Title: Deeper Than the Night
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 30_forbidden
Prompt: 5, Black
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor. Please do not sue.

***

The Doctor stood in the doorway of the Tardis, looking out over the planet he'd landed the ship on. It was dark outside; night fell quickly here. There was no gradual coming of dusk, just a quick shift between the daylight and the darkness of nightfall.

There had been a time when he didn't like the dark, he mused, folding his arms and leaning against the doorway of his ship. But that was common with most children, though he had more reason than most to dislike darkness, the black night that waited to devour them.

It was too much like the darkness that ate away at him, the dark side of himself that he struggled against every day. He'd never allowed it to win; if he let it take him over, then he would be no better than the Master, and he was determined not to end up in that state.

He wasn't like the Master, the Doctor told himself firmly, pushing the idea away from him. He rejected that completely; he wouldn't allow himself to become that twisted and distorted.

There was a huge, high wall dividing the two of them, a wall that had begun to be built when they were little more than children. The Master had always been possessed of a streak of cruelty, one that had only been brought to the forefront when he became a Time Lord.

And now .... after centuries of doing battle against each other, waging a war that had been fought across the galaxy with more concentration than even the Time Wars, he could feel himself starting to slip now and then, to move closer to that dark side of himself.

No. He wasn't going to let that happen, no matter what he had to do. The Doctor's small hands clenched into fists at his sides; he would die and make sure that he didn't regenerate rather than become like the Master.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that they had once been friends; and even now, there was a part of himself that wanted to forgive the other man his faults. It hadn't been completely up to him, after all. It had been becoming a Time Lord that had driven him over the edge of sanity.

But still -- he'd made a conscious choice to stay on the dark path, the Doctor told himself with a sigh. It wasn't as though the Master didn't know right from wrong. In the end, he stayed the way he was because he made the choice to do so.

If only they could go back to the days when they were carefree children, and their friendship had been a tangible thing, rather than a memory of the past.

He shook his head, sighing again. No, those days were gone forever. It was no use to look back at them and wish for what could never be; wishing didn't make things happen. And even if he could the way their lives had turned out, he wouldn't do it.

Who was to say that if it had all been different, their lives would be any better now? Maybe they would be worse; there was no way of knowing that. He'd certainly learned the follies of meddling with time; he wasn't going to try doing that again.

If there had been a way to turn the Master from that dark path, surely he would have found it by now. He'd learned over time that there was no way to guide the other man back from the darkness of his world -- it was best to leave him there.

That didn't stop him from trying at times, though. There was a part of him that stubbornly refused to believe that anyone could be so lost -- but even had had to concede defeat at some point. And there was an underlying reason for that concession, one that he hated to admit.

He was terrified that the darkness engulfing the Master could reach out to him at some point, beckon to him when he was at his weakest and swallow him whole. It was terrifying to think that he could let himself give in to that darkness, become a part of it.

It was always waiting for him, wanting to destroy who he was and turn him into something completely different. Something that he would never want to be.

The Doctor stared out into the darkness that seemed to wind around the Tardis, seeing nothing in the stygian blackness. That darkness was so deep that his eyes couldn't penetrate it -- much like the darkness that threatened to come for him.

The blackness was deeper than the night could ever be; it could easily swallow him up and never allow him a way out, if he let himself fall into it. He had to be constantly on his guard, especially when he was around the Master and those insidious tentacles were wrapping around his mind.

The Master would like nothing better than to take him over, the Doctor thought, frowning. He wanted his greatest enemy to become lost in that darkness -- or rather, to join him there. He wanted to bring about the Doctor's downfall, to drag him down to the lowest level he could reach.

He wasn't going to allow that to happen. He would fight the Master with everything in him -- and no matter what he had to do to avoid being dragged into that dark pit that the other man's mind occupied, he would keep himself from descending into that particular hell.

If he did allow the Master to drag him down, then he would not only be letting himself down, but he would be putting the universe at risk, opening it up to the Master's evil machinations. He couldn't let that happen, no matter what the risk to himself.

The world was more important than one man. The irony of that was that he seemed to be the only man who was capable of protecting the universe from those who would destroy it.

But sometimes that blackness could seem so -- well, inviting. It would be so easy to give himself up to it, to let himself sink into the darkness of oblivion, let it cover him and never have to deal with any worries again.

The Doctor shuddered at the thought, forcing it away from his mind. To think like that was to court death, the real, inevitable death that would be waiting for him when his array of bodies was at an end. And he didn't want it to come for him any time soon.

He wasn't afraid of death, not really. He'd faced it too many times already to have any horrible fear about it, but he certainly wasn't going to welcome it. Especially not in this body, the body that he'd grown to love and didn't want to lose.

That darkness wasn't going to be allowed to take him until it was his time. He would make sure of that -- neither the Master, nor any other of his enemies, was going to force him out of the picture before he was good and ready, no matter what body he was in.

He wasn't ready to bid this world farewell yet, and he wouldn't be for quite a while. No one else was going to make that decision for him -- though if he died the final, irretrievable death in the heat of battle, then he was prepared for that, too.

Maybe by that time, he would be ready to sink into the darkness -- and it would welcome him with open arms, rather than reaching out to pull him in against his will.

He hoped that wouldn't be the case; the last thing he wanted to think of himself was that he could be so easily led, made to give in to something that he knew was wrong. But there was a bit of doubt creeping into his mind, doubt of his own ability to be as strong as he had to be.

It wasn't going to be easy not to listen to the urgings of that dark side of his soul, the side that wanted to take the easy way out. But he'd managed to resist it thus far, for over 900 years; and he would do his best to resist it until the day that it would finally cease hounding him.

Another sigh left his lips as he turned away from the night outside, the night that wasn't nearly as deep as the darkness that waited for him the next time he confronted the Master. If only it was that easy to turn away from the dark side of his own soul ....

The Doctor squared his shoulders, closing the door without taking another look at the black void of the night outside. He was facing a much deeper darkness -- one that he wasn't at all sure that he'd be able to defeat in the end.

***