Warnings: Spoilers for New Who (S1 through S6), Angst, Introspection, Themes of War/Genocide
A/N: Written for who_contest's Prompt: War and Peace. Mostly Unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or vagueness. My usual dark, angsty, thinky horror (sorry!) this one is very much heavy on personal reflection and tragedy. Written from the POV of the Eleventh Doctor, but with views of all three 'current' Doctors. Again, I apologize for any repetition, mispellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky and unbeta'd.
Disclaimer(s): I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!
It wasn't going to be easy.
(But then, when was it ever easy?)
He had finally (terribly) emerged from the ashes of War – his heart torn and bloody, smoke of a centuries-gone battle clinging to his soul – these wounds keeping him freshly raw, yet numb to all that he had once held dear.
Then came Rose.
She had brought an aura of peace in the middle of chaos. She was chaos contained behind a smile of calm and strength. Suddenly, he was no longer alone. It all made sense again.
He remembered Why.
Why the War that had destroyed who he had been, the War that destroyed his Home was so important. What it had meant – what it had trulybeen about. Why he had laid down his flags of peace in exchange for those ugly instruments he had always hated and feared (and with good reason).
Of course, his natural aversion to warfare was what had led to the ultimate irony, really: the High Council asking him for so much (too much) in one little action. Asking him for the greatest gift wrapped within the darkest curse. All because he would be able to undertake the task rationally, his horror at what was being asked of him over-ridden by his fierce love for his Home (even after everything). He had no taste for such things, unlike some – so in their minds, he was the perfect choice. They implored upon his peaceful nature, they appealed to his love of the Universe and all that resided within it. He could do this and bring back hope, some stability to timelines rocked by their endless battles.
Save them all even as he destroyed everything he had ever known. All he had to do was sacrifice what he had been (all that he strove for) on that ever-bloody altar of peace. To reclaim and vilify his Name, declare it True by bathing it in the nuclear fires that swept across his former Home – crumbling both from the inside-out.
The man of peace engaged in the penultimate act of aggression – bringing about the end of a timeless war with the genocide of two races in one fiery ball of purifying destruction.
He was lost within that endless moment. He drifted. He turned his back on the betrayer that was such a part of his soul. Peace was a sham, a fool's dream. War created the Shadow-man without a Name, that damnable fire cleansing him of caring, cleansing him of all but the rage that still burned within.
He sailed on in his silent Ship, a detached Observer, occasionally indulging in his old instincts – but only if it was deemed safe enough for him and his broken machine.
Only if there was no fear of being recognized.
He would help from within the darkness, but never daring to reach beyond – the inner light of what he had been burned too much. He couldn't face that man, he couldn't take the risk of grasping onto the nothing that was just out of arms reach. So he aided where he could, hiding his face from the shame of what he had become, denying himself and the wide Universe what he had been before he had taken up arms againstthat universe.
Anything more would be too close to touching the creature that had preached serenity, while he knowingly destroyed all that he put his hands to.
He became Forgotten. He forgot himself (willingly, hopefully, with relief). The numbness was a blackened stalemate disguised as a cease fire.
War was Peace.
Peace was War.
Then (then), there was Rose.
He emerged from the Shadows all at once (a whispered, giddy shout of 'Run') and yet still it was by the slowest of degrees – taking her hand as he ran headlong back to who he had been. She Named him once more and he embraced the terrible wonder of it.
But while they chased and were chased the new freedom of his old name, she brought a whole new War to his fragile, trembling declaration of Peace.
And there on the heels of this newborn peace of a budding war in his soul – the war from centuries gone reclaimed the front, dispelling the false peace he was holding, raw and too new within.
He should have stayed within the Shadows – warm, safe, anonymous. He had known this, the knowledge of all that had come before still fresh and bright within his mind. But he had been unable to reject the chaotic serenity of Rose Marion Tyler and all that she had helped him to remember beyond blood and pain. She helped to soothe the tragedy and bring back wonder and joy – a concept so foreign and yet familiar, it staggered him – the idea of it suddenly fresh and new. Everythingwas fresh and new – and his soul remade itself, rebuilding around the ideas/ideals of Before.
Unfortunately with that new soul-deep remembrance, another memory rose from the abyss, sailing on the winds of his Name. Fragments of that same war that had obliterated his Home. He had dusted off his Name, knocking the ashes from it – only to discover there was a deeper filth that had climbed out along with it.
The Daleks had come back.
They reclaimed Their Name and rose to torment him with new War out of ancient Peace. They heard the whispered shouts of 'Doctor', traced his shadowed deeds out of the long years and came as one to challenge him. A remnant of what Had Been, of what was supposed to be lost…like his Name. He had destroyed it all – only for the greatest evil in the known universe to creep from the depths of the hell he had consigned it to and declare that they had escaped the fiery embrace of Gallifrey's final resolution.
