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diamondwaters · 1 year

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❝ love is a choice ❞ chapter xvii

summary: what was meant to be a simple, calm trip to an intergalactic museum ended up becoming a a trip through memories the doctor rather wanted to forget. only they weren't her memories. they were yours.

pairing: thirteenth doctor x reader (primary), eleventh doctor x reader

word count: 7.0k

warnings: guns, general creepy behavior from a man, dark 13 (this is targeted and targeted towards a specific group of people)

author's note: life updates since the last time you heard from me: the spring semester has been kicking my ass but im somehow making out of it okay and i have a girlfriend now. do i know how any of these things happened? no, just like i don't know how it took me so long to write this chapter but that's beside the point because here it is!!

Eyes were all the Doctor felt when you sadly asked, “You’re… you’re sending me home?”

She was keenly aware that this would happen– that, eventually, her companions would see her for who she truly was– and had accepted it early on. She had accepted even earlier that this was always a possibility. Life, especially one as vast as hers, had a strange way of coming full circle. Companions she’d left behind returned anew, ready to show her they were just fine without her. Enemies once vanquished came back to be twice vanquished. Past loves once thought dead were found imprisoned behind glass, forced to dance like a ballerina in a snow globe.

But it hadn’t been sending you home, or revealing to you there was a way back to your best friends, or even the mention of her former companions that the Doctor feared most. Because at least when those stood as they were, the Doctor could mask it with her feigned moral compass.

No, it was none of those things.

“Because you are the universe!” She had proclaimed. “ You are my universe!”

So attuned to her companions, as attuned as she could be, she felt the subtle shift. The theory that they said before was now proven true, and suddenly their entire understanding had changed.

The Doctor loved you. She loved you. She loved you so much that she would’ve taken your hatred with her like scars that even a regeneration couldn’t heal; a reminder that she had failed you in ways she hadn’t failed someone before, all so she could keep a shred of her own self-interest. Perhaps what eventually remained wasn’t so far off.

You collapsed against the console, your face wrung in an expression of what the Doctor could only describe as intoxication. You unwillingly chased the dizzying high of the pain into the unknown of your consciousness, slumping against the floor in tangles of yourself. Slipping through the cracks of your own mind, the world you created fizzled into screams, some that were yours, and some that were his, but it was only the latter that the vicious words belonged to.

They were too muddled to be anything for the Doctor to pick up, but the anger behind them strengthened the Doctor’s own. Her jaw set into a tight lock, and she was sure that if her companions weren’t so fixated on the dissolution of the TARDIS into Club Tredecim, they’d feel the shift in the air surrounding her.

“Welcome back.”

Your subconscious still wore her old face but held less of that composed demeanor– as if it reached the end of its limits and no longer wanted in on this tragic scene.

“So, where are you?” It asked.

“A prison. It’s been… It’s been keeping me stuck in… I’m stuck in these memories, but it’s not real. None of this is real.”

“And how long have you been here?”

“I don��t know.”

“Oh, come now.”

Your body shuddered with an inhale before you spoke. “A hundred years? At least?”

“A hundred…?” Yaz’s voice was so thick with disorientation, the Doctor could see the crestfallen look on her face without so much as having to peek at her. “But the curator– he said it was only–”

“Eleven Earendalian years,” The Doctor finished. “Time moves differently here. One full rotation of their planet is nearly thirteen of your Earth's years. They’ve been here for 143 years, if not more.”

The information settled with the Doctor’s companions with all the grace of a head-on collision.

“This place… I control it. Don’t I?”

“In a way, yes.”

The tone your consciousness had taken on was as much an answer as the Doctor needed in order to come to a conclusion she didn’t want to make.

“No,” Strangled and desperate, the Doctor’s voice came out hitched. “No, no, no, starshine, what are you doing?”

Someone behind her asked what was wrong, but there were too many thoughts overwhelming her to formulate a reply worth any merit. Her mind was too caught up in a notion she didn’t want to believe: that you were falling prey to the manipulative control the cell had on its prisoners. But when your consciousness began to make its way to you, in the very same spot as you both were on that perfect night, it became clear that was exactly what was happening. It became even clearer that there was only one thing that she could do now.

The Doctor moved in frantic motions. Her eyes were darting between objects, looking for one that would do any tangible damage. Only after she pushed Graham out of the way to get to the stanchion behind him did she think to apologize. Even then she hadn’t put much heart into it, so focused on raising the metal rod over her shoulder to slam it against the glass before her.

