(MAIN RANGE): The Dark At The End - Part Two
(MAIN RANGE): The Dark At The End
Part Two of Two (Possibly)
Guy Henry Doctor created by Riley
Rahul Kohli Doctor created by Mikey
Eleanor Tomlinson Doctor created by Hazel
Mary Elizabeth Winstead Doctor created by Gallifrey_Immigrant
Cillian Murphy, Patrick Walshe McBride and Brenda Blethyn created by Me
Chapter Five
The TARDIS spiraled into the vortex-like maw of the time gullet, spinning and beeping and cloister bells tolling, and all in all, being rather dramatic indeed.
"Keep it together," The Doctor said to himself, rambling at the console. "Keep it together, keep it together-"
The TARDIS continued to plummet into the gloom and the Doctor bit his lip. He rubbed his beard anxiously.
With this, a face appeared out of the unknown, and he jumped. "Doctor," The woman said, "Nice to meet you."
"Who are you, exactly?" The Doctor asked, sharply. "I'm rather busy crashing so if you don't mind-"
"I am the auxiliary TARDIS holographic interface. You may call me Cadence."
"I've never heard of you before."
"This is because I do not exist." Cadence said, calmly. "I am usually you, but we have entered a massive temporal anomaly. Confusing things will happen. And you are late to the party."
"Fashionably, I hope," the Doctor grunted, pulling a heavy lever on the console with some effort. Sparks flew.
"Indeed. You have been located by the vortex. I must warn you, little time remains. Your future is already almost irrevocably altered. The final Doctors that are left alive from the onslaught are stuck within the Maw. Are you aware of how many bodies of yours that this time gullet has devoured?"
"I don't like the sound of this."
"The answer is all of them. Three alternate faces, and two of your successors lie in the vortex. We will land momentarily. You must help them. I am here to assist."
"Why thank you, Cadence." The Doctor replied.
"It is a pleasure," Cadence responded robotically. "Although I do wish that I was my usual self and not a TARDIS program that does not exist. It is slightly disconcerting, and I also do not have feelings because I am a TARDIS program that also does not exist so it is more disconcering that I can in fact feel disconcerted."
"Oh, I'm with you," The Doctor said, slamming the console with his fist. "So, if you're a program you can tell me: We're going to crash in a few seconds, right??"
"Yes."
* * *
The TARDIS careened into the vortex, the console shattering across the hungry mouth of the time gullet.
And meanwhile, A Camp Man in a suit was trying to introduce himself to his alternate selves.
"Achem. I said, I am the Doctor." He repeated. "Why are you all staring?"
The Firetruck Doctor looked around confusedly. "Okay, so you guys, this has been a hell of a day. I'm just going to wait for someone else to explain it to him. And also me, because I may or may not not get it."
"Doctor brain hurty in time hole-y thingy. Boom. Two Doctors. One sleepy. One weird man who by all accounts shouldn't exist." The Not-Doctor snarked.
"What do you mean, I- that's very rude!" The New Doctor replied.
"Doctor," Rogue began...
"Yes?" The crowd responded.
"Okay, maybe Dench had a point." Firetruck replied. "I hereby dub thee, um... what are your discernible qualities?"
"I want to be left alone." He growled, stomping off.
"Where are you going to go exactly? We're in a vortex of Dead Doctors and TARDIS parts!!" The Not-Doctor called.
The new Doctor rushed away faster.
* * *
Things were going Okay for the Not-Doctor. His glasses with their built in-eye drive borrowed from the Silence were quite helpful. He always enjoyed messing with memory, and with a non-linear world like this for him to play in, his manipulations were going wonderfully. Get one of them to run off, insert a memory here and take one away there. Remove any suspicion from himself.
And when the time comes for them to restore the Doctor to the true time-stream, he'd just slide right in right there. Leave them all to die, skewered by the Dragon's teeth of time. Defaced, Erased, Eliminated.
Alright. Let's keep going. He smirked. "Let me help you with that bit of TARDIS," He said helpfully to firetruck. "Oh sure," She said, happily, handing him the roundrel. He took out his laser screwdriver and without anyone noticing, burned a hole into the relay.
Perfect.
* * *
He was running, away from them. He was a murderer. He couldn't be with anyone else. He was an awful, awful, man, he simply couldn't. He couldn't be with anyone, talk to anyone, or he would hurt them! He couldn't hurt them, hurting was bad! Ohhh, where was he? What the hell was going on?!
Slam.
