Rewritten
The Doctor leaned back against the TARDIS controls. He watched his current companions, Amy and Rory, scurry around as they got Rory semi-permanently moved in. Mostly this consisted of them running around the ship, finding things that he liked (or, more often, Amy liked for him) and then asking the Doctor if they keep the objects, at least for the duration of their stay. This had slowly devolved into just plain running around.
The last time they had passed through the control room, the two were in the throws of a tickle fight. As expected, Amy was winning, putting her fiancé on the defense with no sign of being able to make a tickle attack against her. The Doctor smiled - the more time she spent fooling around with Rory, the less she did with him. If she's going to try to mount someone, let her mount someone who's willing.
Despite his companions' light-hearted fun, the Doctor had weightier things on his mind. Time can be rewritten. Nice enough concept, yes, but what was the full extent of it?
That crack. There was so much wrong with it – the simple fact of its existence, the terrible amount of power it emitted, the silence that followed it, but most terrifying to the Doctor was that the effects of it seemed surprisingly similar to the Moment. Had he not been able to trace the date to June 26th in 2010 – also Amy's wedding date, but that's an entirely different worry – he would have thought that it had been caused by the colossal space-time event of his using the Moment to end the Time War. It would have been his luck, too – in trying to save the universe, he had actually doomed it, spreading cracks throughout time and space.
He chuckled, an empty sound. It was too soon to tell – he could easily screw up events on that day and somehow cause the cracks. His ability to royally screw things up never did seem to get enough credit from anyone but his own race.
Somehow, his thoughts always went back to Gallifrey. The Doctor wondered if he was becoming a sentimental old man. Still, when dealing with matters of time and space, it was only natural to think of the Time Lords.
"… Doctor?"
The Doctor was so lost in his contemplations that he almost didn't notice his two human passengers before him. They had put a Mesoamerican stone statue carrying a golden bowl at the Gallifreyan's feet. Frankly, the Doctor was unsure how they even managed to carry it so far; the statue was incredibly heavy.
"This thing is so cool," Rory enthused, looking back and forth between Amy and the Doctor.
The Doctor looked back and forth between the two of them, unsure what to tell them. "… Are you sure you want to put that in your room?"
Amy punched her fiancé on the arm. "Told you it was cursed!"
"Not cursed," the Doctor corrected her, "but it does have a bit of an… unpleasant history…"
"Ooooh! Tell me all about it!" the redhead asked, bubbling with enthusiasm despite having helped carry the weighty statue a good distance. She leaned over, resting her elbows on the TARDIS consol.
"You know of the Aztecs, right?" Both nodded. "Well, this fellow right here," he patted the statue's head, "was called Tezcatlipoca. One of their most powerful gods, he was. They believed that he had power over the night, jaguars, obsidian, discord, hurricanes, and various other odds and ends. He went by many names – 'The Enemy To Both Sides,' 'Smoking Mirror,' 'We Who Are His Slaves.' In their religion, it was believed that Tezcatlipoca created war so that the gods could feast."
"Sounds like this Tez.. Tez… this guy wasn't all that pleasant," said Rory, eyeing the statue carefully.
"And did they do human sacrifice for Tezcattypika?" Amy gleefully asked. The Doctor smirked; Amy was so easily excitable. Such a foil to the laid back, hapless Rory.
"Yes. And it's Tezcatlipoca, not… whatever it was you just called him… I managed to acquire this from the main temple in Tenochtitlan, the seat of the Aztec Empire."
"And I'm sure the Aztecs didn't look to fondly of you acquiring it, did they, Doctor?"
"Well, what else was I supposed to do? Had to stop them somehow - can't have a human sacrifice ceremony with no god to sacrifice to, can we?"
Amy and Rory looked at each other, only mildly confused. Rory, more so than Amy, who, by then, was used to the Doctor's behavior.
"Wait… So, you're saying that my really cool statue…"
"Yup," the Doctor stated, flatly. "That bowl, right there; that's where the priests used to put the still-beating heart of the victims, blood pouring out."
