#timepetal

"What did you do to them?" He was now almost certain that Rose was the perpetrator behind the destruction laid out between them like a macabre diorama. After all, he was more than familiar with being the sole survivor amongst the carnage and what that meant.

"I didn't do anything, they destroyed each other. I merely prevented their war from spilling out into other civilisations, keeping them encapsulated while time ran its course."

"You manipulated time." He accused.

"I created a time bubble." She corrected. "Allowing the conflict to remain self-contained while it did its job. No other planet needed to suffer and it didn't need to be endlessly dragged out."

"You messed with something you shouldn't have." He seethed stalking closer to her stoic figure. He didn't like how calmly she spoke of the destruction here. Didn't like the picture that was being painted here.

"Says the man that stood in the ashes of his own people." She snarled back. "I've not done anything you yourself haven't done a dozen times over, Doctor. This isn't my first genocide nor is it the first you've witnessed."

He fought against the flinch he felt at the reminder of just what event had precipitated this. Bad Wolf may have been created out of Rose and the TARDIS' shared love for him but she had also been born in war and bathed in its blood too. He'd tried to forget about the Time Goddess that had been created in his name for over a century he'd been fairly successful until today.

"I know what I'm doing. And everything I've done has been with the best intentions."

"And you assume I wasn't acting under the same belief?" She glared up at him acidly. "You're not the only one with all of time pouring through their mind and a morality complex in this universe. Would you like to see what would have been without my intervention?" She asked spitefully.

Unbidden images flashed through his mind of a war that stretched across the years, across the decades and eventually over a century. Taking over the surrounding planets and destroying them as it stretched on. He saw children taken from their homes to be experimented on to become the perfect weapon, against their parents' wishes. He watched as the parents who fought for the return of their stolen children were cut down and mutilated. He watched as the populaces became mutated by the plagued created in biological warfare.

There were few things that came close to the horror of the time war but this may have come close if it hadn't been for Rose.

"You see? I did what needed to be done and I didn't have to kill them to do it. They lived out their lives in the fashion of their choosing. But they chose this. I'm not responsible for their destruction but I accept that responsibility regardless."

"This was a kindness, is that what you're saying?" He raised a brow at her.

"Kindness and mercy are not the same, you know that better than most."

Bile rose in his throat at her words, at her casual demeanour throughout it all, her unwavering belief in her actions. What had happened to the girl he'd asked to travel with him all those years ago?

"I often wondered why you chose the name Bad Wolf but now I suppose it's fitting." He spoke disdainfully around the nausea that washed over him at the girl turned goddess.