Yowzah Oneshot Collection (2)

94(M)

   Forgive Me (For I Have Sinned)

                          leiascully

There are days, many days, when the weight of all the Doctor has done weighs him down. Those days he lets the TARDIS take him where she will. He sits in the library, brooding, gazing at the books without seeing them. For all of the good he has tried to do, his history is soaked in blood. He has saved billions of lives and caused the slaughter of millions of others, directly or not.

There is no penance large enough to excuse his sins. His deeds will be marked forever. Like Lady Macbeth, he will never be able to wash the blood from his hands. Little wonder that the Silence hunt him. Little wonder that his enemies would put aside their differences to unite against him. Little wonder that he is buried in a battlefield, surrounded by the evidence of his guilt. Surrounded by those who trusted him, whom he failed at the last, and at the first, and at every moment since he began running.

It is a bad day, one of a hundred thousand bad days, and he is sitting with his head in his hands. He cannot face the day. He cannot face the book, record of his crimes. He cannot face Clara's bright eyes and the wonder in her face. He cannot be the man he wants to be today; he is haunted by the man he is.

The door to the library opens and River strides in, magnificent in boots and jodhpurs with her hair flying around her face. His hearts leap at the sight of her, but even that can't get him out from under the shadow of his guilt. "Doctor?"

"Here," he says dully.

"Why are you sitting in the dark?" she asks, turning on a light. "The TARDIS came for me. Is everything all right?"

"Maybe the things I haven't gotten around to interfering with," he says. "I've made a mess of the rest of the universe."

"Ah," she says. "That sort of sulk, is it?"

"You make it sound as if I haven't a reason to mourn," he snaps. "I've got millions. Billions, maybe."

She kneels by his chair. "Don't shout at me, sweetie. No one knows how you feel better than I do."

He looks into her eyes. "The Teselecta should have taken me, River. The greatest war criminal in history, it said. They should have taken me. They took you instead. It doesn't make sense."

She shrugs. "I killed the Doctor. The wise man. The healer. The saviour of billions. I killed the hope of a million worlds."

"And the executioner of a million more," he mutters.

She strokes his hair, surprisingly tender. "You've spared as many as you could. No one could ask for better."

"I'm sure some would be to differ," he says.

She tilts her head and looks at him. "How do I help?"

"I'm not sure you can," he says.

"Come now," she says, "that isn't the Doctor I know. Surely you have a clever plan."

He avoids her eyes. "You're an archaeologist."

"Or so I've convinced the university," she says.

"You must have read the histories of a hundred worlds," he says.

"Thousands," she tells him. "I keep busy."

"And you don't judge them," he continues. "You don't sit above them as judge and jury. You thought Nixon was a decent chap, for pity's sake."

She frowns. "I try to stay unbiased."

"I've never told anyone the whole of it," he says. "Will you hear my crimes?"