Down The Rabbit Hole
The tableau on the screen worried Jack. What man would he find when the Doctor wakes up, the sad heartbroken man or the crude maniacal version currently onscreen? This Doctor stood motionless for some time staring at the console. When Jack saw him purse his lips and tightly clench his jaw, he knew a decision had been made. The Doctor dove beneath the console letting out a defiant growl that was quickly cut off by a crackling pop followed by the blindingly bright light of and electrical arc filling the screen. As the light dimmed a continuous electrical buzzing followed. The noise didn't worry Jack so much as the swirl of black smoke coming up from below.
He should be dead! The Doctor knew what he was doing earlier. Anything under 100 milliamps would disrupt all cardiac function and ensure certain death. And yet?
Through the puffs of smoke Jack could see that the voice interface had reappeared. The hologram of the little girl moved nearer the console. It stopped and looked down at the floor. "The Doctor is not allowed to die." Jack ran a hand down his rough hewn face. The Tardis had intervened!
The silence was interrupted by a brief coughing fit followed by a howl of excruciating pain. The Doctor shot to his feet and started flailing about, on and off screen. "Aaahhhh! Aahhhhh!" His cries lessened, as did his jumping about and Jack was finally able to see the cause of his pain. The amount of electrical current the Doctor received as he tore his sonic screwdriver free from the wires had melded it to the palm of his hand. The heat alone must have been unbearable, not to mention the pain he was experiencing from his seared flesh. The Doctor finally fell into a chair against the railing just to the right of the screen, only his shoulder was visible. Jack could hear him breathing heavily. A moment later he screamed out in pain again and something hit the floor with a loud Clang! The Doctor then spent the next few minutes hunched over in his chair moaning before he stood and staggered from the room.
The Doctor wore a bandage on his hand in the next four hundred images as he busied himself. He never said a word and he never stopped near the camera again. He just kept on passing by, going to and fro, always favoring his injured hand while carrying armloads of supplies into the console room. He carried in protein packs, water containers, clothing, and tools, lots and lots of tools. A mattress passed the screen. It looked like he was preparing for a siege. The day finally came when the walking stopped and the working started.
When the work started, he never left the console room and after a while the camera never shut off. He spent most of his time either below the main deck or under the console. Jack could only guess that the Doctor was trying to take control of the Tardis again. It was probably why he never left the room. If he left, he'd be locked out. How far was the Tardis willing to go to stop him? Jack eventually found out.
He forwarded the recording and stopped when there was an abrupt change on the screen. The Tardis control room had darkened. Jack scrolled back and played the last image before the change. The Doctor could be seen tugging a thick bundle of cables across the room before he pulled the ends back over to the console. He disappeared underneath and Jack could hear the faint whirring of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. This continued on for several minutes before all hell broke loose.
The cloister bells began to sound and Jack heard a loud bang before the Doctor popped up from beneath the console rubbing the back of his head. He started flipping switches and began typing frantically on the keyboard. He looked up at the screen and rapped it with his knuckles before slapping the side of it with the palm of his hand.
"There's nothing there!" He growled as he looked up at the ceiling.
The Tardis replied with a loud squelch, and began shaking so violently that the Doctor was thrown off his feet. Jack could hear him yelling as he was being tossed about with his supplies. Books rained down from the upper level and the lights flickered on and off. The commotion stopped when the room went dark and the stillness was broken by the Doctor's yelling.
"No, no, no! You can't put yourself in siege mode! I'm not a threat!" He appeared back at the console, turning knobs and flipping more switches, all to no avail. Frustration filled his features as he pounded his fists on the console. "I just want out!
He received no reply.
The Doctor was not a man to give up easily. He returned to work under the console, presumably now to try and disable the siege mode. Jack fast forwarded again, two days ahead, five days ahead. The all showed the Doctor diligently working away, torch in hand. He forwarded through fifty seven days before the recording ended. Jack wanted to see if the Doctor managed to get the Tardis out of siege mode. He pulled up the next recorded image and what he saw didn't make sense. The Doctor's appearance had drastically changed. The lights were back on and he was wearing a plaid bathrobe. His face showed several days growth of beard coming in. Glancing at the on screen counter Jack noticed a significant jump in time. Something wasn't right
"Stop the recording."
He went back a frame and tapped on the last darkened image. The Doctor appeared from below the console with a large spanner in his hand. He set it down on the console with a heavy thump and leaned his weight onto his splayed arms. He looked weary and sounded defeated.
"Need a gravametric capacitor…don't have one. Could tear apart communications and environmentals and make one. Then I would need two vellinni couplers and twenty seven feet of heat resistant cable…more hunting, could fine some...somewhere. And after that…all I need is a cold fusion converter powered by the single atom of a White Dwarf…don't have one!"
"Aaargggg!" The Doctor flung the spanner out of futility and its impact reverberated around the room long after the doctor had left. The screen went black.
Comparing that image count with the next Jack calculated that a couple of weeks had passed. He restarted the image with him dressed in the bathrobe and watched as his left hand came up and he took a sip from a coffee mug he was holding. Jack could only wonder why he had a mug with Worlds Greatest Teacher stenciled on its side. With his right hand the Doctor fished something out of his bathrobe pocket. Jack couldn't see what it was at first, but as he flipped it into the air and caught it again and again, Jack could tell it was his sonic screwdriver.
"Voice interface." The Doctor commanded.
The small redheaded girl appeared again. "I am voice interface."
"No, no, no. That won't do. Change interface image to Clara Oswald."
