After…
Ashes were all that remained of the red grass that had formerly graced the slopes of Mount Perdition. Indeed, ashes were all that were left of my home, once the Dalek fleet had taken to strafing the areas beyond the transduction barriers. I had returned to bury Quintus and Innocet, for there was no one else available to do so. Mother was in with the High Council, trying to temper the newly resurrected Rassilon's growing madness with a voice of reason. Good luck on that, I had told her. Better chance of holding back the tide with a broken mop and catching the fickle winds with a rusted sieve. Or even yet, dissuading a bunch of indoctrinated fools from throwing themselves in the grim jaws of death.
Rumors abounded of those who'd been caught in quantum spacial loops upon the point of regeneration. The flames of renewal burning in an endless loop until someone fetched a demat gun to collapse the causality field around them and in so doing, bring a finally mercy to those caught in that trap. They'd start the change, but their cells wouldn't stabilize, flickering from one state, into the next and the next after that... screams of agony ripped from their throat. Rumor also had it that the regeneration limit meant nothing when someone got caught in one of those spots, though none could say where they'd come from in the first place. Some said they were traps set by the Daleks, Davros' newest contribution to the war. Others said it was something invented by our own scientists and had gone awry, slipped out of all means to control it. Whispers passed along in the dark of night or told around watch fires, chilling the hearts of all. Pestilence and plague upon us all, it was nothing but our own hubris, come to nip us in the behinds as our just reward, simple as that.
I preferred to walk, feeling the bones of the land beneath my feet instead of the newly fallen for a change, knowing all too well this could be the last time I did so. I didn't care the distance it was from the Citadel- what did it matter anymore? Tomorrow the planet could be destroyed, or I could find myself caught up like other unfortunates had. Death would come for us all; some, sooner than others. There, but for the grace of fate, go any of us...
A maypole stood outside a burned and deserted village not far from what once had been home. The children's ribbons were left hanging, their colors the only bright patches amongst the grey desolation around me. Even the orange skies above were as such, ash and smoke forming clouds that blotted out the sun, dulling the gleam of the silver leaves on the few remaining trees still standing. It was so harsh, so incomparable to what I had once known. Elliot was so right when he'd said one couldn't go home again. Certainly not when home was the pale shade of what it once had been, some place that seemingly only existed in my mind now. No wonder Mother had deferred on the chance to come back- there was nothing to come back to.
Mercifully, no bodies had been left along that abandoned road; I could but hope they'd all found refuge before the disaster struck. To have seen them- those whose faces I would've known or possibly not- it would've broken my hearts just the little bit more than they already were. No, I would go on in the fervent belief that they still lived, that somewhere those children would grow up, flourish, and someday know peace. A man can dream, can't he? Until then, there were respects to be paid to those who'd never asked for this war, hadn't done anything to bring down its consequences upon themselves. It was always the innocents that paid in blood, never just the ones who started the mess, as it should be. Victory was measured in footholds gained and enemy forces put into retreat, but at what cost? What price was worth enough for futures that wouldn't happen, lost joy, and a surcease of fear? Nothing was, nothing.
My hands reached for a ribbon, inexorably drawn to the brightness even as I pulled away. What right had I to defile such innocent things with my own bloodstained hands, even if those who'd played with them were since departed? None at all, I thought, closing my eyes in grief. Where there was life there was hope. There was no life here. Opening my eyes again, I took in the looming shapes of the mountains around me. The smoking rubble of my former House just barely visible on the hillside above, even as a solemn mantra took form within my breast: No more.
Before....
"Mother, I can't do this."
She looked at me gravely, eyes unquestioning and gentle, even as her lips pursed. "You know your duty, my son."
I looked down at my hands, stiff with the dried blood of yet another person that I couldn't save. Cracked and weathered skin told a tale of much labor and hardship down in the trenches, but it wasn't really true. I was still alive, where was the hardship in that? Somehow I had survived battles where no one else had walked away, lowly medic that I was. If I was lucky, I got there before the fighting started and managed to whisk away the people who'd have been slaughtered otherwise. Sometimes, if I was even more lucky, no one turned back time and changed it all. Today wasn't one of those days. I had saved one family- just one- coming back to Hyloglobia Three moments after I had left, and there they were: twisted and bloodied beneath the wreckage of a Battle TARDIS. The mother was the last one still breathing; only living long enough to peer at me with accusation in her eyes and her remaining arm wrapped around her slain babe, protecting it, even in death. I got there even as those eyes grew dim and her life force fled, barely in time to say 'sorry'. I didn't know if she'd even heard me, much less did it matter if she had. What use was the heartsfelt apology of the one who'd been unable to save her?
Now, weariness traced every line and ached deep within me- another constant companion I had gained. Everyone said I had to do my duty, take up arms and join the ranks, but still I was determined to do no such thing. "I could go back... see them all one last time, before I..." I looked up, words drying up in my throat.
Somehow, she understood. "Then go, do what you must. You'll have to return when the time has come, but until then... go."
Ducking my head in shame, I went. It wasn't the first time I had fled Gallifrey and I doubt it'll be the last. War or no war, things would sort out in the end. Peace would eventually come to Gallifrey, once cooler heads prevailed. Romana was working to have the special dispensations allowing time stream interference and the use of chrono-loops revoked. Eventually even the Daleks would run out of artillery and they'd scurry on back to Skaro. They'd restored that back to existence long since, provoking this conflict from a slow simmer to a rapid boil with it.
Somehow, even watching the column in the center of my TARDIS console as I made my escape failed to be as relaxing as it formerly was. Skaro's destruction was one more on my list of inequities and failures, along with that accursed nursery. Never mind that it had been the Time Lords plan all along, and I'd only the desire at the time to be a harmless traveller; a wanderer in the fourth dimension, as it were. Have I the right...? No, but I was just as guilty for starting this mess, wasn't I? I was there when it all started.
Even with that, I couldn't go back. Not then. It wasn't until much later that I went, forced by necessity and the Sisterhood of Karn's machinations. Weeks, years, decades I spent, scooping up survivors wherever I could, until none dared follow me to the safety I offered. What was the point, when there was nowhere safe left and none would trust my kind. I went when there was nothing else more blatantly obvious: what use was there for a Doctor? So I became what I am now: a Warrior.