One of the great things about the Illan prison cell, and something the Doctor hadn’t considered to be grateful for until this moment, was that it wasn’t impenetrable. Keeping their prisoners entrapped in memories, scenarios so devastatingly real, they don’t even consider escape as an option. How could they? To their knowledge, it was just a bad dream. So what point was there in making the glass indestructible?

“Doctor, what are you doing?” She could barely hear Yaz’s frightened question over the reverberation of the impact.

“I have to break it,” The stanchion banged on the glass again, this time, seeing the tiniest fracture. “The prison cell, it’s sensing a weakness! It’s pulling them back in! I can’t let it take them again! I won’t!”

Someone behind her– she couldn’t tell who was trying to reason with her. Something about being too loud, risking tipping off the security, but she didn’t care. Deaf to their reasoning, the Doctor desperately continued hitting the glass. “If I can just–!” Another strike, the fractures now bigger, longer. “I need to break the connection!”

“Doctor–”

“If I can break through the glass, I can break the connection and get them out! I have to!” The Doctor turned, finding them doing nothing but standing around with fidgeting limbs. She urged the first person she saw, “Come on, Yaz, help me!”

“Doctor, you need to stop!” Yaz tried to bring her back to sound logic. “The guards from earlier came back! They heard you and who knows how long we have until they bring more people?”

“Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?” The Doctor countered with another hit. “This’ll go a lot faster if someone else helps me break this thing instead of standing around telling me useless information!”

“Do you hear yourself right now?” Yaz attempted to put her hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. “Doctor–”

“Stop it!”

It all paused. The Doctor’s arm was still raised with the stanchion clenched in her white-knuckled fists, and Yaz’s hand still hovering over the Doctor’s shoulder. She was sure that Graham and Ryan were bearing similar expressions of disbelief. There was no way they weren’t, not when the Doctor was in her own apparent dumbstruck state from you turning to shout directly at them.

You stumbled backward, a gasp torn from your lips and eyes filled with terror-woven confusion.

“Can they see us?” Yaz asked.

“I don’t know,” The Doctor’s brows furrowed in aggravation for her lack of an answer. “Starshine?”

You took a shaky breath. “I don’t understand.”

From behind you, your consciousness appeared but not as it once did. Like the damage she’d done, her previous face was lined with jagged edges. You hadn’t seemed to notice, not even when his voice was dotted with broken static, “Oh? You don’t? There’s a crack in the glass? Remember the glass that he kept you behind–?”

“ Yes, I know that, but… but what made it?”

“Who.”

Your face fell in a way that the Doctor knew as silent admission. “What?”

“Who,” It said. “Not what.”

You knew. Even though you were concealing it, and poorly at that, you knew. The knowledge of the Doctor’s presence had burrowed itself in the deep corners of your mind, somewhere beyond the reach of your fears and biases. Every word of confirmation spoken by the fragments of her former self was oxygen pumped into her lungs. It was hope she’d once lost, returned to her.

The momentary bliss was gone with the sound of Ryan shouting from behind, “Doctor! They’re getting the curator!”

It should have been something the Doctor saw coming, even in that time when she first saw you dancing in a once-perfect memory. This would end as it always did: running.

Time was dwindling. Lost in the confusing existence of the world moving too fast while she moved too slow, the Doctor barely recalled when she told Yaz to go help Ryan and Graham. She only realized when Yaz nodded and hurried in the direction of the doors, and by then, she ignored the

“Doctor, stop!”

Your pleading words hurt. She could’ve questioned why. She could’ve asked why you’d beg for her to stop breaking you out of such a nightmare. But instead, she ignored it. Tuned it out. Tuned out your screaming as you fell against a table, your fists brought down in an echoing bang while the Doctor got lost in the pounding blows. They might as well have dragged her through the bitter memories she tried so hard to repress, beat by beat– each one igniting into the next like a line of matches. And like the single flame that began such a chain reaction, the memory of you engulfed the Doctor’s mind.

Only Graham’s “We can’t keep it closed for long, Doc!” broke her through the torrid reminiscence.

Though the desire to keep beating away at the glass until it shattered kept her feet firmly in place, the knowledge that there was no way for her companions to hold Hacell off long enough for you to escape pushed her to drop the stanchion.

