The hum told him he probably needed to brace himself, his eyes flicking down involuntarily toward the device before it activated.
The Doctor rocked back into the device as it suddenly shoved the spikes into him from all sides, punching into his skin before he could effectively shrink away. He felt more than heard the gasp shake loose from him. The Doctor’s hands clenched together as he squeezed his eyes shut, but already he could feel something. More of a Something, and suddenly he was standing with his hands on Donna Noble, poor, amazing, incredible Donna Noble, stealing what she’d told him was the best year of her life away as she begged. One of the worst memories he’d had out of a big terrible load of them. It bled out because it was one of his more recent shames, a violent impression of colors and the hum and groan of the TARDIS blurring together in too-sharp detail.
She’s another one came the thought, old, sad, and not even surprised. Not really. Not in the end. He knew in the bottom of his hearts that this was how it would end. This or something else. And yet he kept visiting the humans. Because he couldn’t say no to Earth and their funny little humans.
The Doctor found himself white-knuckling the edges of the device slab, aware of the spikes imbedded several centimeters all over in all the wrong places and also of killing the woman he’d been effectively best friends with, her cheek burning to the touch.
Time stretched out wrong. Felt wrong. His sense of the ebbs and flow of Time had been off since Stacy but this was even worse than usual. It felt like weeks with Donna in the TARDIS, not the couple of minutes it took to finish.
Re: TIME SKIP
The Doctor rocked back into the device as it suddenly shoved the spikes into him from all sides, punching into his skin before he could effectively shrink away. He felt more than heard the gasp shake loose from him. The Doctor’s hands clenched together as he squeezed his eyes shut, but already he could feel something. More of a Something, and suddenly he was standing with his hands on Donna Noble, poor, amazing, incredible Donna Noble, stealing what she’d told him was the best year of her life away as she begged. One of the worst memories he’d had out of a big terrible load of them. It bled out because it was one of his more recent shames, a violent impression of colors and the hum and groan of the TARDIS blurring together in too-sharp detail.
She’s another one came the thought, old, sad, and not even surprised. Not really. Not in the end. He knew in the bottom of his hearts that this was how it would end. This or something else. And yet he kept visiting the humans. Because he couldn’t say no to Earth and their funny little humans.
The Doctor found himself white-knuckling the edges of the device slab, aware of the spikes imbedded several centimeters all over in all the wrong places and also of killing the woman he’d been effectively best friends with, her cheek burning to the touch.
Time stretched out wrong. Felt wrong. His sense of the ebbs and flow of Time had been off since Stacy but this was even worse than usual. It felt like weeks with Donna in the TARDIS, not the couple of minutes it took to finish.