our hearts are fickle hunters
There's a lonely god who ages a thousand years but doesn't age at all, and he's got a cape of broken hearts. / The Doctor, in a million parts and none.
i.
The thing he travels in is called the tardis. It's bigger on the inside and can travel anywhere in space and time—
Well, almost anywhere.
ii.
He could be a demon or a god or maybe even an angel—but he's not. He's a time lord and he's lonely and vengeful and merciful and full of rage and sometimes, sometimes, sometimes he needs someone there—a hand to hold, someone to make him stop; the universe is a lonely, lonely place.
His shoulders are heavy with weight—the weight of worlds he's destroyed, people he's never saved, species that he has allowed to be lost.
Perhaps Amelia Pond, the girl who waited, should have left him be in the void between worlds, left him to be lost on the wrong side of closed cracks. Perhaps the universe would have been better without this madman, this doctor who is neither a healer nor wiseman.
Perhaps.
iii.
The thing about this one is this:
He wears a cape of broken hearts and pretends that's jolly well with him—but, no, their story is him trying to fix their puzzle pieces. And, no, it never does work.
The same goes for them all—his bad wolf, his Sarah Jane Smith, his impossible girl, every one—there's no happy ending for him—for either of them—the time lord who is always running, running, and his companion who is almost always struck with a hint of bad luck.
The Master noticed this, knew it before he did, what a smart man, clever man, cowardly man—but they're both cowards, but at least the cowards survive. The last of their kind, and he didn't even know it; all those years, wasted, when it could have been used to fix him—the time lord, all broken, without a tardis and without a home. A time lord with a ticking in his head sent by his kind that drove him mad, but he's still clever still perceptive still bloody mad.
It weighs him down—the cape of broken hearts—of their broken hearts—of the alternate realities where they could have been, where they have been, where they will be together. The time lord and his human companion. He cries and cries and cries and can't stand to be alone to be in one place to stay still—running man, lonely man, he's both of these things and it's all the same in the end.
This man is a sad, weary soul if there ever was one.
iv.
Here is the secret: The Doctor falls a little bit in love with everyone who pitter-patters their way into his tardis.
v.
Fingerprints are left by this madman everywhere he goes. In the past, present, future, then and now and nowhere and everywhere.
There's no one quite like him—eccentric and haunted and curious and loving and all of these things all at once—well, not anymore—the gallifreyans have been exterminated—and maybe that's his fault and maybe not but he fought on the front lines, now didn't he? He's the one who fired the first shot—and he did this on purpose—destroyed his race, many daleks, too, many many many far too many to count and they've grown stronger, so strong, in fear of him—did this act in the name of peace—but did he, did he really?—he's always been war-torn—but why why why when his actions were his own—his and his alone.
He can't save them all—he can't—but it still tears a bit of his heart away when he loses someone—and it's really no fun—playing God or playing as a god—because people die that's just what they do—and he can't ever come to terms with that, not quite, not really.
Young boy—small boy—that's all he seems to be—lonely then and lonelier now—so lonely that he stole himself a box and ran away—and his tardis was glad, for she wanted to see the universe, not to be trapped as a stuffy old museum exhibit—and she tries to help her doctor, tries tries tries but it's so hard when he's alone—much easier to not take him where he wants but where he needs to go.
But it is true—about the Doctor and the monsters—you cannot have one without the other—everywhere he goes, distruction follows like a child holding fast to his father's coattails—and the Doctor is worth all this, he is—but he doesn't think so—can't see how inexplicably special he is—special, but many other things, too.
And it is true that he's gotten too noisy—so many acts committed in fear of him, in fear of the one who lives on, when his people did not—(no, darling wife, i didn't think i'd turn out to be all this)—did he choose his name to be a healer or a wiseman—or does he even know himself?
When he looked into the whole of the time vortex, the untempered schism, he was inspired, inspired to be the Doctor, the man who saves people, who defies the laws of gallifrey and changes the course of history—and this scared him, the young, young little boy he once was, the lonely boy, so unsure of himself, unaware of the clever man he would one day become. So scared, the little Doctor was so scared, so he ran away, ran ran ran and never stopped—and this is what made him the Doctor in the first place.
vi.
Regeneration hurts. It is death and life all at once and it's painful—he dies again and again and again, becomes a new man with a new face and new emotions. But there are constants within the man who hates himself—his compassion, his fury, his rage, his forgiveness. But there are so many versions of him, lost within the stars.
Sometimes, many times, most times he doesn't want to leave, but this is an inevitable process. But there are parts of him that wish, that hope, that imagine that all the versions of him survive somewhere, within his heart of hearts. He has to believe this or he'll go mad with grief—so much death, so many lives of him lost to the time war, the last great time war, they were new and good bodies and people and the Doctor never knew them, not properly.
vii.
The Doctor's curse, the curse of the last time lord, the curse of the last of the gallifreyans goes as follows:
No matter how old he grows, how many companions he retains or loses, how far he travels across this universe or the next—
The Doctor will always be alone, in the end.