When the bold lettering indicates, play 'This Is Gallifrey: Our Childhood. Our Home.' by Murray Gold, starting from one minute in exactly.
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21
"I was hoping you'd choose that one," she eyed his outfit with approval as he emerged at the corridor's entrance. At least she wasn't laughing at him any more. His stomach rumbled. The telepathic fabricator was awaiting him eagerly on deck; it looked as eager to procure food as he felt to consume some. He made a dash for it, hitting its receptor rather hard with his palm and ending up with three bars at once, none of which had a flavour that made sense. Two of the three tasted savoury and sweet. Surprising. Nice.
I watched him wolf everything down and then thrust his hand to the machine again.
Three bars of my own sat in my lap. Hot Weetabix. Pancake with lemon and sugar. Apple. I munched on a fourth – honey nut cornflake – and congratulated myself on my good judgement of fashion. Vintage suited him well. The dark drainpipe jeans, battered brown brogue boots, baggy knitwear jumper sporting all kinds of autumnal colours, sleeves falling just over his hands. It brought out the natural boyishness of his features, the lovely hues of his hair. Made him look so lovable.
Practically inhaling the bars, he looked like a starved teen, hung over after a crazy night.
It was half-true. Last night was a night to remember. Just not out loud.
And now – now what? What else could I do but keep this up? He wasn't reacting with the utmost pleasure I had hoped for. No gratitude, no affection, no niceness. But he wasn't slapping me around, either. And he wasn't exactly displeased with everything I did for him. A part of me suspected that he was secretly enjoying this charade. That all he really wanted was a bit of mothering.
It was so easy to fall into nonchalance. To get sloppy. To forget the monster that still broiled beneath the surface.
He asked the machine for drink. Two glasses.
Then he meandered over, never looking directly at me, and sat himself on the floor beside the cream chair I perched in. Handed up one of the cups.
"Thanks," I managed through my surprise, bringing it to my mouth. It wasn't water. It wasn't really any kind of drink I'd had before.
It was an amalgamation of confused flavours. Telepathically puzzled over by his urgent, thirsty mind.
"It's kind of like drinking your thoughts."
"I'd pity you if you had to taste those," he spat in reply.
A silence while I drank, fascinated, and thought I detected bitterness in the mix.
"When we fought," his voice floated up to me, and I flinched as though it were a fist. "You told me I was all wrong."
"I was angry. I said things I didn't mean."
"You said I should have saved them."
"Well, that's what I would have done."
"But why?" he glanced up with suddenly tremulous eyes, real anguish of confusion on his face.
"Because that's the right thing to do."
"Right?"
"Well, would you hurt me now?" I asked, hoping to god he wasn't going to give the wrong answer.
"Not right now."
Close enough.
"And why not?"
He squirmed a little in the baggy jumper, like a child singled out in class.
"Because I don't want to."
"Yes?"
"Because you make me feel safe. And not alone."
I wasn't prepared for the way that would touch me. Reaching out unconsciously, I lay a hand on the back of his head.
"I'm glad I make you feel that way. That's sort of what I'm aiming for."
"But why is it? Why do you want to – to do right for me – when I've done nothing right for you?"
Tough question. With answers that should be avoided in case they triggered any vestiges of memory.
The last thing I wanted on my hands right now was a self-discovering Time Lord tormented by the past. Hopefully not ever.
Last night's one-way conversation with his sleeping form came back to me.
How do you make that happen? The good without the bad?... Maybe you're never coming back. Maybe he just needs to reinvent himself. Find new reasons to be good. Start again. I can show him, can't I? He'll come round eventually.
"Because – look at where it's got you," I hedged, "you're almost behaving like a normal guy. That wouldn't have happened if I'd just railed against you forever. I used to be terrified of you – used to isn't quite accurate, but – I dunno. I guess I just saw it in you. The kind of man you could be if we communicated properly."
"I don't feel like any kind of man," his eyes grew darker and yet seemed to flash. "I feel like – like something that's swelling up. Something horrible. A predator. A storm. I don't know how to – I just know that the hunger is there. Always."
"Well, I'm here to see if you can channel it. I mean – you saved me – and thank you – and I know you killed people while you were doing it, but didn't that feel better than killing? The thought that you were rescuing me?"
He jerked away quite suddenly. "How did you know that?"
"Because that's how all good people feel. They want to be rescuers."
"Is that why you're here?"
"No. I'm here because you kidnapped me," I said bluntly, "But I am staying because I want to help you, yes."
"You're staying because I won't let you leave," he hissed, sending a minute chill up my spine.
"Well, that's what you think."
"It's what I say. And what I say happens."
"Are you afraid to lose me?" I interrupted, forcing myself to be still, to be calm.
He snapped his head to the side.
"Of course I am. I told you I am. You're the only thing that makes sense. You're the only thing that's real."
"Then don't you think," I pressed, "That making me want to stay would be better than threatening me?"
