Author's Notes:
First of all, I feel like I should explain my absence. I have something called SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). It is sort of a seasonal depression that happens certain times of the year. It can vary in its severity. For me, It is usually not that bad. But this time, it was coupled with several other life issues, and I could barely get up and go to work every day. Everything else just went on the back burner. But I am back now, and I apologize for my very, very long absence.
I hope to get back on schedule with this series, and I am quite excited about it. I hope all my readers are still here. Thank you all for your support.
Planets were burning.
His people were burning.
Everyone.
He was watching it happen.
He was making it happen.
He was the most powerful being in the universe. The Victorious. His actions sealed the fate of countless species, planets, and realities. Even time would bend to his will.
He was like a god.
A vengeful god.
The Doctor was dreaming. He was sitting in the TARDIS library when his body finally succumbed to sleep. For weeks, he had been avoiding sleep by spending his nights tinkering around the TARDIS, and his days running from one place to another with Rose Tyler.
Two Weeks Earlier
It had been a long time since the Doctor had anyone to show off for, and show off for her he did.
Rose grinned at the Doctor as he all but danced around the console, spinning dials, pulling levers and watching her delighted face as he took them further and further into the future.
It had been so long that the Doctor may have gotten a bit carried away. He took Rose to the end of her world. He brought her to the day Earth was destroyed. In hindsight, he thought afterwards, that was a very poor choice for a first date. (It wasn't really a date, was it?)
Perhaps, he reasoned with himself, it was a good thing for Rose to see what his life was really like. The danger, the chaos, and the death. People always died. Most of the time, it was his fault.
But Platform one was a productive trip, at least. He and Rose saved some lives, stopped the enemy, and even had time for a good row: first about the translation circuit ("It gets inside, it changes my mind and you didn't even ask?"), then about a rather touchy subject for the Doctor ("Tell me who you are!" "This is who I am right here, right now, alright? All that counts is here and now, and this is me!")
When that adventure was over, he took Rose Tyler back to her own time. The Doctor watched her as she stood stoically on a crowded street in London. There was a little less innocence in her eyes, he noted guiltily as Rose looked around at the people bustling to and fro.
"My planet's gone," he finally confessed. He couldn't bring himself to say the name of his world. The people, culture and language that survived through him alone. "There was a war, and we lost."
"A war with who?"
An innocent question, that. However, the darkness that often threatened to overtake him swirled in to his mind when he remembered the great enemy of the Time Lords. The ones that turned him into a murderer. A monster.
Rose, realizing that he wouldn't answer, cleared her throat uncertainly and asked, "What about your people?"
"I'm a Time Lord," he said blankly. "I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor." Not by choice, he almost said out loud. "I'm left traveling on my own 'cause there's no one else."
Then Rose said two words that forever etched themselves on his barren hearts. "There's me."
"You've seen how dangerous it is." How dangerous I am, he should have added. With a look of resignation, he asked. "Do you want to go home?"
"I don't know," Rose blinked those big brown eyes at him (Why were her eyes so familiar?) "I want..." The nineteen year old sniffed distractedly as she looked around. "Oh, can you smell chips?"
The Doctor sniffed the air and laughed despite himself. "Yeah."
"I want chips," she said with a shake of her head.
"Me too," the Doctor said. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he ate anything, and he wondered if Rose could hear his stomach rumbling.
"Right, then." Rose squared her shoulders. "Before you get me back in that box, chips it is and you can pay."
The Doctor's heart soared. All the darkness that threatened to overcome him earlier was temporarily forgotten as he confessed, with a shrug. "No money."
In mock exasperation, Rose sighed, "What sort of date are you? Come on then, tight wad, chips are on me." Grinning, she took his hand. "We've only got five billion years 'til the shops close."
Beaming back at her, he allowed this human girl to lead him to the nearest chippy.
Rose Tyler. The human girl who challenged him in every way. Brilliant. Brave. Instincts that always seemed to be correct (Annoying, that).
