24A/N: Short little note, okay, before we begin: I didn't write this with any specific Doctor in mind, so imagine that you wrote this letter to your favorite, okay?
The TARDIS was cold and lonely. The Doctor paced about solemnly, uninterested in checking controls and switches and monitors like a plane on auto-pilot. He sat down in his warm, wornout chair with a sigh and a dangerous squeak that echoed the chair's moan across the infinite halls of the TARDIS. The Doctor ran a shaking hand through his hair, clamping his eyes shut as they started to well up. He rubbed his overly emotional orbs before pinching the bridge of his nose. He tried to balance his breathing, bring it to a normal rhythm, but he was interrupted by a CLICK! and a DING! He got up slowly, his knees still trembling. After he found the source of the mysterious clicking noise, he was confused: the TARDIS had given him an envelope. It wasn't anything special - a simple white envelope with no return address or anything. He turned it over and saw a tiny scribble in the bottom right hand corner. WHOVIANS it said in a small, neat cursive type. The Doctor stared at it even harder. Did he know a Whovian? What was a Whovian anything? A person? Species? Forgetting his earlier sulking, he tore open the white folder and removed - what else? - a letter. It read:
Dear Doctor,
If the TARDIS has given you this letter, something horrible has happened. You are in a place where no man but yourself can endure all the pain, hurt and loss you have seen. The TARDIS knows of your suffering and your longing of just leaving all this behind to live a mundane life where nothing can hurt you anymore - or even abandoning this universe/realm all together. We know that it is agonizing. We know that there is no word in the universe to accurately describe what you have seen or felt. We cannot lift or carry your burden, Doctor. We can't even come close to it. But we are here for you.
And we know it was never your fault.
You have done things, Doctor, that no man in any universe could bare to do. It would take an entire galaxy's courage and vigor do to one good deed you have done. You are stronger than you think. You are kinder than you think. You are better than you think. You tear yourself down, believing you are nothing more than a monster with a spectre. You count the lives you've seen come and go; the planets, the stars, the hearts you know that have stopped long a go. However, you never count what good you've done!
There is no book or record or museum that has tracked what you have done Doctor. But there is one - history. Everything we have done has been influenced by you, Doctor. Time and space themselves have your name written all over them - in big, fat red letters that look mistakenly like crayon. You have touched every man's life - from the famous great to the forgotten poor. You have helped and saved some of the greatest people the world has grown - Vincent van Gogh, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Queen Elizabeth I (forget we mentioned her), William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, Marilyn Monroe! They knew you, Doctor, and loved you. They couldn't even thank you properly for what you did.
Then they are the people time leaves behind. The people whose names become nothing more than a part of a piece of paper, along with hundreds of other names that no one can remember. We are the mailmen, teachers, policemen, fire fighters, retail salespeople, burgerflippers - we do not make or create history. The Earth's axis does not spin around us. We just live. However, Doctor, you have changed that. You have changed the way we think. No longer are we less important because our names aren't passed down to the next generation. We aren't a parasite on history - we are part of it. You have taught us that we matter just as much as Harold Saxon or Adelaide Brooke. We are the silent types, the fangirls, the nerdy boys, the kid pushed in the hallway, the antisocial home-schooled girl from across the street, the B students, that emo kid that sits behind you math class - we're the wallflowers of time, but the Lord of it has turned that notion on its head and sent to Hell in a handbasket.
Doctor, we will never be able to thank you properly. We will always be your debt. But please know that not only are we grateful for allowing our names next to Janis Joplin's, but for teaching us as well.
The Earth, we know, is behind on many things. We do not have same technologies or ideologies as older species. We are flawed and can be modern savages at the worst of times. We claim to love our neighbor, but we have guns because we're afraid of them. We say we strive for a better future for all, but we leave people behind to fend for themselves. We say we are equal under the eyes of the Universe, the Creator of It, and the Law that protects it - how many people have you seen shoved aside, killed, persecuted, insulted, hurt by their fellow man?
Our lovely Time Lord, you are our professor in the ways of humanity. You see not what we look or talk like. You see what we do. You don't notice the Oods' second brain or weird tentacle mouth. You don't see a Slitheen's green fat or a Racnoss's eight legs. You don't even see our fleshy yellow-and-pink bodies. You see love and hate. And man, do we hate! Everything from that girl who in the second grade who pushed you off the slide to math homework. We don't see our own potential, let alone the potential in others. Doctor, you've taught us how to accept. From green, scaly lizard woman to a huge face that's thousands of years old - you have instructed us - no - ordered us to look at the universe not as a place with millions of species, but a world where life thrives.
We are indebted to you, Doctor. Everyone is. Remember that the next time you feel like nothing more than a low-life Downworlder. Because you're not. Yes, it is undeniable that you are responsible for many deaths and many more to come. It would be stupid not to acknowledge that. You have a temper. You can be cold and unfeeling. If left to you, you could destroy worlds with one word and not six. But what makes you different from the Master or the President is that you care about your actions. You refuse to let yourself get to that point of no return. That's why you have companions.
