Impossible

The impossible man talks to the only one who will never judge him, never forget him. The only one who always listens.

Don't. Please don't. Don't leave me. Don't make me go back to all that, without him...without you.

There have been times, many times, when I curse the Bad Wolf who made me like this, who forced me to always live. More often it's useful, of course, but there's at least once a decade I wish I could finally just pass over into the ever-night without being dragged back. Never has it been so strong as this last week. Things I never wanted to be part of, things I never wanted to remember, things that could never be condoned...and so many deaths because of it. One decision, forty years ago. Now, as a direct line of consequence, I have nothing left.

I suppose I deserve it. But they didn't. Either of them.

I'm such a fool.

There are tricks, of course. Ways to latch on to the darkness and delay the return to life, although it makes me even weaker than usual when I first wake. Sometimes I hope I can hold onto the darkness long enough for the life to drain out of me - but it's a fool's hope, one I mostly gave up after even Abaddon the Devourer couldn't end me. Still, when I woke up in that room of bodies covered in red cloth, the stench of death inescapable as I took my first breath of rebirth...I wished, and hoped, and closed my eyes to grope again for that precious final darkness. But it was gone, and it took my raison d'être with it.

How cruel. And all my fault, of course. As usual, I was the one to lead him to his death. I asked him to step into the dragon's den with no plan and no escape. It was so...

I'm sure his sister has some very colourful phrasing on the matter. She's probably right too.

I was already dead then, I think. Everything except my body. I kept going only because I am the Doctor's Hero, his legacy on Earth. I had to save them even when I couldn't save myself, especially when I couldn't save myself. The needs of the many and all that. So I did, I found their weakness and then I used my own grandson as a weapon. It couldn't wait, surely? I couldn't ask anyone else to give up what I would not.

I don't have a daughter any more either. I think she'd rather have died with Stephen - not that I blame her. I would already be dead if I could.

So here I am, the constant of the universe, the fixed point that makes the Doctor's skin crawl. I don't end; everything ends around me. The only one safe, because I am the heart of the storm, the eye of the hurricane.

How much longer do I have to exist like this? I'm already dead, just waiting for my body to catch on and let me go. Set me free. Send me into the beautiful darkness.

Please. It's all I want. I just want an end. Please.

But you won't, will you. You've made your decision. I have to live. But why? Because some human wanted a fraction of life amid the destruction she wrought? Because what has been done can't be undone?

Whatever the reason, I should have stayed a coward and died alone in space, the victim of my own con and conscience. A fitting end.

Shhh, it's okay. Go back to your Thief. There is nothing that can be done, even by you. Even by him. The impossible remains just that. But thank you for coming, for listening. For knowing.

I'll see you again. In another century, maybe two, we'll meet again. You know when, you always know when. I'll take the slow path.

Goodbye, beautiful.