Solipsism
Ten: Just This Once
I storm out of the bridge and deep into the ship's corridors.
It occurs to me that I have no idea where I'm going.
I mean, literally not a clue.
Still, I feel a strong desire to get away from where I was. To get away from what was happening to me. And to get away from her.
I realize I'm trying hard not to cry. I'm also working very hard at not putting my fist through the wall. I am furthermore making perhaps a futile effort to keep my hearts from exploding in my chest.
Susan… seeing Susan was bad enough. I've never gotten over the horror of separating myself from her, of closing the door on her, of ripping us – what we had – asunder. There are pieces of me, of my soul, of my being, that vanished along with her, that have remained with her, and that I've never recovered. Do you think I'm proud of it? Do you think I'm proud of what I did? She was my only family!
But Rose? Even now I want to turn around, return to the bridge and call her back to me. Beg her to come back. Sure I miss Susan, I always will. But Rose? It's killing me – I'm dying for Rose. Not once but twice I've had to let her go. How in the name of all things bright and beautiful can I be asked to give her up a third time? I would die happily if I could die in her arms, if only it meant I would find her once more, that she would come home to me.
How much more of this do I have to take? My people… My planet… My Rose…
I am not made of stone. I am not unfeeling. Despite all appearances, I do not compartmentalize and forget. I do not shut off and shut down. I have desires. I have longings. I have needs. I have devastating, overpowering needs that have not been met in years… in lifetimes…
I stop but instead of putting my fist through the corridor's wall I press my palms against its smooth, unyielding surface and slide slowly to the floor, concurrently turning and leaning against it with my back, my head in my hands.
There's a part of me that knows I'm being pathetically self-indulgent, but surely that's allowed? Just this once, if only this once. Wherever it is that I am – this place, this ship – it is not a safe place, to be sure. The floor has been ripped out cruelly from beneath me. These thoughts I'm having are not safe thoughts. I shake my head slowly, close my eyes even more tightly and I… well, I suppose you might call it pray. I pray for strength and courage and guidance but I am not praying to some omnipresent, omnipotent god-like being. I am, in fact, calling upon myself; I am entreating the legacy and power of the Time Lords I carry within.
Because in the end that is all that is left to me. I am so alone. I was alone before the Time War, but now even the Time Lords themselves have disappeared and forsaken me. All that remains of my people are the precious shadows I carry. Their memories. Their now-stilled voices. What remains of them is inside me, and so I beseech those remnants, my own heritage: let us pray...
If you think I've got a God Complex, well… who am I to disagree?
And so at length I open my eyes, look around and observe that I am unceremoniously plopped down on a floor in a mostly empty, derelict spaceship that someone obviously very, very much wants me to leave. It is hard to make myself realize, much less accept, but the difficulty makes it no less true: many of the thoughts I'm having are not my own. They do not belong to me. Tricky bastards.
Who are they? What are they? I wonder. I'm tempted to go back to the bridge and try to conjure up Rose again. Two can play the trickster game and I imagine I might cleverly summon up some more information out of her. Still, I also suspect my desire to go back and find Rose is not entirely unambiguous; the temptation has not fully relinquished its grasp on me. But I don't like the thought of losing myself to her; and I admit that very situation is possible. Perhaps even probable. I can feel it. I could so very easily give in to whatever it is she's trying to sell me. I want to evaporate in her. Drown in her.
On the other hand, I think, as I unfold myself up off the floor into a standing position, there's Jack… If I'm being haunted by the ghosts of Christmas, I can only imagine what might be happening to Jack Harkness, a man who is haunted by malevolent phantoms even during the best of times. And in one respect both Susan and Rose were correct: I do need to take care of him. Retrospectively I should've never allowed him to go off on his own in the first place. There was no real reason for us to separate. It was a stupid plan. It isn't as if we're in some kind of huge rush.
But then I remember Newhope's power situation. The TARDIS cannot sustain Newhope indefinitely. So while there isn't a strict deadline, we are indeed operating under time constraints…
I pull out my sonic. It buzzes to life.
…And I do indeed need to find Jack.