I gotta be honest here the plot takes a bit of a back seat here for some emotions. Sorry I guess *shrugs*
They're yelling again, yelling at that volume they've perfected so that they're still screaming at each other, but the neighbors can't hear and call the police. Mom cooked, and Dad said it tasted plain and now they're screaming.
"I'm sorry that I'm not good enough!" Mom screams and throws two containers of spices on the floor.
"I'm sorry that you can't handle my opinion!" Dad screams back, and more spices hit the floor.
Smash, Smash, Screaming.
Smash, Smash, Screaming.
And I'm stuck at the table, I can't leave because they'll fight harder and I can't cry because they'll fight harder and I can't beg them to stop because they'll fight harder.
Smash, Smash, Screaming.
I'm stuck.
I jerked awake and threw my arms around the Doctor as I shot up and tried to breath through the lingering panic.
"Sorry," I muttered and tried to lean back before his hand stroking my hair stopped me.
"You trust me," he whispered amazedly and pressed another hand between my shoulder blades to guide my breathing a little bit.
"Obviously," I said and snuggled a little further into the Doctor. If he wasn't bothered by the fact that I'd launched myself at him then I wasn't in a hurry to move.
"No, I mean I was going to wake you when I realized you were having a nightmare. But before I could you just came to me for comfort." I nodded gently.
"You're very comforting," I assured him. He chuckled and let us sit in silence for a few minutes before the Doctor spoke again.
"What were you dreaming about?" He almost seemed afraid of my answer, no doubt ready to blame himself because one of the Doctor's favourite pass times was martyrdom.
"My parents." I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled away from him slowly, because this was going to be a complicated conversation and I wanted to be able to look at him.
"Your parents give you nightmares?"
"I lost them when I was twelve. Car crash." He gave me a soulful look and grasped my hand.
"I'm so sorry Emma." I pulled my hand from his and shook them out and shook my head. He frowned and grabbed my hand back.
"What's wrong with your hands? Dimitri told me that something's wrong with them, but that you won't tell him what."
"Pins and needles. I've had them since I arrived. It used to be from my neck down, but now its mostly just my lower arms." The Doctor shot me another frown.
"I told you to tell me everything." I opened my mouth to tell him that I forgot about the pins and needles, but he cut off my words with a deeper frown. "Make it up to me by telling me about your parents. You made a weird face."
I watched him poke at my forearm carefully and he must have picked up on the fact that my breathing picked up again.
"Story for a story?" He offered as he looked up at me through his fringe. I nodded slowly and took a deep breath. I knew I owed him the truth about this, since I'd danced around it after the Cybermen even though I knew that he wouldn't have judged me.
"My parents didn't work. Not unemployed not work, but not work in the fact that they didn't get along. They fought all the time, about everything. Big stuff and little stuff and stuff that shouldn't matter. And I learned very early that they fought harder if I cried about the fights, or asked them to stop, or basically reacted in any way. So, I learned to just sit there and not react while they shouted and screamed."
"And honestly it was almost worse when they weren't fighting because I never knew what was going to cause a fight, so I walked on eggshells around my parents for years. It was the worst when I was ten. They tried getting couples therapy and it made it worse because they just wouldn't talk to each other, so they'd go days just stewing in their anger before they exploded." I sucked in a huge breath of air before I admitted the last little bit.
"They only got married in the first place because I was coming along and that was the proper thing to do, before that they were basically like hippies. Always travelling around and I guess they couldn't do the domestic, settled down thing." The Doctor sat up and pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead before he pulled away and thumbed at the tears that had risen.
"Oh Emma." He obviously hadn't been expecting that and seemed at a loss of words for the first time since I'd met him. "What did you do after?"
"Lillian's parents took me in."
"That's why you call Lillian's parents Mom and Dad too." I nodded, and he pressed another kiss to my forehead.
"I always specify my parents when I'm talking about my parents."
"Story for a story?" He asked, and I gave him a smile.
"Picked it up in therapy." He blinked at me in surprise. "I developed some pretty severe abandonment issues after. Not to mention all the trauma from all the fighting." I'd gone every week for almost six years and I'd gone back sporadically over the years since then. Mostly for things that had caused my abandonment issues to spring back up, like when Mom and Dad got in a car crash or my long-time boyfriend abruptly broke up with me.
"That explains the panic attack," he said, obviously talking about the Cybermen.
"Yeah." I rested my head on his shoulder for a second before a thought occurred to me. "Can we go back a few hours to when you said you were glad I was alive? Because we didn't address that, and I think we should."
"You fell straight into the time vortex with no shield or way to guide you. Realistically you should have disintegrated," he said frankly.
"And you came looking for me anyways?" I asked, and I don't think I'd ever seen the Doctor look more hurt or surprised than in this moment. I think he would have been less astonished if I'd slapped him across the face.
"Of course, I did! Did you think for a single minute that I wouldn't try?" He looked horrified, so I shook my head and the anger rushed out of him. "The TARDIS was frantic as well, so I figured she must have done something to save you."
"She was frantic?" I asked, and the Doctor nodded.
"She's very fond of you Emma." We sat in silence for a few seconds before the Doctor ran his hands through his hair. "Story for a story."
He sounded so dejected, like he was preparing himself for my reaction, so I reached out and grabbed his hands and squeezed them as tightly as I dared. I was about to tell him that he didn't have to, because all I'd really needed to start talking was a push, when he started talking.
