I do not own Doctor Who – just playing with the characters, and I will return them – hopefully – unharmed.
Script excerpt from Terror of the Autons_ - I do not own it!
BRIGADIER: You've been agitating for a new assistant ever since Miss Shaw went back to Cambridge.
DOCTOR: Liz was a highly qualified scientist. I want someone with the same qualifications.
BRIGADIER: Nonsense. What you need, Doctor, as Miss Shaw herself so often remarked, is someone to pass you your test tubes and to tell you how brilliant you are. Miss Grant will fulfill that function admirably.
DOCTOR: Well, what's the girl doing here anyway UNIT's no place for trainees.
BRIGADIER: No, I couldn't agree more, Doctor, but Miss Grant was very keen to join us and she happens to have relatives in high places.
DOCTOR: So you tried to palm her off onto me. Well, it won't work, Brigadier. I'll have a properly qualified assistant or none at all.
BRIGADIER: Very well, Doctor. I'll reassign her.
DOCTOR: Good.
BRIGADIER: But I think you should break the news to her yourself.
DOCTOR: Well, now, wait a minute.
He couldn't do it. He couldn't tell her to pop off and never come back. Those blasted humans always seemed to think that they knew exactly what he needed. He was a Time Lord after all. Their petty plans and ideas could never measure up to the knowledge that he carried around in his brain. They could imagine and scheme and expand their wisdom from one eon to the other, but it would never come a fragment close to what he could tell them about time.
Irritating as they were, he never minded having a companion. They were useful, a second pair of hands, and for some odd reason, quick to attach themselves to him. He knew he found the right ones when his irritating, egotistical attitudes did nothing to scare them off, but simply made them curious - and sometimes corrective. He quite enjoyed when they attempted to make something of him.
His existence covered decades and centuries. He had seen planets and stars born, live, and die, and then disintegrate into dust and ash. He had seen foreign suns rise and set, and their moons shine and fade. So, when a mere mortal attempted to teach him decency and manners, he simply listened and gave them the chance to think they had made a significant difference. That is all humans wish for, after all, is to make a difference. He alone could go a step farther and make a significant change.
But quite often, he didn't. Time would run out, and the ending could not be altered, no matter how bitter. Then the humans would not understand, and gaze at him with confused fragile eyes, pleading, begging him to do something more – just one step further than enough. How he wished he could. He had the ability, but he also had the wisdom not to. He couldn't do just anything he liked, no matter how much he desired it.
So, he put up with them. They kept him malleable, shaping of the lives around him, conscious of the effects that the slightest decision would make. Half the time he ended up having to save their fragile lives from an enemy that was bigger than them. Half the time they were trying to save his own life. But he was a Time Lord. His hands always had blood on them. He was a lost man, always running through time to redeem his soul. Perhaps if enough good were to happen, it would blot out the dead and the dying from his mind. He tried, however futile that he knew it to be. But they were with them and it was his penance to at least take the duty of care upon himself. A reminder that it wasn't all about him.
Something that would make him hesitate, at least for a moment. To second guess himself and think of long reaching effects. A choice that would remind him that there was this thing called love and bring it to his memory every time their absence made his hearts burn and break with grief.
The grief would never quite reach his face. But it would always be there, hovering inside his chest cavity, to spring to life each time that another pair of eyes gave him a longing glance. He would try to resist it. He would try to fight it, because each time it gave them the choice to live a normal and peaceful life without him. And each time they chose him over peace and normalcy, he would feel the bitter grief flare up into his throat, then fade with the applied balm of companionship. Their eyes always looked the same. The wide-eyed dreamer that wished to see more than what their existence tells them is around them. And each time he could not tell them no.
It was his own pride, perhaps, that was glad to have something so magnificent to reveal to them, to make them feel how great he was, how massive his universe, to see how little they were in the mighty vastness of space. He would bring them into his Tardis, enjoying the way they would stare and try to take in the fact that there really were things that they did not know. And how he loved to reveal bit by bit the ability he had to hold the world in his hand, it's control right at his fingertips. It was all his, and he just had to share it with someone.
But like every forest has a wild creature, the vastness held his demons. The shine of the reveal would eventually become dim as the reality of his existence broke through the dream. He would run and run and run, holding their hand as a lifeline. And strangely, they would run with him, drinking the adrenaline as a drug, and helping to the extent of their feeble ability when he got in slightly over his head.
But it always ended the same way. Their lives moved so quickly, and they sought the one thing he could never have. Normalcy. Children. Laughter. Love. And he would leave them over and over, knowing it would hurt too much to return to their lives. But sometimes he couldn't help it. He would swallow the grief over and over, as it turned a bit of his heart black with anger and loss. Each time he let them aboard his Tardis, the balm would ease the darkness. And each time they left, it would raise up the demon inside again.
But it was his lot to live.
Each time the fragile, excited eyes looked into his, he would give in again. Knowing that it would end in grief or death or loss one day. But he had to choose to believe in their flimsy excuse of 'Live in the moment.'
At least it sounded good when he said it as the Tardis doors swung shut and he stood alone again.
Was it worth it to see the wonder on their human faces as they saw how big the world could be?
Was it worth it to feel the hand clasped in his as they ran and ran and ran?
Was it worth it to feel his heart flutter and stagger when they smiled at the wonders he showed them?
Was it worth it when they bled, they hurt, or they fell and he was able to fix them with his touch and his skills?
Was it worth it to feel the bitter gall of loneliness each time that he had to begin again?
Was it worth it to carry so many lifetimes in his hearts?
Yes, he would tell himself. Yes it definitely was.
So he could never, ever say no.