Secrets in the Watch
To say that Caroline Attwater enjoyed hospitals would be a lie that even an idiot could spot.
It had gotten so bad that she needed to be strapped down if she was going to be on her own for extremely long extended moments of time just to keep her from attempting to break out. And even then, occasionally, she would still manage to run out of her room, screaming before collapsing and gripping her hair, shaking until a nurse escorted her back to her room.
Sometimes she pretended to be fine, just to be allowed to move freely, but most of the time everything was too much. She hated hospitals, hated them with all of her soul.
But she was trapped.
Dr. Moon visited her every day. He would sit with her in her room and remind her that her dreams, her wonderful dreams, were false. They were wonderful and fantastical and perfect but they weren't real.
But Caroline Attwater wouldn't speak. She would just twist a pocket watch around in her hands and stare at him, willing him to fade.
Because this wasn't real. None of this could be real.
Every second of every day her head hurt. It felt like it was bursting at the seams, like there was too much for it to contain in such a tiny little thing. Like she had every bit of the universe attempting to fit itself inside her tiny little skull.
She could barely think. She could barely function.
All she wanted to do was scream.
Because maybe, just maybe, screaming would just shatter everything and she'd be free.
Now she stood at her window, hands pressed against the glass, watching Dr. Moon and a ginger woman walk on the grounds. When she blinked, they were gone, down at the river with the ducks. She knew they were there. She saw them, imprinted in her mind. Forced there.
She didn't remember the last time she had spoken a word. It felt like minutes, but Dr. Moon had told her once that it had been two years.
It felt like seconds. An eternity shoved inside a few brief moments of time. A paradox trying to fit itself inside her.
And it wasn't fitting. It would never fit. Because there just wasn't enough space.
And none of it was real.
She would blink and things would fade. They wouldn't exist until she opened her eyes again. She felt them leave and return every second. Drifting in and out of existence as she wished. Everything was under her control.
And yet she couldn't leave. She'd never be able to leave because she was a danger to herself and others, Dr. Moon kept telling her. He wished she would get better, but nothing he was trying seemed to be working.
She would be stuck here for an eternity.
It was a year before she was able to see Donna Noble again, though it passed in a blink. Caroline had been allowed to exit her room for an hour, allowed to roam with close supervision. And she found Donna Noble. How could she not?
She didn't say a word, she couldn't, every time she tried to speak words wouldn't come. They would flounder the moment she tried to form a sound, falling away from her reach. Her bursting brain didn't have space for any language. Only pain, only the knowledge that this wasn't real, none of this was real, it would never be real.
Everything was wrong here.
She ran forwards before her supervision could stop her, reaching out for Donna. The woman turned in shock once she noticed her and Caroline begged her to recognize her. Caroline didn't, not at the moment, her brain was too cluttered for that, but she knew that she knew the woman, in the real world. She knew the woman's name.
In this false world, Donna didn't know who she was. In this world, Donna stepped back in horror as the silent mad woman grabbed her arm before being dragged away. In this world, Donna got everything she ever wanted because she just couldn't see.
She just wouldn't see.
Dr. Moon sat with her after that, took her hands in his, pressing her pocket watch to her palm. "Please, Caroline, I just want to help you."
She shook her head. She didn't want to be helped, not by him, because he was just one of them. He was the only thing that didn't fade, that stayed floating before her in the moment she closed her eyes. She'd tried it, once, at the beginning, thinking that if she kept her eyes closed enough the entire world would fade away forever and she'd be able to return to the real world, whatever world that was.
Because she didn't remember.
She knew her dreams were real, she felt it the moment she entered them, the few times she was able to. The rest of the universe would fade and the only real things in existence would be the adventures happening inside her head. She didn't know what was happening in them, she couldn't remember that. But she knew they were real.
And she knew Donna was there. And a man, a wonderful man, a brilliant man, a man who would save her.
Caroline wanted to save herself. But she didn't think she could. There was nothing she could do from here. Here, she was just meant to live one life, just meant to exist and not question a thing.
But she couldn't do that. The pain wouldn't let her.
Two more years later, and two more blinks, Caroline had a visitor.
A woman dressed in black with a veil over her face. She requested Caroline by name, saying she was a sister. Dr. Moon nearly didn't let her in, Caroline could hear it, she could hear everything, but the visitor promised that she wouldn't encourage any of Caroline's fantasies. She just wanted to see her sister again.
Caroline didn't have a sister. Or, if she did, she didn't remember her anymore. Not enough space for that.
She gripped the pocket watch when the woman entered, looking at her.
"Do you remember me?"
Caroline remembered the woman's voice. She shook her head.
"I am Miss Evangelista…or what's left of her."
She paused. The name…it was like Donna's, it was there. At the center of her mind, right in front of the name of the man from her dreams. Caroline nodded.
"Can you speak?"
Caroline tried, and the words faded. She knew she had spoken once. She'd heard it in her dreams, shouting at herself to just listen. But she never did. Not long enough to relearn, to make her brain understand.
It felt like her brain was dying and Caroline gripped her forehead, shaking.
Miss Evangelista sat by her side, gently touching Caroline's shoulder and letting her fall against the woman. "You were kind to me, once," she whispered. "I want to return the favor." She waited for Caroline to pause a bit, even if it took what was actually ages. "You've been programmed not to look," she whispered, "but you're fighting it. You're stronger then it. You can remember."
"No."
Caroline froze. That word, small and faint and almost non-existent. But a word. Her thumb traced a circle around her pocket-watch.
"Decide to leave. Decide to fool Dr. Moon and decide to leave." Caroline shook her head again. "That's how it works here. You decide, like dreams, and it happens. Your mind may not fill in the gaps, but it should work. It will be better."
Caroline wished and she found herself standing outside, breathing in the air. She knew it had been a second, a millisecond, between the hospital and here, even though the sky looked like it had been years. There was no story for her mind to latch onto about what had happened in the interim.
"See?" Miss Evangelista said, and Caroline turned. "It worked."
She swallowed hard. "How?"
"The Library stored your physical self as an energy signature."
"The Library." Words were still difficult and memories were still beyond Caroline's grasp, but she knew when she'd heard words before. She knew Miss Evangelista, and she knew the Library. "Death."
Miss Evangelista nodded, her veil fluttering. Caroline blinked and the woman almost stayed, she held on for a second longer then everything else. She'd been alive once, but now she was dead.
Caroline remembered how she'd died.
"I was a ghost caught in the Wi-Fi and automatically uploaded. You were teleported here."
"Smart."
"You were right. If you're unloved you can see." Miss Evangelista stepped forwards. "Why do you remember? Why weren't you integrated?"
Caroline gripped the pocket watch but said nothing.
"You must know what happened, why you can see?"
"You can."
"Yes, but I'm dead, I'm a string of numbers with a misplaced decimal point. You're human, you're normal. You should have been integrated. Why weren't you?"
Caroline shook her head, and the motion felt like everything was breaking. She collapsed to the ground, grabbing her head, pressing her pocket watch against the flesh.
"I wish I could help you," Miss Evangelista said.
But she had. In more ways than Caroline had the words to say.
|C-S|
In the Library, in the world Caroline knew was real but couldn't picture, River, Anita, and Mr. Lux were gathered in a lit area, waiting for the Doctor to return.
River was sonicing the shadows, hunting for any Vashta Nerada in the air.
"You know, it's funny," she said casually, hiding her worry because of who was trapped inside the computer. "I keep wishing they were here."
Anita frowned. "Who's they?"
River frowned, catching herself. "The Doctor."
"The Doctor is here, isn't he? He is coming back, right?"
River swallowed hard. "You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them, and it's like they're not quite finished. They're not done yet. Well, yes, the Doctor's here. They came when I called, just like he always does. But not my Doctor." She smiled. "Now my Doctor, I've seen whole armies turn and run away. And he'd just swagger off back to their TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Time Lords in the TARDIS. Next stop, everywhere."
The Doctor ran into the room. "Spoilers!" he called, just hearing the end of what River had said. "Nobody can open a TARDIS by snapping their fingers. It doesn't work like that."
River shrugged. "It does for the Doctor."
"I am the Doctor."
She nodded. "Yeah. Some day."
The Doctor glanced at Anita. "How are you doing?"
"Where's Other Dave?"
"Not coming." He paused. "Sorry."
"Well, if they've taken him, why haven't they gotten me yet?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe tinting your visor's making a difference."
Anita laughed. "It's making a difference all right. No one's ever going to see my face again."
"Can I get you anything?"
"An old age would be nice. Anything you can do?"
He nodded. "I'm all over it."
"Doctor…" she began slowly. "When we first met you, you didn't trust Professor Song. And then she whispered a word in your ear, and you did. My life so far…I could do with a word like that. What did she say?" she paused, her voice shaking. "Give a dead girl a break. Your secrets are safe with me."
The Doctor's eyes widened. "Safe."
"What?"
"Safe. You don't say saved. Nobody says saved. You say safe." He spun to Mr. Lux. "The data fragment! What did it say?"
"4,022 people saved. No survivors."
