or_timelords | This could prove to be interesting.

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This could prove to be interesting.

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laser_not_sonic

If you woke up one morning and found me in your bed, what's the first thing you'd think or say?

The Doctor comes to with the slow leisure of waking up after a long sleep—not something he does often, sleeping for any more than an hour or two at a time, but he has slept the equivalent of entire nights before, usually after regeneration or after pushing dangerously close to one.

It takes him the first few moments of proper consciousness to realize that he's lying on the floor—not a couch or a bed or slumped over a desk or table. Hm. The floor. He doesn't usually fall asleep on the floor. He's pulled an all-weeker now and again, woken up in the middle of glassware or books, but he distinctly remembers falling asleep in his bed...

And waking up with himself next to him.

"Doctor!" He pops up to a sitting position, propping himself up on his hands, and then instantly wishes he hadn't. An odd feeling, not nausea but more like disconnection, disembodiment, swims at the back of his mind. He's watched humans play video games—first-person shooters, he hates those—and it feels like that, like he's the little avatar on the screen and the player watching from behind and above, both at once. Except the view isn't from just behind and above, it's from all around and it's not really a view because it doesn't involve vision.

He pulls his legs into a crouch and then stands slowly, uncertain of his balance. It's fine, steady, but the feeling doesn't go away. He can "see," with that omniscient unvision, the entirety of the room, from all angles—even objects within other objects, sensitive tools tucked away in foam padding or surgical instruments cabineted in autoclaves. He shakes his head, and the sensation becomes less intrusive, but it doesn't fade away entirely.

Streamers of the energy with the second spin and the purple-shifted spectrum twist in the air—the entire room shimmers with it, an aurous haze. Well. It looks like the experiment was a success.

But why was he unconscious on the floor? And where's the other Doctor?

...That wasn't all a dream, was it? A hallucination, perhaps? Brought on by some silly error, a slip-up with chemicals or telepathic stimulation, here in the lab?

No. Something happened. He knows something happened, and it was real, and because of it, the drums in his mind purr quietly now, as quiet as they've ever been since they established themselves, and because of whatever happened, his other self is hurt, and he needs to find him and help him. It's what he does. He helps the Doctor.

The Doctor frowns. No. What? He just helps. Anyone who needs it. Why did he think "the Doctor?"

"Doctor!" Where is he? The Doctor in black pushes off from the counter he's leaning against, to start searching through the room for his other. He's here, he can feel him, now that he thinks to pay attention, but...

There. The omniscient space-sense shows him where his other is. In a corner made by the join of a counter and a rickety old metal desk, close to the door. That's where he is, slumped down. Unconscious? Why?

He vaults over the tables in the way, swings around the bulk of a synesthesian sense converter, and finds his other exactly where his new sense indicated he should be.

The other Doctor looks terrible, pale and drawn and shaking, sweat slicking his skin, staring unblinking at his hands resting in his lap.

"Doctor, what happened?" He kneels down in front of his other, and as he does so, he feels the space-sense slip away, and he can only see with his eyes again. That's wrong/right, good/bad, and he has to take a moment to sort his reactions out, put them away to examine later, because they make very little sense. "Doctor. Doctor, can you hear me?" He puts a hand on his other's shoulder, and feels the shuddering running through his other's body.

He's not unconscious, not really. Or maybe he is; he's not entirely sure. He can feel his environment, hear the small noises of the lab and the humming of the TARDIS, but it's all far away, removed from where he is, and at times, he thinks it may be breaking off entirely, his perception jumping, leaving gaps.

After a while, just after one of those gaps, he can hear his name being called. Doctor, the other voice calls, and it's his own voice, which is right, because he met himself. He remembers that. His lips move, but he can't quite manage to make a sound. I'm here, he thinks, tries to say but can't. He needs to rest for a moment, maybe he'll be able to talk if he rests for a moment.

When he comes around again, it's to someone squeezing his shoulder, long fingers pressing into the skin, each of them sending out a rather exquisite sensation - not quite pain, but not quite comfortable touch, either. The Doctor raises a hand and reaches out in the direction he believes his other to be in. "Doctor," he says, or maybe he thinks it, or mouths it. He's not sure. "Doctor, you're here, I can't see -"

Suddenly, it feels as if a big strong hand were clutching his throat, choking him. He starts coughing, dry, harsh coughs that accomplish nothing and quickly turn into something that's more dry retching than anything else. He reaches out to hold on to the man before him that he thinks is his other, but he misses him, his hand closing around thin air. His other hand is on the floor, fingers splayed, or he would have lost his balance.

The coughing fit won't stop; it's as if his insides have decided to crawl up his throat and relocate outside of his body. His throat constricts, and his stomach convulses, and he's gasping for air. When it finally does stop, he's breathing hard, and when he runs his tongue over his lips, he can taste blood. It's everywhere in his mouth, he realizes; lips, gums, teeth, the back of his throat. He's not sure where it came from.

"I can't see you," he says finally, his tone thin and out of breath. "I can't see anything. It's - it's rather - did we manage to conjure up more energy?"

Because that's what they were doing. He just remembered that. It seems important, but he can't think of a reason as to why it would right now.

"Oh, yes. Yes, we did." The Doctor's voice is quiet, low. What happened? His other had been fine, when they'd started the experiment. And now...

The other Doctor stares at him, with sightless eyes—those dark eyes they share, wide, pupils static, unresponsive to the light. His hands reach out into thin air, unsteady; and the Doctor in black wants to answer the touch, to take his hand and give him that comfort and is at the same time repelled. He's been sick before, injured, hovered on the edge of death and even tipped over it, into regeneration, but he's never had to see himself like that.

Worst are the racking coughs. The Doctor in black has heard coughing like that before, found survivors in the shattered hallways of a military complex by the sounds of spasms like those. People covered in gray dust, unable to walk for the choking, for their bodies trying to reject the poisons crawling through every cell of them. The blood on their teeth, their lips, painting their mouths, red against the gray.

Radiation poisoning.

The Doctor stares at his other, the blood, the spatters of it on the floor of the Zero Room, on his other's hands, coughed in flecks onto his clothing.

This room is safe. No radiation can penetrate here.

So it must be...

The energy. The fading tatters of it spinning through the room, whatever it is that he generated, during the experiment. It's poisonous, dangerous, radioactive. Not artron.

"Listen to me. I'm going to get you out of here, I need you to help me. Can you stand?" The room will keep energy in as well as it keeps it out. Exposure shouldn't be a danger once they're out and the door's sealed, although what the lasting effects of exposure might be...

He puts an arm around his other's shoulders, a hand under his arm, ready to help him get to his feet.

Out of here. That's a good idea, he needs to get out, there's something in this room that's bad, and he needs to leave. He reaches for his other, holding onto him as best as he can as he tries to get his feet under him.

It's not as easy as it should be. His legs are stiff, he must have been sitting here for a while, and the rest of his body isn't really listening to him either. He's noticing that he's trembling, violent shivers running through him and making coordination even harder than it already is. He reaches out with his right hand, blindly seeking for something to hold on to, and finds the edge of a table.

Using the table as well as his other for support, he eventually manages to get to his feet. The movement makes his head spin, and without a visual focal point, it feels as if the floor were moving beneath him. He squeezes his eyes shut - not that it makes any difference, it's just a reflex - and holds on to his other, tightly, relying on this one fixed point in these unreliable, unstable surroundings.

His lips move, he's trying to say something, but he's out of breath, and he's not sure what he was going to say, anyway. Probably something along the lines of 'don't worry' or 'I can manage' or maybe 'I'm sorry'. As it is, he produces no sound, only sets off another couple of coughs that make his insides contact painfully.

If his other starts walking towards the door, the Doctor will follow, but it will be a slow progression. Without vision, his coordination and orientation are shot, and he'll really be more stumbling along while holding on to his other than walking on his own.

The Doctor does start to the door, holding his other up as he stumbles blindly along. It's not a great distance to the door, but it will be something of a hike through the hallways of his TARDIS to the console room and then back through the hallways of his other's TARDIS to her sick bay—the only fully-operating, non-contaminated medical facility in either of their TARDIS.

Once they're through, out into the hallway, and the door's safely sealed behind them, the Doctor drapes one of his other's arms over his shoulder and hefts, so that's he's supporting as much of his other's weight as he can.

"I'm going to get you to your TARDIS and your sick bay. I could go find a stretcher, I'm sure I've got something like that somewhere, but that'll take time, and we need to stabilize you as quickly as we can. So we're going to walk. I'll help as much as I can, it won't take long. You'll be fine. I promise."

"Don't talk."

And if the other Doctor can manage it, the Doctor will do exactly as he says, helping him through the TARDIS (both of them) to his other's sick bay.

He's got no intention of saying anything. Breathing, keeping his knees from giving way and then getting his legs to actually take steps to bring him forward is taking up all his concentration at the moment. He nods, though; he'll be fine walking, he can do this, he just needs to concentrate. And he needs to get rid of the disgusting taste in his mouth, a metallic tang that's creeping up from the back of his throat and filling his mouth, making him nauseous. He raises his free hand, pressing his sleeve against his mouth, coughing. It helps a little; it gives him a chance to get rid of the liquid in his mouth - it's blood, it's got to be blood, nothing else tastes like that, but if it is blood, there's a whole lot of it, and he still doesn't know where it's coming from - and he takes a couple of deep breaths.

The walking is exhausting, mostly because he can't see where he's going. With his other to lean on, staying upright is actually manageable, and when they're walking in a straight line, he can develop a rhythm that will carry him most of the way. But every time the corridor turns, he's thrown off balance, and it takes effort to find it again, more and more every time it happens.

Still, they make it most of the way to the console room. But as they turn another corner, this time the Doctor doesn't manage to regain his balance. His knees buckle, and he would have fallen if it hadn't been for his other to catch him. The Doctor reaches out, trying to find something to hold on to, when his fingers brush over a mental connection point and he catches a glimpse of his other's mind.

That's it. If he can tap into his other's visual sense, he'll be able to see where they're going. His fingers stretch out again, trying to find that connection, brushing over his other's chin and cheek towards his temple. He would usually ask for permission first, but he's barely able to stand, and the thought of minding social etiquettes doesn't even occur to him.

Blood. His other coughs, jarred into it as he breathes, and each spasm brings up more blood, bright flyspecks of blood, getting on his other's Proper Doctor clothing, on the suit and blood on the sleeves of the coat, from when he tries to stifle the coughing.

He rarely bleeds; the danger he gets himself into involves energy devices and clean injuries, all-or-nothing scenarios.

He bled in the War. Not all of the opposing forces were Daleks; plenty of other species took their chance to feed on the chaos, the rippling of time, and some of them enjoyed blood.

His other tries to anticipate their direction, and it's like running a three-legged race (his Fourth did that once, won track-and-field subbing for an Atlackian athlete who'd sprained his seventh-through-twelfth toes)—he has to keep correcting and not allow his other to pull him off balance. Irritation flickers through him, as his other trips him up again and again. Is it really that hard to tell where they're going? This isn't the blind leading the blind, after all.

They're almost there—almost to the console room, and the sick bay's right down the hall once they get into his other's TARDIS—when his other missteps again and falls against the Doctor, hands groping for support.

"Watch out, we're almost there—"and then his other's hand over his face, like a man more accustomed to blindness feeling the shape of a new acquaintance, fingers coming to rest on the Doctor's temple. "No, listen, what are you doing, I don't want you hurt any—"but his other's already testing at the edges of his mind, and he can feel what he wants. Eyesight. He wants the Doctor to share, quite literally, his vision.

"Right. Rightright, here, we're at the console room. Mine. See?" And this isn't something he's tried before, but he links up a connection with his other's mind, as light as he can possibly make it, relaying, he hopes, only visual images. (Though it's impossible to filter out the rest of his mind entirely, particularly the drums.)

Don't go too deep, be careful, I don't want to hurt you. What happened?

He claws his way into his other's mind; it's not as easy as it should be, to come up with the level of concentration mental contact usually requires. But then his other helps, he opens up and suddenly, there are pictures in the Doctor's mind.

They're wrong, though, they're not his. They wouldn't be, of course, they're his other's, he's seeing what the other Doctor is seeing, but the other Doctor is looking at him, and that's different. Because the Doctor can also feel his other's worry, and his confusion, and there's also something like repulsion and anger, and the Doctor can understand all of these notions because when he sees himself in his mind, pale, wide eyes staring vacantly at nothing at all, blood smeared all over his face and his clothes, it's repulsive, and worrying. And confusing, because he doesn't know what happened, either.

