Fic: The Ultimate Betrayal (2/3)
Title: The Ultimate Betrayal
Author: Gillian Taylor
Rating: PG
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Romana II
Summary: When the foundations of his ninth life are shattered, what is left?
Spoilers: Dalek, The Long Game, and ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’
Disclaimer: Don't own them. I just like playing with them...a lot.
Archive: Sure, just let me know.
A/N: So, blame wendymr on this one. She wanted a sequel to ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ and lo and behold, here it is. :) However, as a warning, Romana does not come across as a very nice character in this. Thanks to my lovely betas wendymr and nnwest .
Chapter One
Chapter Two
There were no words for the emotions cascading through his mind. Anger did not fit it. Rage was somewhat better, but even that failed to encompass the complexity of the emotion. If it could be distilled, the vintage of the Doctor's emotion would be a harsh brew laced with bitter betrayal. The only spark of light left to him was the feel of Rose's hand within his own. He had dared, both with his eyes and the set of his jaw, for Ashken to comment. He needed Rose, now more than ever. He had been betrayed by his people, by Romana. And the Lord President had the audacity to tell him that she owed him nothing?
He fought against the bitter laugh that threatened to emerge from his tortured soul. Of everything that he had ever imagined, the mere idea that Gallifrey survived had never dawned upon him. The memory of flames and explosions, the recollection of the death knell of his people (or so he thought), set his chiseled features into stone. Despite everything, despite his wishes to the contrary, he found himself wishing for the illusion. When Gallifrey was gone, everything had been far simpler. When Gallifrey was gone, he had not known the extent of Romana's betrayal. When Gallifrey was gone, he still had some belief in the innate goodness of his people, of Romana. Now, even that was robbed from him.
He followed Ashken, leading Rose through the halls of the Panopticon toward the medical centre. He knew that she was burning with curiosity, but she restrained herself from asking any questions. She knew him too well, and he squeezed her hand in silent thanks. "Why?" he asked.
Ashken's steps faltered and he turned to face the Doctor and his companion. "It's not my place..."
"To hell with your 'place,' Ashken! I've spent the past year thinkin' that I was the last, an' for what? 'Cause Romana said so? I just want to know why!"
"Only she can answer that, Doctor," the Castellan said sadly.
The Doctor dropped Rose's hand and strode forward, shoving his former friend against one of the walls. "I won't accept that! Ashken, we were friends!"
Ashken winced, both from the force of his impact against the wall and from the other man's words. "Yes, we were. I'm sorry, Doctor."
"Doctor!" Rose said, putting her hand onto his shoulder in a half-hearted attempt to calm him. "Please, this isn't like you."
Reluctantly, he released his grip, letting Rose draw him away. He turned his burning gaze upon the Castellan and told him in a deadened tone, "That isn't good enough."
"No," Ashken agreed. "It isn't. But that's all that I can give you." Without another word, he continued down the hallway, pausing only when he noticed they were not following him. "The medical centre is just down this hallway."
"I think I know where it is, Ashken," the Doctor replied bitterly.
"I know you do, Doctor. However, I have my orders..."
"Orders!" he shouted. "Just like it was orders to keep me in the dark? Just like it was orders for you to let me think that you, the lot of you, were dead?"
The Doctor heard, rather than saw, Rose draw in a breath at his words and he turned toward her. She looked terrified.
That was when he realised. She was terrified of him. "Rose, I..."
She shook her head mutely. Her expressive face reflected both fear and sorrow. Some of which, he was certain, was of him, but most of it was for him. "'Salright, Doctor."
"No, 's not." He shook his head. He touched her face in a gentle caress before pulling her into a loose hug. "'M sorry." The Doctor had never intended on her seeing this side of him. He knew, all too well, that this incarnation carried a darkness within him that was due to the events of the War. Or, considering what he knew now, that was due to Romana.
"'Sokay," Rose murmured into his jacket.
He was about to reply when Ashken's unwelcome voice interrupted him. "Doctor." He could hear the disapproval in the Castellan's tone, but he did not care. What he thought, what any of the Time Lords thought, did not matter. Not after what they had done.
