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1. You’re Fired
As Dr. Martha Jones stepped aboard, the Doctor turned manic, even frantic, babbling even faster than she'd ever heard before. She finally tuned into him as he said, "I know! Agatha Christie! I'd love to meet Agatha Christie, I bet she's brilliant." He finally actually looked at her and sobered immediately. His body language closed up, his face shut down, and he said, reluctantly, "Okay."
She'd been trying to figure out how to start the conversation, and finally said, "I just can't."
He said, "Yeah."
She tried to explain. "I spent all these years training to be a doctor, now I've got people to look after. I saw half the planet sorted and then devastated, I can't leave them."
He said, in an insincere tone, "Of course not."
She stared at him hard, and he forced half a smile. She gave him a small, approving smile amidst her pity of the child-man-god-thing trying not to pout at her. At last, he grinned and said, almost believably, "Thank you," and hugged her.
After a moment, he added, "Martha Jones, you saved the world."
She felt the tears rise, but said defiantly, "Yes, I did. I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I am good." They laughed together for a moment before she said, "You gonna be all right?"
He said, "Always am."
She didn't believe him, but nodded and said, "Right then. Bye." She kissed his cheek and hurried out the TARDIS door.
But once outside, she thought, Maybe if I tell him why, he'll do better next time. Maybe. Just maybe. He's got a learning curve, right? He's hundreds of years old, right? And she went back in.
He looked surprised, but before he could say anything, she said, "Cause, the thing is, it's like my friend Vicki. She lived with this bloke. Student housing, they've got them all packed in, this bloke was called Shawn. And she loved him. She did, she compleeeetely adored him, spent all day long talking about him."
The Doctor looked confused. She did love doing this to him. "Is this… going anywhere?"
She said, "Yes!" And he nodded and folded his arms across his chest.
She didn't have much hope, given that body language, but she went on. "Cause he never looked at her twice."
Okay, he looked guilty, but she couldn't actually believe this was the first time he realized it. The man was supposed to be smart.
Relentlessly, she said, "I mean, he liked her. That was it. And she wasted years pining after him. Years of her life. Cause when he was around, she never looked at anyone else. And I told her, I always said to her, time and time again, I said, 'Get. Out.'"
He nodded, just like a human man who was being told things he really didn't want to hear.
Finally, pityingly, she said, "So this is me. Getting out." She pulled out her cell phone and tossed it to him. He caught it reflexively and she said, "Keep that. Cause I'm not having you disappear. If that rings -- when, when that rings, you better come running. You got it?"
He held up the phone and nodded. "Got it."
She turned away, went down the stairs, then looked back over her shoulder. "I'll see you again, mister."
The Doctor half-smiled at her, clearly still not sure how to take it all.
Dr. Martha Jones walked out the TARDIS door, shut it, and paused. She was relatively sure none of that actually got through. But she'd tried. She walked away, back to her family, back to a life where she was loved and felt that she was doing more than cleaning up for someone who never noticed or said thank you. There were names for girls like that.
2: No, I Will Not Smile For You
Rose Tyler stood on the beach at Bad Wolf Bay, Norway, and stared disbelievingly at the Doctor. "I spent all that time trying to find you. I'm not going back now."
The Doctor said earnestly, "But you've got to. Cause we saved the universe, but at a cost. And the cost is him." He pointed at the New Doctor, the one in the t-shirt and jacket who had come to the beach with Rose and Jackie. "He destroyed the Daleks, he committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own."
The New Doctor exclaimed, betrayed, "You made me!"
The Doctor said, "Exactly. You were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge." He looked at Rose. "Remind you of someone? That's me, when we first met. And you made me better. Now you can do the same for him."
Rose was still back on the earlier bit, still thinking about how she felt about this… this breakup. Automatically, she said, "But he's not you."
The Doctor gave her his best convincing look, "He needs you. That's very me."
Anger bubbled over inside her. "What, I'm supposed to take care of your strays and accidents because you're too important? You're dumping him on me because I'm supposed to heal him with my womanly love?"
"Uh," the Doctor said. She glimpsed Donna's face over his shoulder and saw a tight, grim smile there.
Donna said, with almost undetectable sarcasm (perceptible only to a fellow shop-girl/temp), "But it's better than that, though. Don't you see what he's trying to give you?" To the New Doctor, she said, "Tell her, go on."
Rose looked at him. The New Doctor said, "I look like him, I think like him, same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except I've only got one heart."
