dreamtofbeing | For textbookenigmatic

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For textbookenigmatic

WARNING: This thread contains descriptions of past abuse and a fictional character's PTSD triggers, as well as his reaction to them.

The Torchwood Hub is a big place, and at night, it can feel more than a little like a haunted castle.

This isn't the first time the Doctor has thought this. Covering the night shift at the Hub is something that he as a married man and head of Torchwood has the privilege to leave to his employees a lot of the time. Occasionally, though, Ianto will be spending the evening babysitting at his sister's, Tosh will have just come off a twenty-four hour shift because she was working on something and forgot to go home, and Owen will have quietly snuck out the backdoor before anyone could ask him to work overtime. On occasions like that, it falls to the Doctor or his SiC to make sure the Hub is manned overnight. Earlier, the SiC proved to be more proficient at rock, paper, scissors--or simply luckier--so tonight, it's the Doctor's turn to spend his night in the company of silently whirring computers and the faint blue glow of the Rift manipulator.

It's mostly the glow that causes the haunted castle effect, the Doctor thinks as he rests his chin in his hand and his elbow on the walkway railing, looking out over the central Hub area. The glow, and the water pouring down the water tower. There's even a little bridge crossing the moat, or rather the small pool in the center of the Hub. It's got metal chains for a railing, and with a bit of imagination, you could see drawbridge parallels. Okay, with a lot of imagination. It's there, though.

With a sigh, he straightens up and starts down the steps. He's bored. He wishes the Hub were haunted; at least he'd have some ghosts to talk to. Night shift at the Hub isn't particularly long, what with all Torchwood employees being workaholics who like to be first at work and last out the door, but when the Rift is dead silent like this, those few wee morning hours drag.

Could always write those reports. Or read a couple; there's a whole stack for him to go through. Later, he tells himself. Right now, he's heading down to the console array, because--

He stops a few steps away from the consoles, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. Because what? Why did he come down here? Just moments ago, he had a very distinct feeling of purpose, a reason he interrupted his silent contemplation of the Hub to head for the consoles, but now that his mind wanted to formulate it, it's gone. He steps closer to the computers, peering at one of the monitors which is showing a fluctuating graph reading of current Rift activity. They look normal. That's strange, he thinks, that's strange, because--because the feeling he had just moments ago, that made him come down here to check on the monitors, was the distinct feeling of knowing that the Rift was doing something unusual. Something it shouldn't. Something--

Something like that. As he watches, the fluctuating graph suddenly spikes, maxing out the ordinate and making the display switch to a smaller scale. The Doctor jumps and swears under his breath, taking a step back--and then he pales, the blood draining from his face as he begins to understand.

The Rift spiking is nothing new. It does that a lot; that's why Torchwood exists. It's not, however, something he's ever had any sort of premonition about. The Rift is not an earthquake, and he is not a dog; he can't sense it. Except just now, he could. He sensed time shifting, sensed the Vortex contracting and beginning to ripple somewhere deep in the spacetime continuum, a ripple that took until a few seconds ago to show up on his console's monitor as a graph fluctuation. It's a sensation he hasn't felt in a long time--but he remembers it. Remembers it from his old life, his Time Lord life. Feeling time. Having a time sense.

The Doctor takes a step back, heart beating in his throat, eyes flitting about the room. He knows that there is only one way a human can feel time: through a mental connection with a Time Lord. Which is impossible. There are no Time Lords in Cardiff, there are no Time Lords in this universe. At least usually. Sometimes, though, they decide to visit. Sometimes--

A whooping, familiar sound makes him spin around. A blurry shape is beginning to manifest on the other side of the room, just next to the door leading to the conference room. The Doctor's throat is suddenly dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, and he backs up further, thighs bumping against the edge of the console desk. It's him. It's him, it's either of them, it's a Time Lord. And he can still feel it, in his head, the slow, quiet rhythm of the flow of time through the center of the universe. It's not getting any less; in fact, it's getting stronger, at the same rate that the shape across the room becomes clearer, turning into the unmistakable, far-too-familiar form of a blue police box.

The Doctor wants to run. Wants to hide, but he can't. The Time Lord is in his head, and he's frozen in place, too terrified to dare move a muscle.

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The Doctor’s tapping a mallet against a section of the console when he feels it—just a brief flare of something, there, in the corner of his mind. His grip on the tool loosens reflexively, and he hears it bang against the grating, missing his toes by a few narrow inches.

That was…odd. That shouldn’t have happened. Which is enough to get him interested, but not enough to get him worried.

It’s also enough to get him to forget all about the star he’d been on his way to see, because something caused that. It wasn’t him, and it wasn’t the TARDIS; somewhere, there’s a third element. He leans across the console to another screen, tapping in a few instructions and starting a routine scan of the area.

And just in case it comes back, for a few moments he paces, and concentrates, and listens. To his surprise, when he properly focuses, he finds that it’s still there. There isn’t much shape to the static in the back of his mind, but it’s definitely—something.

No, someone. It doesn’t take him much longer to place that listening-in-on-someone-else’s-phonecall feeling, because it’s definitely some sort of presence.

Which is…it’s okay. It happens. Even without the aid of touch, residual psychic energy has been known to bleed through to him, and anything could cause that. Well, just about anything—agitation from the atmosphere of a nearby planet, energy from a volatile star. There are enough possibilities to keep the Doctor busy for a while, and that’s good. Busy is good.

Except. Random telepathic feedback is usually just that--random.

This doesn’t feel random at all. It’s too familiar to be random, and too different for him to understand. If he can just get a trace on this energy—

And the TARDIS does. The ship lurches, he grips the console, and just like that he’s off, tracking it. The Doctor hardly even notices the strain it’s putting on the ship, because the feeling is getting stronger the further he goes; it’s like he’s getting little flashes of emotion now. He peers back at the coordinates to see where they’re headed and, oh, that’s enough to get him worried.

By the time he’s clambering to his feet and pulling open the door, he’s really hoping he’s wrong about this. When he staggers halfway over the threshold and gets his first glimpse of his surroundings—as well as a little corresponding thrill of terror, which is decidedly not his own—he knows he’s not.

The Doctor has closed his eyes. He can still hear the TARDIS arriving, that bizarre sound he's heard nothing like his entire long life, but like this, he at least won't have to see it.

Also, it lets him focus. Breathe in, breathe out, you're okay. Nothing is hurting you; feeling time doesn't necessarily have to hurt you. Having a Time Lord in your mind doesn't necessarily have to hurt you, not if it's the right Time Lord--

Except it does. It does. Mental connections, the feeling of not being alone in his head, it's one of the most sure-fire ways to set off all of his panic reactions. And this is with a Time Lord; the person he's connected to has the entire universe in his head, everything that was, is, and ever might be. He's got a time sense, and he's making the Doctor feel it. The Doctor can't help but focus on it, that vast, overwhelming sense of knowing. He doesn't want it, he doesn't want to know--and is that the drums he can hear? 1-2-3-4, a low rhythm, barely recognizable, probably just a figment of his imagination recalling something he remembers, but now that he's heard them, he can't unhear them.

It's him. It's him; it's not the right Time Lord, and the Doctor's eyes fly open. It can't be him; this one's got a TARDIS, but rational considerations are starting to matter less and less. He can hear the drums, he can hear them in his head, and he knows that his mind is being invaded by the Master.

"No." He scrambles further back, trying to get the consoles between himself and the Time Lord. He can see him now, he's stepped out of the TARDIS, and part of his mind recognizes him--that's not the Master, that's not even the Doctor in black. It's an alternate, it is the right Time Lord. But recognition comes too late to make a difference. Rational thought has ceased to matter, for now. "No, please. Get out. Please get out!"

This universe's Torchwood is just about what he would expect, but that barely even registers. Now that the Doctor's here, at the source of the problem, it's increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything. Anything that isn't the other Doctor. The human Doctor. The one who lives in a flat and does domestic with this universe's own version of the Master—

And that's what he's got in his head, unbelievably. His alternate is right there, across the room, moving further and further away as if the physical distance between them is really going to make a difference at this point. The Doctor gapes uselessly at him for a second or two, eyes wide.