Even when faced with certain death, she didn't succumb to fear.
In a basement in 1869, surrounded by the walking dead, she said, "We'll go down fightin', yeah? Together?"
"I'm so glad I met you," he confessed.
"Me too," she'd answered...and was it his imagination, or did her eyes flick down to his lips as she smiled at him?
On Downing Street in 2006, they'd faced down the threat of the family Slitheen. They were trapped, and the only way out could kill everyone in that room.
"That's the thing," he told her mother over the phone, "If I don't dare, everyone dies."
"Do it," Rose told him.
In awe, he'd asked her, "You don't even know what it is, and you'd just let me?"
Jackie was pleading with him over the phone, but Rose was calm and looked steadily at him. Her familiar brown eyes looked eternal and ancient as she said, "What are you waiting for?"
Then the Doctor voiced what had become is biggest fear. "I could save the world but lose you."
In Utah in 2012, Rose stood face to face with a lone killer. A Dalek. It was about to kill her, and she was comforting him, the Doctor.
"It wasn't your fault. Remember that, okay? It wasn't your fault. And you know what? I wouldn't have missed it for the world."
That...that was a bad day.
Until that day in Utah, being with Rose Tyler almost made him forget.
Almost.
But that day, half a mile under ground, all that the Doctor was running from came crashing back into his life.
Chained in an underground bunker, was the stuff of his worst nightmares. A Dalek. A Dalek that was every bit as alone and mad as he was. Perhaps it was the only other being in the universe who really understood what it was like to be the sole survivor of a war.
But the Doctor refused to see himself in this monster. That is what it was. A monster who deserved to die. He intended to do it. To make it die and to make it suffer.
Rose wouldn't let him do it.
She stood between him and the Dalek with a look of horror on her face. The look of horror was indeed directed at the monster. She was staring at the Doctor.
"And what about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing in to?"
The Doctor knew he wasn't changing at all. He was showing Rose his true colors.
He didn't deserve her, he knew that. However, even after she'd caught a glimpse of the murderer he was, he couldn't risk losing her. He needed her, and it frightened him how much.
At the end of that horrible day, Rose stood looking at him with those beautifully familiar brown eyes and asked if the little weasel named Adam could travel with them. Adam, the whining little shit of a pretty boy with absolutely no balls. He already knew that he would be more trouble than he was worth, but when Rose asked him, he couldn't bring himself to say no (and he absolutely refused to acknowledge an inappropriate stab of jealousy he felt toward the weasel).
Honestly, Rose could have asked him for his right heart, and he would have ripped his chest open right there and given it to her. If he was honest with himself both of his hearts were already hers. Never tell her that!
Fortunately, it didn't take Adam long to show his true colors.
Presently
"I only take the best," he'd told that Adam kid when he begged the Doctor not to leave him at home with a trap door installed in his head. The Doctor noticed Rose's pleased look as he said it, and his hearts warmed.
He and Rose returned to the TARDIS, and he parked her in the time vortex to do some tinkering under the console. He was acutely aware that Rose was sitting on the jump seat watching him.
Finally she spoke, "Did you mean what you said?"
"About what?" the Doctor asked distractedly, even though he knew exactly what she meant.
"Never mind," Rose shook her head. Rose was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again. "Doctor?"
"What?"
The Doctor heard Rose inhale and exhale several times as if she wanted to say something, but she kept changing her mind before any sound came out.
The Doctor stuck his head out from the console long enough to say, "Spit it out. You had a question, didn't you?"
Rose looked uncertain, but this time she spoke, "Are you...With all this stuff that been going on with Satellite Five and Adam, we haven't had a chance to talk about..." Rose cleared her throat. "We haven't talked about what happened with...in Utah."
Ah. There it was.
"What about it?" the Doctor asked evenly.
"Well," Rose said carefully. "Are you alright?"
"Always," he said with a shrug as he returned to his tinkering, trying to look busier than he was.
