"Green."

Green didn't even respond to the whispers in her ear and the fact that someone was stroking her hair and pushing her subtle.

"Green, wake up."

Green didn't care who was calling or fondling her. She didn't know who it could have been, despite the fact that she hadn't seen another human being than the Doctor for days and even he was only a Time Lord, which should be blamed on her mental blackouts.
The not knowing who was here with her. Not the Time Lord thing.

Her brain seemed to prefer working on bringing back missing knowledge and memories instead of focusing on the present.
But that was the problem with the humans... always living in the past.

"Green… I made you tea…"

Green turned her head around slowly and opened her eyes after rubbing them.
The Doctor was kneeling beside her. Green yawned.
Her back hurt, her head hurt, she didn't know what time it was but figured that it wouldn't matter anyway because she remembered know that she was still in the Tardis with this strange creature that looked like a man and didn't have to sleep, and still it gave her the creeps.

"I'm sorry" the Doctor handed her a cup of tea, Green clutched her anaemic fingers around it and seemed to doze off again while looking at the simmering surface of the dark liquid, "I don't know what kind of tea it is, actually. But I'm sure that it's not that bad anyway. See, the little piece of paper at the end of the string of the teabag got wet and is therefore unreadable." He inspected the cup closer again. "But I'll give you my word: this is definitely tea."
"What else could it be?" Green asked tired and didn't dare to take a sip.
"Well…" the Doctor thought out loud, "I'm convinced that, whatever it is, it's completely harmless."

Green looked back and forth between the cup of tea in her hands and the Doctor who grinned in a strange way.
"Why don't you try it first?" she asked suspiciously. "Look, I'm not trying to poison you" the Doctor replied, "I just thought I'd prepare some tea for you. You don't have to drink it and it's definitely not going to kill you. I don't expect it to affect you in any way at all. It's only tea, Green!"
Green nodded and yawned. "I must apologize" she said after tasting the tea, "I was just a bit surprised… I didn't expect a friendly gesture from you. I'm not used to you caring for me."
"Don't get used to it" the Doctor hissed under his breath but Green ignored it.

"I'm sorry. That was a dumb thing to say. We've just met and I don't really know who you are."
The Doctor sighed and prepared already the stereotypical phrases concerning the time travelling in a police box, his origin and the "what's happened to your home planet?"-thing.
"But don't worry. I'm not going to bother you with stupid questions. I don't care who you are and where we're going. You seem trustworthy…"
Green smiled because she knew that this was a decision you only make once. In the one case you were right and the person you trusted was actually trustworthy. In the other case you didn't have any time to regret the decision you made because the untrustworthy person would soon use your trust to your detriment. In other words: you were dead.

Green looked around. Mh, she still seemed to be pretty alive. She shrugged. Probably the toxic was affecting her slowly. But that wouldn't be so bad either.
She had dreamed of dying slowly. In fact she had dreamed of dying a lot lately.
Not that she had slept that much. But nevertheless.

Every time she closed her eyes. There it was…
There THEY were…
The voices.
The same word over and over again.
Every time…

The buzzing noise of the sonic screwdriver jolted her out of her thoughts and she opened her eyes again.
"What are you doing?" she asked the Doctor and pushed his hand aside. "Just a bit of scanning…" he mumbled and, to take a closer look at the results, pulled out his glasses only to remember that they had suffered deterioration. In other words they were broken because Green had thrown them onto the ground.
"What a shame" he sighed and placed them on top of a see-through glasses box and, by pressing a button, let them fall into the box that was now flashing up in blue.
Green interrupted the doleful Doctor by saying: "Has it ever occurred to you that those sounds are probably warning you not to stand too close to the screwdriver when it makes those particular noises?"
"It's a sonic screwdriver" the Doctor mumbled, "It's supposed to be sonic."

He had found some old magnifying glasses and tried to decipher the results with their help.
"What does it say? Let me see it…" Green tried to snatch the sonic screwdriver out of his hands, but he reacted faster.
"Oh, no, don't touch it" he held it up in the air and therefore it was out of Green's reach. She couldn't help it. She was short. Although she preferred the term "small".

If someone had wanted to call her "short" her last name should have been "Cake".

"You have a tendency to cause destruction" the Doctor went on and pressed some more buttons beside the glasses box, which now sank into the surface and disappeared with the broken glasses.
It caught Green's attention, but only for a second. "There are no results, are they?" she asked, "You just keep using the sonic screwdriver on me, secretly wishing for my head to explode one day due to the destructive effect the sounds and the radiation may cause!"
"Green, calm down" the Doctor sighed.