The image faded out and reformed into young brunette that had reduced the Doctor to tears before. This Doctor though, was unaffected. "Ah, my dear Clara, you're looking lovely today."
"I am not Clara Oswald. I am voice interface."
The left side of the Doctor's face curled upwards into a half grin. "Oh Clara, you don't need to be coy with me."
"I am not Clara Oswald. I am voice interface."
"Let's have some fun. What do you say Clara?"
"I am not Clara …"
"Oh, shut up and follow me," the Doctor interrupted. He passed by the hologram and moved off screen. The image of the girl reversed itself and was now facing the opposite direction. Jack heard some rustling noise and then the sound of the sonic screwdriver being turned on. The Doctors scream came next.
Jack was surprised when the girl's spoke after the scream stopped. "The Doctor is not allowed…" It almost sounded confused as it moved in the Doctors direction. "The Doctor is not allowed to…"
"Oh ho! Oh yes! Yes! That is good!" The Doctor was conscious again and his deep laughter echoed around the vaulted chamber. He kept on laughing until the interface spoke again.
"The Doctor is not allowed to harm himself."
The Doctor's reply was swift. "Oh I'm not? Well what are you going to do about it, huh?"
There was no reply.
"Didn't think so! You're a hologram. You can't touch me. You can't take this from me!" Jack heard the metallic rattle of the sonic screwdriver being shaken.
The hologram repeated her statement. "The doctor is not allowed…."
"I know…I know! I'm not allowed to go where I want! I'm not allowed to leave! Well you know what? I'll do what I want. You can't stop me from doing that."
Again, there was no reply.
So the Doctor spoke. "And do you want to know what I want right now? I want you to undress for me."
"That is not in my program."
"Oh forget it! I'll just use my imagination."
It remained quiet for a while until Jack heard the Doctor moaning in the background. He didn't need to see or hear anymore. "Stop the recording."
Jack blew out a tired breath as he pulled his AV unit from his shirt pocket. He checked the time and discovered that the sun would be coming up soon and that meant his grandchildren would be returning. He hoped he could get the answer to one final question before they arrived. How long had the Doctor been alone in the Tardis?
Jack went back to scanning images fifty at a time. There were gaps in time between some of them. Sometimes days, months and even years passed before the Doctor set foot back in the console room. And when he did, he always looked different. He never wore his trademark outfit again. Most of the time, he wore his black pants with just a white t-shirt. Sometimes it was just his boxers and a t-shirt. The bathrobe made more appearances, along with a khaki safari outfit complete with pith helmet, and then there was the blue and white plaid Bermuda shorts with pink polo shirt and sunglasses. One time he appeared in robes resplendent with a high arching collar that towered above his head. A few times the Doctor even dressed like a Roman Emperor. Jack could only shake his head and wonder what that was all about.
His hair changed about as often as his clothing. Long, short, beard, no beard. One time after a two and a half year absence he showed up with his hair and beard all long and matted. Two images later he had shave it all off. It wasn't long before Jack made it to the final visual image, the one where the Doctor covered the screens. He played it back to see what had sent the Doctor over the edge.
The Doctor stopped at the console to set his sonic screwdriver down. His eyes were dilated and black and there was a trickle of blood starting to run out his left nostril. He wiped at it with the back of his hand and when he saw the smear of blood he pulled a previously used and bloodied handkerchief from his pocket and pushed it against his nose. It gave his voice a nasal quality when he spoke.
"Voice interface."
The small redheaded girl and not the beautiful brunette appeared next to him. Looking over his shoulder he was miffed to see the image of the little girl. "Bring back the image of Clara Oswald."
"The image of Clara Oswald had been deleted."
The Doctored whirled round to confront the hologram. "What did you say?"
"The image of Clara Oswald has been deleted."
"No, you can't do that! You can't take her! You've taken everything else, you can't take her too! Why did you have to take her?" His voice broke as he uttered his final plea.
The console screen in front of him came on in reply. Jack could still see the Doctor as images played out for him on screen. He was being shown what the Tardis had been recording. The Doctors facial features began to morph. His already fierce eyebrows grew into mountainous peaks and veins in his temple and cheek took on a life of their own, visibly throbbing as they tried to contain the Doctor's rapidly increasing heartbeats. His naturally pale face turned red and his this lips swelled as his mouth curled up to release an angry tirade.
"You fucking cunt! How dare you!" He stormed off and Jack could hear him tearing through the room. The opposite screen showed him digging through stacks of supplies. Once he found what he needed he grabbed the screen and pulled it around to the other.
"I won't have you watching me! No more!" The Doctor covered the screens.
Jack stopped the recording. Checking the time stamp on the screen, he calculated the amount of time from the first recording to the last. Ninety two years! Damn! But how much time had passed since the last recorded image? Jack reached up and pulled the black cloth from the screens. "Start recording."
The Tardis recording kept a constant running chronological log. He just needed to get a current date and he could deduct the difference. He focused on the larger numbers as the infinitesimal nanoseconds scroll by in a blur. He quickly subtracted the numbers in his head. Sixty five years! The Doctor had spent a total of one hundred and fifty seven years trapped inside all alone and he was slowly dying, one memory at a time, despite the Tardis' best efforts to save him from hurting himself or others.
Jack reached into his shirt pocket again. This time he pulled out the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. He looked it over before pulling off the outer cover. He was relieved to see the bars of its memory flashing at seventy seven percent capacity. All of the Doctor's memories were still safely stored inside. Pulling out a memory was easy. Restoring thousands…that was going to be difficult.