Author's Notes
Set very soon after The Wedding of River Song, this story is basically my way of working out my frustrations. I wasn't happy with the Doctor's willingness just to let the Silence kill him. It didn't feel like him, especially since the Silence are most definitely not good guys. So this is my way of giving our favorite Time Lord an ego boost. Plus I was a bit blocked writing my longer story (coming soon, the first of a new series for Eleven) and thought this would make a good exercise.
A MOMENT OF SILENCE
"Never thought I'd say this – No, wait. Yeah, yeah, it's official. I'm going to be sick."
The Doctor suppressed the queasy sloshing in his stomach as he worked to calm the incessant bobbing of the TARDIS through the vortex. After many centuries together, the Time Lord and his ship had formed a bond – a link, both mental and physical. He could feel her distress at the core of his very being. Engines that were normally strong and steady sounded sluggish and weak.
"What's the matter, old girl? You've been so temperamental since we dropped off Dorium. What are you trying to tell me?"
In response, an alarmingly loud creaking seemed to come from every direction – above the console, below, everywhere all at once. The pitch of the engines slowed even more. If the Doctor dared voice his fears, he'd say the TARDIS was… dying.
"No, no, no! Why is this happening? This shouldn't be happening!" His hands flew across the controls as he dashed madly around the console. "Fluid links stable. Zyton transmutor's fully functional. Everything's working so what the bloody hell is wrong with you?"
At that moment the ship shook violently and lurched wildly to one side, almost ninety degrees. The Doctor grabbed desperately at the console as the ground was swept from under him. He dangled ineffectually, his legs kicking open air.
"Whoaaah! Let's be reasonable, okay? We can talk about this! For the love of fish fingers and custard, just stop!"
And it did – very quickly and very hard. The TARDIS landed liked it had dropped from a great height – considering that mad freefall, it might have – and the Doctor found himself kissing the glass floor. That'll bruise in the morning, he thought as he slowly lifted himself to a sitting position, supported on wobbly arms.
Darkness enveloped the console room. All the lights were out save for a dim glow from the heart of the vessel. The constant background hum, the heart-beat, was gone. Silence had fallen.
"Ooh, I don't like the sound of that." The Doctor looked around nervously. Could it be them? Could the Silence have discovered his deception? That he'd escaped his appointed death date on the shores of Lake Silencio. Had they attacked the TARDIS again? Had he been overconfident in his ability to fool them and escape their wrath?
Only one way to know for sure: take a look outside.
Not that there was much to look at. It was gray, all of it – the rocks, the sky, the clouds, the scraggly weeds eking out a meager existence in the stony ground. It was so far beyond gloomy, it made ordinary gloomy look like a trip to the circus.
"Planet Grayscale. Fab," the Doctor deadpanned.
Since nothing had immediately jumped out and savaged him, it looked safe enough for a stroll. A natural path wound its way through the crags and cliffs. He managed to cover a considerable distance without sign of anyone, any life at all. Come to think of it, there wasn't even a breeze. The clouds were odd too. They didn't float – they remained motionless, as if someone had just painted them over the sky.
What was this place? And why did he have the sudden feeling he'd been here before?
"Maybe 'cause you have."
Startled by the unexpected reply, the Doctor spun around, only to find him staring at… himself. Except it wasn't; not with that ratty toga, long tangled hair and scraggly beard. It was the Soothsayer.
"Now, I know what you're thinking. How can I be here? Or am I really? Or are you, for that matter? Oh yes, don't you love how messy and existential our life gets sometimes."
The Doctor blinked. He rubbed his eyes, closed them tight and opened one slowly, cautiously. The Soothsayer stood there bemusedly.
"Of course, I must be a hallucination. That makes sense. Except…" he reached out and straightened the Doctor's bow tie. "I'm not." He grinned. "Sorry to disappoint you."
"Okay then. I'm stranded on a dead planet, with a dead TARDIS, having a conversation with a version of me that shouldn't exist. No cause for concern here."
"Are you sure?" The Soothsayer circled him slowly. The Doctor turned with him. "Perhaps it's you who shouldn't exist. Perhaps you've crossed your own time-stream. Perhaps I'm you from the future, living here in exile for the rest of your natural lives, or until you die of boredom, whichever comes first. Perhaps… perhaps the Silence have already won, because you let them win."
The Doctor glared at his counterpart. "That's absurd," he said defensively.
"Is it? You were perfectly willing to lie down and die like a dog for them. Because you believed your death was inevitable. No, because you thought it was the answer. If I'm that dangerous in my future, then just let them kill me and be done with it. Isn't that what you really wanted?"