Green picked up the tea she had set aside and took a sip. Then she breathed out slowly.
"Okay, I'm fine… I'm calm and composed…"
"Good" the Doctor added.
"…but I still don't trust your screwdriver."
"Either way, I can't give it to you" the Doctor explained, "you couldn't read it. It's Gallifreyan."
Green crossed her arms. "And what does it say? Something Gallifreyan for "made in china"?"
"You sure are fun to have around" the Doctor mumbled. "It says something about your current status…"
"Like state of mind…" she added.
"Could you please stop interrupting me?" the Doctor snubbed. "It's really getting on my nerves!"
Green nodded. "Sorry." You're a fine one to talk about other people's moods, she thought to herself. The Doctor looked at the monitors and walked around in the Tardis again. Green didn't dare to follow him. In addition, she didn't even know what he was doing. But she had reason to believe that he didn't know it either.
The only thing she was curious about was how he got this vehicle of transport in the first place. But maybe someone else had made the mistake of trusting him as well…

"Besides, I've had humans before…" the Doctor began.
Green interrupted him with a low "Gross" but she kept a straight face.
"IN THE TARDIS…" he completed unnerved, "I've had humans before with me here IN THE TARDUS!"
Green shrugged. "Sorry."

The Doctor tried it again.
"No human being has ever before responded to the sounds of the sonic screwdriver with pain"
"But it's not very nice of you to try something on me that causes anguish just because you want to know why it causes anguish. That's not very humane."
"I've told you before, I'm not human" the Doctor replied.
"I know; I was referring to human as in "humanity"…" she bristled with anger. "You can't say humane" without the word "human"" she sighed and turned towards the Doctor again, after searching senselessly through her mind for a word to describe human.
"For you it's easy, you lucky bastard!" Green pointed out, "You've got the Time Lord thing when you want to explain it and the Gallifreyers when you want to name yourself."
"Gallifreyans" the Doctor corrected her softly. "And please don't make a fuss about it. I got you're point. And I should have listened more carefully, in relation to the "e"."
"There's no difference" Green sighed.
"Of course it is" the Doctor countered, "just say it. One after another."
"Hum…" Green stopped and mumbled, "That's stupid."
"I am the Doctor and I advise you to try it."
Green sighed again. "Human… humane…"
"No" the Doctor interrupted her, "more humane, than human, more like "pain" in the end…" Green had to chuckle.
"I haven't heard that one before" Green coughed, restraining her laughter, "but that's a nice euphemism."
"Like I said" the Doctor repeated, "you're fun to have around."

"Are all Time Lords unhumorous?" Green asked.
"No" the Doctor replied, "but not all of them had the pleasure to deal with you, I'm afraid..." He stopped speaking in mid-flow.
"You're pretty nasty" the Doctor stated.
Green nodded. "I'm sorry... I'm afraid I can't help it..."
The Doctor pressed another button which caused the glasses box to reappear. He opened it and gathered some new glasses from it.
Green stared at him aghast. "How did you do that?" she asked and snatched the glasses out of his fingers, giving them a scrutinizing look.
"It's the Tardis" the Doctor explained, "It can restore incomplete, damaged or broken things." He sighed. "Too bad that I can't use it on your wrist."
"It's fine, thank you" Green responded quickly and gave him the glasses back. She hid her strained wrist behind her back, just in case he'd get some silly ideas.

"No, seriously, show me your wrist. I guess the bandage should be renewed by now."
"I really don't think you need to..." she shook her head smiling and held on to her right arm.
"Green, I'm not going to hurt you." The Doctor grasped her arms and stroked them softly. "And I wouldn't risk attaching you to the Tardis. That would be too dangerous."
Green sighed uneasy and released her arm. The Doctor rolled up the bandage carefully.
"You thought it to be too dangerous for the Tardis to be attached to me, didn't you?" Green asked gloomily after long consideration.
The Doctor didn't answer her.
"Amazing" he mumbled, "I could have sworn your wrist was broken. But it doesn't look like that at all. It's barely bruised and even pointing in the right direction."
"That's a good, isn't it?" Green asked.
"It's strange. It recovered really fast. On the other hand... after two and a half weeks slight improvements can be expected, I guess."
"Two weeks?!" Green repeated irritated "It's already more than two weeks?"
The Doctor shrugged.
"It didn't feel like two weeks." Green sighed. The fact that she couldn't tell how fast time was going by made her feel really uncomfortable. She couldn't feel it. She couldn't sense time.
She was really missing the clock she had had in her room back home. Actually she just kept it for the tick. But now she missed it. She really missed it. Telling time...

