The End of Time

Everythin .

(out)

[gold in her hearts and down her throats and pressing in all around her hot too-hot too loud and still the silence but the Bad Wolf doesn't stop for anything as small as]

[pain]

(she's used to this. she's done this before. if she could make it through the world walls human and helpless and only a dimension cannon to keep her moving she can damn well make it through now, when she is a goddess)

[crack.]

And then the gold fades away and the pressure vanishes and she's stumbling forward, the glow-wild Wolf gone from her head, something blessedly solid under her feet. She stabilizes automatically, subconsciously, blinks away the shadowy-lightning-strike afterimage; can't do anything more than that. Her head is full of -

It's not quite real, but it's so close it hurts; she can hear it echoing along the long labyrinth timelines of the remnants of the War. The hivemind. The wound is still too new in her head, too painful, a good fourth of her mind busy simply with keeping the shock-hurt-fear-grief contained -

And it's there again. Sudden. Unexpected; it knocks her off-kilter even now. (She wonders, after so many centuries, what it's doing to the Doctor.)

The Doctor - (warrior / theta / bringer of darkness, his timeline-signature clear as the silver electric scent of storm)

Her head snaps up.

She's in a room - massive, vaguely cathedral-like, haphazard tables and desks and what looks to be a - radiation chamber ? - along one wall - except that it's warped, deep down-under reality. A dangerous-looking contraption in the center of the room holds a white point star, twisting the fabric of existence inside-out and upside-down until it reveals - Gallifrey.

Not Gallifrey in its entirety - that too, but it's further away, dampened - but the Matrix is in this room, and with it its founder and Lord.

Arkytior sees her father, on white steps, looking as though he'd never died, and freezes.

And then it suddenly stops mattering.

Because Theta. Right there. Right in front of her, grief-broken and sharp-edged and on the edge of falling - but not the Warrior, the Doctor, her pinstriped idiot Doctor. She loved him, as Rose, but she never really saw him; never saw the brutal alien darkness that he fights so hard to hide, hiding just under his skin day and night. She sees him now. Sees the Doctor, and Koschei-the-Master with cracked desperate laughing [insanity] radiating out of him is there too -

She wants to hold him. She's opening her mouth to call for him. She takes a step forward, out of the shadows, sparks of gold dispersing behind her. She - hesitates.

(The Doctor stares forward at her father, not seeing her, and she can feel the Warrior so-close-and-waiting until he - )

And then Rassilon's gaze climbs up over the Doctor's head and focuses on her.

She freezes - a moment of confusion knocks her off-kilter, because they'd thrown him out, what happened to Romana, did he get reLoomed all over again - how can he even be here what happened to the time lock - why can she feel the sharp painful edges of the War encroaching on this world - and then he's smiling. Holds one steel-gloved out as imperiously as ever, elevated, arrogant. "Arkytior I must admit, you are the one person I did not expect to see here today; however, it is rather fitting. The three of you together once again."

(he never would use the title she'd preferred to use)

And everything freezes.

The Master turned at 'Arkytior,' so fast she can see the air glitch behind him, bones flashing under his skin. The Doctor is much, much slower, so slow she can feel Time stretch around them, and then his eyes meet hers, and the recognition is already there, and so is the darkness.

(the pain - and she saw it as Rose but now she understands it and it's dizzying in its depth wild and desperate and still grieving, and then they see her - )

(and she has to say something, anything)

She can't think, can barely breathe, trapped in the Doctor's eyes, and so when she feels herself take a breath to speak it's almost a surprise; millennia of protocol trapped in her spine saver her. "I must admit, Lord President, that I hardly expected to see you here either," and she realizes with a dull kind of amazement that she sounds almost confident, the wavering stutter barely noticeable, back straight. "I'm certain you will understand that I can't be pleased about this turn of events. Did Romana really reLoom you for the end of the War? Or did the Capitol finally turn on her?"

The Doctor cuts her off.

He's frozen as motionless as everyone else, radiating [disbelief] and [desperation] and a bloody sickening kind of [hope], and when he speaks it's one word. Barely whispered, and yet it cuts through the air like silence.

"How."

She can't help but flinch.

"How," he repeats, quiet and delicate and broken. "You can't have survived. It's not possible. I would've - known, I would - "

He stops sharply, suddenly, shakes his head. It's a blind compulsive movement, jerky and off-kilter, a denial. If there's anybody else left in the room, she can't see them; the world has narrowed, focused, stereoscoped down to two people and nothing else. The Doctor, and his Rose.

"It was Romana who did it," she hears herself whisper. "Who made me human. She said you'd need me. She promised you'd find me, and you did." She smiles, a shaky sad thing. "You took my hand and told me to run."