"Not possible," he breathes, not even sure himself whether he means the general situation or the plea for him to get out.

And his mind is so loud. So him but so human, and the Doctor's head is swimming with it. Are human minds usually this loud? This cluttered? Just now, he can't seem to remember.

Not taking the hint to stay back, he staggers forward, stepping fully into the room and staring around it without really seeing it. This is mad. He's got to work out what's going on here, he's got to fix it, but all he's really aware of is a wave of something much like panic, coming right from his alternate.

"Just wait--" The Doctor waves a hand in his general direction—more of a flail, really—and tries to think. "Just let me—" Just what? Just let me think, so could you turn the volume down on your mind for a moment, please? He somehow doubts that's going to go over well at all.

It's the Doctor. The Time Lord, it's the Doctor, this Doctor can see him, the suit, the coat, the hair. The flailing and gesturing. But all of that doesn't matter. There's a Time Lord in his mind, a time sense seeping through the mental connection and curling into his thoughts, making them small and inconsequential and ridiculous. And there are the drums; even though a part of his mind knows they're not real, he can still hear them, a persistent rhythmic beat that makes his throat close up and his stomach twist around.

The Master/Doctor/Time Lord comes closer. The intensity of the mental connection doesn't change, but the Doctor's heart still skips a beat. His knees buckle, half-intentionally, and he falls/crouches down behind the console array, his back pressed against the side of the computer desk. No, he thinks, squeezing his eyes shut, his fingers burying in his hair as he hunkers down, the sick taste of panic in his mouth. No, no, please don't, please go, get out!

He can't see the Time Lord right now. He can't see him, so maybe the Time Lord can't see him, either. Not if he's quiet. Not if he makes himself as small as possible and doesn't move a muscle. Doesn't make a sound, mentally or physically. Shh, he tells himself, a small, metal hushing sound. Shh. Be quiet. Be safe. There's nothing here, Time Lord. Nothing but a human mind, and they're just so small. They're easily overlooked.

The Doctor blinks at his alternate, and blinks again, as if that's going to clear his head. He watches, utterly confused, as the man sinks down behind the consoles across the room, and the Doctor automatically steps forward, coming right up to the computer banks.

Until his alternate's mind suddenly goes so quiet that the sudden absence of it nearly makes him trip over his own feet.

There's another second of worry, and it takes him longer than a second to realize that that feeling of alarm was definitely his own. Because the other Doctor practically blinked out of existence, and it takes a moment for him to make certain that, no, he's still all right. The background hum of his mind is still there, no matter how quiet he's trying to be.

The quiet is so, so wrong. There are a number of things he'd expect from his alternate—accusations and verbal barbs, mostly—and this isn't one of them. None of this is making any sense whatsoever; they know each other. Sort of. And as disconcerting as all this is, there's no reason to literally run away and hide from him. Is there?

Carefully, the Doctor braces one hand on the consoles and leans over them, peering down at his alternate's huddled form. Right-- it might not make sense, but something's spooked him. Terrified him. Even without a mental connection, the Doctor would be able to tell that much.

He considers crouching down, getting them on the same level, but decides against it for now. Even leaning down this much makes his mind ping with panic and fear, and he presses the fingers of one hand to his temple, murmuring, "Oh, my head," under his breath.

"Come on," he says, louder this time. And with purpose, he hopes, even though he feels hopelessly lost. "Something's happened, something's-- something's gone wrong, and I can sort it out, but you've got to work with me."

He doesn't expect it to work, not when his alternate is behaving so inexplicably. And so, gingerly, he sends out a few tiny mental feelers.

Not that he wants the amazingly loud emotional feedback to grow louder again, but if he can just have a look, and get past that noise, maybe he can make sense of this. Of what's happening. Of what's happening to his alternate. He focuses, testing the waters, trying to go deeper and move past the wall of silence that's being thrown at him.

His vision is dark, most of his senses blocked as he crouches, arms flung protectively over his head, eyes squeezed shut tightly. He can hear, though, hears the Time Lord come closer, hears him speak. No, he thinks, no, stay away, I'm not here. I'm invisible. Unnoticeable. Please, don't notice me.

He doesn't move a muscle, doesn't even really understand the words the Time Lord is saying. It's a sound, meaningless syllables echoing through his head, far too close for his liking. But he's not being touched, not being grabbed by his arm and pulled to his feet, so he doesn't move. Stays quiet and hopefully hidden.

Except after a moment, he can feel the Time Lord's mind moving. There's no force behind the movement, no violence in the threads of thought that the Time Lord is extending. He's playing with the Doctor. Demonstrating that he doesn't need violence to take what the Doctor has no way of defending.

Or maybe he's not using violence because he's not intending to cause harm, the rational part of the Doctor's mind suggests, but it goes ignored. The Doctor whimpers, a keening, high-pitched sound as he pulls back further, mentally and physically, his back pressing harder against the console array. Please. Please, don't. Please, leave.

The Doctor feels him pulling away, receding even further, trying to become invisible. He reaches out with his mind again, baffled and slightly frustrated, because why is he doing this? If they're not going to talk, then they'll have to communicate some other way. His alternate hasn’t left him much of a choice, really.

But it's not that difficult to stay inside his thoughts. It isn't due to this bizarre, ever-present link; exploring the mind of a member of a non-telepathic species is usually simple enough. Which is still wrong, so wrong. His alternate's mind still feels enough like his own for the lack of a psychic presence to be jarring.

He keeps himself firmly rooted in the other man's mind, searching, going deeper. Looking for something beyond the general blur of emotion his alternate is projecting, raking aside the chaos and resistance as gently as he can. He sends out a few stray thoughts of You're safe and I'm not going to hurt you--because even though reason tells him that they’re not going to do any good, he can't not try.

It starts feeling significantly less like his own mind when the Doctor actually starts getting somewhere—seeing glimpses of specific thoughts, memories. Things that make him him.

The first order of business is to work out what's happening to his alternate, so he tries focusing on one thing--What are you afraid of?--and clings to any threads that point to the source.

At some point, he's unconsciously dropped to his knees, crouching half-in front of and half-beside the other Doctor, eyes closed. The deeper he looks, the more concentration it takes, because this is where the real work begins.

Memories blur and sharpen and nothing particularly stands out until-- that. That, there.

It's the Master.

The Doctor's whole mind flinches, as if burned. It's the part of his alternate's past that was never shared with him. In the fraction of a moment, it rushes at him: how the other Doctor became human—how the Master forced him to become human, and held him captive, taking advantage of his frail human body by torturing him. Just to make it clear to him how very, very human he was, and how easily he could be hurt. How much he could suffer.

The Time Lord begins going deeper, prying past the outer layers of the Doctor's mind towards the more substantial parts, past fleeting, momentary feelings and impressions to longer-lasting thoughts and memories. The Doctor watches, hidden away in the back of his mind. He still wants him out, wants the Time Lord to leave him alone in his mind--but the Time Lord isn't hurting him. He's being careful; he's actually telling him that he means no harm. That the Doctor is safe. The Doctor doesn't believe that, can't, not when he can hear the loud hum of the time sense at the edge of his mental perception. But hidden away as he is, he can watch. As long as the Time Lord isn't hurting him, there's no need to draw attention to himself.

A few moments pass. The Time Lord is looking for something, but he's not tearing at the Doctor's thoughts, not breaking into his memories like a Time Lord would. No. Like the Master would. Hidden away at the back of his mind, the Doctor is getting a moment to breathe and examine the situation. There's a Time Lord in his mind, yes. But this Time Lord arrived in a TARDIS. He's being careful, he's telling the Doctor that he's not here to hurt him. And his time sense . . . the Doctor isn't sure if he can hear the drums. He can hear the rhythm of the time flow, a steady, slow beat that is making his throat constrict and his mouth dry up with fear, but he's not sure he can hear the piercing, distinctive four-beat sound of the Master's drums. Maybe they're there, really quiet and merging with the rhythm of the time flow. Or maybe they're not there. Maybe, this Time Lord isn't the Master.

