Author's Note:
I'd like to thank Dengirl for allowing me to make use of several of her characters from her Doctor Who fanfiction series
(Check it out – you'll be amazed!)
For better understanding I recommend reading Dengirl's "Hollow Souls" first; but it doesn't matter if you start reading right away.

Anyway, if there are any questions or a lack of clarity don't hesitate to message me!

There was light.
Lights flashing, flashing lights; searching him.
Always running, always running.
Never stopping.
Sirens.
The sounds, the deafening music. The rhythm; the untearable substance of which madness is made.
His innermost music; the sounds of his heart.
The pain in his chest.
The silence...

The noise inside of his head crashed abruptly.

Seska blinked several times before being able to focus on the ceiling.
Around him it was quiet; it was almost dead silent.
You could have said that calmness spread throughout the room; only it didn't.

The silence in here was something that made you uncomfortable, not calm. It hurt.
And it had been silent for too long.

Seska was plagued by nightmares.
There were terrible things recoiling and bubbling up inside of his skull.
Though they were too horrible to be dreams they were too real to be true.
And it bothered him that he couldn't remember sleeping.
Only waking up...

The sound of porcelain crashing down on the floor caught his attention and he was up in an instant.
The sounds indicated that someone had dropped a delicate mug; a tea cup, presumably. And, judging by the crestfallen complaints that followed, a valuable one, too.

It came... yes. It must have come from the kitchen.
Seska opened the door slowly.
At least, there had to be a kitchen. No, there was a kitchen. He knew it without looking.
After all this was his home... right?
Of course. He was awake. And he was home.

Seska stretched and yawned before peering round the corner.

"Mother?"

The Doctor's face was already pale; now he even looked shaky.
The teapot slipped out of his fingers and was about to face the same future its service mate had already experienced.
Seska was as quick reacting as always as he darted forward, his hand lashing out and grabbing the pot at lightning speed.

He handed it back to the Doctor but the cheeky smile started to fade as soon as he saw the Doctor's horrified eyes.

"I've done it again, haven't I?" asked Seska disappointedly as he reconsidered his words. The Doctor was too shocked to reply.
Seska sighed gloomily; he knelt down and picked up the smashed cup's little remains.
"I apologize deeply for mentioning her; Heaven knows what assailed me" muttered Seska.

The Doctor placed his hands on his cheeks as though whipping something off them.
He pressed his fingers against his lips before looking down at his son on the ground.
He shook his head in silence.
"I'm so sorry."

"No, I'm sorry father" added Seska quickly "It wasn't as if... I know she isn't... I..."

Seska shut his mouth before handing the Doctor the pitiful porcelain remnants.

"Ash won't be pleased about this after all" sighed the Doctor after inspecting the shards in his hands before throwing them away.

"I'm sorry" repeated Seska crestfallen.
"You shouldn't be" the Doctor nearly cut him off and poured him a cup of tea; in a lower voice he added "Not your fault I'm a nervous wreck."

Seska nodded, his eyes fixed inevitably on the table.
Somehow he knew that he was lying.

"I'll go and wake Jakaar."

-ΘΣ-

Hell.

Hell was thought to be a state of mind and not a place.
At least on Gallifrey.

The Doctor clutched at his temples and groaned. His third biscuit had already drowned in his tea as he tended to lose focus on anything.

He stared at the brown and crumbly liquid; reluctantly he took a sip.
And it's gone cold, too.
The Doctor restrained the urge to let it dribble back and put the cup beside the piles of formulas towering in front of him.

The flickering light of the table lamp was driving him mad. And there were the headaches...
The Doctor groaned with pain again.
The never-ending headaches. It was driving him insane.

A stack of folders crashed on his table and the Doctor let out a quiet whine as the sound seemed to split his skull in two.

"A bad night's sleep?" asked Jack conversationally as he loomed in front of the Doctor's working table.

"I really wish you wouldn't do that" grumbled the Doctor as his eyes scanned the pages of an open folder attentively and made little notes.
"Do what?" asked Jack.
"Being conversationally" snapped the Doctor "And if this bloody headache won't go away...!" the Doctor clutched at his temples again and let out a frustrated cry.
His skull wasn't aching; it was burning and itching as though millions of barbs were flowing through his brain, slowly spreading all over his body.