"Right," she said, standing up. "I was just...checking." Rose stretched slowly, and the Doctor, feeling like a dirty old man, stole a glance at her as she did. "I'm gonna have a shower." The Doctor silently chastised himself for the images that popped in to his head as she said that. "I'll meet you in the library later, yeah?"
"Sure, if you want," the Doctor said blandly. Truthfully, he looked forward to the times he in Rose spent in the library or the media room...even if it was rather domestic.
The moment Rose left the console room, the Doctor stopped what he was doing and raked his hands across his face. He was exhausted. Of course, Time Lords didn't need as much sleep as humans. An hour or two every few days was more than enough. However, he hadn't slept since before he met Rose. It had weeks. He was pushing his limits. He'd have to sleep sometime. Maybe tomorrow night.
The Doctor finished what he was doing and made his way to the library. He picked up the book he was reading the night before, a rare book of Gallifreyan poetry. Rose was very interested in the complex swirls and spirals that were his native language. She always asked him to read some of it, and he'd always avoided it. Sometimes, he'd give in and translate one of them into English, but he'd never read it to her out loud in his native tongue. He avoided speaking his home language (except for the swear words) because it was too painful.
Automatically, he opened the book to one of his favorites...Actually, it used to be his granddaughter's favorite. Susan.
This was a poem about an ordinary leaf that was blown off a tree, and caused the meeting of two humans that would become husband and wife. They would then have a daughter who would grow up and travel in and out of time to save the hero who would save the universe from destruction.
Susan would read it and marvel at how something so insignificant as a wayward leaf could effect so much. The most important leaf in human history. The Doctor would remind her that it was just a poem. A silly story dreamt up by the mad poets of Gallifrey.
The Doctor shifted to a more comfortable position and began to read. He had no idea when he fell asleep. He certainly didn't mean to. Not here.
His dreams were ruthless and unforgiving.
He was at Arcadia.
The Daleks had done the impossible. They'd broken through the defenses that were supposed to be impenetrable. There was a massacre. One of the worst of the war. Arcadia, the last stronghold of Gallifrey had fallen.
The scene changed and he was trekking down the street with a single, terrible purpose in mind, despite the heartbreaking chaos around him.
He'd spotted a woman and a young girl were running hand in hand. They were being pursued by a single Dalek. They had no chance of escaping, but still the Doctor couldn't stand by and do nothing. He aimed the weapon in his hand at the Dalek, but the Dalek was quicker. There was a flash of light and the woman collapsed. The Dalek shot her. The woman locked eyes with the Doctor as she fell. The Doctor fired his weapon, and the Dalek exploded. The little girl was screaming. Her screams were full of pain and grief and fear. They were the types of screams that should never come from a child that young. Another Gallifreyan picked up the little girl and ran.
The Doctor had bought the girl a few more minutes to live, but he knew she wouldn't survive much longer. No one on this planet would live much longer. The Doctor kept moving past the bodies littering the street-most of them children.
This had to end.
No more.
The dream changed again.
The Doctor was in a shed, standing in front of a box with his hand hovering over the big red button. The Moment. He was dimly aware of a second being in the room. A familiar blonde woman with honey brown eyes. The Doctor took a breath and pressed the button, and the strange woman spoke.
"The time war ends," she stated, sadly. "You are the one, Victorious."
Before the Doctor could process what she said, he was suddenly brought to his knees by the sound of screaming in his mind.
Planets were burning.
His people were burning.
Everyone.
He was watching it happen.
He was making it happen.
He was the most powerful being in the universe. The Victorious. His actions sealed the fate of countless species, planets, and realities. Even time would bend to his will.
He was like a god.
A vengeful god.
Then quite suddenly, there was silence. There was a silence that completely snapped him out of his vengeful god delusion (was it a delusion?). It was a terrible silence that ripped at his mind. It ripped great gaping holes into his mind, leaving it desolate.
It was agony.
It was killing him.
Run. Just run.
