Fic: Defining
Title: Defining
Characters: Eighth Doctor, Ninth Doctor
Genre: Angst, Character study(?)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: If I owned it, then Christopher Eccleston would still be the Doctor.....
A/N: This came to me about 2 weeks ago and hasn't let me go since. It's my first fic with Eight in it, but for the most part it's Nine. Set pre 'Rose'
Defining.
As the first threads of awareness creep into his mind and snake their way into his consciousness; the first sensation he feels is pain.
Pain that resonates through his entire being. It leaves him unable to do anything other than experience it. The severity shocks him to his very core. It renders him unable to speak, see or hear, nor form rational thought. If he could think he would probably come to the conclusion that he had entered Hell itself. The pain pervades him; every single cell of his body seems to function only to hurt. Other than autonomic functions; breathing, heart rates, he can do nothing except just exist.
After a while, hours, days or perhaps weeks; linear time has ceased to exist for him, his vision clears slightly and he thinks he has opened his eyes but then realises that he has no eye lids. Not anymore, they have been burnt away. Light filters in first, shapes gradually form and eventually he can make out objects clearly enough to identify them. With sensory input other than agony entering his brain he manages to compartmentalise and regain control of some functions; basic thought, and some control over the amount of pain his nerve endings signal to his brain and he realises that he can move; however instantly the pain increases and is enough to prevent him from writhing in his own filth. Excruciatingly slowly he raises a hand in front of his face. His fingers are fused together in a mass of molten and resolidified skin and bare grey bone. Remnants of velvet cloak his wrists, singed and bonded to his skin.
More awareness brings recent memories which add to the agony he is now crippled with. His mind was blank but suddenly his recent actions slam into his mind and he wonders if living is the penance he has to pay for genocide. He hears screaming in his head and gradually he understands that the screams are not those of his people, they are his and his alone. Beyond that his mind is silent and the silence is deafening. He starts to weep but there are no tears left to fall and eventually, mercifully, oblivion claims him once more.
Waking again he coughs. He is weak and feverish, his lungs are scorched and blood wells up in his mouth, but he hasn’t got the strength to spit and a trail rolls down his chin. His body feels numb now, the pain has gone and he fells oddly detached from his situation. Lack of oxygen begins to take his toll as his respiratory bypass system is too damaged to kick in and his breathing is ragged. He begins to hallucinate, or dream; he is not sure which. He sees himself standing in deep red grass, a breeze is cooling his skin and in the distance he can see the snow topped mountains of Mount Lung, peeking out above the dense forests. Below him, down in the valley runs the river Cadonflood. Its cool clear waters are tempting for a man whose body has been burned beyond recognition.
The vision fades from his mind and a strange calmness creeps through his battered body. He feels serene and at peace. Breathing is becoming an effort, an effort that he can do without. He feels more tired now than he has ever felt in his life. His breathing echoes a death rattle, forced out from his chest as his lungs fill with fluid and he begins to drown surrounded by the smouldering cinders of his ship.
A tingling begins in what is left of his finger tips, and then suddenly it seems his soul is bursting out of him, fire explodes from his veins and the pain which was agonising before, now becomes something altogether more torturous. The fires of his home world burnt him beyond recognition but this; this burns him in an altogether more ironic way; he was ready to die, but it seems that fate has intervened. If he had the strength he could resist and just die, but he is too weak and has no alternative but to accept that he will have to learn to live with his guilt and pain. A final fleeting thought runs through his mind I deserve this.
Oblivion claims him once more.
The smell of burnt wiring reaches his nostrils and he wakes once more. He is weak like a new born kitten and is unable to do anything other than lay there, sinking in and out of consciousness. His head is aching, a sharp thud in time with his heart beats that gives no respite. Something is wrong, something is missing, he is certain but cannot retain a coherent train of thought long enough to work out what. He has a sense of foreboding and panic threatens to invade his mind. But suddenly She is there, soothing and comforting him. Sleep now, she says, and he closes his eyes.
So tired.
******
Something is wrong. His eyes snap open and he jumps to his feet. His head swims and he staggers slightly, automatically reaching out for something to steady himself. He feels the roughness of the support struts under his fingers and manage to focus his eyes on it. It feels strange; new, different. His vision is still blurry but it is clear enough to see the coral like structure that his hand found. His mind tries to put the together the fragments of memories filtering through but nothing is making sense.
