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Who: 10th and 13th Doctor
What: Trying to heal
When: after Nikola post
Where: Tardis
Warnings: TRIGGERS
b>Notes:

Someone is moping in a big armchair by a fireplace inside The Tardis and has a bottle of wine.

Watching his oldest self and Rose giggle together over the network - hurt. Mainly because 13 reminds 10 of how 10 use to be at the start of his regeneration and finds himself filled with bitterness and jealousy where he shouldn't be.

But he misses himself. How he was at the start of his regeneration. Where did everything go wrong? When he made the choice to leave everyone he loves behind.

He didn't have the balls to keep Rose with him.

Donna couldn't be helped but still doesn't help what did have to be done.

Martha and Jack had their own lives to get back too.

But he knows the most obvious reason of all - is that he allowed Davros's words about turning his friends into weapons worm into his head.

He wants to love himself again. He wants to be happy again when he's not drunk or just after having sex.

What's the point of living between heartbeats if you're not emotionally alive - when those you love are here.

And some days - some days it seems hopeless that he'll never get back near the top. Which watching Rose and 13 over the network - today was one of those days.

With the bottle half drank - in a fit of fury that this is one of the only ways he can be happy tosses the rest into the fireplace which causes the fire to spark for a moment and manages to jump onto the rug that is near by.

Which Ten gets up and starts to step on the small fire on the floor with his shoes to put it out.

He can't do anything right anymore can he?

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She had been drifting between TARDISes like a ghost since coming here, wandering the city, exploring and mentally cataloging everything that might have been important, measuring things, scanning things, and then coming "home" to one of the two that weren't the last Doctor's when she was nearer to them the the other. For a while, it had been the 11th's, but then she'd ended up on this side of the place and had come home to the 10th's. It was all the same to her, and she did what she could to stay out of their hair when she knew they were around.

Which was why she'd been resting in one of the spare bedrooms. The TARDIS registered the two of them both here and she had noticed that recognition when her mind had connected with the ship when she'd stepped on board, and she had left him to his devices as she let herself get her precious few, weekly moments of sleep, still clad in her tshirts and coat.

It hadn't lasted long, though. Even in her dreams, she'd been able to feel something...off. Something didn't feel right, like the air was too heavy, stifling and closing in all around her. And then she'd heard that voice, the one that had lodged itself deep in her brain two faces ago after the TARDIS had finally been given a voice to speak, like a whisper in her ear as the ship gave a gentle, mental nudge to stir her from her dreams. Wake up, Thief. You're needed.

She was awake instantly, sitting straight up in the small bed and looking around in mild confusion. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, groaning as she climbed to her feet and shuffled barefoot out the door, the ghost of the voice still ringing in her head.

"What is it, old girl? What's wrong?" She let the psychic connection pull her along the corridors, moving on instinct more then any conscious decision. The feeling led her deep, past the library, past the pool and the oxygen farm and the kitchen, until the sound of a crash and a roar echoed down the hall and she jumped. Instantly alert, she raced toward the source of the sound, only to find the other Doctor trying to stomp out a small fire that had escaped the fireplace in one of the studies, and she gave a shout that may or may not have been a startled curse in one of their millions of languages as she raced over to help.

She pulled off her coat, dropping it onto the flames and kneeling down to pat them out. Luckily, the flame was small, and after a moment of dumbfounded shock before she was confident the small emergency had been eliminated, she pulled the coat back away to see the small, charred embers as they cooled and the ship began healing the damaged carpet around it. She sighed, smiling in relief as she stood and gave the jacket a quick once over, scoffing at the singe marks that marred its lining, and laughed as she stood to look at 10.

"Well, guess it's time to go looking in the wardrobe for a replacement. Are you alright? What happened?" It was then that she caught the sickly, disgusting odor of alcohol as it was being metabolized, and she went still, her eyes narrowing just at the corners in veiled concern. "Doctor?"

Suddenly, she wasn't so sure that the TARDIS had pulled her out of her dreams for one tiny fire.

A very rude remark and turns to walk a bit away from his eldest self; "Did I say a funny thing? It's all fun to you isn't it? Fun, fun, fun."
His face is rather mocking and his words seem to bite at 13.

