A/N: Welcome back. Since I have posted last chapter, I've actually read a couple of fics that employed the same idea as that other author, so I guess it wouldn't have been blatantly stealing as it's something of a trope now. That being said, I am now happier with how things ended up turning out because it gave us this next arc. Just something I'm trying out. We'll see how it turns out, but I do hope y'all enjoy it.
Just a quick note, when talking about all the Doctors as one person, I use the 'they/them' pronouns. When referring to specific Doctors, I use their preferred pronouns, i.e., 13 is 'she/her' and this Doctor is 'he/him'. I felt like that was important to note, so that nobody feels like I'm being willy nilly with pronouns? If that makes sense.
Thank you thank you thank you to those who have favorited and followed, and thanks to Eviline for the reviews! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Thanks also to Saiyanprincess1511 and Guest for reviewing.
I still don't own Doctor Who.
She teleported back in nearly as soon as she teleported out, but that didn't seem to matter. When she came back, she was faced with an empty console room, but more than that, it was a darkened console room.
The lights came back on slowly, but Anna couldn't pay attention to that. She was bewildered by how the Tardis felt and the fact that she now appeared to be empty when she wasn't moments ago. What in the hell had happened?
"Donna, this is important."
She was startled when she heard the Doctor's voice, and she looked around the console room to see if either of them were in here, but neither of them were. She could see the glow of the light from the monitor, and she quickly walked over to it.
The Doctor was sitting there, looking for all the world like nothing else was more serious.
"If Anna comes back, you need to tell her to cloak her energy signature. If the Family discovers her-" her eyes widened and she covered her mouth. Shit.
The Family of Blood.
"-a feast wouldn't even describe what they had if they got their hands on her, and I won't let that happen, not even as a human. Oh, yes, and obviously tell her that I've changed myself to human, but make sure you tell her to disguise her energy signature first thing. Have you got that? Disguise her energy signature."
"Oh, right," she said, quietly, and she did as she was told, disguising her energy signature.
"Even if she does come back, there's no telling that she'll be able to help with this, so I can't count on that. The only thing I can count on is that I'll have you, so here's a list of instructions for when I'm human."
He then devolved into his Family of Blood speech, the one he was supposed to give with Martha.
There were a few things to digest here, but first and foremost was that she'd apparently teleported out for more than two seconds. How long had it been, she wondered? He was still traveling with Donna so it couldn't have been more than a few months, at the very longest. Long enough that the two of them had gotten themselves into a vat of trouble that he was supposed to get into with Martha.
That was the other thing. He was supposed to get into this vat of trouble with Martha. She hadn't been worried about it when they'd done 42 (mainly because, well, she'd been a little distracted in her glow of happiness at the time). But, this was the second adventure that they'd done that was supposed to be something he'd gotten into with Martha-
Oh, no, hold on, this would make three. Three adventures that Martha was supposed to be there for, but wasn't in this new timeline.
Was the Tardis trying to give her a hint that Martha wouldn't be there, now? Was this her way of telling her that she was supposed to take Martha's place? She wasn't down for that. Not in the slightest. Martha was amazing and incredible. She was the Doctor's most capable companion with very little training. Rose had grown into being able to handle herself. Martha had just had a natural talent for it. The amount of times that Martha ended up saving the Doctor's life right at the start, as well as the amount of times he'd literally left her in the lurch to take care of herself and she had. Swimmingly. This had been a prime example of that, and if anybody needed more proof, look to The Year. Or Blink. Or Daleks in Manhattan, when he'd actually asked her to fight.
Martha was amazing. She didn't deserve to lose her place on the Tardis because of what Anna had done.
This was something to unpack later, though. For now, she had to navigate the 1913 countryside to see if she could find her way to the school where the Doctor (now John Smith) was working. She'd use the time during the walk to figure out a plan for this whole nonsense thing, which shouldn't have even been necessary, because why the hell had she been teleported so far into the future when she'd literally meant to be teleported away for less than a second?
"Anna."
She was surprised and she whirled around at the sound of the voice coming from behind her. When she did, she was surprised by what she saw. Or rather, who.
