Just a drabble. I hope I'm not the only one who cried after the God Complex.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and Steven Moffat; "Caught By the Light" belongs to The Boxer Rebellion.
Spoilers: The God Complex, with a slight reference to Let's Kill Hitler and past companions.
Caught by the light, aware but asleep. Never as close as the friends that you keep.
He was an angry man. He'd come to learn that much about himself.
But now he stood so quietly, hunched over the console. Levers and buttons were pressing into his thighs and he could feel the itch of his forehead beneath the tips of his hair and the burn behind his eyes, but he was so quiet. Even the TARDIS remained reserved, emitting only the softest of hums around him as she drifted through the celestial darkness.
It was only the two of them now.
It was lonely already.
He clasped his hands before his lips and closed his eyes, wishing so desperately to draw some sort of violent reaction from himself. He wanted the desire to throw things across the console room, to rip at the wires underneath it, to smash things to bits.
But now, instead of exploding, he was imploding. No big bangs, no flare-ups, no paroxysms. Just the quiet.
He'd needed to save her, and he was going to miss her so much.
"I knew this would happen," he had told her. "This is what always happens."
But it wouldn't happen this time. Not this time.
He opened his eyes. He could barely see the time rotor in front of him. He finally understood, now in the eleventh hour. Friendship was not parallel worlds and it was not erased memories and it was certainly not army ranks and broken hearts. There were so many lives lost and so many people torn apart, all out of faith.
But she was still breathing.
And if there was anybody, if there was a single soul in the known universe that he hadn't messed up, it was Amy Williams.
And time leaves you alone, alone, alone, alone.