Work Text:
The death particle doesn’t go off with a bang. It’s a silent, blinding white. A supernova, obliterating everything in its path in something that is either a fraction of a second or an eon. Being close to the center of the explosion, it’s hard to tell.
They didn’t quite make it to the TARDIS.
Everything is white. If they had a tongue, they are pretty sure they would find out what white tastes like. Maybe it would taste how TV static feels when the volume’s on mute. Fuzzy warm waves of energy grasping for any kind of connection. Their thoughts are refractions under water, jarring and cascading like a kaleidoscope of mirrors. There’s no distinction between them anymore.
They don’t know if time is passing.
What’s the difference between a second and eternity? Both can be divided to infinity. Maybe this is what the death particle does—not death, but an infinite eternity of nothing.
No time, no mind, no body.
But then there is pain. It burns through him like a baptism by fire. Maybe he does have a body. Maybe this really is the end. Becoming death. Finally.
The fire intensifies and he is dimly aware of the Cyber consciousness as an entity, as separate from him, consumed in regret over its mistake and then—
It’s dark.
once
many years ago,
or many years to come,
or maybe right
now
you were afraid of the dark.
Gravity returns.
The cold seeps into his skin as dust settles around him. His eyes open and he is greeted by the sight of a fallen empire. Metal shells that once contained the remains of Time Lords are scattered around him, ripped apart in twisted pieces. Unsalvageable.
He survived this, somehow. The Cyberium didn’t. He laughs. A hollow, broken sound. All his plans, destroyed, and the universe still won’t let him die. It doesn’t matter, though. It never did, really. What mattered was getting her to pull the trigger. To end all of this.
And she almost had.
Almost.
But then that human interrupted and sacrificed himself for her—as they always do—and she ran. She ran away without a glance back, ready to leave him behind like he was nothing. She left him to die, alone. Again.
They were supposed to die together.
once
my hand found yours
and we looked up at the night sky
and you promised we would see the stars
(i could already see them in your eyes
whenever you looked
at me)
He pushes himself off the ground and walks through the ruined Matrix chamber. Here at the heart of the explosion, it is one of the only things left standing, almost like the eye of the storm. Outside is unrecognizable. When he’d burned Gallifrey, before, the glass dome surrounding the citadel had cracked. Now it dusts every surface like sand.
The only sound in the barren wasteland that surrounds the Matrix chamber is the wind whistling across the cold, dry ground. The fires that had been licking at red grass and blackening silver leaves of trees are gone. Where there were once plants, only ashes remain.
He closes his eyes and pictures the days when the wind would blow through fields of long, flowing red grass and they would run together, sweaty palms grasping as the suns beamed down upon them. At night they would lie under the orange sky and whisper secrets, baring their innermost hopes and fears and dreams, making plans that never happened.
He doesn’t know how long he stays in his memories, but when he turns to go back inside, his arms and legs have gone numb from the wind and the first sun is already peeking over the mountains.
once
we didn’t know we would be the last.
All life destroyed means that every TARDIS is dead. That’s alright. He can work with this. There are plenty of parts left from the blown-up Cybership and TARDIS remains for him to construct a way to get off-planet. He may be angry, but he can be very, very patient. After all, he had been O for years. And he knows how to build a spaceship.
He knows the Doctor would be better at this.
As he works, the memories rise unbidden of the day the Doctor left Gallifrey, took off in a stolen TARDIS with his granddaughter of all people, and didn’t even bother to say goodbye. Of course he had followed the Doctor—has been following her ever since—but as much as he denies it, it still hurt.
They’d had so many plans, whispered in the most sacred of spaces, discarded and left behind like they didn’t matter, like they were just the meaningless words of children—
He throws a tool against the wall and yells, his voice raw.
Left behind. Again.
once
i thought we’d orbit each other
for eternity—
i didn’t know
The days pass in chilly silence, punctuated only by the whistling of wind and tools clattering to the ground with the occasional muttering and sometimes screaming.
It takes him nearly a year to build a spaceship that can track the closest living TARDIS and, more importantly, get him to it. A year of solitude. Nothing to occupy his mind besides building the ship and reliving his own memories.
It has not calmed the rage.
He is so angry. Angry that she had always acted like she was better than him, and he had always fought against that with everything he had, showing—proving that he was her equal. Better, even. That he was the winner.
And to learn that she really was more? And a little piece of her was inside of him?
He thinks about what they did to her, too.
Gallifrey may be cold and dead, but he has a raging inferno inside him.
i am a dying star, a red giant—
fires,
expanding, engulfing
until nothing’s left,
but you—
you were always so much more.
The ship he builds can track a TARDIS and take him to it, but it can’t travel at light speed. He didn’t have the parts. Instead, it is another slow, slow journey across space. The stars barely seem to move as he drifts past.
With every hour, he thinks about how long it’s been for her. If she thinks he’s dead. If she cares. If she was lying before, and he really has broken her. He debates whether she was putting on an act. She’s never been a good actor, not to him. Either way, he promised her she would pay for her weakness. He intends to keep that promise.
you didn’t know
you would burn up and collapse;
your own gravity pulling you in until you became a
black hole
sucking me in and i
can’t escape
When his ship finally lands, it takes him another day to find the TARDIS, because his tracking equipment isn’t very precise. But after a day of trekking over the barren landscape, he finds a conspicuously healthy tree, and miraculously, it’s unlocked.
As he steps inside, he knows that she’s been here. He can feel it. He walks around the console, touching the buttons she used to make her escape. How long has it been since she touched these controls? Has his eternity been seconds for her? What’s the difference between seconds and eternity?
His fingers drum on the console. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.
She’s out there somewhere.
One-two-three-four.
And he’s going to find her.
once
we were going to see the stars