Then My Mind Went Dark, a doctor who fanfic

TRIGGER WARNING: drugs, non-consensual sex, violence.

I want a lover I don't have to love
I want a boy who's so drunk he doesn't talk
Where's the kid with the chemicals
I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full
I need some meaning I can memorize
The kind I have always seems to slip my mind

Lover I Don't Have to Love - Bright Eyes

The Doctor and the TARDIS were drifting through the Time Vortex in solitude, gently brushing past galaxies and decades. He was staring at the center console, watching the ship's soft green light pulse. He scuffed the toe of his white Converse shoe against the floor and wound his fingers through his unruly hair as he thought.

"This would be a much easier decision if we were sticking to one planet. Then it's simple: just spin the globe, point your finger and off you go, somewhere new. Time isn't exactly… spinnable." He scrunched up his face in thought before yelping enthusiastically. "Oh, I know - think of a number between -1300 and 22000!" He paused. The TARDIS whirred quietly, meandering through empty space. No one answered. The blue box just spun past stars and asteroids. Disregarding the silence surrounding him, he answered for himself.

"Right, the year 16032 it is! But where to go?" He punched three numbers - interstellar coordinates - into the TARDIS console and yanked on a few pulleys to set her in flight. "There, that was much easier than trying to come up with a spinnable three-dimensional model of all of time and space!" The TARDIS jerked sharply, calculating the new trajectory, then began to whoosh and shake. The Doctor grinned furiously and did his best to guide her in a sensible direction, though as always, she flew wildly and a little recklessly. When the TARDIS's loud hum subsided, he consulted the console display to tell him where his game had taken him.

"Lovely. The year is 16032, the city is K'zia, and we are on the planet Tarohn 3, a diversely colonized planet established in the year 10000. Not exactly a tourist spot, but that's never stopped me before. Not bad! Come on then - new place to see, try a little local cuisine - and maybe find a little shop. I never make it to the shops, maybe we'll try that this time." He bit his lip as he silently acknowledged that nobody would be accompanying him to the shops. Grabbing his long coat, he stepped out to the street alone.

Aibhine watched him from a distance as he disembarked. She had heard the loud noise of the TARDIS materializing, and wandered over to the alley to see what the commotion was. Travellers were her business, and when she saw him open the doors cautiously, drinking in the sight of even the dark and barren alley before him, she knew that she had a good day of work ahead of her.

He had landed in a damp alley, with high walls made of a muddy red stucco, lit by a grey-green light cast by three half-full moons. He glanced around, taking in his surroundings as he walked carefully to the end of the alley. The ground was a white stone that shimmered attractively under the moonlight. It was springy under his feet, and the walls of every building glittered as the light struck them. The weather was chilly but damp, despite the clear sky. From the smell of the air and the height of the moons, the Doctor gathered there hadn't been sunlight in the area for a while, though he couldn't decide exactly how long.

"Well, I suppose it's a bit late to be touring the sights and meeting the locals… still, some of the most interesting things happen in the night - maybe I'll have a look 'round anyway." He slipped both keys of the TARDIS into his pocket, and stepped out of the the ship into the alley. He muttered to himself discontentedly as he did. This is why traveling alone was boring. He didn't know why he was here and he had absolutely no idea what to do now. If he'd had a companion, he could ask them where to go or what to do; he could tempt them with the things he'd overheard from other travelers in the past, and dazzle them with the strangeness of a new world. It's not easy to dazzle yourself, and that nearly takes all the fun out of it. Nearly. The Doctor was a restless wanderer, and he savored the newness of Tareohn 3 all the same.

As he prepared to leave his alley parking lot, he saw a shadowed face quickly ducking back behind the building corner. Aibhine cursed under her breath, but straightened herself up to meet the new stranger. She drew her dark cloak around her, concealing an exaggerated hourglass waist and a snug red tea length dress. Meanwhile, the Doctor straightened his necktie, and strode down to the end of the poorly lit alley. He poked his head out of the alley first, following the direction he had seen the face retreat.

