Pain of Remembrance
Author:
Neth Dugan
Rating:
PG-13
Category:
10th Doctor Era, Angst.
Warnings:
Spoilers for 'Age of Steel'.
Summery:
Remembering can hurt, can kill, but it can also save others. It's a
part of life, and this is something the Doctor knows well.
Disclaimer:
I own nothing, not The Doctor, not the Cybermen, nada.
Author's Notes: This was inspired by a brief conversation in comments with Du, and thus the bunny for this is her fault, honest it is. So I'd like to thank her for that.
He stared down at the Cyberman, the Cyborg that had once been a woman. About to get married. Oh, the luck of the universe. The poor, poor woman and what she was going through. If only he could stop her pain, stop anyone else from feeling what she was, but… there was no way around it. None at all. And he knew it too, each part of him, hew knew what he had to do and he was almost sorry about that too. He'd been hanging around Humans too long. He was the one who had to make these decisions now, the only one left and the only one with any idea of what was going on.
The Pain.
Running. Legs pumping and arms flying, a human behind him, air rushing to and from her lungs, his lungs, their lungs. Panting. Running. A flash of a tartan. Fleeing from the things behind him. Shut your doors, hide under the bed, the monsters were coming!
And they were dead, both of them. Both before their time and both would have a purpose. There was death, always death, always too much of it and never a limit to the destruction around him but… but he always tried. Always tried to give what he could not avoid a purpose. And so he followed, joined the Congo line and walked in time. Time. Cybermen behind him and around him, his mind whirled and his two harts pumped. Pumped. Samba.
And suddenly the scenery around him changed, and he was wearing different clothes. The person behind him changed too but still they were running, running, escaping and trying to get away. Wind rushing around them and through them. In and out. In and out. Forward!
Rose was there, alive at least; along side her not-father. He didn't quite know what he'd do if the Cybermen had killed her, or upgraded her, but he imagined, and oh what an imagination he had now, that it would not be the least bit pretty. Companions, they'd always been important, always been treasured and always missed when they were lost. And Adric, lost to these machines in a world not his own. How he'd changed now, how… he would not walk away again. Never again.
Unconsciously, his fingers searched for a badge that wasn't there, twitching.
He was wearing a hat now, and a woolly vest. But he was running, still running, through trees and grass and a bow in his hand, her hand, one of their hands. Running, moving those legs. Move move, move! Come on, don't forget the…
Ace!
That machine. That being, organic matter encased in hard steel speaking and taunting. He had to wonder if he had an emotional inhibitor, if it worked properly. Taunting him as he was, but he didn't know. Of course he didn't, before now he'd been an ape from a small backwater planet in an unfashionable to non-invaders part of the galaxy, in another universe to boot. He didn't know, he didn't understand. Of course he didn't, he couldn't.
Slowly the scenery morphed, changed, long white corridors under a familiar sky. An old friend running behind him, her brown hair swaying back and forth, but they were both still panting. Both still running. And even if he was again different she was the same, and as she was shot she pushed him into this vessel.
Looking, behind her the tall and silver Cyberman shifted, morphed like every other thing had into a bronze and domed machine screaming and screeching.
And he ran.
And he ran.
It was a part of him. It would always be from now on, for each of the lives that were to follow. And though it had changed him, altered him, he'd moved on now thanks in large part to the blond girl behind him. And he had accepted it, would keep it to him because it meant he hadn't forgotten. And this man, this thing, would have every one forget. Forget joy and hope, pain and loss, the good and the bad, the ecstasy of love and the utter misery of death. He would have everyone forget what it was to live.
And that was they key. Oh, he hated it, he really did, and if he knew another way he'd do it. But making everyone remember again was the key to their success, to billions more people living even through the destruction. And unlike him, these poor, poor people had no way to live on. They had no failsafe, no regeneration and they would die. In pain, and in remembrance.
As he put the phone into the slot he sent off a thought into time, an apology that had become so familiar to him over the centuries.
He was running again, down a cold and grey corridor, a hand clasped together with his. And this time there were no robots, no men in grey or oversized table accessories chasing after them. It was just the standard, run of the mill monsters.
Run and hide, get under your bed, the monsters were here again!