He paused to consider this.
"The difference is that I'm doing 'right' – for you as well as me?"
"Yeah. That. And that would make you a good person. Don't you think?"
"I suppose so."
"Now, apply that to those Harlens you killed back there."
He tensed immediately, baring his teeth in a way that made me feel strangely fond of him.
"No. Listen. I told you they were being controlled."
"They hurt you. Nobody hurts you but me."
"Well, that's not logic, for a start. But if they were being controlled then it wasn't their fault, was it?"
"Fault," he mused to himself.
"They weren't being cruel on purpose. If they weren't being controlled they would have been good."
"How were they being controlled?" he questioned, genuinely hooked.
I sighed, and shifted. "How much do you remember about – when you first woke up?"
A light shudder passed through him and I almost panicked.
"Strange things with weapons. Bearing down on me. I remember –" he twitched, eyes flickering. "I remember – a fight. In my head. Something happened in my head. Something awful. Like there were two things – battling for my mind."
Now I panicked. "So," I garbled to distract him, "so imagine that something won their minds. And made them different."
"I was right," he murmured, speaking only to himself now. "I wasn't born there. I was someone. Before."
"Stop." I flung myself from the chair to kneel in front of him, clasping his head in both of my hands. "Stop. You'll only hurt yourself."
"It tried to take me," he bored straight through me into some vast, dark, unknown place. My heart boomed in my ears, my chest was tight. "I must have fought back. I must have. Otherwise I would be it. I wouldn't be so lost. I wouldn't."
I gazed quite helplessly at his breathtaking wondrous expression, the soft 'o's of his open mouth and his round eyes.
"It tried to take me but it couldn't," he gasped, cresting towards his own doom. "It couldn't take me and I couldn't stop it."
The silence echoed the truth of his words.
This was it, I thought, resisting the urge to clutch him to me. This was where I lost him to grief. Rage. Doom. Who knew what.
But his brow crumpled, and his lips drew together into a worried line.
"Is that why – I exist?"
The whisper was heart breaking. The sound of a fractured soul recognising its reflection. Coming to terms with its own corruption.
"Is that why I can't control – it – myself – is that why I can't remember? Is that why I'm so angry? Why I'm afraid?"
Tears stood in the silver-flecked halos of forest green.
"That's what I feel. Every waking moment. That's it. The eye of the storm."
Yes, I thought miserably, wanting to kiss the beads of water from his cheeks. The battle within that makes you so violent. And I don't know how to fix it. I can't stop it without killing your soul anyway.
He suddenly realised that I was still in existence. His hands shot out and gripped my upper arms with shocking strength.
"You have to help me," his tone urgent, low, fierce, demanding. "You have to help me find out who I was."
I nodded, trying to keep my expression blank, trying not to fall apart in his grip.
How, how, how? How was this all so impossible and unfair?
"You'll help me," he repeated, reassuring himself, as he rose to his feet, not knowing what he wanted or where he was going. Just beginning to pace about the deck like some wild thing. "You'll help me and when I remember, I can chase this other thing away."
His feet appeared and disappeared in my line of vision. I couldn't seem to stand.
The motherly bossiness was gone from me. All of that pretence was over. I was weak with fear.
How could I protect him now?
Even as the thought struck me with a crippling blow, his brogue boots struck the floor beside me.
"This is my ship," he said. "This is the only thing I remembered when I woke up."
I stiffened, sensing how close he was to danger.
I had to do something.
I had to do something.
This Is Gallifrey: Our Childhood. Our Home. (1:00)
"If she can work to help you then she will work to help me. She brought you to me. Kept you safe so you could do everything you've done. Doesn't it make sense?"
His eyes were warming, thawing, lighting up like the dawn of spring.
"Some kind of records – records of my travels, of my time in here. Who I was. Like a log or an interface or –"
"Voice interface enabled."
My eyes almost bulged out of their sockets, and suddenly I was on my feet.
He was looking at the hologram replica of himself. Drinking in the tweed, the bow tie. His eyebrows were stretched far into his forehead.
"Look," he said aloud in awe, "that's me. That's her, making me. Is that what I used to wear?"
My thoughts chased each other around fruitlessly.
And then fell headlong into an impulse.
A stupid, reckless, awful impulse. An impulse I'd been fighting since the day I was kidnapped.
But the only impulse I had to hand.
Every nerve, every inch of skin, every limb, every muscle of my body vibrated and flooded as I swayed slightly onto the balls of my feet. Time stretched itself out before me, the seconds lagging into hours as I waited to snap, I waited for the courage.
"Computer," his voice like silken astonishment and anticipation, his back to me as he gazed into his own silver-free eyes. "Tell me who I am. Tell me what I've done. Tell me my name. Tell me everything."
My hand was on his shoulder. Jerking it, twisting his body in the air. Clasping his neck between my palms, sliding upwards into his hair, thumbs soft over his jaw.
I kissed him.