"Hello there!" he greeted Aibhine. She pretended to be startled by his greeting, and smiled sweetly in return.

"Good morning," she spoke with honey in her voice, and her mind brushed against his like a friendly feline.

"Morning? Now that's a surprise. Isn't morning usually a sunny affair?" He frowned up at the sky, speckled with strange constellations. She chucked quietly.

"You must not be from this planet. In this city, K'zia, we are near the poles of Tarohn 3, so we have a dark month every winter. We've just entered it so we do still get a little bit of sun, but it won't rise for hours." The Doctor nodded appreciatively.

"Lovely! So what time is it then - tell me it's after nine in the morning, everything's so dull before that," he complained. She pulled out a gadget from her cloak to read the time, but as she activated the display, it began to buzz and beep sharply and insistently. The display screen informed her that in her immediate vicinity, there was an extremely rare - and extremely valuable - creature. She quickly glanced at the Doctor, then back at the screen. Not him, certainly? It didn't give any more information.

"Well, it's about 11:30, and now this thing won't shut up." She started tapping the screen, hoping to buy time to identify what, exactly, this new arrival was. Before anything came up, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and with a whir, silenced her device. She startled as it abruptly shut off, and the Doctor flashed her a toothy grin.

"So, I take it that's your ship?" She nodded toward the TARDIS, which stood behind him, door still ajar. He looked back with pride.

"Indeed she is!" He clicked his fingers and the doors slammed shut, the little light flashing twice. He could feel her amusement bubbling against him. So glad I learned that trick - makes them smile every time. "But I've just spent a bit too much time aboard. I'm really looking to wander about a bit, try some food, meet some locals." He shrugged.

"Well, I'm a local, so you've done that bit already. Hello!" She waved at him coyly. Never mind the identifier - he's clearly travelling and that's good enough for me. She focused on his interest - he was deeply curious, and she curled her own intent around his drive to explore. As she surreptitiously redirected his attention, she felt his eyes on her conducting a quiet appraisal.

His eyes ran over her modestly. She was slender and tall, with wide hips and an oddly narrow waist. Her arms and legs were skinny and angular; her face was narrow but her eyes a little too round, and her mouth a little too small. She had short dark hair that framed her slight face pleasantly. She wore a long black cloak, draped over a casual and flattering red dress. Lovely woman, he thought, and she blushed. And a bit psychic, how cute!

She returned his evaluation as she pulled against his will. He was tall, and thin, wearing a brown pinstriped suit underneath a long, tan coat. His hair was doing a bit of a gravity defying act, and his smile was painfully charming. He looked completely humanoid, save for the alienness she could read in his thoughts. She could feel his eventual approval and couldn't help but redden in the face.

"Hello," he answered softly, after their long pause. He twisted his leg awkwardly and jammed his hands into his pocket. He looks like a flirting child, she thought.

"Care to follow me to some lunch?" She held out her hand, motioning for him to take it and follow her. He did, giving his tacit compliance. "Call me Eve," she introduced herself belatedly. He answered somewhat sheepishly.

"I'm called the Doctor."

The Doctor found Aibhine - or Eve - to be outrageously enchanting. He studied her furtively as they walked together, glancing sideways at her as she spoke. She told him about the three moons circling Tarohn 3 - "once, one of them was a planet, but it drifted too near our planet and wound up a moon, you see..." - and he told her about the lost moon of Poosh, and how he and Donna had saved it, along with the rest of the kidnapped planets. He tamped down the melancholy he felt as he did, but she saw it breaking through as he spoke of the women he had travelled with and lost. He saw her sharp mind and wit in return as they talked; and for a moment, considered showing her the TARDIS, and all the stars and galaxies that came with it. His fingers traced the edges of the spare TARDIS key in his pocket. It would be refreshing to travel with a non-human companion again - but the timing was all wrong. He was busy running from his own death; even the Ood were trying to tell him it was time. If things were different... he promised himself he would come back for her, after the storm of his oncoming end had passed. In his hearts, he knew he would not.

