Part 01 - Chapter 04 - Revelations
The Doctor wanted to yell at him that it was none of his business, but yelling would only prove that he was not okay. Then he wasn't okay was he? Some things were still very confused, but then that was to be expected. He had noticed when looking at his hands that he no longer inhabited his eighth body. Somehow it seemed fitting that he should lose even the body with which he was comfortable, just one more casualty to the time war.
After a moment, he still didn’t know how to give an answer that wouldn’t create more questions he did NOT want to answer. So he did what he usually did in these cases; he changed the subject. “There a mirror around here?” then seeing again the state of the room behind the Brigadier he cringed. He remembered his sudden desperate search for drugs that he couldn’t seem to find. He realized now that it was the TARDIS trying to protect him from himself. Giving the Brigadier a rueful look, he replied to his own question. “Guess not.”
Still ignoring the question, he looked over at Harry as he finished the bandaging on his hands. “You done there?”
The Brigadier knew though he couldn’t let him off the hook that easily. He had seen the haunted, anguished look that came over the Doctors face as he looked at the damage in the room. It said more of the Doctors state of mind then anything else he had yet heard from the man. He had seen that look before in the eyes of soldiers that had watched their entire platoon wiped out. It was the look of a soul cut adrift, of someone that had seen too much; things that would haunt their worst nightmares for the rest of their days.
Avoiding their eyes the Doctor got up to leave the room. To run away from questions that were too difficult to think about, let alone to try to answer. He looked up as he felt a hand on his shoulder, gentle yet insistent in restraining him. “Doctor, tell us what happened here” Gesturing to the room in general and the floor still covered in his blood. “What has happened to you?”
Irritated the Doctor snapped at him “What does it look like?” With a cynical snort “I died, I got better and made a mess in the process end of story.”
Ok he had tried nice. More insistently, Alistair repeated his question, tightening grip, “What happened here Doctor?”
The Doctor glared at him with his most intimidating ‘Oncoming Storm’ gaze, for a few long moments. He was measuring how much he was going to have to tell him to make them go away.
The Brigadier meets his gaze firmly, staring back at him, refusing to break eye contact first. When he didn't answer, without wavering Alistair dropped the question that he knew would get the man to respond. “Why do you have the look of a man who has lost everything?”
The Doctor staggered back with a sob, as if those words had struck him a physical blow.
Alistair expected him to react, just not quite so drastically and was sure that if he hadn’t grabbed his arms he would have folded to the floor.
Harry jerked forward to help catch him, stepping back as the Brigadier helped him to sit back down on the bed.
Then they heard the Doctor’s soft reply as he hunched in on himself wrapping his hands around his upper arms unconsciously trying to shield himself “Because I have.”
Over his now bowed head, the Brigadier and Harry exchanged a concerned look. The Brigadier gave a small nod toward a couple of the over turned chairs. Harry discreetly stepped away to bring them over, while the Brigadier kept the Doctor focused on him and talking. “How” he said much more gently.
The Doctor looked up at him; anguish seeming to flow from his very pores. “I killed them Alistair! I killed them all. I watched them burn. I listened to them screaming.” With each sentence, a self-loathing became evident, his body trembling slightly from the pent up emotions.
To see this man who had always seemed so self-assured, to the point of egotistical so shattered was in it’s own way very terrifying. The picture his words were painting were so unlike the man he knew, and from the images the TARDIS had shown him, he was sure he was not telling him everything.
Silently Harry handed Alistair a chair, which he sat in without looking at it to get closer to eye level with the Doctor.
As the meaning of what the Doctor was saying sank in to Harry, he sat abruptly in his own chair. Eyes pinned on the Doctor he blurted out emphatically. “You couldn’t have!”
Heatedly the Doctor snapped back “But I did! I killed them all Harry Sullivan, every man woman and child! They ALL died because of me!” His vehemence left no room for argument.
“But…” Harry stuttered in disbelief.
Interrupting Alistair said in a sharp commanding voice that would have made any drill sergeant proud. “Why Doctor? You wouldn’t have done that without damn good reason.”
Looking away from the two men because he was unable to bear the obvious loyalty in their eyes, a loyalty that he now felt so completely unworthy of “Because if I didn’t the Daleks would have won the Time War,” he said quietly.
There it was, the choice he had been faced with, commit genocide or let the Daleks convert the universe in to soulless shells of hate.
Cutting to the heart of the matter, Alistair said simply “You didn’t have a choice then did you?” He needed his friend to understand that, to accept that before he could be able to start on the long road to toward healing.
“I” the Doctor began then stopping; he changed directions “So what makes me better then them? They are all just as dead.”
Instead of answering Alistair asked his own questions “Did you want to kill them? Did you enjoy it? Do you find pleasure in killing and destruction?”
The Doctors reply was immediate and irate “Of course not!” he stated as he glared at the other man his trembling much more pronounced.
Alistair calmly replied, “Then you have your answer Doctor. You know as well as I do that Daleks are ruthless. They would never have stopped till there wasn’t anyone or anything else that wasn’t Dalek. The very guilt you are feeling is foreign to Daleks." He could see the Doctor wanted to argue but he seemed to have lost the will to proceed.
Sensing the exhaustion and defeat coming from the Doctor like something tangible Harry said to him “You need to get some rest Doctor” Giving him a forced grin he said “Doctor’s orders.”
Looking over at Harry he gave him an exhausted annoyed look at his comment but nodded. Getting up he began to stagger toward the door as if he could barely stay on his feet. Alistair quickly came over and put his arm around his friend for support as Harry lead the way to out of the room.
The trip to his bedroom was a very short one thanks to the TARDIS who had moved the Doctor’s room to opposite the Med Lab. It took little to settle the doctor in bed and he was asleep before his head even hit the pillow. Pulling the blankets over him. Alistair stepped into the hall to quietly speak with Harry keeping the door open a crack so he could still see the Doctor over Harry's shoulder.
They both agreed that it would probably be best if they keep an eye on him for the next few days at the very least. Deciding to look after him in shifts till they could be sure he wasn’t likely to be a danger to himself. Although unspoken both men were now sure that his regeneration had been caused by his own actions not by physical injuries from the war. Alistair choose to take the first shift to give Harry some time to tie up some loose ends and arrange for some time away from his usual routine.
The TARDIS anxiously had watched as the humans interacted with the Doctor. Rarely did she wish to be anything other then what she was. There were times though when what she could offer to him just wasn’t enough. At times like this he needed someone to hold on to, someone to help him with his physical needs and to comfort him in ways she could not. These were the times she regretted not being like the bipedal beings that traveled within her walls. She would help him however she could by making sure those things he needed most were available.
Right now what he needed most was someone to understand and to help him come to terms with the guilt and the loneliness. She had seen Alistair’s memories when he and the Doctor had worked together at UNIT. She knew he would be able to help with the guilt; he was military he had seen war. She knew he would know how to help someone war torn and broken. She had already decided she would take him to Alistair even before the guardian had come. But for Theta to truly heal and start living again it would take someone special. That someone was whom the guardian had revealed to her. Now she just needed to work with these humans to insure he survived long enough to get to her.
Chapter 05 - Healing
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