realityshifted | (no subject)

[rolls her eyes] Would you listen if I told you otherwise?

Probably not, no.

Do you at least have someone you can take with you? I am not...comfortable...with the idea of you going into danger alone, Doctor. Especially when I am unable to offer even a modicum of assistance.

[scratches his head] I could look around for a companion. Usually they crop up in time for these sorts of adventures.

[makes a face at the idea of yet another companion for her Doctor] One you will hopefully leave behind for once, this time? As much as I disliked Grace, at least she had the intelligence to leave you and I alone after that little...debacle on Earth.

Well, I imagine I'll have to leave them here. Dunno how I could bring them. But aw, I still think Grace would have liked traveling.

I don't. [crosses her arms] You just wanted her with you because she was a good snog. The only other thing she managed to do well was destroy the fabric of time and space, or did you forget that part?

[awkward!] Well...regardless of her snogging abilities, she wasn't horrible. Anyway! We got Charley.

You say that as though it were a good thing, Doctor.

[pouts slightly] She's not the worst, is she?

That depends on which criteria you're judging by. For what it's worth, she hasn't killed me, yet, or drilled holes into my console, so she has that going for her. She's not the brightest companion you've had, however.

[snorts and says mildly] Really dislike her, don't you, old girl? [let it be known he didn't say this meanly]

Don't you, after all she's done to us? After what she made you do?

[shakes his head] Romana's been my friend a very long time.

As have I, but you still let her do those things to me. You weren't the only one hurt when she asked you to destroy your people, Doctor. Does my pain matter so little?

[shifts uncomfortably] It's not that, you know it's not. It hurt me, too.

[shakes her head] And yet you continue to do it. You continue to hurt yourself -- hurt me -- for a people who could care less whether or not you survived! To what purpose, Doctor? You do not need them, not anymore! Not when you have me. So what drives your decision? Why cling to them so desperately, when in the past you ran so long and so far?

[blinks and stares at her in a way that clearly says this isn't something he thinks about often] I hated the Time Lords. Pompous, arrogant, deceiving, selfish... [shakes himself from that] But they needed my help. I couldn't just abandon them, as much as they deserved it.

But you did not ask me, Doctor. It hurt, so much, to see what you did to please them, to save them. To suffer the pain you endured. Why could you not abandon them but you could abandon me, your companions, your own dreams, for the hollow nothingness they gave as their thanks?

[just shrugs helplessly] Because I have to help people. I need to, no matter what happens. I have to fix things.

Is that why you let me be hurt? So you can fix me?

No! That's not why! I don't want you hurt!

But you'll do it willingly enough. You forgive those who cause me pain. Invite them to live within me. How will you protect me now that you've given that man his freedom, Doctor? Did you think of that?

[rubs his eye] It's a better idea, though. He was more likely to hurt you locked up with you. Anyway, I didn't let him escape, exactly...

You freed him of your own accord, then? Freed him of his prison but made me his servant instead, to shelter and feed him?