The Master gets it; whistles delightedly off to the left; she's still looking at the Docor, watching the recognition bloom in his eyes.

Shock and surprise and-and-

her mind splits and splits again (stumble forward hands on her head and every breath is golden fire) and calculates, burning artron-gold and screaming (no not screaming but howling and she is so, so afraid) and she doesn't remember it being like this the first time but she was human the first time and-and-

Everything snaps back into place with a shudder and a brief golden flash.

The Doctor's at her side.

"Regeneration sickness," he murmurs, pulls her upright. He doesn't quite touch her; steadying her carefully, but only through the thick leather of her jacket. Just barely not enough for touch-telepathy to register, and the way he moves tells her he must know it. And then he's stepping back, eyes unreadable, and she wonders distantly what he's hiding from her.

(if I try hard enough I can ignore it but I can never forget it I still love you Arkytior)

"Only to be expected," she manages. "It'll pass." And then her gaze skitters away from him again, at Rassilon, at the Master; she moves back toward the Doctor instinctively, falling back into Rose's old habits. "...What's going on?"

He jerks his head toward the Master, easily, anger in his eyes. "He's the link. Pulling Gallifrey back into the sky, into this sky." It's not much of an answer, but combined with the white point star and the distinct unrealness of Rassilon and everything around him - as if he's not quite here yet, not quite finished - it tells her what she needs to now.

"Come to me, Arkytior." It's Rassilon, sanctimonious, regal, hands outstretched. "Stand at my right hand, and witness the Time Lords' ascension to perfection. Stand with me as I enact the Final Sanction. You are the Keeper of my Legacy; it is only fitting that you witness our greatest triumph."

And oh, he is just like she remembers; arrogant and bigoted but persuasive; his every word is spoken with the sheer confidence of someone who's had every last circuit of the Matrix and therefore almost all of the known universe under their control for longer than most beings can comprehend. A person for whom absolute power isn't just mundane but a part of the natural world order. And it takes all she has to push through centuries of habit and - break free.

She realizes, the world flickering breathless, that she's no longer connected to the Matrix; that it has no hold on her. That he has no hold on her. A real renegade, now, and free of everything that held her back.

(don't dream, do)

She is the Dreamer and she is Arkytior but she is more than that, she is also Rose, and Rose asked the right questions. Rose was human. Rose was unpredictable, and cheerful, and free.

Rose was good.

"What is this Final Sanction?" she asks, standing tall and resolute, not bending to anyone. (More than Time Lady. Time Lady, with that little bit of human mixed in, and Gallifrey holds no power over her. )

"A paradox," the Doctor answers, ice and fire and blood thick in his voice, the mask of glass he wears splintering and cracking with every word. "A paradox so strong, so absolute, that it will rip the Web of Time apart. History will never have existed."

"We will ascend," Rassilon repeats, the dream so strong in his eyes, she almost believes it. "Ascend to become creatures of consciousness alone, free from the weight of our bodies."

"And the rest of the universe will be destroyed!" the Doctor cries, desperate. His eyes flick from Arkytior to the Master to Rassilon and back, quick and trapped. "Don't you see? That's what they were planning, at the end of the War. I had to stop them. I had to end it all. Every moment in Time was already burning, and they were going to rip it apart. I couldn't let that happen!"

(and oh. Oh Menti Celesti. She can see the Warrior just under the skin, can see him push it back, can hear the hiss-whine of anti-time so close beneath his voice and she almost screams.)

"Romana knew," she says, not knowing why but knowing she must say something, must keep the Warrior from coming out. He turns to look at her, wheeling, and she has to brace herself to avoid stepping back - and at the same time she wants nothing more than to hold them and never never never let go. "Everyone knew. That we were dying. She said - if somebody survives - it'll be you. She was - " and the last word is quiet horror, for all that she tries to hide it. "She was right."

She can't see the Doctor's reaction - can't make herself look at what he does then - and then Rassilon's speaking and her eyes drag around to look at him without leaving her any choice in the matter.

"Stand with me, Arkytior," He intones. "Stand with me now, in Gallifrey's hour of greatness. The renegades are nothing, they are not worth your Time, not worth the ground you stand on. You are-"

(Arkytior and Dreamer and Rose)

"No." Ice and steel stiffen her voice into something sharp and cutting, and she rears her head, delighting in the freedom it even now. "No. I am the Dreamer, Lord President, and you will erase me from your Matrix and forget I ever existed." She stares him in the eyes, tall and proud and imperious. "Don't dream, do. I choose freedom, Lord President, and you have no power over me now."

And suddenly, very suddenly, things come together.

