Hi, just another short One-Shot following the events of 'Waters of Mars', hope you like it and please review! X =D

Disclaimer – I don't own Doctor Who.

He Wasn't Victorious

He stood there alone on a deserted planet, where he couldn't be tempted to cause any more damage to fixed timelines, so he wasn't tempted to tamper with rules his ancestors had set before him. He wasn't used to this; protecting others from himself wasn't something he had ever felt necessary, but now he knew he couldn't trust himself. It was a lot of power, controlling time. And it was too much power. He couldn't trust himself with the temptation. Never again would he allow himself to go too far, he would stay far away from the line he had crossed just hours ago.

He was usually saving people from various monsters and aliens and forces unknown, but he'd never seen this big, big threat coming. He'd finally found the biggest threat in the universe. Him.

So he stood there alone, with nothing but the harsh, biting wind and cold ice for company, looking across the snow covered and desolate landscape. The lonely Doctor.

The Timelord victorious.

A few years ago he would have believed those three words. A few years ago he would have laughed, content with the day's work. A few years ago he had everything. A few years ago...he had Rose. But no he didn't believe his triumphant words one bit. Now he had no idea how he could laugh at what he'd done. Now he had nothing. Now Rose was gone.

He'd been elated. He'd bent the rules of time, the very rules he had been obeying all his life – he'd shouted at them and cursed them until they did as he said. He'd felt so powerful, like he'd finally realised that he had the power to save them all, he could change time simply because he wanted to. And there were no terrible knock-on effects, time hadn't fallen apart, no paradox. He'd finally found his true power. The power to control time.

But standing here all alone, he could see – could see all those little things, tiny little things that had changed as a result of what he'd done...and eventually, those tiny little things would amount up to big things, the consequences of his actions littered the future.

It was wrong. What he'd done was wrong. He shouldn't have overstepped that line and now he didn't know what to do. One thing he did know however, was that he had one hell of a clean-up job to do. He just didn't know where to start, how to put things right.

And it was then that he realised he was not victorious. The Timelord wasn't victorious.

Everywhere across the universe, people desperately tried to evade the thing they feared the most, the thing that could not be stopped. Death. Death couldn't be slowed or delayed, it couldn't be put off or halted in its tracks and it couldn't be stopped. Everyone lives and everyone dies, death was the one truly unstoppable force in the whole universe.

And not even he, the last of the Timelords could claim victory over it.

How many times had he lost to death? How many people had he seen claimed by death's greedy clutches? How many times had he fought blindly against death? Too many to count was the answer to his questions. Too many to even comprehend.

And how many times had he won? None. Never. Death always won. He wasn't victorious. Death had taken so many people he knew, people he trusted, people he...loved. But even he, in all his Timelord glory hadn't had the power to beat death and save them.

River Song, the Face of Boe, the hostess, Astrid, Balacafalata, Adelaide, Romana...to name but a few. And even when death didn't take people from him, he still somehow managed to lose them.

Sarah Jane, Christina, Martha, Donna...Rose.

He wasn't victorious. He couldn't beat death. He couldn't claim that ultimate victory.

He wasn't victorious.

Review?