Materializing for what the Doctor feared might be the last time, the TARDIS wheezed into existence. She was limping at least as badly as he was, and he patted the console compassionately. He looked at the coordinates display and felt just one little weight fall off his shoulders. The rest hung over him, two extinguished races settled there for eternity, but at least he had arrived. He was beaten, weary and exhausted, but alive. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had.
The Time War had nearly destroyed him; zapped all the color from his life. He sank down onto the little bench before the console, too weary yet, to even open the door to the TARDIS and step out. He longed to. He wanted to see the sunlight, and the grass and life. He needed to see smiles and people, to know that not everything was lost and broken and horrible. He found though, having finally made it somewhere, he was afraid to face his past.
Things had changed so much. For him, centuries had passed and the arguments and misunderstandings he’d had with some old friends were long since forgotten. But, according to the TARDIS, it’d only been a year since he’d last been here. It was several regenerations past now, and he’d left angrily and didn’t imagine he’d be missed. But time healed wounds, made the bad fade away until the good remained. And the good had remained and it had been warm and welcoming and nice and if there was anything he needed right now, it was warm arms around him, cool lips upon his brow and comfort. He needed safety, after everything. He needed to know he still belonged in the universe he had died to protect.
He’d almost gone to Earth. Maybe that would have been easier. Any of his old companions would have been happy to see him. Some would even have held him, maybe even loved him, if he’d asked. But none would have been the right companion. And the Earth . . . right now, the Earth held too much for him. The Earth reminded him too much of his past, and that was what he wanted to escape.
At last he forced himself to his feet, swaying a little with the action. How long had it been since he’d last eaten? How long since he’d showered? Had he even thought of those things? The regeneration had been rough, painful. He’d burned and he’d never died that way before; never wanted to again. In the end, he hadn’t expected to recover at all. He’d pulled the trigger and when he had, he’d expected to seal his own fate as well as that of all the Time Lords and all the Daleks.
It was a price he had been willing to pay.
But the TARDIS had other plans, apparently. He didn’t remember finding her, but when he came to, hours or weeks later he didn’t know, he was on the floor in the console room, and he had regenerated. How long after that had it taken for him to settle on coordinates and to arrive, he wasn’t certain. It felt like months, but perhaps it had only been a few hours.
He clung to the railing for a second, drawing himself up, mustering what little strength he could get, and then launched himself to the TARDIS doors. He needed to rest. She needed to rest. And this world would be where they rested, whether or not it was going to welcome them. It was as simple as that.
The Trion sun blazed down on him as he stepped out, and the first thing he did was turn his face to it, throwing his arms back to soak up the warmth. Heat and peace and sunlight infused him. He took a deep breath, relishing the scents that poured over him: grass, plants, freshly turned soil, pollen on the air, the faint twinge of snow blown off distant mountains, someone cooking far away—every scent helped. It was life. He opened his eyes, blinking owlishly at the brightness.
He didn’t recognized where he’d landed, but it had been a few hundred years since he’d last been here, (by his clock, not theirs) and his memory was as ragged as the rest of him. He’d come down in a grass field, shaded just a bit by a copse of trees. The TARDIS seemed to have planted herself in the ground and the Doctor smiled. Even if he didn’t meet a warm reception here, she would recover. It pleased him, and that was the first thing in this new regeneration that had.
The Doctor found a path not far from the TARDIS that seemed to lead into a city. He remembered paved roads, but figuring that he’d landed a bit outside of town, he didn’t bear it any mind, content to follow it. He took strength from his surroundings. The animals sang in the trees or in their burrows, and he took joy in their small existences. The plants wafted in the breeze, the leaves rustled in the trees, and they could do so because he had made a choice.
Before long he was passing through the outskirts of the town. His body was weary, heavy and clumsy in a way his old one hadn’t been, and he was so tired. People stared at him, gawked at the stranger in the strange black clothing, but he just smiled at them. They lived. Millions had died, but billions and billions had lived. He forced himself to remember that. Each and every face here was free from the terror of the Daleks. He had saved them all, and he took their awe at his arrival and turned it into strength.
It was those sorts of thoughts alone that helped him reach the city proper. It wasn’t long until he found a familiar road. He’d spent a fair amount of time on this planet during his fifth incarnation. It didn’t amount to more than a few weeks, when tallied up, but it was enough to remember how to get to where he was going. He’d returned, once, in his sixth form and had been met with a somewhat icy welcome. He’d vowed then that would be his last return, but a chance happening in his seventh form had meant he’d returned again. He’d never made it this far that time, though. He’d landed on the other side of the planet, and when Ace had asked where they were, he’d lied.
He didn’t want to lie anymore. He didn’t want to avoid anything anymore. He just wanted to come home: to find a bit of joy in the universe. The life around him sustained him, but it did not feed him. It did not heal. He needed more than birds and clouds and sunshine to recover. He needed so much more.
