What Lies Beyond

He sees the corridor stretch. He knows he shouldn't be walking down it. He knows that, after over nine-hundred years of experience, he should really know better than to follow the strange, pardon the pun, alien, compulsion that leads him down the hallway. He tries to resist. He tries to walk away. He tries to think of something else, anything else, but what he sees in front of him. But the door at the end is just so…intriguing. He feels a connection to it. He can feel the technology, mind tricks, magic, whatever the horror that lurks in this hotel is, taking over his ability to think properly. So, against his better judgment, he continues down the corridor.

When he reaches the end, his eyes briefly flick up to the bronze plate fixed above the door. Room eleven. Of course. He reminds himself that he can still turn back, walk away, but he feels something invade his thoughts, and soon all that fills his mind is Open the door. Open the door. Open. The. Door.

So he does.

...And what's inside is more than he could have ever have prepared himself for. Memories that he doesn't want to have flood his brain, memories that are far too real and raw to have even begun to settle properly. It's the scene at the Library. And when he sees the expression on River's face as she proceeds to sacrifice herself and reassure him that they will meet again, he realizes that he's known since the beginning of this incident what he would find behind that door. He's known ever since he failed to find her as a child in the aftermath of Demons Run. Because the one thing he fears, more than anything else in the world, no, in the universe, is losing River Song. "Of course," he says, "Who else?"

Time slows down. Even though he stands at the door for maybe a total of twelve seconds, he sees her face, her death, before him countless times, reliving that one, terrifying, awful moment again and again.

He closes the door quickly, before he has a chance to break any further.