Chapter Text
The Doctor was the first to wake up. He registered the glass floor, gritty against his cheek and cold on his clammy skin. He cracked open his eyes one at a time with a low groan. His head was killing him. Like someone drove an ice pick into the base of his neck and made sure it sliced through all three of his brain stems. The matter behind his eyes, ground to a pulp, sloshed around as he pulled himself up. Even sitting, the room spun violently to the left, and he screwed his eyes shut again to make it stop.
Across the way, Amy and Rory began to stir as well. Based on their grumbles and moans, they were feeling about as good as he was.
“Everyone present and accounted for?” he called out. The sound of his own voice was deafening and he winced at another lance of pain.
“Alive, I think,” Rory managed. He was still lying on the floor, head turned into the crook of his arm to hide his face from the lights.
“Fine,” Amy said. “Feeling like I just got off the world’s worst drinking binge, but otherwise fine.”
The Doctor nodded, his brain jostling against his skull some more. That was a rather apt way to put it. Comparative to the kind of hangover one got after drinking a few too many shots of hypervodka. Just the thought of alcohol turned his stomach and he braced a hand against the floor to stop the sudden wave of nausea that rolled over him.
Somehow, Rory managed to pull himself onto a jumpseat. He sat with his face pressed into the leather, legs scrunched to his chest in the most awkward and uncomfortable position he could manage. His next string of words were absorbed by the chair.
Amy groaned. “Say that again?”
He jerked his head up. “What happened?” he slurred. And immediately let it fall like a lead weight.
“Beats me. Doctor?”
Good question. The Doctor flopped onto his back and spread his limbs wide, hoping the starfish position might encourage blood to spread back into his limbs and wake his brain up. All it was doing was making his entire body feel heavy with exhaustion. He realized, to his dismay, that he would have to sit up again to get the thoughts flowing. It was a long and arduous struggle, more so to pull himself fully to standing. The room seemed determined to throw him off, bucking and twisting as he finally got his knees under him.
His mouth tasted dry and gritty. Salty too. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Physically, he felt raw. Like an exposed nerve, his skin and muscles were tensed and sensitive, his legs aching as they supported his weight. He furrowed his brow. What, exactly, had drained them all so thoroughly?
It was a cold shock when he couldn’t remember. At all.
No fuzzy recollection, no haze, no hint. Just a void where the memories should be and the even more troubling, persistent feeling that there was something he was missing, something big. The Doctor fought back another wave of nausea as he lifted his head to look at Amy and Rory.
“I don’t… I can’t remember,” he admitted weakly.
Amy, who had also managed to stand, shook her head. “Me either.”
Rory flipped in the chair, looking between the other two with bloodshot eyes. He gave a slow, affirming shake of his head.
They had all forgotten.
The Doctor stumbled back to the railing and leaned heavily against it, an invisible hand slowly squeezing his lungs. Stop. Think. Don’t panic. Thoughts came in single words or phrases as he lifted his heavy head. He looked around the console room. All the same as he could remember it last. Everything in one, delightfully messy piece, exactly as it should be. The TARDIS provided no hint of danger, keeping her hum at a low, consistent level. Light stayed as they were. The dull, telepathic presence at the edge of his consciousness was steady and still. Eerily calm.
He screwed his eyes shut. “Last thing you can remember! At all, doesn’t matter what. Making tea, going to the loo, gardening, anything!”
Amy and Rory exchanged glances and reached for their memories.
“Uhhh, we went to that planet!” Amy said, pointing. “The one where gravity was weird and Rory fell off a cliff super slow.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Rory murmured, shooting a look at the Doctor.
“Yes! Good start,” the Doctor said. His legs under him, his stuffy head slowly clearing, he began pacing around the console. “But anything else? Anything more mundane? A memory that teeters off, stops suddenly?”
Rory sat up. “Painters. Amy, we were talking about painters, Sargent and Van Gogh, remember?”
“Yes! We were waiting for you-” She jabbed a finger at the Doctor. “-right here, we were comparing the two of them and then…” Amy trailed off, wrinkling her nose. “Then that’s it. I can’t remember what happened next. There’s just a big wall in my brain where the rest of it should be, I don’t…”
“Now that you mention it,” Rory said, slowly standing. His eyes were wide with fear and his hands shook as he braced himself against the console. “It’s not just that. There are a lot of walls, gaps. I can’t… there’s whole chunks out of my memory.” He snapped his attention to the Doctor, who was staring at the rotor. “What the hell happened to us?”
