| Date: 11 December 2007
Characters: The Apprentice, The Ninth Doctor Location: outside Link to IJ: thread #2623 |
 "You have any time or place you want to go?"
That was the last thing he remembered before he'd been seperated from the Bad Wolf. He shook his head. Slid sideways through time and space, instead of skipping across the waves. Not what his... teacher? He frowned, then nodded to himself. Not what his teacher's computer was supposed to do. He didn't think she meant to come here, either. Somewhere... somewhere where he could hear more than just lonely howls from someone who couldn't connect on the same level as he remembered connecting. He shook his head again, looking around a moment before settling down into a nearby chair, just watching the people around him. Looking for someone who wasn't all bound up in regimented time and a short lifespan and blinkered senses. |
 "You look lost," the Doctor sat down next to him, stretching long legs out and folding his hands over his chest, "but then a lot of people do, you just look more quiet about it. Can't stand the quiet, so. Are you lost?" |
| The Apprentice looked over at the man who'd sat next to him, tilting his head to one side. "Sometimes. Sometimes the universe is lost, sometimes time is lost. Can't always tell which."
He shrugged one shoulder, turning back to watching people, though more of his attention was on the man beside him than his observations. Something about him felt... like home. Home-that-wasn't. "Lost my teacher. I hope she isn't too badly off. All alone, howling at the Void, and missing Time." |
| "And sometimes just you are lost," The Doctor frowned, mentally tight enough to not really be feeling anything but a sense of familiarity. He was still scarred enough psychically (dying, burning, all together, across time) that he wasn't reaching out to anyone. "Howling at the Void? What void? Missing Time? What are you going on about?" |
| "The Void. Between universes. She's trapped on the wrong side." The Apprentice reached out mentally to poke at the feeling at the back of his mind.
"There's no singing of time where she is, where I fell into. Too quiet, and I got... very lost for a while. She found me. A voice in the quiet, here." He tapped his temple. "All gone, the rest of them. She told me they burned, but I don't remember." |
| "Keep poking me and I will rip your spine out, psychic," the Doctor said in a calm tone, "The Void closed when the Time Lords died." |
| "Sorry." The Apprentice shrugged, the apology empty, but he stopped poking at the mental feeling. At least for now. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the faint howling he associated with his teacher. He'd have to find her sooner or later. Later, probably.
"She says that's why the Doctor can't come get her. Says she'll tear one of his hearts out if he does that, because it will collapse two universes." He grimaced, a slight shiver going down his spine. "That would be unpleasent." |
| "...What's her name then? Romana?" |
| The Apprentice shakes his head. "No. The Lady President isn't here." He paused, frowning. "I don't think she's here, at least. I don't know. This isn't like where I was. Almost like home, but different, too. No, my teacher is the Bad Wolf." He searched his sketchy memory a moment. "Rose? I think that's her name. It's also a flower, so I might be wrong. She is the Bad Wolf, though." |
| "What? Romana presi- Where are you from?" He had a sinking feeling. |
| "Gallifrey." The Apprentice sighed softly. "I miss it. Sometimes I get lost just so I can remember again, almost still be there. But it's not." |
| Ah, that sinking feeling was justified. "Gallifrey burned." |
| "I know." The Apprentice looked over again, his expression faintly amused, and eyes slightly out of focus. "She told me about it, I saw something of it when she found me. She ended it. The wolf howling at the storm, and not letting go." |
| "I ended it," he argued because it might not be something to be proud of it, but it was his. "What's your name?" |
| "I'm the Apprentice. Her student. At least, sometimes. Sometimes I know more than she does, but I forgot a lot, getting lost before." He smiled, awareness in his expression that he wasn't entirely sane or grounded in reality. "She said the Doctor saved the universe. You're the Doctor." |
| "I'm the Doctor and I don't know your Rose." |
| "Then you will know her." The Apprentice's smile widened slightly. "And everything will be all right, because she helped you. She does that, helps people. Finds people when they get lost in their head, all tangled up. Not always as lost as I was, but..." he shrugged. |
| "Why were you lost?" |
| "I fell." He frowned, his brow furrowing. "I ran, and I fell. It hurt, falling, tumbling, everything jumbled. I landed, and there was nothing. No one, no songs, no Time. I was scared, and I got lost in my mind, trying to stay in a place that wasn't, surrounded by what is." |
| "How old were you?" he asked after a moment, quiet and a little worried. |
| "I don't remember." He scrubbed at his face with his hands a moment. "I don't remember, and I should. Shouldn't I?" He looked at the Doctor with a confused look on his face. "I remember the Acadamy, and I remember I was too young to go fight. But I've forgotten how old I was." |
| "And you don't know how old you are now, either, do you?" |
| The Apprentice shook his head. "No. I was lost a long time, and I lost time too." |
| "Have you regenerated?" |
| He frowned, his gaze unfocusing more, looking inward. "I think... I might have. The clothes the hospital said I was found in don't fit me. Don't look right. And the shoes pinch." |
| "Or you just got older." |
| He nods. "More likely." He scrubbed at his face again. "I can hear her howling. Them howling. More than one. Her, and her, and voices that sound alike but different, you and another you? It's wrong, shouldn't happen. How?" |
| "What do you mean howling?" |
| "In here." He tapped his temple. "Everyone sounds different. She howls, she's the Bad Wolf. You sound like thunder in the distance, and rain on a roof." |
| "Stay outta my head," The Doctor warned again, "Close yourself up, it'll be the better for you." |
| "I don't know how." He hunched in on himself, barely restraining himself from rubbing at his face again. A bad habit, like he could scrub away all the missing time, and find himself under it again. |
| "Look at me," he ordered, "Imagine building a wall." |
| "A wall." He looked at the Doctor, tilting his head slightly to one side, thinking of the walls around the garden at the hospital he'd been at. "Like those walls?" |
| "Stop it,"he warned again, "Outta my head or I'll put you out of your misery once you get in. No. Your own wall. No one else's." |
| "I'm sorry." He scrubbed at his face again, trying to imagine walls. Memories of various walls swirled at the edges of his mind. Walls of the garden, walls of the Acadamy, walls of brick and mortar, walls of glass and steel, walls of grey and gold and green... He shook his head, trying to build the wall like he'd been told. |
| "Build it," The Doctor said, voice low and steady, "Brick by brick or board by board. Yours only." |
| "Little scraps of stone and metal, bits of home and travel," whispered the Apprentice, his tone almost sing-song. "Spun together with golden threads." |
| "It's gotta be solid," the Doctor told him, "Keep people out. Can you make it tight?" |
| "High as the stars, and hard as a Dalek shell." The Apprentice frowned, shaking his head. "Not a Dalek. No. Like a TARDIS, all inside away from the outside." |
| "Exactly," the Doctor said,soft and soothing, "Protection from all of time and space." |
| "There is no time here. No time there, either." He poked at the wall he'd built, smiling with an almost childish glee when it just stayed. "Not time like it should be. All too fast and skipping along." |
| "Focus on your wall, and stayin' inside it," he said, serious. |
| The Apprentice nodded, wrapping the walls around him like the blankets they'd tucked around him at the hospital. "Safe, like home." |
| "That's exactly it, kid," the Doctor agreed, voice low and soothing. |