That ultimate irony of the Universe.
He could scarcely believe he had dared to forget.
Would they have fallen away from their own Shadows if he had stayed nameless, hidden – forgotten? Or would they have ravaged whole worlds to spite the names of 'Doctor' and 'Gallifrey'?
Questions pondered, but answers that would remain forever unknown.
He threw himself forward, yet backwards towards the hell of his own making. He made himself face it, recognizing that even as he returned to this new War of old, that he was denying the oldest War of all – one that wished to wage itself on a whole new front. The latter was a more pleasurable warfare, but it was twice as destructive.
The enemy on both sides was himself.
The peace he had found with his new Companion was false. He was now forced to do battle on a field of a different sort – and in the middle of an internal standoff, on the cusp of that standoff – he lost. He knew he would never win, but the skirmish fell away before he could fully acknowledge there was even a fight.
It ended on a draw – a war of attrition. But how it ended really made no difference. Either way, he still lost: to give way to either side was to lose, so he denied the battle – only to find the loss of that battle more galling in the end. He was removed from the fight and not in a way of his own making.
The Void decided the ending, declared the victory. Peace was forcibly attained. Fragile, heart-breaking, terrible peace. Once more he foundered in a state of devastating loss, though the casualties of that loss came long after the end of the war.
One was a casualty of the heart (Martha).
One was a casualty of the mind (Donna).
His soul was soon to follow (River).
Through Peace, victory was never achieved. How can one declare peace when the battle, the War itself was never even waged? He was denied his fight. He was denied his surrender. On the hub of this terrible knowledge, he waged yet another War (this one of his own making). He soared to the greatest heights of battle, forging the way with his pain, giving voice to his rage –
And Gallifrey answered.
Within that answer was the whisper of another old enemy, yet one he had (once upon a time), held closer than a friend. Again he was challenged to meet aggression on two fronts – but from those he had once deemed sacred, their Names held as a prayer within his soul. This new-ancient war exploded to life – contained within small boundaries, but with far-reaching effects that he didn't dare to contemplate. He met it unflinchingly, recalling the ageless lesson that war and peace were not mutually exclusive. That they were (in fact) the exact same thing.
His dear Koschei (The Master) – how he loved him still with a vengeful hatred that went beyond all sanity and reason. His beloved Gallifrey (His Prison) – the planetary Home that he despised with an adoration that was truly twisted.
He defeated them both in one move – the ghosts of his long lost home and his lost love turned puppet. Again he won by losing it all.
It was Madness.
It was Terror.
Out of that loss masquerading as victory, the true enemy revealed itself. That enemy washimself.
'To lose is to win – and he who wins shall lose.'
He took to battle against himself with the same rage and vigor he had faced the Ancients with, only to find what he had always known – it never truly ended. This war was never-ending, a vicious cycle that had finally spun out of control.
Hewas out of control.
Once more, as he realized victory, he had only succeeded in destroying that which he held most dear: the feeble light within himself and all of his petty illusions. The illusion of safety. The illusion of balance, of mercy…of certainty. The losses were hard and there were many – though at the end, all it truly meant was the loss of himself. He had become a God –
The Time-Lord Victorious – Rassilon in Doctor's clothing
But once again, he was to be miraculously saved (and viciously decimated), by one lone human being.
He was reminded of his Name – that Name used to plead for mercy on his behalf. For the peace of those who loved him, he was asked to obliterate what had had become (was becoming). He purified himself in the horror of radiation and emerged stronger through his weakness.
He reclaimed his Name.
He started again.
At least, that was truly what he had thought.
It seemed some things can never truly be learned – they must be Lived.
War had found him again, cycling back upon him in a brand new way: another long-dead skirmish that turned out to have more battle-lines than he had been asked to defend against before.
It started from within (just as all others had), while the newly terrifying one from without came to roost before his fresh face was completely formed and settled. While he was ever aware of his inner war, the one from without crept upon him by degrees – leaving him fighting before he even knew that he had made a call to arms.
A crack in a wall that led to a long ago crack inside his TARDIS that had yet to happen. At the heart of these cracks, a child that had yet to be born standing tall within the unfolding quiet chaos, birthed from timelines set before he reached them.
Upon her face lay the haunting memory of a promise made to a woman by the Time Lord before he had taken the title 'Victorious'. A woman he did not yet know, that had somehow come to override another promise he had yet to make: an oath made to his dearest friends to bring back a baby that had been lost. To deliver her small and new and innocent to the empty cradle of their arms.