He's examining that thought, carefully, as if it were a trap that might spring shut at the slightest of touch, when suddenly, the Time Lord does hurt him. He's come across memories, thoughts and images the Doctor had buried deep in his mind, in a corner he knows better than to go near, and he's dragging them up. There's a sudden, overwhelming feeling of dread, surpassing the panic and the fear. The Doctor emerges from his hiding place to dart forward and perform the mental equivalent of snatching someone's hand back before they can touch the big, red self-destruct button.

No! Don't touch that, don't touch it. Please. Leave it be.

One second, he's trying and failing to process the quick rush of images, and in the next, there's something else rushing at him.

That's his alternate, properly him, for the first time. His mind pushing back against the Doctor's own, after staying so hidden and still for so long that the sudden response makes the Doctor respond with a physical flinch and an audible little yelp.

It also has the desired effect of getting the Doctor to pull his mind back, jerking away abruptly from the memories he'd touched. It's more a reflex than a deliberate choice, but once he moves away from them, he stays away. Because his alternate is finally showing himself, finally communicating, even if it's only to stop him from looking there. He's sending him a very distinct message, asking him to leave that alone, so that's what he's going to do. After all, he'd said that he intended no harm, and he meant it.

The Doctor waits, hanging back and trying to make one thing as clear as possible: Message received and understood. But it's difficult to focus, to concentrate on that and keep sending out mental reassurances.

Because he doesn't want to spook the other Doctor into hiding again, but he can't quite keep the undercurrent of horror and confusion out of his own thoughts, because what the hell did he just see? What have you been keeping from him? Why have you been hiding things about the Master-- the truth about the Master?

He's out in the open. He's exposed, there's no going back into hiding now with the Time Lord's attention on him. The thought is a terrifying one, it makes him want to panic and retreat in the irrational hope that the Time Lord won't follow--but he stays where he is. Trembling, mentally and physically, still terrified, but not mindless. Not right now. He's in control, if barely, and he's staying where he is. Because the Time Lord pulled back, he's not hurting the Doctor, and the Doctor is beginning to think that he was right--this Time Lord is not the Master, which means he must be an alternate.

The realization comes with a wave of relief, strong enough to momentarily block out everything else. There's also a twinge of shame, getting stronger as the feeling of relief tapers off to become less overwhelming. Of course this is an alternate; he has a TARDIS, he's a mirror image of the Doctor. There are no drums in his mind, just the time sense; terrifying, but not vicious and aggressive. The Doctor hates it when his mind plays tricks on him like that; it's happened before, and it always makes him feel very human. Very simple and easily manipulated. And with the other Doctor in his mind, there is no way to hide it--not the shame, nor the fact that he did indeed let his fears manipulate him into mistaking his alternate for the Master.

The fact that he's ashamed doesn't help him be less afraid, either. So the Time Lord in his mind is not the Master. He is still a Time Lord, with a time sense and the power to effortlessly take everything the Doctor is, mind, knowledge and memories. And he's sending out signals, the Time Lord--the other Doctor. He's holding back, but he's wanting to send out questions, pressing questions that almost seem like accusations. The Doctor doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to talk about what the other Doctor is asking, he doesn't even want to think about it. He can't, not right now. Not when he's spending all his mental control on preventing another bout of mindless panic.

Please. He directs the thought at the other presence in his mind, trying to be clear, trying to be as calm as he possibly can be under the circumstances. Please, you have to leave. I can't have you in my mind; we can talk. I'll talk to you about anything you want to talk about, but first, you have to leave.

The Doctor can feel emotions flickering and shifting rapidly somewhere in his alternate's mind, just below the surface, but it's a somewhat steady presence. It doesn't withdraw, as the Doctor half-expects it to. He's not bolting, not hiding, and that's good. That's very good.

Then the thought comes through--surprisingly clearly, despite how fragile and human the man's mind feels right now--and it hits him that his alternate still thinks this is intentional. That he's barged right into his head on purpose.

How can he actually believe that? It takes everything the Doctor's got not to just keep mentally gaping at him, because none of this makes sense.

Listen-- he thinks back, responding in kind, before realizing how absurd the word choice is, as his alternate probably can't help but hear him. Something's happening, something impossible, but whatever this is, this isn't me. I'm not making it happen.

It makes no sense at all. He'd really thought he had his alternate sussed out, when they met before. And now neither he nor his life make any sense. Everything the man's gone through, is still going through, is because of the Master. It was his doing all along, yet his alternate acts as if nothing happened. He lied about the Master, said that he wasn't a danger, that he could be trusted--

But his alternate isn't bolting. For now. That's what matters. The Doctor has to take advantage of that while he can, and he promised he'd leave those memories alone--again, for now.

So he smothers the questions and the confusion as much as he can.

Which quiets the specificity of the questions, but doesn't do much to reduce the confusion factor, really.

There's this connection, somehow, and I've tried to shut it off, but you're just-- there. I can't-- He hesitates, because his alternate desperately wants him out, so the Doctor really isn't sure how he'll feel about this next bit. I can't leave. Not right now, at least. Not until we find a way.

Find a way, then.

The thought is still clear, the Doctor is still in control, if barely. The Time Lord's apologetic, circuitous answer agitated him, almost irritated him. He doesn't care who's making it happen; he doesn't care that you think what's happening is impossible, as it's clearly not. He doesn't care about any of what you said; all he does care about is that you're in his mind, and he doesn't want you there.

The Rift. Maybe he doesn't have to be completely unhelpful. He knows the other Doctor, how he thinks and why he gave the answer he gave. He doesn't care, not right now, but knowing makes it easier to dismiss the irritation. It's the Rift, it's Cardiff, it's always the Rift. Check the consoles.

This console. The one he's sitting against. The pass code is there, in his mind--not because he was intending to give it to the other Doctor, but because he thought of the console, and how to access it. There's no way to hide these things from the Time Lord; he just accidentally gave up the pass code used to access most control panels in the base, and that's just the start. All of his secrets, all of Torchwood's secrets, they're no secrets at all right now, because the Time Lord is in his mind. There's no hiding anything.

Go, he thinks at the other Doctor, a little frantic. He's starting to panic again; they make him so useless, these involuntary panic reactions. He hates it, hates being a coward, and he hates that the Time Lord is in his mind and can see all of this. So go. Fix it, and then leave.

Of course. Still kneeling on the floor, he looks up, eyes wide, keenly aware of his surroundings in a way he hasn't been since he first arrived. We're in Cardiff. Of course!

The Doctor scrambles to his feet, energy renewed. His alternate is probably right about the cause, and it's so obvious. Now he can finally do something about it. He can fix this. Fixing things is what he's good at.

He crosses back behind the other Doctor and leans over the console he'd indicated--briefly taken aback, yet again, by the way that distance seems to have no effect on the strength of the mental connection. And the passcode, naturally, is right there in his mind, as easily as if it was his own thought. That's convenient. There's at least one advantage to having the link, then.

He glances over the readings, checking the Rift activity, sparing a few glances back at the other man. The panic is back, and he can feel it, feel how much his alternate wants this fixed, and that urgency only adds to his own nervous energy.

Right; I should be able to isolate whatever's causing this, now that I've got a fairly good idea of the source, he thinks, wanting to keep the communication going, to counteract the mess swirling around inside his alternate's mind with words.

The equipment isn't difficult to use, but he isn't entirely sure how much of that is coming from his own familiarity with advanced technology and how much is from his alternate's personal experience. It's unsettling, and the Doctor works even faster, searching for any data that might correspond with this kind of phenomenon, until the numbers finally start adding up in the way he expects them to.

Got you, he thinks. And then, absently, as he gropes around inside his coat pocket, The software's not bad. At least Torchwood's finally good for something, before he remembers who he's with.

"Sorry," he mutters, out loud. And pulls out his sonic, thumbing its switch and eyeing the console.

Mind if I make a minor adjustment? He doesn't wait for an answer, and there's the familiar buzz of the screwdriver as he changes a handful of settings on the computer.

One more, he thinks, almost excitedly. The puzzle's nearly solved, and this is absolutely going to work on whatever's coming through the Rift. Or, well, it probably will. This should divert whatever it is, or shut it off, or-- I'm really not sure what it'll do, honestly, but it should be just enough to set this right.

