oncoming_storms: What keeps you awake at night?

For a Time Lord... or Time Lady, as the case may now be for the Doctor... the concept of night and day is a bit of a complicated one.

It may be as clear as day for human beings, living their all-too-short but lucky lives on the planet Earth. It may be obvious when one is standing upon that Earth's soil, as obvious as raindrops pelting one's head during a storm.

But for a Time Lord or Lady, living on board a TARDIS floating through the time vortex, night and day can be very difficult to determine. Point blank, there is no night or day within the vortex. There is just time, and the seemingly empty space one is floating within.

For the Doctor, night is whenever she declares that she's a bit weary, when her body tells her that it's time for a little nap. And she's found that in this new form, despite the fact that at times she feels very energetic still, she does enjoy sleep a bit more than she has in the past.

But just because the Doctor enjoys sleep, doesn't mean she's able to do so every time she lies down. Sometimes, she's kept up, haunted by a sound she wishes would just go away.


Thump-thump, thump-thump.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.


Heartbeats.

The sound of two hearts, beating together as one.

A reminder that she's not alone, that another lives, another that she is forced never to see again, or face destroying her.

A reminder that she is alone, to deal with the weight of that reality.