I stared at the Doctor, frozen in shock, as he gazed worriedly back at me. Almost instantly, my shock began to morph into uncontrollable rage. How dare he stand there as if he never left and wonder what was wrong? The hurt and guilt from the last four days seemed nonexistent compared to the anger flooding through my veins. The Doctor took a step closer to me and before I even realized what I was doing, my right arm flew up and I slapped the Time Lord across the mouth.

The slap echoed throughout the room, along with the Doctor's startled cry. He instantly put a hand to his cheek and stared wide-eyed at me in surprise. Although I was still very angry with him, I was surprised by the fact that I had indeed slapped him.

"What was that?" Martha exclaimed from the entry. She walked briskly into the living room and stopped short just beside me when she saw the Doctor. "Where the hell have you been?"

The Doctor lightly rubbed his cheek and sighed. "Martha, if you wouldn't mind-"

"You have a hell of a lot of explaining to do," Martha said firmly.

"Martha, please," the Doctor said lowly, his voice hardened with frustration and irritation, "this is between Diana and I."

"I didn't say you had to explain yourself to me. She's your wife and she's the one you left." Turning to me, Martha put a hand on my shoulder and smiled comfortingly at me. "I"ll be upstairs in my room if you need me."

As Martha headed upstairs, the Doctor and I stared at each other in silence. The Doctor looked like he was about to speak a few different times, but he fell silent again when he saw the furious expression on my face. I was still trying to work out what to say to him. So many thoughts and feelings were burning in my mind that I felt like I was about to explode.

"Where were you?" I finally asked.

The Doctor looked down at the floor as he answered. "I needed to be alone," he said. "What you told me… It scared me, Diana, because I thought that was far behind me. I had no idea that you'd seen it-"

"Oh, so that makes it okay?" I interjected. "You were scared, so abandoning me was okay because of how you were feeling?"

"Diana, I didn't abandon you."

"Really? Because that's what it felt like. I needed you and you just left without explaining when or even if you'd come back. What the hell was I supposed to think?"

"I never left," the Doctor answered, articulating each word very carefully. "You couldn't see me, but I was there. I stayed close by and watched over you to make sure that you were safe. I made sure you weren't in danger, but I kept my distance so I could think things over for both our sakes."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better or forgive you, or something?"

The Doctor pursed his lips and shook his head in frustration. "I never really left!" he exclaimed. "I was looking after you the entire time, Diana. I only needed to be on my own for a little while." Sighing again and running his hands through his messy hair, the Doctor reached out and grabbed my hand. "Diana, please, you have to understand that you were never supposed to see what happened that day. No one was ever supposed to know what I did, especially you."

"I told you that I forgave you for what happened, that I understood why you did it, even if I was still scared of you. But instead of trying to help me or comfort me, you left!" I snapped, finally pulling my hand from the Doctor's grasp. "You left me even though you knew that I was scared and confused! I needed you and all you could do was think about yourself."

"I'm ashamed of what I did that day, Diana! Can't you understand that?"

"Of course I can, but that doesn't change the fact that when I needed you the most, you abandoned me just like you abandon everyone else! You left me scared and confused and alone, wondering if I would ever even see you again! How many times have you done that - or will do that - to me, to our children? You just… You leave us behind if it's too inconvenient to stay and fix the mess you've made. No, you just fly off in your stupid box and sulk or, even better, you forget all about us. That's why our own daughter hates us! Because you gave her up, you abandoned her so that she could be raised by someone else. Or had you forgotten about her too?"

"I never forgot her!" the Doctor shouted, his eyes shining with hurt and anger. "I could never forget our daughter. How can you even think that?"

"I don't know. Maybe because she won't even call you 'Dad'? Maybe because she hates us both so much that she can barely even stand the sight of me? Our daughter hates us because you made the choice to give her up. And I know it was you, Doctor, because I would never give up my daughter. Never in a million years."

"I was protecting her! From the War, from the Daleks, from me!"

"Well maybe she wasn't hurt by the War, but she sure as hell got hurt by you," I said bitterly. "So good job on the parenting, Doctor. Oh you really aced that one! Once again you've managed to ruin the life of someone close to you. It's the only thing you're good, though, so I shouldn't really be surprised. I mean, look at what you did to my life."

"No," the Doctor snarled, his voice laced with anger. "No, you stop right there. You have no right-"

"I have every right!"

"Everything I have ever done has been to protect you and our family! So don't stand there and accuse me of abandoning you when, for once, I was trying to take care of myself instead looking after you all the time."

His words hit me in the chest like a knife to my heart. I felt my anger cease for a moment as I realized what he saw saying, and felt tears start to well in my eyes. "Are you saying I'm a burden?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest as I tried to stare defiantly at the Time Lord.

