Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, Jelly Babies, or any New Earth technology. Sorry.
Hello everyone! Another update! YAY! I've been on a role lately...Without further ado, part four!
12:00 PM –
"Yes!" He cried out with success. "It's working! It's really working!" Not that I doubted my amazing technological skills or anything… he thought. Shaking his head, he stood back to admire his work.
What at first just seemed to be a rather small flat-screen television was actually a medical scanner, almost exactly like the ones they had seen on New Earth, except a bit more rustic, since he had built it himself. It was basically a CAT scan, X-ray machine, and MRI all in one, plus a multitude of other things. It could tell you every illness ever known, as well as their cures. Or lack thereof, depending… It could also show your pulse, blood pressure, I.Q., last thing you ate, date of birth, date of mid-life crisis, date of death, and a lot of other bits and pieces of information. Those were just the basics.
"Let's take her for a test run!" he said aloud, clearly excited. The screen had a series of questions in Gallifreyan that had to be answered first. John busied himself with typing them all in.
Name: John Smith, otherwise known as The Doctor.
Age: 907, though technically 32.
Species: Half-Human/Half-Time Lord meta-crisis.
Planet of Origin: Gallifrey
Planet of Residence: Earth
Now let's see if I can get her to work! He thought excitedly. He lay down and turned the screen to him. He tapped the screen where it said "Default Scan", and was as still as he could be. Soon, a quiet whirring sound filled the room, which stopped about a minute later. The Doctor sat up and turned the screen towards him, grinning at the thought of it actually working. He sat up and took a good look. He smiled, and then did a double take. Wait, what? He pulled out him glasses, and pushed them up his nose. His face mere inches away from the screen, he read it over, his eyes scanning it at an impossible speed. That's impossible…
1:00 AM:
One hour, dozens of scans, and half a bag of Jelly Babies later, John Smith slumped against the side of his desk, finally giving in. Because no matter what he did – fixing and refixing the perfectly fine insides of the scanner, using a different setting for the scan, you name it – the read out was the same each time. Everything was fine, and expected. Everything but last piece of information. The Doctor pulled the screen towards him, and read the basic readout over once more.
Pulse: 80 beats per minute Earth Time
Blood Pressure: 120/80
I.Q.: 5000 on the Gallifreyan scale.
Last thing eaten: Jelly Babies
Date of Birth: 14/31/5023
Date of Mid-Life Crisis: Error: Date not found
Date of Death: 1/1/2021
It had to be wrong. It had to be. He couldn't have just six months to live. Just over four years of life in all. How could he leave his wife? His Rose? How could the Oncoming Storm leave his Bad Wolf? He would break her heart. And yet, deep down, he knew it was true. He had always known. Not the exact day, no, but that he would die much sooner than intended. In the centre of his heart, he knew this wasn't an error on his part. It wasn't anyone's fault. He was simply impossible. He couldn't exist. Now that he knew the truth , he knew what had happened when Donna and his Time Lord twin had left this universe.
Donna had probably been going on about something smart (knowing her), reveling in the fact that she actually understood what he had been going on about in his rants over the past few months they had been together. But then, she stopped. Maybe gagging, maybe just suddenly shutting up, and maybe screaming. Because she was in pain, intense pain. The worst pain any being could ever be in. And she knew. In that instant, she understood why.
The human brain couldn't hold all of the knowledge of a Time Lord. Not without their mind burning, and hers must have started to. There was no other alternative, being what she was. So his twin did the only thing he could do without his best friend dying. He wiped her memory of his existence. All the things they did, the adventures they went on. The people they saved, the planets they saved, that she saved. All gone. She'd never be able to remember them again. Because if she did, if she ever remembered for even an instant, she would die.
The poor, poor Doctor. The sorrow he felt for his twin couldn't be expressed in words, not in any language. It was a pain no person should have to bear, taking away the memories of someone you care about. Taking the memory of you, and what you two did together, what you meant to one another. That alone had to have been hard.
And yet, this was the fate he now faced. A Human-Time Lord meta-crisis couldn't be. It simply couldn't. The brain of a Time Lord was completely different from that of a human, and thus was incompatible. Sure, he was getting four years of life, while Donna got four hours, but that was because he was more Time Lord than Human. Forty percent more, a ninety-ten split. He lasted longer because he was built to withstand it. He got the lucky end of the deal, though both sides had a sad, painful ending that would eventually play out.
How ironic that they both were at their happiest when they died. He would die, totally and completely, but the original Doctor erased her memories, Donna lived on. But a part of her, the smart, brave, amazingly brilliant part that she only discovered while she was with him, died with those memories. His best friend, gone. She was nothing like the woman he came to love, and got to know. She was the temp from London. Nothing more. Not anymore. It brought tears to John's eyes to think about it.
"John," a voice called. He looked up with burning eyes, blinking back tears, to see his angel. His Rose, looking at him from the other side of the room, and yet that small distance was too far. Just looking at her face sent a new wave of misery and guilt through him., and he wanted nothing more than to have her holding him. She doesn't need to see me like this, He thought. In an attempt to hide his pain, he turned his head away from her and stood up, but it was too late. "John?! What is it?" she asked, running to him. "What's wrong?" He could hear the waver of her voice, wondering turning to panic, but he couldn't react, couldn't comfort her. Because in that moment, for the first time in a long time, he needed her to comfort him. He simply took her in his arms, let his tears flow, and finally allowed the doubt inside pout out. Six words repeated in his mind over and over, like a drumbeat. Just six.
What am I going to do?
What did you think? Comments/Reviews are always appreciated. I hit writers block often, so a lot of things you guys say really gets my mind working.
Thanks SO much to HiddenintheTardis and Sunfell E for attempting to give ideas for the Memory Crystals. Special congrats(!!!!) to Meitle, who was not TOO far off from where I'm headed with that bit. However, no one has quite gotten it yet. Still waiting, but I'm sure you'll figure it out soon! Cheers!!
:-P
