A/N Special thanks today goes to my guest reviewers! Because I cannot reply to you and I love you anyway. Thanks everyone.
I did have a much fluffier, happier kind of thing lined up...but I got writer's block and wrote this instead. Sorry. I hope you all are nice enough to leave a review (it makes me so FRICKING HAPPY). By the way, remember when I said I'd go crazy on the bus reading your reviews? Well, I did. I got all choked up and happy and smiley and this old guy next to me asked me if I was okay. Which was awkward.
moving on, the song for today is Demons by Imagine Dragons. Go look it up on YouTube because AMAZINGNESS. Also WARNING: DARK!DOCTOR.
EDIT- CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE NEW 50TH TRAILER? IVE WATCHED IT A HUNDRED TIMES AND THERE'S SO MUCH IN THAT THING LIKE WOOOAH. ALSO IT'S THE FIRST NEW FOOTAGE SINCE TNOTD SO IM FREAKING OUT!
•••
When the days are cold
And the cards all fold
And the saints we see
Are all made of gold
When your dreams all fail
And the ones we hail
Are the worst of all
And the blood's run stale
I wanna hide the truth
I wanna shelter you
But with the beast inside
There's nowhere we can hide
No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come
When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Curtain's call
Is the last of all
When the lights fade out
All the sinners crawl
So they dug your grave
And the masquerade
Will come calling out
At the mess you've made
Don't wanna let you down
But I am hell bound
Though this is all for you
Don't wanna hide the truth
No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come
When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
They say it's what you make
I say it's up to fate
It's woven in my soul
I need to let you go
Your eyes, they shine so bright
I wanna save that light
I can't escape this now
Unless you show me how
When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
•••
It came in an instant.
The fires.
The deaths.
The screams.
It is still here. I am still here. Just moments later.
Moments.
I'm living in each one. So slow. Yet so quick.
Moments.
Who can tell which one will be the last?
I ran. I ran from my home. I ran here. To the only place I could. I ran alone.
I clutch my hands into the long red grass, pressing my body into the ground and curling my arms around it. I can feel it. Coming.
The trees of the Grove of Ways shake their burning silver leaves around me, whispering harshly, shouting under their breath, screaming without passion. In between that urgent rustling and the beating of my hearts, I hear other things.
Shouts. Cries. Whispers.
Roars. Cracks. Thunder.
But, mostly, I hear screams.
So
Many
Screams.
And then it is almost upon me.
This burning.
This burning of everything. Anything. All things.
Gallifrey.
Fallen.
Just as was said.
The Doctor.
That's the name they told us.
The Doctor.
The one who will bring about the end of the Time Lord Empire. Murdering billions. In innocent blood.
I can hear children screeching in pain.
And it is
here.
My body shudders with pain, the feeling vibrating through my very bones.
I am angry.
I am furious.
I am sad.
I am sorry.
I am lost.
We are all lost.
It burns.
Dear Rassilon, it burns.
Something raw, wild and unrestrained tears from my throat,
A tangible thing, it seems. More tangible than anything else. More real than the grass and the ground and the trees and the leaves. More real than the roar and the screams and the whispers and my hearts. As if the sound could coalesce and tear through the air, before screaming through my chest and stopping my heart.
But my heart is stopping anyway.
My being pulses with pain, scraping and screeching through my veins. This pain, this anger, this feeling is all I am.
Lost. We are lost. We are dead.
The Doctor.
I keep screaming.
The pain.
The injustice.
The hate.
All those people. People I loved. Places I loved. This planet and its Gallifreyans.
Gone.
The Doctor.
And I know it as I yell, as I let forth the pain as the only thing I can physically sense, for everything else no longer exists. This scream is slowly killing my old soul, torturing it before it disappears in all this agony.
My soul, or whatever may pass for such a thing, is dying. With my people. With my friends. With my loves. With the whispering red grasses. With the searing silver trees. With the shining world of the seven systems, and with its own old children.
I can't stop it. But I know.
And the scream will take up place in that empty spot that my soul is leaving behind. I will become the pain, agony, anger, grief and raw, untamed power that this scream is.
There is only one name.
The Doctor.
The Doctor.
The Doctor.
I helped him once, I think.
Perhaps I should not have done.
Perhaps I-
And then the scream is me.
And I am the scream.
And the scream is everything.
And there is nothing else left.
