AN/ This was written after I saw Amy's Choice. That episode really got me wondering and set the TARDIS and the Doctor talking in my mind. Then Amy came in and things kind of went from there. Spoilers for that episode, but not for the rest of the season. Some elements might be a little AU because I haven't seen the rest of the 2010 season yet. Written in the POV of the TARDIS. Part of my TARDIS 100 series. The BBC owns everything.
I enjoy the little, quiet times between missions and adventures. These are the moments when the Doctor and I can talk, communicating mind to mind without distraction from companions and immediate dangers.
Not too long after the general mental twist with the Dream Lord, the Doctor and I had one of those moments. I was in orbit around Pluto right after it had lost its planetary status on Earth. Amy and Rory were asleep, sharing a snug bedroom I had set aside especially for them. I was monitoring their dreams carefully, nervous after this last adventure, but there was nothing alarming to note. The Doctor was on his back under my central console, buzzing at some wires with his sonic screwdriver. It was general maintenance that felt good – like a foot massage would to a human.
There was a kind of weight in the air. The Doctor was avoiding talking or even thinking about the Dream Lord. Maybe I should have left things alone, but there were issues that bothered me.
"I have question, my Doctor."
"I bet you do," he murmured out loud, intelligent eyes scanning the wires and judging which ones were worn.
"The dreams... the Dream Lord..."
He sighed, resigned. "What do you want to know?"
"Why was I dead in one of the dreams?"
The Doctor felt a little sting of guilt. "It was a nightmare, Old Girl," he said softly, in that voice he uses just for me. It hasn't really changed over the regenerations. "Having you die would be one of the worst things to ever happen to me. No, in fact, it would be the worst thing. You know I'm stuck without you." He stroked the base of my central pillar. My machinery was warm and vibrated slightly like a purring feline.
I was satisfied with his answer. "And the other dream... the happy life for Amy and Rory..."
"I want them to be happy, and to be honest, that's the kind of life I'd like them to have after they leave, minus the aliens invading senior citizens though, of course."
"Of course." I whirred internally, pondering. "And the baby? She still thinks about it, Doctor. I caught her rubbing her stomach when you weren't looking, and she remembers how real it felt. She felt it kick and move inside her."
He sighed a little again and reached in up to his elbow to mend a small crack he had spotted. "She'd be a good mother. It's... like a stereotype. The happy family, baby makes three, etcetera..."
"And the Dream Lord... that darkness in yourself, my Doctor. It's manifested before..."
"Yeah, I know... 'The Time Lord Victorious.' I'm trying to put that behind me..."
"Why do you hate yourself so much?"
That made him pause. This was partly why he hadn't wanted to talk about it. "Well... you know... I've done a lot of bad things. I try to save everyone, but I just can't sometimes. No matter what I do, someone will always get hurt or killed. I'm useless if I'm not saving the world, and half the time, I mess that up anyways, so... yeah. A lot of self-hate."
"Do you really want to kill yourself?"
The Doctor detected a very worried, anxious tremor along our psychic link. He crawled out from under the controls and up to the main platform. He leaned forwards and put his hands on my Time Rotor. It pulsed gently as I orbited peacefully. "No. I'm not really going to kill myself. I don't want you to worry about that at all. Got it?"
I didn't reply. The Doctor felt me press into his mind and he let me go in, like clay filling a mould. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, his hearts steady. I saw all that self-hate – the guilt from everything he'd done as far back as he cared to remember. I also saw that it was being bundled up and locked away as he steadily dealt with it, as he moved on and recovered. Each life, city and planet that he did manage to save was to make up for all the ones he lost, all the alien races extinct. It extended to the people whose lives he'd changed for the better, and now they were saving the world too when they could. It was how he managed to live with himself.
"The mind is bizarre, isn't it, my Doctor? A strange place. It's not a quiet and plain thing. It's not like a bookshelf with everything filed away neatly. It's a maze, a labyrinth. Your mind, in particular, is a jungle of eleven lives worth of puzzles upon puzzles."
I felt his non-verbal agreement through our link. I stroked his mind like a lover comforting her worried mate.
