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The trip back to Sheffield is a sombre one. Chatter is kept to a minimum and the atmosphere within the TARDIS is one of quiet contemplation, the air heavy with the weight of what they had just seen. The eeriness of witnessing war, death, and being completely powerless to stop it, only being able to return back to the safety of their lives in present day like it was nothing … That tension feels palpable — like it has its own presence in the room. Even the ship herself seems to be humming quieter than usual.
They’re all a bit lost for words. Least of all the Doctor, who seems to be completely absorbed within her own thoughts. Graham watches from between the dim golden glow of TARDIS’ pillars as she stands staunch at the console, staring into the middle distance, jaw set, hands clenched on the controls. She’s been acting strangely, on autopilot ever since they got back to the ship, barely saying a word when they dropped Yaz back off to see her Nan in present day, only stopping briefly to check that they hadn’t accidentally created any disturbances in their timelines.
It makes Graham uneasy. Sure, they’re all a bit shook up, but he hasn’t seen the Doctor like this before and there’s still a lot about the her that he doesn’t know. The thought occurs to him that maybe she’s thinking about what Manish said to her before she discovered he’d sent terrorists to raid the area — before he assassinated Prem.
When they finally arrive back home, for whatever reason, call it bus driver’s instincts or some other form of latent intuition, Graham decides to hang back.
“You go ahead, Ryan. I’m just gonna stay, talk to the Doc for a sec.”
At that he gets a quizzical look, but eventually Ryan gives him a quick nod and leaves to head back to the house.
When Graham gently closes the door and turns back to face the control room, though, what he isn’t expecting to find is the Doctor sagging over the console. Her head is bowed low and she’s murmuring something under her breath as if completely oblivious to his presence. He can’t make out her expression beyond the disheveled curtains of blonde hair that frame her face but he can see the way an almost imperceptible tremor snakes its way up her arms as she grips the controls.
“Doc … ?”
She doesn’t seem to hear him.
When he draws nearer he’s able to just make out the whispered words. Some sort of sequence of elements and numbers. From the Doctor’s lips the litany sounds almost like a prayer.
“Zirconium, fourteen … Antimony, fifteen, Lanthanum, twenty-five …” She pauses to press the palms of her hands to her eyes. “Ytter— Ytterbium, twenty-six, Iridium, twenty-eight …”
“Doc.”
Between phrases her breathing is shallow, uneven.
“Uranium, one hundred and sixteen, Fermium, one hundred and thirty two, Tennessine …”
“Doctor.”
This finally manages to catch her attention, but when her gaze flickers up to meet his it’s wide-eyed and unfocused.
“Graham?” The word comes out tentative, confused — like she’s unsure of what she’s actually seeing.
Graham feels totally out of his depth, but tries not to let on, keeps his expression neutral and his voice calm and measured. This tends to be his usual M.O. when it comes to distressing situations and it hasn’t failed him yet.
“What’s happening? Talk to me.”
“I’m — I’m fine.”
“Are you?” The question isn’t accusatory, but sincere. “What were you … ?”
“Ah.” When she continues her voice sounds hoarse, falsely chipper. “Just — alternating between listing the corresponding elements to generalised pentagonal numbers and Shakespearean sonnets by mention of the stars. As one does.”
Graham doesn’t have any time to question this because the moment the words leave her mouth she seems to lose her balance, knees buckling beneath her. Before he can shoot out a hand to steady her she clumsily grips onto the console, slips down to meet the grating below with a metallic clang, sitting down right in the middle of the control room floor.
If it wasn’t clear before that something was off with the Doctor now it definitely is.
Unfortunately Graham’s immediate response is to crouch down, grip her arm to ask if she’s okay which causes the Doctor to jolt away from him with a gasp, scrambling back a few feet.
“Don’t — just, don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”
“Sorry!” Graham stammers.
“No, no —” the Doctor forces out, struggling with her coat with shaky hands. “M’ fault. Just need a mo’ to — to get my bearings.”
He’s unsure of whether to move or not for fear of setting her off again so he just stays crouched there, not knowing where to look as the Doctor tosses her coat off to the side and presses her forehead to her knees. The moment feels oddly private.
She still doesn’t seem to be all that aware of his presence though, sits scrubbing her hands up and down arms and then flexing her fingers as if trying to regain feeling in them. As her gaze wanders warily she opens her mouth and then closes it again, lips pursed as if reluctant to speak. And then — against all odds, she continues, still not making eye-contact with him. “‘Just trying to … distract myself or – wait, no … what’s the word? Ground myself.”
Graham’s mind stalls for a few moments before his eyes widen in comprehension.
“Are - are you having a panic attack? Is that what this is? Can aliens even have panic attacks?”
“Ten points to Graham.” She lets out a shaky huff of laughter. “Huh. Guess we’re back to the points system again.”
His mind is already racing thinking back to everything he knows of the Doctor — her vehement hatred of guns, the way she sometimes unconsciously slips into military speak while in danger, the way she keeps her past carefully hidden away to the point that he doesn’t think he nor Ryan or Yaz know anything about her life other than odd superficial bits and bobs here and there. All they have are small things — like the fact that she apparently once married Queen Elizabeth I — or that she once spent a night out drinking with Pythagoras. Even anything to do with any previous friends she might’ve had seems to be kept tightly under lock and key. Due to this it’s always felt like an unspoken rule between the three of them to never really ask about the Doctor’s life prior to that fateful day she crashed through the top of their train car.
“Flashbacks,” the Doctor says. “Actually a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Really really wouldn’t recommend it. ‘Can’t feel my arms. Or — anything actually. Sounds — like — the words I’m sayin’ aren’t my own.” She presses her knuckles to her mouth, trying to put pressure there.