•••
Clara jolted violently out of sleep...or was it nightmare? or memory? or hell?
All three?
She was breathing heavily, her hair was plastered to her forehead in a cold slick of sweat. She clutched her fists into the tangled sheets, thankful at least for the temporary relief from her nightmares. Except the nightmares usually stayed with her in her waking hours, too.
But her dreams...that was when those other lives felt real. When she was awake, they were just stories. When asleep, they were her life.
Living, dying.
Again and again.
With the Doctor.
Always him.
Always different.
But she always died.
And it was always, always painful.
Perhaps not physical pain, not every time, but death took great tolls on the human consciousness.
And it hurt.
All those lives, she had grown attached to one person or another. There was so much to remember, so much joy and grief and love and loss. It was easier to just ignore it, but there were more than a few things she had to face.
Clara blinked into the dark, pulling herself out of the bed. She was usually a vaguely tidy person, but now clothes, blankets, plates and other assortments were strewn across the room, and she didn't particularly care to clear them up. The miscellaneous debris she had collected here from her days- or weeks now, was it?- living on the TARDIS held no prominence in her mind. Because her mind had too many other things to worry about.
Fumbling for the light switch, Clara pulled on a long coat over her pajamas, combing her fingers briefly through her hair. She had begun to neglect her appearance lately, and her days had been filled with either sleeping, wandering of the TARDIS corridors, or reading in the library. She did these things not because she particularly wished too, she would much rather be at home, in a familiar place, or discovering some distant planet. No, it was because, if she did not, she would probably go insane.
Though, seeing what she was about to do, perhaps she already was.
Clara pushed open the door and stepped out into the corridor. The TARDIS had given her a room just outside the console room, and, though she was surprised that the old box was being nice to her for once, she was grateful for that.
She could hear the clinking and clanking of the Doctor's tinkering in the TARDIS' inner workings, and took the steps to the lower level, where she saw him standing and fiddling with some loose wires.
She didn't say anything for a moment. Started to reconsider. What was she going to say to him?
But then a stray cry of some tortured soul from her previous dream cut through these doubts. And she could no longer stop herself.
"Doctor," she said quietly.
He looked around at her. "Clara! You're up!" He squinted. "Not so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed though."
She nodded. "I need to talk to you."
She thought she saw his eyes flicker- in uncertainty, maybe?- before he replied, "Of course. Need to sort out all those memories in your head, eh?"
She didn't answer him for a minute. There was a lot more than simply memories that she needed to sort out.
She took a breath. "I saw you a thousand different times."
"Yes, yes you did."
"A thousand. And...more than a few of those were less than happy."
"Well, you know what they say. That's my life. I grin and bear it, I still live on as the good old Doctor, eh?"
She took a breath.
The scream is everything.
And there is nothing else left.
"No. No, you don't."
The Doctor froze a little at this, she got the feeling he hadn't been fully concentrating on her words until now. "What do you mean?"
"I mean you, Doctor..." she hesitated again. Why was she hesitating? Did she, in some secluded corner of her mind, still blindly believe that this man was a truly good person? That he didn't need someone to help change him? No. No, she didn't. "...sometimes you are far from good."
He straightened up slowly.
"I saw all those deaths, Doctor. Those people you killed. Or caused to take their own lives, in your name. Some enemies, some even used to be friends. And so many of them didn't have to die. But you killed them anyway. And, if you didn't kill them, you turned them into monsters. Your foes grew powerful and desperate in their hate and fear of you. Your friends grew old and fierce for your own protection and teachings," she took a breath. She couldn't stop the words now. Everything she had wanted to say to him for the past days and weeks was streaming from her lips, fuelled by those dreams of fire. "Everyone you loved and hated you transformed in the image of yourself."
"Clara..." his voice was low and rumbling, a warning growl. But this man was not a dog. His eyes glowed, radiant. But he was not a god either.
Maybe she should stop now. The look in his eyes was frightening, terrifying in its ferocity and fire. But she had to tell him. None of his friends had ever dared to recognise this dark side of him, and none had ever dared to show it to him.
But she would. She had to. Or he would just go on and on, killing and killing and killing.
"You've done good things. You've saved and helped and healed. So many people see you as a god. But...I've lived so many lives, in so many places, and I know. I know that while millions think of you as the saviour of the universe, a light, an angel, millions more people fear you than anything else."
The Doctor had turned away from her, his shoulders hunched over himself. But he was still listening.
