i.
He can't remember the last time his face wasn't pulled into a dark rictus, the laughter ringing hollow in his throat and the smiles always crooked, baring teeth.
He survives in stolen cloudy moments, watching his likeness — because it's not him, no, never will be no matter how many memories he's lost — dismantle and destroy, take apart the worlds around them much more easily than his own mind was.
He miscalculated, and there is never a time he doesn't wish he had control of one limb just to hit himself for it. The possibility of wiping them both out with regeneration was extinguished early on, in the days when the Cyber was learning libraries' worth in mere hours a day.
Pride, and arrogance, the things he was warned about for centuries, by more individuals from more species than he could ever count — it's lost him things before, and now the universe is losing, losing entire spaces of existence. And the Cyber never lets an opportunity to remind him go by.
The two of them watch through the same pair of eyes as the Trojan Gardens burn; one in a mania of power, one numbed like he's been sitting in cold water too long.
Some feeble ember sputters in him, remembering Amy's hair blazing the same orange-scarlet as she flounced down a row of azaleas on their visit there. He wishes he even had the heart — forget the cognitive function — to turn away, but the Cyber's hiss of a laugh crackles across his vocal cords.
Have I impressed you yet? the parasite murmurs. He flinches; no, not those memories, those words, twisting them to fit and leaving off her name. And in a terrible way, it is an impressive level of annihilation, the sheer reach of the Cybermen's silver fingers.
The last time he'd seen something of its magnitude… it had been his fault.
Another chuckle ripples across their double consciousness. You always were a show-off, Doctor.
Troy's flames lick ever higher, and he itches to wrap his flesh digits around his own neck.
ii.
She's nearby, always; but she, too, is a shadow.
She's got one of those infernal things just above her ear, blinking out an unintelligible morse code that he has no desire to decipher. He sits against an invisible wall in that hive mind he can't help but be connected to, sometimes sneaking side glances at her without Cyber realizing.
How far has she gone? For all her impossibility, is she just as vulnerable as the rest of them? Of us, he reminds himself.
But the Cyber's razor-sharp senses pick him up sooner or later, and then — then it's bad.
Ah, daydreaming again? The Cyber steps forward so that they're standing toe to toe with her, those once-bright eyes wiped dark by the dull cyberpulse. Give us a kiss, love, ey?
Obligingly and still dead-eyed, she leans forward, and he feels himself puckering, and —
"NO."
It's the first word he's spoken in what must be weeks, maybe months, and the backlash throws him across the mental hivespace. He's in neural agony, not physical; he feels as if his temples are about to explode, his brain leak out of his ears.
When the pain recedes, something else smokes in its place, but he can't put a name to it. Whatever it is, it sets them both ablaze.
No? whispers the Cyber. Isn't this what you want?
The next words are like a mental push against concrete, and incredibly, sweat beads at his hairline. "Not — like — this," he gasps, reveling in the fluidity of his tongue and how many different directions it wants to go, the way air heaves through his lungs and rattles in his throat —
I could have killed her. It's gentle, almost, a mockery of the way he used to speak to her, he knows it. Could have made it bad, too. I kept her for you.
He wants to answer, but he's under control again, rather than holding it. But the reply echoes in the small space that is still his:
"You kept her to kill me."
If he'd spoken, his voice would have been strangled, and his eyes would have filled.
iii.
But then the circuitry happens.
One day that the beeps and blips go off at a rate that is not quite regular, and as accustomed to monotony as he is, he senses it right away. Against his usual instinct — what little of it is left — he lets himself slip into Cyber's headspace, aware but not in control. And he feels it.
There's a little dig on the inside of his left forearm. One of the cobbled bits of what turns him into a walking remote control has come loose from its binding, the sharp-ended metal coil scraping against the skin and drawing a thin line of scarlet.
It can't possibly be good for him.
Cyber hasn't noticed, and so he takes the chance; pushes with what little willpower he still has.
Nothing happens, and he feels an alien rush — fear, he realizes — because Cyber could refocus any moment now… and his finger moves a fraction. The coil sinks, just a little, into his skin; his forearm stings, there is a fresh blossom of blood, and he holds his breath.
Nothing, no hiss of delighted contempt, no punishment.
Nothing. But now he has something.
iv.
He starts small, with things that could be mistaken for tics — glitches, he should say, robots don't have tics — twitching fingers, tiny rolls of the neck, a tapping foot. For someone who has stood still for ages in every sphere but the cerebral, a very quiver is a victory. And they're distractions from the real thing.
He's anxious (anxious, that's new, or at least it's been a while) that Cyber will feel the unkept coil at their wrist —his wrist — but Cyber goes on cheerfully bullying, oblivious to the metal poisoning the vessel it chose for its Planner.
Oblivious — to a point. Because one night he presses a little too hard.
What was that? It's a snarl, vicious, strangely animalistic for Cyber and its careful craze. It jerks the sleeve up, and they both stare at the metal coil. The moment seems to stretch into eons, but he knows he has nanoseconds before there's a reaction.
He calls up what strength he hasn't committed to his daily exertions, willing the golden storm inside to rise, praying he hasn't lost it.
If it were indeed a storm, he would have called the rumble in the very depths of his being thunder. It's time.
"Game over," he breathes across the two of them.
Then it's happening and everything is pain, pain, light, golden light swirling all round them — him — and what is it they say, that all that is gold does not glitter? And no, there is nothing remotely glamorous about this, about giving himself over.
Don't you dare! Cyber pulls them three feet across to where Clara stands and folds her into the iron cage of their arms.If we go, so does she, Cyber screeches.
For a moment, he falters, feels sick; the gold does in fact glitter, shining around the edges of Clara's open, lifeless eyes and momentarily blinding him.
Cyber feels the halt, too. Can you stand it, it taunts, sacrificing her to free yourself?
Doubt rises like bile in his throat. He's tried to be noble all these intermittent years, making up for centuries of solitude and the selfishness that comes with it. Another burst of ego would literally kill him. Kill her.
And then something shifts in him, clicks, like a piece of the TARDIS console into place.
"There are two more of her somewhere," he growls, "and I'll be damned if she can't survive this."
And the storm blows into a frenzy again, and he's not sure whether Cyber is screaming or he is, but God, it hurts. He knows the exit door is slim and it will most probably not let him out, not if he pushes Clara through first. But he's ready, so long as it stops, so long as Cyber is no more.
He whispers. "See you soon, Clara."
And in the moment before the blinding flash he knows is the last, he's heartened to have finally recognized himself again.