“I don’t know,” he said absently. “You’re right, though. This runs deep.”
Amy stomped to the Doctor’s side, arms tightly crossed over her stomach. “Can you fix it?”
“No. In fact…” He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. “I think I caused it.”
The silence was an overwhelming testament to their shock. Where normally he’d be met with exclamations of disbelief, instead they simply gaped at him. Amy shut her jaw with the loud click of gritted teeth.
“Doctor,” she ground out, “explain. Now.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting another headache. “I’m a time traveler. Obviously, I occasionally run the risk of crossing my own timeline. When that happens, my younger self cannot remember the course of events. For the sake of maintaining order, either I have to go and manually block my own memories, or my future self does it for me. The latter seems likely right now.”
“But why block our memories?” Rory asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t-”
“I don’t know! I can’t know! And before you ask, no, I don’t know why so many of our memories have been blocked. This goes deep, deeper than I think any of us want to find out.”
Amy let out a strangled sound, almost like a snarl. “My brain has been tampered with, Doctor, and I for one would like to know why. Your future self better have had a damn good reason for mucking about up there and leaving us with psychic hangovers.”
The Doctor chuckled, high and loose. “Psychic hangovers. That’s- that is a good one, Amy. I’m stealing that.”
“Steal quips all you like, but our memories?”
He turned to look at her, guilt practically pouring off of him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Then he paused, biting his tongue. Those words came out without his permission. They didn’t feel like his own. He didn’t apologize like that, not anymore. But he couldn’t dwell either. Moving forward, same as always. “There’s nothing I can do about it. Our memories were locked away for good reason. If even one of us knows the truth, it could spark a chain reaction that might have disastrous consequences. Collapsing timelines, neural implosions, reapers. Whatever it is, it won’t be pretty.”
His tone left no room for debate. Colder and colder, until there was a chill in the air, and Amy and Rory looked between each other with pinched lips and resigned expressions. There was still fight simmering in Amy’s eyes, but she pushed it aside. She was too exhausted to argue the point. Whatever had happened - whatever they were preventing from happening - clearly there was nothing to be done at the moment anyway.
The Doctor had made that explicitly clear.
“Fine,” she said. “If you need me, I’ll be taking an aspirin and the longest nap of my life. Don’t you dare come get me before that.”
The Doctor nodded weakly in agreement.
“Rory?”
He tilted his head, a silent lead the way. Amy grabbed his hand and made for the stairs, her gait unyielding until she reached the place where glass slipped into metal. Then, suddenly, she turned, staring at the Doctor with red-rimmed eyes.
“If you find out anything, tell us. Please.”
He nodded again. “I will. Promise.”
Amy looked as though she wanted to say something, her eyes softening slightly in pity. Instead, she let go of Rory’s hand and walked back to the Doctor. Although he tried to avoid her gaze, he was forced to meet it directly as she took his face in both of her hands. Gently, she tilted his head down and leaned up to press a kiss to his forehead.
She didn’t speak or linger. She simply let go, kept her mouth shut tight, and left the room with Rory in tow. He shot a sympathetic look over his shoulder.
The Doctor counted to ten seconds after they left the room. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes as hard as he could until stars swam in the dark and a dull pain bloomed in his sockets. When he pulled them away, he blinked back the ache and sniffed, thinking.
He’d grown accustomed to the strange feeling that followed missing memories. It was like leaving the house, absolutely positive you’re forgetting something but completely unable to remember what until you get where you’re going. Typically, it was something important.
This time, that feeling was so persistent, his bones ached.
Physically, he felt miserable. Mentally, even more so. The only reassurance he had was that his previous self wouldn’t have erased this much without very good reason. Whatever they couldn’t remember was dangerous. Besides, he’d find out one day. Whether that be a week from now or five centuries, he couldn’t be sure. But one day he’d know.
Still. His headache wouldn’t go away. Neither would the persistent press on the back of his mind that he was forgetting something.
The Doctor shook his head. He needed to leave it behind. No use worrying about something that was already done. Keep moving forward. Don’t look back.
