or_timelords | This could prove to be interesting.

[There's weariness in the other Doctor's demeanor, as if he's heard all of this before, as if he's tired of repeating himself. But he'll have to, one more time, because something has made this other Doctor different from him, and the Doctor needs to know.]

[He needs to know what saved himself from becoming the man standing before him.]

[When the other man reaches out, his fingers spread out in the traditional gesture, asking for permission to create a connection, the Doctor tenses at first. So close to the other Doctor he can hear the drums; it's more than an echo now. He's got the drums, he's got guns; this other Doctor is a warrior, and the Doctor doesn't trust warriors.]

[He'll have to, though. If he wants to know, he will have to trust this other version of himself. He drops all his mental shielding and sends out an invitation, his eyes sliding shut almost on their own.]

//Show me.//

[Alright. A deep breath, as he closes his own eyes and puts his hands on his other self's temples, and then he opens contact. If he could, he would muffle the drums; but they're beyond his control, and in telepathic rapport like this, unavoidable—as much a part of him as the memories he shares.]

[He lets his own shields down fully, too; if the other Doctor pries too closely into sensitive areas, he may pull back, try to shield, but for the moment, he'll let him see whatever he needs to, to understand the differences between them.

There's the Time War, the end of it, that choice and that burden, a common point between them, as is much of the history that goes before. Beyond that...everything starts to come apart.

No companions, for years following the Time War. Loneliness and anger and remembering the man he was, before the war, and searching for that man, across all of time and space. A restlessness, a scratching pressure at the back of his mind, that wasn't the drums yet but that would grow into them. No rest, no peace, no reasons, and no explanations. The last Dalek, and destroying it, and still finding no peace, though that may have been the first day of the drums. He can't remember; he isn't certain. They crept up, somehow, until they were a part of him and it's hard to know when they purred up from silence to thunder.

The Game Station. Jack, but no Rose. A choice. The same choice. Again.

And he chose killer.

Waking up after, as a new man. The rush of that, because, really, his Tenth is all about the rush, the wonder, the brilliant run from sight to sight, experience to experience, and, in the post-regenerative haze, in those first few moments, he hadn't had the memories to mar that outlook.

Coming awake properly, and wandering the station. No bodies, only gray dust; and he couldn't remember who he was or what had happened. The Earth below, gray clouds like duststorms continents wide and no green anywhere, and he'd known that wasn't right. Daleks, unmoving, dust pouring out through their casings, and that had stirred memories.

He hadn't wanted them back.

There was no point in changing his clothing, the way he usually did on regeneration. He was the same man. He had made the same choice. The new personality fought this, but he knew he was right. The personality was wrong. It hurt him. It wanted to reach out, to show off, to laugh and run and share the brilliant universe with friends. With humanity. It wanted to be close. It wanted to forgive.

More running, and discovering that some of the Daleks had still survived. Hunting them, always. Killing them without mercy and with cold-hot satisfaction.

Becoming the hunted, when the Family of Blood caught his scent. Using the Chameleon Arch to escape, leaving his human half back in the 20th century (and John Smith still lives, still human, still separate, a man who chose to go to the Great War, a shame) and the watch, himself, his Time Lord self, in the TARDIS.

Centuries of imprisonment. Until the TARDIS pulled him out of the watch and remade him, gave him the body he wears now, his Tenth recreated, right down to the Gallifreyan mark of exile on his arm. Gave him a second chance.

Resentment and gratitude and surprise and...something like humility. He hadn't even thought...Had never expected her to save him.

A new depth of connection with her, another change to get used to, another shift of self.

Like the drums. Which were constant now, loud and always and driving.

More hunting, and more exploring, and more anger, until...here.

The multiverse.

Learning how life had gone, for his others, in their universes. Learning what the drums meant to them. Gaining the first companion he's had since the War, Astrid, saved from her stardust existence by himself and one of his other's.

She's not even from his universe; he never met her, when she lived. Never saved the Titanic and failed to save her. She's stolen, and he doesn't understand their relationship, it's moving too fast, there's something wrong with it, but it's something. Perhaps it's a start.]