The Doctor holds down the button on the sonic, and almost instantaneously, he can feel something happening to his sense of the other presence in his mind. It's slightly disorienting, and he leans against the console, willing this to work correctly--and willing his alternate to keep calm if it doesn't.

The Time Lord jumps to his feet and moves away, and the Doctor feels a momentary surge of relief--mental closeness is terrifying; mental closeness combined with physical closeness is even worse. The connection doesn't break, though, doesn't even get less intense as the Time Lord moves away, and the Doctor lowers his head between his drawn-up knees, trying to keep the panic from overwhelming him again.

Ten, he thinks. Nine, eight. Seven. Counting backwards, the oldest trick in the book, but it works for him. Sometimes it does, anyway, sometimes it's enough of a distraction for him to manage to keep some semblance of control. Six, five, four. Four-three-eight-two, that's the pass code for the console, and the thought gets pulled out of his mind, there's nothing he could do about it even if he wanted to. It makes him feel sick, a bitter, metallic taste in the back of his throat, and he swallows, his throat clicking and his breath hitching. It's okay. It's okay, you can change the pass code later, it's okay. Three. Two. One. Ten, nine. Eight.

He doesn't register any of the Time Lord's thoughts or comments, not really. He hears "adjustment", and part of him thinks no, no adjustments, this is his mind and his Hub and his life, and you're not welcome to make any adjustments, Time Lord--but the outrage just intensifies the panic, so he suppresses it. Suppresses all of it, all of his thoughts and emotions. Seven, he thinks. Six, five, four. Three, two, one. Ten.

He is so caught up in his counting that when the connection ceases, at first, he doesn't even notice. He's concentrating, counting backwards, trying to distract himself from the background static of the Time Lord's thoughts and the hum of the time sense--until suddenly, he realizes that they're gone. He raises his head, eyes wide, listening for the low pulsing of the time sense and the buzz of the other Doctor's thoughts. They're gone. They're gone; he can't hear them anymore. He's alone in his head.

He exhales, almost more a sob than a sigh, and scrambles to his feet. He's shaking; his heart is racing and cold sweat is making his t-shirt cling to his back. But he can think now. He knows what happened; he got triggered. Plain and simple, post-traumatic stress disorder; he's got the official diagnosis, the therapist--and the meds. Xanax, medium dosage, take one pill as needed for anxiety and panic attacks. He doesn't like them, doesn't like admitting that he needs them, but he does need them right now. The Time Lord is still here, he won't be going away anytime soon, and after what he saw in the Doctor's mind, he'll have questions. There is no way the Doctor can field those in the state he is in right now. So pills it is.

They're upstairs in the office. Without sparing his alternate so much as a glance, the Doctor heads for the stairs, grasping the banister tightly in order to avoid tripping over his own, unsteady feet. The Time Lord can wait. For now, the Doctor just wants something to make the shaking stop.

The Doctor can feel his head clear, feel his mindscape quieting, and he glances back down at the console, humming a little approving noise in the back of his throat. It worked, then. Good. As for the settings he changed on the computer, well, he's sure some member of Torchwood will be able to reset those. They're meant to be a bright bunch; they'll figure it out.

He tucks his sonic back inside his pocket. It's almost too quiet, now, by comparison. Not that he isn't grateful for the relative silence, the ability to focus without having to try to filter out the noise of his alternate's mind, but after being connected, it feels decidedly odd to quite literally flip a switch and shut that off.

On that note--he remembers all those sensations of panic, of barely staying in control. Now that the Doctor can't just sense if he's all right, he realizes that he doesn't know how his alternate weathered that. How he dealt with having the link shut off. Alarmed, he quickly turns on his heel to face--

--the other Doctor, who's already on his feet and lurching up a set of stairs. Leaving, apparently.

What? he thinks, and it's like banging against a concrete wall. Right; he can't communicate that way anymore. He knows that. Of course he does. Back to the opening-your-mouth-and-making-sounds thing.

"Oi," is what comes out of his mouth as he strides over to the stairs. He stops briefly at the bottom, looking up at his alternate, brow furrowed. "Are you leaving? You can't-- Why are you leaving?"

Up the stairs, and to the office. One step after the other, and it gets easier once he's halfway up and the awareness starts to settle that he is alone in his mind. That there's nobody else sharing his thoughts, no Time Lord leafing through his memories, no time sense making reality feel way to definite, fixed, without temporal relativity giving it the flexibility that the Doctor, as a human, has begun to find comforting.

He hears his alternate's protest, but doesn't pay them any mind. He just raises a hand over his shoulder in a gesture that says "give me a moment", and dismisses the urge to turn around and snap at the other Doctor to just wait when he hears him following him up the stairs.

The office is right there, only a couple of steps down the landing. The door is open--or it is until the Doctor enters and lets it fall shut behind him, quite possibly right in his alternate's face. It's not so much an act of active hostility than it is an act of avoidance--the Doctor doesn't lock the door behind him, doesn't even consider it. He just doesn't want to deal with his alternate right now. A closed door might buy him at least a couple of moments.

He heads over to the desk and lets himself fall into the chair, opening the top drawer where he keeps his meds. The bottle has a security lid, so it takes the Doctor a couple of moments to fumble it open and shake two of the small, white pills into his still somewhat unsteady palm. He doesn't have anything to wash them down with, but he couldn't care less right now. Wouldn't be the first time he's swallowed his meds dry.

The Doctor doesn't know whether or not he should be worried for his alternate, but following him up the stairs and onto the landing seems like a better option than just retracing his steps to the TARDIS and pretending that this never happened, that everything's fine. Because everything is decidedly not fine.

When the door slams closed, inches from his face, it doesn't feel like an especially brilliant option anymore, but he still doesn't turn back. He blinks at the door for a second or two, takes a breath, and knocks.

Considering that his alternate just closed the door in his face, he doubts that he'll get a response; knocking was more a courtesy than anything else, and the Doctor barely pauses before going ahead and trying the knob. Not locked, then, which is vaguely surprising. He steps over the threshold, but stops there, hand on the doorknob, just in time to see the other Doctor dry-swallowing a few pills.

The knock was probably loud enough on its own, so he doesn't clear his throat or say anything; he just waits, uncertainly, watching from the doorway. He can't quite see what the pills are, but he can basically work it out. No matter how different his alternate is from him, no matter how many times he's proved that, the little details always manage to give him pause. It's hard to imagine a universe in which he would actually resort to taking medication to calm his nerves, but here it is, more or less.

The Doctor feels a familiar, bitter scratching in his throat as he swallows the pills. It's not a pleasant sensation per se, but it comes with the awareness that they will help, that they will make the shaking stop and loosen the tight, breathless feeling in his chest. So when he leans back in his chair, he does so with a slight sigh of relief.

And his eyes fall on his alternate standing in the doorway. The Time Lord is watching him, uncharacteristically quiet, an uncertain expression on his face. The Doctor did hear the knock, and assumes that his alternate has seen enough to draw his own conclusions. He picks up the cap and snaps it back onto the pill bottle before he drops the bottle back into the desk drawer.

"They help." He avoids his alternate's eyes as he pushes the drawer closed. "It's--" He pauses, not sure he actually wants to share this. He thinks he already has, though, so he presses on. "It's PTSD. Or that's what they call it." He looks up and gives his alternate a dry little smile that's still a little strained around the edges. "The perks of being human."

"Right. Yes. I'm familiar," he says, almost loftily, with a nod. Because of course he's familiar with the condition--in a textbook sort of way. He's got the knowledge. Sort of. He might even be able to recognize the symptoms in most humans.

Not in his alternate, though, because he seems to have failed spectacularly at putting two and two together and putting a name to the reactions he'd felt when they were connected. But it fits. Despite the fact that watching a version of himself going through that doesn't really compute.

But he's fine with it. Really. See how fine he is?

"Speaking of the perks of being human--" The Doctor steps inside the room just a bit more, enough to lean his back against the wall rather than his shoulder against the doorway. "We need to talk. Can we talk?" He reaches up and ruffles his hand against his hair, uncertain as ever, after managing to somehow make both a demand and a request.