“Come on, starshine,” The Doctor pleaded. “Come on.”

Turning her back to you, and placing hope in your strength, the Doctor moved to the back with her companions. She soniced the door, but the electric locks would only stay stable for so long. This would buy them only seconds, minutes if they were lucky.

"Please, starshine..."

How long had she stood there for? With her arm held out before her, keeping her thumb held firmly on the sonic? How long had it been before the Doctor lost your voice through the clamor? She’d grown accustomed to asking these kinds of questions in the heat of moments when she was caught in the thrall of adrenaline. It’s what sustained her.

“Doctor,” Graham’s voice was uncharacteristically calm for the situation; it's why the Doctor felt compelled to turn to him. He was staring at the wall furthest from them– at you. “Look.”

The destroyed version of Club Tredecim was replaced with the blank slate of a white room. Everything that held the memory of that time was wiped clean, even the dress you wore, which was now just an indiscreet gray jumpsuit. But you– there was only you. A you that stumbled toward the glass with legs that shook like a newborn fawn.

"Doctor," Graham's voice again. "Go."

Even with the door’s hinges shaking from instability with the constant thuds to its frame, the Doctor didn’t think twice before running towards you. And it was a nice feeling– to run towards you, and an even better one to see you. And as discolored and pale as you had become, and as nervous as the patch of stark white on your forehead made her, you were there. You were alive.

Since you’d told her to, since the day her last face laid eyes on you, she’d been waiting to tell you once more, “I choose to love you, starshine.”

You didn’t react at first; your eyes were still unfocused. The Doctor didn’t think you’d heard but that was alright. She’d be willing to wait until a time when you were awake enough to say it, and then say it a thousand times more, or however many times you’d let her. That concern was dispelled when you tiredly mumbled, “You s-say that pretti-ily…”

Not expecting such raw honesty, the Doctor struggled to hold in the laughter that broke through her exterior. But then, looking at you, and seeing the budding awareness fill your eyes, she couldn’t. So she laughed, and she laughed at the words that were so wholly you, no inhibitions, no restraint. Just you.

In your daze, your eyes slowly moved to something behind her. You tiredly said, “Get… down.”

There wasn’t a moment wasted questioning why you instructed her to do this. The Doctor ducked down the second the directive processed. She hadn't felt the stomps that created miniature earthquakes until the moment the dark blue figure was in front of her, already going too quickly to avoid ramming into the glass prison that confined you.

It was too difficult to tell if the silence that followed the shake of Hacell’s body hitting the ground was true or if the Doctor was too overwhelmed to understand anything. The sensation was new, to have her mind be pushed beyond that of comprehension when her mind was always whirring with action. It was numbing, and it was hard to escape.

The crackling of glass was the only warning the Doctor received regarding your movement. She whipped her focus from Hacell to you; with your entire body trembling in sporadic tremors, you slumped against the wall while running your hands along it to pull your weakened body towards her.

The Doctor didn’t remember making the decision to run to you. Like a pull the Doctor didn’t fight– didn't even think to– she didn’t let you take another step on your own. You collapsed against her. She gathered you into her arms, “It’s okay, it’s okay! I’m here!” leaving her in an unsure mix of breath and words. “You’re here.”

Having dreamt of a moment when the Doctor could hold you again, she was remiss to find that she couldn’t savor it like she wanted. The only thing she gave herself was the thought that the way you felt against her was different. Change- hers, not yours- tends to do that, she supposed.And the way it felt now, to have her arms wrapped around your waist, and to have her lips against your cheek, it was different. She wondered for a moment if you had been as aware of the change as she was and if you were really okay with that.

The Doctor couldn’t give that thought much more rumination. Just over your head that she tucked into the curve of her shoulder, Hacell, who had remained motionless until this point, was starting to stir. Prompted into motion by his groan, the Doctor shifted you in her arms so that she could help you move easily in your state. “Okay, come on– we have to go now! Fam!”

The Doctor didn’t make it very far, an event not by any fault of her or your own. He had been that quick in recovering a device from his jacket pocket.

“Security! All forces move into my point of location, now!”

Not even ten seconds after the initial command, a dozen armed guards stormed the open exhibit with guns raised. Their barrels, the ones the Doctor could see past their barricade-like bodies, were aimed towards the two of you, and more than likely her companions as well.