[There's more. Memories of hunts and of agreements struck with the remnants of a sentient star, light in his eyes and his own voice inviting others to burn with him and the screaming of Daleks as they steam to death in their metal carapaces. Errors made, and casualties. The few times he's let others die because it was for the greater good, and there was no way to save them and keep the exterminators from escaping, as well. The drums, everywhere. Long hours in his laboratories, the medical bay, trying to explain them away. No luck. Days spent in the rebuilt Zero Room and still no silence. Wondering if he's more a new man than he's ever been, and if there's any way to find his way back.]

[...He'll ask, if he can, to look into his other's mind. A mental question. He wants to see if there's anything, anything at all, of the man he is now in his other. If the drums are there, even the slightest echo of them, in any moment.

He won't admit it to himself, but he also just wants to see. The good memories. The Earth still whole, and the friends. Things going right and wrong, but right more often than wrong.]

[He can feel the other Doctor's fingertips on his temples, hot where they make contact with the telepathic connection points, and then all sensation ceases when the sound of drums fills his head.]

[They're loud, and they're insistent, and they send him reeling for a moment until he can see past them at the man behind the drums. He's open, inviting him into his mind as he himself is inviting the other man. And he doesn't waste any time.

The Time War, and the choice that ended it. It's there suddenly, all the horror and the hate and the guilt of that moment, and it takes the Doctor's breath away. But the other is moving on, almost brushing it off like it's nothing, like it's only the first horror of many. He is going down a different path than the one the Doctor took himself, and for a short moment, the Doctor wonders if following him isn't madness. He's here, though, and there's no going back, so follow him he does.

Down that path lies loneliness. The Doctor has known loneliness, but never this strong, never this insistent. It's a chosen loneliness becoming a forced one, getting more necessary and irreversible with every hour that passes. Oh, he remembers this, he remembers being here, but he also remembers that it stopped when an average human girl had, maybe out of understanding or maybe out of ignorance, broken down the walls and made him feel again.

Not so for this Doctor. There's hate, there's loneliness, and there's the War, the War that never ends, the War that goes on and on in his head and his heart, poisoning him from the inside. When he kills the Dalek, the Doctor is not at all surprised; he himself nearly would have, if not for the innocence of a young, human mind to stop him. Instead of the warmth of a connection to another, this Doctor finds the drums.

Earth. The hurt of the loss is physical, it tears his hearts out. The other's ability to feel had been dulled at that point; it had hurt him, but the strong, solid walls that hadn't been chipped away at and eventually broken down protect the innermost part of himself. At what price, though. He's reborn, and there's a moment of ignorance, a moment of clarity and newness, before the past weighs down and drags him back to his old self. It makes the Doctor want to scream; this is wrong, so wrong, this is not how it's supposed to be. But he's an observer of things long past, and there is nothing he can do.

Hunting, always killing, because this is what they are now. The drums beating a steady beat in their head as they roam the universe, seeking, destroying, moving on. Every death they bring feels like another piece of his soul taken away, and when the Family of Blood picks up their scent, it's almost a relief. Running, running is better that killing, less deadening. But no matter how fast and how far they run, war still finds them, finds their human half, overshadows his life, claims its tribute.

They're hidden now, though. Hidden away in the watch, in the TARDIS, in a cave deep under the earth, and it's a relief at first. No more killing, no more death, just silence.

Silence, but not complete. The drums are there, beating away, and with nothing to drown them out, nothing to satisfy them, they grow stronger. Harder. More demanding. They want, they need, they must have. But they are imprisoned, they can't give. All they can do is listen, and feel.

Until there's freedom. The most loyal of companions, the one that had been at their side all that time, taken too much for granted to even be recognized for what she was, the TARDIS gives them life. They don't know if they want it; there's safety in captivity. But it's not a choice. Nothing ever is, not really.

War again. Their old mistress, their old master. Death and violence, and still they are trying to find that connection, the one they know must be there, the one that restored them. It's still about love, it must be, it's what gave them life. It's there, it just needs to be found.

And finally, they're here. In this place where there are others, others who have found the love they were looking for. If they've seen it, it must exist, so they seek it and find Astrid. And the Doctor denies, no, she is not stolen. She is found. Found by you, found for you. She will help you, if you let her. You just need to let her.]

[The mystery of the drums, still unexplained. I can help. Let me help you, maybe we can find the source, maybe we can find the cure. You and me, we can try all of this again, we can try new ways. We can try everything. They weren't there before, perhaps they're don't have to be a part of what you are. Let me help.]

