championoftime | [Audio]

[Audio]

[Public]

[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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What, you mean by graduating? [He laughs sharply.] No, I couldn't have! I don't hurt people, I've admitted that mind control is bad and I won't do it again, and I waste all my time in the infirmary, tending to people-- what more could the Admiral want?! Even this, I planned to execute in a way that wouldn't hurt anybody!

And you're deluded if you think those 'heroes' rushed in there for me. They didn't do it for me; they would've done it for anybody. Why should I assign some special, personal significance to that?

You don't understand. They made my life better while in captivity. They made it tolerable, for a prison. Friendship on the Barge is a salve, something nice, soothing, distracting, but not a cure. At the end of the day, with all my friends, I was still a prisoner.

Shut up. Yes you could have. You wouldn't let it be an option. You think Narvin didn't care about your safety? You think he would have risked his literal neck for anyone? You tell yourself this derogatory filth and fill your head with negativity to make yourself okay with the things you do!

Was Frances worth discarding too? Do you think I'm not a prisoner? I have access to resources but I'm bound to this ship because I'm dead. I was considering going ahead and proceeding with my death because I wasn't sure I could assist anyone anymore. I appreciate the argument in favor of it. It'll make my decision easier. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the making of another Master.

[That hurts, but unfortunately, Rex responds to hurt by lashing out more.] You want to dangle your death over my head and then compare me to him? Fine! If I'm as bad as him, then you should've paid more attention to the story of the Farmer and the Viper.

You're telling me I should have chosen to remain in a cage, that trying to free myself is comparable to genocide.

Edited 2011-11-19 07:12 (UTC)

LOOK AROUND YOU! It is! We just have the joy of having to endure it, and we could have been bound here for eternity. And why not dangle my impending demise over your head. You're proclaiming your eternal misery at imprisonment. The same thing that Rassilon gloats he has exceptions on. You even admitted to harming people that did nothing to deserve it in the past, and then telling them that they did. Here you're doing worse! You hurt people without caring.

The consequences might have been accidental, but you didn't care what the results were anyway. You just wanted to be free. What about Iago, did he know? Narvin? Wanda? Amanda? Frances? Trip? Robert? Shego? Your sister? What about me. ...Not only do we not get good-byes. We're not even worth an afterthought to you.

[Shouting:] I didn't mean to hurt anybody! I didn't think it would do this, not when the Barge has endured extensive damage before. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known.

...

[And he's calming down now.] I told some inmates, because I knew they wouldn't stop me. It was for them, too. Wanda shouldn't be trapped here. Neither should Ana.

A goodbye wouldn't have made you hate me any less than you do right now.

Do you think Wanda is going to appreciate being rendered powerless? That she had her choice taken away from her again?

Those inmates are just as foolish.

The sad part is I don't hate you, Rex. But I am angry. I have to face every single person I argued against, every one that I stood up to in favour of you for, and tell them that I was a fool. That I was wrong for believing in someone, and they were correct.

I would have had to do that even if you had gone.

Edited 2011-11-19 08:26 (UTC)

That wasn't supposed to happen! Stop acting like I planned for it to kill everybody! All it was supposed to do was stop the Barge from being able to force us back. Nobody was supposed to die or lose their abilities or anything. They would just be in a world, a normal, real world without floods or breaches or false Admirals, and they could live their lives.

But you don't want to see that angle, do you? So fine, I'm a monster, they're all right, I did this because I'm insane and wanted to harm everybody, and you were a fool for trusting me. That's what you want to hear right now, isn't it?

Edited 2011-11-19 16:21 (UTC)

Don't start with that, either. How have you always reacted to, "I didn't mean to, I didn't know!". Recklessness and carelessness? Didn't you still want to hold them accountable?

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.

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.

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