He paused for a second. He considered carefully how to start. But just as he was about to continue she interrupted him. "But why can't I remember anything? Did I hit my head? Or…. I don't know! Just, why can't I remember?!"
"It won't make any sense to you unless I give you some background. Ok?" She seemed frustrated but nodded none-the-less. "Ok. Thank you." He moved away and turned to her so he could talk to her face-to-face. But as he opened his mouth he paused, why couldn't he just show her? I'd have to do it in three parts, but it should work. He was worried that he would damage her mind even more but he had little choice. Explaining everything out loud would take too long. And time, wasn't a luxury that came in abundance right now.
"Here, I can show you." He said as he reached for her head. She recoiled at first but he reassured her that everything was ok. He cupped her head in-between his hands. He slowly brought her head forward until their brows touched. He closed his eyes. She studied his face wondering if this man was crazy. He seemed to be intently focusing when there was a stab of pain in her head and then, white.
All of a sudden, she wasn't in the room. She was somewhere else. She wasn't exactly sure what was happening. But she felt like she was waiting for something. She had the demeanor of one waiting for a job interview. Then, she suddenly knew. She was inside his head. Or was he in hers? She wasn't sure but she knew that this was not normal. Who was this man? Then the answer came to her. She already knew. This man was The Doctor. And his past unwound in-front of her. As if she was watching a movie. A movie of someone's life. He was born into one of the great houses of Gallifrey. A Time Lord. But that was all she knew. He seemed to black out the entire first part of his life. Like a classified report. With details blotted out. Then she saw him again. So young. Younger than he was now. His eyes were full of wonder and reserve. Like he was hiding something. She could hear him being asked a question.
"Who are you?" She knew that voice. She knew that she didn't before but now, she knew. The President. But it wasn't her knowledge. It was his! She was watching his memories!
"Lord Doctor." Was the reply that echoed through her mind and she could feel it as he did when he chose. Not just a name but he had decided to be The Doctor then and there.
"Doctor who?"
"Just, The Doctor."
"Doctor who?"
"Just The Doctor." And back and forth this went. He was asked and he answered thirteen times. There was a significance about the question being asked thirteen times. Again as she reached out for the information, it came to her as if it was her memories she was retrieving. She knew why. The significance of what she just saw. No, the significance of what she just experienced. Thirteen times for each version. He was promising to be The Doctor every time his face became a different face. He would always be The Doctor. Even when he wasn't who he was. He will always be The Doctor. From now to the end of thirteen.
Then more experiences filled her up and she experienced them as he did. She was him and yet she wasn't. She was taking part of his life and yet she was just observing. She wept when his friends died. She cheered when everybody lived. She wept when he changed and the new Doctor had his turn at the stage. When his friend Koschei was young. When he was an idealist. When they played together. When they went to the academy together. When he saw Koschei try and fight the injustice of their Lord President and The Doctor joined him. When everything went south and Koschei became more radical. She cried as she watched The Doctor's heart break when he had to stop his friend. And she cried when he did, when his friend was no longer the man he was. When he went from Koschei to being The Master. Then she watched as he changed. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, black, ten, eleven. Eleven faces. Black? Why was this face blocked out? Then she knew that she would know later. That it was a tale for later. She watched this amazing man become a god. She watched him do the impossible. She watched him take the steps no one else could. He would save worlds. Universes. Systems. Individuals. Everybody. No, not everybody. People died. People who followed him, he buried. He buried his friends. He buried strangers. He even buried his enemies. This was a man who would begin to hate his life. Yet for the sake of everyone else, he would push on. She saw his enemies. Daleks. Cybermen. Nestene. Beings of pure thought. Humans. Slytheen. Angels. Master. And so many others. But there was always the man of mercy. Giving them a chance. And they repeatedly ignored him. Their battle became personal. They tried to hurt the man form Gallifrey. They killed his friends. They killed his people. And they killed his favored species. Humans. She saw his love for humanity and so did his enemies. They all tried to end The Doctor through the humans. But it only made him fight all the harder.
She saw and experienced this all at once and yet, she seemed to watch it all in order. The man pulled away and looked into her eyes. She realized they had only been sitting there for less than a minute. Something tapped on her leg. She looked down and on her pants was a single dot or moisture. She reached up to her face and her hand came away wet. She had been crying. She looked back into the man's eyes and saw everything he had shared with him. He had shared much, but there was still the large black spot from one of his past selves. What is he hiding? She couldn't get that part off of her mind.
She was still dwelling on his secrecy when he reached for her head again. This time she did not recoil, but leaned in eagerly. Knowing something she was ignorant to before-hand was exhilarating and peaceful. For right now she knew nothing of the past and she knew this man could help fill in the blanks.
Again, their foreheads touched. Again he closed his eyes and concentrated. But this time, the shock was minimal to her. She was ready this time and eagerly entered his mind. She wanted, no, she needed the information he had. She needed to know what was going on with her .
