2. The Retreat
He had no idea where to go next.
The Doctor knew, as he sat sullenly at the seating adjacent from the TARDIS control console, that he couldn't honor his latest, and yet first, companion's request. He couldn't go back and tell the younger Amelia Pond about her life to come. It'd be crossing his own time stream, because she was waiting for him.
River Song dismissed herself beforehand as well, and so he just… sat. The TARDIS not moving, everything still, silent. He had almost all of time and space he could be in, but none of this was good enough, because the only time and space he wanted was in that 'almost.' He genuinely felt lost without the Ponds.
What was an adventure without someone to share it with? Nothing is worth anything in a vacuum, not even the last Timelord in the last TARDIS.
Well he had that, the TARDIS. Sexy. He had Sexy. Before he could catch himself, he was smiling, remembering fondly back to the time when Sexy came to life. Well, the TARDIS is always alive, but when she spoke with the Doctor.
But as soon as the smile seemed familiar, it washed off his face. He'd almost lost Amy then too. And now he had forever. Sure, Amy had lived a great life, likely a happy one like she said. Maybe he should stop taking Companions. They're always leaving. He always outlasts them. Even before he was himself, before he regenerated into the Doctor, he felt the pain of his previous incarnations' loss. The companions they lost to time in some way. Having a companion was unreliable.
Reliable. The word alone reminded him again of the time the TARDIS and he spoke.
"You didn't always take me where I wanted to go," he had told her, Idris, Sexy, the TARDIS, whatever was the best way to think of her non-corporeal, corporeal self.
"No, but I always took you where you needed to go," she had said back hastily.
The Doctor stood up, as if he were partially recharged with this memory. He stood over the control panel thinking, his shoulders hunched as if letting go of the console would cause him to collapse.
"Alright Sexy, fine. Where do I need to go?" he asked his speechless counterpart softly. With that, he closed his eyes, threw a few levers immediately in front of him, and stepped away from the controls as the TARDIS lurched back and forth in the time vortex.
It was a chaotic trip through the vortex at that. Sexy was entirely displeased with having no destination but her own whims. But this was all the Doctor had left. He and his TARDIS. The TARDIS and her Timelord.
A giant lurch sent him pitching forward off the railing onto the ground face first.
"Ah! A little less rough please, Sexy!" said the battered Timelord.
And then, as if she heard him, the TARDIS stopped. Landed. All was silent. Where was he? One sure way to find out. The Doctor picked himself up, dusted himself off, straightened his bowtie, and walked toward the door. Before he got to it, there was a thud from his left. Something hit the exterior of the TARDIS.
Finally, something to bury his mind into! The Doctor swung open the door and stepped out of his TARDIS. It was dark and cold. Snow crunched beneath his feet as a sliver of moon showed the partial landscape – woodsy, with a pond nearby. The scene, combined with the specific moon, told the Doctor he was on Earth. He licked at the air, trying to get a bearing on exactly what year it was.
Being able to see the stars meant it was before the Great and Bountiful Human Empires, and he couldn't taste the corrosive fallout from the Third World War in the air. So that put him somewhere before 2046 AD. There was also a familiar metallic taste to the air. The taste of blood. Something must be bleeding.
The thud!
He'd completely forgotten about it, the mystery. He turned to his left, to the side of the TARDIS, and saw a man lying on the ground, rubbing the side of his head. The man looked to be middle-aged, his hair graying. But more than that, judging by the suit and how well-groomed he was, he must have been someone of some wealth. Generally that didn't sit well with the Doctor, but there was something entirely disheveled and almost… pathetic… about this man. It almost made him a sympathetic character.
As the Doctor stood, analyzing the man, the man looked up at him. He jumped to his feet at being observed and grabbed the Doctor by the shoulders.
"Which way did it go!?" he asked, his voice cracking in desperation.
"It? What is…" before the Doctor can finish, the man shakes him.
"ManBearPig stupid! It was just here! Oh nevermind!" The man stormed off, leaving the Doctor to simply stand there in a bit of disbelief. What was he talking about?
The Doctor was still processing the strange ManBearPig… man… when he heard a muffled voice from behind him.
"Hem," it seemed to say. It was a young, soft voice. It sounded pained. The Doctor spun on one foot to address the voice.
"What was that, who's there?" The Doctor's head darted around, looking through the dark trying to find the voice.
"Heh…" the voice managed, but a cough that carried with it a gurgle took his voice. Then silence. A painful, fearful silence that made the Doctor assume the worst.
And that's when he saw him. His head and an outstretched hand were the only thing cleared from underneath the TARDIS. The boy was motionless, his orange parka in distressing contrast to the impossible blue box. He was crushed underneath, crimson blood seeping to his sides.
"No…" The Doctor gasped, sliding to his knees to attend to the boy. He looked for a pulse, for any sign of life. Nothing. This boy was dead underneath his TARDIS. The concern melted from the Doctor's face, and he jumped up to his feet, repeating his last words, but in shouted anger.
"No! No no no no!" He spun around while screaming, ending up facing the TARDIS. His voice now carried anger, unrelenting anger, but somehow that made his voice quieter. As if, instead of carrying punches, his words carried acid. "What… have you done! I let you make one decision and this is what happens! You killed him! I don't even know who he was and you killed him!"
He stormed into the TARDIS, still shouting at his Sexy as he slammed her door closed. He couldn't believe this. One thing, he needed one thing from his counterpart, and she couldn't carry that out. He was lost, and now his being lost had taken someone else. Taken someone else's Amelia Pond or Rory Williams or Donna Noble or… whoever! His selfish indecisiveness killed. The man who keeps running ran over a kid!
"It's just like…" that's when he froze himself, mid rant, something catching his eye. His arm was paused, lifted exasperatedly toward the console. His entire body was as if he were a mannequin, moved into an angry pose. His gaze had caught something odd on the console monitor. It was supposed to display the year that the TARDIS landed. However, the numbers kept changing. The date was not fixed. The TARDIS was uncertain what year it was.
He slowly softened his posture, raising his eyebrows in curiosity while taking a few steps to study the monitor more carefully, leaning onto the console.
"Now I know why you brought me here," he said in an almost involuntary breath to the TARDIS while he continued thinking. But his studies were interrupted quickly by pounding at the TARDIS door. Two voices, screaming but obviously young, were muffled on the other side of the door.
"Oh my God! You killed Kenny!"
"You Bastard!"