The Doctor didn’t give herself the moment of blindness that her anger tended to create. The pressure of your body using hers to keep you steady, in turn, kept her emotions leveled. Somewhat. She muttered lowly, “You must truly have some nerve to be pointing guns at me right now.”

“It doesn’t take nerve to have someone point a gun,” The Doctor heard his provoking tone from behind her. “It just takes someone with command. Authority.”

“You misunderstand,” The Doctor bit. “You must have some nerve to point a gun at me.”

There was a pregnant pause from Hacell. “Oh? And who are you exactly? Because right now,” The echoing crunch of glass beneath his feet rang like an incessant bell in the Doctor’s ears. “You look like someone who’s attempting to take my property.”

The tone the Doctor’s voice took on was deep and menacing, even to her own ears. “Say that again?”

“I don’t listen to the will of–”

“Say it,” The Doctor’s words were as blackened as the hue her eyes had taken. “Again.”

For a brief moment, Hacell’s concern played on his face. “Who are you?”

The Doctor remained silent. She let the realization flicker on his face like a stubborn spark that turns into the flame that burns down an entire forest.

“Oh,” Hacell’s mouth curled around the syllable, then cracked into a malevolent grin. “Oh ho! Don’t tell me! Wow! Really? After all this time I never thought–” The laughter that penetrated the silence maintained by everyone else in the room burned the Doctor’s ears. “You sure kept me waiting, haven’t you? Yes, the Doctor finally graces me with… her presence. Never thought I’d see the day you finally show up.”

“So you knew I’d be here then?” The Doctor did her best to ignore the obvious jab. “Poor planning on your part then. Careless of you to even let me get through your front door.”

“Well,” Hacell shrugged arrogantly. “When seven years passed and you hadn’t blackened my doorstep, I thought it best to cut the unnecessary security expenses. Seemed clear to me that I didn’t really need it.”

“Your third mistake.” The Doctor bitterly spat.

“And the first two?”

“Thinking you had any right to touch them,” The Doctor all but growled. “And then actually doing it.”

“You’re really talking yourself up for someone who got themself captured!” Hacell laughed. The man laughed, with all the mockery and disdain as someone who spent his life winning. “A-And not just yourself! But your precious little companions too! And that one,” He pointed his snake-like gaze to you. The Doctor couldn’t help the tightness it created in her chest. “You couldn’t even get them out of the building. And here I thought you were someone to be feared.”

The Doctor didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her angry. Not yet. Not now.

“It almost makes me wonder,” Hacell moved towards her, predatorily, but stopped a few meters short from where the Doctor stood. “What happened to that clever man I’d see in those cute, little memories? Is this the man who erased himself from history? Too bad you left one trace behind,” His eyes slowly dragged down your body, and this time, the Doctor hadn’t it in her not to react with a protective pull toward her. “And of all the traces to leave behind. Truly must be one of your biggest failures, aren’t they? I’ve seen your past life– so many times that I’ve memorized every. Last. Detail. And you aren’t him. At least with him, I thought I might’ve had to work a bit harder.”

The Doctor blinked. “What planet are you from?”

Her indifference towards everything Hacell had said interrupted his victory monologue. “Excuse me?”

The Doctor’s chin raised with a condescending jerk. “What planet are you from?”

“What does it matter?” The Doctor’s silence, hostile as it was, must have urged him into answering. Such irritation in his grumble revealed the information to her. “Siaphus.”

“I thought as much. The horns, tusks, the blue, the overwhelming stench of arrogance,” The Doctor noted the way his fists clenched, a motion she caught from the corner of her eye. “Lovely place, Siaphus. Horrible people you are, but I quite enjoyed my time there; so many amazing things to see. Ooh, like that beautiful purple river just off the Ibboth market. Really is a sight. You ever been there?” She asked one of the guards, still aiming his gun at her head. He said nothing. “Well, really the most interesting thing to me is the legal system you lot have in place. The saying, though, it’s– it’s slipping my mind. Remind me of it again?”

Hacell’s neck bobbed while he spoke, “The guilty know the pain of the inno–”

“Of the innocent, right,” The Doctor nodded. “Akin to Hammurabi’s Code, isn’t it? An eye for an eye, the guilty know the pain of the innocent… Same sentiment really: harm someone, bear the lifelong weight of your misdeeds, just as you forced them to. Makes me wonder what your people will do when they find out you’ve imprisoned someone against their will. Kept them here to be gawked at, stripped them of their humanity, made a fool of them, tortured them, let my companion Ryan come over here. Now.”