"Tardis," she said, quietly.
It didn't even look like a holographic display. It looked like the Tardis was standing right in front of her, looking at her for all the world like she… She didn't know. She couldn't describe the emotions that were currently laying on the Tardis' face.
"What-"
"We need to talk about what happened."
She frowned before her brows furrowed. "Okay," she said. "First off, though, how are you doing this? I thought you were on low power."
"I am," she agreed. "Made it easier to know which present moment to be in, to use a trick that you'll teach me, in the future. But never mind that. We need to talk."
"Yeah, I have no idea what happened," she told her. "I meant to teleport out for two seconds-"
"I did that."
She frowned. "Sorry, what?"
"What the two of you did, the future you's, you nearly ripped a hole in all of space and time to do it, so great that the whole universe might have stopped existing if your future self hadn't stepped in in time, which she nearly didn't."
"Okay, and I'm sorry for that, but this is something to talk to future me about, not right now me, because I'm not the one who did it, so…?"
"But you will be the one who does it," she told her. "The proof of that is in the fact that you went through with it, that you continue to, over and over again, across all of time and space. Besides which, this you did make a promise to me, and you broke it."
Her eyes widened. "Oh… crap, no, I'm-I'm sorry, I didn't-"
"You almost left my thief, for good and completely, and would have, if events hadn't come to pass the way they did. What she said, she had no right to. Tearing open those old wounds like that was cruel, and it was part of the reason that I didn't land in the first place. I was hoping you might come up with a different solution, but you never seem to be able to." She took a step forward. "But you made them a promise. Forever and always, you said, and you just threw that away over one fight."
"A fight that was designed to make me walk away," she said, feeling anger creeping up on her. "You don't get to judge me for protecting myself from the type of monster that I grew up with. What was I supposed to think?"
"That the Doctor wouldn't have done this without good reason. You should've known that they loved you more than they love the stars themselves, and you should've trusted that. Besides which, is that what you think of them? That they are the same type of monster that you grew up with?"
She bit her lip so hard that she almost drew blood, and she took a step back out of reaction.
"Because the Doctor is many things, but that's not one of them. They won't hurt you like you've been hurt in the past. Not anymore. It's never been more important that you start trusting that love, that you let yourself fall into it the way that they have."
She snarled before she looked down. "I'm trying."
"I'm sorry, dear, you aren't."
She snarled again, barely glancing up at the Tardis to do it.
"You trust with the training wheels on," she told her, and she looked up at her fully. "You trust them but only because you know that you have your powers to fall back on."
"What exactly are you asking me to do?"
"I'm asking you to turn your powers off."
She snarled at that, but this time, it was more out of fear than anything else.
"As you humans say, put your money where your mouth is. Prove that you would be willing to give up everything for them."
She felt agony soaring through her. "What about the people that I'm supposed to save?"
"Do as they suggested," she told her. "Save the people that you're meant to up until the end of the red haired one's companionship."
She felt something strike her at that, a different kind of sadness soaring through her, and she looked at the Tardis miserably.
"What about paradoxes? How am I supposed to know when I'm supposed to step in and when I'm not?"
"That's the point Anna!" she said. "You saying this only proves that you don't trust them to take care of things. You're not the only thing holding the universe together with tape and glue, Anna. There's a reason they're as well-regarded as they are. You need to trust him, and you need to turn off your powers." She'd walked up to her, and she took her hands in her own, which would've been surprising but she was so focused on events that it wasn't even the slightest bit strange that the Tardis was physically holding her. "Not forever. Just for now."
She sniffled, shaking her head. Her hands were shaking, and the Tardis squeezed them. "I don't know how to turn them back on without dying," she said, quietly.
"Then save everyone until the end of the orange one and the pretty one," she said, gently, and Anna let out a hysterical laugh at the nicknames. The Tardis barely smiled before she put her hair behind her ear, searching her eyes. "You can do this. I know you can."
She threw herself at the Tardis, wrapping her up in a tight hug as she buried her face into her shoulder.
"I'm scared," she said, quietly, pathetically.
