Doctor Who: Phoenix Unbound

“The only difference between past and present is semantics. Lives, lived, will live. Dies, died, will die. If we could perceive time as it truly was, what reason would grammar professors have to get out of bed?”

He has just enough time to register a bright, blinding light and a thunderous sound like iron wheels turning. Then he fully materialises, coughing and struggling to breathe behind the glass.
He opens the door carefully and steps out, closing it behind him.
There’s no one else to follow him, someone always follows him when he steps through a door, and that brings back the memory, the grief, the impotent fury.

“If you think because she is dead, I am weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her, and you're not afraid, then you understand nothing at all.”
The last grains of sand trickle through his fingers, seconds in the hourglass of Time.
“So, for your own sake, understand this. I am the Doctor. I'm coming to find you, and I will never, ever stop.”

“Ash on an old man's sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave. 
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house- 
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse, 
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air.”

It’s a castle.
He hates castles, he hates gardening, he hates just about everything right now.
“Come on! Chop, chop! The Doctor will see you now! Show me what you've got! I just watched my best friend die in agony."
(Don’t. Shut it out, keep it out, or you’ll break).
“My day can't get any worse.”
(Really, he should know better than to tempt the universe like this, but he just doesn’t care, he’s too angry to care at this moment).
Then there’s a glimpse of something through a window, and sounds, thumps, footsteps getting closer.
Flies, an approaching shadow.
Right. Find a way out.

“Er, I can't actually see a way out of this. I've finally run out of corridor. There's a life summed up.”
Breathe, Doctor. Focus.
What, am I not allowed to be afraid? Where’s that written?
A wall, just a wall behind him, cold, indifferent stone.
(So what?)
“Oh, now this is new. I'm scared. I just realised that I'm actually scared of dying.”
The adrenaline coursing through his veins and a really great, well-honed survival instinct, he supposes. You don’t live this long without one.
But it genuinely takes him by surprise and it’s completely ridiculous.
Dying? Really?
That’s the worst thing that can happen to him?
(“What Adonais is, why fear we to become?”)
And freeze. 

What’s in the next room makes him want to run back out, run for the Veil.
(Detach yourself. Detach yourself. Why is this here?)
“Old. Very old. Possibly very, very old.”
(He still considers leaving the flowers before the painting, but he doesn’t have the time).

He jumps.
“Should hit the water in about point zero two seconds. The chances of remaining conscious are–”
Snap to black.
Lights coming back online and the sound of chalk scraping on the blackboard.
Oh, questions. Figures. Please, no questions. Why questions?
“Can't I just sleep?”
(“No more let Life divide what Death can join together”.)
The chalk is insistent. Good teachers get inside people’s heads and they don’t leave.
“Do I have to know everything?”
Yes, yes you do. And you also have to do another thing.
“Clara, I can't always...”
(Start winning, Doctor.)
(I'm giving you an order.)
His eyes open. He forces them to.
She should never have to ask.

“There are flood and drought 
Over the eyes and in the mouth, 
Dead water and dead sand 
Contending for the upper hand. 
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth. 
This is the death of earth.”

There is a flash of memory, something trying to come to the surface when he finds the identical clothes by the fire, so convenient, but he dismisses it. No time, no time to lose. Alright, he’ll go and dig after all.

“There are truths that I can never tell. Not for anything. But I'm scared and I'm alone. Alone, and very, very scared.”

“I didn't leave Gallifrey because I was bored! That was a lie! It's always been a lie!”
Getting horribly killed inside the grave you yourself just dug must set a new universal record for irony.
“Not enough? You want more? I was scared! I ran because I was scared! Is that what you want me to say? Is that true enough for you?”

(Thank heavens it’s enough).

Find room 12. Take notes. No time to rest; tick off the seconds, Time Lord.
Run, it’s getting closer. The constant anxiety is gnawing away at him. The countdown never stops. But the countdown to what?

“I think this whole place is inside a closed energy loop, constantly recycling. Or maybe I'm in Hell? That's okay. I'm not scared of Hell”.
Because it’s alright, he’s seen it coming. The road is paved with good intentions and all that. (Whenever they are good).  
And he was lost a long time ago.
And because if Hell is this never-ending horribleness, Heaven must be absolutely amazing and Clara–
Clara.
…Then, maybe, he shouldn’t be this sad about it.

“It's just Heaven for bad people.”
Surely he’s not so bad as to deserve forever?
(“Ah, well now, who can say?” He smiles down at the child. “Forever is a very long time”).
He snaps out of the memory and lets the spoon drop.
Run. It’s coming, it’s always coming.

“Water and fire succeed 
The town, the pasture and the weed. 
Water and fire deride 
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot 
The marred foundations we forgot, 
Of sanctuary and choir. 
This is the death of water and fire.”