By instinct alone, he blindly ran back to his TARDIS. The doors of the time ship shut behind him on their own accord. The TARDIS launched herself into the safety of the vortex as her Doctor...her wonderful Thief...lay writhing in the floor. A single thought was torturing his mind. Murderer. The trauma was too much. It was causing him to regenerate.
"Doctor!"
The Doctor's eyes flew open. For a horrible moment, he didn't know where he was. He found himself staring into a pair of honey brown eyes. Those eyes! What was it about those eyes that seemed so familiar?
Then his senses caught up with him.
Rose. Rose was standing over him. He was in the TARDIS library. He was reading, and he must have fallen asleep...Oh no.
Rose looked quite shaken as she sputtered, "You...I think you were having a nightmare."
No, no, no... The Doctor sat up, now carefully avoiding Rose's eyes.
"You were saying...things," Rose added tentatively.
Feeling heat radiating from his face, the Doctor leaned forward and roughly rubbed his palms across his eyes and rested them there, with his elbows leaning on his knees. He didn't want to think about what she might have heard him say.
When the Doctor didn't look up, Rose asked, "Are you alright?"
"Always," the Doctor snapped back at her, still not looking up. "I'm bloody fantastic." He didn't want Rose to see how his face was burning with shame.
He was still buzzing with adrenaline when he felt Rose lightly touch his shoulder. The Doctor didn't mean to flinch away from her.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Sometimes talking helps."
"Sometimes it doesn't," he countered stubbornly. With a sigh, the Doctor uncovered his face long enough to retrieve the poetry book that had fallen to the ground. The Doctor felt the Sofa depress as Rose sat next to him.
"Were you dreaming about the war?"
The Doctor let out a mirthless laugh. "Yeah."
"I'll bet it was horrible," Rose said.
"Understatement."
"I am so sorry." Rose's voice caught with emotion, and the Doctor finally looked at her. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears. "I try to imagine how it feels. Like if something happened and everyone on earth..." Rose shook her head, unable to finish that sentence. "Everyone except me."
The Doctor gave her a hard stare. He stared long enough to make Rose fidget unconfortably. Then with a sigh, the Doctor said a word he had yet to share with Rose. "Gallifrey." The Doctor couldn't remember the last time he uttered that word out loud. "The name of my planet was Gallifrey. Beautiful, it was. Gone now. All gone." It was too painful to say any more than that.
Rose seemed to understand that much, at least. She asked, "Can you ever visit? Go back before the war, I mean."
"Timelocked."
"Time...locked..." Rose frowned as she thought. "That means it's locked away? You can never go back, yeah?"
His clever Rose. "Never," He said to her gently.
Rose squeezed his hand and they sat in silence for a moment. "Is that why you don't sleep?" Rose asked, "The nightmares?"
The Doctor didn't have to answer.
"What if..." Rose hesitated. "What if I slept with you?" The Doctor gaped at her, wide eyed. "You know what I mean," Rose said with a ghost of a smile. "It helps when you're not alone."
The Doctor felt a swell of emotion as he looked at his young companion. He was quite careful, though, to keep his face neutral.
"It's just something to think about," Rose said blushing when the Doctor didn't answer.
"Thank you," he said. For just a moment, the Doctor let his guard down so that Rose could see in his eyes that his thanks was sincere.
Then, opening the poetry book, the Doctor said cheerfully, "I've read you several poems out of this book already, but I don't think I've read you my favorite one."
Rose blinked at his sudden change in mood, but she wasn't too surprised. She'd gotten used to the Doctor's rather mercurial nature.
Rose shifted so that she was curled against his side, her eyes on the page. How she wished she could read the mysterious circular language that the TARDIS wouldn't translate.
The Doctor paused for a long moment before he finally began reading out loud. He heard a small gasp of surprise from Rose.
Rose was enraptured by the beautiful, melodious words (could she call them words?). The sounds and the syllables themselves seemed to radiate with an ancient power that was somehow familiar...but how could it be familiar to Rose? She'd never heard anything like it.
The Doctor was reading in his native language.