[His mind is open, laid out, nothing is hidden. And he's giving permission; take anything you need, this is all rightfully yours as much as it is mine. Maybe it's more yours than mine, even. You've paid a much higher price.]

[He's been in contact with another Doctor-who-had-Rose before, so he knows something of what he'll find. The quiet. The running and laughter and the tragedies, the friends lost and hurt, both unintentionally and because it had to be done. Memories taken away, so that they might survive.

Such regret. Over such small things. Things that had to be done.

But he understands that, the regret. It doesn't hurt him.

The love does. The true friends.

Those memories, he touches lightly, hesitantly, as though they might burn—or as though they might hypnotize, a moth drawn into the flame. If he looks too hard, he might never look away. He might try to take, and they're nothing that can be taken. They're the wake of time, the marks of events long since past, never to be relived.

He tries not to see, as he searches. He tries just to listen. To the quiet, though no matter how far into his other's mind he goes, his own drums still follow him, a mental pulse like the beating of his hearts.

He listens for an echo. Any echo, in any memory.

Goes far, far back. Back to when the Master—when Koschei—says his began. When they were very, very young.

There are differences there, between them, in the far past just as there are in the recent past, and those surprise him.

But there are no drums. Anywhere.

He's alone.

When he pulls back, into his own mind, he brushes by certain memories a second time. The Daleks, New York, the other helping them, even though they'd killed so many human beings. He can't understand; there were only four of them, then, it could have been over, and instead his other helped.

The Titanic. Astrid, every memory he can find. Turning them over, because she expects him to understand, to have shared those experiences, and he doesn't. They're secondhand to him, and they always will be.

Davros. The beach. The metacrisis.

A decision he approves of, and his other doesn't.

His other's response to that decision.

Too dangerous to be left on his own. Born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge.

And that is what he hates, about being around his others. The shame. Knowing that that is how they see him.

Knowing that that is how some part of him, under the drums, sees himself.

He lingers, one last moment, in the quiet, and then snaps back into his own mind.]

[It feels wrong, and right. It feels dark, like entering a building after hours out in the sunlight. He'll adjust. He's adjusted before.]

[The drums grind away some of the shame, as he opens his eyes. Help. He should let his other help. He should say yes. He should.]

[The other Doctor wanders around his mind, carefully, almost warily. There is hurt here, and there is love, but it's the love that hurts him. Because no matter what the Doctor said, no matter what he offered, it's not his love. The Doctor understands that. He wishes it could be different. He wants to share, would love to give, even.

The other Doctor goes deeper. As deep as he can, goes back, goes to a time so long ago, when the Doctor first started to run. The Schism, the Vortex, the oppressing infinite vastness of it all. It still makes him want to run, even though it's only a memory, glossed over by centuries of flight. And yes, he was a different person back then. He changed when he left. Or so he'd thought for a long time. Lately, he's beginning to wonder.

But no, there are no drums. He's never felt them, not in himself. He doesn't know where they take their origin, but they are not a part of him.

The other Doctor pulls back. Along the way, he brushes by some memories, memories that are the Doctor's. Memories of times they don't share.

It's already over. It's been over for a long time. Killing the Cult of Skaro wouldn't have made any difference. It wouldn't have brought anyone back. It simply would have ended more life.

Astrid is a hurtful memory; she died for him. Like so many others. He is grateful that she was found, thankful she's not drifting amongst the stars anymore. Although, maybe his Astrid is. Maybe she's still lost. Like Donna. Like Rose. Like so many others.

And then there's anger, resentment from his other, and no. Don't. He didn't have a choice, he didn't know what to do. He had been lost. So much had changed, and none of them could see it, with their small human minds and their small human worlds. Even his duplicate hadn't, because even though they shared memories, he wasn't a Time Lord. And there hadn't been time to explain. There never is.]

[Then the other Doctor leaves his mind, abruptly, and the silence is deafening. Everything is so still, so quiet, and blindly the Doctor reaches out, putting his hand on the door frame for balance.

The world slowly bleeds back around him, sensation by sensation. His vision is blurry, and as he blinks, tears make his eyelashes stick together. He raises his other hand to his face, and there is wetness on his cheeks. He wipes it away, quickly, not wanting the other Doctor to think that he is pitying him. It's not pity. It's grief.]