"That is just sick!" said Rory, recoiling from the statue.
"No it isn't! It's cool! It's history!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Now, unless you want it in your room, go put it back."
Amy groaned, stretching her back. She punched Rory's arm again. "Told 'ya we should have just left it."
She reached over to pick it up. Rory looked warily at the sculpture, but helped her carry it, anyway. Carefully, the two of them made it down and up the stairs and into the other room.
"And don't drop it!" the Doctor called out after them.
Alone again, he went back to his contemplations.
Time can be rewritten…
He thought back upon Gallifrey. The policy of the Time Lords was always non-interference. They had been taught at the Time Lord Academy that that policy had been instituted after a particularly devastating war, but the Doctor wondered; after having seen and felt the raw energy emanating from the crack in time, could there have been more behind the policy? For the most part, the times that his race had formally breached their policy, it was to keep the flow time moving in its natural direction. Because that's how it should be, right?
That much was never questioned; even the Doctor – the most curious and troublesome student at the Academy – never thought to challenge the notion that time is best following its natural course. Trying to change the flow of time and space was seen as insane – megalomania, even. The Doctor tried to think back upon his education those many years ago; was there something that the Time Lords had known that had kept them from so freely changing the universe?
But all the possibilities! The things he could do! The things he could change! He could make the universe such a better place! Even on a smaller scale, the Doctor had certainly made enough mistakes in his life. If he could just find the extent of how much of time could be rewritten without endangering the fabric of time and space…
The Doctor slowly began to let his mind drift towards dangerous territory. He'd tried once before, in the heat of the moment, to play with the outcome of a fixed point in time. He was younger then – not much, mind you – and a lot more arrogant. Armed with the perspective that he'd gained in this new regeneration, he could try again…
No! He refused to think back to Adelaide Brooke. He'd spent enough long nights just listening to the sound of the gunshot as it echoed throughout time and space. The sound of all things just out of reach.
But time can be rewritten. He had rewritten it, hadn't he? He had felt so powerful – all of time and space at his command. All of the power of the Time Lords. It was his birthright. And it was all undone with a lone gunshot.
… The Time Lords were right – he had developed a bit of megalomania, hadn't he? He thought that he was better, but, here he was, considering the same sort of thing all over again.
No, the Doctor told himself, there were no do-overs. He had gone too far back then. It was too much power for one person. Even just travelling on his own seemed to be too much power. Donna was right – he needed companions, if nothing else, for the basic principle that he needed someone to be able to stop him if he went too far again. Amy had (unintentionally) made that blatantly obvious to him on their first outing. No, he wouldn't redo anything; no matter how much part of him wanted to. Not the Mars colony, not the Titanic, not Madame de Pompadour, not the Library, not Canary Warf…
Canary Warf. That was another direction that he didn't want his mind to go in. It was even more painful than the suicide of Adelaide; so much more grief buried underneath that memory.
The Doctor pushed himself off of the TARDIS controls. When did he allow his thoughts to get so dark?
–No. He didn't want to answer that one. He already knew the answer. And it was still dark.
The Doctor exhaled a breath that he didn't know that he had been holding. He needed to cheer up. He needed to find Amy and Rory. He needed some tea and a goofy conversation. Maybe he would see what this room that Rory had put together looks like.
He smiled, trying to imagine where Rory would have put the dark blue curtains that he had shown the Doctor; the room had no windows. His smile widened. The curtains had probably gone to creating clothing for that ancient Greek nude sculpture that they had put in there. It would certainly explain why they had asked him if he had an oversized safety pin hidden away anywhere.
The Doctor flew up the stairs, and smacked into Rory, carrying a dark purple potted plant that the Doctor had picked up from a small planet near the Cat's Eye Nebula. From behind Rory, Amy let out a small shriek as the Doctor fell to the floor. Rory clumsily tried to hang onto the plant, but it slipped through his fingers, the pot shattering uncomfortably close to the Doctor's head.
