Thank you for your patience, everyone! Your reviews mean the world to me, so do let me know what you're thinking. Happy reading!
*I do not own Doctor Who, the TARDIS, or anything even remotely that cool.
Interminable nothingness greeted him, wrapping its silken, ethereal arms about his person in a dark embrace as if to say, "Welcome home." He knew nothing and no one, not even himself. He ceased to exist for an eternity, lost in the wilds of an unstructured non-reality, spiraling beyond the edges of all previously explored territory. Each atom of his prior being had been shredded upon sinking into the void, the pieces cast into a roaring silence like a disintegrating meteor as it falls through a fiery atmosphere.
A deep azure blueness, foreign yet familiar, burgeoned from a central point, thickening into a nebulous cloud that gradually solidified. It took on a humanoid shape, the meteoric shards joining together to reform that which never was yet had always been.
In a span of time that could never be accounted for, the Doctor sped back into the spectral plane, slamming onto a broad, flat surface. His entire system awoke with a jarring finality, his hearts sputtering online to beat with unexpected ferocity. Sweat ran from his pores in rivers, pooling beneath his splayed hands in a slick resurgence of life. He ripped his eyes open and a cock-eyed view of the world screamed into focus. He gasped violently as terror spiked through his system and alerted him of unseen danger.
Scrabbling madly, the Doctor used every vestige of available strength to pull himself upright. He staggered back, his equilibrium still sub par, and surveyed his surroundings with utter cluelessness.
"What-" His voiced quavered, the air caught in his windpipe. He swallowed thickly, his lungs still rebooting. It was a curious sensation. Rarely did he have occasion to stop and capture his breath, and in that moment he decided it was beyond atrocious.
"Right, then," he croaked, shakily attempting to straighten his bow tie. When looking for assurance, he constantly readjusted the neck piece. It remained sadly askew, evidence of how truly undone he was. He took stock of his whereabouts.
"I am not where I should be," he murmured, noting the barren room he occupied. "Then again, where should I be? I haven't the foggiest."
The Doctor stood in a lonely, naked sanctum. A dramatic cathedral ceiling stretched upwards, curving at the apex where several dim light fixtures illuminated the vastness of the space. He walked forward clumsily, his footsteps echoing with faux confidence. As he reached what could roughly be called the middle of the room, he spied a circular indentation in the floor. It spanned about ten meters in length, sloping gently in a perfect concave wave.
"Ah, yes," he said softly. "I know what this is."
He drew up at the edge, the tips of his shoes jutting out ever so slightly over the rim. He cleared his throat deliberately, shoving aside any remaining bits of insecurity. "Wake up, beautiful."
Immediately, a million streams of light pierced the air, roiling in a wonderful spectacle of confusing order. The beams shot from miniscule pinprick holes in the shallow basin, joining together to form an impossible structure. Out of the brilliance, a console appeared, intangible yet wholly functioning. It whirled on the spot, rotating to reveal an exact replication of the TARDIS's main operating system.
The Doctor waved his hand and the console spun faster, responding to his movements as if they were synchronized. He froze and it stilled, awaiting his orders like a well-trained guard dog.
The room was, in fact, his mind palace. One might think it would be ornately encumbered, brimming with artifacts, technology, and the occasional fez, but the Doctor preferred a blank slate when organizing the very essence of his being. His riotous life was a distraction in a place where what he most needed was calm. This was the one room that never changed. Despite his morphing exterior and ever-shifting tastes, his mind palace was always exactly the same.
The Doctor had not yet had cause to enter his mind palace in this body. His arrival was indicative of something vastly nefarious taking place in real time. However, he was momentarily safe, sequestered in a zone outside the confines of normal time and space.
The back-up generators of his consciousness brought him here in the most desperate of times. In other words, when his existence was nearing an end.
He gazed at the console speculatively, its brightness casting wonderfully bizarre shadows in the expansive sanctum. Raising his arms, he flattened his palms and formed a triangle where the thumbs and pointer fingers met. With acute precision, he carefully drew his hands apart. The console obliged, zooming into a single screen display that stretched the length of the basin.
"Why am I here?" he firmly asked the empty monitor.
The screen lit up in a jolly array of color, Gallifreyan circles etching themselves upon the transparent display.
"The ship is in distress?" he exclaimed worriedly. "Since when? How long have I been here?"
