He is standing there, a lone figure under the bright, burnt orange sky.
He looks up at it, looks around. He hesitates briefly, then takes off the sunglasses (the barrier, the armor), letting the familiar hues and shapes invade his vision. What could he scan, what could he use them here for, anyway? There’s nothing that he observes which is unknown.
The small golden disk weighs heavily now, drags his hand to the dry, cracked ground –the ground once so beloved, so mourned for and so sacred- so he puts it in his coat pocket, bigger on the inside for the bigger on the inside.
He doesn’t feel anything.
“Home; the long way round”.
He takes a deep breath (every single element in the air just perfect, his body made to breathe them) and it seems to get stuck somewhere above his chest. His gaze drifts again to the mountains, to the sky.
The Citadel looms in the distance, gleaming, pristine, the dome around it shining in the light as if the War had never happened.
Home.
(Heavy, heavy disk in his pocket, betrayal is heavy, death is heavy, eternity is an intolerable weight, eternity is a very long time).
He does feel something now and it is bitterness.
He should be falling to his knees on the ground, on the dry, sacred earth, running his fingers over, through it, kissing it –how many years, oh, how many? - blessing the tiniest stone, the whistling wind, the sunlight, the beautiful Citadel with its towering spires, blessing the universe. He should be smiling, laughing the most joyous laughter in all of his lives, he should be crying, choking back sobs and trying to breathe, his hearts pouring out the poison, the desperate longing of all the long years, flowers springing from the teardrops like they do in songs.
He’s standing, almost still, looking at the city, and his eyes are dry and the muscles of his face can’t smile, seem to have forgotten how to.
He should be happy, he should be the happiest man in all of creation at this moment.
Home.
But Gallifrey shouldn’t just be the means to an end, no matter what the end is. It shouldn’t just be an escape, the only escape from Hell itself, from cold-blooded heartlessness the Daleks themselves wouldn’t inflict on him, from betrayal and ungratefulness so huge that he almost regrets his name, his promise; and eternity is a very long time.
They’ve taken away his joy, a joy for which he died more than once, a joy so dearly paid for he had dared hope that he deserved it.
They have stolen his joy, his ability to love them, love his home (little by little, in a stony tomb of suffering and sorrow), and he hates them all the more for it; if something can be hated more by someone than he already does.
And yet…
There is affection, despite everything, somewhere deep down, even for the city shining magnificently in the distance, both its good and its evil well hidden. There is still love, he knows, somewhere in his hearts, a place that is being blocked by this raw fury. And there is also a promise, an order not to take revenge. So he won’t.
There will be no vengeance; but there might be justice.
He’ll leave it up to them; usually he isn’t the one to come in guns blazing, judge, jury and executioner after all. They tend to be experts. He has another reason to be here, a purpose well worth a trillion of his deaths, greater than revenge, higher than justice.
A single life, cut down. A friend he might be able to save (in some way, in any way), from a cruel, unjust fate, no matter what it takes. A duty of care.
Slowly, he turns away from the city and he starts walking, taking off the coat and letting it hang over his shoulder. Slowly, through the quiet dessert –and then through one not so quiet as the Cloister Bells begin to toll, good- he heads back to the beginning.
There is a place where a kind stranger once comforted him when he was scared. It is okay to be afraid, it really is, don’t cry.
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
He looks up at it, looks around. He hesitates briefly, then takes off the sunglasses (the barrier, the armor), letting the familiar hues and shapes invade his vision. What could he scan, what could he use them here for, anyway? There’s nothing that he observes which is unknown.
The small golden disk weighs heavily now, drags his hand to the dry, cracked ground –the ground once so beloved, so mourned for and so sacred- so he puts it in his coat pocket, bigger on the inside for the bigger on the inside.
He doesn’t feel anything.
“Home; the long way round”.
He takes a deep breath (every single element in the air just perfect, his body made to breathe them) and it seems to get stuck somewhere above his chest. His gaze drifts again to the mountains, to the sky.
The Citadel looms in the distance, gleaming, pristine, the dome around it shining in the light as if the War had never happened.
Home.
(Heavy, heavy disk in his pocket, betrayal is heavy, death is heavy, eternity is an intolerable weight, eternity is a very long time).
He does feel something now and it is bitterness.
He should be falling to his knees on the ground, on the dry, sacred earth, running his fingers over, through it, kissing it –how many years, oh, how many? - blessing the tiniest stone, the whistling wind, the sunlight, the beautiful Citadel with its towering spires, blessing the universe. He should be smiling, laughing the most joyous laughter in all of his lives, he should be crying, choking back sobs and trying to breathe, his hearts pouring out the poison, the desperate longing of all the long years, flowers springing from the teardrops like they do in songs.
He’s standing, almost still, looking at the city, and his eyes are dry and the muscles of his face can’t smile, seem to have forgotten how to.
He should be happy, he should be the happiest man in all of creation at this moment.
Home.
But Gallifrey shouldn’t just be the means to an end, no matter what the end is. It shouldn’t just be an escape, the only escape from Hell itself, from cold-blooded heartlessness the Daleks themselves wouldn’t inflict on him, from betrayal and ungratefulness so huge that he almost regrets his name, his promise; and eternity is a very long time.
They’ve taken away his joy, a joy for which he died more than once, a joy so dearly paid for he had dared hope that he deserved it.
They have stolen his joy, his ability to love them, love his home (little by little, in a stony tomb of suffering and sorrow), and he hates them all the more for it; if something can be hated more by someone than he already does.
And yet…
There is affection, despite everything, somewhere deep down, even for the city shining magnificently in the distance, both its good and its evil well hidden. There is still love, he knows, somewhere in his hearts, a place that is being blocked by this raw fury. And there is also a promise, an order not to take revenge. So he won’t.
There will be no vengeance; but there might be justice.
He’ll leave it up to them; usually he isn’t the one to come in guns blazing, judge, jury and executioner after all. They tend to be experts.
He has another reason to be here, a purpose well worth a trillion of his deaths, greater than revenge, higher than justice.
A single life, cut down. A friend he might be able to save (in some way, in any way), from a cruel, unjust fate, no matter what it takes. A duty of care.
Slowly, he turns away from the city and he starts walking, taking off the coat and letting it hang over his shoulder. Slowly, through the quiet dessert –and then through one not so quiet as the Cloister Bells begin to toll, good- he heads back to the beginning.
There is a place where a kind stranger once comforted him when he was scared. It is okay to be afraid, it really is, don’t cry.
“Let me be brave…”
He intends to pay the stranger back.