She's a strong telepath. Never achieved the clarity others could manage - Ushas beat her hands down every time - but strong enough for this. The white point star, and the delicate unstable threads of the timeslines bending under the encroaching war -

Calculation complete.

She doesn't care, suddenly, how long it's been since she's seen him, about the Warrior under his skin; she loves the Warrior, too, after all. Her hand shoots out and clamps down on his fingers. Startled he tries to jerk away but she's already signalling - not an invasion, but an invitation, a message.

[the diamond, doctor, shoot the diamond] she projects fiercely - and the next instant he's slammed down his shields hard enough that the silence echoes, the skin-on-skin contact as meaninglessly empty as it would be in any mindblind human thing, but she can feel the simple tension in his fingers anyway. He heard.

"Have you gone mad?" Rassilon exclaims, startled into almost-silence by her refusal. "Has the isolation - to deny me -"

(she is Arkytior and the Dreamer and Rose and she is-she is-)

(she is glowing and golden and powerful she is)

"No!" Arkytior, the Dreamer, shakes herself, stares at Rassilon. Spits it, and the Doctor doesn't move but he doesn't take his hand away either, slowly softening. "No. The War is over. Not for you, not quite yet, but to the rest of the universe it is. You've lost, Lord President, and there's nothing you can do to change it!"

And then the Doctor speaks. "Arkytior." (It's the first time he's said her name, her real name, since the Warrior.) She half turns toward him, but her eyes still skitter away from his face - focusing on their enemies instead, the Master leaning against the white-point-star contraption and grinning like a mad thing. "Arkytior, I'm going to - I've been told I'll die here." The way he says it makes it clear that it's no nonsense prediction.

She - Rassilon could kill him, of course, will kill him if only for spite, and that cannot-must not happen, she will not let that happen. Theta will not die, not on her watch, not when she's finally found him again.

Not when she never said she loved him.

And maybe he won't want her, maybe he was lying, during the War, and maybe it doesn't matter anyway. She doesn't really care, not right now. There are more important things.

"I can arrange that," Rassilon says, and it takes her a moment to realize it's only been a blink since the Doctor said he is going to die and, and-

"Take me with you," the Master suddenly pleads. "When you ascend, take me with you!"

"You are diseased," Rassilon answers, almost bored. "I have no more use for you."

"Then kill me instead," and the madness has receded just a touch, it's Koschei who steps around the Doctor to face her father, and she realizes suddenly he's doing it for her.

It hits her hard -

(here: koschei covering for her when she snuck out to meet theta in the hills above cadon, taking the blame, opening the doors for her when she went out so the Matrix wouldn't register that she'd been through)

(here: koschei spreads contradictory rumours, many and varied and cutting and most of them focused on him, as long as the attention comes away from her, as long as rassilon doesn't hear)

(here: koschei stands in front of them both and his bones flicker underneath his skin and it is obvious, so obvious that he is already dying)

No.

NO.

"It will be my pleasure," Rassilon says.

(she is the-)

"The diamond, do it now!" she screams, sees the Doctor moving, and Koschei is still going to die but she will not let Rassilon kill him mad and afraid and alone. She is the-

(I am the BAD WOLF)

I AM THE BAD WOLF

I = = F

Gold light burns screaming through her mind leaving fire in its wake, and it is her voice but it is not her own and the words it says come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

"I am the Bad Wolf, and I protect the ones I love."

Then the diamond shatters and Rassilon's glove misfires, and there's a great rush of wind and a scream and then nothing at all.

[=|=]

The Dreamer, who-was-and-is-Arkytior, wakes up.

(Well, except 'waking up' would imply that she was asleep, and Time Lords almost never really sleep. Their biology is designed that way-more endurance, faster reflexes, stronger and faster and smarter than any human ever could be. Doze, yes, but not sleep. It's too vulnerable.)

She's babbling. She knows she's babbling. The silence is back in her head, and there is a scream trapped in her throat that will never be free.

She takes a ragged shaky breath and opens her eyes - no, they were already open, blinking back the gold-dark buzz, focuses.

The Doctor's standing there. Facing her. Staring down at the body on the floor, Koschei motionless but smiling, free (and it was her who did it she took the drums away) and Theta stares at his dead best friend and doesn't even cry.

She tries to move, shakily, and is almost surprised when she manages a step forward; she's been - frozen, or something, frozen and glowing and gold. The Bad Wolf blowing away, artron-dust on the wind, leaving her free and awake once more.

"Koschei?" she ventures faintly, coming forward carefully (trying to block out the silence still) but almost before the word is ended the Doctor's shaking his head.

"Gone," he says, distantly. "All gone."

She knows what he means. Gallifrey is dead and burnt and broken. Again.

"I'm sorry," she says softly, and there's really nothing more that can be said.