The circles etched faster as if sensing his urgency. The Doctor realized with immense irritation that there was no way of telling precisely how much time had passed since he was operating on an almost existential plane. However long he stayed put, the term "like clockwork" would achieve new heights of irrelevancy.
His eyebrows shot up. "What emergency shut down? I don't remember-"
His brain went blank. The Doctor struggled, but couldn't force himself to recall anything that had happened prior to waking up. A dense miasma crowded his head, clogging his memories with murky uncertainty. Whispers rushed down his spine in a waterfall of echoes. He mentally snatched at them, willing the disembodied sounds to collect in his hands where he could inspect their meaning, but they vanished like will-o-the-wisps, errant bits of static in the transmission.
"How am I supposed to solve the problem if I can't remember what the problem is?" he yelled angrily, pointing at the screen. "You're not being very forthcoming!"
An indignant beeping filled the room, showing the first sign of any stereo capabilities the console possessed. The Doctor couldn't tell where it came from, merely that it was.
"Sure, blame it on the amnesiac," he mumbled, rolling his eyes. "Can't you show me anything useful? I'm lacking in focus here. Blimey, you try to get a straight answer…"
The monitor fizzled and began flashing pictures a mile a minute. Shapes and colors melded together indiscernibly like a badly drawn flip book.
"Stop!" The Doctor put up a hand and the screen went blank. He frowned. "Is there only one speed? That's highly inconvenient."
More disgruntled beeping and writing.
"But what's the point of having you if I can't access my files? Eons of time recorded in this noggin, I'm out for the count, and you have no way of showing me what's happened? The ship is in distress, okay. Tell me about it."
The monitor came alive again, images blurring past at breakneck speed. Glowing blue light seemed to permeate many of the shots, but the Doctor couldn't be sure. He saw a brief flare of red.
"Amy," he breathed.
He hadn't seen Amy in the flesh for far too long. She lived in his memories, locked away in the portions of his brain he evaded at all costs. The past was his undoing, so naturally it was the key to his current situation.
Why wasn't the console working properly? The purpose of his mind palace was to educate: it gave the Doctor a chance to regroup. Without the console's aid, the Doctor was simply delaying the inevitable. Unfortunately, a malfunctioning console wasn't the full extent of the damage. The sanctum was an interactive corner of his mind, his own version of a mental library. If the command center was corrupted, then so was he.
The images continued playing before him, snippets of his life vanishing one after the other before he could glean anything important from them.
"I'm doomed, absolutely doomed!" the Doctor groaned, wringing his hands in frustration as he spun away. The console mirrored his actions, zooming back out and whirling in place like a technicolor disco ball. He trudged around the basin, eying the gadgetry and racked with mammoth cogitation.
"Alright," he said, coming to an abrupt stop. "If I can't remember anything, maybe I can explore this nifty palace. I mean, I cooked it up, right? There's got to be something to make the synapses fire, get the blood pumping. Oh, yes! Let's start this party already!"
He skipped slightly before breaking into a gangly jog, giddiness lighting up his face. As the walls drew closer, he saw that they were porous. Tiny holes, identical to those that dotted the basin, blanketing the entirety of the landscape in dizzying patterns. The Doctor put his hand to the wall, running his fingers gently over the stippled surface.
"Could it be-?" he asked no one in particular. In a louder voice, he called, "And how do I turn you on?"
A slight humming buzzed behind the wall, responding to his query. Heat radiated beneath his fingertips, rippling along the length of the sanctum. The humming leveled out smoothly, maintaining a single tone that encircled the Doctor.
Nothing else happened, however. The room seemed to be waiting for something more. "What, is there a password?" the Doctor yelled grumpily. "Systems on! Open Sesame! Show me the money!" He punctuated the last word with a sharp slap on the wall, but still it didn't yield. "Don't make me start singing," he threatened menacingly.
As if he'd frightened the walls into submission, light blazed eagerly out of the tiny pores, shooting forth and harshly blitzing the room. The Doctor cringed away and tried to block out the searing brightness, but it came at him from all sides like an unstoppable tidal wave. He crouched and clamped down on his ears. The humming had exploded into a reverberating assault, causing the floor to vibrate wildly. The Doctor yelped and fell sideways as everything shook, and he instinctively curled into the fetal position to wait out the mahyhem.
