Unfinished Symphony-E8-The Other Side-Part Four
Prelude
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Unfinished Symphony Episode Eight
The Other Side-Part Four
“The way you told it to me, the world had been overran by Daleks.”, Ben started sitting on his couch. His heart rate was steady, his breathing controlled, he was completely forthcoming and honest about everything. As if under a trance. “You had gone to the future and seen the world overran by Daleks and for some reason that set something off in you.”
The Doctor was siting next to him, absorbing everything he said. “How had they taken over?”, he prodded.
“You mentioned a monk, a monk and a brigade.”, he said staring off into the distance.
“The Meddling Monk”, the Doctor swore. In his...in the other time the Meddling Monk had been a Time Lord who had gone mad and begun traveling through the universe intentionally altering time lines. But he had never known him to be a member of the Trickster's Brigade, that kernel of information was new. If the monk had been a member...then a lot of things started to make sense. The Doctor asked Ben, “How did you get involved?”
In his time Ben had come along a full year or so after the incident with the Monk, he was curious to how the events were altered.
“You came and recruited me, off my ship.”, he said with a slight smile, “You told me you needed help saving the world.”
The Doctor could see the younger man smile back from time and he could see the glimmer of his Ben in there, “Did I say why?”, he prompted the older man.
He nodded slowly, “You said you told yourself.”
“Why would I say that?”, One said out loud. The Doctor covered his mouth for a moment as half a dozen responses came to the tip of his tongue, none of them his. A deep breath later he said, “Did I explain in more detail?”
“Yes. It was the basis of Doctor of Two Worlds.”, he said still staring off.
The Doctor had memorized the fictional Doctor's adventures and knew it was an episode from the First Doctor's TV show. “Explain.”
“A Doctor from another universe contacted this Doctor, and told him about the Trickster's Brigade and the Monk's interference. The other Doctor told him all about what was to come, and what he must do.”, Ben rambled off the incredible facts like it was a common occurrence, but he had never met another universes version of himself before. In fact as far as he knew it wasn't possible.
“What did the other Doctor say?”, he asked Ben.
“He said that things were moving faster here than in his world, and that because of that, my Doctor wasn't going to be set to repel the Brigade. And because of that, they would overrun his world as well. And something needed to be done.”, again Ben was speaking only the truth, even though it sounded like one of the plots of his fictional show.
The Doctor's mind raced, if events in this world moved faster than the other, it was possible that events would occur sooner than before. But he hadn't been with Ben when he fought the Monk, so why would he go and have him the young sailor? “Ben, did the other Doctor tell yours that he needed to come get you? Did he say why?”
“He said it was a dangerous mission, and if he was going to die, I needed to be there. I needed to be the witness of it and that I was the only one I could trust.”, even though in his state, the sound of pride crept into his voice and that familiar shine in his eyes the Doctor remembered.
Ben was one of his more loyal companions. In fact when he regenerated to his second form, Ben actually didn't believe him, and wanted to know where the Doctor was. He was like a guard dog when protecting the Doctor, and if he had never met Sarah Jane or even Peri, he would have listed Ben as one of the most trustworthy he had seen. Which meant the Doctor from the other side had to have been Two, since Three had been imprisoned on Earth for the first part of his life.
The question was when did Two come to this world? And more importantly why didn't he remember it?
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Rose stood and stared at the offered hand, “How is this? How are you me?”
The Bad Wolf entity smiled, “Because you are taking his hand in the basement right now, you are dancing with him around the control room right now, Mickey is hooking up the chains to the panel right now, and you are staring into the heart right now.”, it said with Rose's voice, “All of it happens at the same time Rose, not one after each another. There is no after in the universe.”
“There is no after to you.”, Rose said trying not to be terrified.
“There is no after for you either, but you refuse to accept that.”, the entity walked around the motionless camp, still frozen in stasis, “Time is an illusion Rose, and to see through that illusion is to see the universe for what it really is.”
“And what is that?”, Rose asked, knowing in her heart she didn't want the answer.
