Ok, first of all: thank you for all your fantastic reviews, I feel very flattered. I decided to continue this fic because it just doesn't leave me alone... I'm still very unsure about all this so I would be very grateful for your thoughts andcomments. A big thank you to you, glindapenguin, for betaingand convincing me to post this.
I hope it's worth reading!
These wounds won't seem to heal
this pain is just too real
there's just too much that time cannot erase
- Evanescence
As so many things did nowadays it had started with the war.
He could barely remember what he had done after he found himself still alive. Alone. He knew that somehow he had given a badly burned TARDIS the best repairs he could do, but it was very dreamlike. A snapshot of his hands smeared with oil here, a memory of himself staring at equations there. Some days he couldn't even tell if he did it or if his ship fixed itself.
But it didn't matter, nothing did back then. Freud would have told him "Clearly you were in Schock, mein Freund," and for a long time he clung to that explanation. Finding yourself on a planet you didn't remember going to? Shock. Couldn't explain where you got that leather jacket? Shock.
But he soon discovered that it wasn't shock, but silence. When he listened he found nothing but a sea of black stillness inside himself, where a telepathic link used to connect all Time Lords. What had been white noise in the back of his mind, constantly reminding him that he could never fully outrun them was gone now.
He had pushed it away with noise, flung himself into the task of rearranging some timelines, then into adventures, trying to impress a 21st century shop girl and lately a renegade Time Agent. He had desperately hoped that companions would make it better. They did, and for a while he thought he was over it.
The constant feeling that he had forgotten something started in 1941 when Jamie, a poor little empty child's emotions, scratched at the wound again. Things he thought dead resurfaced, the void in his mind was gnawing at his sanity again.
Afterwards he had caught himself glancing over his shoulder, half expecting to see, to feel someone he knew there. Heard someone talking, only to find the room empty. There wasn't anybody left. Just shadows of what should be.
He had gotten up early again. If you couldn't stand the nightmares there was a simple solution for a Time Lord â don't sleep. He was glad that that didn't apply to humans and so he was spared an embarrassing moment when he woke up half naked in his bed and had no idea how he had gotten there; Jack and Rose sleeping on two chairs next to him, a still wet jumper carelessly dropped on the floor. He wondered briefly how any creature in the universe could actually shut off its higher brain functions to sleep in a twisted position like the Time Agent showed, then he sneaked out of the room. Explaining suddenly didn't seem like a good idea anymore in the light of the new day.
"You see, I'm losing my mind because I'm alone. No, you two don't count. No, you can't help. Ta." Sure.
His brain played tricks on him again when he assessed his worn out face in a mirror. For just a millisecond he could have sworn he saw Susan standing behind him. He frowned. A millisecond was a very long time for any Gallifreyan. He shook it off, splashed some water into his face, got into a fresh jumper and headed for the console room. Work kept his mind from thinking too much about it.
It was getting worse every day.
His companions didn't notice how desperate his brain searched for connections of course. They were only humans, they couldn't hear it. He was hugging them, taking their hands to run off into new adventures, just to remind himself that they were the most real part of himself. Anchors to reality. But a vital part was missing, his mind was slowly crumbling down like a house of cards.
He started seeing things lately.
Things were melting into each other, memories of past companions, friends, alternate timelines, the future, all blending into the present. Then his mind returned to the one moment it couldn't forget, when the last voice of his people died, leaving him behind. And the resulting blackouts were lasting longer now.
Rose and Jack hadn't noticed before because he was a master of disguise with 900 years of practice. But there would be serious questions when those two woke up with aching backs.
You can't let them leave. They need you, you need them. But how do y--
"We need to talk Doctor."
Curious thing about Jack was that you never quite noticed him enter a room if he didn't want you to, always trying to take you by surprise. But the Time Lord, half hidden in a mess of cables and strange crystals under the main console had expected him. So the answer was a well rehearsed, annoyed sigh.
"About what?"
"Last night..."
"Must have been the food."
The answer came out just a moment too quickly and the Doctor cursed silently what an impact a single second could have. Jack raised an eyebrow and continued.
"It wasn't the food. I scanned you."
A torrent of strange untranslated curses was the not so rehearsed answer this time, as the Time Lord hit the wrong fuse and sparks rained down upon him. Slowly he got out of the cables, stood up to face the Captain.
"Found anything... interesting?" he was still smiling.
"What, you mean except for the two hearts? Sure. Something that shouldn't be in a healthy brain, for example..."
Jack pressed some buttons on his wristcomp and produced a blue hologram of a brain the Doctor immediately identified as his own.
"... a black spot. A brain area that shows no activity at all."
His patient smile made Jack obviously nervous, he had clearly expected a different reaction. Only the darkening in his blue eyes showed that the alien in front of him cared at all. And was in fact deeply disturbed how easily the human had discovered his secret.
"And how do you know that's not perfectly normal for my race?"
The words snaked out through the clenched teeth of a mouth that desperately tried to keep grinning.
"You fainted! Is that normal for your race, too?"
"Won't happen again."
"Doctor, as much as I liked to undress you, I wished it had been under other circumstances."
On any other day it would make the Time Lord genuinely smile that Jack tried to get answers out of him by flirting.
"It's nothing, as I said, the food. I'm not human, must've had an allergic reaction to something."
"Doctor, I don'tâ"
"It. Was. Nothing."
The silence between them seemed as deafening as the one in his head. There was nothing more to say. Jack just shrugged, defeated.
"I'm sorry, I'm... we're just worried about you."
"You don't have to. Now let me finish this or we'll be stuck in temporal orbit a lot longer than I'd like to."
He knew that Jack wouldn't be the last visit today. Rose would turn up soon. Jack must have let her sleep a little longer.
A black spot.What a fitting description.
He wondered briefly if regenerating might cure him, but going that far just yet seemed wrong. If it killed him in the end he would find out if it scarred over in the process, or if he stayed dead. Problem solved either way. Realizing what strange thoughts were running through his head, he returned to his work under the console.
Bending down, he heard music dancing and drifting through the air, just above his level of perception. Puccini, definetly Puccini. He hadn't heard any of it since... what had he called it?
Time storm.
Madam Butterfly made his hearts clench lately, wherever it was coming from, he had to switch it off. Fast. He got up, but instead of the console room he found himself staring at the reason he didn't sleep anymore.
Fire, followed by darkness. A world burning away, leaving only blackness behind. Rassilon's power finally free again at the end of his race. Except for him, falling through space and time like a leaf in an autumn wind. He felt that tingling of his skin again, how it turned into twitching, how that turned into burning. He remembered dying then, hoping for eternal darkness, too.
This is what Omega must have felt like. Everything lost. Blinding white agony---
"... and it's not like you couldn't trust us."
He blinked.
The searing pain disappeared, the world resolved into more colours than red and black, green returned. Rose in front of him.
Rose?
He suddenly understood that she must have lectured him for quite some time now, absently fiddling with a blonde strand of her hair.
Not again.
"I mean we sav-- Is everything all right Doctor?" There was so much concern in her eyes he understood immediately that he must look like he did the night before. His knees certainly felt weak, so he leant as casually as he could against a wall and tried to hide it.
He gave Rose one of his smiles and prayed she would buy it. He hadn't enough strength for another argument or even another smile.
"I just can't listen to you little apes ranting all day long without having a clue what's going on. I told Jack already, must have been the food. I'm fine, ok?"
He turned to leave, but she was not letting him go that easily. Her hand on his arm felt strangely heavy.
"Who is Susan? You called me Susan before."
He didn't know if he imagined that sentence, but he knew that he fell when unconsciousness pulled him in once more.