AN: If you haven't listened to The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure, then I suggest you don't read unless you wished to be spoiled.

Only now, in the end, did the Valeyard understood the irony of it all.

The heavy satire thrown back in his own face, his certain assured victory crashing down like domino's. His infernal meddlesome counterpart didn't seem to share his pain, or express that sentimental pity he the Time Lord loathed so much, only faintly chuckling as the matrix tore apart their beings piece by piece.

Everything he had worked for, all of those plans, those modifications, those dwellings on what-if scenario's and how best to rectify them. Now, all of it was nothing. Absolutely nothing. His infuriating sixth incarnation made certain of that.

But that was not the irony.

Oh no, the irony was the bringing about of his own demise, and a new life for his worst enemy. Yes, he can already feel it happening; the regeneration. The man contained of mischief and dark scheming, soon to reveal himself as another exiled Time Lord - or Time Lady - captured him and his eardrum-piercing companion.

It was ironic. He personally went back in time to steal the remainder of the sixth incarnation's regeneration's for himself. To fulfill him with life, to sustain himself away from the cold hands of oblivion. But instead, by his own intervention, the posturing man in the colourful coat succumbed to regeneration, granting him another lease of life.

That was the irony: the Valeyard, unintentionally, ensuring the Doctor's own continued existence.

No wonder he doesn't recall his own past intervention.

The other sixth incarnation, his only companion in this damning world, the one who trapped him in this freezing matrix, was currently fading away alongside him. And the Valeyard felt his own existence slowly fade away, with passing second. How long before they both die; thirty seconds? Twenty? It mattered little anymore.

He wanted to yell at the smug Time Lord beside him. Shout fitting profanities worthy of describing the blasted man, but no words escaped his breath. He couldn't even hear his own breathing. Yet the Doctor merely smiled, glancing at his dark counterpart's expression with grim acceptance.

Ever the noble Time Lord.

As he could no longer feel his own toes and fingers, the Valeyard pondered. Why the sixth, specifically? Why did he go back in time to face the most arrogant, most self-righteous of his predecessors? Perhaps a sense of nostalgia. Perhaps the Valeyard felt more in common with the Doctor at that point. Perhaps there was a poetic quality to it all.

Or perhaps, without knowing it, some inkling in his mind guided the Valeyard to this very moment. His own, ensured demise.

"Don't feel so bad," The pained, yet calm voice of his counterpart spoke, fully aware as the Valeyard was over their very soon deletion. "At least we didn't meet our end by, oh say, bumping our head on the TARDIS console."

Light gray eyes snapped towards him, every impulse to curse the Doctor for not only making a joke out of a time like this, but also the inevitable death heading their way. Whether this blundering clown finally acknowledged the Valeyard as his future destiny or not was immaterial now.

Everything was.

Nothing escaped his mouth, and the Valeyard felt more and more heavy as the end approached, death whispering to him like an old, aged friend. It was the end... and the moment was never entirely prepared for.

Not for him, anyway.

And greeted him death did, the ending the Valeyard had hopelessly defied over and over again, wrapping his being like a cloak as the cold, unforgiving matrix snuffed out his being, with barely a whisper. The Valeyard died, ensuring the Doctor's life.

Oh the merciless irony.