championoftime | [Video] (Dated to after everything is over)

[The Doctor is sitting against his TARDIS cross-legged. The journal is positioned in sort of an upshot as it's propped on his legs. His hat is off. Actually, he lost it in the hall, his umbrella too. No idea where they are. He might have the TARDIS make another. Right now, he's just sitting and holding a little plush animal. It looks like a baby toy, and resembles a bear with sabertooth fangs. It's actually a sehlat, but he doesn't know what in the cosmos it could be.

He still hurts, but he's been with the old girl long enough that most of the damage is sorted out.]

I thought... maybe, with my end, the worst of my actions would go with me. I didn't want to think they would carry on. [He turns the toy over to look at it's little nubby tail. For a moment, beady stuffed animal eyes and nose fill the screen, before he moves it away again.] I suppose we all have our nasty and unfortunate sides. Just as every one ought to have a good one.

For those of you I've not introduced myself to, I'm Dr. John Smith. [This time, he just leaves "the Doctor" off. He's obviously bothered at the moment, in a distant sort of way.] I can't guarantee you I'll do the right thing all the time. I'm far from perfect, but I'll make the attempt. [He sort of chuckles awkwardly to himself.] As if they need to be told that I'm not perfect. [He mutters this to the stuffed whatever, and he shakes his head and the bit of smile wanes.] I'd like to thank Billy for lending me a hand in the hallway. Quite noble of him. When I'm done here... I was wondering if there was someone that could point me in the direction of a little patch of sky where a weary old Time Lord might roam for the rest of his regeneration. It's an impossibility to return to my own universe without upsetting the balance and I'd like to have a distant shore that I could explore.

[He holds the stuffed animal up closer to his face.] I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to be. The TARDIS left it on the console. [He's more than a bit distracted and admittedly all over the place. Being thrown into walls by everything he ever feared about himself can do that to you.]

[Private to Rex and Tim]

I'm not leaving you. I simply need to know where I can go when it comes time for you to leave me.

[Private to the Infirmary]

I apologize for being absent for a bit. I did something very unintelligent. I'll make it up to you tomorrow when I'm better fit to move about.

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So do you understand? What you have done? Or will you go on to make excuses, like all your other regenerations? [He's curious. A Doctor who understands would be something new. Unexpected, even.]

I know what I am. I knew what I would do. I understood the timelines better than most of my other selves. All of them branching and twisting and writhing off to a singular point culminating in terrible destruction and no matter how far I ran I was inevitably pulled back. Though even if I hadn't been there, it would have happened.

I despise, though, that it was me.

The impossibility of free will... [He knew of it. He had known since that fateful day, when he had stared at the results of his research and seen that free will didn't exist. That they were all caught, bound by time itself. And he had fought - and won. The Divergents were proof of that.]

There is a way. But you... You have already given up. You're not even trying to fight. And yet, you regret? Condemning Gallifrey? [Then, voice low - ] It can be changed. We are Time Lords. We rule over time, its chains do not bind us. We are not like those pathetic creatures out there who think their choices are their own while they're just puppets of existence itself. We... We can be free.

So you would think, Rassilon. But it always ends the same way. Every time. [He has to think about it.] No, well.... there is one way to save Gallifrey, but not one you would ever be willing to consider. It would be too damaging to the ego.

There is? [His voice is silky.] I am curious. [He doesn't actually think he'll ever need the Doctor's plan - Omega already has one and even if that fails, he is confident in his ability to beat time. Even if he has to destroy it to do so.]

[He does not know what to think of Rassilon using his silky voice on him. Founding fathers are sounding a little dirtier than he last remembered so it sort of stalls him up a bit.] Time Travel. We damned ourselves with it. Created a kingdom based upon the risk of terrible paradox. Inviting in all the terrors that exist between the universes. Without time travel, off to ourselves, we could have existed as long as we would prefer.

Not a pretty alternative, but truly the best one. And one that would never be considered. I'm sure you'll find another. However, my existence in that universe has been terminated. I left upon my regeneration. I can't be of more help to you.

