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1
London is one of his favourite cities. It’s silly, there are cities like it all over the universe, but there’s nostalgia in it. Something comforting about the smog and the bustle. He’s been trying to take calmer trips. He doesn’t do well on his own.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees it. A shape darting towards an alleyway. The Doctor ran after it, hand reaching into his coat pocket for his torch. He clicked it on and pointed into the alley, where a dog — clearly rabid — stood, facing him. The Doctor put the torch in his teeth and crouched down. Keeping very still, averting his eyes, and facing his palms upwards.
The Doctor’s a touch-telepath, primarily, and animals are much harder to communicate with than humans. If he can touch the dog’s head, he can tell it he means no harm. He just needs to get it somewhere safe. There’s no way he can save it now, not with how far along its rabies has gotten, but he can take it somewhere it can live out the rest of its life as comfortably as possible — or have it ended in a humane way. His main priority is taking it off the street.
“I’m going to touch you,” the Doctor says, keeping his voice calm, hoping at least that the tone of his voice conveyed what his words couldn’t. “Please don’t bite me.”
He reaches forward, and the dog snaps, biting the hand that approached it. The Doctor wrenches his hand free and touches the dog’s head, trying to send as forcefully as he can that he is not a threat without breaking the dog’s mind.
The dog calms and the Doctor removes his hand, wiping the blood on his suit trousers. He picks up the dog, stroking it gently, and begins the walk to the nearest vet.
The Doctor sits in the waiting room for about fifteen minutes before he’s called in, holding the dog in his arms all the while. He sent it to sleep when they first got there, when all the other dogs and people were scaring it. It’s hard to feel anything but numb as he holds the dog in his arms.
It doesn’t know it has a death warrant. It doesn’t know every breath it takes is one breath closer to the end of its life. It doesn’t know that being held by the Doctor is the last time it will know being held.
“It’s rabid,” the Doctor tells the vet quietly, unwilling to place the dog down for even a second.
“It bit you,” the vet responds.
The Doctor looks down at his hand, then up into the vet’s eyes. “It’s not… it’s not about me.”
The vet looks at the dog. “It’ll need to be put down,” they say.
The Doctor looks down at this dog, sleeping so peacefully in its arms. “Yeah,” he says, from outside himself.
The Doctor holds the dog until it stops breathing.
2
There’s something oddly domestic about this whole affair. The Doctor cleans his shoes at the entrance of the TARDIS. She’s annoyed. He can’t deal with her annoyed. Not now. But she can’t dial down on her annoyance, and he can’t manage to deal with it, so she becomes a reason to escape. At least the medical supplies are near.
He opens a cupboard and pulls out a syringe labelled as a rabies shot. He injects it into his shoulder and throws it away.
3
The dog isn't forgotten.
Maybe that's the worst part of it. The Doctor walks through the TARDIS, trying to distract himself. He should do some spring cleaning. He should read a new book. He should indulge himself in a research topic. He should travel around the universe, trying to see the sights, trying to see any sight other than that dog in his arms as the life drained out of it. Looking up at the vet. He tries to say he just found it today, less than an hour ago, but he can’t get the words out of his throat.
The dog isn’t forgotten as the Doctor decides to translate his collection of 15th century Italian books into braille. The dog isn’t forgotten. The dog isn’t forgotten. The dog isn’t forgotten.
He shouldn’t go back to Chiswick but he does. The TARDIS is disappointed and he ignores her, because he just wants to watch from a distance. He just wants to put on his coat and hide in a busy cafe and see her walking, coffee in hand, not a care in the world.
(He just wants to see her in any other context than begging him to let her die, just to stay with him. But he can’t. He can’t watch as the light leaves her eyes. They didn’t even travel together for a year.)
And throughout it all the dog is not forgotten. Donna is not forgotten. Rose is not forgotten. Charley is not forgotten. Adric is not forgotten. Katarina is not forgotten. Every single person who followed him to their doom is remembered in excruciating detail.
The TARDIS is upset. He’s beginning to think it might be his fault.
4
The Doctor has a bit of a fever. It should be nothing.
5
The TARDIS is an interesting place. A unique place, now. As he is the last of the Time Lords, she’s the last of her kind. And there they are together, the last children of Gallifrey in a universe that no longer has a place for either of them.
But really, the Doctor thinks, it never had a place for a Type 40 TARDIS and the Renegade Time Lord who stole her. So maybe things aren’t so different now.
They’ve both known the worst of Time Lords, time and time again — anyone who still remembers a universe where they existed knows the worst of the Time Lords. It’s not fair — or rather it’s not right, because it’s a just assessment of how they were, but as his entire species’ executioner. He thinks it, sometimes, when he’s alone, when he gives himself time. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe he couldn’t do anything else.
And then he remembers the feeling in his mind of millions of voices going silent.
His fever’s growing stronger. His forehead’s about as hot as a healthy human’s, which is very much not good. If it keeps up, he’ll have to do something about it.
It’s good, when you’re sick, to focus on the physical. He didn’t see anything out of the corner of his eye. His head aches. He’s growing weaker. There is no voice that he recognises.
The TARDIS is a unique place. The TARDIS is kept cold, and the Doctor shuffles around in blankets and tries his hardest to block his mind to her feelings. The TARDIS is a unique place.
Time is weird. For the TARDIS, as a living time (and space) machine. For him, as a Time Lord. It’s happening all at once. It’s happening out of order. And there is still no way to go back. He is holding the dog, he is finding the dog, he has never seen that dog in his life, that dog will haunt him to whatever grave is in store.
There are voices in the TARDIS. There are people living here. He is all alone.
6
There’s a weakness in him. It makes it hard to move.
7
Is it wrong to wish for death?
His mind is clouded with fever. He can’t move, he just lies. At some point he sat down on the control room floor and he hasn’t gotten up. Her warmth and the blanket doesn’t stop him from shivering as much as he is able. For a human, this would be the end. He is a Time Lord. This doesn’t even mean a regeneration.
There are illnesses that can kill him, they’re few and far between, but they do exist. Almost none of them can survive past one regeneration. Rabies isn’t one of them. Paralytic rabies, dumb rabies, all it makes him is miserable for a bit. And then he’s up.
Is it wrong to envy the dog, just a bit? He needs a humane end to his life. He needs someone to hold him while he dies.
The TARDIS hums in the background, an ever constant presence. Is she worried? He can’t discern what she’s feeling on the best of days. There’s something about being so much a part of something unknowable. Loving something like a black hole. She’s incomprehensible. She loves him back. Is this how it feels to be the dog? Loving something so much bigger than you are, loving something you don’t even know, loving something that will hold you as you die and outlive you and wish she didn’t.
His eyes slip closed.
8
Someone is exploring, and they stumble upon this control room. Nothing happens in the TARDIS by mistake.
“Who’s this?” they ask. The TARDIS can’t answer them, but they seem to get the intention. They walk over to the Doctor, lying partially covered by the blanket, and pick them up. He’s heavy, but lighter than he should be.
The TARDIS shows the way, and they drop him on a bed, gently pulling the covers over them.
“Is this what you wanted me to do?” they ask.
The TARDIS can’t respond in a meaningful way to them, but if she could, it would’ve been something like yes. Something like thank you. Something like I’ll take care of him from now.