Respite
It was the not knowing that infuriated him. Not knowing what had happened to him. Not knowing what had happened to the Tardis. His memories were a jumbled mess ever since he had "emerged" from the stasis pod, as Ohila had called it; though he thought being "ejected" from and rudely awoken by a rock floor and a broken collarbone a more apt description. Ohila had been no help either. She had no knowledge of why or how he had wound up on Karn, only that she had found him and patched him up. Patched him up, she seemed to be an expert in benign euphemisms.
He stopped pacing around the Tardis console and rubbed at his face. They had put him in that thing. That damned Inversion tube! And now as he felt his face, tugged at his ears and squeezed his nose, he wondered again if he was still the same man. Chromosomal reversal. That's what it did. He was now the reverse image of himself. Not that he could tell. He still felt normal but what was normal anymore? Something could have gone wrong and he would never know. Maybe a kidney was functioning a bit slower, or his two hearts were beating a bit faster. Or maybe he'd wake up one morning to discover that he liked pears. But pears were the least of his worries.
He needed to find Clara. He needed to know that she was ok, and not as she had so bluntly phrased it, "dead in a ditch" somewhere. He needed her back, safe with him in the Tardis. He needed to know why he had lost her. He needed to know why he couldn't remember. He needed… "Damn it!" He bent at the waist, one hand gripping the console the other pressed to his chest. He needed his hearts to stop beating so fast and to get his breathing under control. He needed to quit having these damned panic attacks! A man with a time machine did not need to panic! He focused on calming his breathing…in…out…in…out…his heartbeats slowed in response. Better.
Once he regained his composure he began his pacing again, between the console and the three chalkboards he had set up around the perimeter. He had started out with just the one, but trying to put his memories in order took up a lot more room. He had to find their last memory together; it was the way the Tardis and the Tardis phone worked. Continuity was made through a psychic link established along their timelines. Without that last memory, it would be akin to spinning a globe and asking him to pinpoint her apartment on it by throwing a single dart at it while blindfolded. He could call or show up too early and possibly create a paradox, or arrive too late and…he didn't want to think about that. He had to get it right.
He stopped in front of one of the chalkboards and rubbed with the side of his hand at an arrow he'd drawn to connect two memories. It wasn't right. The chalk on his hand added another smudge to his trousers as he stood back to review the boards. Two. He was sure he had the final two adventures they had shared together, but which one was last? He spent the next few hours erasing, rewriting and drawing more arrows. When he began to mumble Gallifreyan expletives under his breath he slapped his chalk down into the chalkboard's grooved rail and left the room. He'd been at it for weeks and as much as he was loathed to admit it, even if it was just to himself, he needed a break.
His idea of a break was taking a small cart down to the library, loading up books and returning to the console room to restock his barren bookshelves. He kept at it till they were filled and he physically needed to take a break from his break. He collapsed into his leather chair in the upper gallery with an exhausted sigh and closed his eyes for a moment. Three hours later, he was startled awake by a dream he was having. He had been burning all of his books! Sitting up in his chair he unconsciously rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. It came away damp with sweat and it suddenly felt stifling in his starched shirt and wool jacket. He pushed up out of the chair and yelled out a directive to the Tardis as he stormed down the stairs.
"Lower the room temperature by three degrees!"
If it wasn't a dream, then why would he burn his own books? It had to be a dream. But what happened to his books? Snatching up his piece of chalk, he continued where he left off. Nearly an hour later he was starting to make real progress when he was interrupted by faint knocking at the Tardis doors. He tried to ignore it, but it continued to annoy him for several more minutes. He finally pushed open the door. He found Ohila scowling up at him.
"What?"
"I thought you might be leaving soon, so I wanted to make sure you had this before you left." She held out a lidded plastic cup.
He gave it a confused look. "What is that?"
"The Elixir of Life; I thought you might want some."
Crossing his arms, he leaned back against the door frame. "Why?"
"You never know when you might need it." She pushed the cup at him again.
He didn't need it or want it…but if it would make her go away. He reached out and tried to take it from her hand, but she held on. "Before I give it to you, there's one important thing that I need you to remember." His lips tightened together in irritation. Great! He didn't want it in the first place and now there was a stipulation! "What?"
"I need you to remember," she said letting go of the cup, "…that it's not yours to give."
He wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but she turned away and disappeared into the alcoves dark passageway leaving him standing there with the cup in hand and his face scrunched up trying to divine the meaning of what she'd said. After a moment, he shook it off as nonsense and closed the Tardis door. He set the cup down on the Tardis console and returned to his work, or he tried to. He kept finding himself distracted by the cup and Ohila's cryptic comment. Finally, he snatched it up and strode off down into the Tardis corridors in search of the medical bay. Though he had no use for the elixir, it was too precious to just leave lying around, and besides, he needed to be rid of its distraction.
ooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo
He'd done it. He remembered it all now. He'd dropped Clara off in the park near Trafalgar Square to meet up with Danny after their defeat of the Boneless, and she'd caught him following her. She shooed him off back to the Tardis with a few choice words and a look. He only wanted to see his creation in action. What a little liar she had become. He had acted cross with her that day, but secretly he was quite impressed and a bit jealous. She had a poise and understanding that were beyond her twenty seven years and sometimes beyond his two thousand. So he left her there with her soldier boyfriend, (he still didn't understand that) and went off to seek a solace of his own. What a disaster that had been.
He should have gone to the SIM moon of Ventarus II. Hard light holograms, all programmed to cater to every whim, every desire with no ramifications. That would have been the logical choice. But he hadn't been thinking logically at the time. He had an itch he needed to scratch. It had been bothering him for some time, pent up for nine hundred years, it was the one thing left to experience in his new body. He had been saving himself. What a joke that was. Did he think he was a character in some Jane bloody Austen novel waiting for the day Clara would finally see him. If he was anything, he was a character out of a Bronte novel, always doomed to tragedy. So instead, he had charged off through the park and straight into the heart of London.
He pushed his way into pub near the University of London and scanned the crowded room; it looked promising. He was looking to hook up, to connect, have a shag, a quick fuck or what ever they were calling it these days. He was a man. He had needs and he could only deny them up to a point. It was not something he was proud of, debasing himself like this. But he just wanted it over and done with. No drama, no emotion, no heartache, no ramifications. It was a free pass. That's what he called it when he got like this. He would step outside himself and do these things. A late night tryst with Marylin. Things a good man would never do. Like deflowering a Queen. And when it was over, it was like it had never happened.
He worked the room, passing himself off as a visiting professor, or guest lecturer, depending on whatever courses the women might be studying. He used his free pass to drink to excess that night, and he hadn't realize that quite a few of the young women he'd been chatting up were there with their boyfriends. So, when he popped into the loo to take a leak later in the evening, a few of their fellas joined him...and they proceeded to beat the shit out of him. Definitely a Bronte novel, he thought, when he came to later on the cold tiled floor. His mouth tasted of blood and he was sure his fifth left rib was cracked. It was a new low for this regeneration. Bruised, battered and unsatisfied, he staggered back to the Tardis.
He moped in the Tardis for several days as he let himself heal and when he emerged on Saturday morning to fetch a cup of coffee; he found himself surrounded by a forest. It heralded the the beginning of their last adventure together. It was the one that almost ended with her staying behind to die and him being sent off alone…again. He was glad it didn't end that way. Instead, they had shared a wondrous view through the opened doors of his Tardis and then from railing of her balcony. That was the last thing he could remember.
As soon as he had established that final memory, the Tardis telephone rang.