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The Doctor told you he didn't want to see you again. Normally, you would respect the wishes of whoever told you something like that with zero delay or hesitation. You've always taken a no for an answer with dignity in the past. But this is different because you don't believe him, not at all.
You saw the way he kept looking at you all throughout the mad adventure, admiration with an undercurrent of such desperate longing it made your heart constrict. He was looking at you like a medicine he badly needed but couldn't have.
You thought you were imagining it or misinterpreting his expression at first, because it didn't make any sense to you. He could have you. Of course he can have you.
So you watched his behaviour closely for an explanation. And you carefully collected all the hints you could get. The way he gripped your hand just a bit too tight as you ran together. The way he kept holding your hand even after it was no longer necessary and the flicker of struggle on his face before he finally let go of it. The white knuckled grip he had on the TARDIS door when letting you out of it.
How he leaned into the smallest of your touches and kept reaching out for you, but would stop and let go the moment he realised what he was doing. The kindness he treated you with and the protectiveness he already had towards you so soon after meeting you. The wild look of fear in his eyes that so quickly drained away when he found you again after you got separated.
The anguish he was too slow to mask when you asked if he was with anyone. And most damningly of all, the way his mental presence felt, when he rested his fingers on your temple to share his plan straight into your mind without risk of the enemy overhearing or otherwise intercepting the message. Even though the contact was brief and purposeful, it was impossible for you not to notice the loneliness and yearning radiating off his mental tendrils, or the pain it caused him to withdraw them completely.
So when he said "you can't go with me", the pieces slotted into place. And when he finished his speech about how he'll be better off without you anyway with "you won't see me again", you weren't too distracted by taking offence to notice the note of grief in his voice. Your mind was already made up.
Now comes the hard part; pulling off your plan in what little time you have while he's distracted by having to deal with the disgruntled officials.
All in all, you like your chances. He hasn't looked back at you since "sending you on your way". You get the feeling he couldn't bear to. And you can see that the door of the TARDIS is open just a crack. That's good as an invitation in your books.
Luckily for you, you're good at sneaking around, and you're quiet. Stealthy, even. It's even easier than you thought it would be and before long the TARDIS is welcoming you in with her pilot none the wiser.
And she does welcome you in; her presence envelopes you like a hug even warmer than the first (and so far only other) time you visited. You can hear a pleased mechanical purring even though she's standing at rest. It makes you feel justified in your decision to disregard the Doctor's words.
You walk along the console room until you find a corridor leading deeper into the ship and out of immediate view from the entrance. You don't waste time ducking into it. Once you think you're far enough, you stop and rest a hand on the wall.
"Hello beautiful, I hate to ask you to keep secrets from your Doctor, but please hide me?" You whisper, unsure of just how superior the Doctor's sense of hearing is but unused to notions such as thinking something in a sentient ship's direction.
All the same, you feel the TARDIS's assent wash through you and little lights spark into view, leading you to a door. You open it. The room is perfect, everything you've ever dreamed you'd want your bedroom to look like if you had a lot of money and full creative control over interior design.
You know you can't hide from the Docror forever. Both in the literal sense of this is his home and he's bound to notice sooner or later and because him not knowing you're here would defeat the entire point of you being here. But for the time you do need to spend hidden, waiting to be sure he'd taken off with you on board- well, it will be a delight to stay in this room.
As you go about making yourself at home, you can't help the hope rising in your chest that someday, this can truly be home, in the fullest sense of the word.
It's been too long since the Doctor slept. The throbbing in his temples is getting more and more insistent and his reflexes aren't up to his usual standards. He'll be able to squeeze in one more trip and then...
Maybe he'll take another one, and the accompanying risk. Danger is the only company he has these days. And when he passes out it takes the nightmares longer to catch up with him than if he just fell asleep.
One day he won't make it back to the TARDIS in time. One day he will lose consciousness somewhere out there, at the mercy of whoever or whatever will find him. Perhaps that's for the best. Perhaps it would do him good. Perhaps he deserves the worst.