"You are not an angel, Doctor, however much you'd like to be."
"Clara, stop this. I tried, I tried, you don't understand. Please stop this," his voice was still low, but this time it was pleading. Desperate. Begging.
"I-I have to tell you, Doctor. I'm the only one who can. I'm the only one to see all this, so I have to tell you. Or...no one will."
"Maybe that's better," he whispered, no longer pleading, but a tight and restrained whisper.
"Listen to me. Please. Or you'll destroy yourself, and the universe with you."
He turned to face her, and his ever changing eyes were darker than ever, but bright in their darkness. Shadows burning brighter than a dying sun, so potent and wild in their rage and ancient fury that she could hardly bear to look upon them.
"Then speak."
This was not the Doctor she knew. This was not the man who drove her on a motorbike through London to get breakfast, took her to a sinking submarine that should have been Vegas, hunted for ghosts with an enthusiastic grin, or risked everything to save her from himself at Trenzalore. This was not even the man she had saved at the dalek asylum, or who had offered to take her with him across time in Victorian London, or any of the other Doctors she had seen and saved a thousand times.
This Doctor was new.
So she spoke, not because she wished to, but because she had to.
"Doctor," she said slowly, plainly, choosing the words she knew would wound him the most, "You are called an angel. And you are. But you know, as I do, that deep inside you is the greatest demon time has ever seen."
There was a screaming silence for a minute or two. Until he spoke.
"You're right."
"I'm-I'm what?" she hadn't expected him to agree. She'd thought he would deny it, or at least ignore her, perhaps. She'd thought she would need more than her words to show the Doctor himself in his entirety.
"I said you're right," he repeated, and the rumbling tome of his voice caused more fear than she had ever before experienced to gather in her chest. "You are definitely right."
Clara caught herself on a breath, and stood still as he took a step towards her.
"I am a demon. The greatest of them all. But the question is, where would the universe be without her demon? Dead to nothing a million times over, is the answer. I killed because I had to. I killed to save."
"Not all the time."
Lost. We are lost. We are dead.
"No? Oh, I suppose that's true. It is hard to exercise mercy when your enemies show none of it. It is hard to have hope when those you love always, always die."
"You can change, Doctor, please. I know you can. I'm the only one who can tell you that you can change."
"Change. I can change," the man standing before let loose a laugh so loud and flat and humourless that its echoes through the TARDIS sounded like anguished screams. "Now that, that is true comedy."
The piercing gaze he was still sending her didn't waver, but Clara did. Those eyes, in this moment, were the most terrifying things in existence. Her voice quivered as she replied, "Doctor, stop. I'm trying to tell you-"
"Do you know how many people I've lost?"
"N-no-I..."
"Then how can you talk to me about killing, and mercy? You know nothing."
"I know more than anyone else," her voice was small as she took the tiniest step back.
"That's not enough. 1300 years, I've had. Hundreds of friends, companions, family, lovers. And can you guess what happened to them? They all died. And left me here, alone. Always alone, poor Doctor and his TARDIS. Oh, sure, it was I who killed a small number of them. It was I who caused some to sacrifice their lives. It was I who turned some to desperate warriors. But I lost them all. You try showing mercy after that. You trying not taking revenge on the universe for what it has done to you, it has turned me into this. A screaming raging demon who kills and kills and kills, does not save, does not help, does not heal. I believe that was something like your description?"
The horrible thing is, it was. But it wasn't all of who he was. It wasn't all. It wasn't even most. He was a good man, most of the time. But, for such an old, great one as him, most was not enough.
"Yes, but-no-I can-"
"You can what?" he suddenly gripped her by the shoulders, slamming her back against the wall, sending shivers of pain up her spine. "You, you can't do anything!"
She stuttered a little, she had gone too far, she shouldn't have tried this, she had unleashed the demon she herself was trying to get rid of.
"You are just the same of the rest of them! Just another one to love, to lose! That's all you ever are! And then you die, you run away, you're lost. Maybe I have a hand in all your deaths. A killer, yes! That's me. The Doctor. Not a healer, a helper! A murderer! A mighty warrior...soaked, in innocent blood!"
She couldn't take her gaze off his eyes, even as his fingers dug painfully into her shoulders. Those eyes, there was nothing of the Doctor she knew in them. Just those shadows, burning bright in hate and rage and loss.
