Something Clever
They were crying for him. Tear-tracks glittered silver on their cheeks, these two friends of the one calling himself The Doctor. They were actually crying for him, and I found myself wanting to do the same.
It was odd, this feeling. For all my eighteen years, it'd been so obvious that people were cattle. They didn't care about the true geniuses of the world, and in their turn, the geniuses were not supposed to care about them. Two very distinct classes, going parallel, never to collide except in mutual distrust. Yet here they were, the Doctor about to sacrifice himself for a planet of idiots, two of said idiots mourning for his imminent death.
"Oh, and Luke? Do something clever with your life…"
I had nothing left to do. My mind had touched the farthest realms of human knowledge, but should I die today, no one would weep for me as they were for the Doctor…
So why should they have to weep for him in the first place?
That moment was strange. Utterly bleak, yes, but fiercely clear and with a sort of wild joy in knowing that I could undo what I had started, in taking care of two of Earth's menaces at once.
I do not know how I ended up on the teleport pad, or how the wires seemed to dance in my fingers, reconfiguring themselves to the precise arrangement needed for the switch. All I know is the last thing I saw before the end were the Jones girl's dark eyes, watching me, filled with an emotion that I could not understand. Such a shame, the one thing I had not thought worthy to explore...
"What are you doing?"
I attempted a smile and laid my hand on the keypad for the last time.
"Something clever."