So...this was basically written entirely for the angst. I wrote a sort-of-plot in the background, but it's all pretty much about the angst.


The Doctor knew what it was like to lay in a pool of his own blood…but this blood wasn't his. The Doctor knew what it was like to look in a mirror, to see battle scars and bruises across his face and body…but he wasn't looking in any mirror.

Tears burned as they flooded down his face, washing onto his blood-soaked hands. The blood would never wash away, not really.

He had spilt this blood…

…his best friend's blood.

He could only sit there, moaning, lamenting every breath he took for it kept him alive, while her beautiful body, milky white skin still hot with life, lay there as empty as the Void. Her eyes, still open, stared vacantly skyward, and her neck was crooked, as though she was lost in thought. Her hair was spread like a halo, swirls of red drenched in something even more red…

Donna Noble. She had been so glorious, so full of life. And then he slaughtered her, like she was an animal. He slaughtered the most important woman in his universe like an animal.

Because there was a creature inside her. An engineered Dalek parasite, a monster that was laying the eggs of a thousand Daleks within her body. It had grafted itself into her heart and into her spine, into the very fibers of her body…and she didn't even know it. He never even told her why he had to kill her.

He had ripped open her chest, torn her insides to shreds. He couldn't just kill her; the Dalek parasite didn't need her anymore, and was killing her inside, slowly and surely. He had to crush the eggs in his fists, a task he took with single-minded determination. It was only then that he saw the blood, the shreds of flesh, clinging to his fingers and trapped beneath his nails.

Donna's blood.

He was at first oblivious to Martha as her footsteps rang out behind him; she gasped in horror, and finally, in realization of her presence he closed his eyes, moaning in grief and in disgust. Animal sobs escaped his lips, uncontrollable and quivering. Martha was too terrified to approach him, and he did not blame her. He wished to the depths of his core that he never had to feel…anything…again.

Swallowing the bile rising from deep within his hearts, he reached deep within his coat pocket and withdrew a small key. Tossing it to his side, it fell skittering to the floor, where Martha stepped forward to take it. Hearing her footsteps, he bowed his head. He would follow; he had to, he always had to. He had to take Martha home.

But first, he had to grieve.

Slowly, shakily, he pulled his coat from his shoulders. His movements were rigid and lifeless, as though he was some robotic form and not a living man with a heart and soul. He reminded himself that he wasn't a man; he was less than an insect. He was a killer, a blind killer.

As swiftly as his coat was removed from his shoulders, he laid it over Donna's form. Blood drenched through the fabric, and he got to his feet, his legs threatening to give way beneath him. If they had, he'd have let himself die there, beside Donna's broken body; he was too strong, however, physically if not emotionally.

The worst part of it all, of the whole, damned thing, was that the universe kept on spinning. Time could never just stop for him. If he needed a thousand years to grieve, he wouldn't get a minute.