoyed it. It wasn’t convenient. I liked watching her scream. Knowing she was mine and mine alone. That I decided her fate, that I shaped her actions, her movements, her sentiments… I enjoyed that with all of them. All those pretty little girls Blackwell brought me. I enjoyed tainting them.” The Doctor couldn’t take it anymore.
He pulled the trigger.
Zau fell to the floor. Blood poured out of his chest. He rested his bloody palm against the TARDIS door.
The Doctor stood stationary, as if he was frozen in the moment. He started onwards as if Doctor Zau was still standing there. Still daring him. Kate covered her mouth in horror.
“I was told,” coughed Zau, “at the moment of my death, I was told that I had to do this…”
“Do what?” asked the Doctor, instantly snapped out of his trance. “Told by who?”
“By my parents.” Zau choked for a few seconds.
“You never met your parents…” commented Alex. She had waited for Olivia to say it, but realised that it rested on her now.
“They said I had to open this.”
“Open what?” demanded the Doctor. “OPEN WHAT?” he yelled. Zau pulled a watch out of his pocket. It was a fob watch. The markings were different, but the Doctor recognised them.
Before the Doctor could intervene, Zau clicked open the watch, and an overwhelming golden light shone around the room.
“What’s happening?” exclaimed Phil.
The light dimmed, but shone in Zau’s eyes. He looked…
Delighted.
Before anything could be done, he kicked the TARDIS door open and ran inside. The Doctor followed, then five UNIT guards.
The chase was on.
They were chasing a Time Lord.
***
Part 5: The Fall of a Time Lord
“I’ll find you,” vowed the Doctor through the intercom. “And when I find you, I will kill you.”
The UNIT forces had made their way into the TARDIS (whilst others outside guarded the Pythia). They patrolled the vast corridors; they penetrated every shadow, stepped in every footstep. It would only be a matter of time before Doctor Zau was found.
The Doctor had activated the communications, meaning that he could locate Zau quicker. Zau responded occasionally, with a cackle or a cough or just muffled sound. Perhaps he wanted to be found; to be brought back out to the base he had surrendered himself in – or perhaps he was taunting them.
“Doctor Zau was shot, wasn’t he?” queried Kate, following the Doctor as he rotated around the console. “So isn’t he dying?”
“He’ll be able to buy himself time. That was regeneration energy stored in there. But eventually…” he hesitated warily. “He will be in a state of dying.”
“A state of dying?” she repeated. “Why put it like that?”
“Because as you know from me,” he explained, “Time Lords can regenerate. When he dies, he’ll swap that old body for a new one. He’ll avoid it, if he can. It’s a nasty process.”
“How is he a Time Lord?” Alex persisted. “I don’t get it.”
“That watch,” continued the Doctor, “contains Time Lord DNA. He’s been hidden – either he’s veiled himself, or someone else has done it for him, for some reason. His memories are all back now. We don’t know what his motives are or what he is trying to do.”
“But we know he’s evil,” said Alex. “And dangerous. And I know that one of us will kill him. Whether it’s one of them-“ she gestured to the door “you-“ she addressed the Doctor “or me.”
“Well, well, well…” came the voice of Doctor Zau from the intercom. “You really are quite determined.” He chuckled. His chuckle went too far; it developed into a cough; then into a paroxysmal outbreak. He cleared his throat.
“We will find you,” growled the Doctor. “We will find you.”
“Why?” asked Zau mockingly. “Is it because I killed your favourite pet?”
The Doctor threw the intercom on the ground and attacked the TARDIS; kicking it, punching it, scratching at switches.
“Don’t even talk about her!” he cried. “DON’T YOU EVEN SAY HER NAME!”
He stopped, rested his head against the central column and placed his hand up to the glass. And he cried. As he cried, the tear fell onto the column; cascading down slowly as the TARDIS purred back affectionately. She was in pain. As the Doctor felt it, so did she. Her unearthly, celestial presence acknowledged his, somehow. There was a wall between them, yet they were connected more than any two beings that ever lived. Kate, meanwhile, felt for the Doctor – yet she was just as unable as the TARDIS to reach out and comfort him.
“I will find you, Zau,” he reiterated. “And you’d better hope someone else finishes you off before I can get my hands on you.”
***
Zau propped himself up against the side of the staircase. He was afraid – yet he was strong-minded. His primary intention, when the Pythia had approached him and told him of his significance, was to reach Elysium and gain full control of the universe. Zau had never been a religious man, but he believed in a greater power – and he believed he was entitled to it. He wasn’t going to let a sentimental old fool deny him of that. Nonetheless, he felt there was something more than sentimentality involved here – it was as if God himself had looked down on what happened to Olivia and decreed ‘enough’.
Zau felt a belt around his throat. It tightened, squeezing him in agony until he was forced back as far as he could go. He could smell… perfume.
