Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor

Oh dear, you’re still here. The trouble is, you see, I’m writing this live. The longer you keep reading this bit, the longer I have to keep writing it. You’re delaying the book for everyone.

Oh, and now you’re all giggling. I knew releasing a book on psychic paper was a mistake. But this lot, they love a gimmick. Please just turn the page. Or, if you’re listening to the audiobook version, fast forward. And those of you reading on one of those computer tablet things, please understand you are the only species in the universe who thinks they’re a good idea.

Oh for heaven’s sake. If you’re going to loiter about, I suppose I might as well do some introductions. Apologies for any typos—as I have been trying to explain, this section of the book is being written live, and I am connecting with the page in front of you through a psychic time-space link, and of course maintaining so many cognitive-paper-interfaces across the multiple time zones required for thousands of individual readers can play havoc with your spelling. Also I just spilled lemon sherbet on my keyboard, and the R is a bit sticky. But we’ll soldierrrr on, eh?

Sorry, but who’s talking? Please, don’t talk while I’m wrriting, it’s tremendously rude.

Oh, someone just closed the book, and put it back on the shelf. I think they were in a bookshop. Well that’s not very encouraging, when I’m just getting started. Never mind, we’re better off without them. Oh, they’re off to the Crime section now. Probably more their level, quite honestly.

Okay, the rest of you, eyes on page, we’re all in this together. Please don’t skip forwards or backwards, because I hate having to repeat myself. Especially in advance.

Now, the Doctor Papers, which form the bulk of this book, will not be written live. These bits are only live because I got a tiny bit sloppy about the deadline. In fact, I regret to inform you, that I’m writing to you from ten years in the future. Yes, I know, very poor, but there’s nothing like seeing your own book on sale to remind you to write it.

We’re going to start with Chapter Eight. Bit unusual, I realise, but this being the story of the end of the Time War, there really is no correct order in which to tell it, and the events on Karn are as good a place to start as any. Also I like the number 8. It’s bobbly, like two jellies on top of each other.

This chapter is known as The Night of the Doctor. It is a document from an unimpeachable source, written by one of the participants in that strange drama. The circumstances of its composition are complex and disputed, but the identity of its author should become clear in the reading. Indeed, this is your first challenge, students. Read with close attention. Our subject is authorship. Question 1 is: Who is speaking? See you afterwards for a full discussion of this, the first of the Doctor Papers. Or the eighth. Whatever.

What follows is the true story of how the Time War ended. Though not necessarily in that order.

(By the way, these pages should be appearing as italics. If not, please just give three light taps on any verb, and the page will reboot. And if you don’t like any aspects of my prose style, give the book a good shake. That should help you work off your irritation.)

Chapter 8 The Night of the Doctor

On the day I killed him, the Doctor was a happy man. Though since what made him happy was a distress call from a terrified woman who died less than seven minutes later, my conscience is clear.

At the time, he was in his eighth and final incarnation. My memory of his appearance is a little hazy, but I have a general impression of dark hair, urgent blue eyes, and a choice of clothing that was probably intended to be swashbuckling. I think there were long boots, possibly a waistcoat, and certainly one of those overcoats with the kind of collar that young men turn up against the wind in the hope that someone might use the word Byronic. He wasn’t young, of course: no one can be called young on the day of their death, when they are as old as they will ever be. But the voice echoing round the creaking, wooden cathedral of the TARDIS console room was young enough, and more than adequately terrified.

‘Hello, please, hello, can anyone hear me? This ship is crashing, please, is anyone there, can anyone hear me?’

It should be remembered, this was at the heart of the Time War, that endless savage conflict between the Daleks and the Time Lords that threatened every moment of the time continuum. It is strange to reflect that the deadliest conflict history will ever know began between a race of traumatised mutants sealed into tiny battle tanks, and an enclave of time-travelling academics, who had sworn never to interfere in the affairs of the wider universe. However, the day came when the Time Lords of Gallifrey decided that the Dalek mutants posed a threat to all reality, and so attempted to use their time-travel abilities to cancel them from existence. The attempt failed, and the Daleks used their own time-travel machines in a similar attempt to cancel out the Time Lords. And so time became a weapon in a war that could never end, and the conflict spread not only through space, but backwards and forwards through history. Days became battle lines, and century turned on century, and divergent time streams found themselves fighting each other for the right to exist. It was said, one soldier could die a thousand times in one day of that war, and discover he’d never been born the next. And so, when the Doctor heard that cry for help, there would have been countless billions across the universe suffering in exactly the same way. But this young woman had an advantage over all the others who, in that same moment, were also screaming and begging for their lives. She happened to be in earshot of a man who mistook himself for a hero.

