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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Right after you've lost someone. Oh, your speeches are impressive. But you're truly frightening in those moments after someone you care about leaves. It's as if, in that instant, no matter who's still here and who still cares about you, you've nothing left to lose.

I don't see why they deserve to be proven right. You're the intelligent one. They're the ones living off petty presumption.

[SPAAAZZZZ:] They're what I hid myself away from! They make up society-- what's acceptable, what's... normal. They get to define who's worthy of acceptance and who's a monster. [SEETHE. There's barely restrained frustration in his voice, then a long silence. Then, softer:]

How can I "redeem" myself if it means I'd have to join a world I have no desire to live in? [BASICALLY, HE HATES PEOPLE, OKAY?] A world that wants me even less than I want it.

[Funnily enough, he's not even talking about his appearance.]

That's what the Barge taught me.

You don't have to rejoin it. [Adamantly] People like that are choking themselves out, destined to be lost in anonymity as they drive their own wretched closed-minded selves into extinction. And they make many others that think quite like you that enough is enough.

One day, Rex you will do great things, whether they be terrible or wondrous. You will be remembered in passing. They will be forgotten. And one way or another, you will make things change.

You've allowed them to define you enough. You're neither a "kid brother" or "supervillain". You are what you are and that is a genius. You'll leave this ship, redeemed or not, and I would greatly prefer that whatever changes you make in yourself for better or for worse were made because you wished to make them, not because some small-minded simpleton of feigned importance thought he could dare define you based on his petty pop culture experience.

Edited 2011-01-17 06:09 (UTC)

People like that are revered here. They're the ones who are looked upon as so great and understanding if they're wardens, or just in need of a little guidance if they're inmates. I was never given the same chance. It was wardens who-- [He cuts himself off.] I wonder, sometimes, how different it would have been if I were. But that's pointless, isn't it? To dwell...

I've already done great things, Doctor. They're why I'm here. Because I pursued them at the expense of [He spits the word out:] people.

I'm not so certain they're all that understanding. I know a few who very much aren't. Not everyone thinks they're perfect. But I do believe the inmates do stand a second chance... but they need more than guidance. They need a sense of security, and the wardens can't provide that adequately with these dimensional disturbances, no matter how capable they are.

I gather you want to punish them for the way they treat you, and people like you. But once you've done, are there there not just more people finding excuses to give you a difficult time? Picking people that might have had similar difficulties out as, "problem individuals" and "potential threats"? I see wardens behaving like this and it sickens me.

[Reluctantly:] I do. [Then, with more force:] And if those people give me a difficult time in turn, I'll punish them, too. They can experience what I'm capable of first-hand.

It isn't just the dimensional disturbances, Doctor. It's the people. I've had wardens push me far more than any flood ever did, while others stood aside and allowed it to happen. The things I've been accused of, harassed over, had my confidentiality thrown aside for, without so much as a question to my actual guilt or innocence-- if they'd been raised against so many of the other inmates here, the accusors would have been laughed off the Barge. Imagine, somebody claiming Victor Frankenstein took advantage of a boy and drove him to suicide, or Omega experimenting on Infirmary patients? Who would take those accusations seriously?

But when it's me, suddenly, it becomes believable. Without question. And this was before my scars-- before I embraced who I was. When I was still trying to "fit in," be a good, productive member of the Barge.

So tell me, Doctor. You know people better than I do. What is it about me that makes it so easy to believe I'm a monster that even my so-called "colleagues," my own warden can assume the worst of me without a second thought? [To be fair, he confronted Harper about that whole business before, and his warden did admit he was wrong, BUT REX NEVER FORGETS.]

Edited 2011-01-17 19:30 (UTC)

[He puts his face in his hands for a moment.] It is not precisely healthy that my first inclination was to ask you to play chess with me. [He pulls his hands away from his face and settles, though, considering.]

I would take them seriously, and it's the same reason that they assume that I'm a good man merely because of my moral statute. One of the reasons that I actually spend time with Narvin, knowing full well what horrors and treachery the CIA is capable of is that he knows the truth. I kidnapped my first companions with every intention of abandoning them in another era. My granddaughter was the one who argued on their behalf. My largest regret about destroying Skaro, is that I didn't destroy all of the Daleks. I've shifted and manipulated and manoeuvred and somehow people are still unquestionably fond of me.

And it's not right. I ought to be questioned. And you ought to be given the benefit of the doubt. And I would make a commentary, but I don't believe you wish to have more attention than normal drawn to you.

[Video] (Dated to after everything is over)

[Private]

[Private]

[Private]

[Private]

[Private]

[Private] AWESOME, my entire tag got eaten

[Private]