DISCLAIMER: I do not own.
A/N: This was a request from Phoebe Cloud who wanted to see a fic with a lot of DoctorWhump, and a drowning Doctor. This is set after TATM.
He stood, feet tipping over the edge, staring into the murky blue depths of the TARDIS pool. A stranger stared straight back with two unrecognisable, ancient eyes.
He blinked.
So did the stranger.
The vague remnants of every man the stranger had ever been faintly shone through.
The stranger was broken, and defeated. His face crumpled, and his body slumped with the weight of the universe crushing it down.
The breathing of the man was barely noticeable. This was a man that had lived for far too long, and had taken an uncountable number of breaths whilst so many around him had taken their last.
This man had risen to become a God.
This man was a cold blooded murderer.
This man had destroyed worlds, and had wiped out whole civilisations.
He was the man in question.
It was he who had watched as two almighty world boiled. He had stood there, watching, just watching. He had witnessed his own people go up in flames along with the abominations that Davros had created. His people had died, but the Daleks had somehow escaped the war and cruel elimination of both Skaro and Gallifrey. He had failed his own people, and he was alone. He had butchered thousands on that day.
The carnage didn't stop after the time war, and although nothing could quite compare to the savagery of that day, the fire that had been kindled within his two beating hearts in that moment was still burning at his core. He still got people killed. He still wrecked people's lives. It was always the way.
Rose _ abandoned in a parallel universe and, given his clone to hopefully push away her pain. Her eyes had begged him to stay. Instead he had turned his back on her.
Martha's family were trapped, and tortured whilst she had to travel the world for an entire year. They would always remember the year that never was. That would be a burden that they would carry around forever.
Donna will never realise her potential. She will never truly know how special she really was. She would go back to being the temp who was good for nothing but filing and typing.
Hundreds died on demons run. They died in vein. They died because he had asked them to fight. He had bred so much fear into the universe that a whole army had been built just to bring him down.
River _ the little girl who's childhood had been stolen. She had been trained to kill him, and to hate him. For a while he had thought that that had had flickered in and out of his life. They had gone on dates, and fantastic adventures, and had done a hell of a lot of running. That running was going to come to an end soon. The last time he had seen her she had declined his offer to travel with him. She had barely been able to look in his eyes, and when she did, those beautiful golden orbs of hers stared back at him, huge, terrified, and filled with anguish. It wouldn't be long till she went on the expedition to the library. She didn't know it now but it would be her last expedition. She would make a sacrifice so hundreds of others would live. She had taken his place. It should have been him, not her. She was wrong. Time could have been re written. She would have been a completely different person. She may have even led a happier life without him. She would have grown up in a normal childhood, and Rory and Amy would have been able to provide her with siblings.
That brought him to the latest in a long line of casualties. The Ponds. Amelia, and Rory. The girl who waited and the last Centurion. They were taken far away, to a place where neither of them would be able to live out the lives they deserved. It was horrific enough that the chance of having more children had been ripped from them because of events of Demons run, but it was completely devastating knowing that everything they had ever known had been demolished from their lives. He would never be able to see them again, but they would always remain sewn into his soul. They were his family. This was the second family he had lost. The only small consolation was that Amy and Rory had each other.
He on the other hand had no one. There was no one to ramble to, no life within the TARDIS walls.
He was just a lonely man rattling around in his big blue box, surrounded by the ghosts, and the laughter that had once been.
It was too quiet. The silence was unbearable. The silence meant that there was nothing to do but think. Thinking hadn't usually been a problem. Back in the days where he had companions to distract him, he had been far too busy involving himself in their lives to truly analyse his own life.
Now glaring at his reflection he understands why people fear him, because he was always heading for this.
His future had been mapped out for him. A warrior child casted outside in the snow. His childhood was lonely, and grief ridden. His own people rejected him, and refused to accept him as one of them. They knew what he was going to become, and in their eyes he had been everything against what they believed in.
