you don't get to choose when it ends

"Was it that blond woman?" The voice makes you jump. When you turn around, Sonya is leaning against the doorway to your bedroom, arms crossed. You can tell by the look on her face that this isn't going to be a short conversation. She's here for details, and you aren't in the mood to give.

"Did I say you could come in?"

She ignores you, of course.

"Was it that blond woman? That doctor? You know, the one you brought 'round last year?"

Something in your chest twists. That was one of your first adventures together. You hardly knew the Doctor. You'd only been to space once. Your head had been full of dreams of adventure and with not a thought to the risks. And the feeling of falling in love with someone and losing them had seemed like such a far off concept, something you wouldn't experience for decades, if ever.

"Was what her?" You know what she's asking, but you're hoping in vain that she'll let it go rather than explain it to you.

"You know. Your girlfriend."

The world makes your breath catch in your throat.

"She wasn't my girlfriend. We were friends."

"But you loved her, right?" You recoil at the question, but Sonya's voice is soft as she sits down on the bed beside you. "That's why you turned into a proper hermit when she wasn't here, right? Is that how you figured it out?"

You deflate. Suddenly, you don't have that twisting feeling in your chest anymore. It just feels empty. Emptier even than you felt for the ten months you spent agonizing over the Doctor's whereabouts, only for her to show up one day in her TARDIS like nothing had happened. You'd been so angry with her then, but you'd also felt a warmth in your stomach at seeing her again that you hadn't yet been able to place.

"Was it that obvious?" The words taste familiar coming out of your mouth.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Sonya shrug. "It's just, I usually don't go into a full on depression when my friends go away for the summer. You were acting like you lived in a Victorian romance novel or something." She wrinkles her nose, no doubt remembering having to read Sense and Sensibility in Year 11. "Where is she now then?"

"Gone." Your voice cracks as you say it. The weight of Sonya's arm falls around your shoulders as a tear streaks down your cheek.

"I always thought she seemed bit old for you. I mean, she was what, thirty-two? Thirty-three?"

You wipe your eyes. "You know, I actually have no idea." It's safe to assume Sonya's guesses are too low, but you don't tell her that. After three years in the 1900s, you're not as young as you're supposed to be anymore either. "It wasn't like that though. She—"

There is no way to describe the grief you're feeling. The Doctor is still out there with the TARDIS, probably having the same old adventures. But her jokes are different. The way she talked to you. The cute little expressions she used to make when she was thinking are gone, and even if you found her again, you'd never get to see those expressions or hear that laugh or feel her hug you the same way. It's strange to know the person underneath but not the person on top. She's very much alive, but she doesn't feel like the woman you fell in love with anymore.

You shrug helplessly. "She's just gone."

"Gone where? To Europe or something?"

"Farther than that."

"Oh, she was one of those, eh? Leaving a trail of broken hearts behind her? We've all gone for one. Didn't know lesbians had them too. If they just leave you like that though, they're not worth much."

You clench your fists around the blankets. You want to explain that it's not that simple, that she didn't have a choice in the matter. She didn't break your heart on purpose. But there are no words to explain what it's like to miss someone across time and galaxies, to be able to look into someone's eyes and talk to them and still feel like they've died, so you don't bother trying.

"Still," Sonya adds. "She was awfully enthusiastic. I'll give her that. Like she was going to brute force her way into being friends with us. Dad was so confused about how into all his trash she was."

"Yeah, she does that. She's sort of got this way of…" You sniffle. "Of making you want to be around her."

"Never thought you'd go for someone white though."

"Well, I didn't plan it."

"Obviously." You can almost hear Sonya rolling her eyes. She has a point. You could hardly have chosen a less convenient person to fall in love with.

"How are Mum and Dad?"

Their reactions when you told them had been tempered. Your mother had simply nodded and asked if that was all. Your father had stared over your shoulder silently for most of the conversation.

"Mum's on the phone with Mrs. Shah. Not about you. Something her dog did or something. Dad's been cleaning the microwave for forty minutes."

A wet chuckle bubbles out of you. "Between you and me, I don't think Mum was that surprised."

"Between you and the whole floor, you mean." Sonya drops her arm from around your shoulder and leans back on her hands. "Now I know why she's always so interested in whether Ms. Gulwal's daughter is single." She gives you a nudge in the side. "Think about it. You could still have a doctor."

"Farzana Gulwal's gay?"

"Oh, come on, Yaz. You haven't been away that long."

"Could've done with knowing that when I was in school."

Sonya's laughter dies on her tongue. She goes quiet for so long that you think the conversation might be over.

"I suppose I owe you an apology."

You furrow your brow in confusion. "What for?"

"For what happened in school." Sonya is trying to keep her voice casual, but you can hear a layer of urgency underneath her artificially light tone. "How I never defended you."

This type of sincerity is out of character for her, and you don't know how to react to it, so you shrug. "It's fine."

