Warnings: Angst, Horror, Dark!Fic, Character Study, Introspection, Spoilers for 7.13 (mild but there)
A/N: Written for who_contest's Prompt: Bad Weather comprised of my usual overly angsty-thinky ramblings. Standard wandery-blithery within (youse has been warned) with more than a touch of horror and despair to sweeten the 'bzuh?!'. No, I have no idea where this came from - or even the slightest inkling of its coherence and adherence to the prompt. As always, I leave that to youse guise. Again, mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. As always, I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/blithery 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 would be a towering, imposing monolith, if it wasn't so achingly familiar. It looked like home, but it didn't all at once – so alien and unreachable against the thundering crackle of the sky. It all smelled of an electric void, the planet (if it could be called that) holding its breath in the wake of a storm. The storm had come, the storm had died, leaving only black lightening and cracked gravestones at its feet.
Broken monuments crumbling up from the blasted earth. Nothing grew here. Everything died here. The weather (what was left of it) was the worst. The dancing tingle of thunder and lightning left raised hairs and dry-damp anticipation against one's skin, but it was held suspended. A captured breath, a moment of time that had never happened, never would. Like the endlessly burning black-hole-to-be at the center of a TARDIS.
The only indication that Time might be moving on the graveyard of a planet was the actual sparks of lightning striking around the tallest monolith. The greatest and largest of them all. The tribute to a fallen warrior that was a doctor and yet was not. That familiarity lost with the staggering height of it, the windows cracked from age and a tired sense of finality. Truly a grave of the heart. And the only one that made sense.
Their footsteps thudded dully against the straggling dirt path, the dust too tired and leadened from the lack of moisture to even puff up around their shoes. The silence and emptiness weighed as heavy as the rain that would never fall. The planet held over the maw of its own death, endless waiting for Time to move again and allow it to go the way of all things. Just as he had.
Just as he would.
This broken, molten world was a fitting resting place for the destroyer of such. River, Clara, Amy…so, so many wouldn't agree, though they would know the truth of it, even as they denied it. Here, in this place, he missed them most of all. Even as they stood beside him. They shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. The TARDIS always was wiser than he was, even as She knew he'd have to face this. To face them - here in their tomb. The end of the universe was nothing compared to this place. The breathing emptiness an answer to a question that was forever being asked in his hearts.
This was what he had been running from. This was what he was running to. Monotonous rumblings over the monolith was another answer to his unasked questions. The ones he dared not ask. The things he dared not speak of.
The storm was coming...and the truth –
The truth was in the Eye(s).