At eight years old he stared into the raw power of time and space. He had ran; so fast, and so far. What he saw that day was a dark evil clawing through the universe, destroying everything in its wake. He hadn't understood it back then. He now knew what that dark force was. It was him. He was that dark force. He was the evil staining every corner of time and space.
River was right. He was growing far too big for his boots. Perhaps it was time for the universe to say goodbye to him completely. If he left the devastation would cease to exist. Silence would fall, and the answer to the first and oldest question in the universe would be buried forever.
He brought his hands up to his eyes. Red splatters covered his flesh. They were everywhere: In every dent, under his nails, on his palms, and on his knuckles. These were the remainders of the dead. The people who HE had killed. The people who had sacrificed themselves because of HIM.
His thought's began to slowly tick over. He wasn't about to rush the end. He was going to remember everyone who he has ever wronged.
It's always been me. This needs to stop. Enough people have been hurt because of your reckless actions.
He closed his eyes, and stilled his breathing further than it already was. Faces flickered behind his heavy eyelids. Thousands of eyes looked on at him in accusation. Hands grabbed out at him and began pushing him. Their talons dug into his hearts. Killing him from the inside out. Purging all the hope from his mind. Hope that things would get better, and that he didn't have to do this.
His feet were shuffling closer and closer to the edge by the minute.
He was terrified, like a child learning to swim for the first time.
He doesn't want to go.
But you must go! A voice roared.
You will never be forgiven for your crimes. You'll always have to run. Now is the time to end it. Now is the time to stop.
A fat tear squeezed out from under his clamped shut eyelids, trickled down his thick black eyelashes, and rushed down his cheek. He heard it splash into the pool.
The TARDIS moaned within his mind. She was begging him to stay. It was far too late. He had made his decision from the moment he had reached the pools edge.
" Bye, bye, old girl." He whispered inaudibly.
He felt the talons shove him one more time, and he tipped over the edge. As he fell for what felt like a millennia he dreamed of his home world. This wasn't the world he had left behind. This world was beautiful. A golden sky reached enveloped it like a blanket of safety. Its two suns glowed magnificently on the ground below, and the grass was just starting to poke through the snowy hilltops.
He felt himself sink below the waters. The liquid rushed around him in a swift current, as the ripples left over from him hitting its surface danced playfully around him.
He snapped his eyes open as the sudden urge to float back up to the surface broke through him. He ignored the stinging pain of the chlorine entering his eyes. He wanted to be awake to watch the deep blue fluid take his life. Lashing out in the water he managed to prevent himself from resurfacing.
Drowning wasn't the graceful death that he had wished and hoped for. The pressure of the ton of water bore down on him. His ears were ringing painfully, and his eyes felt as though they were going to pop from his skull at any given moment. He wondered how much time he had till his body detonated into a million tiny pieces because of the water pressure. He wasn't looking forward to that part. It was going to be extremely painful, but then, what had he expected when he had jumped into the pool? A nice, peaceful exit? It would have been nice, but it seemed the universe was determined in making his last minutes of life excruciatingly painful.
His chest was steadily becoming tighter as the need to breath became too great for him. His lungs were deflating, and it wouldn't be much longer before he would have to open his mouth. He wasn't ready. He couldn't help but think of what he was doing, and what it meant.
Would the people that had been in his life know that his death had come. Would they mourn him? Would they remember the small amount of good he tried to impact on them? Or would he be forgotten? Or worse, remembered, but for all the wrong reasons? Would he become just a lonely soul, slowly rotting away, beneath layers of cobwebs, and dust?
When his mouth slid open he felt the gush of water chug down his throat. It pushed at his gag reflexes and sped down his oesophagus, and into his lungs. His lungs began soaking the water up like giant sponges, and his hearts started to beat out their last sorrow filled song.
Black began to seep into his vision, and he felt himself slip into a dark oblivion.
So this was death?
A dark, never-ending void of nothingness.
