Title: Shadow Boxes

Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all its affiliates belong to the BBC and its respective companies. No copyright infringement is intended. No money was made from this work of fiction.

However, if you have a spare Christopher Eccleston bounding about, I'd like to buy him please.

Author's Note: This takes place directly after "The Doctor's Wife". (Brilliant episode, don't you think?) Inspired by a comment I saw on Tumblr, saying that the House deleted all of the bedrooms, including the past companions.

Also, this is my first foray into DW fanfiction. Please be nice. :)

They were gone. All gone.

Rose had left her bedroom in a hurry - clothes scattered all over the floor, a random assortment of plush toys that she'd picked up from the various planets and cities they'd visited over the years. Photos taken and framed were left on her dresser table, and her favourite wooden hairbrush, still dusted with strands of her yellow hair, remained in front of a mirror that would never see her face again. He'd sometimes stand at the doorway, late at night, when the Ponds were asleep, leaning against the doorframe and wondering if she was happy, if she was still safe.

If she still loved him.

Martha's, on the other hand, was neat and clean, her sheets crisp and tucked at the edges. Some of her old books, alien biology and xenomedical texts, were stacked at the corner table. Her clothes hung on curved racks, still waiting for her slender body to fill them. He missed her, sometimes, and wondered if he'd been able to treat her better. But he was so wracked with guilt at the loss of Rose, he barely gave her the time of the day. There were days when he wanted to go back, wanted to apologise, wanted to tell her no, someone else deserved that love she wanted him so much to have, that love he couldn't accept because he was still such a broken, old man.

And Donna! The best of mates, he grinned to himself. Her room was decorated like a courtesan's - all curtains and lace and curves, soft seats and scented candles. The most important woman in the universe, and she had a spot in the heart of time and space. He'd see the cursed hat box perched atop a particularly precarious shelf, or see a scattered scarf or two and know that it belonged to her.

He smiled at the memories as he paced the winding corridors of his ship, his TARDIS. He ran a hand lovingly across her curved struts, the coral walls pulsing a gentle golden glow. My girl, he whispered in his mind. You'll never leave me.

His footsteps echoed, lonely drumbeats measuring the space between footfalls. Here's where Jack's room used to be, and here's Mickey's. He knew that despite the changes, his old companions' bedrooms were somewhere archived in the memory of the TARDIS like pressed flowers among the pages of favourite books. He leaned his forehead against the walls, listened to the familiar beat of the engine. All his memories, destroyed by the House. He wanted to rail at the insignificant creature, pummel its consciousness with his bare hands. That was all he had left of his companions: empty boxes, shadows of their former life, and he took even that away from him. Erased them from his ship, his one true companion, the only one who ever stayed.

She shone like the brightest star in the universe, he thought to himself as he sunk down to the floor, gangly hands balanced on knobbly knees. Alive. She's alive, and she loves me.

The ship hums contentedly, pulsing around the Doctor like a comfortable armchair, an old baby blanket that could never quite get thrown away. He sighed. Let the TARDIS figure out what kind of bedroom the Ponds wanted - they're married now, they can do whatever they like in their bedroom. They're together.

Just like us.

Some time later, the Doctor opened his eyes and discovered that he's lying horizontal in bed. A bed that he'd never really slept in the past few years. Someone had changed the sheets, removed his bow tie and tweed jacket, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. He wiggled his toes experimentally. Socks. Someone had taken his shoes.

He turned around to lie flat on his back. The room was bathed in a soft, pale light. A glass of water stood on the night-table, beside the sonic screwdriver. His jacket was slung across the back of a chair, his shoes paired beneath it. He slipped his hands beneath his head and stared at the ceiling. It was the TARDIS, he knew. Somehow, for some inexplicable reason, she needed him to sleep. And he trusted her, he trusts her, his ship, his girl, his awesomely sexy thing, but now he needed to wake up.

And then, as though all the air was being sucked out of his lungs, he remembered the loss. The shadows in the corridors, where blank doors hide blank rooms behind them. But the TARDIS pulses gently behind his closed eyes, telling him one thing: Look.

He threw off the covers and ran, socked feet in mismatched patterns, skidding up and down the smooth corridors towards the living quarters. Here's Amy and Rory's room, he knew, and even though he didn't dare knock, he knew the TARDIS had given them exactly what they needed. But there's a familiar door beside it, a few paces down. A door that he's opened many times in his past, watching a pink-and-yellow slip of a girl sleep and dream of distant stars.

His heart in his throat, he walked towards the door and grasped the handle. Geronimo, whispered the voice in his head.

/the end