“You want to get to Elysium,” said the voice of Ruby Rose, “but bad news. You’ve possibly ruined everything.” She paused. “I don’t tend to get connected to these things, but I liked Olivia. I was fond of her. And she respected the Doctor, and therefore, so do I.” She released him but turned and aimed a gun to his head. “Back through the arch,” she demanded cheerily. “I don’t have all day.” Zau tried to turn and look around, but she stopped him. “Ah!” she commanded. “I want this to be a surprise. You should be pleased. I’m only sparing you the Doctor’s treatment. Mind you…” she cocked her head contemptuously. “I’m not sure which is worse.”
Zau stepped back hesitantly and fell straight into a puddle. He spat the mud out of his mouth and pulled himself up, still holding the gunshot wound. He appeared to be in a forest. There was a layer of mist shrouding his view. The trees were widely spaced-apart and few.
“I suppose you’re wondering where all the trees are!” The Doctor taunted Zau. His voice had no direction: it came from all around, and could be heard like an echo in a vast hall. “They’re nearby,” he teased. “I shan’t say where though. I’m sure you’ll work it out.”
There were footsteps. Or perhaps… what was it? It was heavy. Like clunking; as if weighty boxes were being bounced towards him. In the spaces between the crashes, a mechanical laughter could be made out from the distance. Zau moved as fast as he could to the edge of the forest, nearly backing into a seemingly endless waterfall; his wide, perturbed eyes encapsulating his sentiments.
“I considered finding you myself,” thundered the Doctor, “but I thought – why not leave it to my pets? You see, I never realised what happened to all the beings – the malevolent beings – that got lost in my TARDIS. I thought: what would they become, hmm? What would they do with aeons of solitude? What would they make of a new arrival?”
“Please!” begged Zau. “I can explain! Release me!”
“I don’t need you to explain,” clarified the Doctor. He was addressing the whole group now. Zau could tell from his voice that he had company. He was in his element. “Because I’ve worked out the whole truth. What’s happening with Elysium, why and how the Pythia is here, how she used my mother as a mask, and, above all, why you, a Time Lord, are where you are now. Would you like to know about your inheritance?”
As the noise became unbearable, Zau dived into the cavernous depths of the waterfall and ended his life as swiftly and painlessly as he could attempt.
The Doctor turned to face Kate and put his hands on her shoulders affectionately. “I’ve kept you in the dark for so long, Kate. Alex. All of you. It probably cost Olivia her life. Now it’s time I told you all the truth.”
***
Part 6: The Truth
The centre of the main hall of the UNIT base was now inaccessible.
A whole circle over the mat was shrouded by dense layers of smoke which spiralled around it aggressively – forebodingly. Everyone stood around the circle: the Doctor, Alex, Phil, Ruby, the Pythia, and the rest of UNIT. The cloudy ring shone a dazzling yellow which reflected on their faces enchantingly.
“What’s Elysium?” asked Alex breathlessly. “What does it mean?”
The Doctor started circling the area. “According to the Ancient Greeks, Elysium was the land of the dead. And the Greeks weren’t the only ones that had that idea. The New Order 5153, the Natives of Calderdæ…” he let out a momentous sigh. “The Gallifreyans…”
“The Time War was a terrible thing. I should know.” He stood upright like a solider, fastening an imaginary badge. “I was on the front line. I fought. Killed. Butchered.” He put a brutal emphasis on that final word. “The circumstances of the Time War were nothing like anything the universe had ever known. It was… like hell itself.” He winced at the memory. It was a painful image to evoke – buried deep within the mind; locked in a figurative cabinet – the key to which he’d tried to hide. “The sky was torn like an open wound… acids of time rained down like dripping blood. Time itself had distorted. People died, and were resurrected; their whole lives re-written in a second, as if they were so insignificant.” He left that sentence with a sarcastic ‘Ha’ – as if mocking Time’s idea of importance.
“The Gates of Elysium opened. Like a literal gateway to heaven. The light was so… blinding. Alluring. It waited for you. It was the easy way out – die again and again or step into the kingdom of the dead. No one knew what was there, yet thousands sacrificed themselves…” he had bowed over now; hiding shamefully from the truth. “My mother was among them. When I ended the war, the gates closed. Ancient Gallifreyan legends said that the Gates of Elysium would open one more time, at the End of Days – all religions state it somewhere, however obliquely. This is what the Pythia has done.” He glared darkly at the Pythia who glowered even stronger. “She found out when Elysium would open again and altered my timeline until I was here at just the right time. And why…?” He smirked sinisterly. “Because only a Time Lord can open the Gates of Elysium. And I’m the only Time Lord left in the universe.”
“What about Zau?” questioned Alex, half-listening to the Doctor, half-gazing at the amazing illumination.
The Doctor bit his lip. “Doctor Zau is the Hitchhiker.”
Everything stopped. The whistling of the spinning clouds, the Pythia’s serpentine breathing, the wheezing of the UNIT air-con… everyone just turned to the Doctor, realising the inevitable truth.