Above him the pyrotechnics continued, utterly consuming the emptiness. As with the basin, beams of light shined from every pinprick. This time, however, they scattered throughout the whole sanctum and left no corner untouched. The beams met in the center atop the console and impossibly joined together, forming a glowing sphere that grew with each second. Golden lattices surged across the glittering orb, cresting the curvature in coordinating patterns. Gallifreyan symbols formed, burning themselves on the surface from the inside out. They scrawled in perfect corkscrews, crackling like dying embers catching a fresh wind.
The sphere continued to enlarge until it engulfed the console and filled the basin, stretching toward the Doctor until he too was inside, a single star in an expanding galaxy. The floor rumbled so violently that a true earthquake wouldn't overshadow it.
"Dear god, I hope didn't break anything!" The Doctor's teeth rattled together when he shouted. So loud was the buzzing that he couldn't hear the words as they left his lips.
All at once, the clattering ceased, the floor stopped moving, and the light calmed to a bearable level. The Doctor squinted, bleary-eyed as if he'd just awoken from the deepest sleep. A film covered his vision, preventing him from absorbing any details of his circumstances. He tried to rub the blurriness away but he was blocked by a pair of chunky goggles. Amazed, he pulled them off as he sat up and held them inches from his nose. They were unlike anything he'd ever seen before, but recognition bloomed in his gut. He inadvertently glanced up in thought and had to whip his head around in a clumsy double-take.
"Unbelievable!" he shouted jubilantly, jumping to his feet and dropping the googles unceremoniously.
He was in the console room of the TARDIS.
Every wire, lever, and roundel was in order. The time rotor nested at the center of the ceiling, shining grandly as if he'd never left it. Which he technically hadn't.
"Astounding." The Doctor fisted his hands on his hips and walked to the switchboard, swagger returning to his gait. For the first time since entering his mind palace, he felt genuinely at ease. He was home.
And oddly enough, home didn't appear to be in any sort of danger. He leaned over the console panel, casting a critical eye on the display readouts. All functions were listed at full capacity. No atmospheric pressure disruptions, no cloister bells, no unscheduled temporal shifting.
"So why was I locked away in my head?" the Doctor wondered aloud. He plucked at a couple switches, testing the waters, and received a few telltale dings for his efforts. "So there's no problem, then? Am I losing it? Whatever it is?"
"Not exactly."
The Doctor shrieked daintily, springing back as he swiveled in place.
Clara Oswald, clad in a short skirt and a grin, stood in the balcony that wrapped around the upper half of the console room. She uncrossed her arms and began walking, carelessly dragging her hand along the railing.
The Doctor watched as she moved, his eyes never leaving hers. "You ladies really need to stop doing that," he said anxiously, tugging at the cuffs of his jacket.
"Whatever do you mean, Doctor?" Clara asked coyly, advancing to the stairs.
The Doctor's brow wrinkled, unsure. "I…I don't know. I have no idea why I said that. Maybe I'm still waking up."
"Waking up from what? You've been standing there for ages. I thought you fancied a nap, but your eyes were open." Clara descended the stairs, each footfall softer than the last. Her expression was peculiar, very un-Clara. The Doctor couldn't quite identify it.
"Clara, what's going on? I don't know how I got here. I was just-" He broke off, not wanting to talk about his mind palace. "Clara, where are we?"
She laughed, an uncharacteristic trill. "On Ganymede, of course!" She'd reached the bottom of the steps, pausing momentarily. "Remember our bet?"
The Doctor shook his head, trying to cleanse himself of the cerebral soup virtually dripping out his ears. This wasn't right. Something niggled at him, a straw he grasped for but couldn't reach.
Clara started for him once more, putting one booted foot in front of the other. Hunger. That was the expression she wore. It rose from her like perfume, curling suggestively in nearly perceptible wafts.
With incredible haste, the Doctor scooted back to the opposite side of the platform. A memory burst forth, the situation eerily familiar. "Whoa, steady on. Nifty déjà vu there."
As Clara rounded the console, her eyes flared with color.
"Your eyes!" the Doctor cried, edging further away. "They turned blue!"
"Don't be ridiculous, Doctor!" Clara broke into a rapid dash, closing the distance between them in a second and a half. The Doctor barely had time to cringe before Clara crashed into him, snaking her arms around his waist. He flailed haplessly, stumbling with her momentum and sending them careening to the side. Clara caught him before they fell, tugging him upright. She fingered the chain dangling from his vest and gazed up at him from beneath her lashes.
"You know, Doctor…I've always wanted to tell you something."