"About what really happened to you," he clarifies, not sure if he needs to. Not once stopping to muse that if he knew as much about the particular disorder as he'd like to think, he might not be bringing this up right now.

Of course the Time Lord "is familiar". It's such an off-putting word choice, so distant and distancing, that the Doctor wants to snap at his alternate. You're familiar? Are you really? Do you know what it's like to have reaction patterns that you cannot control, no matter how much you try to reason with your instinctual programming? He doesn't think so. Last time he checked, Time Lords didn't even have anything as mundane as instincts.

And of course the Time Lord wants to talk. Despite "being familiar", the Time Lord wants to talk about something that is unpleasant, if not triggering, for the Doctor to talk about even when he's in a calm, emotionally balanced state. Really, Doctor. Whatever you are, you are not familiar.

He doesn't say anything right away, though. Instead, he pulls the desk drawer open again, rummaging around among the pens and notepads and scraps of paper. He knows that he has some in here, he keeps them for emergencies--ah. There they are, all the way at the back of the drawer behind a hole punch, a slightly squashed pack of smokes. When he checks the contents, he finds a lighter and four cigarettes. Lighting one of them, he glances up at his alternate. "No comments this time, okay?" He's had the lecture from the Time Lord, and isn't in the mood for a repeat performance right now.

The cigarette smoke, like the pills, scratches his throat in a way that isn't comfortable, but reassuringly familiar. He closes his eyes for a moment and takes a couple of deep drags, letting the reassuring feeling spread all the way to his fingertips to make his hands stop shaking. Then he leans back in the office chair, his eyes open now and on his alternate.

"I told you what happened. Last time we met." Evasive, stalling for time. It won't be long before the pills kick in, which will make this a lot easier to talk about.

There are no forthcoming comments about the cigarettes. Or, well, if there are, he knows better than to voice them, not having forgotten what happened last time. Unless he decides that he has an urge to get yelled at, he's not going to say a word about the very interesting decision to continue sabotaging your fragile human body with chemicals while simultaneously relying on other chemicals to help it. Cigarettes and pills. Seems very counterproductive to him.

He holds his tongue until his alternate speaks again. The Doctor stares at him for a moment, the mysteries of smoking temporarily forgotten. "No. You really didn't."

He frowns at the recollection of what he saw in his alternate's mind; it's the first time he's properly thought back on that, after having to suppress it while the connection was still in place. There are so many details of the memory that he needs to reexamine, but that's going to take time. It's not easy to sift through, even now, when it's more like a photograph of a memory rather than the live show that he got from his alternate's head. That takes the edge off, but there's still so much there. So much pain.

"You never told me about what he really did," he ventures. Not getting too detailed, because surely his alternate must know what he's referring to. And he's genuinely bewildered by the decision not to share that with him, given that it was fairly significant. "Why not?"

He really didn't.

The Doctor doesn't comment on that right away, just tenses up a little, avoiding eye contact with his alternate and smoking his cigarette. He really didn't. He withheld information that his alternate clearly had a right to--or so the Time Lord thinks, judging by his accusatory tone. At his alternate's bewildered question, the Doctor laughs, a shaky, harsh sound as he sorts through the desktop contents and finally settles on an empty coffee mug to use as an ashtray.

"Why not," he repeats, dry, flicking his cigarette against the rim of the mug. "Why didn't I tell you what he really did; well, maybe because it's none of your business." He looks up now, eyes intent with anger and quiet dismay--dismay because he knows you're going to make him talk about this, and he doesn't want to. Doesn't know if he can without losing his fragile composure. "Maybe because it's not important. He turned me human. Whatever else he did is of no consequence to my life now."

And he can't hold eye contact when he says that, because he knows it's an incredibly transparent lie. Of course it's of consequence, of course it affects him and has shaped who he is as a human. He runs a hand over his face and sighs, harshly.

"Sit down." He gestures at the chairs opposite the desk, interrupting any interjections his alternate may have made. They're not going to get anywhere with both of them as agitated as this, and the first step to taking the tension out of the situation is to make the Time Lord stop pacing.

How is it not his business? It's about Time Lords. And humans. And a Master. And an alternate of himself. If that's not his business then it's, at least, incredibly relevant to his interests. The Doctor knows about this sort of thing, and he could've helped. He isn't exactly sure how, but that's beside the point.

But his alternate motions for him to sit down before he can say anything, or try to protest that of course it's important. "All right." He throws up his hands in a sort of surrendering gesture and crosses over to the chair, pulling it out a little and dropping down into it. Sitting still should, in theory, make it easier to have a conversation.

Not that sitting still is particularly easy. Sitting still and staring at each other. This is harder without tea. Or scotch, or--some sort of drink that he can occupy his hands with. That he can occupy his mouth with, for that matter, because he should probably wait but there's so much that he needs to say--

"But you said he could be trusted," he says, eyebrows drawing together. This feels too important to wait. Because based on what he's seen, not even counting what he already knows, the Master can't have changed that much. Can he? "How can you ever be sure? How can you know?"

As soon as the Time Lord sits down, the Doctor wishes he hadn't asked him to. His alternate is far too close now, his eyes on the Doctor, intent and unblinking. The Doctor tenses up, instinctively--it's almost a startle, but he suppresses it and turns the involuntary movement into dropping his back against the backrest of his chair. He takes a drag from his cigarette, stalling for time to give himself a couple of moments to regain his precarious mental balance. What was it the Time Lord asked? Trust. How can he trust the Master. Right.

He swallows, the corners of his mouth twitching into a tiny, humorless smirk. "We've got a deal. The Master and I." He flicks his cigarette against the rim of the mug, avoiding the Time Lord's eyes. "He's at the top of UNIT's list of extraterrestrial threats. And he's human. They'd love nothing better than to let him rot in prison for the rest of his life. It's not like he'd be eligible for a trial."

He's trying hard to sound callous about this. Calculating. Unconcerned about the moral implications. He is. He can't allow himself to be anything else, or he wouldn't be able to live with it. He doesn't want to lose the life he's built for himself. It works. So when he glances up at the Time Lord, he's careful to keep his expression void of any of the emotions he's fairly sure his alternate is feeling listening to this.

"This is what I can give him. Freedom, protection. In turn, he's living by moral standards I can condone." He shrugs, and breaks eye contact again to flick more ash into the coffee mug. "I don't need to trust him. I've got him checkmated."

The Doctor fidgets in the chair at the word "deal," tilting his head, curious. That could mean a lot of things. Then he stills again when he begins to realize what he's really being told.

"And that's it, then." To his own ears, his tone sounds almost flat. Not because he's trying to hide his reaction, but because he's still working out what that reaction is.

He had asked because he'd been worried for his alternate. Because, to paraphrase a very old saying, the Master is the Master is the Master. Probably can't be trusted, can't be changed. The Doctor has wondered for some time now whether that's true, and whether there's still too much Time Lord in his alternate's human version of the Master.

He'd been so set on getting answers from the other Doctor about this. Set on convincing him that he could still be in danger and making him see reason. Make sure that, in his bizarrely domestic life, his alternate hasn't lost sight of that realism that he himself has long held onto--the one that reminds him that nothing could ever be close to normal or safe when it comes to the Master.

Listening to the reply, the Doctor realizes, now, that this isn't quite what he wanted. Some bit of him wanted his alternate to tell him that he was wrong.

It's that stupid, stupid hope that somehow, his human self is actually living a better life, in small ways. That maybe, despite all the both of them have lost, his alternate could have that. Just that.

"You've got him checkmated," he echoes, the pitch of his voice going up on the last word. He probably sounds even more bewildered than before, expression almost pained. Even though what he's been told makes nearly perfect sense. "Then why--why have the--" He waves his hand off to the side, a helpless little gesture. "The flat. Why even bother with all of that?"

The Time Lord does sound bewildered, voice pitching and fingers flailing in a little gesture, but what the Doctor notices much more is the undertone of sadness in his alternate's tone. Sadness, disappointment, resigned helplessness. Why even bother with your life, if it's all a lie anyway?

The Doctor drops his cigarette butt into the coffee mug and pushes himself to his feet, nervous tension making him want to move, get away from the close proximity of his alternate. He paces a few steps, then turns around and drops his back against the wall, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets and regarding the Time Lord with a deep frown.

