Hi everyone. This is my first Doctor Who fic, so be nice! Basically, 'tis a short, pointless little oneshot thing from whie Martha is travelling with the Doctor- sort of from her point of view- about age. Enjoy.
Age.
What was it?
In Martha's experience, age meant fragility, weakness. Wandering round hospitals (a time from when her life was vaguely normal), she had looked, with the kind of detached compassion that was the trademark of doctors, at all those who were sure to meet their death soon. She found as her time went on that it was the old who perished, the old who were beaten; that was the moment she swore to herself, she would give Time a good fight before giving in to age.
It was a reasonably simple theory, an easy way to classify ideas, logical and concise. The older is the weaker. The most aged is the most fragile. There were exceptions, naturally; but every rule has exceptions. It was a logical, rational thought, easy to remember, easy to believe. Until that Doctor came along.
Now, her mind was leaping from one idea to the other. If old age meant death, why was that man still going strong? If 80-year-olds were more at risk, why was someone over 900 bouncing around like a child? He challenged all her basic ideals. She was almost angry with him for upsetting her organised, reasoned out theories.
Yet that was his purpose; that was all he did. He jolted her out of her comfortable world and showed her another view, showed her things she could never imagine. Her analytical, scientific mind wasn't prepared for such wonders, wasn't prepared for such… amazement.
He had shown her the other side of age; the wisdom, deep thought, experience. He was the spirit of the old, still young at heart, yet slowly dragged down by his ever-mounting years. They didn't bind him in the same way they bound humans, entwining every feature and weakening it- yet they bound him all the same. They left his intelligence and body untouched, but took his emotion, his compassion; drowned it with age, the misery and pain of his life, choking it with bitterness.
The traveller of time cannot run from time. He may wander round the universe, skip from time to time, but he was not protected from what he appeared to be the master of. They say time waits for no man- it waits for him. It waits for him in an ambush, ready to one day leap out and steal what little sympathy he will have left.
His age would bring an evermore hardened heart; her age would soften hers all the more.
How delightfully ironic.