He reddened, knowing exactly where she was headed. "Now, Clara, is this the time? I daresay there are more pressing issues." He swatted her hands away and she stamped her foot, lips puckering in a petulant pout.
"Doooctor!" she whined, reaching for him again.
He jolted away, another memory taking shape. "Say that again!" he commanded.
Clara raised her eyebrows. "What, your name?" A faint smirk split her face. "I can scream it if you want—"
"No! Stop it, Clara, no! Why are people always chasing me?" He bounded away, unwilling to let her gain any ground. A sharp pain splintered his forehead as an uncontrollable rush of images swept in. The world sloped sideways, and he realized he was falling. He groped for the railing and snagged it as he went down, smacking his head into the pole. More pain piled on top of the first, stars speckling his vision. "This…is…all wrong," he stuttered, grimacing as he loosened his grip.
"Shh, Doctor, everything is alright." Clara was kneeling beside him, showing tenderness and a great deal of leg.
"Get away, I'll not do this again!" The Doctor struggled to his knees and crawled forward a few feet. This couldn't be real. Clara was a proper girl. She would never act this outrageously. And his head…if the cracking wasn't enough, several of his companions had taken up residence in his already crowded thoughts, doing and saying things they had no right doing or saying. He wriggled a few more inches and felt the floor give way, tumbling down the stairs to the lower level and leaving Clara behind on the platform.
The Doctor rolled to his back, spitting as his mouth filled with warm liquid. He brushed his lips and saw a spot of crimson in the lowlight. "I think I bith ma thongue."
Ignoring the soreness spreading through his limbs, the Doctor got to his feet and limped to the compartments directly beneath the console. Neon teal light glimmered in the dusky basement space, illuminating his search as he tapped on various lids.
"Which one, which one. Don't shift on me now, I don't have time for games and whispers. Or whistles." He chose a compartment and braced in front of it. If his hunch was correct, he was seconds away from unraveling the mystery. Or killing himself.
"Dooooctor? Where did you get to?" Clara's voice drifted down the stairs as she plodded along the Doctor's prior path.
"No where you can follow!" he shouted at her, turning to see her reach the last step. "You see, you're not real. You're just a figment. A mangled construct of my own tattered brain. I have no idea of what is about to happen, but I guarantee it's not something you'll like."
Clara stayed in the shadows, prowling out of reach. "Dooooctor…" Fog gathered at her heels, sweeping toward him. Blue lightning spider-webbed through the vapor, a miniature hurricane steadily brewing.
"Not this time!" the Doctor bellowed. "I'm headed to the one place I'd never go, not in a million years. It would be the end of my existence, I think. But today, who knows? Hopefully I'll remember when I wake up. I'm getting rather bored with all the gaps. I'm a greedy Time Lord, you know. Have to know, have to explore. Well! This will be a fresh experience."
He yanked open the compartment lid and looked inside. "Blast. Scarves and smoking jackets. Not what I wanted." He dropped the lid and moved to the next one, lifting it a little less expectantly. He needn't have worried. Orange luminosity rampaged out of the deceptively large pocket of space.
"Ha!" The Doctor thrust his hands skyward, victory written all over his face. "Let's get to the heart of things, shall we?" He looked into the compartment, letting the color fill his cheeks with raw power. "Hello, Sexy. Long time."
The heart of the TARDIS pulsed firmly, fluxing joyously. Glowing tendrils lifted out of the compartment, passing through his chest like ghostly sunlight. "That's…different." All at once, he was brimming with unfiltered energy. White hot intensity coursed along his limbs and raced through the highways of his central nervous system, simultaneously concussing and invigorating him. Bronze effulgence frothed over his skin, mimicking an artist's depiction of godhood.
The Doctor had experience this feeling before, but never without trepidation. It was not unlike regenerating, only he could control the mountainous potential rather than let it reshape him. He wanted to see it all, and since it appeared he'd been allowed to survive this moment, perhaps a few more couldn't hurt. After all, this wasn't the real TARDIS. He'd finally connected some dots and it was time to add the rest and see the whole picture.
"Guess I'm going in!" he said exuberantly, sparing a final glance at the figure that used to be Clara. It was wholly obscured by the fog and seemed unable to approach any further. "Don't wait up."
The Doctor dipped his head into the compartment, letting the energy guide him forward into the shimmering, golden depths. "Geroni—" He cut off, déjà vu hitting him right between the eyes. "Do I say that too much?"
In an instant, he was gone, the lid smartly snapping shut behind him.