"How could you ever understand? How could you have any comprehension of the pain I've been through, all those lives I've had to take? And do you think I chose this? Do you think I became this through some twisted whim of my own? No! Am I a demon? Or perhaps the real demon is the universe, not me! Perhaps the only evil is the path of time! How would you know?"
His face was millimetres from hers now, and the pain in her spine and shoulders burned almost unbearably
"You'll die too, one day. I'll lose you too. Why...why not just do it now, while the pain will be less?"
She could barely comprehend his words, her head was cloudy and tilting. But, at this, her heart pounded harder and faster. He wouldn't, would he? Would he?
She truly did not know.
"If I'm a demon, why don't I prove it? If I'm a demon, why don't I show you just how frightening I can be? Why don't I show you all this pain, that I feel every second, every single moment?! If I'm a demon, WHY DON'T I SHOW YOU WHY?!"
And then, with that last syllable, she was pulled forward and slammed back against the wall, her head cracked with a sharp stab of pain, and she cried out as she fell to the ground.
She curled up against the wall, instinctively throwing her arms over head and shrinking away.
When the throbbing in her head and arms had lessened such that she could open her eyes, Clara could not be prepared for what she saw.
The Doctor, standing above her, but backing away, shoulders shaking violently. And his eyes, they weren't his eyes, but they weren't the eyes of the demon, either.
These eyes were wide, and shocked, and dull, and frightened.
And just as she gathered herself enough to drag herself up to lean against the wall, he crouched down before her, reaching out to tenderly touch her forehead, where a trickle of blood was dripping. She flinched, and supposed that he saw something flash in her eyes as he jerked back. Maybe it was fear.
"Clara?" his voice was so small, so weak. He closed his eyes and shakily stood up. "Clara."
The Doctor walked backwards a few steps, before sagging against the wall, and sinking slowly to the ground.
All the fear that had run through her just a moment ago, fear of the man before her, fled.
He had his head in his hands, and her own was shrieking with pain, so much so that she couldn't help the tears running down her cheeks. Because all of this, the physical pain in her spine, her shoulders, her skull; and the emotional pain, not hers but the Doctor's, so strong it would tear her own mind to pieces, hurting her so much even though it was secondhand. Perhaps that is why that demon lives inside him, imprisoned deep beneath. A manifestation of pain, and loss, grown from the witness and war against so much hate and evil.
And yet the good in him still stays strong, stronger than anything else.
And then it was her crouching beside him, reaching for his hand, trying to keep it steady despite all the stabbing in her head.
She took both his hands, young, unlined hands, and he stayed where he was: legs pulled to his chest, lying limply against the wall. His eyes were open, but unseeing, as he whispered, "You should leave."
"Should I?"
"I hurt you. I hurt you. How did I do that? How could I? You're right. You're so right. I'm a demon. You should run, far away before I manage to hurt you more."
"No," was all she could manage to croak out.
He lifted his head, and looked at her. Those eyes, they looked like her Doctor again. Her Doctor, swimming in grief and guilt.
To her surprise, he didn't argue with her, he didn't protest, he simply said, "Thank you."
"You're welcome," she couldn't think of what else to say.
"No, I'm not. But thank you."
"I'll help you. I will."
"You'll try."
"Other people have helped. Everyone has. Rose Tyler, I saw her. She helped you recover from the war, gave you kindness. Martha Jones, she taught you to treasure what you have, to keep moving on from what you've lost. Donna Noble, she was the one who stopped you, who made you see the things you did. Amelia Pond, taught you about yourself, how easily it was for people to put their faith blindly in you, to follow you to the ends of the earth, however unjustified. Rory Williams, he showed you the way you remade people just like the worst parts of yourself. And me? I can heal you, too."
He was crying, now, silent tears glistening in the blue light. He brought his hands up to her face, and leant his forehead against hers. His eyes were closed.
"Nietzsche," he murmured.
"Sorry?"
"Friedrich Nietzsche. He who fights with monsters should see to it that he himself does not become himself a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss the abyss gazes into you. I met him once...and a half."
He sighed.
"Too bad I didn't listen to him."
He said these words with such softness, such tender emotion, that his eyes were suddenly all him again. None of the demon, none of the blind fright.
Just him.
The Doctor.
All of this...the Doctor.
"Good thing you'll listen to me, then."
•••
And then the scream is me.
And I am the scream.
And the scream is everything.
And there is nothing else left.