Rose gave him an exasperated look. "And you're a genocidal psychopath, according to him." She looked back at the Doctor, rage and heartbreak surging together and roiling past her usual filters. "And then what? And then they lived happily ever after? You're trying to fob me off, you arrogant shit." She wiped tears of fury off her face. "Fuck off, Doctor, and take your filthy stunt double with you. Don't look at me to clean up your messes. I ain't your nanny. I thought the last goodbye was the worst day of my life. I can't believe you just topped it."
She turned her back on him, shouldered past the New Doctor, and joined her mother in walking away up the beach. Over Jackie's outraged, "Can you believe that man?" she heard the New Doctor say, distantly and forlornly, "But what about me?" and almost laughed.
3. Actually, I’m a Doctor
Donna Noble stared at the control board of the TARDIS, her thoughts searing through her whole body. She could sense the Doctor looking at her with pity in his eyes.
He said, "Do you know what's happening?"
She forced out a, "Yeah."
He said, "There's never been a human/Time Lord metacrisis before now. And you know why."
She almost snarled, "Because there can't be." Though why was that? It was common wisdom among the Time Lords, apparently, but why? Possible reasons ran white-hot under her skin. She said, "I want to stay," though she wasn't sure why she said it.
He said, "Look at me." After another double heartbeat, he said again, "Donna, look at me."
Was she going to die? Was that what would happen? Tears choked her and she said, "I was gonna be with you. Forever."
He said, "I know."
She couldn't stop the words now. "Rest of my life. Traveling. In the TARDIS. The Doctor Donna." She realized -- could feel -- what he was thinking behind that pitying mask. "Oh, my god. I can't go back. Don't make me go back. Doctor. Please, please, don't make me go back."
He reached for her, took her shoulders, and said, in that voice she'd heard so many times before, "Donna. Oh, Donna Noble, I am so sorry."
And she knew, she knew in that moment that he was no longer her friend, no longer her best mate, but playing god in that way he had, because he couldn't stand the idea of her dying or the idea of traveling with an equal.
She caught him with a hard, desperate uppercut, heard his teeth clack together and watched his head bounce off the edge of the TARDIS control board as he fell. "So am I, sunshine," she said. She ran a hand over the controls and felt the TARDIS settle somewhere. Then she seized the shoulders of his jacket and dragged him across the floor, down the stairs, to the door. By the time she opened the door, the TARDIS had fully materialized in a London alley.
"We could've been great together, you and me," she said, hauling him out the door. She pulled his TARDIS key and sonic screwdriver out of his pockets where she knew he always kept them. "But you couldn't stand that, could you? Did you do for all the other Time Lords because you couldn't stand it there was a whole planet of people as smart as you?"
She sniffed the air. It was her own London -- he'd had the TARDIS set to come here even before their conversation started. "Oh, spaceman, you little prick." He had friends here, and had been stranded on Earth before. He'd survive. He'd be fine. She'd check in on him in a few years. Maybe.
The Doctor Donna stepped back aboard the TARDIS and shut the door softly behind her. "Let's go, old friend," she said, and the TARDIS surged to life around her, as she strode to the control panel. She felt the vibrations rising through her feet, pulsing along her bones, and wondered if all pirate captains felt this way.
“If I’m going to die,” she said, her fingers dancing over the controls, reveling in her stolen treasure of knowledge, “I’ll die as Doctor Donna.” But somehow, she doubted she'd be dying anytime soon. She pulled the lever.
4. I Will Not Go Gentle
Rory said, "Why won't you help yourself?"
Amy Pond, old Amy, the Woman Who'd Survived, said, "He wants to rescue Past Me from 36 years back, which means I'll cease to exist. Everything I've seen and done dissolves, time is rewritten."
Rory stopped. "That's... That's good, isn't it?"
Amy said, "I'll die. Another Amy will take my place, an Amy who never got trapped at Twostreams, who grew old with you, and she, in 36 years, won't be me."
Rory said, only really just figuring it out, "But you'll die in here."
Amy said, "Not if you take me with you." She raised her voice for the Doctor, "You came to rescue me, so rescue me."
Rory said, disbelievingly, "Leave her and take you?"
The Doctor said, "We could take this Amy with us, easy, but if we do, our Amy has to wait 36 years to be rescued."
Rory said, and she could hear the bewilderment, "So I have to choose which wife do I want?"
Amy gave him a look. "She is me. We're both me."
Rory said, "You being here is wrong. For a single day, an hour, let alone a lifetime. I swore to protect you… I promised."