He fiddled with some nothing-buttons on the console and flicked a few pointless switches. The TARDIS was still quiet. Nothing sparked or flickered, nothing pulsed or buzzed. He traced a finger around a button or two in a loop and glanced absently toward the blank screens.
He froze. One of the screens was covered in electrical tape.
The Doctor lifted a hand to the remnants of the break, his heart in his ears. This was a hint. A clue. An accident or incident he couldn’t remember with the evidence left forgotten. The tape was placed expertly, covering a central break and its consequential spidering cracks. Was the repair his handiwork? It would have to be, right? But who caused the break in the first place? What-?
The TARDIS finally spoke up in the form of a short, sharp shock to his hand, still hovering over the screen. The Doctor yelped and jumped back, sticking his now singed fingertips into his mouth.
“Wha’ was tha’ for?” he mumbled around his fingers, glaring at the rotor.
Her answer was a simple impression, that of an electrical stovetop with the burner glowing orange. A very blatant warning of don’t touch. Leave it alone.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. “You know something.”
The ship said nothing.
“Come on. Not even a hint?”
Silence.
“Be that way.”
She would.
The Doctor gave the console a pathetic kick for good measure.
No give. Not an inch.
That was settled then. Fists on his hips, the Doctor gave the rotor one last rueful look and decided it’d be best if he turned in for the night. Ironically, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept, memory block or otherwise.
He turned on his heel, loafers squeaking against the glass, when something gave him pause. He stopped, blinked, and raised his hand to his abdomen, gingerly prodding it.
It hurt.
But not like a bruise or a scrape or even a break. It just ached a bit, dull and persistent. Somewhere behind his ribs, if he focused on an originating point hard enough. At the same time, it was everywhere and nowhere, turning his gut as he lay a hand flat against his stomach. He felt off from head to toe, a bit queasy, and he was sure he’d gone pale.
The Doctor fell still and wondered when it would pass. After a minute of waiting, he let out a sigh and went to run a hand over his face. For now, it seemed his mystery ache - which had now swelled to a persistent snarl - was here to stay. When his fingers touched his skin, he quickly withdrew them.
His face was wet. He was crying.
“What?” he murmured, rubbing his fingers under his eyes. Despite not knowing why, his tear ducts were working overtime, leaving trails down his cheeks and causing his eyes to burn. How he’d missed that, he didn’t know.
As soon as the tears came, they were gone, leaving the Doctor with cold cheeks and a weight pressing down on his lungs. He scrubbed hard at his face and tried to clear his head of residual panic. In all the fuss, a few strands of hair fell out of place and stuck to his forehead. It added to his feeling of displacement and he shoved them back without thinking.
Again, he withdrew his hand, even more confused than before. His hair was gritty with sand. He pinched a few grains between his fingers and rolled them around, his brow knitting in confusion. The grit under his fingernails, the taste of salt on his tongue.
What had happened to him?
A sensation pulsed down his spine, a little nudge in the image of a deep blue bedroom. Dimmed lights and stars on the ceiling. He hadn’t thought about those stars in… oh. Must’ve been decades by now. He tried his best to forget they were there. Stars aside, the Doctor understood what the ship was telling him and he let his normally restless hands fall at his sides.
“Just tired, that’s all. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
The TARDIS lights pulsed in affirmation, her first true positive of the day. He smiled. Must really be nothing then. He detected no duplicity from the ship.
“Right then. Goodnight, you beautiful organic construct.” The Doctor leaned down and pressed a kiss to the console. “Sweet dreams.”
He fluttered out of the room with all the permanence of a summer breeze. As soon as he was gone, the TARDIS dimmed the lights until only the teal glow of the rotor remained, casting harsh shadows on the nooks and crannies of the console room. Her hum fell low and melodic. Had the Doctor been there, he would’ve recognized it: a traditional mourning song, performed at wakes back when Gallifreyans had enough mortality in them to hold such ceremonies.
If her pilot couldn’t remember, then the TARDIS would grieve alone.
The Doctor fell asleep with a stitch in his side, wondering when it would go away.
~~~~~
Life carried on as it was meant to. People came and went. The Doctor lost Amy and Rory, as he knew he was always going to, but gained new companionship, as he knew he was always going to. He kept running without looking back, refusing to glance over his shoulder at what lay behind him. Eventually, he regenerated, because that was how it was supposed to be.