Aibhine found Doctor harder to lead than a Krinian two-headed mule. He stopped to interview different passers-by now and then, and frequently paused to examine a building or the peculiar road. She explained that the road was softened because there had been too many injuries in the dark month, and the buildings were made of regenerative concrete. Of course, this prompted him to spend some time gently poking the walls and watching the concrete reform. Each time his attention was broken she sighed deeply, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him away in both body and mind. Eventually he spoke with a vendor selling some sort of raw eel biscuits. After they both decided that raw eel biscuits were completely revolting, Aibhine put a bit more urgency in directing him, no longer interested in letting him play about the city.

She had brought him to some kind of restaurant, where small round tables stood encircled almost completely by high-backed benches, making for a very private - and intimate - setting. The Doctor glanced around with apprehension. This screamed "besotted individual desperate to travel the stars" - something that he was nearly powerless to defend against. And having already made up his mind that he would not be taking any companions to the TARDIS, no exceptions - this posed something of a threat. Still, he followed Eve as she strode unabashedly to a table, hung her cloak on a coathook on the back of the bench, and claimed her seat while signalling a server. The Doctor draped his coat from the hook next to hers, and slid into the booth next to her.

"You must be quite the regular here," he remarked on her obvious comfort with the establishment.

"I suppose you could say that," she replied with a subtle smile. "D'you fancy a drink?" The waiter stood by their booth, in the small gap left in the bench-wall.

"It's a bit early - I don't think I ought - oh, alright." The Doctor's protests crumbled after seeing a tragic expression fall upon Eve's face. It wouldn't be too bad - Time Lord metabolism and all. She nodded at the waiter.

"The usual then, my friend." He scurried off without remark, and returned shortly with a carafe of deep violet wine, a funnel, and two oddly shaped glasses that came to a tiny opening at the tip. Aibhine carefully filled each glass with the funnel, then raised hers.

"It's a local wine, made from a very tangy fruit that grows natively on our planet. It's quite lovely - if you're looking for local flavor, it's hard to beat this." She tipped the strange glass against her lips and the Doctor followed her example. The wine was thick, and the glass's small mouth let the wine flow in a thin trickle. He wasn't sure how to place the taste; it was sweet with floral notes and an exotic aftertaste, like cardamom or that spice he'd once had in his coffee on a Neptunian cruise ship. He sipped at it slowly, savoring it. The server returned with a plate of what looked like cheeses.

"Ah, nibbles! I love nibbles," he laughed. Aibine did too, fully and without reservation. She found herself enjoying the Doctor's company - something she could not always say of those with whom she spent her time. Though this was simply business, she was glad it could be pleasant as well. The Doctor finished his wine, and began to feel nostalgic.

Aibhine, placing her pointy elbows on the table, leaned her head on her hands and looked directly at the Doctor. "So, you're looking for perfectly wonderfully ordinary people. Why us? You don't strike me as interested in ordinary, judging by the sort of things that had you ogling on the street. You really are quite a puzzling person."

"Well, that's the problem. When your whole life is about the extraordinary, it's the ordinary things that become refreshing. Life has been a bit more tumultuous than I'm comfortable with recently, so I'm seeking something pleasantly boring. Not that you're boring, mind - I seem to have a knack for finding quite the opposite of boring - but that's what I've been looking for, at any rate." He sighed, and again, a quiet sadness settled around him.

"I'm an old man, Eve; old enough to have lived nearly more than my share. When you get that old - when you reach that point - there is nothing more pleasant than simple company." He poured himself another glass of wine. "I try to surround myself with good people - companions, people I can trust - but it all seems to go wrong in the end. I'm a bit dangerous I suppose. Perhaps it would be better if I left them all on their own." He looked pained as he sipped from his glass.

