Warnings: Character Study, Introspection
A/N: Written for who_contest's Prompt: Ail. I had this idea about a week after the contest started, but I couldn't seem to get it up off the ground (time was a big factor in some of this). Last night I came up with another idea, but it went over by 50 words and there was no way to cut it down and do the prompt (much less the fiction) any justice, so it has been set to one side to be tinkered with at a later date. This fiction was written spur of the moment (based on my original idea) not but mere minutes after I woke up. Of course, I could have either posted it or gone to work. I picked the latter option, but I'm quite sure you know which option I would have preferred. *Smiles* Of course, this fic is mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. And (as per usual), I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/wandery/blithery and unbeta'd.
Disclaimer(s): I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!
It was like dying, only it never stopped. He could feel the surge of energy underneath his bones, but he knew regeneration would never happen. It wasn't just that the toxin aborted that process –
He didn't have any left to burn away.
His blood boiled in his veins, his very bones scorched beneath the stretch of his skin – to be honest, the poison itself was almost the equivalent of regenerating endlessly – but there was to be no golden light to make him anew.
Really, if he wasn't in such agony, he would find it all funny.
Such overkill for a man who was breathing and laughing and running his way through his last life. If the Order of the Silence had just waited around a century or two, Nature would've taken care of it all for them.
Some people just had no concept of patience.
"I am not Amelia Pond."
And the woman running around with the magnificent mane of golden curls and that wicked laugh he had come to be…fond of…wasn't River Song, either. Today was just filled with people who looked like someone they really weren't. Though you'd think the interface would bother a bit with at least putting some effort in replicating the person behind the façade. Just this once, anyway.
And it seemed to be doing a piss poor job of finding someone he hadn't failed; maybe it was a rough day for everyone, TARDIS included. If he didn't feel like his insides were folding to his outsides, he might be a bit less tetchy about it all, but when a man is dying, being gracious seems to be the first thing one chucks out of the mental window.
"Please…"
Acid burned through his nerves, his body trying and failing to repair, to heal – but there was nothing to repair or heal. It was eating itself, while trying to save itself all at once. Almost two thousand years in this frame and it was no wiser than he was. He should have filed a complaint with the Loomers a long time ago, really.
Now he was getting worn down. His left heart was wildly out of rhythm and the right seemed to have lost all concept of its job. He was quite sure he wouldn't make it this time. All he needed was a little push, a little something to give renewed vigor to his being. He was undoing, unmaking (in the slowest and most painful way possible – truly, whoever came up with this plant really had a keen sense of torture), but he could go a bit further, if he could just find the right motivation. But he was so tired –
"Fish fingers and custard."
It wasn't funny, but he was laughing anyway. He was on his last legs, but he had now found the strength to move forward, borne of a promise he made to a little girl who was no longer so little.
Pain be damned: it was time to save the Ponds.