The Doctor drummed his fingers aggressively on the papers; Jack pulled a chair and sat down beside him.

"So... what do you do?" he asked cautiously.
"Survive" growled the Doctor as he stared fixedly at his working table "That's enough for now."
Jack gave him a gentle pat on the back.
"I don't know how much longer you can survive on cold and cloudy tea" mocked Jack; "Why don't you get some rest."

The Doctor snorted disapprovingly.
"Am I getting paid for working at Torchwood or just being decorative?" grouched the Doctor as he ushered Jack away from his desk.
"Both" smiled Jack and leaned over to kiss him.
"Stop that" interrupted the Doctor as he had already placed a threatening finger on the Doctor's lips.
"That's sexual harassment at work."
"No" disagreed Jack "That's sexual harassment at work" and slapped the Doctor's buttocks.

The Doctor's jaw dropped and he stared at Jack with disbelieving eyes.
Then he started laughing.
"Really enjoying having you on the team."
And soon he'd left the Doctor to his paperwork.

"Jack?"
Jack looked back over his shoulder; the Doctor didn't face him but stared out of the window, thoughtfully eying up the strange grey clouds hovering over the landscape.
"Jack you know that this is reality... that this is real... right?"
Jack shrugged without giving it much thought; eventually he nodded his assent.

"Then why is it so wrong?"

Jack owed him an apology.
In the mean time another biscuit drowned.

-ΘΣ-

Seska's eyes lost focus and drifted off into the cheerless sky.
That's what it had to be.
Home.
He had a home; and he couldn't remember it ever being different.
This was his life. This was him, living with his father and his father's bedfellow.
And yet Seske seemed to get dizzy when he dared to think about it... dared to think about the past...

He sighed aggrieved as his eyes failed to notice the car coming to a halt right in front of the house.
Though, he was back in reality in an instant as soon as he'd heard the screeching noises of the brakes of the wine-red sports car that stopped only inches behind the parked car.

Seska darted a glance at both drivers before rolling his eyes and staring at the grey horizon, meaningfully sighing.

Him. It was him again.

There was the sound of muffled curses and a car door slamming.
"Oh for God's sake! Why don't you just go to hell?!"

Quietly tsk-tsking he closed the window to spare himself from Ash's constant ranting.

Car tyres squealed and the red sports car set off at a mad speed.

The front door was slammed shut and Seska rolled his eyes as James started to cry in his room; he fetched him instantly.
"Oh bloody hell" mumbled Ash as he ascended the stairs, only to be greeted by Seskas cold smile at the end of the staircase.

"Not hell",
Seska smiled as he kissed his brother's forehead,
"It's only James."

-ΘΣ-

The Doctor groaned quietly, his head resting on the table beside the cold teapot.
His head was a mess; in his mind pandemonium reigned and was about to make use of its executive decree powers.
In other words: the Doctor didn't know since when he had a headache, when it had gotten so bad and why it was getting worse all the time.

He sighed as his hand reached automatically for a ball pen, scribbling on the desk itself for lack of anything else.

The Doctor didn't want to think about when it had started; neither did he want to investigate the whole affair of his son suddenly being alive again and being part of a strange patchwork family, living with him in a single family house.
The Doctor snorted at the mere thought of what his life had become.

He'd used to be a free Time Lord; disengaged, on the loose, fancy-free.
And now?
Working for Torchwood; both him and Ash working for Torchwood to be able to afford a house for their children.
The Doctor growled again as he felt the presence inside of his mind;
...their children... Ha!

He grumbled quietly as his hand had stopped carving dark lines into the table.
He needn't look at the circles worked into the wood; he already knew the words.

The Doctor let out a cry of frustration again as the invisible bench vice increase its pressure on his skull; life was a mess; it was even more a mess than when it had actually had been a mess.
It wasn't real. He knew it. He felt it.

Something had happened to time and continuum; someone had tempered with the laws of time and space itself.

Through the open window he heard a car's hooter; he growled.