That wasn’t there before he thinks to himself. His hearts are racing and he takes a few deep breaths to calm himself, screwing his eyes shut. Opening them once again he scans his surroundings. The central console has changed, there are still scorch marks visible but she has begun to heal herself, to regenerate. The control room seems functional, no luxuries or home comforts, but working and bathed in a slight pale green light that signals all is well.
For the first time he looks down at himself. His fingers are long and lithe; a workman’s hands. He is still clothed in the scorched remnants of velvet and brocade. He runs his hands through his hair and is surprised to find that he hardly has any. Gone are the frivolous curls of his previous self, instead is the close, severe cut of a soldier.
He feels dirty and has no idea how long he was laid in his stupor on the floor of his ship. What is left of his trousers are stained with blood and his own waste. They smell of the scorched flesh of a million souls and suddenly he cannot bear the feel of them on his skin and he tears them off. Standing naked now the memories come flooding back to him. He can see it all; flames as the city burnt, the carnage as the enemy slaughtered anything that came in its way….
His own previous self, finger hovered above the button before he sent both races to hell…..
Sinking to his knees he howls. The sharp grating of the floor is digging into his bare knees fuelling his outbreak of wretchedness. The pain feels comforting in a way; its physical, an expression of the anguish he feels inside. His grief echoes around the empty ship, she joins him in his wailing, mourning the death of innocents.
After a while his cries subside and he feels empty and numb inside. He stands up and leaves the control room and scours the halls for a room with a shower. He feels contaminated and he has to wash the dirt of his sins away. He reaches a door and steps inside. The room is bare and basic, just a small single iron bed in the far corner. The TARDIS is struggling to repair herself now that she has lost the connection to the home world; all she can manage is the bare necessities.
At the other end of the room is another door which leads to a bathroom. Thankfully inside there is a shower and he steps in and allows the scorching hot water to rain down on his skin. He still feels numb inside and the pain from the water temperature ensures the he still feels alive as he scrubs his skin red raw in an effort to wash away his wrongdoing. It doesn’t work. He can still see the blackness in his mind.
The TARDIS has provided him with some clothes, again basics, nothing flighty and eccentric; just plain functional black jeans and boots. He slips them on, ignoring the underwear and reaches for the jumper. Its lambs wool; hard wearing but itchy. It suffices and the discomfort is welcome.
He realises that he is hungry and that he can’t remember the last time that he ate so makes his way to the kitchen. It’s small and functional, equipped with the basics for preparing and cooking food. There is bread in the cupboard; it’s slightly stale but it will do and he makes himself some toast and tea.
Each mouthful feels like its going to choke him and settles heavily in his stomach. He sips some tea to try and wash it down and suddenly he has a flashback; he is sitting with Susan, drinking tea somewhere….. London, perhaps. He half smiles at the memory but a second later he remembers; she is dead, he killed her. He killed them all.
Bile rises from his stomach and he bolts for the sink. He vomits and retches quite violently, gasping for breath with tears rolling down his face. He feels pathetic; a pitiful excuse of man. He sinks down onto his haunches and weeps; weeps for the loss of his home, weeps for those who will never be born and weeps for himself; for he is no longer the person he was and he never will be again.
******
Time moves on and he remembers one thing that he has not yet done. Something that has waited quite long enough. He walks slowly to the mortuary, knowing that he has to face this. He owes it to his friend, the one who stood by him on the front lines at the battle for Acadia.
The body is in stasis, unmoved and unchanged since he carried his friend’s broken body in his arms that fateful day. He looks Fitz’s face; it’s almost as though he is sleeping, except for the blue tinge around his mouth. There are no injuries that he can see; death by Dalek extermination tends not to leave marks.
He finds a wash cloth and a brings a bowl of warm water before carefully removing the clothing from his friend’s body. Gently, almost like a father bathing his new born son, he bathes Fitz body, removing the traces of dirt and stink from the fires of Acadia. Then he wraps him in a shroud before making to leave to set course for Fitz’s final resting place. Something catches his eye as he leaves the morgue; Fitz’s jacket. It’s leather and worn, and smells of cigarettes and cheap aftershave. He picks it up and before he can think about what he is doing, he slips it on.
