intergalacticstarlight:

Through the maelstrom of agony and pain, fear and self-loathing, vivid color and sight, sound, corpses burning, Theta feels a subtle yet omnipresent shift within his mind- a tendril of crimson among the inky black that causes his hands to clench at the bed-sheets properly. It isn’t long before he materializes within his own hellish nightmares, surrounded by death and destruction, the fallen brethren he could not save, women and children, and he cowers from it. Doesn’t want to see, to remember, to feel it. He hunches over on his knees, hands clenched to the sides of his head and his eyes squeezed shut. He can’t bear it, knowing what he’s about to do, what he has no choice but to do. No more. No more.

The man who appears next to Koschei is not the face of the man sleeping fitfully on the bed, no, but rather a War-torn soldier on the brink of destroying his own people, his own planet, in an effort to make the endless suffering stop. He’s smeared in blood, dirt and sweat, in guilt and shame. Then a hand takes him by the wrist and he starts at the contact, head lifting and pale eyes looking up to find the unfamiliar-yet-familiar form of his best friend. The one he’d been searching for when he’d been called back to Gallifrey in the first place to take part in this infernal War. He’s never seen this face, but he knows it like he knew the others.

“Koschei…”

The name is whispered and swallowed by the din, the explosions and firefight, the heartsbeats of the Time Lords, red soil trembling beneath his knees and his lips tremble as well. A hand lifts to clutch to Koschei’s wrist, unable to prevent it any longer, an anchor in the stormy sea. The first instinct is to insist that they must run, that The Moment is set and there’s precious little he can do about it now. The second is to yell and scream, to ask where he’d been, why he’d been hiding. The third is to apologize. He doesn’t do any of those things, unable to determine which course of action would be the most helpful. So instead, his pale eyes follow the line of the Master’s hand, all the way to the arch of light forming on the horizon. That soft, golden glow is foreign in this setting and it doesn’t belong, doesn’t fit, but it feels like home and he can’t look away. 

The other man’s words don’t make sense because of course this isn’t a memory this is now, this is happening, but the golden light is warm and peaceful and he wants peace. He craves it. Four beats later and he’s falling into the golden light, giving himself over to it because what else is there to do? At least it’ll get him off the sodding battlefield.

Rapidly the Doctor comes back into consciousness then, chocolate eyes snapping open as an intake of breath so strong he nearly chokes on it is taken. He blinks once, twice, attempting to sort out what exactly is happening and how it was he’d gotten into his bedroom on the TARDIS. Every guard is down, every vulnerability written plainly on his features as the memories of the Library, of what he’d said and of what the Master had done come rushing back to him. He knows now the shift he’d felt in his mind, the dangerous risk the Master had taken to wake him, to help him. Respiratory bypass fully engaged, he isn’t breathing and his body is still against the mattress as his eyes gradually move to seek out the presence of the Master.

Koschei shudders and pulls back from the telepathic ties, the moment his Theta is conscious.  He hunkers and drops his shoulders, and opens his eyes.  

Already, his beloved stares at him, with pitiable wariness. 

      “Hi,” he greets, hoarsely but clearly, with a smallest smile. 

He ventures, slowly, within the Doctor’s eyesight, to rest a hand on his forehead, and push it back through his bangs. 

     “You were getting lost in there again.” 

A soft, simple, earnest explanation.  He waits.