Pinstripes & Jacquard ‘Verse, Chapter 19: Back in Time
Title: Pinstripes & Jacquard ‘Verse, Chapter 19: Back in Time
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Tenth Doctor
Rating: PG-13
Excerpt: He’d been an idiot, a first-rate, Pollyannaish git to assume that he could ever accept the same way Fate doled out justice to the inhabitants of the universe! But he knew better now…
Word count: 2,366
Disclaimer: Until she’s Jossed, Twelve is mine-but of course, based entirely on stuff that ain’t mine… All hail Auntie Beeb!
A/N: Continuing Part II of Girl in the Mirror ‘Verse. Which, if you haven’t read yet, will give you important backstory and character details which are essential to this ‘verse (the link to the GitM masterlist is provided below). This series is a sort of Season Two. Also written before the end of DW season 6, so some details have gone AU.
Part I: Girl in the Mirror ‘Verse Masterlist
Part II: Pinstripes & Jacquard ‘Verse
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
Ten slammed the parking break off and directed the TARDIS to race away from his home planet as fast as possible.
Once again, the TARDIS shimmied and shook with her efforts at escaping the residual ripples from The Moment as she attempted to leave the timespace of Gallifrey; although, it seemed as if this time as if she might actually rip herself apart with the ferocity of her shaking! Going down on one knee to lower his centre of gravity and stabilise his body in the onslaught of the shuddering ship, the Tenth Doctor clutched the side of the console.
He buried his head into the crook of arm and wept.
The Twelfth Doctor was dead.
Despite knowing this-having seen the gunshot, the blood, watched her lifeless body fall to the ground-he still couldn’t help feel that he’d abandoned her.
But what else was he supposed to have done?
As the ship finally gained stability he allowed himself to bonelessly slump onto the hard plexi floor. He hid his face behind his trembling hands as he cried, as if to hide his shame from his ship-the only sentient life present to bear witness to his grief.
And the only sentient life that he would ever have around him again, he reasoned.
Cos he was done, feeling these things, enduring this pain, having the people he loved ripped away from him, again and again and again!
His mind replayed the events of the last horrible two days on Gallifrey-garish picture after garish picture assaulted him, boring into his psyche and exploding its fetid, repulsive imagery all over the inside of his brain, tainting his thoughts, mood and perceptions.
If he lived another 900 years he would never forget the Twelfth Doctor’s dull, glassy eyes as she stared vacantly up at the murky green Gallifreyan dawn.
The utter pointlessness of her death sickened him.
And so, too, did his Eighth self-so twisted and warped with the horrors of the Time War that he could so ruthlessly gun down a clearly unarmed woman.
Except she hadn’t been unarmed, had she? She’d had her ubiquitous squareness gun with her. She just hadn’t used it. At least not to defend herself.
And why would she have used it? The mission was to extract his bio-data only, not destroy him altogether. Plus, she was still the Doctor, and while the Doctor loathed guns in any incarnation, it was only after the Time War where the No Guns rule had become more an imperative rather than a preference. He’d used guns before-plenty of times-he’d even killed with his bare hands, but that was before the Time War, before the thought of taking another life himself had caused his stomach to churn and his hands shake.
It should have been him: This thought consumed him. It should have been him! He’d already had his time-and she’d barely had her start! Now, thanks to him, she never would. It should be him buried on Gallifrey!
It should have been him!
And yet, when push came to shove, he couldn’t step up to save her!
The stench of his cowardice rose up like bile in his throat, lubricated by an intense self-hatred that burned his nostrils and caused his eyes to water.
And now here he was-the new old man-sauntering off, whilst Twelve lay rotting in her haunted grave on Gallifrey!
He pitched forward, on his hands and knees in front of the console, retching up nothing but his own acidic feelings of disgrace and rage.
Once his dry heaves subsided, he wailed and clawed at his shoulders and arms, helpless to the ugly voices in his head that castigated him for every mistake, every inadequate move, and all his imperfect choices in that final, impossible showdown in the Death Zone.
In his mind, he replayed her final moments-he saw hesitation in her every breath, in her dilating eyes, the way she nervously picked at her fingers or swallowed down her fear.