“A Time Lord who can’t remember his past,” he continued, “conditioned with only subconscious messages. He grew up isolating himself from society because deep down he knew he was different. And he was abandoned. Unloved.” He susurrated bitterly. “His only chance of power was Elysium. The Pythia selected him because she knew he was pivotal in getting me here. I took that away from him. He was stuck in my TARDIS, falling down the waterfall into the TDS and into my past… he’s confused; vengeful. So he takes it out on the one person who’s ruined his life: me. Gradually, he remembers more of his mysterious past, until his rise to power becomes his downfall.” He shook his head forlornly. “I almost feel sorry for him. The scorned enigma. And I’ll never really know the answer – I’ll never know what he was like before he was Zau. Sometimes I’ll wonder if he ever did.”
“So hang on…” began Phillip, trying to keep up. “If you open Elysium, will Olivia come back? If it’s the land of the dead?” Alex tuned in here. The Doctor just looked at him unresponsively. “Are you going to open it…?”
“No.” he replied harshly.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what Elysium really is. How the Pythia got here. What opening it could mean.”
“You will open it,” confirmed the Pythia. She threw her hand up and struck the Doctor with a blast of green light. He fell to the floor and clutched his chest.
“You’ve been cursed,” she spat fiercely. “If you don’t open the Gates of Elysium within the next hour, you WILL die.”
***
Part 7: The Darkness of the Doctor
“Pythia,” muttered the Doctor. “And your bloody curses.”
“What?” asked Phil. “She can actually do that? Like magic?”
“Yes,” replied the Pythia pretentiously. She looked daggers at Alex. “So don’t try anything clever!”
“Any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” corrected Ruby. “Saint Ava always believed that logic was at the heart of the Creator. Things don’t just happen.”
“So what’s your choice then, Doctor?” teased the Pythia, approaching him as he scrambled around on the floor. “Open the Gates to Death or die. What will it be?”
“Why do you want them open?” re-joined the Doctor. “What do you get out of it?”
“My suicide,” answered the Pythia, “remember that?”
“What Time Lord doesn’t?” The Doctor smirked.
“I didn’t kill myself. It was all a lie. But I buried a part of my consciousness in Elysium.”
“What for?” chuckled the Doctor. “Safekeeping?”
“So that I could transform it into something on a celestial scale. I split my soul in two. I am safe now – but I want to see what I became. I want to ascend.”
“Ha-ha!” laughed the Doctor sarcastically. “I know exactly what you want.” He stood up until he was at an equal level with her and whispered. “You want to punish me for what I didn’t do.”
“Didn’t do?” she cackled acerbically. “You are the Other. You know you are. You condemned me to death!” She turned to the others. “Would you like to see?” she asked them. “See what the Doctor has done? What he is really like?”
Before anyone had the chance to answer, the room transformed; evanescent clouds of mystical black smoke twisting the surroundings. They were now in another hall – this one far bigger; still circular; still completely white. But there were no tables, chairs, windows, stairs or rooms above like the UNIT base. Instead, there was just a woman in the middle of this cage-like facility. It was the Pythia. She was unchanged – if anything, she looked older. She wore the same red robes. She was fatigued; stressed. Jaded. She was meditating on the ground, but she fidgeted distractedly.
“The Pythia were soothsayers,” explained the Doctor, apparently unfazed by their sudden transportation. “They overruled Gallifrey before the Time Lords.”
“Days of peace,” retorted the Pythia.
“Oppression,” argued the Doctor. “Only this one couldn’t really master it all.” The Pythia hadn’t noticed them. It was as if they weren’t even there. “Her predictions were wrong. Her reign brought chaos upon Gallifrey. She had to be stopped,” he declared contritely. “And so a man – known only as the Other – played a part in her downfall. Apparently he was me.”
“How?” asked Alex.
“The Time Lords were born from Looms – genetic chambers which created fresh beings. This is how we could regenerate. Lord President Rassilon was good at his biology. The Other committed suicide, throwing himself into the Looms. His DNA got mixed up with them and apparently most of it is in me.”
“Wait a minute,” queried Phillip, “if you’re ‘Loomed’, how come you have a mother?” The Doctor looked away secretively.
“Ahhhh.” The Pythia smiled evilly. “She is not the Doctor’s mother. She is the Other’s mother. Yet the Doctor had a connection to her. A special connection, as if-“
“It was just a coincidence,” interjected the Doctor.
“As if,” continued the Pythia vituperatively, “you could remember being him!”
All eyes turned towards the Doctor.
“Yes!” he confessed. “OK. I remember being the Other. That’s fine. But that’s all it is; a memory. You must all have memories that you regret.” Alex bowed her head remorsefully, calling to mind her own. “Besides, it was never proved that she was his mother. The Other wasn't even said to be of Gallifreyan descent. And I’m a new man now. I’ve been a new man about twelve times over since then.”
