Title: Tormented Struggle
Rating: K
Spoilers: Up to and including Dalek
Disclaimer: Unfortunately Doctor Who et al belongs to the BBC and not me. 'Good Christian Man' belongs to the Doug Anthony AllStars and once more not me. Unfortunately no money is being made from this...though being a poor procrastinating uni student it would be nice...

I'm a patchwork quilt of a man, babe,
Seems I've got too many sides.
It's the tormented struggle of each day,
Keeping all these fears locked inside.

The Time War had effectively broken him where all his previous enemies, kidnappings and torturings had failed and ironically, it was by his own hand that he suffered. For so many centuries he'd tried, and failed, to escape Gallifrey to no avail and now, even if he wanted to, he could never go back home. How true the old Earth saying 'you don't know what you've got until you've lost it.' He never thought he'd miss his people's 'comforting' presence in the back of his mind. He shouldn't miss it, they never existed in the first place thanks to the accursed war and he himself is a paradox. The last of the greatest race that never existed travelling through time and space in the last TARDIS that never existed. Even his great mind could not work out how that was possible. Obviously someone really liked him to save him from the fate of his people...or absolutely hated him to make him suffer like that. Perhaps it was a bit of both?

She offered me her hand and I took it,
Yeah, I took her sweet ladies hand.
Was it the hand of evil she was offering me,
Lord I may never understand.
I may never understand.

It was so tempting to give in and join his people in death but he couldn't bring himself to do it by his own hand. Perhaps if he put himself in more and more impossible situations, stopping deadlier and deadlier plots then maybe just maybe his enemies'd do it for him. Why were his people granted such a respite and not him? He'd lost count how many times he'd blown himself up, been incarcerated and tortured and yet still death's sweet embrace failed to encircle him. He was Time's Champion, the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds. The ironic thing was he no longer cared what happened to the universe and the more he tried to die as a result of his heroic actions, the more he saved the universe and the more he became known as a hero.

Did you dance with me for a joke, babe?
And did your friends all laugh and sneer?
I never seen that kind of dance before,
The way you moved filled my head with fear.
Yes, it filled my head with fear.

And then one day, he ran into a young shop girl by the name of Rose Tyler. Like usual he was saving a world from an alien threat, and like usual he held a faint hope that he'd find himself back with Romana and all the other stuffy bureaucrats of his homeworld. He even missed his old rival Koschei...but like always he made it out and ran into the shop girl again. Her stupid ape brain unable to comprehend the thought of an alien invasion but insistant on helping him, she even saved him from death in the Nestene's lair. The death that he'd been searching for since the War and she denied him that.

He hadn't taken on a companion since the War. He didn't trust himself to keep them safe anymore, truth be told he'd felt like that since Adric's death back in his 5th body, and yet fate had deemed that he needed one. Tired of fighting fate he gave in and was suprised she said no when he asked her to come with him. So off he went, dematerialised and back into the vortex. Only to open the doors and find him back where he started from. He'd asked and she said no what more did fate want?

Now, I didn't mean to tear your dress, babe,
Or to break your fine break your fine red nails.
And your priest he will not forgive me,
So I rot in the hell of this jail.

So he asked again and she came this time. He'd been given another jeopardy friendly stupid ape. How many times had he nearly gotten her killed? Far too many times. The Gelth, Slitheen, Cassandra were the worst of the lot and now in order to save the world he'd sealed the bulkhead. Locked her in with a Dalek. A DALEK for Rassilon's sake. No one deserved that. But if he didn't close it, it would have killed everything. Just as he killed her. He'd killed another companion. Another person who put their trust in him to keep them safe. Just as his people trusted him to keep them safe. How could he keep them safe if he couldn't even keep himself safe? The sacrifice of the few for the good of the many always won precidence. And it always tore into him inside, a little piece of him dying each time.

Now I know it was Satan there dancing,
But why was it me Lord, I don't understand.
To be the weapon of such vengeance,
When I'm a humble, and good Christian man.

A mix of anger and relief washed through him as he opened the bulkhead to let her out. Relief that she didn't die, that through some miracle she was alive and in the same room as a Dalek but anger at the fact the Dalek would be released as well. He'd killed her once and the pain at loosing another companion nearly destroyed him. He wasn't prepared to kill her again and relive the experience. This place was full of alien weaponry, surely there'd be something he could use. Bollocks to his self-imposed no weapons rule. He wanted to blow the oversized pepperpot away. Van Statten had stopped him from giving the creature a taste of its own medicine, but nothing was going to stop him getting rid of the last remaining Dalek in the universe. His old nemesis had taken everything from him and was going to suffer.

Only he couldn't do it. She asked him not to and he hesitated. He ordered her to move away from the Dalek. She compared him to the monstrosity.

Ironic that a Dalek showed more humanity than him that day.

Well I swear she sits on my bed Lord,
Though the guard says there's nobody there.
And she's always offering her hand Lord,
But I won't take it, I'm a good Christian man.
I won't take it, I'm a good Christian man.

He was quiet and reserved for a bit after that. The temptation to rejoin his people was still there, though since he met the shop girl the pain in his hearts had begun to lessen to simply a dull ache and he began to enjoy life again. He knew the pain would never disappear and occasionally he'd feel the same as before but he had something to live for now. He was a teacher again; opening her eyes to the wonders of the universe and opening his own too at that. She would never know how much she had saved him from himself. And though the whole universe thought them a couple, they both knew they were much more than that. Better than that - they were teachers, saviours, kindred spirits. But most importantly they were each other's best friend.

He silently thanked fate for insisting it was about time he had a new companion.