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taleyaHoly shit.
DARK as hell.
Title: Forsaken
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
taleya
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for the last scenes of The Last of the Time Lords. Dark!Tenth.
Summary: The ending wasn't as neat as you thought.
Am I supposed to let this go now?
Let darkness come, take you away?
--VNV Nation, Forsaken
"Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming? Will it stop?"
In a twisted sort of way he's glad Martha has left him. It makes things easier, in the long run. Secrets and tales and games he no longer has to play.
He'd tried not to look at Lucy Saxon, at the way she had sat in the UNIT plane on the way back to England, shattered, blank, more like an elegantly painted china doll than a woman. Instead he had stared at his hands, feeling the blood that slicked them dry and flake into obscure patterns. He'd lost himself in his own mind, ignoring the questions and concerned glances from his companions, the commentary from the news screens, the heavy weight of the silent form wrapped in its black plastic shroud on the seats behind him.
The pyre had been so easy to arrange, a shroud-wrapped form on a temple of kindling. UNIT had asked him no questions and he had told them no lies. The Brigadier's legacy had left him that much.
And so he had set it to burn. As their race had burned, flames spiralling high into a night devoid of stars.
And then he had simply walked away, lost in his own thoughts. Remembering Axons and Daleks and Daemons and more. Academy days, a serious young man with a gift for science. So moralistic. So duty bound. A friend, once. A lover, a parallel, an equal, destined for greatness, all of it washed away in the flames of madness.
"We're the only two left. There's no one else. "
A Time Lord has many deaths. Thirteen in total, each one nibbling away an infinitesimal slice of time. A taste of mortality, a promise of rest, bitter-sweet to the tongue. A single scent, burnt away as life began anew.
"... just regenerate!"
" .... I refuse."
It's not that easy. It's not a conscious choice, not a toy to be switched on and off at will. It's coded into their bones, into their blood, millennia of genetic manipulation, tried and tested and honed into an exquisite art. Bodily regeneration, on a massive scale, poised and primed to trigger in the event of catastrophic injury and cell death.
Oh it could be artificially triggered, stopped - even reversed...if you had the knowledge. Knowledge of a race long gone.
There had been tales, back in the days of Looms and Houses, Panopticons and perigosto, tales whispered behind furtive hands and furrowed brows of Time Lords who had attempted to will their own deaths. Of twisted minds and mutilated bodies born into a crippled half-form. It wouldn't work. It couldn't. Not when the instinctive desire to live was so strong. Not with all those delicately programmed and woven exons waiting to be unleashed.
"Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming? Will it stop?"
The TARDIS door closes behind him, cutting off the sounds of the 21st century. The lights in the console room are dim and muted. He prefers it that way.
The mewling starts in his mind again, and he feels a sick fission of joy deep in his belly at the sensation. Confused, pain-filled drifting thoughts, he can feel them, hear them. After years of silence, years of darkness, he can finally hear the sweet sing of another Gallifreyan mind in the back of his own.
It's screaming in agony.
His footsteps lighten, quicken, taking him past the console and deeper into the TARDIS, towards the heart of her architecture and the dark secret hidden within.
He won't ever be alone again.
DARK as hell.
Title: Forsaken
Author:
taleyaRating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for the last scenes of The Last of the Time Lords. Dark!Tenth.
Summary: The ending wasn't as neat as you thought.
Am I supposed to let this go now?
Let darkness come, take you away?
--VNV Nation, Forsaken
"Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming? Will it stop?"
In a twisted sort of way he's glad Martha has left him. It makes things easier, in the long run. Secrets and tales and games he no longer has to play.
He'd tried not to look at Lucy Saxon, at the way she had sat in the UNIT plane on the way back to England, shattered, blank, more like an elegantly painted china doll than a woman. Instead he had stared at his hands, feeling the blood that slicked them dry and flake into obscure patterns. He'd lost himself in his own mind, ignoring the questions and concerned glances from his companions, the commentary from the news screens, the heavy weight of the silent form wrapped in its black plastic shroud on the seats behind him.
The pyre had been so easy to arrange, a shroud-wrapped form on a temple of kindling. UNIT had asked him no questions and he had told them no lies. The Brigadier's legacy had left him that much.
And so he had set it to burn. As their race had burned, flames spiralling high into a night devoid of stars.
And then he had simply walked away, lost in his own thoughts. Remembering Axons and Daleks and Daemons and more. Academy days, a serious young man with a gift for science. So moralistic. So duty bound. A friend, once. A lover, a parallel, an equal, destined for greatness, all of it washed away in the flames of madness.
"We're the only two left. There's no one else. "
A Time Lord has many deaths. Thirteen in total, each one nibbling away an infinitesimal slice of time. A taste of mortality, a promise of rest, bitter-sweet to the tongue. A single scent, burnt away as life began anew.
"... just regenerate!"
" .... I refuse."
It's not that easy. It's not a conscious choice, not a toy to be switched on and off at will. It's coded into their bones, into their blood, millennia of genetic manipulation, tried and tested and honed into an exquisite art. Bodily regeneration, on a massive scale, poised and primed to trigger in the event of catastrophic injury and cell death.
Oh it could be artificially triggered, stopped - even reversed...if you had the knowledge. Knowledge of a race long gone.
There had been tales, back in the days of Looms and Houses, Panopticons and perigosto, tales whispered behind furtive hands and furrowed brows of Time Lords who had attempted to will their own deaths. Of twisted minds and mutilated bodies born into a crippled half-form. It wouldn't work. It couldn't. Not when the instinctive desire to live was so strong. Not with all those delicately programmed and woven exons waiting to be unleashed.
"Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming? Will it stop?"
The TARDIS door closes behind him, cutting off the sounds of the 21st century. The lights in the console room are dim and muted. He prefers it that way.
The mewling starts in his mind again, and he feels a sick fission of joy deep in his belly at the sensation. Confused, pain-filled drifting thoughts, he can feel them, hear them. After years of silence, years of darkness, he can finally hear the sweet sing of another Gallifreyan mind in the back of his own.
It's screaming in agony.
His footsteps lighten, quicken, taking him past the console and deeper into the TARDIS, towards the heart of her architecture and the dark secret hidden within.
He won't ever be alone again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 05:49 am (UTC)I want to see more of this Dark!Ten.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 06:01 am (UTC)I actually creeped myself out writing it. Between this, that bondage fic i co-wrote with
no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 06:59 am (UTC)Poor Master?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 07:06 am (UTC)No wait. I'm safe. You don't know where I live. I know where you do, but you don't know where I do. Mwahhahaha.
btw, want me to send up the LOM soundtrack with the eps?
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Date: 2007-07-06 07:40 am (UTC)OOOH. Yes please! :D
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Date: 2007-07-06 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 04:58 pm (UTC)That was wonderfully dark and extremely well written!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-06 06:23 pm (UTC)Yummy. *munch*
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Date: 2007-07-07 12:22 am (UTC)Sorry, just had some reviews on teaspoon that made me go "Wtf?" Asking for sequels and shit and making me think "Did I just fail spectacularly, or are you an idiot for missing what really happened in this fic?"
BUT YOU GET IT. I LOVE YOU
*GLOMP*
no subject
Date: 2007-07-09 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 05:25 pm (UTC)Meaaann, but wonderful. :p