The Doctor had always loved distress calls. They appealed to his vanity. He lived for the thrill of stepping through a door, and seeing all those faces turn towards him in hope and wonder. The danger, too, was delicious. More than delicious; over time it had become necessary. Danger is the only true palliative for a guilty man. And certainly the only drug strong enough for the Doctor.

Setting aside his tea, it took him seconds to track the signal to a little gunship, tumbling towards a red planet. There was one life sign on board, and all the engines were phasing. Clearly, there was no possibility of deflecting the ship’s course, and a tractor beam would almost certainly shatter the hull, so a manual extraction was the only possibility. He would have to materialise on board, introduce himself as dramatically as possible, and get her into the TARDIS. She would be so happy and excited to see him. He wondered, briefly, how it would look if he took his teacup with him, but decided the risk of spillage was too great.

‘Please, please, somebody, please!’

The fear in her voice would have broken any heart. The Doctor grinned. For the very last time, he slammed the levers, roared the engines, and sent the TARDIS spinning to the rescue. Although there was no one else to hear, he laughed and whooped. If anything sealed his fate, in that final hour of his existence, it was his laughter. I never wanted to hear that laugh again.

The owner of the voice was a young woman, called Cass Fermazzi. She was clever and brave and doomed. In later years, when I was able to return her remains to what was left of her family, I learned that she had grown up on one of the farm planets of the Gazrond Belt, and had stowed away on a star freighter at the age of fourteen to see the wonders of the universe and found there were no wonders left. Instead there was a war that threatened all reality. At first she ran, but one day, helping an old soldier die in a crater full of mud snakes under a burning moon, she realised there was nowhere left to hide. The following morning, the kindly medtech who closed the soldier’s eyes unclipped the bandolier from around the dead man’s chest and gave it to Cass, perhaps mistaking her for a friend or relative. Cass took the bandolier, tightened it around herself, and decided to start running in the opposite direction.

Three months later, she was crewing a gunship. Four years later, she had survived the Nightmare Child, wept at the massacre of Skull Moon and fought in the ruins of the Ulterium. On the last day of her life, she and her crew successfully repelled a Dalek fleet from the feeding hives of the Vantross, but then, as they flew to safety, found themselves under attack from one of the Time Lord battle cruisers, now as indiscriminate in their slaughter as the Daleks themselves. They were blasted from the stars for no better reason, Cass realised, than that they were blocking the view of the retreating Daleks.

She’d been the only one who didn’t panic. She’d teleported the crew to the safety of the nearest planet and, with no one left to teleport her, and realising that a safe crash landing was now an impossibility, she’d finally asked for help.

‘Help me, please. Can anybody hear me—help me!’ She slammed the overheating console with both fists.

‘Please state the nature of your ailment or injury,’ said the medical computer.

‘I’m not injured, I’m crashing! I don’t need a doctor!’ Cass screamed.

‘A clear statement of your symptoms will help us provide the medical practitioner appropriate to your individual needs.’ A simulated face appeared on the screen and made an attempt at an encouraging smile only marginally less comforting than the cratered surface of the planet now filling the viewplate.

‘I’m trying to send a distress call, stop asking about doctors!’

It was a feed line that the hungriest ego in the universe could hardly be expected to resist.

‘I’m a doctor,’ came a voice behind her, ‘but probably not the one you were expecting.’

Cass spun round and saw a man, who was making a particular point of leaning casually against the wall. A thousand questions lit up in her head, but he was already stepping forward to the console. ‘Where are the rest of the crew?’

‘Teleported off.’

‘But you’re still here?’ His hands were now busy at the controls. Was he checking she was telling the truth?

‘I teleported them.’

‘Why you?’

‘Everyone else was screaming.’

He looked at her, and smiled like she’d passed a test. ‘Welcome aboard.’

‘Aboard what?’

‘I’ll show you!’ And suddenly he had taken her hand (when did she tell him that was okay?) and she was yanked out of the command chair.

The ship howled and creaked, and the main corridor was twisting and flexing, so it felt like running inside a thrashing snake. There was the harsh stink of molten metal and she could feel the heat of the floor thumping against her boots. Her sleep pod was ablaze and everything she’d ever owned was gone.

