When the Stars Love You Back

Introduction:

The Doctor is old and has a life full of pain, guilt, and mistakes. One thing haunts all who reach old age, watching everyone they have known and loved lose the fight for life. Some lose the battle with time, some to disease, some give up, and some die fighting. He remembers everybody, the Doctor, all of those he has known and loved who have lost that last fight. Each one hurts and each has a place in his hearts where that pain resides. There are a few that hold more pain than others. From all who he has loved, only two has gained a memorial place on his desk: his granddaughter Susan, and his wife River Song.

The Forest of Pain

We don't often hear the true thoughts of the Doctor. He takes it upon himself to bear other's burdens. He bares his own burdens alone, never sharing them with another soul. After the sacrifice that Professor Song made for him in the Library, it just added to that burden.

After the events at the Library with Donna Noble, they both were filled with pain and exhaustion. Donna got a taste of a life that she had dreamed of with a quite man, who adored her, and their children. Now she has to accept that he was just a mirage, an image created by a computer, or so she thought. The love she has felt has now been ripped from her.

After plopping her self down in the chair by the console, she remarked, "I can sure use a spa day. Do you know of a good one, space man?"

The Doctor whips around and turning on a cheerful and encouraging face and exclaims "only the best in the galaxy!"

"Then lets go!" Donna exclaims with a smile before it fades to reflect the remnants of the lost dream.

The Doctor loved the idea of a beautiful happy planet for a change. One to make him think of something peaceful, with people full of joy and not terror. His mind slips away as he instinctively flies the Tardis. 'Who was that woman? What does my future hold? Do I want to continue this? Can I stand falling in love, knowing, yet again, it is my fault someone dies?' The pain overcomes him, flowing with every heartbeat, washing over him like an ocean. He snaps himself out of it with some trivia of their next destination with a counterfeit smile plastered on his face.

When they arrived, they explored the facility and got the lay of the land. It was no time and Donna had signed up for some treatments: hot bath, sauna, nails, hair, sonic skin ex-foliation and so on. She would stay as long as the Doctor allowed. It was just what a girl needed after the day she had.

It did not take long for the Doctor to get bored. He wasn't interested in treatments but people...people ARE interesting! He talked and talked, worked the room you might say. Every time he found himself alone, those thoughts crept back. His granddaughter Susan, she would love this place, very Earth-like. Oh how he wished she was here. 'She was brilliant! Her smile and spunk. She loved people, all people. She was smarter than all those as Coal Hill Academy, she was Gallifreyian of course. That knowledge never got in the way of her love for the Humans,' he found himself thinking and smiling, but it faded quickly. Because Susan was gone, everyone was gone, all his children and grandchildren...gone. They had died in the Last Great Time War. All his people had died and it was him who ended it. The thousand yard stare, that the greatest warriors earn with their status of "hero", is just default for him now.

He rises to take a walk and explore the lands beyond the facility. It is night and the people are all asleep, as one of the conditions of treatment here is rest. He couldn't rest and the Tardis had grown tired of his tinkering and kicked him out. He was forever haunted by his failures. He had promised himself that he would never take another, true and honest, wife. That he could no longer bare to loose another family. He had lost his Susan, an innocent, so very young, wonderful child. In his 903 years he had watched many terrible men do terrible things, sometimes it was himself. 'Those poor pain-filled people just seeking happiness in this world. They think that taking it from others will pass it on to themselves', he considered quietly. At night is when he was most troubled. It is true that Time Lords do not sleep as much as a normal human, but he believed much of it was due to the haunting of an eternity of desolation. The sky at night is not covered by the peaceful blueness of the atmosphere, but is now transparent, showing the millions of systems beyond it. He sees the past, present, and future of those systems and their tribulations. Unfortunately, pain often out shown the joys because he might have the power to change those unfixed points. Sitting on a hill overlooking a large lake, he is alone and can let down his guard to grieve.

He feared if he began to release the emotions that they may never stop, but perhaps he could release some steam, some pressure. This Professor Song, there is only one way that she can know his name. There is only one time he could tell her. Why would he break the promise he had made to himself? Companions, even some of his "wives" were meaningful but temporary. They were simple, wonderful, unique Human-beings that eventually grew tired of their adventures and left. Their temporal nature kept him company and friendship, but protected him from the loss of a family. Even his Earthly marriages were special but not as significant as the "choice marriage" of Gallifrey. There were no high Gallifreyans left to arrange a marriage so it must have been his choice.

This woman was on top of things, she was brilliant! How long of a history did they have? Was it months, years, decades, or even centuries? Who did he just watch sacrifice so much? She is only an echo in the Library now. He had never been so tempted to know the future than he was with her diary in his hands. How could he ever enjoy their love when he knew where it would end? Every moment of bliss that might be found in their life together...will it be overshadowed by her impending sacrifice? Have I began to love her already? Her spunky spirit, the look in her eyes that he knew all too well. It was the look he saw in his own eyes in the mirror. The look of a long life of hurt and regret. Could she understand him, understand his pain? He is pulled back into reality by a ray of sun hitting his tear stained cheek. He wiped the tear and pulled himself together.

All of this, he would never divulge to anybody. He was 903 years old and had grown to withstand great amounts of torment. It almost seemed like he was a vault for it. A containment vessel for it to reside throughout eternity. His companions were like children, mere infants compared to his lifetime. He must protect them, be the one who deters their fears, the rock they stand on for hope. None of this can he ever share with another living soul.

After a leisurely time on Midnight the Doctor could not stand it any longer. The universe is like poetry to him. The beautiful sky, mountains, and springs were just a facade covering, temporarily, the destruction in the universe. He could see it all right now and so he fiddles with the Tardis. If his mind is busy he doesn't have time to hurt, time to mull over all the anguish he has caused the universe and those that trusted him. He had spoken with one of the visitors who was about to take a train to the Sapphire Waterfall. This was his ticket, sounds interesting...but could he convince Donna to leave quite yet?

Footnote:

I hoped that you all liked this. It is my first attempt at a fanfic. I hope to add more chapters of the Doctor's thoughts for every time he meets with River.