[Doctor Who/Star Trek XI]: the wind walks through them
Title: the wind walks through them
Fandom: Doctor Who/Star Trek XI
Summary: Drabble. From a comment_fic prompt: Vulcan was just another planet he couldn't save.
Here at the end of the world
our heads are empty,
& the wind walks through them
like ghosts
through a haunted house.
-Erika Jong, "The End of the World"
It was all so familiar.
Oh, there were differences: there wasn’t a sound as the planet crumpled like paper and died. He couldn’t quite hear them screaming inside his head, battering at the inside of his skull. But they were there anyway. Another proud, old race devoured before their time, planet and all.
There were survivors, he told himself. Those offworld, a few elders. Their race could rebuild, given time. Their race wasn’t gone, wasn’t dead.
And oh, he hated the sheer savage brief and howling bitterness that they did not know loss, they were not truly alone, what did their grief matter when his would consume-
Alone enough, he reminded himself. Another failure of his. Another dead planet. His suffering didn’t lessen theirs.
He closed his eyes, weary. Never again. Hadn’t he promised? Never again.
There was a ship hanging in the air across the hole that had been a planet. He stared at it, blankly, wondering if he dared say something, send some message of apology or understanding or sympathy. Their planet was gone - he knew the pain of this kind of loss better than anyone.
Gallifrey screamed and burned and died behind his eyes.
He threw the TARDIS forward into the Vortex. Once a coward, always a coward.
He was just too good at running away.
Fandom: Doctor Who/Star Trek XI
Summary: Drabble. From a comment_fic prompt: Vulcan was just another planet he couldn't save.
Here at the end of the world
our heads are empty,
& the wind walks through them
like ghosts
through a haunted house.
-Erika Jong, "The End of the World"
It was all so familiar.
Oh, there were differences: there wasn’t a sound as the planet crumpled like paper and died. He couldn’t quite hear them screaming inside his head, battering at the inside of his skull. But they were there anyway. Another proud, old race devoured before their time, planet and all.
There were survivors, he told himself. Those offworld, a few elders. Their race could rebuild, given time. Their race wasn’t gone, wasn’t dead.
And oh, he hated the sheer savage brief and howling bitterness that they did not know loss, they were not truly alone, what did their grief matter when his would consume-
Alone enough, he reminded himself. Another failure of his. Another dead planet. His suffering didn’t lessen theirs.
He closed his eyes, weary. Never again. Hadn’t he promised? Never again.
There was a ship hanging in the air across the hole that had been a planet. He stared at it, blankly, wondering if he dared say something, send some message of apology or understanding or sympathy. Their planet was gone - he knew the pain of this kind of loss better than anyone.
Gallifrey screamed and burned and died behind his eyes.
He threw the TARDIS forward into the Vortex. Once a coward, always a coward.
He was just too good at running away.