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The Doctor sat on his bench staring blindly at the switches of the TARDIS console, lost in solemn thought.
(“Tell me Doctor, can your conscience carry the weight of another dead race? Remember. Dream of us.”)
And he did. Every moment he carried the weight of a thousand dead souls. Families - the Slitheens, the Raknos and now the Calvierri. The list went on in a never ending queue of death and destruction.
The Doctor clasped his hands between his knees, swallowing around the lump in his throat as he went further into the dark recesses of his hearts.
Rosetta had loved her sons as much as any woman loved her offspring. And what had he done? Driven her to her death, leaving an entire family to wander forsaken under the seas of Venice.
He leaned back, running his hands over his face in frustration and moral agony.
(“One city to save an entire species. Was that so much to ask?”)
Was it? Why were the humans of that tiny city more important than trapped refugees? Why didn’t they deserve his help? Weren’t they victims of this “silence” - this mysterious thing that was his true enemy?
He knew what his sin was - pride. The curse of the Time Lords. The reason he had seen fit to lock them all away. To protect the universe from their self-centered insanity.
The Doctor went still, in cold realization. The madness of his elders suddenly looked much like his own questionable decisions since the Time War’s end. Since the end he had brought about.
(“I’m the winner. Time Lord Victorious.”)
He shivered as though a goose had just walked over his grave. What had found its way into his soul, making a home, finding root and succor there? Dear God, what was he becoming?