Not what I intended to write, but as always I don't own anything. R&R Lovelies

D.R.

Memories burbled like so many words from a book, spilling off of pages too worn to hold their secrets. They were wrought with darkness, fraught with fear and cold and hurt and far too much betrayal. Still, a cottony calm surrounded everything, numbing their bearer to the brunt of it.

"Rise Lord Master." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, and all he wanted to do was sleep, but the voice tugged at him, insisting that he obey. An image of Rassilon rose in his subconscious, or perhaps it was his conscious, it was all so fuzzy. All he wanted to do was sleep. He was so weary. So very weary.

Still he rose; weak kneed and naked, shivering in the empty blankness of his own mind. He felt as though he might be being judged by something, and felt the inexplicable need to cover himself, not that there was anything just lying about.

Skeletons of charred, silver leafs and ash blew by him, caught on a nonexistent breeze.

"Diseased" The breeze whispered, a familiar drumming pounding in the distance. Images rushed towards him; suddenly he was with his friends at the Academy.

The Deca.

Rallon, Ushas, Drax, Jelpax, Mortimus , Vansell, Millennia, Magnus, and Theta.

Oh, Theta.

How young they had once been.

He found himself reaching towards Theta, only to have that wonderfully familiar face warp into a cruel and mocking sneer, "Diseased." The scene ripped itself away, leaving him shaking and cold to be replaced by Theta, The Doctor, holding him, cradling him.

"My best friend." The words echoed in his mind, a cacophony of ridicule set to that cruel beat, not him, never again him, my best friend was reserved for someone ginger and female, someone Theta had replaced him with so easily. Not him though. So many memories, so much hung between them, strung like shards of broken glass.

It hurt, it all hurt, and he screamed for it to end.

He begged for it, pleaded, screamed up at the nothing that existed.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, he was supposed to finally be free.

Free of the hurt and the pain and the never-ending drumming.

And yet, that was all there was, the hurt, the pain, the drums. That was all there had been for so long.

He was so cold, and it was so dark.

"We have to escape, because it's coming, sir. The darkness, the never ending darkness. The terribly terrible cold. We have to run and run and run."

Was this what it had been? Was this what it had been at the end?

He'd be willing to believe in the goddess again, believe in anything if it would take away the pain.

The memories kept assaulting him, twisting themselves into something dark and ugly.

Suddenly there was a warm golden glow, healing the frayed edges of his sanity, and he could see a hand extended towards him though he was eye-level with a pair of grimy white converse.

"I forgive you"

Salvation had a name, it was The Doctor, and maybe, just maybe, those words could be a life line.