Written for firstofoct on livejournal for the 2011 Doctor/Rose Holiday fixathon. Yes, it is terribly late, but at least I finished it...!
Warning: Angst, with an extra helping of angst, and some sexual situations.
Hope no one is confused by the back-and-forward timelines going on.
Disclaimer: Even if I owned Doctor Who, I wouldn't even be able to own the Doctor, because no one owns the Doctor, except the Doctor himself. Or possibly Rose. She owns the Metacrisis, at least, but I'm not her and therefore don't own him either. I also don't own the poem in here, that's owned by T.S. Eliot. Yes, 'The Hollow Men' is perhaps the most common poem ever quoted when it comes to angst, but if it's not broken, don't fix it.
This is the dead land,
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Christina De Souza, he thinks, had we met in another life, I would have dearly loved to show you the stars.
But she is safer in the world of her birth, after all. The stars may have been hers, but she would never be theirs. He isn't safe. He's dangerous. Just by existing he puts the universe in danger, just by being there civilization is threatened. Someone had once told him that light cannot exist without darkness, that the brightest light casts the darkest shadow, but he is the darkness, and his light has long since been taken from him in the form of a parallel world and a man who looked like him. Should Rose see him now, she wouldn't recognize this hunted being with a death sentence over his head.
Four knocks. He will knock four times; four beats to herald his death, to end the life he has claimed as his own. This body, though old and weary in spirit, is still bursting with life, still full of energy and plans and ideas, still able to last at least another century or two. How long has it been since he regenerated last? Six, seven years, linear Earth time? Maybe twelve years, his time? He isn't ready. It can't be time, it just… can't.
Ten bodies down. Three to go. His mortality has never seemed so finite until now.
The TARDIS dematerializes, leaving London behind and landing in a new place, a new time, hundreds of thousands of years into the future on a different planet. There are no life signs outside, and it is night. He is fine with that. He is not yet ready to face the sun.
There's a sizzle, a flash of light, and he feels Time shift. The entire universe took a step sideways, flipping his stomach as images adjusted, stretched, unraveled and wove itself back together in his mind. Timelines changed; Earth became more suspicious of alien worlds, Brooke's granddaughter took three more years to achieve her flight, nearly not achieving it altogether when a protest group sabotaged her ship two months before launch. Humanity didn't leave Earth for another three decades, settlers chose Centauri Prime instead of Centauri Beta, missing the development of the cure for cancer three hundred years late, causing the near-annihilation of the neighboring system. On and on the rebounds went, and every change was a blow to his hearts.
He had gone too far.
Reality was spinning out of control, and blood was rushing through his head. He stumbled, caught the edge of the TARDIS, and stood petrified as he saw the figure of Ood Sigma. There was no possible way he was there, rationally, but the Doctor could feel the edges of his mind fraying, snapping, loosening the tenuous hold on control he'd had ever since she had fallen, ever since she had kissed another on that god forsaken beach, ever since he had lost everyone he had ever cared for, ever since he heard the prophecy of his death.
"Is this it? My death?" he cried. Was this his punishment? Was this how it was going to end, his inner darkness exposed, ripped out of his hearts, scarred and bleeding?
No. No, it wasn't Time. He wouldn't die yet. He couldn't. He was the last person who cared, the only one who could save them, and the last person who knew how to do so.
But did the universe want to be saved?
He staggered upright, fear coursing through him, stumbled through the doors and slammed them behind him. His legs gave way, and curled up against the doorway, he fought against the tears that threatened to consume him. Somewhere, the TARDIS sang a song of sorrow and loss; all he heard was the pounding of his hearts, steadily measuring the countdown of his existence.
Every second was a fight for sanity, every breath a struggle for control. Time was screaming, trying to fix itself, tearing through him and around him and demanding payment for the damage. Fix me, it demanded, fix me. But he couldn't move, lest he break into thousands of pieces and lose himself in the struggle to put himself back together.