Had she wished he’d have taken her place? Had she hoped he’d come through and save her in the end?
She’d been so much more than him.
He was a thief riding around in her TARDIS!
But he wasn’t! She was dead!
He’d checked, double-checked and triple-checked. Her pupils were fixed and dilated. There was no breath or pulse, and no response to painful stimuli. Neither of her hearts were beating…
Intellectually, he understood that there were times when regeneration was impossible-not just improbable, as it had been with Jenny-but impossible, as in there was absolutely no way a regeneration could ever, ever trigger. Twelve’s death was such a time, despite whatever he was telling himself out of guilt. That shot had severed vital parts of the frontal lobe as it had traveled through her brain. Ironically, in a human and in a Timelord, this is where the personality lived. And, slicing through the right to the left, the blast would have removed her motor function. It also would have taken out her problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgment, and impulse control. And this was even before her left parietal lobe was blasted out in the exit wound. Damage to that area would affect spatial relation and cognition. That meant difficulty with language, writing, maths, and integrating visual input-basically everything that had made her her…
He knew all of these things.
Intellectually, that is.
Yet, the shot from the Eighth Doctor’s Staser pistol had taken away her life signs, and that alone was enough to immobilize the regenerative process.
All that notwithstanding, in his core, in his hearts and in his guts-emotionally-he still believed there should have been something else he could have done, because this was so much more to him than the terrible loss of a friend.
It felt like a part of him had been destroyed in that moment, a part he would never get back.
Cos, he was still the Doctor, and the Doctor could do just about anything.
Just about.
He never did like finding his own limits.
And there was nothing more limiting than death.
He’d rocked her as she’d grown cold.
There was something about the weight of holding the dead. That lack of animation-of taught musculature, even the conscious knowingness of being held or being, just being-gave the body a lax sloppiness which felt peculiar and distinctly unnatural to the living. People speak in hackneyed phrases like “a sack of potatoes,” but no one in the history of the universe had ever been filled with dread or horror by holding a bag of potatoes-he’d be willing to bet his remaining regenerations on that one! Regenerations that he now comparatively had in spades, thanks to her… His brown eyed angel, whose limp head had lolled against his collarbones as he’d cursed the sky with salty tears on his lips.
He still wore the smudge of her blood on his neck-her blood that was his blood, too.
He shuddered, remembering how her body had clumsily lurched into the grave he’d dug for her, and he gasped out in anguish. Wiping the spittle off his chin he tasted the dirt and blood that was still caked on his hand.
The grit in his mouth crunched between his teeth.
He spat it out-and when he closed his eyes, Twelve’s slack midsection jiggled with the weight of the rough stones he’d placed on top of her in his mind’s eye. Snapping his eyes open in horror, he clutched his head and willed another image to replace that one-something else, anything else would do!
Pop! He saw the sneering lips of his Eighth self as he pulled the trigger.
Pop! He saw the flash of the muzzle blast of the Staser pistol.
Pop! He saw Twelve’s head fling backwards as the back of her head spewed gore.
Pop! He saw a thin rivulet of crimson stain the silver streak in her hair as her lungs emptied.
The pictures would never end. Not this time.
He pushed the heels of his grimy palms into the side of his head. These images and remembrances of death overwhelmed him.
And yet Death had come too close this time… too close…
Truthfully, he was never really that much ahead of Death himself at any given time. Wherever he went, whatever he did, Death was always there-his eternal shadow-sometimes his opponent, sometimes his partner. They had a complicated dance, the Doctor and Death, though usually the Doctor ducked out on his date before the song was done. Sometimes they were uncomplicated exits, sometimes not. But clean or messy, escapes were still escapes, nonetheless.
But this time was different. This time, it had caught a part of him. Death had hooked the back of his collar, and threatened to drag him down.
Back, into the grave that he’d dug.
Back, under the stony, haunted ground.
Back, next to his brown-eyed twin.
Back, beside her glassy, unfocused stare and bloody, pulpy head.
Back, where he belonged instead of her!