"I know," she replied, just as quietly. "But I'm here, I'm right here, and so is my Thief. We'll be there for you, no matter what." She pulled her back, grasping her face gently in her hands before she nodded. "I've got you," she whispered. "You can do this."
She nodded before she let out a shaky breath. A moment later, she closed her eyes. In the blink of an eye, the people that she was supposed to save through to the end of Amy and Rory's tenure would be saved via a Dues Ex Machina transaction. If it ended up that she died before then, she could always fix it so that she was the one doing the saving. As for the alternate dimension and the barriers around Gallifrey, she made those self-sustaining.
Her fear came to a head as she felt the Tardis kiss her forehead.
"Good luck," she whispered.
A moment later, it was done.
Anna instantly collapsed to the grating below, breathing hard. She gripped at the cool metal with shaking hands, fitting her fingers into the holes on the grating so that she could get a better grip.
She was dying. Oh goodness, she was dying, she was dying, her heart was beating too fast and she was breathing too hard and she was dying.
If she died now, the Doctor would never know how much she loved him.
She sobbed, putting a hand over her mouth as she shook her head.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that the Tardis projection had vanished from sight.
#####
She stumbled her way blindly through the countryside. Her lungs and all of her muscles were burning. She collapsed against a tree and tried to breathe, tried to focus, tried to do anything except for the one thing she wanted to do, which was fall apart and collapse.
She had to find the Doctor.
She didn't even know why it was so urgent. She just knew that the colors were more vivid, the air was crisper and cooler, her breath fogging out in front of her in great bursts. She clutched at her toga, crumpling it up in her hand, and the fabric felt soft between her fingers but the feeling of her fingers digging into her abdomen didn't.
Things became foggier, then. She didn't remember finding her way to a town, just knew she was in one sometime later. She didn't remember talking to police officers, but knew that she was standing in a room with them. A short time after that, she was laying down in a bed, exhausted but unwilling to fall asleep, even as the pull of it tried to tug her under.
Night turned into day and nobody came for her.
#####
"Is it done?"
"It's done."
The Doctor had no desire to be in this room. Not when he still had to find out why Anna hadn't shown up in the three months since she'd vanished from the console room without a trace, and her connection with it. He'd figured she'd wanted space after everything that had happened at Pompeii. Goodness only knew how hard it was for him to stand by and watch all those people die, the fact that she was an all-powerful being and still had to stand by and watch them die had to be even harder.
Of course, he hadn't nearly been as level headed in the beginning. When she'd first teleported out, he'd nearly had a hearts attack, flashing back to what had happened the last time that had happened. It was made all the worse when her connection had up and vanished. He'd had to talk himself down from sending out a full on search party, finally convincing himself that she'd probably just needed some space.
But, as time dragged on and he didn't hear a word from her, he did start to worry. Two weeks passed and he finally admitted that perhaps something was wrong. He made himself promise one more trip before he launched a full scale investigation into her disappearance.
Then, the Family had happened.
It would've been so easy not to do what he'd done, instead simply trapping them and being done with it so that he could search for Anna. But, he couldn't. Every fiber of his being knew that Anna wouldn't want that. So, he'd changed into the widower John Smith (because apparently the Tardis had prepared the contingency plan that Anna wouldn't be coming back in the three months).
The stupid widower John Smith, who'd had to go and fall in love with another woman.
He didn't blame Donna for not being able to stop him. She was his 'sister by marriage' after all. Why would he discuss his budding romance with the supposed sister of the woman he'd been married to before she'd died quite suddenly? Besides which, things had happened all so quickly. He doubted Donna would've been able to do anything, even if he had told her.
It didn't mean that this didn't make this any less hard than it was.
Poor Joan, unaware of any of this, spoke as she looked out the window, seemingly unable to look at him. He didn't blame her. "The police and the army are at the school. The parents have come to take the boys home. I should go. They'll have so many questions. I'm not sure what to say."
She made the mistake of looking at him and he cleared his throat as he frowned, looking down at the ground before he looked away.
"Oh, you look the same," she said, sounding surprised when they both knew she wasn't. "Goodness, you must forgive my rudeness. I find it difficult to look at you. Doctor. I must call you Doctor. Where is he? John Smith?"