The Doctor fell silent then as he looked seriously into my eyes. I was fighting against the urge to burst into tears right in front of him. The very thought that he saw me as someone he was forced to look after, like an annoyingly ignorant child, broke my heart. As I looked back at him, I saw that he was fighting with himself over what to say. And that could only mean one thing.

"Say it," I urged, my voice trembling enough that it would have been impossible to hide it. "Go on. You're thinking it, so why not just say it?"

"Diana," the Doctor began slowly.

"Say it!" I shouted as the tears finally began to streak down my cheeks. "I'm a burden. Always crying about something, always whining, always scared. I bet that really annoys you, doesn't it? How scared I get? Well don't worry, you can another fault to the list. I'm a terrible mother," I said with a bitter smile. "See? You're not the only one who can play this game."

The Doctor shook his head and reached out for me, but I immediately recoiled and took a few steps back. "Diana, please," he begged.

"Don't," I said quickly. "Just don't."

"Diana, you don't understand. That isn't what I meant-"

"That's exactly what you meant. And you're right. I am a burden. Always getting kidnapped or hurt or brain washed. Always forgetting something important. Always hurting somebody. Like how I hurt Sarah. And how I hurt you." I could see unshed tears in the Doctor's eyes as he gazed sadly at me. "But being sorry doesn't stop me from being angry about what you did. Or from being hurt by what you think."

"Diana, listen to me," the Doctor said firmly, quickly grabbing me by the wrists and tugging me close to him. I tried to pull away from him but he refused to let me go until he finished what he wanted to say. "Listen very carefully. You are not and never have been a terrible mother."

"But-"

"Listen. Diana, I've seen you with our children and seen how carefully you look after them and care for them. You love and care with a capacity so far beyond any other human or alien I have ever met. You have faced death and injury and the unknown to protect our children. You are the most remarkable mother in the entire universe. So you put that idea out of your head right now, do you understand?"

"A good mother never abandons her children," I countered as I continued crying softly. "And Sarah was abandoned. We failed, I failed."

"No. What I did was my choice, not yours. It was me who made the decision, me who didn't tell you because I knew you'd stop me. None of this was ever your fault."

I shook my head and pulled out of the Doctor's grasp, turning my back on him to put some distance between us. "You just said I was a burden-"

"I didn't say it."

"But you thought it," I said as I looked over my shoulder at him. "I saw it in your eyes. So how am I supposed to accept anything else that you might have to say to me when that's what you really think of me?"

"But it's not what I really think of you. Diana, it was wrong of me to even say what I did. I know that and I'm sorry, but I swear to you that I don't think of you as anything less than the woman I love and the mother of my children." The Doctor paused for a moment, before tearfully whispering, "Diana, I love you. What I said and did was wrong, I admit that, but I'm here now and I'm not leaving you again."

"You don't understand," I sobbed. "You can't just show up out of nowhere after leaving me, say you're sorry and you love me, and then expect everything to be okay again! I thought you left me for good! I thought I would never see you again because that's what I'm used to. People leave me and they never come back."

"I know. But I promise you, I will never leave you again."

"Don't make promise you can't keep," I said with a shake of my head. "Because you've left me before and I know you'll do it again. It's who you are, it's what you do and I can't-."

I cut myself off mid sentence when I felt a sob working its way up my throat. I spun around before the Doctor could see me completely fall apart and let out a choked back cry. My shoulders were trembling with the effort of trying to hold myself back, even though I wasn't able to do so at all. I tried to cover my mouth and stifle myself, but it was impossible to hold back anything then. Every emotion and thought and memory was rushing through my head so quickly that I was completely overwhelmed.

Suddenly, from somewhere near the entry, a young woman came rushing towards me and put her hands on my shoulders to keep me from doubling over. Through the haze of my tears, I could see a mass of dirty blonde hair and beautiful gray eyes standing in front of me.

"Mum?"

I blinked a few times to clear my vision and saw my daughter standing there with a worried expression on her face. "S-Sarah?" I stammered in confusion. "How-?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm back," she said with a small, forced smile.

"Sarah," the Doctor murmured behind me.

Sarah quickly turned her gaze to her father and sent him a stern, almost hateful glare. "Come on, Mum," she said as she put an arm around my shoulders. "You need some time alone."

"Sarah, wait," the Doctor said. "Let me finish-"

"Oh you're finished," Sarah snapped in response. "You've done enough, Doctor."

At that point, it was all too much for me to handle. I pulled away from Sarah and ran out of the room as fast as I could, still sobbing quietly. I couldn't be in there with the two of them any longer because all it did was made me feel worse.

A/N: Don't forget to review!