Authors note: Inspired from the bottom author's note from the latest chapter of A Fallen Angel. You'll have to read it to get the idea of this latest installment of the challenge. Anyway I reviewed and said the kiss River Song received at her 'wedding' should be the moment the Doctor remembers Angel as his Mate.
Hearts of Time Saga - The Kiss from Hell.
"Amy, uncuff me, now." The Doctor ordered, not taking his eyes off River. Angel watched on, knowing what was in the Doctor's mind. Her hearts were at breaking point again, only this time she was watching the man she loved about to marry the one woman in the universe ( with the exception of Kovarian ) she despised the most. She wanted to say something, anything to stop this, but she knew there was no chance. Time and reality were breaking down, all because River tried to prevent her from dying. Stupid woman, she would have thought it would have been her lifelong ambition to kill her, after the Doctor that is.
Angel had never been convinced after Berlin River was safe, yeah she may have given over her remaining regenerations when she'd poisoned her, and it had taken the urging of her parents who'd managed to convince her to save her life though only just. But it had killed her baby. River was a psychopath, and she had taken away the one chance Angel had to have a happy life.
With a look at her daughter, Amy relented and uncuffed the Doctor, who took a deep breath and turned around, rubbing his hands. His eyes caught Angel's, and he frowned. She hadn't been the same since Berlin, she'd become sadder, more quiet. She'd been spending more time in the deeper depths of the TARDIS, and he'd been worrying about her. She'd become older in appearance, sadder, her face had seemed to lose the ability to smile. But right now he had other things to worry about, like the collapse of reality. He'd find out what was wrong with Angel later.
Pushing thoughts of Angel out of his mind for the time being, completely missing the look of sadness on the Time Lady's face.
" OK. I need a strip of cloth, about a foot long. Anything will do. Never mind," he untied the bowtie round his neck before handing one piece of it to River. " River, take one end of this, wrap it around your hand, and hold it out to me."
" What am I doing?" River asked in bewilderment as they both wrapped an end of the tie around their hands.
" You're canceling out the time differential," Angel replied, but her voice was so distant no one heard her. Not even Rory though it wouldn't have made a difference, this was a totally different version of Rory.
" As you're told," the Doctor replied whilst thinking inwardly for a change. " Now, we're in the middle of a combat zone, so we'll have to do the quick version. Captain Williams, say "I consent and gladly give"."
"To what?" Rory asked, perplexed. Angel closed her eyes, wishing this version of Rory was the one she was most used to. The Rory who knew about her and the Doctor. She bit her lip, her eyes watering as she watched the Doctor...marry the psychotic creep who couldn't help but stalk him, flirt with him...The murderer of her baby.
Unaware of her inner torment consciously, the Doctor was trying to keep his patience. "Just say it. Please," he said urgently. The longer they waited, the quicker reality would collapse. They had to do this now.
Shaken by the Doctor's demand, Rory blinked. Angel nudged him, gesturing urgently. Rory may have been a different counterpart to the one they knew so well, but he knew how to get down to it. "I consent and gladly give," he said automatically.
Suppressing the urge to sigh in relief, the Doctor glanced over at Amy, but in the corner of his eye he saw Angel struggling to maintain her composure. He frowned at that, a niggling in the back of his mind...He shook it off, he had to concentrate. "Need you to say it too, mother of the bride," he said to Amy.
Eyes wide, Amy quickly said, " I consent and gladly give." Angel silently cried.
Taking a deep breath, the Doctor kept his eyes on River, ignoring the sudden mental pain in his mind and the physical pain in his hearts. This was wrong, he shouldn't be doing this. Ignoring this, the Doctor said, "Now, River, I'm about to whisper something in your ear, and you have to remember it very, very carefully and tell no-one what I said."
Ignoring the pain which had grown worse, the Doctor leant forward and whispered in River's ear and she reacted. He did too, and not in a good way. River reacted as well as if she's just be told something wonderful, the secret of the ages.
"I just told you my name," the Doctor told her, shaking his head as an angry buzzing started in his mind. He shook his head hard to get the final part of what he needed to do underway, but his eyes caught Angel. She looked away from him. The Doctor frowned, but he remembered where he was.
" Now there you go, River Song. Melody Pond. You're the woman who married me," the Doctor said, though the mirth in his voice was absent. In fact, he felt disgust with himself. He forced himself to carry on, but he found it hard when he tried because he caught a glimpse of Angel's beautiful eyes...wait, what was that? "And wife, I have a request," he said to River, but he couldn't look her in the eyes. She...disgusted him for some reason. He disgusted himself though he didn't know why. "This world is dying, and it's my fault, and I can't bear it another day. Please, help me. There isn't another way."
