Before Falling yet After Drowning

Preface

The TARDIS was empty. In its infinite number of rooms, not one of them held life. Beds lay unmade. Swimming pools without even a ripple. Closets filled with scarves, stetsons, and decorative vegetables, yet nobody bothered to wear them. There was one person on the TARDIS, and they were ever only in one room. Alone, and empty inside, like the vast spacecraft in which they sat. Stared at the blinking controls. Watched the center counsol flash up and down. Tried to sleep in the tangle of wires beneath the glass floor.

When the timelord was able to sleep, he had nightmares of Weeping Angels. Of Rory the Roman and fairytale Amelia Pond, the girl who waited. It wasn't as if he hadn't had nightmares before. He used to have them constantly. Of the war. Of the Master. Of all the companions he'd lost and all the monsters he'd faught. Yet this was somehow worse. His sadness grew with each beat of his hearts. He couldn't bear to go anywhere else on the TARDIS, for every room held some kind of poisonous memory of the Ponds.

But the control room was becoming so boring. He needed to get out, breathe some fresh air. A nice trip to a relaxing galaxy, that's what he needed. The Doctor untangled himself from the wires and climbed up the stairs to the main floor. He pulled down a lever, and the TARDIS shuddered, out of practice from its long float in deep space. The Doctor then pressed a series of buttons, and the center console began to whir. His ship made the vworping sound that he so loved as it entered the time vortex.

It shook back and forth as it flew, and the Doctor reached for the mallet to strike it. Ready to shout at his Sexy to behave. Then he realized that he hadn't had a mallet on the TARDIS for a long time. Not since Donna left and the TARDIS regenerated, as did he. Donna. He missed her. Could he go visit her, now that she wouldn't recognize him? He quickly reset the coordinates to London. Yes. He would go visit Donna. And maybe Wilfred, too. And Martha! Too bad he couldn't see Rose...

But Rose was with him, the Doctor reminded himself. Another version of his Tenth self. She wouldn't want him. She wouldn't even know who he was. Nobody knew this face, except for the Ponds. Nobody knew him, because he wasn't the same as he was before he'd regenerated. They probably wouldn't even want him anymore. 

The Doctor sighed, and leaned forward against the controls, closing his eyes. The TARDIS shook beneath him, but he didn't care. He just had to get out of here. As soon as she landed, the Doctor would lock the door and never look back.