See? I can actually write stuff without inserting poetic quotes of far better writers in the middle of it.

oOo

Deep breath.

It's a defence mechanism he has developed over the years.

Close your eyes. Calm down and concentrate, keep your mind together as it teeters over the abyss. Ignore the tantalising promise of madness, of blissful oblivion.

Try to hold on to what you still have.

He paces around aimlessly, shaking, his chest and throat burning, and shuts out the gloating voice that's coming from the chair. Tries to. Try, damn you. Hold on.

("Please! Please, I'm begging you.")

He gives a hollow, hopeless curse under his breath, and his vision threatens to blur. No. No tears. Falling down. Down we go to the nightmare place, to join the voices. This is a nightmare anyway, so why not? All the screams like singing in the void.

And it has never occurred to him before, but the very fact that he has this defence –and that it's failing– says a lot about his life.

(Yeah, let's call it that.)

What have you still got?

There's Kate, back on Earth.

There's a handful of companions going about their hopefully good lives. The lucky ones. He hasn't seen them in ten centuries.

And as soon as you're back in the Vortex, they might as well be dead. Hi, year 3,000,000. So what does it matter? Why? Why anything?

(He knows, he knows it's not like that, but what he knows doesn't matter. Not now.)

There's his planet, lost, somewhere out there, and he'll never find it. Skaro's back though, of course it is, he found that. Stop it, it's not funny anymore. Home is where the heart is; and he's got two hearts and no home and he's always running. Away. Just away.

She lied; she lied, of course she did, what did you expect, and now she's gone, she's dead again and this time it isn't just to spite you or because she deserves it, she's dead along with–

There's his poor old TARDIS, a living soul encased in hard wood and metal that can't comfort or console, that can soothe no grief, if, if the Hostile Action Dispersal System worked. He can't sense her from here. With any luck, though he doesn't feel remotely lucky, he might just manage an escape.

Oh.

There's his life.

You know, the one you just surrendered to your archenemy, but justice doesn't work like that. You don't get to decide when and how your debt is paid, and he chose to hurt you instead, just hurt you, deeply.

("Why have I ever let you live?")

Funny, the little things that slip your mind. Your life. That usually counts, doesn't it? It probably depends on how much you care. You would never beg on bended knee, not for that. And yet it seemed so precious just a week ago.

(But it was fear seeping into your bones then, just fear and guilt and resignation, I'm scared of dying, I'm tired of pain, not this breathless flood of impotent despair. Clara–)

"It took me so very long to realise it was you, standing at the gates of my beginning. And here you are at the end. But this time, I have you at my mercy."

The voice pierces through, and oh, he's still here, isn't he.

(Why indeed. Okay then, "just once".)

He grabs the Dalek gun from the mess of spare parts on the dusty table and viciously jams it at the back of his head. Point it at him, hands trembling with hate.

"You would threaten a dying man? Have I not suffered enough?"

(Oh Davros, but you see, yes, compassion is wrong.)

"GET OUT!"

Face inhuman, baring teeth. He's perversely glad that there are no mirrors in the room, he can feel it radiating off him like heat; and maybe hate doesn't look like a Dalek after all.

Over the edge.

And he decides that no, what he still has, what he's been left with this time is not enough.

.

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Thank you for reading! Comments are tremendously appreciated, and usually responded to.