The Doctor's words replay through her mind over and over. And for an awful moment, all she can do is relive the moments leading up to her walking out to her death on Trap Street. Everyone has to be brave and face their death in the end. It's not her death that she's afraid of.
It's having to continually have nightmares of the part that comes before, of facing the reality that the Doctor watches her die in a horrifically painful way. She can still recall the exact way it felt to have her soul forcibly removed from her, the sensation of it slipping free of her body in a dark cloud still numbing her lips.
Her hand grips hold of Alina's a little tighter, and she very carefully stares straight ahead.]
I was sent home after our mission in Braccia. Years passed for me there. And at the end of it, before I was pulled back in here, I -
[She almost can't do it. Her head turns, and she looks to Alina with wide eyes. There's a wild desperation there, untamed and seeking safe harbor. Tears build, and she refuses to let them fall.]
I died. The Doctor, he tortured himself for literally billions of years because of it. And then he brought me back, only it was all wrong. I was wrong. I wasn't alive, but a moment frozen in time. Trapped forever between one heartbeat and my last. When I woke up here again, my heart was beating and things felt normal again. But I can't help but think, what if that feeling's wrong? What if I'm still defective, and nothing I do here matters?
[She exhales a shaky breath, finally looking away. She won't hold Alina hostage with that lost look on her face any longer.]
What if I'm not able to be brave enough to ask to change my contract in the end? What if the cost is more than I'm willing to pay? It means that no matter what happens here, the Doctor is always destined to go back and torture himself for billions of years. Because of me. How can I possibly sentence someone I love to that kind of fate?
[She has to make it better. And she will. She'll find a way. But she refuses to make a deal with the orb yet. She's not ready for the high cost that Viveca has warned her about, not when she knows exactly what's the most valuable thing in the entire universe to her. Given the way she and the Doctor part ways back home, there's only one option something like the orb will choose for her price.
She knows, without a question of a doubt, that the orb will ask for her memories of the Doctor in a cruel reversal of their fate. So no matter what, in the end, one of them is destined to have their mind tampered with. It's that fear of losing him all over again that keeps her from acting. It's what keeps her from opening up to the Doctor, knowing very well that no one on this station would survive two forces of nature known as The Oncoming Storm. And she makes no mistake that is exactly who both Doctors would become if they ever found out about her death.
The weight of her life being lost isn't because she's afraid of dying. It isn't because she selfishly wants to still be alive. It's because she wants to protect the Doctor one last time, and she isn't sure she has it in her to pay the price.]
no subject
The Doctor's words replay through her mind over and over. And for an awful moment, all she can do is relive the moments leading up to her walking out to her death on Trap Street. Everyone has to be brave and face their death in the end. It's not her death that she's afraid of.
It's having to continually have nightmares of the part that comes before, of facing the reality that the Doctor watches her die in a horrifically painful way. She can still recall the exact way it felt to have her soul forcibly removed from her, the sensation of it slipping free of her body in a dark cloud still numbing her lips.
Her hand grips hold of Alina's a little tighter, and she very carefully stares straight ahead.]
I was sent home after our mission in Braccia. Years passed for me there. And at the end of it, before I was pulled back in here, I -
[She almost can't do it. Her head turns, and she looks to Alina with wide eyes. There's a wild desperation there, untamed and seeking safe harbor. Tears build, and she refuses to let them fall.]
I died. The Doctor, he tortured himself for literally billions of years because of it. And then he brought me back, only it was all wrong. I was wrong. I wasn't alive, but a moment frozen in time. Trapped forever between one heartbeat and my last. When I woke up here again, my heart was beating and things felt normal again. But I can't help but think, what if that feeling's wrong? What if I'm still defective, and nothing I do here matters?
[She exhales a shaky breath, finally looking away. She won't hold Alina hostage with that lost look on her face any longer.]
What if I'm not able to be brave enough to ask to change my contract in the end? What if the cost is more than I'm willing to pay? It means that no matter what happens here, the Doctor is always destined to go back and torture himself for billions of years. Because of me. How can I possibly sentence someone I love to that kind of fate?
[She has to make it better. And she will. She'll find a way. But she refuses to make a deal with the orb yet. She's not ready for the high cost that Viveca has warned her about, not when she knows exactly what's the most valuable thing in the entire universe to her. Given the way she and the Doctor part ways back home, there's only one option something like the orb will choose for her price.
She knows, without a question of a doubt, that the orb will ask for her memories of the Doctor in a cruel reversal of their fate. So no matter what, in the end, one of them is destined to have their mind tampered with. It's that fear of losing him all over again that keeps her from acting. It's what keeps her from opening up to the Doctor, knowing very well that no one on this station would survive two forces of nature known as The Oncoming Storm. And she makes no mistake that is exactly who both Doctors would become if they ever found out about her death.
The weight of her life being lost isn't because she's afraid of dying. It isn't because she selfishly wants to still be alive. It's because she wants to protect the Doctor one last time, and she isn't sure she has it in her to pay the price.]