"Izzy." The Doctor regards me, smiling gently. His face has changed but the smile hasn't. So sad, so sorry. "We need to talk."
It is later the same day, Christmas Day to be precise. Only a few hours have passed since the Doctor collapsed at the doors of my prison, but it feels like a whole lifetime. Not that I know what a lifetime feels like anymore. I'll never live a normal lifetime again.
The Doctor is watching me; he is cool and calm despite the events of the day. He is waiting for me to respond, but I know I can make him wait a few more minutes before I have to face this talk of his. I know he wants to talk about what happened with Rose at the satellite but I'm not sure I'm ready to revisit those painful memories. Yet.
You can't let him get away with what he did that stubborn voice in my head says. I take a deep breath. I should be living in a physical body now. I was so close and the Doctor took that away from me. I will revisit those memories if I have to, if only for the reason that he needs to know how rejected I feel. How disappointed and – betrayed.
I release the breath that I had stored in my lungs in one gentle stream.
But not now.
He can wait for that conversation, just like I've waited for freedom.
I close my eyes, replaying the events of the day in my mind.
When Rose, Jackie and Mickey carry the Doctor away, I fade back into the heart of the Tardis, my haven inside this prison, and let the tears flood out of my eyes. I cry not only for my Doctor, desperately hoping that my action of delaying the regeneration hadn't harmed him too much, but for myself, for all the days I could have had in Rose's body, for all the hope that had left me in the instant that the Doctor had forced me back into this prison after extracting me from Rose's mind, leaving me empty inside. I lose myself in my grief, unconsciously shutting down all the systems of the blue box. I am dimly aware of people running in and out of my doors, but I try not to focus on them because it hurts too much to watch them pass straight through the barrier of those doors like it is only thin air, knowing that I'll never have that ability.
I watch Rose though our connection, the only thing I still have the energy to do.
"I don't understand what they're saying," she says, though I have no idea who she's talking about. Not that I care right now either. "The Tardis translates alien languages inside my head, all the time, wherever I am." I feel her confusion but, for once today, I'm not confused at all. I know exactly why it's not working.
"So, why isn't it doing it now?" says Mickey. I can't see him; I just hear his voice as Rose hears it.
"I don't know. Must be the Doctor. Like he's part of the circuit, and he's…he's broken."
I'm the one who's broken.
And I don't know if I will ever be whole again.
Not even the sight of the Doctor, carried back into the Tardis by Rose, Jackie and Mickey, can lift my spirits, because this Doctor is a new Doctor, not mine. Not yet, anyway.
I hear Rose explain why she can't fly the Tardis again. "It's sort of been wiped out of my head, like it's forbidden. Try that again and I think the universe rips in half."
The universe, or my heart? I burrow deeper into the heart of the Tardis, as if it were possible to hide from the pain and the grief. Even though I know I can't.
I don't even notice when Jackie leaves, or when the Tardis moves. The only thing I notice is Rose's scream and, when I open my eyes, not my projection eyes but my eyes from inside the box, I realise that somehow, I've been moved to a Sycorax ship.
"Rose?" questions Mickey, before dropping his flask of tea and running out of my doors after his girlfriend. The Doctor is still lying on the floor but right now I don't have the energy to care, so I close my eyes again, welcoming the darkness. I keep one ear on the outside world though, just in case something were to happen to Rose. As stupid as it sounds, she is important to me now, despite the fact that all the hope I ever had by her presence has dissipated.
"You're talking English!" exclaims Rose a few minutes later. Inside my haven, I sit up sharply. How can that be?
"I would never dirty my tongue with your primitive bile," spits out the Sycorax.
"That's English. Can you hear English?" Rose questions, in shock. I'm in shock too. I thought I shut down all the Tardis systems?
"Yeah, that's English," confirms Mickey.
"Definitely English," answers another man, someone who I don't even recognise.
"If I can hear English, then it's being translated. Which means it's working. Which means…" Rose trails off.
Means what? I think, frustrated. Come on Rose, what does it mean? How can that be? I probe deeper through our connection, trying to find out what is going on.
In fact, I'm so focused on Rose that I barely notice when the Doctor jumps up, awakening from his coma, if that is the right term, and runs out of my doors. For a second, I can hardly understand what just happened. Then I notice the tea, spilling drop by drop through the grate on the floor, sinking into my system. Enough caffeine to jumpstart my system into completing the Doctor's regeneration without me even realising it. Suddenly I start to laugh. I may be trapped inside this box but I'm still human, an English girl with a love of tea! Then I think back on my life when I was a real human girl, not just an image of one trapped in a box, and my laughter slowly dies away to nothing. Leaving me with nothing but silence.
