doesn't that mean anything to you

by SiderumInCaelo

Charley thinks about what it means that the Doctor said there could be no more "yearnings." Set near the end of "The Next Life," and assumes familiarity with "Scherzo." (Title taken from the fansong "The Girl Who Never Was" by Clair, and can be found on her tumblr, sufficientlyqueer, under the tag "my music".)

"No resentments, no bitterness, no anger, no yearnings."

At first, Charley didn't know what the Doctor meant when he said that there could be no yearnings. She yearned to travel in the TARDIS again, yearned to be back in her own universe, but why would that be –

Oh.

He meant yearning for him.

She had though they'd reached - well, not an understanding, exactly, but an unspoken agreement, at least - about what they had said to each other in the time station, and during that horrible experience with the sound creature. They each had feelings for the other, but nothing was ever going to come of it. They'd be friends, best friends, but nothing else.

And she could live with that. More than that even, she could be happy with it. Yes, she may have had fantasies involving a not-strictly-platonic relationship between them, but she had always known she wouldn't choose that at the expense of jeopardizing their friendship.

But then he'd gone and said "I love you," and she said it back because how could she not, and once that was out of the bag and it was just the two of them in a strange new universe she'd thought they might at least talk about what that meant –

Well. Her mistake, clearly.

So she had backed off, and told C'rizz (mostly) truthfully that it wasn't like that when he asked about their relationship, and was doing her best to shove those not-strictly-platonic fantasies to the back of her mind, and as time passed figured that the issue had been, if not resolved, then left behind.

Except now, here he was, bringing it up again. And not just that, acting like all those feelings she had for him were just simple, inconvenient desires. As if her relationship with him – whatever kind of relationship it was – wasn't the most important thing in her life.

(She felt like she had when he'd called her a "silly, little girl," all hurt and embarrassed, but at least then he'd had the excuse of recovering from the Zagreus virus and adjusting to having his time senses rendered useless. What was his excuse now?)

Or not even just inconvenient, but an actual problem, the same way her and C'rizz always sniping at each other was. A potentially fatal problem at that, if what he said about anything coming between them getting them killed was any indication. It was one thing to know that her feelings were unreciprocated, even unwelcome, but to know that the Doctor thought they were dangerous made her feel sick.

How was she meant to not have these feelings for him? She could accept nothing would ever come of it, she could do her best not to think about those feelings, those desires, but turning them off was another thing entirely. It's not like she'd meant to fall in love with him in the first place, and any yearnings she had were tangled up so deeply in how much she cared about him as a friend that she could no more separate the two than she could have pulled her hand away from the Doctor's when they were merging into a single creature.

But here he was, asking – no, demanding – that she do just that, in a matter of seconds.

She agreed, because there was no time to do anything else, and ran with the Doctor and C'rizz back to the TARDIS, and tried not to let any of her hurt show on her face.