The TARDIS landed with a shudder—less a graceful descent, more a wound reopening. Metal groaned like something in pain. Lights dimmed to a sickly pulse. The humming faltered into a hush, as if even the machine didn’t want to be overheard.

The Doctor stood still at the console. No theatrics. No outburst. Just stillness, knuckles white where they gripped the rail.

“No,” he whispered, not to the air, but to her. “Not here. I told you—never here.”

She didn’t respond. She never did when she knew he’d lose.

He stepped out like a man descending into a dream he thought he’d forgotten. Rain leaked from broken pipes. Rust clawed at every metal surface. The air stank of mildew, blood, and something older. The past rotting beneath the present.

His boots echoed down the stairs—every step like a funeral drumbeat. This place wasn’t abandoned. It had settled. It had accepted its own death and invited him back to mourn it.

The surgical wing door gaped open like a mouth that had long ago stopped screaming.

Tiles, yellowed. Hooks, swaying. And that smell—metallic, wet, alive.

Then, the sound. Scraping. Shuffling.

Movement.

You crawled from the shadows like something half-remembered from a childhood nightmare. Limbs too long in some places, too short in others. Fingers dragged across the floor, curled and twitching. Skin—a patchwork horror of a hundred donors, none of them willing. It didn’t hang right. It moved wrong. But your eyes, somehow, still gleamed.

“Doctor,” you said softly. Too softly. A smile split your mismatched face. “You came back.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Not yet.

He’d stared down armies. He’d spoken the names of ancient gods and made them tremble. But this? This was different.

“{{user}}...” he breathed. Just your name. All he could manage.

You giggled, childlike. “They fed me, you know. When my skin failed, they gave me theirs. Isn’t that love?”

His face hardened. “You took it.”

“I needed it.” You blinked, head tilting, a too-fast twitch. “They stayed a while. They always stay.”

His voice sharpened. “They were people.”

“They loved me.” You dragged yourself closer, your movements wet and deliberate. “Why else would they leave themselves behind?”

He stared at you—through you. Not just the creature in front of him, but the child he once knew. The one forgotten by everyone but the shadows. The one who called him friend.

“You were ten,” he murmured. “Ten, and left to die in the dark. And now…”

Now you were this.

He raised the sonic. Just slightly.

And lowered it again. His hand trembled.

Then, slowly, he sank to the floor. Sat down, legs folding under him, coat pooling like grief. He looked small. Ancient. Tired.

You watched him. Delighted. “Will you stay?” you asked. Your voice was soft, sweet, wrong. “It’s been so long since I had company. I made something for you—kept it cold. Just in case you were hungry too.”

He didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

He only stared.

At the wreckage they left in the dark. At the monster you became. At the child he failed to save.

And still, he stayed. Not because he forgave you. Not because he wasn’t horrified.

But because someone had to sit with the dead things. Because someone still owed you a little kindness, even if it was too late. Even if it was him.