There was something different this time. As he pulled her into his mind, it was dark. It wasn't bright like before. His mind was dark. Dark and closed off. She was scared. What was going on? Then she saw. A war. Billions died. Entire systems burned. And there was no end. A war that couldn't end. She saw The Doctor. No. He wasn't The Doctor. Not anymore. That was very clear in his mind. And she knew that this was the dark part of his life that he had blocked from her earlier. But unlike before, he blocked many, many memories from her. Instead of allowing her to see most of his experiences, he only gave her a few. She knew he was drawn into the war with little choice. She knew what Rassilon was planning. She knew what The Doctor had to do. And she knew what the Daleks were doing. The man from Gallifrey allowed her to experience the encompassing fear of the time-lock. She needed to fully understand the complete hopelessness of the war. Besides that there was only one other thing The Doctor showed her. But it wasn't a full memory. It was just the emotions from a memory. Fear. Hatred. Sorrow. Such great sorrow. All pointed towards an entity unknown to her. But The Doctor knew. What was it? But as more feeling from this particular memory began to fill her, she began to panic. What was this horrible thing? What could possibly fill the man from Gallifrey with so much horror? She pulled away suddenly. Shaking. Whatever it was, she didn't want to know. She didn't want to know anything more about what she had just seen and felt. She began to sob uncontrollably. The tears came and continued to flow faster and faster. More and more. Until she felt like she would drown from the great sorrow she felt. She wished he had never shown her anything about that awful war.
She felt his arms around her and she looked up into his face. She blinked away the tears so she could see more clearly. "Why did you show me that?" She coughed out.
"Because that's how you lost your memory." She was so confused she couldn't speak. But she did know one thing. That if that, thing, was reszponsible for her memory loss then it was really bad. What she did know was that it was born out of the Time War. But somehow it had escaped from the time-lock. And that was bad.
"What was that thing? What could be so horrible that I lost my memory from it?" She asked. There was a long pause where the man said nothing. He just looked at her with those sad eyes of his. Full of pity. Full of regret. She was about to burst into another round of weeping when he spoke.
"It's called The Nightmare Child. It was an entity that was awoken by the Daleks in the hope that it would turn against the Time Lords. But it didn't. It was a force the Daleks couldn't control. It was on its own side. All it did was throw more chaos into the center of the war. It worked better for the Daleks. They are masters of chaos. Even if it wasn't helping them directly. It was still doing more harm to the Time Lords than it was to them. 'Necessary sacrifices.' Is what I heard one Dalek say. They didn't care how many they lost as long as the Time Lords were destroyed." After this he became lost in memory and his voice trailed off.
"You said that it was awoken…" Evelyn edged him on to continue.
"Yes." Replied The Doctor. "It was, is, an ancient entity that was subdued by the founders of modern Gallifrey. As Rassilon and Omega were experimenting with the first bits of the untempered schism there came through a creature. It was very weak and already horribly injured. This was because it had fallen into the time vortex without any shielding but it was so powerful that it lived. But still it attacked. It took both hands of Omega, all the power of Rassilon, and even the Pythia was there. The Pythia knew that if they didn't help then all of Gallifrey would be destroyed. And so The Nightmare Child brought old enemies together. With the combined might of the Pythia and her followers, Rassilon, Omega, and the hands of Omega, The Nightmare Child was defeated. But only just. If it had not been already so weak there would've been no stopping it. They agreed it was too dangerous to keep on Gallifrey. The took it to a remote system where the Pythia and her followers spent weeks weaving their Psychic abilities into The Nightmare Child's mind to keep it asleep for all eternity. They could not kill it so they did the next best thing. And as I said, the Daleks hoped it would fight for them. But it had no agenda but its own." There was silence for a while as Evelyn took in what she had just learned from this man. Until finally she broke it.
"But then how did I lose my memory?"
"It is such a powerful being that weaker minds can't handle it. I've seen people's minds simply burn from catching a glimpse of it. Humans don't have really strong minds, but you have a stronger mind than most. You were luck all you lost was your memory. You could've simply died."
"So you're saying I just looked at it?"
"Yes." It was hard from her to wrap her head around the idea of how simply looking at a creature could cause so much damage. She had an urge to remember what she had seen but quickly rejected this idea due to what had already happened to her. She looked into The Doctor's eyes to see what he was thinking. He was looking at her as if she was a puzzle that needed solving. She didn't like this at all. It made her feel like something was very wrong with her. Which was true. She had just lost her memory.
All of a sudden there was the searing pain in her head again. But this time it had come back with a vengeance. She began to scream. The pain was like white-hot needles pushing through her skull with someone hammering repeatedly on her head.
The Doctor jumped towards her and placed his hands on her head in an attempt to put her to sleep. If he wasn't careful he would hurt her mind beyond repair. After a few beats she passed out and he sighed in relief. He gently laid her down back on the couch and let her rest. She had absorbed a lot of information that wasn't hers. She needed her rest. He would let her rest as long as she could. He would tell her the rest tomorrow. There was much more that needed to be said. For now, he would keep watch.