A/N: Here you go! As promised, I'm actually updating. Heh heh…
I don't own Doctor Who yet
Amy was sitting in the control room, chatting with Rory about that rug, when the Doctor walked in, looking fairly disgruntled. He would, seeing as he had slept on the floor last night. Speaking of which, how exactly did he even get on the floor? Last he remembered, he had been explaining his amazing poison-resistance powers to the Ponds when…oh. It would be just his luck to not remember his madness. The best ideas come from madness, for example did-
"-you know that the last Great Queen of Una Cagna II was insane for the last four years of her rule?" The Doctor said, finishing his thought aloud. "Those were the best years of her reign, actually, and she stopped countless armies from invading!" He then noticed the Ponds giving him odd looks.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" He ran a hand over his face, just in case.
"Doctor, you have quite a bit of explaining to do." Amy said, "What happened last night?"
"That, my dear Pond, is exactly what I want to know." The Doctor said, looking at her. He couldn't tell if she was worried or angry. Both ideas scared him a bit.
Amy looked taken aback. "What do you mean by that?" She said, raising her voice. "Did you forget about your midnight arithmetic?"
"That's exactly what I did. You see, even with my amazing memory, since the poison was designed to alder the brain, that's exactly what it did, only because my memory is stronger—it ought to be, after one thousand years—it affected me on a smaller scale. To summarize: I don't remember a thing about last night!" He finished gleefully, looking at the couple for any hint of comprehension.
"S-so, you're telling me," Rory said, speaking for the first time since the Doctor woke up, "You have short-term memory loss, and you don't remember anything about—say, Susan, or the counting?"
"What's this about counting?" He asked, completely avoiding the Susan problem. "Did I accidentally disprove string theory in front of the President again?"
"Again?" and "No, you numbskull," Amy and Rory started, cutting each other off. Amy shot Rory a look and finished. "You were tallying on a chalkboard at—let me emphasize—three AM, raving about children and how 'they didn't deserve it' and such."
The Doctor considerable paled and his happy demeanor melted away. Amy almost felt bad. Almost.
"Show me." He said quietly, and Amy grabbed his arm and led him to the room she had found him in. Crates labeled in High-Gallifreyan were in one corner, in others were high-school textbooks dating back to the sixties. The Doctor looked shocked to be in this room, like he didn't even know it existed. Maybe he didn't, Amy thought.
"Where… why are we…" The Doctor started, until he saw the chalkboard. 2.87 billion tallies. "Oh." He looked like he had been punched in the gut.
"You woke me up early, you owe me an explanation." She demanded, giving no regard to the Doctor's obvious discomfort. "Well?"
"I-uh…" the Doctor started, still transfixed with the room. He was reaching towards a physics textbook, but holding back like it would burn him if he touched it. "This is—was—deleted from the TARDIS. At least I thought…" He couldn't seem to form a sentence, and Amy reveled in making her Doctor speechless.
"Whose room was this, Doctor?" Amy quietly inquired. He finally opened the book, and he looked at the publishing date.
"1963…" he trailed off, his voice barely above a whisper. He swallowed thickly and delicately put the book down, trying to leave the room exactly as he found it. He looked around again, drinking in the room.
"1963? Like what it says on the TARDIS?" Rory asked. They both jumped, they hadn't noticed him come in, but he had brought tea.
"Yes…right." the Doctor said absently, he probably hadn't even heard the question. Typical.
"Doctor, was this- did you have kids who lived here?" Amy asked, taking note of the school books. They were old, but they looked similar to hers when she was…fifteen?
"It appears," the Doctor said, blowing off her question as per usual. "In my maddened state I counted the…the children…" He cleared his throat and mumbled something unintelligible.
"Sorry, what?" said Rory, reminding them of his presence. He handed the Doctor a cup of tea, which he accepted without a word.
The Doctor inhaled deeply. "The children on Gallifrey, Ponds, that's what I was counting. Because-you see, unlike you humans, I remember." He said all of this in one breath, almost too quick for them to hear.
"R-remember? What do you mean by…?" The Doctor cut Rory off.
"I remember their names, every last one. I remember the children who died because of me! Some of them weren't even 20! They were young, and innocent, and they were living in peace, until I," He slammed his fist on one of the crates, rattling the teacups. "killed them," he finished, losing all of his strength and falling to the floor.
"2.87 billion children are dead," He looked up at them, and his eyes were so old and full of sorrow. "because of me."
Amy and Rory stared at him, slack-jawed. "Oh." The breathed simultaneously. They couldn't imagine remembering the faces, names, lives like that. It must be torture.
The Doctor looked up in surprise when he felt two bodies pressed next to him. Amy and Rory sat on either side of him. Amy leaned her head on his shoulder, and Rory put his hand on his other.
"It's okay, Raggedy Man." Amy said softly. "You saved the universe, and so many children since."
The Doctor was shocked at their comfort, so they sat there in comfortable silence. A Roman Centurion, The girl who waited, and an eleven thousand year-old alien, knowing they wouldn't rather be anywhere else.
A/N: Lazy ending, I know. I think I got what I wanted though. That was Susan's room, and I think I might add a bonus chapter about the Doctor's crazy ranting. Just a little happy to get over this shitstorm.
Tell me what you think in the Reviews. Yay or Nay?
Later Bitches
