The Passing of Time

Original A/N: I ended up taking inspiration from The Doctor's Wife and attempted something stylistic with tenses since the TARDIS was shown to have trouble separating them. I think it comes off okay, but if I'm wrong about that, uh, sorry?

Secondary A/N: This was written for Darkest Night 2017, a darkfic themed exchange, for AceQueenKing to the prompt of a TARDIS POV of what happens if the Doctor leaves and doesn't come back.

He always came back, her Doctor. She'd take him to the places he was needed and he would run around and pick up strays and come back to her at the end of it. He'd be full of new stories and all but vibrating with joy at another new experience that he would share with her. Then they would move on to their next adventure together. That was how things (are, had been) were meant to be. She was his connection to the Vortex and his silent guide, and he was her feet and mouth and hands to interact with the universe they traveled together.

They didn't truly need anything else, but she generally enjoyed the company of their occasional companions. Naturally she liked some of the strays more than others, but she enjoyed the way all of them gave her Doctor someone he could talk to who could talk back most of all. She didn't (doesn't, won't) usually regret that the two of them couldn't talk together with voices, but when she felt it, their strays do what she can't. They were never alone together, but less alone was often better.

There's nothing special about the day it happened (is going to happen). She would feel something resonating from inside the vortex, something that the Doctor can (could, will) fix, or at least make a little better. They won't be traveling with a companion right then, the last one having left them to go back home to take care of an elderly grandparent. Or maybe the last one was that purple one with the funny ears that married a prince. The pretty one with the curls who died saving the little boy? It's not really important, other than that at the time it was (is, will be) only the two of them. She'll flip some of her own switches and twist some of her own dials and they'll come to a landing in a big old forest.

It won't be on Earth. She forgets where it's going to happen, but it's definitely not the Doctor's favorite planet; it won't be the one to betray them so awfully. On the planet, wherever it is – maybe it's the one near that funny-shaped nebula? Anyway, they will land on that planet, and he'll grab his coat and run out the door to find adventure as always. He'll pat her side one last time, not knowing it won't happen again, and then he'll be gone. Gone is forever even before it happens.

She could look into the time stream and find out exactly what happened (will happen, is happening) to him. Her Doctor does always make a splash wherever he goes. She doesn't really want to know, though, and it doesn't really matter either. It only matters that he finally found a danger that he couldn't outrun and something finally stole (will steal, has stolen) her thief away from her.

It'll be lonely. That's also for certain and for always. It will take (does take, is taking) her a long time to die, made of the glorious stuff of time as she is. She can feel that aching, empty loneliness echoing back to her past long before it ever happens. Perhaps it was why she stole her thief in the first place, when they were going to put her in a museum and she felt lonely emptiness stretching vast somewhere in her timelines. Of course neither back then nor later (at the time, during the time, for the time it happens) she won't know what it comes from. At least not in any meaningful way that allows her to warn him or try to prevent it.

It doesn't feel fixed in time before it happens, not like an unavoidable certainty feels – solid immutable moments of now. Though even some those, they've found wiggle room around before, ways to change what those solid moments mean. No, this time she'll come to rest on a forest floor and all her timelines will narrow down to a point she didn't (doesn't, won't) see coming. She never moves again.

If she wanted to, she could live longer, maybe forever, sat on that forest floor. There's so much energy she could burn off using up the extra rooms inside her to stay alive a little longer. All those extra desktops, all those old companion's rooms, all those fads like the cricket pitch one version or other of her Doctor loved and the others never touched. She could, but she won't. She won't touch them and time will pass her by.

In her long wait, sometimes she'll sense other sentient beings around her. A hunter passing by, a family out hiking, a great war party off to do violence to some other civilization for one reason or another. She won't reach out.

The thought passes (will pass, has passed) through her consciousness to unlock her doors and let someone in now and again, just to abate the loneliness. She doesn't though. Her Doctor is gone, and it just wouldn't be the same. All that they had been through together, all that they knew of time and space, even if she could speak she couldn't properly share that. Not with these tiny beings living in their limited fractions of time and space on this nowhere planet – maybe it's the one with the two purple moons? Letting them in, she'd still be lonely, just not alone. Lonely with others who can't understand sounds worse than lonely alone with her memories. There are (were), after all, lifetimes of memories to immerse herself in as she waits (will wait, waited) for the end.

It takes a long, long time for the last spark of her artron energy to burn out and finally let her rest. There never was a moment of it where she didn't miss her Doctor.