Some small part of him was happy to leave his eleventh body behind. He spent centuries in it, but still had days where his skin belonged to a stranger. Still, as cliche as it was to say, his time in that body was simply unforgettable. He hoped that would be enough for his next self.
He couldn’t remember a time when he’d regenerated into a recognized face, but when he met his wizened eyes in the tarnished silver of an alleyway mirror, they widened in recognition. There was a reason for it, he knew, one that would come with experience as he stumbled through the galaxy with his new body.
There wasn’t really a reason for one of his fashion choices, a dull gold band he slipped on his ring finger when he had a few spare moments in the wardrobe room.
The weight felt right. The look of it even more so. When he flexed his fingers, the resistance was fitting against his wrinkled skin. There wasn’t much purpose for it besides that, although later he was reminded that he technically was a married man. Strange. River hadn’t once crossed his mind when he picked the ring.
He dismissed the notion as subconscious, and kept moving forward.
The Doctor regenerated again, obviously. She was shocked and thrilled with her new face, her new body, her new identity. A new adventure in every which way and a heart so overflowing with excitement, she needed as many people to share it with as she could.
The moment she was alone, she took a while to savor her new face, stare at it in the mirror and study the way it moved. She slipped her fingers through her hair. Silky blond, dark roots at the top.
The Doctor pushed away from the sink and tried to pretend she’d never seen that combination before.
And she regenerated. Again. Fate must’ve been playing some sick joke, because the second he ran his tongue over his new teeth, he knew he was in a dream. Hands on his face - on a new, old, aged face - confirmed reality and he was caught up in a swell of confusion. This had never happened before.
It wasn’t all bad. Things gained and lost, a best friend found again, and closure he thought he’d never receive, all wrapped up in old packaging. It was far from simple and remained complicated, because he regenerated again. But not quite. He changed, but stayed the same. Split in two. His new face, his new self, who could stand opposite him and beam in delighted glee, was absolutely wonderful. A gift to the world in a way he had always tried to be. He couldn’t be happier when he pulled his counterpart into a tight embrace.
However, a bi-regeneration had consequences. Being divided in two brought strain to an already burdened mind, and old things had a way of crumbling under pressure. Old things like a lock on memory put up by unsteady hands - a telepath out-of-practice, doing the best they could under difficult circumstances.
He was in Donna’s kitchen when it happened, doing something as mundane as rinsing out a mug. The water swirled down the drain and he watched it, brow furrowing. He was forgetting something. He looked at the mug in his hand. It was dark blue, one he’d picked up from a charity shop during a trip with Donna’s daughter, Rose. It was speckled with little white dots, tiny stars created by the glaze, and he knew he had to have it the moment he lay his eyes on it.
The Doctor brushed his thumb around the rim. Stars. White stars speckled on a dark blue background.
Lightless stars, framing a smiling face. A starless sky, reflected in cool water. Cool water from damp sand against his knees, his hands, his hair.
It slammed into the base of his spine all at once and he dropped the mug. The harsh crack of ceramic on tile covered his gasp and mixed with the pounding of his heart in his ears, drowning his thoughts. There were no words. Only images and certainty as he slipped to the floor. He reached out for something to hold onto and hardly noticed when he grabbed a jagged piece of ceramic. The edges dug into his skin and drew blood as he clutched the piece to his chest. Pain radiated from his hand and from his side, but he didn’t notice it.
She was gone.
She was gone and she had been gone. He’d simply forgotten and kept running, like he always had and always would.
Donna found him sometime later, still slumped against the cupboard and holding the shard of broken mug. Blood had long since seeped into his jumper and when Donna pulled him up, she made a half-hearted comment about it not coming out in the wash.
The Doctor didn’t hear her. He just looked down, met her eyes, and tried to impress the weight of his grief without words. Based on Donna’s silent response - her watering eyes and downturned mouth - he must’ve been successful. She helped clean the wound without saying a word, only mumbling, “Come find me when you’re ready to talk,” after he’d passed her his blood-stained jumper and said something about getting some sleep.
That night, the Doctor lay awake with a stitch in his side and knew it wouldn’t go away.