Oh, there’s a skull. Alas, poor Yorick.
The word in the sand draws his attention, but the stars are wrong, how can the stars be wrong, he hasn’t time travelled, he’s sure of it– and it catches up with him.
The flies are getting annoying, really.
“I confess, I know the Hybrid is real. I know where it is, and what it is. I confess, I'm afraid.”
Room 12, room 12, room 12…Home?
Bird.
No. No no no–

“That's when I remember! Always then. Always then. Always exactly then! I can't keep doing this, Clara! I can't! Why is it always me? Why is it never anybody else's turn?”
Impossible. Absolutely impossible. And not in a good way, this.
“Can't I just lose? Just this once?”
Please, oh please, just say yes. Please, just let me stop.
“Easy. It would be easy. It would be so easy. Just tell them. Just tell them, whoever wants to know, all about the Hybrid.”
Or he can charge that thing right now, embrace the deadly, agonising touch and then just lie there on the corridor and not stir a muscle (no, I refuse, I’m losing but really, you are not winning either), till it’s permanent.
Either way it’ll stop.

“I can't keep doing this. I can't! I can't always do this! It's not fair!” He’s screaming now. “Clara, it's just not fair! Why can't I just lose?”
The blackboard is merciless, denying him any respite.
“You don't understand, I can remember it all. Every time.”
Alone. Run and wait and hide and panic and be afraid and think and be tempted and into the rooms, the labyrinth, the water, to the stairs, to the garden, to the wall, to the chamber and pain and pain and death and-
All over again. Time Lord, thy name is Sisyphus.
Does he deserve forever after all?

"Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings. We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay”.

“And you'll still be gone.” He has to sit down, he’ll die. His voice breaks and he can’t hold back the tears. “Whatever I do, you still won't be there.”

Phantoms in the Tardis, in his mind. A portrait that doesn’t do her justice. A voice in the air, an echo in his hearts, letters and questions in white, the teacher standing by the blackboard, the chalk urging him on.

"Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;
And in my heartless breast and burning brain
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,
With food of saddest memory kept alive,
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part
Of thee, my Adonais! I would give
All that I am to be as thou now art!
But I am chain'd to Time, and cannot thence depart!”

And then he’s alone again, he is always alone, and how can he, how can he keep doing this?

Her voice comes back; and he sees her, he really sees her, she’s there, her hand touches his cheek and it feels like bliss.
He wants to hug her, pull her form to his chest and stay like that until the universe dies, and it will be enough, it will be paradise.
But the horror, the exhaustion, just the sight of her, pins him there, he can only gaze with reddened eyes, drinking in her words. And somehow, he’s slowly mending, a slow spark igniting in his chest, something like determination, like hope, all her doing.
“Doctor, it's time. Get up, off your arse, and win!”
(That’s how).

He does.
On your feet, push back the darkness, the despair, beat it.
Face the wall, the terrified bones in your hard already trembling, screaming, protesting against the oncoming, self-inflicted agony, what are you doing, but you won’t be needing them much longer.
It still hurts, and there’s a cry far too pained to form words.
Again. Heal yourself. You have to. Be a Doctor.
“So, do you want me to tell you a story?”

“Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us – a symbol: 
A symbol perfected in death.”

(Somewhen, petals are falling to the ground, a stool breaks a window, a skull plunges into the sea).

“Confess? Me? You're getting nothing, I’d rather die.” 
He turns to the wall, raising an arm.
“Actually, I’m about to do just that, give me a minute”.
He’s just a bloke in a box telling stories. He doesn’t even have the box now.
But stories are important (we're all stories in the end), and he’s gotten very good at telling them.

“From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire 
Where you must move in measure, like a dancer”

"There's this emperor, and he asks this shepherd's boy…”
The rest of his sentence is strangled into a breathless scream. He drops to the floor, again.
Really, why is everyone so against painless deaths all of a sudden?
It’d be so nice to just lie there, wouldn’t it? Just close your eyes, tell your bloody stupid Time Lord cells to stuff it, let go. Clara–
But the story isn’t finished.

Slowly, he drags himself up –bird bird bird bird bird– boots scraping on the tiles, like the chalk writing on the blackboard in his mind, urging him on. He pictures the soft, thin hand holding it, memorises every inflection of her voice; because he has to be strong, somehow, because she was brave, so he has to be too. 
As you wish.
This is going to take a while, isn’t it?
He’s good at talking, so he will as he stumbles out, it helps him focus, remember –even if it’s agony in the state he’s in.
“Every hundred years, a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain…”
(Species: Phoenix Perseverans Gallifreyantis)

“Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, 
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat 
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.”

(Somewhen, he dries himself in front of a fireplace, he drops a jeweller's glass to the floor, he’s picking up a skull.

“What was it like?” Horrible. Then again, I didn’t die in my bed surrounded by fat grandkids, so I’m probably not that reliable a judge.
“Does it hurt?” A lot.
“Are you still scared?”  Yes, every second.

But I’m not dead yet.)

