A/N: Another song based fic, using a side by side comparison of lyrics from Les Mis. A companion piece to my story, On My Own. The Doctor's thoughts concerning the Time War and being the last of the Time Lords etc… I don't own Doctor Who nor do I own the lyrics to Les Mis. I am only borrowing them for this fic. Hope you enjoy. Please R/R


Empty Chairs At Empty Tables

There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.

The Doctor stood alone, alone in the universe. No one is left. He had burned his own world. Gallifrey, the center of the universe, the center of inner-time is gone. All his friends, family. Gone…

Here they talked of revolution.
Here it was they lit the flame.
Here they sang about 'tomorrow'
And tomorrow never came.

The Time War, it was on Gallifrey they talked of wiping out the Dalek threat once and forever. They talked about what would come for the Time Lords and there future. But now there would be no more futures. They were burnt out like the burnt orange sky.

From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
On the lonely barricade at dawn.

The Time Lords talked of saving creation, and keeping worlds from dying from the Daleks. He could still hear their voices, stoic and determined to wipe out the Daleks forevermore. They echoed throughout the web of time and space. On that last day, those words seared upon him as the burnt orange sun shone its last.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.

How could he still live? How could he go on now that they were all dead and he still was alive? That grief bore into his soul, etched for eternity.

Phantom faces at the window.
Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.

Echoes. Memories. He felt them. Another curse of the Time Lords, he had to bear the pain of seeing the ghosts and phantoms of the past everywhere he went. No matter how hard he tried to run and hide from them, they were there. As long as he existed, the shadows of all the time streams he had crossed and re-crossed, he felt their presence. But it echoed, no longer truly there.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.

But the Daleks still managed to survive, somehow. What kind of sacrifice had he given? He had burnt his home and they still survived. What a horrible thing he had done to his home. If they had survived, he didn't think he could bear being asked of what he had done. But Gallifrey was no more. The voices of the Time Lords were silent forevermore.