He sets about dematerialising the TARDIS without much enthusiasm or showmanship. He has no audience now and he never did well without one. Even the brief periods of waiting for his human companions to wake up could prove a challenge, let alone... Well.
But it's the right thing to do. And so long overdue. He's ruined so many lives and that number could have been lower if only he had been strong enough to stop selfishly dragging people into his hurricane of a life. Never again. No more.
(He might still be suffering the consequences of what followed him last saying those words. And there will always be a part of him that desperately wishes to take it back. But it had been the right thing to do. This too will prove to be the right choice. Especially if it never stops hurting.)
The Doctor sinks heavily onto the jump seat. There's nowhere he needs to be and nowhere he truly wants to go. He'll just have to hit the randomiser again. It worked out for him well enough last time. A part of Earth he hasn't visited in a long enough time that it's not tied to memories that would crush him, and relatively minor trouble, the type that the local branch of UNIT could probably have handled on their own, only with more casualties. Either way it made him feel accomplished, like he was making a difference.
The worst thing about the trip was you. Or well, the best thing about the trip, the best thing to happen to him in months, was you. The worst thing about the trip was walking away from you.
The Doctor has a deeply inconvenient propensity towards getting attached to people quickly. He really should have known better than to use telepathy on someone he was already way too fond of for someone resolved not to take in any more companions. He got caught up in the thrill of danger, adrenaline coursing through his veins, and he did the first effective thing he could think of, no consideration spared for the toll it was sure to take on him.
Your mind was so beautiful and the Doctor has only himself to blame for the way he now misses what he carelessly took a taste of. It's for the best he sent you away. Best for you, your safety and wellbeing, but also best for him. Because if it hurts this much to lose you after a day, how could he possibly survive losing you after years? It was a self-serving decision, turning you away.
With one last definitely not self-pitying sigh, the Doctor drags himself to his feet and begins the process of steering the TARDIS onto shores known only to her. The process runs perfectly smoothly for once, but he doesn't have it in him to be particularly smug about it. The TARDIS seemingly does, landing with a pronounced but still gentle shake added for theatrics rather than forced onto her by turbulence.
"Why can't you be this impressive when I'm trying to show off to someone?" the Doctor mutters under his breath, but in truth the TARDIS' antics have lifted his spirits a little.
The TARDIS sends back a potent wave of smugness. It's tinged with amusement, too, like she's laughing at a joke he isn't privy to. The Doctor knows better than to try to get her to elaborate. Instead, he heads for the doors, feeling the first traces of excitement stirring within him at the prospect of whatever got the TARDIS so pleased.
When the Doctor swings the doors open, it's to nothing. Well, not nothing like nothingness, abyss. Nothing like nothing of note. They seem to have landed on an asteroid, and a rocky one. Stepping forward a little but staying in the protective bubble of breathable air, the Doctor looks around for anything the TARDIS could have wanted to show him.
If there is somehow life here, despite the lack of atmosphere, that would be extraordinary. Even a rover might be worthy of investigation. But there's nothing, only rocky formations as far as the eye can see. And it's silent. The Doctor turns his focus to sensations a human wouldn't be able to get, the speed at which they're hurtling through space and approximate trajectory. There's nothing out of the ordinary, and no identifiable collision course.
The Doctor's just considering turning back around to give the TARDIS a good mallet whack and try the randomiser again, when he hears a gasp behind him. Followed immediately by:
"It's so beautiful!"
He whirls around and there you are, standing in the TARDIS's doors. The Doctor wonders if he's gone completely round the bend, or is hallucinating, or maybe just fell asleep in the console room.
Not sure what else to do, he looks back over his shoulder at the view. It is beautiful, now that you mention it. The lack of atmosphere leaves the stars and the galaxy's colourful gases as fully visible as is possible only when free-floating through space and the dark rocky structures shilouhetted against that fathomless sky add to the picture instead of just obstructing part of it. They almost seem intricately carved with intelligent artistic vision.
