Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1. Dream Lord

It was twelve hours after the Dream Lord had presented himself, and eleven since he had been banished, back to a certain Time Lord's hearts.

The Doctor stood in his bedroom, a little used thing, the size of a large broom closet and just as decorated. The one object of interest in the dusty area was a window on the far wall, technically a physical impossibility, but the TARDIS never let technical difficulties get in the way.

The window, in addition to being physically impossible, was also impossible in other ways, as evidenced by the fact that the Doctor was currently gazing through it morosely at bronze spires and fields of tall, red grass. Something (he would never call it a tear) fell from his chin and landed on the faded blue carpet.

The thing (definitely not a tear) was not for Gallifrey, or for all he had lost, no, it was for Amy and Rory. Because once again, he had failed in protecting them, and even if it usually wasn't his fault, this time it was. Every bit of it.

The Dream Lord was just that, a dream, but also a reality. Every bit of anger, self-loathing and hatred in the Doctor's hearts had been made manifest, and out of everything that the Doctor had exposed Amy and Rory to, the Dream Lord had been by far the most dangerous. Because he wasn't dead, just incorporeal.

And Rory had died. The Doctor could see far into the future, and he knew this would not be the only time Rory would die, his star would fade often enough, then flare up again. But one day, it would be dead for good. No matter that Rory was currently alive, and doing who knew what with Amy, the Doctor held the knowledge that he would be responsible for most of Rory's deaths.

In the end, it didn't matter who said what to the Doctor, what well meaning words of forgiveness were whispered into his ears, the Doctor could never forgive himself. And he could never scrub his soul clean of its dark, dark stains.

Chapter Text

2. Amy

"My wife!" Rory shouted, half screaming. "What the hell did you do?"

The plastic that had not been Amy was dripping through the grate in the console room, and the Doctor bowed his head, watched the liquid cover some pipe that he would need to replace later.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Never mind that, just tell me where Amy is! What's happened to her? Why is she all-" he gestured wordlessly to the grating, then locked eyes with the Doctor, eyes that were identical in their pain.

"Amy..."

Rory whispered her name, then silently left the room, not looking back at the man he had trusted to protect his wife, just as Amy had done her best to protect him.

The Doctor watched him go through lowered eyes, then sighed. It was a tired sigh, one that felt too old for his current body. He would explain later, to Rory, about what had happened, what was happening (and didn't he wish that he could explain what would happen). For now, though, he watched the remnants of the Ganger, and thought of what Amy had whispered to him. What she had thought she was telling his copy.

So. He was going to die, soon. Be killed, even. It was the moments like these that he was almost glad it was going to happen.

Chapter Text

3.

The Doctor watched as the Master burned, again. How many times had his bodies ended as ash, the Doctor wondered with a fraction of his mind, while his grieving hearts tore themselves to pieces over this newest loss. No matter that he was crazy, sometimes evil, and usually in the mood to do grievous harm to the Doctor and his companions, he was (had been) the Doctor's all. So long ago.

The flames crackled, danced, and the Doctor wanted to stop them, still them, sober them. Make them as dead as the body they so greedily devoured. He didn't.

As he walked away, unable to watch the last ember fade, the Doctor knew that he could have stopped this. Could've done - something. Must've been a way to change this, make it all better, but he never finds the right way. Just the painful one.

A ring dropped into the ash.

Chapter Text

4. Jack

He's a Time Lord, and even if his senses are a little dulled, he can still feel a fixed point in time, especially one like Jack. More than that, he can feel a faint echo of what Jack feels, and while that's an annoyance most of the time, he knows he deserves it. Because the Doctor felt Jack crying on the Game Station, right where he'd been left.

He felt relief, and was relieved, when Jack finally got off the satellite, and found himself on Earth. He was still relieved to know that Jack was not in the 21st century (yet), but at the same time Jack was so - desolate.

He felt Jack being smothered, strangled, shot, poisoned, and electrocuted, and he welcomed the pain as his due for being such a...bastard. But he didn't go back, because being around Jack would be a hundred times more painful then feeling the immortal's torture second-hand.

He felt Jack break in the 20th century. "We needed someone who wouldn't care." And with those words Captain Jack Harkness became a mostly hollow shell.

He feels Jack's longing every day for the TARDIS as it was for too short of a time, Rose, Jack, and his old body. His old self. The Doctor despises all of his selves on those days, because even if he could go back in time, he wouldn't bring Jack back. To spare himself. And that? That is loathsome, wrong, and freakish. The Doctor knows all this, and he hates himself.