[When he raises his eyes to meet the other Doctor's, his throat constricts. He doesn't know what to say. He has to say something, words are what he does, words are his power. But for once, he is at a loss. All he could have said he already expressed when their minds were connected.]

[The tears shock the Doctor in black. Even when it's hurt him most, the life he's led, when he's walked the streets of London and known exactly, precisely the moment when the world around him ends, because he ends it, he's never cried. The grief sits in his chest, twists around his hearts, strikes him dumb or makes him talk too much, too fast. He chokes it back, and runs.]

[He meets his other's eyes, when the other Doctor looks up, because...if he didn't, what would that mean? He's as much the Doctor as this other Time Lord, this other one who saved the Earth. They're not the same man, but they're equals.]

[His universe was not a mistake. He wasn't dealt a bad hand. It was the only hand, and he made his choices in full knowledge, picking them out of the warp and weft of time, taking the paths he felt were right.]

[Except...]

[He did cry once.]

[Before he'd come to himself, before he'd remembered, as he'd walked through the Game Station. He'd been crying, and he hadn't known why.]

[That was how he'd first seen his face. His new face. In the reflection on a picture window, as he looked down at the gray Earth. Tear-streaked, a grieving man, even though he hadn't felt any grief, hadn't understood the tears.]

[A mirror image, mourning. Just like his other is now. The same face.]

[He looks away, quickly, because with the memory of the moment comes the memory of the sensation, and he can feel the old regret burn at the corners of his eyes. He isn't going to cry. He isn't.]

[His throat works, tight, and he rubs the back of his neck with one hand.]

[The other Doctor looks away, and he is losing him. This moment decides it; if he wants to help his other self, he needs to keep him from slipping away, stop him from hiding behind these walls again.]

[And, oh, he does want to help him, because this isn't right. This isn't fair. The other Doctor is trying, he's not given up in circumstances in which the Doctor isn't sure he would have been able to keep going, and his reward should not be a lonely life marred by the steady, unforgiving drive to kill. This is the Doctor's chance to try and help his other to find what he's looking for, but if he wants to do that, he can't lose him now.]

[He reaches out, his fingertips brushing against the leather of the other Doctor's sleeve.]

Doctor. Doctor, look at me.

[He's offering something here - comfort? Maybe, it might be a part of it, but what he is really offering the other Time Lord is friendship. Friendship and acceptance, as equals, each in their own right. Trust me.]

[He almost pulls away from the touch, a reflex falling somewhere between the defensive rejection of a teenager trying to maintain his cool in the eyes of his peers and the habitual contact-avoidance of a leper, fearful of infecting others.]

[It wasn't wrong. He'd make the same choices again. Even without the drums. He thinks.]

[He can't be sure.]

[What if there were other options, and he just couldn't feel them, through the pressure of the sound? What if he's on the road to making other choices that feel right but wipe out more millions of lives? And he can't see that, can't hear the voice, his voice, the one that tells him to stop?]

[The voice talking to him right now. His other's voice.]

[So he looks back at the other Doctor, his eyes sheened over with the tears he's holding in check.]

Right. You—[He runs a hand down his face—don'tcrydon'tcrydon'tcry]—you'll help. I have some...some theories. You'll need to see my notes, that may take—[And, dammit, a tear gets away from him, and he stops talking abruptly.]

[It breaks his hearts, seeing the other Doctor struggle, fighting to keep control. He knows it's part of what he is - of course he knows, he's looked into the other's mind - but it still makes his throat close up once more.]

I'll help. [He moves a little closer, and his hand that is still hovering in mid-air carefully goes to the other Doctor's shoulder. It's a gesture that could initiate a hug, if the other Doctor is inclined to accept that offer.] I promise I'll try my best.

'Course you will. [He wipes the errant tear away and manages a grin.] It's what we do. [And he accepts the offer of a hug, but perhaps not quite the way the other Doctor offers it—the moment of flippancy and the grin have helped him find his rhythm again, and it's a quick bounce-and-grab, the hug he gives friends when they're just about to run off and get into some kind of incredibly-exciting-and-not-*too*-dangerous trouble.]

Oi, you're still in your jim-jams. [He's just now realized this, as he pulls back from hugging his other, hands on his shoulders, taking in the stripy pajamas.]

