Chapter Text
The Doctor was alone, drifting through the time vortex, neither here nor there.
In the silence, the Tardis was trying to communicate with him again. She was becoming increasingly more persistent as the days - or whatever they could be called within the vortex - slipped by, and he was doing his very best to ignore her. He knew he was deteriorating. But that wasn't the issue, he told himself. The issue was his inability to mend that deterioration.
He'd awoken, not long ago, jumping from the grip of a nightmare that had seemed all-too-real in his head, and had taken to striding blindly around the corridors of his ship with an unfocused gaze and a stumbling, shuffling gait. It was becoming a habit, this little routine of his, and the Tardis didn't seem to like it one bit. Maybe she knew how bad this particular occasion had gotten, because she was tapping against his consciousness with ferocious insistence.
He blocked her out, dedicating the remaining shreds of his coherence into fortifying his mental walls. He'd hate for her to know what was going on inside his head. She always got so worried - and he didn't need anyone's worry anymore. He was The Doctor. The Destroyer of Worlds. The Bringer of Darkness; The Oncoming Storm...
He'd vowed long ago that he'd deal with it all on his own.
His fingers were wrapped tightly around the console bench, so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. He hated that colour, he decided. Pale and sickly, like dead skin--
--Dead, waxy skin. Empty, glassy eyes. Crow-picked corpses. The stench of burning flesh singeing his nostrils as he stumbled through the flame-ridden landscape--
--Back in the Tardis. His hands around the console bench. He wasn't there anymore, he reminded himself firmly.
He wasn't there, he wasn't there, he wasn't there, he wasn't...
His breathing hitched. And perhaps that was where the downward spiral began. Respiratory bypass or no, that single stutter in his physical system was enough to launch the chain chemical-reaction in his body. His hearts began to accelerate faster than any starship, pounding within his ribcage like birds trying to break free of his chest. His blood rushed in his ears, pupils dilating, nostrils flaring...
Danger.
Somewhere in his mind, a switch had been flicked.
There was danger here.
The Doctor was no longer in control. He found himself on the floor, knees digging into the harsh metal grating, hands now gripping each of his arms, trying to bury themselves into the skin. Only the sleeves of his suit barred them from drawing blood. His mind was flooding with sensation, all the emotions he usually tried so hard to bottle up coming back in full force. Smells, sounds, feelings - all clawing at him like some great galactic beast with too many talons and razor-sharp teeth.
He was standing in a field on Gallifrey, observing the blood run down a cut in his arm, he was watching a child scream for her mother as buildings crumbled around him, he was hearing the harsh smash of a glass bottle amidst a roaring commotion...
--Oh, he told himself he wasn't scared of death. He was a Time Lord, for fuck's sake - regeneration wasn't the end of the world! And yet here he was, cowering on the Tardis floor, the lights flashing blindingly around him due to his distress, and he was more terrified than he'd ever been in his entire lives.
He was going to die.
His hearts told him that fact with absolute certainty as they galloped wildly, pumping the notion forcefully into his bloodstream as he clutched at his throat, eyes screwed tightly shut.
He was going to die!
He could smell the fire - hear it crackling and laughing at him. He could feel it licking at his skin, and knew he had mere moments before the excruciating pain began.
Oh, he was going to die, he was going to die, he was going to die--
--He couldn't do this, not anymore. Timeless, ageless, emotionless... He couldn't do it for a single second more!
☆
The Tardis landed with a loud, heavy thud.
The Doctor didn't notice.
He didn't see the door open, nor did he hear as footsteps echoed across the room.
What he did notice, however, was his name.
"Theta," the Master whispered gently.