It fits. For some reason.
There is a memorial on a backwater planet in the Isop galaxy. It’s similar to the ones on Earth and all the others in each and every human colony and outpost; The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is here that he brings his friend. He carries Fitz’s body out, cradled in his arms and with his own hands he digs the grave at the foot of the memorial.
It’s a bleak and icy cold day. The sky is grey and the wind howls bitterly cold around him, chilling him to the bone. The Boeshane Peninsular is a harsh place in wintertime. By the 51st century the terraforming is completed but it is still a primitive place with none of the facilities of the other metropolitan human planets.
The memorial is deserted, for that he is glad, he doesn’t want to have to explain to anyone why he is burying a body here. When he is finished he returns to the TARDIS and puts the tools away before making his way to the arboretum. He finds what he is looking for almost straight away. Selecting a few blooms, he gathers up a handful of the yellow flowers; Memento Mori, the Gallifreyan flower of remembrance.
As he leaves the TARDIS to place the flowers on the memorial, he sees he is no longer alone. There is a woman; human, probably in her late fifties. She looks tired, so tired as though she has the weight of the whole planet on her shoulders. She is kneeling down at the foot of the memorial placing some flowers of her own; Roses.
“I’m sorry.” He says, placing his offering down next to hers. He wonders why she hasn’t noticed the recently disturbed earth on which she is kneeling. “I thought I was the only one here.”
The woman continues to fuss with the roses, arranging and rearranging them this way and that, unable to settle on one arrangement. “For my son.” She says simply, as if in response to a question that the Doctor hasn’t asked.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” He mumbles, unable to think of anything else to say. He fidgets a little, the last thing he wants to hear right now is how someone else is dealing with their grief. He is about to turn away when the woman speaks again;
“Seven years now he’s been gone, my son.” He can see her eyes are red and blood shot from recent crying and it makes him feel uncomfortable to witness someone else’s grief when his own is still so raw. He never was any good at staying around and viewing the fallout, but right now, this is too close to home and its all he can do is to stop himself from turning tail and running for the TARDIS.
“Missing in Action, that’s what they told me. I don’t even have a grave to weep over. That’s why I come here.”
“That… must be hard.” The words are stilted as they leave his mouth. He wants to leave, empathy doesn’t come easily to him but he stays, sensing the woman hasn’t finished speaking to him.
“Who did you lose? My son, Connor was his name. He was the first one from Boe to be signed up you know? We were so proud of him. It’s all farms here, but he was bright, so clever. They snapped him up when he was sixteen. Became a Captain he did. Never forgot where he was from though. He was such a good boy.” She wipes a tear away and finally settles the flowers into place.
“I….. I lost everyone. ” He says eventually. Then turns and walks away.
*******
Time convulsed at the moment of Gallifrey's death. As it was ripped from existence, leaving only a barren rock orbiting a pair of dead suns, ripples were created that spread through time and space like the circles that spread outwards when a pebble is tossed into a lake. For higher species it was devastating. Home worlds were rendered inhabitable, people just ceased to exist. Among lower species the effects were just as devastating, although the reason was beyond them. Wars and disasters broke out throughout time. On twentieth century Earth more than six million people died in a war that was never meant to happen. The Slough of The Disunited Planets became a breeding ground for warmongers and millions died needless deaths, countless more were condemned to a life of slavery and misery.
For a long time he just stay in the vortex, telling himself that he needs to make repairs to the parts that the TARDIS herself cannot regenerate. In truth he cannot face the consequence of his actions. He emerges from time to time to visit trading posts and scrap dealers to scavenge for parts. Whilst there he avoids social contact; the places he visits tend to be home to the underclass of the universe. Drug dealers ply him with their wares, promising him peace and a chance to live without the nightmares, for a while anyway and at a price. He knows that this isn’t the answer, his nightmares are part of him now, they have become to define this regeneration and he wonders if he will ever find a way to heal.
Whores flaunt themselves at him when he decides to frequent certain bars on occasion. Painted and tainted, they ply him with their services when all his wants to do is to drown his sorrows in hypervodka and sonictechila. They are the same throughout time and space, doesn’t matter if they have tentacles or if they are bipedal; their message is the same; Come to me, I can make you forget. Except they can't.