“A battlefield.”, it said looking at her with glowing eyes, “A giant chess game with the two sides playing against each other, each side moving against the other. Every action.”, she walked by Luke, “Every person, every decision one more move towards the other.”, she stopped and looked to where the rift once was, “This has been moving forever Rose. He is on that planet finding Susan, he is in his classroom finding out he had been found guilty, he is in that junk yard arguing with her teachers, he is there letting her go.”, she looked back, “Every action, every move, its all leading to the same place.”
“Where?”, Rose asked.
“To the end. The end of the beginning.”, it said cryptically.
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“So what happened to the Doctor?”, he asked Ben, “Your Doctor.”
“After the other Doctor left, he went and found me. He told me he was an adventurer and I had been chosen to assist him on a great journey.”, he smiled again, “I was 19, in the Navy for less than a year and an adventure sounded a fair better than swabbing decks forever. So I left with him, just went into the box and left my old life behind.”
“Where did you go?”, the Doctor prodded.
Ben paused, wincing as if in pain for a moment. After a second he continued, “He wanted to go to...a planet. Scaris or something.”
“Skaro”, the Doctor corrected.
“Yes”, his eyes widened, “Skaro, we were supposed to go to Skaro.”, his voice trailed off, as if he was getting sleepy.
He had never gone to Skaro at that point, in fact it was his fourth regeneration that had traveled to the Dalek homeworld to stop the Dalek empire from rising across the cosmos. It was that moment that began the events that would lead to the Time War. He wondered what it would have meant if he had gone so much earlier? “Go on Ben.”, he said when Ben stopped talking.
“Sleepy”, he said his eyes drooping, “So sleepy.”
The Doctor grabbed the old mans shoulders, “Ben, did you get to Skaro or not. Finish the story.”, again he mentally nudged him back on track, and felt something in Ben's mind move.
“No, the monk intercepted us. Used his TARDIS to throw ours back into Earth. He chased us, but his TARDIS was newer, the Doctor couldn't shake him.”, he now talked as if hypnotized, and was reliving the event again. His voice cracked and he sounded worried as he continued, “We ended up crashing in the Forest of Dean...the TARDIS was ruined, the main rotor was cracked and we were leaking arton.” The old sailor was reciting what he had heard that day with perfect memory, the Doctor rode the humans thoughts, seeing the scene with him.
He saw One desperately trying to get the old girl up and running again, but as with his time, he had never properly bonded with it, so making any real repairs was impossible. The monitor showed the Monk's ship coming into the forest after them. No doubt to gather prisoners for the Trickster's Brigade. The Doctor saw One's grim smile as he realized what had to be done next, there was no way in hell he would ever allow himself to be taken prisoner by them. He ordered Ben out of the TARDIS, giving him his journal and his cane as he began to manipulate the control panel.
He saw Ben run out of the TARDIS and look back as the last ergs of energy the old TARDIS had left was used to snag the Monk's out of space time, and forced it to materialize around the police box. Ben saw the two forms merge and overlap for a moment, and then he saw the burst of light coming from the Doctor's TARDIS as he directed the time vortex in on itself. The Monk's TARDIS, connected to the same vortex, was caught in the same loop, and the two energies collided, causing space and time to fold for a moment, altering the very fabric of this universe.
The Doctor could imagine the energy released as the two living time machines died, their death kneels screaming out, bending the very structure of the universe, cutting it off from the rest of existence. He knew the barrier that protected this world from the next, he remembered trying to pierce it for days to get Rose back the first time. It was just not compatible with the rest of the universe any more. A permanent stop gap, that would cause time here to move differently from there. He looked back to the memories and saw the rest of the image.
Ben ran into the distortion, seeing the form of the old man laying unconscious on the other side. Passing through he found himself in another place, an earlier time. This was the Forest of Dean millions of years ago. The skies were littered with flying reptiles and dinosaurs. And in the middle of this virgin world, lay the body of the Doctor.
Withered and frail, Ben could hear one faint heartbeat as the life fled his body. With one crack of an eye the old man asked Ben, “Is it done? Is it over?”
Ben nodded, holding the old man's hand, “Yes sir, he's gone.”
One smiled faintly and looked up to the skies and smiled, “One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in...in mine.”, he gave out one long breath, and then went limp. He saw Ben sit there, cradling the old man and trying not to cry at losing th bravest man he had ever met.