Yes, we know of your companions. Some of us know them all. Susan, Rose, Martha, Tegan, Mikey, Jack, Astrid, Brigadier, Grace, Donna, Adric, Sarah Jane, Barbara, Ian, Polly, Amy, Ramona, Rory, River, Jo - some of us take pride in knowing who you have traveled with rather than our grade in Physics & Chemistry. And we love them almost as much as we love you. They make you a better man. We know that's why you love them too - they prevent Time Lord Victorious from taking over and causing havoc. They keep you from killing off the Racnoss's descendents or even marrying Good Ol' Queen Bess.
They keep you human.
We understand that it is hard watching them go. It cannot be easy to drop them off and expect them to be okay with it, not after seeing those stars, Doctor. We know - or at least try to - that nothing is more heart(s)wrenching than watching them as they die or leave you. You can't help it, but know it isn't your fault.
Some say that your greatest flaw is that you make people want to impress you. They see your thirst for adventure and knowledge and courage. It's hard to sit there, merely human, and not participate. Your companions just want you to see that they are worth it, that they are good enough for you. It's dangerous, yes, but not a sin.
Doctor, we cannot begin to fathom the self-loathing you experience every time something bad happens. But the universe is like a black, wild stallion - it cannot be tamed. You take a risk every time someone boards the TARDIS. But it's their risk as well. They choose to join you and help and travel and save whatever kitten that's stuck in a flesh-eating tree. We are so, so sorry for saying this but - so what if Adric dies or Donna loses her memory? It was dangerous and foolish of them for taking on a Time Lord's responsibility, but guess what? They wouldn't have traded it for all the stars in the sky.
We request that you stop this ridiculous self-hatred of yours, Doctor. We know what hid behind that Door 11 - yourself. You believe you fashion people into weapons, equip them to die with enough honor that would make a Sontoran envious. But never, ever again think of those horrible thoughts of yours, Doctor. This letter was written in case you considered...The TARDIS has given this to you because you are serious about this dreadful act and we say you can't because without you, why will the universe continue turn? You are the strongest man in all of space and time. We can't ever allow you to leave because if you can't take it, how are we?
Life is never fair to anyone, especially you. But miracles and blessings exist. Yours is that no matter how dark the sky becomes or how red the seas turns into you have a family. You don't know us, but you've seen us. We are the little boys and girls who stop to stare at you and marvel in your presence. We love you, Doctor. We love you and mean it with as much force as any man can mean it. No matter where you are, you have a home and family that will hug you, kiss you, cook for you, cry with you. You will never be alone as long as we continue to pass down our love to our children. And their children will know you and take care of you too.
We are Whovians - a proud race of believers - believers in impossible dreams. Dreams of the stars and cosmos and galaxies and pink-orange planets with twin suns that shine blazing over silver-tinged leaves. We are lovers, not fighters. We stay up late reading and obsess over Netflix. We have the ability to watch seven years of television in a week. We cosplay. We draw. To us, you are as real as our parents and we love as much. We've never met you. We never will. But we still pray and patiently as water wait for the night where we wake up to the sound of the TARDIS and run to the backyard to embrace you. We will never stop believing or dreaming that maybe we're Time Lords and we've just misplaced our fob watches. Or that we were the most important man or woman in the universe, just for a second, but had to forget. We are Whovians and Whovians forever because we love our oncoming storm, our tiger, our Tigger, our clumsy housecat that fell and claims he meant to that.
Forever in our hearts,
Whovians
P.S. Thank you, my dear Doctor
A/N: One day, I was thinking about the importance of Doctor Who and what that stupid, little show has done to me. At first sight, I guess it ruined me just a tad. I'm now an even bigger dork than before. But what struck me as amazing was that the Doctor is the perfectly imperfect man. He teaches us that love hurts, growing up is hard, and how to not hate. Especially nowadays when the old clashes with the new like paradoxes and you feel one thing but you're taught it's wrong. Doctor Who shows us that time and the Earth are messed up at best, but the whole point of that is to bring out the best in us.
I wrote this as a letter from us Whovians because I think we all know this now because of the Doctor. And there have been so many times throughout these long 50 years that you just wished he'd know that. This letter was meant to be sent to the Doctor any time he seemed to hate himself to the point where he looked like he couldn't take one more day. This letter has been sent to 9 after the Time War, 10 after losing any of his companions, and 11 after he lost Amy and Rory. It can be sent too any of the classic Doctors too if you feel like they needed it.
I hope you enjoyed and please review! I'd love to know you you pictured during this fanfic.
Ancient and forever,
Ms. Unusual-in-Groovy-Ways