It's so hard to see the beauty in the things that would be extraordinary to anyone but an intergalactic traveller of centuries, without a companion there to point it out. The Doctor has realised that long ago. Still, surely it must be cause for concern that his brain would draw forth an image of you just to let him experience the wonder of his surroundings.
Except... You've come nearer to him now, standing so close he can feel the warmth of your body radiating off of you, ready to seep into him and thaw him out, whether he wants it to or not. And on the battered outer reaches of his telepathic shields, he can feel you reaching towards him, unconsciously, the way all humans do when thinking of someone, but more dangerous than that; travelling along the paths he's accidentally shown you when entering your head. His other senses may have been able to fool him, but this must be real.
"What... why are you here? How are you here?"
"I broke in," you reply, cheerfully. Like it's possible to break into the TARDIS.
"You can't be here," he says, hoping he sounds stern, authoritative, like you truly are just some intruder disturbing his peace.
"Well clearly I can, since I am," you sound even, composed. It makes the Doctor feel even more like he's the one fraying.
In an effort to compose himself and regain control of the situation, the Doctor stalks past you to the console and with his back kept resolutely to you, begins to punch in the coordinates to take you back home. His hands feel unsteady and the TARDIS is much less cooperative than even his own traitorous body, unflicking switches, sticking levers, changing the destination whenever he isn't looking and generally resisting his actions at every junction she can.
When he was an inexperienced pilot, a fight like this from the TARDIS would have had him capitulating in no time. But he's better than that now, and very determined to see this particular trip through to his exact specifications. For your own good he needs to bring you home and h will do right by you, no arriving a year too late or dropping you off miles from where you live.
The TARDIS lands with a shake, prolonged displeased groan and an electric shock to the Doctor's fingers, but she lands exactly when and where he meant her to. After double checking the scanner's display, he practically stomps over to the TARDIS doors and throws them open with enough force to elicit a nice, climactic thump. Not as good as slamming them would have been, but needs must. Peering out reveals an alleyway off the street where he first bumped into you.
Satisfied that you won't be stranded away from home or in any imminent danger if he leaves you there, the Doctor turns back to you.
"Get out. Now."
The tone of voice he's using has struck fear into the hearts of monster's and villains. You shrink back from it, from him, instinctively. It occurs to the Doctor too late that he's still standing by the door and so you'd have to pass by him to leave the TARDIS, so making you afraid of him is probably a counterproductive strategy. You don't run, or back further into the depths of the TARDIS, however. You resolutely stand your ground.
"No." The determination shinig in your eyes threatens to unravel the Doctor.
He wants to grab you and shake you until you understand just how dangerous it is, what you're trying to sign up for. He wants to shout and curse at you. He wants to bodily shove you out those doors. But more than anything, he wants you to know that he would never, ever, do any of those prior things. Wants to be deserving of your trust.
His hearts are racing so hard with fear and anger and powerlessness and desperation he's nearly dizzy with it. All the Doctor knows is he needs this moment on the precipice to be over, needs you to go now or never. Choose to walk out before the choice is made for you.
"This is your last chance." His voice is nearly steady, and dark. "Leave now or I'll never let you go again."
The Doctor knows the threat of keeping you will ring more sinister than any promise of removing you against your will or violence he wouldn't be able to go through with anyway. But this, he means. And you need to know what you're dealing with. A greedy monster, a spider in the middle of a web, continuing to weave it even as it claims it never meant to kill. You should run while you still can, fly before your gorgeous wings stick.
You start walking towards him and the Doctor almost regrets it, showing you the truth of himself. Knowing something was for the best has never lessened the sting. But you'll be difficult enough to forget as is so he steels his resolve and keeps his steely gaze trained on you, just hoping the threat in his eyes will send you out the door faster so he can have privacy to either fall apart or lick his wounds.
