His other sees what the Doctor in black hides from himself—that this recklessness, the desire to initiate an experiment that could easily result in death or regeneration, comes from his wish to run. To run from himself into someone else, a new personality that might not have the drums or that might know how to make peace with them, a new personality that would be one more remove from his mistakes.
Like his other, he runs from himself without stopping to look at what he runs from, the inescapable hurts he never holds still long enough to think about, and so none of his running can ever help him. He doesn't look at the way, in his Tenth, he clings to the remnants of his Ninth, clothing and body language and the quick temper, the harshness that the drums approve of and that sits poorly with his current personality.
Regeneration has not helped and cannot help him, because the man inside the changed body has not changed.
The man inside refuses to change. He was broken and healed at wrong angles, and he must break again in order to heal properly.
He must face the pain of the rebreaking, at his own hands or the hands of another. A Doctor's hands.
But he doesn't think any of this, not consciously. He pulls the leg dangling over the edge of the table back up, rests his arms on his knees, and his chin on his arms, brows drawn down in frustration as he regards his other. He catches the expression and smooths it over, converting it into formal, flat neutrality, a mask for his disappointment and irritation. After all, what his other's saying does make sense.
"Fine. No, fine, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking." He twists back around and lies down on the table properly, stretching out his long legs and settling his head back into the tangle of sensors at the top of the table. They begin to attach themselves automatically, electrodes positioning themselves at his temples and along his hairline, sharp-ended bio-reads slithering down along the back of his neck, disappearing under his skin to lace themselves into his spinal column. He has other devices that can take similar readings less invasively, but the extra margin of accuracy these sensors allow outweighs the snags of pain.
"Preliminary readings coming through?" He could cue the machine to recite its findings to him, but with the other Doctor here, it's quicker if he just has him check the displays.
no subject
Like his other, he runs from himself without stopping to look at what he runs from, the inescapable hurts he never holds still long enough to think about, and so none of his running can ever help him. He doesn't look at the way, in his Tenth, he clings to the remnants of his Ninth, clothing and body language and the quick temper, the harshness that the drums approve of and that sits poorly with his current personality.
Regeneration has not helped and cannot help him, because the man inside the changed body has not changed.
The man inside refuses to change. He was broken and healed at wrong angles, and he must break again in order to heal properly.
He must face the pain of the rebreaking, at his own hands or the hands of another. A Doctor's hands.
But he doesn't think any of this, not consciously. He pulls the leg dangling over the edge of the table back up, rests his arms on his knees, and his chin on his arms, brows drawn down in frustration as he regards his other. He catches the expression and smooths it over, converting it into formal, flat neutrality, a mask for his disappointment and irritation. After all, what his other's saying does make sense.
"Fine. No, fine, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking." He twists back around and lies down on the table properly, stretching out his long legs and settling his head back into the tangle of sensors at the top of the table. They begin to attach themselves automatically, electrodes positioning themselves at his temples and along his hairline, sharp-ended bio-reads slithering down along the back of his neck, disappearing under his skin to lace themselves into his spinal column. He has other devices that can take similar readings less invasively, but the extra margin of accuracy these sensors allow outweighs the snags of pain.
"Preliminary readings coming through?" He could cue the machine to recite its findings to him, but with the other Doctor here, it's quicker if he just has him check the displays.