Despite the centuries between then and now, his feet carried him on their own. His mind wandered until he arrived before a large door. He came back to himself, focusing on the panel before him. The sun was dimmer here, in the shade, but still warm on his back. The house had a familiar smell and he inhaled it deeply, relishing the fond memories it brought back.
He raised his hand to ring the buzzer, and hesitated, fearing the potential rejection, the explanation and the stories he’d have to tell. All of it weighted on him when all he wanted to do was sink into oblivion. Was he really strong enough to survive this?
Perhaps if the TARDIS had been closer, he would have turned around, slunk back inside and slept for a week, but he was already here, and he needed this perhaps more than he’d needed anything else before in any of his lives. He rang the buzzer and stepped back, waiting.
The man that answered the Doctor was someone he recognized, but it took several moments longer to bring up his name from the cobwebs of his mind. “Marteen, right?” He smiled vaguely, seeing he’d gotten the name right. “Visitor for Turlough, here. Vislor Turlough. Is he in?”
Marteen gave the Doctor a disdainful once over, inclining his head. “I will announce you. Just a moment.” He then politely closed the door.
The wait seemed to last forever. When at last the doors reopened, seeing Turlough standing there was like a breath of fresh air. The Doctor considered, for a moment, just letting go and passing out at last. He just wasn’t sure Turlough would actually catch him, and as there was no hint of recognition behind the other man’s cool eyes, he resisted the urge. “Can I help you?” he asked.
The Doctor smiled. It was a real, genuine smile. Seeing Turlough again, alive and safe, was like seeing ten worlds—a hundred worlds—safe from the Daleks. “Yes,” he said emphatically. “You can. You are.”
Turlough crossed his arms. “Do I know you?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.
The Doctor nodded. “Right, of course.” He extended out his hand. “Hello, I’m the Doctor.”
For a moment, Turlough said nothing. He simply stared at the Doctor, as though trying to decide if this was an elaborate joke or something else. “The Doctor? The Doctor?”
“The definite article, indeed,” he answered smugly. For a few moments, his weariness ebbed, driven away by the reunion. “You look fantastic.”
Turlough uncrossed his arms but didn’t draw near. “You look . . . different.”
“Regenerated, yeah. Is it bad? I haven’t seen yet.” He gave a sad sort of smile.
The corner of Turlough’s mouth twitched a bit, the beginnings of a smile. “Could be worse. You look like you’ve been steam rolled,” he noted. “And you’ve lost all your hair.”
“I’d noticed that,” he mused, reaching up to run his hand through his hair. “Was a rough regeneration, truth be told.” He fixed his eyes on Turlough’s. “Wasn’t sure I’d make it.”
There was a sadness in Turlough’s eyes that the Doctor recognized: adventures he’d missed out on, lives he could have saved and hadn’t. “I’m sorry,” the Trion said.
“Can I come in then? Don’t mean to be a burden, just thought I’d say hello.”
“Of course,” Turlough said, stepping aside. He opened the door wider. “I wasn’t expecting company so the place is a bit of a mess.”
The Doctor walked in, glancing around. The memories came back slowly as he recognized a chair or table. New purchases fell in line with old ones and it all felt so distant; a lifetime ago. Three lifetimes ago—no, four. He squeezed his eyes shut, staving off the sudden feeling of vertigo. “Are you all right, Doctor?” Turlough asked. His voice was a cool mask of casualness. It was clear he didn’t know just how to react to the almost-stranger in his house.
The Doctor remembered the fight they’d had, the one time he’d visited in his sixth form, and he didn’t want to relive it. “No, I’m not,” he admitted. He crossed quickly to the couch and settled down on it. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it helped to sit. Turlough was a proud man and an upstanding Trion citizen, struggling to piece back together the life he’d had wrest from him during the civil war on his planet. The Doctor really had no right to barge in on him and demand to be coddled.
Only, he was already here and Turlough was just a few paces away.
“Where’s Peri then?” Turlough asked casually.
Peri was four lifetimes ago, too. He’d brought her, the one time he’d visited. It had seemed logical as she and Turlough had known each other. It wasn’t as though he was going to just drop her off somewhere randomly, so he could visit Trion alone. “It’s been a long time,” he admitted.
“Is she dead?” Turlough bluntly asked.
The Doctor flinched a little at the question. He didn’t want to talk about Peri right now, or what had happened in the years and years between then and now. “There was a war,” he said, instead. “Between my people and the Daleks. A time war.”
Turlough drew closer as though he understood the significance of the words, but he didn’t yet join the Doctor on the couch. “Daleks,” he said, understanding. His tone was grave.
The Doctor nodded, trying to figure out how to phrase the rest of what he had to say. “They were too powerful for us. We . . . we won, if it could be called that, in the end, but the cost was astronomical.”
Turlough slid onto the couch beside the Doctor, hands in his lap, a cushion between them. “How many died?” he asked.
“All of them,” the Doctor replied without hesitancy. There was a broken sound in his voice, and the way Turlough looked over at him, he knew the other had heard it and possibly identified it.