It wasn't Joan's fault, either, and it was for this reason that he didn't run from the room as he so wanted to, answering her question.
"He's in here somewhere."
"Like a story." There was a brief pause between them before she continued, "Could you change back?"
He cleared his throat, once again looking down. A split second passed where he considered lying to her, just to make it easier.
He'd never know why he didn't.
"Yeah," he said, softly. "Yeah, I could."
"Will you?"
He shook his head, opening his mouth to answer, but he cleared his throat again.
"You have dreams about him. Your… husband. Coming home to you."
"Don't," she said, sharply.
He looked up at the matron. "It isn't just a dream for me. Anna is alive somewhere. That's all that I'm saying is that I won't change back, because she's out there waiting for me to find her, and I've got to, and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry this is so hard for you, and-"
"I'm sorry as well," she told him, quietly, "because your apologies mean very little to me."
"Why?"
Her face was set as she looked out the window. "Answer me this. Just one question, that's all. If the Doctor had never visited us, if he'd never chosen this place on a whim, would anybody here have died?"
It didn't matter that he loved Anna more than anything. Hearing those words from a woman that he'd grown to care quite a lot about in a short amount of time still hurt some part of him very deeply.
Her next words were just the last nail in the coffin.
"He was braver than you in the end, that ordinary man. You chose to change. He chose to die." There was a pause between them before she quietly finished. "You can go."
He raised his eyebrows listlessly before he turned from the room, leaving Joan-... Matron Redfern behind, trying not to listen to the way she cried after he closed the door behind him.
#####
Donna was waiting for him at the Tardis.
"How was she?"
"Time we moved on."
"About that, I asked around town, to see if anybody here matched Anna's description. Thought maybe she'd popped in during the fighting last night."
His hearts were fighting to jump out of his throat. "And?"
"Nothing," she said. "I'm sorry."
If it was any consolation, she meant it now as much as she'd meant it the first time he'd asked after he'd woken up. Just like then, he tried to conceal how much disappointment he was feeling. Judging by the look on her face, he was failing again.
"Right then," he said, nodding back to the Tardis. "Like I said, time we moved on."
"You know, I'm sure there's a good reason she's not returned yet. She's Anna. Way you described her, she's like a god or something, right? Besides, it's not like she can get hurt. Apparently. I still don't understand, really. I mean, how can one person-"
"Doctor. Donna."
He whirled around to see Timothy Latimer standing behind him. He hadn't been properly aware in the watch, but he'd been aware enough to know that Tim had kept him safe when the time had come, the young boy risking his life to save the time lord he didn't even know.
"Tim Timothy Timber," he said, a huge smile on his face. Anna could wait a few more moments. This was one of the only proper goodbyes he actually wanted to make.
"I just wanted to say goodbye. And thank you. Because I've seen the future and I now know what must be done. It's coming, isn't it? The biggest war over."
"Just because it's coming doesn't mean you have to fight," Donna pointed out, and past the concern, his hearts swelled with pride.
"I think we do."
"But you don't, though. It's not like all the school drills. It's a proper battlefield, with proper guns, and proper soldiers. It's dangerous, Tim."
"So is traveling around with him, but that doesn't seem to stop you."
"Oh, come here," Donna said, quickly wrapping Tim up in a hug. "Promise me you'll take care of yourself, all right? And eat something. I swear, you're thinner than this one, and he's already thin as a rail."
"Oi," he said, to the friendly jab. They were smiling as they pulled away, and Donna took a step back. The Doctor spoke. "Tim, I'd be honored if you'd take this."
Of course he meant his words, but there was also the small matter of Tim needing it to survive the battlefield on that terrible day. He'd seen the vision, the same as Tim had, of that specific version of events. Saving his life was the least he could do after everything he'd done.
When he grabbed the fob watch from his hands, Tim looked down at it before he looked back up at the Doctor. "I can't hear anything."
"No, it's just a watch now. But, keep it with you, for good luck."
He looked down at the watch again, seeming to be debating something. After a moment, he looked up at the Doctor.
