Personal
The Doctor sat in the dark, thinking of who she had been, what she had done, who she had done it for, how much she regretted everything she had ever done. It was all new and shiny for her friends. But things often go wrong. And the Daleks… They always managed to come back when she thinks she is finally rid of them. But she never is.
"Doctor? Are you alright?" So Yaz had found her. The Doctor looked up and smiled sadly.
"Me? Yeah. I'm always alright. In the end, at least." She said. Yaz perched herself on the armchair next to the Doctor.
"If you don't mind me asking…" She trailed off, avoiding the Doctor's confused gaze. She took a deep breath. "If you don't mind me asking, what did you mean by it being personal with the Daleks?"
The Doctor shook her head. "I don't mind at all." She replies with a soft smile and a faraway look in her eyes.
"I am Gallifreyan. A Time Lord. Well, Time Lady now, I suppose. Many, many years ago, there was a war between my people and the Daleks. It was a massacre. It was called the Time War and I- I ended it." She fell silent, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. Yaz just stared at her, mouth agape.
"How did you end it?" She asked tentatively. The Doctor was snapped out of her musings.
"Are you sure you want to know? It's- it's not a very nice story." She mumbled. Yaz hesitates before nodding. "I was tired of it all. I wanted- I wanted to stop the suffering. It was all around me. Everywhere I turned and I wanted to end it all. I gave myself that power, I decided I would be best suited to do it, and I regret it every single second of every single day."
"What did you do?" Yaz still persisted.
"I destroyed the planet. Completely and utterly. I wiped out an entire species. My entire species. So, I guess it's my fault I'm so lonely." She laughed bitterly. "I went back, though. I destroyed it still, but them I put it in a tiny pocket of time and I gave them hope. I can never see them again, they're basically still dead, but I gave them hope. I won't ever try to justify what I did. I know it was wrong. But it felt right to me then. That war would have gone in for centuries. But the Daleks keep coming back. It seems I can never escape them." She ended sadly, tears threatening to obscure her vision.
Then Yaz did something she would not expect from someone who has just heard what she had done mercilessly to her own people.
She hugged her. She hugged her and kissed her gently on the forehead, pulling her into her lap and whispering reassuring words into her ear. And the Doctor let her. Even though she knew she didn't deserve it, she let herself be held and cradled. And for the first time in a very long time, she felt completely and utterly at peace.