"What does it mean to be good?"
Her words echo in the high ceilinged room. If it weren't sealed off from the outside the sound would reach far further.
Her hands wrap tight around the metal corners of her little box as she presses herself forwards against the glass.
The door is open but she doesn't want to leave it and he doesn't want to come in.
"How do you expect me to answer that?" Is his equally frustrated response as he throws his arms out as if dropping something hot. His hair is ruffled, by his own hands, fingers raked through it many times over the last hour or so.
"I'd hope that the one who is meant to be teaching me about how to be good would have a definition." The Mistress spits, swinging backwards again, now clinging to the corners of her cage for stability.
"Goodness is difficult to describe." The Doctor says, voice almost pleading for her understanding as he stretches his hands out towards her, lifting them as if he could lift her into understanding with the motion, holding them out as if he could offer it so easily.
"Goodness isn't an easy thing- it doesn't care about you or what you want. it's about doing the right thing when you can, whenever you can, damn the consequences to yourself!" The Time Lord continues, dashing an arm to the side.
"And what about the people you've killed." The Mistress points out, sneering, leaning up against the glass again, hands pressed tight to it, white, "What about the people you've decided have to be destroyed for goodness to win?" She taunts, "I'm sure they think they are good- as good as you think you are."
The Doctor frowns, turning from her, bitterness creeping into his expression though she cannot see it.
"I don't take joy in knowing that I've killed people." He says after a moment, slow, solemn, tired.
"And you think that makes it fine?" The Mistress snarks, "that those people feel oh so much better about having been killed because you regret it?" She roars, anger and bitterness boiling, competing in her voice as she yells at him.
In her dreams blood bubbles up around the cobblestones, sticky and red.
It climbs her shoes, her calves, her arms, drags her down until she is drowning in the cloying mass of it.
She feels anger towards him, about the way he is treating her.
She came to him willing and afraid and he treats her like she's some kind of vicious animal- no- that would be worthy of compassion to him- like a dalek. Like she is incapable of basic empathy just because she chooses not to act on it.
Does he want her to prostrate herself before him, his perceived goodness? Flagellate for forgiveness?
Does he want her to abandon herself, see her as unfit for goodness?
He cannot understand her and she doubts he ever has if he thinks his lectures and monologues would help her in any way, prompt some change or let her see more easily what it is to be good, or at least better.
He cannot convince her, not anymore.
She knows that somehow this will destroy her.