"She's in a hospital."
He felt his hearts barely drop.
"Who?"
"Anna," he said. "She's in a hospital somewhere, and she's… scared."
He didn't know if it was because his connection with Tim had somehow strengthened his abilities or if it was because he'd been so lazer focused on Anna that it had just passed on to Tim, but he knew that Tim wasn't wrong.
"Scared?" Donna asked. "Of what?"
"I don't know," Tim said. "That's all that I know. I'm sorry."
"That's more than enough," he said, nodding. "Thank you, Tim." He turned back to the Tardis, dashing in, before he stuck his head back out, looking at Tim. "You'll like this bit."
He never could resist showing off.
It didn't work so well when the Tardis refused to take off, and he quickly ran through all the ways he could make her, but none of them were working.
"Come on, come on!"
"What's wrong? Is it because it was dormant for so long?"
"No, it's back up to full power, it's just refusing to take off. Come on, think, think- Oh. Oh. Donna, are you absolutely sure nobody matching Anna's description was seen in town last night?"
"I'm sure. Spent about three hours questioning people in the village."
He frowned, looking over at her. "The village?" he asked. "But you can't have. The village got destroyed last night in the bombings."
"I thought so, too, but I went back this morning and everybody was okay. Confused, yeah, but everybody was fine."
He felt his hearts leaping in his chest and he let out a whoop of joy.
"Doctor, I don't understand, why're you celebrating?"
"Don't you see, Donna? The only way they could've all been saved was if Anna had been here, shielding them from the blast!"
"She saved them?"
"Oh yes!" he shouted. "Come on, we've to find her!"
He was only focused on his bruised ego for a second when he saw that Tim was still sitting outside, waiting for the bit he was supposed to have liked. He was especially distracted from his bruised ego when he realized that Tim was still sitting there, because it meant that he also had the added advantage of a psychic to help look for Anna, cutting his time in half.
"Tim Timothy!" he repeated. "I've a job for you."
#####
How long had it been since she'd slept, she wondered? She stared out the window, biting her thumbnail as she tried to recall the last time that she'd slept, actually slept, slept as a human, but she couldn't manage it. Maybe it was because the windows kept dancing in shape, elongating before becoming shorter once more. She frowned as she reached a hand out to trace the pattern, still staring at it.
"How're we feeling today, miss?"
"Not great," she said, quietly, though part of her was terribly confused, and her stomach hurt something fierce, and also, the rest of her was kind of ache-y and her feet hurt as well and it just, it wasn't a great time for anybody.
"Would you mind if I changed your bandages?"
"Not at all," she said, her eyebrows raised as she continued to stare out the window.
It was for this reason that she missed the fact that it was the Eleventh Doctor who currently stood at the end of her bed, changing the dressing on her feet (well, that, and he'd donned a northern accent). In fact, she missed him the entire night, blending in with the hospital staff to make sure that she was okay. He wasn't surprised that she had. He'd watched her the entire night and she hadn't gotten any sleep, no matter how much she'd started to fall asleep and had to shake herself awake.
It had been so tempting to walk over to her and gently nudge her into a sleeping direction, but he remembered the state he'd found her in and knew he couldn't. Besides which, this Anna wasn't coherent about what had happened. Keeping her in a sleep deprived state after she hadn't been in one in years wouldn't let her be coherent until she was with him, and could therefore process what she'd done in a safer environment, with the man that she loved.
The only thing that he could do for her now was practice actual modern medicine and make sure the damage on her feet wasn't getting infected until it could be healed.
He glanced down at his watch and his eyes widened. He quickly finished up bandaging her and got out with literal seconds to spare as his past self swirled into the medical ward, finding her and feeling so much relief at the fact that Anna was alive, even if she was in a hospital and he'd no idea why.
A suit and tie blocked her view of the window and she frowned, trying to look around it before she realized that it was actually a face that was kneeled down in front of her. She squinted her eyes at it, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It was especially confusing when their hand was suddenly on her face.
"Anna, hey, it's me," the person said quietly.
"Hello, me-"
She broke down sobbing and it took her brain a moment to catch up that it was because the Doctor was in front of her, and that's why she'd suddenly launched herself at him to hug him for all that she was worth.
He'd found her and he was coming to take her home.
#####
She had a dream, then. They were walking through the forest together, hand in hand. It wasn't a bad dream. Nothing attacked them, nothing came out of nowhere and scared the ever living daylights out of her. But, something was still wrong. No matter how much she tried to turn and look at him and talk to him, she couldn't.
They walked side by side and never said a single word.
#####
When she awoke, she was starving.
That was the first thing she registered, her hunger burning a hole in her stomach. She only had a chance to open her eyes before she bolted up, moving to the kitchen.
"Anna- woah, hey, Anna!"
She didn't respond, focused on her quest for food. When she got there, she was vaguely aware that Donna was there, the smell of something burning coating the air. She ignored her and quickly went to the fridge, opening it and pulling out various things. She registered that she took three bites of an apple, barely peeled a banana before she ate that, and pulled out a pie looking substance before she dove into that too, eating it with her hands.
She was breathing hard when she was done, and she turned back to look at the pair of them, her eyebrows raised at the look on their faces.
"What?" she asked, around her mouthful of pie.
Donna looked vaguely disgusted but the Doctor just looked concerned.
Her eyes widened and she pointed at him, the apple still in hand as she shouted, "Ha! I can't feel you!"
"I mean you could at least swallow before you talk, Anna," Donna said, but the Doctor frowned at her statement.
"Sorry, what?"
She swallowed the pie in her mouth before she repeated the sentence. "I can't feel you, either of you, emotions, nothing, nada! Oh my god is this how normal people feel? They don't have anything but their own emotions to contend with? Seriously? This- this is great," she said. "My goodness I feel so unburdened!"
She turned back to the fridge, humming as she continued to root around for food.
"But also, starving. Completely and utterly- oh my god!" she shouted, and she turned back to look at the Doctor. "Dominos. Can we get Dominos- I want pizza. And cinnamon twists. And, like, soda, oh my goodness I want soda." she whined, leaning against the fridge as she looked up at the ceiling. Her stomach growled and she got back to the task at hand, looking at the Doctor. "Can we? Please?"
"Are you seriously not seeing the facial expression that I'm sending you right now?" the Doctor asked.
"No," she said. "I'm starving and not having to feel people's emotions right now, are you not seeing that? Seriously?" she asked, exaggerated and sarcastic. "Oh my goodness, seriously though," she said, taking a bite of the apple. "Dominos. Now. Like, ten minutes ago." She started to walk past him with her pilgrimage in hand, but he quickly held his hand out, his eyebrows raised. "Oh," she said. "You aren't happy."
"We need to talk."
She raised her eyebrows before her stomach growled again. "Okay, yeah, we can, just, seriously, I need food, like, need, need food."
"You've got food in your hand," he accused her.
"Yeah, but it's not Dominos food. This is the first time in ten years that I've had a craving. Please?" she asked him. "Pretty please?"
He let out an aggravated sigh, searching her, before he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Fine," he said.
"Yas, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she said, starting to rush past him. He reached out and grabbed her arm.
"But, you answer questions on the way."
"Like what?"
"Like, why aren't your feet healing anymore?"
She raised her eyebrows, looking down as she picked up her feet and turned them over and over. "They look fine to me."
"But they weren't and I had to use actual healing cream. Care to share why that is?"
"I can't heal anymore," she told him, taking a bite of her apple as she looked up at him innocently.
His mouth fell open and he searched her. After a moment, his mouth closed and he stood up taller, putting his hands in his pockets. "All right, come on," he said, though he wasn't looking at her anymore.
"But I don't understand," Donna said. "How'd you mean-"
"Donna, why don't you see if you can't make something for Anna?" he asked, but Anna was already walking from the room, too excited at the prospect of Domino's pizza to really care.
#####
"So, you can't heal anymore?" he asked, casually as she sat down at the jumpseat, stacking her food around her as she continued to eat.
"No, but can I just say, apples are the best thing since sliced bread," she told him.
