Fading

"When you wake up you'll have a mum and dad. And you won't even remember me. Well. You'll remember me a little. I'll be a story in your head. That's okay. We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? 'Cause it was, you know. It was the best."

By the time the rewind whisked him away from Amelia Pond's bedroom, the Doctor was already exhausted. His side hit something metallic and hard roughly, almost sending him careening into the floor. The brown floor with its grating and crisscrossing wires.

The console was the same blue-green that he remembered, same steam-punk feel, same timelessness. His legs wobbled, knees buckling and he leaned against one of the coral structures, trying to keep himself as upright as possible because he remembered this and knew the moment those doors would fling open.

Right now, though, the Time Lord rested, eyes finding the closing crack on the ceiling with ease. He wondered, absently, if it had followed him all this time but he'd only seen it now or if it was just appearing now because his time stream was collapsing.

"Who are you?" The voice cut through his thoughts—rough and brisk but it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. Eyelids fluttering open (not without effort), the Doctor looked upon the face of Donna Noble. Her hair was still as bright red as he remembered, and the purple, grey, and blue clothing she wore with that bulbous thing hanging from her neck. He never mentioned it, knowing that, if he had, it would've meant a stinging cheek and a cold shoulder for the rest of the day.

"S-sorry," Choking out the word, the Doctor tried to stand back up again only for his legs to collapse again, sending him back against the coral. Somewhere out there, the universe was laughing—why else would it send him to the one person he could never see again, the one who's loss hurt him almost as much as the loss of his own people?

Hands lifted up his arm and green eyes opened, blinking slowly and focusing on Donna as she guided him to lean against her. "It's alright," She rubbed his back and he stumbled when she gently pulled him towards the chair by the console. "You're safe now."

He wondered how bad he looked in order to get those words from her—but he remembered anyway.

"Donna? What's going on?"

The Doctor jumped a bit at his own voice. It was older than the one he had now and, eyes turning upward, he managed to catch the brown gaze of his younger self. Time whirled around him, then, and he almost collapsed onto the grating if Donna hadn't had such a firm grip on his arm. "I think he's hurt," she said softly and his head rolled on his neck, chin pressing down to his chest.

Another arm reached around him, hoisting him up to take him to the chair and he sat down gratefully. "I'm the Doctor," his tenth regeneration said and his eyes blinked slowly, taking in the messy brown hair, the soulful eyes, and the handsome curve to his jaw. "Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere," he answered softly and watched his other self frown and pull out the sonic screwdriver. Knowing what he'd find during the scan, the Doctor turned, instead, to look at Donna. He drank in her features like a starving man—the way her hair lit up in the lights of the TARDIS, how her shoulders were squared and her mouth pinched just a bit.

The buzz of his old sonic had him closing his eyes again, and when it stopped, he heard his younger self's breath catch before a hand was going through his hair and he groaned, leaning into those long fingers.

Manly fingers.

Long manly fingers—they cupped his chin and tilted his head up.

"Doctor?" Donna's voice was soft and he let out a shuddering breath. "What's wrong?"

"Donna—"

Reaching up, the Doctor took a hold of one of the wrists next to his neck. "She can stay," he murmured and managed to blink his eyes open again. They only made it half-way, but he could see the concern in his younger self's eyes. "Let her stay."

It took a while before the tenth regeneration nodded. "Of course."

"What's going on?"

The floor was spinning too fast for him, now, and the Doctor groaned while he fell forward. Hands caught him and lowered him to the floor, onto skinny legs and he leaned against the thin chest, hearing the double pulse in his ear—Rassilon he'd missed that noise.

"He's me," his other self spoke over his hair. "From the future. A future regeneration."

"Regeneration?" Donna joined them on the floor and he could practically feel her scowl. "What—"

The Doctor had known it was coming, but it didn't stop his flinch and hiss as time closed in around him, squeezing at his body. A hand ran over his head again, soothing him and there was no time to explain to a confused Donna Noble—something he'd pay for in the future.

"What happened to you?" his younger self practically demanded and he could hear it in his voice—who did this to you, how can I avoid it, how can I ease the pain.

This time, it couldn't be rewritten. It needed to go forward—his life laid in the hands of a red-haired girl living in Leadworth. "I'm so tired…" he murmured instead and affectionate fingers pressed against his cheek.

"I've got you," the younger Doctor sighed, resigned to the fact that he wouldn't be able to stop this. There would be no stopping it; the Pandorica would be waiting for this version of himself along with the hope that, if River could remember it, then not all of it ended. Not that time. A chin rested on the crown of his head and he breathed in the scent of time and space that clung to his younger self like a blanket. "I'm so sorry," the words were breathed over his forehead.

Taking one of the other's hands in his own, the Doctor squeezed it before his own fingers involuntarily grew limp. The headache behind his eyes pounded away again and he swallowed down the dryness in his throat. "Don't be scared," he whispered (and it could've been in Gallifreyan or English) because he knew what his other self had felt, holding him in his arms—it was a memory, tickling the back of his mind, but oh, he remembered that fear. A harsh tremor shook his body and the world was starting to blur, tunneling in.

"Shh," long arms pulled him closer against that thin chest and a cheek rested against his forehead while his nose pressed into a strong chin. "Don't talk, just… just save your strength." Hold on, the words tickled the back of his mind and he clung to them with fingernails and desperate grasps.

He knew he wasn't dying; but it still felt like he was so he clung onto his younger self and he breathed in the smell of his tenth regeneration—the one that didn't want to let go—and then he looked over at Donna and saw her sitting by his legs. Time was curling around him like a noose, ready to tear him away. The light from the crack tickled his back like a wall of needles. "Take care of her," The Doctor told himself, feeling the pull to the void and let himself be taken. Around him, the TARDIS whirred and beeped, saying her own see you soon (where else would he spend eternity except in his beloved ship?).

His eyes, though, were on Donna even as everything around him faded and he wanted to tell her that she would be the most important person in the universe one day—that she would be remembered for all time in scriptures and songs and carvings.

Instead, though, the world around him twisted and shuddered and he woke up without the knowledge of falling asleep and found himself in his bedroom, curled up on the sheets in pajamas he didn't remember changing into.

And he waited.

Review if you fancy it.

Happy reading,

Gospel