Amy pursed her lips. "Does it bother you that you couldn't protect me, that I protected myself? Does it bother you so much that you want to kill me, this me, so you can have your pretty, stupid little girl to protect again?"
Rory stuttered and said, to the Doctor, "This is your fault."
The Doctor said, "I'm so sorry, but Rory…"
Rory snarled, "No! This is your fault! You should look in a history book once in a while, see if there's an outbreak of plague or not."
The Doctor said, "That's not how I travel."
Rory bellowed, "Then I don't want to travel with you!" He ripped the glasses off and threw them to the ground.
Amy looked at him pityingly. "Don't like being made into a murderer much, do you?"
Tears filled Rory's eyes and he said, pleadingly, "I don't know what to do. I can save her or I can save you."
"At least if you save me," old Amy said, making a devastating tactical strike with the practicality she'd learned, "you know you aren't murdering someone."
Rory stared at her and the tears overspilled his eyes. She almost softened there for a moment, because he really was beautiful, but her resolve flowed back like the tide. "I'll be damned if I agree to commit suicide so you can have your inexperienced, unscarred, young little girl and the Doctor can feel like he's fixed his own mistake." She smiled, bitterly, horribly, and said, "But my consent doesn't make a damned bit of difference to the Doctor. He's trying to make you take the blame for the choice, but he's going to save her and kill me. If he can talk to young Amy, it's only a matter of time before he decides to just save her. We're all a game to him, Rory. All a game." She raised her voice. "Aren't we, Doctor? Aren't we just toys and chess pieces to you?"
The Doctor said, "Rory, Amy, come back to the TARDIS. We'll try to think of a way to do this."
Rory looked at Amy, expectantly, waiting for her decision. She could see several possible consequences from agreeing to parlay, but... "Sure, let's go, Rory." She hefted her sword, her only friend for these past decades.
Perhaps the Doctor's next regeneration would be more reasonable.
5. DNR Means No Heroic Measures
Amy told the Doctor, "You can't die now, I know you don't die now."
The Doctor said, "Oh, Pond, you've got a schedule for everything."
Amy said, "But it doesn't make any sense."
Rory, more practical, said, "Doctor, what do we do? Come on. How do we help you?"
The Doctor said, "No, sorry, Rory, you can't. Nobody can. Ponds, listen to me, I need to talk to your daughter."
Melody Pond stepped forward and knelt next to the man she'd killed -- was killing? would be killing? -- and looked expectant.
The Doctor said, "Find her. Find River Song and tell her something from me."
Melody said, "Tell her what?" She leaned closer. He whispered in her ear, and, startled by what he said, she laughed a little and said, "Well, I'm sure she knows."
And then the Doctor died.
She stood near her parents, the people who looked younger than she did now, and said, "Who's River Song?" She turned and looked at Amy, and they stared at each other for a long moment.
Amy said to the shapechanging spaceship, "Are you still working because I'm still a relative? Access files on River Song."
The ship said, "Records available."
Amy said, "Show me her. Show me River Song."
The ship transformed into Melody Pond.
They stared at it for a long, long moment, and Amy slowly turned to look at Melody.
Melody looked at the still body of the Doctor.
"What did he say?" Amy said, almost reaching for Melody's sleeve. "The Doctor gave you a message for River Song. What was it?"
Melody stared at the man in the tuxedo for a long moment. She could feel her power tingling in her fingertips, could just see the edges of her life as River Song… and didn't like the taste of it.
She turned her back on the Doctor. "How old is he?" she said to Amy. "The Doctor, how long has he lived?"
Amy and Rory looked at each other, confused. "Hundreds of years. Nine hundred? A thousand?" Amy said. "Something like that."
Melody looked over her shoulder at the Time Lord. "Hundreds of years old. I could go on that long, you know," she murmured to the corpse. "Longer even. Why would you ask me to give that up? How could you? You selfish bastard." She walked over, leaned down, and whispered, “No more. No more, you old vampire. No more feeding on the young, no more destruction of planets, no more adulation, no more center of the universe.”
"What?" Amy said.
Rory said, "Do you know something? Some way to save him?"
Melody smiled sadly at him. "No, I don't. Not a thing." She walked away, and said over her shoulder, "Let's go." She knew how to pilot the TARDIS now. She could take her parents back to their own time, leave them, and go on herself. There was a whole universe out there, just waiting for her, Melody Pond. Though maybe she would choose a new name, a travelling name.
But not River Song; never River Song.