Title: Harbinger
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Table: 6, 12_stories
Prompt: 7, Destruction
Author's Note: Spoilers for the Doctor Who episodes Silence in the Library and The Fires Of Pompeii.
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.

***

He didn't want to be a harbinger of destruction. Not for this planet or any other.

The Doctor sighed, turning away from the planet that was rapidly receding in the viewscreen that he'd been looking at. The planet was doomed; there was no way that he could save it. It had been taken over by the Vashta Nerada; he couldn't destroy them.

The only thing that he could do was to leave them to their vociferous takeover; he'd discovered long ago, as he'd said the last time he'd dealt with them in that library that had become a place of horrors, that the only thing to do when faced with them was to run.

He hated running away. He hated having to admit that there was nothing he could do; it made his insides roil and clench in knots to think that he was leaving that planet to its destruction. But staying could mean his own ultimate end.

But was he really running, if retreat preserved him to fight another day? That was debatable, really. He felt as though he was giving up, condemning yet another planet to the ravages of the Vashta Nerada, even though he knew that he was powerless against them.

Yes, he'd managed to have a sort of victory that day in the library. But it hadn't been a victory for every person there -- too many had died. If he had known what he was up against when he first went there, maybe things could have been different.

Sometimes it felt that his very presence could bring death and destruction in its wake for some planets. He didn't want to feel that way about himself and what he was -- he'd much rather think of himself as being able to do some good for the world.

Sighing, the Doctor made his way to the couch against the wall and slumped down on it, resting his head in his hands. He couldn't save everyone. He'd told himself that so many times over the centuries. He wasn't an all-conquering hero.

Maybe if he said that to himself over and over, eventually he might believe it.

That was part of the problem with who he was, he told himself, his inner voice bitter and angry. He let himself build up an ego, think that he could find a way out of any situation, that he could save anyone who needed his help when it just wasn't possible.

And when he found out that he was wrong and that saving the day every time he was called upon to do so wasn't possible, the crash to the ground was even harder than it would have been if he had expected defeat from the very beginning.

It wasn't fair, he told himself bitterly. He shouldn't have to leave a planet to the mercies of shadowy predators like the Vashta Nerada. He should have been able to find a way to defeat those monsters once and for all, instead of running from them.

Who had ever said that life would be fair? He couldn't let himself think in that way. Each and every person in the universe had to take what life brought them -- and if that meant death and destruction as their lot, then it had to be accepted.

If only he could have done something to prevent that from happening, he thought, raising his head and fastening his gaze on the viewscreen. The planet was gone from sight, just as the population would be gone before much longer.

He knew the Vashta Nerada too well to think that they would spare anyone. The planet would be utterly devastated; anyone who came there in the future would either suffer the same fate, or only find the aftermath of what the Vashta Nerada had wrought.

He'd been told time and time again during his time at the Academy that he couldn't jump in to do what he could for any world. He was expected to merely sit back and observe -- not try to help. It had been drummed into his head that it wasn't his place to interfere.

There were times when he'd adhered to that. He'd wanted so badly to save the city of Pompeii when it had perished from the volcanic eruption, and he hadn't. He'd contented himself with saving one family from that chaos and destruction.

It hadn't really been enough. But it had been a small victory, nonetheless.

That had been a small satisfaction to pull from the ashes of destruction. It hadn't made the fact that he hadn't been able to do more hurt any less, but at least he'd been able to do something to make himself feel that he wasn't some sort of harbinger of doom.

It was small comfort to tell himself that he hadn't been the doom of Pompeii -- the city had been destined to become a remnant of history centuries ago. It wasn't his fault that it had perished; it had been a cruel fate, not any action of his own, that had caused that tragedy.

What was worse -- the fate that had been visited on Pompeii, or the fate of any world that was overtaken by a race like the Vashta Nerada? He couldn't really choose between the two with any degree of certainty. They were both fates he'd rather avoid.

Sometimes it felt that he brought trouble along with him to whatever world he chose to visit. It didn't matter that the Vashta Nerada had already been on this world before he'd been there; it still felt as if he himself had something to do with it.

That was a ridiculous way to think, he told himself firmly. The Vashta Nerada weren't following him, going to whatever worlds he chose to see and planting seeds of doubt and guilt in his psyche to make him feel as though he failed to help people who needed it.

Indeed not. They weren't that intelligent; their one priority was to destroy. And his priority was to sustain life. They were diametrically opposite; he wasn't a harbinger of destruction for any planet he went to. He wasn't bad luck; he didn't seal anyone's fate.

The next planet he visited might need him, and they might not. But he couldn't spend his time brooding over the fate of the planet he'd just left behind. He had to look towards the future, and to the next place he would be going.

And if that planet needed him, then he would do his best to help in any way he could.

***