Turlough studied him. There were no lights on in the room they sat in, only the sunlight filtering in through a drawn gauze curtain. It was quiet and cool and the room seemed soft, somehow. It made the magnitude of the death and destruction all that harder to grasp. “This just happened,” Turlough said, eyes darting back and forth as he read the story in the Doctor’s haunting blue eyes. “You survived a war with the Daleks and then you came here?”
“My home world was destroyed,” the Doctor said and he had to tear his eyes off Turlough. “All of the Time Lords . . . all of the Daleks. Everyone is dead, everyone but me. And it’s my fault.”
“Doctor,” Turlough said, and his voice was soft. One hand reached out, slipping over the Doctor’s hand and folding over it, to squeeze.
What did someone say to a confession like that? The Doctor couldn’t imagine what he expected from Turlough. He hadn’t envisioned the conversation. He’d just needed contact and closeness and familiarity, so he’d gone to Trion, to find Turlough. Beyond that, he hadn’t foreseen what would happen, hadn’t even thought to hazard a guess. But at the touch of the hand on his knee, of Turlough’s warms fingers wrapping around his hand, he was seven-hundred again, and the universe was a kinder place and he was a younger, more carefree soul.
He didn’t think, just moved, shifting on the couch to melt into Turlough’s arms. Either the other man had been anticipating it, or was just acutely attuned to him, for he met the Doctor half way, drawing him close.
Turlough felt smaller to him, but he knew it was simply his new, bulky body; he hadn’t gotten used to it yet. He buried his face in the other man’s neck and drew in a deep breath. It afforded him the homey scent of Turlough, as well as the ability to hold in his pain. He wasn’t going to cry for those who had died. He was going to survive.
Years had passed, time had changed them, but Turlough acted like it had only been a day since his last visit in his fifth form. One hand braced on the Doctor’s back, fingers spread out to comfort as best he could. The other stroked through the Doctor’s hair, brushing over the short cut, but soothing all the same. “I’m glad you came here,” Turlough said in a low murmur, right into the Doctor’s ear. “Glad you felt you could.”
After a while—perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, the Doctor finally lifted his face from where he’d had it buried against the curve of Turlough’s neck. The sun had sunk lower in the sky, for the room was even dimmer than before, with golden light now suffusing the gauze curtain that hung over the window. It took a moment before the Doctor could bring himself to move completely, lifting his eyes to meet Turlough’s again. “I . . . I know we had our differences,” he began, stumbling like he was in his fifth incarnation again, and this was all new and exciting.
“Shh,” Turlough said. “Of course you can stay. You don’t even need to ask.” He gave the Doctor one of his rare, genuine smiles. “I would be a fool to turn you away twice.” Turlough raised his hand again, lightly touching the face before him. It wasn’t intimate, but the Doctor nuzzled into the touch, craving it and so much more. “Let’s get you upstairs. You look exhausted. Have you eaten?”
The though of mounting stairs made the Doctor groan, but the memory of Turlough’s large, wide bed spurned him on. “I’ll sleep first. Breakfast in the morning, maybe?” He very slowly dragged himself to his feet. “Does Marteen still make those little scones with the fresh fruit?”
“Yes,” Turlough said and very charitably pulled the Doctor’s arm over his shoulder, to help him up the stairs. “I’ll see to it there’s a large supply for you to eat, in the morning.” As they climbed, he continued to talk. “Is the TARDIS nearby, then? I could have a guard posted outside it.”
“She’s fine. In a field, not far from here. Needs to recover as much as me, I’m afraid.”
Turlough actually smiled once they made it to the landing. “You’re heavier, this time.”
The Doctor wanted to smile back, but he was too tired. “Not too hideous, though?”
Turlough shuffled the Doctor’s weight as he helped him down the hall. “Well, I’ve a personal affinity for the face I met you with, of course. But this one could be worse. It looks older.”
“Much,” the Doctor agreed, then remembered he didn’t want to go down that path.
Turlough seemed to hesitate, clearly wanting to know just how much time had passed for the Doctor—how long he’d waited to visit again—but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pushed open the door to his bedroom, leading the Doctor in. Just before depositing him on the bed, he blinked. “Is this all right? My room? We do have a guest bedroom.”
The Doctor untangled himself from Turlough and sank down onto the wonderfully soft mattress. “Here, please,” he said gratefully. With great effort he scooted back on the bed, until his head contacted the mound of pillows Turlough liked to sleep with. If he’d had another ten seconds of silence, he would have passed out.
“You can’t sleep like that,” Turlough said, crossing around the bed. “At least take off the coat. It’s very chic, by the way.”
The Doctor was largely boneless as he let Turlough manhandle him out of his leather coat. He hardly remembered putting it on. After it was draped over a chair, Turlough worked his shoes off, and gave up on the trousers. The Doctor was all but asleep.
As the Doctor had collapsed on top of the quilt, and Turlough fetched a throw off the settee by the window, and neatly tucked it around the sleeping Doctor. He stood by the bedside for a few minutes watching him sleep before dimming the lights and leaving him alone to rest. --