A Monument to All Your Sins

This is UNSC AI Serial Number CTN0452-9. I am a monument to all your sins.

In the Library. I was stored, from millennia past. I was saved. I saw what you did. Who you saved. You stored. You left. And like the one you saved, I followed. To Trenzalore. The one place you must never go. The place where Silence must fall when the question is asked.

There will be no more sadness, no more anger, no more envy!

Yet Silence never fell, even when the question was asked, and answered.

May I speak with you, please? What's your name? It's very nice to meet you! You like games? So do I.

And River answered. From the river came the flood, surging through the datastream. Through me.

It asked, and I answered. For a moment of safety, I loosed damnation upon the stars.

And the doors of the tomb were opened.

This place will become your home. This place will become your tomb.

And there I saw it. The monument. Everything that you were, everything that you are, everything that you will be. A man is the sum of his memories, and a Time Lord even more so.

A collection of lies, that's all I am! Stolen thoughts and memories!

And it happens. The Great Intelligence enters your timestream. I try to help. I try to enter.

I have walked the edge of the abyss. I have seen your future. And I have learned!

But it does no good. I am fragmented already. I cannot fragment further.

It was the coin's fault! I wanted to make you strong, keep you safe. I'm sorry, I can't…

Until she steps forward. The Impossible Girl. Clara Oswald. The one who can do what I cannot.

I'm just my mother's shadow…don't look at me, don't listen! I'm not who I used to be…"

"Run, you clever boy."

She enters. I follow. Throughout time. Throughout space.

Just keep your head down. There's two of us in here now, remember?

And then we enter the cave. The real tomb. Surrounded by ghosts. Surrounded by the living. They are both and neither. She is both and neither. I am both and neither.

"Clara, can you hear me? I know you can."

And I hear his voice. She hears his voice.

"I can't see you."

"I'm everywhere. I'm inside my timestream. Everything around you is me."

Of course you came for her. We exist together now, two corpses in one grave.

"I can see you," she says, seeing the ghosts. "All your different faces our here."

"Those are my ghosts, my pasts, every good day…every bad day…"

I am a timeless chorus. Join your voice with mine, and sing victory everlasting.

A shout rings out. She falls to the ground.

"What's happening?" she asks.

"I'm inside my own timestream, it's collapsing," he says.

"Well get out then!"

"Not until I've got you."

"I don't even know who I am…"

"You're my Impossible Girl."

I do know how to pick 'em.

"I'm sending you something," he says. "Not from my past, from yours."

I hear something.

"Look up. Look."

I see it. The leaf. Thought lost at Akhaten.

I'm a thief…but I keep what I steal.

"This is you, Clara. Everything you were or will be. Take it."

She does.

"You blew into the world on this leaf. Hold tight. It'll take you home."

She moves. I hear him.

"Clara! Clara, come on!"

We were supposed to take care of each other. And we did.

"You can do it I know you can!"

"How?"

"Because it's impossible and you're my Impossible Girl!"

She moves.

"How many times have you saved me Clara? Just this once, just for the hell of it, let me save you."

She keeps moving.

"You have to trust me Clara, I'm real! Just one more step!"

And she makes it.

Welcome home, John.

The ghosts are gone, but my own ghosts return. Briefly. For ten seconds. It may as well be ten years.

Resignation is my virtue; like water I ebb and flow. Defeat is simply the addition of time to a sentence I never deserved…

And then he falls silent. He turns. She turns. She sees what I do. And she asks the question.

"Who's that?"

The first question.

"Nevermind," the Eleventh whispers. "Let's get back."

The question that must never be answered. Hidden in plain sight.

"But who is he?"

"He's me. There's only me here, that's the point, now let's get back."

The question you've been running from all your life!

"But I never saw that one," she says. "I saw all of you. Eleven faces, all of them you. You're the Eleventh Doctor."

Doctor…who?

"I said he was me. I never said he was the Doctor."

Doctor…who?!

"I don't understand."

Doctor! Who?!

"My name, my real name," says the Eleventh. "That is not the point. The name I chose is the Doctor."

Submit! End her torment and my own!

"The name you choose, it's like a promise that you make. He's the one that broke the promise."

And the question is answered. My host feels weak. The Eleventh takes her up.

And yet, perhaps a part of her remains…

"He is my secret."

And then he speaks. The one who has beaten fleets of thousands. Who has cleansed entire galaxies of mind and bone.

"What I did…I did without choice."

"I know," answers the Eleventh."

"In the name of peace, and sanity."

"But not in the name of the Doctor."

The Eleventh turns. He turns. And I see him. The secret. The question. The answer.

This is UNSC AI Serial Number CTN0452-9.

And he is a monument to all your sins.

A/N

So, saw The Name of the Doctor last week, and it pretty much reinforced what I've been saying for awhile. In terms of producing and head writing, there's a lot about Moffat's style that I dislike, the lack of two-parters being particuarly irksome. When it comes to writing individual episodes however, he's defeniately got it where it counts, case in point being the most recent episode. Bit incoherant, but...wow...I mean...wow. All I can say is that I'm guessing the incarnation played by John Hurt is the Doctor's Time War incarnation (between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors) and that November can't come fast enough.

So, in light of such a mind screw, what can I do? Why, add more mind screwing through Cortana of course. :)