You took them away, and he doesn't know what that means, either, he just knows that his other changed, grew bigger, and then he took something away, and it hurt, it hurt so much but it was right, it was good, it was necessary -

The not-memories are too strong, though, they barge in and sweep everything away, disintegrating as well in the process. He tries to control them, tries to hold on, but conscious thought is falling apart. The images in his mind, of himself and of his other's console room, melt; they start flickering in and out as darkness eats away at their edges. He's desperate to hold on; they've not made it yet, he still has to get to his own TARDIS before he can rest, but it's a losing battle. His fingers slip off his other's temple, and his knees finally do give way. The Doctor pitches forward against his other, unconscious.

And his irritation and concern both peak as his other loses consciousness, slipping out of his mind and falling against him. He's already supporting most of his other's weight, so he manages to keep his balance, holding his other up with an arm under each of his. The other Doctor's head lolls against his chest, smearing blood over his jacket and his jumper. This is why black is practical.

The Doctor sighs, and the barest haze of golden energy gusts out of him with his breath. He has to get his other to the sick bay soon, get away from him himself; he might still be a danger. Radioactive? Mm. That ought to work wonders for their relationship; it's been going so well so far.

You took them away. Took what away? What did his other mean? Something about the TARDIS, the merge had gone wrong, gone too far, and that fits with his own sense of a terrible open place in his mind, like a cavern too deep to look into without vertigo, a sky too broad, like looking up into the stars at night and feeling he might spin off into the sky. That must be her. His TARDIS. Them. Memories that don't fit in him, anymore.

His chest constricts, a feeling like fear. What had they done? The drums had been there, of course they had been, they had to have, and now his other was blind and bleeding and he had to hurt him...to do what?

And dark memories that weren't his, helplessness and infection and changing and than being expected not to show the change. He can't remember them, except in snatches of emotion. Familiar emotions, expressed and dealt with differently.

No use thinking about it all now.

He hefts his other up over his shoulder, in an awkward fireman's carry, this man who weighs precisely the same as he does, and hauls him through the doors of his TARDIS, down the hallways, to his sickbay.

It's a long walk, and the smell of blood and the shaking of his other's damaged body against his back and shoulder don't make it any easier or more pleasant, but he manages it. As soon as he's in the door, he gets his other into the Cell Regeneration Vault, a casket-like device specifically designed to sap radiation from the body, and sets the Advanced Diagnostic Terminal running. Let's see what the problem is.

She witnessed it all, vicariously, through the connection to her sister and her Time Lord. Silly Time Lord, he should know better than to play with these forces, he especially should, but of course he doesn't. He forgot. And she helped him forget, because there's no point in remembering, not for him, because he's unable to understand, and it would only hurt him.

But of course, he had to go ahead and provoke the memories, had to hurt himself anyway. Because he always needs to know, always needs to figure it all out. Silly, silly Time Lord.

She can feel that he's hurt, sees what her sister did to keep his mind from breaking apart under the strain of the drums. She knows it was necessary, and it will pass. And when it passes, the drums will return, and he will remember. And it will be up to him, and to her, to make sure his fragile corporeal existence won't be damaged beyond repair.

Oh, Doctor. Is knowledge really worth all this?

The other Doctor is bringing her Time Lord home, and the TARDIS clears the way for him, opening the doors and making sure they reach the infirmary safely. The experiment itself has hurt her Time Lord as well, coming into contact with her sister's essence is tearing him up from the inside. The other Doctor is different, he's carrying some of his TARDIS in himself, and it's protecting him. Protecting him, and hurting her Time Lord. But she can't send him away, her Doctor needs someone to take care of him. Silly Time Lords, they should know better than to take risks like that.

The other Doctor hands her Time Lord over to her, and she takes care of him. The damage is extensive, not lethal, but it's worse than he's been in a while. She uses the machines to let the other Doctor know what he needs, and after that, she will make her Time Lord sleep. Sleep will cure him, it always does. And when he's cured, she will have to be there to keep the memories away. To keep the drums from seeping back into his mind, although she's not sure if that's even possible still. They've been laid bare, and this time, they're not part of a paradox that needs reversing. This time, they might be there to stay.

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This could prove to be interesting.

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