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You sat bolt upright with a shriek, the blankets flying off the bed. You gasped for air, clutching at the sheets beneath you which were cool and damp with sweat. Another nightmare — the nightmare. The same one as the night before and the night before that — and they were getting worse.
♾️ ♾️ ♾️
You had finally come face to face with the Daleks, a fearsome race he had spoken to you at length about. It was a new approach, he’d said: being unflinchingly open and honest about the dangers you would almost certainly face at his side.
“I’ve defeated them before. And the time before that. And I will again.” He spun to face you, fingers leaving the console for a moment. His eyes were steely and wet, a man of glass with the determination of a Scott lacquered over top. His hand was cold when he dropped it along his side, nonchalantly wrapping his fingers around your pinky finger.
“When we face them — and it is a when — trust that I will save you. I can’t guarantee you won’t get hurt —“ he blinked several times, squeezing your pinky twice, like a heartbeat. “But I will save you.”
And he was true to his word — in all senses: he did save you, but not before they’d left their mark. They had captured you, as you had suspected they would. The Doctor had created a sort of duplicate of you — a decoy. You had done your best to listen but the the details blurred together, slippery and inaccessible behind a haze of panic. You gathered it was a sort of doppelgänger, linked to your consciousness so they would register your life signs. He was confident as always, the adrenaline burning through his system to convert mortal danger into dramatic fanfare, but the ramifications were unclear. It was clarified quite quickly however, when they detected you on another part of the ship and declared you a menace, a pest to be eradicated and with a synthesized chorus of “exterminate!”, multiple beams of energy were unleashed into your false avatar.
You had collapsed in the console room of the TARDIS where the two of you had been watching, shrieking uncontrollably at the red hot burn of it. The electricity overriding every synapse and nerve ending until it was the only thing keeping you alive, and then all at once it drained out of you like murky bath water, spiraling down the drain and taking your very essence with it. It was unlike anything you’d ever experienced and hopefully the last time you ever would.
It had worked, the rescue acting as the distraction the Doctor needed to beat the Daleks back into the recesses of time once again. But you knew intuitively that everything had changed. It was the end of everything or worse — the beginning of something of uncontrollable momentum. You had experienced it all in one suspended moment: life, death, and the horrible in between that had the potential to stretch into infinity. And while the Doctor was thankful it had only been a moment’s suffering, the past few nights had proved otherwise.
Night after night you relived those terrible moments, either in stabbing repetition or in torturous, drawn out stretches, unspooling a single moment of painful suspense into a purgatory lasting months, years, even millennia. In a particularly memorable and confusing variation, you spent 4 billion years racing round a tower, trying and failing to outrun a Dalek and when you woke, you had an unexplainable ache radiating up your fingers all the way to the elbow.
This time it was even more vague — pure sensation, pain, burning pain like you’d never felt and a scream you refused to believe was yours. On and on and on…
You shuddered, gripping tighter at the sheets beneath you. As the adrenaline and fear seeped out, that other stinging sensation filled its vacancy. Your eyes darted about, listening for some indication of a condemnation that had yet to appear.
I’m sorry,
you thought miserably.
Please forgive me.
♾️ ♾️ ♾️
Telepathy. You had taken everything else in stride — the two hearts, the “regeneration” thing and even a ship bigger on the inside. But the telepathy was a bridge too far for your limited human experience. It wasn’t so much it’s infeasibility — that had dissipated fairly quickly after that first step into the police box. It was more the invasiveness of the thing — the dredging up of that deeply human fear of being exposed — that your thoughts were dangerous when left unfiltered and if people were to know them, truly know you… would anyone stay? Robots and aliens and robot-aliens were fine as they were separate from you and your humanity, but the idea they could take that one last private piece of you was unsettling in the extreme.
But the human mind did what it does best: it adapts — and then promptly shifts to annoyance.
It began to gnaw at you. It felt unfair that she could hear you, but you were deprived of the same. The frustration morphed again, this time into rejection. You had confided in him once — approaching him nervously where he stood messing about with the console, hot tears pricking the corner of your eyes — that you’d like to hear her too and was there anything you could do? The doctor had stopped his tinkering, seemingly perplexed. When his slate eyes finally met your dripping ones, he looked momentarily terrified. His eyebrows fled to their respective corners, strategizing a new plan of attack. He looked back to the panel in front of him as if asking for guidance. A few more emotions flickered across his face before he smiled and patted the panel gently. The sting of being left out flared hotter in that moment as you realized a conversation had indeed just transpired without you. How many times has she thought he was lost in thought when he was actually just talking to her ?
“It may happen, it may not.” His tone was flippant as always, but his eyes were melting ice caps.
“Tricky with you humans — it comes more naturally to some than others. And for some, not at all.”
You nodded, wiping at your eyes with a swell of embarrassment.
Some.
Which companions before me could talk to her? You wondered.
Am I the only one who can’t? Am I really that broken?
His gaze snapped to you then, flashing blizzard sharp for a fleeting moment before the icy flakes scattered again, the snowglobe shaken. He’d tilted your chin up then with the wrench in his hand. He smiled in that soft way that turned your insides to custard.
“For the record — she thinks you might just manage it. Particularly thick pudding you’ve got up there.”
♾️ ♾️ ♾️
It was times like this you were most acutely self aware — your protective shell cracked open and your gooey innermost parts exposed to the sentient ship. It was unfair, you mentally opined for the hundredth time, that the deepest parts of you were on display without your explicit consent. You knew it wasn’t her choice just like it wasn’t yours to lack such an ability, but the fear of judgment still flashed hot and sharp through you.
Another time, you had asked him about shielding
— whether you should be trying to keep a hold on your emotions. You didn’t know much about telepathy — he hadn’t told you much about it and you were operating entirely on assumption. He had brushed you off in that affectionate way he had, dismissive but never quite rude.
“It doesn’t bother her.”
You huffed, tapping a fingernail against the console. “Maybe not but… thoughts are private for a reason — for us humans, anyway. I feel like I’m on… Celebrity Big Brother or something.”
His mouth gaped open, the gears grinding round so loud in his head you could practically hear them.
“It isn’t like that,” he finally blurted, coming back online. “You have to remember, TARDISes aren’t like humans — or Gallifreyans for that matter. Or Time Lords! To her, you’re a marvel. You’re like an encyclopedia or…or …a specimen in a jar. One of those nature documentaries you love so much!”
It was hard to be too downtrodden when he was so insistent, so certain in his reassurance.
It had finally lapsed to the back of your mind until moments like these. Whenever emotions were running particularly high — another brush with death, a new way to lose the Doctor — you’d remember she could feel it all.
She must feel it now — the way your blood rushes loud in your ears, heart racing to outrun a phantom threat long vanquished. The sour fear begins to mingle with the searing bitterness of mortification. The oppressive self-awareness boils up and into your throat until the whole universe might as well be inside your head. It wasn’t just you who went to space, it filled you up in turn, expanding until you too were bigger on the inside.
You sit achingly still, desperately trying to even out your breathing. The room is still dark, the horsehead nebula still twinkling overhead. It’s usually a beacon of comfort — your favorite, even. But you hadn’t told the Doctor or even mused it out loud — it had simply started appearing overhead when you laid down for bed. It felt like an olive branch and you gratefully accepted it.
But now it was suffocating, leaving you feeling untethered and abandoned in the vacuum of so much life. Almost instantly, as your chest tightened in a great squeeze, the room began to shift. The galaxy dissipates entirely as the recessed lighting slowly fills the room with a soft, pinkish glow. There’s something about the defined edges of the room, slightly blurred as they are by the faint glowing lights, that’s soothing in its womb-like caress.
You turn to the side table to see the “alarm clock” — a little projection in TARDIS blue pixels depicting different planets and systems. At the top is a little picture of earth, slowly turning with little arrows popping out to display the many time zones of each country. Just beneath it is a model of Gallifrey and its own complex time systems. They act as the two poles, a reliable constant around which revolves the various planets and galaxies you pass in your travels. It’s one of those unique and precious novelties that makes the TARDIS feel more like home than anywhere else, but now it’s just another reminder of how big this universe really is — and just how small you are.
You stumble out of the bed, one hand slicing through the projection and scattering the pixels. You almost slip on the top sheet and duvet, strewn about the floor like silky puddles.
You’re freezing — why are you freezing? It can’t be that cold in here. In fact it’s usually a bit warm — the TARDIS compensating as humans are colder-blooded than gallifreyans by nature — therefore giving the Doctor an almost permanent drop of perspiration at his temple. It must just be you then, teeth chattering as you hug yourself and wobble to the en suite. The nightlight glows brighter before you even step inside, a fresh glass of water on the counter. You gulp down the water greedily before splashing your face in the sink. The towel that your hand fumbles into is fluffy and warm and wasn’t there when you turned on the taps.
When you step back into the bedroom, there’s a fluffy jumper and matching pair of socks lying in the center of the bed. You’ve never seen them before but you recognize its unique buttery softness as yarn woven from the blue sheep on Matarax 4. It’s so soft and warm but somehow weighs virtually nothing and you bury your face in the weave and try not to cry.
Thank you.
You feel something — like a tickle down your brain stem. Like ASMR, lighting up your nerves down your spine and out into your fingers and toes. You don’t hear anything, not technically, but you feel… it feels like…
∘⊙∘ you are welcome ∘⊙∘
The realization freezes you to the spot. An entirely new kind of fragility takes over.
“ Are you… can you hear me?”
A tinkle of bells travels through your mind before another message settles over you.
∘⊙∘ All too well. The vocalization is unneeded — I can hear both inside and outside, within and without. To me, you’re constantly repeating yourself ∘⊙∘
“You mean like…an echo?”
∘⊙∘ Echo? ∘⊙∘
You bark out a laugh, a dark underscore to her gentle jingling.
I’m so scared.
∘⊙∘ I know, child. I bear it alongside you ∘⊙∘
The simple recognition of your pain was a balm on your scorched nerves. You felt silly for ever having doubted her and could only hope one day you'd make it up to her.
∘⊙∘ No need, my earthborn. Thoughts cannot create a living being, only action can do that ∘⊙∘
You pulled the jumper and the socks on and were now standing inactive bedside the bed.
I want —
∘⊙∘ Yes, I know ∘⊙∘
You waited then, for either rejection or validation, but neither were forthcoming. The TARDIS didn’t seem one to make your choices for you unless it were a matter of life or death.
∘⊙∘ Would you like me to? ∘⊙ ∘
Like you to what?
∘⊙∘ Make the decision for you? ∘⊙∘
“I…”
Yes.
The thought was out before you could even think of thinking it.
∘⊙∘ Very well, then. Step outside, my dear ∘ ⊙∘
You hesitated, unsure what awaited you outside the sanctuary of the bedroom.
∘⊙∘ Don’t be frightened. If you can trust my thief, you can trust me ∘⊙∘
You stumbled forward a step, then two then three until you were turning the handle and stepping out into the hall.
It looked the same as always — the big circles he loved so much carved into the walls, the recessed lighting glowing inside.
You gave it a minute, waiting for something dramatic to happen before your very eyes but there was no change.
Only…
There was a nudge in your brain, a wordless encouragement.
There was a door there that hadn’t been before. Your room was located off one of the main wings, easily accessible off the console room as you were still getting your bearings and constantly worried about getting lost.
“It won’t matter, really —“ he’d said, pointing at the console with a friendly accusation “because she has a habit of —“
you inhaled a gust of air “— moving the rooms around….”
∘⊙∘ Correct. And whose do we think this one might this be? ∘⊙∘
The door is nondescript which surprises you. It’s a plain wooden door, like the front door of a house with its two recessed panels and bronze doorknob. You had thought it might look like the dressing room of a rockstar with his name emblazoned on it in shiny gold letters.
∘⊙∘ He did suggest it — I refused. ∘⊙∘
A laugh bursts out of you.
∘⊙∘ Go on, little one ∘⊙∘, she croons, a cool tendril flowing through your head.
∘⊙∘ Be brave, my human.∘⊙∘
You stumble forward, not entirely of your own volition, until you’re just before the door. You raise your hand to knock before hesitating.
Should I knock?
It’s only polite.
Once? Twice? Certainly not four times, four seems far too many….
As you stood there debating, a series of knocks sounded out of nowhere. You wait for the TARDIS’s comment, but it doesn’t come. Instead…
“If that’s you, Davros, I really need a cat nap before the next round.”
You reach for the doorknob but it twists on its own, making you jump. That same tinkle of bells dances through your brain and you realize it’s the TARDIS laughing.
Silently, the door swings open to reveal the Doctor’s room.
It can’t really be described as a bedroom in that there’s no actual bed to speak of. This is not surprising considering his enduring confusion surrounding “rooms for sleeping in”. But it is certainly the Doctor’s room in that it’s a haphazard mess of all his little eccentricities like a 3D model of his mind. His beloved guitar sits propped up carefully against an amp alongside a number of other instruments you don’t recognize — some with so many strings you can’t imagine how someone with only ten fingers could play them. There are so many bookshelves, none of them matching, full to overflowing with precariously stacked books and vinyl records. There are a few little tables scattered about, littered with abandoned cups of tea and empty crisp packets. A large vintage armchair is jammed in a corner facing a fireplace which crackles with blue flames. The only other piece of furniture is a worn red velvet settee with a ratty blanket thrown carelessly over the back. One wall is completely empty which is jarring until you realize why: it’s completely covered in chalk. There are theorems, paradoxes, to do lists and even a list of foods he adores versus foods to avoid at all costs. And in the corners there are little doodles of Daleks with knobby stockinged feet that renders them harmless and borderline twee. And there he was, popping up from behind the massive armchair to deposit what looked like an armful of different sonic screwdrivers.
“Have you finally come round to sleep being boring? It’s alright, I won’t say I told you so, but I can’t guarantee I won’t think it.”
He started in toward you without looking up, too busy patting himself down until he somehow produced yet more screwdrivers from his pockets.
“So where would you like to go then? New Earth? I heard it’s lovely this time of year. Or maybe New New Earth? It’s even *lovelier* this time of year.”
He finally looks up at you, long curly hair stretched out and fluffy where he’s run his fingers through it, eyes red rimmed and slightly bloodshot. He’s shed his magician’s coat, clad only in his undershirt and the holy jumper overtop — which might in fact be inside out and is definitely smeared all up the forearms with chalk dust.
“Oh.” His face goes blank before the eyebrows catch up, pulling in toward each other.
“Oh, no.” The brows begin to contort as he assesses the situation, flipping through his emotional rolodex.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The words are like being exterminated all over again and you feel your face crumple. The tears are starting, the embarrassment rushing feverish into your cheeks. You start to stumble backwards, an apology stuttering behind your vocal chords without release.
“Where are you going?” He sounds so lost, the little boy who ran away from home into the great wild universe.
I shouldn’t have come in here, I’m so sorry.
You feel a buzz in your head, presumably the TARDIS disagreeing with the sentiment — but it’s sharper, the smell of leather and steel and not in your nose but in your brain.
“Wait!” He shouts, running up behind you. Just before you make it to the threshold his hand is wrapping around your wrist.
“ — no, nononononoooo that’s not — not what I meant.”
The tang of leather is even stronger now — louder, somehow. It frightens you, that maybe the Dalek’s damage had managed to cross over after all.
Is this what synesthesia is like?
Did they break me or was I broken already?
“I meant — you shouldn’t be awake .” He pulls you back around to face him before dropping your hand like it were a hot pan. He shakes his head in a frenetic back and forth, fingers aggressively raking through his curls.
“It’s reset time for that pudding brain of yours. Very important, I’ve been reliably informed.”
He seemed even more erratic than usual, familiar in its desperation.
That’s it — he’s tired. He gets more energetic when he’s tired.
It’s obvious now how his whole body collapses in on itself, every ounce of energy dedicated to keeping him awake until he’s worn thin as paper. Perhaps he has more in common with pudding brains than you thought.
He looks so distraught, clearly at the end of his rope. It’s less jarring then, when he creeps up to you and leans down into your space.
“You should be sleeping. Why aren’t you sleeping?” His palms come up, hovering over your cheeks. He’s hesitating and the moment extends out, another installment in this purgatory of touch between you. You long for it, desperate for the connection, but you also refuse to push him that final inch. It has to be his choice. But you wish so badly, as if you could manifest it. It builds in your brain, an insistent and percussive ache that builds to a shout:
Please, Doctor
Miraculously, he lets out a sigh like a deflated balloon and drops his hands to your cheeks. It’s so blissfully simple in its comfort, like the horsehead nebula and the alarm clock, that you begin to cry in earnest, quiet streams slipping out from your swollen eyes. Somewhere, a space in your head is filling up.
“Why — are you leaking?”
You shake your head, tears spilling over his fingertips.
“Nooo, “ he coos, rubbing his thumbs over your wet, smeary cheekbones. “No no — okay, it’s alright, shhh, we’re going to sort this — whatever it is, right?”
“Come,” he softly urges. He pulls his jumper sleeves over his palms before swiping them over your cheeks, leaving behind a smear of chalk under your left eye. He takes your hand back in his and leads you back into the room toward the velvet settee. You can see now that there are yet more sonic screwdrivers strewn over the cushions.
“I know,” he answers your unspoken thought, “Thousands of years later and I’m still beta testing.”
He pulled his hand from yours to tip the cushions, sending the gadgets tumbling to the floor. He kicks them under the settee with the heel of his boot and then snaps up with a self-satisfied smile like a child who’s “cleaned” his room.
“There,” he declares, gesturing to the cushions with one outstretched arm. “Sit, please.”
As you sat, he dropped to his knees in front of you, producing his current sonic screwdriver from the ether. It buzzed over you in a quick sweep.
“Unfortunately, all is in order, physically speaking.”
“Unfortunately?”
He blinked, caught out. “Ah, well, I only meant…” he looked away sheepishly for a moment, fiddling with the instrument in his hands. “Physical ailments are always easier to treat.”
You smiled despite yourself. “I thought you were a doctor.”
“Nooo, I just play one on the telly.”
You laughed properly and that little private smile returned to his face.
“Out with it, then,” he whispered. “What’s all this leaking about?”
You paused for a long time, gazing down at his hands where he was still fiddling. One of his hands left the gadget to grip lightly at your ankle, thumb running lightly along the bone.
“The Daleks…”
He inhaled, fingers tightening around your leg.
“I keep reliving it.”
“But you didn’t live it,” he replied in a hush, so insistent it sounded like he was reassuring himself.
“But I did, Doctor. I felt the energy go through me, burn me from the inside out. I felt the pain, the fear, the loss… and I keep feeling it. And now these nightmares —.”
“Nightmares?”
“Every night since. Different variations, longer and more painful and in different locations — planets and TARDISes and Doctor’s I’ve never seen before. I think something is really wrong with me.”
His face had taken on an ashy hue, his eyebrows smoothing out and eyes going unfocused. His fingers slipped from your skin as he rocked back on his heels.
“Oh I’m sorry. I’m so…so sorry.” He was suddenly up from the floor and stumbling away from you. You felt suddenly bereft, the air punched from your lungs. There was an acidic taste on your tongue as if you’d bitten into a battery.
“What? What did I do?”
He shook his head, burying his face in his hands.
“ You haven’t done anything, but I…”
“Am I broken?”
A sharp noise cut through your head, feeling a lot like a four letter word but in a language you don’t speak. He spun around in a blur, jabbing a long finger in your direction.
“No, no absolutely not you’re not broken – you never have been broken and you never will be broken, not if I have anything to say about it.”
He folded in on himself, the wind leaving his sails.
“I owe you an apology.”
“No you don’t—“
“ Yes I do. ” His tone was sharp and it would have upset you if he hadn’t looked so positively wretched. This new sort of fragility did not suit him.
“Telepathy — bit tricky, yeah?”
You nodded, both confused and embarrassed as you recalled your foibles. “You said it’s hard for us humans.”
His smile turned self-deprecating, twisting up his cheek into a boyish sneer.
“I did say humans, didn’t I? Well, it’s tricky for Time Lords too. And truthfully, in this body, it’s the trickiest it’s ever been.”
You shook your head. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, neither do I. Right. Ah!” His face lit up and he darted for the chalkboard. He drew a piece out of his pocket with one hand while his other forearm worked to wipe it somewhat clean.
“So, take your standard — well, maybe slightly less than standard — model Time Lord —“ he scratched out a few humanoid figures, but none were familiar to you. One was in an old fashioned suit and vest, with slicked back white hair and a monocle tied to a ribbon around his neck. The middle one was only two eyes and a nose peeking out from a bushel of hair and an absurdly long scarf. And the last was a stick of a man with floppy hair and a bow tie. He gestured to them for a beat before continuing to sketch.
“Now, introduce any other species that is capable of sentience or something resembling thought.” He scribbled a circle of various creatures around the main three. One was definitely a Dalek — another looked like your run of the mill B movie robot with handles on either side of its head.
“This lot —“ he gestured to the outer circle, “is doing that terribly inadvisable thing — thinking .” He pulled a stick of red chalk from his pocket and drew arrows pointing from each head inward toward the three men in the middle.
“And the Time Lords, well, they’re trying not to, but they are anyway.” He draws a flurry of red arrows from each head in the middle pointing out toward the circle.
“But here’s the trick —“ he then pulls a piece of yellow chalk from his pocket — how many pieces of chalk can he possibly stuff into those tight trousers, you wonder. He proceeds to draw a dotted line in a big circle, bisecting the two collections of arrows.
“Time Lords — and other telepathic species — are taught how to shield. It’s as essential in telepathic races as lying or omission is in verbal ones.” He drew out yet another piece of chalk — TARDIS blue — and drew intermittent arrows both entering and exiting the dotted circle.
“Children learn to sort of… filter. Both their own outgoing thoughts as well as incoming ones. So now imagine if someone had no shield, no filter to speak of, and just went about saying anything and and everything —“
You said nothing, but he paused when he looked up at you, fidgeting in that schoolboy way again.
“Luckily you don’t have to. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I’m this way out loud because I’m this way inside .”
His words were soft, thick with emotion, though his hand scribbled in severe, jerky motions. He passed the colored sticks from hand to hand, the juggling act of a uni professor.
You stood up off the couch to move around him to see the board better. A massive chalky set of eyebrows and piercing blue eyes had been scribbled on top of the three men and a flurry of red arrows flew away from them.
“Now you see all that training — the shielding, the filtering — for some of my selves it was muscle memory. Pre-baked and instinctual like a craving for fish fingers and custard. But this one…it just isn’t there. Gone — or at least locked away somewhere. So it all goes sort of —“
He sends a new torrent of red arrows shooting down into the eyebrows, the lines drawn over a few times until they’re jagged and powdery.
“So I’m starting from scratch. And you know what they say about teaching an old dog new telepathy —“
He didn’t finish the thought, only kept scratching out arrows. These ones were flying outwards though, mercilessly piercing the beings in the circle.
“But the worst part is actually —“ he took the blue chalk and was sketching a fresh doodle overtop the outer circle. It was another pair of eyes and after a closer look you realized they were your own. The shape of the eyelid, the arch of the brow — they were quintessentially yours. You hardly had time to appreciate it before he was assaulting it with red arrows, driven right through the carefully rendered blue lines.
“ — is that I’m leaky.”
He spun to face you, and before you could stop him he was running his chalky fingers through his hair until the fluffy white mass looked like multicolored candy floss.
“Not in the way you humans are — “ he waved in your direction, going soft in the eyes again. “Not in the very wet, pathos-inspiring way, but telepathically.”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m not very touchy. It isn’t because I don’t want to —“ his gaze locked with yours and he paused, a deep yearning inflating his eyes for a moment before he deflected away again. “Hugs! Love a hug. But physical touch makes it somehow worse. It’s like turning on the tap full blast I’m just —“ his hands flapped around his head in a spewing motion that made you chuckle.
“Everyone slips up now and then, accidentally tells Aunt Susan her Christmas dinner is crap — but I’m all slip ups.”
“But what does this have to do with me?”
“This dream you’re having… it’s not really your dream — it’s mine. It’s the one I’ve been having the past few days, when I lose focus and end up in one of my cat naps. The high emotional toll combined with a brain like a strainer and I’m essentially projecting it straight into your head.”
You nodded, considering.
“But you said it’s the same dream. It’s exactly the same?”
“Yes, it’s just as you said. Different planets, different me’s...”
“So you can feel the Dalek…exterminate you?”
He winced, nodding hesitantly. “Yes.”
“And have you ever been exterminated before?”
He went all squinty, contemplating.
“Not…to my knowledge, no.”
“But I have.”
“Yes and I’m so very sorry for that —“ he reached out with both hands as if to caress your face again, but he caught himself, clenching them into fists.
“No — Doctor what I’m saying is —“ you captured his hands before they could retreat entirely, unfurling them and laying them back on your cheeks.
“I think I’m the one projecting onto you. ”
In that second, a connection sparked to life. The smell of leather and guitar strings and millennia-old, whiskey-soaked jelly babies exploded in your nose. You reached up with a gasp, placing your hands on his cheeks so you were one constant feedback loop. You heard your name, knew it was yours even as it was whispered in that same unfamiliar language as before. The nightmare spun out before your eyes: your duplicate being pierced with the bright beam of light, screaming in agony — and then you safe in the TARDIS, lungs deflating as you continued to wail. And then suddenly it was the Doctor’s avatar being shot while the real article wept and shook in your arms in the console room. The dual narratives looped and overlapped, like pieces of film sandwiched over each other inside the projector. It was a blur of pain and tears and confusion but it was also double the catharsis, double the processing power as you shared the mental load. Eventually the dream began to shift, the doctor calling your name in English alongside what you now realized was Gallifreyan, each of your doppelgängers melding back into one solid flesh. He was reaching for your hand, drawing you up from the floor of the console. He took your other hand and placed it on the main lever, placing his on top of it. He pressed his lips to your temple, whispering sweet nothings in the language of the Time Lords as you threw the switch together.
You came back to yourself with a gasp. You were both on your knees on the floor, foreheads pressed together, hands still on each others cheeks where they each glowed a very faint golden color.
“You glorious, wonderful, beautiful, impossible thing. I knew you could do it.”
∘⊙∘ No he didn’t, that was me. ∘⊙∘
“Oh shut it would you?”
You tried to smile and laugh but all you managed was a skewed grimace and a strangled sob. You started to shiver, even though you burned from the inside like a furnace.
“And that’s the drop you’ll be feeling now.”
He suddenly had an arm around you, cradling you to himself. The other was still on your face, pushing your hair out of your eyes.
“Shh — it’s alright, everything’s all right.”
❓ I should bring them back — ❓
∘⊙∘ No, no bad ∘⊙∘
❓Yes quite right❓
∘⊙∘ No, wrong — ∘⊙∘
❓Yes I know *wrong* I meant *right* about the *wrong*❓
❓Could you —❓
∘⊙∘ Already done. ∘⊙∘
❓And perhaps —❓
∘⊙∘ Yes, dear. ∘⊙∘
The silent conversation waged in your mind as he scooped you up in a bridal carry, standing in a shockingly swift movement. Your surprise must have carried through because he snorted.
“Don’t judge a book by its old human cover.”
The red velvet settee was no longer a settee at all. It had somehow elongated and become a four poster bed, piled high with the throw pillows and stuffed animals you kept on your bed in your room. There were the blankets, too — the threadbare one you had since primary school and the one your grandmother crocheted for you before her hands got too stiff to make them. There was even the side table with the multi-planetary clock and the stack of books you stole from the library on Mars — unreadable outside the translation field of the TARDIS. There was also a glass of water and what appeared to be a diverse collection of pills.
“Our brains are too enmeshed now — to attempt to conform to just one would put too great of a strain on that extraordinary pudding you’ve got which just now is quite a bit more runny than usual. Hence a little bit of you and a little bit of me.”
“Here we are.” He deposited you on the edge of the bed, sitting you upright before he knelt down between your knees. He took your head back into his hands, keeping your chin from hitting your chest. He tilted your face up, peering into both eyes in that way that felt like he was reading your genetic code, reaching all the way down into the deepest crannies of you. But this time it was accompanied by a warm sort of buzzing, like the quiver of a guitar string. You thanked all the stars in the galaxy once again that he had chosen to be a good man.
“I’m sure you’re feeling like — well, like warmed over pudding, I’d expect. It’s alright, it’ll pass.”
His hands reluctantly pulled away — the buzz receding as he did so — so he could collect the pills and the glass from the table.
“Take these — space paracetamol but just normal water. It’ll help with the hangover, so to speak. Doctor’s orders”
You swallowed the pills dutifully, drinking half the glass before pushing it away.
“Well done, darling.”
He didn’t say the pet name — at least not out loud, but you heard it all the same. It was like the entire catalog of mushy, pudding-like emotions were shut up behind those slanty eyebrows and now they were revealed to you in vivid technicolor. You felt acute remorse for the times you had thought him callous or unfeeling when all along he had been like a one way radio with a receiver but no speaker.
“Hey,” he said, tilting your head back up with a finger. His eyes were gentle, an enduring forgiveness behind them that had set up shop long ago and simply never left.
You leaned into the hand on your cheek, the buzz intensifying in a deeply satisfying — like laying your hand on a booming speaker, radiating up your hand until it rattled your synapses about. He hummed, placing his other hand on the nape of your neck.
“Yes, I quite agree.”
He started to stand and you protested with a groan.
“Shhhh, give me a moment,” he hushed, bent over at the waist. “I’ve just got to….” His boots fell to the floor with a dull thump and he proceeded to climb onto the bed like a hesitant toddler.
“Come here.”
He began gently coaxing you backwards, spinning you until you were snuggled up along his front. His left hand crept up under the hem of your jumper to cup your bare hip, the other alighting on your nape to tuck your head under his chin. Even half an hour ago this would have seemed out of character at best and presumptuous at worst — you could even feel a little fizzle of uncertainty weave its way from the back of his subconscious into your head. But things had gone all topsy turvy once that connection had slotted into place and now the idea of losing that physical connection was unbearable.
“I know,” he answered your silent musing, the rumble of his voice a physical echo of the one in your head. “I’ve heard it can be like this — especially with species who aren’t used to telepathic connection.”
You whimpered, a pulse of pain pressing against the walls of your skull.
“Shhhh it won’t be long now. I can feel it ebbing — even if you can’t.”
