Run.
run the road, run the loud sound, up and back and round, away from fall and against all siege and potent hate; know that someone somehow in the moment was changed, but can't remember what or at all, can't speak that or at all, and it is, and it is, and it is.
the sparks and fires flick-leaper, no, leap-flicker, from his hands, so that must be a sure sign of regeneration, but from what or how or who he is in darkness, and darkness keeps falling. all he can do is cling to the console and hope for something new.
until the fires burn down and the white light fades, to gold, to glow, to dim, to darkness. and he is alone. and he is anew.
when the ship has healed itself also, faint lights come on, green and glister somewhere in the control room. the ship hums quietly, softly, in the typical idle it will come to have, and the floor is cold so he may as well pick himself up off of it.
he walks the corridors winding remembering himself, trying to relearn what his name is. a good man, a scared man, but a good one nonetheless. he sits in the library and comforts himself with what is real and what is not real. the nightmares slowly retreat to sleep, but hold their line there. when he can sit and read no longer, he spirals down and finds a simple outfit, functional, normal. the TARDIS orbits around an uninhabited planet, but he has no wish to step out or on or down there. so he goes back to the library – no, there is no need – back to the console.
flicks switches and hears new sounds as he remembers things over time, overcoming time, overwhelming time and shelling the cities. he never speaks, because he can't know, at least not the truth. if he was thinking straight then he would figure it is because he has crossed his own line, but he is not, he is still suddenly weeping again at the sounds coming out.
all reports, but no light, no news, just shadows and screams across the ether, even when the shadows come together and proclaim a new era, a new age, a new peace. one that they will rule, with law and order, maybe not justice, but peace all the same. and still, he does not speak. each enemy, each escape, is sought and found, is hunted down and taken down. the child nightmare is caught and he hopes it will lessen; the kings could have been, the queens cross heaven, and still the scream plays on, thudding four-some in his head. iron mountain mutates and mixes and makes certain what is uncertain, makes known what can never be known.
there are not many left, and one becomes form, becomes set, becomes mother to a body. it is great, and old, and one, and somewhere somehow someone because it always has to be there, comes to rest on Earth.
so on and one, keep moving, keep always moving and breathing, lungs up and down in the same rhythm as the time rotor, hearts still pumping and gasping for air. the boots pound the street again, then rainy pavements, then concrete floor. he dashes down and down and done, is he done? not hey yet, there is still time to give, still a place to be. so he sets the fuse and follows the way out.
the universe is a funny old thing, and stochastic wing-beats blow a literal child into his path. so finally he grabs her hand, smiles and whispers the word he's been thinking to himself, inside his head, all these years.
run.