On the top of a building in a far away galaxy …
River stood her ground, raised an alluring eyebrow at her chasers, and smirked devilishly at them, " Sorry boys. Must dash. Got to pop in and visit the old man. You know how it is. Busy, busy life. " She gave them the thrill of seeing her fluffing out her golden curls. Satisfied that she had the troublesome men truly awe bound, she jumped.
The clouds lifted her up, and she breathed in deeply. The air was as fresh as the morning the planet below her was waking to. She knew exactly what came next. She gracefully fell through the TARDIS doors and down its long winding corridor before slicing through the water like a missile. What she hadn't been expecting was for the wind to be knocked out of her as she slammed into something solid beneath the water's surface. She suppressed a groan within her throat as she winced open her eyes, and began frantically searching for the culprit that had hit her.
As she looked below her she saw something moving downwards. A huge dark shadow. She swam a little deeper towards the huge, ominous shape. That was the moment her heart stood still. She could recognise her husband's ridiculous mop of brown hair and bow- tie anywhere. She propelled her arms through the water, and felt panic starting to wage through her as each stroke downwards she took, he was an inch further away from her.
It seemed like hours before she eventually reached him. Hooking her arms under his armpits, she began swimming upwards. It was a far harder task than she had first imagined. His lifeless body was deadweight. It was the equivalent to her trying to drag a boulder through a solid brick wall.
By the time they broke through the surface she felt exhausted, and there was still the small matter of dragging her husbands body to the pool side. A burst of adrenaline rushed through her veins, giving her the much needed energy to push him up to safety. Heaving herself up beside him she felt the fear that had been building up within her finally release in the form of huge, heart wracked sobs. He lay there, deathly pale, and still. His ribcage wasn't moving. She was too late.
No! She didn't believe that for a second. She and The Doctor had been through so much together. For it to end on the side of a pool like this, with no goodbye. It was just completely and utterly wrong.
She swept his dampened fringe from his forehead and muttered a quick prayer to herself. Please let him be alright. Please.
She leant down, and pressed her quivering lips over his. It felt wrong : Kissing his dead, clammy lips. His lips usually held such life. It was difficult to believe that these were the same lips that had kissed her so passionately on many occasions. Previously she had found herself wishing for those lips to shut up during his endless rambles. Now she wants nothing more to hear his voice.
Pushing down on his chest she shuddered at the sound of water sloshing within his ribcage. She compresses on his chest, and blows into his lungs till she almost keeled over from the lack of oxygen, and fatigue.
Tears began splashing in their thousands down on the man below her.
" No." She whispered brokenly, " Please, not now. You insufferable idiot. Why now?" She sniffled, and bit back the insults. They weren't aimed at him but at herself. If only she had been a minute earlier …
Then suddenly, like a miracle, his chest began to move. There was a horrible churning, gurgling noise from deep with his ribcage, and a water fountain sprayed from his mouth.
She laughed as relief invaded every corner of her mind.
Somehow she knew that everything was going to be just fine.
She couldn't have been more wrong.
His eyes flared open and he sat bolt upright. He was trembling vigorously, and he was mumbling in incoherent Gallifreyan.
"It's ok sweetie. Just calm down." She hushed him, but still, he sat there chocking and spluttering in a feverish gibber.
He shuffled away from her, shaking, and burying his head in his knees. She hadn't witnessed him like this before. He was shattered into small, unrecognisable pieces. He was the shell of her husband. The shell of The Doctor.
"Sweetie?" She questioned him.
He refused to look at her.
Crawling closer to him she slid her fingers through his and squeezed his hand gently. She had to show him that it was alright, and that she was there, " What happened my love? Did you slip in and hit that wonderful head of yours?" Though her tone was light and joking it held an indescribable emotion that overwhelmed her.
His head began to rise nonchalantly. His expression was guilt ridden. His eyes bewildered, and apologetic. Why was he feeling so guilty? He coughed again, and yet more water spilled from his mouth. He refused to look her directly in the eye. He seemed terrified of her.
