"My Ponds are gone," the Doctor whispered, for his companions were dead and he was alone.
He couldn't cry anymore, but he couldn't force himself to smile either, to simply be the madman with a box.
Quite frankly, the Doctor wanted it all to end. Suicide was mentally becoming a very real possibility.
He wanted to be hanged, to feel his throat constrict, for his hearts to beat frantically in his chest before they give out from lack of oxygen; for his body to give a last jerk and a quick snap to his neck before all light left his eyes and his life was finally over.
Or, if not to be hanged, he wanted to be stabbed through the gut, to fall on a sword and feel the blade shear and cleave his insides while he bled to death, dying in slow agony, a sort of personal Purgatory for his sins; for all the genocide; that maybe he could wash, or even hide, the blood on his hands with his own.
Physically, suicide was not possible.
It was more courageous of a person not to give into their sorrow and self-pity and kill themselves; and the Doctor felt that he'd already been too selfish, too much so already to allow himself for it all to end so easily-which is the most selfish "last act" a person could ever make.
He had to be brave, just for a little while longer.
By now the Doctor would have been able to push past his sorrows, his grief, and his pain, but not this time. He had lost his companions once too often already.
'I still have River,' the Doctor thought, a flicker of happiness threatening his grief. But then he remembered she had already died in his timeline; yes, the Doctor was truly alone, in this huge galaxy, all the universes. He was alone.
Thus the flicker of what could have been joy was diminished into a flame of apathy.
For days he kept travelling, never leaving the TARDIS, but the need to explore was still in him. Apathy kept him from leaving his ship, and the fear that he may destroy someone's life, that he may lose someone again. So he peered out the TARDIS doors but never left, outstretching a hand momentarily and half-hoping, half-fearing, that someone would take his hand and agree to explore with him.
After two weeks, he'd given up on exploration and adventure altogether and instead decided to just let the TARDIS float through Space and Time as he wallowed in his rooms of treasures, looking over his various triumphs and memoirs from almost every world imaginable.
Among his memorabilia was an old umbrella that he used to carry around, a book titled "the history of the Last Great Time War", and River Song's cradle, filled with things the Ponds had left on the TARDIS absentmindedly.
But he would only look and not touch them, afraid that he would break them, too with his seemingly cursed touch.
Yet another week had passed and he no longer wandered his halls. He instead secluded himself in a corner underneath the control deck and remained completely silent and still.
His mind screamed for him to end his loneliness, that there was some faint hope that if his life was ended, he would finally be reunited with his fallen companions, his dead Gallifreyan species, in death. But his body still wouldn't move, dictated by that small portion of his mind that reminded him that he'd already been too selfish.
He couldn't sleep, for fear of nightmares, and he wouldn't eat. The Doctor was deteriorating; but it would take months for him to die of lack of sleep and nourishment.
For the first time, he was broken; completely broken. And the Doctor cried, weeping bitterly as the frame of his existence was warped out of its shape to his purpose under the weight of his apathy. Crying out his griefs to the TARDIS, who only listened and dared not answer, he was overcome with anger and dangerous indifference towards life; and if he now no longer cared for his life, why should he care for the lives of others?
Beep, beep, beep...the TARDIS tried to get the Doctor's attention. Danger was approaching and the Doctor needed to act. The beeping graduated to blaring of horns, meant only to annoy the Timelord into action. But he held out for hours, never stirring, except to change his position.
"You Ass!" the TARDIS wanted so badly to scream, but he wasn't listening.
"No time for self-pity! Save us!"
He still wouldn't listen. Only eight hours of blaring, ringing, beeping, and screeching sirens, when the Doctor had grown tired of her persistence, and she of his, he jumped up to shut off every bloody noise that was emanating from her.
"Why can't you just leave me alone?" he mumbled angrily.
"Because you're a damn bloody moron when you're alone! I didn't steal you away so that you could let us die while you wallow in grief!"
"Alright, alright," the Doctor waved his hands in the air. "I'm listening," he said wearily.
"You bloody damn well better be! You have ten seconds to either move me out of the path of the oncoming dead star or redirect it before it makes contact!" she displayed on the screen quickly.
Suddenly adrenaline rushed through his veins and immediately he began to push buttons, trying to get a visual on the dead star as the TARDIS displayed a countdown:
6...5...4...3...2…
Contact.
The Doctor was flung by the impact of the dead star against the TARDIS and he hit the wall with a sickening thud.
Scrambling to his feet a moment later, without any attention to the swells of pain he'd acquired from his sudden embrace with the wall, a grin spread across his face and he exclaimed "That was exciting!"
He hurried to the controls, limping absentmindedly up the stairs, and made sure the TARDIS was alright; she was fine, yet furious.
"What happened exactly?" he asked himself aloud, pressing buttons and reading information on the screen.
"That dead star was orbiting something, but what?" he continued. "Just a bunch of empty space?"
Empty space...the more he looked at the information, the more he saw that the TARDIS was, in fact, floating through empty space as well.
The Doctor then realized with horror that he and the TARDIS were in The Void.
The dead star had knocked him and his ship out of Time and Space.
Cold fear and panic clutched at his hearts.
"The dead star was orbiting the Void?" he thought out loud, thoroughly confused. "But the Void has no gravitational pull...then that would mean there's something else here?" he said, pressing more buttons frantically, scanning the Void. The Doctor looked for anything, large or small, that had a gravitational pull. But because the Void was so dense, it took days for the TARDIS to scan for much of anything and the Doctor, out of pure exhaustion, and a newfound zeal for this new discovery, he slept, attempting to raise his health back up.
It took three days for the scan to be completed and nothing had been found. The Doctor heaved a dejected sigh and leaned against the railing. "I'm stuck here and apparently for no reason...I suppose it's better this way."
Suddenly the screen beeped a few times and the Doctor jumped up to look. The scan had found a very small planet not far from where he was drifting. With a throw of a switch, he directed the TARDIS with a hearty "Geronimo!"
The TARDIS shook and spun, flying rapidly towards the small planet. Then it landed.
The Doctor ran for the doors, then turned swiftly and ran for his chest of clothes. He pulled out his suit coat, snapping on his suspenders first, and then finished the look with his favorite red bowtie, because bowties, dear readers, are cool.
Thus he ran excitedly out through the TARDIS doors to be met with a burnt orange sky, sections of red grass, and a huge citadel contained in a mighty glass dome. People walked about and ships flew in the air majestically. The Doctor fell to his knees, overwhelmed. Everywhere he looked, there were Timelords. How could this be possible? An entire colony of Gallifrey on such a small planet, in the Void?
"I am not alone..." The Doctor breathed, a smile spreading on his face at the same time as tears began to fall. "I can't believe it."
"I am not alone!" he shouted, immediately shrinking away as people turned to see who had yelled; he was laughing like a giddy small child.
"Finally," he whispered to himself, before he prepared himself to venture among his brethren and see what he could see.