“The truth begins to unfold,” narrated the Pythia poetically. “Do you think your friends will stick with you towards the end? Or will they too push you to open the Gates of Elysium?”
“I’ll stay with him,” verified Kate.
“And me,” from Phillip.
And finally from Alex.
“Will you though,” continued the Pythia, “when you see what else that man has done in his life?”
The environment transfigured again. This time they were on a barren landscape. Jagged rocks pointed up for miles and they sky was a bloodshot red; unifying with the spectral black in the distance. There was a chill to the air, and the atmosphere felt different. It felt transcendent, perhaps; beyond human – or even mortal – understanding. The aftermath of events on a godlike scale - or, conceivably, the very end of all things.
They were next to a man – the only man that could be seen. He wore a shirt, a leather jacket and jeans, but the colours were impossible to discern under the ash and beyond the murkiness of the air. He was old; grey-haired. He frowned sourly.
“This is the Doctor,” commented the Pythia. For once, everyone was silent. “And do you know what he’s just done?”
The Doctor stood before them then like, like –
Like a phantom. It was then that they could see it. The older Doctor’s eyes were ablaze with fury; they were soul-sucking, dream-crushing – they shone like sentient pits of darkness, pits that never ended, darkness that never ceased; consuming, shattering darkness. The ‘Doctor’ who they had known – with whom they had conversed, and watched in wonder, and idolised – he seemed suddenly to be like a spectre. Like a mere echo of this new man; a shadow left over from his wake. Occasionally there was a glimmer – occasionally he seemed like more than just a man – but whatever divine force had possessed him before – whatever overpowering impression he had borne – it died then, somehow fleeing into some insignificant corner of creation.
Fleeing from itself.
“He’s just become the greatest killer the universe had ever known,” murmured the Pythia. Even she spoke with respect – no, not respect. Fear. “Using a weapon. He wiped out his own species. Can you imagine? His friends, his family – his culture, his home… gone. By his own hand.”
The UNIT soldiers who’d tried to hitherto stay formal exchanged glances. Some were shocked. Some confused. Some revolted. Some…
Inspired.
Both Alex and Kate, meanwhile, were defeated. She had been proven wrong about the Doctor. The man had just lost their trust as well. As science was indistinguishable from magic, she realised, an intense darkness could maybe be indistinguishable from an intense light.
“Enough,” growled the Doctor. “This is enough. This – ends – here.”
“What is your choice then, Doctor?” taunted the Pythia. “Will you open Elysium? Because I think you may have just said goodbye to your followers. The universe is no longer in the shadows with you. You are in the limelight, old man – and what an impression you will bear.”
***
Part 8: When Elysium Opened
Elysium had actually formed a slight gate now. They weren’t exactly the Pearly Gates – but the Doctor wasn’t exactly Saint Peter either. Instead, there was a portal shining visibly beneath the smoke. It was the same heavenly light as before, but somehow even more overwhelming.
“Do you want to see it, then?” asked the Doctor. “Do you want to see what happens if Elysium gets opened? Hmm?”
He held out both arms towards the portal and lightening blasted from it, ricocheting around the room. Suddenly, unearthly spectres emerged from the gates.
At first, they could have been water vapour.
They were made up of light – like stars, in a way; bright, dotted, seeming close and distant at the same time. They spiralled around the room like a storm, making a strange noise that had been inconceivable before today. It was ambiguous. It could have been a cackle, or a hiss, or even a scream of agony. They encircled a UNIT officer and he shouted out for help. As the cloud of spectres became denser, they parted, except the officer was no longer there – he was just… gone.
The Doctor laid down his arms and the spectres were sucked back into Elysium in the same fashion in which they had left.
“That’s Elysium,” explained the Doctor heartlessly as everyone looked at him in dismay – other than the Pythia, who looked unimpressed. “That’s what I’d be letting out. You all think you’re reuniting with your families, do you? Ha. If only. Because if that were the case – “his voice softened, reaching a relatively high pitch. “I would. Without thought.”
Alex’s phone rang. The ringtone was a contrast with the dismal yet numinous mood. She answered it quickly. Her eyes widened disbelievingly and she hung up.
“My brother’s just been seen,” she said. “Are you so sure about what you said? Because Olivia saw her dad before too. What if it’s… like an echo? If the event was so big that our dead came back early. Doctor, please!” Her eyes were so imploring. It pained the Doctor to see her naïve desperation.
“I’m sorry,” replied the Doctor. “I really am. But that could be a trick. That could be what makes me open it and cause the end of time itself. Anything from the Time War stays in the Time War. If my only other choice is to die, then I will have to die. That’s that-“
A figure emerged from the gates as the Doctor finished his sentence. She was perfect; glowing, in white robes. Her hair curled perfectly around her neck and she addressed the Doctor directly. She was more alive than he had ever seen her.
