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Today had started just like any other on the TARDIS, relaxed but anticipation for the next adventure in the air. You walked into the console room, still rubbing your eyes from a fairly good night of sleep, you always slept well on the TARDIS—when you did get to sleep that is and weren’t meandering around on a strange planet ruining your sleep cycle—, it had always felt indescribably safe. You weren’t a morning person and the Doctor respected that after having learnt the hard way to not wake you up earlier than nine am. Even in his thousands of years of living he had never seen a fury quite like the one you’d displayed that morning, after that incident he’d taken up the habit of patiently waiting till you make your way into the console room on your own accord, always mumbling something about never understanding humans.
Everything was perfectly normal, all the same routine until you were graced with the wonders of the universe, but once you’d assumed your usual position, lamely standing around the console waiting for him to tell you your next destination, you sensed something was off. Something about the way he stood facing away and slightly hunched or that he didn’t turn around to greet you with that glinting smile that made your excitement soar, told you that something wasn’t right.
“Something wrong?” you asked politely and touched his shoulder as a way of asking him to face you. This wasn’t the first time you’d seen him so dejected—not that he made a habit of it, it was only on rare occasions that you saw him like this. He always seemed to carry around this underlying anguish and guilt that you could sense even if he thought you couldn’t, but sometimes it would show on his face when he thought you weren’t looking. You never commented on it and when you did bring it up, with only good intentions in mind and hoping you could help him even just slightly, he quickly turned it in a lecture on how humans have a tendency to concern themselves with things they couldn’t comprehend. You both didn’t speak for almost a whole day after that, until he came around to your room asking if you wanted to see some ‘cosmic fireworks’ as he phrased it, not quite looking you in the eye because he knew if he made eye contact the cycle you had just gone through would begin again and he was far too lonely to spend the day with his thoughts.
“I’m taking you home.” He said, calm and practiced, without even looking over at you, he shrugged your hand off his shoulder. He had practiced that part too, having prepared himself for almost every way you’d possibly react and was running each scenario through his mind right until he heard your soft footsteps on the metal floor. The Doctor knew he wasn’t going to allow himself to let his stance waver by looking at you because if he did, he wouldn’t be able to follow through with his plan. He wouldn’t need to see you to know how taken aback and hurt you’d be, your feelings always had this way of becoming tangible when you had too many at once, like your brain had run out of space inside your head for all of them and needed somewhere else to put them.
“What?” Your face etched with confusion, your mood suddenly plummeting, “Why?” you didn’t quite know how to respond, having never thought you’d hear those words from him—he had promised not to say them—, so you just spat out your first thoughts.
He stayed silent as he made his way around the console, effectively distancing himself from you, punching buttons and turning levers as he went. He needed to get it over with, the quicker the better he repeated to himself for the tenth time since you’d walked in.
“Did I do something wrong?” you shakily asked not being able to contain the tears that were at their tipping point now. You ran through everything you had done and said in the last few weeks but came up short on anything that might have caused him to re-evaluate your welcomeness on T.A.R.D.I.S. Had he just grown tired of you? Did he want someone new? Someone more exciting and useful?
“Just tell me what I did and I won’t do it again! I can fix it, I promise!” a slightly frenzied panic started to bubble inside you as you thought about never seeing another wonderous planet again or meeting the beings that inhabited it. You couldn’t give this up not after what you’ve experienced. You couldn’t give him up. Not after all the joy he’d brought you, even if he didn’t realise just how much he meant to you. “Please.” You didn’t shout or raise you voice when you said it, the word was filled with desperation and guilt that had no reason to be there.
That had stung him, deep inside where he kept his chaotic ensemble of feelings under lock and key. Just the way you had said that word almost broke him, and it very well might if you said it again. But he couldn’t have that, he had to think of you and not his selfish want to keep you with him even if it endangered you—no, he couldn’t have that, he needed you safe.
He kept pressing buttons and praying that they would work faster, but the T.A.R.D.I.S wasn’t entirely on board with his plan and was purposefully making it difficult for him. He cursed her under his breath and then he cursed himself for allowing you to crawl so deeply into his heart—both of them if he was being honest, but you didn’t need to know that. Right now, he needed you to hate him, that would make this a million times easier but he didn’t think you were capable of hating him, even after all he’d done you still managed to see only the good in him.