"It is a concern that everything you hate about yourself was able to manifest strongly enough to threaten you, me and our companions. All it needed was the boost of psychic pollen."
"At least now we know that he looks like," he replied, "so if it happens again, we can be prepared. This won't catch me off-guard again, I promise."
I know how the Doctor is about promises. He always meant well with them, even if the end result wasn't what he wanted.
I wanted to hold onto the Doctor like this forever. As it was, we were interrupted by Amy. She stared down at the Doctor from the balcony, wondering what he was doing. He was still leaning forward, hands on the calmly pulsing Time Rotor, eyes closed.
"Amy's here," I told the Doctor.
"I know. She can wait."
That amused me. "Oh, can she?"
"Doctor?" Amy started down the stairs towards him.
"No, she can't," the Doctor corrected himself.
"Doctor? What are you doing?" She tapped him on the shoulder. I began to extract myself from the chambers of his mind.
"Hold on a minute," the Doctor said out loud. It was to Amy, though in his hearts, it was also slightly to me.
"It's alright." So long as he's inside me, or even near me, I'm always there.
Amy waited until, with another sigh, the Doctor opened his eyes and took his hands off the Time Rotor. He straightened up and, flashing Amy a smile, adjusted his bow tie. "Now, then, Amy Pond, what is it?"
"I was just wondering... what were you doing?"
"I was talking with the TARDIS."
She frowned. "You were what?"
"Talking with the TARDIS," he repeated.
"Talking... with the TARDIS... you do know that it's just a machine, right?"
"Oh, no... she's not 'just a machine.'" He leaned against my control panel, careful to place his hand so as not to press any buttons or switches. "The TARDIS is somewhat sentient, you know. Old Time Lord secret."
"So... it's alive." Amy eyed my Time Rotor. "Is it like the Space Whale or something?"
"Not quite. It's complicated. Anyways, was there something else?"
Amy's mind switched gears, but she solidly filed away pondering how much I was really a living thing for serious consideration later. "Um, yeah... I wanted to ask you something, or several somethings, but not really while Rory is was around. I want honest answers out of you."
"Okay, shoot."
"What's your real name?"
The Doctor frowned slightly. "I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because... I'm not ready to tell it to you. Don't feel cross, there's a lot of companions I've had who didn't know my name."
"That was the other thing. Who were these past companions?"
"Lots of people... girls from Earth, like you, some guys, some aliens, a robot dog..."
"And... what happened to them?"
The Doctor shifted his weight. "Some left... got tired of the danger, or just wanted to go home. Some... never got to go home." He looked into Amy's eyes, and she understood. She'd seen dangers and been in enough life-threatening events with the Doctor already to know what he meant.
"Do you miss them?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Some of them I missed so much, it hurt. I thought that I never wanted to travel with anyone again. But then I met you, and..." he swallowed "I keep moving on. That's what I do... most of the time. Save the day, and move on. That's always been my goal and it always will be, and I want to travel with you now for as long as we can. Rory too. For all his faults, he's not a bad bloke."
Amy thought about this for a moment, looking at my controls. Absently, she wondered what some of them did... if I could feel it when we touched them...
"Did you love them?" she asked.
"Yeah," the Doctor admitted softly. "Many of them I loved very much. That's why it hurt so much when they left."
"Do you love me?"
A warning flag went up in the Doctor's head. "Now, Amy... you've just picked Rory... you had that big, whole thing..."
"I know, and I love him, I do, but... I have to know, Doctor." She looked into his eyes.
Eventually, he had to confess. "Yes, I do, but I want you to understand something very clearly, Amy Pond... it's not a romantic type of love. I designed that dream world with you and Rory, married and pregnant for a reason, even if it was subconscious on my part."
Amy dropped her gaze, nodding a little. "Yeah, I get that. Okay." She sighed and put on a little smile. "You're still one of my boys, though, right?"
"Yeah. 'Course I am." He smiled back.
"Good."
I approved, feeling cosy and at peace with the Doctor and our companions. It does everyone good to set their minds at ease.