He'd prepared himself for this question right after they'd left that room; or, he tells himself he prepared for it, yet expecting to be asked and actually being asked are such wholly different things. He could have spent years preparing for this and he still wouldn't have been ready to answer. And, for once, he must answer truthfully, he's well aware. Oh, he could try to lie as he often does, but there's an imbalance between them; Wrath saw it and didn't leave the Doctor to his own devices in that room.
While he's not prepared to fully bare his soul down to every last detail, he also doesn't think Wrath expects that. He wants to know what happened in that room. It's a fair question, in the end.
He's quiet for a moment, briefly glancing up towards the vents, focusing back on the beakers, then going quiet again while Wrath quite easily disposes of a hound coming through the vent. Impressive.
Right. Okay. He's delayed it long enough.
"There was a war in my universe. The war to end all wars, The Last Great Time War, for the sake of all creation," he explains quietly, purposefully distracting himself with what he's doing so he need not look at Wrath. "A war fought between my people, the Time Lords, and the Daleks. The Daleks were...to put it simply, a race of genetically engineered mutants, housed in a metallic shell. Their creator engineered them for the purpose of wielding a master race to conquer the universe and I'd been fighting them on and off my whole life. They're violent and merciless, and if they'd won the Time War, the universe, all that was or ever could be, would have fallen to their will."
When a vial of elixir appears to be done, he empties it into a separate vial.
"What you saw in that room was the last day of the war. A very bad day filled with terrible things."
Terrible things and impossible choices, though he doesn't say that last part out loud. How do you say that you destroyed your own people for the sake of the universe? Wrath, perhaps, might persist though, and the Doctor knows it. Still, his guilt at being the sole survivor would be enough on its own, even excluding he was the reason for it.
no subject
While he's not prepared to fully bare his soul down to every last detail, he also doesn't think Wrath expects that. He wants to know what happened in that room. It's a fair question, in the end.
He's quiet for a moment, briefly glancing up towards the vents, focusing back on the beakers, then going quiet again while Wrath quite easily disposes of a hound coming through the vent. Impressive.
Right. Okay. He's delayed it long enough.
"There was a war in my universe. The war to end all wars, The Last Great Time War, for the sake of all creation," he explains quietly, purposefully distracting himself with what he's doing so he need not look at Wrath. "A war fought between my people, the Time Lords, and the Daleks. The Daleks were...to put it simply, a race of genetically engineered mutants, housed in a metallic shell. Their creator engineered them for the purpose of wielding a master race to conquer the universe and I'd been fighting them on and off my whole life. They're violent and merciless, and if they'd won the Time War, the universe, all that was or ever could be, would have fallen to their will."
When a vial of elixir appears to be done, he empties it into a separate vial.
"What you saw in that room was the last day of the war. A very bad day filled with terrible things."
Terrible things and impossible choices, though he doesn't say that last part out loud. How do you say that you destroyed your own people for the sake of the universe? Wrath, perhaps, might persist though, and the Doctor knows it. Still, his guilt at being the sole survivor would be enough on its own, even excluding he was the reason for it.