My train of thought whenever I dislike a song tends to be “Wow, bad theology… stuff I don’t agree with… I hate this song… who is this applicable to? Hum. HEY, LET’S MAKE EVERYONE ELSE HATE THIS SONG TOO!”
So today I’m delivering you some feels with a song that is happy and upbeat but which has surprisingly dark lyrics. So… does this even need a trigger warning? Well, trigger warning for–um, self-hate and stuff I guess.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
(No, I’m not. I’m just ferociously glad to have corrupted this song for you all. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.)
Angel with a Shotgun
I’m an angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun,
An angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun
“Charley, Lucy, C’rizz, Tamsin, Molly. Friends, companions all, I salute you.”
Get out your guns, battle’s begun.
Are you a saint or a sinner?
If love’s a fight then I shall die
With my heart on a trigger.
He could not turn back now. The sky was going dark as all the stars went out. Daleks and Time Lords alike—fighting each other—committed to the destruction of the galaxy. Their war raged through a separate time and through all of time and space, bitter, relentless, furious, leaving weeping scars in its wake and shattering reality into splinters. And when they were not fighting each other, they were planning worse.
He had been trying to help. But to help was no good any more. He had to fight in the war, to fight it to the bitter end—to the inevitable loss that waited there. Lose his own people or lose all of history? He hated to concede to a lesser evil, but innocents were his first concern.
They say before you start a war,
You better know what you’re fighting for.
Well, baby, you are all that I adore
If love is what you need, a soldier I will be
He did not look back as he stepped into his TARDIS—the ship damaged but still operational. He flew away from the carnage, into the heat of the storm.
He was the storm. And now was the time for the storm.
He did not look back, but he felt. Their hands over his, guiding. A tear squeezed from under one eyelid. He was shocked that he could cry any more, but he knew despite his hope that it would not save him now.
He was damned along with the rest of the universe. Sink or swim. Die… or kill.
The choice that would unmake the Doctor.
I’m an angel with a shotgun,
Fighting ‘til the war’s won,
I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back.
Sometimes, in awe of the distant might of the Time Lords, they would call him an angel. Perhaps they even saw him as one—descended from on high, a savior, a deliverer.
They could not be more wrong.
He was not particularly angelic, and death accompanied him everywhere. He could not save everyone. Every week, every month, a few more deaths around him would remind him, and Death would whisper in his ear that she was biding her time, waiting at the end of time, for him. She called him “beloved.” He did not know what that meant.
He used to joke, once, about being a Time Lord—having all the time in the world. But it was all a lie. He was just snatching them away from death for a few moments more in their short lives, the weight of all of Time rolling on ahead of them, their single hearts ticking down the days they had left and Death laughing in the corner with her hourglass.
Death had all the time in the world.
He was just a wanderer, doing what little he could, so little in the grand scheme of things—his hands stained with the memories he could not wash away.
I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe
Don’t you know you’re everything I have
And I wanna live, not just survive tonight
Still, there was no one else left to stand and fight now. And someone had to stand.
Sometimes to live meant to die. He’d accepted that long ago.
He was no longer innocent. He didn’t know what to believe in. But one thing he did knew—neither the Time Lords nor the Daleks could be allowed to succeed, or to fight on much longer.
He might die. He might lose faith. The concept—the legend—of the Doctor might be proven false.
But he would take the stand.
There was simply no one else left.
No. There were others. They’d gone home, they’d died, they’d forgotten him. Memento mori. Small, butterfly lives, here an instant and then gone in the wind. But he himself was not the stone of the mountain. Even oak trees fall when the rot gets into their hearts. And he was decaying. He was losing himself—no, not himself. Himself, he still had to live with.
He was losing the Doctor.
But he would fight for them. He would drag one last victory from the jaws of defeat, and then go willing to Death. For their sake.
Sometimes to win, you’ve got to sin
Don’t mean I’m not a believer
And Major Tom will sing along
Yeah, they still say I’m a dreamer
The combatants were still under the illusion of the Doctor—that comfortable, pleasant lie he’d told the universe for so long. They were still under his spell—deceived by the pretty lights and aery silks he’d drawn around himself. Underlying the Doctor, within, hidden by lights, within the shadows, there was the Storm. The Endless Storm, the Beginning—soon to be the Ending. The Relentless Storm. The Inexorable Storm. Irresistible, unstoppable.
The Daleks, perhaps, had seen it before anyone else. But that was their reward for their crimes—they saw the Storm, and they learned fear.
They called him the Oncoming Storm.
The only way to win this war was for all sides to lose. He could destroy them all. He knew he could. And he would, without hesitation, without mercy.
He left them one last warning—one last concession to the Doctor. No More. And Arcadia fell.
He came before the dawn and took the Moment from the vaults. None saw him to stop him—they only saw where he had passed.
Doctor No More.
He had to be. He would be their executioner.
They say before you start a war
You better know what you’re fighting for
Well, baby, you are all that I adore
If love is what you need, a soldier I will be
He allowed himself one last moment of hesitation, true to that pretty lie. To ask one last time if it was really worth it. The answer was always the same. No it’s not. I don’t have a choice. He would not allow himself to feel regret. Not until the deed was done.
He was doing it for the trillions of lives that would be saved—for the Gallifreyan might-have-been children, who now would never exist in this timeline—who now could not be ruined by the corruption in the hearts of their elders. All two point forty-seven billion of them.
If he was an angel, he was the Angel of Death—the angel that smites the wicked in merciless justice.
But he knew that he really was no angel.
He was only a man.
An angel might have saved them.
No… only God could save a soul. Angels didn’t have second thoughts.
I’m an angel with a shotgun,
Fighting ‘til the war’s won
I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back
I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe
Don’t you know you’re everything I have
And I wanna live, not just survive tonight
Oh, oh whoa whoa oh whoa
He knew already that he had doomed himself. Doctor no more. It was all too true, wasn’t it.
He was the Doctor no more. All that was left was the Storm.
And the universe would not have to contain the Storm for very much longer.
I’m an angel with a shotgun
Fighting ‘til the war’s won
I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back
Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.
Am I a good man?
Heaven was for the righteous. Heaven would never accept him.
Maybe he could accept that.
He would fall, happy, if once the war ended. To save all those lives seemed too much to hope.
I’m an angel with a shotgun
Fighting ‘til the war’s won
I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back
I’ll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe
Don’t you know you’re everything I have?
I’m an angel with a shotgun
And I want to live, not just survive
Live, not just survive
And I’m gonna hide, hide, hide my wings tonight
He hacked off the long, loose curls that had framed his face before. It felt as if he was hacking off those imaginary wings humans had so often framed him with.
All that was left was the soldier. The Warrior.
He didn’t care if Gallifrey was lost, if Gallifrey would not accept him again. It didn’t matter any more.
They say before you start a war
You better know what you’re fighting for
Well, baby, you are all that I adore
If love is what you need, a soldier I will be
“Charley, Lucy, C’rizz, Tamsin, Molly. Friends, companions all, I salute you. And Cas… I apologize…”
Don’t forgive me for what I am about to do. I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I am sorry.
“Physician, heal thyself.”
The Doctor was dead.
