Work Text:
There's just winners and losers
And don't get caught on the wrong side of that line, now
-Bruce Springsteen
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There was nothing left by the time they got there. Ironic, all things considered, seeing as they had all of time and space to get there in...
But sometimes things didn't work that way.
"What the bloody hell happened here?" Mickey demanded, hands on his hips. He was, as usual, looking at the Doctor as if it was his fault. Really, he'd thought Mickey would understand by now, considering his attitude a few days earlier. But humans were, if nothing else, fickle as hell.
"I don't know," the Doctor said, daring a quick glance at Rose. She was still reserved; too reserved for her usual self. Whether it was Mickey's presence, or whether it was the business with Reinette, or if it was still Sarah Jane...he didn't know. It was probably his fault
--I didn't mean to leave them like that, I had to end it, I would have come back, can't she see, Mickey the bleeding idiot saw--
but most things were usually his fault. This they could have stopped if the TARDIS and the universe were in tune yet, if Gallifrey hadn't been gone; most things came back to Gallifrey, and therefore logically most things were therefore His Fault.
Including this plain somewhere in Wiltshire. At least, the GPS on Rose's phone said it was a plain in Wiltshire. Odd that there would be GPS when the world had apparently ended, but if it was a land war there'd be no satellite network destruction. And it certainly looked like a land war.
Seeing as said plain in Wiltshire looked more like Area 51...yeah, probably. The Doctor bent down and ran his fingers through the dirt and ash, then ran the sonic screwdriver over the patch beneath his feet. "No remnants of plant life," he remarked to no one in particular. "Bloody good weaponry, usually there's remaining--"
He realized he was talking to himself, that Mickey and Rose had started wandering in a different direction, so he jogged to catch up with them. "This is weird," he said.
"Thanks for noticin'," Mickey muttered.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I mean, there's no organic life in the dirt. At all. Nothing. I don't know any weapons in the time period we're supposed to be in that can do that so completely. It's not possible with the technological level, unless we're dealing with a non-human race." He glanced up at the sky. "In which case everything's going to be like this, I'd imagine. Not a holiday at Brighton."
Rose had stopped. "Maybe it is, though," she said, and touched his arm, gesturing in the direction they were going. "Bushes. Over there."
"Mirage, Rose, I'm certain of it."
"Can you hear a mirage, Doctor?" she replied, and indeed, the distinct sound of frogs and a pond was in the distance. He could hear it better than they could, he'd imagine all they heard was a stream.
Suffice it to say, this all was becoming very confusing, and it only got worse from there. When they saw the stream.
"It's cut off. Like someone took a scissors and just snipped the land in half, threw the other bit away," Rose said, staring wide-eyed at the ground. "Dirt's not even wet half a centimeter on this side, and the water's running like it's gone for miles. It's impossible."
Mickey picked up a handful of water and splashed it on the barren ground, where it evaporated before it even hit. The three of them watched, Mickey incredulous, Rose looking as if she were going to be ill, and the Doctor with furrowed brow. "It is impossible," Mickey said. "Do you know what could do this?"
Before he could say anything, there was a crack and a bright flash of light, almost blinding. Almost as if it were some kind of fairy story or bad novel, a voice said, "Who are you, and what are you doing on condemned ground?"
Blinking a few times, the Doctor said (because it was always the Doctor who said these things, most of the time everyone else was dumb-founded), "I could ask you the same."
He squinted a bit and the residue of the flash cleared from his eyes to reveal a young woman of about Rose's age, dressed in what looked like the bastard child of military fatigues and Cambridge dress robes, holding...a broom? She had very curly brown hair and looked rather put out. Then again, she'd sounded rather put out.
"You're trespassing on the former Malfoy Manor, now belonging to the Ministry and administered by its authorities, now represented by myself, Wing Commander Granger of the Fifth Auror Unit. I detected an unauthorized attempt to revitalise and came to investigate."
Aaaaand she still did. Right. Actually, her expression also contained 'puzzled', which the Doctor thought was something they all shared at the moment. Revitalise?
"Oh. That. Good afternoon, then. I'm the Doctor, this is Rose, and the one over there looking sheepish for dumping water on the ground is Mickey. I assure you," he said, gesturing slowly and giving this Wing Commander his most charming of smiles, "we didn't mean any harm."
She stared at them, looking each in the eye for a moment. "You're not wizards. But you're not exactly Muggles, either. What are you doing on an Unplottable site? It's not possible for you to be on an Unplottable site, there's a reason it's called Unplottable, you know." Muttering, she fished around in her...sleeve?...for something. "Three at once to Obliviate, never get any practice anymore and now this mess, bugger Harry and his 'training' leaving me alone." And she pulled out a stick and brandished it at them, at which point Rose and Mickey backed up.
"Well, we just sort of...arrived. We're not from around here." The Doctor, not impressed with the stick and trying to figure out if he'd heard the term Muggle before, turned back and looked at the land--Mallory Manor or whatever. Something smelled very, very wrong. "Does your Ministry always invest in such delightful property? Because I can sell them a bridge in China for their money, better cost value..."
"Reclaimed," Granger said. Her hair had started to frizz in the heat and she shook it back, perturbed, still holding the stick. "For the state."
Rose stared at her, mouth dropping open. "Does that mean you did that?" She waved towards the dead earth. The TARDIS was visible way off in the distance. "All of that?"
Granger followed Rose's gesture with her gaze, eyes worn and cagey. "Not me personally. It was a necessary effort, all of the Dark Magic needed to be removed. Fifty years of Holocaust Sphere was prescribed and administered. There's forty-nine and a half years left. I'd suggest you don't walk on it much, might make you feel a bit ill. We do shifts in rotation...my unlucky draw this time." Her lip curled slightly and she adjusted her hair, which had blown into her face. "Where did you say you were from again?"
"Magic? Like...fairies and that?" Mickey was gawking now too. "Is that a wand, then? You fly that broom? This is intense..."
"You didn't have to do that," the Doctor said, interrupting. "You killed any chance at life for how many miles, for how long? And how many people were on that land when you blew it away? I've seen this sort of thing before; this isn't war, it's retribution."
"Please, keep preaching," Wing Commander Granger replied. Her tone was bitter, harsh. "I enjoy it when strangers walk out of nowhere to criticize my government's choices. It's absolutely none of your concern--"
"All life is my concern!"
"Doctor--Doctor Whomever," she said, her cheeks turning bright red, "If you've ever seen any of your friends torn to the bone and used for death spells to kill even more of your friends; if you've been standing in a line and had them pick one..." she pointed at Rose, who was on one side, then Mickey, who was on the other, "then the other, and not you, to be used for it; if you've pored through books upon books until you almost went blind, trying to bring them back; and if you've ever tried to stop true evil, real evil, from overrunning the entire world, over all that, then perhaps you can tell me what to do and what is right."
Mickey looked like he wanted to say something, but Rose gave him a glare. The Doctor merely looked as if he were going to shatter. Then he said, "Wars are the same everywhere, Commander Granger. Magic, nucleonics, time...all of them burn the same, and none of them burn clean."
The woman watched them for a moment. She blinked several times in rapid succession, glanced down at the stripes on the arm of her robes, then looked the Doctor straight in the eye and nodded. Quietly, resigned, she said, "You'd best be getting along, then..."
They could see her watching them as they entered the console room.
"She wasn't a bad person," Rose said. "You know that, Doctor, right? I could see it in her face. She was one of the good guys, yeah?"
"History is written by the winners," the Doctor said, and shut the TARDIS door.
FIN