‘Where are we going?’ she managed to ask.

‘Back of the ship!’

‘Why?’

‘Because the front end crashes first, think it through!’

A joke? Was he joking? Was this man wasting breath on jokes, right now? And where the hell did he come from anyway? And hang on, did that mean he had a way off the ship? She felt a dangerous surge of hope. And in that moment, with a stomp of iron, the rest of the corridor disappeared. A blast door had slammed across in front of them, blocking their path, and finally Cass Fermazzi knew she was going to die.

‘Oh, why did you do that?’ she heard him muttering. But he sounded only mildly irritated, like a man trying to reason with a fugitive bar of soap in a bath.

‘Emergency protocols,’ she found herself explaining, like it even mattered now.

There was a silver rod in his hand, and he buzzed it at the door. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

Was he making conversation? Did he seriously think she was in the mood for a chat?

‘Cass.’ Oh, apparently she was.

‘You’re young to be crewing a gunship, Cass.’

No, she wasn’t telling him her life story, this was not the time. ‘I wanted to see the universe. Is it always like this?’ Why was she talking to him?

‘If you’re lucky,’ he grinned, and then the door was grinding open. Cass barely had time to wonder how he’d done it, before he’d grabbed her hand again, and they were stumbling to a halt in front of—

What the hell was that?

It looked like a tall blue crate, wooden, with panels and barred windows. Absurdly there were the printed words Police Public Call Box above a pair of doors, and was that really a light on top? And there was something else! Although Cass had never seen this box before, something stirred inside her like a race memory. Even a new-born knows to love the sunshine and fear the storm, and with that same ancient certainty, she knew what this battered old crate meant. To her, to everyone. It was purest evil.

He was pulling her towards it now. Instinctively, she pulled back.

‘It’s all right,’ he was saying, reaching for the blue doors. ‘It’s bigger on the inside.’

And then she understood the fear she felt. ‘What did you say? Bigger on the inside, is that what you said?’

‘Yeah, come on, you’ll love it.’

‘Is that—’ The word choked in her throat for a moment. Even on a crashing ship, moments from death, it was a word that felt too dangerous to speak out loud. ‘Is that a TARDIS?’

Oh, the look on his face. A wounded infant. The memory of better days and lost magic. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but you’ll be perfectly safe, I promise.’

She wrenched her hand from his. ‘Don’t touch me!’

He started to reach for her again, but the look in her eyes stopped him cold. ‘I’m not part of the war,’ he said. ‘I swear. I never have been.’

‘You’re a Time Lord.’ He was, it was so obvious. The arrogance, the presumption.

‘Yes, but I’m one of the nice ones!’ Oh, and now he thought he could be charming. Could they never understand what they were?

‘Get away from me!’

‘Look on the bright side. I’m not a Dalek.’

She looked at him, and felt the universe shift …

But no! This is too much. I am old, and perhaps I am getting carried away. Truthfully, no one can ever know for sure what was going through Cass’s mind in that moment, but I do think I can guess. For us all, there is a hill somewhere on which we would gladly die. If we are blessed, one day we will find it beneath our feet. That day had come for Cass.

‘Dalek, Time Lord, who can tell the difference any more,’ she said, and stepped backwards the through the door. She slammed her hand on the red button, and activated the incursion seal. Her ship, like all the others, had been proofed against Time Lords, and now was the time to see if it worked. She watched him through the plexi-panel, buzzing away with his silver rod. The door was shuddering, but it didn’t open. ‘Cass! Cass!’

‘It’s deadlocked. Don’t even try!’

‘Just open it. Please, I only want to help.’

To help? How could he think that anyone would believe that? ‘Go back to your battlefield—you’re not finished yet, some of the universe is still standing.’ Oh, the joy of saying those words, of seeing them impact.

‘I’m not leaving this ship without you!’

Those pleading blue eyes, that hunger to be trusted. More than that, to be worshipped, to be adored. Oh dear God, was she supposed to think he was a hero now? They were all the same, those vain, wilful children with their two hearts. But was he really going to stay, and burn with her? Well, if that’s what he wanted! Cass Fermazzi smiled and felt the last moment of joy she would ever feel, as she said: ‘Then you’re going to die right here. Best news all day.’

