Memory isn't always a good thing. It can be amazing and beautiful, capturing every detail of something or someone that you held close. But it can force the pain of loss of the dearly beloved onto one's self.
The Doctor knew that better than anyone else. He was memory's prisoner, forced to relive the loss of his companions over and over in dreams and flashbacks. That wasn't what he hated the most though. He could still see them happily flying along side him in the TARDIS. They think it's going to last forever with him, and he thinks it will last forever too. But time and his own reality grow cruel and remind him how he will live forever and they die off. Time takes them away from him. Memory just enforces the pain.
The Doctor had only just lost two companions some time ago. The Pond's would be the end of him, and he knew it. He felt empty when he stood at their grave stones. Very few of his companions died while traveling with him, but when they did, it's like he forgets everything and everyone else. He crawls back into his TARDIS, hallow and left with pain and loss. He is absent from his travels for quite a while. Though he always moves on, he always doesn't. He goes on with other companions to travel the universe with him in his big blue box, but he remembers the pain.
A man with two hearts carries twice the pain, after all.
Though he was still recovering from Amy and Rory, the TARDIS tried to cheer him up. She didn't take him where he wanted to go, but where he needed to be.
She took him to a planet called Kalonice. Kalonice was at the point in it's timeline that it was going through a civil war. They needed the Doctor to settle peace. He may be known as the Oncoming Storm, but he is wonderful. No matter what.
After helping the humanoids and all the other species that lived there, he was heading back to the TADRIS to continue to mourn.
That's when it started.
Though he had stopped the war, there were still the people who disagreed. He didn't expect it, but a rebel threw a memory bomb at him just as he unlocked the TARDIS with just a snap of his fingers.
It rolled inside, but did not explode.
The Doctor quickly shut and locked the TARDIS doors. He carefully approached it, not knowing what it would do. He'd heard of memory bombs, but nobody ever really knew what it did.
The TARDIS whirled away without the Doctor's consent.
"Hey!" he yelled in annoyance at her. "What was that all about? I thought we agreed that you only take me away without my permission only if I'm already piloting!"
The TARDIS just hummed in reply. She knew what the memory bomb would do. She knew.
The Doctor continued to approach the little metal sphere. When it was at the base of his feet, he hesitated. He didn't want to take out the sonic screwdriver, because it might set it off.
He bent down to get a closer look at it, studying all of it's details.
"I don't know what you are, or what you might do, but there is one thing I must say," the Doctor concluded. "You are beautiful."
He finally couldn't resist his childish curiosity and fascination and brought out his sonic screwdriver. He soniced it, exploring through it's mechanisms without even touching it.
"You are amazing! Very rare and very useful, you are the Millonian memory bomb! First developed in 5678 on planet Millon, and used first in the Mellecular War!" the Doctor droned on. "It whipped out the memory of anyone within 300ft! Brilliant you are!"
The TARDIS nervously hummed, trying to warn the Doctor. He was forgetting about how it even took memories. If bare skin made contact with the sphere, it would have access to DNA. The bomb would then find a way to penetrate the defensive systems of blood, skin, and the brain.
"I can't leave you here to just sit around."It was the prefect excuse to put the bomb on display and to analyze a bit more thoroughly. The Doctor took the bomb in his hand just as he remembered the rest of its history. The small sphere started to whirl in some places, metal detaching from metal. Lights surfaced from under the sphere
"Oh no," the Doctor said, not even trying to stop it. He knew there was no going back now.
The sphere attached itself to his skin and started to whirl around even more. Red, blue, and black was all the lights would flash. It then dug it's way under his skin.
The Doctor started to scream in agony as it painfully made it's way up his arm and his neck.
"NO!"
It made it's way toward his brain, and started to drain his memories.
"No!"
He stumbled around as if the TARDIS was crashing, but in his mind, it was.
The TARDIS panicked. She could help, she knew she could. She gave all the signs she could to her Timelord, but all he was focusing was his memory leaving before his eyes.
He could see Rory and Amy- even River. Melody Pond. The Doctor's wife. But no, they were gone now. Amy and Rory weren't dead. But he disnt know them either now. He could see little Amelia Pond and the crack in her wall. But they were gone too.
"NO! PLEASE, DONT!"
The TARDIS was crashing now. His face was changing from regenerating. He was reliving his last moments as the Tenth Doctor. Rose. Jack. Donna. Martha. He was rewinding through his memories and then deleting them.
He could see her now. He could see Rose. Rose and his duplicate. He could see when he dropped them off in Pete's universe.
"No! Please, don't take away Rose!" he begged. He fell to his knees and started prying at his head.
"MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP!"
He could see Donna. Donna Noble, the Doctor Donna. The Ood, Pompeii, the Adipose. But they were gone too now.
Martha. He could see Martha. Martha and Jack and him, at the end of the universe. Even the Master. He could see the woman who walked the earth, one of the only companions that walked away. But she was gone now too.
The Doctor knew who was next. He didn't want to lose Rose. He didn't want to lose the memory of his pink and yellow Rose.
"ROSE!" He yelled as he re-experienced watching her flying to the void.
He didn't know it, but the memory bomb was over heating. The last memory it took before cooling down was the aftermath of the experience with the black hole and who could've been Lucifer himself.
The Doctor wept as he crumpled even further to the floor. Though he could still call back on the memories as far at Amy and Rory, since the bomb was still attached to his brain, he knew they'd be gone soon. All of them.
"Rose," he whispered to himself. "Don't take away Rose."
The Doctor didn't know it, but the TARDIS heard him. And she granted his last wish before the bomb could continue it's work. She deactivated it, but made sure it still stayed on his brain. His memories would still be inside, but he wouldn't have them.
"Rose..." he said one more time as the TARDIS southed him to sleep. When he awoke, he would be the tenth doctor inside the eleventh. He would still have Rose. Or he would think he would.
Sweet dreams, Doctor, the TARDIS thought. Sweet dreams.
Hello Whovians! Unless you're not a Whovian... then, HELLO NON-WHOVIAN! I hope you guys like the idea of the story/the first chapter. I'd been on a writers block (very ironic since this is my first fic) and got this huge inspiration for this story was when I was under the influence of laughing gas. The rough draft for this story was a bit wacky (I barely knew who I was at them time, can you blame me?), but I carved out all the stuff that wouldn't exactly make since, so it's good now!
Since this is my first fanfic, please leave R&R! Thanks guys!
(PS, I'll be updating once a week on Sundays)