To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text

-Roland Barthes

Before we begin, I would like to make it clear that I did not create these characters. They were made in other minds. Perhaps yours. Perhaps even each other's. I cannot say for sure where they came from but they did not come from me. To clarify and reiterate, I don't own the Doctor, Buffy or the Beast.

This is a story. Perhaps you've heard it before. Perhaps you've told it yourself. I have heard that there are many versions of this story. I think that, really, there is only one story. But maybe there are variations on a theme.

However, just because it's a story doesn't mean that it isn't true.

I do not know exactly what happened, but I do know where the story began. Or, at the very least, this chapter of it.

The story began when time stopped for the Doctor. When Missy, the Mistress, the Master and holder of countless other names reached out to put a bracelet on his wrist which would grant him total control of an army of Cybermen.

She didn't manage to, of course, because time stopped. The Doctor had time to do little more than look around and wonder what had happened before suddenly he was elsewhere.

He had come home. Gallifrey. The planet he had thought he had destroyed thousands of years ago, until he had found that he was mistaken. He had saved it, instead. The people of Gallifrey chose to repay this debt by whisking him across the universe, across time and space, and by placing a gag on him and convicting him of war crimes.

It is not now known what the exact charges were, but it is known that the Time Lords were afraid. They were afraid of the Doctor, who had come within a hairsbreadth of destroying them utterly. The Doctor, who had saved them. The Doctor, who had been so close to being in control of one of the deadliest armies in creation. The Doctor, the nameless thing soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies.

It is not now known how the Doctor freed himself from his gag, nor what he said in his defence. There are countless people who claim to know, but of those who were actually there, no one dares speak of it. It is known, however, that the Doctor looked at the crowd gathered, perhaps for a friendly face. If there was such a face, it was not one he recognised.

He did, however, see a face he knew. He could not call it friendly, though it belonged to someone who had saved his life and the universe with it. The Beast, Buffy, the blonde and holder of countless other names was no one's friend. But nevertheless, she smiled and waved.

Perhaps the Doctor escaped. Perhaps he was released. Perhaps someone intervened, remembering all that the Doctor had done for them. I have heard each of these, and I don't know which is true. If anyone does they aren't talking. In any case, how the Doctor came to leave Gallifrey and return to Earth is a different story.

There is only one other thing which I know for certain happened on Gallifrey. But that's a matter for a later time.

What comes next has been pieced together from various accounts spread throughout time. I do not pretend that it is entirely accurate. Certainly, you've been told similar stories. But this is mine, and I am telling it.

Time didn't speed up for the Doctor. It remained frozen, a moment with a past that happened an infinity ago and a future that would never come. All of creation was perfectly still for that endless instant, except for the Doctor.

And one other, who moved around him in slow circles, drawing ever so slightly closer.

"Why won't you take it?" The blonde said, gesturing at the bracelet that Missy still held.

The Doctor shrugged. "I'm not a general. I don't command. I'm not a leader, either. I'm just an idiot in a box, wandering the universe."

"We're always interested in the lies that people tell themselves." The blonde said, walking in circles around the Doctor. "It's… fascinating to see people's little minds work. But that lie's too big, even for us."

"Speaking of lies." The Doctor said easily. "The plural you keep using. Does it help? Does it help either of you, knowing that with that plural you can always blame the other one?"

"We are two people, Doctor. You should know that. You've worn so many faces. All of them different. So many names. Did it help when you exiled yourself, when you refused to acknowledge even the existence of yourself? Did it help you to blame someone else?"

"I didn't."

"Exactly. We're all two people, Doctor. Light and dark. Good and evil." She sighed. "I don't even know which is which. In the end, when the universe dies and silence falls, who will even remember? It's all the same in the end. People die, as people do, and that is that."

"Look over there." the Doctor pointed. "That's Danny Pink. He's dead. But Clara will remember him. So will I. I remember… everyone. And I tell their stories. And the people whose lives they touch-"

"-will die too, and fall silent, and their stories will fall on deaf ears. There is nothing here, Doctor, nothing that lasts. We have seen what came before this universe, and we've seen the darkness at its end. We've seen people try to impose order, and we've sent them crashing down. We've overthrown empires spanning galaxies, caused wars so vast and so brutal that entire planets turn and look the other way. And we have seen people who only want to sow death and destruction, who want to kill things just because we can. We have killed them, and those following them, and we have made certain that as long as stories are told that no one will try again." The light began to fade, although everything still remained unchanged. There was no less light than there had been before, but it didn't illuminate nearly as well. The Beast raised her arms, and they were covered in obscene symbols, and her eyes were red. Her voice, when she spoke, sounded like something that belonged to something from the deepest, darkest place in the universe. "I have been called the Devil on more planets than you have ever heard of. I resisted the power of the Disciples of Light, and I sowed pain and hatred and despair because that was all there was. I rebelled against everything that was. And then I escaped, and I saw that there was more out there than even that, and I rebelled against that too. I am hero and I am villain, Doctor, and who are you to say which is which?"