Morbidly perhaps, he takes himself off in his time machine and views history in the making. He views asteroids crashing into planets and wiping out whole civilisations; he visits another world on the eve of annihilating themselves with fission reactor experiments, then leaves at the last minute, viewing the carnage from the skies. It doesn’t bring any satisfaction. For a while he ends up on Earth, observing Krakatau as it blows, then after the tsunami hits he escapes to Sumatra and views the aftermath. It doesn’t occur to him that he is torturing himself.
Then one day he is sitting in a tea shop in Southampton. A little girl with a broad rimmed hat and sweet gap toothed smile comes up to him and says hello. He can’t help himself and he is replying before he can stop himself. Her mother apologises and ushers her away but after a while they get talking and he finds himself accepting the family’s offer of dinner. Human contact is an odd thing for a man such as him to crave, but for some strange reason he does.
He stays a while with them, they are packing, planning a new life in America and then he realises, his brain adds up the clues and he realises they are talking about a certain ship. This time he doesn’t observe, he’s got himself too close and he interferes. They don’t leave and a few days later the unsinkable ship sinks.
Then one day, years later, he is just passing by Earth, as he is apt to do from to time, and the mauve alert rings out. Something is amiss and he never could leave alone, especially not where Earth is in the equation.
It doesn’t take him long to find out its London, yet again. Why is it always London, or Cardiff he says out loud to no one in particular. He lands and goes investigating and pretty soon he works out its Autons kicking up some trouble. There is more to it, he is sure, but he can’t put his finger on who else is sticking their oar in, not yet.
He traces them to some generic department store in the west end. There he finds a man, dead before his time and for a moment he stares. The name badge says ‘Wilson’, yet he has a look about him. Fitz Kreiner. The hair colour is the same, as is the complexion.
So he makes a decision; nobody else must die. Not today. Then he happens upon a girl in the basement. She is terrified and confused all at the same time. He takes her hand and she stares at him. For a second his vision is clouded and he thinks he can see a wolf, but then it clears and all he can see is a girl who needs his help.
So he says……………’Run’
Characters: Eighth Doctor, Ninth Doctor
Genre: Angst, Character study(?)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: If I owned it, then Christopher Eccleston would still be the Doctor.....
A/N: This came to me about 2 weeks ago and hasn't let me go since. It's my first fic with Eight in it, but for the most part it's Nine. Set pre 'Rose'
Defining.
As the first threads of awareness creep into his mind and snake their way into his consciousness; the first sensation he feels is pain.
Pain that resonates through his entire being. It leaves him unable to do anything other than experience it. The severity shocks him to his very core. It renders him unable to speak, see or hear, nor form rational thought. If he could think he would probably come to the conclusion that he had entered Hell itself. The pain pervades him; every single cell of his body seems to function only to hurt. Other than autonomic functions; breathing, heart rates, he can do nothing except just exist.
After a while, hours, days or perhaps weeks; linear time has ceased to exist for him, his vision clears slightly and he thinks he has opened his eyes but then realises that he has no eye lids. Not anymore, they have been burnt away. Light filters in first, shapes gradually form and eventually he can make out objects clearly enough to identify them. With sensory input other than agony entering his brain he manages to compartmentalise and regain control of some functions; basic thought, and some control over the amount of pain his nerve endings signal to his brain and he realises that he can move; however instantly the pain increases and is enough to prevent him from writhing in his own filth. Excruciatingly slowly he raises a hand in front of his face. His fingers are fused together in a mass of molten and resolidified skin and bare grey bone. Remnants of velvet cloak his wrists, singed and bonded to his skin.
More awareness brings recent memories which add to the agony he is now crippled with. His mind was blank but suddenly his recent actions slam into his mind and he wonders if living is the penance he has to pay for genocide. He hears screaming in his head and gradually he understands that the screams are not those of his people, they are his and his alone. Beyond that his mind is silent and the silence is deafening. He starts to weep but there are no tears left to fall and eventually, mercifully, oblivion claims him once more.