The Doctor spoke so low and quickly that she almost didn’t expect Hacell to respond as fast as he did. “I don’t listen to–”

“Let him come over.”

Whatever it had been, whether the words themselves or the way she said them, Hacell conceded. He gave a slight nod to someone behind her. The Doctor kept her focus aimed at him, using only her hearing to conclude that the slight mechanical noise and the scuff of shoes was a guard aggressively jabbing his gun in the direction of the Doctor and Ryan hurrying towards her.

The hand that held your arm over her shoulder gave yours an affirming squeeze. You gave one back, albeit one that she hardly registered at first. “Ryan, I need you to lay them down, alright? Hold them for me?”

“Okay,” Ryan agreed moments before the Doctor felt his hands begin to pull you away from her. There was no resistance from you, only the barely-heard whimper from your throat. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Staving off the compelling want to make sure you were okay, the Doctor turned to one thing she trusted more than anything in the world: herself. She listened to every instinct in her body that she’d made the right choice in bringing Ryan over, and she listened to the voice that told her there was no one else besides herself that she’d entrust your safety with more.

“Stiff arms there, Doctor?” Hacell jeered. “That new body of yours having trouble with the weight?”

“All that,” The Doctor made a point of ignoring the insinuations of her current regeneration, masking the bubbling anger of that with an intense stare. “And you have yourself a hefty body count too, don’t you?”

Hacell bristled when the Doctor spoke. He hardened his stare just as quickly. “Now, Doctor, let’s not cast stones here, shall we? Think it right of you to call me a murderer for a few when you have the blood of billions– if not more– on your hands?”

“It isn’t my crimes that matter,” The Doctor fought the swelling emotion with the bite of her teeth. “Not in the eyes of the Siaphusian Council. In their eyes, death is death. And the guilty will know the pain of the innocent. Really makes me wonder what your planet will do when they see the stacks upon stacks of charges against you,” The Doctor did what she knew anyone else in her position wouldn’t: she moved closer to the curator. The clicks of guns retreating from their former positions to where the Doctor stood lingered in the air with the proceeding silence. “Do you want to know what I think?”

Hacell hadn’t spoken, and for that, the Doctor figured that this was an attempt at concealing his growing worry. She had to give him the spiteful accolades that his bravado was doing somewhat of a steady job.

Her eyes, for a moment, wandered towards the shattered glass. “An authentic Illan prison cell like this must’ve cost you quite a bit. Be a waste to throw it away. Why not put it to some more use, ay?” There was a flash of understanding on Hacell’s face, and that was what the Doctor used to push herself further into territory she didn’t often tread. “What scene they’d put you in, I wonder. Childhood nightmare, maybe? Scared of the dark as a child? Or the creature beneath the bed? Or… maybe they’ll have you think that it's you in that warehouse. Having you be the one with his head crushed in. Wouldn’t that be nasty?

“Forced to live the same nightmare over and over and over,” The Doctor noticed the tick of his jaw. “I don’t think you could endure it. Your mind will decay, and it’ll decay slowly. And the worst of it? You won’t even realize.”

A billion years of her life– whether they were attributed to her age or not, that was still hazy to her– had been spent in her confession dial. All those lifetimes spent within that hell had destroyed something in her. She knew where the cracks in you would be because of that, and how the monster before her wouldn’t make it beyond the second repeat. “You’d break.”

“If this is your attempt at intimidation, I can assure you that you’re overestimating your abilities.”

“Intimidation? No,” The Doctor drawled the last syllable patronizingly. “Just giving you a glimpse into what’ll happen when you get caught.”

Hacell’s carefully crafted demeanor of controlled poise was slipping. “You keep saying ‘when’ when we both know you won’t be making it out of this alive.”

“Making threats?” Just the quirk of her brow as she gauged the situation with a sweep of her eyes. The door, having been burst open by the guards, revealed the one thing she’d been waiting for since his arrival. “Suppose I should thank you for that. You’re being a real help.”

“Help with what?”

“Giving my team more evidence!”

Hacell scoffed– whether at her words or the tone change, the Doctor wasn’t sure. “Your team? You mean them? Your pathetic, little human companions?”

The Doctor heard Yaz exclaim, “Pathetic?” before saying, “I meant this team.”

The first shout: “Put your guns on the ground! Now!”

