• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"All of you," said the Doctor, "when you get home, cherish the children. They are more precious than you will ever know. Goodbye."

The doors closed. In the air, the Doctor caught the words "We travel". He slipped his arm around Ace's shoulder and hugged her tight. "They'll soon be home," he said. "In fact they were home millennia ago."

He turned her and pointed at a shape that was growing steadily at the centre of the floor. It was an angular mushroom, and as it grew, it sprouted a rash of dials and instruments across its surface. A glass column, filled with flickering lights like stars, rose and fell at its crown.

"And this is our home," said Ace, her voice half-choked with relief. "Welcome back, Doctor."

He could hear a slowly rising whine of returning power. A tingle of anticipation fizzed in him. He leaned forward and ran a finger across the still-growing console panels.

With an almighty whump! the furniture and fittings arrived. Not returned to their rightful places as if nothing had happened, but dropped instantly out of nowhere in a random and chaotic spillage. The TARDIS resembled more than ever the aftermath of an earthquake in a junkyard.

"Home. No place like it," said the Doctor, and he felt a certain wildness coming into his eyes with the rising power. "That's what I need. Answers about home."

31: Bookends

The Scribe Quartinian wrote:

The return against all odds of the missing Chronoscaphe was interpreted by the people as the one good omen that presaged Rassilon's assumption of power. Otherwise, the Pythia's terrible death-curse took instant effect. Babies died in their mothers' wombs. From that day on, no child was ever born on Gallifrey again.

Rassilon played with the onion doll while he waited. It was a ridiculous object. With a twist of the hand, the toy could be split into two hemispheres to reveal another patterned sphere nestling inside — but the onion inside was bigger than the first. Impossible! And inside that onion was another onion, bigger still.

Rassilon's desk was already littered with coloured onion shells. Soon his office would be impossible to get into.

Lord Dowtroyal walked in unannounced. His red-heeled boots left patches of melting snow on the floor. He had come from another funeral. "How's the toe?" he said grimly.

"Painful as usual." Rassilon pushed away the latest onion section. "There must be a simple solution to this wretched thing."

Dowtroyal looked grave. "I was erm . . . sorry to hear of your loss," he said.

"It would have been a girl," Rassilon said. "Her mother has taken it badly. Her mother? What am I talking about? She'll never be a mother now." He fiddled with the onion shells. "It's strange. In a way it brings us even closer to the people — they know that we suffer too."

Dowtroyal weighed one of the onion shells in his hand. "The Council are preparing to offer you a new crown."

"Again?" interrupted a voice by the ornamental stove in the corner. "Isn't twice enough?"

Dowtroyal glowered into the shadows. "I didn't see you sitting there," he muttered disdainfully.

Rassilon was shaking his head. "I cannot take ultimate responsibility. I will only share leadership." He unscrewed the latest onion and found yet another inside — it was bigger than ever.

There was a polite cough. Thrift was standing in the doorway. "Apologies meyopapa but the new Hero is waiting to see you."

"Must I see him?" Rassilon complained. "Can't this wait?"

"No," said the other Councillor beside the fire.

Thrift went out.

"Why me?" demanded Rassilon. "Why do the people see me as their deliverer?"

The other leaned forward to the samovar and helped himself to another glass of tea. "Because you're one of them. You said it yourself."

"Which is more than can be said for you," muttered Dowtroyal. He looked up as the Young Hero entered the room.

"Quennesander Olyesti Pekkary. Come in, please," said Rassilon. "The return of your ship has given us all the greatest pleasure in