"C'mon," Rose said, smiling faintly. "Looks like our guide's gettin' anxious." She pulled away from the hug and reached down to entwine their fingers.
"Yeah."
"You know that it's not allowed for a Time Lord..." Ashken's voice trailed off at the infuriated glance the Doctor gave him.
"Didn't care for your rules before, and still don't. So shut it," he snapped. "Let's just get this over with."
The Castellan looked as if he wished to say more, but he wisely remained silent. "Right this way."
He walked in silence as his thoughts churned over memories of the past year. He had spent what had seemed to be a lifetime in a glaze of pain after the war, when he had dragged himself burned and bloodied to the console and set the controls. He had hoped, since he had though that he had seen his home burn, that he too would fade. The end of the Doctor. The destroyer of homes. The destroyer of worlds. The oncoming storm. The 'winner' of the Time War. He had prayed for an end - that somehow Death, fickle though she might be, would have pity on him and let his eighth life be his last. The miracle of the Time Lords denied in punishment, or perhaps in pity, of the sole survivor of that race.
Death, however, had other plans for him. The moment he had felt the tell-tale burn of regeneration start in his cells he knew. He would live. Even Death denied him. And now? Now he realised that the reality of his life was far worse than Death's denial. Instead, it was a life built upon a fiction. He had known that he had destroyed Gallifrey just as he had known he was the last. There was only Rose, the light in his darkness, to keep him anchored in the storm of his existence. It was all a lie and it burned.
"This is where I leave you," Ashken said, bringing the Doctor out of his thoughts. "The healers will tend to your ills. Romana will send for you when she is ready to receive you." He bowed formally to the Doctor and hesitated before repeating the gesture for Rose. A moment later, he was gone.
The Council, she had long ago decided, was full of the worst stuffed shirts in the cosmos. Their inane prattling tended to give her headaches, especially when it dealt with the final events of the war. They had asked her to explain herself. They had asked her to explain why the Doctor had returned. She had found their demands increasingly difficult before she had told them, in no uncertain terms, that she need not explain herself to them. However, she knew that that would hold them at bay for only so long.
She paced her office, head bowed, as she considered both the Council's demands and the arrival of the Doctor. There were facets of herself that she was hesitant to explore, and a good number of them dealt with the Doctor. Life had been so much simpler when it had been herself and the jovial Doctor, travelling through the universe in a battered blue police box. It had been simpler before the concerns of a planet and the traitorous emotions of her own hearts had led to a decision which could not be taken back. She dodged the thought with practised ease. She did not wish to examine what had happened. The past could never be changed, especially if one was a Time Lord. There were rules, after all.
The muffled squeak of the door caught her attention and she whirled to face her Castellan. "Yes?" The word was spoken harshly, and she winced at the sound. "Sorry, Ashken."
He ran a careless hand through his dark hair and sighed. "I don't know how much longer I can keep this up," he confessed.
"What do you mean?"
"The Doctor, he...Romana, he's changed. He's not the same man I went to the Academy with, and he's certainly not the man you remember."
She released a whistling breath through her teeth. "I figured as much when I first saw him. It doesn't surprise me."
"No, Romana," Ashken said firmly. "That's not it. There's more to it than just him being a different man, it's what yo...we've done to him. We changed him. And he's angry."
She caught the word change and frowned at him. "Oh, don't hold back, Ashken. You were going to say I changed him, weren't you?"
"Do I have to?"
Romana sighed as she resumed her previous pacing. "I don't know. Perhaps."
"So why did you do it?" Ashken asked. "Why did you do this to him?"
She whirled to face him, her face a study in despair. "I don't know! All right? I don't!" Romana exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air in dismay. "Once it was so clear. I had to do it. I had to...to..."
"Get your revenge?" the Castellan suggested, wincing at the look she shot his way.
"No! It wasn't like that. He...I...It wasn't revenge."
"Then what was it, Romana? He was your friend. He was my friend. And we've been hiding from him on your orders."
"To protect us," she whispered.