Rory and Amy stood in stunned silence as the Doctor slowly stood up, clutching the back of his head
"OOOW!" he exclaimed, harshly, into Rory's face.
Rory stood there with a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face while Amy went to see to the back of the Doctor's head.
"Doesn't look like you're bleeding…" she said, sifting through thick clumps of dark hair. "Rory, you're the nurse; shouldn't you be the one doing this?"
Rory snapped out of his stunned stupor. "Oh, right. I am. S-sorry…" he pulled out the small torch kept in his back pocket. "Right, now, um… I'm going to check if you have a concussion… So… uh… hold still…"
"Just do it, already," the Doctor snapped.
"Um… alright." He flashed the torch into each of the Doctor's eyes. "Your pupils aren't dilated unevenly, so that's good. Do you feel any dizziness or nausea?"
"No."
"Well, uhh… headache?"
"I just hit the back of my head! What do you think!"
"Yeah, right… Do you feel like you're going to pass out?"
"I'm still standing, aren't I?"
"Amy, get him some ice… please?"
Amy nodded and ran through another doorway.
"Uuugh. I hope you're not this nervous all the time in that hospital that you work at," the Doctor groaned as Rory examined the growing goose-egg on the Time Lord's skull.
"Not really. Usually I just run bloodwork and stuff."
They stood in silence for a bit.
"Sorry I yelled at you," said the Doctor.
"Yeah… Sorry I made you hit your head," replied Rory. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I think I'm gonna be fine…" said the Doctor, wincing slightly as he rubbed the lump on the back of his head.
"Sorry about the plant," apologized Rory, looking at the mess of dirt and the shattered pot on the ground.
"It's fine," said the Doctor. "Just leave it, I'll tell the TARDIS to clean it up."
"You're being awfully understanding today," Amy said, entering with a cold compress.
"What are you talking about – I'm awfully understanding everyday," the Doctor said, snatching the compress out of her hands and holding it against his head.
"I'm just saying. Normally you're a little more… temperamental."
"I think she means 'grumpy,'" Rory clarified, earning him a sharp nudge in the ribs.
The Doctor chose to ignore that last statement. "I've been thinking. It happens a lot – mind you. And I need a break from it. I think for too long, and things start to seem a little dark. Have to put things in perspective now-and-then. Breaking a plant isn't much of a problem compared to some of the other things I've done."
"Such as?"
The Doctor put his free hand on the Scottish girl's shoulder, leading her towards the kitchen, knowing that Rory would follow. "Amy, I am a very old man. If I were to give you a play-by-play of my life, you'd be bored out of your mind… and you probably wouldn't understand half of it, anyway."
"Oy!" She elbowed him, feigning insult.
"C'mon, Amy, Rory. Let's get us some tea in the kitchen. Then, you can show me this monstrosity of a room that you've created."
"Monstrosity?"
"That's what I said, didn't I?" the Time Lord said with a youthful grin.
"I kinda like it…" mumbled Rory.
"Course you do!" the Doctor said, slapping the man on the back, causing him to stumble a little. "It's your room. You're supposed to like it. Now, I've got some tea that I picked up in the Tang Dynasty that I haven't tried yet. How about we give it a try and see if it's good enough to swing by and get some more?"
"Alright… I don't know much about history, but Tang Dynasty… that's ancient China, right?" Rory asked.
"And now we're going to have ancient Chinese tea!" Amy said to him, a mischievous smile on her face.
The Doctor looked back and forth between his two companions with an affectionate smile. For now, the important thing was living in the present in this little semblance of normalcy. The ethics of rewriting time – he could save that for another day.
…
Well, expect to see a bunch of fanfiction pour out of me over the next few weeks – looks like I'm gonna be sick for a while. Joy.
Anyway, this was more-or-less just a drabble. I was unsure if I was going to publish this or not, but, figured, 'What the hell; why not?'
The whole time writing this, I had the song 'No Handlebars' by the Flobots flowing through my head. My family is probably sick to death of it.