Feeling the putrid fingers of Death pawing at him, he clawed at his hair and screamed. He was now excruciatingly aware of the dust of Gallifrey that still clung to his clothing and skin, and was suddenly overwhelmed with the itchiness of his guilt and his own fragile mortality. Crying and whimpering, he slapped his palms against his clothes in an effort to rid himself of the dirt; but like an acarophobic awakened in the night by a bug crawling on him, he was convinced that his entire flesh was crawling with Death.
His soul felt foul and sullied.
Wailing out his despair, the Tenth Doctor begged for regeneration. Crouched on his hands and knees with his fists jammed into his eye sockets, he wanted to die so all of this would stop. He was wrong earlier, none of the available images would do-his mind was contaminated, not by the toxic rains, not by the emotional echoes of The Moment, but by his own experience, his own feelings. His brain and memory were polluted and raw.
He just wanted to burn because he felt like he deserved it.
Then, over the humming of the TARDIS, he heard a silky baritone voice in his head, another memory from long ago, calling him out like the Pied Piper, and reminding him he had options…
Their lives are so fleeting. So many goodbyes. How lonely you must be, Doctor…
His bones ached with loneliness.
Desperate for another train of thought, the Tenth Doctor called up his remembrance of that day at Deffry Vale High School-the day he’d turned his birthright down.
Become a God, at my side. Imagine what you could do -- think of the civilizations you could save. Perganon, Assinta... your own people, Doctor. Standing tall. The Time Lords... reborn.
How young and foolish he’d been! How falsely certain and self-righteous! He’d sneered at Mr. Finch as he’d refused him. He’d been so superior, so cocky-hiding behind his arrogance and so complacent with his devoted companions-Sarah Jane and Rose-securely and confidently at his side. When either of them was with him he felt indomitable-he’d had no need for the Skasis Paradigm! And how quickly all that had fallen apart! He’d been an idiot, a first-rate, Pollyannaish git to assume that he could ever accept the same method Fate doled out justice to the inhabitants of the universe!
But he knew better now.
I could save everyone…
I could stop the War…
There was no longer any force in the universe that could stop him, and no longer any reason to hold back. There was no companion to protect and perform for, no higher authority to kowtow to. All that had died when the body of his Twelfth self had hit the ground, broken and bleeding at his feet.
Once again, the Survivor would proclaim himself the Winner. But now, he would do something about it. He was tired of rebuilding himself, of playing by the rules, only to be crushed underneath them.
Here he was again, the winner of Survivor Gallifrey-surely that meant something??
Surely he’d earned something in the process?
And where he had tried and failed before, he would not replicate those mistakes! Last time he’d aimed too low, he hadn’t had the stomach for it! He’d spent too much time with humans-picking up their habit of limitation, their pangs of humility, and their squeamishness for tolerating problematic decisions…
Not anymore.
How’d that old RFK quote go?: “Some look at the world and say why? I look at the world and say why not?”
Well, why not?
Why not him?
Cos, he just couldn’t bear it the way it was any more.
It was time to save some important people…
Seeing the Twelfth Doctor’s coat draped over the jump seat he grasped it, brining it to his face. It startled him that it should smell exactly like his own coat.
Then again, they were the same person, weren’t they?
Comforted by the familiar scent he decided he needed to wear it. After all, if it smelled like his then it was his, wasn’t it? Cos they were one in the same, weren’t they?
It didn’t matter anyway, he thought ruefully, it wasn’t like the previous owner was going to show up and demand he hand it over, was she? It could replace the one he’d left behind on Gallifrey. Besides, black fit his darkened mood so much better. And since he was used to so much death around him, he thought-he ought to look the part of the Chief Mourner… or at least the undertaker.
For he was right before, when he wore her face: Chaos would always be coming, there was always somebody to apologise to, and he would always be sacrificing something or another.
Always.
Better look the part, then…
He put the Twelfth Doctor’s black coat on. It fit him like a glove.
He set the coordinates for Transboolian, going back in time to attempt to right a few wrongs. Cos, the Gem of Salvation was somewhere out there-the divining rod to his greatest desire…
And he had need of it now.
Yes, he could fix this. He knew just what to do…
To be continued in Chapter 20: It’s Not My Time…