There was a pressure building within him, and he was scared to find out what would happen when it burst.
He fought, oh he fought, for the hold on sanity, for the continual existence of his mind. He had nearly died, nearly lost to the nuclear explosion on the base; the brushes with death were becoming closer and closer together. Everywhere he turned he was surrounded by it. Everywhere he went he was reminded of it.
The eyes are not here,
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
There's a pop, a sizzle, and a smell of iron. He's standing at the edges of a ruined civilization, the once-grand buildings now crumbled stones and weed-wrecked foundations. How appropriate, he thinks. His entire world is falling down around him, and soon, his story will be like these ruins: memories of a long-ago empire spanning the stars, but now nothing more than a legend, a forgotten tale. The forest has already begun to reclaim the land, and he wonders how long it will take for the Universe to move on without him.
He knows without turning that she's there.
Her footsteps are quiet, but he can feel her presence, the essence of Rose that will forever be burned into his hearts. She reaches his side and grabs his hand, offering comfort, offering solace.
"You aren't meant to be here," he says.
"I know," she responds, and silence falls once more.
His breathing is harsh and ragged when he finally pulls himself to his feet, slowly making his way to the console. Time is still screaming, but he can ignore it for now; he will fix it, atonement for his sins, but later. First, he must repair himself.
The TARDIS is singing, her Song soothing the raw edges of his soul. With trembling fingers he punches in a sequence of commands, but hesitates when it comes time for activation. He knows that going anywhere in the state he's in will only cause worse damage than usual. Mostly, though, it's fear.
Time is running out. He can feel it, pressing in on him, calling out to him, luring him in closer and closer. Fear stills his hand. There's a risk in pulling the lever. As soon as the TARDIS is in flight, it means he is one step closer to fulfilling the prophecy. When the time rotor starts, so does the end. His breath catches, and his hand drops.
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the shadow.
The kiss is searing, desperate and full of longing. Her hands attack the buttons on his shirt, and he is grateful that he sacrificed the vest when getting dressed that morning. Their jackets have long since been shed, blue and brown, abandoned under the crumbling arch, and her blouse is warm and smooth as he tugs it up and off. His tie and dress shirt soon join it on the forest floor, and she trips and pulls him down with her onto the moss-covered courtyard.
His hands are everywhere, no longer denied what he has hesitated to reach towards for so long, and his fingers fumble at button and zip before sliding her jeans off her legs. She bucks upwards to help remove the cloth, and he groans as their hips make contact. His lips move from mouth to jaw to neck, and he sucks hard at the join of neck and shoulder, bruising the skin. Her arms tighten around him, tugging him closer, and it is a struggle to remove the rest of their clothing, neither one wanting space between them ever again.
Her hands trip down his skin before sliding between his thighs, and he jerks as she takes him in hand. His eyes are squeezed shut, terrified to open and see this as a dream, and she places soothing kisses over their eyelids and strokes him gently. Slowly, he relaxes, and in the ruins of a long-gone empire he slides into her and feels at home.
The moss beneath her back is scratchy, but she doesn't complain, only pulls him tighter and wraps her legs firmly about his waist. He absently recalls that she still has her socks on before kissing her once more, desperate to feel her, taste her, to have this one last memory, one last time, before she is gone to him forever, loving a knock-off of himself, raising children and living the life she always deserved. If she has even an inkling of his reason, she stays quiet, encouraging him with murmurs and gasps and sighs as they both draw nearer and nearer to completion. Thoughts of the prophecy and desert planets and being alone flee his mind as he focuses on the push and pull, give and take, forward and back of a dance as old as Time.
He climaxes with stars and supernovas in his mind, and thinks it ironic. Here his world is ending, and instead of dark grey shadows, it is fire and starlight.
Is he ready to face his destiny? Can he face it?
No. No, he cannot.
Once a coward, always a coward, he thinks bitterly, as his hands clench. Too much a coward to die with his people, too much a coward to fully embrace her light, too much a coward to accept the end.
