Meeting of the Minds

Rose shivered as she followed Ace and her Professor down the ever emptying hallway. There was a disturbing quality about the place – as if its occupant had suddenly decided to stop. No life was evident in the hall, no spark of color, no knickknacks or curiosities from other worlds, nothing but bare white walls and plain wooden floors. She had had a dream once of a haunted house. Instead of cobwebs and darkness, there had been light and cleanliness. Instead of life, there was only life put on hold. She was strongly reminded of that dream now and that frightened her.

If the Doctor could give up; what did that mean for her?

As if her thoughts had summoned some sort of retribution, the floor rippled suddenly as if it could no longer determine if it were solid, liquid, or gas.

"Watch out!" Ace shouted as she gripped the back of the Doctor's jacket just before the floor in front of him dropped away.

"Oh dear," the Seventh Doctor said as he looked around the hallway. A door off to the side seemed to be their only means of escape and he pointed his umbrella in that direction, "Through there! Quickly!"

The trio tumbled into the room – no less bare than the outside – and slammed the door behind them. Rose suspected that if they were to attempt to open it again, nothing would be outside. The Doctor's mind was unraveling and she did not know if she could put it together again. A tear escaped her eye and she wiped it away angrily. She would save the Doctor. It was what she did. It was what she always did.

"Rose, you okay?" Ace asked, sympathy etched across her face.

"I'm fine," Rose managed a smile, "But what was that?"

"That," the Doctor replied with a hint of unaccustomed distress in his voice, "Was me starting to give up. I'm wiping away whole sections of my mind as I will myself out of existence. We must hurry! Where am I? Where am I?" he muttered, glancing about the room.

The only thing to occupy the white walled room was a single painting. Curious despite herself, Rose stepped forward to give the painting a once over while Ace and her Professor conferred. Done in the oils and paints of years gone by, Rose almost didn't recognize that it was her own face staring back at her from the frame. It was a painting of herself in the dress that she had worn when they had first met Charles Dickens. What was a painting of her doing in the Doctor's mind? Before she could ask her companions, Ace pointed towards a metal door on the opposite side of the room.

"Let's try that one, Professor. I don't fancy going back the way we came."

"Neither do I," the Seventh Doctor agreed, adjusting the fit of his hat as he led the way once more to the door. Twisting the knob firmly, he pushed it inwards.

"Oh, it's you. I should have known," the Doctor said in a strangely hollow voice.

"Of course it's me, you idiot," the Seventh Doctor said, glaring at his successor, "Just what do you think you're doing?"

From his position on the floor, the dark leather clad Time Lord looked somewhat surprised by the tone of voice his other self used.

"Doctor!" Rose cried, pushing past Ace and her Professor to scramble across the room to kneel beside her friend. The Doctor's appearance was rather shocking – his hair was greasy, his cheeks hollowed, and to her horror his eyes looked dead. "Let me get this off you," she said gently, pulling a bobby pin from her hair and trying to pick the lock on his handcuffs.

"Didn't you know, Rose?" he asked, seemingly unaffected by her appearance besides a slight increase in his breathing, "I'm only a figment of your imagination."

"Piffle!" the Seventh Doctor exclaimed, slamming the end of his umbrella on the floor with a loud 'THUMP,' "You're no one's figment. You're the Doctor! And if you don't come out of this funk of yours the entire universe is going to end!"

"Why should I care? Why should I survive when no one else does?"

Even Rose stopped what she was doing to stare at him in shock.