Waking again he coughs. He is weak and feverish, his lungs are scorched and blood wells up in his mouth, but he hasn’t got the strength to spit and a trail rolls down his chin. His body feels numb now, the pain has gone and he fells oddly detached from his situation. Lack of oxygen begins to take his toll as his respiratory bypass system is too damaged to kick in and his breathing is ragged. He begins to hallucinate, or dream; he is not sure which. He sees himself standing in deep red grass, a breeze is cooling his skin and in the distance he can see the snow topped mountains of Mount Lung, peeking out above the dense forests. Below him, down in the valley runs the river Cadonflood. Its cool clear waters are tempting for a man whose body has been burned beyond recognition.
The vision fades from his mind and a strange calmness creeps through his battered body. He feels serene and at peace. Breathing is becoming an effort, an effort that he can do without. He feels more tired now than he has ever felt in his life. His breathing echoes a death rattle, forced out from his chest as his lungs fill with fluid and he begins to drown surrounded by the smouldering cinders of his ship.
A tingling begins in what is left of his finger tips, and then suddenly it seems his soul is bursting out of him, fire explodes from his veins and the pain which was agonising before, now becomes something altogether more torturous. The fires of his home world burnt him beyond recognition but this; this burns him in an altogether more ironic way; he was ready to die, but it seems that fate has intervened. If he had the strength he could resist and just die, but he is too weak and has no alternative but to accept that he will have to learn to live with his guilt and pain. A final fleeting thought runs through his mind I deserve this.
Oblivion claims him once more.
The smell of burnt wiring reaches his nostrils and he wakes once more. He is weak like a new born kitten and is unable to do anything other than lay there, sinking in and out of consciousness. His head is aching, a sharp thud in time with his heart beats that gives no respite. Something is wrong, something is missing, he is certain but cannot retain a coherent train of thought long enough to work out what. He has a sense of foreboding and panic threatens to invade his mind. But suddenly She is there, soothing and comforting him. Sleep now, she says, and he closes his eyes.
So tired.
******
Something is wrong. His eyes snap open and he jumps to his feet. His head swims and he staggers slightly, automatically reaching out for something to steady himself. He feels the roughness of the support struts under his fingers and manage to focus his eyes on it. It feels strange; new, different. His vision is still blurry but it is clear enough to see the coral like structure that his hand found. His mind tries to put the together the fragments of memories filtering through but nothing is making sense.
That wasn’t there before he thinks to himself. His hearts are racing and he takes a few deep breaths to calm himself, screwing his eyes shut. Opening them once again he scans his surroundings. The central console has changed, there are still scorch marks visible but she has begun to heal herself, to regenerate. The control room seems functional, no luxuries or home comforts, but working and bathed in a slight pale green light that signals all is well.
For the first time he looks down at himself. His fingers are long and lithe; a workman’s hands. He is still clothed in the scorched remnants of velvet and brocade. He runs his hands through his hair and is surprised to find that he hardly has any. Gone are the frivolous curls of his previous self, instead is the close, severe cut of a soldier.
He feels dirty and has no idea how long he was laid in his stupor on the floor of his ship. What is left of his trousers are stained with blood and his own waste. They smell of the scorched flesh of a million souls and suddenly he cannot bear the feel of them on his skin and he tears them off. Standing naked now the memories come flooding back to him. He can see it all; flames as the city burnt, the carnage as the enemy slaughtered anything that came in its way….
His own previous self, finger hovered above the button before he sent both races to hell…..
Sinking to his knees he howls. The sharp grating of the floor is digging into his bare knees fuelling his outbreak of wretchedness. The pain feels comforting in a way; its physical, an expression of the anguish he feels inside. His grief echoes around the empty ship, she joins him in his wailing, mourning the death of innocents.
After a while his cries subside and he feels empty and numb inside. He stands up and leaves the control room and scours the halls for a room with a shower. He feels contaminated and he has to wash the dirt of his sins away. He reaches a door and steps inside. The room is bare and basic, just a small single iron bed in the far corner. The TARDIS is struggling to repair herself now that she has lost the connection to the home world; all she can manage is the bare necessities.
At the other end of the room is another door which leads to a bathroom. Thankfully inside there is a shower and he steps in and allows the scorching hot water to rain down on his skin. He still feels numb inside and the pain from the water temperature ensures the he still feels alive as he scrubs his skin red raw in an effort to wash away his wrongdoing. It doesn’t work. He can still see the blackness in his mind.
