Warnings: Character Study, Speculation, Introspection, Mild Angst
A/N: Written for who_contest's Prompt:Hindsight. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to do with this one, so apologies if it is more incoherent than usual. I struggled for a bit with a couple of ideas (as time and brain would allow), too tired to come up with anything I deemed as 'good' even as I was bound and determined to have something for this challenge. Bits and pieces within this piece plagued me for a week or two, leaving me unsure how to put them to virtual paper. Several fics were scrapped before I lit on this one (too close to deadline, as always) and once more I find myself visiting the Eleventh's 'dark-time'; the fascination and introspection of it too much to pass on, as we are never really sure how much time he spent there or what-all he did when he was there. I could imagine him spending a few centuries trying to tackle the puzzle of the Ponds - and justifying his means and methods as he did so. Thus, this fiction was created. Whether it passes muster (or even fits the prompt provided), I shall leave to those who read it - and thank them for taking the time to do so! As usual, this fic is mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. And (as always), I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/wandery/blithery and unbeta'd.
Disclaimer(s): I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!

There was no one around anymore to ask what he was doing (or even what he was not doing). Much less what he had done or not done – what he planned to do next – if he even planned to do anything at all. Like all things, those times had long passed.

He didn't remember when they had even ended, but it had been some time ago. He had kissed River on the cheek, dropped her at the destination she had requested (without even a hitch in the vortex) and then he had come here; sure it was a good idea, even as he very much knew it was the worst idea he'd had yet.

He was the King of Bad Ideas, it seemed.

All he knew (at this point, in this time) was that he had been here a long, long while. Long enough that several younger versions of himself had come and gone. Mere flickers along the time-line, but more than solid enough to create paradoxes the size of nebulas.

Sometimes he forgot why he had come – much less why he had chosen to stay here, high above London – his sweet Old Girl (Sexy), asleep in the cloud-banks just this shy of the Thames. A younger version of this life might have done it out of whimsy. A much, much younger version of one of his other selves might have done so out of practicality. Paradoxes were pesky things. Prone to happen when you least expected it – and hard to untangle once they happened.

He had thought once upon a time (when this face was younger and less wise in all the ways that shouldn't matter), that he could untangle those very same paradoxes. That he could unravel and reweave those things that were so fragile and easily damaged. All of his lives had been a lesson in the opposite, but he had foolishly thought his years granted him special privileges. That he had become the god he was rumored to be. Idiocy best left to the young and folly-prone. Not to the older and steadier. Seemed he had rather aged backwards instead of forwards; an irony in a sea of them. What is old is young. What is young is foolish and past his days of wisdom and truth.

Sometimes he remembered lies were best told to the empty spaces and shadowed walkways. They never heard you and couldn't complain when your own untruths tripped you up. He was always honest about his dishonesty: but on the flipside of this, he always believed his own falsehoods.

Men were not angels. And Time Lords had never been gods. He had left his home, his people because of this selfsame foolish pettiness, this need to be worshipped as things they were not…only to fall into the same trap of thinking.

No, Time Lords were not gods.

And not all Doctors could fix what was broken, much less heal themselves.

But like any physician worth his salt, he could still lie, even when it was to himself.

White lies that could instill comfort, sooth distress and ease a bruised heart. He lied best to himself…usually when he told himself he believed his own lies. His first lie when he came to this place of clouds and silence, was that he was hiding from his other selves; avoiding a paradox before it could happen. He did have the advantage of knowing the past (of hindsight, if you will), but he also knew his future. His past was ever changing. His future was already set.

He didn't come here to avoid a paradox. He came here to devise one. One that would unlock yet another paradox well over a century ahead of him. A future (past) in more than one way.

He had been stupid. He had thought himself a god among angels – and the angels (those who wept and ate the future as they rewrote the past) – had put paid to that notion. He had been so focused on how to outwit them, he actually outwitted himself. He had put his Girl, his Ponds, in an impossible position and he had once again untangled himself; but the threads would never be rewoven to a tapestry of his own making.

At least…not yet.

He had been here a long, long time. Long enough for two wars to be fought and several generations to pass. Long enough for the Paternoster Gang to form, break apart and reform.

Long enough for them to call on him until they stopped calling: Vastra (ever so much wiser than he) had told him at one point, that if he truly didn't wish for company – he wouldn't have a ladder to climb, much less a phone to call him with.

So between his quantum theory books and vectoring experiments, he thought about removing the ladder and the phone. He thought about it, then forgot about it – his studies taking his time and thoughts. His Ponds (all of them) took his sleep and his daydreams. Neither of these things could be called good or restful – and yet somehow time passed and his days never got longer or shorter – even as his diary got full and his thoughts became empty.

In the end, he just kept his mind bent to his task. He would find a way to get them back, his Ponds; to their rightful place in time and space. Even if he never saw them after that point, he would breathe easier in the small spaces of his home. Rest more fully in the cold comfort of his bed. Smile more easily in the arms of his wife.

So he studied and whiled away his hours in his sleeping Machine. Thoughts focused on the future, hearts dwelling in the past. If you thought about it, both of these (the future, the past) were the same thing. Time was (after all) an endless spiral – a loop that crossed itself again and again – the points that intersected being the troublesome bits that disliked change on any scale. Fixed points, you could say.

He always said time could be rewritten. He also believed in the lie (that was only a little true) that the future affected the past more than the past wrote the future. So in many ways, he wasn't incorrect. The future and the past were always reflections of each other – ever changing, even as they remained the same.

It just depended on which direction you happened to be facing.