"Those corners of the universe have a bad influence on the sentiments, I know" the Doctor explained and touched her hand carefully. "But don't worry. As soon as we'll set foot on another planet, you'll get used to the time moving forward again."
"Why don't you have a clock?" Green asked. The Doctor frowned. "Or just a tiny watch?"
The Doctor rubbed his chin.
"What would I need that for? The ticking ones are annoying and the ones without the tick are even more useless than the annoying ones."
"They tell time" Green explained.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, they don't. They can't."
Green gave in. She didn't see any chances in discussing time with a Time Lord.

"And besides, an ordinary watch wouldn't last long in here. Give it a few seconds and POOF- both clock hands showing in different directions but through the glass that had covered them. Clocks are irritated by time travelling. They can never decide whether to go clockwise or counter clockwise or just don't go at all. But they can't stop because time is moving while they're stuck making their decisions. Therefore they're doomed to react in weird ways, like sticking their hands through the glass, or knotting them together. Or just split in half."
"You tried it?" Green asked uncertainly.
The Doctor nodded. "It's quite fascinating. Every watch reacts differently. But they all stop in the end."

Green tried to consider the matter once more.
"Clocks die?" she asked irritated.
The Doctor looked at her in astonishment. And yet he had to smile. He bandaged her wrist again.
"It's just a manner of speaking" he explained and pushed her hair out of a face. Green glared at him uneasy.
"I never thought you could be cute" the Doctor smiled.
"And I never thought you'd say such things" Green replied promptly and cocked an eyebrow while watching his hand carefully.
"You're not used to receiving compliments, are you?" the Doctor was still smiling.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Green asked annoyed, "What makes you think that I didn't get complimented?"
"Oh, I didn't say that" the Doctor corrected, "You could have received a lot of them. I know, you can't remember, thanks to your amnesia. And that's not the point. You just don't know how to deal with a compliment."
"And how am I supposed to react, in your opinion?" Green countered. "It would be nitwitted just to return the compliment. Despite the fact that it would be really offensive. You're not cute...And that's a good thing! I don't like cute men... Not, that I like you... No, not that I have anything against you either..."
The Doctor sighed and patter her on the shoulder. "Finished?" he asked.
"No, but I don't know how..." she mumbled and sighed.

There it was again. Uneasiness. How could anyone like her be uneasy? She felt the uneasiness everywhere around her.
It hung in the air like the smell of used towels, cold sweat and something resembling an unwashed racoon that would linger in your room for a few days after you've had a nice, intimate meeting with a guy whose name you couldn't recall due to the amounts of alcohol you had consumed and you knew for sure that it would take you at least three times to wash your hair again in order to smell nearly like a human being again.
Mh.
Green may have been suffering from amnesia, but the bad memories were still there.

"I'll take that as a yes" the Doctor mumbled and suggested sitting down on the settee again.
He took her hands. Green gasped. She had nothing against physical contact. At least in a way. But it felt awkward with the Doctor touching her hands in a nearly kind-hearted way.
As a gut reaction she would have slapped him. As a knee-jerk reaction she... well, she would have jerked her knee and kicked the Doctor in a spot where, at least she hoped, even Gallifreyans get hurt very easily but badly as well.
But she couldn't decide what to do first and therefore was forced to stay in her current position and try to behave like a normal human being.

"I'm asking you Green... and I mean it, I'm really asking you this. You've visited TANN with me and I must admit that I thereby endangered you. I can't promise that it won't happen again. But what I can promise you is that I'll be there definitely fast enough to prevent you from getting into serious difficulties."
Green nodded uncertainly but had to ask: "How can you tell?"
"Innumerable years of experience" he replied indifferently in one breath, "And this is what I can promise you. I'll return you from every planet in one piece. But I want you to know that you don't have to come with me. I could try to find you a nice little place on earth, somewhere around the time when you actually lived there. That's a possibility as well. I can't expect you to stay with me..." the Doctor stopped. He hadn't thought this through and tried to find a telling argument only to give her an actual choice.
"But I guess it would be much more fun to stay with me. And besides, not all planets are as dangerous as TANN. There are some quite peaceful ones out there." He sighed. "At least if we don't end up here during a war. Or a natural disaster."
"Happened before?" Green asked.
"Yeah... well... not that bad actually. Besides... See? I'm still here, standing in front of you in one piece. Tell you what... I should take you to a place where it's really dangerous. There you'd see how easily you can survive. IF you follow my instructions."
"You survive if you're [SUPERIOR]."
The Doctor furrowed his brows.
"I'm sorry?" He looked puzzled. And nearly as puzzled as Green.

