You know what they call me in the ancient legends of the fanfiction community? The Oncoming Nope.
...Though I don't think this is that bad, by my standards.
oOo
"Oh, where do we begin, the rubble or our sins?
And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love…"
.
Noise. Running about. Movement. Smoke. A high-pitched yell. Crashing.
Oh dear.
He takes a deep breath.
.
.
Later, you're lying down, feeling the fire ebb and flow, the distant burning in your veins subsiding.
Quietness. But something inside you is slowly building up.
A sound pierces through and his hearts ache.
"I am alone. The world which shook at my feet, and the trees and the sky, have gone."
Nine hundred years is a long time, even for him. Slowly, he shifts through the chaos of his renewed brain and tidies everything up.
What do you do when the war is over? When everyone is safe? When you no longer have to die?
"And I am alone now. Alone. The wind bites now, and the world is grey, and I am alone here."
Hope was a strange, foreign feeling, even though he welcomed it. But death was also welcomed, was an accepted end, was a purpose.
So what do you do now?
You panic. Life overwhelms you.
Even in sleep you can feel your breathing quicken.
The change is terrifying and everybody else is gone. Please, help me.
"Can't see me. Doesn't see me. Can't see me."
.
.
Clara hugs him and he –no, he really doesn't know what to do with that, oh, um, yes. Okay.
(What he really treasures is her smile, the spark that lights up her face when she finally sees through the veil.)
And he silently thanks his past self, and fleetingly remembers a quote from a book he had once read to the children while doing funny voices:
"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."
"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of."
.
He feels the double heartbeat under his palm and his own hearts miss a beat.
He keeps talking, holds Clara's hand, and he dismisses the persistent, niggling feeling at the back of his head.
(He doesn't want to see. He doesn't want to contemplate so horrible a scheme. He doesn't want to look at a friend so twisted by time and fate that she'd tear down the world for nothing.)
The Doctor lies; but the Doctor has also grown up, and grownups must take responsibility. And so he does.
"You win."
"I know."
Another old friend saves his soul when he least expects it. And he salutes him, finally, because he knows that appearances can be deceiving more than anyone.
.
"Can you really see no difference in me?"
"Clara Oswald, you will never look any different to me."
It's funny. This incarnation doesn't really see age the way humans do.
(She had jumped into his time-stream; and in a way he could never explain, he can feel every single echo. She's almost as old as he is.)
He doesn't care about the grey hair and the wrinkles, he's got those too. He cares about what they mean. Lines in the skin are the tracks of Time; so much time lost.
And so he thanks god, fate, the universe, Santa Claus, anyone who's listening for the precious second chance, takes her hand, and runs.
.
"Are you looking for her?"
"I'm trying." The waitress smiles.
"She could be anyone, right? You don't know who you're looking for. I mean, she could be me, for all you know."
"There's one thing I know about her. Just one thing. If I met her again, I would absolutely know."
(When do I not see you?)
Later, he understands, and he feels like a total idiot. And his hearts ache when he remembers the sadness on her face.
But he doesn't remember her face yet, not really.
So when River takes about two hours to understand who he is, despite several elephant-sized hints, he thinks that it only serves him right.
He can't help smiling though, softly, when she finally does, when someone sees through the veil once again.
"Hello, Sweetie".
(What, in the end, are any of us looking for? We're looking for someone who's looking for us.)
.
He gets blinded.
He thinks about it a bit, and he concludes that if all this happened because whoever's in charge of the universe wanted to make this terrible pun, really, this is going to be the least of his problems.
He's right.
.
"We had a pact, me and him. Every star in the universe, we were going to see them all. But he was too busy burning them. I don't think she ever saw anything."
"And you think that if she did, she'd change?"
"I know she would. I know it."
He looks at Bill and swears that he'll never forgive himself, not for this.
But that is precisely the point. He will, if enough time passes, if he changes. And off he'll go to make the same mistakes all over again.
(He viciously holds back his regeneration, and tells himself that it's only because he can't risk amnesia when he needs to protect everyone. That Bill's hanging on by a thread, and she needs a familiar face to keep her anchored. That he needs to be awake when the Cybermen come.)
Enough now. Enough.
(It's not that he's suddenly terrified, that he can't keep on being somebody else. It's not that God knows what the next one would be like after all this.)
But he's probably going to die here anyway; and that's not that bad, that's almost a relief, because he's ready. Because then he won't have to think about all this, to make more decisions, to try to move on. It will stop, it won't matter.
Except…
"Stand with me. It's all I've ever wanted."
Look at them, and see the child. See your friend, beyond the years. See them being kind.
Hope springs eternal, doesn't it?
And he sees himself in the mirror of her eyes as she declines; he watches as she watches, that fascinatingly dreadful moment that is the acceptance of death, the shutting out of hope.
He watches them walk away. Feebly, for just a second, he tries reaching out with his mind.
There'll be no one to stop you next time. Hey, for me, leave the Earth alone? Dying man's wish? Besides, you always did it to get my attention anyway, and I won't be around for presents anymore.
Can he really blame her for wanting to live?
(He doesn't.)
He walks back to the farmhouse, exhausted, empty, under the starless sky. And maybe Nardole sees how the light in his eyes has leached away, how tired he is, because he agrees to let him stay behind without much of a fight.
.
Then he dies.
He experiences it as a sudden quieting of the voices and the memories. What little light there is fades. The pain goes away.
Then he's alive, and he doesn't want to be. He can feel his poor TARDIS panicking, and he can't bring himself to care.
He rushes out to the snow, and well now, there's a surprise.
("Hello? Doctor? You know it can't end like that. We need to get this sorted and quickly. Now, stop gawping, and tell me. What do you want for Christmas?")
.
"Seriously. You're looking right at me and you don't even know I'm here."
At first, he doesn't. Oh, the irony.
But after all this time, even he can forget that there isn't always an evil plan, that there can be other kindness.
As always, it's his friends that remind him. Memories held in glass or not, he hugs them tight. Memories are important, stories are important, we're all stories in the end-
Thank you.
He gets back in his TARDIS and leaves the battlefield behind.
"Oh, there it is. The silly old universe. The more I save it, the more it needs saving. It's a treadmill."
(Game Over. Continue?...)
And maybe it's those that still might need him, the shiny, restored memories in his head, the Christmas carols and the human miracle, saving a life, or seeing his younger self and his friends again. He's always been sentimental.
But finally, despite his weariness, he takes pity on the next one. It would be cruel to drag the Doctor down with him.
(Die, and let live.)
"Laugh hard, run fast, be kind. Doctor, I let you go."
He smiles softly in that last moment before the change takes over, and looks up as the world is swept away in golden fire.
.
.
She blinks. Everything is a spinning blur.
She staggers to the console in a daze, sees her reflection in the scanner (-youthblondehairprobablyfemalebighazeleyesohyes–), and grins widely.
.
.
-the end-
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