"Don't you mean to protect yourself?" Ashken replied. He knew her, far better than any other Time Lord. He knew her wants, her desires, and her thoughts sometimes far better than she did. Yet he could not be right. He could not.
"He was going to kill us. He would've killed us. He was willing to throw it all away and for what? He was going to kill us!"
Ashken's lips narrowed as he regarded her through hooded eyes. "And he would've been right to. It was the only way possible. The only way to defeat the Daleks."
"We had ways of surviving. We had another option. We would've..."
"But he didn't know that," he pointed out. "He made his choice. And, for him, it was the right one."
"I tried to tell him," she replied, dropping her head to hide her expression behind the curtain of her hair. "But the Dalek interference with our communications...he didn't know."
"We've talked of this before, Romana. And each time, you told me the same thing. You said that you would tell him, that you would bring him back. Yet, each time you had the opportunity you held back."
"What do you want from me? To say I'm sorry? Fine, I am sorry. I wish I had never..." She shook her head. "I wish I could take back what I had done, but I can't change the past. What's done is done."
"Then tell him that."
Romana sighed deeply and for a moment her slender frame resembled that of Atlas, bowed under the weight of the world. "He wouldn't understand it, not when I don't understand it myself."
"I think you do understand it, Romana. You just don't want to face what it might mean," Ashken replied, his eyes staring intently into hers.
"I..." She turned away, refusing to acknowledge what Ashken was trying to force her to admit. Even she did not wish to examine her hearts that closely.
"Romana, please."
"No. I don't understand it. I don't! All right?" Maybe she was living in denial. Maybe...no. She did not have to listen to this. "This conversation is over."
"You're going to have to face him," Ashken said softly. "And he's not going to accept your avoidance."
"I know. I just wish I knew what to do..." Her voice trailed off into a deep sigh.
"You can't hide forever, Romana."
She drew in a deep breath, letting the cool air fill her lungs to capacity before releasing it slowly. "No time like the present, no? Send for him, Ashken." She just wished that she could find the words to tell him the truth. Provided, of course, that she was ready to accept it herself.
To be concluded...
xposted everywhere: dark_aegis, time_and_chips, dwfiction
Author: Gillian Taylor
Rating: PG
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Romana II
Summary: When the foundations of his ninth life are shattered, what is left?
Spoilers: Dalek, The Long Game, and ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’
Disclaimer: Don't own them. I just like playing with them...a lot.
Archive: Sure, just let me know.
A/N: So, blame wendymr on this one. She wanted a sequel to ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ and lo and behold, here it is. :) However, as a warning, Romana does not come across as a very nice character in this. Thanks to my lovely betas wendymr and nnwest .
Chapter One
Chapter Two
There were no words for the emotions cascading through his mind. Anger did not fit it. Rage was somewhat better, but even that failed to encompass the complexity of the emotion. If it could be distilled, the vintage of the Doctor's emotion would be a harsh brew laced with bitter betrayal. The only spark of light left to him was the feel of Rose's hand within his own. He had dared, both with his eyes and the set of his jaw, for Ashken to comment. He needed Rose, now more than ever. He had been betrayed by his people, by Romana. And the Lord President had the audacity to tell him that she owed him nothing?
He fought against the bitter laugh that threatened to emerge from his tortured soul. Of everything that he had ever imagined, the mere idea that Gallifrey survived had never dawned upon him. The memory of flames and explosions, the recollection of the death knell of his people (or so he thought), set his chiseled features into stone. Despite everything, despite his wishes to the contrary, he found himself wishing for the illusion. When Gallifrey was gone, everything had been far simpler. When Gallifrey was gone, he had not known the extent of Romana's betrayal. When Gallifrey was gone, he still had some belief in the innate goodness of his people, of Romana. Now, even that was robbed from him.
He followed Ashken, leading Rose through the halls of the Panopticon toward the medical centre. He knew that she was burning with curiosity, but she restrained herself from asking any questions. She knew him too well, and he squeezed her hand in silent thanks. "Why?" he asked.
Ashken's steps faltered and he turned to face the Doctor and his companion. "It's not my place..."