“The truth? Sorry, can’t. I’m a liar, you see. And by the way, your torture chamber is pathetic. You can’t make a man confess after millennia? Cream of the crop, you”.
Punch, a cry.
“So go ahead. Make me die. There's nothing else you can make me do”.
Punch, a cry.
“And you know what I can do? Talk.”
Punch, a cry. Keep going.
“And-and y- you're going to listen… because there’s nobody else here…and I’m rubbish without an audience!”
Punch, a cry.
“How many seconds in eter–”

“And never a human voice comes near
To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
With soul and body marred.”

Really, if he ever gets back to Earth, he should consider a career in boxing. After all this practice? You're not Azbantium, pudding-brains.
They’d probably disqualify him though, two hearts, old mug, weird alien hormones and all that. Idiots. He’d be world champion.
I’m going crazy.
Tough. You’ll break through. There’s a nice crack, aha!
How did Ashildr put it? Over a hundred thousand hours and you're the best there's ever been.
No.
Don’t think about her.
But he does, and this time he punches the wall so violently, he shatters all of his fingers and he doubles over in pain.
Gasping, he turns to the approaching creature, and holds up a bloodied, mangled fist, a wide grin on his face.
(Because somehow, it’s so much easier to deal with, to get over the pain, and the frustrating, mounting, helpless fear for what’s about to happen when he’s smiling).

“Bodies are for losers”, he growls at it, and deliberately turns his back, turns to strike again, his whole arm shaking. “And, for your information –argh! F-For your… information, if you go around performing executions –which you shouldn’t– offering a blindfold is common courtesy, really. Actually, it’s tradition, I shouldn’t need to ask. For shame!”
It comes closer. Never faster, never slower, always coming.
Ha! Watch me.
No; actually, listen. You never let me finish, where was I? Ah!...
“And when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed…”

“What have I done to deserve this?”
“How long a list would you like?”

Live, die, repeat. Keep the secret, burn away bodies, your soul, burn away time. Dead Doctors in his head, joining the others, the not-exactly-hims-yet that came before, and all the other dead for future nightmares. How many seconds in eternity?
(Clara did it.)
The grief is there, aching, after a million, billion deaths, and in a way it’s a relief, because it means that the man who will emerge next time from the machine will still be him.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; and keep going powered by a fairytale.

“You must think that's a hell of a long time”. 
(And it is. Oh God, it is).
Again.

“The hybrid face of time and space 
And all that's in between 
Dimensions twist and turn amidst 
The whims of one foreseen...”

Gasp back to life, coughing, and run. Why is it chasing you? What is this place? You're forgetting something…
Jump. Swim. Dig. Run up the stairs. Threaten. Plead. Into the room. Dead, burning hands over his face, struggle in vain to breathe, collapse, silence. Get up, crawl, write in the dust.
Again.

He considers kicking at some point –nice, sturdy boots these– but what if he breaks a joint, an ankle, what if he cannot move even at a snail’s pace, what if he doesn’t make it in time, what if–
Quick, your life is a countdown.
Through the corridors, into the teleport chamber, grab the cables, pull the lever.
Again.

What’s really on the other side? Who cares? What will they do, threaten to kill him? He’ll laugh his head off.
The light is brighter now, shining through.
(“Small light and far in darkness great and desolate”.)
Break, damn you.
Again.

One billion years.
Whatever kills you makes you stronger. My Hell, my rules.
I’m gonna win.
Again.

Two billion years.
Crawl through the labyrinth staining it red, stumble through the door, feed the machine life.
Again.

Into the water, into the room, into the fire.
Again.

The story’s all that matters, the story, and the light through the crystal. Never give up, never give in.
Strike.
“No more confessions, sorry”.
Strike.
Come on…
Strike.
Clara…Are you a little proud of me?
Somehow, impossibly, he feels, he knows that she is.

(“I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.”)

Strike.

The creature’s two feet behind him and he lashes out at the remaining layer with all his might, crying out in fury. There’s the sound of something crumbling, the feeling of wind on his face, bright light floods in through the barrier, blinding him, and the nightmare explodes, cogwheels and shrouds falling to the floor.

“Personally, I think that's a hell of a bird."

Deep breaths. He did it.

But the story’s not over; the last chapter is yet to be told.
An eternity of torture and death is quite difficult to forgive. Her death even more so. 

You're still alone, and furious and sad. But you are a good man, even if you forget it sometimes. Do not insult my memory. Now that you saw what Hell is like, you will not inflict it on others.

What if they deserve it? 

Anything he could possibly do, is extremely less horrifying, kind, and merciful by comparison; or even by itself, really.

(“You should know, I don't always listen.”)

But he’ll try. For her, he’ll try.

He pushes the rage, the hate down as best as he can, controls it –for now, don’t push me. Careful.

The name you choose is like a promise you make.
(“I know what you're capable of. You don't be a Warrior.") 

And maybe... Just, just maybe...
("Promise me. Be a Doctor.”)

And he steps through, forward, into the light.