"I think not," Aibhine replied. "Everyone needs companionship, and there are always people who are willing to endure danger for someone they care about." She felt sorry for the man. She had never had the pleasure of a constant companion - people whirled in and out of one's life quickly in her line of work. The Doctor snorted derisively and blinked hard, trying to clear his vision, which was beginning to blur. Was the wine really that strong? Shouldn't be so affected by just a glass and a half. His state of mind began to trouble him, but he tried to keep talking, becoming animated and making wide gestures as he did.

"Who can say they ever truly cared about me? Maybe it was just the sense of adventure they wanted. Maybe they just needed something, and I was a convenient means to find it. Maybe-" He stopped midsentence as he nearly knocked over the carafe with his emoting hands. With every word he spoke, he became more distressed and unease he felt earlier grew stronger and told him he was in danger - he'd been poisoned - but the poison was suppressing his ability to recognize it with any clarity and he could only vaguely understand that he was ill. "I'm sorry - I'm not quite well." He tried to stand but stumbled in the booth and crumpled back down into his seat. The room tilted as he looked up at Aibhine.

She slipped out of the booth, and taking his hand kindly whispered, "Follow me."

He began to protest loudly.

"Please, if I can get to my - my ship, it's blue, I left it - I can take care of this, I think I've been -" she pressed her finger to his lips, and pulled him through the door.

"Hush, let me help you. I think I can do that." Walking into a lushly furnished room, she reclined him on a thickly cushioned chaisse lounge, upholstered an ivory suede. The room was draped in white silks, with candles burning on shelves along the wall, and incense smoking in censers hanging on either side of the door. Aibhine poured the cream-like contents of a bottle into a small tumbler, and raised it to his lips. "Drink this." He moved to push the glass away, but his arm was unsteady and he missed his target, pawing awkwardly at the air. She spilled the thick, disgustingly sweet stuff into his mouth, small trickles of the stuff running down his chin and neck. He felt his thoughts beginning to unravel as he swallowed, his body moving with her words. Must have been a mild hypnotic in the wine - but how to break it? As he tried to gather his focus and slip away from her company, a creeping leaden warmth moved over his limbs and he knew he was powerless. He closed his eyes with resignation, unable to act.

Her fingernails tracing down his skin drew an inarticulate curse. She wrapped her legs around his hips and arched herself over him, hissing as she drew him in. She knew it had been too long since he'd last been with anyone and worked cautiously. She kissed him with affection, pressing her mouth against his sweetly. She tasted his fear and his uncertainty and tried to soothe him with her mind - she could wind her way into his thoughts and calm him, give him relief.

His mind whirled, thoughts forming and fragmenting before logic could take hold of his speech or actions. He was sweating, moving his tongue as though to speak but losing every word before it could be fully pronounced. He wasn't supposed to be here, didn't need to be doing this - I am a Time Lord, we don't- we don't need this - but like a reflecting pond in the rain, his clarity was shattered and his consciousness dissolved into patterns of light and sound.

Aibhine quickly and easily stripped the Doctor of his clothing, pulling his coat down from his shoulders. She nimbly unbuttoned his dress shirt and unwound his necktie, baring his chest. She was careful and deft, pulling garments off him while he lay motionless. Her movements were methodical and precise - undressing the unconscious was an art she had rehearsed and perfected. She folded his clothing neatly and laid it aside. She spent some time sitting beside him on the couch, studying his body and his quiet face, stroking his bare leg. She nudged the boundaries of his mind with her own psychic capacity gently, and finding him totally spellbound, set to her work.