His frown grew when he saw River send a small smirk in Angel's direction before she turned to time and said, "Then you may kiss the bride."
Not saying a thing about what he saw, the Doctor whispered, " I'll make it a good one." He leant forward, inwardly truly hating himself for doing this.
"You better," River replied as they kissed and time began to move once more...
The Doctor and Angel gasped as they once more found themselves inside the Tesselecta's control room. Time was returned to normal, they could feel it. They also knew from the readings the disguise outside was on the ground, the computers of the walking time machine doing as they were programmed, to simulated death; pulse, heartbeats, even to scanners like the one River was holding.
" We made it, Angel," he said looking for the Time Lady, but she was walking away from him, down the corridors to where the TARDIS was parked. The Doctor frowned after her, wondering why she was leaving. He should really start seeing about checking the systems of the Tesselecta, and send it back to its own crew who were waiting for it, but somehow Angel was more important...
" Angel?" he called as he ran through the android's mini corridors. " Angel?" He stopped suddenly, trying to think why the Time Lady had gone to the TARDIS, was she checking on something? No, something in his mind said it wasn't anything like that.
Why would she leave? He'd noticed something off when he'd married River, though inwardly he would've preferred it if it had been Angel he was kissing. Wait, he frowned, wondering where that had come from? He didn't want to kiss or marry Angel, they were friends, best Mates.
Mates.
The word Mate reverberated around the Doctor's head, and all that pent up disgust at himself for marrying River even though it wasn't his idea of a wedding, and the half glances sent Angel's way, loathing for himself...Mixed with all those thoughts about Angel, how beautiful she was, how caring came together in a volatile explosion that went off in his mind. Memories of her and him exploded in his mind's eye, but one stood out above all else.
Their Mating.
The Doctor opened his eyes in shock and pain; his Tenth self had feared with regeneration, some new man would saunter off with Angel. Instead he'd gone and done the opposite. He hadn't sauntered off with Angel, he'd ignored her, said things that hurt her though it hadn't been intentional. Worse, he'd just gone and married someone who hated the very sight of her. Now it all made sense; why the TARDIS had been acting up with him after he'd regenerated, why Angel had been so quiet, withdrawn. He hadn't said anything, hadn't cared about her enough to ask what was wrong; nope, all he'd done was swan around, acting like an idiot when his Mate, his Mate, had been suffering. The Doctor closed his eyes as he felt his hearts ache in pain.
He walked slowly towards the TARDIS, a Time Lord on a mission. He couldn't give two hoots about this damn android time machine, though it had helped. That alone meant he would send it back, a nice controlled pulse sent from the TARDIS, and the Tesselecta would return to its crew more or less intact. The TARDIS door was open he saw, so Angel was inside. Good; there were so many places the Doctor knew Angel would go to; he could feel her mood, and it was anything but good.
He sighed before stepping through the doors, but once inside he could feel the TARDIS. She was sad, happy and angry at the same time. The Doctor closed his eyes, he had a good idea why she was feeling those emotions in such a healthy mix. Since the horror of House the relationship between him, the TARDIS, and Angel had changed. The Doctor had known for a long time the relationship between Angel and the old box went deeper than his did, but after House that relationship had gone deeper into a more sisterly and motherly understanding of each other. The Doctor recalled all that grief the TARDIS matrix made human had heaped on him though he hadn't pegged it until now. He could feel the TARDIS was happy he'd finally remembered Angel, sad for Angel, and angry it had taken him this long.
" I'm sorry I didn't listen to you, old girl," he whispered to the time rotor, " I'm so incredibly sorry. I just need to find Angel, and make it up to her."
The TARDIS made a sound, sort of like a thump and a hum. The Doctor wished the TARDIS could speak, it would be so wonderful to fully find out what her moods were but only Angel truly understood her.
Leaving the console room the Doctor went to Angel's bedroom. Next to the console room it was the most logical place for Angel to go. As he walked down the corridors he couldn't help but send Angel mental sentences, screaming he remembered her and for kicks the memory of her and him mating. But he felt nothing from her back, and that worried him so he started to run towards Angel's bedroom. Images of her crying on her bed filtered into his imagination, who knows what she was feeling at the moment. It didn't help he couldn't hear her at the moment.
When he finally reached the door, he mentally spoke to her so he wouldn't startle her, Angel, I'm outside. Please let me in. There was no reply. What could be wrong with her? The Doctor swallowed, and opened the door.
Angel was lying on the bed with her back to him. The Doctor shrugged off his jacket, and climbed onto the bed. As he crawled closer to her he heard a soft sound. Angel was sobbing, and the sound tore his hearts to shreds if they weren't already shredded enough.
" Angel?" he said quietly, gently nudging her.
