Gallifrey Gothic: Fan Art

Since the Ghost Monument aired, I have loved it. I always feel like it’s an overlooked gem of a story and one I wish I could write the Target novelisation for. That’ll never happen, so I decided to exorcise my writing demon and write out the final scene.  I used the transcript provided by Chakoteya.net based on the original script by Chris Chibnall.  Hope you enjoy.

THE GHOST MONUMENT: CHAPTER 13

The sudden light after the relative shade of Ilin’s tent made the four travellers blink as they looked around the bleak, mountainous landscape.
‘They’re gone!’ Exclaimed Ryan, disbelief touching his voice. Graham looked from his grandson, to Yaz and then the Doctor.
‘We’re stuck here, are we?’ He asked of her.
The Doctor looked at the three of them. Although she would never have planned it so, she had bought them from their comfortable, stable lives here, to their doom.
‘I’m sorry. I’ve failed you. I promised you and I’ve let you down.’ the guilt was almost too much for her to bear. She had only just become this version of herself, and she was responsible for their almost certain death.
‘We can wait, can’t we?’ Ryan asked, optimistically.
‘Yeah,’ said Yaz, ‘We’ve got each other!’
Bless them, thought the Doctor. Their optimism, their heart, their courage. But she new the reality. Desolation would be their doom, and she had bought them to it.
‘No, we’ll be dead within one rotation.’ She said as desperation took hold of her.
‘Who says so?’ Objected Graham. The Doctor could see where some of Ryan’s optimism came from. It was hard to be around Graham and not be inspired by his outlook on the world. ‘We’ve come this far, ain’t we?’ He continued, ‘Who says we’re giving up? Any of us? Really?’ He gestured to Ryan and Yaz, both shaking their heads in agreement. ‘Even you, Doctor? No come on, we ain’t having that, are we?
‘Nope!’ Said Yaz
‘No!’ Agreed Ryan.
She was already so proud of them, she had, albeit accidentally, uprooted them, bought them to the depths of deep space, to this deadly world and nothing, nothing was dampening their spirits. She knew she was lucky to be here with them. A flame of hope flared in her hearts, which was suddenly kindled further when Yaz asked,
‘Can you hear that noise?’
Yaz, Ryan and Graham may not have recognised it, ever heard it before, but to the Doctor it was what had always been said about it. It was distant, it was different but it was undeniable. It was the sound of hope.
Then she was all action, reaching into her pockets to find that new Sheffield Steel sonic. She stepped away from the travellers towards where the sound was emanating and activated the sonic.
‘Come on, please. Give us this.’ The sonic sound intensified, ‘It’s all right, its me!’ She declared to the very air in front of her, ‘stabilise! Come to daddy… I mean mummy, I mean… I really need you right now!’ She pleaded with the air, with fate, a call for hope and then, from the air itself the TARDIS, that familiar blue box, that home for countless lives, materialised on the clifftop. Solid, grounded, real, here.
‘My beautiful Ghost Monument.’ She sighed under her breath.  The TARDIS was here. She could contain herself no longer and burst into a run to get to the ship as quickly as she could.
She approached that familiar blue box almost tentatively, ‘Hello, you.’ She said as she reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers across the familiar shape. She felt the wood, then the enamelled ‘pull to open’ sign, feeling the embossed letters speaking to her. ‘I’ve missed you.’ She paused, taking in the beautiful sight of her TARDIS, the now mythical Ghost Monument. ‘Ah, you’ve done yourself up. Very nice’, she admired approvingly. Then she remembered, with a sinking feeling, ‘Lost my key. Sorry.’ She apologised.
A moment, then, finally a click from the door, and it creaked ajar.
Graham, Ryan and Yaz came up to the Doctor and the bizarre object that looked both familiar and alien in this vista.
‘But it’s an old Police box.’ Said Graham, his voice a mix of confusion, disappointment and tiredness. All this way for a Police box, really?
‘Sort of. Not really.’ Explained the Doctor, without any real explanation.
Ryan goggled at the box. ‘You expect us all to fit inside there?’ Incredulity edging the question.
‘Yep.’ Replied the Doctor confidently.
‘At the same time?’ Said Yaz.
‘Wanna try?’ Asked the Doctor.
Ryan jumped at the chance. ‘OK!’
Before she flung the door open and allowed them access she paused. ‘Oh, word of warning. I left it in a bit of a mess.’

