Disclaimer: I own nothing Doctor Who related. If I did, the show would never have progressed past the Doctor and Rose pairing.
Author's Note: I say it now to get it out of the way; this is very, very AU. If that's not your cup of tea, then you'd better just leave now. This is my very first Who fic, so please be kind. Reviews are always appreciated, but don't bother flaming because I won't bother reading it.
Did I mention reviews are love? Cause they are. Really.
Warning: AU, like I said. So be prepared.
"And the battles just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won" - U2, Sunday Bloody Sunday
The first thing she did when she found consciousness, was scream.
She was hardly an easily panicked woman. Anyone who had spent less than five minutes with her would have known that she didn't scare without good reason; and even then it took a lot more for that fear to pass her features. Within her home and people, she'd acquired quite the reputation for being recklessly brilliant in dealing with threats that brought men to their knees, without so much as batting an eyelash in the face of enemies.
She was revered by countless beings in the galaxy, and feared by just as many. Admired by some of her own people, yet only begrudgingly accepted by many in the face of her defiant outlook on the universe.
Always looking, always exploring. Always, always, having the time of her life else she stop and become like them. Sitting on the sidelines, watching and monitoring, but never a part of the glorious history that makes it all so wonderful.
She's lived a long life, an incredible life, full of the unexpected, and never once has she regretted looking into the Untempered Schism and running, running, running all across this spectacular universe and finding all those people and places and becoming part of it all. Helping, hurting, loving, hating, success, disaster; there was nothing like this old existence that she counted herself inexplicably lucky to be in. She never would understand how her species had been able to stay away from it all.
So much time running away from that life. When the Time War came there was no escaping.
She become the thing she thought she'd never have to be. A soldier. Many would argue that she'd had it in her blood from the day she came into existence. She didn't do weapons. She fought only when she was forced to. And oh, she was forced.
Blood and sweat and tears. So many lost and so much she'd never see again. Planets falling and species dying. Everything, it seemed, was turning to dust. There was nothing she could do, only fight, fight, fight until the bitter end to keep her own planet alive.
And then it was all gone. It was just her and then and there were only two choices she could make. She could let the Daleks take over, let the inhabitants of he world continue to be killed or turned into them. Or she could end it. End it all. Forever.
The Time Lords gone. The Daleks gone. Truly the end of the last great Time War.
She wasn't supposed to survive it. She wasn't supposed to wake up to the silence in her over cluttered mind that told her in no uncertain terms that Gallifrey and everyone on it - men, women, children, best friends, enemies - were gone, all gone. Because of her.
And she was alive. She was safe. Safe where she'd woken, weak from a most definitely forced regeneration in the TARDIS, that had led her to this safety in the last possible moment.
And she screamed.
Screamed loudly and heartbreakingly. Screamed as unbidden tears ran helpless, continuously down her face and onto the metal grating of the TARDIS floor. Screamed and screamed and screamed until her throat was raw and dry and she couldn't possibly get any noise or sign that she was alive to come from even her superior vocal chords for days.
She stayed like that for days and days; never leaving, never fully accepting that gentle hum of her brilliant machine in her mind that tried to bring her comfort. She stayed there, not eating, not sleeping, so numb, so very, very numb and unable to comprehend any of it. She didn't know how she'd ever be able to stand again, to fly her ship anywhere else in all of history.
Running, running, running. Always so desperately running. How fitting, she thinks, that now there is no place she can hide now that everything's run from her.
The Bad Wolf was broken.