18. Back to the Start.

The Doctor lay in his cell, staring at the spot where River had been, and placed his own hand on his face, just as she had done. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that he had been rescued – really rescued, this time. Fuzzily he remembered her trying to carry him, telling him that they had to get out fast, but then the world of memories lurched around him and his mind was left in the dark.

The hallucinations always tried to carry him to safety, but never could. Well, most except his enemies. And the Adipose. You couldn't really expect small babies made of fat to carry a fully grown Time Lord. But perhaps that was just as well – being rescued by the Adipose would have been very strange indeed. The Doctor thought about it for a moment. He would have been forced to babysit, probably, and tell weird stories about monsters with bones and muscles – the human under the bed, that sort of thing. And babysitting said Adipose would have been very, very difficult in summer, if not nigh on impossible, because he would have had to make sure they didn't melt. Would they melt?

The Doctor pondered that for a moment. Hmm. He wasn't sure.

"Melt one and put it with bacon," he muttered to himself out loud.

"No," he replied. "No… enough killing."

This last hallucination had been the final straw – he had been so sure that he had got out, so certain, that he had felt himself fighting to claw back to reality. The fact that he had had to fight to do this only served to show how difficult it had become to think properly.

He squinted at the window. So difficult, that he couldn't remember what had happened. It was like waking up the next morning after a hangover. Not that he knew what that was like, of course, but he had heard about it, and seen it.

"I'm not drunk, honestly, I'm completely sober," the Doctor whispered to someone who wasn't there. "I'll remember this tomorrow."

The Doctor coughed, the cold air burning his lungs.

"That's what they always say."

His head felt heavy, oh so heavy, that he found it exhausting even to lift it. And it hurt. The Doctor closed his eyes and swallowed. His throat, his lungs, his head, his ribs, his wrists… everything hurt constantly.

He shifted to try to relieve the pain and gasped. Lightning bolts of pain shot across his chest, his head spun and his stomach flipped so violently that he soon found himself dry-heaving over the piece of mouldy bread beside him. Each heave of his stomach brought more stabbing pain, until eventually he flopped back into his original position, limbs like jelly, and simply lay there gasping shallowly for breath.

He had been left in here for days – possibly weeks, he wasn't entirely sure - without visitors, now, if they could even be called visitors. Ever since the last visit, when Voldemort had attacked his mind again, there had been no one. The Doctor sighed, closing his eyes.

He had broken completely. Voldemort had finally broken into the very depths of his mind and dredged up the information he had most dreaded – the final days of the Master. He had seen the Master captured, forced to work for a rich man who wanted to make his daughter immortal. He had seen the Master's life force, how he used it, how it drained him, and the Doctor had felt Voldemort's satisfaction and relief before the wizard withdrew.

The Doctor knew what Voldemort was thinking; the Master needed help, he needed something to stabilise his life force, or he would keep burning himself up and die. He could pretend to offer that stability, or just use it to keep the Master subdued, and he would have all the information he wanted. After all, the Master had offered no protest to helping the rich man.

Of course Voldemort, true to form, had been so impatient to get the answers he was looking for that he had failed to look for others. He had pulled out of the Doctor's mind before the memory had fully played out, so had not seen the Master's betrayal, his attempt to take over the world, or his attack on Rassilon. The Doctor had tried to hold onto the connection to show Voldemort this, to show that it wasn't worth dragging the Master through, too, but the evil wizard had simply brutally finished severing the connection then passed him over to Bellatrix.

The Doctor shivered. He wondered why he hadn't been killed yet, if he was now useless.

"Doctor," the Master said, suddenly appearing. His voice could have sounded vaguely relieved if this had been any other situation.

"Master," the Doctor muttered.

"Where are they all? Why is there just emptiness inside my head?"

"They're gone."

The Master sank to his knees, his hands gripping his temples, and grimaced. "It used to drown it out a bit, before, but now that they're gone…" he looked up at the Doctor in anguish. "It's louder, Doctor, the drumming. It's louder."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor murmured. "I can help."

The Master suddenly snickered. "Yes, we've done this bit." He got back to his feet and walked over to the Doctor, staring down at him in amusement. "They think we're friends." The Master snorted. "They're going to use you as leverage over me."

The Doctor simply stared at the Master's shoes. The Master frowned and crouched down in front of the ill Time Lord, staring into his eyes.

He raised his eyebrows. "Well, you're in a bit of a state, aren't you? How long do you reckon it's been now?"

The Doctor coughed, choking on his response. "Don't… know."

"Long enough, I think. You broke, didn't you? You always were so easy to break, Doctor, weren't you? The Year That Never Was," he continued, moving to sit on the floor in front of the Doctor, "you almost lost your mind, when you worked out who they were."

"I remember," the Doctor gasped, still trying to catch his breath.

"I made a bet with myself," the Master continued. "About how long it would take you. I lost. But," he added, "I also won, so there's that."

"Where's Rose?"

The Master looked around the cell exaggeratedly. "Not here," he said shortly. "Did you really think she'd stick around? No one ever does."

The Doctor remained silent.

"You're not fun anymore," the Master pouted. "Where's all the anger, the rage? All your stupid self-righteous speeches about how you're going to save everyone?"

"I'm on holiday," the Doctor breathed.

Dimly, the Doctor was aware of the Master continuing to taunt him, but it was starting to fade to a background noise in his mind. He just didn't have the energy to focus on anything anymore, not even his own subconscious.

The television needs tuning; all I can hear is static.

Get up and do it, would you? I'm too comfy here.

The Doctor listened, but the static didn't right itself. How odd. Perhaps he should have a look with his sonic screwdriver. Oh. Of course. It didn't do wood. Who in their right mind would make a wooden television?

Oliver Wood would. Something at the back of his mind snickered.

Would he? He seemed to remember that Oliver Wood was more likely to try to turn the TV into a giant Snitch or something. But that would just be impractical. And would it be a Snitch with a screen inside it, like a Telletubby? And if so, wouldn't it make it a bit hard to watch?

The Doctor didn't think anyone would buy a TV you had to chase just to watch it. Well, he would. But that didn't mean anyone else would.

A Telletubby TV, on the other hand, would go down a storm. Every single child would want one, and probably quite a few adults too.

The Doctor realised that there were so many things adults no longer admitted to liking. Maybe that's why they thought the Doctor strange. He was just so old now, that he just couldn't find it in himself to care if someone looked at him oddly for wearing bow ties or leeks, or a jumper with so many question marks that he began to feel permanently puzzled. What was the point? You might as well enjoy what you could.

Mind you, the leek had been a hassle and a half – he had had to keep replacing it. Why was it that Time Lords had managed to master the whole of time and space but couldn't keep vegetables permanently fresh? Surely there should be some sort of food stasis chamber.

He could really do with one right now. He looked at the mouldy bread. He had been unable to eat it – his stomach kept clenching in nausea whenever he tried to force anything into it, ever since he had started becoming ill. Snow was very nice when it wasn't killing you, he decided.

But if it kills your horse, you can cut it open and live inside it. Then the other Jedi can find you.

"Oh be quiet," the Doctor groaned. "That's not even your franchise. And it wasn't a horse, was it, because it was on a different planet. Unless horses have harnessed space travel I doubt they'd be there."

Isn't that cool, you're a franchise!

Shut up.

Star Trekking across the universe!

"Oh no," the Doctor said to himself. "Please not that, anything but that. I hate that song and you sing it off key."

The voice stopped. The Doctor clapped to himself. Have a point, Doctor, for a job well done.

The Doctor blinked tiredly.

He panicked.

What was that about blinking? Did someone blink? That was very bad. He had to find whoever it was before… Wait… no… there was no one here. There's no one here, remember? Just little old me. Then why?

…

I don't know. Maybe you just hate blinking?

The Doctor held his eyes open with his fingers and stared at the window. The cold started to sting his eyeballs. An idea crept to mind and he started visually searching the room for tooth picks – good old tooth picks! Good old Mr Bean!

And good old JK. Would this universe even have existed if she hadn't written that book?

Well that was just stupid. That would be like saying he was born because people liked Doctor Who. He told his inner monologue off. No, it just is. He didn't know why or how but he knew that this universe existed. Like a line on a page – lines on pages didn't cross over, they existed separately, so this one must exist separately too. He was just able to cross over to it, like when a child writes over several lines instead of one. He thought.

Pretty sure it existed, anyway, and that that was how. It was also possible that he was just quietly going insane somewhere in the real world and had created this world as an escape.

He thought of Inception. Hmm. Possible. But how to get out if it was?

The Doctor shook his head like a dog shaking off water, and blinked when it made him dizzy. No, that hadn't worked, he was still asleep. Or maybe he had always been awake. Or maybe he had to wake up again.

You blinked!

So he had. The Doctor panicked. Were they coming for him now, then? Oh dear. That was bad. That was very, very not good, because…

Because?

Not sure. Can't quite remember what the whole blinking thing was. He banged his head against the stone wall softly, willing himself to remember.

Stone.

Yes, stone. It's a stone wall.

Aaaaaand?

Er…

"Oh!" The Doctor suddenly shouted aloud, ignoring the pain rippling through his throat. "Of course! I need to sculpt a statue! Thank you for reminding me."

…

"That wasn't it, was it?"

Statues, stone, blinking. Don't blink. Sparrows. A pair of doctors.

Yes, I got into trouble with The Angels once. So? There aren't any here.

Inception.

The Doctor frowned at the floor. I tried that, remember? I'm awake. He could hear his subconscious banging its head on the wall. When nothing further came from it, the Doctor leaned his head back and closed his eyes, taking himself far away from his cell and to the Babbling Brook of Planet Bath. The trickling of the water soothed him – it was rhythmic, continuing, never ending. Just what he needed, right now.

He sighed.

Suddenly, he jerked upright as the memories that he had forgotten came back to him.

There you go.

River was gone. The Doctor gaped, flailed for a moment, unsure of what to do, then began pinching himself repeatedly on the arm.

"Wake up!"