Annie emerged from the bedroom shortly after the phone call from Andrew. The Doctor was still sitting at the kitchen table, trying to determine the best way to broach the subject when he heard her padding down the hallways. He turned as she entered the kitchen and stretched her arms above her head before stifling a yawn.

"Come sit," The Doctor said without preamble, gesturing to the chair across from him.

"How is the grading going?" Annie asked as she sat, her voice still thick with sleep.

"Fine," he answered absently. "There's something we need to talk about."

"Yes there is," she replied.

"I answered your phone while you were sleeping," he told her, wasting no time.

"And you talked to my cousin, I'm guessing," she said softly.

"Yes." He tried to keep his emotions in check.

"Doctor, I'm sorry."

"Why did you tell me you don't have a family when you so clearly do?" he asked harshly.

"It's not that simple," Annie replied, unable to meet The Doctor's eye.

"Either you have a family or you don't, Annie," The Doctor lashed out. "The situation may be complicated, but the answer to the question isn't."

"I haven't talked to them since my mom died," she said calmly. "Not anyone. Not once."

"You made me think that you and I are the same, that you were just a alone as I am. But you aren't, Annie. We aren't the same." His face had changed from that of the kind, loving Doctor to The Oncoming Storm. Annie could see the anger boiling up inside of him, threatening to explode. His hands were clenched in tight fists. His jaw was set firmly.

"I never said we were the same," she said, her voice wavering. It frightened her to see The Doctor like this. "You lost all of your people. I know we aren't the same. I never said that."

"But you always say that you have no one - no family at all. But you do, Annie. You do have a family. Choosing not to talk to them doesn't change the fact that they are still alive!" The Doctor was seething. His body trembled as he spat the words at Annie. He felt betrayed, hurt, even lied to.

"When my mother died," Annie began to explain, "when my mother took her own life, I knew that everyone wondered if I was partly to blame. My grandmother Coleman came right out and said it. She said that I had been selfish by going back to school and then moving to Scotland. She told me that if I had stayed, if I hadn't abandoned my mother, she probably wouldn't have felt that dying was her only option. I was the only thing she thought she had left, my nan said, and so when I moved away, I took what little bit of hope she still had with me. She said it at the wake, in front of everyone in the family, and no one stopped her. What's worse, no one even came to me afterwards and said otherwise. That's not what families do to one another. I don't care if you're grieving; you just don't say that to your family. I decided then that I would never go back."

"Why didn't you tell me?" The Doctor asked after several moments of silence, softening his tone at her tearful confession.

"I didn't want to remember," she said before getting up from the table. She walked to the corridor, then turned around to face The Doctor. "Who died?" she asked. "Andrew would only call if someone died. So who was it?"

"Your grandfather," he told her.

"When?"

"This morning. The funeral is Friday morning. I told Andrew you'd be in touch."

"You shouldn't have bothered," Annie said as she turned back to the bedroom. "I'm not going."

The Doctor let her go, knowing that after such an emotional admission Annie would need time alone. He felt conflicted after talking to his fiancée. His frustration and disappointment in her for not being honest with him were still there, but he also felt sympathy for her. He had known for awhile that she carried guilt for her mother's death in her heart, but he hadn't known just how deep-seated it was. He would let Annie gather herself and then he'd try to talk to her about it again.


After an hour, The Doctor couldn't wait any longer. He had tried to be patient, but enough was enough. He went back to the bedroom and tapped lightly on the door before opening it. Annie was standing at the window, looking at the street below. They didn't have much of a view from their flat, so The Doctor knew she wasn't really paying attention to what was going on outside. She didn't acknowledge him when he entered the room, so The Doctor was sure she was so lost in thought that she hadn't heard him. Just before he was going to speak to her, Annie broke the silence.

"I guess we're both still struggling with this whole communication thing," she said ruefully without turning away from the window.

"I guess so," The Doctor answered, moving to stand beside her.

"You're not the only one who runs from the past, Doctor," Annie continued as she leaned into him.