She ran her hands down his tall, lanky frame while running her mind through his. Feeling his senses subdued by her sedative, she tenderly opened his thoughts to her. She was shocked. The Doctor had so many lovely companions, but yet no memories of any intimate exchanges between them. Thoughts of it, certainly - but she couldn't sense that he had ever lain with a woman, in spite of having had children. She continued peering through his thoughts delicately, sorting through his memories and desires like pages of a family scrapbook. As she stepped from scene to scene, she saw the patterns in his fantasies and felt her body began to shift. The walls of the white room around them shimmered and settled into the familiar green and bronze of the TARDIS control room. Interesting background, but it will do, I suppose.

The Doctor dug his fingers into the cushion of the chair as he became aware of his own body. He was no stranger to his own anatomy - not unlike a humans, though internally arranged somewhat differently - but this was a feeling he had not had since his youth, and it was suitably overwhelming. He focused on this singular wavelength of pleasure, stretching out along his body. A woman - who? - moaned and whined fiercely, bracing herself with her hands on his shoulders as she moved around him. She rocked against him, scratching him with long fingernails and leaving darkening bruises on his neck with her mouth and teeth. The heat building in his gut was like a furnace - a long forgotten ache that unfurled painfully through his arms and legs. He surrendered to his own ecstasy; he disentangled her from his limbs and they turned in an ungainly tumble of sheets and skin until her back hit the cushioning. He pressed her down against it, mouth and teeth and tongue running along her neck, grinding his hips against her while she arched herself enthusiastically. He was mad with want - a starved hound given the smell of meat, growling and panting and burying himself deep inside her. He hid his face in her soft hair as they moved together, drunk on her familiar perfume. His partner's cries rose in intensity, and he felt her trembling, a wave about to break. "Oh, Doctor -" she keened - and at the sound of her voice calling his name, his shattered thoughts crystallized and his mind became clear; the drugged wine wore off. Confused, he pulled his head up to look his mystery lover in the eye and froze with the icy venom that began curdling in his stomach.

He stared into her eyes, his lip curling into a violent sneer, and began backing away.

"Get away from me," he spat. His partner furrowed her brow in concern and went to move toward him, to console him. "I mean it. For your own sake - and for mine - get away." He choked out the words quietly, shaking, not raising his voice.

A naked Rose Tyler - or what looked like Rose, save for the inhuman roundness of the eyes - stood from the bed, and her form melted back into that of Aibhine's. As she changed he could see that the skin on her torso, with its impossibly thin waist, was spotted in white. In her abdomen was nested a small glass window, containing clear fluid. She kept trying to move toward him, and he kept backing away- they were circling backward around the room, which had shifted back into the delicately decorated white den.

"I'm sorry, I only wanted it to be the best for you -" He silenced her.

"No. You do not touch her. Nobody touches her. This was - this is -" he stopped moving, letting his body sag against the wall. He rested his forehead against his fingertips. "That's not what we had. Do you understand? What we had was different - it was never meant to be like that. Never like that." He covered his face with his hands, wiping away tears and holding back the bile that was rising in his throat. Suddenly, he lunged at Aibhine, pinning her against the far wall. She smiled.

"That's more like it!" He slammed his fist against the wall next to her, and she swallowed further jibes.

"You have taken the one thing I believed in and made - you have made a mockery of everything we had together. You've defaced my most precious memories. You are worse than a whore - you are a criminal!" He was screaming in her face, spit landing on her cheeks and sweat running down his face. Pulling out his sonic screwdriver, he pointed it at her stomach and with a whir, shattered the vessel of liquid.

"You can't do that!" she shrieked.

"I can't, can I? Watch me," he snarled.

"Doctor, my species is dying. We are telepathic shapeshifters, but our ability has rendered our DNA so fragile that it fragments and we die in agony months after we first change form. The only cure we have found so far is to infuse the genetic material of other species into our own. The infusions stabilize the DNA but we simply cannot find enough genetic material for every member of the species. And perhaps... if we look hard enough, we can find a specimen to cure our ailment for good." She looked at the Doctor pointedly. "The device you just shattered - which was costly to have installed, and the result of years upon years of hard study and research, thank you - had already begun analyzing your genetic material. Your species, whatever you are, can cheat death. You can rebuild yourselves. Perhaps infusing your self-renewing DNA into our own crippled makeup, we can sustain ourselves without having to periodically go for treatments." As Aibhine spoke, the Doctor dressed himself, and now stood sneering at her in disgust.

