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“I’ll miss your lattes with steamed Austrian goat milk,” The man on the screen looks into the camera, and Stone can almost feel the Doctor looking at him. “I love the way you make them.”
Time ebbs by like honey, the slow force keeping him trapped in seeing the same scene play over and over again. Robotnik declares that he loves him, and the only thing he can do is shout uselessly at the screen, knowing that while the Doctor always knew his love, he will never get to know that he felt it the same as he did.
A lack of control. That was what that was, and he knows that that was what the Doctor hated the most.
Every part of his life was dedicated to creating, to becoming his own god, doing what the world had thought was impossible. All of his life, he worked to be the grandest.
And it ended as most tales do, with a figure such as Robotnik did. He flew too high, achieved the greatest thing that he would be known for for the next generations, and he saved the world.
Stone wonders if Icarus was known for being great before he flew. When he dropped, did the world pause to mourn the attempt at greatness? Or did they watch as the body fell into the ocean, uncaring?
The hydraulics of the crab open, and he walks out, not caring to resubmerge it.
The world moved on from Icarus, just as he could see they moved on from his love. He doesn't know how long he had let himself rot in the crab for a disgusting state of not eating, not sleeping, because why would food be worth eating if he didn't get to see the Doctor's poorly veiled smile as he ate with him? Why would sleeping be worth it when the man who should be sleeping peacefully next to him would merely haunt his dreams? A reminder of the life he had wasted.
He wonders if the Doctor would be disappointed if he saw him now. Whether he admitted it or not, the Doctor had always thought that Stone was competent.
His throat constricts as he remembers the days that Robotnik would have him build badniks beside him, the days that Robotnik would mockingly ask about his blueprints and then incorporate small things that Stone said. His Doctor had given him something to do when he left him the first time. Why couldn't he have given him something to let Stone know he was still alive?
As his feet hit the pavement, he admits to himself that it’s because he isn't. The Doctor is gone. No magical aliens to bring him back, nothing Stone can do to save him. That was what Stone's purpose had always been. To be there for the Doctor, to carry the limp, overworked body to bed back during the days at the lab, to nurse him back to health after he had almost died in his arms.
Would it have felt better for him if the Doctor had gotten to do that? To spend his last moments in the arms of the only person who ever cared about him? His heart aches in his chest as he thinks of how lonely it must have felt. To be millions of miles above the world, and instead of feeling the warmth of love cradling him, to just be- gone.
As he walks, he approaches a quite large bridge, the metal frames making him smile. He balances on the outer ledge and sits down, taking a moment to look at the welding marks on the edges before he looks down at the water that wades slowly beneath him.
All animals have a natural instinct to run from death. The distance between the flowing water and him would be a lethal drop. Given he didn't die on impact, the water would soon cradle him in a watery grave.
When Robotnik knew that he was going to die, did he feel like he needed to run?
‘The patron saint of one-way trips.’
The phrase leaves his mouth before he can understand what it means, but after a moment, the weight in his chest feels heavier. Laika had been a stray, and yet as they had prepared her for flight, to become something the world had never seen, she must have thought the scientists were just playing with her, that after all of her years of being alone, there was finally someone who cared. As the spacecraft had heated, did she feel the same as Robotnik had? Did she know that her death was soon, and, unknowing that the ones she had come to trust had been the ones who sent her there, wish that they would have been there for her?
Oh, how Stone wishes he could have been there for Robotnik.
He remembers how the Doctor had looked on that screen. The man had looked.. Like he had known that this was the end.
He had known that there was no saving him, and yet he still did it all for Stone.
But as he sits at the ledge, all he can think of is how he could have done something great. He could have made the Doctor proud, but instead of.. Doing whatever the Doctor would have wanted him to, he let himself stay still.
A clap of thunder in the distance cues the rain to begin, pouring down on him and into the river beneath.
He stands, grasping one of the beams in hand as he sees how the water begins to rush, the distance seeming like the space between worlds as he looks down.
He hears a whistle, a sound produced by his mind, but he knows that he has to follow; he had heard the Doctor use that same tone thousands of times over their years together.
‘Follow.’
The cool metal of the pole leaves his hand as he lets his body fall forward, the screaming rain holding him as he lets the water consume him.
No matter what, his job is to follow the Doctor. Now, more than ever.