Warnings: Angst, Horror, Dark!Fic, Speculation, Character Study, Introspection, Spoilers for 7.13
A/N: Written for who_contest's Prompt: Killer comprised of overly angsty-thinky ramblings (and too much speculation). Wandery-blithery within (youse has been warned) with more than a touch of horror and despair to sweeten the 'bzuh?!'. Once more, I have no idea where this came from - or even the slightest inkling of its coherence and adherence to the prompt. This one just zoomed in out of nowhere, bypassed my Musie and plunked itself on the page, so there is no filter (as thin as that filter usually is) and since Muse is on hiatus, She can take no responsibility for the hysterical scribblings that masquerade as 'fiction' here. As always, mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/blithery and unbeta'd.
Disclaimer(s): I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!
He's a liar. And a killer. He kills with his lies and lies about his kills. But there is a part of him, one to come soon that uses his own honesty as a weapon and enjoys the pain and death he inflicts –
It is so much sweeter when it lasts longer…
He has even killed himself with his own lies. Gallifrey may be gone, the Matrix may be no more – but they were just the jumping off points (to coin a phrase). There is always a beginning, there is always a middle…and they have come around to the end. His denial of himself (not once, but twice), was his undoing. His arrogance and foolishness brought about his own destruction – and what destruction he has wrought! This regeneration, born out of hope, out of the death of the Victorious One has brought more terror and darkness than the last two combined.
Delicious…
Or at least, it soon will be.
What is his favorite quote? Oh yes! 'Time can be rewritten'. Except when it can't. And there are a lot of times it can't. The truth always will out and the lies will always fester until exposed to the light. The denial of himself. The denial of every portion, detail (face, personality, form) will be his downfall. The Ninth was not the Ninth, nor the Tenth the Tenth. Eleven acknowledges the lies of his predecessors, even as he perpetuates them. He's held the lie so long, he has convinced himself it is the truth.
He had forgotten.
That lost killer, that incarnation-in-between was not lost to the Time War. He was not rewritten, unmade, or forgotten by Time. He was hewed in stone by the continued existence of himself.
The Eleventh faces what he was, faces the killer (the ultimate destroyer of worlds) and verbally spits upon the man he had been. He denies him with his rage. Dismisses him with his self-hatred.
Erases all their names from the stars one by one, setting the incarnation-to-be's plans in a hurried perpetual motion; a rush of destruction that will bring about His terrible birth.
The supposed Eleventh incarnation that was actually the Twelfth.
Denied by his own selves, hoisted upon the arrogant insignificance of the 'Doctor' ideals, left to twist upon the winds of Time, as the past and future Doctors pour all that was wrong with themselves into one embodiment, before rejecting it. Even this Doctor-who-was-not plays into his own rejection, the bar set by his previous selves higher than he could reach, his denial of his own existence feeding into the frenzied denial (mania, really) of his future selves.
But in the end, that is of no consequence.
This forgotten self is long gone. The acknowledgement of the same makes no difference, unless you take into account the fact that he was, that he had existed and therefore would always exist. Just as another forgotten one had existed and always would, even as he openly rejected the name that would be bestowed upon him – and his time was drawing near.
That wasn't hatred in the eyes of the incarnation of fezzes, bowties and 'Geronimo's. It was fear –
Always the first to know and the last to speak
At the fall of the Eleventh – the Thirteenth would rise. The darkness of his current existence coalescing into the horror born of an idea (long ago, upon a time that never was) within the Matrix. And idea already set and tied to Time as an Event. A thing unchangeable and ever in flux unto itself.
When the Doctor fell, he would be no more: the Valeyard's time was at hand, it was prophesied.
And it was closer than ever.
The man-he-would-be howled in triumph within the tomb of the Doctor (the tomb he will create himself), the wait almost over, the death of the Doctor (all of them) was truly at hand. And when he rose out of the ashes of the incarnations that came before him, he would make the very darkness itself scream.
The Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Beast, the Lonely God – they would be no more. He would be something bigger, beyond the limited mundane of the Doctor's endless existence. He would transcend his own morality and take the name, the mantle that had always been his own.
All would know the name of the Valeyard –
Long live the true Tyrant of Time
and the Universe would tremble in his grasp.