The TARDIS has provided him with some clothes, again basics, nothing flighty and eccentric; just plain functional black jeans and boots. He slips them on, ignoring the underwear and reaches for the jumper. Its lambs wool; hard wearing but itchy. It suffices and the discomfort is welcome.
He realises that he is hungry and that he can’t remember the last time that he ate so makes his way to the kitchen. It’s small and functional, equipped with the basics for preparing and cooking food. There is bread in the cupboard; it’s slightly stale but it will do and he makes himself some toast and tea.
Each mouthful feels like its going to choke him and settles heavily in his stomach. He sips some tea to try and wash it down and suddenly he has a flashback; he is sitting with Susan, drinking tea somewhere….. London, perhaps. He half smiles at the memory but a second later he remembers; she is dead, he killed her. He killed them all.
Bile rises from his stomach and he bolts for the sink. He vomits and retches quite violently, gasping for breath with tears rolling down his face. He feels pathetic; a pitiful excuse of man. He sinks down onto his haunches and weeps; weeps for the loss of his home, weeps for those who will never be born and weeps for himself; for he is no longer the person he was and he never will be again.
******
Time moves on and he remembers one thing that he has not yet done. Something that has waited quite long enough. He walks slowly to the mortuary, knowing that he has to face this. He owes it to his friend, the one who stood by him on the front lines at the battle for Acadia.
The body is in stasis, unmoved and unchanged since he carried his friend’s broken body in his arms that fateful day. He looks Fitz’s face; it’s almost as though he is sleeping, except for the blue tinge around his mouth. There are no injuries that he can see; death by Dalek extermination tends not to leave marks.
He finds a wash cloth and a brings a bowl of warm water before carefully removing the clothing from his friend’s body. Gently, almost like a father bathing his new born son, he bathes Fitz body, removing the traces of dirt and stink from the fires of Acadia. Then he wraps him in a shroud before making to leave to set course for Fitz’s final resting place. Something catches his eye as he leaves the morgue; Fitz’s jacket. It’s leather and worn, and smells of cigarettes and cheap aftershave. He picks it up and before he can think about what he is doing, he slips it on.
It fits. For some reason.
There is a memorial on a backwater planet in the Isop galaxy. It’s similar to the ones on Earth and all the others in each and every human colony and outpost; The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is here that he brings his friend. He carries Fitz’s body out, cradled in his arms and with his own hands he digs the grave at the foot of the memorial.
It’s a bleak and icy cold day. The sky is grey and the wind howls bitterly cold around him, chilling him to the bone. The Boeshane Peninsular is a harsh place in wintertime. By the 51st century the terraforming is completed but it is still a primitive place with none of the facilities of the other metropolitan human planets.
The memorial is deserted, for that he is glad, he doesn’t want to have to explain to anyone why he is burying a body here. When he is finished he returns to the TARDIS and puts the tools away before making his way to the arboretum. He finds what he is looking for almost straight away. Selecting a few blooms, he gathers up a handful of the yellow flowers; Memento Mori, the Gallifreyan flower of remembrance.
As he leaves the TARDIS to place the flowers on the memorial, he sees he is no longer alone. There is a woman; human, probably in her late fifties. She looks tired, so tired as though she has the weight of the whole planet on her shoulders. She is kneeling down at the foot of the memorial placing some flowers of her own; Roses.
“I’m sorry.” He says, placing his offering down next to hers. He wonders why she hasn’t noticed the recently disturbed earth on which she is kneeling. “I thought I was the only one here.”
The woman continues to fuss with the roses, arranging and rearranging them this way and that, unable to settle on one arrangement. “For my son.” She says simply, as if in response to a question that the Doctor hasn’t asked.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” He mumbles, unable to think of anything else to say. He fidgets a little, the last thing he wants to hear right now is how someone else is dealing with their grief. He is about to turn away when the woman speaks again;
“Seven years now he’s been gone, my son.” He can see her eyes are red and blood shot from recent crying and it makes him feel uncomfortable to witness someone else’s grief when his own is still so raw. He never was any good at staying around and viewing the fallout, but right now, this is too close to home and its all he can do is to stop himself from turning tail and running for the TARDIS.
