Hi everyone! I know, it's been a while. I've had some writer's block. But I got inspired for this one and got it out! Hope you enjoy.
Thank you to zeewinchester on Archive Of Our Own for being my beta for this story!
Song of the fic: "Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince" by Taylor Swift
Word Count: 528
It's you and me
That's my whole world
They whisper in the hallway, "she's a bad, bad girl"
The whole school is rolling fake dice
You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes
The Time Lords were aware that The Moment had a consciousness. They just didn't realize how expansive it was.
It saw everything that happened everywhere and everywhen. What is, what was, what could be, what must not. And the universe was dangerously close to a "what must not" moment.
Two races were at war with one another, and they were possibly the two most destructive races in the universe.
On one side, ruthless killing machines with the goal of destroying anything that wasn't their kind. On the other, a species that thought themselves infallible while being anything but.
If either side won, the entire universe would be destroyed. Either the Daleks would destroy every other species without the Time Lords to stop them, or the universe would be destroyed as a byproduct of Rassilon's deranged plan for the "ascension" of the Gallifreyan species. The only way for this universe to survive was for both sides to be destroyed using The Moment itself. A double genocide. And there was only one being both capable and willing to perform such a terrible action.
The Doctor. The Oncoming Storm. The Bringer of Darkness. The Destroyer of Worlds. All names for the same Time Lord.
The Savior of the Universe, another name given internally by The Moment.
But in order for The Doctor to save everyone, certain things had to happen. So, The Moment planned and at times intervened.
A rumor here. A whisper there. And when all else failed, a stray thought in the mind of The Doctor themselves. Small changes that collectively ended in a lone Time Lord inspecting a box in an abandoned barn. The one who would be the only survivor of The Last Great Time War.
Some part of The Moment felt something almost like remorse for manipulating events like it did. For making The Doctor perform such a heinous act, making themselves the last of their kind. But, as it rationalized to itself, this was for the betterment of the entire universe. But The Moment wasn't without empathy, or maybe it was pity. Or maybe it was just being sadistic. Either way, The Moment picked a specific face to show The Doctor.
The most important person in their future.
But for chance, she would've died at the age of 19, alone in a basement attacked by plastic. But a certain Time Lord happened to hear her yelling and saved her. And in doing so, she saved them from themselves. When given the opportunity, The Moment took her face, so that she would seem familiar to the Time Lord when they first encountered her. So that they would go back for her when she first said no.
They will lose her in the end to none other than themselves, but they will go on past this loss. For her. Because of her. In her memory.
And the universe will be better off for it.
The Moment had infinite knowledge about the universe. The universe that was full of infinite possibilities and endless opportunities. Some things had to happen, but sometimes The Moment was able to influence events to make the chips fall where it wanted them to.
I love this song so much. Not just for its actual content but for its hidden meaning. So, I decided to use that and write a story about how Gallifrey basically destroyed itself through politics (like the US nearly did, though the jury's still out).