A burning hot-rod of a TARDIS slammed into the colorful ...was it ground? Next to him. The Door creaked, and a man in a blazing yellow coat coughed, smoke billowing out of the doors, he fell out.
"Hi, mate. Hold on." He said, falling over and out of the TARDIS. Behind him, a glowing blue florescent - was it a hologram? Moved out from behind him. She was in goggles and a muted tunic, with hair that was somehow bluer than the rest of her hologram body and a decently lengthed cape.
"Greetings," she said. "I do not exist."
"Yeah, yeah, she keeps going on about that. Fancy meeting you here, um..." He gestured for their name.
"I don't have a name. I used to be the Doctor. You can call me that." He moaned.
"What's happened to you?" The Man asked, stroking his beard. "You look-"
"Oh, positively bereft." The artist formerly known as Doctor replied. "You see, nothing I do works anymore. I ran away, and I don't have a home, or any friends, and I've killed people." He sighed heavily. "Oh god. On accident. I mean."
"Data suggests that you are overwhelmed." Cadence began -
"Not now, Cadence." The Man in the yellow coat said. "Look. I understand what you've been through. It was the Last Great Time War, right?"
"No. I didn't have an excuse like that. I wish I did. I killed people. I am unforgivable. You're going to leave me alone." He stood up, and walked into an invisible wall.
"The gullet will not let you leave." Cadence explained. "You can go deeper but you cannot go back."
"Sums up my bloody life!!" He screamed angrily, slamming his fist against the wall.
"I'm the Doctor too. I can understand-" The Doctor tried to tell him.
"No," He said, angrily. "No, you were before it all happened. You - you aren't me. I'm a clone, I'm a fake, a murderer, a Valeyard," He spat. "Don't you think I remember what you went through-" He turned, and glared The Doctor directly in the eyes. "I killed hundreds of people, and unlike my other selves, I didn't have a reason."
The Doctor looked at him sollemnly. "Come on. Let's have a sit. Cadence, can you make a fire?"
"I am your TARDIS. Your TARDIS is currently on fire."
"Thank you, Cadence." He replied. "Now, friend, let's have a talk. If you really aren't the Doctor, what are you?"
"I'm a murderer." He hissed.
"No, no, there's that self-guilt all over again. Yes, it was you, but it wasn't you, you. You need to move on, and be a good person in the now, instead of dwelling the past. If you can't think of what you are now that's not the Doctor, you're still him. Anyway, I think I've started to figure this out a bit. Cadence said that she had detected alternate timelines galore here...I think someone is altering them for their own ends."
"I think this is rubbish self-therapy."
Chapter Six
The TARDIS bits and bobs were starting to form a bit of machinery when the other Doctor came to. "Ah, Granny." Firetruck said, helping her up, and dusting off her massive overcoat (an admittedly large task) "You're finally awake."
"Susan? Have you regenerated?" This Doctor said, a bit out of it.
"Nah, it's me, you! Trying out nicknames. Anyway," The Firetruck Doctor responded. "Welcome to alternate timeline stew. We're trying to build a TARDIS out of bits and bobs."
"Oh, oh, oh, I remember now. I just...did I just regenerate too early?"
"Yep," Firetruck Doctor responded. "Into a rollicking two people. Never seen that done before. Then again, I'm not from this universe. My universe could totally be different from yours. What's common-place there could be completely impossible here. Funny thing, alternate dimension theory."
"Oh, tell me about it, luv." The "Granny" Doctor replied. "You might not even know what a mailbox is."
"What a what is?" Firetruck responded.
* * *
The Rogue Doctor and Not-Doctor continued to put together a device from a TARDIS control panel and Rogue's sonic screwdriver.
"So, I don't believe I asked. Are you my future, or are you another alternate universe person?"
"Oh come on, moody, does it matter?" Not-Doctor laughed it off.
"Well, no, really. I'll forget anyway after we leave here, so you might as well tell me."
"Oh, really. You aren't going to meme at me about spoilers? Really?" Not-Doctor replied.
"Well ordinarily I would, but I am feeling rather hypocritical as of late." The Rogue Doctor smiled slightly.
"Oh, so you can make a joke. Bravo!" The Not-Doctor made some faux applause.
"When I'm not incensed, you'll find me quite agreeable. I'll tell you about me, if you tell me you?"
The Not-Doctor considered to himself. "Why not? We only have a limited amount of time before our future is erased, and as I like to say, always waste time when you don't have any. I'm not from here."
