"You do know who I am, don't you?"

The Doctor paused, his heavy breathing becoming more clear "Yes, yes of course I know who you are, you're me, me but not me. A different me, an al-"

"Ter ego yes" the Doctor was interrupted by his alter ego, who looked exactly like him in every way except for the fact that his tie was blood-red instead of his TARDIS blue.

"Look, you're just a hologram, set up by the TARDIS as an error, nothing more" the Doctor suddenly took a very serious tone in voice.

"And what will you do with me?" the alter ego asked, relishing at the chance to make fun of himself.

"Delete you, get rid of you, wipe you from the TARDIS' memory banks."

"Like you did with the others?" came the simple reply, a smirk forming on the alter ego's face.

"They had to leave, they wanted to leave" replied the Doctor, stamping his foot on the ground of the see through TARDIS floor.

"Did they indeed?" the alter ego was clearly drawing massive amounts of enjoyment from this and started pacing around the TARDIS console. "Sarah wanted to leave did she? Zoe, Jamie," the alter ego took a slight pause, "Rose?"

"Now that is bang out-of-order!" yelled the Doctor, "I had no control over those events!"

"No you didn't, did you? You never have done, you just take people from their homes and off you go on your whimsical travels through time and space, but you never think about how it would affect them do you? No, you marvel in it, you marvel in seeing others druel over things you can't anymore because you've grown old, too old to even imagine. And all that angst and rage builds up inside you so you can't wait to fill it with love and admiration. Sometimes that love goes too far, sometimes that love makes you endanger others and become no better than the very monsters you fight on your travels. How long Doctor, how long before River becomes another Rose or Rory becomes another Adric? How lo-"

The alter ego was interrupted by the Doctor's hand slamming down on one of the buttons on the console of the TARDIS.

He was alone now, so, so alone. A single tear rolled down his cheek.

He was still running.