To evade Veil in the atrium (at 25m 46s, below) the Doctor confesses that he ran away from Gallifrey not because he was bored, but because: “I was scared!” What was he so frightened of, though – if not the nightmare figure of Veil itself?
We’re minded to recall Listen (2014, above centre), which implied that the junior Doctor cried all the time because he didn’t want to join the army (and who could blame him?). This, though, preceded his enrolment in the Time Lords’ Academy. According to The Sound of Drums (2007), he, like all eightyear-old initiates, was made to gaze into the whole Space/Time Vortex, via the Untempered Schism (above right). Some would be inspired, some would go mad, and some would run away… like him, he told Martha (Freema Agyeman) and Jack (John Barrowman): “I never stopped.”