"Ex Memoria"
18. Eleven Lifetimes
Chicago, Illinois – in the year 2021
It was hard enough to keep hold of who he was, where he was, but at the very least some part of him retained both the fact that he was not alone, and that there was something he needed to be doing. The problem was the more his memories became mixed up, the harder it became for him to figure out which hodge podge of recollections was his one current self at its core. Was he the old man or the young, brown haired or blond… Still not ginger… The scarf, the celery, the bow tie… He had to get back to someone, some people, but which ones? There were so many faces in his head, and he didn't know anymore… He didn't know when he had known them, when he had left them… or they had left him… Did they live, did they die? Of course they died, at one time or another, and should he cross their timelines again…
"Remember… Remember…" he spoke though his jaw seemed clenched shut. Susan… Sarah Jane… Rose… No, no… Zoe… Ace… Jack… Adric… The face swam in his thoughts, and he knew that more than one of his own faces had known him, but one of them… one of them had seen him die. For a moment he focused on that, on meeting him and losing him. He knew those events didn't always exist in sequence, but he knew they did here, and he held on to it, held it as the start in order to begin detangling his thoughts.
"Should we move him somewhere else?" he heard the young man's voice, but his name escaped him.
"No!" he grunted. "Be quiet!" he begged, still holding firmly to his own head.
For a moment he thought he'd lost his thread, but then he found it again, and he breathed. He could do this, he felt it. Maybe the two hits of infection had ravaged him in the beginning, but he was still the Doctor, still a Time Lord who had lived many, many years, too many to think himself unable to handle whatever was thrown his way. Already he could feel that focusing as he had done was helping to pool the memories to where they properly belonged. He could reassemble himself, if he only found one thing, something strong enough to make him remember what went where.
"One…" he breathed. "One day… I shall come back…" Gillian and Chris looked to one another, baffled as to what the Doctor might be talking about but at the same time thinking better than to interrupt him again. But it was working, he was starting to feel it. "You're making me giddy! No, you can't do this to me! No! No! No! No!"
"What do we do?" Chris whispered, almost reaching for the Doctor before his boss stopped him. "He could hurt himself," Chris protested. When the Doctor sprang up in a seated position, they startled and turned back to him.
"The Nestenes can put life into anything made of plastic. Anything at all," he spoke, before grasping his head again, muttering incoherently. "Until we meet again, Sarah," he spoke after a while, though his voice had a tinge of sadness about it.
He saw the boy's face again, and if nothing else then he knew by then that he was on the right track. He was nearly halfway there, wasn't he? There were eleven, although sometimes it felt like there were more… It only made matters worse that at times he could sense his memories were starting to align themselves of their own accord, while at other times, he could only feel his body twist and spasm like it was trying to find the posture of a body long gone.
"Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal," he spoke again, then paused as though reflecting on his own words. No sooner did he end his reflections that more thoughts came together, as though it was easier now that he had removed so many of the others already. "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do."
"I think he's getting better," Gillian breathed.
"These shoes! They fit perfectly!" the Doctor proclaimed.
"Maybe not," Chris frowned.
It had all been coming faster and faster, but here it felt as though there was something missing, or in the way, and he didn't know what it was or understand what he lacked, like his brain refused to remember. The next thing he knew, he was rising to his feet, and he had moved on. He was so close… so close… He turned back to Gillian and Chris.
"The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and, believe me, they've tried," he nodded firmly. The curator and her assistant turned a brief, confused gaze toward the door behind the Doctor, but he was still not entirely paying attention to them. He was standing there as though he might have been sprinting for the finish line. "Oh, that's rude," he blinked. "Is that the sort of man I am now? Am I rude? Rude and not ginger…"
His smile returned then, and he lunged forward to clap Gillian and Chris by the shoulders, looking at each of them. They didn't moved; they didn't know what else to do.
"I know which one I am now, I do!" he reached to his throat and let out a small laugh when his fingers grazed the bow tie. "Fancy a fez right about now," he breathed, but then getting back on point. "No, but hold on, I still have your memory," he pointed to Gillian. "There was a man, I saw, he…"
Right then there was a rushed sound of knocking at the door, and he could tell already who he would find there as he pushed in between the people before him and hurried to open the door.
"Amelia Pond!" he pulled her into the room, giving little mind to the other three who followed behind her.
"We were worried, we… Are you okay?" she asked, seeing the strange look on his face.
"No, sheer lunacy," he pointed to his head. "But never mind that, you're late, and I know where we need to go now."
TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)