'You abandoned me for thirty-six years. I hate you…'
"Amy?" How could she be here? No, this wasn't his Amelia. The armor, the wrinkled skin, this was Amy as she'd been at the Two Streams Facility, when he'd miscalculated again – when he'd made her wait again.
'I name your forever! You are the destroyer of worlds!'
Davros? "Oi, could this get any worse?"
'Your song is ending soon.'
Those words, they'd haunted him for so long, and then he'd regenerated. A new chance at life. A new life. And then the Silence had revealed itself, and he'd been forced by River to confront the enormity of what his existence had become to the universe. Rattling around time and space in the TARDIS, showing his human friends the wonders and terrors of the cosmos, he could conveniently forget that he'd allowed his legend to grow far too much. He wasn't the wanderer anymore – he was almost akin to a god, one who inspired awe and fear. Too much fear, he knew now. The Silence feared him enough to want him dead.
"But it was more than that," said the Soothsayer. "You'd become consumed by your own failures. Failing your friends; failing the innocent who died in your name; failing Gallifrey and your family. And yet you continued to run. You always ran, right from the start when you stole the TARDIS, took Susan with you and fled to the stars. Responsibility was what you ran from then. After the war, you ran from death."
"No, that's not…"
"You wanted to die with everyone else, but you were too afraid and you ran. You put yourself in harms way all the time, it could even be argued you had a death wish, but in the end you always ran."
"I didn't…" The Doctor stood there, body tense, tears prickling at his eyes as he endured the verbal onslaught.
"The Silence simply gave you a way out. You couldn't kill yourself, no matter how many times you tried, so let them do it for you. End the constant cycle of failures…"
"No!" The vehemence of his own anger surprised him and forced the Soothsayer a step back. "Yes, I was ready to give in to them. But I changed my mind. They manipulated humanity for millennia, they kidnapped my best friend, and they abused her child by forcing her to become a killer just to get to me. How can you do all that and claim you're saving the universe? That's why I'm here now. Because giving in to them would betray those I love, and I refuse to fall that far!"
A hush fell over the pair as the Doctor's defiance echoed out over the colorless landscape. Ever so slowly, the Soothsayer's mouth turned up in a benevolent smile, his eyes filled with pride and kindness.
"Congratulations, you won the battle."
Okay, now he was totally lost. "Um, wot? Battle…?"
"The inner battle – your doubts and fears waging war against your pride and dedication to the one thing you consider greater than yourself: your friends." The Doctor looked lost. The scraggly man in the toga sighed. "Blimey, for someone who's a genius you aren't half dim sometimes, are you? You chose to live on and defy destiny – and when did you ever believe in destiny Mr. Time-Can-Be-Rewritten? – But in your hearts there was still a seed of doubt. Why d'you think the TARDIS brought you here? It sensed your distress and found this." He raised his hands to encompass their surroundings. "The Memoriam."
Understanding dawned at last, and the Doctor smacked his forehead. "Oh, of course! Stupid, thick-headed Doctor! No wonder it felt familiar. I came here-"
"Five hundred years ago, give or take. Let's call it seven faces. Sarah Jane was with you at the time."
The Memoriam – one of the Seven Hundred Wonders of the Universe. An entire constructed world, alive with the memories and emotions of a whole cosmos of sentient beings. He'd brought Sarah here as a birthday present.
"Lost in the Time War," he said wistfully, "like so much else that was good and beautiful. Left to rot and gone to ruin."
The Soothsayer placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "The people are gone, but the memories remain. It's what I am, the stuff of your memories brought to life to give you a kick up the backside."
The Doctor chuckled, placing his hand on the other man's shoulder. "Thanks for that."
"Don't mention it," said the living memory mischievously. With that, he was gone, faded into the air to sleep once again with all the other memories.
A perfectly healthy TARDIS waited for the Doctor back up the path, its lights bright and inviting, the door opening as he approached. He paused outside and gave her an affectionate pat.
"You know me better than I know myself now. I'll always be grateful for that."
Sparing a final glance back, he knew what he had to do now – give up the doom and gloom and focus on the positive memories, those qualities instilled in him by the people he'd met over his long life. What would they have thought of him almost giving up? Sarah and Jo would have rallied him on. Leela, bless her, would have sworn to cut the hearts out of every last Silence for daring to cross him. Romana would remind him, in that calm, smug manner of hers, that interference was what he was best at. Tegan would have yelled at him. Ace would sneak off to the lab to cook up an industrial batch of Nitro-9. He smiled fondly as he remembered each of them. He could never again doubt his own existence.
With the customary trumpet call of its engines, the TARDIS and her Time Lord resumed their journeys. The memories of those precious companions watched them go, and wished them well.