The Final Protocol

Title: The Final Protocol
Author: narm00
Rating: PG
Characters: The final Doctor & the TARDIS.
Summary: The Doctor has set up one last protocol for his final death...
Disclaimer: 'Doctor Who', the Doctor, and the TARDIS are copyright the BBC.

AN the first: Riffs off certain ideas and scenes in 'The Parting of the Ways', although it's not a sequel to that story. Avoid if you're dedicated to avoiding spoilers.

AN the second follows at the end.

Comments & critique welcomed.



I am waiting for something.

I do not know what I await, only that once it happens, I will know it.

And as I wait, I feel a curious mixture of emotions - one part grief, one part resentment, one part hope.

I want to know what was so important that I had to wait, that I was delayed from my journey.

And I hope against myself that it will give me reason to stay.

Then the hologram activates, flickering into existence.

"This is Emergency Protocol T-4-0-M-4.

"This one's for you, old girl."

Deep inside, I feel a small measure of happiness, of pride in him, my appreciation renewed, unexpected against the grief.

This /is/ for me. He would not have chosen the protocol's code otherwise.

"If you're listening to this," he says, "then it means you felt my death. My final, irrevocable death.

"The moment you felt it, this protocol activated. You dematerialised into the Vortex, where you discovered that all of your self-destruction programs had been placed on a timer."

The hologram smiles sadly.

"Sorry, old girl. It took quite a bit of effort to make sure you wouldn't realise what I was doing when I programmed this in, what I intended it to do.

"I don't want you to go killing yourself just yet."

He knew. Of course he knew. How could he not?

"If you're /not/ listening to this, then..." The hologram shrugs. "Well, neither of us is ever going to know, are they? So I might as well get on with it."

I feel a certain reluctant sense of amusement, a certain dark humour, a sharp conflict with the sadness.

"This hologram was set to activate an hour after you dematerialised. It won't be sufficient, I know. Perhaps nothing would have been long enough.

"But I couldn't let you drift out here alone. Not you.

"If you open your communication channels, you'll find a homing beacon broadcasting on private channel 23111963. It was keyed to my life-signs; I set it to activate once it sensed me die.

"Follow it back to its source. This hologram will reactivate when you rematerialise."

The hologram flickers, then disappears.

What else can I do?

I open my channels, searching for channel 23111963.

There.

I lock onto the beacon, following the signal back to its origin.

I try not to let myself feel hope, hope that even in this final extremity, he managed to find a way out, managed to cheat Death once more.

I am... less than successful.

In this, I think, I am more like the beings of space-time than they would expect.

---

I rematerialise in a small pocket of space-time. Analysis of the pocket tells me that the only way in or out is along the vector indicated by the beacon.

Input from the scanner tells me the pocket takes the form of a metal-lined cube, four metres on each side, containing a single object in a storage pod hooked up to the cube's walls. Environmental conditions inside the pocket match those of twentieth-century CE Earth.

A stasis field was in operation within the pocket until my materialisation.

I suspect already what the pod contains.

The hologram flickers back into existence.

"Hello, old girl." he says. "If you're listening to this, then it means you've arrived in my containment unit - my own personal storage space, if you will.

"In this unit is my last bequest. My final gift, for my oldest companion."

He smiles, that dazzling smile that has remained so constant across his lives.

"A body of your own. A /human/ body."

To say I am stunned would be an understatement. In all the time I knew him, I never thought he would do /this/, and I saw him perform every impossibility in the database, along with most of those that weren't.

"I can guess what you're thinking," he says. "You thought it was my clone, or my duplicate, or something else of the sort."

He shakes his head.

"No. Not this time.

"I've had my time, old girl, lived a long and full life. So what if I never went everywhere I wanted to go, saw everything I wanted to see? There was always something to look forward to, somewhere new to go, something new to see. Always would have been."

His expression turns serious.

"Besides, we've both seen what happens when someone tries to hang on too long. I didn't want to end up being one of /those/ people.

"This was it, old girl. My last life. My last death. Finito. Exit Doctor, stage right, and let the curtain fall."

He rests his hands on my console.

And I wish it /was/ him, that I might feel his physical presence one last time.

But my sensors register only the movement of photons against my surfaces.

"But you, old girl..." the hologram continues, "you have a choice.

"The body in the storage tube is a biomass construct. For most intents and purposes, it's Gallifreyan, both inside and out, and will come off as such to any sensor scan."

He looks directly into my central column.

"And it's yours for the taking.

"The systems are all in place. All you need to do is send a telepathic signal of acknowledgement to this room's sensors, and the systems will take care of the rest. They'll download your consciousness into the body - the /entirety/ of your consciousness, and believe me, building a body that could hold all /that/ wasn't easy."

He smiles wryly, and I can't help but try and match my emotions to what he must have felt when he recorded this.

"Once the download finishes, it'll take a little while for you to get adjusted to the body, but when you do..." He pats my console. "When you do, there'll be a Ship ready and waiting for you.

"And to be honest, I can't think of anyone else I'd rather leave her to."

I am left without words.

His expression turns serious once more.

"The self-destruct timer will trigger immediately upon your departure, and this pocket of space-time will destroy itself a minute after you leave.

"If you decide to decline the offer, you'll find your self-destruct programs back online. Again, the pocket's self-destruct timer will trigger upon your departure, and it'll annihilate itself a minute afterwards.

"If you /do/ do that... whatever you do - whether you decide to finally join the other TARDISes in their graveyard, cast yourself into the Vortex for the rest of time, or land on a street corner and shut yourself down - whatever you do, I will tell you now: You have earned this, earned it and more. And I will not begrudge you your final rest."

He sighs, sticks his hands in his coat pockets.

"That's about it, really, I suppose."

"But you know something?"

He smiles again, a beautiful, gentle thing.

"It's been the trip of a lifetime. Several lifetimes.

"And I wouldn't have missed it for anything."

He puts his hands behind his back, looks up into my central column.

"Thanks."

And then he's gone, the hologram shut down.

Before I have the chance to think it over, to consider what I should do, I make my choice.

In truth, there /is/ no choice.

---

And somewhere, somewhen else, an old blue police box wheezes and groans its way into existence.

A young woman with long, pale hair, in the clothes of a Victorian lady explorer, steps out of the box, and looks around at the dumbfounded expressions of her audience.

"Hello," I tell them. "I'm the Doctor."

---

Farewell, my friend.

My love.

My Doctor.

---.

AN the second: T-4-0-M-4 is the abbreviation for 'Type 40, Mark 4' - the classification of the Doctor's TARDIS.