Earth is dead. The human race used up all its resources and left it barren. But mankind was not to be defeated. The Chinese opened up their shipyards and called for relocation. With the last of burst of fuels and minerals the planet could provide, man took to space, to the stars and endless Black that lay beyond their solar system.
Man found a new galaxy, a new system of planets and moons and terraformed it, made it possible to settle down and start again.
After countless millennia of being planetbound, Homo sapiens sapiens had finally become a star-faring species.
This mass exodus was the beginnings of the First Great and Bountiful Human Empire, or so the legends hold. There aren't any left in the 'Verse who remember the old histories. There aren't any left, from Persephone to Ariel, who remember Earth-That-Was.
Save one.
The Doctor was far older than he cared to admit to anyone, though he'd caved some and finally started telling people he was nine-hundred and change. But even that was far off the mark, as he was older still.
His eyes had seen Earth-That-Was, when it was still fairly young and so full of life. He remembered its blue skies, its green grass, and its soso blue oceans.
He remembered the friends he'd found there, long dead now, save for their place in his hearts.
He missed it, and found it sad that the only person who could remember it wasn't even human.
The universe had changed so much, but he stayed the same. Time pushed forward, and he saw everything. The birth of the Alliance, which had seemed so promising at first. The defiance of the Independents, who would rather die free than live as cattle to a government that lied and manipulated.
The War for Unification raged, and he watched.
The Battle of the Sturges.
The Battle of Du-Khang.
The Battle of Serenity Valley.
It was the war to end all wars.
And the Doctor watched, every new conflict a blow to his hearts. He knew he couldn't act, that the War was a fixed point in time; it had to happen, if existence was to continue and mankind was to rise from its ashes, strong and proud again.
But Gods, how it hurt. He had spent his life helping people, protecting them. It went against everything he believed, everything he had ever done, to just watch them kill, watch them die.
The universe he had known restructured itself. The aliens stayed on the other side of Reaver space, content to let the humans massacre one another, and he stayed the same.
He was still the same, and for a long time, he had wondered why.
"On the fields of Trenzalor, at the fall of the Eleventh,when no creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked-a question that must never be answered."
The Doctor had long ago learned what the question was, and he knew he was the only one who could answer it. If the Silence were to be believed, it was imperative that he never answer it.
"Silence must fall when the question is asked."
He never did find out why. The appointed hour never came. Centuries of traveling throughout the 'Verse, through the eddies of time, and he remained unchallenged, and more importantly, unchanged.
The prophecy uncovered by the Academy of the Question called for the fall of the Eleventh. But he was still here, still the same man, with the same face. In all his travels since his supposed death and the end of Earth-That-Was, he had never found Trenzalor.
His friends, Amy and Rory, the closest he'd come to having a family in so long, were gone. River Song spent the rest of her days in prison, working toward a pardon she would never earn, moving backwards as he moved forwards, getting her freedom only after she had died, when he had still been too young to mourn her loss.
And he stayed the same.
He traveled alone now, forgoing all attachments. He'd been broken so many times; he refused to break again.
But it must be said that when he dreamed, it was of a blond shop girl from London, a "new new" Doctor, spoilers, and the days of fish fingers and custard.
River Tam rarely had moments of lucidity. And even then, Serenity's crew had hard time making sense of her. Simon was too focused, always trying to find the deeper meaning. He never stopped to think that sometimes there was no deeper meaning. That sometimes, her words meant exactly what they meant, because there was no other way to say them. There was so much noise.
Ge ge meant well, but he was lost to his world, just as surely as she was lost to hers.
So when she started babbling about an oncoming storm, Simon tried to comfort her. Jayne called her moonbrain and strode off to his bunk to clean his girls, and the Captain had ordered her confined to her bunk.
They were all boobs.
There was a storm in the Black. It would be here soon. When it came, she would rid it of its thunder and fire. Maybe after the storm was gone, her head would be quiet again.
Ge ge- older brother
