"You wanted a big red button," says the Moment sarcastically, peering down at the interface's surface. A large, rose-like toggle rests on a stalk that rises from the box. The form of his future wife Annalise gives him an encouraging half-smile. Though he cannot remember her entirely, he can see why he would choose this woman to be his bride (if it was even a choice at all). Even with another entity taking her likeness, she is lovely and gentle.
Her striking clear blue eyes darken slightly. "One big bang," she goes on. "No more Timelords, and no more daleks. Are you sure?"
"I was sure when I came in here," he replies simply. "There is no other way."
"You've seen the men you will become."
She almost sounds as if she is warning him, but he does not see it as foreboding. He lets the memory of his future selves flood his mind: their brilliance, patience, and humor, and the fact that they could still smile and one day, fall in love like he never had before. "Those men," he says, shaking his head. "Extraordinary."
"They were you," she defends him.
"No," the Warrior immediately tells her. Her eyebrows rise into her curly hair. "They are the Doctor."
"You're the Doctor, too."
"No..." He lowers himself onto his knees, poising his hand over the flower-shaped button. "Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame... whatever the cost." He moves his hand closer to the knob, but he hesitates as his ears pick up on the sound, ghostly and distant, of children's laughter. It haunts the innermost reaches of his brain. Trying to clear it, he shakes his head, eyes flickering up to the Moment. She stares at him, not quite pityingly but with a sadness much deeper, as if she feels all the pain he is experiencing by this one decision.
"You know the sound the TARDIS makes?" she inquires quietly. "That wheezing, groaning, rusty, terribly old sound? It brings hope wherever it goes."
The Warrior smiles to himself. "Yes... Yes, I like to think it does."
"To anyone who hears it, Doctor," the Moment enforces. "Anyone. No matter how lost."
The Warrior's head perks up as the familiar noise hits his ears, the very one she had just been describing so passionately.
"Even you."
YOU ARE READING
The Time of Change
FanfictionThere are some people who seem destined for greatness. There are others who seem stuck on the path of failure. For most of her life, Annalise Song felt as if she was the unhappy median between the two: bound to be nothing more than mediocre and soli...