"There was a war. A war that spread across all of time and space between my people, the Time Lords, and the Daleks. I was the one who made the war happen; I went to when the Daleks were created and tried to destroy them before they had a chance to even live. I talked myself out of it, but it was still me."
"And when the war started, truly started, I tried to stay out of it because I wanted to be the Doctor, the man who fixes not destroys. And because I knew that if I got involved then I would fight the war too well."
"But finally, it got to the point where I had to act. I had to act because the whole of time was burning. The war was so all consuming that every single moment of time would have burnt to ashes and I couldn't sit to the side and allow all those innocent people to die. So, I ended the war. I ended the war with one single action."
"I destroyed my home planet, Gallifrey along with all the people who were living there, and the Daleks. I pushed a button to kill millions of innocents to save trillions from a danger that was of my own creation in a sense. And it didn't really even work, because the Daleks lived." He looked up at me for the first time and I realized that I had started crying at some point though I wasn't sure what had been the moment to push me over the edge.
"I must seem so stupid to you," I whispered, and the Doctor swept me up in his arms again as I began to weep heavily.
"No Emma. I won't let you belittle the struggles and trauma you endured and overcame just because its different than mine."
"You gave up your home to save the universe," I protested.
"You lost your whole family."
"That's a completely different level." He laughed darkly and wetly.
"Do you remember what you said to me, after the Krillitanes killed those fifty people?" He asked, and I looked up at him and shook my head. "You held my hand and you told me to make them worth something. To take those people who had died for no reason and make them unsung heroes. I was useless, because all I could see was my pain and you showed me such strength that day because you took my pain and guided it."
"You've shown me that strength every single day Emma. So, don't you ever dare try to make yourself seem like less than me. I am continually astounded by you and I hope desperately that one day I can return the favour." I opened my mouth to tell him that he already had and tell him about the story of how I'd first met him, but then I realized that the timing still wasn't quite right.
"You will," I assured him instead before I let myself lean into him until he was the only thing keeping me in a sitting position.
"How often have you been having nightmares?" he asked as he reached up and started pulling pins out of my hair.
"Nightly. And before you ask I generally get around five hours of sleep a night. But it's okay I've adapted." He grumbled under his breath and rubbed his fingers over my scalp as he pulled out the last pin. I sighed lightly in pleasure because I hadn't realized the headache that had grown over the hours.
"Next time I ask you to tell me everything please actually tell me everything Emma Bradley." I chuckled and yawned against his shoulder.
"I was a little overwhelmed by the fact that you were here, and I don't think you ever specifically said to tell you everything," I said, and he breathed a sigh into my hair.
"There's my flippant Emma."
"You keep saying stuff like that and I'll stop just to make you worry," I threatened idly.
"No, you won't," he said with surety and hugged me tightly.
"No, I won't," I agreed. "How long did it take you to find me? After I fell out of the TARDIS?"
"Twenty-five minutes and thirty-eight seconds." I laughed.
"Down to the second? You must have been frantic." He chuckled as well and pressed another kiss to the top of my head.
"I was," he said, and I sighed.
"We need to talk about what we're going to do. About Anastasia and the poisoning," I said and sat back from the Doctor a bit.
"You should try and get more sleep," he said as he brushed a curl out of my face. I shook my head.
"No, I want to talk. There hasn't been much conversation lately because Anastasia's been so tired, and Dimitri always stands guard at the door so that no one tries to assassinate me or anything." He flinched at that and grabbed for my hands. I had a feeling that we were both going to be a little clingy for the foreseeable future.
"Emma, you should try," he pleaded, and I shook my head again with a little more desperation.
"No, because I'll just dream another nightmare, or I'll wake up and I'll have dreamed you being here and I'm not sure which one would be worse." I was starting to hyperventilate a bit by the end, so the Doctor cupped my face and shushed me.
"Easy, Emma, easy. I won't make you sleep then." I took a deep shaky breath and nodded.
"Did you talk to the court doctors?" I asked. "What are they giving her?"
"Some kind of tonic that they said Ivan was finding for them. They're not even sure what's in it, apparently Ivan has some secret hidden advisor somewhere who's mixing the tonic for him," the Doctor said, and I sighed.
"Well that explains the animosity they've all be showing me. They probably think I'm the secret advisor who's stealing all their influence," I said. The Doctor muttered something under his breath that I didn't catch and rubbed my upper arm again. I assumed it had something to do with the court doctor who had given me a shove.
"Any idea where this advisor might be?" He asked.
"Since I've seen nothing beyond two rooms and a hallway for the past week, I'm going to say no." He raised an eyebrow up at me.
"No exploring? That doesn't sound like you," he said teasingly. I shrugged.
"Well Ivan kind of put the fear of God into me when he almost ran me through when he first discovered me in Anastasia's bedroom." He chuckled, and I smiled at him. "See, I have self preservation."
"Not quite enough to make me happy," he said. I reached up and rubbed my eyes. "Now will you try to sleep?"
"Only if you stay," I said immediately, and tried to ignore how childish I sounded. His face softened, and he nodded.
"There is not a thing in this universe that could move me from this spot." He lifted the blankets for me and tucked me in carefully and laid down next to me and grasped my hand in his.
I didn't realize that I hadn't told the Doctor the whole truth until two seconds before I drifted to sleep.