He shouldn't be taking this out on 13, it's not her fault. She's not the one messed up in the head.

"What?" Is the bitter remark; and doesn't even bother to turn to eye his eldest self.

His words are obviously slurred slightly, "Are you absolutely sure you want me to ask me how I'm doing?"

Edited 2018-12-12 16:41 (UTC)

For a brief moment, she's confused, her nose curling at the way he seemed so angry at her laughter. But then just as quickly, she realized what was happening and her pride kicked in, that same anger they all shared and so frequently turned on each other making her hands fist in the folds of the burned coat.

"Don't you-...!" When he turned his back to her, slurred out that bitter, rhetorical question, she pulled herself back in before she could march any closer then a single pace his way. If he had turned to look at her, he would have been able to see the way she fought with herself, grinding her teeth and twisting the fabric in her hands before going still.

It took her a good moment to be sure she wouldn't say something she would regret, and even as she put every ounce of her focus into shaking the coat out, folding it into a neat, tidy little bundle and resting it on a nearby table, she wasn't sure she would be able to avoid it even when she did reply. Her hands clenched and unclenched twice before she felt like she had given herself enough seconds to force her anger down where it belonged.

"I wasn't laughing at you." She couldn't pretend that his mockery of her happiness hadn't hit a nerve, especially coming from him of all the other Doctors, but even addressing that in the current moment would have involved that same biting mockery being thrown back in his face, and she wasn't going to do that. Not when he was in the state he was in, not when she knew why he was so unwell. She took a deep breath, twisting her neck and listening to the vertebrae crack as they popped under the tension in her neck.

"You're drunk. I'm not going to fight with you, not when you're three sheets in the wind."

"Not completely. If I was completely I'd be giddy right now." There's bitterness in his voice - considering the few things that make him happy anymore.

Ten doesn't say anything more but decides to try to walk out of the room and pauses to point at her. When does so - the ice in his veins becomes rather obvious.

"And don't you get on yourself about how this is a bad choice. Because apparently, I'm full of them."

Then proceeds to try and leave.

The thought that this must be what Rose and Nikola had been talking about when they made references to the wine stores increasing since this Doctor had been locked out of Nikola's lab suddenly made a lot more sense. Which just set a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. In all the centuries, they'd never felt the need to turn to this for comfort, not even as the 12th.

Her anger was tempered a little, then, by the worry that came back to the surface as he made a move to walk out. She couldn't help but give a small, bitter laugh at what he said before trying to storm out, turning to him and holding her arms out away from her sides.

"Again, not laughin' at you, but look at me. Every one of your mistakes is my mistake, too. An' I've made a lot more since you, so just remember that."

And she was almost going to let him walk out that door, leave him to his own devices because she didn't know if she would be able to do anything that could really help, not with their tempers flared up the way they were. But then she felt a mental jolt, a griping snarl from the TARDIS in her head, and she scoffed, looking up at the walls with a small sneer.

"Ok, fine, yes, I know." And then she was following him out and down the hallway, mumbling to herself and to the ship under her breath as she went. "Don' know what you expect me to be able to do, but here we go."

She reached out and grabbed his arm when she was within reach, shaking her head to herself. If she'd been a little taller, this would have been easier. He had always been able to just guide people around where he wanted them to go, with those long legs putting him over the heads of more then a small percentage of the people they'd met.

"Come on, I passed the kitchen, an' you need to get somethin' in your system, otherwise you're just gonna be even more miserable then usual." If he wasn't to the point of being giddy, he was to the point of hating everything, and that wasn't healthy for anyone, especially not himself. They always turned that hate inward.

The only reason Ten walks into Nikola's lab (and it goes for anyone's space at Torchwood) is because someone believes to own the place and if he really wanted too would materialize the Tardis in Nikola's lab.

Ten seems to withdrawn more about all his mistakes being her mistakes too. He needs positive reinforcement because he's trapped in a mental cycle that he can't do anything right and it's obvious mentioning there's more mistakes isn't helping him. If anything - looks like he's clinging to not slip more.

"What's the point of going on then?!" Ten snaps at his oldest self and his breathing is a bit deeper and a slight quiver in his body and running off.