"To hell with your 'place,' Ashken! I've spent the past year thinkin' that I was the last, an' for what? 'Cause Romana said so? I just want to know why!"
"Only she can answer that, Doctor," the Castellan said sadly.
The Doctor dropped Rose's hand and strode forward, shoving his former friend against one of the walls. "I won't accept that! Ashken, we were friends!"
Ashken winced, both from the force of his impact against the wall and from the other man's words. "Yes, we were. I'm sorry, Doctor."
"Doctor!" Rose said, putting her hand onto his shoulder in a half-hearted attempt to calm him. "Please, this isn't like you."
Reluctantly, he released his grip, letting Rose draw him away. He turned his burning gaze upon the Castellan and told him in a deadened tone, "That isn't good enough."
"No," Ashken agreed. "It isn't. But that's all that I can give you." Without another word, he continued down the hallway, pausing only when he noticed they were not following him. "The medical centre is just down this hallway."
"I think I know where it is, Ashken," the Doctor replied bitterly.
"I know you do, Doctor. However, I have my orders..."
"Orders!" he shouted. "Just like it was orders to keep me in the dark? Just like it was orders for you to let me think that you, the lot of you, were dead?"
The Doctor heard, rather than saw, Rose draw in a breath at his words and he turned toward her. She looked terrified.
That was when he realised. She was terrified of him. "Rose, I..."
She shook her head mutely. Her expressive face reflected both fear and sorrow. Some of which, he was certain, was of him, but most of it was for him. "'Salright, Doctor."
"No, 's not." He shook his head. He touched her face in a gentle caress before pulling her into a loose hug. "'M sorry." The Doctor had never intended on her seeing this side of him. He knew, all too well, that this incarnation carried a darkness within him that was due to the events of the War. Or, considering what he knew now, that was due to Romana.
"'Sokay," Rose murmured into his jacket.
He was about to reply when Ashken's unwelcome voice interrupted him. "Doctor." He could hear the disapproval in the Castellan's tone, but he did not care. What he thought, what any of the Time Lords thought, did not matter. Not after what they had done.
"C'mon," Rose said, smiling faintly. "Looks like our guide's gettin' anxious." She pulled away from the hug and reached down to entwine their fingers.
"Yeah."
"You know that it's not allowed for a Time Lord..." Ashken's voice trailed off at the infuriated glance the Doctor gave him.
"Didn't care for your rules before, and still don't. So shut it," he snapped. "Let's just get this over with."
The Castellan looked as if he wished to say more, but he wisely remained silent. "Right this way."
He walked in silence as his thoughts churned over memories of the past year. He had spent what had seemed to be a lifetime in a glaze of pain after the war, when he had dragged himself burned and bloodied to the console and set the controls. He had hoped, since he had though that he had seen his home burn, that he too would fade. The end of the Doctor. The destroyer of homes. The destroyer of worlds. The oncoming storm. The 'winner' of the Time War. He had prayed for an end - that somehow Death, fickle though she might be, would have pity on him and let his eighth life be his last. The miracle of the Time Lords denied in punishment, or perhaps in pity, of the sole survivor of that race.
Death, however, had other plans for him. The moment he had felt the tell-tale burn of regeneration start in his cells he knew. He would live. Even Death denied him. And now? Now he realised that the reality of his life was far worse than Death's denial. Instead, it was a life built upon a fiction. He had known that he had destroyed Gallifrey just as he had known he was the last. There was only Rose, the light in his darkness, to keep him anchored in the storm of his existence. It was all a lie and it burned.
"This is where I leave you," Ashken said, bringing the Doctor out of his thoughts. "The healers will tend to your ills. Romana will send for you when she is ready to receive you." He bowed formally to the Doctor and hesitated before repeating the gesture for Rose. A moment later, he was gone.
The Council, she had long ago decided, was full of the worst stuffed shirts in the cosmos. Their inane prattling tended to give her headaches, especially when it dealt with the final events of the war. They had asked her to explain herself. They had asked her to explain why the Doctor had returned. She had found their demands increasingly difficult before she had told them, in no uncertain terms, that she need not explain herself to them. However, she knew that that would hold them at bay for only so long.
