The times he lived.
Unbeta'd, as always, so any and all mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who, I would be able to afford a better laptop. Presumably, anyway.
Features Nine, Rose, the TARDIS and a little bit of Eight.
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The first time it happened after the Time War was... well, the end of the Time War.
He could feel his hair burning and disintegrating until it barely protruded out from of his rough, torn skin; he could hear the screams of the Lords and Ladies and friends and almost-family he had left behind to die (who he had killed) and he could feel the cries of the TARDIS, his TARDIS, the only TARDIS left in the whole of the time and space as it mourned it's only true world.
He couldn't control the path he took through the vortex- it was bumpy and wild and this was only another set of bruises that would be added to his damaged body. His last body, if he had anything to do with it, because what was the point of regenerating again into something no one would remember?
The Time Lords and the Gallifreians, the greatest beings in the entirety of existence, would fade into nothing as the even the highest members of the universe forgot who saved them, along with forgetting and yet fearing the legend of the man who sentenced his own race to death. Their long and great history would be replaced by new civilisations and more war and eventually time itself as the universe would age without the guardians it was always meant to have, until the next great disaster which would ruin the timelines occurred and history took a new path, one which it never should have embarked on, and without the Doctor there (and without the other Time Lords to restrain him from going too far) everything would be reborn into something strange and unfamiliar and wrong.
And that's why the TARDIS couldn't let the Doctor die, even as it spun its way away from its burning home. The universe needed the same protection now as it had before the War, and if she let time destroy itself, then her brothers and sisters would have died for nothing.
So as the Doctor's body burnt, she preserved him, and even as he screamed, she pushed him into regenerating, until a new man emerged from her own wreckage.
One with short hair and big ears and a body designed to fight.
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The next time it happened... or, well, not the next time, because in those first few months of running and punishing and not-quite-living, there were many times he had wanted to lie down and sleep forever. The next time it had happened since he found a reason to live again was as he stood in a bunker miles below Utah, America, 2012, as his mate (though they hadn't officially mated yet, the TARDIS was sure they would eventually, even with all the contradictory timelines battling her- after all, she was a female, and so knew about these things) said goodbye, and the death roar of Dalek rung through the room even as he ripped the earpiece away and flung it to the ground.
Out of everyone on this whole backwards planet who he had to lock in a building with a Dalek, it would be his Rose, wouldn't it? The only person who had travelled with him in this lifetime, the only person he had trusted completely for even longer than that.
His Rose trapped with the only survivor of the other race he had culled.
But still he couldn't lie down and sleep.
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The next time it happened was to save His Rose.
In the past two hours, he had found himself alone in a house with two strangers, escaped from said house, seen Rose die, found out that the Daleks had rebuilt and re-grown their empire, rescued a now alive Rose from the Daleks, watched Jack walk to his death, sent Rose back to her own time, and then- and then saw her return, full of gold and life.
But she was burning from the inside out from the power of the whole of time and space, everything that could ever and would never be running through her veins, and even if she wanted to, she couldn't let it go.
I looked into the TARDIS. And the TARDIS looked into me.
She was meant to be safe! He had given up his only chance of escape (He was the Doctor, after all, and even when he just wanted to take Rose and run, he stayed and fought and protected because that's what he did) to send her home, back to a life with chips and telly and another job in a shop and maybe, if he was lucky, maybe she would get married and have children and oh Rassilion, that's all he ever wanted for her, because- he could admit it now, with her dying in front of him- he loved her. It might, just possibly, be worth losing his entire species if she was happy.
Everything must come to dust... all things. Everything dies.
She wouldn't. He was the Doctor, he could fix her. He could, if only his brain would stop looking at her, golden and God-like and yet decaying right in front of him, he could think of a hundred different ways to protect her from herself.
A few timelines rant through his mind- taking the TARDIS and going back to stop her (because if anytime was worthy of a self-fulfilling paradox, it was now), but he knew that Rose would never forgive him for running the risk of the end of the Universe for her, even if she was worth it. Or maybe he could enter her mind and cleanse the traces of the vortex direct from the source. That could work, but it would be so intimate, and if when the Doctor entered her mind, he wanted two things.
Firstly- her permission and secondly- no timer in his head counting down the seconds she had left if he didn't get a move on!
The Time War ends.
Yes it would, the Doctor thought. It would end with life, it would end with a new man who was still the old man who was still the weary warrior who was still the young boy who had looked into the vortex and ran far away, never stopping, not even now. It would end with this new-old-weary-boy walking away, hopefully with Rose by his side for as long as Time would allow.
It would end, the Doctor thought, with a kiss.
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This came to me half an hour ago, and now my fingers hurt from bashing my keyboard (avoiding revision does wonderful things, it seems)
Thank you for reading!
Chloe xxx
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