The Doctor was grinning now, though he was cursing himself. Because he hadn't listened to Caroline, not enough, because that brilliant woman had seen if from the start. And he was normally so good at listening to her, but this time he had failed her, this time he had lost her because he hadn't been listening hard enough.
"Doctor?" River asked carefully.
"Nobody says saved. Nutters say saved." He nodded. "You say safe. You see, it didn't mean safe. It meant…it literally meant saved!" He shook his head. "Oh, Caroline, you genius!"
|C-S|
A genius trapped inside a computer can't be much of a genius, especially when her entire world is falling apart at her fingertips.
Because the computer couldn't hold everything. It was going to erase itself, and she was going to vanish with it.
She felt it. She could hear it. She could hear the little girl begging for help because all she wanted to do was save people and she couldn't. There wasn't enough space for it, and she was going to lose everything.
And the girl didn't want that. All she'd ever wanted was to help. But she'd run out of memory space.
And Caroline could hear everything.
Hours passed in seconds and the sky went red. Caroline stood in the middle of the path, alone, arms spread wide as she shouted at the sky. She didn't really have anything to say, really it was just a scream, but everything was breaking and she was falling and she didn't want to die, not this way.
She wanted the Doctor to save her because that was the only way she was getting out of this. She needed him, more than she ever had before.
|C-S|
The Doctor had been prepared to sacrifice himself to save 4,022 people, and then River had punched him.
Now he'd woken up and he was handcuffed and River was sacrificing herself.
"Oh, no, no, no, no. Come on, what are you doing? That's my job."
River chuckled, twisting wires together. "Oh, and I'm not allowed to have a career, I suppose?"
He pulled on his wrist, but he didn't break the handcuffs. "Why am I handcuffed? Why do you even have handcuffs?"
River smirked. "Spoilers."
"This is not a joke. Stop this now. This is going to kill you! I'd have a chance, you don't have any."
She shook her head again. "You wouldn't have a chance, and neither do I." She typed a few things. "I'm timing it for the end of the countdown. There'll be a blip in the command flow. That way it should improve our chances of a clean download."
He pulled at the pillar, trying to free himself. "River, please. No."
River was crying now. "Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die. All the time we've been together, you both knew I was coming here." She took a deep breath. "The last time I saw you, the real you, the future you, I mean, you turned up on my doorstep…with a new haircut and a suit. You took me to Darillium to see the Singing Towers. What a night that was. The Towers sand, and the two of you cried."
"Autodestruct in one minute," the computer announced.
"You wouldn't tell me why, but I suppose you knew it was time. My time. Time to come to the Library. You even gave me your screwdriver." She nodded to it. "That should have been a clue." The Doctor tried to reach either of the sonics, but there was no way he'd be able to reach it. "There's nothing you can do."
"You can let me do this."
She shook her head. "If you die here, it'll mean I've never met you."
"Time can be rewritten."
"Not those times. Not one line. Don't you dare." She nodded again, swallowing even harder, her voice shaking. "It's okay. It's okay. It's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all of that to come. Time and space…you watch us run."
"River, you knew my name."
"Autodestruct in ten."
"You whispered my name in my ear."
"Nine. Eight. Seven."
He pulled even harder, trying to break everything, trying to save her, trying to stop her, because she knew his name. She was the only person in the entire universe that knew his name. "There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could."
River shook her head. "Hush, now."
"Four. Three."
"Spoilers."
"Two. One."
River joined the power cables together and the Doctor was blinded, turning away from the light.
|C-S|
The moment Caroline returned to the real world she collapsed to the ground, taking large, deep breaths.
She was back. She was back and her head didn't hurt and everything didn't blink from existence the moment she closed her eyes.
Her head didn't hurt with every thought, years didn't pass in seconds, entire universes weren't all trying to fit inside her head.
Everything was normal again.
Someone made a sound next to her and Caroline spun, thankful to see Donna standing there as well, the woman clutching her mouth in shock. They stared at each other for a moment before hugging tightly.
They were alive.
But somewhere deep within the Library, a Time Lord stared at an empty chair, knowing a woman had sacrificed herself to save 4,022 others, knowing that one day he would tell that women the greatest secret he had to share.
And knowing that she kept referring to him in the plural. As though there were two, and had always been two, whenever she would see him in the future.
|C-S|
It took Donna, Caroline, and the Doctor a bit of time to find each other. The Doctor had to free himself from the handcuffs, the humans had to try and figure out exactly what had happened given Mr. Lux's descriptions of the events.