“Olivia Quinn…” he wiped a tear from his eye and held his hand up to her face. He stroked her cheek. She shed a tear too. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so – so – sorry…” About to break down, he turned away and closed his eyes. “NO!” he boomed. “I will not do it. And you know what…?” He didn’t even look defeated. He was just tired. Tired of all those who’d tried to defeat him his whole life. “So what if I die?”
It hurt Kate to see how he’d given up.
It was Ruby who had been most affected. She’d spent years focusing her future around her ego: around finding peace for her, around reaching her goals. It was then that she’d seen someone else – someone she was fond of – saved. The beauty of Elysium struck her then more than it had in any of her fantasies. That the true secret to life was not rewarding one’s self, but being rewarded through the joy of others. Olivia bestowed that joy onto her. Ruby Rose had felt the need to show off – to be something she wasn’t. What she really wanted in her life was love, and she saw it then. Religion had been so blind. People didn’t have to try to be good. If those who were bad stopped trying to be bad, no one had to try to do anything.
And so, knowing that it was her final chance, she took a step forward and threw herself into the light, ready to embrace her fate.
She hoped the Creator was kind.
***
Part 9: Judgement Day
The Pythia was desperate now. The Doctor was not going to open Elysium. He was unwavering until his final breath, and she knew that. But she wanted it so desperately.
“I know why you want Elysium,” crooned the Doctor ominously. “I’ve been making up excuses. So have you. But it’s not me you want to punish. And you don’t want to retrieve your ‘lost soul’. And you don’t want to go into Elysium. I’m sorry, but the truth hurts.”
“What do mean?” she hissed. “What truth?”
The Doctor wiped his face. “I am sorry, you know. I am genuinely sorry.” The Pythia wasn’t moved. “But you know what’s on the other side. You knew. You weren’t surprised to see those things there.” Alex had pieced it together and didn’t know how to react. She just stayed quiet and pretended she didn’t know for a while longer.
“And you used the face of my mother. A face lost to time. You were confused as well – I could see it, sometimes. It was like you weren’t even sure why you were there. And you never had the gift your predecessors had, ever. Yet today you cursed me with death, you transported us into a time-locked event and let us stand alongside like… ghosts. Your powers are otherworldly.”
“No,” started the Pythia; hopeless fear in her eyes. “No! Don’t do this!” The Doctor advanced maliciously. “You can’t! Don’t!”
The Doctor reached out his arm to touch her and it went straight through her. She faded slightly; the light now shone directly through her instead of around her.
“I am sorry. But you… are dead.” Phil was shocked. The other guards, shocked. Pythia… desolate.
“You threw yourself into Elysium – the first time it ever opened. That’s how you killed yourself all those years ago. And the moment I opened Elysium, just slightly, just for a moment, some of the dead escaped. Olivia’s dad was one of them. And he appeared way before I opened the gates. It was the same for you – you appeared before anyone else. You’ve been an echo the whole time. And when Elysium closes fully – when its natural time here ends, when the never-again to open gates fade away –“he smiled sensitively “-so will you.”
“No, you can’t. Please.”
“It’s alright,” reassured the Doctor, “it’s not your fault. I have so many regrets, but my first was what I did to you. As a human, I was so arrogant. All those Victorian values. And I never realised what I’d done to you until it was too late. And as I thought when I took my own life: society is corrupt – but the people – they aren’t. Each individual is just sparkling with potential.” He looked over to Alex, who smiled back. “You were too. And I should have pitied you. Thrown into a role that you couldn’t manage, expected to create the future. No wonder you were angry.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asked the Pythia. “What do you want?”
“I want you to lift the curse,” said the Doctor. “Before I close the gates. You’ll ascend alright. But I don’t want to ascend with you. Please, Pythia. I’m not begging. I’m just asking you. Gallifreyan to Gallifreyan.”
She considered for a minute and let out an exasperating sigh. Then she looked horror-stricken, as if she’d done something awful.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I can’t lift the curse. It’s too late!”
With that, she faded slowly along with the gates, until they were gone in a final dazzling blaze of light.
“Does that mean…?” stammered Phillip.
“Yeah.” The Doctor shook his head but contained any emotions he was feeling. He embraced his past, and, realising there was no future, savoured the present. “Yeah, it does.”
“Is there anything I can do?” asked Alex. “Anything at all?” added Kate.
“If the Pythia had the TARDIS working to get to the Cyberiad,” he realised, “maybe it’s functional again!”
“Does that matter?” queried Phillip.
“Yes,” said the Doctor. He smiled – it was a sad smile, veiling his sorrow – yet, at the same time, it was happy; relishing in a hitherto buried memory. “Because before I’m ready to die, there’s something I need to do. Something very important. Something which I’ve spent half of my life preparing for…”
***
Part 10: When Towers Sang
River Song was free. It was a wonderful feeling. Free to live in a house, to read what she wanted, eat what she wanted, when she wanted, to travel, to meet new people – to lose the burden of a crime she wasn’t even guilty of.
