#johnsimms

Whether it’s basic or overly elaborate, all intelligent cultures have some kind of process for dealing with, and disposing of, their dead. However, unlike many cultures, the universe across, Time Lord funerary rites were concerned almost entirely with destroying the body as completely as possible. Can’t leave stray genetic material like that lying around for anyone to stumble across, much less a whole corpse.

Traditionally there’s no particular ritual needed, no words or chants to be spoken, but all the same, the Doctor takes his time, washing the Master’s body and redressing it with care. The blood-stained shirt is left aside and replaced with one pulled from the TARDIS wardrobe. He leaves off the shoes and socks, the suit jacket and tie as well, but after a moment’s pause, slips the heavy silver ring back onto his finger.

Though he tries not to, the entire time the Doctor hopes that something will change, that this will prove to be yet another of the Master’s tricks. He hopes against hope that he’ll feel a pulse beneath his fingers as he wipes the dirt and sweat from the Master’s neck, or buttons the cuffs at his wrists. He waits foolishly for the cold, still body under his hands to warm again with life.

But there is nothing.

Within the shroud he wraps the Master in, the Doctor includes as many of the required plants and mixtures as he has on hand. Some are for the smell, some to help the fire burn hotter, and some are simply remnants of home, burnt with the body in the closest thing Time Lords ever got to ritual sentimentality. He packs a bag with the rest, to be built into the pyre itself.

At the end of day three, his work done, the Doctor emerges from the TARDIS, looking for his companions. He finds Martha first and there must be something in his face because she just silently wraps her arms around him. He hugs her back, and his hearts soar with affection for her.

“All done?” she asks when they eventually separate.

“Yep, she’s good as new,” he replies, forcing cheer. “Just wanted to let you know I’ve got to pop down for a bit. Won’t be long, I’ve just got to…”

He finds himself trailing off at Martha’s inquisitive look, not sure how to put into words what he has to do, not sure how she’ll take it. She nods at him to continue, brows raised.

“We usually burn our dead. Safer that way. Can’t let Time Lord DNA fall into the wrong hands. Who knows what might happen? So, I was just going to…”

Martha smiles at him sadly, but with more understanding than he deserves. “It’s fine. Go.”

When he returns to the TADRIS, he has her land somewhere remote, somewhere far from any settlement. She picks the edge of a clearing, surrounded by trees that are far enough away that they won’t catch alight, but that still provide enough wood nearby to build the pyre.

It’s late afternoon when he lands, but well into the evening by the time he’s done. It’s hard work, picking and dragging and stacking the wood to the proper height, but the Doctor pushes through it, keeps working until he’s sore and aching and it’s done.

He tries to remember the last proper funeral he’d been to. It certainly wasn’t on Gallifrey, and he actually thinks it might have been here, on Earth. Yes, in Egypt, sometime around 1290 BC.

No one did a funeral quite like the Egyptians.

There had been an alien loose in Thebes, ransacking the mountain tombs, and while investigating he’d gotten swept up in the funeral procession for one of the local temple scribes. The Doctor can remember vividly the long line of people snaking from the river up into the mountain.

More so, he remembers the wails of the mourners, how the women wept and pulled at their hair and beat their breasts, their cries echoing across the rocky ridges. The women had been led by the scribe’s wife, and the Doctor remembers how her voice had cracked, had shaken, as she cried out her grief, as she sung, clutching at her husband’s body as it was dragged up the mountain.

Go away? How can you do that?

They’d never done anything like that back on Gallifrey. There would be witnesses, sure, friends and family at least, but no long processions, no piles of buried goods, and certainly no wailing.

There’s not likely to be any wailing now, either. He’d done that, clung to the Master’s body and begged him to stay, begged him not to leave. He’d screamed and sobbed and done it in front of an audience too. But now, he feels wrung dry, empty.

Do not abandon me.

With the pyre ready, he returns to the TARDIS to collect the Master’s body. He cradles it in his arms as he crosses the clearing, the shrouded head tucked against his chest. It’s heavy, but the Doctor feels it should be heavier. He shouldn’t be able to carry the Master so easily. Something should be weighing him down. Something should be stopping him.

But nothing does, and when the Doctor shifts the Master’s body to his shoulder to climb the ladder, when he lays him flat across the top of the pyre, he finally realises nothing will.

He’s gone. The Master is gone.

You are silent, you do not speak.

The pyre catches quick, helped by the accelerants he had placed between the logs. Fire licks at the wood, climbing higher and higher until the whole thing is alight. The heat is intense, and clouds of black smoke billow up into the night sky.

The scented wood, the plants tucked in and around the Master’s body, do much to mask the smell of burning flesh, but it’s still not entirely pleasant, the smoke thick and choking and almost blinding. It stings his eyes, sticks in his throat, making it hard to breath without the bypass, but the Doctor stays, remains close by to watch the Master’s body be consumed by the flames.

He doesn’t weep, he doesn’t rage. There are no words to chant or sing or cry. He simply stands there, silently, watching the flames jump and crackle, knowing that soon there will be nothing left of the Master, nothing left but a bloodied shirt and the memories he keeps.

The Doctor stays until the pyre starts to collapse in on itself, only then turning and walking away, leaving nothing behind except his footprints and the pyre itself.

I walk alone.