“Please,” and there you said it again and it broke him enough to finally look over at you. When he saw you, you looked so…wrong, the tears and guilt present looked so out of place on your always cheerful, innocent face. He had seen you cry before, when you witnessed wrong doings of others you’d otherwise never of met in your lifetime and he had unwittingly brought that grief upon you. These tears, however, didn’t come from an emotion he had witnessed from you before, these tears came from deep sorrow and place of self-hatred he had never have imagined you could feel towards yourself. You hated yourself before allowing any of that hatred towards him, and he’d done that to you.
“You can’t stay here anymore.” He stated, not moving from his spot across from you, the console creating the barrier he desperately needed to keep himself on the path he had ventured down in hopes of doing what he thought—what he knew—was best for you.
“But why? What did I do?” you walked towards his lanky frame, seeking out some kind of solace from being near another person even though he was the one causing you pain. “Am I not good enough anymore?” you looked up at him, he hadn’t backed up, hoping that if he stood his ground it would give him the strength he needed to disregard all the emotions he was feeling and carry on with his practiced, tactical plan. You were now a foot away and all he could do was lean away from you to process what you had just said—how could you be so harsh on yourself? He’d never understand it, he thought the world of you—well, much, much more than the world really—and here you were thinking he was sending you away because he’d decided he’s done with you now. It stunned him really, that you could even think of something like that and he took a step back before he fell over from all the leaning and processing he was doing. Your assumption was the complete opposite of the reason he was doing what he was, he didn’t want to see you hurt or worse because of him…he didn’t want to ever see you like this and he had caused this to happen.
“No, of course not.” He replied, his angry eyebrows forming a sincere frown.
“Then why are you making me leave?” you raised your voice, ire growing with every unanswered question. This is what he had wanted when he began, but now he couldn’t praise himself for finally achieving your anger towards him…he didn’t want you to be angry with him anymore. You were so loving by nature that angry born from anything other than passion looked misplaced on you, along with all the other emotions your face kept displaying, tears present throughout. “Tell me what’s wrong.” You inched closer to him and this time he did back up slightly, perplexed by your very sudden change of voice. How did you manage to calm yourself between sentences?
He was silent for a while, just listening to the sounds between your motionless bodies and the dilemma that was unfolding in that same space, before you spoke again.
“Please, tell me.” You said, so sweet and genuine, like all you wanted to do was help him and he knew that was completely true, he now felt he owed you an explanation. He hadn’t planned one, this was the one thing he hadn’t rehearsed before hand—none of this was going how he had played it in his head, you had brought all his emotions to the surface but still just under his skin, so his exterior stayed indifferent to the whirlwind that was sweeping through him and he had no idea how to react to any of these now very present emotions.
“You’re…well…you’re just so…human.” He looked down at you hoping that would suffice as enough information. After only receiving a quizzical look laced with frustration in response, he continued, “You’re too fragile, all of you humans are. You can’t stay here. It’s not safe, you’re going to get hurt—or worse. I can’t do that to you…I can’t lose you like that.” It all tumbled out of him now, all those emotions escaping him in any other way they could after he wouldn’t let them show physically.
“So, pushing me away and leaving me heartbroken is better to you?” and there was the anger again and he looked down at you with a bewildered expression, he would never understand humans and their muddled-up emotions and he most definitely would never be able to understand his own emotions. “Yes, I’m a ‘fragile little human’, but it’s my human life that I decide how to live! I can’t help it that I’m human, but you, most certainly, are not allowed to just cast me aside when you think I can’t handle it anymore—I might just be a ‘weak human’ to you but I’m not scared of what happens to me because I’ll be with you through all of it, I want to see the universe and help people! I don’t get as long as you do and I’d rather die from doing something to help than alone on earth after years of wishing I’d seen more! And that’s my decision to make!” you crossed your arms and seethed up at him, puffing yourself up to seem more imposing. “I’m not weak!”
“I know—”
“Then don’t think that I am, I make my own decisions and unless you have a valid reason to take me back—I’m staying right here!” you made a jabbing motion towards the floor with your finger, determination on your face—a look that he knew all too well upon you—, he knew he wasn’t going to win this fight, and in all honesty, he didn’t want to. He never really did.