The ship was grinding and shrieking round her. The heat and light grew fiercer, but now it was exciting.

‘Cass!’ he was shouting. ‘Cass!’

Yeah, she thought, smiling into his silly, anguished face—say my name. Say my name, Time Lord, and die.

Which is exactly what the Doctor did, though not for the last time that day.

‘And here he is at last,’ someone was saying, ‘The man to end it all!’

The Doctor tried to move, tried to open his eyes, but nothing happened. He didn’t recognise the voice, but whoever it was, she had to be talking about him. It was always about him, when people talked that way.

‘My sisters, the Doctor has returned to Karn.’

Yep, there you go, he was right. Him! He wondered if he should pop one eye open and make a joke, people loved that. Or even sit bolt upright with a big smile. But when he tried, still nothing happened.

No, wait, what did she say? Karn? That rang a bell. He decided he should probably make a note, but then remembered he didn’t have a notebook. Or a pen. Or, in fact, the ability to move any part of his body. He decided to make a mental note instead, but promptly forgot what he was thinking about. Damn, why hadn’t he made a note?

The voice again: ‘This has been foretold. We have always known in our bones, one day he would return here!’

Ah, this was sounding very him. A long-awaited return! Probably a prophesied battle against an ancient foe, rising from some sort of terrible depths, he shouldn’t wonder. All in a day’s work for the Doctor. He decided to leap to his feet, swish his coat about a bit, and choose someone to make him tea. But the world stayed dark, and the rocks stayed cold against his back. Perhaps Cass could help him. He’d just saved her life, hadn’t he? She’d probably be with him in a moment. One good turn deserved another.

Now a hand was stroking his face. It was a very warm hand. Or was it that his face was very cold? Oh, that was interesting. He couldn’t remember why he was so cold.

The voice, close now, warm breath on his face: ‘Such a pity he’s dead.’

Oh! Dead, was he? That was going to make things a bit more diff—

Being dead, the Doctor was unaware of his final journey across that barren world, and only the crows of Karn saw him borne into the cave where he and I would stand face to face, at the very end.

Ow! Someone had slapped him, and there was a bitter aftertaste on his lips. He was somewhere else! Sitting on a stone floor! The wind was gone, so maybe he was inside. A cave, going by that dripping sound. There was movement around him; the smell of smoke and the crackle of burning torches. Now he heard a low murmur of female voices. Was one of them Cass? Of course! Cass must have dragged him to safety, after he’d rescued them both from that crashing ship. If only he could remember exactly how he’d done that. He decided to open his eyes as soon as he remembered how.

‘Cass!’ someone shouted. Good! Obviously she was here somewhere, and safe. ‘Cass, Cass!’ It was a man’s voice, high with desperation, and so cracked and full of terror that it took him several seconds to recognise it as his own. The shock opened his eyes.

She was old, and robed in scarlet. Her face was creased and weathered, but her stare glittered, as she squatted in front of him like a wise old ape. In a line behind her, against the fire-lit rock, stood several more scarlet robed women, younger, but as pale and hollow-eyed as upright cadavers. Each held a steaming goblet.

‘If you refer to your companion,’ the old woman was saying, ‘we are still trying to recover her body from the wreckage. You were thrown clear.’

Oh! The wreckage. Cass was still in there. He remembered Cass’s face, and how she’d looked at him when she realised what he was. ‘She wasn’t my companion,’ he said.

‘She’s almost certainly dead. No one could survive that crash.’

‘I did!’

‘No.’

That awful word, so calmly delivered. He fought to let nothing show on his face.

‘We restored you to life,’ the old woman continued, ‘but it is a temporary measure. You have a little under four minutes.

It had always been a rule of the Doctor’s never to panic early. If he still had four minutes to fill, it was time to start owning the room. ‘Four minutes!’ he protested. ‘But that’s ages! What if I get bored? I need a television, a couple of books, anyone for chess? Bring me knitting.’

‘You have so little breath left. Spend it wisely.’

Watch me, he thought. Quick scan. Six women in the room, including the old one. Two exits! One was obviously the cave mouth, the other led deeper into the mountain. Wait, how did he know it was a mountain? Had he been here before? Ah! He’d heard a name earlier. She’d named this planet. And what about this cave? It did look a little familiar. Okay, time to parade his local knowledge, if he could just remember any of it.

