Thinking Too Hard... (Open, Multiple Threads Welcome)

[incorrigibledoc]

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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[badaboombah]

He was not accepting a room. Under any circumstances. Ever

[incorrigibledoc]

If the Doctor wanted to be alone with himself, he'd come to the right place.

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

[badaboombah]

His eyes flickered toward the movement, his face still one indicating cheerful appreciation of how grand the library itself was.

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."

[incorrigibledoc]

Apparently, it could be. One could be considered coincidence, two was suspicious, but three Doctors was just ridiculous. The Eighth Doctor wondered again if the Time Lords were behind this ghastly experiment, though what they stood to gain from it was beyond him.

"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?"