Chapter 7: A Song You Can't Remember

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The Eighth Doctor refused to back away as she approached him. Refused to let any fear show on his face, to feel anything but calm and numb and empty.

He crossed his arms and pursed his lips, waiting for her to speak. The silence stretched between them. He hated her cold, calculating smile, hated that her eyes were hidden by that cruel demonic mask. Hated that she was here at all, that this was all part of the infinite consequences of his many mistakes and failures. But he would face his own nightmares or die trying. Maybe he was a coward, in this lifetime at least, but he would face his demons on his own.

Finally he couldn't stand the silence anymore.

"So..." he began, casually, playfully. "I never quite understand why you lot are so fascinated with me. I would have thought you'd have had enough of Time Lords after that Morbius nonsense. I defeated him, by the way. Did you know that? So why are you so convinced I won't beat you as well?"

"You won't defeat us, you'll join us," she said reverently. "You will be the greatest one of us."

"Never," he hissed.

"But you're a paradox already. Even your own past is a contradiction. I don't think you know yourself which part of it is true."

"I know enough," he said firmly as she stepped closer to him, her black gown trailing behind her.

"Mmmm..." she raised her gauntlet of needles and studied it. "I would dearly like to have your biodata. Just a little, you understand. As a memento. My Family would treasure it always."

"Who is she?" he demanded.

"Oh, a great force, a cosmic power, one you've come across before. We've trapped her as a favor, a bargain with another. And we always keep our bargains, you remember that, don't you?"

"Which force?"

"Why would it matter?" she asked, cupping his face tenderly in her cold, dead hand. "You're just as trapped as she is. And you know what it would cost you to escape. But it's only you who matters to us. I'll tell you who she is, how to stop all of this, if only you'll agree. I'll even let you choose which one."

Could he do it again? Sell another part of himself? Because the Faction didn't deal in memories. They dealt in history. Trade a memory to them, and they unmade reality around you so that it never happened. So that you never had any idea of what you'd forgotten.

He nodded.

Once again he felt the needles scraping his skin, and he remembered Fitz, trembling in his arms, weeping, begging the Doctor to make him feel real. So he'd kissed him, in the cool grass of the butterfly room at night, under a blanket of simulated stars. A kiss that became something more, both of them desperately reassuring each other with their bodies. Making love for the first time.

"No, no, not that one," he whispered, shuddering. "Not that one."

And she laughed, a cold, desolate sound that echoed off the glassy walls of his prison.

"Why him?" he hissed. "He'll never be yours."

"He already is, always was. He's joined us willingly. As you have, without even realizing it."

"You're lying," he said, voice trembling. "He never would."

"Like you'd never sell us another memory?" She scraped the needles against him once again.

He and Sam and Fitz were having a picnic at the edge of a pink ocean, giggly with sweet German wine, a golden liebfraumilch he'd picked up in the 1900s. They were full, relaxing on the sand. Fitz was strumming his guitar, looking happy. And he started playing a beautiful, plaintive song about a lonely sailor traveling through the heavens, visiting the stars. Fitz's smoky voice drifted across the beach, blending with the sound of the waves. He'd finally finished it, that simple little melody Fitz had been working on for months transformed into something so incredibly touching it almost moved the Doctor to tears. He fell in love with him then, just a little.

"All right," the Doctor muttered, unable to stop shivering. "That one."

She slid the needles into the side of his neck. He twitched once, then went limp in her arms.

When it was over, and he was alone, he stood up and placed a blood-splattered hand on the door he'd never noticed before. A few notes of music floated in his head, an unfinished song he couldn't place, didn't recognize. But he began to hum it all the same, as he made his escape.

xxx

The lights flickered for a moment, and Fitz grabbed his head, hissing with pain for a moment. Jack reached out to support him, but Fitz brushed him off.

"I'm fine," Fitz muttered. "Fine."

"What happened?"

He shrugged. "Not sure. Except..."

Jack looked into Fitz's grey eyes with concern.

"It's like I've forgotten something," he finally said. "Like a song you can't remember the end of. Maybe I just never finished it..."

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, it's all right. You took a hell of a blow to the head."

Fitz gave him a weak smile. "No, I think it's something worse than that. Doesn't matter anyway. Let's go."

He tried not to think about it, tried not to think about what it meant that the Ninth Doctor had lost his shadow, what it meant that somehow he sensed part of his past had been clipped away. Or what that might mean for his own Doctor, who he'd last seen reaching out for Fitz as he fell, screaming his name. Tried not to think about whatever lay in store for Jack, or for him, or for anyone. He was good at not thinking about things. He had to be, or he was pretty convinced he would have long ago gone as bloody mad as his poor mum before she died. And that was still one more thing he tried not to think about.

He wanted a cigarette really, really bad.

"Are you sure you're ok, Fitz?" Jack asked, and draped a comforting arm around his shoulder as they reached the TARDIS standing in his own familiar console room.

"No," Fitz snapped. "No, I'm bloody not ok. But there's nothing I can do about that, is there?"

Jack hugged him, and he was grateful for it. Until Jack got a hard-on.

Fitz laughed and pushed him playfully away. "Time and a place, mate. Time and a place."

"Maybe later, then?" Jack winked at him as Fitz unlocked the door.

It was a gorgeous console room, all brass and metal and glass, though it had nothing on his own TARDIS. There were two lovely birds waiting inside, a young blond girl, just a kid, maybe 18, and a woman in her late 30s, perhaps, with a roguish glint in her hazel eyes that Fitz found instantly attractive.

"Rose!" Jack shouted with glee, spinning the blonde girl around in a huge hug. "We've been looking all over for you."

"I'm fine, Jack," Rose said, releasing him with a broad smile. "Been enjoying some girl chat."

"Hey, baby. I'm Fitz," he said, shaking her hand. "Don't worry, we'll get this all sorted out."

Rose laughed at him unkindly, "Oh my God, Jack. What cockney hellhole did you drag this one from?"

Jack chuckled. "The Doctor's boy toy from 1963."

Rose practically doubled over in laughter.

"You know, I'm standing right here, mate," Fitz said, genuinely hurt. "And anyway, I didn't mean we as in us blokes, I know you birds hate that. I meant, like, the royal we. All of us."

"I don't think that's what the term "royal we" refers to," said the more mature woman with curly hair and a pretty little smirk as she took his hand. "Fitz Kreiner. I've heard a lot about you. All good things, I promise. The Doctor thinks quite highly of you."

"He does?" Fitz said, sounding surprised. "I mean, yeah, course he does. We're best friends, aren't we?"

She squeezed his hand in both of hers and suddenly looked a little sad. "Yes, you are."

The sympathetic look in her eyes made Fitz nervous. He cleared his throat and took his hand back. "So what have you ladies been up to?"

xxx

Endnotes:

I made up the first memory, and the picnic, but that unfinished song Fitz wrote that gets stuck in the Doctor's head for years and years? Totally canon, and totally adorable.