"So none of us are really the Doctor?"
The Not-Doctor laughed. "Oh, dear Doctor - I'm a Doctor at the least."
"Well, I know. But...sometimes I do wonder. Whether how I can be remembered as the Doctor, if well, strictly speaking in the laws of the time lords, I am not any more than someone like the Valeyard."
"Oh, I'm certain you'll be remembered, my friend, the question is for what."
And suddenly a screeching halt. And someone appeared next to them, a glowing blue figure.
"Greetings. I am not real. My name is Time and Relative Dimensions In Space, Type Forty, but you can call me Cadence." Cadence said. "I was sent to inform you of the others in the vortex. There is a solution to your plight, if we move quickly."
"You aren't one from this universe, are you?"
"I am a divergent path. I share your past, although my original body died at Trenzalore. My real self is a time lord consciousness put into a Human Body, but at the moment, I am a computerized simulation. It is all rather vexing, and I'm certain it would probably be better for real me to be here, but let's be honest, everybody's dead."
Chapter Seven
"There," The Doctor in the Yellow Jacket said. "Cadence should have sent the others a message. What you need to do, is to understand what we are again."
"I'm not bloody you, and I resent that!" The Other Doctor said.
"We've all had our broody phases. Pasts are unimportant. I stopped caring how many bodies or faces I had long ago. What matters is who I am in the now. And you could be something rather special too."
The Broody Doctor looked at the ground, silently.
"The question on what you want to be," Yellow Jacket continued, "is the good man or the bad? Touch these two strands together, and it's the end of the Daleks, but do you think you have the right?"
"Stupid question." Broody Doctor replied.
"Stupid question deserves a stupid answer."
* * *
Granny Doctor moved forward. "So, we're the last batch, eh? The final crop? How many of us have died now?"
"Quite a lot." Firetruck Doctor replied. "Although there hasn't been an erasure in a while. One more of us is going to die soon."
"Seven bottles of Doctors, on the wall, seven bottles of Doctors, take one down, pass it around..." The Granny Doctor mused. "It's all very And Then There Were None, isn't it?"
"Well, then there would have to be a killer..."
* * *
Snap. Crackling of thunder and lightning belted down the vortex of the time gullet.
It was hungry, and the entirety of the Doctor had nearly been devoured. More than Fifty bodies, and only seven remained. It was about to take another bite.
The Yellow Jacket Doctor continued to converse with Broody Doctor. "We need to get back to the others. Do you want us to help save the universe-"
"Oh, stop it, Gandalf." Broody Doctor replied. "I...I don't know. Perhaps I'd be happier erased from history."
"I doubt you'd be happy. I doubt there would be anything at all. And I especially doubt you believe that. Come on." The Yellow Jacket Doctor continued.
Broody Doctor sighed. He thought to himself. Two wires, and the end of the Daleks...what was the right one?
And the sky opened.
"No. Not now." Yellow Jacket Doctor swore, and then he fell too. Out of existence.
And then Broody Doctor knew. He knew that that was wrong. He knew he had to help save the universe.
He ran.
That's what Doctors do, right?
Chapter Eight
The Broody Doctor strolled into the crowded graveyard of TARDISes. More and more had fallen out of the sky as the end of the world grew closer. More and More were piling up, and The Five Doctors were building out of them. (Minus Cadence. She was a hologram. And that really annoyed her.)
"I do wonder. Am I anything like The Doctor that took the form of Cadence really is? No, I do not think so. I feel like a unique form of existence, one that would not have existed if not for this anomaly. And despite the deaths, I believe that is...good?" Cadence mused.
"Hello." Broody Doctor said, walking back up to them. "I can relate." He said quietly.
"You're back." Firetruck said, astonished.
Silently, the Not-Doctor furrowed his brow.
"Yes." Broody Doctor said. "I was an awful stick in the mud, wasn't I?"
The Not-Doctor balled a fist.
Fine. Time to move his hand.
With a flick of his wrist, he clicked a button on the side of his glasses and a blast fired out - he shot Granny Doctor to the Ground. "Oh, I am so sick of all of your preaching. Ooh, ooh, I'm such a nice parable of virtue! That's you guys! I'm mocking you! Yes, you! You're all miserable fools, and you're all, so, very, very, gullible -" He yelled.
"Oh my god. You.. you aren't the Doctor." Firetruck said, astonished.