Angel stopped sobbing, and peeked up at him with red rimmed eyes. " Shouldn't you be taking your new bride off to see the universe?" she asked bitterly.
The Doctor had never heard Angel sound so bitter before, but she had a reason he admitted to himself. He'd hurt her unintentionally for so long, ignoring her and the subject of River Song was a sore point with them; the Doctor found River interesting, but he'd forgotten how cruel she was to Angel. The Time Lady herself seemed to have lost the will to live when it came to her, and the Doctor didn't like that.
" Angel-"
" Just go away, leave me alone," she replied, sinking her head back into the bedclothes so she didn't have to look at him. " You've had plenty of practice there, haven't you?"
The Doctor winced at the verbal slap he'd just received, though he had no one but himself to blame there. " Angel, I've remembered us mating," he whispered. " That marriage to River-"
" Is still a marriage, and you know it!" she snapped though the force was muffled by her head in her arms and buried in bed clothes but it was enough to shut the Doctor up. Without moving, Angel kept talking, " River is going to milk this every chance she gets. She won't care if I'm your Mate or not, she'll just smirk at everyone and treat me like dirt, and you'll just be you."
The Doctor gently reached out to pull Angel up so he could talk with her. " Angel, I'm so sorry. Please listen to me-"
Angel reacted when he touched her, and not in a good way. " Don't touch me!" she shouted pulling herself out of his grasp. The Doctor let go in shock. He'd never known or seen Angel like this before. She was always so sweet and kind.
The Doctor's shock gave Angel the chance to really lash out at him. Like everyone else Angel had her breaking point, and she'd touched upon it once or twice in the past. But this time was different because Angel had news which would not just stun the Doctor, but horrify him at the same time. She'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, but he needed to know what his 'wife' had done to her.
" I was pregnant with your baby!" She screamed at him. " Correction, I was pregnant with your previous self's baby, do you remember what you said to Wilf about how scared you were when you were him, how that part of you would die and someone else would saunter off with me! You did the opposite didn't you? You did saunter off but it was with River! Have you never noticed how every time we meet her, there's nothing but destruction, or do you simply don't care? It's that type of attitude that's made people fear you, can't you see it?"
The Doctor couldn't believe what he was hearing. Anyone else would think Angel was lying, but she wasn't. The mating bond was back in force, and he could see memories swarm in his mind of Angel learning about the pregnancy, telling Rory...Rory?! She'd told that human about her being pregnant, and Amy...She knew as well?! Why hadn't they told him?
An emotion came through the bond, and the Doctor looked up at Angel when he identified it.
Contempt.
" I told Rory because he was my only friend," Angel told him bluntly, " Amy found out because she overheard me and Rory talking about the pregnancy, our Mating...She told me you would remember someday, and I told her I couldn't take anymore. She also persuaded me to tell you," she paused so she could spit out what she'd seen next. " Then River kissed you."
The Doctor swallowed as he started to feel guilty about his earlier accusations. It made sense Angel would want to speak to someone, and who better than Rory?
" What happened?" he asked quietly when his mind had registered what Angel had said about their baby. Was pregnant, past tense.
Angel sighed. " I lost it," she replied quietly, feeling tears start to fall down her face. The Doctor watched her cry, wanting to hug her but after the way he'd pulled away from him made him keep his distance. Angel turned away from him. " Just go, leave me alone," she said distantly. " You've had plenty of practice so it shouldn't be hard. Just go and ignore me, it's not like I matter."
The Doctor's breath was stilled, his hearts were agonising over what he was hearing. Angel, his Angel, was pushing him away from her. He couldn't speak, he couldn't believe the poison coming out of her mouth.
Unfortunately Angel wasn't in the mood for patience. " Just go Doctor," she waved towards the door. " Leave me alone. Just go and snog River."
" I don't want to snog River-"
" Yes you do!" She screamed at him. She backtracked when she saw the look on his face. " Just leave me alone, please."
The Doctor licked his lips. " Nella-"
Angel just turned away, and instead of lashing out she just sighed. " I think you've lost the right to call me that, don't you?"
The Doctor hated to admit it to himself but Angel had a point. " I'm sorry-"
" Just leave me alone," Angel replied, wishing the Doctor would do what he'd become so good at doing since he'd regenerated into his present incarnation, but now ironically when she just wanted to be left alone, when she'd believed that annoying but normal pastime was the bane of her existence, he just had to remember mating to her. How cruel fate was.
The Doctor didn't leave her. He just sat with her, doing his best to stay quiet. It went against his grain to keep his mouth shut, but this was different. The one thing that did keep him quiet was the sound of his mate crying on the bed. He had no idea if she'd forgive him but he would wait for the rest of his lives if he had to.
Please tell me what you think.