"... and the man who forgets."
He kept running, the way he always did. From an adventure to an adventure, from a planet to a planet, from one mystery to another. He'd travelled with Amy Pond, who'd saved his life, and with her husband, Rory, and even with their daughter, River Song. He'd travelled with the Impossible Girl, Clara Oswald. He'd travelled with so many people and received help from so many others, like Madame Vastra. For three hundred years, he'd had a different face and a simple tell different attitude. For three hundred years, he had managed to pretend he had no history.
He always seemed to be happy or excited, rarely serious. He knew that. Amy had told him that once, and so did others. He knew they sometimes thought he was insane, and in a way they were right, because he really was insane. Like he'd told Amy one time, he was just a madman in a box.
But they never understood why. He'd had two incarnations past the Time War. Both incarnations, both faces, could be extremely serious sometimes. Both faces could show great sadness sometimes. Not because something that's happened to them, but because of their past. They both remembered the Time War so lively, as if it'd just happened to them. In a way, it did. A hundred years weren't nearly as long enough to make them forget or forgive themselves.
He remembered, too. Four hundred years, and he'd still remembered. He remembered every bit of it, every single moment of the bloody war between the Time Lords and the Daleks. He remembered that moment of of complete destruction to both races as if it had only happened. Four hundred years also weren't nearly as long enough to forget.
But for him it was different. Because he could still pretend that had never happened. He could still pretend he'd had no past and no future, no crimes to answer to. He pretended to be completely free and joyous about every one of his adventures, and in time, it became the truth. The older he became, the easier it was to smile and laugh all the time. From time to time, it became easier to just enjoy the moment the way his first two faces since the war couldn't.
And the older he got, the easier it became to pretend that he didn't care.
It wasn't true, it could never have been. He did remember. He remembered them all, even though he'd said he didn't. Even though he'd told the previous Doctor and the War Doctor that he never thought about it, that he never cared about it, he really did. He thought of the children often enough, even though it wasn't as often as the previous Doctors. He remembered the number, somewhat vaguely, but remembered it. And for a while, he even tried to find a solution, to find a way out of this war without destroying every living Time Lord.
But at some point, as he'd realized he could never change it, he let go. He forgot again. Shoved it all to another part of his brain, to a spot in which he'd never see it again. And as time went by, and he could smile more, be happier, he realized he was also going madder. Because even though he forgot, his subconscious never did. And just like them all, at night he'd still dreamed of it.