The second: “What’s going on?”

The third: “Hacell Ezok, you are under arrest by the author of the Archival Board.”

The Doctor didn’t watch Hacell’s soldiers lay down their weapons, nor did she watch as officers clad in bulletproof steel stormed the exhibit. She wanted to watch, to secretly revel in watching as Hacell realized that he’d been deceived. Even better an experience to see him pushed to his knees by officers much larger in stature and manpower than he could ever be.

“I’m sure you know Iridaisa Osan here,” The Doctor, with her satisfied smile, motioned to the silver-haired, silver-tongued woman. “Got promoted to the Archival Board of Historical Findings and Maintenance. Called in a quick favor from an old friend. You’ll remember that if you’ve seen my old life as you said.

“And you’re right. I’m not that man anymore. I haven’t been, not for a very, very long time. Which is why I know you’ll believe me when I tell you this,” She knelt down to his level, still keeping that bit of height she held. “Everything you’ve done… it all warrants a much worse punishment than whatever awaits you when you get taken out of here in chains. Consider this mercy.”

“You think yourself better than me, Doctor?” There was something so satisfying in seeing him on his knees in front of her while still clinging to that last bit of arrogance. “You think mercy makes you better than me?”

“Even a Dalek knows mercy. It doesn’t take that to be better than someone who kidnaps and traps innocent creatures for their own amusement!"

“And how sure are you about that?”

The edge in his voice had the Doctor’s lip twitch in an upward sneer. “About what?”

“About me keeping that companion of yours trapped here?”

The Doctor stopped completely. “Excuse me? I saw it with my own eyes. You took them- you-"

"But I didn't dispute that, did I?"

Hacell smirked. She’d seen that smirk before on a hundred other faces of a hundred other enemies. It was the kind that expressed a knowledge that she didn’t possess. No matter how many reiterations she’d seen in all her lives, it brought a different type of surprise or dread. But underlying it all was that bottomless sea of anger.

“What have you done?” Quiet. As most storms were before breaking into strident thunder and bolts of livid lightning. Hacell smiled wider, and then he laughed. The shift in her body was instantaneous, but so were the guards surrounding him. Fighting against their pull, she screamed out, “What does that mean?”

“Doctor!” Someone called her name, but she couldn’t tell who. It very well might have been Yaz, or Graham, or Iridaisa, or even just one of the guards; they were all a blur to her now. In that haze of indistinguishability, someone put their arms around her. Only with a little more cognizance than she had previously did she recognize that they were doing so with extreme struggle.

So few creatures in the universe were capable of breaking the Doctor’s poise like this. Inside her was a calamity, the tides of her fury rising and crashing in waves of flood desolation. “Tell me!”

“Get him to the containment ship,” That was Iridaisa, wasn’t it? It had to have been; no one else could’ve commanded the soldiers so fiercely that before the order was fully past her lips they were making good on it. “Now.”

“What do you mean?”

Hacell was dragged away, and he was letting them. There was no resistance. He knew he was winning; even if he wasn’t the victor at the end of all this, at this moment he held something over her and that was enough.

Her lips peeled back, ready to continue screaming questions he wouldn’t answer. Something stopped her. “Doctor, don’t…”

Your shaking voice and the plea that came from it made it stop. The storm. The thrashing. The officers' hold on her. Everything. Leave it to you to still have such an effect on the Doctor after so many years apart.

Having had enough, Iridaisa gave the order once more with her voice leaving no room for argument. “Okay, get him out of here.”

The Doctor didn’t move her eyes from Hacell until he was completely out of her sight. It might have been excessive to wait to move until the very last moment, but she didn’t think herself able to be off guard just yet.

“Hey, hey,” Ryan urged. “Take it easy there.”

Ryan was gently guiding you back to your resting spot on the floor when the Doctor turned around. You mumbled something along the lines of being fine. The Doctor might have believed you if you didn’t sound like you were coming off a novocaine high and look like you were portraying the sickly sister in nearly every sentimental novel.

Trying hard to shake herself from the encounter, the Doctor tried to joke, “Still so stubborn, aren’t you?”

The Doctor didn’t know if it was her presence, the hand she slipped under your back to help ease you to the ground, or her voice that made you visibility relax. Had it been any, or even a combination of the three, you did. Bleary eyes stared back at the Doctor, your lips moving around her name with no sound coming out.

