*knock* * knock*
The madman suddenly started, his head jerking up. He glanced around the empty room, doing a quick mental update of what was happening.
Someone had just knocked on the door.
He was sitting on the steps in the TARDIS.
He held a book in his hands.
A book he'd never finished.
Well,
Never finished reading.
He'd been stuck on page 143. He couldn't get past it, couldn't turn the page. Who knew something as light as a sheet of paper could be heavier than both his hearts?
He wondered how long had he been sitting there, staring at the pulp-fiction cover, his finger stuck in the side of the book to keep his place, and trying to talk himself into opening it again. But he can't. He couldn't. Every time he tried to he was be flooded with memories, painful, searing memories that blocked out all logical thought and everything else good and right in his soul until there was just pain, only pain.
Funny how they all thought when they weren't with him that he was off probably off gallivanting on planets made entirely of honey or having a cappuccino at Planet of the Coffee Shops. Nobody was ever there for the times when he was captured by his thoughts and imprisoned by his memories so much so that he would sit for days and weeks, and remember, and mourn, because that was all he had left. No one ever saw, no, he'd made sure of that.
What did Brian say once? "Time flies when a man's alone with his thoughts"
If only time would fly, back to a time when he wasn't so alone.
Sitting on the stairs of the TARDIS.
Staring at a book he couldn't finish.
And there was someone knocking at his door.
Oh yes, the door.
He jumped up and ran to the door. This! This was something new! No one ever knocked on the TARDIS door. There'd been plenty of banging, yes, but never this short concise knock, no one had ever been that polite. He flung the door open, desperate for anything to distract him but not sure what he was expecting.
Whatever he was expecting it certainly wasn't THAT.