The Doctor stepped in. Away from the heat and brightness of Desolation her eyes took a moment to adjust. The sight before her took her breath away. There, at the centre of the chamber stood the console, although not how she remembered it. It was almost like the TARDIS had followed suit with her impromptu design of the Sheffield Steel sonic. A gigantic crystal column sprouted from the heart of the console, that stood on a raised plinth. Around it, massive crystal colums sprouted from the floor surrounding it, and seeming to bow down at the top towards the heart of the ship. They had metal work running through them, giving them an organic, yet constructed feel. Massive free standing walls, made of hexagonal shapes, lit a deep blue from within filled the spaces behind the console, and behind them and all around the outside walls was a latticed cogwork affair, floor to ceiling, that leant an industrialised air to design.  The lights were warm orange and it felt both alien, yet welcoming.
‘Oh, you’ve redecorated!’ The Doctor declared to the space, ‘I really like it!’ She approved.
The Doctor turned to her friends, flinging her arms wide to indicate the vast space they had entered. ‘This is my TARDIS!’ Pride and joy resonating with the words.
The three stared at her, past her, around her, almost unable to comprehend what they were seeing.
‘Wow!’ Said Yaz
‘Yeah’ Agreed Ryan.
‘It was a police box!’ Stammered Graham.
‘It still is on the outside!’ Confirmed the Doctor.
‘How do you fit all this stuff in a police box?’ Continued Graham.
‘Dimensional engineering.’ She replied confidently.
‘You can’t engineer dimensions!’ Stated Yaz, with equal confidence.
‘Maybe you can’t!’
Ryan had drawn closer to the central console. ‘Can I press any of the…?’ He started, eyes shining at the bizarre objects in front of him
‘No!’ Replied the Doctor, firmly, but kindly.
‘It’s a spaceship?’ Asked Graham.
‘And a time ship.’ She confirmed with a nod
‘Get out!’ Exclaimed Ryan, expecting her to be pulling his leg. But she met his look evenly. ‘Seriously!’
Ryan felt like his head was exploding.
‘This… is proper…,’ he struggled to find the appropriate word, and settled on, ‘…Awesome!’
‘I thought maybe you didn’t believe me that I’d get you home.’
Yaz looked at her, tearing her gaze away from the alien wonder that surrounded her.
‘I thought you didn’t believe yourself for a second back there.’ She said, recalling the Doctor’s earlier desperation.
‘Who, me?’ Replied the alien traveller. ‘No, never doubted. Don’t know what you mean. Home then?’
All three of the Doctor’s unwitting travelling companions hearts flared with hope, longing and joy.
‘You can’t get us there?’ Asked Yaz, finally relenting to the hope in her heart.
‘Start believing!’ Replied rhe Doctor, setting to work at the both familiar, yet utterly different console. She was a blur of movement around the displays, levers and buttons. She flipped an old style hourglass, the sand dropping free into the bottom chamber. Pulling another lever a small opaque glass TARDIS started spinning. She pulled a final lever setting the Time and Space vessel into motion, and plunging them into the vortex with that same familiar wheezing and groaning. As she pulled the lever, a small ‘ding’ sounded and from a panel in the underside of the console a custard creme slid down a chute to the Doctors waiting hand. She grasped at it eagerly and, with a satisfied smile, bit into it.
They were on their way.

A long time ago in the distant future, a child fell from another place to ours. In those first moments The child felt a presence all around. Through them, around them, before them, behind them. The child would walk hand and hand through all their days with the presence. The child became their champion, defender, master and servant. All the while the child grew, learned, changed and fought, oh how they fought for their adoptive home, people, planets, their adoptive Universe. ‘The’ Time Lord, The Warrior, The Oncoming Storm, The Doctor, Time’s Champion.  And there at the end Time finally gave the child their reward, they would go on, they would remain. One became two.

The Child was granted the gift of Time, their reward for all their labours, to step back, stop, watch the fruit grow. Yet they also endure, go ever forward, although no longer a child. Free from the exertions behind them, free from the weight of time. No longer hand in hand, but side by side, ever onward with renewed purpose. Times Champion, unbound.