Green pressed her palms against her temples and held her breath.
"I'm sorry..." she repeated in imitation of the Doctor's voice.

The Doctor placed his hands on top of hers. He closed his eyes and listened carefully. He SEARCHED carefully.
Patiently and with care he tried to enter her mind, looking around in the dark tunnels that led to her memories, or, to be specific, to what was left of them.
The Doctor had to admit that what he could elicit in the dark was terrifying and fascinating at the same time.
Most of the people had heard about lost memories, which just disappeared. But gnawed memories... The Doctor took a step towards them. He could feel Green flinching, but he held on to her hand and her head as well, the vision in front of him was too beautiful, too disturbing, too terrifying...
He had to get closer!

Pictures were gnawed to pieces. Objects showed strange marks on their surface, as if something had tried to find a way through the inside of it. Moth-eaten... no, worm-eaten. That seemed to be a lot closer. But what could gnaw on memories?
The Doctor had a premonition that she hadn't lost her memories. She KEPT losing them. Something was trying to tear them apart. Or someone...
There were voices. The Doctor could hear talking behind him. Somewhere in the deepest depths of this labyrinth someone kept talking. The same thing, over and over again. But he couldn't quite understand it. It was too...distant. Something resembling something muffled and metal.
And he tried to move towards them.

"Doctor, please..."
Tears ran down Green's cheeks. She sobbed heartrendingly
"Please don't... Don't... it...it just hurts... please, let go off me... Doctor...please...please" She kept on whispering until the Doctor released his grip and caressed her cheeks. Streams of hot tears moistened his fingers.
"I'm sorry" the Doctor swallowed and stroked the back of her neck. Green lowered her head and rested it in the Doctor's lap. Her shoulders twitched irregularly and uncontrollably.
"I'm so sorry..." the Doctor sighed and ran his fingers gently through her hair.

"What's happened?" Green's words came in gasping, hiccoughing sobs. "What was there?"
"Just some old memories" the Doctor tried to appease her, "Some we'd like to keep forever. Some we'd like to repress. And we'd definitely like to choose not to remember all of them."
Green muffled something scarcely audible in his lap.
"We all have them" the Doctor assured her, "and we're all scared of some of them."
The Doctor put his glasses on and kept stroking her absent-mindedly.
"Someone's in your head" he mumbled, "someone's there."
Green raised her head and looked at him with tear-stained eyes.
"Is this your attempt of soothing me?" she tried to shout but her voice was cracking.
"Green..." the Doctor wrapped his arms around her, but Green resisted leaning her head against his chest. She wanted to look him in the eye.
"Green... It's okay now. It's over... you don't have to worry anymore..."
"I'll come with you" Green sobbed. The Doctor was puzzled about her reply.
"You asked me if I wanted to stay with you" Green tried to control her breathing and wiped away her tears, ignoring the fact that they kept flowing nonetheless.
"And I want to stay... I'd love to be with you..."
The Doctor had to smile at least a bit.
"...if you never touch my head ever again..."
Green was still sobbing. But she was deadly serious.
The Doctor nodded approvingly.
"Alright..." he mumbled earnest.

The Doctor stood up and turned towards the centre of the Tardis. He inspected the monitors and searched the sky, looking for a particular planet.
Green, behind him, held her breath every once in a while.

"If you need some privacy" the Doctor explained without turning around, "there are stairs behind you that lead to the basement. It's not that quiet down there, you hear most of the constant sounds of the engines, but you could have some private space."
The Doctor heard her standing up and moving away from him.
"And don't come looking for me" Green whispered hoarsely.
"I won't" the Doctor promised her and waited till her footsteps were no longer audible.

He looked down through the see-through floor.
He wouldn't have to come looking for her.
He could watch over her from up here.