" Sweetie, please, look at me." She moved her hands from his and reached for his chin. He flinched at the skin contact, and his eyes still remained unfocussed, " Just look at me. Right at me." She could feel her eyes steaming up as he remained unresponsive, and withdrawn, " Doctor, please, trust me."
This time his dark green eyes flashed in her direction, " River I _ I." His lips were trembling so much that he couldn't finish a full sentence.
" Shh. It's ok." She drew his body close to hers and rocked him gently, " You scared me for a minute there. I thought that you were _ " She swallowed down hard, before admitting her fear, " Dead."
His face contorted, " Sorry." He sobbed into her shoulder.
" You have nothing to apologise for. Accidents happen to us all honey." She reassured him.
She felt him stiffen in her arms, " It wasn't _ an accident."
She immediately pulled away from him, and stared sat him in shock. It was like it was the first time she was seeing him, " What do you mean?" Her voice raised impossibly high with worry.
" I, " He exhaled deeply, " Jumped."
River didn't know what to say. She felt a mixture of emotions : Anger, confusion, anguish, but most of all remorse. She had been so swept up in her Stormcage free life that she had barely paid a visit to her husband, and now here he sat, truly broken. She should have been there for him. She should have stopped him from jumping in the first place.
" Why?" It seamed like a reasonable question. The Doctor was the strongest man that she had ever known, and to see him just suddenly crumble like this was utterly heart breaking. She just couldn't wrap her mind around what her husband had been almost successful in doing, or why he'd even try doing it.
He seemed to study her for one tense moment before asking, " When was the last time you saw me River?" He asked, choking up slightly.
It wasn't an answer, but she guessed he was studying her to see where she stood in their timeline together, " The great waterfalls of Arcadia." She told him.
A faint ghost of a smile trailed across his lips. It was the first sign of the man she loved glowing beneath the man she had dragged from the deep, blue waters.
" Now will you answer my question?" She asked him, " Why?"
He shook his head, and his lower lips wobbled, " Spoilers."
" I'm really starting to hate that word. " She told him.
" Me too." He agreed sadly, " Me too."
" Isn't there anything that you can tell me?" She pleaded. She was sick of spoilers. That word had been put in place as to protect each other. How was it protecting them now?
Her husband was clearly in a lot of pain, and because of that word, he couldn't tell her why.
" Lets just say, I thought I knew what was best for the universe. " He told her in an icy cold voice.
" And what was that exactly?" She queried, softly rubbing his back in an attempt to comfort him.
" I thought, that maybe, it was time. Time for my time. Time for The Doctor to go. " He confided.
" Why in sanity would you think that?" She took a sharp intake of breath.
" Because, River Song, my wife. I destroy everything I love, and care for, and I am alone." His eyes clouded over, and she could tell that his mind was casting far back, into days gone by.
River sighed and pressed a light kiss to his head, " You're not alone. You've got me, and mom, and dad." She watched as he clenched his fists at the mere mention of her mother and father.
" Why_"
" Spoilers." He cut her off harshly.
" Of course. How could it not be?" She sighed.
" You're right about one thing though. " He looked directly at her.
" And what is that exactly?" She raised a quizzical eyebrow.
" I have you." He leant forwards, and brushed his lips against hers in a light, chaste kiss.
That was when River began to learn the most important rule in the universe : Never let him see the damage that he has caused.
Later that night The Doctor was lying in bed, underneath his thick duvet. The warm body of his wife was snuggled up to him. Her arms were looped around him in a vice like grip. He knew she was scared of letting him go. He didn't blame her.
This River was slightly younger than the River who he had seen last. She didn't know about the angels in Manhattan or her parents dire fate. It hurt, lying to her and hiding the truth.
She would never truly understand why he had tried to drown himself today, and no matter how much the whole situation pained him he couldn't help but feel a glee resonating within him. She was here, by his side, and for this moment in time, he was no longer alone.
River Song had saved him from himself once again.
I hope you enjoyed that little roller coaster ride.
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Also! Brownie points go to anyone who guesses where I got the cover picture from :)