Chapter 1
The Doctor smiled ruefully at his own reflection in the Time Rotor. He'd just dropped off River again. Back to adventuring on his own, for a while at least. Well, not entirely on his own. His lovely blue box would always be there for him. Maybe he would sit down and actually get that telepathic circuit for her working. Since he wanted to be able to talk to her again, his gorgeous TARDIS. She'd said some things to him while they'd been working on building the console to chase after House that he'd ignored for the sake of their time limit, but now really needed answers about. Well, not really needed. It would be quite nice, but it wasn't necessary. He had a feeling that the answers would come when Sexy decided they would and not a moment before. It didn't hurt to try though.
Flashback
Sexy had been bringing over a panel when she suddenly dropped it, clutching at her side again, and stopping mid-sentence.
"Kidneys again?" They're really quite bad at functioning sometimes. Ask the alcoholics." He commented quietly, moving to her and picking up the panel.
"Not really. I just stopped concentrating on containing myself for a moment. This body just doesn't fit as well as the other body I've been in, you know. I fit quite perfectly in her. She was really comfortable. And pretty. You thought so too, if I recall."
The Doctor stilled from his work, not knowing how to respond. So he went with avoidance, as usual, working quicker to seem nonchalant. "You were never in her body; she absorbed the Vortex, not you."
"And I'm part of the Vortex, you silly Time Lord. If any other TARDISs still existed, she would have gotten quite crowded and blown her casing clean off immediately. Luckily, it was just us two in there. I don't think my sisters would have been as keen to help her as I am. Just because she absorbed Time it doesn't mean she knows how to handle being a multi-dimensional being. I help her deal with it."
Again, avoidance. "You're messing up your tenses again, Sexy." The TARDIS stopped and tilted her head, then shook it and continued hooking up wires.
"No I didn't. You're just not listening. But as usual, you'll get your answers someday. She's just not done yet and I'm not going to let you break her this time, so you have to wait. You're ever so bad at keeping the people that I make for you. Now pass me that lever, I know just where to put it when I'm back in my box. It'll look quite lovely on me." And that part of their conversation was over.
The Doctor shook his head and pushed that topic out of his mind. He quietly guided his box into the Vortex again, listening to the quiet hum of her engines as she settled into her home. He let her drift, instead of anchoring them to one point in the four dimensions. She sometimes liked to chase down Time Agents through the Vortex like a puppy after a mailman intruded on their yard. The hum turned into a somewhat angry sounding rumble and tossed him off his feet with a firm shake. The Doctor smiled as he picked himself up. "Sorry Sexy, you can play with them however you like." He called to the ceiling as he made his way to his room. To work on the telepathic circuit that he was definitely only using because he enjoyed his TARDIS's company.
He ambled down the hallways, stopping in a few rooms to grab a few things he might need, some tea, fish custard, various gizmos and a couple bananas. The only time he ever made any progress on the circuit was when he was eating bananas for some reason. He was relatively sure it was her pulling a cosmic prank on him. That's the sort of thing she would do. Because it definitely wasn't because he was happier and calmer when working on it with a reminder of her sitting next to him. Nope. Definitely not that. Goodness, this him was good at denial. Three hundred and forty years' worth of practice paid off.
The Time Lord sighed, placed his tray of food and gadgets on his desk and flopped heavily onto his bed. Then sat up, reached under his bed and pulled out her pillow. The TARDIS kept it smelling like her, despite all the years she'd been gone. He hugged it to his chest and flopped onto his side. There was no way he was going to be able to not think about her at this point. This might even be a record for how long he'd avoided it after dropping off River. And now he felt bad. He was a terrible husband.
He'd only allowed himself to get involved with her even slightly romantically out of spite and jealousy. And because it was supposed to happen, but that was barely worth a thought now after all the years he'd know Melody Pond. He'd had a bad night before he saw her that day. His thoughts had headed down a dark path indeed. Raging at himself for never being able to say it to her and now she gets her happily ever after and he's stuck here without her. Again. But it's worse now, because he made her choose. And she'd chosen other him. HUMAN him. Not that he would have let her come anyways, but still. It was the principle of the matter. He'd let himself have it that entire night, so when he dropped River off the next day and she leaned in to kiss him for the second time in his experience, he decided to go for it. It was supposed to happen and he wanted to be happy. To show her that he could be happy without her, to prove that he didn't need her anymore. And when he left River standing there looking thoroughly snogged and confused, he went at himself again.
Guilt seemed to be his never ending friend, this regeneration. He didn't love River, they'd only met a handful of times in his time line, didn't trust her as far as this skinny him could throw her, and she'd killed somebody. Somebody he'd began to suspect at the time, might be him. And then Demon's Run and then she had killed him, and then they'd gotten married, and he supposed he did kind of love her. But it was a much quieter love than last time. He still couldn't say the words, and he knew River didn't understand why and got mad about it quite often. She had gotten madder when even she couldn't convince the TARDIS to open up her archives to find out more about his ninth and tenth selves and had put together somehow that the two things had something to do with each other. She'd been quite young then, during that argument, only a few years into this regeneration, a few months after he'd married her.
She'd since learned that those years were ones he would never talk about. Not even to Amy, much to the surprise of both women. The pair had pushed the issue off those years for a good week before his temper snapped and he yelled at them. They'd both backed off since then. He'd eventually explained a bit about Donna to River though because she'd recognized her in the Library, but still. He never especially liked being reminded of her, but when River was around, it just made him feel worse. They kissed and flirted up a storm that Jack would be proud of, but he had the feeling Jack might punch him if he ever saw their storm. And he'd be right to. Another reason he studiously avoided Cardiff and London.
Oh yeah, Jack. Maybe he should go visit him, see what he was up to. She'd come up of course, but if he avoided it enough, Jack would most likely drop it to avoid hurting him. Jack was nice like that. He'd of gone and seen him earlier, but he didn't think Rory would much appreciate seeing Amy throw herself at the Captain. Or have the Captain throw himself at Rory. Both were quite likely scenarios. But in all honesty, it was just because he didn't want to tell his wife's mother about the woman he was still desperately in love with that was most definitely not River. He didn't think that conversation would go well.
He sighed and buried his face in her pillow and inhaled deeply. Her scent seared through his lungs and he concentrated on imprinting it in his mind, so he'd never forget it. It didn't work, it never did for long, but he tried. He only allowed himself this once every few decades after all. He just laid there breathing quietly for a few minutes focusing on her scent while keeping the memories from swarming him. He was even starting to get good at it. Practice makes perfect, he supposed.
The Doctor eventually got bored of forcing himself not to think, so he sat up, carefully replaced the pillow and went to his work table to fiddle with the telepathic circuit some more. And ate a banana.
I feel like I might be going somewhere brilliant with this. But it's probably terrible, since I have no beta. If you actually like it, feel free to review. Or if you don't. Any feedback is welcome. Even the mean kind. Though I prefer kindly worded constructive criticism. (:
