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A feeling of vertigo. But they’re good at suppressing that, at least visibly.
The normal checks – standard procedure – done in the breadth of a second: liver function, kidney function, heart, heart, brain, lungs, inner ear, stomach, adrenal glands, lymph nodes. No poison, nothing physically wrong. But: head spinning, pulse increased. Lots of cortisol. That heaviness at the bottom of their hearts feels like it’s being jostled.
Is this new? Or just too many different things?
A moment of reflection: However many years they’ve lived, they still haven’t figured out how to process these things fully. They always reach a limit – I can cope with this up to here . There’s too much shit to wade through to feel it all at once. They don’t think anyone could.
Because sometimes they think so fast it overwhelms them. They sympathize with humans and their binaries, however inhibiting – really, they do. Just one world is full of so much complexity, they don’t blame humans for trying to simplify. Pray to the rain god for rain. Make an us and a them.
With a passing tinge of jealousy, they envy the humans. For all the privilege of being able to see the universe in all its glory and disaster, everything lives on in memory. A billion billion lives and deaths shout and swirl in the Doctor’s head.
They look into a puddle on the road and a familiar face stares back. If they squint their eyes a bit, they can’t tell if the lines in their face are real or just a distortion of reflection, tiny raindrop-waves in an urban reflecting pool. In the absence of physical flight, the escapism of imagination is a coping mechanism too. Let’s say these are lines in a puddle and I am who I once was. Casting the memory back who-knows-how-many years. When this face had only slight smile lines and the dark circles under their eyes were only tricks of the light. Let’s simplify. Back to when their conflicts were somehow smaller, when there were fewer voices screaming in their head. When they last felt hopeful and boyish and light.
A bitterness tugs on their ear. That emotion they recognize well. They’ve learned how to stifle the “why me”s over the years. Learned a certain resignation to unhappiness and grief. A certain acceptance of loneliness – a fair trade-off, they argue, for everything they’ve done, everything they’re able to do. But they still feel slightly resentful of that boy, just 900 years old, complaining of the pain they felt, the unfairness of it all. When their life was so much simpler. Oh just they wait.
But no, not now – Numb.
The Doctor blinks, looks up to the street, smiles blankly at no one. The puddle stares up at them still, again a lined-faced man drawn from below. They ignore its gaze.
Enough. Time for going. Move.
They turn and weigh their options. To the left, a drizzly London street. To the right, the same. In front, the road, rubber tires turning up wakes of rainwater as they roll forward and away. Behind, the service entrance to UNIT. Donna is inside, filling out paperwork.
They can’t bear to go back inside, not even to shelter in the TARDIS, not with this pit in their stomach. But they can’t leave – not without Donna. They consider calling her, telling her I’ve just nipped out for a quick coffee, let me know when you’re ready to go, but that sits poorly in their mouth. Walking three minutes to the nearest coffee shop hardly feels like movement, and knowing they’re being tracked by whatever facial recognition software UNIT is using these days makes them feel like they’re pacing around in a pen.
That’s the vertigo. Knowing they’re trapped.
But no, they’ve been trapped, stranded, exiled, surveilled, left alone and to die many many times before. This is not the same. They have their TARDIS. They trust UNIT enough. And they have their best friend, a built in family, a place to work – presumably, a place to live. More than what they’ve had in a very, very, very long time.
When was the last time they had a family? Where they felt like family?
They think of River and sigh. Look up at the grey London sky. Down at their damp converse on the damper pavement.
Gone.
The Ponds, gone.
Donna’s family – they were gone.
They can’t bear to think of Martha. Of all the emotions, guilt is the one they can’t handle the most.
And then Rose. Rose, who had reminded them of their decency, who had believed in them so fully, who had loved and been loved so profoundly. Whose loss had broken their heart so completely they still can’t believe that one person – one random shopgirl from a random estate in London – had such a hold on their life.
Lesson learned, again. Don’t get trapped. Run, Run, Run, Run, Run. Don’t believe the ones who say they’ll stay. Don’t buy into the delusion.
It will always fall apart.
I am doomed by the narrative, they think. Who even knows whose narrative anymore.
The Doctor leans against the side of the building.
Donna will die, Wilf will die, Sylvia and Rose Noble will die. Obviously. Everything dies and everything ends. Or some such bullshit. But now they can’t run away – their own self told them they couldn’t. “I’m fine, because you fix yourself,” they said. The timeline has been set. No more running away. Trapped, Trapped, Trapped.
Prick.
No, not really– but
The vertigo rises.
What do trapped animals do?
The Doctor turns around in a fury–? Something familiar and foreign. Old books with the dust brushed off.
The dictionary definition of distress is: Extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain.
Panic is: sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety.
Grief is: deep sorrow.
They slam a kick into the metal service door.
The energy does drain out.
They feel it pool around their shoes. No cracks in the concrete. Nowhere to run.
They turn their back to the door again and slide down the wall to the ground, ignoring the cold of the concrete, the shifting stages of grief around their ankles as they meet it.
A certain clarity of mind.
How do you balance fear with ecstasy?
How can you do both at the same time?
What happens when you’re forced to stop running?
What if you’re afraid of being happy?
Something that people don’t like to admit: There’s something familiar, comforting, stable about melancholy. See, if you’ve resigned yourself to sadness – if it is always your expected outcome – then though the happy parts will never be as happy as they could be, the sad parts will never cut as deep. Instinct comes from habit, comes from necessity. The higher you rise, the harder you fall.
To be told to climb a cliff face in hopes you can fall off of it more gracefully than before…
Fuck you. I survived this long because of not looking back. Because looking back would break me. Because I don’t know how to handle this. I can’t.
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
But I want to. ( FUCK !)
But no, I don’t want to. ( WHY ?!)
Because I can’t. ( WHY NOT ?)
Because it’s hard. ( SO WHAT ?)
I don’t deserve it. ( STILL ?)
I’m still a fuck-up. ( SO ?)
I can carry on. ( YOU CAN’T !)
I’ll find a way. ( THERE ISN’T ONE !)
There has to be. ( HOW FUCKING COME ?)
BECAUSE I’M SCARED!
Shit.
I need to. ( No you don’t .)
Because I can’t do this anymore. ( YES YOU CAN !)
Because it’s too hard. ( NO IT’S NOT !)
Because I deserve it. ( NO YOU DON’T !)
Because it hurts so much. ( BECAUSE IT HURTS TOO MUCH !)
Because I have to. ( YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO SHIT !)
Because I said so. ( TIME CAN BE REWRITTEN !)
Because of her. ( ... )
… (Because now I can.)
The Doctor stares off into the distance, looking at the puddle on the other side of the pavement without seeing it.
Donna in her wedding dress yelling insults from a hijacked taxi; Donna demanding a salute from UNIT commanders; Donna embracing them after a breakdown on the planet Midnight; Donna making a war song her own; Donna Noble ready to die to save her city; Donna Noble who asked them to save one person, just this one. Donna Noble who changed their life.
And then her world. Sylvia slapping the Doctor to protect her daughter; Shaun Temple gushing about his amazing girls; Rose Noble rushing to help an unknown alien because it was hurt; Wilf waiting every day in the back garden with his telescope, in the cold, hoping to spot his granddaughter dancing amongst the stars.
The Doctor, newly regenerated with an old face, telling a stranger how much they loved her, shocked at how quickly it came out.
The Doctor smiles, involuntarily, their eyes still unfocused on the puddle on the side of the road.
The door behind them opens.
“I thought I’d find you out here,” Donna says. The Doctor looks up. “What are you sitting on the pavement for, it’s been raining out.”
The Doctor shakes their head, ignoring the idea of their discomfort, and just gives a soft smile. It comes out weaker than intended.
Donna nods to herself, closes the door behind her and joins them on the ground. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“Oh, just…” the Doctor starts. Autopilot has some dismissive platitude cued up that they can deliver with enough energy to change the topic. But the rest of the sentence fails them.
Because of her.
And instead, a weary sigh escapes them. They shake their head to themselves, raising their eyebrows and dragging a hand down the side of their face. They look over at Donna, who’s quietly inspecting their expression. Donna, who always seemed to see straight through them; Donna, who they could never really lie to; Donna, who would never take excuses; Donna, who would not give up on them, despite everything. Despite all the horrific shit they’ve done. Despite all the pain and hurt and devastation they’ve caused. Or even just the shit that swirled around them. Donna, whose indomitable spirit the Doctor loved so much.
And it suddenly hits them, and finally they let it – the realization, the fact that they have a best friend. A Best Friend.
Something wild, crazed, almost maniacal seems to crash into the Doctor’s head and they have to stifle a burst of laughter. Like laughing at a funeral, they think. So many circuits firing that some of them get crossed. They must have finally cracked. Gone properly insane. Conclusively delusional.
Fuck the future, they think. It’ll happen anyway. They have a best friend right now . And then always – always – in their heart. Just like before.
A crazed, delusional thought: maybe a habit is being broken.
“I’m scared,” they say.
Donna nods. “Tell me more,” she says.
The Doctor and Donna sit on a rainy pavement, leaning on the side of a building and on each other, and a bit of something old and fearful is chipped away.