“Missing in Action, that’s what they told me. I don’t even have a grave to weep over. That’s why I come here.”
“That… must be hard.” The words are stilted as they leave his mouth. He wants to leave, empathy doesn’t come easily to him but he stays, sensing the woman hasn’t finished speaking to him.
“Who did you lose? My son, Connor was his name. He was the first one from Boe to be signed up you know? We were so proud of him. It’s all farms here, but he was bright, so clever. They snapped him up when he was sixteen. Became a Captain he did. Never forgot where he was from though. He was such a good boy.” She wipes a tear away and finally settles the flowers into place.
“I….. I lost everyone. ” He says eventually. Then turns and walks away.
*******
Time convulsed at the moment of Gallifrey's death. As it was ripped from existence, leaving only a barren rock orbiting a pair of dead suns, ripples were created that spread through time and space like the circles that spread outwards when a pebble is tossed into a lake. For higher species it was devastating. Home worlds were rendered inhabitable, people just ceased to exist. Among lower species the effects were just as devastating, although the reason was beyond them. Wars and disasters broke out throughout time. On twentieth century Earth more than six million people died in a war that was never meant to happen. The Slough of The Disunited Planets became a breeding ground for warmongers and millions died needless deaths, countless more were condemned to a life of slavery and misery.
For a long time he just stay in the vortex, telling himself that he needs to make repairs to the parts that the TARDIS herself cannot regenerate. In truth he cannot face the consequence of his actions. He emerges from time to time to visit trading posts and scrap dealers to scavenge for parts. Whilst there he avoids social contact; the places he visits tend to be home to the underclass of the universe. Drug dealers ply him with their wares, promising him peace and a chance to live without the nightmares, for a while anyway and at a price. He knows that this isn’t the answer, his nightmares are part of him now, they have become to define this regeneration and he wonders if he will ever find a way to heal.
Whores flaunt themselves at him when he decides to frequent certain bars on occasion. Painted and tainted, they ply him with their services when all his wants to do is to drown his sorrows in hypervodka and sonictechila. They are the same throughout time and space, doesn’t matter if they have tentacles or if they are bipedal; their message is the same; Come to me, I can make you forget. Except they can't.
Morbidly perhaps, he takes himself off in his time machine and views history in the making. He views asteroids crashing into planets and wiping out whole civilisations; he visits another world on the eve of annihilating themselves with fission reactor experiments, then leaves at the last minute, viewing the carnage from the skies. It doesn’t bring any satisfaction. For a while he ends up on Earth, observing Krakatau as it blows, then after the tsunami hits he escapes to Sumatra and views the aftermath. It doesn’t occur to him that he is torturing himself.
Then one day he is sitting in a tea shop in Southampton. A little girl with a broad rimmed hat and sweet gap toothed smile comes up to him and says hello. He can’t help himself and he is replying before he can stop himself. Her mother apologises and ushers her away but after a while they get talking and he finds himself accepting the family’s offer of dinner. Human contact is an odd thing for a man such as him to crave, but for some strange reason he does.
He stays a while with them, they are packing, planning a new life in America and then he realises, his brain adds up the clues and he realises they are talking about a certain ship. This time he doesn’t observe, he’s got himself too close and he interferes. They don’t leave and a few days later the unsinkable ship sinks.
Then one day, years later, he is just passing by Earth, as he is apt to do from to time, and the mauve alert rings out. Something is amiss and he never could leave alone, especially not where Earth is in the equation.
It doesn’t take him long to find out its London, yet again. Why is it always London, or Cardiff he says out loud to no one in particular. He lands and goes investigating and pretty soon he works out its Autons kicking up some trouble. There is more to it, he is sure, but he can’t put his finger on who else is sticking their oar in, not yet.
He traces them to some generic department store in the west end. There he finds a man, dead before his time and for a moment he stares. The name badge says ‘Wilson’, yet he has a look about him. Fitz Kreiner. The hair colour is the same, as is the complexion.
So he makes a decision; nobody else must die. Not today. Then he happens upon a girl in the basement. She is terrified and confused all at the same time. He takes her hand and she stares at him. For a second his vision is clouded and he thinks he can see a wolf, but then it clears and all he can see is a girl who needs his help.
So he says……………’Run’