“Doctor,” Ryan started hesitantly. “That thing… on their forehead. Is it hurting them?”

“No,” The Doctor shook her head solemnly, as she identified exactly what the white patch was. Was this it? “It’s the only thing keeping them alive.”

“What?”

The Doctor brushed away stray hairs on your forehead to press her fingers against the outline of the patch. “It’s a Vrax suspension device. It’s supposed to be outlawed in all parts of the universe. Must’ve had a supply in that warehouse of his,” The Doctor remembered the memory, right after the explosion. The tiny box you held in your hands… The same one that he too held. “Survived the blast and he used it against them.”

“What does it do?” Yaz asked.

“It keeps whoever wears it in a suspended state– their body doesn’t age, they don’t need sustenance or anything that might…” He cursed you. He cursed you with the scourge of immortality– as close to it as someone could reasonably get. “Even an Illan prison cell isn’t capable of maintaining a human life like that. It’s how they’ve lived for so long. Any other conditions might've killed them.”

“Are they, um… Are they going to be okay?”

You were shivering, and the color of your skin wasn’t returning to its normal shade and likely wouldn’t be anytime soon. You looked horrible. The Doctor couldn’t deny that fact, even as stunning as you were in every other facet. “They’ll be alright just… they’re just exhausted. Their mind has been active this entire time. Hasn’t been given any rest.”

“The headaches…”

“Can’t imagine that would be an oversight for him. Another one of his sick ways of torturing them– keeping ‘em in line…”

Your eyes fluttered tiredly, the corners of your lips twitching in a tiny smile. You were barely hanging onto consciousness, but there was still that fight in you. Seeing it still burning bright brought a meek smile of her own to the Doctor’s face.

“But he couldn’t, could he?” The Doctor said in a hushed tone. A flash of silver from the corner of her eye caught her after she spoke. The hand which rested against your forehead drug down the side of your face in comforting tenderness. “I have to go talk with someone– just for a bit, okay? Then we can go… We can get out of here.”

Your nod, which really was only a single dip of your chin to your chest, was what the Doctor took as your understanding so she could go. Iridaisa was wrapping up a conversation with one of the detainment officers who escorted Hacell out. When she noticed the Doctor standing beside her, she gave the curt nod and acknowledgment of, “Doctor.”

“That promotion treating you well then?” The Doctor asked.

“Very,” Iridaisa nodded sharply. Her words were said without much infliction, as she must have realized the Doctor was as interested in small talk as she was. “He’ll never know the outside of a prison again, Doctor. His confession was ample enough–”

“And if he attempts to appeal for interplanetary extradition?” The Doctor posited.

“Then he’ll attempt to appeal for interplanetary extradition,” Iridaisa replied exasperatedly. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Without giving him too much credit, he’s a smart man; he managed to keep a living being in confinement for over a century without the Earendelian Council or the Archival Board ever noticing. Even so, he’ll be lucky if this planet even considers extraditing him, let alone approve him for one. Earendel will be under supervision for even letting this happen– and with their shoddy security system, they’ll be itching to avoid any more issues. They’ll sweep this under the rug and hope that in a few months, the whole thing will fade into obscurity.”

That was just it: the Doctor didn’t want this to “fade.” It wasn’t as if her glare thrown at the exit Hacell was previously escorted through would accomplish that, but it might do something to ease the ever-present anger dwelling in her chest.

“Doctor,” Her tone was firm– there was no room for arguing, not while she spoke. “I know right now you want to see him get what he deserves. But for that to happen, I need you to walk away so I can do my job. I think by now we both know that I’m pretty damn good at it. I’ll make sure that man never sees the world outside a prison cell again.”

To call him a man was a stretch the Doctor wasn’t sure she’d make. Still, the rest of what Iridaisa said would have to be alright with her for the time being. She couldn’t control the outcome of this, no matter how much she wanted to take the reins.

“What are you doing?”

Ryan’s outcry brought the Doctor’s attention to the corner where he and you were sitting. One of Iridaisa’s men was attempting to weave his arms beneath your back and legs to hoist you up, but Ryan held you tightly in his arms with you weakly holding him back.

The Doctor didn’t like the thought of anyone besides her or her Fam even being anywhere near you, let alone touch you. Her rage, while ebbing slowly, was still very much present in the form of white blindness. It was what fueled her in her exhausted state to march toward the scene.

“What’s going on here?”