"I don't know how it went for you." When your life spans over a millennium, an alternate's similarity in appearance and recent history doesn't mean that everything about your two lives will be identical. "Back on Gallifrey. Long ago; seven, eight centuries. The reason you left." The Doctor shifts, pulls his hands from his pockets so he can fold his arms. "The reason I left was because the Master revealed a side of himself that I hadn't known he had. Violent, homicidal. Ruthless. All of that." The kind of behavior that became very familiar in the following centuries, his tone implies. His eyes are still on his alternate, making sure the Time Lord is following. "If that's part of your history, you know how much it hurt. Both of us. Both of you. A betrayal that would stay with us for the rest of our lives."

The Time Lord isn't interrupting, so the Doctor assumes his alternate is familiar with what he's talking about. He shifts against the wall, shoulder blades pressing against the cold concrete as he turns his eyes away. "We're building trust. Slowly. We couldn't start with trust. Not after--" He waves his hand in a small gesture similar to the one the Time Lord used earlier. "After what'd happened."

And he's just going to carefully avoid looking at his alternate now. Talking about the mechanics of trust in his relationship is never easy, no matter if it's to the Master or to a third party.

His alternate moves away, but it doesn't stop the Doctor watching intently, eyes almost pleadingly large.

And then he starts talking about his past. Their shared past, because the Doctor knows this story. Knows exactly what the other Doctor is taking about, so they must've both had the same experiences back on Gallifrey, too. Or very nearly the same. His mind can never make itself up about whether that's reassuring or unsettling, and maybe it's some paradoxical mix of both.

Either way, it's still hard to hear; one of the very few perks of being the last of your kind is the ability to pretend that the past never happened, or happened differently. Then again, there's something to be said for knowing that there's someone else who understands. Someone else who lived it. And that's another reassuring, unsettling thing he can't make his mind up about.

Framing it like that helps, though. He can almost begin to see how that might work, for his alternate. He nods a few times. Starts to fold his arms, and then puts them back where they were when he realizes that he would just be mirroring his alternate's pose.

"Good," he says, nodding again. "Obviously you can't instantly put that many misspent centuries to rights, but-- That's good."

Building trust. Unbelievably, that seems more important than warning his alternate away from the Master. Not that it goes so far as to excuse what happened in the memories he saw, but it gives him a profound sense of relief.

The Doctor isn't staring at the other man anymore, isn't asking any more questions. He gets it, sort of--that's enough to stop him prying for now.

"Hang on." It's an afterthought, and he looks back up. There's still something about his alternate's life that doesn't completely add up. "I understand how this happened to you, why it happened--I've got that much--but what about your TARDIS?"

The Doctor doesn't look at his alternate, not even when he speaks to declare the Doctor's and the Master's relationship "good"--whatever that is supposed to mean. The Doctor can hear in his alternate's tone, though, that the explanation he provided did something. Sufficed, maybe, to quell the Time Lord's curiosity, at least for now? For a few moments, the Doctor almost dares to hope that his alternate is done asking prying questions. And then the Time Lord brings up the TARDIS.

The Doctor hasn't heard that word in years. There's nobody who would utter it--nobody who realizes why it would be relevant, except the Master, and the Master knows better than to bring up the one thing the Doctor doesn't know how to come to terms with having lost. So hearing it now, without warning, feels like getting sucker-punched--and that's how the Doctor reacts, flinching visibly, locking his shoulders in a hunched posture, digging his fingers into his sides as he pulls his arms more tightly around himself in a protective hug.

Of course the Time Lord would ask this eventually; from the moment the Doctor met his alternate he knew this question would have to be answered at some point. He didn't think about it, though. Didn't consider it, couldn't consider it. Getting turned human took his telepathic and time sense and cut off the connection with his ship that had been a part of his life for over seven centuries. He's tried to process it, has tried to talk about it, but there is nobody who would understand what he lost, not even the Master, who never had a close personal connection to his TARDIS. Talking about his loss has gotten the Doctor sympathy, even pity, but never empathy, simply because there is nobody left in the Doctor's life who would have the capacity to understand what it would mean to have a mental connection to a sentient time entity, and how it would feel to lose that.

So the Doctor buried it. His loss, and his grief, and his anger and resentment about losing her; he buried all of it deep in the back of his mind, something he knows not to touch because all that would do is break the fragile balance he's built for himself. Except now the Time Lord wants to know. What about your TARDIS?

The Doctor opens his mouth, not sure what to say, how to find words to express everything he's feeling and everything that happened, and finds that he can't speak. He hugs himself tighter, swallows and tries again, but his throat and chest have closed up, making it hard to draw a breath, never mind make a sound. He shakes his head, thinking that he should at least look at his alternate but not quite managing. He can't. He's sorry. He can't talk about that.

The Doctor wasn't anticipating that, the way his alternate recoils and tenses, shakes his head and says nothing. Like he's actually incapable of answering. Like he's trying but he just--can't.

The Doctor doesn't understand the reaction, but everything about it sets off alarm bells. Not that his alternate's responses haven't ever done that before, but it's never been about this before. It's never been about the TARDIS, he's never asked about it, never seen it. Not even-- not even in his alternate's recent memories, he realizes. He doesn't know what that means.

He stands, swinging a leg over the chair and sidestepping it without looking back at it. He's frowning, but he moves almost cautiously, coming around the side of the desk. There are very few possible explanations for why the other Doctor reacted like this; something must've gone wrong with the ship, and he doesn't want to know, but at the same time, he has to know.

"What happened?" He stops a few feet in front of his alternate, and his voice is insistent, but instead of the bewildered, agitated tone from before, it's quiet. Anxious, but quiet. "Doctor. What happened to her?"

If he's ever addressed his alternate by name before, he can't remember when, and he isn't sure whether it's the current subject matter or something else entirely that causes him to do it; but there, he's said it. The word feels odd on his tongue, used to address someone else, and it doesn't lessen his own rising sense of foreboding--but it doesn't feel wrong, either.

The wall is cold against his back, and becomes more so as his alternate steps closer and traps the Doctor between himself and the hard concrete. He's not looking at the Time Lord, keeping his head turned to the side. When the other Doctor speaks, he closes his eyes, a sharp burning sensation behind his lids and a tight feeling in his throat.

Doctor. His alternate addresses him by name, and it emphasizes what the Doctor already knows--that this is his one chance to talk about this to someone who would understand. He's tried to talk about it to others, just to ease the pain a little, but it's never worked. He doesn't trust it to work now. Bringing up the TARDIS never does anything other than hurt. But this man is another Doctor. He might understand.

He opens his mouth, swallows, eyes still closed and face turned away from his alternate. "She died." He tips his head back, resting it against the hard wall as he opens his eyes, moisture spilling over and tracking a thin, warm trace down the side of his face. "There are no more Time Lords in this universe; she--" He straightens up and finds his alternate's eyes with his own. You understand this, right? He won't have to explain too much. "She had no-one left, so she died."

The Doctor takes a breath, shallow and reflexive, at those two words. That's the worst, definitely the worst thing that could've happened, and up until he'd actually heard it, the Doctor had been hoping against hope that it wasn't true. That there was some other explanation. That his alternate's TARDIS wasn't dead.

The way it happened isn't lost on him-- the cruelty of fate, that it wasn't just some freak accident, but rather his alternate's humanity, more or less, that caused her to die. And it all suddenly seems spectacularly unfair.

Most of the time, with his alternate, it feels as though they're dealing in hypotheticals, with the Doctor doing his best to follow along despite the fact that much of it is almost beyond him. But this is different. Maybe it's been different for a while now—maybe it's been different since his alternate started discussing the Master—but it's only now that it registers. That he's not processing the information like some detached third party, and couldn't if he tried.

He doesn't even need to see into the other Doctor's mind to comprehend the impact of losing his ship. Of course, he's been lucky, not ever having to experience it himself, always finding a way to save her in between saving himself and the universe.

But that's never meant that he doesn't know how much he has to lose, even if he tries never to think about that possibility. To be without the one thing he's always had. The one living thing he's never been forced to lose. Even her function as the only home he's got is always somewhat secondary to that. His entire life didn't have to burn with Gallifrey, because he'd had her.