And then the body started to glow.
Ben jumped back as the all the exposed flesh began to give off an energy, a bright yellow glow that seemed to rush from every pore of his body. Ben watched as the glow became brighter and brighter, and then exploded outwards, slowly dimming out like a flame flickering out. And laying there, in the Doctor's clothes, was another man. Younger, with black hair and a pleasant enough face. He laid there breathing, his eyes still closed, a slight smile on his face.
And then Ben began to scream.
The Doctor's eyes flew open as he found himself screaming in Ben's living room as well. The old man collapsed off the couch, his withered hands clasped to his head as if there was a vise. The Doctor's hands slid off of Ben, and the pain receded. He watched as his former companion jerked and moaned on the floor, obviously in excruciating pain from something.
“We must know the end!”, he heard himself say out loud, in a voice that wasn't his own.
“We must save...”, he began to say and felt himself be pushed mentally aside.
“He's dying with our answers!”, another voice said and placed his hands on the old man's head.
He saw the flash of images, Ben dragging the new Doctor over to the other side. Getting him home and taking care of him until he awoke. The confusion the new Doctor had, not knowing anything about aliens or time travel. The months of frustration Ben felt as he realized, whoever this new person was, he had no idea who or what he had beens. It was as if he was an entirely new person, with no memories of the last.
The Doctor could feel Ben's life slipping away as he pulled the last dregs of information out of the humans brain. The years spent taking care of the Doctor, the confused and addled way the time lord had spent his last years, never quite fitting in the with the rest of the world. The long session she would spend with him going over the journal One had left him, and seeing the small sparks in the other man's eyes, and then watching them fade away to nothing.
And then he watched himself die again. This time as a normal human being. His hearts giving out, the frustration and anger Ben felt knowing there was nothing he could do about it. And the weeks spent, waiting for the body to change again. For the Doctor to be reborn.
And then finally giving up.
As Ben's died, the Doctor disengaged his mind from his, sensing the last memories, the desire to somehow honor the Doctor and tell the world of what he had done for them. The anger at the ignorance of the people around him, none of them believing him for a moment. And his final decision to make the Doctor fictional, hoping that someone would follow in the fictional characters footsteps, and make the world a better place.
As Ben left this plane of existence for the next, he could see the ghostly smile on his face as he knew he had lived long enough.
He had lived long enough to see the Doctor again.
The Doctor sat on the floor crying over Ben's body, knowing that again, he had lost a friend in the universe.
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“The end of what?”, Rose asked.
“The end of the beginning. We are moving towards the end of the 1st empire, and the 2nd is rising. What you do next decides it all.”, it said.
Rose gave her a sarcastic smile, “But I already decided, so what do I do?”
With no emotion whatsoever it answered back, “You do what you always do, trust him and follow.”, it cocked its head, “But you haven't made that choice yet.”
Rose tried to quelch the anger that began to burn in her heart. In an even tone she said, “I do not follow.”
“Yes you do.”, it answered back, “You followed when you took his hand, you followed when he sent you back, you followed until you could follow no more. And then you followed again. Finally you followed him when you allowed him to bring you back here.”, it said gesturing around it, “With that thing.”
Rose took a step forward with fists clenched, “He is not a thing!”, she growled.
“We are all things.”, it said, sounding slightly apologetic. “I am thing made of time and energy, you are a thing directed by love and loyalty, and he is a thing made of order and chaos.”, the glowing eyes met Rose's, “We are all things.”
“He is a man, a good man.”, she said, sounding hollow to herself.
“Good is not real, good is relative. I am not here to discuss good, I am here to discuss you and the end.”
“The end of the beginning.”, Rose offered.
“Yes, this part of the game is almost over.”, it said looking away, “What comes next depends on you.”, and then it paused, “I already said this.”
“Didn't make sense either time.”
The Bad Wolf entity looked at her and began walking forward, “You are angry. With him, with yourself, with me. It is clouding your judgment, you are incapable of making the correct decision in this state.”
Rose took a step back as it moved towards her quickly. In a flash it was next to her, one hand behind her back, the other over hovering over her eyes. They both froze for a moment, Rose in shock, the entity in pause. Finally it said, “You need to see the truth.”