The officer gauged the Doctor with annoyance. He stood to be eye-level with her, bringing his hands up defensively. “Ma’am, we just need to bring the witness in for questioning. The Board will need evidence from–”

“I don’t care what the Board needs,” The Doctor spat. “The last thing you will be doing is any kind of interrogation. Look at them! They need rest! Not to be questioned!”

What she hadn’t been lying about was the fact that you needed to rest. You could barely keep your eyes open as it was. And even if you weren’t so tired that you were slipping into unconsciousness every few minutes, the Doctor still wouldn’t allow them to take you– not when you had only just escaped such a nightmare.

While the man continued to drag on about protocols– protocols for an organization the Doctor wasn’t even a part of, for that matter– she bent down to give you a once over. The rigid lines of anger across her softened into the delicate uplift of a smile at the sight of you trying your best to stay awake. She brought her hand up to the apple of your cheek, brushing it affectionately.

“Hey there, starshine,” The Doctor cherished calling you that, acknowledging how much she missed saying it. “Don’t you worry, okay? We’re gonna get you safe on the TARDIS.”

“Ma’am, please,” The aggravated huff was evident in his voice. As much was conveyed on his face since his eyes were held to the sky in a silent plea for anyone to make the Doctor cease her argumentations. “I need you to understand that I’m only adhering to my orders. We are to take evidence from all–”

“Stand down officer.”

Iridaisa, with an imposition of control she commanded, appeared behind him.

“B-But ma’am,” He began his attempt to dissuade her, which the Doctor knew would not go as he had planned. “We have these protocols set in place for a reason! We have–”

“Never seen a case like this before,” Iridaisa snapped. “There are no protocols for circumstances like these; I do believe that this is the first time in the Board’s history that we’ve seen, who you deem a witness but who I see as a victim of wrongful imprisonment, be held within an exhibit. Our first and most important priority should be confirming the well-being of those affected. And, clearly, they are in no position to undergo any kind of questioning currently,” Iridaisa turned her attention to the Doctor. “Besides, I trust that the Doctor here will ensure their recovery and bring them in when they’re ready? And in a timely manner as well?”

The Doctor didn’t have it in her to feel the prickle of intimidation Iridaisa was trying to convey, just relief. “Yes, of course.”

“Well then,” Iridaisa began to saunter towards the broken exhibit to converse with the analysis team. “That takes care of that matter. Doctor, you know where to find me.”

She hadn’t been looking at the Doctor long enough to see the appreciative look thrown her way.

“Right then,” The Doctor exchanged a swift glance with Ryan who loosened his hold on you. She gave him an appreciative nod before sweeping you up into the net of her arms. With some adjustments, she laid your arm over her shoulders and let the other fall against your lap. Feeling you were sufficiently stable, the Doctor nodded to her companions. “Fam, let’s go h– Oh–”

There was a tug, a very slight one on her head. She glanced in the direction of the pull, finding fingers interwoven with locks of her hair. In looking at the owner of said fingers, she found your eyes, still hazy with a craving for sleep, watching her with a tiny smile playing at your lips.

“It’s okay now,” The Doctor shushed. “You can rest.”

You hummed, turning your face to the Doctor’s shoulder. “You got the timing wrong again…”

Snickers sounded from behind the Doctor while her eyebrows raised at you in offense. One sudden turn of her head had her companions scrambling to look anywhere but at her. Graham even tried to cover up the very audible laugh with a very obviously fake cough. The Doctor regarded their entertainment with a light, humored shake of her head.

Tired as you were, the Doctor couldn’t help but playfully tease you, “Starting already, are we? But then, I suppose you always were the impatient one.”

Against her skin, the Doctor could feel your lips raise in a lazy smile, an accompanying whisper of laughter on your breath.

“Wha– Are you laughing?” The Doctor scoffed indignantly. “I’ll have you know that I have waited a very long time for you! Thousands of years, in fact! So, if anyone is the impatient one here, it’s–” She glanced down to find your eyes fluttered to a close, and your breathing evened out into a steady rhythm. The effect you had on her born down her playful grievances; she had to sigh softly, “You’re not getting out of this, you know. Add that to the list of things I need to say to you.”

The walk to the TARDIS was done in near silence, both so as not to wake you and because there wasn’t anything to talk about. There was no need to. No, not everything that needed to be said had been, but for one of the few times in the Doctor’s life, there was time.

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