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She shouldn’t have opened the watch.
Part of her wants to blame the TARDIS—she’d made it far too easy, given up far too quickly.
“Is this what you wanted?” she snaps, letting the sharp edges of memories collide into the TARDIS’s consciousness. She should apologize. Or at least, she should feel guilty. The TARDIS was only doing what she’d asked.
Instead, she presses her palms over her eyes and screams.
It will break your mind.
She should have known better. They both should have.
She screams again, doubling over like it will give her more volume; more force. It feels a little like screaming on a roller coaster—like if she ejects the air from her lungs forcefully enough, grating against her vocal cords, it will somehow keep her stomach from dropping.
Or in this case, keep her mind from exploding.
Take out the Kreguts, they told her. They’re going to start a war in two thousand years that will hinder the development of Gallifrey. Take them out when they’re just beginning; when they’re massacring the settlement of Leemnae and just beginning to get a taste for conquest. Leave no survivors.
She is exceptionally skilled at her job. The best they’ve ever seen. A master of every weapon and every form of martial art. She’s had the time to train. There is no one who could stand against her; not even those who trained her.
She thinks that makes them fear her.
They should.
But not only is she exceptionally skilled at her job, she’s also mischievous. She likes to make things more fun, so she doesn’t get bored. She’s been doing this so long now; it’s hard to keep it interesting.
She doesn’t use guns. Not because they’re too violent, or too primitive, but because they’re too boring. Sometimes she prefers knives. Other times she prefers psychic weapons, testing the boundaries of mental limits.
If she has any.
On this occasion, she goes for the knife. It’s more tactile than psychic attacks. She drops from the sky, a silent predator, and pirouettes through their ranks, creating showers of blood among the conquerors, splattering the ground like an impressionist painting.
The few remaining Leemnaenians look on, not sure whether to thank her or run from her. Once she’s finished her task, she grins at them, her teeth wide and white and glinting. Leave no survivors, they said. “Head out to another planet,” she tells them. They listen. They leave. There are no survivors on the planet of Leem.
Her mother is displeased when she returns home.
Eyebrows gently raised and an angelic smile pasted on her face, she tells her, “You should have given clearer instructions.”
The Doctor coughs up blood, sinking closer to the floor. “Find Koschei,” she says to the TARDIS. She wants to scrub out her mind with bleach. The stains might never come out.
The TARDIS grumbles, something about is-he-even-alive and your-memories-are-a-part-of-you.
“That memory,” the Doctor chokes out, “not part of...” She takes a shuddering breath and coughs a few more times. “Koschei… survives. Always.”
She catches another thought of you’ve-been-trying-to-become-whole, as the TARDIS reluctantly begins a scan.
“I… wrong,” she says. “Don’t want them.”
There’s a ding! on the scanners and the TARDIS begins to move. It’s much faster than the Doctor expected.
The doors open and Koschei walks in immediately. “What the hell is going on?” he asks. “I could hear your mind screaming from all the way across the universe.”
The Doctor chuckles slightly and tilts her head to the side as something warm runs from her ear. “Glad you’re… alive,” she says.
Koschei looks a bit taken aback at that. “You must really need something to be happy to see me,” he says.
The Doctor sighs. How does she explain to him how furious she is with him but also how genuinely relieved she is, when her mind is too broken to form a coherent thought?
Suddenly Koschei is kneeling in front of her, one hand on her face as he inspects the side of her face. She blinks. Did she lose time?
“What did you do?” he asks, brushing his thumb under her eye, wiping away some liquid she didn’t know was there.
“Got,” she takes a deep breath. “Memories. Need you to… erase. Mind’s… broken.”
“Your—from before? Your memories of Division? You sure you want me to erase them?”
“Yes. Please.”
He looks at her for another long moment, then nods. It must be clear to him that her mind can't handle these memories, no matter how badly she wanted them.
Her eyes slip closed as she feels his mind reach into hers. There’s a moment where another flashback begins—one of the ones from when Tecteun was experimenting, only this time she feels everything instead of watching it happen to someone else—and then everything is blessedly quiet.
—
The Doctor is standing in the TARDIS, holding the watch. “Here goes nothing,” she says, as she clicks it open—
—and she’s sitting on the floor, leaning her forehead against Koschei’s. She jerks back in surprise. “Koschei? You’re alive?”
He stares at her for a long moment. He looks absolutely haunted.
“What happened?” she asks.
Suddenly, Koschei stands and pulls his face into one of his typical expressions and smiles at her. “You opened the watch, got your memories back, broke your mind, then had me erase them.”
“Oh.” Disappointment seeps into her. “Did you save them in the fob watch?”
He hesitates. “I don’t think you wanted me to save them.”
For a moment she thinks he’s lying, but then she sees the fob watch not far from them, open and empty. She looks back up at him, desperate for answers. “Did you see any of the memories?”
There’s a brief flicker of something on his face, but then it’s gone. “Unfortunately.” He turns to walk to the door.
The Doctor gets up to follow him, but a wave of dizziness forces her to cling to the TARDIS console. “What was it?” she asks.
He glances back as he exits the TARDIS, and she could swear that he looks weirdly sympathetic for a moment.
“I don’t think you want to know.”