[And in the very last second, the other Doctor steps back from the edge, from the gulf that is his past, his burden. A grin, a short, abrupt hug, deflection. It's kind of a relief; the Doctor's still feeling somewhat rattled himself, and if the other Doctor's choosing to deflect, so can he.]

[He still uses that quick hug to briefly tighten his arms around the other Doctor and communicate that yeah, it's what they do, and if they're together, there's little to nothing they can't do. They're brilliant, after all.]

[At the other Doctor's observation, he looks down at himself. Oh, yes, he is. That's a little absurd, and it makes him laugh.]

I'd better find myself something to wear, then. And shoes, [toe-wriggle], I think we should both find shoes. It might be me, but it feels a little like your TARDIS is chillier than mine.

[Or maybe it's the array of guns he's still standing in the middle of. Better not to deal with this right now; the way he's feeling, he's quite sure it would be the perfect way to shatter the fragile bond of trust he's managed to form with this other him. He puts a jovial hand on the other Doctor's back and leads them out of the armory, a little too casually flicking the switch that will close and lock the door behind them.]

Okay, where was I? Wardrobe, that's it.

[Oh, right, he's still barefoot, too. Hm. Well, he's got plenty of spare Converse in the wardrobe; he'll pick up a pair while he's there, and go by to retrieve the ones he left back in the storage room later. Maybe. Or maybe he'll just leave them there, because he's sure to sleep in that room again, and maybe he'll be barefoot and need shoes the next time, one never knows.]

Chilly? Really? [The Doctor frowns thoughtfully. He used to notice things like that—to have to ask the TARDIS to adjust settings for him or to wonder why she refused to do so. Ever since she freed him, he's not sure if she automatically adjusts for him or he for her, but little things, the light levels, the temperature, the gravity, they always seem...right. Which isn't right. But it's not wrong, either. Just...different. Really different. He doesn't like to think about it.] Seems alright to me. I'll see if I can't get her to turn up the thermostat.

[The hand on his back, and the easy way his other guides him out of the room and shuts the door irk him slightly—this is his TARDIS, not his other's, and to feel the other assuming even that bit of control hooks at the drums. They object. He should get this other Doctor out of here, they say. He says. They say. He can never be sure.]

Right. Wardrobe. Same as yours, is it? Through here. [And the wardrobe door is only a few short steps away. The Doctor pushes it open and leads his other in, glad to be away from the armory and the confrontation and emotions of the past few minutes.]

[It's the same as his other's—spiral staircase, racks and racks of clothes, mostly Earth fashions, from every era.]

The coat and the suit are...well, I reckon they're where you found them. [He hasn't moved them, but he knows exactly where they are. The clothes he never knew he was meant to be wearing, until he came to the multiverse.]

Nah, don't bother, I just need to put on some socks.

[He can feel the other Doctor tense ever so slightly under his palm and takes the hand away. No need for provocation now; they need to be careful if this is supposed to work out. He's glad now for having spent so much time around the Master; no matter how painful, tiring and frustrating those times might have been, they taught him about the drums. What effects they have, what sets them off. He thinks he might actually know what he's doing here. Sort of.]

[So the wardrobe doesn't look very different. He realizes he half-feared to find more weaponry or maybe a sword collection as an addition in this alternate wardrobe. The fact that there's no such thing in here is kind of uplifting. Hey, you have to look on the bright side of things.]

I think I'll just go with - uh...

[He's not going to take this Doctor's coat and suit. The other Doctor might not be wearing them, but they are his. However, that gives him no choice but to wear a different outfit, and the prospect of that leaves him kind of uncomfortable. And without a clue about what that different outfit should be.]

... these? [Not his brown suit trousers, but at least they have pinstripes. Yellow pinstripes on green. Meh.]

[The Doctor has found his way to his Emergency Converse Resupply Stash—an entire shoe rack tucked away against one wall, full of Converse in all colors. Chuck collectors everywhere would die of envy, but he goes straight for the black, without a glance at the turquoise, fleur-de-lys-patterned parchment, red, white, faux crocodile skin, self-lacing green bioluminescent...]

[He looks up from snagging some fuzzy socks from a trunk, and raises a skeptical eyebrow at the other Doctor's sartorial choice. Seriously?] Oi, you could just say you've forgotten. Second level, the suit's on the rack at one o'clock, by the mirror. Coat's right by that space-samurai outfit from Bowie. Still don't know if it was a good idea or not, showing him the wardrobe. He went right for the old robes.