And the Doctor has no idea what to say. He understands, oh, he does, but for a moment he misses the psychic link, because if he could just show him that he does, it would be so much easier.

"I'm sorry," he says, though it's probably not enough. He takes a halting step or two, then stops; the tears on his alternate's face give him a little jolt of panic, because he doesn't know what to do with tears. But he holds the eye contact for a moment, and he can feel his own eyes start to prickle, and oh, no, no, this can't happen. "I'm sorry," he repeats, looking away. Blinking. "I am."

He can't speak. The tears he's suppressing are choking him, closing his throat and making it impossible to form words. The other Doctor says something, but it's not really the words that mean anything--it's the Time Lord's eyes, his expression that says he understands, not only what happened, but also the magnitude of it and the pain that came with it, the pain that still lingers and makes the mere memory of losing her like a jagged piece of glass dragging across dry skin.

The Doctor raises his hands, not sure for what--to wipe his eyes, to reach out, to bury his fingers in his hair. He does none of these things, though, his hands hovering a few inches from his face, uncertainly, fingers and knuckles bending as he tries to reroute the tension of suppressing his tears. It doesn't work, though; his eyes still continue to burn and water, and his throat closes up further, making him draw in a desperate breath that sounds a lot like a sob. He squeezes his lids shut, pressing moisture out of the corners of his eyes.

"I'm not--" He shakes his head, his chest moving as he draws in and exhales another sharp breath. I'm not what? He doesn't even know, has no idea what to say or how to express that he can't help this, that he'd rather this weren't happening, because he really doesn't want to cry in front of the Time Lord. There's no way around it, though; his eyes keep producing tears and his nose is clogging up, closing his backup airway.

"I'm sorry." For crying. For putting the Time Lord in this situation. "I'm sorry, I don't--" --want you to see me like this, want to talk about it, want to share this with you. Even though he does want to share it, because keeping it to himself just hurts. "She's been gone for so long--" Long enough for him to only think about her when he's reminded of her. Long enough for him to have forgotten how it feels to have her. Apparently not long enough for him to stop missing her. He shakes his head again. "I'm sorry."

When he looks up again, the Doctor can still see the struggle on his alternate's face, the attempts and failures to simply find a way of dealing with this. He still doesn't know what to do with that, how to respond to the tears, the sounds.

And he's every bit as clueless about how to deal with this, with losing the TARDIS, as his alternate is. Because there's no way of fixing it, not really. Understanding it makes it more frustrating, because there should be a way. A Time Lord should be able to fix it, but he can't. It strikes him that his alternate really shouldn't be the one saying that he's sorry.

This, though. What he's doing now. This isn't going to help. Right; he closes his eyes for a few seconds, and he concentrates on regulating his own breathing. Okay. That's better. At least he can look back at the other Doctor without rapidly blinking.

"I know." His voice still sounds too thick; he clears his throat. The Doctor walks forward until he's closed most of the distance between them, hesitating, and raises his arm a bit stiffly in a gesture that could be the beginnings of a hug—and then he looks at his alternate, for a moment, as if afraid he might break.

Right. Maybe not. He brings his arm down and reaches into one of his pockets, and when he pulls his hand out again, he's holding a tissue. It has some sort of pink flower design printed on it. He offers it to his alternate, somewhere between wary and hopeful.

The Doctor presses the back of his hands together, knuckles against knuckles, trying to use the pain of sharp bone pressing against bone to distract himself from the searing ache in his chest. From the corners of his eyes, he can see the Time Lord looking away for a moment, and realizes that the other Doctor is fighting tears as well.

Oddly enough, that makes it easier to regain some control over himself. The tears don't stop, but what felt like an overwhelming, unsurmountable surge of grief in his chest ebbs off a little. He can suddenly breathe again, and does; deep, regular breaths, trying to get his throat to unlock. He misses the attempted hug and doesn't react when the Time Lord speaks, too busy trying to piece himself back together. This goes here. That goes there. Memories of his ship go back behind the wall at the far, far end of his mind, a place he knows not to touch or prod, ever.

When he notices his alternate holding out a tissue, he takes it, grateful. He wipes his nose and uses the flowery edge to dry his eyes, if only with marginal success. It helps, though. Wiping your nose and eyes, that's something you do after crying. It's part of piecing yourself back together, it's a ritual of closure. Slowly, slowly, it's making the tears stop.

Eventually, he lowers the tissue and throws a careful, awkward side-glance at the Time Lord. You're still here. You didn't run away, and that's sort of surprising. He can't remember his Time Lord self ever being comfortable around human tears.

"It wasn't--" He clears his throat, trying to make his voice sound less choked. "It wasn't him, though." He feels like he needs to say this. Considering what happened earlier, and how their conversation went, he feels this is something the Time Lord needs to know. "It wasn't the Master, he didn't-- he didn't kill her." He raises the tissue again as his eyes start to leak more tears. "He didn't know what would happen. He wanted her, but he didn't kill her." Dabbing at his eyes and running the tip of his tongue over dry lips. "If he had, I wouldn't have married him."

A little bit of tension leaves his shoulders when his alternate accepts the offered tissue. It's a relief, as he doesn't really know what else he could've said or done for the other Doctor at that particular moment; he hadn't had a Plan B. Given that he was facing a crying human, he was lucky to even have a Plan A.

The Doctor deliberately fixes his gaze on something other than his alternate's face as he wipes the tears from his eyes—tears which, fortunately, seem to be letting up. He shuffles his feet a bit and pretends to find the wall extremely fascinating until his alternate finishes up and breaks the silence.

He nods and makes fleeting eye contact, looking at his alternate, looking away, looking back. Now that he's managed to get his own emotional reactions mostly in check, it's almost more difficult to watch his alternate struggle. And then he's being reassured that it wasn't the Master's fault, which is good to hear, to have affirmed in words. Even if he did already suspect that it probably wasn't the Master's doing, at least not directly—not after what he's just been told about slowly trying to build any sort of trust between them.

He's so certain that he knows what his alternate is about to say that he almost misses the last few words.

"Of course you wouldn't have—" he begins. And then practically double-takes, making proper, incredulous eye contact. "You what?"

Married. Human and married. That's what his alternate is trying to tell him. To be able to reach a point of mutual understanding where either of them would actually agree to that—he can't quite envision it. The both of them, human and married.

"Really?" he asks, frowning, not quite able to stop himself from picturing half a dozen human marriage tableaus, and it's just weird. "Literally? Literally married?"

The Time Lord makes eye contact, and it's almost startling--so much surprised intensity, focused solely on the Doctor when the Doctor's not feeling at his most stable as it is. He looks off to the side, running a nervous tongue over his lips.

Of course the Time Lord would react like this. He doesn't know. Last time he was here in Cardiff, the Doctor and the Master were only living together. Sedentary enough, but not with the official, human stamp of domesticity that marriage seems to be. The Doctor is so used to everyone knowing, though. Everyone in his life knows about it, most of them were there for it. They've all had time to get over their reactions of incredulity. He wasn't thinking about the fact that his Time Lord alternate isn't part of his day-to-day life, and therefore has no way of knowing about this.

He wishes he could take it back. He's tired of this conversation. He wasn't actually intending to give the Time Lord yet another thing about the Doctor's life to examine and pick apart. Too late now, though. He forces a wan little smile and tugs at the chain he's wearing around his neck.

"Yeah." The necklace is looped through a plain metal band that was tucked into the Doctor's shirt. It's the matte color of silver, but if the Time Lord cares to look closely enough, he'll recognize the metal as platinum. The Doctor holds it up, still avoiding eye contact. "About six months ago. He--" And he clears his throat, the smile growing both more genuine and more self-conscious. "He made me wear a tux."

He holds up the ring, half-offering his alternate to pick it up and examine it. If the Time Lord does, he'll see a plain, simple wedding band, made of expensive metal, but lacking any stones or ornaments. It's of medium width, and the only customization is an engraving on the inside of the band: two names, John Smith and Harry Brown, flanking a date, May 11, no year specified.

