A/N -9th Doctor, Pre-Rose. I got to wondering exactly why of all the Time Lords, only a rejected half-breed survived the Time War - then it came to me.
After the burning, came the silence. Crippled by his less than perfect telepathic sense he hadn't heard the voices of his kind, just a distant comforting murmur of voices. Now all was silence but for the agonized roar of his TARDIS and the endless crashing waves of Time.
Flashes of his personal past burst behind his eyes - the cool distanceof his academy instructors that carved the chip on his shoulder. Evasions and lies about how he had come to be, wondering which Time Lord he should curse for spawning a half-breed and abandoning him to the uncaring system of Galifreyan society. How he struggled to master the flight controls of even the training TARDIS, a creature so old and wise she could have piloted herself without a bump - his failures condemning him to seek out a ship of his own to bond with and being accepted only by an archaic ship who was more than half insane.
The agony of trying to touch the minds of his kind and the condescending way his handicap was explained to him - "You're not capable of true mental contact, be grateful you are enough of a touch telepath to manage at all." Grateful.A word he heard so often in those first centuries as he muddled along trying to fit a round soul into the square society of Time Lords. Yet after his crimes, they pushed him to lead them. Forced him to a sense of responsibility for the people that had abandoned and neglected him.
All the questions he wanted to ask but knew they wouldn't answer. Why was there a telepathic mechanic on Arkessilon Station who had two hearts? At least twice he'd met humans who had timesense, something that could only evolve on Galifrey? What about the Durnikian he'd seen regenerate with his own eyes? The Face of Boe traveling through time and space in the manner of a TARDIS?
Romana had tried to tell him, at the end. Her once beautiful voice reduced to a grating whisper echoing across the void in a last transmission from her dying TARDIS. "It's all planned, Theta, just remember that Time Lords abhor coincidence. There are no accidents. You were created for this moment in time. Destiny, Fate, its all a crock. We knew we'd need you so we made you."
We made you. Last words of the Time Lords. It all made sense now as he drifted in the void, frozen and silent. His whole life plotted out uncounted centuries before. Even his rebellion engineered to create a flawed Time Lord, a person who would place the survival of the universe before the survival of his own race. So perfectly created that even when he pushed the button and destroyed Galifrey he believed it was the right thing to do. How many experiments had failed before they got him? How many lives scattered across the universe were almost what was needed? Almost but not perfect. A full telepath on Arkessilon who lacked timesense. The occasional human with timesense but no telepathy at all. A confused Durnikian never understanding why he came back to life over and over again.
He laughed for days while he tried to repair his ship. His crazy beautiful ship, his TARDIS who had seen his destiny and gone a little bit off. Maniacal laughter echoing through scorched chambers. She healed herself to the rhythm of his madness, shaping herself to fit his new understanding. Hysterical laughter filled the void and mapped out a course to a future that was unplanned. New. For the first time in all his lives, anything was possible.