When the Doctor finally emerged, he hugged Caroline tightly, the two practically clinging to one another, and then he explained everything that had happened since he'd attempted to send them into the TARDIS. Of course, the moment he was finished hugging Caroline Donna slapped him for teleporting her away without her permission, making the Doctor very glad he'd just promised Caroline he would live.
Of course, he had almost broken that promise.
Donna, very quickly, explained what life she'd been given inside CAL, telling them both that she wanted to look for the man she'd married. The Doctor and Caroline had nodded and let her go looking.
But then the Doctor had turned to Caroline and, for a moment, he was worried that she'd also had a husband, or at least a boyfriend. Not that he didn't want her to be happy, he always wanted her to be happy, but…he was glad when she said she didn't have anyone.
That gladness faded very quickly when she quietly told him that she'd been stuck inside a hospital for most of the time seeming to have gone completely mad. He hugged her again, trying to help her rationalize why she would have had to suffer like that.
She was the last saved person, perhaps she was the one that broke the system, and CAL just couldn't completely deal with her. The computer had tried, since it had the mind of a young girl, but it hadn't worked properly. There just wasn't enough space so Caroline just hadn't fit properly into the programming.
Now, the pair of them stood against a wall near a door, standing with his hand in hers. She knew that the Vashta Nerada had agreed to give them time to clear out the Library, but that didn't stop her from remembering that there were actually carnivorous organisms inside shadows.
Donna walked up to them, emerging from a crowd of saved people attempting to teleport out.
"Any luck?" the Doctor called.
"There wasn't even anyone called Lee in the Library that day." Donna sighed. "I suppose he could have had a different name out here, but, let's be honest, he wasn't real, was he?"
"Maybe not."
"I made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word. What's that say about me?"
The Doctor answered quickly. "Everything." He paused, eying Donna's expression. "Sorry, did I say everything? I meant to say nothing. I was aiming for nothing. I accidentally said everything."
Donna smiled at him. "What about you? Are you all right?" she and Caroline had already spoken before the Doctor arrived.
He shrugged. "I'm always all right."
Donna paused. "Is 'all right' special Time Lord code for 'really not all right at all'?"
"Why?"
"Because I'm all right, too."
They all paused for a moment before turning and walking out of the room, the Doctor pulling River's diary from one of his many pockets. It was very different to be walking through the corridors instead of running from the dark, though the balcony that they'd first walked to looked exactly the same.
The Doctor placed River's diary on the balcony rail, still seemingly refusing to let go of Caroline's hand, not that she was minding in that moment.
"Your friend, Professor Song," Donna said. "She knew you in the future, but she didn't know me. Or Caroline. The way she looked at us…"
He tapped the diary. "This is her diary. My future." He shrugged. "I could look both of you up. What do you think? Shall we peek at the end?"
Donna smirked. "Spoilers, right?"
He nodded. "Right." Caroline nodded as well. The Doctor placed Rivers sonic on top of the diary, and they all turned. "Come on. The next chapter's this way."
However, they hadn't actually gotten that far before the Doctor spun back around, letting go of Caroline's hand, and ran back to the screwdriver. "Why? Why would I give her my screwdriver? Why would I do that?" He turned to look at his companions. "Thing is, future me had years to think about it, all those years to think of a way to save her, and what he did was give her a screwdriver. Why would I do that?" He studied it closer and grinned. "Oh! Oh! Oh, look at that. I'm very good!"
Caroline frowned. "What have you done?"
"Saved her." The Doctor turned and ran back off through the Library.
His two companions looked after him for a moment before looking at each other. "I don't really feel like running at the moment," Donna said.
Caroline nodded. "TARDIS?"
"TARDIS."
|C-S|
Later, once River was safe and sound inside the repaired Library computer, the Doctor leaned back in the TARDIS chair, thinking. His companions were elsewhere inside the TARDIS; he didn't really know where. Because in that moment he had something else to consider.
River had been very careful not to reveal anything about his future. She'd tried to discuss their future adventures to align their timelines, but the moment she realized that he hadn't met her yet she stopped. From that point on she refused to share anything of actual value with him.
But the one thing River Song hadn't fully accounted for was the way she looked at people. Or the vocal tendencies that had been so engrained she couldn't shake them. The Doctor knew that River Song knew his future, he could have easily read her diary, but he also knew that she knew the future of someone very close to him.
She had known the future of Caroline.
It had been impossible to miss the woman's first reaction to seeing Caroline, or, at least, impossible if you were a Time Lord. She'd looked around the trio, taking them in one at a time, and had landed on Caroline last. He'd seen her jump, her obvious recognition. She knew who Caroline Attwater was without the woman needing to be formerly introduced.
