Warnings: Introspection, Missing Scene, Character Speculation, Angst, Dark!Fic
A/N: Written for who_contest's Prompt: Random and is comprised of the usual overly thinky (dark, angsty) ramblings, too much speculation and a lack of proper tea. I was aiming in a completely different direction, but it seems (once again), Eleventy had other plans. He sideswiped me and we wound up in a different direction than I was aiming for. You'd think I'd be used to that by now. I have no idea what is going on (other than where he is and the current canon of the piece); his thinking is rather 'random' as befitting the prompt - but maybe youse guise will know what he's banging on about. As always, mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/blithery and unbeta'd.
Disclaimer(s): I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!

'Never ignore a coincidence – unless you're busy; then always ignore a coincidence.'

Funny how words tossed away so carelessly (even if one was thoroughly serious at the time), could come back to haunt you. He had been too rushed to think about what he said at that moment. He was always too rushed, too…busy. And that was irony for you in a nutshell: it was when you weren't busy that random chance seemed less random and more calculated.

He was always playing with words, with concepts – and turning them on their heads to fit the situations he constantly found himself bound up in. Take Amy's 'last words' to him: don't travel alone. And he solved that one quite handily, too.

He just stopped traveling.

But he didn't stop thinking. In many ways, it was thinking that got him into trouble. Or (to put it another way), thinking so far ahead he missed what was right in front of him. River was a good example. She was a puzzle, a mystery – and no matter how he backpedaled when seeing her again, he couldn't resist the temptation of trying to solve that mystery.

Look where it led him.

River led to Amy, led to the devious and frightening Madame Kovarian and all of that led to…here. Victorian London. A cloud above the factory district. He had been so busy following the future, he had missed the present – and the present, the now, the moment by moment – was what ultimately culminated in his downfall. And he had made it all so very, very easy on the agents of the Random. The Random that had not been so random now that he had time and enough to ponder it. Even the TARDIS knew (She always did), but he never listened, did he? All that time and he was still just a foolish old man that had so much to learn, even as he had little time left to do that in.

Old dogs and new tricks.

There's got to be a point to that...I'll get back to you –

Or was it new dogs and old tricks?

The oldest were the best – and the oldest tricks known to the universe were what landed him in the mess he had created himself (without even half-trying). He had once again blundered into tragedy – and gladly, too. Ever enraptured by what was just beyond, never knowing he was being guided (and rather roughly at that). Because he was too arrogant, proud, nosy and pompous to see the trap unfolding right beneath his nose: this time he was the trap. He was the puzzle. He was dropped in front of a young girl and dazzled just as he was supposed to. He led her to her death – but only after he dragged her (and her faithful husband), through tragedies that would have broken the heartiest of individuals. He tried to wave it all away because, well…they weren't people, were they? They were Ponds.

But did that truly justify what he had done to them? Did that justify the fact that he had lived so long, loved so many – and had yet to learn a thing? And for all of that (as horrifying as it was), they still loved him just as deeply – maybe more so – than he loved them. And that was the real tragedy there. After all, where did that love lead them? Where did that love leave River? After all that time, he still had never solved that puzzle, fixed that mistake he had made as a younger man. And now he never could.

Busy. Always busy. Except now. Now he wasn't busy. Free to ponder his folly as he breathed the coal-clogged fogs of London – bitter, broken and lost, without the anchor of those he called family. He had made a family. Again. And lost them – again. Thirteen lives and all he had learned was how much it hurt to live and live and love and never stop. Well…until now.

He wasn't going to be fooled again. He wasn't going to be drawn into another trap so easily. He was an old, bitter idiot – but there was one thing he had learned after the Ponds: he wasn't going to be rushing blindly into the future ever again. He would keep a keen eye on what was in front of him. He knew he wouldn't be here forever, but he could arm himself for that time when he would go. It was inevitable. It always was.

The agents of Random weren't done with him yet – of that, he was doubly-sure. There was more 'coincidence' out there to be stumbled over. Only…he wasn't busy. This time, he was ready for whatever trap they laid for him, whatever guise it happened to come in. All he had to do now, was wait. He had time and enough. A lucky happenstance, if you happened to believe in such things. He did once – now he knew better.

Seemed this old dog could learn after all…