You lie there in silence, in a state between sleep and waking, eyes closed, listening to the lull of his breath and the resonant sympatico of his hearts. The room had slowly darkened, the result of another quiet conversation between the thief and his ship. You managed another small thank you , receiving a warm pulse in your head and a fond chuckle from the Time Lord.
After several long moments, the dizziness had all but gone and the throbbing in your head had reduced to a vague ache, like a healing bruise.
“How are you feeling now?”
You hummed, nuzzling further into his neck.
“Better, thank you.”
His relieved exhale whistled over your head, his fingers massaging the base of your spine.
“What did I do then?”
“Hm?”
“To…unlock it?”
His brain fizzled as he considered and it tickled in your nose like carbonated soda.
“Not sure, but I’m willing to bet it was the Daleks. Extreme emotional strain can unlock psychic ability so to speak. But sometimes…”
He trailed off, the popping and sizzling suddenly dissipating.
“What is it?”
Suddenly there was a door in your brain — many different doors, in fact, blurring one over the other. You realized they were all variations of the doors to the TARDIS as it had subtly changed over the years. And then they were accompanied by the distinct sound of four percussive knocks.
“Not all Gallifreyans are born with their full range of telepathic abilities. Like you, they sometimes take a few years to unlock. She was like that — the only one of our peers who couldn’t communicate that way. And then one day —“
He didn’t explain vocally — instead, a barrage of images flickered behind your eyes like documentary footage. A very small Missy, looking much different than you knew her — boyish, with sharp features that gave her young face a malevolent tinge. She was running from some unseen threat, little legs pumping in short bursts. Suddenly she was falling, the ground crumbling beneath her feet. Someone grasped her hand just in time leaving her dangling there in abject terror. The hand belonged to the Doctor, equally small and unfamiliar visually, but with the same familiar, unflinching bravery. He was encouraging her to hold on, that he had her, that he’d fix it — but her tiny hand was growing slippery and he couldn’t keep his grasp until….
The memory abruptly went dark, sealed off behind the TARDIS doors in your linked minds.
“That was the first time she regenerated. Too early, some would say. So when she came back, her telepathy was there but it was…wrong. Her brain has always been beautiful…alluring…but sharp, like walking into a rose bush only to find all the little scratches and cuts the next morning.”
A cold shiver wound it’s way down your spine and you clutched the back of his jumper.
“Will that happen to me?”
He pressed his face into your hair, subtly shaking his head.
“To be honest, I don’t know. Even I can’t predict the future. But your mind…it’s different. I tried not to imagine what it would feel like, but when I did…it was just like this. Like honey and flaky Italian pastries from that tiny little bakery in Glasgow. Bright like the double sunrise on Jastar Prime. Comforting, like the red sunsets of Gallifrey.”
Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes where he gently thumbed them away.
∘⊙∘ Enough emotional distractions, our human needs rest. ∘⊙∘
❓Yes, yes I know, it’s not my first pudding brain rodeo. ❓
∘⊙∘ Could have fooled me ∘⊙ ∘
You giggled, equal parts exhausted and thoroughly charmed.
“The two of you —,“ you mentally gestured to the TARDIS. “Are you always like this?”
“Oh, yes — aren’t you glad you joined the party line?” You hang up first , he added mentally.
“She’s right though—“
As always, she added
“You need rest. Your brain needs time to heal, to adjust.”
“Why are you still talking out loud? We don’t need to, do we?”
“It’s possible to become out of practice. You’re improving my conversational skills, verbally and otherwise.”
“When we were linked, your nightmare — your version of my nightmare — they were all you… but…not.” You remembered the blur of faces, different genders and skin tones and accents when they screamed. You recognized one, with a long multicolored scarf as one of the doodles he’d made during his frenzied lecture on telepathy.
“Yeah, they were all me. That’s another thing — sometimes I get thoughts and feelings that are mine…But not this me. It’s not quite memories because they’ve never happened before. It’s me, feeling and reacting, but in a voice and a face I don’t have anymore.”
“Wow,” you muttered. “That’s —“
“Yes,” he cut in, sounding devastatingly weary. “It is.”
You weren’t sure what to say, or even think, so you simply hugged him tighter, placing a kiss between his two hearts.
Long moments passed again in molasses-like slowness. You had thought he had finally succumbed to sleep once and for all when he let out a long sigh against your scalp.
“I don’t understand why everyone always looks so angry when I say pudding brains.” It’s so soft, his breath tickling your neck. You send him a gentle ?, urging him on.
“Pudding’s my favorite. If I wanted to insult you I’d call you pear brains.”