Fear no more the heat o' the sun
Nor the furious winter's rages
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages;
Golden Lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers come to dust,
No exorcisers harm thee,
Nor no witch craft charm thee
Quiet consolation have
And reknown'd be thy grave
From Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
Later.....
Fire burns but doesn't consume and out of the conflagration I rise, like the Phoenix of earth legends. A war in heaven rent apart half of the universe, driving the despairing Eternals from this dimension. All the other remaining higher species that had survived looked on in sorrow and turned their faces away in horror at what was left. The Time Lords only lived on in stories, like myths whispered across the galaxy. Tales to tell in the dark of night, when the weight of the obsidian black pressed down on those lesser mortals who transposed their very real fears of the known and unknown into mere fairy tales to shiver at.
As for the end, no one was ever meant to survive that. Certainly I hadn't intended to, I with so much blood on my hands. But the universe isn't that kind, it never is. Sometimes it gives, only to take it all back, or worse, lets you watch it all burn around you and the only thing left at the end is you. And I did more than that, I made it all burn. Burn for all the worlds that were wiped out, for all the races that were erased from time, for every stinking Dalek that ever tainted a planet with their filth. Not only that, I did it for every planet that hadn't even taken its first steps out into space, for every life left still untouched, and for the last remnants of hope that anyone might still possess. I wiped out all my people, including 2.47 billion children so that all no one else would have to make that choice. The choice between their home and kin and everyone else's on the millions of worlds out there that my people and Skaro hadn't already destroyed. Living was the penance for that choice, because lesser of no evils or not, excision of cancer or not, genocide is genocide. And I've got to live with that, like She said I would.
Damn her.
Waking in the shredded remnants of leather and velvet, a face that I didn't even dare to even look at, the Moment hadn't lied. As for my face, how could I? Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. I, I had fallen into the abyss and hard. And who wants to look at a monster, especially when the monster is you? Best to leave that a sight unseen, a face unknown, lest the darkness within escape and bare itself in all its glory again. Quiet, so utterly quiet in my head. All those centuries, even when I was busy running away, there was still that presence, that tickle in the back of my mind letting me know I wasn't alone. All those billions of sparks, floating around in the ether, just gone. And now there's only me.
Except, now I'm not the only one, not the only survivor.
Of all the things to have fallen through time, of all the things to have survived the desecration, it was that. A lone Dalek. Its very existence mocked me, mocked everything that had been lost. Susan, Braxiatel, Romana, Andred, poor hapless Alex- even the Rani and everyone else- dead. And for what? What good was their sacrifice when the one thing that justified it, the one thing that had kept me going past waking up in a burning TARDIS- what good was it, when I had failed even that?
And oh, the universe's sick, twisted humor comes again: it can't even do the one thing it was made for. A Dalek that can't kill, how rich is that? Laugh at me now, O Fortuna; giggle in my ear, cruel Fate, 'cos you know what? I can.
And I will, except, there's this silly little pink and yellow human, telling me that I can't. Asking what I've become, as if she hadn't known all along. There's whole worlds out there that still exist, because of me, millions of them. More to the point, there's one world less that doesn't exist. Also because of me. And doing this, finishing what I had started back in a nursery on Skaro, it would be so easy, so right…
Except it's not. 'Cos if I did, the way she'd look at me, she'd see the same thing Cass did, back on that gunship crashing over Karn. She'd see what I was, what I'd become, what they'd made me, and I couldn't stand it.
Who can tell the difference anymore?
You'd make a good Dalek.
I couldn't do it, I just couldn't. Stars have mercy on me, I couldn't do it. Close my eyes and all I see is my hand, hovering over that button that must never ever be pushed, with the weight of billions of deaths on my weary shoulders and the fate of billions more hanging in the balance. But I did, I pushed it that day and here was that choice in front of me again. That was the day it wasn't possible to get it right, to get anything right; caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, when there wasn't a better way. What about today?
What was one, lone Dalek against seeing my own self condemnation reflected back at me? The eyes are the mirrors and the gateways to the soul and the thought of seeing just a fraction of what was reflected in my own.... just, please, don't make me decide like this again. And if I have to, if I can, believe me when I say I'm sorry after. Sorry I lived when others didn't; sorry I couldn't stop it in time; sorry for letting just one innocent life get touched by this. Cass, I won't forget and this time, I've learned about the consequences, and it's all come back around again. Another impossible decision to make, another load of responsibility to bear, and I can't do it this time- or can I? Have I the right? Or I can run, leave someone else to bear the burden. Run, like I always have done. Run as far and as fast as I can, like that coward that I am, who couldn't even bring himself to make a stand until a young girl shamed me into it, when it was far too late. Except there's no one else, because I killed them all and it's all up to me.
One lone Dalek....
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow....