He made a humming noise. "Why is that?"
"Because apples are just the right amount of crispy while still being juicy. It's great," she told him.
He hummed before he looked over at her. "And your healing? Why can't you do that anymore?"
"Why would I be able to- Oh, I see where the confusion- Okay, yeah, I can't do a lot of things anymore. Well, can't, I technically can, my powers are just turned off right now."
"Come again?"
"Well, yeah," she said, taking another bite of the apple. "After what happened in Pompeii-"
"And what happened in Pompeii?" he asked her.
"A fight," she said, casually. "Future you came and royally forked up my day, so-"
"Forked?"
"Nicer way of saying the f word," she told him, crossing her legs as she leaned forward. "But yeah, so-"
"You've never had a problem with saying it before."
"I didn't feel like saying it now, gosh, what's with the third degree?"
"Anna would know," he said, and she frowned as she watched as he looked down at his console casually. "But, then again, you aren't Anna, are you?"
His last two words were accompanied by him flipping a switch in a very dramatic fashion.
The console room zapped away. In the blink of an eye, she was suddenly staring at a room with four walls. Her stomach protested this as she stood, knowing that she was not, in fact, about to get Dominos.
It was moments later that the Doctor came into the room, his hands in his pockets. He was cheerful on the outside but raging on the inside.
"I told you I would answer your questions after I got Dominos!" she whined at him.
"Enough with the Dominos-"
"It won't be enough with the Dominos until I get my Dominos."
"I said enough."
The cheer was starting to disappear, the storm more upfront.
She held up her hands. "Ooh, is that supposed to be scary? Look at me I'm the Doctor I'm using my scary voice?"
"It'll be more than just a voice if you don't tell me what happened to Anna."
"Hm, well, let's see, I teleported out of the console room before I teleported back in what was supposed to be two seconds later, one second later, but turned out to be two freaking months, two and a half, plus whatever time it took for you to run into the Family. Tardis and I had a little talk, and then, well, yeah. Shut off my powers, for now."
He searched her, storm still brewing, but there was a part of him that seemed to be believing her. "Why would you do that?" he asked her.
"Reasons," she told him, simply, stuffing her hands in her pockets.
"You're going to have to do better than that, Anna."
"Oh, am I going to have to do better than that, Doctor?" she asked him. "Am I going to have to bow down to your will less I be stuck in this room for the foreseeable future?"
"You can't heal, Anna! You could die! So, yes, Anna, you're going to have to do better than that-"
"I could always die!" she told him. There wasn't upset in her tone. She wasn't upset. It was actually strangely freeing. "I could always die, but I would've come back-"
"Exactly!" he shouted at her. "Exactly, you would've come back, and now? Anna, how do you not see this as a problem?"
"Because it isn't," she told him. "Because I will still come back."
"You just said that your abilities are off," he told her.
She raised her eyebrows, smiling as she bit her bottom lip. She gently swung her leg out. "I'm not answering anymore questions until you let me out of this room."
"You're not a prisoner, Anna. I just need some questions-"
"You're right, I'm not," she told him, raising her eyebrows higher. "You're letting me out of here, right now."
He raised his own eyebrows. "Or what?" he asked her. "It's not like you can just teleport out of here, so what are you going to do?"
"Sit here quietly until you let me out," she informed him, as if it were obvious.
He ground his teeth together before he let out an irritated, "Fine." The sonic came out of his pocket before he sonicked an invisible panel on the side.
She nodded her head in thanks before she hopped up, walking out of the room.
"We still need to talk about this, Anna."
"Oh, I'm well aware of that," she told him, making her way to the console room. "But what happened isn't going to change and you can wait ten minutes while we get Dominos."
"Why is your need for pizza more important than my need for answers?" he asked her.
"Because I'm not dead, I'm healthy and alive, and I'm having a craving. It's not like I'm saying no, I'm just saying that I want pizza, what part of that is so hard to understand?" she asked him, turning to look back at him.
"The part where you turned off your powers," he said, before he raised his eyebrows. "Remember that bit?"
"Sort of hard to forget, considering that I was there." She nodded at the console. "Go on. Pilot us to the pizza."