Catch.

[And he'll toss over some fuzzy socks.]

Hm.

[He catches the socks, absentmindedly, without taking his eyes off the yellow-and-green trousers. He could maybe see them work, but the green is too much of a Christmas tree green to really appeal to him. He puts them back on the rack.]

Yeah, I know where they are. [If he were thinking about what he's saying, he might realize that just going with the 'I forgot' excuse might be a good idea, but he's not. He just remembered something.]

[Up on the second level, he finds it. Brown suit trousers; no pinstripes, but aside from that they're the same as his other ones. He quickly puts them on, as well as a light blue dress shirt and the fuzzy socks. It takes only a few moments of browsing before he finds a brown corduroy jacket that will go well enough with the rest. Scrutinizing himself in the mirror, he briefly considers a tie, but no. Won't work. He's generally pleased with the outfit; it's not his outfit, but it'll have to be enough until he finds his own suit.]

[Shoes now. He bounces back down the stairs. He saw a pair of denim-blue Converse on that rack down there; wearing those will make up nicely for the lack of pinstripes in the trousers.]

[The Doctor's long finished lacing up his black Converse by the time his other comes bounding back down the stairs. He recognizes that approach to stairways, using the balustrades more than the actual stairs; it really looks rather hazardous, when seen from the outside. Huh.]

[His other's choice of clothing gets another raised eyebrow from the Doctor. It's clear what his other is doing, here. Leave the "right" outfit behind, for him. For the day he chooses to wear it. Other Doctors have told him that day will come.]

[Well. Other Doctors haven't lived in his universe. He wouldn't wear the coat and suit anymore than he'd wear his Fourth's long scarf or the celery-lapel look that his Fifth fancied. It's not him.]

Right. [No comment, although his tone implies comment.]

[Which the Doctor's not missing, but he ignores it. It's up to him what he decides to wear, after all. And he knows he would be feeling more uncomfortable in the other Doctor's brown suit than he's feeling in this other outfit. He'll just have to make do until he finds his own clothes.]

[Right, speaking of finding things. He snatches the pair of blue Converse off the rack and speaks while tying his shoelaces.]

Now that we're all dressed, do you think we could try and find out where my TARDIS ended up? Even if we're going to stay around each other for a while, I'd like to know where she is.

[He's not exactly worried; she can take care of herself. But being in this other TARDIS that is like his own but not, it's making him a little nervous. If he's going to stay here and help, he wants his own TARDIS around as well.]

[Oi, that's right—being in the TARDIS and not being able to feel her, that must be enormously disorienting for his other.]

[He kicks off from where he's been leaning against the end of one of the racks, running a hand through his hair as he thinks.]

Locating an alternate TARDIS in an alternate universe... Hm. Never done that before.

Mine won't work in your universe, she'd lose power, I'm not risking that, so that means... [Hmhmhm, he looks up at the ceiling, far above them, his tongue to the tip of his mouth.] I dunno.

You could try walking outside with your fingers crossed, go through the first doorway you come to, a bit like Wonderland out there, all roads lead to Rome. Or home. Or Neverland, you never know.

OR! Ororor—it might work, dunno, well, can't know until we've tried—[And he does his own bouncing, pulling his glasses out of a jacket pocket and sliding them up his nose for no clear reason other than this is a *puzzle* and those require the smartie glasses, and hopping over to his other]—I'll put you through to my TARDIS, you tell her what she's looking for, you know, give her a feel for yours, and she'll see if she can't make contact. She loves the multiverse, mine, like the Rift but better, I wouldn't be surprised if she can get a signal out along any Time Vortex that's ever been, is, or might be, from here.

So—[he wiggles his eyebrows at his other, and puts his hands up, ready to establish contact again]—shall we give it a go?

[Yeah, he just remembered that. His TARDIS won't be able to survive in this universe. That's, um, that's a snag in this whole 'staying and helping out' plan.]

[The other Doctor is getting excited, and what he's suggesting sounds - well, reasonable. But this multiverse thing is still somewhat new to the Doctor. He holds up a hand, not stopping his other, just stalling him.]

Just a second. You said we're in the multiverse, with no paradoxes, right? So if I were to bring my TARDIS here, she could keep a connection open to my universe to draw power without that doing any harm. Could she do that?