Time is calling again, louder and more persistent. He concentrates on the TARDIS' song, drawing peace and comfort like he has before. She soothes his fears, his constant companion, fills the aching loneliness that is inherent within him. The bleeding edges of his soul are patched, never fully healed but temporarily tolerable. He breathes in, out, in, out, clearing his mind of the haze.
Somewhere a civilization is ending as another is emerging, somewhere people are enslaved when others are free, a sun is burning and collapsing when another is being born. Start and end, life and death, it circles in a never-ending loop with Time at its center. Somewhere, he gets into the TARDIS for the first time. Somewhere, Rose Tyler steps onto her first alien planet. Somewhere, Gallifrey lives.
A history he can never return to. A haunted past that is catching up to him, even now.
Getting closer. Making him atone for his sins. Calling out to him.
Coward, he thinks. Coward.
Your death, a voice in his head whispers.
Not yet, he shouts back.
You cannot escape your death, it replies.
Watch me, he snarls.
Time is running out, it says smugly.
"No!" He pulls the lever.
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
They dress, quietly and efficiently, and he thinks that it should have been more. Even now she is drifting away, returning to the task at hand, returning to her proper place and time. He's the stranger here, and as they finish he stares at her helplessly.
"Where am I?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "I can't tell you."
Rose studies him, and then nods. "You'll be alright?"
"I'll always be alright."
She knows the lie for what it is, but does not push him.
"Someone told me my song was ending," he broken-whispers. "And I can't escape it."
Stepping forward, she takes his hands, stares into his eyes, reading his soul. "The end is just the beginning," she says. "Do not fear it."
"Rose, I…"
"Shhh, my love. You know better than anyone that things happen for a reason. Perhaps you fear too much."
Her words do not soothe, the way she intends. He stares at her wordlessly, and then pulls her into a crushing hug, willing that Time would stand still for just a moment longer. Finally she pulls back, and with a small smile and a last goodbye, she vanishes into thin air, leaving only the memory and the smell of iron- the smell of blood.
He gets into the TARDIS, and runs.
He runs. Oh, he runs. Far and fast and never stops. He visits Cardasia, Alpine Seven, Tudor England, Civil War America. He runs and he saves and he kills and he fights and he destroys and he builds, tearing down those who dare to oppose him and trying to save the lives of innocents. He fixes the Time stream, prevents the mob from damaging the capsule, changes the minds of the government to Centauri Beta, but he still feels the tears he has wrought. He lands on Galtrow Five and brings down the government one day, and the next he is on Hawaii partying with the locals and having too much to drink. He runs until he can't see straight and when the prophecy finally catches up to him, he knows:
There is no controlling Time, for She is its own master and lord.
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper.
They were dying, one by one, picked off by the Flood; water was patient, but it knew how to divide and conquer, separate molecules to absorb them. It was ruthless and persistent, and wouldn't stop until it had achieved its goal.
"We're losing oxygen! The hull is breached!"
Their cries, pleas, shouts for help, mercy, for something to SAVE THEM are the only thing he hears. He can feel their lives snapping, their timelines coming to an abrupt halt, playing out as it should- as it has to. Time's way of making certain things stay put, so that it can continue on as it is meant to.
As it is meant to.
There's fire, burning from the explosion, more than enough fuel to make up for the lack of oxygen. The flames reflect on his helmet, reflect like Gallifrey did as it burned, flames flickering in his eyelids as the Moment washed through him. He gave up a regeneration, war-torn and battle-scarred as it was, to kill his people, to save the universe. Was it worth it, he thinks? Was it worth all this pain, worth losing all he loved, worth them, worth… her?
"I don't want to die!"
No more. No more. Their legacy is upheld in him. He is the last, the only; he will become all they were not. They controlled Time, and so will he. He is its Lord, it's only master, and it would do as he says.
No one else will die because of him.
No one else will suffer.
He reigns victorious.
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