Chapter Text
Was I still dreaming or was someone making pancakes? I could smell them. I awoke to a stack of them and a pot of Earl Grey as well. "How long have I slept?" I sat up and took the dish onto my lap.
"Long," said Tegan, pouring the tea. "We were worried."
"Where's Nyssa?"
"She finally went to bed. Shall I wake her?"
"No, no, let her sleep. These are excellent. Do we by chance have any whipped cream?" Tegan shook her head. "It's fine. They're good just as they are. I don't even remember the last time I ate. I haven't felt hungry."
"Doctor, are you ever going to tell us where you've been?" I was silent. How could I explain what I'd been through? How could I explain what I'd done, and how it had changed me? "Are you really all right? You don't look all right."
"What wrong with how I look?"
"You look as if... you look as if you want to stop."
I looked down and whispered, "I don't want to stop but I think I have stopped. I think I'm finished. I think I can't be the Doctor anymore. And if I can't be the Doctor anymore, then I don't know that I want to be at all anymore." I looked up to see the expression of horror on Tegan's face. Nyssa wandered into the room, yawning, and saw that expression, and me sitting with a plate of pancakes balanced, forgotten, on my lap, and me, perhaps looking a bit unbalanced. "I did something bad. I undid it -- at least I think I undid it -- but I still remember doing it."
Nyssa took the plate from me and put it on the rolling cart Tegan had brought out before I had even awakened. She sat down on the side of the bed and took my hand. "Doctor, I can't imagine you doing anything so bad that you can't be the Doctor anymore. You will always be the Doctor."
I shook my head. "No, I... I killed, in anger. I mean I didn't, but I tried to, and for a while I thought I had. Same thing. I intended to kill." I could feel Nyssa beginning to release my hand, but then she gripped it more tightly.
"You're still you."
"No, I can't be."
"You are still you!"
"How can I still be me with that in me, the ability to kill in anger? Self defense I understand. I've killed in self defense and in defense of others. I'm not happy about it but I can justify it. And he was killing me! He had killed me. Now he was killing me again, but Nyssa, he stopped. He stopped and stepped back. He stopped himself."
"Who are you talking about, Doctor?" Tegan's voice was trembling. I think she had guessed.
"The Master. He was killing me and he stopped. I could have walked away."
The three of us were silent for a long moment.
"You didn't kill him," said Nyssa, finally.
"No. I stopped."
"He stopped and you stopped. No one killed anyone." Tegan looked hopeful.
"No, he revealed that he had once killed me. He showed me... he showed me...." Suddenly my hearts ached for the boy I'd been, the happy boy I'd briefly seen unaware of the makeshift weapon that was poised to murder him. I sobbed: "I was sad and angry and... I can't be that person. I can't be that person who can kill just because he is sad and angry. I can't be me anymore. Who am I going to be? I don't know who to be now!"
Tegan sat down and held my other hand. "Doctor, do you believe us when we tell you we love you?"
"Yes. I do."
"Good. Doctor, we love you. You are the Doctor and you're you. You'll always be the Doctor and you'll always be you."
I looked at Nyssa and she said, "Tegan is right. And we'll always love you, too." Since I couldn't answer, she added, "And we know you love us too. You don't have to say it. We know." I nodded. "But sometimes, Doctor -- Tegan and I have discussed this often -- sometimes you're an idiot." This is not what I had expected Nyssa to say. "You think you have to be perfect. You think you're not allowed to make mistakes."
"'I've made plenty of mistakes."
"Of course you have. Who hasn't?"
"But murder...."
"I've got news for you, Doctor," declared Tegan, a bit loudly. "It's within all of us. We don't act on it. Well, most of us don't. But anyone can be pushed, under the right circumstances, and you're no different."
"I thought I was," I whispered.
"Well, think again! You were gone a long time. What happened to you during that time? Were you with the Master the whole time?" I didn't answer.
Nyssa said, "I've seen what he is capable of. He doesn't need to be pushed. He can kill without disturbing his pulse rate. I saw him push you to the edge. I have no doubt he could push you over it. I have no doubt that this time, he did."
"Give yourself a break, Doctor." Tegan's voice was soft now.
When I could swallow the lump in my throat and speak, I asked, "Am I still me, then?"
"You're still you," nodded Tegan.
Suddenly exhausted, I lay back down. "Oni says that when I graduate," I murmured, dreamily, "I should call myself 'The Barber.' I don't know. Maybe." Nyssa and Tegan looked at one another, then back at me. I closed my eyes. "I'm rubbish with hair, I've never shaved anyone, and bloodletting sounds extreme. Maybe I should call myself 'The Physician.'"
"Or 'The Doctor,'" Nyssa suggested. Her comforting voice sounded so far away.
"Yes, that's a thought. 'The Doctor.' Maybe I could be that." I felt myself drifting away, but I think I might have added, "If I work at it, if I try very, very hard, I think I could be that."
THE END