Et lux in tenebris lucet

(And the light shineth in darkness.)

Another day, another death.

It was unsettling, how used to it he was.

When he'd been a nurse back in Leadworth (he had to remind himself that he still was a nurse back in Leadworth), he'd never grown accustomed to seeing someone bleed out in front of him, to recieving no response upon trying to wake an older patient, or to any sort of passing on.

He always felt hollow afterward.

He still did these days, but less so. He found himself not even dreaming about them anymore.

"Can I go to bed now?" Rory asked, rubbing at his eyes tiredly as the Doctor fiddled with the switches on the console aimlessly. When he removed his hands, his vision was dotted with black spots. "I know you like to jump around constantly, but I'm human, and my body needs sleep."

Amy had already waltzed off to their bedroom, and he was desperate to join her, but the Doctor had called him back just as he'd been about to follow after her. Thus, he found himself alone in the control room with the Doctor.

"Rory, I need you to stick around for a bit while I do this," was the response he recieved.

"Do what?" Rory said, frustrated. "You're not doing anything. You're standing around pushing random buttons and pretending to do something."

The Doctor grinned at him widely, and Rory was still able to see the falseness of it despite his fatigue. His eyes narrowed. He stepped a bit closer, resting a hand beside the typewriter on the console.

"Doctor, are you okay?"

The other paused for a split second, still grinning, before tossing a random lever. "Perfectly fine. Why do you ask?"

"Well, you know..."

"Oh, that. Rory, I'm fine."

Rory looked at the Doctor. Really looked at him.

"No. No, you're not," he said tiredly. "Did you want to talk to me?"

The Doctor's smile fell, and he looked at Rory seriously. They were only a few feet apart, and Rory could see the tug of muscles in the Doctor's face as he tried to contain whatever it was that he was feeling.

"You're getting perceptive."

He sounded almost annoyed, and Rory was vaguely insulted.

"Don't dodge the question."

They looked at each other.

Rory stood his ground, and he could see the moment the Doctor faltered.

He turned his head away slightly, lowering it and hunching his shoulders. "I'm tired, Rory."

He stopped, waiting for his companion to say something.

Rory stayed quiet, knowing that if he interjected now, the Doctor might close himself off again. He was pretty sure this was about where they'd just been, and the death that they'd witnessed; the life they'd be unable to save. Rory was also sure, however, that this was probably about much more than that.

With the Doctor, nothing was ever just what it was.

For once, the Doctor was letting him see the sadness Rory always knew he felt.

"My journey has been sisyphean. I have bathed in blood. I have been running through the dark, and never been able hold onto the light I've been chasing for more than a few moments. People always die because I can't stop... being what, or who, I am," the Doctor said quietly. "I've tried. Oh, how I've tried..." A sarcastic laugh escaped from between his lips, his mouth twisting up into a grin that lacked any happiness, and he roughly ran a hand through his hair. "How I've thought about throwing myself into a supernova, of imploding the TARDIS, of ending it all..."

He paused, reigning himself in, controlling his face, and his voice.

However, when he continued, to Rory, he only sounded more broken than ever.

"But I never do it. I never do it, because I'm all that's left of my beautiful, lost planet," he admitted, his breath hitching, "... that I so dearly miss."

He dropped the act, let loose the grip he had on his expression, and allowed the sorrow he felt to the very core of his being touch his features, and Rory very nearly flinched because of it's suddeness and intensity.

"I owe them. I need forgivness. So all I'm going to do is keep running. Keep running until I find it. Keep running towards danger. Keep being a mad man with a box, helping crying children, and saving. I'm tired of seeing people die. I don't want to see people die anymore. Not like I did earlier."

There was a silence like no other Rory had ever heard after that.

His jaw moved just slightly as he tried to process what he'd just heard and formulate words. The other was looking right at him, or perhaps into him, with an expression that lacked any of it's usual control.

For once, the Doctor was telling him what he thought. The unyeilding, horrible, sick, hateful thoughts that he kept within his impossibly massive brain.

Rory's stomach twisted, and he vigorously shook his head.

The Doctor was wrong.

"Doctor, your... this... mission," he began, and his voice faltered as he scrambled for some sort of even footing on which he could stand. He pressed his lips together tightly, closed his eyes, inhaled, and thought, Rory Williams, for once in your bloody life, say the right thing.

Just a moment had passed after his less than eloquent beginnings of assurance had been uttered, and during that moment, the Doctor continued to stare at him, face painted with sadness and melancholy.

Rory opened his eyes to begin again, and he saw it.

He opened his mouth.

"You're not really on a twisted quest for forgiveness or redemption from anyone," he found himself saying. "It's in your nature. You... save people because that is what you do, and you can't help doing it."

The Doctor shifted slightly, and Rory knew he was about to interrupt. He quickly continued before he could, his voice louder than before.

"You're not hoping anyone will forgive you."

The Doctor stilled.

"You're waiting to get it from yourself."

He paused.

"Because... even though you understand what you are, you can't accept what you are, or even like it." He stopped, then added hastily, "Even if you know you won't and can't stop. You're trying to prove to yourself that you deserve forgiveness, Doctor. It's like you're your own jury and judge, and you're constantly giving yourself... not punishments, or anything like that, but community service."

The Doctor's eyes bore into him, and for some reason, they gave Rory the determination to push onward, his voice growing stronger.

"Twenty hours of dismantling bombs, five years of feeding the poor, one hundred and six years of playing hand games with schoolchildren, six hours of saving people's lives," he said, teeth gritted. "You'd do it anyway, even if you didn't hate yourself, but somehow pushing yourself to the very limit, taking responsibility for everything, makes you not feel as bad. It's why you let people yell at you, let people blame you."

Rory rubbed the back of his neck, blinking hard. "It's why you let me blame you for having to make difficult choices," he said quietly, regrettfully. "It's why you can't stop running. You do more than anyone else so you'll convince yourself you're a good enough person."

He shook his head, his gaze on the glass flooring of the control room, suddenly exasperated. Not with the situation, but with the realization of what the Doctor had been doing for so long. "Maybe you should just stand still for a bloody moment or something. Then maybe you'd feel okay for once. You're too sad for one person, Doctor. You run because you don't want to stop and look in the mirror. You run because you don't want to stand still and let someone really see you."

He looked up at the Doctor. His face was unreadable.

"But... I think... Doctor, I think I see you. And I think loads of other people see you too, sometimes. You just don't realize it because you think you don't deserve to be seen. That only the incredible, magnificent things you do should be seen." He smiled sadly. "For all your arrogance, you really don't think you're brilliant. It's all an act, all just paint on yourself that's never washed away unless no one's looking."

Without emotion, the Doctor replied, "People die because of me. Is that incredible and magnificent?"

"People are always going to die, Doctor, and a lot of the time when it happens, it's not really your fault, no matter what anyone says or what you think. From what I've seen, the people who die around you aren't dead because you killed them, but dead because of someone else. You were there, trying to save them, even if you knew you were fighting a losing battle, but at least you put up a fight. You involve yourself in things you have no business even knowing, and that's why you blame yourself."

Rory took a deep breath.

"You think that since you didn't save them, it was your fault they died. You assign yourself that responsability and hate yourself when you can't fulfill it."

He hesitated, then continued, his voice quiet.

"Doctor... You can't save everyone. But look how many other people you've saved already, and their happiness. Look at the good you've done. That counts for something. Something, Doctor, no matter how little you think it counts. It's still there."

The Doctor looked very much like he did as the TARDIS greeted him for the first time. His chin was just barely wobbling, and Rory saw tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

In that moment of quietus and silence, the Doctor looked ancient.

He also looked relieved.

Rory gently grabbed onto the Doctor's jacket and pulled him forward into a hug, which the other returned.

They stayed like that for a long while.