Chapter 6

"Please…" He pleaded his voice becoming quieter as the most painful defeat sunk into his heart.

"Please…" Loki whispered. Tears rolling down his face as he fell to his knees. The cold floor becoming more unwelcoming as it had ever been his entire life.

"Please…c..come back" The child begged. His head hung low. He prayed inside himself. He prayed that Odin would come running back, and collect his son in his arms, but nothing happened. The silence of his absence ripping Loki in half. His heart crumbling on the floor.

"Why.. why..don't you love me?" He managed between sobs. His long untrimmed nails falling from the door's handle, shaking against the pattern of the door.

"Wha..what's wrong with..me?"

All of time and space held its breath as the Doctor stood silent, watching the lost prince pound against the golden doors, tears flooding the boy's eyes. The Doctor could feel his hearts break, over and over. Never before had the Time Lord felt such sorrow, such pain, such heartbreak. Never in his past lives did he remember such a thing to occur.

Yes, he had felt heartbreak when Rose was lost to him. Pain when Martha became a soldier. Sorrow when he had to wipe Donna's memories.

He wanted to take the god in his arms. Wrap him up tight. Whisper words of comfort into the child's ears. Tell him that everything would turn out for the best. But he could not. The Lord of Time was rooted to the floor. Asgard turning beneath his feet. His anger dissipating, being replaced, bit by agonizing bit, with pain.

Not even by the hands of his friend and enemy, not even at the hands of the Master for the eternity of the Year That Never Was, did he ever feel such pain. Nor when he was confronted by Davros, when his oldest enemy revealed the true nature of the Doctor.

The shattered prince tore at the Doctor's hearts, each sob…each word…a white-hot knife into his hearts. Gravity took its relentless hold on the Time Lord, driving the proud man to his knees.

No fear ever greater than the one he beheld on Midnight. No sorrow greater than watching Gallifrey burn at his own hands. All, it seemed, the Doctor ever was destined to obtain was to be torn from him. Just as he tore from Loki. His staff rolled out of his fingers, tears blurring his sight.

"I am sorry. I am so, so sorry." He bowed his head, hands tearing at the stone floor, "Forgive me." he whispered, half pleading.

Never before had he shown such weakness before anyone. Well, only once, but he was human. Why did he not chose to remain as John Smith? Live out a human life with Nurse Redfern? Instead he had opened the fob watch. He became the Doctor once more. But now, he bared himself to the prince, giving Loki a choice. To travel with the Doctor, to have that feeling of being somewhere he was wanted, or to remain here, where he was not.

"Forgive me." he repeated, not daring to look at the sorrow, or fury, on the prince's face. "I can take you to places beyond your wildest dreams. See things that are beyond description. Travel with me throughout all time and space. There are places more beautiful than this palace, places more wonderful than description."

He would rather a Dalek come into the room right now and exterminate him, and the rest of his lives, from existence, than bear the rejection of the lost prince.

In all of Asgard not a sound peeped into the prince's ears. His hands kneading his robes between his fingers in an attempt to regain himself. Agony filled him. Its unforgiving hands flooding his body, making him tremble with its presence.

Slowly, his mind processed the information. Each detail replaying in his head, over and over until his sorrow seemed to file away. A bitter emotion of rage filling the gap. The god's teeth clenched together as he searched for an explanation.

"I.. I have nothing," he muttered to himself. His hands tightly squeezing his robe in an attempt to not summon any weapons. The hard truth rocked through his body. Objects took partial shape beside him, but never fully formed.

This man had saved him. Asgard had been his hell of centuries. This is what he wanted, no? Thoughts danced in his head for the answer. Anything to allow this to make sense.

"Doctor," he started. A weak, shaking hand moving over to the Time Lord's shoulder, "I just want out." His eyes finally lifting from the floor to the Doctor's.

"Take me far away from here," Loki tried to smile. His lips barely lifting enough to even call it an expression. His hair lay in a mess on top of his head. Curls and greasy strands falling from their place behind his ears. Eyes that shown red and puffy from the tears that still haunted his checks.

"I don't ever want to come back.."

A chance to leave. A chance to escape. That was what started the Doctor on his own journey. An abandoned Type 40 TARDIS, alone in a junkyard, about to be decommissioned. He had borrowed her, all intent on returning her when he was through.

A dark chuckle escaped the Time Lord at that thought. He couldn't return her now. The Doctor straightened his back, Loki's hand still warm on his shoulder. He locked his eyes onto the god's and smiled. With the prince's help, the Doctor gained his feet, swaying slightly. He picked the sonic staff and pointed it into the empty air. The tip glowed blue and a buzzing noise filled the room. The Doctor slowly lowered the staff, leaning on it instead of Loki as a wheezing, tearing noise replaced that of the buzzing.

A blue box, entering existence in time with the noise, began to materialize in the room. A bang, and then silence, as the blue box sat innocently in the room. The Doctor stumbled towards the box, running his hands lovingly over the blue wood. The doors opened with a snap of his fingers, a golden light flowing over the Time Lord and his new companion. He entered, his boots clanging against the metal floor. A massive control room spread out, stairs on either side of what looked to be a giant console. Circles, where the golden light was apparently emitting from, covered the walls.

The Doctor circled the console, sitting heavily in the battered chair. He smiled up at Loki, "All of time and space. Where do you want to go, my friend?"

His eyes darkened, "I had wanted to stay for a while. To explore Asgard more. But circumstances have made themselves clear. I will return," his eyes flashed dangerously, "but only after I clear my head." He shook his head, "The last time I was this mad, I destroyed an entire race. I…I don't think I could…do so again."

Perhaps it was everything about society in Asgard that led Loki to such measures, but the honest truth was it was because of himself, and now he would leave the hell that had so longed caged him in its unforgiving grasp. The Doctor… the name of a hero. It was the name of his savior. A debt that he'd never be able to pay back. This was his new chapter. Loki bounced up from the floor. His cape flapping with the new motion.

"I don't think it would be wise, Doctor," Loki frowned. Perambulating to the doors of the TARDIS. His eyes wide with curiosity.

"Bigger on the inside," he whispered in awe. The golden walls inside glowing with new life. He'd only read of such creatures, but now he stood at the edge of being inside one. His hands tracing the threshold.

"You can fly her by yourself?" Loki asked. His eyebrows raised high in surprise as he took his first step inside the ship. Long fingers wrapping around the railing of to the console.

"Impressive." The god mindlessly replied to his own question. His eyes drifting from the console to the entire room he stood in. Each inch being inspected by his green eyes, leaving nothing behind to devour with his racing mind.

The Doctor ruffled his hair, a little embarrassed, "Well, she was designed for six pilots, but…" he shrugged, "I do the best I can." He sat back with a sigh, the TARDIS already singing to him.

Calming him. They were linked in a way no other creature could understand. As often as the Time Lord had admitted to 'stealing' the Type 40, he actually, after a time, began to believe that it was she who stole him. She sang him an old Gallifrayen lullaby and, rather unconsciously, he sang along.

He forgot that Loki was now standing within the TARDIS, or he didn't. It really didn't matter to him at this point. The TARDIS chuckled, a tinkling sound in his mind, and switched on a music track, blaring it over the speakers. The Doctor grinned, his feet tapping and hands swaying in time with the music. His grin broadened when he spotted Loki, as if for the first time.

The Time Lord grabbed the god, swinging him around the floor around the console. The Doctor was absolutely beaming, laughing like a little child who had received a well sought out toy, "900 years and I've still got it. Hah!"