Knock-knock-knock-knock.

The Doctor stiffens, flinches, freezes.

Knock-knock-knock-knock.

She turns slowly, the moment seeming to stretch like taffy, like the web of time bending-screeching-breaking under the weight of paradox -

Knock-knock-knock-knock.

Her eyes meet his.

"Hello?" says the old man, uncertainly, and she's sure he's familiar but not quite sure what from. "Hello - I'm in here."

She frowns, preoccupied - and then recognition dawns. "W - Wilf! You're Donna's grandfather, aren't you? I thought I recognized your voice." The smile is unexpected and sunny and almost bright enough to block out the silence. (The Doctor behind her - still hasn't said anything, but her regen-addled head won't let her focus on it, focus on anything. Thoughts split and race and join together, knocking her off-balance over and over again.)

Wilf looks nervous. "Do I know you?"

"You did, once," she tells him. "A very long time ago - and yet no time at all, now, for me." She pauses, focusing on his timelines, drawing long and many-colored through history - leading him here. "It hasn't been long, from your perspective. I used your computer-you didn't have a webcam. You tried to shoot a Dalek with a paintball gun." A grin flickers on the corners of her lips, and she shakes her head.

Wilf stares. "But-you don't look the same."

She opens her mouth to explain, and the Doctor cuts her off, his voice hollow and empty and meaningless. "Four knocks."

Wilf looks almost taken aback; she half-turns, looking for him, hands up against the light. "Doctor…?"

He's standing there, limp and loose, staring at the glass cage behind her. "He will knock four times. That's what she said. That's what they - I survived it, Arkytior. I survived it again. All over again. And still this."

Wilf shakes his head, pats at the glass, and the Dreamer gets the feeling he's afraid but she's not sure why, not getting it yet. "If you could just pop in and let me out - "

Oh. That's funny. Does he not realize? "The radiation chamber is unstable," she tells him gently, sadly. Humans can't see these things, they can't see their death coming. "One touch of a button, and the chamber will flood. Even the sonic will set it off." Her smile is comforting. "There's no way to save you, I'm afraid."

"Yes there is."

She turns again, uncertain all over again. Her eyes flicker to his - but she doesn't know him well enough, can't figure out what he's thinking anymore. "Well, not unless somebody takes his place, but - "

And then she gets it.

"Oh."

" Just leave me, Doctor," Wilf tries, but she can only hear him from very far away. "I'm an old man. I'm not worth it."

"Right," says her Theta, vicious and easy and so much grief in his eyes. "Right. That's what I'll do, then. Because you had to go in there, didn't you? You had to go and get stuck, oh yes, because that's who you are."

Arkytior frowns, sure that there's something wrong but not sure what. "I could - I'm in the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle. I could do it. I could survive. You've used so many already. It's only - "

The Doctor is already shaking his head. "And what happens if you don't survive? If it's too much for the healing factor? If you die before the artron energy resets you die, Arkytior, there's no regeneration twice within the same cycle, you'd be dead for good." And then he snaps his head up to stare straight at her, eyes wild, daring her to deny it. "But he's just a human. Practically at the end of his lifespan anyway. Not remotely important. But me? I could - "

And then he spins, roars it, broken. "I could do so much more. So - much - more!"

It hurts, it hurts to look at him, and then she's rushing forward, blocking him off, blocking herself off. Wilf is just a human, just a primitive, no matter that he's Donna's granddad and he's helped the Doctor; it's not worth the regeneration of either of the last Time Lords in existence. She tells herself so, and she's not sure why some part of herself is so desperately pushing it away, when she knows it's true. "Theta," she's saying, "he's right, somebody else will come along - please, just leave him." She glances back to Wilf, almost as an afterthought. "I'm sorry."

Wilf tries to muster a smile; it collapses on his face, painful but resigned. "No, it's alright, missy. I understand."

The Doctor isn't quite looking at her. "It's not fair."

"Theta, it's going to be okay," she says, coming up close, not quite daring to take his hand.

He sighs once, closes his eyes, rocks backward. "Oh - Oh Arkytior, I've lived too long." And then something almost imperceptible shifts, and he's holding out one ungloved hand to her, a plea, a last call on the cliff's edge. "Help me?"

"Of course," she says instantly, and takes the hand without thinking - and then - and then he swings upright easily and their eyes meet and she realizes. (Too late.)

She's just regenerated, she's vulnerable and tired, her mind still reorganizing itself. Her shields are down. And neither of them are wearing gloves. The skin-on-skin contact like an open door, completely and utterly defenseless, her mind just waiting to be attacked - to be - shut down -

"I'm sorry, Arkytior," she hears, and then there's a kind of pressure and everything goes black.