Burning Inside
He knew the moment he looked into the sun that it would happen. The burning, the flames that had haunted his life from the moment he had turned eight years old. The flames he had seen as his future in the vortex. He could feel the burning inside of him before the sun bothered to possess him but he knew it would happen anyway.
The burning had followed him a long way, from house where Gwyneth had been servant to this. From Gallifrey burning in front of his eyes to the Torchwood hideout under the Thames. He just wanted the burning to stop. But it never did. It never gave up and left him alone because it was his curse to carry it.
So when the Master asked him if he could hear the drums he wanted to say yes. Yes I'm tormented too but not by drums, by fire and flames. He wanted too tell the truth but somehow he couldn't. He couldn't give the Master his weakness because the Master would play with it and tease him and scare him with it for a long time to come.
The flames followed him to the funeral pyre where the Master's body lay. He held the burning torch in his hand and wondered if this was what the Master had wanted, for his torment to end. But he had to go on because the universe needed him. It always needed him. He wondered briefly if it would ever stop needed him.
It wasn't the sun that had scared him, or the thought that he could die, regenerate and kill his friends and companion but the feeling of burning. He didn't want the burning anymore. He had never wanted it but in the end he was stuck with it. Constantly in his thoughts, driving him to the brink of insanity.
It wasn't due to any possession of aftereffect but he knew that deep done it was his destiny.
Somewhere, deep inside he would always burn.