And he bloody well knew who was responsible.

-ΘΣ-

Ash leaned by the sink, his arms folded.
"You shouldn't be doing this" he stated earnestly.

Seska didn't take his eyes off the cooking pot's jumping lid.
"Father wants me to" replied Seska unimpressed; he stirred the pasty liquid.

"The Doctor never said anything about cooking" Ash went on and reached for a lid that had gotten out of place; but as he moved Seska had already put it back.

Speed and agility of a Time Lord, thought Ash bitterly; if only he knew...

"It is expected of me" Seska ceased the conversation, "whether he bothers to verbalize it or not. And it's beside the point that I don't mind it. I'm here for him; I care for him."

Ash evaded his gaze and still felt felt Seska's penetrating stare on his neck.
He brought himself to something he believed to be a warm-hearted smile; but there was no sense in trying to fool Seska.

"I know that you take great responsibility for your father's actions" said Ash and hoped to thereby release the tension a bit "And therefore we're both very grateful. And I know that you're treating him with great respect and care, in fact, you're looking after both him and your brothers. But after all he's my partner and your father; you needn't do all this for him."

"He can't cook" stated Seska coldly as he nearly cut him off "And neither can you."
"You've got a point there" agreed Ash for lack of anything better "But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do it."

Seska shrugged; his eyes rested once again on the stove.

"I just want mother to be proud of me."

He could have bitten off his own tongue.
Seska didn't even flinch as he accidently reached for a jumping lid with his bare hands.
Ash hissed in sympathy and rushed his fingers under cold water.

"It's alright" mumbled Seska crestfallen.
"No it's not and keep it under the water!"

Seska watched his hand with a kind of childish fascination that made Ash feel uncomfortable; he turned off the stove.
"You're lucky it's hardly burnt" said Ash, knowing that it had been far worse than it looked right now.
But he'd already healed himself; without even noticing it.

"Why does it hurt?"

Ash stared at Seska with rising solicitousness. Did he...?
"Why does it hurt?" repeated Seska, his hands pressed against his chest. "It hurts; it hurts when I try to think about it; I can't think about my mother because I know that it hurts. I can't even recall her face..."
Ash had to admit that he was relieved knowing that Seska hadn't remembered.
That's all he had been worrying for the past...
He scratched his head as he came to think about it again; had it only been the first day? It seemed like an eternity. Like a daily routine.

And everything the Doctor worried about was: What if he remembers? What if he knows?

But apparently both Ash and the Doctor had been lucky and therefore would be able to keep playing perfect world for quite some time.

Though Ash didn't like the idea of Seska's agnosia as torment; it was wrong being brought back from the dead only to be tortured again.
And secretly Ash had wished that the worst had been over as Seska had died...

"Do you remember her?" asked Seska quietly; he could hardly hide his desperation;
"What was she like?"

Ash, who obviously couldn't cope with questions like that, sighed and shook his head.
Everything about his question should have been corrected; but he didn't know if either he should start with 'was' or 'her'.

But it didn't matter anyway.
As soon as Ash looked up again he found the space in front of him, previously occupied by Seska, empty.
But somewhere inside of the living room Seska's words lingered like dense fog, unable to escape and yet too unreal to be heard.

"I may pick up Jakaar while I take James for a walk."

-ΘΣ-

The Doctor finished another pile of paper and leaned back in his chair. He yawned and stretched and was aware of the twitching of his uneasy fingers; they just wouldn't stop.

Another pile of file folders was placed in front of him; he moaned displeased and stared at Jack, annoyed by his constant smile.

His fingers itched.

Jack's gaze reached the desk and he stared in bewilderment at the circles and dots carved into the table in nearly every empty space.
"Very impressive" he agreed eventually "and what does it mean?"

The Doctor growled as he sulkily leaned back in his chair.

"He Shall Return."

-ΘΣ-

[As darkness howled the earth stood still

To crush beneath the Time Lord's will

The Beloved's First was born to rise

And fair and beauty was his guise

But still there was so little time

To erase chaos' slaught'ring rime

And soon The Nightmare Child will rise

Beneath his hands the future lies]