"And you get this material by stealing it from unsuspecting "clients". You provide travellers with whatever fantasies you find in their own head - which is illegal in this and every other galaxy, by the way, drugging sentient lifeforms against their will to allow yourself access to their thoughts." Aibhine scoffed at him.

"Most men thank me when I have them live out their fantasies. You seem to be the exception. No, our donors don't come here intentionally. We are stumbled upon, and I seek out fresh samples. Is it really so bad to provide a wanderer with a thoroughly engaging visit?" Aibhine began moving about the small room, settling pillows back on the reclining chair, putting the glass back in her cupboard. The Doctor simply stared at her in disbelief.

"Eve -" She rolled her eyes at him.

"My real name is Aibhine." He shook his head.

"Aibhine, then - everything has its own cycle. If your species is dying then maybe it's just time. Or maybe there's another way - but you can't steal your lives back from other people. Other people have a say, maybe they can help - you can't just seduce them so you can live a few more years. Maybe you aren't truly meant to shapeshift. This is just... wrong." He could feel the righteous anger battering against all the self-restraint he could muster. Everything had a time, had a place - even him.

"Doctor. My planet has had a tradition of this sacred service. This was our divine answer; this was what the Mother ordained. That we should use our service to Her to save ourselves. Can you argue with the will of a god?" With that, the dams broke, and fury flooded his will.

"To some people, I am a god." Before Aibhine could counter, he dashed to her cupboard and began pulling out bottles, waggling his screwdriver at each of them.

"Look, Doctor - I don't care who you are, I don't care what planet you are from, but you will get out of my belongings, you will get out of my affairs, and you will leave me alone!" She ran to grab the bottles from his hands, but he had already moved away, holding two bottles and his screwdriver in his hands.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" He flicked through several settings on the screwdriver, then pointed it at the bottles with a pulling motion. He swirled the contents of each around a bit as he did - the liquids inside changing from a milky white to a pale blue-green.

"I tried this once, Aibhine - it didn't work, but then again I was using an old port, much better for drinking but not so much for chemistry. Oh, and I've learned quite a bit even in that short time. I've destabilized the chemical composition of your sedative cocktails, making them somewhat explosive and highly flammable. And I think - because all that mercy I used to have has been used up and I'm having some interesting thoughts - that I'd like to see just how explosive they are. Goodbye, Aibhine." He tore off a few slips of the gauzy curtains hanging around the room and stuffed them into the bottles, as Aibhine wrestled to try and stop him. She grabbed on to his back, trying to pull him to the ground, but he took hold of her arms slammed her backwards against the wall, her shelves, and the softly burning candles. Falling to the ground, she watched as he lit the exposed ends of the cloth on fire with one of the now-fallen candles, and laid the bottles on the ground.

He strode hastily out of her room, through the dark door-lined corridor she had led him down, and out of the brothel into the night. Behind him, Aibhine was calling out: "Doctor! You can't just leave me here! Even if you burn this place down, there are hundreds more like it. There are thousands of us, trying to save our species. You can't change this planet and you can't stop us!" But he didn't pause or turn toward her. He spoke as he left.

"No, I can't stop you - but I'm an old, bitter, broken man now, and sometimes, old, broken, bitter men just need revenge." The sharp sound of breaking glass and the thick, wet sound of self-repairing stone coming to pieces muted his words as he found his way back into the TARDIS and left Tarohn 3 for the Oodsphere. His violent speech stayed like bitter ash in his mouth as he laid his head against one of the branch-like pillars in the control room. It was cool against his flushed face, and he stood like that in the empty ship, letting the hum of the engine overtake any sound he might have made.