/ A.N - Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/followed/favourited this story! I'm at university so updates are unfortunately quite sporadic, but I will do my best to finish this one as best I can! (Summer can't come fast enough, haha!) Enjoy, and if you want, leave a review! /
The Doctor reached.
His brain felt fuzzy, and his telepathic ability felt even more stunted than it had in the days directly following the War. All he heard was the rushing roar of silence. He hadn't once taken down his barriers since then for more than a matter of seconds. Time passed. He sat, rigid, trying to make sense of the thing.
The feeling was like a lost limb. Or… maybe a sense, he thought numbly, but he knew it was much more prominent than the human sight or touch. When he had first awoken, screaming, from the regeneration, he had sworn he had gone deaf. He had sworn someone had gone into his brain and taken a dull, rusty spoon and had carved their way through his telepathic cortex. He had been under the influence of telepathic dampeners before, but this… this was less dampening and more agonizing.
It had scarred over, in the years following the War. He had forced himself to protect his mind all the Time, and while it was painstaking at first, anything was better than the ripping, galaxy-shattering silence.
Now, he had to actively remind himself to take down the shields, as though he had forgotten it was actually his natural state. But they had to find Susan, before she got herself killed, and he would be the last.
Again.
He reached for Susan in his mind, but it was still eerily silent. He could feel her presence- he breathed in relief at that- but she was closed off.
She was blocking him out, he realized with a pang of heartsbroken dread. He understood completely.
The Doctor shoved his way past David (amidst his cries of, "what have you done?") and stormed for the door, only to nearly topple over a tiny body standing in the way. He looked down, and, his vision blurry, he saw the form of little Alex, who had opened the door for him. The Doctor realized he was looking through his own tears. Hastily, he wiped them away.
"Are you bad?" the child asked, a drop of fear lacing his voice. "Did you hurt Mummy?"
The Doctor felt as though the wind had been knocked out of his lungs. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream, yes, I did, I hurt her in deeper ways than you could possibly ever imagine.
Instead, he crouched down, and as he looked into Alex's pale blue eyes, he saw a light that he had always seen in Susan when she was younger. Trembling, he took the child's small hand in his own, hoping, dreading that he was right about something.
"You sound like Mummy," Alex said before the Doctor could say anything, and the Doctor felt a wave of ten million emotions wash over him as he felt the child's telepathic presence interact with his own, in a familial bond, confirming his suspicions. The presence was weak, being diluted by the human, paternal side, but it was there. It was there.
"Alex," the Doctor said quietly. "Your Mummy might be in danger. I'm going to help find her, but I need your help." The half Time Tot's eyes were wide. Their blueness reminded him of his first regeneration. "I need you to go up to your room, and sit very still, and make sure that if your Mummy tries to come back there, you'll be there. Do you understand?"
The Doctor felt distrust coming off his great-grandson in waves, but the boy nodded, scared, yet determined. Clearly, danger was not foreign to him.
"Go on, then. Good lad." The Doctor's voice shook as he patted the boy on the shoulder, and stood back up, his vision clearing as Alex ran upstairs. Inhaling sharply, the Doctor turned around to face a furious David.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" David murmured in a dangerously low tone. "You can't just come waltzing back in here, terrorize my wife, and act like you own the bloody place! Do you know how much we have gone through, all without you? There were times she would sit awake at night looking out the window like she was expecting you to come back for her! You told her you would come back, and well, here you are, years later, struggles later, and what do you do? You make her run out to God knows where by-"
"Would you shut up?" the Doctor snapped, suddenly aware of Rose's presence and feeling at once very afraid David would say something he knew would make his new companion run screaming from him. Selfish, he thought derisively. "We need to find her. You say it's dangerous out there, yeah? You say there are Rassilon-forsaken Dalek mutants prowling the streets, just looking for someone to kill? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not about to lose her again."
His voice broke off as he finished speaking. The anxiety welled in his stomach at the thought, and by the ashen look on David's face, he could tell his grandson-in-law was remembering other Times. The younger man swallowed hard, his frame trembling slightly in emotion. Hesitating, he eventually nodded weakly.
The Doctor turned to Rose, who looked terrified and confused. He felt a pang of guilt at that. Some first adventure for her to witness.
"Doctor, what's going on?" She had tears in her eyes, and the Doctor felt a distant part of himself nod in approval at her ability to empathize.
"Rose, I need you to stay here," he said, and, seeing her about to protest. "No. You don't… you don't know Daleks. They're the most dangerous beings in the Universe, and I will not let them be the first aliens you experience, because they might be your last."
He could tell she was still uneasy being left behind, so he added. "Besides, we can't leave Alex here alone. He's too small. Make sure he doesn't wander off. Please." The last word was uttered with a note of desperation. Rose eventually nodded in acceptance.
The Doctor put his hand on the doorknob, his knuckles noticeably white with anxiety. Inhaling deeply, he opened it, and he and David stepped outside into the unknown.