Are You Gonna Save This One?

Time, or something like it, passes.

Bill Potts learns about The Doctor.

Everything happens, second verse same as the first.

Or,

The Doctor makes his oath. He never seems to keep it.

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Time or something like it passes.

There are things Bill learns about The Doctor.

 

That he has seen death and has killed and cares and has lost count because the counting hurts too much.

 

That there are times and places he can’t go for the memories.

 

That London at Christmas is dangerous.

 

That he’s made and broken this oath of his time and time again.

 

That there are ghosts in the tardis and traveling with him is dangerous beyond measure.

 

And the most important rule of all:

The doctor lies.

 

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The Doctor has tried sticking to his oath – he will not leave the planet, the time, he will guard the vault. He truly tried. But how many times has it been?
The king of okay up on his cloud.
Trenzalore’s last guardian.
A millennium chipping away at rock because he can’t lose another, he really truly can’t.
300 years.
A thousand.
Again and again.
The lonely God with a doctor complex, or the other way around.
He can’t ever seem to leave it to rest.

 

Steal a tardis and run away.
Visit Coal Hill.
Watch Susan.
Watch Alexander.
Watch Jenny.
Watch Sarah Jane.
Watch Donna Noble who for a second was the most important women in the universe.
Martha Jones who walked the Earth.
Clara Oswin Oswald an impossible girl who died time and time again.
Rose Tyler – a girl he loved and lost twice, an alternate universe, Bad Wolf, the face the moment chose, his friend and companion after he burned Gallifrey, a girl who broke a Dalek with Mercy of all things.
Amy Pond is best friend, Rory too – lost to the angels, to live out their lives without him and that’s the best he can hope for.
River Song – impossible, a Tardis born child, an accident, every tragedy she faced his fault. Amy’s daughter, his wife, his killer, his impossible astronaut.
Out of order, died before he loved her, she met him when she killed him. Then, silence in the library, a first and last meeting. A journal full of spoilers. A universe of the amazing and wonderful and horrific.

 

The Doctor has a soft spot for the humans, two hearts ripe for breaking, and the inquenchable urge to run.

 

He’s made his oath before. Time lords aren’t meant to interfere. And he’s broken it. Save the universe. Save the humans. Can’t save his friends.
Jack Harkness cannot die and becomes the lonely face of Bo, none can know the doctors name, The Master his oldest friend and enemy, the daleks never seem to end. Galifrey falls and it’s all his fault and he can’t do a thing about it.

The Moment calls itself the bad wolf and he has three memories of a uniquely horrifying day battling in his skull and 2000 years alive and he’s seen too much death and life and everything in it to feel much for it at all he’s beginning to think. 42 is not nearly the answer the humans would like to think it is.

 

He’s heard the sound of drums, and lived more lives than even a time lord can or should claim. He’s stolen a tardis, and loved and lost too many times. He’s had a family he lost and family he can’t ever met or know. One day the earth will burn. One day daleks will take New York. And he always interferes except for the moments when he can’t. He knows the outcome and by knowing the future it is set in stone. He can help except when he can’t. The doctor saves others but who saves the doctor without destroying themselves. The doctor can’t be alone, he isn’t good when he’s alone. The good man went to war, but did he ever return?

 

So the oath. To protect his hearts or what remains. Be a time lord proper the way he never could be. And he’s been doing well but then he always done until he finds another. This time, in the form of a girl named Bill who has a great big heart and isn’t afraid to tell him off and there he goes again breaking his oath.

 

He took River to the singing towers. Made a boy a real life superman. Was a professor for decades until being grounded started to feel more like a cage than anything.

 

So, the doctor does what he always does.

 

He runs.

 

(It feels more like running away than ever. He has to save Missy but doesn’t know how, and he’s running out of time. Funny thing for the time traveling doctor, but then, he’s always fancied himself a bit too human, like Icarus flying too close to the sun.)