He frowned, searching her. "You know how to fly the Tardis. Why can't you do it yourself?"
It was then that everything came crashing down around her.
Perhaps it was shock that had allowed her to be so carefree, or maybe it was simply the fact that she was having a physical need for the first time in ten or so years that made it so easy to forget what the words, 'I turned off my powers,' actually meant.
She stared at the floor, a quiet horror racing through her that was about to get much louder.
"Oh no," she said, quietly. "Oh no, oh no, what did I do, what did I do? No, no, no, oh my goodness, no!"
She didn't realize that she'd reached out and grasped the Doctor's shirt until he was holding her wrist.
"Anna, it's okay, it's okay, just calm down, tell me what happened," he told her, quietly.
She shook her head, already hyperventilating. "I-I- I turned my powers off, because-because the Tardis said-"
"Anna, breathe," he tried, now grasping her elbow and her wrist.
"-said that I-I only trust you with the training wheels on," she gasped in a breath before she let out in a sob, "and she was right."
"What does that mean?" he asked.
She sucked in a breath before she spoke. "That-that I only trusted you because I knew I had-had the power to walk-walk away at a moment's notice, I only trusted you because I had control, no," she sobbed, miserably.
"Okay, okay, sh, come here, come here," he said, quietly. He pulled her in and hugged her for everything he was worth, letting her sob into his shirt. When the sobs had died down a little, he spoke, gently pulling her back so that he could cup her face in his hands. "You can just undo it, right?" he asked. "Turn your powers back on?"
She sobbed, shaking her head. "No," she said, the misery she was feeling reflected in her tone. She sucked in a shuttering breath before she spoke. "Not until I die, then my-my powers will-will automatically come back in."
She didn't know what possessed her to do it (or why the Doctor loosened his grip so that she could) but she found herself throwing herself to the floor, landing on her butt before she shook her head.
"I'm an idiot, I'm a freaking moron, what the hell did I do?" she asked, shaking her head as she gently rocked back and forth, sobbing.
"Anna, please," he said, kneeling down in front of her. "Please tell me that you aren't serious, that you don't really have to die for your powers to turn back on again."
"Well did you want me to lie to you?" she shouted at him, before she put her face in her hands, distraught.
"Okay, Anna, Anna, I need you to look at me."
She shook her head. "I don't need to do anything-"
"Anna, look at me."
But, Anna was not deterred.
"Oh what?" she shouted, standing up as she turned away from him. "You think because you use your big scary voice that I'll just bow down to your commands? Screw you!"
"Anna, you're in shock," he tried. "Now, I know that this is hard, but you can't run from this. The only thing that'll help this is to talk this through with me, to figure out-"
"You think you know that this is hard? That talking will help? Big freaking surprise, the Doctor comes swooping in saying that he and only he knows best. You have no idea what you're talking about, so don't pretend that you do. You have no idea how hard this is," she said, and she still didn't look at him. "I had all that power and I turned it off why? Because a freaking machine told me that I didn't love you enough." She whirled around on him and shouted at him with her full body. "Well, guess what? Screw. Both. Of you!"
She whirled back around to see that Donna was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She looked so completely unsure, but surprise lit up her face when she saw that Anna had turned around.
"Oh, hey Donna," Anna said, casually as anything. "That for me?"
Donna looked back uncertainly at the Doctor before she nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I-I can't cook to save my life so I thought a PB and J would do. Not pizza, mind, but-"
"No, it's great, thank you," she said, before she took it from Donna's hand and walked down the hall.
By the time she'd gotten to her room, half the sandwich was eaten. The anger came surging back and she threw the sandwich at the wall as hard as she could. She was shocked when one of the sides stuck to it, before she entered her room, slamming her door shut behind her.
It was like all that she was was made of anger. She ran her hands through her hair, wanting to tear it out, before she grabbed the first thing she could from the floor, which happened to be a combat boot, and threw it as hard as she could at the mirror.
It shattered, and she watched as the pieces crumbled, her reflection crumbling with it.
Pretty soon, she was crumbling, too.
A/N: As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to review.