[Hm, this is a bit of a dilemma, isn't it? The Doctor has to stop and consider. Something else he's never tried, and he wonders why. All of those universes. He could run properly—but...those other universes aren't his. He's lost Gallifrey, he's lost the Earth, he won't lose his universe.]

Well... I know she'd be fine in the multiverse, nothing's nullified here. But...beyond that? In my universe?

Hm. If we could synchronize a doorway in yours to a doorway in the multiverse, synchronize that with a doorway into your universe...create a kind of tesseract-slash-extension-cord-slash-umbilical, well, it might be a bit of a security risk, you'd want to keep an eye on it, make sure nothing came over from your universe but energy, but...

Yes. Like the Subtle Knife, right, there'll be some net loss of energy, but the multiverse ought to compensate for that, I think it would work. Do you think it would work? I think it would work.

[Oh. OH. He's getting it now.]

Oh! I get it now. The multiverse is not an actual multiverse in its own right, is it. Oh. Right. So if I bring my TARDIS here and don't actually enter any other universe, she'll be fine. Riiight.

[Now that makes things a lot easier.]

Well, I don't think we should establish a connection between the universes if it's not absolutely necessary. Bad things tend to happen when you do, at least that's my experience. But, yes, we should let your TARDIS find her, that will be the quickest way.

[And he lowers his hand, an invitation for the other Doctor to initiate a connection.]

Right, yes, exactly, it's like a terminal, a hub, shortcut between universes, breaks all the rules of time and space, I love it.

[And the science talk, the technobabble, he loves that, too. Hasn't had much opportunity, really, not until recently. No audience, and it needs an audience.]

Ready, then? Allons-y! [And he brings his hands back to the other Time Lord's temples, a mirror to earlier, but he's pleased this time, not angry or distant, and the drums will be less—or not so much less as different, more a part of him than an infection, an invasion. More complex and less militant, almost as though there might be music behind them, but it's too far away to hear.]

[This connection isn't about letting his other into his mind—only in so much as his mind can serve as the connection between his TARDIS and his other. That's where he places his own mental focus—on that point at the back of his thoughts where everything that he is merges out into something greater, the ship around him, her reassuring, total presence, the constant adjustments of systems, the gold and spark of almost-thoughts, almost-memories, almost-emotions, sensations from a sentience that's beyond even his total comprehension but that is also part of him. There are flecks of that gold in him, where there shouldn't be, and out there, in the flow of her, the occasional flash of the wrong kind of memory, of being limited and small and quick and bright and easily hurt.]

[The harder he focuses on that connection, the less-threatening the drums become, until they almost fall away into the pulse of him and her, and of the greater Time Vortex beyond, that alien place apart from everything that he can touch, just barely, through her.]

[The TARDIS is curious. She's been helping him, but there's someone else here now, like her Doctor but not, someone else who might be able to help, and she curls forward through her Doctor's mind, like an anemone unfurling, twists of light along shared nerve endings, looking for the other. Wary, afraid the new one might hurt hers, but willing to make him welcome. For now.]

[For the second time in such a short time, he lets the other Doctor into his mind. He's not used to this; the last time he's shared so much of his mind was that one time back in France. But this is him, his other self, and it feels right.]

[The drums are so different this time. It's surprising; he's never heard them like that. The Master's are always angry, always demanding, and the Doctor didn't know there was anything else to them. He halts for a moment and just listens; this is fascinating.]

[He's distracted, though, when his other opens his connection to his TARDIS. It's both exciting and a little frightening; the connection between a Time Lord and his TARDIS is such a private, personal thing, to be let in on it is a great privilege. And this connection his other has with his ship is even more personal. They're not two entities, closely connected; they are basically one and the same. The rebirth of this Doctor has changed them both, and it's created a bond that's the same as well as something completely different from what the Doctor shares with his TARDIS.]

[And then there's the TARDIS, the other TARDIS. He can feel her, and she's different, so different from his and yet the same. He can see her hope, and her worry, and he tries his best not to scare her as he leads her into the part of his mind that's reserved for his TARDIS. It's empty and still right now; she's not there, but there are very clear memories and imprints, and this is what he focuses on now. This is her. This is my TARDIS. This is what you're looking for. Please?]

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