The Doctor, the man who keeps running. Out of shame.
I saw him walking there. He had the look of a much older man, although his outer appearance said otherwise. His forehead was wrinkled, in worry, despair, triumph and age. He looked as though he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. His clothing looked of someone in mourning, and his eyes were creaked at the side, as though permanently stained with the effort of not crying.
Or the effort of constantly crying. As though the pain was escaping through his closed lids, as though he could no longer contain the pain. The pain that he seemed to pass unto everyone that looked upon his deep, sorrowful eyes. I felt that I had to look away from this man, the terror and grief that was consuming him to his core would soon consume the entire world around him.
He looked as much a man as anyone. At a loss for words; A complete wreck. Like the world had punished him for something that he felt he didn't deserve. He looked dead.
An empty, lonely man in a shell of much the same prescription. Lost, helpless, alone. I wanted to go up to him, comfort him in any small way possible. But I couldn't find the words.
A simple 'Hello' felt like I was prying into his despair, and I didn't want to be upfront and disturb him.
Asking 'How are you?' felt like I was taunting him, pointing out the obvious and rubbing his problems right into his face.
Leaving him alone felt like the best thing I could do in this situation, but somehow I couldn't bear to leave this man here, a broken and empty shell, endlessly wandering. I didn't want to do anything too drastic, I just wanted to show him that some people still cared about him. That the world didn't just continue to revolve and forget him.
He was breaking me heart for some reason, this strange sombre man in his top hat and bow tie. He looked like he wanted to end it all, end it all right there, just so the pain could end. This man had an essence of something about him, something I had seen before but just couldn't place. Looking so pained and helpless, watching suffering. Now I knew how the Doctor had felt when we were on the Valiant during the year that never was.
I went straight up to him, squaring my face and putting on the most genuine smile I could manage for this poor tormented soul. I lightly tapped his arm and smiled right up into his face. He looked bewildered but there was a softened expression in his eyes only seconds later which confirmed that he had got everything that I had wanted to tell him. But there was something else. Something I wasn't placing.
"It's alright, you're not alone." I peck him on the check and walk off into the harsh winds of London in the fall.
I was walking and thinking about the mourner in the boy tie when it hit me. Those eyes. Those deep, unfathomable eyes that had healed worlds and destroyed them, watched stars explode and reunited families. He was the Earth's hero and they didn't know.
As fast as I could I ran back to the spot where I had seen him. The leaves and trees were the same, but he wasn't. The ghostly shell of some new face had disappeared into thin air. It wasn't his Time Machine; I could work that out from the leaves. He was just gone.
I walked away from the spot, excited, scared and so terribly upset. If those eyes, his eye's had cried that much, then to be human didn't seem fair. To look as human as anyone, and yet to carry the weight of worlds and races on his back, that man couldn't carry anymore pain. Yet somehow he did. And his conscious couldn't hold anymore. He didn't have the capacity to hold his own pain.
With vast floods of tears spilling out my eyes, I sat down on a bench and called the most popular number on my speed dial.
"Hi Martha, its Tish, I have something I need to tell you."