(Untitled)

[who_never_would]

A familiar sound echoes through the nearby area - the sound of TARDIS, though a few new frequencies decorate the melody of her engines. The old, blue police box fades into view. As soon as it's entirely solidified, the door opens, and a young man steps out, closing the door behind him gently. He stands there for a few seconds, one hand on the wood

Comments

[not_from_mars]

It's almost amazing, how used he is to all this now: seeing himself in so many ways, so many possible futures. The Doctor - this Doctor - has seen himself changed by the smallest of things. That's the beauty - is it beauty? - of the Nexus.

It's probably why he doesn't look surprised right now.

"Stop you from what?" And his stance mirrors that of his other, voice quiet.

[who_never_would]

Sometimes, the smallest of things can be the impetus for the largest changes in someone's life. The Doctor that stands before himself now has lines on his face that his double does not, has a weariness in his bearing that hopefully the other will never understand and never know. The Doctor's head lolls to one side, a lazily curious gesture.

"From becoming him." He replies, black eyes taking in himself from the outside. It's always peculiar - no, peculiar is too soft of a word, disconcerting is more appropriate - to see what he used to be.

[not_from_mars]

The Doctor studies his other - his future self? And that frightens him just a little -; the suit, the shoes, the stance, but most of all, the face, and finds himself coming just a bit closer. Studying and thinking.

Him. He doesn't have to ask. But there's one thing he does need to ask. "What happened to you?" His voice is soft, quiet, the tone reserved for those moments of pure concern.

[who_never_would]

The other Doctor blinks at him quietly, letting himself study his features. He does not meet his other's eyes, pointedly looking away, anywhere, anywhere else to avoid staring himself in the face.

Shadows lurk under his eyes, deep, almost bruising shadows. How strange it is for a Time Lord, especially this one, to look ... sick? Is that it? This Doctor is so very pale, almost whitewashed in comparison to his mirror, so that the freckles on his face stand out painfully, and the contrast of his haunted eyes is like a pair of inkblots on a white canvas.

"I don't know if I can tell you... time is broken here, we're standing in the same place at the same time, obviously, but..." he pauses, pensive and silent for a few moments.

"Sixty years," he replies, struggling to find the words, and they sort of tumble awkwardly from his thin lips. As if he were largely unused to speaking. "Alone. TARDIS and me. No one else. Lots else in between. Can't say most of it because there's no telling if it'll happen to you."

[not_from_mars]

Would it properly be called self-pity, what he's feeling? That feeling, like a twinge in his hearts, seeing what he's turned into...

Why does everything always end up in pain for them?

Sixty years alone.

"I'm so sorry."

[who_never_would]

A bitter laugh escapes the Doctor's lips.

"You would be, wouldn't you."

He doesn't know why. It always does end up in pain though, pain and solitude, and... in the end, why run from it? Why keep filling the void with mayflies?

[not_from_mars]

He wants to ask what he means by that, but he doesn't. His mind goes back to the laugh instead, that mirror of his own. A broken mirror, perhaps.

[who_never_would]

The laughter instantly vanishes, and the Doctor advances upon his younger self with smooth, predatory movements.

"You're sorry," he purrs softly. "You're so sorry. There's not enough sorry in the entire cosmos!" he snaps.

[not_from_mars]

He stands his ground, trying to ignore the dull pain growing the more he watches his older self, listening to his words, listening to the venom in his own voice. He can almost hear the effect the loneliness has had, and it... almost... it hurts.

"This is exactly why I keep going."

[who_never_would]

"Look into the blackness of space," and then he looks dead into his other self's eyes and uses his name. His real name, the one he's kept hidden for so many years. Moving closer, he stops about six inches from his mirror image. "Look into it and ask your self, what's it worth? What's the point of it all? There isn't any. It all fades out into nothingness in the end."

"It's all worthless."

[not_from_mars]

The suddenness, the use of his name, the anger, the look in his other's - are they really black? - eyes -- he's had nightmares like this, cold and dark, about the man he knows they've both thought of.

He's not backing down, though; not by any means.

"Have you forgotten?" His voice is quiet, cold at first, but forceful, a slowly-burning fire behind his eyes. His other self could've stopped this, he thinks now. He was only alone for so long because he let himself be. "Have you forgotten what it's like? That spark of a meeting, that first adventure, having someone with you to keep you afloat or stop you, and even when it was bad, even when you felt like loneliest person in the universe, you always had someone." A pause, breath. "The end doesn't matter. It's the in-between, the things that make everything up for there to even be an end. And you haven't even reached it." Perhaps without even knowing it, he closes the gap between them. "You've still got a ways to go, and look at you. Given up. Since when do we give up?"

[who_never_would]

"Maybe you are right." The Doctor raises his eyes to gaze back at his mirror image. The same man and yet not. Nearly identical in appearance but such changed beings from one another. "And who is to say that there could not have been another way. What would have happenned if I had not fled. Hard to say now but I know one thing. It hurts. There is so much pain in partings and passings and I have had enough pain. Enough partings or more than a thousand lifetimes. What makes up so special that the universe will turn out to see that we do not fall into the dark. Why?" [Ooc- This reply is from my mobile. Sorry so short.]

[not_from_mars]

He doesn't have an answer. But there's one thing he knows, one thing he's always told himself: "It's worth it. Sometimes... it's worth the pain."

((ooc: No probs.))

[who_never_would]

"It's not worth this!" The Doctor cries, eyes glittering. His hands ball into fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms, though not hard enough to draw blood. "Every time we find someone, they leave, they go off, the die, or we end up accidentally killing them. Everywhere we go, we trail death in our wake, and that's why I ran, Doctor, that's why I ran as far away from all of that as I possibly could. Do you blame me? Really, honestly, can you?"

The Doctor trembles before his other, his breath coming in short, agitated gasps.

[not_from_mars]

The Doctor doesn't blame him. He can't. All the times he's wanted to just stop, to step away from it all... but he still has the will to move on. For now, he thinks.

He puts a hand on his other's shoulder.

"No."

[who_never_would]

The Doctor's black eyes dart to the hand on his shoulder. If his other is listening, there's the faint echo of drums, yes, those drums, but just for a second, for a tiny, shimmering flash. The memory of them, and the hungry, insatiable need for the pounding to return to his skull. There are loose ends all over the place - this Doctor's mind is like a frayed tapestry, rather than a complete picture. The initial image is distorted into near incomprehensibility. Only the colours and the vague shapes are the same