You Promised

by Decisions Are Hard

They promised him that there would be no more goodbyes. They were going to do it all and no one was going to stop them. They promised him they'd never leave and against his better judgement he believed them.

I do not own this show at all. Now that that is out of the way please enjoy the story. Typo is fixed thank you ChocolateTeapot for pointing it out.

He loomed over the edge of the blackened chasm, ash and smoke whipping through his hair. His nose twitched as his eyes narrowed watering against the assault on his senses and on his hearts. He could smell it, the plague that had gripped this once ordinary grand capital. He could smell the decay in the air chocking every single molecule down to the last atom. The pungent odor of sickness nearly drowned out the musky scent of smoke and the bitter tint of ash and the tang of still burning fire. All that remained of what had once been called greatness now was in ruin before him.

His bow tie hung untied from his neck swinging swaying in the wind before touching his cheek with a ghost like stroke and flying away caught up in the howling desperate hands of the wind. For once he didn't care about it. His tweed jacket barely hung on his shoulders burned beyond recognition. The only way to know it was once tweed was to know the man who loomed over the chasm, but no one knew him anymore.

The man's face was old and wizened when mere hours ago it was young, darkened by pain, but so young. His eyes wide and alive sparking with life and adventure were shadowed and dark weighed down with age with loss. His lips were cut from stone a straight line that cut across his face. Had they once been so animated so alive with smiles and gestures that seemed so pointless to anyone who wasn't him? His whole body had changed as still and as statuesque as a weeping angel caught by the eye of another. Once his ecstatic expressions had made his youthful face dance with whirlwinds of emotions, now his face was a blank mask. It was the face of an old man who'd seen too much and had done too much. It was the face of a man broken or at the very least at the edge of breaking.

His fingers curled their only motion in hours, and they formed fists on his hands with which he could try to drag them back, to pull them out of the chasm still with breath in their lungs and with his lips pressed to theirs he would will them to regenerate. And he would pull them back from the void as he willed the life back into their half dead bodies. They would be his companions and he would whisk them away on his TARDIS alive again at last. He couldn't lose them like he'd lost so many before, not them, not ever them, not after he'd found them again. But they were gone out of his reach carried away by a disaster that rocked history and shook time itself to its core. This wasn't how it was meant to be. They'd just come back to him, he'd thought he'd lost them forever but they had come back again, only to be ripped away.

Water slipped from the churning green pools of his eyes and slid down his face. His lip trembled and he blinked heavily as to blink back the coming onslaught of emotions. He didn't blink hard enough. The floodgates burst and he fell to his knees landing hard on the edge of the ledge as tears and screams and sobs and wrath and fury and despair and agony welled up and spilled out in an incoherent ramble of sounds that mocked the way he once rambled with words. He had saved countless worlds and countless lives with bloodstained hands and lie stained lips. He'd tripped and fallen over himself chasing the fading glimmers of hope and destiny. He'd destroyed and was destroyed in turn chasing the one thing he was never permitted to have. He was a plague and a madman, a rescuer and executioner, a monster and a dreamer. He was an angry old man cold and alone in all the worlds. He just didn't want to be alone anymore.

"You don't get to do this! You don't get to leave me like this!" He screamed at the horizon his throat sore and his voice hoarse from the smoke and heat. He stood pacing moving to get some of the anger and pain out from inside his chest where it was gnawing on his hearts and screaming in his lungs. "You promised me! You promised me you'd be with me until time itself collapsed! You promised me that you'd follow me to the edge of the universe and back! You promised me that we'd see it all together just you and me! You never lied to me before don't you dare lie to me now! You promised you wouldn't say goodbye! You promised you wouldn't leave me alone! You promised me it would be even better than old times! We'd face the universe together and nothing would stop us! You promised!"

He bowed his head bitter tears falling from his eyes as bitter sobs fell from his chest. "You promised me. You promised. You promised." He repeated those words until long after the burning stopped.