"Ooh, full marks!" The Not-Doctor snarled. "I'm not your Doctor, I'm the Doctor! The better one! The only one THAT MATTERS!" He fired his glasses again, this time at Cadence, who did not react, because she was a hologram. Her computerized facial expressions barely reacted.
The Rogue Doctor stepped back. It was rare he was taken in like this.
"Now," Not-Doctor said, aiming his glasses again. "What shall I do to you lot? Should I traumatize you like I did little newbie over here? Or should I let the vortex take you, or should I just kill you for the fun of it? Oh, I know, I'll threaten you into giving me that device we're building. Thanks. Can you chuck it over before I kill you, loves?"
The crowd of Doctors were astonished. Granny Doctor struggled up, and leaned on Firetruck for support.
"Come on. Hickory Dickory. Time's a flowing." The Not-Doctor threatened again.
And for once in his life, Rogue remembered something. "You... I met you, in my Sixteenth body, you used the Hoothi as your soldiers, and tried to kill Leticia Palaver, Bernice Summerfield and Roman!"
"Oh, slow to the punch, but he gets there. As if it matters now. Why don't you lot just hand me the bloody device?"
The Broody Doctor, shocked, stared, as the Not-Doctor snatched the device out of his hands.
"Excellent. With this, I will now reinstate myself. Be the Doctor's future, past, everything, so you- were always me. Very high concept. I may also adjust myself temporally so I stop monologuing. Oh, thank you, my darlings. Toodles."
And he clicked the device.
It exploded in his hand.
"What?!?!" He yelled.
The crowd of Doctor's shrugged.
"Oh." The Not-Doctor realized. "Wait. I sabotaged it. Because I thought you lot were going to use it."
"You have to admit, that's a very Doctor move." Granny Doctor laughed. "And what are you going to do now? There's five of us and one of you."
"Four of you. The hologram doesn't count."
Cadence moved her hands, and as the TARDIS debris continued to fall out of the sky, a bit clonked the Not-Doctor in the head and he fell over. Not-Doctor looked up at them, his glasses crushed by the debris.
"We're the Doctor. We're the one who stops people like you, people who are anathema to what we stand for, regardless of their origins." The Rogue Doctor said. He looked at Broody. "We occasionally mess up, and that's alright." He looked at Firetruck. "We are elegant and we are joyous," He looked at Granny, "We are intelligent and we are friendly," He looked at Cadence. "We are sometimes holograms from other Dimensions. And we fly a magic box through time and space, and we don't give a damn about what anyone thinks about which one of us is real. We are the Doctor, and We do the right thing." He paused, glaring the Not-Doctor in the eyes. "Without hope, without witness, and without reward."
"None of you are real! You still can't reset the timeline, and we're all going to die here!!" Not-Doctor screamed.
"Did you miss the part where we said we didn't give a damn?"
Epilogue
The Doctor is a name. The Doctor is an idea. The Doctor is a promise. Never cruel, never cowardly. The Doctor is a name, and a promise, not a person, the Doctor is a goal, a manifesto. The Doctor is whoever wants to be them.
The Not-Doctor was going to rewrite the past and the future, and that's what the Doctors did.
The Not-Doctor was going to use the machine as a base to apply himself to all of the Doctor's history. If they wanted things to be the same, they would need an original Doctor.
But who said they wanted things to be the same?
They were still the Doctor, and time has a way of recognizing these things. So when the Five Doctors imputed themselves into the machine, they imputted everything about eachother that they knew, and they sent it back to the beginning.
They made themselves real, because in a way, they always had been.
Who cares what real means anyway?
From every moment in the Doctor's life, from an old man with a granddaughter living in a scrapyard, (and before that if you're being pedantic) to a woman fighting off Daleks with Captain Jack Harkness to the forgetful but brilliant figure that stood in the box now, they were now all the Doctor.
Even the non-canon ones.
Especially the non-canon ones.
* * *
The Doctor stepped back into his TARDIS, feeling oddly exhausted. He couldn't remember it at first, wheezing and breathing as he moved back into his recliner, but as he sat back (with a copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein sitting next to a copy of The Time Travellers' Wife sitting on his table) and as he got himself a cup of tea and opened Agatha Christie's Death In The Clouds, he began to remember.
He had thought he would have forgotten the whole thing. He usually did when he met himself.
Oh, what lovely people they were. Even the rubbish Judi Dench one.
Not a clone anymore. Just the Doctor. Huh.
The Doctor reclined back into his chair and began to read.
The End
This Story (Hypothetically) Starred
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