It had been a few months now. She’d spent her time studying to become a professor. It was valuable time too – to just hear ‘Professor Song’ brought a smile to her face.
That sound returned. That familiar wheezing sound. It was so beautiful, yet so ghastly in concept. Perhaps that was the Doctor’s life in a nutshell – and perhaps it was her own. She rushed outside to find the Doctor standing at her doorstep. He had a new haircut and was wearing a top hat and tails.
“Professor Song.” He beamed at her. “You’re looking beautiful. And I’m taking you to see them at last.”
“You mean-“ River’s eyes lit up.
“Derilium. The Singing Towers. I’d been promising – and I always keep my promises.”
***
The Singing Towers really were a gorgeous sight. They were almost impossible to describe: magnificent spires that could have been man-made, but they were organic; erected from the ground after a natural disaster, swaying in the breeze and… singing. The Doctor and River stood on a cliff overlooking them. The grass was moist under their feet.
The stars twinkled in the sky, daring the Doctor to leave; to take one last look. There was still so much to see – a universe, constantly expanding, constantly changing, constantly… wonderful.
But he was most absorbed of all in River Song. His wife – he could hardly believe it sometimes. She walked with flawless elegance; spoke in a soothing purr. She smiled with enigmatic charisma. She was like no woman who had ever lived before – and when he saw her then, she lived more than he had ever seen her live. She appreciated, she pondered, and she loved. The Doctor didn’t need to see a supernova to understand the wonders of the universe: he could see them in her.
He broke down. His sentiments were a combination of unbridled bliss and unbearalble torment. He looked back on all his misdeeds; all the lives that had suffered because of him – all the colonies living in fear of him. And then he looked up at the stars, seeing an impossible, spectacular universe, intact – because of him.
“What is it, sweetie?” River enquired. “What’s wrong?”
The Doctor pulled out the screwdriver. “Take it,” he sniffed. “I want you to take it.”
“Why?” River was gravely concerned. “What’s wrong? What’s so wrong that you can’t tell me?”
The Doctor wiped the tears from his eyes. “Spoilers.” He turned away sombrely and River tried to follow. He lifted his hand to gesture she stopped. “No further,” he commanded harshly.
“What is it?” she questioned fearfully. “What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.” The Doctor tried to force a smile, but he couldn’t manage it. “Goodbye, River Song.”
“Bye…” she murmured, clueless.
The moment wasn’t how the Doctor had pictured it. He screwed up again – the foolish old man couldn’t even get his goodbyes right. And so he was left, as always, in solitude.
But this time it was indefinite.
|
Track 4 - Alex's Theme (GenieSoundtracks)
Haunting and incredibly unusual, this is the only track from the original Series One Soundtrack I've decided to keep in. The track's main leitmotif also makes a return in the Shattered Time soundtrack, some of you may have noticed. |
Part 11: The End of His Days
The cluttered tables, the smoky air, the humid atmosphere – they created a moment not to be forgotten. It was a lurid ambiance; and the time was passed in silent anticipation – what for, however, was unclear. Elysium hadn’t quite closed – it vanished for few moments, and then it returned, clear as day; emitting its light for all to see, almost breathing suggestively to them – tempting them, alluring them; deceiving them.
The UNIT guards had left the room. Kate Stewart, presuming the Doctor was deceased, went about arranging the funeral. And she sat and cried on her office; kneeling on the floor, her head pressed against the desk. She’d cry for a while, and stop, thinking her eyes were now dry – then another memory of the Doctor, or of Trenzalore, would flash by. There was the memory of him on the floor, after the Pythia had cursed him; clutching his chest in pain. She couldn’t bear to think that the man had died in pain. She couldn’t bear to think that she was the last one left. And she’d cry again; no one truly understanding her, no one even realising. Her head was heavy with all the tears she’d cried – a headache, complemented by the emotional pain of unwanted recollections.
Phillip Campbell handed in his resignation form. It wasn’t known where he was planning to go, or even whether he was going to continue in the military. It was said later on that he didn’t even utter a word that day. And so Alex was left sitting hopelessly in the vast hall, alone, gazing into the mysteries of Elysium. This was until the Doctor appeared before her.
“Doctor…” she whispered. “But… how?”
“I don’t have long,” he said quietly. “I need you to listen to me.”
He stood up to speak, and she stood too – merely a sign of respect for the veteran of war.