Instead of passing him by on your merry way out, you come to a stop right in front of where he stands, pointing at the exit by now more helplessly than authoritatively. He should have known you wouldn't make this easy. You lift a hand as if to touch him and and the Doctor tenses instinctively. You lower your arm back to hanging along your side and he feels it like a tangible loss.
Looking deep into his eyes, you say, "I don't believe that you would do that, but I'm willing to take that risk. I wouldn't mind staying with you until I die."
You can't possibly understand how close to the breaking point you're pushing him, the Doctor thinks. You and your unfounded faith. Even if he were deserving of it, you haven't known him anywhere long enough to make that sort of commitment. And yet, Rassilion, he wants nothing more than to accept it from you.
"You don't understand," he starts, casting about for something, anything he could say to convey the gravity of the situation, "I can't be trusted. I'm not a good man. I'm not even human."
You wouldn't be safe with him, you wouldn't even be safe from him. The Doctor's been letting himself starve and here you are, burning bright with all he loves most about humanity, offering him everything. If he got a taste, if he got a chance to get even more attached to you, he can't vouch for his ability to still let you walk away if you wish to one day. It was already so hard with Martha. He kept still, kept quiet, out of fear he would reach for her or beg her to stay. And he's even more broken now than he was back then.
And you still aren't running.
"I know what I saw from you and no one who isn't good and strong and unselfish could do what you did. I can have enough faith in you for the both of us."
The Doctor feels the breath leave his chest, taking most of his will to fight along with it. He no longer trusts himself to speak, can only shake his head in a last-ditch effort at denial. Your eyes soften at the pitiful sight he no doubt must make.
"If I'm misunderstanding this whole situation, if you genuinely don't want me here, if you can look me in the eyes and tell me you'll be happier if I leave right now, I will do it. I would love to travel with you, but more than that, I whish you well. If you'll be better off without me, I'll go. But if you're only trying to do what you think is best for me, please let me make my own choices."
That's all the Doctor ever does, try to do what's best for everyone else, even against their will. He justifies it to himself by saying it's at the expanse of his own happiness as well. How can something be wrong when it is self-sacrificing? He manipulated Rose into choosing his double. He erased Donna's memories even as she was begging him not to. It destroyed him, but he was so sure he had to do it. And now you stand here, asking-
"What do you want?" Your soft voice cuts through his spiralling thoughts.
"I want-" he falters, swallows, tries again. "I want you," his breathing hitches and his eys automatically screw shut, "to leave."
When his eyes open back up, they're glassy, wild and desperate.
"Say it again, with your eyes open this time," your tone is gentle, ever so gentle, but the undercurrent of steel in them marks the sentence as a command, not a request.
The Doctor tries to get himself together.
"I- I want you here," he intended to lie, more convincingly this time, but looking into your eyes the truth comes out instead.
You reach out and manually pull the TARDIS doors closed. A tear slides down the Doctor's face, closely followed by another.
"May I?" you ask gently, and the Doctor doesn't have a clue what you're referring to, but he nods anyway because you've defeated him, you won, you stayed and in that moment he'd grant you anything.
With his permission secured, you cup his face with both hands and gently brush his tears away with your thumbs. And if the Doctor thought you've broken him before, he's really falling apart now. He's missed being touched with affection so very badly, and now that he's lost control as througly as he feared he would, he can't seem to care about anything but chasing your touch, leaning in as close as he can. He needed this and he needs this and he needs more and briefly he's aware that he's shaking, but then you shift to hold him properly and the last meagre vestiges of his restraint burn into ash.
His hearts are two open wounds in his chest from all his previous losses and he can't take another injury to them, couldn't survive losing anyone else. Of course he couldn't. But he's been so focused on shielding himself he didn't realise that without stitches he'll bleed out anyway. Didn't realise until he got a bandage and saw it stain red.
