Welcome to the first days of the rest of your life, Doctor Who, Nine

[arnica]

Welcome to the first days of the rest of your life
Doctor Who
Ninth Doctor
For the prompt:Doctor Who, Nine, The First Day After I Killed My Planet.




Technically he spends the first day after Gallifrey is gone unconscious on the Tardis floor as well as the next three; sick to the edge of death (true death) from the psychic backlash of an entire race snapping out of his mind at once. When he does wake to a universe with no Time Lords, no Gallifrey, no Time *War*, and a new ninth body The Doctor is lost. Frightened. There is nothing at all where the low humming of billions of minds should be. He screams until his voice gives out and climbs into a small dark space. He thinks he should know the name for it, but he doesn't know the name of anything right now. Damage has been done, trying to regenerate while every telepathic pathway in his brain was being ripped open and rearranged.

By the time he knows the words for what he's doing (hiding) and where he is (Tardis, cupboard) the Doctor has lost track of the days. Not that it matters anyway. They're drifting in the Vortex, the Tardis recovering as slowly as he is from the exact same things that hurt him.

These days don't count.

These aren't days.

He lies in his bed in the silence and tries not to scream. He screams anyway. He begs gods he's never believed in, devils he has met, anyone or anything that may have/might one day exist(ed) to bring them back. To undo what he's done. To take him with them. No one answers him.

There are no gods anyway.

He thinks about killing himself and the Tardis sings soft and lonely. Reminds him that it's only them. That he is her thief and he cannot leave her alone in a universe where no one knows or remembers what she is and can do and never must be allowed to do again. He rolls out of the bed and stumbles to the shower. Washes away the reminders of war and death without looking at himself. He doesn't care what he looks like. He knows who he is. He's the man from nowhere and he wants to go back. The Doctor thumbs off water that was too hot (he doesn't notice the burns)and pads naked to the wardrobe, dripping water and cutting brand new tender soles on metal grating. He doesn't care what he wears. Wants something *not* special, *not* different, *NOT* Doctor to wear. Pulls on the first things he touches and pauses as his fingers touch a short jacket of cows leather from Earth.

Somewhere, at some time on Earth someone knows who he is. Someone knows what the Tardis is. A few well beloved someones even know what to do with her should he (accidentally, of course) join the rest of the Time Lords. He runs to the console room with one boot on, one in hand.

The Tardis has already set the coordinates for Earth, 2005.

It's good enough for him.

She lands with a thump in London and the Doctor steps out of months of the nothingness and no time of the vortex and into the first day after he killed his planet.

Comments

[senmut]

Holy Hannah, this is GORGEOUSLY raw and aching and perfect!

[katarik]

Oh. Oh, Nine -- I love that realization of the word for what he's doing (hiding) and where and the TARDIS singing him out of dying. Talking to gods that don't exist and devils he's met. That's a great line.

[ilyena_sylph]

Oh. Beautiful.

So beautiful, and so heartbreaking.

[evilawyer]

Ah, poor Nine! I love how you've captured what I (can't speak for everyone else) see as being the essence of Nine: His deep shame at having "killed his planet." It defined not just him, but everything he did and tried to do --- taking on the Classic Time Lords' job of trying to heal time fractures and their results in the universe, trying to let species exist in a way that didn't annihilate other species without thought to feeding his own ego, healing himself through helping Rose grow, etc. Love Eleven, but I miss Nine, and I love this.