for fandom_muses: Write about an adventure you had with your best friend(s).
You still see strings of time and possibility passing through your mind’s eye. Never as strongly as you remember a Proper Time Lord being able to perceive these shifts. Choppy moments glued together.
You see a life where the Doctor kept you.
He resents your presence. There’s really only room for one Doctor on the TARDIS. Quite right, too. You understand why He feels this way. It’s almost unnatural, your presence alongside the Proper Doctor. Your entire existence feels wrong.
You think you might be designated the bastard stepchild, left to live in the shadows. Rightfully so. You would probably have made the same decision if you were the Proper Doctor. It’s strange to think of your own existence through His eyes. It’s even stranger living in your own skin. It’s more than strange. It’s sickening.
That first night. When the choice is made, and He lets you stay in the TARDIS.
Creeping off to go to sleep, because you’re so tired. You’ve never been tired like this before. This human body, it’s so new and strange and you have the strongest desire to bury yourself beneath a comforter and close your eyes and sleep for days. It seems such a waste, but a pleasant waste. A heavenly waste. And it feels almost as disgusting at first as a single heart. This desire to waste away this short lifespan in unconsciousness.
But it’s been a long day and you’re so tired and mattresses are so soft and covers are so warm and pillows are so welcoming.
And you find your room, and you get ready to open the door, collapse into bed. A bed you’ve really never properly used like you’re planning on using tonight. Except He is waiting at the door. And you remember this is His room. Not your room. And He says as much.
He wants to know where you are going.
“Bed,” you explain.
“Not in there,” He counters.
You don’t know where you’re meant to sleep. You think of going into one of the old rooms in the TARDIS. You know as soon as you suggest it that it’s completely out of the question. Once a room is claimed, it always belongs to that person. Like parents preserving a child’s room long after they’ve left home and gotten married and created rooms for their own children.
He suggests you can sleep in that corridor Mickey was sleeping in. Until the TARDIS sets up a bedroom for you. You peak through the crack in His door, and the bed looks like heaven. But you bite your tongue, and you’re too tired to argue. More likely you’re terrified He’ll change His mind and leave you behind. You slink off to sleep on the make shift bed that was assigned to Mickey on his short time onboard the TARDIS. You manage to make a nest and pretend you don’t know you’re living in a corridor.
He traipses off to survey a planet the TARDIS has landed on. He takes His companion and you make an attempt to follow. He stops you. He says that the TARDIS has landed because she needs repairs. He tells you that you’ll be doing that. He’s taking His companion for some sightseeing. As soon as the repairs are through, you can meet up with them.
Except every time you fix one thing, it seems like another thing breaks. And another thing needs repair. And another corridor is humming for your attention.
You feel like Cinderella, ready to go the ball. Ready to see this world for the first time with these eyes. Except ten new things are begging for attention the second you finish fixing one thing. The hours whittle away, and the Doctor and His companion are still traipsing around having some kind of brilliant adventure, and you are repairing heating vents and binary systems.
Then you realize, and you feel so stupid for not realizing sooner, these repairs are much too neat, much too orderly, much too perfectly flawed. These aren’t legitimate. The TARDIS is doing this on purpose. You think as much when you take a look at her navigation system.
You still feel connected enough with her to express this and have her reply. You’re too grateful the connection still exists. It doesn’t allow you to be as properly annoyed with her as you want to be. Which makes you even more annoyed.
She tells you the repairs are her creation. She won’t admit anything more. She would never betray Him. She doesn’t need to say anything though, because you already know.
He put her up to this. He doesn’t trust you out there in this planet. He doesn’t feel like having a twin following around in His shadow. You’re absolutely certain of this.
You confront Him when he returns. They are both breathless from adventure, smiling ear to ear, and you’re standing there. Like some stereotype of a wife waiting for her husband who has been out all night with his mates. Both their smiles fade slightly. Not entirely. She says something and He laughs and you want to know why and He explains you had to be there. They laugh again and you hate them both.
You tell Him you know. You tell Him and He doesn’t say a word. He looks at your repairs, and He makes some sort of remark. Not bad, or something as equally patronizing and infuriating.
You demand He admit it. You don’t care how ridiculous you must look to them. You don’t care, and you tell Him as much. You tell Him you’re not some child that needs to be occupied. You rant and rave and you’re perfectly aware you look like the child you claim you’re not.
He looks unimpressed and you swear He rolls his eyes and you storm off. You hear His companion say something and He just shrugs her off and you hate them both so much you find it hard to focus on anything in front of you. You look around and you’re lost and you’re certain you have to find your own way out of here, because you know they won’t look for you. You’re positive He won’t.
You force Him to take you out with him from that point forward. He does so begrudgingly. Sometimes He‘ll still find a way to leave you behind. Sometime you‘ll force yourself along
On a day you get to tag along for the adventure a creature flings you over a ledge. You land with a sickening thud. You feel something warm and wet, and you realized something is sticking out of your stomach. You know it should hurt, but you‘re in shock.
Your eyes travel up, and His companion is running down to where you are. The creature, you’re unsure where it is now. But His companion and the creature don’t matter. Not really. You are focused on Him. He is frozen solid. Shocked. Sickened. Frightened.
His companion yells for Him to help, and He finally gets into motion, running down to your side. They both begin to move you and everything is a blur, and you finally feel the pain, and it hurts, worse than anything you can remember. You think you might have screamed. You don’t remember. You pass out from the pain and you wake up and you are in the TARDIS’s medical bay. The Doctor is looking at you. He seems so tired.