“The universe doesn’t need me anymore, Alex. I’m not going to fight for my life. I’m going to go in dignity. There’s something I want you to know. I want you to know that I’m truly sorry. For everything. For screwing up your life, for screwing up everyone else’s lives. Truth being: there may be ways out of this for me. Ways I could maintain my life. But I don’t want to. It’s three thousand years, by the way. I calculated it all. I always did know really. Who doesn’t? Three thousand and twenty-six to be precise. And you won’t believe the amount of people I’ve lost in that time. The ones I’ve said goodbye to – a reluctant goodbye. There was Susan – she was the first. Then it went out of control. The more I took, the more I ruined. Then Adric, Catarina, Sara, Lucie, Harriet, Jenny, Strax... Olivia.” Both the Doctor and Alex shared a moment of mourning. “The ones who have died in my name.
“I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the wait. I can’t bear missing them; I can’t bear knowing I’m responsible. The people of the Gamma Forests see me as a mighty warrior. The Silence saw me as a threat to mankind. The Cult saw me as a convenience. And the human race saw me as a great, omnibenevolent god. The truth is that I’m none of them. I’m just a man who’s lived a long time. A man who’s trying to make do – like the rest of the universe, I suppose. Any decent man with the power I have would act as I would. They’d try to do good, and ultimately, they’d make the bad happen. And it wouldn’t be their fault. Not really. But they’d blame themselves.
“Luke Smith was shot – another one in my name. But, Alex, this is important – those Cybernetics you were given – you can use them. With a wonderful mind like yours and a team like UNIT, you can save him. You don’t need me.” Alex nodded.
“I do wonder sometimes about the Hitchhiker – Doctor Zau. I wonder what made him mad. What made him turn from someone fighting for a good cause to a maniac, bargaining with aliens for power. And then I think back to the Other – to how he realised that good intentions lead to determination, determination to power, power to corruption… it saddens me to think of his potential. Wasted – a lunatic who could have been a saviour.
“I’m old, I’m tired. I’m destined to a lonely existence. And there’s only one chance of happiness for me. You know what it is too, Alex. You realised it before I did, I think. I can step into Elysium. Anything could await me. Eternal torment maybe. And if there is a Creator, I wonder – how did he bear it? Those aeons of solitude? Maybe there is. Maybe there isn’t. Who knows?
“But I might be happy again. I might see them all. River Song – I’ve just said goodbye to her. She was my wife, you know. Imagine I could see them all again. Olivia being one of them. I know the chance is small, and I know it would be a miracle if it were all true. But hope is all I’ve got now. Hope is all I’ve ever had really; all we’ve ever had. So I’m hoping that the universe, just this once, might be kind.”
The Doctor took a step forward, bordering the gates. The light dazzled more than ever now; Alex was speechless by its majesty. She had embraced the splendour of time – and the Doctor was about to make himself a part of it.
“Thank you. Really, thank you.” He smiled magically. “Thank you universe. Look after my friends. My TARDIS. My legacy.” His voice started to fade. “Take it. Keep it. I’m leaving you my life.”
He stepped through the gates, a magnificent light shining all around, and he finally felt time’s power, its magnitude, and for a moment, he understood everything – and he felt happiness. Then, through the door at the end of reality, he saw-
***
Part 11: Through Elysium
The light was still blinding, but it was a different kind of light – as if someone were shining a torch in his eye, rather than following a light to heaven. It was as if…
The light faded until he could see its source. Above him was a small circular ceiling-light. It was all still a blur; he could make our indistinct blue-green shapes slowly separating themselves from the white which his vision had been clouded with before. But…
“Mr Smith?” The voice was that of a twenty-or-so year-old man. “Mr Smith? Are you with us?”
The Doctor was lying on his back now and forced himself up. Everything stung, ached, pained…
“Take it easy, Mr Smith.”
“But…” the Doctor fell back down, stuttering fruitlessly to himself. “But Alex… Olivia… Clara…”
Another voice. This one was that of an older woman.
“It is normal to experience slight confusion after surgery. Frankly, we should be amazed that he even survived it at all.”
“S-surgery?” stammered the Doctor, his eyesight clearing so that he could see the surgeon clearly. He felt his one heart beating in his chest.
“We’ve removed your tumour, Mr Smith.” She smiled eerily. “No more dreaming for you, I’m afraid…”
The cluttered tables, the smoky air, the humid atmosphere – they created a moment not to be forgotten. It was a lurid ambiance; and the time was passed in silent anticipation – what for, however, was unclear. Elysium hadn’t quite closed – it vanished for few moments, and then it returned, clear as day; emitting its light for all to see, almost breathing suggestively to them – tempting them, alluring them; deceiving them.
The UNIT guards had left the room. Kate Stewart, presuming the Doctor was deceased, went about arranging the funeral. And she sat and cried on her office; kneeling on the floor, her head pressed against the desk. She’d cry for a while, and stop, thinking her eyes were now dry – then another memory of the Doctor, or of Trenzalore, would flash by. There was the memory of him on the floor, after the Pythia had cursed him; clutching his chest in pain. She couldn’t bear to think that the man had died in pain. She couldn’t bear to think that she was the last one left. And she’d cry again; no one truly understanding her, no one even realising. Her head was heavy with all the tears she’d cried – a headache, complemented by the emotional pain of unwanted recollections.
