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“MY CHILDREN!” the Empress screams. The Doctor barely acknowledges it.
“NO!” She’s screaming so loudly it would be distracting if he was focusing on anything, if it could focus on anything. Move the baubles in position, detonate them, flood the place, drown her before she can escape.
(In another world, someone would be standing there, horrified. In another world, they’d tell him he could stop. In another world, he would listen to them.)
There’s a way out, there’s always a way out, he’s done what he came here for, baubles are detonated, Earth has been saved.
She’s screaming as she dies, screaming for her drowned children.
There’s a way out, there’s always a way out, but not for much longer, so it has to make the decision now, do you want to make it out of here?
“You did this,” the Doctor says, and she’s screaming, still screaming, doesn’t she know they’re all gone?
There’s always a way out, always. But not for this.
No, this is just how it ends.
(In another world, he ends while saving someone. In another world, he regenerates, gets another chance, and another, and another. In another world, this is just one more life-threatening adventure. This is not that world. This is the world where it dies hurting someone. This is the world where there are no second chances.)
There’s no way out, even it wanted to leave, to save himself.
This is where they both drown.
The Empress shrieks as she’s finally pulled under. He doesn’t move from where it stands.
There’s almost… a calm, despite the rushing water and the chaos that’s surrounded him. It’s reached a decision, a conclusion. There is no way out. This is where he drowns. This is where the Time Lords end, underneath the Thames in 2006. It would almost be funny. This is where the oncoming storm finally meets his match, and its match is just water, it’s just water.
It’s not just waiting for the water to submerge him. It’s a choice. Climbing over the railing, standing at the side, and letting go.
It’s instinct to try and delay the moment of death for as long as possible. Your body doesn’t want to inhale water. So you hold your breath, only breathing in when you’re moments away from unconsciousness.
And then there’s the thing about Time Lords, they can hold their breath for a lot longer than humans can. They can have enough time to regret, to try to escape, to realise it’s hopeless. They can thrash as they’re pushed down by the water, they can try to resurface. Then they can fail.
Eventually, under the water, as the edge of its vision goes black, the Doctor breaths in.
Immediately its panicking, he can’t even move properly, but he needs to. Its trying his damndest to get to the surface, but the whole room is flooded now.
There’s no way out.
Drowning isn’t calm, or peaceful. It feels like he’s being ripped apart from the inside. There’s no escape, it’s inside him, outside him, killing him, after nine hundred years alive it’s killing him.
Drowning isn’t calm or peaceful, until it’s over.
In another world, his best friend would tell him about it, about his body recovered from underneath the Thames. In another world, he would’ve been a bit disturbed. In another world, there would’ve been so many more important things to do, better ways to go.
This is not that other world. This is the one where he dies. And it’s so much more different than he ever thought it would be.