[He hasn't even pulled out the innuendos yet.] No. Without time travel, our universe - the life within - would have ceased to exist, long ago... Us as well. But I, I fought that future and I won. How could I have, without our mastery over time? How could I have even known of the creatures our universe would breed? Your next regeneration, he did not understand. [His voice is dropping low again.] But you do, do you not? That sacrifices have to be made, that some things need to be done.

You just make me even more curious. What could be worse than the end of our people? [He smiles.] But you are right, I will find a way. And I have others, early enough in the timeline to help.

[Oh my. Of all the things that thoroughly distract him from mourning his own sanity, it's Rassilon pulling out the sultry.]

Others developed Time Travel as well, and used it even more aptly. I don't really understand what happened in your timeline. Tell me.

[But he does it so well. And this regeneration's voice was made for sultry.]

More aptly than the Time Lords? [Have an affronted glare, Doctor.] I doubt it. And you want the... details? About what? The Time War... Or what you did to me, even before that? [And his voice drops even lower.]

[No wonder Rassilon took power over a whole prudey culture and drove them to insanity, having his sexual Tiger voice.] You certainly don't recall what I've done for you- [Though yes, in his particular mind there was more than one thing. Things that didn't involve him.] The Time War. There were many wars that could have happened. What happened in this one. The Daleks, I know that much.

[It's how his mind control works.] For... me? [No. No, he doesn't.] What would that be? ...You do not mean that... incident in my tomb, do you?

[His eyelids drooped.] The Time War... There was the Nightmare Child... It ate Davros, but apparently he escaped. According to Doctor Jones at least. [Of course, as the Doctor's former companion, she's not exactly trustworthy.] And also the Could've Been King, the Neverweres... [He opens his eyes again.] Our people died to be resurrected and die again. We could not win. I had to do something. I had to save them. But you would not let me.

What is this universe worth? What is this life you wished to protect worth? They know nothing! They are nothing! Pathetic creatures. Their existence destined to always be the same, since the beginning of time. We are the only ones who can change something. Who can make decisions ourselves. The Time Lords were worth the price.

Davros always escapes. He escaped me as well, and I was willing to do what so few would. Useless. Like any sort of destruction.

Rassilon. I believe that it's been unceremoniously proven aboard this very ship alone, if any being has the right to make decisions for the good of the cosmos, it shouldn't be a Time Lord. Time doesn't like us very much for what we've done to her.

[It makes him sad, really. He'd had these sort of displaced thoughts that made him fond of Rassilon. That made him fond of Omega. He tried to ignore them most of the time. They were more bothersome than anything usually. But right now, it made Rassilon's behavior truly and utterly troubling.

At the very least, he missed the soul he encountered in the tomb.] However. There's not very much I can say about it now.

As bad as you, is he not? But perhaps he is finally gone now... And not all the destruction is useless, not necessarily. Not if you achieve your aim. You simply haven't done it right yet.

How is it proven? It were us, our decisions that allowed our universe to exist as long as it has. Now we take the time it has received from us back. And what do we care if time likes it or not? We are her Lords, not her servants. If she decides to betray us we will destroy her.

[That man has been consumed by madness long ago.] Is there not? you have always been so fond of talking. [But perhaps it is better so. He has so little control over his temper these days.]

You can't exist in a dimension you've destroyed, Rassilon. One doesn't live in the house they've burnt to the ground.

I do apparently enjoy hearing my own head rattle. Though if I had your voice people might actually listen to me. You rather lucked out on the genetic structure this time about. [He does not know what to think of good ol' Rassilon slinking about. It's on the hair bristling side.]

Oh, but you can. Not a physical existence, of course, but who needs these bodies that only tie us down? Do you understand what I mean, Doctor? To ascend, to become pure consciousness... What more freedom than that you can have?

[He smiles.] It is a rather good voice for holding speeches, is it not? [And he's back to sultry again.] People do tend to listen, I assure you.

[Video] (Dated to after everything is over)

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