After the TARDIS materialized the Doctor picked up the sack containing The Moment and stepped out the doors. He sat the sack down and closed them, locking the TARDIS doors for what he believed would be the last time. He patted his hand on the wood and then picked up the bag and turned around.

He began his long walk through what appeared to be a barren desert, but he knew better. When he was young he would've stepped out into a vast forest of trees. Their silver leaves dancing in the slight breeze. Then he would've come out of the forest and walked through a lush meadow of red grass. All gone now. Nothing left, but a barren landscape. All thanks to the blasted Time War.

No more.

It was a long walk. The heat of the two suns beat down on him. Finally the barn came into view like a mirage through the heat. He hefted the sack, settling it better on his shoulder and finished his journey.

He opened the door. The hinges creaked with age. After stepping inside he closed the door behind. Then he glanced around, taking in the changes time had wrought. The ladder he used to climb to the loft was gone. Sunlight streamed in through the slats in the walls. Still, it gave him strength.

He stepped toward the center of the room and sat the sack down. Then he bent down and opened it, revealing the weapon. He looked it over. There had to be some kind of on switch. He turned one of the gears at the top, but it didn't have a lot of leeway.

"How do you work?" The Doctor asked, picking it up and turning it over. "Why is there never a big red button?"

Scuffling noises outside gave him pause. Who would be out there? He came here because he thought he would be alone. He stood up and crossed the room, lifted the latch, opened the door, then peered outside.

He didn't see anyone.

"Hello," he called, pausing, but no one called back. "Is somebody there?"

"It's nothing," a woman said.

He spun around in surprise. A blonde woman he'd never seen before was sitting in the middle of the room. Her tattered clothes gave her the appearance of someone from a humble background.

"It's just a wolf," she continued.

Wait. What was she sitting on? He hurried toward her.

"Don't sit on that!" he insisted, grabbing her arm and pulling her up.

She'd been on the weapon!

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because it's not a chair, it's the most dangerous weapon in the universe," he replied as he pulled her across the room and shoved her out the door, closing it behind her. He put the latch down and bent his head, just standing there as he gathered himself together.

He came there because he needed to be alone to do what had to be done. The last thing he wanted was witnesses to this awful deed. His awful deed.

"Why can't it be both?" she asked.

The Doctor spun around at her voice. There she was again! The same woman sitting on the weapon. What was she doing there again? How did she get back in?

"Why did you park so far away?" she continued, leaning toward him from her sitting position as he stood before her. "Didn't you want her to see it?"

What was she talking about? She couldn't mean the TARDIS. How would she know?

"Want who to see?" the Doctor asked, mocking confusion.

"The TARDIS," the woman sang in a low voice. What? How did she know? "You walked for miles," she jumped up and began dramatically marching around him. "And miles and miles and miles and miles - "

"I was thinking," he cut her off.

He wasn't in the mood for mockery. Not today.

She spun around to face him.

"I heard you," she said.

"You heard me?" he asked, raising his brow.

What did she mean by that? His walk was one of silent contemplation. He hadn't said a word.

"No more," she replied in a low voice, leaning her face toward him. Then she did a little dance, twisting her hips as she mocked, "No more." She began dramatically marching around him again. "No more...No more...No more."

"Stop it!" he insisted.

She spun around to face him again.

"No more," she whispered.

Who was she? How could she know that?

"Who are you?" he whispered.

The gears on The Moment began to turn sounding like a very old clock being wound. He crossed the room toward the weapon.

"It's activating," he said. "Get out of here."

He bent down and tried to take hold of the box. The wood burned his hand. He yelled, grabbing his palm.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Why was she still there?

"The interface is hot," he replied.

"Well, I do my best," she said, giving him a grin.

"There's a power source inside." He looked around the device careful not to touch it again. Wait. He sat up, turning to look at her. She was sitting on the only make-shift table in the room. He had a thought. An impossible idea. But she couldn't be...could she? "You're the interface?"

"They must have told you The Moment had a conscience." She waved her hand at him. "Hello!" He turned back to look at the weapon. The conscience was a woman? "Oh, look at you." He glanced back at her. "Stuck between a girl and a box. Story of your life, eh, Doctor?"

She sounded like she knew him, but he was sure he'd never seen her before. He'd only heard of the weapon. He never even saw it before he stole it.

"You know me?" he asked.

She stood up, stepping toward him.

"I hear you. All of you, jangling around in that dusty old head of yours. I chose this face and form especially for you. It's from your past. Or...possibly your future. I always get those two mixed up."

"I don't have a future," he replied.

"I think I'm called Rose Tyler," she continued as if he hadn't heard him. "No. Yes. No, sorry, no, no, in this form I'm called," she paused and looked at him. "Bad Wolf." Her eyes flashed with golden light. "Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?"

"Stop calling me Doctor," he insisted.

He wasn't the Doctor. He hadn't been in a long time and with this act he would likely never be the Doctor again.

"That's the name in your head."

"It shouldn't be. I've been fighting this war for a long time. I've lost the right to be the Doctor."

"Then you're the one to save us all," she whispered.

"Yes," he replied.

His plan was to save them all from the Time War by stopping it once and for all.

"If I ever develop an ego, you've got the job," she said.

He stood up and crossed the room to stand before her. The interface must be psychic because she was able to get inside his mind. She must have seen his memories of the war. All the people who died or worse because, yes, there was worse. Some had been taken prison on Skaro. Those were the ones who wished for death.

"If you have been inside my head, then you know what I've seen," he said, looking into her eyes. "The suffering. Every moment in time and space is burning. It must end and I intend to end it the only way I can."

"And you're going to use me to end it by killing them all," she said. He turned his back to her because he knew the horror of what he was about to do, but there was no other choice. "Daleks and Time Lords alike. I could, but there will be consequences for you."

"I have no desire to survive this," he whispered, as he walked over to sit on a large, old tire across the room.

He hadn't come to this decision on a whim. He'd been thinking about it for a long time. Weighing the cost. He finally decided that the cost of inaction was far worse.

"Then that's your punishment," she said, sitting down next to him. "If you do this. If you kill them all. Then that's the consequence. You live." He would have to live with killing them. The guilt. The lives. He would carry it for as long as he lived. He wasn't expecting that. "Gallifrey," she continued. "You're going to burn it and all those Daleks with it, but all those children too." The children. He would have to live with killing all those children. "How many children on Gallifrey right now?"

How many? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? His heart grew heavy.

"I don't know," he whispered.

He thought of his own children, so long ago, dancing in the red grass as they laughed.

"One day you will count them," she replied, but she sounded like she knew. As if she had been there. "One terrible night. Do you want to see what that will turn you into?" He glanced at her. No, he really didn't want to see that. "Come on." She startled him by bumping his shoulder. "Aren't you curious?"

A whirling portal opened above them.

"I'm opening windows on your future," she continued as he sat there, staring into the portal. "A tangle in time through the days to come to the man today will make of you."

Something flew out of the portal and dropped at their feet. He looked down. It was a hat. A fez?

"Okay, I wasn't expecting that," she said.

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