You're holding him like a lifeline he tried to let go of only to find it twined around him. He doesn't have the strength to keep trying to disentangle himself. All he can do is trust that wherever you're reeling him in to will be better than drowning.
It helps that your fingers feel heavenly in his hair.
You wrap your arms securely around the Doctor in a hug and apparently not a moment too soon, because his knees give out. You like to think of yourself as strong, but you know you won't be able to hold up all of his weight when he's in a state like this, shaking like a leaf and sobbing uncontrollably. So instead you guide both of you to slide to the floor (grating? it sure looks like grating, but it feels much more solid than that) of the TARDIS, making sure to cushion his fall.
The Doctor ends up mostly in your lap as you sit with your back propped against TARDIS coral. It's a surprisingly comfortable position to be in. You suspect the ship may have had something to do with that. If it wasn't for your heart breaking for the crying being (it feels weird to call him either a man or an alien, even in the privacy of your thoughts) in your embrace, you would have been perfectly content.
You want nothing more than to help him feel better. But you wouldn't presume to tell him sweet nothings, shushing noises seem too close to condescending for this situation and you certainly wouldn't ask him not to cry. It's clear he needed to let all of this out. So you just stay like that, quietly holding him. You give into the temptation of his hair however, gently carding your fingers through.
It seems to have been the right course of action as the Doctor begins to calm, until his tears dry and he's halfway to asleep in your lap. The TARDIS conjures up a small couch right there in the console room and you decide to take the hint. Somehow, you manage to get him settled comfortably on the couch. He can barely keep his eyes open. You can't help thinking he's adorable. It's hard to believe he was doing his darnedest to scare you off not even half an hour ago.
It's harder to believe it almost worked. He seemed so angry that for a moment, you lost your confidence in your prior assessment that he wants you here. But then he went and threatened you with never letting you go, and all your doubt disappeared. Because whatever he thinks, you know he would never hold you against your will. You've seen the glint in the eyes of people who only wish to poses. The Doctor is nothing like them. You've literally been in his mind.
Not for long, sure. Long enough to catch flashes of things that leave you under no illusions that he's perfect. But also long enough to know what he wants and that it's nothing that wouldn't be freely given. He could have ruled the world. He could have let the world burn. Instead, he's saved it again and again, at great personal cost, and never asked for anything in return. Most content with a nomad's life and a hand to hold. You'd be glad to give him both of yours.
It will be so easy to fall in love with him. But that's alright, you're good at not asking for anything in return, yourself. And in a way, he's already yours. Now it's just a matter of keeping eachother. Keeping steady, keeping close.
You lean away, intending to re-find your new room and leave the Doctor to his couch nap. He sure looks like he needs it. Proper, cathartic sobbing can take it out of anyone, but even beyond that, you get the feeling he hasn't been sleeping, or allowing himself rest, anywhere near enough.
Before you've made it so much as a step away, a whining sound from the Docror stops you in your tracks. He's apparently too out of it to speak but he's making grabbing hand motions at you and his meaning is clear. You get settled in beside him, sparing a grateful thought towards the TARDIS for enlarging the couch just enough for you to fit comfortably, but still snugly, against its prior occupant.
You wrap an arm around the Doctor's waist, partially because there's not enough space to comfortably put it anywhere else, but mostly because you want to. He gives a contented little sigh and shifts a little, then next thing you know, he's got all available limbs wrapped around you right back. You make a mental note to ask him just how fast Time Lords can move, and if they are, by chance, part octopus. But that can wait until next morning, because you really don't mind at all.
If anything, this is extremely comfortable, almost shockingly so, considering his lean frame. You thought for sure you'd have some sort of joint or other pointy bit of bone pressing into an unwelcome place, but no. Maybe the part octopus theory isn't so outlandish after all.
The Doctor's breath evens out quickly. Not a snore, just slow, quiet puffs of air and his chest moving rhythmically against your own. It's soothing. You follow him into sleep in no time at all.