The Time of Change

In the Name

"Annalise? Annalise!" the Doctor splutters as she sags onto him. He quickly scoops her up into his arms before she can drop to the floor, her head lolling on his shoulder. As he repositions her head against his shoulder, he neurotically checks her pulse and finds it beating slow and normal. With a sigh, he finishes his last thought: "He is my secret."

"What I did," the man at the cliff suddenly says in a hoarse voice, "I did without choice."

The Eleventh Doctor nods at his back. "I know."

"In the name of peace... and sanity."

"But not in the name of the Doctor," he replies through gritted teeth.

His wife moans softly in his arms, and he looks down at her with concern. He trails the tip of his index finger over her cheek, his wedding ring glinting in an unseen light. The Doctor keeps his face toward her as he closes his eyes and pictures the inside of the TARDIS in detail. Every knob, every button, each curve of the circular console, he calls it to his memory with ease. So many times he has stood there staring, lost in the beauty that few others see. Within a couple short moments, he senses the icy cold around them evaporating, and walls begin to materialize around them both. When he opens his eyes again, the bright light of the TARDIS's power container shines on the pair of them. He lets out a long breath of relief.

At once he makes for his bedroom so she can sleep off the strain she must be feeling. Her expression is so peaceful that he takes extra care not to stir her. Upon arriving at the door, he kicks it open and carefully lays her down on the mattress. Her eyelids flutter, but the Doctor knows she is not waking. Tenderly, he touches her hand and waits for her to still once more.

He wants to ask if she truly did remember everything, and if she did, he is desperate to know if she recalls what species she is. She must have remembered something because he would not have been able to enter his own time stream if she had not. Their connection allowed him to break all the rules. This, however, was nothing new.

After kissing her forehead lightly, he goes back to the front of the TARDIS and begins turning knobs on the console, redirecting their destination path to a new location. The image of the man in his mind flashes across his eyes as the TARDIS lurches into flight, and a shiver shakes his spine: the scraggly, choppy goatee, the close-cropped gray hair, the wrinkled and war-hardened face. He is the man who cannot be the Doctor, the him he wishes he could forget.

But things are rarely that simple.