Vale decem. Gratis tibi ago ad aeternam.
He remembered all of the lives he had ruined.
He remembered a fiery redhead, a temp from Chiswick as she believed herself to be, never knowing that she was the most important woman in the whole of creation, destined to save the whole of reality, every star and species in the sky from fading into dust and decay. Her mind had been burning and so she could not be hear to mourn and remember; she slept on the planet below, unaware of all things alien.
He remembered a man; a man who was 'wrong', a fixed point in time who should never have been, be or going to be. The man was immortal and impossible – much like the Doctor in that way – he had waited for a century for a time and a place he could truly strive to help, while he wasn't busy rebuilding a collapsed and corrupted organization into a new, honorable image that encouraged sacrifice, courage and love above all else. The man's love for the alien was unrequited, but it was there nonetheless, even if it would never be acknowledged, much less appreciated.
He remembered someone so different and yet so similar to that – an intelligent woman, a doctor like himself – again infatuated with him, and sometimes he got the sense that she followed him not for the adventures or sense of wonder, but because she wanted to stay with him, maybe for all the wrong reasons. Was it his lack of love for her that drove her to become the tough military soldier she was today? Or maybe it was her intelligence? He liked to think it was her continuing his legacy of helping those in need – she had carried on with her medical studies, after all.
He remembered a beautiful young girl, the first face these eyes had seen, so long ago. Their adventures together were the clearest, the ones that had brought him the most joy and happiness before the walls of space and time violently severed their friendship in the Battle of Canary Wharf, bringing no sense of victory, only defeat and loss. Now she was nowhere, not with him forever as she had promised, instead she was with another who could keep the promise, who could stay in that skin, stay as that man she loved.
He remembered everyone – the daft little metal dog and the wonderful journalist whose days of wandering the stars may have been over, but with her newfound family she continued to defend and protect her home; the woman who had loved him in another life, a false life, when he was a different person, but the memories were still hidden away somewhere, enough for both of them to smile at them; and the old man he had taken this fatal blow of radiation for, the man who still stood, proud and honorable while he was here, alone, ready to collapse from fright and fatigue.
He remembered all of the lives he had changed.
I don't want to go.
There was a fierce eruption of noise and light as the Doctor's visible skin seemed to explode into violent orange energy, lined with flickering yellow flames, as the Doctor could cling onto this life no longer. The Timelord's skin screamed with heat as everything in his body began to tear, collapse and reform, disintegrating in the burning orange and automatically restoring itself; for a new man would see the wonders of the universe from now on.
It was unfortunate that the Doctor did not know that far away, as the TARDIS hurtled towards a small English village where a little Scottish girl slept in fear of the crack in her wall, a small colony of Ood were singing to him, and for him, a man apart from, and a part of the universe.
Vale decem. Numquam singularis.