Title: I Burn Eternal
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: All owned by the Beeb. (Except for Crystal, she belongs to me)

'The cat could see that the man was weeping... But there was nobody he could tell.'

From 'Human Nature' by Paul Cornell-Chapter Fourteen: Cat Heaven

Her mind was filled with vast doors that lead into her own memories. Some doors are closed for reasons that you wouldn't understand, well at least not yet anyway she told him. He eventually found a door that opened, it lead to an alleyway. He watched from a distance and spotted Crystal in the alleyway, shivering and cowering. She was wearing just a medical garb. She was totally aware all around her to everything going on.

Then he spotted someone going her way, her attention quickly shifted, but she did not move.

Then he recognized who the figure was, it was him, well him in his eighth form. His attention was shifted down to Crystal. 'Hello' he greeted her politely. He crouched down until he was eye level with her. 'I'm the Doctor' he told her reaching out his hand in friendship. 'My name is Crystal' she told him and reached out her hand to meet his own.

'Why are you here?' he asked her. 'It's a long story' she told him adding 'I don't think you would have the time or patience to hear it'

'Oh, there's always time' he replied with a grin.

At that moment the image faded and the Doctor broke contact with her, he brought his hands away from her face.

She looked at him curiously for a minute before looking away. She wondered whether or not he believed her now. 'If you like, I could show you around' she told him. He looked at her and nodded. 'Ok' he replied.

Many of the rooms were unused, centuries old dust covered boxed that filled those rooms, a bit like some of the rooms in the TARDIS he mused to himself. Some were filled with ancient scrolls and books that were extraordinarily old. What was funny was that there was a third floor, the Doctor could clearly see, bur Crystal never even mentioned it. When they got to the end of the rooms on the second floor he asked her.

'What's on the third floor?'

'Ah, well I was just getting to that, there is a room on the third floor that has a door designed to take a retinal and bodily scan of you only' she told him. 'How do you know?' he asked her. 'Because you helped me build it' she told him.

She hesitated and looked away from him, her eyes became distant, afraid and preoccupied with something. 'Crystal, are you ok?' he asked her. Her attention shot back to him. 'Fine and dandy, never better' she told him. He started to move towards the lifts but suddenly noticed that Crystal was not going with him. He looked back at her. 'Well aren't you coming with me' he called back to her. 'Oh yeah definably, just give me a few minutes and I'll be up after you, you go on ahead, it's the gold door with a silver trim and Gallifreyan symbols, you cannot miss it' she told him.

He walked down the dimly lit corridor; there nestled at the very end of it, on the left hand side was the door. There was both old high Gallifreyan and contemporary Gallifreyan written on the doors, both revealing his true name. He stood away from the door, just looking at it. It was defiantly designed by him; the body scanner would have been top of the line back on his home as would be the design for the retinal scan. The technology was Gallifreyan too, but manipulated for his use. He walked over to it, standing just outside of the scan range, and then an image came to him, something in this technology that gave off a visual psychic residual energy that he picked up.

An image flashed in front of his eyes, it was the same one which he had seen in Crystal's mind, but with a little bit more information and from his perspective.

'I'm being hunted to be recaptured because of what I am, I was tested on by a group calling themselves Torchwood, my genetic makeup changed, sure I seem human but inside in my mind, I know what I am' she told him.

'And what exactly are you?' he asked her. 'Not human, well not fully, not anymore. I am part beast' she told him.

And then the image finished.

He found himself leaving the door and running down to the second floor, but Crystal couldn't be found and then he ran down to the main hall where Phoenix was still perched.

'Where is she?' he found himself asking it. In the cell just over there, I wouldn't open it though; she's having one of her turns it replied. At that moment a roar erupted from the direction of the cell. 'I'll go' he told it adding as he walked back to the TARDIS. 'Tell Crystal that I just can't do it'

Don't turn your back on her again Halfling, I know what you keep hidden deep down in your hearts, Crystal knew it also, but she would never tell anyone what she knows about you, she's that sort of a person it called out to him. He turned and faced it angrily. 'I left that side behind me, I had to forget' he told it. Ah, but it's that very thing which defines you, makes you a stronger person, certain individuals helped you see that Phoenix replied. 'But it still didn't help them, I couldn't help them, they all died, left me alone and got trapped elsewhere' he told it. Don't you think that I don't know, every night and day me and Crystal felt it, felt your planet die, we both mourned it, but it wasn't your fault, there was nothing else that you could do, they had control of the citadel, you had to do it. I watched you from the distance and kept tabs on you. But Crystal feels it the most, the images and the emotions were and still are too much for her, which along with her violent becoming of what she is worsened her condition. The beast inside her is there, I help her suppress it, but I can't be there all the time and it is then that it pounces her and takes her over 'Like now' he surmised. Exactly, she has a constant battle with it. You're not the only one with a soul in conflict it told him adding Now, don't mind Crystal, I'll keep a close eye on her. You have a room to get into He sighed and nodded in reply.

He made his way up to the third floor. He found himself defying his Time Lord intuition. He got into the room; the door did only work for him. The room inside was dusty, like the other unused rooms, not opened in years. On the shelves there were books of Time Lord history and other such things. On the desk there were things from his childhood in particular, he thought that he had lost; he had gone looking for them, there were only small things but were of sentimental value to him. There was a table on his left hand side and on it was a box and beside that were two flat discs with what seemed to be a large button in the centre. He flexed his hand over the buttons and then pressed down on one, it was a holoprojector.

The image that appeared was Crystal. She began to talk.

'Doctor, if you are getting this message, then you came back. I don't expect you to remember much, well at least not yet. Inside the box is an orb used to wipe your memory just in case you were captured in the Time War. It is sad that I have to loose you in a sense; over the last year I had come to regard you as one of my closest friends. I would like to put it on record that I don't like the fact that you're doing this; however you convinced me that it was ok and that you would come back to me eventually. If you are getting this message, the time has come to take your memories back. The danger must now have passed'

'Goodbye my friend, until I see you again'

With that the message switched off.

He turned on the second holo-projector to find that it contained an image of his eighth self. The image spoke.

'In this grave time, there has arisen the need to have my memory wiped. Crystal is as much a friend as she is an ally, but it has come to the Time Lord's attention that the Daleks have acquired mind probe technology. That could endanger everyone in the known orbital systems if she captured. We will probably never fully be free of the Daleks, I recognise that. Their creator made sure of that. But if you are watching this, then obviously I survived, at what cost I dare not try and comprehend. This has to be done. In the box there is an orb with your missing memories. The TARDIS will recognise when it is time to come back, I have faith in her. To my future selves I must stress highly to you, never forget what you are in your hearts, even if time has been cruel to you'

With that the image faded.

He found himself standing over the box. His hand hovering over it as if trying to sense something of him, but instead felt nothing. He opened the box, and there was the orb as the image of him had said.