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It was quiet.
Too quiet.
Quiet meant time to think. And above everything else, that was the thing she absolutely did not want.
She needed to go back for her friends. Sending them away believing they were leaving her to die had been necessary at the time, but leaving them in suspense would be cruel. Although this was a time machine. She could pick them up as soon as they landed, and still take some time to heal. Take some time for herself. Maybe she needed it.
The TARDIS hummed around her, agreeing with the thought, and she barely resisted rolling her eyes. She did not need her ship telling her to get a life. She got more than enough of that from her fam. Even if they were right.
Maybe it would be better if she didn’t pick them up. Traveling with her was dangerous, it always was, but right now she didn’t even know who she was. The revelations of the past week had left her off balance, unsure in a way she rarely felt. Maybe they would be better off away from her.
The TARDIS flashed angrily at that thought. “I know.” She protested, throwing her hands up in the air. “I know I’m spiraling, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know who I am right now. How can they trust me? How can I even trust myself?”
She quickly navigated the ship to an empty corner of space, popping the door open and taking a seat on the threshold. The view was stunning. Distant galaxies spun around, comets flashing through the empty spaces between. She kicked her feet, doing everything she could to keep from thinking.
But it wasn't working. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the memories. "What happened to the child?" "It's all lies." "What did they do to you, Doctor? How many lives have you had?” Her eyes flew open, hands clamping over her ears to block out the sound. It was too much.
The voices faded for the moment, and she stared out into space, tears streaming down her face. How many lives had she had? How much of her past was gone, taken by the woman who called herself her mother? What had she forgotten? Who had she forgotten?
What had she done, all those lifetimes working for Division? How many had she killed? How many lives had she destroyed? How many planets and civilizations had been left desolate in her wake, following the orders of an organization that went against everything she stood for?
What did that make her? She had obeyed them. Had it been willing? Had she happily done all that? Or had she fought back? Had she resisted? How many lives had she lost before she finally gave in and did what they wanted? How many lives had she wasted before she finally stood up to them?
She shook her head, refusing to give in to the spiraling black hole of her thoughts. That didn't matter. Yes, she may have done horrible things, but that wasn't who she was now. That was not what she stood for, who she had spent years forming herself into.
She could not give in, not now. It didn’t matter who she used to be. She wasn't that person anymore. She was the one who kept going no matter what, who fought for the hurting and oppressed because no one else would. Who stood up to devils and kings and said, "Do your worst!" Who refused to back down, no matter how hopeless the fight, because that's just who she was.
She was the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Protector of the Earth, the Man that stops the Monsters, the Time Lord Victorious, the one at whose name the Daleks and Cybermen ran away.
She was the one who had stood in the gap time and time and time again, saving the earth from those who came to attack it. The one who stood in front of the weak, and told the strong, “No more!”
It didn't matter what she had been, everything she had done she couldn’t remember, because she had spent lifetimes, thousands, millions, billions of years proving who she was now.
She was the Doctor.
And she would carry on.