They loved and trusted him –
(They should never do that)
Placing their utter faith in the certainty he would deliver on his promise.
But without one promise being broken, the other would never be made – and Gallifrey would burn anew as the Universe came apart at the seams.
So the vow made to those that had deemed him a friend and ally from the sweet innocence of childhood to the adult understanding of Now, was to remain unanswered (broken) – or all they knew would be destroyed. The woman (River) they came to know as a friend (enemy?), then family (Melody) would disappear if he kept that delicate promise he made to them, at the risk of breaking the first he had made to that woman long ago in the Library – a woman he had only known as Doctor Song. A woman he had tried to forget even as he was forced to remember, her sacrifice only more horrifying the more he learned of her. If he changed her past, the timelines of now would die – and so would the only world her parents had ever known.
Save this world with peaceful destruction?
Or unravel it with destructive peace?
This endless War, this ageless Peace was the pinnacle in sneak attacks – one engineered centuries before and yet a millennia away. His enemy was voiceless, faceless – plotting before he had changed – his new beginning ruined before he had even regenerated. A false renewal. A hopeless attempt to start again.
It was new and ancient this hidden battle…
Crack, explosion, Pandorica (Fairytales made Reality) and the woman-child-weapon were all designed by this new villain that screamed a war-cry without a Voice (Silent-Silence); their operation too familiar and far-reaching, the stench of Home layered throughout the engineering of their war-machine.
He knew how to win this loss. He knew how to stop it before and after its start, this terrible battle with a foe that knew him better than he even knew himself.
He just had to declare surrender.
He had to give himself over.
He would admit defeat.
Even though he did all of these things, he still did none of them – watching as his new enemy celebrated their premature victory over the Mad God. Their only obstacle to the fragile threads of All of Time and Space.
He fought (quietly) by laying down arms. By putting to one side the memory of his Name. He gave Peace within an ultimatum – his Name a weapon to be turned against Itself.
The child born of silent warfare, raised within the arms of hatred became a true ally. A contradiction within a contradiction. She had been born for Death. Death threatened upon her and all that she loved (all the heloved) if she didn't bring to bear the nature that was distilled so carefully within her. He tried to take away her battle by bringing it back into himself. By facing the Machine that had long painted a target on the man known as The Doctor.
All the Universe declared a Time and Place…all he had to do was be there.
He tried to fight it.
He pleaded his surrender.
Neither of these were possible, though both means were accomplished.
Again, he sacrificed his Name.
He let Them take it and wipe it from the stars, even as he carried it safely within the beating of his hearts, determined to never lose the meaning of it again.
He stepped back into the Shadows as his enemy emerged from those same shadows to claim the light he had left behind. He melted into the arms of the dark, taking the fevered whispers that spoke of him into that same void. He turned his back on the burn of the light and gave them their Victory, even as they lost it all – the Power of his Name and the potency of their precious Weapon.
Their Weapon – the Woman birthed from the Universe (and therefore controlled only by the lack of that same control), took her own fate into her hands, even as he forced her to do so. She took the Name of the Doctor for her former Masters and gave it back to him by guarding his secret. She fought weaponless within her cage of their constraints, freedom found under lock and key, though she was imprisoned by her love for him and all that he had come to mean to her.
He surrendered to a death that was false, an empty victory for his enemy and continued to fight from the lightless corners of the Universe, winning even through all that he had lost. His victories achieved through the same methods used to subdue and crush him – the peaceful battle of Silence. He struck from the Shadows, using the bleak light of their Win to pinpoint and remove them, as unseen and unknown as they once were to him. He marked their movements well and used the same to deconstruct the chaos they blazed across the face of the Galaxies.
Now all he awaited was the Final Battle: a Question answered, the biggest Truth wrapped in the deepest Lie. Their Victory would be a devastating loss on a far greater scale than even hecould imagine. At that moment, he would once again reclaim his Name and all that it had come to mean, past, present and future. But for now, he would shore up his truthful lies and prepare to lose it all (again), as he won against this most deadly enemy. He would Win (this assured by his very existence), even though he would surely Lose (also guaranteed by the fact he still drew breath in a Universe that was ever more uncertain).
But he could reconcile with that.
War was Peace – even as Peace was the very declaration of War.
In the end, his Badge of Honor was also his claim to Victory when all was Lost.
He was (is, had always been) the defender of the Universe. The hand of Fate when the cards had long been dealt. The Trickster, the Mad God, the Loving Destructor – as unpredictable and fierce as the Time Winds that heralded his arrival. His very name was the essence of Peaceful Absolution.
He was named (long ago) Theta Sigma by his People.
He was Named (long before that) The Doctor by the Universe.
The Doctor he will remain.