There was a velvet-clad elbow resting on the top of the Library table, precariously close to a cup of tea, long since gone cold. There was a set of fingernails drumming erratically on the varnished surface, fingernails bitten to the quick, a few tips smeared with red-orange blood. There was a pair of blue eyes that stared unseeing at the open
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The Doctor seated at the table pressed the heels of his hands into burning eyes, groaning softly. He was getting nowhere, had gotten nowhere, will be getting nowhere in the forseen future. It was too much, he thought, and he didn't have enough to combat it.
In the past, there had always been something, something to pry or jostle or leverage. Wires to cross, a guard to bribe or incapacitate, an evil overlord to befuddle with quick wits, something. But here there was nothing. No servants to conspire with, no doomsday bomb to disarm, nothing tangible. Only deadlocked doors and empty file cabinets and desert that went on for miles and miles before coming right back here. It was worse than prison. At least there, you had something to kick against. Here there was nothing ( ... )
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Almost instantly that expression shattered. It was a wonder pieces of it didn't crack and splinter before visibly falling to the floor.
Something white hot danced across his mind's eye, scorching his thoughts and blinding him momentarily. Screams. Pain. And an orange sky. The sort of memories only war could bring. It was like he could smell the death, see it, on the man mere feet across from him.
The Time Lord just a few steps to his left. The me but not me standing right there in plain sight.
"It's you. It's really you." The words he spoke weren't a human's tongue, but his own language. A dead language he had no place using anymore. The guilt and repulsion swelled in his chest but he set his jaw and just kept staring. The Tenth Doctor's face had hardened into something fierce. Subdued, affected, and strained all at once. "Hello, Eillul."
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"Yes, it's me," he answered in English, frowning briefly at the musical Gallifreyan syllables. It was odd, to be sure; usually the Doctor couldn't be bothered with any of the culture or heritage of his home planet. Perhaps he had gotten nostalgic in his old age. "And welcome to you, if it's possible to be welcome in a place like this. Rassilon's frilly knickers, this is becoming absurd!"
He fell into his seat again, rubbing a hand wearily across his face. "Make yourself at home, Doctor," he said with a sigh. "I expect that we may be in for a long haul. You've had the situation explained, I take it?"
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The Tenth Doctor's fists tightened at his sides and he realized he was clenching his teeth and not breathing. Careful, he reminded himself. Careful. His other self COULD NOT know of Gallifrey's destruction. Could not under any circumstances be informed of the War or its outcome.
For Rassilon's fucking sake, why was this happening to him?
When a Time Lord regenerated, they were for all intents and purposes a different person in nature while remaining the same identity. It was confusing, but basically it enabled trivial things like clothing tastes to differ as well as monumental things like one's state of mind and personality in general. Such as the dark shame and horror toward the War his Ninth self carried directly after regenerating.
But the Doctor could not allow this particular version of himself or any before him (which included the Fifth) to know he would eventually be the Last of his kind. As well as be personally responsible for the end of his race ( ... )
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"I've been here for months," he said, picking up a volume and idly turning it in his hands, reluctant to look up at his elder. "At least, it feels like months. Could be longer, or shorter. I don't know. But for all that length of time, I've never gone more than a few days without coming right back here, trying, as you say, to explain it."
And in all that time, that timeless time, I've poured over these same volumes, over and over until I feel as though I could recite their flawed logic by hearts. I don't know what I'll hope to achieve by running this treadmill, but I'm afraid of what will happen if I stop coming and reading. If I give up.He said ( ... )
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What words! What useless, tired words he himself used to spin! And for what purpose? Who was there to encourage? Whose spirits were present to lift?
Not his own.
"I've only just arrived," the Tenth Doctor replied dryly. "Haven't tried out the room service yet. Are the beds comfy? Do the loo's come with a sauna?" He shook his head and ripped his fingers through his hair, causing it to mold into fluffy, high spikes again. The frustration was too much. He stood and crossed the distance between himself and the desk at which the Eighth Doctor sat. "I haven't got your precious knowledge anymore than these dusty volumes do," he snapped, picking up one of the heavier books and dropping it back on the desk's surface with a dramatic thud"Although! I have played ping pong. Not exactly the end-all, be-all answer, but it does for something, I think," he smiled, but it was a smile kept to himself and ( ... )
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Abruptly standing, the Doctor threw the volume onto the desk, relishing in the satisfactorily loud thud it made on the varnish. "So!" he said scornfully, his chin tilting upwards. "Since you consider yourself enough of an authority to criticize my efforts, I suppose I should leave the escape efforts in your ever-so-capable hands. After all, what are nine or so months of research and experimentation when compared to your skill at ping-pong?"
He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes angry, his voice cold. "And what does my hair have to do with any of this?"
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"And as for my ping-pong accomplishments comparing to your--" He waved his hands wildly as he tried to find words "--Study hall, maybe you should actually consider the question you're asking me if you really want an answer!"
He actually did understand what the Eighth Doctor was doing. In fact, he'd come to the library to do the exact same thing. And the Doctor even had the beginnings of a theory. None of that was relevant to him at the moment, of course. He was too busy being snippish for reasons he knew he couldn't justify. Ugh, it was just too much. Rose. The TARDIS. Trapped. Jack. And now him. No. Just no, thank you kindly, but no, he didn't feel like sucking it up and just taking it in stride, no no no. No ( ... )
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The Doctor bared his teeth and step closer to the desk, which was fortunately between them. He reached out regardless and gripped the velvet-frockcoated-shoulder, urging the Doctor none-too-gently to face him. "You know it, too. You're not researching, Theta. I know my own face. You're brooding. So don't talk to me about tantrums. Jack's in the same state; both of you so overly aware of this place you can't help yourselves anymore - much less anyone else ( ... )
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"Get out," the Doctor growled at his counterpart, refusing to look at the Tenth, trying to keep his temper. "If you're just going to stand there and belittle me, my work, if you aren't going to do something... you're useless. Useless." He wasn't sure if he was talking about his tenth incarnation or himself, and he didn't want to find out. "So if that's all you intend, then do us both a favor and get out."
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It was but an echo of everything he'd been throwing at the Eighth Doctor for the past two minutes... and yet it stung. Stung because underneath everything, even the secret he was keeping, the reason for his repulsion and bitterness, the Doctor knew how horrible his other self felt. Knew that word was the one word capable of destroying them.
And if he went to the core of his anguish right now, it was Rose. He'd lost her. Watched her pull the lever. Watched her do what he couldn't. And then watched her slip away.
UselessHis desire to hurt the other Doctor stalled - that desire existing at all frightened him. He opened his mouth to say something but without ever knowing what it was going to be, snapped it shut again. There might've been a nod of his head, but if there was it was close to unnoticeable ( ... )
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With a cry of frustration, the Doctor hurled the book at the closed door, taking no satisfaction from hearing it bounce off the wood and fall to the floor. He collapsed back into his seat, chewing on his last remaining fingernail, staring at the stacks of books that surrounded him, a prison of texts and facts. Meaningless. Useless.
For the first time since arriving at the Hotel, the Doctor was afraid.
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