As Graham lowers himself into a seated position she continues to ramble on, which over time the team has found tends to be an anxious quirk of hers.
No wonder she’s been behaving so strangely since Punjab. They had to bear witness to an assassination, had to hear it happen — see the beginnings of a war that would result in the loss of tens of thousands of lives.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Just —” She clears her throat. “Keep talking. ‘Bout anything really. Not picky.”
“Okay. Can do. Uh …” Graham searches his mind for something vaguely interesting. He ends up settling on a story that usually gets a few chuckles down at the pub with his workmates. “Did I ever tell you about the time I was workin’ the late shift, 120 Halfway to Barncliffe, ‘bout to pack it in for the night, when I go to give the place a final once over and find some poor bloke’s somehow managed to leave his prosthetic leg behind?”
When the Doctor doesn’t reply, gaze fixed somewhere on the adjacent wall, Graham decides to power on.
“Well, there I am and ‘s pretty late and I’m thinkin’ — y’know, how on Earth did this guy manage to forget an entire blimmin’ limb? So I’m lookin’ it over to see if there’s, ‘dunno, a name on it? But I can’t seem to find one ...”
As Graham talks he absently watches the Doctor as she runs her hands across the cool grating of the control room floor over and over again, fingers trailing over the divots in the metal. She seems to be concentrating incredibly intensely.
“... And by this point I’m bloody knackered to I just end up headin’ home. A few days later I’ve still got this leg I have no idea what to do with — and then things come up and I get busy and by this point it’s just got weird. I can’t turn it in ‘cause it’s been so long, but at the same time I’ve got no idea how to find this person. So long story short … well, I’ve still got it.” He huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “Sittin’ at home somewhere under the bed gatherin’ cobwebs. Just some poor sod’s leg.”
After finishing his tale he looks up to face the Doctor whose expression is uncharacteristically solemn. She seems to be more lucid now, though. The look in her eyes is less far away. There’s a pregnant pause before she finally says plainly, “Graham. You’re a good man. And you deserve honesty. I haven’t been giving that to you.”
This takes him off-guard, half-hearted smile slipping from his face. He doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he just keeps quiet.
“If you knew who I really am you wouldn’t be able to look me in the eyes.”
“Doc …”
“No,” she holds up a hand. “I don’t need you to try to convince me otherwise. I haven’t been able to tell you or the others — can’t tell you — because I’m a coward.”
Bloody hell. How bad could things possibly be?
“If ‘m being honest with myself the real reason I’m shaken up right now isn’t even fully for those reasons. A large part of it is selfish. Manish waving a rifle around in my face, having to stare down the barrel of a gun? That’s nothin’ compared to the feeling of being completely powerless, unable to step in and set things right. Back on my home planet they … “ She winces, takes a moment to gather her thoughts.
“I wasn’t — treated very well because of my view on things. ‘Bit of a heretic, me. Actually … My whole life I was an outcast, abandoned by most because — well, it was clear I wasn’t exactly the poster child for non-interference. I try to be when I can but … ‘Don’t think I’m wired the same as other Time Lords. They could sense that. To be forced into that position was …”
The pained expression on her face says it all.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well. All in the past now.”
Graham gets the sense that things aren’t really that simple. As the silence drags on his gaze wanders, finds a wilted gold lantana from the wedding that now sits discarded on the floor’s metal crating.
“Part of me thought things would be different this time around. I kept wonderin’ if this regeneration this wouldn’t happen anymore. Turns out in the end no amount of neural or cognitive rewiring seems to be enough to overcome muscle memory on its own.”
“How long have things been this way?”
“Long enough.” The Doctor looks off into the distance. “That isn’t to say I haven’t done terrible things, Graham. I have. And the truth is you wouldn’t like me very much if you knew what they were. I … I understand if you don’t want to travel with me anymore because of that.”
Graham’s beginning to think this might just be something more than just the Doctor being a soldier who fought in a war. So he goes ahead and asks what he thinks any reasonable person would ask in this situation.
“What sort of … things?”
“If I had to tell you, see the look on your face, lose you because of that … I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
At this point Graham has to make a decision. He hopes to God it’s the right one.
“Listen, Doc. I dunno about the others but I’ve already made my mind up. You don’t need to tell us anything. Whoever — whatever you used to be — whatever you’ve done ... As far as I’m concerned it never happened. The Doctor I know is brave, and selfless, and above all else kind, and I’m sure Ryan and Yaz would agree with me. Your past is your business and I would be bloody honoured to be a part of your future.”
The Doctor blinks away tears, looks at her hands in her lap.
“At this point it feels selfish to stay. But I don’t —” Her voice cracks. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“No matter what you think of yourself — you’re a good person, Doc. Doesn’t take a genius to see that. Plus, we’re your new family now, innit? You can’t just up and leave. Unfortunately for you, it looks like you’re stuck with us lot.”
The Doctor lets out a watery laugh.
“C’mere you daft old woman,” Graham pulls her into a clumsy hug as she says, muffled into his shirt collar ‘not really a woman’. It’s a bit awkward, he’s not much of a hugger, but she needs it a heck of a lot more than he does.
When he finally pulls away he claps her on the back. “You don’t have to do this alone anymore, all right? You got that?”
She nods, and although he’s not sure if she quite believes it, it’s a start.
That night Graham stays up till late reading up on flashbacks, PTSD, and dissociation — pours over articles detailing different grounding techniques and strategies for dealing with panic attacks. He doesn’t tell Ryan what he’s doing, figures the Doctor will tell him in her own time along with Yaz. As for the Doctor’s past … Maybe he’ll never know what happened all those years ago. He’s not sure he ever wants to know. Doesn’t think he really needs to.