"I'm seeing that," he said, coaxing her to keep talking.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to mislead you. Or maybe I did," she sighed. "I don't even know anymore."

"So who's left? In your family, I mean."

"My Nan, Annie - Mom's mom. I'm named after her, obviously. My Aunt Peggy and Uncle John, Aunt Jean and Uncle Al. Three cousins - Katie, Lisa, and Andrew - whom you talked to. I'd suspect at least one of the girls has married by now, probably have a kid or two of their own. But that's it."

"No family on your dad's side?"

"No. He was an only child and my grandmother died when he was born. My Grampa died when I was six."

"And you've not spoken with any of them?"

"Not since Mommy died, almost six years ago now. I hoped I wouldn't hear from them again. Andrew called every couple months for awhile, but I never answered or called him back. He finally gave up about a year ago."

"Are you going to call him now?" The Doctor had so many questions for Annie. He was just trying to make sense of this unexpected revelation.

"I don't know," Annie sighed again. She couldn't even begin to describe how she was feeling about the whole situation. Her body was practically itching with the desire to take The Doctor and run and never look back. She had escaped her family for this long - physically, at least. Emotionally it hadn't been so easy. Those first few years she had cried countless tears over the words her nan had shouted at her mom's funeral. Things had started getting better shortly before The Doctor tackled her that fateful April morning. And ever since, she had been able to tamp down the resentment and the guilt and fear that Nan had been right. She clearly wasn't over what had happened - she didn't know whether she ever really would be - but she had just been so tired of all of it that she had allowed herself to become numb.

"Do you think you're ready to go back?" The Doctor asked after a few minutes of silence. He finally looked down at her face and his hearts broke at the warring emotions that were playing over her features.

"No," she quickly answered, "but I don't know that I'll ever really be ready."

"We can go, if you feel like you need to." The last thing The Doctor wanted was to upset Annie further, but he knew how dangerous it could be to just keep running and running. He was afraid of what that would do to his partner.

"I don't know. I don't know what I need to do!" she sobbed. The Doctor pulled her into his arms and held her for a few moments before speaking again.

"At least call your cousin," he told her. "I'll stay with you the whole time. I won't let you go through this alone. But you can't avoid your family forever. At some point you're going to want a connection with someone."

"Just give me tonight, please?" she asked, wiping tears from her face as she looked up at him. "Just let me have tonight to think it over."

"Of course," he told her, leaning down and kissing her forehead.


The Doctor still felt frustrated and hurt by Annie's blunder, but he tried to be understanding of her fragile emotional state. He made her dinner and gave her plenty of space to think afterwards. They would talk about the issue further, but it wasn't the night to do so. He knew it would just do more harm than good. He joined Annie in bed at their usual time, giving her a quick kiss goodnight before settling down with a book.

He didn't sleep nearly as much as Annie needed to, but they liked sharing a bed each night. Sometimes he read late into the night until sleep captured him; other nights he lay holding Annie in his arms as she slept; often he made love with his beloved and, sated, would join her in rest.

Tonight he sat up in bed beside her, his knees drawn up to support his book - a volume on theoretical physics. He glanced surreptitiously at Annie as she lay on her side facing him. Her body was riddled with tension, echoing the battle he was sure was raging inside of her mind. Her eyes were open, staring absently at the pale blue sheets on their bed. She held The Doctor's right hand in her own two hands, mindlessly running her fingertips over the back of his hand. He knew it would be a while before sleep came to her. He let her be, still uncertain of his own feelings about the matter.

Eventually Annie surrendered to sleep and The Doctor set his book on the bedside table and laid down beside her. He watched as a frown spread over her features from time to time, and her eyes moved rapidly beneath closed eyelids. She was restless, and understandably so. Around 2 a.m. she woke and sat up in bed, turning to face The Doctor.

"I want to go," she told him softly. "I want to go back there. I feel that's what I need to do."

"Okay," The Doctor answered, reaching for her hands. "If that's what you want."

"It is. I need to put that all behind me. I need closure."

"Then we'll go," he replied.