That is until, the Tardis leads Ten down a dead end hallway and finds himself being dragged by his eldest self and is sort of putting up a fight with being tugged along.

"Not more miserable it will actually an improvement. Let me go! You obviously can't help me!" As Ten is trying to twist her grip off his arm - and then stops. And collapses to his knees with his head hanging down.

What's the point?

Why does he keep fighting? Keep hanging on? Because Rose wants him too. As do Jack and Martha.

That, it seems, is one of the never-ending common threads among them. Never respect a locked door, everywhere is a space that is meant to hold them if they so deem it. She's certainly not any better at refusing a locked door then he is.

The way her words seem to bite into him even worse make her instantly regret them even with her temper, and she sighs, rubbing her hand down her face in exasperation as she followed after him.

"Alright, this is me, takin' my foot out of my mouth, I'm sorry." She's thankful for the TARDIS' intervention and trying to keep him contained, sending a mental thought of gratitude to the consciousness that lived within the ship. The way he collapsed, though, makes all of the anger that still lingered in her evaporate, and there was only a brief moment before she was moving to kneel in front of him.

"No, you'll just feel worse. You need water an' food to help burn it off. If you're drunk an' not shakin' it off, you're gonna be hung over, an' it'll just make you feel terrible later. We're not used to alcohol effectin' us like this, we should be careful." Which just makes her wonder why it's effecting him this way. Had someone mentioned something about this? Was this something this dimension had done to him, or was it an effect of his aborted regeneration that she'd never heard of? She put her arm around his shoulders, trying to catch his eye where he drooped, looking so defeated.

"Doctor, I'm sorry for what I said." Apologizing to themselves is rather strange, but she genuinely meant it, and hoped it came through in her tone. "Please get off of the floor, we'll find you something that will help. I'm not leaving until I know you're alright."

And she meant it. However long he needed to calm down, she intended to be right there. The last thing he needed when he was in a bad place was to be alone. He dealt with that possibly the worst out of all of them.

The not being able to handle alcohol as he should is due to the fact of having The Tardis. Which - usually he knows better to not drink so much, despite missing that. But that is a sacrifice- that and the needing sleep. Having to dangle on the edge of sort of being human now.

13 doesn't seem to get it; he doesn't care what happens to himself right now or maybe she does get that.

Ten does eye up at his eldest self; when she makes her apology. One of himselves met to himself, with a speck of hope in those brown eyes (with a gentle hand squeeze) and uses her to help himself back to his feet and towards the kitchen.

She gave him a small smile when he looked up at her and acquiesced, squeezing his hand back as he let himself be lifted and guided away with a softly muttered "Thank you," letting him set the pace. Once they were in the kitchen, she guided him to a seat at the island in the middle of the room before she was off, one eye and one ear trained on him as she filled a glass with water and placed it in front of him. She returned to the pantry and pulled out bread and a can of beans, placing them down as she swept to the refrigerator and pulled out eggs, butter, sausage, rashers, tomatoes, a little carton of mushrooms. An armful of food that she carried over to the cook top in the island across from him.

"Fry-up sound fine, or would it make you sick?" She pulled out a skillet and set it to heat on the stove. If it was too much for his stomach, she could always eat it herself and figure out something else for him.

And then she was going still as she waited for the pan to heat, looking over at him, the silence lingering between them for a moment before she finally managed to work up the courage to ask what was possibly the easiest way of addressing the great, big elephant in the room.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Probably not, they never did. But she said she was going to stay until she was sure he was ok, and just letting him stew in whatever was hurting him wasn't going to get him there. Best to let him feel like it was his choice. They never dealt well with being told to talk about what was going on in their head.

Ten finds a spot and watches her; though he's not really focused on her or what's she's doing.

But trying to get himself to say it - because she's thinking of asking and he really, really should because he can't get this knife (metaphorically speaking) that Rose twisted into him and at some point; when he went back to check on Martha and ran to his own end; saw that Rose was right and now; he can't see any of his actions, his choices being right and dryly remarks;

"I didn't do anything right." Only eyeing his eldest self for a quick moment.

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