"No, it isn't," Sonya insists. "I heard all the things they said about you. I saw them gang up on you and push you around. And all I ever did was ignore it."

"It wouldn't have stopped them. They'd have only gone after you too."

"That's what I was afraid of. That if I reminded them we were sisters, I'd suddenly be the lesbian's sister, and that's all anyone would care about."

"Like it's contagious or something."

Sonya lets out a humorless laugh. "Right. It was stupid." She's silent for another long moment. "But you're my sister. I'm supposed to be on your side."

"I was the older sister. Looking out for me wasn't your job."

"But I didn't need you like you needed me. I mean, not like—" she breaks off and rolls her eyes. "You needed someone on your side."

"It's okay."

You mean it when you say it. You remember being backed up against a wall outside the school by a group of your classmates after Izzy Flint lied to her boyfriend about you watching her change after gym. You remember watching Sonya pass by, averting her eyes and walking so fast you'd thought for a moment she was on a skateboard or something. But you don't remember ever being mad at her for it. You knew as well as she did that your classmates' willingness to overlook her ethnicity, her religion, her association with you would end the moment she stepped out of line, and you never wanted her existence at school to be as miserable as yours was. You accepted that you were taking that bullet for her.

Sonya cocks her head to the side and gives you an incredulous look.

"You ran away. Obviously, it wasn't fine."

"It's fine now though."

"I just keep thinking about how I called the police because I thought you were going to… because I thought you might…" She lowers her voice. "You know. Do something." She takes a deep breath, like even just thinking about it takes a lot out of her. "And then we went to school the next day and I just let it happen again."

"You were fourt—"

Sonya interrupts you. "I'm trying to apologize. Won't you just let me? I'm sorry, okay? For knowing how much you were struggling and not doing anything about it until I thought it might be too late."

You purse your lips and nod. "Okay. Are we done now?"

"Fine. You're welcome."

"I'm not going to thank you for apologizing. I didn't even want you to."

"See if I ever do it again."

She gets up and stalks to the door.

"Fine, sod off then." You can't help the smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.

"Fuck you." Sonya stops in the door way and looks back at you. "But I'm glad you're alive. But fuck you."

She leaves you sitting on your bed, just the way she found you.

You're rarely grateful Sonya is your sister in the sense that you think about feeling lucky to have her, but you're always grateful in the sense that you can't imagine your life without her. In the sense that you know you would have grown up lonelier and feeling less important. You're sure that without the martyr complex her existence instilled in you, you would have been much more self-destructive.

Your parents were both at work when you ran away, just the way you'd planned it. Without Sonya, it would have taken them hours to realize you were gone. Anything could have happened to you by then. You weren't exactly taking precautions walking right down the middle of the highway. You don't recall having a strong preference between hitchhiking to London and being hit by a car.

Right now though, you feel lucky in both senses. There are other people who might understand the confusion and the isolation you felt growing up and the complete devastation you feel now better than Sonya does, but no one else will ever understand exactly what it's like to be your parents' child, to be raised the way you were raised, to grow up in that apartment and walk to that school every morning, and that part of the equation is just as important.

You walk over to the window and lean on the sill. You still sort of expect to see the TARDIS sitting on the other side of the road. You doubt the feeling that the Doctor is right there, doing something that sounds like she made up just around the corner, will ever completely go away. Like your mother told you when your grandfather died, missing people gets easier, but it never stops.

You think about what the Doctor said to you during the last conversation you had with her before she changed. You're sure she would have picked something else to talk about if she'd known it would be the last time.

I won't put anyone else through that, she'd told you. I've watched horrible things happen to too many people I've loved.

You'd seen the pain in her eyes, the silent plea for you to stop pushing. But you'd argued anyway. What if I think it's worth the risk?

I wasn't only talking about you, she'd answered. You have to understand, there's no possible ending for me where I don't lose you.

The Doctor couldn't have known then that she would be the one leaving you behind.

There's one thing about that conversation that intrigues you though. The word, again. You've gathered that the Doctor has traveled with humans before. You've got three years' experience tracking down artifacts in the 1900s, without even the internet to help you, and almost a year hunting for the doctor before that. You could find them, or at least find out what happened to them. It's not like you have anything else going on at the moment. How do you just look for a job after all the things you've seen?

The setting sun casts shadows so long that they look like monsters crouching behind cars and benches and tree. You bet there's a world out there where the shadows really are monsters. You just want to find another person whose seen the things you've seen and felt the things you've felt and understand looking at the face of someone who knows you and not recognizing it. You want to talk to someone else about what it's like going home after it's all said and done and having to pretend none of it happened, even with your family. That wasn't something Ryan or Graham could ever help you with.

There's no one out there who will ever get you inside and out. Not Sonya or your parents or any of these mysterious people from the doctor's past and your future. But if you can piece together enough people who understand parts of you, you can make the world feel a little less lonely.