When we land back on the surface of Earth again, Rose runs off to join her family, leaving the Doctor and me alone for the first time since he prevented me from taking over Rose's body.
"Izzy?" The Doctor repeats my name for a second time and I slowly open my eyes again to meet his, bringing me back to the present. I guess the time has come for us to have this conversation.
"I'm listening," I reply, trying to hide all my emotions behind a mask so that I appear calm and collected on the outside, despite the reality of what is flowing within me. I guess it wasn't as sturdy as I had hoped, because the Doctor sees right through it.
"You're angry at me." It's not a question, it's a statement.
"Wouldn't you be?" I retort, my hands clenching into fists by my side.
He runs his hand though his hair again, sighing. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I would be." He starts pacing around the console but I continue to stay where I am. My only movement comes from my head, following him as he moves back and forth. Then he turns to look at me, desperation in his eyes. "I didn't know what else to do, Izzy!" He looks at me, almost pleading. "She's just a girl! What else was I supposed to do?"
Just a girl. Those words send anger flooding through my holographic veins. "Just a girl?" My voice rises. "Just a girl?! Then what am I?"
He holds my gaze. "Oh, Izzy." He comes towards me, his hand brushing through my arm as he reaches out to touch me but, as always, fails. I know he's doing this to try and reassure me that he still cares, but it just makes it even more obvious to me that I am a projection, nothing more.
"Izzy Saunders," he continues. "You are so much more than 'just a girl'. You are human, but not just an ordinary human. The best human on Earth. The only one to be absorbed by the Time Vortex and not only survive, but control it. You are so special, my dear Izzy." He looks deep into my eyes, and I look back into his, his eyes like pools of sorrow. "Never forget that."
I want to believe him. I want to believe that he means every word he just said. But I can't say that I do. "Then why did you save her rather than me?" I ask, my voice trembling with anger and emotion. "Why did you save her if I'm so special, so very dear to you?"
He takes a step back, looking away from my strong gaze and focusing on the floor in front of him. "I couldn't do that to her. Not another innocent human girl. Not again."
"You let it happen to me though. You didn't try and save me!"
"Izzy, I tried to warn you not to kick the box. I was…too slow, too late. Don't you know how much I regret that?" For a second there is only silence, and when he looks up at me again, there are glistening tears in each of his eyes. "And don't say that I'm not trying to save you, because every second of every day, you are on my mind. You always have been. I told you before; my actions that day broke both of my hearts."
"You broke your promise," I retaliate. "You told me that I could take Rose's body and have a good life, not only for myself, but for you. And you know what?" I throw my last words out of my mouth, directing them in his direction like bullets. "That broke my heart."
He turns away from me, walking slowly in the opposite direction before flopping down on some steps in the corner of the console room, burying his head in his hands.
"I thought I was going to die, Izzy," he murmurs, his voice just escaping through the gaps in his fingers. "I didn't care about that. I knew I wouldn't be able to regenerate if I was exterminated by many daleks at once, but I didn't even care. All I cared about was you." He looks at me again, wiping the tears from his eyes, and the look of desperation on his face is enough to break my heart all over again. "If I died, what would happen to you, Izzy? I promised you I would get you out of the box. If I died, you'd just be left there, all on your own for eternity. Don't you know, Izzy, that you being stuck here without me is one of my greatest fears?"
For a second, I wonder if he ever realised that being stuck with him as this blue box for eternity is one of my greatest fears. But I brush that aside quickly. I have the common sense not to voice that aloud right now.
"In that moment," he continues, "you were worth so much more than Rose. That's why I said you could take her body." Suddenly he stands up again and the desperation in his eyes vanishes, self-belief and strength taking its place. "But don't you see, Izzy? I lived! You and Rose made sure of that. And because of that, you still had hope because you still had me. In that moment, Rose had no one."
"So you saved her over me," I finish, materialising from my position by the wall to his side.
My materialisation doesn't even make him jump; more differences between this Doctor and his previous incarnation. "I will find a way to save you, Izzy, please believe me. But that was not the right way. Not at the cost of another life."
"Yeah, just at the cost of mine," I murmur bitterly.
For the second time, he looks deep into my eyes. "What if it had been the other way around? If Rose had been my blue box and you had been the human companion she tried to take over, and I had done nothing to prevent it, would you have ever forgiven me?"
I remain silent.
"Izzy, Rose is no different from you."
Somehow, on some level, I think that he's right.
Apart from the fact that she has a life and I am a machine.
His voice cracks with emotion. "As long as I'm around, I will never stop trying to help you."
As long as the universe is willing to keep us alive.
"But you will be around for a long time, Doctor. How long do I have to wait?" I don't even wait for his reply; sinking back into the heart of the box, his eyes never leaving mine as I vanish from his sight.