Zero hour. Two minutes. Fifty-seven seconds. Eleven-eighths. One-seven. Measurements too small for the inhabitants of this planet to detect, to comprehend. But he knows. Cannot help but know, cannot ignore every miniscule shift, each tick—
It is the only thing left to him.
The blue box at his back is silent as he slides to the floor, velveteen tails pulled and wrinkled between it and the floor and pristine slacks. Wool. Human-made.
The lab is dark. No light from the lamp perched on his solitary, silent companion. No fluorescent spill from the hall. Only the palest illumination crosses grubby linoleum from the window in thin fingers to fall just short of patent-leather toes.
Silence leaves a yawning void in his ears where the song should be. His head thumps against neat grains of wood to fill the rift. He cannot feel her sing; he cannot hear her hum.
Hands reach to cover that old face.
Zero hour. Four minutes. Thirty seconds. Fifteen-eighths. Two-six.
Fingers find every crevasse: laughter lines that crinkle thoughtful eyes, fissures that furrow a thoughtful brow, parentheses that book-end mouth and nose. Ah, to be so young, and so, so old!
Will he perhaps age backward? Younger and younger as centuries pass, like some Earthly fairy-tale. Wouldn't that just be fitting!
Fingers knot in white curls.
Zero hour. Five minutes. Five seconds. Ten-eighths. One-five.
Woolen knees draw to silken chest, ruffles crushed without second thought. Nothing, nothing, nothing! All empty and silent and dark in the still, slow stream of time.
Zero hour. Five minutes. Twelve seconds. Twelve-eighths. Three-nine.
It is on these nights that he finds himself simultaneously overfull with intense relief and remittent anger that the other has not come to torment him. If the other were to appear now…
Zero hour. Five minutes. Thirteen seconds. Zero. Zero.
He buries his face against his knees in facsimile of the repentant child they believe he should be. If those who purport to only think can be said to believe anything.
Silver tendrils creep their way across the floor in infinitesimal increments. His head turns just so to watch the reflected light of the sun in its steady, slow perpetual motion. Three-thousand, six hundred eighty-three kilometers per hour goes the moon round the Earth. One-hundred seven thousand kilometers per hour goes the Earth round the sun. Eight-hundred twenty-eight thousand miles goes the sun, taking this little galaxy with it.
Zero hour. Six minutes.
It practically moves backward, but move it does. This earth, and him upon it, in a journey across the universe.
His head falls back against the TARDIS, and the whisper of a smile graces his lips.
"Jai Guru Deva Om," the Doctor sighs into the night. "I believe I have the record somewhere." And then: "I wonder if they've written it yet?"