Doctor Who/Maguire's OZ crossoverthing of DOOM continued

[mm_azy]

He smiles faintly.

"Exactly," he says, giving Liir a bit of a squeeze, just because he can.

((continued from))

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[throppdescended]

He looks sideways, at the Doctor, and nudges him.

"I can't eat while you're like this."

But not unkindly.

[mm_azy]

Point made, the Doctor goes back to his own seat, and his own tea, which is starting to cool anyway.

But he's wearing that grin again, broad and bright and dazzling and completely sincere.

[throppdescended]

"It's disconcerting."

He looks at the Doctor.

"But... I don't know how this could all be. How can I be what you say I am?"

[mm_azy]

He shakes his head.

"I haven't the foggiest idea of it myself," he admits. "But you are."

[throppdescended]

He chuckles and it's a little hollow.

"Before Trindle, I didn't even know if my mother was my mother. Now I have this. I'm doomed to question who and what I am."

That's what made life so hard for him: he had no base. Nothing to conform to, rebel again.

Nothing.

[mm_azy]

"I'm afraid I can't offer much," the Doctor says softly. "Just me, and the TARDIS, and a dead world, and a dead civilisation."

[throppdescended]

"It's not dead if there's living people," he points out.

[mm_azy]

"How much civilisation can we few make?" he asks. It makes him sad, that Liir and Trindle will never see Gallifrey.

Children of a dead world, born so far from home; how did you come to be here?

He doesn't care, it doesn't really much matter, but he's curious.

[throppdescended]

Don't ask me. I don't know much of anything.

Which is a step up from thinking he's stupid, though it discounts the quite a lot he does know.

"What's civilization in the end but people? What they think, what they believe, what they do? You can do that with three as well as three hundred."

[mm_azy]

"I suppose so," the Doctor replies. "Are you feeling any better?" he asks.

I think you know more than you realise. Most people do.

[throppdescended]

"Yes," he admits. "I can think at least. I don't--"

He looks at the Doctor.

"There's a lot of history here. It's--"

He can't describe it in any other way than it's knocking at the back door of my mind.

[mm_azy]

"It's all of it, actually," the Doctor says softly. "And it's always there; once you've opened that door, there's no going back, no closing it again. Right now, you're standing right in front of the door, but it hasn't opened yet. You can still make that choice."

[throppdescended]

"What does it mean to open it?" he asks, just a little nervously. He's more sane than he thinks he is, really.

[mm_azy]

"You fall, forever and ever," the Doctor replies. "And it feels like flying, because there's no bottom to hit. It's beautiful, and terrible, and I've never regretted anything more in my life. But I'd do it all again, no different."

It's burning, and ice cold, and it never goes away, because it is forever.

[throppdescended]

He nods.

"I think I'll keep that closed for a time," he says. "Just until I've got my barrings, at least."

[mm_azy]

"You may be a wiser man than all of Gallifrey," the Doctor replies, with a slightly sad smile.

We all looked. We all had to.