She paced her office, head bowed, as she considered both the Council's demands and the arrival of the Doctor. There were facets of herself that she was hesitant to explore, and a good number of them dealt with the Doctor. Life had been so much simpler when it had been herself and the jovial Doctor, travelling through the universe in a battered blue police box. It had been simpler before the concerns of a planet and the traitorous emotions of her own hearts had led to a decision which could not be taken back. She dodged the thought with practised ease. She did not wish to examine what had happened. The past could never be changed, especially if one was a Time Lord. There were rules, after all.
The muffled squeak of the door caught her attention and she whirled to face her Castellan. "Yes?" The word was spoken harshly, and she winced at the sound. "Sorry, Ashken."
He ran a careless hand through his dark hair and sighed. "I don't know how much longer I can keep this up," he confessed.
"What do you mean?"
"The Doctor, he...Romana, he's changed. He's not the same man I went to the Academy with, and he's certainly not the man you remember."
She released a whistling breath through her teeth. "I figured as much when I first saw him. It doesn't surprise me."
"No, Romana," Ashken said firmly. "That's not it. There's more to it than just him being a different man, it's what yo...we've done to him. We changed him. And he's angry."
She caught the word change and frowned at him. "Oh, don't hold back, Ashken. You were going to say I changed him, weren't you?"
"Do I have to?"
Romana sighed as she resumed her previous pacing. "I don't know. Perhaps."
"So why did you do it?" Ashken asked. "Why did you do this to him?"
She whirled to face him, her face a study in despair. "I don't know! All right? I don't!" Romana exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air in dismay. "Once it was so clear. I had to do it. I had to...to..."
"Get your revenge?" the Castellan suggested, wincing at the look she shot his way.
"No! It wasn't like that. He...I...It wasn't revenge."
"Then what was it, Romana? He was your friend. He was my friend. And we've been hiding from him on your orders."
"To protect us," she whispered.
"Don't you mean to protect yourself?" Ashken replied. He knew her, far better than any other Time Lord. He knew her wants, her desires, and her thoughts sometimes far better than she did. Yet he could not be right. He could not.
"He was going to kill us. He would've killed us. He was willing to throw it all away and for what? He was going to kill us!"
Ashken's lips narrowed as he regarded her through hooded eyes. "And he would've been right to. It was the only way possible. The only way to defeat the Daleks."
"We had ways of surviving. We had another option. We would've..."
"But he didn't know that," he pointed out. "He made his choice. And, for him, it was the right one."
"I tried to tell him," she replied, dropping her head to hide her expression behind the curtain of her hair. "But the Dalek interference with our communications...he didn't know."
"We've talked of this before, Romana. And each time, you told me the same thing. You said that you would tell him, that you would bring him back. Yet, each time you had the opportunity you held back."
"What do you want from me? To say I'm sorry? Fine, I am sorry. I wish I had never..." She shook her head. "I wish I could take back what I had done, but I can't change the past. What's done is done."
"Then tell him that."
Romana sighed deeply and for a moment her slender frame resembled that of Atlas, bowed under the weight of the world. "He wouldn't understand it, not when I don't understand it myself."
"I think you do understand it, Romana. You just don't want to face what it might mean," Ashken replied, his eyes staring intently into hers.
"I..." She turned away, refusing to acknowledge what Ashken was trying to force her to admit. Even she did not wish to examine her hearts that closely.
"Romana, please."
"No. I don't understand it. I don't! All right?" Maybe she was living in denial. Maybe...no. She did not have to listen to this. "This conversation is over."
"You're going to have to face him," Ashken said softly. "And he's not going to accept your avoidance."
"I know. I just wish I knew what to do..." Her voice trailed off into a deep sigh.
"You can't hide forever, Romana."
She drew in a deep breath, letting the cool air fill her lungs to capacity before releasing it slowly. "No time like the present, no? Send for him, Ashken." She just wished that she could find the words to tell him the truth. Provided, of course, that she was ready to accept it herself.
To be concluded...
xposted everywhere: dark_aegis, time_and_chips, dwfiction