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02: [Soundless Midday]
The memories lie forlornly in the vast cathedral of his mind, buried beneath a few centuries' worth of thoughts and dreams and feelings, far below happiness, fear and sadness, eternities away from the surface of his conciousness, like a bunch of dusty photographs in the darkest corner of a lightless cellar, ready to be looked at at any given moment, but rarely touched upon.
Half-suppressed, they dance through the inner layers of his mind, burning with blazing light similar to the corona of a sun, subtly influencing his waking self.
His will alone would be enough to make them rise out of the ocean akin to a sunken empire, whenever he wanted to.
Yet, he had to really, really want to, which was not the case very often – He had never been the type to turn around and look back, always in motion, always on the run, constantly busy creating noise to fill the void he had always carried within himself, to numb the pain of not belonging anywhere. It is not disregard, but fear that makes him shun his recollections of these halcyon days; The few glimpses of what lies behind the veil that occasionally sneak into his dreams are enough to make him doubt whether he will be able to bear to look back – He is content to simply feel that these memories are where they ought to be without inspecting them all too closely.
If he just avoided thinking of her, he could keep his old, tired hearts from just falling apart inside his chest.
Sometimes, they betrayed him though, those shattered hearts of his, joyfully sucking in their own destruction along with his blood, straining under the torture they brought on themselves.
Sometimes, he can't help but remember.
In the end, he concludes that it would be impossible to forget her.
How could he possibly forget the mother of his children, the grandmother of his grandchildren?
As his thoughts stray into the realm they had forbidden to themselves, they were forced to step into the infernal rivers of guilt that had kept growing wider and wilder with each day of his travels, having prevented him from venturing into that particular nook of his self.
Her Children and all her grandchildren save for one, that brilliant little girl that had inherited both her extraordinary psychic abilities and his intelligence, her stature and his thick, black hair (in his own case, said hair only showed up after a few regenerations, tough)… he left them all and he never saw them again.
At first, he was more or less a refugee – any attempt to contact his family would have resulted in his capture. After making the hard decision to summon the people he had been running from to undo the damage caused by the War Chief, he had lacked a way to contact them, for the planet they had exiled him to – 20th century earth – lacked the technology to communicate with the other side of the galaxy.
Even after his exile was lifted and his name somewhat cleared, he did not visit his descendants – He was still an outcast and didn't want their affiliation with him to cause them problems. Things had happened before his departure. Things he preferred to forget. He felt that he could go and visit them whenever he wanted, anyway. There were so much things to see!
And he hadn't seen them in such a long time – he didn't have the faintest idea of how to face any accusations or demands they might direct at him.
It was a vicious cycle, biting its own tail like a temporal paradox: With each day he stayed away from them, his insecurities increased, and the more they did so, the less he felt able to face them.
In the end, he had no idea what had happened to them, whether they were still alive or whether they even still considered him a family member.
He honestly didn't know – until he did.
Whatever offspring he'd had left, they died at his very own hands.
It was so wrong – It didn't take a scientist to figure out that parents shouldn't outlive their children.
The only one he still had any hope for was Susan – he'd left her on earth after all.
Still, he couldn't pretend not to hear the little voice at the back of his mind telling him that the Time Lords had never had any problems tracking him and the Master.
Borusa had been able to drag her into the Death Zone all those years ago.
The only sure way to find out was to go to the 22th century and check if she was there, but he could never bring himself to do so – too strong was his fear to find nothing but a heartbroken David whom he would have to tell that his wife would never return.
Thus, he preferred his current state of uncertainty, keeping the possibility of seeing her again locked away like a cat in a box.
He'd had other children, of course – not by other women, the luxury of staying with one long enough to create a living testament to their love had never been granted to him.
Nonetheless, there had been other children, and they, too, had been ripped away from him: He had lost Jenny on the very day of her birth, and while Adric had been more of an apprentice to him, the knowledge that the boy would never get to make use of the wisdom he had tried to share with him had made him feel old and wooden, like a leafless, hollow tree devoid of both colour and life.
To his knowledge, the only remaining person he'd successfully raised was Ace.
Of course, she was not his biological daughter, but that didn't matter to him – She was certainly a legacy to be proud of.
That woman, his first real love, his first wife, however, had left no such legacy behind – everything that had remained of her in this world had been devoured by the fires of the Time War.
Nothing remained.
When he thought of her, it felt impossible to believe that their story had ended in a tragedy, for he was unable to picture her in any other setting than a perfect, soundless midday, as if anything else would be unworthy of her beauty.
He recalled both of the Gallifreyan twin suns enthroned in their respective zeniths, drenching everything below the sky in radiance and euphoria, polishing the scenery of the Time Lord home world to shine, creating vibrant, effervescent colours so lush, that they appeared to have been taken out of a wild, surreal dream rather than reality.
The orange sky shone like a gem and the vermillion grass resembled splatters of blood as it swayed in the joyous wind that had decorated itself with stray silver leaves and blue flower petals like a bride braiding flowers into her hair on the evening before her wedding night.
The gentle warmth carried by the celestial light as it flowed down like liquid gold gently caressed those beneath it, filling their souls with a sense of otherworldly serenity, leaving them wondering whether the wonderful feeling they were experienced even had a name.
And amidst that land of wonders, there she stood, beautiful as a living jewel, allowing the wind to play with her rich, reddish-blonde tresses that made the borderless canopy pale in comparison.
She was wearing a simple, green dress without needless decorations, simply enjoying the happiness that the world gave to her, spreading her arms to feel more of the warmth raining down from above.
He sees himself approaching her, already middle-aged in appearance – She, on the other hand, doesn't appear as anything but a young woman in his dreamscape, and his mind tells him that his memory is not deceiving him – thirteen lifetimes had been promised to her, and what did she get?
Not even enough time to see her children grow into adulthood.
In his sun-drenched recollections of the time before the day on which she was embraced by fate, she still stood there, awaiting him, like an almost translucent, ephemeral flower.
As she sensed his presence, she turned around greeted him with a smile, leaving him stunned by the wild dance of her mane.
He has memories of her facial features, but lacks the strength to summon them from the recesses of his mind, for her full lips surrounded by peachy skin alone are enough to pierce his soul like a sword by forming the outlines of nine simple words:
"When you leave, will you take me with you?"
It was never meant to be.
Notes: He must've had a spouse back of Gallifrey, since he frequently mentions kids/ had an on-screen granddaugther. I kept this mostly vague on purpose.
Next up: Cameca (the lady from The Aztects, for those who haven't heard of her), in Chapter 03: [Think of me]