His companion sees you’ve woken up, and she rushes to your side. The Proper Doctor is forgotten for a short time. It’s strange to be the center of attention. The piece of wood that impaled you just missed your vital organs. It’s a miracle you survived.
Her words float in and out, white noise.
You lock eyes on the Proper Doctor. You realize what exactly this meant. You know the pain of watching companions come and go and whither and die and be broken.
Except now He’s being forced to watch a face and a body that belong to Him be broken and destroyed.
“I’m sorry,” you tell Him.
He walks away.
You watch Him change faces, and it’s so odd, watching a man with your face suddenly not have it anymore.
You stand as far away as the console room allows, slightly horrified. He opens his eyes, and they are new eyes. They’re blue. Too blue.
You aren’t even the same anymore, you realize. Now you are just a human. And now He’s sitting over there, with this brand new face, and He doesn’t even have freckles. He probably doesn’t even have a mole between His shoulder blades.
You think you might want to cry. You keep your distance. You watch as His companion goes to Him. You don’t do anything, you can’t.
You slide away, knowing they won’t notice, and get lost in the TARDIS. You don’t want to find your way out. Maybe you can waste away here. Some simple human. Nothing close to a Time Lord. You don’t even have the same face anymore.
He likes His new face. His new body. His new personality. Except He’ll look at you sometimes, and His mood will darken. He hates you slightly. Because of you He can’t completely enjoy this new regeneration. You force Him to remember having this face and this voice and this persona. He is forced to be a shadow of His past self because of you.
He hates you for it, and sometimes He doesn’t even hide it. So you hide away and you really don’t even try to convince Him to let you tag along anymore.
He regenerates again, and you didn’t even know. He finds you in a library in the corners of the TARDIS. A place that was yours. It was assumed. He had known last regeneration you would be here, so He avoided it, and you remembered a life you used to have as you read His books and listened to His music collection and pretended you were Him relaxing in His library.
So when a face pops in you are startled. You don’t recognize Him at first. It takes you a moment, but you are still a part of Him, no matter the face, and you realize it’s really Him.
"You changed," you laugh. "When did that happen?"
He looks like He is considering, you think He might even start counting on His fingers.
"A few months, maybe a year. I’m not even sure."
You study His appearance, and the more you look at Him the more you smile.
“You’re ginger.”
He lets a hand rake through His hair. It’s bushy, slightly curly. Just like you always wished for.
He shrugs. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
He studies you for the first time, a hand tentatively reaching out towards your hair. It’s so thin now. It used to be tall and full and brilliant. Now it’s grey and white and thinning.
He hesitates for a moment. “You’re old. Were you really hidden away that long?”
You look down at your hands, and the veins and wrinkles.
“I think I lost track of time.”
You voice sounds so foreign to you. It's been so long since you’ve spoken to anyone that wasn’t yourself or the TARDIS. It’s strange the way a voice takes on a completely different sound when there is someone there to fill the space.
This newest regeneration pulls you out of the library. It’s just you and Him. The adventures really don’t seem to happen as often. When they do, you stay on the TARDIS. You are much too old for running. Your legs can barely carry your own weight for a hobble.
You both talk. You love Him and you think He might love you, too. He’s been away from you long enough that He doesn’t resent you the way He did before. You are more like a relic. A childhood toy rediscovered. You are perfectly fine with that. Because you think He might love you now.
And you talk about the adventures you remember. He talks about the adventures you never knew about. You talk about Gallifrey. He tells you He found the Master again. You ask what happened, and He goes silent, so you don’t ask again, because you don’t want to have to hide again.
You’re in a bed. The mattress is so soft and the blankets are so warm and the pillow is so welcoming. You realize it’s His room. He has decided to let you have His bed.
“It was yours as well,” He says.
He’s holding your hand. You look into His eyes, and you see Him. Not this regeneration. Not any of the regenerations. You see who He is. Who you are. The thing that makes you both the same, even when the faces change. Except there is something there that you will never have. One heart and one life don’t allow it. Even if you can remember what a life like that is like, it’s not your life anymore.
It’s taken you too long to realize that.
You want to say something to Him, but it hurts to breathe, so you just squeeze His hand as much as you can. You’re terrified. No second chances. No new life after this.
Everything feels so heavy, and His hand feels so soft and light and you’re so happy He kept you. You couldn’t imagine a better place to end. You think of Cassandra, holding herself, nursing herself into death.
You feel so lucky that you’ve been given this chance, to have Him look at you and love you and help you when you needed it more than anything.
The heaviness grows, and you can still feel Him holding on. You want to say thank you. You want to say something, anything, but you don’t have the strength to speak and you can’t keep your eyes open and you’re just so tired. You’ve never been tired like this before. This human body, it’s so old and broken and you have the strongest desire to let yourself fall into sleep and just sleep forever.
You open your eyes, and you’re young again. And Donna and Rose and Jackie are here. Along with the Doctor. The Doctor who made you.
He says Bad Wolf Bay. He says it and you know. You see His choice before you can even admit it to yourself. You know He won’t keep you. You can feel a life crumbling apart in your mind. Pulled and extracted and decimated until it is nothing but dust.
And you're just tired.
[OOC: This is a response to a dare from rude_not_ginger , although it didn't turn out exactly as planned. Also, big thanks to ambitious_woman for reading through <3]
Also, go read rude_not_ginger 's amazing companion piece from the Doctor's POV.