No vision of the morrow's strife,
The warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms....
- "Bivouac of the Dead"
by Thomas O'Meara
Memory had finally returned, in the wake of leaving Anji and Fitz. Memory, along with that damned Time Scoop, hauling me and my TARDIS from the midst of the Vortex. Sparks raining down around the console; smoke that would've choked me, if it wasn't for the respiratory bypass, thick in the air. The Cloister Bell sounding the alarm, I forced through the doors. Lips tight with anger at the sheer stupidity of the act, I strode forth, onto the marble floor of the High Chambers. Stepping up to Romana, standing close enough to loom as best I could, I ground out, nearly shaking with rage, "Have you any possible idea what you could've done, what destruction on a universal scale you could have wrecked?"
I firmly ignored the ranks of stodgy council members, all with their fancy, high collars and expressions of superiority and distaste. "And for what, another meaningless reprimand, another folly of an errand that needs doing that would involve one of this lot risking the dangers of actually doing something that means something, otherwise?"
Romana's face tightened, but she remained unmoved in the face of my tirade. She began to pace, hands tucked behind her back, Presidential robes trailing behind her. I had taught her well, mentored her carefully- or so I'd thought- but not for the likes of this, such subterfuge and brashness. Such folly. Amongst other things, I thought I had at least taught her the concepts of subtlety, of considering the possible consequences that could effect other species beyond Gallifrey's sphere. Apparently not.
"No, Doctor. This time, it's not any of those things. No Keys, no Borusa scheming in the shadows, no farcical trial, nor anyone scheming for control of the Matrix." She paused, adding with a raised brow, "Not even the Master, though he's returned as well, now."
Shock and outrage burned hot within. Just as I had begun to have hope that maybe they might have learned, moved beyond the folly of their ways, there was this. This. "He's dead," I denied flatly, hoping it was still true. Foolish, damnable hope. A fool, I was. Still am, more's the pity.
Romana waved a hand in dismissal, also pretending that this was a private audience. "The Resurrection Glove; we restored his regeneration cycle."
"Have you all gone mad in the time I've been gone," I sputtered. "What reason could there possibly be to inflict that psychopathic lunatic on the cosmos? Aren't there enough planets in ruins, enough dead scattered across far flung worlds, enough widows and orphans for all of time?" I retorted, shaking my head. Stupider and stupider, to paraphrase poor little lost Alice. My outrage knew no bounds this time. "He even blocked a fire plug with a stolen vehicle, the last go around. An ambulance, of all things! Not to mention the death and destruction he left behind him. I tell you what, the Daleks had it right, for once." I crossed my arms over my chest, glancing around to see if any of my words were actually doing more than falling upon deaf ears. "If I'd not reversed the time stream, there'd be no earth, much less a very unhappy fire brigade, all because of him. What reason could there possibly be for such madness as this?"
"It was necessary."
"Oh, I think not. Have you any exactitude of the dangers the Resurrection Glove poses, even disregarding who you've brought back? Things happen for a reason. Everything has it's time; everything dies. I thought you, of all people, would grasp that. Call me the meddling, sentimental fool, pah!" I shook my head in dismay, finally taking in the appearance of the council members standing in their precise ranks, behind her. Normally unblemished robes were frayed at the hems, head pieces and high collars askew, perennially impassive eyes tired and worn. Something was wrong; very wrong, that I could not dismiss. What, had Leela set fire to their precious archives of endless files and forms done in triplicate? Narvin gone mad and defiled their stately courtly rituals and trampled his robes of state and run screaming for the hills to go live with the hermit on the side of Mount Perdition?
None of that, I would soon find. Sadly so.
"War, Doctor." At first a low murmur, barely heard and barely grasped in meaning, it meant little to my ears. Clever Romana, she must have known it as she turned, raising her chin, and repeating coldly, "War has come to Gallifrey."
Wise men and mystics spread across the galaxies still speak of it, in legends and tales told on dark nights under millions of different worlds, with starscapes you couldn't even dream of. People who never even, couldn't possibly have even fathomed, much less known what happened then. They speak in hushed, reverent tones of a war in heaven.
I suppose then, that you could call it that- a war with demons and fallen angels, even. All played out among a thousand different time lines that will be, can be, should be, and must never happen. All ending in a flash, over eons, millennia, all in a mere Moment. But call them not angels, for we were all far from that lofty and exalted appellation. Though, the demons, of those there were aplenty. And more; the Nightmare Child, the Horde of Travesties, the Could-Have-Been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres... The horrors your little mind couldn't even imagine. You wouldn't want to; you'd go mad, as I have. Even I couldn't have grasped the scope of things, when the summons came that fateful day. No one could've, not even the Seer.
As for fallen, we all fell in the end. As we must, with all remaining innocence lost in the face of brutal reality. None so more than I. Because I watched it happen. I made it happen.
This, this is my story. Now listen closely....
