Small, Beautiful Events

Curt: We set out to change the world and ending up… just changing ourselves.
Arthur: What's wrong with that?
Curt: Nothing! … If you don't look at the world.
(Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine)

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"Why didn't you take it?" The Doctor looked up from the console, bewildered surprise softening his features and making him look young; the wayward child running away from home again.

Turlough strode from the inner door, where he'd been leaning with impressive nonchalance even if he did say himself, until he gazed at the Doctor across the controls. He could name some of them, now, even understand their purpose. Trion wasn't nearly so far behind as Earth.

"The Presidency," he clarified, less because the Doctor needed it and more to press him into words, any words at all.

The Doctor was silent for a moment, of course, that easily affected confusion slipping away as he straightened. Perhaps he would give an actual answer, for once.

"Because I didn't want it." Or perhaps not. Turlough managed, barely, not to roll his eyes, settling for a raise of his eyebrows. For some reason that drew a faint smile from the other man. Inscrutable to the last, irritating and thrilling all at once.

"I would be horrible at it."

"Worse than Borusa?" It was the wrong thing to say; the smile faded abruptly, into something fixed and cool. Turlough shook his head, hands falling from the console.

"You don't approve of Gallifrey, that’s obvious, so if you could fix it –"

"But I couldn't." Quiet, low, and even with that mask still in place he could see a very old grief.

No, grief wasn't the word. Disappointment. Regret. Resignation, and he'd certainly never seen that from the Doctor before. It made him curious, and…it was odd, but it saddened him.

He didn't speak, only listened, because he knew if he waited the Doctor would continue.

"Gallifrey doesn't change. Goodness knows I tried, when I was young…" The words trailed off and left a faint, wry smile in their wake, and bitterness, Turlough decided, didn't suit the Doctor at all.

"For decades I tried. I even had help, for a while. Activists are rare among Time Lords, you see, and most of them left."

"Including you." Too soft to be an accusation, too flat to be a question. The Doctor seemed to understand, and nodded.

"Yes. Railing against the aristocracy gets tiring after a while, you know, especially when the majority are perfectly happy with the way things are."

"So you…"

"Gave up?" His smile was too bright to be real, and Turlough couldn't say anything to it, and the Doctor didn't seem to want to add on. He fiddled with his pockets, Turlough fiddled with his tie, and it was all painfully familiar. Comfort in avoidance, that was a lesson they'd both learned very well.

Except the Doctor spoke again, and his hands rose to rest, once more, against the console. Turlough's hands fell as well, and once more, he listened.

"I spoke out against everything I could manage, in the Capitol or to anyone who would listen. Consorted with the Outsiders. Flaunted doctrines and statutes and unspoken rules – there weren't many, Time Lords like their rules set down in neat letters." That drew a faint smirk from Turlough; he imagined it clashed with the rapt attention.

It faded soon enough.

"Nothing I did made very much difference, slight or spectacular. I ended up ostracised, and quite ineffective. A very tired rebel locked in a society in love with its own stagnancy. Of course I left."

The Doctor shook his head, and his hands slid from the console to dangle at his sides.

"I tried to change the world, and all I ended up changing was myself." Turlough studied him for a moment, and then he smiled.

"Well. I wouldn't call it a waste, then." The Doctor's eyes widened, and then his brow furrowed, and then he smiled back, and it was real.

"No. No, I suppose it wasn't."