championoftime | [Audio]

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[Set to right after the explosion.] You- the ship! There's something happening to the ship.

[He's sounding panicked. About as panicked as he was when Frostmourne was on the loose.] The old girl! She's scared! I can hear it! I need to- Admiral! Take me back at once! Admiral please!

They're eating it alive!.

[Private to the Admiral | Text]

Please send Rex somewhere else. Please let him leave. I don't ask for him. I ask for all the people he's been harming. Please just allow it, let the world be his salvation.

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[She focuses on what he seems to be venturing at and her eyes go wide with worry.] Doctor...we go through something somewhat similar when we die. Except we don't change outwardly. Instead our bodies heal and our powers grow stronger.

But we still have to avoid it because...it disrupts things. Upsets people. It's not so wonderful for us mentally, especially if we make a big change like that in the middle of having to handle some nastiness.

[She blinks at the suggestion but...he has a point. This is heavy and scary and would be supported best with some tequila.] All right then.

It's... it's a very long story.

[One involving terrible acts, things that his older selves did that he desperately wants to escape. His entire reason for being here. He wants to be his own man, to be separate from what he'll become.

But is it so much a part of him that he can't escape it?

He offers his arm.] I'd like to learn more about what happens to yours, anyway.

Oh, so when you're comparing me to the Master, calling me simpering and whining, and saying the people who thought I was a monster were right about me, you're just holding me accountable. Of course.

If only I'd known this is what you thought about me all along.

Edited 2011-11-20 05:28 (UTC)

The Master was my best friend, at one time. He was the person I cared about most. And he's the person that hurt me worst.

If I'm not supposed to project my experiences with Duke onto others, why are you allowed to do the same to me?

I said that you're doing the same things that Duke did to you. And what I meant was that I don't want to make another person that's going to turn around and destroy things that I care about, unintentionally or intentionally. That's what you're doing, Rex. And I did make him. I made the Master. I hate myself for it every day. I tried to save him, too.

Do you think I want to keep going on, knowing I might do that to someone else? If you want to run, Rex, run. I'm going to put in a request to the Admiral, with all of my hearts in hopes that he lets you go. Because otherwise, you'll only keep hurting people and getting worse. And whether or not I'm responsible, I'm going to hate myself for it.

You didn't make me. I make my own decisions. I planned to escape, and I chose it, and-- I stopped because of your TARDIS, doesn't that count for anything?

[He's quiet for a long time, angry and hurt. Then, he says evenly:] Do you think I'm beyond redemption?

No. Of course I don't.

But I'm hurt. I hate that you hurt people. I hate that you plan more of your life and actions around the people that hurt you instead of the ones that make your life better.

Would you ever be happy in a prison, Doctor?

I was when I was exiled.

Not that I was happy being exiled, no. No TARDIS. Trapped in one era. Used as military sounding board.

But I found people, and those people helped me through it and were there for me afterwards. You don't do what you do because of prison. You constructed your life around the people you hate before you even came to the ship. You have so much potential. You gave your sister strength. You save lives. You can motivate masses.

But you waste your time and energy and words on things you hate and then forget that you pull people and things you care about in with you.

...

So now what?

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life fighting people? And then trying to escape it or hiding from it?

Because I can tell you for certain, as someone who has had to live that way... it's miserable and it doesn't improve. I have to, though. In every life I've had to. You have a chance not to.

I just want to be able to live my life on my own terms.

All right. I'm just a little worried, but I won't be too terribly nosy about it.

[She takes his arm after a moment's hesitation.]

When we die our minds project into the future and we visit with our Ascended Selves. The people we are going to be when we perfect our power and our insight. They teach us something and we come back with more of the Package unwrapped.

Then you'd be a prisoner even if you escaped. Unless you were the last, lonely being in the universe you still have to live in the same world as everyone else, and that means living on their terms as well. Whether you know them or not. They're the ones that decide you have food. They're the ones that sell everyday products. They're the ones that act in TV shows and write recipes and build new businesses.

They don't take your abilities or compromise your freedoms because they don't want you to defend yourself, they do it because you can't tell when you're hurting them.

You know that's not the same as being trapped on the Barge.

[He sighs sharply.] I don't want to be somebody you hate.

I don't either. [Someone Rex hates. Or for Rex to be someone that he hates.] I don't. I'm just hurt. I've been hurt quite a bit lately, not just by this. Some things take time to mend.

[And he's been having trouble finding that time in him.]

No place is the same. But you'll always be compromising yourself as long as you live how you're living.

I'm sorry. I don't-- know how to be anything else. [He sounds frustrated. At himself, this time, more than anything else.]

Yes you do. I wouldn't be so frustrated if you weren't so far from the man that I met when I first came aboard this ship.

But this is what makes sense to me.

How? It's visceral and uncivilized. Your using your scientific prowess for primitive urges and brief emotional gratification. It only would have lasted until you realized you'd rendered yourself alone in the world again.

And do you think the Barge is the only location capable of abduction? I've had more than one greater being do as much to me.

I wouldn't have been alone. It was an escape for everyone.

No, I don't.

What about all the inmates that wanted to go home. Or the wardens that have nowhere else to go?

If my needs shouldn't come before theirs, why should theirs come before mine? You keep arguing for me to choose this life on the Barge for other people's sake.

It doesn't matter, anyway. It's finished. I'm not going to try to escape again, because it's pointless.

Edited 2011-11-22 05:31 (UTC)

Did you miss the entire point of people dying to save you? Or that after you destroyed the minds of so many people, damaged their relationships, many of them including Mr. Tucker forgave you. And you nearly made it impossible to share a future with his wife?!

The Barge is nothing in comparison to the rest of the world. What did you do because you had affection for a man with a generational grudge? What did you do because of your own hatred for a single man. You're purposefully missing the point.

I'm asking you to stop wasting your life on hatred. To stop thinking that the world is full of labrats and people you can abandon. You can't. You need them.

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