‘Hang on, is it you? It is, isn’t it, it’s you.’ Of course, he’d got it now. ‘Am I back on Karn?’ he said, triumphantly. ‘You’re the Sisterhood of Karn, keepers of the flame of utter boredom!’

The old woman’s eyes flashed. ‘Eternal life,’ she snapped.

‘That’s the one!’ Going by the look on her face, he’d already landed a hit. Good! Time to give it a bit more swagger. He’d clambered to his feet, but as he started to move, he could feel his body shutting down, and the pain of it almost knocked him flat. Buck up, Doctor, he thought. It won’t hurt for long.

‘Mock us if you will.’ said the old woman, ‘Our elixir can trigger your regeneration, bring you back.’

Oh, interesting. Were they trying to help him? There had been stories, back on Gallifrey, that the Karn Sisterhood could assist a regeneration in a mortally wounded Time Lord—but why should they care about him? And anyway, did he want to go through it all again? To be torn down and rebuilt into someone else, just to see more of the universe burn. He remembered his old tutor, lecturing at the academy, telling them all about the change they dreaded so much. ‘You will walk into a storm,’ Borusa had said, ‘and a stranger will walk back out. And that stranger will be you.’ A stranger to himself, yet again. Why? What was the point any more?

The old woman was gesturing to the goblets held by the others. ‘Time Lord science is elevated here. On Karn, the change doesn’t have to be random.’ She moved among the sisters, pointing to one goblet, then another. ‘Fat or thin? Old or young?’

He almost laughed. He was standing in the salesroom of his possible futures!

‘Man or woman?’ she asked him, pointedly.

Ginger? he wondered, but kept the thought to himself.

Ohila was looking at him, expectant now. He wondered briefly how he suddenly knew her name and realised he’d translated the tiny inscription on her left earring. Good to know some of his skillset was still on-line.

‘Why would you do this for me?’ he asked.

‘You have helped us in the past.’

Had he? A memory surfaced of being tied to a stake in the centre of this chamber, while wood was stacked around him and torches were lit. ‘One good burn deserves another?’ he decided not to say, then realised he already had. ‘The Sisterhood of Karn were never big on gratitude.’

‘The war between the Daleks and the Time Lords threatens all reality. You are the only hope left.’

Oh, of course. They were afraid. But why did everyone always expect him to be a soldier?

‘It’s not my war,’ he said. ‘I will have no part of it.’

‘You can’t ignore it forever.’

Ignore it? he thought. No one in the universe could exactly ignore a war that was taking place at every moment in history at once. ‘I help where I can. I will not fight.’

‘Because you are above such squalid practicalities as the business of warfare?’

Yes, he thought. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Because you are the Good Man, as you call yourself?’

‘I call myself the Doctor.’

‘It’s the same thing in your mind.’

‘I’d like to think so.’

There was movement behind him, and her eyes flicked to a point over his shoulder. A new look came over her face. Was that cunning, he wondered. Or just cruelty?

‘In that case, Doctor,’ she said, ‘attend your patient.’

Two more of the Sisterhood had entered the cave, and between them they carried what looked like a sack. But then they laid her on the altar stone in the centre of the room, and for a moment he could find no words. She looked so small. Around her chest he noticed a bandolier. It was clearly too old to have been hers originally, and he wondered briefly who had given it to her. Someone she cared about, or who had cared about her. The thought stung him.

He used the screwdriver to scan her for life signs, but he already knew it was pointless.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Ohila was saying. ‘She is beyond even our help.’

I know, he wanted to scream into her face. Instead he just said, ‘She wanted to see the universe,’ because it was true and it made him ache.

‘She didn’t miss much. It’s very nearly over.’

‘I could’ve saved her. I could have got her off that ship, she wouldn’t listen.’

‘Then she was wiser than you. She understood there was no escaping the Time War. You are part of this, Doctor—whether you like it or not.’

‘I would rather die,’ he said, and meant it with both his hearts. Not a soldier, he thought. That was the promise. Never cruel, never cowardly, and never, ever a soldier. He knew what was inside him: the anger that could never be given voice. Death first.

‘You’re dead already,’ said Ohila. ‘How many more will you let join you?’

He forced his eyes to Cass’s face. No accusation there now. No hatred, no fear, nothing. Just another broken child. Just another one, Doctor!

‘If she could speak, what would she say?’

‘To me? Nothing. I’m a Time Lord. Everything she despised.’