Phillip Campbell handed in his resignation form. It wasn’t known where he was planning to go, or even whether he was going to continue in the military. It was said later on that he didn’t even utter a word that day. And so Alex was left sitting hopelessly in the vast hall, alone, gazing into the mysteries of Elysium. This was until the Doctor appeared before her.
“Doctor…” she whispered. “But… how?”
“I don’t have long,” he said quietly. “I need you to listen to me.”
He stood up to speak, and she stood too – merely a sign of respect for the veteran of war.
“The universe doesn’t need me anymore, Alex. I’m not going to fight for my life. I’m going to go in dignity. There’s something I want you to know. I want you to know that I’m truly sorry. For everything. For screwing up your life, for screwing up everyone else’s lives. Truth being: there may be ways out of this for me. Ways I could maintain my life. But I don’t want to. It’s three thousand years, by the way. I calculated it all. I always did know really. Who doesn’t? Three thousand and twenty-six to be precise. And you won’t believe the amount of people I’ve lost in that time. The ones I’ve said goodbye to – a reluctant goodbye. There was Susan – she was the first. Then it went out of control. The more I took, the more I ruined. Then Adric, Catarina, Sara, Lucie, Harriet, Jenny, Strax... Olivia.” Both the Doctor and Alex shared a moment of mourning. “The ones who have died in my name.
“I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the wait. I can’t bear missing them; I can’t bear knowing I’m responsible. The people of the Gamma Forests see me as a mighty warrior. The Silence saw me as a threat to mankind. The Cult saw me as a convenience. And the human race saw me as a great, omnibenevolent god. The truth is that I’m none of them. I’m just a man who’s lived a long time. A man who’s trying to make do – like the rest of the universe, I suppose. Any decent man with the power I have would act as I would. They’d try to do good, and ultimately, they’d make the bad happen. And it wouldn’t be their fault. Not really. But they’d blame themselves.
“Luke Smith was shot – another one in my name. But, Alex, this is important – those Cybernetics you were given – you can use them. With a wonderful mind like yours and a team like UNIT, you can save him. You don’t need me.” Alex nodded.
“I do wonder sometimes about the Hitchhiker – Doctor Zau. I wonder what made him mad. What made him turn from someone fighting for a good cause to a maniac, bargaining with aliens for power. And then I think back to the Other – to how he realised that good intentions lead to determination, determination to power, power to corruption… it saddens me to think of his potential. Wasted – a lunatic who could have been a saviour.
“I’m old, I’m tired. I’m destined to a lonely existence. And there’s only one chance of happiness for me. You know what it is too, Alex. You realised it before I did, I think. I can step into Elysium. Anything could await me. Eternal torment maybe. And if there is a Creator, I wonder – how did he bear it? Those aeons of solitude? Maybe there is. Maybe there isn’t. Who knows?
“But I might be happy again. I might see them all. River Song – I’ve just said goodbye to her. She was my wife, you know. Imagine I could see them all again. Olivia being one of them. I know the chance is small, and I know it would be a miracle if it were all true. But hope is all I’ve got now. Hope is all I’ve ever had really; all we’ve ever had. So I’m hoping that the universe, just this once, might be kind.”
The Doctor took a step forward, bordering the gates. The light dazzled more than ever now; Alex was speechless by its majesty. She had embraced the splendour of time – and the Doctor was about to make himself a part of it.
“Thank you. Really, thank you.” He smiled magically. “Thank you universe. Look after my friends. My TARDIS. My legacy.” His voice started to fade. “Take it. Keep it. I’m leaving you my life.”
He stepped through the gates, a magnificent light shining all around, and he finally felt time’s power, its magnitude, and for a moment, he understood everything – and he felt happiness. Then, through the door at the end of reality, he saw-
***
Part 11: Through Elysium
The light was still blinding, but it was a different kind of light – as if someone were shining a torch in his eye, rather than following a light to heaven. It was as if…
The light faded until he could see its source. Above him was a small circular ceiling-light. It was all still a blur; he could make our indistinct blue-green shapes slowly separating themselves from the white which his vision had been clouded with before. But…
“Mr Smith?” The voice was that of a twenty-or-so year-old man. “Mr Smith? Are you with us?”
The Doctor was lying on his back now and forced himself up. Everything stung, ached, pained…
“Take it easy, Mr Smith.”
“But…” the Doctor fell back down, stuttering fruitlessly to himself. “But Alex… Olivia… Clara…”
Another voice. This one was that of an older woman.
“It is normal to experience slight confusion after surgery. Frankly, we should be amazed that he even survived it at all.”
“S-surgery?” stammered the Doctor, his eyesight clearing so that he could see the surgeon clearly. He felt his one heart beating in his chest.
“We’ve removed your tumour, Mr Smith.” She smiled eerily. “No more dreaming for you, I’m afraid…”