writers_muses Prompt 127
He didn’t have much time left, but the Doctor had one more trip to make.
He probably shouldn’t be making it, of course, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Not now, with his last few moments slipping away. There wasn’t time for deliberation and the fact that this was an act of love rather than an act of anger was a small measure of comfort.
Seeing the Time Lords that had been twisted by the war - not to mention Rassilon himself, who had seized power from Romana in a violent coup during those final, desperate days - had forced him to turn his thoughts to the other Time Lords. The Time Lords he remembered with fondness.
They were all long gone, of course. Most of them had died long before Gallifrey had been destroyed, picked off by the Daleks and their allies. But, if he was quick and if he was careful, he’d be able to say one last goodbye.
The TARDIS materialised at the edge of a patchy of slightly scruffy woodland. There was a whitewashed cottage - a farmer’s cottage, judging by the nearby fields of crops - about fifty metres away from him. Her cottage.
Quickly, with the urgency of a dying man rather than the more familiar urgency of a slightly manic Time Lord, the Doctor stepped out of the shadows of the trees and onto a dusty path. There was a city in the distance and a tall man with dark hair strolling towards him. It was all so normal that the Doctor actually laughed. He was dying and his granddaughter was a few metres away with her family.
“Hello!” he said, giving the passer by the brightest smile he could manage. He was running out of time. He was running out of time. “Could you tell me where I am, please?”
“Are you lost?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“You’re about six miles from London,” the man answered, gesturing towards the city on the horizon. It was very different to the London he’d last visited - Donna’s London - and it was a thousand metaphorical miles away from the last time he’d visited Earth in the 22nd century. London had been burnt and burning back then, ravaged by ten years of Dalek occupation. It was flourishing now. The human race was flourishing.
“And the year?”
Oh, he recognised that expression. The man tilted his head slightly, raising an eyebrow and giving him a look that was somewhere between ‘amused’ and ‘quizzical’. Despite the physical differences, he looked a lot like Susan.
Not for the first time, he wondered exactly what his granddaughter had told her family about him.
“2202.”
“What?” The Doctor’s smile died on his lips. “No. No. It can’t be.”
He was too late. She’d already been called back to Gallifrey.
“Right. Right.” He’d missed her. “Thank you. I’ll just … go.”
There wasn’t time to try again. He was lucky to have got this far, actually. He could feel his cells dying. That was weird. His hearts - so heavy, so heavy - were struggling to beat.
The Doctor turned back towards the TARDIS, then, suddenly, paused. The man had already started to walk away, but he stopped when the Doctor spun around again.
“Sorry, could I just ask … what was your name? Are you David Campbell?”
“No, that’s my father.” He looked a bit bemused now, and the Doctor didn’t blame him. “I’m Ian.”
“Ian? Ian Campbell?”
Ian - of all the names she could have chosen! - nodded.
“Do you know him? My father?”
“Not really. Not as well as I should.” A pause. “I knew your mother, though.”
It was strange, his reaction. His face seemed to close off, which, really, revealed more than words could have. Susan had disappeared, after all. Maybe she’d intended to go back, once the war was over. Maybe she hadn’t been able to say goodbye. They’d been full of good intentions at the beginning of the war. Full of hope.
“Who are you?” Ian asked, hoarsely.
“I’m …” With a gasp of pain, the Doctor doubled over. “I’m running out of time.”
“What’s wrong?” Ian exclaimed, darting forward even as the Time Lord pulled back. “Are you all right?”
The Doctor shook his head, which was both an answer to the question and a warning to get Ian to stay back.
“I have to go.”
“Go where? You’re hurt. Let me get my father …”
“No, no,” said the Doctor, straightening up again. Deep breaths. Not long now. “It’s fine. Really.”
“Who are you?” asked Ian again, in a very different tone. He looked concerned rather than angry. And that was very like Susan as well. She’d been so brave and so wonderful and, despite everything, she’d left this life - her husband, her adopted children, her little white cottage - and returned to Gallifrey and the Time War. She’d known - even if none of them had wanted to admit it - that she wouldn’t be able to come back to Earth. She’d fought for them and she died for them and she hadn’t been afraid.
“Oh, Ian Campbell,” the Doctor breathed, “I would love to stay and get to know you, I really would. You’re so like her. I can see that already. And do you know what?”
“What?”
“She was brilliant.”
It would be all right. Even if he didn’t regenerate - even if his song ended for good - it would be all right. Some things - some people - were worth dying for.
The Doctor stepped back into the TARDIS. He didn’t look back.
Prompt: New Hope
Word Count: 923