Title: EternalRating:PG
Summary: A bit of memoir on the events of Utopia/Sound of Drums from the Doctor's POV
Disclaimer: Not Mine
Word Count: 803
Author's Note: My first Doctor Who Fic.
In the life of one such as I there are no certainties, never any certainties and yet sometimes it is so hard to remember that, to keep myself distanced from everything, from everyone around me. Then also I wonder that if I remain separate from everyone, never let myself feel, then what have I become? Does that, in the end make me better or worse? I am called the lonely god, the wanderer, last of my kind. I have no where to call home, never really had a home even before I became the architect of Gallifrey's own destruction. So alone, always alone, and then even fate must laugh at my existence; for I found another, for once I let myself think that I might have companionship once more and then I found that it was him, the Master, the only one that I had hoped to never see again, would have been happy to never know again, and yet he is sound and memory, someone to hold the silence back since the end of it all.
Once friends, even longer enemies, so close that we could be brothers in all but blood; dear Martha was not so far off when she first mentioned that connection, I had to mock her then, didn't want to let her know how close she was to the truth. They say that it takes a true friend to be able to wound so deeply, for only one who knew me so well would be able to inflict so much pain so easily. Despite what I had told Martha and Jack, I had known that the keys wouldn't work against the Master, how could they when they were tied into his very own design? He all but said hello to us when he was on the tarmac greeting President Winters; but I had to know, had to get close to him once more. For all that he's done I cannot bear to think of harming him; his silence would bring the silence back, and the silence is maddening. He tells me of the sound of drums beating so loudly within his head and I think back to my own visit to the Untempered Schism. When Martha had asked of my own response to it I had only told her that I had run, and had never stopped, but I couldn't tell her, couldn't tell anyone, save him, why I ran. The Master heard the sound of drums calling him to war, and I, I, saw the war itself, could see the flames of time and everything burning onwards and forever and myself at the very centre of it all. I hadn't known then exactly what it meant, hadn't wanted to know what it meant, only that it scared me and I had to get away. The Master taunted me with the memories of the war, saying that I must have been like god with two mighty civilizations at my mercy. I couldn't tell him the truth of it either, for my own feels were far too close to that, I was scared and angry and vengeful for all that had been done, but then there was also…relief, for finally it was the end and I could die with them and it would all be over, no more flames whenever I closed my eyes.
But no, even that last could not be merciful to me, no, I was doomed to survival, but now there was nothing, no one to hold back the burning from my mind and now it was real, not just an image. Where once there had been the echo of hundreds within my mind, now there was only me, doomed to be the last of a race that I had never really been a part of in the first place. Renegade they use to call me, meddler and criminal put on trial by the Time Lords more than once and even exiled and executed once, and yet when the war came and the wolves were howling at the door I was the one, the only one to whom they could entrust their final solution. It would be so easy to give in, to let myself collapse within the arms of my oldest friend, could almost let myself believe that he was once again Koshei and there was nothing harsher between us than a few odd pranks that were equally given, but then I look and all I see are flames and I know that I cannot allow myself such peace, never am I to be allowed to have such comfort. The Master heard the call to war, and I saw the consequences and so we are entwined eternally and even now I can forgive him for everything just to know that I am not alone.