And it pressed her hand over Rose's eyes. There was a flash of light and Rose's screams echoed throughout the Forest of Dean for miles.
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The Doctor moved Ben back onto the couch and placed his hands over his chest. He seemed so frail, so light, hardly the beefy boy that had traveled with him with a smile on his face. He stood there and watched him for a moment, and could not believe it was the same man. Sighing he turned and began to walk through the house.
A failed regeneration. That was what Ben had seen. One had died and regenerated, but being so close to the time vortex or possible the trauma of the TARDIS dying, had made the second completely worthless. If he had been on Gallifrey there would have been procedures, experts that could have guided the regeneration through. But he had been trapped, on Earth, because of Susan and her ghastly secrets. He had died alone and ignorant because of that choice.
Trying to push it out of his mind he examined the desks and books all over the house. He opened every drawer and looked in every box. For over an hour he searched and then began looking behind the pictures. On his third try he found it. A massive safe behind one of the life size portraits. It looked sleek and new, far too modern to be just a normal safe.
Slipping the screwdriver out he tried to use it on the door, but was not the least bit surprised to find it dead locked. Sighing he began to walk around the room and the rooms attached to it. Finally stopping in the lounge that stood directly behind the painting, he began to use the screwdriver on the wall it self. Whole chunks of the mason and brick began to burst as he made a perfect rectangle on the wall.
Within minutes he saw the metal back of the safe that was built into the every structure of the house. He pointed the device at the wall and saw the metal begin to warp and bend.
Sighing to himself he said out loud, “Typical human thought process. Dead lock the door, ignore the rest.” The back of the safe came off with a huge thud as several tons of metal fell to the ground. The Doctor could see Ben's collections of valuables. Stacks of money and bonds, some bars of what looked like gold and a bag of jewels. Important papers and documents were piled up, but on the top shelf he found what he was looking for.
His old diary and his cane.
Reaching in and grabbing both he felt a sense of deja vu, these were his yet they weren't. He could feel One stroke the top of the cane slightly as if he held it only yesterday. Yet this was not HIS cane and these not HIS words. Tucking them safely away the Doctor began to walk out the front door. Looking back at the vast mansion he couldn't help but feel sad for what came next. Waving the screwdriver he saw the gas pipe within the wall burst, causing a slight hiss to start filling the house. He moved over to the thermostat and turned the heater on. He set the temperature for a few degrees lower than it was and began to walk away. In the next few hours the sun would set, the temperature would drop and the heater would turn itself on.
And the life of Ben Jackson and his life with the Doctor would be gone.
As he walked back to the interstate, the Doctor opened the diary and began to read. Not one more thought given to poor Ben and his demise.
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Luke looked around in confusion.
Everyone in the camp was rushing about, all of them wondering where the rift had gone. Ianto and their escort looked just as upset, because Rose was nowhere to be found. They started looking about as the technicians began running the digital feeds back to see what happened to the anomaly.
Luke began wandering back into the woods, looking for his adopted mother with concern. Just outside the camp, maybe three minutes away he found her. Sitting on a tree stump crying to herself.
“Rose!”, he called out, knowing she wasn't quite comfortable with mom yet. She looked up and held her arms out as she hugged him tight. “What happened?”, he asked as he hugged her back.
She said nothing, just shook her head and cried for a while, taking comfort in that Luke was alright. They stood there for a while, him trying to make her feel better and her crying endlessly.
He didn't know why she was so miserable but he knew it wasn't good. He could sense no thoughts from her, no emotions, it was like her mind was completely sealed. He wanted to ask out loud, but knew patience would be rewarded.
Finally she disengaged herself and wiper her face, “Look at me, going on like a girl.”
“You are a girl.”, Luke said half smiling.
“Don't you ever repeat that.”, she said smiling back.
“What happened? Where is the rift?”, he asked, hungry for the information.
“It's gone, gone from here.”, she said distantly, “I know what I have to do now Luke. I know what has to be done.”
“What?”, he asked wide-eyed.
“I have to help him get out of here. I have to help him escape.”, she said, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt, what came next was the end.
The end of the beginning.
To be continued...