And River had almost seemed surprised that Caroline was so quiet. Of course, it was possible that, in the future, Caroline would become so trusting of River and so used to her presence that she would open up around the woman, but that didn't seem to be what it was. River had never known Caroline as a quiet person, not given her shock at being presented with Caroline as such.
For some reason, River had always known Caroline as someone who spoke, as someone who took action, if River's confused looks whenever Caroline wouldn't do or say something were anything to go by.
And that didn't seem like Caroline. Certainly, Caroline was smart and she noticed things, sometimes more things then he did. But she wasn't talkative. He respected that, he understood that, he knew that some people found it more difficult than others. He knew that her being quiet didn't mean she wasn't interested or that she had nothing to say; it was just, sometimes, she found it more difficult to speak up.
Sometimes it was because she felt like her opinion would be stupid, but he'd been working on trying to help her with that, let her know that he would always listen to what she had to say, he would always take her opinion into account. Again, it was entirely possible that Caroline would end up spending enough time with him that she would grow more confident in her opinions and thoughts, and that would be the woman River would later know.
But the Doctor had two companions. And River hadn't known who Donna was. No recognition, nothing, until she overheard the woman's name. All River knew of Donna was through stories, fond memories, and she'd never actually met the woman before.
River had met Caroline, that much was obvious.
So the Doctor knew that, at some point in his future, he would leave behind Donna and Caroline would stay. For how long or why, he didn't know. All he knew now was that it was going to happen. And part of him knew that it wouldn't be for the best.
It had pained him immensely to learn what Caroline had suffered through inside CAL. He had told her one thing, the first thing that had come to mind in an attempt to explain her circumstance, but he knew that Charlotte would have been able to take on one more human mind, just one, and let the mind fully integrate into the system. She had enough space for that, and certainly enough heart.
So why had Caroline remembered? Or maybe remembered wasn't the right word, because Caroline had made it quite clear that she hadn't actually remembered much inside the computer, and everything she did have had been in fragments.
Instead of being like Donna and getting a life, getting her happy ending, Caroline had felt like the entire universe was attempting to fit inside her head. She had known that years were passing in seconds, that the moment someone thought of something or mentioned it the thing had happened. She'd known instantly that the world wasn't real. She'd even been able to feel the entire world falling away every time she closed her eyes.
Caroline was a normal human, so why had she reacted this way?
The Doctor didn't actually know the answer, though he wished he did. It would have saved him a lot of thought process to just know why Caroline had been forced to suffer like that. It just didn't fit, but he didn't know how to explain it.
Elsewhere in the TARDIS, somewhere the Doctor didn't actually know, Caroline Attwater sat on a step. She didn't actually know where she was, but she trusted the TARDIS to return her to either the console room or her room once she was ready too. She didn't actually know where Donna was at the moment either, but she wasn't really thinking about that.
She was thinking about much the same things as the Doctor, though she hadn't had the same revelation regarding River Song. She hadn't been around the woman enough to notice that, and she'd been a bit distracted by the monsters that lived in the shadows.
Instead, at that moment, Caroline was twisting a small object in her hands. She couldn't even remember where she had gotten it or why; it had just always been in her life. Something she'd always just thrown in boxes and bags without thinking about it.
Until now.
In the world of the computer, there were few other things that had actually been real. Donna had been the closest that she'd actually interacted with, with Miss Evangelista the next, but she'd been able to feel everyone else somewhere within the computer, living their lives among the numbers. One of the only objects had been a small pocket watch.
She was fairly certain it had never left her hand the entire time, and she didn't even know if it was possible for it too. Something in her had been clinging to this object, refusing to lose it.
And she didn't really know why, because there was nothing particularly special about a pocket watch that she didn't even remember the origin of. It was just an object and that was all it would ever be.
So why, now, did she feel like the pocket watch held all of the secrets in the universe? Why, as she twisted it in her hands, traced the strange patterns with her thumb, did she feel like this pocket watch was the most important thing to have ever existed in the entire universe?
Slowly, without even thinking about it clearly, Caroline moved towards opening the watch. She would never be able to say why she nearly did this, she just did.
But before she got very far, Donna spoke behind her.
"Caroline!" the woman cheered, and Caroline turned, shoving the watch into her pocket. "I've been looking everywhere for you. How are you feeling?"
Caroline forced a smile, forgetting completely about the mystery of the pocket watch now returned to its normal position at the bottom of her pocket. "All right."
And if Donna recognized the special Time Lord talk, she didn't comment on it.
A/N: The secret is out, but how long will it take for anyone to notice? Or will there be any adverse effects based on what's happened here? We shall see.
