A/N/: Hi, another DW mini-masterpiece (not). I dunno, I got into the fandom again and this demanded to be written. Honestly, this is how I would choose to end the Doctor's story, if I ever had to…
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He's more of a doer than a thinker. He lives for the moment; saves those he's with if he can, leaves them behind, makes others deal with the messes he saddles them with. He can't handle the clean up. He can't handle actually taking the trouble to live.
Maybe that's why no one can understand like him. Maybe that's why, out of the all the people he's loved, all the people who've tried to love him, the only one who's ever stuck is the only one he'd rather forget. But still the only one who could ever possibly understand.
And standing here, at the end of his road, at the end of what they called his 'destiny', there's no one else he can think of. Here, standing before the biggest choice he's ever had to make, the choice in which, either way, he could lose everything, all he wants is him. One has always indirectly guided the other; one has always played the flipside, the reaction to the other's movement. The push and pull. The give and take. And standing here, on the brink of two paths that will change everything, the only person he cares about affecting is him.
Around him, he sees them. The others, the ones who should matter more. Jack, his best friend through thick and thin, giving him a roguish smile and his usual salute, despite the fact that he's scared stiff; stepping forward and turning into red, leaping fire, laughing as he spins off into the night. Jenny, his beautiful, strong daughter, smiling her sweet smile one last time as she steps up to the plate. Her body convalesces into crystal swirls, and with a content sigh, she floats gracefully towards the heavens. Giving him her usual odd smile, TARDIS steps forward too, the one who chose him, and gets her wish; she bursts into gold, into life, and yells wild abandon as she shoots off after the others. And lastly his own mother, giving him her same calm look with her same calm eyes, steps up, softly turning to blue haze and rising into the night.
He looks towards the centre of the plate. There, the white circle. Where he could take his place, his rightful place, the eternal protector of the universe. He walks up to it; he's within centimetres of it. He knows this is it, this is his final choice. The others have done it, thrown their human and Time Lord and TARDIS lives away to become the Guardians. But without him, how can he step forward? Without him to balance, how can there be equilibrium?
He feels another presence. He looks up; and of course, there he is. Smiling, smiling like he did back then…
"Are you afraid?"
He almost laughs. Of course he is afraid! But there is no contempt in the other's eyes; only acceptance, and something…something that could be love. "Yes. I'm afraid to go there without…"
The other nods. "I'm afraid, too," he whispers. "But not if you're here." He reaches out his hand. Of course it is instantly taken. "Tell me, truly," Koschei asks, "was it only…was it only ever me?"
Theta can smile, now. "Of course," he laughs, "didn't you know that?"
Koschei smiles. "I do now," he whispers, and steps forward. Theta has anticipated him; they move in harmony, and in harmony they are transformed, into white and into black, their respective colours clinging to them, highlighting their features. And Theta wonders why he was afraid. He wonders how he thought this was a bad idea, as he soars through the stars with Koschei. As they part and swirl to the opposite edges of the universe and back again to each other's arms within the space of a heartbeat. As they head towards the rift in the sky, the place where they now belong.
The place where they can lie and dream long together, holding one another close under the stars.