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

-Albert Camus

The Doctor was silent for a long time. Eventually, he spoke in a quiet voice, just on the edge of hearing. "I have been called a warrior. In many, many languages, the word Doctor means combatant, fighter, soldier. But I am also called a healer in just as many languages. Just because people call me something doesn't mean that that is what I am. The only thing that matters is what I call myself, what I say I am. And I say I'm an idiot with a box. Sometimes I'm in the right place to make a difference. Sometimes I can help people. But not always, and that's… that's how it should be. I might wish otherwise, but I can't change it. And I wouldn't. I won't take this army, these Cybermen, because then I have to be something else. Someone I don't want to be. People have… tried to thrust leadership on me, but that isn't me. I just wander the universe."

She looked at him sadly. "You're wrong, Doctor. You're so young. You travel, you've seen more of the universe than just about anyone, but despite your old face you're still so young. You don't exist, Doctor. Not as discrete person. You are a polymerization of everything around you, your influences, these… children you pick up wherever you go. You exist only as an opposite. You look at things around you and say 'I am not that'. You said so yourself. You're not a warrior, not a healer, but even if that were true you would still be defined by those terms. You say you're not Rassilon, not the Master, not the Hermit or the Rani or even poor little Clara over there, but you are. They formed you, and you are them. We made you, Doctor, we shaped you your whole life and the saddest part is that you don't even know. You still think that you're you, plain and simple."

The Doctor spread his arms. "Then what? If you made me, so what? What happens next? What do I do with that? Imagine I don't exist. What does that matter? I'm still going to go on and do everything that I've always done. What does it matter what I call myself?"

"You don't see it. You keep saying 'I', but, I can say that too. 'I' has no meaning. I can say it, you can say it, anyone can say it and we'll all mean something different every time. You're us, Doctor, no matter how much you deny it, not matter how far you run. You're us. And, sooner or later, you're going to break the universe. You're going to do exactly what I made you for."

Perhaps now is a good time to tell you about something else that happened on Gallifrey. When the Doctor had been on trial, he had been surrounded by guards. When he left, he had taken a gun and hidden it in one of his voluminous pockets. Not because of Missy, or the Cybermen, or because he was afraid that the Time Lords would come after him again. But because he'd seen a face in the crowd, a face that had smiled as she watched spaceships burning overhead. Because sometimes, silence has to fall.

Perhaps, in that moment, the Doctor wasn't himself. But then again, perhaps he was. Perhaps he was always the Doctor, no matter what he called himself.

And so, in that eternal frozen moment, the Doctor shot the Beast, Buffy, the blonde.

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

-Franz Kafka

She should have died. She should have disintegrated on the spot. But she wasn't. She just looked down at herself, an expression of faint surprise on her face. Then she smiled. "I've asked so many people to kill me. I've spread my arms wide and invited them, and every single one is so scared of what will happen if they try." She looked up. "Congratulations, Doctor. Your life's work is complete."

"I don't understand."

"I don't have any answers, Doctor. There aren't any. But let me tell you a story before I go, a story about a young woman. She wanted to save everyone, wanted to save them so badly that she ached, deep inside, because she couldn't. Because people got hurt despite everything she did. And she couldn't take it. Eventually, after years and years, she thought that maybe, if she couldn't keep everyone safe, she could sacrifice herself so that she wouldn't keep dying, bit by bit, day by day. She died. Longer ago than even I can remember. That was when I met her, a tiny broken fragment of a thing. Her… friends dragged her back into the world of the living, and the pain started again, but that was okay, that was fine, because I was there. And I know pain, Doctor. I spread the pain, I made things darker, I helped her. I would have broken her in time. But then things changed, and we realised that we can't save everyone. We knew that before, of course, but we realised that everything dies. Even ideas, in the end. There is no hope, Doctor, not in the long run. There are no last minute saviours because there is no last minute. Eventually, people will work it out."

"You're wrong."

She smiled faintly. "Maybe. But that's up to them. I'm not handing down some great, authoritative statement. It's up for them to disentangle the truth. In any case, look for me again in different circumstances."

Then someone died. Perhaps it was Buffy, or the Beast, or both, or neither.

Look for me in different circumstances. I'm right behind you. In the darkness behind your eyes.

I change, but I cannot die.

-Percy Shelley