Chapter1: What The Doctor Fears
"Are you sure you don't want to stay for a bit longer, Doctor?" Jack asked.
The Doctor had just saved the precious human's Earth yet again—with the help of Torchwood this time. Cybermen it'd been. Torchwood had been outnumbered and outgunned, so Jack had decided to call the Doctor. The Doctor had gladly accepted, though he was
a bit reluctant to trust Torchwood, considering their history with him. But he knew he could trust Jack Harkness, couldn't he?
In the end, the crisis had been averted and the world, namely Cardiff, was safe once again because of the last of the Time Lords.
Jack stared at the Doctor silently, contemplating what he was thinking; behind those deep, brown eyes.
The Doctor seemed to consider it for a moment, but quickly brushed it off.
"Nah," the Doctor said with his usual smile, "Plenty of things to be done, saving the human race—you humans always seem to need me. Busy life, last of the Time Lords."
"Yes, well, take care of yourself, Doc." Jack could see the exhaustion behind the Time Lord's eyes, but knew better than to keep him in one place for too long—the Doctor hated the feeling of being trapped.
"No need to worry about me, Jack. I'm always alright."
The pain in his eyes betrayed him.
"Yes, well, must be off. Allons-y!"
The Doctor shut the door to the Tardis before Jack had the chance to reply.
"Goodbye...Doctor," Jack muttered to himself.
As the Tardis dematerialized, Jack knew that something was very wrong with the Doctor.
The Doctor entered the Tardis, subconsciously forgetting to throw his brown overcoat onto the branch like he usually did. He ran to the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers, setting the coordinates to the time vortex. He sighed, leaning against
the Tardis' wall, in thought. For once, the Doctor didn't have a destination in mind to go to. In truth, he was lost.
"Lonely, Theta?"
The Doctor's eyes darted quickly up to the Tardis doors in the direction of the voice, for them to rest upon the last thing he expected. Himself. The Doctor lifted his head up from resting on the wall. He remained silent.
"Though, one would expect that to be the case, as often as you run. Stopped having companions after journey's end—'too dangerous.' Right, Doctor? Does it break your hearts to watch someone not quite you, yet too much like yourself kiss your precious Rose Tyler?"
the impostor spoke the name too much like his own voice, but in a way that didn't suit the Doctor.
"How're you here?" the Doctor asked, changing the subject, "Where's Rose?"
"Vortex manipulator, don't pretend you're not clever." he answered.
"How'd you get your hands on one? And don't tell me that there's a Captain Jack Harkness in that universe as well." The Doctor seriously doubted that any version of the Captain would just hand over his manipulator to anyone, even himself.
"We have our ways, right, Doctor?" he teased.
The Doctor glared.
"Oh, please. Don't try the whole 'boring my eyes into your very soul' look. It doesn't work on yourself," regardless, he answered, "Let's just say I 'borrowed' it from a certain River Song."
"Borrowed? River? More importantly, why would you need a vortex manipulator? I gave you and Rose a Tardis coral to grow your own." The Doctor recalled.
"Yes, well, Tardis' are stubborn creatures, they don't always obey," he spoke the word as if it had a foul taste on his tongue.
"Of course they don't, that's what makes them alive." The Doctor was beginning to not like this version of himself very well.
"Precisely the point. Machines are meant to be programmed, to be controlled. Not to disobey their pilot because of emotions." That didn't sound at all like the Doctor.
"The Time Lords didn't build Tardis' to be controlled, they were meant to be sentient for a reason, and not for submission. We know that." The Doctor explained.
"And what would you know of the Time Lords? They're all gone, remember?" the impostor had found where it hurt. And he knew it.
The Doctor's eyes looked to the ground, far away, lost in a nightmare. In pain.
So he poked at the wound, "'There was a war.' The planet burned to ash. Billions dead, and who better to push the button than the pacifist?"
The Doctor stepped back, shook his head, and choked, "No."
"Yes, oh yes," he said quietly, stepping forward, and continued, "All of them, burning; all to hell. Damned."
The Doctor stepped back again, tears almost in his eyes, "Stop it."
"And it's all," the other 'Doctor' reached out with his right hand to the Doctor's head, stepping closer, making the Doctor step back into the wall.
"Where's Rose?" The Doctor tried to shrink away from the hand.
"Your."
"What've you done to Rose Tyler?" The Doctor tried in one last pathetic plea to change the subject.
"Fault!" The meta crisis placed both hands on either sides of the Doctor's head.
The Doctor screamed in pain and entered his nightmare.
The Doctor was on Gallifrey, and it hurt.
The Doctor clutched his head, feeling every Time Lord psychic connection being ripped from his mind, and the comfort of others in his mind left him. Alone, and quiet in his head. Like the day it had happened.
The Doctor couldn't help but fall to the ash filled ground, curling into a ball, and began to cry quietly to himself, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
And on that day, he had never been truly sorrier.
No one's ever seen you cry, he heard his own voice say though it wasn't him. But he couldn't tell the difference, I can. I can make you bawl, like the lonely child you are. I can make you hurt. You're not invincible, no. You're weak. And you need love. So, so bad. But you're too afraid to ask for it.
The Doctor was shivering, though his head was actually burning. With every word.
"I'm sorry," was the only thought he could process, because it was always there, in the back of his dark mind. The Doctor was always sorry.
Because deep down, in your empty hearts, you think you don't deserve it. And it would only take one so much to push you over the edge. And I'm that one.
Pain coursed through his every being, but nothing could compare to when the scene of Gallifrey changed rapidly through everything he had ever regretted or been sorry for. Everyone who had ever died for him. Every nightmare. People who he had let get too
close. Who he had loved.
It's like how Timothy Latimer said, you're like fire, Doctor. Anyone who cares or loves you, when they get too close, they burn. But you're not wonderful. And that's why the one thing the Doctor fears...
Is himself.
Fear raced through his hearts as he woke up to the image of himself above his own form, who reached out to move his trembling hands from his head, so the other 'Doctor' could reach to his chest, towards his left, franticly beating heart.
But he let him and whimpered through each shake his body made because of his silent crying, "I'm sorry."
The copy looked straight at the other's brown terror filled eyes and whispered cruelly into his ear as he touched the heart, "I know."
His left heart stopped.