‘If she understood the man you are, and the power you could wield, she would beg your help. As we beg your help now. The universe stands on the brink. Will you let it fall?’

There was no scorn in her voice. No cruelty, no cunning. Simple appeal.

How many more, he wondered. How many more children crushed and burnt as he stood apart? He must never be a soldier, he knew that. But it was like a whisper in his ear now. ‘How many more will die, Doctor? While you keep your soul pure and your hands clean?’ He felt himself gripping on to the stone table, trying to shut out that terrible, forbidden voice.

‘What will it take, Doctor?’ the whisper continued. ‘How many more will suffer and die before you act?’ it begged of him.

Ohila was moving among the goblets again. ‘Strong or fast,’ she was asking. ‘Wise or angry? What do you need now?’

Blood and rage thundered in the Doctor’s ears. To his own surprise, he noticed he was unclipping the bandolier from around Cass’s still form. Was he doing that? It didn’t feel like him. He was now holding the bandolier in front of his own eyes, as if for his inspection. It was cleaner than the rest of her clothes, and had been repaired many times. Obviously it had been of great value to her and she had worn it to the end. Someone, somewhere would have been happy to know that.

‘Warrior,’ he heard himself say.

Ohila was staring at him. ‘Warrior?’

‘I don’t suppose anyone needs a doctor any more. Make me a warrior now.’ It was his voice, but how could those be his words? It felt like someone else was talking through him.

Ohila was passing him a goblet. ‘I took the liberty of preparing this one myself.’

It was warm in his hands, and the smell was bitter one moment and sweet the next. ‘Get out!’ he said. ‘All of you!’

He heard the shuffle of feet. The sisters were moving deeper into the shadows.

‘Will it hurt?’ he asked.

Ohila’s voice seem to come to him from a great distance. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Good,’ he replied, and raised the goblet. He was alone now, but in that last moment, chose to remember all the times he hadn’t been. All the friends who had kept him safe. ‘Charley. C’rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly. Fitz. Friends and companions I have known, I salute you.’ He looked to the broken child on the altar stone. ‘And Cass … I apologise.’

The goblet was almost at his lips now. One last farewell to the man he had been. ‘Physician, heal thyself.’

The Doctor drank the poison, and walked into the storm.

The stranger woke. His hands looked different, but he knew that would be the least of it. As he pulled himself to his feet, every nerve and sinew jangled: wrong, wrong, everything all wrong. No, not wrong, he reminded himself. New. Just new. He remembered to breathe, and even that felt strange. He tried to focus on the chamber around him. Oh, the colour balance was wildly different yet again. The reds were a bit greener and the yellows were out of control. He knew he’d get used to it, but it always took a while. Sometimes he missed the monochrome world of his first two incarnations. It had felt like a simpler, cleaner time; so many centuries had passed before he realised he’d just been colour blind. He looked round, testing his focal length, and saw a beautiful woman looking at him.

‘Is it done?’ asked Ohila.

Is it? he wondered. Is what done? Then he saw Cass, dead on the stone, and the sight of her hurt him all over again. Good, he still had a conscience. But something new flexed under that familiar pain, like the flick of a serpent’s eye in the darkness. What was that new feeling? Rage? Vengeance? Was that something to worry about? He ran a hand over his face. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

No, not wrong, new. A new face, for a new man.

There were no mirrors in the cave, but hanging on one of the smoother rock walls, was a highly burnished section of armour plate, some ancient relic of battle. It would do.

The first thing he noticed was that he was now wearing Cass’s bandolier round his own chest. When had he put that on? Then he glanced up and met his own eyes.

There is a moment, after regeneration, when the guttering soul of the old man looks out through the eyes of the new. So it was the Doctor who looked into the mirror—but it was me who looked back. And there we stood, the Doctor and I; one man, face to face; an end and a beginning.

My height hadn’t changed much, I noticed. My hair was a little shorter, though still dark. Those urgent blue eyes were gone and in their place, a stare like winter. For a moment that stare troubled me. But this was a time of war, and I had been reborn for battle; I was ready to look on a darker world.

I turned my new face one way, then the other. Was I younger? Older? There was something haggard and pained about me now, so it was difficult to tell. Standing before me was a man who had seen horror and no longer chose to hide it. Yes, I thought, this would do. This was right.

I held my own gaze, and spoke. The words came in a cold whisper; a silken rasp; voice like a shiver out loud.

‘Doctor no more,’ I said.