The Doctor is feeling somewhat tired, himself, though that's almost certainly getting belied by his frantic energy. He's tired of being surprised. Of not knowing anything about his alternate's life and not being able to anticipate each twist and turn that that life has taken.

His alternate pulls out the end of the chain he's been wearing, showing him the ring that hangs from it. He does pick it up—he's too curious not to, and he reaches for it without thinking—only just stopping himself from fishing in his pockets for his specs and examining the ring through them as if it's some strange and exotic artifact.

"Well," he murmurs, shrugging, "nothing wrong with a good suit." As if to say that a tux would look far more appropriate on his alternate than what he's wearing right now, but he doesn't go so far as to voice that particular opinion.

He turns the ring over in his fingers, squinting at the tiny print of the engraving. Seeing the human names there ought to throw him, but it doesn't, for some reason. Not much, anyway. It's not as though they're just any human names. Not as though they're any two humans. They still have the same shared history that he would have with his own Master; somehow, they must still be them, domesticity aside, and he thinks that might be getting a little easier to believe.

"Proper wedding, then?" There's still a note of disbelief in his voice, but his tone is growing lighter. Approaching normal, even. After getting thoroughly surprised and confused so many times in a row, maybe he's learning to recover from it a bit faster. "Flowers and little heart-shaped candles? Cake with miniature plastic people on top?" He grimaces, looking over the ring at his alternate. "Tell me you didn't have the little plastic people, at least."

His alternate takes the ring and turns it over in his fingers while the Doctor rests his head against the wall behind him, eyes still cast off to the side. The chain brushes against the back of his neck as the Time Lord examines the ring, tilting it to read the engraving. Just their human names, no Time Lord titles. The Doctor half-expects his alternate to comment on that, but surprisingly enough, he doesn't.

The comment about the "little plastic people" elicits a laugh. It's almost inaudible at first, just a brief exhale, but then the Doctor closes his eyes, mouth widening into a proper smile. He reaches up to take the ring from his alternate--you're done looking at it, aren't you?--and tucks it back into his shirt, still chuckling as he shakes his head. "No little plastic people."

He keeps his eyes cast down, palms resting against his chest, feeling the outline of the ring under the fabric of his shirt and his chest rising and falling as he breathes, deliberately and regularly. His alternate's light tone, his understated reaction, is making the tight, sickening feeling in the Doctor's chest let up. All he has to do now is make sure that the resolving tension won't make him burst into tears. The thought is tempting, enough to make his eyes prickle. He keeps them closed and takes a few deep breaths, and eventually, slowly, the moment passes.

"No little plastic people," he repeats, finally raising his head and meeting the Doctor's eyes. "And no little heart-shaped candles. There were flowers, though." He pushes himself off of the wall and slides past the Time Lord, getting a little bit of space between them as he rubs a hand over his face and tries to get rid of the last itch under his eyelids.

"Tea." He says it as he drops his hands and looks back up at his alternate. "I'll trade you a cup of tea for the promise that you won't ask any more questions about my life. At least not today."

He isn't quite able to read his alternate's reaction, at first. But then there's the smile as he takes the ring back. And if the Doctor felt relieved when his alternate had accepted the tissue, that's nothing compared to now, frankly, because— It's not anger. Or more tears. Well, not many more, at least. The other Doctor seems, if not all right, then significantly more all right than he has been for the past few minutes.

Strange, seeing him like that— first horribly afraid, then so emotional and so human. His alternate had seemed so sure of himself. So firm. He doesn't know why it never quite occurred to him that there might be an entire mess just brewing away under the exterior. Stupid, really, that it hadn't. There always is one, in his experience.

"Tea," he agrees, turning as his alternate moves past and around him, hands going into his pockets. Tea will give him something to do with his hands, at long last. "And no more questions." He hesitates for a split second, and the hesitation is there in his voice, because he doesn't know if he can stop asking questions just like that. There's always something new to ask about, everywhere he looks. But he can try. After all, his alternate did specify that it was only for today.

"Excellent move, by the way," he says. "Not having the candles. Those always stop looking like hearts after the first five minutes. And then you're left with a misshapen mass of wax, and all candles end up as a misshapen mass of wax, and it's really a bit pointless in the end."

See? That wasn't a question. He can do this. He can have tea and hold up his end of the deal.

The brief hesitation in the Time Lord's voice doesn't go unnoticed, but the Doctor doesn't pay it much heed. He expected it. He knows his alternate, knows himself, and knows how hard it is to respect boundaries like that. Which is why he laid it out quite so clearly--no more questions, not today. You agreed to that, and like this, he'll be able to hold you to it.

He tilts his head, indicating the other Doctor to follow him, and leads the way out of the office to the small kitchen in the back of the conference room. He's got his hands in his pockets as well and is walking a couple of steps ahead, avoiding eye contact--giving himself a few moments of semi-privacy as his alternate expands on the inconveniences of heart-shaped candle decorations.

"You're absolutely right." They enter the kitchen, and the Doctor takes the kettle off its base to fill it. "Clearly, you should be a wedding planner." He gives the Time Lord a lop-sided smile and leans against the counter to wait for the water to start boiling. There's a brief moment of hesitation before he reaches behind himself and pulls his phone from his back pocket--a standard, 21st century android phone, with a large display, a slightly scuffed casing and, of course, a camera. He takes a few moments to flick through the file system until he pulls up a picture folder.

"Here." He hands the phone to his alternate. "I'm not a photographer, but they'll give you an idea."

The image he's pulled up isn't a professional shot, but clear enough to show at least some details of a festively laid-out table, decorated in a modern style with clear lines and distinctive color accents, but not understated enough to seem cold. If the Time Lord decides to flick through the folder, he'll find a handful of pictures--no more than ten--of what seems to be a rather small wedding at a venue in the Cardiff Bay area. Guests, decorations, surroundings, most of it is recognizable in the pictures, if not as detailed as it would be in professional photographs. Only one picture shows the couple: a snapshot of them standing off to one side, in front of a wooden railing with the water in the background, seemingly sharing a brief, quiet moment before rejoining the festivities.

After handing over the phone, the Doctor turns around and busies himself with finding mugs and preparing the tea, trying to ignore the nervous tension in the pit of his stomach. They're just photos, and half of them are of Martha rather than him and the Master. No reason to feel nervous about showing them to the other Doctor. Especially since the Time Lord promised not to ask any more questions.

"Clearly, yeah. I ought to get some business cards printed up," he says, glancing around at the kitchen and finding nothing too remarkable to fix his gaze on. The Doctor tugs at his ear. "That is definitely the true calling of someone who's rubbish at weddings. I could print that on the business cards."

The other Doctor pulls out a phone and brings up, presumably, photos—which he's rather grateful for, as they're something to look at other than the pot of boiling water. He considers pointing that out, saying something clever about how a watched pot never boils, but decides against it, because then he'd have to explain his entire train of thought. He simply takes the phone without comment, and has a look at the photographs while his alternate makes tea.

For a moment, he stares at the first one before continuing on. Yes, that is indeed a wedding. The other Doctor's wedding. It's real. Can't deny that, looking at these. Can't pretend it away. It's not some nightmarish thing, though; it looks very normal. Not that human normalcy is especially comforting in any way.

"Martha Jones." Unexpectedly, the Doctor smiles to himself when he reaches the third photo. "You've still got Martha, then." He'll have to remember to ask about her, unless the current ban on questions extends to musings about her, too.

While he's flicking through the last few photos, around the moment that the shot of his alternate with the Master pops up, his finger hits the wrong bit of the screen, which brings up some sort of menu, apparently. "—Oh. Right."

He's already seen most of the photos, but spends a few seconds trying to get back to the gallery anyway, frowning in concentration. A calculator comes up. Followed by a calendar. "It does everything, doesn't it, your phone?" he murmurs. Incidentally, he seems to have miscalculated the current year, according to this calendar. His hand hovers by one of his pockets, as if he's contemplating just getting out his screwdriver and zapping the phone back to the proper screen instead of bothering with this touch screen nonsense.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For textbookenigmatic

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Didn't get around to doing the intro to the other thread, unfortunately. Tomorrow, though!

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Ping me on AIM if you want more details of what the photos look like.

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