[The Doctor steps forward, toward the railing, giving his older self a searching look--and after a bit of a smirk at her initial response, he winces as she starts explaining in more detail. He listens, leaning against the railing, a part of him feeling that urge to rebel against her all-too-plausible complications to the relatively simple story of the regeneration between them just being bad. Whatever else she might say, those were already motivations he could understand all too well.
His expression's more serious and concerned as he looks up again to meet her eyes, and if he's amused on some level at the thought of him coming after himself, there's a feeling of hollowness when she says they almost don't regenerate. He grimaces at that, stung both with understanding and frustration--how hard had he struggled to keep going?--but he listens attentively, still. He bristles a little, sympathetically, as her tension raises to that climax, answering it with a rather hollow smile.
He'd rather hoped breaking all the rules to find a way to save Gallifrey would have given him some peace, at least, from those memories, those nightmares, that he'd worked so hard to pack away safely and compartmentalize.
The Doctor shakes his head as his older self finishes up, recovering at least some of her composure, and flashes a sort of wry, exasperated smile.]
...not impossible. You've picked up on how much here depends on telepathic fields, yeah? The barrier, whatever exactly lives outside it, those dream docks, the sacrifices...
[...he really didn't like the sacrifices very much, and even less so on account of River's.]
Wouldn't be surprised if it all served to charge up some telepathic field battery, somewhere.
[Or a generator, or a creature, or... too much was unknown and unclear, but the details were sort of besides the point, at the moment. He paused a tick, still gripping the railing, and shifted his stance awkwardly for a second or two before speaking again, abruptly changing the topic back again.]
...ought to tell you, we had an... incident, Eyebrows and I did, bit after last Christmas.
[Another tick and a faint wince of recollection.]
......found out about how he... struggled to remember anything of Clara. Gave him a painting, thought it might... help.
[Judging by his expression, it didn't.]
'tween that and playing with the electrics, he managed to give himself seizures, aphasia, seemed to be related to the mem'ry block, so, well, couldn't leave him like that, tried to fix it--give him my mem'ries, help him break through the block, seizures should stop once the block's resolved, Bob's your uncle.
[He flashes a wry smile at that. He figures he doesn't need to specify it was direct telepathic surgery, because honestly, how else would they share memories and take down a memory block? That much should be obvious.]
...hell of a surge cut loose, all his blocked memories at once.
[Would she remember that bottomless black chasm of rage that seemed to draw the line between Clara and No Clara? Would the memory block persist across regenerations? It did seem to be top-shelf, Gallifreyan work, as far as he could tell. Of course, his version of events was a bit muddled. Getting whacked with all the memories trapped under a memory block didn't mean they were easy to sort into the right order or interpret accurately. The Doctor is clearly more than a little angry, himself, even if it's kept cool for the moment by the way she'd spoken to sympathetically about his future self. How can he compress into just a few words how he feels?
Ah.]
...I saw what happened to her. To Clara. That she wanted him--us--to forget her.
[At least, roughly. Surely, she knows what a mess interpreting someone else's memories can be. Still, there's little doubt in his mind that they'd failed her, maybe even betrayed her, and gotten her killed, in whichever order. Whatever sympathy his older self might have inspired, that was a hard point to get past.]
no subject
His expression's more serious and concerned as he looks up again to meet her eyes, and if he's amused on some level at the thought of him coming after himself, there's a feeling of hollowness when she says they almost don't regenerate. He grimaces at that, stung both with understanding and frustration--how hard had he struggled to keep going?--but he listens attentively, still. He bristles a little, sympathetically, as her tension raises to that climax, answering it with a rather hollow smile.
He'd rather hoped breaking all the rules to find a way to save Gallifrey would have given him some peace, at least, from those memories, those nightmares, that he'd worked so hard to pack away safely and compartmentalize.
The Doctor shakes his head as his older self finishes up, recovering at least some of her composure, and flashes a sort of wry, exasperated smile.]
...not impossible. You've picked up on how much here depends on telepathic fields, yeah? The barrier, whatever exactly lives outside it, those dream docks, the sacrifices...
[...he really didn't like the sacrifices very much, and even less so on account of River's.]
Wouldn't be surprised if it all served to charge up some telepathic field battery, somewhere.
[Or a generator, or a creature, or... too much was unknown and unclear, but the details were sort of besides the point, at the moment. He paused a tick, still gripping the railing, and shifted his stance awkwardly for a second or two before speaking again, abruptly changing the topic back again.]
...ought to tell you, we had an... incident, Eyebrows and I did, bit after last Christmas.
[Another tick and a faint wince of recollection.]
......found out about how he... struggled to remember anything of Clara. Gave him a painting, thought it might... help.
[Judging by his expression, it didn't.]
'tween that and playing with the electrics, he managed to give himself seizures, aphasia, seemed to be related to the mem'ry block, so, well, couldn't leave him like that, tried to fix it--give him my mem'ries, help him break through the block, seizures should stop once the block's resolved, Bob's your uncle.
[He flashes a wry smile at that. He figures he doesn't need to specify it was direct telepathic surgery, because honestly, how else would they share memories and take down a memory block? That much should be obvious.]
...hell of a surge cut loose, all his blocked memories at once.
[Would she remember that bottomless black chasm of rage that seemed to draw the line between Clara and No Clara? Would the memory block persist across regenerations? It did seem to be top-shelf, Gallifreyan work, as far as he could tell. Of course, his version of events was a bit muddled. Getting whacked with all the memories trapped under a memory block didn't mean they were easy to sort into the right order or interpret accurately. The Doctor is clearly more than a little angry, himself, even if it's kept cool for the moment by the way she'd spoken to sympathetically about his future self. How can he compress into just a few words how he feels?
Ah.]
...I saw what happened to her. To Clara. That she wanted him--us--to forget her.
[At least, roughly. Surely, she knows what a mess interpreting someone else's memories can be. Still, there's little doubt in his mind that they'd failed her, maybe even betrayed her, and gotten her killed, in whichever order. Whatever sympathy his older self might have inspired, that was a hard point to get past.]